We're back...

My test post to Blogger worked, so I am now drafting my first email posting in about 3 weeks… hopefully the good people at Blogger will keep the email server up from now on!

However I cannot say the same for the office air con… a failure of the system overnight has seen our office steamy like a sauna today and it was ties off and sleeves rolled up at 10:00am this morning.  On top of this, our computer network is acting up and I am sure its only a matter of time until somebody here goes “postal”.

I just seem to be in a rut at the moment as everything just seems to be falling apart around me… my PC, the PC monitor, the home AirCon, the screen door is busted to the back yard, the lawn mower takes 35 pulls to start, the back pergola is leaking like a sieve, the office AirCon, Blogger… its just been a continual stream of things not working like they’re supposed to.  Sure each one in isolation is trivial, but its just everywhere I turn something is not right… its enough to make you want to turn Amish!

Well that’s it for now… better go before the coffee machine blows up….

Burial Remains of Jesus Christ Found?

This is all over the news, but I have selected to post the link to the Richard Dawkins site as it will be flavoured in the comments section the whole atheist vs theological debate.

For those who don't know Richard Dawkins has published a book called "The God Delusion" which I am reading currently (nearly done!) in which he goes about systematically disproving God and religion in general.

Of course this generates much controversy and he gets some interesting viewpoints on the subject...

But to the news at hand... if this is a true discovery, what then? Will people concede that Jesus married / had a child? DNA will also provide the proof that he was conceived with a mortal father and that he was not a miraculous conception.

Surely the bones will be able to provide evidence of crucifixion? If not, then are the remains not THE Jesus of Nazareth?

DNA? Can it trace ancestry? Can we find people today who can be linked to the DNA? Are they the descendants of Jesus (God?) and if so, what happens if they are Arabic or Jewish or Atheists?

How will this shake the fundamental beliefs of Christians? Does it matter? Is the Bible wrong? Is the whole thing a hoax?

Given I am reading Dawkins' book at the moment, this is all very timely!

Link to the Official Richard Dawkins Website

And for balance... here is the link to the pro-neo conservative FOX News in the US: Fox News - • SPEAKOUT! What Do You Think of the So-Called Find?

Publishing via Email - Publishing Trouble | Google Groups

I am continuing to have tech issues publishing and todays post was also "lost"...

A link below is to the help forum in which many bloggers are complaining about this... if it continues, I may look at other mediums.

I appreciate Blogger is free to the end user, but this is ridiculous.

Publishing via Email - Publishing Trouble | Google Groups: "Messages 1 - 25 of 26 - Expand all
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From today's Crikey

Had to post this... sums it all up rather well.  Credit to Crickey daily email, 23/2/07:

If the current verbal confusion among the Allies in Iraq is an indicator of their military performance, you can see why this has not yet been recorded as one of the great textbook warfare successes of modern times…

"… the situation in Iraq makes it possible for Denmark and Britain to reduce their numbers of troops." -- Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

"We are planning to pull out the troops because the British and the Danish are doing so." -- Lithuanian Defence Minister Juozas Olekas.

"At the present time the level of violence is totally unacceptable, and until the Iraqis are able to contain it to a reasonable level we should stay." –Australian PM John Howard

"There is no such thing as victory in Iraq." – Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson

"... I will settle for nothing less than complete victory." – US President George Bush (November 2005)

"The American public will be quite perplexed by the President adding forces while our principal ally is subtracting forces." – US Senator John Warner

The history of military incompetence is littered with reasons for failure on the battlefield, but when political leaders can't even agree on the basic objective of whether they are pursuing victory, it's clear the battlefield isn't the major problem here.

Welcome to Communist Australia

Dick Cheney is in town.  He is the #2 man in the United States government.  In many (not all) people's opinion here in Australia, the United States is in the wrong on so many issues that affect Australians.  David Hick's incarceration, the action in Iraq and Afghanistan, US Foreign Policy in general, religion and its use in the neo-conservative government in the US – which includes the attempted banning of subjects in science curriculum's in US schools such as Darwinism and Natural Selection in favour of Creationism, all the way down to US trade policies in regards to wheat.

In short, there are a lot of Australian people with an agenda of issues that they would like Mr Cheney to hear.  Of course he cannot and will not meet with individuals on this basis but instead citizens in a free democracy are allowed to protest their opposing views of the government and in this case the US government.

Or so I thought.

Protesting has been banned apparently.  People have been told they cannot protest.

I'm sorry but when did we suddenly become Communist China?  Apart from the tanks ploughing down innocent protesters what is the difference between Tiananmen Square and Pitt St Sydney yesterday?

Its about time people woke up that this conservative government of Howard has slowly turned us into a police state.  Why have we got Black Hawk helicopters patrolling the skies since Tuesday until the small hours of the morning?  Training they say… training for what??

Here we go again... America set to ask us to jump

**TODAYS MAIL POST MANUALLY COPIED INTO BLOGGER BECAUSE THE DAMN EMAIL CONTINUES NOT TO WORK!!!!**

Apologies… my access to Blogger appears to have gone on the blink. I am typing this message with no real idea if it will get through or not. In addition the Blog posting feature in Picasa2 doesn’t seem to work and the pictures I have taken of the QM2 haven’t come up… I will try to fix that!

But tech issues aside, what I want to talk about today is the British decision to withdraw 1,400 or so of its troops from Iraq. This is a major slap in the face from Blair to Bush as he is basically saying that they are concluding their required missions (training Iraq to be self sufficient in security et al) and they are looking to withdraw. To his credit, Blair said that they are not cutting and running, but this is more of an acknowledgment of what they set out to achieve is slowly being completed.

Bush on the other hand wants to ramp up with another 10,000 troops and I am sure that Dick Cheney in his Sydney visit this week will basically ask Australia to add more troops to the mix. This could be the first time that John Howard has to say NO to George Bush. He is in a tenuous political position… if he says No, he backflips on his mandate of fully supporting the US in this preposterous war and whilst I don’t agree with Iraq, a back flip now only damages his credibility. If he says yes, then he can kiss the next election good bye. With the background of a British withdrawal, and the fact that we shouldn’t have been there in the first place, Howard will be seen as a lap dog to the US and unnecessarily further implicating us in a messy war that we have no right in being in.

But watch for the double cross… already I have seen a number of media reports about Afghanistan in the last 24-48 hours. We haven’t even heard of Afghanistan for ages and yet Defence Minister Brendan Nelson was on Sunrise this morning describing the situation in Afghanistan as “hot” and that our troops are in the “thick of it”.

You can bet your bottom dollar that more Australian troops will head to Afghanistan which will enable the Americans to transfer more Afghan based troops into Iraq. Nelson this morning linked the Iraq and Afghanistan areas by stating that al-Qaeda is in both areas and yet there has been not one shred of evidence that Iraq had any al-Qaeda activities. In fact, the Sunnis which ran Iraq are polar opposites to al-Qaeda as they are not hardline Islamic followers. They were corrupt and evil and Saddam was a vicious dictator, but he was actually at war with the Islamic extremists in Iran and by proxy the Taliban / al-Qaeda.

Don’t be fooled Australia… Howard & co are getting us further in bed with the US and are using the Afghanistan card to dupe you!

Queen Mary 2 Docks In Sydney

The Queen Mary 2 and later, the QE2 docked in Sydney today... these are some shots from my office window of the Queen Mary 2. Yes, I know... I have a great view :)

Queen Mary 2 Docks In Sydney

PS: Apologies, but my daily posts via email are not getting published... I believe Blogger Mail is down again. Trust me, I am writing, its just not getting posted - which may be a good thing! LOL!!