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Thursday, December 31, 2015

2016 - What to Expect

The psychic phone-lines run hot this time of the year with folk wanting to know what the coming year has in store. For themselves usually. The morning TV shows for dummies having breakfast also conduct 'interviews' with strange ladies and even stranger chaps each claiming to be clairvoyant and who tell of which nonebrity film person will marry (again and again), betray or otherwise bring drama and mayhem to the gullible public.  Ladies who read 'Women's Magazines' may also go to the 'classifieds' to consult purveyors of horoscopes provided 'Absolutely FREE', with just $49.99 post and handling.

Most are quite ignorant but that does not stop them. I am disinclined to let such charlatans into the Tavern- even the Psychic Mensa fellow who runs a State group and wonders why his doing sod all has the group doing sod all. He cannot see the future of his own efforts

I do not know what the future holds any more than the next Knight. I just keep my sword sharp and my towel dry, my armour oiled and the barrels cool in the cellar. But we can get some clue of the near future by looking at what has brought us to this moment and what is very likely to continue. And be on top of the beer ordering system.

We can take a brief look at the 'tone' though, through the quality of those who represent us on the world stage. One might describe them as the ticket inspectors at the top of the Slippery Slide.

Much has happened in the past year nationally, internationally and for most, personally. Mr Abbott, our steely-eyed and hard working Prime Minister was overthrown early in the year by a chap who thinks he can do better. He had gazed into a crystal ball and also taken note of how the Socialists do it. A swift stab in the back.

He is likely to remain through 2016. So what is his mind like? Let us hear what he thinks about the worst plague to befall humanity over the past few years since feminism. 
The man has baggage that he has dragged into Office.
Here he is on a  'prominent' TV program a short few years ago.

There is so much nonsense there that someone was bound to take him to task. And did.
Turnbull’s ignorance of Islam is dangerous for Australia

These following opinions were expressed by Malcolm Turnbull in a Q&A session (Mar 1, 2011) on Islamic schools. It shows the complete level of ignorance by Turnbull on the true nature of Islam and the threat of Islam to the free people of Australia. His speech last night in taking over the helm of Australia, displayed that his stand has not changed.
1. TURNBULL: All Islamic schools are homes for teaching extremism—that is absurd.

FACT: Every Islamic school must teach—Islamic superiority, intolerance, inequality, anti-any man-made religion and law (democracy) and belief in jihad which is the “cause of islam”—because all of these are core Koranic concepts. These core principals are also at the base of all Islamic extremism and terror groups.

2. TURNBULL: Islam is an ancient religion of great scholarship

FACT: Islam is a political, military AND religious group that was founded around 700AD. It is one of youngest religions. Islam has not had scholarship since inquiry ended in the 11th century.
3. TURNBULL: Much of our learning and culture came to us from the Muslims.
FACT: Our learning does not come from Islam; our capacity for innovation was spurred by 14 centuries of Islamic imperialism that destroyed two-thirds of Chistendom.
4. TURNBULL: and gave us much of our system of numbers

 FACT: Hindus invented and gave us those numbers; Muslims simply transmitted it to us.

5. TURNBULL: Much of the learnings of the Ancient Greek only survived because of the Arab scholars.

FACT: Islam destroyed nine-tenths of the classical tradition in vast library-burnings in the 7th century. An extension of the war mongering that Muhammad commenced and that gave cause to 4 crusades to stop it. The remnant of our great libraries were preserved by Christian monks fleeing the Byzantine empire as it was destroyed.
6. TURNBULL The idea that Islam is antithetical to learning to culture or scholarship is absurd.

FACT: Islam’s traditions are militaristic, uneconomic, unecological (the Middle East is a wasteland, which once was fertile) Plus it oppresses half its population (females).

7. TURNBULL: We must promote and encourage a “moderate” Islam that ….supports freedom, democracy, rule of law,  tolerance. They are universal values.

 FACT: Islam supports totalitarianism not democracy. Muslims cannot support  “man-made” law over Allah’s law of gender inequality, intolerance of infidels, no gays and extermination of offenders of Islam the Prophet and infidels.
FACT: Islam supports fascism and the rule of oligarchs and priesthood.
FACT: Islam supports the values of terror groups.
FACT: Islam supports the rule of arbitary, bigoted Islamic “law”.
FACT Islam supports tolerance within veiled threats against the non-Muslim “kuffar”, and imposes creeping oppression of other groups, eventually giving rise to mass murder and genocide of free, non-Muslim populations across the world.
FACT: Islam can never be moderate. Islam is unchangeable. Its name means “submission” and so it can NEVER support freedom. Submission and freedom are polar opposites.
FACT: Democracy is a “man-made” concept that can not co-exist with any rule of Islam from Allah. Allah’s ruling will always dominate. “Tolerance, rule of law and democracy” are the antipathy to followers Islam. Those universal values of freedom, democracy, rule of law, tolerance are simply the universal values of the Christian West. Hence why Islam is focusses its jihad on destroying the West as it is considered the generator of unbelief in Islam.
These concepts will be espoused from every mosque and every Islamic school because this is ISLAM.

(Now this Islamic muppet has been put in charge of driving Australia—God help us.)
So many of the 'Political' muppet class put forward this view that Islam is a Religion of Peace.  They class Islam as a religion just like any other. 

It is complete bollox (if you will excuse a 'Knightly' phrase) and any politician who espouses it should be sent to Syria - or Egypt, or Afghanistan, or Iran, or any number of Islam infested places.  They know which ones - the ones people are fleeing from as refugees. Turnbull follows Obama like a sheep.  Most western leaders seem deliberately blind and stupid in this regard. They think the public is as stupid as they are. (They may have a point).

As for appealing to 'Moderates', Brigitte Gabriel had something to say that Turnbull should hear.


 People have stood in these bars and said as much before and I suppose it is the major lesson about the coming year to which we should attend.

The totally lacsidaisical attitude of the 'Politico' class, extending right down to local council level, will have a marked effect on Australia.  Just take the small regional town of Bendigo as an example and watch what happens there in 2016. It will be a litmus paper test.

There are approximately 300 Muslim people in Greater Bendigo, many of whom work as medical professionals, academics, engineers and business people. For the past 20 years the local Muslim community has had access to a room at LaTrobe University that holds approximately 40 people. On Fridays they access a larger room to allow more people (approximately 70) to attend midday prayer.

They have now planning permission to build a mosque. A BIG mosque.

Mr Zanetti gave us his view in the Oz room.


Bendigo Mosque Terrorist Links

IT'S all very well being all inclusive, multi-cultural, multi-faith and all that, as long as you’re not hugging a bearded bloke holding a knife behind his back ready to use it when you’re least suspecting it.

A lot of kerfuffle’s been made about a mega mosque proposed for the historic Victorian town of Bendigo. The application for the Islamic place of worship has stirred up violent protests from anti-mosque and anti-anti-mosque groups.

Mosque supporters believe they have goodness and wholesomeness on their side, which is a very nice position to hold until you take a closer look who’s behind the mosque.

A report in The Australian links the Bendigo mosque to known terrorists. 
Investigative reporter Rebecca Weisser has done some digging. The Greater Bendigo City Council would do well to take note.  After all, they have a duty of care to their townsfolk. Ignoring this information is akin to negligence.
What’s been uncovered is that the Bendigo mosque is being funded by Australian Islamic Mission (AIM).
AIM’s 2014 and 2015 conferences have as the main speaker Dr. Anas Al-Tikriti, the founder of the Cordoba Foundation in the UK.
In 2009, the Cordoba Foundation sponsored an event with a senior recruiter for Al-Qaeda, Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki, who was killed in a drone strike in 2011.
Al-Awlaki was known as the preacher of three of the 9/11 hijackers. He also corresponded with Nidal Malik Hasa before the Army psychiatrist went on a shooting rampage in Fort Hood, Texas. He was also linked to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who tried to blow up a US airliner.
The bank accounts of Dr. Anas Al-Tikri and the Cordoba Foundation were closed last year by HSBC because these accounts were outside the bank’s ‘risk appetite’.
Another AIM conference speaker last year was activist Yvonne Ridley. This terrorist supporter hailed the Chechen Islamist who planned the Beslan school massacre by terrorists in Russia in 2004 “a martyr”. 

The siege which started on 1 September 2004, lasted three days and involved the capture of over 1,100 people as hostages, including 777 children. 

It ended with the death of 385 people including 186 children. Many others were  injured or went missing.

Yvonne Ridley also said, “drinking Coca Cola is like drinking the blood of Palestinian children.”
In 2010 the guest speaker at an AIM fundraising dinner was Dr. Tareq Al-Suwaidan who said in visit to Australia in 2012 Islam would “conquer the world” and that the Muslim community had only one hope, to love the afterlife and “be ready to die”.
This is taught by the Qur’an and preached in mosques the world over.  
Al-Suwaidan has been listed in a US District Court case as a member of the US Muslim Brotherhood and co-conspirator and joint venturer with the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), the founders of which were found guilty in 2008 of channeling $12 million to Hamas in one of the largest terrorism financing cases in US history. 
Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation by the Australian government.

Al-Suwaidan was banned last year from attending a Muslim Fair in Brussels for saying (in regard to Israel) “we do not demand a ceasefire. Rather we demand that the rockets continue to be launched until they bow before us…all the mothers of the Islamic nation – not only Palestinian mothers – should suckle their babies on the hatred of the sons of Zion. We hate them. They are our enemies. We should instil this in the souls of our children, until a new generation arises and wipes them off the face of the earth…each and every one of us, when leaving this hall, should be contemplating a plan how to wipe out Israel.”
The secretary of AIM Melbourne Dr. Seyed Sheriffdeen said AIM invited Al-Suwaidan to speak because “he is popular”.

AIM Victoria shared a video on its Facebook page which shows a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu with gunshot firiing and a photo of former Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak in the line of a gunsight (aimed on his face), with the sound of a gun shot.

AIM Victoria’s Facebook page also shared a photo of the book Fiqh al-Zakah by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, with the exhortation “Read to understand ...”
Qaradawi, a leader in the Muslim Brotherhood, is banned from entering the US and was refused a visa to visit the UK. 
In 2013 Qaradawi, said: “Our wish should be that we carry out Jihad to death.”
Qaradawi says of suicide bombing, “I consider this type of martyrdom operation as an evidence of God’s justice. Allah Almighty is just; through his infinite wisdom he has given the weak a weapon the strong do not have and that is their ability to turn their bodies into bombs as Palestinians do”.

In 2009, Qaradawi said on Al Jazeera: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the Jews people who would punish them for their corruption...The last punishment was carried out by Hitler...Allah Willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.”

Also promoted on AIM Victoria’s Facebook page, is a lecture by Dr. Harlina Halizah Siraj, organised by IKRAM, an organisation in Malaysia that says Muslim physicians should perform amputations in accordance with sharia law. Cutting off hands, feet and heads is a punishment under sharia law, for crimes such as being homosexual. This is often performed in public squares. 
In 2010, a former president of AIM, Zachariah Matthews called for sharia law to “function as a parallel system”.
In 2001 Matthews wrote that two of the principles to be learnt from studying the life of the Prophet are that “secrets should be hidden…and only disclosed to those with strong ties” and that “deception is necessary”. The article referenced Al-Qaradawi and Dr Jum’ah Amin Abd al-Aziz, a senior member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
Anyway, I’m sure the Greater Bendigo City Council will have taken all of this into account and decided there’s nothing to worry about in the interest of multiculturalism, when approving the Bendigo mosque. 
City councillors may have a greater 'risk appetite' than the HSBC bank.
Anybody can easily research the background behind the people behind the mosque. Google a few of these groups, associations and names and watch the links pop up onto your screen.
Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that, even knowing what we now know, all will bode well for Bendigo in the future. 
If you’re religious, keep the people of Bendigo in your prayers. 
Our National, State and Local 'leaders' are not showing prudence. They are blind. Or perhaps stupid. Maybe, Bad.

We shall see as we continue down the slippery slope.

Meanwhile this old Tavern Keeper will become a little older and a little more knackered but still keep vigil outside the abortuary for the babies.

Have a Good New Year. As best you can, considering we shall all be carrying a lot of baggage from 2015.

Pax



Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Year-End Bonus

Another one nearly over. Just the fireworks hooley at the harbour to go before we usher in 2016.  I cannot in honesty say that 2015 was a great year, what with all the mayhem and misery emanating from the Middle East Muslims - religious zealots we can well do without - and exported to all corners of our spherical home. The Anglosphere seems to be a prime target.

But again being honest, it has been a year of continued prosperity for many and a lifting out of poverty for many more. So, not all bad. And the Tavern has shifted a record amount of the good stuff.

Oz has done its bit for global whatevers, despite the gloom that the Global Warming Religious zealots say. We can do without them too. Australia, far from adding to the CO2 production in fact sequestered at a rate of three to one. Something  Al Gore won't tell you. Oz has 30 hectares of forest and 74 hectares of grassland for every Ozman woman and child. On their behalf our entire Industry produced 20 tonnes per capita.  And each hectare on average sequesters one tonne of CO2.   That is far more than the amount of the life-giving gas than we emit. The world should be paying us a bonus.

A bonus is something I awarded m'self today. After my almost daily chat with the Southern Gal, I went to the beach. 

It was crowded in Tasmanian terms. There must have been 250 people there, if you count the dogs. 

I have never seen a really crowded beach in Tasmania.  Odd spots, like the river mouth at Kingston just might attract 15 people a hectare (if you count in the dogs)


Even the dogs prefer plenty of space to cavort.


Me? I am a very old and Knackered Knight. A stroll along the sands; a toe or ten dipped in the surf; and a table outside the cafe, in the shade,  with a nice bonus-topper.


One more day to go in Paradise before the New Year.

It's tough being a King, but someone has to do it.

Pax

Saturday, December 26, 2015

A Small Act of Kindness

A favourite customer - Southern Gal, whom I love dearly - stopped by, taking a short break from her busy Christmas celebrations with her family, to bring this news. It is just the sort of heartwarming lesson that suits Christmas but tinged with sadness in that the lady who is its subject has died. But her example is a shining light.
“The Power of Kindness”
We so often fail to realize the power kindness has on someone. Even something as simple as a hug from an elderly woman can have a lasting effect on battle wounds brought home by a young man from war.  
A woman who was known at Fort Hood as the “Hug Lady” passed away this December after a long battle with breast cancer.  

Her name was Elizabeth Laird and she boosted the spirits of thousands  of American soldiers over nearly a decade as they shipped off to places like Afghanistan and Iraq.   Many of the soldiers never returned.   We weep this season for those who didn’t. 
But for those that did, one elderly lady was beloved by all the men and women who were serving our country deploying out of the Texas military base.  She never failed to be there, rain or shine, to send each and every one of them off with a hug from Killeen/Fort Hood Regional Airport.
How many of us can be remembered as 'Beloved'? It is something to aim for.  
“This is my way of thanking them for what they do for our country,” Laird told Fox News in November from her hospital bed in Copperas Cove, Texas.  “ I wasn’t hugging in 2003.  I used to just shake their hands.  But one day, a soldier hugged me, and that’s the way it started.” 
“You were there when I left in 2008 for Iraq and then again when I returned in 2009,” wrote Michael Singleton.  “I was nervous because I had never been outside of the country and I had just lost my grandmother.  That one hug made a huge difference that year, because it reminded me  of how my grandmother was.”
“I met her twice, as many of the soldiers from Fort Hood do,” former U.S. Army Capt Rob Allen told Fox news in November.  “She was there when we left and she was there when we came back.”
There were often hundreds of soldiers waiting in line, many returned from deployment in the middle of the night.  But that did not deter Laird from her devotion to our service members.  
“It was 2 or 3 in the morning, and there she was- hugging everyone as they got off the plane,” Allen said.  “It was the middle of the night and without fail, this lady was there.  A special lady.”  - Fox News website
As we wrap up this Christmas season let’s take a lesson from this woman.   
It’s up to us to pass love onto each other, even if it only comes in the form of a hug.  We are just passing through here and sometimes God sends saints to lift our spirits in the form of grandmothers 
Merry Christmas
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing.”
Hebrews 13:2


I can always count upon the Kindness of my Southern Gal, and with deep gratitude. 

Back in my younger day, a Lady farewelled a Knight rather differently.
But time passes.

She and I raise a glass and drink to Elizabeth.  Join us.


Will someone (or many) remember your Kindnesses in 2016?

Pax.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

'Twas the Night before Christmas.

By now all the Tavern's usual customers have bought their presents and prepared their tables for the Big Day tomorrow.  And we in the Tavern too have been busy.  They and we have a mind as to just what the day is about.

Here on the mountain we have no snow: no 'jingle bells', unless you count the sound of fire trucks. It is hot. Time of the southern hemisphere year, you see. Many parts of the northern world have it cold and truth be told, this old Knight recalls with quiet pleasure the many Christmasses spent in snowy as well as remote country surrounds.

Mind you, it was more often than not out somewhere dangerous and I was taking my turn on watch with no company but my Angel.

It is not only shepherds who stand guard.


Tonight after a little preparatory feasting in the restaurant, my customers, friends all, will be invited to decend into the cellars and there to peek through the door to the crypt, one at a time, to see the Mass being recited and sung.

Those that have not gone down the mountain to the Cathedral in Hobart to lend their presence to that of our courageous Archbishop Julian Porteous, will be welcomed by our CellarMaster who has re-arranged things for the crowds remaining here.

He does not get out much 






Crypt-goers-cum-Mass-congregation will be able to sit themselves against the stacked barrels and amongst the wine racks, all of good Grace. 

Make yourselves comfortable. BYO cushions.
The subdued light will remind them of what was happening 2000 odd years past.

This is the way we prefer in the Tavern.

Quiet. Reverential. Welcoming. A place and a time for contemplation.

Traditional.

Without putting too fine a point, this is not simply an Anglophile place run by an Englsih Knight and King, but a Catholic place. It is Universal.

Christians ain't Christians, to mis-paraphrase an oil advert.  Some Christians have completely lost sight of that Star in the east; they no longer see the Stable and the Manger, let alone God Himself coming down and taking the form of a vulnerable baby born into poverty.

The Word was Made Flesh. 

Some 'Christians' prefer the rock-concert atmosphere where they can 'have furn'.
Hillsong. Is it a church? Is it a pain? Is it a rock Concert?

Not for us. We save the 'furn' for the patio and the music room where entertainment belongs. 

Down here we Give Praise and Thanks.

We Adore down here.

For those who for one reason of another cannot be at Mass this night, please, peek in and see the central part. You are as welcome in the Tavern as our Supplier requires of us to have you.



God Bless.





Pax.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Tavern Warning Signs

Take care at Christmas. There are always some customers who act in a manner that can cause minor grief. And some major too. Simply walking in the door has its hazards, not least of which is the Bouncer, who can do as much damage to your nose as walking into the door can, and he is very busy this time of the year 'screening' those likey to be unruly. He is very good and in much demand, what with all those refugees everywhere seeking illegal entry.

But he remains on the Tavern's door. And he cannot be everywhere.

So, for your safety and comfort we have put some warnings in many of the more popular bars. Just to keep you safe.

Look for them. They concern YOU !  Here are some you will see.


WARNING
This Message is displayed on a screen which warps space and time in its immediate vicinity. Sitting still for long periods whilst reading it will cause time to pass more quickly than usual and change the shape of your bottom.



WARNING
This Message is displayed on your screen which attracts every other piece of matter in the Universe, including the products of other manufacturers, with a force proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them. Small people may stick to it if brought into contact. Ask the barman for assistance.


CAUTION
The Mass of your computer contains the energy equivalent of 85 Mega-tons of TNT per nett ounce of weight. No liability will be entertained if you sit within reach of the keyboard or reading distance of the screen and it goes off.  There are corner tables available.


EXTREME CARE
This screen contains minute electrically charged particles moving at velocities in excess of Five Hundred Million Miles p/hr. If they gang up, they could blow your underpants off along with anything contained within.  Use the towel supplied.


CONSUMER NOTICE
Because of the `Uncertainty Principle', it is impossible for the customer or the barmaid to know  precisely both where this product is and how great is its momentum, at the same time. If users move any part of this, or themselves, whilst reading it, it may be lost to view. Talk to the Tavern Keeper if you can find him.


QUANTUM ADVISORY NOTICE
There is an extremely small but non-zero chance that, through a Quantum Mechanical Process know as ‘Tunneling’, your computer screen may spontaneously disappear from its present location and reappear at random in any place in the Universe, including your next-door neighbor's water closet. The Supplier will not be held liable for any damages or inconveniences that may result. The Tavern accepts no responsibility.


USE-BY-DATE. 
According to certain suggested versions of the Grand Unified Theory, the primary particles constituting even this message may decay to nothingness within the next four hundred billion years. Please read quickly. Refill of your glass are a mere ask away.



Pax.
(conditions apply)







Tuesday, December 22, 2015

UK - 0 : Japan- 2

Yes indeed it is an odd celebration to be had in an Anglophile Tavern, but the glasses were raised today to Japan and for Sir Tim Hunt.  Some good news to herald in Christmas. Should he pass this way en route to his new job, he and his good Lady will be very welcome.

You will recall that Sir Tim was calumnised by some feminist, racist harpy earlier in the year and was forced out of his job in the UK. It was a travesty. This was just before or perhaps just after another eminent scientist who had landed a remotely controlled space vehicle on a comet was soundly criticised for his shirt, by nonentity feminists and sundry brainless media harpies.

Well, Richard Lewis dropped by with the good news.
Sir Tim Hunt Didn’t Leave Britain In Defeat After Feminist Fibs… He Won
In June, British biochemist and Nobel laureate Sir Tim Hunt found himself embroiled in a sexism scandal. The 72-year-old scientist had been a speaker at a conference in Seoul, South Korea, addressing a predominantly female audience and speaking of his own experiences in the world of science.
In the audience was a black, female journalist called Connie St. Louis. Shortly after Hunt had finished she took to Twitter to tell the world about some of the finer details of his speech, most notably his antiquated views on women.
“Why are the British so embarrassing abroad,” she asked, seemingly unaware of the irony of her own stereotype. “[The conference was] Utterly ruined by sexist speaker Tim Hunt,” she continued, before quoting Hunt as having said: “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls … three things happen when they are in the lab … You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry.”
“Nobody was laughing, everybody was stony-faced,” she would later tell the BBC, insisting that the speech was so shocking that it offended almost everyone present.
It is so easy to lie if you are a feminist, a person of colour or an anti-westerner. The media will he happy to run with it. It will not 'call you out' for being a liar. Even Richard is circumspect. He calls if 'fibbing' in places but eventually speaks 'plainly'.

No. It is Calumny. It is deliberately lying to ruin a man's reputation
The resulting furore saw the eminent professor, who received a knighthood from the Queen in her 2006 birthday honours for his services to science, hounded by the media until he was forced to resign from his job at University College London. For many this was justice served: another ageing, sexist dinosaur driven from his position of privilege, his exit creating another crack in the glass ceiling.
There was just one problem: 
St. Louis was lying. 
Her tweets were a gross distortion of the truth. Hunt was in fact making a self-deprecating joke. He went on in his speech to praise women. It’s possible that St. Louis simply wasn’t listening during the speech, but her later statements to the BBC were simply untrue, as a recording of the event later revealed.
Of course, as is customary these days, Hunt’s accusers provided no evidence. They colluded privately about the best way to maximise the impact of the “story,” something they themselves admit, but all they presented were their allegations. All evidence pointed to Hunt’s comments being a joke, with him being the butt of it.
It is very 'English' to 'take the piss out of oneself', and this is what Sir Tim did. But boot-faced, humourless feminists with an axe to grind will grab at anything to calumnise a man.
And so it turned out to be. A transcript made by a European Commission official in attendance told the full story. It read:
It’s strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists. Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys and girls? Now seriously, I’m impressed by the economic development of Korea. And women scientists played, without doubt, an important role in it. Science needs women and you should do science despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me. 
Then a recording of the offending joke emerged. In it, the last sentence of the above transcript is heard to be uttered followed by a round of warm laughter. That’d be the laughter that never happened, according to St. Louis, a lie she repeated in her column inThe Guardian.
Of course, the same media that gave a platform to Hunt’s accusers, notably the BBC andThe Guardian, didn’t report the existence of the recording despite it completely exonerating the professor and proving beyond any doubt that the feminists that had conspired against him were brazen liars. It was down to the Murdoch-owned Times of London to report the facts.
 
In the hurry to brand Hunt a sexist, many other facts were glossed over. Typical practice for journalists when someone has a label applied to them is to interview people they have interacted with professionally and personally to either substantiate or disprove those claims. Outside St. Louis and a couple of her colleagues there was not one person to be found that Hunt had interacted with that would brand him a sexist. Quite the opposite, as it happens, as an editorial by female Conservative politician Louise Mensch would reveal,also in the Times.
Hyunsook Lee of Korea wrote that Sir Tim had mentored her for the last 15 years and would continue to do so. Trish Greenhalgh of Oxford said that when she had been ‘a mouthy 17-year-old’ Sir Tim to her she would ‘make a great scientist. He gave me a place at Cambridge.'”
Maria Leptin, the director of the European Molecular Biology Organisation, wrote: “Tim Hunt chaired the selection panel appointing the first female head of the EMBO. Full disclosure: me.”
Sir Tim had even successfully pushed for a crèche at the Okinawa Institute. Sexist? Few in the rarefied world of senior scientists, it turned out, had ever done as much for women.
These key details were conspicuously absent when the press wanted to serve up their sacrificial lamb in exchange for page views from outraged gender warriors.
Yet, thankfully, the story has a happy ending. 
While it is indeed a loss to Britain to see one of its eminent thinkers head abroad, for Hunt and his wife, professor Mary Collins, this is a resounding victory. Because despite the combined efforts of scheming feminists, dishonest journalists and huge media outlets, he has retained his dignity and will continue with his exceptional career.
It was recently announced that Hunt was reinstated by the Royal Society, a position he was asked to resign from at the height of the furore. 
His new role at a Japanese university eclipses anything he had at UCL, who admit they regret having to accept his resignation to quell the baying mob.
They forced his resignation and deserve no sympathy whatsoever. The Royal Society leaders should be ashamed of their behaviour and thankful that Sir Tim has a better grasp of proper adult behaviour that they do. 
(Professor) Collins has also landed a prominent position in Japan as well. For a couple who weathered this terrible storm it is a just reward and it should be reported as such, rather than a testament to the power of lies and the liars who make up stories to collect straight white male scalps.
The only way this victory could be made more complete would be for St. Louis to be forced to stand down from her position as Director of the MA in Science Journalism at City University, London. (Yes, you read that correctly.) 
Is such a person an appropriate choice to teach students journalistic ethics? Now there’s a social media storm we could all get behind.
Not a chance. The field is entirely in the hands of the cultural marxists with feminist harpies ascendant. 
For St. Louis, you see, this isn’t just a regrettable lapse. She is a serial fibber, as proven by a Daily Mail investigation. She repeatedly fibbed and exaggerated about details of her career on her City University of London CV page. The description claimed that “She presents and produces a range of programmes for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service . . . She writes for numerous outlets, including The Independent, Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, BBC On Air magazine and BBC Online.”
Closer inspection showed that the “range” of programmes she produces had stopped in 2007. A review of digital archives spanning back twenty years showed no bylines for St. Louis at The Independent, Daily Mail or The Sunday Times. These revelations led to her CV page being taken down temporarily. It reads a lot more modestly today.
Despite this dishonest gender warrior’s best efforts, St. Louis hasn’t stripped Tim Hunt of anything, mirabile dictu. He will still work in the academic field he has dedicated his life to. He will still work with EMBO and the Royal Society from Japan. And he will be afforded the opportunity to travel the world and inspire young scientists, just as he always has.
The only reputation that has been damaged in this affair is Connie St. Louis’s. 
Her name will now be forever synonymous with disreputable, dishonest allegations and sexed-up CVs. 
That’s what I call social justice.
Yes, maybe, Richard. But don't hold your breath.

Bon voyage to  Professors Sir Tim and Lady Hunt. Japan gains two eminent, intelligent and productive people, and Britain retains one stupid one. A shot in the arm for Japan and one in the foot for Britain.

Pax everyone.





Monday, December 21, 2015

The Gates of Hell (2)

Pre-Christmas crowds milling around. Many have fine tales and some glum ones. It is a task sorting the ones from the others. I just keep busy pulling pints and uncorking fine wines. Its Someone's Birthday coming soon.

And there is a LOT of cleaning to do. There is dirt everywhere one looks.  Let us sweep out some more.

The US and Oz rooms are chokka. The talk is loud and there is a lot of Christmas cheer going down. Mind you, the sunny weather (OK, it is a heatwave) takes many outside onto the patio and strolling in the grounds where they can dream. 

Dreamers abound and some others down in Hillary's Village have lurid and nasty ones.  

Take the tale someone in the US room was telling. I only caught a little of it so you may have to follow it up yourselves. 

Some poor chap was falsely accused of nastyness by a woman dreamer. 
Clarence Moses-El was convicted back in 1988, sentenced to 48 years for allegedly raping and assaulting a woman after she returned home from a night of drinking.
We cannot show the accuser's face - of course.  She is a woman.
The day after the alleged rape, the “victim” told police the identity of her rapist after the image of his face came to her in a dream.
So now, after most of his adult life in jail he has been exonerated. An innocent man convicted on the say-so a woman who, let's face it, acted maliciously. 

The police and prosecutors too. Malicious.

Maliciousness is rife in our society. Hillary Village society that is. 

A woman has a sexual encounter in circumstances that we will rarely get to hear of or understand (other than she had been boozing stuff that was quite different from the Tavern's fare) but she will be believed, more often than not, when she accuses some poor sap of a man of something dastardly.  It does not help him one bit when he is a black man. His erstwhile 'Victim' status of being black is no help at all. Quite the opposite.

Its a 'sexual' crime, you see, and the village elders take a dim view. 

In Oz at the moment we have a Witch-Hunt going on in regards to sexual crimes against children. False accusations, maliciousness and the poisoned cup are in full view. But the witches in this era are 'men of the cloth'.

There are good Knights and bad. Good Monks and bad. The last conversation reported was about some Monks gone to the dogs. Bit over the sea in Melbourne thay are after a very senior Monk indeed.

Cardinal Pell.

He is a Prince of the Church. And as such a very succulent target for evil. Get Pell and you will seriously damage Christ's Church. The Body of Christ.

The Royal Commission into Child Abuse has focussed its attention on the Church despite reams of evidence (albeit evidence just as questionable) implicating other churches, the Salvos and numerous Departments of State. No public servants or Gummunt Ministers have been hauled before the Commission, but George Pell has, Twice  And now again !

Of course the media knives are slashing about.

Georgina Dent of Mamamia infamy said....
Cardinal Pell, who lives in the Vatican and serves as its finance chief, was due to give evidence on Wednesday. He pulled out last week due to his ill-health and is scheduled to appear in February if his health allows.
But last week, Cardinal George Pell had his lawyers ask for a private meeting to discuss the Cardinal’s non-attendance. He is, they say, too sick to travel. His blood pressure is too high.
Victims of abuse have flown from across the world to testify – but the man who allegedly protected sex offenders is a no-show.
No mention that he has already appeared in the witness box twice. No mention that each time he has been shown entirely innocent.  Innuendo works to damage reputation. 

And now his chief accuser  is shown (after some heavy rock turning) to be a man of poor character (to put it mildly).
Pell accuser indecently assaulted boy in bushland outside Ballarat
Cardinal George Pell’s chief critic and accuser has failed to declare in his public statement to the child sex abuse royal commission that he indecently assaulted a 12-year-old boy he groomed while performing youth work.

David Ridsdale has emerged as a de facto spokesman for Ballarat victims of Catholic abuse and has accused Cardinal Pell of impropriety during a 1993 telephone conversation discussing Mr Ridsdale’s abuse at the hands of his uncle Gerald.
David Ridsdale, now 49, is the most well-known victim of Gerald Ridsdale, who as a priest in the Ballarat diocese abused hundreds of children, including relentlessly attacking his nephew.
However, David Ridsdale failed to detail in his statement to the commission, the centrepiece of his evidence, how he had groomed the 12-year-old boy in 1984 while working for the YMCA. The Australian has established he used his position as a YMCA activities leader to indecently assault the child on two occasions in bushland outside Ballarat, about 100km west of Melbourne.
So, a man of clearly bad charcter, a convicted paedophile, accuses a fine man.  And who is to be beieved? 

The answer is less about the man than the evidence, which so far, in two hearings already, has shown Cardinal Pell to be of far better Character and able to show his innocence. But seemingly for the pack of baying hounds it is not enough.

Fortunately there are some who will stand up for him. Amanda Vanstone for instance.

She was a Minister in the last gummunt and the Ambassador to Italy, and has some sway, although it has to be said that she is no friend of babies !!
In defence of George Pell
"George Pell will answer questions honestly"
We like to think of ourselves as being civilised. We ban discrimination of all sorts. We believe you are innocent until proven guilty and that everyone is entitled to proper process. But there's an ugly side to humankind that occasionally reverts to animal instincts.
Hunting in a pack is very primal. Rules go out the window. We go looking, desperately, for blood. We become hunters and if you're the hunted, watch out. What's ugly about this is not just the hunt but how few people care.
I have always found George Pell to be a decent, honest, intelligent man. 

The slip into animal instincts often happens when we sense a wrong has been perpetrated and that our civilised system just hasn't dealt with the perpetrators.
George Pell is the latest to fall prey to this ugly side of humanity. We know that children in institutional care and in the churches have been abused and we know it's been covered up. It's been hidden in the Catholic Church, the Church of England, the Salvation Army and seemingly endless state institutions. The crimes have been horrific. Now we want blood.
Somehow Pell has become the lightning rod for all the hatred, anger and resentment that's built up around Australia. 
No one seems to have considered that the time we most need the rule of law is when the allegations relate to horrific crimes or their cover-up. The more serious the crime the greater the threat to your reputation or liberty. The rule of law is there to protect us all from these threats. It's what we call being civilised.
Some time ago we saw a version of this baying for blood in Adelaide. A priest at a prominent boys school, which is Anglican and not Catholic, had interfered with at least one boy. The local archbishop gave him a reference to move him along. He left the country and thus escaped criminal prosecution. There's no doubt that the archbishop did the wrong thing. He was made to retire shortly before his scheduled retirement. You might say it was light treatment or well and good.
Everyone needed blood, a sacrifice to assuage the wrong doing. But there was one glaring problem. The principal of the school, members of staff and the board all walked away scot free.
And, I might add, did the relevant Education Ministers and Head of the Education Department.  Funny how all those in 'high position' seem to be overlooked every time. 

THEY are the ones who are supposed to be Responsible and Accountable.
Sure, they didn't write the reference, but how many of them do you imagine knew about the priest's actions, even before the archbishop knew, and did nothing? The priest got away and so did lots of people who failed to notify authorities. 
Adelaide had had its ritual slaughter so everyone could just go home – and those equally as guilty as the archbishop could rest in peace. That's what happens when proper process isn't followed.
Plenty of people, especially in the media, don't like George Pell. 
He's very conservative (albeit a republican) and isn't afraid to speak his mind. While he and I don't agree on lots of things, I admire him. I am an admirer of people who are prepared to stand up for what they believe and who support my right to do the same. Pell easily fits into that category.
Failing to bow down to the self-appointed cognoscenti affronts their sense of importance and draws their gunfire. You have to be taught a lesson. Once you become a target, everyone can join in. It's like criticising politicians, the taxman, bureaucrats or the Devil. It's a free-for-all with no rules.
People who have suffered abuse, and their parents, react and cope in different ways. I don't think even my vivid imagination can fully comprehend the difficulties they face. It would be easy to become obsessed, to see avenging the wrong as your reason for living. It's also true that nobody wants to add to their distress and so, outside of courts, they are rarely seriously challenged on whatever they say. For most I think this is fair enough. 
But for the odd one or two it will be a licence to kill.
There's also something odd about us in that we still fail to recognise that kids are most at risk of abuse in their own home or from family and friends. We (the state) still keep hoping that bad parents and their partners will see the light. We leave kids to suffer their darkest days at the hands of those they should be able to trust. We seem to vainly hope that "it will all turn out".
There's been a fair degree of criticism of Pell's initiative within the Catholic Church to deal with cases of abuse. Little mention that the system he set up was a trailblazer in its time and reportedly as good as any set up by state governments. 
That kind of reporting doesn't fit the narrative of sensational TV on a Sunday night.
I have always found Pell to be a decent, honest, intelligent man who, while forthright in his own views, is happy to listen to those of others. When I was serving as Ambassador to Italy he perpetrated a great kindness that I will never forget.
I asked about the method for getting in the front row at a Papal audience, where one will meet the Pope. How do ministers, businesspeople and others seem to manage it, I wondered. Pell asked if that's what I wanted and I rightly pointed out, given my views, how inappropriate that would be. I told him the Filipino maid and butler at the Ambassador's residence who served his meal when he came to dinner were committed Catholics, true believers, and I wondered how they would get such a chance given they were more godly than many who get the privilege. He organised it and I have not seen two happier people than the day they met the Pope. It was marred in my mind only slightly by their comment that they felt people were staring at them and wondering how they got there. The answer of course is simple: by the good grace of George Pell.
I hope the royal commission on child abuse is out for the truth from everyone – not a blood sacrifice to appease the baying crowd.
Indeed.

Amanda makes several fine points and is deserving of a seat by the window and a fine serving of Grace.

Now.... I have cleaned enough for today and must gird my loins for a more personal attack upon my private parts in the hospital. But I am hopeful that I can bring more and happier tidings in a day or two. 

We have Grace, strong men and strong women. Maliciousness will not win. Hell will not prevail.

I am looking forward to Midnight Mass, which if I cannot travel down the mountain to, shall be in the Crypt.


Pax.