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.
Your “Talking Pictures” segment this morning on the ABC “Insiders”, Mr Insider, tops and loved the “‘Australian” theme indeed as would have our PM Turnbull, segment linked.
http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2016/s4657442.htm
Very silly. My mum will be appalled.
You looked great JTI the outlaw bikie bandana suits you.
As for Turnbull’s blue singlets? “Yeah, no.”
My best, Bella
Yeah, nah. Bloody awesome!
Great segment this morning mate.
Your mum’s got a lot to answer for Jack.
It didn’t look like here was any butter on the Sanger, better get that sorted before Tuesday.
There wasn’t but worse, the sausage was horrible. Two takes, so I had a bit of spitting out to do.
Agreed. A sanga (and here’s one we prepared earlier!) and a slice of bread, representing our national dish. And despite it being breakfast time for us viewers a tinnie should have been skulled.
Trying to define aussie values is mad caper. It is as if to say whatever good “values” we have are unique to us – they are not. All that is required is an understanding that we are a secular, democratic country. And religion/faith etc is a private matter and not above the law or a law unto itself.
Pie eating and boorish drunkenness are not compulsory but welcomed and acceptable behaviour; and a sure fire way of integrating!
Thanks for the link. That was just what I needed to combat the cider / stout / port hangover . . .
Ex ousted Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been challenged to a charity Boxing match by Labor senator Anthony Chisholm in Brisbane in July, Mr Insider. As we all know Tony is a dab hand at Boxing having won a Blue whilst in Uni. He used what he termed the “whirling dervish” method whereby he came out like a wild man swinging, very similar to what he has done in Politics in fact! My Money will be on Abbott should this “esteemed” sporting event take place.
http://tinyurl.com/lubzgfg
Bring it on!
Methinks it will be 3 hits. Tones will hit that chinless wannabe, then he will hit the canvas, and the ambo will hit 90 going to the hospital.
Would this be a Fly-Weight or Heavy-Weight fight or something in between ? …
Much better entertainment if Chisholm didn’t turn up. Just let Tony loose in the ring on his own and he’ll knock himself out.
Top comment! And the referee has to drag him to a neutral corner for the count.
That’ll be the day JB, Tones being anywhere near neutral. At least they would allow his bike in the ring, or the Lycra dacks one would hope.
Neutral Tones? He looks a bit red in the face to me.
NorKo (time for a modern nickname) threatens Australia with a nuclear attack. Manna from heaven for the likes of Nein and Seven News. Their prime MO is to evoke tears, but terror will do. I am waiting for them to finally get over ‘Allahhu akbar’. Every time there is even a potential terrorist attack, we have to be informed of what it means. We know already…and just for the record, the old school types who used to say ‘Praise the Lord’ all the time were doing essentially the same thing, even if not wielding a knife as they said it. ‘Allahu akbar’ is not a jihadist term of itself and many of these ‘terrorist attacks’ are really nothing of the sort. The killing of a cop on the Champs Elysee the other day was a criminal act and such things unfortunately happen elsewhere, quite often (e.g. USA).But the MSM news will continually tell us that it’s ‘terrifying’. No it ain’t. It’s bad and sad, but, unless you were right on the scene, it’s not terrifying.
TV, we could consider an alternative MO. Sensationalism = increase viewership = increase price advertising = increase profits.
Sad reflection on the audience innit?
Murderous fat idiot Kimmy of North Korea has now directly threatened Australia with a Nuclear attack, Mr Insider, due to our unwavering support of our ally the USA. What a nasty piece of work this halfwit is, definitely 98 cents shorts of a dollar imho!
http://tinyurl.com/nx9koc7
I am shaking in my boots….just what the Looters ordered to start their election campaign on terror and fear
I tried earlier in the blog to get some interest in this guy and registered exactly zero on the Give-A-Shit Scale (that’s a real thing, by the way), so here’s another link. Not going to stop trying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5awWyPQzm90
I like Kinky but I haven’t had time to watch it BLS
I was previously vaguely aware of him but just in the last week I’ve been watching interviews and he reminds me a lot of Hunter Thompson.
It’s struck me forcefully recently that a lot of the edgier commentators and humourists who do so well in the US just couldn’t even get a start in this country. I mean, could you imagine an Australian equivalent of Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys? Or having a cartoon like South Park? The AHRC would have to treble its staff to deal with the race complaints alone. You’d be able to hear the shrieking from the Moon.
We really aren’t doing ourselves any favours.
Enjoyed it BOW…..I thought it was Richard Boon…..hee hee!
Kinky and the Texas Jewboys! If you go to his website, he’s flogging his own brand of cigars.
has there ever been an aussie rules player who has played for three clubs and gotten better at each move?
i think have one now.
I give in. Phil Carman?
well, i think the Big Mummy qualifies TV. Ok at the Cats, pretty damn good at the Swans and even better at the Giants.
yeah ….old school man mountain….” gimme da ball” n “get out a me way”
Yeah, I eventually twigged that you meant Mummy. Turning into a bit of a flag hunter?
Bizarre game of footy going on at the SCG. Sydney four goals in the first 5 minutes while the Giants didn’t touch the ball. Not a sausage since (half time).
And it ended badly for Sydney. Zip and 5 with North. Hawthorn may join them shortly.
God we miss him, Mr Insider, and of course I refer to the great ex PM Paul Keating. This short clip attached is a classic as he rubs it into the Libs about the ACME Fightback, a dog of a document that sunk Hewson in ’91 along with his GST and who could forget that!. A rapier wit, smart as a whip but if anything was lacking it was humility, possibly Keating’s Achilles heal?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAAf9nSd3ig
Does that mean he’s dead? Could we be so lucky? Please don’t tease . . .
Australia’s Greatest Post-war Prime Minister BLS
I’ve written and deleted about six replies to that. I just gave up when I realised there is literally no comment in the English language I can think of that would have the required depth of sarcasm.
note how your dilemma has resolved itself?
Second only to John Winston Howard TV.
I’ll not dignify that with a response
not for me, Hawke for mine, best Cabinet as well.
That was a great cabinet Jack and they had plenty of talent on the backbench who would have got a top spot amongst today’s rabble.
Mind you Jack, John Button wasn’t good enough for PM Rudd to turn up to his funeral.
Because Abbott wouldn’t give him a pair?
Miss him, Henry?? The old girl doesn’t go a month without reminding people how his foul mouth lowered the tone of parliament, and how his opportunistic condescension paved the way for the likes of the ahrc to gag satirists, or students making a valid and reasonable point, or trying to re-write history by suggesting that he ran the Hawke govt. I think B Humphries got Keating spot on during his speech at Bill Leak’s last book launch – on Keating’s expertise on Mahler, “doesn’t fool anyone, Paul”. And that sums a lot of Keating’s hubris up.
Trivalve – what a load of balls old mate, though i’m guessing and a hoping you’re fishing. Menzies, Hawke and Howard??? And of course, Whitlam (who gave us Hawke). Of course I acknowledge Keating’s gift that was Howard. Costello wasn’t best pleased, as he had to mop up the mess that Keating left.
ABBOTT:- lots of talk about Abbott here on the blog. You all fail to grasp this. Abbott is a Scorpio born the same date as me actually, 4th November. We take no prisoners. Abbott’s venom is so vile re Turnbull he is quite prepared to see Labor win the next election so long as the Libs don’t win and give Turnbull another term as PM….if he is not challenged before then, as he must be by his own definition of survival -30 Newspolls.
The quicker the Libs get onto this the better because we don’t wanna be stuck with Shorten. At least Abbott showed some strength and commitment. Shorten is effing HOPELESS. No grunt. No thirst or real hunger for the gig. This is the worst government I can remember on all fronts-unemployment, business investment, wages growth, consumer confidence, infrastructure, debt, policy achievement yet Shorten fails to take them on in these areas.
FOOTY…has there EVER been a more gormless oxymoron than ‘gamble responsibly’.
‘Hope and Pray’ lacks detectable gorm.
G Wizz Its U….Cliff Richard
Well, the name’s not Cliff, but your welcome to drop over.
I don’t smoke.
i think it is important this Earth Day to take some time to reflect on the risks we face, and the fools we listen to.
http://www.aei.org/publication/18-spectacularly-wrong-predictions-made-around-the-time-of-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year/?mod=djemBestOfTheWeb
Dismal, JB & Bella………any comments?
Quitcha Fussin’ Razor I have a life.
I’m OUT now doing ‘my thing’ for SS.
Bella as a storm trooper or part of an einsatzgruppen?
She is from Erica Betz’ territory you know…
So we’re not the Avon ladies of the Seas. Big deal, what’s your point?
Trivalve, you are quite incorrect re Tassie. Been there many times but home is a long way from there.
https://youtu.be/LHRElN9s4N0
Bella
Sorry Bella, should have known they haven’t even heard of the Cowboys down in Tassie
Scientists say the air we breathe is being altered by billions if billions of tons of poisonous gases being pumped into our atmosphere every year. It’s these gases, which also trap the sun’s heat, that is causing global warming, changing weather patterns & melting glaciers.
I’d much rather put my faith in science than yet another denial article Razor because what’s happening is simply not a natural phenomenon.
Apathy is not a solution nor is disguising the truth behind an agenda like governments who choose to stay uninformed & backward on initiatives than try to correct the imbalance man has caused to the planet.
Policy should be aligned with the best available evidence but that’s not what their big donors want now is it?
Even if you deny we’re laying waste to the natural world, how can you ignore the science?
Hear, Hear Bella
Shouldn’t that be “Aye aye”?
From acid rain to world drought, and now global warning, we’ve seen it all Jack.
It would be good if we stopped procreation in places that can’t support it, but let’s not go there.
Better still, put some real money to work cleaning up the pollution we keep crapping on the ground. How many of the world’s rivers have pottable water?
Acid rain was real.
But not permanent as many scaremongers at the time predicted TV.
It was fixed in a jiffy.
Yes. That’s the good thing. We can fix stuff when we try. At least we agreed that acid rain was happening.
It’s raining acid somewhere? Ahem. Don’t happen to have a GPS for this event do you?
Was Purple Rain real too BiValve?
Prince is dead mate. get over it.
Weird stuff. A cherry pick of predictions which haven’t come to pass, yet, must mean that AGW is not a problem and the air will be crystal clear and everything will be hunky dory twenty years from now.
A strange sponsored kind of madness.
be happy to have a look at a cherry pick of alarming predictions that have come true, just couldn’t find any
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_disasters
John, a prediction is when someone says this is going to happen, like the 18 or so predictions which didn’t happen.
perhaps you can trawl through tim flattery’s predictions of doom, there might be one he got right.
i don’t think these predictions prove anything at all about the theory of AGW.
what they are is a reminder that some of us are old enough to recall these predictions, and to have noticed that none of them seem to have come to pass.
So when we see similar catastrophic predictions some of us will have a common sense reaction that we are sceptical as to the likelihood of the predictions coming true.
this is not “denialism” but experience.
Some of us are old enough to remember countless environmental disasters that have come to pass. We put more stock in that than a handful of inaccurate past predictions. That is experience, rather than wishful thinking.
FFS. What is the matter with you people? What sort of dumb logic is that? “Because “some” predictions in the past haven’t come true the common sense reaction to any disaster prediction hence should be one of scepticism. ” That’s certifiable stuff.
Thousands of scientists over the decades have predicted the visible evidence we are seeing now, and they got it wrong! It’s happening way faster than they thought. How does your “experience” work with that?
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-global-warming-greenland-ice-melting-rate-sea-levels-rise-a7147846.html
I noticed Paul Ehrlich – a man who has made a pretty good career and not a little money out of scaring the bejabbers out of silly people – features prominently in the list of wildly incorrect predictions. I don’t think it was too long ago that the ABC wheeled him out as some sort of revered environmental expert, notwithstanding he’s been wrong about everything since the late ’60’s.
If you haven’t read it I highly recommend PJ O’Rourke’s book, ‘All the Trouble in the World’. PJ does a pretty good job of pinning down all the pesky end-of-the-world-is-nigh enviro-loonies and self-styled social justice warriors and pulling their wings off. It was published in 1994 and I think it’s probably still his best book. A consistently good read from cover to cover.
I think I have now survived a half dozen or so end of the world scares–and the Cuban missile crisis which had the distinction of being a real possibility of Armageddon.
And last week we were told that US-Russian relations were at an all-time low. I think Trump said it but a lot of MSM clowns echoed it. I gather you’d disagree Dwight?
I haven’t heard of any missiles being fueled and there’s no idiot in Havana asking Moscow to nuke us. So, yeah. People need to read more history. We were within 20 minutes of extinction.
Bollocks. A nuclear war then was quite survivable. You’re just quoting hackneyed military/industrial propaganda Dwight. “Be afraid, be very afraid, give us huge amounts money to save you or you will die.”
Interestingly, if full scale nuclear war broke out then and knocked the guts out of world industry humanity could have a much more likely chance of surviving a couple of hundred more years than we do now.
Now stop misrepresenting Fidel, and you get some real history into you. Enough with the theatre and histrionics.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-real-cuban-missile-crisis/309190/
Is that your ANZAC Day special JB? Or are you still on the acid thread above
That idiot in Havana was openly mourned and eulogised by a number of current opposition MP’s…….
Trivalve. No that was a reasoned response to the comment above. Have you got the hang of this yet?
O’Rourke is a Republican establishment toady. He can be funny at times but really he just refines 50s and 60’s dismissive republican redneck rhetoric.
His attitude lately seems to be , it might be true it might not but you cant do anything about it anyway. Obviously he knows it is serious but hasn’t got the guts to say it out straight. Which makes him as useless as the tits on a bull, other than reassuring the denialist self interest or stupidity of his base.
That’s funny, JB because you’ve previously told me that PJ was in fact a progressive subversive who was only pretending to be a Republican, whilst hinting that I just wasn’t bright enough to get the joke.
Surely you’re not just making things up as you go along?
Ever heard of sarcasm TBLS.? Theres a lot of things you’re not savvy enough to get.
I have always appreciated O’Rourkes humour, but he still remains one of the legions of shills who heaped scorn on the people who fought to bring public attention and remediation to very important environmental problems.
If O’Rourke and his ilk had not been so stupid or self interested in damming the people that fought to control emissions decades ago the world might not be in the perilous situation we are now in.
Anyone who genuinely does not understand that we are on the brink of disaster
is a simpleton. It would never occur to them that the charlatans who write those ridiculous reports understand the real situation very well but perform for money? They are not idiots, just opportunists.
As for those blathering on about no dire predictions having come true. That’s just nonsense. Thousands of predictions have been made on the Greenland, Antarctic and permafrost thaws for decades. If they have erred, it is because the vast majority have underestimated how quickly things are happening.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/03/01/february_2016_s_shocking_global_warming_temperature_record.html
The surface and oceans are now hotter every year, stupendous amounts of thermal energy are being sequestered in the oceans. Anyone who doesn’t see it coming is a dill.
I don’t care about his politics, I just enjoy his writing
yes TV, i have always found him amusing, whether i agree with the point he is making or not.
it’s a bit like the Bill Leak thing, i don’t understand those who say i can’t find this funny because i don’t agree with all his politics.
So that would be, yes, you are making things up as you go along.
No it wouldn’t be. That’s reality, not something you’re ready to face yet.
Wait, what? A right-wing oil-funded think-tank, notorious for offering scientists $10,000 each to criticise mainstream climate science, has cherry-picked a couple of predicted disasters that didn’t happen? That must mean no disasters will ever happen. Phew, at last I can relax.
Does it ever occur to these people that some disasters don’t eventuate precisely because action is taken to prevent them?
Who cares who compiled the list, unless you are suggesting that the evil think tank slung these bozos a bung to spout the nonsense in the first place.
you can defend these predictions if you want, but you will look a fool if you do.
Exactly! What are you? A mushroom? Look at the report. They are nothing more than shills.
They bang on about mistaken projections at the extreme end of projections, the vast majority of which underestimated the increase in C02 concentrations in the atmosphere and heat sequestered in the oceans by a century! And then concentrate the focus on hurricane landfalls, totally ignoring the observable and undeniable melting of Greenland ice, spectacular unprecedented weather events all over the planet, fifteen years every year hotter than the last (!!!!!!) and presenting a very carefully cropped graph to suggested a turnaround, when in fact all it demonstrates is that the US has placed more reliance on gas, resulting in a modest reduction in historical emissions. You wouldn’t know it from that graph though.
While the C02 and methane concentrations in the atmosphere have gone ballistic.
It’s nothing but chaff for the herd.
1. A great deal more than 18 environmental disasters did in fact occur. I think I gave you a link to a Wikipedia list of a hundred or so, above.
2. Many of the predictions in the AEI list, particularly those around various forms of air and water pollution and population growth, were quite reasonable given the trends at the time and were averted through intensive efforts including political campaigns, education and legislation.
3. Some of the predictions in the AEI list turned out to be baseless in hindsight.
4. Despite points 1 and 2, your friends at the AEI have chosen to spend their Exxon money to focus exclusively on a small number of cherry-picked inaccurate predictions to create a false impression that all predictions of environmental disaster fall under point 3, are silly nonsense and that in fact environmental disasters never occur. Why do think that might be?
i don’t have any friends at the organisation, i don’t know who they are and don’t much care.
they didn’t make the predictions, they simply cut and pasted them into a document.
the fault lies with the makers of the predictions not the collators.
these predictions got a helluva lot of air-play at the time, Ehrlich was a star in the western world, so the idea that these were cherry picked is nonsense, these were the best known predictions of environmental disaster at the time.
But you see, many of us noticed that they were an absolute crock, and that has taught us to be sceptical of doom mongers.
Just look at the bloody information available on AGW.
“When the facts change I change my mind.” Keynes?
What do you do?
JOH any chance of cherry picking an example or two of a greeny disaster that did come true?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_disasters
Is that a type of counterfactual, John?
An ex regular on here, from Gympie way, pointed out that he’d never been attacked by a tiger (or similar) when he had a stubby of beer in his hands. I think he may have been onto something as I copied his example and sure enough, i too have mercifully avoided an attack by tiger(s). On the downside the cost of bills continue to rise. Should I change brand or type of drink?
You should drink less. OK, that’s stating the bleeding obvious, but seriously your chances of being attacked by a tiger are really very small.
The ex regular was simply rationalising his addiction. Addicts are remarkably creative in that way.
OK Mother Theresa. You clearly would feel out of place in a wine growing district, oh yes I remember you recon they will all be dust pretty soon anyway.
Cheers!
When it comes to tigers I don’t believe in taking chances.
Fair go Lou. Milton, clearly misguided by a dipso yobbo was finding the costs of his tiger defence strategy reaching unacceptable levels. I simply advised him to reduce his intake because it was unnecessary to maintain that level.
While a tiger in Queensland might be deterred by a stubby, there is no evidence to back the idea that the stubby should be full of beer, or that it would make any difference if the holder of the stubby was drinking from it.
I think the fact that Milton took the advice of the man at face value is sufficient evidence that he should curb his drinking habits.
By all means carry a stubby tho if it helps.