real gone kid

Chateau V V B will herewith distinguish itself by not buying into the Beazley vs Rudd thing which appears to be consuming valuable bandwidth pretty much everywhere else and doesn't need V V B's two cents' worth. Instead, let's go looking at other things that possibly grabbed our attention today, provided I can remember where I saw them.

The Daily Briefing has a couple of articles on Iraq, but the one that stood out for me was this quote from an arrticle by one Larry Kahaner:

Small Wars was written in 1896 by C.E. Callwell, a colonel in the British army,
for British officers posted to Africa and India. It draws on his own experience in the Second Afghan and Boer Wars and claims that a powerful force can easily lose, if it doesn’t fully understand the enemy, fails to describe clear objectives or, worst of all, pursues military objectives that do not contribute to the conflict's political goal."

Like I've mentioned, Mrs V V B and I marched against the war. It was pretty obvious to us, and several hundred thousand other unAustralians, that the purpose of the war was a sham. And that we had been lied to regarding the feudal overlordsgovernment's intentions. Now, several years and many thousands of deaths after "Mission Accomplished", Bush now claims: " I'm not going to pull the troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete."

Now if I went looking, I'd probably find out that there is a difference between "accomplished" and "complete" in this particular context, but you get the point.

For a mercifully brief excursion into the rotting corpse of democracy as she is practiced in this fair country, let's now turn to one of the few journos in the country who is not in thrall to supposed infallibility of our feudal overlordsthe government, Jack Waterford of the Canberra Times. Here, Waterford gives us an insight into how the system of Ministerial advisers set up by Whitlam over thirty years ago has gradually been nurtured into a well oiled machine that protects the government and its 'Ministers' (yeah, 'Ministers': take a look at 'em, you reckon any of 'em deserve 'The Honourable'?) from any scrutiny. People blame Whitlam for all sorts of evils, but I wonder if at the time this system was brought into being, he had any idea how it would eventually be perverted. Unintended consequences, they're everhwhere. Power in the Senate might eventually pass from Liar John Howard's hands, but the damage is being done while he's there. The changes to the Electoral Act for example.

Well it's a been a big week for various reasons with next week likely to be bigger. Things are happening, as a result of things the work team has been doing. This is an experience I haven't had for a while so it needs digestion, preferably by another stubbie of brew number 9. And accompanied by a 'new' release by one of my more favouriter bands, Deacon Blue. I love 'em.

Beazley vs Rudd? What a choice. A safe pair of failed hands vs someone who'd put bricks to sleep every time he started to lecturespeak. Well I thought Latham was a good idea so just to prove what a slow learner I am, I'll say go for change again and see what happens. What is really needed through is to dump Jenny Whatsername and put in Julia Gillard, who at least appears able to speak sensibly and on topic without talking points. That is to say, there appears to be a more functioning brain in there than any of the others.