Sean the Blogonaut» Australia

An Atheist for PM?

Blogonaut — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 02:55:42 +0000

Well if you told me last week to choose between the unlikely outcomes of a) the Socceroos beating Serbia by 7 + goals or b) Australia having its first female prime minister I probably would have gone with the former.

As it was Australia beat Serbia 2-1 and Julie Gillard scored a win by forfeit.

Much is and should be made of the fact that Australia has a female Prime Minister, it’s a long overdue first. Though this in no way guarantees, that we will see tremendous change for women, but it is inspiring.

Many of my fellow atheists were also tweeting about the fact that she’s our first Atheist Prime Minister (forgetting old agnostic Hawke of course). I was happily re-tweeting this with abandon when it occurred to me that this was the first I had heard of it. So I decided to do some checking.

So is she an Atheist?

The two strongest points of evidence are

You’ll forgive me if I am not convinced.

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Will Julia court the religious as Rudd had just finished doing? Will she can the ridiculously biased chaplaincy scheme? Will she see sense on the filter?

Who knows, let’s just remember that no one gets to the top without having to make some deals and political commentators have been pretty clear that the labour right has made it possible for Julia to get the top job.

Edit: confirmed 29/6/2010 she’s a non-believer. Apparently the ACL aren’t fussed.

Homeopathic Vaccine promoted on morning television

Blogonaut — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 02:42:50 +0000

Just when you think we might be getting somewhere, we get this on morning television.

In Australia and want to fire off a complaint:

Write to the producers here

Nancy and Hillsong still in Love

Blogonaut — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:58:14 +0000

As Nancy informs us Hillsong and Nancy are still tighter then a fishes…

I just wanted to say hello to everyone from Sydney, Australia. I’m having a great time here at the Hillsong Conference! Yesterday we had a lot of fun catching up with old friends and just catching up with one another – it was so cool! If you’re interested in knowing more about the conference and see who all is speaking, you can check it out online at www.hillsongconference.com. [read more if you can't find any paint to watch dry]

Oh and some of her tweets are interesting if not weird:

Our leaders who serve with us in ministry must carry the DNA and heart of the leader. Choose very carefully who you allow 2 represent u.

Mercy Ministries is moving into cloning? Or is this just a cack handed way of saying if you serve at Mercy who must think and act like Nancy. Funny how egocentric this is(well it is twitter).

Would it not be better emphasize… say, being Christ like and sharing the organisations values or mission?

Research funding in Australia… a disgrace

Blogonaut — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:30:19 +0000

While it is pretty much common knowledge that Australia punches above its weight in sporting endeavors, what does not seem to make the news is some of the cutting edge research we do…or rather would do if it were properly funded.

Listen to this excerpt from the Science Show on Radio National, it describes the deplorable state of research funding in Australia.

Research funding in Australia - David Blair Director, Australian International Gravitational Research Centre School of Physics University of Western Australia

And while we are on the subject Podblack alerts us to this series fon Youtube on why science is important.

God Hates Australia

Blogonaut — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 10:44:06 +0000

according to the Westboro Baptist Church who plan to protest at the Australian National Day of Mourning for victims of the Victorian Bushfires. See their schedule comments below:

Rod Laver Arena – God does not hear the prayers of Australia Swan St. & Batman Ave.

One of your local major media outlets sent us an email which reads: “Australia Hates You”. YAY! We are in good company because Australia made it clear, decades ago, that they hate God.

So, now that all is clear, to wit: God Hates Australia and Australia Hates God, let us speak to the fact that God is causing fires in one part of Australia killing hundreds. Then in another part of Australia God is sending floods. That is called MOCKING people.

Then these insincere, violent, feces-eating brutes call themselves having a “Australia National Day of Mourning”. Here’s the only thing you freaks from “down under” bringing to pass these words: Ezekiel 7:27 The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the LORD. Matthew 24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. The Lord God will be coming shortly, so Prepare to Meet Thy God Australia. AMEN!

I think quite a few Australians would take umbrage at being called shit eating brutes while they are mourning a national tragedy. Actually I am surprised that they would be let in the country considering that they have been knocked back in the UK. Can’t see the Prime Minister, ready to condemn anyone for political gain, letting them in the country.

Mind you I would get some perverse joy out of seeing the Westboro church members getting seven shades of shit kicked out of them.

What’s next for this joke of a Church? Perhaps

Think its not a possibility? This video highlights the problem of gingerphobia:

Samir Abu Hamza – It is okay to beat and rape your wife

Blogonaut — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:34:44 +0000

21st century…check

Australia… check

Just wanted to make sure we were in the right time and place.

The Herald Sun reports that a Melbourne Islamic toe rag…I mean… self styled cleric preached to his male followers in 2003 that it was alright to:

Beat your wife if she was disobedient (but only if you don’t make them bleed or bruise)
Force your wife to have sex with you against her will

And where does his justification come from? Why his book of magical wisdom of course, the Koran. So you can beat them but not so heavily that there is physical evidence of your violent behavior.

The Herald Sun reports that

He then mocked Australia’s criminal laws, which required consent for sex to be lawful.

“In this country if the husband wants to sleep with his wife and she does not want to and she hasn’t got a sickness or whatever, there is nothing wrong with her she just does not feel like it, and he ends up sleeping with her by force … it is known to be as rape,” Mr Hamza said.

“Amazing, how can a person rape his wife?”

Amazing? What’s amazing Samir is you stoneage ignorance and your contemp for Australian Law.

It was 2003 when he made this speech and we would have been none the wiser if someone had not filmed the sermon and posted it on the internet. You view the film and the Herald Sun Article here

Of course when he was contacted about the speech recently he was evassive and blamed a jewish conspiracy for trying to persecute him. He did stand by his comments though. Jewish conspiracy…serioiusly ypou could not make this crap up.

The Islamic Women’s Welfare Council of Victoria has stated that Hamza’s interpretation is bigoted and not shared by Orthodox practioners (until they get caught out?).

It would be nice if his comments we roundly condemned by the Islamic community in general rather than just a women’s group. The Islamic Council of Victoria has committed to workshoping these issues with Clerics and Immams but I wonder just how wide spread this misogynistic interpetation extends.

Islam is a religion of peace?

Australia Secular?

Blogonaut — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 02:30:01 +0000

I often like to think that Australia is for the most part a secular country that is open, multicultural and accepting of different views, religions, lack of religion. Out of all the places on the face of the planet that I would expect us to be be able to display atheist ads it would be here.

For Christ’s sake even the Italian’s have been able to put a slogan on the side of a bus, and its certainly more strident than “Sleep in on Sunday”.

Anywho, for those of you that missed it here is the Sunday Sunrise interview with Arienne one of the organisers of the British Ad program

Is it as the host hints, just the Ad companies that don’t want to offend their audience?

No objection to having sexualised images of women on the sides of buses or bus shelters but the minute you have a rather relaxed message about atheism suddenly someone develops a misdirected social conscience?

Hypocrits?

Or is it that Christianity offers big money?

Atheist bus: ‘Sleep in on Sunday morning’ adverts banned

Australian Parliament Webserver Down

Blogonaut — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 13:32:36 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

It appears that the Australian Parliamentary website went down, yesterday from anywhere between 10-15 hours – no warning, no maintenance message. Balneus reports on it in two separate posts.

Oz Parliament Website Dead

Implications of off-line parliamentary webserver

Who or what was responsible?

Balneus posits some possibilities, from cleaners tripping over the power cords to filter testing , to gross incompetence of Parliamentary IT staff.

It will be interesting to see if this gets any media coverage.

Mamdouh Habib, the Terrorist that wasn’t

Blogonaut — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:30:17 +0000

: Image by publik16 via Flickr

Ignore the line cutting out, that’s just ASIO tapping the line ♣

On to the review and commentary.

Mamdouh Habib is an Australian Muslim and previous resident of both Club Med Guantanamo and the Egyptian Rendition Resort.

The book My Story – the Tale of a Terrorist who wasn’t is co written with Julia Collingwood and published by Scribe.

The book starts out like many other biography’s detailing Mamdouh’s upbringing in Egypt, the writing style is honest – I am not sure of Mamdouh’s grasp of written English but the book has a distinct voice, it has not been over edited

Mamdouh tells some entertaining stories about his time in national service, most of which about finding ways to avoid being in it. He comes across as a bit of a larakin in his youth. We follow him around the world to Europe where he eventually works as a horse trainer, and then on to Australia where he eventually marries and has a family.

He works for a time for a state rail company and then in his own cofee and cleaning businesses. Overall it’s a rather typical story of an immigrant made good.

Two things I think are significant in the events that led to his kidnapping, the failure of his business and subseuent depression and the beginnings of the war on terror

A rough timeline:

Arrested and assaulted/ mistreated in Pakistan after going there to seek business opportunities.
Kidnapped and sent to Egypt for 5 months, tortured (including anal suppositories, electro- shock, beatings, threats of rape, psychological torture)
Transferred back to American custody in Afghanistan (where he witnessed the rape of a 15 year old boy by an American Marine in custody)
Shipped to Sunny Cuba to endure the pleasure of camp x-ray where he underwent psychological torture

It should be noted that while at Gitmo, he was registered as an Egyptian even though he was an Australian Citizen, and both the American and Australian governments knew this.

Unlike David Hicks, Mamdouh was released without charge.

He is under continued surveillance and suffers continuous harassment from the Australian government, as do his lawyers and supporters. He ran for political office but was unsuccessful.

All in all the book tells a harrowing tale of abuse, and implicates the Australian government as an accessory to war crimes.

If only half of what Mr Habib says is true, then I begin to have a nagging fear of my own government and the extent to which it will go to pursue political and ideological ends. I am simpathetic with Senator Bob Brown, quoted as saying:

….While John Howard advocated Aussie mateship and a fair go, this Australian was being secretly handed over to rendition and torture. Mamdouh Habib’s harrowing story will leave fair-dinkum Australians feeling nauseated by the double standards of their elected leaders.’

Mr Habib has never recieved an apology from the Ausralian government, but e as been overwhelmed by the support of ordinary non-muslim Australians.

Not a prize winner perhaps but a good honest read that should leave you questioning our government (as they always should be) and perhaps double guessing what you write and say.

Tell me this was there ever a time when we could trust our governments?

♣ While my tongue is somewhat in cheek in making this witty little remark – reading Mr Habib’s story has me ever so slightly concerned that after mentioning his name in two other posts, that a little red flag has gone up and that the

tax dollars I pay may be used for my own serveillance .

Pimping the Skeptic Zone

Blogonaut — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:29:32 +0000

Just pimiping a favorite podcast of mine. As of podcast number nine, the Skeptic zone has hit number one in the Australian itunes science audio podcast section ( insert raucous applause).

Yet another podcast?

There are quite a few good quality podcasts floating out their in blogosphere so, what do I find so good about the skeptic zone.? What keeps me coming back for more?

A varied, exciting and current show.

You have your regular features like Dr Rachie reports, which delves into dangerous and unsubstantiated world of alternative medicine and The Round Up in which Michael Wolloghan brings us news relevant to skeptics, rationalists and Atheists from around the world.

Then you have special interviews from Kylie Sturgess aka Podblack and the show’s main host Richard Saunders (you may remember him as the skeptic judge in The One). The newest member of the team Tiffany Day ( bearing a striking resemblance to Drew Barrymore) brings us book reviews.

This weeks episode includes;

an interview with the mysterious Potholer54, youtube science guru and enemy of ignorant creationists everywhere courtesy of Kylie,
Richard interviews attendees at The Sydney Censorship Rally.
Richard Saunders interviews Dr Pamela Gay from www.astronomycast.com

And ofcourse what woud an Australian show be without drinking – a session recorded at a local sydney pub called Skeptics in the Pub.

The podcast has high production values and good output check them out and if you really enjoy what they are doing show your appreciation by donating.