Children of Abraham: Death in the Desert

One of my least favourite ex-premiers, having privatised our water
and electricity and brought the globals into Adelaide, is now telling
us that we need to change our ways.  He says that Americans live to
work while Australians work to live and has addressed Adelaide business (who put all their support behind Olsen's former opposition) with such choice phrases as

"In the U.S. you get a pat on the back ... in Australia someone says who did you rip-off to make that money?"

‘How three young men from the UK
ended up in the world's most notorious prison. 

Every American Should Be Required
To Watch This Video. 

This docudrama shows the sadism
and stupidity of the US and British soldiers. The guards behave with the same
cruelty you expect to see from SS officers in lurid second world war movies. It
takes a moment or two to realize that these events reflect the reality of those
held in Americas notorious gulag.’ 

‘When President Bush signed the
re-authorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum
saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform
Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers. 

The bill contained several
oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special
terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The
provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often
the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the
administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain
dates. 

From the Seattle Times

Seattle to Kyoto: You can't get there by car
By Warren Cornwall
Seattle Times staff reporter

If Seattle is going to do its part to slow global warming, people are going to have to get out of their cars.

That's the cornerstone — and also the biggest challenge — of a plan to be unveiled today for how the city can join countries from around the world in trying to meet the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international treaty to reduce climate-changing gases such as carbon dioxide.

The report, written at the request of Mayor Greg Nickels, says that if the city really wants to cut greenhouse gases, it needs to spend millions more on transit, build more compact neighborhoods, encourage energy efficiency and use more fuels from plants rather than petroleum.

‘They keep telling us 9/11
changed everything. But even in this Photo-shopped age of unreliable narrators,
much remains the same. The assassination of President John Kennedy, the Crime
of the Last Century, occurred in plain sight, in front of thousands - yet
exactly what happened remains in dispute. The Warren Commission found that Lee
Harvey Oswald, fellow traveller of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, shot
Kennedy with a cheap Mannlicher-Carcano rifle from a sixth-floor window of the
Texas School Book Depository. The commission found that Oswald, who, two days
later would be murdered by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, acted alone. 

‘Two of America's top scholars
have published a searing attack on the role and power of Washington's
pro-Israel lobby in a British journal, warning that its "decisive"
role in fomenting the Iraq war is now being repeated with the threat of action
against Iran. And they say that the Lobby is so strong that they doubt their
article would be accepted in any U.S.-based publication.  

Professor John Mearsheimer of the
University of Chicago, author of "The Tragedy of Great Power
Politics" and Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kenney School, and
author of "Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S.
Primacy," are leading figures American in academic life. 

‘Readers tell me that Americans don’t live here any more. They ask what responsible American citizenry would put up with the trashing of the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers, with wars based on deception, and with pathological liars in control of their government? One reader recently wrote that he believes that "no element of the U.S. government has been left untainted" by the lies and manipulations that have driven away accountability. So-called leaders, he wrote, "talk a great story of American pride and patriotism," but in their hands patriotism is merely a device for "cynical manipulation and fraud." 

What follows, when you follow it to the other end, makes you wonder
how much infrastructure work is being "disguised" throught the SA
Tourism Budget, and how much of the money will end up in the hands of
Halliburton/KBR. I'm also pondering what funds the current Treasurer,
who was happy to stand on the Assembly floor and accuse the previous
Minister For Transport of using road money "to buy stained glass
windows" (I was there on the day) might be diverting across Cabinet
portfolios to achieve desired objectives.

[extract]

It’s time to resolve “Iemma’s
Dilemma”. 

Why not immediately resume
“Scully’s Gully”, declare it a sacred site & rename it “Gallipoli Heights”:
a multi-purpose public venue dedicated to the promotion, preservation &
veneration of core Australian values, including our contempt for the folly of
war, PPAs & well meaning but incompetent politicians. 

‘The security of Americans has nothing whatsoever to do
with Iraq. Iraq cannot overthrow the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the
separation of powers, and American civil liberties. Iraq cannot illegally spy
on American citizens, declare them to be "suspects" and detain them
forever without warrant or charges. Iraq cannot put American critics of the
Bush regime on "no-fly" lists.  

The real dangers to Americans
reside in the neo-con Bush administration. This delusional warmonger
administration believes it has the power and the right to dictate to Muslim
countries their political and social institutions. This extraordinary arrogance
and hubris breeds opposition where there was none. The world is not going to
obey Bush and a handful of stupid neo-cons.’ 

There were movements down in Mayo when the memo got around that the kickbacks, through neglect, had leaked away. Brown trousers? More than likely, Downer lost a thousand pounds, and all of DFAT's cracks began to fray.

And Johnny, full of overflow, came down to lend his hand. It was grand to see a Canberra man astride all the gossip from the media, herding stories left and right, and defending all his ministers with pride.

This hardy little memo had been seen around before... Aussie dollars buying bullets in Iraq, but nobody said they'd seen it, and it safely slid away, to be hidden from the public in the dark.