I gave up blogging on this topic for many years, largely because I believed the facts of the matter were self-evident to anyone capable of even basic cognition. But it seems that is not the case, so I will proceed to outline my thoughts.

Israel and the USA say that Palestine should not unilaterally attempt to gain the status of statehood without negotiation. This is hypocritical because America did not gain their independence from Britain via that path, nor did Israel have any negotiations with the Palestitians when their state was being formed.

They also say that recent moves like the Unesco vote show that the Palestinians are not genuinely interested in Peace. Being granted membership of Unesco doesn’t actually affect anything on the ground for Israelis, it is largely a symbolic gesture. Settlement-building and home-demolition on the other hand actually do affect Palestinians’ lives and their prospects for a future state.

Israelis and the USA are always going to be like this, I accept that, but what annoys me is when our politicians here blindly toe the line. The only good thing I ever saw from one of the major parties here was Kevin Rudd recommending that Australia abstain from the UN bid for statehood. Shows what a sad state of affairs we are in when it comes to being controlled by the pro-Zionist lobby.

I also think western politicians need to examine these issues when they want to look at why their domestic Muslim youth hold hostile attitudes to the West. It is not because we irrationally hate freedom; it is because the west continues to blindly support injustices against various Muslim peoples perpetrated by Israel or by corrupt puppet rulers.

I came back from a night shift this morning and I saw the headline “Turkey pursues rebels into Iraq”. I was completely confused because I could not imagine why a turkey would chase people so aggressively. That is all. Going to sleep.

This is an article from the Sydney Morning Herald which talks about how a proposal to legalise sound moderators on firearms has been rejected by the NSW government.

I will proceed to outline why this is baseless; an unsuppressed .22LR shot produces a muzzle report of at least around 120 Decibels, which is the same rating that would be given to a noise like a car horn, and does not cause significant pain. A centrefire shot generally produces a noise of around 140-170db and is much more unsafe without hearing protection, but suppressed can be brought down to about 130db, which is still louder than the currently-legal unsuppressed .22LR.

In medicine we have the concept of ‘evidence-based medicine’ which involves looking at treatments, strategies and guidelines and rigourously assessing them to determine their benefit. For example in the case of breast cancer, many women are encouraged to do self-exams, but recently there has been some discussion that these self-examinations do not really increase the overall rate of detection, so any money spent on promoting this practice may be better spent elsewhere (this is something that was discussed in class so I do not have immediate references).

I think it would be good if we had such a thing as evidence-based lawmaking, because there are a lot of laws which pretty much have no basis in reality, especially around firearms. For example, NZ does not restrict firearm suppressors at all, so it would be worth looking at how many gun crimes there have involved their use. Also some European countries actually require suppressors for OH&S reasons, so it would be worth looking into how many people in those countries are being silently assassinated, and then determining whether the suppressor ban actually has any merit. But perhaps that would make too much sense.

Especially agitating to me is this comment from a spokeswoman for the Police Minister:

”The NSW government rejects absolutely any suggestion that moderators or silencers have any place in the community … Currently, legitimate commercial feral animal and pest control professionals can acquire a moderator only with the approval of the Police Commissioner. Changes to this regime have been mooted in a private member’s bill currently before the Parliament, and will be opposed by the NSW government.”

It makes no reference as to why they believe this.

A preliminary investigation by myself seems to suggest that anyone can access an image on facebook if they know the URL of the jpeg file. I am testing this with a control picture which I have set to be viewable by only myself. If you can see it then the loophole exists, in which case it would seem a pretty major oversight by the developers.

Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed has been appointed to the role of ‘Grand Mufti of Australia’.

The point has been raised that he does not speak much English and that it could affect his role. Personally I don’t believe it will be much of a problem, as long as the people working under him are able to effectively engage with the wayward youth.

Some are likely to bring up the point that this is an undemocratic appointment. I for one don’t think that’s really an issue at all; since when have Mufti’s been democratically elected? And it’s not really a position which requires democratic election. Positions like ‘representitive’ would generally have that requirement, since the representative would have to represented the views of his people, but this is not really one of those roles.

My main gripe with this whole story is that he is being appointed as the ‘Grand Mufti of Australia‘. I very much doubt that he will end up engaging with those outside the Eastern capital cities. That is not a criticism of the man himself, but that is just how things work around here. The Muslim communities in the different cities are pretty independent, I think if they want they should just have Muftis in each one. Maybe they already do though, and maybe that’s why he is the ‘Grand Mufti’, I don’t really know how these things work.

The reason I raise that point above is that after living in country Australia for the last four years there has been hardly any engagement with our mosque from the external community, apart from the Tablighi Jamat when they pass through on their travels. I think this holds true for other regional university towns as well. The result of this is that the mosques are run by the GCC international students, and they run it similar to the way (I assume) they run it back home; there isn’t much engagement with women or children or community activities or the sort of things you would see in the city-mosques. And organisations outside that do run national events (like the YMA which I have worked with) only ever really advertise in the capital cities anyway. The only exception I’ve seen is the Al-Ghazzali centre which has events in Newcastle which is a non-capital metropolitan centre. The country is still left out.

In short I hope that if the Australian National Imams Council sees fit to call themselves that then they will at least extend their reach out to those of us who live in what I like to call the ‘real’ Australia and not just their cozy enclaves where halal food and baklava are sold aplenty.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd recently tweeted about some trouble being raised at New York when he tried to board a flight with a jar of vegemite, here is an article from the BBC reporting the story. Apparently Barack Obama doesn’t like it.

Today was our SAQ, or Short Answer Question exam.

The following are the questions that I remember

Rotator cuff

1. Name the muscles
2. Describe their nerve supplies
3. Describe movements you would ask the patient to do to test their function

A girl with a reaction to her new earrings – oozing and swelling/redness from the piercing site – contact dermatitis

1. Diagnosis
2. Tests to confirm
3. What is the procedure of the test and what type of hypersensitivity involved
4. Management

A boy with a fractured arm, various pictures and X-rays (supracondylar fracture of humerus)

1. Diagnosis
2. Clinical examination
3. Principles of operative treatment
4. complications of the injury

Man who cut his finger (index proximal phalange segment) on corrugated iron and presented 7 hours later

1. What underlying structures might be involved
2. What are possible complications of the injury, repair and inadequate follow-up (name six)

Woman with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

1.  Outline pathology of the disease
2. What aspect of family history would you look for
3. What investigations would you order
4. What drug would you use for facial rash

Man with single swollen PIP on hand plus 10 year history of general joint pain and swelling, ‘lump’ on ear (looks like tophus)

1. What aspects would you look for on history
2. Is a joint aspiration indicated? Why?
3. What other tests would you order

3 Year old child with generalised scaly rash sparing face, and also papules on feet and other arease, weeping yellow crust

1. Diagnoses
2. What aspects would you look for on history

Woman with swollen red eye and hypopion 273km from nearest ophthalmologist. Ophthalmology equipment available to you as a rural GP

1. Tests
2. Diagnoses
3. complications
4. Management

I don’t have much to say on this topic, except to relate two events.

After September 11 Muslims became known to Westerners mainly for their association with terrorism. This upset me as a child because to me Islam was about other things, like being a good person, self control, and being part of a rich history that included, among its battles, remarkable achievements in the arts and sciences. So to see the majority of references to Islam, especially the jokes, being related to terrorism was very depressing for me back then, and I always wanted to tell people there was so much more to it. But I think I have gotten over it now. Not because I can rationalise that it’s okay, but because it’s happened so much I have probably become desensitised to it.

The second event I wanted to relate was to do with my first flight into Australia. My family and I first came into Australia some time early in 1995 on a holiday. We flew in on a Qantas flight and during the flight my (bearded) Dad asked me if I wanted to see the cockpit. I said okay and he called one of the flight attendants and asked if we could see the cockpit. She went off somewhere, came back and told us we could. We got up and went to the front of the plane and had a look inside. I remember there being many instruments and dials, and one of the pilots turning around and saying hello, it was all very interesting to me as a small child. I remember my Dad telling me that one of them was the pilot and the other was a co-pilot. I enjoy being able to tell this story to people today because it is something that would probably no longer be allowed, especially to a Muslim child with a bearded Dad on a western airline. I feel sorry for my brother who was born in 2002 who is unlikely to get an opportunity like this, and I feel sad neither myself nor our Dad will be able to take him there. However some things probably will be easier for him; now that general awareness of Islam and Muslims has increased it is not so awkward anymore to explain that you need to pray five times a day, or eat halal food. But I think I prefer the life before.

Tonight was the UNEMSA Med Revue.

The performances were really great, not just in their artistic quality but also in their content, I could relate to many of the messages they conveyed, some of which I will proceed to detail below;

The first was a parody of the Belle (Bonjour) introduction piece from Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’, about a city girl from Sydney who gets a letter confirming her medical school place in Armidale, but neither she, nor her friends, knew where it was.

There was also a Journey parody, but I couldn’t follow the story that well.

There was another parody of Wonderwall about the ambiguity in our course. Our course is deliberately structured to give students what the designers call ‘tolerance of ambiguity’. I think it’s a load of nonsense and the song captured my sentiments very well.

Another detailed the constant changes in the person who holds the title of Year Manager for some of the year levels.

I don’t know if they are going to release these videos online, but they have made a youtube channel for it here. May contain lewd content.