Beyond The Fringe

What choice do we have? civil disobedience - in this case opting out of the electoral process - is seen by some as the last resort for people whose vehement, legitimate wishes been ignored, where democracy has been abandoned in the push for political outcomes which may prove disastrous and which have been imposed through nefarious deception. Others have joined the Noosa Liberation Army who today took responsibility for defacing roadside election posters:

“Noosa will secede or de-amalgamate,” an email read. “It’s just a matter of time! Those who think that this fight can be won without conflict are seriously deluded. This is a war, and we will win, however long it takes.”

Voting in the grandiosely named Sunshine Coast Regional Council Quadrennial Elections is compulsory under the state Local Government Act 1993. We, the governed, might argue we are voting for representatives in an illegitimate body which does not as yet exist, and that this flawed representation was proclaimed without the consent and against the wishes of the electorate.

There is no question that the people of Noosa Shire do not want amalgamation - we have been polled numerous times about this, the last plebiscite being 96% against it.

Yet if the people of Noosa do not vote, we run the terrible risk of having pro-development Joe Natoli for mayor and reduced representation for Noosa. Regardless of the new super council, State ‘iconic’ legislation provides that development decisions will be made in Brisbane, far from those who are affected and live here. Noosa’s say in its own future at present is nobbled … reduced back to vocal community groups, some of which are banding together under the Noosa Biosphere Association.

Local governments are not defined in the Australian Constitution - they are creations of their respective States. Regionalisation and amalgamation are State controlled and designated. Under the Australian Constitution, States and Territories are the only legal representative entities recognised by the Commonwealth. The present Queensland Government was elected by us, and it can thereafter do what it likes till we vote it out.

Naturally we have thought long and hard about the bigger picture when appealing to the Federal government. Although Kevvie has been approached about the undemocratic actions of the Queensland government by disgruntled Noosa residents amongst members of many such alarmed Queensland communities, and though neither he nor Julia personally supported forced amalgamations, we believe Rudd has a definite goal in mind, to form an Australian republic. With some historical vanity, he would like to be the engineer and steward of its formation. At present, for him it may be prudent to avoid a bun fight about the delineation of Federal and State powers under the existing Constitution, and so he is staying out of the fray, to the detriment of both Noosa residents and the upholding of representative democracy on a community level generally in our State.

Once regionalisation is complete throughout Australia, what need will there be for States? The footballers may not like it, but Brisbane can still play Sydney.

Except for alienated, infuriated folks, people will start identifying with their respective regions. The Sunshine Coast will play Brisbane as usual in soccer. Then the stage will be set for further reorganisation of decision-making and responsibilities.

In the interim, what happens if there is a change of government in Queensland or nationally? What power will we in our communities have had usurped from us, and passed into the mitts of an even more despicable, aggrandising mob?

Perhaps Noosa will be protected by iconic legislation for long enough for a republic to emerge, where the rights of individuals might be defined in such a way to protect the environments in which they live as well. Pigs might fly too. Despite Australians being typical disinterested in politics (is politics an acceptable dinner conversation topic yet?), it is essential that we are engaged in the republic debate, otherwise whilst we attend our barbies and down a few beers, we may get the sort of republic we really don’t want.

Grassroots democracy can be an annoyance and sometimes a threat to the feds who like things nice and tidy in Canberra. They’d rather be at lunch or off on a nice junket. Centralised governments who do not respond to vocal communities can be willing to sacrifice happy constituents and healthy environments at the beck and call of the rich and powerful who desire progress at any cost.

Recognised internationally with UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve, Noosa, with its achievements in sustainability and community democracy could serve as a model for communities in the new Republic of Australia. It is up to all Australians to reflect upon the choices before them, and speak out to protect our children’s future and the environment which sustains us all.

As we predicted, Israhell’s recent aggression against the blockaded and deprived people of Gaza and threats of escalated collective punishment have been logically followed as in the past by more radicalisation, with a murderous attack by an unidentified gunman within a religious school in Jerusalem.

Merkaz HaRav yeshiva is described by one comment in Haaretz as ‘a heart of religious Zionism’, in other words, a bastion of the land thieving settler movement.

“This attack … came in reaction to the crimes of the Israeli occupation and the massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip,” said Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman.

The gunman is reported as being a Palestinian living in East Jerusalem, and his actual identity is still unclear.

8 students were slaughtered, making the results of Israhell’s aggression against the neighbours it ethnically cleansed 60 years ago consistent with the existing death ratio. A comparative 10 Palestinians are slaughtered due to the illegal occupation, blockades and oppression by the Zionist enterprise for every 1 Israeli.

And so the cycle of violence, orchestrated and cheerled by those who benefit and glory in it the most - religious zealots, rightwing fanatics, power-mad politicians and of course the shills of the weapons industry - continues.

Meanwhile, Israhell is condemned for its 40 years of occupation and oppression by aid groups -

GAZA is experiencing “a humanitarian implosion” and life for its embattled citizens is at its worst since the beginning of Israeli occupation in 1967, a coalition of British human rights groups and charities said yesterday.
Poverty and unemployment are rising, hospitals are suffering power cuts for 12 hours a day and the water and sewage systems are close to collapse, according to a report by groups including Amnesty International, Care International UK, Oxfam and Save the Children UK.

It called on the UK government and the European Union to urgently redress this by pressuring Israel to lift its blockade on the impoverished coastal enclave and talk to Hamas.

…

The UK groups’ report on Gaza said the severity of the humanitarian situation had “increased exponentially since Israel imposed extreme restrictions on the movement of people and goods in response to the Hamas takeover (last June] and to indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israel”.

It added: “The Gaza economy is no longer on the brink of collapse; it has collapsed.”

During the past six months, the majority of private businesses in Gaza have shut down and 95 per cent of its industrial operations have been suspended due to an Israeli ban on imported raw materials and the blockage of exports. The report said poverty and unemployment had deepened dramatically and that 1.1 million people out of a population of 1.5 million were dependent on food aid.

Israeli restrictions had also hit patients in need of medical treatment unavailable in Gaza. Israel granted only 64 per cent of applications for care outside Gaza in December, compared with 89.3 per cent in January 2007.

An Israhelli spokesman for Olmert oinked in support of ongoing collective punishment of Palestinians, whilst taking the opportunity to delegitimise the democratically elected Hamas government yet again.

“In Gaza, a hostile regime took power that is shooting rockets into Israel on a daily basis. You don’t have to have normal economic relations with a country that is shooting at you.”

It doesn’t appear to occur to these arrogant monsters that Israhell, possessing the 5th most powerful military in the world, continuously commits war crimes which have been declared war crimes internationally for very good reason, as they inevitably cause terrible repercussions to be visited upon their perpetrators, irregardless of whether Israhell wishes to lay the blame, as it always does, on its victims rather than taking responsibility for its own criminal, deliberately chosen policies.

There is no happiness for him who oppresses and persecutes; no, there can be no repose for him. For the sighs of the unfortunate cry for vengeance to heaven. - Johann Pestalozzi

The Zionist media strongarmers rush to insist on retractions by the media whom they claim misinterpreted Israhelli Deputy Defence Minister Vilnai’s use of the term ’shoah’ in his repulsive collective bullying threat against the beleaguered Palestinian people. Guardian editor Alan Rushbridger apologises profusely for using the word holocaust as a translation - still, the Palestinian people and the world have heard Vilnai’s allusion, intended or not, loud and clear.

Will apologies now gush from multiple newspaper editors to Iranian leader Ahmadinejad for their definite misinterpretation of his speech where they and the Zionist propaganda machine claimed he said Israhell would be ‘wiped off the map’ when he actually said the Zionist regime would be metaphorically ‘wiped from the page of history’? Yeah, right, sure they will.

Wikipedia, flawed though it may be at times, has this to say:

Shoah is the Hebrew term meaning “disaster” or “conflagration”. With addition of “Ha” (meaning ‘The’ In Hebrew) - Ha Shoah is commonly used to refer to the Holocaust.

A quick google for ’shoah’ finds the common result in English at least is the Holocaust, whereas HaShoah appears to be associated with Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Paligate plot thickens with this Vanity Fair report where the United Stupids are revealed to have secretly conspired to give arms to Fatah strongman villain Dahlan in order to provoke a civil war to remove the democratically elected Hamas government. The elections, perpetrated at too short notice for Fatah to win, were encouraged by the Stupids. Folowing the Hamas electoral win, the Stupids wailed and gnashed teeth in consternation:

“Everyone blamed everyone else,” says an official with the Department of Defense. “We sat there in the Pentagon and said, ‘Who the fuck recommended this?’ ”

….

Some analysts argued that Hamas had a substantial moderate wing that could be strengthened if America coaxed it into the peace process. Notable Israelis—such as Ephraim Halevy, the former head of the Mossad intelligence agency—shared this view. But if America paused to consider giving Hamas the benefit of the doubt, the moment was “milliseconds long,” says a senior State Department official. “The administration spoke with one voice: ‘We have to squeeze these guys.’ With Hamas’s election victory, the freedom agenda was dead.”

One would think after numerous utter failures and countless lives lost through cossetting of a lengthy list of previous dictators/strongmen, including Saddam, the Stupids would have learnt by now. In the current debacle according to the report, the Stupid’s UN ex-representative John Bolton blames Miss Prim, Condisleezer, clumsily seeking to make her mark on history and demonstrating she has not learnt from it.

Once again, Israhell uses its grotesquely disproportionate US funded weaponry to wantonly slaughter Palestinians. About 100 people were obliterated this time, including 19 children.

Israhelli commandant, Barak, foreshadowed an increase in military extermination operations in Gaza in order to bring down the democratically elected Hamas government. Ugly threats mean ugly responses including increased radicalisation, not less, against your apartheid state, Ehud.

From Gush Shalom:

This is not a conflict between two equal forces. The most powerful army in the Middle East, backed by the world’s single remaining super-power, is daily using tanks, fighter planes, helicopters and gunships against the lightly-armed militias and overcrowded population of a small area whose people have lived under occupation and in poverty long before the present siege.

Israhell’s expressed intentions:

“We are justified in bombing Palestinian civilians including women and children because Palestinian fighters are using them as human shields.”

Israhell’s real intentions:

“Hey you mob, get your fighters to stop fighting us or we will kill you all, women and children included. And we will take more of your land, with any luck, all of it.”

Then, last week Israhelli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai threatened the Palestinians with genocide, veering toward the real intentions above:

The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.

Shoah means Holocaust in Hebrew. It can also mean disaster - either way, Vilnai’s threat is repugnant and arrogant.

Thus does the racist oppressor state use innocent human lives as bargaining chips with the leaders of the Palestinian concentration camp inmates it has tormented for the past 60 years. Jonathan Swift would smile in recognition of their rhetoric.

Israhell seems incapable of realising that the more collective injustices it perpetrates against its hapless victims, the more rockets will come. Humans do not submit to oppressors committing heinous acts. They fight until the oppressor is vanquished or a peaceful solution found. With no hope, there is only despair, and nothing to lose by fighting back to the death if necessary. Yet Israhell habitually does not recognise Palestinians as human at all, which perhaps explains why its leaders appear unable to grasp these simple truths.

Eissam Younis, director of the Al Mizan Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, said :

the Israeli army was “intentionally and systematically targeting civilians” and criticised world powers for their muted response.

“Israel puts itself above the law because the international community is always silent,” he said.

…

Tariq Dardouna, a Palestinian resident trapped in his house in east Jabaliya, told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces were targeting civilians.

“The Israeli army opens fire at everything in our area, including children and houses. There are injured children bleeding inside their houses,” Dardouna said.

Following Israhell’s pogrom on Gaza, the West Bank offices of democratically elected Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, were destroyed by Israhelli plane strikes. Another 5 people were killed. Israhell complained when Abbas cut off negotiations and condemned the attacks.

“It’s very regrettable that what is happening is more than a holocaust,” Abbas told reporters in Ramallah.

“Children who are barely five-months old are being bombed by the Israeli army.”

“We tell the world to see with its own eyes and judge for itself what is happening and who is carrying out international terrorism.”

Perhaps it will be his offices struck next. Then Israhell can joyfully proclaim as it has been wont to do in the past that it has noone with which to negotiate, conveniently placing the blame back on its miserable victims.

Barak no doubt is preparing the way to make support for the Zionist uber state and its abominable pogroms a central issue in the United Stupids election where Obama appears to have the lead at present. Barack may be forced to barrack for Barak and Israhell’s acts of attrition, or face an uphill battle in the US election.

For peace to come to the Palestinian region, it is essential that the US is led by someone in step with the rest of the international community and who does not favour privileged Israhell with its mansions and swimming pools over the needs of those whom it oppresses and from whom it has stolen and continues to steal, with the pallid, erroneous excuse that Israhell is the only democracy of the region.

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery. - Jonathan Swift

Scavenged from Pharangula, this delightfully symbolic piece from the planet’s premier throwback fertility cult stimulated gales of laughter in the Fringe residence. We do try always to look on the brighter side of life

Some of the hysterical captions proposed thus far:

“Jesus is the way, the wang, and the light.”

“Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.”

“Flip my switch and be enlightened.”

“Jesus loves the little children….”

“Suffer the little children to come unto me.”

“Children turn me on.”

“Jesus was hung so that we may see the light.”

For more delectable examples of primitive Catholic folk art and wonderful satire knifing credulous Catho devotees visit the seminal Madonna of the Toast site. The most recent post, examining the divine significance of peculiarly shaped pretzels is funny! There’s easy eBay bucks to be found in your local supermarket.

Despite the lack of attendance by the usual major human rights abusing nations including the United States, China, India, Pakistan, Russia and of course habitual, brazen, unapologetic user of the disgraceful anti-civilian weapons, Israel, Australia has signed the Wellington Declaration banning the use of cluster bombs.

82 countries signed the declaration which affirmed a ban on the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of the bombs, and called for a framework to care for survivors of cluster munitions.

Australia was accused of trying to water down the declaration to appease the United Stupids, yet an Australian delegation head, Caroline Millar, claimed they would have liked to have gone further.

Outstanding concerns Australia hoped to have addressed in Dublin included restrictions on defence forces working with allies such as the USA, which had not signed up.

Other matters included defining what a cluster bomb is, and how to deal with stockpiles used for testing and training purposes, she said.

Now that wouldn’t have happened under the US fawning leadership of little Johnny Rodent! Once again and very sensibly, Australia is taking prominence internationally against weapons of idiocy pushed like drugs by the most powerful, hateful industry lobby in the world.

Thus, no longer need we term our country Whorestralia … it’s back to good ole Oz. Not so with the uber state, who remain the United Stupids.

With typical disregard for the welfare of people of other countries and cossetting of their own and Israhell, the United Stupids expressed their ongoing repulsive commitment to cluster munitions, seeing them as useful for military purposes.

With armaments being a primary Stupids export and the Stupids exporting more weaponry than any other nation with rapid exports growth under the cover of the delusional ‘War on Terror’, any limitation on military production would naturally shoot their already corrupt and sagging economy in the foot. In desperation the US Reserve lowers interest rates, and ours goes up. Who pays for the maintenance of US environmentally destructive, greedy living standards and culture of selling death? everyone else in the world.

Bush’s upcoming visit to Israhell is unlikely to stimulate any relief for the collectively punished, long-suffering Palestinians, despite vague waffle by Olmert on illegal settlement evacuations. Israhell has a political half nelson on the United Stupids, who are blinded by pro-Israhelli propaganda, who do not realise or do not care that they are co-conspirators in war crimes and heinous human rights abuses. For the uneducated, the Israhellis are always the good guys and the Palestinians the bad. Nor do any of the Democrat presidential candidates offer any hope for change. The Israel First Zionist lobby is too strong - to speak of justice for Palestine would be electoral suicide. Why the presidential hopefuls speak of Israhell as a democracy is mystifying - perhaps it is a reflection of the lack of real democracy in a country primarily driven and controlled by big money lobbies and corporations.

Jonathan Cook analyses the Barak Oslo offers and makes some chilling conclusions about Olmert’s present political plans toward those hapless people the apartheid State of Israel currently occupies and from whom it blithely and cynically continues to steal land:

In truth, Israel’s need for recognition as a Jewish state is proof that it is not a democratic state, but rather an ethnic state that needs to defend racist privilege through the gerrymandering of borders and population. But in practice Olmert may yet use the recognition test to back Abbas, a weak and unrepresentative Palestinian leader, into the very corner that Arafat avoided.

Before Annapolis, Livni declared: “It must be clear to everyone that the State of Israel is a national homeland for the Jewish people,” adding that Israel’s Palestinian citizens would have to abandon their claim for equality the moment the Palestinian leadership agreed to statehood on Israel’s terms.

Olmert framed the Annapolis negotiations in much the same way. It was about creating two nations, he said: “the State of Israel — the nation of the Jewish people; and the Palestinian state — the nation of the Palestinian people.”

The great fear, Olmert has repeatedly pointed out, is that the Palestinians may wake up one day and realize that, after the disappointments of Oslo and Camp David, Israel will never concede to them viable statehood. The better course, they may decide, is a South African-style struggle for one-person, one-vote in a single democratic state.

Olmert warned of this threat on another recent occasion: “The choice … is between a Jewish state on part of the Land of Israel, and a binational state on all of the Land of Israel.”

Faced with this danger, Olmert, like Sharon and Barak before him, has come to appreciate that Israel urgently needs to persuade Abbas to sign up to the two-state option. Not, of course, for two democratic, or even viable, states, but for a racist Jewish state alongside a Palestinian ghetto-state.

With Bush also wanting a two state solution by the end of his disastrous term of office, the future of Palestinians looks as usual, bleak.

Dirty CIA secrets from the 1970s are now available for download. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

My motto is “The truth will always out” as opposed to the CIA’s hypocritical inscription inside the front of their lair “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Ironically the knowledge of the secret illegal activities revealed in the files may indeed contribute to freeing us - from that dark agent of the United Stupids’ profligate imperial colonialism itself.

Top Ten Most Interesting “Family Jewels”
Released by the CIA to the National Security Archive, June 26, 2007

1) Journalist surveillance - operation CELOTEX I-II (pp. 26-30)

2) Covert mail opening, codenamed SRPOINTER / HTLINGUAL at JFK airport (pp. 28, 644-45)

3) Watergate burglar and former CIA operative E. Howard Hunt requests a lock picker (p. 107)

4) CIA Science and Technology Directorate Chief Carl Duckett “thinks the Director would be ill-advised to say he is acquainted with this program” (Sidney Gottlieb’s drug experiments) (p. 213)

5) MHCHAOS documents (investigating foreign support for domestic U.S. dissent) reflecting Agency employee resentment against participation (p. 326)

6) Plan to poison Congo leader Patrice Lumumba (p. 464)

7) Report of detention of Soviet defector Yuriy Nosenko (p. 522)

Document describing John Lennon funding anti-war activists (p. 552)

9) MHCHAOS documents (investigating foreign support for domestic U.S. dissent) (pp. 591-93)

10) CIA counter-intelligence official James J. Angleton and issue of training foreign police in bomb-making, sabotage, etc. (pp. 599-603)

Plus a bonus “Jewel”:
Warrantless wiretapping by CIA’s Division D (pp. 533-539)

Another stack of soiled linen is available here.

The second collection, the CAESAR-POLO-ESAU papers, consists of 147 documents and 11,000 pages of in-depth analysis and research from 1953 to 1973. The CAESAR and POLO papers studied Soviet and Chinese leadership hierarchies, respectively, and the ESAU papers were developed by analysts to inform CIA assessments on Sino-Soviet relations.

And watch and listen … sometime soon we’ll recommence in earnest our real world political and stockmarket bents, which at present are busy in the fantasy blog world for fun and profit.

Our national politics, let alone our international political predilections are nearly too sickening at present for words anyway. While the rodent postures and preens over indigenous causes which he has patently ignored for 10 years, he is touting devious plans to allow forced entry to aboriginal communities - cornucopia for mining interests? He is preparing for the campaign of his miserable ratty existence, the outcome of which despite the woeful Liberal polling is by no means assured.

Little Johnny’s immoral counterparts and allies, the terrorist state of Israhell and its bevy of international cowering zealot minions with their individual imperial ambitions, piously condemn the popular democratically elected so-called ‘terrorist’ government of the overly occupied terrorities in favour of their now allies of convenience, the terrorist Fatah brigades. Terminally blinkered Western proponents of democracy thus are seen to regard democratic governments as legitimate if they undemocratically support policies which their electors patently do not.

There is a reason the people threw out Abbas’ Fatah party in last year’s election. Palestinians see the leading Fatah politicians as unimaginative, self-serving and corrupt, satisfied with the emoluments of power. Worse yet, Palestinians came to realize that the so-called peace process championed by Abbas (and by Yasser Arafat before him) had led to the permanent institutionalization — rather than the termination — of Israel’s 4-decade-old military occupation of their land. Why should they feel otherwise? There are today twice as many settlers in the occupied territories as there were when Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat first shook hands in the White House Rose Garden. Israel has divided the West Bank into besieged cantons, worked diligently to increase the number of Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem (while stripping Palestinian Jerusalemites of their residency rights in the city) and turned Gaza into a virtual prison.

Divide and conquer the good old colonialist way - again, for the umpteenth disastrous time since the Zionist invasion, when the Zionists first introduced terrorism to Palestine. Is As’ad from the Angry Arab News Service too optimistic when he declares:

The Palestinians need a new political organization: neither Fath nor Hamas. NOW.

As’ad also points out that

A new poll among Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank reveals the obvious: that most Palestinians are neither for Fath nor for Hamas: more than 40% of Palestinians indicated that they are “independent”.

Yet even if there was an alternative political force, it would be nanoseconds before the Israhelli government stereotyped them as terrorists in order to engineer the obligatory, traditional nobbling of peace initiatives, so their land thieving on the West Bank and breaches of international law could continue behind the usual smokescreen of convenient, manufactured ‘beleaguered’ victimhood.

As Jeffery Sachs observes:

For the past 10 years, the greatest practical barrier to peace has been Israel’s failure to carry out any true withdrawal to its 1967 borders, owing to the political weight of hundreds of thousands of settlers in the West Bank and the religious and secular communities that support them. This remains the crucial truth; the rest follows as tragedy. Even when the US or Israel have tabled peace offers, such as at Camp David in 2000, they have included convoluted ways to sustain the West Bank settlements and large settler populations, while denying an economically viable and contiguous Palestinian state.

Sachs fails to note that inevitably it is the enabling activities or lack thereof of the Israhelli government which have bolstered the continued thievery and oppression. At all times, it has been within the power of that democratically elected government to restrain its extremists and to act within the ambit and intention of UN Res 242 in order to obtain peace.

(more…)

Hot news sent to us from a friend in the know in Nebraska -

Lynchburg - Scandal struck the Falwell family today when a secret will was discovered leaving most of his estate to Tinky-Winky the Teletubby.

Rumors that the Reverend Falwell had carried on a secret affair with the television star were vehemently denied by Falwell’s family, which is contesting the will in court. Family spokesman Totle Biggit announced, “There was no affair. Reverend Falwell may have spent time with Tinky-Winky, but only to bring him the word of the Lord. He was always reaching out to media figures in an attempt to save them from evil influences. Whether it was weekend spiritual retreats in Key West with Tinky-Winky, going to Streisand concerts with Big Bird or watching gladiator movies with Bert and Ernie, Reverand Falwell did whatever it took to spread the good word.”

Tinky-Winky himself only recently came forward with his tale of a secret and stormy affair, “Publicy he denied me three times before the cock crowed, but he always came crawling back with his endearing little “I don’t know how to quit you.’ He may have engaged in some verbal gay bashing, but secretly he hated all forms of gay bashing, unless you count all the times he tied me up and went at me with the cat-o-nine tails. Truly ours was the love that dare not speak its name.”

When asked about some of the Reverend’s more controversial comments, Tinky-Winky responded, “I know it sounds strange but deep down he was a kind person who felt horrible about the things he had to say publicly. He did it to keep his followers happy and the money rolling in. He didn’t really think gays were responsible for 9-11, he knew it was all the fault of the Catholics and the Jews.”

We have no problem whatsoever speaking ill of the dead Moral Moronity leader Falwell.

He was a particularly noxious far right-winger - a gay bashing, apartheid supporting bigot. Falwell’s lambasting of Tinky Winky can only be described as bizarre. Yet those who protest the loudest about moral depravity almost invariaby have hidden, smutty secrets - thus we can speculate with glee about Falwell’s hidden proclivities.

What will be the repercussions from today’s revelations from the internationally respected Red Cross that

Israel is using its rights as an occupying power under international law “in order to further its own interests or those of its own population to the detriment of the population of the occupied territory”.
With the the separation barrier, the establishment of an outer ring of Jewish settlements beyond the expanded municipal boundaries, and the creation of a dense road network linking Israeli neighbourhoods and settlements in and outside Jerusalem, the report says, Israel is “reshaping the development of the Jerusalem metropolitan area” with “far-reaching humanitarian consequences”.

Given the stranglehold the Zionists have on western governments, media and public opinion, and although there are signs that the support Israhell has enjoyed for its reprehensible activities are waning, probably very little.

As usual, Israhelli officials obsfucate, deny culpability, refuse to admit the validity of international law in regard to return of territories seized via warfare, and thumb their noses at warranted criticism.

Israeli officials rejected the premise that Jerusalem was an occupied territory. “It is not. Israel annexed Jerusalem in 1967 and offered full citizenship at the time to all of Jerusalem’s residents. These are facts that cannot be ignored,” a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Mark Regev said.

Israel was “committed to a diverse and pluralistic Jerusalem, to improving the conditions of all the city’s inhabitants and to protecting their interests as part of our sovereign responsibility”. He added: “If any population in Jerusalem is thriving and growing, it is the Arab population.”

Demographic facts on the ground in Jerusalem are likely to inpinge on Zionist control soon. There are also positive signs that even United Stupids dignatories are disapproving of Israhell’s past crimes in the area.

Ambassadors from European Union states are to boycott celebrations of the 40th anniversary of Israel’s conquest of Arab East Jerusalem this week - in the opening shot of what promises to be a challenging summer for Israeli diplomacy.

The United States ambassador, Richard Jones, is also expected to join the Europeans in snubbing the celebrations .

What Israelis commemorate as the “reunification” of their historic Jewish capital is seen by most of the international community, not to mention the Palestinians, as a unilateral attempt to pre-empt a key issue in any peaceful solution. One-third of the city’s 725,000 residents are Palestinians, who have opted to reject offers of Israeli citizenship. Along with most other countries, the Europeans keep their embassies in Tel Aviv.

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian parliament, yesterday welcomed the European boycott as a blow for international law and peace. “The Israelis,” she said, “cannot get away with creating facts on the ground and then forcing everybody to fall in line”.

[Thanks to Antony Lowenstein for the above two links.]

There can be no doubt that Israhell is willing to continue to run the gauntlet in order to cling to lands it has misappropriated, that further oppression in order to accomplish this is still the primary modus operandus of the Zionist apartheid state. Such intransigence, of course, will not bring about conditions to promote a peaceful outcome for the region. Peace would mean compromises. On past performances, Israhell is unlikely to give an inch - to do so might initiate a collapse of its whole unsavoury, colonialist edifice.

The powers that be at what was once Australia’s best stock forum, HotCopper, have now decided that no posts on politics, terrorism or war are to be permitted in their General section. One wonders immediately why religion wasn’t included amongst the banned topics, as of the four, it would seem religion has the least relationship to stocks. Perhaps some have an irrational belief in the success of praying for stock gains similar to the rodent’s exhortation to pray for rain as all else has failed. Other mischievous posters quickly noted that sex discussion was still allowed.

Contemporaneously, a General post revealing the use of HotCopper archives for research by a team from the University of Queensland Business School in their paper “Market reaction to takeover rumour in Internet Discussion Sites” published in the March 06 Accounting and Finance journal on the noticeable effect of takeover rumours percolating in the forum was removed almost immediately after it was posted.

The UQ Business School HotCopper research abstract states

The authors acknowledge the assistance of the management of Hotcopper, who made available to us their archives …

We examine the market reaction to takeover rumour postings in the Hotcopper Internet Discussion Site (IDS). Results from the interday analysis show abnormal returns and trading volumes on the day before and the day of the posting. Results of the intraday analysis show abnormal returns and trading volumes during the 10 min posting interval and abnormal trading volume during the 10 min interval immediately preceding it. Sensitivity analyses indicate that the results are robust to concerns regarding potential confounds, credibility and bid–ask spread bias. Taken together, these findings are consistent with the market reacting to the posting of takeover rumours in IDS.

Participants on the HotCopper site are informed in the site’s Privacy Policy that information may be used

for the following general purposes: to customize the advertising and content you see, fulfill your requests for products and services, improve our services, contact you, conduct research, and provide anonymous reporting for internal and external clients.

Have the HC admin has decided the banned topics might unduly influence the market fortunes of the vying parties in the forthcoming Australian federal elections? Political censorship and wowserism at such times is of necessity suspect. Just who is being ‘protected’ by the limits on debate? After all, despite the management attitude, this is not a children’s forum site.

Note to self: must remember to email all Political Science and Political Economy departments of Australian universities to inform them of the limited nature of their areas of study.

From now to the election, this list will be updated to keep track of the rodent’s nasty wedgies as he attempts to claw back lost ground. Thus far we have:

1. The attempt to vilify teachers.
2. The attempt to win votes by unnecessary condemnation of AIDS victims.
3. An attempt to reinvigorate “Boatpeoplephobia”.
4. The attempt to bash unions.
5. Smear and muckraking, even having the cheek to try to exploit the WA crime and corruption commission prosecutions when he would NEVER implement a CCC at the federal level.
6. The attempt to blame high interest rates on Labor.

No doubt it won’t be long before more scurrilous manouvres are added to this list.

• May 2/07 Use of Bill Heffernan to slag off at Julia Gillard for being “deliberately barren” and thus unsuitable for public office - the rodent waits a whole day before expressing support for those requiring an apology from the Heffer.

NB: Thanks to dust at HC for the concept and initial three wedgies and Tradein for his smear addition.

Amazingly, the vigilant Chinese authorities have not blocked Beyond The Fringe, according to the three location test at Website Pulse. Not so at the Great Firewall of China test, where every site I tried on several servers besides this one was blocked. Perhaps the test server they use is blocked.

Beyond The Fringe is also listed on Google China - four pages of references isn’t too bad considering the site hasn’t been up for too long in its present form and location.

It must be time to write something pointedly critical about human rights abuses and censorship in China, besides one’s usual diatribes about Chinese purchases at bargain basement prices of Whorestralian resources.