The Concatenate

News reports on the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s latest rant declaring Iran to be the world’s number one power, capable of administering firm kicks to the teeth of the world’s powers (presumably not their own) and “on the verge of the final nuclear victory and no power can stop this nation”.

He also implies that western nations are the “enemies of humanity”.

No doubt an alternative translation will soon be presented showing that what the President said can better be expressed as “puppies sunshine and love” and whatever belligerence remains can be justified because Americans are such fat wankers.

Photo Credit: gruntzooki CC-SA

While not the world’s most reliable of sources who could resist Andrew Landeryou’s speculation that Kevin’s great summit of 1,000 great Australian brains has only managed to get 530 nominations?

Oh the embarrassment! Oh the mocking headlines in all the world’s papers, especially in the cricket playing nations of the world?

Only YOU can avert this national shame!

Get on the Australia 2020 website and start nominating anyone you know! It’s all about making up the numbers now people! What better day than the closing date for nominations, 29 February, to be a bit bold and put someone forward?

Should they just send a free pass to every company director and tenured professor in the country?

There are 673 local governments across the country, should they invite ALL the mayors?

How about every kid who ever won a maths prize in high school?

Do you think if Kevin offered to spring for meals and accommodation in Canberra the uptake might be a teensy bit better? Maybe strike a commemorative medal they can all wear on Australia Day?

UPDATED: There were apparently over 7,000 nomination forms received, but no word on how many of these were for Tim Flannery.

Photo Credit: Timeshift9 CC-SA

The ABC had an interesting story yesterday in which the NSW Premier Morris Iemma spat the dummy about corruption in his Government.

In a rare departure from the usual script he wasn’t angry about the alleged corruption, he was angry it was being publicised:

“I am sick to the back teeth of this sort of stuff, where people’s integrity is impugned simply because they’ve sat next to someone or they’ve gone to a function or a donation has been made”

If he’d like to empower the media to make wiretaps, intercept emails or seize hard drives I’m sure we could come up with better. But in a society where mateship is often valued over probity some might think there’s some value in how you choose your mates. Morris went on to lecture the assembled reptiles on the propriety of donations:

“It’s not improper to make a donation. What is improper is to have it influence your conduct.”

Because people give you money out of the goodness of their hearts Morris? Just because you and your Ministers are such fabbo fun to have around? Such entertaining after dinner speakers?

This is an area where perhaps career politicians get a bit confused, because they do spend their lives doling out cash for nothing better than the public esteem (which they hope will translate to votes). The catch here is that money already belonged to the people they’re doling it back out to.

Developers making donations, however, are having to part with their own money which could otherwise be spent taking town planners away on dirty weekends, or on new swimming pools. The possibilities are limitless and nearly all of them are better than giving money to a politician who will never do a favour in return.

I particularly liked how Morris decided to lecture the media on the subject of libel and defamation should they continue to point out the planning Minister Frank Sartor’s links to developers:

“Mr Iemma warned there could be legal consequences for journalists who questioned Mr Sartor’s integrity”

I’m pretty sure there’s not one working journalist in the country who is not more keenly aware of the workings of defamation than Morris Iemma. But thanks for the tip Mo.

Photo Credit: Siamax

The ABC has a good story on developments in the Wollongong corruption probe.

With three of the six Labor Councillors stood down pending the findings of the ICAC inquiry the ALP’s iron grip on the council has finally been broken and the work of cleaning up the council administration can begin.

Morris Iemma it seems doesn’t like the sound of that at all. With NSW’s third biggest city slipping out of his party’s control he thinks sacking the council once ICAC wraps up its inquiry is the way to go. That way a hand picked sound chap can run the city for the ALP for 4-8 years. And with no council providing oversight we can be sure there will be no more embarrassing revelations made in public inquiries.

Best of all it even gives the appearance of being tough on corruption. Bear in mind that there’s an election due at the end of this year anyway…

We wouldn’t want the people making any sort of judgment would we?

Photo credit: Sashandre

St Kevin of the immaculate apology has announced his panel of uber-experts to guide his great meeting of 1,000 brains as he flails around for a policy agenda to call his own.

And what a list it is, choc full guest writers for the Fairfax opinion pages, and more Tories than you can poke a walking stick at to keep things sweetness and light.

So here are the great brains to guide our other brains:

– Dr David Morgan (Future directions for the Australian economy)
– Mr Warwick Smith (Economic infrastructure, the digital economy and the future of our cities)
– Mr Roger Beale AO (Population, sustainability, climate change, and water)
– Mr Tim Fischer AC (Future directions for rural industries and rural communities)
– Professor Michael Good (A long-term national health strategy)
– Mr Tim Costello AO (Strengthening communities, supporting families and social inclusion)
– Dr Kelvin Kong (Options for the future of indigenous Australia)
– Ms Cate Blanchett (Towards a creative Australia)
– Mr John Hartigan (The future of Australian governance)
– Professor Michael Wesley (Australia’s future security and prosperity in a rapidly changing region and world)

I love that Cate Blanchett is going to lead us to a creative Australia, clods that we are today.

Giving News Limited’s John Hartigan the future of Australian governance is absolutely pricless! (Lock em all up anyone?)

Any other faves in there dear reader?

(Also they’re calling for nominations to the great 1,000 brain-storm closing 29 February, why not nominate a mate for giggles?)

The SMH is running with research from Choice supposed to make us all afeared for the young held in thrawl by the wicked alcopop marketing machine.

“Ready-to-drink alcoholic drinks are the most popular type of alcohol for teenagers with one in four unable to taste the difference between the alcopops and soft drinks.”

There’s a subtle little distinction in there, they can’t TASTE the difference, but are they asked if they can TELL the difference? Is the packaging unclear or misleading?

Moving on if 75% of the population of this country can get the answer right to ANYTHING AT ALL it suggests to me that things are traveling better than usual.

Choice is outraged that sneaky drink makers are producing drinks with flavours people might like to drink. If only all alcohol was only served with a worm in the bottle all our problems would be solved!

It is true that some teenagers will prefer these drinks to a more adult beer, but so will quite a lot of adult women who have rather more disposable income to spend on these things.

News brings word that our beloved leader and Prime Minister is considering tackling campaign finance reform.

This is always an awkward subject when the incumbent brings it up, one has to ask, what with this being politics and all, “what’s in it for him?”

And it gets slightly awkward there. Australian Labor is the richest political party in Australia and some think it might well be the richest party in the world through its investment arms.

Anything that limits the ability of other parties to raise third party funds will tend to benefit the party with millions of its own money under management.

And with wall to wall Labor Governments it would certainly be a courageous entity which publicly committed major funds to the hapless Liberals. Witness the ABC’s report on the Business Council renouncing the Howard Government and all its works, despite putting that little lamented regime up to WorkChoices.

When you consider that the current corruption scandal driving this new interest in reform is the result of institutionalized Labor rule in the Illawarra the hackles really start to rise.

But what Kevin wants seems reasonable.

If he can reduce Government advertising then that will be to the good. (I find it hard to believe Kevin’s leftys will long be able to resist the potential to lecture the public through commercials but a man can dream.)

And dubious as I am about the motivation I am not going to argue about more transparency in the giving of donations. To quote Justice Brandeis:

“Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”

So let us today applaud the Prime Minister his embracing of transparency and rejection of public subsidy.

May there be much more of it.

It doesn’t take much to create an internet firestorm… but we’re joining in.

The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, has caused furore by being caught on YouTube telling a heckler, in quite jovial fashion, to “shut up you poor arsehole” according to my translator (who was a little grumpy about being dragged out of bed to watch YouTube and give an opinion). The London Telegraph reckons it was a more polite “Get lost, you stupid bastard”.

In any event Sarko is fast becoming one of the more likeable French Presidents since Clemenceau.

And what with ditching his wife for Carla Bruni and other assorted hare-brained adventures to irritate both France’s left and it’s arriviste conservative Islamists it’s hard not to feel some affection for the man.

Photo credit: Don LaVange

All the world’s media is a-twitter that Ralph Nader will once again run to be President of the United States.

Way back before time, in the first season of The West Wing, Josh made the following observation:

“now what we’ve got is two corporate parties: one pro-life, one pro-choice”

Nader came to prominence by being the voice of an America that wants a bigger choice.

He’s widely despised by the American left for bleeding votes from the pro-choice corporatist party that might possibly have seen them win the 2000 election (if those voters had turned out for Gore instead, a highly debateable point). Those who see history through this spectrum ignore the far greater damage Ross Perot did to George Bush Snr in ushering in the Clinton decade.

It’s a worry when a political system reaches the point where running as a third party candidate is seen as an act of bastardry.

Having said that in a year of Obama/McCain energising the non-partisan spectrum it’s hard to see Ralph getting much traction.

But good on him for keeping the way clear for third parties to run, and for giving oxygen to real left wing opinion in American politics.

A B-2 Spirit stealth bomber crashed moments after takeoff in Guam, writing off a plane worth between 1.2 billion (for each produced plane) and 2 billion (for each plane, with associated support and maintenance costs) US Dollars.

[ED - USA Today have coverage]

For comparison, this is roughly the annual GDP of Samoa or Fiji.

This is noteworthy in that it was the most expensive single aircraft incident in human history, but also in that a piece of military hardware can be written off by only two people, reducing the B-2 fleet by 5% instantly.

There are now only 20 of these remaining, and the next major bomber development is due in the year 2018.

For monetary comparison, a B-2 Spirit bomber costs roughly as much twenty F-22s, or one fast-attack nuclear submarine or guided-missile destroyer. A Burke–class destroyer requires a crew of 320, a Los Angeles–class submarine requires a crew of 130 to remain operational, the B-2 has a crew of just two: a pilot and a mission commander.

On 19 February 2008, following an internal vote, Australia recognised Kosovo as formally independent.

In political retaliation, Serbia has recalled their US, Australian, Norwegian, British, Italian, Greek, Vatican City, and German ambassadors, and the Australian Embassy in Serbia has been closed, at least temporarily.

In actual retaliation, rioting broke out on the streets of Belgrade, and the US Embassy was set on fire by angered protesters.

CNN has changed their coverage from “one charred body, currently suspected to be an embassy worker” to “One charred body – most likely that of of a male protester — was found in the U.S. Embassy compound, embassy spokesman in Belgrade William Wanlund said”.

Other parts of their leading and related articles were retconned [ED: Retroactive continuity something Orwell would have had a bit to say about] to reflect the new angle.

The Australian Embassy was closed for Wednesday (GMT) through to Monday (GMT) for fear of the security situation, but is again open.

Smartraveller.gov.au still lists Kosovo under a region of its Serbian travel advice.

The SMH informs that the new Government is taking a look at possibly allowing an 18+ rating for computer games allowing the adults who game (the majority of the market) to have subject material a little darker than what’s considered suitable for 15 year olds.

The article goes on for a fascinating insight of what is banned and why:

“recently banned games include Mark Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure (for promoting graffiti), BMX XXX (for sexual content) and Reservoir Dogs (for high levels of violence including the ability to shoot the heads off of hostages during a bank heist).”

Australia has always had a strong censorious streak, it’s one of the less attractive aspects of our kind.

We certainly seem to have plenty of graffiti even without the game. One would hope that we see some sanity from the Government here but I fear that instead it’s a bargaining chip to be tossed aside when convenient to placate our self appointed moral leaders.

The funny thing is I can slaughter Chinese peasants in their thousands in my totally legal Dynasty Warriors games (that ‘knock out’ is fooling no-one when I run them through with a pike), but heaven forfend we might want to fall in love!

Joel Fitzgibbon doesn’t seem to be grasping the realities of international affairs very quickly.

News reports that on the subject of Australia being allowed to buy F-22 Raptors he’s mistaken a polite evasion for actual support:

“The secretary was very helpful in pointing out that it is not just the administration that we need to approach. It is actually the Congress and the congressman, we have agreed that I should both write to him and to the congressman.”

The problem being that not only does the US not trust its wobbly allies with the technology in the F22 but that the congress has passed a law forbidding its sale to foreign governments.

Which allows Secretary Gates to say no without giving offence.

It’s true we can write to Congressman Obey and ask him nicely if we can have the keys to the kingdom despite a poor record of safeguarding what secrets America has trusted us with. And we can hope he ignores our withdrawal from Iraq and our trashing of US security forums in the region which have offended China.

Then we just need someone to move and pass an amendment through both houses of the US legislature and for the President, whenever it happens and whoever that might be, to agree to sign it.

Amusingly Joel thinks this can be done in time for a meaningful review of our future air-power needs.

In fact he thinks he can get it in this year’s white paper.

Whatever he’s smoking he should share.

The ABC is reporting that Mel Gibson’s Icon Film has snapped up the Dendy Cinema chain for a mere $21 million.

Considering what Dendy has spent on its expansion in the last few years this would appear to be a massive repudiation of investment in the cinema business.

On the other hand at least Gibson, for all his many and manifest failings as a human being, has a true love of cinema.

If anyone is going to invest in a real cinema experience in Australia it’s probably going to be him.