Indian abuses in Kashmir

Thanks to the wikileaks releases see here we're getting to confirm what we've always suspected about the Indian authorities in Kashmir - there's systematic abuse and persecution of the Muslim majority.
While I won't get into the politics of who should control the region, the current overseers India are behaving the way (unfortunately) most states do when administering a hated minority within their boundary.
While India is a nation of about a billion people and its easy to find negative examples to make a point about their government, it would appear to clearly show now that India is a systematic abuser of the human rights of its Muslim occupants in Kashmir (at least).
But India is not a country we hear much about in relation to extremists and terrorists in the western media. They're too strategically important a country to get off side, and we're (the west) even willing to throw nuclear export technology their way to keep them happy....even though they refuse to sign the nuclear non Proliferation Pact.....which I consider scandalous, and not to mention incredibly irresponsible.
So instead we continue to paint this rosy picture of India as the world's biggest democracy with harmonious ethnic minorities. Yet the state continues to brutalise the Kashmiries, and the Hindu extremists continue to go to work on their perceived enemies too.
I don't forsee a bright future here......

rail union picking a fight with Ted Baillieu over the PSOs

I was interested to read the chest thumping recently by the Rail,Tram & Bus Union (RTBU) over the incoming Baillieu Government's policy of having Victoria Police Protective Services Officers (PSOs) on every train station after 6pm.
The RTBU came out (predictably) against the plan, and even went so far as to hint at strike action over the proposal. This union has been quite pragmatic since the Kennett era public sector purges of the 90s nearly destroyed them, having shown admirable evasiveness and flexibility to first survive, then to strengthen. The RTBU (through its ambitious ALP pre-selection hopeful Trevor Dobbin) wants the 940 odd prospective PSO recruits to be converted to rail customer service staff instead, but of course the true reason for this is that the RTBU wants another 940 union members which helps cement their strength....it has nothing to do with what's good or bad for the travelling public. It is a turf war plain and simple, better we have 940 new members rather than the police union?
But the union's move in making veiled threats of strike action was bad politics if nothing else. Think about it, you have a newly elected Government coming to power on one of the few election promises that actually resonated with the voters, a plan to visibly reduce the perceived safety threat on public transport! Now they just look like an out of touch band of 70s style ruffians.
A much better way to get their point across to government would be to seek meetings to sort through the logistics of the proposals (of which there are many), and if the RTBU doesn't like the answers they get back, there are plenty of ways to frustrate the government and win concessions. For example, the union can instruct all station staff to refuse to cooperate with the PSOs in any way, ie. refuse to let them in the station to use the toilet or have a meal break etc, and plenty of other little tricks along the same line.
But since we're talking about introducing a massive new transport policing department of over a thousand officers (including the extra Transit (real) Police), why not do the job properly and reestablish a "railway police" department like we previously had for over a 100 years? Unlike the PSOs who have limited prosecutorial powers (unless there's legislative changes?), the old railway police had full police powers on railway property, and prosecuted cases themselves before the courts without having to waste Vic Pol resources. But the Coalition Govt will never go down that route, mainly out of embarrassment that their conservative predecessors were the ones who abolished the concept in 1992, which admittedly was the nationwide fashion of the time. But as a digression, it's interesting to note that the only state not to abolish their railway police in the 90s in favour of a takeover by the State Police was Western Australia. And is it a coincidence that they've got the best best run transport system in the country right now?

celebrities and State funerals

While the recent death of the indigenous talented ex footballer Maurice Rioli is a sad thing, one can't help but cringe at the increasingly epidemic pattern of awarding State funerals to every washed up has been sports star and celebrity. And how undignified it was to see Rioli's brother Sebastian pre-empting the process by publicly demanding a tax payer funded memorial. Maybe I'm a little old fashioned, but I would've thought the classy thing to do is humbly accept a state funeral IF it were offered, not EXPECT one, like some kind of God given entitlement?
But hang you say, what about his service as Member of the NT Parliament, surely that makes him worthy of State honours? Well let's have a look at that record then;
he was caught out pawning a tax payer provided bar fridge from his electorate office to cover gambling debts, as well as lending his car to an unlicensed teenager who then proceeded to crash it.
Not a particularly distinguished career of public service in my view.....and not that you can find much reference to it on google either, it seems to have been airbrushed from history? Another common occurrence with sporting celebrities in this country I would argue.
But my criticisms are not directed towards Rioli per se, so much as I'm using him as a perfect example to highlight this country's obsession with $3 celebrities and the airbrushing of the inconvenient truths. In the great scheme of things some footballer contributes very little to the enhancement of society, yet we embarrassingly fawn on them in a truly cringeworthy way.
I mean when was the last time a scientist or a doctor was awarded a state funeral for some truly worthy breakthroughs in their respective fields of endeavour....in areas that truly contribute to society?.....the silence is deafening I know!

goodbye and good riddance to Brumbles...er..Brumby

While most of us on the progressive side of politics were thrilled with the election of the "accidental Premier" Steve Bracks in October 1999 after the savage cost cutting and contemptuous Kennett Government, the longer the Labor Govt stayed in office, the more and more disheartened I became with their performance. And that revulsion only intensified after Bracks "retired" and Brumbles took over (I've always referred to him as "Brumbles" since Kennett mocked him and pretended he couldn't remember his name).
I've often (half jokingly) said that the only things this Labor Govt achieved during their whole time in office were;
restoring the powers of the Auditor-General
instituting proportional representation in the upper house
invoking a human rights charter
and banning smoking in restaurants (and to a lesser extent in night clubs)
I guess the first thing that really started to cheese me off about them was the covert revenue raising by restricting the tolerance levels on speed cameras to a ridiculous 3 kms, which of course meant when the inevitable camera faults occurred, people essentially had to cop it sweet because they really had no way to disprove the reading, as the onus of proof was on the victim, not the state! And what did the Govt do every time their cameras were embarrassingly exposed as faulty and innocent people getting booked?......they'd come out with that infuriating pre scripted line about "we don't apologise for trying to save lives etc".....I mean for f*ck sake, you should be down on your hands and knees apologising for the needless stress you've put honest citizens through!! And behind the scenes those of us in the know knew that the real reason for lowering speed tolerance was to subversively increase state revenue without publicly increasing taxes. Then this cheeky thought process led to the other brilliant idea of indexing all state charges and fines every year, to once again raise more revenue without having to tell the public you're making unpopular tax increases.
There's a whole list of other reasons why Brumby had a "shock" election loss, but it's probably summed up best by Labor apparatchik George Droutsas in this op-ed piece see here .
But as for me the final straw in abandoning this Govt was its cynical attack on State institutions, after being elected on a platform of transparency. The use of tax payer funded tv ads to cynically glorify itself used to really just get my blood boiling, and using the "commerical in confidence" to pay (what is essentially) slush money to Bernie Eccelstone to keep that f*cking awful Grand Prix in Melbourne. I mean how much does that race cost? Sorry I can't tell you coz it's a secret! Perhaps one day this State will follow California's policy of no "commercial in confidence" agreements, and make ALL financial transactions will private companies a matter of public record!
But I think today's revelation see here pretty much sums up the former Govt perfectly. Once again attacking State institutions by being "prepared to disadvantage two public servants because one of them had performed her duties in compliance with the act".
Some of my friends in the lead up to the election asked me with bewilderment why I was supporting the conservatives? I guess apart from the reasons mentioned above, I believe strongly in transparency, and state institutions, and a government's responsibility to uphold them. But over time all we got was slick cynical spin and what I can only describe as a contempt for the electorate. So yeah, I guess it's a case of goodbye Brumbles....and GOOD RIDDANCE!

Australian "terrorists"?

While the Murdoch tabloids rage about the would be "terrorists" see here with captions in bold type of the nasty things these guys said about Australia, it is perhaps time to put some of this in perspective. The last time I checked this was still a free country and people were allowed to call us infidels, be happy that bushfires killed lots of non muslims, and call us a "filthy people". It will be very interesting to see what type of sentence they get in the new year, because it seems to me that these goofballs are guilty of not much more than being loudmouths and bignoters. They never obtained weapons, or got further than "talking" about doing something rotten. In fact I would argue that if the police had never discovered this "plot", nothing would've happened?

Joseph Gutnick responsible for Middle East violence?

I know it seems like 100 years ago now, but can anyone remember the political climate before Binyamin Netanyahu became Prime Minister of Israel in 1996? Remember the time in the mid 90s when there was GENUINE optimism of achieving peace in the Middle East? When Arafat attended Rabin's funeral as a GENUINE mark of respect for his partner in peace?
But then something funny happened, the likely winner of the upcoming elections and successor to the peace process Shimon Peres was the victim of a barrage of money (in the form of political donations) going to his opponent Netanyahu in the last week or so of the campaign by none other than the Australian Rabbi Joseph Gutnick. With the help of Gutnick as well as extreme forces on the Israeli Right, Netanyahu pulled off a shock victory. And needless to say what these forces wanted in return for their support? Not an inch of land to the Philistines......er...I mean the Palestinians! And what have we seen since that time? Nothing but violence, mayhem and fanaticism, with only a brief respite of the Camp David near agreement of January 2001. And with the election of the disgusting figure of Sharon went out the door any hope of human decency having any weight in the peace process.
Some may say it's a stretch to blame Gutnick for what's happened since 96, but before you ridicule that hypothesis, just imagine for a moment what the Middle East would've looked like today had Peres won the 96 poll?

ACT's Human Rights Act

This is quite a ground breaking case read here as it appears that the Human Rights Act is being used in relation to a civil suit, long after the people involved were convicted in the criminal courts. While I can't say much while this case is proceeding, I do think generally that it's great to see that people are becoming aware of their rights under the various state and territory human rights act/charters.
While a number of the usual suspects of the chattering classes will no doubt come out against the Act, the mere fact that a jurisdiction has a Human Rights Act in place ensures that every civil servant in a position of power will think twice before acting on their less than benevolent instincts. In fact one of the stats you'll never read is how many citizens have NOT been victimised by the State by the mere fact that an authority figure has thought twice before taking a controversial decision?

"new age" silliness and simpleton celebrities

I read today that the consumer watchdog the ACCC has come out against those ridiculous "power balance bracelets" see here by stating that "there is no credible scientific basis for the claims". But what's disturbing about the whole fiasco is that we as a society are so stupid that we need to be told by the authorities before we accept the blindingly obvious.
How sad it is that a piece of plastic junk that's probably made in China can be marketed as something that provides better "balance" by working with the wearer's "natural energy field", and we just gobble it all up because we see some $3 celebrity wearing it, so we need to have one too!
But I guess this leads me to ask the question, are the celebrities involved paid to market a scam by the company, or are they just victims who've jumped on the "new age" bandwagon? Because remember, in this shallow empty decadent secular world that your average celebrity lives in, they're easily sucked into the latest fad or new age malakia (sorry, but some words need to be emphasised in Greek!)....or worse.....Scientology or heretical pentecostal Christianity!

Australia's worst ever Foreign Minister

''Let the whole place go to shit, that's the best thing that could happen'', and so said then Australian FM Alexander Downer about North Korea click here .
This villainous little weasel was almost sacked from the job in his first year due to incompetence, but apart from being incompetent, he's also a great humanitarian it would seem....not! This guy really is a piece of work, apparently the best way to end "tyranny", is to starve the populous to death? It is amazing however to watch someone transform when they get into power and get to ingratiate themselves with their American counterparts. I'm pretty sure I remember old "Lexy" starting off as a moderate? But somewhere along the way he became essentially a neo con with little thought for human suffering their policies would cause to living breathing human beings, with their only focus being their supreme goal.....an Anglo-Saxon Hegemony controlled from Washington.

"dikileaks" and privacy laws

 ‎"To infer that I would pose for a photograph naked knowing that it was going to be kept is just absolute garbage and offensive". And so said St Kilda player Nick Riewoldt, but this is maybe a bit of a stretch, as a club leader and a sports celebrity he shouldve known this would end up all over the internet? click here .
Assuming the footballer's version of events is true that they don't know the girl and let her take pictures of them naked (which I certainly don't rule out considering the reputations of the average footballer), I personally think we need to put the breaks on the building momentum to overhaul internet privacy laws after this fiasco. I believe there's enough laws in place to cover character assassination etc, and surely people can sue for "pain and suffering" if they've suffered severe ridicule? Just because some footballer was made to look an idiot, doesn't mean we should all go out of our way to change the laws of the land?
And in fact while I was writing this, I saw a link which lists the possible actions the aggrieved party can take. list of options .
 

"big bad" Ticket Inspectors

It looks like the Victorian State Ombudsman has given the media a chance to have a free kick against everyone's favourite whipping boy, Ticket Inspectors click here . If you like, you can read the whole report here .
The thing that really stands out after reading the report is that (unsurprisingly) the administration of enforcement procedures, and training of officers is essentially a mess.
For example, the "Quality Control Officer" at the Dept whose job it is to screen the Infringement reports before they get to the penalty stage reviewed over 200,000 cases in a year, and estimated that they spent no more than 10-15 seconds on each case. But this should not be a surprise, because almost everything in the railways is done in a half arsed slip-shod manner. And how typical is this comment from the Ombudsman;
"As a result of missing documentation, I was unable to assess the consistency of the
 department’s decision-making at case review".
So while the media are playing up the usual "shock horror, Officers beat up passengers" line, the reality is that the Authorised Officers are just poorly trained, and lack direction from their superiors. The incidents of officers bashing fare evaders are quickly identified (there's CCTV on EVERY platform and train carriage remember) with the officer sacked and/or prosecuted. 
By and large what passersby see when they witness an altercation between an officer and a customer is usually a fare evader refusing to identify themselves (as they're required to under the law) and trying to flee the scene, then screaming and yelling when they're detained until police arrive. And these days where everyone has a camera phone, it can look worse than what it is.
So to sum up, Ticket Inspectors have a pretty crummy job and have to deal with alot of shit, which develops a hardened "sour" persona, and while alot of them may be overgrown apes with not much brains and on a power trip, the only crime they're usually guilty of is being poorly trained for the job they're required to do.

NZ and Israel

It's interesting to read the US Govt's reaction to the 2004 incident where Israeli Mossad agents illegally used NZ identities read the story here that caused such a furore inside the NZ Govt.
The American cable states; "Its (NZ) overly strong reaction to Israel over this issue suggests the GNZ sees this flap as an opportunity to bolster its credibility with the Arab community, and by doing so, perhaps, help NZ lamb and other products gain greater access to a larger and more lucrative market".
It's oh so typical of the US to immediately become defensive about any criticism towards its surrogate, Israel. The Americans seem to have a dangerously ignorant knowledge of what makes New Zealander's tick, as opposed to the pragmatic sycophantic Australians, NZ is terribly sensitive to outside interference of its sovereignty....and who can blame them after the Rainbow Warrior incident in 85?
Good on them for being the only English speaking country to dare to slag off at Israel!
 

All you need to know about Saddam Hussein and Iraq

I was just going through my archives and found the following comments about Saddam from Noam Chomsky, which I've repoduced below;
"In 1982 the Reagan administration decided to provide direct support for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran. In order to do so, they had to remove Iraq from the list of states supporting terror. Then followed Donald Rumsfeld’s visit to Baghdad to arrange badly needed aid to the murderous tyrant, who, as you know, went on to use WMD, slaughtering 100s of thousands of Iranians, then turning the weapons against Iraqi Kurds with lethal effect, always with the support of Washington; the Reagan administration barred protests, and even sought to blame the crimes on Iran. The US finally entered the war directly, compelling Iran to capitulate. That did not end the love affair with Saddam. In 1989, President George Bush #1 not only expanded the aid, but also invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the US for advanced training in nuclear weapons development. In April 1990, Bush sent a high-level senatorial delegation to Iraq, headed by Senator Robert Dole, Republican candidate for president six years later. Their mission was to convey the President’s warm regards to his good friend Saddam, and to assure him that he should disregard critical comments by some US journalists, who cannot be silenced because of the annoying protections for freedom of speech. A few months later, Saddam made his first mistake, disobeying orders, or perhaps misunderstanding them, and invaded Kuwait. Instantly he made the sharp transition from favored friend and ally to the new Hitler. There is no need to carry the story forward from there."

Reagan revisionism

A friend of mine sent me the following post which is a bit of a revisionist history of the Reagan Administration click here. He knows I have a bit of a soft spot for Nixon (mainly coz everyone else hates him?), so I think he tried to butter me up with a defence of Reagan?
But here are some dot points I've reproduced from a previous discussion I've had on Reagan;

•  Essentially oversaw the destruction of the financial system, while exporting much of the real economy overseas.
• Carried out the first "too big to fail" banking bailout while setting the stage for the first Savings and Loan financial crisis.
• Started the era of massive salaries for CEOs.
• Responsible for the rivers of blood that were spilt from Central America to southern Africa (a separate topic in itself).
• Transforming Pakistan into a nuclear armed state while being aligned to powerful radical islamic forces.
• Turning the US from the world's leading creditor to the worlds leading debtor.
• Moved the US from an industrial society to one which real wages have stagnated and a powerful few have gained incredible wealth.

And this is just a snippet.......but thanks to ground breaking political marketing techniques (for the times), Reagan is seen as a semi deity in some corners.

Sarkozy and the Right

It really is troubling to read about French President Sarkozy's recent pandering to the populist Right click here
But true to form, what does a devious politician of the centre right do when they're in danger of electoral defeat? They turn up the populism and play the race card (almost without exception). Just like the threat of the xenophobic One Nation Party in Australia, the mainstream Right will attempt to hijack/incorporate their agenda, but with a more civilized face to it.
Sarkozy's latest trick apparently is to ban Muslim prayers in the streets, as they apparently overflow and spill out from the mosques onto the precious Parisian pavements? This supposedly "risks undermining the French secular tradition separating state and religion". I mean what an absurd notion for (seemingly) civilised adults to be arguing. So to be consistent I guess you'd also need to argue that the Greek Orthodox Church could no longer have parishioners spilling outside the church during the viewing of the "epitafio" during Easter services? But of course these bans have nothing to do with stopping the "undermining" of the secular tradition, and everything to do with securing the re-election of Sarkozy at the next election.
But just a final thought on (Muslim) Africans in France, I think the French nation is now reaping what it sowed. France has colonised and plundered the natural resources of its African colonies for hundreds of years for its own gain. But now it's time to pay the piper, France has a social responsibility to its French African population. Perhaps if the State spent less time trying to marginalise them, and more time promoting its diverse human capital, then France may be a happier nation today?

Rudd and Israel's nukes

I was pleasantly surprised to read Aust FM Kevin Rudd's comments last week stating that Israel should open up their nuclear facilities to international inspection. As you can imagine, this would've certainly caused shock waves in the pro Israel foreign policy corridors of power. The mouth frothing is best exemplified by occasional Rudd foreign policy ally Greg Sheridan in The Australian click here
While Rudd's faults are well documented I've always had a soft spot for him, and feel it was a bit of a coup d'etat that propelled Gillard into the top job. I still feel to this day that the straw that broke the camel's back and led to the putsch against Rudd was the temerity he showed in criticising Israel over the Gaza flotilla fiasco. An Australian government condemning Israel is just not done.....at least not without consequences following. And so the (pro Israel) faceless Labor warlords moved against him; Feeney, Shorten, Arbib and the Member for Israel....er sorry...Melbourne Ports Michael Danby (who is old pals with Sheridan) . Rudd was powerless without factional support, as he essentially had no parliamentary allies, and so the knifing was done, and the naively pro Israel foreign policy novice Gillard installed in his place.....the King is dead, love live the Queen?
But getting back to the present, whether Rudd was genuine in his nuclear weapons remarks, or just blowing smoke to the Arab world, it is genuinely significant to have a pro Israel country like Australia on record as saying "all states in the region should adhere to the [nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that includes Israel. And therefore their nuclear facility should be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection". I mean, wow......it's like someone farting at a dinner party.....that type of behaviour is just not on!
Sheridan's pathetic attempt to try and justify Israel's flouting of international norms, yet in the same breath denounce Iran is really quite breath taking. I just wonder what historians in 200 years will make of the west's duplicity and double standards in relation to the middle east? Late 20th and early 21st century policy makers really will become figures of fun and ridicule in my view......that is assuming America and Israel don't lead us down the path of nuclear war first, and there's still humans left to study the past?
All serious people know that the path to long term prosperity in the middle east is the eradication of nuclear weapons alongside a declaration of a middle east nuclear free zone with proper international verification. But alas, sadly Israel will NEVER agree to such a thing.

"torture guy" wants to stop the boats

An interesting article in The Australian today from Mirko Bagaric click here suggesting that Australia double its refugee intake, but in return  "deny refugee eligibility to people who arrive in Australia without pre-existing refugee status". While I'll give him credit for at least coming up with some fresh ideas on the mouth frothing topic of asylum seekers, his plan is in essence unworkable, as he himself admits that it "technically" breaches Australia's ratification of the UN Convention on refugees. He can try all he likes to skate past or downplay this point, but the law is the law, and enlightened Governments have a non negotiable obligation to uphold them. But it's probably not a surprise that he thinks the law is "flexible", after all this is the same guy who supports US torture of terror suspects click here.

Biden on wikileaks

The human gaffe machine American VP Joe Biden is at it again with remarks that Julian Assange is an "hi-tech terrorist". I haven't seen the actual Meet the Press interview as yet, but it appears that Biden agreed with the interviewers choice of words? This tells us one of two things about Biden,
a) he's incredibly naive to get suckered into using a journalist's expression, or
b) the US Govt considers him just that, and will continue to hunt him down using all the resources of the State, perhaps even replacing Osama Bin-Laden as public enemy number one!
The arguments for and against wikileaks have been done to death over the last two weeks, but I'll just repeat what I've said elsewhere, that a growing number of western democracies are increasingly looking ridiculous in their pursuit of wikileaks, with their outdated 20th century attitudes to prosecuting/persecuting their political enemies. The cringe worthy spectacle of the sycophantic comments made by the Aust PM Gillard along with government figures in Canada really do make the eyes roll in the back of your head.
But let me ask you, how different would the rhetoric of Biden and co be now if people like Gillard came out and stated categorically that we will not accept unfair persecution of the Australian citizen Assange, and we'll withdraw all co-operation on this matter until we get some assurances that talk from substantial political figures of execution or assassination do not represent government's position? The political climate might just be very different if these people actually showed LEADERSHIP!

0.02 alcohol limit?

Here in Victoria recently road safety campaigners have been active in getting onto the government agenda the debate over whether to lower the driving blood alcohol limit from 0.05 to 0.02. The usual do gooders are out and about telling anyone who'll listen that this initiative will "save lives". That's all well and good, but where are the stats to firstly back up this argument? We're talking about imposing a fundamental cultural change onto the community that will change the way people go about their daily lives and interact with others. So every time for example an elderly couple go out to dinner, they better think again before having that second glass of wine, because they may end up being labeled a "drunk driver".
So getting back to the "saving lives" argument, I believe before we even seriously consider this proposal, the onus is well and truly on the safety campaigners to the provide a body of evidence that shows that there is a serious and significant cause of AT FAULT fatalities caused by drivers with a blood alcohol content between .02 and .05. If you cannot provide any data that shows it to be anything other than negligible, then you cannot sustain your argument to completely change the community's social interactions.

"happy holidays"?????

One of my very great annoyances in life is the whole xmas season (I really should use the entire word "christmas", but CBF). Firstly it seems to start earlier and earlier each year, I'm sure I've seen xmas decorations in October?
I personally think there should be an unwritten law (perhaps even a written one?) that no one should be allowed to put up xmas decorations before December the 1st! I mean how much leeway should we be giving these giant retail conglomerates? Perhaps I'm being mean spirited you say? Well how about we start the festivities in August then?.....I mean really, where do you draw the line?....December the 1st I say:)
And who do we have to represent xmas anyhow? None other the Coca Cola Man, or Herr Claus if you prefer. Just look up wikipedia if you want to know the history of the Santa Claus character. And don't get me started on office decorations either, I can barely walk to my desk without shit hung up everywhere. And of course as for the usual suspects who put all these decorations up, if only they had shown so much care and attention to detail to their jobs as they do with this stuff, then maybe this industry that I work in (which will be revealed in due course) wouldn't be hanging by a thread!
And for people like me who would just like to pop into a shopping centre for 10 mins to pick up something (non xmas related), well you can forget about that....anyone tried driving to Chadstone at this time of year??? Unfortunately you can't avoid xmas being part of your life no matter how hard you try, it's in your face!
But who really profits from xmas the most? Ironically enough Jewish run department stores. While it's supposed to be "good for the economy" when we're all out buying gifts, studies have shown a large proportion of them will never be used by the recipient, yet our credit card bills continue to mount......I'm yet to be convinced that it's "good for the economy"?
But probably my biggest pet peeve about xmas is receiving xmas cards from real estate agents (or similar). Who the hell wants to receive an emotionless card from a faceless company? A xmas card should be a show of appreciation from a friend/relative to let you know they're thinking of you, not an acknowledgment of a client list! But maybe I wouldn't be so shitty about it if the card actually said "merry christmas", instead of "season's greetings", I mean what the hell is that really? Are we too terrified to actually use the word "christmas" in case of offending someone? The right wing media always try to play the anti muslim card at this time of year by dredging up a local council or something that's banned the nativity or the word christmas, but in reality the muslims have no issue with the the great "prophet" Jesus, it's infact the cafe latte inner city atheist PC crowd that try to subversively remove any hint of religion from xmas.
It really is quite ridiculous, infact a lawyer friend of mine told me how their court chambers xmas party is referred to as the "annual event"......I guess this predominantly Jewish crowd doesn't want to hear references to "Christ"?
But I guess at the end of the day, I'm actually a purist at heart, Xmas is about celebrating the birth of Christ, and I know that may be a little uncomfortable for probably close to 50% of the population these days, but that's what the day represents, not an old corporate logo in a red suit. We achieve little in the long run when we try to deceive ourselves into what we're actually celebrating.