Why people flee across the Tasman

With thanks to Bekitty, the difference between Australia and New Zealand.

*sob*

I'll be in my bunk

Okay, this has to be due to morphic resonance or something:

'Brady Bunch' Star Reveals All About Lesbian Fling With TV Sister?



You know, now that I come to think of it, Marcia Brady may well have been the first round-faced blonde on whom I developed an obsession. She wasn't the last. Stop laughing, Bekitty.

Mind you, at the same time I also thought Abba was the epitome of cool...

(Probably not true, mind you, but why let facts stand in the way of a good story?)

Let the bullshitting commence

Latest poll:

September 2007 - More than 1,000,000 Iraqis murdered

In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.

Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths). These findings come from a poll released today by O.R.B., the British polling agency that have been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005. [...]

Detailed analysis (which is available on our website) indicates that almost one in two households in Baghdad have lost a family member, significantly higher than in any other area of the country. The governorates of Diyala (42%) and Ninewa (35%) were next.

The poll also questioned the surviving relatives on the method in which their loved ones were killed. It reveals that 48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance. This is significant because more often that not it is car bombs and aerial bombardments that make the news – with gunshots rarely in the headlines.

As well as a murder rate that now exceeds the Rwanda genocide from 1994 (800,000 murdered), not only have more than one million been injured but our poll calculates that of the millions of Iraqis that have fled their neighbourhoods, 52% have moved within Iraq but 48% have crossed its borders, with Syria taking the brunt of refugees.

I am now taking odds on what the prevailing wisdom will settle on as the best way to deal with this:

a) I didn't see a million Iraqi obituaries in the LA West Shopper, therefore a million Iraqis cannot be dead.

b) The graveyard in Al Jahkarb St in Baghdad is, like, really really small, therefore a million Iraqis can't be dead.

c)The Opinion Research Bureau is a Chomskist front which doesn't know anything about sampling, therefore a million Iraqis can't be dead.

d) Al Qaeda is really really nasty, and the US Army only uses targetted pillows whereever civilians might be involved, therefore if a million Iraqis are dead due to us choosing to launch a war against a country that didn't attack us, it still isn't our fault - it's Osama's!

e) Look - O J Simpson!

Okay, someone cue the "Yakkity Sax"...

Kung fu hustle as thief flees on bike

A thief in Nelson chose the wrong place to break into a car and ended up fleeing from 110 uniformed martial arts experts, in town for Chan's Martial Arts School's annual training camp.

I don't mind life imitating art, but when it starts imitating bad farce?

A confession - my Mum had sex

Admittedly, this is not a huge surprise. We're of Irish descent, not Jewish; it is unlikely that any of us deriving from the Emerald Isles were immaculately conceived. But here comes the shocking bit - she had it before she was (gasp) married. In fact, I was a healthy slightly larger than normal baby born "premature", if you know what I mean. My grandad was a farmer; he owned a shotgun.

Now in NZ, better than half of children are "illegitimate". Back then, the sequence of events was very very far from unusual. There's not that much to do in the Wairarapa. So she got knocked up, they got married, they split five years later. Not much of a story, really.

However, my maternal grandparents raised sheep. They didn't make a living pandering to the religious right nutbars who believe unmarried sex is Teh Evil.

"Miss Bush and Mr. Hager became engaged Wednesday 15 August 2007."

Now, let me see - nine months from 15 August will be, oh, about mid May 2008...

Please note, I am not lambasting Jenna. From what I can see, she appears to be a relatively normal fun-loving young woman, if shallow and moderately spoiled (and it is the privilege of the young to be shallow). I'm pointing a finger at Bush and the Family Values crowd that have let him lead the US into a moral abyss involving killing people over the last six years because they believe he shared their obsession with who sticks what into whom.

Jenna seems to have fucked her boyfriend. Bush has fucked his country. Go, Jenna.

The difficulty with being a political spouse...

You have to make lame excuses and get the media speculating you're a flake.

The simpler explanation is that Cecilia Sarkozy is relatively normal, and simply can't stand being in the same room as the man. Or, for that matter, has a sense of conscience and believes screaming and attempting to strangle a President might not be conducive to international relations.

Tell us again how noble the USA is (part 2)...

And another story:

SANGIN, Afghanistan — A senior British commander in southern Afghanistan said in recent weeks that he had asked that American Special Forces leave his area of operations because the high level of civilian casualties they had caused was making it difficult to win over local people.

Other British officers here in Helmand Province, speaking on condition of anonymity, criticized American Special Forces for causing most of the civilian deaths and injuries in their area. They also expressed concerns that the Americans’ extensive use of air power was turning the people against the foreign presence as British forces were trying to solidify recent gains against the Taliban.

The US army is very very good at breaking things and killing people. This is, in general, a good thing for an army to be - it's considerably better than not being any good in these tasks.

It does not make an army noble. It does not make an army a suitable tool for all political tasks. It does not make every given goal possible by the use of military force.

And it certainly does not prevent war from being evil, those that take part in it from being drawn into that evil, and those condoning it from engaging in a moral evil.