http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/orders/

I notice our Prime Miniature is refusing to say sorry to Muhamad Haneef for his wrongful detention:

Howard: “Australia will not be apologizing to Dr. Haneef. Dr. Haneef was not victimized and Australia’s international reputation has not been harmed by this ‘mis-start’ to its new anti-terrorism laws.”

Pull the other one, John. And the capricious Kevin Andrews is a disgrace, adding insult to injury by continuing to defame Dr Haneef: (“His lawyers indicated to my department … that he wanted to get out of Australia as soon as possible. If anything that rather heightens, rather than lessens, my suspicions.”).

I missed the 60 Minutes interview yesterday but am glad to hear at least it showed the government up. It was amusing to watch even the tabloids’ about-face on this one. In the Sunday papers the family was so gracious in thanking the public for their support, that was the only bright spot for the crap this innocent man had to endure.

On resistance or exile: this might be usefulhow to renounce your Australian citizenship

On the XO itself:
Given timezones, I think Tigtog’s And we thought Haneef had it bad at LarvProd was quick off the mark. There’s also a worry for us Aussies because the XO was courtesy of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. A couple of days later and another XO extended Bush’s ability to gag scientists if facts get in the way of the Bush agenda. Little Johnny, Ruddock et al will be taking notes in case they get back after the election.

And, well, I’m bedecked with grotesque orange ribbons and betaking myself into the public daily… two things I simply loathe… in an effort to goose people about impeachment, which I’m convinced is the only stop to the warring… among entirely too many other things. I’m jaded by having to endure the blathering of dolts who think their use of long words makes them “right” where I donate my time for a good cause. I’m frustrated by the fucking ocean of incentives to revolution that seems only to have sodden my countrymen. I’m up past my eyeballs with the knowledge of how activism turns so swiftly into another iteration of identity rather than, say, efficacious. Move someone to actually move and soon you find them moving like crazy just as they once opined like crazy… toward illustrating their position on the matter… missing completely that the object has not been attained. The rare few who will act are further reduced by how many of them find they like its reflection. We need a big mob of people who hate to act, only slightly less than they hate what’s going on, and will DIE before making it a hobby.

I am a rabid defender of teachers and as rabid toppler of ivory towers. I’m wondering how the heck we ever got around to the First American Revolution… how Thomas Paine, et al. managed to rally the forces.

I’m thinking it would help if all teachers kept in mind the civic responsibility inhering the education of citizens, never letting them forget that it isn’t even for its own sake that it is worth while, but for the planet’s sake.

And I happen to know a few of the leading lights of Blogistan’s intelligencia, and, well, they are very wrapped up in their own statures, in each other’s statures, and what we would suppose should flow from their eloquence doesn’t. It’s serving to soothe the freaked minions, assuring them that their hysteria is justified. This tends toward SETTLING the juices which would otherwise move them into the streets.

It’s a very bad problem.