Wall bad. West good.

I almost let the 20th anniversary of the removal of the Berlin Wall pass without noticing.

One of the reasons it slips the notice of many is because we've been numbed to the significance of it. With articles like this in the UK's Guardian it's no wonder.

And, with creeping socialism throughout our mainstream politics and media, it's no wonder.

I'm almost bemused to see some influential people reflecting on the euphoria of the Berlin Wall's destruction. These same intelligentsia who constantly champion the very things which put it up in the first place.

Let's break it down into two often-quoted expressions of socialist romanticism (I have actually heard these very things first hand, from "East German" friends):

There was no poverty in the GDR.

There was no crime in the GDR (former East Germany).

Indeed. Poverty is relative. There was no poverty in the GDR because everyone was poor.
And correct- there was no crime amongst the citizens of the GDR. All the crime was being committed by the government.

I was also once told this: Secret State Police? Everyone has them! Australia has ASIO, no?

Difference? Here, our "secret" police protect us from terrorism. In the GDR, they protected the regime from criticism. Using whatever brutal means necessary.

Happy little socialists. A wall mural in Berlin.

If you're like me and you never paid attention when the wall actually fell, and the true significance was lost...perhaps now might be a good time to start paying attention. Better late than never.


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Who can bear terrorism?

If only western society had the such moral clarity: A Kashmiri bear dealt decisively with some terrorists hiding in his cave (and possibly eating his porridge).

I'm expecting the Greens to condemn this act of oppression towards a freedom fighting religious minority group.

Perhaps not.


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Bold Boris

It's official. If a left-wing activist is ever mugged, they'd much rather be rescued by a conservative.


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Who needs God with an ego like this

Off the political rants for now.

Normally my daily drive up Melbourne's western ring road only causes me traffic-related stress. However on this particular morning, I had a whole new reason to laugh, cry and cringe all at the same time.

But first, a preamble: Doctor Francis Macnab, a qualified psychologist, is a revolutionary in post-modernism. When it comes to Christianity, he is full of opinions. The narrative runs to an age-old theme: Only raving fundamentalists would believe in a virgin giving birth, God becoming a human being for a spell, and a guy walking out of his grave after being dead for three days. We all know those things don't happen because, well, I didn't see them.

In fact, Dr. Macnab was behind a $120,000 newsprint and billboard campaign back in late 2008 stating that the Ten Commandments was "the most negative document ever written". It was to promote his views that, among other things, Abraham is a concoction, and Moses was a mass murderer. Free invites to the Jewish community, then.

Plus, Jesus obviously wasn't deity, didn't die for our sins and certainly didn't walk out of the grave. In fact, I think Macnab is ambivalent as to whether he even existed or not, because it's nice to be flexible. God, by the way, is not a distinguishable personal entity but a concept we can find within ourselves through personal reflection and...so on...

This is all fine. It's a free country. The thing is, Dr McNab is a Uniting Church minister. He's the UCA version of John Shelby Spong.

As one commentor on a Macnab article wrote "Just WHAT does it take to get someone de-frocked these days?"

That's a good question, and I don't know. Believing in absolute truth, perhaps? That certainly isn't a great career move for men-in-frocks these days. But, being a "Christian" leader who re-defines what being a "Christian" really is, by tearing up the original instruction manual...well, that makes you a revolutionary. A hero. An agent of change. It means book sales, book signings, the public speaking circuit at smug, academic humanist universities and, if you're really controversial, a spot on the telly.

On that logic, I should be able to advertise as a brothel, and when clients arrive, put them through a course of Valiant Man. Viva la revolucion.

There's a more detailed look at Dr. Macnab here in the Melbourne Anglican.

Back to my fateful trip on the western ring road on this particular day- Doctor Macnab has a new advertising campaign. While the UCA are trying to offload property and send the proceeds to the needy, Macnab has spent (presumably around another $120,000) on these:


Three people listed in order; NIGHTINGALE, KING, MACNAB.

Good to see Macnab has found his inner god.



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Life Panels

The outrage against Citizen Sarah Palin's use of the term "death panels" to describe a provision in Obamacare, continues in the US.

Call the words what you like- a monumental benefit of her using them was that it actually sparked national debate. Not bad for a private citizen posting on Facebook.

Otherwise, the 1000+ page Obamaplan, which hardly any Democrat Congressperson even read, was to be thrust through Congress without consultation with the American people.

What Palin said, paraphrased: " 'Death Panels' we be deciding on eligibility for end-of-life care for your loved ones, and those not considered to be conventionally useful to society". (Note Palin used quotes in her original statement, indicating she was clearly being tongue-in-cheek with the term, using it metaphorically to make a clear political point).

What Obama said, paraphrased: "There won't be 'death panels'. This is scaremongering. There will simply be an independent, arbitrary group, appointed by the government, who will provide consultancy and guidance on critical health care issues..."

Right. In other words, death panels. But spoken with more Ivy League smoothness.

After Obama accused the naysayers of "scaremongering", he then suggested that if we don't adopt Obamacare, "more people will die".

Here's a quote from a supporter of Obamacare:

"Sarah Palin said "death panels". Well I got news for you honey. If we were gonna get rid of useless people, you'd be the first to know" - CNN political commentator Bill Maher.

Charming. The concern for human life oozes from every word. Here's a quote from an opponent of Obamacare.

"(Down Sydnrome child Trig Palin) has proven to me that every innocent life does have purpose, and there is no accident. And I’m gonna choose the creator’s idea of perfection over society’s definition of perfection any day." - Sarah Palin.

OBAMACARE UPDATE: A very salient quote from Dr. Russell Blaylock, a "respected medical professional" (I haven't vetted this source and don't count on the veracity of that description, but it is a widely agreed point):

"One of the things that concerns the legal minds of this country is that any bill that contains arbitrary language can be interpreted after it's passed any way they want to. And in this bill (Obamacare/ HR 3200), virtually every page gives arbitrary powers to the Secretary of Health and Human Services."

As if they needed more czars.


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The Goldstone Echo Chamber

The "Goldstone Report" is out, accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, riddled with anecdotal claims, systematically debunked by the evidence, but being gobbled up by the West in a predictable flurry of anti-Israel hysteria.

Sure, one day it will be exposed as the biased, stacked, pro-Palestinian echo chamber that it is. In fact, this has already been done. But nobody will care by then. In honour of this auspicious occasion, I will simply post this cartoon.



It's official, You may now accuse Jews of harvesting organs, drinking the blood of Christian children, or planning to take over the world, and you may do so with impunity, regardless of how many Islamic fascists and their friends in the left use your words to excuse themselves as they murder Jews. Welcome back to the 1930's!


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Wishful vs Lateral Thinking

My disdain for the mainstream info-tainment media is based on a very rational set of concerns.

One of them is that normal everyday people will never truly have the opportunity to consider or debate a relevant public issue, because they will never truly have all the information.

The healthcare debate in the US is a case in point. Following current pop culture trends, it seems that to oppose the Obama Administration's 1,000+ page healthcare reform package, means that you obviously oppose health care reform, want poor people to die, and are a scaremonger.

Oh, I almost forgot: And you're probably racist. Since November 2008, there seems to be a bit more of that going around.

In the real world, as opposed to that whacky alternate dimension to which the media are an effective portal, it doesn't mean any of that. For starters, and unlike the hordes of Democrats trying to sell it, it means you've actually read the healthcare package.

Is this plan to provide more care for more people, or to save money, or both? It can't be both. That's not possible. You can't simply say you're going to provide more people with more health care, and it's going to be cheaper.

While there is much back and forth between the parties on the details, none of which are particularly clear anyway, someone has thought outside the circle.

Someone has suggested that you cannot have health care reform without tort reform.
Medical Liability leads to more insurance. More insurance leads to more cost.

”The medical liability crisis has had many unintended consequences, most notably a decrease in access to care in a growing number of states and an increase in healthcare costs. .." says Dr. Stuart Weinstein, of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

Quite simply, it is too easy to sue a doctor, particularly with pro-bono allowances which make for more ambulance-chasing lawyers. Then, practitioners will move to states where liability laws are less severe, but even then, will shy away from high-risk practices.

Apart from more costs and less services, less people then want to become doctors and surgeons. Logically, now they want to become attorneys. And as I've always said, attorneys are like Idol winners. We love them, really we do. We just don't need any more.

Care standards drop, and therefore the potential for malpractice increases. These costs are spun to the consumer as "high health care costs" when really, they are legal and insurance costs.

To cut a long and litigious story short, the current tort system is estimated to cost the US health system around $200 billion per year.

Talk about thinking outside the circle. Before you can genuinely reform health care, you must reform the tort system. Less pro-bono, more loser-pays. Less frivolous lawsuits. More caps on lawsuit payouts. More rule-of-law deciding genuine malpractice cases, less ankle-biters trying to profit off someone else, for their own lack of responsibility.

I don't doubt that many people have expressed this idea. But when Sarah Palin expresses it, it actually gets heard.

How does a housewife from Wasilla, Alaska, get the White House to remove a major section of the bill pertaining to end-of-life-care and rationing, merely by posting on Facebook? .

But of course, Palin is just parroting. She's just a pretty neo-con reading hate speech from someone else's script, right? Well, sure, if that rocks your prejudice boat. Except she was governor of a state which had caps on lawsuit awards against health care providers, pioneered the “loser pays” system to deter frivolous law suits, and inhibited "quack" court testimonies against real doctors. That's walking the walk.

Using facebook is a stroke of pure genius. It won't stop the delusional hatred of her by the Obamabots, but it will make sure her words arrive at the ears of her millions of listeners complete, pure, unfiltered and unaltered by a delusionally biased media.



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