Australia

State of Oregon

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At the outset I want to be clear that my interest in any sport is zero. I admit I was fascinated by an ice hockey match I saw on TV when I visited Canada some years ago- all that mayhem and violence, and all done in less than an hour.

So the State of Origin is done and dusted for another year. The annual ritual in which teams from “Queensland” and “New South Wales” vie for the opportunity to let Queensland win in a best of three series. It always gets Queenslanders much more excited than the population of New South Wales, which approaches the whole thing with a measure of boredom.

What most people don’t realise is that the whole series was designed to give Queensland a chance. Back in the day, there was only one decent Rugby League competition and that was Sydney. That’s where the money was and the money attracted the best players from all over the country (which in this context means NSW and Qld.) There used to be an annual match between the two states but of course NSW always won it, so they changed it to state of origin so the Queenslanders had a chance.

Suddenly Queensland, who have always felt inferior to NSW in every way except for the weather, had a chance of beating NSW in footy. And when Rugby League went National with the NRL, the State of Origin kept its old format although the relentless marketing department extended it as far as they dare.

I have never watched a State of Origin match- in fact I can’t remember the last sport event I watched- but I can tell you  this:

  1. The format is outdated and due to be overhauled to reflect the current national league, or maybe just canned altogether. I really don’t care. I think even Queenslanders are getting bored with it all judging by my facebook feed which used to explode with maroon after each match.
  2. The NSW team will rarely win a series because they just don’t care enough to win.
  3. The real enthusiasm in League is with the Premiership because that’s where the money is. Interstate matches are a bore and irrelevant to the real show, so why bother with a manufactured rivalry, except to get a few more millions out of the TV rights?

So there you go. Informed commentary on an irrelevant contest in a sport only played by a handful of people in half a dozen countries by someone who has zero interest in any of it.

Why did I just spend half an hour writing about this? I really don’t know, except to say that I observe a lot of things in our culture that amuse me, and this thing of manufactured rivalry is right up there as one of the more amusing. It’s a bit like the AFL having their annual match of “Mixed Rules” with the Irish Gaelic Football people because they are both in sports that nobody anywhere plays- how tragic is that?

Is Porn the “Other” Girl/ Guy in Your Relationship?

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From fightthenewdrug.org

Picture this: you are in a happy, seemingly healthy relationship with your partner. You both love spending time together and understand each other in a way no one else does. You have something really special, and you feel really confident in your relationship and secure in your partner’s love for you.

One day, you find your partner looking at naked, explicit pictures of another girl or guy in your friend group. Suddenly, you might doubt your partner’s love for you. Your world is turned upside down. You may think, “Why are they looking at her or him? Am I not enough? Why are they going outside of our relationship for sexual satisfaction? Why are they cheating on me?”

Most of us recognize that finding our partner looking at pictures or videos of a naked friend would be cheating, at least in some way. That person becomes the “other girl” or “other guy” that drives a wedge in the close, exclusive connection. Yet somehow, in our culture, looking at porn is “normal,” even though it means sharing your time, affection, and sexuality with someone outside of your relationship. Even though it means specifically seeking out another person, strangers on a screen, for sexual gratification.

So let’s pose a tough question: can porn become the “other” girl or other guy in a relationship?

The Effects Are Still Real

Porn can be destructive to any relationship. A porn habit takes the time, attention, and affection that can be given to a partner, and instead, gives it to an exaggerating performer on a screen. It can isolate the viewer from their real life relationship and affect the way they view their partner. And at times, viewers may end up seeking sexual satisfaction through their screen rather than with their partner, exclusively. After all, porn never rejects you, it never won’t want to try a new idea, and it’s never “not in the mood.” In any other instance where a physical person is involved, this would automatically be considered cheating, right?

Just because the person is on the screen and not in the room, physically, does not mean that the effects on the relationship are not devastating, and this is something our society gets really wrong. But let’s look at the facts.

What’s the Research?

Two of the most respected pornography researchers, Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillman at the University of Alabama, studied the effects of porn and media for over 30 years. Their studies found that viewing pornography makes many users less satisfied with their own partner’s physical appearance, sexual performance, affection, and sexual curiosity. [1] Other researchers have confirmed those results and added that porn users tend to be significantly less intimate with their partners, [2] less committed in their relationships, [3] less satisfied with their romantic and sex lives, [4] and more likely to physically cheat on their partners. [5]

Porn can also change sexual tastes so that viewers no longer respond to their partners. [6] Researchers have shown a strong connection between porn use and low sex drive, erectile dysfunction, and trouble reaching orgasm. [7] Many frequent porn users reach a point where they have an easier time getting aroused by Internet porn than by having actual sex with a real partner. [8]

The problem with porn is that people who have a habit viewing it can often end up consciously or subconsciously comparing their partner to the never-ending variety of men or women of unrealistic proportions and sexual appetites on the screen. And that’s not exactly ideal for a healthy, intimate, exclusive connection.

So What Can You Do?

Here’s the thing—every person who watches porn can watch it for different reasons. Sometimes, it’s an old habit that’s hard to kill. Others really are hooked, with no intention of giving it up or trying to stop for themselves. Or, someone could be watching porn because they think it’ll inspire their sex life with their partner (even though research shows how that’s not really a good idea). No matter why someone is watching porn, it’s important for a couple to communicate about their expectations and what they think about it. Yes, porn can be very harmful, but there is a huge difference between someone who is watching because they can’t seem to stop versus someone who watches because they don’t want to or care to stop.

In so many cases, porn can really feel like the “other woman” or “other man” in a relationship. Most people want their relationship to be based on mutual love, fidelity, and respect, sharing all of themselves with each other. That’s the best case scenario, right? Giving all of yourself to your partner can be made more difficult if you are simultaneously giving yourself to women or men on a screen. Strive for the ideal, and keep it real.

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Why This Matters

In a relationship, porn can become that person “on the side,” whom one goes to in order to have their needs met. If you don’t think porn adds to the health of a relationship, SHARE this article.

Electricity Price Shock

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The brave new world of energy poverty is about to hit one of the most prosperous and energy-rich nations in the world. With electricity prices jumping by about 20% next month we are in for a tough time economically and financially. And of course the burden will as always fall hardest on the poor.

As Jo Nova points out this is how the climate change scare mongering policy is working out:

Many are blaming a “failure of energy policy”, but miss the point entirely — this is not failure but success. The aim of those energy policies was to close down coal fired stations and it worked. The Renewable Energy Target, the carbon tax, and other anti “carbon” policies did what they were supposed to do and forced the closure of both the Port Augusta power stations and Hazelwood (which supplied as much as 5% of Australia’s electricity). That left us dependent on gas instead of having the flexibility to ignore the current gas price outlandish cost.

With politicians and Chief Scientist Finkel colluding to drive up the price of electricity by forcing more renewables on us, there is no way that electricity prices are going to stabilise or fall.

At the moment, Government policy requires that retailers must take all wind and solar available at whatever price is set. Coal generators then get the left overs, but here is the rub- they cannot quickly slow down their systems (or speed them up for that matter) and coal generators run most efficiently at close to maximum power. Ironically all those wind turbines and solar cells do little to reduce the CO2 production at these plants.

So the operators of coal generators have to basically burn more coal than they optimally need to, take the price set by the Energy Market Operator and provide the “left overs” that wind and solar cannot supply on any day. Despite all the hidden subsidies in the electrical supply market, wind costs about $80 per Megawatt hour, solar $100 MWh and the wholesale price for coal is about $20 MWh.

The system is set up to destroy our cheapest form of energy generation in the long term. There will be no  more coal powered generators constructed because the current policy makes them unviable The only reason the we have any coal powered generators left in Australia is that the costs of constructing them were paid off decades ago.

Throw into that horrible mix the requirement of the Finkel review that all renewable systems must include batteries, that must surely double the cost of power generated that way- great for energy security but lousy for affordability. And then require all operators to give three years notice before exiting the industry- you have to maintain a loss-making business for three years- what planet are these people living on?

Meanwhile all of that heavy industry that used to be the life blood of Australia’s economy will go to places where electricity is cheaper- India and China most likely. Ironically the cheaper electricity in those two countries is partially fuelled by Australian coal. And of course under the Paris agreement those two countries get a free pass until 2030 from any reductions in their carbon emissions.

Australia is either being run by lunatics or traitors. I’m not sure which.

 

Renewables and Energy Policy Are Killing Us

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From Jo Nova:

Stupid Nation: Australians crave cheap energy, yet think “low cost” renewables need support

It’s like an Easter Island moment for an advanced economy: somehow “cheap” energy can’t compete in a free market without government subsidy. A Nation of Serfs have forgotten what a free market is. Will cheap desirable stuff sell itself, or not?

The contradictions mount. Electricity and gas prices are hitting escape velocity:

The wholesale electricity spot prices was about $35 a megawatt hour during 2011, rose to $58 after the carbon tax was introduced and is now about $130 as gas prices push up energy generator costs.

Not surprisingly 70% of Australians want cheaper, more reliable electricity. Only one person in four would rather cut emissions than cut the bill. Yet the agitprop telling people that renewables are “cheap” has been so pervasive that fully 38% of Australians think the government should raise the renewable energy target, and 23% think it should stay the same. It follows that around 4 in 10 Australians apparently hold the bizarre idea that wind and solar are cheap and yet in need of government support, as if there are no investors willing to put money into supplying something that 100% of people want at a price cheaper than what they currently pay. So screwed is our national commentary that a large slab of the nation think a cheap and highly desired product can’t profit without complex schemes and assistance.

Message to Australia, if renewables were cheap they wouldn’t need a RET, LET or CET scheme. People would just buy them!

No wonder there is policy gridlock. The situation won’t be resolved until the propaganda bubble pops and the national debate advances to the point where people know how expensive renewables are. Find me one country in the world running on wind and solar that has cheap electricity and no interconnector supplying coal or nuclear powered electrons. Exactly.

The answer for the Liberal-conservatives is clear, unless they get the message out that renewables are a hideously expensive deadweight burning a hole in our wallets they can’t possibly win this debate. As long as the nation blindly drinks from the Kool-aid-Cauldron the Conservatives are on a hiding to nothing –  locked into endless cycles of “uncertainty” and hip-pocket pain.

Welcome to the clean green future — pack the whole family under one electric blanket while boat loads of our cheap coal set sail for China.

Canberra offers tips on snuggling up for a clean, green winter

Angela Shanahan

A few weeks ago I received a pamphlet from the ACT government on energy-­saving tips. For winter it featured a picture of a family all in overcoats and beanies, huddled under an electric blanket.

Welcome to your clean green future huddled under an electric blanket, and reverting to wood fires to keep the house warm.

The Finkel report aims to provide incentives for all energy ­sources that produce electricity with lower greenhouse gas emissions, but the suggested benchmark means a high-efficiency, low-emissions power plant with carbon capture and storage would not qualify. That is why plenty of people think this is a backdoor attempt to block coal and even gas with an effective “tax on coal”.

The crisis has arisen because of the over-reliance on wind and solar power. In South Australia, combined with the closure of two coal-fired power plants, one in SA and one in Victoria, it has destabilised the whole grid. Added to that is the shortage of gas and the lack of storage for renewables.

Meanwhile, despite the domestic opposition to coal, we send our coal to Japan and China to be used in high-­efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired generators to produce cleaner and cheaper power where people don’t have to sit ­inside wearing beanies under an electric blanket.

Margaret Court and Diversity

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Here is a letter to the editor which I sent to The Courier a couple of weeks ago while the media and the leftists activists were demanding Margaret Court’s head for daring to stand up for the existing law of the land that marriage is between a man and a woman. Due to other pressing issues at the time, they published it yesterday.

Tolerance and diversity are buzz words in our culture. Of course if you deviate from the politically entitled view tolerance comes to an end and diversity is discouraged.

Tennis great Margaret Court, now Senior Pastor at a big Perth church, stated that because of Qantas’ constant promotion of same sex marriage, she would not fly with them any longer unless there was no alternative means of transport. As a christian she believes in the Biblical view of marriage as between one man and one woman.

All the enlightened, “progressive” media and celebrities, led by Ten program “The Project”, piled on, calling her a homophobe and a bigot. Sam Stosur called for a boycott of Margaret Court Arena until the name was changed; on recent form she would probably only miss one match there anyway.

This is what passes for civil debate in this age. If you disagree with me, I will shut you down by just calling you names. We must not allow any rational debate that might upset the status quo.

By insulting a great tennis player who happens to be a significant christian leader in Perth, the knee-jerk attacks have also alienated tens of thousands of people who agree with the Christian view of marriage. A boycott might just be a blip on the bottom line of Qantas, but it might be enough to push Ten over the edge.

The supporters of diversity and tolerance would do well to actually look up the meaning of those words, and show real tolerance to those who really are diverse.

Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction

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Researchers are finding a link between the free availability of pornography and all kinds of sexual dysfunction including erectile dysfunction in increasingly younger men. It turns out that if you get your excitement from a screen, your brain eventually thinks that is preferable to the warmth of a real living person.

From Fight The New Drug

Contrary to what you might see in today’s mainstream media, instead of increasing sexual enjoyment, porn often leads to less satisfying sex in the long run and, for many users, no sex at all. Yikes.

Let’s break down how that actually happens, and how porn is playing a huge role in the skyrocketing number of cases of adolescent erectile dysfunction.

Porn and Erectile Dysfunction

Erectile dysfunction (ED) has been increasing in sexually active men under 40. [1] Internet porn is in some ways to blame for this rise, with a growing number of studies showing a correlation between porn and ED. Now, researchers have identified pornography-induced erectile dysfunction (PIED) and pornography-induced abnormally low libido.

It turns out that high exposure to pornography videos can result in lower responsivity in a male and an increased need for more extreme or kinky material for him to become aroused. Or in other words, as some users develop a tolerance for sexual-arousing material, the porn that used to excite them starts to seem boring. [2] Predictably, they often try to compensate by spending more time with porn and/or seeking out more hardcore material in an effort to regain the excitement they used to feel. [3] Many users find themes of aggression, violence, and increasingly “edgy” acts creeping into their porn habits and fantasies. [4]

And due to this porn overload, some guys are no longer aroused in the presence of a partner. They begin to experience sexual dysfunction, and even ED, and can only become sexually excited when watching porn, as explained by this extensive report from Medical News Today.

Read the full article here

Apostolic Summit

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It’s been a fantastic few days at the Apostolic Summit here at Rockhampton, the 20th Summit.

The speakers were John Alley and Bob Hausleman. Bob Hauselman is the Senior Minister of Restoration Christian Church in Sellersburg, Indiana, and also the Apostle in charge of ARM Network. Both of these men are influential in their respective ministries, carrying a lot of spiritual authority but with great humility.

The theme of the Summit was “Exploring Apostolic Authority.” This is not just about the authority which apostles carry within their own gifting, but the authority given to the church when apostolic order is in place. Many stories were told by the two main speakers and cameo speakers such as Lloyd Gill and Ross Blamey who has the “Kick up the backside anointing.”

We caught up with our favourite ex-Narrabri teenager, Choni Smith. Choni led us to the Rockhampton Zoo.

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This year we are staying at Rockhampton Serviced Apartments, in a renovated Church of Christ building now called “The Chapel”.  It’s a four- bedroom apartment on Denham St, a very pleasant place.

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Tomorrow we head over to Rosslyn Bay for the Sons’ Retreat. This is a low key retreat for pastors and other ministers. It’s a great time of fellowship and encouragement.

You can find more photos from the Summit, and from the Retreat as I add them at this link https://goo.gl/photos/1Ajmm52dG9G6qDo17

 

ABC: Stowaway Snails Devastate Crops

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If you ever watch those Customs shows and wonder why Australia is so tough on people bringing stuff into the country this might help.

From the ABC:

Stowaway snails become big pest for Yorke Peninsula farmers as expert warns of bumper year

By Simon Royal

Updated 38 minutes ago

Snails on a post at Yorke Peninsula farmPHOTO: Yorke Peninsula farmer Graham Hayes says all his crops have been affected by snails. (ABC News: Simon Royal)
MAP: Ardrossan 5571

Slimy invaders from afar have long been a staple of science fiction, thrilling and chilling audiences. Slimy invaders as a fact of farming life are much less entertaining.

Every season, before he starts seeding, Yorke Peninsula farmer Graham Hayes has to lay snail bait.

If he doesn’t do so, his crop will be destroyed by millions of Mediterranean snails.

“Well if they are in large enough numbers they’ll just eat all of the crop,” Mr Hayes said.

“There’s nothing that we grow that we can avoid having troubles with snails … if it grows, they’ll eat it.”

Those “troubles” occur right across the growing period.

In the early stages, while a crop is still green, Mr Hayes said the snails would eat it.

When the crop ripens, snails get caught up in harvesters: clogging the machinery and contaminating the grain

CSIRO scientist Geoff Baker is Australia’s foremost snail expert, having spent three decades musing over the molluscs.

He has warned this year has the potential to be a bumper snail season, for two main reasons — the recent wet and mild summer, and the snails’ ability to juggle their breeding cycles.

“This is a bet-hedging strategy that the snails use, and many other invertebrate animals use, where they’ll sit tight if the weather’s not great for reproducing or they’ll go gangbusters if it is great,” Dr Baker said.

“And that, unfortunately, is what this season is looking like.”

The snails arrived on Yorke Peninsula more than a century ago, as slippery stowaways aboard sailing ships coming to collect grain.

Dr Baker said there were four distinct species of snail.

Generically they are all called the Mediterranean snail because of where they originated.

“They have distributions all the way from Scotland down to Morocco from Portugal through to the Middle East,” Dr Baker said.

“So there’s a big, wide distribution, they’ve come accidentally to Australia and they’ve become a problem.

“They’ve hit pay dirt, they’ve escaped the natural enemies that have a huge impact on their abundance in their native habitat.”

Read the full story at the ABC

How Porn Damages Your Sex Life

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Instead of increasing sexual enjoyment, porn often leads to less satisfying sex in the long run and, for many users, no sex at all.
 

Porn promises a virtual world filled with sex—more sex and better sex. What it doesn’t mention, however, is that the further a user goes into that fantasy world, the more likely their reality is to become just the opposite. [1] Porn often leads to less sex and less satisfying sex. [2] And for many users, porn eventually means no sex at all. [3]

How? Well, it starts in your brain.

You see, your brain is full of nerve pathways that make up what scientists call your “brain map.” [4] It’s kind of like a hiking map in your head, with billions of tiny overlapping trails. These pathways connect different parts of your brain together, helping you make sense of your experiences and control your life.

When you have a sexual experience that feels good, your brain starts creating new pathways to connect what you’re doing to the pleasure you’re feeling. [5] Essentially, your brain is redrawing the sexual part of you map so you’ll be able to come back later and repeat the experience. [6] (SeeHow Porn Is Like a Drug). The same thing happens the first time you watch porn. Your brain starts building new pathways in response to this very powerful new experience. [7] It’s saying, “This feels great! Let’s do this again.”

But here’s the catch: your brain map operates on a “use it or lose it” principle. [8] Just like a hiking trail will start to grow over if it’s not getting walked on, brain pathways that don’t get traffic become weaker and can even be completely replaced by stronger pathways that get more use.

As you might expect, watching porn is a very powerful experience that leaves a strong and lasting impression in the brain. (SeeHow Porn Changes the Brain.) Every time you watch porn—especially if you heighten the experience by masturbating—you are strengthening the part of your brain map that connects arousal to porn. [9] Meanwhile, the pathways connecting arousal to things like seeing, touching, or cuddling with a partner aren’t getting used. Pretty soon, natural turn-ons aren’t enough, and many porn users find they can’t get aroused by anything but porn. [10]

Read the full article here