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If you consider yourself an astute adult and you’re interested in politics, science, religion or just general and current events, you might enjoy a conversation with like minds in a forum format at ThinkTank. It’s easy. Simply register yourself as a member of the forum and join the fray. We’re young at the moment, having recently established as a result of a split from another, much more closeted and confined format. In general, discussiuons will be Australian-centric, however we actively encourage discussion of any subject from any theatre.

Join us and broaden our horizons.

A Victory for Freedom or a huge collective sigh of relief from the coalition leadership triumverate? I’ve noticed the few blogs that I scan have all made mention of the show trial verdict to hang Saddam Hussein. ‘What the hell’, I thought, ‘I’ll wade in too!’

 Tracey Spicer is one of the most experienced and credible news presenters on Australian commercial television, with a career spanning 20 years, encompassing newsreading, documentary making, reporting, and radio broadcasting.

The nationally televised and supposedly impromptu performance by News Corporation journalist, Glenn Milne, at last nights Walkley Awards, was perhaps the funniest public display of drunkenness by a luminary your Bannerman has seen for many a year. In fact, I would put it right up there with Sir John Kerr’s Melbourne Cup Day blur and Michael Cole’s 1973 Logie Award performance.

Mr Milne, it seems, is not above making attacks on persons of any public stature, from the lowly to the grand, on the grounds of his perception of their pompousness. Stephen Mayne ought to feel priviledged to have been shoved off the stage by Milne. No doubt he does. Mayne’s rejoinders afterwards showed he clearly enjoyed the exchange from a variety of angles. One wonders today what Milne is doing, other than laying low and nursing a hangover. Perhaps he’s writing a resignation letter?

Fiji is now under it’s fourth Coup de tête in the last twenty years. This one by far the most insidiously crafted and most clumsily conducted.  Commodore Bainimarama has blatantly flouted Fiji’s constitution, basically ignoring it’s intent and casting scorn on it’s purpose. The common people have no say and it’s the common people for whom democracy is meant to hold the country in faith for. It’s yet another disgusting turn of events for that sorry nation, and one which will undoubtedly occur again unless the constitution is amended, removing the power over civilian administrators which the military continues to hold.

While it may well seem hypocritical of John Howard to decline the request for military assistance from Prime Minister Qarase, especially in light of the blindly faithful adherence to US demands Howard indulged in by taking Australia to war in Iraq, your Bannerman is in agreement with Howard in the withholding of military aid. Fiji – like Iraq – is not Australia’s fight and she must make it’s own way in the political and economic world. The Bannerman’s sympathies go to the business and general communities of Fiji during this difficult time. I trust……I hope, that Fiji in the future will see it’s way clear to hobble a rampant military.

Bannerman is smiling sardonically at the responses from the usual media suspects in regard to Kofi Annan’s farewell speech today at the Truman Presidential Library, Independence, Missouri.

Bannerman works from home. It’s a tough life, but someone has to do it, and Bannerman figures it might as well be him that adroitly avoids the peak hour crush; the over-powering scents of perfume & after-shave in the morning; perfume mixed with body odour and beer-breath in the afternoons; the ant colony-like streams of people into & out of train stations or the inanities of evening radio chat shows on the freeway.

Only a matter of time, is the way bannerman has viewed this occurence. With the much vaunted, yet clearly flawed Joint Strike Fighter delivery date being pushed further and further out – now slated for 2013 – Australia’s defensive capabilities were always going to be left wanting. This is a re-run of the late 1960’s purchase of that era’s leading edge tactical strike aircraft, the General Dynamic F-111.

The original invasion, disregarding the decisions of June 2002 by the Whitehouse, to invade Iraq in March 2003 now seem so much grist to the mill if Nuri al-Maliki is going to invite all former Iraqi army members/participants to reapply for their former positions.

Bannerman and his squeeze have returned! The wilds of Queensland’s Granite Belt were delightful…..for the first five days. Then came Boxing Day and the clammering hordes from coastal and interstate suburbia.

Amid the lowest world oil prices in 20 months, an investigation has found petrol retailers have not passed any of the relief on to consumers.

Herald Sun.

Bannerman is stunned, nay, shocked to read that oil majors haven’t been treating consumers honestly these last several months….years….decades. 

Australian rock legend Jimmy Barnes is to undergo open heart surgery next month.

ABC News .

Bannerman wishes him all the very best. The Progenitor underwent the very same op in 2004, from which he never recovered. Still, thirty years can make a hell of a difference, despite a lifetime of booze, drugs and beating your body senseless. Bear up, Jimmy!

With yesterday's post in mind, Bannerman came across what turns out to be an older article on Space_dot_Com this morning, which reveals that the second brightest star in the southern cross is, in fact, a binary system. Beta Crucis, or Mimosa to give it’s common name, is classified as a blue-white giant, differing from our own Sun in that Beta Crucis is much, much larger and nearing the end of it’s main sequence phase. It’s partner, a smaller red giant star, orbits 8 AU,or eight times the distance which Earth orbits our Sun, from Beta Crucis.

This revelation raises a query in Bannerman’s mind. Should Australia amend the flag?

This article, among many, many others highlights the ever increasing focus by Australians on the plight of David Hicks. Politicians of every stripe except those of the inner circle of the coalition government are calling for, at the very least, an independent psychiatric assessment of Hicks. The inner circle appear quite satisfied with asking the obvious questions and receiving the obvious answers.

The time is long past for this man’s release. He is NOT charged. He cannot be charged with any supposed crime which in any proper court would survive the initial perusal of the presiding authority. He faces a kangaroo court of the U.S. administration’s convenience. His own government has abandoned him out of political convenience and he flatly refuses to see its representatives. Those representatives continue to force themselves upon him, despite his written proclamations refuting their ‘assistance’, and for that he is said to suffer retribution at the hands of a so-called ally.

When will Australia rise up against its government and demand this man’s release?

Global climate change is "very likely" to have a human cause

BBC NEWS .

Gee………..Y’think? It’s not only a question of climate change.

1 a (1) : of, relating to, or given to retrospection : based on memory <a retrospective report> b : being a retrospective <a retrospective exhibition>
2 : affecting things past : RETROACTIVE<retrospective laws>
3 : relating to or being a study (as of a disease) that starts with the present condition of a population of individuals and collects data about their past history to explain their present condition

In short, the word means acting, or an enaction on the present, taking into account something from the past. Of course, it means something completely different here in Australia, to what it may well mean in the United States english language lexicon. As Little Johnny Howler said today:

“What the Americans do is up to the Americans”

Interpret it as you will, reader. The intent is quite clear. Australia will do absolutely nothing to interfere with the American english dictionary, regardless of whether the life or mind of an Australian citizen is at stake. Let this be a lesson to those of you contemplating even thinking about becoming a soldier of fortune.

"This suggestion that because detainees are there, that that is in itself evidence of terrorism, or their being a terrorist, simply puts the lie to any attempt to deal with them in a fair and open manner,"
David McLeod, lawyer for David Hicks

(via ABC Online)

What defines a ’dangerous terrorist’? Someone’s say so? Is it necessary for said alleged terrorist to have killed someone? Fired a gun, carried a stanley knife, perhaps. Bannerman thinks that all of us could be classified as terrorists if the latter proviso comes into play.

Vladimir Putin has made what he says is "an invitation to think" to the United States of America. Using the term ’Unipolar’, he has openly accused the U.S. of overly provocative and internationally illegal tactics in it’s foreign policy of unilateral pre-emption.

A possible conversation between Alexander Downer and Robert Gates, as imagined by Bannerman

DOWNER: G’day Bob. I’d heard you were in Munich. Rattled any beer halls yet? [lightly chuckles]

GATES: Hey Lex......good to see you. Yeh, trying to drum up a few more troops for Afghanistan. You know how Europe is. You here on business or pleasure?

DOWNER: [nods knowingly] Well......business really. The Boss is getting jumpy over this Hicks thing, y’know. We have an election this year and the public have finally woken up that you’re holding one of ours at Gitmo. Bloody media prats don’t help either. [scowls] Look, when are you fellows likely to be doing something concrete, so we can tell the media to back off?

GATES: [casts eyes around furtively] Weeeeell, you know how the law goes, Lex. We got our butts canned last year and Dubya doesn’t want any repeats. He’s sort of inferred that he’d like the problem to just go away. [chuckles] Had to send an explanatory memo to the CIA on that one. They kinda got all excited.

[joint mirth on the part of both men]

DOWNER: [frowns] Yes, I know Bob.....but the Weasel’s got his election allergy acting up. Surely you can give me something to be going on with? Can’t you at least formalise those charges? Oh.....by the way.....nice one on the ’material aid’ bit. Next to impossible to disprove, eh? [elbows Gates, nudge-nudge style]

GATES: [frowns] Yeh.....next to impossible to make stick as well, what with the fact that some klutz has already admitted we know he’s never fired a shot at our boys. [shrugs] Still....he was in Afghanistan, so that has to count for something, I guess.

DOWNER: [looks hopeful] So....I can tell the Boss you’re gonna lay charges ASAP? A court date, maybe?? Middle of February is coming up fast.

GATES: [throws hands up] Awww look, Lexy. Why don’t we just send the asshole home? He’s yours anyway and getting him back would certainly kill any dissent in your media and lay public opinion. You could even sell the deal by telling the people what a great bunch we all are - you guys included, of course.

DOWNER: [gasps for breath and clasps hands around face. Voice rises several octaves] WHAT!! And admit that all the things we’d call him, accused him of and hidden behind while you held onto him were all a fraud???!!! Are you mad?! It would mean the end us politically.

GATES: [smirks knowingly] Well, look at it this way, Lex. I’ll be out of a job by years end and misery just loves company, right? Play your cards right, and you might still be in line for that chair at the UN.

DOWNER: [nods while searching for agreement] So.....what you’re saying is that I should just go home and tell everyone we’ve spoken about the issue, and leave well enough alone??

GATES: [gives ’Dolly’ the two finger pistol salute and winks] Y’know, for a guy with a public school accent you’re pretty street smart, Lex.

Journalists shown ’Iranian weapons’ in Iraq.

So, here we have Little Johnny Howler once again creating havoc in the playground by name-calling and picking on the new boy.

"One of the key points it made was that a premature withdrawal would be a disaster," - Alexander Downer
ABC News Online

Here’s a serious question from the Bannerman. Does anyone honestly pay any attention to what ’Dolly’ Downer has to say on any issue which originates from the mouth of his fearless leader? Take the above selective quote, supposedly originating from the Baker-Hamilton report on what is purported in the media lately as the primary recommendation of a staged withdrawal from Iraq by U.S. military forces.

Bannerman isn’t feeling all that charitable at the moment, so the reader will need to excuse him if he seems less then his usual ebullient self. Reason? Well, there are undoubtedly many, but for the sake of this post, let’s assume it’s to do with David Hicks.

Hicks coming home

’Mr Andrews says it’s not possible under Australian law for Mr Jovicic to be granted Australian citizenship at this time.’
Lateline - 20/02/2007

Bannerman draws the readers attention to the last three words in Kevin Andrews’ or his department spokesperson’s statement on the future of Robert Jovicic. "...at this time." Bannerman wants to know just when, under Australian law, it will become possible for Mr Jovicic to be granted at least a return to permanent residency, pending his citizenship instatement? Bannerman wants to know why the Howardian regime appears intent on toying with this man’s future, after bowing to the weight of public opinion and returning him to the country he has spent 99.95% of his life in?

Bannerman asks whether Australia is still the land of the Fair Go, or has it, under the conservative regime, become a society of moralising judgementalists? The simple facts are that Robert Jovicic is a human being. He has admitted he made mistakes in life. He is asking for a ’fair go’. A chance to prove that what he claims to be a changed persona is in fact that. Bannerman believes in the spirit of true Australiana. Jovicic deserves the benefit of the doubt. He deserves the ’fair go’ he asks for. He does not deserve to be treated as a disposable piece of humanity to be discarded at the whim of a bigoted, self-serving government which has form on the issues of regard for human rights.

A television alert from the Bannerman. Tonight is certainly David Hicks night on SBS. ’Insight’ at 7:30pm has Phillip Ruddock and Terry Hicks together in the same audience discussing the issue of David Hicks. Then at 10:00pm, SBS is replaying the documentary, ’The President versus David Hicks’.

To cap the television media pressure, we hear now that ’Dubya’ rang L.J.Howler at dawn, no less, today. He wanted to discuss North Korea. Little Johnny hit him up over David Hicks. Bannerman can imagine the tenor of the conversation, with ’Dubya’ wanting to talk top level stuff and L.J. whining about 2007 being an election year and he’s feeling the heat, George. Can’t you do something?

It’s tough at the top. Bannerman hopes it gets a hell of a lot hotter and tougher and in short order.

LP comments policy at Larvatus Prodeo

Bannerman chuckled, chortled and guffawed his way through the entirety of this Labia Prodders post. Clearly one or more of the rabid end in the blog spectrum - notice, ideology is not a factor in this post - has imitated the neighbourhood tomcat and sprayed up the walls at LP.

Bannerman briefly flirted with the idea of maybe, perhaps, outlaying the necessaries for a Crikey_dot_com subscription. He is ever so glad he didn’t waste the exorbitant sum of $115.00 per annum for this sort of trash which rolls up daily in his email box by way of tasty snifters, encouraging subscription.

"Ten years ago the Australian government took away the worlds first Voluntary Euthanasia law. Last year they banned Australians from using the telephone, fax, email and Internet to seek information about end of life issues. Now they have taken to banning and burning books." - Doctor Phillip Nitschke, Exit International

Bannerman is in mourning today, suffering the reminders of mortality that the ageing process delivers from time to time. The catalyst for this day of mourning and wallowing in the memories of times past is, of course, the passing of Australian rock pioneer and legend, Billy Thorpe.

"Now I think the best we can hope for is for the JSF to buck the trend in aviation projects and deliver the promised capability on time and on budget."
Andrew Davies - Program Director for Operations and Capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

An interesting, if succinct article on the government’s rather strange decision to outlay A$6billion on what is regarded as a stop-gap measure by purchasing 24 Boeing (formerly McDonnell Douglas) F/A-18 E/F fighter attack aircraft. The questions Davies asks are valid. Are we, the taxpayers, being hoodwinked into believing that the JSF program is not in trouble and subject to delays? Is the government outlaying funds on a temporary stop-gap which is likely to turn into the first of two probable purchases of an aircraft which will in all likelihood be out-moded by the time any penny, with reference to the JSF program running into protracted delays and budget escalations, drops?

From Bannerman’s research into the Super Hornet, it is entirely unsuited as a replacement, either short or long term, for either the existing F-111 or F/A 18A aircraft fleet. By engaging in this purchase now, Australia is all but locked into further purchases should the JSF program be proven to have run into serious problems.

Well worth a read.

Prime Minister John Howard has defended a security pact to be signed with Japan this week, despite concerns from China and South Korea.

Yahoo!7 News

Sixty-two years ago Australia saw off the empire of Japan as the greatest threat to this country’s future security ever faced since the first fleet dropped anchor in Port Jackson. Today, we’re offering to stand by that nation, protect her and her citizens should she ever come under attack, as she supposedly pledges to stand by this nation likewise. The connotations are more than a little un-nerving.

The man to whom this tome is dedicated would spin in his grave if he had one.

Of course, a slightly more than skin deep appraisal of this ’security pact’ reveals a distinct flavour of Pax Americana. In conjunction with the security pact between Japan and the U.S., the Australia-Japan Defence Pact is aimed squarely at North Korea. The linked article’s oblique reference to the ’U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative’ is sufficient to qualify that claim.

Australia is no longer a nation with an independent position on issues of concern and import throughout the world. She is merely the obedient serf of the hegemonic master.

Guys, ever wondered why sex is such a sleep-inducing pastime? Ever wondered why ’getting it up again’ takes time and you’d rather watch TV instead of snuggling your partner?

Well, no, neither has Bannerman, but we all know, do we not, that the aforesaid are all part and parcel of being male. Bannerman came across this fascinating article recently, and thought his fellow male bloggers might like to take note and even bookmark it so that next time their significant others complain about post-coital somnolence, conclusive scientific research can be pointed to.

Women don’t have a patent on hormones as an excuse, it seems.

Bannerman has decided, probably against his better judgement, to resurrect the ThinkTank Forum which he initially created in December 2006, but locked off due to time constraints. ThinkTank is intended to be a discussion forum for mature adults who look for online interaction with like minds in the analysis of important issues which impact everyone daily. If you’re of a mind, and can’t find a suitable place to express your opinions and discuss issues of import without the almost inevitable personal abuse, innuendo and logical fallacy which seems to pervade almost every online forum, then Bannerman extends an invitation to you to sample ThinkTank.

Get in on the ground floor and help to create a place where freedom of expression in a proper, mature environment is the norm.

"There are many countries near to us - Indonesia comes very much to mind - where an initiative such as this will be very much welcome" - John Howard on the launching of his governments ’tree initiative’

(via ABC Online)

Bannerman’s having a hard time understanding the impetus on this one. Australia is contributing $200 million Aussie tax-payer dollars to places like Indonesia and Malaysia to plant more trees and help stamp out illegal logging of precious natural forests and their associated habitats, yet nothing towards doing the same thing at home???!

Bannerman wound up being quite touched by the interview on 7:30 Report this evening between David Hicks’ military defence lawyer, Marine Major Michael Mori, and Kerry O’Brien. Clearly, Mori wasn’t going to respond to several of Kerry’s questions as Kerry would have liked, but the one telling point in the entire interview came with the very last question. When he returned to his military career, would there be a price to pay for Mori, as a result of his staunch support for and defence of his client over the past four-and-a-half years?

The look of resignation and inevitability which passed across Mori’s chagrinned face spoke volumes, even if his mouth uttered a non-committal platitude. That one question and one facial expression is proof positive, as far as Bannerman is concerned, that the Hicks issue impacted negatively on more than just David Hicks. Kudos to you, Michael Mori. May your legal career rise to great heights upon your exit from the military. May that day come soon and bring you the justice you deserve. Bannerman applauds.

"They took everything from me apart from my knickers. Then some cotton pyjamas were thrown in for me to wear and four filthy blankets. The metal door slammed shut again."

NEWS.com.au

So says Leading Seaman Faye Turney, youngest of the recently released Royal Navy personnel from Iranian captivity.

"We're not about winning elections in a year, we're about winning debates over a decade. The conservative ideas experiment has been tried and it's failed. They've left Australia with fragile prosperity based on a boom, far too many kids left behind, a changing climate, a divided culture and knee-jerk responses to real security threats." - Michael Cooney, Policy Director, Per Capita Thinktank

BB picks OCD contestant | NEWS.com.au
Yes, reader......it's that time of year again...

BBC, Geldof to catalogue all human existence

Geldof, the former frontman for rock group the Boomtown Rats, says he was first inspired to act after hearing about disappearing languages in Africa 20 years ago.

Hicks father may defy gag order

Well, excuse the exclamation, reader, but WHAT FUCKING GAG ORDER!??

To the best of Bannerman’s knowledge, it was David Hicks, not Terry Hicks who wound up being shang-hai’d into holding up his hand when the Yanks asked who wanted to go home in exchange for calling ’terrorist’. Gag order, indeed! Any hold the Yanks think they might have over David Hicks is nothing more than a smoke-shrouded mirror anyway. Phillip ’I-may-look-dead-but-I-don’t-smell-that-way’ Ruddock even confirmed it for us earlier this month.

Apparently, this lecture thingo at University of Melbourne’s Law School tomorrow is being streamed. Bannerman has contacted the convenor with a view to obtaining the relevant URL. If he get’s a reply in time, it’ll be advised here.

In the previous entry, Bannerman wrote that he was about to complain to Network Seven re: their motorsport coverage. He did. He rang Seven at Epping to seek a means of access, as Seven don't have a corporate email address. (Shock! Horror!)