Have You Heard The One?

*

Through sheer willpower, he managed to get through two weeks without contacting her, the business card burning a hole in his wallet the entire time. But then Pastor Dennis gave a sermon on the subject of "Temptation" that made him rethink his strategy.

"You know what temptation is?" he asked. "It's a fungus. It hides in the dark corners of the soul, those damp cracks and moist crevices we'd prefer not to think about. Well, I'll tell you what, people. You can't ignore temptation. Nuh-uh. That's how it thrives. You pretend it's not there, and pretty soon this tiny speck of mold turns into a giant poison mushroom with deep, twisted roots. Then see how easy it is to get rid of it! No, the thing to do with temptation is face it head-on at high noon! Right away! The second you realise it's there! Expose it to the fresh air and sunlight of Jesus Christ! Because you know what, friends? That slimy fungus can't stand the light of day! It just shrivels up and dies! Amen!"

After the sermon...

The Abstinence Teacher, Tom Perrotta.

Well he walked into the hell hole and the gargoyles laughed. Tell a joke, the entourage demanded, sitting on their high stools, downing their poisonous drinks. He was shattered, inside and out, by recent events. He grinned. He knew he looked good, new shirt, new sunglasses, new life wrapped around the old. He couldn't remember many jokes, never could. They were telling the dwarf nun joke. The seven dwarfs are at the Vatican. Elaborately, they ask the pope if there are any dwarf nuns in the Vatican. No says the pope. Any in Europe? No says the pope. Any in the world? No says the pope. Dopey f'd a penguin, Dopey f'd a penguin, they all chant. There were gales of intoxicated laughter. These moments were rare in this sour town.

They sought shelter from the storm, giant rain goblets sizzling through the pollution. The people are so easily manipulated, a giant voice intoned. What are you going to do about it? There was nothing that could be done about it. US dollar, the television commentator burbles. Their lives had been split into fragments. Justin and Christian are two prawns living happily on the bottom of the ocean, he began. Justin is bored and prays to the Great Cod, oh Great Cod I want to be a shark, and whoosh the Great Cod appears out of the murky gloom and grants him his wish. But Justin soon gets bored with being a shark because all his friends are frightened of him and he prays to the Great Cod, I want to be a prawn again. Whoosh the Great Cod appears out of the gloom, grants him his wish.

Justin is happy to be a prawn again, and happy to be amongst his friends. But he particularly wants to see Christian. Where is my friend? he asks. His best friend turned into a shark and he is hiding in his house. So Justin seeks out his friend's house and knocks on the door. It's me, Justin, I'm back, come out. No no, says Christian, you're a shark, you'll eat me. No no, I'm a prawn again Christian, comes the response. And the laughter. And the old jokes recycled. The jogger in Centennial Park tricked in to hugging a tree to hear it sing. Snap locked to the tree. Raped by the enticer. A policeman comes along. He tells him the whole story of how he came to be padlocked to a tree in the centre of the park with his pants around his ankles. Please help me, he cries. I guess it's not your lucky day, the copper says, reaching for his zipper.

They were rude, they were crude, they made darkness in the walk, they assembled for another go. He mourned the passing of old crowds. Just when you thought it was safe; the old bastards triumph again. She was shuddering in retrospect. We'll be right, the payouts are handsome. I can't believe I lasted as long as I did, she said, chortling, the old Stalinist on the floor, aching in disbelief. We were deeply shattered. We had defied all sense of time. The arrogant new generation of the left, even more arrogant and convinced of their own ways than their forebears, imposed new taxes and decried the evils of the capitalist system, riding high in their long black limousines on the money generated by the very system they berated. All they could think of was more taxes, more control, more regulations, more feminist infiltration from the whacky left.

He shuddered and new it would all end in disaster. He knew the society was cannibalising itself. He knew that they had been forsaken, that the politicians did not represent him any more. He knew the country was going to the dogs, and rapidly. He knew this curdled city was sour to the core, that friendships were rare and fleeting, that trust was for the naive. They manipulated the media as they manipulated everything else. They were so smug in their convictions, bleating on about the dispossessed, "among the country's most vulnerable". Weak people, ideologically driven people, needed a cache of the vulnerable to justify their own policies, to make them feel better men, to help them preen like little bantam roosters.

But there were plenty of bastards who needed no such justification. JA stalked the corridors like some creature from a Mervyn Peake novel, rubbing his hands together in his peculiar gesture. He could never get them clean. He, too, had preened around the office like a powerful man, radiating fear and ill will, clouding the avenues with bile. They had stalked and stalked, hiding in their offices, their days numbered. He had known all along it could never last. Oh stay, won't you stay, just a little bit longer. Jackson Browne. Just a little bit longer. Nostalgia draped his every move; they talked to each other as if there was peace to come, as if the dark forces were not going to smash their secure, tight little abode. He wanted to die. He wanted to pass away. And then he wanted to live forever, throwing his personality through the ether into a different form.

I can't believe we're all going to die, his daughter said, how long will you last she asked. He snorted derisively, as if it was a question not worth answering. And already they were drifting away, everything that had been his life. Drifting into darkness, drifting into another chaotic life, a broader universe, broken and shattered on the ocean floor. Have you heard the one about....?....

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/rudd-wraps-us-tour-with-finance-talks-20090328-9ejk.html

Rudd wraps US tour with finance talks
Kate Hannon
March 28, 2009

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a critic of neo-liberals and free marketers responsible for the global financial crisis, entered their lair on the final day of his five-day visit to the US.

Mr Rudd had a working lunch with the board of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday and a dozen chief executives of listed companies where he told them of the robustness of the Australian economy and of the need for next week's G20 summit to rein in the kind of activity which allowed banks to grow fat on toxic assets.

By contrast, while her husband was downtown hobnobbing with captains of industry, Therese Rein visited a school for disadvantaged children uptown in Harlem.

Ms Rein has taken a personal interest in a project, the Harlem Children's Zone, which seeks to keep children from troubled or impoverished backgrounds in school and spent several hours there on Friday afternoon talking to students and teachers.

Mr Rudd later told reporters that next Wednesday's G20 summit in London was an important chance for the leaders of the world's largest economies to report on their respective economic stimulus measures and to discuss how to deal with the toxic bank assets constricting the flow of credit.

They would also discuss a restructure of the financial regulatory system and reform of the International Monetary Fund.

"These will be difficult challenges in the week ahead, agreement has not yet been reached across all governments, officials are still working hard and there's still a lot of work to be done between now and next Wednesday in London," Mr Rudd told reporters.

"The economic stakes of the global economy are high and because of that the economic stakes for the Australian economy and jobs in Australia are also high."

Introducing Mr Rudd before his news conference, NY Stock Exchange chief executive Duncan Niederauer said both he and Mr Rudd had "lousy timing" as they both began their respective jobs on December 3, 2007.


http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25261697-29277,00.html

SYDNEY'S bikie war has intensified after a man believed to be a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang was gunned down in Sydney's southwest.

Police say a 32-year-old man was sprayed with gunfire at about 11.30pm (AEDT) on Sunday at a unit block in Punchbowl Road, Lakemba.

It appears the victim pulled up at the unit block in a car and was shot several times when he got out of the vehicle.

Another man was seen running from the unit block onto Punchbowl Road.

He's described as being around 173cm tall, of muscular build, with long dark collar length hair and wearing a dark long sleeved jacket and dark jeans.

The victim was rushed by ambulance to St George Hospital where he underwent surgery for his wounds.

Police say he remains in a serious but stable condition.

A crime scene was established and investigators began to search the area for clues with the assistance of Polair, the dog squad and general duties officers.

Police are appealing for the driver of a white motor vehicle, who encountered the man who fled the scene, to come forward.
Related Coverage

The driver had to sound his horn while avoiding the man running across Punchbowl Road shortly after the gunshots were heard.

The victim is believed to be a member of an outlaw bikie gang.

http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/3628/218/

One man's meat may be another man's poison, but the Environmental Protection Agency has taken the idea to an absurdity. EPA has just sent a proposal to the White House that would classify carbon dioxide as a health hazard.

But if there wasn't carbon dioxide around, there would be no plants. And, for that matter, neither would there be any people or pets if we weren't allowed to exhale. The claimed "health hazard" from carbon dioxide is, of course, global warming, yet the data we have seen, such as Stanford economist Thomas Gale Moore's work, show that warmer temperatures and higher incomes are associated with healthier, longer-living people. In case environmentalists haven't noticed, bio-diversity is also much greater when temperatures are higher.

Over history, human civilizations have expanded during warmer periods but declined when it got cold. For a history lesson, we recommend University of California Professor Brian Fagan's excellent book, "The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History."

Obviously, higher temperatures support more plant life, and that in turn supplies the food for more animals. If you want more plants, animals, and healthier people, more carbon dioxide and higher temperatures are beneficial and certainly not "hazardous to health."

All sorts of bizarre regulations already are devoted to "protecting" us from warmer temperatures - regulations that do endanger health and safety. Take mile per gallon regulation rules for cars. These rules directly endanger health and life because smaller cars are simply inherently less able to protect their passengers. Then there are mandates for compact fluorescent light bulbs that contain mercury. The EPA itself has extremely detailed and scary instructions about requiring people to leave the area once a bulb is broken. You can't vacuum the spot, and if the spill occurs on a carpet the EPA claims that you should cut out that portion of the carpet and dispose of it properly.

There is little rational discussion on global warming these days. Consider the following questions. A "no" to any of them should logically imply that we should not restrict carbon dioxide.

(1) Are global temperatures rising? They were clearly rising from the late 1970s to 1998, but temperatures just as clearly have not gone up in the last 11 years. Indeed, the more recent numbers show evidence of cooling.

(2) Is mankind responsible for a significant and noticeable portion of an increase in temperatures? Mankind is responsible for just a few percent of greenhouse gases, and changes in greenhouse gases are responsible for just a tiny fraction of changes in global temperatures. The big factor is variations in the sun's energy output. Last December, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works released a list of 400 prominent scientists who questioned the general notion of significant manmade global warming.

(3) Are increased temperatures "bad"? That answer is hardly obvious. Higher temperatures could increase ocean levels by between 7 inches and 2 feet over the next 100 years. On the other hand, massive areas from Canada to Europe to Russia would be much more habitable than now. We have already noted the other benefits to life.

(4) Finally, let's assume that the answer to all three previous questions is "yes." Does that mean we need more regulations and taxes? No, that is still not clear.

If we believe that man-made global warming is "bad," we still don't want to eliminate all carbon emissions. Having no cars, no air conditioning, or no electricity would presumably be much worse than anything people claim results from global warming. We would want to balance the benefits with any costs of additional carbon dioxide emissions.

Redfern Station, Sydney, Australia.