SMH – Page 3 – St. Eutychus

Egg citing statistics

Research released by John Dickson’s Centre for Public Christianity has been given widespread media attention today.

The ABC radio’s idea of “objective” coverage was to give the Atheists a chance to use this as a platform to call for a secular society.

But it’s a pretty interesting statistic when it comes to reaching the “unwashed masses” – it seems almost half of the country’s non-Christians could be considered “low hanging fruit” – believing that Jesus rose from the dead.

This survey did not include those who define themselves as “born again” which possibly means it did include church going liberals, Catholics and others who tick the “Christian” box on the census.

Here’s the SMH story on the stats.

April 7, 2009

Bridge over troubled water

Ok, ok, so I might be going overboard with my enthusiasm on the Simon and Garfunkel reunion – but humour me. A toll road is not a bridge. But it’s close.

Have you heard the story about Nick Bolton. He’s the shareholder threatening progress on Australia’s biggest infrastructure project.

Nicholas Bolton - From the SMH

His story is a lesson in always reading the fine print when snapping up a bargain. He thought he’d found one when he bought 47 million shares in the company building the Brisbane Airport Toll Road – BrisConnections. They cost him $47,000. The small print pointed to two future payments of $1 per share. But he missed that bit. Ouch.

Not to be deterred – or overly concerned about the looming $94 million payment he’ll have to make – Nick is trying to close down the company. He’s almost a majority shareholder – and there are others who are in the same boat.

He’s currently in court. It’s a funny story. Shame he doesn’t listen to Muse. Their lyrics may prove prophetic in his case. Ahh Muse. They’ve got a song for all seasons…

“take, take all you need
and i’ll compensate your greed
with broken hearts…”

“Say, it’ll make you insane
and it’s bending the truth
you’re to blame
for all the life that you’ll lose and
you watch this space
but i’m going all the way
and be your slave to the grave”
– Lyrics from The Small Print, by Muse

April 3, 2009

Silencing the knockers

Today I feel tough. And manly. And have no insecurities on the basis that I drive an Excel – not that I ever feel particularly insecure on those points… it is after all, a purple Excel.

But Excels are for tough people. Bikies even. When they’re not riding their Harleys and bashing each other to death in airports.

And Excels are bulletproof (almost) and will keep you alive in the face of gunfire. Apparently. So there.

April 1, 2009

No no offence

“They make for a strange trio of bedfellows, Peter Jensen, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, David Marr, the journalist, and Janet Albrechtsen, the columnist – public figures whose views on politics, society and religion could not be more different.”

There’s an interesting debate taking place tonight. It’ll be online. It’s about freedom to offend (protecting freedom of speech). The above is the team for the affirmative… details are here.

It’ll screen here.

March 31, 2009

Fat chance

Morbidly obese pregnant women ‘commonplace’

Does this mean it’s ok to ask a large lady if she’s pregnant now?

Really though, this is another one of those irresistible headlines from the SMH.

Particularly when coupled with this picture:

Insert “your mum’s so fat” joke here.

This article really poses more questions than answers… but lets not go there. This is mostly a family friendly blog. Perhaps no more.

That is all.

March 30, 2009

You can take the girl out of the country

But as it turns out – you can’t take the “ladette” out of the girl. Despite what TV might attempt to teach you.

We watch Ladette to Lady. It continues to be one of my wife’s favourite programs… so we watched the reunion special the other night. What we didn’t see – but what those staying at the hotel the girls were reunited to did – was this:

“A hotel source confirms the ladettes drew at least a dozen complaints after having a topless romp in the hotel swimming pool at 1.30am, throwing objects from windows and trashing a hotel room, resulting in a cleaning bill worth several hundred dollars. “

The SMH story also demonstrates that the Herald’s sub editing department has an issue captioning people with just their first names… see below

The Australian Ladettes ... students (from left to right) Nicole Skye, Emily Krisyn, Bianca Maria, Sarah Zoe, in class with teacher Mrs Liz Brewer.

March 26, 2009

Important news

Threadless has extended the $5 sale until the end of March.

Three posts ago I hit 1,000 posts. I’ll do some sort of best of those 1,000 posts to celebrate in the next day or so. To me, every one of them is like a wicket for Glenn McGrath – I remember them all. Maybe.

Speaking of Cricket. Australia has an all rounder. A bowling all rounder. Mitchell Johnson. He’s from Townsville you know.

Here’s Roebuck’s view on Johnson’s all round credentials:

“Several of the batsman had fallen foul of Harris’s Disease, the name nowadays given to batsmen who suddenly play boneheaded shots against apparently innocuous spinners. Hereabouts the main topic on spectators’ tongues concerned the tourists’ ability to take the match into a fifth day.

The next hour was startling as the Australian’s launched a two-pronged attack. Johnson’s innings is etched in the memory. After a quite start, he hurried to 50 in 51 balls whereupon he raised the tempo sufficiently to reach three figures in 86 balls. He did not swipe. He did not depend on luck. Instead he produced a stream of swashbuckling strokes all around the wicket, executed with a free and full swing of the bat.

Some of his strokes stirred the cricketing soul. Johnson took the ball on the rise and dispatched it through extra-cover or he stayed still and smote lifters into the 10th row at deep mid-wicket. Without exception his pulls and hooks went forward of square. Some of them dashed past mid-on. Moving in for the kill, the South Africans tossed the ball to Makhaya Ntini and Dale Steyn. Even Jacques Kallis had a crack and he, too, was swiftly swamped.”

March 24, 2009

Can K-Rudd hear me

Some time ago I posted a link to one man’s audacious bid to be heard by google. Can Google Hear Me won the hearts and minds of millions. Including Google – who were interested enough to take this man’s journey to the next level.

And now – following news that the Federal Government will now trawl critical blogs I ask the question. Can Kevin Rudd hear me?

It hasn’t taken long for people to make a connection between trawling blogs for criticism and the clean feed/blacklist campaign – particularly because the Government’s own media release listed Whirlpool.net.au’s criticism of the blacklist as one of the examples the Government’s beady eyes were watching.

I have said several things about the Ruddster and his ability to make even the most clear things unclear through erudite obfuscation. That was Rudd speak for using simple words in a complicated way so as to make things impossible to understand.

Kevin, if you’re here, and you can hear me – of if your staff are and they can – let me know in the comments. Perhaps you’d like to give me a job making your unclear communication clear.

Who knows. Perhaps you’d like to read through all the things I’ve had to say about you in the past.

Regards,

Nathan

March 23, 2009

Jensenisms

While I’m holding out against the young evangelical male norm and not signing up as a Driscoll fanboy – I’m unabashedly a fan of Phillip Jensen. His well balanced article on the abortion debate got a run on the SMH website today (thanks to Findo for pointing it out) – and I assume in the printed version. It’s nice to have a fairly moderate Christian voice in the debate.

I linked to this when he put it up on his site a couple of weeks ago – but if you didn’t read it then, read it now.

Here are three paragraphs to whet your appetite…

“Arguments that it is a woman’s right to control her body do not deal, adequately, with the differences between the mother and the foetus. There are two lives for whom the mother is responsible. The question is whether her responsibility for the life of the foetus extends to making the decision of life and death, or whether her self-interest undermines the legitimacy of this decision. Should the state have some say in protecting this life from her?

There is little purpose in demonising those who oppose abortion by claiming they are imposing their morality on others, for the entire legal system is an imposition of morality on others. Rather than an anarchic jungle of society without law, our society imposes a moral system on individuals.

Our society uses a combination of Christian heritage, rational discussion, political democracy and judicial wisdom to guide its choices. On a range of issues, it has chosen to limit individual freedoms. On others, it has allowed the citizens to make their own choices. It is not unreasonable to make life and death issues involving a defenceless victim a matter of moral discussion, political decision and judicial wisdom.”

March 23, 2009

Dog eat dog world

If you’d like to see your son develop a pugilistic bent it’s easy to realise that dream. Just eat his pet dog.

“Manny Pacquiao was driven to become a world champion boxer after his father fried and ate his pet dog, according to trainer Freddie Roach.”

“But it was the horrific act by his drunk dad, Rosalio, which finally pushed him out and on the path to fame and fortune.”Manny saw his dad eat his dog, and that is why he ran away from home and became a boxer,” Roach told the tabloid.”

March 16, 2009

Ninjaroo

Turns out I was wrong. The platypus may not be the ninja of the animal world after all. I feel like I’m a little behind the times only posting this now – I saw it on the Today Show this morning. A kangaroo broke into a house in Canberra and the owner had to take it down wrasslin’ style in just his undies.

“My initial thought when I was half awake was [that] it’s a lunatic ninja coming through the window,” Mr Ettlin told The Associated Press.

March 10, 2009

JB High Five

JB Hifi, my favourite music shop… in fact my favourite shop, made it into the ASX-100 today. Good news for them.

JB Hi-Fi’s CEO attributes some strange factors to their success in this article:

“We’ve said this is JB – we’ve got a lot energy in the store, we’ve got industrial fixtures and settings, we won’t require our staff to wear uniforms. Then on top of that buying the right product and selling it at the right price.”

Interesting chronological emphasis – sure their products and prices are good – but he thinks its the industrial fit out that brings in the customers. Huh?

March 6, 2009

Lost in Translation

The “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign went down like a lead balloon. So tourism boffins in Spain will be a little worried after this little slip up. From the Spanish Prime Minister. When announcing a new campaign.

“”There is a big increase in the number of Spanish tourists heading to Russia, the number is at 500,000, we have therefore decided to sign an agreement to stimulate, to favour, to f—,” he said, pausing briefly before ending the sentence with “to support this tourism”.”

Apparently the Spanish words for “to support” sounds very similar to the alternative he used.

March 5, 2009

Roebuck v Swanson – for real

The other day I ran a little comparison of the writing styles of Peter Roebuck and Will Swanton. The Herald has gone one better. They’ve got them head to head in a debate on the referral system.

“Batsmen growling about referrals ought to be taken as seriously as bankers complaining about bankruptcy. Now, suddenly, the poor dears fear they might occasionally be given out leg before wicket. Not the least attraction of referrals is that it will reduce the blight of pad play, a negative tactic introduced by Poms incapable of reading Sonny Ramadhin. For decades pads have been used as a second line of defence. Gentlemen, the game is up. Now these blokes will have to use their bats.” – Roebuck

Day three had howlers everywhere. By the players, mostly. South African captain Graeme Smith and wicketkeeper Mark Boucher did not have the faintest clue what they were doing. Boucher kept crossing his arms in front of his face – let’s go to the video – but he kept getting it wrong. He ended up looking like an A-grade, card-carrying twit. Rules that make great players look like A-grade, card-carrying twits should be avoided. The players are the game, not the ICC. – Swanton

March 3, 2009

Gimmicks Pay

I”ve mentioned my feelings on Hawkeye in tennis umpiring – now technology is encroaching on cricket – for good or for not-so-good who can tell… in the meantime the failure of the system in South Africa has been a nice little earner for Channel Nine.

“On the controversial video umpire front, the Herald understands the South African Broadcasting Corporation will agree to pay a seven-figure sum to purchase the hot spot and snickometer technology – as used in Australia by Channel 9 – for the remaining two Tests.”

March 2, 2009