(V): Good!

SL-Mark: Yes it is beautiful, and Magnetic Island is Magnetic LOL....on account it draws you back over and over.....It was so named by Capt. Cook because as he sailed past his compasses went awry (according to historians)
It is a very hot/wet place in the summer and dry and hot in the winter. Gardens all die in the winter because of the dry winds and the heat ;(

SL-Mark: I was speaking about the intelligence officer as an example of how despite claims to the otherwise.. freedom of speech is an abstract idea. I still by my word till the day I die, am obliged not to divulged info regarding a project I worked on several years back through signing the Official secrets Act....

... even though by all accounts the sensitivity of any info I remember is almost obsolete by the nature of technical advances.

Bernice: Townsville? It looks beautiful.
Is Magnetic Island really magnetic?

Pedro Martínez: lots.

Has there been any update on the investigation into the murder of that guy who was walking home and was attacked by the police for no reason?

SL-Mark: Julian Assange is from the city where I live...a very clever person when it comes to IT.

(V): That is quite specific! The guy? Who are you referring to? Julian Assange perhaps?

Is there really a prosecution against him? Who is prosecuting, the US or the UK? If indeed there is any prosecution, it should be against the intelligence officer that leaked the material in the first place.

SL-Mark: The guy who released the video of the reporters being killed in Iraq via a Apache gunship.

It seems real freedom of speech is an illusion.

(V): To what case are your specifically referring?

Civil rights and freedom of speech vary widely across the world, and indeed only imply a right.

Governments may have a very different interpretation of your rights under the banner of national interests.

Im just asking and not wanting the "know it alls " to pounce on me

The Col: now I don't know too much if anything about "that" side of the world.....but isn't that an Iranian news station, and wouldnt they be a bit biased?
But on the other hand they could be doing the world a favour.

Freedom of speech is a civil right?? So why those involved in releasing video of war crimes facing prosecution????

Infact, one might postulate that the right is the defender of civil liberties, whilst the left is the defender of civil rights.

Artful Dodger: Yes, and the 'left' as Tuesday calls them, is violating your civil liberties in the name of civil rights.

Tuesday: Huh? Freedom of speech is a civil right.

Artful Dodger: Free Speech is treasured here.....
as long as it doesnt offend,insult,persecute,and is considered politically correct.

Artful Dodger: now go get me a beer sugar

Artful Dodger: you're cute when you get all freedom of speechy

Bernice: The heat has been turned up on both sides by commentators on cable news, in my opinion.You have me stumped regarding the last part of your response.The incident sickens me,the headline of the post was intended to be sarcastic

WikiLeaks Documents Confirm Pentagon Knew of Civilian Death Toll and Torture in Iraq

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/wikileaks-documents-confirm-pentagon-knew-

"I mean, the reality is that what the WikiLeaks documents show about Blackwater is that the State Department knew that Blackwater was killing civilians while guarding U.S. government personnel, and actually didn`t do anything to discipline them or punish them because, according to an internal document, the State Department believed that it would hurt morale of Blackwater.

What about hurting morale of the Iraqi people that were being targeted by these people? So Hamid Karzai is under the misimpression that he is in charge here. The U.S. is calling the shots and that means that Blackwater stays.

OLBERMANN: Let`s work backwards on some of this. Based on the reporting at the time, many of us believe that the Bush administration was lying about the situation on the ground in Iraq daily, repeatedly, in manifold ways. Is there criminality involved in what we know about this, what`s been confirmed about this so far?

SCAHILL: Well, first of all, the entirely operation was a criminal enterprise because it was a war based on lies. There were scores of war crimes that have gone unprosecuted. But it goes much further than just lying or misleading. Donald Rumsfeld, when he was secretary of defense, beginning in 2005, implemented a policy in Iraq known as the Salvador Option, named after the dirty wars in El Salvador that the U.S. fueled in the 1980s. And What Rumsfeld and his cohorts were doing was supporting what were effectively Shiite death squads, known by the names Wolf Brigade, Scorpion Brigade.

What they did was ethnically cleanse Baghdad. They targeted the Sunnis. So when they talk about the surge being a success, what actually happened is that Rumsfeld and his cronies had supported death squad activity that essentially Balkanized Baghdad. And so when the surge troops came in, they didn`t even go to Anbar Province, which was the heart of the violence. They went to Baghdad.

The entire thing is a lie, but the criminality here is that the U.S., under Rumsfeld, was supporting and creating death squads, Keith."

The Col: BULL---T, what has news commentators got to do with wankers beating the living daylight out of someone, especially a female. What if it was your wife or GF? How would you feel then? Oh I forgot.......that wouldn't happen.

Bernice: Another good example of why news commentators need to tone down the discourse a few notches

The Col: ****I'm sure there is a valid excuse ****

there sure is.....THEY ARE GUTLESS MORONS

Artful Dodger: What are you talking about

Artful Dodger: what they found is "chemical weapons".. from various reports it looks like small munitions rather than 'WMD's' .... mustard gas. An old throwback to WWI and trench warfare.

Identified? Right Nation Protester?
Andrew Breitbart ‘Gay’? finally a redeeming quality

(V): Yes, a demand made by the G20 last year. Agreement has been made with Liechtenstein, tax on interest expected to raise £1bn for UK coffers. Negotiations currently in progress with others and the Swiss. The latter will be an even bigger contribution!

Difficulty is that the world of offshore banking is huge, and new loop holes will be found.

SL-Mark: Aye.. One sore point over banks and the signing of a declaration they will stop helping tax avoidance.

... only a few signed up... now they are being told they must sign by a certain date.

Artful Dodger: P. J. O'Rourke, the person you quoted.Are these questions too complicated for you?

(V): Sadly this true, but not just of the US.

The US has such a large economic influence on the rest of the world, the policy and legislation that we end up with (I say 'we' as it impacts us all, not just US citizens) simply please the few (global organisations) and hurt the many.

Artful Dodger: Transparent government... now that was another election pledge. Do any remain unbroken?

He was voted in that way, i.e. with a past no one knew much about. However, the problem with such questions (once in power) is that they are attributed to celebrities. That is, people and media are interested in who they are, where they are going, what they are wearing etc. etc. This is well known by the PR sector and can be used deliberately as a ploy to distract away from the real issues.

Why Does U.S. Health Care Cost So Much? (Part II: Indefensible Administrative Costs)

One thing Americans do buy with this extra spending is an administrative overhead load that is huge by international standards. The McKinsey Global Institute estimated that excess spending on “health administration and insurance” accounted for as much as 21 percent of the estimated total excess spending ($477 billion in 2003). Brought forward, that 21 percent of excess spending on administration would amount to about $120 billion in 2006 and about $150 billion in 2008. It would have been more than enough to finance universal health insurance this year.

The McKinsey team estimated that about 85 percent of this excess administrative overhead can be attributed to the highly complex private health insurance system in the United States. Product design, underwriting and marketing account for about two-thirds of that total. The remaining 15 percent was attributed to public payers that are not saddled with the high cost of product design, medical underwriting and marketing, and that therefore spend a far smaller fraction of their total spending on administration.

Two studies using more detailed bilateral comparisons of two countries illustrate even more sharply the magnitude of our administrative burden relative to that in other developed countries.

One of these is an earlier McKinsey study explaining the difference in 1990 health spending in West Germany and in the United States. The researchers found that in 1990 Americans received $390 per capita less in actual health care but spent $360 more per capita on administration.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/why-does-us-health-care-cost-so-much-part-ii-indefensible-administrative-costs/

http://wikileaks.org/

this is big news here at the moment.

Artful Dodger: I imagine there would be less unemployment if we didn't keep extending benefits.

Artful Dodger: Well, are you using his words as an expression of your feelings? or just tossing his words out there to stand on their own

Artful Dodger: Are you taking ownership of his quote? I'm not taking ownership of the one I posted

Artful Dodger: In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.

P. J. O'Rourke

Artful Dodger: I thought the problem in the USA was that 'adequate' coverage was either too much for certain people.. or that the schemes had through past increases been made out of reach by price hikes above inflation!!

... "AND he bought his huge yacht overseas depriving Americans of that job. And all to save himself money."

That's a free market option, part of capitalism. You might as well ban Chinese imports and cheap migrant labour. But would Americans be happy with the prices increases resulting from such?

SL-Mark: Unfortunately certain sides of the American politburo have to cater to their bosses that to do things straight in the USA seems to be such a comical circus.

... as they say quite often these days.. follow the cash.

Vikings: I'll make sure not to ever go to Guam now that I know it might tip over and capsize.

Artful Dodger: At least some progress can be made in 10 days or so. I can't wait to be a part of voting as many libs out as possible. At least we can get a little "checks n balances" in place.