Thursday, July 28, 2005
KNOWN UNKNOWNS
Ted Kennedy and his fellow Democrats have an information problem:
Senate Democrats and Judiciary Committee minority staffers are miffed that conservative bloggers appear to have more information about Bush Supreme Court nominee John Roberts than they do.
“They’ve got material out there that we don’t know about,” complained Sen. Edward Kennedy.
Solution: read the blogs.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
CAVALCADE OF SIDEBURNS
Starring in this photo tribute to Ashes heroes of the 70s are Jeff Thomson, Rod Marsh, Ian Botham, Geoffrey Boycott, Ian Chappell, Doug Walters, David Gower, Dennis Lillee, Ashley Mallett, Brian Johnston, Bob Willis, Terry Jenner, Tony Greig, Derek Randall, and Ian Redpath, among others.
UPDATE. “Bedecked with wretchedly unfunny Steve Bell cartoons, and serving organic biscuits and fair trade coffee.” Gideon Haigh, covering this year’s Ashes series for The Guardian, reports from that paper’s Newsroom Café.
UPDATE II. Joke currently circulating via email:
Q: What do Michael Jackson and Geraint Jones have in common?
A: They both wear gloves for no apparent reason.
JUDGMENT WATCH
Further to this week’s Bulletin column on terrorist-dodging public broadcasters, note this CBC headline:
Canadian Muslim leaders denounce violence
Hockey violence, maybe? No; what the Muslim leaders actually denounced was terrorism:
“Terrorism has been increasing and it is our religious duty to confront this evil,” Ahmad Kutty, a Toronto imam, told reporters.
“We must do so unitedly – as imams and religious leaders,” he said.
CBC obviously thought it insensitive even to quote an imam opposing terrorism. But over at Australia’s ABC, Lateline reporter Narda Gilmore is bravely defying official directives:
John Howard left London this morning bound for Iraq. The details of his visit were kept quiet for security reasons. As he visits the front line in the war against terror, the Prime Minister’s also embroiled in a war of words with Melbourne-based Muslim cleric Sheikh Mohammed Omran.
No “so-called” war against terror for Narda, despite ABC policy. Re-education camp awaits.
AMISH ROLL NUMBERS, TAKE POT
Lost a flower pot recently? House numbers missing? You know who to blame:
Callers complaining about loud music coming from a buggy led deputies to charge a 19-year-old Amish man with stealing house numbers and flower pots. David Byler was charged with theft and underage consumption of alcohol, both misdemeanors.
Those younger Amish ... they’re ever so sassy! Speaking of which, Scott Burgess has abundant (and link-loaded) updates to his exposure of British sass-merchant Dilpazier Aslam, which has caused The Guardian no small amount of blog-related grief. You’d have thought these clowns would have learned their lesson after Operation Clark County ...
THE FEMALE BRAIN
Received a note from Canberra blogger Alan E. Brain a few weeks ago. Alan—47 years old, married, and a parent—had long imagined he would have preferred life as a woman; he’d even selected a female name (Zoe) at 10, in case of some miraculous transformation.
Earlier this year, the transformation began. Without surgery. And involuntarily. Al was experiencing something known as ideopathic sex reversal:
Basically, my body got radically feminised over 2 weeks (I don’t mean politically either, I’m talking about going from 43-49-46 and a middle-aged spread to 46A-35-46 with associated skin, hair, personality etc changes).
I got more changes in 2 weeks than male-to-female transsexuals my age get after 6 months of massive doses of female hormones. Since then, the changes have steadied down, and are at normal female pubescent rates. In fact it fluctuates on a monthly cycle, 2 micro-puberties per month, one very female, one slightly male, then back again. PMT, menopause, PMT, menopause ... yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.
Al swore me to a years-long embargo, but has lifted it due to the speed of change he’s undergone. You can read more about his altered life here and here; and, if you scroll down the links at left, you’ll notice Alan E. Brain has been replaced by newcomer Zoe. Welcome aboard!
ROOT CAUSE LOCATED
Jim Treacher—now blogging here, for money!—sends word of a site set up in cowardly response to this. Meanwhile, here’s Mark Steyn on the death of Jean Charles de Menezes:
The pathetic public execution of an innocent man on July 22 joins the events of July 21 and July 7 as a reminder of why a narrow, reactive law-enforcement approach to terrorism will always penalise the populace more than the terrorists. You win this war militarily (in the badlands of Pakistan and elsewhere) and culturally (which is a much tougher battle). Shoot-outs on the Tube aren’t going to be much help - though, if they advance from Brazilians at Stockwell to theatregoers at Leicester Square, overcrowding at the Olympics isn’t likely to be a problem.
This war might also be won at national borders, where, in the case of suspected fizz bomber Muktar Said Ibrahim, Britain evidently failed:
One of the four suspects in the attempted suicide bombings in London last week spent several years in prison as a mugger, the Telegraph can reveal.
Despite his record, Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, also known as Muktar Mohammed Said, was granted a British passport less than a year ago. A key condition of naturalisation is that an applicant must be ‘‘of good character’‘.
The same article offers an alternative “root cause” for British terrorism:
Sarah Scott, 23, a neighbour of the family, said that Ibrahim had given her a pamphlet, Understanding Islam, last November and had highlighted key passages.
“He talked about evil spirits,’’ she said. ‘‘He said there were a lot of evil spirits around because everyone was evil around here.’‘
Evil spirits! It was evil spirits all along.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
DECENT WHITE FOLK BLACK
All Christians are white. Well, David Marr seems to think so:
Anti-vilification laws aren’t the answer. In Victoria, two hellfire Christian preachers, Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot, are facing jail after preaching against Islam in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Ever since, they’ve been fighting an action brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria under the state’s new Racial and Religious Tolerance Act.
That’s the pesky thing about these laws that show almost zero tolerance for religious and racial intolerance: they can be turned against decent white folk.
Do your research, Dave. Mistakes like this can get you mentioned on Media Watch.
CARR QUITS
Bob Carr will resign next Monday after ten years as Premier of NSW. He may be replaced by the vegan Carl Scully.
UPDATE. The working man’s view:
Labor leader Kim Beazley said Mr Carr was, as Charles de Gaulle might have said, “un homme sérieux” (a serious man).
UPDATE II. The BBC reports:
Perhaps the greatest achievement of his premiership was bringing the 2000 Olympic games to the state capital, Sydney.
He also caused the Great Hail Disaster of 1999.
COLUMN ISN’T JUDGMENTAL
This week’s Continuing Crisis column in The Bulletin mentions Robert Vermeire, Kieran Doyle, Osama bin Laden, and John Cameron.
HYDROCARBON-ENTERTAINMENT LINK UNCOVERED!
Sorry for lack of recent posts. I’ve been interstate on high-level investigative journalism business, hinted at here by deeply-connected Nora Charles. Full details (and photographs) to follow shortly.
Monday, July 25, 2005
BET ON IT
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Alan Ramsey, who is almost always completely wrong, gets it wrong again:
Meanwhile, know that our Prime Minister has another birthday on Tuesday - his 66th. Expect he and Janette will likely spend it, in front of the television cameras, with Australian forces from Iraq flown to Oman for the occasion. You can bet they won’t go to Iraq itself.
Much too dangerous.
Good call, Al:
Prime Minister John Howard has made a top-secret visit to Iraq to meet with Australian troops and hold talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
Mr Howard landed in Baghdad where he met with Mr Jaafari for half an hour and then travelled to Iraq’s southern Al Muthanna province, where 450 Australian troops are helping train Iraqi security forces and protecting Japanese military engineers working on reconstruction efforts.
(Via Wheels128)
DESTRUCTION OF WESTERN IDEALS ADVOCATED
The Melbourne Age is deeply concerned about Hizb ut-Tahrir recruiting in Australia:
A radical Islamic group linked to the London bombings, and outlawed in British universities and across the Middle East, has launched an underground recruitment campaign aimed at Muslim youth in Sydney.
The group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which describes suicide bombers as martyrs and openly advocates the destruction of Western ideals, held its second meeting behind closed doors in western Sydney on Friday night.
This concern may be more believable had The Age not previously published an opinion piece by an unrepentent member of Hizb ut-Tharir. Mark Steyn has more on the editor of Hizb ut-Theage and Western apologistas:
Bomb us, and we agonise over the “root causes” (that is, what we did wrong). Decapitate us, and our politicians rush to the nearest mosque to declare that “Islam is a religion of peace”. Issue bloodcurdling calls at Friday prayers to kill all the Jews and infidels, and we fret that it may cause a backlash against Muslims. Behead sodomites and mutilate female genitalia, and gay groups and feminist groups can’t wait to march alongside you denouncing Bush, Blair and Howard. Murder a schoolful of children, and our scholars explain that to the “vast majority” of Muslims “jihad” is a harmless concept meaning “decaf latte with skimmed milk and cinnamon sprinkles”.
Until the London bombings. Something about this particular set of circumstances - British subjects, born and bred, weaned on chips, fond of cricket, but willing to slaughter dozens of their fellow citizens - seems to have momentarily shaken the multiculturalists out of their reveries. Hitherto, they’ve taken a relaxed view of the more, ah, robust forms of cultural diversity - Sydney gang rapes, German honour killings - but Her Britannic Majesty’s suicide bombers have apparently stiffened even the most jelly-spined lefties.
“Momentarily” is right. Watch ‘em quickly return to a “relaxed view”.
WHEN INANIMATE OBJECTS ATTACK
The Age, running an AAP item, blames public transport:
On July 7 three trains and a bus in London killed 56 people - including the four suspected suicide bombers - and wounded 700.
In related news, the World Trade Center killed nearly 3000 people on September 11.
(Via reader OneManGang)
Saturday, July 23, 2005
SEPARATED AT BIRTH
SO UNFAIR
Why, that terrible Berlusconi fellow is showing his critics in a bad light, according to the BBC:
Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi has published a book of insults thrown at him by the left-wing opposition.
Berlusconi ti odio (I hate you Berlusconi) is an apparent attempt by the PM to show his critics in a bad light, correspondents say.
The 500 entries include megalomaniac, extremist, bandit and drunken hooligan.
Only 500? John Howard gets that many insults in an average edition of the Melbourne Age. Speaking of the PM, Vancouver-based Angus Reid Consultants has a global scoop:
Howard is expected to face a leadership challenge from treasurer Peter Costello in March 2006 ...
Someone tell the inmates at Margo Kingston’s yourdemocracy.net! They’ll be ecstatic; maybe they’ll even begin campaigning for Costello. Although pointing out Howard’s popularity might not be the cleverest tactic:
