Posted by Ian on
January 12, 2007
Foot in mouth (yet again!)
The Muslims in Australia would do themselves a great favour by telling their leader, Sheik Taj-el-din al Hilaly, to keep his mouth shut. Appearing on Egyptian television, he said such gems as:
“There is no freedom and no democracy [for Muslims] - the most dishonest and unjust people are Western people and the English in particular.”
and:
“Anglo-Saxons came to Australia in chains, while we paid our way and came in freedom. We are more Australian than them. Australia is not an Anglo-Saxon country - Islam has deep roots in Australian soil that were there before the English arrived,”
He also claimed that racial prejudice was the reason for the 55 year jail sentence for gang rapist Bilal Skaf …no doubt he has sympathy for the K brothers too, never mind the fact that they are just evil slugs:
“A young man can meet a woman, smile, arrange a meeting, and then end up in jail for 65 years. (Bilal Skaf was sentenced to 55 years, reduced to 38 on appeal.)
“He was judged in the name of bin Laden. He deserved to be jailed, no question, but for 65 years? This is not really about the crime, it is about racial prejudice.”
He mentioned a recent case in Australia in which a man was jailed for “forcing himself” on his wife.
“Three-and-a-half years! I mean, it’s a distasteful act, but …”
This of course all comes a few months after his comments about immodestly dressed women being akin to “uncovered meat”.
Just to refresh your memory, this is what he had to say then:
“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?”
“The uncovered meat is the problem.”
“If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (islamic headdress), no problem would have occurred.”
Right, whatever …. how about if the men were taught decent attitudes towards women, and to keep their dicks in their pants, no problem would have occurred?
Just as surely as night follows day, a Keysar Trad apology, and claims of the Sheik being misinterpreted or misconstrued, follow his latest comments. Trad, president of the Australian Islamic Friendship Society, said:
“You can see some of his comments are clear generalisations that would certainly not be his views,”
and claimed they were a:
“slip of the tongue”.
Sheikh Hilaly sure has a slippery tongue, always having accidents making comments he didn’t mean!
The Muslim community in Australia would do well to cut the guy loose, he is just an outright liability for them. They’ve made noises disowning him before but never followed through on it. The sensible thing to do would be to ditch him and present a more reasonable, less error prone (thats being generous to him, I actually don’t think his comments are errors) and pro-Australian face of Islam in Australia.
Of course, many politicians expressed their opinion on the Sheikh’s latest remarks, ranging from dismissing them as the ramblings of an idiot to telling him to fuck off if he doesn’t like it in Australia. The best came from Kevin Rudd, who had this to say:
“Shiekh Hilali increasingly strikes me as being several sandwiches short of a picnic,” he said.
“When it comes to Sheikh Hilali’s remarks they are just increasingly laughable.
“Sheikh Hilali is complaining about a lack of democracy back in Australia.
“If Sheikh Hilali doesn’t believe there’s enough democracy in Australia, why doesn’t he stay in Egypt and not come back? Solve a big problem for us back home as well.”
Bullseye!
Technorati Tags: Sheik Taj-elidin al Hilaly, Australian Muslims, Islam, Bilal Skaf, gang rapes, uncovered meat, rape blamed on women, Keysar Trad, Kevin Rudd
Posted by Ian on
January 11, 2007
Amazing and surprising
John Howard agrees with George Bush on his new Iraq strategy.
Technorati Tags: John Howard, George Bush, Iraq
Posted by Ian on
January 10, 2007
Things we do for love
Angela Liati, former partner of the late car dealer Peter Warren, certainly was dedicated. She was awarded $125,000 in a court case after their relationship broke up (this was in the mid-1990’s), for admirably fulfilling her domestic role by:
“putting his shoes on when he was too fat to do it, cutting his toenails, working the stereo and removing crumbs from his butter.”
Ain’t love sweet? See what you can look forward to when you get old.
Ms Liati is the latest candidate to be the driver of former judge Marcus Einfeld’s car when it got a speeding fine early last year. Mr Einfeld got off the speeding ticket when he told a court that an American academic, Teresa Brennan, had been driving his car at the time. The problem was it later emerged that she had died 3 years earlier. Mr Einfeld tried to weasel out of this by saying another woman with a similar name had been driving the car. Ms Liati has now emerged saying she was in the car with a Teresa Brennan on the day in question and may in fact have been dricing at the time they were caught on speed camera. Interestingly, Ms Liati says she does not know Mr Einfeld, nor is she sure of the spelling of the other woman’s name.
I bet Marcus Einfeld wishes he’d just copped the $77 fine and the points for the speeding ticket. Hell of a lot of trouble to go to to get off such a piddly fine! And this latest excuse is as fishy as hell … anyone think she’s been put up to take one for the team?
Anyway, if you’d like a drive of a nice Lexus, just rock up to Einfeld’s house and ask to borrow it …seems like he doesn’t mind lending his car out to all and sundry.
Technorati Tags: love, domestic duties, Angela Liati, Marcus Einfeld, speeding ticket, bullshit stories
Posted by Ian on
January 9, 2007
Let’s call a spade a spade
An opinion piece by Paul Sheehan in the Sydney Morning Herald this week got me thinking why is it that police and much of our media shies away from providing meaningful descriptions of suspects who have allegedly committed crimes. Witness the Andrew Farrugia killing recently …notice how there was no mention of the boys arrested being aboriginal, except for an oblique reference to their ties in the aboriginal community used as an excuse for them to attempt to get bail - and even this didn’t get a mention at all in some media.
Sheehan refers to the description issued by police in the murder of Sione Matevesi last weekend in Sydney:
“Police are looking for a group of men described as wearing dark clothing.”
And then we have all the crimes committed by the notorious “men of middle eastern appearance” often muddied as “men of middle eastern/mediterranean appearance”.
What is more important, protecting the racial sensitivities of some groups, or giving the community meaningful information to enable identification of crime suspects? Why not use ethnicity as a descriptor - it is generally reasonably meaningful. People have a fair idea of what someone who is Aboriginal, or Asian, or Arab, or Southern European, or black African looks like. Use all the available information to fully describe suspects. Stuff any concern over sensitivities of any racial group about being identified as criminals!
All this namby-pamby tip-toeing around calling a spade a spade, and mincing words to avoid giving offence causes more problems than it solves. If there is a problem with Lebanese youths being over-represented in the ranks of criminal thugs, deal with the problem, not deny they exist, or are part of some other generic broader based problem. If aboriginal youths roaming drunk around country towns are a problem, deal with it, not deny it and hope it goes away - likewise things like domestic violence and sexual abuse in aboriginal communities …admit the problems exist and deal with them. In all these situations, dealing with them is inevitably going to involve a mix of punitive and encouragement strategies. For example in juvenile crimes, I think it would be more beneficial for the community, criminal and their family to come down tough on them right from the first instances of petty crime, teach them a lesson before they graduate from petty criminal to serious one, but use their jail time for a real attempt at rehabilitation, with intensive case work on both the prisoner and their family environment outside jail. The reluctance to jail young criminals stems from jails being very disfunctional places, where the main thing learnt is often how to be a better criminal. This needs to be changed - not sure how, but I’m sure it can be done with sufficient effort and resources applied, and new ideas.
Technorati Tags: Andrew Farrugia, aboriginals, middle eastern appearance, political correctness, juvenile crime, corrections system
Posted by Ian on
January 5, 2007
Happy birthday Dad!
My father turned 80 yesterday.
Still going strong, should have a few years left in him still. He is the most calm, patient man I know and its obviously been good for his health. All the more remarkable is that he had to retire from work 23 years ago after having a heart attack (on holiday in Far North Queensland of all places …only time I’ve been to Cairns, when I was the dutiful child and made a quick trip up there from Sydney to help him and my mother while he was in hospital and get back home.)
Pity I didn’t inherit much any of his patience and tolerance. Got mine from mum.
Posted by Ian on
January 5, 2007
Things don’t always go better with Coke
Occupational hazard of trying to smuggle cocaine I guess.
Can’t say I have any sympathy for him … he should have known the risks he was taking. He took a gamble which might have had a big payoff (whether for him or someone else) and fucked up big time. Instant justice, busted, convicted, sentenced and executed, all by himself.
Lesson for smugglers. Use these:
not these:
Posted by Ian on
January 5, 2007
Don’t want to gloat, but …
Australia won the Ashes cricket series. 5-0, the first clean sweep of a series against England since 1921.
This win restores the cricket world to its rightful state, after England won the Ashes in 2005, taking them off Australia for the first time in 16 years. The way England played this series, it looks likely they won’t be seeing the trophy for a few years again. Whatever gains England made in 2005, they are back to their bad old ways now - in particular I thought their bowling has been extremely poor all summer, unable to maintain even a hint of sustained pressure on the Australian batsmen.
The end of this series marks the end of the careers of 2 real champions in Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, and a top notch batsman in Justin Langer. Their absence will be felt, but new players will no doubt step up to take their places in the team. Australia is just so far ahead of the pack, and has been for years, that whatever slump they experience with the loss of such great players, will still most likely leave them out in front. Remember England were the 2nd ranked team, and they were just massacred.
What was that series result again? 5-0, 5-0, 5-0, 5-0 ………..
Technorati Tags: cricket, Ashes, test series, Australia, England, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Justin Langer
Posted by Ian on
January 3, 2007
Teenage criminals
I’ve been reading of the bashing murder of 17 year old Andrew Farrugia by 2 15 year olds in Griffith, NSW on New Years Eve (there may be a third offender involved, this has been suggested by media reports, but no-one else arrested yet). So what is it that motivates young boys to think it an acceptable thing to do is to headbutt and then king-hit from behind, anyone, in the street, in front of what seems to have been a large crowd. They seem to have held onto some grudge from a party earlier in the night, but I ask again, what civilised person can’t let things go, and must act out as violently as these boys allegedly did. What sort of values do these kids have, and where did they learn them from?
I’ve also got to say that I don’t agree with the names of violent juvenile offenders being suppressed. These guys are violent thugs, have committed big league adult crimes and should be dealt with as adults by the justice system. Fair enough to protect the interests of minors committing petty crimes to a point, but once the criminality becomes habitual, or serious, the concessions made to kids making foolish mistakes should be forfeited by the offenders, and they be dealt with like big boys. Big enough to choose serious or persistent crime, rather than a foolish kid making a stupid mistake, big enough to face adult consequences. The fact that they are old enough and criminal enough in this case that one of the reasons for the magistrate refusing bail was concerned with allegations of interfering with witnesses should also be taken into account.
Interestingly, my immediate comment to my wife on hearing 2 15 year olds arrested was “bet they are aboriginal, parents probably too busy stoned or drunk to look after them properly” was confirmed by what was said in their bail application today - which was argued in part on the basis that they had strong ties in the Aboriginal community. Clearly those ties weren’t strong enough them from going around late at night looking for a fight. Unfortunately, when violence in country towns happens, its a fairly safe bet that aboriginals are going to be involved, just like when a wife is murdered you can bet on the husband, likewise when kids are killed, its the husband …. and the stereotype I cant help myself thinking which is young guy + flash car = drug dealer (and/or wanker).
Technorati Tags: Andrew Farrugia, Griffith, bashing, murder, juvenile crime, aboriginals
