Tim Blair

The silence will be deafening

See also Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, etc., etc.

Sending the U.N. into a country is the equivalent of an act of war.

"I have long made it clear that my attitude to sexual exploitation and abuse is one of zero tolerance, without exception, and I am determined to implement this policy in the most transparent manner," Mr Annan said.

Aren't Annan's staff threatening to strike because of his inaction against a friend who committed sexual exploitation and abuse at the U.N?

Ties in with the recent Glass House episode where an author detailed the episode of the U.N Peacekeeper.She shared a Medivac helicopter with him when he was airlifted still attatched to a goat.The Medics joked of putting him down and saving the goat.(The author/journalist swore it was true and that it is in her book about East Timor.) Nationality of the human casualty shall remain secret -(I heard it.)Read something ages ago about (different nationality )U.N.staff introducing AIDS to East Timor, refusing to use condoms with prostitutes.

Yet despite instances like this, a sizeable bloc of Age-readers continue to imagine the UN as if the Security Council were some wise tribunal composed of Jean-Luc Picard and six Vulcans, instead of a body where France ("No Nuclear Tests In The Pacific!"), Red China ("Free Tibet!") and Russia ("Free Chechnya!") enjoy a paralysing veto power.

It seems that the "reality-based community" cannot bear too much reality.

Check it out: Fat Mikey's been dubbed "the coldest celebrity in Hollywood." I always thought tons of blubber kept you warm, though. Maybe it only works for seals and whales.

Oh wait, sorry, Tim's already blogged that item below. Serves me right for not reading all the posts. . .and my link didn't work anyways. Mea culpa.

That was mighty decent of the Iraqi's in Fallujah. Truly. Being forced to leave your home in the care of armed strangers is not the easiest of conditions.

The UN, on the other hand, continues to be a plague of locusts where ever that august organization. And I'll bet they are inedible. PTUI!

Just read the update, tim. Thanks for posting it.

What does Tandberg and The Age know about the "morale high ground"? Nada.

"Try to reconcile Tandberg’s view with this report from the New York Times .."

Tandberg's view is the world as he believes it is, never mind the facts. In his world, the coalition forces are worthy only of mockery. It's obscene, somehow.

It's one thing to mock people who aren't putting themselves in harm's way so people like Tandberg can continue penning his cartoons. Mock Bush and his supporters all you want .. no problem. But, when we have cartoons depicting our soldiers as he does it makes me sick to my stomach.

I've had relatives fighting in Iraq. Thankfully, nobody has been killed yet. I can't imagine how I'd feel if a loved one were killed and I came upon a cartoon like Tandberg's.

Is there any other link to the Age photos ? I'll be fucked if I'm going to register, free or not.....

FC ... BugMeNot.com to the rescue!

User name: AvHelsing
Password: vaderetro

Sending the U.N. into a country is the equivalent of an act of war.

This is close, but I think this is more accurate to say:

Sending the U.N. into a country is a war crime.

Get off Ron Tandberg's case. This guy has been to hell and back and has more moral authority to comment on what goes on in battle than anyone on this web site.

Tandberg believes it was his time as a teacher during the 1960s that made him political. "There were a lot of power battles between unions and management at the time, and teachers were very politically aware,” he said.

He knows how to outwait the enemy:

A good example is when he won an art prize where the judges were looking for originality. "Instead of copying a picture as most people did, I spent painstaking time with my hand in a cage with a budgie perched on my finger. It took a lot of patience!" he said.

So unless you Chickenhawks have actually put your life in danger by confronting budgies, I'd just shut up. Okay?

Hanyu, I'm curious....what did Ron do when the budgie took a crap? Does the article go into that level of detail?

Hanyu - a budgie? What a wimp. True, steel-hearted bravery would have consisted of putting his hand in the cage occupied by my old roommate's pet parrot, Citrus. That bastard was the original biter of the hand that fed it, and he wasn't exactly tiny. A few seconds in the art gallery with Citrus and he would have been Tandberg Of The Nine Fingers (which, admittedly, would also have been pretty "original").

does anyone have an email addy for tanberg? after reading the update i'm one unhappy puppy.

I second that rosceo.

I'm sitting here with steam coming out my ears.

Literaly steaming.

I went to the AGE site,no way I can see there to contact anyone who would care.

I need to get access to this Scum Pond to shoot a virtual rocket so far up his arse that he wont come down for a month.

Thanks for that update Tim, Wow !!.

If there were the political will-power, it could be fixed by removing all the troops and replacing them with Anglospherians.

I hate to say this, but after reading both of Bernard Goldberg's books, (Biased and Arrogance), and having relative working for Fairfax, we face one almost insurmountable problem - the liberal or left of centre journalists don't think they have a bias. They think they are "normal" and as usual, when you only think with a limited number of ideas, one tends to come up with an equally limited number of explanations or points of view.

And from experience, I don't think one can change them, even with overwhelming contradictory fact.

Could someone explain to me why Michael Leunig's November 18 cartoon depicts Colin Powell as a WHITE MAN?!?!

Could someone explain to me why Michael Leunig's November 18 cartoon depicts Colin Powell as a WHITE MAN?!?!

Aren't cartoons supposed to be funny?

And don't newspaper readers deserve originality as much as judges of art competitions?

Freakin' Fairfax is cookie-happy. Sorry, no thanks, don't want none...

I'l survive somehow without 'em.

I'm thinking of these brave, true-hearted Marines who went back for their fallen brother. I then think of President Bush, who fought his own way through a crowd to retrieve his Secret Service agent. "A breach of protocol," sniffed one newspaper reporter. He "acted like a cowboy."

More than that, sir - he acted like a soldier. That, my friends, is a Commander-in-Chief. This is the sort of guy for whom an agent would take a bullet.

Tanberg can cram it with walnuts, from the safety of his own home, precisely because men like these Marines are out doing the dirty work. For that matter, I can complain about him from the safety of my own home for the same reason. On behalf of all who do not fight, all our thanks to those who do.

There is no link to Tandberg himself, but here is a link where you can complain to The Age. Not that it would make a budgie's crap worth of difference, but it's satisfying nonetheless.

feedback@theage.com.au

Many thanks for that Rebecca.
I go now to pour some satisfying vitriol on someones arse at the AGE.
Or something.
You know what I mean.

Hanyu -- So he'd be a budgiehawk?

Richard - he'd be a warbudgie.

I think that was one of the rejected names for the new Washington baseball franchise here in the States. Pity; I'd buy a cap with a Warbudgie logo on it.

Re Tandberg, I asked him the following question at the Melbourne Press Club's love-in on 29/10/04 during a session on “The art of the political cartoonist”.

Me: "This is not a friendly question.
On October 12 (2004) you had a cartoon with someone asking Howard, “Will you keep lying?” and Howard’s reply was “I have a mandate!”.
I would mention that on 28/8/04, your own (Age’s) national editor Mike Gordon, who was addressing this meeting an hour or two ago, analysed the 27 “lie” allegations that the Labor Party had assembled against Howard. Gordon found that virtually none of these alleged lies could be substantiated. Given that you have accused Howard maybe 100 times of lying, can you specify one lie he has told, otherwise are you really just in the smear business?”
{Incredulous gasp from audience}
Tandberg: “I must have misjudged the man.” (Laughter).
He then said that he heard a lot of reports about Howard lying, and he took his line from those reports.
Readers, so much for Tandberg and his 'moral high ground'!