typing is not activism….

Fuck you Israel. You’re not even trying now. How long until a senior minister wheels out another guilt trip about World War II, or has that already happened? The whole line about people who don’t want to see Palestinians flattened and crushed and murdered in their homes and cities being somehow anti-Zionist… What the f%$& is that? But the Israeli:Palestinian ratio seems to be about the same as the American:Arab ratio. For example, September 11 2001, 3000 dead Americans. The response? So far, about 5000 more dead Americans and 750 000 dead Arabs. By that ratio, 1 American is worth about 100 Arabs. 3 dead Israelis from bottle rocket ‘attacks’ in the last twelve months – response: 300+ dead Palestinians. Israeli:Palestinian ratio, again, about 100:1. Of course, when you throw in the wounded, it kind of screws up the average.

Check out the new Israeli Mastercard ad:

Buying a Big Mac in Haifa so that you can chow down while listening to the body count on the radio? 28 shekels.
Useless piece of shit no-range, no-direction Kessem missile that has almost no chance of hitting anyone or anything? 1500 shekels.
Landing guided missiles, cluster bombs and artillery shells on the families of children who throw rocks? Fucking priceless!

Oh yeah…. BBC coverage of Israel v. Mostly Unarmed Civillians.

And great to see that over 200 people hit the streets of Sydney less than 48 hours into the latest slaughter to protest against Israel’s illegal and ongoing war against Palestinians.

be sure to click on the pic for that story, and in the latest from Gaza, where there are now at least 1400 wounded, the BBC reports that

A Palestinian doctor in Gaza told the BBC nearly all the casualties he had seen overnight and on Monday had been civilians.

He said the hospital where he worked had converted ordinary rooms into intensive care units to cope with the number of wounded and that essential medical supplies were running out.

Way to go, Israel. That is so awesome of you. Nobody’s going to turn to terrorism or suicide bombing when you launch such a visionary peace initiative as this.

And if you don’t already love Bjork, you need to shut the f$%k up and go listen to your Lady Gaga bull$#!t.

According to this article from the New York Times, Bjork is launching an Icelandic venture capital fund, with about $1 million already invested as seed capital. The fund will invest in promising new environmental technologies as a response to both climate change and the financial crisis which has more or less completely inhaled Iceland’s banking system and economy.

Just read the latest open letter to Americans from Capt. Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd. As the Shepherds head into the Southern Oceans to once again parry with the Japanese Whaling Fleet, guess who’s not helping.

From ,a href=”http://www.counterpunch.org/watson12122008.html”>this article:

But with all the talk about risks and dangers and all the talk of violence between whale defenders and whale killers, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are not talking about risk when it comes to the whales.

With the whales we are talking certainty of death. Unless we intervene, 935 Piked (Minke) and 50 Fin whales will die an agonizing death. We may not be able to save them all but we can save as many as we can with the resources we have available to us. If Greenpeace had agreed to work in cooperation with us, with two ships we could have the opportunity to shut down the killers 100%. But Greenpeace despite raising millions of dollars to send a ship down to the Southern Oceans has taken their cue from Peter Garrett and like Garrett they have reneged on their promises. Garrett gets to remain in office despite the disappointment of the voters who elected him to defend the whales and Greenpeace, well, Greenpeace gets to keep the money.

…by an r_tarded Australian paper in the Murdoch Empire. Seems like somebody at the Melbourne Herald Sun can’t handle their cut and paste. Or maybe they just assumed that because Jesse Jackson Jr is the black guy in the photo, he MUST be the villain in the story. Like his father, JJ Jr. has taken the active step of getting ahead of the news cycle, holding a press conference to identify himself as Candidate 5, before major media could get all hot and sweaty about unconfirmed possibilities.

But the bad guy in the story is Major Douchebag, Illinois’ actual Governor, Governor Rod Blagojevich (pronounced STOO-PID-BAH-STID). With the power to nominate a successor to the recently vacated Senate seat held by P-E Barack Obama, Blagojevich made a massive fuss about how few people were prepared to pay more than $US500 000 for their own piece of the democratic dream.

Great bit of insight early on at The Washington Monthly, where a roundup of coverage trying to link Obama to the scandal because the dickhead at its centre happens to be occurring in the same state where he until recently lived, “Republicans can try to link him to the scandal. Have they succeeded? Are there actual substantive connections between Obama and the wrongdoing? Because if there aren’t, that’s the story: Republicans smearing Obama by falsely suggesting he is tied to the wrongdoing.”

Of course the best bit of the whole story – again, picked up by Ken Silverstein et al at Harpers and ignored by lame-ass Australian corporate copywriters – are the ultra-sweary transcripts of Blagojedick’s demands for bigger and bigger bribes, as reported in the Chicago coverage of the whole mess.

>> Blagojevich said that consultants (believed to be on the call at that time) are telling him that he has to “suck it up” for two years and do nothing and give this “motherfucker [the President-elect] his
senator. Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him.”

the Chicago coverage also offers a lengthy but clarifying wrap of the story so far.

Sad. Everybody needs to see The Sting at least twice before they also die. Cool Hand Luke, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Verdict, Hudsucker Proxy, Color of Money…. much sad n awesomeness…

a good time to remember a short tale from history about a buddhist monk of high regard who was walking with a student in the forest one day. he asked that when he die, his body be left on the ground. the student asked whether he would not rather be buried, to which he replied, “why favour the worms over the birds?”

From Ken Silverstein at Harpers

The truth is that on any night of the week Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” does more in a two-minute segment to show in politicians’ own words how venal, dishonest, contradictory and just plain dense they can be than Russert did in his Sunday services. Russert’s master was always the political structure he grilled, but never fundamentally questioned.

Yep, along with Scott Horton & Mr. Fish, Silverstein is just one of many compelling reasons to check out this ‘zine on a regular basis.

sorry this stream of contrariness is a bit behind the times. I have been busy negotiating an arrangement with the International Panel on Climate Change. Now I can offset carbon emissions that I create by burning plastic bags, furniture, and SUV drivers simply by agreeing not to mine coal, rape penguins, or nuke the Vatican. It’s a tough trading scheme but we’ve all got to do our bit.

Tasmania never ceases to amaze – bigger than Glebe, less corrupt than Zimbabwe, more lively than Stan Zemanek, and better looked after than the Fritzls (pre-rescue, at least). But even by Tassie’s own standards of enviro-political chaos and angst, news emerging from that state over the last month has been like a prolonged advertisement for a WTF theme park.

In late May, ANZ Bank confirmed the rumour that had for weeks been spontaneously swelling the nipples of environmentalists. They would not be acting on behalf of their client, Gunns, to help secure the $2 billion needed to build the world’s largest pulp mill. Some prematurely celebrated the death of the project.

But it is still likely that Jaakko Poyry, Gunns’ pulp mill consultant, will organize the money through less scrupulous international financial colleagues of their own. To do so would not only guarantee their commission, but make it possible for Gunns to actually pay up.

Seemingly bigger, better news came the following week. On the morning of Monday the 26^th of May, Premier Paul Lennon aka Big Red, aka The Guy in the Pulp Mill ads, aka Gunns’ Elected Representative, aka The Forest F*cker, announced his resignation. After less than five years and many more decimated ecosystems, Premier Lennon decided to follow in the footsteps of every single east coast Labor Premier before him.

Echoing Lee Harvey Oswald, Lennon declared “I’ve given it my best shot.”

Content with his legacy and bathed in the love of his people, he had gone for a walk in the park and realized that it was time to retire and be bronzed by tulip-clad virgins, placed on an altar made entirely from the feathers of endangered eagles, and worshipped with offerings of old growth at the rising of each morning’s Sun henceforth.

There was, of course, unkind speculation that he was stepping down to avoid being pushed – given that an opinion poll the week before had seen his approval amongst Tasmanians rating a sub-George-Bush 17 per cent. Those are nearly Brendan Nelson numbers.

Unkind and as yet unaddressed rumours have circulated that the poll was actually commissioned by Federal Labor. While it would make sense for Federal Labor to jettison a Labor Premier for whom two deputies have already fallen on their sword amid suggestion of deceptive conduct, one might expect that an inquiry, a committee, and a Lennon Watch scheme would have first been established before launching such an effective and timely strategy.

Even less kind – though almost plausible in a T.I.T. (This Is Tasmania) way – was the suggestion that Lennon didn’t stand aside for family and personal reasons, that he didn’t stand aside out of political foresight, that he didn’t stand aside because he had become less bankable than an old-growth-eating pulp mill or even because he was perceived as less credible than Eddie McGuire.

Some tied his resignation on the Monday to the death of a Gunns’ board member, with the subsequent job opening, on the Saturday immediately before.

It’s enough to make you Very Old Men In Ties.

Lennon was immediately replaced as Premier by David Bartlett, a squinty-eyed bucket of water ten years his junior. His first eighteen hours in office were promising. He considered withholding tens of millions of public dollars from questionably sound private projects and mumbled something about a corruption inquiry before descending into the time-honoured practice of contorted linguistics.

The closest he has since come to promising a return to democracy in The Land of the Wrong White Crowd has been to propose a visionary new system of governance involving merit-based appointments. This, of course, is code for ‘business as usual’.

Because in Tasmania, as in News South Wales, ‘merit’ means one thing: Mates Employed Regardless of Intellectual Talent.

The battle for sanity continues…..

mainstream pop culture has a seemingly increasing ability to disappoint, but what the hell – HA!! Preview tickets!! Check back in here tomorrow night by 10:30 pm for the review.

What else to say!!!??? Check the previous posts for links to the numbers but with 12 seats still to be counted the Australian Labor Party under Kevin Rudd & Julia Gillard has taken 80 seats with Howard’s Liberal/National Party COALition on 56 and 2 seats to minor parties.

IT’S OVER!!!! AND THERE’S HOPE FOR THIS COUNTRY AGAIN!!!!! 

Exit polls are tipping a 53-47 two-party-preferred vote favouring the opposition Labor Party, although the sample size and distribution isn’t made clear. Exit polling also tipping Howard to lose his own seat of Bennelong, although that was qualified as being based on a small sample (3? 300?).

In the ongoing grudge match between media, voters and politicians, media are down 2 nil. Apparently a disgruntled voter attacked an Age journalist with her car. Even though she was apparently aiming for Liberal Party campaigners this leaves the media lagging, with the earlier score coming off an Overington own goal. Voters and politicians are now neck and neck, with an outcome hopefully to be determined in the next 5 hours.

And play has been disrupted in Queensland where heavy rain stopped voting earlier than expected, possibly preventing media from staging a comeback by successfully attacking voters and politicians in the manner that they have for the last 6 weeks.