This came up on my facebook page tonight. Seems this is an old one, but it is making rounds again. It is a hoax, these figures are fabricated from whole cloth. Here is an official statement from The Department of Immigration and Citizenship:
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) totally rejects the false claims that refugees permanently settling in Australia receive more in benefit payments than Australian pensioners (Pensioners deserve fair go, 01/09/2009).
The figures quoted, which have been circulating in a hoax email, bear no resemblance to income-support payments to pensioners, or to payments to asylum seekers and refugees settling in Australia.
The text and figures in the email appear to have originated in Canadian emails, websites and internet chatrooms. We suspect that the email circulating here has been cut and pasted from these sources.
In Australia, refugees granted permanent visas may gain access to benefits on the same basis and at the same rates as other Australian permanent residents.
There is no separate rate of benefit payments for refugees. Refugees receive no cash payments under Australia’s Integrated Humanitarian Settlement Strategy.
DIAC helps eligible refugees with English-language lessons and settling-in assistance including basic goods to start a household, subsidies for rent and utilities for their first four weeks in the country.
We would strongly encourage anyone who receives an email claiming asylum seekers or refugees are treated more favourably than Australian permanent residents to hit the delete button and ignore these scurrilous claims.
Sandi Logan
National Communications Manager,
Department of Immigration and Citizenship
2 September 2009
Furthermore, refugees are not illegal immigrants. It is not illegal to seek asylum. I discussed this and other misinformation in a previous blog post: Us and Them.
There’s a lot of bullshit flying around on Facebook these days, through viral shared statuses and images and whatnot. I’m always annoying everyone by fact-checking, debunking and/or debating them. So I’ve started a Facebook page dedicated to the task. If you’ve seen something and you’re not sure about it, post it on the wall and we’ll fact-check it. Or if you see something you know is bullshit, post it too, and we’ll help let everyone know: http://www.facebook.com/AskASkeptic
All you have to do to debunk the claim is actually read the article:
Health officials stress the deaths and side-effects are “suspected”.
Regulations now demand any case where a jab could have had an adverse effect has to be reported.
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said the increase may be because more people are logging their concerns rather than an actual rise in adverse reactions.
A spokesman for the MHPRA said: “A causal association with the influenza vaccines has not been established for any of these cases.
“The vaccine is largely given to those at high background risk of morbidity regardless of vaccination and coincidental medical events are to be expected.”
The article then goes on, disappointingly, to quote a member from “JABS” – an anti-vax group.
To present statements from groups such as this as a “balance” against the expert statement is not balance at all – it is false equivalency. It is like asking a ranting hobo off the street for a second opinion on the diagnosis a doctor gave you, or asking your hairdresser if they agree with what your mechanic says is wrong with your car. This, along with the misleading headline, is irresponsible journalism, and by contributing to the growing false beliefs held by the public about vaccination, could themselves share responsibility for the unnecessary deaths of children, and should be ashamed disgusted in themselves.
Whoa! Just saw this on Bad Astronomy, one of the best space pictures I’ve seen for a while.
This giant star (8 times wider, 20 times more massive, 80,000 times brighter than our sun!) is Zeta Ophiuchi, about 400 light years away. This image was taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope, the colours you see are representations of different wavelengths of infrared – it’s not nearly as visible otherwise due to dense dust clouds.
The star is moving into the glowing dust cloud to its left at about 25 kilometres per second, and the solar winds constantly dispersed from the star are plowing into the dust field, creating the wave patterns you can see!
Recent tragic events have rightfully brought the issue of gun control back into debate.
In USA you have the right to bear “arms”. What does that mean? Nuclear arms are arms. Would you let private citizens own nuclear weapons? Apache gunships? Tanks?
Of course not. But would you let them own a big stick? Yes. So there is a spectrum – from big sticks on one end to nuclear weapons on the other. Somewhere along this spectrum of weapons you have to draw a line and say “You do not have a right to own this.” I think that line should be drawn at automatic assault weapons, designed solely for killing people. Many people, and as efficiently as possible. I would also ban semi-automatic weapons that have large magazines.
I’m not against the banning of all guns. I’m happy enough with our laws in Australia – semi-automatic rifles are legal, if you’re licensed, which involves a gun safety course, and you have a valid reason, such as hunting and/or owning a farm, and you have safe storage for it.
The level of gun ownership in the U.S. is ridiculous. There are 88 guns per 100 people. This is the highest in the world by a significant margin. In Switzerland, 6 months of military service is compulsory and you get to keep your gun afterwards, but this still only gets gun ownership to half of that of the U.S.
My friend and fellow Townsville Humanists member (even though he’s in Melbourne now) Jonathan Meddings debated Christian apologist Robert Martin last week, doing a great job as usual. The notion was “Is Christianity a force for good in the world?” The opening addresses have been posted on youtube. Here they are, along with my remarks on Robert Martin’s. I can’t let Jonathan have all the fun, can I?
“don’t plan to defend corrupt Christianity” “Many people claiming to be believers”
He is redefining Christianity to mean only those he personally approves of and excluding the rest.
“Good news” – The most hilarious rebuttal I’ve heard to this argument was made by Dan Barker at the Global Atheist Convention, starting at 11:36: http://youtu.be/15tvEFz3oeU?t=11m36s
“[The Christian message] is good news because it diagnoses and solves the biggest problem in the world, which is human corruption.”
Hold on a minute there.. mere minutes ago he told us he wasn’t going to defend “corrupt Christianity”. How is it possible for there to be corrupt christians if the message “diagnoses and solves” human corruption? They all have the bible/”Christian message”. Why doesn’t it diagnose and solve their problems?
He then goes on to talk about how Christianity is so wonderful in Africa, apparently forgetting that 158 million of those African christians are Catholics, which he says he disagrees with and won’t defend, yet is happy to claim any good they do. He should also, then, account for the MILLIONS of AIDS deaths brought about by the church’s opposition to condom use. The latest pope has stated that it might kinda sorta be ok to use condoms to prevent aids (to paraphrase), but the damage is already done.
“…for in the atheists universe there can be no such thing as the good” “in the atheist universe the question of good is not even relevant”
Fuck you sir. The fact that Christian apologists don’t get punched in the face after implying atheists are devoid of morals is a great attestment to the fact that we are not.
The quotemine from Dawkins was about the physical universe, the hydrogen, the helium, the floating rocks, the physics. Physics doesn’t care about anything, it’s just physics. That doesn’t mean life that evolved enough to be intelligent and sentient can’t have morals.
If morality stems from where he says it does; god and the bible, that means that “good” is whatever it is that god says is good. So what if god said to torture babies? Wouldn’t that be good? “Of course not”, you will hear a believer reply. “God wouldn’t say that.” Why not? Because he’s good?
So even if you do think god exists, it should be clear that morality is based on reasoning, independent of whether a god reasoned it or not. We all have access to reason, so why not use reason instead of a dreadfully old and backward book when considering morality?
He then has to go back to the times of Plato to find an example of when Christian morality was superior to the thinking of the time. Even if we accept this, I thought the debate was about “is” not “was”? If he wants to play “was”, two can play. The Dark Ages, anyone?
“The Christian message affirmed the absolute equality of women”
Right. Like in this passage from the bible, Timothy 2:11-15:
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.”
“Religion is good for your health”
Sure, the community of the church might have benefits, but so would any social group activity like this.
Paraphrasing: “Modern moral values all come from Christian thought”
Nonsense. It is secular thinking, reasoning, and humanist values that has dragged moral progress forward, despite religion kicking and screaming the whole way. The best that Christianity can claim is that it is only decades behind the wave of moral progress, rather than centuries as for other religions.
Anyway, enough of my ranting, you are probably better off listening to Jonathan:
When one thinks of the word “paedophile”, naturally, they are thoughts of disgust. One thinks of the low-life scum, the excuses for human beings that rape and abuse children.
But perhaps we are being over-zealous in making that connection.
Paedophile:
Noun 1. paedophile – an adult who is sexually attracted to children.
A paedophile, by definition, is merely the sexual attraction to children. A paedophile can be a paedophile their entire life without ever harming a child, if they recognise that although they are sexually attracted to children, it is morally wrong to engage in sex with them, and abstain from such an action.
A paedophile only becomes a disgusting excuse of a human being once they commit rape, and at that point, they’re a rapist. So why don’t we refer to them as child rapists rather than paedophiles? It is an important distinction, I think.
People don’t choose who they are sexually attracted to. I didn’t wake up one day and choose to be heterosexual, just as homosexuals don’t choose to be homosexuals. But harder though their life may be, at least homosexuals can engage with other consenting adult homosexuals, no harm is done, and they need not repress their urges. We still have some ways to go, but we have come a long way as a society in recognising that just because someone has a different sexual preference to the norm, it doesn’t make them inherently evil.
Paedophiles, however, face a problem. They can never indulge in their sexual wishes, not without raping anyone anyway. They need to suppress their sexuality forever. This is a task they may need psychological help with. I wouldn’t pretend to have any idea of how exactly to help them, I’m a labourer, not a psychologist. But regardless, you can’t help anyone if they don’t seek help. With the stigma that paedophilia has, and the association/confusion with child-rapist, how is any paedophile going to have enough courage to come out and admit their problem, and to seek help? Our demonisation of the term may be leading to the rape of more children.
Pay attention to the wording next time you are reading a news article about a child rapist, especially with all the news involving the Catholic church lately. You’re very likely to see the word “paedophile” in the place where it should instead say child rapist. I don’t expect that changing peoples perception of paedophiles is an idea whose time has come, but I think the least we can do, to make a start, is to make sure we are not using the word paedophile when we mean child-rapist.
A radical idea, but isn’t it so elegant in its simplicity?
You see… if your kids aren’t at church.. and the priests don’t have access to them… their chances of getting raped by a priest are exponentially reduced.
You don’t have to stop believing in all the mumbo-jumbo, you can even teach your kids at home all about Jesus-man and how wine is blood and how your god impregnated a virgin without her consent, who then gave birth to, well, himself, but then he had to sacrifice himself to himself so he could forgive the humans he made for eating the fruit he made… or whatever it is you believe these days.
Your god isn’t going to send you to hell just for not going to church right? What kind of arsehole god would do that? Especially since even atheists can go to heaven now, according to your own George Pell.
Whether you’re Catholic or not, you should be mad as hell about what is happening within the organization. It is infested with abusive, pedophile priests. In fact, by conservative estimate, 1 in 20 Catholic priests are abusers. Just think about that number and let it sink in for a while. One in fucking twenty. At least 1 in 20, the real figure is probably closer to 1 in 15.
These child-molesting scum pretend to be authorities on morality, all the while taking advantage of the trust and authority entailed to their position to make their way into children’s pants.
Not only is the church infested with rapists, but they are actively protected from the law by the church. They will swap an accused priest to another district, getting them away from their accusers, and giving them a fresh new batch of kids to abuse.
Here is a quote from Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who last week called for a Royal Commission to investigate the church:
“I can testify from my own experience that the church covers up, silences victims, hinders police investigations, alerts offenders, destroys evidence and moves priests to protect the good name of the church. None of that stops at the Victorian border.”
