Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

What ever you do or don’t like about the Rudd Government (or is that the Labour Government? We tend to blur these things, but we shouldn’t) this little story should give you some insight into the man Kevin Rudd. Now lets see if he follows through!

• A Prime Minister’s Conscience is Pricked.
• And the PM Website has been rebuilt using Drupal!

Update - the group 78 people were forcible evicted.

Mollom – the Drupal spam management system created by the creator of Drupal Dries Buytaert - has blocked 100 Million spams. We use it here but recently its been letting a few through on the comment system. so our apologies for that.

Robin Good reviews GoogleWave – article written by John Blossom

Windows 7 Media Centre background can be changed and more here

Jenine’s write up of the latest Girl Geek Dinner – with my piccies.

I have been doing a lot of photography lately. Something to do with getting my new gear! I’m playing with White Balance, ISO, Aperture and Shutter settings and trying different things. A lot of these things I have of course done before, but now I am doing it with good gear and I am starting to get some good results.

I’ve put some of my good photos into this article. There are lots more in my flickr account, and for those connected to me on facebook a few there as well. A couple of very good shots have made it to my red bubble account where they can be purchased.

We went on a fun run on Sunday morning. I entered int he 5km run, but had to pull out early due to an injuury sustained at squash last Friday. I have pulled / damaged / twisted a nerve in the side of my left calf and it is very sore. The good thing was that as I got back to the finish line before most people I was able to take a large number of photos that have subsequently been made available for the runners to access.

What has been a surprise this week is the explosion of news about rape and football players. Well maybe it is not a surprise to some. Many thought this sort of thing was in the past what with the sordid details of the last few years. To have it out in the open again this year shows that there are still underlying issues that are not being addressed. We have had in the last few years numerous public cases of footballers and women who are attracted to them getting themselves into messy situations. Most involving copious amounts of alcohol. Most of these involve the women making a complaint of sexual assault against one or more players. Football clubs and police cooperate fully, and there seems to no longer be the “code of silence” amongst players and clubs about “what happens on the footy trip stays on the footy trip”. Yet these incidents keep occurring.

I think Karen Willis, the manager of the NSW Rape Crisis Centre, has written a very good article for the Sydney Morning Herald calling for ethical responses by men – who have to be leaders – in this area. And while I agree with her fully, I want to add a couple of additional elements.

My mother pointed me to an interesting article the other day, titled Keep the Fast, Keep the Feast by Peter Leithart who blogs at www.leithart.com.

He starts by writing this:

Over the centuries, Christians have fasted for many reasons. Sometimes the reasons have been good. The apostles and their churches fasted and prayed before selecting elders or ordaining missionaries. Christians have fasted in mourning for their sins. They have fasted and prayed to combat demons and to plead with God for relief from disaster.

Often, of course, they have fasted for bad reasons. They fasted because they believed flesh was evil, because they felt desperately guilty and forgot God’s love in sending his Son to cleanse their sins, because they wanted God to notice how wonderfully pious they were.

In spite of errors and abuses, Christians in the past had sound intuitions about the centrality of fasting in the Christian life. In the early Church, fasting was not an isolated practice reserved for a day or a season. It was a clue to all Christian living, a perspective on the whole of discipleship. To be a Christian meant to participate in a great feast. It meant also to observe a great fast.

I was interested enough to read on and found some real gems.