Hi runner

I agree with you on that. If global warming means all the comparatively cool and wet weather we've been having, along with multi-year "pauses", bring "warming" on.

Cheers

Pete

My beef is the word offensive, I would say defensive. How can the truth be offensive.
We have a right to protect our neighbors, those that want neighbors that is. That is not offensive.

No middle ground will ever be found by saying what is offensive or not.
Suppose you give us some info of what is middle ground.

Cazza,

"Or let us find middle ground on the teachings and effects of the Qur'an."

Well let us find middle ground, by the sound of you that is what you want.
Lead us on; I have Muslim friends and two of them and their family have recently sold their home in Bankstown and moved to the Northern suburbs.

They like Sydney but wanted to get away from Bankstown.
Their daughters were constantly harassed for not wearing headscarves.

Human beings form groups, Mal, they always have and they always will. Birds of a feather just keep flocking together regardless of whether the socialist humanitarians like it or not. And birds of a feather do not like it when birds of a different feather invade their territory and compete for resources.

Social cohesion within groups is achieved by a general consensus as to what constitutes correct behaviour. It may take a long time for almost all members of a particular group to consider that young women wearing skimpy bikinis is suitable apparel on a beach. But once they have made that decision, they become hostile to imported foreigners wandering along Australian beaches insulting Australian women for wearing bikinis.

You seem like a nice humanitarian, Mal. I am sure that you associate with other nice humanitarians who hold exactly the same worldview as you do. If there was an entire subiurb of people like yourself, you would not welcome an influx of Ku Klux Klansmen or Nazis into your community. You and your friends would be hostile to them. It is perfectly normal and natural.

I man who believes in secular democracy, the rule of law, and free speech on social issues. I am hardly going to welcome into my community people who think that secular democracy must be destroyed and replaced by a theocracy where ecclesialstical law replaces common law. I am going to be hostile towaards people who hold up signs saying "behead those who insult the Prophet." I am going to be hostile towards people who treat women like minors, who want to kill homosexuals, who want to kill apostates, and who demand that I submit to their imported values, instead of the other way around.

And that does not make me an "extremist."

If you wanted social cohesion, then importing people in very large numbers who have diametrically opposed values to our own was not the way to achieve it. But it is a great way to bugger up social cohesion, and in that you have no one else to blame except yourself and your peers.

Import millions of third world immigrants from vastly different societies to us and each other and we lose social cohesian.

Gee, who could have predicted that?

I mean, 'diversity' has been a policy goal for about 40 years now, hasn't it?

Shouldn't we be celebrating our 'strength'?

Yep, you can prove your point around here any afternoon LEGO. The lorikeets chase everything away from the bird bath, until they have finished their bathing & feeding.

Wish it was still legal for us to do the same.