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Category: Current Affairs (Page 55 of 76)

Anger Can Be Good News

When it is the entirely righteous anger of ordinary people at pointless violence, and the distortion and corruption of their faith.

Pakistani villagers enraged with the Taliban after the bombing of a mosque battled the militants on Monday, underscoring a shift in public opinion away from the hardline Islamists.

The Taliban have stepped up bomb attacks and are suspected of being behind a suicide blast at a mosque in the Upper Dir region, near Swat, that killed about 40 people on Friday.

Outraged by the attack, villagers formed a militia, known as a lashkar, of about 500 men and began fighting the militants on Saturday in an bid to force them out of their area.

A February pact aimed at placating the Taliban in Swat by introducing Islamic sharia law sailed through parliament with only one or two voices of dissent.

But much has changed since then…

A Taliban push into a district 100 km (60 miles) from Islamabad, a widely circulated video of Taliban flogging a teenaged girl and the Islamists’ denunciation of the constitution as “unIslamic” have sharply shifted public opinion.

All that is good. But many in Pakistan still see the Taliban as their Islamic brothers, and a less important enemy than India, the US or Jews.

Pakistan must, and the rest of world must help, reassure, resettle and rebuild, where the battle with the Taliban has caused death and loss of homes and livelihoods. If we do not, the tide of feeling will turn against Pakistan’s government and the West, as quickly as it now seems to have turned in favour.

When The Police Won’t Help, And Complain About Those Who Will

From Australian Conservative.

John Styles points out that just as escalating violence against visiting students was back in the news in in mid May, the vast resources of the Victorian Police Department were focussed on catching …  jay walkers.

And Miranda Devine notes that the Prime Minister and senior police are reprimanding overseas students who are no longer willing to sit back and be robbed and beaten.

In Victoria, a police spokeswoman said Indian students doing their own security patrols at crime-ridden western suburbs railway stations should “leave and let police do their jobs”.

Well, if the police had done their jobs in the first place Indian students wouldn’t feel like they have to escort each other home from railway stations late at night. Nor would 1000 Indian students have gathered on Sunday at Town Hall and this week in Harris Park to protest about the lax policing.

But now that Australia’s not-so-secret suburban law and order problem has become an international scandal, it’s remarkable how vigilant the police can be.

I have been a police chaplain, and know how difficult and thankless the task of effective community policing can be. I doubt very much that the fault here lies with ordianry police men and women.

Do Not Do Evil That Good May Come

That is a basic Christian principle. You must always do what is right. The end does not justify the means.

Doing wrong so good may come is pride. It is the belief that we know better than God. But we are not wiser than God.

Evil has a way of spreading, and sprouting up consequences that are not easy to foresee. 

I cannot help but be glad about the permanent closure of George Tiller’s monstrous death factory.

That is a positive outcome for hundreds of children who will now be born alive instead of being dragged halfway out of the womb and having their skulls crushed so they were dead before being fully delivered. Another four inches and the skull crushing would have been murder. I’m sure the babies understood that distinction perfectly.

Yet the killing of George Tiller was also murder. Murder is always wrong. There may be, and probably will be, consequences of that act we cannot yet see.

Gordon Ramsay Is Not A Nice Man

He said some nasty things about Tracy Grimshaw. Well, boo hoo.

He’s made a career out of saying nasty things about people.

People like Tracy Grimshaw have benefitted from the publicity this nastiness has generated, and no doubt found it amusing. As long as it was directed at someone else. Underpaid teenagers working in kitchens for example.

If you make a celebrity out of someone because he is a foul mouthed pig, why get all surprised when he acts like a foul mouthed pig?

At least Channel Nine is getting a bit of free publicity. Despite Grimshaw’s vow she will never talk to him again, I bet there will be a return interview . The possible ratings will make it irresistable to Nine’s management.

The Big Omission

I agree with David Goldman that the most significant omission from Obama’s Cairo speech was reference to the long-standing ties of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.

Israel was not founded because of European guilt over the Holocaust. It was wrong to suggest this – not only factually wrong, but morally wrong.

In 1922 the League of Nations gave the British Empire a mandate over the former Palestinian region of the Ottoman Empire, with the purpose of establishing a  Jewish homeland.

The present day Palestinian people have no such long standing connection to the land. They are not descendants of the Philistines after whom that region was named. They are Arabs. There has never been an independent state called Palestine.

Nonetheless, in the end, the largest area of that mandate went to form the Palestinian Arab kingdom of Jordan. What was left was partitioned again, until the Jewish homeland was whittled down to one sixth of one percent of the Middle East.

Long before Christianity and Islam appeared on the world stage, the covenant between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel was entrenched and unwavering. Every day we prayed in our ancient tongue for our return to Zion. Every day.

Fielding Asks For Evidence

Tempers erupt.

But why? Losing one’s temper is usually a sign of insecurity. If global warming alarmists are so certain the evidence supports them, why don’t they just provide it?

Instead insults are thrown at Fielding and anyone who, like him, questions the dogma of warmism. Such questioners are stupid, or out of date, or in the pay of oil companies. But again, why not just provide the evidence, if it is so clear?

It had jolly well better be clear, given the enormous cost.

The world runs on energy. Cheap goods, transport, medical care, virtually every aspect of daily life we now take for granted, depends on the energy presently produced by fossil fuels.

In the form of emissions trading schemes, legislation is being proposed which will cause massive unemployment, shut down major industries, and cause a depression and depth of suffering never seen since the beginning of the industrial age.

It is not only the right of legislators to ask for clear evidence of the reasons for which such legislation is being proposed, it is an absolute obligation.

Fortunately, more and more people are becoming that aware claims of a scientific consensus, and the ‘science’ on which that consensus is supposedly based, are both a crock of doo-doo.

74 Terrorists Freed From Guantanamo Back To Being Terrorists

From the New York Post:

 The Pentagon now confirms that at least 74 former Guantanamo detainees have resumed terror ist activities after claiming they weren’t terrorists.

Such recidivism points up an alarming intelligence failure.

These dangerous prisoners should never have been cleared for release. Why did interrogators fail to find the cracks in their stories and alibis?

Why wasn’t more intelligence gathered to predict they’d rejoin al Qaeda or the Taliban?

… For that matter, Gitmo doesn’t even do “interrogations” anymore. They’re now called interviews, and they’re voluntary …

As a condition of their release, the Gitmo detainees signed pledges to renounce violence and enroll in “reintegration programs” in countries that agreed to repatriate them.

Terrorist Said Ali al-Shihri went through the resort-like Saudi program after his release in 2007.

Afterward, he helped plan last year’s deadly attack on the US Embassy in Yemen as al Qaeda’s operations chief there.

Another Gitmo recidivist, Slimane Hadj Abderahmane, laughed at the anti-violence agreement he signed. Once free, he re-engaged in terror and said, “This document is toilet paper for the Americans if they want it.”

Like I Said

I pointed out several months ago that the Federal goverment’s stimulus plan could not achieve increased wealth for the average Australian, because simply taking money from some people and giving it to others does not produce anything new. It is production that increases wealth, not simply spending. Professor Neal Stoughton agreed.

In an article called The Uselessness of Useless Spending published on Quadrant online today, Steven Kates explains in more detail why this is so:

The fact of the matter is, that should it turn out that these have been quack remedies, the equivalent of bleeding the unwell and applying leaches to the sick, we are going to know.

Because there are some of us who believe that what is being done will actually make economic conditions worse, with the potential to slow recovery, reduce real incomes, lower employment, push up inflation and cause investment to fall back.

Spending money we do not have on infrastructure with no net value was once seen by economists of a bygone era as about as wrong a policy as one could possibly invent …

Build roads that goods can travel along at a lower cost, and these outlays repay themselves in higher national productivity.

But to build school libraries or to insolate houses or to build loss making broadband networks will not create any additional value with which to repay these expenditures. We will have the debt, but no extra output to repay any of the monies we are so madly spending now.

Hear, hear!

But sadly, no one who needs to hear will hear, and most working Australians will spend the rest of their lives paying back this pointless extravaganza.

Fruits Of Muhammed’s Life: Death, Destruction, Lust

Two interesting articles from FrontPage Magazine.

The first is an interview with Coptic priest Fr Zakaria Botros. He has been denounced as Islam’s public enemy number one, and Al Qaeda has said they will pay $60 million for his head.

From the FrontPage article:

I am a Copt. In my early 20s, I became a priest. Of course, in predominantly Muslim Egypt, Christians—priests or otherwise—do not talk about religion with Muslims. My older brother, a passionate Christian learned that lesson too late: after preaching to Muslims, he was eventually ambushed by Muslims who cut out his tongue and murdered him. Far from being deterred or hating Muslims, I eventually felt more compelled to share the Good News with them. Naturally, this created many problems: I was constantly harassed, threatened, and eventually imprisoned and tortured for a year…

Ibn Taymiyya, who happens to be the hero of the modern mujahid movement, explained the prerequisites of prophet-hood very well.  One of the things he stressed is that, in order to know if a prophet is in fact from God, we must study his sira, or his biography, much like the Christ’s statement that “You shall know them from their fruits.”  So, taking Ibn Taymiyya’s advice, I recently devoted a number of episodes analyzing the biography of Muhammad, which unequivocally proves that he was not a prophet, that his only “fruits” were death, destruction, and lust.  Indeed, he himself confessed and believed that he was being visited and tormented by a “jinn,” or basically a demon, until his wife Khadija convinced him that it was the angel Gabriel—which, of course is ironic, since Muhammad himself later went on to say that the testimony of a woman is half that of a man.

And from an article about Fr Botros on National Review Online:

The result? Mass conversions to Christianity — if clandestine ones. The very public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam — who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday — is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them persuaded by Botros’s public ministry. More recently, al-Jazeera noted Life TV’s “unprecedented evangelical raid” on the Muslim world. Several factors account for the Botros phenomenon.

Another reason for Botros’s success is that his polemical technique has proven irrefutable. Each of his episodes has a theme — from the pressing to the esoteric — often expressed as a question (e.g., “Is jihad an obligation for all Muslims?”; “Are women inferior to men in Islam?”; “Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?” “Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?”). To answer the question, Botros meticulously quotes — always careful to give sources and reference numbers — from authoritative Islamic texts on the subject, starting from the Koran; then from the canonical sayings of the prophet — the Hadith; and finally from the words of prominent Muslim theologians past and present — the illustrious ulema.

Typically, Botros’s presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open — and humbly invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond and show the error in his methodology. He does demand, however, that their response be based on “al-dalil we al-burhan,” — “evidence and proof,” one of his frequent refrains — not shout-downs or sophistry.

More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence — which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers.

The second FrontPage article is by David Horowitz. Horowitz points out that despite the distortions of history, and the failure to mention terrorism or Islam’s history of vicious conquest of Christian and other countries, there were some good things in Obama’s Cairo speech.

I certainly agree that ather than simply condemn Obama’s failures, we should applaud what he gets right – and amidst the jumble, he got a lot right in Cairo.

Here is a substantial chunk, but the whole thing is worth reading:

As for the Middle East conflict, Obama  began – began – by telling the Muslim world that the bond between Israel and the United States is unbreakable, and by opening the wound of the Jews that made a homeland for them a moral imperative: “America’s strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.”

And then he characterized Holocaust deniers like Ahmadinejad as despicable, and identified them as a cause of war in the Middle East, and announced that he was going to Buchenwald the next day (clearly to underscore that fact): “Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.”

And while Obama made false parallels between Jews and Arabs as contributors to the intractability of the Middle East conflict and rewrote some history, he also said in no uncertain terms that it was Palestinians who had to renounce violence (and here he drew no parallels and no moral equivalence) and had to recognize the Jewish state — something even the “moderate” terrorist Abbas refuses to do.

And to underscore this point he drew a parallel between the struggles of American blacks for civil rights and Palestinians. But unlike Condoleeza Rice who not too long ago drew the same parallel to aggrandize the PLO terrorists as civil rights activists, Obama drew a sharp and revealing line of distinction between them: “Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding.“

And that was really the core of Obama’s speech. It was a defense of America’s founding and America’s mission. We are a tolerant nation and a peaceful nation Obama told 1.5 billion Muslims and we will accept and embrace you if you reject the violent and hateful among you and walk a peaceful and tolerant path. And this tolerance must extend not only to the Jews of Israel, and other infidels, but to Muslims among you who are oppressed, specifically Muslim women:  “The sixth issue that I want to address is women’s rights. I know there is debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the Wes that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality.. That is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams.”

Of course the good things do not excuse the distortions. Robert Spencer points out in a careful, step by step review of Obama’s speech, also on FrontPage, that those distortions are substantial and damaging.

Phillipines: Two More Hostages Free

Military pressure has forced the release or abandonment of two more hostage held by Abu Sayyaf terrorists in the southern Phillipines.

Leah Patris, an employee of a micro-finance company, was kidnapped on February 3rd.

Peace activist Umar Jaleel was released last Thursday after being kidnapped on February 13th.

Still no news about Red Cross worker Eugenio Vagni, who was taken by Abu Sayyaf, along with two other Red Cross workers, on the fifteenth of January.

At least in the Phillipines, terrorists are getting the message that kidnapping is no longer likely to be a profitable activity.

Burmese Army Attacks Orphanages, Refugee Camps

Perhaps the tin pot generals who run Burma hoped that with the media’s attention on the show trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, their latest vicious attacks on ethnic and religious minorities would go unnoticed.

The tragedy is, they might be right.

So far not a single story in mainstream news outlets about the horrific attacks which have forced over 3,000 people to flee Ler Per Her refugee camp on the Thai/Burma border near Mae Sot.

Karen Refugees Flee Ler Per Her

Karen Refugees Flee Ler Per Her

The Free Burma Rangers have more, including this story of a 14 year old girl being gang raped by Burmese soldiers, and a man having his hands cut off after being accused of talking with members of resistance groups.

Global Warming Causes Everything

A Russian climatologist says global warming played a ‘significant part’ in the crash of Air France flight 447 in the Atlantic a couple of days ago.

If you don’t know, you might as well make something up. Especially if what you are making up might get you some more grant money.

Reading that article reminded me of this list of all the things scientists have so far claimed are caused by global warming. The Earth spins faster. The Earth is slowing down. Widespread floods. Widespread droughts. Maple syrup production down. Maple syrup production up. Mountains breaking up. Mountains getting taller. Farmers getting richer. Farmers getting poorer. Polar bears becoming aggressive.

Well, that settles it for me. Those polar bears have always been so gol darn cute and cuddly before. I just know something’s going on.

US Unemployment Continues To Rise

From 8.9% to 9.4% in May.

US Unemployment Rate

US Unemployment Rate

Former White House spokesman Tony Fratto is less than impressed with the current administration’s claim that thousands of jobs created have been created by the stimulus plan:

After nearly twenty years in Washington I thought I’ve seen every trick ever conceived, but the White House claims of “jobs saved” attributed to the stimulus bill is unrivaled. What causes the jaw to drop is not just the breathtaking deception of the claim, but the gullibility of the Washington press corps to continue reporting it.

News stories from President Obama’s event last week hailing the 100-day mark since the stimulus was passed typically repeated the assertion that the stimulus has already “created or saved 150,00 jobs.” (“And that’s just the beginning,” the President crowed.)

Here’s an important note to my friends in the news media: the White House has absolutely no earthly clue how many job losses have been prevented because of the stimulus bill. None.

Forget that only a trickle of stimulus spending has yet made its way into the real economy. Set aside your views on whether or not the stimulus has any job-saving or -creating impact. And leave for another day the White House’s failing to account for changing macroeconomic conditions and seasonal adjustments.

There is only one necessary data point to make the “jobs-saved” claim: an accurate measure of expected employment levels in the future. That baseline data is critical to measure what the employment level would be in the absence of the stimulus. Unfortunately for the White House, they cannot possibly know that measurement within any degree of confidence — and they know it …

A self-respecting press corps would vigorously question the White House on their claims. We’ll see if we have one.

Anyone want to put money on it?

Google Thinks Tetris Is More Important Than D-Day

Google often changes its logo to match the day – public holidays, festivals, even sports get their own logo de jour.

On June 6th 2008 Google remembered the birthday of Spanish painter Diego Velasquez.

I like Velasquez. Las Meninas, the painting suggested in the logo, is a wonderfully rich image that draws in the viewer, and almost forces him or her to wonder, to ask questions, to participate in the painting. It really is one of those rare paintings you can lose yourself in.

On June 6th 2009 Google remembered the invention of the game Tetris. Tetris was a milestone in computer games. It is simple to play, highly addictive, and has probably been played by more people than any other video game.

But hang on. Important as those things might be, June 6th is the anniversary of D-Day.

2009 is the 65th anniversary of the day on which allied forces, mostly men from the US and UK, landed on beaches in Normandy and began to roll back the horror of the Nazi domination of Europe. The beaches were more heavily defended than expected, and losses were horrific.

The film Saving Private Ryan gives a frighteningly accurate portrayal of the conditions under which the landings took place.

I am not the only person to think there is something wrong at Google HQ if D-Day can be consistently considered less important to remember than a painter or a video game. (There is something wrong at Wikipedia as well, but that’s a post for another time).

On June 6th 2009 Bing had a photo of a Normandy beach.

Time to change search engines.

Is Your Wink Pink?

One of my friends is a dizzy blonde beauty therapist. She spends a considerable amount of time ripping hair off people’s private parts.

Last night she showed me a brochure for a new product – lightening gel for sensitive areas.

Apparently with so many people now permanently hairless down under, looking one’s best everywhere has become a major concern. You don’t want to look brown. Pink is the go.

So you smear this cream on your rectum and it goes a nice pink colour. Celebrites are ordering with confidence, according to the South Beach website.

The process is also known as anal bleaching.

But why would you do it? Who would be looking?

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