An editor at Outdoor Life for nearly 30 years and member of the NRA for 40, Jim Zumbo is a lifelong advocate of outdoorsmanship, hunting and gun ownership in print and on television. Last week, Zumbo left a comment on his Outdoor Life blog commenting on the rising popularity of assault rifles for hunting calling them "terrorist weapons" and suggesting they should be banned from hunting use. Three days later, Zumbo's lifelong career is all but over, having lost all his product sponsorships, was publicly disavowed by the NRA, and his show was canceled. With the 2008 election season starting and a Congress now controlled by the party supporting greater restrictions on assault weapons, Zumbo may be the first sign of a zero-tolerance conservative constituency.
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Feb 25, 2007 - 124 comments

Make that bribe a tax deduction The Australian Wheat Board (AWB) [previously] has been found by to have breached UN sanctions on Iraq by paying the former regime almost three hundred million Australian dollars (300,000,000.00 AUD = 235,733,088.15 USD) in illegal “kickbacks” (read bribes). While the Australian Navy was instrumental in enforcing sanctions, at a huge cost to the Australian people (and indeed a far greater cost to Iraq people) this company was doing all it could to prop up Sadam’s regime. Now in the Australian Taxation Office have ruled that the bribes aren’t bribes, and have allowed the AWB to claim them as a tax deduction. Happily for some AWB’s share price surged with the news, so that’s some good news at least. It looks as if US might be taking action.
posted by mattoxic on Dec 20, 2006 - 12 comments

It seems increasingly more likely that Saddam Hussein's regime was getting kickbacks from the Australian Wheat Board and, worse still, the Australian Government may have known about it. This major scandal is causing big headaches for the Australian Government and is emerging as a diplomatic sore point between the US and one of its strongest Iraq War allies. The Australian Opposition is calling for the official inquiry into the matter, the Cole Inquiry, to be widened, whilst in the US, several US senators including Norm Coleman and Patty Murray are demanding answers whilst simultaneously calling for a ban on Australian wheat. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 on Feb 1, 2006 - 31 comments