VIC POLICE FAIL: Police state hits school yard

Teacher arrested in front of class in Melbourne's west | Herald Sun

Police entered the school in Werribee to arrest her yesterday, officers asking her year 10 class to turn around as they stood on a sports field as they loaded their teacher into a divisional van.

Greg's Opinion:  

A bit over the top! The teacher was going nowhere except to class. 

By all means, arrest her after school or in her own time.  For the year 10 students to be told to turn around whilst the police put the teacher in the divisional van is straight out of a CSI television episode. 

Not involving the school principal is a serious breach of protocol as s/he is responsible for all that occurs on the school property.

Sex abuse becoming the norm in Australia

Sex abuse link to high rates of mental illness - ABC News

A study published today reveals that as many as a quarter of Australian women have experienced some form of assault or sexual abuse.

Can this really be?  There seems to be more assault and sexual abuse today than there was earlier in my lifetime.  Many will say that it only appears so because communications is so much better.  Well if that is the case, could it be that sexual abuse is not so much a crime as a basic feature of human nature.

After all, we are sexual creatures with the need to procreate programmed into our psyche.  But why do so many of us become offenders ... or victims?  One in four women are affected.  How many men are involved - probably about the same proportion.

It is becoming more common to hear of offenders from other countries committing sexual crimes in Australia so I wil stick with my perception that it is more common today than when I was younger.  We are told in the media that some of these use the defence that rape is culturally acceptable where they come from.   Well, it is not acceptable in Australia and people like this need to understand that they must abide by our cultural norms if they are  accepted into our communities.  If they cannot handle that, we need to tell them where to go.

 

Carbon price - I'm not convinced!

Carbon price evidence high as Everest: PM

"She has a mountain to move to convince Australian voters to support her carbon price package but Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the evidence backing her position is as "high as Mount Everest"."

I just don't get it.

Try as I might, I cannot find a single way that a carbon price will help me or the environment.

It seems to be nothing more than a political point scoring exercise between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.

How can Julia know more than everyone else in Australia - and how come Tony cannot see what the prophet Julia sees.

As for the rest of you ... can you show me the error of my ways?