Why?

Because he !@#ing rocks OK!?!

The 90's

(picture source)

Feeed Me!

Apparently when Kevin-07 was elected, one of his election promises was to propose a mandatory ISP level filtering (read: censorship) scheme, which was completely ignored by the media and the electorate at the time. Ever since, the Rudd government has been pushing for this scheme without actually demonstrating any need for it.

I have long believed that successive Australian governments have consistently messed up digital and technical legislation, because at heart, they do not understand technology (Don't get me started on the the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999). There are probably many reasons for this, but I think I can safely generalize by saying that the entire 'class of 2008' Government did not go to school with computers. Whilst they have young advisers who are for the most part computer literate (lot of Gen-Y's working as junior staffers), I doubt very much that in their current positions they are able to drive legislation.

So why would a government from one of the most open Western liberal democracies want to implement a system that mirrors China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and North Korea??

I think the answer is twofold:
1. As discussed above, I believe that those that hold the "reigns of power" do not understand the technology and are therefore confused and perhaps scared of the ramifications. The rapid advance of technology is putting massive computational power in the hands of individuals for the first time in human civilisation, and all governments across the world are struggling to understand how those forces are transforming societies.

2. The totalitarian impulse. It is the 'inevitable' process that power begets power, and those that have it, only want more. You see this in every aspect of human society. Religion and cults generally want more and more followers and want to be the last word on all their behaviour, public and private. Government institutions who start off with a narrow mandate, gradually increase the scope of their activities to include things the founders never imagined. Companies need to grow, and turn into multi-nationals, and as their size increases play more of an active role in what it's employees can and can't do. Individuals who want to make it illegal for everyone to smoke in their cars, watch certain films, play certain video games, etc etc.

The totalitarian impulse is not new and this impulse was recognised very early on in human civilization. As I discussed in a previous post, the whole idea behind the Magna Carta (the document that one could argue launched this whole liberal democracy thing) was to restrict the power of the sovereign (king), and to enshrine the rights of the citizen with respect to the governing power.

I'm not suggesting that Rudd and his government intend to make Oz a Great Southern Dictatorship, and nor would I argue that the totalitarian impulse is confined to the left. However, this unasked for legislation will impact on all Australians on the incorrect premise that will "protect the children, and what's worse (or typical if you're a cynic like me), is the Minister's clumsy use of rhetoric to brand any opposition to this filtering scheme as a vote of support for child pornography (via Libertus)

"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."
Source: Senator Conroy, ABC News, 31 Dec 2007

1. Conflating all pornography with child pornography is an intellectually disingenious position, and I would argue that the Minister himself does not believe that viewing adults engaged in consensual sexual activites (which, for the record, is currently legal in Australia), is anywhere near the same thing when it involves minors.

2. The internet filtering scheme as proposed by the Government will only attempt to filter websites. Ie. web pages with questionable (or "illegal") material. Web pages are only one part of the internet, and users can swap files using Peer-to-peer networks (P2P... think Kazaa or Napster) or Usenet (newsgroups) or a veritable smorgasbord of other methods. Only a very stupid or a very soon to be caught and incarcerated pedophile would use web pages. In other words, the "clean-feed" censorship scheme is a solution that does not solve the "problem" that created it.

There are many other cogent arguments against the clean feed scheme, however I want to focus on the issue that the average Aussie is slowly waking up to: in liberal democracies, laws are proscriptive (ie. they tell you what is NOT allowed, or in other words, everything is allowed unless "it's on the books"). In dictatorial systems, the state has prescriptive laws (ie. they tell you everything that IS allowed, and if it is not on the books, then it is not allowed).

The "clean feed" system, which is essentially a blacklist of websites that the Government will decide are inappropriate for Australian citizens, has no transparency or oversight, no set of clear rules that defines an "illegal" website, and is now exempt from FOI submissions.

The scheme will not be effective, is not asked for, and will only erode the democratic rights of the average Aussie for no clear benefit.

Religion and Anti-Aircraft Cannons

From the guys that brought you "Hamas Booby traps a school AND a zoo", here is the sequel "Hamas hides an Anti-aircraft cannon in a mosque" (via LGF)




Please note that these are the same people that at least a 1,000 people were protesting IN SUPPORT OF, in Melbourne, Australia on Jan 4, 2009.

(Protest sign outside the State Library, Melbourne, 2009 - source)

(You certainly don't speak for me or the majority of Australians you pro-Hamas seditious cow,
Jan 4, 2009, Swanston St, Melbourne - source)

Language with Intent

Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

—Sun Tzu's Art of War, ss. 3.18: Attack by Stratagem (suntzusaid.com)

---

It will be interesting to note how the left reacts to the ongoing and bloody conflicts around the world now that they will be unable to blame and hate G W Bush for them. For the last 8 years, western governments and agencies have been bending over backwards, passing policies and issuing phrasebooks to avoid any simultaneous mention of "Muslim", "Islam (or Islamic)", and "terrorism".

UK:
The Daily Mail: "Government renames Islamic terrorism as 'anti-Islamic activity' to woo Muslims"

"Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism.

In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity".

(I'm pretty sure the fanatics have their own ideas about how Islamic their activities are - Jack)

The Guardian: "Whitehall draws up new rules on language of terror -Phrasebook designed to avoid blaming Muslims for extremism"

EU:
The Telegraph: Don't confuse terrorism with Islam, says EU

"Brussels officials have confirmed the existence of a classified handbook which offers "non-offensive" phrases to use when announcing anti-terrorist operations or dealing with terrorist attacks."

(one wonders why the handbook had to be classified if there is no link between Islam and terrorism - Jack)

US:
From the official non-binding memo that was circulated to "Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center," (Document here)

• Don't Invoke Islam
• Don't Harp on Muslim Identity
• Avoid the term 'caliphate,' which has positive connotations for Muslims, to describe the goal of al-Qaida and associated groups. The best description of what they really want to create is a 'global totalitarian state.' (oh that's much better - Jack)
  
• Never use the terms 'jihadist' or 'mujahideen' in conversation to describe the terrorists. A mujahed, a holy warrior, is a positive characterization in the context of a just war. In Arabic, jihad means "striving in the path of God" and is used in many contexts beyond warfare. Calling our enemies jihadis and their movement a global jihad unintentionally legitimizes their actions.
  
• When possible, avoid using terms drawn from Islamic theology in a conversation unless you are prepared to discuss their varying meanings over the centuries. Examples: salafi, uzahhabist, caliphate, sufi. ummah. Do not use "ummah to mean "the Muslim world." It is not a sociological term rather it is a theological construct not used in everyday life."
  

In the history of the World, has there even been such exquisite deference to those that proudly proclaim to be our enemies? Replace the words Islamic with Nazi or Nazism, Muslim with the words German, and caliphate with "The Third Reich" and tell me if you think any of the Western (and Eastern!) governments of the day would have willingly restrained their use of language when dealing with the Nazi threat?

"For Stalin's sake Comrade, don't mention the The 3rd Reich, it will only inflame them further!"	"Hey old chap, don't talk about 'Nazism' when speaking with our German POW's, as you simply don't have the correct philosophical underpinnings to debate the difference between Socialism, National Socialism and just plain genocide. I mean you're not a German so how could you possibly understand?!?"	"Hey Sarge, the guidebook says we can't call the Krauts: bosch, hun, Nazis, sauerkraut munchers, stein drinkin' lederhose wearin' tulip smellin' Farterlanders. Can we call em' "weiner suckers""?

The focus on "offensive" language and the attempts to control it demonstrates that there is a widespread belief we are not in fact in a war, and if anything it is all the product of Bush et al. And this has real policy implications.

However it is not all doom and gloom. There are groups that are recognising this inability to clearly identify the enemy is hampering our ability to fight. From the Washington Post:

""The fact is our enemies cite the source of Islam as the foundation for their global jihad," the report said. "We are left with the responsibility of portraying our enemies in an honest and accurate fashion." "

Further links

• "Not calling Islamism the Enemy" - Daniel Pipes
• "Government policies stifle Talk of Islam" - Pyjamas Media

Picture sources:

• Russkies
• Brits
• Doughboys

Hamas curriculum

As you may have heard, Israel (using "disproportionate" force of course), blew up a school where over 40 innocent palestinians were sheltering.

From The Age: Israeli strikes kill 48 in school refuges

Of course, the UN, who for some reason has been ever so quiet about the direct targeting of civilians by Hamas with over 200 rockets just this month, has decided to pipe up about this disgraceful act of self-defence: No militants in bombed school, UN director says.

Well, before we all rush to judgment about how the terrible Israeli's are being all disproportionate and everything, just have a look at this 3 minute video, which shows that Hamas had booby trapped a school and zoo and wired them both to blow up. (via Michael Totten)

Now, do you think it is at all possible that the type of people to wire up a zoo and a school to blow up simultaneously, will have stopped themselves using the local high school's footy oval to launch rockets? How about booby trapping the school to ensure that any Israeli counter-strike would definitely generate some media-friendly innocent palestinian deaths?

It's not really that much of stretch....


Links:

• Israel blames Hamas for school deaths (HeraldSun)

Googling imperils the Earth!!!

Well it's now official, everything you do contributes to The Warming, even Google searches create CO2:

"Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research."

Well, everybody panic right now....or maybe forgo your morning cuppa.

"While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g."

Google "Global warming is a crock of shit" and you get 26,400 hits

Google "I believe in unicorns" and you get 852,000 hits

Which, in addition to me just adding 15g of CO2 to make a really bad joke, proves that more people prefer to write about unicorns than they do Global Warming. Does that mean Unicorns are real-er than Global Warming ?

I think so

Propaganda wars

Propaganda in modern war is perhaps the most important front of any conflict. Russia recognized this when they invaded Georgia in August last year, hijacking the country's IT infrastructure as the first stage to their attack, thus preventing Georgia from being able to get the up to the minute news from the ground out into the world, giving the Russians the propaganda advantage to carry on however they wanted.

There's a good argument to be made about the power that propaganda had in making the US 'lose' the Vietnam War, even though if you look at the conflict through military "key performance indicators", they won on every aspect.

Propaganda Poster from the Vietnam War - source

Mohammad al Durah, the "Jenin Massacre" (as reported by the BBC , the Weekly Standard , and the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs), the Israeli bombing of Qana in Lebanon in 2006 (and the subsequent rise in celebrity of Green Helmet Guy) are all just a selection of the most well known propaganda lies that have been perpetrated against Israel by an objective and non-bias media.

Green Helmet Guy doing what he does best, pimping the bodies of
dead Lebanese children for media consumption in the West.
(Any similarity with the Vietnamese propaganda poster above is pure coincidence - source)

The commonality between all these hoaxes is that a large respected world news agency (Associated Press, Reuters, AFP) has swalowed whole without any editorial oversight stories and pictures submitted by local stringers who, as we would say, have a dog in that fight, and can't be relied on at all for objectivity.

So it is with no surprise at all that when the current offensive into Gaza started, that the media rushed to blame the Israelis for the usual "disproportionate" use of force, genocide of the palestinians, blah blah blah wash rinse repeat. This video, as reported by CNN supposedly shows a doctor trying to resuscitate a 12yr old boy.




Weirdly and with no explanation, CNN pulled the video for a couple of days (after bloggers started to comment on it) and have now put it back. My first thoughts are:

• I have seen better 'medical acting' on House and ER, and even I know that CPR is useless without ventilating the lungs.
• I don't buy the "grief" of the relative when for some reason they feel that displaying the "dead" body in a living room (whilst holding it!?!?!!).
  

And would it surprise any of you to know that the entire story was filmed by the elder brother of the "victim", clearly without any hint of bias. Here is an excellent debunking of this video.

These days, the larger media organisations are being held to account for some of their reporting bias, and bloggers all over are making sure the big guys don't get away with too much, however the major narrative of "Israel bad, Palestinians good" continues and shows no sign of abating.

Extra links:

• The life and times of Green Helmet Guy
• and he's only been doing it for 10 years.
• He has his own Wikipedia page

• From the people that brought you the Mohammad al-Dura hoax, enter the 'mysterious' case of the time-travelling exploding Gazans

A final thought:

New Years Rockets

From The Age via (the Guardian):

"Foreign journalists have been forced to report without getting to the detail of what is going on. That meant, at least in the early days of the bombardment, that reporters who would have been in Gaza were instead reporting from Israeli towns and cities under fire from Hamas,"

Clearly foreign journalists have absoloute powers to be able to report from wherever they want, circumstances be damned. I mean it's not like that ever happened in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Vietnam, or WW2, Russian revolution, American Civil War, etc etc, etc

"An Israeli official told me they were delighted at a BBC TV correspondent broadcasting from Ashkelon in a flak jacket, reinforcing the impression that the Israeli city is a war zone when there is more chance of being hit by a car than a rocket."

Dear Mr Sneery Journo, below is a video about a Hamas rocket strike into Ashkelon. I'm pretty sure you'd be wearing a flak jacket if you were reporting from there, but I doubt very much you have the cojones.

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

"The notable exception is al-Jazeera TV, which has a bureau in Gaza City and has been broadcasting live from there."

Of course, the brave and bold al-Jazeera who were forced to apologise to Israel for disgraceful biased coverage over the release of Samir Kuntar and his merry band of Israeli-killers. Thank the space monkey they are there to provide some much needed objectivity.

"Take the UN school (where 42 people were killed by an Israeli shell) for example. There's a lot of questions as to what actually happened. If the foreign media had been there it would have had much more of an impact on the conflict than it has at the moment."

Indeed. I'm pretty sure the marines at Haditha were ecstatic about the presence of foreign journalists who completely fabricated a story about marines who allegedly revenge killed a family of innocent Iraqis. Did that foreign media coverage (who all are the bastions of objectivity and love GW Bush) help the conflict in any way? Or did it perhaps make the troops job are bit harder? (Did I mention all the marines were cleared ?)

Quoting a bit from Mark Steyn's column:

"In Paris, the state-owned TV network France-2 broadcasts film of dozens of dead Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid on New Year's Day. The channel subsequently admits that, in fact, the footage is not from Jan. 1, 2009, but from 2005, and, while the corpses are certainly Palestinian, they were killed when a truck loaded with Hamas explosives detonated prematurely while leaving the Jabaliya refugee camp in another of those unfortunate work-related accidents to which Gaza is sadly prone. Conceding that the Palestinians supposedly killed by Israel were, alas, killed by Hamas, France-2 says the footage was broadcast "accidentally.""

Along with the long and glorious history of media objectivity towards Israel, is it a surprise when they're not welcoming to the press? It is perhaps a shame that any foreign press representatives weren't in the school prior to it's destruction, so they could have given the world up to the minute updates and answer all those questions.

Back to the article:

"For the first time, when Israel raised questions, journalists had to address these issues and not get caught in a feeding frenzy of reporting the story."

Well it's about bloody time they got their media handling act together.

"Israel has long accommodated an often critical foreign press corps, generally without interference, although hostility grew after the outbreak of the second intifada because journalists were perceived as pro-Palestinian."

And the answer to that question just a few lines later...

"The BBC has two Palestinian producers in Gaza who have supplied material."

I'm sure they are as neutral as any other employee of the BBC.

Palestinian Intellectual

(via Atlas Shrugs)