Comments on: Wednesday’s Missing Link

By: crystal

crystal — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 12:50:04 +0000

thank your god or any god that FIJI held together until Our Nic could get her honeymoon over

By: Bannerman

Bannerman — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 21:50:50 +0000

C.L. reads as if he’s a Howardian apologist, all tied up by the strategies of the Blame Game. Heaps of gullibility issues there, methinks.

By: C.L.

C.L. — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 12:53:58 +0000

Don’t tell me, you believe that Royal Commission has been sidelined because of a conspiracy involving John Howard, Keith Windschuttle and Dick Cheney?

By: Chav

Chav — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 12:05:54 +0000

And forgive me for not taking seriously the grievance mongering of somebody who opposes all attempts to discourage human rights abuses in PNG and elsewhere in the Pacific.

You’re forgiven…once the recommendations into the Royal inquiry into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody all those years ago are implemented. Charity begins at home…

By: C.L.

C.L. — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 04:55:22 +0000

You’d be better advised to blame the Indonesian police who forced people to board the vessel - unless, of course, you also subscribe to Tony Kevin’s conspiracy theories. And forgive me for not taking seriously the grievance mongering of somebody who opposes all attempts to discourage human rights abuses in PNG and elsewhere in the Pacific.

By: Chav

Chav — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 22:58:09 +0000

Letting the 352 people aboard the SIEV X drown seems a strange way of going about saving lives C.L…

As for the AWB scandal…wow…actually, I’m not going to even go there…

By: skepticlawyer

skepticlawyer — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 13:44:46 +0000

These are the people who accused you of being drunk when you had the temerity to disagree with them (over what, I can’t recall), IIRC.

It really is bizarro world over there, as Jason says.

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 13:20:07 +0000

The commenters at Leftwrites have some gullibility issues:

The Collective will as espoused by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, is really the only way forward. What is happening in China now isn’t socialism at all, it’s revisionism. They’ll be open capitalists within a few years. The rot set in 30 yrs ago, after the death of the Chairman.

I don’t believe there’s a satiric intent there.

By: C.L.

C.L. — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 12:09:48 +0000

No, they were endangered at sea first by the Labor government’s unwillingness to shut down the people smuggling industry (which Howard has now done, thus saving many lives) and, second, by the actions of a not inconsiderable number of “asylum-seekers” who deliberately sabotaged vessels and did indeed threaten children.

I’ll also take that as a no, you don’t care much about children being abused by PNG police (nor do you believe aid should be contingent upon an improvement in accountability) and yes, you do subscribe to the Quiggin conspiracy theory about the Cole Royal Commission.

I think you do have some gullibility issues.

By: Bannerman

Bannerman — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 12:05:17 +0000

Actually, if you’re after a mega-pretentious album by Pink Floyd, look no further than ‘The Wall’. Biggest flop a band could have. DSotM remains a classic because it isn’t pretentious. It’s imagination run riot to the sound of strings and bells. Pity there weren’t more of it around today.

By: Chav

Chav — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 11:08:07 +0000

or do you think black children up there don’t deserve rigorous accountability measures that ensure their safety and progress?

Sure I do. As long as it isn’t the same “safety and accontability” Aboriginal children enjoy at the hands of Australian police in this country!

By: Chav

Chav — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 11:04:50 +0000

Children were endangered at sea, every government in the world believed Saddam Hussein had WMD (Kevin Rudd even said this was an “empirical fact”) and the AWB was a corporate scandal in which no minister or official of the Crown has been implicated.

Yes, children were endangered at sea, by the Howard government’s inhumane refugee policy.

Every government in the world believed Iraq had WMD’s? You mean, every government in the world said they believed Iraq had WMD’s. Or more likely, many governments wanted a share of the oil and a chance to get in the USA’s good books.

As for your AWB claim…um, yeah, I think you may have some gullability issues…

By: Steve Edney

Steve Edney — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 06:31:11 +0000

Based on Chav’s link we are paying salaries of 149 police for five years. The total salary and acommodation cost alone is $339.6 million (K860 million). However it says Seargants get K12000 per fortnight and constables K7000, if you take an conservative average salary cost of K10000, work out that for 149 for five years we get less than K200 million, I presuming housing costs aren’t all that high, maybe another K100 million, so that leaves us K500 million short of those figures.

By: C.L.

C.L. — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 06:13:07 +0000

Children were endangered at sea, every government in the world believed Saddam Hussein had WMD (Kevin Rudd even said this was an “empirical fact”) and the AWB was a corporate scandal in which no minister or official of the Crown has been implicated. (This settles the latter issue unless, of course, you subscribe to John Quiggin’s conspiracy theory).

Chav, have you any response to the concerns of Human Rights Watch regarding policing and justice in PNG or do you think black children up there don’t deserve rigorous accountability measures that ensure their safety and progress?

By: Chav

Chav — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 06:03:44 +0000

12. Ken Parish

is that government in these places is notoriously corrupt.

Hehehe…, unlike the ‘children-overboard’, ‘WMD’s’ and ‘AWB’ Australian government?

By: Ken Miles

Ken Miles — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 05:58:44 +0000

Winston does present well on tv, and he is also an excellent public speaker. But he’s also New Zealand’s answer to One Nation. He’s all yours.

By: David Rubie

David Rubie — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 05:52:56 +0000

Despite being a left wing Kiwi with a strong dislike of Downer, I’d swap you Peters for Downer any day.

and

He’s Foreign Minister simply because he entered negotiations to support Clark’s minority government in confidence motions after the last election and Foreign Affairs was his price.

I’d still swap. In fact I’m convinced he’s working for the wrong country. At least he shows a bit of nouse and presents well on the telly (Lateline the other night).

By: Chav

Chav — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 05:43:17 +0000

# 10.

“As for Australia’s self-less attitude, how about its AU$ 800 mill contribution to PNG? $734 mill of this used to pay for the Australian Federal Police in PNG.”

You have a link to this assertion?

Yes Geoff, here you go;

http://www.thenational.com.pg/0428/nation1.htm#top

By: Steve Edney

Steve Edney — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 05:27:49 +0000

$734 million for 200 police? They cost $3.6 million each? Where do I sign up?

By: Ken Miles

Ken Miles — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 05:26:40 +0000

Howard isn’t helping himself by continuing to use that clueless halfwit Downer as our foreign minister. He ponces around the pacific as if he’s playing the lead in a Gilbert and Sullivan musical while achieving exactly nothing. If we could swap him to New Zealand for Winston Peters we might be getting somewhere.

Despite being a left wing Kiwi with a strong dislike of Downer, I’d swap you Peters for Downer any day.