The Welsh Taxi Driver. In Coober Pedy I met a Welsman who told me a little story. Many years ago he had been prospecting in Northwest Canada in a one horse town called Broken Stick for anything the earth would yield; ore, gold, oil anything that could be sold further south. There was one road in town a kilometer in length and dotted with higgledy-piggledy hotels, busy bars and bordellos. Men slept ten to a room where it was dangerous to light a cigarette because of the fartin...
Dear all, In the outback, other than keeping whip snakes out of your swag bag, there is little to do other than gather around the camp fire with scrubby old diggers and swap tales of BLOOD CHILLING TERROR! On one particularly chill night, with a host of stars crowding the sky, an old aboriginal opal miner from Coober Pedy bade us gather around the flickering flames and crackling gum-bark to hear tell of the min-min lights. The min-min lights were named by the abor...
A small Chinese man pushes porter from the vast red-bricked megalith of Market City towards the rat infested destinations of of Chinatowns restaurants. His cargo is wide punnets of purple broccoli, and he sings to himself in a strange, alien sort of nasaly wail as he coughs and spits his way eyes shut throught the familiar songlines between gawping tourists and touting waiters. A beautiful young woman in impossibly tight white jeans that draw the male eye to consider, is she or isn...
From the Australian Newspaper: 'There was another story doing the rounds in Sydney some years ago which, one could only assume, was a furphy but which, delightfully for those who live off the grist in the gossip mill, turned out to be true. It was divorce time for a well-heeled couple and things were unusually acrimonious. He was in London on business, she here in the family mansion from which he had not moved. The telephone ran hot with screaming, tantrums, threats and accusations. Sh...
This week the Libyan Prime Minister said that his country was not responsible for the Lockerbie bombing in 1988. He said that his country only argreed to take responsibility so that sanctions and travel restrictions would be lifted and ordinary Libyans could then 'get at the white women who were easy' Following outrage in the US, the Prime MInister later withdrew his remark, saying 'Okay then we did do it'. The US has accepted the retraction saying 'They have done what they needed...
Israeli troops this week have seized over $8 million US dollars in raids on Palstinian banks, claiming the money was ear-marked for terrorism. An Israeli bank robber, sorry, spokesperson, said from his new Penthouse flat that the money seized would be used to improve the lives of ordinary Palestinian people. This would include paying for an extension to the wall being built to protect the Palestinians from themselves, along with a new swimming pool for his wifes servants tennis partner...
Dear all, In 1931 a young woman, Molly, 14, and her sisters, were forcibly removed from their families in East Pulbara, West Australia and transported to Moore river, North of Perth. This was a period in Australian history when children were forcibly removed from their parents 'for their own good'. They were of the people Mardudjura. Molly was the daughter borne or Maude, a Mardu woman, in 1917 and grew up around Jigalong, North East of Perth. She spoke Martuwangka...
Something quite dramatic happened after 9/11. Not just the understandable anger that followed the terrorist atrocity, and the human desire for revenge. What also died on that tragic day was the reputation of the US media. Blinded by grief perhaps, the US media, the champion of free press the world over rolled over and bared its throat to the top dog, the President of the United States. Unlike most dogs, Bush then tore out its throat. In the build up to the war and during&n...
This week in Camodia, a judge heard the case of a woman accused of murdering her two nieces. When arrested she was found in possession of the gold earrings of one of her nieces. The prosecution argued that the woman had lured her two nieces into the jungle on a pretence of having a picnic, whereupon she murdered the young pair for the earrings. A novel twist on babes in the wood perhaps. In her defence, the Cambodian woman argued that while in the jungle, a demon spirit possessed...
President Musharraf of Pakistan has today called on religeous clerics to review of both the Blasphemy law and the strict Hudood law. The Hudood law covers crimes of adultery and rape. Under this law, a rape victim has to produce four witnesses in court to confirm her assault, otherwise she can be tried on charges of wilful adultery while the rapist goes free. Presumably a woman that has been gang-raped by ten men needs up to forty witnesses otherwise she has commited ten counts o...
As many commentators supsected before a bullet was fired the US never had an exit strategy for leaving Iraq. This was for the simple reason that they intended to stay. The stationing of US troops in Saudi that so affronted Osama were to be withdrawn and stationed instead in Iraq. The oil produced in the compliant, stable and grateful Iraq would pay for the war, feed the guzzling, obese US economy and reward handsomely those US construction companies that ha...
Dear all, Those that have read me in the past will know that I thoroughly disapprove of the poorly planned, immoral and criminally incompetent schoolboy adventure in Iraq. Sadly everything that I predicted has come to pass, as any half-witted poorly educated idiot with just enough brain cells to scrape over a very thin wafered water biscuit could see from the beginning. I have been furious at the systematic torture and murder of helpless detainees in US custody. I have been a...
In the first part of this series I examined how the deliberate disregard for the law in the US was directly responsible for the abuse, humiliation, torture and murder of helpless prisoners in its charge, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Guatanamo. I had originally decided to extend this theme to consider events away from Iraq to see how decisions mad by both the Bush administration and earlier governements had further undermined the US claim to moral legitmacy and its sta...
'Okay there General Fuckup.' 'Morning Mr.President sir!' 'At ease soldier, now what's all this ah hear about our boys in Eye-rack having a little well deserved R&R?' 'Uh, you probably mean the torturing sir' 'Torture General? What's that then Fuckup?' 'Uh, when we attach electrodes to someones genitals sir, or beat them to death, or make them wear womens panties.' 'Wearing womens panties eh General? That's torture? Ah kinda like to wear womens....' 'Er, that's perhaps as ...
The horrific photographs released over the last few days that have stunned the entire world mark a new depth to which the reputation of the US has sunk. With promises of more and worse evidence of systematic abuse, torture and murder to come , it is no exaggeration to say that the war which the US was always struggling to win has now irredeemably been lost.. As if this wasn't bad enough, with all the focus on these dreadful pictures of jubilant US soldiers revelling in their sick humili...