Auspundits

Mussolini In The Sun

Blogging has been light lately. I need more "outside" time and less "inside" time. Too much "inside" time is bad for the soul and for friendships. And the weather in Sydney has for last few weeks given some really good excuses for "outside" days.

Those "outside" days, has among other things, given me more of a chance to continue reading Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Its been hard to read as I doze off to sleep in the warm sun. But it has been good. And what I have picked up along the way has been nothing short of a relearning of something I was never taught.

Darkness At Noon - Postscript

I finished reading Darkness At Noon: A Novel by Arthur Koestler (1941). What an extraordinary book.

It follows the trials and tribulations of an old guard of the Russian Revolution, Nicholas Rubashov. Once a stalward defender and propagator of the Revolution, he turns into a cynic after watching the rise of No. 1 (Joseph Stalin):

What happened to these masses, to this people? For forty years it had been driven through the desert, with threats and promises, with imaginary terrors and imaginary rewards. But where was the Promised Land? Did there really exist any such goal for this wandering mankind?

He reflects of the corresponding "liquidation" of former leaders of the Revolution in the Moscow show trials, suppression of free will of the individual and the tearing of metaphysical mores. All resulting from a grand experiment that Revolution represented. Just before being executed, Rubashov reflects:

It was obviously not enough to direct man's eyes towards a goal and put a knife in his hand; it was unsuitable for him to experiment with a knife...No, one cannot build Paradise with concrete.

Links Galore

I will be away for the next two days. In the meantime, feel free to read the following:

• Closing the anthropogenic carbon cycle by recycling CO2 emissions into fuel.
• I guessed it would take about six months for a "stolen generation" compensation claim to hit the Federal Courts. I may still be right. However, Victorian courts are already facing compensation claims. Precedent indicates $800,000 per "stolen child".
• On Wednesday night, I heard Mal Brough indicate that a bipartisan war cabinet would not be a bad idea to tackle the problems experienced by Aborigines, given the right preconditions. Today, Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson proposed that Mal Brough be part of the war cabinet with Tony Abbott demanding "equal say in the partnership".
• Two great polemicists give Archbishop Williams grief over his Shari'a in Britain comments: marxist Christopher Hitchens and the mysterious "Spengler" in the Asia Times.
• More tokenism and populism from Rubber Rudd.
• Jihadist prototype, Imad Mughniyah was killed by a car bomb a few days ago. Interesting theories on who is responsible for sending this evil man to the eternal punishment he deserves.
• More Chinese spying on the United States uncovered. Add this to the breaching of NSA security I reported earlier this year.
• Howard government ministers Downer, McGauran and Costello to leave within months.

Some Weekend Tech Readings

A few more light-hearted readings on this sunny Sydney day (finally!):

• The 3G iPhone may be released at the end of this year in the U.S.. Which means release sometime during the first half of the 2009 calendar year in Australia.
• Has the perpetual motion machine already been built? It's purported developer has no scientific degree. Not that that has been a problem in centuries gone by. Also, he is a greenie. Which may be the more salient fact. We all know that lefties like to make stuff up.

Some Weekend Reading

Here are some links for Auspundits readers:

• Well respected Australian historian Keith Windschuttle on the myths surrounding "The Stolen Generation" and the implications of saying sorry.
• Hillary Clinton running low on dough.
• Six tonne anchor responsible for cutting Dubai-Oman undersea comms cable
• The Australian editorial supports an end to tax churn - the practice of recycling tax receipts into election bribes.
• Christopher Pearson has a banter with lefty progressive Michael Cooney on philosophy, welfare dependency and education.
• Archbishop of Canterbury, beset by calls for his resignation for telling the British people that they should "face up to the fact" that Shari'a should be imposed in Britain, backtracks. Matthew Parris suggests the Archbishop take head of Lord Napier's dictum:

  You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.