Sean the Blogonaut

Whooping Cough Outbreak in South Australia

Blogonaut — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:27:27 +0000

It appears that increased screening for swine flu has led to the discovery of a potential whooping cough outbreak in South Australia. According to SA Health there have been 3500 notifications for whooping cough this year which is a significant increase over preceding years.

Reports	Date
3500	November 2009
859	November 2008
318	November 2007

While health authorities view the increase as in increase in infection rate, they also believe the large increase is due to increased screening that would not have occurred in previous years. AMA SA president Andrew Lavender was quoted by ABC online:

"Certainly that’s a dramatic increase and we do believe that it represents probably an increase in the infection rate in the community, but there is a large amount of that is due to increased testing and a lot of the increased testing has been associated with the prevalence of the swine flu in the community," he said.

He also stated that the rise in cases should not be cause for alarm.

Dr Ann Koehler, SA Health Communicable Disease Control branch director was quoted by Adelaide Now as saying:

…nationally there had been a "big wave" of infections. She said SA had the highest rate, although it was not clear why.

She also called for parents to be vigilant with childhood vaccination.*

It was refreshing to read Dr Koehler’s dig at homeopathy. It seems that Medical experts are now seeing the need to combat this lunacy directly:

…Dr Koehler said SA Health was concerned about some people’s resistance to or complacency about vaccinating children. She warned homeopathic "vaccines" did not work.

"That’s wasting your money . . . you’re putting yourself, your children and other people’s children at risk," she said.

There was also this reference to anti-vaccination, or as they like to be referred to “pro choice” proponents by Dr Lavender, that made me smile:

Australian Medical Association state president Dr Andrew Lavender said people arguing against vaccination were both ignorant and arrogant.

"The people who are anti-vaccination are acting on very little information and usually relying on scare tactics . . . they are posing a risk to others," he said.

And while I a sure there are many intelligent, and well meaning people who work with the AVN (Australia Vaccination Network) it seems that aside from their conspiracy theorist leadership they attract unsavoury sorts like George Mamouzellos, perhaps the very definition of arrogance, ignorance and misogyny thrown in for good measure.

*It should be noted that the risk of contracting whooping cough comes not only from other unvaccinated children but from unvaccinated adolescents and adults(or from those adolescents and adults that have missed boosters).

Focus on the Family banned from ACT schools

Blogonaut — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:33:54 +0000

It is alleged that Focus on the Family Australia, have been pushing a hard-line Christian right agenda at their No Apologies (pretty much summarises their bigoted stance) seminars for teenagers, held at a number of ACT state schools. According to ABC Onlline they have been accused of:

vilifying homosexuality, and preaching religion to students without parental consent.

While the Canberra Times reports

A student at Canberra High School who attended one of the seminars alleged it included claims sex was bad, painted homosexuality in a similar light to bestiality and warned students they could become gay by watching gay pornography.

Students were also allegedly warned they could become attracted to animals by watching animal pornography, that if a couple had sex it was the boy’s fault and that girls should not provoke boys by putting their hair up and wearing make-up.

A non-representative Christian lobby group, the Australian Christian Lobby is of course running interference attempting to paint these seminars in a rather innocuous light, suggesting that they are values based programs and everyone needs values, right?

This little snippet from the program description gives and indication of what FoFA are providing:

NO APOLOGIES is a character-based sexual health curriculum.

Can someone fluent in Christianese translate? Character based?

No Apologies was created to help young people safely navigate the most critical decade of their lives—those years between the ages of 12 and 22. It is during these years that adolescents are confronted with choices that can sabotage their future. Young people need information and skills to guide them in their decision-making to avoid the consequences of high-risk behaviour.

Which is why you attempted to psychologically manipulate them by making them promise to be celibate – you’re giving them guidance and skills.

This curriculum is designed to educate and empower teenagers to make good choices and to develop positive character traits in the sexual domain. These traits include respect, responsibility, integrity, courage, self-control and honesty.

I love their hijacking of the word empower here. Its not empowerment if you are giving them tools that only enable them to make choices that align with your views.

The No Apologies program includes effective, age-appropriate and culturally relevant activities tested in classrooms, youth groups and health departments all over the world.

Culturally relevant? Interesting I wonder if this means adapting the presentation of Christian values so that they can be more easily imparted to non-white, non-western cultures.

Young people, after attending the 12-hour course,* are asked to consider how they want to manage their sex life today and in the decades to come. They are invited to make a decision to protect themselves and their future by choosing to abstain from all sexual activity outside of marriage. Each young person is offered a pledge card to sign and date as a reminder of their decision.

Oh I see, they are invited to make a decision to protect themselves by being celibate, never mind the guilt related to sexual identity or the subjugation of women to the will of men, just don’t have sex or think about it.

Why do we let these idiots near our children?

Darwin City Council Rules the “Lord’s Prayer” non-religious

Blogonaut — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:32:02 +0000

Ben Langford reporting in the NT News writes:

DARWIN City Council dropped its push to remove the Lord’s Prayer from the start of meetings after a handful of letters from religious objectors.

It’s interesting how effective letter writing can be. The ACL (Aust. Christian Lobby) actually have a publication on letter writing and manipulating politicians.

The council introduced a “welcome to country” preamble to proceedings, that passed without comment. When it came time to review the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer the decision was made to keep it. Though the reasoning behind its inclusion is decidedly weak.

But Lord Mayor Graeme Sawyer said the Lord’s Prayer would remain after "a lot of community opposition to it".

He said he received "a couple of phone calls, a couple of letters" from Christians.

…

Mr Sawyer said the prayer would remain as a matter of tradition – not religion.

"It’s not there as a religious artefact – it’s there as an artefact of the Western democratic principles that Local Government comes out of," he said.

So getting this straight in my head – Darwin City council are keeping the prayer as it is an artefact of democratic principles, despite strong community opposition to it. Is that not contradictory? We uphold the principles of Democracy by being undemocratic?

I should think that Christians(committed and sincere) would find it offensive as well to have their prayer relegated to the status of a traditional passage without meaning or intent.

And the argument from tradition is weak as well, do they still say god save the queen at DCC meetings?

Well I guess they have slowly let go of the white part of white Christian privilege with the welcome to country – we just have to keep chipping away.

Welcome “Homologous Legs” to the ANZAB crew

Blogonaut — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:56:24 +0000

Homologous Legs has joined ANZAB (Australian and New Zealand Atheist Blogroll) recently, and below is his comprehensive intro:

"My name is Jack (aka. Naon Tiotami) and I run Homologous Legs, a blog focused on evolutionary biology, intelligent design, skepticism and religion. Recent specific topics covered have been:

- the Discovery Institute fellow Jonathan Wells’s crazy ideas about gene duplication
- the nature of science and religion, and how they could possibly co-exist
- Richard Dawkins being labelled an anti-Semite
- skeptical fashion that isn’t embarrassingly bad
- recent discoveries that provide more evidence for evolution
- DDoS attacks on Discovery Institute-related websites, and why this is a very bad idea

I also breakdown creationist articles, the most recent of which have been drawn from the website of the Discovery Institute’s Cornelius Hunter, entitled "Darwin’s Predictions" – which is filled with non-sequitur "predictions" supposedly made by Charles Darwin and evolutionary theory.
My email debates with creationists also get posted on Homologous Legs – they’re always an amusing read.

I am, of course, going to be at the Global Atheist Convention in 2010, as I live in Melbourne, so expect both blog posts and tweets on Twitter about the event from me. See you all there!"

You can also catch Jack on twitter – in fact he lives there.

Are you Interested in joining the ANZAB? Click here.

Interested in the Rise of Atheism conference? Click here

Welcome “Jake Farr-Wharton” to the ANZAB crew

Blogonaut — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:37:08 +0000

Jake Farr-Wharton writes for a multi author blog called Rusty lime. Here’s what Jake has to say on his profile:

G’day. I’m Jake. I’m opinionated, obnoxious and onerous. I’m a learned larrikin with a loquacious love for linguistics. I’m an atheist, a humanist and an anti-homophobic, anti-xenophobic, anti-alliumphobia (fear of garlic) Gentle-Meister with an aptitude for inspiring and inflaming debate. I’m an avid martial artist with a doctorate in bullsh*t.

Are you Interested in joining the ANZAB? Click here.

Interested in the Rise of Atheism conference? Click here

Mercy Ministries in all but name

Blogonaut — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:21:18 +0000

It appears that Margaret Stunt is intending to carry on Mercy’s work, albeit under another name. The following was placed on the Facebook wall of ex-mercy clients.

Hey[name deleted], I was shocked when they read out the statement at LVN tonight. Is that where you heard about it too?

Some semi-good news tho. Last month I did the ‘It Is Finished’ course that Margaret Stunt was running at the house. On the last night Margaret told us that they were in a legal battle about the name. She said they would be closing, but will be opening under a new name. That whole process will take about 18mths though unfortunately.

Margaret said that they had 8 girls on the waiting list ready to come in, so we all need to be praying really hard for those girls that God will protect them and that they can find other places for support.
I am so devastated for those girls, because I know that Mercy literally saved my life.

[Source]

So there appears to have been some conflict before the closure. I don’t know if Margaret is intending to operate a facility in connection with Mercy Ministries International. She was last I heard, on good very terms with Nancy Alcorn.

Margaret is still somewhat of an unknown quantity. She seems to be running her own courses, and there is little detail on her qualifications.

Best we keep a weather eye on this one.

I also wonder where the money is coming from for this new facility if Mercy has had to close due to lack of funds?

Hillsong’s original press release on Mercy Ministries

Blogonaut — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:04:55 +0000

As I stated in this post, a reader informed me that they were aware of an earlier press release. Here is that original press release:

MEDIA RELEASE

27 October 09 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hillsong Church severs ties with Mercy Ministries

Hillsong Church has cut ties with Mercy Ministries around the world following an ACCC investigation into Mercy Ministries Inc.

The Church supported the US founded Ministry through donations, and over the years a number of Hillsong staff served on the Ministry’s board.

Pastor Houston said the current investigation has left him with no choice but to end Hillsong’s association with the organisation.

“Hillsong Church did not initiate the program but offered support by way of donation and number of individuals served on the board and worked as staff at the Ministry over the years.”

“It is not my place to speak on behalf of Mercy Ministries, or to take responsibility for their actions, they are a separate organization.”

“It is so important that we continue to support, and work in cooperation with organisations doing great things in our community and around the world, but we have learnt some lessons by working with an organisation we ultimately did not have control over.”

“To ensure that this does not happen again it is important that we take immediate action to protect the reputation of our church moving forward.”

Pastor Brian Houston has ordered an immediate internal audit of Hillsong staff to identify what boards its workforce is associated with. Pastor Brian said he would recommend to the church’s executive leadership team that they no longer participate on other not for profit boards.

New guidelines would also be introduced for all staff to create new boundaries around their involvement with external boards.

“I take this matter very seriously and it is a shame that action in relation to a separate organisation can overshadow so much of what we as a church stand for,” Pastor Brian said.

Pastor Houston informed thousands of Hillsong attendees at a leadership meeting on Tuesday that the church has severed any affiliation with Mercy Ministries internationally, and would not be associated with any attempt by Mercy Ministries USA, to recommence within Australia, under that or any other name.
Pastor Houston said he would encourage those who have been involved with Mercy Ministries Inc. in Australia, to take responsibility, by co-operating with ongoing investigations.

I am not ware of any media release by the ACCC, indeed I thought their original investigation carried out last year had amounted to nothing. I wonder what the ACCC has uncovered for Brian Houston to pre-empt the damage of any findings.

It does increasingly appear that some sort of misconduct/ impropriety can be traced back to Mercy Ministries International for as Brian has stated he does not want anything do do with them now or in the future.

It does strike me as odd though, this late parting of the ways. I would have assumed that with such close ties, such Christian Fellowship, any wrong doing would have been apparent to Hillsong insiders long before today.

Hillsong distancing itself from Mercy Ministries

Blogonaut — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:26:21 +0000

One of my readers suggested I take a gander at the media release form Hillsong on Mercy Ministries, it is interesting to note that this release was apparently amended from earlier in the day -the previous release was apparently harsher. I have inserted my comments below:

27 October 2009

I want to inform you of issues that have become increasingly clear in recent days, which have left me personally devastated.

Mercy Ministries Inc. have informed us that they are ceasing operations in Australia.

This we knew. Devastated might be a bit strong, but then it is Pastor Brian talking…only it seems his devastation springs from something other than just the closure.

Some of you are aware of Mercy Ministries, an organisation set up to rehabilitate and reach out to young women in need. It has come to my attention in recent days, that investigations into Mercy Ministries Inc. have been ongoing, over what is essentially unclear or misguided communication in relation to their funding and services.

Whoa! Mercy under investigation over unclear communication in relation to funding and services. Are we talking misappropriation of funds or bad financial management or both?

In the past, Hillsong Church has supported Mercy Ministries through financial donations. A number of individuals involved with our church have also served on the board and/or staff of this ministry.

Unfortunately, we believe that in the case of Mercy Ministries, concern about the way they delivered their message and services has unfairly affected Hillsong Church by association.

So the bad publicity finally started to stain. Interesting that Pastor Brian is not necessarily agreeing that Mercy’s Deliverance ministry is wrong here, merely that they are affected because the public is starting to see the close relationship. Well I suppose that’s what happens when you cultivate these close ties.

It is not my place to defend or try to explain what Mercy Ministries has or hasn’t done. Hillsong has done nothing wrong. Hillsong is not under investigation, but a number of key people from Hillsong Church over the years, have been involved in Mercy Ministries.

Translated: Hillsong has no official involvement but members associated with Hillsong might. Involved in what? We don’t know but Pastor Brian could not be more unequivocal. Reminds me somewhat of a stain, a white house and a blue dress.

It is wrong that anything Mercy Ministries may or may not have done could overshadow so much of what we as a church stand for: Loving God and Helping People.

Translated: If we get negative publicity from this its unfair ‘cause we do good things

To ensure that this does not happen again it is important that we take immediate action to protect the reputation of our church moving forward.

We will undertake an internal audit of Hillsong staff to identify what organisations or boards they are currently associated with.

From there, we will be strongly recommending that our executive level staff no longer participate on other not-for-profit boards.

We will also examine some future guidelines and boundaries for Hillsong staff in regards to their involvement in external boards.

It is so important that we continue to support and work in cooperation with organisations doing great things in our community and around the world.

We are instituting a full review of our staff for something that may or may not have happened *cough* damage control * cough*

Despite the numerous positive achievements of Mercy Ministries, Hillsong Church will no longer support, or be associated with this ministry.

Further, we sever any affiliation with Mercy Ministries internationally, and would not be associated with any attempt by Mercy Ministries Inc or Mercy Ministries Ltd, to recommence within Australia, under that or any other name.

So this is not an amicable parting of the ways. He is severing any ties with Mercy now and at anytime in the future. I think its safe to say Nancy Alcorn and her happy little bunch of Demon hunters ain’t commin’ back.

We would encourage those, that any investigation involves, to cooperate fully.

Are the police involved? Sounds like code for “this isn’t the time to use that old ends justifies the means stuff”

We will continue to keep the church informed as to any new developments with this situation, and would ask you to continue to keep this in your prayers.

- Brian Houston, Senior Pastor, Hillsong Church

Thoughts?

Mercy Ministries Australia Closes

Blogonaut — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:59:15 +0000

This text was posted on the Mercy Ministries Australia site yesterday:

It is with deep regret and sadness we have to inform you that Mercy Ministries in Australia is no longer in operation. Due to internal circumstances and challenges, Mercy Ministries Incorporated will be dissolved as an entity. We have encountered extreme financial challenges and a steady drop in our support base to the point where we are no longer financially viable. Mercy Ministries has been proud to serve the young women of Australia for nine years and to help hundreds of young women find freedom from life controlling issues. Mercy Ministries is grateful to the many individuals, businesses, and churches who have sacrificed and given over the years to make this program possible.

Margaret Stunt

Executive Director, Mercy Ministries Incorporated

Board Member, Mercy Ministries Incorporated

[source]

It seems that the money and support have finally dried up. I wonder if Mercy had reviewed their treatment regime, produced something based in science and adequate research, as opposed to some extreme right biblical views they might have had a chance.

I am glad that Mercy is gone. I am Glad that they will no longer have a hand in the treatment of mentally ill women.

This happiness is tempered somewhat by the knowledge that the women who sought help and those still seeking it have issues and needs to be met.

Let’s hope another crazy religious institution doesn’t step up to the plate.

Atheist Convention News

Blogonaut — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:04:39 +0000

Its great to see the Convention and the Atheist Foundation of Australia getting some media coverage.

First we have the BBC interview AFA President over the DDOS attacks on the convention server here followed by Jason Ball, one of the producers of Young Australian Skeptics being interviewed by Catherine Deveny

Rise of Atheism Convention Tickets can be purchased here