Bhutto

Dec 27, 2007 | Corruption, Cultural Values, Democracy, Religious Values, Terrorism, Values

Bhutto

It wasn’t such a surprise, we suppose, but Benazir Bhutto’s reported assassination, while it saddens us as another display of humanity’s inability to grow up, confirms our contempt for religion in general and that one in particular.

Let those who constantly proselytise for their imaginary friends in the sky now loudly proclaim again how religion is the only source of morality and ethical living and how preferable it is to the evil godlessness of thoughtful, rational choices made on the basis of the verifiably real world, human needs and human relationships.

We haven’t had any particular opinion about Bhutto. We have read and heard both that she was charismatic and Pakistan’s only hope and that she was completely corrupt and as Prime Minister would be the worst possible thing to happen to Pakistan.

We simply don’t know.

We don’t think it matters.

Pakistan is a toilet, a disaster. It always has been. It is not just corrupt. It is, irretrievably, Corruption itself. And yes, we’ve been there.

It has no foreseeable hope of redemption and advancement until it gets rid of its religious madmen and its military loonies.

And that’s not going to happen.

No half-rational, half-intelligent politician, let alone an honest one, is now going to take the country on.

Sane people prefer to live.

Happy Saturnalia

Dec 24, 2007 | Arts, Australian Values, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Humour, Lifestyle & Life, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Science Values, Values

Happy Saturnalia

 

Absolute relaxation and unrestrained merriment 

 

 This time of year is a traditional celebration of the birth of an extraordinary man – a long-haired mystic who revealed the secrets of the universe and forever changed the way we see the world. He is one of the most universally revered historical figures of all time.

Yes, 25 December (in the “Old Style“) is the birthday of Sir Isaac Newton.

His birthday was retrospectively celebrated in antiquity by the Romans in the festival of Saturnus, or the Saturnalia

Or perhaps the birthday of Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun. Other cultures also celebrated the winter solstice as Yule, or the birthdays of various gods.

The Romans attributed to the god Saturnus the introduction of agriculture and the arts of civilized life. Falling towards the end of December, at the season when the agricultural labours of the year were fully completed, it was celebrated in ancient times by the rustic population as a sort of joyous harvest-home, and in every age was viewed by all classes of the community as a period of absolute relaxation and unrestrained merriment.

 

During its continuance no public business could be transacted, the law courts were closed, the schools kept holiday, to commence a war was impious, to punish a malefactor involved pollution. Special indulgences were granted to the slaves of each domestic establishment; they were relieved from all ordinary toils, were permitted to wear the pileus, the badge of freedom, were granted full freedom of speech, partook of a banquet attired in the clothes of their masters, and were waited upon by them at table.

 

All ranks devoted themselves to feasting and mirth, presents were exchanged among friends, cerei or wax tapers being the common offering of the more humble to their superiors, and crowds thronged the streets.

Seems oddly familiar…

It was Newton who formalised the importance of gravity in the motion of the planets and his laws remain largely the basis on which today we are able to compute the trajectories and forces to send spacecraft to explore our solar system. (with a little help from Einstein)

One of these craft, Cassini, has been exploring Saturn and its moons and sending back amazing images. Last year it sent back this extraordinary [mosaic] image:

You will be able to notice this:

Interior to the G ring and above the brighter main rings is the pale dot of Earth. Cassini views its point of origin from over a billion kilometers (and close to a billion miles) away in the icy depths of the outer solar system.

 

This image of Saturn is eerily reminiscent of a monument to Newton that was never built.

 

Étienne-Louis Boullée was a visionary French neoclassical architect whose work greatly influenced contemporary architects and is still influential today… His style was most notably exemplified in his proposal for a cenotaph for the English scientist Isaac Newton, which would have taken the form of a sphere 150 m (500 ft) high embedded in a circular base topped with cypress trees. Though the structure was never built, its design was engraved and circulated widely in professional circles.

So Happy Saturnalia to one and all!

And as our special seasonal gift to you, here are two videos to put a smile on the face of you, your friends and family:

 

Germany vs Greece: The Millennial Match

 

 

Women: Know Your Limits

  

 

Passionate Indifference

Nov 17, 2007 | Australian Values, Capital Punishment, Corruption, Cultural Values, Democracy, Legal, Media Values, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Values, War

Passionate Indifference

Indonesian war crime 

 

” N SW Deputy Coroner, Dorelle Pinch, this week found that the newsmen known as the Balibo Five were deliberately killed by Indonesian forces 32 years ago to cover up the Indonesian invasion of East Timor.

 

She has recommended that the Federal Attorney-General consider prosecuting those responsible, including military commander turned politician Yunus Yosfiah.

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says any information referred to him by the coroner will be passed on to the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

 

Mr Ruddock says it is not his role to assess whether any offence has been committed, as the AFP are responsible for war crimes investigations and the DPP is responsible for prosecuting anyone charged.

Quite. And you would be entitled to expect that since it doesn’t have to do with secretly imprisoning Australians or incarcerating refugees the Nâzgul would have difficulty whipping himself into a frenzy of indifference about war crimes and injustice.

So why not do the obvious thing and palm the whole thing off onto the Indonesians’ friend, the notoriously inept Keelty and a DPP with a track record of getting the big questions wrong?

Luckily, the A-G will be toast (qua A-G) by Sunday and hopefully the Commissioner will do the decent thing and follow his masters into political oblivion.

Howard made the standard Howard-weasel-words flick-off: “I want to study what the coroner has said. I take what he [sic] said seriously. It was a tragic event and we will treat the coroner’s report seriously as it should be and if there’s anything we need to do, we will do it.”

And who would be deciding whether there was anything he needed to do? Why, he him very self! Standard plausible deniability. “Of course I didn’t lie. I said we would do anything we needed to, and we have determined there was nothing we needed to do, so we didn’t.”

Downer helped by explaining how it would be all too hard.

Rudd has been slightly more positive – “those responsible should be held to account” – but still leaving it up to someone else.

Then there’s the Indonesians. “Just because we love the death penalty and call it part of our “positive laws”, doesn’t mean we like killing people…oh, except Australians. Oh, and the Timorese. Oh, and the West Papuans.”

Hopefully we won’t leave it all to the corruption, ignorance, racism, bigotry and brutality of the Indonesian glitterati – its politicians, military, police, judiciary and religious leaders.

It’s Time, Mick

Nov 13, 2007 | Australian Values, Border Security, Citizenship, Corruption, Democracy, Immigration, Legal, Media Values, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Terrorism, Values

It’s Time, Mick

after Mr Fish

It’s Time

It’s time for Mick Keelty to resign. Or be sacked.
Either way, he has to go:

” A senior counter-terrorism officer with the Australian Federal Police has testified that police were directed to charge “as many suspects as possible” with [tag]terrorism[/tag] offences in order to test the new [tag]anti-terrorism[/tag] laws introduced in 2003.

 

The admission was made by federal agent Kemuel Lam Paktsun, the senior case officer on the Operation Newport investigation that led to the arrest of Sydney medical student Izhar Ul-Haque, whose trial was sensationally dismissed in the NSW Supreme Court yesterday.

 

Agent Lam Paktsun’s startling testimony came during a pre-trial hearing on October 24 that has not previously been reported, when he was questioned about the circumstances of Mr Ul-Haque’s arrest in April 2004.

 

“At the time we were directed, we were informed, to lay as many charges under the new terrorist legislation against as many suspects as possible because we wanted to use the new legislation,” Mr Lam Paktsun testified.

 

“So regardless of the assistance that Mr Ul-Haque could give, he was going to be prosecuted, charged, because we wanted to test the legislation and lay new charges, in our eagerness to use the legislation.”

Keelty has to go because of how he thinks about the law.

He has to go because he has created an organisation of thugs.

He has to go because the service he leads is amateurish and lacks integrity in the worst way for the worst reasons.

He has to go because everything points to his being utterly politicised and his making decisions on political, not legal, grounds as directed by his masters, the Howard ministry.

Do the decent thing at long last, Mick.

Chateau Quelquechose

Nov 12, 2007 | Australian Values, Citizenship, Corruption, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Values

Chateau Quelquechose

 

Gone out the window

 

We were on the train this morning and for the first time in a long time noticed the truly stuffed in our society and how comprehensively invisible they are to most of us. “Stuffed” in the bad way, not ‘stuffed’ like a Liberal politician after a fine meal and a cheeky Chateau Quelquechose or two (at the tax-payer’s expense). And we saw clearly what it is that we hate so much about what Howard has done to our country.

Once upon a time we seemed to care about our society as a society; as a community, you might say.

If someone was down we picked them up because they were part of our team. We looked after them. Now it is all about looking after No. 1. It’s not because people have become more callous. We have just had to learn to look after ourselves in order to survive and avoid being the ones who are stuffed, ourselves.

We have had to learn to be selfish, because all around us has grown this culture of greed fostered by Howard.

We at Values Australia have nothing personally against “stuff”, acquisition, money – even lots of it – but we can’t seem to enjoy it the way we’d like to when others can’t find enough for them or their kids to eat. Or a bed to sleep in, or something to hope for and look forward to in the future.

These days, of course what we prefer to say to these people is, “get over it”, “stand on your own feet”, “if you can’t get a job these days you’re a lazy dickhead who deserves to suffer.” “Where’s me bloody Plasma?”

Ultimately, a society is judged not by its average accumulations of wealth and belongings, not on its greatest and wealthiest but on its very least – on how the community looks after its own, its most needy, and lifts them up. That takes a real, not a rhetorical, sense of community – a whole community – a responsible community.

And that is what has gone out the window as a direct result of this nasty, hateful, selfish, grasping ideology of John Howard’s.

And that is why he must go, before he irreparably tears apart everything that actually made this the best country on earth.

 

As Captain Whyte, a lifelong Liberal voter, said:

“I’m sick of living in an economy; I want to live in a society”.

And, for the christians — as JC his very self is reputed to have said:

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

Who is DIC’s Grima Wormtongue?

Nov 2, 2007 | Australian Values, Border Security, Corruption, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Immigration, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Values

Who is DIC’s Grima Wormtongue?

Polishing your arse on a public service seat

 

A leading defence lawyer and close follower of the Haneef case, barrister Greg Barns, last night said the emails showed that “the AFP in conjunction with the Government were essentially completely undermining the judicial process”.
“They were ripping up the doctrine of the separation of powers,” Mr Barns said.

“What you are seeing here is the politicisation of an investigation and the AFP working hand-in-glove to formulate that.

“It shows there was a pre-judgment by Minister Andrews and the Government, prior to the magistrate’s decision being taken, and this decision was politically stage-managed rather than being done according to law.”

What a disappointment for poor Gollum Andrews! Brimming with christian belief, though of limited intellect, and a desire to do good in the world (at least as defined by his christian beliefs) he is now reduced to being the bumboy for a frail, doomed old man. Instead of doing good he has apparently been breaking the law, or at least his oath to serve the Australian people ‘well and truly’. Is it treason or a high crime in Australia to betray a sworn oath? Forced to blow the racist dog-whistle last month. Forced to rip up the separation of powers over Haneef. Forced to ignore habeas corpus. Forced to sell his soul to the devil (tough gig for a christian boy).

Frankly, we don’t care any more about Kevi Andrews. He’s a goner politically. He’s been converted from an idealist to a party hack. He should just go.

We’re far more interested in who gave him the advice. Why, wouldn’t the best man for the job be the owner of a Public Service Medal – rumoured to be obtainable by polishing your arse on a public service seat for enough years?

Wouldn’t the perfect person for the job be someone who would be responsible for, say, borders, compliance, and detention? Someone with a special interest, perhaps, in visas and the use of the visa as a tool for enforcing whole of government policy?

Wouldn’t the ideal person be someone who, having made a glorious career out of devising exciting new ways to punish the unemployed for being unemployed, had then turned his obvious talents to the continuing and fascinating problem of devising innovative ways to punish refugees for being desperate?

Why, stap me bollocks!

Could it be our own Grima Wormtongue, our old friend Bob Correll?

Surely not?

Surely Bob could not conceivably have been involved in any way in helping to devise a special contingency plan to entertain Mohamed Haneef for just a little bit longer in Australia? Naah. But if he had, might he have broken the law in doing so?  Don’t know.

Look, sorry, would you mind if Bob and I just have a private conversation over here? Just talk amongst yourself for a moment……

Yeah, look, Bob, it seems as though your political masters are going to be turfed in a couple of weeks and that might land you in a bit of a spot, you know? I mean, you’re a bit too…politicised?…don’t you agree? Just a little bit too…tainted?…with the extremist brush, do you think, to be really acceptable to the new regime? You probably should see if you can’t find something to “fall back on”, if you know what I mean.

Well, it just so happens that apparently there are any number of really effective job agencies, federally funded as it turns out, who could have you come in for several hours a week and read the job ads in their free newspapers, or trawl through the internet CareerOne ads for warehouse general hands and jobs like that. Some of those jobs pay up to $15 an hour! Several of them may even be within 90 minutes travelling distance of your home! And to keep you going for the time being there’s this truly excellent and efficient and caring organisation called Centrelink where you can stand in a queue for a few hours each fortnight to help pass the time. And in return they’ll begrudgingly give you enough money to pay about half of your essential living expenses each fortnight, so that’s something to look forward to, Bob, eh? What do you think? Bob?

Bob?

G’day again. Sorry. Bob’s just gone off. Don’t know why he was upset. Hope he finds a job that suits his talents. Maybe he could have a chat to Blackwater – they’re pretty big on “compliance”. Maybe with his experience in remote detention policy he could be a consultant to Guantánamo. Maybe he could sell off a couple of basic Australian values for a few pieces of silver…