First out of the box is Sheikh Feiz Mohammed, head of the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Sydney, who urged children to become martyrs for Islam and mocked Jewish people as pigs in a series of videotaped lectures.

Sheikh Feiz Mohammed, who has spent the past year living in Lebanon, talks on the controversial videotapes of his desire for children to be offered as soldiers defending Islam.

Teach them this, he says, that there is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a Muhajid.

Put in their soft, tender heart the zeal of jihad and the love of martyrdom.

He also ridicules Jewish people as pigs and makes snorting noises, saying they will go to hell.

Next up with the stupid is Prime Minister John Howard, who cheerfully defended his decision to send a goodwill message to the Christian group accused of inciting anti-Muslim hatred, Catch the Fire Ministries

The Prime Minister's DVD message was filmed for a prayer meeting to be held in Melbourne on Australia Day that is expected to attract up to 5000 Christians of different denominations.

In it, he describes Christianity as an enormous force for good and congratulates Catch the Fire for bringing Christians together for Australia Day.

Mr Howard says Christianity has done more than anything else to shape the lives, not only of millions of Australians, but the character of our nation.

Precious. If only Catch the Fire pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot hadn't been dragged through the courts because of an inability to play nicely with people who believe in a different flavoured invisible friend.

Recently, I asked my best mate from school about Nalliah. He is a practising Anglican and is heavily involved in organising church music in the Sydney diocese.

Everyone knows that Danny Nalliah is a fruitloop. He doesn't represent mainstream Christianity, my friend replied.

My friend isn't alone in this view. Prominent Christian leaders (including an Anglican minister) appeared as witnesses in support of the Islamic Council of Victoria's action against Nalliah and his colleague.

Howard has always had trouble understanding that extremist wingnuts are rife in more than one religion, including his own. A bias raised this week by The Age.

All societies have extremists who reject community values and it isn't only Islamic clerics who inhabit the fringe. In Australia, this includes Christian groups such as the Exclusive Brethren and Catch the Fire Ministries. The latter's Pastor Danny Nalliah has said that the mosques and temples of other faiths should be pulled down. He is facing charges of religious vilification, yet no one holds the entire Christian community responsible for him. Prime Minister John Howard has still seen fit to send a recorded message to Catch the Fire that can only be interpreted as supportive, lending credence to Australian Muslims' fears about a double standard. The Troubles of Ireland stand as a warning that religious extremism is not an exclusive Muslim preserve.

The Age has long urged consistency in standing firm against all purveyors of religious or ethnic hatred and suspicion because of the damage that can be done to our harmonious multicultural society, an achievement often remarked upon by visitors. Underpinning this success, though, is a commitment by all who call Australia home to a pluralistic, secular democracy, the values of which — for all the politically inspired handwringing — are actively supported by our laws. Shahram Akbarzadeh, director of Monash University's Centre for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies, wrote in The Age this week: "Australian Muslims are more than happy to comply with the secular rules of this great land because these are the best guarantee for religious freedom. Secular rule is the most effective bulwark against religious intolerance and exclusive claims to ultimate truth." As he observes, Australian Muslims are living an Islamic reformation — the sheikhs (literally old men in Arabic) are an old guard furiously resisting an inevitable and essential process.

While Mohammed, Howard and Nalliah have been busily inserting their feet in their mouths, The Sydney Morning Herald has been digging into the less than sweet-smelling electoral hijinks of the Exclusive Brethren.

It appears that a hate-mongering ad campaign during the 2004 elections, that glorified Howard and vilified the Greens, leads back to Willmac Enterprises; a business run by Exclusive Brethren minion, Mark Mackenzie.

Mackenzie's little company, Willmac Enterprises, was incorporated three weeks before the 2004 election with Mackenzie as the sole shareholder and only director. Despite having capital of only $10, it almost immediately found a small fortune to pay for pro-Howard ads in the Adelaide Advertiser, the Hobart Mercury, suburban papers through the Adelaide Hills, and in John Howard's electorate of Bennelong.

Willmac also paid for the printing and distribution of a pamphlet bitterly resented by the Greens in Tasmania. Turning up in most letterboxes in the island state during the final weeks of the 2004 campaign, the Green Delusion leaflet was the only electoral material that actually carried Mackenzie's name. The fine print read: Authorised by M. William Mackenzie, 11 Baden Powell Place, North Rocks, NSW, 2101.

The cost of all this - $370,461 - put the newcomer Willmac among the biggest spenders on independent or third party campaigns during the election. Mackenzie's company outspent all the usual suspects: Right to Life ($30,555), the Australian Conservation Foundation ($127,099), the Australian Health Insurance Association Ltd ($196,642), the Wilderness Society ($229,073), the National Union of Students ($255,307), and others.

The Greens are less than impressed with the Australian Electoral Commission finding nothing wrong with the illegal tactics used by Willmac Enterprises, who seem more than happy to turn a blind eye to the Brethren's continual usage of fraudulent addresses in their political propaganda and their highly questionable use of a shell company to hide behind.

Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali is more upfront with his political ambitions and has decided to contest the New South Wales Premier's seat in the next state elections. Or at least have one of his minions do it for him. Premier Morris Iemma has asking the Sheik to bring it on.

Mr Iemma said he was looking forward to going head to head with Sheik Hilaly. I'm confident the majority of my electorate, including the majority of Muslim constituents, would back my views every day, he said.

In Lakemba, the Muslim community makes up nearly 13 per cent (8264) of the electorate. Mr Iemma won 64.21 per cent (24,060) of the 39,093 votes cast in the 2003 election.

Oh, for a cold snap to send them all back into hiding.

Fury at Australia cleric comments—BBC News, 18th January 2007.
PM defends 'force for good' Christian message—The Age, 20th January 2007 (via redwolf.newsvine.com).
Lesson of loathing—The Age, 20th January 2007 (via redwolf.newsvine.com).
Preachers of hate must be rejected, but calmly—The Age, 20th January 2007 (via redwolf.newsvine.com).
Where art thou, Brethren?—The Sydney Morning Herald, 20th January 2007 (via redwolf.newsvine.com).
Greens not happy with Exclusive Brethren funding investigation—ABC News Online, 21st January 2007 (via redwolf.newsvine.com).
Mufti v Iemma: shock showdown for Premier's seat—The Sydney Morning Herald, 21st January 2007 (via redwolf.newsvine.com).