Dear Matt,

When I was a kid, even though the show wasn’t aimed at my demographic I remember watching more than my fair share of Good Morning Australia with your dad Bert.

Let’s face it, there wasn’t really all that much on until Channel 10 served up Judge Judy and Jerry Springer in the afternoon so I found Newton’s inane chatter a warm and familiar companion over many a year.

How said is it then that of late this fond memory has been utterly tarnished by the repeated headline grabbing antics of his son.

Starting with the unforgivable bashing of Brooke Satchwell Anne from Neighbours in 2006, I and every other Australian has watched you go from one  fuck up to another, in what can only be described as a complete and utter waste of a family legacy.

Whether your beating women up, trashing hotel rooms, pumping yourself full of drugs or assaulting employees, enough is enough mate and I can’t be the only person who’s sick of it.

Fair enough you carry on with this shit here in Australia but this latest round of nonsense in the US has got to stop. We all know you’re only hiding over there because over there you’re an unknown, whereas here in Australia you’ve absolutely worn out your ‘I have bipolar disorder’ excuses.

I’m not saying that you don’t have bipolar disorder (along with a good dose of “I’m a dickhead” disease too), but there are millions of other sufferers of this disease roaming the planet who aren’t assaulting every second person they meet, so clearly there’s more at play here.

Whether it’s drugs, ‘I have too much money’ syndrome or just a simple case of ‘don’t you know who my dad is?’ entitlement issues, quite frankly I don’t care. Enough with the bullshit.

Get your overweight dumb arse on a plane and face the music here. If your antics in the US prevent you from immediately undertaking this course of action then at the very least have yourself under 24/7 security watch, as time and time again you’ve proven that you are incapable of being left to your own devices.

There is nothing more embarrassing as an Australian to wake up and have to watch hotel security footage of a barefoot deadshit in tracksuit pants harassing and chasing around some poor hotel attendant at 5am in the morning.

And claiming he spat on you? Get a grip son.

Even if he did, that’s still no excuse to go off like a drongo. Hell, I had more restraint and common sense as a kid when I used to watch your dad on TV.

Out of the respect and memory many Australians have of your father I’d like to close by asking you to put a stop to this nonsense now. Stop embarrassing yourself, your country and the reputation of each and every Australian that has to share this planet with you.

Failing that, you could always just go and pick up some rope, cigs and last drink of your choice. At the end of the day we all know how this is going to end.

Do yourself (and us) a favour mate.

Signed,

A fed up Australian

A search-engine works by cataloguing content available on the internet by third-party publishers.

Some of those third-party publishers may indeed by subsidiary companies of the search-engine itself, but by and large the content is produced and hosted by publishers and web-hosting companies that have nothing to do with the search-engine company indexing the material for their search-engine results.

This process is largely automated through the use of web-crawler bots and ever-increasingly technologically proficient search result algorithms. All serving one single purpose: To give you, as the end-user, the most relevant and useful search-results possible.

Like a phone book, or a street directory, search-engines are hardly responsible for the content they index. It’s not like they’re creating it or publishing it, they merely catalogue it so that if others are searching for the material, they might better find it.

At least that’s what common sense would dictate.

Today the Victorian Supreme Court disagreed, holding Yahoo liable for cataloguing a website in its search-results to the tune of $225,000 AUD ($235,000 USD).

The landmark case between Michael Trkulja and Yahoo centered over Yahoo’s search results displaying a link to the now-defunct website, ‘Melbourne Crime: A journey into the Melbourne Underworld’.

This website in turn had a page on it that reprinted a Herald Sun (a local Victorian newspaper) article on a shooting involving Trkulja.

This article is still online and published ‘as is’ by the Herald Sun, dated November 20th, 2007.

To put things into perspective here, the Herald Sun published a news story about a shooting involving a hitman and a website about crime in Melbourne reproduced said article on their own website. Yahoo, a search-engine provider who catalogues content on the internet then indexed the ‘Melbourne Underworld’ site and Trkulja then sued Yahoo for publication of the offending material.

Neither the Herald Sun nor the owners and operators of the Melbourne Underworld website had legal action taken against them.

In his lawsuit, Trkulja pleaded three imputations (statements attributing something dishonest):

• the plaintiff is a criminal
• the plaintiff was so involved with crime in Melbourne that his rivals had hired a hit man to murder him
• the plaintiff is such a significant figure in the Melbourne criminal underworld that events involving him are recorded on a Web site that chronicles crime in Melbourne.

In a catastrophically stupid move, Yahoo

pleaded that, subject to the plaintiff establishing at trial that any person had downloaded and read the matter using the Yahoo! 7 internet search engine, they admitted that they published the matter to such person.

In order to establish that ‘any person had downloaded and read the matter’ on Yahoo, Trkulja simply supplied two witnesses who testified as such.

Thus accepting liability for entire publication of an article that was hosted on a website that had nothing to do with Yahoo, that in turn merely reproduced a newspaper article, the matter then turned to the three imputations listed above.

The jury rejected the first imputation because they were ‘not satisfied that the material conveyed‘ that Trkulja was a criminal.

They were however convinced that the second and third imputations held merit. That being the implication that Trkulja ‘was so involved with crime in Melbourne that his rivals had hired a hit man to murder him‘ and that he ’is such a significant figure in the Melbourne criminal underworld, that events involving him are recorded on a web site that chronicles crime in Melbourne‘.

Despite not having authored, published or hosted the material themselves, Yahoo was today ordered to compensate Trkulja $225,000 in damages.

A decision that will no doubt have far-reaching effects on how search-engines operate in Australia.

What Yahoo’s lawyers were doing I have no idea but accepting publication of an article they indexed on their search engine? Has Justice Stephen Kaye or Yahoo’s lawyers even ever used a search-engine before?!

The original article by the Herald Sun describes the 2004 shooting incident involving Trkulja (alias Milorad Trkulja) as follows;

Former music promoter Michael Trkulja was shot in the back by a hitman wearing a balaclava while dining at a St Albans restaurant in June 2004.

A Victoria Police document reveals detectives dropped the investigation because of a lack of evidence.

But Mr Trkulja, 58, claims he now knows the identity of the hitman and those who hired him.

He says he has passed the names to police.

“He (the hitman) was offered $10,000 to kill me. I know who sent him and they know that I know who they are,” Mr Trkulja told the Herald Sun.

Is it really such a stretch to suggest that $10,000 hired hitmen has something to do with Melbourne’s criminal underworld?

Especially when you consider that the same Herald sun also named Trkulja as ‘an associate of Mick Gatto‘ in 2010.

Who’s Mick Gatto you ask?

Domenic “Mick” Gatto (born 6 August 1955) is an Italian-Australian criminal and is known for his involvement in the Melbourne underworld.

Yet somehow cataloguing a website for a search-engine that merely reproduced a news article on an apparent assassination attempt on an associate of Mick Gatto, prominent member of the Melbourne underworld, involving hitmen and $10,000 bounties is defamation…

Again, I have absolutely no idea what Yahoo’s lawyers Allens Arthur Robinson were doing, but I can only surmise that they must have been asleep at the wheel.

Otherwise if anyone can explain to me how a search-engine is liable for indexing a third-party website (and a snippet of the website at that), that merely reproduced a news article published by yet another third-party, I’m all ears.

Looking forward, it’s noted that Trkulja is also suing Google for indexing the ‘Melbourne Underworld’ in their own search results. No doubt Google will be analysing today’s Melbourne Supreme Court ruling quite closely as they’ll have to defend themselves on the same allegations Yahoo failed to defend themselves against.

The Trkulja vs. Google case is set to kick-off in early June of this year.

Personally if I was running a search engine that was accessible in Australia I’d be seriously considering pulling out of the market until this nonsense was cleared up. I’m not sure whether Yahoo can appeal today’s decision but you’d want to hope that they are able to that they do.

And this time y’know, actually play the role of a search-engine rather than publisher of material they never published, authored or hosted?

The scenario as it stands now means that anybody can approach a search-engine available in Australia and demand that material they think is defamatory be removed.

Trkulja himself attempted this when he got in touch with Yahoo in late 2009 and ‘demand(ed) (inter alia) that the defendants (Yahoo) immediately remove all copies of the material from their search engine’.

Standard operating procedure for search-engines is to protect the integrity of their search-results and refuse to remove anything without a court-order against the allegedly defamatory material (not the search-results themselves).

The defendants responded by a letter dated 3 December 2009, stating that they did not accept responsibility for the images, which, by being linked through an algorithmic search, appeared on the Yahoo! 7 search engine.

The defendants suggested that the plaintiff should contact the operators of the Melbourne Crime web site directly, in order to have the material removed.

After the content is removed, typically within a few months (worst case scenario) the content is removed automatically from search-engine results as it no longer exists.

Furious at this response and alleging that ‘the material could have been easily eliminated from the defendants’ search engine by using a device known as an “abuse filter”‘ (whatever that is), Trkulja then went after Yahoo themselves and here we are.

An Australian Supreme Court decided to hold a search-engine liable for content they never published, authored or hosted. God forbid what appears in search-results are now dictated to Australian internet users by self-appointed defamation police.

If search-engines operating in Australia simply decide it’s easier to deindex material anyone complains about, then what? Even Stephen Conroy’s once proposed internet filter never held that much censorship power.

Words simply fail me when I try to further elaborate on the utter stupidity and technological ignorance evident in today’s decision.

The entire judgement against Yahoo can be viewewd over at the Victorian Supreme Court website.

I can’t believe this would happen to him.


My eyes scrolled below the headline and without hesitation, I instantly knew why Hayden Burnes was murdered.

Sorry but this is 2011… with hair like that was the headline supposed to be a rhetorical question?

Clicking  on the story and reading the finer details about Burnes’ murder, things only deteriorated;

When asked about Hayden’s bikie roots, friends nodded in agreement before deciding not to comment further.


Tony Soprano wannabe bikie parents’ teenage son gets murdered. Wait, I’m supposed to act surprised when exactly?

And I hope the police are paying attention, examination of Burnes friends clearly reveal who might be getting whacked next;

I’m not exactly sure how members of the public are supposed to react to stories like this. I mean am I supposed to care? And care about what?

If you’re dumb enough to be a bikie, the least you can do is use some of your money to shield your kids from the bullshit you’re involved in. How much of a moron do you have to be at failing even that?

No doubt we’ll all get to read about the future bikie wars that result of this murder. Yay for us.

‘ey bros, didja hear they knifed burnesy!’

‘no shit eh? Wheres my macheddi. Let’s go geddem.’

‘Fully sik yeah, we’ll get em!’

‘Where’s my earring yo, I can’t knife anyone without it!’

‘Next to my hair curlers bro, watchout they’re still hot.’

I for one can’t wait. No really.


Update 6th December 2011 – Well that was a rather short wait;

A bikie tattoo parlour has been targeted in an arson attack in north-western Sydney overnight, following the fatal stabbing of a boy yesterday.

The blaze was lit at the Naked Gun 2 tattoo studio at South Windsor just before 1:00am (AEDT).

The shop was damaged and the fire also caused smoke damage to an upstairs unit.

The same parlour was sprayed with bullets last year and a bikie was shot in the leg there in 2008.


Oh and as for Hayden not having anything to do with the bikie gang nonsense his parents are involved in;

Channel Seven last night reported that Hayden’s father had links to the Lone Wolf bikie gang, and that the teenager had recently been involved in an argument with a girl whose father was the head of a rival gang.


Of course this all still has nothing to do with bikie gangs, move along now – nothing to see here!


Update 8th December, 2011 – Appreciating a lack of evidence pointing at bikie gang violence, I decided to pull the above article sometime around 4pm local time 7th December, 2011.

Figuring that the investigation was still ongoing and due to the comments suggesting that Burnes was of decent character and not in any way related to possible bikie nonsense his dad was involved in, I decided to let things cool till something concrete was out.

Then a few hours later, this happened:

(Hayden Burnes) was being investigated for allegedly raping a schoolgirl weeks before he was killed.

Police have confirmed that the allegations of sexual assault against Hayden Burnes are now part of their homicide investigation.

Sources claim the rape victim’s father was recently visited by a relative of Hayden and told to back off and stop making any further allegations.

The boy’s father has known links to the Lone Wolf bikie gang.

Couple this with the earlier report from Channel 7 which stated that Burnes ‘had recently been involved in an argument with a girl whose father was the head of a rival gang‘, ‘Rival bikie gang The Rebels also have a clubhouse near the industrial estate where the murder took place‘ and the fact that Hayden’s ‘father… has known links to the Lone Wolf bikie gang‘

and I think it’s even more obvious now what happened.

Again, not saying Burnes did or didn’t deserve it – but the sentiment stands: Get involved in bikie crap and this is what happens.

Any carefactor and sympathy I’d developed over the last few days is fast plummeting back to 0.

Especially when in light of all this family members are making statements like ‘you hear about these tragedies but you never expect them to come knocking on your door‘.

This tragedy didn’t come knocking, this family through their actions and associations left the door wide open and threw tragedy a party.

And ultimately, all joking aside, that’s what cost a fifteen year old kid his life.

In a time where one minute the world thinks it’s in a recession, the next it’s in a depression and the next still everything is gunna be ok, a bunch of crackpots held a meeting at Perth Mint (acutal photo above) in Australia’s west and pondered…

‘so, what are gunna do with it?’

‘all 54 million dollars of it?’

‘Yeah bob. What are we gunna do with all this gold!?’

Bob adjusts his monocle and takes a sip of kitten wine from his goblet before replying…

‘I dunno. I suppose we could donate it to charity, re-invest it back in Australia, help the Aborigines, build that new recreation staff room we’ve always wanted…’

‘…but none of those ideas are really jumping out at me. What do you think?’

‘I dunno… we’re a mint. How about we just do what we always do. Let’s make a really freaking big gold coin’.

nervous glances exchanged around the room

‘Fuck it. Why the hell not?’

Why the hell not indeed. And so the idea of creating the world’s valuable coin was born.

Sitting here staring at the $10 TWD (33 US cents) coin sitting on my desk… I can’t help but ask the obvious question: Why?

Obviously aware that creating a $54 million dollar gold coin (that is legal tender and has the purchasing power of $1 million behind it) would raise a few eyebrows, the mint attempts to pre-emptively deflect any criticism by claiming that the coin

 is a magnificent Australian icon symbolising one of the Mint’s most extraordinary accomplishments in its 112 year history.


Accomplishment ok… pointless as a giant gold coin might be, I’ll give them that. But Australian icon? Are you shitting me?!

To just whom exactly is a giant 54 million dollar 1 ton weighing gold coin an icon to?

Apart from visiting Saudi oil barons who might want to buy the coin, drill a hole through it and fuck it sideways (just because they can), who else would perceive a giant gold coin to be a freaking Australian icon?!

‘Hey kids, see that over there… that’s what money looks like’.

‘Wooooooooooooooooooow!’

‘Yeah, we used to have money too but… well, y’know. Global economies, the collapse of the USD, Europe and all that’.

If you wanted any more proof that Western Australia has absolutely no idea what to do with its mining boom surplus… look no further than the Perth Mint’s ’1 tonne gold kangaroo coin’.

The good news is that what with it being illegal to melt down Australian coins… we just sunk $53 million dollars into a gold coin that does nothing, absolutely nothing for Australia.

Good thing melting down common sense isn’t illegal hey.

The Australian Constitution does not have any express provision relating to freedom of speech. In theory, therefore, the Commonwealth Parliament may restrict or censor speech through censorship legislation or other laws, as long as they are otherwise within constitutional power.

The Constitution consists mainly of provisions relating to the structure of the Commonwealth Parliament, executive government and the federal judicial system. There is no list of personal rights or freedoms which may be enforced in the courts.

Since 1992 decisions of the High Court have indicated that there are implied rights to free speech and communication on matters concerning politics and government, e.g. permitting political advertising during election campaigns.

This is known as the ‘implied freedom of political communication’.

-Australian Parliamentary Library


Despite being a signatory member of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which guarantees free speech, Australia has no free speech.

This I wholly accept, as it appears unless we’re talking about illegal boat people’s rights, Australia being a signatory member to the UDHR doesn’t mean a damn.

That said, I distinctly remember being in taught in school that, although as a nation we don’t have freedom of speech, politics, and by association politicians, were fair game.

As mentioned above the High Court decided this back in 1992. Since then politicians and political parties have enjoyed slandering the buggery out of eachother everytime an election campaign rolls around, and the public and media are free to publish what they really think about politics without fear of legal retaliation.

Of course that doesn’t mean you can say anything about anyone in politics, but so long as what you’re saying falls within the framework of politics, it’s accepted that you come under the umbrella of the 1992 High Court decision.

At least that’s the way it currently is.

If Victorian Gaming Minister Michael O’Brien has his way, the Australian public’s right to criticise our politicians might soon be a thing of the past.

Upset over ‘abuse and insults‘ directed at himself and his staff, O’Brien (photo right) sought to change Victoria’s ‘Gaming Regulation Act’ because he felt his staff and himself needed further protection.

Protection against what you ask?

Apparently when you work for the Gaming Minister, assaults, obstructions, hinderance, threats, abuse, insults and intimidation are all just part of the daily job.

Now despite already having workplace laws in full effect meaning nobody should have to put up with this kind of crap on their job, O’Brien has taken it upon himself to propose an amendment to the Gaming Relations Act that

will make it an offence to “assault, obstruct, hinder, threaten, abuse, insult or intimidate” the minister or authorised persons exercising “due diligence” in monitoring gambling systems such as pokies.


As I mentioned earlier, all of the above is already covered by existing workplace laws, and Michael O’Brien, and all those who work in his Ministry are no less covered by these laws than any other employee working in Australia.

So what are we really talking about here?

Obviously, reading between the lines we’re talking criticism of Michael O’Brien and his staff.

In addition to the penalties already available to them under existing laws, O’Brien’s amendment seeks to dish out ‘fines of up to $11,945 to anyone found guilty of upsetting the minister and his staff‘.

Rather than follow the due process for such matters, under this new amendment, anyone who offends O’Brien and his staff at work will face the  streamlined legal repercussions of criticism as a neatly packaged fine.

I mean really, we all know gambling is big business in Australia and I can’t imagine trying to regulate the industry is difficult, but making it illegal to criticise politicians?

Overkill much?

If Michael O’Brien and his staff can’t handle the heat, or are too lazy to pursuit matters through the existing legal channels, that are apparently good enough for the rest of the Australia, then can I make a suggestion to the Liberal party that they need to replace these china dolls?

Unable to cope with criticism, perhaps the Ministry of Rainbows and Teacup parties would be a suitable position for O’Brien and his staff.

O’Brien’s amendment has already made it through the lower house and now is set to go before the upper house on October 25th.

Well gee, politicians voting on whether or not it should be illegal to criticise politicians… I wonder how that’s going to go.

When you see a guy who… you’re not quite sure is a guy, after staring at his face for while, do you

a. stare at his crotch and try to establish visual confirmation

b. walk up to him and grab his nuts

c. try to get close enough to ascertain the body hair level

Whichever you answered (and please leave a comment if it wasn’t one of these three answers, I’m curious!), the point is that all of these are physical measures.

Which without, just how the hell are we supposed to establish the gender of people?

I mean yeah, we could just ask… but then we risk the possibility of either getting beaten up if they are a guy, or having them burst into tears if they are indeed female.

Just ask the two Western Australia females, who were yesterday legally declared male.

In a case that I first wrote about back in 2009, two Australian women took their gender fight to court requesting legal male status, despite having vaginas.

Much to my horror, this pair of women were granted male legal status by an ‘administrative tribunal‘ in 2009 that ruled that

a female reproductive system was a fundamental, although not essential, physical characteristic of being female.


Since then this case has ping-ponged between being ruled for and against in appeals. Finally, yesterday the High Court of Australia upheld original administrative tribunal’s decision and once again reaffirmed the women’s legal status as males.

The physical characteristics by which a person is identified as male or female are confined to external physical characteristics that are socially recognisable.

Social recognition of a person’s gender does not require knowledge of a person’s remnant sexual organs.


No it doesn’t, but practically speaking… your gender goes far beyond mere social situations. From animals, to people, in medical situations, social situations, relationship situations… everytime it simple comes down to one thing.

Does he or she have a penis or a vagina?

And what’s with the terminology ‘remnant sexual organs?‘ These two women might be infertile, but they still have fully functioning vaginas. Neither has had their vaginas removed or a penis added to their bodies.

Mind you, not that either of these actions necessarily make you male either… but I’m not totally unreasonably to suggest that if you’re willing to go that far and completely surrender your female body parts, you probably deserve the title of male.

But women with fully functional vaginas?

What the flying fuck is the world coming to?!

For me, the absolute slap in the face is in the finer details. Speaking after the final decision, one of them women said

the ruling meant he was now able to move forward with certain aspects in his life, which have been held up because he was required to prove his official identity.


Now obviously, this meant that on a physical level, there was obviously some ambiguity about the apparent gender of the person. As a guy, I’ve never had to prove anything and I imagine most (there are some girly guys out there) guys will tell you the same.

If someone is asking you to prove your identity, either you’re in disguise (which is exactly what these women are) or you need to stop wearing high heels.

The very fact that this woman was constantly questioned about their gender, enough so to constantly warrant proving it, isn’t enough to suggest that without the proper relevant gender reassignment surgery this person obviously wasn’t passing as a male?!

Where do you draw the line in the flipside of such a ruling – namely guys wanting to pass of as women with their dicks still intact?

I mean what, take some estrogen pills and ‘present myself as a‘ female and using this ruling as precedent I can walk into any female toilet in the country, go to any women’s gym, walk around naked in a women only spa?

The scary thing is that for these women, the above scenarios are no longer a hypothetical. With yesterday’s final ruling, they’re now legally able to do all of the above (yeah I know men only gyms don’t exist but that’s not the point).

And finally here it is, your moment of zen;

WA Attorney-General Christian Porter said the Gender Reassignment Act 2000 did not extend so far as to allow situations where persons could possess full female genitalia and internal reproductive organs, and maintain the capacity to bear children but also be able to be legally defined as a male.


Yet here we are. What a bloody nightmare!

It’s been a while since I’ve eaten at a McDonalds Australia outlet but from memory, apart from the McOz (which is a promotional burger only), none of their other regular hamburgers contain bacon.

Infact the only thing on the entire menu that contains bacon I believe is the Bacon and Egg McMuffin, available only during breakfast times (6-10:30am). A quick visit to the McDonalds Australia website to look at their menu seems to confirm this (strong>Warning: The McDonalds Australia website is clunky and heavily bogged down with overexcessive use of Flash, so it’s probably easier to just take my word for it than visit the link above).

Given bacon’s virtual non-appearance on their menu, it’s safe to say that you’d pretty much have to go out of your way to get a hamburger with bacon in it.

Yet somehow, that’s exactly what happened to Mouhamad Khaled, his girlfriend Daphne Florence Austin and his father Walid Khaled.

Being muslim, naturally they couldn’t eat pork and well… whilst there were plenty of mature options available to them, the trio instead wound up violently assaulting police officers…

…over a hamburger.

…

…seriously.

I don’t know what exactly the three of them ordered, but the news.com.au say it was a ‘hamburger’ so that pretty much rules out the breakfast menu.

Upon receiving their hamburger and discovering the bacon inside, the Khaled’s and Austin flew into a rage and began ‘abusing counter staff’.

‘eh bros, wut’s this shit bacon in mah burger eh?

‘tryina make me sik eh? you guys r fuks yo, dumfuks I’mma call my bros and we’s gunna roll you all eh!

fo’real’


Thankfully before these knuckleheads had the opportunity to take it any further two police officers who were co-incidentally on the premises on the time intervened.

Upon being told to stop swearing and calm down, Walid Khaled (the father, and fifty three years old mind you) continued the tirade, now focusing on the police.

Not having a bar of it the police went to arrest him and that’s when his son and his girlfriend jumped in. Now attempting to restrain three rabidly violent people, Mouhamad made a grab for one of the officer’s handcuffs and began assaulting them with it.

Mouhamad struck ‘probationary Constable Matthew Sutherland on the head before swinging them at Senior Constable Alicia Bridges, hitting her’.

The attack happened in April and subsequently Mouhamad spent four months in custody before being granted bail.

As it stands now,

in Burwood Local Court yesterday, Magistrate Christopher Longley set a hearing date in February for Austin and Walid Khaled, who have each pleaded not guilty to charges linked to the brawl.


Not guilty? What, despite there being video surveillance in every McDonalds store in Australia and the fact that the prosecution have called on 29 witnesses to testify (everyone in the McDonalds store at the time?)

Yeah, good luck with that plea guys.

Amusingly the defence have called three witnesses in response.

Let me guess, the two Khaled’s and Ms Austin themselves?

Look guys I get it, you can’t eat pork because of your religion and you were upset that there was bacon in your burger but cmon.

Do what everybody else does when they have a complaint.

Complain to McDonalds management and get free McDonalds for a year, write a letter to your local MP, go on Today Tonight or A Current Affair… anything except carrying on like a bunch of obnoxious pork chops.

I’m not telling you to just get over it and eat it, of course your perfectly within your rights to not expect pork in your hamburger, but even if the staff themselves were being sneaky bastards and trying to stir you up (for whatever reason, I have no idea), that still doesn’t excuse your fuckwit like behaviour guys.

No doubt this will somehow turn into a race thing, despite the fact the race of the three assaulters is unknown. That and we can probably expect another Carnita Matthews false victimization plot thrown in as well by the defense in February, just for good measure.

Till then…

I’ve never really understood the need to gobble up parts of a specific animal in the hope of obtaining whatever qualities in said particular animal that you desire.

I’ve been eating pork, beef and chicken for nearly thirty years now and I haven’t picked up any of those traits.

Well ok, maybe the pork is starting to rub off on me but that depends on who you ask.

What I’m talking about rather is this ridiculous belief that if you take the largest, strongest and fiercest animal of a particular land and then consume its genitals – some how that is going to transfer over to you.

From tiger penis, to rhino horn, deer penis, tails and antlers, snake blood, seahorses,  dried lizards, bat moth larvae fungus, rabbit hair, sparrow toungues, fertilized duck eggs and bull penises are just some of the remedies used in Chinese medicine believed to be aphrodisiacs.

Seriously, who ate moth larvae fungus and then felt horny? How the hell do you even ‘discover’ something like that anyway?!

For all the history behind Chinese medicine, it’s a safe bet that if you pick the largest animal in any particular geographical region, and if said animal is capable of showing aggression – then gobbling down its penis, according to Chinese culture, will probably make you a raging stallion of sexuality.

Case in point? The completely unfounded and made up belief that munching on ground up kangaroo testicle powder is an aphrodisiac.

Traditionally when I think Kangaroo scrotum I think of those dinky little purses tourist shops started selling years ago. A novelty at best, with the scrotums harvested from farmed kangaroos it was all pretty harmless.

In an attempt to kick it up a notch (hello cha-cha-ching gullible profits!), some companies are now selling ground up kangaroo testis and marketing it as an aphrodisiac.

Manufacturers of Essence of Kangaroo claim the product can improve sexual prowess.

Made from Australian Red Kangaroo Testis. This large, powerful animal is the most magnificent of all the Kangaroos. It can leap up to 3.6m into the air and has a top speed of 65 km/hour.

It alone illustrates the Kangaroos amazing strength and vitality.


And now you too can have this amazing strength and vitality – by naturally consuming its penis!

Seriously, what a crock!

…and which mob of gullible idiots are swallowing the marketing spiel, hook line and pubic hair?

Why, Asians of course. Specifically, Taiwan and China.

Sorry guys but ‘you are what you eat’ doesn’t apply here and you’re deluded if you think consuming kangaroo balls is going to make you duh sexy.

Thankfully, whereas usually these types of aphrodisiacs seem to be only desirable if the animal in question is critically endangered, the kangaroo testicles used in these aphrodisiacs seem to be only harvested from kangaroo slaughterhouses for now.

That said, what are the Chinese doing buying out any aphrodisiac they can find anyway?

China has a population of freaking 1.3 BILLION PEOPLE! The hell you guys need aphrodisiacs for?!

And as for Taiwan. Man, you guys have been guzzling down DEHP plasticizer now for the better part of two decades. With DEHP shrinking your penises beyond recognition I think you’ve got bigger things to worry about then getting horny.

A small hormonally inbanalanced penis is still a small penis – no amount of aphrodisiac is going to fix that.

Amusingly the ground up testicles are not approved for sale in Australia, most likely due to the complete baloney claims pushed by those manufacturing the powder. These claims wouldn’t stand a chance in the Australian market, but superstitious Asia – hell, if the animal looks strong they’ll believe anything.

Cmon guys, it’s 2011… don’t you think it’s time we got over the whole ‘tiger strong and duh sexy ug ug. If I eat tiger penis, I too strong and duh sexy!’ thing?

When it comes to criminals profiteering off their crimes, I’d have to say that I’m a ‘depends on what they did’ kinda guy.

When Mark ‘Chopper’ Read for example wants to release a dodgy rap record, trading off the obvious notoriety of his name, or write a book about his experiences, I’m much more inclined to turn the other cheek.

Chopper obviously has an extensive criminal history but most of it was not only localised, but also against the criminal underworld itself. Not excusable but forgivable?

Yeah, why not.

Using Chopper as a reference point you could systematically handle each case of a convicted criminal wishing to profit from their crimes individually. Assess each case in a court of law and work out who deserves what.

Where do you draw the line though? For me, it’d David Hicks.

No trial necessary, this guy doesn’t deserve to make a cent.

In a nutshell, David Hicks was found overseas looking for an opportunity to fight against Australian forces in Afghanistan.

Upon being caught, Hicks and his supporters pulled out the ‘I’m dumb and didn’t know what I was doing’ defense, but after a calculated (albeit failed) campaign in Europe and then the Middle East, I don’t buy it (for a more detailed report, see ‘David Hicks: Why he should’ve stayed in Guantanamo Bay‘).

Following his release from Australian jail, with the help of Random House publishers, Hicks decided to profit from his crime and set about writing the book ‘Guantanamo: My Journey’.

Published on October 10th, 2010 and thus far having sold over 30,000 copies and allegedly netted its author ‘tens of thousands of dollars in earnings’, and after months of speculation as to whether the book’s publishing would be challenged, yesterday

the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions yesterday served Hicks with a notice of application for an order to restrain funds derived from the sale of Hicks’s memoirs Guantanamo.


For those of us who have been watching this play out, about bloody time.

And whilst we’re at it, how about going after these Random House publisher idiots too. Just listen to the description they used for Hick’s book;

In 1999 a young man from suburban Adelaide set out on an overseas trip that would change his life forever. Initially, he was after adventure and the experience of travelling the Silk Road.

But events would set him on a different path. He would be deemed a terrorist, one of George W Bush’s ‘worst of the worst’. He would be incarcerated in the world’s most notorious prison, Guantanamo Bay.

And in that place where, according to an interrogator in Abu Ghraib, ‘even dogs won’t live’, he was to languish for five and a half years, suffering horror, torture and abuse, while Australians were told who he was – by politicians, the media and foreign governments.

Everyone had an opinion on him.

But only he knows the truth.


The Silk Road my arse, Hicks went overseas looking for military action. Prior to some lefty lawyer telling him to use it as an excuse, I very much doubt Hicks even knew what the Silk Road is.

And what’s this crap about languishing in Guantanamo. He didn’t languish there, he was sent there because he was found looking for action against allied forces. Hick’s history and the lead up of events that got him thrown in Guantanamo are well documented so I don’t know what this horseshit is about ‘only he knows the truth‘.

As it’s been reported, stopping Hicks from profiting off his crimes

will be a two-step process, the restraining order will be followed by an application to seize the money under the Commonwealth Proceeds of Crime Act.

An Australian Federal Police spokeswoman said the matter would be heard by the NSW Supreme Court on August 3.


Meanwhile criticising the Government’s actions, David’s father Terry Hicks has come out all guns blazing;

Terry Hicks expressed outrage at the move. “Here you have someone who the Americans have said there’s no crime that’s been committed against them, and there’s no international crime,” Mr Hicks said.


Uh, the American’s are saying there is no crime despite getting a signed guilty confession out of Hicks? Again, horseshit.

Mr Hicks said he was worried how his son would react. “When he wrote the book it was bad enough, he had two years going through the processes,” he said. “Now he may have to go through it again.”


From a father’s perspective, I completely understand where Terry is coming from. But as an Australian citizen, do I give a crap?

Hicks is, was and always will be a traitor in my eyes. Personally I couldn’t give a stuff about his mental state. But I do give a stuff about him making money off his escapades.

If David does want to rejoin society then let him get back to work like the rest of us and and melt back into society. Trying to profit off your crimes just further runs your name into the dirt.

By publishing a supposed tell all book, Hick’s isn’t clarifying anything. What happened has already been well documented and let’s face it, the only people buying ‘My Journey’ are going to be supporters who for some reason or another, think it’s perfectly acceptable to go and search for a fight against your country.

As we draw nearer to August 3rd, here’s hoping prosecutors get every last cent Hick’s makes on his book.

One of the things I’m proud of Australia is the fact that, despite having people from all sorts of cultures, religions and creeds, it’s that for the most part we all get along with the same reasonably secular common law.

Aborigines and their special courts aside, the rest of us abide by a system that embodies universal concepts and structures anyone can follow to lead a reasonably productive and fulfilling life.

The great thing is that, if you wish to follow extra laws and rules enforced by a religion or some other belief system, you’re welcome to (providing of course they don’t clash with our existing laws).

I don’t mind what people follow, so long as they don’t try to impose it on myself or the rest of Australia at large. That naturally covers the enforcement of any beliefs harboured by individuals or groups. What the individual chooses to belief or follow is up to the individual, how they interpret or do so within the constraints of the Australian legal system should be left to personal choice.

…something that a group of Wahhabi fundamentalists living in Western Sydney seem to disagree with.

Simply put, pretty much every negative stereotype you hear about Islam in one way or another originates from modern day Wahhabi nutjobs.

Women not being able to drive, being denied education, all that nonsense about having to have chaperones, Sharia law yeah, it’s all there in Wahhabi. Not surprisingly, Wahhabi is wildly popular in Saudi Arabia and the like and wherever Wahhabi exists, it pretty much tends to clash with mainstream societies and even other muslim groups.

Here in Australia much of the Wahhabi belief system is simply incompatible with our way of life (regardless of which religion you do or don’t follow or what your beliefs are).

For starters, most Australians aren’t too keen on Sharia and like myself, I imagine would utterly refuse to be governed by it (or any system that resembled it).

For a recent Islamic convert in Sydney however, this wasn’t enough and his own greater religious circle took it upon themselves to administer their own form of punishment after the follower in question was seen drinking alcohol.

After a night out drinking with some mates,

The 31-year-old was asleep in his apartment in Silverwater, in Sydney’s west, when he woke to find four bearded men in his bedroom about 1am (AEST) yesterday.

Three of the intruders restrained him on the bed while the fourth man used a cable to lash him 40 times. The attack lasted about 30 minutes and left the man covered in welts.

The man reportedly told police he had only recently converted to Islam and that fundamental Wahhabi Muslims were punishing him for having a few drinks with friends.


Let me be the first to say, what the flying fuck?

This didn’t happen behind closed doors in Saudi Arabia, in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan or in a remote tribal village of Pakistan – this happened in the largest and most populous city in Australia, Sydney.

Following the attack the man was reportedly terrified and moved out of his home. He reported the assault to police but is now ‘afraid and has since become hesitant to cooperate with authorities‘.

Obviously the Wahhabi community of Sydney is going to be small and no doubt the men who administered the punishment are known to the victim. So why the hell hasn’t anyone been arrested yet?

Reluctance to co-operate aside, surely it’s not that hard to at least bring people in for questioning?

Thankfully the wider muslim community of Sydney have condemned the attacks and called for justice;

“This criminal act has no place in Islam. As Australian Muslims we are required to follow Australian law, not take the law into our own individual hands,” Ahmed Kilami, from the Muslim Village, told the Seven Network.

“I hope these guys are caught and face the full force of the law.”


I hope so too. And further to that, if this is the kind of nonsense Wahhabi muslims are bringing into Australian culture, why are we letting them do it?

Having your own belief systems is fine, but lashing people because they don’t follow your beliefs? What’s next, mutilating people, beheadings and honor killing?

As they say, to hell with that. Take your Sharia law and shove it guys.

…these are just some of the many things I’d expect to be handled by local Australian city councils.

When it comes to the City of Sydney however, for whatever reason they’ve taken it upon themselves to ponder the historical origins of ‘Australia’ as we know it.

And unfortunately in the process have completely rewritten the history books.

Following lengthy discussions and ‘after City of Sydney’s Aboriginal advisory panel threatened to quit‘, the council has decided (for all of Australia) that ‘the arrival of white settlers (to Australia was) an “invasion“.

And just like that, the far reaching implication is thus that, despite being born in Australia I, and every other non-Aboriginal Australian, are therefore ‘invaders‘.

A term I’m sure will be quick to catch on and join the already exhaustive list of insults hurled at people by Aboriginals still pretending like what happened over 200 years ago somehow directly affects them today.

Despite the insulting nature of one city council altering an entire nation’s history, why on Earth was this decided on the basis of an Aboriginal Advisory panel threatening to quit?

Are they some kind of irreplaceable group chaired by untouchables or something?

How contrived it will be when in twenty or thirty years times students ask their teachers ‘why the settlement of Australia is considered an invasion?’, teachers will have to reply ‘because some nobodies threatened to quit their jobs back in 2011′.

Meanwhile the City of Sydney’s decision seems to have hinged on the dictionary definition of ‘invaded’;

During a long debate, Deputy Mayor Marcelle Hoff argued that the term “invasion or illegal colonisation” should be used in the council’s official documents and statements.

She read out dictionary definitions of invasion as “to take possession, to penetrate, to intrude upon, to overrun”.

“They came in and they did not leave,” she said.


Indeed.

Now if we look at the definition of ‘invaded’, we get

To enter by force in order to conquer or pillage.


Either way, if we accept that it was an invasion, Aboriginals were intruded, overrun, their land possessed and they were completely and utterly conquered.

So, moving forward, is it safe to assume that Australia will no longer recognise them in any way shape or form? I mean they were conquered after all. History now says so.

No more generous welfare, special treatment or land claims – they all went out the window when Sydney decided the settlement was an invasion.

It might all sound a bit silly (as is a council rewriting history in the first place) but honestly it seems that, at the expense of greater Australia, we’re continuing down a path of selective historical moments.

Starting off with Kevin Rudd’s government level apology, slowly but surely, under the threat of Aboriginal council’s quitting their jobs, Australia seems to be on the path of rewriting history to suit a very small minority of people who, let’s face it no matter what, are never going to be able to get over what happened over 200 years ago.

Meanwhile the rest of us try to get on with our lives and make the most of now.

Does changing ‘settled’ to ‘invaded’ really have any effect on those the use of the term is supposed to appease?

Of course not.

What I can’t understand is why the far more neutral terminology which respects both sides of the discussion was deleted in favour of this one sided invasion nonsense. Last week Lord Mayor Clover Moore offered up a much more suitable passage;

British settlement of Sydney and its surrounds is interpreted by some people, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, as invasion.

For others it is colonisation. History is interpreted by people differently according to their experience of its consequences.


This not only appeases Aboriginals still wallowing in self pity, but also acknowledges Australians like me who not only don’t see the settlement as an invasion, but are also thankful it did happen.

Without it, I wouldn’t be here today – at least not in this capacity.

Unfortunately though this didn’t feel, how should I put it, guilty enough for the Aboriginal council and was subsequently removed in favour of ’invaded’.

Given that what’s done is now done and looking forward (wouldn’t it be great if Aboriginals could simply adopt such a mindset and just get on with being productive members of society), I imagine the real cost of rewriting history is yet to be felt.

What the City of Sydney have really done here is encouraged resentment and division in an entire new generation of Aboriginals, who really have as much to do with the settlement as any other Australian in 2011.

That is to say, nada… zip, nothing.

I can’t wait for Australia Day 2012 and the renewed calls to rename it ‘Invasion Day’… now what with historical context backing the calls, is there really any reason not to?

In the context of what went on in the world regarding colonisation back in the 1700′s, I sincerely doubt ‘invasion’ was on the minds of any who originally landed here.

Who are we to rewrite history in such a context that completely misrepresents how Australians 200 years later feel about their nation?

Carnita Matthews hasn’t had a very good run at being a licensed driver in Australia.

Since she first received her learner licence in 1998 at the age of 33, she has twice had her provisional licence suspended for totting up too many demerit points and twice had her licence suspended for non payment of fines.


Finally, Matthews’ licensing woes came to a head last year when she was pulled over by police for not displaying her P plates.

For this she was fined $276 and ordered to pay court costs.

Following the court’s decision, Matthews then went on to accuse the police officer who booked her, Sergeant Paul Kearney, of racism and ‘attempting to tear her burqa off her face‘.

Matthews made the claims on Channel 7 as well as in a sworn statutory declaration filled and handed in at a local police station.

During the subsequent court case, Matthews was revealed to have completely fabricated the claims after police video footage of the incident was admitted as evidence.

The video footage showed no such attempt by Sergeant Kearney to remove Matthew’s burqa.

Or in other words, she lied.

For deliberately making false statements in court under oath, Matthews was sentenced to six months in jail, which she appealed.

Yesterday the case came to a conclusion and Matthews was let off scot free.

Why?

Because Matthews is better than the rest of us. Carnita Matthews wears a burqa you see and is subsequently completely above Australian law.

Time and time again we’ve been told that people wearing the burqa do so out of religious necessity (despite this in itself being a myth) and that worries over identification are nonsense.

Well, wake up to yourselves people. Yesterday, those nonsensical fears became a reality.

In her appeal Carnita Matthews argued that because she wore a burqa and did not have to provide a signature, there was no way to prove it was infact her who lodged the statutory declaration. In light of this Judge Clive Jeffreys agreed and upheld Matthews appeal.

For all intents and purposes, there was no way to prove Matthews lodged the statutory declaration. Yet somehow it was legitimate enough to be used in court action in her prior case against the police.

Of course in order to have proved that Matthews did indeed hand in the statutory declaration herself, police would have needed to confirm her identity by asking her to remove her burqa.

This however is currently legally impossible due to police currently not having ‘legal power to require women to show their face if the women refuse on religious or cultural grounds‘.

Does anyone else see a problem here? Maybe problem is understating it, allow me to rephrase;

Does anyone see a big gaping elephant sized loophole in Australia’s already weak as piss legal system?!

The upholding of the appeal wasn’t the end of it of course. Furthermore, Judge Jeffereys decided to rub salt into the wounds of honest Australians by declaring that ‘even if Mrs Matthews had made the complaint, he could not be sure she knew it was a “false” statement‘.

Are you kidding me?

Someone lies about an incident they were directly involved in and some judge is going to tell me there’s no way to be sure they knew they were making a false statement about it?

What’s the definition of lying again? Oh that’s right, making a false freaking statement.

Meanwhile the police seem to have their heads completely up their arses in terms of public reaction to Matthews getting off scot free. In discussing the appeal, Police Minister Mike Gallacher stated ‘he did not expect this to inflame community anger about women wearing full face coverings‘.

Right. Because there’s nothing infuriating about someone lying, going to court about it, being proven to be lying, getting jail time and then getting off scot free because nobody can make a positive identification due to bullshit religious tolerance.

Sorry Galagher but as an Australian I’m fucking furious. As should all Australians be, muslim or otherwise.

Time and time again in the burqa debate the issue of identity has come up and here we have a woman literally hiding behind her burqa to get away with crime.

Religious tolerance be damned. The law is the law and if you want to function in Australian society you better damn well follow it or expect to be harshly punished.

Anything less is simply unacceptable.

Whether it’s due to religious or personal persecution, war, famine, social unrest – whatever. There’s a desperation in fleeing your home country and it isn’t to be taken lightly.

If you fled to Malaysia, you’d be locked up in a small cage and placing the slightest foot out of line would get you caned.

With conditions like this, Australian detention, with its plasma tv’s, clean and maintained accommodation, leisure activities, organised offsite excursions and language and cultural support should seem like a holiday, when compared to what you originally fled from.

Sure you might be subject to these conditions for a few years, but that’s hardly our fault if you dumped your identification before arriving.

Despite this however, some people are under the impression that being in asylum detention in Australia is worse than the conditions many asylum seekers are fleeing.

So much so that after suing the Australian government over their treatment, the Australian legal system agreed…

…to the tune of $800,000.

Now with talks of class actions looming and Australian’s footing a multimillion dollar bill to repair damage done to asylum seeker accommodation after recent riots – surely as a nation we must ask ourselves,

‘is this really worth it?’

To say Australia is being taken advantage of is an understatement;

Meet Parviz Yousefi. Yousefi was an Iranian oil engineer (definitely not a struggling industry) who, after fleeing Iran, rocked up with his family by boat back in 2001.

Whilst most families save up to just send their men via the people smugglers, Yousefi was obviously wealthy enough to pay the smugglers enough to bring his immediate family over.

Mrs Yousefi said her husband was university educated and a strong person who looked after his family and had a good job on the Iranian oil fields.


Asylum seeker? Hardly. Just another wealthy imposter looking to bypass the established immigration system.

Despite whatever conditions Yousefi allegedly fled Iran over, Yousefi didn’t quite like the fact it was taking a while to process his claim and started on the usual asylum seeker routine.

Y’know, hunger strikes, sewing your lips shut, suicide attempts and all the other nonsense Australian’s are sick and tired of hearing about.

You see, apparently it’s a bit of a shock to the system to be put into detention when you’re living comfortably as a free man back home.

As a result of this, in 2005 Yousefi went on to successfully sue Australian taxpayers for $800,000, citing ‘permanent psychiatric damage due to horrific experiences behind the razor wire‘.

Perhaps the government refused to purchase a Premium Foxtel subscription, leaving them only with basic channels. I can understand how that could easily be identified as a horrific experience when you compare it to living in an Iranian oil funded palace.

At the time of his payout, Yousefi’s wife Mehrnoosh claimed

he would never work again and would require medical care for the rest of his life.


I imagine in Iran they’d simply tell him to harden up and get back to work. But such is life.

Here in horrendous Australia we’re stuck footing the lifelong medical expenses and ongoing welfare payouts of other country’s problems.

Fast forward six years and here we are again. The people smuggler trade is as robust as ever and under the financially crippling burden this trade has become on Australian taxpayers, the government is looking to offload people to Malaysia.

Amidst discussions (including UN condemnation of the plan), once again there’s talk of ‘trauma and psychological damage in detention‘ and of course, ‘scores of detainees were preparing claims against the Australian government’ and even ‘discussions of class actions‘.

Why?

Because once again the people smuggling trade is flourishing and those lied to by people smugglers are frustrated and only willing to take it out on Australia.

Meanwhile if we look at countries like Malaysia who are heavily criticised for caining (amongst other things) refugees who step out of line, is comfortable accommodation whilst the tedious process of identification and fact checking is underway really all that bad?

It’s not like it’s our fault asylum seekers (under the instruction of people smugglers) make it difficult to verify their sob story claims.

As an Australian, I don’t care where you’re from or what race you are. If you want to come to my country after ‘fleeing’ some craphole and then complain about the time it takes to establish who you are after you tried to game the system, your cries are going to fall on deaf ears.

It’s your own damn fault and there’s nobody else to blame. And talk of legal action against the country that took you in? Go fuck yourselves.

When the alternative is living in a cage and having the shit beaten out of you, our multimillion dollar facilities and care are a bloody resort in comparison.

Don’t like, there’s the door. Piss off.

Signed, an Australian sick and tired of paying for the world’s deadbeats to come and resettle here.

The big even of course was the fire at the Villawood detention centre in Sydney where around 100 detainees rioted, torched nine buildings causing millions of dollars in damage and threw ‘roof tiles at firefighters‘ as they attempted to contain the blaze.

Of course it’s the Australia public who have to foot the bill over asylum tantrums, on top of the one hundred and eight three million dollar planned upgrade to the facility – y’know, just so that it can be torched down again.

Other protests were held around the country in which alleged asylum seekers took the roofs of detention centres with ransom demands, attacked security guards with fire extinguishers, went on hunger strikes, sewed their lips shut… oh and even found the time to make home made bombs.

Yes, truly all peaceloving people that we’d love to have in Australia. After all, I’m sure their actions were taken entirely out of context.

In light of a spate of protests this month, I guess the bigger question of course is ‘why now‘?

Evidently it’s because a lot of Australia’s alleged asylum seekers are fed up with many of them having lived in detention now for 18-20 months and counting.

Well, ‘that’s understandable’ you might say. So what on Earth is taking the government so long to process their claims?

Well, turns out that 99.6% of these people are nothing more then asylum seeker scammers.

What has long been suspected by critics of the Australian government’s abysmal handling of the entry of illegals in the country, was finally confirmed yesterday when

new figures obtained from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship revealed that 5213 people arriving illegally between 2008 and 2010 had first flown to Indonesia before boarding a boat to Australia.

But only 21 of those people still had passports with them by the time they were intercepted in Australian waters.


These figures reveal that a staggering 99.6% of people arriving from Indonesia (which is virtually where all the boats come from these days) are completely and utterly rorting our immigration laws.

The most glaring admission here is that despite Labor crapping on about how they’re getting tough all the way back to when Rudd was our Prime Minister, the people smuggling industry in Indonesia is thriving.

Not only that, but they appear to have perfected the technique to get around our completely lax system for dealing with asylum seekers.

Why wouldn’t those attempting to enter Australia illegally be pissed off?

On one hand they’ve got people smugglers telling them how easy it is to settle in Australia, handing them a rulebook on how to appease the authorities, only to find out when they get here that it takes more then a few weeks to establish someone’s identity when they arrive with little to no identification.

And before anyone craps on about how you don’t carry identification when you’re fleeing –

Horseshit.

There’s no way known you can just jump on a plane to Indonesia without a passport. The fact they’re purposefully dumping them hereafter is proof that people smugglers are playing on the widely held belief that Australian authorities will simple dump these people into the ‘too hard basket’ and let them in.

Once the reality hits home however, well, then you get riots, fires, assaults and home made bombs.

So what’s the solution?

Well it’s simple really.

To confirm that asylum seekers flew to Indonesia they’ve obviously worked out who they are and proved that at one point along their journey they had proper identification papers.

Want to stop the scammers?

Implement zero tolerance on any and all asylum seekers who are found to have flown to Indonesia and then presented to Australian authorities without appropriate identification.

No ifs or buts. Work out where the plane they boarded took off from and send them home.

No appeals, no protests, no bullshit.

Why this is not being considered I have no idea. Instead, Australian’s are force fed utterly ridiculous schemes like the newly announced asylum deal with Malaysia today.

Ms Gillard and Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said that they were close to signing a bilateral agreement which would see 800 people who tried to get to Australia by boat taken immediately to Malaysia instead.

In return, Australia will take 4000 genuine refugees from Malaysia over four years.


Seriously?!

We’re going to send to Malaysia 800 people who may or may not be genuine asylum seekers, in exchange for four thousand asylum seekers that Malaysia has deemed are ‘genuine’.

WHO COMES UP WITH THIS NONSENSE?!

What’s to stop Malaysia finding these 800 people we send there to be ‘genuine refugees’ and simply start shipping them back to us in dribs and drabs over the four year contract.

Nothing, that’s what.

In yet another political masterstroke the Australian government yet again shown that we have absolutely no control over who enters our country and under what circumstances.

With such a simple solution able to cut the people smuggling trade from over five thousand entrants to just 23, it amazes me that instead we’re pursuing half arsed trade agreements with countries who now have no incentive to properly investigate those claiming asylum there.

‘Hey Bob, this guys got no papers…?’

‘Fuck it, he’s going to Australia.. who cares.’

The reality of this agreement if it goes ahead is four thousand non-negotiable guaranteed visa places to people that no Australian authority has the right to challenge or investigate. Who knows the type of people Malaysia will send our way?

Congratulations to the idiots that voted Gillard in, these are Labor’s immigration policies at work.

All this despite a population that is dwarfed by most other countries entering these conflicts.

Because of a lack of traitors in our wartime history, it’s especially so that the case of David Hicks understandably makes many Australians see red. Myself included.

Simply put, Hicks is an Australian citizen who, in the midst of the Afghanistan war, was caught batting for the other team.

Sold to the US military, Hicks was then transferred to the infamous Guantanamo Bay where he was detained for six years. Upon release he served a further nine months in jail in Australia before being released into society.

To this day he remains at large.

The issue of David Hicks usually procures two types of people. There are those who see him as being ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’ and a victim of an unfair judicial process.

Then there are those like me, who seem Hicks as a traitor of the highest order. Someone who should have been stripped of his citizenship and left to rot in Guantanamo Bay as an unknown.

Harsh? Perhaps. But make no mistake. Hicks knew exactly what he was doing, who he was fighting for and what he was getting himself into.

This week Wikileaks’ latest release was a collection of 779 secret files from Guantanamo Bay, one of which is the detainee file of a David Michael Hicks… or as we know him, David Hicks.

The Wikileaks’ Guantanamo file on David Hicks details Hicks military training and really, to suggest Hicks was in the wrong place at the wrong time is an insult to general intelligence.

Hicks began his military career by training with the Kosovo Liberation Army for three months. Due to his late arrival into the conflict however Hicks training wasn’t sufficient enough and he failed to enter combat, despite wishing to do so.

Believing he was ready for East Timor though, Hicks then flew over there but was left ‘disappointed by his lack of readiness and participation in certain situations‘ (situations which were not elaborated upon).

So, turns out three months of KLA training does not a hardened war veteran make, who’da thunk?

Returning to Australia and determined to see out his military fantasies, Hicks then applied to the Australian Army but was knocked back due to his ‘low level of formal education‘.

This is where the buck should have stopped, but gung ho Hicks wouldn’t have a bar of it. Instead, Hicks took up Islam and went to Pakistan to further his military training. There, Hicks got involved with Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.

Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, a known terrorist organisation, is

one of the largest and most active militant Islamist terrorist organizations in South Asia, operating mainly from Pakistan.

Lashkar-e-Taiba members have carried out major attacks against India and its objective is to introduce an Islamic state in South Asia and to “liberate” Muslims residing in Indian Kashmir.


Sounds like a wonderful bunch of people.

Hicks joined and trained with Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (Guantanmo file spelling) and then tried to gain insertion into Indian controlled Kashmir. Having joined an organisation known for conducting attacks against India, who knows what Hicks might have got up to had he of been successful.

Acting on information given to him by a member of the Taliban he’d met in Pakistan, Hicks then went off to Afghanistan in search of more military training. I’m not sure whether or not he found it or not… but the Guantanamo file then states that he returned to Pakistan to ‘study the Quran for four months‘.

Running around with Islamic terrorist organisation in the heart of Pakistan and Afghanistan and taking Quran studying sabbaticals, it’s probably safe to assume that at this point Hicks was a religious nutter.

As evidenced in a letter he sent to his mother on the subject of jihad;

As a Muslim young and fit my responsibility is to protect my brothers from aggressive non-believers and not let them destroy it.

Islam will rule again but for now we must have patience we are asked to sacrifice our lives for Allahs cause why not? There are many privileges in heaven. It is not just war, it is jihad.

One reward I get in being martyred I get to take ten members of my family to heaven who were destined for hell, but first I also must be martyred.

We are all going to die one day so why not be martyred?


Yes, David Hicks was all to willing to martyr himself fighting the non-believers, which in this case was primarily the armies of the west, including that of Australia.

Returning to Afghanistan after his Quran studying efforts, Hicks then trained with Al-Qaeda in ‘Basic Military Training, City/Urban Tactics, Mountain Tactics and Intelligence/Target Gathering‘.

Despite Hick’s Guantanamo file stating he trained in Al-Qaeda’s Al Farouq and Abu Obeida terrorist training camps, Hicks denies any such thing;

There were three or four camps under the name of Camp Farouk at that time in Afghanistan. I attended the open mainstream camp, not terrorist camps.

I would not have been there if there was any suggestion of terrorist activity or the targeting of civilians.

How would a white boy new to Islam, not understanding local customs or languages, largely uneducated in the ways of the world, get access to such supposedly secret camps planning acts of terror?

The camps I attended were not Al-Qaeda. I did not hear about such an organisation until my arrival in Guantanamo Bay.


Mainstream camps? What mainstream camps?! How were the mainstream camps any different to the terrorist camps, who was funding them and why?

Furthermore, despite these proclamations of innocence and not knowing anything about Al-Qaeda, Hicks boasted to his family back in Australia that

There are a lot of Muslims who want to meet Osama Bin Laden but after being a Muslim for 16 months I get to meet him.


Yeah, because y’know, I’m sure Osama Bin Laden himself goes around to all the non-terroristy ‘mainstream camps’.

So, just to recap, Hicks claims he didn’t know what Al-Qaeda was prior to his capture, yet was running around Afghanistan Al-Qaeda terrorist camps having meetings with Ban Laden and other Al-Qaeda operatives.

Yet he has the balls to declare he was just there participating in some sort of open mainstream military training camp.

Leaving his training at the Abu Obeida terrorist training camp early, an impatient Hicks went to join Al-Qaeda on the frontlines. Shortly thereafter he was called back to Khandahar for a meeting with senior Al-Qaeda co-ordinator and planner, Abu Hafs.

Following the collapse of several Taliban controlled fronts, Hicks fled the area in the back of a truck and was it was then that he was captured by Northern Alliance soldiers and then sold to the US military.

In the prime of his military fantasy world, Hicks was cut down and prevented from seeing combat. Combat which, if he had of had the opportunity to engage in, would have no doubt been against coalition forces, including that of Australia.

In the subsequent years of his imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay, many called for Hicks release on the grounds that he was an Australian citizen. Yet so little did Hicks value his Australian citizenship that he traded it in for a British citizenship in an attempt to escape detainment.

He did this after seeing the British government campaign heavily for the release of British prisoners, but after a successful procurement of British citizenship, was knocked back on the grounds that he was an Australian citizen at the time of his capture.

Shortly thereafter Hicks was also stripped of his British citizenship too.

Following on from that, in an attempt to distance himself from the islamic jihadist nutter image he’d carefully crafted for himself over the past few years, Hicks also renounced Islam whilst serving time in Guantanamo.

To say Hicks is a man with little to no loyalties or convictions is an understatement.

I mean if you’re going to go off and fight for the country you hold citizenship to and get caught in the thick of it, at least stand by what you believe and don’t be a soft cock about it.

Even when criticising Hicks for what he is, it’s difficult to peg him on it because his story is full of flip flops, contradictions and a mountain of behavioural evidence against him.

Would I have cared if Hicks had of been held in Guantanamo indefinitely? Not likely.

Despite legally being an Australian citizen there are some things, that if you actively engage in, in my eyes you forfeit the right to call Australia home.

Training with nutjobs and actively engaging in a war Australia is participating in ranks highly on that list.

Meanwhile, having learnt his lesson and after a brief PR blitz to clear his name, Hicks now lives in Sydney with his wife Aloysia who, being a human rights activist, no doubt fell in love with the ‘poor Australian citizen wrongfully imprisoned by the evil Americans’ fairytale Hicks and his supporters tried to spin to the Australian public.

Frankly I’m not and will not ever have a bar of it. Hicks is traitorous scum and quite frankly forfeited his right to ever set foot on Australian soil the moment he took up a military cause against the nation he belongs to.

David Hicks; a permanent shit stain on Australian citizenship, if you will.

Needless to say, I’ve also inadvertently suffered through a lifetime of infomercials. Thankfully though I’ve never really succumbed to any of them – no matter what they promise, the gimmicks they come with or who’s marketing them.

Like most people I suspect, I usually put anything I see on an infomercial into the ‘overpriced crap that (probably) doesn’t work basket’.

With ads like this one, as seen on the Daily Show’s ‘Moment of Zen’ – is it any wonder why?


Somebody managed to market what you could easily do with a dumbbell, some string and a porn magazine… yeah, there isn’t much mystery as to why I don’t take infomercials too seriously.

Despite ads like the Shake Weight though, Some people do. Take for example Queensland jockey Wanderson D’Avila. D’Avila walked into a local pharmacy and purchased a bottle of Sensaslim, a diet aid solution that you spray onto your tongue.

Sounds like your standard hunger suppressor so that’s nothing new… yet here’s a short infomercial from the company claiming Sensaslim is a ‘revolutionary breakthrough’ that was discovered ‘accidentally, twenty years ago’.


Taste bud and smell neutralisation? Brain manipulation? Yeah ok, far be it from me to cast doubt on the effectiveness of Sensaslim. Especially when, after trying it, D’Avila is so convinced that it’s effective that he’s now suing Sensaslim.

Why?

Because well, apparently Sensaslim works.

Back in February, D’Avila saw a paid advertisement ‘feature’ for Sensaslim on current affairs show Today Tonight.

After purchasing Sensaslim from the local pharmacy, D’Avila set about using it for a few days before a race down at the Gold Coast Turf Club. D’Avila won the race but was later stripped of the win and disqualified from racing for one month after weighing in ‘0.8 kilograms under his allocated weight‘.

Furious and convinced that Sensaslim is the culprit, D’Avila has now decided to sue Sensaslim for $12,500 citing ‘professional embarrassment as well as loss of earnings due to the racing suspension‘.

Why?

Because D’Avila bought

SensaSlim because it “sprayed away hunger” but claims it was not made clear to him that it would also “spray the kilos away”.


It appears the correlation between not eating and weightloss had somehow escaped D’Aliva.

And of course, the company that sold him this weight loss miracle now needs to pay up, or else.

The dubiousness of suing for loss of income on non-guaranteed horse races (does D’Avila know something we don’t?) aside, one can only hope the judge throws out the case and orders D’Avila to take a course on basic human bodily function.

Food doesn’t go in, body loses weight bing badda boom.

Meanwhile the greater story here seems to be that somebody actually invented an infomercial product that actually works…

…what the hell were they thinking?

Perhaps Sensaslim (and the infomercial industry at large) could learn a lesson or two here. In the future, don’t stray from the proven infomercial success model of offering overpriced products that don’t work.

Not that I hold a candle to claims about muslim babies or any other such nonsense, but it is feasible that somewhere in the US locals are plotting against the state.

Whether it’s got anything to do with religion or not or the various current ongoing campaigns the US has overseas is another matter entirely of course.

When it comes to Australia though, the idea of home grown terrorism is somewhat of a joke. Sure, there’s racial and religious tension and despite the fact that most of us get along there’s undoubtedly cliques that want nothing to do with Australia.

But escalating that to homegrown terror or violent extremism?

Not likely.

Despite this however, the Labor government announced yesterday that it was putting aside 9.7 million dollars in order to ‘tackle violent extremism‘ in Australia.

The offer, not open to ‘individuals, companies, political parties and government agencies‘, is being called the ‘Building Community Resilience program’ and offers non-profit organisations up to $100,000 each to encourage

activities that support individuals away from intolerant and radical ideologies and encourage positive participation in the community.


Sounds like a noble cause, but did anyone run a reality check on the program beforehand?

One hundred grand isn’t child’s play money for any non-profit group and when we start talking about ‘radical ideologies’ it’s obvious the government are targeting Islam.

Thus, whilst the program is no doubt open to anyone, it’s Islamic non-profit groups that are most likely to receive the limited amount of funding on offer.

Now let’s say you are one of these Islamic non-profit groups who just happened to be fostering extremism. How does a $100,000 boost to your funding sound?

No doubt if groups do exist they’re doing it covertly and far be it for the government to work out what’s going on before they hand over the money.

And even if they did, look at the huge amount of trouble and effort that’s gone into trying to control what Aboriginals spend their welfare cheques on. We have to justify forcing Aboriginals to spend their dole payments on food for their kids rather than alcohol and cigarettes.

Does anyone think the government is going to get any input as to how, for better or worse, these non-profit groups spend their $100,000?

‘Waaaah the government is telling us poor minority groups how to run our organisations!’ is probably about all they’d need to do to quash and government interference into how these organisations are run.

Taking a breath, I’m obviously not suggesting that any or all of the non-profit organisations being targeted are secretly fostering extremism. Of course not, that’s Fox News talk.

But if they were, how is throwing $100,000 at them going to fix anything? If you were a radical extremist and your local community group started offering some wishy washy educational activities countering your ideology… is that really going to change your mindset?

Why do we seek to assume that radical extremists can be bought off so easily by branding about some chump change? If they do exist, they can’t be bought off and that’s the problem.

Instead, we need to address why they exist and target the source. Financial incentive regulation, like the government is attempting to do, does nothing more than say ‘we don’t know how to stop this so instead we’re just going to take the shotgun scatter approach and hope for the best’.

Finally, as a member of the wider Australian general public, of far more interest is the government’s motivation behind the program in the first place.

Unjustified paranoia or are the divides simmering at the surface deeper than we’ve been led to believe?

There’s no smoke without fire… and this government dousing of nearly ten million dollars is clearly trying to put something out…

What, of course, is the million dollar question.

Robbery is up 450%, sexual assault is up 97% and commercial break-ins are up 185%.

In response to these statistics, the activist group ‘Action for Alice’ self funded a television commercial targeted at the Northern Territory government that aired on Aboriginal TV network, Imparja Television.

Sidenote: when did Aboriginals get a TV station?!

Apparently the ad has been airing in the Northern Territory for about a month now and while I couldn’t find a direct link to the video of it, this news report from 10 covers its release;


In response to the video the Minister for Central Australia, Karl Hampton, applied pressure to Imparja Television to pull the ad.

“I spoke to the chairman of the board about the ads and expressed my disappointment with the ads, because I believed they did not follow the objectives and aims of Imparja Television, which is to promote … positive things about Aboriginal culture”


Only positive things about Aboriginal culture? Why on Earth would that be?

the commercials highlighted the problems of Alice Springs to the detriment of the local tourism industry and small business.

“It made it impossible for the government to recruit doctors and nurses to the area.”


Oh, I see.

The greater irony here of course being that ‘Action for Alice’ is from what I understand primarily made up of (notably white) business owners, whose businesses rely on tourism to stay afloat.

They’re pissed off that Aboriginals are killing the tourism industry and the government is worried that by publicly airing their complaints, that they themselves risk killing Alice Spring’s tourism industry.

Productive Aboriginals on the other hand are too busy complaining to the Human Rights Commission because they find the ads ‘offensive‘


Unedited footage of Aboriginals drinking themselves stupid and fighting is naturally going to be offensive to anyone, but is appealing to the Human Rights Commission actually going to achieve anything?

Why aren’t these offended Aboriginals out there trying to address the real problem on which the advertisement revolves around?!

…can I get off the merry go around yet?

Why anyone would want to visit Alice Springs in its current state is beyond me but surely the NT government isn’t that naive that they believe covering up the problem will keep the tourism dollars rolling in?

Apparently so.

Meanwhile Aboriginals seem to be complaining that at the heart of the problem is the intervention, which needs to go.

What they conveniently forget though is that it’s the intervention that has itself directly brought the rampant drug and alcohol abuse in remote Aboriginal to the spotlight of Alice Springs.

This might be crappy for tourism and the locals, but it does thrust the problem directly into the forefront of the Northern Territory’s public sphere.

Removing the intervention will undoubtedly drive the problem back out to the remote communities and make tourism in the region attractive again, but will it fix the heart of the problem?

Not a chance.

One of the common retorts of bleeding hearts is the notion that it’s easy to be an armchair critic when it comes to issues such as Aboriginal alcohol and drug abuse problems.

‘you don’t live there, why don’t you go out there and see first hand just how wonderful these people are!‘ is usually along the lines of how it goes.

Here we have a group of people who live right in the thick of it, proposing their own ‘a nine-point plan for change in the town which they say will bring lasting results‘.

Is the government even willing to listen, discuss and perhaps adopt such measures if their feasible?

Of course not.

Instead their protests are discouraged and brushed off by the government. God forbid anyone get in the way of their romantic illusion of ‘outback Australia’ for the tourists.

Oprah Winfrey’s been making a bit of a hoo haa recently about promoting Australia to the rest of the world (no doubt a reciprocal agreement in return for tax breaks and greater access to our tourist hotspots.

In regards to the Aboriginal people, her visit didn’t seem to extend past visiting Ayres Rock, about which she commented;

Me being here is a way to pay my respects to the Aboriginal people while showing respect for the land, their culture and all this rock means to them and the continent and the world.

(She) said that she wanted to find out more about their culture when visiting sacred indigenous site Uluru.


If Oprah really wanted to experience Aboriginal culture firsthand, someone should have dropped her off with $20 into the heart of Alice Springs on a Saturday night and told her to make her own way to the Opera House.

Now that’d be tv worth watching.

Sure, things like who you know and the recruiter’s own personal bias and prejudices might come into play, but for the most part in the business world it makes sense to hire whoever is most fit for the job.

In a business sense, too many poor employee choices and sooner or later it’s going to come back and bite the business on the arse.

This in turn lowers productivity and output, which in turn effects the bottom line and before you know it entire businesses are restructuring their workforce, or collapsing outright.

At least that’s a worst case scenario should a business not take their employee recruiting seriously.

Meanwhile over on the other side of the fence you have government run companies. These companies operate on an infinity fund paid for by the taxpayer and as such are on the whole full of incompetent morons who don’t really want to work and make a career out of complaining about everything.

Overgeneralization perhaps, but still it’s hard to argue that a government company would put as much care into its recruitment process as a business answerable to shareholders.

As such, when you don’t particularly have to worry about how much money you make, people get to sit around and worry about silly things.

One such example?

How many women there are serving on the boards of the executive arm of Australia’s corporations.

Now in the truest business sense, if corporate Australia did infact think there was any benefit to employing more women, wouldn’t there have already been a shift towards it?

Recently there’s been a bit of a ruckus in Australian Parliament in regards to a Labor election campaign promise that ‘to have women make up 40 per cent of public board positions by 2015‘.

Currently the percentage stands at around 25 percent and it appears both Liberal and Labor have had enough of corporate Australia stalling.

In an attempt to fulfil campaign promises bolster female staff numbers on corporate boards, both sides of Australian politics are now in agreement that mandatory quotas are the way to go.

That’s right. The government wants to implement quotas to force Australian corporations into hiring women to make up their public board positions.

So much for qualifications, merit and experience…

Whilst we’re still a ways off from introducing mandatory gender quotas in the Australian workplace however, the first of such policy has already began to trickle through.

The government has recently announced the soon to be launched ‘gender compliance’ for Australian businesses with over 100 employees.

Under the new gender compliance initiatives,

firms with more than 100 workers will face spot checks and mandatory reporting on the numbers of women they employ.

The benefits of doing so will mean the government places you in a ‘gender compliant’ category and you then are eligible for access to ‘industry assistance, grants and government contracts‘.

Meanwhile companies that are not gender compliant, as set out by the government, forfeit all of the above and additionally face the scrutiny of what the government is calling ‘Mobile support teams’.

These teams are charged with going around and providing ‘assistance to businesses performing poorly in terms of gender equality, including smaller businesses‘.

From an objective viewpoint, what more can these mobile support teams do other than directly suggest to businesses that they hire more women? It’s a pretty shallow task.

Then there’s my stance from a tax payer perspective. Two companies bid on a government contract. Company A has a proven track record and can fulfill the contract for 3/4 the cost of Company B, however Company A is not government gender compliant. Meanwhile Company B has a track record of overblown budgets and a messy legal history – yet they are government gender complaint and win the contract.

As a taxpayer this hypothetical situation appalls me. Ironically it’s discrimination within itself.

What about a situation where a corporation is border line compliant but really wants an upcoming ludicrous government tender. Do they fire one of their male executive staff for no good reason and employ a less qualified female just to win the contract?

Where’s the equality of the existing staff member? And on what merit is the female staff member gaining employment? Her vagina?

Certainly sounds like it.

If Labor continue to push this gender agenda (and the Liberals blindly decide to back forced quotas), what we’re looking at is an era of tokenism females in the workplace.

The credibility of women in the workplace is utterly shot to pieces as nobody will ever be quite sure if a woman got a position on her own merit, or if she was merely a statistical requirement to satisfy a larger overall gender equation.

I know that if I was a female working in corporate Australia then this would shit me up the wall to no end.

Instead of ramming gender ‘equality’ down corporate Australia’s throats, why don’t the government take a step back and analyse why females currently only make up 25% of corporate Australia’s board positions.

There’s probably a series of reasons for it and analysis plus working towards a solution will be far more effective than effectively saying ‘this is what we want and we don’t care how you do it or wha the consequences are, just make it happen’.

Meanwhile, with a 15% difference in current female employment positions and Labors 40% projected target by 2015, what happens to all the current legitimately qualified male employees filling those positions.

Let’s face it, the government are saying ‘we will only do business with you if you have X% females employed’. If said company only has Y% of women employed then what other choice do they have then to fire the men making up the difference between X and Y%?

Hardly equal for those losing their jobs to make way for the social engineering of our corporate sector now is it.

Sound vague? You betcha, but here’s a bit more of a detailed explanation into the three steps of the Jade Lotus course;

The first step involves a full body massage. At the International Institute of Tantra, people learn the Chakra system of the body, gaining a deeper understanding and meaning behind why it exists and its methodology.

It is said that cosmic energy flows through the body via the chakras. These chakras control our mental and physical stability. As tantra is all about keeping things in balance, this is very important. The full body massage helps the cosmic energies flow correctly through the body and out of the microcosms from whence they entered.

The second step involves breathing techniques. The International Institute of Tantra teaches these different tantric breathing techniques to help purify the body with each breath taken, removing the toxins that poison it and find that all-important pathway between mind and body.

It is a pathway that many spend years trying to find, but through these breathing techniques, it can be found through intense meditation and breathing.

The third and final step involves waking the Kundalini, which is said to reside at the base of the spine. Through the lessons learned in the first step (full body massage) and second step (breathing techniques), the third step combines the first two steps and massages the spine slowly from the bottom upwards, the life force is stimulated and combined with cosmic knowledge.


Cosmic knowledge? Chakras? Kundalingus… er, Kunadalini? Microcosms and claims that breathing can remove toxins from the body?

Yeah, what you’ve got there definitely sounds like your typical serving of new age spiritual mumbo jumbo for the masses. Y’know, the kind of stuff that was popular in the sixties and today, really only resonates with people who haven’t quite yet realised the sixties ended a half century ago.

Well, at least that’s what I think. Delve deeper into the realm of Tantra massage and you’re going to find Phd studies, internationally recognised bodies of certification and some very, very precious practicitioners.

One particular practitioner is of the belief that absolutely nothing critical of Tantra massage should ever be published. Simply put, the public aren’t allowed to have a negative opinion of Tantra massage.

Well, at least not if the National Institute of Tantra have their way. In light of recent discussions criticising Tantra massage and the validity of the spiritual ideas that comes with it, the Institute decided to send me a thinly veiled legal threat…

…pending of course the removal of any and all criticism of Tantra massage, specifically the Jade Lotus method…

Hi.. my name is Jade Lotus on the threads on the website regarding happy ending massages.

I believe there are certain comments that are nasty and not professional and defamatory that are written in regards to the services that we provide and personal names are being posted on the threads also.

I do seek to have someone look into this.

And i request that it be removed… especially the name Suheyl Yekenkurul.

I request the writings that Jade Lotus is full of bullshit be removed. as well as National Institute of Tantra refrences.

I seek this as this email is a request.

I will also contact a legal representative as Jade Lotus Tantra is a trademarked name and a business operating in Melbourne.

Best regards

Jade Arslan

National Institute of Tantra


For those not familiar with the backstory, Jade Lotus Tantra massage is a non-erotic form of Tantra massage run out of a place in Melbourne, Australia.

I’d originally included them in an article asking ‘So… where can I get a happy ending massage?‘. I was confused as their site mentioned a whole bunch of spiritual sounding jargon but then essentially seemed to boil down to an erotic massage administered by multiple females.

Just as down and dirty as the rest of them it’d seem.

My confusion was sorted by a ‘Jade Lotus’ who began to contribute to the discussion in early February.

She clarified that

the erotic sessions are not jade lotus sessions.. they are exactly that… erotictantra.com and the jadelotus sessions are http://www.tantramassage.com.au different staff, different extablishment.. same venue.


Hmm, so what are the chances of a totally unrelated business to Jade Lotus massage, operating out of the same venue and being related to Tantra massage going to be I wonder.

Well, turns out not much.

Here’s erotictantra.com’s (which redirects to tantricsex.com.au) domain information, and here’s tantramassage.com.au’s domain information.

Both are registered to a ‘YEKENKURUL, SUHEYL’ using the ABN: 28117319788.

Why would two unrelated establishments, who just happen to share the same address, also be sharing an ABN?

Hmm.

It’s also interesting to note that the ABN 28117319788 appears to have been cancelled from the 3rd November 2008 and is no longer active.

Anyway, Suheyl Yekenkurul hey… wait, that name sounds familiar. Having not previously heard of this fella before I was a little curious as to why the email from Jade specifical mentioned him by name. And moreso why they wanted all references to him removed.

A quick Google search of very publicly accessible information reveals that Suheyl Yekenkurul is the author of the Jade Lotus program;


Note: The Sedona Temple listing was removed within 24 hours of publication of this article. Google is still caching the listing but incase that expires, I’ve also saved a screenshot below of the website for the record (click to enlarge);

Jade Lotus Tantra is a sacred sexuality program put together by Dr. Suheyl Aslan and was designed as a part of a Phd. Program for Somerset University.


Aslan hey? That sounds familiar, as in ‘Jade Arslan?’ (the author of the email I received).

Probably just the skeptic in me but it would explain “Jade’s” apparent specific interest in seeing any and all references to this Dr. Suheyl fella be removed.

On somewhat hilarious unrelated note, according to that site I just linked to, this apparently legitimate spiritual massage methodoly known as Jade Lotus requires just three days to become certified in (the dates listed are December 12-14).

After completing this presitigous course, which appears to be open to anyone, practioners are then able to

• Open your own business as a Tantra Therapist immediately
• Offer up to 7 Levels of Tantra, each level progressing to the next
• Become an empowered healer and teacher of Tantra – not just a sexual goddess
• Receive certification from the International Institute of Tantra


Holy crap, just three days and I can open my own Tantra business, exceed the title ‘sexual goddess’, be certified in 7 levels of Tantra and receive a certification?!

Wow, that’s some hard work right there. I can’t think of any three day period in my life that has thus far been more productive then what these guys are offering.

I mean hell, I’ve taken some pretty labour intensive dumps that left me feeling pretty good and certified, but nothing as extensive as three whole freaking days! And on top of that, apparently certification can be yours for a measly $270 US! OMG BARGAIN!

Additionally I’m also left a little further confused by ‘Jade Lotus” comments in the happy ending massage article, in which she states;

i WILL not divulge my real name for your satisfaction..
which is the name that the PhD was done by.


So ‘Jade Lotus’ wrote the PHD? Well, I guess that removes any shadow of a doubt that Jade ‘Arslan’ is none other then this Suheyl Yekenkurul chap I’m not supposed to talk about.

Finally Jade mentions that ‘Jade Lotus Tantra is a trademarked name and a business operating in Melbourne‘.

Now, unless I’m doing something wrong, it appears this claim is questionable as an ABN search for ‘Jade Lotus Tantra’ turns up nothing.

As for the legitimacy of Tantra massage, for some of us the very mention of spirituality calls into question the subject matter of whatever it is we’re discussing. Be it happy ending massages, personal development, personal connections or anything really.

There’s no doubt a lot of psuedo science out there and years of spiritual jargon and exploitative use of the ‘mysteries of the east’ to peddle all sorts of crap onto the ignorant populations in the west haven’t helped.

Jade Lotus Massage and Tantra massage in general might have very well helped individuals in finding their inner sexuality, but for others it could very well just be seen as a crock.

Myself I’m highly skeptical of a PHD carried out by an individual who has the vested interest in opening a Tantra business with the efforts of the finished PHD (the Lotus method).

Not withstanding the fact that Yekenkurul appears to own both the erotic and non-erotic arms of Jade Lotus massage as well as being the founder of the self serving International Institute of Tantra.

Isn’t it wonderful when people don’t declare their own vested financial interests and randomly contact you with demands that you censor criticism of said vested interests?

Not really.