Heroin for Dole Bludgers by Austin G. Mackell

Found this on a blog called The Moon Under Water

A plan for Australia
 

I heard a very good story on ABC’s PM a while back. Apparently treasury –working on “the principle of least regret” – don’t want unemployment to go any lower for fear of triggering dangerous inflation.

Well, I thought, I guess I can stop faking my fortnightly Job-Seeker-Diary then?

In my head I saw treasury official coming into Centrelink office and standing up on the counter to get our attention. He speaks:

Fellow citizens, our nation owes you a debt, if it were not for your sacrifice, for the poverty and humiliation in which you live, we, the successful ones, could not prosper, or feel superior to some one. You serve two great purposes in this nation, keeping those with shitty low level jobs motivated to show up for fear of joining your warty and unappealing ranks, and providing a non-racial scapegoat, ideal for redirection of scorn from the burgeoning ethnic middle class. We know that in your hearts you crave a place in society where you can contribute, where your talents and good nature can be appreciated by colleagues and those who benefit from your work, but sorry, the current system simply cannot provide that for everyone. It’s a zero-sum game, if we help you we hurt mainstream Australia, and I mean who would you pick? The battlers or a bunch of skummy dole-bludgers?
Have any of you considered heroin? We’ve done the research and found it is the most effectitive way to sap any ambition or long term goals. Users even say it destroys the part of them that feels shame, so they no longer care what the rest of society thinks. We’re introducing a new scheme, where centrelink will increase your fortnightly payments to $750 from the current $500. We’ve calculated this to be exactly enough to support a moderate to heavy heroin addiction along with a subsistence diet of beans and discarded cooking oil. Sure, you wont be the builder, baker, community worker or national parks ranger you might have dreamed of being, but really, how likely was that any way? At least this way you’ll be comfortably numb, and the rest of us can get on with the Australian dream.

...and stay down!

Seriously though, having mainstream economists put it so bluntly, that capitalism does require a certain degree of poverty and suffering in order to function, is interesting.

On a less theoretical note, though, since we’re doing it for the country, then, and shouldn’t be hoping for jobs, can we have a bit more money, please?

Yeah, hi, uh, officer, I'm in a bit of a bad way... I've got a video of guy being tortured

Winner of best drama iSpy by Tymon Langford

This is definitely the most mind blowing thing I have ever seen shot on a mobile phone. In four minutes it conveys so much. North Shore represent!

Australian soldiers throw grenades into civilian compound. Woops, wrong house.

Three Australian commandos have been charged with manslaughter over the deaths of six Afghan civilians. You can almost see newspapers across Australia going into damage control. Headlines are making use of the word 'manslaughter'  and The Sydney Morning Herald is making as outraged that these diggers were even charged in the first place (Anger as commandos face manslaughter charge). 

This is the first time that the killing of civilians by Australian soldiers in a combat situation has come to light. Director of Military Prosecutions Brigadier Lyn McDade has prosecuted one man for manslaughter or dangerous conduct and the section leader with failing to comply with a lawful general order or prejudicial conduct. A third man, believed to be the lieutenant-colonel, is overseas and will be charged on his return.

There has been sparse mention of killing or grenades but that is what happened. The soldiers were targeting an insurgent leader who was not found at an initial compound. They moved to a second compound and exchanged fire for an extended time with an Afghan man, who was killed. The soldiers are adamant that it was necessary to throw a grenade into a room including one teenager, two younger children and two babies because they were under fire.

Soldiers state that the casualties were caused by the acts of an insurgent. But there was no insurgent. The Taliban commander that they were looking for, Mullah Noorullah, was killed several weeks later.

The family of the six people killed have said that Australian troops burst into their compound in the early hours of the morning and attacked using machine-guns and grenades. They accused the Australians - from 1 Commando Regiment, which includes many reservists - of shooting without identifying targets and then admitting they were in the wrong compound.

Defence Force officials have sent letters of protest to Brigadier Lyn McDade, the Director of Military Prosecutions, with some officers hoping the charges will be downgraded.

But it is unlikely Brigadier McDade will change her mind, and The Age has been told she is unclear why there has been a continuing delay for the public announcement of the charges.

The brother of Amrullah Khan, the man killed in the raid, said he wanted to skin the soldiers responsible alive.

"This was not an accident," Zahir Khan told The Australian. "They came at night and killed children. It was a ruthless incident. Six members of my family have been killed and they are talking about putting them in jail.  Bring these people to me and I will take off their skin while they are alive. "If they won't bring them to me then they should be put in jail." Mr Khan said that more than 18 months since the raid, no Australian military personnel had returned to the village.

So now the blame game begins. Of course, our valiant warriors can't be responsible for any misconduct, so lets watch as the onus shifts to the politicians.

Looks like another botched raid in a botched war.

Mexican Journos: What Can We Publish?

Mexican drug cartels: Can journalists escape their violence?

By Sara Miller Llana – Fri Sep 24, 3:25 pm ET

Mexico City – The Mexican press has been subject to assault and attack at the hands of suspected drug traffickers – including grenades launched into high-tech broadcast stations and dingy newspaper offices – for years.

Even as media watchdogs have declared Mexico one of the world's most dangerous places to report from, each outlet has had to act individually to protect its staff. Mostly they omit writer bylines and leave out crucial details of shootouts and kidnappings – if they cover the mayhem at all.

But now the Mexican media is demanding more protection, working together to draw attention to the threats the job is generating.

The plight of journalists was forced into the national consciousness last Sunday, after the daily El Diario, based in murder hot spot Ciudad Juárez across the border from El Paso, Texas, pleaded to drug traffickers: "Tell us what you want."

The front-page editorial told drug traffickers they are essentially the de facto authorities and asked them what the paper can do to keep its staff off Mexico's growing casualties list. The editorial came days after the paper´s young photographer, Luis Carlos Santiago, was gunned down in a car at a mall in Juárez, the paper´s second reporter to be killed in two years.

Tragic as they may be, El Diario's woes are far from isolated. Mexico's National Commission on Human Rights says that 65 media workers have been killed in the past decade. The Committee to Protect Journalists says more than 30 reporters have been killed or have disappeared since December 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderón took office and dispatched the military to tackle organized crime. In that time, more than 28,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence.

Four journalists were briefly kidnapped in July, when they were inquiring about a mass murder in Torreon. In January 2009, gunmen launched a grenade at a popular television station during its nightly broadcast.

Newspaper editors at a meeting Thursday in Mexico City sponsored by the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Inter American Press Association detailed the threats they receive and the self-censorship they undertake to stay alive.

Some of them have been showing up in the US asking for help. Jorge Luis Aguirre, the editor of an online news site in Ciudad Juárez, was granted asylum just days ago, after fleeing to the US in the face of a death threat. He is the first journalist believed to be granted asylum by the US in the past four years, and it could have repercussions for other journalists seeking haven on American soil.

Since the majority of the cases against journalists are unsolved – as is crime in general in Mexico – it is sometimes hard to distinguish between cases in which journalists are killed for personal reasons, including for being on the payroll a certain group and killed off by a rival, and when it is their reporting that puts them in danger.

The Mexican government has been criticized for suggesting the former in some cases. But this week President Calderón also said he would unveil a plan to protect journalists in the country. Similar to a plan that helped Colombian journalists report on incidents in the height of its armed struggle, it includes greater links to authorities to report threats, greater scrutiny of why journalists are being attacked, and legal reforms to ensure safety.

Ice Cream Shout

Its no secret, I love dream pop.
I stumbled across this song called Tattooed Tears the other day. It sounds like what Edward Norton's character would have been listening to while he did his time in that movie American History X. Actually that's a really funny image... a hardened skinhead listening to this floaty, new wave Japanese gem.

when you shout something louder than bombs
it's just the chance you take
but your tattooed tears done in the yard
they won't dry today
you've lost your love for good
to those damn Surenos

but on the day the doors open up for you
you believe there will be
a life waiting there for you
in the fields of Salinas

Listen and download it for free.

French indie musos Jamaica (formerly Poney Poney) have another track apart from I Think I Like U 2. Short and Entertaining is pretty catchy but not as cool as the aforementioned song.



And if you haven't heard this song by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, something in your life is truly lacking.

I'm Still Here

 A (very) good looking celebrity one day wakes up and decides to throw his whole career down the drain to make a rap album.

Joaquin Phoenix has to be the most egocentric bastard in the world, you say.

And in this film, he really is. From shows at Miami nightclubs, to telling long time friends they are "just pieces of shit, dude", by the end of this film you just want to kick Phoenix in the face.

And that is why it is a great documentary, mockumentary, whatever. Because for most of it, you actually believe everything. Because it is just too extreme. Trying to collaborate with Puff Daddy, insulting Ben Stiller, snorting coke of a hooker's tits.

The film takes celebrity culture and turns it on its head. It follows the relationship between the celebrity, the media and the consumer and makes a vitriolic comment on the nature of Hollywood.

Well worth a look, you'll piss your pants.

Watch out for gay men near you!

I read a headline in the Sydney Morning Herald weekend edition that pronounced "One in five gay men in US has HIV". This is a classic case of the press having a responsibility for the stuff they publish. Its a fact that when most people open the paper they generally might only read the first paragraph or two of an article. This is really giving the impression that if you're in a room of 25 gay men, 5 of them will definitely be HIV positive. Its not helping the issue at all, and is reminiscent of the fear mongering campaign that began in the 1980s. Why not give the article a less explosive name?

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention tested more than 8000 men in 21 cities in 2008, and found that even as infection rates were climbing among men who have sex with men, young, sexually active gay men and those in minority groups were least likely to know their health status, while the rates of other at-risk groups - heterosexuals and intravenous drug users - were falling.

The findings were published this week to precede US National Gay Men's HIV Awareness Day on Monday.

The stigma around this disease is one reason why people don't like talking about it. If you don't talk about it you don't know about it. If you don't know about it then...?

This stigma creates ignorance and the widespread impact of it is really underestimated. I've met people who are still convinced you can get HIV from a toilet set, from a mosquito bite or from kissing.

Hey, I'm not a doctor but that's a load of crap!

Check out this dude who claims there is no connection between HIV and AIDS and that Barack Obama may have been elected because he was able to hypnotise voters.

Wow, this explains so much.