The Journal
All writing
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Rapture, Global Warming, and Other Delusions
Harold Camping was wrong. 200 million Christian believers were not ‘raptured’ up to heaven on Saturday. If Christian fundamentalists keep this up, it will only be another 100 or so wrong predictions and they will have as…
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Building the Stuff-up Revolution
I am against taxpayer funded subsidies as a matter of general principle. Subsidies mean the government thinks it knows how to use your money better than you do. For example, I have a 100km return trip…
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Failure is Essential
One of a few interesting posts over the last week from Dr Tim Ball: Support and even reward of failure by the current US administration is the culmination of a pattern begun several years ago under the…
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Predictable Predictions
‘Will your home be underwater?’ asks the Adelaide Advertiser, which seems to be taking on a new role as the Adelaide (Labor Party) Advertiser. Under political pressure over its unspecified carbon tax, the Federal Government will…
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Assange Wins Peace Prize – Pardon?
The Sydney Peace Foundation has handed Wikileaks founder Julian Assange its gold medal for extraordinary achievement in promoting peace with justice. Excuse me while I throw up. The Foundation glowingly reports that this is only the…
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Please, Ditch the CAPTCHAs
I hate those wretched CAPTCHA things. Too hard to read, and they don’t do a good job anyway. If you have a website where people can sign on to some service, and you need to be…
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Insults Are Not Evidence
In the early eighties I went through a stage of uncertainty about the ordination of women to the priesthood. I was living in Adelaide at the time, studying at Flinders/The Adelaide College of Divinity for priestly…
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Greenpeace Not A Charity
As a contrast to the appallingly dumb judicial decision in the previous post, I offer this as a counter-example: Greenpeace has lost a High Court battle to restore its status as a charity. The environmental lobby…
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Ex Con Gets Compo For Beating Customer
This is one of those ‘What the #^*?!’ moments. A fast food restaurant manager has been awarded thousands of dollars in compensation after he broke his wrist while bashing a customer. Matthew Styles had previous convictions for…
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Thoughts on Bin Laden’s Death
I wrote a few weeks ago that the death penalty should be kept as an option, but used very rarely – when it seemed to be the only way to protect society from a vicious and dangerous…
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Bishops and Betrayal
Bishop William Morris, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Toowoomba, has taken early retirement. That’s the way he describes it. catholic-hierarchy.org puts it more bluntly. He was removed. I have met Bishop Morris. I have vague memories…
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Bigpond Email – Can Receive But Not Send
Telstra is a commercial operation now, but still seems to have a public service mentality. What I mean by this is that they seem to be more concerned about covering their backsides than they are…
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Busy, busy, busy
Apologies for the lack of posts over the last week. We have been busy in store with both computer and photographic work. Although it keeps me away from blogging, this is especially pleasing at the moment…
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Terry Pratchett Wants To Meet Julia Gillard
So that he can ask her in person, ‘Why is assisted suicide banned in Australia?’ To save you the trouble of talking to Julia, I’ll tell you Terry. Assisted suicide is banned in Australia because it…
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Renewable Wonder Fuel Not So Wonderful
The World Bank’s annual index shows global food prices have soared 36 per cent in 12 months, adding a further 44 million people to the 1.2 billion who live in extreme poverty. The greater proportion of…
