Beth Yahp

I greatly admired Beth Yahp’s The Crocodile Fury (1992). I was interested to see Beth Yahp: Open letter to Abdullah Badawi is a top WordPress post today.

Dear Prime Minister Abdullah,

26 September 2007 saw two thousand lawyers “Walk for Justice” to defend the good name and protest the sliding standards of their profession. “When lawyers march,” said Ambiga Sreenevasan, President of the Bar Council, “something must be wrong.”

Post against utopian extremism

This kind of relates to an earlier thread. It speaks for itself.

So does this one:

See also Compulsory sterilization.

Amnesty International

Benign spam

I received the email which follows and it was promptly and correctly delivered to the spam bin at Unwired (or rather Bluetie). I have chosen to rescue it. You may have seen it before.

MY MESSAGE FOR PEACE AND HARMONY

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

We all need to pray for one another, and to love one
another. We should always pray for the safety, peace,
love and brotherhood for people all over the world.
Too bad we can’t have an independence day for the
entire world. A day of freedom from ignorance, hatred,
war, illusions, power and control. A day where we can
all love each other as human beings and toss away the
weapons of war, and cast out our fears and hatreds
from our hearts into the graves. We must mourn the
graves of the innocents all over the world, and give
the children of the world the hope of a peaceful,
loving and beautiful world.

A world full of love and without hatred or fear. A
world where we can join hands together and accept one
another, regardless of our skin color, ethnic
divisions, religion or nationality. If we don’t unite
as a human race, then we have condemned the future
generation of children a dark and very grim future.
Think of love, compassion and peace always…

Quote of the day

Further to Hypocrisy (revised) yesterday:

Only a very very peculiar mind could interpret McClelland’s remarks as showing sympathy for the Bali bombers, let alone ’supporting’ them.

That is from the entry I mentioned yesterday — The next prime minister on The Road to Surfdom. Ken also says:

Well done Kevin, you’ve managed to turn a minor incident into a major story while simultaneously demonstrating yet again that in the shiny new ALP, expediency trumps principle every time.

I am afraid that is the impression you have been wedged into exhibiting, Kevin. And today, showing her “very very peculiar mind”, The Blessed Miranda fulminates, froths, gloats, and ejaculates as follows:

Hypocrisy (revised)

Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has accused the Labor Party of supporting the Bali bombers, after Opposition Foreign Affairs spokesman Robert McClelland criticised Prime Minister John Howard’s approach to capital punishment.

Bitter irony department

Our experienced government (you know that one, of course) knows what to do with people attempting to flee Burma. Because they didn’t go through channels and choose to rot in one of the overcrowded refugee camps on the Burmese border, but were silly enough to try to come to Australia, you may well ask, “What happened to them?” You guessed it. Nauru:

THE Immigration Department has revived using Nauru Island for its Pacific Solution policy by transferring seven Burmese refugees there.

The seven had been held on Christmas Island, but were moved to Nauru on Sunday, the Immigration Department said yesterday. An eighth Burmese refugee who has been detained on Christmas Island remained behind because he is in hospital, but would be sent to Nauru later, a spokesman said.

“It is longstanding government policy that anyone arriving on an excised place will be sent to Nauru,” he said.

The Burmese group were transferred to Nauru, even though two other asylum seekers, who have been detained longer, were not moved.

The other two asylum seekers, a Palestinian and an East Timorese man were also caught outside Australia’s migration zone. But the spokesman said it had not been “worthwhile” to reopen Nauru for one or two people. The Burmese group would now be denied access to Australia’s legal system as a result of being outside Australia’s jurisdiction, he said.

Members of Burma’s Rohingya ethnic minority, they include one asylum seeker who has told of being jailed for more than a year for opposing his nation’s military junta.

Nauru had agreed to accept them, and had issued them special visas while their refugee claim is processed — either by the department or by the International Organisation for Migration, which runs the Nauru detention camp on behalf of the Australian Government. The spokesman confirmed that the camp’s new occupants would be locked up for the time being.