I’m sure it won’t be like this time eight years ago when I spent the night in a New Jersey hotel room, still waiting at 3am for a result.  The next day I flew to Orlando Florida to attend a trade show.  My most vivid memory was when, completely unprompted, my taxi driver apologised to me on behalf of his state.

It didn’t help much when I posted it four years ago. Nonetheless, I’m going to roll out Leonard Cohen’s Democracy (video) one more time.

Senator ROBERT RAY (2.43 pm)—I direct my question to Senator Minchin, Minister representing the Prime Minister. Is the minister aware of an article in the Sunday Age newspaper of 24 June 2007, under the heading ‘“ASIO agent” Heffernan makes some odd calls’, which claimed that Senator Bill Heffernan had phoned the general manager of Cubbie Station and posed as an ASIO agent? Has an investigation been launched to determine whether or not Senator Heffernan may have committed an offence under division 148 of the Criminal Code by impersonating a Commonwealth public official? Isn’t it true that Senator Heffernan has confirmed that he does indulge in such impersonations? Is it a defence to claim eccentricity or slavish sycophancy to the Prime Minister and, if so, can all other potential criminals in the country make similar excuses?

Senator MINCHIN—I have no direct and personal knowledge of the circumstances of which Senator Ray speaks. Of course it is wrong, generally speaking, to impersonate anybody in any phone call, but I do not have a brief on the matter to which Senator Ray refers and I would prefer to be fully briefed before I give him an answer. I undertake to get him an answer as soon as I possibly can.

Senator ROBERT RAY—Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I appreciate that the minister is going to be briefed and get back to us but, while he is doing that, could he also confirm that Senator Heffernan has boasted that he impersonates Senator Barnaby Joyce—the horror, Mr President, the horror!— and rings Queensland constituents of Senator Joyce and asks them what they think of Senator Heffernan? Is it the case that section 7.3 of the Criminal Code provides that a person can be held not criminally responsible for an offence by reason of mental impairment?

Senator MINCHIN—I can confirm that Senator Heffernan has a remarkable and attractive sense of humour which endears him to all his colleagues. I can also confirm that Senator Joyce has a most distinctive voice that I would not have thought was capable of being impersonated. Nevertheless, I am not in a position to confirm the allegation and I will not undertake to get any further information on that matter.

Recent events have caused me wonder how close we are to abandoning old-fashioned notions like presumption of innocence, territorial jurisdiction, and habeas corpus. I wonder out loud when the up might be heard roaring.

This is part of a summary of how Australia lists “terrorist organisations”:

Under the law, there are two ways for an organisation to be identified as a ‘terrorist organisation’. Either an organisation may be found to be such an organisation by a court as part of the prosecution for a terrorist offence, or it may be specified in Regulations, known as ‘listing’. For a listing to be effective, the processes set out in the legislation must be followed.

Before an organisation can be listed, the Attorney-General must be satisfied on reasonable grounds that the organisation is directly or indirectly engaged in, preparing, planning, assisting in or fostering the doing of a terrorist act.

The Attorney-General of Australia can list a group as a terrorist organization if he is satisfied on reasonable grounds that they are indirectly assisting in a terrorist act. I wonder whether the framers of this legislation thought terribly much about how flexible the concept of “reasonable” can be when an opportunity to grandstand and/or wedge your political opponents presents itself? The lack of checks on this power is pretty staggering. The rationale is that the attorney might need to act in haste to head off a terrorist plot, or whatever. How often will a terrorist organization just spring from nowhere and require the Attorney-General’s lightning listing reflexes to defend the Commonwealth? I don’t think the terrorist organization who’s main weapons are fear, surprise, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope are currently active.

So, completely theoretically, let’s imagine you’re a member of the Greens, or even the (old school!) Liberal Party, and you have billeted someone who has a cousin who’s a ship’s captain with Sea Shepherd. Unbeknown to you, they are (hypothetically) secretly plotting to join up with their cousin to jam shipboard GPS signals and force a whaling ship onto a reef. While staying with you they show a keen interest in borrowing a dusty tome from your library — “Readers Digest Satellite Navigation Jamming 2nd Edition 1992.”

After a terrible shipping incident a hypothetical future Labor government might agree with Japan that Sea Shepherd are a terrorist organization and list them. Suddenly you’re a suspect for assisting a member of a terrorist organization and your whole political party is about to be listed just for having you, an aider and abettor of Sea Shepherd, as a member:

When a court has determined, or by regulation it is determined, that an organisation is a ‘terrorist organisation’, it is an offence to:

• direct the activities of the organisation;
• recruit persons to the organisation;
• receive training from or provide training to the organisation;
• receive funds from or make available funds to the organisation;
• provide support or resources to the organisation.

Thankfully you can trivially demonstrate a lack of mens rea, and be given bail to work up a decent defence…

So much for that bail idea:

“The matter that I will be looking at very seriously is this question of the presumption against bail, there was an expectation as to how it would operate and if appeals suggest that we’ve got it wrong, well it’s a matter that the Parliament might well be asked to put right,” he said.

Mr Ruddock says changes to the law may be necessary.

“If we find in relation to these measures that the law that we passed that we expected would ensure that people charged with terrorism offences would have a presumption against bail is not being met we may have to look at that matter further.”

In any case, bail doesn’t count for people on visas. Kevin Andrews decision to put him in immigration detention for having “an association or link” with a criminal or terrorist is a jarring reminder that all immigrants are here at the pleasure of the Minister for Immigration. He can have you locked up or deported the moment he has reason to doubt your character. The Minister for Immigration is Judge Dredd for non-citizens.

I have no insight about the guilt or innocence of Dr Haneef. Haneef’s treatment by Federal Ministers with mumbled support from Labor makes me wonder how close we are to two-party-preferred elected despotism. At the rate we are trashing legal principles and developing a taste for barely checked ministerial powers, we’re getting pretty close.

Recent changes to Electoral Enrolment laws mean that if you intend to vote in Australia’s upcoming Federal Election today would be a good time to enrol to vote or update your electoral details (if you aren’t correctly enrolled already) because there is no longer a grace period after the calling of an election to allow stragglers to be enrolled to vote in it.

THE Howard Government’s script on climate change might have been written by Saint Augustine: Lord, make me chaste – but not yet.

Apparently we can’t set targets this year. This year is too early. However, a target that we can all agree on is 2012. 2012 is not too early, not too late. In fact 2012 is just right for setting targets and implementing a carbon trading scheme.

Sheesh. It only takes a bad poll result to drop a few billion dollars on water in the Murray Darling or a temporary front-line fighter of arguable merit, but we can’t set up a CO2 trading scheme for 5+ years?

Paul Keating on The ABC’s The World Today

ELEANOR HALL: What did you think of Peter Costello’s performance in the parliament, though, when he raised this?

PAUL KEATING: Well, the thing about poor old Costello, he’s all tip and no iceberg, you know. He (laughs), you know, he can throw a punch across the parliament, but the bloke he should be throwing the punch to his Howard. Of course, he doesn’t have the ticker for it.

Now, he’s now been treasurer for 11 years, the old coconut’s still sitting there, araldited to the seat, and, you know, the Treasurer works on the smart quips, but when it comes to staring down the Prime Minister in his office, he always leaves disappointed, you know, he never gets the sword out. You know, you know the thing ‘I’ll huff and puff and blow your house in’, that’s Costello (laughs).

ELEANOR HALL: Has the Government, though, now taken the high moral ground with this by removing Minister Campbell?

PAUL KEATING: Look, for John Howard to get to any high moral ground he would have to first climb out of the volcanic hole he’s dug for himself over the last decade. You know, it’s like one of those deep diamond mined holes in South Africa, you know, they’re about a mile underground. He’d have to come a mile up to get to even equilibrium, let alone have any contest in morality with Kevin Rudd.

High-profile media personality Maxine McKew will run as a Labor candidate in the next federal election.

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd’s office confirmed that Ms McKew, an ABC journalist for more than 30 years, would stand as a candidate at this year’s election.

Mr Rudd’s spokesman could not confirm which seat Ms McKew would contest.

But ABC TV reported on Sunday night that Ms McKew was expected to run against Prime Minister John Howard in his Sydney seat of Bennelong.

I’ve done some quick calling around to check voter sentiment. My recent poll suggests Maxine can expect 100% of the vote in Bennelong*.

* Poll taken in one household in Bennelong with a sample size of two people**.

** I was one of those people.

LAURIE OAKES: On that subject, Senator Barack Obama’s announced overnight he’s running for the Democrat Presidential nomination, and he says if he gets it he has a plan to bring troops home by March, 2008 and his direct quote is “Letting the Iraqis know we’ll not be there forever is our last, best hope to pressure the Sunies and Shiah to come to the table and find peace”. So, basically he’s agreeing with the Labor Party.

JOHN HOWARD: Yes, I think he’s wrong, I mean, he’s a long way from being President of the United States. I think he’s wrong. I think that would just encourage those who wanted completely to destabilise and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for Obama victory. If I was running Al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.

I’m sure the Democratic Party-controlled US Senate and Congress are cowed by this, and will be happy to discuss it during the next trade talks.

Update: Oops forgot to link. And this is all going to smart once congressional investigations into the AWB heat up.

It’s December, and December is dump the Federal Labor leader month.

Given John Howard’s likely reaction to Labor shenanigans, regardless of the outcome, Peter Costello should throw in the Liberal towel and run for Labor leader.

It’s your last best chance to tilt at a windmill for a long time, Peter!

Wake me up after the election.

As Kurt Vonnegut said on his 2005 Daily Show appearance:

I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy because we’re experienced with it.
[...]
In democracy after 100 years you have let your slaves go, and after 150 years you have to let your women vote, and at the beginning of democracy there is quite a bit of genocide and ethnic cleansing. It’s quite ok and that’s what’s going on right now.

In his book It Doesn’t Take a Hero, retired U.S. Army Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf describes the evolution of the plans he and his staff made following Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. As his mission to defend Saudi Arabia quickly grew into an offensive plan to drive Iraqi troops out of everyone’s favorite oppressive rococo emirate, Schwarzkopf developed a four-step course of action intended to grind his enemy down into miserable fighting condition before finishing him off with an overwhelming and elaborately staged ground attack. Problem is, all of that grinding and staging took time — and quite a few of the people Schwarzkopf worked for wanted to see the lion eat the fucking gladiator already. Following one White House meeting at which he’d asked for more time and more troops, Stormin’ Norman reports, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell called to warn the Desert Storm commander that he was being loudly compared, by a top administration official, to George McClellan. “My God,” the official supposedly complained. “He’s got all the force he needs. Why won’t he just attack?” Schwarzkopf notes that the unnamed official who’d made the comment “was a civilian who knew next to nothing about military affairs, but he’d been watching the Civil War documentary on public television and was now an expert.”

And then, twenty pages later, Schwarzkopf casually drops the information that he got an inspirational gift from Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney right before the air war finally got under way. Cheney was presenting a gift to a military man, and he chose something with an appropriate theme: “(A) complete set of videotapes of Ken Burns’s PBS series, The Civil War.”

But that wasn’t the only gift that Dick Cheney had for Norman Schwarzkopf. Having figured out that the general was being too cautious with his fourth combat command in three decades of soldiering, Cheney got his staff busy and began presenting Schwarzkopf with his own ideas about how to fight the Iraqis: What if we parachute the 82nd Airborne into the far western part of Iraq, hundreds of miles from Kuwait and totally cut off from any kind of support, and seize a couple of missile sites, then line up along the highway and drive for Baghdad? Schwarzkopf charitably describes the plan as being “as bad as it could possibly be… But despite our criticism, the western excursion wouldn’t die: three times in that week alone Powell called with new variations from Cheney’s staff. The most bizarre involved capturing a town in western Iraq and offering it to Saddam in exchange for Kuwait.” (Throw in a Pete Rose rookie card?) None of this Walter Mitty posturing especially surprised Schwarzkopf, who points out that he’d already known Cheney as “one of the fiercest cold warriors in Congress.”

[...]

The article was memorable enough for me to get a sense of deja vu reading excerpts from Bob Woodward’s new book “State of Denial” and “Hubris” (h/t War and Piece):

Cheney’s office wakes Kay up in the middle of the night, with a highly sensitive communications intercept that had captured a snippet of conversation between two unidentified people. Cheney’s aides were reading raw transcripts straight from the National Security Agency. And a Cheney staffer who had gotten hold of this piece of unanalyzed intelligence thought that it contained a reference to a WMD storage site in Iraq, even though the captured exchange didn’t specifically mention weapons. What made this intercept most promising was that it had come with geographic coordinates for one of the unidentified persons…The next morning, [Kay's] analysts checked the coordinates and discovered they referred to a site in the Bekka Valley in Lebanon—not anywhere in Iraq. This was no lead…[j]ust as Cheney and Libby had done before the war, the vice president’s aides were rummaging through top secret, unprocessed intelligence in the hope of discovering what everyone else in the U.S. government had missed.

[...]The signals intercept was not the only intelligence tip Cheney’s office urgently passed on to Kay. On another occasion, the vice president’s aides sent a message to Kay and the ISG: check out this overhead photograph. It showed what looked like the opening of a tunnel on the side of a hill in Iraq. This could be where the WMD were hidden, Cheney’s office said—in caves.

When Kay and several of his analysts took a look at the photo, they burst out laughing. They knew exactly what was in the picture. It was a common practice for local farmers to use bulldozers to dig trenches into the sides of hills. Because the water table was fairly high, these trenches would fill with water and become sources of drinking water for cows…”Anyone who has spent any time on the ground in Iraq immediately would recognize these as cuts that the local population made to get to ground water for their animals,” Kay said later. “We reported back that we had looked at it and it was not what you thought it was. There was no point humiliating them.”

The conclusion of the Suck.com article is far more prescient than I had once hoped. Remember that this is written before September 11, 2001 when ballistic missile defense was the core of the incoming US Administration’s defense strategy.

[...]When Cheney was at the Pentagon, he decided that the drug problem was in fact a national security problem.

And who would dare to argue with him? This is after all a man who may someday be named among the champions of the postwar era. Cheney has the old glint in the eye, the arrogance with the lives of others, the wide-legged certainty of the ferocious old cold warrior that he is. The architect of the western excursion is exactly the kind of man who would never allow a mine shaft gap. And so the idea that the political parties have grown toward one another into a muddled center seems accurate in at least one sense: This time around, the roles of Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara have been cast for a Republican. And it’s exactly the role the man was born to play.

(links changed to Wikipedia)

Update:

File this under the Daily Show’s “Bear determined to defecate in woods” category, but this news seemed like good punctuation to a shallow biography of Cheney:

Attorney David Lane said that on June 16, Steve Howards was walking his 7-year-old son to a piano practice, when he saw Cheney surrounded by a group of people in an outdoor mall area, shaking hands and posing for pictures with several people.

According to the lawsuit filed at U.S. District Court in Denver, Howards and his son walked to about two-to-three feet from where Cheney was standing, and said to the vice president, “I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible,” or words to that effect, then walked on.

Ten minutes later, according to Howards’ lawsuit, he and his son were walking back through the same area, when they were approached by Secret Service agent Virgil D. “Gus” Reichle Jr., who asked Howards if he had “assaulted” the vice president. Howards denied doing so, but was nonetheless placed in handcuffs and taken to the Eagle County Jail.

h/t Rondam Ramblings.