Yeeeeeee-haw

President George Bush's approval rating slipped to a career low of 45 per cent on concerns over the Iraq war and spiralling US fuel prices, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll published on Wednesday.

The poll of more than 1000 people found that 57 per cent disapprove of Bush's handling of the war and 68 per cent regard the level of American casualties as unacceptable.

SMH

Of course a majority still think that, "the United States should keep its forces in Iraq until civil order [is] restored." Because the best hope for civil order is the military that destroyed it. Ah well, I suppose it can't be long till the other shoe drops.

Journalism 101

An interesting juxtaposition here. Two sets of people are both doing exactly the same thing, in the same location at more or less the same time. See if you can spot the differences between them.




















Via Steve Gilliard's news blog (heavily Democrat leaning, unfortunately sometimes to the detriment of consistency, but always very readable)

"You'll find me in da club, bottle full of bub...

Look mami I got the X if you into taking drugs
I'm into having sex, I ain't into making love
So come give me a hug if you into to getting rubbed"

Bobo the Liberal BBQ Drunk

NSW Opposition Leader John Brogden has resigned as leader of the Liberal Party after revelations he labelled Bob Carr's Malaysian-born wife a "mail-order bride" and pinched the bottom of a female journalist at a function last month.

SMH

Cursing the darkness

"Must... not give straight arm salute....
must... not... Arm twitching...
fingers stiffening... Sieg Heil!... Doh! er...
free speech?"

How many Muslims in Australia have gone to prison for attempting a racially motivated assassination? How many Muslim groups are routinely associated with violent attacks on anyone? How many Muslim groups have invited Al Qaida members to speak at their meetings? Then answer is zero. None. Not a sausage.

Yet when a wannabe Nazi named James Saleam who's done time for trying to murder an ANC member, in Australia, tries to invite a real live NAZI to speak at his convention, how much news coverage do you expect it to get? Some? A little? None? That's right folks. One fucking soundbite on SBS, which you won't find and believe me, I tried.

This man















invites this man,















To speak in Australia and no one cares.

Fortunately he was banned from entering Australia but practically no light was shone under the slimy rock where his Australian counterparts slither and squirt their venom. Of course that's to be understood. I mean we can't take a single damn minute from screaming at Muslims to denounce terrorism, even as we rain death and destruction on their correligionists, to demand that actual, convicted terrorists denounce terrorism or be excluded from society. I know about every Muslim who ever fucking mentioned the word 'jihad' in public or so much as dared to suggest that killing Muslims didn't sit well with them. Yet miserable cowards like Saleam get the benefit of freedom of speech without ever being seriously questioned or exposed. Instead he gets taken seriously to the point where the ABC writes stories like this. Crazed Muslim extremists are interchangable with crazed extremists of any other stripe. The problem is that the focus is ever on the extremists who face west when they pray.

Hey, I've got an idea, how about John Howard hold a conference inviting White moderates to discuss what should be done about White extremists? After all no Muslim organisation has been associated with brutal, racially motivated beatings. None of them are lead by terrorists. None of them have tried to get the heirs of a regime that the civilised world expended millions of lives to destroy to speak in Australia. What's that John? You never liked that Funde guy anyway? You wanted to deport him in 1986, back when you were a racist who hated Asians too? Oh er, that makes things a bit tricky.

And after writing this post, which practically no one will read, I'll go turn on the TV and get back to watching White Australians wring their hands, asking why won't Muslim's and other Australians intergrate? Why can't they just accept that sometimes, we just need to grease a few heathens. Why should that get in the way? White extremists are mere oddities, non-white ones, well, let's let Google have the last word.

The morning after the party

Thanks for making Al Qaida a swing producer guys!

Petrol prices set to rise as oil hits high

August 25, 2005 - 7:24PM

Australia's cash-strapped households and fuel-dependent businesses are about to feel the pain of even higher petrol costs after the price of crude oil soared to a new high.

The spike has again forced Prime Minister John Howard to defend the size of the federal tax grab on petrol, saying consumers would be paying even more if his government had not abolished the indexation for fuel excise.

Neglecting of course to point out that prices are so high in large part due to his visionary policy of destabilising the very parts of the world we rely on for energy. Hey, look over there! Interest rates!!

Crude oil prices hit a record $US68 ($90.10) a barrel today after the United States reported a fall in petrol stocks and China said its crude imports spiked in July, as strong demand on the mainland shows no signs of easing.

But economists have played down the likely impact of the price hike on consumer spending, saying the issue has been beaten up.

Access Economics director Chris Richardson said petrol makes up only about four per cent of the average household's spending.

"I've seen some pretty sloppy commentary in and around how important petrol prices are for the health of retail spending and I certainly don't think it's the main driver," he said.

Er, so how does Mr Richardson think that goods move from production site to market, magical fairies? Sheer force of Yoda-like will on the part of Gerard Henderson? Face facts. Everything we buy is made of oil, stored in oil and floated to shops on oil. The far reaching effects of high oil prices won't be as a result of people paying more for petrol. They'll be due to price increases passed on to consumers.

Mr Howard said despite the soaring petrol prices - around $1.30 a litre in many areas - the government's excise revenue had not risen because it was levied on the volume of petrol sold, not the price.

"I hate these high petrol prices but they are due to overseas forces beyond our control," Mr Howard told ABC radio.

I suppose in a sense that's an honest statement. When an arsonist sets fire to a house the resulting conflagration can truthfully be said to be a result of forces beyond his control.

"Every country in the world is suffering from these high prices. We cut excise several years ago and another very important thing is we abolished the automatic indexation of excise.

"If we hadn't done that petrol now would be even higher and people would have every right to say, 'well not only do we have to pay these insufferably high prices, but each year your proportionate share of what we pay for petrol is rising'."

Mr Howard also played down the effect on consumers, saying it may simply force some to alter their spending priorities.

Yes, food or petrol. How's that chauffered car working out for ya John? I bet he feels our pain.

Meanwhile in Queensland, the state government is setting up a parliamentary committee to examine issues surrounding the rising price of petrol.

Premier Peter Beattie said the Petrol Pricing Select Committee will investigate the impacts of current fuel prices, particularly in regional Queensland.

Are you serious? The people who voted for this? I find it positively delightful that the reams of National Party voters who legitimised the Hunt for Osama in Iraq will suffer disproportionately. And people say there is no god.

It will also consider the extent to which the price rises have increased the competitiveness of alternative fuel sources such as ethanol-blended fuel.

The committee will consist of 14 members and will report by March 31 next year.

AAP

In times of tumultuous change the people cry out for a visionary, a man who can scry the future in the entrails of disembowelled executives. That man is Nostradamurdoch.

Two and a half years ago, so spake the seer,

"The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country."

Wednesday February 12, 2003, The Guardian

And verily the readers of the Australian were mightily impressed.

800 rpm

Woodrow T. Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1856-1924)

"No nation is fit to sit in judgment upon any other nation."

"There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it it does not need to convince others by force that it is right."

Caligula's horse, er John Howard receiving an award for
public service from the Woodrow Wilson International
Centre for Scholars, Aug 23 2005. Photo: Steven Siewert.

"The Government has decided to commit Australian forces to action to disarm Iraq because we believe it is right, it is lawful and it's in Australia's national interest. We are determined to join other countries to deprive Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, its chemical and biological weapons, which even in minute quantities are capable of causing death and destruction on a mammoth scale."
- John Howard, Address to the Nation, before the war in Iraq, 20 March 2003

It's worth noting that they don't specify which public has been so ably served.

Low

"Put all my credibility on 11 black and let it ride!"

A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "the lowest point" in his life.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."

[...]

Powell's speech, delivered on February 14, 2003, made the case for the war by presenting U.S. intelligence that purported to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Wilkerson says the information in Powell's presentation initially came from a document he described as "sort of a Chinese menu" that was provided by the White House.

"(Powell) came through the door ... and he had in his hands a sheaf of papers, and he said, 'This is what I've got to present at the United Nations according to the White House, and you need to look at it,'" Wilkerson says in the program. "It was anything but an intelligence document. It was, as some people characterized it later, sort of a Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose."

Wilkerson and Powell spent four days and nights in a CIA conference room with then-Director George Tenet and other top officials trying to ensure the accuracy of the presentation, Wilkerson says.

"There was no way the Secretary of State was going to read off a script about serious matters of intelligence that could lead to war when the script was basically un-sourced," Wilkerson says.

CNN

Computer-generated image of an alleged mobile production facility
for chemical weapons, presented by Colin Powell at the UN Security Council.
Absence of more substantial proofs undermined the credibility of the speech on
the international scene. Russian experts have always questioned the likelihood
of such mobile facilities, which are extremely dangerous and difficult to manage.

"Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agents. We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails."
Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, February 2003 address to the United Nations

A satellite photo presented by Colin Powell to the UN as proof of Iraq's WMD capability.

I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now.
- Colin Powell, remarks to reporters, May 4, 2003

Secretary of State Colin Powell during a
presentation at the UN Security Council
in February 2003.
Photo:Reuters

"I'm very sore. I'm the one who made the television moment. I was mightily disappointed when the sourcing of it all became very suspect and everything started to fall apart.

[...]

"The problem was stockpiles. None have been found. I don't think any will be found. There may not have been any at the time. It was the best judgment of the intelligence community, not something I made up. Clinton had been told the same thing."

[...]

"I will forever be known as the one who made the case."

- Colin Powell, Telegraph interview, 26/02/2005

A blood-covered girl screams after her parents were fatally
shot by soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Stryker
Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division after
the family failed to stop driving their car. The girl was uninjured.
(GETTY IMAGES PHOTO/CHRIS HONDROS) January 18, 2005


If you're lucky, Colin, we'll only remember for the rest of your life.

Hier kom die Bokke!

"You're shit, and you know you are"

The mighty Boks just pwn3d the wallabies. Two tries to Bryan Habana and zero points for the Aussie forwards. I lost count of the number of times Enrico Januarie (SA half back) made Gregan his bitch. Australia had most of the possession but all to often squandered it due to poorly thought out kicking or poor forward support, in addition to being under terriffic pressure at every scrum. All in all a good win for SA, who're now in good shape to retain the tri-nations. Gaan an Bokke!

Up the Khyber

"Welcome back, Australians, we've been waiting."

This is from a book used in madrassas to teach 9 year olds during the Afghan war against the Soviets.

“One group of mujahideen attack fifty Russian soldiers. In that attack twenty Russians are killed, how many Russians fled?”

And, a year later, Afghan 10 year olds progress to questions like:

“The speed of a Kalashnikov bullet is 80 metres per second. If a Russian is at a distance of 3200 m from a mujahid and that mujahid aims at the Russian’s head, calculate how many seconds it will take for the bullet to strike the Russian in the forehead.”

-Good Muslim bad Muslim

Where do they learn such hate? No wonder we need to close down those madrassas, all they do is teach children hate. It's terrible how Muslim children are preyed upon by Muslim radicals and injected with this stuff. Have they no shame?

The textbooks were the result of a $50 million dollar grant to the university of Nebraska to develop an appropriate curriculum for children in US govt. supported madrassas. Yes, that's right. The US govt. developed these textbooks. Seems we're not above injecting children with inchoate hatred when it serves narrow political goals, who knew.

$50 million dollars and 25 years later these children are adults, the ones we're signing on to fight now. That's right folks. John Howard (and his pathetic, spineless trifle opposition counterpart) want us to sign on to an open ended commitment costing who knows how much and lasting who knows how long to destroy America's self created enemies. Osama's long gone, Mullah Omar likewise, all we'll be doing in Afghanistan is killing more Afghans to prop up an American puppet regime, oh and the warlords in the rest of the country, you know, the kiddy raping opium peddling warlords who were so bad that the TALIBAN were able to stage a popular takeover of Afghanistan? Well they're on our side now.

You hardly need to be told that, just like in the 80s, this won't end well.

Foolish mortals!

"You don't understand the cravings we have for sweet, sweet boy meat..."

Pope Panzerfaust I seeks immunity from prosecution.

"Ratzinger's involvement arises out of this letter, which demonstrates the clear intent to conceal the crimes involved," Shea said.

The Vatican and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops have insisted that the secret church procedures in the sex abuse case were not designed to cover up abuse nor to prevent victims from reporting crimes to law enforcement authorities. The document deals with church law - not keeping secrets from secular authorities, they say."

Will work for food

"I understand you're not happy with the terms of your employment."

Clearly John Howard knows something we don't. Unemployment is at 5% and dropping, yet we require changes to workplace relations to improve employment. Silly me, I always thought jobs were created by people with cash in their pockets, apparently they spring from direct government intervention. On the face of it, it makes no sense. Why would you want to break up collective bargaining? Wouldn't that drive wages down? Exactly, that will create more jobs because employers will be more likely to hire people. A fair argument, if we lived in a manpower dependent manufacturing economy. If we were producing Hello Kitty dolls in giant factories to be exported to China it would be logical to keep wages as low as possible, seeing as how it would make our exports more competitive. Unfortunately we don't export all that much compared to imports, though if it would help I'd be finding the capital to flog Amanda Vanstone to the Japanese.

Our economy is a service economy, mostly. It runs on disposable income. You make money, and after spending on your basic needs you have enough left to go buy a plasma TV, renovate your home or buy that iPod. Long may it continue for it keeps people in jobs. However if we skew the balance of power in the job market towards employers they will, quite naturally, depress wages, because people are short sighted and don't see the big picture. They don't understand that fewer people with less disposable income will cause our economy to shrink. People will spend less and employers will sack people to cope with the reduced volume. It won't happen over night, but it is happening.

John Howard has always admired Reagan and Thatcher, not as people, or even as visionary (please, don't throw up on the tiles) statesmen. He admires their economic policies. Yes, it's true. That would be this Margaret Thatcher and this Ronald Reagan. Everything that John Howard advocates today policy wise can be divined from his opinions in the 80s. Of course they're never alluded to by name, he's learned that people don't take it well when you declare your intentions to impoverish them and "take a scalpel" to their family's health.

One might also ask, Isn't messing with a market in such a heavy handed manner the very antithesis of conservative policy? The answer of course is yes. It's not conservative, it's not even particularly clever, but, because we're back in the 80s the right is right and so far right that the centre looks right too.

The beginning

Why Back 2 the 80s? Why indeed. Because that's where we appear to be headed. Whether it's extra judicial public executions in formerly civilised nations or the reanimation of the zombie corpse of 80s style labour relations, the 80s are back, without the charm. Back with a bang. Welcome to Back 2 the 80s.