As we all know, I am an Australian.   I am also an Australian who used to live in the Sydney suburb of Cronulla, and who is reading the current news reports with absolute horror. In the past hour, I have seen the following ‘news’ passage reproduced on the websites of at least 10   ‘credible’ news sources:   “About 5,000 white men, many of them drunk, targeted people believed to be of Arab or Middle Eastern descent on Cronulla Beach on Sunda...

  An American television viewer is suing the producers a reality show because he claims became ill whilst watching it.   Stating that he suffered ‘violent nausea, vomiting and dizziness’ as a direct consequence of the contents of programme in question, the viewer is reportedly seeking damages in excess of US$2.5 million.   The scenes in the show responsible for the ‘upset’ apparently contained footage of contestants drinking ‘milkshakes’ containin...

    I’m becoming tired of hearing about various public areas, services and attractions being closed or scaled-down due to the operators/owners being unable to afford spiraling public liability insurance premiums.   The concept of public liability insurance is a sound one: someone becomes injured or otherwise disadvantaged due to liability or neglect on your property, they sue you, the insurance company pays up and they go away.   This prevents you f...

    In November 2004, just three days before her 57 th birthday, New York woman Aleta St. James gave birth three weeks prematurely to twin babies, a boy and a girl, by planned Caesarian section.   Using an egg from a stranger and donated sperm, this was the first pregnancy for the unmarried St. James, who said of giving birth at her age “It is never too late. You are never too old. It is just in your mind."     St. James, a motivational sp...

    In what has surely got to be the grossest thing I have ever heard of,  a UK expert in transplant ethics says that surgeons who are currently preparing to offer human face transplants have not considered the possible psychological and other complications.   A number of international medical teams are expected to carry out the first human face transplant, possibly before the end of the year, and one ‘face transplant’ surgeon says people h...

  What would life be like if the world were ruled by women ?.   We may never know, but we do have the examples of the rare but fascinating matriarchal cultures still in existence in today’s world to give us the ‘low-tech’ answer to this complex problem.   An example of such a culture is the Khasi (or Khasia), an agricultural people who live in the hill districts in Meghalaya state (North-Eastern India), where they arrived about 500 years ago, presumably from...

From a report filed in Istanbul, Turkey, by Reuters: Turkey's government wants to make adultery a crime, the justice minister was quoted as saying Monday, a proposal that has outraged the main opposition and women's groups. Athough the legislation would also apply to men, a previous adultery law abolished six years ago was used mainly against women. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which traces its roots to a banned Islamist movement, wants to include the adultery...

According to Princeton University’s online dictionary, the word ‘feminist’ means: (noun) feminist: women's rightist, women's liberationist, libber (a supporter of feminism), reformer, reformist, crusader, meliorist (a disputant who advocates reform). (adjective) feminist: (of or relating to or advocating equal rights for women; "feminist critique") (this use is rare) In the 1800’s women commenced their path to ‘equality’ by focusing on the right to vote. Despite this not being for...

from news.com.au: France has vowed to press ahead with a controversial law banning Islamic head scarves in schools, despite demands by militants holding two French journalists hostage in Iraq. Government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope told Canal Plus television France would not compromise its values to win the release of the journalists. Militants claiming to hold them demanded the law be overturned within 48 hours - a deadline that expires late Monday. "The law will be applied," Cope ...

In Cairo, Egypt, Islamic militants have released a brief tape showing two French journalists kidnapped recently in Iraq and said they were holding the men to protest a French law banning headscarves in schools. According to footage aired Saturday by (TV station) Al-Jazeera, the group gave the French government 48 hours to overturn the law but mentioned no ultimatum. Five days ago, Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape purportedly released by the same group showing abducted freelance jou...

Can psychology tell us what motivates terrorists and how they differ from you and me?. How do we get inside the mind of a killer ?. Most of us find terrorism acts alien to our thinking. We simply cannot ever hope to understand. Yet maybe for our own sakes we should understand something of what fuels the violent reality of todays' world. Scientifically, it's a tough task, since terrorists generally don't volunteer for psychological studies. At any rate, terrorism experts tend to differ grea...

I'm the first person to agree that political correctness for the most part forms a good base for decent, or at the very least, tolerable behaviour. Yes, some of the 'rules' annoy me, (ok to be frank, some of the 'rules' make me want to throw things for their unwitting encouragement of segregation and/or their very triviality), but I for the most part at least see the benefits of these 'rules'. Yet even I am beginning to become a little worried about the extremes that this 'PC' stuff see...

excerpt from etaiwan.news - link below a man convicted of raping and murdering a teenage girl was hanged at dawn wednesday in india's first execution in nine years. dhananjay chatterjee, 39, was executed after spending the last 13 years in solitary confinement. "the execution of dhananjay chatterjee alias dhana has duly been carried out at the scheduled time at 4.30 a.m.," the prison said in a statement. chatterjee's shrouded body was later cremated in an electric furnace, poli...

  The modern world is advancing, and with that advancement comes such looming horrors as ‘chemical weapons’ and ‘biological warfare’. These ‘modern’ ideas of ours surely have reached the   outer limits of the awful things we humans are capable of. We have come full circle.   We have developed chemical weapons, that, once released, cannot be detected or controlled, and we have developed conflicts that almost guarantee their eventual use.   Modern day...