News That's Fit To Punt - 23/Dec/2014

Zero Dark'n' Dirty

I didn't want to bang on about politics this week, what with 2 days to go to Christmas, but I figured it's worth bring up this stuff because I still think we're all collectively numbed to the notion that troops and agents representing our government and therefore by extension us, are doing torture. We're so inured to this fact that we consume movies like 'Zero Dark Thirty' without really challenging the premise that torture got us the information that led to finding where Osama bin Laden was holed up.

Anyway, this week saw the cover blown on the agent upon whom the character Maya was based. Yes, the agent who allegedly tracked down Osama bin Laden's whereabout was also known as the Queen of Torture, and her name is now out in public.

I'm not going to name the officer here because frankly I don't know where that puts me legally. But you can find out her name if you follow that link.

What's interesting is that amongst other things she:

• was amongst other things, responsible for missing the 9/11 threat, bungling the sharing of information.
• misled congress about the Agency's use of torture.
• participated in the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
• witnessed the waterboarding of terror suspect Abu Zubaydah
• misrepresented intelligence in such as ways to send the agency on a wild goose chase in Montana
• over saw a three month rendition of another detainee whose detention was case of mistaken identity. 

She sounds like a real piece of work. She sounds like a sadistic psychopath who has found her dream job. The Intercept is leaking her name because it says otherwise the wider community won't be able to put 2 and 2 together to understand just want is going on and who is doing it. Sounds like she's the CIA torture mistress of your BDSM nightmares.

Get Dorky

The New York Times is saying the USA should prosecute the likes of Dick Cheney and the others the GW Bush administration who condoned torture.

Americans have known about many of these acts for years, but the 524-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report erases any lingering doubt about their depravity and illegality: In addition to new revelations of sadistic tactics like “rectal feeding,” scores of detainees were waterboarded, hung by their wrists, confined in coffins, sleep-deprived, threatened with death or brutally beaten. In November 2002, one detainee who was chained to a concrete floor died of “suspected hypothermia.” 

These are, simply, crimes. They are prohibited by federal law, which defines torture as the intentional infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” They are also banned by the Convention Against Torture, the international treaty that the United States ratified in 1994 and that requires prosecution of any acts of torture. 

So it is no wonder that today’s blinkered apologists are desperate to call these acts anything but torture, which they clearly were. As the report reveals, these claims fail for a simple reason: C.I.A. officials admitted at the time that what they intended to do was illegal. 

In July 2002, C.I.A. lawyers told the Justice Department that the agency needed to use “more aggressive methods” of interrogation that would “otherwise be prohibited by the torture statute.” They asked the department to promise not to prosecute those who used these methods. When the department refused, they shopped around for the answer they wanted. They got it from the ideologically driven lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel, who wrote memos fabricating a legal foundation for the methods. Government officials now rely on the memos as proof that they sought and received legal clearance for their actions. But the report changes the game: We now know that this reliance was not made in good faith. 

No amount of legal pretzel logic can justify the behavior detailed in the report. Indeed, it is impossible to read it and conclude that no one can be held accountable. At the very least, Mr. Obama needs to authorize a full and independent criminal investigation.

Amen to that. Now we'll see if they have the balls to follow through. They need to get Cheney in the dock. It's nice that all this stuff is out there for once and not covered by official secrecy acts and the such. 

Spiritual Alzheimers

In other more delightful news, the Pope of Rome took the Curia to task for being greedy scheming careerists with 'Spiritual Alzheimers'. I don't quite know how that disease works, but it sounds pretty bad. The affairs of the Catholic Church are really none of my business but this is the sort of thing that makes you take up and notice. This Pope is trying to make a difference. In the scheme of things, it's not totally insignificant that he wants to effect a change of culture within the Church. After all, there's still too much Alexander VI and the Borgias about the Vatican and its politics. 

Still, it wasn't what the Curia were expecting. That's pretty impressive to go off script and put the boot in that hard.

John Robertson Falls On His Sword

Never has there been an ALP politician so happily seen off since, ...oh I don't know..., Kristina Kenneally? Anyway, it turned out John Robertson signed some document for Man Haron Monis. And that was all (s)he wrote, so to speak. Is this bad luck? Is this bad judgment? Is this a bad break? Is it just good fortune that John Robertson managed to crash his career on the name of the man who carried out the Martin Place Siege? Really, who'd a' thunk it? 

Anyway, the man variously described in the most negative ways by his own party - and given the leadership after the landslide election defeat because they couldn't stand him and wanted him to fail - has miraculously crashed out of being the Opposition Leader in NSW with only 3months to go to an election. Was this fair? He might even ask that himself but one thing's for certain in NSW politics: fair's got nothing to do with it (an invective otherwise known as "Suck Shit And Die"). 

The ALP in NSW have a long l-o-o-o-ong way back from the depths of reputation damage inflicted by Morbid Obeidity, and Joe Tripodi and the rest of the Terigals. The brand value of NSW ALP is about as good as Nickelback (maybe even worse). Finally being rid of Robertson at the helm might be the first step in rehabilitation. 

News That's Fit To Punt - 18/Mar/2013

Tin Ear Drum, Tin Ears, Tone Deaf

It's a new week and a new poll says Julia Gillard's got to go. As far as the electorate's concerned, she's a Dead Leader Walking.

The Prime Minister conducted a live-in campaign tour of western Sydney, announced $1 billion for the WestConnex expressway, promised a brace of benefits for workers, pledged $1 billion for aged care staff, attacked foreign workers on 457 visas and championed ''Aussie jobs,'' and presided over strong growth in the number of people in jobs.

All for no electoral gain. The only movement in Labor's primary vote was a 1 per cent rise, which is within the poll's margin of error of 2.6 per cent. Neither offers to meet voters' needs nor appeals to their prejudices made any discernible difference. The evidence of the last month is that, as a campaigner, Gillard is ineffectual. So if Gillard can't do it for Labor, who can?

The poll tested the standing of four alternative leaders - Kevin Rudd and the three Gillard ministers most commonly touted as leadership material, Bill Shorten, Greg Combet and Bob Carr.

Asked whether they would prefer Gillard or Rudd, respondents chose Rudd by exactly two-to-one, 62 per cent to 31. His edge over Gillard on this measure has risen by 5 percentage points in the last month. Asked to choose between each of the other three and Gillard, respondents chose Gillard every time.

''The voters are saying, 'if we can't have Kevin Rudd, we'd rather have Julia Gillard over any of the alternatives','' Stirton concludes. In short, there is no realistic option of a ''third candidate'' to lead Labor.

That's sort of the problem, though, isn't it? It's too late to go back to Kevin Rudd because even if they did, they're not going to win. That choice was way back in February 2012, so as far as we can tell, the ALP is accepting it's going to go down with all hands, thank you very much Captain Improbable.

Julia Gillard defiantly says she won't flinch. Well, neither does a corpse, so I don't know how not flinching is going to help.

''I'll just keep getting on with it and dealing with the issues that actually matter and all of this kind of side-commentary can do whatever it does. It's not going to deter me - or distract me.''

Ms Gillard has just emphatically ruled out any prospect of her stepping down before the election, insisting Labor made its decision on leadership when it rejected Kevin Rudd's challenge last year. ''I haven't revisited it since and I won't be revisiting it. The decision's made.''

But, in an expansive exclusive interview with Fairfax Media, Ms Gillard said Mr Rudd would play a prominent role in the election campaign, saying he would be ''asked to participate in the campaign more broadly than his own electorate''.She also indicated she would not resist a return by Mr Rudd to the front bench after the next election, saying: ''It would obviously be a matter for him that I would deal with in the circumstances of the time.''

Good heavens! After the next election when the ALP gets decimated in the polls, it might be only Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard remaining. She sure as heck won't be keeping the leader's seat after she presides over a mess that is likely to go down in history as the mother of all drubbings.

One of the more awful trends in the last few months has been the growing acceptance that come 15th September, it's going to be Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. It's like the 5 stages of grieving. We're done 'Denying' it. We've been 'Angry' for 3years now. Some people are trying to 'Bargain'.

The optimistic conclusion is this: Life under Tony Abbott may not be as bad as we fear. Perhaps. If we're lucky. Assuming he's fair dinkum and his mates don't succumb to the power aphrodisiac.

I forgot to mention the other finding from the German research was things never turn out as well as optimists predict.
Such is life …

This is what we have been reduced to. I guess I'm going straight to 'Depression'. It's going to be very hard to accept Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. There's something so insidiously  wrong about that - but what can you do? Vote of Julia? Puh-lease!

How Rotten Is NSW Politics?

If anything has been busily hammering the nail into the coffin of the Federal ALP, it's been NSW ALP with all the horrible bits and pieces coming out of the ICAC inquiry. For a start, the Morbid Obedity that is being explored doesn't just cover coal; it turns out it covers Ron Medich and the Michael McGurk murder. It even goes far back as Offset Alpine. Eddie Obeid's right in there with Rene Rivkin. (In fact, that mess of course leads to the Caroline Byrne thing but we won't go into that here.  The point of all this is that there was a cabal of people in and out of each other's deals, cleaning up on the scraps left over by government; and Eddie Obeid made sure that he left big scraps on the table and that a sizable portion of the scraps went into his own pockets.)

I seriously wonder if the ALP will survive this scandal. They may not come back for over a decade, both in NSW and Federally. We may be witnessing the end of the ALP. And they would only have themselves to blame.

Oh, let's never forget that Eddie Obeid's support and sway over the NSW Right Faction swung the numbers for Bill Shorten and Mark Arbib to oust Kevin Rudd. Julia Gillard may well wonder why she does so badly in NSW. If she could get her head around our deep disgust, then she might even get her head around flinching in revulsion and resigning.

News That's Fit To Punt - 12/Mar/2013

Cockatoo Island Film Festival Bows Out

It's sort of tragic that the grand visions of an alternative film festival taking root in Cockatoo Island has crashed and burned. Now we find they've burned so bad it's singed to a stump a lot of good will.

Late last year Zitserman and Kazantzidis admitted being devastated by the looming collapse of the festival and stood to lose seven years of work and much of their $500,000 investment that included equipment purchases for subsequent events.

They say there were 34,000 admissions - with both paid and free tickets - to what they hoped would become an internationally recognised festival.

Their company, Cockatoo Institute Ltd, subsequently went into administration. The administrator's report found debts of $1.77 million, with creditors including the trust ($272,000), TriPoint Rigging Services ($91,000), Coates Hire ($72,000), the Australian Taxation Office ($65,000) and Hoyts Cinema Technology ($62,000). It also said the company had ''likely'' traded while insolvent.

A trio of companies associated with the organisers - Cockatoo Enterprises, Cockatoo Film and Dungog Film Festival - were creditors for more than $500,000. Zitserman and Kazantzidis have agreed not to claim these debts under a deed of company arrangement.

At an emotional meeting, creditors voted to accept up to 9¢ in the dollar.

I'm not surprised by any of this given how chaotic and insane the lack of organisation was at the festival. I'm particularly not surprised given that the whole thing was the brainchild of Stavros Kazantzidis.  Still, I sort of hoped it would find some legs and run instead of crash and burn so badly as it has. The interesting bit is perhaps in the numerical description of the failure:

''So why did people not come? My personal view is they didn't come because they didn't know about it - it was badly publicised. It was undoubtedly the worst organised event that has ever happened on Cockatoo Island.''

Bailey says the organisers vastly overstated the attendance.
''The directors were assuring us right up until the last couple of weeks that 53,000 people would definitely be there.''

Instead of the claimed 34,000 admissions over five days, Bailey says that laser counters on the island wharves indicate less than 16,000 came to the island.
This included 5000 for the concerts and 1900 staff and festival volunteers.

''That leaves you with 9000 and, of those, the vast majority were complimentary tickets. Take 2000 on opening night and you're down to 7000.''

Bailey says the trust lost more than $500,000 because of the festival, having paid six ferry operators for a shuttle service to the island every 20 minutes from 8am to 2am to cater for the expected 53,000.

''We were very concerned that we honoured those contracts with those ferry operators because we didn't want to be putting them out. So it's been a very unhappy experience.''

Wow. What a disaster.

There's Incompetent, And Then There's Criminal
The Cockatoo Island Film festival might go down as the biggest disaster in Film Festivals, but Peats Ridge Festival might go down as the biggest snatch-and-grab in the history of festivals in this country.

Mr. Grant’s issued statement reads that despite “an incredible 2012 Peats Ridge Festival… that the income from ticket sales and other sources fell below that required to meet the costs of the event.”

Attendance figures for the 2012 festival are not currently available, but in a simple maths equation, to meet the $1.2 million figure owed to creditors, a little over 3,500 of the $340 Adult 3-day season pass would need to be sold, yet the original creditors report indicates that Peats Ridge declared only $140,000 of its own money on the books, which equals a little over 400 Adult season pass tickets sold.

Surely Peats Ridge were expecting more than that if they had risked booking headliners John Butler Trio for $95,000, and those ticket sales figures do not account for the money earned from the bar; for which Sorted Events, the beverage catering company who provided the bars onsite, are owed a whopping $283,726.

“You can do the simple math from the gate and the bar… and the numbers just don’t add up. This is a job now for the liquidators to do a forensic examination,” says Mal Tulloch of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) – the union representing the artists, performers, and crew still vastly out of pocket who mobilised the decision to re-appoint new administrators.

They are talking about creditors getting about 3cents in the dollar. Peats Ridge Festival has been a dosgy affair for some years now. I've even heard a drummer who played there tell me he didn't get paid and swore he would never play there again. Lots of people have been ripped off for years, and each year they would bankrupt the company and 'phoenix' it to run the festival again and not pay anybody.

The thing is that there's so much of this sort of thing going on and with ASIC never investigating any of these corporate pea-and-shell games, it's not surprising that a guy like Matt Grant's decided it's cool to make it an annual event. They keep talking about tightening laws surrounding phoenix-ing companies, but it never seems to come to pass, and these entities just keep on keeping on. The miracle in this case with the Peats Ridge Festival is that they've managed to dislodge the administrator appointed by Matt Grant.

Wow What a Catastrophe.

Try Connecting This One

Remember that lady who wet missing from the Kings Cross hospital a little while ago and became a kind of social media cause? yes, Belinda Burcham. It turns out she's linked to the Obeids.

Belinda Burcham, the 40-year-old whose week-long disappearance from St Vincent's Hospital earlier this year sparked a massive social media campaign, is alleged to have procured crucial proxy votes which helped Moses Obeid avoid paying a $16.6 million debt to the City of Sydney council.

On August 9 last year, the Herald revealed Moses Obeid, the son of ALP kingpin Eddie, had his debt to the council wiped out after smaller creditors - who included family, friends and associates - voted to accept a Deed of Company Arrangement which meant they would receive only between 1¢ and 3¢ in the dollar for the debts owed to them by his company Streetscape Projects.

So it would seem her disappearance at the time might have had something to do with the small matter of the ICAC investigation into the doings of the Obeid clan.

Peter Gosnell, from website Sydney Insolvency News, who attended the hearing before Justice Paul Brereton, reported that the council contended Ms Burcham advised the former cleaner that the $690 debt owed to her by Streetscape would be paid in full if the cleaner agreed to direct her proxy to vote for the deed of arrangement.

The court also heard that before the meeting Ms Burcham also met creditor Maria Costa, who was told by Ms Burcham that Costa Enterprises' $1000 debt would also be paid in full, rather than the $30 she might receive as a creditor, if she agreed to direct her proxy in favour of the arrangement, Mr Gosnell reported.Moses Obeid has disputed the council's claims in documents filed with the court.Ms Burcham, a long-time friend of Mr Moses and his wife, Nikki, has been employed as the office manager at the Obeid headquarters in Birkenhead Point. Ms Burcham will face Waverley court on Monday charged with several break and enter offences.

Am I the only one that thinks this city needs a thorough cleansing?

Morbid Obeidity

'Obeidity': A New Word For Rampant Corruption

We knew the NSW branch of the ALP has been very odd for a long time. The depths of the corruption that is coming out in the ICAC hearings is at once unsurprising and yet so repugnant. From what we are to understand from the hearings, Eddie Obeid held the NSW Right faction hostage, placed Ian MacDonald ('Sir Lunch-a-lot') in a position where he would have inside knowledge, then used that inside knowledge to stake out a position wherein they would have to be bought out in order for a coal mine to be built, finagled his family trust into owning the mining concern that would win the tender on the back of knowing where the coal was, and by having Ian Macdonald decide who would win the tender. In the process, Ian Macdonald had side deals with Greg Jones and a cast of characters have either opted in (and out); all of it as a result of the shenanigans carried out by Obeid and Ian Macdonald.

The surprising thing in all this is that the fast and furious chopping and changing of Premiers from Morris Iemma to Nathan Rees to Kristina Kenneally may have been done to preserve Obeid's advantages in the various deals and had nothing to do with:

• Points of public policy


• Policy differences on public policy


• Inner ALP politics and machinations for political advantage


• Inner NSW Right factional politics for political advantage.

No, no, no, no, no! Eddie Obeid was pulling strings and throwing his weight around just so he could have his snout firmly entrenched in the comings and goings in these deals. That all the public incredulity and angst about the state of the ALP over these changes had sweet fuck all to do with anything of actual importance. It was all about the Obeids getting more out of the public purse. So, it may well be that since Bob Carr left office as Premier, NSW politics has essentially stood still, unable to do anything because these corrupt toads were  busy filling their own pockets and making out like bandits. And if nothing else it explains how the extremely insufferable and stupid Kristina Kenneally came to be our Premier. The Obeids played us all for suckers and stuck a muppet with hair up there, knowing full well that voting was just some kind of popularity contest when the real deal was the deal making to stuff one's own coffers.

The true tragedy in all this is that the ICAC can't lay charges, and that the DPP won't be able to prosecute the Obeids unto a conviction because the ICAC evidence won't necessarily fit through that tight door into the courtroom. That's right. Eddie Obeid and his family just might get away with all this. I *hate* saying this but the Angry Fat Man is right: this is moral turpitude at its most flagrant worst.

And we're all the poorer for it. All those policy points we've argued about and waited for our government to action, such as public transport or infrastructure spending never really took any part of Eddie Obeid's greedy little mind. It didn't matter who lobbied whom, none of it was ever going to happen (and didn't) because frankly this guy did not give a shit about public policy - at all - And he just rope-a-doped his way through office, hardly turning up, pulling down his salary (and the Parliamentarian superannuation now), just being generally obstructionist so that nothing that got in his way, got done.

So the question today is this: given the Obeid/ICAC thing, the Craig Thomson thing, and the Nova Peris/ Trish Crossin thing, (not to mention the Rudd removal) how can we bring ourselves to even contemplate voting for the ALP in all good conscience? How do we know the next candidate they put up in Dobell to replace Craig Thomson won't be some union hack or some low grade party apparatchik? How do we know Nova Peris won't become a corrupt politician with her snout firmly embedded in the public purse, and un-removable by dint of her ethnicity? Forget high ideals and lights at the top of the metaphorical hill; where the heck are we supposed to find any faith in this mob?

It's bad enough that we're confronted with a 2-Tax Systems Tony Abbott and his attack-poodle-of-death Christopher Pyne. Just what the hell are we supposed to do? Vote for these muthers?