• Dave Barry presents a series of photographs from the set of his new movie -- an environmental thriller titled The Happy Days After Tomorrow, starring Henry Winkler as Global Cool. Heeeey!
• The Guardian is excited: "Do not put the champagne on ice yet - there are, after all, five months to go before the election - but it is beginning to look as if Senator John Kerry may have the beating of President George Bush in November."
• Paris Hilton continues to impress Australians. She’s making a film here. With more than one camera.
• Anglican Archbishop Bernard Malango, primate of central Africa, isn’t supportive of Canadian moves to back gay marriage: "These people are going berserk. They do not care about the Anglican communion. They are causing disgrace to the whole church."
• NSW Premier Bob Carr leaps aboard a crowded bandwagon: "Mr Carr says global warming makes it imperative Australia ratify the Kyoto Agreement while it is still 'the day before tomorrow'."
• Gerard Henderson writes: "Here's hoping this D-Day kick-starts some modesty on the part of the French political class. But don't bet on it."
• Is Madonna the Phillip Adams of pop?
• Pay peanuts, get monkeys. Pay nothing, get Al Franken: "In a sign that the privately held company's financial woes have not fully abated, Al Franken, the network's best-known star, said in an interview last week that he had agreed not to draw a salary, however temporarily, making him 'an involuntary investor.'"
• After a brief break, Tex is back blogging. And he’s angry.
SPORTS BRIEFLETS
• The Indianapolis 500 was once the most gothic of American sports events. Now, following administrative brawls and restrictive rule changes, it’s dominated by no-name drivers and dinky, technically-uniform cars. Buddy Rice won this year’s race; as in 1986, when Rice team co-owner Bobby Rahal was victorious, the 500 was hit by rain.
• Batting at nine, Bangladeshi Mohammad Rafique tore a century off the West Indies in the First Test at St. Lucia, helping his team to their highest Test total. Rezwan is yet to mention the historic score, although he does have useful advice for anyone planning a heart attack.
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has slammed the intolerance and bigotry inside our immigrant detention centres. Andrew Bolt reports:
A Last Resort? cites many witnesses who confirm that Muslims in most detention centres have persecuted Christians and Sabian Mandaeans, people of a Middle Eastern faith that borrows from Christianity.
In three centres, the persecution was so bad that non-Muslims had to be given protection.
For instance, A Last Resort? notes: "A Christian mother reported to the South Australian child protection agency that she was persecuted by Muslims in the detention centre because of her religious beliefs.
"They view her as unclean and she was assaulted by a Muslim detainee when she tried to pass food to him while she was working in the detention centre kitchen."
Wow. How’s that guy going to cope with the drive-thru at McDonald’s?
Most of the cops I know tend not to draw attention to themselves when they’re out drinking. Then again, most of the cops I know are Victorian; their approach apparently isn’t employed in Western Australia:
Claims that nine off-duty police officers taunted and humiliated American university students about the US involvement in Iraq are being investigated by West Australian police.
The incident occurred last Tuesday in Fremantle, when drunken police officers, seven from WA and two from NSW, forced the students to kneel on the ground at their dormitory at Notre Dame University.
The kneeling episode followed a nightclub fight in which an officer received some free dental work from a US student:
Enraged, some of the drunken officers tracked the American down to the university.
It was there that several American students, including some who had nothing to do with the clash, were made to kneel on the ground.
It is believed the taunting included comments such as "Yankees go home", "What are you doing in our country" and "What are you doing in Iraq".
Nice. Robert Corr, a student at Notre Dame, writes:
Rumour has it that a similar incident occurred earlier this year: a group of bikies from a well-known gang followed the students back to their dorm, kicked down the door and threw someone down a flight of stairs.
Who would have thought that two gangs who wear leather jackets and club colours would behave so similarly?
You’d expect that the police allegedly involved in this might be impetuous youngsters. Wrong; today’s West Australian reports that six of those under investigation are detectives.
UPDATE. Angie Schultz predicts that the American street will erupt with rage:
Unbearable humiliation! We must avenge this insult to our honor! All signs of the Australian oppressors must be purged from our country, like, uh, like ... Fosters! Down with Fosters! And squash the Bananas in Pajamas! And ... and ... gig the Wiggles! And, um, and ... well, I'll have to think about it.
UPDATE II. Then again, things could have been worse ...
Should the United Nations take over in Iraq? Hell yes! Just look at how well the UN is doing in the Ivory Coast, where UN strategies have brought rebels and loyalists together as one:
Thousands of supporters of Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo rallied on Saturday to demand United Nations peacekeepers disarm rebel fighters or leave the West African country.
Some 20,000 pro-Gbagbo militants crammed into the country's largest stadium in the main city Abidjan wearing mock blue helmets like those worn by U.N. soldiers and T-shirts bearing the motto "Disarmament or Nothing".
Meanwhile, in the rebel camp:
Sympathy for France and the United Nations was also absent at a parallel protest by the rebels in their stronghold Bouake, Ivory Coast's second city 350 km (220 miles) north of Abidjan.
"I appeal to the U.N., France, and all the international community to stop sitting on the fence when they know who the problem is in Ivory Coast," rebel leader Guillaume Soro told a stadium packed with thousands of his supporters.
"One minute the French are in one camp, the next minute they're in another."
Yep. They’ll do that.
Suspected al-Qaeda "militants" -- such a useful word -- have killed 25 people in Khobar, during which they took the time to conduct a quick survey of religious beliefs:
"Are you Muslim or Christian? We don't want to kill Muslims. Show us where the Americans and Westerners live," Islamic militants told an Arab after a shooting rampage against Westerners in Saudi Arabia.
The four gunmen, aged 18 to 25 and wearing military vests, grabbed Abu Hashem, an Iraqi with a United States passport, in front of his home in the Oasis compound in Khobar, but they let him go when he told them he was a Muslim.
"Don't be afraid. We won't kill Muslims - even if you are an American," he quoted them as saying.
Mighty decent of them. Of course, if you aren’t of the approved faith ...
Saudi special forces rescued 25 hostages when they stormed a building where suspected al-Qaeda militants had already slit the throats of nine people, a survivor told AFP.
Among the dead were seven Asians, a Swede and an Italian, said Nijar Hijazin, who had himself been taken hostage at the housing compound in the kingdom's Eastern Province yesterday.
UPDATE. One of the victims was an Australian resident. And more details of that friendly survey have emerged:
The gunmen who sparked a terrifying hostage crisis in Saudi Arabia went from house to house, rifling through papers and asking probing questions as they hunted down foreigners to kill, witnesses said today.
What’s the bet that Natasha Stott Despoja -- a passionate advocate of public healthcare -- is currently in a private hospital?
Noting a reversal of opinion among the previously hawkish, Mark Steyn writes:
Fourteen months ago, there were respectable cases to be made for and against the war. None of the big stories of the past few weeks alters either argument.
The bleats of "Include me out!" from the fairweather warriors isn't a sign of their belated moral integrity but of their fundamental unseriousness. Anyone who votes for the troops to go in should be grown-up enough to know that, when they do, a few of them will kill civilians, bomb schools, abuse prisoners. It happens in every war. These aren't stunning surprises, they're inevitable: it might be a bombed mosque or a hospital, a shattered restaurant or a slaughtered wedding party, but it will certainly be something.
Okay, a freaky West Virginia tramp leading a naked Iraqi round on a dog leash with a pair of Victoria's Secret panties on his head and a banana up his butt, maybe that wasn't so inevitable. But, that innovation aside, the aberrations of war have nothing to do with the only question that matters: despite what will happen along the way, is it worth doing?
I say yes.
So do I. Be interesting to hear from any former hawks on this, however. At what point, for you, did the war become unsupportable?
UPDATE. Beneath the headline "Iraq doomed, once the neo-cons won the White House battle", hysterical ultra-dove Robert Manne shrieks:
Even former enthusiasts now generally acknowledge that the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq is the greatest disaster in the recent history of US foreign policy. Nothing is more important than to try to understand how this catastrophe occurred.
You’ve probably come across various Nicholas Berg conspiracy theories online -- arguing, say, that the white plastic chair Berg was seated on is identical to chairs at Abu Ghraib prison (or, to give the place its full name, notorious Abu Ghraib prison) -- which proves, I don’t know, that the whole war was driven by greedy US chair cartels. Owned by Dick Cheney.
So who does the Sydney Morning Herald choose to investigate these theories? None other than Richard Neville, who, we’ve learned, isn’t exactly your go-to guy for online detective work. Neville’s history of getting things wrong is apparently a qualification at the Herald. His revelatory probe begins:
Iraq in flames, Washington an object of disgust. What to do? At this pivotal moment, CNN and Fox News are tipped off to a clip of an American citizen being beheaded. The victim is a 26-year-old idealist from Pennsylvania, Nick Berg. Despite the perpetrators being masked, the vile deed is deemed the work of al-Qaeda.
The clip was first "discovered" on an Islamic website in Malaysia. Its Arabic title reads "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American". al-Zarqawi is a 38-year-old Jordanian militant who fled to Iraq in 2001 after reportedly losing a leg in a US missile strike. al-Zarqawi's face is widely known and he credits himself with the deed, so why a mask?
The timing of the video was brilliant for the West. Media pundits judged the crime a deeper evil than the systemic torture of innocent Iraqis. But some people sensed a rat. But if it was not al-Qaeda, who? Surely not Uncle Sam. That's too dark, even for the CIA.
”The timing of the video was brilliant for the West.” Yes, Richard -- all of us were delighted. Neville then runs through the facts, as he almost understands them, of Berg’s time in Iraq (readers will no doubt locate many errors) before ending with this expert opinion on Berg’s murder:
According to a blogger (internet diarist), Nick Possum, "this footage was subsequently modified frame by frame to make Berg's body move very occasionally". Apparently, this can be achieved with "commonly available software".
Possum believes "the available evidence surrounding the case suggests that it was a 'black operation' by US psychological warfare specialists ... to provide the media with a moral relativity argument to counter the adverse publicity over torture at Abu Ghraib". The use of FBI footage in the opening sequence, if confirmed, suggests the involvement of high-level US Government operatives.
I do not know who killed Nick Berg, or how he died. But there's something fishy about this video.
In the end, the question is: who killed Nick Berg, and why?
Well, it surely can’t be those nice al Qaeda boys. They’d never do anything so unpleasant.
Jonathan V. Last writes that The Day After Tomorrow won’t hurt George W. Bush, and praises the film’s disaster-movie fidelity:
A divorced couple torn apart by the husband's work, who must reconcile in the face of death? Check. A character who sacrifices himself for the good of the team by falling to his death? Check. Two attractive adolescents who struggle to reveal their true feelings for one another? Check. Rich people learning valuable life lessons from the poor? Check.
The film doesn’t have any grinning Canadian minisheep, however. Every disaster/horror/slasher movie needs these brutes, regardless of theme or location. Look at the hostile, unearthly expression worn by the monster in the second pic. Tell me you won’t see that in your nightmares for the next twenty years.
Following his guilty plea, suspected Australian terrorist Jack Roche is no longer merely suspected. The Gnu Hunter reviews prior opinion about the arrest of the colourful Islamic convert.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Alan Ramsey responds to Parliamentary criticism:
Michael Danby got to his feet and spoke for nine minutes in the grievance debate on one subject only. That subject was my journalism and what he traduced as my "ethical standards". He does not like "the bile" I write and he likes even less the "lazy and dishonest journalism" I bring to readers of this newspaper. He calls it "journalistic theft raised to a lifestyle". That is his opinion.
It’s an opinion Ramsey appears to have acted on. In his main item today, the long-form quote-recycler writes practically the entire piece himself. Danby calculated that some of Ramsey’s earlier columns depended on previously published material for 85% of their content.
They can have my gum when they’ve prised it from my cold dead teeth! Doug Payton reports that Singapore has relaxed its punitive gum control laws -- but only for registered chewers.
In other gnawing regulation news, British butchers face fines if they give bones away to dog owners:
They are being sent letters telling them that a new European directive bans the traditional practice.
In future, Britain's 10,000 butchers will have to pay for the bones to be incinerated rather than hand them free to customers for their pets.
Thank you, EU.
The Boston Herald launches into Al Gore:
He never mentioned Nicholas Berg. Or Daniel Pearl. Or a single person killed in the World Trade Center. Nor did former Vice President Al Gore talk of any soldier by name who has given his life in Iraq. And he has the audacity to condemn the Bush administration for having "twisted values?"
Gore spent the bulk of a speech before the liberal group MoveOn.org Wednesday bemoaning Abu Ghraib and denouncing President Bush's departure from the "long successful strategy of containment."
Yes, the very same strategy that, under Gore's leadership, allowed al-Qaeda operatives to plan the horror of Sept. 11 for years, while moving freely within our borders.
Gore even had the audacity to defend the perpetrators of the prison abuse - by name - while denouncing President Bush for humiliating" our nation.
How dare he.
There's more. Meanwhile, Al Gore’s groan man Google count is currently running at seven -- outpointing grown man by three.
It'll be interesting to see how little coverage this receives:
The military has revealed that one soldier initially listed as killed in action while riding in the same doomed convoy as former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch was actually captured by Iraqi fighters.
More than a year after the March 23, 2003, ambush, the military released new details on Tuesday to the family of Sgt. Donald Walters of Salem, Ore. On Thursday, the details were released to the public.
Walters "was held separately from his fellow soldiers and killed while in custody," according to a news release from the Oregon National Guard.
"He was executed -- shot twice in the back," Maj. Arnold Strong, public affairs officer for the Oregon National Guard, said during a telephone interview Thursday.
Perhaps Walters' captors hadn't been told of their need to comply with the Geneva Convention.
• Chris Sheil fans will thrill to his latest epic “I won’t tell you what car I own!” argument (previous instalments here and here) presented in comments at this Tim Dunlop post. Keep in mind as you negotiate his evasions, inconsistencies, and impossibly titanic sense of self-regard that Chris isn’t an Indymedia kid or someone on a mental disability pension; he’s a university lecturer in his mid-40s. Be alert also for a special guest appearance from Niall Cook, who announces that he does “NOT resile” from his controversial views on Vietnamese immigrants. For some reason Niall is convinced that I own a BMW.
• "What's in a bra?" asks The Age. Which explains a lot about the investigative abilities of that newspaper.
• Arthur Chrenkoff fisks The Australian's war-doubt compendium.
• Franco Aleman, formerly of HispaLibertas -- and known to readers of this site for his fine coverage of events in Spain -- has gone solo, at Barcepundit. He might drop in here again from time to time, too.
• David Horowitz and Ben Johnson review Al Gore’s MoveOn.org speech.
• This news from Sweden will sound familiar to Australian readers:
The largest mosque in Stockholm is spreading double messages. What the Imam says in his speech in Arabic doesn't match how the text is interpreted in Swedish.
"America rapes Islam," the Imam roars in Arabic from the platform.
The interpreter translates to Swedish: "We condemn USA’s torture of Iraqi prisoners."
The UK Telegraph’s Daniel Johnson had a ringside seat for yesterday’s Abu Hamza arrest:
Ever since the police had searched his home, 50 yards up the street, about five years ago, we had been aware that the charismatic cleric was our neighbour.
Not that he has ever offered the hook of friendship to us. He keeps himself to himself, as they say, and his privacy has always been respected. One Christmas, before we knew who he was, the children sang carols outside his door. They were sent packing.
Every time we organise a Neighbourhood Watch meeting, Abu Hamza gets his invitation through the letter-box, like everybody else. Oddly enough, he never turns up.
That doesn’t mean he isn’t keeping an eye out.
Via The Daily Telegraph’s excellently-named Tory Maguire, some good news -- with a local angle -- out of Iraq:
The Treasury in Canberra is not a place you would expect to find a veteran of the Iraq campaign but principal adviser Tony McDonald is just that.
His job in Baghdad was to put the Iraqi economy, budget and pay systems back together.
And between losing his room in the hotel Al-Rasheed to a rocket attack and working himself to the bone, Mr McDonald helped transform the "gangster economy" of Saddam Hussein's regime.
"It was a really tough environment but it was also one with a lot of people who were very dedicated," he said yesterday.
"It may not be the impression that people have but it is just inspiring to work with them."
In a letter to Treasurer Peter Costello, Iraq administrator Paul Bremmer said he "often acted solely upon Tony's macro-economic advice".
Under Saddam, the tax system consisted mostly of imposts on business and very high tariffs, designed to maintain the regime's monopoly on smuggling.
In a comment piece not available online, Maguire writes that "anyone feeling jaded about Iraq after the relentless horrors of the US Military Police in Abu Graib should spend five minutes with Tony McDonald. The unassuming 34-year-old treasury official from Canberra has made a contribution to the future of Iraq that will last long beyond any military intervention."
Last week The Age published Julian Ninio’s unreadable anti-US screed. Now The Age is running a piece by some Common Dreams-worthy plonker named Tom Teepen, who believes George W. Bush should have given this speech:
I have several announcements tonight.
I have today asked for and received the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defence. His successor will be chosen in consultation with the leadership of both parties in Congress, in the interests of establishing consensus for our remaining tasks in Iraq.
I will tomorrow ask the United Nations to establish a transitional trusteeship for Iraq, so that wide international commitment can be enlisted in bringing a new Iraq into being.
And I am announcing now that I will neither seek nor accept my party's nomination for a second term as your president.
It won’t be too long before they’re printing the whole worthless rag in French. By the way, via reader Cuckoo, here’s yesterday’s Age editorial on a recent movie release:
Despite being a scientifically nonsensical story of climatic apocalypse (climate change isn't an overnight phenomenon), the film's message about politicians ignoring scientists' warnings is so compelling that some commentators expect it to play a part in President George Bush being defeated in the November election.
A recently leaked Pentagon paper concluded climate change could become an issue of national security.
Again, for the benefit of Age leader-writers: it wasn’t leaked, and it wasn’t a Pentagon paper.
UPDATE. Anyone else got any Bush = Satan garbage to unload? It’s a sellers' market down here.
Tracey Emin artworks worth up to $14 have been destroyed in a London fire. Cause of the fire is unknown, but it is suspected that some of the Emin pieces may have spontaneously combusted due to shame.
Abu Hamza is in custody. The London Sun reports developments leading to his arrest:
Evil hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza was due to be arrested early today.
Police were set to make a pre-dawn raid at his London home.
They planned to hold the hate-filled preacher on terror charges before deporting him for trial in America.
The plot to arrest the hate-filled cleric was hatched by American lawmen.
The Palestinian-born ranter was due to be held on a warrant from the U.S. Department of Justice under new extradition laws.
The arrest marks a spectacular victory for The Sun.
MPs and moderate Muslims have praised our campaign to have the one-eyed hate preacher locked up or booted out of Britain.
Meanwhile, over at the SMH:
An angelic-looking Pakistani woman with a doctorate in neurological science is among seven "dangerous" al-Qaeda terror suspects identified today by the FBI as planners of new attacks on the United States.
Siddiqui is a picture of innocence amongst the dangerous-looking male suspects ...
This crude sexism has no place in a reputable newspaper. Why, I'd cancel my subscription if I hadn't made certain never to take one out in the first place.
UPDATE. Here’s a BBC profile of old Abu. And here’s another profile to help Abu score some pen-friend action while he’s locked up:
I am a: One-eyed hook-handed hate preacher
Residence: Finsbury Park
Interested in:beatingmeeting women
For: walks along the beach, romantic dinners, Holy War
My Age: 47
Speak: Arabic, English, Hate
Children: Two wonderful sons! Plus a few lesser humanoid life-forms I keep in sacks
Relocate?: Currently being relocated, yes
Citizen of: Britain, Allah bless its multicultural tolerance
Body: Partially metallic
Looks: Monocular
Religion: Extreme
Education level: I got blown up clearing landmines. How much more do you need to know?
Occupation: Cleric/pantomime pirate
Smoking: Only after landmine incidents
Drinking: Never drink. But I’m very good at retrieving martini olives
Zodiac Sign: Semtex
Posted by Tim Blair at 05:41 PM | Comments (36)
Reuters reports:
Using artificial insemination to get pregnant, lesbians are four times more likely to have children than gay men.
(Via Opinion Journal)
Moveon.Org has posted Al Gore’s demented speech to the howly left collective, which it claims is "as prepared", presumably by the former VP:
Listen then to the balance of internal impulses described by specialist Charles Graner when confronted by one of his colleagues, Specialist Joseph M. Darby, who later became a courageous whistleblower. When Darby asked him to explain his actions documented in the photos, Graner replied: "The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the Corrections Officer says, 'I love to make a groan man piss on himself."
Groan? Looks more like a scream.
UPDATE. Looks like nobody bothered to check Gore’s speech before running it at other news sites -- except for Salon, where "groan" has been corrected.
The opinion pages of The Sydney Morning Herald ain't a happy place:
• Bitter and inaccurate columnist Mike Carlton recently attacked fellow SMH columnists Paul Sheehan and Miranda Devine during his Sydney radio show;
• Alan Ramsey was entertainingly eviscerated in Parliament (and exposed as a fake photo fool in The Bulletin);
• Peter FitzSimons is again identified as a harvester of ancient jokes (in addition to those earlier noted, Gareth Parker points out via email that Fitzy's Dennis Cometti gags were circulating nearly two years ago);
• Seeker of truth Margo Kingston has abandoned her job for a week, claiming that "the war has got to me big time and I need to clear my head";
• And Paddy McGuinness has quit completely. Here’s Paddy’s resignation letter to SMH editor Robert Whitehead, as published by Stephen Mayne:
Dear Robert,
Before you rang me the other day, I had been contemplating whether I wished to retain any connection with the Sydney Morning Herald, and with the increasingly chaotic and badly managed Fairfax company. Your courteous call the other day, followed by a discourteous silence despite the promise of a further call, only helped to hasten my decision.
This is to sever my relationship with the SMH. I am supposed to give three months' notice. But before your call I had already bought and paid for my ticket to Europe in July, during which I intended to take leave, and I am not prepared to change this arrangement. Therefore, I would like to resign effective as of the end of June. If you wished me to serve out the full three months' notice, I would feel obliged to work during August and September, but would prefer not to.
I offer you my commiserations on the situation in which you find yourself. It is not only your fault, but that of the SMH and Fairfax journalistic staff generally.
They’ll miss Paddy. Adding to the fun, a senior Sydney Morning Herald identity told me the other day that the paper is "trying to get rid of" Kingston, but is terrified of a psycho-backlash from various Indymedia types. Meanwhile the search for somebody to edit the SMH's sister paper, the Melbourne Age, continues.
John Menadue -- a man with "a distinguished record in public life", according to the Sydney Morning Herald's Tony Stephens -- has a wild and crazy idea:
He is preparing to launch a national, independent electronic political weekly newsletter that, he says, will "break news that is relevant to a more modern and generous spirited Australia and professionally analyse events and issues".
Mr Menadue believes his newsletter, New Matilda.Com, can challenge existing media, which he calls predictable and tightly controlled.
It is -- by the Left, to which Menadue belongs. His supporters include John Button, Elizabeth Evatt, Lowitja O'Donoghue, John Clarke, Robert Manne, Peter Redlich, Ian Macphee, Hugh Mackay, Michael Kelly, Graham Freudenberg, Julian Burnside, Stephen Duckett and Eva Cox. Allow the deluded person to continue:
"Our editorial position will be pluralist, liberal and relevant to a modern and more humane Australia," he said yesterday. "Public life must be based on enduring values - truth and openness, respect for all, justice, fairness and human flourishing."
Lefty Tim Dunlop has already trashed Menadue's idea. Who needs New Matilda when we've already got Fairfax and the ABC?
Bjorn Lomborg on enviro-doom crap-feature The Day After Tomorrow:
The movie's website provides links to news reports from February about "a secret report prepared by the Pentagon" that warned climate change would "lead to global catastrophe costing millions of lives".
What the movie's promoters don't reveal is that the Pentagon report was a hypothetical worst-case scenario – one that has been thoroughly debunked.
Months ago. Don’t these people have any real evidence to work with?
• Cannes judge Tilda Swinton explains the true meaning of Michael Moore's Fahrvergnuegen 9/11: "It's possible to see that this film is not about Bush, America, or Iraq, but about the system, in a very precise way. It's about the dialectic between film-makers, the media, and the audience." Ohhhh-kay ...
• Uday Hussein owned a bunch of cars, including two Mercedes sedans with "war scenes painted on the doors." And people were worried about Uday’s dignity after those corpse pictures.
• Natasha Stott Despoja and Nine network newsreader Hugh Riminton travelled at taxpayers' expense while they "investigated the differences between European parliamentary systems." So that’s what they’re calling it these days.
• If the highlight of Madonna's concert was a rendition of John Lennon's Imagine, accompanied by a video of sick and injured children from around the world, what the fuck was the lowlight?
• If you haven’t already, please enjoy this discussion between a heavy metal musician and a dipstick 22-year-old Chomskyette. (Via Sullivan.)
• In yet more music news, Jewel is losing it.
• Jonah Goldberg writes: "Cricket is not a sport. It's complete nonsense the British and their subjects do to keep the rest of the world confused." Oh, please. What’s so difficult about the leg-before-wicket law as it applies to deliveries that pitch outside the line of the stumps, except in such cases as the batsman is judged not to be playing a shot?
• Spanky the circus clown was arrested last week on charges involving child pornography.
• Richard Reeves believes that the ignorant should be appeased: "If young women on the streets of Rome are comparing America's president to Hitler, they probably are going to see other Americans as brutes and thugs who ignored the obvious at home and unthinkingly followed orders in dehumanizing prisons and other symbols of military occupation far from home." More Eurohate is evident in Britain -- from the Right.
• "You go and spend $8 for a lobster," declares Dover lobsterman Edward Heaphy, "you want a good-looking lobster."
• Fox movie man Roger Friedman reviews controversial global-warming terror flick The Day After Tomorrow, When We’re All Killed Because Bush Didn’t Ratify Kyoto. His verdict: two globally-warmed thumbs down.
Interesting line from the NYT’s Daniel Okrent in this OJR piece on bloggers who challenge newspaper inaccuracies:
"In some instances, some are so partisan -- even though they're right in many instances -- they're immediately discredited within the newsroom because of their partisanship. If the comment comes from someone who isn't identified as a partisan, they take it much more seriously."
Explains a lot, doesn’t it?
Mentioned in this week’s Continuing Crisis column for The Bulletin are Saddam Hussein, Bob Brown, Natasha Stott Despoja, Andrew Bartlett, Brian Greig, Lyn Allison, Nicole Kidman, Andrew Murray, Peter FitzSimons, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Captain Cook, Mark Latham, Margaret O'Connor, Phillip Adams, Nick Grimm, and Michael Moore.
Also in The Bulletin: Alan Deans on the Nigerian email scamsters who ripped off a Saudi sheik, and Jennifer Byrne meets Salam Pax.
Via a reader, Professor Bunyip once again catches Phillip Adams stealthily exposing his audience to insidious American culture. Compare Phil’s lines with a piece from The New Yorker published a month prior:
New Yorker: "The favoured epithet among interns and residents is GOMER, which stands for Get Out of My Emergency Room"
Philip Adams: "Interns and residents in the US brand them with the epithet GOMER, which stands for Get Out of My Emergency Room"New Yorker: "Conventional medical wisdom holds that hypochondria is a hopeless condition and should be treated by ignoring it"
Philip Adams: "The general medical attitude is that hypochondria is time-wasting nonsense and should be treated by ignoring it"New Yorker: "women['s] nervous behaviour was typically interpreted as hysteria"
Philip Adams: "women's medical fantasies were, even then, deemed hysterical"New Yorker: "For some, fear of illness is so great that they avoid all doctors"
Philip Adams: "Some are so terrified of illness that they shun the medical profession"
The Bunyip’s laser-eyed correspondent writes:
I contacted Crikey.com, which seemed in disarray. Mediawatch's exec producer had the gall to tell me that what Adams had done was "not plagiarism". Then I contacted The Australian itself, and despite repeated correspondence from me over a period of several months, no acknowledgement or slap on Adams's pudgy wrist.
What, do you suppose, is going on? Why is this so complicated?
It isn’t complicated. It's pathetic.
(The Bunyip has been in ripping form lately, so go visit.)
UPDATE. Gomer's support of our intervention in the Solomons has upset someone:
Phillip Adams does not understand that our involvement in the Solomon Islands is linked to our invasion of Iraq. Both are examples of Australian imperialism at work. The Solomon Islands is our Iraq. Not the same outcome, of course, but the same drivers.
John Passant, Kambah, ACT
Scroll to page 71 (bottom right corner) of this Hansard pdf file to enjoy a Parliamentary critique of the Sydney Morning Herald’s plastic turkey correspondent -- who doesn’t mention the subject in his column today. Probably saving it for Saturday, when he'll quote the entire thing.
Meanwhile, a conservative ABC boardmember has addressed some Media Watch issues:
Dr Brunton's "essay" raised concerns about Media Watch's report of the Hutton inquiry into the suicide of UK weapons expert David Kelly. He also questioned the program's treatment of columnist Janet Albrechtsen through its coining of the verb "to albrecht" - meaning to lift and twist sources to suit the writer's purposes.
ABC director of television, Sandra Levy, would like to assure everybody that Media Watch did not breach any of the ABC's editorial policies.
What the hell is Time magazine’s Mary Corliss talking about?
Last week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Iraq and, to the cheers of his military audience, defiantly called himself "a survivor" (a word traditionally reserved for those who have lived through the Holocaust or cancer, not for someone enduring political difficulties).
I hope Corliss points out to fellow Time staffers Karen Tumulty ("Bill Clinton, who was the ultimate political survivor") and Richard Lacayo ("What makes Clinton a survivor?") that they have violated this ancient and noble tradition. Of which nobody has ever heard.
Bjørn Stærk on Norway’s first casualty in Afghanistan:
Tommy Rødningsby (29) volunteered to make life better in a country far away, in a conflict he could have stayed out of. That was brave, and worth our respect and admiration. Our politicians and pundits are soft and confused, but our professional soldiers stand comparison to anyone.
Read the entire post.
Brief ideological descriptions of people or groups in the news help audiences understand the perspective of those people and groups.
So it is a good thing that the ABC describes the Hudson Institute as a conservative think tank, the Darwin Research Institute as a conservative think tank, the Fraser Institute as a conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute as a conservative think-tank, (and a classic neo-conservative Washington think tank), the Rand Corporation as a conservative think-tank, Gerard Henderson as a conservative think-tank commentator, the Institute of Public Affairs as a conservative think-tank (and a well known conservative think tank), the Centre for Independent Studies as a conservative think-tank (and a Australian neo-conservative think tank), and the Heritage Foundation as a conservative think-tank.
See? Now everybody knows the background of these groups and people. Problem is, the ABC is reluctant to label non-conservative groups; for example, the lefty Australia Institute, which apparently exists in an ideological vacuum. According to the ABC, the Australia Institute is an influential national think tank, a Canberra-based public interest think tank, a think-tank that focuses on issues of public interest, a Canberra based think-tank, a public policy Think Tank, an environmental think tank, an independent public policy research centre based in Canberra, and even a think tank mostly funded from philanthropic trusts and with no party political affiliations.
In an ABC story mentioning both the Centre for Independent Studies and the Australia Institute, the CIS is described as "a privately funded conservative think tank" while the Australia Institute is merely "Canberra based". An inconsistent labelling policy may cause confusion. Luckily for the ABC’s Tony Jones, senior Liberal Tony Abbott was able to help him out during this 2002 interview:
TONY JONES: There's been a right-wing think tank raise the idea of a leadership challenge in the Liberal Party. The Australia Institute --
TONY ABBOTT: That's a left-wing think tank.
TONY JONES: The Australia Institute?
TONY ABBOTT: It's a left-wing think tank aligned with the Labor Party.
TONY JONES: All right.
Following Abbott’s clarification, the ABC referred to the Australia Institute as left-wing at least three times. Again, this is a good thing.
Perhaps Tony should call and remind them. The most recent mention of the Australia Institute on the ABC describes it as a public policy research centre.
(Via reader Geoffrey C.)
And what a lead it is:
Labor would win in a landslide if an election were held now, as more Australians than ever regard the Iraq war as unjustified, a new Herald Poll has found.
A week before John Howard heads to the US for meetings with President George Bush and the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on Iraq, the poll showed a strong majority - 63 per cent - thought the war was not justified, compared with 51 per cent in September last year.
Mr Latham's personal approval rating has shot up by eight points in NSW - his home state - over the last month.
It’s all due to the Margo Effect, finally kicking in after a hideous six-month incubation. No mere war can influence events so profoundly.
Madonna in January: "I am writing to you because the future I wish for my children is at risk. Our greatest risk is not terrorism and it’s not Iraq or the ‘Axis of Evil.’ Our greatest risk is a lack of leadership, a lack of honesty and a complete lack of consciousness."
Madonna’s opinion has now changed. Well, her latest concert series isn’t called the Reinvention Tour for nothing ...
History professor Elizabeth Eve reveals the Left’s latest tactic against war and Bush and the whole hegemonic petrodollar imperial Halliburton killing machine:
Elizabeth is part of Axis of Eve, a fledgling group of rabble-rousing feminists and anti-war activists who have taken to flashing their undies as a form of political dissent.
"I was teaching a class on imperialism, and I was delivering all this material that was kind of new and upsetting, and everyone was getting all worked up and upset, and I was getting all worked up and upset, and all of a sudden, all I wanted to do was flash my underwear! It was crazy."
Yes. Yes, it was. Or, as one of Elizabeth’s pantysisters explains:
"I think sometimes verbal discourse is insufficient as a mode of expression."
So shut up already. Here are the gals at a recent protest, which looks more like some kind of "Skanks for Bush" support march. All that free advertising!
(Via Florida Cracker, who notes that "none of the Eves find Kerry sexy". Also from the Cracker: therapy dogs!)
It was fun, during Pauline Hanson’s brief media-driven popularity, to attend meetings of her supporters and listen to them rail against globalisation and cheap imports and the destruction of local industry. And then watch them all drive home in inexpensive, reliable, imported Hyundais.
Recent troubles suffered by the uncompetitive Australian branch of Mitsubishi have revived some neo-Hansonite sentiment. Here’s Chris Sheil:
It was only last week that I stood with a friend looking across the docks at Port Adelaide, taking in what seemed like hundreds and hundreds of cars, waiting to be shipped out. 'Gees', I said, "imagine the blow to this place if Mitsubishi shuts down". We shuddered at the thought ... What would happen if everything produced in Adelaide was subject to a management stuff-up, or became cheaper to produce somewhere else in the world? We'd just shut the whole joint down I guess.
Poor shuddering Chris, all worried about the Australian car industry! Naturally, I assumed my pro-local pal owned an Australian-made vehicle. But asked about this -- you can find our conversation at the above link -- Chris became strangely evasive:
That's for me to know and you to explain what it possibly has to do with the issue. Whatever I drive has nothing to do with the "creative destruction" of capitalism, as Schumpeter termed it, somewhat politely imo.
The point is right or wrong (or debatable on the merits, if you must). Whatever any individual may drive has no standing in this context.
If you're into that kind of thing, why not blog a post over at Spleenville which asks everyone what they drive.
Good idea! I drive an imported Mazda MX-5. Chris Sheil drives a Weak Argument. Or a Schumpeter, whatever the hell that is.
• Mark Steyn’s latest:
Here's a story no American news organization thought worth covering last week, so you'll just have to take it from me. In the southern Iraqi town of Amara, 20 men from Scotland's Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders came under attack from 100 or so of Muqtada al-Sadr's ''insurgents.'' So they fixed bayonets and charged.
It was the first British bayonet charge since the Falklands War 20 years ago. And at the end of it some 35 of the enemy were dead in return for three minor wounds on the Argylls' side.
• Tim Dunlop attends a John Kerry fundraiser in Washington, and discovers widespread ignorance about the war in Iraq: "Not one person knew of Australia's involvement."
• It’s a full-on Michael Moore love fest over at the SMH, The Age, and The Australian. Jim Nolan’s is the lone voice of dissent.
• Aieeeee! The Blair Watch Project is out to get me!
• For quality reviews of Bogart classics, look no further.
• What about this month-long break I’m meant to be on? Well, I’ve cut way back on posting, but actual money work left more opportunity for blogging than I anticipated. And, again, much thanks to all who’ve recently donated.
• Jim Treacher seems to have broken Micah Wright’s mind.
• Air America host Randi Rhodes doesn’t know when World War II ended.
• Michael Berg, father of murdered hostage Nick Berg, will speak at a June 5 anti-war rally outside the White House. Berg recently wrote this for The Guardian:
I am sure that the one who wielded the knife felt Nick's breath on his hand and knew that he had a real human being there. I am sure that the others looked into my son's eyes and got at least a glimmer of what the rest of the world sees. And I am sure that these murderers, for just a brief moment, did not like what they were doing.
George Bush never looked into my son's eyes.
He never carved your son’s head off, either.
By studying Islam's self-image, we can collect symptoms of the 'disease' that ails Islamic society, writes Julian Nimio:
Of course, every Muslim is not always ignorant, hypocritical and obedient. Of course, Islam does not have a monopoly on ignorance, hypocrisy and obedience. But when we interpret Islamic society through these lenses, current events make a lot more sense.
(Note: a few proper nouns have been altered in the above extract, so that it "makes a lot more sense".)
George W. Bush hits the dirt:
President Bush fell off his bicycle Saturday while riding on his ranch, according to White House spokesman Trent Duffy.
Bush, who was accompanied on his bike ride by his doctor, Richard Tubb, a military agent and a member of the Secret Service, fell about 16 miles into a 17-mile ride.
Bush suffered minor abrasions to his chin, upper lip, nose, right hand and both knees, but was able to ride back home, Duffy said.
Drudge reports that John Kerry told journalists: "Did the training wheels fall off?" Which is an interesting statement.
UPDATE. The reason for Kerry's recent shoulder surgery? Fell off his bike in '92.
Fred Barnes on Michael Moore:
A few years ago Michael Moore, who's now promoting an anti-President Bush movie entitled Fahrenheit 9/11, announced he'd gotten the goods on me, indeed hung me out to dry on my own words. It was in his first bestselling book, Stupid White Men. Moore wrote he'd once been "forced" to listen to my comments on a TV chat show, The McLaughlin Group. I had whined "on and on about the sorry state of American education," Moore said, and wound up by bellowing: "These kids don't even know what The Iliad and The Odyssey are!"
Moore's interest was piqued, so the next day he said he called me. "Fred," he quoted himself as saying, "tell me what The Iliad and The Odyssey are." I started "hemming and hawing," Moore wrote. And then I said, according to Moore: "Well, they're . . . uh . . . you know . . . uh . . . okay, fine, you got me--I don't know what they're about. Happy now?" He'd smoked me out as a fraud, or maybe worse.
The only problem is none of this is true. It never happened. Moore is a liar. He made it up.
Meanwhile, Jean-Luc Godard reveals himself to be a Moore doubter:
Godard went on to say that the Flint, Mich.-born director lacks subtlety. "Moore doesn't distinguish between text and image," Godard argued. "He doesn't know what he's doing."
Also:
Publishing house ReganBooks announced plans this week to release an anti-Moore book called Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man. The book comes from authors Jason Clarke and David T. Hardy, the web agitators who run mooreexposed.com and moorelies.com, sites which are aimed at discrediting Moore's books and movies.
Michael Wilson is another anti-Moore activist. Check out the trailer for his upcoming film -- certain to win a standing ovation at Cannes!
UPDATE. The war is all about oil, according to Moore. So he’s doing his best to reduce Western dependence on the vile liquid:
As the limousine carrying Moore to his Cannes press conference pulls out of the Majestic, bound for the Palais less than 200 yards up the road ...
The entire Guardian piece on Moore is worth reading, by the way.
UPDATE II. Moore’s Cannes victory speech is characteristically modest and tasteful:
"I want to make sure if I do nothing else for the rest of this year that those who died in Iraq have not died in vain."
ABC correspondent Nick Grimm -- who, like all ABC staffers, is completely free of bias -- keeps the plastic turkey lie alive:
The company was responsible for providing thanksgiving dinner to none other than US President George Bush when he made a surprise visit to Baghdad last year, appearing in front of the cameras offering US troops that plastic turkey on a tray.
It’s been nearly six months since The Washington Post first wrote about Bush’s folkloric fowl. And in that very first report, we find this:
A contractor had roasted and primped the turkey to adorn the buffet line.
Whatever. Nick Grimm prefers to believe leftist cranks. Or maybe he’s following another of the ABC’s non-existent UN guidelines.
(Via reader Alan A.)
UPDATE: Yet more bogus turkey believers: Southern Illinois University physiology instructor Mick Youther, Australian Greens member of Parliament Michael Organ, and CNN correspondent Suzanne Malveaux. The fake turkey is true, because I can feel it in my soul!
Having received some unsettling photographs, Media Watch turns to World Net Daily for help:
Calling Americans "barbaric wild beasts" who are "born in brothels," likely Arab propagandists have sent a group of "rape" photographs – including some WND uncovered as fake images taken from a pornographic website – to an Australian TV program.
Staff of the program, called "Media Watch," contacted WND yesterday to get help identifying the photos, which the senders claim depict U.S. servicemen raping Iraqi women. WorldNetDaily was able to confirm that all eight "rape" photos were taken from the same pornographic site previously identified, "Sex In War."
World Net Daily’s work was mentioned earlier by Professor Bunyip and in The Bulletin. Research-averse Sydney Morning Herald columnist Alan Ramsey was duped by the “rape” images, which should earn him a Media Watch citation.
Wonder if they’ll also bring up Ramsey's plastic turkey blunder; not likely, considering this email I received from Media Watch executive producer Peter McEvoy after I wrote asking him why the turkey myth hadn’t been mentioned on his program:
Why don't you do the work to investigate this turkey yourself, and publish the results in your column?
Silly me. Here was I thinking a show called "Media Watch" might actually conduct such investigations itself.
(Via Bernie Slattery, who has lately reviewed his newspaper-buying habits. He isn’t alone.)
Following Ted Koppel’s lead, Garry Trudeau is making some easy money by publishing a list:
The names of more than 700 American service members killed in Iraq will appear in a "Doonesbury" comic strip during the Memorial Day weekend.
The comic will list chronologically the names of 702 soldiers killed through April 23, said Lee Salem, editor of the Kansas City-based Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes the strip.
"The intent is to recognize those who died," Salem said.
We're not exactly talking about a state secret here. Meanwhile, a rather longer list remains unrecognised by unfunny cartoonists and ponderous TV people alike.
• ABC, NBC, NPR, CNN, Newsweek, The New York Times, and The Washington Post all hyped the debut of Air America. What have they written since, as Air America slumps towards collapse? Not much.
• When the Melbourne Age claims that the prisoner abuse scandal has widened, it only means that they’ve got a new photograph of an event over which charges were laid following an investigation back in January.
• Attention, Danish Royal wedding fans! (ie, all Australian women). Photographer Hans Nyberg writes: "I know Australia saw much of the wedding on TV but you cannot see an event on TV the way you can in a 360 degree QTVR. I was assigned by Danish television to shoot panoramas from the event. And of course they are also in full screen QTVR which I have introduced on the net. You can view them all from Panoramas.dk where I have posted an additional full screen from the Cathedral." Or from here.
• Celebrate Arthur Chrenkoff’s 40,000th hit in just eight weeks by contributing to his reader competition. (Arthur is a recent addition to the blogroll at left, along with Election Projection and Chase Me Ladies.)
• Ted Lapkin writes: “Amnesty International has argued that the US violates the law of war by refusing to apply the Convention to Guantanamo detainees. Yet a sober perusal of the Third Geneva Convention reveals that US policy towards captured al-Qa'ida and Taliban fighters is consistent with the law of armed conflict.”
• Robert Fisk complains about "inhumanity" and "scare tactics". Except this Robert Fisk is a bear-shooting opponent who lives in Maine.
• Rejoice, followers of idiot women who can’t write! Maureen Dowd’s new book is "a powerful look at the current administration." And Margo Kingston’s new book is "a no-holds-barred expose of what she terms as John Howard's 'Anglo-fascist' agenda." Yay!
This article originally appeared in The Daily Telegraph:
"Michael Moore backs striking French workers," read the weekend's headlines from the Cannes Film Festival. In fact, the people Moore backed were the opposite of workers -- they were unemployed actors, and they were protesting about welfare cuts. So they weren’t actually on strike, either. An accurate headline might have read: "Michael Moore backs work-shy French dole mimes."
Accuracy tends to elude Moore, in Cannes to promote Fahrenheit 9/11, his latest anti-George W. Bush propaganda exercise. By all accounts it should satisfy the same gigantic audience that enjoyed Moore’s previous film, Bowling for Columbine, and his best-selling books Stupid White Men, Dude, What Happened to my Country?, and Hey, Commies! Buy This Book and Make a Fat Millionaire Even Richer!
A complete list of the misrepresentations in these works would run longer than a Kenyan marathoner. Among Columbine's howlers, Moore altered an old Bush/Quayle ad to include words that didn't appear originally, claimed that the U.S. gave $245 million to the Taliban, and described harmless missiles designed to launch weather satellites as "weapons of mass destruction". Central to Moore's new movie is an alleged conspiracy between the Evil Bush Family and Wicked Saudi Oilmen, which led to -- as Moore presents it -- the stealthy spiriting away from America of bin Laden family members following September 11.
This will excite people who haven't read the testimony from the 9/11 Commission, which cleared the US government of wrongdoing over the bin Laden family issue. (Incidentally, if Moore had serious evidence of governmental mischief, what was he doing concealing it for more than a year?) Little surprise that most of Mike’s causes end up destroyed. Hand him a cute little pet cause and he’ll hug it and pat it and squeeze it and hug it and ... oops. Dead.
Like Payback Tuesday, Moore's advance description of the 2002 congressional elections. "We will deny Bush control of the Congress," Moore predicted. Result: a massive swing to Bush. And Wesley Clark, of whom Moore said: "He will cream George W. Bush." Result: Wes was wiped. Moore’s latest pet cause is Iraqi insurgency. "They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow," Moore wrote, "and they will win."
Sure they will, Mike. Just like your handout-addicted French drama friends.
UPDATE. Here’s a roundup of views on Moore and his new load of crap. First, from the Hollywood Reporter:
What Moore seems to be pioneering here is a reality film as an election-year device. The facts and arguments are no different than those one can glean from political commentary or recently published books on these subjects. Only the impact of film may prove greater than the printed word. So the real question is not how good a film is "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- it is undoubtedly Moore's weakest -- but will a film help to get a president fired?
From Britain’s Daily Telegraph:
The simple truth about Michael Moore is that this self-righteous critic of corporate America is one of its most bloated beneficiaries. It is time someone made a film about him - and, we are pleased to report, someone is. Forget Fahrenheit 9/11: later this year, a young film-maker called Mike Wilson will unveil a documentary entitled Michael Moore Hates America, in which the self-proclaimed "slob in a baseball cap" will find his techniques turned on himself. Don't miss it.
The Dallas News:
Some journalists suggested there wasn't much new information in the film about President Bush and the Iraqi war.
From Ben Shapiro:
If anyone ever doubted that colleges are more similar to France than they are to mainstream America, Michael Moore's reception on campus should quell those doubts. As long as there are universities, Michael Moore and his ilk will never go out of business.
And finally, a quote from Moore that reveals a certain insight into the modern Left:
"It is rare, and I don't know when it's happened in the last 20 or 30 years, when someone on the left has crossed over to mainstream America," Moore said. "That's mostly the left's fault, because they don't know how to talk to real people. In fact, they don't really like real people, a lot of them."
That’s why they like you, Michael.
• Salam Pax revealed! He’s in Australia for the Sydney Wanker’s Festival.
• Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian: “A media willing to incite Arab outrage but spare our own is not a media interested in balance. This one-sided reporting of our own misdeeds eats away at our resolve to stay the distance. Indeed, one suspects that is its purpose.”
• The Sydney Morning Herald reports: "David Hicks received a prolonged beating from US military personnel during an interrogation soon after his capture in Afghanistan." The source for this claim? Hicks’ lawyer Stephen Kenny, who "gave no details of the abuse but said it was sanctioned by higher authorities."
• Four “people” have reportedly been arrested over Nick Berg’s murder.
• John Kerry’s daughter fronts the cameras in Cannes, while Kerry himself refuses to back the US-Australia trade deal.
Mentioned in this week’s Continuing Crisis column for The Bulletin are Mark Latham, Professor John Spencer, Tony Abbott, Julia Gillard, Steve Bracks, John Howard, Mike Seccombe, Alan Ramsey, Christopher Pyne, Sherrie Gossett, Laura Tingle, Nicholas Berg, Michael Berg, Alexander Downer, Paul Wolfowitz, Ian Moore, and Ruslana.
Also in this week’s Bulletin: Collingwood’s doomed year (including comment from Ann Potter) and a fine piece by Paul Toohey on Jim Krakouer.
UPDATE. Further to the dental issues mentioned in this week’s column, Julia Gillard advisor Jamie Snashall writes:
When the Senate Community Affairs Reference Committee inquiry into Public Dental Services published its report in May 1998, they found that when the Commonwealth Dental Health Program was abolished (abolition in the 1996 Budget, but funding would have run until the end of the 96-97 financial year)there were approximately 380,000 Australians waiting an average of 6 months for public dental care.
The Australian Health Policy Institute then commissioned a paper in 2001 from Prof AJ Spencer of Sydney University. He found that by May 2000, that figure had blown out to half a million people waiting for between 8 months and 5 years for public dental care. The collection of national figures has since stopped.
The waiting list figures I have (a compilation of State figures) - which are mid 2002 - are incomplete, but show approx 450,000 people waiting and that is excluding New South Wales figures.
From: Tim Blair
Date: Tue May 18, 2004 1:45:59 PM
To: David Marr
Subject: abc bias
Dear David,
Do you believe that Media Watch is an example of the ABC's lack of political bias?
Yours,
Tim Blair
From: David Marr
Date: Tue May 18, 2004 2:33:19 PM
To: Tim Blair
Subject: Re: abc bias
Yes.
UPDATE. Gareth Parker has more.
UPDATE II. So does Andrew Bolt:
Instead of simply vilifying non-Leftist commentators, why not give some a chance on your show to argue back? Isn't that fair?
Darrell Morris, the media liaison officer for James Cook University’s United Nations Society, sent me an email yesterday about AMUNC, which apparently is some kind of pretend-UN festival happening in Australia:
AMUNC is the Asia-Pacific Model United Nations Conference. This is the 1st time the conference is being hosted by a regional Australian University & the 2nd time in 10yrs that the conference is being hosted outside Melbourne & Sydney. The students organising this conference have a vision to expand & develop AMUNC into an Asia Pacific phenomenon.
The conference runs from 5-11 July is hoping to attract over 600 delegates from all over Australia, Asia& the Pacific to participate in a week packed full of diplomacy, social functions & other activities.
It is an annual event that attracts tertiary students from around the Asia-
Pacific region to a week of diplomatic frenzy. Student delegates who attend this conference role-play as ambassadors to the UN & affiliated organisations. The host university provides a realistic simulation in which dozens of international disputes are resolved.
Naturally, I expected the email to at some point invite me to this AMUNC-athon, where I might add to the realism by bribing pretend delegates with pretend oil money. I’d even planned to kiss a pretend George Galloway! But no invitation was included. Guess I’ll just have to role-play by sitting at home and doing nothing.
Reader IXLNXS writes:
Invading Iraq for one shell of outdated sarin gas equates to the local police kicking in your door and shooting your family because your supposedly have a huge weapons cache, and they end up finding a pistol.
Lets wait and see what else develops of this before the "Mission Accomplished" banner unveils shall we.
And reader CurrencyLad responds:
Your analogy should run like this:
Three of that family's neighbours had been shot at by the householder concerned. The Kurdish neighbours down the street had been poisoned to death. The police issued operational commands for the household to be lawfully raded by SWAT unless the madman came out peacefully. Affadavits had been signed by most of the local citizens attesting to the relevant crimes.
The miscreant householder didn't come out with his hands up. A few of the neighbours were being bribed to look the other way, as were a few police officers. Fearful for their well being, some of the neighbours facilitated the rading of the house by a coalition of security firms. The madman was removed.
Doesn't even really matter whether or not they found weapons in the manhole or the basement. As it happens, they found a few. Kurdish neighbours will not be slaughtered again, others will not be burgled again. Madman's children will not be abused again.
Mission goddam accomplished.
By the way. this brief return to blogging is made possible by various happy money-related factors. Many thanks to all who’ve donated in recent days; an actual Pledge Drive is planned for later in the year. Sydney readers are invited to purchase a copy of today’s Daily Telegraph, in which I make several observations on the subject of Michael Moore’s new film.
Due to space limitations, the word “fat” appears only once.
John O'Sullivan in the Chicago Sun-Times:
Admittedly, reporters and editors make mistakes. But when all the mistakes are on the side of opposing the liberation of Iraq, and none of the mistakes favor the United States or Britain or Bush or Blair, it tells you something.
Namely, which side they're on.
Absolutely.
The Odd Couple star Tony Randall has died at 84. To hell with Friends; Felix and Oscar were far cooler than Rachel and ... umm ... that guy who can’t act, and had a monkey. Paulo? Geoffrey? Apple? Whatever his name was.
Also, their apartment was better.
I've got a lot of paying work to complete, so I’m taking the next month off. See you back here June 13. Meanwhile, please check out the (recently updated) links at left.
Robert Fisk, last week:
Just look at the way US army reservist Lynndie England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi. Take a close look at the leather strap, the pain on the prisoner's face. No sadistic movie could outdo the damage of this image.
Really, Robert? Take a look at the the beheading of Nick Berg, via a currently overloaded link at LGF. Sane readers might also examine this butchery, and afterwards wonder at The Melbourne Age’s headline:
US rocked by 'execution'
Excuse me, but is there some doubt that Berg was executed? Did his head just accidentally fall off, and roll into the hands of the masked bastard who held it up before the camera? Here’s Farifax correspondent Marian Wilkinson’s intro:
The beheading of a US citizen by Islamic terrorists in retaliation for abuses at Abu Ghraib prison has rocked the Bush Administration as it battles increasing violence in Iraq triggered by graphic photographs showing prisoners being abused and a Senate inquiry into the scandal.
Berg was kidnapped on April 9, some twenty days before any Abu Ghraib photographs were revealed. For what retaliatory reason was he taken prisoner in the first place?
Berg’s subsequent execution -- imagine the mindset of a person who’d run that word in quotes -- was plainly opportunistic and intended to capitalise on media-driven Abu Ghraib hysteria. Prior to Berg’s capture, we knew that Larry T. Elliott, Jean Dover Elliott, Karen Denise Watson, and David E. McDonnall were murdered on March 16; that four US contractors were slain on March 31 and their bodies suspended from a Euphrates River bridge; and that Fabrizio Quattrocchi was executed on April 15. These crimes were in retaliation for what?
Wilkinson supplies a slightly different introduction to her piece for the Sydney Morning Herald:
The beheading of an American in Iraq in retaliation for the abuse of prisoners has rocked the Bush Administration as it emerged that the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, had approved harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay.
The SMH’s headline?
Chilling payback over abuse scandal
Sickening.
UPDATE. Consider, in the wake of Berg’s murder, Dan Rather’s words:
"What drives American civilians to risk death in Iraq? In this economy, it may be, for some, the only job they can find."
They could always read autocues. As an antidote to all of the above, view this.
A little over a year ago, CNN rejoiced in its new-found freedom to report the truth about Iraq:
As Baghdad fell last week, CNN announced that it too had been liberated. On the New York Times' op-ed page on Friday, Eason Jordan, the network's news chief, admitted that his organization had learned some "awful things" about the Baathist regime--murders, tortures, assassination plots--that it simply could not broadcast earlier. Reporting these stories, Mr. Jordan wrote, "would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff."
Gary Bauer points out today that formerly-cautious CNN has since become "a non-stop media frenzy machine" on the prison abuse scandal. Did CNN consider whether any lives might be jeopardised? In other journalism news, Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker piece begins thusly:
In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women—no accurate count is possible—were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits.
In the looting that followed the regime’s collapse, last April, the huge prison complex, by then deserted, was stripped of everything that could be removed, including doors, windows, and bricks.
Correction: the prison wasn’t looted. It was souvenired. That’s the word Paul McGeough uses, anyway:
Perhaps the inmates of Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison should count themselves lucky that in the days after last year's US-led invasion, one of my press colleagues souvenired the noose from the gallows in the prison west of Baghdad.
That word only applies when journalists are involved, however. Non-media souvenir hunters are simply looters, according to McGeough. Looters "who went through the buildings like locusts." They were, he wrote, "a product of the regime that has shaped them - poorly educated, hungry for revenge after decades of oppression and unable to appreciate the damage they are doing to the country that is theirs."
Which makes them different to journalists ... how, exactly?
(An earlier mention of this story here.)
UPDATE. Mark Steyn:
The media are happy to show us Iraqi criminals on dog leashes night after night, because they shame Americans. To see the Berg or Pearl videos would anger Americans, and that doesn't suit the media's purposes. The Islamists have begun to figure this out. That AOL headline could just as easily have read "Abuse Scandal Media Overkill's Deadly Fallout".
Australian Michael Moore publicist Stephanie Bunbury continues her good work:
Moore, the polemicist behind Bowling for Columbine, has spent the last week fighting Disney and, so far, winning every round. Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, about George Bush, the Bin Laden family and their collective dirty deeds, was made under the auspices of Miramax, a Disney subsidiary, but Disney is refusing to distribute it. Moore says that this is an issue of free speech, since its refusal may mean it is never seen in America.
There is no Arab country - none - in which prisoners aren't treated immeasurably worse than the victims of the sadists in uniform at Abu Ghraib.
Ralph Peters kicks off a mini wrap-up of various Abu Ghraib pieces. My own view? The prison abuse is abominable, in and of itself, but doesn’t speak to wider issues involving the war, the occupation, or the liberation of Iraq. The racism of some western coverage -- which assumed Iraqis would be universally hateful towards the US following publication of the torture photographs, as though Iraqis aren’t capable of telling good (liberation) from bad (naked men menaced by dogs) -- is blatant, and is refuted by sites like Iraq the Model, among others. Iraqis, more than most, are aware that good and evil can co-exist within nations. Anyway, the wrap-up:
In Canada’s Globe and Mail, Laura Robinson writes that the abuse nearly reached the level of hockey hazing:
The brutal sadomasochistic acts themselves are hardly original. They are strongly reminiscent of the initiation rites some soldiers themselves report taking place at the start of their military service.
The truth is, they also bear a striking resemblance to what junior and NHL hockey players have told me formed part of their own initiations in playing hockey in this country.
That via Ed Willett. Dennis Prager questions media priorities:
One day, a Sudanese black will scour the world press archives to find out what the world was preoccupied with while her family and hundreds of thousands of other Sudanese blacks were raped, enslaved, ethnically cleansed of their lands and murdered. She will learn the world was deeply concerned with a couple of dozen Iraqi men photographed in humiliating sexual positions.
Musa Keilani is quoted here on related matters of outrage imbalance. Rachel Ehrenfeld raises similar issues:
While the world is busy denouncing the United States for the deplorable behavior of a few soldiers, it is oblivious to growing incitement by Islamist clerics against America and the West. Calling for jihad earlier this month in London, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad told his disciples: "All Muslims of the West will be obliged to become his sword" in a new battle. At the same time, another Islamist, Imam Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri, is preaching in London that "it's okay to kill [those who] work against Islam, by slitting their throats, or by shooting them."
Blogger Cicada catches The Guardian in its latest contradiction, wherein it first denounces “coalition partner” Britain as implicated in the Bush regime’s crimes before declaring of Bush:
More important, however, is his international policy agenda, which has been consistently unilateral and destabilising.
Consistently unilateral -- but with partners. Guess it makes sense to The Guardian.
(Much thanks to contributor J.F. Beck)
UPDATE. You want your abuse of prisoners? Click here.
This week’s Continuing Crisis column in The Bulletin mentions Bilal, Hakeem, Musad, Charles Darwin, Mark Latham, Aphrodite, Pauline Hanson, Bonnie Bryant Hiller, Claudia Karvan, Osama bin Laden, Paul Bremer, Shakespeare, Sheik Abdul-Sattar al-Bahadli, Reemon A'adel Sami, Imad Al-Sa'ad, and Iraq the Model.
Hugh White, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, believes the UN’s credibility will save Iraq:
Iraq needs the power of the US and the credibility of the UN. The US must sustain its huge commitment of resources to Iraq, but put the UN unambiguously in charge of the whole operation.
Let's be clear how radical this suggestion is. US forces would remain in Iraq, but come under UN command. The massive US aid effort would continue, but under UN control. The UN should take full responsibility for the management of Iraq's political transition, and America would surrender to the UN its say over Iraq's political and strategic future. Paul Bremer would be replaced by a UN-appointed High Commissioner, answerable to the Security Council