rich private v poor public schools

Posted on October 22, 2009 by grandad

I will start by saying that I’m an atheist so I am against the public funding of any religious school, I feel that it is both immoral and a waste of public money to subsidize the teaching of matters of faith for which there is no evidence of there being any basis for the faith.

Knowing my views on religious education, you can imagine my outrage when I read that the Shore School had been able to outbid the Federal Government for a property adjacent to their school. To think that a school that is subsidized to the extent of $9,000,000 annually could put up $35,000,000 for a property which it only required to house a museum and sporting facilities left me astounded and annoyed.

My annoyance wasn’t in anyway abated when I heard the School Governor, an ex business CEO of course, state on the talk back radio that the school had not used the subsidy to pay for the property but had been saving for this purchase over a number of years.

I suppose that the Governor didn’t listen to the rest of the broadcast when a member of P and C for a state school came on and explained that their school had just had a very successful fete and had raised $7000.

From these two talk back subjects it is easy to work out that if the public school was really keen to raise enough money to make a similar purchase it would only take a successful fete every month for the next 444 years to raise the necessary $35,ooo,ooo

There were a number of other men that rang in about this subject and many were ex students of this and other rich private schools. I was surprised at their apparent honesty when they admitted that the education that they had received wasn’t any better than a public school education, some even said that it wasn’t as good; however, the thing that they did get out of the attendance of the private school was an access to networking. Many seemed to be admitting that they had been able to get appointed to jobs, for which they were not really the best applicant, purely on the basis of having been to a private school and knowing the right people.This seemed to me to be a reasonable enough claim since when I was a working person I found that the majorith of the executive jobs seemed to be held down by nincompoops whose only talent was to be able to surround themselves with enough advisers to be sure that they would  get some things right.

It is actually no wonder that the international  banking system collapsed and that we can’t find solutions to global warming. It is obvious that the powers that be are not really able to appreciate that the global warming isn’t something that will hang around whilst they dither and try to please every one.

Our problem now is that we are in a position when we need scientific solutions if we are survive and we are still run by people that are there because of their contacts and old school associations. It is no wonder that Ken Henry is pessimistic about the ability of out Governments to be able to solve the problems of global warming and over population which is forecast to occur over then next 40 years.

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Populate and Die !

Posted on October 16, 2009 by grandad

I see that recent predictions for Australia’s population is set to reach 40 million by the year 2040 and this news has been well received by the powers that are supposed to run this country for the long term. They claim that it will produce great growth and development possibilities and will enable this country to assume a greater roll in the world.  This all seems to me to be a load of utter rubbish!

These people haven’t yet realised that though we may well be able to manage the  population of 40 million I very much doubt that we could manage too many more. They haven’t worked out that in 2040 the population won’t suddenly stop growing, infact, the increase obtained to that date will speed up the rate of population growth such that if the same rate continues for another 30 years, we will then be looking at a population of over 60 million. I wonder how they will manage that growth?

We are still trying to build the rail system first suggested some 100 years back so it is hard to imagine that we will be able to cater for another 20 million in a mere 30 years. We then won’t just be looking at rail and transport systems, we will be looking at desalination plants, sewage water reclaim systems, and still we will be arguing about how to lower the carbon footprint to stop the global warming,get wate flowing in our rivers, etc.

To exacerbate this problem, the rest of the world will also have an increasing population such that, at the present rate of increase, the world population will have grown from today’s 6 billion to something like 14 billion and, of course, it won’t stop there unless the problem is properly addressed.

I wonder if any of today’s  scientists are looking at the problem of an ever increasing population, surely they must realize that the population can’t keep expanding  indefinitely without eventually collapsing in on itself? Furthermore, I can’t understand what is the objective of an ever increasing population when we know that it is just exhausting the resources available at an ever increasing rate, surely we must eventually ( provided we survive the global warming threat ), start looking at the world population level that can be sustained without destroying life itself?

Population stabilisation is a problem which makes global warming look like childs play, to obtain a steady sustainable population will require review of the fundamental principles by which we presently organize our communities. I wonder if we can do it?? Not in my time of course!

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caring?

Posted on July 24, 2009 by grandad

I recently had cause to visit the gym at the hospital where my wife needed physio, I accompanied my wife but could naturally take no part in her treatment. However, I was able to observe the other patients being treated in the gym. This situation was both inspiring and depressing.

Many of the patients being treated were old as would be expected but a surprising number were young men suffering paraplegia, there were no women suffering this way there in the gym at this time. I could only guess that the majority of these young men were so handicapped from having been involved in awful accidents.

The inspiring part of this visit was to observe the gentle and kindly way in which the staff dealt with these men. I thought that it must have been very hard to go to work each day to be faced with such sad cases knowing that despite all your efforts there is little that you can do for these young men other than keep them sane and comfortable.

In particular there was one young man that seemed to be paralysed completely and could only move his mouth, he also had a life support system fixed to the wheel chair and pipes going into his every part. Sad indeed but he was accompanied by a young woman that appeared to be his wife. This got me thinking about what is caring?

It is all very well to be kind to these people but I wonder if they have ever been asked the question as to what they want for a future. I can imagine this young man looking at his wife and thinking how terrible it must be for her, and what the future holds for her. He must feel that his incapacity had not only ruined his life but has ruined the life of someone that is most beloved to him.

I wonder if the medical profession has put it to him that if he finds that it is all too hard and that he doesn’t feel that he can cause so much suffering in the future, then he has only to say the word and the profession will facilitate his gentle and dignified demise.

I am aware that if you asked a loved one the question about whether this young man should be allowed to terminate his life,  they couldn’t make the decision, it would be too hard and it would maybe make them feel guilty. However, I think that the difficulty in making a decision that would avoid this young man’s mental and physical suffering is the result of our having been raised to think that death is a punishment rather than a necessary part of life.

I am not heartless and I can well understand the terrible trauma that such situations place ordinary people in, situations that they can’t be trained to face up to in the normal every day run of the mill life, but I feel that the person that is most effected by the situation is the person that has the least say in what his/her future should be. I can’t accept all the crap about the sanctity and ” right to ” life, life is for living and once one is not able to participate in living, then the choice should be there to finish life painlessly.

This is a matter that I am increasingly mindful of since my wife and I are now of an age when the onset of dementia and other age related incapacitating complaints become ever more a possiblility. I read all this rubbish about the old becoming and increasingly high cost to the community because of the espense of operating nursing homes and the like to house all these zombie like creatures. This problem is a self imposed problem not a real problem. I together with most of my friends of similar age, don’t want to be kept alive sitting drooling, eating gunk, knowing no one, being bathed, put to sleep probably with sleeping pills etc. When I don’t know that I am me and can’t remember, recall or act out, my life in a meaningful way, then I am dead, the fact that others still have the ability to keep my body functioning is not keeping me alive. I am the sum of all my feelings and experiences and once those functions of the brain have gone then I no longer exist

Surely, caring is providing what is best for the patient and if the patient is suffering because of unwanted treatment, then the caring becomes a way of satisfying the needs of the carer more than a true caring for the patient!?

I know that things like dementia block out all memories and feelings but whilst I am still able to think, I have already decided that I don’t want to be a cause of pain and unnecessary euffering to my loved ones, far better that they can only remember me as me and not come and look at drooling zombie!

Posted in life & death | 5 Comments

who believes in God?

Posted on June 24, 2009 by grandad

Just a ramble to relieve my horror at the oppression of the people of Iran by the clerics of Islam.

It is quite obvious to me that the clerics of Islam have no belief in Allah/God because of their behaviour. They claim that they have the authority of Allah and follow the tenets of the Prophet, however, the Prophet and all other prophets, comdemned murder as a mortal sin which would be punishable by eternity in hell.  This sentence would be enough for any believer to take notice and to refrain from committing murder to ensure that they have a chance of  ending up in heaven. This is not the case for the clerics of Islam, here we have the Ayatollar and his side kicks, not only endorsing the murder of Iranian citizens that disagree with them but they encourtage the murders and even offer a reward for those that commit the murders in the name of the Ayatoller and therefore Allah/ God.

It is obvious that the heads of Islam, and all the other religions, have no more belief in God than I do and I’m a confirmed atheist. It is clear that sience has now answered most of the questions that gave rise to the belief in gods as an answer to questions such as the origins of life and evolution etc. Now the need to ensure that a belief in gods continues is purely to give authority and power to the likes of Ayatollars, Popes and Rabiis and the like and they have shown over time that they are prepared to commit murder and mayhem to ensure that their authority is maintained.

This is not a recent development, the not too distant case of the Muslim thug that filmed as he carved the head off an innocent, good man in Iraq and then held the head aloft and shouted ” Allahu Akbar ” must have been the greatest act of blaspheme ever. The act of murder was blamed directly onto Allah, but not one cleric thought that it was worth condemning this act of blaspheme. However, when a Danish cartoonist depicted the Prophet with a bomb in his turban, that was an act of blaspheme that warranted the calling of murder of the cartoonist and the cartoonist wasn’t even a Muslim. Such hypocrisy can only further show that these clerics are infact just using the naivity of the brain washed general population to abuse power and advance their own ends.

Isn’t it a blessing that old age will eventually rid the world of these cursed creatures, but unfortunately, they seem to often get replaced by others that have similar desires.

Posted in Religions, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

the religious war in palestine

Posted on March 11, 2009 by grandad

Simon,
You miss the point, in the case of Israel/Palestine it is a religious conflict, there is no other explanation for the situation. It may have started off as a conflict between one group taking over the lands of another group but it has been taken over by the two religions, Jews and Muslims, and this is despite the probability that the majority of ordinary people yearn for a peaceful settlement of the problem.
As I said before, it can be likened to the situation in Northern Ireland but in that case the people were of different ethinic origins, i.e. Celts and Picts, but it the case of  palestine, both groups are of the same ethnic origins so it is almost like a civil war.
I still reckon the solution is to have a common country of Palestine with one government, which the constitution would demand be secular, and get the protaganists to live together with one common constitution and law.To keep on having retaliation for seeming afronts is a no where situation. A Palestinian kills an Israeli and the Israelis then kill a dpzen Palestinians, who were probably not anti Jewish till they were targeted in the revenge attacks, but then they want revenge and so it goes on. Why has the Ulster problem taken 400 years to solve and it still lingers to this day?
G

Posted in the great injustice of 20th century | 1 Comment

the great unjustice of the 20th century, part 2

Posted on February 18, 2009 by grandad

the comment I received in relation to my original post, indicates that I am condemning the people of Israel for the behaviour of their government. This was not my intent.

At birth all humans are innocent of any bias and have no religious inclination. fortunately, religious belief is not hereditary but has to be taught. It is also fortunate that, although the majority of people belong to a religion they are not fanatical in their beliefs, this means that the majority of people don’t want to hurt others and certainly don’t want to kill them.

If you took an Israeli baby away from its parents at birth and placed it in the care of a Palestinian famil, it would grow up as a Palestinian and neither a rabbi or a iman would be able to detect that a swap had been made The Rabbi would probably willingly persecute the swapped infant whilst the Iman would welcome it with open arms.

I have found that most of the people that i have met in my travels are, as individuals willing to accept you as they perceive you and your religion has very little to do with their judgement. It is only when there are many of a group which contains a rabble rouser that they will do things as part of the group. In most cases when the group has broken up the ordinary people often feel great guilt for what they have done in a moment of haste.

Further more, it is necessary to train men and, now days, women to kill, it, to most, isn’t a natural instinct. Proof of this is that so many servicemen after wars or conflicts are over, need councelling and suffer mental illnesses. I would suggest that it would be easier for an ex-serviceman that has lost a limb to be rehabilitated than it would be for, say, the poor buggers that recently shot the children in Afghanistan, killing is soul destroying.

I think that the majority of people like to believe in a god just so that they can look forward to finally having justice. It’s like the people that were destoyed fanancially by Allan Bond looking forward to eventually being in a position where they can look down from their place in heaven and for eternity watch Allan stoking the fires of hell, but in our hearts we all know that he will die enjoying the riches that he has amassed by conning the people.

The point of this rant is that it is the fanatics in positions of power that make life so miserable for so many, and we should all think about things and make up our own minds as to what is right and should always ask ourselves the question, ” Would I like to be treated thus? ”

We should avoid this crap about being the super race or gods chosen etc, as I pointed out earlier, these religious leader and therefore the gods they represent, couldn’t even pickto whom you were born so if they judge wrongly they may be persecuting the super race and they wouldn’t know it.

I often despair of humans ever realizing that it is science that will save us and improve our lives, not gods, fairies, gnomes, trolls, etc, etc. It is hard to understand how so many can accept a belief in these fairy tales when there isn’t a skerrick of evidence that gods etc exist nor that they ever have existed.

Posted in the great injustice of 20th century | 1 Comment

the greatest injustice of the 20th century

Posted on January 30, 2009 by grandad

I read today that a Spanish judge will accept a case that the Israelis have broken international law and committed war crimes in their attacks on Gaza I read this with some interest because I was around when the UN confiscated the Palestinian lands and the peoples property, infact reduced them to being non citizens of any place and gave these lands to a mass of cruel and savage European Jews that had some how survived the Nazi prison camps. These Jews had not only survived but had very successfully learned most of the Gestapo practices.

To make matters worse for the Palestinians, the UN allowed the Israelis to be armed in a manner which Adolf Hitler would have envied whilst imposing an arms embargo on the Palestinians. Then when a Palestinian got annoyed when he or she saw the Israeli occupiers using their propery such as houses and fields etc and threw a stone at the Israelis, the Israelis successfully convinced the world that the Palestinian actions amounted to terrorism and they were justified in, not only killing the stone thrower, but, following good old Nazi practice, they had a right to shoot or destroy the home of every one around that person. It appears to me that Adolf Hitler would be proud of the Israeli State but amazed that it was Jewish. He shouldn’t be too surprise because as he had the mad idea that the blond, blue eyed German was the super race, and the Jews have the same mad idea that they are the special people of god. A god that they invented and which, funnily enough, has been adopted by their Muslim opposition. Unfortunately, this god devised by the ancient Jews, is a jealous, cruel and evil god as recognised by a group of Jews some 2000 years ago.

I was around when the extent of the Germans cruelty was revealed in 1945 and I was sickened to think that, so called civilized people could sink to such depravity. I hoped that I would never see such disgusting behaviour again, so imagine my horror when I now see the Israelis doing exactly as the Germans had done to them. It would appear that,for the Jews, the only crime that the Nazis committed was to mistreat the Jews, if the Nazis had stuck with just the Gypsys, Slavs and homosexuals, then the Nazis wouldn’t have been such bad fellows

Over the years the Israelis have suffered some inconvenience from home made rockets being fired into the land they have occupied but this hardly justifies their killing 1500 Palistinians, 800 of whom were innocent children and others would have been, in a majority of cases, innocent women and men. This is a typical Gestapo reaction which the Jews have obviously learned well. What I can’t understand is how the rest of the world can stand by whilst a virtually unarmed group of people are attacked by the most sofisticated armed force in the Middle East, surely, the battle is a bit one sided?

At the end of the last war I felt sorry for the Jews and Gypsys and Slavs and other groups that had suffered at the hands of the Nazi madness, I realized that they were basically just like all other human beings but they had been brain washed into following a religion devised some 4000 years ago and which is now just a lot of rubbish, as are all the other religions. However, I now believe that the religions are actually evil and a threat to the continuation of civilization.

When one reads back through history, it becomes obvious that these acts of injustice don’t get forgotten quickly and in, maybe 400 or 500 years the Palistinians will be on top and they will then exact ” their pound of flesh” from the then citizens of Israel who will actually by that time, feel that they are being unfairly targeted, note the Northern Ireland conflict and the Serbian conflicts based on the actions of the Ottoman Empire a few hundred years back.

I would like to see the Spanish Judge investigate not only the actions of the Israelis but also the actions of the United Nations back in 1948 when it somehow came to the conclusion that it could legitimately dispossess the Palestinians of the lands that they had worked and peacefully lived on for thousands of years.

If there was a case for compensating the European Jews that had suffered so much under the Hitler regeme, then they should have been given a part of Germany, such as the Rhine Valley or Prussia. I think that they may well have considered this but they didn’t want a Jewish country in ” their own back yard”.

Unless the United Nations addresses the initial injustice done back in 1948, or at least explains how it made the decision and on what basis, then I can’t see how there can be a long term solution to the existing state of affairs. It is my opinion that the reunification of Palestine, including Israel, must form the basis for any solution to this problem and the Government of such a reconstituted State must abide by the UN charters and have a secular govermnent to reunite the nation. After all it shouldn’t be that hard, the Jews and the Palestinians are ethnically the same people!

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euthanasia

Posted on November 19, 2008 by grandad

Adele Horine, Saturday Morning Herald wrote an article on this subject which seemed to me to be more about the problems created for the relatives than the wishes of the afflicted person.

All the problems that Adele made comment about are accepted but, I am now about my 80′s, one year off infact and my wife is of similar age, and we don’t want to become a mass of heaving flesh that has no realization of any of the surrounding beauties of life.

I can’t see how they can ever effect a cure of alzheimers desease since it is a destruction of the brain cells that are ones memory. It may be possible to reverse the deterioration of the brain but it is hard to imagine a situation where you can reimplant the memories experienced in the past. Consequently, if I forgot my wife and children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, the recovery of my brain could only mean that I could again learn who these people are. However, they couldn’t reimplant the memories of the experiences that I have had with these people so, they would never regain the closeness they have at this time.

If I have made such a bad job of raising my family that they are unable to amicably sort out my estate then they deserve all the problems that they inherit. I like to consider that we have made a relatively good job of raising our off spring and that they will be more interested in continuing to live as a cohesive family rather than fighting over the pittance that we will leave.

I would like to have access to the drugs that would allow me to terminate my life with dignaty and not have my wife of some 60 years left with the responsibility of having to see me turn into a useless burden, and I certainly don’t want to see my wife submitted to the indignaty of becoming a drooling lump of flesh. What happens to the estate isn’t really relavent to this problem, it is the dignity of the persons that feel that they are turning into the living dead. Iam the total of my memories and experiences and without these I am dead!

I cannot accept that I have a right to life but I do think that I have a right to decide when I am ready to die. The course of nature will determine if I am allowed to survive and it has nothing to do with any right I may think that I have to be allowed to live, I can work hard and fail and, alternatively, I can loaf around and make no effort to get on and end up a millionaire, we have no rights only a hand to play to the best of our ability  with the luck we inherit. I have no more right to life than a child born with aids in Africa but I have had better luck so have enjoyed a far better and happier life.

I find it most annoying to have people tell me that I have to live because it will enhance their prospects of getting to heaven and inheriting eternal life, but they don’t want to pay taxes and donate their time to really helping people that should be able to live but through circumstances beyond their control have little chance of living a happy life. It would be different if I were to propose that the rules should be changed to make it mandatory that people be euthanazed when they have dementia, then they would have something to worry about and it would be me imposing my system on them instead of vice versa.

What we want is freedom of choice with controls to ensure that the idea isn’t corrupted to make it more easy for ” rotten ” families to get their filthy hands on estates sooner than would normally be the case

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Science/Religion Defined

Posted on September 17, 2008 by grandad

I recently read an article by Chris Keene regarding the actions of Prof. Michael Reiss and in most of the comments was struck by the continuous reference to religion and science. Evidently, the Prof is also a priest with a religion, I presume a Christian religion and these references and Prof’s belonging to a religion seem to have bemused the readers into thinking that science and religion are comparable in some way and both should be taught in our education facilities.

All the commentators seem to overlooked the fact that, whereas, there is only science which is an explanation of all happenings in the universe, there are many religions all of which are an effort to explain how we got here and where we are going after we die by making one or several gods responsible for our existence.

As there is only Science it is possible to prove or disprove any theories of the existance of the earth and all that is there upon it. However, since there are so many religions, it isn’t possible to prove anything before one proves which religion is right.

As all religions are based on absolute unquestioning faith, none of them will ever accept that it is wrong so it isn’t possible to prove anything one way or the other. Consequently, it is wrong to teach any religion in an educational establishment, if anything, it should be more the responsibility of education establishments to ensure that its students are taught to question all things and not rely on just an acceptance of the teachers or their parents etc.

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Greenhouse effect and transformity relationship?

Posted on July 13, 2008 by grandad

I recently came across a reference to transformity, a word that was new to me and which I couldn’t locate in the Oxford Dictionary, as is my usual wont, I referred to my Grandson for an explanation. He referred me to an article by Sean Seefried.

I have read the article by Sean and found it most interesting and easy to follow, I’m not able to comment on the actual figures used but the concept isn’t surprising. However, I did find the article a little hard to relate to the immediate problem of global warming.

If one acknowledges the transformity to obtain solar cells or wind turbines, it would indicate to me that we have to gamble that the extra dirty power must be used to produce the clean power as soon as possible no matter what.  As the article points out, solar radiation is, to all intents and purposes, an infinite constant energy input to the earth. We can’t use it up and we can’t increase its input, nor can we stop it.

The solid, dense energy sources laid down by the suns input over millions of years, has been discovered and used in a big way since the industrial revolution, and, unfortunately, use of these fossil fuels to produce power also releases the gases removed from the atmosphere when they were laid down. The release of these gases seems to be our main problem, I’m no expert but it appears to me that we are again producing the atmosphere required by the dinosaurs some millions of years ago, not too good for modern homosapians!

If we are to reverse the production of the greenhouse gases in time to save life as we know it, I would suggest that we need to modify our use of power produced using dirty fuels. This could be done by making sure that the power was used to produce the clean power generators rather that the rubbish that we present produce. I wonder how much power is presently wasted in producing weapons to further pollute the atmosphere, how much power is used to produce all the junk mail that is put into letter boxes every day, etc, etc.

I would also think that we would have to get over this mad drive to have growth. No one seems to know why we need the growth other than to make profits for some few so called entrepreneurs, as a consequence we keep on populating and needing more energy etc but for no purpose. As a result of this feverish population expansion, we like any other animal species will eventually reach pest proportions and, like for the other animals, we will die out.

It is time that we started to use our brain power to work out just what is the future aims of humanity. This could well mean controlling the population to a sustainable quantity and then also deciding on how we can make life for all the members of the population exciting, enjoyable  and satisfying. Surely it must be possible to rid ourselves of doctrines inherited from thousands of years ago and start to accept responsibility for our own future. If we don’t we are doomed, I think personally that we are too late already!

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