I used to consider myself an atheist. Now, when asked, I say I am agnostic. It is not that I have doubts but I don’t want to be bundled in with the atheist crowd.
In answering such a question, it is too difficult to explain the distinction between atheism and anti-religionism and to be honest, the lines are often blurred.
Is it any wonder?
This Easter we have been witness to baffling brawls over halal chocolate Easter eggs and squabbling over whether or not a footy match should be played on Good Friday. I adopt the laissez-faire approach in these matters but I find it troubling that those who advocate sombre reflection on religious holidays are cast as extremists.
Religion is often mocked by atheists. Mockery is fine in some instances but when people are painted as sub-human for holding supernatural beliefs, items of faith in all organised religions, it is clear there is an attempt to wantonly discriminate against people and limit their movements and their associations.
Full column here.
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/19/us-weighs-giving-saudis-more-military-aid-for-yeme/
Weird
Bassy,
Agree that WiFi in the city comes with enormous costs but some ISP’s are dramatically reducing the prices.
My advice to you would be to treat IPrimus like Centerlink – they are not meeting their contractual obligations so take them apart.
For some reason many people accept crap when it comes to Computers.
Keep running Ookla, keep the results, keep corresponding with them and then go off to the Telecommunications Ombudsman http://www.tio.com.au/ .
I bet you it will be fixed.
Great advice that….I asked them to release me a little more bandwith but OH NO WE CANT DO DAT!
Here’s a change of theme for you. An article on ABC News online caught my eye, but’s that’s not the news.
The headline was marriage in Australia, a timeline of how love and law have changed in 130 years. I’m not providing the link, google it if interested.
Some snippets. Victoria was the first colony to allow married women to own property, in 1884. Maybe a repeal now could help housing affordability.
The Aboriginal Ordinance in the NT in 1918 restricted marriage between indigenous women and non-indigenous men.
Tasmania passed a law in 1942 raising the minimum age of marriage from 12 for women and 14 for men to 16 and 18 respectively. Would have been radical back then eh Bo?
The Marriage Act of 1961 made law uniform across the country and set the minimum age as 18. I bet the Tasmanians were pissed off.
In 1966 the bar on married women being employed in the Commonwealth Public Service was abolished. How progressive.
No fault divorce was introduced in 1975, now it is everyone else’s fault.
The Netherlands was the first country to legalise same sex marriage in 2001. We’re still waiting.
It is a fair guess the feminists would be pretty unhappy to be transported back to the beginning of last century.
Probably wouldn’t have pissed them off, Lou They don’t bother with marriage – and, my observations on pram wheeling mums tells me that under age sex isn’t an issue either
ROBBED:-that was a knock on.
I’ll take the win Bassy but the try shouldn’t have been allowed either. We were very very lucky.
Bloody oath. What’s the point of a video ref if you don’t use them?
He caught it, threw it forward and caught it again. Is that a knock on?
And don’t forget the no-try before it Bassy. He was held up in goal!
K’noath!
dem bunnies are alright I reckon
You WAS robbed Bassman.
The Bunker stuffed up on that ‘multi-try’ fiasco IMO.
Cowboys on tonight! 🐎
So were the Raiders robbed, although both sides had their chances
For the life of me WHY CAN’T BAD DECISIONS BE OVERTURNED when all of the technology in the world proves beyond doubt it was knocked on.
Makes good sense to me mate cos every two points count. Also the whole momentum on both sides can change after a bad call. Grrrr
Cool, a gee gee.
Yes, tell us how you did that Bella?
Do you mean emoticons like these?
🌏🐒🐃🐐🎧🐖😎
The black smiley-face symbol on bottom row of keyboard to the immediate left of spacebar.
I use a Samsung8Tablet but I imagine it could be found on any device.
Goodluck, Bella
Ah, there you go, I don’t have that. Still using a DEC PDP/11 here.
I don’t know if anyone else has looked at the ‘Howard on Menzies’ interviews at The Oz, but here’s a cracker:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/howard-on-menzies-clive-james/news-story/c59cf9e5347698817730c5d63f997edb
MAD KIM:- think of it this way Bald. The quickest way to get rid of Kim and free his people is to LET him have a warhead. His sabre rattling days wld be gone along with him in an instant. Think rope enough hang
You have to be joking Bassy.
The idiot will use them.
If he has enough of them and can get them to the US, the ball game changes.
He could move on the South and then the US would have to decide whether Seoul was worth Los Angles.
Once there is an effective secret police in place, it is very difficult to remove any tyrant.
Hell, I’d trade LA for Mt. Isa.
oh, I don’t know if that is the best way forward, Bassman. But I have long questioned the wrongs and perversity of whom can have nukes and those that decide,
I worry, JTI, that our paper is morphing from The Australian to The Sydneysider. So much recent coverage about what Jones and Hadley say and think. I suspect very few people outside NSW give a toss what they think, yet The Australian seems to think they are earth shattering importance to the whole nation. They are not.
I think it is important context on the stink between Turnbull and Abbott. Ww can safely call that relationship toxic now. What is at stake is not who leads the country but the very existence of the Liberal Party. And that is big news.
If you can believe Bolt, Turnbull has just did a mass mail out without the Liberal Party logo but a big “M” next to his name and the PM of Australia.
I think he is going to try and form his own party.
You’d think two supposedly intelligent men would realise that they are self-destructing. Would it have been wiser to give TA a cabinet position? Or would that have speeded up the whole catastrophe?
Hard to say. The idea behind giving TA a ministry would have obliged him to adopt the rules of cabinet solidarity. It didn’t work with Rudd but Rudd was a leaker and that’s not TA’s MO.
i don’t think he is much like Rudd at all. got a lot more mates for starters.
Richo is right, Abbott should be inside the tent, and it is not too late.
I beg to differ. A pre Christmas conversation between the two men shows neither man can or will budge.
Bitterness from one and ego from the other Boa. I actually don’t think MT gives a flying toss about the Liberal party. He hasn’t got anything of himself invested in it. (Give or take a million) Abbott has the blood sweat and tears of decades.
I totally agree with JTI’s point about the existence of the Liberal party. For a person like myself who has some conservative views and other, what could be termed as progressive ideas, same sex marriage etc, I find it hard to position myself within the conservative parties. I imagine there are many conservatives like me. I’d actually probably vote Labor at the moment if it wasn’t for the CFMEU influence and their environmental policies.
It’s an interesting fight which nobody will win, least of all the electorate.
I agree Razor. In fact I don’t think I can vote. None of them convince me
This country is ungovernable with each side vetoing the other out of spite. Pathetic and so damaging for this country of ours.
These days I’m happy just to go and listen to Bob Brown crusading for our wilderness. Far more inspiring. It’s a pity he left politics – but who could blame him. He looks tanned, relaxed and happy – and ready to stand in front of the bull-dozers in the Tarkine.
Well sed Bald…but BOTH of them dnt give a Flying Richard about The Looting Party
What! Well, maybe “Minister for Bicycles and Appalling Middle Aged Men in Lycra.”
Nah, not even. It would be like introducing white ants to your house.
What an uncharitable comment JB.
You’re not into giving a bit of your spare time to community/charitable causes yourself then.
Try it out some time, it’s good for the soul me old mate
I do quite a lot Carl. That’s why I have such a brilliant soul.
How do you manage to get it so wrong so often?
Yes, I figured you would JB, and good for you. So why unnecessarily bag a bloke who by all reports also puts in?
Or has your “brilliant soul” caused you to conclude that your voluntary contribution has a greater altruistic element, simply based on your antipathy towards those who wear lycra me old mate?
As we see Carl Abbotts focus is on image building and the main prize. On my tax dollar.
As for middle aged men in lycra, it is impossible now to enjoy an al fresco brekkie and or cuppa on the strip without being confronted by the vomit inducing spectacle of those ridiculous mincing galoots.
evolutionary dead end ……reform or die…..screw ’em either way
They most certainly are not. Jones is sufficiently notorious to be widely recognised, but as a flim-flam man, not a serious commentator. As for Hadley, I know he is one of several testosterone-fuelled dimwits hired for their special appeal to talk-back audiences, but as I’m not from Sydney I’m not even sure which one he is.
Agree JOH but if they tell many of those dimwits to jump, they jump and that’s the conundrum for both parties.
Many years ago I foned Hate Radley to challenge some of the ‘facts’ he had just spewed up. I was half way though his list with accurate data when he hit the 7 second delay button and called me a Communist!
Forget Kimmy and his Nuclear Bombs, Mr Insider, as Scientists have just spelled out exactly how an Asteroid could kill the people unlucky enough to be caught underneath one if, or when, it smashes into Earth! Researchers from the University of Southampton in the UK have set out seven different risks posed by an Asteroid collision, linked below. Have these Asteroids no respect for good Jim Beam!
http://tinyurl.com/l3ylots
Don’t worry Enery. Donald will fix them sneaky asteroids.
According to Ben Eltham, the changes to the 457 visas could lead to a shortage of sommeliers.
I am bereft.
I’m more bereft that ‘barmaid’ appears to be no longer part of our lexicon.
“Hic” sounds like a job for me Dwight. I am not as think as you drunk I am!
I know me plonk Dwight! Don’t need poofter barmen with pretensions!
(It’s sad to have to say I’m kidding but that’s the PC world I suppose)
I am my own sommelier Dwight, and recon I’m pretty good at it.
Problem is, all of JB’s doomsday reports have me reaching further into the cellar. I do keep topping it up, retail therapy I call it, but if I can’t turn to a visiting expert to help me, what am I to do?
Mrs Razor and myself reached into the cellar twice last night Lou and I’m not the better for it today…….
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/subarctic-wastelands-is-more-vulnerable-than-thought-scientists-say/news-story/1a825e5872728267754c4544148ba57a
Lay in as much stock as you can Lou, and be prepared to defend it. We wont be growing grapes or corn for much longer.
Yes we will we can grow them in places that were once too cold.
Nonsense. You seem to be hung up on this bizarre idea that we can just transition agriculture seamlessly to these romantic notions of accessible prime agricultural land created by AGW. Do you really think that makes any sense at all?
Why doesn’t it make sense?
What part of “exponential” do you not understand? Keep focussed on terrorism and that dangerous North Korean Razor. No-one is going to count to ten and snap their fingers to wake you up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t580j47Y0Do
Oh hang! A handful of people made unfulfilled predictions back in the seventies so bad things cant be happening now. Well Razor, a lot has happened since the 1970’s.
Go back to sleep.
What are you on about JB?
Seems you’ve been into the cellar too often, grapes and corn don’t grow in the subarctic me old mate.
They literally thrive on a decent dose of CO2.
You’re effing hopeless. How on earth do you manage to connect two totally different things so consistently. Are you really as silly as a wheel?
Sheesh, check out the Don’s ambassador to NZ! That’ll have the NZ ladies in a tizz!
Yeah, apparently the missus had the hots for him, so he got bunged off to New Zealand. Wait till he finds out where New Zealand is!
Yep, they’ll have to lock the ewes up.
Ooooohwhaaaaaa!