Saturday, November 25, 2006
OSAMA - ZIONIST PUPPET!
Pakistan’s Lt Col (R) M. Zaman Malik:
In Osama Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda network, the Zionists had crafted a perfect tool ... Osama was an established puppet in Mossad’s and CIA’s hands; on him rested the entire cobweb of the Phoenix’s destruction.
Lt Col (R) M. Zaman Malik also believes the following about September 11:
The remote control technology, Global HAWK, was used to wrest the flight controls of the four “hijacked” planes from the pilots and direct the planes to their targets.
Just as well the Lt Col is (R).
UPDATE. The real conspiracy is that Australians are behind everything.
SELECTIVE SCOTT
Burger King lothario Scott Ritter believes the world should be more aware of the bloodshed and suffering in Iraq:
“We are so far removed from the death and horrific violence that is involved in war,” he said. “It’s almost not real to most of us. We say we support the troops, but that’s easy to say. We need to understand the reasons why these men and women are over there fighting and dying ... “
To quote Ritter once again, “This ain’t trivial, ladies and gentlemen. This is life and death.”
Ritter wasn’t always so eager to expose Iraq’s violent reality. Here’s Ritter in 2003, talking about a Saddam-run children’s prison:
The prison in question is at the General Security Services headquarters, which was inspected by my team in Jan. 1998. It appeared to be a prison for children — toddlers up to pre-adolescents — whose only crime was to be the offspring of those who have spoken out politically against the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was a horrific scene. Actually I’m not going to describe what I saw there because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I’m waging peace.
So much for “needing to understand the reasons why men and women are over there fighting and dying”. To shut down toddler jails, for one thing. Still, the kids may have been better off there than on one of Ritter’s underage play-dates.
PIKE SPIKED
The usual abysmal result for Victorian Liberals in today’s election. This is amusing, though:
The Greens appear to have snatched the seat of Melbourne from [Labor health minister] Bronwyn Pike.
Bronwyn’s grant-fed circus friends will be distraught:
The Greens are also a chance to win in Richmond. Melbourne and Richmond are probably the two most densely-populated and urbanised seats in the entire state. How come Green voters never live where it’s green?
UPDATE. Much more on the Victorian election from Andrew Landeryou, who reports that Pike may not be spiked.
NOVEL DUMPED
Someone alert Antony Loewenstein! There’s been a major silencing:
A leading children’s publisher has dumped a novel because of political sensitivity over Islamic issues.
Scholastic Australia pulled the plug on the Army of the Pure after booksellers and librarians said they would not stock the adventure thriller for younger readers because the “baddie” was a Muslim terrorist.
A prominent literary agent has slammed the move as “gutless”, while the book’s author, award-winning novelist John Dale, said the decision was “disturbing because it’s the book’s content they are censoring”.
“There are no guns, no bad language, no sex, no drugs, no violence that is seen or on the page,” Dale said, but because two characters are Arabic-speaking and the plot involves a mujaheddin extremist group, Scholastic’s decision is based “100 per cent (on) the Muslim issue”.
As LGF points out, get a load of what they are willing to publish:
This decision is at odds with the recent publication of Richard Flanagan’s bestselling The Unknown Terrorist and Andrew McGahan’s Underground in which terrorists are portrayed as victims driven to extreme acts by the failings of the West.
The Unknown Terrorist is dedicated to David Hicks and describes Jesus Christ as “history’s first ... suicide bomber”.
In McGahan’s Underground, Muslims are executed en masse or herded into ghettos in an Australia rendered unrecognisable by the war on terror.
Scholastic’s general manager, publishing, Andrew Berkhut, said the company had canvassed “a broad range of booksellers and library suppliers”, who expressed concern that the book featured a Muslim terrorist.
“They all said they would not stock it,” he said, “and the reality is if the gatekeepers won’t support it, it can’t be published.”
These are the same types who whine all the time about “censorship” and the “crushing of dissent”. Andrew Bolt reviews the current state of play:
• Newspapers will not publish cartoons of Muhammad for fear of riots.
• Film scripts such The Sum of all Fears are rewritten to change the villains from Muslims to South Africans and Germans.
• Acts that joke about Muslims are banned from the Melbourne Comedy Festival.
• The Pope is damned for quoting a Byzantine emperor’s warning about Islam’s jihadist culture.
• Two Christian pastors who preach at a church seminar about violence and Islam are convicted in Victoria for hate speech.
• a Dutch director who makes a film criticising Islam has his head nearly sawn off by an Islamist.
• a best-selling author who writes a novel satirising the Koran is condemned to death by Iranian ayatollahs, and has one translater murdered and another stabbed, but finds few Western authors rally to defend his right to free speech.
• a performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo in Germany is cancelled because one scene shows the severed head of Muhammad.
• SBS destroys a tape of the Mufti of Australia calling suicide bombers “heroes” to stop viewers getting the “wrong” idea.
Hit Andrew’s site for links within the above.
SERIOUS THING ROLLING
Senator Andrew Bartlweet ponders media treatment of Kim Beazley:
There’s lots of fluttering in the media at the moment about whether or not Kim Beazley’s leadership of the ALP is safe. There are some posts on a few of the Australian political blogs that are fairly dismissive about the substance of the story. Tim Dunlop at Blogocracy says it is “purest waffle”.
Well, that should reassure big Kim. Speaking of pure waffle:
A defiant Kim Beazley says he is the best campaigner federal Labor has ...
As Mr Beazley faces a difficult final parliamentary fortnight of the year, with critics intent on destabilisation, he told The Age that the five weeks of the election campaign was the “time that really counts as a leader” and was “50 per cent of your task”.
“That is when you’ve got to sustain credibility as an alternative prime minister. There’s nobody in our show who can beat me at that.”
There is, however, someone in the other show who has beaten him twice. Hint: he’s also beaten Paul Keating. And Mark Latham.
Mr Beazley defended failing to reshuffle his front bench and promote Peter Garrett, saying the use of Mr Garrett was the real issue people spoke about — and he was already being used extensively.
“If you put him in a single portfolio … that’s what he sticks in. But we can use Peter Garrett in climate change issues, on nuclear issues, on labour market issues — he’s got a very high profile with the ‘tradies’. We can use him in economic portfolio-type areas where a bit of specialised attention is needed. And we can use him in community politics.”
Yes; Garrett has become wonderfully flexible since abandoning his previous beliefs.
Mr Beazley also explained his gaffe in mixing up Rove McManus and Karl Rove by saying he had been “focusing on what I wanted to say about a relationship and a love affair which I find inspirational”. As well, he had been following the American election.
How do you know when Kim Beazley is chewing gum? He stops walking.
Despite what has been going on, Mr Beazley insisted there was “substantial unity of purpose” in the party. He said the usual argument about product differentiation had been answered emphatically. “We’ve now gone poles apart from (the Coalition) on key issues like the environment, global warming, nuclear power, industrial relations ... “
As an issue, the environment cost the ALP votes in 2004. Global warming is a joke. Australians are increasingly receptive to the idea of nuclear power. Unemployment is at a 30-year low.
People were not asking any more what Labor stood for but saying “stick to your guns”.
Please do.
A Beazley critic said yesterday: “I think Beazley is in a lot of trouble. This is a very serious thing rolling out.”
Friday, November 24, 2006
OUTLANDISH BELIEFS
Christopher Pearson continues his examination of modern religious trends. On a similar theme, here’s Mark Steyn:
More and more, I wonder whether lefties mean it, any of it. Take Rosie O’Donnell. The other day, one of her co-hosts on “The View” was musing on current events and opined, “If you take radical Islam and you want to talk about what is going on there you have to …”
And at this point Rosie interrupted. “One second. Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have a separation of church and state.”
Does she really believe that? That “radical Christianity” is “just as threatening” as “radical Islam”?
A minor point of difference between Christianity and radical Islam: one flies jets into buildings, and the other simply declines to fly:
British Airways has announced that it will review its policy on uniforms following the controversy over its suspension of a check-in worker for wearing a small Christian cross.
Willie Walsh, the airline’s chief executive, said it had become clear that its policy would need to change in the light of widespread criticism surrounding the case of Nadia Eweida.
The airline had faced the prospect of a boycott by international travellers after an internet website was set up to co-ordinate an angry response to the suspension of Ms Eweida. A Church of England vicar went on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to urge people to shun the airline because he said it effectively discriminated against Christians.
It’s terrorism, is what it is! Earlier mention of this case here.
ATTACKER SNAPPED
Blogger Jackie Danicki endures a vile assault on the London Underground; here’s a picture of her attacker.
FIRST TEST
Glenn McGrath’s torture of Kevin Pietersen is finally ended; England 4/78 chasing 602.
UPDATE. Lee has Flintoff caught behind for 0. England 5/79.
UPDATE II. Isn’t McGrath meant to be too old or something? He’s just nailed Jones with a perfect inswinger. England 6/126.
UPDATE III. Could’ve had one more: Giles dropped at slip off McGrath.
UPDATE IV. A hard-earned 50 to Ian Bell; took him 155 deliveries. Giles looks clueless.
UPDATE V. Bell out, tricked by wily Stuart Clark. England 7/149.
UPDATE VI. Clark snares Hoggard for nothing. England 8/149.
UPDATE VII. Five wickets to old man McGrath (his tenth five-wicket haul against England). Harmison gone for nothing. England 9/154.
UPDATE VIII. Elderly McGrath finishes with 6/50 and delights the crowd by hobbling from the ground geezer-style. England all out for 157. Australia doesn’t enforce the follow-on.
UPDATE IX. McGrath to Ian Healy: “It was a walk in the park.” Matt Hayden is currently batting in a manner likely to cause someone physical injury.
UPDATE X. Hayden, as predicted, has just smashed a ball into Steve Harmison’s wrist.
UPDATE XI. Waiting for the third umpire’s decision on a Hayden run-out ... OUT for 37. Australia’s lead with nine wickets left: 514. Harmison receiving treatment on the field.
UPDATE XII. One thousand runs in 2006 for Ricky Ponting ... and nine thousand career runs.
UPDATE XIII. Kevin Pietersen just scored four runs. For Australia.
COLUMN TRIPLETS
A new column at the Daily Telegraph. Please also enjoy columns from cycle-loathing Anita Quigley and ex-afflicted Joe Hildebrand.
UPDATE. The Daily Telegraph—your home of Australian intellectualism!
UPDATE II. More on Sydney’s selfish cycle people.
TURKEY TURKEY TURKEY!
Our golden bird of glory flies ever onward, this time courtesy of David Benjamin:
Here are my choices for the Top Five Pseudo-Events of the Bush regime.
5. Plastic Turkey for the Troops. On the first Thanksgiving of the Iraq war, Dubya surprised the troops with a turkey dinner. Except, well, the turkey, which photographed beautifully, was fake. And Dubya didn’t actually hang around for dinner. Nice uniform, though.
David is a novelist and journalist, originally from Madison, who now lives and works in Paris. Hooray for him!
(Via Englisher Peter Briffa, who adds, mistakenly: “Pietersen will kick Shane Warne’s ass, you know.”)
Thursday, November 23, 2006
OLDSTER EXPLODES
Well, I guess it’s more exciting than bingo:
A Palestinian grandmother blew herself up in the Gaza Strip, lightly wounding three Israeli soldiers, in the first suicide attack claimed by Hamas in almost two years.
The mother of nine and grandmother of 41 became the oldest Palestinian suicide bomber at the age of 57, approaching troops operating to curb daily rocket attacks, the army said.
Her son is delighted:
“We are really happy. It’s a big operation. She told us last night that she would do a suicide operation. She prepared her clothes for that operation and we are proud.
“‘I don’t want anything, only to die a martyr.’ That’s what she said.”
WIND POWER RANGERS
Reader Randy V. emails: “Some U.S. environmentalist wacko group is selling wind power cards through a lefty national grocer chain. You don’t actually get any wind power delivered ‘directly to your home’; you get a ‘credit’ that ensures that wind power is ‘added onto the national power grid on your behalf.’ Does it reduce your utlity bill? Uh, no. But it does double as a fridge magnet!”
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
WATCHING THE WATCHERS WATCHED
Lee Russ, of Watching the Watchers, has a fictional feathered friend:
Until chaos had infested the country, driving hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to leave and many thousands of others to relocate within Iraq, we were happy with an occasional plastic turkey photo-op and a ham handed egomaniac named Rumsfeld in charge of our military operations …
Oh, and here’s a cute headline from those legendary fake-spotters at CBS:
President Bush Pardons A Real Turkey
RUN A MINUTE
A lively first hour of the Ashes.
UPDATE. And a rockin’ first day.
HOMAGE PAID
Billy Ray Cyrus adapts Keith Urban’s modified Jennifer Aniston hairdo for his own degenerate purposes. Not work safe. Not anything safe.