Day: Thursday, September 30, 2010

CDF ignores own Army policy

Posted by Chief Blogger – 30 September, 2010

The Australian Amry have a policy, as set out in infantry doctrine, that when ever possible they attack an enemy with the odds three to one in their favour. How then did the Taliban manage to out number the Australians recently 100 to 30 men in which one Australian died? Not only that but from reports on MTR this morning most of the 100 got away.

There is something seriously wrong when we can’t win a stand-up engagement with the Taliban. If the CDF Houston thinks this is no big deal he better put away his RAAF hat and think again. It is a major problem when we lose a conventional battle with the Taliban.

Shadow Defence spokesman:

Senator Johnston says a soldier recently told new Defence Minister Stephen Smith face-to-face that troops were under-resourced and out-numbered.

“The dismissal of such a gravely serious complaint in such a manner is neither acceptable nor reasonable,” he said.

“How much more of a wake-up call does this Government really need?”

It is clearly not possible to think that we can segment or demarcate our operations in Afghanistan to simply training Afghan troops. It will likely involve a bigger commitment to do our part in actually defeating the Taliban, as opposed to thinking we can try and stand back in a training role.

Jenkins tells Gillard who’s boss

Posted by Chief Blogger – 30 September, 2010

HoR Speaker Harry Jenkins just told Gillard to sit down while ‘answering’ a question during QT. Trashing the opposition during QT when asked about government policy is no longer acceptable under the new terms and interpretation of standing orders. Gillard’s attempts to stab Jenkins in the back by wanting independent Rob Oakeshott to be speaker a couple of weeks ago couldn’t have helped the PM’s cause either. Jenkins is not taking any prisoners.

Combined with the ALP losing the vote yesterday over the standing orders, Gillard is off to a bad start in the HoR.

The Gods have spoken

Posted by Chief Blogger – 30 September, 2010

Yours truely Chief Blogger was in Singapore for the race (missing link):

….it was only after the race that tyre supplier Bridgestone realised how close Webber had been to suffering a puncture – with his tyre millimetres from slipping off the rim.

Evaluation by Bridgestone showed that the collision with Hamilton had pushed the tyre off its normal mounting on the rim. There was approximately 5mm left between the inner edge of the rim and the tyre – and if it had slipped over that small distance it would almost certainly have resulted in the tyre losing its pressure.

Australians by and large provided the track commentary for the audience. V8 Supercar Neil Crompton headed up the commentary team – it was pretty biased all race. Not sure what the locals made of it, but Mark Webber’s pit on the first safety car to change tyres and then quickly over taking two cars gave him third place. Apart from Webber there wasn’t much else to talk about. Holding off Button towards the end of the race with tyres that had gone nearly the whole race and had also bumped into Hamilton says something of Webber’s determination to win.

In a classic case of immovable object meets irresistible force, as Webber refused to yield and Hamilton tried to squeeze across to take the corner, contact was made between the pair – and the latter was out on the spot, making it two accident-induced DNFs in as many races, and dealing a second consecutive blow to his hopes of lifting the laurels.

FIA stewards subsequently concluded that the contretemps had been little more than a racing incident – and the two protagonists seemed to concur…

Earlier on Webber almost came to grief into a concrete wall behind a Williams - I think it was Ruben’s car. He was stuck behind Ruben’s for a while. Ithink red Bull told Webber to back off because of engine temps.

If you consider the totality of what Webber was up against he did very well. Apparently he was also using a new chassis. Not sure of the background. I think it may have been the supposed solution to Webber’s back flip antics during the European Grand Prix in July. Clearly it didn’t work out for Red Bull, but does the move to put Webber in a new chassis make him the number one driver in the team? He seemingly didn’t have any trouble in the old one.

Hardly a ringing endorsement

Posted by Chief Blogger – 30 September, 2010

Transcript here.

Nearly half the 1,000 houses in Midway Point are now connected to the NBN, which means the boxes are attached to buildings. But how many are actually using it is unknown. NBN Tasmania wouldn’t comment, despite repeated requests from Lateline for information.

The major problem with the NBN is a lack of information and transparency.