The Thin Man Returns

A former insider takes a cluebat to those with over-simplified views of the 'root causes' of Islamic terrorism:

Mr Husain, whose book, The Islamist, exposed the workings of Hizb ut-Tahir, is contemptuous of the idea that the latest plots were inspired by the West's intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This is just an excuse. They reject Western culture full stop, not just 'slags in night clubs'."

And he offers a brutally realistic analysis:

"These are angry men. Accommodation is not an option. It has to be containment or annihilation."

-- Nick

The Daily Telegraph's Kathy McCabe asks the Live Earth Sydney acts some questions about their green credentials including:

What is your favourite green anthem and if you don't have one, what song do you think could easily be adapted as the theme of climate change?

To which Missy Higgins' response:

"Kermit The Frog's It Ain't Easy Bein' Green. What an anthem."

...is beaten soundly into second place for sheer dumb-assery by Ghostwriters' Rob Hirst:

"Green Green Grass Of Home was clearly a stoner anthem of the '70s but could become a modern carbon footprint dance floor hit."

The Green Green Grass Of Home, written by Claude Putman Jr and a major hit for Tom Jones in 1966, is a country song about a man who wakes from a dream of happier days to realise he is in jail and condemned to be executed for murder in the morning. (Lyrics | Wikipedia entry)

Whether or not Hirst, the former drummer for Midnight Oil, was being humorous is irrelevant. His and Higgins' facile responses add weight to recent criticism by more sensible members of their professional peer group.

-- Nick

Labels: Environment, Global Warming, stupid

A man was lucky not be sucked out of a plane when a hosptial emergency flight he was aboard suffered an explosive decompression:

...the flight nurse was transporting a patient to a Seattle hospital aboard a twin-engine piper turboprop. As the plane was cruising at 20,000 feet, the window adjacent to Fogg's right shoulder exploded, causing a drastic change in pressure that sucked him out of the window, headfirst.

It's reminiscent of the dramatic British Airway's flight in 1990 when the jet's cockpit window blew out sucking out the captain. The captain was saved by his quick thinking flight crew who, not knowing whether he was dead or alive, held on to his ankle. He was alive AND conscious.

Suck a lucky escape deserves a drink:

Lucky Double
- 1/2 lemon
- 1/2 oz Cointreau
- 2 oz vodka (mandrin)
Slice the lemon half further into four quarters, and drop into to a mixing glass. Add triple sec and muddle well. Add mandrin vodka and ice, shake well, and pour out into an old-fashioned glass.

-- Nora

Labels: cocktails, good stuff, news

Lindy Nelson-Carr is the Queensland Labor Government's Minister for Environment and also Minister for Multiculturalism:

...continuing the work for people from different cultural backgrounds and celebrating diversity...

Except for the people of Far North Queensland:

"The last thing Queensland needs is a bunch of gun-happy hillbillies on a crocodile shoot," she said.

Nelson-Carr is a former high school teacher.

-- Nick

Labels: education, hypocrisy, Left, politics, queensland, stupid

The predictable reaction after being caught trying to murder people:

Concerns have been raised that Haneef's arrest could spark public outrage against foreign-trained doctors, particularly those with a Muslim background.

They've feared it before:

Australian Muslims are being warned to be vigilant following the Bali attack.

And before that, pre-Bali:

... NSW Supreme Islamic Council president Gabor Elgafi said... the community was living the daily effects of being under suspicion since the September 11 attacks. "The whole world is looking at Muslims now as a threat ... we are portrayed as terrorists."

One can't imagine why.

Mr Elgafi said his son, who is a doctor, was strip-searched had his bag emptied twice over a two-hour period after returning from overseas.

A doctor, eh? But that should place him above suspicion...

-- Nick

Links to Islamic terror come close to home:

QUEENSLAND Premier Peter Beattie says a second doctor is being interviewed after a Gold Coast doctor was detained in relation to the UK terror plot...

And it's leaving the usual lefties askance - two doctors in Australia arrested, six doctors out of eight people arrested for the London and Glasgow plots - how can this be?

They're not improverished or marginalised, indeed they're well-respected doctors, so what could make such men, subscribers to the Hippocratic principle of 'first, do no harm', want to cause death and destruction?

Well, they weren't touting for business, that's for sure.

Perhaps we should ask a jihadi (well, former jihadi):

How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion?

There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel.

Formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion: they are considered to be one and the same.

For centuries, the reasoning of Islamic jurists has set down rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

But what radicals and extremists do is to take this two steps further. Their first step has been to argue that, since there is no pure Islamic state, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr (The Land of Unbelief).

Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world.

Along with many of my former peers, I was taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief.

In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

The notion of a global battlefield has been a source of friction for Muslims living in Britain.

For decades, radicals have been exploiting the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state - typically by starting debate with the question: "Are you British or Muslim?"

But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Muslim institutions in Britain just don't want to talk about theology.

They refuse to broach the difficult and often complex truth that Islam can be interpreted as condoning violence against the unbeliever - and instead repeat the mantra that Islam is peace and hope that all of this debate will go away.

Go, read the rest now.

-- Nora

UPDATE: Quote of the day regarding Dr Mohamed Haneef, the Gold Coast-based doctor arrested over alleged links to the 'Doctors of Death' terror plot comes from Royal Australasian College of Physicians cheif Executive Craig Patterson:

"What's scary ... about this, if these people are found to be guilty, is they are good quality doctors."

Hmm.

UPDATE II: If you can't get Chuck Norris to save the world, how about John Smeaton?

Labels: Islam, Medical, news

Nine's A Current Affair 'reported' a couple of weeks ago on a group of old biddies who were upset that they couldn't take their dogs into the local bingo. Their ire is not the subject of this post.

What is is that one of the 'heroines' of the piece was admiringly referred to as the matriarch of a gangland family.

Also that same evening on Nine, the father of Melbourne gunman Christopher Hudson, who shot three people in cold blood on a Melbourne street, killing one, was seen in a press conference talking about his son.

And several weeks ago, 'multimillionaire milk mogul' Ken Lacey was seen on TV and in print denying that his sons Jade and Dionne could have had anything to do with the shooting murder of a 23 year old man. This after his offspring were also linked to the kidnapping and torture of another person.

While the media has forever been besotted with the likes of the latterday Ma Barker and her murderous spawn, there's a more recent trend for newspapers and TV news shows to give column inches and airtime to the protestations of the most spotless innocence by the family of all manner of despoilers of life, limb and innocence.

One might expect an expression of disbelief from a father or other family member for whom a child or relative's outburst of murderous violence is sudden and unexpected.

But in the case of Terry Hudson, his son is a Hell Angel - a member of an organised crime gang - and his boy was last year involved in a bike gang brawl at a Gold Coast hotel in which illegal guns were fired indiscriminately in a packed venue.

Meanwhile, Ken Lacey's virginal lads were also linked to the kidnapping and torture of another person, indicating fairly clearly that they were not as pure as the proverbial driven snow.

Which brings us to convicted rapist-murderer Bevan Meninga who was the central player in this Thin Man post back in May last year.

It's unusual for a post to attract comments once it's dropped off the front page but it happens every now and then as subjects and names are googled and the posts show up in the search results.

Which must have been what happened when, suddenly, persons sympathetic to Meninga popped up in comments, also a couple of weeks ago.

Commenter helenb did a quick txt-style drive-by in which she said:

I would just like to say you should all get ur facts straight before writing untrue and unfair statements for the world to see to all u people who belive this garbage u are as bad as the scum who wrote it as beven is doing his time he deserves a second chance NO 1 IS PERFECT

Commenter Nicky was more thoughtful, if equally grammatically challenged:

I just hope this letter makes some of yous think a little bit more of bevan meninga he is still a human with feelings. He just wont the same things in life that you want that is to be happy he has to live with his mistakes every day. It is just so weird because everyone has there own perception of him and how they think of him.

Nicky also returned a few times to cryptically hint that Meninga had been, to use the Pommie parlance, 'fitted up':

It is so unfair how storys are told there is your side his side and the truth [no rape or stabbing]... was bevan ever charged with a rape or stabbing NO so get the truth... he did comit murder but not in way the media tells it im not going to get in to the how,and why the people how care know

While Nicky and I were exchanging comments on the issue, a possible explanation for the reason why helenb and Nicky had suddenly raised their heads over the trench emerged.

Meninga was named in a June 23 Brisbane Courier-Mail article as possibly linked to:

...a cash-for-favours scam embroiling four detectives. Bevan Meninga, 34, Lee Henderson, Gerhard Rade and several other unidentified prisoners are believed to have received money in their trust accounts from Queensland police officers via Australia Post money orders.

Despite Nicky's evasiveness when questioned, it's fairly clear that he and helenb are intimates of Meninga or the Meninga family, if not actually members of the family themselves.

The question that has to be asked is this: Just what does it take to convince the families and friends of those who commit horrific crimes that their relatives and confederates are as the evidence portrays them?

And what part does the media play in perpetuating, or indeed enabling, amplifying and encouraging, this cognitive dissonance by the way in which it today not only fetes the families of gangland 'superstars' but even the relatives and pals of the grubbiest of common killers?

-- Nick

Labels: crime, Law, media

It was a brutal crime, a teenage girl is bludgeoned to death by her boyfriend.

Murder or manslaughter?

In the case of Gold Coast man Damian Sebo, 30, the jury over this weekend came back with a verdict of not guilty of murder, guilty of manslaughter.

Jennifer Tierney, the mother of Taryn Hunt, aged 16 at the time of her death in 2005 is outraged:

"I am feeling sick in the stomach, I am horrified.

"I never believed they'd come back with that verdict. I was shocked.

"Taryn was not the girl she has been painted to be.

"Australia needs to change these laws and quickly."

Ms Tierney's sister, Deborah Brownstown, said: "No ordinary man of the same age would pick up a club and cave someone's head in."

Yes that's true but let's back up a little and we will see why the the outrage of the dead girl's family is misplaced.

Worse than that, we will see how decisions made by Jennifer Tierney on how her child was raised directly contributed to her daughter's death.

Fact 1. At the time of Hunt's death in 2005 she was a 16 year old school girl in the company of Sebo. What were they doing? They were drinking with mutual friends at Jupiters Casino.

More specifically, on Wednesday, September 7 2005 on a school night (September holidays were to begin 3pm Friday, September 9) Taryn Jessica Hunt aged 16 was drinking alcohol at a licenced venue.

In fact, she hadn't been to school on that day at all:

The court heard that on the day of the attack, the young couple had spent the day shopping, having lunch and had "made love" twice before going out drinking with mutual friends.

Point 1. Hello? Where was the mother in all this? Letting her 16 year old daughter wag school and go drinking with her 28-year-old boyfriend.

Well, let's give her the benefit of the doubt on this point - after all there are plenty of parents who are unaware that their teenagers are drinking and truanting from school.

Fact 2. Damian Karl Sebo entered into a sexual relationship with Taryn Jessica Hunt at the age of 26. Hunt was 14. That amounts to statutory rape.

Point 2. What did Hunt's mother do? Not only condoned the illegal relationship, but also enabled it by inviting Sebo to live with her and her daughter.

The jury was told Sebo first started seeing Ms Hunt when she was 14 and after she threatened to move out with him, her mother let the couple live with her at Pacific Pines.

Ms Hunt's mother, Jennifer Tierney, gave evidence yesterday saying her daughter had been difficult at times but she never thought Sebo would kill her.

She said she remembered that when the couple broke up and her daughter started seeing another man, Sebo warned her that Ms Hunt might be hurt if she continued her behaviour.

"He said, 'That girl needs to see a psychiatrist (and) if somebody doesn't do something soon she's either going to be raped or murdered'," she said.

In fact Sebo was living in the house at the time of Hunt's death.

The court was told Mr Sebo continued to live in the same household after the pair split...

Fact 3. Taryn Jennifer Hunt appears to have been promiscuous. To use the correct term, a slut.

Sebo said the two were arguing about Hunt wanting to be dropped at another man's house, when she revealed she had cheated on him repeatedly during their relationship and bragged about how easy it had been. She allegedly pushed and hit him.

"She kept going on about the people she'd been with, how and where, and what she did . . . she was just laughing in my face and that was it for me," he said...

...During the interview, Sebo also said Hunt had aborted a child he believed was theirs almost a year earlier, and had been acting differently ever since.

Point 3. And it seems Hunt's mother knew about her daughter's whorish behaviour. It is becoming increasingly clear that Jennifer Tierney is a stupid, negligent woman.

Sebo told police he and Taryn had been planning a future together and that they were intending to go overseas and have children.

However, Taryn's mother maintains the couple had split up and that Taryn had started seeing another person.

Fact 4A. Throughout the trial evidence Hunt was variously described in terms of 'Nobody says she's an angel', 'difficult', that her relationship with Sebo was 'tempestuous'. The fact that she had blackmailed her mother into letting an adult man conduct a sexual relationship with her in the family home by threatening to run away is indicative of her character.

Fact 4B. It is clear that Sebo is emotionally immature and, quite possibly borderline mentally deficient. During the trial Tierney herself admitted she the never expected Sebo capable of violent rage.

Ms Tierney previously told The Sunday Mail of the difficulties in raising a teenage daughter who had attracted a much older lover.

"They did love each other for a couple of months. He never showed any aggression," she said.

Point 4. In this day and age it's not fashionable to blame the victim, yet both Tierney and Hunt directly contributed to the events that followed.

That said, indeed Sebo deserves a hefty prison sentence for taking Hunt's life. In fact before the trial he had pleaded guilty to manslaughter, an offer rejected by the prosecution in favour of a charge of murder.

The jury's decision to find Sebo guilty of manslaughter is absolutely the correct one.

In light of the evidence at trial it is hypocritical in the extreme for Hunt's mother to be askance at the jury's findings.

Moreover the lack of shame she shows for her culpability in the matter is either another example of Tierney's maternal neglect or her abject stupidity.

The jury is out on that one.

-- Nora

UPDATE: Queensland attorney general Kerry Shine, treads a thin line between justice and the abandonment of due process by offering to look at the sentence given to Sebo.

Mr Shine said he was now seeking advice on grounds for an appeal of the sentence.

"As attorney-general, I cannot appeal a jury's decision to acquit," Mr Shine said.

"However, I have considered the sentencing remarks for the manslaughter charge, and I have asked the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice about grounds for a possible appeal against the sentence imposed and the prospects of success."

Be careful Mr Shine. This particular case is not the best one to start this campaign with.

First, the jury's decision was correct and second Sebo is facing a jail term.

This is not the same as drunken thugs who fell total strangers with one killer punch and who subsequently face no jail time whatsoever.

-- Nora

UPDATE II - In response to PDB below:

Dear PDB,
Thank you for your well-written and reasoned comment.

I respect your point of view and equally respectfully I have to disagree with it.

Indeed, I am basing my post based on the media reports. If you have an issue with how the media reported the case, then that is a subject that you should take up through the Press Council.

The substance of my comment was the reaction of Taryn Hunt's mother.

Indeed, she lost a daughter in the most distressing of circumstances, but that does not absolve her of the responsibility she directly bears regarding the death of her child and judging by her interview with the media, I'm not sure she appreciates her culpability.

This case has as many questions as it answers for instance:

1. Why did Taryn's mother allow her to become sexually active so early?

2. A 14 year-old child blackmailed her own mother to let her adult lover move into the family home. This suggests the action of not someone who was sweet natured but rather someone who could turn off the charm and become nasty if she didn't get her own way. Is this an accurate description of Taryn?

3. Why did Taryn's mother not go to the police to have Sebo charged with statutory rape considering the alarming age disparity?

4. Why did Taryn's mother condone her drinking?

5. Why did Taryn's mother allow Sebo to continue living in the house even after she knew that Taryn was seeing another person? (Side question - how many sexual partners is appropriate for a 16-year-old?)

6. Where is Taryn's father?

Having abrogated her responsibility in raising Taryn when she was 14, her mother seeks to abrogate her responsibility to Taryn again.

One would be somewhat more sympathetic if she had said to the media: “I wish I had never allowed her to enter into a relationship with Sebo in the first place, not necessarily because he was an unsuitable partner but because my daughter was too young.”

But now Tierney paints herself a victim. Had she showed courage to do the right thing by her daughter at the age of 14, Tierney could have saved two lives – that of her daughter and that of Sebo.

As I mention in the post, Sebo does deserve a hefty prison sentence for his crime (I'd be happy to see him spend 20 years behind bars, but then again, I believe someone who murders in cold blood should be executed) and I suspect that he is emotionally if not mentally retarded based on his pursuit of a relationship with a minor, no matter how willing she was.

The fact that you sat through the entire trial indicates that you are invested in the case and the nature of your comments that you are invested in Taryn's behalf.

Given the personal investment you're hardly a dispassionate observer - based on your initials are you Taryn's aunt?

Another question, why is an outside observer not entitled to comment on the worth of a jury's verdict? Who knows, may be one day you’ll serve jury duty and be asked to conduct yourself with impartiality.

As I mentioned in the update – that, unlike the cases The Courier-Mail mentioned this week, the Hunt-Sebo affair is quite different.

In this particular case, mitigating circumstances have everything to do with how and why the jury reached its decision.

Taryn wasn't some random girl in the street minding her own business, who copped a fatal punch to the head at the hands of a drunken stranger.

She was a sexually precocious child who treated her mother and Sebo poorly.

What demonstration of caring and kindness did she show her mother in blackmailing her?

What demonstration of caring and kindness did Taryn show Sebo in taunting him?

Indeed, what degree of self-preservation did Taryn display that night? Had she shown some better judgement, she might be alive today.

The issue is one of personal responsibility and the responsibility that parents have towards guiding, shaping and nurturing their children who are too immature to possess the degree of personal accountability that they might later grow to develop.

In this case, Jennifer Tierney has failed and killed her daughter as a result.

-- Nora

Labels: Law, stupid

You save people's lives, you'd think they'd be grateful. You'd be wrong:

How very interesting? New Prime Minister sworn-in, suddenely bombs, undetonated are found on the streets. The reports suggest that they could have been detonated by mobile phones yet they were not when the bombs were discovered at a busy time. Is this all a ploy for the architects of the Iraq war to force Brown's hand into staying in Iraq and Afganistan if he has plans to the contrary. Don't get me wrong, this could have been a real threat but the timing is very interesting and rather curious.

Posted by: yunus of inala 11:06am June 30, 2007
Comment 1 of 5

The following three comments all hysterically support the view that the foiled London car bombs were, in fact, planted by the British to justify staying in Iraq or launching a new war on Iran. Only the last commenter attempted to inject any sanity into the debate.

One suspects the first four would have no trouble believing this, however:

Lieutenant Walter Haut was the public relations officer at (Roswell) in 1947 and... died last year but left a sworn affidavit to be opened only after his death. Last week, the text was released and asserts that the weather balloon claim was a cover story and that the real object had been recovered by the military and stored in a hangar. He described seeing not just the craft, but alien bodies.

We don't need to wait for Islam to plunge the West into a new Dark Ages. They're already here.

-- Nick

Update: Men of Middle Eastern appearance attempt to firebomb Glasgow Airport with a Jeep full of petrol and one almost self-immolates during the attempt. Probably just a pair of government agents really committed to continuing the war in Iraq.

Labels: stupid, terrorism

It's preposterous and scandalous.

They're the heated words from the lawyer of ex-astronaut Lisa Nowak who's dismayed by the media's fixation on one part of a love-triangle gone wrong.

THE attorney for former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak said his client's right to a fair trial is being jeopardized by a "big lie" that she wore a diaper during a nonstop 1530km drive to confront a romantic rival.

Ms Nowak, who flew on a space shuttle mission last year, was arrested on February 6 in Orlando on charges of assaulting and trying to kidnap an Air Force captain she saw as competition for the affections of fellow astronaut William Oefelein.

And the lawyer is not impressed:

“It holds my client up to ridicule.

"It jeopardises our ability to pick a jury.

"It jeopardises our ability to get a fair trial when the client is the butt of jokes.” (ha, ha, the butt of jokes -- Nora)

Mr (Donald) Lykkebak limited questions from reporters and was vague on whether Ms Nowak ever used a diaper on her drive, but said that prosecutors have not entered a diaper as evidence in the case.

“The officer did not investigate the diaper. The diaper is not in evidence,” Mr Lykkebak said.

“If the diaper was important, why was it not in evidence?

"Why didn't the officer seize it and investigate it?”

Sounds like this lawyer attended the Jackie Chiles school of lawyering.

It's outrageous, egregious, preposterous.

-- Nora

Labels: Law, news, stupid

As many people know, Nicky and I try to be fastidious with our spelling and grammar. Nick is more successful at this than me.

However, the English language is ever changing and even incorrectly spelled words when done for a reason can be a valid form of communication.

And, thanks to the Internet, this phenomenon can spread virally - particularly amongst English speakers who in this particular case appear to share in this universal joke.

The joke is I Can Has Cheezburger, a blog which posts cute pictures of animals with captions in a childish voice or English as a second language syntax. For the over 35s think Mind Your Language with animals instead of people and without the racist overtones.

Nick and I came across a variation of this some weeks ago with I Has A Bucket, which has now been adopted into everyday conversation (strangely enough the joke hasn't worn out in our household yet, which may be part of the appeal of this and I Can Has Cheezburger).

So, enjoy this links and smile this Friday with a kitty who may be forced to consider his 'lifetime rating one'.

-- Nora

Labels: good stuff, Internet