Saint Maxine loses courtesy

Andrew Bolt | TALK about sour winners. I mean, of course, Saint Maxine McKew, writes Andrew Bolt.

McKew, the former ABC TV host, became an instant Labor darling by beating prime minister John Howard in his own seat of Bennelong.

This week she was at the launch of a hagiography about this struggle to sainthood, and - in comments broadcast around the nation by her former ABC colleagues - she told adoring fans and celebrities what beating Howard meant for us all.

"I think Paul Keating got it right, you know, this election has wiped away the toxicity," she declared.

"People are smiling, a sort of sense of, we can get on and do things.

"And I think we all want to get on and do things in a certain way, in a civil way, in a sensible way, and get rid of perhaps I think that brutishness that has characterised our politics probably since 2001."

On she went: "A terrible thing happened then . . . I think its time to get rid of that horrible absolutism . . ."

Earth to McKew: You make a liar of yourself. Calling your defeated opponent toxic, brutish and a horrible absolutist is hardly proof that this election has wiped away the toxicity. Rather the reverse.

Rudd Faces Hard Labor

Andrew Bolt | KEVIN Rudd as prime minister will be a control freak, and not just because that's the way he obsessively ticks.

He'll be a control freak because he has little choice: he's a friendless leader promising what some in his Labor team don't want to deliver.

That's what put the sting in that dumb quip of Labor's environment zealot, Peter Garrett:

"Once we get in we'll just change it all."

You see, a series of largely under-reported gaffes by other Labor spokesmen suggests Garrett wasn't just speaking for himself.

In fact, the day Rudd wins the election is the day I expect Labor's Left, in particular, to drop its who-me? smiles and start eating its leader alive.

Or put it this way: the story of the Rudd government is likely to be of a jittery Labor leader with more formal power than any before him, trying to control people with a clearer sense of direction than he has himself.

Partial-birth Abortion: A Clash of Worldviews

Bill Haynes | .... Thirty years ago, on January 22, 1973, a major culture shift took place in the United States. With a devastating stroke of a pen the United States Supreme Court shifted the law away from the major worldview that had occupied the thinking of our country since its birth. The decision, Roe v. Wade, made legal the termination of pregnancy by abortion across the nation. It was argued that this would only result in early first trimester abortions - history has proven otherwise. The results of that decision are still being felt today. In the latest reporting data from the Centers for Disease Control there have been approximately 42,036,175 abortions (5) in the past 30 years in the U. S. since Roe v. Wade.

The church needs to be the leading voice in the fight for life. Perhaps we tired from sounding the call, when over the past 30 years there seemed to be very little in the way of victories. Perhaps the details just became too gruesome for discussion in polite company. For whatever reasons, it appears that too many people have come to simply accept the killing of unborn babies as a fact of life that cannot be changed. This is dangerous, not only for our culture, but also for the church.

Lessons to learn from Mumbai

Jim Wallace | As the smoke clears on Mumbai, it is timely to consider some lessons from this incident. As a counter-terrorist professional for more than eight years, I am one who usually cringes at the words ''mastermind'' and ''professional'' being applied to those who perpetrate terrorist attacks. They are attacks on non-suspecting, unarmed civilians and rarely require to be masterminded.

However, the tactical movements of the terrorists within the Taj Hotel reflect a moderate level of training and tactical awareness. It probably reflects not only study from their own sources, but also internet searches of Western urban combat methods.

The lesson in this is that despite the fact that we might often want to know more about the detail of our soldiers' operations in places like Afghanistan, we must resist it. News reports of contacts with the enemy can and will be analysed by terrorist organisations to inform their own tactics, and we must reduce the availability of this type of intelligence in this globally connected world.

The revelation that the Indians had been warned of a seaborne assault, even down to the detail of the Taj Hotel as a likely target, carries another lesson very relevant in Australia.

The Impotence Pandemic

Dr. Judith Reisman | Sex therapists and pornographers have long prescribed pornography to correct male impotence and to "spice up" a couple's sex life. However, the broader meaning of "potency" is one's "power, authority … a person or thing exerting power or influence," scorning pills, potions or pictures.

The proper contextual definition of impotence, then, is not the narrow classification of "erectile dysfunction." A potent man does not fix his flagging libido with little blue pills or centerfolds.

Instead, a more complete and accurate definition finds men impotent when they cannot engage in a truly intimate conjugal embrace with their chosen beloved.

Princeton University professor of psychiatry Jeffrey Satinover said, "The pornography addict soon forgets about everything and everyone else in favor of an ever more elusive sexual jolt. He … will place at risk his career, his friends, his family."

Such is the definition of impotence. Satinover compared pornography to heroin, saying, "Only the delivery system … and the sequence of steps" differ.

The chilling effect of ignorance

By Judge Roy Moore | Seventeen-year-old Andrew Larochelle of Ohio was shocked when he got back the flag he had sent to the United States Capitol to be flown in honor of his grandfather. Andrew, an Eagle Scout and proud grandson, had requested that the flag's certificate read, "In honor of my grandfather, Marcel Larochelle, and his dedication and love of God, country and family." Instead, the certificate conspicuously omitted the word "God" from the personalized message, thanks to a new censorship policy by acting Architect of the Capitol Stephen T. Ayers.

Ayers's bureaucratic audacity touched off a firestorm of criticism from private citizens as well as elected representatives, eventually forcing Ayers to reverse his policy Oct. 11. But Ayers's absurd decision reflects an ever-growing trend among public officials and private citizens alike who have been taught to believe that the Constitution actually prohibits the acknowledgment of God by anyone even remotely associated with state or federal government.

Who is the real Rudd?


Andrew Bolt | KEVIN Rudd will be Prime Minister by December. Or, to be more accurate, our new Prime Minister will be "Kevin Rudd".

This "Kevin Rudd" will say just what you want, but may in fact be nothing like the real Rudd, who's now playing him and will take over after the election.

Two more curious incidents this past week demonstrate just how constructed this "Kevin Rudd" is, and what an extraordinary chameleon, too.

Talking to Christians, for instance, "Kevin Rudd" is almost as devout as a Pentecostal fiery-eyes would want.

To the Australian Christian Lobby he said: "Mine is a very garden personal faith for which I have made no apology these last 30 years or so."

But on SBS television this week, in front of a less religious audience, "Kevin Rudd" couldn't even say the name of the man who inspired the faith for which he's "made no apology".

Question: "Mr Rudd, do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?"

Rudd: "Well, I'm a -- I'm a, a person who attends church regularly."

The Unwanted Twin but Which One is it?

Andrew Bolt | THOUGHT we at least checked if people would make good parents before we helped to create their baby, Andrew Bolt writes

Seems not. Because see what selfish souls we now make parents.

But the easy bit is to damn the two unnamed lesbians, who are suing a Canberra obstetrician for giving them two IVF babies instead of one.

Easy enough, when you consider the effect this will probably have on their twin daughters, now aged three, and bound to learn later of what their mothers have been up to.

What those girls will almost certainly learn is that one of them -- but which? -- was desperately unwanted. So their own mothers have said. Out loud. In a court. On oath. In the papers.

So cross are their parents at having two children that they are demanding $400,000 from their obstetrician for having two embryos implanted during an IVF procedure instead of the one the birth mother verbally asked for just before she was sedated.

"USA: The Tragedy of Freeing Sex Offenders

Dr. Judith Reisman | On July 25, I asked in a column entitled, "Porn triggers acting out on victims? Really?" why the Federal Bureau of Prisons spiked its own sex-offender study at Butner prison in North Carolina.

The Butner study, as it turns out (newsflash!), found that criminal sex offenders tend to hide the extent of their crimes.

Moreover, although of 155 men arrested "just" for child pornography 40 (26 percent) admitted to being child molesters, it turns out that later, 132 men (85 percent) confessed to sexually abusing children – admitting to 1,777 young victims.

So, the Butner study finds the allegedly "benign" lust for child pornography correlates with a 85 percent probability of child sexual abuse. When Butner refused to release the study, lawyer Jan Larue noted, "Judith Simon Garrett, assistant general counsel at the BOP, is heavily involved in squelching the study." Garrett believes sex offenders deserve sexual media and wants to eliminate "restrictions on early release mechanisms."

Well, now, two months after the Butner report was leaked to the New York Times, FindLaw reports that U.S. District Court Judge W. Earl Britt has struck down a law aimed at holding sex offenders indefinitely in mental hospitals.

By Many or by Few

By Judge Roy Moore | During the War of 1812, Commodore Thomas McDonough was in charge of an American naval fleet defending Lake Champlain in New York against the attacking British forces. A report of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives in 1854 tells the story of one memorable morning: September 11, 1814.

[J]ust as the sun rose over the eastern mountains, the American guard-boat on the watch was seen rowing swiftly into the harbor. It reported the enemy in sight. ... [Y]oung McDonough summoned his officers around him, and there, on the deck of the Saratoga, read the prayers of the ritual before entering into battle. . . . "Stir up thy strength, O Lord, and come and help us; for thou givest not always the battle to the strong, but canst save by many or by few." It was a solemn, thrilling sight, and one never before witnessed on a vessel-of-war cleared for action. . . . Of the deeds of daring done on that day of great achievements, none evinced so bold and firm a heart as this act of religious worship.

The battle that day near Plattsburgh, New York, would be one of the crucial and decisive battles of the war, preventing the British from entering and controlling northern New York.

What God Hath Joined Together . .

Stephen Baskerville, PhD | For the moment, while the Federal Marriage Amendment is moved to a back burner, it's a good time to heighten our awareness of a broader menace.

Same-sex marriage is a symptomatic threat to families, compared to the more fundamental effect of "no fault" divorce. "Commentators miss the point when they oppose homosexual marriage on the grounds that it would undermine traditional understandings of marriage," writes Bryce Christensen of Southern Utah University. "It is only because traditional understandings of marriage have already been severely undermined that homosexuals are now laying claim to it."

Michael McManus of Marriage Savers writes that "divorce is a far more grievous blow to marriage than today's challenge by gays."

The Bush administration and Congress have allocated $150 million annually to promote "healthy marriages and responsible fatherhood." The effectiveness of these efforts turns on how well they mesh gears with the underlying realities of the family crisis. In order to face the bitter truths about why families are dissolving at such an alarming rate, we must move from the precincts of moral exhortation, to take an analytical look at the mechanics of the family court system and related legal agendas.

It is a grievous misconception that an increase in marital "break downs" warranted new laws to simplify the divorce process, as if to minimize a futile expense for an unavoidable outcome.

Under "no-fault" divorce laws, 80% of divorces are unilateral. In other words, most "no-fault" divorces are unilateral, over the objection of one spouse, who is often committed to keeping the family together.

USA: Pray for the Third Wave

John Piper | The end of abortion as a business is in sight when the prolife movement is not only joined by, but led by, the African-American and Latino Christian Community. I call it the Third Wave.

The First Wave of the modern prolife movement was the Catholic Church. In the late 60’s, as abortion “rights” were argued for in New York and California, many Catholic doctors, ethicists, and laypeople understood the horrifying truth of abortion and began to organize. They opened educational offices to explain fetal life; launched political efforts to elect prolife leaders and started “emergency pregnancy services” to help women struggling with pregnancy issues. The modern prolife movement was born. It was considered (disparaged as) a “Catholic” thing.

In the late 70’s, the Second Wave arose. The Evangelical Church joined the Cause. One rushing tributary formed when Francis Scheaffer and C. Everet Koop produced a book and film called Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Evangelical pastors and lay people were awakened to the biblical and historical call to cherish and defend innocent human life. Evangelicals flooded into the prolife movement as volunteers: writing, marching, electing, and starting neighborhood “crisis pregnancy centers.”

Now we are on the cusp of the Third Wave. A trickle of courageous Black and Latino Christian leaders are exposing the inhumanity of abortion and the pernicious racism of the abortion industry. There are quiet discussions and emerging plans among some leading black pastors concerning abortion.

The Stolen Truth

Andrew Bolt | BRUCE Trevorrow, a part-Aboriginal now living in Bairnsdale, was stolen from his parents after being raced to hospital on Christmas Day 1957.

Yes, stolen.


Over the next few years the little boy was mentally destroyed. Said an Aboriginal woman who tried to foster him in his teens, it seemed he'd never known love.

That loss near drove him mad and broke him, and it was for such suffering that Justice Tom Gray of the South Australian Supreme Court last week awarded him $525,000.

The media reports all hailed this as a breakthrough not just for Trevorrow himself: " `Stolen Generation' Aborigine wins test case", was a typical headline.

But is this – the first court case won by a member of the so-called "stolen generations" – really proof at last that what I've so often called a "myth" is true?

The opposite, perversely.

Bad precedent and wayward judges

By Judge Roy Moore | "They be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." When Jesus spoke those words, He warned of the danger of following leaders who taught false doctrine. But Jesus did not say that we should reject the instruction and example of those who adhere to sound principle.

In our court system, judges must base their decisions on sound legal principles. High regard for following prior judicial decisions, known as precedent, has always been an important concept in our law, but such precedents are only valid if based on the United States Constitution, which all judges are sworn to uphold. Lately, there has been a great deal of criticism of the new "conservative majority" on the United States Supreme Court for disregarding "long-standing precedents" and "running roughshod over the Constitution." I submit that such criticism is wrong.

Abortion risk to women

By Charles Francis | CANDY Broad's Bill to decriminalise abortion in Victoria proceeds on the naive and mistaken belief that it will benefit women.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Under the present law, based on the Menhennitt ruling, even if the pregnancy constitutes a quite minimal risk to the woman's health, the state does not intervene.

To the doctors who are performing abortions the present law poses no problems whatever.

Physical and mental harm done to women by abortionists should be the real concern of our MPs.

In my experience as a lawyer who acted for some of these women, most abortionists take no adequate medical history from their patients, nor do they give them adequate counselling or warning of the many risks of abortion.

High on the list of risks is psychological damage.

A Vote to Kill

Andrew Bolt | I THOUGHT killing baby Jessica with an injection into her beating heart was so wrong that good people would cry, "enough".

Surely we'd make sure such a cruelty could never happen again?

Wrong. Instead, Labor MP Candy Broad last week put up a private member's Bill that her supporters boast will let doctors kill children just like Jessica without any risk of prosecution.

Indeed, this is the only solid reason any of them give for backing it.

Jessica was still in the womb, but just a month from term when a prominent Melbourne specialist told her mother that ultrasound tests showed she might be a dwarf.

The baby otherwise seemed healthy, but her mother was deeply superstitious and highly emotional.

She insisted that under her traditions giving birth to a dwarf would bring bad luck and she threatened to kill herself if her child was not destroyed.

Her specialist agreed to abort her child. But at 32 weeks, Jessica was able to live outside the womb, and so first had to be killed.

She was - with a needle to her heart.

One nation under Hindu gods?

By Judge Roy Moore | For the first time in history, the United States Senate welcomed a Hindu to give its opening prayer last Thursday. After Rajan Zed sprinkled ritual water from the Ganges River around the Senate rostrum, he proclaimed, "We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky, and inside the soul of the heaven."

Hindus believe not just in a god that is one with the universe and with nature but in many gods, beliefs that are completely inconsistent with a belief in the Creator God of the Holy Scriptures and the Christian faith upon which our nation is founded. Our Founding Fathers knew better – and so should our senators.

On a hot summer day in Philadelphia in 1787, when the members of the Constitutional Convention had reached an impasse in their heated deliberations of nearly five weeks, the eldest statesman in the room rose slowly to his feet. Addressing George Washington, the president of the Convention, Benjamin Franklin asked:

How has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered.

Has Science Proved Homosexuality Can Not Be Changed?

But before we dig in to what science has to say, we should note that some use this claim to undermine Christianity in 3 different ways:

1. It is used to challenge the truthfulness of Scripture or our interpretations of it. If homosexual orientation can not be changed then the reference in 1 Cor 6:9-11 in the Bible is either wrong in claiming some people used to be homosexuals or that it means something different than a change in orientation.

2. Proof that homosexuals cannot change may paint the church’s position as heartless. If homosexuals cannot change then they are consigned to permanent chastity, not because they choose to be single but because that is their only option.

3. The church is portrayed as claiming all homosexuals can change if they really wanted to. Then science findings are used to show change is not possible. This weakens the church’s position or makes it appear untenable.

Redeemed! 10 Ways to Get Out of the Gay Life, If You Want Out

by Charlene E. Cothran | Over the past 29 years of my life I have been an aggressive, creative and strategic supporter of gay and lesbian issues.

I’ve organized and participated in countless marches and various lobbying efforts in the fight for equal treatment of gay men and lesbians. I have kept current on the issues and made financial contributions to those organizations doing work about which I was most passionate.

As the publisher of a 13 year old periodical which targets Black gays and lesbians, I have had the opportunity to publicly address thousands, influencing closeted people to ‘come out’ and stand up for them selves, which is particularly difficult in the African-American community.

But now, I must come out of the closet again. I have recently experienced the power of change that came over me once I completely surrendered to the teachings of Jesus Christ. As a believer of the word of God, I fully accept and have always known that same-sex relationships are not what God intended for us.

Giving up Religious Liberty is No Way to Win

Judge Roy Moore | There is a dangerous trend in recent religious freedom cases: claiming victory in self-inflicted defeat. City councils criticized for having official prayer at their meetings are often changing their policy to keep prayer—but only as a private exercise before the official meeting begins.

When the ACLU pressured the city council of Thomasville, N.C., to stop opening its meetings with prayer, council members decided to adopt a new policy drafted by a religious-liberties organization.

This new policy allows prayer to be given "voluntarily" by a council member acting in his "private capacity," while specifically requiring that such prayer "shall not be listed or recognized ... as part of the public business."

Thomasville becomes the second municipality to adopt this proposed "model" invocation policy designed to appease ACLU demands. On March 12, the city council of Coatesville, Pa., took the same course of action by unanimous vote.

These maneuvers by the city councils of both Thomasville and Coatesville were applauded by their respective constituents and lauded by the religious liberty attorneys who advised them. Nevertheless, such actions designed to avoid a lawsuit are in reality a dangerous concession and a regretful compromise of a basic principle: the public acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Almighty God.

Rudd's Re-written Past


Andrew Bolt | Rudd has often explained he became a Labor man in large part because of a great tragedy - the early death of his father and the eviction of his mother from their share farm when he was just 11.

Here’s how he’s typically told it:

I think my father’s death was difficult at an early age, being evicted actually was the harder bit because we were share farmers, we didn’t own the property so bury Dad one day and get tossed off the property virtually the next with nowhere to go and no assets because you don’t own a house if you’re a share farmer either… I had the earliest flickering of a sense of justice and injustice and I just thought it was plain wrong that that could happen to anybody or that you didn’t have anywhere there to go and stay and that was really tough.

It’s a great Labor story. Rudd even tells of having to sleep in his mum’s car.

But here now is how the children of the farmer who evicted the Rudds remember it:

Dad was a caring, compassionate man with terrific family values. What pains us most is the fact that he thought the world of the Rudds…

Since 1956, Bert [Rudd] had been employed as a share farmer and when the monthly milk cheque came in, his wage was half that cheque…

Porn triggers acting out on victims? Really?

Dr Judith Reisman | Why did the Federal Bureau of Prisons, or BOP, spike its own shocking study, that during therapy, fully 85 percent of incarcerated child pornography users have reluctantly admitted to sexually assaulting children?

The BOP study by psychologists Andres E. Hernandez and Michael L. Bourke has been momentarily suppressed and tossed onto the political hot seat as "debated" and "contested."

The New York Times recently leaked the BOP report on 155 child pornography users who were in a treatment program at the low security Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, N.C. At the time of their arrests, 26 percent (40 men) admitted to being child molesters.

However, during therapy, 85 percent (132 men) confessed to sexually abusing children.

Also at arrest, the men admitted to victimizing 75 children.

During therapy, however, the 155 felons finally confessed to 1,777 young victims – and, this is what they admitted.

Why should BOP yank the Butner prisoners' study from the peer-reviewed academic journal poised to publish it?

Isa, The Muslim Jesus

Rev. Mark Durie | "The word Christian is not a valid word, for there is no religion of Christianity according to Islam". — www.answering-christianity.com

Today we increasingly hear and read that Christianity and Islam ‘share’ Jesus, that he belongs to both religions. So also with Abraham: there is talk of the West’s ‘Abrahamic civilization’ where once people spoke of ‘Judeo-Christian civilization’. This shift of thinking reflects the growing influence of Islam.

These notes offer some information and reflections on the ‘Muslim Jesus’, to help put this trend in its proper context.

References in brackets are to the Qur’an. Numbering systems for the Qur’anic verses are not standardized: be prepared to search through nearby verses for the right one.