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Category: Current Affairs (Page 34 of 78)

Emperor Obama

April 10, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Minion: Sire, the people have no fuel!

Obama: Then let them drive hybrids.

I am surprised (OK, I’m not) that this has not had wider coverage in the press.

Fuel prices in the US have risen 67% during the Obama maladministration.

Instapundit reported yesterday that Obama had responded to a complaint by a working man that he could not afford to buy the fuel he needed to get to work, with the suggestion he should buy a new car. The Associated Press subsequently removed this comment from their reporting of the event, but Glenn had saved a screen shot of the original report, complete with Marie Antionette/Obama quote.

Mark Steyn comments:

America, 2011: A man gets driven in a motorcade to sneer at a man who has to drive himself to work. A guy who has never generated a dime of wealth, never had to make payroll, never worked at any job other than his own tireless self-promotion literally cannot comprehend that out there, beyond the far fringes of the motorcade outriders, are people who drive a long distance to jobs whose economic viability is greatly diminished when getting there costs twice as much as the buck-eighty-per-gallon it cost back at the dawn of the Hopeychangey Era.
So what? Your fault. Should have gone to Columbia and Harvard and become a community organizer.

On Burning Korans, etc

April 6, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn if someone wants to burn a book, any book. If a person’s paid for a book, he can do what he likes with it.

I am not going to join the chorus proclaiming Pastor Terry Jones a try-hard loser. I don’t know anything about the man. I suspect he is more sought by the media than seeking the media.

What I do think is that his burning of the Koran was a reasonable act of protest.

This is a book which inspires murder, torture, the mistreatment of women and minorities.

It is a book which, read through the lens of the example of Muhammed, a serial rapist, torturer, murderer and child molester, means misery for hundreds of millions of human beings.

It is the book of a religious group whose default emotional setting is inflamed.

It is the book of a group of people who thinking burning a book (their book – burning other books is OK)  justifies burning and beheading people who look like, or may have once have been in the same country as, the people who burnt the book.

So go ahead and burn it. The trouble is not with the burning, but with the cringing.

General Petreaus described the Koran burning as ”hateful, extremely disrespectful and enormously intolerant”.

No it wasn’t.

He then went on to say that the fury this had aroused was an understandable passion.

No it isn’t.

Burning a nasty, racist, violent book is a legitimate act of protest. Burning and beheading people who had nothing to do with it is murderous brutality.

Jones was right. The reaction to his little protest proves there is something to protest about.

Kow-towing to bullies does not work. They need to be told stop it and grow up.

Forgiving bullies does not work, unless they have first shown that they have changed and will bully no longer.

Otherwise making excuses for inexcusable behaviour merits the warning JP Donleavy gave about forgiveness in general (no link, but from the Unexpurgated Code):

“Forgiveness. Be careful, those getting this then do the unforgivable. Which is frequently a lot worse than the first lousy thing they did to you.”

Now a couple of quotes from a woman who runs a small business in the rural US:

Ann – I am not a political activist.  I am the owner of three small businesses who looked around two and a half years ago and said, “Oh, HELL no.”  Politicians make me ill.  I can never and will never be a politician.  For the last two to three years I have been focusing heavily on explaining and exposing Marxism, Islam and the fraud that is Obama.  But that is triple-redundant, isn’t it?

iOTW – What is your take on what is known as the Ground Zero Mosque?
 
Ann – They can build a mosque at Ground Zero when we can build a Catholic Cathedral Basilica over the top of the Kaaba in Mecca.  You know what?  Check that.  They still couldn’t build a mosque at Ground Zero, because Ground Zero is the sacred burial space of 3000 people that THEY MURDERED.  No mosque at Ground Zero E.V.E.R.
 
iOTW – Islam uses the constitution to their advantage. How do we do battle with Islam without trampling the constitution?
 
Ann – Declare war against the Caliphate, just like we did against the Third Reich.  Same bloody thing.  And I’m not kidding.
 
iOTW- What do you think of General Petraeus and his assertion that inciting Islam puts our soldiers in harm’s way?
 
Ann – I have an offer for General Petraeus.  I’ll GIVE him one of my balls.  Then I’d still have two, and he would have one.  He is a politicking coward who cares only about his pension and cashing in on his rank after he retires.  The suicidal, defeatist Rules of Engagement he oversees are the unequivocal proof of that.  He should resign in disgrace – yesterday, and then present himself to each and every family of our war dead and BEG their forgiveness for failing in his duty as their son or daughter’s commanding officer.

Here’s a bit more, complete with Koran with bacon bookmarks:

You may disagree with some of what she says, or the way she says it.

Freedom of speech, and safety to speak what we believe, is a great privilege. To lose it is to lose civilisation.

Being Who We Are Part Two

April 6, 2011 / / 1 Comment

Just a few brief thoughts.

One:

It seems to me quite clear, at the risk of incurring judicial wrath, that Justice Bromberg would very much like to find against Andrew Bolt and the Herald and Weekly Times.

There have been a few comments and questions from the bench which indicate this. For example, his remark that “It (freedom of speech) is not an unqualified right. Never has been.”

No one had said it was. Certainly Andrew’s team had made no such claim. So why make this comment?

I could be quite wrong. Justice Bromberg may genuinely intend to put aside any feelings or political values he may have or espouse, and make his judgement solely on the basis of relevant legislation and precedent.

But at very least, it is unwise for a justice, during the course of a trial, to make gratuitous remarks which could beconstrued as indicating a bias.

Two:

It is simply nonsense to suggest that public discussion of another person’s ethnicity is out of bounds because it is necessarily racial vilification.

Say I was to discover that my maternal grandmother had been a member of the Ngapuhi tribe. One of my adopted sisters is a Ngapuhi woman, and my family had lived in Northland for a long time before coming to Australia, so this is not beyond the realms of possibility.

Say I then decided on this basis that I was a Maori. I would expect some pretty merciless mocking from my mates.

If I decided to return to NZ and to claim benefits or awards on the basis of being a Ngapuhi man, I would expect that this claim would be scrutinised.

I would also expect to be able to show the basis on which my claim was made. I would not feel insulted by requests to do this.

Even I did feel insulted, that would say more about my own conceit than anything else.

There is no right under law not to be offended.

Three:

Underlying the complaint in the Bolt case, and, it seems to me in some of Justice Bromberg’s remarks, is the assumption that race is less about race than it is about identity, community and culture. Some of the comments from the complainants go as far as suggesting that anyone who does not hold this new view of race is ipso facto a racist or eugenicist.

There may be instances where it is helpful to take culture and identity into account when race is being determined.

But that is different from saying that culture, identity, community are what matter, and that actual racial background and inheritance do not. A person who is ethnically Han Chinese is still ethnically Chinese even if she was born in Australia and knows nothing of Chinese culture or language.

I would be happy to see some public discussion of this. But it would be extraordinary if people who still thought that race was primarily about race found themselves in trouble with the law because they held and expressed that opinion.

Being Who We Are

March 30, 2011 / / 1 Comment

My mother’s grandfather was Norwegian. He was a very old man when I was young. He was born in the late 1800s, and was one of the last generation of merchant seaman to sail in commerical wind-powered ships.

I liked him – he let me have sugar in my tea. But even more I liked the idea that some of my ancestors might have been vikings. I remember seeing The Vikings and The Long Ships at the Kings theatre in Kawakawa. They seem remarkably violent now for a five or six year old boy to have been allowed go and see alone. But times have changed. One shilling and sixpence isn’t going to buy you a movie ticket and an icecream anymore.

So of course I had to be a viking. I had a horned hat, and conducted carefully planned raids on neighbouring fruit trees. I leapt out from behind bushes to terrify local maidens, and threatened passing dragons (cars) from my lair halfway up the bank beside the road.

If I was minded to, I could just as easily have been Welsh, or German. Germans were still a bit unpopular in the early sixties, and the Welsh, well who the heck were they? So I had to be a viking.

Now I’m just me.

My wife had just as interesting a range of choices. Both her parents have scottish ancestry. But she is also part Cherokee. About as much as I am Norwegian.

She is interested in her Cherokee heritage. but she would never claim to be Cherokee, any more than I would claim to be Norwegian. Why would we choose to ‘be’ something that is only a tiny part of our total heritage?

But some people do just that.

Let’s imagine two young people. We’ll call them the Malfoys. They are white in appearance and were raised by a European family in a comfortable home in a modern city. In early adulthood they discovered one of their relatives was aboriginal.

This makes them aboriginal, they claim. A lasting sorrow is that as they were growing up they were deprived of learning their aboriginal culture.

Later the Malfoys become so expert in aboriginal history and culture that they become teachers of it.

They do not appear to notice that growing up as aboriginal in an aboriginal community would have deprived them of learning about the European and perhaps other cultures, which are also part of their heritage. And of the educational opportunities and income which allowed them later to pursue their aboriginality.

The Malfoys might say they did not decide what to be. But in deciding to favour one tiny part of the totality of their heritage over all others, they have chosen to be aboriginal.

And fair enough. Why would I care, any more than they should care if I claimed to be Norwegian?

But if they claim special privilege at public cost because they are aboriginal, then it becomes my concern, and I and other tax payers are entitled to ask why they are favouring this tiny part of their heritage over all else.

Any claim on taxpayer money is a matter of public interest.

Some of those who have accepted prizes, awards and assistance designed to benefit aboriginal people who have suffered prejudice or disadvantage, have an appearance and family background which means they cannot possibly have suffered any such prejudice or disadvantage while growing up.

It is disingenuous to pretend to be insulted by questions about whether awards and assistance given to them is an appropriate use of funds allocated for that purpose.

If Libya, Why Not … ?

March 28, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Bill O’Reilly says that despite lack of clarity about process (eg, no congressional approval, no clear and present danger to the US), America’s involvement in Libya is a good thing:

On the left … Ralph Nader is calling for impeachment. Michael Moore has suggested that Obama give back the Nobel Peace Prize. Congressman Dennis Kucinich wants to cut off funding for any military action against Libya.

On the right, Pat Buchanan banged the isolationist drum: “Why is the United States, all the way across the ocean, got to go in and stop Arabs from killing Arabs? … Why are we in there?”

To prevent a massacre? I believe that’s the reason, Mr. Buchanan.

Congressman Ron Paul was equally blunt: “What are we doing? We are in this crisis, and they decide to spend all this money. It makes no sense at all.”

Here’s my question for Paul: Would you be comfortable, congressman, watching thousands of human beings being slaughtered by a terrorist dictator when you know that your country had the power to prevent it?

In fact, the no-fly zone was up and running in hours, and Gadhafi’s forces have been seriously damaged. Now the rebels have a chance to eventually overthrow the dictator, and mass murder has been avoided at least for the time being.

This is not a complicated issue. If America is indeed a noble country, it should act to save lives when it can. That doesn’t mean getting bogged down in quagmires like Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. But when quick, decisive action can defeat evil, it should be taken.

I believe in the basic nobility of America. I also believe few other nations have the motivation and power to confront evil that this country does. If it’s all about us, if all we think about is our own sacrifice, then American exceptionalism disappears.

All of that is true. The strong have a responsibility to protect the weak. No one would ever want another Rwanda.

But once you begin to take on the job of the world’s policeman, where do you stop?

If we should intervene in Libya, why not Syria, where the situation seems to be just as bad. And if Syria, why not Burma? And if Burma, why not Zimbabwe?

If we have a responsibility to protect those who cannot defend themselves, why has there been no intervention in Sudan, where there has been much greater loss of life, along with uncounted rapes and mutilations, over a much longer period of time? Why no intervention to protect Christians in Iraq, or Nigeria, or Egypt?

I am not sure O’Reilly is right about Libya. A no fly zone, so rebels are protected against air attack while they fight their own battles might be justifiable.

Fighting those battles for them, so that one brutal government can be replaced by another, is not.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything. It does mean we need to think very seriously about what we want to achieve, the cost of achieving it in human life and in relationships with other nations, and the likelihood that our goals can be reached, before we act.

It is not just intentions that count, but outcomes.

When is a Baby a Baby?

March 28, 2011 / / 1 Comment

An unborn baby died yesterday after the car the mother was driving struck a guard rail and went into the Barwon River near Geelong:

The woman, who was about 30 weeks’ pregnant, managed to free herself from the car as it sank into the river on Friday evening …

Police are adding the unborn baby’s death to the road toll which now stands at 67, one fewer than for the same time last year.

I am glad that in this instance the child is being recognised as a person.

Similarly in this accident a few days ago in Texas:

A 17-year-old woman and her unborn baby were killed in a pedestrian crash Wednesday night in Horizon City.

Emergency crews took Nelly Pizarro, who was five months pregnant at the time of the crash, to Del Sol Medical Center. The baby died shortly after arriving at the hospital. Nelly Pizarro died Thursday morning.

What I don’t understand is what makes those babies ‘babies,’ and thousands who are aborted ‘foetal tissue.’

There is no difference in the babies. Surely we are not judging whether people are people on the basis of whether they are wanted or not?

And if that is what we are doing, how are we different from the Hutus when they decided the Tutsis were not human? Or Saddam Hussein and the Kurds? Or Hitler and the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals?

A person’s a person, no matter how small.

A Little More on the Pretentious Stupidity of Earth Hour

March 28, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Earth Hour is a waning fad. A couple of years ago, when I left security lights on in my shop, people wanted to know why I was not interested in saving the planet.

This year, when I put a note in the window explaining why we would not be keeping Earth Hour, people said they had no idea it was happening.

Some more thoughts on this from Ira Levant:

What’s remarkable about this month’s Japanese calamities is how few people were actually killed. Ten thousand are dead and 17,000 are missing — a tragic loss. But compare that to another earthquake in Japan in 1923 that killed more than 100,000 people.

This month’s quake was more than 10 times as powerful, but a combination of better construction methods and better emergency response saved lives.

Japan’s earthquake was the fifth largest ever recorded, a startling 9.0 on the Richter scale — where each number is 10 times more powerful than the previous number. A 10.0 earthquake has never been recorded.

This is very encouraging — and it’s a testament to human achievement.

Saturday was so-called Earth Hour, a publicity stunt created by the World Wildlife Fund where enthusiasts were supposed to stop using electricity for an hour. Only a rich, luxuriant society would fetishize poverty and want. Japan is still rebuilding; there are still parts of that country where electricity is not back on. They are in a permanent state of Earth Hour deprivation — not as some fashion statement but because of a tragedy. How is that state of despair a morally commendable situation?

It was human development, industry, capitalism, electricity — and in Japan’s case, safe nuclear power — that has made the difference between their more modest death toll and the 230,000 who died in Indonesia’s earthquake and tsunami in 2004, or the 220,000 who died last year in Haiti. Haiti’s earthquake was less than 1% as powerful; it was their lack of industrial development that made it so deadly.

Is that really the state of affairs we want to be worshipped on Earth Day? For centuries, guilty, rich, white liberals have professed their admiration for the “noble savage” — an unspoiled man, typically in a pre-industrial civilization, not yet spoiled by our modern ways or troubles.

It’s a fantasy, it’s condescending, it’s political psychotherapy for the idle rich who feel guilty about how easy their own lives are, and who are clearly looking for some spiritual meaning they themselves lack. But in a world where there are enough natural threats to man’s happiness and longevity, fetishizing primitive economies is a suicidal fetish.

Japan will rise again — over the objections of those who would sentence it to a nuclear-free, industry-free, permanent Earth Day.

Why I Am Not Keeping Earth Hour

March 26, 2011 / / 1 Comment

Based on an article by Dr Ross McKitrick in the Vancouver Sun.

Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every social, technological and medical advance in the 20th century has depended on inexpensive and reliable electricity.

Giving women the freedom to work outside the home was partly a by-product of the availability of electrical appliances that freed up time from domestic chores. Getting children out of menial labour and into schools depended on the same thing.

The development and provision of modern health care would have been impossible without cheap, reliable electricity.

Many of the world’s poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the need to cook over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke and parasite related lung diseases.

Anyone who cares about the environment and about people and wants to see conditions in the developing world improve should celebrate access to cheap electricity from fossil fuel based power generating stations.

The mentality of Earth Hour is the demonisation of electricity, upon which all of the great technological and social advances of the last century have depended, including advances in food production and medicine.

That mentality would deny to people in developing nations, people who are desperately poor, the advantages we have as result of that cheap reliable electricity. It would keep them in huts, with no clean water, burning wood and dung for heat and cooking. It would keep them at life spans half of ours, and with child mortality rates up to ten times higher.

Earth Hour celebrates poverty and backwardness. It is ignorant and cruel.

Leave the lights on, and let’s work to bring light, water, medicine and industry to those who need them most.

Australia Anti-Carbon Tax Rallies Tomorrow March 23rd

March 22, 2011 / / 0 Comments

CANBERRA – the big one!
Time: 12:00pm
Location: Parliament House
Facebook: Click here 
Website:  http://www.nocarbontaxrally.com/
1) If you are driving, please do not expect to be able to park at – or anywhere near – Australian Parliament House – there are too many people coming for that! Find alternative parking and get there a long time in advance!
2) The paid activists from the multi-million dollar GetUp! will be there and trying to create trouble – be polite, do not engage, and show the media that we are real, ordinary Australians – not radical extremists like they are!
3)Finally, check out the skies at 12pm for the Menzies House/CANdo skywriter! (weather permitting) 

MELBOURNE
Date: 23 March
Time: 10:00am
Location: Federation Square, Cnr of Swanston & Flinders Sts, Melbourne
Guest Speakers: Bernie Finn, MLC Western Metropolitan Region, Les Twentyman, Spokesperson for the of the 20th Man Foundation, and tireless community worker , Alan Moran Director  Deregulation Unit Institute of Public Affairs, Des Moore former Deputy Secretary to Treasury, and currently Director Institute for Private Enterprise
Contact: stevenjan777@hotmail.com 
Facebook: Click here

BRISBANE
Date: 23 March
Time: 1230pm
Location: King George Square
Contact: Tim Wells:  0435 146 119, timobrienwells@yahoo.co.uk
Can’t make it? Don’t worry – there’ll be another – even bigger – Brisbane rally on May 7! 🙂
 

ADELAIDE
Date: 23 March
Time: 10:30am
Location: Parliament House
Email: shirl.162@bigpond.com

PERTH
Date: 23 March
Time: 10:30am
Location: Parliament House, Harvest Terace, Perth
Guest Speakers: Joanne Nova, leading climate scientist Dr. David Evans, and author Michael Kile
Contact: Janet Thompson 0417 815 595, mmattjanet@westnet.com.au 
Register on Facebook: Click here

Newspeak Rules

March 22, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Muslim extremist Yahya Ibrahim has made many useful suggestions about effective methods of killing Jews and Americans, including the use of chemical weapons, the conversion of SUVs by adding blades to their wheels so they can mow down pedestrians, and random shootings in crowded cafes.

Mr Ibrahim objects to being called an extremist. He is, he says, a moderate teacher committed to religious tolerance. And he will behead any kuffirs who say otherwise. Or sue them, at least.

Mr Ibrahim is suing the Sunday Telegraph over an article which suggested he might have discriminatory or anti-semitic views, and that he might share such views with students in the UK.

Mr Ibrahim is hurt and confused by the claim that calling Jews pigs and monkeys and suggesting ways to kill them and other infidels is discriminatory.

Incidentally, Mr Ibrahim works at Australia’s largest Muslim school.

Meanwhile, Melanie Philips is in trouble for calling the arab savages who murdered the Fogel family ‘arab savages,’ along with the people who handed out sweets and danced in the street when they heard that a group of triumphant islamic warriors had managed to cut a baby’s throat and murder her parents and siblings in their sleep.

Clearly Melanie is wrong, wrong, wrong.

The people who did this thing worked for Mossad, and so did all the people in the street. Or if they were arabs, they only meant to borrow the Fogel’s stamp collection and things got out of hand. And anyway, those Jews shouldn’t have been there in the first place. In their house. In a Jewish village. And the people in the street were handing out sweets and dancing because the weather was so nice. And also, it’s judgemental to call someone a savage. His feelings might be hurt.

Nope. Sorry. They’re savages. Slime. Filth. And that’s probably an insult to other savages, slime and filth.

And finally, Israel Apartheid Week, (aka Hate Israel Week), is off to a flying start in the UK.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East where men and women are equal under the law, where people of any faith can worship without fear of persecution, where gays and lesbians need not be in fear of being mutilated and murdered, where people of every faith and race have equal rights to property and to vote and to assemble.

In Palestinian controlled Bethlehem, by contrast, where the Christian population has fallen from about 60% in 1990 to about 15% now:

There are many examples of intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycotts, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion,” he said. PA officials are directly responsible for many of the attacks, and some Muslims who have converted to Christianity have been murdered.

Naturally, ignorant nitwits around the world are complaining about – Israel.

Water, Water, Everywhere

March 22, 2011 / / 0 Comments

On the ABC’s Landline in 2007:

SALLY SARA: What will it mean for Australian farmers if the predictions of climate change are correct and little is done to stop it? What will that mean for a farmer?

PROFESSOR TIM FLANNERY: We’re already seeing the initial impacts and they include a decline in the winter rainfall zone across southern Australia, which is clearly an impact of climate change, but also a decrease in run-off. Although we’re getting say a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, that’s translating to a 60 per cent decrease in the run-off into the dams and rivers. That’s because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems, and that’s a real worry for the people in the bush. If that trend continues then I think we’re going to have serious problems, particularly for irrigation.

Now, floods everywhere:

Heavy rains hit central and southern parts of the Philippines last week, triggering floods and landslides which killed at least nine people and affected up to 150,000 others. In Tacloban, Leyte, a staggering 397mm of rain fell in the 24 hours to midnight last Thursday. The deluge submerged the city and sparked a landslide which killed a family of seven. This prompted the government to declare a state of emergency. Crops were flooded and dozens of homes were destroyed.

Parts of Australia were also hit by floods. In northern Queensland, onshore flow and the atmospheric instability combined to produce heavy downpours, with 238.6mm of rain falling at Rollingstone in 24 hours last Wednesday. In western Australia’s Kimberly region, severe floods destroyed 45 homes and forced 217 people to evacuate. The Fitzroy River rose to a record level at Fitzroy Crossing on Wednesday, topping that of 2002.

Also in NSW, where the town of Bega has been evacuated. And even here on Kangaroo Island, where unseasonably cool and wet conditions continue.

Minor Flooding Continues on Kangaroo Island

Photos Taken This Morning On Kangaroo Island

March 20, 2011 / / 0 Comments

This is an old tractor that used to be used for harvesting oysters from one of the oyster leases on Min oil beach. I have been wanting to get a picture of it for a while, but it is usually mostly submerged. Very low tides today, so a perfect opportunity, even though it was raining. Taken with my Sigma DP1s (Foveon sensor). Some fairly mild colour and contrast post processing.

Submerged Tractor on a Beach on Kangaroo Island

My wife Kathy and dog Hannibal walking along Min Oil beach towards Redbanks on a cloudy day.

Kathy and Hannibal on Min Oil Beach

A Culture Of Life vs …

March 20, 2011 / / 0 Comments

A few days after the savage murder of the Fogel family, in which a baby had her throat cut and was nearly decapitated, and four others were stabbed to death as they slept, relatives were sitting in mourning in a nearby town.

The Fogel Family

Suddenly, there is a disturbance outside:

Just as IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz arrived in Neve Tzuf to offer his condolences, a Palestinian cab raced towards the community’s entrance. In it, soldiers and paramedics discovered a Palestinian woman in her 20s in advanced stages of labor and facing a life-threatening situation: The umbilical cord was wrapped around the young baby girl’s neck, endangering both her and her mother.

The quick action of settler paramedics and IDF troops deployed in the area saved the mother’s and baby’s life, prompting great excitement and emotions at the site where residents are still mourning the brutal death of five local family members. …

Meanwhile, ambulance driver Orly Shlomo raced to the scene. “We joined the military paramedic and helped him cut off the umbilical cord…without the medical treatment, the fetus and woman faced genuine life danger,” she told Ynet.

“It was touching, but I couldn’t help but think that a few meters from there, people were sitting Shiva for another baby, who was murdered,” she said. “I was touched to see the face of the new baby, but I also thought about the face of the murdered baby.”

Gadi Amitun, who heads the Magen David Adom team at Neve Tzuf, said this was not the first time settlers assist Palestinians in distress.
 
“They know we have a skilled medical team here, and in any case of accident or injury they arrive and we help them,” he said.

The paramedic noted that on the day of the Fogel massacre, settlers saw fireworks and celebrations in nearby Palestinian communities, but added that the local medical team is committed to assisting anyone in need.

Meanwhile, yesterday, on the Sabbath, more than fifty mortars were fired from Gaza into Southern Israel.

Hayim Yellin, head of the Eshkol region where the mortars exploded, said they were the same type as those intercepted last week on a cargo ship loaded with weapons Israel said were sent by Iran to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he will file a complaint at the U.N. after Saturday’s unusually large barrage of rockets. In a statement, Lieberman said the Palestinians “primary goal is destroying Israel.”

Libya vs Iraq

March 20, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Muammar Ghadafi (or however we’re supposed to spell his name this week) is not a nice guy.

He doesn’t seem to me to be quite at the Saddam Hussein level of gassing the Kurds and running over Shi’ites in tanks, but nonetheless, not a nice guy.

Barack Obama thinks Ghadafi’s level of not niceness is now sufficient to justify the use of US forces to bring about a regime change:

“This is not an outcome the U.S. or any of our partners sought,” Obama said from Brazil, where he is starting a five-day visit to Latin America. “We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there will be no mercy.”

Obama said that embattled Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s continued assault on his own people left the U.S. and its international partners with no other choice.

But how is using force to bring about regime change in Libya OK, when using force to bring about regime change in Iraq was not OK, was about oil, meant that George Bush was Satan, or acting for the bushitlerchimphalliburton global industrial machine?

Hussein (Saddam, not Obama) had treated his own people worse for longer, had a history of violence against neigbouring countries and of use of weapons of mass destruction.

Interesting that a substantial number of comments on the HuffPo coverage of this story ask the same question: Why good in Libya if bad in Iraq?

Some of them are even quite amusing, like this one on claims the war is about oil in both cases ‘Actually, we never get the oil, just the shaft.’

Who exactly are the people we are supporting, protecting and probably putting into power in Libya?

Well, (coughs apologetically) al-Qaeda, actually.

WikiLeaks cables, independent analysts and reporters have all identified supporters of Islamist causes among the opposition to Col Gaddafi’s regime, particularly in the towns of Benghazi and Dernah.

An al-Qaeda leader of Libyan origin, Abu Yahya al-Libi, released a statement backing the insurrection a week ago, while Yusuf Qaradawi, the Qatar-based, Muslim Brotherhood-linked theologian issued a fatwa authorising Col Gaddafi’s military entourage to assassinate him. …

The military chief (of the rebels) is Abdul Fattah Younis al-Obeidi, a former leader of Col Gaddafi’s special forces who was his public security, or interior, minister until he went over to the rebels.

He has described Col Gaddafi as “not completely sane”, and worked with the SAS during the now curtailed thaw in British-Libyan relations. But it is still ironic that the West is taking sides in a battle between the leader of a much hated regime and his former effective deputy.

More on the perils of large scale Western intervention at Israel National News:

… imposition of a no-fly zone is a full-scale assault. It’s a war. People will be killed, some of whom will be innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. And even if mistakes never come about, Libyan President Moammar Qadhafi will make certain that pictures and movies of staged massacres become major hits on Youtube, al Jazeera, and the rest of the international media. He will play to turn public opinion against the U.S. who voted for it. After all, movie production of seeming massacres presented as authentic news is an Arab specialty.

The Arab League wants the U.S. and NATO to launch a war on Qaddafi, to help the Libyan rebels defeat the dictator, while, all the while, making it look as if the Libyan people, on their own, were able to overthrow their ruthless tyrant.

Why should the Euro-American forces lead the way? Where is the formidable Egyptian military? Where is the best American-trained, American-equipped Middle Eastern war machine? If the Egyptians can’t handle such a “simple humanitarian act,” what was the purpose of building their military up to that sky-scraping level? Why do the Arabs always look to the West to take care of their own dirty laundry? And why is the West willing to go ahead and comply? …

The U.S. and Europe should stay out of Libya. If the Arab League wants a no-fly zone over Qadhafi’s head, let them have our permission; let them go ahead and move on it — not the other way around. In its aftermath, no Arab propaganda will be able to blame the West for its imperialistic, satanic tendencies.

He is right. No matter what the outcome, no matter how good the West’s intentions, no matter how free of commerical imperatives, no matter how driven by humanitarian concern, 1500 years of history tell us we will come out looking like the villains.

Anyone Who Says Violence Never Solved Anything

March 16, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Is such an abject idiot it is probably not even worth engaging in conversation with her.

Seriously. Violence never solved anything? What solved the problem of Nazi Germany? Butterfly cakes and Darjeeling tea?

When you are faced with evil, it is simply cowardly not to stand against it, even if standing against it sometimes means using your fists.

If someone was attacking my family, for example, I wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever it took to protect them. And if someone was attacking your family and you stood by and tried to negotiate while they were being beaten or worse, I would think you a miserable excuse for a human being.

So when I saw this video of an incident at Chifley College’s Dunheved Campus in western Sydney, gol darn if I wasn’t cheering at the end:

That is one bully who will hesitate to bully again.

When this was posted on Facebook and Youtube (and then removed), the vast majority of commenters supported and even celebrated the right of the boy who was attacked to defend himself. I think he showed admirable patience and restraint.

But guess what the authorities said?

Police and bullying experts are concerned by the video’s publication on Facebook and the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the older boy’s retaliation against his attacker.

“We don’t believe that violence is ever the answer,” Mr Dalgleish says. “We believe there are other ways that children can manage this.”

What a jerk.

Both the boys were suspended by school authorities.

What jerks.

The boy who was attacked had a right to defend himself. No one else was. No teacher was in sight.

That other young people agreed so strongly gives me hope that despite the best efforts of  counsellors and social workers, a large part of this generation is refusing to be moulded into a bunch of lily livered nancies.

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