Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Crikey, Crikey needs an editor

Interesting news from the northwest of Western Australia:
Crikey recently visited the area...
Crikey, or a semi-literate "journalist" in its employ, might have visited the Kimberley region but this doesn't prevent it being incorrectly described as "an expanse of desert". That's enough for a great big fail for this "investigation".

The "investigation" is littered with lots more errors and is very poorly written, at one point referring to an "evasion of privacy".

The investigative journalist who wrote this near-gibberish should do himself and the obviously editorless Crikey a favour by investigating the possibility of taking remedial English lessons.

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Sunday, November 27, 2011

Bye Bye Aztec Sapphic Studies...

Whilst I'm hesitant to suggest we copy the Chinese on anything (usually it's the other way around) this is interesting:
China’s Ministry of Education announced this week plans to phase out majors producing unemployable graduates, according to state-run media Xinhua. The government will soon start evaluating college majors by their employment rates, downsizing or cutting those studies in which less than 60% of graduates fail for two consecutive years to find work.
Yes, we do need the arts and social sciences. But I do cringe when I see useless people occupying a park bitching that after racking up all that debt on a useless degree, they can't get work.


(Yes, I know the sign is a joke)

Friday, November 25, 2011

Batteries Not Included

Green fans are getting a buzz out of a new hand-cranked vibrator that makers say could help save the planet.
Presumably by letting moonbats satisfy themselves rather than breed.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

$500 million date

Catastrophic bush fires in the southwest of Western Australia have overshadowed news of a blowout in the cost of a government funded scheme encouraging solar cell installations.

The scheme, originally projected to cost $23 million, could end up costing taxpayers over $500 million.
Synergy yesterday confirmed about 75,000 West Australian households, non-profit organisations and educational institutions had taken up the scheme between September last year and August 1, when Energy Minister Peter Collier suspended it.

The scheme provided a flat buyback rate of 40c per kWh for anyone who signed up between September 10 last year and May 1 this year. Those who took up the scheme between May 2 and July 1 got 20c for every kWh they sold back to the grid, and the rate was 7c per kWh between July 2 and August 1.

Synergy continued to be inundated with applications for the scheme even after the rates were cut ...  in the weeks after the cut-off, confusion reigned over which applicants had beaten the deadline. As a result, all applicants were signed up.
Government in action, and especially when pandering to environmentalists, is a wondrous thing to behold.

New Hiring Policy

Via Gateway Pundit, an interesting hiring policy.

What Occupy Needs...

More Cowbell.

There will be peace when the Arabs love their own children more than they hate ours.

Palestinian Lobbyist Moammar Mashni writes in ABC's The Dumb:
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), "as of 1 October, 164 Palestinians under 18 year of age were detained by Israeli authorities, most of them under charges of stone throwing". Yet these children did not rate a mention in the recent prisoner swap that took place in Israel/Palestine – why?
Simple. Because the Palestinians never asked for them.

Mashni should instead ask why the Palestinians not ask for all these alleged "children" when it provided Israel with a list of prisoners, and preferred instead the release of baby killers and murderers.

The answer is simple. Palestinian children being locked up is good propaganda. Just as Palestinian children are encouraged to die for Allah, Palestinian mothers celebrate when their children blow themselves up for Allah. Elsewhere in the Middle East, child slavery and forced marriage of nine year olds (just as Mohammed liked them) continues.

As Golda Meir said, there will be peace only when the Arabs love their own children more than they hate ours.

Mashni continues the myth that the children locked up were merely chucking a few stones. A comment in the piece calls him on his 'taqiyya' (lies):
According to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers "2004 Global Report on the Use of Child Soldiers", there were at least nine documented suicide attacks involving Palestinian minors between October 2000 and March 2004. According to the Israel Defence Forces from September 2000 through 2003, 29 suicide attacks have been carried out by youth under the age of 18, 22 shootings attacks and attacks using explosive devices were carried out by youth under the age of and more than 40 youths under the age of 18 were involved in attempted suicide bombings that were thwarted.”
Nice kids!

Monday, November 21, 2011

Amazing Photos

The Atlantic has been running a series of photos during and immediately after WWII.

Amazing stuff.

Hypocrisy Thy Name is Antony

Antony Loewenstein has spent plenty of time actively trying to promote a global boycott of Israeli products and businesses (or those which are simply Jewish owned).

Now that a fringe group of Israelis is trying to promote a boycott of businesses which employ Arabs, Antony is shocked. Shocked!

Boycotting Jews: Noble cause.
Boycotting Arabs: Raaaaaaaaacist......

I have always wanted to boycott the Palestinians, however the only product I'm aware of that they export, is Jihad and I'm already not buying that.

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Letter, Bombs.

In today's SMH:
Will the US use its new facilities in Darwin to store cluster bombs? If so Australians are entitled to know.

Cluster bombs kill and maim vast numbers of children. If there was ever a truly evil weapon this is it. Gillard must state whether Australia will be a party to this crime.

Meghan Stevens Mona Vale
"Cluster bombs kill and maim vast numbers of children". As opposed to all those other types of bombs? Well, except this one perhaps.

Like guns, the danger posed by bombs is a factor of who controls them. Unfortunately 'peace activists' seem to have a continuing inability to distinguish Good from Evil. So they equate Iran's nuclear aspirations with those of modern democracies. Or slag off American factory munitions for killing children accidentally but say nothing of exploding Muslim teenagers whose parents cheer at their deliberate murder of other children. Apparently that's not as much of an evil weapon...

Friday, November 18, 2011

Jeremy's special relationship

News Ltd obsessed Crikey media analyst Jeremy Sear takes exception to a News.com piece titled THE AUDACITY OF GROPE: Julia and Barack's special relationship.

No word from Jeremy on the Fairfax video True Love showing Gillard and Obama at a drive-in doing a lot more than groping.

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Thursday, November 17, 2011

Loew Output

Antony Loewenstein usually provides an abundant source of material to laugh at. However of his last dozen blog posts, nine were nothing more than Youtube clips, with Antony simply adding a headline (poorly written, of course).

Humourless Loewenstein even tried to find some sort of conspiracy in a Curb Your Enthusiasm clip.

I guess Antony's been busy. He must be working on that new book...



Luckily, Antony has learned he can simply lie about book sales and get away with it.

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Monday, November 14, 2011

Multiple realities occupied

Australian academics Ghassan Hage and Gerhard Hoffstaedter analyse the Occupy movement:
One of the Occupy battle cries in New York has been 'Respect our Existence or Expect Resistance'. The Occupiers will resist. But because they are their own demand, they are how they demand. They cannot opt for anything other than a pacifist occupation and assertion of existence. Can capitalist societies live with alternative realities existing right in the midst of their urban centres without trying to reduce them to a nuisance in their increasingly faltering capitalist reality? The governor of Oakland, the St Paul's Cathedral authorities in London and the Mayor of Melbourne couldn't. True to the neo-liberal spirit of the 1 per cent they tried to reduce them to the cost of their existence.


Many might think that the co-existence of multiple realities belongs to science fiction films such as Inception. But there is an important and growing body of work in anthropology showing that rather than being defined by individualism, or territorialism and private property, or instrumental reason, what marks our modernity is that it has increasingly limited us to become mono-realist. What marks the cultures of many non-modern peoples is not that they do not live in an instrumentalist and territorial reality but rather that this is not the only reality they live in. They are multi-realists experiencing their existence as a continual movement between intersecting realities. This is not to say that the Occupiers want to revert to a non-modern mode of existence. It is to assert that, the idea of societies that allow the co-existence of multiple realities is not a figment of someone's utopian imagination. It is to assert that, as the saying goes: another life is possible.
In the alternative reality inhabited by these two highly educated, mumbo jumbo-spouting bright sparks Oakland is a state rather than a city.

Prius One

The SMH motoring section reports on the baddest truck around.
President Barack Obama will not be riding in a locally-made Holden or Ford for his Australian visit. Instead he will be chauffeured in his custom-made, heavily armoured limousine, which is known in Secret Service circles as The Beast...

It is bullet-proof, bomb-proof, capable of withstanding chemical weapon attacks, and is guaranteed to stop traffic, because it travels as part of a motorcade that usually involves more than 20 police and security vehicles...

Beneath the stately looks the limo earns its nickname. It is reportedly built on the chassis of a GM truck, powered by a fuel-guzzling 6.6-litre V8 diesel engine.

That may not sound impressive, the engine packs more pulling power than a V8 Supercar. It needs all that grunt to haul around the weight of the added measures designed to protect its passenger from more than your average fender bender. Fuel economy is 29.4 litres per 100 kilometres - more than seven times thirstier than a Toyota Prius.

Mr Obama revealed last year that he wanted the car to be a hybrid, but even the President, and the unofficial head of General Motors, could not get his dream car. "I asked can we make these cars hybrids," he told a meeting. "Secret Service said no. Now the reason is not because Secret Service are bad guys. It's because these cars that I'm in are like tanks."
Should be enough to protect him from this woman.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

"Huge response" a huge exaggeration

According to New Matilda, its publishing of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship's contract with detention centre manager Serco has "attracted a huge response from NM readers..."

True enough, 21 of New Matilda's dozens of readers have so far commented on the "world exclusive" exposé. Massive. Truly massive.

You're not a Whore if it's for Charity.

Via Tizonas

"Captain" outrageous

Relentless self-promoter, Sea Shepherd supremo Paul Watson, describes himself as "the youngest founding member of Greenpeace". Greenpeace, which expelled Watson (by a vote of 11 to one, with only Watson himself in favour of his retention), disagrees:
He was an influential early member but not, as he sometimes claims, a founder.
Even way back then in the 70s, Watson's showboating didn't exactly endear him to his colleagues:
'No one doubted his [Watson's] courage for a moment. He was a great warrior brother. Yet in terms of the Greenpeace gestalt, he seemed possessed by too powerful a drive, too unrelenting a desire to push himself front and centre, shouldering everyone else aside… He had consistently gone around to other offices, acting out the role of mutineer. Everywhere he went, he created divisiveness… We all felt we'd got trapped in a web no one wanted to see develop, yet now that it had, there was nothing to do but bring down the axe, even if it meant bringing it down on the neck of our brother."
Like it or not, stand by for the yearly installment of Paul Watson's Southern Ocean rancid butter flinging follies.

Israeli Scientist: Sucking on an Exhaust Pipe Good for You

Scientists from Tel Aviv have gathered evidence that suggests we cope with the stresses of urban life by breathing carbon monoxide, an odorless poison gas found in car exhaust.

The oil-rich Arabs will love it! This might counteract the Israeli development of the Better Place electric car...

Thursday, November 10, 2011

B..b..b..but we're a peaceful protest.

Watch the video of what happens to a man trying to cross a picket line and attend work.

While they're blocking his movement and eventually damaging his personal property (car) and being violent, there's someone in the background shouting "peaceful" to remind them not to be thugs.

Rather like what happened in the video I posted earlier in the week wherein private property was smashed while someone insisted they be 'non-violent' and non-destructive.

Memo leftists: When you're smashing people and property, you really don't get to use that whole 'civil disobedience' and 'peaceful protest' boast. These moonbats are so oblivious to violence, it's no wonder they believe that suicide bombing babykillers are simply poor sods demonstrating 'resistance'.

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

More asylum seeker bashing from News Ltd xenophobes

News Ltd's right-wing hacks hint at what could be ahead for Australia if she doesn't take firm control of her borders:
As Greece slides towards the abyss of political and economic chaos, the country's enormous undocumented immigrant community is being blamed for adding to its woes.


Illegal immigrants who have swamped Greece's borders are accused of exacerbating the financial crisis that now threatens to infect other eurozone nations.
Ha ha dumbass, tricked you; that report was written by ABC correspondent Mark Corocran.

Ho hum Serco FOI exclusive

Amazing revelations from a team of crack investigative journalists writing for New Matilda, amongst which:
Serco Hires Untrained Guards
That headline is somewhat misleading in that Serco employs detention centre guards within the requirements of a contract written by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

Another stunner:
Serco is obliged to provide "tea, coffee, water and biscuits" when detainees have visitors and visiting areas must contain "hot/cold drinks and confectionery vending machines".
Yep, the New Matilda crew, which includes Antony Loewenstein, certainly earned its money in putting together this exclusive report.

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Clover Moore Takes the Piss

The Sun Herald, in reporting Sydney City Council's installation of portaloos notes:
The council's late night economy manager, Suzie Matthews, said cleaning up the results of public urination cost the council more than $7 million every weekend.
Are they hosing down the streets with Dom Pérignon?

Monday, November 07, 2011

Why This Country is Stuffed.

Want to know why Bad Government get away with being bad? Because the 'silent majority' never say a word between elections.

No matter how bad things get, aside from the odd angry call to talkback radio or letter to the editor, they say nothing. Why don't they protest? This is why.


Spoiled little brats who completely take their freedom for granted, have made 'protest' synonymous with violence, destruction and pepper spray.

People living in dictatorships who see this must surely cringe at these clowns.

We are All Individuals

Via Tim Blair's Rape poll, I was led to some of the "Occupy" movement's Wikipedia pages. Have a look at their Wikipedia entry describing the "Human Microphone"
A human microphone, also known as the people's microphone, is a means for delivering a speech to a large group of people, wherein persons gathered around the speaker repeat what the speaker says, thus "amplifying" the voice of the speaker without the need for electrical or pneumatic amplification apparatus.

The speaker says a few words of a speech and then pauses. Those that can hear what the speaker has said repeat it in unison, and when finished, the speaker says a few more words, and then pauses for the those who can hear to repeat those words, and so on.
Just like this?



The Wikipedia article continues:
Several in the media have compared its use to a similar repetition in the 1979 film The Life of Brian.
There was no repetition in the film. They don't even know when people are taking the piss out of them.

Sunday, November 06, 2011

Humiliating Occupy

Via The People's Cube:
In the glorious spirit of erstwhile Protest Warriors and Communists for Kerry, disorganized multitudes of pro-capitalist miscreants and saboteurs are getting organized again! Meet Liberate Wall Street - a loose coalition of the willing to mock, satirize, and expose the leftist absurdities of the Wall Street Occupussies.
Sadly this wouldn't work at Occupy Sydney, where a few people turning up to taunt and mock would dramatically increase the number present.

Memo to 'Occupy'

This guy is also well and truly in the 1%.

Christmas Cheer for the Troops

Via Kae, this is awesome.
SUPPORT OUR SOLDIERS!

The parcel
• must be 2kg or under, and
• must be the size of a BM Australia Post cardboard box or smaller,
• must not contain aerosols, batteries or other goods prohibited in the post,
• must be accompanied by a customs douane,
• must be posted by someone who has a photo identity (drivers licence).

Australia Post carries the parcel free as long as it is under 2kg in weight and under the size of the BM box from anywhere in Australia to the AFPO in Sydney.
Gav Atkins also referred me to a related article on Reddit, containing one of the most touching stories about porn I've read.

Saturday, November 05, 2011

Trick or Trebuchet

What do you do with all those extra pumpkins the weekend after Halloween? Follow two brothers Sharif 14 and Zakary 9 in their quest for a win in the youth trebuchet category.



Fun, huh? It would get you arrested and charged in NSW. Watch the related videos: "Pumpkin versus van" and "Pumpkin shooter vs House".

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Unhealthy Obsession

Antony Loewenstein believes:
Peace-loving Britain, America and Israel may soon engage in yet another “liberation” in the Middle East:
Total number of times Israel appears in the Guardian article upon which he bases his claim: Zero.

Antony videoed Noam Chomsky speaking to a handful of people at whatever's left of "Occupy Sydney". One of the 'organisers' asked Chomsky to take part in the 'human microphone'. Didn't happen. Perhaps Chomsky is smart after all.

Antony "Let the debate continue" Loewenstein has disabled comments on his videos. I guess it's easier then manually censoring the ones which disagree with him.

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Robert Spencer to Speak in Australia

America's outspoken researcher and bestselling author on Islam and Jihad will be touring Australia and will speak in the following cities:

  • Melbourne 26 November
  • Perth 27 November
  • Sydney 29 November
  • Brisbane 1 December.
  • Events in Canberra (30 Nov) and Cairns (4 Dec) are still being finalised.
The key theme for Spencer’s first Australian lecture tour is

Socio-Political Jihad - Conquering the West without Swords, Guns or Bombs.

Robert is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Centre, and author of ten books, including New York Times best-sellers 'The Truth About Muhammad' and 'The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam'. He has also written monographs for the David Horowitz Freedom Center: Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future (with David Horowitz); Obama and Islam (with David Horowitz); What Americans Need to Know About Jihad; The Violent Oppression of Women In Islam (with Phyllis Chesler); Islamic Leaders' Plan for Genocide; and Muslim Persecution of Christians.

Attendance at the lectures in Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Brisbane is moderately priced at $10 per seat.

More details can be found on the website www.qsociety.org.au

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Allah Likes them Fully Shaved

The Daily Telegraph reports:
JUST why an Afghan soldier chose to turn his weapon on a group of Australian army mentors, killing three of them and an Afghan interpreter and wounding seven, may never be known.

Previous insider attacks on coalition forces have been claimed by the Taliban, but Defence Minister Stephen Smith called for caution in attributing motive in this case.

"We may never know the motivation. With the previous instance, we never knew what the motivation was," he told Sky News.
The Prime Minster weighed in similarly:
Prime Minister Julia Gillard told parliament on Monday the nation's politicians shared a small part of the grief of the families of three soldiers.

She said it was critical that the nation show restraint and reserve judgment until an investigation had been completed.
Maybe he was just having a bad hair day? The Telegraph reports in a related article:
According to military sources, the Afghan had shaved his body and was wearing a white shroud under his uniform when he mowed the Diggers down with a machine gun in a pre-meditated attack.
A 2008 article in Slate (and any number of 'how to spot a suicide bomber' guides written since, gives a small clue:
U.S. Forces raided a suicide-bombing network in Iraq over the weekend, killing 12 men in the process. Six of the dead had shaved off their body hair, which military officials said is "consistent with final preparation for suicide operations." Why would a terrorist shave before blowing himself up?

So he's clean when he enters heaven. Traditionally, Muslims purify corpses by washing the skin and nails and sometimes by shaving the pubic hair. But suicide attackers are deprived of a proper burial, since there are usually no remains. To compensate, the attackers shear themselves ahead of time, both to guarantee some level of cleanliness at the time of instant incineration and to prove extreme devotion to personal purity. Some scholars offer an alternative explanation: They believe that suicide terrorists adopted the no-hair practice from the Pashtun tribesmen of Afghanistan, who shave their bodies before going into battle.
Any further questions, Minister? Or are we still going to avoid talking about Islam altogether.

I'm warming up to Professor Bunyip's analysis:
We were right to oust the Taliban in the days after 9/11. That was the mission and it was achieved with courage and competence. Now it is touchy-feely soldiering -- building roads and attempting by gentle, culturally sensitive means to persuade an insane, inbred smear of flyblown villagers and boy-buggerers that there might be some advantages to following the rest of the world's lead and leave the seventh century behind.
Especially while the men who should be over there rebuilding Afghanistan are instead turning up here by the boatload to build enclaves, while our own soldiers are over there getting shot instead of here with their families.

At the very least, perhaps we can fight a war like we plan to win it, rather than trying to win a popularity contest.