September 2004

Empire Notes

Submitted by rickeyre on

September 27, 10:40 am.
http://www.empirenotes.org/#27sep041
September 27, 10:40 am. Yesteday, the Times ran what is, all things considered, a remarkable editorial, Iraq's Disappearing Election. It makes the points that I made a few days ago. Not only does it mention "Mr. Rumsfeld's curiously undemocratic remark that if some substantial portion of Iraqis cannot vote, 'so be it,'" far more surprising, it even says, Yet the six political parties that Washingt ...

Grumpy in Grayndler

Submitted by rickeyre on

Last night I was at Petersham Town Hall for a "Meet The Candidates" forum. Organised by the Marrickville Council for the first time, the five candidates for Grayndler were invited to put their cases to the public and answer questions from the floor.

Sitting member Anthony Albanese (ALP), Philip Myers of The Greens and Sue Johnson (Socialist Alliance) were present. Jen Harrison of the Democrats and Stephanie Kokkolis of the Liberal Party didn't attend. Marrickville mayor Morris Hanna (Independent) chaired the forum. About a hundred people were present, mostly middle-aged. The non-appearance of the Liberal Party gave the forum a decidedly left-wing skew, but in this part of the world that reflects the demographics. Not being a regular at political meetings I only recognised a handful of people in the audience, the ABC's Antony Green being one of them.

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Human Rights Watch News Releases

Submitted by rickeyre on

Bahrain: Activist Jailed After Criticizing Prime Minister
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/09/29/bahrai9413.htm
Bahrain should immediately release prominent human rights activist `Abd al-Hadi al-Khawaja from detention, Human Rights Watch said today. Al-Khawaja was summoned to a police station and detained on Saturday, September 25, a day after he criticized Prime Minister Shaikh Khalifa Al Khalifa for the country?s current economic problems and past human rights abuses.

Go Port!

Submitted by rickeyre on

I haven't had time to write on the weekend, but hearty congratulations to Port Adelaide on their first AFL premiership.

It was good to see an all-non-Victorian grand final for the first time, but even better to see Brisbane, who have prospered under preferential treatment in the salary cap rules, having their colours lowered before winning four in a row.

Well that was a fun couple of hours

Submitted by rickeyre on

Oops! Bot that I was installing for the Jabber -> WordPress gateway made a break for it like the proverbial runaway horse.

Something like 52 articles posted as the result of a bit of sloppiness on my part. Any bit of garbage hitting one of my jabber addresses was put straight to print.

The message posted at 4.26pm is a classic (which I have now deleted). That is a posting of the updates to the RSS feed of this website after the garbage started coming :-)

Mark Latham: A transcript primer

Submitted by rickeyre on

KERRY O'BRIEN: ...your reference to Tony Abbott and the Queen in June last year where you described Tony Abbott as, quote, "Basically hanging out of the backside of the British monarch whenever he can."

What is this obsession you have with bottoms?

MARK LATHAM: I've no particular obsession with bottoms, it's a figure of speech --

KERRY O'BRIEN: Howard the arse-licker and the brown nose kissing bums, as you put it, Abbott hanging out of the Queen's backside, the conga line of suckholes.

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Time to go, John!

Submitted by rickeyre on

This looks like a great concept. A number of Australian film-makers have made a series of short films about John Howard's record as Prime Minister to be screened as a feature film which will be premiering next Wednesday September 29. It's very much a low-budget, almost underground, project that looks a bit like 11'9''01 meets Fahrenheit 9/11. I just received a copy of the press release by email and I reproduce it in full:

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Wednesday's baseball blather

Submitted by rickeyre on

The Cubs drew level with the Giants in the NL wildcard race on Tuesday night. However, as I am writing this, the Giants are about to nudge in front again.

The Cubs have been whizzing around the place this week. Milwaukee on Sunday, Miami Monday, Pittsburgh Tuesday and Wednesday. They split Monday's double-header against the Marlins, made up of games postponed because of the plethora of hurricanes in the past few weeks.

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