Qld sets high standards
During my commuting days I collected sufficient points to lose my licence over a period of a couple of years. I didn’t keep a tally of points in my head and subsequently, in hindsight, I think I drove whilst unlicensed. I had came to the attention of traffic police on two occasions within one week as I drove to Legacy with software problems running through my brain, I let the car run up to nearly 70 in a 60 zone on a steep hill.
The second offence that week brought my points tally over the limit and from that time I was technically unlicensed. As I never received a notice saying so I simply wasn’t aware of the fact. Thank God I didn’t have a prang in that period.
I paid no penalty other than the fines but I note the new Queensland Police Minister has resigned his portfolio over a similar incident and whereas he certainly broke the law and should pay some penalty I have difficulty getting worked up about it.
The government are reviewing the way people are notified of license suspension but in no way is this offered as an excuse for Gibson’s error.
DAVID Gibson’s downfall could see the return of Queensland police notifying people in person that their driver’s licence has been suspended to avoid letters going astray. Premier Campbell Newman promised to review how the State Penalties Enforcement Registry delivers licence suspension notices, saying there was “great community concern” about the current process.CanDO has demanded his resignation and thus has set the bar very high in Queensland as different from the Federal government who have left the bar on the ground in the case of Craig Thomson. Voters note this type of comparison.
Facebook
Twitter
the Feds didn’t leave the bar on the ground, they dug it in.
So deep that it’ll turn up in a coal mine in China sooner or later
Masterful piece of spin Kev. You’ll be contacted by LNP central casting any minute. What this says about the two-week old government is one of two things. Either –
1. Gibson is as thick as two short planks.
2. Newman is a poor judge of character.
Comparisons with Thompson are interesting. I wonder when we’ll see a fatality from someone spending employer’s money at a knocking-shop (alleged)? Speeding, (a conviction on more than one occasion) on the other hand, frequently causes fatalities.
What a wonderful example of moral relativism.
1735099 at it again…..minor traffic offences compared to possible felonies…..you don’t get it do you academic. Speeding driver and unlicenced driver (no death involved here by the way) compared to fraud and theft of large amounts of hard earned cash paid by people, some of whom are struggling to make a living, to a union supposedly set up to look after the members interests. The law indicates the importance of the types of offences we speak of here by the penalties imposed…..no one goes to prison for exceeding the speed limit a couple of times or driving unlicensed unless it is a high end or repeat offence. Ask any company rep required to run up a few miles….some even factor the possibility of traffic fines into their expenses and fiddle points expected to be allocated to them. Let us see how your mate Thompson goes, shall we, I don’t think we are talking about a couple of hundred dollars in fines and a driving licence disqualification. I don’t think we are talking about the offenders here in any case, but the different ways they are perceived by their respective peers/leaders. Thompson’s alleged felonious transgressions ignored by his little group and Gibson’s minor traffic matters causing him to resign in disgrace.
“academic”
Not too sure where this comes from – closest I’ve ever come to working in a university was supervising student teachers.
The point I was making is the apparent tolerance of driving irresponsibly compared with the confected outrage at a union official allegedly misusing a credit card. Obvioulsy none of your family or friends have been killed or maimed by speeding drivers. Working with brain-injured kids tends to give you a different perspective.
I understand that the fatality rate in brothels is low, but if you have any data indicating something different, please let me know.
Gibson lost his seat for ignoring infringement notices, not dangerous driving. He could have been doing 65 in a 60 zone. Your ‘brain damaged kids’ is nothing more than a distraction.
On the other hand Thomson stole $160K from HSU funds to stop him becoming bankrupt, allegedly stole a lot more money for his own use and misused the HSU credit card for whores. I say allegedly because he hasn’t been to court but if you believe Thomson’s defence I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Read more here
Thomson’s defence is someone looking identical to Thomson stole his licence, credit card and phone then went to Sydney and had a good old time on “Honest” Craigs identification using the phone to order whores, the licence to validate the deal (hence he had to look identical) and the credit card to pay for it. As there is no evidence that Thomson reported his credit card, phone and licence stolen then we have to believe that the someone, looking identical to Thomson, then went back to his house, broke in again and replaced them all.
Of course, with Thomson being a politician his phone would have been ringing non-stop thus the thief had to also sound like Thomson.
But wait, there’s more. Later on, the someone looking identical to Thomson broke into Thomson’s office and signed off on the credit card chits.
Yeah…right.
If you think for one moment that people aren’t extremely pissed off at Thomson, and Gillard for backing him, then the you are in for a big shock.
It’s good you think it is confected rage maybe all of your fellow travelers will thus the shock will be all the greater when it comes.
But then Gibson was caught speeding and somehow your lost moral compass points you to equivalence.
I guess promoting you to academic is a bit rich, I’ll refrain. There will be many an academic happy to read that.
Minor traffic offences…..lead to sacking…..not many jobs on the planet will be lost for that reason.
Allegations of commision of serious felonies do however generally lead to sacking or suspension from duties pending investigation. I don’t hesitate to suggest that a school cleaner would be stood down pending the outcome.
You should not make an assessment of someone by what you read on here, Bobby….I think I’ve read that somewhere. I am not a teenager and have had more to do with sudden death and maiming than most. I have lost and had a number of friends injured in vehicular accidents. People I know have been the offending driver in some incidents. Speed is the major contributor to fatalities, but get over it, Gibson has only done what a majority of drivers have done, nobody died and he is forced to resign. Thompson on the other hand, if the allegations turn out to be correct, is morally destitute, absolutely dishonest, and a liar and fraud to boot. How can any Government/Party turn a blind eye and continue with him in office. Even people on the left must realise that if you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. If you actually believe that the investigation is being handled in a proper and timely manner then I suggest that you dispense with your dummy, kick off your nappy and climb over the gate on your cot and join the real world. There are a few academics that could do that too.
“Gibson lost his seat for ignoring infringement notices, not dangerous driving”.
Interesting logic, Kev. In the first place, he didn’t lose his seat. He remains the member for Gympie. He is no longer the Police Minister. He was sacked because Newman had no option. Napoleon is no paragon of virtue in this respect, and any premier would do the same, faced with the bizarre spectacle of a Minister lecturing the public about road safety whilst he feels free to flout the rules himself. Remember Gibson’s cosy little homily about road safety just before Easter?
I wonder why the police issued him with infringement notices, if he hadn’t been speeding. Most would regard speeding as a more dangerous infringement than ignoring fine notices. He was sacked for speeding – not for ignoring his mail.
There are scoundrels on all sides of politics, Kev. Thompson’s past behaviour wouldn’t be an issue if it couldn’t be used to attack Gillard. Abbott’s hypocrisy on this is breathtaking. If we had an honest media, the question he should be asked is this –
Why all the fuss about Thompson, Mr Abbott, when you were prepared to sit in cabinet for years with a convicted criminal?
His “high standards” obviously apply only to those on the other side of his politics.
Bobby there are rules in place stipulating that certain offences (considered major offences by the judicial system) exclude service by individuals in various public service positions. If a person is convicted of a serious offence then he becomes ineligible to serve. Gibson’s matters do not come into that bracket…..merely embarrassment. Bearing in mind that it has been known that high ranking Police officers in positions relating to traffic policy, have been caught out speeding and retained their positions and even been promoted at later dates, it is obvious that Gibson being removed from his position is merely politically expendiance. There is a great deal of difference between dangerous and potentially dangerous in relation to driving at speed exceeding the legislated speed limits….you should be able to work out the difference as a person deemed fit to instruct the children of your peers. There are occasion when driving within the speed limits allowed actually becomes dangerous, so your constant references to speed and dangerous driving have no bearing on this….there is no mention of DANGEROUS. Gibson falling on the sword was a sacrifice to save face by the recently elected LNP, the newly elected Premier had a choice and took the one considered to be less likely to cause poor perceptions by the voters.
It is obvious to all and sundry that the allegations against your boy are serious matters but the investigation has been stalled for political reasons. By tacit agreement or as a result of perceived pressure on the head of Fails to Work whoever…..doesn’t matter same result. Without a result of the investigation, Thompson retains his seat and the Government sufficient numbers to retain government. Whereas the continued affrontery of backing your boy is detrimental to the big picture of the credibility of the Labor party as a whole. Thompsons past behaviour should be brought to account as any other person in this lucky country of ours. If Juliar shows the obvious inability to assess the character of her ministers, and then when it is brought to her notice chooses to assist in covering his Rs then she should be brought to account also. Blind Freddy and people like you should be able to see that. The likelihood is that the result of the investigation will not be reached before the next election and that is probably as result of the initial investigation being way outside the guidelines of FWA…..WAY OUTSIDE!!!!!
There are some things you’ve posted that I would agree with –
“Gibson being removed from his position is merely politically expendiance (sic )”
Absolutely.
“Gibson falling on the sword was a sacrifice to save face by the recently elected LNP, the newly elected Premier had a choice and took the one considered to be less likely to cause poor perceptions by the voters.”
Yep.
It’s interesting to take your concerns about Thompson, substitute Tuckey, and Howard for Gillard. The major difference of course, was that Tuckey was a convicted criminal when he was welcomed into Howard’s first ministry. Thompson is a back bencher, and has been found guilty of no offence.
See –
“It is obvious to all and sundry that the allegations against your boy (Wilson Tuckey) are serious matters but his offences have been ignored for political reasons. By tacit agreement or as a result of perceived pressure on John Howard whoever…..doesn’t matter same result. Whereas the continued affrontery (sic) of backing your boy is detrimental to the big picture of the credibility of the Liberal party as a whole. Tuckey’s past behaviour should be brought to account as any other person in this lucky country of ours. If Howard shows the obvious inability to assess the character of his ministers, and then when it is brought to his notice chooses to assist in covering his Rs then he should be brought to account also. Blind Freddy and people like you should be able to see that.”
Why weren’t you (and the MSM) putting the heat on Howard over Tuckey?
Incidentally, Thompson is not “my boy”. I didn’t vote for him or his party.
Bobby you must be one of those old fashioned “speed readers”, you know….take a glance at the written word without reading it all and then assume you know the full meaning of what is written. Let’s try again “Bobby there are rules in place stipulating that certain offences (considered major offences by the judicial system) exclude service by individuals in various public service positions. If a person is convicted of a serious offence then he becomes ineligible to serve.” It is apparent that Tuckey’s offence was not considered serious enough to exclude him from service, he was elected. The investigation and court appearance finalised and the penalty paid, he was therefore entitled to be party to whatever the voters and Howard decided. Your boy is currently under investigation, one which has taken mjuch longer than it takes to investigate, try and convict for offences much more serious. The political expediancy here is that it would appear that to ensure that no loss of members or votes that would possibly topple the Govt., the investigation has the appearance of having been stimied at all possible stages, feigning complication and stupidity and indicating incompetence by a body heavily concerned with the labourious party. The difference here is that we have a minor offence bringing down Gibson because his Government see him as an embarrassment and the Federal Labor Government don’t seem to think it embarrassing that they may have a felon in their midst, even when the public at large are having great difficulty understanding the time it has taken to investigate and bring this matter to a head. If the man is innocent of any wrong doing shouldn’t he be requesting a speedy end to the allegations to ease the credibility problems Labor currently have over the handling of the matter? I would, were I in his shoes. How much better would it look if he was cleared of all allegations and the Labor crew could attack the opposition for purported scandal mongering.
You keep referring to your history book, why not “move forward” and keep comments relevant to current occurrences.
1735099 or may I call you 17.
What the hell does Wilson Tuckey or even John Howard have to do with any of this.
I know a bloke, good looking, mostly morally upstanding who drove without a license for 3 years, he was even pulled over by police a couple of times to blow the breathometer and only found out his license was not current when he tried to register for Gold Lotto, True story.
David Gibson’s story is not unusual and police and government now realise that license renewal should be advised by mail at least and suspension by Plod knock on the door. I think personally he’s been a bit hard done by, but Can DO specified probity and it seems he meant it, after Labor corrupted the CandC with a vexatious attempt at corruption charges.
You seem unable to differentiate fraud from serious crime(in the US felony charges) and civic misdemeanours or minor traffic infringements compounded. He was not driving drunk, he did not steal the car and he claims that he was not aware of one of the speeding offences.
On further news in case you missed it the BLOODY Speaker of the house of Representatives, Peter Slipper has been or has stood aside from the Speaker’s chair, over possible criminal charges relating to, wait for it, Fraud accusations and misuse of Public monies taints the Westminster System of Government of this country.
The Labor movement is in a death spiral, under corruption clouds, we are about to enter a period with only one party dominant coast to coast, not a good thing for good governance at all and you worry about over zealousness.
Pal, spin is destroying the Labor movement for a generation and you your ilk bury their heads in the sand.
For the last time, Wilson Tuckey faced the bench. The ex Kiwi President of the HSU, has been under investigation by Fair work Australia long enough to be born again and attend Kindie.
The ALP is dieing in denial and spin and the only one to blame is themselves.
I can top the licence story John. In the seventies I was acquainted with a copper who quietly admitted driving for about eight months after not receiving his renewal. He was driving police vehicles five days a week during that period enforcing traffic and criminal laws whilst unknowingly committing offences himself.
Last line should have read Dieing in Denial and Spin.
What part of Unfair Tax, Lies, Fiscal ill discipline, Government Grants rorted in the Billions of Dollars, Fraud, Cover ups and philibustering to protect alleged serial fraudulent criminal matters, Science and Education corrupted, Ministers and Senators disappearing from Federal Politics is a beacon of light on the hill.
It’s a focking nightmare, Australia even in the worst days of Whitlam was never disgraced like this.
Me I just wish the Chinese or Russians would kidnap the lot by Submarine and disappear them to either a Dacha ala Philby or a Gulag re education camp.
The most disgraceful period in Australian History.
“The most disgraceful period in Australian History.”
Not by a long shot. The most disgraceful period in our history was when a coalition government conscripted young Australians to fight in a war of invasion in a foreign country as a diplomatic courtesy.
Labor’s in a mess, but any moral degradation pales in comparison to that vicious act of perfidy. Hopefully, we will never see the like again.
Lol How did I know that this would come back to 17 etc and his incessant whining about having been conscripted.
Hint princess, it is a price citizens can be called on to pay to live in a democracy, you got called to pay the piper and it will happen again to someone else if needed. Get over it.
Now lets get back to you desperately trying to find a way to equate a traffic ticket with defrauding some of the most poorly paid in our society, done by a man who was paid to look after their interests.
“Hint princess, it is a price citizens can be called on to pay to live in a democracy”
Hundreds of young Australians were sent to their deaths in an act of political expediency, and you have the hide to compare that with the situation around Thompson, and to cite “democracy” as a rationale.
This is comedy gold, and a slight on every Nasho who served, willingly or not.
The National Service Scheme as amended by the Menzies government in 1963 had absolutely nothing to do with democracy. If your precious democracy was such a resolutely important principle, then perhaps you can explain why it wasn’t put to a referendum (as it was unsuccessfully twice in WW2) in the sixties. If preserving our democracy against the red menace from the North was so vital, the Coalition should have had no hesitation in putting it to the vote.
They didn’t, of course, because they knew well that it would have gone down, just as it did in WW1. Australians have always been able to distinguish between a real threat (from Fascist Japan) and a politician using soldiers as collateral in a fear and loathing campaign. They therefore tolerated limited conscription in WW2, but never have before or since.
If we forget the lessons of history, we are compelled to repeat them. Hence we had Iraq and now Afghanistan, where Australians are in harms way to fulfil another fear and loathing meme. A new menace has been concocted, (militant Islam), and again, there are sufficient spineless politicians from both parties who are content to let our foreign policy be driven from Washington.
BTW I have too much respect for the royal family to address you as “princess”. The current crop of royals apparently has a reasonable share of functioning grey matter.
If we forget the lessons of history…. You’re the one forgetting the lessons of history. Look up communism and count the hundreds of millions of their own people they killed. Conscription was actually legislated in case Indonesia went beserk and they did try but eventually failed. It was never developed to bugger you around or just to fight the Vietnam war. It was in place and a prudent government activated it. All the west did over those years was to try and suppress the evil that was communism.
You go on like that was a bad thing.
Neither communism nor Islamic terrorism is concocted but I suspect your rage at conservatives is – doesn’t make any sense otherwise.
“Look up communism and count the hundreds of millions of their own people they killed”
Communism is an ideology. Ideologies don’t kill. What kills is the pursuit of political power at all costs, and that has been a feature of totalitarian regimes, whether they are characterised as being from the left or the right.
Capitalism is also an ideology. You could contend that all the casualities caused in all the wars in which capitalist nations took part was a result of the capitalist ideology.
Both contentions are equally absurd.
Wars have never been fought over ideology. Ideology is used to rationalise military conflict – it doesn’t cause it.
Geoffrey Blainey’s “The Causes of War” puts it well – . [w]ars usually begin when two nations disagree on their relative strength, and wars usually cease when the fighting nations agree on their relative strength. Agreement or disagreement emerges from the shuffling of the same set of factors. Thus each factor is capable of promoting war or peace… When nations prepare to fight one another, they have contradictory expectations of the likely duration and outcome of war. When those predictions, however, cease to be contradictory, the war is almost certain to end” (pp. 293-4).
Not much about ideology there.
What I rage against is the use of fear and hate to hold on to political power. When soldiers are used to that end, the party responsible cynically puts politics before the national interest. In this country, whilst Labor has also been guilty of using the military for political kudos (with Afghanistan), it is more typical of Coalition policy.
Interestingly, there is no party in this country called “Conservative”, and if the literal use of the term is applied, it best describes the Australian Greens.
What can you tell us about Billy Hughes Bobby….which party was he part of and what were his views on Conscription and when was that?
Blainey must have spent a lot of time studying Billy goats butting heads I reckon.
Ideologies do kill, look up the body count that communists have racked up, they make the Nazis look like under achievers.
Reality is not your thing is it princess?
Your understanding of “reality” is obviously gleaned from comics and Boy’s Own stories.
It’s the same kind of unadulterated crap we were fed by the army before going to Vietnam. It was simple black and white stuff – you’re saving the world from Communism, the VC are baddies, the ARVN goodies, and the Yanks will carry all before them.
It took about a month to understand the reality. Communism was an unknown concept to most Vietnamese who simply wanted peace so they could get on with their lives. The VC believed that they were fighting against a long series of foreign invaders that had begun with the French, continued with the Japanese during WW2, and carried through to the Yanks in our time. The South Vietnamese government was corrupt, the Yanks were fragging their officers (between 1970 and 1971, there were 363 cases of “assault with explosive devices” against officers in Vietnam), and the ARVN were useless.
This was the lie that the Australian population was slowly beginning to wake up to, despite the same kind of propaganda being extant then as now about how we are looking after our national security in Afghanistan. When I was there in 1970, most Vietnamese had no experience of peace.
Today, most Vietnamese have no memory of war.
I doubt you’d find many Vietnamese who’d prefer the latter to the former. That, my friend, is the reality.
None of this diminishes the sacrifice of the Australians who died there, nor does it devalue the efforts of our soldiers in Afghanistan. They deserve better, as did those who went before them. The least they deserve is to be honoured by the truth.
Communism was an unknown concept to most Vietnamese who simply wanted peace so they could get on with their lives.
And the only way they could have got on with their lives was when the communists were defeated. The thoughts of peasants and soldiers are not necessarily relevant, it was their masters in Hanoi and Moscow that were dictating the invasion.
So only a month after your arrival in country you became what the Soviets called a ‘Useful Idiot”; a westerner prepared to back the communists and hate the US. I presume this all come about because you believed that Nguyen Thanh Tam, killed by Greg Warland’s mob, and others like him, were only fighting for their village and peaceful agrarian life. I guess in a sense they were, but only so their communist masters could take over all the villages in the free South. They knew what was going on. Every document we took from bodies told them.
You disbelieve what your government told you and whereas that is healthy and welcomed in a free western society, the default shouldn’t be just to accept the enemies propaganda and that’s exactly what you have done.
Plenty of mistakes made in the war but then we are dealing with people in stressful times but the initial intent of securing democracy, even a poor model of it, was better than rolling over for the filth. Communist propaganda prevailed with the western media accepting it without question right from the time that Cronkite snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Tomorrow I’ll celebrate my tiny minuscule part in the demise of the communists knowing that there are more people like me prepared to defend western freedoms against terrorism of a communist or radical Islamic nature, than there are those who would support the tyranny.
Robert, I am just wondering…..after this enlightening month of discovery, February to March 1970, did you speak to the pay master and have an allocation made out out to the benevolent society overseen by Jane Fonda? Or are you just full of ‘hit.
To “I’m just a number”…..You give figures for fragging by the Yanks between 1970 and 1971 at 363. Were there any before that time…..I’m interested because if the answer is no then an Australian soldier may have started a trend. Surely your research to find the figure cited would have extended to the full period of deployment.
You can research the topic yourself by reading this – http://www.fragginginvietnam.com/
Other relevant essays on Vietnam generally – http://www.hotkey.net.au/~marshalle/mem/essay.htm
And – http://1735099.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/reflections-on-fall.html
173 …. Checking figures on fragging it would appear that the death toll as a result of same at the time the Yanks pulled out was in the 82 to 86 range, of about 58,000 deaths. By comparison, it is reported that Australians had a higher percentage of deaths by Fragging than the Yanks. If you choose to denigrate the yanks on this basis you should step outside the glasshouse. There were slightly in excess of 500 incidents of fragging investigated by the Yanks, sounds a lot but 2.7 million Americans served in Vietnam. About 60,000 Australians served, and we had a higher percentage of successful murders by fragging. Stats can be a nightmare and in my opinion should not be realied upon in many cases to paint a true picture. You really shouldn’t point the finger so eagerly …5099.
yawn, back to the whining “its all about me” princess.
compare and contrast the body count racked up in the real world by democratic nations (starting wars, revolutions and normal internal processes) and the body count racked up in the real world by communists (starting wars, revolutions and normal internal processes).
I deal in reality (in this case in actual, real world numbers of dead people), try giving it a go yourself someday princess, it would be a bracing change for you.
It’s a waste of time discussing anything with you. Your responses consist of repetitive dogma and name-calling.
You still haven’t addressed this point –
“Capitalism is also an ideology. You could contend that all the casualities caused in all the wars in which capitalist nations took part were a result of the capitalist ideology.”
The point I’m making is that all governments, in times of war, trumpet their particular ideology as the rationale for fighting, when the reasons for war have historically little or nothing to do with ideology.
There were between 62,000,000 and 79,000,000 killed in WW2.* Whether they were killed by Capitalists, Communists or Fascists makes not a jot of difference – they’re just as dead.
When you’re prepared to argue rationally I’ll engage. Until then, you’re best ignored.
*Gregory, Frumkin. Population Changes in Europe Since 1939, Geneva 1951.
“Capitalism is also an ideology. You could contend that all the casualities caused in all the wars in which capitalist nations took part were a result of the capitalist ideology.”
You could, but you’d be wrong. I seem to recall we went to war in 1939 to stop Germans and Japs taking over Europe and the Pacific. We went to war in Korea and Vietnam to stop Communists taking over neighbors and inflicting on them the evil that is communism. We were involved in the Cold War to stop communism – not to spread our ideology unless you manage to describe freedom by itself as an ideology
The west has gone to war to stop evil spreading in a defensive response to invasions.
“The west has gone to war to stop evil spreading in a defensive response to invasions”
Of course, I forgot about the Iraqis invading Iraq, the Afghan’s invading Afghanistan, and the Vietnamese invading Vietnam.
Then there was the Bay of Pigs (Cuba) in 1961, Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989. That would have been the Cubans, the Grenadians and the Panamians invading their own countries, of course. There’s nothing as noble as imposing “freedom” at the barrel of a gun.
You might also like to consider the CIA covert operations (Mosaddegh’s overthrow in Iran in 1953, Chile 1973, the Iran-Contra Affair, 1986 amongst others).
The problem is, not everyone has the same idea of what constitutes “Freedom”, but only the Americans have the arrogance to believe that only their idea is correct.
Islamic fundamentalism has very similar characteristics.
Princess, you just make it too easy, don’t you? (and I call you names because I hold you in complete contempt. I suspect that I am not alone in this).
“The point I’m making is that all governments, in times of war, trumpet their particular ideology as the rationale for fighting, when the reasons for war have historically little or nothing to do with ideology”
Hmmm, a few examples of, say France, Belgium, Norway, or New Zealand in 1939 “trumpeting” that they were fighting for capitalism would go a long way to showing that you are not a drooling idiot who makes it up as he goes along. reality is not your friend is it princess?
“It’s a waste of time discussing anything with you. Your responses consist of repetitive dogma and name-calling.”
Bwa ha ha ha ha ha….
Fuckwit.
In about 1991 B A Santamaria observed: “Following the collapse of Communism, the next enemy of the West will be Islam.”
Five years in Saudi between 1990 – 1991 persuaded me he was right. I was a flight sim instructor at the Saudi Air Force Academy and near our building was a mosque from which would often come hysterical, screaming and yelling.
Occasionally, one of the cadets could be persuaded to translate – the venom was directed at the cadets who were told to keep their distance from their Western instructors as we were evil, decadent and corrupt etc.
When the first aircraft hit the WTC I said to my wife it a very strange accident. When the second one hit, I commented it was not an accident – it was the work of Muslims. Six years after leaving Saudi the hatred I had heard from the mosque had not been forgotten.
You are wrong 17 etc when you say militant Islam is a conoction. For example, of the 20 or so people convicted of terrorism in Australia since 2001, all have been Muslims.
Worse, I believe your belief is dangerous. Singapore will not allow Muslims to be pilots in their Air Force – they are concerned a Muslim pilot would turn his weapons back on Singapore should it go to war with a Muslim neighbour.
Your attiude gives support to those who would welcome a Muslim at the controls of an RAAF F18 – it is a potentially murderous situation.
Why do you say miltant Islam is a conction?
“Why do you say militant Islam is a conction (sic)?
It is, when regarded as an existential threat to our security and sovereignty.
At best it’s an insurgent terrorist movement. It never warranted military invasion of any foreign country. The response from the west simply played into the hands of the terrorists, and worked in the same way as throwing petrol on a fire.
As to your contention that a Muslim should never pilot an F/A 18, would you extend the same precaution to Catholics? After all, there was/is a militant terrorist organisation called the IRA. Who knows what dark thoughts an Irish Catholic might harbour at the controls of an armed aircraft?
Only someone claiming an Irish background could picture Paddy passing the required training to fly an F/A 18 and the same person does not seem to grasp the idea that some political and religious persuasions have the numbers, motives and physical ability to pose a threat, on a global basis, to people of differing beliefs.
Sorry Robert, for your benefit I should have written “the same person does not seem to grasp the idea that some political and religious persuasions (as well as Catholic Americans) have the numbers, motives and physical ability to pose a threat, on a global basis, to people of differing beliefs”.
Princess, the reason it isn’t worth you arguing with me is because your arguments don’t hold up when faced with reality, which is also why you have been caught out lying so often, your arguments fail and your lies are obvious.
However, lets just see how the perfectly harmless communist ideology has stacked up the bodies, shall we –
http://www.scottmanning.com/content/communist-body-count/
The following estimates represent citizens killed or starved to death by their own Communist governments since 1918. These numbers do not include war dead. The governments are sorted by body count (highest to lowest).
All numbers are mid-estimates.
Communist Body Count: 149,469,610
Well bugger me with a fish fork! what a staggering coincidence that the commies have racked up such a colossal body count (plus of course those they have killed in wars), obviously it has nothing to do with their actual beliefs, that would be an absurd concept.
“Well bugger me with a fish fork!”
Absolutely – you’re well-buggered.
Either you’re thick, or you think readers of this blog are. The author of the twaddle you linked is “an undergraduate at American Military University working on a degree in military history” according to his website. Apparently, the university is so well-known that he’s too embarrassed to name it.
“These numbers do not include war dead”
Better re-read your dodgy reference – they do.
Whilst the discipline of History has never been a strong point of American universities (with the exceptions of Princeton, Stanford, Berkeley and Yale), his undergrad’s grasp on the subject has to be more tenuous than most, given that he quotes Rudolph Rummel extensively.
Rummel is notorious for two reasons. He once claimed that he was a finalist for the Nobel Prize for Peace, based on his own publicity. He has retracted the claim, although it still appeared in one of his books. (See – Praise for books by Nobel Peace Prize finalist R. J. Rummel)
His other claim to fame is as author of the fictional Never Again Series. The website describes the series as “a what-if, alternative history… [in which] two lovers are sent back in time to 1906 with modern weapons and 38 billion 1906 dollars” in order to prevent the rise of totalitarianism and the outbreak of world war.”
Rummel has always had a problem discriminating fiction from history, so I’m not surprised he’s quoted by your mate Scott Manning. Surprise, surprise – he’s also an ardent anti-Communist. You’d get as more reliable information on the subject if you read Joseph McCarthy.
As to the figures quoted, your mate simply lists all the more recent conflicts involving any government he deems as “Communist”, and claims that all deaths are caused by “Communism”.
That kind of simplistic analysis would be acceptable perhaps at primary school level. Let’s interrogate it for a minute –
He claims that 58,627,000 were killed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
between 1922 and 1991. Included in that figure would be those who were victims of the German assault on the USSR. Over 30 million, many of them civilians, died on the Eastern Front. (G. I. Krivosheev – Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses. Greenhill 1997 ISBN 1-85367-280-7)
Are we to assume that these 30 million were all victims of Communism? Perhaps they committed suicide? That would be a plausible explanation if they weren’t killed fighting the invading Nazis.
He claims that 2627000 were killed in Cambodia, and were all killed by “Communists”. In the first place, his figures are not rubbery, they’re simply guesses.
Research in the last 10 years has found mass graves from the Khmer Rouge era all over Cambodia. These graves contain 1.39 million bodies. Estimates have put the death toll at between 750,000 and 3,000,000, but only a Yank undergrad would claim a definite figure. As to them being caused by “Communism”, that’s a very interesting claim. Many were killed in a genocide carried out by Pol Pot’s thugs who claimed a particular brand of ideology that is called “Communist” because lazy historians can’t find a more accurate label. If it is indeed based on Marxist ideology, then perhaps you can show me where Marx advocates de-urbanisation and the institution of a “Year Zero” concept.
One reputable school of historical thought (William Shawcross, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1979) about the Cambodian genocide is that a significant contribution was the 1970 American bombing campaign. The fact is that the United States slaughtered somewhere north of half a million Cambodians from 1969-75 and utterly devastated the country. See – http://www.yale.edu/cgp/Walrus_CambodiaBombing_OCT06.pdf
I was patrolling well to the north of our AO in April 1970, close enough to hear the B-52 strikes. They continued night after night. Roughly half-a-million to one million more people died from starvation and disease in the following period, due to this devastation. The destruction of Cambodian society and the removal of governmental infrastructure caused by this bombing laid the foundation for the rise of the Khmer Rouge.
The supreme irony in all this is that the genocide was brought to an abrupt end by another “Communist” state, Vietnam, when after a seventeen-day campaign; Phnom Penh fell to the Vietnamese on January 7, 1979.
The simplistic crap posted by Manning could be picked apart reference by reference, but I doubt it would make any difference to your bigoted world view.
Stick to name-calling – it’s more your style.
Princess, the problem you face is that what little credibility you ever had you spent long ago with your transparent lies, following it up with your sad left wing ideology isn’t going to help you.
Here is the thing princess, the fact that you distrust a reference just makes it more credible, because you simply are not. but keep trying.
OK, tell me what “lies”, and provide an argument in support of your statements. I’m waiting………
Princess, you aren’t important enough that I keep track of the specifics of your lies in a diary, I recall catching you lying at least 3 times on this site, feel free to look it up here, I’m sure plenty of others have done the same.
Whilst you have attacked the individual researcher I quoted, you have not provided any credible evidence to refute his figures – eg
“He claims that 58,627,000 were killed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
between 1922 and 1991. Included in that figure would be those who were victims of the German assault on the USSR.” would? NO, as he notes he does not include war casualties – just you assuming that your opinion or your ideological favorites count for something. keep trying princess.
Scott Manning’s figures, whether they include military casualties or not, are a total fabrication. He claims 58,627,000 died in the USSR between 1922 and 1991.
Even if you added the figure of 30 million (G. I. Krivosheev – Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses. Greenhill 1997 ISBN 1-85367-280-7) to totals of 15,900,000 Civilian dead and 26,600,000Military dead from the contemporary Russian accounts (Vadim Erlikman. Poteri narodonaseleniia v XX veke : spravochnik. Moscow 2004. ISBN 5-93165-107-1 pp. 23–35), you are still about 17 million short of Manning’s bizarre figures, which he claims are non-military.
He makes it up as he goes along….
Princess, You provide nothing convincing in the way of evidence, just repeat your assertion, repetition doesn’t make it any more credible and with your track record of lies and evasions, why would anyone believe anything you say without absolute proof.
As noted by others, you have real problems, you should look at dealing with them.
Hello 17…
May I have your comments as to why Singparore refuses to have Muslims as pilots in their Air Force?
“May I have your comments as to why Singparore (sic) refuses to have Muslims as pilots in their Air Force?”
Basically it’s bullshit. I attend mass every week with a member of the Singapore air force contingent stationed at Oakey. I used to teach his son. I asked him. He said it’s the first he’s heard of it. Show me the standing order and I’ll believe you. Until then I’ll believe Ravin.
Numbers, mate. Put the hostility aside for a moment. Look at yourself. (God knows the rest of us have to look at you constantly as you keep turning up everywhere with your combative posts).
You have issues. Or why are you doing all this? You need to make peace man! Blaming politicians of 40 years ago or whoever for your own frustrations is not healthy mate.
Any psychologist would tell you this. You know it yourself as an experienced teacher. But, like all of us old curmudgeons in various ways, you’re shutting yourself off from the root of your feelings. Running around the ‘net with a stream of red herrings, as if you’re trying to cover something up – that’s certainly been my impression over the past 4-5 years I read your comments, so I’ve challenged you on this with theories sometimes…
But, in the spirit of mateship, beyond partisan differencs. I ask you to step back and ask yourself about what I’ve just said.
Ear, Ear……and Bruce you can call him Robert, his Mum used to, although she probably would have preferred to call him late for dinner. For all his denials and protests he is the only one that cannot see the bitterness he hides behind.
Your concern is touching, but your armchair analysis is misguided.
Hello 17…
I was a flight simulator instructor with APTS in Singapore. Those attending the simulator were pilots from 120 SQN of the RSAF. Some weeks into the job I noticed I was not seeing any Muslim pilots and asked the reason – which was as I wrote earlier.
It was not a secret. Our landlord discussed it with us over dinner one night. Mahathir Mohammad also complained to Lee Kuan Yew about the policy – to no avail. I remember seeing MM’s comments on the web some time ago – maybe you can still find them.
It’s your move.