BASTARDS INC

“Desperate remorse swallows the present in a quenchless rage.”

Tis coming to pass, the vile whispers, the dearth of emails from the powers that be, the all pervading stench of rat, no good can of come of this.

Although we have made money it would appear that evil sub race collectly known as accountants have convinced the senile McDucks that Indonesia may not be the best place to be, or at least the best place to be in the current form (although to be fair the inane, bizarre, inept antics of customs, tax and the courts hardly do anything to help). Is there anything more vile than a bean counter who has never seen where the beans are made?

The stump is fighting a desperate rear guard action although we suspect the battle may already be over. Perhaps all that is left is the minor skirmishes of pride. For the Stump, we have the escape clause and access to the freedom tickets to places where they don’t burn churches instead of logs for Christmas. The stumps national comrades don’t have such luxury, these are the real people not the thugs who gain all the news in Indonesia and yet the thugs and the bean counters may yet win.

In spite of all the stumps rantings, Indonesia is a place we feel at home. The rants are directed at the pond toads that live in every country. Unfortunately, the people who daily toil day in and day out just to put food on the table and send their kids to school are probably about to get shafted for no other reason than a few cents a share and vision so aptly presented to world by the corrupt and inept.

There is no dole or government hand outs here, where will they go? What will they do?

How do you make a bean counter thousands of mile away understand that a company does much more than hire people in Indonesia (well a good one does anyway). Births, Deaths, Marriages are compulsory attendance. How can the stump (You can bet the accountant won’t come and deliver the news) look these people in the eye and say thanks for the fish “we are outta here”?

Still we shall not go quietly into the night…

My experience has been in a short 77 years that in the end when you fight for a desperate cause and have good reasons to fight, you usually win.”

Edward Teller

Anyone got a lazy million dollars?..that’ll get em!

Australia Day and Suharto

The 26 January was Australia Day, unfortunately the weekend was marred by the cringing, shallow little weasel Australia now touts as a Prime Minister.

Yet again, the left leaning Labor party demonstrated its complete inability to grasp the fundamental differences between right and wrong with its sycophantic little ode to the news of death of Suharto.

Prime Minister Rudd
"On behalf of the Government and people of Australia, I extend to the President and people of the Republic of Indonesia our condolences on the passing of former Indonesian president Suharto," the Prime Minister said.

"Former president Suharto was one of the longest-serving heads of government of the last century and an influential figure in Australia's region and beyond ... The former president was also a controversial figure in respect of human rights and East Timor and many have disagreed with his approach."

You would reckon the leftist loons would have learned a little bit from the hypocritical deeds of the other Labor Loonies that Australia has had to tolerate (Whitlam, Keating) and the shameful debacle of selective blindness during the invasion of East Timor. At the very least, embarrassment at the evils they have supported in the past would have created to need to take a deep breathe before opening the yawing mouth of diplomatic cowardice yet again. Diplomacy would perhaps dictate a certain sensitivity at this time but surely silence would have been a far more measured and correct response.

By the way Prime Minister Crudd, say what you like but don’t presume to be speaking for any at the Stump.

THE BULLETIN CLOSES

They came of bold and roving stock that would not fixed abide;
They were the sons of field and flock since e'er they learnt to ride,
We may not hope to see such men in these degenerate years

Banjo Patterson (Contributor Bulletin Magazine)


It is with a sad heart that the Stump must report the passing of an old friend, fallen afoul of those miserable vultures more commonly known as private equity funds managers.
This week marks the last edition of The Bulletin Magazine after 128 years of publishing in Australia.

The Bulletin started life as a magazine for the workers and Outback Australians struggling on rural sometimes marginal rural selects. The Bulletin played a large role in creating the healthy cynical disrespect for authority figures and elected scumbags that Australians have today. A Bulletin claim to fame was its close to the bone reporting during the shearers strike of 1891. This strike set the foundations of the labour movement in Australia well before the Union Movement was hijacked by disgruntled thugs and layabouts cast out of Britain. The reporting and support for the bush lodged the Bulletin as the “bushmans bible” in her early years.

Reflecting its position and readers, the magazine proudly proclaimed its dedication to a White Australia and up until the 1950’s carried the banner ‘Australia for the White Man’ on every front cover (Note to the morally outraged..go and check your Pri Bumi regulations and suck a fish, the Stump does not belong to the black arm band view of Australian History).

Rather than racism, this was more of a mirror of the feelings of the vast majority of Australians, particularly after World War 2. A direct result in response to the horrors perpetrated throughout Asia by the Japanese was the on going support for the White Australia Policy...(“In accepting your surrender we do not honour you, for you are the scum of the earth” ah but that’s another post closer to ANZAC DAY).

Prior to WW2, the working class and upper society people feared the influx of Chinese Gold Miners would ruin the emerging nation’s primarily British Culture and the Bulletin reflected and played upon these working class fears.

As Australia embraced the leftist dream and the great disaster of “Multi-Culturalism" in the late 70s and early 80's. Many saw but few commented that the country was flirting with cultural suicide and our grand dame of rage had been beaten into submission. Of course, Multi Culturalism is and always has been absolute nonsense based on the fundamentally flawed theory that all cultures are equal and are equally deserving of respect. Unfortunately, political correctness and a succession of testicle challenged editors (Donald Horne for one) prevented the Bulletin from raging at the night as she had in years gone by. As a consequence the working class readership and bush base was lost forever.


A magazine for workers and poor outback Australian not the sad little chardonnay socialists who abound and who would not recognise a hard days work if it reared up and bite them on the arse. It was brutal to watch the fiesty working class, slightly rude tart's sad decline at the hands of the new age toffs as they tried to transform her into a poltically correct but boringly cheap copy of TIME.

Savaged in her later years, in particular for her racist (?) past, the bulletin’s readership fell dramatically. The Grand Dame was kept hacking along albiet on a dollar by dollar drip by the Packer Family who had at least some since of history until old man Packer passed away. Unfortunately as is so often the case, the spoilt brat rarely matches the greatness of the father and the young knobble headed Packer sold out the business (and the country) to gain entry into the sleazy world of gambling and casinos. Some would suggest this heralded the sad transformation of nation building family into another bunch of parasites, after years of enjoying tax payer funded infrastructure. Fair Dinkum you would think the family name was QANTAS).

As an aside, when first posted to the jungles, I tried to buy access for the online bulletin magazine. As is so often the case with Indonesian and Malaysia being the credit card fraud epi-centre of the SE Asia, my card was refused. I wrote to the subscriptions department and requested another form of payment. The reply, “here is a password and key for free, just promise to buy the magazine when you are back in Australia” They did that every year for three years, kind of sums up the Magazine, help out a mate and your word is good enough for us.

Once the private equity group got its hands on the magazine its days were numbered. An American chief executive working for a Scottish boss who represents a Hong Kong private equity fund closed the Australian institution with a 128-year-old publishing history.

RIP old friend, the nation dumbs down even more to sound bites and ten second news grabs.


So to the American chief executive, the Scottish boss and the Hong Kong private equity fund here’s something else from Australia, see if the description feels comfortable to wear, it was used to describe some others of dubious social worth but it still seems fitting to me.

“A parcel of big ugly fat necked wombat headed big bellied, magpie legged narrow hipped, splawfooted sons of Irish bailiffs or English landlords”
The Jerilderie Letter

Or simply BASTARDS

DEEP THOUGHTS AT THE STUMP

Ah..The Stump is Stunned! It has been reported that Greenstump has gained another reader, thus bringing the grand total to five (actually 10 if you include the multi gender confused and sleazy personalities of our resident troll).

Of greater concern is our new reader actually agrees with the majority of the posts! Upon reflection, this is scary , we at the stump don't even agree with everything we write. Sheesh, get into double figure readership and the stump will have to learn to spell and other new age crap. (Ok but we still think VP Short Stuff is a complete loon but fun to read about).

Anyway..serious, life changing issues are developing at and around the stump at the moment. These developments causing considerable stress on which jalan one should take and ruining lifes little pleasures..Therefore not being God Botherers only one solution is left in the quest for answers..



Followed by large qauntities of cleansing ales here...



"Ale for my friends and Wine for my horses lassie, and send that group there a plate of Ham Sandwitches on me"

Visit Indonesia 2008

Clowns to the left of me..Jokers to the right..here I am stuck in the middle with you

Its just not fair, the Stump gets bad press for being always critial of Indonesia but they make it so hard not too!

The powers that be (and the smarts that ain't) have decided that 2008 will be ‘Visit Indonesia Year 2008’ (huh?) and the brainstormers came up with the slogan "Celebrating 100 years of national awakening" (double huh?) which is marginally better english than the first effort “Celebrating 100 years of nation's awakening”. Although to be fair both slogans would not look out of place on the local airline fleet that sports the “Fly is cheap” slogan

However, I digress. Despite the inept slogans, you would think that as it has been declared Visit Indonesia Year 2008’ then perhaps some coordinated efforts would be made to encourage tourism… ha ha tricked ya!

Some background: Of all the variations of "tread lightly" tourists a nation could want to visit, Cruising Sailors are perhaps the best of all. Generally older couples, they tend to visit isolated communtities, visit local markets and villages with their money going straight into the local community. No drunken group assaults on the senses, nor an on-going mass of overwhelming yobbo groups that in time challenge even the strongest culture.

So Indonesia’s answer to the greying goldmines of tourist dollars:

The Jan 08 Issue of Cruising Helmsman magazine reports (sorry no direct link):

Indonesia-bound cruisers slugged with import duty

“Cruisers heading for Indonesia have been warned that Customs Officials in some ports are demanding that foreign yachts must pay and import duty on arrival based on a percentage value of the yacht. This can amount to several thousand dollars.”

The article goes on to say that technically the duty is refundable upon departure but will obviously cause financial hardship in the short term. (Technically refundable? That’s a hoot in its own right. When a friend alerted me to the article, he asked if I thought he would get his money back..To which the answer was not even if the Customs Wallah handed over his first born son as security).

Just to further complicate things, the article states that not all ports are doing this. This bit cracked me up

“In Kupang, for instance they are trying to enforce it but they don’t have the correct forms”

To the Tourism Minister and Customs ..Thanks Guys..You really are tourist attractions in your own right…

Of course, with the stories of piracy and this monumental piece of stupid being printed for the whole world to see, I would not be factoring in any yachties to increase tourism numbers this year.

Filed under: inept, greed, stupid

Killer Tomatoes, Clones and Suharto

Reported on the news this morning that the US Food and whatever agency has approved the selling and consumption of cloned food products after stating they prove no health risk. The piece then went on to show three cloned dairy cows happily (ok I have no idea how to tell if a cow is happy or not, call it poetic license)popping out cloned milk.

Maybe it’s from watching to many horror movies but this makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable (Do yourself a favour and watch Attack of the Killer Tomatoes , a cinema classic!). Worse news, none of the cloned products are required to be labeled as cloned. Clone lables are not possible because there is absolutely no way at this time to tell cloned meat or products from the “real” thing (Unless they attack, of course).

Speaking of clones, the old dictator is still hanging in there. I guess he has good reason to be concerned about the alternative receptions he may receive upon the final check out. Still he's not lonely, with all and sundry lining up to pay ill deserved respects and media circus to boot. The “he made the trains run on time defence” is certainly getting a good run for its money.

There have been any number of comments (myself included) about legal processes and if they should continue? The question that must be asked is; Does anyone really think anything would come of a legal process? There are just way too many people in powerful positions who owe everything to him and his minions to expect any postive result from the legal process. It’s also too tough an order for a vast percentage of elite's new generation to face up to the fact that mommy and daddies wealth which put them through school was/is severely tainted.

However, Treespotter probably hit the nail on the head when he said

“He should go, one last service to this country, the quicker the better, but the media circus over there was quite simply inappropriate”

I think may have to revise my opinion on the whole matter. What’s done is done and cannot be undone! It was a different and brutal time from which the nation has yet to recover. Far more important and saddening than the old fart passing on, is the daily line up of supposed supporters of democracy and human rights flocking to his bedside. It certainly bodes ill for this country and betrays the heady expectations when the new order fell. It short, it would appear perhaps nothing really has changed.

Does it really matter anymore? There is probably not that much time left to make a difference anyway. The nations natural wealth has been and is squandered on the rich and the elite with very little trickling down to the rest of the nation. It's the way is and apparently the way it always will be.

The years since the fall of the New Order has produced no serious investment in nation building infrastructure, education or human dignity. The time is rapidly approaching when the resources available to pay for those things will have all but disappeared. It is probably already fair to say the majority of the natural resources that should support and provide sustenance to the nation have already been depleted to the point of no return with little to show for pillage.

A strange and perverse view that seems to pervade Indonesia that all will be well if we ignore what we don't like. Does Indonesia really think the world will give a stuff about her once the her corrupt and quick-buck elite has finished raping her forests and plundering her oil and natural minerals? How much time is left, five years? Ten? Certainly not much more.

As usual the shallow thinking, neo-nationalists try and lay the blame everywhere but home and never really address the issues. Yet who are the initiators of the oh so common “Transfer Pricing Rorts” within the export industry? In essence, that’s where you export product say oil, to a fake holding company at a ridiculously low price, thus avoiding paying tax on true value and then if you are really morally scummy, you then sell it back to country you extracted it from are an artifically high price. Cool huh, you get to rip of the common people twice in one day.

Who are the people responsible for the schools to be in the condition they are in, yet have money for new cars at every government department? Who are the people who can find funds to erect gandiose monuments to themselves and various other white elephant doomed to failure rorts (Nuclear Power Anyone?) yet cannot put a fund a health progam to eradicate leprosy? WHo are the people who can find immense funds to erect great houses of dedication to God (Who apparently himself told the faithful he/she needed no such structure) yet cannot provide basic medical services in the same regions?

In a functioning democracy that truly represented the people, would a business and government be allowed to ignore the mudflow situation in SIDOARJO? Perhaps, the only hope would be the creation of a Ministry of Peoples Welfare (sorry, couldn't help myself)

Once upon a time, Indonesia had such an opportunity to forget the past and move on. A new president with overwhelming support of the people was elected to power, and the nation held such high hopes. This "man of the people" who could have used that support to flush the parasites and leeches into the black pages of history where they so rightly belong baulked at the task. Now like so many things, the moment has passed never to return. So unless someone truly great appears in the next twelve months....


Gloomy..yes! It would be a sad reflection on the person who went to SIDOARJO
and not feel somewhat despondent about Indonesia’s future. So I eagerly await to be corrected, perhaps someone can point me to somewhere where real progress is being made or to the hero awaiting in the wings (He/she must be there some where)

Now before Gadget Harry (No you don't get a link, so bugger off!) and others get their collective knickers in a twist about unhappy and miserable expats, I shall endeavour to explain. The stump is very happy with its day to day existence and readily acknowledges the any number of advantages provided by being an Expat in this country. Advantages which are not unlike those enjoyed and exploited by GH and others who by whatever means have made it to the upper rungs of Indonesian Society including the ability to leave should it all fall down. A fundamental point is that just because you have an advantage over others does not mean you should lose the ability to empathise which sadly is all too often the case in Indonesia (If I ignore it, its not there).

SEVEN THINGS OF WHICH I APPROVE

I too have been tagged, although I am really not sure what that means. Am I supposed to push a button? Put one of those @@@<-> wanky sentences that do funny things on my web page? Gee never a geek around when you want one. Although lets be honest, Gadget and Gadget Geeks serve no real purpose anyway (bit like road signs in Indonesia)

Oh Well apparently it’s

SEVEN THINGS I APPROVE OF

1. Cheeky and Forthright Women
2. A fine bottle of PORT
3. BBQ with friends on a hot day
4. Beach Cricket
5. Kangaroos relocating to Queensland (that'll stuff the non aussie rulers up)
6. Long Service Leave
7. Ella Fitzgerald

So I am supposed to send this to someone else or what?..Ok..How about..
Jakartass and Frisco

I don't expect these two newly tagged to partake of the game as bit too low bro for Frisco (really is a cool blog) and ol J has all the worries of the Left Establishment on his shoulders..(very serious people those)..

Have fun and don't forget to support a secularist today

CONGA LINE OF SUCKHOLES

HEY and Happy New Year,

It has certainly started well with the usual Conga Line of Suckholes lining up to lickspittle and farewell a light fingered, morally devoid, semi deity as he shakes off his mortal coil.

As a skeptic, the faithful who proclaim their faith loudest yet display none of the normal compassion found in rational human beings always amaze me. If they truly believe there is a great judgment day coming (without or without virgins as per your myth of choice) then for the vast majority of these ethically challenged, oxygen thieves, death must hold particular terrors. Yesterday, upon hearing the latest news, I could not help but of think of the scene from “Ghost” where black nasty looking shadows claw the evil doer down to the pits of hell upon his death. All things considered it would seem a fair outcome to me. I wonder if the night terrors ever make sleep difficult those responsible for the so called “LAPINDO Mudflow”.

In a stunning display of little has really been reformed in this country since the heady violent and brutal days of 1998, our Conga Line of Suckholes included some of the highest members of today’s government and virtually to a man/woman called on the nation to remember “the good” the little “deity” had done despite his faults. It seems the idea of a government for the people is a concept that really has not caught on yet (or will ever?). No self respecting democrat would be caught within a hundred miles of this particular nasty piece of work (that should have included ex-PM Keating, Australia’s own self proclaimed, self important, piss ant deity)

I guess I must be missing something! The Good?. A nation overflowing with natural and human resources still cannot provide even the most basic standards of living to its citizens after decades of independence. All this human misery courtesy of the said deity, his cronies and his slavering, powerful and corrupt minions who enjoyed and continue to enjoy luxuries and decadence that would embarrass a Roman Emperor hosting the Annual Gay Mardi Gra and Orgy.

Despite the claims by him, his ilk and the newest version of neo-nationalists that Indonesia’s plight is the entire fault of those evil West/Chinese/Singaporeans/Malaysians (and on and on…and on), the plight of the country lies solely at the feet of him and his fellow leeches. If ever a country squandered an opportunity over the last sixty years it is Indonesia. Countries that started from far lower points in their history in the past sixty years are now regional if not world power houses whilst Indonesian Neo Nationalists still try and pedal the “poor bugger me” line whilst lining their pockets with ill gotten gains. Japan, Korea (South not the nutty end), spring to mind of countries that started from a far worse position than Indonesia and without the natural advantages. I would put India in as well but they are on my sh*t list as their cricket team is bunch of whinging, racist morons.

Oh well, it provides good writing fodder. Speaking of writing fodder, expatriates cannot vote in the local elections whitch is a bugger as I already have the t-shirt. Never the less, I want to throw my hat in the ring for current "Mr. Vice" to be the next President. This guy is an absolute hoot and a never ending source of material! Mr Vice demonstrated his insane grip on the democratic process by complaining in China that democracy is bad for business because human rights get in the way (Pesky little peasants). Perhaps we should use..mmmm Russia as an example of the ideal business environment..tee hee. Being multi talented (which in this case means he has the ability to remain upright and not burst out laughing as he says these things), his answer to the tourism crisis in Indonesia was to suggest Arabs come for a holiday, marry an Indonesian Woman for the period of their holiday then divorce and go home free, clear and with the bags empty. Apparently there is a religious loophole (isn’t there always) to be exploited for a quickie marriage and divorce as required.

In closing, it seems today’s sign off can only be in the words of the immortal song “Say Goodbye to it All”


P.S. For treespotter and GJ.. Standby Cricket (The game God watches when she gets too many opposite prayers) Post on the way. In the meantime the best ever cricketing sledge.

Glenn McGrath (bowling to portly Zimbabwean chicken farmer Eddo Brandes):
"Hey Eddo, why are you so f*cking fat?"
Eddo Brandes: "Because every time I f*ck your mother, she throws me a biscuit..