Does it bother anyone else that when Todd Russell and Brandt Webb were stuck down the mine in Tasmania you literally could not escape the minute-by-minute media coverage.  It was on the front page of every paper, there were continuous broadcasts from the scene, and we were told every single item that got passed down the platic tube to them from the outside.  Now let's get this staight.  These blokes went without food for 5 days.  That's all they did.  They had water.  They had air.  They sat on their asses and didn't eat for 5 days, after that they bascially had a camping trip, with ipods, food, glo-sticks, sustagen, sleeping bags and warm clothes delivered to them while they waited to get dug out.  BIG FUCKING DEAL.  Yet we the public had to endure it being shoved in our faces and they were made out to be national heroes!  FOR WHAT? Sitting on their asses listening to ipods?  And even now the media is still following them around, to the Prime Minister's house and to America. 

Now lets consider the other newsworthy item that seems to get a 10-second spot on the news every couple of days, the death toll in Iraq.  According to www.iraqbodycount.org there have been over 1,000 civillian deaths in Iraq EVERY MONTH FOR THE LAST 3 MONTHS!  Now I don't care how bad Saddam Hussein was, I'm sure he didn't slaughter this many people.  And I know it's the "insurgents" doing a lot of the killing but for fuck's sake come on.  There was no legal premise for the war in the first place.  There were no WMD's.  The insurgents are only doing what they do because of the American occupation.   If you do the averages while Todd and Russell were having their underground camping trip  around 500 INNOCENT IRAQIS DIED, as a direct result of the American invasion.  Now  these always seem like such incomprehensible numbers so they get glossed over.  And why should you care?  You don't know these people.  I'll tell you why, because the price of oil, which affects the price of everything you buy, has only skyrocketed since the war in Iraq.  George Bush is getting rich from the blood of Iraqi women and children who are dying horrific traumatic deaths.  Do you think that's a coincicdence or a calculated plan by the oil-fuelled Bush family?  Do you even know 500 people?  Imagine if every single person you know on the face of the earth was killed in one fortnight by violence.  Do think that would rate more than a flicker on the news.  Also imagine if 1,000 people were killed every month in senseless violence where you live.  Do you think it would rate as highly as Todd and Brandt did on the news.  Of course it fucking would.  Why is it that when Westerners die they use the words "shocking", "horiffic", "carnage", "senseless", and other inflammatory adjectives yet when it's Iraqis they just say "in another day of violence in Iraq"?

If 1,000 Australians were killed by bombs and gunfire during the last month no-one would know or even give a shit who Todd Russell and Brandt Webb were.  No-one would give a flying fuck about Beaconsfield.  The disgusting, overbearing intrusive media coverage that these two received was a fucking disgrace, while John Howard was sitting back happily playing along with it doing interviews singing their praises, while Iragi civillians lay dying in pools of blood with body parts ripped off by shrapnel as a result of a war that we sanction and cannot control.  Let's remember the furore and media storm when around 2,800 Americans died in the World Trade Centre attacks, more Iraqis have died THIS YEAR than in that attack.

 If Todd and Brandt happen to read this, you two should do something positive with your newfound fame.  So you had to shit in a plastic bag in front of each other, pooor little darlings, I bet that was very traumatic.  Imagine watching your wives and children being blown to pieces by an RPG, or having their heads blown off by an AK-47 while kneeling, hands tied behind their backs praying for their lives.  While you two are lapping up the spotlight that's what's happening to hundreds of innocent Iraqis every week.  Either make some useful statements while the cameras or on you or get the fuck off the news.  You are not special and you most definitely are not newsworthy.