Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
As regular listeners to the Edict will know, I reckon Australians should know more about the other nations in our region. So our special guest today is journalist Erin Cook, who covers South-East Asia, and we’re talking Indonesia and Thailand. Mostly.
Continue reading “The 9pm Indonesia and Thailand Crash Update with Erin Cook”
On New Year’s Eve Snarky Platypus and I created this bingo card for 2024 listing 25 distinctly possible things. And we list another 25 possibilities that didn’t make the cut.
Continue reading “Bingo Card 2024: Which of these things will happen?”
Stilgherrian is joined by Snarky Platypus, who’s recently returned to the socials after a two-year break, for a long conversation about everything from food to conspiracy theories to stupid names for Sydney suburbs. Quite a lot about food, actually.
Continue reading “The 9pm Bad Nasi Goreng Makes the Merlion Sad with Snarky Platypus”
This man’s name is Mick Kinley, and he’s shrugging with indifference at allegations that safety equipment is deliberately removed from the lifeboats used to return asylum seekers to Indonesia. But that OK, he’s the acting chief executive officer of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).
I’ve never met Kinley. I know nothing of his work apart from this incident. But do we really need any further context? The bureaucrat in charge of maritime safety is challenged over what sounds like a breach of maritime safety, but, you know, “Whatever.”
I believe this is what’s called the banality of evil.
Hang on, I’d better scroll back a bit…
Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB) is the Australian government’s grand-sounding name for the grubby process of intercepting any boats at sea that contain asylum seekers and returning them to Indonesia. They’re put into standard orange lifeboats towed behind our ships, and once they’re within a certain distance of Indonesia they’re cast off and left to find their own way hone.
But as The Guardian’s Paul Farrell reported on 7 May, safety equipment is removed from those lifeboats beforehand — ropes, scissors, knives, a mirror, fishing line and even buckets.
On 27 May, Kinley was questioned about this in the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee by Senator Stephen Conroy, who was clearly unimpressed. You can read the transcript — the relevant exchange starts on page 86 — but you should really watch the video to see the body language for yourself.
Actually, it’s worth picking up the story a little before that video starts, on page 84…
Continue reading “Operation Sovereign Borders, sinister and banal [blogjune05]”
A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets and in the media and so on and so forth.
None.
Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.
[Photo: Old bar sign at the Town Hall Hotel, Newtown. Gender roles were a little different back then.]
Stilgherrian’s links for 20 January 2009 through 24 January 2009: