blogging it real

While most of us are waiting for the magic midday green light spare a thought for some of the more serious bloggers around - so much for a Xmas break Norightturn's smokin it.

Better than the NZ 'how many accidents were there yesterday' Herald's piss poor excuse for holiday reporting that's for sure. Don't cost $1.20 neither.

These posts imparticular are magic.

Here's what the UK ambassador in Uzbekistan was telling his own Government about torture in that country while urging them to stop working with the Uzbeks:

At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family's links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.

Anyways I see a few bloggers are out there asking readers for an annual appeal - along the lines of this costs you nothing to read all year so how about you donate a little cash to a charity like the SPCA.

Well, after careful consultation with fellow BIR writers we've decided we'd like all our readers to blaze one down for New Years...especially you Polar Bob :)

Is that too much to ask?

Think again.

I must say. I feel vindicated somewhat with my yahoo poll posting a few down after even the Aussies say they have mental problems. That country needs a few thousand psychiatrists to get to work immediately.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

For too long our politicians and police have turned their backs on a festering problem writes Miranda Devine.

FORGET Clover Moore as the Grinch of Sydney's Christmas. The "Lions of Lebanon" with their Glock pistols and Molotov cocktails have put her to shame this holy season. While the NSW police lock down entire beachfront suburbs, instruct stores to stop selling baseball bats, and apply the full force of the law to pasty-faced nerds with a taste for Nazi literature, they continue to cower from the real hardmen, the Lebanese-Australian criminal gangs of Sydney's south-west who have ruled the roost in this city for at least a decade and now number in their thousands.

So when parents and children attending Christmas carols on Monday night, December 12, at St Joseph the Worker Primary School in South Auburn were abused and spat on by "young men of Middle Eastern appearance", there were no police to protect them. Not even when the sounds of gunshots echoed inside the church, and parked cars were pumped full of bullets. "Police were called by a number of parents and the principal, but they were unable to attend because they were needed elsewhere," said Cardinal George Pell in a statement.

The police were busy that night - Sydney's mini Kristallnacht "night of the broken glass" - as carloads of men drove east from Lakemba and Punchbowl to systematically attack whole streets of parked cars with bats and machetes. Identified by police as being of the proverbial Middle-Eastern appearance - code for Lebanese Muslim, despite the fact many are second-generation Australians - they also stabbed a man, smashed a woman's head with a bat, attacked another woman in a pizza shop and a man who was putting out his rubbish.

They were extracting revenge for the riot the day before on Cronulla beach when a protest against continuing intimidation of beachgoers by thugs described as Lebanese turned ugly and drunken racists attacked passers-by suspected of being "Lebs".

The retaliation from the gangs of the south-west was a calculated show of strength, with victims reportedly being asked if they were "Australian" before being attacked. Over the next 24 hours another three churches in Sydney's south-west were attacked.

With police unable to guarantee safety, Holy Spirit College at Lakemba cancelled its carols service. Other schools in the south-west cancelled concerts and end-of-year presentations or hired security guards.

Thus the lead-up to Christmas this year has been notable for a rash of cancellations of traditional yuletide activities. The North Cronulla surf carnival was called off. As was the Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club's annual Christmas cheer party, and a carols concert expected to draw 3000 people to Coogee beach.

Rather than a problem of race, religion or multiculturalism, Sydney is suffering from a longstanding crime problem. It is a textbook case of how soft policing and lenient magistrates embolden successive waves of criminals, infecting other people who might otherwise have been law-abiding.

The roots of the problem can be traced back to Telopea Street, Punchbowl, in 1998 when a Korean schoolboy, Edward Lee, 14, was stabbed to death because he went to the wrong house for a birthday party and looked at the wrong people in the wrong way. He didn't know that a notorious group of extended Lebanese-Muslim families, descended from the lawless hill tribes of Northern Lebanon, lived in Telopea Street.

When police arrived they were surrounded and intimidated by about 100 people. For two years they seemed incapable of solving the crime, despite at least 20 witnesses.

Lee's mother, Soobin, searching for clues to the death of her only child, went doorknocking in Telopea Street and the inhabitants laughed in her face. His father took to sleeping on top of his son's grave and weeping.

Eventually a youth, who was 15 at the time of the stabbing, was charged with Lee's killing. In 2003, the youth, who had said "f---ing Asian deserved it" after the stabbing, was sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in jail. His friend, now-jailed triple murderer Michael Kanaan, received a three-year sentence for being an accessory after the fact.

But Lee's killing had brought unwanted police attention to Telopea Street's criminal activities, which included drugs and car rebirthing rackets. Soon Lakemba police station was attacked with machine-gun fire, death threats were made to police on their radio network and a police car was shot at as it travelled down Telopea Street. Kanaan was acquitted this year of the attack on the police station, which prosecutors said was to teach police a lesson for "hassling Lebanese people". An alleged accomplice skipped bail and was arrested in Lebanon on terrorism charges. No one has been brought to justice over the attack.

The police commissioner of the time, Peter Ryan, talked tough and did little.

Seven years later, the police are still running scared.

Last week, Channel Seven reported it had obtained a police incident report instructing police officers to stay away from Punchbowl Park that Monday night, where a group of men were congregating before heading to Maroubra.

The report said "a direction was given to police about midnight not to enter the area and antagonise these persons".

The Police Minister, Carl Scully, told reporters he defended the decision not to confront the group. Superintendent John Richardson was quoted saying a car crew sent to Punchbowl Park, where 10 cars and 40 men had gathered, was "ordered to withdraw and observe from afar. There was no trouble and sending police in would only cause trouble."

Setting the example of an astonishing lack of nerve, the Premier, Morris Iemma, told Sydneysiders to stay away from the beach for safety and then cancelled his Christmas media reception which had been scheduled for last Wednesday night. He appeared in every media appearance like a rabbit frozen in the spotlight, perhaps frightened of alienating Lebanese Muslims in his electorate of Lakemba.

That Iemma's electorate is at war with former premier Bob Carr's former electorate of Maroubra is a handy synchronicity. It highlights the ALP's long-term culpability in creating the monster that is plaguing the city, its history of ethnic branch-stacking and "whatever it takes" tactics to shore up support in the heartland electorates of the south-west, its policy of spin and cover-up which is at last coming undone.

As one passenger last week told taxi driver Adrian Neylan, who has chronicled the violence on his weblog, "the gangs have won".

Indeed they have, but the recent display of official cowardice in the face of the criminal gangs of Sydney's south-west is just a taste of the way Sydney has been run for a decade.

Thinking of going to the pub for a quiet one?

5:45 p.m. You’ll just stop in the bar for a quick one after work.

6:10 p.m. Just one more beer to relieve the stress. I mean, it was a pretty rough day. Goddamn boss was riding your ass like a cheap pony.

6:31 p.m. For an adult your size moderate drinking is two to three drinks a day. And moderate drinking prevents heart attacks. Might as well give your heart a little extra kick.

7:11 p.m. Those beers are making you sluggish. Have a Beam and Coke to pick you up a bit, then you’ll head straight home and catch Seinfeld.

7:45 p.m. Fuck, missed the first half of Seinfeld. Might as well have one more Beam and Coke, the last one was pretty weak.

8:21 p.m. Hey, there’s the guys! They want to do a shot. If you don’t they’ll think you’re a pussy. Nothing wrong with a quick drink with the guys.

8:35 p.m. Goddamn tequila! Need a brew to wash that one down. What a great buncha guys. You yell, “Who’s buying the next round, ya buncha pussies!”

8:55 p.m. You’re buying the next round. Wild Turkey 101 is just the thing to trump their fucking tequila. Beer back, of course. You won, man! Who are the pussies now?

9:32 p.m. Your buddy from work buys you a drink. Can’t turn down a drink, it’d be mean.

10:02 p.m. Gotta buy your buddy a drink back. Don’t want to be a cheap ass. This is what life’s all about, man, brotherhood. You order a couple Long Islands just to show him you’re a good son of a bitch.

10:29 p.m. Cocktail waitress asks if you want another, you look into her big blue eyes and yes, yes, you do want another.

10:50 p.m. Man, this is the greatest fucking time ever! You can’t leave now, you’re the goddamn life of the party. That girl playing pool definitely gave you the goddamn eye. Might get lucky tonight, by God. Have a round to steady your nerves, old boy, then into the breach. Go right up and introduce yourself, smooth as hell, you good-looking motherfucker.

11:30 p.m. You could have sworn she was giving you the eye. Goddamn whore. She didn’t look nearly as hot when you got up close anyway. That hurt you, man, that got you right in the heart. Have a shot of Beam and a couple beers to take the sting off. Plenty more fish in the sea. You could write a poem about this kind of pain, maybe you should ask the waitress for a pen. Maybe you’ll write her a poem too. She’d love it!

12:01 p.m. Old acquaintance says he’s going to Europe next week. You buy a round to say bon voyage. Maybe you’ll go with that crazy bastard. It would be awesome. Find someone to watch the dog and, shit, there you are, bumming around the Continent with your buddy. Never liked him much, but he’d probably be cool as shit in France. Bet the girls are nicer there too. That whore!

12:20 a.m. You have another beer because your goddamn songs haven’t played on the goddamn jukebox yet. Who the hell loaded that fucker up with the Dead? Fucking hippies! You find that fucker and you’ll punch his ass right back to Woodstock.

12:40 a.m. Goddamn foreigner at the bar talking down the good ol’ U.S. of A! Gave that bastard something to think about. World peace? They want world peace? Fire up the goddamn Enola Gay, baby!

1:09 a.m. Fuck the boss! That motherfucker! You’re a fucking poet, that 9-to-5 shit is just getting in the way of your art! Gonna have another Beam rocks, and if the boss man don’t like it, he can shove his measly job up his ass. You’ll tell him that too. Say it right to his fat face.

1:40 a.m. Last call? Already? You’re just getting started! What bullshit. Man, you got to move to New Orleans where you can goddamn drink like a man. Better order a couple because you know your goddamn roommate found the PBRs you hid in the vegetable crisper. Fucker! Gonna call in sick tomorrow, for sure. Fuck the boss! Hey, that girl don’t look that bad. Maybe she has some booze at her house. Hey, baby! Hey! Ah, fuck it.

2:25 a.m. You pass out in front of your TV.

Go for it.

Now I'm no "so-called cricket expert" but I suggest that criticism is about the only thing Craig McMillan can fend off at the moment.

Let's allow the statistics to do the talking about this chump:


ODIs since Australia's tour in November 2004:

Played: 18 Innings: 17 Not Out: 0 High Score: 66

Average 26.41

Score Range:
0-9 runs 5
10-19 runs 4

50+ runs 3



Tests since the tour of Australia in November 2004:

Played: 3 Innings: 5 Not Out: 0 High Score: 23

Average: 14.00

Score Range:
0-9 runs 2
10-19 runs 1

50+ runs 0

My three pieces of essential advice for young men are:

1/ The stripper doesn't like you
2/ Always demand a paternity test
3/ Don't allow a search without a warrant

The last of these seems particularly relevant in Sydney, what with police boarding buses to read text messages. Why not open people's mail and demand the password to their email while you're at it? Now assuming that a warrant is still required for such searches (the article linked to doesn't say either way) I'd suggest acting on #3 above and telling the police to fuck off. Or alternatively saying "I haven't got a mobile phone" ... which might lead to a body search of some sort, which is surely legally dubious. In my case I'm probably one of the 5% of people my age not to own one of the bloody things, so it would be true, but hey I doubt that would stop the search.

I suspect things are about to get real quiet around here ... where'd everyone go?

I was just thinking on my walk into work this morning about a satirical headline that would aptly capture one of the "little differences" about New Zealand: specifically referring to the sheer number of orange reflective cones found alongside our highways, byways, and driveways. It is difficult to walk for more than a couple of hundred metres in any direction in this country without encountering the buggers, all neatly lined up, forcing pedestrians off the sidewalk and warning the passing motorist of ... well, usually nothing.

The orange cone industry seems so much more active than the actual construction industry ... on the highways one might drive alongside 3km of orange cones on both sides, merely to pass 20m of construction or (more likely) nothing at all. The bastards are everywhere. Students don't even bother stealing them anymore, they're so ubiquitous.

They may also be accompanied by speed traps, as at the start of the "orange cone parade" they'll have a sign up saying "Road works: slow to 30" or whatever, and after a couple of minutes of crawling along and seeing absolutely nothing going on, you speed up a bit and get nailed by a cop. Ever noticed the frequency with which the "30kmh" signs are left behind once the "work" is done to rust on the side of the highway? You're never sure whether to slow down or not, although I doubt the cops care that there hasn't been construction in that area since the Ministry of Works spent 4 months repaving 500 metres of one lane in 1983. They're also left out overnight when there's no work being done. Bastards.

Not sure who is voting in this but regardless of whether it is Australians, or people overseas they either have a massive problem with racism or a massive problem with the international perception that they have underlying racism.

The results so far...

Do you think there is an underlying racism in Australia?
2708 YES (78%)
709 NO (20%)
66 UNDECIDED (2%)

From A.E. Housman via the Reluctant Leftist:

And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.

Well said, and especially appropo at this time of year, what with the Christmas Party season well upon us.

While the United States citizens are treated to state-sanctioned murder and their country's war on arabs, Australia is in a state of lock-down as its Lebanese and white-aussie populations try and kill each other.

Just as France is getting over its widespead race-based unrest, farmers are rioting in the streets in Hong Kong .

Meanwhile, New Zealanders are being fed a media-diet of TVNZ enquiries and payouts to TVNZ presenters after their wardrobes are sold-off:

TVNZ paid just over $9000 to make up for the Judy Bailey wardrobe sale blooper last month, in replacing her on-air wardrobe for the past six weeks as well as compensating her for the accidental sale of her own clothes. The bill to replace Bailey's personal clothes came to $3607. They were accidentally sold in an in-house sale of presenters' clothes that were past their use-by date, figures released under the Official Information Act yesterday revealed.

(As an aside, who would care enough to file an OIA to find out how much Bailey was paid out for her clothes?)

Anyways, I assume I'm not alone in thinking NZ news is comparitively a little lame at the moment.

I mean what are we, fucking Swiss?

Its time for some ill-informed anger, some mob-mentality, some thoughtless violence if you will.

Its time to prove to our global neighbours, once and for-all, that we are as ready to riot as the next country, that we too can descend into a state of anarchic chaos.

Naturally, the essential ingredient in any intolerance-fuelled uprising is a scapegoat.

Someone or something that can be persecuted, pilloried, punched and punished by our baying mob.

Someone or something we can blame our collective troubles on - if only we can rid society of their presence it will become the utopia we've dreamt about since birth.

Give us scapegoats I hear you cry!

I give you Peter Dunne, Jim Anderton and Winston Peters - the three horsemen of paranoia.

These are the men that force ordinary NZers like you and I to sneak down the side-street at otherwise social functions.

These are the men who force the youth of this nation into the clutches of gang members and villians.

These are the men who single-handedly subsidise companies like Cleareyes.

While some say they can be easily dismissed as god-bothering freaks, the representatives of simple-minded talk-back callers, and politicians who collectively represent less than 10% of New Zealanders - their terrible legilsilative toll continues.

The three horsemen of paranoia are responsible for the continued criminalisation of marijuana.

Free ourselves of their presence and we will be liberated once and for all my brothers.

Because the spineless Labour Party prostituted what's right in return for a coalition government pot smokers here face, as the anguished cry at Labour's election-night headquarters acknowldeged, "three more years" of being arrested.

The supply and confidence deal the horsemen of paranoia managed to weasel ensures that you and I remain criminals in the blind-folded eye of justice.

Yet the first horseman, tobacco-lobbiest Peter Dunne, through his family-values party United Future recieved only 2.67% of the nation's vote in the 2005 general election.

The second, Jim Anderton, is possibly a more deceptive horseman - while he is the third ranked politician the brutal truth remains that only 1.16% of the country voted for him.

Indeed, a party that stood on only one issue - legalising cannabis - got more than a fifth as many votes as Anderton.

The third horseman, Winston Peters, reaped just 5.72% in the election.

Collectively, these horsemen got 9.55% of the nation's vote - yet they are able to inflict their prejudices on all of us.

It's time to take a stand.

Throw down your keyboards, whet your knives and fetch your balaclavas.

Lets oust our oppressors.

Who's coming with me?

Bush in Philadelphia: "They can't beat us militarily. The only way we can lose is if we lose our nerve." Doesn't this sound eerily reminiscent of US leaders during the Vietnam War? In fact, looking at some of the US rhetorical strategies from that War, from "light at the end of the tunnel" to "winning the hearts and minds" to "Vietnamization", one can see lots of uncanny similarities.

Wow, from killing people in movies to killing people in real life:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced today that he would not grant clemency to Stanley Tookie Williams, whose bid to avoid being put to death shortly after midnight tonight has gained wide attention.

I wonder what catchy one-liner Arnie will use after the execution?

And what are the odds on riots breaking out if he is?

Speaking of killing people these comments by The Man Mundine about Danny Green are magic:

"I'm not worried about that chump, he's nothing to me," Mundine said. "If he wants to play that way then he can play that way. I don't want my fans to do anything towards him.
"I'll just tell them to leave it to me in the ring because I'm going to give him a slow beating. Believe me, I'm going to destroy him. He is a dead man walking and I'm going to kill him."

Now that's a competitive spirit.

As far as I can tell the tourist broke the law and the Kawerau Police and NZ Herald must surely have also broken the law by making their theories public and publishing them. If they stole his gear then get a warrant and search their premises. Fuckwits.

Camper has a run in with the Mongrel Mob

12.12.05 3.00pm
A 74-year-old German tourist may have to re-think his policy of pitching his tent anywhere but campsites after choosing an unfortunate plot.

The man, who is on his fifth cycling tour of New Zealand, says camp grounds are "full of young people and criminals".

He therefore set up camp in a Kawerau paddock on Friday evening at the back of what looked like a small factory unit.

The man knocked on the door of the factory but got no reply so set up camp anyway. However, when he returned from a bush walk on Saturday, he found much of his gear had been stolen.

A senior Kawerau police officer says it did not take long for police to work out what might have happened.

The field was part of the local Mongrel Mob headquarters.

The tourist has been re-equipped thanks to the generosity of police officers and a local Great Outdoors agent, who sold him replacement gear at a greatly reduced cost.

- NEWSTALK ZB

1) Redneck Wonderland

So, young Aussies are showing their colours in Sydney:

A BARE-CHESTED youth in Quiksilver boardshorts tore the headscarf off the girl's head as she slithered down the Cronulla dune seeking safety on the beach from a thousand-strong baying mob.
Up on the road, Marcus "Carcass" Butcher, 28, a builder from Penrith, wearing workboots, war-camouflage shorts and black singlet bearing the words "Mahommid was a camel f---ing faggot" raised both arms to the sky. "F--- off, Leb," he cried victoriously.
It was one last act of cowardly violence on a sad and shameful day that began as a beach party celebrating a kind of perverted nationalism that was gatecrashed by racism.

Wicked.

You've got to wonder why any Lebonese went down to the beach when they must have been aware there were thousands of people there ready to try and lynch them.

Then again, how can you expect a nation's youth to behave intelligently or ethically when its leaders are so shamelessly bloodthirsty themselves?

If Australia as a nation doesn't have any qualms about attacking innocent people why should its public?

And when you deliberately treat your people like fools:

It was only the fourth time in more than three decades a sitting prime minister has been censured and the second in Mr Howard's seven-and-a-half years in office.
The motion attacked Mr Howard for failing to adequately inform Australians that intelligence agency warnings about a war with Iraq would increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack.
It also noted that no evidence had yet been produced by Mr Howard to justify his claims that in March this year, Iraq possessed stockpiles of completed biological chemical weapons that justified going to war.

surely then it is appropriate they behave like fools.

New Zealand is much more civilised we just throw water on them foreignors.

2) Investigate Reporting 101

Last week the NZ Herald threw all its investigative might into an expose on Marc Ellis' behaviour at a cricket match:

Sports and television celebrity Marc Ellis admits he stripped down to his underwear in a corporate box at the end of the troublesome one-day international at Eden Park on Saturday. However, the 34-year-old says it is "preposterous" to suggest he was one of the cricket fans on the verge of being kicked out of the ground for bad behaviour.

The story's headline "Ellis strips down to boxers at cricket" could possibly have been retitled - Who Gives A Fuck?

Speaking of not giving a fuck, TVNZ revealed yesterday that National is pulling further ahead in the polls. They don't mention the next election is 30-odd months away.

3) Stop Borat.com

In more interesting news there is an official Kazakhstani website to stop Borat taking the piss.

As they rightly say: "Do not make bad the good name of our country!!!!"

Borat has already formally apologised to the good people of Kazakhstan though:

"Since the 2003 reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any country in the world. Women can now travel on inside of bus. Homosexuals have no longer to wear blue hats. And age of consent has been raised to eight years old. Please, captains of industry, I encourage you come to Kazakhstan where we have incredible natural resources, hard working labour and some of the cleanest prostitutes in whole of Central Asia."

4) Jonah and the Whale of a bet

Centrebet has Jonah Lomu at $6 to play for the All Blacks in the 2007 rugby world cup.

5) Calling all people who haven't defected to PR, yet

For any hacks out there the 2006 Qantas Media Awards are open and entries being called for.

Fuck Singapore

NGUYEN TUONG VAN could only hold his mother's hand in his final hours. They were not allowed to hug or kiss.
Nguyen's mother, Kim, and his twin brother, Khoa, were granted special permission to touch him as they said their last goodbyes yesterday at Singapore's Changi prison, but he had to face the end without them.