Sunday, August 27, 2006

A bit excessive?

Call me soft if you will: i can't help but think that 20 years behind bars is a little excessive considering the guy didn't actually do anything. Seriously, who hasn't thought about strangling Andrew Bolt, Peter Costello and John Howard?

Bomb plot man gets 20 years
Kenneth Nguyen and Lisa Allan
August 24, 2006

THE 20-year jail term handed to a man who wanted to blow up Australia's electricity grid was a sign of how tough the courts will be on terror-related crimes, legal experts say.

Faheem Khalid Lodhi, 36, will spend about as much time in jail as an average murder sentence after he was caught in early stages of a criminal plan that a judge conceded lacked viability.

The sentence will come as a relief to the Federal Government, after the first person jailed under its tough anti-terror laws, Joseph "Jihad Jack" Thomas, had his conviction quashed last week.

Lodhi showed no emotion yesterday as he was sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court.

Lodhi, the first person convicted under the new laws of planning a terror attack on Australian soil, had been "essentially informed by the concept of violent jihad and the glorification of Muslim heroes who have fought and died for jihad", Justice Anthony Whealy said.

The court had heard previously that the Pakistani-born architect, who lived in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba, used a false name to obtain two maps of the national
electricity grid in October 2003.

Lodhi had also sought information from a company about the availability of chemicals to manufacture explosives (which he never obtained), and had written a 15-page terrorist manual with recipes and instructions on bomb-making, hand grenades, petrol bombs and poisons.

Lodhi was linked to French terrorist suspect Willie Brigitte, whom he picked up from Sydney airport in May 2003. Justice Whealy said Lodhi and Brigitte (who was deported later that year) had a "joint interest in contemplating and discussing the possibility of some type of terrorist activity in Australia".

Justice Whealy said although Lodhi's plot was thwarted at a very early stage and there was a "general lack of viability and sophistication" in his actions, it had the potential to have an impact on Australia's stability.

Had the attack been carried out [but it wasn't!], it "would instil terror into members of the public so that they could never again feel free from the threat of bombing attacks within Australia".

The judge added: "One has only to think of the consequences on the national psyche of a tragedy such as the Port Arthur massacre to realise how a major terrorist bombing would or could impact on the security, the stability and wellbeing of the citizens of this country."

Lodhi will serve a minimum 15 years for acting in preparation for a terrorist attack by seeking information about chemicals capable of making explosives.

[....]

Thursday, August 17, 2006

How do you say "yobbo" in Vietnamese?

By Sam de Brito
August 17, 2006

Imagine walking into a newsagency and some crabby, 'old-school' Aussie is getting stroppy* with the elderly Chinese owner who's saying, "No siss for dollah." The Aussie, who's probably two generations out of Manchester, is shaking his head dramatically, like the Chinese bloke is a retard. "Just give me me f**kin' scratchies will ya?" he says, abandoning any pretence of politeness, but really he's thinking: "Learn to speak English." That's when the Chinese bloke's 18-year-old son appears out of the back room and strolls up in his boardshorts. In a perfect Australian twang he says: "You get six for ten dollars, mate, that's what me old man's tryin' to tell ya. He doesn't wannna rip you off"…

Now commeth the change.

The 'Aussie's' demeanour immediately becomes solicitous because he's dealing with someone whose English is just as good as his.

Why?

It's so much harder to be racist when the focus of your contempt speaks with the same accent you do.

This scene is being repeated in bakeries, restaurants and dry cleaners all over the country.

It happened to the Greeks and Italians and Lebanese; now a whole generation of Vietnamese and Cambodians, Thais and Chinese are growing up with yobbo accents you could beat a Pommie backpacker unconscious with.

We're now at the point where the Australian national cuisine has gone from being sweet and sour pork at the local Chinese restaurant to laksa at the Thai joint up the road (even though it's a Malaysian dish).

One of my oldest mates, Pete, was born in Korea and moved here when he was five-years-old. It was a tough gig for him surfing our local break.

Kids too young to have seen his head before in the line-up would drop-in on him mercilessly, burning him because they thought he was just another Japanese tourist out here to spend his rich industrialist dad's money.

That's until Pete would do a perfect reo off the offending grom's head and yell at him in plain, ocker English: "Don't drop in on me again, you little kook."

The expression on the kid's face was always worth its weight in Four 'n' Twenty pies.

Peter now lives up the coast and the first time he went to the local RSL, it was like the new gunslinger had come to town. The music stopped and all the heads at the card machines stopped to turn and stare.

"No one said anything, but there were some heavy looks," said another one of my mates, who lives up north as well.

Gradually, the cement-spattered tradies and purple-faced pissheads realised Pete was in the TAB more than them. Every time they'd look up at Sky Channel to watch the seventh at Warrnambool, there would be the Asian bloke with his schooner, laying the whip into his imaginary mount.

When it came in at 11 to 1, they'd scream for joy and realise they were both on the same horse and smile at each other, because, Jeez, we both just won four hundred on that thing.

Pete would come in for a New some days and they'd nod their heads, just to be polite and maybe ask him what he was on, to see what the Asian bloke would be backing.

Every now and then they'd mention the weather and Pete'd say something about the surf being good at such and such a reef and they'd wonder how the hell he knew that it worked best on a south-east swell.

Then maybe fishing would come up and Peter would tell them about the bream he caught at such and such a beach or the smoko he got off this tiler at the pub and, well, it's hard to hate a bloke who likes fishing and a smoke and surfing and a beer and a punt, isn't it?

I don't know about you, but I am particularly enjoying seeing the new generation of Asian-Australians coming to the fore, with their perfect English and understanding of 'our' ways.

Earlier this year, at a suburban bowling club, I saw an Aussie of Asian appearance carrying two jugs of beer in one hand and four empty schooners glasses snaked in the other.

One of the guys I was with yelled at him: "nice effort, mate," and the bloke just nodded.

Made me want to sing Waltzing Matilda.

*Stroppy: Easily offended or annoyed. Ill-tempered or belligerent.

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Hilarious post from Sam de Brito's "All Men Are Liars (except Sam de Brito)" blog. Well methinks anyway. The man's observations are so relatable. Couple of people come to mind...

However, he definitely portrays the phenomenon as positive. That I disagree with - assimilation ring a bell? A reader comments that it is less a matter of assimilation and more a matter of humanism - "if you humanise whom you perceive to be the object of your hatred, you become no longer capable of maintaining towards them the same degree of irrational animosity."

Well, if you need to hear an Aussie accent to realize the one talking to you is human, let's put this in words you'll listen to - Myyte, Oi think men-tul ray-ta-day-shin is more your problem.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Disclaimer

I am the type of person who likes to get differing, and often opposing, perspectives on pretty much anything – political or not. This is why I read a variety of newspapers and magazines. I have however, been very disheartened and disappointed with The Australian, which led me to remove the link to it off our “News” sidebar. I did not want it there simply because I did not share the views expressed by the editors, and found that even the ‘objective news’ articles in the paper were in fact quite biased and somewhat misinformed. Recently, such behavior has become more evident - I guess they weren’t trying to hide it.

Nevertheless, the link is back up on the sidebar. I still read The Australian, even if I do not share their views. And I guess the best way to understand who has an agenda and who does not, is by reading everything and anything. I just hope by the end of all that reading you’d be left with some truth and sense.

Or you could just read a bunch of Waleed Aly articles.