November 14, 2005

• Here, read a little more!
• It continues to bewilder me as to why Australians (generally a pragmatic people) have severally endorsed John Howard as their Prime Minister (a.k.a. for Aussies: "Little Johnny Howard") along with his conservative coalition party. The man looks like a sheep, and a spectacularly stupid one at that. (Specifically, a Merino after a swift session in the shearing shed). This 'dag' is also afflicted with the most hideous pseudo-British public school accent, and squeazes out his rounded vowels as would a laryngitic fruit-bat! It comes as no surprise to find, lurking under this sheepish chap's party-mantle,a rank stench and ordure analogous to that of USA mates Bushx2 (and minions). One hears that J.Howard's son works in the Dubbya Bush camp?
• I see Australia topped the Transparency International Bribe Payers Index last time it was compiled in 2002, as the country where business was least likely to bribe abroad. That makes this all the more shocking.
• Not this Australian, jerboam. Little Howie is a joke. A dangerous one mind you...
• I think I can answer this question. Due to Australia's quirky electoral laws, the alternate candidate to John Howard is usually a giant man-eating lizard that breathes fire. Sure, we could change the law, but the point is, who knows what kind of consequences could entail if it were altered? - why, a horrible ecotoplasmic blob or giant man-eating lizard could get into power! So, we're all like "meh, let's stick with the ugly little idiot".
• See no weevil, hear no weevil, speak no weevil.
• The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, said the US Department of Agriculture's decision to suspend AWB from its export credit scheme, the Supplier Credit Guarantee Program, prejudged the former Australian Wheat Board for dealings that saw almost $300 million funnelled through a front company to the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. "I don't think Australia's competitors in the international wheat market should be taking precipitous action against the Australian Wheat Board before the Cole inquiry [into AWB's role in the scandal] has completed its report," Mr Downer said. -- Yeah, right! Bwahahaha!
• Truckloads of deceit.
• T o' D Part 2.
• In one dispatch a Foreign Affairs official reported Mr Downer telling Mr Powell words to the effect that the US could "forget Aussie support in future" if America flooded Iraq with wheat after the war.
• The Coalition of The Not-So-Willing: The United States threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" unless it joined the fight against al-Qaeda, President Pervez Musharraf says.
• (on reflection, there might have been a better thread in which to post that link... sorry)
• That link totally forgets Poland.
• That does explain why Musharraf made such an abrupt volte face, mothninja.
• Curious also that Armitage is reportedly not-so-hot on the idea of war in Iraq these days. I wonder if he sleeps pretty well. I suppose working anywhere near this administration is tiring, at least.
• If the man can stomach Dick Cheney he can stomach anything, I figure.
• Commisioner Terence Cole reprimanded AWB and its lawyers yesterday for withholding from his inquiry crucial documents that reveal some AWB executives knew from the start they were funnelling illicit payments to Saddam Hussein's regime.
• One year before the invasion of Iraq, Australia's then ambassador to the United Nations, John Dauth, confidentially told AWB's former chairman, Trevor Flugge, that the Howard Government would participate in military action with the US to overthrow Saddam Hussein, new AWB documents reveal. Yes, I do have my little hobbyhorses, it's true.