On Tuesday night, Pasquale Barbaro was shot dead in his car in the backstreets of Earlwood in Sydney’s south.
On hearing the news, I first thought of the difficulties facing journalists working at news desks that night. The first question to answer was which Pasquale Barbaro had been murdered? There’s a small army of them and many are known to police. Two other relatives bearing the name had already been murdered. Another was serving a 30-year jail term over his role in the biggest ecstasy importation Australia has seen.
On this occasion it was 35-year-old Pasquale Timothy Barbaro who became the victim.
In 2003, Jason Moran a key combatant in Melbourne’s bloody underworld feud, knew he was in danger and with a contract out on his life. He came out of hiding briefly to watch his children kick a footy around at an Auskick clinic at Essendon in Melbourne’s north with his bodyguard, Pasquale ‘Pat’ Barbaro, Pasquale Timothy Barbaro’s cousin.
Full column here.
Jean Baptiste:
Had a good time JB. Nice place – and the Bhutanese are so nice – why, they even put up with me. They wouldn’t have a clue how to be nasty. Buddhism has a lot going for it. Tolerance!
CARL and RAZOR: I hear what you say about employment etc, but friend of mine – Prof of Mathematics – reckons it’s all over red rover unless the world switches to nuclear power. Worked it all out mathematically. Too late now for solar or wind – and apocalypse if we continue to create coal powered emissions. Sooner rather than later too. Did I read somewhere that SA mentioned nuclear? If they did they’re on the right track – but not without the whole nation in on it.
Damn, my phone has the “up to the top of the page” arrow at bottom right of comment box and I keep hitting it by mistake and zooming express to the top!
Bella 09:13pm.
Just passed over the top of mum whale and junior just coming into Sydney return.” Wow”! ,…what a sight,Bella!
Well Bassman , you certainly not here on our turf!
OK. That’s it for this blog, please. Can you all start posts under the new entry – The Contrabulous Phantasmagorica of Senator Rodney Culleton.
If I’ve learnt nothing else from this blog at least I know now that underworld types buy toilet paper. I won’t be dawdling in that section looking for a bargain anymore! Better yet, i’ll get the missus to get it.
Jack 3:19AM
Some sections of the business community maybe, but it’s business as usual for the most rapacious, who don’t give a sh*t about the future generations or the environment in which their grandchildren will live or die , the starving millions, or the victims of their sordid wars of acquisition. And we can take it or leave it.
As for the “self loathing”? Pig’s arse, that’s called “image” and it’s part of the advertising budget.
The French aristocracy never saw it coming, but it wouldn’t have come if the French aristocracy had owned the television programming , had a Patriot Act and sophisticated surveillance of the cits, so no hope there.
Never mind the two bob underworld crims, the real, most murderous and dangerous criminals by a factor of millions wear suits and ride in corporate jets. There’s your “Untouchables” right there.
Uncle Quentin
Tops!
Milton 10:08PM
As OLSD points out Hilary got 5% more of the vote than the Trump, but trust you to jump on the Trump train. You had me rolling on the floor with your claims to the pursuit of the “truth”. You’re something out of those fruit cake fundamentalist freebie rags that the God bothering loonies were always trying to stuff their “truth” garbage down the front of your shirt.
You are sounding very odd and obsessed, like a shiver looking for a spine to crawl up. You’re not having nightmares about a smug smiling Paul Keating looking through your window are you, little Pollyanna?
You cant handle the truth. Not even close. You wouldn’t know it if it was fastened onto your arse with a staple.
Yvonne 10:16AM
Thank God you’re back. I couldn’t sleep thinking you must be hopelessly lost in Bhutan, captive of a Yeti or breakfast for a Snow Tiger? Leopard? type of wild carnivorous thingie. I mean if you get can lost on the side of one hill………………..
Anyhow never mind I don’t know who “Orville Little Sun Dog” is, but theres something about that syntax……. Best nom de rattle on the blog though.
I’m worried about you going back to Bhutan. Just one guide? Take a spare in case you bat the ears off one and he/she has a nervous break down, runs away or commits Bhutanese hari kari off a cliff or something.
Kind thoughts,
Give ’em heaps.
Oh my. coalition better economic managers? Pigs arse. All indicators point to the coalition wrecking the economy for their ideological cause.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/11/23/australia-was-wealthier-under-labor/
The government continues to run its deliberately divisive sectarian agenda. They continue to support and promote the bigoted statements of their primitive right wing cons. Their continued efforts to divide the nation and use ridiculous labels like “elites” for anyone who dare hold them accountable and the continued demonising of any non anglo’s along with the continued ideological war on collective bargaining and blaming and shaming of the least well off in society shows in they are not acting in the National interest. No Surprises.
Penny – re our earlier comments about Keating and the rise of One Nation (and it’s reanimation) I doubt we’ll ever agree on this but I maintain the view I’ve expressed before: when the political pendulum swings too hard one way there will be a corresponding swing back. Keating’s problem – the one that led to voters really wanting to kick Labor generally and him in particular to death – was that the political narrative became dominated by issues too far removed from the average person’s daily concerns. Even if he wasn’t determined to tear down the country and re-build it to his own standards the interminable debates about the republic, Aboriginal land-rights, the flag, multiculturalism and the outright hostility displayed towards those who disagreed made a lot of people feel that he was.
It is no accident that Pauline Hanson and One Nation are back with a similar atmosphere now prevailing, different in the fine details but similar enough to bring them back bigger and stronger than before. As others have said, the rise of Trump and the Brexit vote show that it is an international phenomenon of ordinary people getting heartily sick of being told what they must think, how they should act, and what they may say. This is a good piece and I hope the author’s clarity of vision survives his political career:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/political-class-ignored-the-people-and-paid-the-price/news-story/f1d35ad7c29f76daf08768182b316d55
IMO it’s a stretch to describe anything that happened under Keating — and certainly not under Abbott/Turnbull, the government immediately before this election — that could be described as “a swing to the left” of any magnitude, and certainly not of the magnitude that Hanson represents in the other direction. And if Keating’s grand plans were of little concern to most voters, neither are right-wing boutique issues like anti-immigration, ant-multiculturalism and especially anti-18C, which the vast majority like perfectly well the way they are.
Very interesting article attached Mr Insider on how China is investing heavily in Rwanda, something we certainly didn’t know. Looks like it gives them a “hub” or base footing on the African Continent. Someone told us the other day China also making inroads into some of the South Pacific Islands? Certainly an expanding giant is China.
http://tinyurl.com/hvnfygk
I saw Deliverance (again) last night – what a harrowing movie.
I reckon that if anyone wants to do a modern day remake, they need look no further than a Trump rally for casting inspiration.
TO
It is exactly comments like yours that got him elected. I agree with Dwight. If you and others keep it up he will be a shoe in for a second term.
Take note TO, it’s the new PC: don’t offend the yokels or they’ll keep voting off their noses to spite their faces.