FINALLY, SOMEONE GETS IT! CANBERRA AUSTRALIA:   Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.  A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.
Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state and its laws were made by parliament.  "If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you," he said on national television.  "I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that is false.  If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country which practices it, perhaps, then, that's a better option," Costello said.  Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked to move to the other country.

This whole George Bernard Shaw incident has exposed the worms gnawing into the pillars of life, liberty and private property.

When a man spends his life in work, converting his time and labour into material wealth, and the community declares that material to have cultural significance, the community appropriates his material, labour, time and ultimately part of his life.

That my community has deemed a tree's right to life to be more important than my own confirms the worst: this country has gone to the logs.

Glenn Jameson
Northcote Point

Neal Boortz provides an excellent summary of the Muslim outrage over cartoons that mock Islam ...

Dead children. Dead tourists. Dead teachers. Dead doctors and nurses. Death, destruction and mayhem around the world at the hands of Muslims .. no Muslim outrage ... but publish a cartoon depicting Mohammed with a bomb in his turban and all hell breaks loose.

Come on, is this really about cartoons? They're rampaging and burning flags. They're looking for Europeans to kidnap. They're threatening innkeepers and generally raising holy Muslim hell not because of any outrage over a cartoon. They're outraged because it is part of the Islamic jihadist culture to be outraged. You don't really need a reason. You just need an excuse. Wandering around, destroying property, murdering children, firing guns into the air and feigning outrage over the slightest perceived insult is to a jihadist what tailgating is to a Steeler's fan.

Now here's something you don't see every day: the European media refusing to pander to the demands of Muslims:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060201/ap_on_re_eu/prophet_drawings_2

First it was a Danish newspaper editor who outraged Muslims everywhere in September with his decision to publish 12 caricatures of the Prohet Muhammad (one of these has him telling Muslims that Paradise is running out of virgins for suicide bombers). According to the Associated Press, the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten published the drawings as a challenge to "what it perceived was self-censorship among artists dealing with Islamic issues."

I having been intrigued by the case developing in the United States against RIM, the supplier of the mobile data device - Blackberry.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-2013999,00.html

I have never understood the degree to which people are addicted to them given that PDA's exist which do the same - and more...but what has been interesting to watch over the last 6 months is how the alleged theft of intellectual property in the form of a Patent Violation might soon impact the lives of millions of people.

The legal complexities are obviously many - and someone out there might have more insight than I into the truth about the claims of a patent violation. But it appears that patent violation has occured and it is indeed reassuring to see that the US justice system is being somewhat objective in threatening to punish a company - for theft. The impact that a closure would have on a large number of its customers should not be - and it appears will not be - an issue the court will entertain.

President Bush gave a speech at Kansas State University in Manhattan KS today. It was part of the Landon Lecture Series and is available for your viewing pleasure here. This is for those overseas members who don't often get to see Dubbya unedited.

He talks here about the decisions he has made and continues to make in defence of the USA.

Navigate to http://ome.ksu.edu/lectures/landon/past.html

Click video or audio as is your wont.

The for-profit geopolitical intelligence firm, Stratfor, has come through again with cutting edge analysis of Iran's recent behavior. This particular piece explores how the Sunni/Shia rift impacts Islamic radicalism, and why Iran seems to be doing everything it can to bring on a US or Israeli attack.

Iran's Redefined Strategy
By George Friedman

The Iranians have broken the International Atomic Energy Agency seals on some of their nuclear facilities. They did this very deliberately and publicly to make certain that everyone knew that Tehran was proceeding with its nuclear program. Prior to this, and in parallel, the Iranians began to -- among other things -- systematically bait the Israelis, threatening to wipe them from the face of the earth.

Greetings, SOLOists! We can now say of SOLO’s first month in these new premises: “Stick a fork in it, it’s done!”

The first weeks have seen SOLO: The Bigger Badder Sequel off to a roaring start, despite a season that left many (including yours truly) in the depths of holiday malaise. Linz finally caved in to demands for a “SOLO Thrust,” where resident horndogs Jody and Ross have set up shop. (Demands from the Phunny Pharm that the new feature be named “SOLO Dinner and a Movie and Maybe Something Else Later but We Won’t Go Into That Sinful Business” went unheeded.) MSK has laughed his last LOLOL, helpfully putting SOLO right on track to meet The Management’s new “Purge One a Month” policy. And as always, all the world’s troubles, from energy policy to FAA regulations, were considered and solved in short order by the brain trust that inhabits the forums.

Tibor Machan will join me on air next Wednesday 9 am NZ time, Tuesday noon Californian time. Non-kiwi listeners, go to http://www.radiolive.co.nz/

Monday December 26 I begin a 6-week stint on the Radio Live network in NZ. Mainly I'll be doing 10am-2pm/9am-noon, but in the last two weeks I'll be hosting the breakfast show, 6-9 am. Kiwi SOLOists, spread the word, and feel free to call in. Reason & freedom are back on the air!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales

I wonder why on the English version of wikipedia it is not mentioned that Wales is an objectivist,while on the italian version it is  mentioned that he is an objectivist, and also that he was the moderator of an objectivist mailing-list forum.

He has a daugther named Kira!

Are people afraid to say that are onjectivists once they become famous?

CD

The Post-Kyoto Montreal 'save-the-planet' 'we're-all-going-to-die' Global Warming conference has come to an end. (I blogged about the conference last week if you recall). Below is a round-up of the outcome and some related stories from various sources. Many of the sources are disappointed at the lack of any substantive outcome except the promise to talk again. I'm not.

The Objectivist Center has unveiled a brand-new Web site -- updated, more contemporary, far easier to navigate -- at:

www.objectivistcenter.org

The Objectivist Center

A vast archive of information about Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and TOC is available on the site -- including all past issues of its magazines Navigator and The New Individualist. The separate Web site of The Atlas Society has also been folded into the new design.

Enjoy!

Robert Bidinotto, Editor,
The New Individualist

[Australian State of Victoria] Premier Bracks fails to deliver on his promise to soften his racial vilification laws. ...

In a deep hole, Bracks has called for a longer shovel. And with it, he'll bury your right to free speech.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17427573^25717,00.html

Will New Zealand businessmen 'shrug' -- or perhaps even go on strike? At least one person worries they will. "The danger is they simply put their cheque books away, they stop investing in capital, they stop hiring people and we could get to a point where we have a very good and very resilient economy that just stops." So says ANZ chief economist John McDermott, as quoted by a worried Chris Trotter. "To hear the idea of tax cuts dismissed as an "ideological burp" was almost certainly the final straw for many [local] business people," says Trotter.

And why wouldn't it be? As Gareth Morgan points out, the impact of 'ideological burps' has been to radically change the behaviour of taxpayers. And as I argued here at the time, cutting envy taxes makes us all rich. Keeping the shackles on the highly-productive only hampers the productive and the entrepreneurial -- who could blame them if they decided to go on strike.

Whatever the case, it's clear from a record-high NZ dollar that foreign investors aren't shrugging in their enthusiasm to invest in the New Zealand economy. High interest rates and confidence in the local economy are attracting foreign investment by the boatload, and pushing up the dollar. Gareth Morgan points out that investor's enthusiasm for the New Zealand economy is in contrast to the pessimism of Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard. Worse: Bollard's pessimism-fuelled interest rate hikes are in fact fuelling the investment/borrowing orgy that has Bollard so worried, and at the same time revealing as illusory the idea that the governor has the tools with which to control inflation.

To sum up. If those supplying capital to this debtor nation do not concur that there are serious economic imbalances to worry about, the central bank is extremely limited in its ability to control inflation. This limitation is all the more severe if there are lending institutions beyond the sphere of influence of the Reserve Bank.