Smoking ban in Greece... take 2!

Let's see if it works this time. As of Tuesday (1st September) a total smoking ban in public places in Greece comes into effect, bringing the country into line with many other EU countries where similar bans have proven to be extremely successful. What makes this different is that Greece has tried many times to bring in less-comprehensive smoking bans in the past and have all failed. The latest, in June 2009 was, like now, a complete smoking ban in all public places except casinos and large music halls, which were given an extra 9 months before also coming under ban. While previous bans failed due to the Greeks' affinity to the noxious weed - at 51% of all adults smoking, it has the highest smoking rates in Europe by far - and a complete disregard to authority, the June 2009 ban failed as the then ruling conservative Nea Dimokratia Party reduced policing of the measure so as to not alienate voters!

Greek Health Minister Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou said that this time it is a 'matter of health' and 'not a witch hunt', whereby violators will be fined anywhere between 50 to 500 Euros, with higher fines up to 10,000 euros and revoking of licences for proprietors of places like cafes, bars and restaurants. Many Greeks have cynically have dismissed the ban as a way for the government to gain much needed cash.

The long-term outcome of this ban will be a good barometer to see whether the recent economic upheavals Greece has faced has really caused a change in attitudes to authority and the rule of law. Yet another failure of enforcement of smoking regulations and a disregard of the law would strongly suggest that no lessons have been learnt.

What do the ex-Soviet soldiers who fought in Afghanistan think?

Russian journalist Aleksandr Osipovich recently paid a visit to the one-room museum devoted to the Soviet Union's bitter war in Afghanistan, which lasted from 1979 to 1989, and set the stage for today's conflict between US-led coalition forces and the Taliban. Curator of this museum, which Osipovich descibes as 'one of the humblest in a country full of grand military museums and mounents', is retired colonel Vladimir Kostyuchenko. With very little government help, the museum consists mainly of black-and-white photographs of local Moscow soldiers who died in Afghanistan, many of whom perished in the same places where American soldiers are fighting Taliban insurgents today.

Afghanistan was the Soviet Union's Vietnam. Much like how the USA feared that Vietnam becoming Communist would lead to a 'domino-effect' that the countries of Southeast Asia and then Latin America would follow one-by-one, Moscow feared that the success of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 would lead to a likewise domino-effect with its own Muslim-populated Central Asian republics, and so chose to contain this by supporting a Communist government in Kabul. Many young Soviet soldiers were sent to fight in the difficult terrain of Afghanistan, where many died, while others, like their US counterparts from Vietnam, came back shunned by a public who saw them as losers, and with countless problems. During the war, the Soviet media referred to their soldiers as 'Internationalist-Warriors' while the Mujahadeen, many whose sons are now Taliban, were referred to as dushmani which in Turkic, Persian, Indian and Balkan languages means 'enemy'. However, since their final withdrawal in 1989, very little attention has been made to these veterans, and no significant monument has been made in the ex-USSR dedicated to these poor men.

Since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in response to 9/11 in October 2001, NATO forces have led a hopeless battle much like the Soviets before them, leading many former Red Army colonels to say with much glee 'well, we couldn't get rid of them, what makes you think you can'. However, as Osipovich writes, Soviet military officers and soldiers who were on the ground in Afghanistan have an interesting take on the present situation:

Despite the growing cost in American lives, US President Barack Obama was right to send tens of thousands more troops to battle the Taliban and al-Qaeda, asserted Kostyuchenko, a former Soviet helicopter pilot who served three tours in Afghanistan in the 1980s. “It would be a total mistake to withdraw forces," he said. "If forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan before normality is restored there, it will be a step backwards and the nest of terrorism will only grow.

“And next time they won't just be destroying buildings somewhere in the United States,” he continued. “They'll be setting off an atomic bomb, maybe in America, or maybe in Russia. And this will be tragic."

In the 1980s, Afghanistan was the site of the last great Cold War confrontation between Moscow and Washington: the CIA funded mujahedeen forces battling the Soviet military, supplying the Afghan resistance fighters with Stingers, the shoulder-held missiles that killed many of Kostyuchenko's fellow helicopter pilots.

Today, veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan are in the odd position of cheering on their old enemies, the Americans, in the present-day struggle to contain Islamic extremism -- a mutual enemy that has targeted both Russia and United States.

But given their own painful experience fighting the mujahedeen and trying to prop up a weak government in Kabul, the veterans, known in Russian as Afgantsy, are also deeply pessimistic about US prospects in Afghanistan. "As a military man, I fully understand why the Americans had to send in troops and fight the Taliban, and I support them in this," said Franz Klintsevich, head of the Russian Union of Veterans of Afghanistan, an organization with more than 400,000 members throughout the country.

Still, the United States seems doomed to fail in Afghanistan, said Klintsevich, who is also a member of parliament from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party. "This is a situation with no exit," he said, seated in a leather chair at his office at the State Duma building in central Moscow. "That's a fact. Obama's steps are totally correct, but it's still a situation with no exit."

Klintsevich, 53, served in Afghanistan from 1986 to 1988 and had an unusual career for a Soviet officer. Before his deployment, he studied Dari, a language spoken by many Afghans, at a specialised military academy. On the ground, he held talks with mujahedeen factions, often risking his life to meet local resistance leaders in mud-walled homes and broker temporary truces.

It was an experience that gave him an unusually clear view of Afghan society - and the daunting difficulties that the Soviets faced. "After roughly half a year, I understood that we would not achieve anything," Klintsevich said.

The Obama administration has ramped up troop levels and pledged to wage a major offensive against the Taliban before starting to draw down forces in July 2011. Although Obama's strategy has come under fire at home from both left and right, Klintsevich said he agreed with its basic logic. "You need to deliver a serious, incapacitating blow. And then, gradually, while strengthening the local authorities, you need to leave," he said.

Klintsevich argues that the United States and Russia are jointly responsible for the tragedy of Afghanistan, which has experienced near-constant strife since the Soviet invasion of 1979. While the Soviets triggered the war, he said, the Americans escalated it by lavishing funds on the mujahedeen, among whom were found future terrorists like Osama bin Laden.

Now the two former Cold War foes are stuck with the monster they created. "Over the 10 years that we were in Afghanistan, a generation of people grew up at war. This is an entire generation that learned nothing except how to hold a gun and shoot and get paid for it. They received this money, above all, from abroad," Klintsevich said.

"In 1979, thanks to our joint efforts, we let the genie out of the bottle, and putting him back in is impossible. We can only fight him. And we need to fight him together."

There is little about geopolitics in Vladimir Kostyuchenko's museum, which is located on the ground floor of an apartment building in southeast Moscow. Groups of children come here sometimes to see the exhibits, which include handmade papier-mâché mannequins of Soviet soldiers and a mujaheeden fighter. Other times, local veterans come here to socialize and reminisce.

Many Afgantsy suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and had trouble readjusting to society, especially in the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. "A lot of them started drinking and drank themselves to death. … Or people took up crime. They knew how to shoot and fight, so they became killers," Kostyuchenko said.

The small gatherings in Kostychenko's museum help veterans get by. "It's a family," he said. "We come together and talk to each other and it makes us feel better."

It's clear that Afgantsy support for NATO operations in Afghanistan gives some sort of justification and reason for their own actions 20-30 years before, which if this is a view held by others in ex-USSR society, this could be a catalyst for the re-acceptance of these veterans much like how the Vietnam War veterans in the USA and allied countries like Australia were able to accept them two decades after their return from their own hell on earth.

Below, extract from a Soviet Army guide from the 1980s warning 'Internationalist-Warriors' are banned from forming unsanctioned contacts with the locals

First Australian indigenous member of federal parliament... the implications

Ken Wyatt, a long time compaigner for Aboriginal health, has become the first ever member of the Australian federal lower house of parliament of Aboriginal descent, as the Liberal Party candidate of the electorate of Hasluck. This is both a remarkable and sad achievement. Remarkable that an Aborigine will be part of Australia's main decision-making body, and for the conservative Liberal Party; sad that it has taken this long for this to happen. Wyatt's election has provided the Liberals with a trump card considering that Aborigines overwhelming vote for the Labor Party and deflects the latent racism that some of the Liberal Party's electioneering tactics and policies tend to feed off.

Hasluck, an electorate covering a wide-range of suburbs in the eastern part of Perth, Western Australia, was rather unique this election with the range of candidates. Namely, three were Aborigines! Ironically, the only main candidate who wasn't was the sitting Labor member, the party most Aborigines tend to support.

Aborigines in politics is quite a sore point in Australian political history. It must be first pointed out that Aborigines actually only make up 2% of Australia's total population. The electorate of Lingiari, which covers most of the Northern Territory (except Darwin) has the largest percentage of Aborigine voters, but at 43% of the total, they don't even make up a majority. Compulsory voting ensures that the Aborigines in isolated communities participate in the election process, however Aborigines were only given the vote (and citizenship or even be officially counted in censi) as recent as 1968.

The first member of the Federal Senate of Aboriginal origin was Neville Bonner, who served the Liberal Party in the 1970s and 1980s, while the second, Aiden Ridgeway served as a senator for the now-ineffectual Australian Democrats from 1999 to 2005. Taking into account Wyatt representing the Liberals, the irony is that despite massive Aboriginal support, no Aborigine has been in Parliament for Labor. The fact that Wyatt stood for the Liberals has come as a surprise to many, where the Liberals have been associated with policies against Aborigines such as dismantling the nationwide Aboriginal council ATSIC, and withdrawing the Discrimination Act to allow for the 'Intervention' in 2007, which saw the Authorities involved in a murky campaign of 'regaining control' of Aboriginal communities from the ravages of alcohol abuse, rape, child abuse and violence. While most of the actions of this campaign were conveniently far from the gaze of most Australians, some reports that filtered through reported of a situation much like a continuation of the past Australian government campaigns at 'civilising the natives' which has included officially-sanctioned kidnapping of Aboriginal children to be sent to schools and made to assimilate. The child victims of this policy, which continued up until the early 1970s, are called the 'Stolen Generation' and finally received an official apology from the Australian government under recently deposed Labor leader Kevin Rudd in 2008, after the previous Liberal government refused to apologise.

The lack of Aboriginal representation in Australia contrasts strikingly with the Maoris of New Zealand, where not only have there been many Maori members of parliament but even a Maori Party that holds the balance of power and is now part of the ruling coalition. There hasn't even been anything close to resembling an Aboriginal Party in Australia.

However, Wyatt's election to the House of Representatives is still no sign that the racism of the past is gone. Wyatt revealed that he has been receiving e-mails from voters stating that had they known what Wyatt was (i.e. Aboriginal), then they wouldn't have voted for him. The fact that people have these beliefs is not shocking, as judging by the very 'White-looking' image, above, the Liberal campaigners used for Wyatt's campaign posters, even they knew that the fact Wyatt is Aboriginal would be a turn off for Liberal voters.

As the song in the musical Avenue Q goes: 'We're all a little bit racist', but the extent that one feels they can express such racist thoughts freely and openly is the true measurement of how much a society is racist. These e-mails and comments made to Wyatt, and the apparent ease that these people were able to make them, highlights the main reason why Aborigines in Australia have not been able to sit in the parliament that represents their land.

This is a first... an Aussie actually saying that not everyone has escaped the GFC in Australia!

What would be a first anywhere, Alan Kohler has written in the Drum on the Australian ABC website a few home truths and dispelled some currently-held myths surrounding the current political and economic climate in Australia. Most of his points are elaborations of those that I have been making - that the plan for broadband internet investment in Australia is good and important; that the only reason why Aussies vote out a party is because they are sick of them and not because of issues (though Kohler does fall into the myth in the end by saying that unpopular state governments had a role to play in the way NSW and Queensland voted); and that this year's election focused solely on local issues that have no bearing nationally. The biggest point he makes is that the much-publicised belief that Australia made it through the GFC unscathed is not true for all Aussies, with the manufacturing, property and tourism sectors in particularly suffering. Much hope is also pinned that with a hung parliament that change will come to the way Australia is governed, though I am quite sceptical that any change will occur. What seems most likely is that the conservative Liberal Party (in particular, though not exclusively) is establishing a climate to facilitate renewed elections as soon as possible, perhaps 12 months time, to ultimately regain power they lost after 12 years in November 2007. In the meantime, we'll just have to wait and see.

Quote of the day... Greece is a Third World country

By the Greek Deputy Labour Minister, George Koutroumanis, upon the discovery that pensions were still being paid to 321 people who officially above the age of 100 and alive but were in fact dead, some over a decade. He described the situation as a
"Third World phenomenon" that could not be allowed to continue "in a country that wants to be called a European country". Well, Greece is a Third World country, so what did he expect?

Australia take note... even Tatarstan is e-beating you!

One of the places of the world I am fascinated in is the Russian republic of Tatarstan. Homeland to the famous Tatar people, it's a Eurasian crossroads - Muslim, Asian, European, Middle Eastern, Northern all at the same time.

Now there is yet another feature of this unique place deserving of praise. In a drive to cut bureaucracy and corruption Tatarstan has introduced a new Internet-based system for streamling citizens' interaction with officialdom. "Infomats", devices that look like an oversized cash machine, appeared in the streets of Tatarstan's capital Kazan about a year ago allowing access to a whole range of government services, from applying for a passport to paying a parking fine. The "infomats" not only reduce the time citizens have to spend queuing in government offices, they also make it more difficult for corrupt officials to demand special "fees" - or bribes - for their services.

Thanks to an abundance of oil, Tatarstan is one of the most developed parts of the Russian Federation. And instead of squandering the spoils, the Tatar government decided to pour some of the profits from the oil trade into an ambitious e-government programme, including the "informats" and broadband coverage.

Like everywhere, there has been reluctance and resistance to such a groundbreaking system. Tatarstan's farsighted president Rustam Minnikhanov explains: "This system of electronic government differs from how things used to be. And maybe the most important thing for us was to change our employees' mentality so that they stopped being afraid of electronics and saw the efficiency of the system."

Tatarstan has also used this as an opportunity to encourage growth in the local IT industry, providing a great long-term, post-oil investment and diversification of the local economy. Local firms developed the software for the ambitious project. A few of them are based in a brand new IT park in Kazan, open since last October.

The brains behind this push into IT include Tatarstan's Deputy Prime Minister and Communications Minister, Nikolay Nikiforov - at 28, already a former IT entrepreneur who has moved into government. He is working on increasing broadband coverage for Kazan's 1.1 million inhabitants, from 50% at present to 70% next year (more coverage than most Australian cities). The city is also the first place in Russia and neighbouring countries to roll out a next-generation broadband wireless network - LTE.

Australia take note! You are being left in the dust by places like Tatarstan that have the right mind and vision to invest in IT for the present and future, rather than solely relying on the monoculture and short-term gain of natural resources.

Powerful

I think this picture of refugees fleeing Basra, Iraq, when being 'liberated' in 2003 says a lot about the 'freedom and democracy' that Iraq has supposedly enjoyed in the past seven years.

The mullahs must be laughing...

A controversial rally organised by Fox News presenter Glenn Beck and supported by the loonies of the 'grass-root's Tea Party was held today in Washington DC, 47 years to the day that Martin Luther King said his famous 'I Have A Dream' speech. While the 1963 event marked a major turning point in the civil rights movement, today's event starts a different type of beginning according to Beck, as he said: "America today begins to turn back to God". So, just replace 'American' with 'Iran' and you pretty much have what Ayatollah Khomeini said 31 years ago. Pity the Tea Party drones don't notice the irony.

By the way, here are some pictures of the intellectual level of the many who turned up today in Washington DC. You don't know whether to laugh or cry.

When all else fails, smear

I was wondering when they were going to sully Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange. It didn't take long. Apparently he raped in Sweden (where the Wikileaks server is located), so the news was splashed around the world. Apparently the charges have quietly been downgraded to 'molestation', but you only need to ask Michael Jackson's publicist that even if these accusations are not true, the damage done to image is itself more than enough. The thing I am most surprised is that 'they' didn't try to ping him with a paedophilia charge - a stigma no one can get over.

When I saw this news, it first reminded me of the supposed dirty tactics that those naughty 'un-democratic' countries use when they go after their dissidents. Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia, for instance, the former right-hand man to Dr. Mahatir turned leading opposition leader has been facing constant court charges for sodomy, in a case which the Western media (rightfully) portray as a set-up to discredit and destroy the image of Malaysia's number one dissident. I also thought of the likes of former Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovskii in Russia who is in jail for tax evasion. The West make him to be a hero of democracy and a victim of trumped-up charges and misjustice when his charges are actually legitimate. The only thing in his case is that if Khodorkovskii is jailed for tax evasion, then so should all the rest of Russia's oligarchs. However, the Russian establishment showed that they have such dirt on all of Russia's rich and powerful so if they do try to rock the boat, it won't be hard to charge them with something. Essentially, what is happening with Assange is something we associate with a place like mean Russia, when yet again, the West does the same. This adds yet another example of malpractice that countries like Russia will use as an example of 'yeah, but we are only doing what you do' when levelled with some Western criticism about its supposed Soviet-style actions.

If this is an elaborate but ultimately poorly managed smear campaign by the CIA, well, they do forget or just plainly cannot see beyond a US political mindset in that what might constitute a career-destroying public humiliation in the US does not necessarily have the same dire consequences elsewhere. Sometimes it is quite the opposite. Case in point was the CIA in the 1960s seeking to destroy Indonesia's anti-imperialist first president Sukarno, at a time when his opposition to the West had earned him massive support at home as well as a budding relationship with the Soviet Union. The CIA thought capturing some images of Sukarno having sex with a woman who was not his wife and then distributing them would attract the scorn of Muslim Indonesia. Well who had egg on their face? The result was a huge disaster for the CIA as rather than creating a mass scandal, Sukarno's prowess as a guy getting the chicks led to his already massive popularity grow to even higher levels. Machismo beats Islam in Indonesia. With Assange's case, just the mere accusation of rape would have destroyed him in US circumstances, but elsewhere, the belief of innocent until proven guilt has a higher chance of prevailing, especially considering the rather murky circumstances these charges have been made and then quickly dropped. Still, I am sure some damage is done, if only the likes of Fox News will probably refer to him as an 'accused rapist' from now on.

The bottom line is that we are quick to judge supposedly repressive societies using dirty tricks and blackmail to control dissent, all in a smug sense of Western moral superiorty, when in actual fact the West uses the same tactics on its dissidents such as Julian Assange. This certainly puts a spotlight on whether we are truly 'free' as they would like us to believe?

Oz election aftermath and wordplays of 'hung' parliament

OK, so I was wrong! I was reading the wrong rule book. Parochialism has won the day in Australia. The country gets what it deserves. Nick Bryant of the BBC is yet again spot on with his assessment of the 2010 Australian election. This is what he had to say:

It is the great paradox of the 2010 election. Australia emerges from the most serious global economic convulsion since the Great Depression without falling into recession, and yet the prime minister who would have been expected to take at least a modicum of credit gets ditched on the eve of the election by a deputy who then slumps herself in the polls.

In explaining this apparent paradox, perhaps historians will follow the same analytical furrow that Donald Horne ploughed in the early 1960s - that Australia is blessed with an abundance of natural resources, but cursed by second-rate politicians.

Might we even one day call this The Lucky Country election? For many will agree with that great sage of the Canberra press gallery, the Nine Network's Political Editor Laurie Oakes, who described it as a battle between two "political pygmies".

And this assessment by Harvard academic Niall Ferguson about the parochialist nature of the election fits the bill:

"It is true to say that there is a quality of Australian political debate very reminiscent of local politics in Glasgow when I was growing up," he told Mark Colvin on ABC's PM programme. "There is a parochialism combined with, I'm going to say, an edge of nastiness that is very familiar."

"Now it may seem mean to use a term like parochialism but I think it is justified when you reflect on the magnitude of the changes that we are living through - massive shifts in the global economy, a radical transfer of economic power from the west to the east.

"And one listens to the contenders for the Australian premiership discussing in the most oblique and mealy-mouthed way issues about immigration and infrastructure that really, you know, sound more like Strathclyde Regional Council than a debate for the leadership of a major power in Asia-Pacific."

Certainly, it has been a very insular campaign, with hardly any focus on the rest of the region or the rest of the planet.

As I have said in previous posts, this election was focused solely on those 12,000 'swing' voters in Queensland and NSW. What happened is that the same 10% in Queensland who changed allegiance and voted for Kevin Rudd in 2007 went back to the Tories this time round and affecting the result nationally. Why? Well, parochialism. These people voted for Rudd in 2007 mainly because he was from Queensland. Since he was viciously deposed just months ago by a South Australian/Victorian, them Queenslanders decided to punish Gillard for what she did to their Queenslander.

Now this is not just a Queensland phenomenon. Labor leader Gillard was raised in South Australia (in the electorate of Boothby) and lives in Victoria. So where did the ALP made gains of 2% and even 2 electorates? Funny that - in Victoria. These people voted for Gillard purely for parochial reasons. And how about Boothby in SA? The safe Liberal seat is now on a knife edge... again, parochialism won the day.

WA voted Liberals because their mining company employers told to do so. While the only faint glimmer of hope was central Melbourne where finally the two-party stranglehold was broken and the Greens won. Let this be a shining example that voting for anyone other than Labor or Liberal is not a 'wasted vote' as many brainwashed idiots out there would want you to believe.

So there you have it. Australia is up shit creek without a paddle and navel gazing. A true reflection of the isolation it enjoys and encourages. All the signs of the 'lucky country' of old with no hope or little desire to move on. Tony Abbott, who looks most likely to form a new government (three out of the four independents are former members of the National Party) said that the first thing he would do as prime minister is get on the phone to (cashed-strapped) Nauru and set up the refugee reception centre. Judging by the parochial and backward wallow a majority of Aussies seem to enjoy, what really needs to be set up is a refugee reception centre in the UK for fleeing 21st century Aussies who have a vision of now and not of some 1950s wonderland that never was.

Back from Oz! Who's gonna win?

G'day! I back from Oz, and hopefully back to some sort of normality. It has been a very busy time for me working, which has obviously meant that the blog has not been a priority. However now that I am heading back to my routine, I'll get the keyboard fired and share my view.

Australian mainstream society is one scary place, and this is no better reflected in the current election campaign there. As Nick Bryant of the BBC put it recently on his blog, about 12,000 voters in 20 marginal seats in New South Wales and Queensland will essentially decide who will win the election on the 21st August, and two main parties, Labor and Liberal, surely know that. Even if there were to be a huge swing nationwide against Labor, it really doesn't matter if that swing doesn't happen in the marginals. As what happened in the South Australian election in March this year, thanks to a similar targeted campaign on swing voters in key seats, Labor was reelected despite a huge swing against it statewide as it managed to limit that swing, and even gain a little ground, in the marginal seats where it mattered. This is why the current Federal campaign has been focused on just these people.

These people who hold the key to Australia's future don't care about politics but will swallow an inane sound bite that appeals to the prejudices they harbour. So that is why issues such as Australian involvement in Afghanistan or the Republic have not been mentioned, while issues potentially polarising issues like gay marriage or asylum seekers (known erroneously as 'illegal immigrants' in Australia) have taken a conservative stance. So we have seen the crazy scene of an out lesbian speaking out against gay marriage and the racist undertones of 'stopping the boats'. In previous Australian elections, these voters have been swayed by generous promises for handouts such as baby bonuses, which were essentially barely concealed bribes. Today's economic climate does not allow for such largesse, but the Aussie public still waits like hungry penguins for fish. But there's not much Aussies really want to do as they are an apathetic bunch.

So who's going to win on Saturday? If you believe the media, it's a dead heat. But then again, it always seems to be in every election lead up - the suspense helps with sales. However, I'm again with Nick Bryant on the election result. Australia may be frustrated with Labor, but it's not angry at it. Australia is quite predictable and this election will be a repeat of every election for an Australian first term government since the 1930s - the incumbent just narrowly wins. I say the same will happen this Saturday, though Labor will win quite comfortably. Why? Nothing to do with appeal or policies. Solely because your average, non-political Aussie is not in the mood for a change (of faces). I first realised that this was the only true factor back in 1993 at the South Australian election when 12 years of Labor government came to an end. A friend of mine, a person who hardly followed the issues, gave her reasons for voting Liberal: It was time for a change. What change? No idea for her. Just that 12 years was enough. And sure enough, it seems to be that Australian governments last for around 8-12 years.

So Julia Gillard can be rest assured of victory. Not that I am happy because other than the plans for nationwide high speed Internet, Gillard is no visionary (especially on issues like gay marriage). However, she is the lesser of two evils when compared to her main opponent Tony Abbott, as this ad testifies:



I'll end off with the craziest element from this election campaign. The mining companies, whose huge profits from taking away precious materials from crown land end up overseas, have been sponsoring these ludicrous ads stating that if they pay tax, then Aussies will end up 'somehow' paying for it. The reality is the opposite will happen. If the mining companies don't pay this tax, then Aussies will then get whacked. Madness.

I'm still here...

Hi there! I'm still in Australia and still snowed under with work, hence the silence. I need to let things out, but that will have to wait until I am finished with my current jobs and back in London. In the meantime, I leave you with this comment:

Propaganda is dead, long live spin!

Plus...

All I can say about the latest report by the CIA-funded 'Radio Free Asia' that the North Korean football team have been severely punished etc. is groundless propaganda. Again, the source of this "news" was a mysterious "Chinese businessman", probably the same fake one attributed to this previous propagandistic beat up by Radio Free Asia.

I'll be back soon!

In 'God's Own Country'

I've been a bit quiet lately as I have travelled half way around the world to Australia. The dumb election campaign is on where even out lesbian politicians have been forced by party discipline to say that they are against gay marriage, and the ads on TV are gutter aimed at gutter. Australia in the 1990s was aiming to become the 'clever country' in order to survive in this post-industrial world. However, 2010 shows that it's very much the dumb country, where the opposition want to stop broadband internet being implemented because 'it will cost too much' - whole suburban areas of Australia's main cities and most of the countryside still uses dial-up internet! The latent racism is ever present too. Oh dear, get me out of here!