A South African farmer and three others have been charged with murder, accused of feeding an ex-worker to lions, after police found a human skull and pieces of a leg in a lion enclosure — via Die Puny Humans
The Union Network International, representing 15 million workers worldwide, has hit out at US-based security multinational Chubb over its actions in East Timor [BugMeNot]. The public condemnation of the company follows the sacking of 32 local workers who were employed in cleaning and security areas for Chubb’s client in Dili, the World Bank. The union claims that the workers were removed after they took strike action as a means of disputing a company attempt to cut wages by 30%. The union also claims that the company has sought to re-hire the workers but only if they eschew union membership and sign individual contracts accepting a significant wage cut. These measures are believed to be in contravention of East Timor law and fall short of complying with international labour laws
Former Utah Governor Mike Leavitt signed Utah’s 2.4 million residents up for a pilot program — MATRIX, Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange — that gathers dossiers on every single man, woman and child and didn’t bother to tell anyone. The Utah legislature is trying to figure out how to get the state out of the program but the question is how was the Governor able to enroll the whole state without anyone knowing
Greens Senator Kerry Nettle today endorsed the comments of World Bank president James Wolfensohn who has criticised the pursuit of bilateral trade deals such as the US/Australia Free Trade Agreement as bad for the world economy
British and American intelligence services look set to share the blame for the spectacular failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The retarded monkey boy is set to order a whitewash campaign aimed at passing the buck to the CIA, while Blair is blaming MI6
Coca-Cola has stated that it is to end the practice of product advertising [BugMeNot] on vending machines in schools in the UK. The move follows a similar statement covering Scotland, and is seen as a response to the growing mood against product promotions aimed at children during a period of growing childhood obesity
The retarded monkey boy and Prime Minister Tony Blair are among nominees for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize before a Sunday deadline for nominations despite failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Nobel watchers say Bush or Blair’s chances of winning are close to nil. The 2002 prize went to ex-US President Jimmy Carter, who argued against war. The head of the Nobel committee called the choice a kick in the legs
to Bush on Iraq
Yellowstone National Park’s riverside cottonwoods stopped growing in the mid-1920s and 1930s. Same with willows and aspen. Shoots sprang up, lingered awhile, but never matured. Park officials suspected elk were eating the new growth, but culling the herd did not help. Beginning in the late 1990s, however, things suddenly began to change. The elk moved away from the streams, and trees and willows began to grow. Researchers wondered why. They ruled out drought, flood, fire or climate change. Only one answer remained. Wolves
In a move unprecedented in US history, the retarded monkey boy‘s Justice Department has indicted an entire organisation — Greenpeace — for the peaceful protest activities of its members. For years, Greenpeace have been working to halt environmental destruction and human rights abuses by criminal enterprises in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. In April 2002, miles off the coast of Florida, two Greenpeace activists boarded a ship that was carrying wood illegally exported from the Brazilian Amazon. Their goal was to hang a banner that said President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging
. But instead of intercepting the contraband and prosecuting the smugglers, the Government now has charged Greenpeace with crimes for boarding the ship
John Pilger: I am a reporter, who values bearing witness. That is to say, I place paramount importance in the evidence of what I see, and hear, and sense to be the truth, or as close to the truth as possible. By comparing this evidence with the statements, and actions of those with power, I believe it’s possible to assess fairly how our world is controlled and divided, and manipulated — and how language and debate are distorted and a false consciousness developed
Telstra has established a branded IT hub in the Indian city of Bangalore — part of its move to cut its $1.5 billion information technology budget in half
As it’s the Australia Day long weekend and the vast majority of us will shortly decend into a three day drunk, it’s time to share the Australian Manifesto with the world before the keyboard starts to get blurry:
We are the people of a free nation of blokes, sheilas and the occasional wanker. We come from many lands (although a few too many of us come from New Zealand), and although we live in the best country in the world, we reserve the right to bitch and moan about it whenever we bloody like. We are One Nation but divided into many States.
First, there’s Victoria, named after a queen who didn’t believe in lesbians. Victoria is the realm of Mossimo turtlenecks, cafe latte, grand final day, and big horse races. Its capital is Melbourne, whose chief marketing pitch is that
it’s liveable. At least that’s what they think. The rest of us think it is too bloody cold and wet.Next, there’s NSW, the realm of pastel shorts, macchiato with sugar, thin books read quickly and millions of dancing queens. Its capital Sydney has more queens than any other city in the world and is proud of it. Its mascots are Bondi lifesavers that pull their Speedos up their cracks to keep the left and right sides of their brains separate.
Down south we have Tasmania, a State based on the notion that the family that bonks together stays together. In Tassie, everyone gets an extra chromosome at conception. Maps of the State bring smiles to the sternest faces. It holds the world record for a single mass shooting, which the Yanks can’t seem to beat no matter how often they try.
South Australia is the province of half-decent reds, a festival of foreigners and bizarre axe murders. SA is the state of innovation. Where else can you so effectively reuse country bank vaults and barrels as in Snowtown, just out of Adelaide (also named after a queen). They had the Grand Prix, but lost it when the views of Adelaide sent the Formula One drivers to sleep at the wheel.
Western Australia is too far from anywhere to be relevant. It’s main claim to fame is that it doesn’t have daylight saving because if it did, all the men would get erections on the bus on the way to work. WA was the last state to stop importing convicts and many of them still work there in the government and business.
The Northern Territory is the red heart of our land. Outback plains, sheep stations the size of Europe, kangaroos, Jackaroos, emus, Uluru, and dusty kids with big smiles. It also has the highest beer consumption of anywhere on the planet and its creek beds have the highest aluminium content of anywhere too. Although the Territory is the centrepiece of our national culture, few of us live there and the rest prefer to flyover it on our way to Bali.
And there’s Queensland. While any mention of god seems silly in a document defining a nation of half arsed sceptics, it is worth noting that god probably made Queensland, as its beautiful one day and perfect the next. Why he filled it with dickheads remains a mystery.
Oh yes and there’s Canberra. The less said the better.
We, the citizens of Oz, are united by Highways, whose treacherous twists and turns kill more of us each year than murderers. We are united in our lust for international recognition, so desperate for praise we leap in joy when a rag tag gaggle of corrupt IOC officials tells us Sydney is better than Beijing. We are united by a democracy so flawed that a political party albeit a redneck gun toting one, can get a million votes and still not win one seat in Federal Parliament. Not that we’re whingeing, we leave that to our Pommy immigrants…
We want to make
no worries mateour national phrase,she’ll be right mateour national attitude andWaltzing Matildaour national anthem (so what if it’s about a sheep-stealing crim who commits suicide). We love sport so much our newsreaders can read the death toll from a sailing race and still tell us who’s winning.
And we’re the best in the world at all the sports that count, like cricket, netball, rugby league and union, AFL, roo shooting, two up and horse racing.
We also have the biggest rock, the tastiest pies, and the worst dressed Olympians in the known universe. Only in Australia can a pizza delivery get to your house faster than an ambulance. Only in Australia do we have bank doors wide open, no security guards, or cameras but chain the pens to the desk.
Stand proud Aussies — we shoot, we root, we vote. We are girt by sea and pissed by lunchtime. Even though we might seem a racist, closed minded, sports obsessed little people, at least we feel better for it.
I am, you are, we are Australian!
We also shoot and eat the two animals that are on our national coat of arms. No other country has this distinction!
I’d love to know the origin of this, seems a shame to not be able to give it due credit.
Almost 500 Australian information technology jobs could shift to India under a new deal between Telstra and IBM worth up to $200 million and will save the telco about $75 million
Customers of the nation’s five leading banks are unwittingly being siphoned of their savings online, after logging on to official internet banking web sites. Federal police are investigating the latest international banking scam involving the use of online trojans to steal personal account details via computers, which don’t have anti-virus protection
The so-called Patriot Act II was discovered last year and the public outcry that ensued was enough to get the bill tossed out the window. One of the goals of that act, however, has made it into law under the radar of the community at large. The retarded monkey boy has Intelligence Authorisation Act for Fiscal Year 2004 (the relevant section is 374) into law, which among other things, grants the FBI the power to obtain financial information without a court order from a judge. It also expands the definition of financial information
to include business such as car dealerships, jewellery stores and insurance companies. The law prevents the business that hands over the information to the FBI from telling their customer about the request
Australians travelling to the US are being told to be honest about any past crimes or misdemeanours, no matter how trivial or how long ago, or face deportation, and even fraud charges, on their arrival. In tandem with the anti-terrorism crackdown in the US, existing visa conditions are being more strictly enforced. Anyone with a record of offences such as drink-driving or shoplifting, even as long as decades ago, is compelled to reveal his or her personal history in a visa application. From Monday, in further measures, visitors to the US who have a visa to enter the country will be digitally fingerprinted and photographed. In a backlash against US government xenophobia, Brazilian police have begun fingerprinting and photographing US visitors on orders of a judge who compared planned US security controls on travellers from Brazil and other nations to Nazi horrors
Tim Berners-Lee has been promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for coming up with the world wide web that we all use. Characteristically modest, he said that he was an ordinary person who created something that just happened to work out
A Dutch invention is promising to make vehicles at least 50% more efficient and also bring down the soot and carbon dioxide emissions. This is made possible by replacing the conventional wheels by in-wheel electric engines which are normal electric engines turned inside out. No transmission is necessary as the in-wheel engines are powered by battery-packs installed on the vehicle. A diesel-powered generator which replaces the original engine on the vehicle charges the battery-pack continuously. The Dutch company E-Traction has built a bus using this technology that will undergo testing for the next six months
Vancouver is facing the worst outbreak of syphilis per capita in the developed world, with city health officials fearful of a looming epidemic of the sexually transmitted disease once thought almost wiped out in North America
Having learned nothing from the UK beef industry’s battle with BSE, the US agribusiness mouthpiece has announced that not only was the suspected animal still slaughtered for human consumption, but its remains went back into the food chain as animal feed. Nice head in the sand tactics, guys
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