Disproportionate Response

Spam Email #2

2006-10-09T18:20:00.000+10:00

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Foreign Relations: Nationality and Family Luncheons

2006-10-08T16:50:00.000+10:00

Some months ago, in connection with a family wedding, I found myself speaking with an uncle on my father’s side, a New Zealand farmer (yes, I am half New Zealander), who I hadn’t seen for about ten years. The pleasantries out of the way, I proceeded to bait him by making the following statement:

“You know what I like about New Zealand? They are the only Pacific island nation which isn’t giving Australia any trouble at present.”

I admit it was pre-meditated; I didn’t just come up with that one the spur of the moment. And I got a rise without even needing to go with my planned escalation:

“But then, of course, New Zealand is Polynesian, while the Solomons, PNG, Fiji et al are Melanesian – silly me.”

For those of you who are not especially au fait with New Zealand history or demographics, our neighbour across the Tasman was, much like us, settled by British colonists, and thus has the same character of Anglophone multiculturalism as the other Brit dominions, and indeed the metropole herself.

Anyhow, needless to say I was given an explanation of why New Zealand is not a “Pacific island nation” and, indeed, why any patriotic kiwi would take great exception to his glorious motherland being compared to Nauru or Kiribass.

Understandable, I suppose, given that Pacific island nations haven’t exactly excelled themselves in the development stakes and, especially in the cases of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, have become highly dependent on Australian assistance.

These states have also, consequently, developed a sort of adolescent, love-hate relationship towards their big benefactor, who both finances their independence and secretly – they suspect – shakes its head and looks down its nose at them for screwing it up. Despite the aid, The Solomons appear almost comically corrupt and misgoverned, and PNG is pretty much the same.

The difficult relationship between Australia and these two has recently erupted publicly, with slights, insults and accused paedophile Solomon Islands Attorneys-general (seriously) being traded all over the place.

This all puts Australia in a difficult position. If its costly aid programmes appear ineffectual, and their beneficiaries’ governments are as likely to bleat about Aussie “arrogance” as consider Australia’s suggestions, what can the Australian government do?

Back in the day, if the big power didn’t like what its small neighbours were doing, it could simply send a gun-boat and a squadron of naval reservists into their capitals and replace any errant administrations, much like my uncle would give a recalcitrant sheep a kick in the bum should it balk at being dipped (or not; hey, I’m not the farmer, he is!) Anyway, that sort of muscular diplomacy has rather gone out of style of late, and moral persuasion: “Hey, we’re paying for all this silly, independent country nonsense, you have an obligation to do what we say” clearly doesn’t work a treat either. At least, not unless you are willing to turn off the hard currency tap.

Which is exactly where we find ourselves now. There is an understandable aversion among local policy makers to our Pacific neighbours persisting in a state of perpetual, slow decline. Worse, the geopolitics wonks fear that some of them may become full-blown “failed states” – a rather over-used description, in my view. Nonetheless, continuing the current arrangement makes little sense: if all you have to beat someone with are carrots, it’s time to toughen up.

Start putting some serious conditions on the money, and maybe you will find that Pacific leaders will be prepared to play ball.

Changing the Subject

2006-09-30T09:32:00.000+10:00

An article in The Age today by one Dennis Altman, the 2005 Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University and author of a book called Fifty First State - no prizes for guessing what that would be about - highlights an alarming trend among Australia's left-wingers, elites, members of the chattering class and "people like us"s. When confronted with the biggest issues of our time: terrorism and the rise of political Islam generally, their stock standard response is to dodge the question in some transparently desperate manner - that hasn't changed, of course - but now they have a new distraction to the main game: Christians.

Apparently, conservative politicians are cosying up to them, indeed, some of them may even be Christian. Whatever happened to secular democracy! As everyobody knows, the decent thing to do in any free, modern society is to hide one's religious convictions away in the basement like your grandparents did with your crazy uncle, not parade them around, and certainly never let them influence your attitudes or values.

In fact, in Australia, Christianity has become so marginalised that professing any degree of belief practically makes one a social dissident. The fact that otherwise intelligent people can become so paranoid about the success of a few fringe pentecostal churches or, in Altman's case, tax breaks for churches which have likely existed for decades or centuries, attests to this. Which is what makes the "Christians under the bed" movement so very ridiculous.

Today, the greatest internal threat to our secular democracy (realistically, radical Islam is, thanfully, a threat from without) is militant atheism, not some mythical resurgence in pre-enlightenment Christianity. For those Christians who haven't been cajoled by wider society into leaving the mainstream churches - still, numerically, the main source of this alleged Christian scourge - these churches are deserting them. Whether it's in a desperate attempt to remain relevant, or some other pathology which afflicts dying organisations, the establishment branches of Christianity seem to have decided to go cold turkey on the fire-and-brimstone stuff and instead taken a course of soft-left happy pills. Which is fine, unless you're a believer, which is probably why so very few people still are.

So what happens when faith has been ridiculed away and descredited in the minds of the masses as so many silly fairy stories unworthy of belief? Well, you could always worship the state instead, that's worked out fine in the past, hasn't it?

Just don't mention the terrorists (or the communists, for that matter).

Sunday Round Up

2006-08-27T14:39:00.000+10:00

Fresh-faced Hicks:

The Sunday Age ran the above picture of a cute-as-a-button, no doubt very young David Hicks today; clearly taken many years before he commenced his career as an Islamist guerilla. No rocket-propelled grenades in sight!

The Age presumably believes reality is just too prejudicial for Hicks.

Grog on the shelves bad idea, for some reason...

Meanwhile, The Hun reports that professional wowsers are attempting to stop supermarkets from placing liquor items on the supermarket shelves - the general rule in my neck-of-the-woods is that liquor is sold in a separate, attached bottle shop. Clearly the sobriety brigade thinks alcoholics are currently being prevented from picking up that bottle of vodka by the effort of having to walk five metres to the Liquor Land.

I guess it is the same logic which would prevent addicted gamblers from getting to a poker machine venue if the local one shut down and they had to travel another kilometre or two to indulge the habit.

It must be fun to be a self-indulgent moral narcissist.

Statement Counter to Reality

2006-08-26T20:52:00.000+10:00

"It, I think, is also generally accepted that disarmament of Hezbollah cannot be done by force."

Kofi Anan

Praise be to the excellent Romeo Mike's (click the heading) blog for alerting me to the latest zinger from the court jester of the international community.

So, what does the UN's Secretary-General mean by that snippet of inverse-fact insight? Well:

"Iran and the Arab League don't want Hezbollah disarmed, and the confused, compliant Europeans, who are providing the lion's share of soldiers for the farcical UN 'force', have neither the will nor the inclination to have them disarmed either."

It is becoming ever more obvious that the international community have no intention of disarming or even seriously restricting Hezbollah. This multilaterial force is simply a cosmetic quick-fix.

Hezbollah should be celebrating; Israelis should be enraged.

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2006-08-24T21:38:00.000+10:00

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Coming Out

2006-08-24T21:37:00.000+10:00

The problem with being gay AND right-wing is that you have to come out twice. And, in this day and age, that second exit from the closet can often cause quite a stir.

This happened to me recently. Having assumed, as one does, that everyone in my workplace was aware of my open, flamboyant, outrageous right-wingedness, I was reminded of the old wisdom that there is always somebody who doesn’t know.

There I was in the lunchroom, passing the time between cigarette breaks by reading the newspaper and watching my coffee cool down, when I noticed that Faheem Khalid Lodhi had been sentenced to up-to twenty years jail for plotting terrorism offences.

“Oh”, I remarked to nobody in particular. “That’s good news”.

A colleague of mine, likewise whiling away the day in the lunchroom, guffawed audibly and stood up.

“Good! What do you mean good?”

Then the penny dropped: “You mean you’re…”

“Yes”, I replied. “I thought it was common knowledge.”

“But, but, I mean, I didn’t know. I mean, it wasn’t obvi…”

And she grabbed up her tea and, in a Herculean effort to compose herself, declared:

“Sorry. I think I’m going to have to go, um, think about this; come to terms with it.”

And she stalked away, muttering: “Nobody told me…what a joke…fascists, fascists everywhere…not natural…soon they’ll want to get married…” and so on.

Hey, at least it wasn’t as bad as with my parents.

Rumours Ridiculed, Extremists Popular!

2006-08-21T17:51:00.000+10:00

In an interview with the Herald Sun, swimming superstar and national sporting hero Ian Thorpe was asked to respond to "those" gay "rumours". Note, asking a subject to respond to gay rumours is the MSM equivalent of saying: "Hey, we reckon you're gay. Discuss." Thorpe did respond, by ridiculing the rumours – which means ridiculing the question, which was itself not printed in the article – without specifically denying the implied allegation. (Click the link above, see if you agree with my analysis).

Now, I have no idea whether or not Ian Thorpe is gay, and there is also the possibility that the journalist edited the interview to make his comments appear more vague and non-committal than they actually were. Nonetheless, it strikes me that the best way for a heterosexual to respond to "gay rumours" would be to say something along the lines of, oh: "I'm not gay."

This, again, doesn't mean Thorpe is gay. Maybe he merely wants to keep a bit of mystique around the issue, or genuinely believes it's nobody's business. Either way, high-profile sexuality revelations – such as the two most recent ones, both by former pop stars – are in the habit of being made at the press stop on the way to the celebrity retirement village, certainly not at the height of fame.

Thorpe is no faded musician, and even if his endorsement contracts don't carry a clause stating: "The Athlete is not to come out of, emerge, or otherwise remove, or cause to be removed, himself from any closet, cupboard or like metaphorical item of furniture", it is probably financially sensible for him to keep those gay rumours, rumours for now.

I mean, if the public cannot even stomach boy-banders who like boys, sexual openness for well-known athletes is obviously not an option, even for exalted champions like Thorpe.

Assuming he is actually gay, of course, which I am certainly not alleging. Nice change from the Middle East doom and gloom, though, isn't it?

Oh, I can't resist.

It appears that a recent Egyptian popularity poll has been topped by a trio of terrorists: Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas' Khaled Meshaal, and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

This is very bad news, at it suggests that radical adherents of "the ideology" (scroll down) are starting to win the argument in the Arab world's leading power. Governments, both Arab and international, must start offering "The Arab Street" alternative things to get excited about. I suggest economic reform and development, but then I'm right wing.

Something needs to be done though.

LPG Subsidy Unncessary, But Predictable

2006-08-20T14:22:00.000+10:00

When something like petrol hovering around $1.40 a litre happens, many people look to their elected officials to alleviate their hip-pocket pain. “Do something!” they declare: “It costs me $150 a week to keep the SUV on the road just to pick up Jude and Sienna from primary school. I’m almost tempted to take the Corolla instead – but then I’d look like a school teacher! What is the government doing?”

Well, the people have whinged, and our populist Prime Minister has responded in the only way a statesman can: he’s “done something” to address their concerns. What has he done? Well, he has begun offering a subsidy to car owners to convert their petrol-guzzlers to LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas – a cheaper, less emitting fuel created as a by-product of mining natural gas and crude oil).

To be honest, the subsidy may have something to do with the government’s decision to start whacking an excise on the stuff, still lower than petrol. Whatever, the gov is successfully killing two birds – industry jitters and feral car owners – with the one policy stone.

Of course, high oil prices are great news for Greenies, and not just because they can sneering declare “I told you so”, but because higher oil prices are just the thing to encourage development and take-up of alternative fuels; initially familiar ones like LPG and natural gas, but if oil prices rise further, perhaps more exotic alternatives will get a look-in.

Amazingly, this will happen without the government “doing something”; it will happen anyway. At least to the extent that it makes sense for consumers; and oil has been a very resilient resource, thumbing her nose at repeated declarations she will imminently “run out”. She will likely stay-put for a while longer, but having alternatives is still a good thing.

And, despite the ardent hopes of her detractors, the black lady will not one day cease to exist as the last of her is extracted from Kuwaiti desert or Russian permafrost: rather, she will merely get rarer and more expensive, until even Americans decide she’s too nasty a mistress. She will fade, not suddenly vanish. Who knows, maybe she has already started.

Israel - Lebanon - Hezbollah: Winners & Losers

2006-08-16T18:06:00.000+10:00

The ceasefire between Israel, Lebanon and Hezbollah has started to take effect and post mortems are now appearing (see here and here). Let's take a look at the scorecard:

Israel:
* Suffered fairly significant casualties, military and civilian;
* Lost the initiative militarily and was perceived to have been taken by surprise at Hezbollah's military effectiveness and the extent of their arsenal; however
* Inflicted heavy casualties on Hezbollah and destroyed a fair proportion of its infrastructure; but;
* Was ineffectually supported, if at all, by an indecisive Bush administration - France became leading (somewhat anti-Israel) voice on the subject in the West;
* Is now forced to rely on a European force and the Lebanese army to constrain or restrict Hezbollah;
* Failed to disarm Hezbollah;
* Failed to exert any effective pressure on Syria and Iran to cease supporting Hezbollah;
* Demonstrated that she is willing and able to strike back against Islamic extremist terrorism, and is not a lightweight.

Hezbollah:
* Inflicted heavy casualties on an Israel that was seemingly unable to prevent Hezbollah rocket attacks;
* Was forced to retreat in the south;
* Apparently suffered significant casualties and lost much of its infrastructure;
* Is still openly supported by Syria and Iran;
* Gained significant prestige in the Muslim world as a proponent of the radical Islamic ideology and the Shia faction;
* Will probably be able to subvert any Lebanese and international military presence in the south;
* Remains, and will likely remain, armed;
* Is probably now even more powerful in Lebanese politics than before, and should be able to dominate the country even more in future.

While both sides can claim victory, it is Hezbollah who really won - especially by their own standards of war. Fallen fanatics can be easily replaced, and Iranian and Syrian support will facilitate the replacement of abandoned weapons. It is also unlikely that Hezbollah will be prevented from future attacks by any international force.

Israel has managed to fight itself back to where it started from. There will be another war; maybe next time Israel will try to rupture Hezbollah's support pipeline by attacking Syria, seemingly the weakest of the terror troika. There is no guarantee that this will be any easier next time for Israel, it may well be harder.

And with a nuclear-armed Iran, it may well become impossible.

Phillip Adams Rejects Conspiracy Theories ... Sort Of

2006-08-15T20:14:00.000+10:00

Australia's favourite unreconstructed socialist has been receiving letters on the subject of the foiled London terror attacks:

Since Thursday my email has been a deafening chatter of disbelief. The official story is that five years after 9/11 the other shoe was about to drop. Their response? Pull the other leg.

Rather than concluding many of his fans are nutcases, fabulous Phil launches into a tirade, full of self-satirisation:

Because it (the foiled terrorist attacks) gives breathing space to the White House, to an administration that's bleeding like Baghdad, to Bush and the boys fearful that what happened to three-term Democrat senator Joe Lieberman might happen to the whole pro-war mob, Republican and Democrat.

And:

But most, the argument goes, because the story distracts world attention from what the Israelis are doing in Lebanon.

Not only are the leaders of the free world nefarious conspirators, they're also tardy! I should think most of the schmos populating middle earth would already have been aware of Israel's military action in Lebanon by the time said leaders had effected their little distraction. Yet another failure of the neocons.

Read the whole thing.

Note: I appreciate that Adams did not endorse the conspiracy theories he discussed in the article. But, if he's not a believer in the sort of nonsense his fan-mailers subscribe to, why did he write the article at all?

The Ideology of Atrocity

2006-08-14T22:03:00.000+10:00

Warning: this post is very long!

I was talking with my housemate this morning about those foiled terrorist attacks in the UK. We were both interested that both this planned atrocity, and the successfully executed London train bombings last year, appeared to be carried out by home-grown UK extremists.

The press also appears fascinated by this, in the sense that they felt the need to speculate on possible Al Qaeda and Pakistani links ad nauseum: anything to explain why so many apparently ordinary British-born men decided to attempt a militant Muslim mass murder. But even if touted foreign connections are genuine, they were hardly necessary for the endeavour. Why do a group of Euro-Jihadis need direct foreign support to wreak havoc when soft-drink bottles, readily available chemicals and passenger aircraft can be so easily combined to create weapons of mass destruction?

The simple answer is that they don’t. They do need something of course, but it is not Al Qaeda money or Pakistani spiritual guidance. All they need an idea whose time has come, and a cause in whose service to kill and die.

Sometimes called “Jihad”, “Islamic Extremism” or, more recently, “Islamo-Fascism”, the doctrine which gave the failed British butchers the (metaphorical) bottle to (hypothetically) blow themselves (and several hundred others) up over the Atlantic is essentially the same as the impetus behind Hezbollah rockets currently falling on Israeli civilians and the bullets of Taliban guerrillas who are fighting quite conventionally in Afghanistan. These disparate organisations, fighting in disparate theatres in different ways, are doing so in pursuit of essentially the same goals in the service of essentially the same cause.

My housemate has a problem with this analysis. “Those wannaBin Ladens just have a hard-on for dying”, he insists. This view is fairly conventional and very wrong. I understand the attraction of putting the motives of western traitors down to base depravity or mental illness, but, as I countered to him, how do you explain all the other “psycho” Islamist killers around the world? Even if it were possible that a collective of over twenty crazies – all young Muslim men, no less – in the UK were able to find themselves and cobble together their own little terrorist coalition, it is certainly absurd to suggest Hezbollah relies on lunatics to provide it with its many thousands of fanatical soldiers.

Accepting that this whole terrorism thing has a basis beyond formalised institutions or individual grievances or pathologies, what sort of ideology are we talking about? Well, like all political movements, the terrorist ideology is not a monolith, there are different sub and splinter groups, and, even on an individual level, different main drivers of adherence. There are also different magnitudes of belief in the ideology: expressing support for Hezbollah is quite far removed from atomising yourself into the arms of those promised virgins, for example.

Nonetheless, there is certainly still an ideology. An ideology which is as unprecedentedly broad as it is incredibly dangerous, and encompassing both the spiritual and temporal spheres. An ideology that has spawned a massive movement whose appeal appears equally great in Surrey as in Syria.

It is a revolutionary political movement, global in scope. For some adherents, it may end with the establishment of an Islamic regime across the Muslim world, but what do you think a bloodthirsty terrorist will do once they have inaugurated the grand Caliphate from Casablanca to Jakarta: take a cushy position as assistant to the Human Resources Manager at the Turkish Communications Viziery? Not likely.

Then there is the cult of the martyr. This is the greatest weapon the movement has at its disposal: by offering redemption and paradise to those who perish (or, more specifically, kill themselves) in its service, the movement can amass forces which are happy to die to kill, and are thus very difficult to stop.

The final element of the movement and its ideology is extreme race-hate. This is very important. The above components are intellectual; many multitudes may well like the sound of them, but they don't necessarily go around slaughtering innocents. You need a little something more than just favouring global Islamic revolution for that: you need to hate the people you are killing. And, when I say hate, I am not talking about reading the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or being convinced that the US is run by Jews and prostitutes at the same time; that is simply not sufficient. You have to utterly loathe and despise the infidel to an obsessive degree.

And that’s all you need. Rather than just accpeting this, many people add specific grievances to the list; things they find easier to understand, like Israel, US foreign policy in the Middle East, and the regressive nature of incumbent regimes within the Muslim world. This is foolish, if for no other reason than it goes without saying that, if you are an adherent of the ideology, who thus necessarily hates westerners and Jews, and wishes to see a pan-Islamic state occupying the territory of the Zionist entity (among, in its vastness, many more territories); you are going to be less than enthusiastic about Israel, US foreign policy and secular Arab strongmen.

Likewise, in the case of western-raised terrorists, many cite problems such as alienation from broader society, racial prejudice towards Muslims among non-Muslims and lack of economic opportunities as possible alternative, or at least complementary, explanations for their death wishes and murderous fixations. Hey, maybe they are, or maybe they are, again, just among the necessary results of being a follower of the ideology. Anyway, the point is that all the aspiring terrorist actually needs is the ideology, the rest is just poor-me padding, highly convenient for rhetoric purposes, but totally unnecessary for the task at hand, which is massacring westerners and Jews.

Take away the specific grievances – which just happen to also be preoccupations of western elites – and, if the ideology still has followers, we will still have the scourge of terrorism.

It is the ideology itself which needs to be overcome.

Current Events

2006-08-07T18:26:00.000+10:00

South American lefties go feral:

Mexico's failed Presidential contender, Andres Manuel Lopez "Rule of Law" Obrador has decided to, well, not accept a court decision which denied him a national recount of votes.

The court's seven judges ruled unanimously that Lopez Obrador, who lost the race according to election authorities by 0.6 percentage point, had no claim to a full recount because he challenged results in only 174 of 300 electoral districts -- and some of his fraud claims didn't stand up.

Oh dear, that damn evidence thing again! What a fascist, bourgeois, imperialist idea!

After the ruling was announced, dozens of Lopez Obrador supporters gathered outside the court today were shouting: ``We've lost,'' and ``If there's no solution, there'll be revolution.''

Solution meaning one which gets their guy into office, obviously. This all sounds rather familiar, doesn't it? But before you get any ideas, reports of recent Al Gore sightings in Mexico have been disproved -- apparently it was just a hot-air balloon gone awry.

Lopez Obrador, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, promised to increase government spending to fight poverty and to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to protect smaller farmers.

Exactly, if policies don't work the first several times, that doesn't mean they're bad ideas: they're just different. In fact, stop talking altogether, you'll ruin their self-esteem.

Meanwhile, Evo Morales, Bolivia's president and leftist extraordinaire, is looking to get his mits on Bolivia's constitution:

As tens of thousands of Bolivian Indians looked on, President Evo Morales inaugurated on Sunday an assembly to rewrite the country's constitution, hoping to empower the poor indigenous majority and cement his leftist reforms.

Unfortunately:

... the lack of a clear majority by Morales' party suggests he will have to moderate his leftist stance if he is to win support to pass some of his radical proposals.

That damn democracy again!

One fellow who doesn't have to worry about democracy is Fidel Castro, the dictator who never goes out of style. Reports had suggested, however, that he may be going out entirely (as in body bag) but old hippies and uni students can now rest easy, as it appears Castro is in fact, not dead:

Cuban officials and Latin American allies said the 79-year-old former guerrilla fighter was recuperating from gastric surgery but faced weeks of convalescence.

So the old mongrel will be out dictating sooner than you can say: "cold war relic". What wonderful news, unless you are Cuban, of course.

Climate achangin'

2006-08-05T10:53:00.000+10:00

Political parties regard fear campaigns as essential for the acquisition and retention of political office. For parties on the right, the object of fear they deploy most regularly is the possibility of the left gaining power, and what they may do once ensconced. Parties of the left are more creative, for example, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s bombastic, “Bolivarian” strongman, seems to have decided that the US is contemplating an invasion -- which I am sure gets them ashakin’ in their boots in middle Venezuela. After all, nobody likes a regime change.

Leftists in the west, however, seem to have settled on climate change as their bogey of-the-moment. Initially, they were quite restrained about its ramifications –- in 100 years, your beach pad may be closer to the high-tide line than ideal –- but, realising that people find it difficult to break out in cold sweats over glacial retreats measured in the decades to millennia, now hurricanes, heatwaves, cold-snaps, and all sorts of bizarre animal behaviour are being blamed on this growing menace.

I still think they are off the mark. If you really want to convince recalcitrant SUV owners to ditch their trucks for a Prius (and vote for you, of course) you need to really hit ’em hard. Why not link these calamitous recent events to the threat posed by our evil, emitting ways:

• Oprah announces that her and gal pal Gayle Kings are not lesbian lovers -- millions of heterosexual men disappointed!
• Jake Gyllenhaal also not gay -- millions of gay men actually disappointed!
• Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock marry -- white-trash wedding sickens all! (Except the happy couple, of course, best of luck to them both.)
• Baconcheese banned in Canada -- thousands of British Columbian fatties flee to Seattle!

Be afraid, polluters, be very afraid!

Israel Still Has a Chance of Victory

2006-08-05T10:32:00.000+10:00

I had previously come to the view that the current war of proxies (Hamas and Hezbollah) and patsies (Lebanon) in the Middle East was certain to lead to a very unpleasant outcome – for Israel, at least. I could see the Zionist entity being beaten back by the shrillness of Arab histrionics and European sycophancy, and the wavering support of a strategically indecisive Bush administration – not to mention the fact that it is quite difficult to overcome well-armed, well-trained fanatics – and be replaced in the Lebanese border zone by a too-small number of effete peacekeepers with unclear or inadequate objectives and inappropriate rules of engagement.

But things move very fast in wars, it seems; fast enough that Ehud Olmert has done a total about-face: managing to grow a spine and out himself as a vertebrate in all of two days. If you believe recent reports, Israeli ground forces have entered Lebanon in numbers and Hezbollah has been retreating, allowing the Israelis to destroy much of their military capacity. Olmert is even starting to lay down some ceasefire terms of his own; highly sensible, given that only Israel will ever be expected to keep to them.

Nonetheless, there is certainly no guarantee of Israeli victory.

Given the extent of the investment, both human and capital, which Israel has made in this campaign, the volume of the international diplomatic discourse on the issue, and the tragic, oft-touted extent of damage to Lebanon’s infrastructure and people, anything but a total rout of Hezbollah will be viewed as a victory by that organisation and its supporters, both individual and institutional. Furthermore, unless Hezbollah is defeated to the extent that it loses its credibility as an enemy of Israel and proponent of extreme political Islam, it will be able quite easily to rebuild itself. The region is certainly not short on potential recruits to replace fallen soldiers, and there is no precedent for an international force being able to suppress Hezbollah – but there are certainly several for such a force failing spectacularly.

This gets to the heart of the matter. Those in the international community who must certainly be basing their calls for a (presumably unilateral) ceasefire on a belief that Israel and Hezbollah can co-exist must promptly be disabused of this notion. Not simply because such a position is based on fantasy, but also because it is morally wrong. To have any moral legitimacy, the purpose of this war must be the destruction, disarmament or otherwise emasculation of Hezbollah. It is a very convenient – not to mention hypocritical – for world leaders to expect Israel to put up with a certain level of terrorist atrocity as penance for the “original sin” of her nativity: there is no way that France, for example, would ever put up with a radical Dutch terror group committed to its annihilation.

Meanwhile, Iran has predictably told the Security Council to go jump over its demands that the Islamic Republic suspend its peaceful, civilian nuclear weapons (oops) programme. Whatever happened to the three European countries that were negotiating the matter with Iran – which, in itself, is rather like deputising the three blind mice to assassinate the big bad wolf? Maybe they had to go home because Ahmadinejad couldn’t stop laughing.

He is certainly the only one.

Young Waists Expand

2006-08-05T10:15:00.000+10:00

Kids are getting fat. Not just fat, obese. It's a crisis. Just listen to these testimonials:

"I told Isabella that she couldn't put the extra value economy bag of king-size caramel candy bars in the trolley, but she overpowered me. She stepped on my foot: it was agony." - Jenny*, outside a Woolworths in Parramatta, NSW. (Here, have a tissue, love).

"I said to Joshua, ' Two hyper-size double baconcheese burger meals are enough for breakfast'. But he told me to shut up or he'd send me to my room and revoke my car privileges."
- Tony*, at his home in Endeavour Hills, Victoria (Can I bum some fries, Josh?)

*Names have been changed to protect the parents from their children's reprisals.

So, as you can see, all over the country (and the world) kiddies are piling on the pounds like nobody's business. And the ramifications for both societal ugliness and train and bus seat size requirements are terrifying.

It doesn't take a PhD qualification in blame evasion to realise that this is all the food companies' fault. I, for one, can remember being very concerned when the Food Industry Board of Sydney (FIBS) announced that they were implanting parents with a "spinelessness chip" which prevented them from saying "no" to their kids more than twice in one day. On the upside, it was projected that FIBS members' revenues would rise by up to 15% once the programme was fully rolled-out.

And I actually sent a snooty letter to Nature Subversion Technologies Incorporated (NaSTI), an international pizza and burritos (or, more specifically, pizzaritos) chain based in Portland, Oregon, when they announced the development of their so-called Super Obesity Food Additives (SOFAs) which allowed the creation of evil modern staple foods such as beeffries, chocochiken and, of course, the ubiquitous baconcheese.

Baconcheese - evil, but tasty.

But what are we to do about this growing calamity? I suggest a two-pronged solution, as below:

Prong 1: Smoking. Kids used to smoke all the time. And I won't have anyone say that smoking doesn't keep you slender. I have recently given up smoking, and may as well have had a lard injection. It's shocking. Anyway, permit smoking in the classroom and watch as the fat slobs turn into svelte fashion models.

Prong 2: Amphetamines. Look, they're basically taking them anyway, what with the roaring schoolyard trade in Ritalin etc. I have never met even a chubby speed user – it is the ideal weight loss medication. To make them more palatable for the kids, the pills could even be stamped with fun, pop-culture referencing motifs, such as the Mitsubishi logo or "007". Hey, what a great idea!

Problem solved.

Train Travel Tips for the Considerate Commuter

2006-08-05T10:10:00.000+10:00

Catching the train is a community (socialist) activity. As such, it is up to all us commuters to assist in making our collective experience a pleasant one, both on the way to, and home from, our destinations. So below are some humble tips from a humble comrade negotiating the liberating, environmentally-responsible rail rate-race:

• When purchasing a ticket, if you are an irregular public transport user, have recently suffered a major stroke, or are otherwise unable to figure out how to use the ticket vending machine, please consult a friendly customer service officer. Do NOT simply stare dumbly at all the scary buttons. By acknowledging you need help, whilst you will still look silly to seasoned users, you are less likely to receive murderous dagger stares and evil-eye gestures.
• When alighting, please ensure that you allow anyone exiting the train to do so unhindered. That way, you will experience fewer collisions with fat, smelly school children as they blindly pile out.
• When you have the good fortune to catch a train at the start of its route – when seats are available – at a peak period, yet live close to town and will thus be disembarking rather quickly, please select a seat which is NOT a) a window seat with several seats next to it or b) in the middle of the carriage and far from any doors. You will then be able to disembark easily, with less pushing, shoving and tapping-on-the-shoulder on your way out.
• Should you intend to cycle to work, please plan the journey in advance, and give careful thought to the logistics of the endeavour. This is much more considerate than getting half way there, realising that you lack either the time or level of physical fitness to complete the journey, then piling into a packed train with your smelly armpits and big, space-swallowing bike.
• When disembarking from the train, please do so promptly. A little trick I use is to imagine that a terrorist has detonated a canister of nerve gas in the carriage and, should I not beat it out of there sufficiently quickly, I will doubtless die a horrible, haemorrhaging death.

By following simple rules such as these – and other common sense ideas such as, if you don’t want to walk up or down the escalator at the station, stay out of the fast lane – you too can avoid the stigma of being declared a traitor to the cause of mass transit, and encourage by example your reactionary, car-commuting colleagues to give the train a go.

Lefty Countdown - Part 1

2006-08-05T01:03:00.000+10:00

Top Ten Different Types of Lefty and Why They Suck
Part 1:

As the lefties keep telling us about terrorists, it is vitally important that we understand our opponents and their grievances so we may better overcome them (or capitulate, whatever).

It is in that spirit of understanding and inquiry that I present to you the following list of different types of lefties in the rough order in which I don’t like them.

Note: For any American (and probably Canadian) readers, a lefty is broadly equivalent to a liberal. I don’t know why you Americans call very un-liberal lefties liberals, but I guess it could be irony (whoever said Yanks don’t get irony?) or Teddy Roosevelt (after all, he did screw up the rest of your language). The habit is catching on in Australia too, presumably because “liberal” sounds better than “socialist” or “idiot”.

Additional Note: The below categories are by no means mutually exclusive. One of the things you will notice when you undertake as detailed a study of lefties as I have is that, despite their protestations to the contrary, lefties are all pretty much the same.

Now to the Countdown!

10.
Rich lefties:

You may think a rich lefty has more credibility than other lefties, on the basis that they have more to lose from their big-government fetish than paupers like me do.
But no, they don't – have any credibility, that is. They're still just as bad as poor lefties or comfortably off lefties. Why? Well, I'll leave that up to you. Besides, I should think any rich lefty would have found making their fortune far more difficult in the sort of society they advocate. But they're probably so on themselves they reckon that's not the case. Arrogant, rich, lefty wankers…

9.
American lefties:

America did not become a great nation through high taxation, bureaucracy and centralised control. Today, however, the republic which was once the home (or is that the land?) of the free seems to prefer to ape European statists with their "do as I say" version of individual "freedom".
If American lefties (liberals) are so fond of centrally planned utopian societies, they can always leave the US with what's left of her founding ideals and hightail it to one of the socialist paradises north or south. But no doubt they're too scared of getting stampeded by undocumented Mexican workers and Canadian pop stars going in the opposite direction.

Not the US flag

8.
Feminist, gay, insert-ethnic-minority-here lefties:

I'm male (boo!); I'm gay; and I am not racist – well, I don't think I am – and I am not referring here simply to gays or ethnic minorities who are lefties. The lefties of the above category co-opt and exploit their gender, sexuality and ethnicity to add spice to their otherwise tired rhetoric, as below:
• "Capitalist patriarchy oppresses wimyn (women)!"
• "Liberal democracy's bourgeois, nuclear-family centred social model disenfranchises queers."
• "Racism is a means, utilised by corporations and their government lackeys, to divide the working class."
As well as the tailored dogma, these lefties insist on special – not merely equal – rights, to address perceived historical wrongs. Affirmative action is the classic example of this.
What gets me most about these lefties is that, as history shows, the worst instances of persistent discrimination have been sanctioned by the state, such as apartheid and segregation.
In summary, the state is not your friend, boys and girls. And what Caesar giveth, Caesar can, and eventually will, take away.

7.
Christian (or any other religion) lefties:

I can think of nothing worse than a lefty who believes his silly statist sensibilities are shared by his deity. Aside from which, this sort of lefty offers the absolute worst of both worlds: not only does he want to expropriate your earnings and regulate you out of a business/job, he also wants to force women to bring babies to term, censor films with sex and/or bad language in them and ban embryonic stem cell research.
Note: It seems that, in the US, Christians are more likely to be from the kooky right than the loony left. In Australia, it is the reverse: our traditional churches have seemingly become agnostic left wing organisations.

6.
Journalists, academics, lawyers writers & artists a.k.a The cultural elite ak.a the Chattering class:

Where would society be if we didn't have intellectual and cultural superiors to tell us how to live our lives? Yes, probably the exact same spot, but what would the above category of lefty do then?

"Listen to me!" They cry.
"Obey me!" They wail.
"Conservative ideologies have robbed Australia (or wherever else you live) of its national soul." They cajole.
"Give me a government grant to cover myself in sheep's blood and have sex in the town square with a conga line of Masai warriors." They plead.
"It's art." They advise – probably in a condescending tone of voice.
"OK." Says the government. Unless you live in a country where cultural producers are expected to actually find an audience willing to pay for them.

You gotta admit, these guys know on which side their bread is buttered..

Join us next time for the rest of the lefty countdown. Who will be no 1? (Scroll down to find out!)

Why Sweden Sucks

2006-08-04T22:44:00.000+10:00

So, the USSR fell over, and you though socialism was dead, right? The wall came down and you seriously believed that the days of nuclear arms races and bad espionage novels were over, didn't you? Well, you were wrong. For, in the heart of Europe, there is a country that still holds a candle for big government totalitarianism. And, given the title of the article, I'm sure you have already guessed the country's name: Sweden!

Why is Sweden the new lefty Evil Empire? Well, firstly, there's their bastard top income tax rate of 60%. But don't worry, oppressed Swedish taxpayers, according to your government, sweetheart benefits are being offered to large foreign corporations – "Come, greedy capitalists, invest in our socialist paradise!" (Link, not including the quote, which is obviously a joke, here (PDF)).

Then there are the Swedish labour unions (Industrial Commissars?), which, according to the Index of Economic Freedom 2006 - Sweden set your wages, even if you don't belong to them. They also inform us that the Swedish government owns all the liquor stores and pharmacies in the whole country! (no doubt so party officials can obtain free booze and prescription party drugs on the sly).

I know, we're all scared.

"But" I hear you say, confidence growing: "Surely Sweden isn't a military threat. I mean, not with US world hegemony and all…" I agree. A superpower which is having so much trouble handling a former socialist, tin pot dictatorship, must surely have the will and firepower to resist Sweden and its almost certain plans for International Socialist Revolution.

But do they? (See below):

Fig 1.
Weapons Arsenals: US, fmr USSR & Sweden

After at least five minutes of googling I was totally unable to locate any reliable, current details of Sweden's no doubt massive stockpile of big, scary Viking Warriors. Conclusion: Viking Warriors are Sweden's top secret weapons of mass destruction!

Does the US have means to defend against this imminent threat?

Must we now prepare for boatloads of bloodthirsty Viking beserkers terrorising our coastlines, raiding our isolated fortresses and monasteries, stealing our women and cattle and making us feel like inferior girly-men, therefore ruining our self-esteem?

Yes, we must.

Luckily, I'm ready. I have already re-named Swedish Meatballs Socialism Meatballs (the truth must be told). That'll show those Commies!

Lefty Countdown - Part 2

2006-08-04T22:37:00.000+10:00

Top Ten Different Types of Lefty and Why They Suck
Part 2:

So, we have had Christians, Yanks and journalists. What more could there be in the lefty spectrum? We shall see!

5.
Third-world lefties:

The difference between these guys and other lefties is that these guys are almost always in charge of their countries. Once in charge, they enjoy doing things like buying fleets of black Mercedes, making war on their neighbours and domestic rivals and exterminating racial, religious and tribal minorities.

Even if they don’t do any of those, third world lefties are still disastrous. After forty-plus years of independence and lefty rule, the post-colonial world is still ridiculously impoverished. Even, if not especially, states with significant natural resources have gone pretty much nowhere.

The problem is governments need money but produce nothing, which means they need to suck in taxes. The bigger the government, the bigger the black hole becomes. We in the west can afford spendthrift excess, to an extent. But in the developing world, carpet-bagging socialists are essentially burning the fields of peasant farmers.
Lucky they have the IMF and World Bank to scapegoat for their incompetence.

4.
Communists, Marxists, Trotskyites (Trots), Maoists, Stalinists, Leninists and Marxist-Leninists:

Yes, they are all the same.

The world is kind of overpopulated nowadays, but I doubt pampered, western communists would have the stomach for the amount of mass slaughter and genocide needed to put them in even the same league as their heroes.

But, hey, a kid can dream.

3.
The ALP (Australian Labor Party):

I live in Australia, which is a federation of six states and two territories. At the moment, we have shit, lefty, do-nothing ALP governments in all of these states and territories. However, the federal government (which is very powerful) is controlled by the rival Liberal Party, who are moderately bearable.

Ultimately, the ALP will win back government. It may not do so next election (in fact, it almost certainly won't) or even the election after, but it will eventually. If we are very unlucky, the ALP may, at some stage, control every state and territory in Australia as well as the federal government.

Some history: the ALP is a union-controlled political party which acts as a mechanism for former union officials to enter parliament. They have produced one decent federal government, ever – that was back in the eighties.

But given their current habits of constant flip-flopping, leader swapping and domination by utterly uninspiring party hacks, it is almost impossible to tell what they would do if they actually won government. I doubt they've even agreed on that among themselves yet. Thankfully, their current federal leader is an ineffectual lame-duck-cum-wet-windbag who has already lost two elections. So we get to dodge a bullet for now.

Basically, the ALP are very, very bad!

2.
Greens/environmentalists a.k.a Watermelons a.k.a Tree-huggers:

I'm not against the environment or sustainability. I like trees. I even like biodiversity. I just like people more.

And Green shtick is an anti-civilisation, anti-progress mess where the serious issues, e.g, salinity & erosion (at least in Australia) get tied up with the joke ones, e.g opposition to genetically modified foods (why?) and obsessive aversions to whaling and vivisection, which is a fancy word for animal-testing.

It all leaves one with the impression that environmentalists' perfect society is one in which people live in tiny villages growing turnips, dying from smallpox and getting chased around by kangaroos and other uppity herbivores.

And even though global warming is set to imminently turn the earth into a perfect habitat for Venutian sulphur-eaters thanks to nasty humans burning coal and oil, you'd better not mention the "N" world. That's very not-allowed!

1.
Politically-correct lefties a.k.a Lefties who deny that they are lefties:

These are the people who don't mind private enterprise and may even be in favour of “The Market”. Except, of course, where "The Market" doesn't work, such as in education; healthcare; childcare; telecommunications; energy; gas; water; banking; labour and any other area or industry they arbitrarily nominate.

And they don’t like inequality of income and wealth either. It offends their superior moral sensibilities. Not leftist, moral.

These lefties are particularly irritating because they keep using lefty words, terms and expressions which don’t mean anything: e.g social justice, poverty, at-risk, humanity (as in "Oh, the…") and so forth. You need a special dictionary to understand the lingo, but, to my knowledge, no such tome has yet been published, presumably because that would mean actually defining the words.

There you have it. Phew, what a countdown!

Remember, this list is clearly not exhaustive. There is a whole ecosystem of different kinds of lefties out there when you really make an effort to artificially distinguish one from the other. I could have included university students, old hippies, conservatives-who-are-really-lefties and union lefties, for example. The moral of this is: don't bother.

The other moral is probably that lefties are everywhere. Don't look for the red under the bed, try your local town hall or house of parliament instead. In around a century, socialism has gone from being a reviled fringe doctrine to the basis of government policy pretty much everywhere. Which is, one has to admit, quite impressive.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it.