been thinking over this whole osama bin laden thing

… and i’ll be honest with you … it makes me uncomfortable.

yay, he’s dead. he killed a lot of people. a lot of innocent people. i understand how his death gives closure to a lot of hurt people. end of an era, etc etc. i have no argument with the fact that the world is a better place without him. i have no doubt he deserved to die for his crimes.

however.

a small, elite team of professional killers entered another sovereign nation’s space, without their knowledge or permission. that team enters a building, finds the man they’re looking for, who is, by their admission, unarmed. they kill him on the spot, no doubt none too prettily. they then take his body to another sovereign nation, where presumably they take materiel for dna testing. then they dump his body in the ocean.

no trial, no ‘loose ends’ if that’s what you want to call it. an execution, leaving no trace.

here’s what Noam Chomsky had to say about this week:

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders …

… There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly.

… Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

it makes me uncomfortable that liberal commentators like Rachel Maddow, for example, not only can’t seem to see that the jingoistic celebrations on the streets of young Americans chanting ‘USA USA USA’ and ‘Obama got Osama’ and holding posters of the Statue of Liberty holding aloft bin Laden’s severed head have their exact parallels in the celebrations on the streets of the Middle East on September 12, 2001. Not only can Maddow — just to choose the one liberal i’ve followed all week — not see that parallel (or at least chooses not to draw it) but she took part in the celebrations herself.

there has been no critical commentary on the execution of bin Laden from Maddow at all, and that disappoints me, because, sadly, it deserves some objective analysis from someone other than the Glen Becks of the world, god help us.

the USA is about ‘justice for all’, right? i don’t have an argument with bringing bin Laden to justice — and if that means execution at the end of the judicial process, then yippee.

but shot down by, presumably, multiple assailants, in his own bedroom in front of his wife, and for all we know, his kids?

strikes me that the USA just sank to Al Qaeda’s standards. and it’s double standards, no question.

no doubt this will bring the hate to this blog, but i’m going to say it out loud …. I EXPECTED MORE FROM THE COUNTRY THAT CLAIMS TO BE THE MOST POWERFUL AND THE MOST ENLIGHTENED IN THE WORLD.

bin Laden didn’t deserve to be treated like a human being — god knows he didn’t treat his enemies with anything other than evil contempt. but how much more enlightened would the USA look today if they had treated him with the respect he DIDN’T deserve?

come on, bring it on.

Wikileaks footage

more about "air attack on civilians and children", posted with vodpod

y’know, it’s not even the fact that civilians, photographers and kids were shot at and killed … mistakes happen, and i suppose long lens cameras can look like ak-47s and RPGs if that’s what you want to see.

no, that’s not what bothers me most.

what bothers, and sickens and angers me most, is the attitude. the ‘fucking pricks’ … the ‘c’mon let us shoot’ … the utter silence when it becomes obvious that there are no weapons, just a bunch of civilians and kids and cameras … the amusement when someone drives a tank over a body … the urging of the wounded, crawling guy to ‘just pick up a weapon’ … it’s the ‘their fault for bringing their kids to a battle’. it’s the killing people for retrieving their wounded.

the US military is a barbaric, arrogant, murdering machine, looking for any excuse to kill the little sandniggers, apparently.

seriously, Americans, do you wonder why half the world hates your over-priviliged, over-armed guts?

*disgusted*

good news! UNICEF have offered me a job

no, really. and i didn’t even have to apply! isn’t word of mouth awesome?! it’s only part-time but the guy who wrote to offer me the job says the money is … ‘a lot’ … doesn’t that sound great?

all i have to do is help this guy transfer money from the US using my bank account. i take out 10% commission and voila! i get rich doing nothing. i just need to send this guy my name and bank account details. awesome!

and it’s UNICEF so i must be helping the little starving kiddies in africa, right?

seriously, are there still people in the world stupid and naive enough to fall for this shit?

robert ‘dolly’ dunn dies … hoorah!

as evil a bastard as ever walked the earth, frankly. good riddance. i hope you’re up to dick in all the fires of hell right now, you prick.

CONVICTED pedophile Robert “Dolly” Dunn has died in jail aged 68.

Dunn died in Long Bay Prison Hospital at 4am (AEST) this morning, a New South Wales Corrective Services spokesman said.

He was serving a 20-year sentence for a series of sexual offences against boys in the 1980s and 1990s.

Dunn, a former school teacher, would have been eligible for parole in 2015, the spokesman said.

In 1996 a Royal Commission chaired by Justice James Woods was shown home videos and photographs from Dunn’s collection featuring images of child sex abuse involving Dunn himself.

Dunn fled the country but was later found in Honduras and was successfully extradited back to Australia.

From jail he repeatedly made statements that he saw nothing wrong with sex between men and boys.

Corrective Services assistant commissioner Brian Kelly said Dunn had been suffering heart disease and a range of other medical conditions for some time.

read more here.

lock this guy away for life right now

cos there’s no hope for him. he’s a psychopath, and there’s no curing a psychopath. just lock him away and throw away the key and do society a big favour.

A TEENAGER has been arrested in a string of cat killings and mutilations that horrified residents of Miami’s southern suburbs.

Tyler Weinman, 18, of Cutler Bay, Florida, was charged with 19 counts of animal cruelty, 19 counts of improperly disposing of an animal body and four counts of burglary.

Police have said more than two dozen pets and strays were killed at night in the Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay neighborhoods during the past two months.

In some cases, the cats were skinned or gutted and the corpses left on the lawns or driveways of their owners.

….At the time of the killings, authorities said they were keen to rule out other animals as responsible because if the culprit was human, such killings had in the past shown a disturbing tendency to lead to human victims.

“It’s rare that we see these kinds of injuries caused by people, so it’s important to rule out the other possibilities,” a spokesman for the ASPCA told reporters at the time.

yeh, that’s right. jeffrey dahmer, anyone?

seriously, throw away the key.

full story from news.com.au

queensland attorney-general considers appeal

hoo-bloody-ray. remember this post on the ludicrous gabe watson sentencing for the ‘manslaughter’ of his wife christina? well, it looks like i’m not the only person who thinks that 12-month sentence was a joke. seems cameron dick, queensland’s attorney-general is having second thoughts as well. so he bloody well should.

In a statement, the Attorney-General Cameron Dick said he has requested the sentencing remarks, with a view to considering an appeal.

Christina Watson’s father, sister and best friend say they travelled from the US to see justice served but are feeling bitterly disappointed.

“We are in total shock over what has transpired,” Ms Watson’s father Tommy Thomas said.

In October 2003, 26-year-old Ms Watson was on her honeymoon in north Queensland when she and her husband David went diving on Yongala wreck off Townsville.

The newlywed had problems breathing.

The court heard her 32-year-old husband, who was also her dive buddy, did nothing to help despite holding a dive search and rescue certificate.

Watson said he panicked and surfaced to tell the crew while his wife sank to the ocean floor.

The American voluntarily returned to Queensland last month, indicating he was prepared to face a murder charge.

However, the prosecution accepted his guilty plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

sometimes i wonder what the hell is going on with the queensland justice system. this week alone here on the gold coast, we had a guy who glassed a kid get off, and a bloke who yanked a guy out of his car, ran over him a couple of times, kicked him in the head and then torched his car, get off with no jail time because he was ‘depressed’.

fuck me. if i asked for a bit of leniency every time i was a bit depressed, i’d never have to take responsibility for another decision, ever.

full story from the abc, by the way.

apologising for our justice system

this is the moment american woman Christina Watson, married for just 11 days and on her honeymoon, died on the bottom of the ocean off the great barrier reef, in october 2003. that’s her floating to the bottom, and that’s a dive instructor going to her aid.

her husband, gabe watson, has already buggered off, having basically … well, as he admitted today … killed her.

today gabe pleaded guilty … not to the murder charge he was on initially, but to manslaughter. later in the afternoon the judge sentenced him to 4.5 years. but here’s the kicker.

the judge suspended the sentence after 12 months.

yes … this guy killed his wife, admitted to it and will serve just a year in jail.

so, america. i’d like to apologise for what was obviously a plea bargain and a done deal before watson even got on the plane to come out here and face the music.

here’s what Tina Watson’s family had to say after the sentencing this afternoon:

Outside court after their daughter’s killer was jailed, Tina’s father Tommy Thomas expressed the family’s disbelief at the manslaughter sentence.

“I’m sure that the entire Australian nation as well as our country back home shares in the shock at what we’ve just seen, because it’s a total injustice … it’s ludicrous,” he said.

“Today he (Watson) was allowed to take the easy way out.

“This is in no way, shape or form a beginning to get justice for our daughter.

“It’s an embarrassment to everyone involved.

“We believe that Gabe Watson murdered our daughter.”

Mr Thomas, Tina’s sister Alanda and friend Amanda Phillips flew from Alabama to Australia this week to be in court for Watson’s sentencing.

… Mr Thomas today said the family would consider lodging an appeal.

you can read the whole thing here.

chk chk boom … god help us all

*sigh* … hilarious. and yet, so very not.

that perfect gift for your new girlfriend …

… a ’66 mustang with the body of your ex in the boot. lovely.

A witness testified in an Illinois court that her lesbian lover gave the keys to her car as a gift without telling her there was a body in the trunk.

Rose Sodaro told the DuPage County jury that Nicole Abusharif handed her the keys to her 1966 Mustang that was later found to contain the body of Abusharif’s longtime girlfriend, Rebecca Klein.

“She said she had a kick-ass present for me,” Sodaro testified Friday. “She reached in her pocket and pulled out the Mustang key. She said I could come and take the Mustang out whenever I wanted.”

Abusharif, 28, is on trial for murdering Klein in 2007. Prosecutors contend Abusharif smothered Klein and stashed her body in the Mustang so that she could carry on an open relationship with the 20-year-old Sodaro, whom she had met online, and also collect on Klein’s life insurance policy.

ahhh, the gift that keeps on giving. read the whole thing at upi.

back from the mountain

just spent a couple of days up in toowoomba with the parental units and a visitor from england. will probably head back up there thursday afternoon for another night or two. then they’re all coming down here to the gold coast for a few nights.

it was a bit chilly up there this morning. and they’re predicting a chilly night here tonight. hoorah! love me some winter.

meanwhile richard pratt died. and y’know what? i’m struggling to actually care. everybody’s all ‘oh he was such a generous man, and carlton football club and the pratt foundation and blah blah blah.

and all i can see is charges of price fixing, cheating customers and companies out of $700 million dollars. that cost him a $36 million fine. the largest fine in australian history, but just 0.75% of pratt’s worth. so, y’know, there’s a big incentive to never do it again.

and cos he was dying of prostate cancer, charges against him in regard to lying to the accc about the price-fixing were dropped.

pfffffffffffffffffffft.