For those of you that came in late, so the story goes that Stephanie and Darryl Mann found their cat Lola sealed in a rubbish bin. The couple heard Lola meowing from the bin and came to her rescue.

Luckily the Mann household was equipped with a video security system and upon watching security footage, the couple witnessed one of the most brazen acts of animal cruelty I’ve ever seen.

Watch the footage for yourself;


What you’re looking at there is footage showing that fifteen hours before Lola was found, a middle aged woman walked by the Mann’s property, stroked Lola for a few seconds, calmly dumped her into the rubbish bin and then closed the lid and walked away as if nothing had happened.

In a bid to find the sick individual responsible, the Mann’s published their home security footage on Youtube in the hope that she would be tracked down.

Less then 24 hours later, the internet delivered.

The RSPCA were allegedly the first to uncover the mystery animal abuser but refused to go public with her identity. Nonetheless the police were notified and fearing public backlash offered the woman protection.

A short time later she was publicly named and shamed online as Mary Bale, a bank clerk from Coventry.

With her identity unmasked and insults and death threats flying left right and centre from all over the world, Mary’s mother, Celia came to her rescue. Celia insisted that

She’s my daughter and as far as I’m concerned she is the most caring person you could ever wish to meet. She loves cats.

She absolutely adores cats, she’s an animal lover, it just doesn’t make sense.


What?! Sorry but the only thing that doesn’t make sense is trying to claim Mary Bale loves cats. In the video footage you can clearly see her looking around to make sure nobody’s around before throwing Lola into the bin.

This is someone who knows what she’s doing is wrong and simply doesn’t care.

In response to the criticism levelled against her after she was identified, Bale stated

I really don’t see what everyone is getting so excited about – it’s just a cat.

I don’t know what came over me, but I suddenly thought it would be funny to put it in the wheelie bin, which was right beside me.


‘Just a cat?’ Yeah, clearly Mary Bale is someone who loves animals. Obviously she’s failed to realise the impact of her actions and nor does Bale appear to have any remorse or understanding of animal cruelty.

Despite the video footage and public outcry however, amazingly no arrest has been made yet. Police are claiming that ‘Ms Bale (has) not committed a crime‘.

Meanwhile the Animal Welfare Act of 2006 section 4 clearly states that

A person commits an offence if—

(a)an act of his, or a failure of his to act, causes an animal to suffer,

(b)he knew, or ought reasonably to have known, that the act, or failure to act, would have that effect or be likely to do so,

(c)the animal is a protected animal, and

(d)the suffering is unnecessary.


Seeing as the Act’s definition for a protected animal is simply ‘a vertebrate other than man‘, I’d this obviously covers cats.

Clearly the woman in the video footage is Mary Bale, so check on A.

How anyone could not know that putting a cat into a wheelie bin is going to cause it to suffer is beyond me, so check again on B.

Cats are a vertebrae so easily a check on C and the suffering incurred by someone putting a cat into a wheelie is obviously unnecessary so check on D too.

Now I’m not a detective but clearly this should be simply a case of

‘hi, are you Mary Bale?’

‘why yes.’

‘Is this you in this video?’

‘why yes’

‘right, off to jail with you then.’

The maximum penalty for breaching the Animal Welfare Act is up to 51 weeks of imprisonment or a fine of 20,000 pounds. Hell in this occasion I don’t see why they couldn’t enforce both.

Whether you’re a dog person or a cat person is irrelevant here. What we have is a clear case of animal abuse in which the perpetrator shows absolutely no regard for animal welfare by disposing of  a cat in a rubbish bin.

There is no ambiguity about the  suspects identity, she’s been recorded on video footage committing the act and according to the Animal Welfare Act there’s definitely a case to answer for.

So what are you waiting for England, haul this sorry excuse for a woman’s arse in already!

In a world where too much animal cruelty goes unreported this is one woman we can make an example of. If not, then what bloody hope do the rest of the animal kingdom have?

Infact most people raise more then eyebrow when they see someone they haven’t seen in a while who has undergone a sizeable weight change. In the extreme cases there might even be shock at the change of appearance.

I know this has happened to me personally but thankfully it’s never extended past the ‘holy crap’ gaping mouth open stage.

With this change in appearance comes the obvious need to maintain anything that relies on your physical identity. Doctors records, a photo ID for work perhaps and of course if you’re using it – your passport.

What should be common sense to most seems to have been oblivious to one Derrick Agyeman. So much so that after being refused re-entry into Britain after a weekend away, he’s now suing in an attempt to try and make a buck off it.

Agyeman travelled out of the UK back in 2006 using a passport photo that was at least nine years old. Then, after a weekend trip to Amsterdam to visit friends was refused re-entry because he didn’t look like his passport photo.

Specifically because of ‘because of differences in the thickness of the his ears and lips‘. Whilst that might not sound like much, there’s also the fact that since the passport was taken Agyeman had also put on 31kg.

When you hand an official your passport they’ve got nothing else to go on bar your photo that the passport actually belongs to you. Infact this passport check is what we pay the officials for.

Upon being rejected, Agyeman was then banished back to the Amsterdam where he had to wait three months before being allowed back in.

What this hold up is  I have no idea as you’d think a few phonecalls could easily sort this out. Well, unless of course there was no recent photo evidence of Agyeman or some other such.

Currently living overseas I’d like to think if I fronted to the Australian embassy I’d be able to get any identification issues sorted out quite promptly.

Not happy with his treatment, Agyeman took Britain’s Foreign Office to court and lost. Not happy with the outcome he appealed and… well, he lost again.

As far as I know it’s the passport owners responsibility to ensure that you look like the photo on your passport. Not close to, not reasonably like… but to a near identical replica as you can get it. Your passport photo is supposed to be a representation of yourself and putting on 32kg with 9 years on the clock isn’t going to be a resemble anything remotely accurate.

One quick look in the mirror should have established that.

Whilst I do agree that perhaps the official procedures for this do need to be looked at as three months does sound a bit excessive, once again it appears we’ve got another case of someone willing to blame everyone but themselves for their misfortune.

When asked about the situation, Agyeman replied

I cry when I think about what happened to me.

It’d be interesting to know if he’s talking about his treatment by border protection, the fact that he’s put on such an excessive amount of weight, the mistake of not updating his passport photo before leaving or a combination of all three.

I know I’d be pretty devastated if I packed on 31kg.

Agyeman is currently considering a second appeal on the decision, which if it goes ahead, hopefully it’ll fail again. Slackening of airport security to appease one one lazy traveller does seem a bit counter productive to all the effort and money that’s been pumped into the industry.

Infact I’d say the fact that Agyeman was refused re-entry is proof that these guys are doing their job.

Suing them does seem to be a rather fruitless exercise (no pun intended).

The days of livestock grazing on open rolling plains is fast becoming extinct and more then ever humanity is going to have to rely on science more then ever to fix the problem.

Personally I’d rather see science solve the greater problem of the world’s population reaching nine billion, but admittedly science has a ways to go yet before it can compete with stupid people outbreeding their environments.

In the meantime however, a group of scientists in the UK have suggested we all bunker down and prepare for artificially grown meat fresh from the vat, otherwise known as ‘in vitro meat‘.

Mmmm artificial vat grown meat. It’s the other, other, other white… well we’re not actually sure if it fits the definition of meat or not but you don’t really have a choice now do you.

Bon Apetite.

Whislt the mental image of in vitro produced meat might conjure up horror images of giant vats full of spam or some other disgusting blend of processed meat, the reality is that in theory the meat produced in vitro is the same as it’s naturally occurring counterpart.

Using science to develop muscle tissue with a carefully controlled balance of nutrients, scientists hope to solve world hunger and have us all chowing down on motherless meat over the next few decades.

I’d love to pretend that for me it was an environmental concern or a decision based on the welfare of the animals we eat but truth be told I’m quite happy with the current processes put in place.

The reality is I don’t see how my meat makes it’s way into my meals (hell, in Taiwan I’ve rarely laid eyes on rare meat in it’s uncooked form), so have become quite accepting of whatever methods farmers use to get tasty meat into my belly.

Personally I don’t subscribe to the notion we should all just become vegetarians. I mean yes there are some tasty vegetarian dishes around but seriously, eating them day in day out isn’t comparable to the tasty smorgasbord that meat offers.

No, for me the acceptance of artificial in vitro meat comes down to one thing and one thing alone;

‘Does it taste as good as its naturally produced counterpart?’

This is the big question and one that I’m willing to put before every other consideration. I don’t care if in vitro meat is colorless, looks funny, conjures up weird images of crazy science experimental ‘frankenmeat’ or comes out of a factory representing more of a pharmaceutical factory then a farm.

No, for me it comes down to one thing and one thing only, taste.

If the taste is comparable, the same or even better then in vitro meat is one technology I’m more then happy to throw my weight behind. Obviously in vitro meat would have to be environmentally and animal friendly and maintain a production capacity similar to conventional meat production that currently exists.

At a reported cost of one million dollars for 250g of in vitro meat production however I doubt we’ll be chowing down on it en-masse anytime soon.

Still, it does appear to be the direction our food production is going and if it can be done cost effectively, be of similar quality in taste and texture to natural meat, boost animal welfare and satisfy world food requirements, then why not?

Theoretically meat is meat, whatever the method of production.

To actually be able to take somebody else’s face and reattach it to a new host requires some high level medical and technological precision. It’s a sign of the times I guess on just how far we’ve advanced in these fields.

With the success of Oscar’s operation however comes the tendency to hype the breakthrough however and I think sometimes we lose sight of just how much further there is to go in this field.

At a recent press conference in Barcelona, when asked what her brother was most looking forward to, Oscar’s sister replied

He is looking forward to walking down the street without having people looking at him five times.


Now as happy as I am for some guy to get a new face let’s not kid ourselves and throw the sink overboard hey. Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Oscar.

Regardless of how bad Oscar looked before, if he thinks people aren’t still going to stare at him if he walks down the street, I think his operation might have had unintended consequences to his neurological area.

Let’s face it, the guy still looks like a complete and utter freak.

Obviously somebody else’s face isn’t going to be a perfect fit but for now Oscar’s face looks like somebody stuffed an extra large condom over a pencil and drew a face on it.

The drooping cheeks do Oscar no favours and the lifeless hanging lips are scarily haunting to look at. Almost as if you’re looking at a corpse come back to life.

My first impression was an immediate comparison to Vincent D’Onofrio’s ‘Edgar’ character in the original Men In Black movie;


Infact if I didn’t know any better I’d say the doctors who performed Oscar’s surgery spent the past two years just watching the above clip over and over again to get Oscar’s new look just right.

To top off Oscar’s problems, the poor bugger can’t close his eyes and has no feeling in his lips. This I imagine is going to lead to some pretty sloppy eating and I’ve got no idea how his eyes are kept lubricated.

Personally I’d find it a bit eerie to receive a face transplant from a donor. I mean sure I’m talking from the point of view of still having my original face intact but the idea just doesn’t sit right with me.

It’d be like having someone else’s organ in you but taking it to the extreme. I guess primarily because despite the importance of fingertips and other unique characteristics, your face makes up such a large factor in your physical appearance.

Having someone else’s face slapped onto you is as close to literally losing your identity as you’re going to get.

Regardless of how hideous Oscar still looks though it’s still a marked improvement over how he looked pre-transplant. Honestly I probably wouldn’t have written about it had his sister not decided the operation was a heralding to a completely normal life for the guy.

Yes he has a face now but unfortunately Oscar still looks like something out of Resident Evil. If you put Oscar in a zombie competition I’d bet the bank he’d come out on top.

Face transplant technology definitely has a ways to go before we start seeing credible aesthetically pleasing transplants but I guess this is a good start. Somebody has to be that first guinea pig. I mean it could have gone a lot worse…  despite Oscar looking like the walking dead at least you get some sense that there’s a person under there.

Personally whilst I have no intentions of ever getting a face transplant I’m curious to see how the advancement of the technology plays out. As doctors get better at the procedure I really think it’s going to raise some interesting issues when it comes to identity theft.

If one day we’ve advanced the procedure to the stage where you’re able to change faces without any long term side effects and the operation is repeatable, good luck stopping greedy doctors offering the service to the masses.

Throw in some stem cell organic ‘grown in the lab’ faces, some desperate celebrities (Lindsey Lohan I’m looking at you), and you’ve got a multi gazillion dollar industry in the making.

I for one look forward to the future army of Angelina Jolies and Brad Pitts populating our little planet. Then think of what face transplants could do for the porn industry…

Throw in some backwater unlicensed third world country medical clinics and…oh my!

‘Uh hi. Welcome to England’

‘Yo yo yo so I was thinking you guys could set me up with a two story somewhere trendy. Maybe a plasma telly and at minimum two bedrooms.’

‘Um, hang on a sec. You just landed, we haven’t even began to process your claim yet.’

‘Doesn’t matter yo.’

‘Uh, why not?’

‘I’m gay.’

‘What does that have to do with anyt-’

‘Check it bitches.’

‘…’

‘…so in your professional opinion, is three bedrooms pushing it?’

The above might sound like a ridiculous conversation to overhear at an asylum seeker processing centre but after a landmark ruling today in a British court, those truly desperate to enter Britain now have the opportunity to exploit gay and lesbian rights on a whole new level.

What surprised me is that Australia legally adopted this policy years ago, so why haven’t asylum seekers abused it yet?

In England, standard procedure when dealing with asylum seekers claiming asylum on the grounds that they are gay meant being sent home and told to be ‘discreet’ about it.

Today the Supreme Court of England ruled this wasn’t good enough and granted two men, one from Iran and one from Cameroon asylum.

Lord Hope, who read out the judgment, said: “To compel a homosexual person to pretend that his sexuality does not exist or suppress the behaviour by which to manifest itself is to deny his fundamental right to be who he is.

“Homosexuals are as much entitled to freedom of association with others who are of the same sexual orientation as people who are straight.”

The court said it would be passing detailed guidance to the lower courts about how to treat such cases in the future.


Previously the lower courts had knocked back the men’s applications as per standard procedure. Presumably now with the Supreme court overriding the decision and providing ‘detailed guidance‘ to the lower courts on how to handle gay asylum seeker cases, gay asylum seekers can expect a near 100% success rate.

Let me be clear here, yes I think it’s horrendous the penalties that gay people face in some of these countries and my beef isn’t with them (gay people that is, I think the countries that persecute them need a good kick up the bum).

My only concern is how the hell do you regulate something like this?

Identity, economic status and country of origin can all be investigated in due time, even when there’s nothing to go on. Someone rocks up and declares that they’re gay however and well, what are you supposed to do?

Chuck on some gay porn and measure for a reaction? Get them to answer a (insert gay British celebrity here) approved questionnaire? Have a male (or female) blow up doll on hand for a demonstration?

How exactly do you ascertain whether or not an asylum seeker is gay or not?

What really surprised me about this decision is that in Australia we’ve had a similar ruling made years ago.

Back in 2003 two Bangladeshi men were

asylum on the grounds that they would be socially ostracised and possibly persecuted by the Bangladeshi authorities because of their long-term relationship.


This decision was made in the High Court and presumably set a precedent. Ironically the same Ann Frank argument was made in Australia back in 2003 as it was in the recent British case.

In Australia the defendants’ lawyer, Bruce Levet

argued in his submissions to the High Court in April that the Review Tribunal’s argument that the men would face no persecution at home if they were discreet was tantamount to arguing that Holocaust victim Anne Frank was safe from Nazis in World War II as long as she continued to hide in an attic.


In the British case

The supreme court rejected the Home Office’s test, which asked whether it would be “reasonably tolerable” for a person to conceal their sexuality to avoid persecution. The court heard during the hearing that this test would have meant that Anne Frank would be condemned to remain in her “comfortable attic”.


Seems Anne Frank is a popular choice when campaigning for gay asylum rights.

Having to prove that you’re gay is surely against some human rights charter that we’ve most likely signed way back when. So why human traffickers haven’t exploited this seemingly open asylum seeker loophole is beyond me.

To anyone wanting to claim asylum in Australia, just rock up and claim you’re gay. Badda bing badda boom, instant asylum approval.

Hizb ut-Tahrir are a global Islamic organisation full of hardline religious nutters hell bent on establishing a ‘trans-national Islamic state’. In short, Hizb ut-Tahrir would like nothing more then for the entire world to come under Sharia law.

The only thing stopping them? Democracy and the majority non-muslim populations currently living in the west.

Ironically the democracy system that Hizb ut-Tahrir fight is what also allows them to preach their religious nonsense. With democracy though comes political correctness and whilst the democratic system should work to shut radical groups like this down, instead it fosters them.

Governmental criticism is something we hold very dear in Australia and often actively engage in. There’s a massive difference however in criticising the current government of the day and attempting to undermine the entire political system that governs a country.

Yesterday Hizb ut-Tahrir flew in some British members of the group and held a anti-democracy conference in Sydney’s west (no surprises on that choice of location).

Burhan Hanif, leader of the British arm of Hizb ut-Tahrir declared democracy to be haram (forbidden).

We must adhere to Islam and Islam alone, we should not be conned or succumb to the disingenuous and flawed narrative that the only way to engage politically is through the secular democratic process. It is prohibited and haram.”

(Hanif) said democracy was incompatible with Islam because the Koran insisted Allah was the sole lawmaker, and Muslim political involvement could not be based on “secular and erroneous concepts such as democracy and freedom”.


Like I said earlier, criticism of a government is one thing, criticism of an entire system of government is another.

According to their draft constitution, under a Hizb ut-Tahrir Sharia ruled nation, here’s what Australians would have to endure.

Defense

Conscription would be introduced for every male muslim aged fifteen years or older ‘in readiness for jihad‘.

One can assume this would mean mass casualties of Australians against Israel and the US as the Sharia government deploys everything we have to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Democracy

Democracy is obviously out. Muslim Australians would vote for a Caliph as head of state, non-muslims would have no say in the matter.

This Caliph would apparently differ from a president or prime minister in that we’d be seeking his or her (her, hahahah) opinion on policy rather then being governed by them.

Economy

The Australian dollar would be replaced by gold and silver coins. The Sharia state would run ‘utilities, public transport, health care, energy resources such as oil, and unused farm land‘.

“Government” retaining ownership of these services might be a good thing however remember all these utilities, in particular health care would get the Islamic treatment and be different from what we know today.

Non-muslims

Non-muslim Australians would be banned from working in any form of government or government run organisation. In effect they’d be stripped of any say in how the country was run.

Non-muslim Australians would only be able to criticise the government over what they believed to be ‘unjust acts’ carried out on them or the mis-application of Islam applied to them by the government.

Obviously if your objection was Islam itself your protests would most likely fall on deaf ears.

Personal Freedoms

Apostasy (leaving Islam), adultery, alcohol, and certain economic practices (gambling and interest based mortgages etc.) are out.

Apostasy in particular is punishable by death, ie. once you’re in, you’re in. There’s no escape.

Capital punishment would also make a return, along with stonings, hangings and beheading people (apostasy’s punishment).

Oh and we’d all have to learn Islam too as it’d become the official sole language of the state. None of this communicating in English nonsense.


Whilst definitely extreme and not something that’s going to happen overnight, it’s somewhat discomforting that here in Australia we freely allow a platform for this type of movement to exist.

As I keep mentioning, it’s one thing to criticise a government and another to entirely call for an established political system’s upheaval and transition.

I strongly believe in personal freedoms but just as I’m not allowed to engage in personal freedoms that would drastically alter the quality of life of others, why so are groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir allowed to work towards their goals?

Make no mistake, I’m not about to convert to Islam any time soon and living under Sharia law as a non-muslim would have a massive detrimental effect on my quality of life. As it would nearly all non-muslim Australians.

Julia Gillard has recently publicly declared herself an atheist and whilst you don’t need to be an atheist to oppose the political views of Hizb ut-Tahrir, it’d be great to see her do something about them. I mean at the very least deny visa applications for those wanting to travel to Australia who are hell bent on destroying our system of government.

That one should be a no-brainer.

As for the 500 people who attended the Hizb ut-Tahrir convention, shame on you. How dare you try change my country for the worse.

If you want to live under Sharia law then move to Saudi Arabia, leave my Australia the hell alone.

They had absolutely no interest in the cars or the car club.

Although tasty, this is the only time I’ve ever eaten a Krispy Kreme donut. Like everybody else, when the first stores started popping up in Australia I heard about the insane queues. Traffic stopping queues that spanned multiple blocks wasn’t something I was going to withstand just for a donut or two.

Despite the initial hype and demand though it seems the novelty of Krispy Kreme has long since worn off.

Recently Krispy Kreme abandoned their ‘fresh’ donut marketing strategy in Australia and has started to market their donuts via Woolworths and various petrol stations.

On the retail side in Australia last year saw a sales slump of 20% and Krispy Kreme’s latest annual report warned that

we have experienced declines in revenues and have incurred net losses in each of the last three fiscal years and may experience further declines and losses in the future.


For a product seemingly in such demand it seems strange Krispy Kreme is yet to post a profit in Australia.

Surprisingly this downtrend appears to be echoing in other countries;.

• Krispy Kreme Hong Kong peaked at 6 stores but went into liquidation just two years after opening.
• Canada had 32 stores planned of which only 18 actually opened. Out of those 18 stores just four are left.


In their largest market, the US (Australia is second) a similar story appears to be unfolding. Various states have seen a sharp decline in stores and a complete ceasing of availability in others.

In New York there used to be nine Krispy Kreme donut stores but now just one. Things appear to have gotten so bad over there that Krispy Kreme ‘temporarily cut off their supplies last month‘ and the store ‘cooked up their own recipe when they ran out of key proprietary Krispy Kreme ingredients‘.

We’re not talking secret herbs and spices here either, it’s alleged the store ran out of flour. I’m no chef but flour sounds pretty integral to the production of donuts… things mustn’t be going to well if Krispy Kreme are cutting the flour supply.

Regardless, Krispy Kreme have decided to take the owners of their last New York store to court over ‘trademark violation after moving to cancel the franchise agreement over $310,000-plus in unpaid fees and debts‘.

Again, not exactly confidence inspiring. Additionally Krispy Kreme’s share price has plunged forty percent over the last five years.

With their Australian stores running at heavy losses and their US business seemingly fragile, it appears Krispy Kreme’s two largest markets are in trouble.

Why?

For me personally I’ve never actually bought a donut because of the reported wait times. By the time the queues had dwindled I’d mostly lost interest and long forgotten about the taste. I was never a big donut buyer prior to tasting Krispy Kreme and for the most part that hasn’t changed.

The most I ever got into donuts was the weekly purchase of five donuts from the hot jam donut van at the Queen Victoria Market. This went on for about 2 months before I realised the satisfaction of my taste buds was being outweighed by the grumbling of my stomach each Saturday afternoon ride home.

Writing this article however has seen me develop a severe craving but luckily Krispy Kreme never opened in Taiwan.

My reason aside I guess there’s probably other reasons too as to why Krispy Kreme’s business appears to be failing. The company itself claims that

Our sales have been, and may continue to be, affected by changing consumer tastes, such as health or dietary preferences that cause consumers to avoid doughnuts in favour of foods that are perceived as healthier.


This makes sense in theory but doesn’t add up when you take into consideration that 62% of Australians are now overweight or obese.

If anything Krispy Kreme should be making bucketloads of money in Australia. No doubt their latest marketing effort to penetrate the supermarket and petrol station sector will bring in a bit of money but surely not that much.

I mean for me the novelty of buying donuts is that they have to be hot and have that ‘just made’ feeling. I certainly wouldn’t pay a premium to purchase Krispy Kreme in a supermarket if they’d been sitting in a box all day (or night if made earlier).

One can only wonder just how much longer Krispy Kreme’s franchisees can stay in business if current profit reports and revenue continue to drop. As much as I hate fat people I would miss them if they went bankrupt.

Even if I’d probably never become a regular customer, it’s nice to have the option of being able to eat something so ridiculously fattening and tasty when the need arises.

Not particularly enticed I ignored the ad but it began to pop up with somewhat of a fierce regularity. Eventually one day curiosity got the better of me and I decided to take a look.

Turns out Scientology are behind the campaign…

Back in late March CNN’s Anderson Cooper ran an expose on Scientology. Titled Scientology: A history of violence the series fan for five nights and featured interviews of critics of Scientology as well as Scientology members themselves.

What followed in the months after the show aired was a response from the church of Scientology itself. In true the church directly retaliated against Cooper, AC360 and Cooper’s main interviewees.

As part of the FreedomMag Scientology arm, the church put out three videos and three text articles attempting to rip Cooper and AC360 to shreds. Personally I feel the videos achieved the complete opposite but you can make up your own mind about that.

The following is a compilation of footage from the three videos. Admittedly whilst viewing the footage and (sloppily) editing it I had to keep reminding myself that this was the work of  a religious organisation.


It’s certainly quite full on, isn’t it. What irks me is that this type of media is produced under the guise of religious freedom. Scientology is well known for their ‘Fair Game’ policy and the Cooper/AC360 videos particularly exemplify the practice.

Critics are everywhere in life and by no means should those being criticised have no recourse to engage their critics. Is producing a website with the sole intention of running a smear campaign against your critics an appropriate response for a religious organisation though?

A lot of corporations would no doubt love to engage in these sorts of practices but for the most part, the law prevents them from doing so. Why is then that under the guise of religious freedom such acts are allowed to go unchecked?

Despite my personal disbelief in religion it’s apparent that an image of ‘good’ is usually prevalent, no matter the creed. From time to time people misrepresent various religions however and tarnish what was otherwise a good name.

For some long standing religions there have been thousands of these types of people throughout the centuries.

The difference with Scientology however is that here you have the religion and church itself advocating gutter tactics to get its point across. Anyone who’s debated before (or had an argument for that matter) will tell you that stooping to the level of personal attacking whilst completely ignoring any arguments presented to you is a sign you’ve probably already lost.

If there were still valid points to refute and challenge then why would you waste time on individuals?

In sport we call this playing the man, not the ball. It appears in religion, it’s called Fair Game.

If this is what Scientology has done with the limited footage they were given (Cooper wisely prohibited Scientology from independently filming him), one can only wonder what would have been contained had Scientology have been given unrestricted access to CNN studios.

No doubt any future investigations by the media are most likely to take a dim view on such antics. For Scientology however the point seems lost. I’m sure the next time a prime time reporter is preparing a story on them the church will once again offer open (recorded and controlled) access to the church and then wonder why they get turned down.


Footnote: The entire Scientology AC360 clips in their entirety can be watched below. Yes they all follow the same blueprint of trashing Anderson Cooper, then launching into how great Scientology is and then finishing up by trashing Anderson Cooper some more. Oh and the music is irritating too.

You’ve been warned.


In the interest of fairness I’ve also included the complete AC360 report, Scientology: A History of Violence below too;

Unless chaperoned it’s generally frowned upon for a female to be in the company of any unrelated male friends or acquaintances. This particular example as you can appreciate presents great difficulty in environments where unrelated males and females are bound to mix.

Take for example the workplace. Despite making up 70% of all university enrolments, women in Saudi Arabia constitute just 5% of the workforce. However with such high enrolment numbers this will no doubt increase over time.

Clerics running the country are thus presented with the dilemma of enforcing Sharia law in an increasingly liberal environment. Well a dilemma until now.

Recently, two Saudi Arabian Islamic clerics issued a fatwa declaring a solution to the problem.

Instead of selling out your religious beliefs and running the risk of irking the local religious police, those working with unrelated females can now rest easy. The solution to sex segregation is to simply establish ‘maternal relations‘ between yourself and any unrelated females you come into contact with.

This is achieved by drinking the breastmilk of any unrelated female you regularly come into contact with.

This consumption thus forms a maternal bond between the drinker and uh… supplier which allows the two people to come into contact with each other freely.

Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘hello sexual repression much?! And at least one cleric agrees with you. Cleric Abi Ishaq Al Huwain openly called on the women of Saudi Arabia ‘to allow the men to suckle the milk directly from their breast‘.

Take away the lactation part and aren’t we just talking basic foreplay here?

Hows that going to work?

‘Hi there, we’ve just hired a new floor manager. Could all lactating female staff who work in sector 7G please report to HR.’

‘Ok ladies, flop them out. Bob, start drinking’.

‘…what?’

‘Sorry mate, company policy. You’re going to be working directly with these women so we need to establish maternal relations.’

‘what on earth for?’

‘well you see under Sharia law unrelated males and females coming into contact with each other is deemed to much of a temptation. By making you suck on the nipples of these women, we hope to prevent any sexual temptation occuring’.

‘…so I get to see a whole bunch of naked breasts, suck on them… and this is supposed to sexually repress any urges I might have towards these women I’m going to regularly be in contact with?’

‘…right.’

‘…’

‘…PRAISE ALLAH!’

Thankfully it seems not everyone has jumped off the deep end. Sheikh Al Obeikan, an adviser to the royal court and consultant to the Ministry of Justice, adopted a much more realistic position and suggested the milk not be taken directly from the breast.

Now obviously this removes the physical contact between the drinker and supplier but again how’s it supposed to work?

What, you apply for a job and the boss opens up a fridge containing breast milk samples of all the women who work for the company that you then have to drink?

And that’s just in the workplace. Acquaintance wise I can’t think of anything more awkward then a cultural requirement that I drink the breast milk of any female friends I might have.

For its intended purpose of ensuring the safeguarding of Islamic law, is sucking on the nipples of your female friends and co-workers really the best way to go about it?

I’ve been part of more then my fair share of sexual tension experiences in the workplace. Despite thinking long and hard about it, I can’t think of one situation where throwing some nipples into my mouth would have helped the situation.

And even though it does nothing for me, surely there’s at least one guy in Saudi Arabia who’d get off drinking the breast milk of his female colleagues or friends.

Although I seriously doubt this fatwa will ever come to fruition it’s interesting that it’s been brought up as a viable solution to the religious sex segregation issue present in Saudi Arabia. In what is arguably one of the most sexually repressed countries in the world it’s amusing that their solution to stopping mixing of the unrelated sexes is so grounded in potential eroticism.

Not surprising I guess when you live in a country run by old men who’ve spent most of their lives repressing any sexual urges that ever crossed their mind. What you can’t get out of your system will eventually consume you.

Case in point, stupid fatwas like this.

Here in Australia, commit the illegal act of female genital mutilation (also known as female circumcision), and we’ll not only excuse you – we’ll discuss modifying our laws to try and offer you a government sanctioned legal option.

Female genital mutilation is a practice routinely associated with Islamic cultures despite the practice having no religious significance.

Typically the procedure involves cutting and/or the removal or mutilation of the clitoral area of a woman’s vagina. This ranges from cutting out the clitoris to the extreme act of cutting out anything exterior and sewing up the area leaving only a small hole for urine and menstrual blood to pass through.

Needless to say this practice is banned in Australia however recently an idea to combat illegal ‘backyard’ procedures was set to be floated by the The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians in June.

The idea is that female genital mutilation is going to occur in Australia anyway due to rampant immigration from regions where it is widely practiced.

To counter this a ‘ritual nick’ could be offered in a clinical setting to satisfy the cultural requirements of those wanting to engage in the practice.

RANZCOG secretary Gino Pecoraro said the policy would be discussed at next month’s Women’s Health Committee meeting.

“We will need to start to think about [its introduction] but we would have to speak to community leaders from Australia,” Dr Pecoraro said.

“If a nick could meet the cultural needs of a particular woman, then it might save her from going through what can really be drastic surgery.


What gets me is that we already have a method for saving
women from going through this ‘drastic surgery’. It’s called the law.

The motivation behind the proposed discussion of the alternative procedure is that

with the rise in Somali and Sudanese numbers in Australia, doctors are seeing more cases of young girls, and women, needing surgery after illegal operations.


This of course begs the obvious question of why the bloody hell haven’t these girls been placed into state custody and their parents arrested for child abuse?

Female mutilation is illegal in Australia and due to the age of the girls involved, parental permission must be sanctioned in order for the procedure to take place. This is regardless of whether it’s done via a backyard operation or clinical environment.

If parents bring their daughter to an Australian clinic or hospital post botched mutilation procedure then why don’t we have policy in place to deal with the situation legally?

As far as I’m aware nobody in Australia to date has been put up on charges for conducting female genital mutilation yet doctors are seeing more cases of it?

Something doesn’t add up.

Instead of bowing to hazardous unnecessary procedures why don’t we try enforcing our existing laws for a change. Sanctioning female genital mutilation is going to get us nowhere.

Proponents of the practice would argue that by allowing doctors to perform a relatively harmless nick lives would be saved. However we all know what happens once you leave the door to this sort of practice slightly ajar.

Does anybody really think that people would be running around completely disfiguring baby girl’s clitoral areas if all that was required to appease their cultural practice was a mere nip of the area?

Offer ritual nicks and it won’t be long before people are demanding government sanctioned legal ‘proper’ mutilation procedures on the grounds of cultural tolerance.

I acknowledge there’s also the potential issue of a crackdown leading to the eventual death of a child because the parents were fearful of legal repercussions of seeking medical attention. In answer to this I say roll out the murder charges.

One or two people being locked away for killing their daughter and the negative publicity this generates should be enough to largely curb the practice.

Part of the problem now is you can rock up to a hospital and despite having clearly performed the practice here in Australia, hide behind cultural sensitivity and have the Australian health system fix your mistakes.

This needs to change.

Present to a hospital with a gunshot wound and the police are called. Present with a female baby or child with severe clitoral trauma and it’s high time some hard hitting questions were asked of the parents.

The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians’ proposed discussion on the issue appears to have been prompted by a recent American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement.

The policy statement was released in April and stated that

some physicians should be able to prick or nick a girl’s clitoral skin in order to “satisfy cultural requirements.” The group likened the nick to an ear piercing.


Following criticism from US advocacy groups and survivors of female genital cutting, the policy statement was rescinded on May 27th;

On Thursday the AAP stated the group will not condone doctors to provide any kind of “clitoral nick.”


Shortly after this announcement, the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians’ also clarified their position on the matter;

The college for Australia’s obstetricians and gynaecologists says it does not support the “ritual nicking” of young Muslim girls and anyone suspected of performing such genital mutilation should be reported to authorities.

Dr Ted Weaver, president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG), said media reports suggesting the college would review its policy were the result of a misquote.

He said the issue was likely to be discussed at a meeting next month, triggered by recent announcements made by the American Academy of Pediatrics, but a policy shift was not on the agenda.

“The college does not support – does not – support female genital mutilation, full-stop,” Dr Weaver said.


Although I find it hard to misinterpret the quote provided from Mr. Pecoraro above, ‘‘, I’m nonetheless glad to hear that a policy change is off the table.

As far as I’m concerned the only discussion that needs to be held on this topic is why aren’t people being arrested for child abuse?

Of course the answer’s quite simple. With most of the proponents for female genital mutilation in Australia coming from minority cultures in the third world, it’s a PR disaster for any government to uphold the law.

Regardless, cultural tolerance only goes so far. If you want to come to Australia and bring with you cultural practices that have already been established as illegal here, then you deserve wholly any legal repercussions. If this means splitting up families then too bad.

Female genital mutilation is child abuse. Period.

How about we stop ‘discussing‘ the matter and enforcing our laws for a change.

Osama bin Laden put in charge of a construction team rebuilding the Twin Towers.

Kevin Rudd being asked to judge diving at the next Olympics, except for the backflip event.

All of these are horrifying absurd scenarios the world wouldn’t want to be confronted with anytime soon. However they’re nothing compared to the absolute nonsense that is Stephen Conroy recently being appointed to a United Nations Broadband Taskforce.

The International Telecommunications Union’s Broadband Commission for Digital Development’s key aim

is to accelerate attainment of those goals — and more — by the target date of 2015.


‘Those goals’ being the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Amongst other things, these goals aim to

deliver results for the billions of people struggling to meet their basic needs and to live in dignity and peace.


In a broadband sense I’m assuming they’re referring to internet access as being a basic need, which is far enough.

So the UN have created a broadband taskforce aimed at accelerating internet access around the world by a specific deadline, and they’ve gone and appointed Stephen Conroy to it.

Let’s have a look at Conroy’s credentials on accelerating the national rollout of internet access. Here’s Conroy in 2007;


Back in 2007 Stephen Conroy went on Australian television and told the public that he’d be connecting people by the end of 2008.

It’s almost mid 2010 now and to date not one person has been connected to the National Broadband network. Infact two and half years after Conroy and the Labor government were elected, the National Broadband Network doesn’t even exist yet. Not even on paper.

Recently the $25 million McKinsey study which investigated the viability of a National Broadband Network (yes the government is only now investigating the viability of the network after it was promised to us back in 2007), was finalised and made public.

In response Conroy has given Australia’s largest ISP, Telstra, till the end of June to decide if they want to be a part of it. After that who knows what’s next on the ‘stall for time’ National Broadband Network agenda.

The good news is that whenever the government does decide to actually put a plan into action, the network itself is estimated to take about eight years to build.

Living in Australia, do you remember what you’re internet was like eight years ago?

All up if we take Conroy’s 2007 National Broadband network promise to start connecting people by the end of 2008, assume the government starts building the network by the end of 2010 and whack 8 years of building time onto the equation, Australian’s will finally have a broadband network nine years overdue.

Meanwhile the guy in charge of this disaster, Senator Stephen Conroy has just been welcomed onto a taskforce designed to ‘accelerate‘ the rollout of internet access worldwide.

Seriously is the UN full of freaking morons or what?

When asked what he thought about his recent appointment, Conroy stated

“I look forward to sharing Australia’s experiences in developing our national broadband network as well as contributing to the work of the Commission.”


To date the only other achievement Stephen Conroy has had in regards to the internet is the announcement of a mandatory ISP internet censorship filter.

Yeah, I wonder how that’s going to go down at the UN when Conroy ‘contributes‘ it.

Then, less then 24 hours later over in the UK

a cross-dressing robber wearing a burqa and hijab tricked jewelers into opening their door, only for an armed gang to raid the store.

The man, dressed in traditional Islamic women’s clothes, rang the doorbell at the Capri Jewellers in Bury, in the northern English county of Lancashire on Wednesday afternoon.

But as soon as he was buzzed in, a further three men – including one with a shotgun – stormed the store.

The group stole a large amount of jewelry, including bangles, rings and lockets, before escaping in a waiting car.


In the shadow of a 24 hour burqa clad crime spree, South Australian Senator Cory Bernadi has labelled the burqa as un-Australian and called for its ban.

I for one wholeheartedly agree with him.

On the entry ‘Ban the Burqa’ Senator Bernadi wrote yesterday on his personal blog;

In my mind, the burqa has no place in Australian society. I would go as far as to say it is un-Australian.

To me, the burqa represents the repressive domination of men over women which has no place in our society and compromises some of the most important aspects of human communication.


Despite the recent crimes involving the use of a burqa it’s refreshing to see a public figure willing to enter discussion on the matter from a rational cultural viewpoint.

Religion is left at the door and Bernadi seems to share similar views as I do on non-religious reasons the burqa should be banned.

Put simply, the burqa separates and distances the wearer from the normal interactions with broader society.

Equality of women is one of the key values in our secular society and any culture that believes only women should be covered in such a repressive manner is not consistent with the Australian culture and values.


This is usually when people start to chime in with ‘oh but the burqa is actually massively empowering for women, it’s their choice and such a strong one at that!’

Take for example ‘Assisting Shift in Multicultural Australia’ director Janine Evans’ retort to Senator Bernadi’s comments;

To say it doesn’t fit with our way of life and culture shuts the door to (Muslim) women becoming active members of society.

Sorry but the only thing shutting the door on muslim women becoming active members of Australian society are the burqas they are wearing themselves. If what you wear stops me from communicating properly with you then I have no time for you.

By completely veiling yourself you’re also sending out a strong cultural message that you are clearly not interested in being a integrated part of Australian society.

Keysar Trad from the Islamic Friendship Association puts up an equally flimsy argument;

Wearing the burqa actually encouraged women to integrate into Australian society, whereas a ban would only force them indoors where they’d “miss out on the vitamin D”.

It’s tantamount to denying them the right to drive, the right to enjoy all the services of society as well as equal opportunity


Firstly how are women dressed from head to toe in cloth getting any vitamin D anyway? And secondly a ban wouldn’t force them indoors, their religion would.

As for equal opportunity, one only needs to look at the recent case in Italy where Amel Marmouri was fined for wearing a burqa in public.

In response to the fine Marmouri’s husband Ben Salah Braim stated

We knew about the law and I know that (the law) is not against my religion but now Amel will have to stay indoors. I can’t have other men looking at her.If the law says she can’t wear one then she will have to stay inside night and day. There is nothing I can do.


Is he talking about another human being or a pet dog?! Clearly Salah Braim sees his wife as nothing more then property to be dictated to.

It’s no secret that the burqa is widely seen as a tool of female oppression, given that it’s religious requirement is not mentioned anywhere explicitly in the Quran. Salah Braim’s comments above clearly shatter the illusion that these women have any choice in the matter.

Every time I see a woman in a burqa I know that she’s in it because her husband believes as a male I’m unable to control any urges and at the very sight of her unclothed flesh of course want nothing else then to rape his wife.

How utterly insulting.

For me face to face interaction is a pretty important part of day to day communication. Whether I’m living in Australia, Taiwan or anywhere else in the world it doesn’t matter. Facial expression is a core component of subconscious communication and if I can avoid it, I’d rather not engage in people so self righteous they choose to exclude themselves from this cultural practice.

It’s on these grounds I’d love to see the burqa banned. Sadly I fear that if there’s a continued rise in burqa crime however, that these valid communication and cultural concerns will take a back seat to fear mongering and bigotry as primary reasons to ban the burqa.

Some might argue that it’s already too late.

If you’re walking down the street in one nobody has any idea who you are. Even if the police stop you and they’re unlucky enough to be male they have to wait for a female officer to rock up to carry out any identity checks.

On the religious front this is innocent enough. However when people use the burqa for criminal activity, such action highlights the fact that if you cannot be spot identified there’s a good chance you’ll get away with it.

Would banning the burqa however actually stop people committing crimes whilst wearing one?

The main fear about not being able to publicly spot identify someone is that in the event of a crime, witnesses and CCTV aren’t able to reveal much.

Case in point the ‘burqa bandit’ photo I used above. This man (or woman) robbed a North Carolina bank in the US at gunpoint. If you witnessed the robbery what would you tell police?

The burqa bandit was never apprehended and the police still don’t even know if it was a male or female under the veil.

More recently in Miranda, Sydney, two men stalked a third man who’d just withdrawn a large amount of cash from an ATM.

Police say the 35-year-old was delivering cash to jewellery retailers at a shopping centre in Miranda at about 5:00pm when two men started following him.

He became suspicious and drove off after they told him his tyre was going flat.


The man then drove 10km to another shopping centre, got out of the car and was then robbed at gunpoint by “by a man wearing a burka and sunglasses over the eye opening, who pointed a pistol at him.”

I’m assuming the victim knew it was a man because the robber spoke. Otherwise there’d be no way of telling.

Naturally the police are looking for the two men who first approached the victim. Until they’ve been questioned there’s no way of knowing if the two encounters with the victim are related, despite the strong gut feeling they obviously were.

Like the North Carolina burqa bandit case, don’t expect any CCTV footage of the Sydney robbery or any police portraits of the robber. If you’ve seen one black burqa you’ve seen them all, there’s no unique identifiable characteristics… which is kind of the point.

Now the irrational part of me would love to cry out about how this Sydney burqa robbery is proof that we in Australia need to get on the burqa ban bandwagon.

Surely if we banned the public wearing of one that’d solve any and all future potential crime problems we might have involving the wearing of a burqa right?

How well has this worked for other instruments that have been banned due to their use in crime? Guns are quite strictly regulated but we still read about people being shot every second day. Carrying around knives and machetes is also illegal but that doesn’t stop people getting stabbed either.

Would banning the burqa to stop potential burqa crime have any real effect?

Think about it. You’re a criminal and at most you know you’re going to spend less then ten minutes out in the open wearing a burqa whilst you commit your crime. Do you really think a burqa ban is going to stop you?

Typically whatever crime you’re about to carry out, whether it be robbery, assault, rape or whatever whilst wearing a burqa is going to be more serious then then the illegal act of wearing the burqa itself.

Criminal activity, such as the Miranda burqa robbery, only strengthen people’s fears of the unknown under the burqa. If crime featuring the burqa rises it won’t take long for a widespread paranoid culture against burqa wearers to develop. This then leads to a massive public push to ban the burqa but for the totally wrong reasons.

I fear two or three burqa crimes is all it would take to get some serious debate and discussion in Australia over banning the burqa outright. Whilst I support a burqa ban (but struggle with the personal freedom conundrum) I only do so for what I believe to be neutral and practical reasons.

Preventing crime isn’t one of them. The last thing we need is fear and prejudice on our streets because people are overly paranoid that every burqa person is a potential walking crime scene waiting to happen.

As a country we’re better then that.

FRANCE’S top administrative body has advised the government against slapping a complete ban on the full Islamic veil but says outlawing the burqa in some places was justified for security reasons.


Last week Belgium became the first European country to ban the burqa;

“We’re the first country to spring the locks that have made a good number of women slaves, and we hope to be followed by France, Switzerland, Italy, and the Netherlands; countries that think,” said Liberal Deputy Denis Ducarme.

In the lower house of the federal parliament yesterday, 136 deputies supported a nationwide ban on clothes or veils that do not allow the wearer to be fully identified, including the full-face niqab and burqa.


And Italy has seemingly had a burqa ban since 1975;

ITALIAN police have fined a woman 500 euros ($A712) for wearing a full Islamic veil.

While there is no specific legislation on the burqa, covering the face in public – even with a motorcycle helmet – has been banned in Italy since 1975.


It’s worth noting that in each of these cases the main reason cited for the banning the burqa are related to security and identification. Critics of burqa bans will almost inadvertently revert to protesting against the infringement of their religious  beliefs.

After all, prove an action has religious significance and all of a sudden the religious vilification defense overshadows anything else.

Personally I don’t see the burqa as a religious artifact. From my understanding the Quran urges Islamic followers to dress modestly, it mentions nothing about running around covered from head to toe and completely obliterating any sense of personal identity in public.

However this is largely put down to interpretation and translation differences. Still it’s enough for Muslims who endorse the burqa to cry religious vilification and label anyone who supports a burqa ban as attacking Islam and religious freedom.

What about the arguments for a burqa ban that have nothing to do with religion though? I’m strongly opposed to the wearing of the burqa in public and it’s got nothing to do with religion.

Here’s 5 reasons I believe the burqa should not only be banned in Europe but in any country that isn’t ruled by Islamic fundamentalist crazies.

1. Eye Contact

One of the strongest tenants of personal intracommunication between humans is eye contact. The Burqa by nature obscures this.

When I’m talking to someone primarily I’m looking into their eyes and secondarily I’m reading their face. This isn’t something that happens consciously, it’s a subconscious element to human interaction.

Mind you it’s not limited to humans either, my pet cats were able to tell what mood I was in off my facial expressions alone. If they were doing something they shouldn’t be often a frown and ‘angry eyes’ was all it took for them to have second thoughts.

The absence of these secondary forms of communication (the primary being speech) are definitely noticeable when absent. Try have a conversation with someone who completely covers their face, for me it’s extremely frustrating. I want to read their reactions to what I’m saying and gauge how the conversation is going.

There’s a lot more to communication then simply hearing a voice. Talking to an emotionless brick wall is largely unsatisfying and downright frustrating at times. If you’re wearing a burqa (or any other type of face covering clothing) I don’t want to talk to you.

In my personal life this is fine enough but it’s caused me problems in previous jobs where I’ve had to interact with burqa clad women. The frustration was even more compounded here as often English wasn’t a strong point. This in itself wasn’t a negative but often I had no way of gauging if I was being understood or not.

If you’re explaining something to someone and they don’t understand you can usually tell by their facial expression. Here I found myself dealing with a blank slate. Directly asking if they understood often led to silence or a slow ‘not-quite-sure’ nod. In these situations I just had to hope for the best.

2. Burqas make me feel like a predator

The whole concept of being modest in Islam appears to be to remove all physical temptation, from men.

If Islam attracts guys who can’t keep it in their pants then fair enough, but what about the rest of us?

Every time I see a burqa I’m subconsciously reminded that the reason she’s dressed like that is so that I don’t instantly turn into a slobbering uncontrollable animal and try to mate with her.

I mean that’s what it comes down to doesn’t it?

How about taking back the notion of self control and placing the burden of responsibility where it belongs, on the potential offender – not the potential victim.

3. I can’t hear you

This one probably again relates to my interactions with women wearing burqas. Not all women who wear a burqa are softly spoken but a hell of a lot of them are.

I’d have trouble understanding these women without a burqa, wearing one just makes me want to go bang my head against a wall.

Not because the women are softly spoken but because there’s no viable solution. Some random guy asking a woman to remove a burqa is punishable by beheading, or I won’t get into virgin heaven… or something.

‘mfphhhfphhhmmm’.

‘Hi there , sorry I can’t hear you. Can you speak up?’

‘MFPHHFPHHMMM!’

‘Hmm, yeah this isn’t really working. I’ll be right back.’

At this point I’d go and disappear for a half hour or so until they’d hopefully gone. Admittedly this didn’t happen often but when it did, after the first few games of me asking them to speak louder and getting nowhere, I really didn’t know what to do.

In any other circumstance I’d just ask them to remove whatever was making them difficult to hear. But it’s the almighty burqa and we can’t ask that.

4. Body Odor

For anyone who thought Indians smelt bad, wait until you’re in the vicinity of a burqa clad women in summer. I’ve read that deodorant and Islam might come into opposition due to the alcohol content of some deodorants but by and large I believe it’s just laziness.

I mean if you’re going to run around invisible all day who cares what people think about your smell or looks.

For the rest of the us this is a nightmare. Australian summers aren’t cold and dressing head to toe in black cannot by any stretch of the imagination be comfortable. Hell even if you wore deodorant, five minutes outside and you’d still be wading through your very own swimming pool.

Sorry but I don’t want to smell your body odor because you choose to wear climatalogically inappropriate clothing.

5. woman’s rights

Now this is a tricky one. There’s plenty of women out there who will go on about how it’s a personal choice and they like wearing a burqa.

To this I say fair enough. You were born into this culture and have had it repeatedly re-enforced throughout your life. Nothing is going to change that. In most middle eastern and African countries were the burqa is prevalent often it’s not even a choice, the laws of the land forbid you from not wearing a burqa in public.

Now it’s certainly not up to me to tell women what they can and can’t wear but I believe the choice to wear or not wear one is important. Of course this contradicts my support for banning the burqa but I’m struggling with that.

I believe the choice to wear a burqa or not is important for future generations. The problem with the west is with immigration we’re getting immigrants from hardline Muslim countries where there is no choice.

This generation of women are mostly a lost cause, it’s become a way of life for them. I see the next generation of immigrant female children as being hard pressed to burqa up, infact I just don’t see it happening as a majority at all. Not if they’ve grown up in western society.

I guess what it comes down to is if we can wait that long. My own prejudices against communicating with someone who masks their identity aren’t going to change anytime soon. I’ll forever see restricting the basic tenants of communication as a sign of disrespect, dishonesty and just being downright rude.


On one hand I’d love to see the burqa banned but the issue of personal freedoms is quite a strong argument. Then again, it’s not like we don’t already ban some forms of clothing, or lack thereof. Try walking down the street in some budgie smugglers, or wearing a motorcycle helmet into a bank, or wearing shorts and a tshirt into a club and see what happens.

If as a society we’ve already content to have the above examples of clothing restrictions in place, is it really that much of a big step to legislate it?


I’m not exactly certain of what happens if an Australian of Asian background who is Muslim applies, but I’m pretty sure the entire universe explodes.

Far be it from me to tell Pauline Hanson who and who she can’t sell her house to but it does raise some interesting questions about Hanson’s recent decision to relocate to the UK.

Aside from the irony of famously complaining about immigrants and then becoming on yourself, for someone who claims that she believes Muslims are incompatible with the Australian way of live, is moving to the UK that smart a move?

The Muslim population of Britain according to their 2001 census was 1,536,015, or 3% of the population. The British newspaper ‘The Times’ put the British Muslim population at 2.9 million as of January 2009.

Plus it’s no state secret that Britain has been heavily Islamicised over the past decade. Britain even set up its own muslim friendly Sharia court system.

Comparatively the Australian Muslim population sat at 340,392 or 1.3% of the population in 2006 according to our own census.

This of course doesn’t take into account that 99.99% of Muslims living in Australia live in the western suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney. Pauline Hanson however lives up in Coleyville in Queensland.

I’m sure the one muslim who lives up in Queensland is absolutely outraged they won’t be able to purchase Pauine Hanson’s house.

Statistically Pauline Hanson’s got more chance of moving into a house in the UK that has had Muslims live in it then selling her Queensland home to a Muslim in Australia.

Unfortunately we won’t know for a while as due to the negative backlash over her comments, Hanson has removed her property from the market.

Her LJ Hooker real estate agent, Keith Edwards, said he’d received an onslaught of emails and calls following the controversial comments.

“Some of (the emails) have been pretty upsetting… I got the abusive and threatening phone calls last night (Wednesday night), I didn’t sleep.

I got swags of abusive emails, with non-returnable addresses, just cowards.”


I’m not sure if this is code for death threats and crazy jihads ala South Park but I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it was.

As for Hanson’s comments themselves, I somewhat agree with her. Whilst my scope isn’t as broad as to cover all Muslims, I firmly believe there should be no place in Australia for crazy nutjobs Muslim extremists.

I’d like to pretend I wouldn’t but I know that if I was selling a house and a self styled cleric rocked up with his Burqa clad wife complaining about my pork sausages in the fridge after an inspection, I’d be feeling slightly uneasy.

An interesting comment from Queensland’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner  Neroli Holmes was thrown in at the end of the news.com.au article;

Ms Hanson’s latest stance against Muslims and foreign investors puts her at risk of breaching the state’s discrimination laws.


Yeah, I’d love to see the government try that one on. The real estate industry has been discriminating against people for years. Try renting some property as a pet owner or as a single mum with kids some time.

…welcome to the Australian real estate industry boys.

To me this ban seems a little strange. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of Scient0logy but I can’t decide what the aim of the book ban is going to achieve. It’s not like they’ve crippled Scientology by banning the books, so why bother?

Russian authorities have stated that the reason for the book ban is that the Scientology books encouraged people “to commit crimes motivated by ideological and religious hatred” and contained “ideas justifying violence in general and in particular any methods of resistance against critics of Scientology“.

Presumably both these claims refer to Scientology’s well publicised fair game policy which states that critics of the church “can be punished and harassed using any and all means possible.”

Although the term ‘Fair Game’ has been discontinued, the practice is still used and encouraged by the church today.

What I don’t understand is that if Scientology texts have been found to be in breach of Russian law then surely it follows that Scientology as a whole isn’t too far behind? It’s not like these are isolated texts that are rarely used by Scientology members.

As Yury Maksimov, a spokesperson for Scientology in Russia puts it “the materials cited are distributed all over the world“. The texts written by L. Ron Hubbard form a core of beliefs that are inseparable from Scientology itself.

Banning them is little more then a token gesture when the church is still able to practice and teach the ideas and policies contained within the texts themselves.

Personally I’m against the banning of information myself. As Australia stares down the barrel of internet censorship I hate the idea that one day a government might be able to censor information, as much as I might disagree with the information itself.

The Russian book ban is further undermined by the readily availability of Scientology books on public peer 2 peer networks as ebooks.

Whether or not this latest book ban is a precursor to Russia banning Scientology itself at this stage is unknown. If the intention of the book ban was to hinder Scientology’s efforts in Russia however it definitely seems that more will need to be done before any real difference is made.

On the other, you have crazies like the people over at Revolution Muslim.

Last week’s South Park episode was a 200th blockbuster that featured a mish mash of some of the more prominent storylines that have appeared on the show. One such storyline was the depiction of Muhammad in a visual form.

South Park first depicted Muhammad in visual form back in 2001 in the episode Super Best Friends.

Muhammad being the guy to the left of Jesus.

I watched the 200th episode of South Park when it came out last week and like most of the rest of the world had a giggle and then got on with life.

Unfortunately if you’re a religious nutjob things aren’t as simple.

Revolution Muslim appear to be your stereotypical band of Islamic nutjobs headed by website creator Yousef al-Khattab who interestingly lives in New York and runs a bicycle taxi.

Naturally Revolution Muslim is hell bent on the destruction of the west. The website’s mission statement (google cached) proclaims

Revolution Muslim’s purpose is to invite people to proper Islam (Aqeedah (creed) + Shariah (path)) and command the good (justice and peace), while forbidding the falsehood (lies and deceptions) of society.

Our mission is to one day see the Muslims united under one Khalifah and under the commands of Allah (SWT).

We focus on educating Muslims and Non-Muslims alike about the actuality of the religion and thereby work to preserve traditional Islamic values for Muslims across the globe.

We pray that we may witness the dismantlement of western, secular dominance across the world as we hold it to be pagan and idolatrous in the majority of its presumptions.

We seek a resurrection of the just example set forth by centuries of Islamic rule throughout the ages and we hold it to be self evident for the objective soul and mind that Allah is One and that Muhammad ibn Abdullah is His Prophet and that the religion offers the solution to all of the world’s ills and afflictions.


Sounds wonderful and everything but no thanks.

Recently an article featured on Revolution Muslim threatening the creators of South Park, Mat Stone and Trey Parker with assassination. The article opens with a post mortem photo of Theo Van Gogh, a dutch film maker assassinated in 2004 after releasing ‘Submission’. Submission is a film critical of the treatment of women in Islam.

The article states;

The episode went beyond just showing him, but it outright insulted him, salaa Allahu ‘alayhi wa salam, by showing him in a bear suit and making fun of our beloved Nabi, salaa Allahu ‘alayhi wa salam.

We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them. Maybe they have not listened to this lecture before:


Following these threats (which let’s call a spade a spade, they are) is an embedded Youtube video of shiek Ahmad Jibril calling on people to chop the head off the author of a cartoon depicting Muhammad.

In an article posted a few days later on the 18th April further threatens

Here are the authors boasting of their insults and celebrating their complete disregard for what anyone considers sacred: Are you afraid that you would be bombed, she asks?

Perhaps they are not, perhaps they should be, only time will tell.


Reader commentary on the article isn’t much better (link working at time of publication).

I wish i could slit their throats with a rusty knife,so it be more painful….May curse them and may Allah give me the strength to do that honour.

How dare they insult our prohphets,they won’t get away this time Inshallah.

There’s no doubt our Mujjahid Brother’s from among the state itself will rise & kill them – InshahAllah… There should & will never be any forgiveness for them ever or for that matter with all the enemies of Allah. The will all suffer the wrath of Allah through the Hands of his Lions – Ameen.

These kaafirs are the filthiest people. May Allah never guide them until they taste the fire of hell. Inshallah. American society has gone against the fitrah in which Allah created Man.
By the way here is a good chance for somebody to imitate the blind companion of the messenger of Allah (pbuh) whol killed his wife who used to insult the prophet(pbuh).

Our Shaykhs, may Allah reward and Protect them have given us from Qur’an and Sunnah the best actions to take and finish off the like of these two kafirs.

So the options we have to deal with these two kafirs and anyone who follow them in their blasphemous actions are:

1. Killing and annihilating them either by gunning them down, bombing them, or striking their necks with swords or knives

2. Crucifying them, i.e. nailing them on a tree or a pole, and let them die a slow excruciating death

3. Cutting off from opposite sides their hands and feet with axes, swords or guns, and let them wander off until death comes to them.

4. Exiling them from the land

May Allah Azza wa Jall destroy and punish them in this world and in the everlasting painful punishment in the Fire of Hell.


Thankfully there is some level headedness amongst the rabble. Two out of the seven readers who’ve commented actually urge restraint from violence against Matt and Trey.

One comment however did seem to miss an important point;

All in all it was a stupid cartoon – but I was also offended by this, and not just the depiction, but the content – inferring that all Muslims are crazy violent terrorists. This is a good example of how we have been marginalized.


Are shows like South Park who set out to prove a point marginalizing Muslims or are websites like Revolution Muslim who openly threaten criticisers of the religion with violence doing so?

If you’re thin skinned enough to take a ‘stupid cartoon‘ seriously and offer up a congregation of Islamic nutjobs only willing to unsheathe their rusty blades in revenge, other then being ‘crazy violent terrorists‘, how else are the rest of the world supposed to take you?

‘People who can be reasoned with’ wasn’t among the first impressions I got whilst reading Revolution Muslim.


Footnote: Currently Revolution Muslim is offline and returning a ’500 Internal Sever Error’ code. I’m not sure if the site has been pulled or if it’s struggling due to bandwidth problems. I’ve provided Google cache links where possible, all of which were working at the time of publication.

Gad Amr is also Muslim.

Usually the stories in the media regarding Muslims take on a sharply negative tone. The religion itself seems to carry an abundance of nutjobs self styled clerics who every few months seem to feel the need to remind Australia just how outspoken they can be.

In the face of extreme provocation, it is refreshing to see that not all Muslims give in to the violent sociopath stereotype.

The following is a report from the ABC’s Media Watch program. The two main players in the video are Simon Fuller, a (now ex) Channel Nine camera man and Gad Amr, father of Omar Amr.

Omar Amr is up for charges in relation to riots that occured at a Bob Jane Tmart store in Oakleigh after an Easternats. For those of you not familiar with Easternats thing a crowd of bogans standing around cheering cars doing doughnuts (yes it’s as exciting as it sounds).


Now I’m not in any way suggesting that the disgraceful behaviour of Simon Fuller in anyway absolves Omar Amr of his alleged involvement in the Easternat riots. Omar does look like your typical meathead who’d get involved in riots at a bogan car event and if found guilty he’ll get what he deserves.

Instead I want to draw attention to how his father, Gad Amr, handled himself. In the face of such direct provocation it’s nothing short of admirable that Gad kept a cool head and maintained overly polite requests that Simon Fuller and co. leave him and his son alone.

Personally I hate it when we hear about some crime and the only shots the media get are of criminals hiding behind clothes but in this case they clearly got the shots they were after. What seems to follow is then inexplicable vindictiveness on Fuller’s behalf.

Gad Amr seems completely wise to this and even stops his son Omar from engaging Fuller knowing full well they are only there for a reaction. When this fails out comes Fuller with the terrorist remark and even then, despite the Muslim stereotype Gad goes off to find police rather then directly confront Fuller.

This shows an incredible amount of self restraint and willpower. I’m a big believer of earning respect and in my eyes Gad Amr has definitely earned it. This, ladies and gentlemen is how you handle yourself with dignity.

Take note Muslims of Australia it’s people like Amr that we should be hearing more about. Instead of putting up crazy fundamentalist posterboys, why not take some time to promote people like Gad Amr.

With Islamic crazies in Somalia recently banning music, movies, musical ringtones and bras (seriously wtf?), it’s easy to see how tipped the scales are in terms of irrational, violent and violent Islam vs. the calm, rational and very sensible image portrayed by people like Gad Amr.

There clearly are decent muslims out there, so how about letting your voices heard every once in a while?

Obviously not happy that they’d be stuck in limbo for the next three to six months some Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers, currently being detained in Sydney, have begun a hunger strike.

The catch?

These clowns have already had their asylum applications refused.

The asylum visa suspension handed down applies to all new asylum applications and this includes new appeals. As I mentioned in my earlier article the end result is that all new arrivals are stuck in limbo and housed at the taxpayer’s expense.

Additionally with the news of this hunger strike it’s now also clear that any Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers who were waiting to lodge appeals are also now stuck in limbo too, again at the taxpayer’s expense.

Whilst I can’t even begin to imagine why the hell we moved asylum seekers to the Australian mainland after their claims were initially rejected, the question now is just what are the government going to do.

Filled with a sense of self importance the striking asylum seekers have announced that they are

refusing to eat until their appeals are set in motion (and) are also demanding to meet with Immigration Minister Chris Evans.


Right because y’know, that’s how you get your way in a foreign country. Let me tell you now if I tried to pull this crap in Taiwan I’d be on the national news as a laughing stock before being promptly deported.

As if trying to bully the Australian government into submission wasn’t enough the news article also states that many of the group are “mentally unstable“.

Oh yes please. If it’s one thing Australia doesn’t have enough of it’s mentally unstable people!

Soltan Ahmad Azizi married his wife Marzieh Rahimi in Afghanistan back in 1995. In 2005 they came to Australia as refugees. In 2007 Azizi strangled Rahimi with her veil in front of their two children because he thought she had “become too Australian” and asked for a divorce.

After murdering his wife Azizi called up police, informed them he’d murdered his wife and told them “I’m ready for the handcuffs“.

Azizi claimed the couple’s marriage was “a happy one“.

Up until now Australia’s police on asylum seekers has been seemingly dictated to us by those seeking asylum. With the news of this latest hunger strike it seems that trend is set to continue.

I for one can’t wait to see how Kevin ‘pass the lube’ Rudd handles this one.

And I’m one of those guys that when reading something that involves pain and male privates, does that ‘squeeze your buttcheeks together whilst sitting on a chair’ thing.

I don’t enjoy it but usually by the time it happens I’m too deep into a story to stop reading. So I continue reading and then go off and spend the rest of the day imagining what it must feel like to go through whatever it is I just read.

…in Imax 3D’esque 9 point surround sound graphic detail.

Over the last 12 hours crazy Asians have been responsible for me going through this butt clenching routine twice. After sitting at my desk replaying the two scenarios over and over in my head I thought I’d ask some hard hitting questions.

…anything to stop my mind mentally self inflicting on myself what these two poor buggers put themselves through.

1. Yeah that’s not growing back anytime soon…

Over in Indonesia some guy decided to take a knife to his penis after learning that his girlfriend had plans to marry another man. He then tossed the dismembered member down the village well.

Apart from the burning question of whether or not he used a serrated or straight blade, which don’t get me wrong is paramount to gauging the amount of pain involved, I couldn’t help but wonder how one finds oneself in such a situation.

I mean alright, you’re going out with some girl… and you clearly love her. I’ve never personally told a girl I’d cut off my own penis for her but whatever, each to their own.

Now just how do you not realise that she’s going to marry another guy? Is it something you walk in on, do you ‘accidentally’ read some emails you weren’t supposed to read or maybe a wedding invitation arrives at your house and whilst reading it you’re all like ‘hey hangon a second where do I know that nam-OHMYGOD!’

… how in the hell do you not know the girl you’re in love with wants to marry some other guy?!

What I particularly like about this news story is that the act of a failed self suicide attempt by cutting off your penis now has a technical name; it’s now called ‘self surgery‘.

The Director of the hospital the young man was taken to also turned out to be quite the philosopher too…

Cilacap General Hospital Director Sugeng Budi Susanto told local media “cutting off a penis can be fatal.“


Well gee there’s a revelation. I don’t know exactly what level of education is required to achieve the title Hospital Director but it seems it’s been put to good use.

And what was with the tossing down a well? Was it some kind of misunderstanding of how a wishing well works? Perhaps the well held the town’s drinking supply and he thought that by tossing his penis down there he’d create some kind of love potion soup his girlfriend would inevitably drink and then fall in love with him again.

No really, I’ve just cut my penis off and I’m standing there wondering WHY MY CROTCH IS ON FIRE… meanwhile this guy’s just walked up to a well and calmly tossed his severed dick over the edge. How do you even become that person?

Unfortunately villagers were unable to find the man’s penis so… well I guess he goes without. Kind of pointless now even if his girlfriend does go back to him isn’t it?

What are they going to do, hold hands?

2. Anal sex with a black guy

…is what I imagine shoving a cucumber up your arse feels like. This is how sixty two year old Hong Kong resident Chin Wei decided to try and end his life.

How do you get to the ripe old age of sixty two and then decide to end it all by shoving a cucumber up where the sun don’t shine? I mean there’s screw ups and then there’s screw ups; I’d love to know just what Wei did wrong to warrant death by cucumber penetration.

Presumably the game plan in this suicide method was to take one very long cucumber, insert into anus and then just keep pushing until you wake up in heaven. Now I’m no suicide expert but I can think of so many less painful ways to go son.

When asked what he was doing with a cucumber up his bum Wei told doctors “he inserted it in a suicide attempt“.

(Wei) said the method was a variation of the Japanese ritual suicide hara-kiri – usually carried out with a sword plunged into one’s own stomach.


I don’t know about you but there’s about fourteen billion degrees of separation between stabbing yourself in the stomach with a sword and ramming a cucumber into no mans land.

Variation my arse (no pun intended).

Unfortunately Wei’s brown eye wasn’t the only casualty here. Wei was discovered lying in a pool of blood by his daughter.

Seriously imagine trying to live that one down. Your father seems pretty well adjusted. You’ve never y’know, really got along with him but you guys have a functional relationship. He’s missed some birthdays and you said some stuff you regretted later a few times.

Stuff happens, life goes on.

Then one day you come home after a few drinks with the boys and find your dad lying in the lounge room with a cucumber stuck halfway up his arse.

…I just don’t think there’s ever going to be any recovery from that.

This story in particular had me clenching the old buttcheeks like nobody’s business… Thanks Hong Kong.

Seriously, has nobody in Asia heard of like a razor blade and some wrists? What the hell guys?!