Retired infantry officer. Conservative by nature and politics; Happily married and father and grandfather of eight. Loves V8 powered Range Rovers, Golden Retrievers, good books and technology and think there should be open season on Greenies.
Born in the mid forties and overdue for servicing but most parts still work.
I like the old joke about the dyslexic insomniac who lay awake all night wondering if there really was a dog. To me, it makes more sense than wondering if there really is a God.
I came from religious household but war service and education that demanded rational answers set me on a different path.
I’m reminded of the joke and my turning from religion by a piece in todays Age by Tony Wilson that ends with his thoughts on the Iranian earthquake.
In Iran, of course, a great many more laws need to be rewritten to remove a fear of God that is actively cultivated by the Government. People will say that God provides hope. Atheists like myself say that knowledge and a rational liberal democratic system of government provide more hope. If God controls the universe, he has just saved a 97-year-old and killed 30,000 others. Yet for the believers, it all just adds to His mystique.
The ‘Opiate of the Masses’ has come along way since Jesus, a charismatic politician and heir to the throne of David started a movement in the first century that promised a lot based on little. Faith is all you need and here the faith is translated as live a good life, believe in miracles and a devine being and a place in heaven will be yours. I can imagine ‘Heaven’ being a good drawcard considering the terrible conditions these early converts endured but the whole deal was sold on no evidence.
The early church leaders decided that the best way to convert non-believers was to let them keep some of the old beliefs and festivals but to repackage them under the new order. To cut it as a religious leader and be marketable one had to have done the virgin birth bit, performed miracles and undergone death and resurrection all at prescibe times in the year that fitted with ancient beliefs.
The packaging worked for thousands of years and survives all over the world but is strongest where education isn’t.
The first century answer to today’s Saatchi & Saatchi would be beside themselves with pride at the way it turned out. Jesus, a man, is now Jesus, Son of God. They didn’t even have to produce God. Believe me folks, he just is.
I believe this is the way it is but I have no problem with those who believe otherwise. It’s a free world and if you get solace or meaning from your beliefs then good on you. But, and it’s a big but, don’t try and force your beliefs down my throat and more importantly don’t look to disadvantage me as a result of your beliefs.
A case in point; a lot of fundamental Moslems would kill me if they could because I don’t follow their God. Not that the Christian track record is unblemished. Early graveyards in the Old world and New offer millions of dead as testament to the Christian campaigns. More men have died under the banner of ‘my God is better than yours’ than for any other cause.
Check out Tony Wilson’s
article.
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To prove I’m not Army-centric It is with regret that I announce that Air Commodore William Henry ‘Bull’ Garing (Rtd), CBE, DFC, DSC has died
One of Australia’s most respected World War Two Air Force commanders, Air Commodore William Henry ‘Bull’ Garing passed away on New Year’s Day at the age of 93. AIRCDRE Garing played a key role in the allied successes at Milne Bay and the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, which finally saw the threat to mainland Australia subdued.
Lateline mentions ‘Bull’ Garing in their treatment of The Battle of the Bismarck Sea.
Before the Pacific campaign he won a DFC in the Atlantic when he single handedly attacked 5 Luftwaffe Bombers that were attacking an unarmed merchant ship. He was flying a a heavy Sunderland flying boat at the time and any pilot or would-be pilot should know that attacking bombers with a Sunderland redefines aggression.
More>>
Defence (RAAF) has an article on ‘Bull’ Garing
here.
Once again he did it well and we owe him.
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General Sir Thomas Daly has died aged 90. The ABC have a brief report
here. They mention his being a Brigade Commander at Tobruk during WW2 and Commander of the 28th Commonwealth Brigade in Korea. What they can’t bring themselves to mention is that he was commander of the Australian Army during the Vietnam War when the Army, under his very capable command, killed thousands of communists, the very people that the ABC were supporting.
All other news sources quote the following line.
?Sir Thomas period as Chief of General Staff, from 1966 until his retirement in 1971, covered the height of the Vietnam War,? Mr Anderson said.
The Australian has more
details
None of these early sources give his post nominals. Daly’s full title is Lieutenant General Sir Thomas J Daly KBE, CB, DSO.
A man amongst men – Brigade Major at Tobruk, Brigade Commander in Korea and Army Commander (CGS) during Vietnam. This pretty well covers the last 60 years of Australian military history from such positions of power and responsibilty that few could even begin to imagine. He did it well and we owe him a lot.
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Young Gaddafi says it how it is and takes away from the Left any chance of saying it was ‘diplomacy’ that turned Libya. The Left will deny for ever that Libya’s about face came about simply because Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was worried about a regime change al lah Iraq. Sorry guys, it was a case of “Bush is serious this time – lets think this through.”
Itis an old tactic of the Left – repeat a lie often enough and the uneducated swill will believe it and vote out Howard and Bush.
Read what young
Gadaffi says about it all. He was there and should know.
An article by Imre Salusinszky in this mornings
Australian defines the anti-war/Bush/Howard push very clearly.
On Sept 11;
But Doug Anderson, the television critic for The Sydney Morning Herald, wrote that the US’s observance of the anniversary of the slaughter of nearly 3000 of its citizens “should define, once and for all, just how badly America does grief”. This was followed by the observation that extensive TV coverage of the anniversary ? in the US and Australia ? was really designed “to reinforce hatred of the Iraqis”.
And on Bali;
In The Age, Bob Ellis wrote: “We are paying in blood for John Howard’s arse-licking, ignorance and xenophobic bigotry.” In her internet diary, Sydney Morning Herald journalist Margo Kingston asked if the attack occurred because we “colonised (Bali) with our wants”.
So many people get paid to write and get it so wrong. They have one purpose in life and I can just see them sitting at their Apple Macs (couldn’t be PCs) working on ‘how can we turn this positive news into something terrible.
Go read, it qualifies a lot of foolish thoughts.
In October I
blogged on Jim Cairns, the doyen of the left and hero to the Anti-Vietnam war protesters. Wayne Wood, at Troppo Armadillo obviously a member of one of the above groups, took me
to task for blaming all Vietnam Veterans ills on Cairns.
Wayne muddies the waters with this statement.
Jim Cairns was an average politician who, after spending so long in opposition and without any useful role models, cocked up his stint as Treasurer and did pretty much what any of us would have done if a Junie wiggled her bum in our face. To try and make anything more out of Cairns’s life is simply beating up the sad tale of what can happen to an otherwise smart bloke when he tries to live out his sexual fantasy.
All of the left-wing and most of Australia’s apathetic, ‘Commercial TV news educated’ populace ignores the basic unpleasant truth of Cairn’s life. ..
otherwise smart bloke living out sexual fantasies is one thing but being a communist, wanting and pursuing a communist victory in Vietnam to the disadvantage (read death and wounds) of Australians and being Deputy PM while also the President of the World Peace Council is another matter entirely.
I have no problem with Wayne it’s just that he is symptomatic of Australians who ignored the truth on the Anti-Vietnam campaign. Disagree? – No worries; the right to dissent? It’s yours; March through Melbourne’s streets in protest using your given rights to peaceful assembly? -Go for it.
Act as Chairman of the Local Soviet Union Peace body while Deputy PM? uh uh. Not on. Travel to the USSR and give them moral support and encourage more arms to kill fellow Australians? No – not included in our given rights. Invite a delegation of North Vietnamese industrial leaders to Australia while our wounded are still recovering in hospital? Likewise – very tacky.
John Ballantine, in this morning’s
Australian Inquirer does a good job of
outing Cairns and his Soviet sympathies
In November 1970, on returning from a visit to the Soviet Union, he declared he had found no more suppression of civil rights in Russia than in many aspects of Australian life.
What a startling statement. In November 1970 I was on patrol in Vietnam along with thousands of other Aussies. Cairns would have been an Opposition front bencher that year. How cute.
The Melbourne congress subsequently evolved into a more permanent body called the Congress for International Co-operation and Disarmament. Under Cairns and Goldbloom’s leadership, the CICD played a big part in mobilising the vast nationwide anti-war protest movement that became known as the Vietnam moratorium. It made history on May 8, 1970, when 75,000 protesters – one of Australia’s biggest public demonstrations – occupied the streets of Melbourne, bringing the city to a standstill.
The only group to receive advantage from the Moratoriums were the communists. The only group to be disadvantaged – the Digger.
Do I have an axe to grind? You betcha! Will I forgive and forget? No way.
From Jamie Walker in today?s Weekend Australian
Inquirer
Discussion about the ideological orientation of the Greens tends to revolve around the watermelon thesis that what’s green on the outside is actually red beneath. Does it matter in this day and age? Well, yes, especially if the Greens are trying to pull the shade cloth over our eyes.
And they are!
Bob Carr, one of the most astute Premiers in Australia claimed that;
.. many Greens were unreconstructed Trots, closet members of the SWP. The whole Labor Party knew this, Carr said, and voters should, too.
I agree, the voters should be told often that a vote for the Greens is a vote against all that Australia stands for. Every now and then Brown, with sympathetic TV cameras in tow, hugs a tree and all the Greenies squirm with righteous pleasure but for the rest of the time he beats a different drum, and its funereal beat offers no hope for a better world.
Hazy summer days at campus creates great breeding grounds for the Greens. Uni students, all in that phase of life that questions society are all conned by cute pictures of Koalas in threatened forests…remember No Tree – No Me. Truly a gallant cause but the innocent Koala is a front for anti-capitalist, anti US, anti globalisation and all the other Trotsky/Marxist failed bullshit ‘antis’ of the previous years.
After Uni, most students go on to read newspapers other than the left-wing uni rags and their opinions mature. They realize in a complicated world the Greens have few real-world answers and what policy they do have will never be put to the test. They will never occupy the treasury benches but will be able to force disastrous results on legislature that can literally harm the nation.
All green, no sense, stop industry, bugger the jobs. Policy in a sentence.
Jamie puts a negative spin on the Greens years but I’m still concerned.
So here we are, sitting in Brown’s gloomy office in Parliament House, looking to what he insists is a bright future. Leaving aside events in Queensland, the year hasn’t ended as well as he would have hoped. The Greens’ vote, according to Newspoll, has slipped to 5 per cent, down three percentage points from the October high.
Other published opinion polls show a similar dip. Brown and Nettle’s juvenile antics during the joint sitting of parliament addressed by US President George W. Bush appear to have been coolly received by the electorate. Senior adviser Ben Oquist insists, though, that the polls reflect no more than the bounce Labor received from the leadership change to Mark Latham. You’d hardly think that was a comfort.
Their juvenile antics will have put the electorate off but those who’s opinion and choice of newspapers never matured will again swing away from Labour and head to the Greens for socialist Trotsky solace.
When Latham forces the issue at the forthcoming Labour conference all the left wing luvvies will be dismayed at the centre and right wing ascendancy in the party. They will vote Green and the 5% will head to double figures.
Poor fellow, my country.
In todays
Australian we are told immigration matters, including asylum-seekers and those appealing against tribunal rulings, now account for more than 50 per cent of the matters filed to the High Court.
Lawyers have hijacked the Australian Legal system by clogging up the High Court with matters relating to non-Australians and Justices Kirby and Gleeson defend the intolerable state of affairs
High Court judges in February said the Coalition’s attempts to prevent immigration appeals to the High Court – through the contentious legislative method of “privative clauses”, which limit appeal rights – were unconstitutional.
I don’t care for their interpretation. How can 20 million Australians be denied justice, as must be the case while 50 % of court matters relate to a few hundred non-Australians; just because Kirby et al have a hatred against Howard, a softness for all the human debris that is washed up on our shores and an apparent responsibility to feather the nests of lawyers as they pursue larger bank accounts under the guise of helping illegals fight unwinnable cases.
Mr Ruddock said it was clear the majority were “unmeritorious applications” because 92 per cent failed or were withdrawn. “This is the only area of public law where to obtain a delay is an advantage,” he said.
It should be ‘separation of powers’ not separation from reality.
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Whatever your politics, whichever God you believe in – I wish you and your family all the best for tomorrow and the days to come. My new patio is up and keeping the 35+ degree summer sun at bay. The pool is clean and inviting and tomorrow – the holy day of families, all my children and partners will be here. This hasn’t happened for several years as they all followed the path of many before them tasting the mysteries of Europe. Albeit lifted by the experience they are all very glad to be back in Australia.
20 plus in-laws will be here as well (my own family are in West Australia) and some old Army friends will drop in.
Muslims, Christians, Agnostics, Athiests, Hedonists, Caucasions, a Jew, Aboriginies, Chinese/Malay, Poms, Kiwis and Paddies. Hate Howard, laugh at Latham, Left-wing, Right Wing, Don’t know and Don’t care will all gather at my home at Taigum – symbolic of what is good about Australia.
Have a good one! I intend to.
Libya’s mad man Gadaffi has undertaken to rid himself of all his WMD including switching off his nuclear programme. This will sit poorly with the left wing who in their Bush-Howard hate-haze abhore the thought of anything approaching stabalization in the area. It might make George Bush look a winner – for God’s sake!
Another terrorist state backing off. I wonder if it has anything to do with Iraq becoming a democracy in the middle of the Middle East. Who’s next? Saudi Arabia?
Lockerbie families are
sceptical as am I but I live in hope.
Downer comments;
.. the decision vindicated the hardline stance taken by Australia and other countries against the proliferation of WMD.
“The decision by Colonel Gaddafi’s regime to abandon nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and to sign international instruments in support of the abandonment of these programmes, is good news for a more secure world,” he told ABC radio.
“It illustrates the point that if the world is strong and robust in confronting the proliferation of these weapons it can be successful.”
Meanwhile in
China;
Under US pressure to help curb the spread of long-range missiles, China says it has issued rules restricting the export of missile, nuclear and biological technologies that can be used to make or deliver weapons of mass destruction.
And in
Beirut;
A BEIRUT military court today found 27 people guilty of carrying out a series of anti-US attacks across Lebanon, and handed down jail sentences varying from three months to life, court sources said.
With George Bush at the helm Iraq heads towards a democracy with Saddam and his animal sons out of the way, Libya announces it is getting out of the terrorist market, China has undertaken not to sell WMDs and Beirut is actually taking an anti-terrorist stand.
Definitely Christmas week for us right-wingers.
Never mind. Phillip Adams will still call him a stupid turkey and waffle on about his stealing the election thereby saying more about himself than Bush.
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