Happy new year folks

Image from SMH.

Would You Like Hate Speech With That Legislation?

The links here go to two places. Either the text of our wondrous Racial and Religious Vilification Act of 2001 and a particularly interesting discussion over at the MuslimVillage Forum.

MV is a forum for muslims in Australia, and while I used to be a regular reader, I just don't have the time to continue; plus I find it difficult going at times, since my views are so totally different to the contributors there.

The thread linked to is a very long, and very interesting read. In more ways than one. I would suggest if you have the time, please read it all, and consider....




no one accepts racism for long in any form on this forum. and the same standards should apply to all.

9. Motive and dominant ground irrelevant

(1) In determining whether a person has contravened section 7 or 8, the
person's motive in engaging in any conduct is irrelevant.

(2) In determining whether a person has contravened section 7 or 8, it is
irrelevant whether or not the race or religious belief or activity of another
person or class of persons is the only or dominant ground for the conduct, so
long as it is a substantial ground.

10. Incorrect assumption as to race or religious belief or activity

In determining whether a person has contravened section 7 or 8, it is
irrelevant* whether or not the person made an assumption about the race or
religious belief or activity of another person or class of persons that was
incorrect at the time that the contravention is alleged to have taken place.

26. Incorrect assumption as to race or religious belief or activity

In determining whether a person has committed an offence against section 24 or
25, it is irrelevant* whether or not the person made an assumption about the
race or religious belief or activity of another person or class of persons
that was incorrect at the time that the offence is alleged to have been
committed.

Let me also just note here for the record of this discussion, that I hold the Jewish state of Israel to be illegimate and without right of existence. Nor is a two-state solution acceptable. Israel, as a state, must be removed from the Islamic lands and Islamic rule must be re-established. This is the Islamic ruling on this matter.

looks like those terrorist masters of your zionist ideology have alredy sent their killer chanukah well wishes to provoke palestinians in those occupied territories. talk about celebrating freedom and oppressing others on daily basis for decades

Keep going! you are doing a great job! While your illegal state is beginning its killing machine in Gaza, it is your role to cover up for what they are doing by defending those Nazi-style atrocities.

We ask Allah to rid the world of this cancerous tumor and all its criminal shameless criminal supporters across the world.

Israel as a state will never be accepted. Not a single inch of Islamic land will ever be given up . It us our obligation to safeguard the lands and all peoples who live on the land whether they are jew or Muslims.

In due time, you will witness the collapse of Israel as a state, but dont think that Muslims will be as barbaric as the Jews and expell the jews completely and murder them. After justice is had and all land is returned to the rightful owners, jews will live peacefully under the shade of islam just as they have been since the time of the Prophet pbuh.

Was it the muslims who tried to exterminate the jews or was it the Europeans ??? Was the nazi regime run by Muslims ?

Don't bother asking why in your questions, its too late in the game for that. What i have said above is what we as muslims believe.

you think israel will be destroyed soon? by whom? and how?
iran will not get a chance to use nuclear weapons against israel. there will be no second holocaust!

but, out of curiosity, how many jews do you think will be left alive in palestine after your 'justice' has been done?

At the rate the palestinians are being killed right now, i hope not a single zionist is spared. To hell with being PC, all zionists should be hung by their tongue.

One cannot help but feel this way, considering what is going on. May Allah strengthen our ummah. Ameen.

7. Racial vilification unlawful

(1) A person must not, on the ground of the race of another person or class of
persons, engage in conduct that incites hatred against, serious contempt for,
or revulsion or severe ridicule of, that other person or class of persons.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), conduct-

(a) may be constituted by a single occasion or by a number of occasions
over a period of time; and

(b) may occur in or outside Victoria.

Note Engage in conduct includes use of the internet or e-mail to publish or
transmit statements or other material*.

8. Religious vilification unlawful

(1) A person must not, on the ground of the religious belief or activity of
another person or class of persons, engage in conduct that incites hatred
against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of, that other
person or class of persons.

Note Engage in conduct includes use of the internet or e-mail to publish or
transmit statements or other material*.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), conduct-

(a) may be constituted by a single occasion or by a number of occasions
over a period of time; and

(b) may occur in or outside Victoria.*

*emphasis added

It won't wash, Fred

I rather like Fred Nile but there is no doubt that Fred is an old wowser from way back. Blaming it on the Muslims will fool nobody who knows where Fred is coming from

Conservative MP Fred Nile says he wants topless bathing banned in NSW to protect Sydney's Muslim and Asian communities. The Reverend Nile has rejected allegations that prudishness is behind a bill he has prepared to ban nudity, including topless sunbathing, on the state's most popular beaches. Australia's reputation as a conservative but culturally inclusive sociery was at risk of erosion by more liberal overseas visitors, he said.



"Our beaches should be a place where no one is offended, whether it's their religious or cultural views," he said. "If they've come from a Middle Eastern or Asian country where women never go topless - in fact they usually wear a lot of clothing - I think it's important to respect all the different cultures that make up Australia." The practice was at risk of raising the ire of Muslim men in particular, Mr Nile said. "I don't want to have any provocations or disturbances on our public beaches," he said.

Acting Premier Carmel Tebbutt and the NSW Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, have both said that topless bathing is an issue for local councils, not state governments. But Mr Nile said he believed most politicians would come around once all the issues were considered. "I think if you survey Australian women you'll find a lot of women would be uncomfortable if it became the custom [to be] topless at the beach," he said. "Australia's always been a conservative country as far as beachwear goes. "Once being topless is accepted as lawful the next question will be why can't women go totally nude on a public beach and I don't think Australians want to go down that pathway."

Source


Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Interesting news from around the world

News.com.au - RESIDENTS at certain addresses in the Gaza Strip have been receiving unusual phone calls since the Israeli air assault began on Saturday - a request that they and their families leave their homes as soon as possible for their own safety. ......In some cases, the warning comes not by telephone but from leaflets dropped from aircraft on selected districts. Such warnings clearly eliminate the element of surprise, but for Israel it is of cardinal importance to minimise civilian casualties, and not just for humanitarian reasons. ......Israel Radio reported that leaflets had been dropped at the beginning of the operation in the Rafah area near the border with Egypt, warning residents that the tunnels to Egypt through which weapons and civilian products were smuggled would be bombed.

Do HamASS and all the other terrorist scum do any of this when they send their rockets (7000 to date) or homicide bombers into Israel? No way, that would kind of undermine their aim of trying to kill as many men, women and children as they can wouldn't it. Surprisingly, few around the world, see them for the vile scum they really are. Well it's not that surprising, the man-in-the-street only hears about Israel's attacks, nothing about the build up and provocation, so he doesn't know the full story. That's thanks to the MSM elites who bring them their news and we know, they're not really interested in Israel's side of the story, they'll swallow anything those Pali terrorists dish up to them.

In other news, President-elect of Planet Earth, B. Hussein Obama is strangely quiet on the Israel/Pali fiasco. Does anyone know if he received any campaign contributions from the Palis, I seem to recall hearing something about that. Or were those just expressions of support and good will from the worlds scumbags? Perhaps this is why he's keeping 'mum' about it, or is it because he has nothing good to say about Israel, he is just not saying anything at all, small mercies I suppose. But still, it must drive those on the mad-left into gnashing their teeth over his lack of condemnation of Israel for not being good little Jews and sucking down them kassams. So I thought I should show the mad-left what their great leader is doing, while their terrorist buddies are catching it from the IDF.



I wonder if Michael Moore will make a movie soon, maybe even a 60 second youtube clip, in his usual fact-free, smearing style to bring you 'the truth'. Play some violins and all that, the poor HamASS freedom fighters all alone and abandoned, tug at them feeble western heart-strings. Please give terrorism a chance or something to that effect.

Still on the left and their global warming hoopla that's going to melt all the ice and prompt the oceans to angrily rise up and consume us wretched humans as punishment for our sins against Gaia.

Daily Mail - Britain awoke to freezing conditions this morning with much of the country blanketed in a layer of frost. Temperatures in parts of northern Scotland fell as low as -8C while London also experienced sub-zero conditions. Meanwhile forecasters warned that this week is set to become even colder with New Year partygoers having to brace themselves for snow flurries and sleet as the cold snap tightens its grip on Britain. ......Thermometer readings in England could even plummet to -10c (14f) or even lower next week.

Britain will be colder than Iceland and Norway as winds from Siberia chill the country, diverting the wet weather that normally sweeps the UK. ......'The average for this time of year is seven or eight in the South and about six further north. ......Such a chilly New Year would follow the coldest start to winter for 30 years and the coolest year globally this decade.

I think you can safely expect the calls for the world to 'bloody do something' to hinder humanity's progress to prevent the planet from burning to a giant crisp to grow ever more shrill as the planet refuses to warm, but actually freezes. Which brings me to another point, back in the 80s or was that 70s, they were loudly telling us that the planet would freeze over, but that didn't happen. Instead the opposite happened right, it warmed a bit. Now they're screaming that it'll burn and it's freezing instead. Geeeez, can they get anything right?

The debate continues

Well! I have certainly got a range of responses to my recent posts about Jews. There were of course plenty of antisemitic raves which I promptly deleted but the responses from my Jewish readers were generally well informed and well reasoned -- with one exception. I got a series of emails from a New York Ashkenazi man who would not for one minute concede that modern-day Jews are racially mixed. To him Jews are a single race. To quote him: "All Jews are descendents of Jacob". I found it rather hard to argue with someone who seemed to me a nutty Jewish racist but I did my best -- to no avail. He had a farrago of scientific bits and pieces in support of his view which reminded me of nothing so much as the farrago of scientific bits and pieces that you find on antisemitic sites. Predictable I suppose.


Since I am rather surprised to find ANY Jewish racists about, perhaps I should take this opportunity to say a little about his arguments. As readers of my previous writings on the subject will be aware, I did briefly look at whether Jews can be considered as a race and made the point that there are rather a lot of blue eyes among the Ashkenazim and that that betokened a genetic contribution from Northern Europe, well away from Israel.

Our racist friend answered that by saying, quite correctly, that races tend to move about over time and appeared to believe that there must once have been blue eyes in the Israel of Biblical times. He supported that view by pointing to a recent conclusion by geneticists to the effect that blue eyes are a mutation that originally arose in prehistoric times in the Black Sea area -- which is indeed somewhat closer to Israel than Northern Europe is. Where something arose and where it ends up are however two different stories and there is no doubt that blue eyes originally survived only in Northern Europe. What caused that is still a matter of some debate but it is in fact remarkable how dark eyes seem never to have made the grade in Northern Europe nor blue eyes further South. The further North you go, the more frequent blue eyes become -- until they are almost universal in native-born Scandinavians. So for as far back as we can see, blue eyes are clearly a Northern European phenomenon.

In the last 2,000 years, of course, there have been various invasions of Southern lands by Northern Europeans and that has left a small legacy of blue eyes in Mediterranean lands too. But the overwhelming rule remains blue in the North and dark in the South, with some regions being intermediate. But however you look at it, blue eyes in a predominantly dark-eyed population are a sign of racial admixture.

But the speculation that blue eyes in Jews has an ancient origin is ignoring the obvious. Many Jews strongly resemble the populations from which they emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries. All the Lithuanian Jews I have met, for instance, looked like Lithuanians: Fair skin, blue eyes and fair hair. Whereas Jews who have come from Arab lands tend to look like Arabs: darker skin, dark eyes and black hair. So it is clear that for one reason or another Jews have tended to interbreed heavily with the people among whom they found themselves. They do it in New York to this day, much to the ire of many a Yiddisher Momma. But I think I have already spent too much time on the nonsense argument to the contrary.

Tomorrow I am going to put up an email from a Jewish man who knows a lot about British history. That should put me on my mettle! I have no idea why but my racist interlocutor did forward me a rather pleasant picture in one of his emails. I reproduce it below:



Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Modern 'intellectuals' on terrorism and Israel

Diana West - It's quite simple, really: Israel strikes back at jihad, finally, and the world takes sides. So far, the sides looks like this: On Israel's side in its strike against jihad are the US and Australia (here); against Israel's strike on jihad are, well, just about everyone else, from France to Iran, from Russia to the UN, from Iraq (hat tip Andrew Bostom) to Afghanistan. Hat tip Jihad Watch.

JPost Editorial - ......THERE are those who make no pretense at being evenhanded. For them, Hamas has been exercising its inalienable right to resist "the occupation" by violently opposing the existence of the Jewish state. For them, practically out of the blue, the Zionists went berserk, massacring women, children, and the occasional Hamas "martyr." Desmond Tutu weighed in by calling Israel's use of its air force to stop Hamas "a war crime." Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor of Britain's Guardian, said that Israel's actions ranked with what he termed the massacres of Deir Yassin and Sabra and Shatilla.

Tim Butcher of London's Telegraph aimed to provide context. As time goes on, he explained, Israel lowers the threshold for who it considers a legitimate target. In 2004, "an elderly man in his wheelchair, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, was killed by an Israeli missile as he was pushed out of a mosque after weekly prayers." Butcher went on to note that Yassin "was the Hamas leader responsible for ordering suicide bombings." Still, his point was that, nowadays, "any Hamas traffic cop on a street corner" has become fair game.

MK - I think what Ayn Rand said in Atlas Shrugged about intellectuals is just as applicable today as it was then, "Intellectuals? You might have to worry about any other breed of men, but not about the modern intellectuals: they'll swallow anything."

Biology and the Jews

My recent meditations about the fate of the Jews were of course put on the net with some trepidation. Almost any discussion of the topic at all is likely to elicit immediate shrieks of racism -- particularly if a gentile is making the comment and the comments are not wholly laudatory. I am therefore delighted to see that a reasonably polite "Reply" to my comments has appeared which addresses my arguments rather than simply abusing me. I believe that I have already covered the points he raises but I obviously need to sharpen up my message.



I am not surprised, however, to see signs that emotion has overwhelmed logic in the reply. A central point in my posts on the subject was comparisons of Jews with others and my critic rightly sees that. His comment on the subject is, however, quite astonishing. He says of my comparison between Jews and Christians:

The problem is that he is comparing the number of members of a nation, with the number of adherents of a religion

Christians are members of a religion and Jews are not? What is Judaism then? Judging by the frequency of blue eyes among Askenazi Jews, Jews often are clearly not geneticaly connected to the Middle East. As far as I am aware, in fact, no member of the Ashkenazim can trace their ancestry to the Middle East. And I gather that it would be a rare Jew who identifies Jews as a race. That would make Jewish pride racist and the number of Jews who would wish to wear that label must be vanishingly small. What makes Jews Jews is their religious heritage, even if most Jews are not these days religious. What irreligious Jews trace back to as the source of their Jewishness is not a place but a forebear who identified himself or herself as a follower of the Jewish religion. So I see no invalidity at all in my comparison between Jews and Christians. Lots of Christians are pretty nominal too. My father never went to church but he would always put himself down on forms as "Church of England".

My critic says that it is understandable that Jews have proliferated less because they are endogamous and exclusive. But that is a point I make too. Endogamy (marrying within the clan) is very common in the human race and I think it is precisely the Christian abandonment of that which is wiser and a step forward. And biology looks primarily at numbers and the numbers do clearly show that the exogamy and general welcoming of others which is basic to Pauline Christianity has been a more adaptive survival and perpetuation strategy. From a purely biological standpoint, one could argue that Christianity is a more highly evolved form of Judaism. OK. I know that those will be taken as fighting words but they are not meant to be. They are meant as a normal deduction from the numbers within evolutionary biology. That Christianity is a more highly evolved form of Judaism is also, of course, a central Christian claim but, as an atheist, I am not influenced by that.

The remaining point in what my critic says is to deny that Jews have adopted a less than optimal survival strategy. Many groups are listed which are either extinct or smaller in number than the Jews. That however is to sell Jews short. I was not interested in such trivial comparisons. I don't for one second deny the miracle of Jewish survival. They have clearly outdone all of humanity in terms of the time they have survived. I was looking only at how they could survive in more security. Pharaonic Egypt one looked as if it would last forever but it did not. The same could be true of the Jews. It does not pay to be complacent. In other words, I wanted to compare Jews with the MOST successful of other groups, not with any of the many less successful groups. Jews are undoubtedly illustrious as far as survival is concerned but can they learn something from other groups that are also illustrious survivors? In particular can they learn from groups that could be seen as MORE successful in various ways?

What I did, then, was to look at another group that has not only survived for a significant length of time (c. 1500 years) but done so in style -- without having to endure horrendous pogroms, holocausts and decimating wars -- the English. Their influence on the modern world has been immense so I was comparing Jews not with unsuccessful groups but with an outstandingly successful group. The English may well by now have had their day but how they had such a splendid day is surely of interest. For nearly a thousand years their land has not been invaded. Unlike most other countries and groups, foreign soldiers have not tramped through their land, destroying, stealing, killing and raping women. Instead the English have conquered huge slices of the lands of other people and left those lands in the control of their descendants. Biologically, that is hot stuff, awesome, even. It is certainly without precedent. So we see, for instance, that Richmond-upon-Thames, the affluent southwest London borough has given its name to 55 settlements on three continents.

And so I still think that Jews can learn from the English. But you will have to read my earlier posts to see why and how I think they can do that. I have combined my three previous posts into a single article here.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Gaza

I've little doubt that - for better or worse - future generations will equate the name "Palestinian" with the concept of "voluntary targets" at best, "suicidally stupid" at worst.



For generations now, Palestinian Arabs have willingly sacrificed themselves, their children, and their future on the altar of terrorism. They have had countless opportunities to live peacefully within the borders of Israel - the limp-wristed liberalites AND the hard-liners in the Knesset have insisted on that - yet the fundamentalists in the PLO and Hamas have kept up their campaign of intolerance and violence regardless of the wishes of either the left or the right, Israeli or Arab.

The result?
The usual, all too predictable repetition of attacks and reprisals.

That situation is still developing, and pundits from London to D.C. to Delhi are wagging their tongues and posting voluminous - and often conflicting - analyses of the events in Gaza.

I'm not going to go into detail, or even put out the all-too-obvious predictions of how all that will turn out.

I'll only write this:
Look at who benefits from all that shit.
There's sick smiles and cynical back-slapping happening in Tehran and Moscow. If you don't know why that is, don't feel too bad - there are LOTS of self-styled "experts" who are just as lost as you are.

Problem is, way too many of those phony "experts" get huge paychecks from various world governments.
...and far too many of those governments cast votes like this in the UN.

Like I said earlier, I'll not be posting any detailed analysis to the events in Gaza, but I WILL ask a question:
Do you stand with Israel or not?

...and if you know anything of Israel's history and can still even HOPE there's a third option to that question, then you're a bigger fool than the Pawn-estinians.
I don't even pity them any more, but it's a God-damned crime what they're allowing to happen to their kids...for someone else's ambition.

(h/t to 10MEN at Fortress Australia Outpost for the UN vote article, and Townhall.com for the cartoon.)

Has Woolworths Australia become dangerously complacent?

They are more concerned with "saving the planet" than with selling stuff

Woolworths Australia is one of the world's most successful retailers -- unlike Woolworths USA and Woolworths Britain -- which have both gone bust. But the Australian version only got there by making lots of good decisions and some of the current management seem to me to be making bad decisions. They should reflect that Woolworths USA and Woolworths Britain were once in a strong position too -- until they grew complacent and stopped being self-critical.

Woolworths' ranging decisions (decisions about what to stock) in particular seem to have gone off the rails. I first noticed that when I found that they no longer stock the old incandescent light bulbs. They now stock only the mercury-polluted twisty globes -- even though they are not as yet legally obliged to do that. So people who don't like the twisty globes for whatever reason have to spend their money elsewhere -- as I did. Is that a clever stocking policy? It's certainly not a commercial one. I stocked up on the old globes at Coles.

That was only the start, however. I have now gone three more times to Woolworths and not found what I sought -- only to find what I sought at the little Indian bargain shop just outside my Buranda Woolworths. First I could not find Christmas cards with a Christian theme. Only Santas and reindeer and holly and such secular stuff. But the Indian guy had them. I blogged about that and Christian-themed Christmas cards suddenly made an appearance at Woolworths a few days later. Coincidence? Probably. There are a lot of Christians about so a major retailer has to be pretty dumb to ignore them.

Next I wanted a Thermos flask. Another completedly mundane purchase. You guessed it. Woolworths had nary a one but the Indian guy did. So he again got my money even though I had walked into Woolworths first.

Thirdly, just today I wanted to buy a wall clock. Another mundane purchase. Same story as the Thermos flask.

I really think that Woolworths should put their stocking decisions into more senior or more commercially-oriented hands. My specific recommendation? Cut their huge display of twisty globes in half and put in some clocks and thermos flasks and old globes instead. I am guessing that not all the twisty lines are fast-moving so there would certainly be nothing lost by doing so.

I had a friendly conversation with what seemed a fairly senior person at the local Woolworths and said to him roughly what I have said above. He replied that he too had often had to send disappointed customers to the Indian guy -- even though the Indian guy has only about a tenth of the floorspace that Woolworths has. And you usually don't have to queue up at the Indian shop either. And his prices are VERY reasonable. Jai Hind!

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Religion of peace, love and tolerance?

FOXNews - A bomb tore through a busy square in Baghdad at midday Saturday, killing at least 22 people and wounding 54, the Iraqi army said. An Iraqi soldier and two other people were killed in a separate bombing south of the capital, police said. ......The U.S. military and Iraqi officials said the blast occurred at al-Zahra square, in the northern Baghdad Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah. Associated Press Television News footage of the scene showed scorched vehicles peppered with shrapnel and an engine block that was all that remained of the car bomb.

FOXNews - A homicide bomber tried to attack a meeting of tribal elders and blew himself up near an Afghan primary school on Sunday, killing 14 children and wounding 58 people, the U.S. military said. ......Dr. Abdul Rahman, a doctor at a hospital near the blast, said the children were aged 8 to 10. ......U.S. Gen. David McKiernan, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, said he believes the militant network run by warlord Siraj Haqqani was responsible for the attack. "The brutality and disregard for human life by terrorists is sickening, as I continue to witness innocent men, women and children being killed and maimed in the pursuit of this pointless insurgency," McKiernan said in a statement.

IHT - A suicide bomber exploded a car at a school in Shalbandi [Pakistan]that was serving as a polling place, as voters lined up to elect a representative to the national assembly. More than 30 people were killed and more than two dozen wounded, according to local political and security officials. The blast was the latest demonstration of the Taliban's bloody encroachment from lawless tribal areas on the western border eastward and deeper into Pakistan.

Compass Direct - A Pakistani Christian boy’s quarrel with a Muslim policeman’s son has led to his father’s imprisonment, torture, paralysis, and five-year prison sentence. The father’s health condition has become so fragile that he was temporarily released from prison and sent to a Faisalabad hospital on Sunday (Dec. 21). Emanuel Masih, 43, is now in stable condition, his attorney told Compass. Police arrested Emanuel Masih along with Amin Masih, who was also falsely implicated in the kidnapping, without possibility of bail.

The two men were tortured for a month, according to a report from the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) advocacy group. Draz had a regular routine of torture for Emanuel Masih and his brother-in-law: He gathered them together, dragged them outside the police station and beat them with iron rods. A month of these beatings paralyzed Emanuel Masih’s arms and legs.

You decide.

America can't win with its critics

"Retail Sales Plummet," read the Christmas headline in the Wall Street Journal. "Sales plunged across most categories on shrinking consumer spending."

Hey, that's great news, isn't it? After all, everyone knows Americans consume too much. What was it that then Senator Obama said on the subject? "We can't just keep driving our SUVs, eating whatever we want, keeping our homes at 72 degrees at all times regardless of whether we live in the tundra or the desert and keep consuming 25 percent of the world's resources with just 4 percent of the world's population, and expect the rest of the world to say you just go ahead, we'll be fine."



And boy, we took the great man's words to heart. SUV sales have nosedived, and 72 is no longer your home's thermostat setting but its current value expressed as a percentage of what you paid for it. If I understand then Senator Obama's logic, in a just world Americans would be 4 percent of the population and consume a fair and reasonable 4 percent of the world's resources. And in these last few months we've made an excellent start toward that blessed utopia: Americans are driving smaller cars, buying smaller homes, giving smaller Christmas presents.

And yet, strangely, President-Elect Obama doesn't seem terribly happy about the Obamafication of the American economy. He's proposing some 5.7 bazillion dollar "stimulus" package or whatever it is now to "stimulate" it back into its bad old ways.

And how does the rest of the world, of whose tender sensibilities then Senator Obama was so mindful, feel about the collapse of American consumer excess? They're aghast, they're terrified, they're on a one-way express elevator down to Sub-Basement Level 37 of the abyss with no hope of putting on the brakes unless the global economy can restore aggregate demand. What does all that mumbo-jumbo about "aggregate demand" mean? Well, that's a fancy term for you - yes, you, Joe Lardbutt, the bloated disgusting embodiment of American excess, driving around in your Chevy Behemoth, getting two blocks to the gallon as you shear the roof off the drive-thru lane to pick up your $7.93 decaf gingersnap-mocha-pepperoni-zebra mussel frappuccino, which makes for a wonderful cool refreshing thirst-quencher after you've been working up a sweat watching the plasma TV in your rec room all morning with the thermostat set to 87. The message from the European political class couldn't be more straightforward: If you crass, vulgar Americans don't ramp up the demand, we're kaput. Unless you get back to previous levels of planet-devastating consumption, the planet is screwed.

"Much of the load will fall on the US," wrote Martin Wolf in the Financial Times, "largely because the Europeans, Japanese and even the Chinese are too inert, too complacent, or too weak." The European Union has 500 million people, compared with America's 300 million. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain are advanced economies whose combined population adds up to that of the United States. Many EU members have enjoyed for decades the enlightened progressive policies Americans won't be getting until January 20th. Why then are they so "inert" that their economic fortunes depend on the despised moronic Yanks?

More here

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

'Dear Mr. Obama,' Why are our Kids so Brainwashed?

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has launched a wonderful little feature that will run until Barack Obama takes the oath of office next month. They are calling it "Dear Mr. Obama" and it is a heartwarming exercise in child indoctrination and brainwashing. The Post-Gazette will be publishing letters from local students to Obama asking him for all sorts of global warming fixes, Iraq war enders, and big government programs.

Sadly, it appears that the government schools these kids have been subjected to have failed to teach their charges about anything like the American system, federalism, even science seems neglected. But they SURE taught their kiddies that government is there to spend, spend, spend, that government is to be treated like our collective parents, and that the war in Iraq is obviously an evil venture. Obviously.


And, yes little kiddies, The One, your very own Obamessiah, is flying to the rescue like a super hero. Cue the theme music -- I'd suggest the theme to 2001, like Elvis used, is appropriate for the sentiment here. The Obamessiah has entered the building!

The tykes are all about the alternative energy these days. They are full of exhortations to The One that he should force upon us all a reliance on wind power and solar cells. Obviously these youngsters have not been taught that no alternative energy source has thus far been found that is cheaper than oil and the fossil fuels. These kids are under the illusion that just instituting a government program is all it takes to overcome the science of the matter and make them cost effective and feasible. Yes, all we need is a word from our new religious icon in Washington DC cum Obamalot.

The first letter was amusing for its complete fraud. It is supposed to be from a ten-year-old child, yet it talks about alternative energy, the war in "Irak" and lays out a fairly detailed idea for a new method of education. It is painfully obvious that no ten-year-old ever wrote this letter.

Also we see little Neil Pandya, age 10, who asked Obama to lower the age limit on driving. Apparently, Neil was not told that states are supposed to legislate that restriction, not the federal government. Sadly, states' rights is not a subject taught to our young Mr. Pandya.

Several of the children are worried about mythical man-made, global warming and have been indoctrinated that Obama can control such things from the Mount Olympus of Washington. Here, for instance, are the worries of little Anna Devinney.

The first one is pollution. A lot of animals are dying because of pollution. Fish are dying from garbage being dumped into their habitat. People are dumping barrels of toxins into the oceans and many sea animals are losing food. Another problem in the U.S. is global warming. In the future, all the land will be flooded with water because the icebergs are melting and the sea level is rising.

To be so misled by one's teachers is so disheartening. The thing we can take from this is that who ever said kid's can't learn is way off base. Unfortunately, what they are learning is a thorough left-wing agenda. To paraphrase a famous saying, it isn't that our kids don't know anything. It's that what they know is all wrong. Unfortunately, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, thinking it's cute, is all too willing to display for all to see what a failed education looks like.

Source

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Theodore Roosevelt Was No Conservative

There's a reason he left the GOP to lead the Progressive Party

The fact that conservative politicians such as John McCain and writers like William Kristol and Karl Rove are attracted to our 26th president is strange because, if we want to understand where in the American political tradition the idea of unlimited, redistributive government came from, we need look no further than to Roosevelt and others who shared his outlook.

Progressives of both parties, including Roosevelt, were the original big-government liberals. They understood full well that the greatest obstacle to their schemes of social justice and equality of material condition was the U.S. Constitution as it was originally written and understood: as creating a national government of limited, enumerated powers that was dedicated to securing the individual natural rights of its citizens, especially liberty of contract and private property.



It was the Republican TR, who insisted in his 1910 speech on the "New Nationalism" that there was a "general right of the community to regulate" the earning of income and use of private property "to whatever degree the public welfare may require it." He was at one here with Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who had in 1885 condemned Americans' respect for their Constitution as "blind worship," and suggested that his countrymen dedicate themselves to the Declaration of Independence by leaving out its "preface" -- i.e., the part of it that establishes the protection of equal natural rights as the permanent task of government....

In his New Nationalism speech he noted how, in aiming to use state power to bring about economic equality, the government should permit a man to earn and keep his property "only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community." The government itself of course would determine what represented a benefit to the community, and whether society would be better off if an individual's wealth was transferred to somebody else. We can see the triumph of this outlook in progressive income taxation, which TR trumpeted in his speech (along with progressive estate taxes). We may also see this theory in action when a government seizes private property through eminent domain, transferring it to others in order to generate higher tax revenues -- a practice blessed by the Supreme Court in its notorious Kelo v. New London decision of 2005.

Some conservatives today are misled by the battle between TR and Wilson in the 1912 presidential election. But Wilson implemented most of TR's program once he took office in 1913, including a progressive income tax and the establishment of several regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission. Others are misled by TR's crusade against an activist judiciary. But unlike our courts today, the judiciary during the Progressive era properly struck down legislation that violated our bedrock rights to liberty of contract and private property. TR hated the judiciary precisely for standing up for the Constitution; this is certainly no reason for conservatives today to latch on to his antijudicial rhetoric.

More here

I think that another reason why TR is sometimes identified as a conservative is his warlike foreign policy. America built lots of battleships and took over several countries (Cuba, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii) under his influence. But that is in fact not conservative at all. American conservatism is traditionally isolationist. It was Democrats who dragged America into most of its wars -- from WWI to Serbia. Conservatives go to war only when attacked, as in the response by GWB to the 9/11 events. Which is also why FDR pushed Japan into war. He knew that Americans up to that point wanted no part of WWII. TR also had generally realistic views about race -- with his warning about Japan being particularly prescient -- and that certainly separates him from modern-day Leftists. But that did not at all separate him from the Leftists of his day

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Keep fighting that global 'warming', morons

IHT - This time of year, wind turbine blades ice up, biodiesel congeals in tanks and solar panels produce less power because there is not as much sun. And perhaps most irritating to the people who own them, the panels become covered with snow, rendering them useless even in bright winter sunshine. So in regions where homeowners have long rolled their eyes at shoveling driveways, add another cold-weather chore: cleaning off the solar panels.

......As concern has grown about global warming, many utilities and homeowners have been trying to shrink their emissions of carbon dioxide — their carbon footprints — by installing solar panels, wind turbines and even generators powered by tides or rivers. But for the moment, at least, the planet is still cold enough to deal nasty winter blows to some of this green machinery. In January 2007, a bus stalled in the middle of the night on Interstate 70 in the Colorado mountains. The culprit was a 20 percent biodiesel blend that congealed in the freezing weather, according to John Jones, the transit director for the bus line, Summit Stage.

......Winter may pose even bigger safety hazards in the vicinity of wind turbines. Some observers say the machines can hurl chunks of ice as they rotate. "It's like you throw a plate out there and that plate breaks," said Ralph Brokaw, a cattle rancher in southeast Wyoming who has 69 wind turbines on his property. When his turbines ice up, he stays out of the way. The wind industry admits that turbines can drop ice, like a lamppost or any tall structure.

Huge erosion of individual liberties

St Vincent de Paul Society ordered to pay $27,500 to president sacked for not being Catholic. If religious people cannot choose to associate with people of the same religion, what other associations might be forced upon us?

The St Vincent de Paul Society of Queensland has been ordered to pay $27,500 to a voluntary president it sacked because she was not Catholic. The landmark decision in the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal has massive implications for the welfare organisation. State president John Campbell said the organisation was disappointed at the decision and had sought legal advice over whether it should appeal or try to have legislation amended, The Courier-Mail reports.


The $27,500 has been awarded to Kingston woman Linda Walsh for "offence, hurt, embarrassment and intimidation" following the society's decision to stand her down as president of the Migrant and Refugees Logan Centre. According to documents tendered to the tribunal, Ms Walsh's work for the centre was her reason "to get up in the morning". After volunteering for the society in 1997, she first became a president of a St Vincent "conference" - or group of people who respond to calls for assistance in the community, according to the charity's website - in March 2003. By the end of the year, she was working unpaid seven days a week.

But trouble started in January 2004 when objections to her not being Catholic were raised. Ms Walsh said she was asked when she first joined the society whether she was Catholic and there were no objections to her being Christian only. She also was accepted as a conference president in 2003 despite not being Catholic. But, in 2004, the society gave Ms Walsh three options - become a Catholic, resign her position and stay only as a member, or leave the society.

Eventually, Ms Walsh took her case to the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal. Ms Walsh told The Courier-Mail she felt betrayed by the society to which she had devoted her life. "They put me through the wringer and back," she said. "It hurt, it really hurt." [Does it hurt to take $27,500 out of the mouths of the needy too?]

In its tribunal documents, the society argued its primary function was to "inculcate the Catholic faith in its members" and the charity aspect was secondary for presidents, which meant they needed to be Catholic.

The tribunal found the society did not prove its case and awarded compensation to Ms Walsh as well as court costs. Mr Campbell said that although Ms Walsh did volunteer work, she also was a member and they believed they should have the rights to choose their members, just as a bowling club did. He said the rule that all presidents should be Catholic was "understood", even if it hadn't been written prior to Ms Walsh's membership. He declined to comment further.

Source

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Cops have rights too

SMH - A Sydney man had his mobile confiscated by police and was threatened with arrest after he filmed officers at work, in an incident civil liberties advocates say is becoming a frighteningly common occurrence. Nick Hac, of Springfield Avenue, Kings Cross, says officers snatched his BlackBerry and searched through his email, photos and videos, before deleting a video he filmed of them conducting a drug operation about 10pm last Friday.

I haven't entirely made up my mind about this one folks. Alright, the guy was just filming the cops going about their business and I suppose it's his right to film things in a public space. But there are limits to that sort of activity right, after all some vermin is not allowed to hang around a daycare centre and film kids going in and out of the place, right? Even though he is in a public space.

Coming back to filming cops, we need to think about this a bit more, he wasn't filming a monument or tourist attraction or something. He was filming police officers going about their work, in their workplace. Their workplace is pretty much just about everywhere, not the station where they are based at.


Some might say, oh it's alright to film them because if they ain't doing nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about. Well, then can the cops swing by your workplace and film you? After all, if you ain't doing nothing wrong, you got nothing to worry about, right? Yeah, didn't think so. If they have no right to privacy, then why should you.

Moving along, it might seem alright at the time, but when we're on the street and something is unfolding before us, we don't know what's really going on there. From the story in the paper, it was a drug operation, which may involve undercover officers. Now if you're filming them, they have no way of knowing what you are up to, they don't know who you are, stupid citizen or scumbag they just don't know about yet? Either way they run the risk of having their cover blown, which in turn means, lives are put at risk, theirs, their families and all who are associated with them. After all this ain't NYPD, in the real world, people get their throats slit for that sort of thing.

At the moment, we are not allowed to film or photograph certain buildings like rail way stations, I think we need to extend this to police officers and the work they're busy doing. Another thing is that cops are already tied up with all sorts of procedures and legalities when dealing with criminal scum, so do we want to burden them even further with the risk of having their actions reviewed by some paper-pusher down the track, when it might be your life in the balance.

What say you?

The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

We may be in for a long slide. But there are also reasons to think the economy could rebound quickly

The recent economic news has been dismal, and it's now almost universally assumed things will get worse before they get better. Conventional wisdom also dictates that this recession will be longer, deeper and cause more long-term pain than any financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yet, less than two years ago, conventional wisdom dictated that the housing bubble would be painful but that global economic growth would remain stable. That assertion was proved dramatically incorrect. Why then is there so much conviction in today's forecasts of a dire future?


Predictions about the rate of unemployment by the end of 2009 are based on how high that rate went during and after other recessions, and how steep those recessions were compared to today. Forecasts of GDP growth are grounded in the nature of past contractions and how long it took the system to begin expanding again. But none of these past patterns are necessarily a useful guide to the circumstances of today. The way events have unfolded over the past few months simply has no precedent.

It's common to hear comparisons to the Great Depression, when economies around the globe shrank precipitously, or to the 1970s, when an oil shock gave way to steep contraction of GDP growth in the developed world and a concomitant collapse in energy prices. But those occurred over the course of years. What happened since the collapse of Lehman on Sept. 15 was a global, synchronous cessation of all but nondiscretionary economic activity in the wake of the near-collapse of global credit markets. And it happened over the course of weeks, not years. Data from October and November show shrinkage of 10%, 20% and often considerably more in corporate earnings, car sales, home prices, commodities and a host of other areas. But analysts and strategists now take this as the "new normal" and are projecting into 2009 and beyond as if it were.

True, this global halt is the dark side of the information technologies and globalization that have created so much wealth and generated so much activity in the past 20 years. The frictionless, instantaneous flow of capital is possible only because of the Internet and electronic exchanges. The supply chain for industrial metals, from copper to iron ore, has gone from being regional and fragmented to global and unified. Semiconductors have become one global industry with pricing and inventories determined based on aggregate world-wide demand. Few industries are local, and almost everything is linked. In good times, that meant credit expanded and activity magnified geometrically. China for one has undergone more transformation in 20 years than most countries have seen in 100. But when the system was infected with toxic assets, the effects spread everywhere and fast. The collapse of Lehman led to fewer cars being sold in China in a matter of weeks, and the decline of Dubai real-estate prices to boot.

And yet, if things came to a halt more quickly than ever before, they could also restart more quickly than ever before. This is not to say they will, only that the possibility is more than marginal. And there are signs things are not everywhere as bad as conventional wisdom suggests. First, we haven't seen war, revolution, the collapse of states and governments or massive demonstrations sweeping the globe. Crowds have demonstrated in China, Greece and Thailand -- for reasons sometimes related to the economic crunch and sometimes not. Pakistan is teetering for multiple reasons -- of which economics is only one. But major economic crises in the 20th century almost always led to those types of major breaks, especially during the 1930s. While no one can say whether they will come in the months ahead, for the time being we should be remarking on how relatively stable things are in light of what has happened.

Second, consumers in many parts of the world are in relatively good shape. That statement might strike many as absurd, given the mantra of "consumers have been living beyond their means." But it's not just the third of American households that have no mortgage, or the 50% savings rate in China, or the still massive wealth accumulation in the Gulf region, Brazil and Russia. It's that the credit system, even at its most promiscuous, didn't allow consumers to take on the obscene leverage that financial institutions did. Millions of people who shouldn't have been lent money were, either in mortgages or through credit cards. But they couldn't be levered 40-to-1 as investment banks and funds were.

People have also reacted swiftly to the current problems, paying down debt and paring back purchases out of prudence or necessity. That's a short-term drag on economic activity, but it will leave consumer balance sheets in good shape going forward. Low energy prices and zero inflation will boost spending power. Even if unemployment reaches 9% or more, consumer reserves in the U.S. and world-wide are deeper than commentary would suggest. Household net worth in the U.S. is down from its highs but is still about $45 trillion. As the credit system eases, historically low interest rates also augur debt refinancing and constructive access to credit for those with good histories and for small business creation in the year ahead. Entrepreneurs often thrive when the system is cracking.

In addition, corporations generally have very clean balance sheets with little debt and lots of cash, unlike the downturns in 2002 and in the 1980s. And government has more creative ways to spend, which both the current Federal Reserve and the incoming Obama administration intend to do.

The last months of 2008 will go down as one of the most severe economic reversals to date, and on a global scale. But it is foolish to assume that this period provides a viable guide to what lies ahead. The rush to declare the future bleak has obscured the fact that no one knows the outcome of an unprecedented event. No one. The worst course in the face of uncertainty is blind faith in conventional wisdom and past patterns. The best is to stay humble in the face of the unknown, creative and unideological about solutions, and open to the possibility that as quickly as things turned sour they can reverse.

Source

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Choice? Where?

LifeNews - The Bush administration has finalized the new rules that protect both medical professionals and medical staff who don’t want to be involved in abortions or abortion referrals. The Department of Health and Human Services released the final rule that will go into effect on January 20. The new regulations are intended to clarify and enforce existing federal laws that protect the choices of health care providers who have moral objections to abortion.

Naturally this upsets the pro-abortionists. Where is the 'choice' in pro-choice, one might ask. You see that's just the facade, that's just thrown around for the masses to see, they don't want everyone to see what's really in their totalitarian hearts. If you want to know what they're really like, you have to judge from their actions.

......McQuade told LifeNews.com she’s concerned that the regulations are already coming under fire from incoming president Barack Obama and pro-abortion members of Congress. ......Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray have already filed a bill, S. 20, to invalidate the law and pro-abortion members of the House submitted a companion version. Meanwhile, abortion advocacy groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL may flout their "pro-choice" rhetoric and file suit against the anti-forced abortion policies.

Mary Jane Gallagher, president and chief executive of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, repeated the pro-abortion talking points on Monday by claiming the policy is related to birth control even though HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt removed language from it in August pertaining to birth control.

LifeNews - The president of Planned Parenthood is upset that the Bush administration has given final approval to regulations that help doctors and medical centers pressured to do abortions or refer for them. Cecile Richards appears to admit in an email to financial backers that she wouldn’t hire pro-life staff at her centers. ......Richards is also upset that facilities that receive federal funding -- including her Planned Parenthood abortion business -- “will have to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion.”

Though Planned Parenthood supposedly maintains a “pro-choice” position on abortion, Richards makes clear her unwillingness to hire pro-life doctors, nurses and medical staff. ......Richards says Planned Parenthood will be working hard to overturn the Bush rule, but that it will take more than an executive order from incoming president Barack Obama to do it. She suggests Congressional legislation will be needed to reverse the conscience protections the Bush administration believe were necessary.

Yeah, you are free to choose, to choose only the leftist, pro-death way, that is! People were warned about all this but they chose to ignore it. Enough swallowed the bullsh*t about diversity & tolerance of various beliefs. There is none of that on the left, they'll make you pay for abortions when you don't believe in it, they'll even make some of you involved in the wretched process, your beliefs be damned. Obama is their ticket to it.

Speaking of Obama.

News.com.au - US President-elect Barack Obama has urged the American people in a holiday address to put their shoulder to the "wheel of history" to forge brighter days from the misery of economic crisis. ......"We must all do our part to serve one another, to seek new ideas and new innovation and to start a new chapter for our great country,'' he said. "That is the spirit that will guide my administration in the New Year. If the American people come together and put their shoulder to the wheel of history, then I know that we can put our people back to work and point our country in a new direction."

IMO, that means that if he fails, which we know he will, it'll be all on the American people, it's because you didn't put your shoulder to the wheel folks, because you didn't serve one another enough. What, you didn't think he was just going to usher in utopia with just a cool wave of his hand did you. The campaign rhetoric was hope and change. He hoped that enough of you would be suckered in by his snakeoil, and now that enough of you were, he's just changed his tune.

That's the left for you, give them power for whatever reason, and it'll be you putting your shoulder to their various 'wheels', whether you'd like to or not. Well, folks were warned about that too.

Michelle Obama - And Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. Put down your division, that you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones, that you push yourselves to be better and that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved and uninformed.

Get yer shoulders to that wall and start pushing folks, they're going to foist socialism upon America one way or another and you'll be doing the heavy lifting or else(?). And leave your guns by the entrance, they'll be there when you're done here, promise.

Maybe Obama really is a centrist

CAN YOU HEAR the grumbling over in what Howard Dean used to call "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party?" The tolerance-and-diversity crowd is upset with Barack Obama; it seems the president-elect has been bringing people into his circle who don't agree with them on every single issue.

President-elect Barack Obama introduces his national security team on Dec. 1. Nominees L to R: Eric Holder (Attorney General), Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (Secretary of Homeland Security), US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who is to continue in his position, Vice President-elect Joseph Biden, Sen. Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State), retired US Marine Gen. James Jones (National Security Adviser), and Susan Rice (ambassador to the UN).



The consternation on the left began with the naming of Obama's national security team -- Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Robert Gates to continue as secretary of defense, and retired four-star General James Jones as national security adviser. "Barack Obama's Kettle of Hawks," they were promptly dubbed in the Guardian by the left-wing journalist Jeremy Scahill, "with a proven track record of support for the Iraq war [and] militaristic interventionism." How could Obama possibly keep his campaign promise "to end the mindset that got us into war," asked The Nation, when none of his top foreign policy/national security picks had opposed the war?

There was even more distress in progressive precincts after Obama's economic team was announced. Lawrence Summers, who will chair the National Economic Council, "opposed regulating the newfangled financial instruments that greased the way to the subprime meltdown," wrote David Corn, the Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones magazine, in a column for the Washington Post. Obama's choice for Treasury secretary, New York Fed president Timothy Geithner, "helped oversee the financial system as it collapsed." Both of them, lamented Corn, are close to Robert Rubin, "a director of bailed-out Citigroup and a poster boy for . . . Big Finance." In the plaintive title of Corn's essay, "This Wasn't Quite the Change We Pictured."

Add to those the passel of former Clinton operatives who have returned to play key roles in the Obama transition, including Rahm Emanuel, John Podesta, and Greg Craig, and Obama Girl herself could be forgiven for feeling disillusioned. Whatever happened to the fresh, progressive candidate who promised an escape from Clinton-era Democratic politics?

As if all that weren't enough to give a fervent liberal agita, Obama has asked the Rev. Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor of Saddleback Church, to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. From many on the left, where Warren's staunch opposition to same-sex marriage is reason enough to loathe him, responses have ranged from dismay to fury. Barney Frank labeled the pastor's views "very offensive" and pronounced himself "very disappointed" that Obama would invite him. The blog Liberal Rapture was more pungent: "Obama throws another middle finger to liberals." ...

Still, Obama is hardly in danger of turning into anything resembling a right-winger. With his trillion-dollar "stimulus" proposal, he is inviting comparisons to FDR. And with committed liberals like Tom Daschle as Health and Human Services secretary, Carol Browner as energy czar, and Eric Holder as attorney general, the Obama administration is never going to be accused of harboring Republican tendencies.

More here

Whichever way you look at it, Obama sure is a champion con-man. Amusing that it seems to be mainly the Leftist big-shots that he has conned, however. Like other psychopaths -- such as Bill Clinton -- Obama believes in nothing other than what will benefit him personally. And he rightly perceives that if he wants a second term, he has to be a centrist. There is an article here which argues that centrism is the rule of politics. I can remember only as far back as Ike but as far as I can see, with one exception, all American presidents have been centrists -- the exception being, of course, Ronald Reagan. But as Nancy once said: "When they made Ronnie, they broke the mould". Ronnie actually moved the centre for a while but it has drifted back

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Festive feasts 'contributing to climate change'

The voice of the fanatic is heard

Wasted food at Christmas time is now being highlighted as an environmental problem. Jon Dee, the chairman of Do Something, says gases from leftover food rotting in landfill are 20 times more potent than the carbon pollution from car exhausts.

Mr Dee says there are simple ways to avoid over-catering at Christmas and damaging the environment. "Australians waste more than 3 million tonnes of food every year and of course a lot of that food is wasted at Christmas," he said. "It's really basic. Draw up a shopping list and stick to it and try and not cook more than you need, and if you do have leftovers you can always put it in tupperware and freeze it."

Source

Posted by John Ray.

A Soldier's Christmas

(remember those who serve in distant lands to keep our holidays peaceful)

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree, I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.



My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep
in perfect contentment, or so it would seem.
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eye when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
and I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.

A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.
"What are you doing?" I asked without fear
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"

For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts,
to the window that danced with a warm fire's light
then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night"

"Its my duty to stand at the front of the line,
that separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at ' Pearl on a day in December,"
then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers. "
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red white and blue... an American flag.

"I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home,
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat,
I can carry the weight of killing another
or lay down my life with my sisters and brothers
who stand at the front against any and all,
to insure for all time that this flag will not fall."

"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone.
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
to know you remember we fought and we bled
is payment enough, and with that we will trust.
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.

(Author Unknown)

MERRY XMAS AND PEACE TO ALL MEN OF GOODWILL

Posted by John Ray.

Mormon hatred

Another gusher of Leftist hate below. He attacks Mormons, a tiny minority in California, for their support of a Califiornia constitutional amendment that blocks homosexual marriage. Most analysts say that blacks and Hispanics were the real muscle behind the "Anti" vote so I guess that some of us have wondered why the Mormons were singled out by lots of Leftists on this occasion.

As you read below however, you see that he has always despised Mormons ("money-soaked", "smug self-containment" etc.). Leftists are just full of hatred for anybody who is happily getting on with their lives and any excuse will do to let some of the hatred out:

"It has to do with the passage of Proposition 8, that California trash that befouled an otherwise heavenly election. Specifically, it has to do with the Mormon Church, which swung its considerable clout to the travesty of denying gays the respectability and dignity that Mormons have spent well over a century trying to get for themselves. And which now, they themselves should be denied.

That's right, you heard me. The Mormon Church has become a hateful bully and should be treated as such. Other people voted for Proposition 8, true, and much has been made of how black voters probably ensured its passage. But black voters aren't a money-soaked, monolithic, corporatized, sanctimonious monstrosity that poured $20 million into the effort, are they?

It's frustrating that there's not much we can do. We could refuse to spend our money in Mormon-owned businesses. We could refuse to vote for Mormon politicians. We could challenge their religious tax exemptions and I would love it if someone asked some serious questions as to why there's always a damn Mormon seminary within a stone's throw of nearly every high school from here to Salt Lake City.

But frankly, those of us who grew up around the smug self-containment of our Mormon neighbors will realize none of that would work and, in fact, would probably only make them more smugly self-contained. The Mormon Church has always luxuriated in their history of being picked on.

Yet after this orchestrated disdain for the happiness and emotional well-being of their fellow citizens, my fear of saying what I really think of them (that variety of cowardice I spoke of earlier) is a thing of the past. I am now free to be as unaccepting of them as they are of gays. There is an old tradition among rigid religions-I believe the Mormons still practice it on occasion-called "shunning." Now that they have placed themselves on the wrong side of both morality and freedom, I shun them. Better yet, I excommunicate them. They don't exist to me. Their marriages don't matter. Their happiness and emotional well-being don't matter. Let us move on, around them, as though they weren't there. Let us excise them from our thoughts and our hearts.

But listen, we would never want to be quite as intolerant as them, would we? And in that spirit, should they ever renounce the evil in their hierarchy and escape the sin of their dogma, we must let them know they are always welcome back, here in the fold of America.

Source

"Sin of their dogma"? I thought that there was no such thing as right and wrong to a Leftist? I wonder where he gets his notion of sin from? Romans chapter 1 tells us that homosexuality is a sin. I guess he just pulls his notion of sin out of his butt.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Christmas

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

To all our loyal readers, to our contributors, to those that protect us, to our loved ones, to everyone, Merry Christmas.

Images with thanks from here and here.

AFP chief 'ignored evidence' in Haneef case

A police chief who ignores evidence! Aint that just fine and dandy? I can find no mention of Chief Jabbour on the AFP site but Jabbour is a Lebanese surname and Ramzi is a Muslim given name so I am guessing that Chief Jabbour is a Lebanese Muslim. So his appointment could well have been an affirmative action one -- in which case we must not be surprised that it was a low-quality appointment. Maybe we should be more careful about appointing Muslims as police chiefs. The world has after all had a few other problems from Muslims this century too. There are quite a few things about Muslim thinking that are stupid from a Western viewpoint



The Australian Federal Police's counter-terrorism chief "lost objectivity" when assessing the case against Mohamed Haneef, ignoring or cynically interpreting evidence that strongly pointed to the former terror suspect's innocence. The long-awaited report into the Haneef affair by retired NSW Supreme Court judge John Clarke QC criticises the AFP's lead investigator, the then national manager for counter-terrorism, Ramzi Jabbour, as "unable to see that the evidence he regarded as highly incriminating in fact amounted to very little".



Mr Clarke accuses Mr Jabbour, who was sent to Queensland from Canberra to take carriage of the 700-person investigation, of selectively, even cynically, interpreting the evidence against Dr Haneef. He is found to have downplayed facts that may have weakened the case against the Indian doctor - such as Dr Haneef's attempts to contact a police officer in England after failed terror attacks in London and Glasgow in June last year. Mr Clarke further criticises Mr Jabbour for dismissing the concerns of his junior investigators, who concluded that Dr Haneef's professed ignorance about the British terror attacks was genuine.

The Clarke report, released yesterday, criticises senior bureaucrats and police for failing to pass on information pointing to the innocence of Dr Haneef, who was held in custody for nearly a month, and for viewing the most benign evidence as suspicious.

The report makes 10 recommendations, but does not call for disciplinary action. It was accompanied by a suite of changes announced by Attorney-General Robert McClelland, including a new statutory authority to review terror laws, parliamentary oversight of the AFP and extending the remit of the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security to probe the AFP's conduct. The report clears then immigration minister Kevin Andrews of improper conduct in cancelling Dr Haneef's visa, but expresses "mystification" as to why Mr Andrews did it directly after Dr Haneef was granted bail.

The Immigration Department is criticised for failing to directly pass to Mr Andrews an ASIO assessment that found no evidence against Dr Haneef. Instead, the ASIO assessments were conveyed to Mr Andrews via his chief-of-staff, Michael Toby - one of the few witnesses who refused to give evidence to the government-ordered inquiry. Another witness who did not give evidence was John Howard's senior adviser, Jamie Fox, who did not receive permission from the former prime minister to give a statement to the inquiry.

Mr Clarke also finds it "troubling" that Howard government attorney-general Philip Ruddock did not seek to reconcile the conflicting assessments of Dr Haneef by the AFP and ASIO, despite both agencies falling under his ministerial responsibility.

But the report clears the AFP of acting in the service of its political masters and notes the investigation was "bedevilled" by its reliance on overseas information. Dr Haneef was arrested on July 2 last year after his mobile phone SIM card was linked to failed terror attacks in Britain. He was charged with a single count of recklessly supporting a terror organisation, but the charge was withdrawn 25 days later for lack of evidence. Mr Clarke finds the AFP was arguably within its rights to arrest Dr Haneef at Brisbane Airport, given the information available. But he criticises Mr Jabbour for ignoring the concerns of more junior officers.

Dr Haneef, who is expected to seek compensation, said an apology from the Government would be "very welcome".

Source


Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Of stupid, useless so-called 'wars'

Daily Telegraph - THE State Government has declared war on weapons, vowing to end the wave of gun and knife crime engulfing Sydney that has claimed three lives in just two weeks. The state-wide crackdown, including a three-month gun amnesty, comes as the father of a teenager stabbed to death begged youths not to carry knives. Etikailahi Motuliki wept yesterday as he pleaded for an end to the senseless violence that claimed the life of his eldest son Andrew, 17, during a brawl on board a train on Sunday.

......His call was echoed by Police Minister Tony Kelly, who last night announced the gun amnesty will begin in March and a crackdown on licensed gun owners not safely securing their weapons. He also warned the full force of the law would be thrown at those convicted of gun and knife crimes. "If people want to use illegal weapons on our streets, police have the powers and the resources to catch you and there are tough sentences to lock you up for a long time," Mr Kelly said.

Yes folks, tough, tough, tough, tough [have I said it enough times?] laws and sentences, let's have a look at these tough sentences shall we.

ABC Newcastle - A 58-year-old man from Stockton, in the New South Wales Hunter, has been sentenced to six years in jail over a stabbing attack which left another man with life-threatening injuries.

News.com.au - A HEAVILY intoxicated woman who stabbed her husband to death with an antique knife has been jailed for at least four years.

Yeah, real tough, those sentences. Please forgive me when I wonder out aloud if this minister Kelly is actually talking about NSW, Australia or some other place, like some planet in the milky way perhaps.

Figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph show that almost 6000 legal firearms have slipped into the hands of criminals through theft since 1999. "We're sick and tired of gun crime," Mr Kelly said. "A life lost because of unsecured firearms is too high a price to pay. ......Police were yesterday investigating yet another drive-by shooting - the 16th in just three weeks.

What about the lives lost because victims are not allowed to defend themselves with weapons on our streets? I guess the price paid by them is not too high is it Minister Kelly.

I've been patiently listening over the last few days to people talking about the growing number of knife and gun crimes in our state. Not once has anyone asked why is it that our strict and tough gun & knife control laws have not prevented any of these crimes. Generally the feeling has been the bloody government must do something!

Some have even said that carrying a weapon for protection is un-Australian, that only cowards carry weapons, seriously where do people come up with this crap. Is it un-Australian and cowardly to protect your wife and children from scumbags, is it un-Australian to deter criminals or something? Is there something in the water that's suppressing the common-sense part of their brain? Is it only 'Australian' to stand quietly and get all your teeth kicked/punched out. What about all the police who carry weapons, what about the armed security/police our Prime Minister and Premiers get, how terribly un-Australian and cowardly of them!

The general consensus from the experts and just about everyone else is that the kids, teens and others are carrying knives to protect themselves, as in for self-defense purposes and this is apparently a big problem. They're all coming up with various programs and expensive schemes to try and tackle this epidemic of people wanting to defend themselves, no really. So far I have not heard anyone come up with any ideas of taking away the reason why people are choosing to carry weapons to protect themselves.

Not much will be done about the criminals running around, not much will be done about the gangs that control the streets and who are terrorizing the kids. Unless you consider the tough, tough laws that have so far failed us but will succeed if you just give them another lifetime, as doing something!

Unfortunately, the elites running our state and too many among us don't have the brains to know that there is a fundamental difference between a person carrying a weapon to protect themselves and one carrying a weapon to commit a crime. I'm not sure if they don't get it or won't get it. Either way, until you take away the reason to carry a weapon for self-defense, you'll just be going round and round in circles and screwing over the person with no criminal intentions.

And so, the state will pass more useless laws like we keep screaming for and those fearing for their lives will have to keep breaking them and more innocents will keep dying until someone figures it out. Punish the ones that commit the crimes, not the ones that merely want to protect themselves. It's amazing how that can be such a simple concept and yet it would seem, tremenduously difficult to grasp, at the same time.