=== Todays Toon ===
Pork Barreling 101Yet another glaring example of just how much contempt the Australian Labor Party has for the basic intelligence of the Australian and in this case, New South Wales voter. - ZEG
=== Bible Quote ===
"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”- Revelation 3:14,20=== Headlines ===
'Improved' U.S. Relations in Question After Russia's Iran Nuke Aid
Russia's announcement that it will help Iran get nuclear fuel, defying U.S. calls to hold off until Iran proves it's not developing nuclear weapons, raises concerns about what Obama calls the 'better-than- ever' relationship between Russia and the U.SObama's NYC Mosque Support Draws Fire
Critics take aim at president after he jumped into cultural clash in favor of building a mosque near ground zero, elevating the contentious issue ahead of a difficult election season for Dems
4 Dead in Shooting Outside NY Eatery
8 people leaving a party at a downtown Buffalo restaurant were shot early Saturday morning, four of them fatally, including a Texas man who had returned to his hometown to celebrate his first wedding anniversary, police say
Sole Ambush Survivor Blames Militants
The only surviving member of the medical aid team attacked in a remote area of Afghanistan tells his story, saying killers were militants — not robbers — and one of them had hitched a ride with them in a well-planned ambush
Breaking News
Bomb injures children in Northern IrelandTHREE children suffered minor injuries in a bomb attack seemingly timed to attack police and emergency services.
'No nuclear risk' from Russian fire
FOREST fire raging close to top nuclear research centre does not risk causing a nuclear disaster, says boss of atomic agency.
Roaches and rubbish in Sydney restaurants
RODENT droppings, cockroaches and a build-up of rubbish land CBD restaurants with huge fines.
Jonas brother threatens to sue blogger
SINGER threatens to sue blogger for suggesting he is involved in an “illicit relationship” with 17-year-old actress.
Third of Aussies want Schapelle freed
ONE in three Australians wants convicted drug smuggler out of jail, but only one in 10 believes she's innocent.
Four dead in shooting outside restaurant
FIGHT at private party inside New York restaurant spilled into the street where multiple shots were fired.
'Death by hooker' for sacked City banker
HIGH-flyer paid two unwitting escort girls to hurl abuse at him before he killed himself.
Earthquake aid millions 'spent elsewhere'
ALLEGATION that more than £300 million sent to rebuild parts of Pakistan after 2005 disaster was diverted to other projects.
Japan to sign treaty on parental rights
JAPAN has bowed to global pressure to end the parental abductions of children from broken international marriages.
Gunmen kill 10 bus travellers in Pakistan
GUNMEN singled out non-ethnic Baluch passengers on a bus in Pakistan on Saturday, killing 10 and wounding five others, police said.
NSW/ACT
Errant parents brought to bookMORE than 650 NSW parents have been charged for not sending their children to school.
Cold hard cash linked to Ibrahim
JOHN Ibrahim's sister told police cash found in her home was given to her by the nightclub boss.
Sydney art heist was a 'set up'
PETER O'Mara believes the theft of his $2m art collection was planned for when he was abroad.
Miss Universe wants a job
SHE'S been crowned Miss Universe Australia but Rachael Finch is still looking for the right job.
Bayside beauty's patient wait for fame
SHE'S missed out on two huge Hollywood roles in the past two years, but Indiana Evans isn't fazed.
$500m Dulwich Hill light rail work starts
WORK on first stage of Sydney's $500 million light rail extension in inner west underway.
Teens arrested for desecration of graves
BOYS aged 13, 14 and 15 arrested over desecration of dozens of graves.
Queensland
Big water bills, without a dropDAMS are full and millions of dollars worth of water infrastructure is sitting idle, but residents are still being forced to pay for the projects.
Longer wait for scans as staff cut
MORE than 1000 patients are waiting for critical tests at Queensland's biggest public hospital after management ignored their own advice and cut staff.
Poll violence caught on video
WYATT ROY, the LNP's 20-year-old candidate for Longman is being called on to explain a violent outburst by one of his campaign team members.
Miners at the top of the heap
THE combined wealth of Queensland's richest 100 people has risen by $3.4 billion in the past year mainly due to a few standout performers.
Locusts poised to devour crops
THIS year's locust plague threatens to be the worst in decades, devouring lucrative grain crops and pastures across Queensland.
Victoria
The new eyeful towerTHE southern hemisphere's highest apartment has hit the market at Southbank.
Safety tops list of users' fears
MELBOURNE train travellers are more worried about personal safety than any other problem on the rail network, Metro documents reveal.
Pedophile removed after uproar
AUTHORITIES have been forced to remove a pedophile secretly placed in a country community.
Station security goes off the rails
LARGE stretches of Melbourne's rail network will not be staffed full-time despite government promises to improve station safety.
MPs flout road rules
VICTORIAN politicians have been caught speeding, running red lights and illegally parking their taxpayer-funded cars.
Bloodshed is bad business
A DOUBLE murder is never going to be good for business.
Battlelines drawn in new gangland
POLICE were moving to clamp down on the new gangland as some members of the Chaouk family vowed to "get" a rival.
Good-value Sunday breakfast
IT'S not easy to find a good-value Sunday breakfast. If you know of a cafe that does a good brekky, spread the word. WHERE DO YOU EAT?
Breakfast to break the bank
BREAKFAST might be the most important meal, but it's also becoming the most expensive.
Northern Territory
Nothing newSouth Australia
'Bikie' in bottle shop rampageA MAN claiming to be a member of the Hells Angels caused chaos at a trendy eastern suburbs hotel yesterday, smashing up its bottle shop with a hammer.
Seniors stretching our jails
A WESTERN suburbs paedophile has become South Australia's oldest prisoner - joining four other inmates in their 80s.
Gutsy granny wins stamp duty fight
GREAT-grandmother Judith Shortt doesn't like being pushed around - especially when she believes she's being ripped off.
Shoppers' parking fine hike
A SURGE in fines for people for outstaying shopping centre parking time limits has been castigated by the retail industry as council revenue raising.
Wiild parties leave $100,000 bill
AN ADELAIDE Hills rental property has been left trashed by tenants and party revellers - leaving a damage bill of up to $100,000.
How our Kellie was `boned' by Nine
NEWSREADER and former Barossa girl Kellie Connolly has spoken for the first time about being axed in Nine's infamous ``boning room''.
SA unis don't rate on world scale
THE list of the world's best universities has been released and none of SA's three institutions were among the Australian campuses on it.
Holiday ends with housefire homecoming
A FAMILY has come home from an overseas holiday to find a light they'd left on had set their house ablaze just hours before their return.
Cabbie carjacked at gunpoint
A TAXI driver has been carjacked at gunpoint and another cabbie threatened with a knife in a morning of thuggery on Adelaide streets.
Western Australia
The street they gave up onTHIS suburban street has been so trashed that local authorities have given up on it.
Teen abortions hit record numbers
A RECORD number of young girls in WA are having abortions and some are still in primary school.
Hero school head averted gun drama
THE hero principal at the centre of a tense stand-off with a student carrying a loaded shotgun says he has no hard feelings towards the 15-year-old.
Supermodel Nicole still a home-town girl
WA supermodel Nicole Trunfio returned home for a David Jones fashion promotion - then revealed the brains behind her beauty with news she had become an inventor.
Surfers rescued off Rottnest
TWO men have been plucked to safety from the ocean off Rottnest after their boat was swamped by 3m waves this morning.
Two injured during 18th birthday brawl
TWO teenagers were injured during a brawl outside an 18th birthday party at the Bedford RSL Hall late Friday night.
Motorcyclist dies, woman injured
A MOTORCYLIST is dead and a woman seriously injured after separate crashes in WA today.
Man hospitalised with gunshot wounds
A 31-YEAR-OLD man remains in a stable condition in hospital after suffering gunshot wounds to his leg early this morning.
Tasmania
Nothing new=== Comments ===
Time to end the dud experimentPiers Akerman
NEARLY three years ago, Australian voters made a huge misjudgment and elected Kevin Rudd and his Labor colleagues to run the country. As an experiment, it was a disaster. - The ALP spinners and supporters are very good at denial of the obvious, that their government has failed. ABC’s 7:30 Red Kerry will talk longer than his conservative opponents in interviews, but gives a comfortable platform to those of the ALP he interviews.
Gillard is willfully inept. She might claim she knows nothing about Hamidur Rahman, or my issue, but her abusive supporters are verifiably aware. My opponent for the seat of Blaxland, Jason Clare, is aware and has refused to do anything saying it isn’t a federal issue .. except the appalling work conditions are part of Gillard’s Fair Choices. Apparently, Gillard’s education agenda includes the abuse of school children in order to target whistle blowers. - ed.
===
Repealing Birthright Citizenship Is a Mistake America Can't Afford to Make
By Alex Nowrasteh
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and other congressional Republicans are floating the idea of abolishing birthright citizenship, which makes the children of undocumented immigrants automatic citizens, to decrease undocumented immigration. The negative consequences would be an affront to conservative values and vastly outweigh any imagined benefits.
Legally, there is some controversy about the birthright citizenship section of the 14th Amendment. Did it just apply to overrule Dred Scott or was it meant to extend to everyone? Excerpts from the congressional record and other sources offer no clear answer. But the courts have since said, with very few exceptions, that being born in the U.S. guarantees citizenship.
Having children in America—derisively called “anchor babies—does not protect undocumented migrants against deportation. According to a 2010 Berkeley and Davis law school study, roughly 88,000 parents who had green cards and American born citizen children were deported after committing relatively minor offenses between 1997 and 2007. And children of undocumented immigrants generally cannot sponsor their parents for legal immigration status until they are 18 or 21 years old depending on the specifics of their case —not exactly a fast track to citizenship.
It’s more likely that undocumented immigrants have children here for less “sinister” reasons than easing their navigation of America’s byzantine and antiquated immigration laws. Perhaps undocumented immigrants just want to make sure their children have access to the greater opportunities available in the United States
Supporters of repealing birthright citizenship often note the increased costs to schools from having to educate more children. Yet if that is their main concern, the way to lessen that burden is to make it easier to immigrate legally to the United States and privatize the bloated and inefficient public school system.
Since it is so difficult and to immigrate legally into the United States—and virtually impossible for an average low skilled worker without family already in the country—many undocumented immigrants who in an earlier time would have gone back to their home countries now end up staying, and thus raising children while working in the United States.
During the age of great migration, millions of Italians temporarily worked all over the world before returning to Italy with their savings. The possibility of legal mobility always assured that they could work again overseas if the need arose. Consequently, two-thirds of Italian immigrants did not take their families with them when they moved abroad. Undocumented immigrants today don’t have that option. When they move they know it’s risky to return to their home countries so they take their families with them wherever they go.
Repealing birthright citizenship would hurt America in myriad other ways.
First, if children born to the undocumented remain in legal limbo, they will have much less incentive to accumulate the human capital—skills, education—that will help them in the job market and contribute to America’s economy. As professors Peter Rimmer and Maureen Dixon of Australia’s Monash University note in a 2009 Cato Institute study, undocumented workers who are legalized make longer term investments in human capital that significantly increase their wages. After all, what’s the point of investing in your education if you could be deported at any time?
Second, undocumented children would become a legal underclass, which would help perpetuate a culture of dependency.
Third, refusing citizenship will delay cultural and linguistic assimilation. Marginalizing children at a young age would force them to only deal with people in their own communities. Many will distrust outsiders, think of themselves as an oppressed underclass, and become hostile to American society at large. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 98 percent of second-generation Hispanic Americans, who are citizens, speak English fluently. How many would bother to learn if they could be deported at any time?
Besides the emancipation of American slaves, the best thing to come out of the Civil War was the 14th Amendment.
The Republican Party can take sole political credit for that brilliant Amendment, which has aided in the assimilation of millions of immigrants over American history.
Republicans today should seek to continue that legacy and the American tradition of quickly and fully assimilating foreigners into all the positive aspects of the American economy and society. They should leave the 14th Amendment well enough alone.
Alex Nowrasteh is a policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
===
MARGINALS MARGINAL
Tim Blair
Polls are swinging all over the place:
Julia Gillard’s government is facing an electoral rout in western Sydney and Queensland putting Tony Abbott on course to win an extraordinary election victory.More evidence of a likely close result, but as for a Coalition victory … not quite, although Galaxy has good recent form:
An exclusive Galaxy poll for The Sunday Telegraph of 4000 voters in 20 marginal electorates across five states has found the Coalition on track to win the 17 seats it needs to form government.
A similar poll in 2007 accurately predicted Kevin Rudd’s landslide victory.Julia Gillard is now resorting to prayer:
The self-confessed atheist has also revealed that she has previously asked churchgoers in her Melbourne electorate to pray for her. “The Christian churches would come to me and say, ‘We’re going to pray for you, what would you like us to pray for?’ And I’ve said: fortitude.”Fortitude may not be enough.
UPDATE. That Labor prediction still holds. The ABC’s Antony Green checks Galaxy’s figures, and finds a Labor lead:
What someone has done is take the five entries in the 2010 2PP column and average them to get a national figure. Wrong. Very wrong.UPDATE II. David Penberthy, whose prediction record is excellent, expects an Abbott win.
UPDATE III. Sunday papers back Gillard.
UPDATE IV. Correction to a correction, from Antony Green:
What was wrong was the headline national figure reported last night, and I see nothing to suggest Galaxy produced that figure.And, of course, it’s still just a poll.
As has been shown by state breakdowns of Nielsen and Newspoll, Galaxy suggests that Labor can lose the election in marginal seats in Queensland and NSW. The Galaxy poll is very much in line with what Nielsen and Newspoll have been reporting for three weeks …
Now I know about the print versions of the Sunday Telegraph, I know that the paper itself hasn’t highlighted the national figure. It has treated the analysis properly as a seat by seat comparison.
UPDATE. A further comment from Green, who is a very fair operator:
A party winning a majority of seats with a minority of the vote is always a possibility in close elections. It is unusual for a government to win a majority of the vote and not win a majority of seats but it is not unheard of and perhaps we might see history next weekend.
===
TRAITOROUS ACTS
Tim Blair
Wikileaks’ recent unloading of delicate information relating to military strategy in Afghanistan drew the attention of Taliban goons, who were most interested in the activities of Afghans working with US forces:
Zabihullah Mujahid told Channel 4 News that the insurgent group will investigate the named individuals before deciding on their fate.Former British military intelligence officer Daniel Yates rightly pointed an accusing finger at amoral Wikileaks founder Julian Assange:
“We are studying the report,” he said, confirming that the insurgent group already has access to the 92,000 intelligence documents and field reports.
“We knew about the spies and people who collaborate with US forces. We will investigate through our own secret service whether the people mentioned are really spies working for the US. If they are US spies, then we know how to punish them.”
As more detail of the information contained in the ‘Afghan war logs’ emerges it appears clear to me that, despite his protests otherwise, Julian Assange has seriously endangered the lives of Afghan civilians.So, how does Assange feel about the Taliban using his information to identify and kill those seeking liberation in Afghanistan? Why, he’s quite fine with it:
He expressed some ambivalence about the need to protect Afghans who have helped the U.S. military. “We are not obligated to protect other people’s sources,” including sources of “spy organizations or militaries,” unless it is from “unjust retribution,” he said, adding that the Afghan public “should know about” people who have engaged in “genuinely traitorous” acts.In Assange’s world, opposing the Taliban is “traitorous”. The really cute thing is that while he’s exposing Afghans to the threat of torture and death, Assange is on the run and disguising himself to avoid any trouble in the US:
Mr. Assange said he still fears that the U.S. is trying to have him arrested for publishing the classified documents. He was meant to appear in person at the panel discussion about the media at London’s Frontline Club, but dialed in by Skype instead. Asked by an audience member for his current location, he said “no comment.” He appeared to have dyed his trademark white hair brown, and to have cut it in a close crop.What a freakin’ hero.
(Via JB)
===
NOWHERE TO GO
Tim Blair
NYU journalism guy Jay Rosen drops in on a local publication:
I visited, met with its leaders, talked to observers. My impression: the Sydney Morning Herald is in peril. No one there knows where to go.Not true. Miranda Devine knew exactly where to go. But at least SMH editor Peter Fray still has David Marr:
David Marr, a national treasure, is writing about the hole that opened up in the road Bellevue Hill …Take a look at the piece in question. It’s nice when editors stick up for their writers, but there are more wasted words there than you’ll find in a Julia Gillard speech about Labor solidarity.
It is only 420 words long, and the word yesterday doesn’t appear until par 16.
Now, you might be thinking, that’s all well and good, but I’m not David Marr.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t aspire to be your own David Marr.
The artistry and craft in that piece is not the stuff of Walkleys.
But it is a wonderful example of what we all should be doing – telling relevant stories and not wasting a single word.
===
MATT LIEGLESIAS
Tim Blair
The standard eco-leftoid fund-raising method involves unrealistic pessimism – the earth is frying, oceans are rising, gimme some grant money before the animals go emo – but Matt Yglesias had a different approach:
Yglesias wrote more than a year ago that advocates for high-speed rail may need to present “unrealistically optimistic” ridership estimates to obtain government funding for the projects. “For better or for worse, that’s politics,” Yglesias said then.
But what set off a flurry of Tweets today – and Yglesias’s advocacy of lying – was a charge by Yglesias via Twitter that Washington Times reporter Eli Lake has a “deserved reputation for dishonesty.” Hemingway, Lake and others confronted Yglesias on Twitter about the charge, pointing out that Yglesias himself had actually advocated dishonesty.
Then, Yglesias dug in, saying lying was a necessary part of politics.
Yglesias’s Twitter opponents also charged he does not take criticism well.
“When [Yglesias] gets frustrated because he can’t counter an argument, he calls people ‘dishonest’,” Lake said, later calling him “a child.”
More unrealistic optimism followed:
In concluding his interview with The Daily Caller, Yglesias said “go f**k yourself” and hung up the phone.
===
LOVED TO DEATH
Tim Blair
The Wall Street Journal covers the shooting in Melbourne of crime boss Macchour Chaouk:
Sporting a distinctive heavy beard, Mr. Chaouk rose to prominence in April 2005 when his son Mohamed was shot dead by police as he brandished a samurai sword during a raid on the same family home where Mr. Chaouk was killed Friday.Via Anne B., who emails: “I guess young Mohamed never saw ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.’ “ Apparently not. Meanwhile, the Age reports:
The Chaouks, who have access to weapons and reported links to Sydney’s Lebanese crime gangs, are locked in a bitter feud with former family friends the Haddaras.Who will prevail? Place your bets in comments. Love this description of events from the dead heroin dealer’s daughter-in-law:
‘’Then [the killer] ran off, jumped in the car and went like a weak dog. [The killer] ran away because they are a chickenshit weak dog … [They] done it in our holy month Ramadan.’’How disrespectful. And a touching tribute from the dead guy’s daughter:
‘’Well liked by everyone, well respected. He loved his family to death.’’Not exactly the words I’d have chosen, but fair enough. Friday’s killing followed the murder of another junior Mo:
The Chaouks believe Macchour was killed by Ahmad Haddara – the head of a rival gangland clan.As Mark Steyn wrote five years ago: “These days, whenever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it involves some fellow called Mohammed.”
They claim Haddara was avenging the murder of his son, Mohammed, in June last year.
UPDATE. What about the rest of him?
The head of an alleged Melbourne crime family gunned down at his home last Friday will be buried beside his son who was shot by police.
===
PANCAKE ROLLS
Tim Blair
Then: Ramadan at the White House is bad.
Now: Ramadan at the White House is good.
Then: An Islamic presence in NYC is an “appeasement gesture”.
Now: Opposing an Islamic presence in NYC amounts to “simple paranoia”.
Looks like Charles “Pancake” Johnson is following his own advice: “Let’s all just roll over, and go back to sleep.”
(Via Currency Lad)
UPDATE. Johnson supported Barack Obama’s statement “against the Cordoba House project”. But then Obama said he was “not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there”, forcing Charles into flip mode:
Right wing bloggers are crowing that Obama is “walking back” his earlier statement; but I don’t see that at all.Of course you don’t, Charles. It’s too obvious.
===
Abbott wants another town hall forum
Andrew Bolt
No second debate, but will Julia Gillard accept this challenge, after Abbott’s win in the Battle of Rooty Hill?
SKY News and The Courier-Mail are offering to host a second town hall-style leaders’ forum in Brisbane.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott faced 200 people, said to be undecided voters, separately at the Rooty Hill RSL Club in western Sydney last week.
The forum was aired on Sky News, but the pay-TV broadcaster said today it would make its feed from a second forum available to free-to-air networks.
Mr Abbott wants a second forum.
“I think it’s good to see the public questioning the candidates for prime ministership,” he told ABC Television, adding the town hall-style format was good.
===
Labor should get a better financial advisor
Andrew Bolt
Labor recommends John Hewson as a judge of Tony Abbott’s financial ability.
But what exactly are Hewson’s own credentials, and why would Labor take the advice of a man with this record?:
He has been involved in three companies that have gone belly-up, including dotcom start-up CBD Online, Network Entertainment, which lasted less than one year after burning up nearly $12 million, and, most recently, Elderslie Finance. Elderslie failed in July last year after losing $125 million and leaving its receiver, PricewaterhouseCoopers, able to recover only around 10 cents for every dollar they invested.Then there was this:
Peter Costello, meanwhile, says his own comments were edited out of context by Labor, and he rates Abbott far above Gillard.
(Thanks to reader Watty.)
===
Galaxy: Queensland could finish Gillard
Andrew Bolt
Yesterday I said Tony Abbott had lost the election, based on the last three polls. On the other hand…
A HUGE swing against Labor by Queensland voters has put Tony Abbott on the brink of a stunning win at a cliffhanger federal election on Saturday.UPDATE
The most comprehensive poll conducted during the election campaign so far shows Julia Gillard’s team at risk of losing up to 10 seats in the Sunshine State, as they reap the backlash from Kevin Rudd’s dumping…
Last week’s poll of national marginal seats was conducted exclusively for The Sunday Mail by Galaxy Research… With the ALP also in jeopardy of losing seven seats in NSW and two in Western Australia, their best hope of retaining power appears to rest on picking up two seats in Ms Gillard’s home state of Victoria.,,
Even if Mr Abbott does not win the 17 seats necessary to secure power in his own right, 14 could be enough to open negotiations with independents on forming a minority government.
Antony Green says this actually works out to a national Labor lead of 51 per cent to 49.
(Thanks to readers Octogenarian, Alan Shore and others.)
===
Warning: not quite the news
Andrew Bolt
Tom Scott invites you to print out handy warning stickers to plaster on what poses as newspaper reports. Some examples:
(Via Instapundit.)UPDATE
There is a sticker to plaster over this story:
AUSTRALIA’S Sunday newspapers have backed Julia Gillard to win the election, saying Labor deserves a second term.That sticker would say:
WARNING: This paper wants to back(the party that would abuse them most if they won. - ed)But in the state where the anti-Labor swing is strong, the Sunday Mail backs Abbott.
===
Why build the Muslim centre here?
Andrew Bolt
A noble sentiment to defend an ignoble proposal:
BARACK Obama has endorsed the building of an Islamic community centre and mosque near Ground Zero in New York, saying, “Muslims have the same right to practise their religion as everyone else” in America.But is this really about religious rights? I’m particularly interested in why a Muslim group would even want to put their Muslim community centre just two blocks from the site where Islamists murdered 3000 people in the name of this same faith.
“That includes the right to build a place of worship … on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America,” the President told guests at a dinner at the White House honouring the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
I have three specific questions.
First, why would the proposers of this Muslim centre even want to be geographically associated with an atrocity committed by Islamists? It would be like Germany building its Polish embassy at Auschwitz..In asking these questions, I am paying the proposers of this mosque the courtesy of assuming they genuinely do abhor the 9/11 attacks and genuinely do mean their mosque and cultural centre near Ground Zero to be a way to build bridges to other faiths.
Second, while the proposers say their Islam rejects terrorism, why would they want to build their 13-storey mosque and cultural centre at a location likely to embolden the significant minority of Muslims who support terrorism and the September 11 atrocity? Would a mosque at this site be seen by Islamists as a gesture of peace or of conquest? As a sign of American magnaminity or of weakness?
Third, why would the proposers want to build their centre at a site they know will offend many of survivors and relatives of the 3000 who died at the hands of the September 11 Islamist terrorists? Most polls put opposition to the plan at 70 per cent.
That said, the man behind the plan, Imam Faisal Abdur Rauf, may not actually deserve that courtesy, having already chosen to the blame the victims of September 11 more than the perpetrators:
Faisal: I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but united states policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.Again I ask: why would you even want your mosque at this site?
Bradley: You say that we’re an accessory? How?
Faisal: Because we have been accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.
No comments:
Post a Comment