Tim Blair

Now, now, we mustn't confuse legitimate, universally supported anti-Zionism with the universally denounced anti-Semitism... beside, Arabs are the real Semites!

[/left-wing loony off]

As a Jew, I'm frightened.
As an Australophile, I'm saddened.
As a human being I'm sickened.

Sadly, this is a hydra, with heads leering around the globe. Not just anti-Semitism, but anti-religious movements have picked up steam and left-wing respectability worldwide. The French passed the About-Picard "anti-cult" law in 2002, which would make your football squad an illegal cult; and the banning of scarves and crosses in public schools is an abomination. The Russian's just outlawed Jehovah's Witnesses as "anti-state."

Here in Australia the Supreme Court recently tried to put a stop to it to a degree, when Sydney Morning Herald freelancer John Macgregor tried to justify theft of computer files in his attack on a spiritual movement. The Court found that journalists (especially those guilty of contempt of court) are not above the law (imagine!).

Sadly, The SMH and a few others just don't see the forest for the trees. Freedom means the ability to choose what to believe in-- not the ability to chose only what the cogniscenti think is best for you.

Another place my three step plan applies:

1. Find out who did this.

2. Make sure.

3. Kill them.

If these people want sympathy, they can look in a dictionary between sh*t and syphillis...

This just saddens me beyond words. To think that this would be happening regularly around college campuses where the minds of our future leaders are presumably being formed is not surprising but very depressing. Our supposed bastions of tolerant liberalism are slipping over into intolerance and bigotry. I have not seen the data but I suspect that similar results would be found for my country (the United States) and Canada. The reflexive liberal posture that more progressive "education" will solve anti-semitism seems to be on the contrary (sometimes purposefully)aggravating the disease.

The Russian's just outlawed Jehovah's Witnesses as "anti-state."

I believe they also banned the Salvation Army as a paramilitary group.

Robert,

A clandestine break away splinter group has been formed calling itself the Provisional Salvation Army.

your link to comments "Truth Fallout in Old Baghdad", 2nd article on Pilger, you state, "Depleted uranium, a substance almost as dense as the activoids who applauded Pilger, is used to bust open bunkers and fortified buildings and such. It isn't radioactive, at least not at any level that would threaten life."
-The after effects of DU is still open to debate. Even US government agencies would not go as far as your statement. An example piece:
Operation Desert Storm: Army Not Adequately Prepared to Deal With Depleted Uranium Contamination, United States General Accounting Office (GAO/NSIAD-93-90), January 1993, pp. 17-18.

"Inhaled insoluble oxides stay in the lungs longer and pose a potential cancer risk due to radiation. Ingested DU dust can also pose both a radioactive and a toxicity risk."

Carlos - you appear to be labouring under the mistaken belief that Mr. Blair is interested in any facts that don't support his position.

BTW - can anyone work out what the first item of Tim's column is supposed to mean? Is there a typo somewhere?

BTW - can anyone work out what the first item of Tim's column is supposed to mean? Is there a typo somewhere?

You mean this opening paragraph:

First Simon Crean didn't want our troops sent to Iraq. Now Mark Latham wants to bring our troops home. Make up your minds, Labor leaders!

I'm afraid I can't follow Tim's logic here, either.

yes! inhaling bullets with radioactive tips IS dangerous!

While there is some concern about the effects of DU as a heavy metal, Pilger has no evidence to back him up. Any excuse to attack ameica will do. I would suggest that the health effects of living under Saddam are far more imediate and dire.

carlos, Mork: A GAO report from 1993? Much more recent info is available. Various departments of the UN, the EU, the WHO, the CDC, etc. all say there no measurable risk of disease from exposure to depleted uranium. That's a simplification, of course, but all the links are there so you can decide for yourself.

'Course, Mork will probably be interested in whatever "facts" support his position.

Why, another crap column Tim.

Inhaled insoluble oxides stay in the lungs longer and pose a potential cancer risk due to radiation. Ingested DU dust can also pose both a radioactive and a toxicity riski>

So is inhaling lead, but I guess that wouldn't make as catchy a slogan for you to annex the Ecology Earthfirsters to the defence of Islamo fascism.

The question you should be asking - how many bullets can one ingest before the harmful effects occure?
The answer; one, if it is force fed.

Swastikas are regularly sprayed around university campuses, where anti-Israel sentiment runs high.

That is a leap of logic. Some one or two people with a spray can and too much time on their hands doesn't equal "anti-Israeli sentiment runs high on campuses".
Show me a survey or take a poll. Because one person with a can of paint isn't a political movement. I refuse to believe that College age children are so obtuse that they prefer Muslim totalitarian quasi government/cults, who use their children as smart bombs to kill Jews, over Israel.
Rather, I am certain it is one or two of the cultist urchins, displaying what they retained from Fridays quran lessons.

Mork, Jethro: Tim seems to be referencing Homer Simpson. "First you don't want me to get the pony, now you want me to take it back. Make up your mind!"

Do we have any actual evidence that "swastikas are regularly sprayed around university campuses" though? I've spent the last six years wandering around the University of Sydney, with a fair share of time at UNSW, Queensland, Newcastle and the ANU, and I've sure as hell never seen one.

Well, it's tortured, but I guess ...

Thanks Jorge!

"...step 3: Kill them."

That's the ol' blogmire spirit. And people wonder what the bloghead means by 'the continuing crisis'.

Clearly, it's his crisis and he means to continue.

Jeez, Tim I don't know what it is but the trolls are sure out in force today!

"I don't know what it is but the trolls are sure out in force today"

Nothing infuriates them more than knowing that somebody doesn't have anything against Jews.

Papertiger:

I believe anti-Israel sentiment is high on universities. A year ago, a little before the war in Iraq started, a totally non-partisan Holocaust memorial had to be taken down at my local university because it was being targeted with anti-Israel, pro-Palestine graffiti. A Holocaust memorial.

The actual vandals are probably fringe nutjobs, but they are getting a pass because of left-wing sympathy for Palestinians, and you're going to find more of that in universities which are dominated by left-wing professors. Pre 9-11, that kind of bigotry would not be tolerated by anyone, now it's used as a symbol of resistance against the wicked Israeli/US Imperial Army.

I've never seen any swastikas anywhere at my uni, but there definately is a strong anti Israeli bias. I don't think it's fair to automatically assume anti semitism is at its root though.

The only genuine anti Jewish sentiment I've ever seen was at uni however. Some moron wrote "kill all jews" on a desk last year. I crossed out "jews" and wrote "nazis".

The depleted uranium scare-mongering is typical Left-wing manure. All depleted uranium is, is uranium from which the U235 has been separated out. Its almost pure U238. U238 has a half life measured in billions of years. 4.5 x 10^9 years in fact. There is no radiation danger from DU. Its toxicity as a heavy metal is no better and no worse than inferior substitutes like tungsten. There exist glazes used in making ceramics that are uranium based for crying out loud.

So what are you suggesting here by way of a solution? Race hate legislation? Bring on HREOC. Not.

"Tim seems to be referencing Homer Simpson. "First you don't want me to get the pony, now you want me to take it back. Make up your mind!""

Well that hole just got a little deeper, didn't it.

What?

That hole just got a little bit deeper until the cows come home.

Jeez, another scare tactic using DU. Can't we have some originality with these trolls? If we have to suffer their whiny little complaints and nuances, can't they at least use something NEW in their posts?

Yo, Carlos, "DU" stands for depleted uranium, which is English for gone away. If you remember that for your future posts, you won't impress us with your ignorance.

"What?"

On dear Andrea. Shall I type a little more slowly then?

Jorge thinks Blair may be referring to a line of dialogue, written to make us laugh at a person's inability to think logically when faced by two different statements.

If that is the case, then Blair is being intentionally Homeresque - but with no discernible payoff.

However I'm sure it was just an unwitting impersonation.

Type as slowly as you like, Mark, you're still not gonna make any sense. Unless you hit different letters, or the same ones in a different order.

'Trolls' is another warping word, it seems. At least here it is - anyone disagreeing with Tim is a 'troll'. I guess the few of you who used it in that way weren't around when it was adopted to describe something very different. Oh well, can't fight progress.

fatfingers:

'Trolls' is another warping word, it seems. At least here it is - anyone disagreeing with Tim is a 'troll'. I guess the few of you who used it in that way weren't around when it was adopted to describe something very different. Oh well, can't fight progress.

Wrong!

Some people in this try to disrupt the thread with irrevelancies and personal attacks. That's consistent with the common use of troll.

Eh? People are discussing nazis in Australia, or at least people who approve of some nazi policies. They'd have to, using swastikas to make their point. That's the moral equivalent of burning crosses in a front yard. It concerns them, because if this attitude is prevalent at the universities, what are they teaching the next generation? It sure ain't multi-culturism and mutual tolerance.

Then Carlos jumps in with his scatterbrained approach to "No Nukes!" Our resident Blogparrot says RAWK! And so on, until you stick your foot in your mouth with the whine that dissent is crushed here.

There's disagreement and discussion. This is discussion. And there's disruption; trolls disrupt. These guys are trolls.

Now go back to your spot under the bridge. We have work to do.

And then some trolls, they pop in with indignation and demand proof that Al Qaeda was involved in the 9-11 attacks, making the totally ridiculous implication that there is still some doubt on the subject.

Will I ever get tired of posting that link when fatfingers shows up? Probably not.

The sad thing is, the pukes who use the swastika to make their point make a point of another kind -- that they are either stupid little people who have no idea what they doing, or evil people bent on killing without remorse.

Nazi German was an evil empire lead by a madman. It was crushed, but only after millions of people died in battle, of disease or hunder, or at the hands of lunatics in concentration camps. The policy of genocide was not limited to Jews, regardless of what the "no Holocaust" twits say.

The swastika is a symbol of evil -- Hitler made it so. That people (read "fools") embrace it today as a symbol for their cause is disturbing.

But when I see someone using a swastika as an anti-Israeli symbol, I think that things are going well, if the "i-hate-the-world" segment of the population are so pissed off to be that stupid.

From the Wikipedia: On the Internet, a troll is a person who posts messages that create controversy or an angry response without adding content to the discussion, often intentionally, merely as a ludibrium. Though technically different from flaming, which is an unmistakable direct personal attack, trolls often resort to innuendo or misdirection in the pursuit of their objective, which is to create controversy for its own sake, discredit those with whom they disagree, or sabotage discussion by creating an intimidating atmosphere.

Simple bullheadedness and/or defiance is not necessarily trolling. Trolling involves enticing an unsuspecting user into a conflict.

Well, none of us are unsuspecting, but I think Mork, Miranda, and Georg Heroci are clearly trolling here.

Mork: Attacks Tim's supposed ignorance of facts, but fails to provide any evidence at all. Also fails to respond when attempts are made to explain the lack of environmental risks posed by depleted uranium. Adding content to the discussion (well, beyond providing proof that Simpson's references are lost on him)? Nope.

Miranda: Somehow reading a reader comment as if it came from Tim? Juvenile misdirection.

Georg Heroci: Why is it a crap column? No, I'd really like to know. Please tell us.

Depleted uranium again? Aww, Mom -- we had that last week!

Thanks for mentioning the stuff about crushing of pro-war dissent.

I notice that none of the usual troll crowd has the decency to address the rise of antisemitism.

I suppose they realize that the fascists are on their side now.