:: Wog Blog ::

:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::

:: Tuesday, 10 August 2004 ::

Gubshite rubbish froma skippy academic....natch

"Envy in a wode brown land" is the article. Crapulous nonsense is the thesis. Slamming Oz and everyone in it is the go, you know. No linky goodness - Fin Review Friday 6 August.

Ahem:
...technologocial progress has led to insufficient emphasis on how we relate to each other..."

"...Alain de Botton's work [Status Anxiety] addresses this lack..."

"...the quest for love...can produce severe anxieties that affect our capacity to find contentment in life...

"...two hundred years of rapid progress has on average made our lives longer, healthier and immensely richer in term of possessions..."

"...Yet given these achievements why aren't we happier than we are? According to de Botton ...in order to feel good about ourselves we need to feel better than somebody else..."

"...A fairly meritocratic democracy maximises the number of perceived equals and as a consequence status anxiety is magnified. Envy is almost everywhere you look..."

"...In a modern meritocracy we are all taught the possibility of 'rags to riches', of successas entirely a matter of effort..."

"...the role of chance in the way society works has been minimised. Australian society is perhaps more afflicted by status anxiety than most..."

"Australia does not have the residual culture or customs of older societies that manage to check modern status anxiety (such as Europe..."..."

WHA'?! NO WOGS? ZIF.

"...unlike America...there is a sense of Australia as an accidental nation that has drifted into prosperity on the bounty of its natural resources. This lack of convincing origins and absence of a sense of mission haunt the Australian psyche. It can be found in a range of attitudes, past and present, including the persistence of fealty to the "mother country" the cultural cringe."

O. So now there ARE wogs. O, but I do not think the author is referring to them. Just Pommy Irish Scots Welsh fealty. So, really, there are still no wogs.

"...egalitarianism...tall poppy syndrome....'he thinks his shit doesn't stink'...lowest common denominator..."

"...Sadly the wealth frenzy in Australia over the past 25 years has seriously eroded the capacity of the egalitarian ethos to check status..."

"...conspicuous consumption..."

"Another reason why Australia is more in thrall to this financial arbitration of status is because we are a migrant society..."

O, so now there ARE wogs. And it is ALL THE WOGS' FAULT!

"...For migrants, money can help measure whether the enormous sacrifices of leaving the familiar for a new life have been worth it. Big houses, nice cars and the success of their children are insulation against and compensation for the loss of language, prople, places and ingrained sensory worlds."

O, but wogs are sad little folks who weep into their pasta and wine of a night time over their terrible loss of little houses and no jobs prospects (helloo, Europe after WWII when most wogs came to Oz.)

And the solution ladies and gents?

Brace yourselves cos you are so gonna retch:

More public ownership.

....

I will let that sink in.

....

Like Gino and Santina used to wake up in the morning sighing and wailing "wither the Commonwealth Bank. And Qantas. And wither my Italianness. My friends who I visit in Italy every year."

Who is the jackass author?

A wog hating skippy academic of course.

Who esle could be such a turd about Oz? Who else could be so profoundly ignorant about wog life in Oz, and how it has nought to do with status - it has to do with getting good stuff that you applaude.

Why buy the $500 toaster - cos it is the best in the world. It heats your toast while you wait to eat it. Why buy an Alfa Romeo car? Because it is a fine vehicle designed by people who care.

This imbecile author, Edward Wright is a stinking marxist jackass who wants us all in little boxes made of ticky tacky, and swimming at the municipal pool, not living in a nice personalised house with a pool in the back cos we like swimming.

His idea of heaven on earth is prolly Le Corbusier's Brasilia [Sooo wrong - Oscar Neimeyer's Brasilia - mille grazie to those readers who wrote to correct me - W], a blasted wasteland of commie patronising architecture that left people helpless even to put up their own freakin' choice of curtains in their apartment cos it would spoil the Totalitarian design lines.

Sheesh. How can this shite be even thought, much less published?

I reckon de Botton is seriously off the rails with this status anxiety thesis. He completely and utterly fails to see that acquisition is an act of applause - it is a declaration of delight.

I buy things cos they are made by folks who want me to like them, and I do sometimes, and that keeps those folks designing, making, which keeps people employed, which enables them to educate themselves or not as they please, and live their lives free from disease and decay, or not as they choose.

I buy things other people own because I share the other folks' view that the things are good and worth having.

I buy things cos they reflect me. I am not a community person. I am me, on my own, living in the community. Everybody acts like me in this way, and we come together every minute of every latitude and longitude sharing what we have and displaying everything that is good.

Edward Wright wants us all wearing little Mao Tse Tung uniforms singing songs to the Beloved Community.

Silly fucker has never watched a World Cup obviously. If he had he would see a festival of community right there. Or just the AFL of a winter's weekend in Oz.

What an empty headed wog hating jackass. He cannot even see the wogs of Oz, living large because this is a great country that they happen to lerv.

He does not even see that it is not envy that builds a wog palace. It is wogness and disgracefully bad Southern Italian bad taste.

And it is not envy that makes a skippy get an architect to build a McMansion as he sneeringly puts it, near The Spit or down at Lorne. It is pleasure in sharing a bit of archiecture...with an architect.

Some people think too much.

And they are not very good at it.

Urgh.


:: WB 4:50 AM [link+] ::

Oh my. More giggles.



:: WB 4:43 AM [link+] ::

Swear to God, this has been making me laugh for over a week.

Scroll for cormorants.


:: WB 4:39 AM [link+] ::

Some top posts

On Kerry cutting and running. Interesting analysis from Tactitus

Interesting and beautifully written ( as always) work from Nelson Ascher.

Matt Welch listy goodness about superlefty publishing.


:: WB 6:10 PM [link+] ::

Second big ol case of the day

And I am delighted at the 6-1 result that saw Julian Burnside lose yet another immigration case.
Long story short, Iranian guy sails into Oz with no permission to enter and gets collected and detained at Woomera. He is there for about a year, appealing his losing applications for a visa over and over again. Finally, in an act of extreme stupidity he makes a break for it (probably egged on by go goody wankers) and escapes only to be caught. Penalty for escaping detention is 5 years jail. Oh dear. Burnside, the bloke's hired mouth, has to come up with some argument to get his client out of having to go to jail for 5 years.

And Burnside's argument:

it is okay to escape detention if the conditions are not to your liking.

I shit you not.

6 judges said 'Get. Far. Away.'

One judge, Kirby natch, said "Hmmm. I think a man who has shown precisely no respect for any Oz law relating his presence in this country should be rewarded by grant of a permission to enter the Oz community because somewhere someone once wrote that they reckon Woomera is a 'concentration camp'."

Amemba the Spaniard and Englishman who set fire to the joint? Or was that Villawood? Whatever. Amemba the sewn together lips, the hunger strikes and throwing of the body onto the ground?

That behaviour is what made Woomera an awful cinderblock compound to be in. Nothing else.

And Burnside wanted to gather scads of 'evidence' of the 'inhumane conditions' at Woomera, which would doubtless include a bunch of Green propaganda, Terry Lane blatherings and some wankery from the UN High Commission for Refugees declaring all of Oz a rascist bigot central gulag with nazi overtones and Howard=Hitler yeeaah, you know the drill. It is prolly a good thing that he did not get that evidence together cos there would be extra evidence for sure of the disgraceful ways detainees themselves contributed to the 'inhumanity' and that might have even turned Kirby's mind.

As it is, 6-1 pretty much closes the door, although Kirby has his toe just blocking a full close. he really is insisting on Oz going down the lousy, in my view, path to using International Law - the wankiest and weakest practice known to lawyers - to change the makeup and jurisprudence of this, the greatest nation on earth......after Italy, of course, but only by a whisker.

If you can be asked do read the case and the one below. They are big deals.


:: WB 5:34 AM [link+] ::

It's a catfight. And on the High Court Bench too

Mr Justice McHugh has delivered a well deserved smackdown to Brother Judge Kirby as part of a 4-3 majority judgment on a critical High Court matter today.

Al-Kateb v Godwin is the sad case of a Kuwaiti born man of Palestinian background, never given citizenship in the country of his birth because that is how disgracefully Gulf Arabs and Arabs generally treat their Palestinian brothers when it all boils down. With no nationality he moved around the Middle East a little, and eventually, after doubtless being lied to solidly by disgusting peoplesmuggling scum, he arrived, doubtless after going through sundry safe havens on the way (not that he was fleeing persecution) on a boat into Oz with no permission to be here at all. Off he went into detention. He has played straight with the authorities after some waste of time claims to be let in, asking to be sent home, that is, Kuwait, or if that won't work to Hamas controlled Gaza.

But the Kuwaitis won't have him, pricks. And the Israeli's need another Palestinian in Gaza like they need a bomb on a school bus.

Sooooo, long story short, all the way to the High Court comes this critical case - is it lawful for the Oz government to detain a person who has no right to be in the Oz community for an unknown period of time for the purpose of sending him elsewhere, when the situation as it stands now is that the two 'elsewheres' where he might be sent have refused to take him, leaving him detained without light at the end of the tunnel that can be seen right now?

The answer is yes according to 4 out of 7 judges.

Why?

Because the detention is wholly lawful and because the statelessness of the individual is not a reason for release. Detention stays until you can be released. Full stop. And no amount of whiny 'morality arguments' will change it.

You know what needs to happen, don't you readers? Yes. You and I know. Sadly Justices Kirby, Gummow and Gleeson do not know. What should happen is that this poor bastard Al-Kateb should be made a cause celebre by all the "free the unlawful entrants" wankers to pressure Kuwait, the nation where he was born for goodness' sake, to take him back and grant him citizenship.

Instead, the do-goody folks, even those learned folks on the bench (and they are learned - I have huge respect, even for Kirby, cos whatever their conclusions they always back their arguments well) make fundamental errors of judgment when it comes to dealing with wogs. They think they are doing wogs a favour by gymnastically contorting Oz law, the Oz constitution itself, into a hat stand on which to hang every halfbaked international concept they can get their hands on to help the poor widdle wogs.

But being a 4-3 decision this is not going to shut down arguments of this type. But it might, just might, get the folks who make these claims thinking more carefully about who has done them wrong - and it ain't Oz.

It ain't Oz.




:: WB 3:57 AM [link+] ::

Five tips on how to live a more ... life

I found this seering shite in the SMH Sydney Magazine.

"Five tips on how to live a more ethical life" and it literally said nothing to me.

I saw the words on the page and the sound in my head was "zhshhhzzzhshhhhh, whooooooo" closely followed by Creedance Clearwater Revival's Green River, cos it in in my headset these days.

And here are the tips:

1. Cool global warming by insulating your home, buying compact flourescent lights, using public transport and cutting hot water consumption.

2. Reduce your ecological footprint by buying locally grown fruit and veg, printing on both sides of your paper, composting your waste and reusing shopping bags.

3.Before you buy something new consider whether the product is ethically made, renewable, biodegradeable, energy efficient, water efficient and organic.

4. Bear in mind Dr Seuss who said "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better, it's not."

5. Remember that, according to "New Scientist", the path to true happines lies in desiring less, helping others and having friends you value.

.....

Wipe your mouth, you got some puke bits still there. I will let you clean up and then you can come back to this.

Can you believe the emptiness, the crushing 'good will' and wankery in all this? I can hardly believe it. These dickheads, Mike Hanley and Adrian Monck, think that we are none of us living ethical enough lives. We need to be more ethical. And 'ethics' in their empty whitebread world is all about the environment. And about 'caring'.

I mean, puhlease. The first 3 points are like a pathetic politically correct description of an old wog's house:

1. ever bin in an old wog's house? It is cold. Cold like a fridge. Why? Cos they are too stingy to put the heater on anytime. Plus, most of them are wearing like eight layers of clothes, you know the dress and the apron and the cardigan and the second cardigan.

2. hello, tomatoes growing in the front garden of a terrace house.

3. who buys new? The mogorav is old, the frigo is ancient, the pots and pans come from Nonna and Nonno and everything is ethical and biodegradeable cos it's gonna all be left to the kids - that is what ethics (family) and biodegradeable (it breaks on someone else in the family's watch) means.

And the last 2 points are just pathetic attempts at social reengineering to castrate us all and turn us from individuals who love our culture and history into walking shame buckets who pretend we like folks when we actualy wish they'd all f-f-fade away. I mean:

4. Seuss? You call that poetry? Now, Orlando Furioso. That is poetry.

5. New Scientist? Wha.? Jesus, more like. And even he wasn't right about everything. You gotta look out for yourself and your family sometimes, most times, you know?

I reckon what is needed is less ethics and more wogs. More woginess:

1. Global warming is bullshit. The only warming you need is in your pants and on the Monaro first thing on a winter's morning.

2. Grow your own vegies, not because some wanker thinks its fun, but because they gotta be ready for botting sauce day and it is important that Zia Laura does not win again this year.

3. ask yourself - is it made in Italy? If it is, buy it.

4. Bear in mind Floyd Podgornick. He spent too much time with skippies.

5. the path to true happiness lies in the taste buds for food, wine and coffee, the hands for caressing, the balls of the feet for accelerating and the heels for breaking, the voice for laughter, arguments, storytelling, singing and communicating with those you love, wog and skippy alike.

But mostly, the secret to how to live more woggy is your life lies in the food and wine and cars and making love.

Pretty simple really.




:: WB 1:26 AM [link+] ::

Agger is a Bitch

Michael Agger, that is, "writer" with the New Yorker. Christ, if I had a job like that I'd kill myself before I got beaten to death by the Wanker Elimination Squad.

Why do I consider Agger a bitch? Well, have a read of this hitpiece all about nice little M. Night Shyamalan. Breathtakingly loony in its hatred and derision of a perfectly competent film maker.

I once met a man who had a pathological hatred of Lee Marvin. Lee Marvin, eh? You would have to be mad crazy to bother hating him, right?

And check out this nasty little spew all about, of all people, harmless Ashton Kuchner. Why?

And how bout this classic Agger-archness in which he spits blood over Will Farrell and misuses the word "irony".

Give you three guesses who Agger respects, but. Robert Altman of course, the man who hasn't made a decent movie since California Split and Nashville in the mid-70's, and do not bother me with the Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean nonsense because it is earnest unwatchable crap about women you would disown if you were sad enough to be related to them. Although I think Vincent is good work, but not cos of Altman. Cos of John Hurt.

And Agger just loves indie delight Mr Robert Redford, whose best turn, in my opinion, was also back in the mid-70's with The Hot Rock, The Sting, Jeremiah Johnson, The Great Waldo Pepper and All the President's Men.

Get this for sheer puke inducing film luvvie emptiness:

Altman was relaxing with a cup of tea, and he reminded Redford of a television show that they had worked on together some forty years ago. Redford replied, “I can’t remember yesterday, but I remember when I met you then, and you said, ‘I just saw the movie that has changed my life.’”

Altman smiled and said, “What was that?”

“It was ‘La Dolce Vita.’”

At the memory of Fellini, Altman looked thoughtful. Redford continued, “‘81/2’ is better.”

“Well, ‘La Dolce Vita’ was my virgin experience,” Altman said.

Redford laughed and left to get dressed.

A bystander reminded Altman that “La Dolce Vita” is where the word “paparazzi” comes from, as Paparazzo was the name of a photographer in the film.

Agger was there. He was there, and in his unerring judgement, as in unerringly wrong, he imagined this useless wankery worthy of reporting to you and I. Worthy of our attention.

Milo, give us strength, eh?

You will notice the pathology at work, here, as I think I have written about before - cannot be asked to check the archives - the pathology that cannot praise anyone without reference to something else. Shyamalan ain't no Hitchcock you know. Ashton Kuchner is no Michael J. Fox (seriously) and Will Self is not Jack Black. And Altman and Redford are Gods so anyone who is not them is in trouble.

It really is a disease. In the SMH teevee guide we get this rubbish, this contempt week in and week out. Right now, Gretel Kelleen, fresh from finishing on Big Brother, has become the de rigeur objet du ridicule, in today's case for Robin Oliver in his review of something called "Regency House Party", which is just Big Brother in Britches only Oliver is too stupid to make that simple connection and instead gives the Regency folks a good review while implicitly giving the Big Brother folks a retrospective bad review.

You loser, Oliver.

Why this overwhelming urge to compare everything to everything else, and always unfairly, always find it wanting?

Laziness.

And a bitch streak a mile wide, that is why.

And a fair whack of good old fashioned smothering paternalism and racism rolled into one - witness Agger's loathing of the little wog, Shyamalan from Philly, and Oliver's disgust at that Queen Killeen of the Proles. And Altman's sophomoric affection for Fellini's emptiest film.

Agger should quit because he is no good at his job. And Robin Oliver should just crawl off into the mountains and die because he would not know quality teevee if it fell on him out of the back of a Bing Lee truck.

And Altman. Urgh. Can't you just smell the crap he's making now? October release. Yippee.


:: WB 1:26 AM [link+] ::

Gotta post this Jib Jab "This Land" thingy.

Cos it is really good clever evenhanded stuff that's funny.

:: WB 3:24 AM [link+] ::

Top Iraqi cartoon


:: WB 3:12 AM [link+] ::

W 2004

Watching W do a speech in Springfield Missouri. He is nailing it. Nailing Kerry. 'They think the heart and soul of America is in Hollywood. We say the heart and soul of America is right here in Missouri.'

Perfect.

How could that pompous Massachussets ass actually say "Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response response". How could he say that?

If this is a taste of things to come for the election campaign, Kerry is sunk.

How could he ever have said that.

Imagine John Howard saying 'vote for me, if we get bombed here in Oz, I will react in a swift and certain fashion'. He would be publicly flogged. Latham too, for that matter, and even the acne mouthed bulbous nosed doofus hasn't been so stupid as to capitulate to terror in such an overt way. Imagine Silvio Berlusconi, or Tony Blair, saying 'it's alright, it we get hit I will ensure the clean up will be swift and certain'.

Gi. Fa.

You Go Georgie. Your job is to see it does not happen again in the US. And Howard's job is to make sure it doesn't happen in Oz, like it happened to Aussies in Bali.


:: WB 7:42 AM [link+] ::

O McGeogh, you've done it again
 
Yeah well yeah. I lack creativity.

Whatever. It is late.

I have just watched Absolutely Fabulous, which was crap except for this great title for a porn flick "The four dimensions of Lusty McCrack", which gave me the giggles for, like, five whole minutes. Add that to the disgusting Brit comedy series Two Pints o' Lager and Packet of Crisps I saw Monday night on cable, which featured this line from slapper mum talking to her slutty daughter "The 70's was one big shag, darling, everyone was in everyone every minute. Whydya think legwarmers were so popular? Had to have something to catch the drips". Laugh. That set of giggles went for, like, ten minutes.

And this has precisely what to do with Paul McGeogh in the SMH?

Nothing really, except by way of contrast.

The man peddles in misery.

Not giggles. Not even for one minute.

This story shows McGeogh, in Amman Jordan now, apparently has some kind of connection with the tribe that is threatening to behead a Jordanian businessman employer of a bloke who has been kidnapped in Iraq, who is himself threatened with a beheading if the Jordanian businessman does not capitulate to the demands of kidnappers. The kidnappee being a tribesman of the folks threatening the Jordanian businessman. 

Urgh, you got that? Read the story already and come back. I am struggling with this. 

Right.

The tribe of the bloke kidnapped is insisting that the kidnappers get the result that they want plus a bunch of money.

Make you kinda think maybe they got a rort going where they "kidnap" one of their own and then extort ransom apparently independently of the kidnappers?

Makes me think that way.

A wog way of thinking, fer sure. But hey, it is what it is.

And McGeogh apparently has this scoop, although as per usual his text is filled with unnamed sources and third hand bullshit.

McGeogh. Human legwarmer.

Urgh.  Prof Bunyip does not much care for McGeogh either.


:: WB 4:27 AM [link+] ::

A partisan plug 

Best Democrat Coventioneery coverage.

And best catch on dullard droner Kerry from Mark Steyn:

I will stand up and struggle, as others have, to try to get that right balance between violence and sex and things

O Perfect. 

Send John Kerry - to the back of the newagents behind the swinging louvre doors - and when he finds that balance, tell him to tell the rest of us, eh?

Fool.



:: WB 4:21 AM [link+] ::

Love the way these boys think

Beautiful work from IraqNow.

Top top stuff from Belmont Club.

And perfect pitch from the Daily Tele's Pemberthy.

:: WB 4:17 AM [link+] ::

If Labor holds power Federally as well as in all the States and Territories...
 
Labor would say that this is a good thing because it will enable consensus on shared matters like health and education across all jurisdictions.
 
But I would say that it is a bad thing, because it will enable consensus on lifting the GST from 10%. 
 
Remember, to lift the GST there has to be agreement across Federal and State/Territory. Everyone agreeing.
 
Every Labor government agreeing to make more money? What is the likelihood of that?
 
I would say veryu likely - after all, those books for foetuses are not going to publish themselves, and those welfare payments to the out-of-work plastic bag manufacturers have to come from somewhere.
 
This Labor cannot manage its budget. Latham is leader and he is all big public works and huge spending. Cream is treasurer and he does not know the difference between $800m and zero.
 
Puhlease.
 
I do not understand why economics writers do not write more about this.
 
....O, Maybe they do. I do not really read ecomonic writers much to tell the truth.
 
Whatever.
 
 

:: WB 4:43 PM [link+] ::

I had forgotten how verbose Kim Beazley is.
 
He has been on the Sunday show on Channel 9 and on Compass on the ABC. I think with the former the interview was done post his appointment to the ALP's front bench. But re compass it was definitely recorded before that change.
 
How do I know?
 
Because he was introduced as a former Minister of Defence.
 
And because he was remarkably free with his negativity towards the US. Sample? "Iraq and Afghanistan have been completely botched".
 
Wha'?
 
Tell that to the Afghans returning home having fled in terror of the Talibanners. And while you are at it tell it to the Iraqis flooding back into their country having fled it while Saddam was still in power with his awful sons waiting to keep the dream alive.
 
Afghanistan and Iraq are not completely botched. They were each of them complete disasters - ecomonically and culturally - before the interventions. How do I know? Because folks were fleeing from there. Folks only flee lousiness. Not goodness. It is a simple rule and worth remembering.
 
Now, they are fledgling democracies. Election in Afghanistan in September. One in Iraq before January.
 
Afghanistan is a basketcase outside Kabul, I have read, and the poppy growing business is back with a vengeance following the lost grip of the Talibanners, who, in the only policy of theirs with which I agree wholeheartedly, treated drugs as banned substances. So, the Taliban should never have been molested by the West? Do not be retarded.
 
The Taliban fools refused to give up Osama and Mullah Omar, the idiots. They worked on a bluf and it got called.
 
Iraq is a huge country making billions a day in oil revenue and racked in parts by pointless ceaseless violence engaged in by retarded folks who do not approve of Saddam's removal. So, Saddam should never have been molsted by the West? Gi. Fa.
 
Saddam refused to come clean about his weapons status. He led us all a merry dance and we were left relying on intelligence from intelligence agencies around the world, and it has been revealed to be quite flawed gear. But what other gear was there to work on? Saddam was acting for all the world like a jackass who had weapons, and every intelligence agency in the world believed he had them and had some weak intelligence to support that idea.
 
2+2=4, and the war was 100% Saddam's fault.
 
Just another mad dictator trying to bluff the West.
 
Who lost.
 
I wish Beazely would have said something along the lines of the following. Violent terrorism is a serous threat and acting on intelligence is the best we can. It is better than acting without any intelligence at all. The key lesson to learn is to improve intelligence.
 
Instead we get a narky nonsense about 100% failure that is plainly not true.
 
He always was verbose. Now I am thinking he is wrong.
 
Bummer cos Bomber is a likeable guy.
 

:: WB 5:56 AM [link+] ::

And then there were...
 
Okay, we are down to the laidback black bloke, idiot skippy footballer, skeghead hippie businessman/family man and goodlooking Queensland skippy bitch.
 
That is after losing the slutty netballer, mad Greek woman, disgusting Macedonian bloke, imbecile girlie girl, imbecile slutty Queenslander, lying leftie wanker, private school captain, goodlooking Queensland half-wog intruder girlie, appalling wog intruder girlie and maybe some others I have forgotten.
 
 

:: WB 5:44 AM [link+] ::

Italy threatened by Fanatic Islamic Terrorist Scumbags over choice of democratically elected political representative.
 
What is there to do about this shit? It is not harmless. No one else on the planet is behaving like these stinking Ismlamic fanatic terrorist scumbags.
 
Only them.
 
They are in a league of their own.
 
What do they want? Subservience. They want their demands, whatever they may be, however stupid or venal, to be met.
 
Well, no. 
 
I ain't no Phillippino.
 
 
 
 

:: WB 1:04 AM [link+] ::

Paul McGeogh of the SMH has interviewed 2 Iraqi blokes.
 
And between the two of them those blokes allege the following:
 
On or about the third weekend in June 2004, three weeks after he came to the role of Iraqi Interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi was in the courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block at the Al-Amariyah security centre in Baghdad's south-western suburbs. He had made a surprise visit to the security centre and he was with Iraq's Interior Minister together with about 12 Iraqi policemen and 4 Americans in Allawi's security detail (plus another 5 or 6 Americans, I think, frankly this is unclear and there were also Iraqibodyguards for Allawi but it is not clear whether they were in the courtyard) when he took his pistol which he wears on his hip and shot 7 inmates who were lined up against a wall or 3-4 metres in front of it, killing 6 by shooting them each one time in the head, and wounding the 7th in either the head or the chest. The inmates were youngish men.  They were alleged to have committed crimes involving substantial deaths (50 each) of Iraqis. The bodies were put into a Nissan 4wD by Iraqi members of Allawis security detail. The bodies were buried in the desert. The police chief told all the Iraqi policemen present that they were not to speak of the incident.
 
McGeogh has conducted two separate interviews, one with each bloke. One of the blokes is a dishdashah wearing Iraqi. The other is definitely an Iraqi because of the kind of language used- pure wog.  Neither bloke has been paid for the interviews. Both were happy with what they say they saw too. All they asked from McGeogh was that he not reveal their identities. McGeogh has respected their wishes.  
 
From the article McGeogh says he found the blokes not the other way round. McGeogh must have heard the rumours - they were referred to on Zeyad's blog so lots of folks had heard them - and he has put the feelers out to see if there is any substance to them.
 
And he says he found these 2 blokes and interviewed them.
 
That must mean that the rumours are fairly precise - not just, as Zeyad said, that Allawi has been killing folks. But that he did it at that security centre.
 
Otherwise how could McGeogh find his 2 blokes? 2 blokes how happened to be at the shooting?
 
McGeogh asserts (and I mean that cos he asserted to us all that the US did not control the airport when they clearly did) that "up to" 30 folks "may have been" in the courtyard, and that The SMH has established the names of 3 of the 7 blokes said to have been shot in that courtyard. 
 
Allawi denies the allegation and says he has never visited that security centre and one of his minders has said Allawi visits lots of security centres because he is PM. I guess the two positions could be in conflict but they equally might not be. Allawi says he does not wear a pistol and his minder backs him up on that.
 
Now, Allawi has declined to allow McGeogh any access to the security centre. And a bureaucrat called by McGeogh has declined to give information about the state of the 3 named inmates - living or dead. 
 
So McGeogh has not got anything more than the words given to him by the 2 blokes.
 
They must have been in the courtyard to see what they say they saw. Both blokes said they think the 7 blokes killed deserved to die because they were terrorists who kill policemen. So the interviewees are 2 out of the 12 Iraqi policemen working at the security centre and in the courtyard. I think that is a fair conclusion. General Raad Abdullah, the officer in charge of the complex knew what had happened and had told his boys not to speak about the incident. So I think that places Raad in the courtyard. He could possibly be one of the McGeogh interviewees, but, jeez, you'd have to presume he has not broken his own directive of silence to talk to exclusively to a journalist.
 
Are there holes? Oh Yah. The interviewees do not agree on when it happened. In fact they are not clear about that critical information - why use the phrase "third weekend in June"? Why not njust write Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 June? They cannot agree on where the 7th inmate was shot - head or chest. And then there is the pure hearsay of the burying of the bodies in the desert. Neither bloke says he was there doing the burying and only one of them says the bodies were even driven away in Nissans.
 
This is McGeogh at his worst. A cheap Abu Graib shot that he should have edited out but he simply couldn't resist. It is what makes all of his reporting so suss.
 
I reckon McGeogh has some problems. This story seems to me to have gone to press prematurely. McGeogh's only evidence is 3 names of the 7 supposedly dead guys but how did he get them? He does not say they came from his 2 interviewees. He says "The SMH has established the names...". What the heck does that mean? How did The SMH "establish the names" if they did not come from the interviewees? And if they did come from the interviewees why not just write that so it is clear?
 
Something's up with that.
 
I reckon he has been fed a bunch of information from 2 blokes who support Allawi. And McGeogh has got some extra stuff too - the stuff he needed to find the 2 blokes, and the 3 names - from other sources.
 
Maybe he is doing the good journo thing of always holding something back for later. In which case this story will grow.
 
Or maybe he has shot his load.
 
I would like to know one way or the other.
 
In his more detailed piece for the SMH McGeogh says he first heard the rumours in the Palestine Hotel at Bagdah - jounalist central, and super negative journalist central at that. He says his interviewees are courageous to have given the interviews and they were reluctant to speak until McGeogh guaranteed anonymity. No matter about that guarantee, though. The men are in fear for their lives. He explains their inaccuracy about the date because of traditional wog haziness - if it doesn't happen on a religious festival day then no one can pinpoint the real date. He places great store in the absence of "convincing denials" by Allawi - now, that's a bit subjective isn't it Paul - and, get this, the fact Allawi did not bother to respond to a Seynour Hersch hit piece in the New Yorker magazine.
 
That last characteristic - the ol' absence of evidence means evidence of absence - is the bullshit cannard pedalled by every anti-war leftie jackass, from WMD now to this.
 
McGeogh does his story no credit by making this central to his thesis.   
 
Now I have just seen on SkyNews that McGeogh has left Iraq fearing for his life. Christ. The piece only went to press today. This stinks. He seems to me to be acting completely in concert with his own thesis that Allawi is a killer.
 
On Saturday 19 June Allawi was in Musayyib looking at a sabotaged pipeline from the poweplant, according to The Guardian and The Australian. The powerplant is 110 kilometres south of Baghdad. Al-Aramiyah is in the south west of Baghdad. A 110 km round trip is doable pretty quick in normal worlds but who knows in Iraq - not me that's for sure. Maybe some Iraqi experienced folks know about the movement potential from the Musayyib powerplant. In any case, Allawi also met briefly with three US Senators.
 
On Sunday 20 June he was in Baghdad negotiating with Al Sadr to end the Madhi Army rubbish, negotiating into the night about the handover of Saddam Hussein into Iraqi custody and announcing the possibility of marshall law. And giving a phone interview to The Telegraph. In the zone of Baghdad, therefore in the zone of Al-Aramiyah security centre.
 
Thursday 17 June was the bad army recruitment bombing in Baghdad that killed 35 Iraqis with the second bombing north of the city that killed another 10. Allawi was at the scene of the first bombing with the Interior Minister and Paul Wolfowitz was in town at the same time. You would think that, as an Iraqi policeman - part of Iraq's security apparatus -that would be a day you would remember. You would also think it is the sort of disgraceful event that might make the man in charge of the country shoot some criminals in the head, either on the same day or some time in the following three or four days.
 
Hmmm. That rather trite observation has gotten me precisely nowhere.
 
Moving on.
 
Friday 18 June Paul Wolfowitz is still in town. Presumably Allawi spends some time with him. Can't find much online about this day except that the Fallujah bombing to get Zarqawi happened. The news online is therefore mostly ab out that incident and not following Allawi around. But Friday is super Muslim prayer day, right? So, the policemen would have to remember if it was a prayer day because, as McGeogh pointed out, religion guides memory. Right?
 
How about Monday 21 June? Plenty going on involving disgusting acts of violence by the Brave Iraqi Resistance. But nothing concrete about Allawi's movements. That is, nothing that I have found on a superfast search.
 
My point? McGeogh should have done this linky legwork before going to press. He has published really explosive claims and he has not got enough to back them up. He published with so little supporting information for his claims that he does not have a lay down misere hand. Now he has fled the country so he cannot finish his story properly. He has fled because, he says, he is afraid for his life. This is now all about Paul and not about Allawi - Paul's halfway work has been done.
 
I think the timeline shows that something could have happened around 19 and 20 June. It is not like Allawi was in London for a week, you know?
 
Whatever. We'll be hearing more, and more and more from McGeogh.  
 


:: WB 1:49 AM [link+] ::

Palestinian education.

Any person on the face of the planet who thinks the Israelis are as awful as the Palestinians is wrong.

Objectively.

Wrong.

The Palestinians are way worse. They could let their kids turn 18 and let them volunteer for an army to fight Israel. But noo. No time to waste, eh, Yasser? Get 'em young, and whlie they cannot realise what a jackass you are.

This video thing is really priceless and it is an perfect vision of Palestinian pycho pathology. They actualy think a training camp for terrorists is a good thing.

Christ, they even give the kiddies a diploma.

You can bleat at me all you like about having travelled to the MidEast and therefore knowing so much more than everybody else about the true situation in Israel and the 'occupied terroritories' (yes, I mean it like that) (or as I prefer to think of them, the bits Israel won fair and square in the 1967 war) and blah blah blah, but if at the end of the day you canot see that Palestinians have decided, deliberately to live like shit for the past 56 years instead of getting on with their lives and living like decent men and women, then really you are just a stinking Jew hater.

Cos nothing else can explain such a goddam unbalanced approach.

They are training their kids to kill.

And they're proud of it.

I tell ya, that wall cannot go up fast enough.

Cos when you have a society that has gone bad, like Sicilian mafia society in the 70's and 80's, you need the good elements to finally get jack of the badness.

In Sicily the non-mafia population stopped with the silence, the tacit acceptance of the violence and thuggery around them, and demonstrated against the mafia, insisting on better law enforcement, on taking the game right to the mafiosi.

Good people did spomething about it. They yelled 'Basta'. Enough.

Now, we are all of us waiting for good Palestinian people to do something about their poisonous mafia.

And until they do they will remain, like Sicily 20 years ago, a joke land of violence.

But without the really good food.

:: WB 2:15 PM [link+] ::

Speaking of countries that blink...
:: WB 5:06 AM [link+] ::

Italy's very own Tampa.

And sadly, the Italians have blinked. Oz has very successfully cut the people smugglers into our parts well and truy outta business. And that is a good thing. At least in this case the Italians have arrested the crew which was effectively smuggling the folks into Italy after having first gone past Malta.

Seriously, read it an weep.

Right to the threats to throw themselves overboard and the lying about where they come from and the cruising past a safe haven and into a preferred haven.

Sound familiar Marian Wilkinson and David Marr? Hmmm? Julian Burnside?

The Italians have got to stiffen up, you know? Oz has. We have removed just about all likelihood that people smugglers will lie and take money off desperate people. Ain't nobody in harms way in our waters no more ('cept those mad Uruguayans with their Patagonian Ugfish fixation, or whatever it is).

But Europe, and mostly Italy, has 'em still coming in in droves.

And that is not a good thing. I am with Oriana Fallaci on this. But what can you when the Pope is weighing in against common sense. All short term compassion and no long term salvation.

Urgh.

:: WB 4:55 AM [link+] ::