'corrupt' ALP 'could not remember'

No sex - Woman gave me neck massage, former NSW MP tells ICAC
But he said he quickly fell asleep.
"Because I was tired, I'd had a lot to drink that evening and I fell asleep."
He denied lying on top of the woman but said he could not remember if he kissed her or not.

Chris Bowen offers 159 sq km for illegals?

So does Chris Bowen offer McMahon which covers an area of approximately 159 sq km bordered by South Creek in the west, the Western Motorway in the north, the Cumberland Hwy and Prospect Creek in the east and Orphan School Creek, Humphries, Canley Vale, Smithfield and Edensor Rds and Elizabeth Dr in the south. Suburbs include Abbotsbury, Blacktown, Bossley Park, Canley Vale, Cecil Park, Eastern Creek, Edensor Park, Erskine Park, Fairfield, Fairfield Heights, Fairfield West, Greenfield Park, Greystanes, Horsley Park, Kemps Creek, Mount Vernon, Prairiewood, Prospect, St Clair, Smithfield, Wakeley and Wetherill Park, to house the illegals?

Bali dangers and boys

teenage boy electrocuted while celebrating Schoolies in Bali

Pacific Islander/Maori appearance - shooting incident - Busby

Police renew calls for public assistance following shooting incident - Busby

With Slipper - Gair/Cope combined?

With the end of Harry Jenkins: Order! Order! and with Peter Slipper - Do we get Vince Gair and Jim Cope combined?

NSW ALP Rozelle misery continues

On January 22, 2010 End confusion over CBD Metro, Rozelle businesses plead

"After spending $2million in renovations, Adele Tahan, one of the owners of Adore Pharmacy in Sydney's Rozelle, is facing the compulsory acquisition of her pharmacy to make way for the proposed CBD Metro.

Now November 2011 Adore Pharmacy is for sale by Deloittes

Quakers Hill nursing home fire - Greens solution?

Nursing home fire death toll rises to eight
The Greens NSW: Voluntary Euthanasia Policy

Drunk man breaks into monkey enclosure

Spider Monkeys can be extremely territorial when confronted, and they didn't take too kindly to Joao's intrusion into their enclosure.

HMAS Sydney (II) - 70th anniversary of the loss

With 70th anniversary of the loss of HMAS Sydney (II) Saturday, 19th November 2011

The reconstruction of events leading up to Sydney's disappearance relies primarily on information gathered from interrogations of German survivors from the raider HSK Kormoran which Sydney engaged on the afternoon of 19 November 1941.

Chapter 12 – Australia Station 1941
Official Histories - Second World War
Volume I - Royal Australian Navy, 1939-1942 (1st edition, 1957) G Hermon Gill

For many months thereafter stories, either malicious or merely mischievous, of news received from survivors of Sydney in Japan, continued to emerge and circulate, causing pain and distress in a number of Australian homes.

Why Burnett did not use his aircraft, did not keep his distance and use his superior speed and armament, did not confirm his suspicions by asking Navy Office by wireless if Straat Malakka was in the area, are questions that can never be answered.

If, as is possible, Burnett's action in closing Kormoran was influenced by the implied criticism of Farncomb's standing off from Ketty Brovig and Coburg, one can but conjecture what he would have done had he known of Devonshire's experience. On the other hand, both Farncomb and Devonshire's captain had more positive reason for suspicion in their encounters than had Burnett in his; and it may well be that, influenced by the near approach of darkness, he was moved to determine the question quickly; and thus was swayed to over confidence; first in the genuineness of Straat Malakka; second in Sydney's ability, with all armament bearing and manned, to overwhelm before the trap, if such existed, were sprung. Yet to act as Burnett did was to court disaster should a trap exist, disaster at the worst total, as it was; at the best professional for Burnett; for even had Sydney triumphed in an action it is improbable that it would have been without damage and casualties, and Burnett would have been unable to explain the risks he ran. In such an encounter, with the raider an apparently innocent merchant vessel, the other an undisguised warship known to the raider as an enemy, the element of surprise must have remained with Detmers until Burnett's suspicions deepened into absolute certainty. In the circumstances Burnett created, he could not have reached such certainty until Detmers abandoned all disguise and struck - a matter of almost simultaneous decision by him and action by his guns, giving him the tremendous advantage of that vital second or two in the first blow at such close quarters. In the event, Sydney must have been crippled from the outset by those devastating initial salvos at point blank range, the torpedo hit, and the fire from her aircraft's petrol. That she managed to inflict fatal wounds on her adversary after such staggering blows is evidence of the undefeated spirit of those who survived them, and who fought on in "X" and "Y" turrets, with the secondary armament, and at the torpedo tubes. It is probable that Sydney sank during the night of the 19th-20th November 1941.

Quakers Hill nursing home fire murder charges

Roger Dean, registered nurse, 35, Quakers Hill resident, of Asian appearance, charged with four counts of murder, refused bail over fatal fire.

Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad - drugs

Replica pistol, cash and drugs seized - Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad

In the first place the campaign was futile and unnecessary.

Official Histories - Second World War - Volume VII - The Final Campaigns (1st edition, 1963) - Gavin Long
Chapter 9 - The Floods and the Cease Fire
238 FLOODS AND CEASE FIRE 1945

From an early stage in the operations the troops knew that the value of the campaign, and of their efforts, was being questioned by politicians and newspapers at home. The following extracts from a history of the 42nd Battalion express views fairly widely held:

In the first place the campaign was futile and unnecessary.
At Salamaua men went after the lap because every inch of ground won meant so much less distance to Tokyo. But what did an inch of ground — or a mile — mean on Bougainville? Nothing!
Whether Bougainville could be taken in a week or a year would make no difference to the war in general. Every man knew this.
The Bougainville campaign was a politicians' war and served no other purpose than to keep men in the fight. They would have been much better employed on the farms, the mines and in building industries in Australia. Why they were not can only be answered by the few who decided that Australians must be kept in the war at all costs.
Every risk taken at Bougainville was one that could not be avoided; every life lost was begrudged. Men fought because there was no alternative. None wanted to lose his life on Bougainville . . . But despite all this men did fight and fought well. Lieut-Colonel Byrne said of the battalion: "I think that collectively the officers and men of the battalion did a grand job. It was filthy country; they were fighting what appeared to be a useless campaign and they knew it. Men are not fools and even though each man realised he was fighting for something which could benefit his country very little (and in addition his fighting received very little credit or publicity) he carried out orders energetically and in a very fine spirit “ 8

The small amount of publicity given to this and other Australian campaigns of 1945 in the Australian newspapers was undoubtedly a main cause of dissatisfaction. An education officer on Bougainville wrote to the Broadcasting Commission to complain about the dictation-speed news broadcast for the troops. He pointed out that more than half the time was usually given to crimes and accidents in Australia — for example, of the total of 45 minutes 15 had recently been allotted to describing how a man had been bitten by a stingray in St Kilda Baths and how a woman had jumped from an upstairs window, nearly 30 minutes to news of the Russian front, less than a minute each to other fronts, and nothing at all to Bougainville or New Guinea. "The reason for the stingray story as any news editor will affirm, is that `the public is war-weary and does not want to read about the war', wrote a diarist. `But the men up here aren't, and they want to know what goes on in the world'." Also they wanted to be assured that the people at home were being told about their achievements.
It was widely agreed that a policy whereby army public relations officers sent personal paragraphs about men fighting on Bougainville to appropriate small-town newspapers had a notable effect on the spirits of the men.

8 Benson, pp. 157-8 .
Benson, S. E. The Story of the 42 Aust . Inf. Bn . Sydney, Dymock's Book Arcade for 42nd Battalion Association, 1952 .

As for offshoring, the government's line is that it has been happening since the 1980s.

Offshoring: coming soon to a job near you

A Treasury spokesman said a number of the recommendations dealt with the tax treatment of Australian businesses, and the government was implementing some changes.

When asked whether there was structural change occurring within banking - not simply a blip brought about by lower activity - he defended the strength of the sector, and the increased competition occurring within it.

''The earnings announcement by the big four banks this week have shown that the banks remain highly profitable,'' he said.

As for offshoring, the government's line is that it has been happening since the 1980s. It allows businesses to take advantage of lower costs - and in the process gave Australians lower priced products and services.

women carry a .45-caliber weapon because he says they wouldn't have to be accurate, just close to the target.

South Carolina sheriff urges women to carry guns