Today, Samir Qantar is to receive a hero’s welcome when he is handed back to the Lebanese in a prisoner swap. So what makes him a hero to the Lebanese?

Well, thirty years ago he broke into the home of an Israeli in northern Israel, killed a couple of Israelis and then slammed the head of a four year old girl against a rock and killed her. Another young child who was two years old and being hidden in a closet accidentally suffocated to death when her mother was trying to tried to stifle her cries. This reminds me of a neighbour of mine who told me that when they were hiding from the Nazis her mother accidentally stifled her own child. Can you imagine the horror of such an experience?

The animal responsible for this outrage is now feted as a hero in Lebanon.

This is the sort of scum whose return makes the Lebanese celebrate. A vicious child murderer!

No doubt there will be dancing in the streets, that shrill shrieking that Arab women do and even a Bank Holiday has been declared. When a nation has nothing really to be proud of then the return of a vile monster like Samir Qantar has to do.

By contrast, on the Israeli side, where the two coffins containing the alleged bodies of the two soldiers whose kidnapping sparked the war in 2006, there is solemn and respectful silence. After all, they are receiving the dead bodies of Israelis who will now be buried in Israel.

I am in awe of the dignity of the Israelis and marvel at this essential difference between Jews and Arabs.

Lebanon will receive the bodies of 199 dead Lebanese militants but that apparently is not a solemn occasion for Arabs. No need for mourning in Lebanon where life is so worthless that not even dead bodies are received with dignified respect. There will be a hoopin’ and a hollerin’ and partying in Lebanon but it won’t fool anybody in the civilised world.

The truth is that two dead Israelis are worth more than one vicious convicted child murderer and almost two hundred dead Arabs. Hard to understand really what the celebration is all about on the Lebanese side. I would have thought that the dead deserve less partying and more respect, but then I’ll never fathom the mind of Arabs.

I’ve developed quite a passion for real estate shows because they deal with the everyday life of everyday people. Celebrities don’t appeal to me at all. I couldn’t care less what they wear or whom they snog and what their babies look like. Continue reading →

Funny how some ideas sound good at first and then are shown to be self-defeating. Take maternity leave, for example Continue reading →

I wonder why U.S news channels never mention that Australian and New Zealand firefighters are on their way to help Americans fight the fires on the West Coast of the U.S?

Some 40 or so of our guys are headed for the U.S fires and it would be gratifying if the U.S media mentioned their contribution in the past and right now.

We are a small nation with a big heart and it wouldn’t hurt to express appreciation for our help, would it?

It’s what ‘mates’ do, help one another, and acknowledge that help.

Oh, how I wish I had thought of this idea! It’s so brilliant!

That nasty paedophile, Dennis Ferguson, is out of jail waiting on the results of the government’s appeal.

Nobody wants him as a neighbour and there have been constant demonstrations against him wherever he is placed.

The Police Minister says she doesn’t know what to do with him and I did offer a suggestion in a previous blog. Graham Egan in today’s “Courier-Mail” has a better idea, though. He suggests that Dennis be put in the Big Brother house. That way we can save the $1000 per day it costs to protect him and, besides, we can all keep an eye on him. It should also dampen down the sexual improprieties going on in the Big Brother house.

I love that sort of lateral thinking!

I wonder what sort of mirror Prime Minister Rudd looks at in the morning?
Can’t he see that he is becoming embarrassing when he takes it upon himself to do a Mighty Mouse imitation? “Here I come to save the day… Mighty Mouse is on the way”

First he says that he’s going to put a blow torch to Opec. That should ensure their sympathy!

Then he’s going to tell the other nations to avoid nuclear war. Yeah right…

Then he joins the rank of the incidental nations at the G8 meeting and offers six minutes of advice on global warming.

And if the rest of the world decides to ignore his advice then he wants Australians to lead by example. Rudd knows full well that our emissions are negligible and that even if we cut out all our emissions and went back to the Stone Age, it wouldn’t make a nanogram of difference to the amount of carbon emissions produced on Earth.

So while he struts the world stage once again and exhibits delusions of grandeur, he is ignoring what’s going on at home.

Thanks to his effete treasurer’s predictions of economic misery, the verve has disappeared from this country. Australians have been panicked into thinking that the end of the world is nigh. Gone is good old Aussie optimism. People are insecure and pessimistic about the future, all because Swan and Rudd have decided to talk the economy down.

Now, if he is really convinced that things are so diabolical, why doesn’t Rudd come home and act like the Prime Minister of Australia for a change? Fix the Health crisis, the housing crisis, the education shortfalls, transport problems etc etc.

The to-do list is long and it’s time that Rudd settled down to fixing Australian problems instead of travelling around the world and trying to outdo another huge ego, Whitlam.

The honeymoon is over, Kevin. Time to get on with the realities of being Prime Minister of a small, very small, nation. Until the truly large nations are prepared to do something sensible about global warming, Australia should get on with living and stop trying to be holier than thou.

How many of us must suffer to feed your huge ego, Kevin?

There are some crimes that should never be forgiven. Child molestation is one of the worst of them. Despite the legal chatter about whether convicted molester, Dennis Ferguson, can receive a fair trial in Queensland or not and despite the suggestion that new evidence against him may be flimsy, I contend that society does not want such monsters to walk freely among human beings ever again.

He should never have been released in the first place since he has made no attempt to rehabilitate himself. No chemical treatment, no castration, nada, because he didn’t want to get better.

He wanted to be fit enough to molest again. Whilst I cringe at the idea of protests and lynching, I can sympathise with people who do not want a molester to live near them and their children.

This sort of hysteria is the result of fear and parental desire to protect one’s children. It’s what made Megan’s Law a reality in parts of the U.S.

This is where the law and the wishes of society form a chasm. Judges go on about justice while society actually needs to believe that justice has been done. One has to wonder whose law is being administered here?

If Ferguson remains at large because the judge says he may not get a fair trial, what’s to stop any criminal from committing many crimes and then publicising the crimes and using this excuse for getting away with it?

In other words, a molester can wreak havoc on children, make sure the media reports it, and then claim that a fair trial would be unattainable.

This is what will happen in the Jayant Patel case as I already said in a previous post. Actually, this is an insult to the jury system that we have in Australia. Or perhaps there are some cases where juries should not be used. Why not use a panel of judges instead of a jury? Simply letting an alleged criminal off is not the correct outcome.

It costs the government $1000 per day for the molester to be kept in his latest farm abode. Ferguson says that he gets so upset that he even thinks about suicide. My suggestion is that he should stop thinking about it and follow the advice of the Nike logo.

I caught up with my younger son’s web site today and I must say it is fascinating.

Jeremy is a Professor in Law at the University of Melbourne and his interest lies in human rights. Even for a lay person like me, the blogs are clear and easy to understand.

As for my older son’s blogs, I got another mention today. How can I cope with all this publicity? Joshua has auctioned off a first signed copy of his new book for charity. The successful bidder, who prefers to remain anonymous, assures everyone that she is not Joshua’s mother.

Two weeks ago the truce between Hamas and Israel began. Since then there have been six separate episodes of missiles being fired from Gaza into Israel.

“The Australian” which usually is more balanced than other Aussie newspapers reported the missile attacks and then had the audacity to write that the truce is holding in spite of these attacks.

So what the newspaper means is that it’s ok for the Arabs to attack Israel but only as long as Israel does not retaliate. Israel has to just sit there and accept this aggression, does it?

Surely, this is what could be described as a one-way truce. What other nation in the world would be expected to just sit there and do nothing about the attacks?

Israel was so correct in being sceptical about a Palestinian promise.

But I can guarantee that the minute that Israel says enough and hits back, it will be accused of breaking the truce. It’s happened before and will happen again.