Newsflash! more info as soon as it comes to hand

ahahah strex, josh wins ! :D

Well done everybody!

8-)

Up to the minute news is the real winner here today.

AUSTRALIAN hostage Douglas Wood has been released from captivity in Iraq and is safe in Baghdad, Prime Minister John Howard announced tonight.
Mr Wood was in the hands of international forces in Baghdad, and had undergone medical checks that showed he was well, Mr Howard told Parliament.

so wait up, he uses it in his political house before he announces it to australia.
So if he died, howard wouldn't say anything - he gets out and howard is singing his praises in parliment and using it as a political tatcic before telling australia

good work howard you c*********

I know, they're only running the country, how dare they be informed of these things first.

anyone who thinks that the parliment or even howard is running the country is seriously mistaken about who is pulling the strings of the labor party

This thread needs more tinfoil hats.

So if he died, howard wouldn't say anything

Of course he would.
Not only would it be the right thing to do, it would shift public opinion on iraq further south.

anyone who thinks that the parliment or even howard is running the country is seriously mistaken about who is pulling the strings of the labor party

ermm..ok...so who IS running this country?

Freemasons...with tinfoil hats

last edited by IncrEdible_vEgetable at 19:44:11 15/Jun/05

Those bloody greenies are, that's who!

http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~bnb22/march05.JPG

I have met the Mufti and Im not even a muslim. He is very friendly.

thank you

If Wood got shot, howard would not annoounce it in parliment, he would wait for it to be broken by mainstream media then do a press release with how sorry he was. As it happened tonight im pretty narky that he seems to have kept the news to himself to announce it as a political bombshell and a middle finger to the labour guys who are all against the war (labor left mainly).

Howard is a figurehead of the political party, the people who are running the party are the real powerbrokers behind australian policy. Howard is simpally a political pawn used by the liberals as a mouth. Ive seen it in Qld Labor where Peter B is just a loud mouthed media whore, where the real power of Q Labor lie in the main faction (old guard i think at the moment) and their policy makers who have the numbers within the party itself.

Of course it would be announced in parliament. Parliament is sitting at the moment. Flick on news radio right now and you'll hear them all rambling away.

Howard would've got the news while in parliament and whether it would have been good or bad it would've been announced to parliament, as long as it was confirmed news.

If Wood got shot the media would probably find out before Howard....

meh, I'll wait for the movie before I comment on it

So what if they released him, they're still classed as "terrorists".

Well, they released him, so I'd call them "nice terrorists".

im fully sus on teh aussie mufti that went over there
hes sus as

i reckon he never even met up with the terrorists


dodgy how his story changed so quickly from "saw him, hes alive"
to
"er, saw a dvd of him, he was alive"

pretty big difference matey

"yer yer, he will be released, they are waiting for a break in the fighting"

i call clown

im fully sus on teh aussie mufti that went over there hes sus as

No I reckon it was decent of him to just acknowledge his plight. He could have done f*** all. He is a very respected cleric and Im sure him acknowledging Wood was a good thing internationally regardless of what he said/didn't say.

As far as i can tell they didn't release him.
News said that "millitary action" freed him - to me that sounds like they had a shoot out and killed the millitia holding him

Yeah from what howard said, it sounded like it was a military operation that freed him.

Yeah howward will obviously say anything to make himself look more credible and make muslims look bad on the other hand.

All antihoward d*******s get a clue

Full set Lits kthxbi

I think it's you and howard who need to make use of this.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v104/zeezee/post-6-1118023053.jpg
Following that, blow each other.

edit: and fpot can take a jizz while watching them.


last edited by Booyah at 22:01:58 15/Jun/05

Booyah is dirty because his country is a s***hole and his religion sucks.

Booyah needs to shake that sand out of his vagina.

in your face lawl.

and fpot can take a jizz while watching them.

and at the end he'll say "Oh, what a lovely teaparty"

Yeah howward will obviously say anything to make himself look more credible and make muslims look bad on the other hand

Yeah, news headline:

Australian hostage rescued in Iraq by covert squad of Australian Ninjas (on Fire)

who cares?

I dont.

But play along.

Then acetame comes along and triple penetrates them with his tooth pick lawl.

Is this Lowgoz some kind of crackhead?

If Wood got shot, howard would not annoounce it in parliment, he would wait for it to be broken by mainstream media then do a press release with how sorry he was

We are talking about a hostage taken by terrorists. Lets for arguments sake say he was killed. Who are the first people the terrorists are going to contact when they kill him? So far in all Iraqi cases, bar none, it has been Al Jazeera (the media) or posted on a website (again, the media for all intents and purposes).

If Woods had been killed there would have been no option for Howard but to have lagged the news media. It has been the case in every hostage killing thus far. I doubt Lowgoz if you could find a single example where a government has been able to beat the news media, through prior knowledge, and release the details of a hostage killing. The simple undisputed fact is that terrorists do not send press releases to governments to inform them of a hostage killing, they inform the media.

So, now that we have established that you are an idiot for even thinking that it is possible for the government to beat the media and report on a hostage killing, and thus there being no possiblity of governments keeping the information for political purposes, lets look at this situation.

The government sent a team to Iraq to secure the release of Woods. Woods, according to Howard, is now with this team. It is perfectly understandable that Howard would release this information.

Yeah howward will obviously say anything to make himself look more credible and make muslims look bad on the other hand.

Just like any prime minister.

To become a PM you have to win the publics opinion.
To stay PM you have to keep it!

I bet every PM has made decisions that the public hasnt liked(or at least some part of). Running a country is f***ING hard. Everyone has their own opinion on how it is meant to be run.

IMO Howard is doing a good job. Sure he kisses the US's ass. But wed all be japanese if it wasnt for the yanks......
The US is the worlds number 1 superpower...why NOT be friendly with them? We are still our own country with our own rules.

10 bucks says the wood family found out about his release through the media and not howard. Its clear that he released the info in parliment in order to gain some political advantage

ok and so what you are saying fireblood is that it is ok for a prime minister to lie about such a matter in order to stay pm. Moving on.

The US is the worlds number 1 superpower...why NOT be friendly with them?

That's because you get your ass kicked if you dont

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer meanwhile said Mr Wood was in good shape, if mentally exhausted.

He said he had called the Wood family with the good news at 6pm.

Ahhh s***, i withdraw previous comment

I hear they are exchanging him for Stephen Clark, fair deal i think

i can assure you, howard is the big boss and it is the the rest of us hacks that follow the lead.

federal is, after all, the only game in town.

ps. counter-terrorists win!

last edited by infi at 08:03:23 16/Jun/05

lol @ you tards who think your political geniuses or something.

no, just unlike you people have an opinion and like to share it rather than acting like they know everything... but do tell us, oh mighty one, what the truth is about federal politics, becuase you must know all the facts

So was the 4.1kg of weed his or not?

know everything? im saying the complete opposite... i doubt you know exactly how the political parties work, i doubt you know how all the behind closed doors stuff works in parliament and it just makes you look like a tard by saying you do. im saying i dont know anything about how it works so i dont comment. i just laugh at people who think they know how it all works.

Friends said today Mr Wood had asked for asked for a Victoria Bitter beer and an update on the progress of Geelong in the AFL championship.

Champion.

Although Geelong can suck it =)

We are still our own country with our own rules

Your obviously not aware of this new thing called a *Free Trade Agreement*

i doubt you know how all the behind closed doors stuff works in parliament and it just makes you look like a tard by saying you do

your funny, and wrong

TicMan.....nope...turns out it belonged to shapelle.

last edited by Coochie at 12:35:51 16/Jun/05

the more i read about the mufti, the more i call "HES A DODGY FARK"

get your story straight mate (from the courier mail today)

Sheik claims credit for rescue
By Paul Colgan and wires
16jun05
THE Muslim cleric who led weeks of apparently fruitless negotiations for the release of Douglas Wood has claimed he arranged for the Australian engineer to be left in the house from which he was rescued last night (AEST).

A spokesman for Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly said the cleric had made a deal with captors to have Mr Wood retrieved by US and Iraqi troops in Ramadi, a town about 110km west of Baghdad.

Mr Wood was found in the Baghdad suburb of Ghazaliya, where the US military said troops "stumbled" across the hostage while conducting "routine" raids as part on an ongoing counter-insurgency operation.

The Sydney cleric's spokesman, Keysar Trad, has since clarified his statement, saying Mr Wood was transferred from Ramadi after a release plan was finalised.

Despite the military account describing Mr Wood's rescue as a chance event, conducted under gunfire, the cleric had played a "key role" in his release, Mr Trad said.

"What happened was he was held in Ramadi and transported from there to that safe location where he was picked up," Mr Trad said.

"He made it clear (to Australian authorities) that they had reached that certain stage of negotiations and that his release was imminent."

Sheik Hilaly's spokesmen in Sydney have issued a number of contradictory and confusing statements since the cleric went to Baghdad to try to negotiate Mr Wood's release.

Last month, Sheik Hilaly said Mr Wood's release was "imminent" but a reported exchange deal was not executed.

Earlier this month he saw the hostage "with his own eyes", according a spokesman.

The spokesman said later Sheik Hilaly had seen only a video tape of Mr Wood in captivity.

The sheik is due to return to Australia at the weekend so he can undergo urgent heart surgery.

Last night he thanked "honest Iraqis" for helping him organise the release of Douglas Wood.

SBS Arabic Language Program journalist Majida Abboud-Saab said the sheik had postponed his heart surgery after being emotionally moved to help the Wood family.

He is now in Cairo but is expected to leave for Australia as soon as possible.

im now totally convinced he did nothing at all, possibly didnt even make contact with the terrorists

yeh i call shenanigans on that guy too

by "putting" single words in qoutation "marks" makes the that whole "news" story look rather "opinionated" and "dodgy".

Domino I think the quotation marks are there to indicate quotations.

Domino I think the quotation marks are there to indicate quotations.

no s***, but im sure they said hostage, and they may have said counter-insurgency. so lets see what happens when we change the quotations around.

Mr Wood was found in the Baghdad suburb of Ghazaliya, where the US military said troops stumbled across the "hostage" while conducting routine raids as part on an ongoing "counter-insurgency" operation.

last edited by d0mino at 16:19:12 16/Jun/05

are you suggesting that he wasn't really a hostage or something?

I don't have an opinion of the Mufti either way, because I haven't really followed the case, but it is interesting how the media reports these things.

I think you are right domino, the quotation marks do have a significant impact on the emphasis and perceived reliability of the information. When we see quotation marks used in this way, it signifys that the author of the piece (in this case the Courier Mail) claims no responsibilty for the words used. It's used to suggest something like "Well, these are their words not ours", and even reads in some news stories as though they are actually discrediting or questioning the speakers credibility.

We know that words in inverted commas can sometimes be euphenisms, and that they are often used as such in the media to give things a certain slant.
For instance the army may saysomething like there was "collateral damage" (direct quote) but in a weird way the quote marks indicate that there is an underlying or embedded meaning in this seemingly ordinary phrase.

In this case however, it would seem like the Courier Mail were questioning the Mufti's credibility, rather than the military, so we read these in the context of the article as factual direct quotes. However had they said something like:

The Mufti said his "mission" was a success.

then we would almost certainly assume that the mission in question was not necessarily what the Mufti had said it was. In this instance the quotes serve to discredit or to raise doubts as to the validity of the speakers comments.

/end English lesson

last edited by IncrEdible_vEgetable at 16:48:59 16/Jun/05

last edited by IncrEdible_vEgetable at 16:50:37 16/Jun/05

Domino I think the quotation marks are there to indicate the quotations skepticism from the writer.

does that make sense?

i think the article looks dodgy cause the writer has chosen to put emphasis on certain words, not "just" to quote them.

i switched the quotations on the second quote in my last post to show how the emphasis changes.

The writer is dodgy, ie:

Last night he thanked "honest Iraqis" for helping him organise the release of Douglas Wood.

why not just not put the quotations in, he(or she) is trying to insinuate that he was not thanking honest iraqis, despite what he said.

Last night he thanked "honest Iraqis" for helping him organise the release of Douglas Wood.

why not just not put the quotations in, he(or she) is trying to insinuate that he was not thanking honest iraqis, despite what he said

I don't think, in that particular situation, that he was trying to insinuate that they were not thanking honest iraqis.

I think the quotes were used, because the word honest, as used by the speaker, adds context to what he was saying, however, without the quotes, it would like the journo added the word honest, which would be weird...and would be the journo putting words in the speakers mouth. On the other hand, if the journo left the word honest out...and therefor would not need to use quotes, then he wouldn't be reporting the story accurately.

its not just this article

this mufti dude hasnt been able to get his story straight from the start

even his mouthpiece in australia (Trad) has seemed bewiledered by some of things hes been saying;

Maybe hes stoned?

Mr Wood was found in the Baghdad suburb of Ghazaliya, where the US military said troops "stumbled" across the hostage while conducting "routine" raids as part on an ongoing counter-insurgency operation.

Just STUMBLED across him ahey !!! they make it sound like iraq is a lil country town where everyone knows everyone like they're in tasmania.

http://network.news.com.au/image/0,10114,5018156,00.jpg

lol, he looks like locke

http://img251.echo.cx/img251/2126/locke5qv.jpg

You might be right...

apparently he was wheelchair bound before he was abducted too.

Booyah: sounds like your mates are weak, can't even keep their word.

Sounds like my "mates" and your mates are both speaking a lot of s*** lately.

Asstroboy wins though, he speaks s*** all the time.