Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

Last minute Christmas shopping: Five things to avoid. This weekend millions of Americans will take to the mall to get last-minute gifts for their loved ones . They will pour through the already-picked-over selections to try and find "the gift." For those of you who are forced into the mall this weekend : I'm sorry . Here are five things to avoid as we enter the final shopping days before Christmas . 1 \. Believe the best bargains are found if you wait until the last minute . While it's true , retailers are starting their after-Christmas sales earlier than ever - just as the Christmas shopping season starts before you get to Thanksgiving dessert - seasoned shoppers know(1) value and(2) bargain do not mean the same thing . We all know just because something is cheap doesn't mean it's "a bargain" or a "value." It's only a bargain if it is truly something you want or need, and are able to get it at a deep discount . Often last minute shoppers don't know what they want . For those shopping this weekend you will have to settle for what circumstances present , which in many cases will be cheap materials, but not a bargains . The value is the ratio of quality (or quantity) to price . Low quality at a low price is no value , especially when compared to high quality at a low price . Values tend go early in the holiday shopping season . Cheap stays on the shelf until it's all that's left . 2 . Believe there is still money to spend in your budget this month . Last minute shopping, particularly for December, means buying during the back half of the month . That's typically when most income for the month is already committed , and any incremental spending means "borrowing against the future." It's better to buy early - and spread the purchasing over time - so you can more easily absorb the expense . Nobody likes that "January surprise." And for new last- minute shoppers, that surprise can be surprisingly BIG! 3 . Believe you can still find "just the right gift for Uncle George." Waiting until the last minute to shop means having to make compromises . Time and selection are your two greatest "friends" when you shop early . But for last minute shoppers they become your two greatest nightmares : you're pressed for time and all the best colors, sizes and values, are gone . Don't put yourself under a lot of pressure to find that perfect gift . At this stage in the game, a gift will do . 4 . Believe you still need "just one more" gift . We should all take a lesson out of Santa's playbook: 1. Make a list. 2. Check it twice . Too often last minute shopping isn't just an indication you've waited to the bitter end to buy those needed gifts . It also means you've waited too long to plan that shopping . And when that happens you're never quite sure if you have all the gifts you need (it seems keeping track of what you've bought is just as hard as planning what to buy in advance!) . So you keep buying just one more gift... just to make sure you've covered all your bases . By the way, that's when shoppers are especially susceptible to impulse buying . An attention-arresting display will attract last minute shoppers like honey attracts flies! 5 . Believe that the shopper has the advantage . While it is true that the Saturday before Christmas is still one of the busiest shopping days of the year , the advantage has swung back in favor of the retailer . With fewer hours to shop until Santa fills his sack, the retailer has the upper hand , especially if they've had a strong Q4 . For some, shopping the weekend before Christmas can bring the ultimate sense of that holiday experience . For those who enjoy shopping as a pastime, it's one of the best times to be in the mall , but for those folks who need to fulfill a shopping list, it can be one of the worst . The early bird still does get the worm . And the late bird gets ... the opportunity to pick over the dregs with a lot of other "late birds." With the brief time remaining before Christmas, use it to "shop for fun" not for necessity . It will truly help keep you in the Christmas spirit .
Here are five things to avoid as we enter the final shopping days before Christmas This weekend millions of Americans will take to the mall to get last-minute gifts for their loved ones

Muslims in the news only when they're behind the gun. Ahmed Merabat was the first of the 12 innocents killed in Wednesday's targeted attack on the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo . The 42-year-old French Muslim policeman was executed on the sidewalk of Paris' 11th borough - the enclave where Charlie Hebdo's headquarters is located . Merabat was shot, point-blank, by one of the three assassins, minutes before they broke into Charlie Hebdo's offices, and slaughtered the magazine's top editor and celebrated cartoonists . The coverage of the "Paris shootings" centred almost exclusively on Stephane Charbonnier, Georges Wolinski, Jean Cabut and Bernard Verlhac - the prominent and unyieldingly provocative minds behind Charlie Hebdo . The first victim, Ahmed Merabat, was purged from the headlines . The political and representational ramifications that come with highlighting Merabat's victimhood cannot be ignored . First ,  it complicates the broader narrative that rigidly caricatures Muslims as terrorists, outsiders and marginals . And second, refutes the state-sponsored indictment of Muslims in France as perpetrators of subversion, instead of law-abiding citizens . Muslim and French . Apart from the obvious tragedy, the Charlie Hebdo killings manifest the baseline that Muslim identity is only relevant - and indeed newsworthy - when the subject is standing behind the gun. Not in front of it . In most everywhere in the world, but especially France - the architect of modern Islamophobia . Muslims comprise a considerable percentage of the French polity . Islam is the nation's second biggest religion , and figures place the Muslim population at 5 percent to 10 percent of France's 66 million citizens . Islam's size, and demographical rise, has spurred some of the most draconian policies against Muslims in modern times . The headscarf ban in 2004, followed by illegalisation of the niqab, or face covering, in 2010, codified core Islamophobic ideas . This legislation also functioned as a firm and fervent declaration by the state that Muslim and French identities were at odds and irreconcilable . The French laicite model provided the structural underpinnings to carry forward Islamophobic legislation . But more nefariously, guise it under the banner of state-sponsored secularism . Expectedly, the religious expression bans disparately impacted French Muslims . In addition ,  they chilled bodily and verbal expressions of Muslim identity . The state aim of compelling secularisation upon its Muslim citizenry was based upon the civilisational binary, and ultimatum, to choose between "Islam and the West", "Muslim lands or France" . Despite this ultimatum handed down from the state, the overwhelming majority of French Muslims exercised their faith amid pervasive bigotry . And simultaneously, embraced their national identities as Frenchmen and women . Extreme voices from within the state, and French civil society, looked to the three terrorists as representatives of the nation's 3 to 6 million Frenchmen and women . Collateral indictment of French Muslims, by politicians and media alike, infused with an already fervent culture of Islamophobia on the ground, will surely incite violent backlash against Muslims and Muslim communities in the country . Although unimaginable before Wednesday, French Islamophobia stands to become far more severe and strident . The conflation of the terrorist's acts with France's Muslim population, from the perspective of hatemongers, holds the latter vicariously liable . This connection, that links three deviant actors with an entire faith and millions of disconnected citizens, will fuel rabid backlash against Muslims in France, and more than likely, claim additional victims . Centring Muslim victims, instead of villains, would mitigate the backlash considerably . In addition , focusing on the heroics of Merabat, instead of the evil of the three terrorists, asserts - and inserts - a competing narrative that France's Muslims are everyday citizens : Citizens with jobs, families, and interpretations of Islam that condemn violence, and contradict the malignant caricature of the faith constructed by the state . Ahmed Merabat was more than a victim . He was far more than merely a Muslim . He, in both life and especially in death, stands as an archetype for the overwhelming majority of French Muslims . A law-abiding citizen, Merabat harmonised his religious identity with the responsibilities of being a Frenchman . He was both French and Muslim , an existential integration eviscerated by the longstanding Islamophobic discourse in France, and ignored by the media firestorm following the attack . Although the first victim of the attack, Ahmed Merabat's story was shot down from the news headlines . And his name and face absent from the ongoing stream of reports and narratives emanating from Paris on Wednesday . Inserting him into the story, and countering the barrage of vile Muslim representations with a rebuttal of victimhood and valour, will likely save lives in France . Most importantly, retelling the story from the perspective of Ahmed Merabat will not only reveal that Muslim and French identity are reconcilable, but also resilient .
The 42-year-old French Muslim policeman was executed on the sidewalk of Paris' 11th borough - the enclave where Charlie Hebdo's headquarters is located

I was radicalised by a neo-Nazi group. It could just have easily been Isis. It wasn't long after my 13th birthday that I descended into a spiral of heavy drug and alcohol abuse . It wasn't long after the abuse began that I met Mal, aged 29 . It wasn't that I hadn't learned my wrongs from rights, more that they didn't matter to the group of kids I then found myself around . Grades or sporting prowess accounted for nothing . Instead ,  accomplishment was measured by something that might actually be achievable: criminal records and the ability to tolerate copious amounts of drugs . Brownie points were awarded for any period of incarceration, be it in a prison cell or psychiatric facility . Mal's age alone was enough to earn him a significant amount of street cred in our misfit group of teenage boys , yet it was his history of extreme violence that ensured his approval rating was sky high . He was not just an incredibly violent man, but apparently belonged to a group of them . This made him even more attractive . Mal was a member of a then-notorious neo-Nazi organisation with a track record of serious criminal activity . He regularly turned up at whatever suburban park or abandoned house we found ourselves in as we sought to consume drugs and booze away from prying eyes . I didn't find it at all odd that a man pushing 30 was interested in hanging out with a bunch of delinquent teens . The more drunk we became, the more compelling his violent stories seemed . One night Mal invited me to tag along to one of the group's semi-regular gatherings . As I listened to one of the speakers rally his audience against the "foreign invaders" , I was immediately hooked . It was not I that had problems, I was told, it was people of another skin colour . The confusion that had been my constant companion, now viewed through this extremist lens, had suddenly become both figuratively and literally black and white . No longer was I to blame for anything . I didn't need to look at my part in my own downward spiral, as teachers, family members and police kept telling me . All life's troubles, it seemed, were the doing of non-whites . It was a relief to no longer feel responsible for my own - and others' - suffering, but better than that, I was now being called upon to be a vital part of "the solution" . It is, I imagine, the same sentiment a potential jihadist feels when he or she foolishly believes that they're being righteously called upon to fight for the creation of an Islamic state , as if that might fix what are largely personal troubles . I became part of a group that would drive around in the leader's ageing hatchback, plastering racist posters on walls and telegraph poles calling for action against the "Asian invasion" . Too dysfunctional to stage any coordinated sort of attack, our race war consisted of nothing more than starting fights with non-whites who were minding their own business . Since we were always heavily intoxicated, more often than not our victims survived the attacks in far better shape than we did . Unlike today , when a disenfranchised youth has a raft of violent ideologies to be swept up in , it was then my pure fortune that my only real option for extremist activity was this poorly led group . Ongoing action by Asio and the now-defunct special branch of the NSW police and, mostly, the self-implosion of key individuals in the group, meant that by the time I joined it was only a shadow of its former strength . Thanks to strong family support together with professional help, I was able to leave the group and its racist ideology well behind . I was eventually diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder following a case of long-term bullying at school . While that has helped me understand what drove me to this group , it is clear that all the factors that leave a young person susceptible to extremist ideology- poverty, lack of education, inadequate mental health support services and general social exclusion - still widely exist across western nations . I cringe when I hear our political leadership deliver yet another speech extolling a commitment to fighting extremism, yet in almost the time it takes to draw their next breath, go on to announce cuts to community services groups, the kind of organisations whose roles are vital in addressing the risk factors that leave one vulnerable to extremism . It's not that Orwell was completely off the mark when he said"people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf" . It is just that by the time the men with guns are needed, the radicalisation process has already happened . This is a process that cannot be stopped by sending troops to regions where most locals couldn't even spell "Australia", let alone have the capacity or even the desire to attack us . The clear and present danger today, as events from Oklahoma City through most recently to Paris have shown, is that the biggest threats are of the home-grown variety . The real frontline in the war on terror is to be found in our education and mental health services . Until such institutions are resourced as freely as our military is , then extremists will be here to stay .

Brownie points were awarded for any period of incarceration, be it in a prison cell or psychiatric facility Ongoing action by Asio and the now-defunct special branch of the NSW police and, mostly, the self-implosion of key individuals in the group, meant that by the time I joined it was only a shadow of its former strength