Carlo Sands

Another week, another atrocity committed by occupying forces in Afghanistan kindly captured on camera by the perpetrators. Isn't technology fantastic? Back in the bad old days of the Vietnam War, intrepid war reporters had to risk their lives in the middle of war zones to get images of terrible crimes committed by the occupying force. Now, with these wonderful smart phones and cheap, easy to use digital cameras, the bastards can do it themselves.

So it has been reported that Clive “Stop Taxing Me” Palmer's main private company, Mineralogy, hasn't paid tax for three years. He really is pulling out all stops to be the best cardboard cutout evil capitalist he can. You have to wonder what he'll do next. My guess is call a press conference to announce he's established a paramilitary organisation of Nazi kittens dedicated to wiping out what's left of Australia's native fauna.

When you are the Only Democracy in the Middle East^TM you don’t need to worry about petty little things such as human rights. And so ABC Online reported on March 27 that Israel has severed all ties with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The final outrage that forced Israel to cut ties was a UNHRC vote in favour of investigating whether illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank were, in fact, infringing the rights of Palestinians.

Of all the people infuriated by billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer’s March 20 claim that the Greens are funded by the CIA, it is not hard to imagine the angriest were heads of the Murdoch media. Having declared in an Australian editorial in 2010 its intention to “destroy the Greens”, the Murdoch press has worked hard to relentlessly spin a tale of the political party as far left lunatics — old-style commies in green T-shirts.

One of life’s truisms is the powerful get to kill who they want. Israel proved this again with days of murderous air strikes on Gaza that began on March 9. By March 13, at least 25 Palestinians were dead and more of Gaza’s devastated infrastructure ruined. This latest carnage was justified by the fact the first strikes killed members of the Popular Resistance Committee.

Sometimes it takes a truly dramatic event to really make you face up to a serious threat.

The South Australian government has produced an “anti-binge drinking” ad that targets young women. It features a young woman slumped in a dodgy club toilet while someone else points her finger accusingly. The tagline reads: “Drink too much, you’re asking for trouble.” Journalist Catherine Deveney described the ad on Twitter as amounting to government-funded “slut-shaming”.

What with the whole Rudd debacle, sparked by the whole Gillard debacle, Labor has been staggering from one crisis to the next. Time for some fresh and bold thinking!

There is a big story the media is missing and it must only be matter of time before a Murdoch tabloid splashes it on its front page. ABC News reported on February 19 that three queue-jumping boat people had escaped from a camp in Darwin. But the left-wing Bolshevik Gillard- and/or- Rudd-loving national broadcaster is hiding the true story!

Now, I'll admit that my idea of poetry is watching Essendon’s Dyson Heppell, the AFL’s 2011 Rising Star award winner, float across half back, helping repel another opposition attack with his silky skills. But I like to think I know quality when I see it.

Now that both Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry's marriages are over, and things seem quiet on the Brangelina front, the corporate media have been reduced to feverish speculation over another B-Grade celebrity circus: who will lead the seemingly doomed Labor government? Will the skittish Labor caucus, freaked by polling data, stick with Julia Gillard or execute a dramatic reverse coup and bring back Kevin Rudd? Or will it be Wayne Swan or maybe that Simon someone-or-other who looks kinda familiar?

Well, it is only February and one thing is certain: a federal election doesn’t have to be called until as late as November 2013, but the Tony Abbott-led Coalition smells blood and, as far as they are concerned, they are in election mode. This means if you are dark-skinned, downtrodden or desperate, you had better look out. You are right in the Coalition’s firing line, and just behind them is a desperate Labor government (led, for now, by Julia Gillard) eager to play the futile game of blunting attacks from the right by joining in.