Making hay in the sunshine state In the lead-up to the state election in October, Queensland’s Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington tried to make political hay from recent breaches of Labor’s closed border.
“A third person has now allegedly entered the state with coronavirus through Labor’s border controls,” she tweeted yesterday, before reinforcing the need to “to protect lives and livelihoods” and calling for “mandatory maximum penalties for those who break the rules”.
She may want to have a word with a few of her party members: calling for strict enforcement of the closed border would land a little more convincingly if the Queensland LNP didn’t still (at time of writing) have an active petition calling for Queensland’s border to be reopened.
Ready, aim … shoot yourself in the foot A sponsored Facebook video of national Labor Party president (and former treasurer) Wayne Swan shaking the can, asking for recurring donations, is doing the rounds.
He talks of the social architecture put in place by Labor governments (Medicare et al) and his government’s response to the global financial crisis.
He may wish to talk to the opposition leader about this. Anthony Albanese has spent much of the crisis obsessed with the debt and deficit created by the Coalition’s stimulus spending while being extremely cagey about how much support for the unemployed (of which there will be more and more) Labor was willing to fight for.
Word choice The Cairns Post and other Queensland News Corp outlets ran a story last week about “Five of the worst inmates in the far north’s Lotus Glen Correctional Centre“. So far, so tabloid. But check out the excerpt, which describes convicted killer Klaus Andres as “perhaps FNQ’s most recognised bad-ass”.
In case you need reminding, the article goes on to say Andres was found guilty of killing his wife then dissolving her body in hydrochloric acid. “Bad-ass” mercifully isn’t in the article. So what subeditor decided it was an appropriate way to describe him?
Uncontaminated by sense Quadrant, the right-wing journal once funded by the CIA, is organising corporate boycotts. In the online “essential readings”‘ section, under the heading “Insights from Quadrant“, online editor Roger Franklin urges people to steer clear of Saputo, the owner and renamer of Coon cheese.
Franklin notes:
It would be a mistake to put any of the cheesy brands below into the shopping trolley, as they are also owned by Saputo. For future refence [sic]:
Cracker Barrell [sic], Devondale, Great Ocean Road, King Island Dairy, Liddells, Mersey Valley, Millell Parmesan [sic], South Cape, Sungold, Tasmania Heritage, Warrnambool Heritage Cheddars.
Did you start to hear the bouzouki too? Yes, poor old Rog has gone the full monty. A slight improvement, we’ll concede, on musing on the positive effects a terrorist nail bomb would have on an ABC Q&A audience.
Scott Morrison’s Zoom faux pas The prime minister’s “I’m just a regular guy” act might hide a calculated and organised agenda, but sometimes it really is authentic.
Morrison was addressing the Aspen Security Forum over Zoom this morning, alongside such figures as Condoleezza Rice and John Bolton. While being interviewed by CBS host Margaret Brennan, he managed to get quite a way into his answer before Brennan was forced to ask: “Mr prime minister, can you unmute your line …”
Extra points for the horrifying blurry face crescent that looms into shot to help Morrison out.
Re the LNP’s attitude to opening/closing the Qld border: opposition leader, Deb Frecklington, was nipping at Anna Palaszczuk’s heels for months when, back in March, it was initially announced the border would be closed & reviewed in September. Frecklington & The Courier-Mail went for the Premier’s jugular, declaring the tourism industry would be ruined, jobs jobs jobs….the usual. They continued this barrage & finally Palaszczuk eased restrictions early. And that’s where we find ourselves now with morons sweet-talking their way across the border. Thanks to Deb & Newscorp. I urge all Queenslanders to remember this reckless behaviour at the ballot on 31 October.
Meantime down in South Australia Newscorp sings the praises of Liberal premier Marshall for being strong on borders.
With reference to Coon cheese, you should have mentioned that its name bears no original relationship to any racist sentiment. It was simply named in the 1930s after its American creator, Edward William Coon. Are we going to subject everyone with the surname Coon to “cancel culture”?
However, Saputo’s products are also halal-certified, which is another reason to boycott them.
Some of their products are Kosher, some are lactose free, some are vegan, do you have a particular point in selecting halal?
I have no objection to halal foods, but I do object to halal certification of anything – food, banking services, cosmetics, vaccines – which is a racket, pure and simple.
Could you elaborate please? I honestly don’t know the background to this criticism of halal certification.
It’s too complicated to lay out briefly in sufficient detail. But here are a few points, necessarily oversimplified:
• Halal certification exists only in wealthy non-Muslim secular societies.
• Islamic scripture makes no reference to halal certification: it focuses on what is “haram” (forbidden) and what is “halal” (permitted) is therefore derived from what is haram.
• Halal certification is conducted for a fee by commercial or charitable operations.
•The cost of halal certification is never, to my knowledge, revealed. Why that is, I do not know.
• It’s open slather in the halal certification business as there are no set rules: One certifier will promise DNA-sweeping of the slaughter house to look for pig and dog DNA (this is the high-cost option); another certifier will offer cut-price certification by way of a tick-and-flick form filling exercise. The point for us (the kuffar consumers) is we pay the certification levy, a portion of which can and may go – as “zakat”/”zakah” – toward funding jihad.
• Some certifiers try to expand their market by urging the certification of the entire business to certify that suppliers, drivers, accountants and retailers are Muslims – that is, that as much as possible of the entire supply chain is halal.
• The cost of halal certification is passed on – as an overhead – to the consumer. Muslim consumers may not mind paying for jihad, but some non-Muslims may object.
This has been too brief and will not satisfy many, especially those who want to deflect your attention from certification by focusing on halal food or other products and processes.
Lucky it wasn’t Ted Kunt..