Category: Current Affairs (Page 74 of 78)

That is, I’m happy someone found peace through the ministry of ‘maverick cleric’ Peter Kennedy. It’s nice to feel empowered. Whatever that means.

But if you are a Catholic Christian who is serious about your faith, then you have a responsibility to your children, your fellow parishioners, and yourself, to take your part in ensuring that what is taught and practised in your parish really is the Catholic faith.

Baptism in the name of the ‘Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer’ is not Christian baptism, no matter how personally gratifying you may find it. Christianity is not about moulding God and our worship of God to fit our own whims, but about allowing ourselves, body, soul and spirit, to be renewed in the image of Christ.

I have no objection to anyone believing anything they like. But it is simply dishonest to call yourself a Catholic priest, and lead your parishioners to believe that the personal philosophy you are teaching them is the Catholic faith, when you know very well it is not.

As I said earlier, if you want to do things your own way, there are plenty of Anglican Churches which will welcome you with open arms. There are a few different franchises to choose from, you should find one that suits. Try one. Or start your own. Just leave off the false advertising.

An earlier headline said that services around the nation were expected to bring comfort to those who had lost homes or loved ones in fires in Victoria two weeks ago.

Expected by whom the headline did not say. There is not much that can compensate for the death of someone you love. But the milllions of dollars raised, the thousands of services around the nation, and other public expressions of sorrow and support, are an indication of real care. And perhaps the knowledge of that care may bring some small light of comfort. I hope so.

Cornelia Rau was briefly detained in a detention centre for illegal immigrants by Australian offcials four years ago. She did not appear to speak English, said she did not have Australian citizenship, had no identification, and could not explain how she came to be in Australia. It was soon recognised that she had a mental illness and treatment was provided.

Her family, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, made a thundering row about her having been illegally detained (it turned out she had dual German and Australian citizenship) and Cornelia was granted $2.6 million dollars in compensation. It was never quite clear to me how the government or people of Australia (the compensation money comes from tax payers) had done anything wrong.

Now she has travelled to Jordan, where her behaviour has caused her to be arrested. She has refused Australian assistance. Yet somehow this is all still Australia’s fault.

But if you can’t or won’t teach the Catholic Faith, you have no business being a Catholic priest.

If you want a do-it-yourself faith, and a do-it-yourself Jesus, why not be an Anglican?

Who would have guessed?

Alarmingly this simple fact still seems to be escaping the current US administration.

Kelsey Grammer is absolutely right. The ‘stimulus’ package is about rewarding people who are unproductive, or who have been irresponsible, by taking money from people who are productive and responsible.

This has two effects.

First it discourages responsibility. Why should states, corporations or individuals bother to save money, spend wisely and live within their means, if when they do so money is taken from them to give to states, corporations and individuals who have not?

Secondly, taking money from those who are productive, who are generating wealth, investment and employment, means that investment and employment will be reduced. And this in turn means the recession will be deepened and prolonged. And this means that the people who are most in need will suffer more and longer.

You can’t spend your way out of debt. Even when it is other people’s money you are spending.

According to the Australian ABC, MacDonalds is doing well in Australia, so soon everyone will be obese.

This is another one of those increasingly frequent (especially when it comes to health and climate scares), headlines that look alarming, but when you read the story, you find that nothing has happened at all. It’s just some ‘expert’ saying ‘If this happens, then this might happen.’

Let me know when it does, and then I’ll start worrying.

Hmm…

The people who lit the fires are immediately responsible. But a measure of responsibility also lies with environmental activists who pressured local councils and other governement agencies to reduce or disallow prescribed (that is controlled protective) burning and other clearing of highly flammable scrub from residential areas. 

‘The green movement is directly responsible for the severity of these fires through their opposition to prescribed burning,’ said David Packham, former supervising meteorologist for fire weather nationwide at the Bureau of Meteorology.

At a community meeting in Victoria yesterday, Warwick Spooner, whose mother and brother were killed in the fires, told council members ‘We’ve lost two people in my family because you dickheads won’t cut trees down.’

Meanwhile, another family who disobeyed government regulations, cleared bush from around their home, and were fined $50,000 for doing so, said that their home and lives were saved because of the action they had taken – action which is simply reponsible in high fire risk areas.

The argument is that clearing of bush around residential areas reduces bio-diversity and increases the risk of extinctions of native animals through loss of habitat. This is nonsense. The areas cleared in prescribed burning are very small – just enough to prevent fires jumping to buildings. The real risk to native wildlife is massive uncontrolled fires like those which have just occurred.

Even though Victoria has cooled a little, there are still about twenty fires still out of control.

A fifth of the residents of the town of Maryville may be dead. Many bodies are still in burnt homes. Many of the fires are thought to have been deliberately lit. That means some of those homes  are crime scenes. Investigations will take time, which adds to the pain for families.

But the investigations have to be done. Lighting fires in the Australian bush when there are high fuel loads and hot windy conditions is something any rational person would know is likely to cause widespread destruction and or death. The people who did these terrible things must not be allowed to get away with them.

I can understand this guy being annoyed: along the trails through his property used by illegal immigrants are piles of litter including human faeces, diapers, chewing gum and drug wrappers. Immigrants have destroyed fences, killed cattle, and stolen property.

Over the last ten years he has handed over 12,000 illegal immigrants to authorities. That’s 1200 per year, over three every day, and that’s just the ones he’s caught. He put a tap (faucet) in a tank so that trespassers could access water without damaging his property. None have been injured while in his care. Now he’s being sued because some of them felt threatened.

I can’t help wondering how the lawyers behind this litigation would feel if a constant stream of trespassers wandered through their home, leaving filth and litter behind them, destroying property as they went.

I think the guy is a hero.

I am glad that the Sea Shepherd (which might be more appropriately named the Sea Wolf) has stopped harrassing Japanese whaling vessels. Even if you feel strongly about ending whaling, that is no excuse to ram other vessels in the Southern Ocean.

Amusingly, Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd, claims his reason for ending the terror tactics aginst Japanese vessels is that they are concerned about being stopped and searched by a Japanese ship. If recent events are anything to judge by, the Japanese ships have far more reason to be concerned about Paul Watson than the reverse.