Odds and Ends

 

Poor people of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, Australia. Here they were holding a perfectly peaceful vigil for the release of Guantanamo Bay detainee, David Hicks outside the Springwood offices of local Parliamentary Representative named Kerry Bartlett, a rather obscure and irrelevant little man.

The local constabulary arrives and starts taking 'in your face' pictures of the vigil participants. As the average age of the vigil participants would have to have been about fifty, give or take a few years, I can see the worry that the local police might have had in terms of the protesters flashing their weapons of mass destruction by flying their false teeth through the middle of Springwood's main street. Or, using their bright-coloured handbags as cruise missiles, waving the odd walking stick in the air as to threaten local American interests as well as launching the various types of 'walkers' through the air as to collide with the nearest United Airlines Boeing 747. 

I would have thought the local Blue Mountains Police would have had better things to do rather than to harass a few middle-aged protesters.

 

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Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, also known as Shirley, appears to be capable of managing to produce one gaff per day.

Take this one. "Australia and the U.K. are both on the same page". Now that could be very painful for the page. 

Downer also said that the U.K. withdraw of a number of troops from Iraq was not a withdraw. Clever lad he is.

Keeping in mind that this particular person, as the Foreign Minister, is supposed to be Australia's international voice, Australians might well cringe every time they see Downer on television with the same old half-witted statements that usually make very little sense. The man is starting to sound like a broken record with a lot of crap on it.

 

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I am so relieved that Dick Cheney's secret service agents were allowed to be armed during his recent visit to Sydney. It could have been much worse. We could have had Dick "Rambo, shoot everything that moves" with a weapon. We would never have known who or what he might have been able to hit. Pity Cheney did not go hunting with Johnny Bonsai Howard.

 

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One for the "Oh Yuk" department. The name of gentlemen who invented the flush-toilet was an Australian, from Tasmania in fact, named Thomas Crapper. "Oh Yuk!!!!!!!!!".

 

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There is an election due in Australia later this year and the Australian Prime Minister, Johnny Bonsai Howard, has been attempting to get some political traction from the rather feeble line that a possible Australian withdraw from Iraq would damage the U.S.-Australian Alliance. Pity for little Johnny is that Dick Cheney, recently in Australia for talks, said that the Alliance would not be damaged by a withdraw of Australian troops. Oops for Johnny. But then, the way this silly little man does business is and has been a total embarrassment to the Australian population and the majority of Australians could not have expected anything else.

 

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In a rather feeble attempt to turn around public opinion in relation to the illegal detention at Guantanamo Bay of Australian David Hick, statements by a former fellow inmate were 'leaked' to an Australian newspaper.  The statement has since been denied as having been gained through 'special interviewing techniques', meaning torture. The normal processes of law would not allow such 'leaking' prior to any legal court process. But then, the whole Hicks process has been illegal right from the beginning five years ago. Should Hicks be released, as eventually he will have to be, his lawyers may care to consider legal proceedings against both the Australian and the U.S. Governments. There are more than adequate grounds to proceed. We have also learned that some of the military lawyers representing those in Guantanamo Bay have been told to 'shut up' in public by Pentagon military officials. That will happen? I think not.

 

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Spotted at Ovda Airbase in Israel in recent days were two U.S. Air Force C17s unloading what looked remarkably like bunker-buster bombs and their control systems. No doubt the Israeli Air Force has some bunkers to bust. Ovda Airbase houses, among other aircraft, the F15i, an aircraft capable of reaching Iran.

 

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This is a very recent conversation that took place somewhere in the Middle East.

Unit 87: "Tower we are ready".

Tower:  "Very good Unit 87. Runway 24, turn right, climb to flight level 220". (22,000ft)

Unit 87: "I don't think that will be possible".

Tower:  "And why not?"

Unit 87: "We are the runway sweeper, we are here to clean runways, not to fly them".

Tower:  "Nothing further" and then a deafening silence.

 

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