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Why Do People Keep Getting Annoyed With Me?

September 12, 2010 / / 0 Comments

It was perfectly innocent. It was.

I was in a shop in Kingscote (where my shop is, just by the way, on Dauncey St, opposite the cafe/newsagency) and the lady behind the counter asked me to sign a petition for state funds to build a skate park in town.

I said no. Well, what I actually said was that I was happy to, but I would wait until local young people had done some work, and raised a reasonable part of the cost.

The woman almost turned purple. ‘B, b, but the kids have nothing to do. They need this.’

Neither of those things is true. There is plenty to do on Kangaroo Island, including active sporting clubs of almost every description. There are several different art groups, a drama club, a writers’ group, craft groups, walking and hunting clubs, etc, etc. And even if those facilities did not exist, young people hardly ‘need’ a skate park.

But if they want one, I am more than happy to support them by signing a petition, writing letters, making a donation, even coming and helping to build it, as I did for the playground at American River.

But why should I put time and money into it, or ask other tax payers to do so, if the people who will benefit won’t?

The Rainbow Alliance

September 12, 2010 / / 0 Comments

The Labor Greens alliance has independents Windsor and Oakeshott by the short and curlies. Or over a barrel if you prefer.

They have been conned. 

Their fond notion that they might have a respected voice in a new inclusive government or have some say in policy is drying up like a light dawn mist on a hot Summer day.

The offer of a ministry to Rob Oakeshott was never more than a farce.

It would have been impossible for him to take up such an offer without ridicule and complete loss of credibility if it became known that he had discussed a possible ministry in NSW state Labor with then premier Morris Iemma. So of course Labor (who else could it have been) made sure that it became known just at the crucial moment.

So now Simon Crean, whose idea of rural is the high end of Lygon St, becomes minister for regional Australia.

Bill Shorten, the Governor General’s son in law, is minister for everything to do with money except completely stuffing up the economy, which is still Wayne Swan’s job.

Peter Garrett, formerly minister for stuffing up things in people’s ceilings, is now minister for stuffing up things at schools, a portfolio he takes over from now Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Kevin Rudd’s reward for stopping leaking annoying stuff to the press and pretending to support Julia is that he now becomes minister for bad breath and annoying the Chinese.

The two independents who supported Labor have nothing to do except stay out of their electorates and think about their job prospects of three years time, if this government lasts that long.

They will have no voice in parliament at all, nor any power to compel Labor to keep the promises it made to ensure their votes. They must support Labor whatever it does, or run the risk of an early election. If that happens, voters in their electorates will punish them mercilessly.

More on this theme from Peter Smith at Quadrant Online:

A lot has been made of the Government having to kowtow to these so-called independents. The kowtowing is over. It lasted for 17 days. The independents will now do as they are told. As turncoats, they will be as much despised by those whose ranks they have joined as by those who they turned against. Exactly what are they to do; where are they to go; when Gillard, Swan & Company tell them to fall into line. There is nothing to do about it and nowhere to go. They have cast their die. If they think differently, they are dumber than they look.

They need the Government to look as though it’s working to prove they were right; to shore up their own positions and tattered reputations. Any truculence on their part will simply make a new election, and their own demise, more likely. As it is, the Government will last as long as Gillard wants it to. If she sees the polls turning in her favour she will take advantage of it. The agreement with the independents to go a full term is worthless. Anyone who could knife Rudd in the back only minutes after making an agreement with him will have little compunction about doing over a couple of turncoats from the bush.

Floods and Dams

September 12, 2010 / / 1 Comment

On Kangaroo Island, we have just been through a record breakingly wet Winter.

There have been floods on the mainland too, but water restrictions are still in place in capital cities.

The excuse for not building new dams has been that it isn’t going to rain any more. But then why have state governments been subsidising the installation of rainwater tanks at private homes?

‘Solutions’ like desalination plants are being built around Australia. But these massively expensive by comparison with dams, use large amounts of energy, require high levels of maintenance, and are untested over the long term.

There has been no overall reduction in rainfall on the Australian continent over the last century, so why are we still being given the ‘no point, no rain’ excuse?

Australia is a country of extremes. Long droughts followed by massive floods. Overall, there is plenty of water for everyone.

The problem is not that there is not enough water, but that there is not enough water storage.

The more water storage we build, the better we will be able to cope with the perfectly predictable dry periods, and the less damage will be done by floods (because more of the water will be captured).

Even if rainfall was reducing, this would be a reason to build more dams, not less.

I Will Thirstily Seem Forward

September 12, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Spam to real comments runs at about 100 to 1. I check the spam about once a week just to check no genuine comments have been caught in error.

Most spam messages are pretty dull. But this one was so amusingly desperate I thought it was worth sharing. The original had several links to a company selling secret herbal remedies guaranteed to enhance a certain part of the male anatomy.

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Selective Outrage

September 10, 2010 / / 7 Comments

What is wrong with the world?

A pastor in a tiny church decides to burn a few copies of the Koran because he believes it is evil.

This causes international outrage and threats of violence, and these responses are considered perfectly understandable.

If Pastor Jones had decided instead to burn a few Muslim children, like these Muslims decide to burn a few Christian children, would that have been better?

Before you click to watch this video, with these monsters shouting Allahu Akbar as children burn, be warned, this is horrible.

So where is the international outrage? Where are the questions about what kind of book is considered by its readers to justify this sort of behaviour?

It is likely Youtube will remove that video as being offensive to Muslims (!). If so, I will upload the video in flv format.

Stephanie Rice Loves Big Brother

September 10, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Seeing Stephanie Rice sobbing her way through an apology for using the word faggot, acknowledging her dreadfulness, her betrayal of the Soviet everyone’s trust in her, and affirming that she really did love big brother gay people of all shapes and sizes, and everyone of any sexual preference at all, you might have thought you were watching a remake of 1984.

And then Jaguar dumped her.

Poor girl. She had the honesty poor sense to say publicly what was almost certainly said privately in a number of Australian households when the Wallabies won a last minute victory over South Africa. Namely, Yay! Suck on that, faggots.

Poor taste? Sure. Inappropriate? Maybe. But the game was pretty exciting, and a bit of gloating was entirely justified.

How do a few words uttered, or even tweeted, in the heat of the monent, justify demonizing and publicly humiliating a hard working and kind-hearted young woman?

She, and her agent, should have just told the professional offendees to sod off.

There are more important things in the world to be upset about.

And I’m glad I got rid of my Daimler. It was probably the worst engineered car I have ever owned.

So suck on that,  . . .

Burning Buildings, Burning Books

September 8, 2010 / / 1 Comment

So a preacher in Florida is going to burn a few copies of the Koran. Yawn.

This is supposed to be representative of ‘anti-muslim frenzy’ in America. Yawn.

That phrase came not from Muslims but from liberal church leaders in the US. Yawn.

I am not generally in favour of burning books. It tends to attract the wrong kind of people. But I have burnt a few. Some out of sheer boredom. Some because I was annoyed I had paid a couple of hour’s wages to buy what turned out to be a pile of steaming doggy do.

I have also burnt some for ethical or religious reasons. I habitually buy from book exchanges and local markets the colourful and misleading books churned out by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons. They are usually on the 20c pile where they could be picked up by lonely and gullible housewives, and they make good fire starters.

I also burnt a copy of Silent Spring I found in a flea market. Probably no would have read it anyway, so that one was purely on principle.

The world would be a better place if some books had not been written. The Koran is one.

It is similar to Mein Kampf (Kampf means Jihad, so Herr Hitler, had he been writing in Arabic, would have written Mein Jihad).

Both are tedious and repetitive. Both are driven by a sense of being specially chosen, but of being kept down by lesser others, mostly nasty Jews. Both are happy to suggest that exterminating those vile creatures would make the world a better place. Both propose that some humans are not fully human. Both encourage the idea that individual freedoms must be subsumed to the fasces, the bundle, the mob, the over-arching purpose that drowns out any other human concerns.

Both leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

Is the Koran a book worth reading, let alone worth cherishing? No. Not in the least.

I wouldn’t want the last copy destroyed. It is important for historical reasons. But think about this (linked above):

On the plans to burn the Qu’ran the leaders, including Washington Roman Catholic archbishop emeritus Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Rabbi David Saperstein, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, and Dr Michael Kinnamon of the National Council of Churches said they were “appalled by such disrespect for a sacred text”.

A sacred text? The Koran is as much a sacred text as my underpants. At least my underpants don’t go around telling people to smite the necks of anyone who disagrees with me, or that Christians are the most vile of creatures, or to kill Jews whereever they can be found. My underpants are pretty kindhearted by comparison.

It is sacred to Muslims. And that’s fine. Whatever.

So if the Florida Pastor’s Koran burning goes ahead, what will Muslims do? They have thoughtfully answered that question for us:

“It is the duty of Muslims to react,” said Mohammad Mukhtar, a cleric and candidate for the Afghan parliament in the Sept. 18 election. “When their holy book Quran gets burned in public, then there is nothing left. If this happens, I think the first and most important reaction will be that wherever Americans are seen, they will be killed. No matter where they will be in the world they will be killed.”

Oh. Right. Someone in Florida burns a couple of books, and you think the appropriate response, in fact the duty of Muslims everywhere, is to kill Americans wherever you see them.

Back on your meds, boyo. Except this is not a lone voice, a lone mad mullah. This is Islam.

A few more thoughts on this.

Muslims, of course have no problem with burning Bibles, or churches, or Jews, or Christians.

Only Muslims are permitted to live on the Arabian Peninsula. Bibles are confiscated and shredded, and those in whose possession they were found may be given seventy lashes.

And then there’s the fact the Christian families affected by the floods in Pakistan are being openly denied aid, which has almost entirely been given by Christian countries.

The fact that some Mulims are hypocritical violent barbarians would not excuse our acting in the same way.

But burning a few Korans is not acting in the same way.

Burning a few Korans is not the same thing as raping children, hanging gays, stoning or mutilating women, bombing airplanes and hotels, or cutting the throats of people who disagree with you.

One of the problems, and it is potentially a very serious problems for Westerners working in Muslim countries, especially members of the armed forces, is that Muslims living in Muslim countries simply cannot conceive the meaning of real freedom of speech. It is incomprehensible to them that President Obama could not just say ‘Stop that’ and that Pastor Jones and his flock would be made to stop.

That is why people like Hilary Clinton, and assorted liberal politicians and clergy have to keep saying how shocking and unamerican this is. Because otherwise the entire Muslim world will think all Americans are in on this, which would make it a moral obligation to slaughter them. See above.

But that kind of Chamberlainism just doesn’t work. For one thing, Muslim leaders don’t believe it. They think the authorities could stop the Koran burning if they wanted, but they don’t so they must be OK with it. So not only are they anti-Muslim, they are also lying cowards.

But even if the sheikhs and mullahs did believe it, appeasing bullies does not work. It just makes them feel stronger, and demand more.

I am regularly confronted by insults directed at Jesus and the Christian faith which I find offensive and hurtful.

The calumny heaped on all Catholic clergy for the sins of a tiny minority. The smug and easy challenges of the art world with its piss Christ and dung Mary. South Park’s depictions of an insipid, do nothing Jesus. The puerile and deliberately offensive t shirt which proclaims ‘Jesus sucks.’ The appropriation and misuse of Christian symbols and music in an ad for Daylesford by Visit Victoria.

All of these stupid and empty-headed things are part of our daily lives.

But I am not going to bomb the offices of Visit Victoria, or send anthrax spores to the creators of South Park. Not because I am a good or patient person. I am not not. I can be as intemperate, sullen and hypocritical as anyone.

But I am a Christian. The person I follow as my Lord told me to do good to people who hate me, to pray for those who persecute me. And he exemplified that teaching in his life and death.

So those who insult Jesus or the Church, or abuse the Bible, earn my prayers, my concern, my hope and work for their redemption.

That reaction by Christians is, or should be, perfectly predictable. Christians do, or should do, what Jesus did.

The reaction to those who insult Mohammed or the Koran by those who take the Koran as their guide is predictable in the same way.

Mohammed personally beheaded some 700 Qurayza, and took and raped whom he wanted of their wives. Any oppostiion to his views, no matter how mild, was met with violence.

The violent response of the Muslim world to the burning of 200 copies of the Koran is not a justifiable expression of indignation. It is monstrous, cowardly, and barbaric.

It is also, quite simply, an expression of the enduring character of Islam, because it is an expression of the teaching of the Koran and the example of Mohammed.

CO2 Lunacy

September 8, 2010 / / 0 Comments

A comment I posted on Tim Blair’s blog this morning:

There are between three and four molecules of CO2 for every 10,000 particles of air.

Anthropogenic CO2 is assumed to be about 4% of that, which comes to about 14 molecules of CO2 per 1 million particles of air.

Australia’s contribution to global CO2 is assumed to be about 1.4% of the total of anthropogenic CO2.

That amounts to 0.2 molecules of CO2 for every 1 million particles of air.

If we reduce our CO2 output by 20%, destroying our transport and primary industries in the process, our contribution to global CO2 will go from 0.2 particles per million of air, to 0.16 particles per million of air.

In other words, from an indetectably tiny and insignificant amount, to a very slightly smaller insignificant amount.

And this will only cost us our competitivness in in international trade, a massively increased cost of living, and massively increased unemployment.

But, you know, feeling like we’re doing something is so important.

Go you greens!

What The Heck?

September 7, 2010 / / 0 Comments

The blighters were just playing games when they checked Tony Crook’s intentions.

What was the point of that? Just to prove that they are the big boys now? No one in the playground is going to push them around, cause it’s their turn to do the pushing?

Based on their performance over the last week, these guys will be holding the country to ransom for as long as this dismal government lasts.

I wasn’t fond of the title ‘The Three Amigos.’

But maybe it is not so inappropriate. In the film of that name, the three amigos were really three complete drongos, pretend cowboys in flashy outfits, who were so dumb they thought ‘infamous’ meant really, really famous.

Maybe our three amigos thought the same thing. Except that now it’s the two amigos, Max Hatter having decided to go it on his own and support the Coalition.

Except that a better title would be ‘tushki.’

It sounds like it should mean ‘little arse,’ and that would be appropriate too, but it doesn’t

In February of Viktor Yanukovych won the Ukrainian presidential election with the smallest possible margin, and the support of probably about a third of Ukrainians.

Following that election, 16 parliamentary delegates deserted their own party, and the people who had voted for them, to enable Yanukovych to form government.

They have become known as the tushki. It is a Russian word, used as an insult. It means ‘roadkill.’

As the German political scientist Andreas Umland noted in late March in the Kyiv Post, “Ukraine is now less democratic than it was. . . . With their change of allegiance the tushki have grossly misrepresented the preferences of the Ukrainian voters.”

Welcome to the new Australia.

Maybe…

September 6, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Tomorrow, Tuesday, we will hear that Tony Abbott is to become the next Prime Minster.

Earlier today we heard that the three independents had sought a commitment from WA Nationals MP Tony Crook that he would not block supply or support Labor in a no confidence motion, should the Coalition form government.

It seemed to me unlikely they would seek such an assurance if they had already formed the view that they would support Labor. They would have no need to do so.

If the three supported Labor, it would not matter what Tony Crook did.

With the independents on side, Julia Gillard would not need to be concerned about Tony Crook. His vote could only threaten the stability of the government if the Coalition were in power.

So the fact they sought this assurance from Tony Crook almost certainly means that they intend to support the Coalition if the assurance is given. Of course, they may just be playing games, which, given their behaviour over the last week, is not impossible.

Tonight brings news that Crook has given that commitment. He will not block supply under a Coalition government, and will not support any no confidence motions against a Coalition government.

Tony for PM!

That means that we will end up with exactly the numbers I predicted the day before the  election – Coalition 76, Labor 74.

Or I could be very embarrassed tomorrow!

BBC Biased?

September 5, 2010 / / 1 Comment

Well, it was biased. But we’ve fixed it. It’s all OK now.

That’s according to Director General Mark Thompson.

Well, good. Everyone in England who owns a TV pays for the BBC through taxes and licence fees. So it really should be unbiased, as least as far as that is realistically possible. It should be everyone’s BBC.

Like many English persons, I will be looking forward to genuinely balanced debate on the Beeb on political and environomental issues.

Australia’s ABC is paid for by every Australian. It even tells viewers and listeners they should care about what happens to the ABC, because it’s ‘your ABC.”

But it’s never been my ABC. I never hear my opinions expressed on the ABC, except maybe by a courageous lone voice quickly shouted down by a ‘balanced’ panel.

Clive Hamilton thoughtfully explains why it is not necessary to offer a variety of opinions for consideration.

It is because only one opinion is right – his:

Presenting both sides is biased when one ‘side’ is backed by a large body of peer-reviewed research and the other is not. The ‘other side’ would deserve some reporting if there were a significant minority view that had some legitimate science to sustain its claims, even if that science proves unsustainable. In the case of climate science, there isn’t. …

A number of studies have substantiated what is obvious to anyone with even a casual knowledge of the research on the science of global warming – that is, there is an overwhelming consensus on the main conclusions presented in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.

The trouble is Clive, there is no discussion of whether this amazing consensus actually exists.

And of course, Clive, it doesn’t. At least 31,000 scientists in the US alone agree with me. And several in Australia.

And now, Clive, even former IPCC insiders are admitting the ‘consensus’ was a complete fabrication. It wasn’t a worldwide consensus. It wasn’t even the claimed 2500 experts. It was just a couple of dozen scientists whose income depended on generating alarm.

Or, Clive, if you really think there is no peer reviewed research questioning the basis of global warming alarmism, you could start with this list of 800 peer reviewed papers.

So let’s begin to make it everyone’s ABC, Clive, by being honest about disagreements in matters of politics and environmental science.

Or is that too much to ask?

Australian Exports

September 4, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Or, to be more accurate, one Australian export, Sheikh Feiz Muhammad.

Feiz Muhammad, a former Sydney boxer, now Muslim teacher, has called for the execution by beheading of Dutch politician Geert Wilders. And for that matter, anyone who insults Islam. Or the prophet. Or that funny tea cosy he’s wearing on his head.

You can hear the lecture, in perfect Australian, on the website of Dutch newpsaper De Telegraaf.

So no, dear Australian ABC news, De Telegraaf is not reporting it has a recording, or claiming it has a recording of Shiekh Feiz. It has a recording. And you can listen to it.

News. Accurate reporting. Remember that?

Of course Wilders is a racist, a firebrand, making a fuss about nothing, and makes a living out of stirring up trouble. Anywhere there is trouble involving Muslims, it is someone else’s fault. If he just kept his mouth shut, he wouldn’t have anything to worry about.

After all the Sheikh says on his own website, for all to see, that Islam in its true form is only a religion of Peace and not violence.

So how could he call for anyone to be beheaded? It doesn’t even make sense.

Well, there was the whole Undercover Mosque thing. But that wasn’t fair. The imans didn’t know those people were there.

So to recap: Geert Wilders says Islam is violent and irrational. Representative of Islam says it isn’t, and anyone who disagrees should be killed.

Right.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah, the party of Allah, has placed 15,000 rockets on the border of Israel.

Israel’s ambassor to the US, Michael Oren:

.. said the rockets also have bigger payloads and are “far more accurate” than those fired four years ago.

“In 2006, many of their missiles were basically out in the open, in silos and the Israeli air force was able to neutralize a great number of them,” Oren said.

“Today those same missiles have been placed under hospitals, and homes and schools because Hezbollah knows full well if we try to defend ourselves against them, we will be branded once again as war criminals,” he added.

And back at the ranch…

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, which sponsors Hezbollah, says the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are pointless because there will never be any peace while Israel exists, and are even more pointless because the filthy Zionist entity will soon be wiped off the map anyway.

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