I Wish I Was Ern Malley

Twins' death doubly wrong

2011-11-24T22:53:00.001+11:00

The tragic death of twin babies in a botched operation at a Melbourne hospital is absolutely awful for everyone involved.

And it demonstrates everything that is wrong about abortion.

As reported in The HeraldSun, a couple was advised by doctors at Melbourne's Royal Women's Hospital to abort one of their twin boys because he had a congenital heart defect "that would require years of operations, if he survived at all". So they decided to abort one of the boys, whom they had already named.

I find that heartbreaking. I can't imagine making such a decision.

But it gets worse.

During the abortion operation, at which both parents were present, a mistake was made and, rather that the sick baby dying, his healthy brother was injected with the poisonous substance meant for his brother, and killed. The doctors then performed a caesaerian operation to terminate the sick baby, so both twins died.

The HeraldSun reports:

A friend of the woman said the family was struggling to cope with the fatal mistake.

"She went to the hospital with two babies and now she has none. And she had the heartache of giving birth to her sick baby. She's traumatised," she said.

The ultrasound clinician who identified the wrong baby was reportedly inconsolable.

Just horrific.

In the arguments about abortion I've participated in, the arguments usually go to the mother's rights, or some terrible edge case where the mother's life is threatened, or the baby is conceived through rape or incest. But here is a healthy mother with two boys who, without intervention, will be born alive. The mother's rights are not an issue, and this is no edge case since the twins were conceived in an apparently stable marriage and it's clear that the pregnancy was wanted.

The reason given for the termination is that one baby would, because of his illness, either die or have to have many operations to fix his heart.

I find it very hard not to be angry about this because it seems so selfish.

Why kill this baby?

Because he will suffer? Is that really a good reason? Would you kill your baby if you knew that one day he would suffer because of some sickness? No child would survive if that were the case.

Because his parents will suffer hardship? That really is selfish. Because he will cost his parents money? That doesn't sound so nice, does it?

What about this: "We decided to chuck out the dud one, but keep the good one".

No, that doesn't sound very nice at all does it? And yet that's what it comes down to. It seems that these parents were willing to kill one of their children so that they would not suffer hardship. Which seems to be the main reason for abortions. Not because a mother's life is threatened, but because a baby will bring hardship, or disrupt a lifestyle, or be inconvenient. I don't deny that raising children can be very hard, and that having very sick children is physically, emotionally and financially draining, but once upon a time it was considered a good thing to sacrifice yourself for your children. It might even be considered character-building.

What's remarkable about this tragedy is that, despite all the pro-choice rhetoric, people think it is a tragedy. In each of the news reports I read, each of the twins is described as being a 'boy', a 'brother', a 'baby', despite them not having that status as human in law.

The news reports the tragedy that a healthy baby boy died. But what about the sick twin? Doesn't he count? Why is he denied the opportunity to live when, through no fault of his own, he suffers a medical condition? Why is one boy denied rights, justice, life, and even humanity, while his healthy brother is given them? Why are people 'traumatised' by the death of a healthy boy and inconsolable, but not by the death of a sick boy? Doctors. Nurses. His parents.

But then thousands of healthy babies are killed like this every day. 80,000 each year in Australia alone. And apparently no-one is traumatised by that.

Fastest Firefox ever

2011-06-23T07:28:00.003+10:00

What the ...? Firefox 5?

That must be the fastest full version upgrade ever.

I guess Mozilla got sick of Google upping its version number with every point update and joined in.

Doesn't look much different, apparently it's all under the hood. So hopefully, it's speedier too.

Fixing damaged goods

2011-06-20T22:17:00.002+10:00

I commented on Hans Kristensen's Lies the church tells about sex: if you have sex outside of marriage you are damaged goods.

The post and the series has good intentions, but sorry Hans, this is not a lie.

All sex outside of marriage, like all sin, will damage us.

The great news is that, no matter what we've done, God will always forgive us when we ask for his forgiveness -- Jesus' blood washes us clean.

Well there goes the rest of my life

2010-03-17T21:11:00.001+11:00

Valve: Steam, games coming to Mac in April

Pink rules!

2009-12-20T08:04:00.002+11:00

When I told my little girls (aged 8 and 3) that there was a campaign to stop pink for girls there were howls of dismay. Noo!", "We love pink!", "Pink is the bestest colour for girls!"

I would have much preferred that our girls didn't wear pink. I'm not that fond of it as a colour and I thought other colours suited them much better. My favourite dress for our little girls was a smart navy-blue dress with a silver star on the front which I thought looked very nice. They didn't.

Given the choice they'd wear almost anything pink. Or with ribbons. Or pink with ribbons.

I gave up and let them be girls. Which is exactly the point.

As I see it, part of my job as a parent is to let our children make their own choices and to be confident with their decisions. My job is to make sure that those choices are safe, appropriate to their age and right, according to God, everything else is not important.

So if they want to wear pink, they can wear pink. If they want to dye their hair pink, and get pink tattoos, that's fine, as long as they love God and obey him.

Not saying I'd be entirely happy about the tattoos, but you have to get some perspective.

Lame 2.0

2009-09-30T23:46:00.002+10:00

So it turns out I wasn't the only one that thought "iSnack 2.0" wasn't a good name for the new Vegemite. So many people thought it sucked that Kraft has now changed its mind.

“We have been overwhelmed by the passion for Vegemite and the new product. The new name has simply not resonated with Australians. Particularly the modern technical aspects associated with,’’

said Kraft spokesman Simon Talbot, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

You don't say.

Anyway it's back to the ol' drawing board to come up with a new name.

A lady at work suggested "Cheesymite" — maybe spelled "Cheesemite" but pronounced the same way — which I thought was pretty good.

Lame

2009-09-29T22:23:00.004+10:00

At first I thought it was a joke, but no, Kraft really has decided to name the new kind of Vegemite "iSnack 2.0". Which is encouraging news in the war on drugs. Clearly the quality and quantity of cocaine available to advertising and media types is in decline. The downside is we get lame product names like "iSnack 2.0".

Lame lame lame lame lame.

It's hard to know whether this is some post-modern meta way of generating publicity (in which case it's bad news from the war on drugs) , or just a really, really bad idea.

There are so many things wrong with the name it's hard to know where to start, but let me try with just a few.

There's no "1.0"
After 13 years if iStuff, Apple is about the only company that can get away with calling a product iAnything
iAnything and "2.0" are both technological terms, about the only thing technological about Vegemite is the jar lid

Still, I suppose it's better than Parwill, and look how that turned out.

There's a moon in the sky

2009-07-21T21:43:00.003+10:00

I am a child of the space age. By the time I was born the first men on the moon had been home for a few weeks and I grew up through the rest of the Apollo program.

I drew pictures of Saturn V rockets in my pre-school exercise books and did a project on the Space Shuttle in primary school.

All that stuff is pretty cool, and great for kids' imaginations, but I can't help thinking that maybe we humans could spend a bit more time and money and energy fixing the problems down here. Like clean water, food, basic hygiene.

Maybe it's just easier to send a man to the moon.

Silver lining update

2009-07-18T11:37:00.002+10:00

Anyway I got a new job back in April. It's jolly. I probably should have updated back then, but I've been busy ... with the new job ... and stuff

The Global Financial Crisis' silver lining

2009-03-23T21:47:00.003+11:00

As you may know, God is in control of everything. Which is why I’m not particularly unhappy about losing my job. Check back with me in a few months on that front.

I’m also rather enjoying the stress-free nature on not having a job. I feel very relaxed, even creative.

Plus, I’ve been enjoying more time with the children, been getting lots of fix-up jobs done around the house, and getting up later.

Of course it may all change when the money runs out, but for now…

Peace in Iraq

2009-02-06T22:56:00.002+11:00

For Australians it seems that no good news comes out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Sometimes it's no news at all, but usually it's bad news.

So it's no surprise at all that Iraq's largely peaceful provincial elections have gone almost completely unreported. Surely they could have reported it as the first miracle of Barack Obama's world-saving reign, but maybe that would have been stretching credibility a little too far.

I suppose it might be too much to expect the Australian media to admit that George Bush, John Howard and Tony Blair may have actually succeeded -- after a long hard road -- in bringing democracy to Iraq.

Tell the missus I've gone sea kittening

2009-01-11T21:02:00.001+11:00

Animal rights group PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, wants to rename fish "sea kittens" because it's cuter and people won't want to kill cute things.

Right.

In a world filled with stupid things, this is possibly the most stupid.

What's funnier, is that "hunting sea kittens"—PETA's recommended terminology—actually sounds more fun and interesting that just 'fishing'.

If you had to use guns to do it, it would be perfect.

Remembrance Day

2008-11-11T23:27:00.001+11:00

The funny thing about this Remembrance Day is that while we're happy to remember soldiers who have died in past wars, Australia barely remembers the soldiers who are fighting in Afghanistan now. There's barely any mention of the war in the Australian media, unless someone dies. It's poor reporting, and terrible support for our soldiers who are sacrificing so much. Lest we forget. Again.

Separated at birth?

2008-07-21T08:11:00.002+10:00

Is it just me, or does the Toyota Camry look like the Ood, from Doctor Who?

Viva killers

2008-06-15T14:50:00.002+10:00

I wonder if other cities will follow Rosario, Argentina in erecting statues of mass murderers.

Braunau am Inn, for example? Prek Sbauv perhaps?

Imitation is ...

2008-05-28T21:50:00.001+10:00

I mean seriously, does Microsoft come up with any new ideas?

So Apple has a touch interface for its iPhone and iPod Touch and so Microsoft has to have a touch interface for Windows.

If it weren't so shameless it would be embarrassing.

All I want is consistency

2008-05-27T21:03:00.002+10:00

Pauline Futeran argues in The Sydney Morning Herald’s Heckler column that it’s hypocritical of Kevin Rudd to call Bill Henson’s work “revolting” pornography while allowing Australia’s Next Top Model manager to tell a 16-year-old contestant she had to “sex up” her image.

Fair enough too.

However, her conclusion that Kevin should therefore back the local artist is rubbish. Better to can the exhibition and the show and stop the children being exploited.

And really, that’s the issue here. Children being exploited for ‘artistic’ or commercial benefit by adults. What’s the difference between that exploitation and child pornography? I wonder if Bill Henson’s ‘not-porn’ photos were of Thai children or African would he be viewed as a “critically acclaimed Australian artist”.

I can't believe we're having this argument

2008-05-26T20:25:00.001+10:00

I can’t believe that something which is so obviously wrong is being argued about.

It’s so obvious that Bill Henson’s exhibition of photos of naked children is wrong, that the question of whether it’s art or pornography shouldn’t even come into it.

There’s no way in any shape or form that I would ever let anyone take photos of my kids naked. No way.

Art or not, why give a pedophile a free ride at your child’s expense? Who would put their child in such a situation?

If you want to create that kind of art, use a paintbrush or whatever, but leave the children alone.

And you'd still be a sicko.

What's in a name?

2008-04-29T22:17:00.002+10:00

As I’ve mentioned before, I was pretty happy that Ford had dropped the Futura, Fairmont and Fairmont Ghia nameplates with the launch of the new FG Falcon.

Apparently plenty of people were pretty attached to the old names, at least judging by recent letters to Wheels.

I’m the opposite. I’m actually slightly embarrassed to own a Fairmont. Partly because it's (IMHO) a slightly poncey name, and also a bit posh—which I don’t really like.

I’d prefer that the car be called Falcon because:

I don’t like seeming posh
I like the associations the Falcon name has with Ford’s illustrious racing history.

Specifically, Falcon GTs are Falcon GTs—even if (in the old days) they were based on the Fairmont. That’s pretty much all there is to it.

Drive corrections

The Sydney Morning Herald's Drive writers continue to make really basic errors.

First there was Joshua Dowling's mystifying (and embarrassing) assertion that the original XC Cobras were 400 sedans and utes, not coupés. As every Ford fan knows, the XC Cobra was produced as a way of moving the final 400 of the slow-selling hardtop (two-door coupé) body style, and the only utes ever produced were by street-machiners.

Now Toby Hagon asserts that the G6E is a replacement for the Fairmont Ghia. No, Toby. The G6E is the Fairmont's replacement. The Ghia is replaced at the top of the range by the G6E-Turbo.

Robin rip off

2008-04-27T20:47:00.003+10:00

So we’ve just watched the last episode of the second series of Robin Hood and it sucked. Really, really badly.

So much so that I very much doubt we’ll be watching series three. I presume there’ll be a series three, because the bad guys got away instead of being shot down by an expert archer as they should have been. Instead of a happy ending, we get a really crappy implausible ending, and a half-baked cliff hanger which will invite us back next year. Except that it sucked so much, that we won’t be back.

This is especially sucky because for the last couple years we’ve really enjoyed our Sunday night in front of the TV with the children. Pretty retro, I know, but it’s something we all enjoyed. The boys had a hero (Robin), the girls had a hero (Marian). The bad guys were bad, the good guys were good it was all good clean fun. Forget the historical inaccuracy, the odd plot implausibility, the nauseatingly PC treatment of the crusades and Christian-Muslim relations, and the silly on-again-off-again Guy and Marian thing, and it was good clean fun.

But that’s all down the drain now.

A note to the writers: a happy ending beats a crappy ending every time.

Oh well, we’ll just have to stick to Doctor Who for our family TV night.

A death in the family

2008-03-15T23:35:00.003+11:00

Grandma died on Tuesday morning. Her funeral was yesterday. She was 98, but it was still sad.

Without any disrespect to my other Grandma, it's fair to say that Grandma was my favourite. Although we probably saw her and Grandpa less often, we always looked forward to seeing them. Maybe they had more to say to us or paid more attention, or maybe Grandma remembered birthdays and always sent a package—wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, one of my favourite things.

I have to say that lately we didn't see much of her. Just Christmases and other times when Mum brought her for afternoon tea when we visited. As her memory faded, she didn't seem to recognise us as much, and it was harder to talk. I feel sorry about that, but it's just life. We're busy with our own children, and time flies away more and more quickly.

It was important, then for us to take our children to the funeral yesterday, and it was very valuable for us. Partly for them to honour and mourn their last Great-Grandma, but also to learn about death.

When we cried, we cried together. As I hugged my young son and wiped his tears and mine, I explained to him that although Grandma had died, death does not win. Jesus, I told him, beat death when he rose to life again. And because of that, although we were sad now, one day God will wipe all tears from our eyes and there will be no more sadness or mourning, because there will be no more death.

I hope I will see Grandma again on that day.

The new Falcon

2008-02-20T21:37:00.005+11:00

I love the new Falcon.

I've spent the last few days drooling over every article on the net I could find and I think it looks awesome in all its forms. Even the base model XT looks neat and stylish, the new XRs are especially nice and the G-series cars look classy and very nicely equipped.

The design is beautiful, taking an already great looking car and making it even better. I must confess that, having really loved the BA Falcon, which I regard as the best Falcon ever, I was worried that the new Falcon would not look as good. To my eye it looks even better. It's a very elegant design, but still looks tough, but not over the top.

I also like that there are now only Falcons. No Futuras, Fairmonts or Fairmont Ghias, just different Falcons—XT, G6, XR6 and R6. Oh, and Ute.

It all looks very good from here. Can't wait to find out how it drives.

Poogle power

2008-02-05T21:31:00.000+11:00

While browsing a major software vendor's website recently , I noticed this little gem:

Heh, heh. They said “poo”.

No Santa for you!

2007-12-27T21:26:00.001+11:00

“No Santa for Suri” announced last week’s New Idea as I walked past on the way to catch my train. I was part-way through thinking “That’s because they’re a couple of Scientology weird…” when I realised our kids weren’t having Santa either.

This is because we prefer not to lie to our children. We’d prefer them not to confuse the truth about Jesus being born with a silly myth. I was surprised how much flak I copped for this at work—anyone would think that lying to kids was a good thing.

Besides, we gave them the option. Santa is pretend, and if they wanted to pretend, that was fine. And in any case, our oldest wasn’t sure who to believe, her parents, or her best friend who assured her that Santa was very real.

In the end I don’t think they noticed that Santa didn’t deliver. They got just as many presents and had just as much fun.

And what was the first thing they did on Christmas morning?
They prayed and wished Jesus “Happy Birthday”.

Unmarked

2007-11-29T22:40:00.002+11:00

It’s nice to see the Australian Federal Police getting in on the whole black, unmarked SUV thing.

And their weapon of choice? Ford Territory Turbo.

Mmmmm … Territory Turbo.

Updated: They also have white ones.

Boycotting book boycott

2007-11-21T21:45:00.001+11:00

I received an email suggesting I join a boycott of Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy because of their atheistic content, but I’m not so keen.

For starters I’m not really a fan of censorship, and also I’ve already read the books.

This is ahead of the The Golden Compass movie release this Christmas, which the email quotes someone as describing as “atheism for kids”.

According to the email:

Pullman’s main objective is to bash Christianity and promote atheism. Pullman left little doubt about his intentions when he said in a 2003 interview that “my books are about killing God”. He has even stated that he wants to “kill God in the minds of children”. It has been said of Pullman that he is “the writer the atheists would be praying for, if atheists prayed.”

“So what?” I say.

I quite enjoyed the books—I read all three and stayed very entertained until the end, but the story is ultimately pretty unsatisfying and empty.

The two heroic characters—Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter (Nicole Kidman in the film)—aren’t very nice, but they end up being the winners. I thought this was a lousy ending, because there’s no justice. Both are rotten parents to Lyra (sorry, that gives the story away a bit). Mrs Coulter does some really nasty things—especially to children—and isn’t punished for them at all.

Also, unless you’re Roman Catholic, Pullman’s characterisation of the Church, God, angels and all that stuff is pretty unconvincing. It really is fantasy, even if it’s trying to tell something about the real world. It’s not historical, for starters, but it’s all so … religious. It doesn’t say anything at all about real Christianity, about Jesus or about the God I know and love.

In fact, unless you’re already an atheist, it’s pretty unconvincing.

If Mr Pullman thinks he’ll be able to convince anyone to abandon real Christianity with this stuff, he’s living in a fantasy world. If this is best atheism can offer, and Pullman is the best guy to present it in the best possible way to kids, then atheism must be pretty crap.

Lest we forget

2007-10-26T21:23:00.000+10:00

This morning’s front-page Daily Telegraph report on the death of Australian SAS sergeant Matthew Locke was headlined “SECOND AUSSIE SOLDIER KILLED”. How soon we forget.

Seargeant Locke was the thrid Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan after Trooper David Pearce earlier this month and Seargeant Andrew Russell, who was killed when his vehicle hit a landmine in February 2002.

There was also some stupid stuff about the Taliban “murdering” Sargeant Locke. I doubt the he would have seen it that way. It is war after all. It’s disrespectful of Sargeant Locke and his comrades to suggest otherwise.

Quality reporting all round.

It's still rigged

2007-10-25T22:19:00.000+10:00

So I took a straw poll at work. Turns out not nearly so many people as I thought knew how many legs a mosquito has.

Frankly I was shocked. I thought everyone knew.

For the record, it’s eight.

It's gotta be rigged

2007-10-24T22:44:00.000+10:00

I just finished watching the last 10 minutes of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader. And seriously, it has to be rigged.

Either the contestants are actors or they're prepped for the show. I can't believe that someone wouldn't know how many legs a mosquito has, and would spend five minutes fluffing around pretending she doesn't know.

So either she's dumb for not knowing, or I'm dumb for watching.

No, wait…

So who’s arrogant?

2007-10-01T21:11:00.000+10:00

I saw this amazing video yesterday which was all about how amazing and huge and amazingly huge the universe is. It’s really amazingly hugely amazingly huge.

Which led me to think

astronomy is not the complete waste of time and money I thought it was
atheisim is amazingly, hugely arrogant.

Astronomy is good because it clearly demonstrates how amazingly huge and powerful God is and how small we are. It puts us in our place—especially atheists.

My question is: How can you possibly say “there is no God” when we sit on a tiny pinpoint of rock and water in one corner of an mind-bogglingly vast galaxy? I mean really, how can you?

We haven’t even visited the next nearest planet, but atheists are happy to state with absolute certainty that there’s no God.

Isn’t that the most massive arrogance?

The unforgivable sin as expressed by Andy Prieboy

2007-07-04T21:17:00.000+10:00

“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”
Jesus Christ, Mark 3:28–29

I caught Andy Prieboy’s Tomorrow Wendy on the radio on the weekend and it’s been an ear worm for me for the last few days. I really like the song, but when it gets to the third verse I’m afraid I can’t sing along.

I told the priest -
“don’t count on
any second coming.
God got his ass kicked
the first time he
came down here slumming
He had the balls to come,
the gall to die and then
forgive us -
No, I don’t wonder why
I wonder what he thought
it would get us.”

…

But God says “jump”,
so I set the time
’cause if he ever saw it
it was through these eyes of mine
and if He ever suffered
it was me who did His crying …

Hey, hey, good bye
tomorrow Wendy’s
going to die.

This perfectly expresses what Jesus is saying in Mark 3. The song gets the gospel right—God suffering and dying to forgive—but rejects the offer of salvation, and even the suffering itself.

So, as Jesus says, God will forgive us everything, but if we call the Holy Spirit a liar and reject his offer of forgiveness as worthless, there can be no forgiveness—we’ve committed an eternal, unforgivable sin.

Which is not the thing to be doing if you’re going to die.

... now with added vitriol

2007-05-28T21:45:00.000+10:00

Apparently there is a New Atheism™. What’s new? The atheists hate more people. Now isn’t that nice.

Not content with hating people who believe in deities, apparently they’re really ticked off with people who were content to let those people believe whatever they want.

And I mean really ticked off. My favourite quote, from Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith "some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them".

Yeah, it’s religion that’s the root of all evil.

The new atheism

2007-05-26T08:19:00.000+10:00

Yesterday’s Australian newspaper suckered me in with a front page header “The New Atheism”. How can you have new atheism?

“New atheism. Now with even less God!”?

Anyway, after a brief reference to The Da Vinci Code (hardly an atheistic book) The Australian’s article is more a review of the Pope’s new book on Jesus which, no matter what you say about the Roman Catholic Church, is more theistic than atheistic.

Easter dumb bunnies

2007-04-13T21:44:00.000+10:00

Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell said it was extraordinary for Mr Iemma to say he was replacing Mr Gibson with Mrs Perry because he wanted another woman in cabinet.

“It suggests that the decision to bypass Paul Gibson and appoint Barbara Perry has nothing to do with the allegations surrounding Paul Gibson,” Mr O’Farrell told reporters.

“That’s like saying the Easter Bunny’s got nothing to do with Easter.”
The Sydney Morning Herald

Uuuumm yeah … so remind me again what the Easter Bunny has to do with Easter anyway?

Seriously, I’d totally forgotten about the whole Easter Bunny thing. It was’t until I picked Skye up from school and one of the mums asked her whether the Easter Bunny was coming that I remembered. Skye just looked at her blankly for a second, dismissed it as just another odd things adults said and cheerfully changed the subject.

I'd much prefer to talk to the kids about Jesus dying and rising from the dead, and they're very happy to know that his death means they can know God. Frankly I'm not sure I can be bothered explaining to the kids how a rabbit with eggs relates to Jesus' death—especially when I've no idea how that works myself.

I'd much rather tell my kids the truth that some a silly myth.

And chocolate is always good, no matter what shape it comes in.

First day of school

2007-01-30T22:25:00.000+11:00

Today was Skye’s first day at school.

She’s our first child, so effectively it was the entire family's first day at school. I took the day off work to go with Skye and the rest of us to school.

In some ways it was anti-climactic. I don’t know what your first day of school was like, but I remember being very excited. I can remember other starts to school years where the new kindergarten kids&madsh;and some of their parents—were crying. It was all a much bigger deal.

Skye had already done orientation last year—three weeks of just the morning at school—and knew her teacher, made some friends, and so on. So really her official First Day was not much of a big deal at all.

This all makes perfect sense. Starting school shouldn’be a big traumatic deal. It should be easy, and calm and fun. Just as it was for Skye today.

She said she missed us though.

Vergin' on the impossible

2006-12-12T21:25:00.000+11:00

I heard a great talk today from Luke 1:26–45—where the angel visits Mary to tell her she’s going to give birth to Jesus.

The speaker pointed out that people have often dismissed this as impossible. And judging from her response—“How will this be, since I am a virgin?”—Mary herself thinks it a fairly unlikely event.

Indeed there have been plenty of people who have dismissed Christianity completely because it’s impossible for Jesus to have been ‘born of a virgin’.

However, as reproductive technology improves it can’t be too long before a virgin could conceive with the help of Science, rather than the Holy Spirit. So, the speaker’s point was, if it’s nearly possible for people, why couldn’t it be possible for God?

But the real point of the story is not the virgin birth—that’s just a fact—it’s that Jesus

“will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
Luke 1:32–33

I hate suits

2006-10-24T21:19:00.001+10:00

Having grown up in a family where ‘shiny-bum’ was a term of abuse applied to useless office types who never did any real work, I’m embarrassed to confess that I’ve worn a hole in my trousers. Of my suit.

I’m actually embarrassed to admit that I wear a suit to work, but there it is. I have to wear a suit. I also work for an investment bank, but I’m not even going to start to talk about.

So anyway the suit has a hole in it, which is OK, since this is the suit I bought about six years ago for job interviews, weddings, funerals and other suit-requiring events. But really I haven’t worn it that much. Suits are just very flimsy. And expensive, very exensive.

Which is what I really hate about suits. They cost a lot to buy and wear out very quickly.

The exact opposite of King Gees.

This is what really ticks me off. I now have to pay 10 times as much money for clothes which last a tenth of the time. Nevermind that I’m earning 10 times the money, that’s not the point. I wouldn’t mind paying so much if the suit lasted, but they don’t. The suit I bought at the beginning of last year wore out in a little over 10 months. Sure I bought it on sale, but it was a respectable brand, and supposed to be worth $600 new.

And have you ever tried to find a pair of trousers to match the un-suited jacket? Impossible.

And don’t tell me that I just have to pay more for good quality, when my King Gee trousers that I’ve worn working on the car, painting the house, fixing the roof, digging the garden and so on, are still the most comfortable pair of trousers I own and aren’t showing any signs of wearing out. And they didn’t cost me $600.

Just one more drawback of becoming middle class.

Going geek

2006-09-28T21:45:00.000+10:00

Today I was at the Web Directions South conference so I've gone geek.

I loaded up Flock to write this post, claimed this blog on Technorati (currently ranked 1,157,502) and started to think about tagging everything I can find with Microformats.

The conference has been great with some excellent speakers on web design, Ajax, and the future of the future of the World Wide Web (”Web 2.0 is so 2005!"). It's all very exciting and it's easy to start thinking that everyone in the world is blogging stuff, loading photos to flickr and working on a Web 3.0 application.

But part of the way through one of the presentations I began to wonder whether the Web can really save the world. No doubt it has changed the world in a very big way, and it's made a lot of information available, connected a lot of people and keeps a lot of us in jobs.

Still it's easy to start thinking that if everyone has access to the right information then together we'd be able to solve all the world's problems. But really it's just a humanist dream. No matter how well we build our sites there's still only one piece of information that people need to know.

But, thanks to the World Wide Web, that's available to anyone with a computer. So maybe there is hope.

This post is 100% buzzword compliant.

technorati tags:WD06

Blogged with Flock

Closer to God

2006-09-25T22:25:00.000+10:00

At the risk of alienating a percentage of my readers, (OK, reader) I’d like to say that I have always felt close to God.

For the last week or so I’ve been reading Michael Raiter’s Stirrings of the Soul. Apart from an interesting survey of Western spiritual topography (which might possibly include a church out past Dubbo) the book talks about people, even evangelical or ‘Bible-believing’ Christians yearning feeling spiritually ‘dry’, distant from God and yearning for a deeper, more spiritual experience of God.

It would come as no surprise to Evangelicalism’s critics that some Evangelicals have had enough Bible study and want to try something more touchy-feely. Evangelical Christians are sometimes characterised as unfeeling, dogmatic automatons who wouldn’t know a spiritual experience if it landed on their doorstep accompanied by a myriad singing angels. In fact, some people might say, if the angels did turn up they’d be likely to denounce them as being too Charismatic and go back inside to read the next chapter of Calvin’s Institutes.

But I’ve been an Evangelical Christian for as long as I can remember —well over 30 years now—and I’ve never felt distant from God. In fact I’ve found that the more I read, understand and know about God, the closer I feel to him. I even belong to a particular brand of Evangelicalism which is usually characterised as especially book-bound, dogmatic and unfeeling, but I’d have to say that I’ve always been very conscious that God’s love for me, and more so as I’ve learned more about him.

I’m wondering if all this spiritual distance comes about because we take God for granted. We forget or even suppress the truth that we only exist because of God. We forget that it’s his breath in us that gets us out of bed and on the train every morning.

You don’t have to go far in the Bible before you’ve got plenty to thank God for: The world we live in, the beautiful animals, plants and lands, our family, our friends and so on, and so on, and so on. I haven’t even got off the first page and I’m already awestruck by my Father’s love and care for me and I haven’t even begun to think about him sending Jesus to die for me.

Admittedly I live in Australia (which, even if it isn’t God’s own country, is pretty close to it) where we have peace and prosperity and I have plenty to thank God for. But even when times have been much bleaker than they are now, God has always been there, a very present help in trouble. And I know, because Jesus died for me and because the Bible tells me so, that he will always love me.

Crocodile hunter, action man

2006-09-04T22:07:00.000+10:00

I’ve never been a big fan of Steve Irwin’s, but his death today really shocked me.

Maybe it’s because my kids thought he was pretty great, and now “The Crocodile Hunter” from Wiggly Safari is stuck in my head.

Or maybe I’m sad because he obviously loved Bindi and Bob and now they’ve lost their Daddy, and Terri has lost her husband.

So we prayed for them all tonight.

I'm 37, I'm not old

2006-08-27T23:05:00.000+10:00

Today’s my 37th birthday. I’d just like to say how much I'm enjoying being 37.

As I often say, it would be enough that God just saved us, but he just keeps on demonstrating his extreme generousity. Sure, you can say, Job 1:9 style, that I might be singing a different song if times were tough, but I say it would be wrong (as Romans 1:21 points out) not to thank God, because he really is very, very kind.

Anyway, this afternoon we were all working together in the garden. It’s late winter here and the afternoon was sunny and perfect . My beautiful wife and I were cleaning up some trees I’d pruned with my new (birthday present) chain saw, my two older children were alternatively helping pile up the branches, riding their bikes or playing with their baby sister who was giggling on a blanket spread out on the grass.

Wife, kids, backyard, powertools. What more could a bloke want on his birthday?

Thank you God.

The new dunny door*

2006-08-21T22:03:00.001+10:00

Since I haven’t blogged much lately—I completely missed July—and need quick entry to make, I thought I’d fill up a bit of space with the a subject I can go on about ad nauseum—cars.

Specifically I thought I’d briefly analyse the all-new Holden Commodore.

This is a Falcon. I’m not putting a picture of no steenking Holden on this blog

The Commodore is an Australian car previously based on the Opel Senator but, for the first time with this VE model, designed in Australia. It is exported to the Middle East and Asia. It will also, as Wheels reports, form the basis for the new Chevrolet Camaro and presumably the next Pontiac GTO, (since the old VT Commodore is the basis for the current “best ever” GTO).

Naturally, since my chosen tribe in the great Australian musclehead ...sorry ... musclecar divide is Ford, I should cast scorn on the Commodore from a great height—it is after all a Holden. However I think the new Holden Commodore looks very nice and is probably a fine car, although I’ve yet to read any road tests. This is mainly because Holden is staggering the Commodore’s launch, giving everyone the opportunity to get a good look at the car before anyone can judge it.

It certainly a good looking car, although when I saw one —an SS-V in the metal this weekend, I first mistook it for a Falcon XR6, the shape of the headlights and grille opening is remarkably similar. For a Ford fan this just proves that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and that the current model Falcons are some of the best looking cars ever made in Australia, although I’ll reserve judgement on the BF II, which made a good first impression, but not so good second.

Looks are very important, and that’s pretty much all I can comment on with any authority here, but of course looks what really matters is how she goes. It’s a heavier car with similar engines to last year’s model, but with more power. Although these days that’s pretty much ‘who cares?’ material because these cars have enough bottle to tow a block of flats if requires, or at least have more than enough fun to keep anyone entertained at legal speeds.

Most importantly in these price-conscious times is that bigger and heavier means, on all but the base models according to Wheels, they’ll use more fuel, which is not a good thing. A point which Ford will be emphasising over the months until it introduces its all-new Falcon in 2007-2008.

* ‘Dunny door’ is ryhming slang for Commodore. ‘Dunny’ is an Australian word for toilet, so it’s not very complimentary rhyming slang.

Sugarfree ain't sweet

2006-06-29T21:40:00.000+10:00

I'm definitely of the Mary Poppins Spoonful of Sugar School when it comes to giving medicine to kids, especially since artificial sweeteners make the medicine even worse than normal.

For the last couple of weeks our children have had a really rotten cold which made them all cough terribly and generally be very miserable indeed. Calvin ended up with a chest infection that meant that he had to take paracetamol (for the fever) and antibiotics.

This is no trivial thing because getting nearly-three-year-old Calvin ended up with his two parents holding him down and pouring it down his throat or, in one case, me sitting on him and pouring it down his throat, take-it-it's-good-for-you-style.

This is because the medicine tastes vile.

Of cource, medicine always has, but at least before pharmaceutical companies would sweeten it with sugar, or Mary Poppins would. But because everyone's obsessed with diets and all that crap the medicine has to be sugar-free. Which means that instead it has saccharin sodium or some other thing which tastes like somebody's attempt to make sugar out of recycled environmentally-friendly green shopping bags.

I'd much prefer the sugar. I mean, how fat is a kid going to get on the sugar contained in 10ml of paracetamol? Will that much really rot his teeth? I suppose that if you had some terrible sickness where you had to take it all the time it might, but even then you can always use a toothbrush?

Obviously there's a marketing reason there somewhere, but the stuff tastes horrible. They could at least give us the option.

I remember being quite fond of the taste of the antibiotics Calvin had to take, but now it's got a saccharin aftertaste—bleeech!

Anyway, we got Calvin to take his medicine by giving him jelly beans with every dose. Although the jelly beans are “99% fat-free” they're about 90% sugar.

This morning he was quite disappointed when I told him he'd finished all his medicine and was not sick anymore.

Schweeet!

Surviving

2006-06-20T20:25:00.000+10:00

It's been a long time between posts. Work has kept me busy with late nights and weekends. The kids have kept me busy as always and frankly, this is about the first time I've had some time where I've felt like writing anything.

…

Well, that was worth waiting for wasn’t it?

Anyway, I have a bit of time now because my wife is watching the finale of Survivor and, because we're a couple of weeks behind the USA, we already know what happened. Rita wants to see how the whole thing plays out but, not being a huge fan of ‘reality’ TV, I'm not going to worry about watching the whole two hours.

Nevertheless, I've enjoyed watching some of the show over the last couple months. Rita and I have been following Terry, mainly because he—along with Shane—has seemed the most honorable. (Shane was weird, so we didn't like him as much).

According to Rita this has made him one of the show's most popular competitors—with the audience. It's nice to know that integrity still stands for something these days. On the show however, he hasn't been popular at all. He's been threat and, if it weren't for his strength and skill, would probably have been voted off weeks ago.

The fascination with reality TV (for me anyway) is wondering how I would behave in that situation. (We enjoy watching Supernanny for the opposite reason—we're thankful that we're not in that situation and, despite everything, we're not such terrible parents after all.)

Which makes me wonder, how would I go as a Christian on Survivor? Would it be possible to play that game (and win!) by behaving in a completely Christ-like manner? Would I even be able to behave in a completely Christ-like way after days roughing it? Probably not, considering how grumpy I've been after late nights, long weekends, sick-kid-sleep-deprived-nights and not enough coffee.

Ah well, there's another million dollars I won't be getting.

Zoë

2006-04-03T21:18:00.000+10:00

Zoë Kate is two months’ old today.

It’s been a long two months and has gone very quickly as well. It seems like only a short time since she was born but it seems like she’s been part of our lives forever.

It may also explain why I haven’t posted for a while, and why I always need more sleep.

Zoë is, of course, georgeous. In the last few weeks she’s started to give us smiles, especially to her brother and sister, who love her to death—almost literally at times, it’s hard to teach toddlers what “gentle!” means.

We thank God every day for his precious gift.

No severance payment

2006-01-19T21:57:00.000+11:00

Anna Ayala has been sentenced to nine years’ jail after fraudulently suing the Wendy’s fast food chain, claiming she had found a severed finger in her chili. Wendy’s sales fell sharply following the alleged discovery, costing the company approximately $2.5 million.

Ayala, 39, of Las Vegas, had put the finger in her chili before attempting to sue the restaurant owner.

Her husband Jaime Plascencia had got the finger (no pun intended) from a co-worker who had lost it in an industrial accident. Apparently the guy owed him $50, and gave him the finger instead.*

Right.

So how would that conversation go?

“Hey Bob, sorry to hear about the finger.”

“Yeah, it really hurt.”

“Oh. … So how about that 50 bucks you owe me?”

“I’m a bit short this week. You want the finger? Micro surgeons can’t do a thing for me.”

“Sure.”

So anyway I’ve got this arm in my freezer that a mate didn’t want after his accident. (Don’t ask. Talk about issues.)

I was going to take it to McDonald’s and see if I could get a few free burgers out of them, or maybe some shakes, but now I’m not so sure.

*OK that was intended. But once you start it’s hard to resist.

The Da Vinci Dud

2006-01-17T23:29:00.000+11:00

I’ve just finished reading Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and I’m convinced that the ony reason it’s been so successful is because God wants it to be. Dan should get down on his knees and thank the Lord for every million he makes.

The book’s a bit of a dud really. A second-rate thriller based on a third-hand plot, dodgey history and pseudo-spiritual mumbo-jumbo. I’ll admit it’s a decent enough page turner, but I was getting pretty tired of it by Chapter 90 and the ending was a real fizzer. Philosophically and historically it’s all over the shop.

At the end, I didn’t care about Leonardo, the Holy Grail, the sacred feminine (<span lang="yiddish">Enough with the sacred feminine already!</span>), or anything else, I just wanted to finish it so I could tick that box, give my friend his book back, and slag Dan Brown off on my blog.

Note to Dan:

Can’t write. Can’t research. Give me the money.

But apparently people can’t get enough of this code stuff (or at least Tom Hanks will be hoping they can’t get enough of it).

So it can only be the power of God that’s kept at the top of the bestseller lists. It wouldn’t be beyond God to use a best seller to get people asking questions about Jesus.

And asking questions about Jesus is a good thing, just don’t bother asking Dan. Can’t research. Can’t write.

Feeling bad about abortion

2006-01-04T21:47:00.000+11:00

A new study of New Zealand women has concluded that abortion in young women may be associated with increased risks of mental health problems. This included depression and anxiety disorders and they were also more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs.

The study’s leader, Professor David Fergusson, is at pains to show that he’s not a pro-lifer and he’s just telling it like it is. Fair enough. But with over 80,000 abortions being done each year in Australia, there’s a lot of people who will be suffering, assuming you can extrapolate the study to Australia.

As the study shows, not all women feel bad about abortion or suffer consequences for it. And Emily Maguire in The Sydney Morning Herald offers suggestions about how women could feel better about their abortion experience.

I say it doesn’t really matter. What really matters is what God thinks. It’s clear from the Bible that God is against abortion, for plenty of reasons. I’m with God on this point. As the father of three children—one of whom is still in-utero—we’ve always thought of our babies as our babies from the moment my wife was pregnant. “We’re going to have a baby” is a common enough expression (at least on the TV shows I’ve watched) to indicate that we’re not alone in thinking this.

I think attempts to argue that unborn babies are not human are similar strategies to those used to dehumanise groups which require killing—as the Nazis did to the Jews. For pro-choice people babies need to be non-human so that they can be disposed of.

Abortion is killing a person, plain and simple. If you can justify that, say on medical grounds, fine. Otherwise there’s no difference between that and taking your three-year-old up the back paddock and putting a bullet in her head.

Facts about McDonald’s

2005-12-13T21:55:00.000+11:00

My colleague TheTeak has done a fine job clearing the air about certain myths that surround the McDonald’s fast food chain.

Just wanting to verify some of the facts in his entry (I was sure it was preconstituted pig snot in the apple pies) I was disturbed by this image on the McDonald’s front page.

(You might need to refresh a couple times if you don't see it at first)

Remembering that this is meant to be a positive image selling McDonald’s products, I think that tells us all we need to know about the effects eating McDonald’s … erm… food.

By the way ...

2005-11-20T08:51:00.000+11:00

The iTunes Music Store is open in Australia

Talk about anti-climaxes

I've literally been waiting years for the iTunes Music Store to open in Australia, and when it did I expected it would be a major event.

I'd expect that since it's taken apple so long to hammer out the deal with local record companies that they'd be making the most of it once it did happen.

But no.

It's not even the major story on Apple's Australian web site, it's a secondary item (although with the title "The biggest story in music just got bigger". If it's the biggest story shouldn't it be the biggest thing on the page?

I actually don't know when it was launched since Apple's Hot news item doesn't give a date. All I know is that the shop assistants in Myer have been wearing "iTunes Music Card" badges, but they didn't seem to know much about how you'd get the songs if you bought the card "you just download them" they said. Yeah, but from where, since the iTunes Music Store isn't open I thought…

But there it is, the store is all up and running.

And it's barely rated a mention in the Australian press, or anywhere else as far as I can google.

Maybe in true Australian style everyone's just having the weekend off and the marketing campaign will start on Monday.

Updated

So apparently it happened back in October. Who knew?

I suppose with all the iPod nano and video iPod stuff going on it kind of overshadowed it.

Whatever. In any case it's going to be bad for my credit card.

All Christians are jerks

2005-11-09T21:55:00.000+11:00

Hey look mate, you know I'm right, so pull your head in.

Every last one of us is a jerk*. Why do you think Jesus had to die for us? If we'd all been perfect and nice he wouldn't have had to do a thing.

And if you don't believe me, believe the Bible:

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”

1 John 1:8 (ESV)

So if you sin, you're bound to hurt people. And if you hurt people, especially in a big way, and if you keep on doing it you're a jerk, at least in my book.

Which is why it shouldn't surprise me when Christians let me down. It still does, because—naturally enough I suppose—I expect more of them. Christians shouldn't be jerks because God tells them (frequently) not to. Even someone who isn't that familiar with the Bible will know how Christians should behave and point it out to them.

For example, I was saying this week that if you want to shoot novelists in the neck you should do the job properly and that Fascists were pretty useless. My boss said “This from a person who espouses ‘You shall not kill’”. I don't think I'd ever espoused anything to my boss, let alone “You shall not kill” nevertheless she knows I'm a Christian and knows enough about Christians to know that we say “You shall not kill”. (I actually pointed out that what we really say is “You shall not murder” which is a different thing, but the point is that she knows a thing or two about Christians).

Note for fruitcakes:

George Orwell is one of my favourite writers (and Ern Malley)

I was joking

Anyway, seeing as how I've been a Christian for most of my 30-something years, I know a thing or two about how Christians are supposed to act. They're supposed to act according to what they believe. For me and most of the people I know, that means “like the Bible says”.

A few years ago I worked for a Christian organisation that produced a whole bunch of literature featuring famous Christians saying what a good thing Christianity was. They should have known better. One of the celebrities was then South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje and when it was revealed that Hansie had been involved in match fixing they had to pulp the lot.

That didn't upset me that much, because I didn't know the guy. When someone I know does something outrageously against what the Bible says, I feel pretty gutted.

I feel angry because the people involved are being hypocrites and not doing what they should, which hurts me personally, and also hurts the reputation of Christians generally and worse still it hurts God's reputation.

I've been let down in a big way [only!] twicein the last few months and sadly I'm kind of getting used to it. This is a good and bad thing. Bad because I have to get used to it, good because I'm getting things more into perspective.

Christians will always let you down. They will hurt you, they'll be hypocritical and they just won't do the right thing. Just ask my wife. I let her down frequently and, despite at least some effort on my part, I keep hurting her. I'm sure my children will say the same thing (or at least they will when they've grown old enough to articulate it). I should act differently. I should act the way the Bible says and love her like Jesus loved his people, Ephesians 5-style, but I don't. I'm a long way short. I'm a jerk and I'll admit it here.

The only one who never lets me down is God. He always acts the way he says he will. He is always faithful, and loving and true. If you've been hurt by Christians, whether you're a Christian or not, you might have trouble believing that. Christians represent our God in the world (2 Corinthians 5:20) so when we hurt people it feels like God is hurting them. I'm sure there's plenty of people who've given up on God because of what his people have done and you might be one of them. I can only say, on behalf of all of us: sorry.

But that's no excuse for giving up on God. He killed his son for you to fix up the broken relationship between you and him, so don't let some jerk get in the way.

So I've given up on expecting Christians to always do the right thing. I can only expect that of God. But I'm going to try to not be such a jerk.

*I was going to say another word instead of jerk, but since this is a family blog which my mother may read I used ‘jerk’. You've got an imagination, use it. … There you go, that's much more offensive.

I wanted this to be boring

2005-10-21T14:46:00.000+10:00

Thinking up titles for blogs is hard.

It's kind of like thinking up a name for a band or a Laundromat. You can only have one Suds-R-Us and then every other band has to call themselves something else. Unless they're a cover band I suppose.

In the early 90s there was an Australian band called "People with Chairs Up their Noses", which right up there with Exploding White Mice as one of my favourite band names.

I wanted this blog to be called "Boring", but blogger wouldn't let me do it. Maybe they thought it would erode their brand if they had a boring blog. Actually a quick search may confirm this since none of the hundred boring blogs is on blogger and utterlyboring.com has its own domain. Still it shows that boring is a fairly common theme amongst bloggers or at least self-deprecation.

I wanted to call this blog boring because years ago I when I worked for a Christian organisation I had it in mind as the title for a magzine. I've worked on a couple of Christian publications over the years, incuding a couple of youth-oriented titles and Boring would have been one of them.

My idea was that Christians are always trying to be attractive to people who aren't Christians. This comes from the desire to persuade people that they really do need to change the way they're living, to believe that Jesus died for them and is lord of their life, and so on. The message is as old as Christianity itself: "repent".

Christians, and especially Christian organisations spend a lot of time trying to dress up that message. They try to get attractive people—such as Christian sports stars, scientists, rock singers and so on—to say it. They try to say it in groovy ways, or perhaps in a magazine.

In the worst cases they dress it up by watering down the message, trying to make it attractive by making it no message at all.

I thought that we should just give up trying to be attractive and stick to saying the same old thing: repent. You're going the wrong way without God. Turn around or you'll end up in hell.

It's the same thing Chrisians have always said. It's what Jesus said. We're still saying it 2000-odd years later. Which is pretty boring. But it's also life.

Anyway, I couldn't call it Boring, so I went with something obsure and wanky.