Summer’s here, Movember’s over. Thats my effort above. All gone now, after the photo was taken as evidence.
Movember
Monthly Archives: November 2007
Phone freaks
An American judge has been removed from the bench after jailing an entire courtroom full of people when no-one would admit to owning a mobile phone that was ringing. A commission on judicial conduct said Judge Robert Restaino had acted “without any semblance of a lawful basis” and behaved like a “petty tyrant”. In its ruling on Tuesday, the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended the removal of Judge Restaino for what its chairman called “two hours of inexplicable madness” on the morning of 11 March 2005. It said the 48-year-old judge had been presiding over a series of domestic violence cases when he heard a mobile phone ring and “snapped”. “Every single person is going to jail in this courtroom unless I get that instrument now,” he told the courtroom’s audience, according to the commission. Security officers then attempted to find the phone but failed. After a brief recess, Judge Restaino returned to the bench and again asked who had been responsible for the ringing phone. When no-one came forward, the judge ordered that the entire courtroom audience of 46 people be taken into custody and set bail at $1,500.
The audience and defendants were then taken to jail, where they were searched and packed into crowded cells. Fourteen people who could not post bail were later shackled and transported to another prison. They were later released when the story started hitting the local media.
I know mobile phones ringing at the wrong time in the wrong place give me the shits, but perhaps Judge Reistaino over-reacted just a smidgin.
In more local news of phone abuse, we had a guy in court in Canberra today charged with various phone stalking offences. Dejan Nikolovski, 22, faced multiple stalking and harassment charges in the ACT Magistrates Court today: nine counts of using a carriage service to offend, six of indecency, two of stalking and one of possessing a prohibited substance (that last one may well explain the others).
ACT police said earlier that the victims received a barrage of phone calls, including sexually explicit video calls.
“Some victims allegedly received up to 40-50 calls in a one to two hour period in the middle of the night,” a police spokesman said.
Wonder if Dejan Nikolovski is somehow related to Shane Warne?
Update (29/11/2007): More phone adventures …. this time a man in Korea who is said to have been killed by an exploding mobile phone. Further update (30/11/2007): Turns out that was bullshit. The guy was murdered and the exploding phone was the killer’s bullshit excuse to cover it up.
Technorati tags: Judge Robert Restaino, mobile phone, cellphone, contempt of court, judicial oversight, Dejan Nikolovski, phone stalking
TV Newsreader "underqualified"
Thought this was interesting. Christine Spiteri, a Channel 9 newsreader, is taking legal action against the network for allegedly sacking her for her decision to take maternity leave.
Channel 9 refused to be drawn on why it had ended her contract. But Nine sources said last night the first-time mother had demanded a prime-time newsreading job for which she was underqualified. Now given that the qualifications for being a newsreader are largely:
- being attractive
- being able to read an autocue,
what exactly are 9 telling Spiteri? Thats she’s ugly, or can’t read?
Another thing … does having a fixed term contract not renewed when it expires equal being sacked? I don’t really think so, she signed up for a period, the period expired, the employer decided it wanted to move ahead without her. Not good for her, but she was the one who signed the contract.
One last election ad
Militant dentists?
One of the defences advanced by Jackie Kelly for her husband’s stupidity over the racist leaflet was that:
“He hates the unions with a passion, my husband.”
I also heard on TV something to the effect that the unions had stuffed him around many times, hence his hatred of them.
Mr Kelly (ie Gary Clark) is a dentist. Those union dentists must be a militant lot!
Remember the ads that had a dentist spruiking toothpaste or toothbrushes (I think?) – “we can’t show you his face”. The Clark/Kelly family is obviously looking for some extra cash, as he’s been auditioning for a part in them.
Liberal goons are better than union goons
The retirement of Jackie Kelly from the Federal parliament will at least serve the purpose of raising the average intelligence of the House of Representatives. The pity of it is that she’ll be on the receiving end of a shitload of cash from her superannuation and entitlements, and that my taxes are contributing to this.
Her performance today in attempting to defend her husband’s involvement in producing and distributing a racist and fake leaflet in her old electorate was abominable. She defended it as merely a prank. Further she went on to attack the Labor “goon squad” who caught her husband and mates out.
The government has constantly been attacking the ALP for its ties to the unions and their goons. Of course in the eyes of the government, a handful of union goons are representative of the entire union movement. However, the Liberals’ own goons are merely some misguided renegade individuals, not representative of the party. For fucks sake, the boys were just drunk when they thought up their prank ….excuses all doesn’t it?
Now of the 3 people in this picture who believes none of them knew of the leaflet beforehand? While the husbands of new candidate Karen Chijoff and current member Jackie Kelly have fallen on their swords and claimed their wives had no knowledge of it, and apologised for their stupidity, I’m having difficulty swallowing it. While I agree with what John Howard had to say today about the sins of partners not automatically applying to each other, ie:
“We, I hope, live in a society where we treat husbands and wives – although we respect the closeness of their relationship – we treat them as individuals and we shouldn’t automatically transfer blame for the deeds of one onto the other,”
I just find it hard to believe that the men concerned would have acted completely without their wives knowledge, especially during an election campaign. At the moment when candidates are totally focused on being seen in the best possible light, their partners wouldn’t even be farting in public without consulting them first. It just defies belief that they’d do something like this without their partners knowing about it.
Funny though, that John Howard has changed his views since Therese Rein’s companies had a few glitches over employment conditions …of course then Mr and Mrs Rudd were completely inseparable. Strange!
To be honest, I’m sure the PM knew nothing about the stunt … his fault lies only in fostering the attitudes where candidates and supporters are prepared to do anything including playing on racist sentiment to win elections.
If Mrs Chijoff had any involvement or knowledge of the leaflet, which I think she does (despite the spousal firewall thats been constructed), common decency would dictate that she fall on her sword and withdraw her candidacy. Ha ha, thats not going to happen is it! If she won’t go herself, the Liberal party should axe her …. again, ha ha thats not about to happen. Indeed if somehow this stunt manages to appeal to enough bogan racists in Lindsay for her to win the seat on Saturday, no doubt she’ll be celebrated as a hero with backslapping all around , and lots of “ho ho ho, that was a laugh wasn’t it?”. As for the referrals to the police and the Electoral Commission. no doubt everything will quietly fade away after the election, regardless of who wins (Liberals won’t want to have their own people in court, the ALP will have its own rocks it doesn’t want looked under).
Finally, some local politics in Canberra. On the radio this morning I was disappointed to hear Senator Gary Humphries (who I think is a reasonable, sensible man .. .for a politician anyway) and his slippery attempts to justify a dodgy misleading brochure the Liberals produced to attack the Greens. Gary, you are wrong, firstly issuing this sort of crap and then trying to defend it.
Technorati tags: Jackie Kelly, Karen Chijoff, Liberal Party, racism, electioneering, dirty tricks, politics, Lindsay, Kevin Rudd, John Howard
Google is not your friend
Seems that a little stunt by the Liberal Party to cast doubt over the eligibility of a number of ALP candidates in this week’s election was based on some dodgy googling. With just three days to go, Liberal frontbencher Andrew Robb yesterday produced a list of Labor candidates he said appeared to have retained positions on government boards, agencies and offices while attempting to run for Parliament – which is prohibited under the Constitution.
However the allegations seem to have been based on searches of the websites of the various authorites, departments and boards that the ALP candidates were on, without any fact checking with the organisations. Turns out that the websites were not exactly current.
The whole idea of the government already flagging the possibility of legal challenges even before the election is just another sign of their desperation to do anything, say anything to cast doubt in voters’ minds, and hopefully win the election. Not going to happen, Andrew, John and co. Such desperation just smells of telling people “we’re not going to accept your decision if we can find a way to weasel out of it”. Talk about taking your bat and ball and running off home.
It would be amazing if Labor didn’t take the care to ensure all their candidates were properly nominated (and eligible). If that was the case it would be staggering incompetence by the party administration ….and if so Kevin Rudd and co need to be looking for some new help. I just find it difficult to believe a political party thats been around for 100 years or so could be so stupid as to get its core business – standing people for elections – wrong. Just don’t believe it, its bullshit.
Talking of the government’s preparedness to do or say anything in the election campaign, I was thinking of the advertisements that tell us not to risk the unions “stuff our economy”. What about letting a bunch of lawyers, and the parasites of the National Party lose on the economy?
Finally, I liked Penny Wong’s words on the candidate eligibility issue (she’s quite impressive). She said this:
“These claims are completely untrue and clearly the Liberal Party is desperate.
“They have nothing left to say to the Australian people.”
There are obviously many, many people who should not be breeding
On the evidence of a study by the Wesley Mission, there are a very large number of people in this country who should not be permitted to fuck each other, let alone have children.
What about this?
“A report is made to the police or other agency across Australia every 35 minutes regarding an instance of child abuse, the numbers of notifications have almost doubled over the past five years and our research suggests that many other incidences go unreported.”
Or this?
In a survey of 1,200 people, 33 per cent had suffered one, or a combination of sexual, physical abuse or violence in the home and 40 per cent had suffered emotional abuse.
Just staggering!
If people can’t handle children, don’t have them. Simple! Becoming pregnant and having children is nowadays a largely discretionary choice. If you’re not smart enough to take control, you’re not smart enough to have kids. If you can’t afford them, don’t have them. Its all largely within your control, and if you’re unfit to take responsibility for that you shouldn’t be rooting each other.
Speaking of such people, Blakely and Sharon Ward must be right up there. Arrested yesterday for the murder of their 7 year old daughter, Shellay, who was found allegedly starved to death at their Hawks Nest home earlier this month. She weighed just 9 kgs, less than half the weight of a typical 7 year old, near Wollongong, after having fled their home a week ago. Surprise, surprise, according to the police, during the afternoon they were taken, separately, to Wollongong Hospital.
“They were taken to hospital because they have certain medications that they’ve been prescribed,”
Let me go out on a limb here …. I’m betting on methadone. What a surprise, substance abuse behind a child abuse case! Hardly surprising, the father looks like a dero.
(For the full spectacle, you need to see him on TV, covered in tattoos, including EVIL on his knuckles, and long straggly hair – and that tattoo is something he seems to have lived up to, allegedly anyway).
Interesting too that they have been charged with murder. Does that suggest they actively harmed Shellay rather than simply neglecting her?
The Department of Community Services has been copping a hammering over this and other cases. While they are far from blameless, DOCS does not kill the children …. thats usually the swine these kids have for parents (mum’s new boyfriend features heavily in such cases too).
It amazes me that DOCS and other agencies give these families so many chances. In the case of the Wards they had 4 children, and they have been regular customers of DOCS for something like 14 years, including having children removed from their care at times. Its not like in most abuse cases there aren’t plenty of warning signs. I’d say its time for the authorities to take these seriously right from the get go …. instead the approach seems to be to give the families the benefit of the doubt and second, third and more chances. I’d have thought with children the onus on the family to get care of their abused children back should be something like “beyond reasonable doubt” that they are fit to do so.
Technorati tags: child abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, Department of Community Services, Shellay Ward, Blakely Ward, Sharon Ward
Religion = enlightenment
What a wonderful thing religion is? People are just inspired to act in enlightened, humane and just ways. Such as this example – Islam is the religion of enlightenment here.
A 19 year old woman was gang raped by 6 men in Saudi Arabia. She has been punished with 200 lashes and 6 months in jail. Her punishment was “being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape”.
Last year, the court gave the men between one and five years jail, and the victim 90 lashes. Her lawyer appealed against the leniency of the mens’ sentences, which were later increased to between two and nine years in prison. This in a country where they chop people’s heads and other bits off fairly willingly as punishment.
But the stinger about the appeal was that the judges decided to punish the woman further for “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.” Her lawyer said yesterday the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict. He said he has also been summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee in December.
Now, what are those values religion is supposed to offer followers? Mercy, humanity, forgiveness, compassion …..
Promises, promises
Does anyone actually fall for the avalanche of election promises we’re getting at the moment? Tax cuts here, tax cuts there, free stuff for everyone (living in a marginal seat, anyway). All those things they’ve dismissed as unimportant for years suddenly become the highest priority for the government. It just beggars belief that the politicians expect us to fall for it and vote for them on the basis of a bunch of promises they’ve cobbled together (no doubt based on market research) quickly during the election campaign, rather than consider their record in government and their longstanding philosophies. But they do apparently.
A lot of good all the promises have been doing for the government, too. Regardless of the lather the media get themselves into over the smallest changes in opinion polls, it seems that the fundamentals are hardly moving. The ups and downs of a percentage point or two in the voting intentions for each party are merely blips, quite likely just sample error. It seems to me that many people have just made up their minds that John Howard is no longer the man for the job (Peter Costello never will be), and that Kevin Rudd presents an acceptable face for Labor.
I can understand the loss of Howard’s support. I’ve found him and the government to have become increasingly sneaky and arrogant over their time in office. They did some good things early on, I have no arguments with things like the GST, the Workplace Relations Act and taking the axe to the public service. However, since events like the Tampa (a shame on Australia’s name), and John Howard’s ever increasing desire to crawl further and further up George W Bush’s arse, and especially since gaining the Senate majority, they’ve become incredibly slippery and arrogant, and abusing their power.
The slippery, sneaky nature of John Howard is illustrated by his “sorry but not an apology” over interest rates last week. The trouble over saying sorry started on Thursday when Howard was asked why, if he was not responsible for the interest rate rise, he was apologising for it.
“Well, I said I was sorry they’d occurred. I don’t think I actually used the word ‘apology’. I think there is a difference between the two things.”
And then we have this gem – asked if it was still true to say that Australian families had never been better off, he said:
“It’s true to say that the generality supports that proposition, but in individual cases, no,”
which begs the question of why do politicians set themselves up to be shot down by making such sweeping claims? Ego? Remoteness from reality?
A couple of final points about this election:
- why do the parties have their official campaign launches now, rather than they actually started campaigning (which in reality is about a year ago, not just the last few weeks)? It seems crazy but there is a very cynical reason for it …. official campaign launch is the day the gravy train stops for the sitting MPs and their salaries and government funded expenses stop, so they leave it as late as they think they can get away with. Sham, yes absolutely!
- On 4 Corners tonight, there was a man who’d always voted conservative and was now about to vote Labor for the first time …. I have some news for him, he’s not actually breaking his lifelong voting habit.