No wonder John Howard and George Dubbya got along so well

Rumours have never completely died down that former Prime Minister, John Winston Howard's grandfather and father were probably members of a 1930s Australian fascist group which supported Hitler in the early days of his rise to power.

In 2004 The Guardian reported on how US President George W. Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power.
"George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.
His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.
The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy."

All of which goes some way to explaining the image above (which has been doing the email rounds for years) and why Bush was so eager to create another ethnic bogeyman teh Muslim.

Pity Bush didn't recall the talk about his family when he whaled into Barak Obama this week for his supposed willingness to talk with Islamic nations.
Of course this is another thing he has in common with John Winnie - this skewed view of Obama which Howard also displayed last year.

I wonder what sort of WWII memorabilia Howard and Bush would be swapping if they were so inclined?

Japan's whalers accused of taking whale meat to sell on the black market

According to Asahi Shimbun yesterday.

Greenpeace Japan said Thursday it will seek a criminal investigation against 12 crew members of a research whaling ship over allegations they embezzled a ton of meat from whales caught in the Antarctic Ocean.
The group says the crew members aboard the research vessel Nisshin Maru sent cardboard boxes believed to have contained whale meat to their homes.
At a news conference Thursday in Tokyo, Greenpeace Japan members displayed whale meat they said had been intercepted on route to the home of a crew member. The box contained 23.5 kilograms of coveted whale meat used in bacon.
The estimated value of the meat is between 110,000 yen and 350,000 yen ($1,048 and $3,334), according to Greenpeace Japan. ----
Greenpeace Japan noted that if the 47 boxes sent from the Nisshin Maru contained whale meat, the total would have exceeded 1 ton.

Greenpeace stated yesterday.

Our activists delivered the evidence, including the whale meat, to the Public Prosecutor's office in Tokyo, calling on it to make a full public enquiry into how deep the corruption runs with the whaling programme. We're also calling for an end to the USD$4.7 million taxpayer subsidies for the programme, and for the license of the company operating the whale hunt, Kyodo Senpaku, to be withdrawn.

Photo: Greenpeace Japan whale campaign coordinator Junichi Sato weighs 23.5 kilograms of whale meat stolen by crewmembers of the Nisshin Maru whaling ship. The contents of the box were listed as "cardboard."

Budget Reply '08: I'm big, I'm bad, I'm Brendan Nelson

It was obvious that the Budget Reply by the Leader of the Opposition, Brendan Nelson, was going to be something else when, before proceedings formally began, the cameras sprang the Coalition acknowledging a rent-a-crowd in had positioned in the public gallery.

Nelson's speech was different to the Federal Treasurer's 13 April budget speech on many levels.

The first was that, unlike Wayne Swan's speech, Nelson's monologue was heard out in polite silence by those on the other side.
The Coalition heckling during Swan's speech was a pitiful and petty effort and, it was a relief that Labor MPs were capable of more restraint last night.

The second difference was an amusing phenomenon.
The Coalition frontbench seated behind Nelson were a constant visual distraction as their heads bobbed in agreement like so many car rear-window animal ornaments.
Indeed Julie Bishop appeared almost frenetic at times.
The Labor frontbench behind Swan on Tuesday night were thankfully only occasionally afflicted with this peculiar tic.

However, it was the third difference which had the real impact.
The sheer hypocrisy which saturated Brendan Nelson's speech was almost beyond belief (Wayne Swan may have had a rather boring delivery but at least he sounded believable).

Suddenly Nelson was against policy, procedure and practices which were unchanged from the days of the former Howard Government in which he was first an ordinary MP and then a minister.

The Howard Government never locked in old age pension and carer bonus payments beyond one budget year, but suddenly the Rudd Government was mean and tricky to do the same.

He also decided that taxing 'alcopops' as spirits was unfair and would be resisted, although initially agreeing with the increased taxation proposal and way back in 1996 getting to his feet in the House of Representatives to complain that this type of alcoholic drink was too cheap.

Nelson repeatedly accused the Rudd Government of delivering a high taxing budget and then went on to say that he would oppose the removal of one tax - the Medicare levy for workers earning less than $150,000.

After years of Coalition neglect Nelson also decided to find that education and universities were important and chivvied the Rudd Government for its education policies which actually appear to reverse some of that neglect.

He was scathing about the current government's planned inquiries and reviews. Yet in a 2005 Sydney Morning Herald interview he cheerfully admitted; In the four years since he took over the $23 billion Education, Science and Training portfolio he's unleashed an unremitting stream of inquiries, reviews, reforms and initiatives, and says he has no intention of slowing down.

Brendan Nelson sketchily outlined his 'grand' economic plans for the future (which sounded very like old Howard policy) and his 5 cent solution to rising global petrol prices. Knowing full well that he will never survive as leader long enough to influence Coalition policy in the months leading up to the next federal election.

My favourite line in all this posturing occurred when Nelson accused Labor of the Coalition's biggest sin under the prime ministership of John Howard; punishing those it does not like.

Somewhere in the middle of his spin and unsupported accusations, the Leader of the Opposition decided to continue Howard's culture wars by denigrating university lecturers as social engineers and, somewhere towards the end of his delivery, resolved that Australia should become reconciled with our indigenous history (something that his national apology speech demonstrated that he was incapable of doing himself).

The Leader of the Opposition tried at times to whip himself into sincerity but failed. He declared himself angry with all the emotion of a limp lettuce leaf.

At one point Nelson stated;The government has perpetrated a fraud on the Australian public.
From my perspective this is exactly what Nelson himself was attempting last night.

Brendan Nelson's budget reply here.

Little Brennie Nelson indulges in pots and kettles

Did anyone else notice that during last night's budget reply the politician who was fond of sporting a large, flashy diamond earring had a dig at the Prime Minister's "expensive suits"?
Talk about foolish!