Saeb Raad's conscience finally got to him when he realised the Sydney security guard he'd shot dead years ago had children. The reformed criminal was looking at his own family when he was struck by the fact that the guard would never see his children grow up. No longer able to keep his crime a secret, Raad turned himself in to police in February 2008, more than six years after he shot Ahmed Rashid dead while robbing him in September 2001.- Reminds me that while the NSW Police under the ALP have been conspicuous in their inability to rap up organized crime gangs, the 5T gang collapsed. The 5T leadership after the death of their leader and his girlfriend had turned to Christianity thanks to the good work of evangelical churches like the Jesus Family Centre in Cabramatta and the leaders of the 5T invited the police to fold them up. The lesson being that the ALP can make any number of laws on things, but it is people of good conscience who make things work. - ed.
Lockerbie bomber freed from jail to die
FLAG-waving crowds greet freed terrorist as he arrives back in Libya and America's not happy.
Hardie boss fines are a joke: victims
Supporters of asbestos disease sufferers are outraged at the penalties handed to James Hardie executives over the trust fund scandal.
Lin murder letter 'written by a psycho'
A LETTER accusing two people of the Lin family deaths was "not serious" and "written by a psycho", family friend says.
Backpackers flee sleeping sex attack
Two female backpackers have crashed their van in Darwin while fleeing from two men who had indecently assaulted them while they were inside it.
Don't cheer yet over economy rebound
The common tale being told by our pollies and economic gurus is that the worst of the downturn may......
Karzai praises Afghan voting turnout
President Hamid Karzai thanked Afghans for defying insurgent threats and voting in landmark......
Pollies' hands caught in lolly jar
FEDERAL MPs have been caught out misusing taxpayer-funded allowances to buy confectionery.
Nine slammed over ACA hypnosis
Channel Nine has been reprimanded over an segment on A Current Affair which attempted to hypnotise its audience.
Goverment outlaws al-Shabaab
A group linked to an alleged plan to attack Sydney's Holsworthy Army Barracks has been listed by the Federal Government as a terrorist organisation.
Kiwis vote to bring back the smack
New Zealanders have spoken and their call is controversial: bring back smacking.
Murdered model's fingers, teeth removed
A reality TV contestant believed to be on the run in Canada has been charged with murdering his former wife, whose body was found without fingers or teeth dumped in a rubbish bin in California.
US 'murder victim' alive and well in Qld
US investigators say a woman they believed was killed in 1954 after a body was found in a creek in......
Police seek couple over missing woman
The Chinese community is being asked to help police identify a couple believed to have information......
Hospitals stop medical abortions
Queensland public hospitals have stopped performing medical abortions and are directing women....
We will decide who enters - PM
TENSIONS with China may escalate as Kevin Rudd echoed a famous line of John Howard's.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Guest: Michael Steele
Would Obama's plan increase cost, cut choice and lower quality? Michael Steele with the facts some don't want you to hear!
===
Inside the Town Halls!
Greta breaks down the latest from the Town Hall meetings!
===
Drugs, Money & Narco-Terror
South American druglords are turning our cities into battlegrounds. We have shocking new information on the cartels behind it!
=== Comments ===
TWO STRIKES
Tim Blair
August, 2003. Abraham Hzaife is jailed for the rape and imprisonment of two prostitutes:
The County Court heard that Abraham Hzaife, who has the reading age of a nine-year-old, “carefully planned” both attacks. He used a car fitted with stolen registration plates and child safety locks, but no window winders.
Judge Anthony Duckett said prostitutes were entitled to the same protection under the law as any other citizen. But Hzaife, who has an IQ of 74, could be free in early 2007, having already served 11 months in jail …
Judge Duckett said Hzaife had an excellent working record, was remorseful and had good prospects of rehabilitation.
Hzaife’s co-accused in that case was his brother-in-law. Six years later, in August, 2009, Hzaife is again sent to prison:
They were brothers who teamed up for a terrifying week-long rampage of rape and robbery.
But when Abraham Hzaife, 39, was sentenced to 15 years in jail yesterday and Ahmed Hzaife, 22, got 14 years, they showed vastly different emotions.
The brothers pleaded guilty to charges related to robberies and attacks on massage parlours and brothels in Sydney’s west in 2007 …
A number of victims applauded and yelled “justice has been served” as the brothers stood to leave Parramatta District Court to the sounds of their weeping mother.
Abraham Hzaife, of Woodpark, yelled “go f . . . yourselves” across the court and angrily shouted at a security guard as he tried to speak to his sister.
This time, Hzaife’s non-parole term ends in 2019.
===
MY BOY’S A QUADRILLIONAIRE
Tim Blair
Based on current exchange rates, donations to my World Vision kid in Zimbabwe last year were worth around $140,541 – in Zimbabwean dollars. But that doesn’t take into account earlier currency adjustments:
Notice: The Zimbabwe government redenominated the ZWD again on February 2, 2009 at a rate of 1,000,000,000,000 old ZWD to 1 new ZWD
So, prior to that redenomination, I’d loaded up the kid to the tune of … $140,541,000,000,000,000. That’s probably, I don’t know, two oranges or something. Hope he remembers me when I’m retired.
===
Gassy mass
Andrew Bolt
Amazing. For people who want us to cut emissions - like the stuff blown out the back of jets - the global warming alarmists descending on Copenhagen for a new post-Kyoto deal don’t set much of an example, do they?
The two-week conference in December is expected to attract between 12,000 and 15,000 participants.
===
Not $50 billion, and not theirs
Andrew Bolt
Mathew Murphy detects more of that tell-tale spin as the Rudd Government takes credit for what it claims is a record $50 billion sale to China:
According to the Government’s own commodities forecaster, ABARE, LNG prices are expected to rise as the oil price increases and are predicted to have an export value of about $450 a tonne by 2013. That would value the PetroChina deal at just over $20 billion - less than half the trumpeted $50 billion…
When BusinessDay contacted ExxonMobil and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson’s office to ask how the figure was reached, both sides refused to claim responsibility, saying it had come from the other. After calls back and forth, an ExxonMobil spokeswoman, Gemma Allman, said the $50 billion was an ExxonMobil figure.
Chris Sayce is astonished the Government is taking credit at whatever figure:
We wonder if it’s crossed their mind that it’s actually Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell who should take the credit. After all, it is they who will be forking out $65 billion to develop the project.
Sayce does note that it’s also a hell of a lot of carbon emissions we’re trucking to China.
===
Set free the police
Andrew Bolt
An experienced police officer (identity protected on request) tells me the public deserve better policing - and police:
I am ... currently working in the north western suburbs.. My grievance is this;
Most Victoria Police members, the good ones anyway, are exactly like me, members of OUR community that have joined to make a difference to the local community and Australian identity. We work very long hours, under trying and ridiculous situations that have the ability to make even the most hardened member break down. Our ‘lot’ in work life is only eroded and made more difficult by the corrupt and inept colleagues (command and other ranks) that constantly mismanage the communities defence force – Victoria Police. The one statement I say to myself during particularly trying/difficult situations is this – “We (Victoria Police) are not here to be liked or to make friends, we are here to be respected and to help the community”.
Whenever I hear the Chief Commissioner of Police (CCP) and John Brumby speak I have great angst and trepidation as a member of the organisation and the community. These guys and their minions just don’t get it…they are employed by the community, US, to reflect what the community, US, requests/ sets as its values and laws…
The CCP (Simon Overland) stands up and toes the current government’s line time and time again in the media – “We don’t need extra police” and “we don’t need a zero tolerance crime module like New Yorks as there is no problem here in Melbourne”. I mean is this bloke for real? Does he not read the paper and see the crime stats? Does he not work the streets with his member on a Friday, Saturday night? Does he not get his hands dirty at the coal face and see what the community sees every single night?… We have a problem here in Victoria and it is not going away if we keep on poking a feather duster at it…
The other point I wish to raise is this Andrew, the current crop of our ‘finest’ police command are terrible…really terrible.... In all my time in VicPol I have very, very rarely had somebody I have had complete confidence in.
===
Bugger Bulgarians
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government has finally announced it will indeed introduce racial profiling to better screen out likely (terrorists and hate-preachers?) petty thieves:
Immigration Minister Chris Evans said his department had increased “safeguard profiles” for Bulgarian and Romanian online visa applications, leading to more manual checks of applicants fitting profiles of interest.
Hmm. Maybe they’re just starting small to get it right.
===
A compassion that could kill
Andrew Bolt
When Scottish judges found Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset Ali Mohammed Al Megrahi guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the murder of 270 people at Lockerbie, Libya issued a partial confession:
Libya agreed to pay as much as $US10 million ($A15.1 million) to each victim’s family and said in a letter to the UN Security Council that it was responsible for the actions of Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi, convicted of plotting to destroy the airliner with a bomb built into a radio and hidden in a suitcase.
“Libya as a sovereign state accepts responsibilities for the actions of its officials,” Libyan ambassador Ahmed A. Own said in the letter to the security council.
But Libya now accepts responsibility for nothing, now that George Bush is gone and the Scottish Government has released the now dying mass murderer on “compassionate” grounds:
Sure, Barack Obama did urge this:
...we thought it was a mistake...We’re now in contact with the Libyan government and want to make sure that if, in fact, this transfer has taken place, that he’s not welcomed back in some way, but instead, should be under house arrest.
His officials put the warning even more clearly:
“We have said to Libyan officials quite clearly that he is not entitled to a hero’s welcome,” said State Department spokesman PJ Crowley.
But instead the Obama administration was treated to the sight of Megrahi getting this jubillant reception:
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi ... emerged from the plane wearing a dark suit, his hand held by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam, who was in the delegation that flew to Scotland to bring him home. ... (L)oudspeakers pumped out patriotic music as hundreds of people celebrated the arrival of Megrahi’s plane at Tripoli airport.
And even this demand from the Arab League that Libya now be compensated:
“The Arab League welcomes the Scottish court decision to release (Abdel Baset al-) Megrahi, taking into consideration his serious health condition,” assistant secretary-general Ahdmed Bin Hilli was quoted as saying… Mr Bin Hilli voiced hope the release “would constitute a new page in the Lockerbie crisis and that Libya would receive compensation for its suffering during the years of ongoing sanctions as a result of this crisis”.
Megrahi remains a convicted terrorist and mass killer, despite the usual arguments - some absurdly conspiratorial - suggesting he’s a victim of a British or CIA plot. If he’s actually innocent, then let a court reach that verdict and free him. But if he’s guilty, releasing him after just eight years can only inspire enemies of the West to hail this killer as both a victim of Western evil - yet also proof that the West is too weak to defend itself from the bombings it deserves.
Libya’s reaction alone, let alone the early release, can only fan this inflammatory reaction and rub even rawer the sense of victimhood among those vulnerable to the recruiters for jihad.
So was Scotland’s decisions truly “compassionate”? I fear very much that it will in fact inflict far more pain than it could ever have hoped to ease.
===
Sweden revives the old blood libel of the Jews
Andrew Bolt
It’s alarming that such an old and vicious libel of the Jews should not just resurface but be endorsed by a mass-circulation paper in Sweden:
Sweden’s embassy in Tel Aviv has sharply condemned Sweden’s largest circulation newspaper Aftonbladet for publishing an article accusing the Israeli Defence Forces of harvesting the organs of Palestinians… Aftonbladet’s article, ‘Våra söner plundras på sina organ’ (’They plunder the organs of our sons’), has sparked outrage in Israel. Published on Monday, the article by photographer and writer Donald Boström accuses the Israeli army of involvement in the illegal human organ trade.
The response of the paper’s “culture” editor is astonishing:
Aftonbladet’s culture editor Åsa Linderborg defended the publication and expressed surprise at the strong reactions in Israel.
“It surprises me really. The questions that it raises are nothing new....”
She’s surprised that Israelis should be outraged at being accused, on such flimsy evidence, of shooting Palestinians to steal their organs? She’s surprised that they should be shocked at the resurrection of one of the most ancient and dehumanising blood-libels of the Jews by a major newspaper of the West?
Here’s how flimsy that evidence is - suggesting that the most critical incentive in publishing something so vile was a predisposition to believe:
The writer of the article entitled “They Plundered the Organs of Our Sons,” which ran in Sweden’s largest circulation daily newspaper earlier this week, now says he has “no clue” whether the explosive allegations he levelled at IDF soldiers are true or not. “It concerns me, to the extent that I want [Palestinian accusations of IDF theft of organs for harvesting] to be investigated, that’s true,” he told Israel’s state-run radio station on Wednesday, ”But whether it’s true or not - I have no idea, I have no clue.”
And, indeed, the paper’s culture editor betrays herself by adding, in defence of publishing unfounded smears that revive an ancient calumny of the Jews:
“I think one can also question whether Israel has the right to shoot so many Palestinian men,” said Linderborg.
UPDATE
Some context:
Sweden’s third largest city, Malmö, sits just across the water from Copenhagen, Denmark. To visitors, Malmö seems quiet, nice, maybe a little boring; in other words, quintessentially Swedish. But under the surface, Malmö has serious problems.
On Saturday when Israel played Sweden in a Davis cup tennis match in Malmö, an estimated 6,000 Leftists, Arabs, Muslims and anarchists protested the Israeli presence in the city, and hundreds attacked police. Almost no fans were allowed inside to watch the tennis series, because authorities feared disruptions or possible violence against the Israeli team.
Massive immigration has made Malmö today one quarter Muslim, and stands to transform it into a Muslim majority city within just a few decades
And some history of the Jewish blood libel now revived in Sweden - because Aftonbladet is perversely right: these smears are indeed “nothing new”:
The first case in which Jews were actually accused of having killed a Christian child for ritual purposes was that of St. William of Norwich in 1144…
In Dec., 1235, five children of a miller residing in the vicinity of the city of Fulda, Hesse-Nassau, were murdered, in consequence of which thirty-four Jews and Jewesses were slaughtered by the Crusaders. The Jews were accused of the deed, and those put to the torture are said to have confessed that they murdered the children, in order to procure their blood for purposes of healing…
In the same year (1247) the Jews of Germany and France complained to Pope Innocent IV. that they were accused of employing the heart of a Christian child in the celebration of communion during the Passover festival…
According to present information, the blood accusation against the Jews dates from the middle of the thirteenth century. The first literary reference to it is made about this time in the following passage from the writing, “Bonum Universale de Apibus,” ii. 29, § 23, by Thomas of Cantimpré (a monastery near Cambray): “It is quite certain that the Jews of every province annually decide by lot which congregation or city is to send Christian blood to the other congregations.” Thomas also believes that since the time when the Jews called out to Pilate, “His blood be on us, and on our children” (Matt. xxvii. 25), they have been afflicted with hemorrhages: “A very learned Jew, who in our day has been converted to the [Christian] faith, informs us that one enjoying the reputation of a prophet among them, toward the close of his life, made the following prediction: ‘Be assured that relief from this secret ailment, to which you are exposed, can only be obtained through Christian blood ["solo sanguine Christiano"].’ This suggestion was followed by the ever-blind and impious Jews, who instituted the custom of annually shedding Christian blood in every province, in order that they might recover from their malady.”
And on the foul legend lives.
===
The new tribe of white blacks
Andrew Bolt
AS you see, the two men above are from a tribe of people who face terrible racism just because of the colour of their skin.
So you’ll be thrilled that both have won a rare opportunity - one offered to their race alone to end such injustice.
The man to the right, Sydney arts academic Danie Mellor, this week won our richest prize for Aboriginal artists - the $40,000 Telstra Award.
And the man to the left, Sydney law academic Mark McMillan, has won one of our richest prizes for Aboriginal students - the Fulbright Indigenous Scholarship.
If, studying the faces of these two “Aboriginal” men you think this is surely the most amazing stretch of definition, you’re wrong.
McMillan has gone one better still: he’s also won the Black Women’s Action in Education Foundation Scholarship, originally intended to help educate black women, not white men.
But that’s modern race politics at our universities and anywhere else where grants and privileges are now doled out.
Hear that scuffling at the trough? That’s the sound of black people being elbowed out by white people shouting “but I’m Aboriginal, too”. Hark! - is that a man’s voice I now hear bellowing: “And I’m an Aboriginal woman.”
You see, Mellor and McMillan are representatives of a booming new class of victim you’d never have imagined we’d have to support with special prizes and jobs.
===
Seems the CIA did get to Gillard
Andrew Bolt
Former Labor leader Mark Latham on the sudden conversion of Julia Gillard:
In a high-profile speech to the Australian American Leadership Dialogue in Washington last year, Julia Gillard declared herself to be a rusted-on supporter of ANZUS, designating to the US: “a unique role ... in the world we try to help to build, in the civilisation we want to persist and prevail”. There was a time, of course, when the Left criticised America for its human-rights abuses, gun-toting social values and imperialist foreign policy. Now the titular head of its parliamentary faction has declared the US (and remember at the time, this was George W. Bush’s America) to be a champion of global civilisation. I cannot allow the wrongness and hypocrisy of this statement to go unchallenged. Over the years I have received tender messages from Gillard saying how much she misses me in Canberra. One of them concerned her study tour of the US, sponsored by the American government in 2006—or to use her moniker—“a CIA re-education course”. She asked me to “stand by for emails explaining George Bush is a great statesman, torture is justified in many circumstances and those Iraqi insurgents should just get over it”.
She promised “to catch up when I’m back from the US and I’ll show you my CIA-issued ankle-holster”. I never got to see her ankles or her holster, but I will say this: you have to hand it to those guys in Washington, they have a way of making lefties like Gillard change their minds on foreign policy. Within the space of two years, they converted her from a highly cynical critic of all matters American into yet another political sycophant. The poor woman has been brainwashed.
Brainwashed surely not. Yet Gillard has indeed undergone a remarkable change, and it would be interesting and perhaps even valuable to hear her explanation for it. That may also help to reassure many that the change is genuine.
===
The madness of a policy to divide
Andrew Bolt
Former Labor Minister Barry Cohen on multiculturalism, the feelgood faith of his party when he was in Government:
So why, I hear you ask, do I bridle at the word multiculturalism? We are a multiracial society and a harmonious one. What I object to is the idea promoted by the multicultural lobby that not only should we be a society of a hundred cultures but it is the government’s duty, nay obligation, to see that we remain permanently culturally divided. If some groups wish to remain separate from mainstream Australia, then that is their choice, but they should not expect governments to aid and abet those divisions.
Governments have a responsibility to assist new arrivals to settle in by helping them to find work, learn English, obtain housing and, if necessary, provide welfare. They should not help create the society from whence they escaped.
In return, migrants have a responsibility to learn about Australia’s history and culture, including indigenous Australia and those of Anglo-Celtic origin, which was the dominant culture for 150 years.
Strangely, it is the Anglo-Celtic culture that is continually denigrated. No culture is perfect but few can match the British tradition of equality before the law, respect for minority views, freedom of speech and association, political and civil rights and above all, democracy. The word that best fits that heritage is “tolerance”. Oddly, those most critical of that culture often come from the most oppressive and repulsive regimes, those ruled by feudal monarchies, military and theocratic dictatorships and one-party states.
I expect similar denunciations of the global warming faith by former Rudd Government ministers some 20 or 30 years from now. But I doubt I’ll be inclined to forgive them so easily for not having spoken up when we most needed them to,
===
Psst. Like to buy a bag of wind?
Andrew Bolt
A trade in thin air has just got to be a call to crooks:
Seven people have been arrested and 27 residence and office locations were raided by police over a suspected £38 million pounds (62.8 million dollars) fraud involving the trade of carbon credits to avoid paying the value-added tax (VAT) which is required in the UK.
===
Barney Frank on the Offense Over Health Care
By Bill O'Reilly
Just to be clear, I'm not saying Barney Frank is offensive. I'm saying he's on the offensive, trying to convince Americans that the government should run the nation's health care system. But as we all know, that is a very tough sell these days:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy as Obama has expressly supported this policy? Why are you supporting it?
REP. BARNEY FRANK, D-MASS.: Let me — all right, I will…
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A real solution.
FRANK: When you ask me that question, I am going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question. On what planet do you spend most of your time? Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're going to bankrupt this country, you and the Democrats. And you're making a mistake. You're going to indebt my generation, and we're going to pay more taxes because of you, sir.
FRANK: All right, let me respond. First of all, first of all, the biggest single waste of money in one fell swoop in federal history was the war in Iraq. It was a terrible idea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Now what Frank did there is pettifog the issue. He introduced Iraq when that war has nothing to do with the present controversy. Frank does this kind of stuff all the time when presented with points he cannot answer.
By the way, the woman who challenged Frank is a political activist, not a regular person.
The health care chaos looks like it will never end. Wednesday we learned that presidential adviser David Axelrod may have a huge conflict of interest problem on his hands. Basically, Mr. Axelrod is owed about $2 million by a Chicago political consulting firm that is now producing Obamacare commercials. So in theory, Axelrod could be making money off the president's health care vision.
As far as President Obama is concerned, the health care war is breaking down along party lines. Democrats well understand the president cannot afford to be embarrassed on the issue. That would taint his entire presidency.
But there is no question most Americans are now dissatisfied with the president's health care deal. According to a brand-new NBC News poll, 47 percent now disapprove of the way Mr. Obama is handling health care reform, while 41 percent approve. It is clear Obama's health care policy is not playing among the folks.
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