I Hope the Flying Kangaroo is Male...

The SMH's travel section paints a charming picture of Dubai.

Australians travelling through Dubai have been warned they are at risk of fines or jail for cultural misdemeanours as simple as holding hands in public, swearing, harassing women with a prolonged stare or wearing inappropriate clothing.

''Just one person needs to take offence and to make a complaint and you can be in serious trouble and be held in custody for a long time if you challenge the charge,'' said Radha Stirling, founder of the non-profit organisation Detained in Dubai, which helps people in legal difficulty in the United Arab Emirates.

 In the morals-free chase for Arab dollars, Qantas is now in bed with them.

''It is also against the law in the UAE to share the same hotel room with someone of the opposite sex to whom you are not married or closely related,'' DFAT cautions. ''These laws apply to residents as well as visitors.''

Drinking in public or being drunk in public is another offence that can land travellers in strife. Australian travellers of Jewish background who are Israeli passport holders can only transit through Dubai and are not allowed to leave the airport because the UAE is a participant in the Arab League boycott of Israel.

"Qantas has said that Jewish and Israeli passengers will be safe transiting through Dubai, provided they don't leave the airport,'' Ms Stirling said.

Well. That's okay then. Qantas has partnered with antisemites.  When called on this, the spin is magnificent.

''While this is a new hub for Qantas, many Australians are already familiar with it,'' a Qantas spokesman said.

''Different rules apply in many of the countries we fly to, which is the very nature of international travel.

 Yes. Watch out for bag-snatchers in Europe, don't be a Jew in Dubai...

Qantas has been providing cultural training for its staff before the alliance with Emirates, advising that customer issues with UAE passengers may be best solved by a man.

''Don't take offence, don't continue to try and sort something out, simply hand it over to a male colleague. It doesn't matter whether you are the manager or supervisor, the fact that he is male will make all the difference,'' is the advice.

In the 1960s, female flight stewardesses were banned from getting married if they wanted to keep their job. Look how far they've come! You go girl. Well done Qantas.

''The simple advice would be to wear respectful clothing, avoid drunkenness and use of foul language, and respect the culture of the people here.''

That's good advice in every country. Oh and in Dubai, and don't be Jewish, gay or unmarried holding hands.

Planet Destroyed

Antony Loewenstein finally hits the journalistic bigtime with an article in the University of NSW Student Newspaper. I bet Fairfax must wish they hadn't fired him... His topic: If I ruled the world. Be afraid...

The role of the US hegemony is over. Washington no longer controls the world by charm and force. It’s a multipolar planet with countless centres of power. Wouldn’t this be something to celebrate?

Well, yes until you try to use a compass and planes start falling from the sky.

The last centuries have seen countless countries commit genocide and gross human rights abuses.

The new leader of the world can't count.

Today. Israel, America, Europe and other leading arms manufacturers will have to find new ways of making money, while nations such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia will no longer be able to repress their own people with guns assembled in the United States.

I guess they'll have to make their own guns.

We have a responsibility as a connected world to not tolerate and enable injustice in one state while opposing it elsewhere. Applying international law and holding power to account, whether these officials or governments are sitting in Washington, London, Canberra, Tel Aviv, Kigali or Beijing, must be central in the 21st century.

No government sits in Tel Aviv. Antony wrote an entire book on Israel and doesn't realise its Government sits in Jerusalem. The ABC continue to take him seriously.

Closer to home, Australia’s two-party system is crumbling under its own internal contradictions. With minor differences between Labor and Liberal, and the Greens struggling to assume a larger political role, we should encourage smaller groups, such as the Wikileaks Party and Pirate Party, to oppose the growing surveillance state.

Did I mention the ABC continue to take him seriously?

Tackling the world’s most serious issues requires a robust and diverse media. No one media owner will be allowed to own more than 50 per cent of newspapers, television, online or other sources. Tax breaks will be given to assist new ventures get heard above the often toxic and belligerent mainstream press.

Tax breaks already exist. It's called deducting losses as well as paying the dole to unemployable journalists.

I have only touched on some subjects that I believe must be addressed for the 21st century to avoid the human catastrophes that befall the 20th century. Undoubtedly, you will all have other ideas. My door is always open. 

As an atheist Jew, I wish you all the best in your endeavours.”

Don't forget to separate church and state, fearless clueless leader.

Check out the cover of the same issue.

Elsewhere in 'Tharunka' - The UNSW Journalism Degree is not providing industry skills. No kidding.

Root Cause Ignored

Andrew Bolt calls out the 'seeming, not doing' activist movement. One of them, Bob Geldof makes a common mistake suggesting:

everything you talk about in your profession, climate change, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, all those things, come from poverty, come from the scourge of poverty…

Nuclear proliferation? I'm pretty sure poor people aren't buying uranium centrifuges with their welfare cheques. As for poverty causing terrorism, that joins 'occupation' and 'poor education' as the 'root cause' argument of choice by people with No Idea.

Fact: The 9/11 hijackers were wealthy, educated Saudis. Yasser Arafat (and now his wife) was worth billions of dollars. Meanwhile impoverished Mexicans aren't calling for Death to America. So it isn't money.

Fact: The occupied Tibetans have never encouraged their children to die for Buddha or launched rockets and suicide bombers into China. So it isn't occupation.

What else could it possibly be? Their haircuts? Choice of Music? Video games?

When will these naive fools realise that the single biggest root cause of global terrorism is Islam, rather than shouting "look over there"?

Sandal-friendly Brake Pedals

Prick with a Fork notes the SMH's blood-libel against meat eaters in a ridiculous bit of vegetarian propaganda. Fairfax's Melbourne paper prints this anti-car rant:

Thanks to Nicola Roxon and the federal government, we now have plain packaging for cigarettes. Cigarette sales are declining. Can we please move on to plain packaging for cars?

Over the past 30 years, I've watched the design of cars becoming ever more aggressive and sinister. Scowling headlights and hulking lines. Tinted windows so other road users can't see the driver. Multiple exhausts for the grand prix effect. Then there's the growing number of 4WDs, so that our roads appear to be populated by tanks and other armoured vehicles. Meanwhile, the power and acceleration of cars continue to increase.

All this is paralleled by, and fuels, increasingly aggressive driving and growing road rage. Education campaigns and ''courtesy training'' are all very well, but while aggressive design and excessive power continue, what hope have we got of changing driver behaviour?

Maybe aggressive cars should be required to have scenes of road accident injuries painted on their sides as a warning. Such cars are dangerous to human life and health, just as cigarette smoking is.
Michael Howes, Ascot Vale

Get that man a Trabant. Mr Howes has previously reviewed cars.

Can we look forward to fuel efficiency, modest design and greenhouse and safety awareness? No, we get six or, unbelievably, eight cylinders and retuning to make more power. We get the quasi-sexual launch trimmings, with the tantalising glimpse of disc brake or sensually curved wheel. We get the desperate attempt to say that nothing's changed and we can go on consuming resources and producing greenhouse gasses.
It's because Australian males have small dicks and need some bullshit compensation

He describes himself as a:

63 yr. old left winger living in a 5 star shoebox in an inner suburb of Melbourne. Living alone, but have a 30 yr old son living in a neighbouring suburb. Retired and loving life. I love intercourse with people of all races, religions and colours. I harbour an intense dislike for Bush, Blair and Howard and their co-horts, as well as right wing shock jocks.

And he reads The Age...

Journalism Dropout on Press Freedom

The ABC continues to sink deeper, yet again having Antony Loewenstein on air to discuss something or other before reverting to anti-Israel demonisation.

Last night I appeared on ABC TV’s The Drum (video here) on the 10th anniversary of the 2003 Iraq war. We discussed the appalling legacy of the Iraq invasion, the massive loss of life and continued chaos of the country. Accountability, in the political or media elites, is far and few between.

Bring back Saddam!

I argued that the visit by Barack Obama to Israel changes nothing about the reality of ongoing Zionist occupation in the West Bank. Apartheid is here to stay.

Antony's 'reality' is the same one where he believes he is a journalist. Sadly, the ABC continue to feed his delusion. Obama's visit to Israel will result in predictable commentary about Bibi Netanyahu and Israel's failures. The Palestinian Narrative will largely go unreported. Here's them rolling out the welcome mat to the visiting American leader (Via Palestinian Media Watch).

"Our history is replete with lies... [including] the lie about Al-Qaeda and the September 11 events, which asserted that Muslim terrorists committed it, and that it was not an internal American action by the Freemasons." ...

"Churchill and Roosevelt were alcoholics, and in their youth were questioned more than once about brawls they started in bars, while Hitler hated alcohol and was not addicted to it. He used to go to sleep early and wake up early, and was very organized. These facts have been turned upside down as well, and Satan has been dressed with angels' wings." 

"Had Hitler won, Nazism would be an honor that people would be competing to belong to, and not a disgrace punishable by law."

Oh, and Welcome Mr President. Nice people. Let's give them a state!

Finally, Loewenstein, a man who established his entire career (such that it is) on the myth that he was 'silenced' for his simply unpopular views, offers some thoughts on press freedom.

the idea that big media players in Australia, including the Murdoch empire, shouldn’t be regulated in any way is laughable and goes against what the general public wants in survey and survey. Bullying is what media owners do before breakfast. Free speech in a democracy means transparency towards journalists and owners has [sic] to include ways in which citizens can get answers from wayward outlets.

Unfortunately it also means that clueless morons can get airtime on 'our ABC'.

La La La I can't hear you....

As Andrew Landeryou notes:

There’s a lot we don’t know about Australian-Israeli alleged spy Ben Zygier, other than there’s a grieving family and one of our friends and allies, Israel, known for its robust democracy and rigorous judicial system, appears to have caught him committing a serious criminal offence

Indeed nobody really knows much at all. So the ABC, evidently looking for an expert in knowing nothing, decided Antony Loewenstein would be a useful interview candidate on the subject.
The Jewish community, who for the most part have ignored Loewenstein as little more than a joke, have finally realised that the taxpayer funded ABC can do a lot better.

Peter Wertheim, a Jewish leader has written a point by point takedown of Loewenstein's comments. In summary, he doesn't know what the hell he is talking about (no news to readers of this blog) and the ABC, by giving him airtime has demonstrated it doesn't know what it's doing either.

Read it all on Jwire.

Vexnews' takedown is far less polite and repeats some of Loewenstein's earlier comments that should surely make any ABC producer think twice before taking him seriously. Apparently not. Your tax dollars at work, people.

Despite a point by point rebuttal by Wertheim of his weak arguments, Loewenstein's reply, as always is not forthcoming. Instead he merely sneers and believes this is 'proof' of some great conspiracy.

If nothing else, this plays into the worst stereotypes of under-handed Jewish behaviour. Another own goal; well done lobby.

Oooooohhhh. "The lobby"... Booga booga booga! Whatever, Loewenstein.

Can't wait to hear Loewestein's original dissertation at the forthcoming Marxism conference. Seriously. If only I could find the time to attend...