On Fecklessness

Margo Kingston is not above sexist rhetoric.

When Labor believes it can't win, as is clearly the case here, then it sometimes elects a woman to cushion the loss. Joan Kirner in Victoria and Carmen Lawrence in Western Australia spring to mind. They go for a softer, more inclusive, more team-focused, less ego-driven style of leadership. You could see it as nurturing a grieving family. And you never know, maybe voters are ready for that after the brutal, bruising, cynical, divisive, insensitive politics of John Howard over the last few years.

This is John Howard:


And this (on the right) is Margo Kingston:


Now if I had to choose the brutal, bruising one of the two...

I was at the local mall today buying socks; the test batch purchased earlier fitted after the dryer so I was there to stock up with a boxful (King Gee work socks, 6-10, black, three for $8).
I also bought a second watch, exactly the same as the first. I really like this watch and I don't want to lose or break it and then be caught hearing "They don't make those anymore, would you like to look at some shit watches you'll hate instead?"
This, I do realise, makes me look just a tad "anal". I prefer to think of this and the above socks as "planning ahead" or "organisation". My life is like a long meticulously planned military operation. Actually I spent 9 years in the military so maybe that should read "a meticulously planned not at all military operation-like thing".
On a sidenote, there's a good reason that the military train troops to improvise and think on their feet. It's because the military is a disorganised shitfight.
Anyway, today I rationalised my work socks and organised redundancy for my watch. On a perhaps unrelated note I wonder why I am single?
Ah well, at least I am Master of the Remote. I also have half of the American male's dream; I have "bachelor pad" covered but "lingerie model" is eluding me.

Back to the shopping; as is my want, I stopped at the food court and had Tamanra's Indian for lunch, it's the worst indian food ever but the worst indian is better than the rest of the crap in the food court. They had advertising under the surface of the table, presumably so you cannot even look at your food without being subjected to marketing.
And there, in a blurb for the Womans Weekly, is a picture of my favorite redhead, Pauline Hanson.

I don't think much of her politics but for an older chick she's looking hot.

And I am not alone.

The plod in Sydney have figured out what the cause of all the recent drive by shootings (and run of the mill shootings for that matter) is:

Earlier, Detective Chief Superintendent Inkster said a very small minority of criminals was behind the 'unfortunate reputation' of the Arabic community in the south-western suburbs of Sydney.

I disagree. The real problem is that the community is only known for shootings, violence, gang rape, shootings, gangs, gang rape and kebab shops.

Although all is not what it seems in the tasty Sydney kebab world.

I noticed for the first time today that there are men/boys behind the perfume/cosmetics counter at Grace Bros. They were wearing cosmetics.

For future reference, you pansies, these are Australian men:


This is neither Australian or a man:

Greg Dyke, BBC director general on American reporting during the war in Iraq:

They should be balancing their coverage, not banging the drum for one side or the other. If that were true in Britain, the BBC would have failed in its duty.

This guy runs the BBC. As Samizdata points out:

Oh, and whose reporters kept insisting that there are not US troops in Baghdad when the rest of the world were watching their tanks moving down the streets of central Baghdad.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

More evidence of the devious doings of the zionists.



Palestinian children look as an Israeli military paramedic treats a Palestinian boy who collapsed while playing with his friends.

And again



One-week-old Iraqi infant Bayan Jassem is carried by her mother Iman Majia as her father Abdullah, left, walks next to them upon their arrival to the Wolfson Medical Center near Tel Aviv Tuesday Nov. 25, 2003. The baby will undergo an operation to correct a congenital heart problem. An American doctor working with the U.S. forces occupying Iraq (news - web sites) who checks babies for heart defects discovered Jassem's problem a day after her birth in a hospital near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq and contacted the organization Save a Child's Heart and the Wolfson Medical Center to ask if they could perform the operation.

Bastards.

The Australian has missed an important fact in this story:

A JURY decided today John Allen Muhammad should be executed for masterminding the sniper attacks that terrorised the Washington area for three weeks last autumn. As the verdict was read, Muhammad maintained the same unflinching demeanor he had shown through most of the trial. Jurors sent word they had reached a decision after deliberating for five hours over two days.
Jurors convicted the 42-year-old army veteran of murder a week ago before hearing testimonies in the sentencing phase."

It's his religion. It's almost never mentioned. Apparently his Army veteran status is newsworthy, but not his religion.
Can't think why.

Religion of peace in the news again:

THE son of an Australian al-Qaeda suspect held at Guantanamo Bay was involved in the abduction of a woman who was bound with tape and had her head shaved, a Sydney court heard yesterday.
Ahmed Mandouh Habib, 18, of Birrong - eldest son of terror suspect Mamdouh Habib - was charged in connection to the alleged assault at Bankstown earlier this month. The 18-year-old victim's twin brother, Islam Hassam, and a 15-year-old youth who cannot be named also faced court yesterday over the incident.
The woman, believed to be a Habib family relative, was dragged out of a car parked outside Bankstown TAFE just after midnight on November 5. The youth held the victim while Hassam wrapped masking tape around her mouth and head, Parramatta Local Court was told. The youth tied electrical wire around the woman's wrists before he attempted to put her in the car boot. Habib allegedly intervened and the victim was placed in the back of the car and taken to a garage at her former Greenacre home.
The youth and Hassam cut her waist-length hair to her neck, then shaved her head with electric clippers, police claimed. She was released after a two-hour ordeal. The woman moved out of the family home last year after a domestic dispute.
Bidura Children's Court, where the 15-year-old appeared, heard that he told the woman: 'I'm only doing this for your own good - I love you like a Muslim sister.' The youth was remanded in custody to Cobham Children's Court tomorrow. Habib and Hassam were remanded on bail to Burwood Local Court.
The Sunday Telegraph"

On a related note, remember these guests of the Greens in Parliament during Bush's visit?

Mrs Habib and her 18-year-old son Ahmed will today watch Mr Bush's address to the federal parliament from the public gallery as the guest of the Australian Greens.

Nice one Dr Brown, supporting this family was a stellar idea. Dickhead.

Ahmed, get the fuck out of my country. Take your father and your friends and fuck off.

Looks like the EU's cowardice in the fight against radical islam is continuing:

"The European Union's racism watchdog has shelved a report on anti-semitism because the study concluded Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups were behind many of the incidents it examined."

Spineless wimps.

We're victims of police: accused rapists - www.smh.com.au

The father told the court he was at the family home on the night of the alleged rapes, that he had remained awake until just before sunrise, praying on a mat in the corridor, and had seen nothing happen.

Who'd have thunk it, another gang rape in Sydney and again the rapists belong to a religion that prays on a mat.

Maybe a senior member of this peaceful religion in Australia will come out and loudly condemn this act.
And perhaps monkeys will fly out of my butt.

I've been using Firebird for a long time now and can't recommend it highly enough. As they say on the site:

Mozilla Firebird empowers you to accomplish your online activities faster, more safely and efficiently than any other browser, period. Built with Tab browsing, popup blocking and a number of other seamless innovations, Mozilla Firebird stands out ahead.

What they fail to mention is that with the correct settings you can block ads from blogger (and any other site using commonly sized banners). Sweet.
Here's a list of my custom settings/files:
Downloadsort - sorts downloads. Well duh.
Blog this - adds a context menu option to blog the current page (and any selected text) through Blogger.
A whole heap of optimisations detailed here
How to edit the preferences files is detailed here
Firebird handles ads well, to make it even better try this

Saw bug-eyed earl today dealing with a watermelon crisis in my local Woolworths. It was scarier than you'd think.



More of Earl and friends.

An old lady fails to correctly pay property tax (by $600), her farm is forcefully sold and the buyer gives it back.

Wow.

I have read about ten pages of Michael Moore's hate/envy inspired work of fiction; "Stupid white men". I'd read more but I get the shits every few pages and it's not like I'm learning anything so why bother?
Anyway some random thoughts on the prick and his book:

One topic I bet he won't touch is the old "There's enough food on the planet for everyone but the western world won't share etc" argument. Because he is one fat bastard. You could feed a whole starving village in North Korea if you could stop Moore getting to the trough.
If the stupid white men are so stupid then why are they running the show? Are the good guys just dumber?
Can you imagine a book titled "Stupid black men" or worse "Stupid black women" getting to print?

Silly fat racist prick.
Anyhow, my brother gave me the book, hopefully as a joke. If not then he's really gone to shit.

And yes I can call him a racist and fat at the same time you sanctimonious types.

The Good: Kleenex 3 ply toilet paper, reassuringly thick.

The Bad: Cadbury Lite chocolate, because, as the package warns: "Excessive consumption may have a laxative effect". One row is excessive.

The Ugly: The Bathroom

Was watching some drivel on 7 or 9 during the week. There was a large board behind the presenter with the words "Free at Last" on it. I thought they may be referring to sex so I paid attention.
I was waiting to see which Nelson Mandela like person was the focus of all the attention and it's Pauline, looking pale and damn good frankly, exiting whatever state B&B she was held in. Apparently the words "At Last" mean about 11 weeks.
I am waiting for some nutjob to use the words "political" and "prisoner" now.

From this article in the Australian:

Palestinian child 'killed in Gaza'

What on earth are the quotes for? Not quite sure this actually happened?

From correspondents in Gaza City

Who are these unnamed correspondents? Palestinians? Members of the PLO? The ISM? They are certainly not journalists - or they'd be named.

A PALESTINIAN child was killed by shrapnel from an Israeli tank shell in the northern Gaza Strip today, Palestinian medical sources said.

So now we have a report from "correspondents" quoting Palestinian medical "sources" - none of whom have names.

Mahmud al-Qayed, 11, was hit in his chest as he was playing with a friend near the Karni crossing point between the north-eastern Gaza Strip and Israel, the medical sources and witnesses said.

Now we have "witnesses", also unnamed. I'll add some more quotes to the word "playing", meaning the the Palestinian definition of playing for a 11 year old boy is "throwing stones at soldiers"

Also another highly relevant but unreported fact is missing, what was the tank there and firing for? If the tank was supporting troops as they are usually, then why is an 11 year old "playing" near the operation?

This is a pretty cool thing to do with your frequent flyer points.

I notice with little suprise that the ceremony to award the Sydney Peace Prize to Hanan Ashrawi went ahead with no Bob Brown style grandstanding.

Who'd have thunk it.

Frank says:

There are rarely large scale protests by right-leaning people on account of them having things called dignity and jobs.

From the PALESTINIAN NATIONAL CHARTER (constitution of the PLO):

Article 15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. Absolute responsibility for this falls upon the Arab nation- peoples and governments-with the Arab people of Palestine in the vanguard. Accordingly, the Arab nation must mobilize all its military, human, moral, and spiritual capabilities to participate actively with the Palestinian people in the liberation of Palestine. It must, particularly, in the phase of the armed Palestinian revolution, offer and furnish the Palestinian people with all possible help, and material and human support, and make available to them the means and opportunities that will enable them to continue to carry out their leading role in the armed revolution, until they liberate their homeland.

Article 19: The partition of Palestine in 1947, and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and its natural right in their homeland, and were inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, particularly the right to self-determination.

Article 20: The Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate, and everything that has been based on them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of their own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.

Article 22: Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and the geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress. Israel is a constant source of threat vis-à-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East. That is why the Palestinian people look to the progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all, irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just struggle for the liberation of their homeland.

Article 23: The demand of security and peace, as well as the demand of right and justice, require all states to consider Zionism an illegitimate movement, to outlaw its existence, and to ban its operations, in order that friendly relations among peoples may be preserved, and the loyalty of citizens to their respective homelands safeguarded.

How does Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the PLO, which calls for the eradication of Israel, get nominated for a peace prize?

"Body and Soul" on the Lifestyle channel is encouraging women to take self defense classes. This will increase self esteem, confidence and will apparently be graceful to boot.

Meanwhile in the Real World:
The problem with the concept of woman's self defense is that girls hit like girls. Put a males suprise advantage, weight advantage, strength advantage and aggression advantage against a woman with a few months twice a week Tae Kwon Do training and I know what the result is.

But let's not despair, there is a tool you can carry in your handbag that almost totally levels the playing field.

But we live in a nanny society that has decreed that members of the public are not allowed to own arms, so get used to being afraid at night girls.

Something that has struck me recently is the lack of bearded gents in the gym. Bearded ladies too for that matter.
I have not seen one beard in a gym. Ever. Go figure.
Then again in this area most of the guys in the gym are gay so maybe a beard chafes the back of Sebastians neck or something.

TV cook and deadly serious drinker Floyd is back. He's cooking on a wharf - with a guy guarding him in a flak jacket carrying an assault rifle. No booze in sight either. Poor Floyd must be shaking by now.
The camera just cut away to the rest of his security detail, six armed guys in uniform on a truck. Floyd is waxing lyrical about how wonderful the people are in Alexandria (Egypt).
So I'm assuming that the heavy duty security detail is there to protect the booze from Floyd.

Back to blogger. Whether this is another half arsed* attempt remains to be seen.
Least the standard templates are much improved. And orange. So very, very orange.

*Thank you, I am aware that blogger is half arsed by nature.