loudmouth, hothead

Providing ill-informed comment off the top of my head since November 2005

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Location: Logan City, Queensland, Australia

fat and old

Friday, June 30, 2006

Gaza power plant destroyed by Israel is insured by U.S.

Gaza Power Plant Hit by Israeli Airstrike is Insured by US Agency

Apart from the delicious irony of the U.S. angle; the way I read this, two-thirds of Gaza —over 800,000 people— are without power or water. Can that be right? Something has to happen soon.

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Monday, June 12, 2006

"I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being."

Michael Berg is the father of Nicholas Berg, one of al-Zarqawi's most famous beheadees.

He appeared on CNN and then the Minneapolis Star Tribune turned his words into an article, which was picked up by Common Dreams.

Sample paragraph:
[M]y reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that. I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will reignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I do not ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can't end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence.
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al-Zarqawi was innocent

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

There was a letter to the editor by John Erskine and an article by Irfan Yusuf in today's Courier Mail that just made me so angry.

John Erskine claims a previous letter writer who wrote that al-Zarqawi deserved a trial by jury has "missed the point". It is Mr Erskine who has missed the point: in my culture (and I assume his also) a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of competent jurisdiction.

Irfan Yusuf ("Al-Qaeda terrorist chief deserved to die", 12 June, p31 - it doesn't seem to be online anywhere) also misses this point, despite apparently being a lawyer.

No civilised person should accept summary execution without trial, let alone congratulate the killers, as Mr Erskine did.

Although I think Mr Erskine is probably having a sly joke - after all, when he says "Radical Islamists are promoting and fomenting violence and terror to promote their version of reality and religion", he must surely be aware that the sentence is equally true if 'Radical Islamists' is replaced with 'The Bush Administration', if not more so, since the Bushites have publically acknowledged that they have their own version of reality.

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Thursday, June 08, 2006

WorkChoices Success Stories (updated)

It's a success when the legislation works as intended, right?

Sign here and give up $17,000

Grandmother's sacking tests IR laws

Civil Aviation Safety Authority staff forced onto AWAs

The reason to stop shopping at Spotlight

Worker sacked for smirking

Same work, $40 less. Take it or leave it.

Sacked Optus staff offered lower-pay jobs

Workers lose pay for helping widow

Woman sacked by SMS, union says

Iemma says south coast feeling WorkChoices impact

More sackings follow IR laws

Abattoir workers offered same job for less pay

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