[quickly] cityunslicker baby

Quick one before a nightcap and beddy byes.

CityUnslicker is about to go into Labour. Well, actually his wife is. Best of luck to Mrs. Slicker and the nervous hubby. Dark horse.

[the trust quiz] whom do you fear

Imagine one of these is to become President of the New Global Government. Which three would you least fear in that role? Which three would you most distrust? Any you don't know - well, you don't know them. As usual, click on the pic, if you dare, to see more clearly.

[trees in towns] stopping the perversity

All right, we live in a lovely leafy avenue, unlike the poor sods in Darfur. Someone gets the idea of extending the patio but that pesky elm or oak is in the way.

Enter the landscaper. There are regulations on the shape and structure of the dwelling extension or outhouse but not on the removal of flora which happens to be in the way.

Which raises the question - to what degree is foliage the business of all local residents as a whole [let's not extend the argument at this point to the oxygen breathing world]?

In other words, let's say there is a veritable woodland within which people have erected their fences and own the land therein. To what extent should they be free to hack down the foliage for their own brick and mortar designs?

There are two issues here:

1] the actual deforestation and denuding itself which leaves only the laneways relatively intact until the council comes along with its health and safety balderddash.

2] for the householder who has been quite sympathetic to the flora in his/her garden and has only removed the absolute minimum. Unfortunately, the hacking morons in the other properties indiscriminately cut trees down until, as Matt Wardman says:

The council officer drives down the road, and says: "There is only one tree left. It is important in the urban landscape. We must put a Tree Preservation Order."

Unfortunately for the house owner who cares about trees (and the environment, and squirrels, and insects, and bees), the actions of somebody else impose a cost without that person having to take any responsibility for that cost.

Thus a perverse incentive for the removal of urban trees exists. Why is it set up like this?

This, to me, appears to be the crux of the matter. Perhaps if a tree is of a certain size or age, then automatically this tree is protected, rather than subject to belated individual orders.

[geelong] confession time

Well, confession time. There was a real British colony in one particular seaside town in Australia where my father's family emigrated and they all followed the same football team.

I also followed them during my time in Australia and secretly ever since. You see, my real team, the Crazy Gang, is no more and rather than transfer allegiance, I prefer to go back to a competition I know. That's the boring part.

Also boring for most of you is that today Geelong took the "minor premiership" in Australia. It's a nice accolade but doesn't count for much in the playoffs, which are often won by the 2nd, 3rd and 4th placed teams. Again boring for you.

Where the interest comes in is the character of this team. Many supporters have no hair left after years of supporting them and the women are drawn and haggard. They are a soul-destroying one-town team with a reputation for sporadic, unstoppable brilliance and infuriatingly appalling performances.

They can beat the league leaders one week - thrash them - and next week lose to the wooden spooners.

Once I was at a game at the hated Collingwood headquarters Victoria Park and after a few cleansing ales, it was time to visit the outhouse and it was dire. There, in the urinal where it belonged, was a document.

Naturally I picked it up and read it and discovered it was Collingwood's game plan against our navy and white boys. Also naturally, I got it straight to Geelong HQ and was thanked for it.

What it said was cruel:

Geelong are the greatest team of front runners in the league. Play at less than 100%, give them the slightest sniff of victory and they'll play like men possessed. But hit them hard, close them down and they hate it. This is the only way to beat them.

Trouble was, that also describes me to a tee.

Take a woman, for example. Give me the least sign, just a second glance or a slight faltering in her manner, indicating she might be interested and I'm on the warpath … subtly of course. Make it clear she wouldn't give me the time of day and that's me gone. Playing too hard to get has never worked with this blogger.

What about you? Is your team's ethos and character similar to yours? Is that why you follow them?

Unfortunately, Geelong have a very bad record in playoffs, so I'm saying nothing. I read that they're different to the old Geelong. Hmmm. I'll wait for that last day in September, thanks.

For the record:

Club	Pts
1	Geelong	64
2	Hawthorn	48
3	Port Adelaide	48
4	West Coast	48
5	Kangaroos	48
6	Sydney	44
7	Collingwood	44
8	Brisbane Lions	38
9	St. Kilda	38
10	Western Bulldogs	38
11	Adelaide	36
12	Fremantle	36
13	Essendon	36
14	Melbourne	16
15	Carlton	16
16	Richmond	10

[state paedophilia] original document

Some of you will recall the distasteful issue of state sanctioned child molestation to which Prodicus first brought our attention:

I blogged about cultural suicide recently and today I read of one of the logical conclusions of our society's deliberate trashing of its historic approach to fundamental values.

Matt Murrell and others quite rightly questioned the way that all links led to people's interpretations of the original document but not the original document itself.

Now, via Dana, many thanks, here is that original pdf:

Kö rper, Liebe, Doktorspiele (Body, Love, Playing Doctor) (pdf, in German, free download)

If your German is at all good, you'll see for yourself that this was no beat up. It exists. For me then, as I commented to Dana, this is not just an issue in itself but also an indicator of the mindset pervading at this level of decision making within Europe and Germany in particular.

In other words, these are the sorts of people in charge whom I've been referring to sporadically and calling vermin, which terminology dear Welshcakes Limoncello understandably took exception to.

[darfur] truth may be told in a few days

Children's drawings from Darfur and Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal. Click on pic to see the drawings and decide for yourself.

There is a Sudanese Arabized-African girl, Kizzie, whom we have in Blogpower and both Pommygranate and I were instrumental in getting her in. I've had a correspondence with her in which I asked her to address the points below, from various articles, which today I've collated into some sort of order.

Kizzy says:

The Arab coverage of Darfur is pathetic. Only recently did Al-Arabiya started doing some proper reporting on Darfur. Only recently did they add Darfur to the list of Arab countries we should pray for, donate money to. Only recently did people find out about a conflict which started nearly 4 years ago.

She has gone away for some days to collect her thoughts and then she's going to post her take on Darfur from the Arab point of view. I trust and pray she will address, explain and not just ignore the articles from which I've quoted below. I feel we're so lucky to have her with us because fresh input is always healthy.

She has told me there are many lies told in the western media about Darfur, that the true picture is distorted and I'm in no position to argue. All we can do is take what is below and elsewhere and then weigh it in the balance together with what Kizzy writes.

First, Algeria - this is from Gary Brecher's article

First thing to keep in mind is that Algeria's always been a bloody place, even before it was "Algeria." Piracy was the main business on the North African coast. That's where we get that line about "the shores of Tripoli" in the Marine Corps hymn.

Second: the GIA [Arab killing militsia] is not just a few loonies. It'd be nice to believe that, but it's just not true. The GIA has at least 15,000 soldiers. You can't feed and supply that many men without cooperation from the civilian population.

The war got even sicker as it went on. My personal favorite for coolest group of crazies is this GIA splinter group I read about - the Disciples of Satan. Sounds like a biker gang, but these guys make the Hell's Angels look like a book club.

Some formed a new group called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (you gotta love that name!) which tried to be "good" guerrillas, sticking to military targets and not killing civilians unnecessarily.

"We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... We will pursue our jihad in Algeria. Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes," said the statement, signed by Abu Mossaab Abdelwadud, the emir of the group.

Now to Darfur and Brian Steidle

Since 2003, when war broke out between the Sudanese Government and Darfuri rebels, about 200,000 civilians have died. Another 2.5 million, a third of Darfur's population, have been driven from home. Donated food has helped stave off famine and diplomacy has fostered a partial ceasefire, but that has not been enough.

Steidle had never seen anything like it – schoolgirls, bound together with makeshift handcuffs and burned alive. He was shocked, then outraged, then intrigued. He wanted to see for himself.

In January, he predicted – based on Janjaweed movements – that the town of Hamada would be attacked within two weeks. The team found babies with their faces bashed in. When members returned, "they were like zombies", Steidle recalls.

He returned to the US in February 2005 with hundreds of images, including those of a man castrated and left to bleed to death, people with their ears cut off and eyes plucked out and an aerial view of government troops joining ranks with the Janjaweed.

Steidle's further testimony

The Janjaweed militias do not act alone. I have seen clear evidence that the atrocities committed in Darfur are the direct result of the Sudanese government's military collaboration with the militias.

Attacks are well coordinated by Sudanese government officials and Arab militias, who attack villages together. Before these attacks occur, the cell phone systems are shut down by the government so that villagers cannot warn each other.

Helicopter gunships belonging to the government routinely support the Arab militias on the ground. The gunships fire anti-personnel rockets that contain flashettes, or small nails, each with stabilizing fins on the back so the point hits the target first.

Each gunship contains four rocket pods, each rocket pod contains about 20 rockets and each rocket contains about 500 of these flashettes. Flashette wounds look like shotgun wounds.

I saw one small child's back that looked as if it had been shredded by a cheese grater. We got him to a hospital, but we did not expect him to live.

On forced relocation by the Sudanese government

First it would announce the need to relocate an IDP camp and assess the population of displaced people, often grossly underestimating the numbers. Then after international aid organizations had built a new, smaller camp, the government would forcibly relocate the population, leaving hundreds to thousands without shelter.

It would bulldoze or drive over the old camps with trucks, often in the middle of the night in order to escape notice. It would then gather up and burn the remaining debris.

At the edge of the village, I found a Sudanese general who explained why he was doing nothing to stop the looting and burning. He said his job was to protect civilians and keep the road open to commercial traffic and denied that his men were participating in the attack.

Then a group of uniformed men drove by in a Toyota Land Cruiser. The general said they were just going to get water, but they stopped about 75 yards away, jumped out, looted a hut and burned it. The attacks continued for a week.

From Craig Timberg's article

A proposed United Nations force of about 20,000 -- over three times the size of the African Union's -- has been blocked by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who says it is part of an effort by Western nations to "re-colonize" Sudan.

The government also has failed to restrain the Janjaweed, which continues to rape, kill and pillage. Increasingly, the militiamen are doing so while wearing crisp green uniforms, distributed by the government.

Civilians here say militiamen gallop their horses and camels into the camps for displaced people, sometimes within site of African Union troop positions. Rarely have the troops responded with force.

Oxfam take on the matter

However, according to Adrian McIntyre, Oxfam's spokesman in Sudan, atrocities have continued:

"There is a certain low-level violence against individuals that is absolutely pervasive in Darfur," he said. The harassment, the beatings, the robbery, the rape, the murder continues on a daily basis and unfortunately it continues well below the radar screen of the international media and of the international diplomatic machine."

Google Earth makes denial more difficult

The new initiative, called "Crisis in Darfur," enables Google Earth users to visualize the details in the region, including the destruction of villages and the location of displaced persons in refugee camps. (Interactive: See how the new technology works)

More than 1,600 damaged and destroyed villages will be visible, as will the remnants of more than 100,000 homes, schools, mosques and other structures destroyed by the Janjaweed militia and Sudanese forces.

In nutshell, viewers can see for themselves the extent of burning villages and decide whether to believe or not the Sudnaese governmetn's insistence that these are just sporadic incidents.

Child's eye view

The pictures at the top show children's reconstructions of the burning of a village and the rapes of women and children by the "men in green". Can a child's recollections be trusted, if someone directly challenges that and says it never happened or has been grossly exaggerated?