So in the Cimitière Montmartre I found one of my heroes. Émile Zola   That is to say, I found the memorial. He is interred at the Panthéon. Why a hero? Amongst his many writings Emile Zola wrote this, which is as relevant today in our political discourse and climate as it was almost [...]

Bad Apples? or Bad Apple Tree? When will they get it? Or do they get it and try to hide the truth about the Afghanistan photos before anyone notices they’ve got it? First the disclaimer: To gloatingly photograph yourself with a slain enemy (whether self-slaughtered or not) is obscene, but then if the entire situation [...]

  – Aims at Unions’ Gooleys and Shoots Self In Heart Alan Joyce, a person who appears not to properly grasp the iconic emotional attachment of Australians to the airline he “runs”, and fresh from his greedy, stupid, unearned ~70% pay increase to $5,000,000 a year, has lost no time in proving how little he [...]

From today’s New York Times: Secret U.S. Memo Made Legal Case to Kill a Citizen The Obama administration’s secret legal memorandum that opened the door to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen, found that it would be lawful only if it were not feasible to take him alive, [...]

Astroturfing is a form of advocacy in support of a political, organizational, or corporate agenda, designed to give the appearance of a “grassroots” movement. The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political and/or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or [...]

Here is Sir Roger’s advice on asylum seeker/immigration policy for Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and the rest of Australia’s panicked, “pragmatic” [=unethical, immoral and stupid] political elite who are slavishly, and in terror, reacting to the unholy self-righteousness of the christian right, the egomaniacal commentariat and the ignorant unwashed. It comes straight from the bible [...]

Sir Roger does not wish to marry a man. To put it another way, while Sir Roger and Dorothy have many good friends in common, Dorothy and Sir Roger are not Facebook buddies. And Sir Roger does not think that his personal preference for his own life is of any moment or interest whatever in [...]

  The Pacific solution didn’t work. We know that. It made too many people go mad (unless, of course that’s the point and Tony Abbot is in favour of that).   Here’s an idea! While Julia and Tony are cat-fighting over who can think up the most brutal, vicious and inhumane treatment of people seeking [...]

  So Immigration Minister Chris Bowen is moved by humanitarian motives. Probably in the same way as his predecessor Philip Ruddock was a fair dinkum believer in the values of Amnesty International while he was ruthlessly screwing the lives of countless fellow human beings. “Let your heart bleed publicly for the oppressed while cruelly oppressing [...]

Sir Roger is really upset. He went on Skype today but there was no live sex waiting for him. Nothing from the Australian Defence Force Academy. No soldiers at all, actually. But surely everyone knows the rules, as the brass are now saying. If someone agrees to have sex privately they are also agreeing to [...]

Casey Heynes – hero or villain? The story goes that Casey Heynes, a pupil at a secondary school in Western Sydney [NOT Mt Druitt, but perhaps nearby], was bullied for months (in some reports his entire life) by these kids and in all that time he just took it but this last time it was [...]

Urgent? What a joke! This morning Sir Roger explosively sprayed the breakfast linen with half-chewed soldiers, the boiled egg in which he’d been dunking them and the Dom he’d being trying to wash it all down with, before bursting into such loud and violent laughter that his butler was so alarmed that he stood behind [...]

Julian Assange interviewed for 60 Minutes. Presented without comment. Come to your own conclusions (or not) – about Assange, Wikileaks, the US media, whatever.

Great article in Crikey today by Greg Barns, barrister and director of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, on the strong skeleton argument by Assange’s legal team

Sir Roger had thought there were just a few assassination plotters but there are many urging the murder of Julian Assange. Sir Roger unpacks the details.