Tim Blair

Beards are good. I keep an extra pastrami sandwich in mine for those in between times when I'm feeling a wee bit peckish.

Gareth Smith not only grafittied the outside of Parliament House, he had also previously tried to get inside as the Nuclear Disarmament Party candidate for Fraser (ACT) at the 1987 Federal Election.

At the time of the Election a local radio announcer commented on the curious fact that Gareth's choice of car, seemingly held together with anti-nuclear stickers, was a Renault. Perhaps not so strange now, but recall that at the time the French were still busy working on their 'Force de Frappe' in the South Pacific and just two years earlier they had deep-sixed the Greenpeace protest flagship 'Rainbow Warrior' in Waitemata Harbor, Auckland.

It would be great if the peaceniks left our countries and created their own country someplace else. Far far away.... Then we could declare war on them! MUHUWHAHAHAHAHAHA

... quoting Che: “If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”

Well, almost every injustice. Gassing the Kurds at Halabja no longer causes the gray ponytails to tremble with indignation, at least now that Saddam has become the poster boy for Resistance To Empire (the American empire, at any rate).

Ironically, I think it was in either the New Statesman or Soooocialist Wooker that I first read about the atrocities of Saddam's regime, in the 1980s. As David Abramovitch wrote a few months back in the Grauniad, the Iraqi Ba'athists haven't gotten any nicer since then -- the only change is that they went from being (mildly) pro- to (vehemently) anti-US. Their left cred. points score rose astronomically as a result.

I wonder if he knows Che's last quotation:

"OW!"

Take another look at those photos (in the "beards" link). Note how annoyed and unhappy they look. These guys are annoyed with everything, including by the looks of it, each other.

I don't get it. Why would he be wearing a Cher t-shirt?

John, Dave, and Dennis (the "beards") are definitely party animals. I can't wait for my next trip to Australia so I can look them up and get a bit wild!

I object! Beards have absolutely nothing to do with moral turpitude or total idiocy. I have a beard. Richard Pearle has a beard. Condi doesn't, but I won't hold that against her.

What is their problem with weapons in space? Sounds pretty cool to me.

Nice, pandering to big business and corporate marketing with his Che tshirt produced in a sweatshop to fatten the bosses' wallets..

"Primary school councillor Gareth Smith.."

That's scary. That's who I would want my kid going to for advise!!

mojo, I believe you misquoted Che. I believe the correct quote was "FUCK, that hur...."

Byron Bay. Neutron Bomb. You know it makes sense.

A personal reflection:
During my student days in Canberra (I was doing a Bachelor of Education, for God's sake...), I had the unique experience of having Mr Smith as a tutor, for a time.
My strongest memory of his teaching style was his inevitable avoidance of the provision of anything like real content, when ranting about impending nuclear armageddon would so much better fill a tutorial hour.
It's a shock for a mouthy teenage proto-greeny pinko to be confronted by a real live hippy idiot - I remember leaving his classes thinking that nuclear weapons may not be so bad after all, if he and his damn beard would be incinerated by the blast along with everything else. Twat.
"Tremble with indignation at every injustice"?
That sounds like him, alright - or the onset of Lou Gehrig's, take your pick.

If you scan the article in the 'beard' link, you will see he refers to the "Australian premier John Howard". I make a note of always taking people's views seriously when they can't even get basic facts right.

He did manage to go several paragraphs without mentioning the American Chancellor George W Bush however, which is quite an effort for a peacenik.

If he wants solidarity, have a fundraiser and buy him a ticket to Iran.

It's OK, they're breeding themselves out. Inner urban lefties are at the very epicentre of the population anti-boom (despite what their endangered-earth ZPG mentors were teaching them in the seventies - idiots!) that is currently afflicting western society.

The beards are an instinctive, subconscious effort to demonstrate testosterone; a last-gasp attempt to encourage females to reproduce with them.

Joy! Lefties an endangered species!

Check out the pamphlet at the bottom of the "beards" link:

"In the long run, America needs a space-based system to replace its vast aging fighter-bomber and bomber air-fleets and super-aircraft carrier battle groups of which America has several. Until now through air attack, these have been her means of controlling wayward nations. Although requiring an enormous initial outlay to the extent that U.S. social, medical and education expenditure will be severely curtailed, the eventual space system once established will be relatively cheap to maintain. But the gains will be considerable since it will allow the U.S. to intimidate and thus control the rest of the world. This will give her corporations total domination of world trade."

Yes! Total domination!!

USA!

USA!

Surely they meant "counsellor", not "councillor"

Razor, the quote was from Cher, to go with the Cher Tshirt: "If you are trembling with excitement, I know you're enjoying the head job"

I wonder if their Che T shirts, vacuous slogans, poor personal hygiene and wholemeal knitted sweaters would stop the Islamo-facists hanging them all from the nearest available lamppost!?

Apart from beards I note that all the sitdown protests are taking a terrible personal toll. Perhaps some sit-ups or jogging protests might keep the weight down.

hey craig M.C. ixnay on the bomb for byron bay, i have to live here!

The silly old fart is heading to Japan to try putting the bag on Koizumi. I doubt if the ninjas in the Japanese security services will be as reasonable in understanding his protest- I'd pay money for footage of the fat cretin copping a couple of shurikens in the scone, then having it lopped off with a katana.
With a bit of luck he's on his way to a bushido bushwack.

Mr Smith said he represented a Byron Bay group called Oz Peace.

Not to be confused with the other Byron Bay, favourite hangout of an anti-Israel militant.

Habib..hahaha exactly mate. The Japs would slice and dice this sucker.

My apologies to Yehezkel Bohadana - allegedly he's not a Israel-hating militant, he's just a criminal.