I See A Tall Dark Stranger

The Liberals' campaign to take control of the city gets nuttier than a fruitcake with their anointed 'deputy mayor' Keith Douglas consulting his live-in 'psychic' girlfriend, Zandra Marie de Vere.

Oddly enough Douglas describes their work in his now defunct web site as:

We specialised in business intelligence, market forecasting and risk assessment and built a very successful operation that became a resource for businesses, companies and entrepeneurs throughout Asia. Royalty, Government Ministers, Ambassadors, famous actors and performers became clients, friends or aquaintances.

Um okaaaaaay.

Pity she couldn't foresee the future when interviewed last August when Douglas announced his intention of standing for Gold Coast mayor:

THE parapsychologist partner of mayoral candidate Keith Douglas has delved into the future and says her man will win.

By January 10, 2008 Douglas announced he was joining the Liberal Party as candidate for Division 3.

Zandra Marie de Vere said: "If things stay the way they are he will get in.

Didn't she see that one coming?

"But I do feel that there could be two more men to enter the race, and possibly a woman which will make things more challenging."...

Calling Tom Tate a woman? Ouch. Tate stood down from a local Chamber of Commerce to campaign in December.

...Ms de Vere said she gained her powers after being struck by lightning as a six-year-old.

She was left temporarily blinded but claimed that within 24 hours she was
able to visualise the location of the bodies from the Moors Murders in England.

Really?

I'd have thought if she could do that there would be no need for another psychic muscling in on her turf in 1995.

She also claims to have helped the cops on the Yorkshire Ripper case, but according to Google there are no other references to it so one supposes we'll have to take her word for it.

So how good are her predictions? According to her she's brilliant. According to this report from The Skeptic she's a, well we'll let them put it in their words shall we?

Indeed it doesn't require extensive research to prove that Zandra-Marie has bungled nearly every prediction she has made.

That's gotta hurt.

...The pair live high above the city in their Main Beach penthouse overlooking The Spit but both are quick to point out that both have worked hard to amass their fortune...

I'll bet they have. On her web site Madam Zandra has a minimum charge of $175 for an e-mail, $150 for an MP3 (add $10 if you want it on CD), $150 for a 10 minute phone call ($10 per minute thereafter).

And these are the people that the Liberal Party want running the city of the Gold Coast - a booze 'n' bikini tout and a flake. Sheesh!

-- Nora

Tom Tate - Or Tom T'n'A?

Warning: Most links not work-safe.

IT'S hard to believe that the Australian Liberal Party - at least the one led until recently by John Howard - and the Queensland Liberal Party are parts of the same whole.

Howard led the Libs to a Federal election as a conservative party, espousing family values. (His loss was not necessarily a rejection of those values by the electorate generally - the Rudd victory was based on other issues.)

In Queensland, the State Libs are about to go to an election as the wild party, espousing Wicked Weasel values through the man they've chosen for the top job of all the top jobs they're going for in upcoming Local Government elections.

What exactly is going on between the ears of the State Libs' head honchos when they select a bloke best known for staging 'Australia’s hottest pool party' to run for the Mayor of the Gold Coast?

Tom Tate owns The Islander Resort in Surfers Paradise which hosts the annual finals of the Miss Hawaiian Tropic Australia bikini contest and mine host throws himself into the role with vigor:

Friday night saw the girls invited to a private function hosted by Tom Tate at the Outrigger Cafe!

... he has high standards:

Clubhouse Wildcard Final, Surfers, QLD
Wednesday 2 February 2005
In the past, Mr Tom Tate, the owner of The Islander Resort, The Clubhouse and The Troccadero Entertainment Centre has chosen the two models to represent his businesses through a photo line-up. However, this year Tom wanted to see the girls on stage before making a decision. So the call went out for the best of the best.

... and he's a man with ideas:

Beer and bikini babes - what else could you ask for? This was the idea behind the first ever Gold Coast Brewpub Calendar. The brainchild of Tom Tate, the owner of the Gold Coast Brewpub as well as the Islander Resort (the official Miss HT accommodation and venue...), the calendar was shot during the finalists’ stay in Surfers Paradise...

Note to Libs - it's 2008, not 1978. Bruce Small has been dead for years and the people of the Gold Coast deserve to be treated with a little more respect and a little less contempt these days.

The man the Libs would have as Gold Coast Mayor is described on his official Liberal Party web page as married with four children. Indeed, he was pictured with them in the Gold Coast Bulletin this week.

In another six or seven years, his daughter will be old enough to parade round daddy's pool while leering radio contest winners peer up from inflatable chairs in the water and others ogle and hoot from the sidelines.

If she wins, perhaps she'll get to pose for a pic with dad.

-- Nick

A Graphic Illustration

Once upon a time newspapers at least only romanticised criminals who could be passed off as big-time, such as gangsters like Squizzy Taylor who gave the appearance of being 'big men' (metaphorically speaking, of course).

But these days the tarts of the media just can't help themselves. They'll romanticise any bottom of the barrel crim, especially if there are tits under 30 involved:

HER passion for street art sent her halfway around the world on a year-long sojourn to learn all the tricks of graffiti from London's secretive underground community... to express her flair with a spray can... (in) laneways in the industrial area at nearby Marrickville.

Yesterday, friends of the vibrant graphic artist made an emotional pilgrimage to the Eastern Suburbs drain where she lost her life to farewell the St Peters student.

It's a grave pity she's dead. As they say, it's a waste. But if she wanted to be a graphic artist as she claimed, she could have become one without graffiti.

The fact is:

...she loved the thrill of edgy street work in a risky location...

And she was a criminal, a member of the widespread and loosely associated gangs of graffiti vandals who are a blight on our communities. As the story notes, Legge was even able to go on a virtual study exchange program to London!

Recently, in one Gold Coast location, a brand new wall of attractive feature stone beside a park was tagged by some useless drone before it was even finished. Who know is he or she is among those garffiti vandals increasingly used by other criminal gangs such as bikies to run and sell drugs.

Additionally, it is not uncommon in the hardcore graffiti community to use rape of girlfriends as a weapon to warn each other out of claimed territories.

So to turn a blind eye to a vandal's tag is to close ones eyes to a creeping criminality which can destroy everyone's lives.

The Daily Telegraph's eulogy seeks to raise a tear for this person and indeed her story does deserve one for her parents' loss and her own wilful waste.

But the media needs to stop romanticising criminals and also realise that, as the saying goes, the difference between art and vandalism is permission.

-- Nick

So GLAAD

Surely the pun was not intended:

For the second straight year, ABC led nominees for (nine) awards from (GLAAD) an organization that monitors depictions of gays and lesbians in the media. (emphasis added)

It's ironic that America's free-to-air ABC should do so well in the eyes of a homosexual lobby group while 'alternative' pay-TV station Bravo, the channel that brought you Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, garners only three nominations.

Looks like the mainstream is doing all the proselytising GLAAD's heart desires.

But is the paranoid little bitchboy in Ugly Betty really their idea of a good role model?

-- Nick

Sea Spray

How tragic:

TWO people who drowned in a flooded storm water drain in Sydney's east were were spraying graffiti on the walls at the time, police said.

-- Nick

Vulgarious (adj)

Nora's 82-year-old Irish grandmother is famous.

Her newly coined word 'vulgarious' made the cut for Urban Dictionary.com.

The definition is thus:

People whose uncouth actions/behaviour are also amusing.

-- Nora

This Perfect Day

Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford rips into parents here:

...blasted parents for failing to socially educate their children and has ordered teachers to pick up the slack. ...said today's teenagers were the most "under-parented generation in our history" and dramatic changes were needed to stem bullying, drug and alcohol abuse, depression and other youth behavioural problems. "Parents have dropped the ball," Mr Welford said.

Queensland Police Minister Judy Spence tears teenagers a new one there:

"CRAZY and stupid" is how (Spence) has described the drunken and high-speed behaviour of several young drivers nabbed by police since the start of the year. "...young drivers don't seem to care that they're endangering themselves and others."

And Queensland Transport Minister John Mickel flicks it all straight back to parents:

...to take greater responsibility for the actions of any of their teenage children who drive.

All three throw up their hands in despair and say 'no wonder we have to take responsibility instead':

Announcing a controversial "social and emotional" education strategy to start in state schools this year, Mr Welford said teachers would be asked to play a bigger parental role... to help schoolchildren cope with anxiety, failure and bad behaviour – lessons, he says, many no longer get at home.

and:

It totally vindicates the Government's decision to introduce tough new restrictions on young drivers."

No mention of the fact that it is precisely the liberal socialist policies of the last 40 years supported even today by Welford, Spence and Mickel that have created these problems.

Moves such as this represent a grab by the Left for a long-envied prize - total control of the raising of children and it is achieved in the standard socialist manner with a proclamation that 'it's for your own good'.

-- Nick

The Sins Of The Father

SITE OWNER'S NOTE: This post was originally conceived as a peg to hang images of the 1970s comic book edition of Cross And The Switchblade and scans of pulp fiction covers for Nifty Knick Knacks. However the events of this week turned what was supposed to be a light piece into this piece on youth behaviour and crime.

News of teenage violence today is as shocking as it is common.

There is almost daily news of young gangs holding entire neighbourhoods to ransom, violently drunk party-goers bashing someone whose equally drunken remark offended them, psychopathicly murderous females or simply opportunistic criminal activity.

At the same time, the media shakes itself out of its summer silly season news torpor to create a celebrity out of a smart-arsed teenager whose drunken, orgiastic riot masquerading as a party.

As many commentators begin to question 'what the hell has gone wrong with our teenagers?', Nick and Nora invite you to step into their way-back machine to give you a little insight into what's wrong with today's youth.

We'll rapidly rewind the 'Trust No 1' of the 1990s, the post apocalyptic 1980s, the seriously bummed out 1970s, the anarchic 1960s to take a pause in the 1950s.

Not the nostalgic-soaked Happy Days but an era when the headlines screamed 'Seven Teen Agers Murder Polio Victim'.

The crime was a brutal one, members of a gang called the Egyptian Kings, having lost a pay-per-player stick ball game with rival gang Jesters, decided to compound their welshing with vengeance.

One night they lay in wait for their foes to appear, two teenage boys wandered through the park.

They were beaten and stabbed. One of the boys, a 15 year old who suffered a limp as a result of polio was killed.

So sensational did that crime and associated trial become, it finally awakened people to the reality of street violence. It also happened 50 years ago.

The crime and trial did two things. It resonated with Broadway audiences:

ACTION
Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke,
You gotta understand,
It's just our bringin' up-ke
That gets us out of hand.
Our mothers all are junkies,
Our fathers all are drunks.
Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks!

ACTION AND JETS
Gee, Officer Krupke, we're very upset;
We never had the love that ev'ry child oughta get.
We ain't no delinquents,
We're misunderstood.
Deep down inside us there is good!

A powerful radio show about the Michael Farmer murder 50 years on is here. One of the commentators in the radio program is Nicky Cruz.

His story of transformation from criminal gang member to gospel preacher is told in part in The Cross And The Switchblade which became a best-selling book, a not-so-good movie and serialised here in comic book form.

The Cross And The Switchblade tells the story of a small town pastor, so shocked by the violence went to New York to share the gospel.

Admittedly naive, David Wilkinson's honest interest in the physical and spiritual welfare of gang members over five years of welfare and ministry won many of them over.

So was there anything particular about the 1950s that would cause a generation to run amok?

With the benefit of hindsight we can see some similarities - lack of spiritual direction, parents who are themselves dysfunctional to the point where the only familial connection their kids experience is in gangs.

But not all children involved in criminal activity or who find themselves victims of crime and violence are poor or ill-educated, indeed the Corey Worthingtons or the Matthew Stanleys of the world come from decidedly middle-class, relatively well off families.

So what went wrong?

For further insight, step back into the way-back machine for a trip past the 1940s when war ruled the world, the 1930s when the effects of the Great Depression bit hard to the Roaring 1920s, home to flappers, gangsters, wild parties and hedonistic wealth.

There is a scene the 1936 film My Man Godfrey in which the title character has it out with the brattish twentysomething daughter of his employer:

Cornelia Bullock: You can't go on like this forever. You really like me and you're afraid to admit it, aren't you?
Godfrey: You want me to tell you what I REALLY think of you?
Cornelia Bullock: Please do.
Godfrey: As Smith or as a butler?
Cornelia Bullock: Choose your own weapon.
Godfrey: You won't hold it against me?
Cornelia Bullock: It's your day off.
Godfrey: Very well. You belong to that unfortunate category that I would call the "Park Avenue brat". A spoiled child who's grown up in ease and luxury... who's always had her own way... and who's misdirected energies are so childish that they hardly deserve the comment, even of a butler on his off Thursday.
Cornelia Bullock: [hurt and angry] Thank you for a very lovely portrait.

Today there are a great deal of 'Park Avenue brats' who have grown up indulged with distractions and material possessions, wanting for nothing but consistent, effective discipline, the setting of boundaries and a realisation that the world doesn't revolve around them.

Gold Coast Bulletin columnist Robyn Wuth is on the right path when she wrote this week:

There you are, Australia. That's the youth of today -- aren't you proud?

Take a good look at the iGeneration and bear this frightening thought in mind -- this idiot and his stupid mates could be running the country in the next generation.

God help us all.

This is what the world is churning out these days and we have no one but ourselves to blame, us and the education system for turning out these ignorant little twits who are yet to have a thought, for teaching them more about their legal rights as horrid little brats instead of the three Rs.

Us, and the Government, and the legal system for making it harder and harder to discipline our children.

Us, and computer games, iPods and the internet for helping to turn out a generation of selfish little show-offs, publicity whores who want their 15 minutes of fame and then some.

Also, blame the parents of the 500 other kids who turned up and went wild. Where the hell were you? Did any one of them know where their kids were and what they were up to? I doubt it.

We can all feast on a sizeable portion of finger-pointing pie...

Long story, short: what's wrong with the kids of today? It's not just their parents, but also their grandparents, great grandparents and great, great grandparents.

The solution doesn't begin with government programs, police intervention or social workers. It begins with us.

What example do we set in our own behaviour and the standards we want to see in ourselves and others?

-- Nora

Interesting Times Ahead

In office less than two months (of which he spent a fortnight on holiday) and Kevin Rudd has given up on interest rates already:

KEVIN Rudd has warned homeowners of "tough times ahead" as the Reserve Bank strongly indicated that struggling families face another interest rate rise next month.

Not his fault of course:

Last night Mr Rudd said any interest rate rises in coming months were a legacy of the Howard-Costello Government.

Rudd inherited a robust economy from Howard and Costello but apparently it's now a basket case:

"Now Australian families face some tough times ahead, with inflation expected to continue rising," he said.

Nothing to do, of course, with the banks taking Rudd and treasurer Wayne Swan for the chumps they are with their pre-emptive rate rise last week and the coming storm with the unions over payback for buying Labor the election.

The ALP's Queensland Dream Team may be realising about now - the uncomfortable-looking Mr Swan, especially - that it's easy to be big fish in the State Government pond but there are bigger piranha at Federal level and they're about to be filleted.

-- Nick

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves*

We salute the life of outstanding New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, who in 1953, with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first men to conquer Everest.

By all accounts a humble humanitarian as well.

Mountaineer
1 1/2 oz Blended Whiskey
1/4 tsp. Dry Vermouth
1/4 tsp. Sweet Vermouth
1/4 tsp. Lemon Juice
1 Egg White

Shake all ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and serve.

-- Nora

*Sir Edmund Hillary

All Care, No Responsibility

SIX women have reported being raped during Surf Coast schoolies weeks.

According to the Geelong Advertiser, some of the alleged victims told police they had been abandoned by their friends at the time of the incidents because they were too drunk.

So what does this tell you?

-- Nora

If Freddie Jumped Off A Bridge...

Learning nothing from the abject failure of such schemes elsewhere, the NSW Government proposes this:

WEEKEND and mid-week jail sentences will be scrapped under a plan to be considered by State Cabinet. Criminals could also be forced to look for a job and be subject to electronic monitoring, curfews and drug testing under the proposed Community Corrections Orders... despite (jail) inflicting a "short, sharp shock" to criminals... Under the plan, offenders sentenced for crimes attracting jail terms - excluding murder and other serious indictable offences - would be sentenced to a prison term that would then be suspended and replaced by a CCO.

The proposals are similar to weak-kneed approaches in other States and particularly in the UK where crime is now very nearly out of control.

-- Nick

Cold Comfort

Bad news:

Park ranger Ray Bellringer said 59 people were believed missing in the area since records began in 1907 and it was not uncommon for remains to be found 20 or 30 years after someone had disappeared.

Good news:

"It is perfect for scientists, because we can use the data to know the speed of the glacier," Mr Bellringer said.

-- Nick

Setting The Agenda

I'm a recent subscriber to Murdoch's Notebook (one of the only women's magazines on the market that doesn't double as a second rate gossip rag).

I generally love every article but I'm rather disappointed by psychotherapist Carolyn Parfitt's rather one-sided feature on teenage homosexuality.

It is somewhat fallacious to suggest that a 15-year-old girl has the emotional and psychological maturity to be sure that she is a lesbian.

To immediately come down on one side of the equation smacks of agenda setting.

Many teenagers and young adults experience a period of same sex attraction, particularly in the early days of determining their adult identity and when the flux of hormones come on stream. This often makes early sexual attraction unfocused and somewhat random.

To promote this natural process as evidence of homosexuality is doing this girl and her mother no favours at all.

It is important for parents to guide their children during this time, exploring with their child why they have these feelings. Considering that less than 4% of the population is homosexual, it is more likely that the attraction this girl feels is less sexual and more emotional. It may also be that this teenager is looking for a peer identity group that is outside the mainstream because she herself feels alienated from her 'normal' peers.

This is quite normal too.

Unpolitically correct as it may be, it is a fact that experimenting too early with sexual behaviour, whether hetero or homosexual, has profound psychological consquences and health risks.

-- Nora

Daiquiri Days

We've been very remiss in not posting any cocktail recipes for a while.

Don't worry, Nick and Nora have not gone teetotal (what a gruesome thought!) - here's what we're enjoying over the Christmas New Year break.

Frozen Daiquiri
1 1/2 oz white rum
1/2 oz orange liqueur
1 1/2oz lime juice
1 tsp sugar
Ice
Blend with half a cup of your favourite seasonal fruit (pre cut and frozen). The orange liqueur can be substituted for an appropriate fruit liqueur (eg - peach or mango schnapps).

-- Nora

If You Want To Know The Time, Bash A Policeman

Violence against police in the US has been around so long it's almost a cliche. It's been around a long time in the UK as well but this is appalling:

The amount of police time lost to sickness because of violent assaults on front line officers rose sharply last year, new figures have revealed. The total time lost was about 37,000 days in the year to March 2007, 15 per cent higher than in the previous year. The lost time cost the taxpayer around £3 million.

Closer to home:

THREE police officers who were attending a disturbance have been injured on the Gold Coast in an alleged attack by a couple... The male officers attended a disturbance on Orchid Avenue shortly before 4am (AEST) today, arresting two men for public nuisance.

...while the officers were waiting for transport, a group of people surrounded them, with one man allegedly punching an officer in the face. The officer used capsicum spray on the man, who then fled down Cavill Avenue before being tackled by a second officer... the man struggled with the officers, prompting his girlfriend to allegedly smash a bottle over the back of one policeman.

Meanwhile:

Suicides in prison rose by more than a third last year and more than doubled for women, new figures show.

I don't buy the 'overcrowding' excuse offered by penal reformers in the UK where this report comes from.

Flagrant disregard for the law - both as a concept and as the copper you'll bash for arresting your boyfriend but call for help when your boyfriend's bashing you - and an inability to deal with the consequences of one's behaviour:

Nearly half of those who committed suicide were awaiting trial or sentencing.

...indicate a society that has deep problems.

-- Nick

Censoring Censorship

I am a Christian who is against censorship. In fact I'll go further - I don't believe that Christians ought to support 'censorship' at all.

For the purpose of this argument, censorship is defined as the imposition by the state on what individual may or may not view in the privacy of their own home.

Censorship is one of those convenient words - a shorthand that has so many meanings that one has to be quite specific concerning its use.

In fact most of us practice censorship every day.

Every time one stops to think before speaking in order avoid misunderstanding, unnecessary offense or boorish behaviour, it is a form of censorship.

This is a good thing, it makes society a nicer place to be.

Self-censorship is only an unnecessary attribute if you're a hermit.

We have a national film and television classification board whose role in years gone by would be described as censors.

Now no one could argue that classification is a bad thing.

People then make their own decision how they exercise their internal censor (it used to be called a conscience).

Jeffrey Overstreet, a film reviewer with Christianity Today addresses this point in a fine essay on the subject of R-rated films.

Many Christians are not comfortable with art that reflects the complexity and the darkness of the world. Many would prefer movies that make them comfortable, or that steer their attentions away from the problems in the world and the rough edges of worldly people. They prefer movies that tell them that Christians are clearly "the good guys" and everybody else, well, they're the bad guys.

And they do not discern the difference between portraying/exposing wickedness — and actually condoning wickedness.

They want Christian critics to condemn movies that portray the reality of evil, because dealing with evil is a discomforting, painful, sometimes horrifying process.

They have accused me of celebrating works that 'advance profane causes' rather than considering the truth that I hope they will see in contemporary cinema."

The statement is true beyond reel life too.

To avoid confrontations with evil, the profane or the gratuitous by suggesting 'somebody (usually the government) should do something about it' is laziness at best and negligent at worse.

And to be even more clear here, it's not only Christians who are guilty of thinking like this.

The case in point is the Federal Labor Government's decision to make content filters mandatory on ISPs and requiring people to opt out.

This is in stark contrast to previous Liberal Government's provision of home PC based filters on which the onus was on the computer owner to request. That's the equivalent of classification. It became the responsibility of the homeowner, not the state.

In addition to the technical difficulties and civil liberties concerns, there is an another issue that has only been touched upon perfunctorily and that is parental responsibility.

From a Judeo-Christian perspective we are taught that the responsibility for moderating our own behaviour and that of raising children is our own. Not the state's.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

Why? So as adults..

...we henceforth be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and their cunning and craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; (Ephesians 4:14)

And as someone who hung around with prostitutes and standover merchants, Jesus was sure to have encountered plenty 'naughty' frescoes but he never called for the Romans authorities or the Jewish religious hierarchy to put in the 1st Century equivalent of an Internet porn filter.

So why not?

Jesus replied, "You, too? Are you being willfully stupid? Don't you know that anything that is swallowed works its way through the intestines and is finally defecated? But what comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart. It's from the heart that we vomit up evil arguments, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lies, and cussing. That's what pollutes. Eating or not eating certain foods, (ritual) washing or not washing your hands—that's neither here nor there." (Matthew 16-20 [The Message Bible])

There you have it.

Until you change the heart of the person so they don't get off on gratuitous violence, revel in hatred or see sex as some sort of spectator sport instead of an intimate act of love, no amount of government regulation or control is going to stop it.

It's a pointless and fruitless exercise.

Christians are called upon to make their own hearts right on a daily basis.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)

We're not called to be cowards and feebly plea for someone else to save us from the nasties of the world.

We already have our Saviour in Christ. He's completed his mission here, now it's time for us to step up to the plate. We're called to be sharp and not flabby in our own thoughts and actions.

I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. (Matthew 10:16).

Sadly many parents, both religious and secular have been extremely lazy raising generations of people who are not psychologically, emotionally or spiritually robust.

Failure to do Parenting 101 (see Proverbs above) has left young people vulnerable to unhealthy behaviour in all aspects of their lives.

So don't be fooled by Stephen Conroy's rather specious argument:

"Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation on the internet is like going down the Chinese road," Conroy said.

"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree."

The best porn filter is parents who have a great relationship with their children, who train them from a young age to know right from wrong, encourage them to do what's right even when it's not convenient, and who illustrate by their own example that a lifelong marriage is the most satisfying type of sexual relationship.

The Federal Labor Government would do a whole lot better leaving the Internet alone and get on with running the economy.

Christian groups would do a whole lot better leaving the Internet alone and focus on their assigned mission:

"Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand — shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16 [The Message Bible]).

-- Nora

Missing The Point

A fifth of applicants have failed to get the 60 per cent pass mark in the multiple choice citizenship test introduced in October last year.

(The) quiz tests participants on Australian history and values, and determines whether they have adequate English proficiency.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans told Fairfax the government would review the test in light of the poor test results.

"The citizenship test should be about increasing awareness of citizens' responsibilities and, of course, of the Australian way of life," he said.

Sorry Chris but the test is about testing 'awareness of citizens' responsibilities and, of course, of the Australian way of life'.

Promising to review the test in light of poor results (an 80 per cent pass rate is poor?) sounds suspiciously like offering to dumb it down so that every child wins a prize.

A lot like a modern education all round, really.

-- Nick

More Lazy Blogging

Of course, the Twin Towers were brought down in controlled explosions, weren't they?

Mark Roberts' debunking of this particular 9/11 'truther' rubbish has the added bonus of lots of footage of professional demolition work.

Worth the 45 minute viewing for so many reasons.

-- Nick