Bondi, Bondi

We have managed to luck into a fantastic place in Bondi Beach, Sydney. Our good friend has got us the use of a flat only a few minutes walk from the beach for the duration of our stay.

It was certainly a strange experience heading to the waterfront on Sunday and seeing the massive police presence gathered there in the wake of the Sydney race related ‘riots’. They certainly weren’t taking any chances. Roadblocks and random searches were the order of the day with a number of arrests reported in the news in regard to white supremisists. Scary stuff. Gives a real look a the direction Australia is heading towards a police state – the end justifies the means they would have us believe.

Metrosexual is the word of the week. It refers to the immacuately dressed and presented males of Australia, strutting their 2005/2006 seasons clothing and hair products. Bondi is a mecca for the beautiful people, and pink shirts are all the rage for the blokes. Not that the term bloke seems to fit so well.

linkage: bondi photos, street art photos

an end, a new beginning

Well that’s it then. Everything is put into boxes to ship to Canada or into backpacks to take with. The place looks so stark. It will be a trying final two days here with only a few knives and forks to keep us company. Losing the PC and ever present net link will be a bit hard to get used to. Ever since I moved the computer into the living room it has become an essential part of many conversations. It has progressed from tool, to knowledge base. So many times we have paused for a few seconds to Google for an answer to a question raised. How did we ever live with out it? How will I live without instant access to the net while on the road? In the Hyperion science fiction series there is a cataclysm and the societies loose their access to the ‘All Thing’, their super advanced equivalent of our world wide web and millions of people are unable to function without it.

I guess we aren’t too far off a truly portable internet system, the veritable ‘comlog’ with instant access to well, anything you can think of. I suppose it will do me good to be technology deprived for an extended period. Break the habit of reliance that I have so taken for granted.

In other news:

Things are going crazy everywhere. Bush even took questions at his latest speech – how strange is that???

Try this: EU investigates CIA prisons or The Real Price of Propoganda

CIA abuctions and prisons continued

More evidence is coming in that validates the claims of US abductions throughout Europe, almost certainly with the tacit agreement of member states in clear violation of European law.

“Legal proceedings under way in certain countries appear to show that individuals were abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal assistance procedures,” Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty told a meeting of the body’s human rights committee on Tuesday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Source – Muslim american Society

Bush tries to answer some questions

An ‘interview’ with Bush? Wow. They must really be starting to feel the pressure of dwindling public support for well, just about everything. Great. So this is a link to a fascinating interview with el Presidente. It reads like the English of a sixth grader and makes about as much sense, possibly due to extensive ‘editing’ or Bush’s inate command of the English language. Even so, if there is a foot, Bush does all he can to put it in his mouth. I am pleased that the Americans have the president they deserve – but don’t see why he should dictate to the rest of us.

Here is the article

kettle? You’re black !

In response to race oriented youth riots near Sydney yesterday my mate John howard had this to say:

“Attacking people on the basis of their race, their appearance, their ethnicity, is totally unacceptable and should be repudiated by all Australians irrespective of their own background and their politics,” he said.

We should know by now that this is all true – unless the people you want to attack happen to have lots of oil, then it’s OK.

want a discount on speeding fine? hand over your DNA

 An investigation is underway in NZ after a man reported that he was offered a hefty discount on his speeding fine if he agreed to hand over a DNA sample for the police DNA database.

Is this possible? Is NZ quietly building up a database on every New Zealander complete with DNA? Are they ‘bribing’ people to voluntarily contribute samples? What are they going to do with the database? Who will have access? Scary stuff.

Source – TVNZ.co.nz

rogue sercurity companies in Iraq?

Video footage has emerged that appears to be shot from the back of a private vehicle belonging to a security firm contracted to protection duties of at risk personnel in Iraq. The footage shows gunfire from the video vehicle smashing in civillian vehicles and causing them to crash.

The footage has been broadcast widely on Arab networks and amid calls for an investigation into claims that private security firms are running amok in the country, firing on civilians unnecessarily and beyond punishment by law.

The company in question is Aegis, is headed by Tim Spicer, the former British Army Lieutenant Colonel, whose former private security company, Sandline International, was wound up following charges that it flouted an international arms embargo in supply arms during the Sierra Leone civil war.

Crooks and thugs in the employ of the US govt for security duties in Iraq to the tune of a USD $239 million contract. That should inspire more good will in the Middle East.

Source – NZ Herald

bushspeak defined

• Patriotic Act: set of preemptive strikes to the North American civil liberties to avoid that the terrorists destroy the North American civil liberties.
• Bankruptcy: punishable crime when it is committed by poor people, but exemptible when one is corporations.
• Conpassionate conservatism: stirring preoccupation for the well-being of the rich ones.
• Democracy: a product so extensively exported by the United States, that the domestic reserves have been exhausted.
• God: main adviser of Bush.
• Class warfare: any attempt to increase the wage minimum.
• Faith: the obstinate conviction that God approves the values of the Republicans in spite of the abundance of evidence otherwise.
• Electoral fraud: when the minority goes to the ballot boxes in unexpected numbers.
• Liberal: supporters of the antichrist.
• Free trade: resource that allows that the Halliburton company to obtain contracts without limitation.
• Laziness: when the poor men do not work.
• Free time: when the rich ones do not work.
• Senate: exclusive club with a entrance quota that oscillates between 10 and the 30 million dollars.
• September 11: Tragedy used to justify any policy, specially if it is not related to the 11th of September

Source – Progressive Review (Reportedly from: MARIO DIAMENT, LA NACION)

CIA prisons update

It appears the the US govt. has expedited the shifting of any CIA prisoners to ‘safer political ground’ – outside the EU in time for Rice’s vist. The existance of the prisons are still denied inspite of mounting evidence to the contrary.

Given the delicate situation, the CIA’s detention centres in Europe were no longer sustainable, Current and former CIA officers speaking to the US broadcaster ‘ABC News’ on the condition of confidentiality had said that Washington thus had “scrambled to get all the suspects off European soil before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived there today.”

“The officers say 11 top al Qaeda suspects have now been moved to a new CIA facility in the North African desert,” ABC News reports. The CIA officials had asked the US broadcaster “not to name the specific countries where the prisons were located, citing security concerns,” ‘ABC News’ added. Official comments were not available from American authorities, which so far have denied the holding of CIA prisoners in Europe.

Source – Afrol News 

torturous times

Associated Press have just completed a poll of people in Europe, US, Canada and Asia. I find the results disturbing to say the least. The poll was angled so that questions were aimed at torture in ‘rare’ cases being ok.

In America, 61 percent of those surveyed agreed torture is justified at least on rare occasions. Almost nine in 10 in South Korea and just over half in France and Britain felt that way.

In the poll, about two-thirds of the people living in Canada, Mexico, South Korea and Spain said they would oppose allowing U.S. officials to secretly interrogate terror suspects in their countries. Almost that many in Britain, France, Germany and Italy said they felt the same way. Almost two-thirds in the United States support such interrogations in the U.S. by their own government.

Source – Guardian Unlimited

I can’t help but believe it is a sign of a failing society when fully half the population would condone torture under any circumstances. Do they not realise what they are agreeing to? Where do you draw the line? How does torturing people give your cause the moral high ground? It doesn’t. All it shows is continued belief in pushing your agenda “by any means necessary”. The end justifies the means. That is a scary, slippery slope.

filing cabinet managers

 There is an unofficial ranking scale in offices for managers. You may not have realised it but it is there none the less. The amount of filing cabinets under control of a manager helps determine their pecking order. Have a look next time you swing past the managers office. Those who are clawing their way up the office ladder need to make their mark. One of the ways they do this is to collect, and maintain control over, filing cabinets. The manager who sits next to me is a two filing cabinet manager. He is well on his way to a corner office, I can tell.

heads roll in Chinese toxic spill

Well it isn’t the sort of news report that I would have expected to see in the past. I think it is a sure sign that China is starting to open up it’s society and media to the world. The internet is probably playing a vital role in getting information out but it also appears that the govt is more forthcoming with information as well.

Following the world wide media attention on the disastrous spill it is good to see that govt staff are being held accountable. The director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has resigned after the initial attempted coverup of the explosion and subsequent lack of treatment.

The departures of Zhang and Xie indicate the central leadership intends to make officials stepping down an institutionalized practice following serious professional mistakes made either by officials themselves or by the departments they lead.

In similar cases in the past, only those directly responsible for accidents could be held accountable. Heads of the related departments would normally come away unscathed although poor management was often the underlying reason for specific accidents. Life will not be so easy for officialdom any more. Bosses are increasingly aware they must do their job well to avoid blunders.

Source – Xinhuanet.com aka ChinaView

white house on CIA torture prisons

The White House has responded to reports on CIA “torture prisons” with the usual bluster, arrogance, threats and intimidation without actually answering any questions put to them. If you take the time to read between the lines it should appear relatively obvious that the US does indeed have CIA torture prisons about the globe, that they exist in pro-US countries with the blessing or ‘blind eyes’ of the respective governments,

“If there were such operations these are the kinds of things we can’t talk about publicly”

“Look, we are all threatened by terror. We need to cooperate in its solution. As part of that cooperation for our part, we comply with U.S. law. We respect the sovereignty of the countries with which we deal. And we do not move people around the world so that they can be tortured.”

“The United States does not torture,” Hadley quoted President George W. Bush as saying that “in the war on terror we will be aggressive against the terrorists” while complying with U.S. law, the Constitution and relevant treaties.

- Stephen Hadley, White House spokesperson

Step One: Deny all knowledge

Step Two: Use co-operate often to implicate other govts in any wrongdoing giving them more incentive to push the US line

Step Three: Tell people the US govt. is doing everything lawfully. Tell it enough then people will start believing it.

Step Four: Threaten the implicated govt’s to maintain deniability.

“Listen, we are in this together, and we have talked about whatever is occurring there a long time ago. So in essence, cool it.”

- The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, GOP Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana

mangere bridge shops today

ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Well I have just finished watching this movie. Quite informative. I must admit to my knowledge of the ENRON story before this being sketchy at best, so a nice way to find out what the heck happened. What a bunch of arrogant assholes. So many banks, law firms, politicians and traders all on the take, creaming millions and millions off the top of shady deals. How about manufacturing an energy crisis to ‘win big’ in the energy futures market where they had ‘predicted’ a rise in prices? They were in up to their eyeballs in politics including Schwarzenegger, and Bush, I and II as well. A crazy crazy web of deals, schemes and lies. Worth a watch for sure.