Rudd sends home 16 asylum seekers - National - theage.com.au

Rudd sends home 16 asylum seekers - National - theage.com.au

In a very clear cut case the Rudd government has acted properly in my view by sending home the asylum seeker to Indonesia. For the very first time this is a clear cut case of economic refugees, since they have stated that they had to flee their homes because they could not earn a living after they had been caught illegally fishing in Australian territorial waters.

The issue here is border security, and for this reason these Indonesians should be sent home. They are not in fear of their lives because of war, and they are not fleeing a one child policy. Neither are they facing persecution as Christians, Buddhists or Hindus as a result of Muslim intolerance.

There have been times when I have been clearly on the other side in this particular debate. I do believe that it was wrong to send the Chinese woman who was pregnant with her second child back to China. She was forced to undergo a late term abortion and then faced further punishment. Australia had a duty to protect her and her family from this kind of behaviour by the Chinese government because it was genuine persecution. I am only citing one case where I have believed that the refugees should have been allowed to stay and that the application of "economic refugee" has been incorrectly applied in the past. However, this is clearly not the case with these individuals.

It is for this reason that I stand against David Manne of the Refugee and Immigration Centre because he is talking about these illegals as not having the opportunity to put there case. Sorry, but where there is no war there is no case, and where there is clearly an economic motivation there is no case. These illegal immigrants were already guilty of entering Australian waters to fish illegally, why should they be allowed to remain in Australia as illegal immigrants. We need to take a tough stance, otherwise our borders will remain porous.

Blogged with Flock

Germaine Greer totally sets aside her Catholic past

I have long been the critic of the feminist movement and this latest piece is one of the reasons that I continue to be critical of certain feminists, and in particular Germaine Greer.

The thing about Germaine Greer is that she was educated by the Presentation Sisters at the Star of the Sea convent in Elsternwick, Victoria. What is amusing to me is the fact that two of my teachers also taught Greer at least 10 years prior to my entering into high school level. Both of the nuns were quite exasperated because of the manner in which Greer expressed herself, but to give the good sisters their proper credit, they did not stifle her creativity.

The reason that I point to the Catholic background of Greer, is that I believe that the comments that she has expressed regarding rape in Darfur is probable evidence that Greer has totally forgotten her Christian roots. I find some of the comments to be very bothersome:

 

I then asked why it was that Western feminists seemed so reluctant to speak out against things such as honour killings.

Greer: "It's very tricky. I am constantly being asked to go to Darfur to interview rape victims. I can talk to rape victims here. Why should I go to Darfur to talk to rape victims?"

Questioner (me): "Because it's so much worse there."

Greer: "Who says it is?"

Questioner: "I do, because I've been there."

Greer: "Well, it is just very tricky to try to change another culture. We let down the victims of rape here. We haven't got it right in our own courts. What good would it do for me to go over there and try to tell them what to do? I am just part of decadent Western culture and they think we're all going to hell fast and maybe we are all going to hell fast."

Too "tricky" to speak out against honor killings, and you can't teach an old feminist new tricks.

What is so very bothersome is the fact that Greer says "it's very tricky.... why should I go to Darfur to talk to rape victime?"

I do not think that the women of Darfur need Germaine Greer to come across and talk to them. What they need is women in the western world to be willing to speak up on their behalf and to show how the actions of the men of Darfur are contrary to the civil rights of women, and especially the rights of a rape victim.

One means that I have adopted in attempting to speak up for those who are so helpless because they do not have a voice on the world stage is to use the medium of blogging. In this way, I can scan media releases and the like that deal with the many serious issues that are continuing to emerge from countries that practice Sharia rule. In those countries a woman who has been raped can end up being stoned to death, imprisoned or being given at least 100 lashes.

The situation in the western world is entirely different from the situation in Islamic countries where women continue to be treated as though they are chattels, and continue to face punishment if they even show a little bit of ankle. Our justice system is not perfect but in recent times we have seen males being punished for gang rapes because the victims have been willing to confront their attackers in a court of law, and despite the ordeal they have managed to ensure that the attackers cannot make false allegations.

As a Christian I do feel concern for the women in Islamic countries and the way in which they are treated as second class citizens. At the same time I also feel disgust that a woman who was educated by the Presentation sisters in Melbourne can forget her own Christian roots to the point that she is not willing to speak up against the cruel practices against women that are found in Darfur as well as in other Islamic countries. There is nothing tricky about it, unless one is a coward, and a dhimmi at the same time.

More on my experiences with traffic exchanges

Over the past month or so I have been having a lot of fun with the traffic exchanges. Whilst I have cooled towards Royal Surf (mostly so that I can study the strategy necessary to always win against the "enemy" at the other end of the map), I have been finding more and more exchanges. My latest finds have included a very new exchange called Traffic Strike. As a member of another exchange and upon signing up, I was given a pro upgrade but on top of the upgrade was the challenge to enter 50 site URL's 30 banners and 30 text ads, and be awarded a very generous number of credits. The text ads are a challenge but I rose to the whole challenge and fulfilled the request within 2 days of this exchange starting.

I am delighted with the fact that at Surfin Wild I now have 7 direct referrals, Abundant Hits there are 2 direct referrals, and I have some other direct referrals. The big one is at Big Ben Hits where I have been getting a variety of random referrals and these are now going down to the next level. For once I can see how there is benefit in having these referrals. I really do hope that someone will pay for an upgrade soon. I am hoping that I will end up with sufficient cash earnings to pay for my own upgrade on this particular exchange.

Now I was encouraged to join something like Clix Sense, even though I had resisted joining that particular exchange. I made the decision because it said I could be a free member. However, there is a very nasty catch with Clix Sense and it is one that I personally do not appreciate. What I discovered is that there is no way that free members are likely to earn large amounts of money at Clix Sense. In fact the free member is restricted to two views at a time, worth $0.01 each. There is the carrot that the upgraded members get to view over 500 ads waiting for them. However, with no money to use for such an endeavour and I must admit that my own sense of "is this a scam?" also comes into play here, I made the decision that this was a very bad deal. On top of that, someone else on another exchange has sent out a warning that the people who run Clix Sense are the same people behind Storm Pay. I am not familiar with the controversy, but it seems that Storm Pay does not pay its users, and so there is the real possibility that there is a scam going on. What is worse, Clix Sense does not include a means of deleting the account. Most other exchanges give me the option of deleting the account, but not Clix Sense. So I wrote them an email and yes, my account was deleted as requested.

There are alternatives to Clix Sense and they are better paying alternatives for the free member like myself. I found one called Commercial earnings, and the first most pleasant thing I discovered upon joining is the fact that the free member has access to more views than the 1 or 2 at Clix Sense. This is very encouraging. I am hoping to accumulate some cash into a PayPal account so that I can start paying for other things on the Internet, and drawn down the balance of any earnings. However, this might take a while....