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| More!? More!? |
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| Why did you sink the boat, Daddy? | |
The 'children overboard' Senate inquiry dribbled away to nothing today as
the opposition finally realized the issue was dead in the water. Apart from demonstrating that the Australian Defense Force
information dissemination process is based on the Chinese-whisper model,
it didn't really embarrass the government. The fact that a huge government
bureaucracy is inefficient wasn't really news to a cynical electorate,
and did little to discredit a party ostensibly committed to small government. It did however embarrass the opposition after it was shown that the asylum seekers had scuttled their boat - effectively throwing everyone in the water
(children and all). Then it was shown that a child was thrown into the water
(details
here) - just not from that boat. Then there were the videos of unauthorized
arrivals screaming and shouting violently and threatening to throw a child
overboard. It did little to instill sympathy for the asylum-seekers or the
ALP. In the end the government's opponents just looked weak and ineffectual
against their relatively hard-line approach. The fact that Little Johnny's
explanation was less than water-tight was of little consequence to a dry-eyed
electorate. After weathering that, the ALP was faced with a choice of ending the whole
charade or sifting through the SIEV-X details. Some may feel that Australia has responsibilities for the safety of
non-Australians in the search-and-rescue areas of other countries, but most
don't. Some may feel that we have an obligation to fly a chartered Qantas jet
to Kabul (or Quetta) as soon as an Afghan expresses an interest in emigrating
to Australia, but most do not. Some may think we need more plumbers, but
plumbers with 5 kids and bad backs who don't speak a word of English after
being here for two years? They'll put up with the dripping tap until the other
guy is available. The ALP chose to let the issue drain quietly away. Facing sinking polls, Simon (thinking-more-clearly-now) Crean has realized
that embarrassing the government is pointless if you embarrass yourself more in
the process. He's showing signs of acting like an alternative Prime Minister
instead of a rabid criticize-everything attack-dog. The thought of becoming
PM has whetted his appetite, and getting rid of those
rottweiler teeth has really buoyed his psyche! Well done Simon. Now all you need is a policy.
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| No Job Security | |
George (WWW.) Bush is no longer denying that the plans for an Iraqi Invasion
are on his desk - they are, strategy and all. But is this saber rattling
to avoid fighting at all? SMH-2002-07-30 Suggests that the favored US strategy is an 'inside-out'
strategy. It aims to strike right at the heart of Baghdad instead of taking on
the forces in the desert. The theory is that Iraq's soldiers, like the Bruce
Willis' Fifth Element Mangloids are not encouraged to make decisions
when their chain of command is broken. Once the top of the pyramid is removed,
the whole thing will crumble. Of course then there is the added doubt that Saddam's army's will fight at
all if they think he is dead. This new-found 'scalpel' approach by the US will come as a
disappointment to many. US troops are famous for their brute-force approach to
everything, and watching the complete route of the Iraqi army was probably the
most entertaining 100 hours that CNN has ever screened. Better than watching
countless reruns of 2 identical buildings falling down, anyway. A little planning, and a whole host of new US weapons would also make much
better viewing than images of US Daisy Cutters blowing up miserable
half-starved Taliban fighters and over-exuberant Afghan wedding goers.
Hollywood has educated us to expect better. Regardless, Americans are not known for their subtlety, and they risk
another Mogadishu if they try to use a scalpel approach. They also run risks if they ignore the psychology of the Iraqi army, and
of the Iraqi power-block. At the core of Iraq's power is a group of
people who's lives depend on keeping Saddam in power - because they
will be killed by a vengeful replacement (like a democratic government) if he
is gone. They
will defend him to the death, because death is the alternative. But outside that is a larger group who will have a better life with Saddam
present, but will still survive without him. If they are convinced that he is
going down, the best thing they can do is to change sides, or organize a
surrender. The ERG (Elite Republican Guard) is part of this group. Ten years ago the ERG gambled that Saddam would survive the Americans, and they
were right. But now is different. The goal now is not to remove Iraq from
Kuwait, but to remove Saddam from Iraq. Once the first M1A1 tank rolls over the
border, that will be a certainty. The ERG will have a choice. Make peace with the Americans,
or risk almost certain death. History teaches us
that self-preservation usually wins over loyalty if people are given time to
consider their options. Hence, the US war should not actually be
with the Iraqi command, but with the psychology of the ERG. With the ERG out of
the picture, Iraq would fall without further resistance. Elements of Iraq may
even do the job for the US - they wouldn't even have to go to Baghdad. What the US needs to organize is not a sophisticated and dangerous
operation with a scalpel but an old-fashioned face-off with the ERG. If the ERG
blinks first, they could win the coming Iraqi war without firing a shot. And it
would still make good TV.
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| Bitter 'v'n allright! | |
The Democrats were pretty well formed to 'keep the bastards honest', but with
the cat-fighting, backstabbing and agreement breaking, who's going to keep the
leadership of the party honest? Obviously this is what the Andrews are for. Having a single party between the
major parties to keep those bastards honest didn't work out so well when the
leader started sleeping around with them, so rather than have a single mediator
to keep the bitches in the Democrats honest, each of the potential leaders has
been assigned an Andrew. Old fashioned duelists were assigned a man as a
second, but the women in the democrats are more civilized. They have a
man as weapon. Accordingly, the Andrews have been whining pitifully at each other for the last few days, and
just recently Andrew Murray (Meg's Andrew) has announced that he isn't going to
resign from the Democrats, but he's going to white-ant them from within. He'll
only come to parties if Natasha Stott Despoja doesn't. The Democrats still have
six active senators, but the party is looking more and more dysfunctional. Of course this has be expected from a party with no actual agenda. The ALP
claim to be socialists (while privatizing and deregulating as fast as they
can), and the Liberal party claim to stand small government and liberty (while
being the highest taxing government in Australia's history and waging an
idiotic war on drugs). But the democrats don't claim to be anything except
.. politically correct. They have a loose agenda of 'freedom of decision' and 'freedom of speech'
(which apparently does not apply to ex-leaders of the party). But with no solid
base they can only ever hope to grasp at straws of popularity, and be an
expression electoral disgust at the major parties. Further with Natasha
(king-of-castle) Stott Despoja at the helm, the median age of the Democrat
supporters has been dropping dramatically. At this rate it's likely to drop
below the legal voting age, which would pretty much finish them. But it's all OK, because for now at least they have the Andrews. Two
whining voices of moderation in a dysfunctional party machine lubricated with
oestrogen. Only one question remains: if the Democrats keep the bastards honest, and the
Andrews keep the bitches honest - who's going to keep the Andrews honest?
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| Active deterrent, or radioactive deterrent? | |
ABC-2002-07-28 suggests that Woomera is likely to become the industrial
$#!+-hole for a nuclear Australia if the recommendations of an environmental
impact statement are followed. The Government has sat on this report until the right moment. Everybody has to
air their dirty undies sometime and the Liberal Government is no
exception. They seem to have chosen to release the impact statement while the
mass media is focused on other things. Who would notice a little thing like
nuclear waste while being titillated by the $#!+-fight in the Democrats? Of course this is consistent with the Government's 'active deterrence' policy on housing uninvited
guests. Rather than house them in the spare bedroom as some have suggested,
the Government has chosen the 'spare outhouse' approach - rather literally in the
case of Nauru, which is (or was) solid guano (bird-droppings). Maybe this is a new approach to security at Woomera. The next lot of escapees
will be much easier to catch if they glow in the dark. Anyway, with the $#!+ hitting the fan in the Democrats, the Government's safe. Who's
going to notice a few skid-marks?
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| My bum is stuck to the seat! | |
Well, it's not over till the fat lady sings, but Meg (not-fat-just-cuddly) Lees
finally sang her swan-song, and left the kids-party. After consistently denying
the accusations of breaking Democrat rules, she left. It was more like
a Gothic opera than a parliamentary cat-fight, right down to the dying relatives
from far away places, but now the music has stopped, it's musical chairs time
as Natasha (not-so-stout) Despoja and Meg argue over who owns the
senate seat occupied by Meg. Natasha (the-needs-of-the-many-shall-outweigh-the-needs-of-the-few) Stott
Despoja says it belongs to the Democrats because people voted for the
party. Meg (my-need-is-greater-than-yours) Lees says they voted for her,
especially since she was the leader at the time. Meg clearly worked all this out before-hand, and
knows she can't be forced out. They may make her move her seat to the
cross-benches, but she gets to keep it. If she had died yesterday, she would
have been replaced by another Democrat senator, but it's hers until either of
the two certainties of political life occur - death or election (taxes don't
count when you live out of the taxpayer's pocket). Of course there is a small matter of the rules of the Democrat party, which says
that any senator who resigns from the Democrats must first resign from the
Senate. A clever bit of rule-making except for one thing: Meg
(I-now-think-for-myself) Lees is no longer in the Democrats! What are they
going to do if she doesn't follow the rules - expel her? Natasha (king-of-the-kids) Stott Despoja has made another error of
judgment. She should have made it quite clear a week ago that 'anyone who
leaves the democrats has to give up their seat'. It would have been
provocative, effectively saying 'leave if you like, but leave the chair', but
that wouldn't have affected Meg's departure - she would have gone anyway. What
it would have done is to make Meg (my-bum-is-glued-to-the-seat) Lees look bad
in leaving. Now it's too late, she's gone, and the democrats have lost the
balance of power. Some would say that there's no point playing musical-deck-chairs on the
Titanic, but one good thing has come out of this for the Democrats. The
National Executive has something they have been after for quite a while -
convincing proof that Meg (naughty-girl) Lees is in breach of the rules. Great!
Now she can be ... expelled?
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| Coming Soon! | |
Right-wing cries that refugees arriving in Australia were incapable of
supporting themselves may have to be reconsidered in light of the latest
Australian export to Pakistan - videos of asylum-seeker interviews made by the
Immigration Department. The videos can be purchased in Pakistan, and are presumably being used by
people considering purchasing an 'unofficial' ticket to Australia. The best way
to pass any test is to know the questions, and practice getting them
right. Pakistanis can watch the video and know what questions are likely to be
asked of them when they pretend to be from Afghanistan. Film making has been subsidized by the government with the opening of Fox
Studios in Sydney, and the making of several block-buster films here,
But somehow it seems unlikely that this was what the government had in mind
when they started that project. And while it's good to see our new arrivals embrace the spirit of capitalism so
quickly, it does raise a bit of a credibility problem for some
applicants. Apparently they have been known to say 'you're not supposed to
ask me that' in interviews. It's also good to see potential immigrants taking such an interest in Australian
culture before they come. Some of the Australian Universities have campuses
overseas. Maybe they could offer courses in interview technique? It's got to be more profitable than those boring old courses in Accounting.
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| Pawn | |
SMH-2002-07-22 reports that the immigration department is reopening over
three hundred hundred assessments of temporary protection visas (TPVs) because of
suspicions that they had been obtained under false pretenses. SMH reports that specifically, action had been taken to cancel Mr Bakhtairi's
visa, saying that he was not a subsistence farmer from a small village in
Afghanistan as he claims. Instead, the department claims to have located one
person who knows him as an electrical plumber from Quetta, Pakistan. On the other hand SBS-2002-07-22 has a witness who say that he can vouch
for Mr Bakhtairi's Afghan credentials. Of course he is a also a TPV, and won't
actually identify himself. So much for 'coming forward' - anyone can make an
anonymous claim of whatever they like. The stage is set for a showdown. While claims of Taliban oppression could never be proven or disproven
(oppression, like beauty is ultimately in the eye of the beholder), other
things can be tested - like which country you are from. With Australia now
having a significance presence in Afghanistan, it is possible to actually go to
the village where this man claims to have come from, and show his picture
around ('do you know this man?'). Even people don't cooperate, photos can be
taken and showed to the asylum seeker ('is this your village'). If he says
yes, and it's actually a shot of a village in another part of the country, then
he has a great deal more explaining to do. Of course finding people in another country who are willing to identify the
picture is even more powerful. ('Yup that's Abdul alright. We went to school
together'). While only the brave would predict the outcome of this case, we can be
reasonably sure that the immigration department will put in the resources in
this case to find an answer. But we can play the what-if game right now. If Mr Bakhtairi is shown to be telling the truth, then this will be a major
win for the pro-asylum-seeker lobby. The Australian Government's testing
mechanism will have shown to be flawed, and the cries of 'give asylum-seekers
the benefit of the doubt' will be quite compelling. On the other hand if Mr Bakhtairi is lying his future will look quite
different. His whole family will have been found to be lying. His brother
jumping into razor wire will be regarded as another stunt, The children's
reports of abuse in Woomera (like having guards steal their toys) will be
assumed to be baseless. Far from being pawns of the Australian authorities,
they will look like pawns of the pro-asylum-seekers, and (more significantly)
of their own families. Choosing this particular family as the test case may turn out to be the
most stupid move which the pro-asylum-seeker lobby has made to date. Or it may
prove to be smartest. Either way, this is a showdown worth watching. Neither side is blinking,
both sides have raised the stakes, and eventually everyone is going to see the
cards. One side is about to lose a lot of credibility. Perhaps the family can be comforted by the fact that at least they are
unlikely to be deported to Afghanistan. Unless it's just a stop-over.
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| Resistance is futile | |
A vocal and determined subset of Australians are working very hard to
reverse the current Australian policies of mandatory detention and deterring
unauthorized arrivals. Their progress so far has been extremely modest. Why? A majority of Australians decided before the last federal election that they
wanted to stem the flow of unauthorized arrivals. Many had not thought through
the issues terribly strongly, they just felt uncomfortable about the prospect
of having large numbers of people arrive who would have to be cared for, and
who may face difficulties integrating into Australian society. After the brief bout of talk-back hysteria over the MV Tampa, people began
to think about the issues more and, perhaps more significantly, talk about the
issues more. The twin tragedies of a few particularly unpleasant ethnic-based
crimes in Sydney and the September-11 attack on the US further focused people's
attention. But it did not actually change anyone's mind. Significantly though, it took away people's fear - the fear of being
branded racist by those who disagreed. The racism-card had been played to great
effect over the previous decade, and many people were terrified into silence by
its mere suggestion. Suddenly people were no longer scared of it. At last count, 55% of Australians were in favor of mandatory detention. The
left have calculated that it only has to win over one million people to open
the borders. They also know that once the borders are open they can never be
closed - the new arrivals will simply vote for them to remain open, and they
will remain that way forever. Unfortunately for the left, those one million extra people (and the votes
that will enable a policy change) have been totally elusive. Empowered by the
successes in the last two decades, they have tried the usual tactics but they
have not worked. All of the publicity gaining exercises - Easter protests, people jumping
onto razor wire, mass breakouts, children being rejected by the British
embassy, stories of guards stealing children's toys and so on - changed no-one's
mind. The protestations of being 'ashamed to be Australian' did not shame
Australians, they just annoyed them. The predictions of Australia becoming an
international pariah simply did not come true. All these things did was harden people's views. Most Australians feel more
strongly about this issue than they ever have before. And that has made the
calculated one million Australians even harder to win over. With the rest of the OECD moving toward less friendly policies toward
unauthorized arrivals, and the UNHCR treaty at risk of collapse (or at least a
serious make-over), it seems unlikely that Australia will change course
and become more unauthorized-arrival friendly. Those days are gone. Meanwhile the Liberal government is investing heavily in new detention
centers. They have staked the next election on this, and few people are calling
it a losing strategy. Investing $10000 on an unauthorized ticket to Australia would be a very
brave thing to do right now. Particularly with the Taliban gone and Saddam
Hussein's job security close to an all-time low.
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| A polite 'no' | |
ABC-2002-07-18 reports: Britain has rejected an application for asylum by two
young escapees from the Woomera Detention Centre. The two brothers, aged 12
and 13, had spent most of the day inside the British Consulate in Melbourne
seeking asylum. The boys (having already failed in their refugee application in Australia)
were appealing as refugees because of
oppression in Australia, and presumably were appealing on the grounds
of mistreatment by Australia. Eric Vadarlis, their lawyer, was the same lawyer who championed the cause of the
Tampagees late last year. It's not hard to see why he is working for nothing -
lawyers are supposed to smart, but he is incapable of thinking more than one move ahead. There were only two possible outcomes from this move.
- The UK procrastinates for a while and then approves their application.
- The UK procrastinates for a while and then rejects their application.
Either way Ruddock wins. Lets consider why: If the UK approves their application, then every escaped refugee will
suddenly appear at consulates around Australia. The consulates will get real crowded
real quickly, and the UK will have to pay to move them all to England, and let
them stay there. Australia is not China, and wouldn't forcibly stop people from
entering a foreign country's embassy against the wishes of that country. I can
see Phil ('this-way-folks') Ruddock personally driving bus-loads full of Woomera
rejectees to the British High Commission and Canberra, and saying - "OK guys,
if you walk straight to the front door, you'll never see Woomera again". If the UK rejects their application, they then can't criticize Australia's
treatment of asylum seekers. This would not only be out-and-out hypocritical,
but would probably give cause for challenge in a UK court of appeal. But the most hilarious thing is that the same applies to every other country
in the world. Any country which now criticizes Australia's treatment of asylum
seekers is leaving themselves open to an embassy invasion in Australia. Perhaps Australia should get all the inmates at Woomera and drive them to
the Norwegian embassy in Canberra so they can all claim asylum? Perhaps the
Norwegians would then be less inclined to throw Tampa Tantrums and take the moral high-ground at
sea? It's a bit like the bar-room scene in Star Wars where Obi-wan delivers a
decisive blow, and everyone in the bar immediately returns to mumbling
incoherently into their drinks. Sargent (I-know-nothing) Schultz would be proud. Of course the background to all this is that Australia, far from being made
an international pariah predicted by the left, is obviously the envy of the
rest of Europe. While a few lefties tried to sink the knife into Johnny
(we-will-decide) Howard on his recent European trip, most just wanted to
know how we were dealing with the problem. "Well guys, unlike you, we have a real big moat around our fortress. Too bad for you
that you don't have one too eh?" Of course England has a big moat as well. It's not as big as Australia's,
but it's served them well over the last 1000 years or so. But weren't these the
guys who invented the moat? What ever possessed them to dig a tunnel under it?
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| Working on What Really Matters | |
Why is the nation gripped about debate on an Australian postal worker being
docked $3000 in pay for having an extra photo on her desk? Why has such a
trivial issue become such a popular one? Well, this is one of those stories
that feeds on itself. Because it may signal the death of the union movement. When rabid feminists threw paint-soaked tampons at the Prime Minister
to protest the introduction of the GST we saw the death of feminism. The action was clearly designed to attract attention from Joe Average on
the evening news and it did. For the average Joe (and his wife Jill) it
demonstrated quite clearly that the biggest gender injustice that the feminists
had to complain about was paying an extra $20 per year on increased tampon
taxes. Forget the oppression that the feminist movement had protested for years, the
infanticide, the beatings, the slavery, the unfair treatment at the hands of
men; forget the male dominated patriarchal society built by men for men waging
an undeclared war against women. They were going to protest about something the
extra wages from the affirmative action programs weren't going to pay for: an
extra $20 a year on tampons. There could be no clearer indication that they had
no significant and credible complaints. We may be about to see the death of the union movement with Australia Post's
Desk Nazi affair. The unions are being a little coy, but they
look like they are going to go to lay in the boot on this one. The Jackboot
heel of socialism stamping on the face of the Desk Nazis will keep the
press-sharks fed for a few days, as well as getting a few giggles around the
office. Is this really the most serious issue facing Australian workers today? Being
told to keep three personal items on their desk instead of four? With the
unions being asked to share power equally within the ALP they will be
desperately trying to find something which makes them appear relevant to the
modern workforce, and be seen to be making a strong stand for a worthwhile
cause. Trust this advice, guys - this ain't it.
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>> Please Sir, I want some more
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| Feedback/Forum |
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- ANON -- Anonymous Coward 2011-12-02
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