When I wrote my guide to duckface in Taiwan a few weeks ago, I didn’t think anything could be more stupider than the act of pulling Duckface and taking a photo of yourself.

But when this product came across my desk, it hit me: what’s the only thing stupider than duckface?

A how-to guide on how to pull the perfect duckface.

The key to duckface as it were all lies in the lips. Try as you might if you’ve got flat lips, no matter how much you pout you’re just going to look like you’ve got downs syndrome if you try to pull a duckface.

Well, at least more so than people pulling duckface with pouty lips.

Looking to cash in on the duckface craze and at the same time throwing a lifeline to those with flat lips who are too poor to opt for surgery – comes ‘Pukku Lip’.

Evidently in Japan the women pulling duckface are in their 30′s to 40s, come from middle-class backgrounds and enjoy wearing pearl necklaces.

Looking like some kind of weird sex toy for guys, use of Pukku Lip is about as complicated as the three steps outlined in the image below.

You simply put, pump up and tadah! PUKKU LIPS!

Looking like some sort of suction device, I’m guessing the idea here is that you essentially suck the blood from the surrounding areas to your lips.

This bulge of blood is of course only temporary but should give you enough time to whip your camera out and take a battery of stupid looking photos of yourself.

Naturally I’ve got no idea what the long-term health side effects of forcing the blood from your face into your lips does but I imagine it can’t be good. The Pukku Lip box does come with a warning,

but it’s in Japanese, so I’m not sure if it’s related to the dangers of inflating your lips with blood (can anyone translate?).

One would think if the makers of Pukku Lip were responsible, then the caution would advise people against even thinking of pulling duckface in the first place, but I digress.

For those of you need a bit more of a visual in just how ridiculous this invention is, here’s a video of someone called Yana Novak demonstrating a ‘Luscious Lip Pump’, which appears to be an English language clone of the Japanese product (I’m giving the Japanese the proprietary benefit of the doubt here, seeing as they invented Duckface and all);


As you can see, Pukku Lips probably is going to give you the best non-surgical duckface available but ultimately, is pulling the picturesque perfect duckface worth it?

One particular aspect of the protests was the initial lack of media coverage of Occupy Wall Street by the mainstream American media.

Used to being on the receiving end of criticism for censorship, it was with great pleasure that the Chinese government, via its news media outlets, criticised the mainstream US media over its coverage.

Despite having reported on Occupy Wall Street ‘more than three times a day during the first two weeks‘,

China Daily USA’s deputy editor Chen Weihua in New York wrote that “US media tried to blackout related news that concerned the anti-Wall Street protests in New York, Boston and Chicago” because related stories could not be retrieved from major news organizations “during the past two weeks.”

Chen called what he saw as US media downplaying the anti-corporate greed demonstrations “shameful.”


Meanwhile in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, hundreds of pro CCP citizens

rallied to support the movement of Occupy Wall Street in front of Labor People’s Cultural Center on October 6th.

Holding banners which wrote “Absolutely support the American people’s great ‘Occupy Wall Street revolution’”, people gathered and passed around flyers about the event happening in New York. They wore red armbands and showed their support to this movement.

The demonstrators were consisted of workers, cadres of state-owned enterprise and some retirees. A cadre from a state-owned enterprise said

“USA is so bad that it bullies any countries as it wishes.

Bullying others with its rod of liberal democracy, it interferes with the internal affairs of other countries and overthrows the regimes of other.

Now it’s time for pay back of its evil. The true colors of USA are coming out.”


Yes, the Chinese government was loving the Occupy Wall Street protests. Ho ho ho, all your chickens have come home to roost now suckers!

…but then something unusual happened. All of a sudden Occupy Wall Street spread beyond the financial district of New York City and became a global movement.

As protestors around the world rallied to show their support for Occupy Wall Street, not because they were trying to legitimise their own corrupt and fascist regimes, but rather because they actually believed in the cause, China’s own government scrambled to erase any memory of Occupy Wall Street from the memories of its citizens.

Try and access any news about Occupy Wall Street from within China today, and you’d be forgiven for thinking the protests never happened.

On Saturday October 15th, ‘demonstrations in 951 cities in 82 countries‘ involving thousands of protestors kicked off resulting in a series of localised ‘occupy’ protests around the globe.

I myself covered the local Occupy Taipei protest and although probably on the smaller side of the global protests, it was still nice to see people able to stand up and show their support for what they believed in.

Realising that civilians ‘demanding change and want(ing) to let politicians and the financial elite know it’s up to the people to decide the future‘ was dangerous to their authoritarian rule, the Chinese government responded by informing all Chinese media outlets that coverage of anything Occupy Wall Street related is now forbidden.

Media outlets have received a gag order on the topic, according to a prominent media expert.

“A magazine to which I am a contributor has received a notice from regulators saying that it must not carry any content regarding Occupy Wall Street,” said Hu Yong, a journalism professor at Peking University.

Although reports and discussion of the topic can still be easily found online, print media and television have indeed noticeably reduced reporting and commentary since the beginning of the week, and apparently completely stopped covering the topic on Thursday.


Furthermore the CCP has also begun proactively censoring any discussion that might lead to protests in China against the government by adding ”a (new) long list of banned keywords’ to Weibo (a government controlled Chinese Twitter clone) consisting of ’a combination of “occupy” (占领) and a place name–provincial capitals, economically developed regions, and few symbolic local areas.‘ (eg. Occupy Beijing (占领北京), Occupy Shanghai (占领上海), etc.)

No doubt the changes to Weibo are reflective of the newly enforced Occupy Wall Street censorship on all of the other state controlled social networks available in China (read: all of them).

And worried about freedom loving expats possibly staging an ‘Occupy’ protest of their own in China, the government even went so far as to send police around to local bars ‘asking foreigners ‘if they’ve got anything to do with the Occupy Wall Street movement‘.

Yeah, because I can just imagine a bunch of drunk expats owning up to being a part of the Occupy movement to the dodgy looking Chinese guy in a hat and fake moustache who just pulled up a stool next to him.

Seriously guys…?

It would seem that the hypocrisy of supporting protests against ‘corruption, inequality and the arrogance of power‘ in the US but at the same time  being terrified of similar protests occurring in China is all but lost on the CCP.

And now what, in some transparent effort to save face the goons in charge are going to pretend the whole thing never happened?

What an unbelievably embrassing farce.

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…

World Skills is the ‘global “skills olympics”. It is a competition for youth from 17 to 22 years to demonstrate their excellence in skilled professions.’

Started back in 1950, World Skills is run every two years in a member country and aims to ‘promote, through the cooperative actions of Members, a world-wide awareness of the essential contribution that skills and high standards of competence make to the achievement of economic success and individual achievement‘.


Cutting through the PR speak, World Skills lets young people showcase their talents in any given profession.

Taiwan has been participating in World Skills now since the 1970′s for over forty years and even hosted the event back in 1993. Needless to say Taiwan is an established contributor and member of the event.

Back in October last year, World Skills officially welcomed China as the 53rd member nation of the event. This meant that China would be competing for the first time in this year’s World Skills event in London.

With the event set to kick off in early October, one would have thought that China would be well underway with preparations to make a strong and competitive showing given it’s their first World Skills event.

But no. Upon being welcomed into the World Skills community, China immediately set about trying to manipulate the organisation to suit its own childish and petty political agenda.

Despite Taiwan having competed in World Skills since the 1970′s as ‘Chinese Taipei’, that apparently wasn’t enough for China.

Despite using the Taiwanese flag every year it competed for around thirty five years, in 2005 at the World Skills event in Finland, despite not being a member or competing nation of World Skills, China objected and successfully pressured World Skills to ‘ban the use of the national flag‘.

Protesting the obviously politically motivated decision and in doing so demonstrating what is now an increasingly rare moment of someone standing up to China,

then-Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) chairperson Chen Chu (陳菊) displayed the national colors when she led the Taiwanese team into the arena.


In response World Skills introduced what they call the ‘Republic of China clause‘. This clause, which in reality only applies to the Republic of China,

stipulates that any nation participating in the competition that uses a national flag must apply a year in advance.


Since the clause was introduced in 2005, Taiwan has had every formal application to use the national flag of Taiwan denied.

As if that wasn’t enough, at the last World Skills event in Canada, despite China not being a member nor participating in the event,

a Council of Labor Affairs official (from Taiwan) confiscated flags from students and athletes and only returned them prior to returning to Taiwan.

Officials said they had done so for security reasons.


Not only were the Chinese hellbent on repressing Taiwanese people’s national pride at any opportunity they could, but now Taiwanese people even had their own government working against them.

Still needing a flag of some sort to represent their presence at World Skills, since 2005 Taiwan has been using ‘differently designed flags‘ at each competition.

This years London World Skills flag for Taiwan is no different, in that it’s not the national flag of Taiwan. However to mark some semblance of the flag being used to represent Taiwan, designers have incorporated the letters ‘TW’ into the flag’s design.

And this is where China’s petty politics comes in.

Despite official prior approval from World Skills, China seems to have once again laid pressure on the World Skills organisation to prohibit Taiwan from using the proposed flag design.

Enough pressure that Tjerk (Jack) Dusseldorp, President of World Skills personally raised an objection over the flag’s use.

Thankfully after an intervention by Taiwanese authorities, China’s Dusseldorp’s concerns were dismissed and once again Taiwan was given the all clear to use the flag.

Although whether that’s the end of it yet remains to be seen, China still has just over a month to pull something else out of their hat to further ridicule Taiwan on the world stage.

With their own government appearing to work against any sort of national pride, the Chinese using the event as a political playing field before they’ve even had a chance to compete yet and World Skills themselves happy to kowtow to China’s demands (I wonder if Chinese membership came with a large injection of funding?), it appears Taiwanese competitors are going to have to fight harder than ever to compete as representatives from Taiwan.

And good luck to them when China inevitably is offered a chance to host the World Skills event themselves. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just banned Taiwan from participating altogether that year.

With yet another global organisation now tainted with China’s politial agendas against Taiwan, is it any wonder alot of Taiwanese people struggle to carry any sense of national identity or pride?

In the last 24 hours Wikileaks has released a whole bunch of leaked diplomatic cables relating to China and Taiwan. The leaked cables cover a bunch of issues ranging from Google, internet censorship, various political and economic engagements around the world and more importantly, several cables specifically relating to Taiwan and China.

Today I bring you what I believe to the be the top three most interesting of the 5,523 cables released today by Wikileaks.

1. Taiwan is the most explosive nationalist issue facing China

I’ve often stood back and observed China’s various actions when it comes to Taiwan and pondered the inexplicable overall strategy behind them.

Of course there’s always going to be your frenzied nationalists who cannot be reasoned with as they tend to shout rather than discuss, often with closed ears, in light of the greater challenges facing the Chinese population, I’d have thought Taiwan didn’t rank.

Even with decreased restrictions on travel between Taiwan and China, tourisim is down at least 30% this time from last year and just this month hotels in Kaohsiung received 10,000 room cancellations from Chinese tour group operators in one week alone.

At least on the Tourism front, Chinese citizens appear to be nonplussed with Taiwan. Tourism aside, across the strait there’s far more pressing issues at hand than Taiwan;

China´s problems are so daunting that the leadership will be challenged to cope with them even under the rosiest of circumstances.

The negative effects of runaway growth are becoming apparent to observers in and outside of China. Income inequality approaches that found in Latin America, with urbanites making 3.3 times that of rural residents according to 2007 statistics, as compared with 2.47 to 1 in 1997.

A dependence on coal for 80 percent of electricity generation and excessive reliance on heavy industry for industrial output have created extraordinary air and water pollution problems that are expected to worsen considerably.

Years of economic transformation from public to private sector economic activity have shredded the social safety net and injected instability into people´s lives, resulting in suppressed consumer spending as the public saves for the healthcare, education, and retirement it fears will prove unaffordable.

As a result, China´s economic growth is not consumer-driven, but instead comes primarily from investment (infrastructure, industry expansion, and property development) and its enormous trade surplus, which has helped push foreign exchange reserves to USD 1.5 trillion.

A lack of foreign exchange regime flexibility has worsened these imbalances, holding down the value of the Renminbi and thus creating incentives for growing coastal/export

industries rather than interior/domestic sectors to bring prosperity to where it is most lacking.


With a damning forecast like that, who would give a rats arse about annexing Taiwan?

Despite these far more pressing social, economical and environmental issues facing the Chinese population though, the CCP will seemingly never back down from their positioning of the annexation of Taiwan at the forefront of their ambitions.

Why?

Not because they particularly give a crap about Taiwan or even the ‘one China’ policy for that matter. No, like all irrational political decisions and actions coming out of China, the issue of Taiwan can merely be reduced to worrying about a loss of face.

Along with rising economic development, nationalism is one of the two pillars of regime legitimacy.

The Party has been compelled to carefully manage sporadic, emotional urban demonstrations by students over international issues, primarily anger at Japan, even as it sometimes stokes such nationalist sentiment to serve its own ends.

The Taiwan issue remains the most explosive of nationalist issues.

While ordinary Chinese may not rank Taiwan at the top of their day-to-day concerns, Embassy contacts report that emotions toward Taiwan run deep and would quickly come to the surface in times of crisis, with major implications for leadership legitimacy.

The political cost to the Chinese leadership for mismanaging a crisis with Japan or “losing” Taiwan would be high.


In short, Taiwan has nothing to do with romanticized visions of reunification of China or bringing together people. Rather it’s seem by the CCP as the most explosive threat to their grip on the Chinese people through reliance on nationalism as a platform for regime legitimacy.

To what end this will translate to in terms of action in the real world is anyone’s guess.

If Taiwan declared independence, China would have no choice but to respond with force because its leaders have left themselves no loopholes.


Ultimately however, it’s clear that a foundation of rationalism and common sense will no doubt take a back seat as long as the CCP believe Taiwan is the biggest threat to their legitimacy (which, for all intents and purposes, is a sentiment that will be extended indefinitely).

2. The US is cautious of China’s rising military

At a time when Taiwan is demanding the US sell it stronger arms to protect itself against China, and where the US’ response is seemingly to stall for as long as possible whilst it weighs up the consequences of a decision either way, a cable out of the US’ Beijing embassy from 2009 pretty much sums up the situation;

The disparate possibilities exist that in the coming decades the PLA will evolve into a major competitor, maintain only a regional presence or become a partner capable of joining us and others to address peacekeeping, peace-enforcing, humanitarian relief and disaster mitigation roles around the world.

In the years to come, our defense experts will need to closely monitor China’s contingency plans and we will need to use every diplomatic and strategic tool we have to prevent intimidating moves toward Taiwan.


At first I read this as the US were worried about doing anything regarding Taiwan that might seem intimidating to China, but reading over it again it’s clear they’re talking about China doing anything to intimidate Taiwan.

You mean such as heavily pressuring Washington to abandon it’s military support to Taiwan in the form of arms sales? Given that this particular cable was sent in 2009, here in 2011 why on Earth would the US be leaning towards doing nothing whilst China goes gung-ho with it’s intimidation against Taiwan?

The PLA thirty years from today will likely have sophisticated anti-satellite weapons, state-of-the-art aircraft, aircraft carriers and an ability to project force into strategic sea lanes.


In other words, looking towards the future, the US is scared shitless of the Chinese army hasn’t quite worked out where it fits in a world where the Chinese military has caught up.

That said, the overall recommendation in the cable was more positive (albeit contradictory to the above sentiment and what is going on today);

Taiwan was the most vexing issue holding up the establishment of relations 30 years ago and remains the toughest issue for U.S.-China relations despite significant improvement in cross-Strait relations since the election of Taiwan President Ma.

It will remain a delicate topic for the foreseeable future.

We should continue to support Taiwan and Mainland efforts to reduce tension by increasing Taiwan’s “international space” and reducing the Mainland’s military build-up across from Taiwan.


Written back in 2009, one can only wonder just how committed the US is today to this sentiment given the current economic and political climate that exists between Taiwan, China and the US.

3. China’s next president might understand Taiwan a little better than his predecessors

In a snapshot of ‘an ambitious survivor of the cultural revolution‘, otherwise known as Xi JinPing, China’s pretty much confirmed new President come 2012, the US embassy in Beijing wrote

Xi is not corrupt and does not care about money, but could be “corrupted by power,” in our contact’s view.

Xi at one point early in his career was quite taken with Buddhist mysticism, displaying a fascination with (and knowledge of) Buddhist martial arts and mystical powers said to aid health.

The contact stated that Xi is very familiar with the West, including the United States, and has a favorable outlook toward the United States.

He also understands Taiwan and the Taiwan people from his long tenure as an official in Fujian Province.


This assesment certainly sounds promising but the possibility of corruption by power is no doubt a very real possibility. Perhaps not in the strictest sense of corruption of the individual, but I imagine being the President of China comes with its own requirement of putting aside your own views in favour of the party line.

A line which as previously acknowledged seeks to retain power over Chinese people beyond any sense of rationality and reasoning and seemingly at all costs.

Whereas the concept of crossing the floor might exist in a democracy, in China I imagine it’s unheard of.

Will Xi Jinping bend over and take whatever rhetoric the CCP thrust at him? I guess all we can do is wait and see.


There are quite a lot of cables to sift through (Wikileaks are claim thousands of cables have been released but I could only see a few hundred on their website). From what I found however these three were definitely the most interesting and insightful.

You can view the entire Chinese cable archive or the Taiwan cable archive on the Wikileaks website.

As details of the scandal emerged, turns out that various companies in Taiwan had been feeding the Taiwanese DEHP (used as a substitute emulsifier) for decades.

With shrunk testicles, hormones all over the place and the general concept that consuming plastic is generally a bad idea, Taiwan reeled from the scare and man, I thought we had major problems.

Turns out neighbouring China escalate food scares to a whole new level, making DEHP in your bubble tea sounds like a freaking nutritious vitamin drink in comparison.

Last Thursday, China announced that it had arrested a staggering ‘2,000 people and closed nearly 5,000 businesses in a major crackdown on illegal food additives after a wave of contamination scares‘.

5000 businesses? Jesus Christ what the hell prompted such a scale of closures and arrests?!

Well, aside from their own DEHP scandal, how about

• bean sprouts laced with cancer-causing nitrates
• steamed buns with banned chemical preservatives
• rice laced with heavy metals


and the pièce de résistance?

How about some bacteria infused GLOW IN THE DARK FREAKING PORK!

Seriously, as a prime consumer of pork meals… this goes way beyond making me want to throw up. We’re talking Defcon 6 ‘ohshit I just found myself in bed with Sarah ‘horseface’ Jessica Parker’ nausea here.

And the primary reason nonsense like this is allowed to happen?

Experts say there are many causes of food safety problems in China, including ambiguous regulations that create loopholes and underfunded regulators who struggle to keep tabs on countless small food producers and retailers.


Not withstanding the fact that after the glow in the dark pork was found, the Shanghai Health Supervision Department set about trying to convince people that ‘pork that has been contaminated by a phosphorescent bacteria and was still safe eat if well-cooked‘.

Are you fucking kidding me?

While I don’t think Taiwan is quite at the level of glow in the dark pork just yet… a similar small food and producer environment exists here.

As I cycle through Taiwan’s smaller towns I can’t help but look at the small family homes converted into food outlets and wonder who’s regulating them, if anyone.

And I guess it’s not just Taiwan’s smaller towns that are in question too, these ‘living room style’ eateries can be found all over Taiwan. The family live upstairs and the ground level is a mum and dad business… sure, it tastes good but what are you really eating?

Meanwhile over in batshit crazy Korea, South Korea’s Seoul National University College of Veterinary Medicine have declared their ‘glow in the dark’ dog experiment a success.

Tagon, the second glow in the dark pet experiment of its kind (note link is in Chinese but won’t translate in Google Translate, works fine using Chrome auto-translate though), is now two years old and while she might look like any other Beagle, if you turn off the lights her paws glow bright green and her face glows red.

So what’s the practical purpose of such experiments?

Being able to take photos with your brand new glow in the dark puppy whilst pulling duckface, making the peace sign with your hands and squealing ‘HOW CUTE!!!’.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these people?

Pretty girls walk around with umbrellas, people on scooters are covered like they’re going skiing, cyclists look like ninjas and everyone is chugging vitamin D tablets because they essentially live like cavemen.

About a week ago now, one Chinese woman went for a swim down in Changchun City, South Lake Park in China.

Not content with traditional means of sun protection such as sunscreen and common sense, she decided to take her fear of the sun to the extreme.

Known as the ‘Qingdao Aunt’, donning what they’re calling a ‘storm swimsuit’ and looking like something out of a B-grade horror movie, the woman went for a swim wearing a swimsuit that completely covered her upper body, head and face.

The only parts visible were her eyes and mouth, but as evidenced in the photos she went one step further and swam with black goggles…

…the end result?


Kids around her started bawling their eyes out and I imagine most people felt a bit uncomfortable with a giant black monster type person wading around them.

Not helped by the fact that she’s a little massively overweight, hell I’m a grown man and I’d still freak out if something like that suddenly emerged from the water near me.

Who does that?! I mean surely there comes a point in your life when you’ve got to simply ask yourself ‘is this really worth it?’ Yeah I’m scared of the sun but do I really want to go around swimming looking like a killer whale?

Somebody seems to have completely missed that boat.

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.

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.

When I stop to think about what is actually in my chocolate milk, specifically where it comes from, I have a hard time not gagging about it.

I mean really, if you think about it, I’m chugging down milky liquid that’s supposed to be for newborn calves. I balk at the idea of drinking human breast milk, so why is drinking cows milk any different?

The answer?

Because when combined with chocolate it tastes so damn good.

In light of this dilemma, it seems Chinese scientists are hell bent on reducing the distinction between human breast milk and cow milk. Hell, reducing it is putting it lightly, these guys are out to completely obliterate it.

Somewhere in China today there is a herd of around 300 cows who have had human genes spliced into them.

First the scientists cloned cow embryos, then they injected human genes into them before finally placing them inside surrogate mother cows… bing badda boom China now has breast milk producing cows.

The milk produced by the human breastmilk producing cows is ‘identical to the human variety, with the same immune-boosting and antibacterial qualities as breast milk’.

Taste wise, the adults working at the dairy farm where the cows are located, claim that the milk is ‘sweeter and stronger than the bovine variety‘.

Sweeter? Ok I can understand that, but what the hell does stronger mean? When was the last time you took a sip of milk and thought it was a bit weak?

Currently the breast cow milk is being tested but the scientists from China’s Agricultural University hope to have it on supermarket shelves within three years as ‘a more nutritious dairy drink than cow’s milk‘.

Three years? Really, I’m so not looking forward to the day I walk into 7-11 and see cow human breast milk on the shelves… it might be just enough to make me give up milk altogether (can I really be sure the non-breast milk I’m drinking is just that?)

Perhaps more worrying than the thought of breast milk producing cows however, is the mindset the Chinese seem to have regarding the whole experiment.

At a consumer level, it seems to go something like this;

“It’s good,” said worker Jiang Yao. “It’s better for you because it’s genetically modified.”


Is genetically modified is good. Now how can you argue with solid reasoning like that?

One would hope that this is line of thinking is the product of a lack of education rather then the general consensus of the Chinese population at large.

Unfortunately the scientists behind the experiments don’t seem to be much better. Coming across completely engulfed in god syndrome, when questioned over the ethics involved in injecting cows with human genes, Chinese scientists reason

There are 1.5 billion people in the world who don’t get enough to eat.

It’s our duty to develop science and technology, not to hold it back. We need to feed people first, before we consider ideals and convictions.


If that doesn’t make you shudder in you boots then there’s possibly something seriously wrong with your moral and ethical compass.

In terms of food production the means certainly don’t justify the end and it’s by no means the human race’s duty to genetically splice whatever the hell we want into life forms to serve our own convenience.

With the Chinese already having failed at improving milk by adding melamine to their milk production… who are we to abandon ideals and convictions as a bandaid solution to counter the unsustainability of the global population?

What happens when one of these experiments invariably creates some kind of super bug that either wipes out cows or humans, taking the best from both human and cow sides of the disease pool?

What then? Three years of safety tests is hardly enough time to certify cow produced breast milk as safe with a public rollout in the nation with the world’s largest population.

Personally I’m rather shocked at the complete blaisaness of the Chinese scientists (and by proxy, government) involved. If cows producing breast milk is what the Chinese are willingly open to divulging, god knows what they’ve failed at or worse still, still trying to perfect.

Evidently the Chinese government has no qualms about playing ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau‘ with the world at large.

This is the stuff nightmares are made of, and breast milk producing cows is only be the beginning… I’m not drinking any of it.

The World Health Assembly is

the decision-making body of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

It is attended by delegations from all WHO Member States and focuses on a specific health agenda prepared by the Executive Board.

The main functions of the World Health Assembly are to determine the policies of the Organization, appoint the Director-General, supervise financial policies, and review and approve the proposed programme budget.


And if you’re wondering what the World Health Organisation is, it’s

the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system.

It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.


Health research agenda, assessing health trends? Sounds like something that should be open to the people of any sovereign independent free nation right?

Wrong.

Despite not having an official seat in the UN, for the last ten years or so Taiwanese citizens have been able to show their passports at the WHA event and participate as observers, in much the same manner as people from other countries that China doesn’t have an agenda with.

This year however, all that changed. Taiwanese citizens are no longer welcome at the WHA. Infact, the World Health Organisation refuses to even acknowledge Taiwanese citizens at all.

We’re not even talking third world citizens here… as far the WHO is concerned – Taiwanese people don’t even exist.

As I mentioned earlier, despite not having a seat on the UN (thanks to China’s eternal silly political games), Taiwan was invited to attend the WHA as an observer.

The kick in the nuts?

China The UN on agreed to let Taiwan participate if it did so under the derogatory title ‘Chinese Taipei’. At the time China The UN made a big fuss about how generous it was being and even went so far as to politically blackmail Taiwan over it’s participation;

Su Minsheng, former vice-chairman of the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots said Fan’s remarks convey the mainland’s goodwill, but “with reservation”.

“The ball is in Taiwan’s court. It depends on whether the island’s government adheres to principles such as one-China policy,” Su said.


Not only are we going to let you observe a global forum on world health issues as one of our subordinates, but you better be thankful about it too.

And so the Chinese political game continued and Taiwan’s completely weak KMT led government was happy with the scraps China threw at it.

Fast forward two years into the future and it seems that China have ramped up their efforts. No longer content with Taiwan being referred to as ‘Chinese Taipei’, a leaked internal memo of the WHO reminded WHO agencies that as far Taiwan’s participation in the WHA was concerned, ‘Taiwan is a “Province of China,” pursuant to an arrangement with Beijing’ and that ‘the correct terminology for Taiwan is “the Taiwan Province of China‘.

So insecure and armed with paper thin dicks are the Chinese government, that these are the games Taiwan has to play just to participate (as an observer) in a conference on global health issues.

This arrangement no doubt is paper thin code for China continuing to  ’allow’ Taiwan to participate in the WHA as an observer on the condition Taiwan whores out its national sovereignty.

So what was the Taiwanese government’s response to the leaked memo?

Taiwan is attending the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) with dignity and professionalism as an “observer” under the name of “Chinese Taipei” as in previous years.


Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Because there’s nothing at all undignified or unprofessional about having to hide your national identity on the world stage. It’s perfectly normal and infact there are a number of other countries that also have to do i-… oh no wait, Taiwan is the only one.

And as if having to attend the WHA as Chinese subordinates wasn’t enough, on the instruction of the Chinese government UN, this is what happened when Taiwanese citizens attempted to gain entry to this years WHA;


Note the completely insulting insistence that only with a Taiwanese passport ‘and another passport‘ can Taiwanese citizens gain entry to the WHA. I mean what, what other passports are Taiwanese citizens going to have?

Given that ‘Chinese Taipei’ is a completely made up term and that Taiwan is most certainly not a province of China – exactly what passports are the WHA wanting from Taiwanese nationals?

Disgraceful, and it seems any attempt at getting answers from the WHA is met with deafening silence;

It was the first time in more than 10 years that they had been denied access to watch the WHA proceedings from the public seating available in the hall.

They were promised assistance by Taiwanese diplomatic officials posted in Geneva on the issue, but the WHA made no response to anybody from Taiwan.


Finally, on the very same day the WHA refused to acknowledge Taiwan and its citizens, the Director General of the WHO, Dr Margaret Chan (co-incidentally a Chinese national)  had the balls and hypocrisy to open her address to the WHA with

I have been doing this job now for nearly five years. Sometimes during meetings, I have to interrupt and make a simple request: remember the people.

Never forget the people. All of our debates and discussions have meaning only when they improve the health of people and relieve their suffering.


Remember the people, are you fucking kidding me!?

How about Taiwanese people, remember them guys? The one and the same the WHO refuses to acknowledge as members of a sovereign nation?

Remember the people my arse.

Taiwan’s citizens are suffering and organisations like the WHO through events like the WHA completely turning a blind eye to the increasing influence China has within the organisation is worrying.

Not only that, but it’s a damn shame that such organisations are now seemingly at the mercy of China’s internal bickering and petty politics. It’s one thing for China to meddle with Taiwan openly and independently, but to do so from behind the cloak of the WHO and by association, the UN?

Absolutely disgraceful.

ROBOT SEX MACHINES!

How on the heels of China reducing intercourse for guys to a controllable ‘backwards and forwards’ robotic movement, Japan has hit back this week by attacking the kiss.

Traditionally between two people who care for eachother, the kiss is a timeless expression of one’s fondness for another.

Well, at least that’s the idea. What do you do when you’re stuck at work all the time and your girlfriend of 12 years still lives at home with her parents who hate you?

If you’re Japanese, you start kissing a plastic juicebox.

Developed by the boffins at the Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo (yes, apparently electro-communications warrants its own university these days), the “kiss transmission device’ seeks to emulate the sensation of a kiss via two plastic juiceboxes.

Both boxes contain a straw like device to act as a digital toungue and, one at a time, by moving the straw in your own box, your partner gets the exact same movement replicated by their juice box.

It’s a bit of a one sided kiss as for now the system is unable to cope with two way communications simultaneously.

Here’s a video showcasing the kissing boxes in action;


Future developments currently being worked on include a sense of taste, breathing, and moistness of the tongue. No idea how any of that is going to translate into what is essentially a movable straw, but presumably the device is going to squirt out some kind of liquid..

…eeew.

Meanwhile in other news, who told lonely scientist virgins that kissing a girl was like twirling a straw in your mouth…?

The Australian Sky news feed is currently streaming some very serious looking newsmen and commentary on the announcements following Bin Laden’s death.

Meanwhile overlayed on top of the broadcast is a live feed from public gatherings outside the Whitehouse. Trying to take the news commentary seriously is kinda hard when the news crew have focused on a Pug and its owner for the last twenty minutes or so…

Despite the somewhat confused face on the Pug (‘what on earth is going on, who are all these people?! PUT ME BACK TO BED!!‘), I’m glad to see the Pugs of the world approve of Bin Laden’s death and stand in solidarity with their owners.

Bless.

I’ve seen the same movie scenes you have, and unless things have changed, sitting in a room reading porn magazines and jerking off into a cup doesn’t rate on my list of ‘things I want to do anytime soon’ list.

Not withstanding having to hand that cup back to a nurse…

…just the other week I had to give a urine sample for some new medication and even though nobody was really paying attention, walking through a hospital’s emergency department with a vial of urine was a nightmare.

‘What if I trip? What if she thinks the vial is wet because I peed all over it and not because I washed my hands? Should I wipe it on my tshirt? No, somebody might see and think I’m wiping my own pee all over myself… ARGH!’

Yeah… not my fondest memory of a Saturday morning.

But getting back to sperm, luckily for guys like me there’s hope yet. At the recently held China International Medical Equipment Fair at Shenzhen in China, one patron spotted the future of sperm collection technology;

No longer do guys have to worry about scandalous video footage of them whacking off being secretely filmed, or doing something that you’d normally do in a comfortable environment out in the open… finally, for us not-so-creepy guys out there, there’s now the perfect sperm collection solution;


Walk in, drop your pants, step forward and let the…. well, I don’t actually know the name of the machine so let’s just call it the ‘sperm collector’ do it’s thing.

And no doubt you noticed the dials up the top, presumably added so that you can control the speed and intensity of your orgasm sperm extraction.

Hygene wise I’m not too sure how it’d work. Presumably there’s a disposable collection thing inside (a bag?) that can be removed and isn’t too difficult to replace.

The only possible downside to this kind of automated sperm extraction I could see would be machine malfunction (what if it becomes self aware and doesn’t stop?) and someone forgetting to change the collection mechanism before you had a go.

Sticky situation anyone?

Those shortcomings aside, before you rush to put your wife/girlfriend/vacuum cleaner on notice though, note that I’ve got no idea how much this unit costs or whether or not there’s a portable home model in the works.


Update 02/05/2011: Seems the sperm collector (model: SW3701) is made by SANWE and goes for just under $3000 USD.

Specifications: The sperm collector can simulate women vaginas movement, get axenic semen without harm through vision,audio,touching stimulation.

The sperm collector can simulate the movement of women vaginas as that of sexual intercourse. Through vision, audio, touching stimulation, it can give patients very comfortable feeling and easy for them to get excited. Thus, it can collect the semen rapidly and successfully.

Premature ejaculation desensitization training, to reduce the sensitivity of penis and glans, increase the sensitive threshold of ejaculation by stimulating penis repeatedly, so as to lengthen the time of ejaculation and reach the aim of curing premature ejaculation.


Shipped from Jiangsu in China, all enquiries should be directed to a ‘Mr. Ryan Ma’.

end update.


Hell, if they can bring laser eye surgery to the home though I’m sure there’s hope for your very own ‘sperm extraction 5000′ yet.

I mean, the unit already kind of looks like two anatomically correct legs, how hard would it be to get rid of all the medical analysis crap and strip it right down.

Also note the DVD icon on the screen, man this thing was built for watching porn on!

Whack on a few heated and realistic feeling breasts in the right place and bingbaddaboom we’re in business. Buy an unused shopfront somewhere, install 20-30 of these machines and before you know it you’re an INSTANT FREAKING GAJILLIONAIRE!

Who says innovation in China is dead?

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.

Over the past few months political activists, protesters, academics… and well basically anyone who’s ever criticised the Chinese government that the CCP could get their hands on, has been sent off to jail or forced labor camps.

Not a peep of protest or any signs of even acknowledgement of what has been described as the severest curtailing of individual freedom China has seen in decades.

Meanwhile left unabated, China has slowly been doing what it likes to crush any signs of political activism, whether real or imagined.

Their latest ploy?

Say goodbye to time travel.

In some kind of weird time delay revelation, the folks over at China’s State Administration for Radio, Film and Television have decided that TV shows that deal with time travel ‘are totally made-up and are made to strain for an effect of novelty‘.

I’m not quite sure what that second bit means but time travel… totally made up?

Really China?

Not only has the Chinese government made the groundbreaking discovery that time travel is made up, but they’ve also taken it upon themselves to label the imagination needed to foster fictional time travel as

lack(ing) positive thoughts and meaning.

The time-travel drama is becoming a hot theme for TV and films, but its content and the exaggerated performance style are questionable.

They casually make up myths, have monstrous and weird plots, use absurd tactics, and even promote feudalism, superstition, fatalism and reincarnation.


Yes, how terrible it must be to have an imagination capable of conceiving fictional time travel.

Bit hard to maintain supreme overlord control when your population start to think for themselves hey. Wouldn’t want them thinking back to a time pre-communist rule and realising just how utterly messed up the Chinese state is in its current form.

Also I wonder if the irony in claiming that time travel plots have made ‘up myths, have monstrous and weird plots, use absurd tactics‘ is lost on them.

Case in point, ridiculous legislation like this.

It is noted that stopping just short of banning time travel altogether, the guidelines set out by the State Administration only ‘discourage‘ the topic.

As far as discouragement goes though, I’m pretty sure the Chinese Administration only actively ‘discourages‘ political dissent and activism too.

…and we all know what the punishment for that is.

Australians would make a joke of it and start exchanging their favourite government corruption stories.

In China everyone would just look at you strangely for stating the obvious.

In Iran you’d be shot and in Russia you’d probably get a government official rock up to your door trying to claim some sort of unofficial ‘truth’ tax.

In Indonesia however you’d simply get sued for defamation…

…defamation to the tune of one billion dollars.

So the story goes, a few days ago, as part of Wikileaks’ war on everyone, US diplomatic cables were released to the Australian media detailing allegations of corruption. The allegations focused on current Indonesian president, Bambang Yudhoyono, accusing him of abusing power.

The cables say Mr Yudhoyono has personally intervened to influence prosecutors and judges to protect corrupt political figures and pressure his adversaries.

Yudhoyono also used the Indonesian intelligence service to spy on political rivals and, at least once, a senior minister in his own government.


The cables were provided to Fairfax Media by Wikileaks and the story ran in its publications ‘The Age’ and ‘Sydney Morning Herald’.

Now, despite not authoring the cables, Indonesians are apparently up in arms and have launched a defamation suit against Fairfax Media in the Central Jakarta District Court.

All they want is a formal public apology from the US (they’re also suing the US government) and one billion dollars in compensation.

Yeah… precious much?

The government organisation group lodging the claim are apparently called the ‘State-Owned Enterprise’s Labor Union‘. Interestingly enough I can’t find any reference to this group nor any web presence prior to this story. Meanwhile the Sydney Morning Herald seems to think the group suing Fairfax are called the ‘Association of Advocates for People‘ but I couldn’t find anything about them either.

The law suit proliferated shortly after the cables were made public last Friday. Following their release Yudhoyono labelled the claims as ‘character assassination‘ and

told a Cabinet meeting in the West Java town of Bogor that he would use his right to obtain justice through democratic means.

(However) he did not elaborate.


‘State-owned enterprise’s Labor Union’? Who are the Indonesian government kidding.

This Jakarta Post article references the State-owned Enterprise’s Labor Union as ‘FSP BUMN Bersatu‘. Doesn’t mean much in English but presumably it’s the Indonesian equivalent.

Unlike the State-owned Enterprise’s Labor Union though, the FSP BUMN Bersatu have a website and list their Chairman as ‘Lieutenant General (Army) M. Yasin Yasin’.

I didn’t know who this Yasin Yasin fellow was but turns out according to this Jakarta Post article, ‘Lt. Gen. (ret) M. Yasin (was a) former deputy to Yudhoyono as coordinating minister for security (2001-2004)‘.

So to clarify, one of President Yudhoyono’s mates’ organisations is suing Fairfax over cables they didn’t author that make Yudhoyono look corrupt. Shortly after of course Yudhoyono announced he would ‘would use his right to obtain justice through democratic means‘ but refused to elaborate any further.

Additionally Indonesia’s independent anti-corruption watchdog, the Corruption Eradication Commission, has ruled out investigating the allegations made against Yudhoyono citing that they ‘did not meet its threshold for an inquiry‘.

Apparently investigating if Indonesia’s President abusing his office for personal and political gain is beneath them.

I guess there’s a reason Indonesia was ranked 110th out of 178 countries for corruption perception in 2010, scoring just 2.8 out of a possible 10.

This probably also explains why, in a country of two hundred and thirty million people, only ‘dozens‘ of hired goons protesters rallied outside of the US embassy on Tuesday demanding a formal apology.

Meanwhile the lawyer representing the Indonesian government State-owned Enterprise’s Labor Union, Habiburokhman (no first or surname provided) has amusingly not denied the claims, but rather seems to have beef with Fairfax’s headline ‘Yudhoyono: Abused Power’.

Habiburokhman claims

the cables did not say Yudhoyono had abused power so their headline was misleading.

They cooked up their own story to make our president look bad.


You see, whilst the cables claimed Yudhoyono ‘personally intervened to influence prosecutors and judges to protect corrupt political figures and pressure his adversaries’ and used ‘the Indonesian intelligence service to spy on political rivals and, at least once, a senior minister in his own government‘, they never actually claimed any of this was an abuse of power.

So in that sense Habiburokhman’s comments are totally justified and you can see where he’s coming from. The leaked US cables didn’t mention any of the above was an abuse of power so how dare Fairfax jump to such a conclusion.

Fair is fair and if you’re going to assert that what Yudhoyono allegedly did was an abuse of power, you’d better have a billion dollars to back it up.

Habiburokhman is also claiming that Fairfax ran the story in retaliation

against Indonesia’s recent plans to reduce meat imports from Australia.

“Indonesia recently said it would reduce beef imports because we are building up the local beef supply,” Habiburokhman, said in Jakarta on Tuesday.


Yeah, because that makes total sense. Indonesia decides to cut Australia’s beef imports, so Fairfax, in coloboration with the US government and Wikileaks, concoct corruption claims about the Indonesian President.

Riiiight.

It seems though that the State run labor union camp can’t even get its story straight. At odds with Habiburokhman’s explanation, labor union spokesman Trisasono reckons they’re filing the lawsuit because

the reports would significantly disrupt the President’s concentration in resolving various problems, including those related to the public welfare, particularly the welfare of workers.


I guess he has a point too. I mean if your workers think your corrupt and then diplomatic cables are leaked confirming their suspicions… probably gunna be be pretty hard to ‘help’ them I’d imagine. Although why the President himself is personally overseeing the welfare of workers I have no idea.

Surely there’s a department in charge of that?

Dunno if all this is worth a one billion dollar lawsuit, but best of luck to Yudhoyono and his cronies in court.

Something tells me they’re going to need it.

Without the mining and resources industries, Australia is essentially a country with little to no manufacturing interests and a large white collar workforce. Once those minerals and resources dry up, we don’t really have all that much to offer the world except for our beef.

We have massive welfare costs and as for importing labour, rather than importing producers, we focus on charity cases with zero skillsets, or those with degrees for the white collar sector.

Don’t get me wrong, Australia will survive without the mining and resources industry, it’s just that you’re going to see the cost of living skyrocket.

And who will be the most hard hit by this cost?

Those we’re currently importing with zero skillsets from war torn countries who also happen to be predominantly Muslim.

In Europe there’s been large unrest recently in Germany, France and England as large migrant Muslim populations seek to carve out their own piece of society, largely ignoring the established structure and populations already present.

So noticable has this segregation become that just last week British Primeminister David Cameron ‘condemned Britain’s long-standing policy of multiculturalism as a failure, calling for better integration of young Muslims to combat home-grown extremism‘.

This is a dramatic shift in policy from the established ‘let anyone who arrives  do anything in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism’ that Britain and most western countries have adopted over the last few decades.

In Australia it’s no different. A steady stream of migrants have entered the country and with the blessings of the local, state and federal government, sought to set up various enclaves around Australia’s cities shunning our rich and established society.

Tolerance and cultural acceptance has been preached to the population at large and bar a few scuffles here and there we’ve complied.

It’s alright for shopfronts to carry signage exclusively in non-English, they don’t use English back ‘home’.

Suspended sentences are handed out for even the most heinous of crimes, after all it’s not poor diddums fault they arrived from random war torn shithole country X. Heinous crimes are virtually a career over there.

And then of course there’s the housing, welfare and social costs of dealing with these people who, whilst happy to receive our help, then want nothing to do with us.

In Europe this has failed. What we have now are large areas of the local populations left feeling alienated in the face of growing subdivisions of people quite happy to form their own little groups and pretend they’re not in Europe.

In Australia, left unchecked we’re not too far behind. Arguably we’re even more at risk seeing as we haven’t experienced local home grown extremism as a country. Yes, nutjobs live here and occasionally shock us with their acts of terror, but we’ve yet to truly witness a large scale catastrophe as a direct result of fostering minority groups o differentiate themselves from mainstream Australia.

In light of Cameron’s speech in the UK, Australia is not without its politicians taking note and hoping that we learn something from watching Europe’s multiculturalism unfold.

Former immigration minister Kevin Andrews lashed out at political leaders who failed to speak out on the rise of extreme Islam, claiming the silence contributes to the rise of One Nation-type movements.

Liberal frontbencher, Mitch Fifield, warned of the danger of “parallel societies” developing as has occurred in Europe where hardline Muslim groups preached sharia law rather than Western values.

Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi warned Australia must avoid the mistakes of nations that allowed religious fanatics to prosper “before it is too late”.


One needs only to look at certain suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne to see these parallel societies are already well on their way to providing the same cultural problems in Australia as Europe is currently facing.

Meanwhile, as the European governments have done before it, the Australian government simply ignores the problem and asks us to bury our heads in the sand;

The Government and the Greens dismissed the fears, saying the nation should focus on the “positive” aspects of its diverse ethnic heritage.


Nobody is saying we shouldn’t focus on the positive aspects but simply dismissing the negatives? How does that address anything?

It’s rare that as a country we’re able to witness our future happening overseas right before our eyes in the existing generation. It’d be stupid to pretend that the people who migrate to Australia are any different.

One look at the fledgling segregation in Australia easily confirms that.

Senator Bernardi warned of a growing “cultural divide” in Australia.

He cited the advent of Muslim-only toilets at a Melbourne university and the halal method of meat slaughter as cultural practices that must be opposed.


Both minor but one step closer to the greater problems now being currently faced in Europe. Halal meat is something I can compromise on (provided it doesn’t in any way affect the availability of pork), but Muslim only toilets?

I know Muslims have to wash their feet or something for prayer but surely installing a foot basin in existing toilets and getting on with life is easier then retrofitting new exclusive toilets that only encourage segregation.

If some guy or girl can’t wash their feet in a normal toilet for everybody else, then god help them integrating into the rest of society.

Whilst I hope I don’t come across as an alarmist (I’m certainly not suggesting this is a ‘warning to Australia’ or any such), I do think this is something that needs to be addressed. Moreso anyway than simply outright dismissing it and instead solely focusing on the positives of diversity.

Diversity definitely has its positives yes, but not at the cost of society at large. There’s are reasons countries are messed up and people are fleeing them, and in my opinion Europe is well on it’s way to experiencing the same problems. At which stage I’m sure we’ll see an exodus of people fleeing an ultimately failed policy that was too lax to begin with.

Although delayed, I’d rather not see Australia follow a similar path. We study foreign economies and industry to make ours better, so why not apply the same to society?

Are Australian’s and our government that naive to think what’s happening in Europe won’t happen here?

But shouting at someone?

Fair enough if you’re shouting at them in a menacing manner ala ‘HEY BITCH I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!’ but ‘WHERE’S MY SOCKS?! OHMYGODI’MGOINGTOBELATE!’?

Yeah, it’s now domestic violence too. Well, at least if you live in the UK.

In the UK, if you live in government housing and can successfully prove domestic violence from your partner, you’re entitled to demand that the council find you new housing.

Effectively the government pays for your relocation.

Mihret Yemshaw decided to try her luck and complained to her council that she was the victim of domestic violence. Yemshaw claimed that her husband, Samuel Estifanos,

had shouted in front of their two children, failed to treat her like a human, had not given her housekeeping money, and she was scared he would take the children away from her.


And the outcome?

She won.

Did you see any domestic violence in there? I certainly didn’t.

Failing to treat her like a human might encompass it, except for the fact that it’s on file that ‘her husband had never hit her nor threatened to do so‘.

This crucial point however was overlooked by Supreme Court judge, Lady Hale, who reasoned that;

the meaning of the word ‘violence’ had moved on since Parliament passed the Housing Act.

The word ‘is capable of bearing several meanings and applying to many different types of behaviour. These can change and develop over time’.

The judge added that ‘it is not for Government and official bodies to interpret the meaning of the words which Parliament has used. That role lies with the courts.’


Now if I’m reading that correctly, Hale is asserting that Parliament, upon choosing the words it does to draft legislation, aren’t meant to determine the meaning of the words they themselves use.

So if UK parliament decided to ban icecreams, then it wouldn’t be up to them to classify what constitutes an icecream, instead that would be up to the judges in court.

Jesus Christ and I thought Australian courts were messed up.

What we’ve clearly got here is a judiciary openly out on a power trip and from the looks of it, with nobody out there to reign them in.

Redefining the English language and in doing so drastically altering the scope of laws passed by parliament? Really?

That sure as hell doesn’t sound like the role of the courts to me.

How are you even supposed to prove being shouted at anyway?! As it stands now if you’re accused of domestic violence and live in public housing, you can be booted from the home.

Now all someone has to do is allege you shouted at them, didn’t pay them enough for housekeeping or make the extremely vague claim that they didn’t treat them human enough and you’re gone.

‘I wasn’t putting out the rubbish out fast enough and she yelled at me’ – DOMESTIC VIOLENCE!

‘He gave me $4.20 but the supermarket charged $4.25. I didn’t have enough.’ – DOMESTIC VIOLENCE!

‘We didn’t have enough clean forks to go round, so I had to eat my steak with a knife and spoon. How inhuman.’ – DOMESTIC VIOLENCE!

With the complete and utter vagueness in scope of the claimed terms, there’s no end to claiming domestic violence in the UK now and ultimately all the courts have done is diminish the impact of the use of the term.

I wasn’t there, but I’m pretty sure parliament didn’t have in mind that people would be getting booted out of homes for raising their voice under any circumstances at someone else.

And who told the British courts they were responsible for defining the laws passed by parliament?!

Something tells me Lady Hale hasn’t had a good shouting at in a long time. Ah, the life of the cocooned and privileged.

Moderates would have you believe that this isn’t a problem though. Through tolerance and acceptance the idea is that, even under fundamentalist rule, the government still caters to those who don’t subscribe to the ruling religion.

The reality however is much different. If you don’t subscribe to whatever religious beliefs are in power, god help you if you disagree or have an issue with any of it.

As demonstrated in Islamically dominated countries recently, here we are not even half way into January of 2011 and already the craziness of a religiously dominated government has raised its ugly head.

Ladies and Gentlemen, from Somalia to Pakistan – here’s how two of arguably the most batshit crazy countries in the world have chosen to see in the new year.

First up, Somalia.

All I really know about Somalia is something something possible diamond trade something something didn’t they have a war a while back and something something there’s a famine there isn’t there?

Other then that it came as a total surprise to hear the militants in southern Somalia had ‘banned unrelated men and women from shaking hands, speaking or walking together in public‘.

Oh dear.

This isn’t some religious one day in a year type deal either. This ban applies to every freaking minute of every day.

Walking down the milkbar, BETTER MAKE SURE THERE’S NO UNRELATED FEMALES ABOUT!

Hopelessly lost and want to ask for directions? DON’T YOU DARE ASK SOMEONE UNRELATED FROM THE OPPOSITE SEX FOR HELP!

Yes, under crazy Islamic Al-Shabab religious law, day to day life in Somalia has undoubtedly taken a turn towards sucking even harder.

Oh, and the penalty for breaking this law?

People who break the rules could be imprisoned, whipped or even executed.


Marvellous!

Meanwhile over in Pakistan (yeah this is going to be a blast), over 20,000 people rallied to protest against the repeal of an amendment to blasphemy laws after a Christian woman was recently sentenced to death.

These blasphemy laws dish out the death penalty to anyone who blasphemies against the prophet Mohammad.

Just last week government official, Salman Taseer, was assassinated by one of his bodyguards after he publicly ‘sought to reform the law‘.

And then as if it wasn’t bad enough that someone was assassinated over proposed changes to the law, half the country seems to think his assassination was perfectly justifiable!

Pakistan’s most high-profile political killing in three years has bitterly divided the country, horrifying moderates, but winning praise from religious scholars and lawyers who festooned the presumed killer in garlands.

Banners at the event included some supporting Taseer’s presumed killer, police commando Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri.

“Mumtaz Qadri is not a murderer, he is a hero,” said one banner in the national Urdu language.


When it comes to violence and Islam, what we’re looking at here is the equivalent of priests openly praising and supporting child molesting members of the clergy… and yet somehow this is socially acceptable in Pakistan.

What the fuck is wrong with these people?!

In an age of preached tolerance and calls for acceptance of people’s differing religious beliefs and cultural values – it’s a hard pill to swallow when witnessing the utter ridiculousness that exists in some corners of the globe;; all of course in the name of religious law.

And god help us should they ever get a foothold elsewhere on the planet.