Cameron's Brain

20 cases of wrongful detention

20 cases of wrongful detention.  20 cases of wrongful detention.

Imagine one of these was your child. Your spouse. Your mother. You.

Imagine someone you loved was locked up for two years. No crime committed. No charges brought against them.

I love this from News.com.au: 

THE Department of Immigration will spend $230 million on reforms - including $50 million retraining staff - after the wrongful deportation of an Australian was found to be shameful.

Staff will go back to school and study subjects along the lines of "How not to forcibly deport Australian citizens" after the scathing report was released yesterday.

What a joke.

But the serious side of all of this folks is what happens when you allow a Government to start to pass legislation that denies individual rights. Who is responsible? Amanda Vanstone? John Howard?

No. Us. We're responsible. We are allowing this to happen in our country. We're succumbing to the fears being rammed home to us everyday by the Government, by the media, about terrorists in our cupboard, and we're ignoring the fact that our Government is creating laws which infringe on the most basic of individual human rights.

However, here is why Vanstone should either resign her position or be sacked:

It (the inquiry) found that a breakdown in communications within the department and a culture of cover-up led to Ms Alvarez being lost from her family overseas for four years.

She has been the minister for long enough to HAVE to take responsibility for allowing a culture of cover-up to exist. Pissing away another $230 million dollars on "reforming" the public service isn't the solution. Putting someone in charge with a sense of responsibility is the only solution.

JK is Blogging Rita

TPN hosts James & Sheri Kendrick live in Houston, Texas, and have decided to "ride out" the storm. James is blogging it. Good luck guys, we'll be praying to the FSM for you.

Follow The Money - Part Two

From AlJazeera:

A billion dollars have vanished from the coffers of Iraq's Defense Ministry, seriously affecting the government's ability to secure the country, Iraq's Finance Minister said in an interview.

The rip-offs were so huge, the report said, that Iraqi officials estimate that the Iraqis involved "were only front men and 'rogue elements' within the U.S. military and intelligence services may have played a decisive role behind the scenes".

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has been informed of the problem "but the extent of the losses has become apparent only gradually. The sum missing was first reported as 300 million dollars and then 500 million dollars, but in fact it is at least twice as large," the report said.

"If you compare the amount that was allegedly stolen of about $1 billion compared with the budget of the ministry of defense, it is nearly 100 percent of the ministry's (procurement) budget that has gone AWOL (absent without leave)," Allawi told the Independent.

Allawi added that a further 500-600 million dollars had disappeared from the electricity, transport, interior and other ministries.

Okay, so let's see if we can re-construct this. Bush decides to invade Iraq. Congress pass bills to fund the invasion - hundreds of billions of US dollars of extra military funding, going to Bush's friends in the weapons business. A few months later, Bush gets Congress to pass bills allowing him to spend billions of US dollars on "re-construction", much of it going to Bush's friends at companies like Halliburton. Lots of that money is also given to the interim Iraqi government as aid.

One and a half BILLION of the aid money has disappeared.

Let's call this little plan "how to steal a billion dollars from the US Treasury and get away with it".

Danny Ocean would be proud.

On Mark Latham and Tony Martin

Just remembered one other thing from the meeting with Coates this morning. It was at Café Panetta in South Melbourne and Tony Martin was sitting at a table near us. I remember when we first started G'DAY WORLD, lots of people used to say we reminded them of Martin and Molloy. I've been a big fan of Tony's since the mid-80s, but especially since his famous  impersonation of De Niro back on The Late Show.

I caught the last half of Denton's interview with Mark Latham tonight. I don't know about you, but I though Latham was completely lucid, rational and calm. In fact, I think if he ran as an independent in my burb right now I'd probably vote for him. Denton's interview was pretty lame. Belinda saw the first half, and told me Denton went on and on about why Latham didn't make a statement during the tsunami, even though Latham gave a purely sensible response. Anyone want to lay a bet how Denton votes?

Australia: Sleepwalking Into Tyranny

"Sleepwalking Into Tyranny" is the term Willikers uses to describe where Australia is at,  after today's dubious deportation of US peace activist  Scott Parkin, who had been held in a Melbourne correctional centre since last Saturday.

In Willikers' opinion:

The Government deported Parkin because he was an unspecified threat to national security. That's all they have to say any more. What they don't realise is that his despotic deportation will cause a rise in dissent. But then, maybe that's what they want.

The Larvatus Prodeo blog has some spirited debate about the reasons for the deportation. Was Parkin involved in organizing violent protests? Or is the media's representation of the protests in Sydney slanted to accord with the Government's objectives of squashing debate about Iraq?

The Skype deal

Oh the irony. The week after their first start-up, Kazaa, got nailed to the record industry cross by Aussie courts, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis have sold their second little start-up, Skype, to ebay for USD$2.6 - $4.1 BILLION (that's $5.3 BILLION Aussie shekels). If at first you don't succeed....

I'm always skeptical of acquisitions that don't have a precise synergy with the existing business. Let's see... auctions... telephony.... hmmmm. Can Skype make auctions better? Can auctions make Skype better? Do they add value to each other? I don't see it. Click to talk? Sheesh. I thought the great thing about ebay was that you didn't HAVE to talk to people. People are weird. Gimme a well designed website anyday.

That said, Meg's a smart girl and I'll defer to her judgment.

Nero 2

Michael Peters sent me this image as well...

And Nero fiddled

My mate Marc Van Hoof sent me this via IM today:

"No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming"

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.

Read the full article written by Sydney Blumenthal, a former advisor to Clinton.

Did you see the reports of Barbara Bush on the news tonight after she and George Snr visited the Astrodome in New Orleans?

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas," she was quoted as saying in an interview on National Public Radio.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

Well, you know, they were poor, so living in an Astrodome is kinda fun! An adventure! And they didn't even have to pay! Hmmm, maybe she knows something we don't? Maybe W is going to CHARGE the people for staying in the dome? It's kinda like Disneyland for them. Why should they get it for free?

Meanwhile, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin thinks the CIA might have him killed and the POSSE COMITATUS act has been overturned.

Hang on to your hats ladies and gentlemen. The world's most powerful nation is entering free fall.

(Thanks to Tony for the last link).

Kanye speaks out about Bush

Okay I've stayed away from posting about Katrina and NOLA, mostly because I don't have anything intelligent to add (and what's new?) and also because NOLA is one of my favourite places in the USA, it's one of the rare American cities that has a soul and true character, and I'm devastated by what's happening there to the people.

But "ma boy" DJ Dex linked to this amazing video of Kanye West and Mike Myers doing a TV ad to raise donations for the victims of Katrina.

I'll let Dex tell the story:

So yeah, I am watching this video, and I’m noticing how Kanyizzle is fucking trembling with anger, angst, something. He’s obviously very emotional at this point. And while Myers is reading from the teleprompters, you can tell that Kanye is speaking straight from the heart, because he’s stumbling all over the place, his voice is shaking, and well, he doesn’t really sound all that great. At first, I’m like man, they need to get this dude a beer or something, chill him out, because he’s gonna break down on camera.

I was partially right. He didn’t break down, but he definitely fucking broke something down. Let me put this into pictures for you. He starts talking about the government putting military in New Orleans, and then breaks out with this line:

And by “us”, he’s talking about the urban Black poor people in New Orleans.

Myers is a little shocked.  But it doesn’t end there.

At this point, I’m a little intrigued, because Kanyeezy already pulled the race card in the beginning of the clip, and you can tell that Kanye is still itching to let loose. You’ve got to wonder how far he’s going to go. Of course, you always hope that someone is going to get up on national TV and just do the damn thing, but it’s a fantasy.

Until now.

After he gets himself back together, Mike Myers proceeds to read off the teleprompter like a good celeb. He says some shit about the spirit of the people of Southern Louisiana.

Kanye, though, fucking Kanye.  He waits for Myers to finish, looks the camera dead on, and says the following:

That’s right.  Dude is on live television, and says:  “Bush doesn’t care about Black people“.

What happens afterwards is sort of strange. Mike Myers looks at him in astonishment, and then they cut to Chris Tucker, of all people. God only knows what that was going through that man’s mind. Actually, I want to know what the producer was thinking when he cut to him - was he hoping that maybe Tucker would be like “Ah, nah, man, Bush loves us brothers!”?

I personally think that Chris shoulda been like “That’s right dog!”, but, well, he didn’t. His career is a bit less stable than Kanye’s right now, I’m thinking, so that probably wouldn’t have been a good move. I’m sure they exchanged words after that happened, though.

I don't think Bush hates black people - I just don't think Bush gives a damn about anyone who isn't on the board of Bush Inc.

$5 says Myers and his people went straight into crisis mode (almost as fast as NBC - owned by General Electric, one of Bush Inc's best buddies - did) just for standing CLOSE to Kanye when he pulled this shit.

I say - good on Kanye for not being afraid to speak his mind. It doesn't matter if you agree with him or not. He saw his shot and he took it like a man.