:: Wog Blog ::

:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::

:: Saturday, 30 April 2005 ::

This is so Italian. And just lovely with it.

Found it on the wonderful 1972

I did not write about Italian liberty celebrated on April 25, cos that is Anzac Day in Oz, you know? But Joy did. And no she does not get a link just cos she quotes me. Although...
:: WB 10:18 pm [link+] ::

Opportunities like this do not come along every day...
:: WB 9:59 pm [link+] ::

Terrific Work from the CounterTerrorism Blog

Incidents of terrorism are on the up between 2003 and 2004 but lower in death toll than for 2001. Supermajor hotspots? Kashmir/India and Iraq.

Common denominator?

Craazy Ismlamic fascists who need to be killed.

Are there other terrorists? ya. but not nearly as many as the Mad Muslims, sorry.

How will the media spin this?

As a failure of US foreign policy, natch. Chrenk has already skewered that.

look, it is a failure of the freaks who commit these terrorist acts, alright? Blame where it is due.
:: WB 8:56 pm [link+] ::

284 comments

As interesting a thread as is around for the UK elections. Harry for Labour against a bunch of freaks for Galloway's Respect party, plus other stuff.

I cannot understand the attraction of Galloway - the man is despicable. Objectively.

But I also struggle to understand the whole 'Bliar' attitude in Engerland, and frankly everywhere it appears viz the Iraq action to remove Saddam which has succeeded this week in seeing a Government formed (albeit without 6 ministries filled because of intransigence by Sunni idiots who are slow to grasp the opportunity to participate in democracy that is open to them).

You know, the Blair lied, there were no WMDs, no 45 minutes, no threat from Saddam, Blair lied, regime change is an ex post facto justification for war not made at the time, blah blah Blair lied.

Harry has another interesting post on this, and on voting.

And Eric the Unred skewers the nonsense of the Bliar thing as well.

So it not just me mocking the 'liar' folks.

It is no lie to be mistaken about something.

It is no lie to have commenced an action on the basis of info which is later revealed to be incorrect, incomplete, or inadequate.

To be enraged over that error is all well and good, if you like crying over spilt milk. I find that remarkably self-indulgent and utterly unpersuasive, myself. I prefer to to learn the lesson of the error - which in the case of Iraq was inadequate on-the-ground intelligence, inadequate checks on remote intelligence (think Chalabi) and utterly unrealistic reliance upon the the UN's weapons inspector regime which only placed the merest pressure on Saddam Hussein and saw Blix resile from pressure and begin behaving disgracefully evenhandedly towards Saddam just when pressure had begun to crack the scientists in Iraq.

There are a reason for the war in Iraq.

Read that carefully, lefty pro-fascist idiots - you know who you are - the ones who do not approve of removing Saddam from power in Iraq. The ones who, today, even after Iraqis set up their government following an election in which 8m folks voted, still think it was wrong to remove Saddam.

Wrong Oz action, US action, UK action, Italian action, Polish action, Spanish action (for a whie anyway) etc etc.

One reason for war.

Saddam Hussein himself, a disgusting pig of a bloke who should have resigned in the face of the UNs resolution 1441 but did not, preferring one last time to just hang in there to wreck his country. Keeping up a tradition. The pig.

Anyone who takes their eye off that ball, preferring instead to whine about legality and sovereignty and intelligence when we are in fact dealing with Hussein, is soft in the head.

And anyone who argues that Hussein was not alone in the horror stakes, so why him? why then? as a reason not to remove Saddam just does not get it either. I mean, what kind of philosophy is it that considers awfulness elsewhere a reason to leave other awfulness alone? How utterly empty.

The questions has never been do we want to go to war. War is not for pleasure.

The question is only ever whether is a good reason not to go to war.

And there was simply no reason to leave Saddam where he was.

Not a single reason, at least not a unbigotted isolationist reason. I mean, plenty of bigots and isolationists will justify themselves walking down the street, one foot in front of the other, for Saddam back in 2003.

Why they do not think the Iraq government is a good thing now is anyone's guess. Perhaps they do think it is good, but admitting that means admitting that they marched against that very good thing. So they prefer to hum loud and ignore their disgusting wrong-side-of-history position.

Sadly Engerland seems full of folks who think like that - but I am hoping Blair gets up in the election cos he was right about Saddam against the most vaccuous complaint - Clare Short? Robin Cook? Appalling isolationist bigots who dress themselves as caring folks - they never met a wog they didn't prefer to see on his knees.

The pig had to go and there was no reason to leave him in place.

And that ain't no lie. That is just a fact.

UPDATE: I am not even going to translate. If you do not get this you are closed minded.

From the wonderful 1972
:: WB 7:55 pm [link+] ::

This remind you of Latham's labor in Oz?
:: WB 6:54 pm [link+] ::

CBS reports the Pentagon says it has seen a satellite

And the satellite is said to show the car in which Calipari and Sgrena were being spirited to Baghdad Airport was travelling at 96km per hour and was shot up by US troops between 137 yards when it was spotted and when it arrived at the troops.

This is reliable news?

Bah.

Calipari is dead. And the US troops shot him dead. No satellite is going to reveal anything about the conditions on the ground or the notice the US had, if any from the Italians.

The incident is awful and CBS remains as useless a news source as ever.
:: WB 5:44 pm [link+] ::

The Insiders - gobsmackingly poor analysis

This morning's show featured the idiot Annabelle Crabbe in London interviewing, of all cartoonists on earth, Steve Bell from The Guardian the man who gave us Ariel Sharon eating a Palestinian baby, discussing the UK elections.

Naturally his vision of the Conservatives is to show Michael Howard as a Death on a Pale horse.

Death. Get it? Conservative, death mongers. Come to kill us all.

He so clever, Mista Steve.

Ha ha, funny man.

Urgh.

Plus today we had the spectacle of Virginia Trioli, complete with badly tied and very ugly scarf (don't they heat the ABC studios?) and Mischa Barton wearing a top that kinda squished her tits down so they looked like you know, bad. Both of them were waxing stupid about the enquiry into the Cornelia Rau case and other Oz citizens locked up and naturally both felt the whole lid of immigration a nd bias and appallingness and private companies would blown sky high.

I reckon if that is what they reckon we can safely be that the main discovery of the enquiry will be that there is a bunch of crazy people in Oz who need looking after but who do not get the looking after they need and end up in detention after they declare themselves to be from outside Oz- just like the madwoman Cornelia Rau.

Then the two of them were discussing the absolute human right that it is for old women to get 80% subsidisation care of other Oz taxpayers so they can pump their shrivelled uteruses up with IVF treatment (or compensate for the partner/husband's useless smimmers). And how this will really affect the government and blah blah.

Puhlease. No one is saying no to IVF in Oz. Alls that is happening is that the 80% subsidy will not apply after the third go, each year!

I mean, freakin' pay for it yourself if it takes longer. What is the matter with that? But nooo, Virginia's argument is - the saving is really small so it who cares about it.

This is the same idiocy as the whole "Iraq is not the only country in the world with a lousy leader so do not attack it cos there are others....but do not attack them either....do not do anything do not change anything leave me alone I am doing fine".

You know?

It is the outlook and philosophy of the emptyeaded status quoist - the one who hates to give up any cushiness at all for anyone else.

I am a taxpayer. I think IVF is terrific technology but it should not be subsidiased at all. Medically assisted conception is not the same as medically assisted birth (like caesarian birth)s.

It is a choice. To have kid. Frankly, Pru Goward, Sex Discrimination Commissioner has made comments about IVF being like a hip replacement and that is just insane.

You do not choose to have a hip in your body.

Your body comes with a hip and that is that.

Kids are choices. IVF is a tremendous luxury. It is business class pregnancy. So pay for it already. Stop demanding the rest of us who do not ever avail ourselves of the technology to pay for it for you.

I think the women sequaling about this - and I am not happy to include Helen Coonan and Pru Goward cos I prefer to respect them and for this I do not - are failing women substantively by persisting with the idea that IVF should be subsidiased for as many or as few times as folks want to use it.

I will wager people would use it a lot less if they had to pay.

And they would look at adoption seriously. Or surrogacy seriously. Or childlessness seriously.

Urgh.

And Crabbe sought Steve Bell out? I cannot get over it. Of all cartoonists. He is a horror. What on earth does that make her?
:: WB 4:47 pm [link+] ::

Read This Case...and Weep at the Madness of It

From the terrificOverlawyered.com.
:: WB 3:13 pm [link+] ::

An Ugly American

Ed Morrisey, American jackass extraordinaire, has declared openly on his website that he will publish information into Canada using the internet, which a Canadian court, with full authority, has ordered should not be published in Canada for a certain period of time - the reason for the publication ban being the perfectly commonplace reason that the info not to be disclosed is being collected at a hearng and may impact upon upcoming trials, hence it should not be published right now so as to avoid that impact on the trials.

Glen Reynolds, Instapundit and law prof, captures Ed's astonishing recklessness and arrogance perfectly

NEW CANADIAN PUBLICATION BANS: And Ed Morrissey is promising to violate them again, if he can:

although I understand from Glen's other posts re Ed's previous disgraceful shitting on Canadian law, that Glen rather approves of his compatriots actions. Nice to see him use the correct language here though - "violate" - it is a violation and i would dearly love to see Ed get hammered for his profligate abuse of the internet.

I am gonna bang on about this cos it matters: Ed has not got any respect for Canadian law, and I think it safe to say he would not have any respect for Oz law either in the case of a publication ban under perfectly normal contempt of court laws.

He is the sort of American that thinks the internet is where he is, the imbecile, instead of where the material is published.

The man is a cretin or the very worst sort - an arrogant cretin.

And no, he can't be defamed cos his reputation is that of a jackass with no understanding much less any respect for law.

Ed thinks that cos his country has free speech rights then he can impose his pathetic understanding of them upon Canada. (His country has publication bans too, but you do not see Ed crusading away against those - nooooo, just shit on Canadian laws instead, you big bwave American).

He is a lousy neighbour and I have no doubt he is a crap ally.

Or maybe he is a martyr. Whatever the case Ed Morrisey is the very worst sort of American - one hand on his dick and the other holding down the heads of Canadians to suck him off.

Why he does not get bit, I just do not know. It is as if Canadians have no pride at all in their law. Maybe they do not have any pride.

Urgh. What an awful way to have to start the week. Somebody sue that jackass, please.
:: WB 3:11 pm [link+] ::

ANZAC Day in Oz

This morning's soundtrack comprised:
Hoodoo Gurus
The Saints
Skyhooks
Billy Thorpe and
early AC/DC

Tears, natch, for the old folks, walking. They are so lovely, with so much bravery in their past, and becoming so fragile. And that MacDonald's advert with the old guy has been getting heavy rotation airplay, and it is just so sad.

Orunno how to go about spelling a blubbery weep but it might be something like this:
uh uh uaah, eh, uh, waaaa....
or perhaps
ei ei ei eiihhh
you know?
Anyhoo.

ANZAC Ozness is a real spirit thing.

Plenty of folks are capturing their views today across Oz blogs, none finer than the Master, Tim Blair, so for what it's worth here's a wee wog angle.

My Pa, rip 2003, always laughed and laughed at the ANZAC day parades of old codgers. He had absolutely no respect for them at all, being an Italian man with no interest in Oz military history, and certainly not the rememberance of failure which is the heart of Gallipoli if you measure it just in mitilary effectiveness Oz v Turks.

Do not bother getting all hot under the collar about that, alright?

I am not speaking for all wogs, just the ones in my circle.

See Gino always expressed disgust at Masada - the Jews killing themsleves on mass to avoid Roman conquest. And I must say I despise martydom, prolly a lot as a result of Gino's philosophy on this question, so for myself Masada is an episode I think pretty bloody unnecessary and all a bit too Reverend Jim Jones-town for my liking, if know what I mean, chronologically backwardsly speaking.

But the difference between him - full Italian through and through - and me - full one wog first gen Oz - is that I do not see Gallipoli as Masada-like at all. I see it as crapulous Brit military manouvereing and gallant, superbrave, powerful Oz action in the face of insurmountable odds.

Not every long shot comes in and the one at Gallipoli for Oz soldiers did not. The reason those guys can all be admired, their spirit, their actions, the lot, is that they never let the long shot bother them. Loyal, focussed, strong.

Gino loathed the Brits, absolutely loathed them and thought Menzies a fool with his "I did but see her passing by..." about the Queen, and "A cottage in the country in Kent" about where he'd most like to live, or whatever.

So anyone who followed Brit orders was, natch, a bootlicker and deserving of scorn.

Add to that the fact that, on arrival in Oz, it was old ANZAC codgers or folks in their families, who were so very good at hurling the epiphet 'wog' at every wog they across, and so very cruel - Gino has his opera recordings smashed when he was cutting cane in Queensland, a pretty seminal incident for him for which he never forgave any superaussie in his midst - and you can prolly grant that Gino's view is not surprising, evne if seems offensive, specially on this day. (By 'superaussie' I mean a skip who lives without the merest hint of the wog brush in his life - no fine food, no beautiful music, no art, no architecture, no history, no internationalist outlook, you know the kinds.)

Of course, Gino was utterly inconstant in his prejudices and would forget all his inherent bias for any codger who loved horseracing.

Nothing if not inconstant, my Pa.

Anyhoo, I reckon I understand why Gino felt (most of the time) the way that he did about ANZAC day. It was not his party. The party was all about a military action lost....to Turks, if you can stand it. And the folks celebrating all seemed a bit too skippy and a bit too anti-wog.

Maybe it was like that in 1959 and through the 60's. In fact it prolly was, cos that's when wogs of Italian background were not getting an easy time of it anywheres in Oz.

But it is not all like that for me, not now and I do not remember it ever being like that.

ANZAC day is most definitely a skippy party, alright? No Italians' signing up at 14 to rush off to war for King and Country in 1914 in oz, alright? if any, too small a sample to matter but bloody good on 'em, eh?

I have not got a drop of ANZAC blood coursing anywhere near me much less in me but many of my buddies do. So, even if I am "guest" on the invite, I still get to go to this party, and I still get to tear up and applaude the spirit of selflessness, persistence, long odds and punching above one's weight that is Oz.

Top top diggers in their slouchy hats with their easy smiles.

That's modern Oz ANZAC spirit. Come and join. Always remember. Oz so totally rocks cos we remember.

Love.
:: WB 9:26 pm [link+] ::

The UN High Commission on Human Rights is a Joke

Another proud day for Italy, Australia and trhe UK and US and plenty others too, I am pleased to note, as the UNHCHR is smacked down on a stupid resolution it wanted to pass about religious defamation.

Natch the thing was all about Islam instead of really being about religion. So natch nations of real conscience said "bar off, we are not resolving to not slam Islam alone".

The link is long but real interesting cos it shows what each nation had to say about the vote. So very polite in declining, but the subtext is clear. Stop using the UN as your whiney martyr shop, Islam. you guys are the biggest slammers of religion - the Jewish religion - on earth.

Youse just are.

Sheesh.
:: WB 2:40 pm [link+] ::

Papa Benedetto XVI

Elevated to the Papacy 19 April 2005.

German.

It took me thirty years to come to grips with the concept of a Japanese car (as opposed to thje natural order of things - an Italian car).

At least five years to come to grips with the concept of a Polish Pope (as opposed to the natural order of things - an Italian Pope).

Now a German is in the Vatican and he speaks Italian with a pretty heavy German accent.

How long?

Things take less time these days, don't you find? I'll be alright with this in a month.

In that month, I think I shall read some Benedetto XVI stuff - he believes in objective truth, as I do. He is a massive fan of Thomas More, as I am not. He has weighed in on Turkey in the EU - not a good thing in his view, and on immigration, which he wonders about, wondering straight up why leaving your culture, history and home can possibly be a good thing - wich is a very big deal for wogs, seeing as it goes to the heart of being a wog.

There sure is some meat for me, a proud Roman Catholic, if utterly non-observant all the time except when I am in Italy, and a politics junkie.

Viva Papa.

And he is the Pope, alright? Not a political candidate. You cannot lobby him and expect him to change his views about stuff. You cannot be rational and disappointed in him.

Benedetto - you said it, Pope! ya said it well.
:: WB 2:23 pm [link+] ::

Oh Sullivan, how foolish

I am literally sitting in the hospital room with my dying father .... He is dying of Pulmonary Fibrosis, a disease from which there is no chance of recovery. He has specified in a living will, and thru multiple discussions with family and the hospital staff, that he does not wish to be placed on life support when the rapidly approaching (within days) time comes.
The thought of having the state, in the name of someone else's beliefs, defy my father's wishes for a natural death with dignity, fills me with rage...

This makes it to Sully's email of the day.

An hysterical rant from a pathetic loser whose father is dying and instead of praising his father's unambiguous declaration as to his wishes not to be kept alive and with his family on a life support machine, he uses his fathers coming death as an occasion to squeal about something that WILL NOT HAPPEN.

Schiavo husband gave hearsay evidence of Schiavo wife's wishes about not living on life support. Hearsay. Would not carry weight in a typical case and certainly shoulod not have carried weight in a case of life and death - veggie life included.

This Sullivan's readers father has been clear about his wishes in front of independent witneses.

The two fact situations could not be more different.

Pretty simple, really.

Too simple for Sully.
:: WB 6:44 pm [link+] ::

MG Rover's Demise - Looks Lousy

This UK Telegraph piece seems to me to be pointing to some rather ordinary commercial practice, albeit not illegal. Parent companies should have the interests of their subsidiaries, their affiliates, at heart.

Does not strike me that that is the case here.

Hat tip Tim Worstall
:: WB 6:23 pm [link+] ::

I won't rest easy until the 700 are moved
:: WB 5:39 pm [link+] ::

What the ?

Just caught some teevee footage of the protests in Shanghai, I think and it actually featured Chinese guys and gals walking along smiling and declaring, to camera, all loud and proud, "I hate Japanese".

Niice.

I guess when you come from a regimented commie country where protesting is not a practiced art, you have to forgive the clumsiness.

I think he meant to say "No Japanese exploration in Chinese Waters", or maybe "Japan should apologise for war crimes".

Instead we get hate.

Niice.

Orunno what to think about this. Should I be worried?
:: WB 5:23 pm [link+] ::

Just delightful stuff from Scott Campbell

Ooops. Burgess. Scott Burgess. A thousand apologies for the mistake. Dunno where it came from.
:: WB 11:57 pm [link+] ::

Kofi Annan - Jackass

Really, what can you say about a man who actually blames the US and UK for the Oil-for-Food scandal in the UN? Hmmm? For sure there were some US and UK folks involved But others too. His position is nothing more than a pathetic hit back at the US and UK for daring to suggest he presides over a rotten institution.

Anectdotal info - years ago I was acting for a services company on an IT contract involving the UN. Boy oh boy did they expect to get the work done. And did they ever expect to have control over works. But pay?

Ha. The UN position on payment was - not my problem chase the relevant UN member country for payment.

And that, ladies and germs, is the UN in a nutshell.

It makes no sense to complain about the UN as an institution because it is the sum of its parts. Sure the US and UK have behaved venally over time.

As has every other country.

Rapists in UN peacekeeping corps in the Congo? Not the UN's problem - chase up the country of the coprs, if you know what I mean.

Oil-for-Palaces scandal? Not the UN's problem - chase up the US and UK, says Kofi.

As an institution it is a disgrace.

Literally, all care and no responsibility.

Urgh.
:: WB 11:41 pm [link+] ::

Workers need work

Tim Worstall points out the bleeding obvious using the MG Rover sadness in Britain.

Oz has had to ensure this too - the loudest example being the Ansett Airlines fiasco. Damned union entitlements so bloody high no other airline wanted the workers cos they would have bleated about changed conditions instead of just getting with the program - work is good.

On a more personal level years ago I acted for a widow whose wog husband died leaving her control of his fantastic small factory producing high scale engineering stuff that I do not remember. Everything in his head, no contracts nothing. Workers? Immediately went on a go slow and failed to meet the orders that were in place resulting in cancelled orders and revenue slowed to a trickle - no money means need to wind up factory business.

The widow could not get the workers on side. They did not respect her and she, grief stricken, was not exactly respectable, falling apart all the time and not knowing one end of a machine from another.

Union rep demands meeting. We sit in a room in the factory and this union shitheap skippy bastard says something like "We want a deed of indemnity guaranteeing XX weeks' pay for each year of service or each worker in the event of the business going outta business."

Widow had already put a bunch of cash aside for redundancy when she stepped in to the role. First thing. Because she was an honourable woman.

The formula the union wanted was way over the odds and not affordable, much less even agreeable.

Result - stalemate. Workforce goes even slower, orders cancelled, no money, business wound up.

Workers got what the widow had put aside and that is all. Thank goodness for her cos without her honour they would have got nothing on account of their status as workers - down in the queue at that time behind secured creditors.

Imbeciles.

And the union - another screaming success of nothingness except a bunch of manipulated wogs whose greed (yes, wogs are greedy aren't you sometimes) got them nowhere - doubtless proud of themselves. Fools.

Had the workforce just completed the orders they could have got some more orders and then sold the business.

Stupidity incarnate and literally no way to stop it.

When the heart of a business - the workers - gets all hell bent on self-destruction there is nothing to be done to stop it.

My point?

Oh nothing.

I just loathe unions and workforces that do not understand that they are the heart of business.

Out.
:: WB 7:45 pm [link+] ::

Disgraziati

O and these are disgraziati too.
:: WB 2:23 pm [link+] ::

A Star Trek World...

...where everone speaks the same language and follows the same protocols. Like child cae protocols.

Zif.

The Currency Lad nails the Bali hotel child care disgrace perfectly. The Balinese should be utterly ashamed of themselves. And Labor is acting pretty appallingly about it.

Pure dreaming to imagine child care in a hotel in Bali is the same as anywhere in Oz.
:: WB 2:37 pm [link+] ::

If your work makes you crazy then do something about it

Interesting post and comment thread from law prof (I think) Ken Parish about a recent High Court Oz decision. The case involved a woman who suffered a psychiatric injury at work cos she was overworked. Ken thinks the High Court was way wrong in deciding that her employer could not have reasonably foreseen she would go mental over her job.

Ken thinks the injury was reasonably foreseeable.

I disagree.

It should not be for an employer to divine a internal injury being sustained by an employee. And it should not be for an employee to overwork themselves into the ground until they flip without telling anyone. (I know I am being glib about her symptoms so leave it.)

The total point of the employment relationship is for it to be collegiate as far as it can be - ie x works to a decent standard for y in return for a decent wage and neither x nor y should be so precious that they cannot communicate in good times and bad during that relationship. Loyalty runs both ways.

Nip on over to Ken's and have a read and if you are so inclined read the case too. Then mabe Google the employer company.

They do not look evil.

I know there is nothing particularly woggy about all this, except maybe the injured woman is a wog, judging purely on her name which could be a married name. I just find these sorts of cases fascinating cos it is Oz law getting made and developing and stuff.

Seems to me to be a good idea to capture, in law, the concept that if you feel injured then do something about it - put your hand up, do something. Cos getting more injured when no one can reasonably see the problem is a bad way to go. And employees should not be considered adversaries of their employers - people who can cause problems.

They should be considered part of the team - people who should be rewarded and protected for doing their jobs.

If the case had gone the other way that would be, for me, a bad decision for Oz law, cos it would mean all employers have to start looking at their employees as potentially hurt, instead of as part of the team and hopefully rewarded.

Enuff from me already. Ren & Stimpy on the teevee.

Night.
:: WB 5:52 am [link+] ::

Good grief, did he really think would be acceptable?

A UK election blunder by the Conservative Party. Sheesh.
:: WB 5:48 am [link+] ::

Ah, the English. Just disgusting....but ever so funny.

This is one of the finest disgusting posts I have ever read. Ma, if you are reading, do NOT link.
:: WB 5:24 am [link+] ::

He does not do this often but the Droob is on a roll.

Just read and scroll.
:: WB 5:10 am [link+] ::

What is wrong with Oz movies?

Found the two threads above on the Sydney Morning Herald site today.
Fascinating psychology at work - many many apolgists for bad movies, and a few sane voices who declare a good movie is one that is worth $15 and entertains - just plain entertains - the viewer.

For me, any Oz movie with a story line that obviously meant as some sort of antidote to US cinema or to captialism can go without my time or money.

And I am obviously not alone since the box office for Oz stuff that is earnest instead of entertaining is always bad to lousy to just plain embarrassment.

I am thinking about every Paul Cox movie ever made 'Man of Flowers - kill yourself it was that boring. Cox, a big Dutch bore with a pathological hatred of the US, thinks that cos he makes low budget earnest shite that recovers its pitiful cost, that makes him a solvent profitable enterprise and, as I heard him wank about on the teevee recently "one of Oz's most successful film makers".

O Ya, if by "successful" you mean "watched by hardly any Australians except a very small group who watch them over and over".

Urgh.

It profits no one if all you ever produce is earnest shite of the very worst type of Italian moviemaking indulgence a la Pasolini or Antonioni or Wertmuller - I will wager all three film makers are Cox's heroes to some extent.

But it is not all bad and thank jeebus for that, eh?

Getting in on a bit of Shelly's action, I will go out on a limb - best Oz movies:
Man from Snowy River
The Castle
Crocodile Dundee 1
Malcolm, the cute one with Colin Friels as a tard
Malcolm, the scary one with Robert Helpman as a victim of a psycho
Sunday Too Far Away
The Odd Angry Shot
Breaker Morant
Gallipoli
Romper Stomper
Chopper
The one with the Pelican (Storm Boy?)
The one with the roo shoot, kinda like a Deliverance Straw Dogs horror feel.
Picnic at Hanging Rock

Honourable mention - The Cars That Ate Paris, but just for lovely drunk ol' john Mellion's performance, as the mayor of Paris I think

Worst:
Doing Time for Patsy Cline- who?
The Rage in Pacid Lake - embarrassing
Last Days of Chez Nous - oh, just fuck off
Rabbit Proof Fence - urgh, bullshit writ large.
The Bank - ooh, evil places with money in. Urgh.
Spider and Rose - ...pardon me while I wipe up the puke...
Three Dollars - see above, The Bank (it only launched last night, but I will wager, since the guy who made it made The Bank and has, as his mission, a need to tell stories about 'justice'....puke....that it is insufferable preachy shite.)

Now this is just stream of unconsciousness so do not bother me with email arguments.

Have a look at this list of films apparently being made with yours and my tax dollars and ask yourself is any one of them worth $15? Maybe the one about the bullet in the arse.

And no, WogBloy does not make it on the top list. Greeks.

Nuff said.

....

Kidding, it has some good stuff but I prefer Pizza for horrible wog action that is hilarious and that hurts at the same time. Perfect.

Anyhoo, Oz cinema makes rubbish cos wankers work in the film industry. You do not have to be genius to work that out.

Whateva.

UPDATE:

Here's some top film writing by Joy and by Tony

Oh, and Shelly's linked at left - an oversight to date but all fixed now.
:: WB 4:24 am [link+] ::

What, ya cannot be an Aboriginal and hold a 99 year lease on a property?

What suffocating inflexibility from a supposed community leader. Way to discourage your people from living their culture for themselves and their families for generations.

Why would he find the whole concept of a 99 year leasehold owned by an Aboriginal man or woman threatening?

Cos it sure sounds like he is threatened.

I am not going to pull any quotes cos it is just too depressing. No Aboriginal High Court judges or race car drivers in this man's world view of his people. Just 15 folks living together in a house in the bush doing nothing but with plenty of government services nearby so they never have to go into town.

I think Galarrwuy Yunupingu has become part of the problem, not the solution. He seems to me to be driven by anti-Howard sentiment. I mean he bleats about Aboriginal health but he had nothing supportive to say about the whole we'll-build-your-community-a-well-if-you-wash-your-kids-and-keep-them-clean initiative that saw kiddie health improve hugely in one remote town. If I am wrong about Yunupingu's position on the well by all means drop me a line and let me know. But if I am right. Well, whatever. I am sure it is no lightning truth I am spouting.

Out.
:: WB 3:25 am [link+] ::

What is it about Labo(u)r and Wogs?

England is seeing wog block vote rigging (this cannot be the first time, the country is filled with wogs).

In this case 'Asian' as the English call them, but I gather it includes Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, any kind of Arabs, Persians and Kurds and maybe even Turks.

Reminds me of the Vietnamese block votes in Richmond in Melbourne. Fine upstanding wogs organised the votes of other busy wogs and delivered them en masse to the Oz Labor party at council level, if memory serves.

None of this should shock.

I reckon any multicultural community is vulnerable to this manipulation. But it is a manipulation borne of the wogs themselves. The Poms in this case, and the skippies in council in Oz, merely took advantage of a rich wog tradition (and by rich I mean really appalling): some wogs prey on other wogs of their own group to further their own ambitions in politics...cos they can.

Could happen to skippies and poms but does not seem to.

Damned habit of corruption in too many wog communities. Gotta stamp it out.
:: WB 2:59 am [link+] ::

I am rooting for Shelly.
:: WB 2:47 am [link+] ::

Who are you calling a wog, wog?

There is nothing ironic about this exchange. This is a common W2W communication protocol.

Just like 'Hey Patrol'.

As in 'Moll Patrol' and in 'moll'.

Linky love for Tony the Teacher whose site is skippy dynamite.
:: WB 2:39 am [link+] ::

Italian Genius
:: WB 2:50 am [link+] ::

More on Captain Ed - Contempt for Canadian Law

Yeah, I meant to write it like that.

Either he has contempt for Canadian law or he is a moron who does not appreciate as he tappy taps his blog, that he is on the innernut and it is going global - including into Canada.

Lord, please, someone In Canada sue the pants off him. Cos then the whole question of internet jurisdiction, which is already settled in some cases, can be settled in a manner understandable to Americans. Cos unless it happens in the States it just does not seem to exist for American bloggers when it comes to law.

Found some much more reasonably written stuff about all this today on the blog. Tim Worstall in the UK has noted the same dull but correct legal position I have noted (it is so gratifying not to be alone on this while the Yanks squeal about freedom of speech as if that means they can disclose whatever they like wherever they like in flagrant breach of legal orders) but is much more gracious than me.

Whatever.

I do not think stupid Capt Ed was gracious about something more important - the right of a Canadian court to release an order and have it respected in Canada where the order applies.

Right now Capt Ed is going the free speech martyr line saying he believes the people of Canada have a right to know stuff and blah blah blah. Fuck off, Yank. Not your job to decide when a Canadian judge's order is good to go or puffery for you to ignore. He is acting like Canada is some sort of third world hellhole that needs a Yank to ride to the rescue. Jackass.

Colby Cosh is a gobsmackingly talented Canadian. He wants more freedom of speech in Canada. He is okay with Capt Ed's contempt for Canadian law because in the end it might achieve something Colby wants - no risk of a contempt of court prosecution for disclosing sensitive political material. Or something like that.

The lovely Damian Penny is also Canadian and he has no problems watching his law get shit on by a stupid Yank blogger who never even thought for a second about the fact his blog was actually published in Canada.

Both guys have views that appall me - as an Australian I would thank Capt Ed to go fuck himself if he tried shitting on Oz law. But hey, Candians can think what they like. It's their law. And both Colby and Damian respected their law - operated within its smarting confines (to them). Their views I can respect cos they have some respect.

Why am I so mad about this?

Cos Capt Ed, an imbecile who does not even know that his own blog is published in Canada much less everywhere else it is read, is trying to set himself up as afree speech martyr when this case nothing to do with free speech.

It has to do with understanding (or ignorance in Ed's case) of the internet as a publishing tool.

It has to do with the ignorance of a blogger who knew not to disclose material in Canada but did so anyway cos he has no care at all for how the world works and how the innernut works.

Am I worried Capt Ed could sue me over there in the States where I am here in Oz?

Nope. All he can get me for is defamation and I'll defend it. I am simply calling him out for what he is - a careless Yankee blogger who only cares about his law and no one elses.

If he tried to sue me using US laws he'd be revealing himself to be exactly what I think he is. A a self-centred American jackass.

I like to think if it was Oz, we'd go after the Daft Captain.

UPDATE: I should note that I came to Tim Worstall's blog via Iain Murray's Edge of England's Sword where I found Iain noting the Spycatcher case in Oz. I believe that has been gazumped by Gutnick's case, which I blogged on yesterday because that case actually deals with publishing internationally. Capt Ed's defence, such as might be raised, will be technology based and it won't or should not in my view, hold up. Publishing happens at the eyeballs - that ain't rocket science.

Honestly, I think this Capt Ed thing is the stupidest blog moment since Tim Lamert copied Tim Blair's blog completely - for no other reason than that he could do it with technology and he wanted to usurp Blair's comments section. Copyright? lambert did not seem to understand that he had breached Tim's copyright. For Lambert it was all about his stupid tech coding and nothiong to do with law. For Ed it's all about US law and no idea that Canada is not actually in the US.
:: WB 1:51 am [link+] ::

Vale Wog

Actually Vale Half Black Half White Man. But that makes him a wog in my book, as I will explain.

Do not read this if you think Koori is an important word to use.

I don't.

I prefer Aboriginal. It is a nicer looking word on the page. When I think of Koori's I think of passed out drunks in Kings Cross. When I think of Aboriginals I think of people.

Just me, so do not bother taking offence cos none is intended. And there are passed out drunks in Kings Cross who are Aboriginal people so do not get all precious about that.

This is sad stuff, the death of Peter Gunner.

Not cos he was a hero, as The Australian would have us believe, but because he was not.

He was one of the two losers in court over the whole Stolen Generation(s) thing - the plural is optional depending on how far removed from reality you wanna be, given there was no stolen singular generation top begin with - the numbers for a generation do not stack up. And there was no theft, no stealing - there was removal for a period of time. In some cases against folks' wills in others with full support.

So no stolen generation.

But for sure there was a forcibly separated population.

To my mind that is just as serious. By overemoting with the 'stolen generation(s)' much sympathy evaporates, specially from those of us not involved and not responsible who had a few hardships of our own to contend with from the skips - I am of course referring to Nature's Noblest: The Wog.

Anyhoo, I digress.

Read the judgements. This will get you going.

And never believe anyone who says Oz law has not been sensitive to this issue. The judgements are compassionate, careful, and did not find any stealing nor did they find any policy or process of harm in the skippy gumment actions.

Notice I am using skippy cos wogs reallydo not have a dog in this fight.

Mr Gunner was, with Ms Cubillo, a sad man in my opinion used by skippy do-gooder lawyers to try to run a case that says if you get moved from your home when you are young it is a permanent injury and you should be compensated.

If you can get the transcript and you can manage this stuff which is hard going, have a read.

I recall a passage involving Lorna Cubillo talking about how she never learned her family language. And she lost her reserve giving evidence (hardly surprising when your whole victim worldview about yourself is getting challenged) and said to the gumment barrister questioning her something like "It's white women like you that have ruined my life" or some such.

Now, maybe Lorna was referring to manipulative lawyers acting for her in her own case - but more likely not since she was a willing participant and I do not think for a second her legals were anything other than earnest - wrongheaded for trying to test the whole removal of half-black half-white kids from their mums leaving the all black kids behind thing done by Oz authorities in the past Lorna and Mr Gunner whose mums gave them up. But earnest. (I know the facts are more nuanced but the end is the same so do not write to me about this.)

I reckon Lorna meant what she said - that she could not speak her mother's tongue because of white people. That she lost her culture cos she was removed.

And that is where I say Get. Far. Away.

And I know I sound hard when I say that but for me Aborigines are just another wog group. And the kids either get it together to learn the old ways or they don't.

But that is a matter for the kids.

See in wog world, Lorna is a bad wog - one who has not bothered to learn the old language. Old customs.

I am an okay wog hoping to be a good wog by spending some time in Italy and getting my Italian from clumsy conversational up to fluent.

Lorna was a bad wog and her excuse? I was not with my mum.

Failed marriages. her excuse? I was not with my mum.

Puhlease.

You donavetabee with your mum to learn a language. Granted, Aboriginal languages are not exactly CD and Booklet type languages like Italian, French and Spanish etc etc. But they can be learned. If they cannot be learned then they are not languages - they are more like habits. And I do not believe they are mere habits. And you do not have to be with your mum to know the man you are about to marry is a jackass.

Lorna's excuse-making for her life, blaming whitey, is not on. She is loved by folks. She loves folks. There is good in her life. Read the judgements and see what good you can find her describing. Pff. Not a lot.

It was like a charicature of failure. All to blame whitey and get him to say 'sorry'. And toss the wogs in for a sorry as well, while you're at it, eh? They're whities too. They should say 'sorry'.

Ziff.

I ain't got nothing to be sorry about. This is a skippy Abo thing.

Mr Gunner was definitely the more dignified of the two plaintiffs. And he had the way harder life I reckon. Grog and stuff. Very quiet man, if memory serves. But his fact situation did not show any stealing either.

All the agitation came from his lawyers. Needless to say they squealed then and now again on Mr Gunner's death, about how they 'won really'.

What rubbish.

These two cases seemed to set the cause of Aboriginal affairs back by a good 5 years at the time when they were lost. But I reckon they were the start of a new era in non-victimhood thinking (or at least not-a-victim-all-the-time-cos-of-whitey type thinking).

Why do I reckon that?

Cos they got heard by sensitive courts, who tried as hard as possible to empathise and find a solution for these two, to let them feel something positive.

But it cannot be done when the score is already written - victim enters, victim endures, victim leaves, always a victim. There is no positivity. There is no good feeling. No getting over stuff and living well. The court was quite wonderful to be sensitive and I expect it of them every time. But so misguided to think anything good could come from such sensitivity. There was just more victimhood and a perpetuation of the need, the desperate need for an apology for something that did not actually happen to these two plaintiffs.

There were no other cases, just Phillip Noyce's egregious slur of a movie "Rabbit Proof Fence". There is no more ATSIC now which is great (how embarrassing for the leading Aboriginal representative in the country to be a red headed bar room brawler. I mean, puhlease. Geoff Clark?) and Noel Pearson and other Aboriginal representatives, top folks, still call for the apology (so I disagree about that) but recognise that saving their culture is something for them to do, not a matter for an apology alone (and I totally agree with that).

I maintain if you are a bad wog it is your own fault.

RIP Mr Gunner. Your case, while a loser, saw a court take real care to describe its decision sentively as you deserved. As every plaintiff deserves. It saw the Aboriginal victim industry go quiet, and start focussing on real people not just big issues like an apology. What it did for you orunno. But you may posthumously get your apology - not from me mind, I am afraid I will have to decline (in advance if PM Costello goes ahead and does it as he has indicated may occur under his watch if that comes) - but in any case you were and remain and important part of Oz law.
:: WB 9:45 pm [link+] ::

Fair enough. I would sack him too.
:: WB 5:21 pm [link+] ::

O, Who cares If You Are American?

Bin reading the blog (as my mother refers to the collective world of bloggy goodness - kinda like The Borg from Star Trek, eh? Cool) about Ed from Captain's Quarters and his insistence on publishing in camera testimary from a hearing in Canada having something incendiary to do with the Canadian gumment or something. .

Note: Orunnav a lot to say about the Canadian gumment and shall leave that to fantabulous folks like Colby Cosh and Damian Penny to cover.

Anyhoo, so there is Ed publishing testimony that is not intended to be published - that a Canadian court has ordered should not be published - which he knows, or if he did not know that fact, he should have recognised sensitive and confidential info when he got it as any sentient being would.

His attitude is that info he has gotten which he knows to be confidential to particular court proceedings is not subject to the slightest respect by him. Nooo.

He is a American.

American have bill of rights.

"I believe in free speech" says Ed.

Translation: I never think that other countries might have laws and even if I did it would never occur to me to respect them. I am American. The sun follows me wherever I go. And my laws trump everything.

I believe Ed should be sued straight up for breach of confidence, never mind the contempt of court stuff.

That is my opinion. It is a fair one honestly held and I am sticking to it.

This is one occasion when I reckon the MSM is quite right about bloggers being cowboys with no editorial checking. There is a reason the testimony is not in the MSM papers. Because responsible Americans respect their partners in the North enough to respect their contempt law. And not because of some culture of secrecy, for those kneejerk jerks who wanna write to me about this, but because there can be liability for disclosing what is apparent overt confidential information which is for the consumption of a limited audience only, and quite legally so.

Wretchard has a nice analysis about this from a bit of a different perspective and you can get your links from there. I am certainly not about to applaud Ed for his actions.

Imagine if he ever decided a closed Senate hearing in Oz warranted some attention.

I'll wager he would happily shit all over Australian law as well.

"I believe in free speech".

Pah.

It never ceases to amaze me how insular American thinking is about the world.

It is the only thing that I am afraid of when it comes to the innernut and all that.

That childlike US law about speech will be adopted through sheer force of numbers of users, to the detriment of superior laws elsewhere related to confidentiality, contempt and defamation.

Yes, I do think our laws are superior.

Natch I do.

I know some Oz journos smart under defamation laws, but that is usually cos they get things wrong or they do not have real evidence to support their gossip or they do not know how to write or they do not unnerstan the laws and think they cannot publish when they can.

Right now I am reading "The Know-it-all" about the US bloke who tries reading the whole Encylopaedia Brittanica. As a study of the insular American mindset I do not think Studs Terkel could have come up with anything better if he had interviewed tens of thousands of Mercans. Just one example but you get my drft, yeah? It really is pervasive.

Do not get me wrong.

I like America. I got loads of time for Americans. The ones that respect other folks. There's a heap of them. Heaps of goodness.

I have no time at all for Americans who imagine their Bill of Rights (a beautiful but veggie-like document that sets out certain inalienable rights) is somehow more important than other laws, who have no respect at all for the well-developed laws of their national peers, colleagues and allies.

Oz is for sure as free and fabulous as the States and we have never needed to write out our rights, mostly cos when we framed our consitution we had not gone through a war for independence like the States.

I know why the States has its Bill of Rights. I recognise its wonderful expression in the original form.

I do not respect it as a component of Oz law.

And I imagine rather a lot of Canadians would feel similarly.

The Canadian thing goes to contempt and confidentiality.

Oz has had experience of this American self-centredness before in relation to defamation law and I was never happier than when Dow Jones, US imbeciles, defamed a Melbourne man in a limited on-line publication made to subscribers in Melbourne. Dow Jones tried the whole 'free speech' guff and the whole 'but my server is in the US' rubbish.

The court said - and rightly sooo - wanna play in the international publishing pond? Learn a bit about the laws where you publish.

The MSM has done this for decades.

The hell with Ed. He has no respect.

UPDATE: Wanna do a update so as to be clear. The whole 'a free press must know the workings of gumment in order to avoid tyranny' and blah blah blah thing is so pathetic. We are talking about Canada here. Okay? Not Iran. Have a read of the quote on Damian's site (link above to get you there) and see how very UN the hysterics all sound, all of a sudden, as if Canada is a gulag. Good Lord.

Closed testimony is perfectly legal, has been for centuries, and if the press wants to ignore the law it can - weigh up the pros and the cons and go for it if you think you're so hard. Sheesh.

Or you might try seeking a change to laws to through legislation - that is what you elect folks for. Sheesh again.

The squealing on principle makes me wanna puke.

UPDATE II: Wanna get this down too. Thanks to Google, a US invention, finding every bloggy publisher of the confidential info is sooo easy. Do a google search, set up all the addresses in a Microsoft Word thing where the addresses go in automatically - you know, Mail Merge - nip down the registry with your filing fee and sue away to your heart's content.

That easy. My point is a simple one - have a little respect for the laws where you publish. When you run a blog, you are publishing wherever your blog is read. Do not imagine the 'oh my server is elsewhere' argument will mean anything to a judge on a bench who can barely type his own name onto a keyboard. And do not be alarmed about all this because jurisdictionally speaking, there is not a lot of risk if you show any care at all.

Like defamation - rememba, it is the actual reputation that has to be injured, not the one that the victim thinks he has. That is another benefit of Google - bloggers are rarely alone in the hurling abuse and ridicule and contempt stakes. And before anyone mentions Galloway to me, The Telegraph should have stuck with assertions of sycophancy to Saddam instead they went the extra mile and asserted plainly that Galloway made money out of his sycophancy. They could not prove it. Youse an me can write Galloway is a sychophant to Saddam all we like - it cannot hurt his reputation because it actually IS his reputation. But even a reputation as a disgusting sychophant to Saddam can be injured if we try to shoehorn in unproveable assertions of making money outta that sychophancy too.

Ya just gotta think a bit is all.

UPDATE III: Oh this is great. Glenn Reynolds law professor and gentleman, apparently, has just called the Attorney-General of Canmada a horse's arse for the simple reason that Canadian contempt law might have some application in the profligate abuse being carried out by Ed at Captain's Quarters.

Niice. Wonder what he would call Oz Att-Gen Amanda Vanstone - a fat slag probably - if she ever dared ponder the application of Oz law to a US blogger who acted in contempt of it.

This is what it comes to - otherwise respectable American legal scholar sees absolutely nothing wrong with shitting on Canadian law from the American side of the border.

And, just to be completely disrespectful, he points to other failings in Canadian legal activity as if that is a reason for Canada to give the US a free pass to shit on Canadian law. The last refuge of the empty argument, that - pointing up another issue as a way of getting out of the issue at hand.

I cannot express how fucking disappointed I am in Glenn's post headline and the attitude I reckon he is expressing.

UPDATE IV: I wrote this ages ago and it is the same observation about respect. Weird to read old stuff.

Enuff already with this topic.....but jeez, it makes my blood boil...
:: WB 4:03 pm [link+] ::

Iraqi's Progressing Their Gumment

From the lovely Roger L Simon.
:: WB 3:52 pm [link+] ::

He was making a Hawaiian Pizza at the time?

Feh. Serves him right.

UPDATE: Link fixed Ma. Thanks for checking.
:: WB 5:08 am [link+] ::

Mahmood is the rockingest Arab and his Daughter is a Honey
:: WB 4:40 am [link+] ::

Pope

Very sad today. He outlasted my Nonna by 5 years. They were the same age. Had the same disability. Both were very very strong people. It is appropriate to measure the Pope with regular folks, with family. That seems to me to be a crucial personal element of the Papacy. And Karol was deeply personal, I reckon. So travelled, so knowledgable about the world. He was known and so we could all measure ourselves against him. I come up way short. Doubtless, Nonna, who was a patient angel with an outta-nowhere irrational fear of black people - "They scare me" - came up short too although way closer than me.

Chrenk writes beautifully about his Pope. His Pope. Quite right.

I am fully aware of the abortion, gay, war, AIDs stuff. But to paraphrase Lileks - if there was church that reflected all my preferences, it would have one practitioner - me.

Sad and reflective today.
:: WB 6:07 pm [link+] ::