General Debate 7 January 2009

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Glutaemus Maximus

Is the Great Freeze in the UK, and most of Continental Europe right Now.

Plus the super cold temperatures on the American Continent a true sign of ‘Global Warming’

And just how will our tax dollars help reduce the disastrous re-iceing of the Artic, and maintain Polar Bear Populations at record levels?
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January 7, 2009 9:54am
Brian Smaller

I rode to work today on my bike. All that heavy breathing and near attack I suffered ensured I was pumping out loads of CO2. I think the Greens have it right. Ban exercise. Reduce lung capacity now. It is the only answer. Think of the children.
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January 7, 2009 10:07am
expat

Too right its cold in the UK GM, I’m in Nth Yorkshire this week and its fking cold. The ground is frozen solid all day.

Its very beautiful up though with a clear sky and sun shining this morning, took a run around the country lanes and through a few bridle paths – loverly. Although the locals thought I was a nut case.

Without shame I continued and only stoppped to check the satnav once for directions back to the farm house.

Then onto the serious business of heading to the local market village (upmarket more like) to get a supply of dry cured bacon, pork pies, serrano ham, wine, ale etc to ward off the cold for the rest of the day.
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January 7, 2009 10:08am
Glutaemus Maximus

Northallerton area? Richmond?

Think it may even be colder on the West Coast for a change.

Back next week, damn.

The Russkis may have turned off the Gas by then, and the UK has no storage for LPG compared to daily consumption.
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January 7, 2009 10:14am
expat

Up around Helmsley & Kirkbymoorside GM. Although supposed to get wetter in the next week or so…so I guess slightly warmer if a bit damper.

I’ll chop down a tree for you.
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January 7, 2009 10:22am
Glutaemus Maximus

No doubt you have frequented the Star Inn then?

Lovely area. Have Fun.
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January 7, 2009 10:37am
MyNameIsJack

Excellent link here
http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/project/14/
taking on the detox myths.

I see hope for the future with these young whipper snappers, now we just need the regulators to get off their arses and put an end to this parastic business. Close all “health food shops”, jail all homeopaths and their fellow travellers and frauds and charlatans and strengthening the labelling requirements for all food and “supplements”.
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January 7, 2009 10:40am
cocamc007

Why is it that No Right turn will not allow comments to his/her blog entries?
Some of what is said should be allowed for free and open debate. The issue of the police being able to remove people for up to 5 days (proposed law change at this stage) is a case in point. A wife beater who is arrested, charged and released on bail will simply go back to the house and carry out more of the same, making it worse as the wife called the Police. this is a good law and would at least allow an inflammed situation to hopefully calm down over a five day period. What about a wifes bill or rights !! or doesn;t that matter
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January 7, 2009 10:51am
MyNameIsJack

The mouse the roared.

“The Kaukapakapa mother threatened with legal action by shoemaker to the stars Jimmy Choo over her company name is fighting back.

Looie James, owner of online gift seller Kookychoo.com, has been inundated with support since the Herald reported that luxury women’s shoe manufacturer Jimmy Choo had demanded she drop the Kookychoo name.”

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10550746

Good on her for standing up to them. I am sick to death of business thinking they own anything that even closely resembles their name and trampling anyone else who dares try running a business. And I am sure that there was more than a little ambulance chasing by A J Park.
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January 7, 2009 10:53am
MyNameIsJack

And even more good news – Apple is dropping DRM from iTunes, and we all know that where Apple goes Micro$oft follws. Eventually.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10550774

DRM should have been illegal right from the start as it interferes with the consumers’ right to use the product purchased.
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January 7, 2009 10:55am
big bruv

I see that low life John Minto has organised a protest at the ASB Tennis tournament in Auckland tomorrow, apparently Comrade Minto feels that persecuting a young Israeli tennis player is going to help stop the fighting in Gaza, Comrade Monto is urging supporters to bring along any old shoes to the protest.
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January 7, 2009 11:08am
joeAverage

i hope the powers to be that protect us from terroriests, take plenty of photos of the muslums protesting, they might need to use them in the future. Remember Londons bombing,and they probably thought them harmless to??(muslims)
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January 7, 2009 11:21am
MyNameIsJack

Hey Joe!
Where you gunna go
with that gun in your hand?

How about we lock up all the French in NZ, after all the only terrorist attack on NZ territory was done by French, not muslims, most likely catholics. whatta ya say?

It looks to me like you have fallen for the scaremongering, and, in order to defend your liberty, are prepared to give it up.
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January 7, 2009 11:26am
big bruv

Jack

Where is the outcry from the so called “moderate Muslim” element protesting against the rapid rise in Islamic terror?,

It looks like you have fallen for the racist, terrorist scaremongering and outright lies of the Islamic world and USA haters.
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January 7, 2009 11:39am
AG

BB,

Try using the wonderful tool known as “google”. You might have been able to find http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php

Warning: viewing it may force you to reconsider your worldview. This could be painful.

You might also find this essay enlightening: http://hnn.us/articles/6963.html

“The answer [to why “Muslims don’t denounce terrorism”], in my view, lies in the psycho-politics of civil war. It’s an underappreciated fact that the current terrorist episode is most fundamentally a civil war, a war of Muslim against Muslim over the soul of Islam, which for a variety of reasons has spilled out of the Muslim world and into the rest of it. Wars of this sort lead inevitably to euphemism, reticence, and rationalization intended to paper over the reality of the conflict: brothers find it hard to admit that they really are making war against each other. It’s a futile, inexcusable pretense, but Americans ought to stop pretending to incomprehension of it, as though they themselves were innocent of the vice. To see what I mean, consider some ways in which the same denial crops up in American attitudes toward the American Civil War, the one that supposedly ended at Appomattox Court House some 140 years ago. “
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January 7, 2009 11:46am
big bruv

AG

Try using the wonderful tool know as your brain.

The Islamic world had declared war on the west, only fools and appeasers refuse to admit this, the same fools and appeasers are so mind numbingly stupid as to think that they can negotiate with the terrorists.
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January 7, 2009 11:54am
Brian Smaller

Big bruv. It does not matter to appeasers if the Islamic workd has declared war. They don’t believe it because it has not touched them. When it does, they get even more craven.
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January 7, 2009 12:02pm
PhilBest

AG, there is some validity in those arguments, but I think the internal struggles within Islam, are more akin to the Russian Revolution or Germany in the 1930’s. The militant Islamists are like the Bolsheviks or the Nazis, they are a minority in no way representative of the wishes of the people as a whole, nevertheless they stand an equivalent chance of ending up running the whole “empire” simply through sheer brutality that no-one dare resist, and through a long, successful propagandisation effort.

For example, an enormous proportion of “moderate Muslims” believe the conspiracy theory about Sept 11 being a put-up job by the US government itself as a pretext to attack Islamic nations; yet a lot of those same “moderate Muslims” also have admiration for Osama Bin Laden. Imagine moderate Germans and moderate Russians having a sneaking admiration for Hitler or Lenin in spite of the existential threat to their own lives that those people and their regimes represented, and coming to despise the regime’s various scapegoats for their own problems, and you will get the idea of the dynamic I am discussing.
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January 7, 2009 12:24pm
PhilBest

big bruv (2180) 2 2 Says:

January 7th, 2009 at 11:08 am
“I see that low life John Minto has organised a protest at the ASB Tennis tournament in Auckland tomorrow, apparently Comrade Minto feels that persecuting a young Israeli tennis player is going to help stop the fighting in Gaza, Comrade Minto is urging supporters to bring along any old shoes to the protest.”

Hmmmm, there must be at least two of John Minto’s low-life comrades abroad on this thread handing out negative karma points to BigBruv………

You said it, and you said it well, BigBruv. A few weeks ago when people were expressing incredulity at the completely beyond-the-pale comments posted by one “r scargill” here on Kiwiblog, and suggesting that no-one could possibly think that way, and that it must have been some Libertarian playing games and stereotyping; I hastened to assure everyone that, sadly, there are real-life people who DO think that way, and I named John Minto as an example……..
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January 7, 2009 12:32pm
big bruv

PhilBest

I am sorely tempted to jump in the car tomorrow morning armed to the teeth with all the old shoes I can muster which I would be more than keen on hurling at Comrade Minto with as much force as possible.

P.S, anybody know where I can purchase an Israeli flag?
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January 7, 2009 12:42pm
Manolo

The communist moron (a tautology, I suspect) John Minto is asking for the Israeli player to withdraw from the Auckland tennis tournament as a protest over Gaza. How stupid can he be?

This sort of silly stunts will damage even more the credibility of the Green Party. Keep going Minto.
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January 7, 2009 1:00pm
MyNameIsJack

“big bruv (2181) Vote: 5 3 Says:

January 7th, 2009 at 11:54 am

The Islamic world had declared war on the west, only fools and appeasers refuse to admit this, the same fools and appeasers are so mind numbingly stupid as to think that they can negotiate with the terrorists.”

BB, it would be handy if you could define “Islamic World” and how this war is being waged.

I know some Muslims, and I don’t have any issues with them, although I do think their religion (like all religion) is stupid.

I also know there are many other moslems who did not think like my friends, who don’t like “the west”, for want of a better term.

I also know that not all Moslems are terrorists, nor are all terrorists Moslems.

it would appear that both JoeDim and yourself are of the all moslems are terrorists persuasion. No doubt you also supported the invasion of Iraq as a legitimate response to terror attacks on America even though Iraq and al Quaeda were enemies and the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. But like Shrub, I am sure you won’t let facts get in the way of your prejudices.
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January 7, 2009 1:13pm
AG

BB,

There is no such thing as a monolithic “Islamic world”, any more than the so-called “Western world” includes both you and me. People who resort to such generalisations invariably can’t handle complexity.

Phil,

Analogies may illuminate, or the may mislead. For instance, why isn’t the power struggle in contemporary Islam like that fought between the Catholic Church and Luther? As for popular delusion, what proportion of US citizens still believe Saddam Hussein was linked to 9-11? And a lot of Russians still think Stalin was a good (if sometimes over-excited) leader. So stupidity knows no borders….
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January 7, 2009 1:22pm
big bruv

AG

People like you enjoy complexity as it aides you in your effort to muddy the waters when the reality is crystal clear.

Nobody has suggested that all Muslims are terrorists (apart from you in an effort to support your stupid left wing ideology)

It is generally accepted that 10% – 15% of Muslims can be classed as extremist, some might say that is a small percentage but when you consider that there are at least 1.2 Billion Muslims in this world you can see the problem.

The point I was trying to make (and the one that people like you are so keen to silence) is that we never seem to hear the other 85%-90% of Muslims voicing their concerns about the gutless terrorist attacks committed in the name of THEIR god.

It is blindingly simple AG, before the west (or the rest if you like) sit down to negotiate with the so called moderate Muslims they(the Muslim world) must renounce terror and must acknowledge that there are other religions and belief’s other than their own and they must learn to live with, until they do that the war on terror and if need be the war on radical Islam should continue unabated.

The ironic thing AG is that you and your ilk are aiding and abetting terrorists, don’t you feel at least a little bit stupid?
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January 7, 2009 1:55pm
joeAverage

HEY (my name is jackoff,) its a bit rich calling me joedim, ,better than being called a wanker, 🙂 joeAverage
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January 7, 2009 2:00pm
AG

BB

At 1:55 you said “Nobody has suggested that all Muslims are terrorists ”

Yet at 11:54 you said “The Islamic world had declared war on the west,”

So, no, I don’t feel the least bit stupid. But feel free to tell me what it is like.

As for that tired old “we never hear from Muslims denouncing terror”, I once again suggest you read the many, many such statements collated at http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php. This is “reality”. Not so crystal clear, is it?
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January 7, 2009 2:03pm
big bruv

AG

Until the majority of the Muslim world denounce terror then only and idiot (feel free to include yourself ) would deny that the Islamic world has declared war on the west.

I do have one question for you, do you really believe that the West can negotiate with the terrorists?
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January 7, 2009 2:09pm
Ryan Sproull

Big Bruv,

A Muslim is to be assumed a terrorist until they declare themselves not to be?
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January 7, 2009 2:20pm
Brian Smaller

Big Bruv – http://www.flagmakers.co.nz/products_national5.htm
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January 7, 2009 2:25pm
MyNameIsJack

Ryan, remember “If you’re not with us, you’re against us”.

In fact, this quote popped up quite approriatly today on QOTD.

“Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.
– Kurt Vonnegut
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January 7, 2009 2:26pm
Brian Smaller

As for that tired old “we never hear from Muslims denouncing terror”, I once again suggest you read the many, many such statements collated at http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php. This is “reality”. Not so crystal clear, is it?

Well what are they doing to stop it? Talk is cheap. They were almost all published in the immediate aftermath of Sept 11, 2001. CAIR has since been linked to the Holy Land Foundation which funnelled money to terrorist groups.
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January 7, 2009 2:30pm
goodgod

a solider engaged in war duties may or may not be a terrorist. A muslim soldier, whose religious teaching suggest killing or enslaving non-muslims could be deemed a terrorist in democratic secular countries. So it is possible that any muslim who identifies with being a soldier or who is engaged in any form of jihad resistence must be assumed to be terrorist if he does not demonstrate otherwise – since his goals are not in any way democratic nor do they meet basic measures of respect for the individuality of his opponent.
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January 7, 2009 2:31pm
Turpin

Just read this on http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/

Sometime this afternoon we killed dozens of Palestinian civilians in a school. The Palestinians claim more than 40 dead civilians, the BBC says it was 30. The IDF says mortar shells were fired from within the school, and even names the two Hamas men doing the firing; both were killed and must be counted among the dead. (I continue to be amazed by the level of micro-intelligence the IDF is working with). These dead civilians are added to the many dozens, perhaps even a few hundred who have been killed so far. Which is horrifying, and terrible. I’m a father, my children now all responsible adults, but I can remember fondly when they were younger. I think I can imagine the terror of the Palestinian parents in Gaza, and I can feebly feel the pain of those losing children. So can any Israeli. Contrary to what the Guardianistas tell you, we’re human beings, not monsters.

Our troops currently fighting in Gaza are finding an astonishingly complex web of tunnels beneath the ordinary buildings the locals live in. These tunnels couldn’t have been dug without the connivance of the populace, the owners of the kitchen cabinets which hide the entrances. The thuggish Hammas murderers are surrounding themselves with Palestinian children as they move from place to place, correctly assuming our troops won’t deliberately target children. The parents of the children see this happening. In spite of the fighting, dozens of trucks with supplies are going into Gaza, even today; the goods aren’t being distributed, they’re being hijacked by the Hamas strongmen. The civilians see this happening.

.

I see the BBC and CNN are running with it as IDF bad guys shoot up school, all in all a complex environment to conduct warfare in.

That said Hamas has declared war on Israel when they got to power, so may be the Israelis are going to go after them as if it really is a war.

Assuming Reid and others give them permission as the missiles aren’t strategic. 🙂
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January 7, 2009 2:31pm
reid

Nobody has suggested that all Muslims are terrorists (apart from you in an effort to support your stupid left wing ideology)

It is generally accepted that 10% – 15% of Muslims can be classed as extremist, some might say that is a small percentage but when you consider that there are at least 1.2 Billion Muslims in this world you can see the problem.

The point I was trying to make (and the one that people like you are so keen to silence) is that we never seem to hear the other 85%-90% of Muslims voicing their concerns about the gutless terrorist attacks committed in the name of THEIR god.

It is blindingly simple AG, before the west (or the rest if you like) sit down to negotiate with the so called moderate Muslims they(the Muslim world) must renounce terror and must acknowledge that there are other religions and belief’s other than their own and they must learn to live with, until they do that the war on terror and if need be the war on radical Islam should continue unabated.

The ironic thing AG is that you and your ilk are aiding and abetting terrorists, don’t you feel at least a little bit stupid?

So let me turn it round, BigBruv, to Christians. Let’s say that the Muslim world started objecting to what right-wing Bible-Belt bashers were doing and let’s say some bashers even went nuts and did the mirror image of what Islamists have done. What you’re saying is that you’d be expecting nay demanding, that all other Christians worldwide made their condemnation clear.

Now, bearing in mind the Christians are facing a hostile world Muslim press here, most of whom seem to think, horrors, that most Christians agree with the bashers. OK, so what if a few people wrote letters to the editor, is that clear enough? Probably not. What if we had marches and demonstrations? Better, but unfortunately for some reason the Muslim press puts these on page 3, if at all.

I roughly agree with your %’s big bruv, maybe a bit on the high side but what strikes me is that when discussing it, many people use language that ignores that distinction. It’s an issue on which few are objective.
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January 7, 2009 2:46pm
Turpin

But that won’t happen will it Reid?

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/israel/articles/20090106.aspx

The Rules
January 6, 2009: The Israeli economy grew by 4.1 percent in 2008. The Palestinian economy in Gaza didn’t. Hamas blames Israel for the economic collapse in Gaza, because a blockade intended to keep out weapons, for use against Israel, also keeps out other goods. Israel applies economic pressure in much the same way Hamas does (by crippling economic growth in southern Israel with rocket attacks.) But Hamas and Israel have different priorities. For Israel it’s survival and growth.

For Hamas it’s the destruction of Israel and the establishment of a worldwide Islamic religious dictatorship. From a distance, it’s easy to ignore the goals of Hamas, but the closer you get, the uglier, and more lethal, Hamas becomes. For example, Egypt has remained very hostile to Hamas, and any ceasefire that does not curb the organizations violent behavior. A recent poll of Israelis shows 95 percent of Jewish citizens support the operations against Hamas. Those are numbers no politician in a democracy can ignore.
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January 7, 2009 2:50pm
joeAverage

I LOVE PORIRUA TAGGERS
As a rate payer i have complained to the graffetti section of the WCC,about FATHER GERARD BURNS
a CATHOLIC parish Priest (A HOMIE TAGGER) from PORIRUA,
WGTN is plagued by taggers ie priest homies, and bro
THIS TAGGER, Father Gerard Burns (A CATHOLIC ISRAELIE HATER) Father Burns
address Te Parisi o Te Ngahau Tapu , Porirua.This father TAGGED ie put red paint all over
YITZHAK RABINs (peace memorial) and a bit of blood , no doubt i will pay for its restoration why does this father describes how to TAG to new immigrant ie MUSLIMS.
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January 7, 2009 2:58pm
big bruv

reid

“Let’s say that the Muslim world started objecting to what right-wing Bible-Belt bashers were doing”

They already do object, have you not noticed?

You also give yourself away when you refer to them as “bible-belt bashers”, why is it that you chaps refuse to forgive them for voting for Bush?.
Just to make things clear here lest you accuse me of being one of those bible-bashers, I have no time for what a very good friend of mine describes as “middle eastern superstition”, indeed the world would be a far better place without it but then you chaps from the left would need another cause to lash yourself to in your never ending endeavour to see the destruction of the USA and capitalism.

“and let’s say some bashers even went nuts and did the mirror image of what Islamists have done. What you’re saying is that you’d be expecting nay demanding, that all other Christians worldwide made their condemnation clear”

Ever hear of a place called Northern Ireland?, the west and nearly all Christians never stopped condemning the violence nor did they stop working for peace, I am surprised that you chose to overlook that.

It does not matter what spurious arguments you chose to throw up Reid the one thing that should really worry the Western World is the deafening silence from the so called moderate Muslim’s, as an example have you ever heard Ashrad Choudrey denounce Jihad?.
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January 7, 2009 3:15pm
reid

I guess big bruv what I usually see on this subject from many people, isn’t a calm, rational interpretation using history and politics to analyse the issue.

It’s always very emotional.

My concern is that these people have conducted their analysis when in the same emotional state they post their interpretations. It’s never calm and objective. They may think they themselves are, but their words belie it.

This is classic crowd reaction to emotive propaganda, of course and that’s a worry.
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January 7, 2009 3:23pm
joeAverage

I luv John (my moment in the sun again )MINTO, AKA rent a protester, hes told all his MUSLIM supporters to bring a shoe to throw at the ISRAELIE /JEWISH tennis player tomorrow, FUCK MUSLIMS AND FUCK MINTO, its like back to the future FUCK, WAIT theres more WAIT FOR JEWISH GRAVESTONES TO BE DESICRATED, WAIT whats going to be burned jewish religious centres ,distroyed BECAUSE OF LABOUR WHO HAVE LET NZ TO BE FLOODED BY THE BURKA MUSLIMS PRIMATIVES
mark my words SHITS GOING TO HAPPEN
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January 7, 2009 3:25pm
big bruv

Reid

“I guess big bruv what I usually see on this subject from many people, isn’t a calm, rational interpretation using history and politics to analyse the issue.”

On that we agree, sadly so many see this tragedy (and the Gazza war is a tragedy) as a continuation of the boring old left v right argument when they should be looking at it for what it really is.
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January 7, 2009 3:32pm
bharmer

# MyNameIsJack (93) Vote: Add rating 1 Subtract rating 0 Says:
January 7th, 2009 at 10:55 am

(snip)

“DRM should have been illegal right from the start as it interferes with the consumers’ right to use the product purchased.”
That’s fine, depending on what you actually purchased. You can only buy what they sell you. If they sold you a license to listen to something on the original medium, then the real fault lies with the consumers for buying into such a ridiculous agreement.

It’s not a matter of illegality, but of market power. We should have resisted more strongly.
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January 7, 2009 3:37pm
joeAverage

I love free speech,go to GOOGLE (Islam the religion of peace) and sigh, and sigh , but then minto could organise hanging women, for adultry, fuickwit minto would agree with hanging, ,he dosnt know me i dont give a shit about minto so there FREE SPEECH not sharia law
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January 7, 2009 3:49pm
MyNameIsJack

bharmer, up to a point I agree with you. This whole bullshit of “licences” is the problem. And, unlike most of the lemmings, I *have* resisted – I will not buy anything that forces DRM on to me. I will, and I have, used various means to circumvent DRM.
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January 7, 2009 3:50pm
PhilBest

AG:

“…..Phil,

Analogies may illuminate, or the may mislead. For instance, why isn’t the power struggle in contemporary Islam like that fought between the Catholic Church and Luther?…”

I welcome the opportunity to discuss this. I believe the difference is, that Christianity’s holy writ had been hijacked by the Catholic Church, and Luther and other reformers were in fact wresting the holy writ itself out of the hands of the Catholic hierarchy and into the hands of all people, to learn from it thereby; and Christendom benefited enormously as a result. Islam, however, was based from the outset on violence and conquest (compare the careers of Mohammed and Jesus Christ), and after having conquered, brought only torpor and backwardness to the regions over which it exercised hegemony. The conquest and holding of the territory of a Caliphate was the result of tremendous religious fanaticism; however this has been unable to withstand the superiority of rapidly modernising European Christendom in recent centuries.

The Islamic fundamentalists today, the Taleban, the Mullahs, the Brotherhood, Osama Bin Laden, HezbAllah, Hamas; etc, etc; are the TRUE Islam; they represent the same fanaticism, violence, torpor and backwardness that Islam always DID. Insofar as there has been a moderating and a modernising taking place within the Islamic world; Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, and so on; this is the result of APOSTASY from Islam, not “moderation” of Islam.

I would argue too, that apostasy from traditional reform era Christianity in Christendom, is resulting in damage to our societies rather than advance; in contrast to the advance that results from apostasy from Islam in the former Caliphate.
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January 7, 2009 4:34pm
PhilBest

Reid, the analogy I keep making where Christian fundamentalists are concerned; is where do us Christian fundamentalists stand on “getting Constantinople back”? How many of us even THINK about that, let alone blow people up because we’re frustrated about our ancient claims being thwarted?
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January 7, 2009 4:38pm
PhilBest

Killing Their Own

By Jacob Laksin
FrontPageMagazine.com | 1/6/2009

“From reprimands of “disproportionate response” to condemnations of civilian casualties, Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has drawn de rigueur denunciations from the international community. Less noticed is that while Israel has taken great pains to avoid innocent deaths in Operation Cast Lead, at great peril to its fighting men and women, Hamas vigilantes have spent recent days deliberately assaulting and killing their fellow Palestinians, just as they have done for years.

According to the Jerusalem Post, since the beginning of the Israeli offensive, more than 75 Gaza Palestinians have been shot in the legs or have had their hands broken; more than 35 have been executed by Hamas operatives who accuse them of being Israeli “collaborators.” Of course, Gaza is not teeming with Israeli spies and most of Hamas’s victims are not only not traitors but likely helped vote the terrorist group into power in the January 2006 legislative elections. Instead, Hamas’s campaign of homegrown terror is the latest example of the terrorists turning on their Palestinian compatriots – a brutal but seldom-discussed cycle of violence in which Palestinians emerge as their own worst enemy.

Hamas’s fratricidal tendencies date back to its 1987 founding. In her 1996 book God Has Ninety-Nine Names, Judith Miller, a former New York Times bureau chief in Cairo, reported that within a few years of its official existence, Hamas had “proved more deadly to Palestinians than to Israelis.” Between 1987 and 1993, the years of the first Palestinian intifada, Hamas killed some 26 Israelis but also many of the 800 Palestinians murdered in those years for being alleged Israeli “collaborators.” In 1992 alone, according to Middle East analyst Mitchell Bard, some 200 Palestinians were killed by other Palestinians – more than double the number of Palestinians killed fighting with Israeli security forces.

Though murdered on the accusation of aiding Israel, most were not collaborators at all. “Rather,” as Judith Miller noted, “they were women who wore slacks and other ‘prostitutes,’ as Hamas called unveiled women; they were alcoholics, drug users, teachers with whom Hamas disagreed, Marxists, atheists, a Darwinist, Freudians, members of the Rotary and Lions Clubs – which Hamas’s charter called Jewish spy organizations – and, in particular, supporters of the PLO, Hamas’s main rival for power among Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories.”

Even among the “guilty,” the definition of collaboration often had more to do with Hamas’s hatred of Jews than any act of betrayal. To have any contact with Jews was to risk being judged a “collaborator.” So it was that, in October 1989, a Palestinian father of seven was reportedly stabbed to death in the West Bank city of Jericho for the unpardonable crime of selling “floral decorations” to Jews building a traditional succah dwelling.

These targeted killings of Palestinians marked not a departure from Hamas’s founding vision but its fulfillment. As an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas has always held the Brotherhood’s position that its jihad will be successful only after its rivals – real or imagined – are eliminated from within…..”

READ THE WHOLE THING:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID=61CDF0F5-1D10-4E6F-8289-A0E91EF4F5D5
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January 7, 2009 4:47pm
AG

PhilBest,

Clearly you are not a Catholic. Hence your view of the Christian faith would be regarded as APOSTASY to some hundreds of millions of “true Christians” the world over. After all, one man’s true believer is another man’s heretic who has strayed from the true path. As for the claim that Christian settlement/expansion was good and based on individual freedom, etc, try telling the folks in the ex-Belgian Congo that. And as for the claim that Christianity modernises while Islam stagnates, this would have looked pretty silly to a 16th Century observer … it was only once liberalism triumphed over Christianity (and in particular the very un-Christian idea of market economics got traction) that the West took off – helped along by a lot of good fortune (read Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” on why the West won – for now, at least).

Let’s face it – the real division at play is between religious extremism of any stripe and good old live-and-let-live liberalism. Luther was the first, but he inadvertently created the conditions that allowed the second to develop. Bin Laden etc are also the first … whose to say he won’t end up doing the same? Not that this endorses in any way, shape or form his ideology or methods – but then again, Luther wasn’t exactly beyond reproach here either (have a read of his “Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants”).
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January 7, 2009 5:01pm
joeAverage

I AM WORRING MORE ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?????? ITS COLD(IE FREEZING) HERE IN WGTN THE COLD WIND IS BLASTING US FUCK THE ARABS AND JEWS HOW WILL WE SURVIVE GLOBAL WARMING BEFORE WE FREEZE
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January 7, 2009 5:04pm
AG

I DON’T KNOW BUT SHOUTING IN AN INCOHERENT MANNER WON’T CHANGE ANYTHING
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January 7, 2009 5:07pm
joeAverage

JACKoff how do we survive global freezing if the muslim brotherhood dont slit our throats
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January 7, 2009 5:07pm
joeAverage

AG im cold ,do i turn the heat pump on ps i luv shouting as the deaf cannot hear and ITS ONLY UPPER CASE PEOPLE get a life AG
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January 7, 2009 5:09pm
joeAverage

SIGH .lonely out here
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January 7, 2009 5:12pm
dad4justice

Nice to see the black caps showing some balls. I wish we could nuke a mulsin hama outta the ground.
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January 7, 2009 5:14pm
joeAverage

SIGH
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January 7, 2009 5:21pm
joeAverage

DFJ the WI are more hopeless than us DONT GET EXCITED and dont use upper case as fuckwits feel abused
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January 7, 2009 5:41pm
joeAverage

D4J the slackcaps are 45 for 3 in the 9th over GRADUATES of the liarbour NO WON LOSSES we are all usless shitters ,believe me damn i love australia/,SA cricket real tradesman not COWBOYS
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January 7, 2009 6:36pm
dc

“There’s probably no God, now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. Three cheers for the Atheist Bus Campaign.
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January 7, 2009 6:58pm
Adam

Thank god for long summer days and beer. 🙂
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January 7, 2009 7:20pm
billyborker

dc, I have 2 issues with that ad campaign.

The word probably should not be there; there is nothing probable about god.

Why do these people accept the label thrust on them by the theists? I do not believe in god, but that does not make me an atheist. I don’t believe in santa, either. What’s the word for that? Adult.
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January 7, 2009 7:23pm
joeAverage

D4J 129 for 3 in the 20th over,it fizzed out a bit but the better of the two won but South Africa they arent BUT ONE DAY MAYBE???? please
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January 7, 2009 7:31pm
dc

billyborker, I don’t mind the “probably”, it softens the message and makes it more fun and less likely to be characterised as “strident”, as Richard Dawkins says in this video about the campaign (also invoking Santa by the way).
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January 7, 2009 7:42pm
serge

I am intrigued as to what our priorities are in New Zealand, the headlines “McCully calls on Israel and Hamas to stop bloodshed” should he not say ” McCully calls on Maoris and Samoans stop murdering their children?” then we can raise other issues, to hell with political correctness, I thought we voted for change……….
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January 7, 2009 8:08pm
big bruv

Those of you who were dumb enough to watch the pathetic NZ cricket team in their hit and giggle ODI game against the equally abysmal West Indies team in preference to the dramatic last few hours at the SCG missed a truly great game of Test (real) cricket.

The last session of play proved once again why Test cricket is the greatest game of all.
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January 7, 2009 8:18pm
big bruv

Serge

I must take issue with some of what you have said, I am fairly sure that there is statistical proof that shows Pacific Island people have one of the lowest (if not the lowest) infant mortality rate of all races in NZ.

A better way of wording your post might have been “McCully calls on Maori to stop murdering their children”

Mind you, given that Comrade Key did a deal with the apartheid party there is little chance of the Nat’s EVER speaking out against something as trivial as child death lest it cost them a few votes in the house.
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January 7, 2009 8:22pm
serge

hey big bruv, you are right, I should have addressed the maoris on this one….thanks for that…
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January 7, 2009 9:00pm
Southern Raider

I think McCully should call on Catholics to stop being fuckwits and destroying public property.
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January 7, 2009 9:04pm
big bruv

Better still McCully should call on Minto to stop being Minto and preferably call on Minto to stop fucking breathing.
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January 7, 2009 9:14pm
Southern Raider

Or send him to Gaza as a human shield.

Interesting watching CNN before where the two presentators between stories starting discussing how bad Israel is. Stick to reporting the actual facts you left wing nutters.
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January 7, 2009 9:39pm
Southern Raider

The truth about the recent “UN school” attack

Hamas and UN spokesmen rushed to the media with reports of a UN school being bombed in spite of the fact that it was being used as a shelter for civilians.

The school was being used by Hamas to fire mortars against Israel.

The IDF Spokesmen released a video of mortars being fired from the school before Israel shot back.
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January 7, 2009 9:57pm
reid

Reid, the analogy I keep making where Christian fundamentalists are concerned; is where do us Christian fundamentalists stand on “getting Constantinople back”? How many of us even THINK about that, let alone blow people up because we’re frustrated about our ancient claims being thwarted?

Damn good question, Phil. All I know is, if you drew a scale of true, no-bullshit piousness spectrum, between all mankind, the muslims sure as hell aren’t on the same side as we Christians and this is not a good thing.

Many people mistake piousness for extremism.

Educate yourself.
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January 7, 2009 10:16pm
expat

GM

Yes, going to the Star Inn for lunch tomorrow, hope the ankle bitters behave.

I must say the quality of grub around here is top notch.

Let me know if you’re in London while in blightly. My email is on my ‘blog’.

cheers
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January 8, 2009 7:12am
expat

kiwiexpat007@gmail.com
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January 8, 2009 7:17am
infused

Someone needs to slam this stupid copyright law.
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January 8, 2009 10:04am
MyNameIsJack

FINALLY a bail out that we can all enjoy.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10550982

Much better to give the $$ to pretty girls with bad habits than to suits who’ll just waste it on porn and whores.
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January 8, 2009 11:56am
PhilBest

AG:

“…..it was only once liberalism triumphed over Christianity (and in particular the very un-Christian idea of market economics got traction) that the West took off….”

AG, I think one of the best assessments on “progress” and “enlightenment” is THIS one:

From “Did Western Civilisation Survive the 20th Century”? By Alan Charles Kors, head of History, Pennsylvania University.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_1999_Winter/ai_58381627

“…….When the Norsemen came, learning fled to monasteries, but that learning, and those monasteries, eventually conquered the Norse, whose descendants founded universities in Britain that live to this day. It is the last thing that any frightened monk taking desperate shelter in the eighth century ever could have imagined.

The Thirty Years War seemed the end of civilization, but its battles are now mostly forgotten. What remains of the seventeenth century? Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes, Pascal, Bayle, Boyle, Harvey, Huyghens, Newton, Locke. Louis XIV is a tourist attraction at Versailles; his wars changed precious little.

The conceptual revolution of the West, however, changed a great deal in that same century. It was born of the very dynamics of the West’s models of learning, disputation, accounting for appearances, refining inductive and deductive logic–all now linked to expanded education and to printing. What happened in the minds of the graduates of Europe’s Christian universities changed the human relationship to nature, to knowledge, to charity armed with scientia, to the rights of inquiry and conscience, and to political and economic life. When Galileo was charged with offering an astronomy that contradicted Scripture, he replied by citing the ancient fathers of the Church themselves, above all Augustine, who had insisted that there was but one truth, that it was consistent, that it shone in nature also, and that no one had the right to tie faith to what could be proven false in the created, natural world. The Christian West kept the traditions of the Greek mind alive and, thus, by its own debates, overthrew the pres umptive authority of the past in matters of natural knowledge and its application. The West believed that we were not cast fatally adrift in this world, but that we could learn new things and that we could bring the sorry scheme of experience closer to the heart’s desire for knowledge, order and well-being. It was not Faust, dreaming of occult knowledge that would make him a demigod, but Bacon, commanding that knowledge proceed from humility and charity, who became the prophet of the great scientific revolution of the West. Louis XIV is a statue; Bacon is a living force wherever the West touches minds.

THROUGH natural catastrophe, anarchy, war and despotisms, the West survived, its religion teaching always that the greatest of sins is despair, a lesson that each generation needs to learn afresh. Conservatives need to relearn that today. It is odd, indeed, that conservatives should question whether Western civilization has survived the twentieth century at a time when the cultural Left defines that civilization as a singular hegemony that stands astride the globe……..

“……..IT IS WORTH reflecting on this latter trait of the West, its intellectual–its philosophical-realism. While various extreme epistemological and ontological skepticisms and various radical irrationalisms have flourished in our history, sometimes with brilliance and profundity, Western civilization always has had at its core a belief that there is a reality independent of our wishes and ideas; that natural knowledge of that reality is possible, and, indeed, indispensable to human dignity, and that such knowledge must be acquired through a discipline of the will and mind; and that central to that discipline is a compact with reason. The West has willed, in theory at least, to reduce the chaos of the world to natural coherence by the powers of the mind. When some Christian voices condemned such efforts as impious, the great doctors of the Church proclaimed them indispensable to a coherence on which human understanding of the faith depended. The Christian universities of the West began higher education in philosop hy, and to reason badly or against straw men was always deemed an error of grave import.

The Greek principle of self-contradiction as the touchstone of error is the formal expression of a commitment to reason well that the West always understood to separate us from beasts and madmen. To live with self-contradiction was not merely to fail an introduction to philosophy, it was to be less than human, less than coherent, less than sane. Induction from experience always had a logic, and the exploration of that logic was one of the great and ultimately triumphant pursuits of the Western mind. The Christian universities of Europe emphatically rejected that their enemy was the logic of deduction and induction applied to a knowable natural reality; On the contrary; they believed that philosophy was the friend of faith, and that although it was not necessary to salvation, it was necessary to a coherent natural understanding of the creed, to reasoned belief, and to full human dignity.

It was not surprising, therefore, that those Christian universities were far more dynamic and productive of intellectual innovation than their caricaturists–either their rebellious children or their later historians–ever allowed. The great minds whom we associate with the conceptual revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were almost all educated by those universities, and they remained true to the call to know an independent reality by means of human inquiry and reason, avoiding logical error, false induction and a failure to account for appearances. Although there were many radical ruptures in the history of certain disciplines in the West, there were no radical ruptures with the Western compact with reality and reason.

It is this compact that led to a civilization in which religion itself led the scrutiny against superstition, which gave rebirth to critical scholarship and, ultimately, to a tolerated heterodoxy that could question the West’s religion itself; a civilization in which the mind could appeal against the irrational with ultimate success–however slow the appellate process–to the rational; a civilization in which belief in learning as a constant self-correction, the goal of which was understanding of a reality that did not depend on a human self, led to the sciences that have changed both the entire human relationship to nature, and our sense of human possibilities tempered by our knowledge of human nature and society.

The fruits of that civilization have been an unprecedented ability to modify the remediable causes of human suffering, to give great agency to utility and charity alike; to give to each individual a degree of choice and freedom unparalleled in all of human history; and to offer a means of overcoming the station in life to which one was born by the effort of one’s labor, mind and will……”
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January 8, 2009 12:26pm
Lance

But think of John Minto…
Until this latest chance to hypocritically protest… he had no reason to go on breathing.
Better still he had dimwits following him in the 80’s… now he has loonies.. how much better can life get?
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January 8, 2009 12:30pm
PhilBest

And; AG; regarding “…..the very un-Christian idea of market economics…..”

Get a load of THIS:

http://www.garynorth.com/public/department57.cfm

“The Bible mandates free market capitalism. It is anti-socialist.”
By Gary North (Economist)

“The essence of democratic socialism is this re-written version of God’s commandment: “Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.”

“Economic democracy” is the system whereby two wolves and a sheep vote on what to have for dinner.

Christian socialists and defenders of economic planning by state bureaucrats deeply resent this interpretation of their ethical position. They resent it because it’s accurate.

When Christianity adheres to the judicial specifics of the Bible, it produces free market capitalism.

On the other hand, when Christianity rejects the judicial specifics of the Bible, it produces socialism or some politically run hybrid “middle way” between capitalism and socialism, where politicians and bureaucrats make the big decisions about how people’s wealth will be allocated. Economic growth then slows or is reversed. Always.

Free market capitalism produces long-term economic growth. Socialism and middle-way economic interventionism by the state produce poverty and bureaucracy. If your goal is to keep poor people poor, generation after generation, you should promote socialism. But be sure to call it economic democracy in order to fool the voters.

The Bible is an anti-socialist document. Socialist propagandists for over four centuries have claimed that the Bible teaches socialism, but we have yet to see a single Bible commentary written by a socialist. If the Bible teaches socialism, where is the expository evidence?

When I say that the Bible mandates a moral and legal social order that inevitably produces free market capitalism, I have the evidence to back up my position. My critics — critics of capitalism — do not.

The next time you hear someone say that the Bible teaches anything but free market capitalism, ask him or her which Bible commentary demonstrates this. You will get a blank stare followed by a lot of verbal tap-dancing about “the ultimate ethic of the Bible” or “the upholding of the poor in the Bible.” You will be given a lot of blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah is not a valid substitute for biblical exposition.

Fact: There has never been an expository Bible commentary that shows that the Bible teaches anything other than free market capitalism.

Beginning in April, 1973, I began writing a verse-by-verse commentary on the economics of the Bible. The first essay, on Genesis 1:26-28, appeared in the May, 1973 issue of the Chalcedon Report.

An economic commentary on the Bible had never been attempted before. I discuss only those passages that relate to economics.

No one before me had ever attempted to write a Bible commentary on a specific academic discipline. I hope mine becomes a model for others.

I have continued working on this project ever since. I limited my writing to one essay per month from 1973 to 1976. Beginning in the summer of 1977, I began working 10 hours per week, 50 weeks per year on this project.

I have needed every minute. I have not come close to exhausting the economic materials in the Bible…..”

Do follow the link and browse……….Gary North’s exposition is 9,000 pages long………..
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January 8, 2009 12:30pm
Ryan Sproull

What about Acts 4:32-35?

“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.”
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January 8, 2009 12:57pm
joeAverage

Minto and his 20 motley protesters, no worry to the Israelie tennis player from this lot
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January 8, 2009 1:25pm
PhilBest

Ryan, you will be interested in THIS:

http://www.garynorth.com/public/images/Acts.pdf

I wish I had more time to read a whole lot more of Gary North’s voluminous writings – that is one hang of a knowledgeable guy.

I think he is right; the Christian church today doesn’t have the same fresh vibrant power that it did then, and also it is a question whether what worked under those conditions in Jerusalem then would continue to work as the church grew. He also points out that what happened in Jerusalem then was an entirely voluntary and spontaneous thing, and was something that really got the attention of the whole world – such a thing had never happened before. Also, it is a total contrast with the compulsion and violence of socialism.

Winston Churchill actually said of that section in Acts; that the difference between that and socialism is that for the early Christians, the principle was “all mine is yours”, but for socialists, it is “all yours is mine”.

But Gary North covers a wide range of historical analyses of wealth creation in different forms of social structure, absolutely fascinating stuff. If you visit his main page, you will see that the Christian analysis is just one string to his bow, he is one very busy economist and financial analyst.
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January 8, 2009 5:20pm
Ryan Sproull

Winston Churchill actually said of that section in Acts; that the difference between that and socialism is that for the early Christians, the principle was “all mine is yours”, but for socialists, it is “all yours is mine”.

Yes, it was all voluntary in the Acts of the Apostles, but it still wasn’t what I’d call free-market capitalism.

Thanks for the link. Will check him out in the weekend.
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January 8, 2009 5:22pm
Turpin

Phil B
It’s all to do with heart attitude.
Perhaps you don’t have to be a Christian to have it?
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January 8, 2009 7:29pm
wikiriwhis business

Herald this morning

global warming is officially here according to the media,, Aussy is having a summer.

finger…. throat…. puke
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January 8, 2009 7:57pm

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