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Taking away the Climate Change gravy train
In a statement Mr Hunt confirmed that he had dissolved the commission.
“As part of the Coalition’s plans to streamline government processes and avoid duplication of services, the commission’s function to provide independent advice and analysis on climate change will be continued by the Department of the Environment,” he said.
“I would like to recognise the efforts of the Climate Commission in providing information on climate change to the Australian public and thank all the commissioners for their work.
“This decision will save the budget $580,000 in 2013-14 and an annual funding of up to $1.6 million in future years.”
A spokeswoman for Mr Hunt said he had also approved a brief to begin drafting a bill to repeal the separate Climate Change Authority as part of the Coalition’s broader efforts to remove the carbon price.
>click for source
If ever you wanted to define a partisan quango the climate commission would be the perfect exemplar populated only by the most devout followers of the apocalyptic green faith it has not once told us anything of value that was not already widely circulated in the media. when it comes to feather bedding this is one of the worst examples you can conceive of. That is the thing though that the Luvvies who read the Age et al do not seem able to get their heads around, because even if you believe in anthropomorphic climate change you can still applaud this saving of money spent on an organisation that does absolutely NOTHING to solve the problem (assuming that the problem is real).
While it is fair enough to feel some empathy for the followers of the faith (like our sometimes commentator Damian Doyle AKA “toaf”) who will now be searching for alternative employment its hard for me not to think that maybe if they had been doing something more socially useful in the first place then they would not now be putting Centerlink on their speed dial list.
Cheers Comrades
Dead department walking
We live in a secular age and in this country we expect that there should be a well defined separation between church and state, however when the government of the day “gets religion” which encourages them to set up a huge edifice to promote the tenets of their faith who would be surprised that the shear cost of the instrumentality and its lack of any immediate benefit for the billions it is costing should lead them to consider shutting it all down to help a budget bottom line that is in a rather perilous state for a plan due to be delivered just prior to the next federal election:
click for source
The thing that I find amusing about this is that it actually a wise move politically for the government to contemplate this sort of departmental pruning on a number of different levels.
Firstly the staff in this department will not be missed by the public because the work they do is pointless anyway
Secondly you can bet that as a recently created instrumentality that the majority of the staff are employed on short term contracts which would make them easier to sack/dispense with
Thirdly those public servants have been on notice since the rise of Tony Abbott that they are going to be gone as soon as he gets the lodge so being sacked by Labor won’t be much different to what they were expecting anyway.
Fourthly Most work in Canberra which is a solidly Labor town so their votes would still be mostly delivered to the government anyway because you can bet that most who work in the department are likely to be Greens supporters.
Fifthly it will save lots of money on the expenditure side of the Ledger which is desperately needed to try to balance the budget to recover Wayne Swan’s economic credibility.
Then on the other hand the Coalition must be delighted at the prospect of the Gillard government wearing all of the political pain for doing that which they will be planning as one of their first items of business after September 15. They will be able to achieve the abolition of this monument to leftist hubris with out being blamed or daemonised for doing so during the election campaign. The beauty of it all just sends a shiver down my spine , further it lends a fair bit of weight to my prediction that in a post Gillard parliament a very much chastened ALP will not oppose any bill to dismantle the Carbon Tax et al because they will be so despairing about the issue that they will just want to get it behind them and move on .
As for the Greens, well I expect that they will be rather like that Shakespearean storm, all sound and fury signifying nothing.
Cheers Comrades
Related articles
- Coalition wants a western Sydney hat trick (news.theage.com.au)
- Newspoll: Labor 45 to 55, and Gillard sinking (rajcairnsreport.wordpress.com)
- Labor vote plunges (theage.com.au)
- Abbott offers Australia ‘new hope’ (bigpondnews.com)
- The Separation of Church and State (owprince.wordpress.com)
Geert Wilders’ speaking tour
Dutch MP Geert Wilders. Photo: AFP
My friends form the left seem to be utterly terrified that this man will shatter their delusions about the nature of Islam and I just can’t help thinking that this fear is an example of a the sort of intestinal fortitude deficit that saw Neville Chamberlain declare that there would be “peace in our time” just prior to WW2. If a man receives death threats and requires substantial and constant protective efforts to ensure he remains alive isn’t that an indictment of the faith that he criticises and proof that it is no religion of peace?
click for source
I expect that the marriage of convenience between minions of the left and Islam will manifest itself in the form of claims the Geert is a “racist” and an Islamophobe (cue: Damian Doyle)but I can’t see such claims as anything other than those same minions being willing butt boys for a religion that is antithetical to all of their claimed belief in the rights of the individual to the inalienable right to autonomy of thought and a right to criticise all religious dogma. The left are total quislings when it comes to any criticism of the ideology of Islam they have been utterly cowered by the threats of violence, both explicit but more from the implicit threats that the promised violence that has been focused upon Wilders will be visited upon any here who speak up against the “religion of peace”.
Its all well and good to be tolerant of all of the many ways that people seek to personify the deity but in my view our obligation to be tolerant ends the moment that followers of any faith threaten or visit violence upon their critics.
Cheers Comrades
I also note that there will be no Brisbane appearance, which is very disappointing to me personally…
Related articles
- Ha Ha Islamophobia (iainhall.wordpress.com)
- Is Islam a Religion of Peace? No. [Part 2] (thegreatantagonizer.wordpress.com)
- Guess how many Islamic terror attacks since 9/11 (wnd.com)
- News From The “Religion of Peace” (mundabor.wordpress.com)
- “Islam the Religion of Peace” (jpfinn7.wordpress.com)
- Why Islam means peace? (abdulruff.wordpress.com)
- Neville Chamberlain Did the Right Thing? June 5th Debate at Intelligence Squared (winningreview.co.uk)
- Obama’s Indifference to Aggression (bokertov.typepad.com)
The downplaying of Honour crimes in the Islamic media
I usually make it may practice to read the literature and commentary that supports and endorses opinions that I disagree with in the hope that I can come to some understanding of how those on the other side of the equation think. I was lead to this piece courtesy of our old friend Damian Doyle tweeting its praises, I’ve read the piece three times now and I find myself scratching my head in disbelief at the juvenile line of argument in play here. please read this quote and be amazed:
Israel’s non-criminal killing of Arabs
By adopting honour killings as a pet topic, Zionists and other right-wing forces seek to delegitimise and even criminalise Arab and Muslim society in general.
Consider an August 2012 essay in the neo-conservative FrontPage Magazine asserting an “Arab cultural and Islamic propensity of violence toward women”.
The author characterises the fatal stabbing of a 27-year-old Palestinian woman by her husband as a “death sentence which tragically has been shared by a long and ever-expanding list of Palestinian women and girls”. He does not care to explain why it is not also tragic that an even longer expanding list of Palestinian women, girls and all other varieties of human beings happen to share the fate of obliteration by Israeli munitions. Nor does he delve into what this might indicate about Israeli cultural propensities or those of Israel’s preferred ally and automated teller machine.
Without downplaying the obvious tragedy of honour crimes, we must ask why it is that we are supposed to be horrified by the idea that “in the past two years, 25 [Palestinian] women have been subjected to honour killings” but not by the fact that 1,400 Palestinians were wiped out in three weeks during Operation Cast Lead#.
FrontPage claims that, although “honour killings have long been a staple byproduct of Palestinian society”, the world’s foremost anti-Israel institution – that is, the UN, which nonetheless somehow manages never to enforce resolutions against the Jewish state – has deceitfully implicated non-Palestinians in said byproduct:
“Not surprisingly, for some, this pervasive [Palestinian] violence has been laid at the feet of the usual suspects, namely the Israelis. This scapegoating was summarily expressed in a 2011 report by the United Nations Economic and Social Council which blamed harsh economic and social conditions created by the Israeli ‘siege’, an occupation which has led to high levels of poverty, unemployment and, thus, ‘violence, within families’.”
The article’s allegation that “in Muslim countries throughout the Mideast, South Asia and Africa… men more often than not treat women little better than livestock” is meanwhile followed by the suggestion that “[c]hanging that dismal equation will take more than just a cultural revolution”. This seems to prescribe further state violence as a means of ending individual violence, which is itself often inextricably linked to state violence in the first place.
How can any thinking person with any sense of morality accept the underlying argument here that violence against women is not an issue in Palestine because more people have been killed in the ongoing war with Israel? When you boil it down that is what the author is arguing. Add to that a very big dose of the victim card and you have a very shallow and self serving anti-semantic rant that no self-respecting decent human being should be endorsing. Its excuse making for the inexcusable at its very worst and any endorsement of this sort of mindset should be avoided at all costs. The tragedy is that for many followers of the religion of peace and their fan-boys such thinking is the unquestioned norm and there in lays the problem when anyone wants to address something like “honour” crimes the all pervading claim of Muslin victim-hood in the face of any criticism of either the faith or its society and culture is used as a sort of universal “shut up” and it means that for as long as there is a timorous response to this “defence” there will be no social reform or improvement in the status of women under the oppression of Islam.
Cheers Comrades
# my bold
Related articles
- Understanding sexual harassment in Palestine (bikyamasr.com)
- Coventry honour killing victim Surjit Athwal remembered #Vaw (kractivist.wordpress.com)
- Belen Fernandez: Honour Crimes and Islamophobia (loonwatch.com)
Is it the love of beer that prevents Damian Doyle from converting to Islam?
Damian Doyle has always struck me as a strange individual, so sanctimonious and so judgemental of yours truly and so full of condescension for anyone who does not hold beliefs concurrent with his own. He is an avid consumer of what I call “disaster porn” and if there is some natural disaster in the third world he is onto it like a flash tweeting about it or decrying the tardy response of the west to said disasters. Anyway our Damian has written a rather wordy piece about the way that Islam is perceived in this country and in it he sneers at any and all criticism of that faith.
During the question and answer session it became clear that many members of the audience were genuinely curious about Islam. Having heard so many terrible things about the religion – not just at the forum but elsewhere too – they wanted to understand its core teachings and central texts. One woman commented she had attempted to read the Qur’an but found it unintelligible and confusing. That’s a pretty normal response as it’s a very different book to, say, the New Testament. “So where can we learn more about Islam?”
The response at that forum, naturally enough under the circumstances, was not all that helpful. The conveners were unanimous in their advice, “There’s an excellent website called Jihad Watch, which is run by an organisation that we’re linked with. Its main author, Robert Spencer, has also written a lot of books that are essential reading”.
Of course, you don’t need to attend a meeting of the Q Society, a fringe group fighting the good fight against the ‘Islamisation of Australia’ and the implementation of sharia law in our school tuckshops, to meet people who see Islam as a baffling unknown. Through conversations in pubs and coffee shops, by reading letters in tabloid newspapers and on blogs, or by listening to commentary on television or radio, it’s easy to see that Islam is a poorly understood religion in Australia.
Notice the way that Doyle frames his barely concealed contempt for anyone who is critical of Islam? The reference to Tuck-shops is clearly an allusion to the cruelty concerns of the issue of the conversion of institutional food sources to halal even when only a very tiny number of the consumers are Muslim. It seems to me that Doyle is suggesting that only very favourable discussion of Islam should ever be listened to and considered and that anything that is at all critical of Islam is haram.
Please dear readers go to his piece and you will find a great example of quisling rhetoric in full flight, an essay that even tries to play down the significance of Female Genital Mutilation Note his choice of words to describe the practice:
A sad example of this is the issue of female genital cutting. The attendees at the Q Society forum would have been left with the impression that female genital cutting is an Islamic practice as an example of the religion’s repression and abuse of women. By contrast, the conference attendees heard an account of a pre-Islamic cultural practice being eliminated from a community as a result of a local imam’s leadership during the 1950s.
Yes Damian we have all heard that line and although it may be true in the most pedantic sense for every Muslim society that abhors and rejects the practice there are many others who are at best indifferent to the vile practice..
It seems to me that for Damian dreams about is an uncritical acceptance of Islam and the practice of the faith, both here and elsewhere in the world, and a substantive deference to the sensitivities of those who follow that faith. Thus he wants no criticism of the hot heads who call for the beheading of unbelievers and he wants to see nothing but positive PR for the faith within the Australian community.:
And so I’ve decided to start small. To think about the things I can influence, rather than those I can’t. People will decide for themselves what to believe about Islam and its role in society, both in Australia and globally. Some will continue to reach out to sources of information that, in my view, are toxic and uninformed. I need to remember that a simple thing I can do is to let them know there are other sources, that those sources can be trusted, and that obtaining information from a range of sources is the best way to become informed.
The trouble with this exercise in parsimony, as readers of this blog will know, is that Damian considers any sort of criticism of Islam at all is an example of “bigotry” and I can’t help thinking that the only thing that is preventing Damian from going the whole hog to making the declaration ” There is no god but Allah and Mohamed is his prophet” must be Mr Doyle’s love of beer.
Cheers Comrades
click to read Damian’s tweets
Related articles
- Ha Ha Islamophobia (iainhall.wordpress.com)
- Opinion: Stop calling criticism of Islam ‘Islamophobia’ (iranaware.com)
- Islam’s Rise and the West’s Denial (creepingsharia.wordpress.com)
- Guess how many Islamic terror attacks since 9/11 (counterjihadreport.com)
- Islam’s Rise and the West’s Denial (iranaware.com)
As foolish as keeping a large predator as a family pet
You just can’t fault Pat’s logic here
Cheers Comrades
Cue for apologists like Damian Doyle
Send those who fail in their claim home
An asylum-seeker gives the thumbs down after his group was put on a bus to be taken to the airport on Christmas Island yesterday. Picture: Colin Murty Source: The Australian
There are so many boats arriving that they barely rate a mention on the news these days but the swelling numbers in immigration detention surely does. With demonstrations from a distressed public in South and Western Australia showing that the public are clearly concerned that our government has both lost the plot and lack any idea where to go on this issue. Gillard and Labor have well and truly snookered herself on this issue because no matter how many claimants are rejected as asylum seekers they still require those claimants to agree to leave after their claims are rejected. Hence we have an ever increasing number of people in indefinite detention all of whom no doubt think that if they hold out long enough will eventually be allowed to stay. Thus we have Gillard trying to offer bribes to these failed claimants so that they will agree to leave without a fuss.
The Government hopes the payment, worth up to $4000 a person, will also reduce the chance of a failed asylum seeker returning to Australia by sea if they could return to their country in a sustainable and dignified way.
Britain and other European countries offer similar assistance through the International Organisation for Migration.
It is the first time the Rudd or Gillard governments have offered to pay for failed asylum seekers to return home.
The Howard government offered a three-year “reintegration assistance” package worth $5.8 million in 2002, but Labor’s then immigration spokeswoman Julia Gillard said it was not a real solution.
While the scheme will cost $5 million, the Government believes it will save if it can persuade people to leave expensive detention centres and it is cheaper than the cost of a forced return.
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the Government had no clear strategy to stop arrivals and was struggling to deal with the “major gridlock” in crowded detention centres.
“This appears to me to be very much an afterthought. It does not amount to a serious returns policy or repatriation strategy,” Mr Morrison said.
Its kind of pathetic that Labor is so lacking in intestinal fortitude on this issue because it seems to me that if there should be no problem deporting failed claimants the day after their last appeal has been rejected and if their lack of consent to being removed from the country is an impediment to that actually happening then Gillard could surely get support from the opposition to change the law so that their consent to removal upon failure of their final appeal was deemed to have been implicit in their appeal.
Its all well and good to claim that we have an obligation to provide protection to those who meet the criteria of the UN convention but such claims have clear (and incredibly broad) criteria so when those criteria have not been met by claimants even the most compassionate lefties have to accept that our obligation to accept the rejected claimants is non existent. However its clear to me that the true agenda of the bleeding heart left is that this country should have entirely open borders but that is a recipe for social suicide.
Cheers Comrades
To Give or not to give, that is the question…
Giving is not simple
Giving is not simple
I have been known to mock Damian Doyle (aka Toaf) because he seems to spend an inordinate amount of time looking for one new disaster or human tragedy so that he can suggest that we should all either feel terrible guilt that we are living in plush western affluence, or a deep shame that we don’t automatically divest ourselves of all worldly possessions and give money till it hurts. I like to suggest that his interest in world wide suffering makes him a fan of “disaster Porn”.
Personally I tend to think that charity begins at home and I am far more inclined to support causes that are more local. Yet it is the malaise of the modern left to think that their guilt chips can be made quiet by the constant giving of alms.
So I found the piece in today’s age rather interesting it rather neatly lays out the dilemma inherent in our interconnected world, caused in part by the 24 hour global news cycle. Not a week goes by without there being news of some new natural or man made disaster. I think that it is only natural that we all eventually become rather immune to the images of suffering on the TV. Likewise I have absolutely no time for the constant calls from charity organisations seeking donations I have developed a standard replay along the lines of “As a matter of policy I do not donate to any organisation who cold call me” and it seems to give them the message with out being too nasty that I don’t appreciate their begging. Anyway this ramble is by way of an introduction to the OP Ed piece that I found in today’s age by Maria Tumarkin:
Maria Tumarkin
But wait, should you be giving money to the Pakistan appeal when you walk past homeless people in your city every day, when eight young indigenous people killed themselves in the Northern Territory recently, and when traumatised children have been exposed to intolerable levels of anxiety, distress and self-harm in detention centres?
Actually, should you be giving money to strangers (assuming a part of your donation reaches those strangers in the first place) when your own sister cannot pay rent or your own grandparents are struggling on a government pension? Is this not the height of hypocrisy to look away from the needs of those closest to you, to judge them less pressing and serious than the needs of people on the other side of the world?
AND I am not even going into the serious critiques of foreign aid as a whole, such as the one recently put forward by economist Dambisa Moyo in her book Dead Aid (Oprah loves it!). Moyo is hardly the first to argue that societies become trapped in aid dependency, which perpetuates disempowerment and endemic corruption, and gives rise to more poverty and dependency still. (In the same way Noel Pearson, love him or hate him, has argued that welfare dependency has trapped and poisoned indigenous communities across Australia.) In his recent public lecture Against Charity, philosopher Slavoj Zizek proclaims that in the West charity has been swallowed whole by cultural capitalism (see, for instance, the rise of the so-called philanthrocapitalism) and altruism has been subsumed by consumerism so the two can no longer be pulled apart – buy Starbucks coffee and support free-trade coffee producers; choose organic and save the planet; shop here and say a decisive no to child labour.
In my younger days there were probably no fewer natural disasters, no fewer wars and definitely no more instances of individual suffering its just that the news of events and the vision of that disarray and the faces of the starving are there in our living rooms day in and day out. Oh I know this is sort of the opposite of the “If a tree falls in the Forrest“riddle because we hear the sound of suffering so much that so much we no longer seem to notice any individual instance of pain.
Anyway Maria Tumarkin’s column is thought provoking and worth reading
Cheers Comrades
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 
