Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

I can't tell you how I know, but I was informed that the NATO missiles were on their way round ten minutes before the rest of the world heard it.  Sitting on my couch, with the laptop on its arm, watching the live al Jazeerah feed, I witnessed what I'd read as a Facebook message on my comp become reality on a TV screen.

The other need for local military enforcement's about to disappear too.  Supposedly we're supposed to start mining the one third of the world's known uranium that's nestling in the SA desert.  The trouble is that with the high Aussie dollar and the cashflow nervousness the European "financial wobbles" have created, it's apparently not a good time to go uranium mining.  The sackings last week by Rio Tinto of a large number of its Sydney and Melbourne office staff are the best indicator of our local mining future.

Last weekend I set up a community radio station on Facebook. Called it Adelaide Community Tubes, invited folks to create their own playlist.  How easy to create, on a Saturday night, a "radio station" of people, however isolated in the own homes, sharing music together?   It's the combination of words and pictures and thoughts, and perhaps by sharing music at the same time being on similar frequencies.. and maybe a bit of what cyberspace could do with a bit more of?

" The land the lizard and the creatures of this earth are summoning everybody who gives a shit to the gates of Roxby Downs on the 14th of july 2012 for The Lizards Revenge - This is an open invitation to all people and a special call out to artists, musicians and activist community groups and media to get involved in the creation of this autonomous zone for the peace and healing of this land."

What I'm wondering might be of particular interest is the fact that Labor's first two motions against the Libs (that Pyne and Bishop not be heard) were beaten by five votes at Division

Since then it's been a thousand years
a hundred lands of joys and tears
In every generation's eyes
I look for her, to apologise

"I would also like to inform you today that the autonomous Management and Standards Committee, which was established by the Company to ensure full cooperation with all investigations, has completed its review of The Times and The Sunday Times, assisted by outside counsel, Linklaters. We found no evidence of illegal conduct other than a single incident reported months ago, which led to the discipline of the relevant employee." -Rupert Murdoch

This is a strange game of poker, in which the slightly dodgy reputations of both these men have been the fulcrum of a Gillard parliamentary majority, and many cards played in attempting to bluff both into "folding".

" So I can assure you, like I am today, I will be out there in the public debate explaining the purpose for why we are in Afghanistan, how it is in the national interests of Australians for us to be there, how we went there, motivated by the terrorist attacks we saw on 9/11, but understanding that these attacks, attacks which took Australian lives and the attacks that subsequently flowed, found their training in Afghanistan, their support in Afghanistan. That's why we went, as well as, of course, standing by our ally the United States of America." - PM Julia Gillard

" Bob Carr will join the Senate, and will take on the role of Minister for Foreign Affairs. Until he takes his place in the Senate, Craig Emerson will continue to act as Minister for Foreign Affairs." - PM Gillard

And as for the aforementioned "small 'l's" who hoped Turnbull could step into the fray and save their ideology.. forget it!  With Labor destroying itself, Tony's numbers will be quite secure.. why replace him when his opposition is imploding?

"I will gladly pay the cost of a ticket to help you pay your way back to Iraq. When you get there , and if you manage to survive for being as outspoken as what you are here in Australia , then you should be able to help straighten out the mess which YOUR Iraqi countrymen have got you into in the first place , which appears to be the reason that you have come to MY country to avoid.'

It does sound like some of the measures PM Gillard's been announcing will be  of help, and a long way ahead of when Nick X campaigned for clocks in SA Pokie rooms so people could keep track of time.  However,that the $1.5 billion  (a driop in the ocean of accrued profits and taxes) cost of implementation is being used by the Government as its primary vindication for reneging suggests they've been bought by the lobbyists.

Would I suspect Military propagandists of timing the withdrawal with the calculable resurgence of the song's popularity to trigger a fee-good sensation surrounding the departure of the invasion?

Tony, who knows a few mongrel tricks himself, apparently didn't see this one coming, and it puts him in a quandary:  if he sacks Slipper from the LNP they won't even have the advantage of his vote in a tied poll.  

If many of us had heard Bush and Howard explain how America was boosting itself in the Pacific, planting more troops and bases on our soil, basically actively taking over South East Asia (did someone say "Deputy Sheriff"?) the street protests would've been strong and loud. But seeing that it's not the baddies but the goodies moving their lips, we're supposed to be happy.  That inference in itself makes me feel ill.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours!

Here in SA our Premier Mike Rann's career never recovered from the Michelle Chantelois affair.. not because of whether or not anything happened but because our Premier's evasive responses only served to reinforce a perception of deceit. Julia has a similar albatross round her neck.

The taste of her kiss a memory mist in a cloud of love swirls above and around, a silent sound that sings across time like a long-lost rhyme that beguiles the riddler and drives the fiddler to play the tune from beyond the moon.

People Power has come a long way since the initial London riots early this year- revoltng populations, communicating via social networks, have appeared all over the world as humanity learns it doesn't have to tolerate what it'sbeen told to.  The earlier anarchy in the UK has travelled, mutated and returned in a new, more virulent form.

It's to be hoped that Julia willl vindicate the need today, and that the propoganda war being fought on the issue will be assuaged and mollified.. but don't count on it!

Obviously the ramifications for Murdoch spread much further than the readership of this one newspaper.  However popular it might be, he''s prepared to sacfice this journal so that the tarnish of perceived lack of journalistic integrity doesn't spread to his other titles across the world.

The gist of the SMH story is that while 20 SAS troops removed a busload of "enemy" from their vehicle, searched them and recorded their details, it was the lone American soldier who formally took them prisoner.

In other words, nope, you won't see a Jesus-son-of-God billboard in Iran.. The Iranians don't think he is.  However, Christianity has been aware of Jesus' Islamic status for a very long time.

Despite the appearance that western culture is revelling in bloodlust, perhaps people should be asking their neighbours what they think of this.  Maybe it's the company I keep, but I'm getting a sense of strong disagreement with the glorifying.

Why am I so passionately supporting this cause?  When I first saw the picture with the rope, a day after Trevor died, it was with a chilling realisation of "There but for the grace of God go I"  Actually God didn't have a lot to do with it ... my family and friends did.

My only hope is that this Full Moon at Perigee doesn't add the emotional push that causes someone who shouldn't to do something stupid. If you've seen lots of people do lots of peculiar things in bright moonlight, you begin to wonder what people in already-intense situations might do if given an extra dose of what's in the moonbeams.