To add to the “reasons I’m never going back to Australia while John Howard is in power” pile:
“Prime Minister John Howard has defended his decision to record a goodwill message for an Australia Day prayer event organised by a controversial group involved in an anti-Islamic court case.”
According to Howard, “Christianity has been an enormous force for good and has done more than anything else to shape the lives, not only of millions of Australians, but the character of our nation.”
Every time I start to comment on that my blood pressure rises, so for the sake of my own health I won’t – there is so much wrong with that statement I’d be dead by the end of the sentence.
So let me close with this quote:
“Member of the prime minister’s Muslim Community Reference Group and former president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, Yasser Soliman, said Mr Howard should have thought twice about making the DVD.
“Of course the prime minister is free to address anyone he chooses,” Mr Soliman told AAP.
“But what he says is extremely influential and what he fails to say is also influential.
“I would hope that he would clearly condemn hate speeches in all their forms irrespective of who the perpetrators are.
“It could be perceived that he might have a different standard for some sectors of the community than he has for other sectors in the Australian community, and that would be sending a very dangerous message here and overseas.””
The Age
In the interests of fairness, I look forward to John Howard’s goodwill messages for Australia’s LGBT communities at Midsumma and Mardi Gras.
Monthly Archives: January 2007
“The UK government is to set standards for carbon offsetting schemes to bring “greater clarity” to the industry.
…
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has named just four offset providers that meet its new guidelines -Pure, Global Cool, Equiclimate and Carbon Offsets.”
BBC
“…opponents say the prospect of same-sex book-borrowing endangers the moral fiber of the country’s most sacred reading traditions.” Onion
See also Kansas Outlaws Practice Of Evolution.
Website of the day: yourdailylesbianmoment.
Interesting. I’ve always wondered how much research celebs do before joining a campaign. Naomi Campbell obviously didn’t mind fur all that much, and in the UK Jade Goody has apparently been dropped by an anti-bullying campaign… for bullying another contestant on Celebrity Big Brother.
Incidentally, if no-one watches ‘Celebrity’ Big Brother, will they cease to exist?
“US pop singer Pink has backed down from her call to boycott Australian wool over animal cruelty claims, admitting she failed to fully research the issue.
…
But today, Pink admitted she was misinformed about the issue and had failed to do enough research.
“I probably could have done a lot more research on my own,” she told the Nine Network.
“That’s the lesson I’m taking from this.
“My message was, in my mind, boycott animal cruelty – not an entire industry, not Australia, obviously, because it’s my favourite country.
“Then going back, I was speaking without thinking and I actually did say ban Australia, which is bullshit. It’s not something that I can agree with.”” Age
They’ve sold out but in a rare moment of consumer lust, I want one of those. Perfect for the garden in summer.
I keep forgetting to blog this… the first thing we saw when we emerged from the U Bahn in Berlin was… an Australian shop.
Of course I bought some VB, so my first beer in Berlin was actually a Victoria Bitter from a stubbie, not a stein of something frothy.
It turns out the Australian Embassy is on the same street so it’s not as random as it sounds. I still think it was a pretty good coincidence.
Randomly, I learnt from www.worldwidewords.org that there aren’t any roads in the City of London, as ‘all the ways there had been named before the word came into the language.’
Pure brilliance.