BLOGS: Andrew Bolt rolls out the insanity ...

Things haven't been easy for Andrew Bolt since John Howard left the Lodge. Terrorists haven't cease to exist, but anti-terror raids are no longer occasions for politicians and respectable media to say and write remarks attributing responsibility to entire sections of the Australian community based on their ethnic or ethno-religious heritage.

During his press conference following the recent terror raids in Melbourne, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd refused to even identify a particular ethnic or ethno-religious group. As The Age reported:

He warned against any backlash against any ethnic groups in the wake of the latest arrests.

Mr Rudd said that the terrorist threat came from a small number of individuals "who should in no way be taken as a wider reflection of any group in Australian society".

Instead of demonising minorities and fighting cultural wars, the Rudd government prefers to focus on practical measures such as continued surveillance and increasing security at military installations.

Even The Australian editorialised as follows:

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland acted responsibly yesterday in pointing out that the broader Islamic community should not be seen as terrorists. The majority of Muslims do not support terrorism and have integrated successfully into Australian life where they are valuable members of the community. If anything, such people have an even stronger interest than other Australians in seeing terror stamped out.

With so much sanity now surrounding popular debate about national security, it seems Andrew Bolt may have lost the plot just a tad ...

The alleged terrorists arrested in Melbourne yesterday were all Muslims, from either Somalia or Lebanon. They weren’t Baptists or Greenlanders, Buddhists or Swedes. In fact, if you wanted to confirm a stereotypical profile of a modern terrorist, this pretty much fitted the bill.

So what would be the stereotypical profile of the victims of modern terrorism? Would they be Baptists, Greenlanders, Buddhists or Swedes?

And so, for some reason, Andrew Bolt now founds himself to be in a headspace where to be a terrorist it it's no longer enough for you to be a Muslim. You have to be a Lebanese or a Somali Muslim. I guess that lets Usama bin Ladin off the hook.

Which leads me to ask Andrew Bolt the obvious question ...



Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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BLOG: Andrew Bolt on Hawaiian holidays for terrorists ...

Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt has (I presume inadvertently) used his blog to promote a far-Right conspiracy theory about Muslims.

Bolt cites the allegedly conservative blog Qohel on a proposal by the Hawaii Legislature to introduce an official annual "Islam Day" on September 24. Qohel in turn refers readers to a far-Right conspiracy theorist posing as the "Canada Free Press" for "more detail".

And what does the CFP have to say? Here's how their "report" commences.

Muslims have just tricked the Hawaii Legislature into celebrating Islam on September 11.

To get an idea of just how loopy this CFP is, go to their search feature and type in the words Obama Muslim. Be prepared for nonsensical articles like this and this.

Bolt, of course, would never subscribe to any conspiracy theory concerning Muslims imposing an agenda on Hawaii or the rest of the United States. After all, it's not as if Bolt would make the kinds of far-fetched remarks that far-Right nutters would make. You know, remarks like this:

If adherents of this faith hadn’t killed so many Americans, would it have attracted this kind of fawning?

Of course, Bolt did say all that. His comments echoed the views of two Republican representatives in Hawaii as reported by the Associated Press on 7 May 2009.

Hawaii's state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to celebrate "Islam Day" — over the objections of a few lawmakers who said they didn't want to honor a religion connected to Sept. 11, 2001.

Those Senators were right. But then, they were in the minority. What can one say about the rest of those damned Hawaiians? In the mind of Andrew Bolt and his conspiratorial nutter sources, terrorists (i.e. Hawaiian Muslims) have successfully held a gun to the head of the Hawaiian Senate. The terrorists have won. We should have seen it coming. Head for the hills!



UPDATE I: Those winderful people at the Crikey Pure Poison blog have done some thorough research on the Hawaiian Islam Day proposal which, far from being an annual event, was supposed to be a one-off. Read more here.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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BLOGS/HATEWATCH: Blair's buddies call for terrorism and mass conversion ...

What kind of blog comments are worth moderating and posting? In Tim Blair's case, they include comments that support terrorism (assassination of world leaders) and mass conversion of people to Christianity.

Blair, opinion editor of Sydnet's Daily Telegraph, hasn't been a happy man of late. At around 7:50pm on the evening of 24 February 2009, he called me to advise I’d made an error in Crikey. Apparently I’d claimed Blair had alleged anonymous leftist were leaving nasty messages on his blog to make him look racist. Blair said that it was not he who made this claim. It was Andrew Bolt. Blair subsequently wrote on his blog about my error, also speculating about my “body weight”.

Blair. of course, doesn’t have nasty leftists on his blog. One of his posts on the terrorist attacks in Pakistan carried this interesting comment exchange:

Nora Charles replied to Brett_McS
Wed 04 Mar 09
(04:08pm)
Ann Coulter had the right idea in her column on September 13, 2001.
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.

hayesy replied to Brett_McS
Wed 04 Mar 09 (04:15pm)
... Nice try, troll.

Walter Plinge replied to Brett_McS
Wed 04 Mar 09
(04:31pm)
hayesy - you’re a newcomer to this forum I see.
Norah is a long-standing contributor of the highest integrity. Most definitely not a troll.

Infidel Tiger replied to Brett_McS
Wed 04 Mar 09 (04:59pm)
When Coulter first said that it sounded crazy. Now, not so much.

Apparently the comment wasn’t serious. Yeah, right. And apparently supporting terrorism makes you someone of "the highest integrity".

Nora Charles replied to Brett_McS
Wed 04 Mar 09 (05:01pm)
Hi hayesy, The quote from Ann is accurate. My use of it is somewhat tongue in cheek. I’m sorry for the confusion ...

murph replied to Brett_McS
Wed 04 Mar 09 (10:35pm)
I agree Norah. I said on Sept 11 2001, that we should establish beachheads in Morocco, Lebanon & Basra and conduct a war of annihilation as we did with the Nazis and the Japanese in WW2 - destroying and demoralising their culture and their will. We should have let the Indians off the leash as well. The war should have been taken directly to them.

The fact is that we are going to have to do this at some time anyhow. We should have done it whilst we have the upper hand.

The Ann Coulter line of invasion, assassination and forced conversion is up there with her claims that Canada sent troops to Vietnam and that Jews need to have their faith perfected ...



And in case xenophobia and genocide is your cup of tea, you can read plenty more comments comparing Muslims to Nazis and calling for their elimination at Andrew Bolt’s blog.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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