DogfightAtBankstown

news filtering in...

That a second South Korean hostage has been murdered by the Taleban.

Most of the hostages are women.

girls gone mild

American popular culture seems determined to obliterate innocence — even in the crib! But Shalit's critique is not so much prudish as pitying. Her deepest insights concern the new repression that has been imposed on young women. Repression? In this "liberated" age? Read on.

Consider the "hook-up" scene on college campuses (and many high schools). Under the new dispensation, with Ludacris providing the soundtrack, young women are expected to have casual sex with no strings attached. Some girls consent to be "friends with benefits" for their male friends. Magazines like Cosmo and Seventeen, cultural bellwethers, advise young women to "keep your heart under wraps." The very worst thing a woman can do, apparently, is to express a desire for some sort of emotional connection or (gasp) commitment from her sexual partner. That amounts to being "boring and clingy," declare the magazines.

Scarleteen offers a "sex readiness checklist" for young girls to help them gauge whether they should plunge into the fun. Among the items: "I see a doctor regularly," and "I have a birth control budget of $50 per month." The emotional readiness a girl should demonstrate is "I can separate love from sex." Shalit notes, "Those who can separate love from sex are mature, like jaded adults. They are ready to embark on a lifetime of meaningless encounters."

In fact, Shalit argues, all of this advice and deprogramming aimed at women is necessary because women do not by nature thrive on casual, meaningless sexual encounters. They crave emotional intimacy and fidelity — desires the women's magazines are at pains to quash in the name of maturity. Psychiatrist Dr. Paul McHugh describes the vast numbers of young women who consult him asking for Prozac because they have sex with lots of different men, all of whom say they're "not ready" for marriage. "'But there's nothing the matter with you,' I tell them; 'what's the matter with the world? Let me help you find a way of not hopping into bed with all these guys right off the bat . . .'"

You wouldn't think it but a small but significant backlash is apparently underway. 

To me it just sounds like the majority is still lost.

Author Wendy Shalit wrote A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue, published by Free Press in 1999. That book earned her attacks from, amongst others, Katha Pollitt in The New York Times and Larry Flynt in Hustler magazine, where she was awarded the Asshole of the Month title.  Yes, there's an ideology and a lot of business to maintain there.

And a bit more. 

Back in 1999, Shalit also noted the book by Larry Flynt's daughter:

If you want a nonfiction account of what happens when fathers encourage daughters to get "in touch" with their sexuality because "it is not so big a deal," read Hustled: My Journey From Fear to Faith (Westminster/John Knox), Tonya Flynt–Vega’s sad tale of what it was like growing up as Larry Flynt’s daughter. Flynt was extremely interested in introducing his daughter—now thirty–three—to the pornographic wonders depicted in his magazine, Hustler, and to that end molested her on several occasions when she was young. Needless to say, she did not thrive as a result.

Needless to say too, I guess the personal got pointed out.

Shalit is one of several bloggers here, and her latest book is Girls Gone Mild:Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good.

Not so long ago, I listened in on a conversation where mothers were discussing how to teach their kids sexual ethics. These were not women who had any faith but a couple also said that they were going to encourage their kids to abstain from sex until they were married.  But they were having difficulty articulating a reason why - except for basic common sense on protection from venereal disease, AIDS and especially for girls, emotional turmoil (I got the impression some were speaking from experience).

Now I have a bit of a beef with how many Christians teach their kids about ethics and marriage - reducing it to a mere 'thou shalt not'.  But leave that aside for now, most parents without any faith are nevertheless keen to teach and guide their children on all matters relating to relationships, including sex.

So for those of you who don't subscribe to the Judeo-Christian tradition, what is an appropriate sexual ethic for your children and how do you (plan to) teach it?  What parameters do you set for your kids (Sleeping with your girlfriend's boyfriend OK? Friends with benefits OK?) and most importantly, how do you answer that question: why? 

also overnight

The Iraqis beat the Saudis to win the Asia Cup. 

I can think of quite a few non-Iraqis who would be celebrating that win.

why i did not watch the haneef interview

Because it was on Sixty Minutes.

Because it was by Tara Brown.

Because it was chequebook journalism.

Because the media as a whole wasn't exactly diligent in reporting all the  available facts much less fact-checking and who knows what role some played by publishing strategic "leaks" and "revelations."

Because while Haneef's original detention was probably correct, politics quickly got into the mix.  And I'm not just talking Kevin Andrews cancelling his visa.

Because what do you expect from such an interview?  The usual dumb questions: did you do it? Are you a terrorist?

And of course, the usual dumb public expectation: terrorist confesses on national TV!

Which means, of course, you then get comments like this: he's so gentle, a gentleman. The only one who is credible! (Or as the transcript says, with dignity!)

Um, yes, the charges were withdrawn because the circumstantial evidence was weak or perhaps misrepresented. Thank God our justice system worked.

Now Haneef's wife has thanked the Indian public, and Haneef may yet have fun with Bangalore police, but what of Haneef? Did he thank the Australian public for their support as Russo had indicated he wanted to?  Well yes, when asked in Bangkok and once he got back to India, after he offered his thanks at the local mosque and after asserting he was victimized by the Australian police. 

Too bad our justice system worked, I guess.

Apart from an inquiry into the bungled investigation and charges - this is not a good advertisement for the AFP's competence, not to mention the mischievous Gold Coast leaks; and who knows what diplomatic niceties with India might have been bruised (some are bleating for an apology) - the person whom I would like to hear from, is our real life answer to Peter Falk's Colombo: the forever rumpled Peter Russo.  For a defense lawyer, he strikes me as particularly naive on a few points but on the other hand, he seems to have some integrity (if, for example, I am to believe reports he was not in favour of 'secret little deals' with the media etc.)

But he is a seasoned defense lawyer.  Which means, I wonder how much he played and how much he was played.

Also given Haneef has debts in England, was evicted from his Gold Coast flat for not paying rent with his stuff now in storage, couldn't buy his own plane ticket home, and perhaps liable for the fare again if this ticket was care of the Australian government, I also wonder how Russo is going to get paid.

But with client confidentiality and all that, I doubt that we would even know.

Still, if Russo returns to Australia (why did he accompany Haneef to Bangalore?) and starts some form of Terry Hicks type activism, or hanging out with the usual suspects on the speaking circuit, then I know that all is not what it seems.

insomniac australia

I'm watching the final stage of the Tour de France.

The outcome is almost a foregone conclusion.

But a kid from Katherine has kept us up anyway.

ummah

Posters at the UK-based Islamic discussion forum Ummah.com have been discussing whether it’s all right to kill children while waging jihad.

The question alone is obscene.  But here's the verdict.

facebook

I don't get it, but neither do I get this.

Scotland Yard has launched an  investigation after officers posted outrageous videos on the social networking website Facebook.

The videos of officers larking around were filmed while they were on duty - supposed to be fighting crime and protecting communities in one of Britain's most violent areas.

Bananas v Bandanas?

shambo the sacred bull

Is dead. And so he should be.

He can always be born again.

poor thing

Escaping from a potential life as a casino-happy Scientology recruit to happy-clappy Joyce Myer adulating Hillsong parishioner.

Katie Fischer this is your life: enslaved and unhappy.

May God one day find you.

hegel's luther

That's what Slavoj Žižek wants to be.

I've never heard of the guy, just came across his name at Faith and Theology where Ben also posted a link to this webcast of his November 2006 lecture at Calvin College: Why Only an Atheist Can Believe: Politics on the Edge of Fear and Trembling.  And given that militant atheism and loss of faith have featured in recent blog posts, I thought to post the link here.

I would have to listen to the lecture again to summarise his thesis but perhaps for now, let's just say it is about the nature of belief, the relationship between belief and knowledge, meaning and suffering.

He is highly entertaining (although I wished someone gave him a box of tissues) and even though I listened to this as a dilettante in all matters philosophical, I wished he was able to expand on certain points and be challenged on others. Again, if I get time, I will post some of my reactions later.

In the course of the lecture and the Q&A which follows, Žižek refers to himself as an atheist, "we Christians", Marxist, a conservative and Kiergegaardian. He is critical of secular humanism ("man is not enough"), thinks all philosophy occurred between Kant and Hegel and is happy to interact with the Judeao-Christian tradition - or at least his interpretation of that tradition.  At times he comes tantalizingly close to a Christian reading while at others he is way off the mark. As a dilettante my first impression is that it's because he can cope with just about any "paradox" except that of the transcendance and immanence of God. For him, it's just immanence. Maybe. The question and answer session at the end is the most illuminating in that regard, particularly where he talks of predestination, love, and freedom as an inner necessity. It reminds me of Conyer's thesis on vocation to which I may also return later.

A(n occasionally cringy, high-pitched) introduction by Jennifer Williams of the Department of English at Calvin College around the 6.40 mark, with Žižek's lecture proper starting around 11.40. In this lecture, you don't just get Hegel and Keanu Reeves in the index - as Williams notes in the introduction - but Hegel, Britney Spears, Sam Harris and (with a smile from me), the inclusion of local academic Brian Daizen Victoria in the same lecture.

victorian premier resigns

Bracks' speech.

Me too, says Deputy.

a bit of news

Which hasn't gotten much airplay.  From Helen: moves to decriminalise abortion in Victoria.

ambulance chasers

Sydney Hizbies seeking publicity again:

The lawyer for accused terror suspect Mohamed Haneef has backed out of a rally organised by an extremist Islamic group with alleged links to the British car-bomb terror suspects.

Peter Russo and Haneef's visiting relative Imran Siddiqui were named as speakers at the Sydney rally organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir for Sunday.

But after Mr Russo was tipped off about the involvement of the extremist group he decided against attending.

A spokesman for Mr Russo told The Australian newspaper he had never confirmed the appearance and that Hizb ut-Tahrir had been premature in listing him as a speaker.

"He was concerned that his name had been listed without confirmation," the spokesman said.

But the spokesman declined to comment on whether Hizb ut-Tahrir was a factor in Mr Russo's decision not to attend the rally.

The group's Australian spokesman Wassim Doureihi told The Australian that Mr Russo and Mr Siddiqui had accepted the invitation to speak at the rally in the full knowledge Hizb ut-Tahrir was organising it.

He said on Thursday night that Mr Russo had called to say he was too busy too attend.

Hizb ut-Tahrir has dismissed links to the London attacks and denied supporting or sponsoring terrorism.

A profile of the now high-profile Peter Russo here.

Best stay away from that crowd Peter.

In the news this morning, speculation that the Department of Public Prosecutions will drop the charges against Haneef, while Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews insists that Haneef will nevertheless still be deported.  An investigator has also died on the job.

It's almost become farcical.

Update: The Director of Public Prosecutions Damien Bugg has withdrawn the charge.

Mr Bugg said the terror charge against Dr Haneef was dropped because there was no reasonable prospect of him being convicted on the evidence.

''While there are inferences that are available from the material I have, I am of the view that they are not sufficiently strong to exclude reasonable hypotheses consistent with innocence,'' he said in Canberra.

''In the circumstances of this case I do not believe that evidence to prove the case to the requisite standard will be obtained.

''On my view of the matter a mistake has been made.''

So the prosecution is looking to change the wording of the charge. And Andrews holds firm on the cancellation of Haneef's visa. Says Russo: "More twists and turns than the Brisbane River".

Update 2: Charges dropped. Haneef released into residential detention with some freedom to move. As if.  It seems Andrews is going to have a really tough time justifying his decision to cancel Haneef's visa.  What a cock up.

Update 3: Yes and yes.

ufo sightings bring town to a standstill

And I thought it was the floods which had brought towns to a stop.

And people worry about those of us who seek higher ground.

kenja communication

This cult came to my attention when I was following the news and blogging about Cornelia Rau back in 2005. The Kenja links featured in a few of my posts. Cornelia's sister did not have favourable comments about the cult, with whom Cornelia was briefly associated before being asked to leave - according to a cult spokesperson - in 1998.

Ken Dyer, the war veteran who founded the cult, suicided on Wednesday:

The leader and co-founder of a Sydney based healing cult facing trial on multiple alleged sex abuse offences against two 12-year-old Sydney girls was found dead today.

Police will not reveal the circumstances in which Kenneth Emmanuel Dyers, 85, the founder of Kenja Communications died or where his body was found.

Police from Sutherland and forensic officers were called to his home in Crammond Avenue, Bundeena, earlier today .

Sutherland Police have declined to comment on the death as detectives prepare a report for the State Coroner.

His death comes as a trial in the Sydney District Court was deferred pending a decision by the Mental Health Tribunal as to whether he was fit to plead.

He faced 22 charges of aggravated indecent and sexual assault upon two 12-year-old girls.

Dyers, who had been on bail, had been contesting the charges since his arrest by officers from the Child Protection and Serious Sex Crimes Squad in October 2005 after a long-running investigation by Strike Force Caroola.

When he was first charged on October 28, 2005, his lawyer Harland Koops told Sutherland Local Court that he could not have sexually assaulted the girls at Kenja's Surry Hills offices between December 2001 and July 2002 because he suffered erectile dysfunction for 15 years.

The charges included four counts of aggravated indecent assault in relation to one victim, as well as a further 17 counts of aggravated indecent assault and one of aggravated sexual assault relating to the second girl.

From the Brisbane Times:

The followers of a cult leader who took his own life have blamed his death on those who pursued him over child sex charges.

Kenneth Emmanuel Dyers, co-founder of the so-called spiritual healing group Kenja, "took his own life" on Wednesday, the group's website said.

The body of the 85-year-old was found with a gunshot wound to the head at about 11am (AEST) at his Bundeena home in Sydney's south.

A statement on the Kenja website said Dyers had been suffering "serious ill-health".

Police said the death was not being treated as suspicious.

The World War II veteran was last year committed to stand trial on 22 child sex offences, but the NSW District Court deemed him unfit for trial in May and ordered a mental health assessment.

The charges related to the alleged assaults of two 12-year-old girls at Kenja's offices in Sydney's Surry Hills between December 2001 and July 2002.

During his trademark one-to-one meditations, described as "energy conversion sessions", Dyers allegedly took the 12-year-olds into private rooms, ordered them to strip and molested them.

He was dogged by similar claims of sexual abuse dating back more than 20 years, each relating to naked "processing sessions".

Convicted in 1999 of abusing young girls as young as 11 years old, he was cleared in a successful High Court appeal in 2002.

Kenja members have blamed Dyers' apparent suicide on the effect of more than two decades in court.

Indeed the full statement at Kenja's website dated 25 July 07 reads:

This is a tragic day for Australia and for the human spirit.       
        Ken Dyers took his own life today.       
        He was 85, an ex-combat soldier who fought at El Alamein and Lae and Finschhafen.       
        Ken had been suffering serious ill-health.       
        There has been a relentless attack on Ken and Kenja for over 20 years.       
This attack was launched by spurious, so-called anti-cult groups, some politicians and individuals with criminal intentions, who have fabricated false allegations of child sexual abuse against him.
        To this day there has been no conviction against Ken Dyers, and all allegations were rejected by the courts.       
The police were continuing to hound and harass Mr Dyers, working with disaffected and hostile people, who wanted to destroy Ken to hide their own misdeeds.
Further false allegations were made after a court had determined that Mr Dyers health meant he could not receive a fair trial.
        It is clear that Ken decided he could not, in his state of health, continue to fight any longer.       
This is a terrible tragedy. The irony is that Ken always had compassion for the perpetrators of this attack and what they were doing to themselves in betraying honest help, friendship and love.
If anybody in the media or elsewhere wishes to genuinely investigate the history of this persecution and horrible end, Kenja would readily welcome such an investigation to reveal the truth of what has happened.
        We in Kenja feel a great loss, and we will cherish and honour Kens memory and his work forever.

Tragic day for Australia and the human spirit?  Maybe tragic that the self-styled self-help personality cult he founded couldn't really save him.

r-i-g-h-t

So I'm supposed to believe that if Labor wins the next election it will be wall-to-wall Labor and that is b-a-d, b-a-d, b-a-d but if the Coalition wins, the federal government will take over water, Aboriginal affairs, hospitals, industrial relations and now public housing - you know, everything from the states - and that is g-o-o-d, g-o-o-d, g-o-o-d.

What am I missing here?

Update: Tim Dunlop on Howard's war on everything...David Solomon on R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Hey didn't Howard say in a recent interview of course it was all about holding on to power?

say goodbye to the man in nigeria

Blogs as email.

comma, full stop.

Breathless. The history of the comma:

The comma was one of the first punctuation marks. In the 3rd century BCE, Aristophanes of Byzantium invented a system of single dots (distinctiones) that separated verses (colometry) and indicated the amount of breath needed to complete each fragment of text when reading aloud (not to comply with rules of grammar, which were not applied to punctuation marks until thousands of years later). The different lengths were signified by a dot at the bottom, middle, or top of the line. For a short passage (a komma), a media distinctio dot was placed mid-level ( · ). This is the origin of the concept of a comma, though the name came to be used for the mark itself instead of the clause it separated.

The mark used today is descended from a diagonal slash, or virgula suspensiva ( / ), used from the 13th to 17th centuries to represent a pause, notably by Aldus Manutius. In the 16th century, the virgule dropped to the bottom of the line and curved, turning into the shape used today ( , ).^[1][2][3][4]

No, rather, the comma drives history:

Legend has it that the comma (from the Sanskrit coma, meaning "the partial cessation of operation of thought/the brain"), was, in fact, invented, believe it or not, by ancient Greece’s greatest mathematician, Hestrodostrophes, in the third century B.C., during the age that historians call the Golden Age of Greek Mathematicians. It was invented, it so happens, as a means of bringing about, as effectively as possible, the partial cessation of operation of thought (he also experimented in the repetition of prepositions).

Hestrodostrophes had his own motive: This great theorizer of numbers wanted desperately to silence the Greek philosophers (oxymoron: silence a Greek philosopher), who had in recent centuries taken to hanging out in marketplaces philosophizing loudly, in the process making it extremely difficult to concentrate and get any math done—especially considering that there were throngs of them, all disagreeing and none understanding a bit of mathematics, meaning they did not stand a chance in Hades of arriving at any sort of meaningful answer to any of their countless questions (Personally, my goldfish disturbs me when I try to balance my checkbook.)

Philosophers: “We should not allow into our minds the conviction that argumentation has nothing sound about it.  Wanna buy some cabbage?”

No wonder none of the Greeks ever discovered zero! (Of course, they didn’t have my checkbook.) Who could concentrate with all that noise going on?!

Philosophers: “ . . . much rather we should believe it is we who are not yet sound and that we must take courage and be eager to attain soundness. How about some carrots with that?”

And so, to gain a little quiet, on Sunday afternoons, in his little marketfront apartment, in downtown Athens, Hestrodostrophes invented the comma. In it, you see, he, like, sought, you know, to make, and more than succeeded, a device which would, under the guise of creating, say, comprehension, in actuality completely obstruct, if you know what I mean, the flow of thought . . . paralyzing the power of reason and in the process bringing about a sudden and dramatic close to the Golden Age of Greek Philosophy.

You see, the comma worked like this: It allowed one, conveniently, where one found it necessary, to, where the grammar would permit, and, occasionally, even where the grammar, would not, normally, permit, break up thoughts, splitting ideas right down the in-, often blatantly so, finitive, so that any series of thoughts and impressions, no matter how vague, no matter how disjointed, and, of course, no matter how, shall we say, irrelevant, to be expressed.

This new, exciting punctuation mark also, happily, if a punctuation mark can be happy (beyond the people who spend too much of their time sending e-mail and chatting on computer screens :) ) allowed for a never-before-seen device: the parenthetical clause, which itself allows, basically, writers to, haphazardly, throw in any, however small, little, tiny piece of information, however minuscule, however trivial, without having to look at the grammar of the sentence, and without having to, well, go to all the trouble of breaking up what they were saying and begin a new sentence, which I do, as an example, here, and, incidentally, did I tell you about my dog Pedro?

And most of ancient Greeks thought, and certainly all comprehension, not to mention patience and attention span, ceased.

Unfortunately, Greek mathematicians also found immediate uses for the comma—as a way to break up series of digits, for instance, or, if carved out of marble, as bookends—and the Golden Age of Greek Mathematicians ended along with the Golden Age of Greek Philosophers.

In fact, the comma pretty much put a lid on Greek thought in general, and the ancient Hellenic civilization of Europe moved on to a new stage, one powerful though less progressive, called the Golden Age of Leading Large Greek Armies Around Conquering Foreign Lands, which required little thinking and was best run by people who could not even read and were thus immune to the effects of the mind-numbing punctuation mark.

Later, the Romans, who were never very big on thought to begin with, were the inheritors of the comma. Since much of their knowledge and technology, and even their religion, was, like the comma, a hand-me-down from the Greeks, they were able to build a civilization despite the deadly partial stop’s effect, though one which was limited to giving them a predilection for spending much of the day in public baths (a little-known effect of the comma that is still felt today by many who work with the mark, despite today's nonexistence of public paths).

I have refused them so often and left the out so much and did without them so continually that I have come finally to be indifferent to them. I do not now care whether you put them in or not but for a long time I felt very definitely about them and would have nothing to do with them.

As I say commas are servile and they have no life of their own,and their use is not a use, it is a way of replacing one’s own interest and I do decidedly like to like my own interest my own interest in what I am doing. A comma by helping you along holding your coat for you and putting on your shoes keeps you from living your life as actively as you should lead it and to me for many years and I still do feel that way about it only now I do not pay as much attention to them, the use of them was positively degrading. Let me tell you what I feel and what I mean and what I felt and what I meant.

When I was writing those long sentences of The Making of Americans, verbs active present verbs with long dependent adverbial clauses became a passion with me. I have told you that I recognize verbs and adverbs aided by prepositions and conjunctions with pro- nouns as possessing the whole of the active life of writing.

Complications make eventually for simplicity and therefore I have always liked dependent adverbial clauses. I have like dependent adver- bial clauses because of their variety of dependence and independence. You can see how loving the intensity of complication of these things that commas would be degrading. Why if you want the pleasure of concentrating on the final simplicity of excessive complication would you want any artificial aid to bring about that simplicity. Do you see now why I feel about that simplicity. Do you see now why I feel about the comma as I did and as I do.

Think about anything you really like to do and you will see what I mean.

When it gets really difficult you want to disentangle rather than to cut the knot, at least of anybody feels who is working with any thread, so anybody feels who is working with any tool so anybody feels who is writing any sentence or reading it after it has been written. And what does a comma do, a comma does nothing but make easy a thing that if you like it enough is easy enough without the comma. A long compli- cated sentence should force itself upon you, make you know yourself knowing it and the comma, well at the most a comma is a poor period that lets you stop and take a breath but if you want to take a breath you ought to know yourself that you want to take a breath. It is not like stopping altogether has something to do with going on, but taking a breath well you are always taking a breath and why emphasize one breath rather than another breath. Anyway that is the way I felt about it and I felt that about it very very strongly. And so I almost never used a comma. The longer, the more complicated the sentence the greater the number of the same kinds of words I had following one after another, the more the very more I had of them the more I felt the passionate need of their taking care of themselves by themselves and not helping them, and thereby enfeebling them by putting in a comma.

So that is the way I felt about punctuation in prose, in poetry it is a little different but more so and later I will go into that. But that is the way I felt about punctuation in prose.

-Gertrude Stein from Lectures in America

The aesthetics of the comma:

The comma is a lot like the period, the major difference being a little tail hanging down between what would be its legs if it had legs.  This is a good metaphor, since the difference between the comma and the period is that the comma is a wimp, asking only a brief pause and not a full stop. It is like a poodle in a world of Doberman pinschers and German shepherds.

What concerns editors most about the comma is not the many nuances it can add to the language, or the many misreadings it can prevent; what concerns editors is this: It looks foolish in many sans serif typefaces, especially helvetica, with its tail attached to a tiny square box, giving it all the artistic sophistication of The Powderpuff Girls.

Publisher: Helvetica looks modern.

Editor: Cavemen's drawings had more refinement!

Publisher: Don't we have to say caveperson? Anyway, this typeface says quot;Today!" It says "Silicon Valley," it says "reality TV," it says . . .

Editor: It says boring!

Publisher: By the way, there is talk of more budget cuts and there have been questions in the board room about the need for copy editors . . .

Editor: I kind of like helvetica, actually.

I have spent most of the day putting in a comma and the rest of the day taking it out.

-Oscar Wilde

Ah copy editors. A symptom of the sad fate of the comma:

If all this involved only grammar, I might let it lie. But the comma's sad fate is, I think, a metaphor for something larger: how we deal with the frantic, can't-wait-a-minute nature of modern life. The comma is, after all, a small sign that flashes PAUSE. It tells the reader to slow down, think a bit, and then move on. We don't have time for that. No pauses allowed. In this sense, the comma's fading popularity is also social commentary.

And I want to say anything is possible. Comma. You know.

-Frank Bruno

what? religious freedom in egypt?

Egypt’s official religious advisor has ruled that Muslims are free to change their faith as it is a matter between an individual and God, in a move which could have far-reaching implications for the country’s Christians.

“The essential question before us is can a person who is Muslim choose a religion other than Islam? The answer is yes, they can,” Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa said in a posting on a Washington Post-Newsweek forum picked up by the Egyptian press on Tuesday.

“The act of abandoning one’s religion is a sin punishable by God on the Day of Judgement. If the case in question is one of merely rejecting faith, then there is no worldly punishment,” he wrote.

Sure this is true?

Ali Gomaa, the statue-hatin', wife-beatin', Hizballah-supportin', Muhammad's-urine-drinkin' Mufti of Egypt...[?]

Nah, of course not.

yes i was unimpressed

With the Socceroos performance in the Asia Cup.  For my money, they even got as far as they did thanks to their opponents stuffing up opportunities. 

But another team defied all odds: the Iraqis are now in the final following a penalty shoot-out win against South Korea.

Do you think some murderous thugs would allow Iraqis to celebrate the win?

Of course not.

murderous thugs

Strike again:

KABUL - The Afghan government confirmed that Taliban militants holding 23 South Koreans had killed one of their captives Wednesday.

"I can confirm that one of the hostages has been killed by the Taliban," Waheedullah Mujadadi, the head of the Afghan delegation negotiating the release of the Korean Christian aid workers, told AFP.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi had earlier claimed that the militants had executed one of the hostages.

He later set a "final deadline" of 2030 GMT Wednesday for their demands for the release of eight jailed Taliban fighters to be met.

"If our demands are not met we'll kill some more hostages," Ahmadi told AFP.

You wonder what some of these arsehole cybertalkers are cheering about now. Like the Taliban cares.

Update: The bullet ridden body of the South Korean hostage has been recovered.

Update 2: Latest reports indicate the hostage was shot after a bungled attempt to pay a ransom, and that the man was shot because he was ill.  It is sad to say that he is not the first and won't be the last to be murdered. But once again, it shows the kidnappers' mindset.

on being a woman

In some parts of the world you just can't be.

India continues to battle against the murder of girls for no other reason than they are girls:

Nayagarh (Orissa), July 23 : Days after police recovered seven bodies of female infants in Orissa, more bodies have been found retrieved from the same area.

The bodies of seven female newborn babies were recovered near the Duburi foothills in Nayagarh.

Police  said  they  were tipped off about the  presence  of  more bodies.

'We found small skulls and bones in the (bio-medical) waste. We have sealed them and sent them for chemical examination. We are taking necessary action in this regard,' Rajesh Kumar, Superintendent of Police, Nayagarh said.

Cases of female infanticide have been filed against clinics and private hospitals. Several unregistered pathological laboratories have also been sealed in Nayagarh District after the police conducted raids jointly with health officials and social activists conducted raids in the area.

Female infanticide and foeticide is still prevalent in several regions of the country, as boys are traditionally preferred to girls.

According to the Government, around ten million girls have been killed -either before or immediately after birth -- by their parents over the past 20 years.

The sex ratio in the country is still one of the world's lowest, with an average of 933 females recorded for every 1,000 males in the 2001 census.

But  the global sex ratio—which is 954 girls to 1,000  boys  - suggests that 38,000 girls should be born in India everyday.

From various news reports, it seems over 30 female foetus and babies have been found in the latest grisly finds in Orissa province.

i can't tell you

That the handling of the Haneef case inspires me with any confidence. 

And public confidence is critical in matters relating to security.

Each day brings new revelations of disarray.  This is compounded by a government hostile to the judiciary (especially those whom they perceive as activist) and a judiciary that at times deserves that name (however, is that always a bad thing? And is this necessarily the case here?). And well our Federal Police who only seem to operate at one of two ends of a spectrum: brilliant and bumbling.  Oh I forgot to mention the Opposition (what opposition was that again?)

You wonder what's coming up next: some insane use of the Constitution for federal parliament to grab powers of whatever is politically useful at this time.  Because politics is all that matters. 

this time

Pommygranate loses his religion.

He even uses the 'f-word'.  But it's f-ing spot on.

which ancient language are you?

     Your Score: Akkadian        

 You are Akkadian, a blend of the incomprehensible symbols of the Sumerians with the unwritable sounds of the early Semitic peoples. However, the writing just doesn't suit the words and doesn't represent everything needed, so you end up a schizoid mess. Invented in Babylon, you're probably to blame for that tower story. However, crazy as you are, you're much loved and appreciated, and remain actively in use by records keepers long after schools have switched to other languages.    

Link: The Which Ancient Language Are You Test written by imipak

the world's stupidest fatwas

At Foreign Policy.

Via Dhimmi Watch where Robert writes:

Note that when making fun of something Islamic, you have to include the obligatory "one of the world's great religions," so as to try to head off "Islamophobia" charges -- which are almost certain to come anyway. Note also that the stupid fatawa are ascribed to the lack of any central doctrinal authority in Islam. If that's all it is, one wonders why Congregationalists or Lutherans haven't published a similar number of bizarre rulings.

But of course, Foreign Policy doesn't have the stomach to look into the possibility that these strange fatawa were actually derived from elements of the Qur'an and Sunnah. This header, then, is a species of the same fear and reticence that prevents Western analysts from looking into the elements of Islam that jihadists are using to incite violence, and formulating positive ways to deal with them. While they profess to be supporting Islamic reformers, they are actually undercutting them by effectively denying that there is anything within Islam that needs reform.

The list is actually very short.  I am sure Tim Blair's commenters, can extend it somewhat - having uncovered a few priceless gems in their cybertravels. 

How about it guys?

how the religion beat

Defeated one journalist's faith. 

This is a first-person account in which the LA Time's William Lobdell describes his journey from born-again evangelicalism and his prayers that God will let him cover the religion beat, to "life after answered prayer" and almost acceptance into the Catholic church to his eventual loss of faith, largely thanks to the struggles he faced covering stories on the religion beat - ranging from the Catholic sex abuse scandals to TBN televangelists to ex-Mormons.

Not surprisingly, the article has been picked up by many U.S. blogs - it was a Column One article after all.

Terry Mattingly at GetReligion, a veteran religion reporter himself, asks some questions:

What can you say about a page-one article of this kind?

Actually, I have more questions that I wish I could ask to the editors than questions I would ask Lobdell.

Don’t get me wrong. There would be much I would say to him in person, most of it rooted in the idea that it is better to wrestle with eternal faith issues in the context of a living, vital faith community than on one’s on. But that is hardly a journalistic comment either, now is it? As C.S. Lewis noted in The Horse and His Boy, there are times when God tells each person his or her own story and others simply have to urge them to listen. We cannot hear their story or claim to know what they should be hearing.

I have only known one or two professionals who felt their faith were threatened by covering religion news. I have known people who found faith on the beat — one or two (I will name no names). I have known people whose faith changed while on the beat. And, as I have said many times, I have known excellent religion writers who had a fierce intellectual interest in religious issues and events, but no faith at all.

This is journalism and there are all kinds of people who can do this journalistic work with skill and integrity.

The question, for me, is why this story ended up on page one, rather than in a Sunday feature section, a pull-out magazine or some other part of the Times that carries essays, rather than news features or breaking stories.

Were the editors trying to say something about journalism? About faith? A warning about what happens when people of faith work on this beat? That, to me, was the mystery linked to this piece.

Bryan Preston of Junkyard Blog, who describes himself as

...one of the most back-slidden Baptists out there, not attending church very regularly, not reading my Bible nearly enough, tempting fate and the dark forces far too many times for comfort, far too many . . . however, I still pray daily, still believe, still have my faith.

...has one of the most interesting if somewhat cynical answers in a post titled: LATimes Hates People of  'Christian' Faith

The title of this post is a pretty strong indictment against our local news rag, but to anyone that reads it regularly it should come as no surprise. Last Saturday's announcement that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles would be paying $660-million in settlements in priest abuse cases really set the LAT off, that's for sure. Capping a full week of flagellation of the Catholic church, (I count 18 articles), is today's Column One "masterpiece", Religion beat became a test of faith, in which the former LAT religion-beat correspondent, William Lobdell, bares his soul, or at least what's left of it.

He selects a few passages upon which to comment, but the guts of it is this:

The next part of the article outlines his nearly-failed life by age 28 and his journey leading to his born-again conversion and acceptance of Christ which leads up to this:

I began praying each morning and night. During those quiet times, I mostly listened for God's voice. And I thought I sensed a plan he had for me: To write about religion for The Times and bring light into the newsroom, if only by my stories and example.

My desire to be a religion reporter grew as I read stories about faith in the mainstream media. Spiritual people often appeared as nuts or simpletons.

Don't we all know that drill? I became more intrigued and eager to learn how Lobdell would accomplish these goals within the conscripts of the far-Left-leaning LAT.

Another maddening trend was that homosexuality and abortion debates dominated media coverage, as if those where the only topics that mattered to Christians.

Uh oh! Methinks there be some disconnect showin' up already. A new Christian, especially someone from Southern California, might just be unaware of how important these two issues have been to mainstream Christianity in the heartland. In a community where gay pride parades are considered "normal" activites, and where abortion-on-demand, generally understood as a Constitutional-guaranteed right and promoted as a rational method of birth control, finding these two issues dominating media coverage was probably "maddening" to Lobdell. And that, dear readers, is all that the editorial board would need to know -- they had thier perfect candidate for the religion-beat. An Icarus of their very own, almost guaranteed to make that flight too close to ol Sol, and come crashing and burning back to progressive reality.

Amy Welborn, one of the most widely read and respected U.S. Catholic bloggers offers some great reflections:

But the thing is, what Lobdell describes, however awful, is nothing new. Not that he's saying it is, of course. But his justifiable anguish and shock (and God help us when we are not anguished and shocked by these things) could be shared by any Christian during any era, any place.  Christianity has never been pure in the human sense, always been a difficult, challenging mix of mostly sinners and a few saints. Read Paul - when he writes to the Corinthians about their immoral behavior and their actions during the Eucharist, he's not talking to outsiders - he's talking to Christians. When he scolds the Galatians, he's talking to the baptized, those who call themselves Christians. We bandy about ancient terms like "Donatists" or "Arians," forgetting that these are not simply ideas, but distillations of reality - Donatism reflects an era in which Christians by the score found themselves unable to pay the ultimate price of loyalty, and perhaps burned some incense to the emperor or signed something or turned over some books, while some of their neighbors went to their deaths, refusing. A scandal. A sad state of affairs. But what was the end of that battle? A purging? If the Donatists had their way, sure. But Augustine had another view.

Christians as individuals betray Christ on a daily basis. Christian institutions do, as well, in small and great ways.

But it's even more complicated than that, for when you really start digging you can get even more confused - and you learn - perhaps in a more sophisticated version of Dr. Teabing's lecture to Sophie Neveau - of the politics inherent in Church life, even in discussions of church teaching and policy. It can be the equivalent of the young fundamentalist Bart Ehrman, by his own account, being exposed to the human hand in the composition of Scripture and losing his faith.

She writes later, also picking up on the anti-religionist - perhaps anti- Christian?- theme:

It is interesting to me that many anti-religionists (not talking about Lobdell here) accuse believers of taking an easy way out. Of embracing a sweet vision of life and reality that avoids hard questions, or, in the end, is satisfied with platitudes.

It is not so, is it? For faith is hard. Does anyone really think that faith is easy in the face of the innocent suffering of a child? Or the ravages of Alzheimer's? Or the existence of evil? Or, as we're talking about here, the ironies, paradoxes and counter-witness of the Church?

Back to Terry:

This is not a news story, so it is hard to give it a standard GetReligion critique. Although there are moments when the reporter in me wants to ask questions, that is hard to do when you are reading a story as painful and gripping as this one. This is a spiritual reflection, not journalism. It is hard to tell Lobdell that he is wrong — even though many readers will question his conclusions, for reasons of their own.

Essentially, this is an essay about ancient questions linked to “theodicy” — putting God on trial for the painful reality of evil in this world. Although the writer mentions several issues that pushed him over the edge, it certainly appears that his fury is rooted in his attempts to cover sexual-abuse scandals in the Catholic priesthood and the cover-up by many bishops. Lobdell cannot come to terms with this. Who could?

Indeed.  Which is why I think Amy is right to conclude that faith is hard,

...[b]ut in the end (at least to me) what is even harder than faith is making sense of reality without God and making sense of what happened 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem, period.

Because it seems to me that the question of suffering and evil, the right to protest at God, arises only for those who believe in a good God.

For those who don't believe, or whose God is not good, the question becomes: why is there any good in the world at all?

In that sense, then, Lobdell's fury - whilst understandable - really is just a story of someone progressively losing his religion.

Update: Belated welcome to Crikey readers. Feel free to post your thoughts.

trust me, i'm a proctologist

Bush to undergo colonoscopy
Bush to cede powers during colonoscopy
Cheney to be in charge during Bush colonscopy
Bush to undergo colonoscopy tonight
Cheney assumes power as colonoscopy underway
Cheney in charge, Bush colonoscopy underway
Bush reclaims power after colonoscopy
Bush plans post-colonoscopy bike ride

Total time Cheney was President: two hours.
Number of polyps found: five.
Bush is on his bike and all is well with the world.

Just thought you needed to know that.

this time

From the real Daily Mail (not that it gets much better):

A Buddhist businessman who wants to call his Chinese restaurant Fat Buddha has angered council chiefs - who claim the name will upset Buddhists.

Eddie Fung's £1.3million restaurant will open in Durham next month, creating 60 jobs.

But the restaurateur was astonished when Tracey Ingle, the city council's head of cultural services, demanded he change the name because it was 'provocative'.

Mr Fung, 39, said: "I cannot believe that this woman should go to so much time and trouble to take issue over an inoffensive name like Fat Buddha.

I can. This is a British council after all. 

"No Buddhist is going to be offended by this. The fat Buddha is a symbol of health and happiness. It is political correctness gone mad."

And a spokesman for the Buddhist Society said: "Buddhists regard the fat Buddha as lucky. To suggest this is offensive is to misunderstand the faith.

"Buddhists don't take offence at anything because to do so doesn't follow Buddhist teachings."

Well they've obviously taken offence at this.  But that is exactly what political correctness does to you.

he's alive!

Well if he can, why not him?

(Mailmaker, hat tip:Mr E)

life as we know it

Says Martin Durkin:

Why are the global warmers so zealous? After a year of arguing with people about this, I am convinced that it’s because global warming is first and foremost a political theory. It is an expression of a whole middle-class political world view. This view is summed up in the oft-repeated phrase “we consume too much”. I have also come to the conclusion that this is code for “they consume too much”. People who believe it tend also to think that exotic foreign places are being ruined because vulgar oiks can afford to go there in significant numbers, they hate plastic toys from factories and prefer wooden ones from craftsmen, and so on.

All we need now is some fertility rites for the Gaia-religo-politico cult and we'll have the trifecta.

(via Slatts)

america's joyous future

Heh.

(via Per Crucem ad Lucem)

some hurried thoughts

On faith matters.

Over the weekend, Barney Zwartz of The Age provided some criticism of the militant and evangelistic atheism led by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Michel Onfray and local boy Tamas Pataki in his feature article, "The Fundamentalist Delusion".

All have produced outspoken and sometimes vitriolic attacks on religion. It's not enough that they have seen the light themselves, religion everywhere must be extinguished. Let no one believe.

One might easily picture Dawkins as a puritanical preacher, prowling and peering into living rooms to make sure no one is up to sin, such as teaching religious faith to their children. That's "child abuse". Or as the great evangelist, going into all the world to make disciples and bring the "good news" of atheism to set the captives free. "If (The God Delusion) works as I intend it, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down," he writes.

What a wonderful irony: it's almost impossible not to turn to religious metaphors to describe this new and militant atheism with its grand vision of