Might it be better to fight IS in the Middle East with accurate jet bombing - rather than fighting IS on the streets of Melbourne and Sydney?

Lego, I surmise you were adopted? From the source you quote re: IQ ...below from Wilkipedia:

Socioeconomic environment.

Different aspects of the Socioeconomic environment in which children are raised have been shown to correlate with part of the IQ gap, but they do not account for the entire gap.[77] The difference between mean test scores of blacks and whites is not eliminated when individuals and groups are matched on SES. Second, excluding extreme conditions, nutritional and biological factors that may vary with SES have shown little effect on IQ. Third, the relationship between IQ and SES is not simply one in which SES determines IQ, but differences in intelligence, particularly parental intelligence, also cause differences in SES, making separating the two factors difficult.[44] Hunt (2010:428) points out that when controlling for both SES and parental IQ in populations of young children, the gap becomes so small as to be statistically unreliable, and the best predictors of IQ then becomes parental occupation status, mother's verbal comprehension score and nature of parental interaction with the child. Hunt also finds that the correlation between home environment and IQ becomes weaker with age.

Adoption studies have shown that children adopted from lower-class homes to middle-class homes experience a 12 - 18 pt gain in IQ.[22]

And not forgetting the figure of Jewish Americans with a staggering average IQ of 113 !

Lego, please...! Any first year uni Psychology student is taught in "Academic Literacies 101" how to extrapolate, interpret and distort figures to suit the topic/argument/thesis...nothing new there Lego !

And surprise surprise Gomer ! 800 coppers to arrest 18 suspects, and evidently 1 charged with anything vaguely resembling "terror". Well that was taxpayers money well spent wasn't it now ?

From Albie Manton in Darwin we get the comment: Any first year uni Psychology student is taught in "Academic Literacies 101" how to extrapolate, interpret and distort figures to suit the topic/argument/thesis...

That statement is completely false, it's just a load of baloney that has no factual basis what-so-ever. Academic Literacy is not even a psychology subject. As a psychology graduate it is my recollection that no course such as the one Albie describes exists. However one could hone those skills whilst studying Statistics if one were inclined to be dishonest, such as a scientist who stands to financially benefit from supporting the claims the IPCC.

Eng 101 - Fundamentals of Academic Literacy is summarised as: Introduction to the reading and writing skills needed to meet the expectations of university-level academic study. Emphasis is on building proficiency in academic reading and writing through extensive practice. Suitable for students who need to strengthen their reading and writing skills before attempting a course that meets the Academic Writing Requirement.

Perhaps this would be a very good course for Albie... it might help him learn to gets his facts straight before posting comments that highlight his ignorance.

Hi Pete,
Enjoyed the article and do not agree with Lego.The war against terror has no winner and is justified under the premise that IS must be stopped what ever the costs, However there are many costs to consider. The costs of home grown terrorism, the costs of the populations who are being bombed and the economic costs to the collision and the countries being bombed.
One of the principle criticism of the previous war on terror was that no one planned the peace and we now see another terrorist group undertaking atrocities including beheadings. The West has once again commenced bombing in the Middle East with no plan of when it will finish and what will happen afterwards. if this makes me a lefty then that is fine.
What I would like to see is a defined objective, timeline, risk assessment both national and global and a plan of reconstruction.

To roamingfree.

There will be a winner in the war on terrorism if we do not meet the challenge. The terrorists will win by default.

"Home grown terrorism" is the fault of people like yourself. We "racists" told you that Muslim could not be trusted and that they would be forever a security risk, and they should not be allowed to immigrate into Australia. People like yourself with your kumbaya philosophy refused to listen and now Australia is becoming balkanised. It will become another battlefield in time. We could have had a peaceful continent under one people, one nation and one culture, but people like yourself refused to heed the warnings of history.

The democratically elected government of Iraq has asked for our help against these religious Nazis and we should give it. I know that the Baghdad government is largely to blame for the present crisis because it would not do what the Americans told them to do, and rule in the name of all Iraqis. But that does not detract from the fact that no matter how dysfunctional the Shiite government in Baghdad is, ISIS is a lot worse. The democratically elected government of Iraq has just bought 98 Suckhoi bombers from Russia and it will be joining the allied bombing campaign also. It apparently does not have any problems with the costs of bombing ISIS, so why should we worry about it?

Your little spiel about the west not planning for the peace made me laugh. The west is not going to worry too much about the peace when the terrorists are mass murdering people, mass raping women, and driving 150,000 Kurds, Yazidis and Christians into oblivion. We are going to aid these people by retaking their home areas and get them settled again. "Peace at any price" did not work with Hitler and it will not work with ISIS. However much you hate war, you had better figure out that some things are worth fighting for

"...you had better figure out that some things are worth fighting for," says the sage of the age, Lego.

Australia now seems to be fighting for:

1. U.S. domination of the whole world.

2. The capitalist system where 1% of people have 99% of the world's wealth.

3. The control of the world's media by MSM Oligarchs.

4. The rights of religious fruitcakes to enslave gullible people.

5. The principle of 'War and Plunder is O.K. Down Under!'

Lego, you are the Court Jester but people laugh at you not with you!