why we're not doing solar power...

Running up to the elections next year, Orstraya's Prime Monster, tWee Johnnie HoWARd, has announced a 75 million dollar government contribution towards the establishment of THE WORLD'S BIGGEST SOLAR POWER PLANT.

(Eat shit, Texas !!!)

So what, you say?

Well, for matters to become clear you'll first need to digest this.

OK so far?

Good, now if you'd kindly go here and digest this.

So what?

Well, it seems Ian Campbell can see no advantage to Australia in this plant other than a trial for implementation in China.

Campell dismisses Tony Jones's suggestion (that just 178 of these solar power plants could meet ALL of Australia's power needs) as merely a "Silver Bullet" pipe dream and then immediately redirects our gaze to China (about the solar thing) and in the next breath he lauds the "clean coal" process for power generation.

And that's the game.

In the foreseeable future, if the HoWARd government gets its way, solar power is a going to be a mere appeasement project to shut the greenies up (and maybe to export it to places like China), whilst the real emphasis here is still going to be coal first, coals second, coal third, and then (maybe) nuclear.

Not surprisingly, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are BIG in coal and uranium... Much is said here about the power of the coal lobby on shaping our enegry policies, but what seems to be overlooked is that our biggest coal interests are also our biggest uranium miners. So now you know why the HoWARd government's order of play vis-a-vis energy is as follows:

Coal first, second and third.
Nuclear fourth.
Solar fifth (but only if Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton say it's ok.)

Welcome to Realpolitik.

As I said elsewhere, this is only happening because not enough of them are getting shot. (I also mentioned there that shooting the bastards is wrong and that you mustn't do it.) But since so few of you can be bothered to support peaceful people power protests, I guess the "shoot them" idea will find an ever greater resonance among the madmen who think it's their job to save mankind from these madmen.

I look for sanity, but Ifind none...

same problem, different country...

Friends of John Frasso were coming to terms Tuesday a day after the Vietnam War veteran they called “Gunship” took his own life outside the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Plains Township.

They wondered why Frasso, who enjoyed making children laugh and giving more than he received, shot himself with a .45-caliber handgun. A note apparently written by Frasso, 61, of Nescopeck, explained he was protesting the war in Afghanistan, Luzerne County Coroner Dr. Jack Consalvo said.

(by Edward Lewis, Times Leader)

(Heads-up by Satanical Susan)

John HoWARd, get fucked !!!

Iraq. Why did we invade Iraq?

First, the reason was to rid Saddam Hussein's regime of those heinous and world-peace-threatening "weapons of mass destruction" (which America sold to him).

Once it became clear that Saddam (as he had stated ad nauseam) had no frigging weapons of mass destruction, the Coalition Of The Killing deftly altered the words on the songsheet to read "regime change". All of a sudden we were not so committed to ridding Iraq of "weapons of mass destruction", as we were about spending hundreds of billions of dollars and killing hundreds of thousands of people in order to save the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein. The same Saddam Hussein who was America's most favourite "strong man". Remember Oliver North? We were all of a sudden committed to removing Amerca's erstwhile "main man" from office and "liberating" the Iraqi people by giving them an utterly corrupt puppet government which would make sure that Iraqi oil got to be owned by American and British interests. This was to be called "democracy" and "freedom".

Well, that plan seems to be falling over as well... All of a sudden George W. Bush agrees that it's starting to look like Vietnam all over again. Shit! It's only taken Dubbya THREE YEARS to catch up to the pundits.

And here in Australia, Our Prime Monster, Little Johnnie HoWARd, now reckons that the reason we're going to stay there is so that "the terrorists" can't claim a victory. Excuse me? Did he really say that? Well, according to HoWARd's latest "logic", we'd still be getting our ass kicked in Vietnam because pulling out would have given Ho Chi Minh a big boost.

According to HoWARd's latest "brainwave", we can't leave until we "win", because leaving before then would give "the enemy" a boost. Little Johnie still has not joined all the dots correctly...

We're not winning, we're losing.

The war is out of our control and "the enemy" are winning. So, by HoWARd's"logic", we'd stay there for ever.

Well not quite... HoWARd's is trying to slither out of Iraq without anyone noticing he got his arse kicked. He now reckons that if we do decide to pull out it's up to the Iraqi people as to what sort of a govenment they want.

Huh?????

The Coalition Of The Oil Swilling Oil Thieves spent HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars, got hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, squandered the lives, courage, and integrity of their own military personnel, merely to end up where it all began before their mighty "shock and awe" extravaganza began?

In other words, if it always was up to the Iraqi people as to what sort of a government they wanted, we would never have needed to intervene, right? I mean, it was up to the Iraqi people to sort out their internal politics, right? It was up to them stand up to Saddam, right?

Sorry, but could someone please tell me what's going on?

bad things happen...

"Bad things happen when good people do nothing."

It's a saying; a truism. It sounds wise.

It motivates "good" people into action to try to upturn "bad" situations/circumstances/policies/governments/etc/etc/etc.

Yo dudette!!!! Yo dude!!!

Have we spotted yet what the problem is, my dear dudettes and dudes?

Well, the problem is the assumption that "good" and "bad" are absolutes, rather than the value judgements of individuals, groups, nations, religions, cultures, etc, etc, etc.

So, using the above truism, we could justify the zealous opposition to ANYTHING.

Makes you wonder, don't it?

Good/bad, right/wrong, better/worse...

But who decides what's good/bad, right/wrong, better/worse ???

Hmmm???

ring around the rosie?

I was reminded again today that Australia is, per capita, the biggest producer of greenhouse gases.

Our BIG ANSWER to Peak Oil, is Ethanol. Ethanol will save our sorry arse, John Howard reckons. I think he may have shares in Manildra P/L (a major ethanol producer). Now they tell me that to produce ethanol from sugar cane, carbon dioxide is a by-product. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major greenhouse gas.

I wanna know how much CO2 is produced for each litre of Ethanol. Any readers have any clues on this?

P .T. Barnum, eat your heart out...

The US bombed Afghanistan as a direct reaction to 9/11. Five years on Osama bin Laden remains at large and the Taliban are ‘back’. In Iraq where no weapons of mass destruction were found, a bloody civil conflict rages. And while Washington runs the Iraqi oil reserves show, post construction firms like Halliburton are said to have pocketed millions. The Palestinians are fast becoming a forgotten peoples and although a peace deal has been brokered by the UN and the EU, the Israelis remain in southern Lebanon. Then there is Iran and the nuclear issue. Overall events since 9/11 do not forebode well for conflict resolution.

The above is the intro to an article in The Guardian, by Saundra Satterlee.

Read it if you will, and I assure it is both interesting and thought provoking, but I have a different, yet related axe to grind here:

And it is this: Hundreds of billions (perhaps even exceeding a trillion) dollars (you could get mesmerised just by the zeroes) have been flushed down the gurgler financing our wars on Iraq and Afghanistan.

Success?

You've got to be joking!

But...

Who paid for it?

Taxpayers (workers, mostly in the US, but also in the UK and other Client States of the American Empire.)

Taxpayers...

Taxpayers paid for these hugely expensive acts of idiocy, hubris and failure.

Cui bono? (Who benefited?) Easy...

The weapons manufacturers and their shareholders benefited immensely.
The munitions manufacturers and their shareholders benefited immensely.
The corporate giants involved in "reconstruction" and ""infrastructure" and their shareholders benefited immensely.
The private security contractor companies and their shareholders benefited immensely.
Oil and gas corporations and their shareholders benefited immensely.

Have we joined the dots yet, boys and girls?

The rich are laughing all the way to the bank whilst the poor (the taxpayers) are coughing up for the money! It's the biggest and oldest scam there is! Perpetual war equals perpetual wealth for the rich ( and perpetual hardship for the poor.)

All in the name of "patriotism", "freedom", and "democracy".

It's the biggest show in town and there's a sucker born evey minute!

Good night...

(Thanks to Kurt for the heads-up on the Guardian article.)

prophylaxis

Image courtesy of Bilegrip

Thanks go to Ron for the heads-up.

the pills are workin'...

Watching The Choir Boys on the ABC-TV (Live At The Basement).

I'm in heaven...

Headphones turned up to the max. The neighbours don't know zip...

Oh, did I tell you? I play a mean air guitar !!! Mean, I tell ya !!!

And to top it all off they've got Ian Moss on as well !!!

My ears are having multiple orgasms...

And I've already broken three strings on my air guitar... !!!

All I need now is for Rocker to come in with her drums...

apocalypse near...

Merav Yudilovitch interviews Noam Chomsky >>>

(Thanks to DS for the heads-up on this.)

wonderfully seditious....

"By now the whole world knows that America is none of the things that she purports to be; that is, everyone except the Americans. It is said that America has fifty states but in fact she has fifty-one, Israel being the fifty-first. Perhaps Great Britain could be counted as the fifty-second." Thus wrote Charles Sullivan.

And, I might add, Australia could be the fifty-third...

But I digress..

Read the rest of Charles Sullivan's excellent commentary >>>

(Thanks to DS for the heads-up on this.)

Rumsfeld is not a prophet...

"The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet." Thus spake Keith Olbermann.

Read the rest of Keith's commentary >>>

(Thanks to DS for the heads-up on this.)

my ABC?

The ABC seems to have become a government mouthpiece.

To wit, tonight's Lateline programme hosted by Tony Jones. All of a sudden Tony Jones sees North Korea's announced nuclear test as a "threat".

I would have thought it was more a case of North Korea engaging in a desparate act of self-preservation in the face of unrelenting threats from America over many years. Let's face it, America (the world's most powerful nuclear power) only seriously bullies countries which don't have a nuclear weapons capability. So, Amerca's message is, "if you don't want to be bullied, get yourself some nuclear weapons capability".

So it's interesting that Tony Jones is presenting North Korea's announced nuclear weapons test as a "threat" instead of a desperate act of self-preservation by a struggling, threatened, and economically and politically beseiged state.

Piss off, Tony!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it's aid Jim, but not as we know it, not as we know it...

How the US does "aid" in Afghanistan...

get around, get around, they get around...

We're gettin' bugged driving up and down the same old strip

We gotta finda new place where the kids are hip
Our buddies and us are getting real well known
Yeah, the bad guys know us and they leave us alone
We get around
Get around round round we get around
From town to town
Get around round round we get around
We're real cool heads
Get around round round we get around
We're makin' real good friends
Get around round round we get around
We get around
Round
Get around round round oooo
Wah wa ooo
Wah wa ooo
Wah wa ooo

(Apologies to the Beach Boys.)
(Blame Ron, he sent me the pic.)