Friday, September 21, 2007

WA media - thanks to Ashkara Sands

Alan Carpenter is the Premier of Western Australia and an ex-journalist. Rob Johnson is the shadow Police Minister. This is a snippet from an article on the inside cover of yesterday's paper.
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Mr A.J. CARPENTER: Has the member ever been to a brothel?
Mr R.F. Johnson: No. Have you?
Mr A.J. CARPENTER: Yes.
Mr R.F. Johnson: Have you?
Mr A.J. CARPENTER: Yes.
Mr R.F. Johnson: You dirty thing!
Mr A.J. CARPENTER: Yes, I have.
Mr R.F. Johnson: Good gracious me!
Mr A.J. CARPENTER: Yes, I have. I spent about 20 years as a journalist, and I have met lots of prostitutes. I can tell the house that many of them - not all, because the world is not like that - are far better people than the member for Hillarys, and they express a better world view than does the member for Hillarys. They express more understanding of the human condition than the member will ever have.
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It always amazes me that people are surprised to find that sex workers are generally nice people... after all we do make people feel good for a living....

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Surely the easiest test for pre-pubescent queerness

“I was the only kid in the audience who didn’t understand why Dorothy would ever want to go back to that black and white farm and those smelly animals, when she could live with winged monkeys and magic shoes and gay lions.”


John Waters from This Filthy World
(playing at the Dendy through Queer Screen) lookie here: http://www.queerscreen.com.au/j/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=265&extmode=view&extid=2

Weasel words – because truth is the first casualty of war

On par with ‘friendly fire’ and ‘collateral damage’


'Guantanamo is not a prison. The official term is "detention facility". Although the two most recently built complexes, Camps Five and Six, were modelled on prisons in Indiana and Michigan, it is not acceptable to use the word "prison" at Gitmo. Guantanamo has no prisoners, only "enemies". As in "unlawful enemy combatants" or "detained enemy combatants". "Today, it is not about guilt or innocence. It's about unlawful enemy combatants,"
Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the commanding officer of Guantanamo...'Karen Greenberg, executive director of the Centre on Law and Security, New York University School of Law, and editor of The Torture Debate in America. From an article in The Age

According to official records, Army specialist Alyssa Peterson,died on 15 September 2003, from a 'non-hostile weapons discharge'. 'But newly uncovered military documents reveal Peterson actually shot herself with her service rifle. The documents also show her suicide came just two weeks after she refused to take part in further interrogations of Iraqi prisoners and had asked to be reassigned.'From
Democracy Now

'an act of asymmetrical warfare' How Rear Admiral Harry Harris, Guantanamo Bay camp commander, described the suicides of three prisoners. Sydney Morning Herald, 12 June 2006.

'In 2003 there were 350 "self-harm" incidents, including 120 "hanging gestures".' Lieutenant Colonel Leon Sumpter, army spokesman Lt Col Sumpter speaking to the press about attempted suicides at Guantanamo detention center. BBC News

The shamelessness and cowardess of this language makes me want to scream with murderous rage.