PM is no right-wing social re-engineer

Intersting article from today's Australian - Howard on abortion.

Howard is a secular political pragmatist. He goes to church but he never uses religion to justify his policies nor does he invoke God to claim superior wisdom. When he stopped the Tampa Howard didn't claim to have God on his side.
He differs from George W. Bush – and Howard sees himself as being different.
Critics who claim that Howard is part of the religious Right don't comprehend
him...

[snip]

In this sense Howard is not a right-wing social re-engineer, as claimed by
his critics. The Left progressives have trouble grasping this because
re-engineering is the essence of their own politics. ..

Read more

The Star Wars Liturgy (again)

Found, in sympathy with the now-apocryphal Star Wars Liturgy, the
Minneapolis Creed (tongue in cheek, of course!)

The Minneapolis Creed

We believe in Justice Mother,
the all inclusive Maker of good self esteem.

And in Jesus,
The only name we recognize from the Bible
He was conceived in an alternative committed relationship
And became person.
He was crucified, died, and was buried.
On the third day his ideals were raised in the minds of his friends.
He “Ascended” into “Heaven” and sits there with the heavenly Parent
But since there is no judgment, he shan't be back.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, Sophia.
She serves as a great rationale for whatever we want to do.
With the Parent and the Child she is used for furthering our agenda.

We believe in one church, as long as it agrees with us,
One baptism for the extinction of sins.
We look for the conversion of those less enlightened,
And a life of full inclusion of all who agree with us

http://www.brfwitness.org/Journal/archive/2003_08_10_archive.html

Living the Questions

Just been put onto http://www.livingthequestions.com by the Youth Multimedia list. As an alternative to Alpha . . I don't think so. Unless you want to breed a generation of liberal heretics.

And the contributors! Shelby Spong! "Tex" Sample! Nancy Ammerman! To quote Obi Wan's assessment of Mos Eisley spaceport would be to generous.

From the resource itself:

After searching in vain for a number of years, it was clear that in order to offer a practical tool for attracting, educating, and equipping thinking Christians, something new would have to be created.

Keep searching guys! Pity about all of those "non-thinking" Christians out there. They can just put up with the Bible.

Emperors

The Emperor of The Republic of the United States of the New World Order confers with his opposite number, His Holinesss Archpatriach Vladimir X of the New European Confederacy, in an attempt to re-unite the forces of Christendom following the great 1000 year schism.

Akin on Anakin

Great. So now, as well as the infamous "Death Cookie", Jack Chick's going to give Catholics stick about the "Death Rarebit"...

And speaking of Rome's billions of mind-controlled bondslaves, I saw this intriguing piece today by following a link from Jimmy Akin's blog, which in turn I found by following a link from Mark Shea's blog.

Here's Akin:

Lucas has said that the new trilogy is much more like what he envisioned the first trilogy, but he didn't have the tech (or the money) to make it the way he saw it.

Not everything Lucas says in this regard is true. He makes it sound as if the story of all six movies was clear in his mind when he made the first, and that patently isn't true -- at least if you read the original scripts (also available in an easier-to-use book form). Lucas had all kinds of stuff in the originals that indicate his vision of the story changed in midstream -- repeatedly. Yet the original series ended up clicking in a way no previous movie trilogy had.

Despite the alterations to the plot, I think that Lucas is telling the truth when he says he originally imagined a much more lush, detail-rich universe for the original trilogy, yet for budgetary (and non-budgetary) reasons, he ended up cutting it way back.

As the years have passed, he has now begun adding back the missing detail, in the "Special Edition" of the original films that was released in theaters, in the Extra-Special Super Chocolate Fudgy Edition that has now been released on DVD, and most notably in the films of the current trilogy.

As he's added more detail, fans of the original series have been complaining, and loudly.

There are some circumstances in which adding detail hurts a work of art, situations in which less is more.

That's the message fans of the original Star Wars movies have been sending to Lucas, but he doesn't seem to have gotten the message.

And here's the main piece, by Andrew Rilstone:

... George Lucas stands revealed as one of a long and illustrious line of artists who has dedicated himself to ruining one of their great works—because they have totally failed to recognize what made it so great.

The draft versions of Star Wars, particularly The Adventures of the Star Killer are fair to middling sci fi fantasy adventures. They would have made decent 70s movies, to file alongside Logan's Run and Zardoz and forget about. Star Killer contains lots of mumbo jumbo and made up politics and a huge weight of backstory. Lucas—then if not now a skilled storyteller—had the sense to surgically remove all that material, and leave nothing but the bare skeleton of the story. Ever since, he has regretted cutting up his baby, and is now engaged in re-instating as much of the lost material as he possibly can. But he has completely failed to realize that it was precisely the 'cutting back' process that made Star Wars such a classic movie.

Star Wars works because almost every extraneous detail has been removed; so that we end up with something almost abstract. We might recognize it as an abstract diagram of the structure of stories even if we had never heard of Joseph Campbell. The word 'archetype' is over-used: it might be better to say that the Star Wars characters (Hero, Villain, Hero's Helper) its settings (Desert, Jungle) its back story and its tropes (Old Republic, Evil Empire, The Force) are vast, broad generalizations. If the backstory were to be sketched in this abstract quality would evaporate. But this is precisely what Lucas's intention seems to be: to turn the Old Republic from an abstract icon of a golden age into a generic city full of squabbling politicians; to turn Obi-Wan from the Hero's Mentor into a movie character; and to turn the Force from a brilliant symbol of religion into a bit of Dungeons and Dragons cod mythology...

Great stuff. Read it all. Right now. But what in Grapthar's Hammer is "cod mythology"?!!

Criticism No Reason For Murder

And now back to the Islamofascists (as Mark Steyn calls them) or Islamocommies (as George Pell calls them).

Of course, the reasons for this discrepancy are all too obvious and expose the hypocrisy of the cultural and political Left while underlining the dangers Western culture faces from Islamic extremism. For in the sophicates' world view, only certain religions – chief among them Christianity – are approved targets.

Meanwhile, Islam, which is as much a political system as a religious one and is predicated on the idea that the state must always be subservient to religious law, is given victim status and rendered immune to criticism.

The discrepancy is the leftist media's differing responses to the murder of Van Gogh vs the re-election of George W Bush. History repeats itself - another Van Gogh suffers for his art. Perhaps Don McLean could pen another tune to mourn the death of an artist...

In 2003 George Michael recorded "The Grave," from McLean's "American Pie" album, as a protest against the Iraq war. McLean said he was proud that Michael chose his song. "We must remember that the wizard is really a cowardly old man hiding behind a curtain with a loud microphone," he said at the time. "It takes courage and a song to pull the curtain open and expose him."

Asked if he took any flak for his political expression, McLean said he has taken criticism for a long time, and recalled the time that someone threw a hardhat at him for something he said onstage in 1969. He remains critical of President George W. Bush's Iraq war policy.

"Things are so out of control in America," he said. "I'm so depressed over things. Everybody was so cowed by all this march to war and all this flag waving and this insanity."

Virgin Mary on Toast

Not from The Onion(!). . .as reported in The Australian

Diana Duyser, 52, of Hollywood, Florida, screamed and almost fainted as she chomped into a grilled cheese sandwich 10 years ago because she saw the face of
the Virgin Mary staring back at her.
"I yelled for my husband Gregg and he couldn't believe it neither," Mrs Duyser said yesterday.
The toasted likeness sits - a bite out of its bottom left corner - surrounded in cotton wool in a plastic box. But now, after a decade of watching over the Duysers from her crusty caryatid, Mary is on the market to the highest bidder on eBay.

The inspired punters on eBay have got into the spirit of things, too.

Islam is the new communism: Pell

Here's the grab from the ABC website

Australia's top Catholic is again embroiled in controversy, this time over a speech in which he suggested Islam was the new communism. Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, told the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in the United States, that secular democracy encourages an intolerance of religion. In that vacuum, he says, some in the West may turn to Islam like many turned to communism last century.

This is what they actually have of Pell - just a scrap, really:

The small but growing conversion of native Westerners within Western
societies to Islam carries the suggestion that Islam may provide in the 21st
century, the attraction that communism provided in the 20th, both for those that
are alienated and embittered on the one hand and for those who seek order or
justice on the other. The past century provided examples enough of how the
emptiness within secular democracy can be filled with darkness by political
substitutes for religion.

The ABC throws in a few comments by Keysar Trad, the spokesman for the honorary Mufti of Australia, and Professor Gary Bouma is an Anglican Minister and Sociologist at Monash University (also the UNESCO Chair in Intercultural and Inter-religious Relations, Asia Pacific).

Both don't seem to get what Pell is saying. Both latch onto the fact that the Commies are godless, the Muslims ain't, so Pell has got it wrong. They think that Pell is discussing a false analogy, and they fail to see what he means.

Pell, of course is addressing those members of democracy who feel "revolutionary" - both the oppressed and those who seek freedom for them. Communism, and its left-wing christian offshoot, liberation theology, also appeals to those who feel oppressed or those who seek a righting of social wrongs. Islam offers the same.

In its militant, "Mecca" form (as Phil Jensen so rightly puts it), Islam offers the opportunity to bring all under the banner of Allah - a religious politico-social revolution if you will. Sharia law and all that. And in its compliant "Medina" form (hat tip to Phil again), where Muslims are in the minority, it is a strong voice for justice and tolerance - of Muslims, of course.

Read your Koran - both aspects are there. What the critics fail to see is what is staring them in the face the whole time. The very nature of Islam has these two aspects, and Pell has identified them both.

How the West was Won

In the post-election washup there has been a strong meme that the US election was handed to George W because of the votes of the religious right in Ohio.

typical of this whinging mindset is the article by Phillip Adams in Tuesday's Australian (Fire and Brimstone on the Road to Armageddon)

This has been addressed in The Values-Vote Myth, but there are plenty in the commentariat willing to take on the subject of religion and politics.

From the Courier-Mail's Paul Gray's Religious Revival:

Religion had never been dead and buried at all, but had simply become invisible to a particular class of Westerners who no longer wished to see it – or at least, to see it as anything more than the common fantasy of the feeble-minded.

Through Mark Shea, the work of Jonah Goldberg of the National Review:

But what offends them so much about religion is that it is a source of authority outside — and prior to — politics. What has offended the Left since Marx, and American liberalism since Dewey, is the notion that moral authority should be derived from anyplace other than the state or "the people" (conveniently defined as citizens who vote liberal). Voting on values not sanctified by secular priests is how they define "ignorance."

And its echoed in the views of Ron Suskind "Mr Reality Based Community" (as opposed to my "Unreality-based commuinity over here) that used to be avialbale on the NY Times website but can be had by a look at the ABC's Lateline transcript:

A lot of it is about these sweeping issues, in some ways, Maxine, and I maybe could finish with this, is that if you really step back you see what's being debated in America are the very Enlightenment era principles upon which this country and other Western democracies are founded.They're being debated in this election.The questions, you know, now so fierce will end in some outcome and then action.Certainly George Bush is a man of action. He will act with whatever mandate he has and it may be a mandate from faith-based community. Same for John Kerry. That is what's being discussed in America now.The bedrock upon which Western democracy, liberal democracies like yours, ourselves, in Europe, are based.

Reminds me of a poster I saw on Protest Warrior:

Cuts boths ways

From the ABC's AM progam this morning:

JOHN SHOVELAN: The growth in the number of people voting on moral issues was second only to the increase in those who voted on national security.
Evangelicals are driven by two key issues – opposition to gay marriage and a desire to overturn a woman's right to abortion in the case Rowe versus Wade.

Just love that turn of phrase. How about: Evangelicals are driven by two key issues - support for traditional marriage and the right to life. Or this one: Small 'l' liberals are driven by two key issues - support of gay marriage and a desire to allow unrestricted access to abortions.

It all depends on your point of view. In the interest of balance, could the ABC alternate its perspective every second report, so that a more fair and accurate portrayal is offered?

Sent to the ABC

Aussie Media - A Temple of Adulterous Pagan Prostitutes?

An analysis of an analysis of a rebuttal of a misrepresented story ... phew!

Keeping watch on Media Watch

Dean Jensen challenges inaccuracies

Media Watch: For Heaven's sake, Phillip :: 25/10/2004

This prblem will not go away until transcripts of the tapes recorded at the speaches are made available (and sure to go on sale at Matthias Media!)

The Values-Vote Myth

Excellent article from the NY Times (c/- reading Tim Blair) which identifies why the media are now all over the religious right like a rash - and why our side should have won!

Every election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them.

The Courier-Mail on CNN!

Finally - affirmation from our American cousins that our local rag is worth quoting:

Former ANZUS treaty adviser Professor Ross Babbage, who has just returned from defense briefings in the U.S., told the Queensland state-based Courier-Mail newspaper that new fighting tactics and cutting-edge communications would be tested in Australia.

From CNN - the news organisation that brought you Gulf War I and II - now comes - Professor Ross Babbage.

What a great time for Australia! Our resume...

1. Joined US-led Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force with "pre-deployment" option
2. Helping develop US Joint Strike Fighter program
3. Role in US missile defense shield project
4. Threaten "pre-emptive" strikes against Indonesia and other SE Asian nations
5. Purchased 50+ US Abrams tanks for "seamless integration" into US deployments
6. Scrapping F-111 to be replaced by US-type F-18 Hornets armed with cruise missiles
7. Collins class submarines refitted torpedo tubes to accomodate bigger, heavier US torpedos
8. Mentioned in Dispatches by Osama bin Laden
9. Identified as intended targets by Bali bombers
10. All of this of course NOT INCREASING OUR LIKELIHOOD AS A TERRORIST TARGET according to Zander Downer

Recalls Midnight Oil's US Forces...

Evangelical cornerstones

From the ABC's AM program (re: Bush):

The turnout of Pentecostals, Evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics, was the cornerstone of his victory.

Dr James C Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family and a powerful Evangelical Protestant leader, said that when a White House official rang to thank him for his help in the campaign, he told him that many people believed the country was on the verge of self destruction, and through prayer and the involvement of millions of Evangelicals and mainline Protestants and Catholics, God had given the country a reprieve.

He went on to tell the official, the Bush administration now needs to be more aggressive in pursuing those values, or it will pay a price.

Interesting reading. But I wonder where the Austraian media was during the US election campaign? All I remember reading and hearing about was Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, a little bit of economy and nothing of what apparently has "won" the election for George W - the christian vote. Is it because the Aussie media deliberately dismissed this as an irrelevant sideshow? It apparently was a hot topic in the US, as exit polls ondicated. Australian media outlets used the same dismissive tactic with Family First, surprising the politicians, pollsters and pundits, as Gary Morgan attested.

Lego Bob Catter Jr

Care of Tom

A picture tells a thousand words really.

Indy 300 pic

Finally got a pic from my video I took of Day 1 of the 2004 Gold Coast Lexmark Indy 300.




It's a formula 3! Click for big!

Scenes from the life of Dr Martin Luther

Beliefs get in the way

Peter Scruby, of Hamilton, writes in the Letters section of The Courier-Mail on Wednesday November 3:

How can Health Minister Tony Abbott be objective about abortion with the strong Roman Catholic beliefs he holds? When an ABC radio interviewer asked Abbott if he had spoken to Prime Minister John Howard about medicare funding of late-term abortions, he refused to answer to the point of absolute silence.Why? There's no doubting his intelligence, but I worry religious beliefs may override other considerations in the abortion issue.

Mr Scruby, how can you be objective about Tony Abbott with the strong anti-Catholic beliefs you hold? I am no apologist for Tony Abbott, but why should he have to disclose to the ABC the Prime Minister's confidential view? There is doubting of your intelligence, and I worry your intolerant attitude towards Catholics may override other considerations , such as allowing all sides the chance to be heard.

No young conservative evangelicals using mobiles phones

Witness the witlessness of media commentary of the US election results. While trying to explain away why Kerry didn't win (When he should have, of course! - Why are people so stupid to vote for Bush?), the answer is apparently, always, "Evangelical Christians":

On SBS News, Assoc Prof Elaine Thompson asserted, "There are increasing numbers of young people voting Democrat, and in turn, conservative evangelicals voting Republican".

What? There are no young, conservative evangelical christians? Do the young always vote Democrat? For that matter, do evangelical christians always vote Republican? Only if they're white, it seems.

An ABC radio reporteer in Boston, "Mobile phone voters supporting Kerry are countered by evangelical christians voting Bush."

Yup. No evangelical christian uses a mobile phone. They use semaphore, heliographs amd smoke signals.

Same on ABC's AM program this morning, "evangelical christians",

In Ohio, in the south of the state, it was the Evangelical Christians that effectively locked up that state for President Bush. Republicans really, they got the on-the-ground machine working and they excelled and outstripped the Democrats, and that was one of the big surprises of the election.

TONY EASTLEY: And a lot of that was put down to the religious right?

JOHN SHOVELAN: The Evangelical Christian Movement, yeah. ... in the heartland, along the Mississippi River corridor, Iraq was the fourth issue.
It was moral values out there that was the number one issue, and that's where the significance, of course, of the Evangelical Christian vote was felt.

and in The Courier-Mail, "evangelical christians" again (quoting Karl Rove's ability to mobilise)

It's almost as if the media are astonished that this group even have the right to vote. How dare they impose their voting preferences on us?

There's more than just the return of a right-wing incumbant with an increased majority in common between Australian and US elections - our governments also share the support of the christian right.

Do "UCA" resemblance here...?

"The Windsor Report Feels Your Pain" via Tom

Rick Ritchie

The Anglican communion's newly issued Windsor Report appears to have been written by apprehensive conservatives in damage-control mode. Meaning, it looks like it could have been drafted at an LCMS synodical convention. The report, which many had hopes would firmly address the crisis brought on by the consecration of a gay bishop, does claim that the request for the report to be drafted preceded that consecration. It also states that "in some instances the request by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates for an absence of developments or pronouncements which would make the work of the Lambeth Commission more difficult has been ignored." I take this to mean that the report actually does more than it was asked to do. And the more consists of suggestions for the different Anglican bodies to covenant together to avoid future possibilities of schism.

[...]

I am saddened....Wait a minute! I've never been saddened in my life! That's a disingenuous bureaucrat word. (Never trust anyone who uses the word 'saddened'.) Gak! I am sick-to-death of church documents like the Windsor Report. And I don't think it's primarily a reflection of the people who write them. I think it's a reflection of the kind of culture in which we find ourselves, and the kinds of expectations placed upon those who write such documents. They are asked to perform the impossible. And they make an heroic attempt. But the time is later than they imagine.

Imagine if the letter to the church at Thyatira was written by the same people who wrote the Windsor Report. Instead of "I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess," we would read:

"Many in your congregation are bewildered by the nature of sexuality in our broken world. We have heard the emotions of alienation of both Jezebel and those who feel alienated by those who tolerate her. We call for a healing process where all can move on a journey together of discovering what communion means."

Perhaps this sounds more Christian that the Revelation to some. But there is a danger in trying to be more Christian than Christ.

[...]

georgewbush

You see it on the stickers and the campaign materials across the internet, but you can't actually get there in the middle of a knife-edge elction - why not?

Visit http://www.georgewbush.com and find out:

You are not authorized to view the 2004 election results.

You might not have permission to view the results ofthe 2004
presidential election using the credentials you supplied.

If you believe you should be able to view this directory or page,
please try to contact the CIA or the FBI by using any e-mail address or phone
number that may be listed on the
http://www.whothehellisthisgeorgewbushguyanyway.com/
home page.

You can click Search to look for conspiracies by Michael Moore.

HTTP Error 403 - Forbidden Presidential Election Results

Mark Steyn on Saved

A film yet to hit the shores here in Aus - although I did see Mandy Moore selling here wares on the Today show. Quote from Mr Steyn:

USA Today called it ‘irreverent’ and ‘subversive’. Au contraire, if you wanted to be irreverent and subversive, you’d have set it at American Eagles Wahhabi Madrassah and had great sport with the pseudo-hip imam. But, though
deriding Christians is obvious and risk-free, it still depends for its effectiveness on a passing acquaintance with the subject-matter, and there’s little evidence of that .... It’s hard to be genuinely funny when you’re so determined to patronise
your own characters. So we get wall-to-wall white-bread Christians who are
witless, superstitious, shallow and insensitive.

Read the rest of the review for more. I saw this movie previewed on Aus. TV a little while back and had a sneaking suspicion its intent was to paint the traditional redneck jocks and teen bitch cheerleader girls beloved of US adolescent B-movies as bigotted Christians. And guess what? Instead of revenge of the nerds, and the quiet girl with glasses who is really, we have gays, single moms, Jews and cripples as our sympathetic characters. Someone get a life, quick.

Abortion, Childcare and paid Maternity Leave

Saw Sarah Madison (spell?) from the WEL speak on Seven's Sunrise this morning (Nov 3), complaining about the helicopter incident and drawing a line to Tony Abbot. Koche seemed to dismiss any connection, but Ms Madison was adamant. Quote from memory was something like, "Women need access to abortion, childcare and paid maternity leave and the current Federal government is eroding these rights".

This surprised me in an number of ways. If I understand the issue correctly:

BEFORE the child is born...if it is
a) wanted, then paid maternity leave should be provided
b) unwanted, then abortion should be provided

These are of course to provide for the welfare of the mother (and partly for the child) in (a) and solely for the mother in (b). I don't think it can be argued that you are proving for the welfare of the child by aborting it.

AFTER the child is born then child care should be provided. A natural consequence of (a) above. This is of course to provide for the welfare of the child. Or maybe the mother, so that she can return to full-time work, or maybe both, so that her wages may provide a better standard of living for her and her child.

BUT the Right wing Tony Abbot and his ilk are having none of it. He says, "NO" to abortion, "NO" to paid maternity leave and"NO' to increased child care.

My thinking is both the same, and different (and I think more consistent).
NO to Abortion (it's hard on the little ones)
YES to Paid Maternity Leave (helps mum and bub)
YES to Child Care (helps mum and bub too)

If the child within is to enjoy the benefits of Paid Maternity Leave and State Sponsored Child Care, abortion is not an option. Why sustain what you have allowed to be destroyed? Be consistent. Either the child is an object, a chattel, a possession or it retains its own distinct identity separate from its mother's will for it. On the one hand, the individual reserves the right to choose to abort if she sees fit, yet on the other if the child is "wanted", society as a whole is expected to pay. I don't think so. WE have an obligation as a society to see that its most vulnerable members (pregnant women cnsidering abortion) have the full weight of society's care and support to enable them to carry the child to term and access acceptable child care arangements.

Welfare mentality? Yes. Economic rationalist? No.

Show us your brain

Apparently a helicopter crew were photographed flying above the Indy 300 on the Gold Coast on October 23 carrying a rude sign (see it here).

This picture was snapped by an onlooker in an apartment building overlooking the Indy, and anonymously posted on the Professional Pilots Rumor Network site.

And now the site is apparently "down" [thus... We have to close this site temporarily while we perform essential maintenance. Please try again later. Sorry for any inconvenience.] with the following message:

As these are anonymous forums the origins of the contributions may be opposite to what may be apparent. In fact the press may use it, or the unscrupulous, to elicit certain reactions.,

Bad luck for the PPRN - the flyboys' fun has been spoiled by one of their own. Lesson: Never post anything online that you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the newspaper, with you as the author.

Does God Endorse George W Bush?

From MSN Slate

http://slate.msn.com/id/2106590/

Abortion rate worries Abbott

Tony Abbott here starting an issue (or actually restarting one of his favourites). Very interesting to see he handled the interview on the ABC's AM program:

1. Avoiding guaranteeing that there wouldn't be a change of Government policy on the issue
2. Refused to be drawn on an actually time for the lateness of abortions in terms of number of weeks
3. Declined to discuss whether or not he had talked about the matter with the PM
4. No comment (actual silence) on whether discussions with the PM was "too sensitive" for him, or whether any work was being done in his portfolio on the issue of abortion.

And what DID he say?

"...I certainly share the concerns that many people have about the number of abortions that are taking place in Australia today."
"...but I think a debate has started in the community and let's see where the debate goes."
"...I think a lot of people in the community have similar concerns."
"...let's see where this debate develops"
"...Well I think there is a debate developing in the community and let's see where it goes."

I think the ABC's reporter, Matt Brown, had his radar locked on target when he suggested, "Has this been a subject, this important issue, an issue in which you're trying to build a constituency for change?"

Yes, Mr Abbott, you are certainly trying to build a constituency for change. These comments seem to come out of the blue. Why not just come out and say that you have a passionate anti-abortion agenda, than seem to hide behind thealready ongoing debate between pro-choice and pro-life. What has prompted this renewal of focus on abortion? Tony, reveal you mind to us. How else are you going to build support?

Abbott, Abortion and Christianity in Australia

The link is a bit stale but it still underlines the role that Christians can have in public life, and in particular, in government. Best quote:

Firstly, is there a helpful role for the particular views of religious people in public life? In thinking that there is not, Australia is on the extreme end of the international spectrum. Australia was formed in the white-heat of the European Enlightenment, and we inherited its most radical version, which says that the only valuable aspects of any religion are the bits everyone can agree on. (So Aussie pundits will tie Islam into knots to try and fit it into their Enlightenment-shaped suitcase.) But Abbott’s speech asks whether Christians make a unique contribution that only they can give. Secularists in Australia, who reject Christian thought, need to explain why they are so willing to enjoy the contributions of past Christian thought (such as Abbott hints at in the opening comments above).

And as per the website request, this message has been brought to you as ..

“a briefing paper by Andrew Cameron and Tracy Gordon of the Anglican Diocese
of Sydney’s Social Issues Executive. To access this free weekly briefing, send
your email address to tracy.gordon@moore.edu.au .”

Ros Suskind on faith-based vs reality based communities

Saw this on Lateline - and just caught the end of it.

A very good analysis in the main, although I don't think Mr Suskind really understands Christianity - he's "standing on the outside looking in" so to speak. I'm afraid I have to beg to diifer on his conclusions as well.

Now see here

Natural born heirs

John Edwards, as a candidate for the US Vice-Presidency, has to be consitutionally eligible to serve as President should John Kerry one day cop a batch of tainted Botox. But would John Edwards' children be eligible to follow their father into the White House in three decades' time? What would Shakespeare say?