Indy Media Watch

According to this article, a Nonviolent demonstration was held in the West Bank of Israel but there was a "violent IOF response".

I thought IOF was a typo for IDF, but no, looking through the source website - Palsolidarity.org, the International Solidarity Movement, I can see it is a frequently used but invented term for "Israeli Occupation Forces".

I know what you are thinking - Palsolidarity/ISM is possibly not as objective or unbiased as one might expect from a reputable news source like Indymedia. In fact, weren't they the same organization which gave support to terrorists?

Gosh, a completely biased report on Israel appearing on Indymedia? Who would have thought? The author does makes me wonder just a little about the authenticity of the article's claims and accusations...

So does what was left out.

Here's another example of 'nonviolent' protest action which happened at the same time, but for 'some reason' didn't appear in the report dated the same day.



Wait let me guess. In reporting about the protest, whilst ignoring the above altogether, it wasn't a case of journalistic dishonesty and reeking anti-Israel propaganda, Indymedia was really just reporting on the news the MSM don't cover right? Thanks for the favour, but I thought we had al-Jazeera for that.

Update: It has finally happened, and I have been forced to disable comments for this post as several offensive messages were posted. Apparently destroying Indymedia wasn't sufficient.

Not much. Meanwhile, Regular readers may recall my mid-January report on abuse of statistics where I mentioned the bird-flu.

The World Health Organization has a big problem: It needs to alert the public to the dangers of a virus that has killed very few people, yet could, in some scenarios, devastate nations across the globe.

So, the group's doctors and scientists have lately been forecasting truly alarming numbers from the so-called Asian bird flu -- up to 100 million deaths. One researcher has gone much further, suggesting the toll could be up to a billion people.

Or in other words, a Bird Flu related virus has actually only killed a few people but could potentially kill billions (but might not).

Now imagine the headlines:
"Billions could die: Scientist"
"Millions more deaths to come" and so on.

Read it all.

It seems Forbes Magazine has fallen for it as well.

It is likely to kill many millions of people, sicken a quarter of the world's population and send the global economy into a tailspin. There is little we can do to stop this disaster from happening, and it could already be imminent.

Are you scared yet?

What qualifies someone as an "activist"?

This fellow was called one because he threw a molotov cocktail through the window of an army recruiting station.

Activist Sentenced to 5 Years for Molotov Attack on Army Recruitment Station

A judge preferred the term "criminal" and he will be spending the next five years staring out a jail-cell window.

According to the article on NYC Indymedia,

"Brendan Walsh is a hero and deserves support"

Hmm... Bottle, rag, petrol, throw. Such bravery!
I'm off to the gas station. I will be returning a hero.

He also has quite a bit of support:

Brendan, thank you for your inspiring action. If the rest of us worked harder to sabotage the war effort especially by targeting recruiting centers, the achilles heel of the army, we might actually be able to affect the bastards.

Lets support the folks who get busted taking risks!

Thank God at least two readers had some perspective:

Hero's do constructive things. They do not throw molotov cocktails in pointless ineffectice pathetic little attempts to gain attention. His fifteen minutes of fame are up, and now he will wind up playing housewife to some dude in prison for the next five years.
...
Tossing a burning rag into a recruiting center is not striking a critical blow against the military-industrial complex.

That was just stupid.

Why are you guys encouraging such retarded behavior?

Why don't you guys go toss some burning rags around instead of cheering on these poor bozos who do some stupid action like this and get locked up forever.

Who needs enemies with friends like you?

You encourage young people to do pointless actions that send them to jail for years and then offer some "solidarity" with a couple posts on the internet. That's bullshit!

You guys are just like the group of assholes who talk the poor retarded kid in the neighborhood into robbing a store and when he gets busted you you sit back and offer him some "props" from your couch while he does 5 years.

I think they've all spent a bit too much time sniffing the rags.

I am not a film critic.

My past reviews of films have consisted of "It was cool" or "It was lame" with little additional narrative.

I am going to take a break from my usual blogging subject however to say the following:

Please go and see Hotel Rwanda.

If you still have any faith in the UN or Europe's desire or ability to protect the world, go and see just how good a job of it they did in Rwanda.

Coming soon, Hotel Congo, Hotel Iraq and Hotel Middle East. Hotel Sudan is expected to enter production in about ten years from now. Update: Some others agree with me.

My family and I are still in shock.

I was searching for news on the Iranian earthquake and to see whether in between jailing bloggers and hanging teenagers, the Iranian Mullahs had learned to be a bit more gracious about offers of aid from the infidel.

Apparently not.

In a rare, direct contact, US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns called Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Javad Zarif to offer aid.

The offer was declined, though Zarif, speaking through an aide, denied the Iranian response was a refusal.

"Iran did not refuse the help but said we can handle it domestically," he said.

Uh huh. Sure.

What was particularly concerning however was this, from the Sydney Morning Herald's report on the story (screen-captured here):



No, the US won't actually be redirecting any aid-money to Reuters.

What they meant to say was:

An AusAID spokesman said Australia's contribution, if sought, would probably involve donating money to international aid agencies such as Red Crescent.

Hat tip to News Ltd, the Sydney Morning Herald's opposition.

How many times have we heard this story?

• School plays national anthem.
• Student remains seated.
• Teacher tells student to stand.
• Student refuses.
• Teacher repeats request three times.
• Student remains seated.
• Teacher pulls chair out from under student while other student captures whole thing on convenient video camera.
  

Fascist! Nazi!

These are all terms being used in this article and subsequent comments to describe the teacher.

"What is this a military state? Where do you think you are Nazi Germany (Heil Furor!)"
...
This guy looks and acts just like Himmler. Sieg Heil! Hail the Fuhrer!

Download the video (and note the kids laughing in the background) of this incident.

The student in question (Jay) did not wish his surname to be revealed. Apparently that same courtesy did not apply to the teacher, Mr Mantel whose email address, phone number and other contact details were published so opponents of his actions could 'share their thoughts' with him.

Jay said that he didn't have any political reasons for his refusal to stand but that he wanted to sit because he feels it is his right to do so and that right was being threatened by Mantel. Jay said that he thought Mantel might tell him to stand, but he never expected to be physically forced to do so.

Sorry. As soon as he said he had no political reason for doing it, it stopped being a civil rights issue as some of the Indymedia writers insist. When he argues he did it because he thought Mantel "might tell him to stand", it sounds to me like he was simply being a smart-ass.

I think it's fantastic that schoolkids are politically active, especially when they form their own conclusions rather than having them shoved down their throat by teachers (or student organizations). This grossly immature example of 'activism' (i.e. being a smart-ass rebel without a cause) has made the perpetrator a poster-boy for Indymedia. Compare his juvenile antics to this poster boy on the other hand.

Looking back to my friends' grade-school attempts at having teachers fired, suspended or whacked, I must also wonder why someone else just 'happened' to be videoing it for later use.

Regular readers will know I give credit where credit is due.
In the case of Indymedia, this is unfortunately rare.

Sydney Indymedia however has improved over 1000 per cent since the last couple of times I looked.

No signs of defamation, anti-Semitism, racism, sexism or bias.

Why the sudden improvement? The site's database is whacked and no articles can be viewed. What were you thinking?

Update: Never mind.

Beirut Indymedia has always been somewhat of an anomaly.
On the one hand, the concept of a free press anywhere in the Middle East (Besides Israel, Turkey and soon Afghanistan and Iraq) is foreign. On the other hand, the "West Asia" (which I guess is code for Middle East) section of Global Indymedia lists three sites:

• Beirut
• Israel
• Palestine.
  

Unsurprisingly, Beirut Indymedia is 95% reposts of tired old anti-Israel tirades like Palestine Indymedia (or for that matter nearly any other site in the 'network'). This includes ongoing "anti-Occupation" declarations which target the Jewish state, but rather tellingly, never ever mention the occupiers of any other Middle Eastern country, such as Syria's occupation of Lebanon.

I visited Beirut Indymedia subsequent to the recent bombing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (and about 100 other people who were also wounded).

Buried under the vicious anti-Israel rhetoric was a single piece which was in fact lifted from Reuters. Gotta love that Independent media!

Anyway, the Beirut Indymedia/Reuters piece details how:

At least 150,000 Lebanese turned the funeral of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri on Wednesday into an outpouring of public anger against Syria, blamed by opposition leaders for the bomb that killed him.

The comments on the other hand tell a completely different story:

Lebanon reacts just like Uncle Bush wants Bushites and Sharon want Syria out also

His Unholiness (Bush) is playing Lebanon the same way he played Amerika on 9-11. The Corporate Trash Media is the Lead Vocals in this Satanic War Choir. If Lebanon truly believes Uncle Bush I have some WMD's to sell them in Iraq.
...
Yeah, Bush's Covert Operation worked!
Dave

Another covert operation from the Bush Gang, and once again innocent naive people fall for it.

Wake up, before Bush invades your country too.

Is there anything in the Arab world in these peoples' minds which is not a giant US conspiracy?

At least the Lebanese (who have been occupied by Syria for nearly 30 years) have worked out (scroll down) the brutality of the Syrian Government, even if their 'enlightened' Indymedia brethren have not.

Oh and in case you forgot, in 2002 Syria was head of the UN's Security Council. I'm sure the various Syrian sponsored terrorist groups felt way-secure that year!

Whils perusing Philly Indymedia, I couldn't help but ask, what the hell is a Freegan?
Oh. Thanks.

If you are an "anti-capitalist", what vetter way to protest the economy than withdrawing from it and never using money?
...
Working sucks and if a little scavenging can keep you from needing a job than go jump in a dumpster! Even if you do need to work to pay your bills, think about how much less you would have to work if you didn't have to buy food.
...
The Ultimate Boycott - By not consuming, you are boycotting EVERYTHING! All the corporations, all the stores, all the pesticides, all the land and resources wasted, the capitalist system, the all-oppressive dollar, the wage slavery, the whole burrito! That should help you get to sleep at night.

...or starve.

Read it all, it's hilarious if for no other reason than someone was actually serious about it.

The Environmental Republican has this story on Mumia Abu Jamal, who in December, 1981 shot a police officer and was convicted by a jury and sentenced to death.

Read it all and re-familiarize yourself with the case. Then please come back.

Welcome back. Now go and read Philadelphia Indymedia's latest.
When you return, be sure to wipe your feet.

They suggest Mumia Abu Jamal is a "political prisoner". Try telling that to Maureen Faulkner, the Police Officer's widow.

Whilst it is not the first time this blog has been linked to by an upset Indymedia article, it's possibly the least savoury.

Faruque Ahmed of Sydney, Australia has been Googling for his own name in a narcissistic orgy and stumbled across my little corner of the web. Apparently in response to Indy Media Watch: Pesky Zionists, Hotel Rooms and Taxi-Drivers this woefully capitalized comment was added:

"why are you so interested in what happens on an aussie blog if you dont live here? what does it matter to you? is it because your masters PAY YOU TO DISCREDIT PEOPLE YOU DON"T KNOW?"

Dang.

I was hoping to keep it a secret, but you leave me no choice.

Full disclosure: I am a paid agent of the CIA. Mossad, KGB and KAOS.

Seriously though, my Zionist/Mossad/CIA controllers and masters stopped sending me blank-checks quite some time ago, and I now do this entirely as a volunteer effort. It's comments like yours however that make the whole exercise worthwhile.

I visited Sydney Indymedia courtesy of my referrer logs and came across this wonderful prose entitled: "Zio-Nazi venoms (sic) against Faruque and Indy Media".

When I recovered from the shock of being outed as a venomous "Zio-Nazi" (whatever that is) I read on:

I would like to know why do they resort in to personal vilification, character assassination and all other kinds of low acts!

You will have to take my word for it that I don't resort to any of those "low acts" and merely trust people to make up their own mind. Believe me Faruque, anyone who has read your work has well and truly made up their mind about you. Even if I wanted to make your character look bad, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't do nearly as convincing a job of it as you sir.

As for the other part of his comment:

"why are you so interested in what happens on an aussie blog if you dont live here? what does it matter to you? "

I note that in addition to Sydney, Faruque Ahmed has variously posted on:

Melbourne Indymedia
Adelaide Indymedia
San Francisco Indymedia and
Cleveland Indymedia

This is in addition to administering his own Yahoo Group entitled "Free America Now" (from what I shudder to ask, no I did not join up).

So either Faruque gets around an awful lot, or can add hypocrite to his CV for suggesting that I have no right to comment on "blogs" from other areas of the world.

I note that I found the above via Google. There is a chance (albeit a small one from experience) that some Indymedia sites are much better at deleting rubbish such as the above examples and I didn't stumble across these for that reason.

As for where I come from? Another conspiracy nut known as "jj" from Sydney Indymedia 'worked it out'...

this is how the zionist state operates, distract from questions of their legitimacy by trying to destroy the credibility of the questioners.... just like the bush junta too..... its because they have no other ammunitiion to use...
...
btw interesting indeed that site is not published in aussie probly not even by an aussie but hes very interested in melb IMC, coincidently where the largest zionist population in australia lives.....

Is it possible that every anti-Zionist and anti-Semite is incapable of constructing a sentence free from typographical and grammatical errors if not outright hatred? Evidently not... Or, if I may entertain a conspiracy theory of my own, are JJ and Faruque Ahmed really the same person? (These questions and more on the Indymedia Zone Doody doo doo doody doo doo)...

I have only had one foul comment pasted here so far. Hopefully they will confine themselves to their litter tray and I won't have to turn off commenting in case the disease spreads to my blog. In the meanwhile, I can see Faruque Ahmed's highly repetitive work is now spread all over the Internet. Everyone gets 15 minutes of fame. Faruque, predominantly via Indymedia has instead generously provided others with hours of laughter and tears.

As Australian journalist Piers Akerman wrote in an email to Faruque (who was harrassing him)
and reprinted by Faruque in Cleveland:

You, Sir, do your cause no good whatsoever. You debase discussion.

This is shortly before he told Faruque:

Your garbage is deleted unread.

Hopefully he will leave my blog alone and save me the trouble.

Someone is proudly reporting the vandalism of a statue of George Bush Snr and it has turned into a major argument.

The statue in question was covered in red paint with photos posted to Houston Indymedia. An argument follows over whether such action is worthwhile and what it represents. Draw your own conclusions:

perhaps it's the blood of the iraqi people
...
Could also be the blood Orlando Letelier and Ronny Moffat. As Director of CIA, bush new the CONDOR agents were in country to assassinate Letelier... hey what's a little collateral damage among friends?
...
or it could be the blood of the US bombed panamanian barrios that housed the anti-noriega resistance when big daddy "liberated" them at the same time he eliminated the resistance's viability to assume power after the US invasion.
...
Or, it could your tax dollars being used to have it cleaned each time. Every dollar spend to fix something like this is potentially a dollar less going to public services.

This was then rebutted by:

Every penny spent cleaning this statue is a penny not spent on US imperialism and the instruments of war! Where do I send my paint?

Followed by this 'justification':

Vandalism justs costs the government money to clean it up. Just think, every time you deface a statue to a war criminal, you're stealing from the military industrial complex, every time you let the air out of the tires of a police car, you are taking away the money spent building tomohawk cruise missles, everytime you glue the locks shut of a federal building or a war profiteer, you are stoping the funding of catapillar bulldozers, that are destroying palestinian communities and crushing human rights observers, everytime you paint anti-imperialist graffiti in your neigborhood, that is another cop without a tazer.

Such a quality contribution to society...

This was keenly observed by one poster:

From the mouths of sick hungry children..blankets from the homeless..medicine from old people...but that's ok..an activist told me..let them cake..as long as we can get together for a little street theater with our friends we don't care if the kids starve or get diseases..vandalism also forces the insurance rates up on elderly home and auto owners..but that's ok..when they lose thier homes in the third ward because they can't afford insurance for fire and theft protection..we'll make room under the interstate for them and claim to really care..once we force them out.. gentrification can take place..we can feed them once a week...we could feed them more often but we like to spend OUR money on wheat paste and flyers..and force the city to spend money to clean up our mess...and on police to protect us from people on the way home from work..when we block the streets downtown..PARTY ON GARTH!!

That person would no doubt be unimpressed by:

"Right on" to the paint splatterers. Let's hope more statues of government bastards are defaced. Fuck Bush I and fuck Bush II.

Summed up beautifully thus:

You are a joke. Having your little protests, and then getting in your Honda bought by your parents to go back to Starbucks and drink your $5 coffee's.

You think you know something, you don't know shit.

Throwing paint on a statue and patting yourselves on the backs. Pathetic and spoiled is what you are.

My parents had dogs attacking them, fire hoses spraying them, tear gas choking them and were shot at with rubber and real bullets.

Meanwhile, your parents skipped class, smoked pot and "demonstrated" for fun and then returned to join corporate America.

I've seen you protesting on the streets. You do it for fun, not any real cause.

You call people racist, and you don't even know what racism is.

White trash mf's.

At the end of all of this, what was actually achieved?

Many of you will have noticed that Google places keyword-based paid adverts on the right hand side of their search results for companies offering a potentially relevant good or service.

eBay has seized on this opportunity to advertise based on nearly every keyword, on the assumption that given their size, they are auctioning a similar product. That is, you type "cars" and you will see an ad saying come to eBay for cars.

Unfortunately, this is one of those examples where fully-automated technology fails, badly.

The following are completely genuine ads which I have captured. They were generated for a search of the corresponding term. Try it, it's fun.

First off: eBay selling brutal death:


Okaaay... But wait, there's more:


Admittedly I can see how there may be some perverted market for that sort of thing but this?:

Words fail.

Via The Jawa Report comes a link to a site which Dr Rusty Shackleford calls "certifiable" and Armies of Liberation say is:

Where the hard left meets the vegans, the anti-masons, the occultists, the UFO crowd, the survivalists, the druggies, and of course the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-American, conspiracy theorists in Sweden.

So, expecting to end up at Swedish Indymedia, I click away and end up here instead.

I should have been immediately skeptical when I saw this:

Joe Vialls
"Exposing Media Disinformation" gör en halvunderlig f.d. privatdetektiv.

but curiosity got the better of me and I browsed the site for a few moments.

This led me to "Arab Media Watch" which took my fancy as it shares a similar name to this blog, and I figured, possibly a similar mission.

Evidently not.

The site's banner states:

Arab Media Watch - for objective British coverage of Arab issues

In order to see how "objective" it was, I clicked on the ubiquitous links pertaining to Palestine/Israel and discovered this gem entitled Media Myths.

Myth 1: 5 Arab armies tried to wipe out Israel upon its creation in 1948

Apparently, that was a myth, and in fact:

the aim of the Arab armies was not to wipe out Israel but to stop its aggression against the Palestinians.

It gets better...

Another media myth: "Arafat has not done enough to stop terrorism"

Like many, I think dying was the only genuine thing Arafat ever did to stop terrorism, but here's my favourite "media myth": "Myth: Hamas are out to destroy Israel" which then details how Hamas really don't want to destroy Israel despite media claims as such.

The Hamas Charter however seems quite clear on the matter.

Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.
...
The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim).
...
The Arab states surrounding Israel are required to open their borders to the Jihad fighters

and so on.

The "objective" Arab media watch continues by reprinting Al-Jazeera articles unchallenged and is so incredibly one-sided on matters pertaining to Iraq, not only is it non-objective, it could be Saddam Hussein's PR agency.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.... But do you really want to call yourself "objective" and pat yourself on the back? Even Indymedia don't always do that. If so, it's clear the Arab media still have a long way to go. But then, we knew that already right?

According to this invitation:

Indy journalists will converge on Austin February 18-20 to discuss our progress as a media democracy movement, as well as look at ways we can improve our content and effectiveness as a radical media network. As a collaborative and participatory media project, we see the need to come together and form new directions for this movement. This conference is meant to be both a celebration of our work as media activists and an investigation into our methods for getting where we are today. We still have many challenges to overcome if we are to truly be a viable and sustainable radical media network.

Sadly, looking at the agenda, I can see most of the problems I have raised are not on it. There is a brief mention of "Internal Instabilities: Potentials and Shortcoming of Indymedia". Hopefully they will come up with the blindingly obvious answer before retiring to the bar.

Potential Very Real Shortcomings:

• Defamation and Libel
• Racism
• Zero moderation or editorial
• Anti-Semitism
• Poor article quality
• Trolls and Spam

It's not hard... Otherwise, there's always this option...

A document on the global Indymedia site, Tips on Effective Propaganda AKA 'Public Relations': is:

intended to be the most functional, reference and introduction to propaganda.

Evidently it was not intended to include the most well-written sentences.

Who would find the guide useful?

if you have any experience with the media, lying to your parents, or reading into shit you should be able to use this as a very valuable guidepost on your way to freedom.

Err... Freedom from what exactly?

The author was

After years of competing for middle america's attention...frustrated trying to reach an audience already held captive by media elite.

I guess Middle America just aren't good at "reading into shit". But is this really the fault of a fact-checked, proofread or well-written media? Or is this just typical Indymedia resentment that it isn't taken nearly as seriously as it could be for good reason.

According to this article on Darwin Indymedia, men should support wimin's rights.

I'd be more than happy to, if someone can kindly tell me what a wimin is.

Wait, it's explained by a hilariously offensive comment in this article. In the interests of good oral hygeine, I have disemvowelled the profanity for our more tender readership.

what an offensive piece of sht
by revolted bleeder
i couldnt even read past the title..why is this on indymedia?????
is it supposed to be funny or thought provoking? the reality is women (note the "men" in that-PLEASE REFRAIN FROM USING WIMMIN)do bleed and u men never will..

articles like this just reaffirm mens' sick obsession with all things cnt related..
if u want to support women stop fuking trying to speak for us, shut the fck up and leave us alone!!!!

Quite.

Turkey is involved in controversy over the death-penalty (or possible life imprisonment) of Gulan Intisar Saatcioglu for attempting to subvert the country's secular constitution.

If you are not aware of Turkey's history, it is a fascinating example of a secular country which has fought off Islamic extremism in the region. This dates back in varying forms more than a century and to the late Ottomans, under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who reformed Turkey into a modern, secular, and western-oriented republic. Turkey had a general election in 1950, more than 50 years before free elections in Afghanistan or Iraq.

There is considerable unrest there at the moment between the historically secular Turkish Muslim public and a rise in political parties who are seen as radical Islamic in focus.

There is a controversy over Gulan Intisar Saatcioglu who was charged with attempting to overthrow the consititution by reading a poem and may face death or life-imprisonment.

And here is the poem in question:

SONG OF FREEDOM
We are from mountain and plateau
Working the machines, studying at school

Our fight will go on
Until the tyrants drown

The ignited flame will not die
Nor our song of freedom end,

Our fists held high in defiance
Will never come down

Before the tyrants are overthrown.
Come join us sisters young and old
Our cries increase aloud

To ensure Allah's Word prevails
And infidelity fails.

Never will the burning flame die out,
Or our song of freedom end.

Our defiant fists will not
Fall before the tyrants are overthrown.

You can probably see the issue.

Turkey is facing an existential problem but as a non-expert I'm not going to comment.

What does concern me however is this Indymedia article which claims:

For much too long Turkey has been an ass kisser to the United States and Great Britian and their Puppet Master, Israel. The Turkish government has banned the public wearing of the hijabs on women. Now it seems Turkey can't prove her loyality to the goons in Washington, London and Israel enough!!!

What the hell?

The Hijab was banned by Atatürk (more here) when the Republic of Turkey was created in 1923. That's 25 years before the modern state of Israel was even created.

Perhaps the fact that Turkey and the US and Israel get on is because of this secular separation between church and state. It's also why Turkey has avoided several wars and is one of the nicest countries in the area (I've been to plenty). There's a difference between being friendly versus ass-kissing. Perhaps it's not actually a bad thing.

Apparently not for the Indymedia poster however who couldn't care less about the girl in question anyway, and is merely using her as another excuse to bash Israel, the US and the West. And this is of course what they are facing in Turkey as well.

I also think it's a new record for Israel to have done things 25 years before even existing.

Looking through my referrer logs I could see someone had come across this site by doing a Google search for Seppuku.

After my recent call for Indymedia to commit Seppuku it seems this site is now the number one hit (Update: I am no longer ranked that highly) on Google of about 86,500 for a search for this form of honorable suicide originally commited by the Samurai after they shamed themselves or failed their masters.

My honour is intact. So Indymedia, how about it?

This is all I have to say about "Easongate". Read it, for it is funny (because it's true).

Via the Global Indymedia page comes this disturbing report of a woman, Cornelia Rau who was detained in the Baxter Immigration Detention Centre, where Australia apparently inters asylum seekers or illegal immigrants pending processing or investigation.

What's interesting here though is that Ms Rau was an Australian woman, not an immigrant or refugee. How did she end up in the detention centre?

According to the piece:

Ms Rau, was found by a group of Aborigines in Queensland on March 31 last year. Concerned about her psychotic state, they took her to police for her own safety. She did not identify herself to police and spoke only in German. The police then assumed she was an illegal immigrant and handed her over to immigration officials on April 5.
...
Ms Rau has been held in Baxter's Red One isolation compound, where her psychotic behaviour had distressed other detainees

There is no question that someone stuffed up bigtime. Indymedia and refugee advocates are demanding Australian Government blood over this issue.

"Human Rights groups are calling for The Minister to resign..."

Which Minister though? The Minister for Immigration.

It occurs to me that if I was wandering naked through my local shopping centre, and arrested, should I give the Police a false name or refuse to, I would also be locked up while they sorted me out.

According to The Australian (newspaper) article linked to by the report, Rau's brother said:

"I can only suppose she didn't identify herself because she didn't want to be put in a mental health facility, but she ended up being locked up in a far worse place."

The refugee and immigration issue is a longstanding one for the Australian 'activist' community and this seems to be their latest ammunition.

Forgive me, but if a schizophrenic is wandering the Australian desert in a psychotic state, or would be more afraid of a mental health facility than an immigration detention center, surely the activists should be pointing their energy towards the Australian mental healthcare system for allowing such a situation in the first place?

They aren't.

The comments in the Indymedia piece are somewhat telling:

Very very little mental illness really exists......
King Amdo 07.Feb.2005 21:32

....it's merely a result of the malaign way western society is 'foculised'...

Paranoid scitzaphrenic masonic scapegoat in the west......consciounsess/reality foculisating shamman/witch/holy person in the west

She might have just gone mad in he desert though....

Blessed be.

Very very little mental illness really exists indeed!

I believe the activists once again are choosing the wrong fight. This is not so much an Indymedia issue as a general left-wing/progressive/liberal movement problem manifested once again.

It's interesting to note however that the global IMC page is covering this Australian issue whereas the front page of Sydney is not. Melbourne and Perth's is but the Sydney newswire remains covered by Faruque Ahmed again, proof if there ever was any that there is a major problem with Australia's mental health assessment.

Portland Indymedia reports that Popular Mechanics magazine has taken aim at the "9/11 Truth Movement".

Sandwiched between ads and features for monster trucks, Nascar paraphenelia, and off-road racing are twelve dense and brilliantly designed pages purporting to debunk the myths of 9/11.

And which "myths" are these?

The article's approach is to identify the 9/11 skeptics movement with a series of mostly physical-evidence issues, while entirely ignoring vast bodies of evidence that only insiders had the means, motive, and opportunity to carry out the attack.

The article gives no hint of the put options on the targeted airlines, warnings received by government and corporate officials, complicit behavior by top officials, obstruction of justice by a much larger group, or obvious frauds in the official story. Instead it attacks a mere 16 claims of its choosing, which it asserts are the "most prevalent" among "conspiracy theorists."

In other words, Popular Mechanics should stick to cars and leave the real journalism to Indymedia.

Excuse me for just a minute...


Thank you.

I have reported twice on the deranged Faruque Ahmed who until now tended to confined his attacks to Sydney Indymedia, and was no doubt a large contributor to the problems they are having.

Faruque has now decided to take his beliefs to a wider audience.

His latest masterwork: "Come On Racist And Fascist Jews" has already been spammed all over theSydney and Melbourne sites. Evidently he is tired of being ignored by most readers and is now polluting the global site as well (hoping to pick up another 2 or 3?).

The consistent theme is simple, Jews are evil.
From his latest:

Even the theocratic Iran has not prosecuted Jews or Christians as they are recognised as the people of the book.

Oh really?
...
Probably you have conveniently forgotten the fact that Jewish Zenith came under the Muslims in Spain. Muslims had many opportunities to wipe out a past and vermin like you in many many occasions.

Passing himself off as an expert on the subject and master logician, he 'proves' his theory thus:

I also wonder, why the hell 99.9999% people of this universe reject Judaism?

Hmm... Is it because:
a) Jews eat babies
b) Jews are blood-thirsty murdering psychos?
c) Jews are moneygrubbing thieving backstabbers?
d) Jews control the media and Government?

or is it e)

Excuse me? Not being Jewish does not mean someone has "rejected" Judaism any more than me being white means I have rejected Africa. What a naive argument.

There is also a very simple reason why Judaism is not as numerically strong as Catholicism or Islam and it is this:

Judaism does not proselytise.

That is, Jews do not try and convert others and never have. It is possible in some circumstances to convert to Judaism however it is extremely difficult to do so and generally not encouraged.

Contrast this to Christianity which has held crusades and proselytizes daily, or Islam which also had its origins in violent crusades by Mohammed to convert as many followers as possible that continue in some countries to this day.

So Faruque, I hope you are satisfied with my attempt to show how completely uninformed and wrong you are.

Even though I read dozens of IMC pages daily (yes, I shower afterward), I remember this discussion well having previously reported on it. Apparently Faruque didn't as he is asking the same foolish question.

Despite having invited the above response, Faruque Ahmed either didn't bother to read it or conveniently ignored it in his spam-crusade. Either way, it is hardly intelligent debate and patently false.

It now seems however that patently false commentary and fabricated quotes are Faruques daily bread and he has been caught out well and truly.

So let's recap. You've got spam, you've got anti-Semitism, you've got fabricated source material (which is a fancy way of saying "making bad stuff up") and a failure to engage in rational debate, opting for more of the same which is now spreading (like violent herpes) to the rest of the IMC network.

Other examples of Faruque Ahmed's recurring trash:
http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=51313&group=webcast
http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=51261&group=webcast
http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=51217&group=webcast and so on. Drop by and leave your thoughts!


So what will the Indymedia administrators do? Judging by the Sydney site, not much (or as they say down-under bugger all). I bet they are still wondering why no one will take them seriously.

According to this (non-Indymedia) article, "A virulent troll attack has overwhelmed and shut down Victoria IMC's newswire editing pages".

According to Victoria Indymedia, "Right Wing Fascist Hackers Target IMCs".

As a result of these "Fascists" it is not currently possible to post articles like this:

The Mossad then did 9/11 under the command of Wolfowitz, undisturbed.

But after 9/11, German intelligence communicated directly with low and middle-level FBI (Mueller is clean, too) and gave them detailed evidence about the Mossad Western command operations under Wolfowitz, including 9/11.

This evidence is the basis of the FBI's ongoing prosecution of AIPAC: Franklin worked for Feith who works for Wolfowitz who commands the Mossad operations in the West.

For the first time in history, the Mossad has complete active offices in the US government with local high command.

But unlike before, now we know all about it and we are prosecuting Satan's boys central command.

Germans--who were killed by the millions by Jewish intrigues--now have the honor of catching the creeps in the act and telling the world about them.
...
I also know that the Americans are *hoping* proactively for a "terrorist" attack in Europe (especially Germany) to get European sentiment behind the Bush policy.

However, it won´t work as many journalists (and the BND) are aware of the CIA and some Mossad people who were behind the bombings in Madrid.

According to the topmost report:

Efforts to block the troll have failed, and news editors are appealing for advice and assistance in upgrading the site's obsolete software.

Why? So the site can more efficiently support the task of posting unbelievable garbage like the above?

May I respectfully offer a better suggestion.

I recently made suggestions of intimidation or corruption at the UN affecting the impartiality of it's report on Arab Human Rights Development.

The House of Wheels is now suggesting textbook corruption in the Oil-For-Food investigations.



Why am I unsurprised?

Update: Welcome to everybody who came to this page via a Google search for "UN Corrupt" where it second only to UN - Corrupt Murderers Club or just total waste of time?

Since my last report on Sydney Indymedia, not much has changed. Indeed it has gotten worse to the point where not only is there more of the same, but they are now actually reprinting Crazy Joe Vialls as well.

As such, like Brisbane recently and Alberta Indymedia some time ago, people are now calling for Sydney Indymedia's closure.

With Sydney Indymedia allowing blatent racist content on it's website it is flaunting the globaly observed Prinipals of Unity.

This in turn prompted fierce outcry from the Nazis and trolls who demand their 'rights' and refuse to be 'silenced' by the evil Jewish/Mossad/CIA conspiracy (while less passionate readers leave in droves). Go read it, but make sure no children are watching over your shoulder.

Anyway...

On another thread, pertaining to the recent death of a Palestinian girl, one side has pointed the finger squarely at Israel while the other is pointing out that there is still an investigation in process and it is possible she was killed by a Palestinian bullet after being shot into the air at a nearby celebration. This caused huge argument over whether it was possible to be killed by a falling bullet shot into the air.

Note to our gun-toting readers: Yes, it certainly is.

The whole thing is a pointless flame-war however I loved one part:

Gravity is a Zionist plot.