Lovely story about a true warrior:
"In those bleak moments when the lost souls stood atop the cliff, wondering whether to jump, the sound of the wind and the waves was broken by a soft voice. "Why don't you come and have a cup of tea?" the stranger would ask. And when they turned to him, his smile was often their salvation.
For almost 50 years, Don Ritchie has lived across the street from Australia's most notorious suicide spot, a rocky cliff at the entrance to Sydney Harbour called The Gap. And in that time, the man widely regarded as a guardian angel has shepherded countless people away from the edge...."
The Primal Heroic Response, in action.
Some of you may have seen the stories about Robert Elwood's research, which makes a pretty good case that crabs, lobsters, and prawns can feel pain. Hermit Crabs also remembered it later, and changed their behaviour. That second bit is key, as it takes it out of the realm of a mere reflex response. There go our rationalizations, and even reflex responses may deserve attention:
"It was also thought that since many invertebrates cast off damaged appendages, it was not harmful for humans to remove legs, tails and other body parts from live crustaceans. Another study led by Patterson, however, found that when humans twisted off legs from crabs, the stress response was so profound that some individuals later died or could not regenerate the lost appendages."
The good news is that there is a new alternative to boiling lobsters alive, approved by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals no less, and it has a number of benefits to chefs in the bargain. The "Crustastun" is a shoebox-sized device that uses salt water and electric current. Its approach reduces the cortisols and adrenaline that stress can create in boiled critters, resulting in tenderer and tastier meat. The voltage also kills bacteria, which means the dead crustaceans can safely be stored for up to 48 hours - a bonus for restaurants, which reduce their throw-away losses.
Looks like a win solution all around. Hat tip to inventors Simon and Charlotte Buckhaven.
The Australian Sex Party is online (link).
In the context of preferential voting and proportional representation in the Senate, this could become a viable little protest party.
Or rather an anti-protest, anti-pressure group party. It's appeal is straightforward:
"If you're sick of religious and anti-sex politicians like Steve Fielding, Brian Harradine and Fred Nile threatening to block legislation in the Senate and State Upper Houses unless they get their way on sex and gender issues, vote for someone who understands this rort."
Given the damage that Brian Harradine alone caused, and how little Australians like wowsers (that is, people who are obnoxiously puritanical and feel a need to legislate restrictive drinking hours, anti-sex censorship and so on), that's a good pitch.
"AUSTRALIA will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet under plans put forward by the Federal Government."
"The revelations emerge as US tech giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and a coalition of human rights and other groups unveiled a code of conduct aimed at safeguarding online freedom of speech and privacy."
"The government has declared it will not let internet users opt out of the proposed national internet filter."
Australia sends a team to every Olympics, and a contingent to every serious American war. We've been doing that a long time, and we'll be doing it a while longer.
Consequently our military planners have gotten doing "token support" down to a fine art, providing assistance that is politically handy for the Americans, militarily useful, and safe, in the sense of there being few or no embarrassing screw-ups where the Australians are active, at minimum cost and minimum risk of casualties.
They've gotten it down to too fine an art now. It suits politicians if the army doesn't really fight, because there's no risk of politically embarrassing casualties, but it doesn't suit the soldiers, who signed up to fight, who are trained and able to fight, who regard the Americans as genuine comrades, and who are ashamed in front of their mates that the uniforms they wear practically announce them as non-fighters. (link)
This is from a recent speech given by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to the Conference of European Armies on Oct 25/2007:
"Said differently, our progress in Afghanistan is real but it is fragile. At this time, many allies are unwilling to share the risks, commit the resources, and follow through on collective commitments to this mission and to each other. As a result, we risk allowing what has been achieved in Afghanistan to slip away."...."While there will be nuances particular to each country’s rules of engagement, the "strings" attached to one nation’s forces [JK: several nations have these, including caveats that more or less forbid them to enter combat] unfairly burden others, and have done real harm in Afghanistan. As you know - better than most people - brothers in arms achieve victory only when all march in step toward the sound of the guns."....
..."For example, a widely recognized benchmark is for Allies to spend 2 percent or more of GDP on defense. Yet currently, only 6 out of 26 NATO members have met that goal." [JK: and some of those are the nation's smallest members]....
"As it stands today, non-U.S. NATO nations have more than 2 million men and women in uniform, yet we struggle to maintain 23,000 non-U.S. troops in Afghanistan. This is partly a function of how NATO militaries are organized, and partly a matter of resources - but it is mostly a matter of will and commitment. The same is true for equipment and other resources. Consider that earlier this year the U.S. extended its Aviation Bridging Force in Afghanistan in Kandahar because the mightiest and wealthiest military alliance in the history of the world was unable to produce 16 helicopters needed by the ISAF commander. Sixteen.
Meeting commitments means assuming some level of risk and asserting the political will necessary to deploy armed forces beyond one’s borders - fully manned and equipped, and without restrictions that undermine the mission. In Afghanistan, a handful of allies are paying the price and bearing the burdens of allies to create the secure environment necessary for economic development, building civic institutions, and establishing the rule of law. The failure to meet commitments puts the Afghan mission - and with it, the credibility of NATO - at real risk. If an alliance of the world’s greatest democracies cannot summon the will to get the job done in a mission that we agree is morally just and vital to our security, then our citizens may begin to question both the worth of the mission and the utility of the 60-year-old transatlantic security project itself."
Which leads to the natural question: just what is NATO, or Europe, really worth these days?
John Kerry truly is the gift that keeps on giving, but when it comes to saying dumb thing on public, he has a ways to go before he could even be within sighting distance of Australia's Mufti Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali. The latest furor was triggered by this little bon mot on the subject of female fashions, during his post-Ramadan sermon this year:
"If you take uncovered meat and put it on the street, on the pavement, in a garden, in a park, or in the backyard, without a cover and the cats eat it, then whose fault will it be, the cat's, or the uncovered meat's? The uncovered meat is the disaster. If the meat was covered the cats wouldn't roam around it. If the meat is inside the fridge, they won't get it."
Now there's a twist on "she was asking for it" you probably hadn't heard before. One with special import given the trends in France, in Sweden et. al. that display at the very least a permissive attitude toward rape in Muslim communities - and at worst the use of rape as an deliberate Islamist weapon designed to impose gender and community apartheid. This t-shirt response is funny, but the clear threat is not - and as Tim Blair notes, the generally recognized leader of the Religion of Peace™ in Australia has in the past voiced support for terrorism, said he'd apologize for the rape comment "After we clean the world of the White House first," and offered up other revealing gems.
Of course, the Left can't work hard enough to shill and spin on his behalf - and why shouldn't they?
In light of my recent "Afghanistan: Opium, War & Strategy" post, a follow-up that will provide a window into the dynamics of this kind of war. Australia's Department of Defence has a transcript up for this briefing:
"I appreciate your interest in the activities of our Special Forces Task Group in Afghanistan. As I promised you, today we will deliver you a full brief on the Special Operations' activities in Afghanistan over the last 12 months.... Ultimately it is the lives of the soldiers that is at stake here and this is why we have been very conservative in releasing details on the taskforce's activities. Nonetheless, Australians do have a right to know how our soldiers performed on this operation. I also have a great deal of empathy for the soldiers themselves who have been through an experience which in terms of prolonged battlefield stress and combat intensity is unlike any encountered since Vietnam in the 1970s....
Their story is an inspirational tale of courage, resilience and exceptional skill involving a determined and dangerous adversary in an environment that is both harsh and unforgiving. The Special Forces Task Group significantly undermined the insurgency capability of their enemy, thus making a notable contribution to the International Coalition fight against terrorism."
This anecdote was also interesting, and definitely has one of those "Japanese soldiers still on the South Pacific Island" feel to it. Maj-Gen Hindmarsh, on the remoteness of the Uruzgan Province area in which they operated:
Here (link) is a (long) podcast of conservative Australian journalist Greg Sheridan promoting his new book on the Australian/American or Howard/Bush partnership in the war on terror by giving a couple of stories from his book (typical Australian rah-rah stuff on the wonderfulness of our special forces) and the book's key messages.
For many Winds of Change readers, the podcast may be almost all they need to understand how the Australian-American strategic partnership looks from a highly self-interested, national-interest Australian conservative viewpoint.
See Islamic Council of Victoria director Waleed Aly:
"Here, the vociferous protests came from people who, quite clearly, have not bothered to read Benedict's speech. Worse, some (like al-Hilali and Ameer Ali) themselves regularly complain of being quoted incorrectly and out of context. Had such critics done their homework, they would have noted Benedict's description of Manuel II's "startling brusqueness". Manuel's point was that violent doctrine could not come from God because missionary violence is contrary to rationality. Benedict's point was a subtle one: that Manuel draws a positive link between religious truth and reason. This was the central theme of the Pope's address. He was silent on Manuel's attitude to Islam because it was beside the point he was making."
The rest is also worth reading, and I especially liked his use of the phrase "overblown response of surreal imbecility"; surely a keeper for future situations of all kinds. But his first 2 paragraphs nailed it, echoing Rev. Sensing's point yesterday before making his own:
(published March 24, 2003; last updated November 11, 2005)
Stuck on the home front, but still want to make a difference in the War on Terror? Well, one of the unique features of our Internet and 4th Generation Warfare is that you can. The explosion of direct citizen-soldier and citizen-citizen assistance opportunities is unprecedented - and you can be a part of it!
The U.S. Dept. of Defense keeps a list of organizations at America Supports You. We continue to update our compilation here because [a] it includes troops from other nations and related efforts as well; [b] we offer explanations and personal recommendations, not just a list; and [c ] we offer resources they don't - such as advice for gay members of the U.S. military. With that said, there are many worthy organizations at AmericaSupportsYou.com and we recommend it as a resource.
Meanwhile, I'm still updating this list, validating its links and accepting new submissions. On with the show, this is it...
Since this is unlikely to get much play out of Australia, I have posted a series of news stories rounding up the disruption of what looks at this point like a thwarted al-Qaeda/Lashkar-e-Taiba joint operation over at Rantburg that you can start reading here and just keep scrolling down until you reach the end of the "Down Under" section.
In unrelated news, via Alphabet City I see that al-Qaeda has confirmed the capture of Mustafa Setmariam Nasar.
