Update to previous story

Back in November 2005, I posted about a gang of 4 young men who physically attacked photographers and other people standing outside of a Melbourne courthouse after an Islamic terror ring was busted by the police. These men were supporters of the accused and had shown up for the arraignment.

What has upset me at the time was the fact that the police stood by and did nothing. These guys were caught on tape assaulting people in front of the court house. Yet, they were allowed to just walk away. The police didn't do a damn thing about it.

Thankfully, there was enough outrage about this that the police and prosecutors were forced to act. They eventually decided to press charges against the four. They were granted bail and told to show up in February 2006.

Well.... February came and went. I didn't hear anything about this case. So I did a little digging on the internet for news. I ran across this little story from 21-Feb-2006.

Bash accused scuffle again
Natalie Tkaczuk Sikora
21feb06

A CAMERAMAN allegedly bashed by five men outside a court was confronted by one of the men again yesterday.

Channel 7 cameraman Matt Rose was on assignment filming the men who appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on charges of assaulting him.

Mr Rose stood in front of the men as they walked from court -- filming at close range -- before one of the alleged bashers shoved the camera back towards his head.

The brief scuffle happened at almost the exact spot in William St where Mr Rose was violently attacked in November last year.

Abdul Sayadi, 24, of Brunswick, Nasser Raad, 27, of North Coburg, Monzer Ramadan, 28, of Coburg, Majed Raad, 21, of Coburg and Bassam Raad, 24, of Meadow Heights, have each been charged with affray and assault.

Mr Sayadi, Mr Ramadan and Nasser Raad are also charged with behaving in a riotous manner.

All five men -- who are family and friends of nine men allegedly involved in a Melbourne terrorist cell -- appeared in court.

Police made an application to adjourn the hearing to gather further evidence and view more footage of the incident.

Magistrate Lisa Hannan extended bail for the five men and ordered them to appear again in the same court on August 1. It is the second time Mr Rose has covered the story since he was attacked.

Nice guys eh? The attacked the same camera man again, and in the same spot!

These types of guys are the same types of guys that are causing problems in Australia. The are of Arab decent. They are quick to anger and usually react with group assaults. This is exactly the same behaviour that triggered the Cronella (Sydney) Beach riots in December. Young Arab-Aussie men respond with extreme violence when told by a life guard to stop harassing sunbathers.

I am dismayed that the police have asked for 6 more months to present a case. WTF? They have videos of these goons attacking people. What more do they need? The reason they are postponing is because the police are afraid of them and their friends. After the riots, the Arab neighborhoods are on edge. The police want to wait for things to cool down, or for the public to forget about the assault so they can quietly drop the charges.

Hold Music

Cool! I saw an article in the LA Times about how the City of Seattle is using local bands to produce hold music for the city departments. The City government website even has a web page to tell you what band you are listening to and where to buy the music.

That has to be better than the usual elevator music crap that I have to endure on most holds.

I wish that government departments and companies that specialize in crappy customer service with long hold times would use a more flexible hold music system. I would like to be able to press 1 for pop, 2 for country, 3 for rap, 4 for news and weather, 5 for classical, 6 for rock, 7 for silence, etc. That way when I put my call on speaker phone so I can do other things while waiting for someone to bother to pick up the call, I could listen to what I want.

Speaking of hold music, I had an incident that still cracks me up. Once time back in Santa Barbara I had to call my local medical emergancy clinic to make an appointment. As usual, no one answers. Instead, you are put on hold in a queue. The song that was playing while I was on hold was REM's "Everybody Hurts". The lyrics were perfect...

Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on...

I was rolling on the floor laughing when the receiptionist finally answered. I told her what song was playing for the hold music. She didn't get it.

Ah, but the best hold music "incident" was not even real. It was on The Simpsons season 3, episode #8F14, "Homer Alone". Marge left Homer at home in charge baby Maggie. He of course screws it all up and ends up loosing Maggie when she crawls off into town looking for Marge. When Homer realizes that Maggie is gone he calls The Department for Missing Babies. He is put on hold. The hold music is the 1968 The Equals hit "Baby Come Back". I still loose it whenever I see that joke on Simpsons reruns. Brilliant!

Sicko marrige contract

Wow. I stumbled across this little news story this weekend. This guy has way too much time on his hands!

I have only two words of warning for him, and any other men who think like he does...

Lorena Bobbitt!

non-Muslims forbidden to touch the Koran in Los Angeles

In today's LA Times, there is an article about a new muslim based "Muslim-American Homeland Security Congress". This is an organization about of muslims dedicated to fighting Islamic extremism with the American muslim comunity.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff is Lee Baca. He is one of the backers of this organization which was inspired by brainstorming sessions on how to prevent London Tube style attacks in Los Angeles.

Now here is the part of the article that I find both funny and deeply disturbing. In Culver City is the King Fahd Mosque. It is the largest mosques in LA. It is funded by the Saudi Royal family. The following incident took place there.

At one Culver City mosque, for instance, Baca said he was given a Koran by the imam and invited to read from it during an interfaith service after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But he was approached by a man afterward who told him that non-Muslims such as him were forbidden to touch the Koran. "That's extremism at its worst," Baca said.

How in the hell are us infidels supposed to learn about his precious religion if we aren't even allow to pick up the book to read it? Talk about a chicken-n-egg situation (you know... which comes first, the chicken or the egg?). What if muslims left korans in hotel rooms like christians leave bibles? Does that mean we can't touch it?

*sigh*

GM kills the GTO

I see today that GM killed the GTO, their US version of the Australian Holden Monaro. I had predicted this in my blog back in July 2005 when GM launched the new GTO, and it went over like a lead balloon. GM is blaming this decision on the expense of redesigning it to meet federal air bag rules for 2007.

This is a sad day for the once mighty American automobile industry. The Germans, Japanese, and Koreans are eating their lunch. Now, they can't even succeed in ONE area where they have no real foreign competition, muscle cars. GM managed to defeat themselves. Wow.

The Monaro is a well respected and highly desired car here in Australia. If GM had just managed to leave well enough alone, they could have sold them in the US and made money. But noooo. Too many executive that need to justify their jobs put all their little changes in until the GTO was nothing like the Monaro that it was supposed to be.

I don't understand why GM has failed to notice that the German and Japanese car makers sell pretty much the same car at home as they do in the US. They don't produce a dumbed down and problem filled version of the Mercedes sedan, the BMW 525, the VW Jetta, the Toyota Corolla, or Honda Accord just for Americans. Nope. The Americans get the same quality automobile that the Germans and the Japanese get.

Pathetic.... just f**king pathetic.