The Thin Man Returns

Pointing The Bone

2012-01-26T15:02:00.001+10:00

"I think the Indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held with every Australian."

That sounds pretty reasonable doesn't it?

No. It's apparently excuse for a riot.

Disgraceful.

-- Nora

Happy Australia Day

2012-01-26T14:43:00.002+10:00

Here's our ubiquitous cocktail for our national day:

Aussie Beach Blond Cocktail Ingredients

1 1/2 oz White Rum
1 1/4 oz Orange Liqueur
1 1/2 tsp Sugar
3/4 oz Lime Juice
1 1/4 oz Orange Juice
1 passion-fruit pulp

Combine the rum, Cointreau, lime juice, orange juice, sugar and passion-fruit pulp in a blender with 1/4 cup of crushed ice. Blend and add further crushed ice where needed until slushy consistancy is achieved. Pour into a hurricane glass.

-- Nora

Everyone Who Ever Lived Was Pro-Gay

2012-01-16T13:28:00.002+10:00

It's taking a bit of a liberty to assume what a dead man's views on a subject would have been.

Here, gay activists on the staff of Bloomberg chide Martin Luther King for forgetting to think of them while he was fighting for racial civil rights but then allow King the kind of 'open-mindedness' that he would have seen him on their side:

Even Martin Luther King Jr., the man the U.S. honors today, had his blind spots. The circle of human rights he gave his life to expand didn’t include everyone. Left out, for instance, were gay men and lesbians. One of King’s most laudable attributes, however, was his ability to evolve and grow, and so we imagine that were he alive today he would endorse the efforts of the Obama administration to help bring basic freedoms and protections to gay people the world over.

The fact is that King might very well have not seen gay rights as analogous to racial rights. There are good reasons to assume he would not have done and that he may have opposed many of the demands of today's homosexual lobby.

But it has been a tactic of the homosexual movement to co-opt the racial rights movement in this way, as well as to portray respected dead people as either supportive of their agenda or as homosexual themselves.

In this case, they've never been able to posthumously 'turn' the civil rights leader - it would bring a world of hurt down on them to attempt to do so as they have attempted with other historical figures.

But there's a whole realm of intellectual dishonesty in claiming he would have wholeheartedly supported them, as Ambra Nykol writes in The New Black Magazine:

A great success of liberal groups has been to disconnect the work of Dr. King with the fact that he was a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. People love to call King "Doctor" but rarely do they refer to him as "Reverend". We don't hear a great deal mentioned about King's ministry and his sermonizing from the Bible. There was once a day when "social justice" and politics were closely tied with the "black church".

Based on the fact the King was a Bible-believing Baptist (and assuming he didn't subscribe to the private interpretation methodical, choose-your-own-adventure brand of Christianity), we can deduce that he probably did not condone homosexuality as a lifestyle.

Although, Liberals will point to the fact that one of King's top advisers and organizers for the March on Washington, Bayard Rustin, was an openly homosexual man as proof positive that King was in favor of homosexual marriage. The reality is, this example merely shows us that King was in favor of showing an attitude of love towards all people, regardless of their sexual orientation.

This is simply the cause of Christ. However, the philosophy of King is currently being distorted to support the homosexual agenda.

-- Nick

But Really, There's No Agenda. Honest....

2012-01-09T08:00:00.003+10:00

The UK Mail Online reports:

Why men will ALWAYS cheat (even if they love their partners and don't want to leave them)

The headline would be more honest if it read:

Why homosexual men will ALWAYS cheat (even if they love their partners and don't want to leave them)

For the statistically flawed and intellectually dishonest 'survey' on which the story is based was conducted by homosexual activist Eric Gumby Anderson who was 'America’s first openly gay high school coach' and is now an academic in the field of sociology working in England.

On his website, he writes:

Professor Eric Anderson is an American sociologist at the University of Winchester, England. He is known for his research on sport, masculinities, sexualities and homophobia. He has been published in dozens of academic journals and is regularly featured in the popular press. His work shows an increasingly positive relationship between gay male athletes and sport, as well as a growing movement of young heterosexual men’s masculinity becoming softer and more inclusive. Professor Anderson also researches matters related to men’s monogamy and the function of cheating, men's improving recognition of bisexuality, and the increased acceptance of young heterosexual men kissing.

His Wikipedia profile shows, however, that he is no mere studier of social mores but an active participant in the manipulation of society.

With respect to the Mail Online story, Professor Anderson is flogging a book based on a survey of a mere 120 male undergraduates, and he immediately distorts the results in the direct he desires by lumping heterosexual and homosexuals together.

Many independent studies reveal the majority of partnered gay men say they are monogamous but often have other sexual partners. The average is 7 others per year.

They maintain this cognitive dissonance by defining 'monogamy' differently to heterosexuals. Thus, they are emotionally 'faithful' to their partner but have others for sex only.

Thus the picture Anderson paints - and is wilfully supported in by a compliant media that helps him hide from a largely ignorant public that he is a homosexual advocate - is that all men behave in a manner similar to homosexuals.

This is a method proposed by Madsen and Kirk in their 1980s work After The Ball, which advocated the promotion of the concept that gay behaviour was the same as straight, even where it was not, so as to redefine society's normal to the homosexual norm.

-- Nick

What a post-Christian Society Looks Like

2012-01-07T09:29:00.001+10:00

A callous thief stole a man’s bike as he lay dying in a canal just yards away.

‘Despicable’ Adam Lowther, 22, took the bicycle belonging to Michael Houghton, 51, without stopping to help the cyclist who was lying face down in the stretch of water, an inquest heard.

The hearing was told Lowther didn’t call for help because he had run out of battery charge on his phone.

He also claimed that as he thought the man was already dead there was little point in trying to help.

Instead he simply rode off on the bike before selling it for £20.

-- Nora

Tropical Storm

2012-01-07T09:23:00.002+10:00

It's storm season in Queensland, but we've not seen much climatic action and that's probably just as well.

Tropical Storm (serves 8)
Ingredients

* 2 cups fresh pineapple juice
* 2 cups orange juice
* 1 cup white rum
* 3/4 cup high-proof dark rum
* 3 tablespoons Campari
* Orange wedges and maraschino cherries, for garnish

Preparation

* Mix ingredients in a pitcher. Cover; chill for 4–12 hours.
* Divide among ice-filled glasses. Garnish with orange wedges and maraschino cherries.

-- Nora

Paper Tigers

2012-01-07T08:39:00.009+10:00

It's been back to work this week at the Charles' household and we see that our local newspaper is also back to its usual tricks after its reporting staff have (more or less) sobered up from New Years celebrations.

The first story that look our eye was the piece headlined today Council bleeding Coast ratepayers dry.

According to the article, any revenue stream employed by the Gold Coast City Council is an impost on the poor benighted citizen of the city.

THE Gold Coast City Council is bleeding ratepayers dry with fees and charges that have become an almost $100 million cash cow.

The revenue grab is revealed in the council's 2010-11 annual report, which the council removed from its website after goldcoast.com.au scrutiny.

Why would the council's annual report be removed from the web site?

Consider the Bulletin's story as exhibit A.

More than $10.5 million was collected through fines, $7.2 million through parking fees, $6 million for dumping waste at the tip and almost $17 million in building and development fees.

In addition it collected $32 million in charges for jobs it was doing on behalf of water authority Allconnex.

While the council pulled in $460 million in rates, it scored another $97 million through fees and charges.

Well yes. The Gold Coast City Council serves a population of just over 593,000 people. It needs revenue form a variety of sources, not just ratepayers.

Pejorative words like 'bleeding', 'cash cow' and 'scored' put the lie to the the Bully's claims of applying 'scrutiny' to the council on behalf of Gold Coasters. It is not.

The article today is part of a concerted 'kick the council campaign' ahead of the upcoming Local Government elections locked in for late March.

If the paper wants to see an improved Gold Coast then it needs to do a little soul searching.

Over the past 10 years it has had three editors and three masthead changes, reduced its staff by a rumoured 30% and experience a real numbers fall in circulation. Back in 2001, when the population of the Gold Coast was 423,700, the paper's average circulation was 45,000.

Today, circulation can't even keep up with population growth, dropping in real terms to a paltry average circulation of just 40,593 based on News Limited's own advertiser's page.

As a matter of disclosure, Nicky and I do not work for the Gold Coast City Council although, as long-term, semi-prominent citizenry we have met all of the current councillors, senior bureaucrats and most of the mayoral aspirants.

There is nothing wrong with the Fourth Estate ensuring our elected officials are held to account, but under the current malignant malaise which afflicts modern journalism - its all about 'the mix-master', manufacturing outrage with every interview a 'gotcha' - is it any wonder that even Anna Bligh (in the only defence of her government you will see on this site) looks to deliver her message direct to the people rather than through the filter of the 'professional' media.

Thanks to the Internet and social media - a phenomenon that most journalists (and certainly Rupert Murdoch) don't understand - people don't need the reach of media outlets anymore. Every man is his own publisher.

The Gold Coast Bulletin's dwindling circulation is evidence that the rest of us consider the 'news' they bring to be of even less and less importance.

It's not too late for the mainstream media to learn the lesson, but one questions whether they can.

-- Nora

UPDATE: I found a calculator and did some sums.

In 2001 when the Gold Coast's population was 423,700 and the average circulation was 45,000, the Bulletin was bought by 10.62% of the population

In 2011 when the Gold Coast's population is 593,000 and the average circulation is 40,593, the Bulletin was bought by only 6.84% of the population.

In real terms the Bulletin's reach has gone down by almost 40%.

Solomon's Decision Made Easy

2012-01-04T20:14:00.001+10:00

Take the child away from both of them and raise it with a heterosexual family.

Who IS the mom? Lesbians in child custody battle after one woman donated egg and the other had it implanted into womb

-- Nora

Egypt Is Next

2012-01-03T19:13:00.002+10:00

Inch by inch:

Thousands of honeymoons will never be the same again after Islamists put pressure on the Maldives government to close them down.

The Islamists indulge in kitman:

However, former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's opposition coalition Progressive Party of Maldives said the government move was aimed at leisure business owned by some opposition members. 'We never asked for the ban,' PPM spokesman Ahamed Mahloof said. 'We wanted the liquor and massage clinics banned in inhabited islands to prevent prostitution and spread of drugs and alcohol to locals'.

Inhabited islands?

-- Nick

When Animals Attack

2012-01-02T15:29:00.002+10:00

David Williamson is one of those playwrights beloved of high school English teachers.

His writing is workman-like, his observations of Australian society once sharp and amusing, now seem flabby, shrill, depressing.

Most likely this is because he has lost touch with his audience falling foul, as many TV scriptwriters and playwrights do, of the snobbery that treats those whose patronage provides his income with contempt.

Williamson was featured here nearly five years ago when he bemoaned in print that he had to spend time with the ignorant money-fixated hoi polloi on cruise ship holiday.

Today Williamson is at the centre of another literary slap-down with fellow foul-mouthed, leftist snob Bob Ellis whose writings lurch from arts reviews, politics and social commentary with all the finesse of a man drunk on his own ego.

Professor Bunyip (a bunyip whose turn of phrase is a bubbling wellspring of sharp social observation and quick wit compared with the stagnancy of thought from the likes of Williamson, Ellis, FitzSimons and Hardy) has the background here:

WHAT with the spigot of mates’ moolah turned off, elderly onanist Bob Ellis must have a bit too much time on his hands these days, as he has stepped up those exercises in automatic writing which The Drum finds so agreeable. And since that humble vessel is insufficient to the outpourings of such a cascading ego, Bob also has been alerting the world to his continued presence via a recently launched blog. Things are going well for Blogger Bob, who has not yet learned to link, but who nevertheless celebrated 1000-or-so daily page views by noting his site “just might attract some advertising, from cinemas and theatres, for instance.”

Idle hands are said to do the devil’s work, and Bob’s stubby digits would seem to be the proof of that. Where once Mrs Palm’s ten daughters were able to occupy their few empty moments extracting cheques from a Palm Beach letterbox – cheques drawn against the taxpayers’ account and authorised by NSW Labor pals and his crow-eating cobber, ousted SA Premier Mike Rann – their secondary joy just lately would seem to be the needling of another august presence in the pantheon of Australia’s artistic elite, the fantastically revered playwright David Williamson. Oh, and his missus, Kristin Williamson, is just a bit peeved as well, which is entirely understandable. Even without reference to that billiard table, what respectable matron could tolerate in silence assertions by her hubby’s critic that she and he once fused themselves into a three-day lump of sweaty, socially aware, artistic flesh?

Although the good professor warns against rubber necking at the train wreck to come one is compelled to trawl through the wreckage to see if it is as bad as it appears.

It is.

-- Nora

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T17:54:00.002+10:00

Enjoy this champagne cocktail at the Charles'

Cube of sugar
dash of brandy
Dash of bitters
Fill flute with champagne

And then join us for our favourite New Year's film After The Thin Man.

Watch the trailer here:

-- Nora

The Power of Forgiveness

2011-12-29T12:14:00.001+10:00

After we spoke, I no longer felt any anger towards him — all of that had been worked through in preparation for the meeting. I didn’t want him to carry the burden of guilt for ever. As I left, I turned to him and said: ‘A lot of people won’t understand this, but I forgive you.’ He simply stared at me, his eyes full of tears.

I hadn’t planned to forgive Sean right then, but on the spur of the moment I did, and it came from my heart. I feel liberated by forgiving him, but it’s not unconditional. If my mother had been attacked instead of me, there would have been no forgiveness. Sean won’t die in prison and I wouldn’t want him to. Enough of his life has been wasted. I was chosen at random; simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. But forgiving Sean has helped to heal me. I am no longer a victim, I am a survivor.

-- Nora

Crime Support

2011-12-28T14:37:00.002+10:00

That generous public-funded welfare leads to crime has been well established but even now statistics like this surprise and dismay:

One in three people claiming unemployment benefit is a convicted criminal, figures show.

Taxpayers are funding around £2billion a year in out-of-work payments to nearly 1.3million people with criminal records, including £1.2billion to those on Jobseeker’s Allowance.

I wonder what that figure would be in Australia.

-- Nora

Growing Up The Hard Way

2011-12-24T13:34:00.002+10:00

Here's an idea: Wouldn't it have been easier to work on the marriage and stay together?

Admittedly, it’s never easy for an ex-partner to be relegated to visitor status in the former family home, especially when new partners are thrown into the mix.

To make matters worse, these days many families are rambling networks of current and ex-partners, children and step-children, which can make for ever more complicated arrangements.

Another friend, Patrick, is a prime example of this — last year he spent December 25 with his ex-wife, her new husband and her new husband’s ex-wife . . . not to mention their various offspring.

‘It’s all very “modern”, but I hate it,’ he says. ‘I do it to keep the children happy. If I’m honest, there is also a bit of envy involved, because their house is much nicer and more Christmassy than my flat.’

-- Nora

Merry Christmas

2011-12-23T21:30:00.002+10:00

Berry merry
* 1/4 cup (55g) caster sugar
* 50ml boiling water
* 250g boysenberries or blackberries
* 1/2 cup (125ml) vanilla vodka
* 1/4 cup (60ml) lime juice
* 4 cups crushed ice
* 1 (750ml) bottle chilled rose sparkling wine

1. Combine sugar and water in a small bowl and stir until sugar dissolves. Set aside to cool.
2. Place sugar syrup, boysenberries, vodka and lime juice in the jug of a blender and blend until smooth. Strain through a fine sieve into a jug and discard seeds and pulp.
3. Place half the ice and half the berry mixture in the jug of a blender and blend until smooth. Spoon evenly among half the serving glasses and top with sparkling wine. Repeat with remaining ice, berry mixture and sparkling wine.

-- Nora

Who's Filled With Loneliness And Despair On Halloween?

2011-12-23T20:53:00.000+10:00

It's antithetical, but loss, unhappiness and hardship are what produce a feel-good film. It's no surprise that A Christmas Carol remains so popular and is so regularly adapted. A proper Christmas film needs to have a dark heart buried within, one that pumps out bleak visions of the future populated by sinister characters.

-- Nora

Better Late Than Never

2011-12-22T19:20:00.004+10:00

THE federal government will work with Nauru to re-establish offshore processing, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says.

It's only taken hundreds of deaths over the past three years to restore a little commonsense.

So much for 'compassion'. Hundreds of men, women and children needlessly dead because of the Labor-Green Government decision to create uncertainly and ambiguity in our immigration system.

At least this is the beginning. Perhaps the reintroduction of the temporary protection visas and turning the boats away will also be part of the mix. We can only hope.

Kudos to Robert Manne who can admit that he was wrong in congratulating the Rudd Government on abolishing Howard's Pacific Solution.

Yet how many lives might have been saved had those on the left and the soft hearted, but easily manipulated general public thought about this issue logically and with a real world focus?

-- Nora

Empty Minds, Empty Spirits, Empty Words

2011-12-22T14:20:00.001+10:00

Congratulations Britain - the first so-called Christian country to celebrate Christmas without Christ:

The worst offender overall was Asda, which had just four Christian cards out of 2,638 sold individually across all the stores visited – 0.15 per cent.

It also had the lowest proportion among multi-packs, with 13 out of 427, or 3 per cent.

Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice, said: ‘I can’t believe this is being led by consumer demand.

'I believe there is anti-Christian prejudice in the buying departments involved.

‘There’s too much of this multicultural indoctrination and too much of an idea that if they put out Christian cards they will alienate or discriminate against or offend other faiths.

‘There’s a kind of militant atheism and nasty secularism at work in this country which is completely opposed to Christianity.’

Furthermore:

Christmas cards emblazoned with obscenities are on sale across Britain’s High Streets.

One card showing a quintessential 50s family inside a wreath reads ‘Merry Christmas W*****’, while another depicts a pair of carol singers with the words ‘Merry F****** Christmas.’ A third says: ‘Merry Christmas You F****** F*****.’

Charming.

-- Nora

Release The Hounds, Kill The Monster

2011-12-21T19:42:00.003+10:00

Brisbane's Courier Mail whips up a baying mob to sell newspapers and page views:

Pedophile in top Queensland Health job as more failed checks on public servants revealed (by) Alison Sandy and Josh Robertson From: The Courier-Mail December 21, 2011 12:00AM

... and not only reveals his work unit and position but also names the man who

... was convicted in the Brisbane District Court in 1994 and sentenced to 18 months jail, of which he served six, for indecently dealing with a child under 16.

The man was convicted almost 20 years ago and the story admits - several paragraphs in - that Queensland Health were aware of his conviction, that he appears to have been a problem-free employee for 11 years, has not reoffended and that his case had been examined and cleared by the CMC. Furthermore, he does not have any contact with children in his work.

Besides, what exactly did this man do 18 years ago? How old was he at the time? The Courier Mail isn't saying though it surely knows.

But the newspaper and its 'journalists' eagerly whip up the slavering knee-jerkers who believe that certain classes of offender should be punished first by the law in court, secondly by other criminals in prison and thirdly by them on the street with mobs and 'vigils', and who show their bared teeth and drooling mouths in comments.

However, scattered among them are those who 'get it'. From just the first page of comments:

Michelle of Mt Gravatt Posted at 12:33 AM Today
So? He probably does a great job. He also has zero contact with children. Besides I'd lay bets that peadophiles (you dont need a conviction to be classed as one) work for the Courier Mail and many other media vehicles who make a buck from this hysteria to. More scaremongering and sensationalising from a bored media outlet desperate for some explosive news events. Thanks..

Comment 9 of 228

Disgusted in our media Posted at 4:00 AM Today
What a terrible witch hunt you've embarked on here Courier Mail. Without any context at all you have now marked this man with a huge red "P". Shame on you. If he isn't dealing with children, isn't in a role that requires a blue card, and his situation is being monitored and has been advised on by the CMC, what possible harm can he do? Again, shame on you. People who have served their time can be rehabilitated, can be productive members of society and deserve to be given the chance. I think this is the last straw. I've had enough of the filth and propoganda published on an almost daily basis. I'm finished with the Courier.

Comment 18 of 228

ST of Bris Posted at 5:55 AM Today
No chance of going striaght in this state, I urge all public servants to check wardrobe for any skeletons as the CM is on the hunt

Comment 29 of 228

Unsure of the correlation Posted at 5:59 AM Today
So the guy committed a crime, served his time, and has not re-affended. In addition, he disclosed his record to his employer and is in a position which is not in direct contact with kids anyway. I'd say this is a good news story for the State's penal rehabilitation system. Bad form CM.

Comment 32 of 228

Sharon Posted at 6:04 AM Today
The media is disgusting Mr Austin has done his time ,he is getting on with his life and helping others .This is witch hunt by the media shame on the CM shame .

Comment 34 of 228

Moral Crusader Posted at 6:14 AM Today
I think your tabloid style reporting and fear mongering is treading a fine line here CM, particularly by naming the bloke. The idea behind our justice system, as frail as it is, is that a person is convicted and sentenced and when they finished that sentence, considered to have paid they're debt to society. The cirumstances of his crime are not known and nor should they.

Comment 38 of 228

Gleemonex Posted at 6:45 AM Today
Nice work Courier Mail! For cheap political point scoring and your daily vendetta against Queensland Health, you have exposed someone's almost 20 year old criminal conviction, despite your story indicating that Queensland Health was well and truly aware of this employee's past. This is not news. And, was there any need to name this person? Even better, why are you promoting a public website for people to find the details, including a picture? Anything to satisfy the uneducated, angry masses baying for political blood, right!? No, just poor, trashy, tabloid journalism yet again from the Courier Mail. I hope you get sued for loss of income and damages as no doubt this article will cause.

Comment 52 of 228

Callie of Bundy Posted at 7:01 AM Today
Sick to death of the Courier Mail and this type of gutter journalism. Mr Austin has served his time and is now a productive person helping those in need . But the Courier Mail would rather conduct a witch hunt . I certainly hope hope the whistle blower gets what they deserve.

Comment 58 of 228

Get tougher on crime of Brisbane Posted at 7:04 AM Today
Conviction 1994, judged and sentenced, did the crime, did the time. At what point is he free to move on with his life. Sounds like the whisle blower may be a disgruntle employee or internal Govt employee seeking to further damage the govt.

Comment 59 of 228

Brian Posted at 7:06 AM Today
Witch hunt by this disgusting rag the Courier Mail. Alison Sandy and Josh Robertson you missed the pedophiles under the rocks and behind those bushes. Congratulations on destroying a person who has done their time and is now helping mentally ill people in need.

Comment 60 of 228

Barry of Brisbane Posted at 7:08 AM Today
I hope the whistle blower get what she deserves , this person was jailed and did his time, he now help others in need , what a great lot we are ,the media should be ashamed of itself.

Comment 63 of 228

Labor Dude of LaborLand Posted at 7:32 AM Today
This guy makes a mistake 20 odd years ago pays for his crime doesn't seem to have re-offended and you want to make a story of it. Should have just shot him back then and be done with it. I'm sure if you went through the CM employee list you'd find a few shady characters in there as well. Keep digging though, I'm sure you'll find a cleaner who ran a red light back in the 80's.

Comment 78 of 228

Alice H of Kedron Posted at 7:39 AM Today
If this man was to have direct interaction with children, the law requires he hold a Blue Card. Since he's not in contact with children he doesn't need a Blue Card, a fact confirmed by the independant watchdog, the CMC. The man's conviction was in 1994 - 17 years ago. Is it responsible for this newspaper to publically name this person after so much time has passed and no further laws have been broken? Is it in the public interest? I doubt it. Is it in the selfish interest of boosting newspaper sales? You'd better believe it!

Comment 82 of 228

Windsor Neighbour of Kelvin Grove Posted at 7:45 AM Today
So the CM wish to ruin a person life who has obviously learnt from their mistake and has now demonstrated over a number of years they con contribute to society in a productive way. The position is not dealing directly with children so what's the problem?

Comment 84 of 228

Ironic of Brisbane Posted at 8:21 AM Today
It would be interesting to see how many Couriermail journalists would be left to write stories if News Ltd did police background checks?

Comment 97 of 228

It would be interesting indeed.

Perhaps it's time to start introducing the pot to the kettle and outing journalists for their sins.

There must be plenty of people out there who know of journalists who have, say, just for argument's sake, been 'spoken to' by the police regarding having had sexual intercourse with a 15 year old girl.

Which could be very alike 'indecently dealing with a child under 16'.

Only worse.

-- Nick

Postscript: No link to the Courier Mail story so as not to compound the newspaper's offence.

Silent Night

2011-12-21T19:31:00.002+10:00

Oh dear:

The survey of 1,000 school children aged between five and seven years old reveals that 36 per cent don’t know whose birthday we celebrate on December 25 - with over one in five believing the festivities are in aid of Simon Cowell's birthday.

Read the piece. It gets worse:

In addition, the research by online retailer Woolworths.co.uk found 24 per cent of children believe that Brentwood in Essex, home to TOWIE stars favourite nightclub the Sugar Hut, was the location of Jesus' birth.

Another quarter think Jesus was born at 10 Downing Street or Buckingham Palace, with only 28 per cent of those polled able to name Bethlehem as the correct birth place...

...The confusion over festive traditions are not just confined to the nativity story with over a quarter of those polled thinking Lapland was the name of a London nightclub and 35 per cent could not even name Rudolph as one of Santa’s reindeer, despite his famous red nose.

Instead the average British child thinks the reindeer are named after celebrities, including Tulisa Contostavlos, David Beckham and Pippa Middleton...

'We’re not saying that celebrity culture has ruined the traditions of Christmas but from these results it certainly seems to have had an effect on how children think about the big day!'

They may not want to say it by I will.

Celebrity culture has ruined the traditions of Christmas and many other aspects of society.

-- Nora

Welcome To The Real World Kiddies

2011-12-19T11:59:00.001+10:00

'Students have made an investment in their educations, then they come to the real world and they realize that that investment is essentially worthless.'

She's an arts graduate. Naturally.

-- Nora

Atheists Are Whinging Whiners

2011-12-19T07:45:00.001+10:00

Anyway, this Wisconsin-based Christophobic group was pouting about a nativity scene in Texas and was demanding that it be taken down because Jesus was an “insult to human nature” because He taught that “men were sinners” and would one day be held accountable for their sins if they didn’t repent and would be sent to a slow roast in Dante’s House of Pain.

Dan and his ilk represent the “we will sue you” nuevo atheists who go after our nation’s Christian holidays and symbolism—but not Islam’s—because it bashes their ideas. Waah. Frickety. Waah.

--Nora

Dazed And Confused

2011-12-19T07:42:00.001+10:00

Wikileaker Bradley Manning prepares his court marshall defence:

Bradley Manning has “gender issues”

Oh I would say that 'gender' is not his only issue...

-- Nora

Where's The Credit Card? II

2011-12-18T19:25:00.003+10:00

Very pretty, girly and would look very much at home in my wardrobe - not only the red dress but the very pretty floral number too.

-- Nora

Condemned To Repeat It

2011-12-18T15:18:00.001+10:00

Experts have warned of the ‘death of History’ after shocking figures revealed the subject is becoming virtually extinct in some areas of the country.

-- Nora

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

2011-12-18T14:49:00.001+10:00

FAKE Tahitian prince Joel Morehu-Barlow fled to Australia after a complaint was made to New Zealand police about an alleged criminal offence seven years ago.

The revelation will embarrass the Crime and Misconduct Commission, police and Queensland Health, which last year dismissed a complaint about Barlow without a proper investigation.

The Sunday Mail has discovered Barlow's childhood "castle" was really an ageing weatherboard home with a tin roof in Thames, on New Zealand's North Island.

His mother the "Queen", Andre Barlow, was last year convicted in the Wellington District Court of stealing almost $25,000 from her lesbian partner's inheritance funds to pay her bills.

Oh dear.

-- Nora

Sweet!

2011-12-17T12:31:00.002+10:00

I've started Christmas baking.

The fruit mince is mascerating, gingerbread is done.

The brambrack cake is next as will be the macaroons, almond crescents, Christmas biscuits and fudge.

I might take a little break with a Candy Cane Martini

To make one candy cane martini, mix:
1 1/2 ounces of vanilla vodka
1/2 ounce of peppermint schnapps
1 ounce of club soda
crushed candy canes for garnish

Dip the rim of a martini glass with water, then the crushed candy canes. Mix the vodka, schnapps, and club soda with ice in a cocktail shaker; strain into your prepared glass.

-- Nora

Defender of the Faith

2011-12-17T10:04:00.003+10:00

Which leading British identity said the following:

‘We are a Christian country and we should not be afraid to say so.

'The Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today. Values and morals we should actively stand up and defend.

‘Whether you look at the riots last summer, the financial crash and the expenses scandal or the on-going terrorist threat from Islamist extremists around the world, one thing is clear, moral neutrality or passive tolerance just isn’t going to cut it any more.

‘Put simply, for too long we have been unwilling to distinguish right from wrong. “Live and let live” has too often become “do what you please”.

‘Bad choices have too often been defended as just different lifestyles. To be confident in saying something is wrong is not a sign of weakness, it’s a strength.’

Your choices are:

Head of the Anglican Church Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury
British Prime Minister David Cameron

Bonus question:

Which of the above leading British public figures ought to have spoken out in defence of Christianity?

-- Nora

Nativity - FAIL!

2011-12-17T07:39:00.002+10:00

Blogger Why Is Marko creates a list of the 27 worst nativity sets. It's now up to 37 and growing in hilarity.

My favourites? The nativity made from bacon and sausages and the Irish nativity, to be sure, to be sure.

-- Nora

Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-16T16:30:00.002+10:00

The world has lost a great writer today. Christopher Hitchens succumbed to oesphogeal cancer.

His influential work God Is Not Great [i]is[/i] a revelation, not for Hitchens musings on Christianity and theology (which are flawed), but what they revealed about Hitchens himself.

While I'd disagree strongly with Hitchen's view on Christianity, his insight on politics, culture and the human condition were always involving and fascinating.

His openness and candor during his terrible illness was searingly honest and sometimes uncomfortable to read and I hope is greatest legacy is not his atheistic writings, but his later works written during his illness.

These are the works that should be compulsory reading - for those who have a terminal illness and for those whose loved one is serious ill.

He will be sadly missed.

-- Nora

Fair Facts?

2011-12-14T13:06:00.003+10:00

Fair and unbiased? Not on issues of the environment and climate change. The Fairfax media empire owns 1/3 of Earth Hour along with the World Wildlife Fund.

Excellent old school journalism by blogger Boy On A Bike.

-- Nora

Mrs Peel, We're Needed

2011-12-13T14:38:00.003+10:00

Nicky reminded me that I had forgotten another Charles' household Christmas classic - the 1965 Avengers episode Too Many Christmas Trees.

By the time this episode aired on Christmas Day 1965, the playful nature of John Steed and Emma Peel had been established and the early season prickliness between the two characters - a hangover from the earlier seasons with straight-laced Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman) - had completely evaporated.

This season marked Diana Rigg's first with the franchise and with her on-screen chemistry with Patrick Macnee and a deft touch to directing by Dennis Spooner, the show became a truly international hit with US audiences fascinated by this piece of television which was part drama, part comedy, part romance, part fantasy.

Enjoy Too Many Christmas Trees:

Cocktails By Request

2011-12-13T14:08:00.002+10:00

This is especially for our blog friend Kae, by special request:

Bombay Sapphire Collins
60ml Bombay Sapphire Gin
Fresh squeezed juice from 1 lemon
2 heaped tsp of castor sugar
soda water

Serve with ice in a high ball

This version of a Tom Collins is one of mine and Nicky's favourite cocktails. It's a light and tangy alternative to a gin and tonic and always goes down well during summer.

-- Nora

Poaching?

2011-12-13T12:02:00.003+10:00

Why the need to co-opt members?

AN ESSAY on Hugh Jackman's Broadway show by the world's most powerful theatre critic is laced with insinuations about the Australian star's sexuality, saying that he comports himself on stage like "a flaming queen".

and

But he isn’t gay, and is bemused — as is his wife Becky, an English teacher — by the fact he has such a strong gay following on Twitter.

‘Camp? I don’t think I am,’ he says, before adding: ‘Well, maybe a little. Whatever, I get messages which suggest people think they are going to be able to “turn” me, which I find bizarre.

‘I love women. I have always loved women. The irony was that being in the choir when I was a teenager was a surefire way of meeting them.’

-- Nora

UPDATE: Kevin Rudd's Labor supporting sister takes a principled stand in opposing same-sex marriage and is cruelly pilloried for it in comments on this story and the Brisbane Times link on Facebook.

Not Ashamed

2011-12-12T19:25:00.002+10:00

Author and columnist hits another one right out of the park:

That’s right. When Brees talks about faith, he is talking about faith in Jesus Christ. J for J, esus for esus, Jesus. Was that so hard for Layden to say out loud? The answer, apparently, is yes. He reminds me of no one so much as the reporter anti-hero of my novel True Crime, who says, “Whenever someone… says Jesus as if they really mean it… it makes my skin crawl, as if they’d said squid or intestine…”

--Nora

Cool Breeze

2011-12-12T19:16:00.002+10:00

After a warm summer day, it's nice to be experiencing a cool breeze.

And a drink.

Cool Breeze
2 oz vodka
6 1/2 oz lemon soda
1 oz fresh lemon juice

Pour the vodka into a highball glass over 5 ice cubes. Fill with Lemon Perrier, and add the juice extracted from half a lemon. Stir and serve.

-- Nora

Race To The Bottom

2011-12-12T13:35:00.002+10:00

Columnist Andrew Bolt, a critic of the Stolen Generation meme has often asked people to name 10 Aborigines who have been stolen from their families for racist reasons.

Well the Full Court of Australia has come close to providing the first truly documented case:

THE Family Court has declared a "notably fair" man to be a "proud Aborigine" despite both his parents saying they are white.

The court was asked to consider the matter after the man, who was raised white but began identifying as an Aborigine in 1999, got an Irish backpacker pregnant.

She wanted to go home to Ireland with their baby daughter, but the Family Court is required by law to give special consideration to Aboriginal children, and their need to retain links to their culture and heritage.

This would normally mean that an Aboriginal child could not be taken out of Australia to be raised by a non-Aboriginal parent.

After a decision and an appeal, the child was allowed to leave with her mother to Ireland.

-- Nora

Repent At Leisure

2011-12-12T12:30:00.004+10:00

Whingers who complain that social conservatives want to 'take us back to the 1950s' might want to take a look at this piece from the Daily Mail.

Problem families are each costing the taxpayer an astonishing £75,000 every year, new figures reveal today.

Ministers have been horrified by research showing that on average £9billion is spent each year on 120,000 families blighted by jobless parents and truanting children.

More than two-thirds of this is devoted to protecting children – via social care and child support – and tackling the crime and anti-social behaviour such families often generate.

Oh my.

What to do?

Well why not go back to the 1950s? The majority of children born to parents who are married, the majority of households with the breadwinner in work, less crime.

To be sure the genie is out of the bottle but any modern government that fails to endorse and strengthen marriages and whole families (mum, dad and the kids) and work to create an improved economy and the employment it brings, becomes directly culpable for the disintegration of prosperity and social order.

-- Nora

UPDATE:
Desperately sad. Completely avoidable.

And by the time Kelsey was 17 she was dead – strangled by Willcocks in an alcohol-fuelled row over claims of sleeping around.

In the words of his barrister, ‘they were much too young, both of them’. Stuart Driver QC added: ‘It was a disastrous cocktail, because they had powerful adult feelings but the immaturity of children.’

Yesterday at Chester Crown Court, Willcocks was jailed for a minimum of 16 years after being convicted of murder.

More The Merrier?

2011-12-12T12:27:00.001+10:00

‘I still can’t believe all that time he was living like a bigamist. He won’t accept that. He has claimed that we split up in 2003 but we didn’t. He was still spending Christmas here then. We were still sleeping together.

And people think advancing legalised polygamy will work out just fine...

-- Nora

Have Yourselves A Merry Little Christmas

2011-12-11T08:57:00.007+10:00

Being financially straitened this year, Nick and I are having an austerity Christmas which means no bought gifts and accepting Christmas dinner at the home of some generous friends.

I'm getting my shopping thrills vicariously by taking my elderly grandmother to do her Christmas shopping which I've done for the past three years (which has given me the opportunity to guide gift purchases for members of the family much to their relief).

Nicky and I have pulled out Christmas decorations for the first time in three years and have started watching our Christmas themed viewing:

The Thin Man (naturally!)
It's A Wonderful Life
Meet John Doe
Holiday Inn
How The Ghosts Stole Christmas (episode of The X-Files)
The Big Little Jesus (episode of Dragnet)
of course, no Christmas would be complete without watching Die Hard, which Nicky is delighted has made the cut at number 8 in a list of Britain's favourite Christmas films.

While I wrap my grandmother's Christmas presents for the family, enjoy this cocktail:

Angel's Delight
* 1 oz cream
* 3/4 oz triple sec
* 3/4 oz gin
* 2-3 dashes grenadine

1. Pour the ingredients into a shaker with ice cubes.
2. Shake well.
3. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

-- Nora

UPDATE: Well said Mr Bailey!

It's All About Context

2011-12-11T08:23:00.004+10:00

The Facebook page of the T-Base store at Sunshine Plaza, Maroochydore, features a photo of a boy wearing a "Boobies make me smile" T-shirt, and the store stocks tees with nipple-exposed shots of Kate Moss.

Adidas Global said there was no move to withdraw the T-shirt but they told The Sunday Mail they apologised to consumers affronted by the design.

Owner of the T-Base store claimed the store made the T-shirt specifically for the boy at his mother's request.

"We don't do sleazy," she said. "That was just for a laugh ... I don't sell the porn-style shirts - only artistic ones like the Kate Moss item."

People who know Nicky and I well would be the last to call us prudes. We have a playful attitude to nudity and sex as some of our classic pinup entries on Nifty Knick Knacks demonstrates.

So our endorsement of the Australian Christian Lobby's objection to the sale of what the Sunday Mail describes as 'sleazy T-shirts' is not hypocritical but logical.

Our society quite correctly regulates the age of consent for sex on the basis that one should enter a sexual relationship with a degree of maturity and that children are too physically and mentally vulnerable and immature to develop a healthy sexuality.

We quite rightly deplore paedophiles but how much do we unwittingly groom our children through the exposure to highly sexualised images in the public space and then get all surprised when teenage girls are sexting - thus turning themselves into child pornography producers?

In this case, if the owner of the T-Base store is correct and the mother of the child (he looks about 10 years old to me) had the T-shirt made for him, then I would be questioning the woman's fitness as a mother. Is there a bit of an Oedipal thing happening? What message is she giving her son with respect seeing girls and women as mere body parts? How will this impact on his ability to develop healthy relationships as he gets older?

The owner of the store is being disingenuous is suggesting that she 'doesn't do porn' and that the nude images on the T-shirts are 'art'. Indeed they may very well be art, but context is the thing.

On a gallery wall where adults can make the determination for themselves whether their children are mature enough to appreciate the work is context is one thing, having the images thrust in front of them is quite another.

Also, a further difference - are these people wearing T-shirts of nudes because they're art lovers but because they like the shock value or the mobile titillation of wearing a bit of tit and arse?

In the privacy of one's own home one can wear (or not wear) anything one chooses but in a public space we all have the responsibility to be mindful of others and to be as 'inoffensive' as possible to maintain civility in our society.

-- Nora

To Know, Know, Know Him...

2011-12-11T08:19:00.003+10:00

Kevin Rudd flips the bird and drops F-word

Well that comes as no surprise to anyone who has had any connection with Queensland Government over the past 20 years. Rudd's foul temper and disgusting language is well known.

The only surprise is every time it happens the media appears 'shocked'. What's up with that?

-- Nora

Description: He's A Fab Dresser With A Penchant For Louis Vuitton

2011-12-11T08:01:00.004+10:00

It is tempting to mock the ineptitude of our Queensland Bligh Labor Government in allowing a fraud of massive proportions go on under their nose and to laugh at our Premier's statewide BOLO for Joel Morehu-Barlow - but that man has solen $16 million of our money.

A pittance in government terms but let's see what $16 million could buy the state of Queensland:

It could pay for the fit out of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra's new headquaters, pay for the state's migrant settlement program, pay for the refurbishment of the Mackay Police Station and the Queensland natural disaster awareness campaign.

While Morehu-Barlow's current whereabouts are unknown, one can have a guess where he might show up in February.

-- Nora

UPATE: Monday, December 12. Caught!

And Away We Go

2011-12-10T14:53:00.003+10:00

What did I say last week about polyamorists bucking for official sanction of their relationships in light of the ALP's change of policy on same sex marriage? Five years?

Try one week.

-- Nora

What Hurts More?

2011-12-10T09:43:00.002+10:00

In to spare 'hurt feelings', a serious message that could spare actual hurt and harm gets dumped by squeamish do-gooders.

-- Nora

Fall For Anything

2011-12-10T08:38:00.005+10:00

Quick! Bring out the smelling salts!

A Hervey Bay mother swoons when she discovers that her Year 8 daughter has brought home... a 32 year old boyfriend?... Drugs?... A busload of OWS protestors?... Syphillis?

Quelle horreur, what could possibly cause her to go on a "crusade" right up to Education Queensland's head office?

Birgette Linding said she was mortified when her daughter came home earlier this year and recounted how Gideons Bibles had been handed out to students at the end of a Year 8 assembly at Urangan State High School.

How shocking.

And how quickly the anti-religious haters come out in comments, but also adhering to the law of unintended consequences John of Townsville's comment is a revelation: "Good, religion and the bible have no place in Queensland schools." So it would seem.

"Religion (by which they mean Christianity) is unscientific," they cry - ignoring the fact that modern science owes a significant debt to Christianity which provided most of the founding principles of science with the acknowledgement that a rational God created the world rationally and that those rational principles could be observed, repeated and understood.

These anti-Christian bigots are equally as sanctimonious as the religiousfolk they decry, smug as they are in their rigid belief system that all life evolved from nothing and that the reason we're here is because 'gravity did it'.

"We're far to logical, smart, clever, rational to believe in a sky fairy," they argue.

And yet, unmoored by the Christian belief system to use as a framework for rationality or as a foundation for ethics, these same people become easy prey for other gods - particularly Gaia The Earth Fairy who got a shout out this week at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Durbin, South Africa at which our own Climate Change Minister Greg Combet attended (carbon-neutrally, of course).

From the conference manifesto:

Rights of mother earth
74. Ensure respect for the intrinsic laws of nature.
75. The recognition and defence of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony
between humanity and nature, and that their will be no commodification of the functions of nature, therefore no carbon market will be developed with that purpose.

Compare this to the instruction given to man in Genesis to have dominion over the earth.

That not is to say that we trash the planet, anymore than a logical, rational human being would trash their own house. But what it does mean, as generations of people before us knew, we are to use the resources it contains to improve our lives and the lives of those around us.

This Gaia-mad, quasi-scientific, pseudo-religion demands the opposite. And if you're poor, and life is a today-to-today struggle keeping body and soul together, you're less likely to consider helping others or have the resources to do so even if you were inclined.

And any propensity to charity (particularly one which cannot be reciprocated) makes no sense within a Darwinian framework in which survival of the fittest is the only law.

So what purpose does it serve to condemn humanity to a hell it can avoid? There's a question for another day.

Such a world governed as the Gaian adherents would have it would not be a nice place to live - but get used to it folks, without the Christian world view and the compassion and grace it teaches, your world is about to get even uglier.

Oh, and a final comment to Our Lady of the Perpetually Offended, Birgette Linding - you are under no obligation to read the Bible yourself, neither is your daughter. If you don't like it, don't look.

And a few questions: Why are you so afraid of the Bible? Are you afraid that if your daughter reads it that she will find something wonderful and life changing? Are you usually so narrow minded?

-- Nora

That Why They Put The 'I' In FBI...

2011-12-09T20:08:00.002+10:00

Author and columnist Andrew Klavan on the popular culture battleground:

But I think a more plausible explanation for it is that Ms. Dargis is full of crap. I do not believe she found the tenderness of the movie a shock, or the poorly constructed script smart, or the antiquated handling of the story uplifting. I believe she said those things only to tout a film with a pro-homosexual agenda. (I say this as a gay-friendly libertarian.) The Times is infamous for this sort of thing, as documented in William McGowan’s book Gray Lady Down. The paper lies to its readers, in other words, to promote those cultural productions that support their favored causes.

-- Nora

Winding Up

2011-12-09T15:05:00.004+10:00

Britain was battered by gales of up to 165mph yesterday, leaving a trail of destruction across the country.

In one spectacular incident a 300ft wind turbine exploded in flames as it was buffeted by the high winds.

Another wind turbine was completely blown down on Wednesday, raising questions about whether wind farms were simply unable to cope with the weather.

Oops, not a reliable form of power generation, eh?

Tim Blair rightly mocks.

::checks watch:: It's time for a cocktail. In a Hurricane Glass:

WINDY MILLER

2 Parts ABSOLUT CITRON
1 Part Absinthe
2 Parts Mandarines Liqueur
Lemon-Lime Soda
1 Slice Mandarin

Fill a shaker with ice cubes. Add absinthe, ABSOLUT Citron and mandarines liqueur. Shake and strain into a chilled highball glass filled with ice cubes. Topup with lemon-lime soda. Garnish with mandarin.

-- Nora

The Law Of Unintended Consequences II

2011-12-09T11:45:00.003+10:00

Post one on the law of unintended consequences can be found in an update here.

This one is about the consequences of the US Government repeal of the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' homosexual policy in the military:

In an unlikely alliance, the Family Research Council (FRC) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have found a common cause: the criminalization of bestiality in the military. Both groups are calling for keeping an explicit ban on sex with animals in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) that may be eliminated by the Defense Authorization Act.

One of the many changes in the act included the removal of the sodomy section of the code after the removal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ban. Few realized that the UCMJ defines sodomy either as homosexual relations or as sex with an animal. By striking out the entire sodomy provision, Congress may have decriminalized bestiality.

Yes, you're rolling your eyes now - it's a joke, surely? The White House spokesman and the assembled press pack thought so.

It's no laughing matter to PETA who are taking the issue very seriously indeed:

In watching last night's news briefing, we were upset to note that you flippantly addressed the recently approved repeal of the military ban on bestiality. With respect, this is no laughing matter. Our office has been flooded with calls from Americans who are upset that this ban has been repealed—and for good reason. As we outlined in the attached letter sent yesterday to the secretary of defense, animal abuse does not affect animals only—it is also a matter of public safety, as people who abuse animals very often go on to abuse human beings.

I hope that in the future, you will address important issues with sensitivity and not dismiss them with a joke.

Redefinitions indeed...

-- Nora

It Looks Like A Thingie

2011-12-09T07:47:00.001+10:00

The Whiteadders show up for a salad during an Arab Spring...

CAIRO: An Islamic cleric residing in Europe said that women should not be close to bananas or cucumbers, in order to avoid any “sexual thoughts.”

The unnamed sheikh, who was featured in an article on el-Senousa news, was quoted saying that if women wish to eat these food items, a third party, preferably a male related to them such as their a father or husband, should cut the items into small pieces and serve.

He said that these fruits and vegetables “resemble the male penis” and hence could arouse women or “make them think of sex.” Bikyamasr.com cannot independently verify the accuracy of the news item at time of writing.

He also added carrots and zucchini to the list of forbidden foods for women.

--Nora

So Near, Yet...

2011-12-08T14:24:00.002+10:00

Outstanding writer Christopher Hitchens reflects on pain and suffering and whether - 'that which does not kill you will only make you stronger'.

-- Nora

I Have Some Tulip Bulbs To Sell You Too

2011-12-08T12:12:00.001+10:00

RECORD high rainfall in the Murray-Darling Basin has seen the value of the nation's water market slump by 50 per cent, or $1.5 billion, in the past year.

The National Water Commission's annual water market report, released in Canberra this morning, found consistent rain throughout the Murray Darling basin in 2010 saw water holders receive their highest water allocations in six years.

As the amount of water in the system increased, the price for tradeable water allocations dropped from $150 per megalitre in 2009-2010 to just $32 this year.

--Nora

There's A Good Reason Right There...

2011-12-08T10:12:00.002+10:00

Multitasker writes treatise/stalks after being knocked back for a second date:

In addition, I’m both a right-brain and left-brain man, given that I’m both an investment manager and a philosopher/writer.

Uh-hm.

-- Nora

For A Rainy Day...

2011-12-07T12:17:00.002+10:00

What a fabulous innovation. It would be wonderful to see this here in Australia:

When Drewery called the organization, she heard something different from the usual payday lending pitch. Wiles explained that Grace Period was a savings cooperative, one you join as you would a gym. Clients enroll as a member in the club for at least one year. Grace Period offers the new member an initial loan and establishes a workable repayment plan. Typically about $50 is deducted automatically each pay period from the member's paycheck to cover loan installments and modest club dues. These automatic payments continue for 12 months. During that time, the initial loan is repaid and additional funds accumulate as an emergency savings reserve for the member. At year's end, members can withdraw funds and close their accounts or remain members, earning interest on their savings.

-- Nora

Festive Cheer

2011-12-06T13:14:00.002+10:00

Nicky and I are off to a Christmas Party this afternoon.

I think one of these is in order - yes, just the one ;-):

Cosmopolitan Champagne
* 250ml (1 cup) cranberry juice
* 2 tbs Cointreau liqueur
* 2 tbs fresh lime juice
* 6 sugar cubes
* 1 x 750ml btl chilled pink Champagne or sparkling wine

Place cranberry juice in a medium saucepan and bring to the boil over high heat. Cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes or until reduced by two-thirds. Remove from heat and set aside for 30 minutes to cool.

Combine the cranberry juice, Cointreau and lime juice in a small jug. Place a sugar cube in each serving glass. Pour the cranberry mixture over the sugar. Top with Champagne or sparkling wine and serve immediately.

-- Nora

Where's the Credit Card?

2011-12-06T11:52:00.002+10:00

Oooh,
I could see myself wearing these:

-- Nora

Family Lies

2011-12-06T11:29:00.002+10:00

Oh no.... we're not trying to redefine marriage and family...

‘By painting the traditional family as a tiny minority this report is giving a false picture of life in Britain. It makes one wonder what their agenda is.

-- Nora

Wolf?

2011-12-06T08:39:00.006+10:00

The media is filled with implicit praise today as yet another school child proudly reports escaping the clutches of yet another slavering predator.

I'm sorry to be the one to ask the question - did this event actually occur?

This is the latest in a long line of child abduction alerts on the Gold Coast over the past few months, not uncoincidentally occurring in the aftermath of the discovery of the remains of Daniel Morcombe and the subsequent arrest of a suspect in his abduction and killing.

There is no doubt that the Daniel Morcombe case is true and tragic and his parents' attempts to bring something positive from the event through a child safety foundation in their son's name is very commendable indeed.

However I believe there is a link in the recent rise in reporting incidents and the statewide school tour by the Morcombes.

Children, as we know, are susceptible to suggestion. They are also keen to impress their peers and their adults and will either embellish stories or make them up from whole cloth which is why it is important to deal with lying at a very young age.

Could it be that the reports of attempted abductions could very well be a form of mass hysteria unwittingly encouraged by parents and the media?

I don't believe these children are lying for any malicious reason, I believe that at heart they want to demonstrate to their teachers and parents that they understand the 'stranger danger' message and what better way to do that than by giving the adults from whom they want approval, a real life scenario that demonstrates the their ability to look after themselves?

This is why educators who encounter claims of sexual abuse are counselled by psychologists to be very careful in evaluating those claims and give clues to look out for.

Also of concern is that an innocent enquiry by an adult to a child for directions, for example, can result in a witch hunt that ruins the lives and reputations of innocent people as in this example:

One incident in Livonia involved a tow-truck driver who assaulted a man he had seen asking two boys on the street for directions. He turned out to be a tire salesman on a business trip from Akron, Ohio, who had gotten lost with no knowledge of the slayings.

The fact of the matter is, children are more likely to be abused by people they know - whether they be someone online who has cultivated a relationship with your child, a teacher, sports coach or a family friend.

Child welfare is a serious issue and adults have a responsibility to address with issue soberly and seriously, making sure that we allow children to not only be safe, but to feel safe.

Children rely on the adults in their lives to keep their world safe which in turn gives them confidence to grow, learn and explore. If adults and the media are hysterical, fear-filled reactionaries, then what hope do our children have?

-- Nora

UPDATE: Girl's abduction report 'invented'. Told you so.

Monday Cocktails

2011-12-05T16:16:00.001+10:00

Oh look!

A cocktail in my honour:

Norina

* 1 oz Cinzano Extra Dry Vermouth
* 1 oz peach liqueur
* lemon twist for garnish

1. Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
2. Shake well.
3. Serve in a martini glass.
4. Add a lemon twist for a garnish.

-- Nora

Seeing Red

2011-12-05T12:22:00.003+10:00

Nice piece from Andrew Bolt recognising the work of the Red Frog Crew volunteers.

So I’d be in despair if my son hadn’t also told me of dozens of other young Australians up in Byron last week. About 150 of them, as I found out.

They were volunteers who patrolled the beach at all hours; checking on the drunk and troubled, and doing everything that some parents would have prayed for, had they known.

Why Indeed?

2011-12-05T08:10:00.013+10:00

"I don't know why but we're seeing a lot of teenage girls exposing themselves on web cameras...

Why? Here's Exhibit A:

UPDATE: It's interesting that a rethink of pop culture mores occurs when one becomes a parent.

This from renowned British actor Sir David Jason:

‘Take the adverts – I was watching SpongeBob, a favourite cartoon of ours, but suddenly a scent advert came on with this girl stripping off as she walks towards the camera. It’s done for mums but they forget a lot of girls are watching these powerful images.’

Packs A Punch

2011-12-03T13:02:00.002+10:00

Mr Yanner, who is attending the ALP conference as a business observer to lobby ministers over uranium mining in the Gulf, said he confronted several MPs about the conscience vote.

"It's a cowardly act," he told The Courier-Mail. "It's political gay bashing.

Assault is something Mr Yanner has hands on experience in dealing out.

-- Nora

Marriage - Not a Gay Ole Time

2011-12-03T09:29:00.009+10:00

This weekend the ALP national conference discusses, amongst other things, whether to adopt gay marriage as part of its platform, hot on the heels of Queensland's Labor Government introducing civil partnerships for homosexuals.

We're told that it's about 'equality' and 'tolerance' and 'respect' and 'rights' and that to disagree with gay marriage makes one immoral.

Funny isn't it, how ideas can be twisted so that which was once immoral is now moral and many of those who are against same sex marriage (SSM), swamped by the speed that this fundamental societal shift has occurred, struggle to articulate their reasons against it.

Let's demolish some of the arguments for same sex marriage:

The state has no right to discriminate in recognising adult relationships
The principle argument for SSM is that the state has no right to prohibit any adult to enter into a relationship with any other adult.

Well the state already discriminates with respect to relationships between adults. A brother and sister cannot marry; a father and adult daughter cannot marry; a man cannot have multiple wives; a woman cannot have multiple husbands.

The reason for this is plain (watch this space, I believe in the next 5-10 years polygamists and adult incest supporters will agitate for equal 'rights' to marry).

From the state's perspective children who are born to incestuous couples are likely to have medical conditions which the state will have to provide for. Children of polygamous families are often not supported by their father, thus proving a greater welfare drain.

The state also recognises that children raised by their biological mother and father in a committed life-long relationship have better social, educational and financial outcomes than children raised in other circumstances.

Yes, children are raised by solo parents and go on to do okay, (Nicky and I are two examples) but it is nonetheless the truth that children raised by their parents have social and financial advantages that others do not.

The state regulates marriage for public health and welfare.

Marriage is about recognising the right to love who we want and not about raising children or if it is, childless heterosexual couples don't have a right to marriage either
This is a specious argument if there ever was one. And one which (deliberately?) misunderstands the contractual nature of marriage covenant.

Let's take a look at those traditional wedding vows that form the cornerstone of what most people understand as marriage:

my pledge to stay by your side ...
in sickness and in health,
in joy and in sorrow, as well as
through the good times and the bad.
I promise to love you without reservation, forsaking all others,
comfort you in times of distress,
encourage you to achieve all of you goals,
laugh with you and cry with you,
grow with you in mind and spirit,
always be open and honest with you,
and cherish you for as long as we both shall live.

The undiscussed nature of homosexual (both gay and lesbian) relationships is twofold:

They're short lived. Homsexual relationships are less likely to last 'until death do us part'. In fact a they're unlikely to last to their 7th anniversary with the majority of relationship in gay men lasting about six months (Adrian Brune, "City Gays Skip Long-term Relationships: Study Says," Washington Blade (February 27, 04): 12.); according to a 1988 survey, lesbians fare even worse with the average relationship petering out in less than 5 years; In Australia the average length of a marriage is 32 years. There is no evidence that granting state sanctioned marriage will improve the longevity of these homosexual relationships. Very, very few will last 'til death caused by advanced old age

They're rarely monogamous. Now there's the real elephant in the room. Monogamy is a real struggle for gay men and a high number of lesbianstoo. By contrast a survey published in the Journal of Sex Research found that 77 percent of married men and 88 percent of married women had remained faithful to their marriage vows. (Michael W. Wiederman, "Extramarital Sex: Prevalence and Correlates in a National Survey," Journal of Sex Research 34 (1997): 170.)

I'm now going to introduce the Kardashian Law. It similar to Godwin's Law in which 'as an online argument grows longer and more heated, it becomes increasingly likely that somebody will bring up Adolf Hitler or the Nazis. When such an event occurs, the person guilty of invoking Godwin's Law has effectively forfeited the argument.'

The Kardashian's Law works on a similar principle in which 'as an online argument on gay marriage grows longer and more heated, it becomes increasingly likely that somebody will bring up the failed relationship of a celebrity as an example of normal heterosexual relationship or marriage. When such an event occurs, the person guilty of invoking Kardashian's Law has effectively forfeited the argument.'

An example of this pops up on Facebook every so often:

"Let me get this straight...Charlie Sheen can make a "porn family", Kelsey Grammer can end a 15 year marriage over the phone, Larry King can be on divorce #9, Britney Spears had a 55 hour marriage, Kim Kardashian can get a divorce after 72 days of marriage, Jesse James and Tiger Woods, while married, were having sex with EVERYONE. Yet, the idea of same-sex marriage is going to destroy the institution of marriage? Really? Re-post if you are proud to support equal rights."

The examples quoted here say more about the narcissistic and toxic culture of the entertainment and celebrity industry than it does about real marriage.

Very quickly addressing the issue of childless married couples (Nicky and I are a case in point, we're childless by choice) - the answer is simple: having children is not obligatory. But let me tell you, if homosexuals do receive legal sanction to marry then expect an explosion of court cases demanding the 'right' to children.

It's a civil rights issue
This argument is a big one in the US where homosexual advocates have tried to align themselves with black civil rights causes from the 1960s.

Homosexuals are allowed to vote, can sit anywhere in the bus they like, can make legal arrangements for inheritance and sick bed visitations. There is no real discrimination as was experienced by African Americans during that time.

Unlike laws in some states of the US that prohibited a black man marrying a white woman and vice versa - a gay man is free to marry any woman, a lesbian can marry any man.

The fact that gay men and lesbians are same sex attracted is their issue. Not the State's.

Two gays getting married doesn't affect your/my marriage
If homosexual relationships are less likely to be long-lived and less likely to be monogamous, it does by definition changes the expectations of marriage in a wider context - especially when those advocates invoke Kardashian's Law and use the facile, inept and insincere coupling of celebrities as their examples.

Not only have we seen the concept of marriage being an exclusive union of a man and a woman for life eroded through the introduction of quicky, no-fault divorces, but we are also seeing a push to redefine even the meaning of monogamy.

This link on Psychology Today is very instructive:

I've wanted to write an article on this topic ever since I began working with a gay male couple who told me that they were monogamous. After several months, however, they informed me they had had a three-way. When I asked if they had changed from monogamy, they said, "No."

I was confused. Maybe I hadn't gotten the correct information in our initial consultation? I told them, "I thought you told me you were monogamous," and they said, "We are." Now I was REALLY confused! So I said, "But you just told me you were monogamous."

Their reply was, "We are monogamous. We only have three-ways together, and are never sexual with others apart from each other."

If that's not a redefinition of monogamous (from the Latin for One + Marriage - a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse/sexual partner at any one time.), then nothing is.

Hollywood mainstream also plays its part in trying to stretch the accepted boundaries of monogamy in marriage - take this year's comedy flick Hall Pass (defined by the trailer as 'a week off marriage with no consequences) in which two married men are let off their vows by their wives and allowed to do whatever they want up to an including having sex with other women.

Also, take the TV series Big Love that sympathetically portrays a polygamous relationship.

Again the universal principle of 'Garbage In/Garbage Out' applies here. If this is the type of pop culture you and your children are consuming, then it is going to affect how they view relationships and thus the concept of marriage is redefined outside of a true fusion of the lives of one man and one woman becoming (in the Biblical parlance) 'one flesh', one entity for mutual love and support for life.

Those who argue that what others do does not impact on them misses mark on the importance of marriage has on the greater welfare of our society.

Why am I against same sex marriage? For three fundamental reasons:

1. Same-sex marriage is bad for children
2. Same-sex marriage is bad for civil society
3. Same-sex marriage is bad for public health

Same-sex marriage is bad for children

It’s clear that children benefit from having both a male and female parent. Recent medical research confirms genetically determined differences between men and women and those fundamental differences help explain why mothers and fathers bring unique characteristics to parenting that can’t be replicated by the other sex. Mothers and fathers simply aren’t interchangeable. Two women can both be good mothers, but neither can be a good father. One-sex parenting, whether by a single parent or a homosexual couple, deprives children of the full range of parenting offered by dual-sex couples.

Only mother-father families afford children the opportunity to develop relationships with a parent of the same, as well as the opposite sex. Relationships with both sexes early in life make it easier and more comfortable for a child to relate to both sexes later in life. Overall, having a relationship with both a male and female parent increases the likelihood that a child will have successful social and romantic relationships during his or her life.(5)

Same-sex marriage is bad for civil society

Not only does SSM amplify issues around the raising and socialising of children, overseas experience has shown that a government that mandates the acceptance and recognition of SSM are more likely to act punitively against people who do not support it.

Here are other examples, all annotated.

Even those who are not religious and so may support SSM should react in horror to the concept of the state criminalising thoughts and beliefs.

Same-sex marriage is bad for public health
Here's the second elephant in the room - one which homosexual advocates and their supporters don't like to talk about:

Homosexuals have shorter lifespans, indulge in more risk taking behaviour including drug use, are subject to more interpersonal violence (IE suffer more domestic violence) and suffer greater mental illnesses such as depression and suicidal tendencies than those who are heterosexual.

Let's add in one more point. Homosexuals and bisexuals are a tiny minority - why are we pandering to them on this issue? According to September figures from the UK, only 1.5% of the population are gay or bisexual - especially when it can be argued that there are a good number of homosexuals who do not support legalised marriage at all.

So if 1.5% of the population is homosexual and, let's say for argument's sake that one third of that 1.5% are not interested in 'marriage' at all, then why are our political leaders devoting so much time considering such a far reaching (and negative) shift to our society's structure that is demanded by 1% of the population?

-- Nora

UPDATE: The ALP national conference has just officially changed its policy to endorse same-sex marriage. It's just a vote in parliament away folks. I wonder what the old time Catholic Labor Union supporters think of their party now>

UPDATE 2: A couple of typos corrected and a slight rewriting on the paragraph on length of relationships for clarity and to include some additional information.

UPDATE 3: The law of unintended consequences reasserts itself. From the Daily Mail:

People who have had two sexual partners in a year may be 'too promiscuous' to donate organs under new health guidelines

That of course would include the 'monogamous' homosexual men referred to in the Psychology Today article earlier in this post. This is why redefinition of words and the societal understanding that goes with them is so dangerous. Potentially deadly.

UPDATE 4: I've been keeping an eye on this story for a few weeks now. Since we're talking about the influence Hollywood has in shaping our thinking and our expectations of societal norms, I thought it was worth linking to:

Does Hollywood Face a Child-Molestation Crisis in Casting?

And not just in casting. And not just in Hollywood.

Many Happy Returns

2011-12-03T09:03:00.004+10:00

Nicky and I speak very rarely of private family matters.

The focus of our blog is 'exploring the mysteries of human behaviour as revealed in politics, media and entertainment (and whatever else catches our fancy)'.

Over the past three years our blog has stuttered along with infrequent posting, marked particularly by the illness and death of my mother, which I wrote about here.

As has mentioned to friends, one would think that the loss of relationship would be the most difficult aspect of losing a significant person, but it is not.

The most difficult aspect is picking up the pieces afterwards and that is what Nicky and I have had to do - managing the on-going emotional and physical welfare of my grandmother (my mother's mother), dealing with the shocking betrayal of my stepfather as well as the ramifactions his actions have had on our family.

And there is the other things thrown in front of you to challenge, to stretch, to deepen - in our case it has been the financial struggles of business ownership combined with the threat to our home due to a confluence of natural disasters.

Such growth has to be done offline, distilled internally, processed and evaluated.

2011 has been a watershed year.

Nicky and I have emerged from the other side focused on new opportunities, more in love than ever and more determined to raise our voice in expressing what is right.

So, to celebrate, a cocktail!

HAPPY RETURN
6 Parts Gin
3 Parts Triple Sec
2 Parts Cherry Brandy
1 Part Lemon Juice
1 Whole Maraschino Cherry

Fill a shaker with ice cubes. Add all ingredients. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

-- Nora

Says Who?

2011-10-24T14:42:00.003+10:00

The UK Daily Mail points to a story from its home page:

The headline:

Savagely beaten, tied to a lamppost and burned alive: Horrific fate of hotel manager who was murdered 'for being gay'

The pointer text:

Stuart Walker, 28, pictured, was killed in the homophobic attack in Cumnock, near Ayr in Scotland, in the early hours of Saturday morning. Detectives today launched a murder inquiry following the grim discovery, with streets in a nearby industrial estate sealed off as part of the ongoing investigation.

The actual story:

Paragraph #1: A gay man who was killed and left at the side of the road with 'horrific' injuries could have been the victim of a homophobic attack, it has emerged.

Paragraph #7: Strathclyde Police would not rule out that Mr Walker had been murdered because of his sexuality and were now closely examining all aspects of the victim’s life.

Photo Caption: Killed: Stuart Walker was found dead with 'horrible injuries' by the side of the road and may have been the victim of a gay hate attack

Nowhere else in the 17 paragraph story is the victim's homosexuality mentioned.

The crime is horrific, the victim's suffering terrible. But there are numerous other potential motives and leads in the case. The police refusing to rule out the victim's sexuality most likely arises from a question by the journalist herself.

However, she and her newspaper choose to declare Mr Walker was murdered

'for being gay'

as if the words in quotation marks are, indeed, a quoted accusation, then further states it as fact by describing it outside quotes as

the homophobic attack

Even the URL of the story perpetuates a position not supported by anything in the story:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2052522/Man-beaten-burned-alive-victim-homophobic-attack.html

Who does it benefit to distort the truth that the motive for this bestial crime is unknown?

It certainly doesn't benefit the credibility of the journalists or newspaper involved.

-- Nick

On Andrew Bolt and freedom of speech

2011-09-29T14:55:00.005+10:00

In the light of the Andrew Bolt case in which the Herald Sun columnist was found guilty of writing incorrect thoughts about xxxxxxxxxxx and xxxx xxxxxxx, much has been made of the issue of free speech in Australia.

In Justice Bromberg's decision, this paragraph intrigued me: "People should be free to fully identify with their race without fear of public disdain or loss of esteem for so identifying." specifically this part:

without fear of public disdain or loss of esteem

We have laws criminalising hurt feelings now? Where are the adults in our community? Oh yeah, they're agitating for laws to criminalise the thoughts of toddlers.

We are all agreed that one should exercise patience and self-control and in doing so, think before speaking and endeavour to be polite, but to suggest that enforcement should be a function of government and courts is mind-blogging in its breadth and frightening in its outcomes.

Furthermore, it is not the role of government, court or society to monitor and bolster the levels of self-esteem one should feel.

If one feels held to ridicule one has to question whether one has done something ridiculous. If you feel upset that someone is laughing or is mocking unfairly, then whose problem is it? Yours or theirs?

The question is, of course, entirely rhetorical (or at least should be in a sane world).

You can only control the feelings and opinions of one person - the one you see in the mirror.

If your feelings are hurt or you feel affronted, then take a good long look at why that might be. There may be issues about your character that you have to address and if there isn't, then turn the other cheek - it's obviously someone else's problem

But the real issue to emerge from this court case is that some thoughts and opinions are never to be spoken about and the decision against Andrew Bolt is meant to punish and teach a lesson to 'the rest of us'.

That is every shade of wrong imaginable. With the exception of incitement to violence, all speech should be permissible in the adult public sphere (the distinction made to allow parents to enforce what their children hear and see and say).

The truth is strong enough to withstand debate. If it does not, then it is not truth.

For example, I disagree with historian David Irving, but disagree that he should not be allowed to tour here. Let him speak, let others with facts put him in his place.

The truth has nothing to hide.

I disagree with many of the things Richard Dawkins says and his web site is filled with quotes that mock the Christianity I believe in. He's free to say them. He's free to scoff what I believe in. I'm equally at liberty to call the man an ignorant goose, if I so choose.

Let the battle of ideas fight to the death. Truth will be victorious. The Truth will set you free.

But be warned, it is a battle and the fight has just begun.

-- Nora

Unsurprising 'Oh, The Humanity!' Whine From Leftist University Grant Monkeys

2011-07-02T09:03:00.003+10:00

Brute force?

US wars launched since the attacks of September 11, 2001, have left 225,000 dead and cost up to $US4.4 trillion ($4.12 trillion), according to a new study by university researchers.

The study published by Brown University this week focused on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and counter-terrorism campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen, which came in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

The authors argued that governments almost always go to war underestimating the potential duration and costs of a conflict while overestimating "the political objectives that can be accomplished by the use of brute force".

The Americans have hardly used 'brute force' as these academics put it. A couple of nuclear strikes would have had this all over by now with fewer allied deaths and the terrorists' supporters would be reconsidering their own alliances.

Instead, Western squeamishness means the death toll continues to rise.

When you have a cancer, you cut it all out at once.

-- Nick

Toughen Up, Princesses

2011-06-11T07:48:00.002+10:00

Why is one surprised?

Dambusters dog to be renamed Digger for remake of iconic film... because N-word might offend Americans

The screenplay is being written by a personal recipient of the benefits of political correctness, homosexual writer-comedian Stephen Fry.

The film's producer is Peter Jackson whose Hobbit movie was held up for PC shaming last year when a black woman was turned away from an extra role as a white person. Jackson sacked the casting company concerned.

So wracked with PC angst is the 'n-word' that the UK Mail item twists itself into several contortions so as not to use it.

One wouldn't mind so much if black American rappers didn't use the word 'nigga' as a self-reference so frequently.

Meanwhile one is concerned that the dog in question's name - Nigger - is revealed to be on its grave at RAF Scampton. How long before some grievance-monger demands its removal?

While awaiting further developments, I may go and purchase the 1955 movie before they re-dub the soundtrack, edit out anyone smoking and insert a few scenes suggesting Dambusters leader Guy Gibson was homosexual.

Undoubtledly Mr Fry has considered the latter for his screenplay.

-- Nick

More Silliness

2011-06-11T07:19:00.003+10:00

It's a much nicer, more compassionate world in which we live today.

One remembers a time when if you did this:

"The plaintiff sustained injury at the premises..."
...you'd be wracked with shame at the fact that it happened:
"...whilst she was urinating from the veranda..."
...and have to take personal responsibility for your injuries.

Today, of course, you are not bound by these archaic societal chains and can feel free to blame others with claims that the verandah from which you were urinating and the fence onto which you fell were unsafe.

-- Nick

Lesbian Rapist Wins New Trial

2011-06-11T07:10:00.002+10:00

She was jailed last year for two and a half years with a release date in March next year.

But why is being drunk still considered a defence against criminal charges?

...the jury asked for a direction on how it could use intoxication when resolving the issue of mistaken belief.

-- Nick

Questions, Questions

2011-03-29T16:11:00.002+10:00

I've been having fun 'debating' with some of Andrew Bolt's pet contrarians on the issue of Climate Change/Global Warming/AGW/CAGW/Climate Crisis/weather.

Poster AS mocks Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott thus:

More like Abbott has leap even further into the realms of stupidity.

It is remarkable that he can be making policy in respect of science and he shows no more comprehension of the issues than talkback radio hosts.

Sadly the fine fellow kicks an own goal.

Among many, many other commenters was my humble contribution:

Show me some true science AS and I might agree with you.

But we’re not getting science from Flannery et al, we’re getting crystal ball prognostications based on computer modelling based on many assumptions which may or not be correct.

That’s not science that’s superstitious voodoo with increasingly hilarious alarmist predictions viz-a-viz the state of the Great Barrier Reef.

And yet, like all acolytes of the neo-pagan environmental movement, you and others keep repeating the mantra of ‘science, science, science’ like it will protect you like a talisman from the excesses of a vengeful Gaia.

Science is simply the systematic study of the nature and behaviour of the material and physical universe - it is subject to revision - it is not truth in of itself.

This hysteria that you’re clearly a part of AS, fails to take into account the extremely complex nature of our atmosphere due to a myriad of influences both internal and external to the system.

Unless you are a stuck in the mud contrarian, you would do better to broaden your perspective and ask a few more questions. Many spring to mind:

-- What influence does the sun have on our atmosphere?
-- Are there any other external influences (like cosmic radiation external to the sun)?
-- Are the changes to the climate truly global or localised?
-- Are the changes to the climate cyclical over short, medium and long periods of time?
-- What influence does ‘black smokers’ and other deep sea phenomenon have on sea temperatures and atmospheric composition?
-- Are the climate models being used accurate? How can it be proved?
-- Is the detail used to run the models accurate? How can it be proved?
-- Is there any guarantee that the earth will cool at all, let alone in 1000 years?
-- Is there any proof that the climate of 1000 years ago was any better?

In all seriousness, these are questions each one of us should be asking ahead of any government implementation of a tax or trading scheme that negatively impacts on economic growth and standard of living.

-- Nora

Dead Men Don't Talk (Back)

2011-03-28T12:45:00.004+10:00

Ho hum:

Mahatma Gandhi was bisexual and left his wife to live with a German-Jewish bodybuilder, a controversial biography has claimed.

Author Joseph Lelyveld is a gay-friendly journalist who is simply following the playbook written by gay activists and marketing experts Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen.

In their 1989 book After The Ball, they wrote that historical figures were especially useful in promoting a gay agenda because, as Paul Rondeau wrote in the Regent Law Review, it could be claimed they were homosexual, thus associating gays with positive images in the same way advertisers use celebrity endorsements, but without the risks of the figure denying their claims.

Famous historical figures are considered especially useful to us for two reasons: first, they are invariably dead as a doornail, hence in no position to deny the truth and sue for libel. Second, and more serious, the virtues and accomplishments that make these historic gay figures admirable cannot be gain said or dismissed by the public, since high school history textbooks have already set them in incontrovertible cement.

'Truth'?

-- Nick

Welcome To The Hotel California

2011-03-24T07:17:00.004+10:00

Oh, ok - I'll say it again: when will the education industry publicly apologise for its institutionalised sexual abuse of children and, like the Catholic Church, begin to make restitution?

A MAN has been charged by officers investigating the sexual assault of students at schools in Sydney's southwest during the 1980s and 90s. Police allege the 61-year-old man was teaching at a secondary college in Kingsgrove in 1992, when he allegedly assaulted a 14-year-old male a number of times.

While we're at it, when will we also learn to call a spade a spade? The intro should have read:

A MAN has been charged by officers investigating the homosexual assault of students...

Meanwhile:

Apple removes 'gay cure' app from iTunes store ..."We removed the Exodus International app from the App Store because it violated our developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people," Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AFP.

Rhianna and Lady Gaga are offensive to large groups of people but Apple will happily sell their music on iTunes and also stock 'Grindr - Gay, bi, & curious guy finder of the same sex':

Find gay, bi, or curious guys on your iPhone with Grindr. Fast, fun, and free, it’s the place for gay, bi, or curious men to hang out with the same sex. Grindr has the largest network of guys on the iTunes App Store... Grindr is a convenient location-based app that works with your iPhone GPS or iPod Touch Wi-Fi to connect you to nearby men... it’s a free download on iTunes.

You can have all the help in the world if you're 'curious' but you're on your own if you don't want to be 'gay' anymore.

Being homosexual is like being a guest at the Hotel California - you check out any time you like but you can never leave.

-- Nick

The Best Form Of Gun Control Is A Steady Hand

2011-01-15T07:17:00.004+10:00

The mainstream line remains fairly consistent on the news pages but an opposing view is permitted in the opinion columns:

...in the wake of the Tucson mass killing, the bile directed by some, including in Australia, towards Sarah Palin, the Tea Party movement and anyone associated with the conservative side of politics has been disturbing.

Without any self-awareness or sense of irony, people at once complained about the tone of political debate, while placing blame for six senseless murders squarely at the feet of their political opponents.

How unfortunate that opinion writer Chris Kenny, an adviser to the Howard government's foreign minister Alexander Downer, veers at the last from a realistic view of recent events to magical thinking about the broader issue of gun control in the US.

Having just pointed out very clearly that the US is a completely different culture politically and socially to ours, he then makes a call for 'stricter gun control'.

Perhaps he has in mind similar laws to those enacted in Australia which removed legal guns from circulation but romanticised gun culture among young criminals and created a burgeoning black market in illegal weapons that has actually seen gun use in crime increase since the Howard bans.

However, the fact is the US's 'gun genie' is out of the bottle and no among of wishful thinking will put it back.

Reputable studies have indicated over a million self-defensive uses of firearms in the US each year, from actually pulling the trigger to merely showing the gun to make an offender flee.

To disarm legal US gun owners would not only rightfully alarm their historical and cultural distrust of government but also render that million defenseless against murder, rape and robbery.

-- Nick

You Can't Please All The Gays All The Time (Though They Might Like To Have A Go)

2010-10-09T11:57:00.003+10:00

Well, horrors! Just find a tree and a rope and string Vince Vaughn and the Universal board up:

A TOP Hollywood studio agreed to recut a movie trailer overnight after a string of gay celebrities complained that it featured a joke that was insulting to homosexuals... The trailer for The Dilemma opened with star Vince Vaughn making a joke to a group of businessmen. “Ladies and gentlemen, electric cars are gay,” Vaughn said. “I mean, not homosexual gay, but my-parents-are-chaperoning-the-dance gay.”

The incident attracted the attention of gay US celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres and CNN host Anderson Cooper, who said earlier this week that the trailer reminded him of school bullying. “We’ve got to do something to make those words unacceptable,” Cooper said.

Quite right, Coop. If the phrase 'that's so gay' isn't nagged and beaten out of children - who coined and use the phrase in subconscious recognition of something they know instinctively isn't quite right - not as many of them can be protelytised, eh?

Further in the story, an indicator of the class strata in gaydom and the pro-homosexual slant of the media:

...executives at Universal Studios claimed to be bewildered by the controversy - alleging that they showed it to gay rights groups in advance...

Yes, but the groups they showed it to should have referred it up the line to their bosses for the final say.

Meanwhile, the use of the words 'claimed' and 'alleging' to infer lying on the part of the Universal execs. Ah, Media Bias 101.

-- Nick

Another Day In The Islamic World

2010-10-04T18:44:00.002+10:00

Islam:

Indian forces fought Kashmiri demonstrators in street battles Monday that killed 15 people -- including one police officer -- in the deadliest day in a summer of violence challenging Indian rule in the disputed territory.

Islam:

It's rare in Egypt's pop culture to get a direct and frank look inside the minds of Egyptian women and what they really think of marriage and love. So a TV comedy became a startling voice in this conservative society's debate over the changing role of women. The show, "I Want to Get Married," makes a simple point, but one that resounded strongly: Women want to be an active part of the process of finding a life partner, not passive objects whose fate is to be decided by their mothers, fathers or suitors.

Islam:

MILITANTS allegedly plotting attacks in Europe have a list of targets including Paris's Eiffel Tower and a hotel close to Berlin's Brandenburg Gate... the report released yesterday came in the wake of a US State Department travel alert urging Americans to be vigilant against the potential for terror attacks in Europe... Fox cited a senior western intelligence official as saying that the information about the target list was provided by "a German-Pakistani national interrogated at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan."

Islam:

Fears of an Al Qaeda plot to massacre thousands in Britain appeared to heighten last night. The threat of a Mumbai-style machine gun assault is now rated so severe that the U.S. is warning its citizens they could be in danger if they travel to the UK. At the same time, Britons are being told by the Foreign Office that they could face ‘indiscriminate’ attack from Osama bin Laden-inspired fanatics if they travel to France or Germany.

Islam:

At least three Muslim faith schools are forcing girls as young as 11 to wear face-covering veils with the blessing of Ofsted inspectors, it emerged yesterday.
One of the schools insists that fees are paid in cash and warns parents against speaking to the local education authority.

Islam:

Italian police have arrested a Frenchman suspected of links to a network recruiting fighters for Afghanistan, a French official said Sunday... The official said the man is suspected of having fought in Afghanistan and belonging to a network for recruiting fighters... is 28 years old, of Algerian origin and suspected to be a member of al-Qaida.

Islam:

A Muslim woman... was sacked for refusing to wear a headscarf at the estate agency where she worked. Ghazala Khan - a 31-year-old non-practising Muslim - was fired less than two weeks into her job at a company run by traditional Muslim businessman Masood Ghafoor simply because she refused to cover her hair. Mr Ghafoor told Miss Khan, who had nine years experience in the trade, that his wife and female relatives all wore full veils or burkas, telling her that her parents had given her 'far too much freedom'.

Islam:

Islamic extremists killed a Christian lawyer, his wife and their five children in northwestern Pakistan this week for mounting a legal challenge against a Muslim who was charging a Christian exorbitant interest... The victim and his wife... along with their five children ages 6 to 17, had been shot to death...

-- Nick

Attack of the Morons

2010-09-29T16:31:00.002+10:00

If that's your first thought...

Guests at a new hotel in Las Vegas have complained of receiving severe burns from a 'death ray' of sunlight caused by the unique design of the building. Due to the concave shape of the Vdara hotel, the strong Nevada sun reflects off its all-glass front and directly onto sections of the swimming pool area below.

The result has left some guests with burns from the powerful rays and even plastic bags have been recorded as melting in the heat.

Chicago attorney Bill Pintas felt the power of the dangerous ray first hand last week.

'It felt like I had a chemical burn. I couldn't imagine why my head was burning,' he said. 'Within 30 seconds, the back of my legs were burning. My first though was, 'Jesus, they destroyed the ozone layer!'

The attorney's second thought was how much he could sue for.

-- Nick

One Issue Party

2010-09-29T15:38:00.001+10:00

I always imagined 'women's issues' would at least include subjects like family, relationships, children.

Silly me:

Women, it appears, according to Salon.com, are interested only in the rights of homosexuals.

-- Nick

A Question of Child Abuse

2010-09-19T19:01:00.003+10:00

AAP reports:

Detention centre 'ripe for child sex abuse'

REFUGEE advocates say both the immigration department and the minister knew there was a risk of child sex abuse occurring at detention centres housing cross-cultural families.

So there's a greater risk of child abuse from mixing cultures? Or just from mixing the cultural groups held at the centre?

More importantly, if these cultures can be predicted to abuse children, why are we importing them?

-- Nick

Suicide By Multiculturalism

2010-09-05T12:00:00.003+10:00

The risks of liberal 'compassion':

When police arrested a suspected al-Qaida cell in Norway last month they turned up the makings of a bomb lab... the suspected plot... was one of three planned attacks on the West hatched in the rugged mountains of northwest Pakistan by some of al-Qaida's most senior leaders. The other plots targeted the bustling New York subway and a shopping mall in Manchester, England...

Authorities say the ringleader of the Norwegian plot is 39-year-old Mikael Davud, an Uighur who came to Norway in 1999 as part of a U.N. refugee program and then became a Norwegian citizen eight years later. Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group in China, claim oppression at the hands of authorities there.

Perhaps he was feeling oppressed in Norway too but one would wonder why - the Norwegeians made no demands of him, not even to assimilate in the slightest:

Despite his citizenship and longtime Norwegian residence, Davud speaks very little Norwegian or English...

Meanwhile, it's no good trying to please them. Give them a little and they'll just shove for more:

...outlets of popular French fast food chain Quick are serving burgers it says respect Islamic dietary law. And while many Muslims are delighted, the powerful main Paris Mosque complained Thursday that Quick's criteria aren't all-encompassing enough, and that the operation is meaningless.

Quick's meat is certified as halal, but Cheikh Al Sid Cheikh, assistant to the rector of the Paris Mosque, said the burger chain should have had the other ingredients checked as well, from its mustard to buns to fries. "The rest must be validated too, or else there's no point," he told The Associated Press.

-- Nick

What's "With" All The Inverted Commas

2010-08-17T17:03:00.003+10:00

Why the preponderence of "inverted commas" in this Agence France Presses "report"?

Afghan couple 'stoned to death' over love affair... The 23-year-old woman and 28-year-old man were killed because "they had an affair," said Mohammad Ayob, the governor of Imam Sahib district... Earlier this month, the Taliban publicly flogged and then killed a pregnant widow for alleged "adultery" in western Badghis province... In regions that have come under Taliban control as the war drags towards the end of its ninth year, rough justice is meted out in the same manner, and includes execution of people accused of "spying" for foreign forces.

Are AFP's "sub-editors" calling into doubt the "truthfulness" of their own "correspondents"?

Or do they simply feel urged to report on actual events by some kind of genetic memory of what it was like to once have been journalists but equally compelled by the dhimmitude of political correctness to infer uncertainty with regard to Islamic atrocities?

-- Nick

Dopey

2010-05-09T18:48:00.002+10:00

If you can't see what's wrong with the introduction to this story:

Man wrongly convicted of murder welcomes review
By Darren Cartwright From: AAP May 09, 2010 5:40PM

WRONGLY convicted murderer Graham Stafford says he is open to being interviewed for the review into the investigation of the 1991 brutal slaying of school girl Leanne Holland.

Mr Stafford was jailed for life in 1992 for the murder of the 12-year-old, but the Court of Appeal last December quashed his conviction...

There's not much point in me explaining it to you.

Or to Darren Cartwright and the news.com.au sub-editors.

-- Nick

Misunderstanding The Global Economy

2010-05-05T19:14:00.002+10:00

It's a story dating back over a year but it's worth shining a light on. In February 2008, Eveready-Energizer protected its profits by putting a small importer out of business:

The Federal Court has ordered the forfeiture and consequential destruction of approximately 150,000 parallel-imported Energizer batteries seized by the Australian Customs Service.

The importers, Contrade Pty Ltd, its director George Condos, and four other companies were found to have infringed on the trademark registrations owned by Energizer Australia.

According to Energizer, the companies traded on the mistaken belief that parallel imports were legal.

Energizer's legal gun hoped bankrupting the 2000-founded importer of toiletries, personal care and battery products would warn off the other corner stores and wholesalers they're breathing down the necks of:

John Carroll, a lawyer who manages Energizer Australia’s monitoring and compliance program, said the court order should give concern to all parallel importers.

“The actions of these companies not only jeopardizes Energizer’s reputation as a supplier of quality and safe batteries in Australia, but also threatens consumer safety and faith in the brand...

Since the batteries involved were parallel imports - not counterfeits - what is Mr Carroll saying? Is he suggesting that Energizer's products as sold overseas are unsafe and unreliable?

Well, his words hint at it to add a little scare for anyone thinking of paying half the price of Australian batteries for parallel imported genuine Japanese-made Energizer batteries. But they're really only unsafe for the corporation's profits and they'll nail you for it, as his following statement makes clear:

“The unauthorised importation and resale of Eveready and Energizer branded batteries for which Energizer Australia Pty Ltd owns the trademarks is an illegal practice and importers face civil and criminal proceedings.”

It's not really about protecting trademarks or intellectual property, it's about protecting the extortionate extra profits companies can make in particular territories. For instance, software maker Adobe:

In Australia, CS5 Master Collection will cost AU$4344 for the full edition, and AU$1503 for the upgrade edition. In the US, the same software will cost US$2599 (AU$2816.45) for the full edition — more than AU$1500 less. The upgrade edition will cost US$899 (AU$974.22) — more than AU$500 less.

Adobe doesn't just apply the 'Australia Tax', it has a European one too, as applied to the 2088 edition of this software:

IF YOU WERE THINKING about popping along to your local computer superstore to pick up a copy of Adobe's Creative Suite 4 Master Collection on its release date of November 14th, you might just want to reconsider. Because Adobe's insane pricing policy means that it would be cheaper to fly from London to New York, grab a copy of the software, spend the night in a hotel, and fly back to London the next day!

Yes you read that right. At today's exchange rate, the full suite of design programmes is a full £1,358 more expensive to purchase in the UK than it is for our colonial cousins in the USA. And we found flights from Gatwick to JFK in New York for £318 each way, so you could skip the hotel and save yourself a small fortune.

And they wonder why people buy grey imports or seek out illegal copies of software...

As one commenter put it:

The way Adobe extract money from customers makes Apple look well behaved. No wonder Apple won't play nice with Adobe. There's only enough room for one bully.

-- Nick

Religion of Oppression

2010-05-05T19:04:00.002+10:00

A 26 year old Muslim woman in Italy has been fined for wearing a burqa against national and local laws.

Her husband's reaction would cause bloody murder if his words came from the mouth of a Christian male:

Unemployed Ben Salah Braim, 36, said: "...now Amel will have to stay indoors.

"I can't have other men looking at her... she will have to stay inside night and day. There is nothing I can do."

You could try dragging yourself out of the seventh century.

And Western feminists could do with standing up on their hind legs against these woman-haters before they're dragged back there.

-- Nick

Who's The Victim?

2010-04-29T21:45:00.003+10:00

Ultimately, a Supreme Court Judge decides that the only person to face punishment for Dianne Brimble's death is Dianne Brimble herself and the real victim was the man who gave her an illegal drug:

Supreme Court Justice Roderick Howie... described the supply as a "social" or consensual one... (and) "must be on the absolute lowest range of such offences".

Justice Howie... said Ms Brimble's death had impacted greatly upon Mr Wilhelm, with evidence tendered revealing he had "an acute mental illness" as a result of depression and anxiety... "No punishment I can give will be anything like the punishment he has suffered over the years," Justice Howie said. He said he hoped Mr Wilhelm could now get on with his life.

If Mrs Brimble had been loaned an unlicensed air gun and accidentally killed or maimed herself with it, the gun's owner would be punished for the supply of an illegal weapon, despite an air gun being on the lowest range of such weapons.

What's so different about supplying illegal drugs? Are they not a loaded weapon?

And why has it been impossible to get some sort of justice in the Brimble case?

-- Nick

Why Not A Blanket 40kmh Limit Then?

2010-04-26T17:12:00.004+10:00

Governments love to 'consult' before acting. That way they can say 'you were asked'. Not that they had any intention of listening.

The Queensland Government is currently holding a community consultation into 'the road safety benefits of fixed speed cameras'. The introduction page contains this gem:

A study of an existing fixed speed camera program has provided evidence of safety benefits. An evaluation of the fixed speed cameras placed in the Victorian Domain Tunnel found that both the number of drivers speeding and the average speed of vehicles in the tunnel fell.

Seeking further information, one goes to the Issues Paper - or rather searches it out since there is no direct link to the paper - and finds the introduction simply paraphrases the Issues Paper:

A study of an existing fixed speed camera program has provided evidence of safety benefits. Victoria placed fixed speed cameras in two tunnels. The first tunnel, the Domain Tunnel, opened to traffic in April 2000, with enforcement starting in mid-September. An evaluation of these cameras found that both the number of drivers speeding and the average speed of vehicles in the tunnel fell.

How is this 'evidence of safety benefits'? Were there reductions in crashes?

One can safely assume there is no evidence of crash reduction for, in there was, it would be trumpeted. The 'evidence of safety benefits' is simply a self-seeking assertion from a government that wishes to install money-making machines.

Meanwhile, in speed-camera crazy Britain, the UK Daily Mail reports:

Britain's booming speed camera network is at the centre of a giant 'scam' aimed at making 'buckets of money' for the Government, the boss of a leading supplier of the devices has admitted. The sensational confession was made by the chief executive of Tele-Traffic, which supplies cameras to virtually every police force in Britain. His unguarded comments (were) made to an undercover reporter posing as a prospective buyer of speed cameras...

...while councils are no longer happy to pay for speed camera upkeep now they're denied a place at the trough:

Towns all over the country are joining the rush to get rid of fixed speed cameras... Tory-run Swindon Borough Council became the first to ditch the yellow boxes after councillor Peter Greenhalgh objected to central Government receiving all the cash from fines while Swindon council pays £320,000 a year for the cameras' upkeep.

...and they're suddenly willing to admit the evidence for them doesn't stack up:

Mr Greenhalgh said the fact that 70 people were killed on Swindon's streets in 2007-08 was proof that speed cameras were not making roads safer.

It's not just councils that are suddenly backing away from fixed speed cameras now they're no longer getting kickbacks from central government. It's even the police:

Some 1,227,000 fines were handed out in 2008, earning more than £73 million for the Government – or more than £201,000 a day. In comparison, 713,000 fines were handed out in 1997.

However, there has been a sharp drop in fines from fixed cameras, as opposed to mobile police units, since police and local authority partnership(s) could no longer keep the cash. (emphasis added)

The same report from the UK Telegraph also highlights the objections of road safety campaigners to the wide spread of fixed speed cameras that Queensland, and indeed all money-hungry Australian state governments would like to impose here:

Road safety campaigners last night said motorists had been "hunted" for profit while the huge revenues have done little to improve conditions on the roads or driver behaviour.

Jennifer Dunn, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Motorists have paid a fortune in speeding fines over the last decade and there is no real sign that the system has succeeded in changing people’s behaviour. It is clear that speeding fines are more about raking in cash than making the roads safer, and as a result they have given the law a bad name. It doesn’t help anyone to have a situation where motorists feel like they are being hunted for profit rather than protected by the forces of law and order.”

...Prior to April 2007, funds from roadside cameras went so-called safety camera partnerships to be ploughed back in to road safety. It led to accusations of the system being used as a money generator with more and more cameras being bought to target more and more motorists.

Last year MPs heard that there was a surge in the use of the national safety camera programme between 2001 and 2007, with the total number of sites increasing from 1,672 to 4,737. But the latest figures show that in 2006, there were 1.6 million fines from fixed cameras but by 2008 that figure had fallen by a third to 1.02 million.

Claire Armstrong, co-founder of Safe Speed, said: "We will end up with a billion pounds in speeding fines.

"You should never measure safe driving by miles per hour (emphasis added). To run the whole of road safety to the tune of nearly £1 billion is doing nothing for road safety.

"It is not going to be improved just by purely sticking up a few cameras and taking police off the roads and it does nothing for the relationship between the public and the police."

-- Nick

Titillation Before Truth

2010-03-24T19:37:00.006+10:00

It's no surprise whatsoever that the media is making a meal of this:

A TASMANIAN man bashed and choked his girlfriend until she blacked out after he tried to leave the scene where she engaged him in a threesome.

The Supreme Court in Burnie heard the woman brought her female friend along on a camping trip last April and confessed to her partner... that she was bisexual. She plied (him) with alcohol to make him "more receptive" to the notion of a threesome.

The court heard the three engaged in some "mild intimacy" but, as the two women became more involved with each other, (he) decided to leave. He drove off but, drunk, crashed into bushes. His partner ran after him and tried to take the car keys from him.

By this stage others in the camping area were looking on. As the woman again grabbed at the keys, (he) slapped her and pushed her to the ground.

It makes a pretty story from the media's point of view, the chance to indulge in a tale that is both titillating ('ooh, a threesome!'), sure to provoke asinine comment:

DLB of Sydney Posted at 9:18 AM Today
every mans fantasy (except this bloke's) coming true.

... and moral in the prudish PC way in that the man concerned got his come-uppance for not falling in with the crowd.

The court case relating to this took place on March 19. It took five days for the Australian media to widely report - way to go, newshounds! - and less than 24 hours to go global.

Now let's look at STATE OF TASMANIA v (ACCUSED) 19 MARCH 2010 COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE, but don't bother clicking on the link because here are the judge's comments in full:

You have pleaded guilty to two counts of assault which relate to one event in April last year. The complainant is a woman with whom you were then in a domestic relationship. That relationship has continued and you have since become engaged to marry.

The complainant has a child by another relationship, whilst you have two. The children were living with you and there are no children of you both. You were camping with your children and a number of other people, including teenagers and children. The complainant had made arrangements with a female friend of hers to travel up from Hobart to join you. During the evening it was revealed for the first time to you, so I am told, that the complainant was bisexual and she intended to engage in sexual activity with her female friend. Apparently the complainant plied you with alcohol to make you more receptive to this notion, and at one stage the three of you were engaged in mild intimacy. In any event, matters reached the stage where the sexual encounter between the two females appeared imminent, at which point you got in your car and attempted to leave the camping area. You travelled a short distance before crashing into some bushes. The complainant and a young man tried to take the keys from you, but you managed to restart the car and drove off again. Shortly after, you stopped and the complainant made a further attempt to retrieve the keys. It was at this point that you assaulted her. You first pushed her to the ground and slapped her about the face. Shortly after when she tried to run away, you punched her in the head, chest and back. You both ended up in her car where you put your hands around her neck and choked her. She appeared to lose consciousness for a time and you maintained an aggressive and uncaring attitude when others were trying to help her. Police attended and you were arrested. You spent the rest of that night and most of the next day in custody.

The complainant suffered some bruising and a sore neck but has fully recovered. She has been reluctant to see the matter pursued. I am told, and I accept, that there was no violence in this relationship, nor has there been since. I am also told that you do not frequently drink alcohol and that you were heavily intoxicated on this occasion due to the complainant's actions. You have no recollection of the events at all. Whilst this may serve to explain your conduct, it does not excuse it. Health problems impede your chances of work and you are on benefits.

Normally instances of domestic violence are treated seriously as a breach of the trust in the relationship. Prevalence is another relevant factor, and it must be noted that the events were witnessed or heard by a number of children and young persons. However, there are unusual features of this case. You became angry and frustrated when attempting to remove yourself from the situation. The violence occurred when you were attempting to leave the scene, rather than as an immediate reaction to the complainant's conduct. There is a relevant prior matter involving police but that is of considerable age and appears to have been relatively minor. I accept that you are remorseful and that there is little likelihood of repetition. Nonetheless the assaults remain serious matters. They were persisted in for some time. Far more serious injury could have resulted and the whole incident was no doubt stressful for the witnesses. As a matter of principle, the forgiveness of the victim is of some relevance, but of no great weight. The seriousness of the matter needs to be marked in the sentence.

You are convicted of the two counts and sentenced to a total of three months' imprisonment, the execution of which is wholly suspended on condition you be of good behaviour for a period of two years. You will also have to pay the victims of crime compensation levy of $100 within 28 days.

What are we to make of this?

In the first instance, the couple have reconciled and even become engaged since the offence took place and in that one sincerely wishes them - and their blended family of three children - the very best of luck and happiness.

But the deed is done and bears examination, thought not for the sake of the individuals involved who might best benefit from being left alone, but for the way in which it reflects on the media's drooling, salacious nature and the way it mocks the fallability of ordinary people but celebrates genuine corruption, and also to highlight the gross hypocrisy of society at large.

Even a cursory scan of the sentencing comments reveals:

1. The proposal appears actually to have been of a lesbian encounter, not a threesome.

2. It was a family camping trip with their 3 children and other children in close proximity.

3. A reluctant participant who does not drink frequently was plied with alcohol.

4. Made drunk, the reluctant participant permits 'mild intimacy', a description that infers probably little more than kissing and touching outside clothing.

5. The judge comments: '...matters reached the stage where the sexual encounter between the two females appeared imminent' and the man attempted to leave. This suggests he was not really invited to the party, he was a 'third wheel' who wanted out.

6. He only drove drunk (a modern cardinal sin) because he'd been got drunk to faciliate his acceptance of something he didn't want to do.

7. He did not assault his wife (the penultimate modern cardinal sin) directly for her actions in respect to the other woman but in anger and frustration at the final act of emasculation, her attempts to 'protect him from himself' as he tried to flee what must have been a humiliating situation.

Frankly, I believe this man deserves some sympathy rather than the bagging he's been getting, and both he and his partner deserves support for having the faith in their relationship and commitment to it to move on together. And whatever way they have have come to terms with what happened, I wish them all the best in the world.

More than that, I offer them this from today's News.com.au:

... in which the standfirsts suggest he is the 'same man' as the perpetrator of a number of Sydney sexual assaults.

That linkage between his case and the Sydney case is likely worth a reasonable number of dollars in defamation.

Incidentally, to many commenters on this story at various news sites around the world today, I suggest imagining it was the male getting the female drunk for an unwanted sex act and seeing how you feel. And if she physically attacked him? Who do you think would be facing charges?

-- Nick

Footnote: I have edited out the name of the man concerned in this case for a number of reasons, not least of which is I believe he - and his wife-to-be - deserve a break.

The media doesn't.

Gruesome Deaths? Tits!!!

2010-03-14T16:22:00.004+10:00

Just what is it with Rupert Murdoch and his pervy sub-editors?

There's a time and a place for pictures of girls getting their gear off.

To illustrate a story about decapitations and drug gang warfare is not it.

Nowhere in the story is there any connection to, as the punctuation-challenged photo caption states:

Hundreds of US students enjoying their spring break, have fun in the swimming pool of a hotel in Acapulco.

Well, ok, there is a link - two of the 25 dead were in Acapulco. However, other victims/dead perps were up to a hundred miles away.

One is reminded of a print report several or more years ago of multiple deaths caused by a heatwave in France. The Murdoch newspaper illustrated it with a photo of a pretty French girl on the beach in a bikini.

Do all you people like working for this sick trash? What do you think of the sub-editors who see a story about decapitation and illustrate it with photos of topless girls?

-- Nick

Reading The (Road) Signs

2010-03-14T15:45:00.004+10:00

Bingo!

Back in November, one predicted with regard to suggestions the Queensland driver blood alcohol limit should be zero:

...(when,)after a wide ranging and vigorous debate /sarc, the Bligh Labor government reduces the limit to .02 instead of zero... It's part of the softening up so the populace will accept a smaller excrement sandwich that they'll be grateful for it not being bigger.

Now this in the Queensland Sunday Mail:

QUEENSLAND will consider a new blood alcohol limit for motorists as low as .02 in a bid to cut the state's horrific road toll. A Drink Driving in Queensland discussion paper, to be released today, looks at the possibility of lowering the general alcohol limit from .05.

Quite aside from the fact that the 'horrific' road toll has been trending down for years even based on the statistically dishonest raw figures, one significantly telling aspect of the Courier Mail/Sunday Mail's spruiking for Anna Bligh's Labor Government is a shift in the equally dishonest selective cherry picking of evidence to support its case:

Norway and Sweden have the lowest road toll rates in the world and both have a blood alcohol limit of .02. The Scandinavian countries have four road deaths per 100,000 population – Queensland has eight.

Bligh is trying to whitewash the mistake made by her Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson back in November when he cited Sweden and Denmark as the poster children for low BACs for drivers and low road tolls. As I noted then:

Mr Atkinson said Australia could look to Scandinavia, which had far lower road tolls per head of population than Australia. The alcohol limit in Sweden is .02 and in Denmark .05. Their road toll deaths per 100,000 were four, Mr Atkinson said, compared to eight in Queensland.

The Danish BAC is the same as Queensland's. Their experience plainly indicates factors other than the BAC affect the road toll.

They also continue to support their case by comparing apples with oranges in counting the death rate per 100,000 of population instead of per 100,000 kilometres driven.

The dishonesty of politicians is not surprising. Neither one supposes is the dishonesty of journalists from the Courier and Sunday Mail who pretend they're reporting news when they're just acting as the media wing of State Parliament.

-- Nick

All A Terrible Misunderstanding

2010-03-05T16:49:00.002+10:00

When you unhitch a whole section of society from any behavioural and moral anchor points, of course they'll follow their 'better' nature, won't they?

One development that the 1970s sisterhood would not have dreamed of in their worst nightmares is the explosion of “raunch culture”.

Maybe not.

It must be the fault of conservatives:

Engle is convinced by arguments that this rash female self-objectification is a consequence of the feminist movement – the aim of 1970s feminism to free women from oppression became muddled with Thatcherite ideals of personal freedom.

Nasty personal freedom. It perverted the purity of feminism:

“Feminism never argued women should be free to do whatever we want including getting our tits out in the newspapers,” she says.

Really? It was to be freedom from oppression with oppression? What about 'Girls Can Do Anything'?

“I think it’s the most unbelievable and terrible misunderstanding.”

Only only your part, dear.

-- Nick

A Restaurant Review

2010-02-19T17:22:00.002+10:00

The wife and I haven't been married long, just four years, got a two year old daughter.

We had dinner the other night at an expensive hotel restaurant while staying at a flashy hotel. We'd pigged out at breakfast so we skipped the entree so the wife could have a big overpriced slab of meat while I had fish. Then we shared a dessert so we didn't look like pigs. It was beaut.

The restaurant was fantastic but I almost barfed up at the view outside - the restaurant overlooked the hotel pool and some guest was going for a swim. Wouldn't have been too bad if she'd been young and horny, I'd have got off on perving at her, but let's just say I was glad I'd had time to digest. I mean, she wasn't that bad, it was just something you don't need to see while dining.

Will go there again when next in town. Maybe a 19 year old will go for a swim.

But seriously:

The only thing that is odd about this fine dining restaurant is that the hotel pool is your view from the windows and yes at 9 pm, a guest had a swim, now if he had been young and yummy, I would have enjoyed the free look, lets just say I was glad I had eaten, oh, he wasn't that bad, its just something you don't need to see while dining.

And if you can't see what's wrong with that, there's no point in one trying to explain it to you.

--Nick

Toughen Up

2010-02-08T19:47:00.003+10:00

UK Telegraph columnist Melanie Phillips nails it on a subject that's been on my mind for quite some time:

...Campbell is reflecting the fact that it is only by emoting in public that so many people today believe you have any heart at all. We saw this most spectacularly over the death of Princess Diana, when an ugly public mood threatened the Queen and the Royal Family because of the perception that they were cold and heartless from the absence of public displays of their grief. It was only when the Queen let people glimpse signs of royal sorrow that this danger was defused.

This general attitude has its roots in the therapy culture, which tells us that it is bad for the individual to repress emotion. That doctrine has now developed into the belief that anyone who fails to display emotion is a bad individual. It has produced a culture in which genuine emotion, which is almost always private, is deemed not to exist, while inappropriate or vicarious emotion, or sentimentality, is mistaken for the real thing.

This has the pernicious effect not only of devaluing real feelings such as grief, but elevating histrionics such as self-pity and narcissism. Hence the obsession in our society with 'self-esteem'.

One result of exchanging the stiff upper lip for the trembling lower one is that people become less able to cope with the vicissitudes of life.

Branding the modern practice as 'our culture of emotional incontinence', Phillips goes on to quote the octogenarian Duchess of Devonshire about the generation that lived through World War 2:

As she said, grief was just part of life - people mourned and then got on with their lives. They didn't go on about it and need counselling; nor did they wear their grief like a badge of honour, or as their entry ticket to the human race. To that generation, not just grief but other emotions such as fear were both private and restrained. To be otherwise would have demoralised others and courted defeat or disaster.

Today's behaviour in parading in public ones private griefs is, indeed, something that weakens us. It is yet another symptom of the softening nature of Western society that may see it overrun by more resilient cultures before the end of the current century.

-- Nick

Just Because I Come From The Land Of Plenty

2010-02-04T13:27:00.003+10:00

Larrikin Records Management are today rubbing their hands with glee over today's court ruling that said the flute riff from Men At Work's iconic song Land Down Under is from the folk tune Kookaburra to which they hold the rights.

While the ruling itself wasn't unexpected - anyone who was aware of the story when it broke in 2008, was expecting it.

The song's author penned it for a Girls Guide jamboree in 1934, she then bequeathed the song to the South Australian State Library a year before her death in 1988 and in 2000 Larrikin picked up the rights back dated to 1990 (still not sure how that works).

Eight years later the publisher takes legal action after the similarity was observed on a TV quiz show.

And Larrikin lawyer Adam Simpson is salvating at amount of money he reckons his client (and no doubt Simpson is in for a share too):

Larrikin Music's lawyer Adam Simpson says EMI and Down Under may be forced to hand over as much as 60 per cent of their earnings from the international hit record.

"It's a big win for the underdog," Mr Simpson told reporters outside the court.

When asked how much Larrikin would be looking for, he replied: "Obviously, the more the better but it depends - anything from what we've claimed, which is between 40 and 60, and what they've suggested which is considerably less."

Frankly Larrikin should entitled to exactly nothing.

What loss exactly are they suing for?

Did generations of school children sing Kookaburra less because of Land Down Under? Obviously not.

If the judge awards more than token damages (keep in mind it took Larrikin eight years to discover their 'loss' and would never have known if not for a TV show), then Australian songwriters (who are not millionaires by any stretch) will be the big losers.

-- Nora

Dancing With You In The Summer Rain

2010-02-03T20:26:00.003+10:00

It's raining! And windy! With huge swells!

Well, the trip to the beach is cancelled for this weekend.

But it's never too wet for cocktails.

Purple Rain
1/2 shot grenadine
1/2 shot peach schnapps
1/2 shot white rum
3 measures lemonade
3 measures sweet & sour mix
1/2 shot Blue Curacao

Fill a collins glass 3/4 full with ice. Add grenadine and peach schapps and white rum into glass. Then fill with sweet and sour and lemonade. Drizzle around the edge of the glass with Blue curacao.

-- Nora

Still Planning How To React

2010-02-02T20:38:00.002+10:00

It's discrimination!

Haiti's voodoo high priest has claimed believers have been discriminated against by evangelical Christians who are monopolising aid sent to the earthquake-stricken country. At the weekend hundreds of voodoo houngans, or priests, gathered in the northern town of Gonaives to plan how to react to the earthquake that left an estimated 200,000 people dead on Jan 12.

Dateline on the story:

By Nick Allen in Port-au-Prince
Published: 7:00AM GMT 01 Feb 2010

Maybe if you were quicker off the blocks, my Sorbonne-educated friend.

-- Nick

No Stranger To The Courts

2010-02-02T20:05:00.002+10:00

A really good way to win people over to your point of view is to sue them:

RUGBY league international and gay activist Ian Roberts has joined legal action against the Nine Network over a controversial skit on the NRL Footy Show... Mr Roberts said he was offended by the sketch which he says vilifies gay men.

Then again, bullying has worked before.

-- Nick

Only In Britain (And America)

2010-01-31T15:10:00.003+10:00

UK Telegraph columnist Christopher Howse writes on the 'row' - a rather mild word for a dispute in which Muslims have burned down churches - over Borneo Christians using the word Allah for God, as they have 'from time immemorial':

Two-thirds of Malaysians are Muslims and about 10 per cent of them Christians. Malaysian political life is a little different from that in Britain. The leader of the opposition, for example, is facing trial on charges of "sodomy", a ploy used by the government before.

Malaysian political life certainly is a little different from that in Britain where a Daily Mail journalist can ask without the slightest hint of irony of a senior member of the ruling Labour Party:

...is he ever going to marry his boyfriend, about whom he never speaks?

... as if it is quite natural.

Meanwhile, Telegraph Religious Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Wynne-Jones breaks the news that:

A senior adviser to the Queen has met secretly with the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales to express concern over the Pope's offer for disaffected Anglicans to convert to Rome. In a highly unusual step, Earl Peel, the Lord Chamberlain, asked Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, to meet him following Pope Benedict XVI's decree.

He writes:

The Archbishop reassured Lord Peel that Pope Benedict had only issued the decree in response to the requests of traditionalist Anglicans disillusioned with the liberal direction of their Church.

He stressed that it had not been intended as a hostile act or to in any way destabilise the Church of England, which has been engulfed in rows over women bishops and gay clergy.

And recalls that:

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said that at the time that it had been viewed as "a dawn raid on the Anglican communion".

Meanwhile, Williams lectures capitalists in New York:

Giving a lesson at Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church... Dr Rowan Williams attacked what he called the "straw man" of self-interest and the way in which rich countries disregarded poor ones... "We live in a world that's broken in the sense that a very large part of our world, notably Africa, feels, with a good deal of justification, that the rest of the world has more or less stopped thinking about it."

Williams is, it appears, another man on whom the irony of his own words is lost.

If Africans believe 'the rest of the world has more or less stopped thinking about' them, it is because they have been abandoned by the west to corrupt governments and radical Islam - the former which pocket the profits of capitalism while their people go hungry and the latter which drive out capitalist western ventures that could free their countries from poverty - and have been alienated by Williams' own liberally-enthralled church and its American cousin to the extent that they are about to break away from the Anglican community.

-- Nick

Love At First Write

2010-01-31T14:07:00.001+10:00

I love Mark Steyn.

-- Nora

Me too.

-- Nick

The Not-So Naked Truth

2010-01-30T08:42:00.006+10:00

Much of this week's news column inches and minutes was taken up by breathlessly reporting Tony Abbott's new campaign policy to have mandatory chastity belts on females aged 12-60.

You didn't read about that? Not surprising, because it's not true.

Nor was it true that Abbott wanted...lemme see how The Australian put it?

Tony Abbott warns women against sex before marriage

Err, no he didn't. Here is what he did say in the Australian Women's Weekly (published monthly):

“I would say to my daughters, if they were to ask me this question, I would say … it is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don’t give it to someone lightly, that is what I would say.”

So why the deliberate misreporting by the mainstream media?

There a few brief reasons:

1. The media have an unhealthy obsession with sex or perhaps that should be an obsession with unhealthy sex.

Don't think so? Just take a look at what greets breakfast readers at News Limited's News.com.au portal this morning. While the story itself might be valid. The photo used is not one taken at the event and has no legitimate reason for being there other than titillation.

Titillation is not news.

2. It foments controversy which then feeds into several days of news.

It's an old trick. Print something that you know (or suspect) of being a lie and then appear magnanimous in allowing the person you've misrepresented (or defamed) the 'right' of reply.

Politicians use the same trick as well:

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard says comments by Tony Abbott that women should think carefully before losing their virginity will "confirm their worst fears" about the Opposition Leader.

What fears would they be Julia? Ah yes:

3. The media has an anti-religious bias - particularly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian.

Just take a look at religious reporting.

If it's bad stuff such as 'paedophile priests' and 'avaricious evangelicals' then mention of religious affiliation is front and centre. If it's about charity work, the focus is on the individuals and not the faith that motivates them.

The reason is simple as it is transparent. 'Godbotherers' get their worldview from something other than the media.

This is a threat because most journalists believe that they the only ones worthy of being information oracles. As the journalist's own union says:

Journalists describe society to itself. They convey information, ideas and opinions, a privileged role.

A privileged role indeed and one for which there is no recognised independent accountability - journalists police their own.

In the 13 years I worked as a print journalist (and union member) I know no one who was fined or thrown out of the union for unethical behaviour but I heard about plenty of such unsavoury behaviour and witnessed a few.

The censures which did occur were always done with a wink and a nod as if to say 'don't worry mate, this is all for show'.

If there is any good news that comes from this appalling piece of 'professional' gossip mongering is that people don't seem to be buying it.

Take a look at the comments on Andrew Bolt's column piece about this disgraceful affair.

If, as Jill Singer in the Herald Sun writes:

... it's kind of creepy for a prominent male politician to be rummaging around inside the underwear of young girls in search of political inspiration.

Then it is equally creepy for journalists to be rummaging around inside the underwear of young girls in search of newsworthy inspiration.

-- Nora

UPDATE:
Think I was too harsh?

“I learned to slice and dice anyone who deliberately fed out misleading information, or who spoke to others and not me,” she says.

If a backbencher refused to leak information to her about party meetings, she never mentioned that MP’s name in a story again - “unless they had done something wrong, of course”.

Another confession: “As a journalist I lied often, usually about my sources, but about other things, too. Journalists can and do get away with lying; politicians and staff can’t. Nor should they.”

Read the context and the whole thing here.

UPDATE 2:
Even ABC journalist Barrie Cassidy appears to agree:

In Cassidy’s opinion, the media tactics—which he says are unfair—of homing in on any socially conservative comments Abbott makes, could force the Liberal leader to stop speaking candidly about social issues.

“Look, it’s not fair, in a sense, to Tony Abbott.

“He is asked constantly about these issues whereas Kevin Rudd, for example, is not.

“Kevin Rudd hasn’t been asked the question, ‘What would be your advice to your daughters?’ And would his advice be any different any way? What would he say, ‘No, take a cavalier attitude, go for your life?’ I doubt it.”

Cassidy said Tony Abbott has complained about this treatment, “but it doesn’t seem to make any difference”.

“We admire him for his candor. Well, certainly in the media we like him for his candor, and it would be a pity if he suddenly, as a result of this experience, pulled his head in and we didn’t get the same Tony Abbott,” he said.

“He will be verballed and the media is on to this sort of angle that they want, that he’s a social conservative who wants to impose all of those attitudes on to the rest of the community.

“That seems to be their mindset and he was really badly treated over the Women’s Weekly article. He didn’t say anything of the kind, based on Julia Gillard’s responses to it,” Cassidy said.

If only other journalists were equally candid about the corrupt practices in their own profession.

It's Back!

2010-01-29T18:54:00.003+10:00

After a superlong hiatus, Nick and Nora's Nifty Knick Knacks is back with new entries, a new pointer and a new image of Mr and Mrs Charles.

Take a look at our fabulous vintage magazine advertisements, souvenirs of Gold Coast buildings that they've already torn down and debate whether the original or director's cut of Blade Runner is the best.

To celebrate, let's start with a cocktail!

Old Fashioned Cocktail

Prepare and serve in Glass No. 5
1 lump cube sugar
1 or 2 dashes Cocktail Bitters
1 dash seltzer
Muddle sugar until dissolved
1 jigger Rye, Bourbon or Scotch Whiskey
Cube of ice

Garnish with twist of lemon peel, 1 slice of orange, 1 maraschino cherry. Serve with highball spoon.

-- Nora Charles