Friday, January 27, 2006
NAME CUT
John Birmingham last week in the Sydney Morning Herald:
He revels in the bile directed at him for his relentless assaults on Greenpeace, the ALP, John Kerry, the ABC, arts grants recipients, grieving war mum Cindy Sheehan, human shields in Baghdad, Phillip Adams, global warming doom-mongers, The Age editor-in-chief Andrew Jaspan and clueless pop stars. “A freakin’ smorgasbord!” as he puts it.
And John Birmingham in The Age today:
He revels in the bile directed at him for his relentless assaults on Greenpeace, the ALP, John Kerry, the ABC, arts grants recipients, grieving war mum Cindy Sheehan, human shields in Baghdad, Phillip Adams, global warming doom-mongers and clueless pop stars. “A freakin’ smorgasbord!” as he puts it.
A smorgasbord—but now with one missing ingredient! Jaspan is apparently very sensitive.
TOKEN JEW
Antony Loewenstein, January 15:
I was recently appointed to the Board of Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle Eastern and North African Studies. This was due to a number of board members, and staff at Macquarie, expressing support for my work. I was told they wanted to attract journalists, rather than just academics, to the board.
Dr Andrew Vincent, director of Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, in the Australian Jewish News, January 27 (no link available):
We wanted a Jewish person on the board. We didn’t have any Jews on the board and it seemed to be an absence.
So Antony was appointed because he was a Jew! Given he doesn’t believe in Jewish entitlement, I expect Loewenstein will take the honourable course and resign.
(In the article, Vincent is further quoted condemning Loewenstein with cruelly faint praise: “He was a fairly well qualified person ...”)
MODO REVEALS CONCEALMENT
Maureen Dowd on George W. Bush:
Everything that has happened in America has to do with Bush and his relationship with his father. I don’t think anyone denies this whole thing is oedipal.
Everything that has happened? Interesting theory, Dr. MoDo. And nobody denies your oedipal theory? Gal should get out more often. Dowd on novelist Kathryn Harrison:
Of course, I wouldn’t have anything new to say to a woman whose book is about a three-year affair she had with her dad.
Imagine if she’d had an affair with Bush’s dad; MoDo would have imploded. Dowd on Judy Miller:
I was writing about WMDs for five years and I always knew the role Judy was playing but I never said it.
Well, that’s interesting. Blood on your hands, Maureen!
WARMING PREDICTED
The world is ending! No, really:
In its 4.5 billion years, Earth has evolved from its hot, violent birth to the celebrated watery blue planet that stands out in pictures from space. But in a new book, two noted University of Washington astrobiologists say the planet already has begun the long process of devolving into a burned-out cinder, eventually to be swallowed by the sun.
By their reckoning, Earth’s “day in the sun” has reached 4:30 a.m., corresponding to its 4.5 billion-year age. By 5 a.m., the 1 billion-year reign of animals and plants will come to an end. At 8 a.m. the oceans will vaporize. At noon – after 12 billion years – the ever-expanding sun, transformed into a red giant, will engulf the planet, melting away any evidence it ever existed and sending molecules and atoms that once were Earth floating off into space.
Better sign that Kyoto Protocol.
ATTENTION, MELBOURNE CRIMINALS
If you’re thinking of hiring lawyer Mr Lefty to argue your case, you might do well to examine his forensic courtroom technique first.
FRUMPY POLITICIAN PLAYS LONG GAME
A few on the right were excited lately by low numbers for Hillary:
Most American voters now say there’s no way they’d vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton if she runs for president in 2008 — while just 16 percent are firmly in her camp, a stunning new poll shows.
I’m as pleased by this as the next Hillary-hatin’ under-edumacated right-wing Bushopath, but it’s worth remembering that other politicians have rebounded from similarly low numbers. Our own John Howard—then opposition leader—was running at just 18 percent as preferred Prime Minister late in 1988. A little over seven years on, Howard was elected Prime Minister—and he’s been returned three times since.
Forget 2008. The 2012 US election is six years and nine months away.
President George W. Bush said on Friday the race for the White House in 2008 was wide open and called potential Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton “formidable.”
PHIL E. BUSTER
For the very latest Buster news, hit the link.
INDEFENSIBLE DEFENDED
Antony Loewenstein—“I gather strength from brave Jews”—apparently gathers even greater strength from those who would kill brave Jews:
Sooner or later, the US and its Western allies will have to learn to deal with groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. True democracy means accepting the will of the people, without interference or obstruction. The West should be worried.
Exactly why we should be worried, Loewenstein doesn’t say; presumably this “will of the people” deal isn’t as benign as it sounds. Seeing as it’s the will of the incoming Palestinian government that Jews should be killed, Loewenstein—rather than obstruct or interfere—opts instead to spin for Hamas:
It should be noted that Hamas was not running on a platform of destroying Israel or wiping Jews from the face of the earth - its charter was barely even raised during the campaign - but rather, the corruption in the Palestinian Authority and its failure in improving the conditions of the Palestinian people.
The Hamas charter—“death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes”— was barely even raised! Well, that makes everything just dandy. Not that Antony’s reading of events should necessarily be trusted; recently he announced that Israeli justice minister Tzipi Livni was a man, and this week he had this to say:
I recently commented that Jews are sometimes their own worst enemies when attempting to blindly support Israel, spewing vitriol in an attempt to defend the indefensible. We now have another specimen for examination.
That specimen? Crime novelist Andrew Klavan—an Episcopalian. Alerted to this, Antony bravely pretended to have known all along.
POLL NOT GOOD FOR IRAN
The LA Times reports:
Despite persistent disillusionment with the war in Iraq, a majority of Americans supports taking military action against Iran if that country continues to produce material that can be used to develop nuclear weapons, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.
A possessive pronoun is missing in that sentence. Before “persistent”.
Support for a potential military confrontation with Iran was strongest among Republican respondents, among whom 76% endorsed the idea. But even among Democrats, who overwhelmingly oppose the war in Iraq, 49% supported such action.
Numbers in favour of any type of military intervention might increase now that Hamas is elected. It’s all part of Rove’s plan ...
Thursday, January 26, 2006
FATAH BLOWN AWAY
Elections in the US are sometimes won in the Bible belt. This may the first election on earth to be won by the suicide belt:
The Islamic militant group Hamas swept to victory over the long-dominant Fatah faction on Thursday in the Palestinian parliamentary election, a political earthquake that could bury chances for peacemaking with Israel.
Could? Could? This is a Reuters piece, so you expect the following:
Hamas’s charter commits it to Israel’s eventual destruction, but its armed wing has largely respected a truce negotiated by Abbas and Egypt nearly a year ago ... The Islamic group’s charity network in the impoverished Gaza Strip and in the West Bank has also boosted its popularity.
Be alert for reports of Palestinian deaths during celebrations—and also for victory-starved leftoids to claim the result as some sort of political triumph. The right may have won Canada and Australia and the US and Germany, but we’ve won ... er ... some place that isn’t a state! Anticipate widespread Bush-blaming, too, although that goes without saying.
UPDATE. Early blogger reaction ...
* Edward Copeland: “Uh-oh.”
* Konami Senchou: “This is incredibly interesting ... and by interesting, I mean scary.”
* Laurence Simon: “This makes two entities sworn to Israel’s destruction midwifed by Carter’s oblivious guardianship: the Islamic Republic of Iran and a Hamas-run Palestinian Authority.”
* Damian Penny: “If Israel wants to build that wall a little bit higher, and make the dreaded ‘checkpoints’ a little more strict, I can’t blame them.”
* Mike Jericho: “Does this mean - officially - that leftists have to stop saying that in Islam, terrorists and their supporters are a ‘small minority of extremists’? Because this outcome would kinda prove that I’ve been right all along.”
* Patrick Belton reports from Hamasville: “It’s not clear anyone wanted this, least of all Hamas, who in assuming the administration of the Palestinian national authority’s creaking and often corrupt bureaucracy single-handed in a moment when its sole lifeline of European and other international support appears threatened, may just have stumbled into the biggest molasses patch the Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah has ever faced.” (Via PJ Media)
* Mazzie: “The people of Palestine just voted into power a political party that does not mince words when it comes to Israel: they want them all dead, obliterated, destroyed. I’m just stunned. And scared.”
* Ed Morrissey: “Unless someone can show widespread voter fraud on behalf of Hamas, the Palestinians should be judged by the choices they have made this week. They have chosen war and the annihilation of Israel over the two-state solution favored publicly (if not fervently) by Fatah.”
UPDATE II. The The Bush blaming begins:
Chalk another one up on your list of miserable failures. You and your neocon pals in Israel have failed to marginalize Hamas and now you’re faced with only two options. All your demands on the Palestinian Authority, the almost insurmountable obstacles you placed in their way to a sovereign state, have come back to bite you in the ass.
No celebration deaths yet, but it can’t be long:
After the exit poll results were announced, supporters of both Fatah and Hamas claimed victory, firing guns in the air to celebrate in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In Gaza City, banner-waving Fatah supporters fired rifles out of car windows and honked car horns as they drove through the streets. There were similar scenes in Ramallah.
Guess what isn’t on the agenda?
“Negotiation with Israel is not on our agenda,” said Mushir al-Masri, who won election in his home district in the northern Gaza Strip. “Recognising Israel is not on the agenda either.”
UPDATE III. A helpful guide to Hamas, from Al Jazeera:
The Hamas Covenant cites the long-discredited anti-Semitic fraud, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, describing it as “the embodiment of the Zionist plan to usurp Palestine”. Hamas dismisses the Freemasons, Lions Club, and the Rotarians as organizations promoting “the interest of Zionism.” It accuses those organizations, and the “Zionist invasion” in general, of being “behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds.”
UPDATE IV. Global response is chilly:
President Bush has said the US won’t deal with Hamas unless it renounces violence. That thought is being seconded by European leaders. Britain says that while it recognizes “electoral mandates,” the British government can only do business with people who renounce terrorism. Denmark’s foreign minister says Hamas “must stop the terror.”
But Jimmy is hopeful:
Former US President Jimmy Carter said today that he hoped that the Hamas Islamic group would act “responsibly” now that it appears to have been elected to power in Palestinian elections.
Pollsters got it wrong:
Palestinian pollsters were at a loss Thursday to explain their failure to predict the Islamic Hamas’ resounding victory in legislative elections.
UPDATE V. “Freedom fighters or terrorists?” asks Britain’s Channel 4. “Call them what you will ...” Very well. I choose “terrorists”.
UPDATE VI. The New York Times reports:
Israel calls Hamas a terrorist group and has always refused to deal with the organization.
Not true. Israel has on occasion dealt very effectively with Hamas.
UPDATE VII. Indonesia’s Mujahedin Council is delighted:
A Indonesian Muslim group on Thursday hailed the victory of the Islamist movement Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary election.
“This is phenomenal,” said Fauzan Al Anshori, the spokesman for the Indonesian Mujahedin Council (MMI), an umbrella organisation for groups seeking to impose Islamic law in Indonesia.
ABOB HAMZA AL-MARGO
Margo Kingston: “The fundamentalist Zionist lobby controls politics and the media in the US and Australia.”
Bob Ellis: “Terrorism in Britain these last thirty years has killed fewer people than Dr Harold Shipman, and we are still not shooting tall, bearded doctors on sight.”
What manner of creature might express a combination of these views from Ellis and Margo? Behold hook-handed psycho-cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, currently on trial in London:
Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri has claimed the Foreign Office and the media are controlled by Jews ...
Asked by David Perry, prosecuting, if he meant that the Foreign Office was controlled by Jews he said: “Yes.”
“And the media?” Mr Perry asked.
“Yes,” replied Mr Abu Hamza. “If a doctor kills 250 of his patients there is not a single word about his religion.”
He was referring to killer Harold Shipman, he added.
MAN STABBED, BLOCKED, STOMPED
The things you’ve got to do to get arrested in Sydney:
A magistrate has grilled police about why they released two men allegedly involved in a reprisal attack immediately after the Cronulla Beach riot, in which a “hapless victim” was left with a fractured eye socket after being set upon by a carload of men.
Mohammed Eid, 19, and Wael Tahan, 20, were on bail for other offences at the time of the alleged attack. They were detained by police in the early hours of December 12, but were released after having their clothes taken for forensic examination and being interviewed.
They. Were. Released. And what were the alleged circumstances which initially caused police to detain them?
Both men, along with two others still being sought by police, are accused of an attack on a Blakehurst man in Hume Road, Cronulla. A police report alleges the pair stabbed the victim and bashed him around the head with a block of concrete, before stomping on his head and body.
This is bewildering, and not just to us reading about it:
The magistrate refused bail, saying he was “bewildered” by the decision not to charge them at the time. He said he would have refused them bail then.
Hilarious line from Eid’s lawyer, who claims the arrests have since taken place because ethnic crime is “a political hot potato”. Which more likely explains why the pair weren’t arrested in the first place.
BIG PICTURE
A note arrives from Jules Crittenden, our man at the Boston Herald:
We held Britain, America and Australia. We’ve retaken Canada. Germany has surrendered. France is on the ropes. Osama bin Laden wants a truce. Perhaps most astonishing of all, the BBC has been forced to acknowledge that Afghans and Iraqis are among the most optimistic people in the world. As an aside, Americans are happy that George Bush is tapping terror suspects phones without warrants. Clearly a quagmire of disastrous proportions.
By the way, to the best of my knowledge ABC’s Stephen Crittenden is no relative.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
JACKSON WEIRDING OUT BAHRAINIS
The Arab News reports:
Sarah F., an 18-year-old student majoring in English Literature at King Saud University, was in Bahrain with her cousin, Aliyah, when they came face to face with the King of Controversy. Only this time, he was completely veiled from head to toe in an abaya!
“My cousin and I were at a music store in Seef mall browsing music CDs, when a woman came over to her friend and pointed toward Jackson and told her that was Michael Jackson and not a woman,” said Sarah …
Jackson in drag is not an easy target to identify. As Sarah found out that not only did Jackson cross-dress he did it in such a lady like manner that it was very hard to tell him apart.
JOYLESS JOY
Unhappy reaction to the Canadian election:
I think that this is awful, just awful. I am a native of the United States and I always looked up to Canada. How did this man, a conservative, get elected. How? This will change everything! I feel bad for Canada.
Joy Chaney, New Brunswick, NJ
A saner analysis is available from Mark Steyn (whose column, among other attributes, features the first known usage of the phrase right-wing death-beast in connection with any Canadian politician).