Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
''I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.''
-Kurt Vonnegut
Trade
union Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon has laid bare a roll-call of
“louts, thugs, bullies, thieves, perjurers, those who threaten violence,
errant fiduciaries and organisers of boycotts” in his findings on the
two-year inquiry into union corruption.
In the
scathing final report, which details examples of “widespread” and
“deep-seated” misconduct within the Construction, Forestry, Mining and
Energy Union, the Australian Workers Union, the Transport Workers Union,
the Health Services Union and the National Union of Workers, Mr Heydon
called for an all-powerful “regulator” with the power to shut down
unions and employer groups. He refers former trade union boss
turned Victorian MP Cesar Melhem to Victorian prosecutors for
consideration of possible corruption and false accounting charges.
Former
Health Services Union secretary Kathy Jackson is also referred to
prosecutors to consider whether she should be charged for obtaining
property and financial advantage by deception.
Justice Heydon said the conduct had taken place in a wide range of industries and unions.
"These aberrations cannot be regarded as isolated," the report said.
"They are not the work of a few rogue unions, or a few rogue officials.
"The misconduct exhibits great variety. It is widespread. It is deep-seated.
The criminal headquarters of one of Sydney's most notorious underworld
figures "Teflon" Tony Vincent could easily have been the inspiration for
Tony Soprano's fictional strip club, the Bada Bing.
Back on a balmy Sunday afternoon in the late summer of 1997, the
upmarket Sydney suburb of Woollahra was rocked by a huge explosion in
Tara Street.
At first it was thought that the neighbouring Turkish embassy had been blown up.
Drinkers at the nearby Lord Dudley Hotel were astonished to see a man staggering past the hotel with half his buttock blown off.
The
trail of blood from the man's mangled posterior led the police to the
scene of the crime, where they found the remainder of Gibson's bum
cheek. With it was his wallet.
Meanwhile, staggering down the street, dazed and injured and wearing only one shoe was Tony Vincent jnr. Buried under the rubble, crime scene investigators found a stolen car in the foot well of which was a size 9 Nike running shoe.
A terror financing investigation has uncovered about
$500,000 in Australian cash sent to Indonesia to arm and train
extremists and support their families. A joint investigation between Australia and
Indonesia found the cash was raised and transferred by an Australian man
identified only by the letter L. Mr Santoso said information from Australia's counter-terrorism financing
watchdog AusTrac was crucial to uncovering these Indonesian networks. Australian donors sent $500,000 to Indonesia to fund terrorism
What ISIS Really Wants:
Islamic State theologians have issued an extremely detailed ruling on
when "owners" of women and children captured by the extremist group can
have sex with them, in an apparent bid to curb "violations" in the
"treatment of female slaves".
The ruling, or fatwa, has the force
of law and appears to go beyond the IS's previous known utterances on
slavery, Cole Bunzel, a leading IS expert at Princeton University, said. Islamic State issues 15 rules on sex with slaves ; French national Charaffe el Mouadan was killed in a U.S.-led coalition air strike on December 24. IS leader ‘linked to Paris attacks’ killed
SOLDIERS and police allegedly held
an orgy at a police station during the hunt for terror suspects in
Brussels, according to Belgian media outlets.
An
internal investigation has been launched into the reports of eight
soldiers and two policewomen allegedly partying and holding an orgy in
the Ganshoren police station, which had been changed into makeshift
barracks for soldiers, De Morgan reported.
A senior police officer reportedly discovered the soldiers and policewomen in the act, according to La Dernière Heure.
When the Holyland trial started around
three-and-a- half years ago, the former prime minister still saw himself
as the king of the world and as possibly returning to the prime
minister’s chair. The change in Ehud Olmert was as clear as day, despite his attempts to downplay it... Fresh off beating the odds in the original Talansky trial, Olmert exuded confidence and expected smooth sailing in the Holyland case. He toured the courthouse, and worked the press and the audience like he was at a convention of his political supporters. Olmert
and the other Holyland defendants laughed at the prosecution and their
main witness, Shmuel Duchner, then known only as S.D., interrupting
his testimony so many times that Judge David Rozen asked if he was
directing a trial or a circus
Olmert's conviction shows that even a prime minister isn’t above the law, and will, under certain circumstances, pay for his corrupt behavior. But this isn’t enough.
The most complex corruption case ever brought to an Israeli court is ending with the bitter taste that justice has not been done to the fullest with senior elected officials, even though they have been branded with the stigma of flagrant wrongdoing. The Supreme Court’s verdict, handed down on Tuesday on appeals against Judge David Rozen’s conviction and sentencing of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and others, represents a retreat by the legal system into a skeptical approach and sends a public message of extreme leniency toward crimes of government corruption. Israel Must Stop Tolerating Corruption: Olmert - Holyland affair
A book to be
published in Hong Kong in the new year says Zhou Enlai, communist
China’s much-respected first premier, was probably gay despite his long
marriage ...Book says communist China’s first premier was gay
