A great day today

Note the date at the head of this post. Nov. 4th. A great national day of decision. A great race will be decided. Millions will watch the outcome. And the outcome will make many jubilant while others will be sad or indifferent. I am referring, of course, to the Melbourne Cup, Australia's premier horserace and the one race of the year for which everyone stops in Australia. They flock to their nearest TV or glue a trannie (transistor radio) to their ear. Businesses stop. Schools stop. Factories stop. Offices stop. And even Presbyterians have been known to bet on the outcome. Due to the peculiarites of timezones, however, the race will be run on Nov. 3 in America. And the election in America on 4th, will happen on 5th in Australia. Below is a good comment written by an American last year:

On the first Tuesday of November, most people in Melbourne get the day off for the public holiday. What holiday you ask? Is it the Queens birthday? Boxing Day? Australia Day? No friends, today is a holy occasion where a little over 100,000 people dress up, get drunk, and bet on a bunch of horses as they run around a track. Basically, everyone gets the day off for a race that only lasts minutes.

This is actually a big deal here. Someone told me that teachers in grade school have the kids do "play bets" on what horse they want to win. Women seem to especially love this day as they dress up all pretty and wear funny hats as you see below. There are several contests as well at the cup including "best hat" and "best overall dressed". Today a horse named "Efficient" won the cup and the owner won a prize of $5 million dollars. I know what you are asking me now, "well who won the best hat!?!" Well, I scoured the internet and couldn't find the winner of best hat, which is the thing I was really interested in. Again, what a fun and great country. I'm in Brisbane and so didn't get the day off, but I still got to enjoy a city full of pretty girls wearing funny hats.

I have got two horses in a sweep: 19 Red Lord and 23 Barbaricus. So I will be watching the race keenly when it runs shortly.





Famous Australian weather forecaster is a warming skeptic

The Crohamhurst observatory was started by Inigo Jones in 1927 and became famous for accurate long-range weather forecasts. Jones based his forecasts on solar variability and planetary movements. It was claimed that his forecasts were not "scientific" but farmers swore by them. At one stage many Brisbane couples would not set their wedding date without first consulting Jones. After Jones's death, first Lennox Walker and then his son Haydon Walker carried on the work

The Sunshine Coast could be in line for substantial flooding over the next five months with the first of the rains only two or three days away. That's the tip from long-range weather forecaster Haydon Walker who has warned that not only will the Coast experience serious flooding, it is ill-equipped to deal with major downpours. "Look at the 1893 floods where Crohamhurst, in the hinterland, received 36 inches (914mm) overnight," he said. "If that happened now, we would all be in Moreton Bay." Coast drainage simply would not cope with such a deluge.

"I maintain that higher (population) density in coastal areas has had more impact due to run-off from subdivisions, roadways and increased roof areas," he said. Mr Walker is predicting "good strong rains" starting shortly and continuing through November, mainly from storms, with some likely to register more than 100mm or more. "They will continue good and strong in December," he said. "Going into January we will continue to get good-to-heavy rains, and cyclonic activity probably as far as the NSW border." While things should settle down a bit after that, the wet weather will return in March, Mr Walker said....

While some old-timers might describe his prediction as nothing more than a return to normal weather for the region, he disagreed. "This will be more intense than `normal'," he said. "And there will be (at least) local flooding." Mr Walker said sunspot activity, which he uses to make weather predictions, was on the increase. "Solar flares make changes to the barometric pressures." The sunspot cycles are 11.15 years, but we are moving into "a strong phase". "There's a fair bit of water coming," he said. "The fronts are here already and we can expect rain in the next two to three days."

Mr Walker said he held a sceptical view of predictions about climate change at this stage. "Until someone can show me further evidence, I am unconvinced. "I have (weather) charts from the year dot, back prior to the Industrial Revolution. "I am disgusted with what we are putting into the atmosphere but I believe the climate change debate is too politically driven."

Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) data tends to cautiously support Mr Walker's predictions, indicating the chances of exceeding average rainfall between now and March is 50%. The BOM website said the Southern Oscillation Index has been at +14 - a strong La Nina influence - pointing to more rain likelihood, with the same conditions predicted for the remainder of spring and summer.

Source






"Muslim Massacre" game



Previous comment here

The Australian Muslim community has accused the Federal Government and police of double standards over their treatment of a free online game in which the aim is to kill as many Muslims as possible. Keysar Trad, president of the Islamic Friendship Association, wrote to the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, expressing outrage over the game, Muslim Massacre, saying it teaches young people to "further hate Muslims" and encourages them to carry out "acts of discrimination, vilification or outright violence against Australian Muslims".

The game, launched as a free download on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, invites players to take control of an American "hero" and "wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons". It was created by a 22-year-old programmer going by the online handle Sigvatr, who says on his website that he is from Brisbane and works part-time as a service station attendant. Sigvatr, who claims the game is "fun and funny", is also responsible for the website spreekillers.org, which ranks real-world killing sprees based on the number of victims.

In his letter, Trad said he believed Muslim Massacre was a breach of the sedition provisions of counter terrorism laws and laws that prevent the incitement of violence against sections of Australian society. He cited the case of Belal Saadallah Khazaal, 38, from Lakemba, who was found guilty in September of making a "do it yourself terrorism guide" knowing it could be used to assist a terrorist act. Khazaal had compiled the online manual, which included an assassination hit list of prominent political figures, based on information sourced from the internet.

But the response to Trad from the Attorney-General's department was little more than a two-page explanation of Australia's content classification and racial discrimination laws and the government bodies tasked with administering them. The response noted that the game's creator "has voluntarily taken the game down from the internet". However, the game is still freely available to download from muslimmassacre.com.

Trad said the letter looked like a standardised form response and accused the Government and police of selectively applying counter-terrorism laws. He said the Khazaal case had set a precedent that should be applied to Muslim Massacre and its creator. "I could imagine what would have occurred if the game had been developed, God forbid, by a Muslim with Western people as the targets. The people would have been immediately subjected to criminal prosecution," Trad said.

The Attorney-General's Department said it was up to the Australian Federal Police to investigate whether the game breached sedition laws. Trad said he received a response from the federal police "telling me that I can complain to the Australian Communications and Media Authority if I wished". But it is unlikely ACMA can do anything to have the game removed from the net as it is not hosted on Australian servers.

Trad said he felt he was being "palmed off" to bodies such as the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which took years to investigate claims. "I do not have faith in ACMA. You may note that even though they found a certain radio station to be in breach of the code prior to the Cronulla riots, all they did was ask them to get some cultural training," he said.

British Muslim youth organisation the Ramadhan Foundation has also called for the game to be banned, saying it was "unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive". "When kids spend six hours a day on violent games, they are more likely to go outside and commit violence," the group's chief executive, Mohammed Shafiq, said.

In September, Queensland Police Minister Judy Spence said police were investigating the game to see whether it breached any legislation. No announcements relating to the case have been made since then. Comment was being sought from Queensland Police.

But even if the creator is charged, local authorities could run into trouble in trying to get the game removed from the web if it is hosted on servers located outside Australia. In 2006, the Government was powerless to remove from the internet a racist board game based on the Cronulla riots. It was eventually removed by the US-based web host, Angelfire, following extensive lobbying by anti-racism groups.

Similarly, in 2007 a game based on the Virginia Tech massacre, developed by a Sydney man, was removed by its web hosting service after the Federal Government failed to come up with a way of using its powers to have the game blocked.

However, this sort of content could be blocked in future if the Government proceeds with its controversial plans for mandatory ISP-level filters of "illegal" material

[So ACTUAL massacres by Muslims are OK but just playing at massacring Muslims is not?? Has Mr Trad condemned Osama bin Laden and his ilk? Have the hate-preaching Mullahs all been silenced?]

Source






Orthodox Jews fined and insulted for jaywalking in Melbourne

If they had been Muslims, all would have been fine, of course. You can't even laugh at Muslims, let alone be rude to them

Police are investigating allegations officers made "rude and inappropriate" remarks to Jewish women who flouted pedestrian crossing rules. Orthodox Jews are forbidden to touch anything electrical on holy days. Last month, two women were fined $57 each for crossing on a "red man" because their religion prevented them from touching the button at the crossings.

A Caulfield North woman was fined after crossing the intersection of Glen Eira and Hawthorn roads on the morning of Yom Kippur on October 9. Her $57 ticket has since been revoked. Nine days later a St Kilda East woman was fined for crossing at Hotham St and Alma Rd on October 18.

Police are now investigating the behaviour of officers who allegedly made rude and inappropriate comments to the women, and met several Jewish community leaders on October 28 to discuss the issue. Caulfield Insp Margaret Lewis expressed regret and concern over the incidents. She said the police investigation would take about a month.

Jewish Community Council of Victoria executive director Geoffrey Zygier said all Melbourne synagogues would be consulted to find out which intersections should have an automatic function on the Sabbath and Jewish festivals. State government, local government or the synagogues themselves would pay, he said.

Mr Zygier said he accepts police have a duty to look after public safety. "At the same time the Jewish community has religious obligations," Mr Zygier said. "We live in a multi-cultural society. "If we can make changes without inconveniencing others, I think that's fair enough."

Source






ACADEMIC "ANTI-ZIONISM" IN AUSTRALIA

When it comes to radical trends including anti-Zionism, Australian campuses are like most other Western universities, only even more extreme. The ubiquity of left-wing politics in Australian academia means that writing about campus Israel-phobia requires discrimination since the range of subjects is so large. The focus here will be on just a few of Australia's most egregious academic anti-Zionists.

Evan Jones

The most virulent is the University of Sydney's Evan Jones. Although his field is economics, he maintains a political web-log called Alert and Alarmed.[1] Its name is a play on the slogan of an Australian government public awareness campaign on terrorism-"alert, but not alarmed." Jones detests the Bush administration and the Australian government of John Howard. His hostility toward Israel runs so deep as to apparently render him unaware of the anti-Semitic overtones of his rhetoric.

For example, Jones often claims that the Jews dominate press coverage on issues relating to Israel. In a blog posting called "The Wall and `topographical considerations,'" he asserted: "All university programs in politics should have a compulsory unit on propaganda, and all such units should include a compulsory component on Israeli propaganda. The Israeli propaganda machine makes the Nazi apparatus under Geobels [sic] look like amateur hour."[2]

The Israelis are not very skilled at public relations. The opinion pages of Australia's newspapers regularly feature leftist critics of Israel. ABC, the country's main publicly funded broadcast network, models itself on the BBC, with predictable results in its Middle East coverage.

Nevertheless, Prof. Jones upholds the idea that pro-Israeli Jews dominate journalism. He refers to the "reactionary war-mongering Zionist Wall Street Journal."[3] The British writer of a pro-Israeli letter to the editor of TheIndependent is nothing more than a "lobotomised Zionist."[4] ....

Jones also constantly equates Zionism with Nazism. In his view, Israel was established through conscious collaboration with Hitler's Germany. In support, Jones cites an assertion by the radical Israeli anti-Zionist Uri Davis: "Zionist leaders made themselves accomplices by default, and sometimes by deliberate design, to the mass murder of Jews by the Nazi annihilation machinery."[7]

Amin Saikal

Other academics cloak their animus toward Israel in a pseudosophistication that facilitates their access to the media as commentators. One such anti-Zionist op-ed contributor is Amin Saikal, who heads the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (CAIS) at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. Founded in 1994 as the Centre for Middle East and Central Asian Studies, CAIS assumed its current name six years later. This reflected a radical shift in orientation that stemmed from an influx of funding from various Middle Eastern sources.

In December 2000, the Centre announced the receipt of an A$2.5 million donation from Sheik Hamdan bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the Emir of Dubai and brother of the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates.[10] This sum not only purchased the name change but also the creation of a Chair of Arab and Islamic Studies that was eponymous with the Centre's new title. The government of Iran contributed another US$350,000,[11] which underwrote the establishment of the Centre's perpetual foundation in Persian Language and Iranian Studies. In both these cases, the ANU's Endowment in Excellence provided matching funds for these foreign donations, bringing the total amount generated in support of the CAIS to almost A$6 million.[12]

Centre director Amin Saikal's view of both U.S. and Israeli policies is profoundly negative. But if the Americans can at times be excused for their folly because of naivety, Israel receives no such leniency. Saikal takes a "less is more" approach that is more pernicious because it seems reasonable on the surface. At first glance he appears simply to be deploring the violence that plagues the Middle East. But a closer look reveals that his regrets are selectively applied to serve his anti-Zionist views.

This reticence to condemn Palestinian violence against Israelis is so deeply ingrained in Saikal's worldview that it infuses his vocabulary. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, he accused Israel of using disproportionate force "to contain what it calls terrorism, including suicide bombing."[14]

Saikal demonstrates ignorance of simple geostrategic matters. Again in the Sydney Morning Herald, he asserted that the Israeli navy has deployed "nuclear-powered submarines" to launch preemptive strikes against Iran.[15] The Israeli submarine fleet, however, consists of three German-built Dolphin-class diesel boats. Although the Germans' submarines are world-class, their own navy does not possess nuclear vessels.

Saikal also praises the Islamic Republic of Iran as "a sort of democracy which may not accord with Western ideals, but provides for a degree of mass participation, political pluralism and assurance of certain human rights and freedoms which do not exist in most of the Middle East."[16] He has nothing to say about the reign of terror that is inflicted on political opponents, and the many other human rights abuses.....

Scott Burchill

In Melbourne, as in other venues of Australian academia, there are many anti-Zionist academics. A notable example is Scott Burchill, who teaches international relations theory at Deakin University. In the wake of 9-11, Burchill argued in the Sydney Morning Herald that any American military reaction would constitute a "myopic and undemocratic" exercise of extrajudicial injustice.[25] Moreover, he claimed in the Australian Financial Review that these were "not irrational, cowardly or random attacks"; instead, "the rational logic of cause and effect" made 9-11 an understandable response to "US aggression."[26]

In October 2003, The Age published Burchill's thoughts on the first anniversary of the Bali bombing, which killed eighty-eight Australian tourists among others. It was, he wrote, an inevitable reaction to "Washington's support for Israel's brutal occupation of Palestine," and to a "Western collective of terror whose leaders had bombed Islamic states such as Afghanistan and Iraq."[27]

Yet, however profound Burchill's hostility toward the United States, he does not challenge the legitimacy of its existence. He does, however, in the case of Israel. Burchill describes the Palestinians as a "looted people" who justly refuse to "reconcile themselves to occupation and humiliation, regardless of the odds stacked against them."[28] Israel, then, is a "thief" who must return the "stolen property" of Palestine to its rightful Arab owners.[29] ....

Andrew Vincent

A final example is Prof. Andrew Vincent, who heads the Centre for Middle East and North African Studies at Sydney's Macquarie University. Last year in the Macquarie University News, he put forward a viewpoint that: "the Israelis quite possibly murdered Yasser Arafat."

Typically, in the wake of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Vincent wrote an apology for this aggression in Melbourne's Herald newspaper. Citing Iraq's small coastline and Kuwait's historic association with Baghdad, Vincent argued that Saddam's expansionism was legitimate.[34] More recently, Vincent invited blogger Antony Loewenstein - a far-Left freelance writer - to join the board of the Centre that he heads.

Antony Loewenstein

It was "bigotry, hatred and intolerance," Loewenstein suggested, that motivated Jewish opposition to Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi's receipt of the Sydney Peace Prize in 2003.[35] He apparently could not conceive of honest opposition based on Ashrawi's statements and deeds. In Loewenstein's view, Israel is a nation of "apartheid-like policies."[36] This author, after publishing an article in The Australian on the impact of Ariel Sharon's stroke, was characterized by Loewenstein as one of the "dutiful Zionists who are already lining up to praise the unindicted war criminal."[37]

Loewenstein's superficial knowledge of the Middle East was evident last December when he referred to a senior female Israeli cabinet minister as a man. In an article for the leftist online magazine New Matilda, he wrote:

Yet more evidence of Israel speaking the language of "peace" but acting entirely differently came from a senior ally of Sharon, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. He [sic] told a legal conference in early December that, despite years of Israeli denials, Sharon himself imagines the 425-mile separation barrier as the future border between Israel and a potential Palestinian state.

As one commentator on his blog pointed out: "if Loewenstein can't even get the gender of an Israeli cabinet minister right, then what does it say about the quality of his analysis of the Israeli political scene? Nothing good." When confronted with evidence of his gaffe, Lowenstein pleaded that he was "rushed" and that "mistakes do happen."[39]

Conclusion

In their anti-Zionism, Evan Jones, Amin Saikal, Scott Burchill, and Andrew Vincent[42] are some examples among many in Australian academia where radical Leftist ideology is monolithically predominant. A core element of the far-Left doctrine is a relentless hostility to Jewish national self-determination. With Australia's youth being exposed to this outlook during their university years, it remains to be seen how this will affect the next generation of Australian leaders.

More here