Saturday, November 26, 2005

This morning

This morning I listened to translations of Catullus and congratulated myself on my fortnight's self restraint. "What a foulmouthed poisonous hole he was" I thought, how fortunate that I am able to contain my falcer and not be remembered that way, immortalising peers in slander.

O greatest of thieves skulking about the bathouses,
The father, Vibennius, and Vibennius Junior, the catamite son
(For dad is the one with the more sordid thieving hand,
While sonny boy is busy peddling his voracious fundament):
Why don't you both get the hell out of here and go to the devil?
Since the thieveries of the father are common knowledge
And you, son, couldn't sell that hairy ass of yours for a penny.

- Catullus


Otho’s head is quite tiny,
and it’s owner’s legs loutishly unclean,
soft and delicate is Libo’s farting:
if not with all that, then let me displease you
with Sufficio, old age renewed...

- Catullus


Wonder not, Rufus, why none of the opposite sex
wishes to place her dainty thighs beneath you,
not even if you undermine her virtue with gifts of choice
silk or the enticement of a pellucid gem.
You are being hurt by an ugly rumour which asserts
that beneath your armpits dwells a ferocious goat.
This they fear, and no wonder; for it's a right rank
beast that no pretty girl will go to bed with.
So either get rid of this painful affront to the nostrils
or cease to wonder why the ladies flee.

- Catullus


Mentula is an adulterer. Why certainly he is. How could he be anything
else with a name such as his. It is as natural as for a pot to gather vegetables.

- Catullus

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Notice

In case anyone is wondering, Emigre has "withdrawn forces" from Iraq Blog Count. In an unforeseen twist of fate, the blog is now occupied by Iraqis. I am still available by email.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Dawn raids

The purges have begun.

Neighbours woken by 'shock' raids

November 8, 2005 - 9:29AM

Residents in a south-western Sydney street have described the shock of being woken by an early morning anti-terrorism raid.

NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney confirmed federal and state police raided homes in Sydney and Melbourne today and foiled a "large-scale terrorist attack".

Nine people were arrested today in Melbourne and six in Sydney, with more arrests expected later this morning.

Residents of Renown Avenue, Wiley Park, described their shock at being woken by armed police raiding a single-storey brick home nearby.

The raid was still continuing with police still in the street.

Gabriella Beyrouthy, her husband and three children close to where the police activity was occurring.

Ms Beyrouthy said she believed several families lived in the raided home, and she had often seen them in the street.

"I am surprised (about the raid)," she said.

"I see a lot of people in there (and) they're very good people.

"We've never had any problems with them." read more


I didn't sleep last night.

Friday, November 04, 2005

Calling wolf

This is getting so very nearly funny that I had to start a whole new post. John's storytelling (so many tall stories for such a little guy!) is well, apart from being dull, showing signs of no imagination. He just keeps telling the same whopper over and over again.

Just been listening to one of his dupes on the abc telling all about the "new evidence" and the "filming" and the "borrowed car" in the latest convenient terror scare which is putting Australia on be-aware alert even though there is "no need to panic". Good gawd. This evidence is nothing new. It's a rehashing of the Roche tale.

On June 12, 2000, Ahmed was driving and Roche was sitting in the back, filming embassies with a video camera borrowed from (choose name), a teacher at the Global Islamic Youth Centre in (choose suburb) NSW. He paid most attention to the (choose embassy name) embassy. A voice on the tape, believed to be Roche, urges Ahmed to go slow and comments on the security in the area. If they are questioned, one of them suggests that they say: "We are just trying to get to the mosque. We are lost."

But they were spotted by Jeffrey Harrison, an Australian Protective Service security guard on duty at the sentry box outside the (choose embassy name) embassy gate. He later logged an incident report about the Toyota (or other common car model) with three men taking pictures. Harrison also approached Roche, who by this time was out of the car trying to get better shots of the embassy. "Morning," says Roche, according to the video tape played in court. Roche, pretending to be a tourist, someone interested in architecture, adds: "How's it going . . . Fascinated with the layout of Canberra . . . A bit strange . . . very clean."

"Is that what it is?" responds Harrison. "I didn't think you were going to bomb the joint or anything." "Oh no," Roche says. rest of the tale

Meanwhile the smh are still pretending to be really freaked out by the whole thing and somebody's running around worried that Howard just blew the whistle on a secret operation to catch some mean people about to do bad things.

Oh, plus ASIO is recommending Australians go around filming each other. Good move ASIO, just the way to exacerbate national paranoia. If Howard sees ordinary people hanging about outside his offices with cameras he's really going to flip. Unless he thinks everyone's all lining up for his autograph.

Have to run. That's my schlok of spittle for the day.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Predictable to the point of absurdity

This is one of those posts where my eyes rolled so far back into my head after reading Howard's latest proclamation that I could fair see my braincells throwing up their membranes in unison and shrugging their nuclei in pantomimic disbelief. Because really I am surprised less by the declaration then by the fact that one man's government can produce so many dull falsehoods.

"The government has received specific intelligence and police information this week which gives cause for serious concern about a potential terrorist threat," he told reporters in Canberra.

Mr Howard said he could not comment further about the information he received and would not say whether the intelligence advice had come from Australian or other authorities.

As a result Mr Howard said part of the new anti-terror laws will be introduced to parliament today. more


Thank you chicken little. And when the sky falls I will be greatful that it has fallen on a head curtailed of civil liberty because I can think of no better way to forfeit my conscience then by charging windmills.

Update: at this point my pupils, cast so permanently heavenward, might fool anyone into believing I suffered cataracts were it not that every second moment my iris (both) level at the latest fabrication before flicking beseechingly on god again (or where a god might dwell) giving me somewhat a mad appearance. I am certain that any moment now a more conscientious citizen will suspect I am not at all secure and report this behaviour. How very glad am I that soon laws will be in place to protect me from myself.

Targets 'filmed by suspects'
November 3, 2005 - 8:53AM

The new terrorist threat announced by the Government involved suspects filming... more

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Mainstream finds more facts but the fakes remain unchallenged

From David Hicks story transcript, four Corners last night:

After the fall of the Taliban stronghold, Mazar-e-Sharif, Hicks says he went to the frontline. But he says he never fired a shot. Within hours of him getting there, the front collapsed. The few hundred foreign fighters there ran away, chased by the Northern Alliance. About two weeks later, Hicks was picked up at a taxi station, trying to leave the country. The Northern Alliance sold him to the Americans for $1,000. more


Eh? When David Hicks first began appearing in Australian newspapers he was shown emerging from a bombed out building shell, or against a rubble strewn landscape dressed in a shabby black or deep brown outfit with overgrown hair and a beard. He looked pretty grubby. As though he'd been there for weeks. The whole "presentation" concept seemed to be that David had been cornered and ratted out of an underground cave (or basement) in the wilderness with a bunch of Taliban/Al Qaeda members where they'd been "resisting" for days on end. No taxi was mentioned. No moneychanging was reported.

There really was nothing much to suggest otherwise, unless you read cleverly between the very large spaces between the very short lines.

An old excerpt and AP pic typical of the time:

Australian Captured with Taliban Now in US Custody
Monday December 17 7:36 AM ET (via Yahoo)

Al Qaeda-Trained Australian Reportedly Handed to U.S.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man captured among al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan has been handed over to the U.S. military but there was no evidence to confirm reports a second Australian had been caught, officials said. more


"Australian captured" "Taliban" "Al Qaeda" "fighters"... ..."Reportedly" "no evidence" "to confirm". Hmm.

Reading on.

Australian Attorney General Daryl Williams said Northern Alliance
fighters handed over Adelaide-born David Hicks, a convert to Islam, to U.S. forces early Monday and that the 26-year-old had been transferred to a U.S. Navy ship.


That "handed over" phrase again. Which makes perfect sense. Now.

So, he was picked up at a taxi rank and on-sold eh. Well well well. So much for all those sensational images frontpaging our news publications back in December 2001. Wonder who set up the shots. I mean, look at that original picture up there of the would-be David Hicks having emerged from his dug-out as he was not photographed.

A completely fabricated image based on mass media fantasy. Nothing journalistic in it at all. A fairytale image, illustrating unavailable facts. And now that the facts have arrived? The image remains unchallenged. Planted in Australia's psyche, false as it may be. For crying out loud! Look at the nose job in that picture! David's nose? Nuh-uh.

Anyway. The Four Corners transcript last night:

DEBBIE WHITMONT: Now, for the first time, Four Corners can reveal those details. Soon after he was taken into custody, Hicks was held with a small group of detainees on a US warship in the Arabian Sea - the USS 'Peleliu'. Martin Mubanga - an Englishman - knew David Hicks in Guantanamo. Hicks told him about being taken from the warship by helicopter to an unidentified land base - most likely in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

MARTIN MUBANGA, FORMER GUANTANAMO DETAINEE: He was thrown onto the chopper. His hands were in shackles and chains. And basically they was taken to, by helicopter, to a place. They was blindfolded, and there they was beaten and spat upon, and he was abused and assaulted. Things like, "You Aussie kangaroo", and things like that. Yeah, while they were beating and spitting on him and things like that. So, he was called a traitor. And then basically they brought him back blindfolded, so he never saw his...his attackers or his abusers, basically. And then he was brought back to the ship.

DEBBIE WHITMONT: When Terry Hicks went to Guantanamo, he says those beatings were the very first thing his son told him about.

TERRY HICKS: David was full on, he was agitated, he was stressed. All he wanted to do is, he just told us, "Listen. Don't say anything, I'll get it out as quick as I can." He had two 10-hour beatings from the Americans. And I said to David, "Sure they were Americans?" - 'cause he said he had a bag over his head - and he said, "Oh look," he said, "I know their accents, they were definitely American." Some pretty horrific things that were done to him.

DEBBIE WHITMONT: Are they... sexually embarrassing things?

TERRY HICKS: Yes.

DEBBIE WHITMONT: These sexually-related incidents... does this involve Americans?

TERRY HICKS: Yes.

DEBBIE WHITMONT: David Hicks told his father the Americans gave him injections and then penetrated him anally with various objects. Why does he believe he was taken off a ship by helicopter?

TERRY HICKS: Well, I mean, if they've taken him off... They're taking him off an American ship. So, I suppose if anything happens, the Americans would say, "Well, it didn't happen on our soil."

DEBBIE WHITMONT: Being taken off a warship, it's like a mini-rendition if you like, do you believe that did happen?

CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH, MOAZZAM BEGG'S LAWYER: Being taken off a warship is not a mini-rendition, it's a rendition, period. There were all sorts of renditions. There were American renditions to themselves from Pakistan to Afghanistan to torture people, from American ships to Afghanistan to torture people.

DEBBIE WHITMONT: Hicks's lawyers believe it's unlikely detainees would be helicoptered off a warship without official authorisation.

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