sexiest woman room

Carbon trading, eh? How does that work then? Why don't I try and explain it to myself.


Polluting is bad and planting trees is good. For bad read 'negative', and good, 'positive'. To balance the scale a polluter needs to plant trees so that his negative score comes back to a neutral 'zero' value. He won't plant any trees himself of course (not unless the press is there, ha ha). Besides were he to do so who'd need a middleman? And whether we need them or not, God knows we must have middlemen. Sure enough carbon trading is a middleman's wet dream and that's why we're going to get it even if everyone except the middleman has to die in the attempt. Ha, now that I think about it, global warming could happily be described as 'a middle man, his invented product, and the fight to turn us all into buyers and sellers'.

But it is true that polluting is bad and planting trees is good. At least we can all agree on that. Just like we all agreed that Saddam possessing WMD's was bad and that a democratic Iraq would be good. Only some crazy pro-WMD, anti-democracy, tyrant-loving loony would have argued otherwise. And even if we suspected at the time that there was something screwy in amongst the arguments for war, at least it was all for a good cause. And didn't that turn out well! Iraq is now a thriving WMD-free democracy and we only had to kill 5% of the population to do it. And so it is with carbon trading: a few fudged figures, a few billion dollars rorted, but it's all for a good cause and only some crazy environment-hating pollution lover in the pay of Big Oil could possibly speak against it.


Hmm... here's the same argument from a different tack: To say that if global warming was bullshit, some scientist would win fame and fortune by proving it, is worth precisely as much as saying (way back when) that if Saddam didn't have WMD's, some journalist would win a Pulitzer by being the first (and only) guy to say so. So much for that argument. In the run up to the war not a single journalist did the obvious and googled Scott Ritter. Impossibly the world's most famous weapons inspector became a media unperson. And that Pulitzer? Ha ha ha, what's the point of a Pulitzer if you're black-banned from the entire industry? It's not called a 'bloc-media' for nothing. And just like there was a songbook for Iraq's WMD's and everybody had to sing from it, same-same for global warming.

Otherwise never mind the old polluting bad, planting trees good, how about steal from the rich to give to the poor? Did somebody say Robin Hood? How about Double Plus Good! Welcome to carbon trading, wherein finally we all win the lottery. The big fat-cat polluters will have to buy carbon credits and they'll have to come crawling on their knees to the forest owning poor. Who but a crazy pro-rich anti-poor weirdo could be against it? Honestly what's not to like in this idea?


I don't know... how about the fact that it's bullshit? The wealthy of this world would sooner eat their own heads than hand their money over to the poor. Sure enough they won't be doing any such thing. Rather, what they'll be doing is forcing the poor to sign their lives away (at gunpoint if necessary) for some feathers, mirrors, and glass beads. Then they sit and wait. They wait like Alan Greenspan and his proxies waited after they handed out free money to every man jack who couldn't afford a mortgage. Alan and his very good friends didn't care that the loans could never be repaid. They knew how worthless the imaginary money was. They just wanted all the land. Or everyone homeless. Or some combination of the two, now that I think about it. And they got it. Well, not all of it yet but don't worry, they're very patient fellows.

Meanwhile in New Guinea we can see the feathers gag happening in real time (SBS pt 1) (SBS pt 2) (SBS pt 3). And the falsity is beyond obvious. Laws not in place? No idea who the owners are? The ministry in charge of it all so utterly corrupt it was actually disbanded? Doesn't matter! No need to take my word for it, watch that vid and see the pell-mell rush to sign up anybody with a pulse. And the local governor complained to the Australian government about the whole sordid affair did he? Ha ha ha ha ha - Mate, the government of K Rudd is precisely as interested in the crookedness of a land grab in New Guinea as they are in the crookedness of a the land grab in Australia's own Northern Territory. Which is to say, not. Which is to say they're a party to it. K Rudd and the middle men? Best of friends!


Otherwise if you view global warming/cooling as a flat out con suddenly all the inconsistencies and contradictions become no such thing and actually make perfect sense. As our death cult leaders haggle over precisely how little to give to the third world in order to snaffle up what bits of virgin forest remain, the rest of it continues to be cut down at a rate of football fields per hour. If you really want to know where the West's head is at in regard to rainforests etc ask yourself where all that clear-felled Indonesian timber is going. Indonesia? Not bloody likely. It's for us in the fat-cat West. If those disappearing Sumatran forests were truly going to put the PTB's beachside properties under water, we'd spend as much time halting Indonesian freighters carrying timber as we do ships bearing humanitarian supplies bound for Palestine. But we don't do that because the PTB want that timber for the decking of their beachside property (which of course is no more likely to be sunk than the Israelis are to quit being psycho-killers). The cutting down of the rain forests is many things (and all of them fucked) but a global climate changer ain't one of them. Our death cult PTB tells us this themselves.

There will be climate change and no mistake. What's coming is coming. And sure enough, the death cult knows this. Knowledge is power - literally: the words 'know' and 'noble' come from the same root. Our ignoble nobility know what's coming and of course they bend that knowledge to accord with the single thrumming refrain in their head: what's in it for me - it's all about me - me uber alles - if not me, none - me, me, me, ad nauseam. It's all they have and they are nothing if not predictable. And speaking of predictable - Of course they lie and tell us it's for our own good! Of course they stampede us with fear! Always this way! Like these simpleton, one-note, trickster motherfuckers ever pass up a chance? Honestly.


Hey Tricksters! Fuck you! You're bullshit and obvious with it. A tuppence for the lot of you.

Oh, and you can stick your global warming up your arse.

Visitors to this blog divide into those who hang out in the comments and those who don't. I have no opinion either way but occasionally things get written in the comments that are better than whatever was on the front page. Further to that, what with the mere typing of words into a blog functioning as a summoning spell (by way of google), sometimes the things written in the comments take on a life of their own. Plug this into the meagre bits of intelligence one gets from statcounter and things can get curious.

And it's going on right now over in that Xinjiang Hooker thing I wrote a while back. (Hmm... struggling to remember what it was even about now - sex, I expect). Anyway, in the comments there I wondered at a very curious lobby group I'd found that was fighting for the emancipation of... wait for it... Buddhists and Muslims, and specifically those located in the People's Republic of China. Best I can make out, the magic summoning words seem to be 'snow lion foundation' and 'howard g fass', the name of one of the directors of the Snow Lion Foundation. Keep in mind that it's possible that Howard G Fass is the Snow Lion Foundation, but who can tell?

JULY 13, 2009 1:10 PM
nobody said...
Yeah VC, it's the same old story. Do these people really imagine that their money comes from legit sources? Have they not ever heard of the word 'proxy'? Cop a scrute at the Snow Lion Foundation. I came across it whilst looking up Rebiya Kadeer. See if you have any more luck than I did in finding a 'Who We Are' page anywhere in amongst it. In the 'Contact' page? No? Hmm... no one wants to put their name to it, it seems.

Mind you I did find one fellow on their offshoot blog. His name's Howard G Fass. Standing next to him, Rebiya Kadeer seems, I don't know... something other than 'brimming with enthusiasm'? Perhaps she'd just asked Mr Fass if he was as concerned for the occupied Muslims of Palestine as he was for the occupied Muslims of Xinjiang and gotten a curt reply? Who knows?

Otherwise, the Snow Lion foundation seems dedicated to the liberation of whomever is under the yoke of Chinese oppression, and Chinese oppression only. We're vaguely left to assume that they strongly identify with Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists. Like that makes any sense. Whilst who they're fighting for makes no sense, who they're fighting against is crystal clear.

What if I said that Howard G Fass was assigned to the destabilisation of China and he'll identify with whomever suits his cause, and whomever is stupid enough to believe that he's for real.

I could be wrong of course. Perhaps the Muslim/Buddhist cause is one that's very dear to Mr Fass's heart, and he selflessly gives his time, energy, and money not just to the Muslim/Buddhists under a Chinese boot heel, but to all Muslim/Buddhists the world over. In which case anyone thinking he's as crooked as the proverbial should hang their head in shame, apologise, and indeed lead everyone in a rousing chorus of 'For he's a jolly good fellow'.

Howard, if you do happen to pop in, feel free to tell us all that you are so too the right sort of fellow. If you get it right I absolutely promise I'll type out all the lyrics to the aforementioned as a penance for having called you out as bullshit. And you can't say fairer than that!

And then two weeks later Howard's defenders magically turn up.

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009 10:41 PM
Anonymous said...
I worked with Howard g.Fass in Taiwan during the recent typhoon disaster. You are all completely wrong about him, unlike yourselves who just sit back and complain, he actually trys his best to help people and is 100% for real. He worked tirelessly helping to clear away mud and help many people in Ling Bian in Southern Taiwan during the Morokot disaster. I saw it and was there.

Also I would not say that Howard is anti-china in any way. He just thinks the world should stand up for human rights more and challange china more and get them to stop all their terrible killings and murder. Maybe this is the best love that could be offered to the chinese by reminding them that they need to act more human with compassion and love.

Lien Bai

---

SEPTEMBER 4, 2009 2:22 PM
nobody said...
Hello Lien Bai,

How sweet you are, ha ha. As much as I'd like to take you up on this, I suspect you know nothing about Jewish people apart from what they've told you. Which is to say you have no idea.

In spite of your protestations, I resile from nothing.

I notice you didn't address why the 'Snowlion Foundation' has no names attached to it. Nor why they madly seem to be variously sticking up for Buddhists and Muslims both. Did you ever wonder who funds this 'foundation'? And who funded the tireless Mr Fass's trip to Taiwan? As for his standing up for human rights, where does Mr Fass stand on the human rights of the Muslims being oppressed and murdered by Israel and the US (with whom he has far more in common than he does with China)? Or do those countries not need his help like China does? And why might that be exactly?

Otherwise, as much as I'd like to fill you in on the part of the picture you don't understand, I've got better things to do and instead I'll just wish you well.

Thanks for dropping in Lien Bai, all the best!

---

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009 1:03 AM
Dolkar said...
I agree with Lien.

I am a Tibetan nun refugee and I can tell you that whoever works for human rights and religion freedom helps all of humanity no matter what color of skin or religion or country. I am a Buddhist nun and this is the perspective I am coming from. Others may think differently.

Rather than complain or make bad judgements we should first look at the work that is being done and look to see if there is a good heart behind it.

From my side I am grateful to the snowlion foundation and think its standing up for what is good and tries to help all sentient beings who suffer in samsara.

---

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009 3:49 PM
nobody said...
"Rather than complain or make bad judgements we should first look at the work that is being done and look to see if there is a good heart behind it. "

I'm in utter agreement. And DID you look to see if there is a good heart behind it? Just so you know, that 'stripping away' is more or less the point of the exercise at this blog. I'm only ever seeking to more nearly arrive at the truth.

Hmm... it seems that no one from the Snow Lion Foundation itself has popped in here to stick up for themselves - only proxies. Go figure - In a discussion that is as much about the role of proxies as it is about anything else, a couple of proxies turn up to say it ain't so.

I'll concede that it's possible that you two people might actually be what you say you are. If that is the case, tell those Snow Lion folks to pop in here and lay out how their resemblance to a destabilisation of China psy-op is purely coincidental, [and] that they are so too for real. And I'll stick my tuppence worth in too. And then you can just sit back, watch the to and fro, and see if I don't make you wonder at who these people are and why they appear to be helping you.

Here's something I'll tell you for free - In this wicked geopolitical world we live in, it's a cold hard certainty that dissident groups will be funded, if not founded outright, by the CIA (and Mossad and MI6 etc. etc.) in order to bring down regimes the West doesn't like. And believe it or not they'll lie about it. And yes, appear really credible while they're at it. Believe it or not, they can walk and chew gum at the same time.

But all of that is provided you are who you say you are. I have nothing to go on one way or another apart from your say-so. But these things are figure-outerable and I'm getting better at it. Feel free to pile back in and establish yourselves one way or the other.

best regards,

n

Interesting, huh? But what do we know of our two commenters? Know for sure, that is? It's poor of me I admit, but I can all too easily imagine an individual given to lying defending his rep by pretending to be other people. For a liar this would be a logical choice since it would mean: being above the fray; not having to answer any direct questions; added weight by way of appearing to be the consensus of a group; and all the time being possessed of a borrowed cloak of Buddhist unimpeachability. All stock in trade for a spook.

And sure enough our second Howard-defender's first utterances are to express solidarity with the first Howard defender. Do we roll our eyes yet?

Back to the know-for-sure: neither of these two had any opinion on anything expressed in the article; they just wanted to talk about things connected with Fass and his foundation. Which means they dropped in directly via google searches. Between the two google-able handles of 'snow lion foundation' and 'howard g fass', it's possible that the former delivered people to that blog page. It's just that I've never seen a search for it in my statcounter. (It should be kept in mind that with the free statcounter cache of 500 entries I might well have missed it).

But to hell with that, the searches for 'howard g fass' have been unmissable, beaten only by 'fuck dolls', 'dave mcgowan', and 'impossible riddle' in the popularity stakes. And all from the same address in the US. Without declaring any certainty in the matter, I reckon the person most likely to be looking up 'howard g fass' in google is Howard G Fass himself. I mean, honestly.

And so! Never mind the proxies, I reiterate my call for Howard G Fass to come on down and pile in. C'arn Howard! Make my day! I'm sure I'm not the only one here who'd love to have you explain to us how the Snow Lion's Foundation's resemblance to a CIA/Mossad destabilisation psy-op is purely coincidental. We'd also like to hear you explain to us how it does-so-too make sense for a man who shares the religious beliefs of the most anti-Muslim nation in the world to be sticking up for Muslims, albeit geographically specific ones. Feel free to include something about the long and proud tradition of organisations fighting for the interests of two religions, neither of which has a single thing in common apart from their oppressor, and that also happen to be run by a fellow who isn't a member or either of those religions. I'm sure there's been many, many.

Just to give you fair warning, all those niceties and assumed considerations you might receive in mainstream forums will be absent here. Also keep in mind that in this neck of the woods, we're pretty ofay on all things spooky. We're a tough audience and we've been doing it for years.

That being said, you might be for real. It is possible you can give an account of yourself that makes sense. And I'd love to hear it! Honestly! Watch me admit I was wrong and type out those Jolly Good Fellow lyrics. If you can pull it off, that is. As much as I'd like to see what that picture will look like, somehow I just don't think you'll be able to paint it.

But never mind - what with me being a helpful fellow, may I point out what I think your options are?

1. Stay away. This is the spook's smart money bet, mate. You tried the proxies, they got short shrift, so what are you going to do? Best you just shrug and put up with it. Not forgetting of course that the teapot for this tempest consists solely of the comments section of a weeny few-hundred-hits-a-day blog. Oh, okay, I admit it's on the front page now, what with me being spurred by the google action, but still: It is the smart money and it's never too late to ignore a thing that's only going to get uglier otherwise.

2. Pile in! Not only is this the obvious thing to do but it's exactly what they'll expect, ha ha. My advice - Do it! Defend your good name and all of that. You've got two routes here -
A) The high dudgeon thing - sputter, say it's all lies, call me an anti-Semite (I recommend double apostrophes around "nobody" to denote sneering), question my education, intelligence, and sanity, declare I'm on drugs, stomp off.
B) Adopt a measured tone and act disappointed and regretful - BYO straw men and proxies, knock down straw men, have proxies declare you are great, ignore everything else, declare victory, leave.
C) A combination of A and B, ha ha. Oh wait, is that three things? Damn.
Motivation: How would a real campaigner for Buddhist/Muslim rights feel?

And yes, I am a cocky bastard. But never mind, best just to view it as enthusiasm. And you can't blame me: I figure I've got you in a double bind - damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's good sport isn't it? But when you signed up for the spook caper you didn't think it'd be easy did you? You want to be challenged don't you?

Excellent. Here we are.

Today's Question -
The difference between swine flu and regular flu is... ?
(answer below)



Yep, I have 'flu-like symptoms'. Whilst I haven't been to the doctor (and nor shall I bother), I'm just going to take it as read that I have the dread lurgy swine flu. Dread lurgy or no, it seems the only sensible response is to wig out and go completely batshit. Mind you, that's not to say that I can't wail, gnash my teeth, run melancholy mad, and type at the same time. With my brain as Pandora's box, it seems the only thing left is the autonomic qwerty function.

I expect you're probably sitting there thinking, 'Wah! Nobody you are really great!'. Well, yes I am, and modest with it, but you might want to think again. Because if you've read this far, and you're not wearing a mask, you're infected too. Sucked in! You didn't know that you can catch swine flu merely by reading an infected blog did you? Well you can. What with running melancholy mad, I figure if I'm going to die screaming (and typing), I may as well take you all with me. Don't argue, the Jim Jones logic is iron clad. Anyway, you've only a few hours left and as soon as you've finished here you should rush out and get that CD of Larry King reading the old testament.

You, me, Larry King, we're all fucked. It's a pandemic! BTW - the word pandemic is a combination of 'dem' which means 'people' and 'panic' which means 'panic'. Therefore, everyone must go bonzo zonko. I certainly am. Right this minute, I am at the public library nude from the waist down with a bowl of blancmange clapped on my head singing the Yah Di Bucketty song. As I type, sure enough. In between times I periodically yell, 'Back off man! I've got swine flu and I'm not afraid to cough!"

Seriously though, swine flu (otherwise known by its kosher name of H1N1) is so singular and horrific that everything we ever knew about flu, or illness, or anything at all, must now be thrown out the window. If swine flu makes no sense, then clearly it's your common sense that's coming up short.

There is only one way to view swine flu and that is with your brain locked in a paroxysm of fear. Which goes some way in explaining how otherwise sensible people like Lee Lin Chin on Australia's SBS news thought it right to declare that the swine flu toll in Australia now stands at 1400 or so. Um, Lee Lin, as much as I admire that Hong Kong private school clipped enunciation of yours, your English actually leaves a lot to be desired. This on account of the fact that 'toll' means 'number of dead people'. As you and I both know, the actual 'toll' of swine flu in Australia is 'zero'. Or to express it as a percentage, that would be, um... zero.



Apparently, the concept of zero was a very late arrival in the field of mathematics. Funnily enough, I just recently saw a documentary by Terry Jones (my second favourite Monty Python member) that charted the whole history of zero. But it seems that Jones failed to consider another theory as to why it took so long for humans to get their heads around the concept. What if the very thought of zero filled the human mind with terror and gave people a variety of brain freeze? That would certainly explain why every single person on the telly here, keen to tell us how big a deal swine flu is, baulks at mentioning that not one single person has died from it.

Okay, okay, people have died from swine flu. What's the toll in the US now? Mysteriously it's no longer being mentioned in the news. Somehow I suspect that it's not as high as the 30,000 or so who die in every other regular flu season. Would I be right in thinking that the US toll isn't so much in the tens of thousands, or thousands, or hundreds, but actually in the tens? The low tens? Funnily enough this would qualify swine flu as a something very special - the least fatal flu ever.

Oh, wait, that spot would have to belong to bird flu. Anyone remember that? It was going to kill us all. It was such a big deal that when I went to Shanghai for a job at the height of the bird flu scare, everyone thought I was crazy - even the Chinese, ha ha. I remember sitting in a Hainan-Chicken restaurant with a dozen guys all keen to know if I wasn't scared of catching bird flu. I merely asked them if they knew anyone with bird flu, or even if they knew anyone who knew anyone with bird flu. Ha, a table full of Chinese boys scratching their heads. Perhaps bird flu is bullshit, boys. You ever think of that?



And then there was the head of Vietnam's bird-flu programme who declared that the bird flu 'cure', Tamiflu, was precisely as efficacious as a placebo and, to all intents and purposes, completely worthless. Bloody foreigners! What would they know? Best we pay them no attention. I wonder if Donald Rumsfeld, a major shareholder in Gilead, the makers of Tamiflu, got on the phone and had that tiresome gook killed? Says our Donald - "We'll teach him to forget who won the war!"

Never mind those worthless foreign jibber-jabberers, how about that virologist at the Australian National University? He declared the swine flu virus was man-made, the product of a lab. That story made the Melbourne Age and then sank without a trace. Quite right too. Bloody experts! What would they know? As for his theorising that the virus must have escaped from the lab accidentally, um... yeah, it's not a complete impossibility I suppose. But between that and the virus being deliberately released by murderous motherfuckers, it's pretty long odds. Hey Prof! Stick to the viruses mate. Leave the theorising about murderousness, or lack thereof, to people who don't have their heads glued to a microscope.

Like Aangirfan! Sure enough, everyone's favourite school girl collective had this thing pegged as a psy-op on day one. And given the inverse ratio of hype to actuality you'd have to say the Caledonian convent crew are right. But a psy-op to what end? As yet another episode in the perpetual instillment of fear, it's looking like something of a washout. With the zero death rate here, Australians (or those who don't have an autocue in front of them) aren't taking much of it seriously. The TV news briefly carried a story of people having 'swine flu parties', à la kids and measles. Sure enough some party-pooper health official drone declared that this was a bad idea. Good luck with that, mate! Between you and zero, only one of them isn't bullshit.

But wondering at the psy-op, it seems the question is - have the death cult PTB got it wrong? Were they hoping that more would die? Right this minute, are the creators of this virus being scolded? "You told us that this would have a 25% mortality rate! What do we pay you for? We'd be better off with monkeys!" Or perhaps the psychological warfare mob are copping it? "You told us that there would be mass panic! What do we pay you for, etc. etc."

Or perhaps this dip in public credibility is intended - so that when the predicted (which is to say 'prepared') mutation arrives and the bodies start piling up, the effect will be even stronger? "See, we warned you about this and you didn't take us seriously and you were off having your silly parties while we were busy building internment camps and now you've only yourselves to blame if you're behind barbed wire."

But who knows how all this will go? Not me. All I know is that I have the flu. Okay, so let's times me by 1400 and we've got a bigger number. Now times it by zero. Hmm... 1400 x 0 = 0. Put this with zero WMD's, and with zero al qaeda, and perhaps we can make a rule? Nobody's media rule - Media hype is in inverse proportion to reality. Which is to say, the bigger the story and the more people there are intent on telling us that we must be scared, the greater the likelihood, and degree, of bullshit. Ha! Never mind the bowl of blancmange, I'm a bloody genius!



Answer to today's question - Beats me!

I look after my father who has cancer, amongst various other things. His physical ailments are one thing, him losing his mind is another. My life has officially become a tough gig. I wondered if this madness might not be a metaphor? The speed of his descent into incoherency has been something to behold. Same-same, the world. Or is that too simplistic? And really, the world was always thus. Even the 'good war' was bullshit. Certainly every war he ever fought in was - white people v coloured people, hip hip hooray. But then I wonder, with my eyes adjusted to the glare of new stark relief, if he wasn't always mad then too.


Perhaps his madness isn't a metaphor so much as simple cause and effect. As we sit and watch the SBS news (the only thing we watch on the TV that isn't sport, sport, and more sport) and I explain the enormity of the endless lies we're told, everything he took as certainty crumbles beneath him. All of it, everything, even Pearl Harbour was bullshit for chrissakes. If everything you knew was false, why not abandon reason and behave like an infant? Mad in a sane world, or sane in a mad world. Who can tell the difference?

Or perhaps this smashing of understandings has nothing to do with anything. His mad watching of Fox Sport's fifteen minute recycles forty times a day is only a small step from his previous never-miss-a-game. It's just that back then he knew what he was watching. He now longer knows now. I've ceased asking him who's playing or what the score is. He has no idea. And I'm now given to thinking that the sneaky wilfulness in what he does, and doesn't do, remembers, and doesn't remember, is just a red herring. Alzheimers does that.

But courses are being plotted here and the curves match too well for me to ignore them. Parabolic accelerations match and multiple end-points are all nearing simultaneous arrival. The timing is spooky. I know what the end point of Alzheimers is. My maternal grandmother had it. She ended up a gibbering vegetable who would spit out anything that wasn't chocolate custard. My father is nearing this point and then he'll die. I won't describe the world-as-we-know-it doing similar things. You all get it, I'm sure.

But then there's us too. We the sane in the mad world, the mad in the sane, whatever. Our arc is accelerating too and as the madness and lies reach new dizzying heights, the clearer we become. And then what? We all die? What sort of crummy metaphor is that?


I admit I'm muddying things here, but how about this - We've been travelling through a mad labyrinth, with every step taking us further into absurdity. It's been dream-like hasn't it? Our disillusion (I use this word with great care) has brought us lucidity, but not to the point where we can control anything. All it's done is made the absurdity clearer. And whilst the endpoint is sharpening it's still fuzzy. But the end of the tunnel is in sight. Forget Tricky Dick's bullshit analogy. There was no light then, and there's no light now. What we see is the darkness at the end of the tunnel. And how we all fear this thing! The nightmare isn't over - just its prelude. God help us all.

-

Going sideways momentarily, did anyone see a piece linked by WRH that pivoted on a poker game metaphor? It caught my eye because I briefly mentioned poker myself in the last piece. The writer compared poker to capitalism. A poker game can only continue whilst some of the players still have chips. But if one of the players takes all the chips, the game is over. He asked, how will capitalism continue? Ha ha ha ha. Is this a difficult question? I thought the answer was obvious - it won't continue. The poker game was not the end in itself, merely the means to it. The end was to render everyone penniless, put them in debt, and make them slaves. The guy whose game it was, will own them. He no longer needs the game. Medieval slavery is way more fun than capitalism poker.


Now the losers need merely stagger out of the smoke-filled room, and into the alley filled with garbage and the stink of urine. Where did the hookers go? And the free drinks? Iggy Pop's I want to be your dog kicks in as the penniless losers crash through the door and vomit. And as they're doubled up, a pitiless thug tells them their future, 'We own you.'

-

And so we will all arrive. And me. And my father. Arrival, Departure, it's hard to tell the difference. Same helvetica signage, same blue/green decor, same announcements over the loudspeakers, 'Attention. Passengers. Departing. Arriving. Please. Proceed.' Either way, we'll all leave where we are and be somewhere else.


That's that darkness at the end of the tunnel. I don't know that struggling to stay in the labyrinth will serve any purpose. Like the writer above who sounded like he was going to miss the poker he'd spent his whole life playing. Boo hoo. Sure, we don't know precisely what the darkness is. Conrad's horror, maybe? But let's not be so clever. Let's be simpletons. The darkness is the night. Shifting cloud cover aside, the stars are still in the firmament, as beautiful as ever. Certainly the self-proclaimed gods would have this moonless dark last forever. They are without doubt creatures of the night. Perversity's natural element was always darkness. But this eternity they dream of is a fool's errand. The only certainty is change. No night lasts forever. Paraphrasing Hemingway, the sun always rises.

Me, I am prepared. I have shed nearly everything. I quit whatever this bullshit game was years ago. The only thing I have not shed is my father. Buddha left his wife and kids you know. Happily they were in a palace, so no biggie. But what if Siddhartha Gautama and his family had been living on the footpath with him as their only hope? Would he have gone on to become Buddha? Who knows? He didn't have to answer this question. Nor do I need to. And I ain't Buddha, ha ha. But me as Buddha wannabe aside, my father will die soon enough. His deterioration is quite rapid now.

When this happens my last tether will be gone. I will become a 'slippery little sucker'. It's alright for me, sure. Many of you reading this have children. Me, I have no kids. This breaks my heart, sure, but it's a blessing too. But then again, having kids is both of these things as well. Kids was the first objection I heard against my plans of having my friends and I quit the city and make a collective farm. The precise words were - 'We have kids in school'. Sure. I still think pulling them out and taking them to the country was a good idea. Kids are tougher than you think. Some of these kids are my nieces and nephews. Not literally, but I love them just the same and they break my heart regardless. But I'm not their parent, and far be it from me to say what's best for them. All I can do is speak for myself.


And me, I'm going to step into the dark, into that fresh unknown. I already barely exist in this labyrinth. The only piece of paper with my name on it is my passport. In this bullshit white man's world I'm an impossibility. I'm only here for, and because of, my father. His name is on lots of pieces of paper and he enables me to live in this fashion. (For the record, I qualify for a carer's pension. God knows how many people have told me I should take it. I tell them that I don't need it. There's nothing I want to buy and I don't wish to jump through government hoops or otherwise be controlled. This is a bit of a conversation stopper.) Anyway I wondered if having my food and shelter provided by my father was parasitic of me. But this was driven by me wondering what I would do without it. Sure enough, if I want to live in this white man's land, not being ensnared in the web of money, bills, taxes, debt, and enslavement is impossible. Living under a bridge and trawling the garbage is your only option.

This was the darkness at the end of my particular tunnel. Or so I imagined. But lately an answer has presented itself. And it's so fucking obvious. The answer is to quit the white man's world. I shall step out of the labyrinth into a place of my own choosing. To the north of me here, not far away, are 25,000 islands. I have friends who've lived there and plan to go back. They tell me it's do-able and I'm the man to do it. They tell me it's possible to live there for pennies. It's not dangerous, or scary, or any other thing the bullshit media would have us believe. In these places, the end of the world will be met with a shrug. The rain will still fall. The fruit will still grow. And the kids will still run around laughing their heads off. Anyone untethered can do this.

And yeah, I get the double meaning. Yoroshiku.

Pity the poor Australian Federal Police. The headline on today's front page of the Murdoch broadsheet The Australian is about as damning as it gets. 'AFP - no evidence against Haneef'. Haneef was the terrorist we had to have. He had brown skin, a funny name, and a ticket out of the country. As evidence the AFP presented a scrap of paper on which one could clearly read the letter 'p', a half eaten strawberry yogurt containing Haneef's DNA, and a shoelace. Just joking. They didn't have any evidence at all. Actually there was a shoelace but it belonged to a cop. It was on his shoe. And give the guy a break. It's not easy trumping up evidence.

AFP footwear aside, it was all bullshit. Just like Bill Keelty, the head of the AFP. I doubt there's a single man in Australia who deserves the sack more than this bullshit artist. Please imagine the following yelled at top volume - "KEELTY! Hang your head in SHAME! You are an abject DISGRACE! Who needs criminals when we have FUCKERS like you running around?! I call you CORRUPT to your face! RESIGN KEELTY RESIGN!"


Fucking arsehole... sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, in honour of Haneef's innocence (and because the original piece copped a hit in my statcounter thus reminding me of its existence) I'm reprinting a thing I wrote way back when. I apologise to long-timers who've read it already. But I got a laugh out of reading it again and maybe they will too. Yoroshiku.

---

I make a very serious terrorist threat

Attention - Australian Federal Police, ASIO and other assorted terrorist-hunting task-forces of Australia. This is not a hoax - It is precisely as real as everything you've ever been told about terrorism.


I have planted a bomb - lots of them actually. Don't laugh. This is serious.

You may now rejoice. Finally a real terrorist! Let the hunt begin! So that you may know that I'm for real I shall precisely adhere to your long experience of real terrorists. Which is to say, what you've seen in the movies and on the telly. To this end I am leaving clues just like a real cinema-terrorist leading you to an impossibly complicated cinema-bomb. Er... bombs, sorry.


In the spirit of these impossible villains of Hollywood I will make impossible demands of you. You must run around and do them all or EVERYBODY DIES! Here is my list of demands -

Google - bomb in san lazaro
Google - michael meiring bomb philippines
Google - john martinkus dateline abdurrahman wahid bomb
Google - liquid bomb myth
Google - july 7 bomb peter power
Google - charles menezes witness discrepancy
Google - 911 senior military intelligence law enforcement
Google - al qaeda threat adam gadahn pearlman

I demand that you read every article on the first google page. And the second. And the third. Feel free to follow other links and pursue you own lines. These articles contain all the clues as to the certain reality of the threat that I represent. Do not wonder, not for a second, that nothing makes sense. Do not wonder that it's all bullshit. Do you wonder at the WMD's in Iraq? Of course not.

Don't think, just do what I command. Lives are at stake! And certainly do not ask yourself - 'When was the last actual terrorist attack in this country? Surely it couldn't have been that stick of gelignite in a garbage bin outside the Hilton Hotel thirty years ago?' That was before half of you were even born. Dismiss it as a dim memory. Know that the terrorism you have been told is real - IS REAL. The lack of any actual terrorist attacks in this country, or even half credible plots, is neither here nor there. You are not running around wasting your time and the taxpayer's money for nothing. You are not part of some insane fear-mongering hoax. It's all real.


I am real. I am here. Making threats! I am proof-positive that your government, or whoever the fuck it is, is not making this shit up. I demand that my file be named - TERRORIST THREAT HEFFALUMP. Clues as the very real nature of the Heffalump threat can be found in the pages of the subversive terrorist manual Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne. So that you may know what Heffalumps look like, the manual contains precise depictions by Ernest Shepard. Study them hard and know that terror is real. I demand that you write long detailed reports on the precise threat of Heffalumps. I demand that you sit in meetings and make contributions about how we might address the Heffalump threat. I demand that you contribute to the WAR ON HEFFALUMPS.

As the impossible mad bomber, I will now taunt you in a cinematic fashion. I laugh at all your mad capering around, arresting people on trumped-up bullshit charges. That bullshit Haneef case! Ha ha ha ha ha. Were you not ashamed by that? Was that not a slur on you and your whole organisation? Look to your boss, Bill Keelty, he has the answer to such embarrassment - Secret Trials! Feel proud that you are doing your bit to have your country join that hallowed list of 'Nations That Conduct Secret Trials'. Follow your leader. He has secret knowledge. Trust him. He is leading you to a new place. It's called Australia apparently. Who knew?


Whatever you thought Australia was, you were wrong. The new Australia is, bravely, all about fear. You know that fear. It's the fear a man has that if he stands up and says, 'This is all bullshit!', he'll get the sack. Do you know what I'm talking about? I suspect that you do. Ask Andrew Wilkie. Alright for him, says you, he doesn't have a mortgage. Between the fear of being sacked and of not making the mortgage payments, and the fear of me, the impossible terrorist - you can choose both! I, the terrible Heffalump, will keep you in a job. Of course you will chase me. Even if I didn't exist you would do so anyway. You have no choice.

Or do you? What is that nagging voice in your head? It's annoying isn't it? It says maybe all this is bullshit. It picks at inconsistencies in what the government tells you. Don't listen to it! It's only common sense. It's only you wondering at what kind of people we are becoming and what kind of place Australia is now. All those ads and posters telling us to dob in our neighbours - Is that us? Is this my country?


Pay no attention to that questioning voice! Stuff it back in its box. Relax safe in the knowledge that if you pursue these impossible terrorists long enough, they will appear! Kick in enough doors, raid enough mosques, humiliate enough people and lo-and-behold they will fucking hate you! Finally you'll be able to take that idiot phrase 'They hate us for our freedom' and smash it, bend it, stretch it into shape to explain their behaviour. That no man ever hated another for their freedom, only for their oppression, can be consigned to the scrap heap of common sense in your head. Like I said, Forget Common Sense. It will do you no good and certainly not pay your mortgage.

It will certainly not assist you in chasing me. Nor in finding the bomb. Er... bombs, sorry. It's important that you view everything I've written here as being a Very Serious Threat. I am not taking the piss. Dismiss that thought from your head. I am real. I am nobody. I am the mad terrorist Heffalump of your imagination. If you want to know how mad and irrational I am, know this - I Have No Fear. In a nation full of fearful people I am clearly insane and must be stopped.

Now boys, get to work and arrest me. Don't forget the requisite and absurdly expensive government media campaign telling us how fearful we should all be. I demand the following slogan -