The Sydney Morning Herald  Thursday July 10th 2014

A judge has compared incest and paedophilia to homosexuality, saying the community may no longer see sexual contact between siblings and between adults and children as “unnatural” or “taboo”.

  

District Court judge Garry Neilson said just as gay sex was socially unacceptable and criminal in the 1950s and 1960s but is now widely accepted, “a jury might find nothing untoward in the advance of a brother towards his sister once she had sexually matured, had sexual relationships with other men and was now ‘available’, not having [a] sexual partner”.

 He said the “only reason” that incest is still a crime is because of the high risk of genetic abnormalities in any resulting children “but even that falls away to an extent [because] there is such ease of contraception and ready access to abortion”.

The above has been swiftly denounced by a;ll and sundry. Little wonder. 

Yesterday,the NSW Bar has forbidden Judge Neilson from presiding over criminal cases. It takes an act of Parliament to stand down or remove a judge.

It's a wacky world and we are entitled to out own opinions but too often people in positions of power or influence come to believe they are untouchable ; they have been chosen to lead the world into an er of enlightenment..provided of course this reflects their views.

Nuts!How would George Brandis (our Attorney General who champions the rights of bigots  ) treat this?

FIFA FINALS

Fairly evenly matched

Empathy and communication

Could be better (much actually)

It would seem that the current crew in Canberra might have a bit to learn yet. 

Everything was thrown into confusion yesterday when Clive Palmer backed out his deal with the Coalition on the abolition of the Carbon Tax , claiming perfidy and dark deeds by the Government. He then went on holiday to New Zealand .

It would not be surprising if the Abbott government had in fact done a bit of "fine tuning"to the deal on the table but they claim vehemently they haven't contributed in any way to the ensuing ruckus,

The current Prime Minister and his followers appear to be suffering from a lack of trust as well as an

inability to communicate with the populace at large as to what they are up to. It's little wonder. They have kept mum on the refugee question and denied  until they are blue in the face that anything is going on. It took the Sri Lankan navy to inform us that they had " accepted" some 40 refugees ( who will be tried for breaking immigration procedures ) and for news to eventually filter out that there are some 100 or more other refugees of Tamil origin who are drifting aimlessly in the ocean somewhere.

Finally there is the budget which is a popular as an al fresco cafe in a hurricane. Selling the budget has turned  into a titanic silent struggle. Paul Keating would have been out on the hustings convincing all and sundry that what was proposed was necessary and vital for  country. Instead , since the budget, there have been rare glimpses of Joe ; it's almost as if he's in a huff. 

Another factor to consider is the government's seeming lack of empathy. They're just not "clicking" with the electorate. This and the lack of communication is contributing heavily to their poor performance in the polls. No doubt, the Liberals would claim they couldn't care less about the polls but it is a measure that shows the performance of the government.

A little secrecy goes a long way ..( about six thousand kilometers actually)

According to the Telegraph U,K, Sherlock Holmes has been sent to North Korea to encourage change.

The British Foreign Office spent about Aus$500 to buy the rights to a Sherlock Holmes episode produced by the BBC for screening at the  Pyongyang International Film Festival in 2012. 

Sherlock could visit here to encourage change to the "return to sender" shipments of refugees. The hermit kingdom is not the only one suffering from a secrecy overload.

News Docos

Channel 7

Well, what do you know? It's not so long ago that the Murdoch's were in deep pooh through their phone hacking saga and we were happy that in Australia we hadn't plumbed the same depths as the U,K,

Obtained illegally , according to Pristorius' defence and broadcast while the trial is still underway in South Africa, the news doco presented by Channel 7 was a bit  "ïffy".
The facts are confusing enough  without further speculation being aired cto all and sundry.It's really a strange and weird case.

Of course , Seven feels totally justified in broadcasting the reenactment of the incident . What else?