Mr Human Rights and Cardinal Dicky Heart

An excellent article with some strident observations from Elizabeth Farrelly about Ruddock's appointment to UN human rights representative for Australia. She rightly questions his credentials.
I also make the observation:

One would also wonder why at age 72 he needs another appointment any way. And I wonder how much it pays.

He has after all been in safe seat Parliament for 40+ years. That would seem a significant pile of superannuation and other benefits which Parliamentarians have so readily afforded themselves,

Farrely observes:
To anoint Philip ‘children overboard’ Ruddock as our special envoy on human rights is an irony of breathtaking proportions. It’s almost as bizarre as allowing George Pell’s dicky heart to distance him from those whose hearts he helped break. In both cases, Australia looks weak, venal and mean.


The WHOLE ARTICLE  is here

Julia versus God

I have no problem saying "Hooray!" that our PM told the truth about her belief in God. It would be ludicrous and total lies to do otherwise. It was a Roman coin question (here)no one was interested in the answer (we all knew already) they weer trying to trap her.

I make two points:

1. Just because she doesn't believe in God doesn't mean that we who do are absolved of our responsibility to pray for our leader.
2. There have been many who called themselves Anglicans who embarrass me more by their hardness of heart towards refugees. A Prime Minister, a Foreign Minister, two Immigration Ministers and an Attorney General in the last government were outspoken protagonists of some of the cruellest policies I believe this country has ever known.

Can I also just observe (as I have before) that too much is made of the fact that Rudd used to do doorstops outside St John's Canberra week by week.

It seems to me that he is not the one who engineered this. The reality is that he was a weekly church attender and the press quickly realised that if they wanted to catch him Sundays, even if they wanted to try and "catch him out" or catch him "unawares" (see the aforementioned Roman coin story) then all they had to do was be outside the Church at about 10.30 and he would always be there.

Good on him that he didn't say 'I don't want to be seen to be enthusiastic about being an Anglican and so I'll stop going to church lest they think I'm too pious'.

A true victim of damned if you do and.....

Hicks Hiccup

All of us are no doubt glad to see that the Hicks' debacle moved yesterday and that Hicks, in pleading guilty, has allowed some resolution of his personal hell...or at least some step towards that resolution.
Hicks has pleaded guilty, and no one imagines that that clarifies very much at all. It does allow him to be called the "convicted terrorist" or "the admitted felon"....but no one imagine that it actually reveals the extent of his involvement with Al Qaeda, whether he was a foot soldier or a military commander, whether he is being smart or just plain stupid
That it will bring him back to Adelaide seems almost certain, and that must be a relief for his family.
What it will not do is reveal to you and me the extent of his actual involvement
I continue to be incensed by Howard, Downer and Ruddock who say things like..."We are very angry that this has taken so long...we have always been disturbed about how long this has taken."
That is just not true! It is self-serving politico-spik. They were remarkably unconcerned about David Hicks until his prolonged detention in ther Guiantanamo limbo became an electoral liability.
I hope that we, the electors, remember this self-serving stuff...it is not the only example of change of heart (global warming another!) which should be criticised for being too little too late.