24 August 2007

white limbo

P2B=limited by work fixation. It's been an insane week with more to come. Although this doesn't prevent the prescribed coffee intake and networking activity, just means that my day has to stretch elsewhere to get the stuff done. Anyway someone said to me during the week that even though I no longer post daily, he's still sort of amazed that I can churn out 2 or 3 posts a week. Well you'd admit that there's not a lot of depth here, even if VVB isn't quite "what I did on my holidays."

Given my comments on APEC and the water cannon the other night, I was struck my this letter in the SMH today:




Well suited for protest

Memo to security: my business colleague and I have decided to march on our APEC holiday. Could you bear in mind that we'll be the ones in suits and ties? I know I'll be OK, but I fear my friend is getting too old to flee the water cannon.
T. Thornett Wollstonecraft



Gerry has also posted on the subject as he is involved in non-violent protest but I fear, as does he, that what my deputy headmaster in years 10-12 used to call the "lunatic fringe" will fuck it up for the genuine protesters.

Iemma has
cleared 200 cells for the anticipated tally and if you don't think that the police will be under orders to ensure that there's standing room only, you're deluded. Shows of force are meant to keep the populace docile and submissive, and APEC is a massive opportunity for the forces of right.

In fact I'll be in Sydney but gone before the stuff starts, I hope.

In the absence of any recollection of stuff over the last couple of days that I may have thought interesting at the time, I'll be leaving it here.

Update - oh no, not yet. Class joke in the comments at Harry Hutton's place:

A Buddhist walks into a pizza takeaway and says 'make me one with everything'.

Hadn't heard that one before. Very good!

Update 2...I remembered a discussion with a like-minded mate during the week. We were discussing the Haneef affair and agreed that it was no longer possible to have any confidence at all in the Federal Police. We also agreed (I told you we were like-minded) what a terrible thing this was - if we are in increasingly dangerous times as we are constantly reminded, not least by a barrage of government TV advertising, then shouldn't we have complete reliance on the Federal Police? What happens if the Army is proven to be politically compromised?




5 comments:

Anonymous said...

A Buddhist walks into a pizza takeaway and says 'make me one with everything'.

He pays with a $50, which the pizza guy accepts and places in the till.

He waits. And waits.

"Where's my change?"

"Ah," says Pizza Guy. "Change must come from within yourself."

The Editor said...

The Army IS politically compromised. Has been since well before 1976 when I got out. In 1975, during "The Dismissal" elements of the Army were on very hush-hush standby in case Gough refused to go quietly...

Must be about time for documents relating to this to be declassified, unless they put a 50 year embargo on them...

Anyway, thanks for the plug, Phil.

phil said...

Geez, I didn't need to know that Gerry.

Correction: everybody needs to know it.

The Editor said...

I could mention a Canberra bomber which was "rumoured" to have crashed in Laos whilst on a mission in support of Operation Lam Son 719, but the official version is that we were never in Laos, so it can't be there, can it...

You might like to chat with the guy who was commanding 2 Sqn RAAF at Cam Ranh Bay in about Feb/Mar 1971. It was "rumoured" that he got a right bollicking over it because he was flying it. The same "rumours" claim the mission was ordered by the CIA.

Only rumours, mind...

I might get a visit now... ;-)

phil said...

Oh, and thanks to anonynous visitor from Gympie for the Buddhist joke improvement.

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