Pommygranate has posted a fantastic report on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s presentation at the Sydney Recital Hall last Sunday night. Inspirational stuff.

A couple of stories from The Australian:

“Extremist students take over Newcastle mosque”:

Up to 150 university students from Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Egypt who follow the fundamentalist Wahabbism ideology were central to the overthrow at the weekend of the executive board of the Newcastle Muslim Association.

Deposed association president Yunus Kara yesterday accused the students of pushing for new leadership of the port city’s mosque in order to advance their own extremist agenda and continue “brainwashing” local Muslims.

“The international students have used their puppets to come forward and dictate,” Mr Kara told The Australian.

“They’re driving them to whatever ideology that (suits them). Their ideology is extremism … but they teach under the banner of Islam.”

“Taxation office to probe Muslim cleric on Saudi cash”:

An ACT Islamic organisation has also accused the Palestinian-born imam Mohammad Swaiti of being “radical”, anti-Western in his religious teachings, and failing to declare payments he received from officiating at wedding ceremonies.

Documents obtained by The Australian reveal an Australian Tax Office investigation into Sheik Swaiti over allegations by senior Muslim community leaders that he failed to declare his clerical allowances of up to $US30,000 ($37,700) a year, which were paid to him by the Saudi Government.

The tax office sent Islamic Society of ACT president Sabrija Poskovic a letter in reply to written allegations made by him and his community regarding Sheik Swaiti.

“I refer to your letter relating to the imam of your mosque, Mohammad Swaiti, who also happens to be a tax office employee,” the ATO’s letter to Mr Poskovic says.

[..]

Mr Poskovic accused the Saudi Embassy of bankrolling the annual salaries of up to 20 imams around Australia, including Sheik Swaiti, through its Islamic donations (Daawa) office.

A letter understood to be sent on behalf of Mr Poskovic claims the Saudis pay the imams “mukafa”, which is regarded a “reward compensation payment”. It also alleges that Sheik Swaiti had been on the Saudi payroll for 12 years.

Are parts of Australia heading the way of some cities in Europe, like Antwerp, where the Saudi-sponsored radical Salafists/Wahhabists have taken over all 25 mosques? On a bigger scale, just watch what is happening in Kosovo, where the Wahhabis have sponsored about 200 mosques and religious schools since 1999:

Wahhabis open internet cafes associated with their mosques, “in a bid to attract children to listen to ‘naslihates’ against Skenderbeg and the Albanian national renewal movement, the Western civilization and even Kosovo’s traditional brand of Islam,” the media report.

The newspapers in Priština also say that “Kosovo and international mujahedins may be preparing for a rebellion on the brink of the status solution,”

Or look at the growing influence of the Wahhabis in Bosnia, . Rather predictably, in both places a growing section of the Muslim population is growing increasingly radicalised. Lets not be going in that direction.

‘TERRIFIED students and teachers at government schools across NSW are under attack by intruders at a rate of more than one playground invasion a day’:

Knives, broken bottles, poles, cane-cutters, a sword and even a paving hammer have been used to threaten or harm students, principals and teachers.

One of the victims of the incidents is a male Year 10 student who was assaulted by six youths while sitting an exam, while in another case an enraged parent tried to break down a door to “kill” a Year 7 boy.

Police were also called to a primary school in Sydney’s west after the father of two students pulled out a knife and told a mother in Arabic: “You see this, I’m going to put it in your stomach when you leave.”

This is outrageous! What are they doing mentioning he spoke in Arabic? What does that have to do with the story? Don’t they realise they are going to disturb racial harmony and threaten satotage upon our multicultural paradise? The same thing gets said in many different languages in schools right across Australia all the time, damn it, but go ahead and victimise our Arabic speaking minority. Again. Like they haven’t been through enough already. Makes much more sense to just blame John Howard.

A holiday sign sighting in Byron Bay:

Well, you were only going to smoke it anyway.

Unable to stand the shame any longer I promptly joined the queue nearby to have my car recycled into wind chimes. I now drive a fridge.

Meanwhile in Canada…
UPDATE: the link to the story in that post is dead, here it is on another site.

Paul Sheehan calls ‘bullshit’ in the Sydney Morning Herald, Oct 30: “Sheik tries to lie his way out of trouble”

On Thursday the imam of the Lakemba Mosque, Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly, went on television and lied. Brazenly. In an interview with A Current Affair, Hilaly was asked to justify his comments that women bore the ultimate responsibility for the crime of rape, specifically his comment: “If one puts uncovered meat out in the street then the cats come and eat it, is it the fault of the cat or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.”

Hilaly’s response, in Arabic, came via his translator and spin doctor, Keysar Trad: “He’s saying that the man is responsible, that the cat is responsible.”

Absolute rubbish.

Next, Hilaly was asked about his comment: “She is the one wearing a short skirt, then a meeting, then a crime, then Long Bay jail, then comes a merciless judge who gives you 65 years.”

Trad, on behalf of Hilaly, replied: “What is meant by that is that anybody who commits the crime of rape deserves 65 years. The judge should not show mercy to that person.”

Absolute rubbish.

The clearly sceptical reporter, Ben Fordham, using a transcript of Hilaly’s speech, insisted this was not what he had said.

Trad replied: “The intention in that context is that this person does not deserve mercy. That the judge should show no mercy to that person.”

There is a word for this: lying.

Deborah Hope in The Australian, Oct 28: “Islam’s gender crisis”

Some Muslim men’s fear of women is cast in sharp relief by an outlandish sermon.

A LEADING Muslim cleric’s recent sermon, translated this week, blaming women for inviting rape through their choice of clothes and make-up, brings to a head in Australia the titanic collision between conservative Islam and modernity.

Whether this collision can be reconciled is one of the key issues for the West today. The issue is far bigger than Australian Mufti Sheik Taj Din al-Halali’s preoccupation with rapes cases involving Muslim men.

Editorial in The Australian looks back at 20 years of Meat Sheik Hilalisms, Oct 27: “Time to muzzle the outrageous Mufti”

In 1988, he infamously told Muslim students at Sydney University that Jews used “sex and abominable acts of buggery, espionage, treason and economic hoarding to control the world”.

[..]In 2004, he visited Lebanon and described the September 11 terrorist attacks as “God’s work against oppressors” and said that “good lies in evil”. Sheik Hilali would later defend himself to the ABC’s Geraldine Doogue, saying that the controversy stemmed from errors in translation from his florid, High Arabic style. As he put it weakly at the time, “it was poetry and in poetry we go a little bit into the imagination of presentation”.

[..]In the midst of a sermon last November criticising anti-terrorism laws, the sheik complained that the Holocaust was a “Zionist lie” and asked, “What’s that six million all about? Is there six million?”. This past winter he described Israel as a “cancer” in the heart of the Muslim world.

Tanveer Ahmed ousts some uncomfortable truths in the Australian, Oct 30: “Islam can modernise”

A large number of Australian Muslims agree with Hilali’s rant

[..]As long as Muslims view their religion as sitting above history and culture – with the Koran as the literal word of God, which in their view makes Islam undebatable – there will always be Hilalis who can point to certain texts and argue for a social and legal structure consistent with 7th-century Arabia. Let’s not forget that a senior British cleric lavished praise on Hilali in response to this incident, saying Australia was lucky to have him, and suggesting he was “one of the greatest Islamic scholars in the world”.

This is a man who knows the Koran in intimate detail and his views are consistent with a strict reading of the Muslim holy book.

And if you believe the Koran is the literal word of God, how is anything other than a strict interpretation appropriate?

Tanveer Ahmed again on onlineopinion.com.au, Oct 27: “Draw back the veil”

The stabbing death of a Gold Coast woman in a domestic dispute that was apparently sparked by a daughter’s wish to convert from her Islamic faith is a clear example of why the debate on integration and Australian values is one worth having.

There will be many leaders, both from Islamic and academic circles, who will condemn this death and assure us all that it was extraordinary and had nothing to with Islam. They would be right, but not entirely.

The tragic episode highlights a common trend in large numbers of migrants, especially those from South Asian and Arab backgrounds.

Many have no desire to interact in any way with mainstream culture unless it is absolutely necessary. Their attitude is that they have sacrificed a great deal to leave their homes, families and ancestry. They are here to further their children’s education in order to give them a better chance in life as well as send money back home to help their extended families. Their purposes are economic and educational.

[..]What is unique about Muslim communities is that the paradigm of honour, shame, and the obsession with saving face are at the core of their identities. This is a derivation from the clan, village-based groups most have migrated from.

This world view results in seeing wives and children as an extension of male honour. A friend said that in his culture any deviation from authority by the children was viewed as the fault of the mother and her inability to guide them correctly.

While this may not be encouraged in Islam, although there are some quotes from the Koran that could be interpreted as such encouragement, the religion is based on a social system formed from tribes and clans. Its laws are very much about preserving the cohesion and honour of the tribe, at the expense of the individual.

Primus bring some (cl)ass to the debate on Sailing the Seas of Cheese: “Tommy the Cat”

“I remember as it were a meal ago”

Said Tommy the Cat as he reeled back to clear whatever foreign matter
may have nestled its way into his mighty throat. Many a fat alley rat
had met its demise while staring point blank down the cavernous barrel
of this awesome prowling machine. Truly a wonder of nature this urban
predator. Tommy the cat had many a story to tell, but it was a rare
occasion such as this that he did.

“She came slidin’ down the alleyway like butter drippin’ off a hot
biscuit. The aroma, the mean scent, was enough to arouse suspicion in
even the oldest of Tigers that hung around the hot spot in those
days. The sight was beyond belief. Many a head snapped for double,
even triple, takes as this vivacious feline made her her way into the
delta of the alleyway where the most virile of the young tabbys were
known to hang out. They hung in droves. Such a multitude of
masculinity could only be found in one place… and that was
O’malley’s Alley. The air was thick with cat calls (no pun intended)
but not even a muscle in her neck did twitch as she sauntered up into
the heart of the alley. She knew what she wanted. She was lookin’
for that stud bull, the he cat. And that was me. Tommy the Cat is my
name and I say unto thee…

Say baby do you wanna lay down by me.”

Fax that one to Keysar Trad pronto.

“What he meant was that he is a big fan of Primus and Tommy the Cat is a top notch song. Clearly the Arabic version has lost some of the meaning. What I am trying to say is the Sheik is one cool cat and wants to lay down with some of them sexy Western ladies, you know what I’m sayin’? Say baby!”

Sure, Keysar. Keep on sailing on, homie.

That is all.

If you’re in Sydney you may like to drop round to Centennial Park sometime and check out the newly hatched signets. Here are some photos I took with a phone camera.

The whole family:

Read the rest of this entry »

One more Steyn in Australia post. Here’s a transcript of the interview from the Lateline program, with Tony Jones.

The discussion takes off where Mark left off on the PM radio program on Monday, when he said Israel should have moved against Syria, rather than Hezbollah. Interestingly Mark says he does not think an Islamist regime would follow a toppled Assad government. Unfortunately he does not get a chance to say what he think would follow.

The interview focuses on Mark’s opinion that an artificial stability in the Middle East, with the US propping up various unpopular regimes, is not in the interest of the West. He suggests, for example, that the US should be funding the restless Sunni minority in Iran to distabilise the Islamic Republic. I had assumed this would already be happening anyway. The Iranians have certainly accused the US of doing just that. Perhaps it is matter of the magnitude of funding and/or type of support given.

Read the transcript here.

Mark Steyn was on the ABC’s Counterpoint program on Monday and they have put the transcript up on the Counterpoint site.

Michael Duffy barely had a chance to get started when Mark dropped a bombshell. Brazenly showing his true colours, yet concealing the revelation in an apparent joke (thus giving himself the ultimate escape clause should the ‘revolution’ not go according to plan), he announced his defection to the enemy camp:

Michael Duffy: Is this your first visit?

Mark Steyn: No, I was here a few years ago, not that many years ago but it was pre-9/11, so it seems like a lost age now, it could be something from two centuries ago for all the differences we’ve had since then.

Michael Duffy: You probably got through security a lot quicker then, did you?

Mark Steyn: Actually I get through security pretty quickly now because once you tell them you’re a columnist…they say, ‘What do you do?’ and I say, ‘I’m a newspaper communist. In my line of work, everything after five minutes is material.’ And they just whisk you through.

Safe in the Red stronghold of the ABC, the interviewer played along, covering brilliantly for the now unmasked Steyn by diverting the discussion to pinko ‘music’ talk for most of the interview.

The mask was back on and worn brilliantly as ever in the second half, most of which I reproduce below.

[#M_Expand transcript extract inpost|Hide transcript|

Michael Duffy: Let's talk a bit about the war in Iraq. What's it about? Why should America and Australia persist?

Mark Steyn: I think the reality of the situation in the Middle East is that you have a situation where we became over-invested in stability, and that stability proved to be terribly unhealthy for us. The Middle East dictators grew plump and prosperous and began exporting their problems, and that's true not just of our so-called enemies in the region like Saddam but also of our supposed allies, like the House of Saud and Mubarak. The object then was to find a point at which you could prick the Middle East stability, if you could prick this sort of puffed up balloon that it had become and somehow institute some change...no one knows where the change is going to wind up. It would be terrific if the whole Middle East was to be like Sweden or New Hampshire or Australia...it doesn't have to be that, if it becomes something else then that's good too.

Michael Duffy: You were just talking about export...you make a good point somewhere that if anyone wants to worry about globalisation, instead of Starbucks or Nike they should look at the export of Islamic fundamentalism from the desert basically to the heart of the West's biggest cities.

Mark Steyn: Exactly, and it's something that we didn't think about. Again, to go back to what the Archbishop [TOD: Pell] was saying, because we don’t think in terms of religion. Before September 11 when most people looked at the world they divided it into nations-there’s the Australians, there’s the Americans, there’s the Chinese, there’s the French-and we didn’t realise that there was this identity that’s beyond nations, that’s beyond the nominal citizenship that people hold, spreads across borders. You don’t even have to, as the Russians had…they had to insert deep sleepers into the United States and sort of maintain them covertly, being controlled directly from Moscow for decades until they could be activated. You don’t even need to do that if you’ve got a religion as a front in which your organisation nests, you can hang your shingle on Main Street and nobody will do a thing about it.

Michael Duffy: Let’s go to some of the things that Archbishop Pell was saying which I know you’ve written about at some length, demography and the rise of Islam. How will different birth rates change the world over the next 100 years?

Mark Steyn: Basically the most accurate guide to what the world is going to be like in 20 years time is who’s being born right now, and the reality is that if you go to the average maternity ward in France or Austria or Belgium or Netherlands, you will see that even though…at the moment as an overall proportion of the population, the Muslim population is relatively small, it’s officially about 10% in France, but if you go to a maternity ward in Leon you’ll see that about half the babies being born in that ward are in fact Muslim. Then you have to ask yourself is there a basic problem, is there a basic conflict between Islam and free societies? All of us know good, hard working, amusing, enjoyable, pleasurable, articulate, intelligent Muslims who are perfectly willing to live in a free society and want nothing more than to get on with their lives and build a future for their children. But, institutionally, Islam does not support that, and when you look at not just majority Muslim countries but countries where Islam is between about 20% and 50% of the population, very few of them are free societies. There’s Surinam and Serbio [??] and I think one in West Africa, and that suggests that the level of Muslim population that they’re about to reach in western Europe is going to call into question the stability of those societies.

Michael Duffy: And the figures are interesting internationally. I think you’ve written that in 1970 the developed world had twice as big a share of the global population as the Muslim world which was 30% to 15%, but by 2000 they were the same.

Mark Steyn: Yes, so basically they caught up between 1970 and now. What’s going to happen in 2020? The argument here is not that you have to be an ethnic Frenchman to understand the principles that animate the French state and French democracy. But at the same time, the idea that somehow France can still be France when there are no ethnic French people, there are no ethnic Spaniards, there are no ethnic Dutch people, and that somehow the inheritance of these countries can be transferred to a successor population…I think, at the very least, that’s a huge gamble, and it’s something, as the Archbishop says, we ought to at least be able to talk about honestly.

Michael Duffy: Apart from birth rates, there’s also the question of religion, although the two are intertwined. Can the West survive once the proportion of Christians drops below a certain level, do you think?

Mark Steyn: I don’t want to sound like an echo chamber but, again, I think that the Archbishop is right there too, that in fact what one might call radical secularism is insufficient as an organisational basis for society. There’s simply no precedent for sustained atheistic societies. So even if you’re not a believing Christian, you have a tremendous advantage in living in a society where there is a strong active Judeo-Christian tradition. You may not realise you benefit from that, you may frankly find it a bit of a pain in the neck that there are all these pious God-botherers living around you, but you will find that once they’re all gone that you don’t live in a secular paradise, that people turn to alternative faiths. The central reality of Islam is it’s not just winning in Europe by immigration, it’s also wining by conversion. It’s the fastest growing religion in the Western world though conversion as well as simply immigration.

Michael Duffy: They’re doing better than the Shakers.

Mark Steyn: Yes, in this formula, the Europeans…as you know, the Shakers believed you couldn’t reproduce, you could only win by conversion.

Michael Duffy: I think there are four of them left.

Mark Steyn: Yes, exactly, that’s the basic strategy of the European Union, that they’ve given up reproducing but they seem to think all their Euro ideas will survive simply because people will be converted to it. In the ghettos of the Netherlands and France that’s not happening.

Michael Duffy: Toynbee famously said civilizations die from suicide not murder, and you’ve made the important point that societies choose to fail or succeed by choosing what to worry about. If we look at the United States and Europe separately, is the West worrying about the right things at the moment?

Mark Steyn: Well, I don’t think so. I was listening to a couple of your listeners and your letters earlier, and it’s hardly my place to get off the plane and start immediately abusing your listeners…

Michael Duffy: Feel free, they’ll write in anyway.

Mark Steyn: …but I do think it’s very curious, this idea to choose to worry about climate change. Even if you look at the so-called problem of rising sea levels that threatens the Maldives, at the present rate that means the Maldives will be under water in the year 2500. Now, there are 350,000 people on the Maldives islands, and I like the Maldives, a very nice place. If it’s going to be under water by the year 2500 that’s fine, we can move those 350,000 people all the way to the south of France, and being Sunni Muslims they’ll fit right in by the year 2500 because everyone else in the south of France will be Sunni Muslims. And this idea that you demonstrate your virtue by worrying about entirely theoretical problems that will have no direct impact on you or your children or your grandchildren or your great-grandchildren, I think is a sign of decadence, to be honest.

Michael Duffy: Mark, there is a difference though between Western Europe…on the continent anyway, and America. America seems to take things a bit more seriously perhaps?

Mark Steyn: I do think the America is the great exceptional nation in the Western world. I should say that I think actually if I had to make a list of countries that are likely to survive the existential challenge posed by a resurgent Islam, I would put Australia number two on that list, simply because I think it’s less easy for Australians to live in the kind of happy-face, banal, sappy illusions that the European Union is living in. So I think it’s entirely possible to foresee a situation where Britain has in fact more or less collapsed but Australia lives on stronger than ever. I think Australia’s chances are better than most. But I do think America has an advantage in the sense that it hasn’t embraced to the same degree the kind of enervating principles of the social democratic state that now prevail in Europe. I mean, basically in Europe, once the state takes care of every issue of life, from childcare to healthcare to looking after your elderly parents to giving you six weeks paid vacation a year, 30-hour work weeks…what have you got to worry about? You are basically the world’s wrinkliest teenagers, you are left to go down to the record store and pick out your record collection, everything else is taken care of by the state. That’s not a healthy principle on which to build society.

Michael Duffy: Is that one of the reasons you’re a conservative or why you support smaller government?

Mark Steyn: Yes, I think big government is a national security issue. I live in the great state of New Hampshire in the United States which has…basically money is raised and spent at town level, so if you’ve got a budgetary overspend, it’s generally your neighbour that’s overspending, he’s listed in the phone book so you can call him up at home and shout at him. And I think there’s a lot to be said for small government precisely for that reason; it’s accountable. And the minute you get this big, bloated government…I mean, I love the way progressive people talk about ‘world government’ as if it would be a good thing, and if the UN were an embryo world government that would be a great thing. Well, is it more likely that you’re going to have New Hampshire or Swedish or Australian style government, or are you going to get Nigerian style government? The oil for food scandal tells you what the answer will be on that one.

Michael Duffy: Western Europe and America used to be closer together in terms of their values and so on, what happened to Western Europe, why did it move off?

Mark Steyn: I think that after WWII the United States took the position that the best thing it could do to prevent a resurgence of Nazism and Fascism and all the rest was to effectively guarantee Western Europe’s defence. I think defence welfare is even more dangerous than the other kinds of welfare. The Western Alliance is, in that sense, a joke because it’s basically one big sugar daddy, America, and then these whiney Western Europeans who are kind of like adolescents who never quite move out of the house but just want to moan and whine about the guy who effectively foots all the bills. I think it absolved those countries the core responsibilities of nationhood.

Michael Duffy: I guess Australia is a little different. We also want America to defend us but we feel we have to earn that.

Mark Steyn: Yes, and I think that’s the right way to do it. I think Australia is a grown up country in the sense that Germany no longer is.

_M#]

Tonight is census night, and the hottest question on the paper for Australia as always is going to be the one about religion.

Will Jedi finally be recognised as an official faith (70,000 registered Jedi in 2001)? And who will win the race for the fastest growing religion (last time it was Buddhism with a growth from 200,000 to 360,000 in 5 years)? Danna Vale will no doubt be anxiously awaiting confirmation that “Australia is going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years’ time”. As will the Muslims.

Meanwhile, it appears that our younger generation is turning away from organised religion, according to a three-year national study, jointly done by Monash University, the Australian Catholic University and the Christian Research Association:

Researchers conducted the random survey with 1619 people. Of those, 1272 were aged 13 to 24 and the rest were aged 25 to 59.

University of NSW Emeritus Professor of sociology and anthropology Clive Kessler said the results reflected the secular and sceptical nature of Australian society.

A QUESTION OF SPIRIT

• 48 per cent of Generation Y believe in a god.
• 20 per cent do not believe in a god.
• 32 per cent are unsure.
• 19 per cent of Generation Y are actively involved in a church.
• 17 per cent have an eclectic spirituality, believing in two or more “New Age”, esoteric or eastern beliefs, including reincarnation, psychics and astrology.
• 31 per cent can be classified as humanists, rejecting the idea of a god, although a few believe in a “higher being”.

(EDIT: html error was cutting out a paragraph or two here…)

The process is not going fast enough for some people:

Greens call for secular alternative to religion classes

The New South Wales Greens are calling on the State Government to offer students a non-religious alternative to school scripture classes.

Greens education spokesman John Kaye says the deal between the Government and churches to have one hour of religious instruction in public schools needs to be re-examined.

Mr Kaye says it is time that school students were offered a secular alternative to the one-hour scripture class.

“The deal dates back 126 years to 1880 and for all that time the churches have had a monopoly on religious instruction in public schools,” he said.

“This is not appropriate, it doesn’t match the needs of our community.

“It doesn’t match the diversity of world views held by the people in Australia.”

At the other end of the spectrum the Family First party is gaining in popularity and a coalition of Christian MPs is fighting back against the ultra-secularists:

CHRISTIANITY has been under “consistent attack” and should be re-established as the dominant belief system in Australia.

This argument was mounted yesterday by more than a dozen politicians of all hues at a Christian conference in Canberra.

Former Nationals leader John Anderson, president of the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship, opened the 300-strong Christian forum at Parliament House last night, saying secularism had gone too far.

“I think we confuse in the public mind very much what we really are, and certainly our government is secular,” he said. “It’s actually a Christian concept that you should separate church and state — it’s one of the great differences between us and Muslim societies.

‘What is a secular value system? I could argue the extreme case, that a secular value system gave us World WarII via Nazism.”

One reason for the decline of Christianity in Australia may be all the bad press its been getting for… well, for as long as anyone can remember really. And one approach for getting bums back onto pews that is currently being tried in the UK is apparently to “take ‘religion’ out of church”:

For those who are curious about Christianity but disillusioned by the institutional Church, there is a novel solution – drop the religion.

The Rev Ian Gregory, a cleric well known to readers of The Daily Telegraph for launching the Campaign for Courtesy in an attempt to improve manners, has embarked on a new project which he calls “Christianity without religion”.

Out goes the “archaic mumbo-jumbo” of church services and the “silly arguments about things that don’t and shouldn’t matter”; in come chats about anything that makes you feel good and the world’s first dedicated “laughter room” because “laughter is as important as prayer”.

..

“People are fed up with religion. The bar-room talk is that it causes too much trouble in the world. But people are intrigued by spirituality and by figures such as Jesus and Buddha.”, [thats the Rev speaking]

..

Not laughing is man of the moment and dedicated Catholic, Mel Gibson, an expert in “anything that makes you feel good”:

In a compelling interview on US television two years ago, Gibson admitted that he has many times thought of ending his suffering. Asked if he had thought of jumping out of a window, he replied: “I really did, yeah. I was looking down thinking, man, this is just easier this way. You have to be mad, you have to be insane to despair in that way. But that is the height of spiritual bankruptcy. There’s nothing left.” For someone punching the time clock for a few shekels a week, it seems rather ridiculous that a man with an estimated wealth of more than $1 billion would feel this way.

“Let’s face it, I’ve been to the pinnacle of what secular utopia has to offer,” Gibson told ABC TV in the US. “It’s just this kind of everything. I’ve got money, fame, this, that and the other, you know, and it’s all been like, whoosh here, here you go, like that. And it’s like, OK. And when I was younger, I got my proboscis out and I dipped it into the font and sucked it up, all right. It didn’t matter, there wasn’t enough, it wasn’t good enough. It’s not good enough. It leaves you empty. The more you eat the emptier you get.

“I think everybody in their life gets to a point where that happens. Where they get to the moment of truth and they go, ‘Well, what is this all about? Am I going to jump? Am I going to go on? I don’t want to do either. I don’t want to live. I don’t want to die.’ You ask yourself all those Hamlet questions.”

Another interesting tidbit I dug up about Australia is that in a recent study some social scientists looking at actual governmental practices in regards to various religious groups gave Australia a government favouritism index of 0 out 10 towards the “official or preferred religion”. Ie, no favouritism at all. Taiwan was the only other country that scored 0. In comparison Afghanistan, Iceland, Belgium, Greece and Spain all somehow scored 7.8, Denmark got 6.7 and Finland 6. The average score for Western nation was in fact higher than the score for Syria.

I shall seek to maintain our glorious null favouritism index and wish all of the above interest groups the best of luck in tonights race. May the force be with you!

UPDATE: Saint at Dogfight In Bankstown alerted me to one lot I missed. The Assemblies of God are also in the running with a campaign to get their own checkbox on the form, instead of just being lumped into the “Other – please specify” basket. Good luck with that one also. Its between you and the Jedi, I reckon.

It was definitely a quantity not quality day when I wrote this post.