Testosterone Treatment Turns Democrat Voters More Conservative



The implications of this are not obvious.  There have been various claims that men are more conservative than women but the vote at election time normally splits pretty evenly between men and women. so there is not an overall political differnce between men and women.  But what was found below concerned only "weakly-affiliated Democrats" so they would appear to be a special case. It may mean that they swing easily, which would be good news

Increased testosterone levels can cause Democrats to become more conservative in their political affiliation, a recent experiment analyzing voters in U.S. elections found.

The study – Testosterone Administration Induces A Red Shift in Democrats – was published on November 14th, 2021 by Professor Paul Zak, the Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University.

“His research has made a substantial impact in explaining the variation in human social behaviors and has been cited by other scholars over 18,000 times placing in the top 0.3% of all scholars,” explains his professional biography.

Zak’s latest findings reveal a link between testosterone levels and political preference through analyzing 136 voting-age males throughout the 2012 election season.

“Our results demonstrate that testosterone induces a “red shift” among weakly-affiliated Democrats,” summarized the paper.

Researchers administered synthetic testosterone or placebo to participants who previously disclosed their political affiliations, allowing researchers to track how the hormone affected participants’ politics.

“When weakly affiliated Democrats received additional testosterone, the strength of their party fell by 12 percent and they reported 45 percent warmer feelings towards Republican candidates for president,” explained the study.

“Before the testosterone treatment, we found that weakly affiliated Democrats had 19 percent higher basal testosterone than those who identified strongly with the party,” the study continues, reiterating the correlation between individuals with lower testoreone having left-wing political beliefs.

While the effects of testosterone waned with individuals who were staunch Democrats or weak Republicans, “our findings provide evidence that neuroactive hormones affect political preferences,” posits the study.

The study comes amidst an ongoing discussion about declining testosterone levels in the U.S. and mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times attacking Fox News host Tucker Carlson for addressing the issue in a recent documentary.

The unearthed link between hormones and political ideology also follows scientists floating “morality pills” as a method to enforce COVID-19 mandate compliance.

https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/05/18/ncreased-testosterone-levels-turns-voters-more-conservative/

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My other blogs.  Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)  

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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A black trainee vicar was blocked from becoming a Church of England priest after a white bishop voiced concerns about his belief that Britain was not institutionally racist


So who are the bigots here?  The Anglican episcopate are, it seems to me.  The bishops have a bigoted view of ordinary English people.  They have a sweepingly negative view of one group based mainly on supposition.  If that is not bigotry, I would like to know what it is.  They are clearly conventional Leftists rather than Christians.  They are condemning their neighbour rather than loving him. 

In Galatians 3:28, Paul explicitly rejected such discrimination.  He said: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus"  Maybe that verse got left out of the Church of England Bible

Mind you, one just has to look at the absurd "Bishop of London" below  to know that the C of E has zero respect for Bible teachings.   She is probably a nice lady but she is nothing like an episkopos of the New Testament church


See 1 Corinthians 14:33–35; 1 Tim. 3:1-7;  1 Cor. 11:3-16; 1 Tim. 2:11-15


In the latest storm to hit the Church, Calvin Robinson, a TV presenter and political commentator, accused senior figures last night of torpedoing his planned ordination because of his conservative and anti-woke views.

Internal emails obtained by The Mail on Sunday reveal that Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby asked to be shown examples of Mr Robinson’s tweets amid mounting alarm within the Church over his criticism of ‘bleeding-heart liberal vicars’ and the Church’s race policy.

In one, The Rt Rev Rob Wickham, Bishop of Edmonton, voiced his fears to senior church leaders after Mr Robinson insisted that Britain was not riven with racism. ‘Calvin’s comments concern me about denying institutional racism in this country,’ he wrote.

Mr Robinson also claimed that the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Sarah Mullally, lectured him about racism in the church, insisting that ‘as a white woman I can tell you that the Church is institutionally racist’.

Mr Robinson, a former teacher who has trained for two years to become an ordained member of the clergy, has been told that plans for him to serve as a deacon at a parish in London have been axed.

Last night he described the decision as ‘soul-destroying’ and claimed it followed a ‘sustained campaign’ against him by the Bishop of Edmonton over his views, including on whether Britain and the Church were institutionally racist. ‘These people are claiming they are institutionally racist, yet they are disregarding the opinion of an ethnic minority because it is not fitting their narrative,’ he said.

In comments set to rock the Church’s hierarchy, he questioned whether the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has claimed the Church is ‘deeply institutionally racist’, had a part in blocking his ordination.

‘I would love to know how big a role the Archbishop had in it because he has certainly been a part of the conversation. He is the boss and the fact they have gone ahead and cancelled me suggests that he was happy with that.’

The controversy comes after the Archbishop was criticised for using his Easter Day sermon to attack Government plans to send migrants to Rwanda as ungodly.

The Church said last night there were only a few clergy positions in London and ‘no suitable option’ available in London for Mr Robinson, who became a trainee vicar – an ordinand – at St Stephen’s House, a theological college at the University of Oxford, in October 2020.

The emails reveal that even before starting his studies, Mr Robinson’s public comments were being scrutinised by church leaders. He claimed on ITV’s Good Morning Britain in September 2020 that the Black Lives Matter movement was stoking racial tensions, adding: ‘There are elements of racism in this country we need to stamp out, but while we are seeing everything as racist we are kind of undermining those racial issues we need to address.’

That day the Bishop of Edmonton emailed the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Sarah Mullally, and a PR adviser to the Diocese of London to register ‘concern’ about Mr Robinson’s denial of institutional racism in Britain. ‘Calvin Robinson is not only a political commentator, but he’s an ordinand and former teacher in this area,’ he added. Despite the Church’s view on racism, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities concluded in March 2021 that Britain did not have a systemic racism problem. In November 2021 senior Church leaders received a complaint after Mr Robinson shared on social media a Daily Mail investigation that exposed how the Church gave official advice that being baptised could help failed asylum seekers stay in Britain.

It followed news that suicide bomber Enzo Almeni, who detonated a device at a hospital in Liverpool last year, was baptised there as a Christian in 2015. Mr Robinson, by then a GB News commentator, tweeted that ‘misguided bleeding-heart liberal vicars could be complicit in recent terror attack’, adding: ‘Not to mention abuse of the Holy Sacrament of Baptism.’

Bishop Wickham criticised the ‘highly irresponsible’ comments in an email to Emma Ineson, assistant bishop to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and said they remained online after 27 migrants died in the English Channel. ‘These are clear examples as to why, in my opinion, his ordination should be looked at very closely indeed,’ he wrote. ‘Calvin’s Twitter feed is here. It is worth scrolling down.’ He revealed the Archbishop of Canterbury had ‘asked for examples of Calvin Robinson’s tweets’ and highlighted that Mr Robinson had also criticised the findings of the Church’s anti-racism taskforce, which recommended quotas to boost the number of black and ethnic-minority senior clergy. Bishop Ineson said she would show the information to Archbishop Welby.

Mr Robinson was to be ordained as a deacon with a part-time role as assistant curate at St Alban’s Church in Holborn, central London. But in February the Bishop of Fulham, the Rt Rev Jonathan Baker, told him the role was ‘likely to prove problematic, and would not lead to a fruitful or happy formation for you in your early years in ordained ministry’. Mr Robinson offered to reduce his media work but was told he would still not be able to take up the proposed role because ‘that moment had passed’.

At a meeting with Mr Robinson this month, Bishop Mullally insisted the decision was not about his politics, but because his ‘presence’ on social media and TV ‘is often divisive and brings disunity’.

Tory MP Tom Hunt backed Mr Robinson last night, saying: ‘The message the Church seems comfortable to send out is that it’s OK to propagate some political views but not others. Sadly, Church of England congregations will continue to decline as millions of Christians are alienated by its behaviour.’

Mr Robinson announced last night he was leaving the Church of England and joining the breakaway conservative Global Anglican Future Conference.

The Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishops of Edmonton and London declined to comment. The Diocese of London said: ‘We have a limited number of curacies available. In this instance, it is felt that there is no suitable option available that London can offer. We continue to be in conversation with Calvin, are willing to work with him to discern the right way forward, and we keep him in our prayers.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10840691/Black-priest-Calvin-Robertson-said-Britain-NOT-racist-country-BLOCKED-priest.html

The plight of black women


I have been reading stories recently that were put up on medium.com.  Medium is basically a place where people can put up thoughts and experiences that might not find a home elsewhere.  It is primarily a place for opinions about the world or some part of it.

And there are quite a few stories put up by black American women in which they recount their experiences with relationships.  And the stories are basically a tale of woe.  Like many others, they use internet dating to meet potential partners and they do find that hard going.

Meeting a compatible partner is tricky at any age and always has been. And the big issue is what one finds attractive or acceptible in another person.  And you will never get perfection in another person.  The other person may lack attraction in most ways but there have to be a few things there that are positive.  And what black women look for is not mysterious or unusual.

But they often find NOTHING attractive in black men.  They find black men to be inconsiderate, violent, useless and parasitical.  And the women say that loud and clear.  Some of the entries on medium.com amount to a long hate session about black men

And there is no easy solution to that.  The obvious solution is to find a white man in the hope that he will be more civilized.  And black women do look in that direction.  But white men who date black women are few and they are pretty fussy.  They want a black woman with lots of desirable qualities.  So at most a black woman has on average only a 5% chance of teaming up with a white man.

So almost all black women are stuck with black men if they are to have any kind of partner.  So they are in an unusually unfortunate position.  Because they live in a predominantly white society, they tend to acquire the attitudes, expectations and values of whites.  What they want is black man who behaves accordingto white standards.  And they will very rarely get that

I am not of course saying that white men are always good partner material.  With my record of four marriages and many relationships, I would have to be one of the problem people.  In the circumstances, I am very glad that at age 78 I do nonetheless have a loving lady in my life.  And I met her through the internet! -- JR.

Oceans are hotter, higher and more acidic, climate report warns


A great array of events are described below but attributing them to global warming is just an assertion.  But there is one aggregate which could support a generalization about climate -- and that is the degree of warming over the last 150 years.  And that figure  is given below.  It was 1.11 degrees, which is very slow and trivial warming indeed.  If such  warming repeats itself there would be NO cause for alarm.  Such a slow and slight warming would be easily adapted to


The world's oceans grew to their warmest and most acidic levels on record last year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday, as United Nations officials warned that war in Ukraine threatened global climate commitments.

Oceans saw the most striking extremes as the WMO detailed a range of turmoil wrought by climate change in its annual "State of the Global Climate" report. It said melting ice sheets had helped push sea levels to new heights in 2021.

"Our climate is changing before our eyes. The heat trapped by human-induced greenhouse gases will warm the planet for many generations to come," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas in a statement.

The report follows the latest U.N. climate assessment, which warned that humanity must drastically cut its greenhouse gas emissions or face increasingly catastrophic changes to the world's climate.

Taalas told reporters there was scant airtime for climate challenges as other crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine, grabbed headlines.

Selwin Hart, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's special adviser on climate action, criticised countries reneging on climate commitments due to the conflict, which has pushed up energy prices and prompted European nations to seek to replace Russia as an energy supplier.

DANGEROUS INCREASE

"We are ... seeing many choices being made by many major economies which, quite frankly, have the potential to lock in a high-carbon, high-polluting future and will place our climate goals at risk," Hart told reporters.

On Tuesday, global equity index giant MSCI warned that the world faces a dangerous increase in greenhouse gases if Russian gas is replaced with coal.

The WMO report said levels of climate-warming carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere in 2021 surpassed previous records.

Globally, the average temperature last year was 1.11 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average - as the world edges closer to the 1.5C threshold beyond which the effects of warming are expected to become drastic.

"It is just a matter of time before we see another warmest year on record," Taalas said.

Oceans bear much of the brunt of the warming and emissions. The bodies of water absorb around 90% of the Earth's accumulated heat and 23% of the carbon dioxide emissions from human activity.

The ocean has warmed markedly faster in the last 20 years, hitting a new high in 2021, and is expected to become even warmer, the report said. That change would likely take centuries or millennia to reverse, it noted.

The ocean is also now its most acidic in at least 26,000 years as it absorbs and reacts with more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Sea level has risen 4.5 cm (1.8 inches) in the last decade, with the annual increase from 2013 to 2021 more than double what it was from 1993 to 2002.

The WMO also listed individual extreme heatwaves, wildfires, floods and other climate-linked disasters around the world, noting reports of more than $100 billion in damages.

https://www.aol.com/news/oceans-hotter-higher-more-acidic-082151449-141306618.html?guccounter=2


Massive changes to plastic shopping bags in Australia with NSW set to BAN lightweight bags in days, while Woolworths has stopped selling its 15c reusable bags


And what good will this do? The claim is that it will keep plastic out of the oceans.  It won't -- for the excellent reason that  plastic bags used in Australia don't go there anyway.  Most plastic in the oceans comes from Asia.  Such waste in Australia is normally disposed of properly.  All those garbage trucks running around our suburbs are actually doing something

If you really wanted to stop plastic going into the oceans, you would put a barrage across the mouth of the Yangtse.  That would stop about a third of the plastic that presently goes into the Pacific


Australian consumers face a plastic bag revolution in just days with major changes coming into effect in NSW and Western Australia in the coming weeks. 

NSW will ban lightweight plastic bags from June 1, while Woolworths supermarket will stop selling its 15c reusable plastic bags across all stores in WA from July. 

The supermarket giant will only be offering its paper, green fabric and Bag for Good alternatives when a statewide ban on plastic bags comes into effect from July. 

'Over the next month, we'll be gradually phasing out plastic shopping bags from our stores and online orders across WA, as we move to support the WA Government's upcoming plastic bag ban,' Woolworths state general manager Karl Weber said.

'This change will see more than 30 million plastic bags removed from circulation in WA every year — which is a big win for the health of our oceans and waterways.

'While our paper bags will continue to be available, the most sustainable bag you can use is the reusable one you bring from home.' 

More than 80 per cent of shoppers are bringing their own bags into the supermarkets - meaning the latest change will have an impact on a small number of customers. 

'The vast majority of our customers already bring their own reusable bags to shop, which is the very best outcome for the environment, and we encourage customers to keep up the great work,' Mr Weber said.

'We know the change brought about by this new WA legislation may be an adjustment for some customers and we thank them in advance for their support as we all work together to grow greener.' 

Customers will be reminded of the looming change by in-store advertisements.

Environment minister Reece Whitby said the state was leading the way on banning single-use plastics across Australia.

'Western Australia has a strong track record on reducing single-use plastics in the environment, and was named the top jurisdiction in the country two years in a row by WWF Australia, for the work that is being done,' he said.

'The WA community has shown overwhelming support for this — and I would like to thank everyone, including Woolworths, who have embraced these important changes.' 

The paper bag will cost 20c and will be able to carry up to 6kgs of groceries. 

Woolworths was the first supermarket to ditch single-use plastic bags in 2018. The reusable plastic bag was introduced for 15 cents and was sold as a cheaper alternative to its 99c fabric bags.  

Plastic items will be banned in two stages across Western Australia.

The first stage includes banning thick plastic bags, plates, bowls, cups, cutlery, stirrers, straws, takeaway polystyrene food containers and helium balloon releases.

The second stage will ban thin plastic produce bags, cotton buds with plastic shafts, polystyrene packaging, microbeads, oxo‑degradable plastics, takeaway coffee cups and lids, and polystyrene cups.

This change will come into effect by the end of 2022.

Businesses disregarding the ban risk heavy fines of up to $5,000. 

Meanwhile, the NSW Environment Protection Authority outlined more detail on other products facing the state's upcoming ban. 

Items in the firing line include single-use plastic cutlery, straws, stirrers, plates, bowls, chopsticks and sporks.

Other products being phased out are cotton buds and expanded polystyrene (EPS) food service items.

Plastic microbeads found in rinse-off personal care products - used for exfoliating and scrubbing - will also face a ban. 

The supply of all these materials will be phased out by November 1 2022.

The NSW parliament passed the 'ground-breaking' legislation in November last year which will gradually halt the supply of problematic single-use plastic items.  

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10823817/Woolworths-stop-selling-15cent-reusable-bags-month.html

12 Things Women Only Do With The Men They Love


I am very lucky to have a loving lady very much in my life so I thought I would use our relationship as a yardstick to validate the claims below.  And I am pleased to say that the list below is pretty right.  Only one out of the 12 behaviours is a clear miss for us. 

The item that we miss out on is no. 6.  My lover  definitely tries to change one thing about me:  my diet.   And it is quite a big change she seeks.  Because of my appreciation of her I have in fact partly modified my diet towards what she wants

I don't think my experience with issues about diet invalidates the generalization concerned, however. I suspect that many women make efforts to move their man towards a healthier diet. They would say that they are thereby being kind to their man. My lover certainly thinks that way. She says her diet recommendations are designed to help me to live longer.

The research studies show that lifestyle changes (diet and exercise) usually do not prolong lifespan but it is conventional wisdom to claim otherwise



A lot of people say that women fall in love faster than men do. But that’s not necessarily true, men and women just fall in love differently and experience and show it in different ways.

So how can you know whether or not her feelings for you are genuine? There are some subtle giveaways to pay attention to and here are a few signs that she truly does love.

1. She Wants To Know Everything About You
A woman who loves you will want to know everything about you. Even the smallest details that might not seem important to you, she’ll want to know.

After a while, this may get annoying since men, in general, aren’t too keen on sharing their feelings. But women often see sharing your hopes dreams fears details about your life as an indication that you care. She wants to know about your world because she wants to be a part of it. She wants to know even the little details to make you feel like she knows you and that she’ll stand by you.

2. Her Maternal Instincts Kick In
This is simply human nature at work.

Men are naturally protective of people they care about while women are naturally nurturing. It’s instinctual for both.

These instincts can be controlled and toned down. But all it means when she starts acting motherly toward you and genuinely making sure you’re well is that she loves you.

3. Encourages and Supports You in Reaching Your Dreams
When you love someone, you want them to be as happy and successful as they can be. So when your woman loves you, she’ll push you to reach your dreams and achieve your goals.

She wants you to be truly happy, and she will encourage you even when you’re unsure of yourself. She will always do her best to help and support you in your endeavors.

4. Stays With You in Your Darkest Times
During hard times, she works even harder to help you keep up your self-esteem. Loving you means knowing you and when she knows you she believes you’re a good person and believes in you and won’t abandon you at your worst.

Instead, she’ll help you get back on your feet and rediscover your worth. True love sticks through thick and thin.

5. Goes Out of Her Way to Make You Smile
She puts in that little bit of extra effort to let you know that she cares whether it’s showing up to the office for a surprise visit or texting you to see how you’re doing. She may even try to dazzle you with tickets to see your favorite band or prepare a meal for you after a long day.

Just a bunch of things to make you smile and show that she loves you.

6. Accepts You as You Are
A strong indicator that a woman truly loves you is if she accepts you the way you are both your strengths and weaknesses. She knows that you’re not perfect. No one is and she understands that you make mistakes.

Loving you means she can try and help you grow as a person while forgiving your imperfections.

7. Tries to Get Closer to Your Loved Ones
She always shows respect for the people you care about because she knows they’re important to you.

Being accepted by your loved ones is something she strives for. She’ll do her best to act accordingly around them and treasure their happiness as you do.

They mean a lot to you. So she’ll make sure they mean a lot to her as well.

8. She’s Vulnerable With You
Spending time together, and having conversations about things that make you vulnerable helps create a strong bond and vulnerability to feel different for everyone. Some topics that make her feel vulnerable differ from yours, whether it’s about work friends, or family.

Sharing parts of yourself that are usually kept hidden takes a lot of energy and strength. She wouldn’t do so unless she trusted you and had real feelings for you.

9. Trusts You with the Deepest, Darkest Parts of Her Past
If she’s willing to talk about darker parts of her past, chances are she wants a future. Everyone has some sort of baggage but someone telling you about it is different than you just knowing it’s there sharing the dark parts of yourself as someone adds to your bond.

So if she talks to you about them, she trusts you and has a special place for you in her heart.

10. She Does Not Take You for Granted
Another way your girl shows her love for you is by appreciating everything you do for her.

She never forgets to tell you she’s thankful. No matter how small the gesture. She knows you have needs and feelings and doesn’t waste your efforts. Also, she wouldn’t try to embarrass you in front of others either. No matter the mistake.

11. She Is Your Best Friend Advisor
She’ll try and give you the best advice she can when you have a problem. She’s someone you can count on to be there, stand by your side, and fight for you. In return, she’ll rely on you for the same thing. Listening to the opinions and advice you give her.

12. She Shows You Her Priority
While you are a priority to her, this doesn’t mean she’ll put you above all of her friends and family right away. But she will make sure to take into account the relationship you have and your feelings.

She will invite you along for a family dinner, or make sure to let you know when she goes out with friends.

It isn’t asking your permission, and that shouldn’t be something you expect. But if you need her, you can trust that she’ll be there for you.

https://medium.com/hello-love/12-things-women-only-do-with-the-men-they-love-31d75397c124

Jesus of Nazareth and White Evangelical Fragility



There is an article below by an atheist who is very hostile to evangelical Christianity. The points he makes are actually a fairly common critique of such faith. In essence, he is noting that Christians often don't act in a Christian way. They do not actually follow the teachings of Christ. They are too stern, too strict, too intolerant.

And there is no doubt some truth in that. Committed Christianity can be very demanding. And those demands upset our author. But I too am an atheist and I am not nearly as judgmental about evangelical Christianity as he is. Why?

I think there are two things missing in his story. He has no religious feelings and he is intolerant of human frailty.

He also does not understand the origin of Western Christianity as we have it today. Protestant Christianity arose in Germany through the efforts of Martin Luther and his King, Frederick the Wise of Saxony. There had been many other uprisings against Roman Catholicism in Europe before that, and from Giordano Bruno to John Hus to Savonarola, those rebellions resulted in the death of the rebels and no change to the dominance of the church.

So why did the rebellion of the Saxons led by Martin Luther succeed where others had not? It was because it took place in Germany. Germans were different. They were a warrior race and were, as such, fiercely self-confident and independent. Bowing down to priests was not congenial to them. So when the oppportunity arose, they eventually rejected Catholicism in favour of attitudes which were more congenial to them.

They embraced beliefs that centred around the sort of independent individuals that they personally were. The Germanic spirit of independence emerged in a form of Christianity that suited Northern Germans, a form that put power and responsibility for salvation right back on to the individual, with no intervening priest needed.

Luther was a learned Augustinian priest so he was able to find ample scriptural justification for the new faith. Ultimately, however, Protestantism was as much German as Biblical. Protestantism is a German faith


The Saxons in Germany today. For some history of the Saxons see here

And one might note that the other great Germanic country -- aside from Germany itself -- England -- was not so different. In England, Wycliffe was saying the same sort of things that Luther was saying long before Luther said them. And Wycliffe too had the protective support of the King and his court. Wycliffe was over a century before Luther in fact. Luther wrote his "Ninety-five Theses" in 1517 whereas Wycliffe was officially condemned in 1377 by Pope Gregory XI.

The difference with Wycliffe was that he tried to reform the church rather than replace it. He actually died while saying a mass. So Wycliffe might at first glance be seen as another failed rebel. He was not. What he did was set alight a fire in the minds of Englishmen that eventually consumed the church even more comprehensively than Lutheranism did.

He had awakened the old rebellious spirit of the Saxons and that spirit was the principal support for the actions of King Henry VIII. When Henry dispossessed the priests and rejected the Papacy, the people loved him for it. They supported their King, not their priests. Wycliffe had lit a slow-burning fuse that eventually gave rise to an explosion. And that fuse kept burning for so long because it was founded on a Saxon independence of mind among the people. Wycliffe died in 1384, Henry became king in 1509.

I have in a much abbreviated way raised above a large number of issues about Germans and the Germanic people, and I understand that some of my readers may have energetic criticisms of what I have said. So it may be of interest that I cover those issues elsewhere at much greater length.

So my point in all this so far is that looking to the Bible to understand Protestant Christianity is to miss half the story. To an extent what people of German and English ancestry do today reflects German values, not the attitudes of Jesus of Nazareth. If Protestants are demanding and unforgiving of others, they are so because of the Germanic faith that their ancestors devised and which still sounds right to them, the descendants. Their ancestry lives on in them.

And at that point I think I might add a personal note. In my mid-teens, I was an active member of probably the most evangelical Protestant faith in the Western world today -- _ Jehovah's witnesses. And they are very strict and Puritanical Christians indeed. So was I oppressed by them? Maybe but, if so, I loved it. My time as an extreme evangelical is still a warm and pleasant memory to me. The religion suited me. It was in my ancestry. I was true to my Germanic ancestors. And the large number of people with similar ancestry in America today is a major explanation for the prominence of evangelical Christianity there.

It is obvious that there is no one-to-one correspondence between Germanic ancestry and evangelical Protestantism. After all, Germany is still half Catholic to this day. But, as any German will tell you, Germany is not monolithic. As a very rough generalization,the South is Catholic and the North is Protestant. Be that as it may, however, there are many influences bearing on faith or the lack of it but my submission is that ancestry is one of the more powerful influences on it

So our author below is in my submission unsympathetic to evangelical Protestantism because he does not have the requisite religious feelings for it. He does not have the old tough and fierce Germanic attitude of mind that would give him an instinctive understanding of it. And for all his praise of tolerance and kindness he is intolerant of the failings of ordinary Christians. As Christians sometimes say, "We are saved, not perfect"




If Jesus of Nazareth was an actual human who actually existed, this is, apparently, what that man looked like, according to an artist and an algorithm and actual, historical, data (as opposed to a story that white people tell each other).

I am an atheist. I do not believe in god, or the devil, or heaven, or hell. But I like and respect this guy. He was a rebel, he was an antiauthoritarian, he dedicated his life to helping the poor, the sick, the indigent, the people who were discarded and rejected by society. He hung out with sex workers and lepers, and gave comfort to the sick and suffering, and he loudly and relentlessly called out the hypocrisy of the church and its leaders. As I understand it, he was like, “Hey, you’re a sinner. That’s a bummer. Let me help you be a better person. No, I don’t expect anything from you for that. I just want to be as loving as I can be.” He was a really cool guy. He was also a revolutionary, a rebel, a profound threat to the people who were in power at the time.

This guy, in this picture, is not the Jesus I was introduced to in parochial school. The Jesus I was introduced to was soooooo white, like super super super white, and he was keeping an eye on you so he could snitch on you to his dad, who was SUPER PISSED AT EVERYTHING YOU DID all the time for some reason. The Jesus I knew was, like, maybe going to be okay with you, as long as you knew what a giant fuck up you were. And he was absolutely not accepting of anyone who didn’t do exactly what the authority figures at school told us we had to do. And Reagan was essentially his avatar sent to Earth. If we didn’t worship Reagan the same way we were supposed to worship white Jesus, we were going to have a REALLY bad time. Did I mention that I was, like, 8 when all of this was drilled into me?

I deeply resent American Christianity. It has brought nothing but pain into my life. I deeply resent and despise evangelical Christians who turned this guy in this picture, who was reportedly a cool, loving, gentle, dude, who was a legit rebel, into someone who hates all the same things they hate, and who LOVES authoritarians the same way they do. I despise the people who do all sorts of cruel, hurtful, hateful things in this guy’s name. And they are EVERYWHERE in America.

I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the world. What I do know is that, in America, this person has been perverted into a weapon, a cudgel, to be used against the same people the actual Jesus loved and stood up for. It’s disgusting.

And, look, if someone professes to follow the teachings of this dude, whose WHOLE FUCKING THING was “love everyone. Period. No exceptions”, and they don’t, like, do that? They are as bad as the money changers in the temple. I know that this dude loves them, because that’s his whole thing, but I suspect that, if this dude exists, he is disappointed and maybe a little embarrassed by them.

As an afterthought: I can’t stop thinking about how this dude was an immigrant, and poor. I keep thinking that, if he showed up in … let’s say Texas, today, how badly he would be treated by the very same people who use his name and pervert his teachings to exert control over the very same people Jesus spent his entire life looking after.

And, honestly, none of this would even matter if the American Christian extremists would keep their white Jesus out of our laws and government.

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Homosexual marriage issue divides Anglican Church in Australia


The people of the church were clear on what their faith demands. They understood the Bible command in 1 Corinthians 7:2: "Let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband".

Or as Jesus himself taught: “And He answered and said, ‘Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? (Matthew 19:4-6)

But it was the bishops who let the Anglican laity and clergy down.

I have long been supicious of the Anglican episcopate. I think a lot of them are just dressup queens, more in love with their vestments and displays than with the Bible.

I doubt that most of the recent archbishops of Canterbury even believed in God. Runcie clearly did not At least the present Cantuar seems to believe in something


The Anglican Church is teetering on the brink of a conservative walkout after church leaders narrowly voted down a bid to define marriage as being exclusively ­between a man and woman.

In a boilover at the first Anglian General Synod to convene since gay marriage became law in 2017, a 24-strong panel of metropolitan archbishops and senior diocesan bishops held out against the majority of clerical and lay delegates to sink the controversial motion. Even then, the two members of the so-called House of Bishops who abstained could have turned the vote that went down to the wire there, failing 12-10, after it sailed through the houses of clergy and laity on Wednesday.

In aggregate, the statement sponsored by the conservative Archbishop of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, affirming orthodox church doctrine that marriage was of a man and woman and condemning ceremonies to bless gay nuptials, passed 133-86 before the bishops exercised their casting vote.

A bitterly disappointed Archbishop Raffel warned the church in Australia was at the “tipping point” that caused its counterparts in the US, Britain, Canada, Brazil and New Zealand to splinter over same-sex marriage.

Describing the situation as “perilous” for the church, he told The Australian: “What we have seen over the last 20 years or so in mostly Western churches is where people have lost confidence in the goodness and trustworthiness of God’s word as it has been expressed in Anglican liturgy and practice for 500 years … those churches have fractured. We don’t want that. But we know what has happened in many countries and I guess it is perilous in that sense.”

The chair of the Australian arm of the Global Anglican Future Conference, Bishop of Tasmania Richard Condie, said a shadow church had been set up as a “lifeboat” for those who left. Entire congregations and their priests could shift across to Gafcon’s nascent Diocese of the Southern Cross.

“I am not a prophet to say what I think will happen next, except to say what has happened everywhere else this bridge has been crossed,” Bishop Condie said. “People who hold a deep conviction about this matter have left their Anglican Church … because it is of such seriousness.

“I expect there will be people in the Anglican Church of Australia today who will feel that pressure.”

The Anglicans’ day of reckoning on same-sex marriage has been coming since Australians voted for it in a national plebiscite nearly five years ago and was put off twice when the usually triennial General Synod had to be cancelled in 2020 and last year because of Covid-19. Church conservatives backed by the wealth and numbers of the powerful Sydney Diocese fought tooth and nail to have the parliament-like assembly reinforce the orthodox position that only heterosexual couples could be wed by a priest.

But progressives argued that denying a blessing to gay couples who wanted their civil vows recognised was cruel and un-Christian and would leave the church out of step with mainstream culture and inclusive social values.

The infighting is set to continue, as conservatives reacted with anger and shock to the defeat. Some predicted the dioceses of the 12 archbishops and ranking bishops who voted against the same-sex statement would be the first to be hit by defections.

In a personal statement to the General Synod, Archbishop Raffel said the national church’s federated structure and processes were at risk. “We may very well become a church where every clergyman relates to his bishop in the 23 dioceses,” he told delegates.

“And in that case we ought to stop wasting each other’s time by gathering in this way.”

Speaking against the statement ahead of Wednesday’s vote, vicar Shane Hubner of St Peters Anglican Church, Box Hill, in Melbourne’s east, said the notion that marriage was the union of a man and woman was “deeply painful” for him to accept when he had two gay siblings.

He could not reconcile his experience with them and a statement seeking to deny God’s blessing. “It is deeply painful … to have discussions where I have to state that the church I serve does not recognise the blessing of God in their relationships,” he said.

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In Good Leftist style Albo starts with a promise he cannot deliver



He promises contitutional change in favour of Aborigines but constitutional change can only be delivered by way of a referendum. And Australia has a long history of referenda. And what has emerged is that referenda only get up if there is no significant opposition to them. And both the the National Party and the One Nation party are highly likely to oppose this one. I think I can already hear the articulate David Flint on the matter.

And referenda have to deliver in the States as well as nationally. And there are known high levels of anti-Aborigine sentiment in both Queensland and Western Australia.


Australia's next Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised to serve Australia after Labor won the election and Scott Morrison stood down as the Liberal leader after conceding defeat.

It follows huge surges to the teal independents and Greens that claimed the scalp of Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

But Labor's result was far from a landslide with star candidate - former NSW Premier Kristina Keneally - somehow losing the safe seat of Fowler.

Addressing an excitable crowd, Mr Albanese promised to establish a First Nations voice to Parliament, enshrined in the constitution.

After walking onto the stage with his partner Jodie Haydon at the Hurlstone Park RSL to the Australian classic GANGgajang's Sounds Of Then, the Labor leader was greeted by cheers of "Albo, Albo, Albo".

"On behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I commit to the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full," Mr Albanese told the crowd.

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A sad lady. She's never had a boyfriend



Melissa Alvarez, writing below,  is a 29 year old Film Industry professional living in Los Angeles.  That's a very critical environment where everyone is aiming for the sky so unless you have a "gimmick", you will not be noticed

And I am fairly sure what her problem is: She is not pretty -- not by the Nordic standards that prevail in Hollywood, anyway. That makes you invisible in Hollywood. But for her never to have had any sort of real relationship is sad. She might be better to move to Texas. Her dark Hispanic looks would be more normal there

Looks do matter and it is rare for a relationship to begin without the pair liking one-another's looks.  At my age (78) I would have to have very unattractive looks.  And so I have found it.  When I became single again a couple of years ago, I spent a lot of time approaching women online and got a heap of rapid  knockbacks.  But eventually along came a lady of around my age who DID like my looks, much to my surprise.  We now have a very warm relationship. I like her looks too. We do of course have other things in common but looks were the starting point

So that's how it is with Ms Alvarez.  Without good looks you have to wait a long time.  I only hope she gets as  lucky as I did.  The only thing that would probably help her would be to get a boob job.  Sorry to be so crass but in the world she lives in that is probably orthodox advice


So, I’m 29 years old. I’ve never had someone ask me to be their girlfriend. I’ve never called someone my boyfriend. I’ve dated a lot of people who wanted a casual relationship. Men I met off of apps who said they were looking for a relationship, but in the same breath said they were just having fun. I’ve been involved with a lot of men who didn’t see me worthy of commitment. I’ve also dated a lot of men who were in transition in their life.

Men who voiced that I was intimidating. Men who wanted to get their life together before they ventured into a committed relationship. I found this odd because they had relationships before. They might have been talking to someone else. I didn’t pick up on the fact that they weren’t actually interested in me seriously or romantically. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realized they were feeding me fboy jargon.

I only realized after their IG engagement announcement.

This is not something I’m super stoked on sharing. I’ve gone through a lot of trial and error. I’ve accepted the bare minimum a lot, in hopes that the person I was dating would change their tune about commitment once they saw how great a relationship would be. Or once we were in a relationship for all intents and purposes.

I was willing to accept scraps. I didn’t fully understand how people romantically behaved.

I was always looking for a relationship, but would settle. It felt like everyone was just looking for casual. Now, I don’t believe that. I believe the types of men I was going after were looking for casual. I tend to go after men who possess the same characteristics my mother does. That’s a whole nother article in itself — that relationship is complex.

I feel like I wasted a lot of time being involved with casual dudes. I wasted a lot of time where I could have been happy single.

I feel too old to have a relationship, just to have a relationship.

At my age, the question of marriage comes up a lot. My girlfriends who are in long term relationships are anticipating that they will marry their boyfriends. The marriage question is coming up in their lives. There are a lot of men who are secretly looking for who they’ll settle down with, even though they say they’re not. They’re just not looking to settle down with, you. They keep the casual girl around until their match comes along. So, now I’m worried. I don’t want my first boyfriend to be the man I marry.

If I’m not looking to get married, I don’t want that to make me a target for getting used for sex.

I didn’t get to have a lot of relationships. I didn’t get to have healthy ones, or ones where I was secure in where I stood. I want that, but I’m not looking to get married in a certain time frame. I’m not looking to get married in a few years. I want to date someone for real, I don’t want to be casual, but I’m not ready to settle down either. I fear that that sounds like a catch22.

Nonetheless, that is simply how I feel.

I think a lot of us are in a tough spot. We’ve been on the shifty dating scene too long. We didn’t come out on the other side of apps with multiple ex- boyfriends.

We emerged with lessons.

https://medium.com/heres-the-thing/i-dont-want-my-first-boyfriend-to-be-my-last-f3766b955600

Are we destined for multiple loves? Millennials think we are



As a person who has been married four times, it is possible that I might have something useful to say about this. The crazy thing is that I actually have some talent for monogamy. In all four of my marriages I did not stray. But before and in between marriages I had a lot of significant, enjoyable but uncommitted relationships. After 40, however I became more interested in committment and subsequently had a long term marriage and a long term relationship

So a possible lesson from that is that monogamy is for later life. And that may be because we don't know what we want until we have sampled a variety of possibilities. That is bad advice for people in early life, however, as it is not conducive to marriage and children

But there is no doubt that a variety of experiences is desirable. I would not for all the world have missed the many wonderful ladies I have been involved with. They were all different and all good women.

Something that I am grateful for, however, is that none of my partings have been acrimonious. I still in fact have two "exes" very much in my life as friends -- rather to the disgruntlement of my present girlfriend.

And thereby lies what I think is the second lesson that I think I have to offer: I never lie to women. The most upsetting thing in breakups is not usually the breakup itself but rather the feeling of betrayal that comes from a trusted partner having a secret affair. Being lied to by a trusted partner is about as upsetting as it gets. I have passed up possible affairs rather than do that. It is amazing what a woman will put up with from her man but being lied to is the big exception

So I do regard having many partners over a lifetime as greatly desirable but how you go about arranging that has to be an individual matter. Fortunately, anything goes these days



“Is it possible we could develop an alternative model of loving each other?” This is the question posed by the character Bobbi in Sally Rooney’s debut novel Conversations with Friends, and is a core tenet of the story. Spoken by a 21-year-old, are these words merely youthful idealism?

Conversations with Friends follows university students Bobbi and Frances, whose lives become entangled with those of a wealthy couple in their 30s, Melissa and Nick. Similar to Rooney’s Normal People, it’s set in Dublin but rather than an intense love story, Conversations with Friends depicts monogamy (and the prospect of marriage) as rather bleak. Melissa and Nick sleep in separate beds and have both had affairs. The affair Nick has with Frances, the core plot line, seems to reinvigorate their marriage and they return to monogamous life. The farce is that the success of their “monogamous” relationship hinges precisely on the relationships that exist outside of it.

Now, the novel has been adapted for television as a limited series on Amazon Prime, starring Alison Oliver, Sasha Lane, Jemima Kirke, and Joe Alwyn.

In an interview with The Telegraph London, Kirke spoke of the cognitive shift the role required her to make. “It’s remarkable that someone of that age [Rooney] has so much discipline and focus, but as I was finally reading the book, I was thinking, ‘This is marriage written from the perspective of a 22-year-old.’ I don’t think that’s good or bad. Her writing is beautiful but there were moments when I struggled to make something work.”

Kirke, 38, is no stranger to married life and its potential to fail after splitting with her husband of eight years in 2017. And while she’s not opposed to marriage, she does take a more carefree approach to it. “The perspective of marriage as something super-permanent and spiritual is really antiquated.”

Jennifer Pinkerton spoke to more than 100 Australians aged under 40 for her book Heartland: What is the future of modern love? She says that the decline in people getting married is not a phenomenon that’s just relegated to Millennials and Gen Z. “Globally, marriage has been a downward travelling trend for 50 years now. When we speak about fewer people getting married, it’s not just the younger generations.” (The only exception to this, she notes, is gay marriage).

Certainly, however, this downward trend has accelerated in the past decade. In 2020, 78,989 marriages were registered in Australia, a 30.6 per cent decrease from 2019, and the largest annual drop ever reported by the ABS since 1961. Obviously COVID-19 has played a role but there are other key trends too. Pinkerton suggests that a high divorce rate means young people, seeing their parents getting divorced, have grown disillusioned with marriage. Global instability is another big one. “Climate change and war mean that the future is less certain,” says Georgia Grace, a Sydney-based sex and relationship therapist. She adds that the sex positive movement means that acceptance for different relationship models is changing.

Nina Lee, 32, is part of this declining group. A Sydney-based hairdresser and owner of Extra Silky, she married her long-term partner Aedan Lee during lockdown last year. While the couple isn’t religious and didn’t face familial pressure, marrying was just something they both knew would happen. “It felt like a natural progression”, she says, adding that it was about “solidifying our love.”

Alice, 22 (who is using a pseudonym for privacy reasons) lives in Sydney, and has been in a monogamous relationship for three-and-a-half years. Both are bisexual, and her partner identifies as non-binary. “Love is a choice to be together”, she says. “I can’t imagine anything less romantic than having a legal document officiate my relationship.”

For Millennials, there can be certain dealbreakers in finding love. Harriet, 34 (Sydney), has never wanted children. “Even when I was a little girl, I never played house with dolls – if anything I would play ‘dog mummy and daddy’.” Harriet’s last serious relationship ended after seven years. In her early 20s, the question of kids wasn’t such a concern. Now, it can make dating a little more complicated. “I make sure to talk kids and politics on the first or second date.”

Are rigid constraints of marriage a thing of the past? “Younger generations are now more likely to crave fulfillment, connection and flexibility rather than permanence in relationships,” says Pinkerton.

Polyamory, then, is a natural result of this shift in values. Georgia Grace says that she is increasingly working with people interested in exploring this. While popular perception of polyamory is that it’s just about promiscuity, there’s no singular model for what it can look like. “I work with couples to create a relationship structure that works for them,” she says. “Non-violent communication, consent and having a network of supportive, sex positive friends and family are at its core.”

In Melbourne, Emil, 29, is a counsellor for people with HIV and a sex worker. They document encounters with clients and lovers on Instagram, posting polaroids of men alongside captions about the intimacy of the meeting.

The overwhelming majority of clients are straight men. Their reasons for visiting are myriad – for many, it’s a means to be a version of themselves outside of monogamous, heterosexual love, for others it’s a way of indulging a fetish or sheer curiosity. One quote accompanies an Instagram story picturing a man’s chest: “I hope you understand how hard this is for me. I always have my religion at the back of my head.”

Emil wants to change the way society views hook-up culture. “Most people see such encounters as disposable or transactional, but they can be deeply intimate and emotional too,” they say. “We have these very crystallised ideas of polyamory but really it just means you can love more than one person.”

It now takes more than a decade to save a home deposit


This is fairly theoretical. Most families are small these  days -- with one or two children -- so young people looking to buy should mostly have parents able to assist with the purchase in various ways. 

But in cases where parental help is not available for various reasons, one certainly has to feel sorry for the young people involved.  In their case they would be best to buy a small home unit as soon as they can.  Time will then be on their side and they should later be able to upgrade to something better.

Our present era of high inflation makes it particularly imperative to buy something as soon as you can.  Inflation will give you more and more equity in your dwelling, which actually makes you rather rich. I benefited greatly from inflation in the Gough Whitlam era. Gough effectively wiped out a large part of my debts


The share of household income needed to either pay rent or pay off a mortgage has also risen, the report, which measures affordability to the end of March, said.

It’s a bleak picture for long-term residents of regional Australia, who are facing a steeper jump in the ratio of house prices to incomes and a sharper deterioration in rental affordability than their city counterparts.

Despite early forecasts that the pandemic would send unemployment soaring and push property prices down, effective stimulus and ultra-low interest rates sparked a property boom. The shift to remote working also prompted a spate of sea-changers, putting pressure on regional housing markets.

“There’s been a broad-based deterioration in housing affordability over the past couple of years,” ANZ senior economist Felicity Emmett said.

“The deterioration in affordability has been much more marked in regional areas on average because we’ve seen prices and rents go up there generally at a faster rate.

“With the push to flexible working, capital city workers have been able to move to the regions. Often these are knowledge workers that are relatively highly paid, and so they’re able to afford to pay higher prices for homes or pay more for their rent.”

Nationally, the median dwelling value is 8.5 times the median household income, a record high and up from 6.8 since the pandemic. But across regional Australia, the ratio is 7.9 times, up from 5.9 pre-pandemic.

For someone earning the median capital city income and looking to tree-change into the median regional home, the ratio is only six times, making the move an attractive option for higher-income workers.

The house price boom has outstripped wages growth, so it takes longer to save a deposit on average.

For someone who could save 15 per cent of their income, it would now take a record 11.4 years to save a 20 per cent deposit for the median home. That’s an increase of 2.2 years since March 2020, the fastest gain in this metric ever.

Once a buyer manages to save a deposit, they will need to set aside a higher share of income to pay off their mortgage, with the portion of household income needed to service new mortgage repayments rising to 41.4 per cent, well below record levels but above the decade average of 36.5 per cent, and the third consecutive increase.

Potential buyers trying to save a deposit are also facing higher rents, with the share of income needed to service rent on a new lease lifting to 30.6 per cent, higher than two years earlier.

She said many first-home buyers are getting help with their deposit from parents or grandparents, although hard data remains scant.

“It’s increasingly becoming the case that whether you’re able to buy a home and become a first-home owner increasingly depends on what sort of job your mum and dad had, and I suppose the question is – is that really, as a society, what we want?” she said.

She doubted housing affordability would improve much this year when rates rise, as mortgage repayments will be higher and property prices are not likely to fall enough to move the needle.

Damien Walker, mortgage broker at Atelier Wealth, said some first-home buyers are bridging the deposit gap by turning to lenders that offer loans with a low 15 per cent or 10 per cent deposit and no lenders’ mortgage insurance.

Others are getting help from parents in the form of cash gifts or guarantor loans, and some are using the federal government’s First Home Guarantee scheme.

https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/it-now-takes-more-than-a-decade-to-save-a-home-deposit-20220511-p5aket.html

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Australian Federal election: Top high school graduates to be given $12k if they study teaching under Labor plan


This is pretty dumb.  Teaching has long been known as an option of last resort for high school graduates.  Getting the brighter graduates with more options into it is going to be a rarity.  

It seems, though, that you only have to do a teaching degree to get the money.  You are not obliged actually to teach.  That might attract some takers.  A teaching degree is notorious for low standards but it is probably no more futile than an Arts degree.  

Some jobs (mainly in the government) require ANY degree.  That's where Arts graduates go at the momnent.  A teaching degree could end up the same


Anthony Albanese will on Monday announce the $146.5m plan, saying the incentives will lead to a “brighter future” for students and the nation.

“We want to make sure our kids get the best education they can,” the opposition leader said.

“That means we have to make sure they get the best quality teaching.”

If elected, 1000 students a year who obtain an ATAR of 80 or above will get $10,000 to study an education degree.

They would also get a bonus $2000 if they complete their placements at regional public schools.

Graduates who cash in could reap almost $50,000 over the course of their degree, typically four years, to spend how they please.

Only 3.3 per cent of students with an ATAR over 80 choose to study teaching.

The five-year scheme aims to double the number of high achievers becoming teachers to 3600 a year over the next decade.

Labor’s education spokeswoman, Tanya Plibersek, said lifting teaching standards would help stop the slide in students’ results.

“I want students competing to get into teaching like they do to get into medicine or law,” Ms Plibersek said.

“If we want a better future in Australia, we need a smart, skilled workforce so we can compete for jobs and growth with our neighbours.”

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/federal-election/federal-election-top-high-school-graduates-to-be-given-12k-if-they-study-teaching-under-labor-plan/news-story/01cc2736bbd3da7a406fe52cd42b72e2

Bob Katter: A Lebanese Aborigine?


Bob is very popular in Far North Queensland -- where I also come from.  All four of my grandparents were  born up that way, as I was. In my memory, the Far North was a very conservative place.  Views that today identify me as very conservative were simply normal during my early life in North Queensland.   It is my "spiritual" home.

It is over 30 years since I spent much time back up there, though I did have a couple of holidays there, with the last such being in 2004.  So I have often wondered if my old home is still as conservative as it was.  My impression is that not much has changed

And Bob's great popularity up that way confirms it.  He too is very consrervative. So I am rather pleased with his views and what he does. As a member of Federal parliament he represents the North well

But I don't like his claim to be Aboriginal. He bases that claim on once having been "adopted" into an Aboriginal tribe.  And under current Australian law, if he "identifies" as an Aborigine, he IS an Aborigine.  I am critical of that rule in general so I deplore Bob using it for political advantage.

In fact he is, if anything, Lebanese, though he fiercely denies it.  He grew up in a clothing shop run by his Lebanese grandfather.  It is a curiosity of North Queensland that there are or were in many towns a men's clothing shop run by Lebanese immigrants -- with surnames like Mellick and Malouf.  I remember them well.

The surname Katter is most common among Americans of German origin.  In German, a "Kater" is a tomcat


Bob Katter has declared his people made a 'big mistake' 250 years ago by letting in whitefellas, and that's why Australia should keep borders shut to asylum seekers ahead of Saturday's federal election as he prepares for his 10th win.

A surprising little-known fact about the controversial Queensland MP is that he identifies as Aboriginal, but Mr Katter recently spoke candidly about the subject during a TV appearance when addressing foreign policy and the plight of refugees.

'I come from Cloncurry, and I'm dark - I'm one of the Curry mob, you know?' Mr Katter said on ABC's Q&A.

'We made a hell of a bad mistake 150 years ago, letting you whitefellas in. I don't know that we should make the same mistake again.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10823217/Bob-Katter-says-Aboriginal-people-big-mistake-letting-whitefellas-ABC-Q-QLD-Kennedy.html

Why Do Men Date Younger Women?


Jillian Richardson says below that men are  keen to date younger women because older women are more inflexible.  She puts a kinder spin on it but that is what it amounts to.  

And she is right.  Young women leap into relationships with greater alacrity than older ones do.  But it is  only a matter of degree.  Women of all ages want relationships, with women in their 30s pretty keen too.  That biological clock promotes great flexibility.  

And my current girlfriend and I have formed a warm relationship despite meeting in our 70s.  And it certainly took a lot of flexibility for us to get there.  We both made large compromises to form our relationship. So flexibility is undoubtedly a help but it is not a monopoly of the young.  

I am afraid that it is all simpler than Jillian admits.  It's about looks.  Youth is beautiful. And men, like everybody else, go for that.  Women battle it energetically but their looks deteriorate as they get older.  

And I am not at all disrespecting older women. I in fact appreciate older women.  I once married a lady 11 years older than me and two others of my significant relationships were with women 5 year older than me. Though most of my relationships have been with women younger than me.

So I personally think that age has little to do with the matter. I have found fine women of all ages.  If the woman is  good enough she will find a good partner.  Looks do matter but age need not be a barrier.  Looks are only one factor in attractiveness.  

I prioritize brains myself.  And that has a perhaps surprising benefit.  High IQ women also tend to be better looking.  Life is not fair.  All three of my ladies that I mentioned above have been  good looking.  And Zoe, my present partner, is readily taken for much younger than she is


This week on Instagram, I saw a video where actress Paulina Porizkov said that most men don’t want to date a woman in her 50s or 60s.

Her comments really hit my heart. Recently, I’ve been feeling very connected to the Jillian who is in her 40s and 50s. I think about how, if she is single, most of my male friends of the same age wouldn’t date her. (Context for people who are reading this and don’t know me — I’m in my twenties.)

I shared this in my Instagram stories, along with this commentary: “To every man reading this, if you’ve never dated a woman your own age, why? If you almost always date younger women, why?

Because here’s my knowing (trigger alert):

Whether you recognize it or not, older men usually date younger women because they have fewer boundaries and expectations. They’re easier to control. And you as a man cannot handle the power of a woman your age.

This is something I have been talking about and reflecting on a lot, but never posted on social media because I want everyone to like me. And this is something that men probably don’t want to hear. But I’m working on being ok with people not liking me so… I said what I said.”

What happened next absolutely blew my mind. I’ve never received so many DMs from people. Almost 100 women said that they would join for a conversation on this topic.

Clearly, this discussion stirred people’s emotions. You can see it in my stories highlights here. I include (with permission) tons of messages that people sent me.

This morning I was doing a guided meditation, and the voice asked: “What gift do you want to give people?” I thought about it and started to cry. Because this week, I want to give women the gift of knowing that they’re lovable, desirable, and worthy at any age — regardless of the feedback that they’re given. I want women to feel that in their soul.

https://medium.com/hello-love/why-do-men-date-younger-women-37c23b66c38e


When the governing elite ignore the people


Large majorities  of the population in countries like the USA and Australia consistently say that immigration needs to be cut back -- particularly immigration from Muslim and Third world countries. The governing elite simply ignore that wish.  

So it is pretty inevitable that there will be some people who attempt to do what the elite will not.  Such people have no power to expel those they disapprove of so do the one thing they can do:  shoot


The Buffalo supermarket killer says he was driven to kill by the ‘great replacement theory’ which claims white people are being driven to extinction by migrants.

Payton Gendron’s 180 page Google Drive document detailed his twisted reasons for carrying out Saturday's massacre at the Top Market supermarket, killing 10.

A large part of the manifesto focused on the 'great replacement theory'. IT claims whites are being deliberately outnumbered in the US by migrants from other countries to skew elections in favor of the Democrats. 

The manifesto said that he'd been radicalized entirely by the internet - rather than anyone he'd met in real life - and added that he’d been inspired by Brenton Tarrant. 

Tarrant is a white supremacist who live-streamed himself murdering 51 Muslims at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.

Gendron said: 'The truth is my personal life and experiences are of no value.' 

Gendron said Tarrant ‘radicalized him the most’ while discussing what had spurred him to shoot 13 people, 10 of them fatally. 

Police said 11 of the people he shot were black, with the other two white.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10817617/Buffalo-supermarket-shooters-chilling-180-page-manifesto-mentioned-great-replacement-theory.html

The rejected soulmate lady again





I originally commented on this story on 9th. But the Daily Mail has now picked it up. And they have added a whole lot of comments from readers about the story. The opening of their story:

"A mother-of-two has gone viral on social media after writing a memoir about leaving her husband of 14 years to pursue a stranger who she thought could be her 'soulmate'.

Amanda Trenfield, from Sydney, explained that she spent 20 years building a 'somewhat predictable life' with a career in the financial services alongside caring for two young children and her marriage.

In an extract from her new book, published by The Sydney Morning Herald, Amanda said that she was hoping to reconnect with her husband during a three-day conference in Margaret River but found herself drawn to another man, Jason, at the event due to the 'strong and raw' electricity between them"


None of the comments showed much understanding of what the woman reported so I am glad that I was able to add a supportive voice to the discussion.

At one level what she reported was a teenage "crush" very late in life but I thought that there was more in it than that. I have actually had similar experiences at a somewhat lower intensity. So I thought it might be appropriate for me to tell a bit about how it once went for me quite recently -- in 2022 -- with me in my 70s

In my story the lady is the one who was conflicted. We both felt right to one-another from the beginning but a circumstance made a relationship impossible. She knew that she should see nothing of me after our first meeting but for a while she just could not let me go.

We got on very easily during our initial meeting over morning tea but there was a large age gap between us. I was 77 and she was 64. We both saw that as a problem so all I could offer her was friendly dinners.

It turned out that my offer was attractive to her. And we did subsequently enjoy one another's company a lot over many dinners -- mostly on Saturday nights. Except for the age problem we would have formed a lasting relationship to see us through our remaining years.

Despite recognizing that we were not going anywhere together, she still wanted to see rather a lot of me. She too saw us as being of a related "type"

We never did have stable arrangements. A couple of times my physical unsuitability would get to her and she would email me breaking it off between us. Come the next Saturday night, however, she would relent and ask me to take her to dinner. I was happy to oblige. A friendship is less demanding than a sexual relationship.

Saturday is of course the big "going-out" night in our culture so that was significant. You usually see your "significant other" on that night

So on one such occasion we went to a nearby Burmese restaurant where we had a very good dinner and where we got on well. We watched some operetta back at my place after dinner.

Later on on a Sunday I had a breakfast at my usual haunt with her. She picked me up from home in her large Toyota Camry hybrid. We got on famously. Our breakfast lasted 3 hours, the latter half of which we spent back at my place! We discussed a remarkable range of things, including some quite intimate details of our pasts.

On a later date, she said she had been celebrating her 64th birthday with her family all the week so needed a special dinner on Saturday night. So I took her to the Persian restaurant, which always impresses. As I usually do, I ordered the the platter for two, which is actually two large platters plus a smaller platter, all three covered with enticing food. She was suitably impressed.

I had intended to bring a bottle of champagne but forgot. So she offered to walk down to the nearby drive-through to pick up a bottle. I gave her a $20 for the purpose. She asked me what I wanted and I said: "Just some cheap champagne". She was quite tickled by that. She kept repeating "cheap champagne"! She knows I am well-off so was surprised that I would drink such a thing. I just smiled. Anyway she came back with a rather impressive-looking $30 bottle of French champagne. French wine has got a lot cheaper in recent years. She said "I don't do cheap champagne". She is the ex-wife of a well-off professional man so is probably a bit spoilt. What she bought was a reasonable drop.

She and I normally dined together on Saturday evenings. Last Saturday, however, she was away for the long weekend ending on Monday. She obviously missed our Saturday, however, as she texted me on Tuesday morning (6th), asking if we could have breakfast together. I got the text a bit late for that so I took her to the "Buncha Buncha" North Vietnamese restaurant at Stone's corner that night.

On the way home, we picked up a dessert from Aldi-- Mango sorbet. We took it back to my place. First we had a cup of tea then the dessert. After that we watched part of an operetta on DVD. We were both a bit tired before we had watched much of the operetta so called it a night at that stage: a very pleasant night

Later: I had a particularly nice time with her at my place that night. She brought over champagne and some excellent pizza and drank rather a lot of the champagne. We mostly talked about relationships. We have both had a few

So for a while she and I had been having some good Saturday night dinners. And we got steadily closer as dinner followed dinner. We found a lot in common in our thinking.

So on another Saturday we had another good dinner together at a local restaurant, followed by dessert at my place, which was as pleasant as usual. But this time there was a sequel

Next day she turned up to meet me for breakfast as well. Dinner only with me was not enough this week. And after breakfast we did a Sunday drive to Wynnum. So I now seemed to have a definite new friend, which pleased me greatly. We did have lots of laughs while we were together

But something came up in her life that alerted her to where we were going and she knew that the age gap between us would be a long-term problem for her so she finally broke it off with me.

My present relationship is in some ways similar. I rapidy got on well with Zoe but there was not the compelling initial feeling like I had with the lady above. There does seem to be a strong draw to me for her, however. We both are aware of great differences between us and she often comments on them. She is for starters a Serb with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Belgrade. So much for a common culture! And she has often declared it "off" between us because of our differences. But she kept coming back to me and we now have arrived at a warm relationship between us. I think she is gorgeous. See her below -- JR



UPDATE: Zoe has now read the above story. She commented that she too initially thought that I was not right for her but she too found that she could not leave me alone

Crazy love


The strength of the attachment that some women develop towards a man never ceases to amaze me. The story below is an  enormously sad example of that.  

We all know that women tend to like tall, well-built  men but what if the man is 6'9" tall?  For one lady, a 56-year-old widow, it produced a love so strong she sacrificed everything for the chance of being with her man.   But her love was obstructed by his circumstances.  He was in jail for murder.  

So there was no real hope that she could ever live with him.  So she tried a desperate gamble and when that failed she suicided. She could not live without him.

The love of a woman can be an amazing thing.  What women put up with from their men is a never-ending wonder: A very sad wonder in this case.  She was attractive and resourceful but her love betrayed her. A terrible waste



In an obscure Indiana town on the banks of the Ohio River, the 11-day manhunt for escaped convict Casey Cole White and his jailboss girlfriend Vicky White came to a crashing end.

The Alabama fugitives, who’d been in a “jailhouse romance” for nearly two years before Vicky broke Casey out of the Lauderdale County jail on April 29, were found hiding in plain sight at a dingy, roadside motel some 300 miles away on Monday.

With cops hot on their tail, they fled the Motel 41 in Evansville and led police on a chase that ended later that afternoon when members of the US Marshals Service rammed into the couple’s latest getaway car, sending it careening into a ditch.

The pair had planned to end their time on the run in a bloody blaze of glory by starting a shootout with police — but instead, Vicky turned the gun on herself the moment cops closed in, while Casey surrendered.

https://nypost.com/2022/05/10/how-vicky-white-casey-white-spent-11-days-on-the-lam-in-alabama-jailbreak/

Infidelity is not always a bad thing: How having a romance on the side can be considered 'self-care' that can actually prolong a marriage


This is all very well but it overlooks a major reason why infidelity is normally condemned: The person dating outside the marriage may find that they like the new lover better than their normal partner. It often happens. And that mostly leads to a marriage breakup

I did myself for a long time allow the lady in my life to do as she wished as long as it did not reduce her time with me.  And she did have a number of affairs. And after living for 14 years under that arrangement, I thought we would continue on our customary way indefinitely.  

But the unexpected (to me) did happen.  She ended up deciding that she liked one of her alternative partners better than me and prioritized him thenceforth.  So a romance on the side may be allowable for various reasons but it may lead to the loss of a valued partner

The old way has its reasons. 

My policy of tolerance did however pay off in one way.  The lady's new partner was disappointed when she informed him that she would continue to see me on a part-time basis.  She has done so.  She is a good catch so he puts up with that


Infidelity need not ruin a marriage and having a secret affair may be a form of 'self-care' that can benefit all participants and prolong the union.

That is the contentious viewpoints of Isabella Mise, the Communications Director at Ashley Madison - a dating platform created for married people who want to have discreet affairs, and believes.

The 36-year-old told Daily Mail Australia members are looking to form connections with other like-minded people.

'Monogamy works for a lot of people, but it doesn't always work for everyone long term,' Isabella said.

Isabella said Ashley Madison members usually feel happy in their marriage but seek something the relationship lacks.

Some are wanting to feel desired by someone new, while others are seeking an emotional connection rather than sexual pleasures. 

'I've spoken to members who have been married for 20 years or people who married their high school sweethearts and haven't slept with anyone else; no two marriages are the same,' Isabella said.

Isabella said Ashley Madison members usually feel happy in their marriage but seek something the relationship lacks.

Some are wanting to feel desired by someone new, while others are seeking an emotional connection rather than sexual pleasures. 

'I've slowly realised that infidelity is not always what you think and isn't what you see in movies.'

During lockdown married people reported feelings of boredom, isolation and loneliness 

Some believe infidelity was a 'reliable form of self-care' as their overall mood improved

In most cases the dating platform 'has helped preserve marriages'   

Over the past two years, Covid lockdowns and restrictions have put relationships to the ultimate test. 

'No one anticipated they would spend 24 hours with their significant other handling working from home, home schooling and living in such close quarters,' Isabella said.

'Affairs aren't the key to happiness in a marriage, but an outlet for many couples or married people wanting to date again.

'It can be a form of self-care - something people do for themselves that allows them to return to their primary relationship feeling less stressed or anxious.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/relationships/article-10776873/Meet-woman-36-believes-infidelity-secret-long-lasting-happy-marriage.html

Proof that beauty is not everything



Paige Spiranac has it all:  An exceptionally pretty face in an extremely sexy body.  Yet it took her a while to find a partner who suited her. She is now aged 29 and has been married for five years but before that she had a lot of boyfriends.  I cannot imagine that any of those boyfriends would have let her go willingly so think that she must have been the one to break off the relationships concerned.

She does admit to being very tyrannical about how her men have to look and dress.  And she does use CNB -- a Marijuana extract -- to get to sleep.  So it would appear that she is fairly uptight.  She has missed out on a relaxed personality, which must be stressful at times.  She is exceptional physically but only about average mentally. Anyone with the gift of contentment -- which includes many conservatives -- would have a happier life than her  -- JR

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Less than a month after I met my soulmate, I ended my 14-year marriage




The story below by Amanda Trenfield reads like chicklit but is apparently a factual report about something that happened to her.  It has aroused a lot of comment.

I have some idea of what she is talking about. On rare occasions I do encounter a woman whom I recognize immediately as one of "My" women.  We may have only the slightest opportunity to communicate but I feel immediately that I know her of old and I in particular know that we would be completely at ease and happy with one-another in a relationship. It is a wonderful experience

The obvious question  has to be why such a recognition occurs. One posibility is that a lot of the things one likes in other people are suddenly there all in one person. But how do we know that? As far as I can tell it is a combination of very subtle behaviours,  something to do with way the lady looks at me, particularly.  But what is conveyed is for me a recognition of a common culture.  This person has a range of beliefs and attitudes and responses that remind me of people I have been most familiar and at ease with in the  past.  No real idea why.

In my case the recognition is usually reciprocal.  The lady feels the same way about me.  It may in fact be the lady who speaks to me first.  I must sound like I am imagining things but for me as for the lady below it is quite a powerful feeling


I wasn’t expecting a formal dinner with cheerful conference attendees in the beautiful West Australian town of Margaret River to turn my life upside down. I had a good life. I wasn’t looking to upend it – or was I?

I had decided only the week earlier to attend the three-day event with my husband. It wasn’t in the family holiday plan and we had to arrange care for the children, but I saw it as a perfect opportunity for us to reconnect, as we had become quite distant. I believed that time away from the stress of everyday life was the perfect remedy to reignite our relationship.

We entered the magnificent oak-panelled dining room, taking our seats at a long, elegantly laid table. My husband sat to my left and quickly engaged another couple in conversation.

As I settled into my seat, I looked up and immediately lost my breath. When our eyes met there was an instant familiarity that ran deeper than water-cooler chat. These eyes had locked before. Twelve years earlier. His name was Jason. I hadn’t forgotten.

Throughout the dinner, I was my usual animated and conversational self. I was, after all, in sales. The group chatted happily, all of us enjoying an excellent degustation of West Australian delicacies cooked with attention and pride.

As the entrée was served, Jason offered me a sip of his wine to taste the robust old-vine shiraz. After a little banter and coaxing, I accepted.

Over the course of the evening, my attraction to Jason developed. I soon became aware of his every breath and I unconsciously mirrored his pace. I caught myself, embarrassingly, looking at his chest through his slim-fitted white evening shirt. Yes, he had a fit, toned and attractive body, but was it his chest I was drawn to?

When dessert was served, he offered me a sample of his decadent and oozy chocolate pudding. I declined, but he scooped up a generous spoonful and fed me across the table anyway. He displayed a level of familiarity normally reserved for close friends or lovers. If anyone had been watching us, they would have been at least curious as to the nature of our relationship.

By the time the group left the restaurant late in the evening, all my senses were on high alert. It was abundantly clear that the energy between Jason and me was somehow charged. I instinctively understood, though, that this was more than just lust, something I had felt many times before. I also understood that it was more than simply physical attraction, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

At the hotel bar, Jason bought me a glass of my favourite rosé. We looked into each other’s eyes – his dark and mysterious, mine big and brown – and clinked glasses. The electricity between us was strong and raw. It travelled to my core. It was so intense I needed to break eye contact. He. We. The energy. It was electric. My body was completely charged. I was completely “on”.

He displayed a level of familiarity normally reserved for close friends or lovers.

I had to determinedly fight the continual pull to his side that I felt. As we moved around each other throughout the evening in various conversations, though, we were always aware of one another’s location. When we locked eyes across the room, the intensity of our stares magnified, becoming bolder as the night progressed. We held our gaze longer. Our connection deepened.

I loved talking with him. I felt warm, relaxed and safe in his presence. I felt I could truly be myself, at a level I wasn’t familiar with. I realised that it was a feeling I hadn’t enjoyed in a long, long time – perhaps ever. Sure, we were laughing and joking like old friends but the deepening connection through our eyes was undeniable.

My behaviour that evening was uncharacteristic. I stayed out way longer than I normally would; I’m usually an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type. But this was no ordinary evening. I was in no hurry to lose our connection. In fact, I wanted time to stand still. I wanted to remain in the energy, our energy, forever.

The bar called last drinks, and the evening (now the early morning) came to an end. The goodbye was overt, open and revealing of our mutual affection. We enjoyed a body-hugging embrace where I whispered into his ear, “This isn’t over, I need to see you again.” He put his hands tightly on my waist and pulled me close. “Yes,” he replied. It was all I needed to hear.

As I danced back to my room feeling vulnerable but also unexpectedly whole, I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. I had never felt anything like this before. I had never experienced this sensation. I didn’t understand the energy. It was like an out-of-body, or perhaps an “in-body”, experience.

I now know without hesitation, without question, without any doubt in my mind, my body or my heart, that the energy we experienced that evening was our souls connecting. I left Margaret River a different woman.

I knew in my heart, in my soul, in the very fabric of my being that I had profoundly changed. I couldn’t articulate the feelings, the sensations, the experience. The connectedness I experienced with Jason was at a level impossible to describe. All I knew for certain was that this one encounter, in the most unlikely of places, under the most unusual of circumstances, had dramatically altered my life.

The next few days were a complete blur. I couldn’t make any sense of my feelings. I couldn’t escape unrelenting thoughts of Jason. I certainly couldn’t fathom how I’d resume my normal life: a full-time career in financial services, the care of two young children, household chores, social engagements, being a wife. What I did understand was that the successful, comfortable and somewhat predictable life I had spent 20 years building was now of no consequence. I simply didn’t care.

I’d just met my soulmate. What could possibly be more important than that?

Less than a month after meeting Jason, having had no communication with him since our time in Margaret River, I ended my 14-year relationship with my husband.

The woman who had always been so careful, so planned, so organised and so clear about the path her life would take, had just made the most dramatic decision of her life, one affecting those dearest to her – her family.

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/less-than-a-month-after-i-met-my-soulmate-i-ended-my-14-year-marriage-20220419-p5aejj.html

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