Clare Werbeloff: Internet Sensation

The Internet has changed our world in ways that few can fully comprehend yet. Take for example the recent case involving Australian beauty, Clare Werbeloff. Here's the raw footage of her "eye-witness" account of a shooting:

Her use of the term "wog" sparked off an uproar from uptight white "progressives", who deemed her to be the reincarnation of Satan himself.

Now it turns out that the whole thing was a prank on Ms. Werbeloff's part. So the last laugh clearly is on the media and those "progressives". I hope to see Clare Werbeloff appearing on a silver screen as early as next year!

John Howard Interview

Australia's terrific past PM, John Howard, is interviewed by Leah Costello of the Fraser Institute:

An Aussie Saying It As It Is

If you've ever been frustrated by a government agency then you'll appreciate this, which I just received via e-mail (foul language warning) :

This is an actual letter sent to the then DFAT Minister, The Hon. Alexander Downer and the then Immigration Minister, The Hon Minister Amanda Vanstone. The Government tried in desperation to censure the author, but got nowhere because every legal person who read it nearly wet themselves laughing!

Please excuse the language contained within, but I suspect the author was somewhat upset? Yet another "happy" customer of a bureaucratic, inefficient, and ineffectual Federal Government. A fabulous characteristic of Australians is that they are far more direct and outspoken than others when dealing with the sort of elected wanker who wouldn't otherwise get the full drift of what they were trying to communicate.


Dear Mr. Minister,

I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this.

How is it that K-Mart has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a Television Set and Golf Clubs from them back in 1997, and yet, the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date???

For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand?

My birth date you have in my Medicare information, and it is on all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 40 years. It is on my driver's license, on the last eight passports I've ever had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed
off the planes over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that I've filled out every 5 years since 1966.

Also, would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Audrey, my Father's name is Jack, and I'd be absolutely fucking astounded if that ever changed between now and when I drop dead!!!...

SHIT!

I apologize, Mr. Minister. But I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you and me, I've had enough of all this bullshit! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my fucking address!! What the hell is going on with your mob? Have you got a gang of mindless Neanderthal arseholes workin' there?!

And another thing, look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I can't even grow a beard for God's sakes. I just want to go to New Zealand and see my new granddaughter. (Yes, my son interbred with a Kiwi girl). And would someone please tell me, why would you give a shit whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a sheep or a horse, believe you me, I'd sure as hell not want to tell anyone!

Well, I have to go now, 'cause I have to go to the other end of the city, and get another fucking copy of my birth certificate and part with another $80 for the privilege of accessing MY OWN
INFORMATION!

Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot, to assist in the issuance of a new passport on the same day?? Nooooo... that'd be too fucking easy and makes far too much sense. You would much prefer to have us running all over the place like chickens with our fucking heads cut off, and then having to find some high society wanker to confirm that it's really me in the goddamn photo! You know the photo ... the one where we're not allowed to smile?! ... you fucking morons.

Signed - An Irate Australian Citizen.

P.S Remember what I said above about the picture, and getting someone in high-society to confirm that it's me? Well, my family has been in this country since before 1850! In 1856, one of my forefathers took up arms with Peter Lalor. (You do remember the Eureka Stockade!!) I have also served in both the CMF and regular Army something over 30 years (I went to Vietnam in 1967), and still have high security clearances. I'm also a personal friend of the president of the RSL. and Lt General Peter Cosgrove sends me a Christmas card each year.

However, your rules require that I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am; You know ... someone like my doctor; WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN PAKISTAN!!! ... a country where they either assassinate or hang their ex-Prime Ministers, and are suspended from the Commonwealth for not having the 'right sort of government.'

You are all Fucking idiots.

Even Conservative Politicians Can Be Wrong

If necessary, I'm willing to fly down to Australia to stand up for my sisters and protest this archaic ban. I trust we'll have lots & lots & lots of meetings. Hey, I know it's tough work, but somebody has to do it! ;-)

Australia's Pending Internet Censorship

The 1-year old Labour government in Australia seems intent on enacting a huge Internet filter called "Clean Feed". You can read more about it here and here.

To the second column I left this comment:

To some, I realize that Internet censorship sounds like a perfectly wonderful idea. Remove from the Internet all the "bad" sites and it'll be better for the good citizens. Unfortunately all bad ideas start with good intentions.

Take for example what has happened in my country of Canada with "Human Rights" Commissions and Freedom of Speech. It all started in such a "progressive" way: Prevent Neo-Nazis from saying & writing bad things about Jews. All fine & good, right?

But things have quickly devolved since then. Now we have Muslim extremists trying to use the same legislation to shut up mainstream authors like Mark Steyn. We have a lesbian who got drunk, heckled a comedian, and is hauling him through the same process for "daring" to speak back to her. We have Far Left activists using the legislation to silence anyone who dares disagree with them, even individuals just sharing their opinions on blogs.

And who decides each of these cases? Social activists who came to their positions, not because of any specific legal training on how to be a good judge, but simply based on who they knew. This past year of 2008 has brought out into the open the Kangaroo Court nature of these decision makers. It has become clear that truth is not a defence, facts are not a defence, and precedence is not a defence either.

As the new year turns over, welcome to the Canada of 2009, a future that Australia seems intent on blindly walking into as well. I urge you to learn from our dreadful mistake and chart a new course for yourselves before it's too late. Otherwise you WILL wake up one day and wonder how on earth you lost the freedoms you once took for granted.

Canada's Free Speech Fiasco: The World is Watching

From The Australian, Janet Albrechtsen writes the following:

... the West is killing free speech slowly - by more subtle means - through state-sponsored censorship under the grand name of protecting human rights.

The insidious role of human rights commissions was exposed in June when Mark Steyn and Canadian magazine Macleans were hauled before the Canadian Human Rights Commission for islamophobia.

While the complaint was ultimately dismissed, the fact that words warrant oversight by a state tribunal points to a rank attitude to free speech where a person is required to spend copious amounts of time and money defending words and ideas.

The same thing had happened in April, when the Ontario Human Rights Commission dealt with complaints against Steyn and Macleans. And in January, when conservative commentator Ezra Levant had to defend his publication of the Danish cartoons to the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission.

As Steyn wrote of his experience of heavy-handed state censorship, the media "seems generally indifferent to a power grab that explicitly threatens to reduce them to a maple-flavoured variant of Pravda ... As some leftie website put it, 'defending freedom of speech for jerks means defending jerks'. Well, yes. But, in this case, not defending the jerks means not defending freedom of speech for yourself. It's not a Left-Right thing; it's a free-unfree thing".

An Australian Weighs in on the Ezra Levant Fiasco

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Australia, beware this daft gift from Canada
Janet Albrechtsen
The Vancouver Sun
17 Jan 2008

CANBERRA t was one of those rare, particularly sunny days in Vancouver in September when, addressing an audience at the University of British Columbia, I suggested that multiculturalism and its partner in crime, moral relativism, were leading to the... read more...

Related:
Allowing too many rights ends up making a wrong

Tech Tags: The Vancouver Sun newspaper Issues & Ideas

A Muslim Speaks Out About Terrorism

Tanveer Ahmed is an Australian comedian. But he's also a thoughtful man who is taking an active role to reduce terrorism. He just published a superb editorial here.