The Law Of Unintended Consequences II

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 Our office has been flooded with calls from Americans who are upset that this ban has been repealed—and for good reason.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

Marriage - Not a Gay Ole Time

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.

If God Did Not Exist, We Would Have To Invent Him

How cute, News.com.au's contrarian blogger Jack Marx wants to ban Jesus.

Okay, lets say society had expunged everything to do with Christendom.

What might that society look like? In some respects not a lot different to secular society today. The pagans are gaining the lions share of publicity (like AGW believers) along with Islam which has spread aggressively to the four corners of the world.

There's widespread slavery across all of the world because there was no William Wilberforce.

There would be no hospitals because they were developed by the Hospitaliers of the Crusades. There are no orphanages, no social welfare.

Many of the finest works of art by the likes of Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Mozart, Handel, Tolkein, Dostoevsky do not exist. Lamentably there is no champagne because there is no Dom Perignon.

The world of science is all the poorer for the non-existence of Christians: the research of Bede the Venerable, Roger Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Blaise Pascal, Charles Babbage, Gregor Mendel, Sir Robert Boyd and Michal Heller.

In Australia, because there are no 'God botherers', you can say goodbye to the Salvation Army, Lifeline, The RFDS, Blue Nurses, World Vision.

How's the world looking now?

-- Nora

UPDATE: One might have left the subject above alone, however Jack Marx writes an extracurricular column on Friday to rather ham-fistedly explain that he likes Christians - just not Christ and one of Jack's acolytes writes in comments on this post.

Ya see, Jack likes all the good stuff that Christians do - like the charity and stuff - but he doesn't like the reason why they do it.

He'd rather religious people and Christians in particular keep their trap shut and not disturb his self-indulgent and self-righteous cocoon, so you can see why the joyous public celebration World Youth Day offends him no end.

Jack, having to grudgingly acknowledge the benefit Christians have brought to society, tries a different tack and fares no better.

He picks up on the Michael Newton/Christopher Hitchens/Richard Dawkins meme - the Bible is horrible because it's full of violence. Well, yes, unredeemed human history has been ever thus.

As Sam Shamoun, the Christian apologist points out: "First, the wars and violence found within the OT are descriptive, not prescriptive. They are describing events as they occurred, commandments God had given a specific people for a specific purpose."

In other words, they're historical not instructive.

Jack fires up his Google and goes hunting, picking the oft cited command to kill the Amalekites decribed in the book of Joshua.

The mindless slaughter continues verse after verse, chapter after chapter, book after revolting book, with God’s blessing when not his help.

For me, the only historical text that comes close to it for sheer murderous outrage is William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a book we read today as something of a warning, a parable on how humanity must always be on guard against organised fanaticism.

Well, I'm glad Jack brought up the Third Reich because there is a parallel, but one he is obviously unaware.

The problem with cherrypicking is you tend to miss some of the facts.

The Amalekites were savage, violent and opportunistic. Like others during that time, they engaged in child sacrifice. They also attacked Israel first.

It is the equivalent to hating the Allies for bombing Dresden and marching through Germany without acknowledging that Nazi Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland or loathing the United States for dropping the bomb on Nagasake and Hiroshima without acknowledging that the Imperial forces bombed Pearl Harbour.

To describe the act of the Israelites (and by extension the command by God) as immoral, hateful, irrational and genocidal is as emotive as it is inaccurate.

Jack, having done this intellectually dishonest exercise about the Old Testament, turns his attention to Jesus:

Of course, Jesus Christ was a “new improved” God, the Christian New Testament considerably more mellow than its prequel. Christ was no warlord – he spoke of love and turning the other cheek. Nevertheless, he walked in the name of his father, the occasional fit of punchy conceit loitering in his blood

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:34-37).

Subtlety is not Jack's strong suit, so it's no surprise that he fails to understand the meaning of this passage. But ask anyone who has left Islam for Christianity, whether Jesus' words hold truth.

Indeed, what if one of Jack's children turned around one day to say they had become a Christian? What would venom-filled invective would dear ole dad spew?

Whether I believe in God or not I won’t say, but I will say that I despise him. I call him “Super***t”

Ah yes, that would be right.

Celebrating Four Decades Of Drivel

British Labour has announced 7.5 million training places to improve the skills of the workforce. Half the places are to improve numeracy and literacy.

Simon Heffer notes the indictment of an education system nearly identical to Australia's:

This is where the Marxist drivel taught in teacher training colleges for the past 40 years or so has got us.

Ouch!

-- Nick

Through A Glass Darkly

Paul Syvret's Perspectives piece reveals two fundamental flaws in the writer's logic.

One comes in the fifth column where he writes:

"Some of us are quite comfortable viewing explicit non-violent erotica at home. Others are offended by topless sunbaking on the each. Each to their own. If you don't like it, don't look".

One needs to explain to Mr Syvret the fundamental difference between a public and private place. At home is private, at the beach is a public place. If a flasher takes up position outside a school what would he instruct children? If you don't like it, don't look?

The second is regarding the level of supervision Mr Syvret assumes parents can reasonably assert.

As an example, parents with a 17yo son might be quite happy for him to download 'explicit non-violent erotica' to view on the shared family computer and be less happy for their 12 year old daughter to see it as she was looking for her own downloaded files.

Would Mr Syvret bar the 12 year-old from using the computer? Or would he bar the 17yo from surfing the net without his supervision? Whose rights trump whose in his worldview?

No one, not even the Prime Minister, as Mr Syvret admits, is calling for filters to be mandatory, just made available at either the PC or server level for any one who feels the need to install them.

Perhaps Mr Syvret should take his own advice:

If you don't like it, don't look at it.

-- Nora

And Damned If You Don't

Well this is where trying to be culturally sensitive gets you:

HUMAN rights activists in Congo Republic accused organisers of a Pan-African music festival yesterday of mistreating a group of pygmy musicians by housing them in tents at the city zoo instead of in hotels...

...Organisers of the music festival, which ends today, told Radio France Internationale that as pygmies normally live in the forest, they had hoped to try to recreate their natural habitat by housing them in the zoo, which has areas of trees.

-- Nora

So, What's Left?

Recommended reading for today from The Australian: Reality Bites The Psychotic Left. The money paragraph is reproduced below:

While the Left is still fighting the intellectual battles of the 1970s, the rest of the world has moved on. Progressive only in their own, inflated self image, the commentariat finds itself stranded on the outer fringes of the national debate, stuck in an intellectual cul-de-sac without the courage or confidence to retrace its steps. Their voices have not been silenced, they have simply lost their relevance. While the mainstream debate is conducted elsewhere, the progressives are stuck in the corner, muttering darkly among themselves. Seventeen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they are rebels without a cause still trapped in dialectical Marxist maze.

-- Nora

That's Not An Argument, THIS Is An Argument

There is an old truism, 'say something long enough and people will believe it'.

We've seen it with idiot 9/11 conspiracy theorists whose crazy ideas resonate in the echo chamber of like-minded fools.

The 'truthers' seem so sincere and their hysteria gets so much coverage that it seems circumspect to nod and say that maybe there is something to it after all.

But they’re wrong.

When not armed with facts and confident in the truth, it's very easy to find oneself swayed by sentiment or by someone else's argument, especially if they're arguing with passion.

Witness the reaction to the story on News.com.au on the Prime Minister's comments on Victorian Law Reform Commission recommendations that homosexual couples be allowed to adopt or have IVF treatment.

Howard said, quite sensibly that children should have a mother and a father.

The 359 comments that follow the story are a revelation and point to three forms of debating style that cannot correctly be called argument.

Monty Python wittily describes the difference.

The Mantra

C of Bris, did you get to choose the colour of eyes or hair, or skin? No... Homosexuality is not a choice. let's repeat this and try and drum it into your stupid mind. Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice! Being gay is NOT a choice!
Posted by: Ignorance Example Number1 of City 1:03pm today
Comment 137 of 359

Apart from being an example of obsessive behaviour, Ignorance Example Number1 of City epitomises the noise that people whose position is unsupportable have to make in order to get their message heard.

It serves to wear down any innate or instinctive belief in the contrary position.

It's similar to the old psychology class experiment on peer pressure and independent thought. You clue in all the class with the exception of three to five people that a simple question with only one right answer is to be asked. The students will be asked to agree on and support a wrong answer (for example 3+5=9) to see what happens.

More often than not the handful of students who are subjects of the experiment will end up agreeing with their peers because of weight of numbers, even though they know their classmates are wrong. In other words they don't have the courage of their beliefs or the ability to articulate them or it's just easier to go with the flow.

The ‘Hater’
My own position on whether homosexuals are appropriate parents for children is well known, but what is striking about the News comments is the utter inability for some people to see what is perfectly true because of their own bias.

I'm stunned that a common sense statement like 'kids need a mum and a dad' is seen as controversial.
Posted by: Nora Charles of Queensland 2:56pm today
Comment 255 of 359

Which elicits this response:

" I'm stunned that a common sense statement like 'kids need a mum and a dad' is seen as controversial " Common sense? it may very well not be true. I'm sure centuries ago people like you were stunned when they were told the Earth is round.
Posted by: Pj of Sydney 3:35pm today
Comment 283 of 359

The truth is children do grow up healthier (both physically and psychologically), happier and wealthier when raised by their biological mother and father (under the commitment of marriage) and this is supported by an overwhelming range of evidence.

The fact that some children do not have that opportunity for a variety of reasons doesn't invalidate this. To argue otherwise is specious.

Another tactic used by people who don't have the weight of reason on their side is to shut down debate by accusing their opponent of 'hating'. In this case invectives of redneck, hater, bigot and homophobe are used liberally in the comments.

Funnily enough, those who argue that homosexuality is normal and is just as good an arrangement to raise children in as heterosexual families and claim evidence to do so, aren't even supported by the gay advocacy research with which they try to use to bolster their argument.

I’m entitled to my opinion
But repeated mantras and accusations of ‘-isms’ (racism, sexism etc) do not a convincing argument make and in fact point to another problem we have in society – holding beliefs based on nothing more substantial than feelings.

We see this in another form of style often phrased as, ‘I’m entitled to my opinion’. Indeed everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but it doesn’t mean their opinion, no matter how sincerely held is correct.

Unfortunately a lot of young people often try to validate their beliefs with this phrase possibly as a result of two generations of education experimentation that has taught them that there are no absolutes, only opinions, all of which are equally valid.

While this might be true of truly subjective things (chocolate cake is better than marzipan), it cannot be true of objective things (gravity will still pull things back down to Earth no matter what your opinion).

It would appear that people aren’t taught or have forgotten the difference between subjectivity and objectivity in the pursuit of trying to validate all beliefs.

-- Nora

Old Blighty

It's would seem that England's green and pleasant land is neither green nor pleasant, nor for the home owner, their own land.

Clive Aslet, editor-at-large of Country Life gives a bleak view of life in the UK. It's a long piece but worth reading all the way through and wonder if such plans are in the works for Australia.

One might feel differently if one believed officialdom truly had the interests of the planet at heart. But green idealism has become a fig leaf to conceal the bulging organ of revenue increase.

The London congestion charge started off, as the name implies, as a means of unjamming traffic. Like the HIPs, it is changing its spots to become a beast for savaging families, often with young children, who have the temerity to drive seven-seater cars. From 2009 they face a charge of £25.

Outside the zone, the Lib Dem Richmond upon Thames council wants the owners of such vehicles to pay whopping fees for parking outside their own home. It is a convenience that the money raised from motorists goes straight into the council coffers, for councillors to spend as they choose, thereby escaping control-freakish capping by the Treasury.

And so it is with rubbish collection. Don't tell me that councils were principally motivated by reducing greenhouse gas emissions when they halved the rate at which they emptied bins and introduced compulsory recycling schemes. They want to save money and damn the rats.

You have only to look at Southwark. It has retained the weekly bin round precisely because it will help promote sustainability. What? I see your puzzled look and furrowed brow. Weekly collection from the doorstep, as it explains on its website, will allow bin snoops to see more easily who is recycling and who isn't. "If residents are not taking part, a member of the recycling team will visit."

Presumably, there will follow the sort of knock on the door familiar to East German dissidents in the days of the Stasi. More information is being collected through microchips installed in rubbish bins - oh, and they will be fitted with a lock to prevent neighbours using a bin that isn't theirs.

Are these the reasons why England is called Blighty?

-- Nora

Does My Carbon Footprint Look Big In This?

Since eco-something is all the rage this season, Nicky and I join the in-crowd:

-- Low flow restrictors on our taps
-- Shower together
-- Work together and therefore travel to together
-- Compost kitchen waste
-- Use grey water from showers and cooking on the garden
-- Have a drought resistant, largely native garden
-- Do the cute little 'reduce, reuse, recycle' mantra where appropriate
-- Switch off unused appliances/lights
-- Replacing incandescent globes with compact fluoros
-- Cook with fresh in-season local ingredients
-- Buy antiques and funky retro pieces instead of buying new...

Well I thought with all this green stuff I must be positively verdant.

Alas, how wrong I was.

'Tho Nicky and I live modestly, we're environmental bigfoots according to this little game from the Powerhouse Museum.

Despite our best efforts, we 'hog' 6 hectares of resources for our lifestyle when in order to save the planet we need to be consuming less than 2 hectares.

As you might gather, I was very dismayed.

:-(

'What would I need to do to save the planet?' I pondered. So I did the test again.

What if I was an 'eat like a sparrow' vegetarian who lived alone in a solar powered caravan with energy-efficient appliances, who recycled and walked everywhere?

Could that appease the great goddess Gaia?

No.

It was three hectares.

I wept.

:'-(

What does she want with us?

And then I understood.

:-/

She wants us dead.

And Gaia's worshippers are misanthropists who use the environmental cause to manifest their own self-loathing.

-- Nora

One With The Lot

A pizza store owner who tackled an armed robber is being investigated by the WorkSafe WA Commissioner Nina Lyhne for placing people at risk:

Workplaces such as late-night food outlets, chemists and service stations needed to have an established armed hold-up procedure, with all staff trained in its use, Ms Lyhne said.

The correct procedure, if running away is not an option, is to cower, grovel and plead for ones life while handing over the contents of the till and hope not to be stabbed, shot or otherwise injured or killed.

Under investigation, eh? How long before it's illegal to resist crime?

-- Nick

Whatever The Weather

Fascinating that a Courier Mail journalist uses the term moral challenge when referring to 'climate change' - not economic challenge, scientific challenge or technological challenge.

More and more 'climate change' is being talked about, it becomes readily apparent that this has less to do with unseasonal weather and more with the establishment of a quasi-religion.

Loaded terms such as the 'Goracle' and 'climate change denialists' are being bandied about while the medieval Papal-indulgence-style carbon off-sets being hailed as some kind of social imperative.

Despite noise to the contrary, human contribution to 'climate change' is far from proven.

The real moral challenge comes from those environmental luddites in the first world who, tell the impoverished third world that they can't have the modernisation and technology they need to reduce mortality rates, increase nutrition and live healthier.

-- Nora

Enviro-Loonie

Poor, poor Tim:

SCIENTIST and environmentalist Tim Flannery says he has considered handing back his Australian of the Year award due to Prime Minister John Howard's climate change policies.

Speaking at Melbourne's RMIT University today, Dr Flannery said he was struggling to reconcile his role as Australian of the Year with his views on climate change.

"Of course this year I am Australian of the Year, and I have to somehow tread a very difficult line, a very tenuous line, I think, between honouring the tradition of Australian of the Year, being apolitical, and trying to do something for my country," Dr Flannery said.

But you won't, will you. Tim?

-- Nick

Are You Old Enough?

Family Planning Queensland is now sexually abusing children by introducing them to material largely inappropriate for such a young age group.
What should be primarily a parental responsibility is being usurped by a special interest group more concerned about flogging books.

Numerous studies have shown that introducing children too young to explicit sexual content lowers the age for sexual activity and increases risktaking behaviour.

Furthermore what's to stop paedophiles getting a copy of this book and using it to groom children?

-- Nora

Winter Wonderland

Ah, the change of the seasons - the shrill call of a referee's whistle, the brisk, cold breeze across the try line - nothing heralds the approach of winter like the prospect of football and hot tofu.

-- Nora