Buxton bound!

Those of you who keep an eye on Facebook will have seen the news. Those of you who can read will know what it means. Yes folks, the Angelico invasion of the International G&S Festival in Buxton UK is on again - this time with 50% MORE!

It's true - me, Chris and David are right now heading towards Southern Cross Station to pick up a Skybus for Tullamarine. From there an Emirates 777-300ER will wing us to Manchester Airport.

So - only a few more hours in Australia. Australia, land of bumpy rails and low service frequencies (Skybus excepted). Land where peace and joy had birth. I still call Australia home and always will - but Buxton is a great place to be for a month. Excitement is building. Watch this space.

Political activism in a secular society

It's time for some controversy and I'm not (yet) inspired on the subject of teen pregnancy which I promised to blog about last year. So my subject tonight is this: to what extent should Christians be politically active in today's secular society?

The reason I ask this is because I've noticed a lot of ultra-conservatives decrying the increase in the number of Muslims in Australia. As a good conservative I believe that their religion is a false one, and as a wide reader I know that it advocates some practices Western society doesn't approve of. But is it right for Christians to insist that the door be shut to Muslim immigrants?

Similarly with protests against moves to legalise gay marriage, abortion, euthanasia and certain drugs. Do we as Christians have a right to force our beliefs on the rest of the country? (Incidentally, it's interesting to note that none of those are expressly forbidden or even mentioned in the Bible... however we can be fairly certain God disapproves of them.)

Many Christians, in an attempt to justify that sort of activism, point to various parts of the law of Moses where God tells Israel that idolatry is a capital crime, breaking the Sabbath is punishable by banishment, etc. However, and this is probably fairly obvious, we aren't living in Old Testament Israel. We are a minority religion in a basically pagan society.

A better parallel is Israel in John the Baptist's and Jesus' time - with the majority of the nation basically apostate and an overruling power with its own religion. We have an account of John's moves towards political activism in Luke 3:11-14:

10 “What should we do then?” the crowd asked.

11 John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”

13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.

14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”

He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

Some points are significant here. Firstly, the people he was speaking to were those who had repented of their sins, been baptised by him and were eager to know how to live as God's people in their own situation. In other words, Christians (or the nearest equivalent at the time). So John's comments are not a mandate for us to become political lobbyists.

Secondly, even when talking to Christians John didn't tell them to give up their way of life (particularly those who were employed by Rome, and hence obliged to stay that way for years or face the death penalty) - even though they would in all likelihood be required to do things that as Christians they wouldn't want to do. Paul develops this theme in 1 Corinthians 7:20-24 and the Pastoral letters - the thrust is that everyone, no matter what their circumstances, can live a Godly life and shouldn't seek to change their position because they have become a Christian. If God doesn't require His own people to change their way of life but to serve Him regardless, how can we imagine we have a mandate to tell non-Christians to change their lives?

Examples

Now I'd like to go through a few of the specific things Christian lobbyists tend to agitate for.

Fewer rights for homosexuals

The clear teaching of the Bible is that God detests homosexual acts, and therefore Christians oppose the legalisation of gay marriages.

However I have to ask, what's the point? Homosexual acts are not illegal, and will go on with the same regularity whether gay marriage is legalised or not. We already have full recognition of gay defacto relationships as a legal equivalent to a marriage. If Christians are going to insist on the Bible as the standard for our national laws, these things have to go as well. (Of course I realise it's a case of stopping the tide from coming in before pushing it back out - but the message coming from Christian lobbyists today is sadly lacking in consistency in these matters.)

So, as a church, we have to decide - do we want to work for the complete outlawing of homosexuality? If so, we need to be consistent and impose the Biblical laws on every aspect of marriage and family life. If not, we have no right to object to the legalisation of gay marriage.

Dialling back the maximum age for abortion

The Biblical teaching is that a human life may not be ended by another person, except as a judicial punishment for certain serious crimes. Debate rages about whether a foetus is in fact a human life, but hints in the Bible indicate that cells become a living soul at the point of conception.

That being so, a true Christian will condemn any form of abortion - starting with "morning after" pills and right up to full term.

So once again - should Christian political lobbyists "settle" for a lower maximum age for abortions? It's inconsistent. It's a compromise. Again we have to decide between applying Biblical laws to the nation or "anything goes".

Incidentally, in case anyone's thinking of wheeling out the tired old line that "men can't bear babies, so they shouldn't have any say in an abortion debate", let me say that I'll accept that when women can conceive without any, uh, input from men.

Euthanasia

It's the same as the abortion debate - no human being has the right to take the life of another, except for capital punishment. As Christians do we seek to have that Biblical concept enshrined in law, or do we allow secular society to put its humanist ideas forward instead?

Legalised marijuana

Unlike the matters above there's no direct Biblical guidance on the matter of drugs. There are hints, eg "Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit" and we should maintain a temple well out of respect, but an argument like that is very easy to knock down.

It's probably more or less true that pot is not significantly more harmful than alcohol or tobacco - so once again Christians need to be consistent and either fight the lot or not fight at all.

Sunday trading

A lot of Christians think Sabbath observance is the least important of the Ten Commandments, but a quick flip through the books of the prophets will reveal that it's fairly consistently in the top three requirements on God's priority list.

But what about today? Fatigue Management laws and union regulations mandate a fairly strict set of rules about what hours people can work (including not only a day off each week but a maximum number of hours per day, minimum time between shifts, number of meal breaks, etc). Does this make the restriction on Sunday trading redundant?

It all comes down to our interpretation of God's intentions in making the Sabbath law. Resting is important, but so is regular church attendance - for the Christian at least. Once again we have to ask whether we have the right to require non-Christians to follow Christian laws. But more significantly, we have to ask whether we can look at God's laws and say to Him "OK God, I know why you said that and I've got a better idea so I'll ignore you".

Restrictions to Muslim immigration

Terrorist activity done in the name of Islam has opened the eyes of some commentators, who point out that there are groups of Muslims in Australia who hold to an interpretation of the Koran which advocates rebellion against a non-Muslim government and violence against people who refuse to convert to Islam. Any attempts to raise public awareness on this fact, of course, brings howls of abuse from the left-wing media and an ever-escalating war of words. This threatens to polarise society into liberals and ultra-conservatives.

What's a good solution for this problem? Obviously if there was a group that incited rebellion and violence without the complication of religion, it would be the duty of the police to put it out of action. Should religion be an excuse to break the law? Obviously not, the BOFH has already proven that the religion card can be used to get out of work, if that could be extended we'd have anarchy before we know it. So we're forced to accept a position where the civil government has to decide which religions are allowed to operate and which aren't - in other words, there is no freedom of religion.

Religion in politics?

In all these cases we come down to the original question - is it right for Christians to impose Christian law on a secular society? Many Christians say yes. However, if we really are a non-religious society and treat all religions equally, Muslims have the same right to impose Sharia law on us. Is that something we as Christians want to allow?

Actually, something similar has already happened. The religion of humanism has imposed its ideals on us - ideals like homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia and even equality of religions. In practice, of course, equality of religions (or tolerance, if you will) means that all religions become subservient to humanism. That's why people aren't tolerant of Christians' intolerance to sin when that sin is popularised by humanism.

So now we have a new slant on our original question. In a society run by a religion which is diametrically opposed to Biblical Christianity, do we have the right to impose Christian standards of morality? Put the question the other way around - did the Baal worshippers have the right to impose their standards of morality on Israel? Of course not! If they tried they could be executed. The only way they succeeded was by converting the nation to paganism.

What then am I saying? Should we stop all attempts to reform our society? By no means! (Sorry, I love the book of Romans and it's starting to rub off on me. Don't anyone say "no condemnation" unless you want a recital!)

Where was I? By no means should we stop trying to reform our society. Righteousness exalts a nation (Prov 14:34) so anything we do can only be good for everyone. We also have the good examples of Daniel and Paul, who lived in pagan nations but still spoke God's word to the rulers without holding back. Note that I didn't include the rest of the Old Testament prophets in that list - people like Samuel, Micaiah and Jeremiah were fighting apostasy, not paganism. Their situation isn't quite the same as ours.

So let's take the examples of Daniel and Paul as a model for our Biblical political activism, and examine them closely.

Daniel

Daniel was probably the most powerful man in the world - particularly while Nebuchadnezzar was being disciplined by God and unable to rule his kingdom. He was therefore perfectly placed to legislate against idolatry or any practice he (as a good Jew) might find abhorrent. Did he do so? We're not told he did - which means that if he did anything like it the Holy Spirit didn't consider it important enough to include in the Bible for the benefit of future generations. And he was "highly esteemed" (Dan 10:11) by God - not reproached for failing to do what (probably) no believer in God before or since has had the opportunity to do. He made no secret of his beliefs, but he didn't expect anyone else to live by them. Of course he urged Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 4:27) and Belshazzar (Dan 5:22-24) to repent of their sins - but only after they had asked him for advice after receiving a sign from God.

But Daniel was noted (by God, king, officials and people) for his utmost integrity in everything he did.

Paul

Paul's efforts in political activism are outlined in the last few chapters of Acts. He morphed his defence before the Roman officials against the accusations of the Jews into a testimony of his salvation, and thus to an effort to evangelize King Agrippa (Acts 26:27-29).

Note that he never tried to reform the shocking morals of the Roman upper classes, or outlaw idolatry, even though he was literally sickened by it (Acts 17:16) - he worked on bringing individual people to salvation, just as all Christians are called to do.

So what is the role of religion in politics today?

According to the examples of Daniel and Paul, not much! God puts His people wherever He wants to, and if God has called you to a career in politics you're responsible to respond to the call like any other Christian. However, your role once there is not to reform the nation but to prove to the world that Christianity makes a difference in people's lives. Take a stand on integrity, and evangelise. That's the extent of the responsibility of a Christian in politics in a humanistic nation.

Similarly Christians shouldn't seek to lobby politicians or officials - we can evangelise them and hope they'll do the right thing off their own bat, but that's all.

But what's more important?

Pray! Pray for our society to be reformed, to return to its Christian roots. Don't laugh, it has happened! Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah and Josiah all implemented reforms, with the support of Godly prophets and priests, and the nation followed. Surely you don't believe the arm of the Lord is too short (Isa 59:1) to turn back the tide of humanism?

Of course, implied in the challenge to pray is the requirement to understand the problem. Given that Christianity today exists as subserviently to the prevailing religion of humanism, we have two choices: accept it and knuckle under, or fight it and get back on top. Most of the church today is simply acting like we're still a Christian nation and telling people how to live in one, and thus (apart from a miraculous show of God's mercy) will gain very little traction.

So, to accept or to fight? God calls us to be persecuted, but never to be defeated. The battle, however, isn't won in the corridors of power - it's won in the hearts of the people. When the church is a truly God-honouring church, and the people abandon humanism and accept Christianity as the national religion (whether they subscribe to it personally or not), then we will have a truly Christian nation and will be able to roll back the tide of immorality.

It all starts with prayer, not press releases.

The origins of Melbourne

A good friend of mine recently stated that Cheam in the UK was the bit God created last - and by then He'd got a good bit of practice in so Cheam ended up perfect.

Well I'd like to put the theory that Melbourne was the bit God did first - not chronologically, but methodologically. Melbourne was God's sandbox, the system He used to try things out with. So for instance if He contracted Slartibartfast to design some fjords in Norway, He'd first try them out in Melbourne to see how they worked and to test for any ill effects. As often as not He'd recycle them afterwards - I believe the fjords ended up as the Yarra Valley, God just heaped all the rocky bits up and made the Dandenongs out of them, and the bits that were too small for mountains He put around Eltham and Hurstbridge. As it turned out the seawater didn't really fit with the whole theme so He made it a flood plain instead. Incidentally the flood plain idea worked so well He developed the theme significantly when it was time to do Egypt.

So anyway, I'll focus on the people because terrain quite frankly bores me to tears. God, like any good engineer, works clockwise so He started at Werribee. The train of thought went something like this:

Jesus: "OK, let's start... I reckon I'll put some bogans in here, I like bogans, they're a lot of fun and they can do all sorts of really clever stuff with their hands."

Holy Spirit: "Yes but what about after the fall? They'll all start stabbing each other and living off Centrelink instead of doing the cool stuff!"

Jesus: "Yeah I know, but let's face it, after the fall everything's up salt creek without a paddle anyway."

Holy Spirit: "I know that, but can't we put some old age pensioners there instead? At least then there'll be no blood running down the streets. I have to think of my crew of guardian angels you know, the workload on them will be pretty full on if you fill the place with bogans."

Jesus: "Hey, they're spirits, they're not subject to fatigue!"

Holy Spirit: "True, I forgot, carry on."

So Jesus grabbed a barrel full of bogans and started filling the suburbs, starting at Werribee. As He reached Point Cook He started thinking "Hey, there's some really nice people in here! I should probably sort them out a bit..." So the nice people got placed in Point Cook, Altona, Spotswood and Yarraville.

We really don't know what happened at Newport. It got filled with the absolute cream of the cream of nice-type bogans when it was created, but something must have happened to it afterwards to attract all those unsavoury gunzel types.

As for Julia Gillard, how she got to Altona is a complete mystery.

So anyway, as Jesus was going through Seddon the supply of nice bogans ran out and nothing was left but the dregs. He couldn't leave Footscray unpopulated so He just had to shove them in and hope for the best. Being a good engineer He tried all sorts of things to mitigate the problem - He made the place a railway junction and prompted the good Sir Rod Eddington to put a road tunnel through it, which would divide the place up and reduce the risk of an uncontrolled chain reaction, but even so, the dregs of the bogan supply have made Footscray what it is today.

So Jesus made a full report to His Father about the progress so far. "Yeah Dad, I'm pretty happy with the way things are turning out. There'll be some bugs after the fall of course, but We expected that."

"Ah yes, on that note, are you still prepared to go through with your massive plan to fix the after-effects of the fall?"

Jesus took a deep breath and replied "Yes Dad, it's going to be rough, but hey, no guts no glory, right?"

"You're the awesomest son ever, Jesus!"

"Ta Dad... anyway, do You mind if I try these nice bogans in Birmingham and Manchester?"

And so it was settled that Yarraville would be the prototype for thousands of industrial cities around the world.

So Jesus went back to Melbourne to have a go at the eastern suburbs. The supply of bogans had run out so He was left with office workers.

"These people aren't as interesting, I mean, what can I do with them? One works in finance and one works in IT but they're all pretty much the same really."

The Holy Spirit consoled Him. "You know, the fact that they're all the same means You could probably put one awesome railway line in. Look, just drive it straight out of the city to Ringwood, and put some express trains on it. That'll be pretty cool don't You think?"

That made all the difference and Jesus started cramming the middle class types in.

It still didn't look quite right so He decided to cram the place full of churches. "A bit of music will make the place really shine!"

"But what about after the fall?" the Holy Spirit objected. "They'll all be empty and some will even go liberal!"

Jesus shuddered at the thought but replied, "I know, but we already agreed that after the fall's going to be pretty gruesome didn't we?"

And so it went on. As a change from office workers Jesus decided to try out some overseas students. Ringwood was already full so He decided to go a bit further south and put them around Clayton.

"Actually we could put a lot of different people here, some Greeks, some Indians, some Orientals, some Vietnamese, some Africans - this place is going to be one culinary delight!"

"Do you like curry on your pizza Jesus?" the Holy Spirit asked.

"Just LOVE IT!"

And so Clayton, Springvale and Dandenong became the "melting pot of the nations", and were so successful that the Godhead decided to build New York the same way.

Stretching His fingers right to the bottom of the people sack Jesus found he had some upper class people left - lawyers, executives, governmental high flyers and the like. "Where should I put these?"

The archangel Michael had an idea. "Put them over there near the sea and call it Brahhhhhhhtown, doesn't that sound good?"

"Yes," Jesus objected, "but it's impossible to spell! Why don't I just make it something simple like Brighton?"

Even in heaven Rank Has Its Privileges and Jesus' spelling was what went on the official map. But you must realise that angels spend more time chatting to humans than Jesus does (apart from the earthly ministry, of course) so Michael's pronunciation took root among the natives. Non-Brightonians, of course, pronounce the place phonetically.

And so the process of creation went on. The city centre became the prototype for a modern race of hunter-gatherers who charmed foreigners with music to induce them to throw money with which they purchased food from overpriced commercial establishments run by the people in Brighton. Northcote was a trial for the island of Lesbos - an experiment which was halted after the initial results turned out to have some unwanted side-effects (some of which remain in the world today). Essendon was designed to try out fixed wing aviation on short runways, which was so successful that it became the transport mode of choice in many places in the world (South America, Africa, South East Asia, etc). Eltham was an experiment in miniaturisation, which worked well in Middle Earth and some parts of Africa but was so much fun that 7.25" railways were built all over the world.

And so God saw Melbourne, and it was very good. So He collated the results, picked out bits and developed them into the rest of the world. Last of all He took Mount Waverley, loosened the population density a bit, stabilised the weather patterns, and made Cheam.

The original God decided to preserve intact, as a showcase of the planet and the human race. Besides which, the variety gave it a character and charm of its own which it would be a shame to destroy.

6000 years later He put me there. He's so good to me!

Conservative, but not Ultra-Conservative

Private Willis tells us that in politics there are two kinds of people: liberals and conservatives. The Aussie bloke tells us that the liberals are the goodies, and the conservatives are only interested in money.

In the church there are the same two kinds of people. And again, the liberals are the goodies (the ones interested in social justice, defending women from cruel overbearing husbands, action against climate change before the poverty-stricken island nations are drowned, and helping teenagers cope with unplanned pregnancies) and the conservatives are only interested in proving their interpretation of the Bible is better than everyone else's.

I'd like to put forward the view that there are not two kinds of people in the church but three: liberals, conservatives, and ultra-conservatives. To properly define the conservatives we first have to know what extremes they lie between.

Liberals

The word liberal literally means unconstrained - as in, liberation, or liberty. A liberal Christian is one who doesn't constrain themselves to the basic beliefs of the Christian faith. Of course, different groups of Christians have different views on exactly what are the basic beliefs of the faith and what matters are disputable (1 Cor 14:1).

The trouble with liberals is that once you take away the foundations of the faith the church is left to basically a majority-rules situation - and while that might work for a while (the majority want lots of social action and charitable work) there's no checks and balances against drifting. I've seen churches where they just listen to classical music. It's what the majority wants.

Ultra-conservatives

Ultra-conservatism is usually a reaction against liberalism. In a violent protest against the rejection of Christian principles the ultra-conservatives decide not only to keep the basics, but a long list of principles derived from those basics.

The trouble with that, of course, is that the derivation is made by fallible human beings - and while they might be good ideas, mindlessly imposing them on the whole body of Christ leaves the church open to ridicule - as irreverent cartoons such as the Simpsons and South Park have done many times.

Stuff ultra-conservatives like

Just a few examples so you can tell what I'm on about. After that you can extrapolate out the rest of the picture.

• Teetotalism. Ultra-conservatives detest alcohol and will back any move to make things more difficult for those that sell it (even if the move itself is a completely useless one). While it's true that Proverbs and several of Paul's letters contain many warnings against drunkenness, there is no part of the Bible which forbids the consumption of any alcohol. In fact, Paul explicitly tells Timothy to drink wine rather than just water - and although the reason for this is unclear from the context and may not have been intended for all believers over all time, it very rightly gives ultra-conservatives a headache. Of course, there may be many good reasons (health, safety, etc) why it's a good idea not to drink - but equating a good idea with a divine command is blasphemy on a grand scale.
• Solemnity. An ultra-conservative always behaves like they're in a funeral. It's true that some of what passes for humour in today's society is nothing but coarse joking (Ephesians 5:4). But as Pollyanna constantly told people, there are more than 800 sections of the Bible where we are told in so many words to enjoy ourselves and have a good time. And of course, on religious matters solemnity is doubly important. Anyone cracking a joke funnier than "Joseph served in the courts of Pharaoh" (surely everyone knows that one, don't make me tell it!) in an ultra-conservative church would be in danger of excommunication. An ultra-conservative church sermon lasts a minimum of an hour, and is delivered slowly and in a pious monotone.
• Distrust of the modern world. Groups like the Amish take this to a fine art - horses and buggies instead of motor vehicles, no electronics, no labour saving devices, etc. That's an extreme example of course, but there are still plenty of other groups who still tend to stick with 19th-century hymns sung on an 18th-century pipe organ in 17th-century language, as if God wouldn't understand the way people communicate today. Paul didn't restrict himself to Egyptian papyrus ("Good enough for Moses, it's good enough for me") to write to the churches from his Roman cell though, did he?
• Blind faith. "God put fossils in the ground to test men's faith" said an ultra-conservative minister after Darwin and Huxley popularised the idea that evolution disproved the Bible. "I will believe that the white that I see is black if the hierarchical Church so defines it" said another. While we have to accept that God's perspective is better than ours, which means He wins if there's any difference of opinion, we also know that God gave us senses which we should be able to trust to tell us the truth.
• Lack of charity. Many ultra-conservatives see liberals focusing too much on fixing the ills of society (usually in well-meaning but misguided ways) and go too far the other way by totally ignoring Jesus' example of healing and evangelism. While it's true that the spiritual growth of believers is important, no legitimate church responsibility is so important that we should neglect another responsibility.
• Exclusiveness. There are some ultra-conservative groups that refuse to socialise or even do business with non-Christians. While it's true that bad company corrupts good character (1 Cor 15:33) Jesus sent us to all the world to make disciples. Not all ultra-conservatives are way-out-there cults either - there are normal people in normal churches who simply choose to focus their lives around interaction with fellow-Christians. As a result they have no idea what non-Christians are like, the way they think or act - so how can they be effective in evangelism? Be shrewd as snakes, Jesus said - or as we might say today, forewarned is forearmed.
• Sexual repression. Ultra-conservative parents won't let their children even talk to a member of the opposite sex alone once they turn 12. Anything that could be interpreted as showing off (for boys) or flirting (for girls) is forbidden. If the worst comes to the worst and there's an unplanned pregnancy to deal with, it's considered a mortal sin. While such occurrences have major consequences that last a lifetime, the Bible never refers to them as any worse than any other sin. Once again, there are many good reasons to repress the natural urges - but good reasons aren't the same thing as a divine command. That reminds me, one day I'm going to do a blog about teen pregnancy and all that... which will be a lot more shocking than this or any other blog post I've done so far.
• Bipolarism. To the ultra-conservative, there are two kinds of people - the Christians and the enemy. Whenever an ultra-conservative is in a debate (especially one on religious matters) they are constantly on the attack and defence. There's no friendly banter - any light-hearted comment is interpreted as an attack and is repulsed in force. While it's true that Jesus said "Anyone who is not for you is against you", it's not exactly a good idea to attack the people we're trying to evangelise!

So as you see, there is an element of truth to each aspect of the failings of the ultra-conservatives. Everything they do stems from a correct principle - the problem is that they take it too far.

How many times did God tell the people of Israel "Don't turn aside from the law to the right or to the left"? It comes up many times. I'd like to put the idea that the right and the left are ultra-conservativeness and liberality - adding to and subtracting from the perfect law God gave us.

An Office suite that would really be sweet

I've watched word processors and spreadsheets develop over the last 20 years or so. Interestingly, they've grown closer together - features previously only available in one are now available in both. This is a Good Thing. Pity it hasn't gone any further in the last five years or so. Let's take a look under the hood.

The days when documents were a flat text file and spreadsheets were a simple database are (sadly for those of us who like to repair them by hand) long gone. The capabilities of the office programs have developed to the point where those storage algorithms are simply inadequate. We have object-oriented files now - a limitless stream of object definitions which are completely self-contained and can be listed in any order in the file.

Actually that helps us a lot. We don't have the fundamental difference between spreadsheets and documents at the file-type level. This object is a footnote frame with a page number in it. This object is a cell with a formula in it. Can they coexist? Of course they can, they're objects on an equal footing.

So let's examine the various types of office suite files and work out what is the fundamental difference between them. Let's use word processor documents as the baseline for comparison.

a) Emails - there are some predefined objects (To, cc, bcc, subject, etc) but no other difference.

b) Spreadsheets - they have formulas and constant re-evaluation, but that can easily be added to a word processor document.

c) Presentations - they usually go by screen sizes rather than paper sizes, but that's a very simple change. They also have options for animation - again, no problem adding that to a word processor.

d) Page layouts - even today there's practically no difference between a word processor and a page layout builder, the word processor is just a dumbed-down version.

So if we took our hypothetical page layout program and added a POP/SMTP gateway, a formula evaluator and a "full screen mode", we'd be half way there. Then all we'd have to do would be unify the five lists of object types (making sure there's no double-ups) and make some templates.

Yes, templates. You know about "letter", "resumé", "business proposal" etc - all we have to do is add "spreadsheet", "email" and "presentation".

That's really all there is to it. Oh, apart from recoding the whole thing and giving it some actual performance. How about it, guys?

Do true Christians back internet filtering?

(Cross-posted from a comment on Facebook)

In reply to a comment that Christians should back the proposed internet filter because opposition to porn is a Christian value, I wrote:

1) Backing the filter isn't opposing porn, it's opposing one method of obtaining porn, and opposing it in a way that's contrary to Christian values - end-justifies-the-means reasoning.

2) A web-based filter like the one currently proposed isn't going to work, anyone who's looking for it will very easily get around it (even non-computer literate people can easily use peer-to-peer file sharing, which won't be filtered).

3) The internet is by its nature almost impossible to censor - both URL-based and content-based filters can be bypassed with very little effort.

4) Once the government have the setup to ban porn they can easily ban anything else that suits them. We already have Racial and Religious Discrimination legislation which makes it potentially illegal to preach the Gospel. Any church web site which states that Jesus is the only way to heaven might find itself on the blacklist.

5) False positives (and false negatives) are almost guaranteed on any data pool as large as the internet. Judging from the length of time between versions of the blacklists (as publicly known) and the number of legitimate URLs included, corrections will take days, weeks or even months to be actioned.

6) Filtering will slow down internet access by a significant margin. (Don't believe what Senator Conroy says on the matter, he has proven many times that his knowledge of even simple matters is sketchy to say the least.)

7) The cost of maintaining the filter (eg paying a department full of people to process requests for blocking and appeals against false positives) will be huge, and naturally grow at the same pace as the internet grows.

8) A simple glance at the publicly available blacklist shows that the people operating it have a very poor knowledge of the way the web works, or else very little regard for either false positives or false negatives.

Filtering to combat porn is like swatting a fly with a wok - a lot of effort, a lot of collateral damage, and a high chance that the fly will survive due to the bowl shape of the weapon.

North/East ring line?

This is really my Dad's hobby horse. He and I usually end up discussing it any time we talk about the freight task, port access, standard gauge lines, the Dandenong lines, spark capacity, etc. It’s a great idea but it looks very difficult to pull off.

In brief, the idea is to carve a new transport corridor from Craigieburn to Epping, Pakenham and Hastings. This will provide:

- A link to the national rail freight network for the Port of Hastings

- A standard gauge freight line to the major industrial areas around Dandenong and Pakenham

- Potentially, an independent path to the city for Gippsland trains

- A "distributed load" for Melbourne’s intermodal freight capacity, allowing the vast section of high value inner city geography currently known as Dynon to be levelled and achieve its ultimate destiny, high density housing.

Dad got this idea after following the various heavy industries (who are his customers) from Noble Park to Dandenong South, then Berwick, and now Pakenham as suburbia has expanded and started to encroach on them. Similarly on the other side of town, from Williamstown to Altona to Laverton, and from Sunshine to Somerton. This has happened over at least 30 years of course. But he’s watching as companies keep slowly building up their fleet of B-Doubles simply because they have grown past the range where it’s feasible to run small trucks to a railhead and use rail for linehaul.

If you’ll excuse the parenthesis, the use of rail for medium-haul journeys is certainly feasible. Regular, frequent, fast shuttle trains could run between transport interchanges and smaller trucks could do the "last half-mile". Four interchanges at Laverton, Somerton, Dandenong South and Pakenham plus the ports would do the job. If industries knew they could truck a 20' container of freight from their warehouse in Altona North to the Laverton terminal, that it would be on a train (releasing the truck for other duties) within 15 minutes, that the train would depart within two hours, that it would arrive in Somerton 20 minutes later, and that they could book a truck to take the container to their customer in Craigieburn and the cargo would be there ready for it – well, there would be a lot less traffic on the Western Ring Road. The key is how to achieve that sort of customer confidence.

How intermodal freight works

I count myself highly fortunate to have seen the transport industry from the inside – it’s subtly but significantly different from the rail industry, and the knowledge comes in very useful. Facilities at the major standard gauge freight terminals today are fairly good. Containers for transport are logged through a web interface, which takes the details of destination, size, weight etc and then gives back a numeric code. This is radioed to the truck driver, who enters it at a toll-booth-like gate at the terminal. The driver is then given instructions as to where to park the truck waiting for unloading, and is usually not kept waiting more than 20-30 minutes before the container is lifted and transferred to the waiting train.

I believe this operation could be further improved with better infrastructure. Gantry cranes rather than mobile container forks will speed up the lift operation itself, and more of them (relative to train length) will reduce waiting time for trucks.

The trains themselves should be short and (by Australian standards) overpowered, to allow them to accelerate and run at high speeds – as is the practice in Europe and North America. Of course this is only for the terminal-to-terminal trains – interstate Superfreighters would still run long and heavy to pick up economies of scale. Incidentally in the absence of Dynon it’s probably most logical to put down a major interstate freight terminal at either Somerton or Laverton.

The Ring line

And now to the infrastructure requirements to make this happen. Terminal design doesn’t need to change much from the type of terminals we already have – the only thing is to ensure there’s plenty of space and that there are enough tracks to give each destination its own road. Length is not a major consideration – we are not going to run 1.8km trains every two hours from Somerton to Hastings.

The track linking the terminals obviously has to be standard gauge, built for high speeds/axle loads, double track, wide and high loading gauge (suitable for double stacked containers and US-style wide vehicles) and signalled for plenty of capacity (without reducing speed limits). For energy efficiency it should probably be electrified.

From Laverton to Craigieburn the reservation already exists but some trackwork is needed (including duplication).

From Tottenham to Port Melbourne the obvious solution is Phin’s freight tunnel. The actual path, in the absence of Dynon, remains to be seen (eg it might be worth popping out on the south side of Footscray Road) but should be relatively simple.

From Craigieburn to Pakenham, the North/East Ring, a new corridor needs to be made. That doesn't come cheap but is vital. From Craigieburn to Epping is fairly easy, I suggest running parallel to either Craigieburn Road or Bridge Inn Road, with wide curves to avoid pockets of population where they exist.

Then we start to run into mountains… and really, your guess is as good as mine for what’s the best way through them. Interestingly from a geological perspective, Coldstream-Yarra Glen is a small patch of flat land in between two mountain ranges – a patch of dirt between two rocks. Whether this helps find a path to Pakenham is another question.

At Pakenham we would skirt around the populated area and build a rail freight terminal in the south, near the industries. Not where existing rail facilities are, that’s an easy trap to fall into but we want to be near the customers.

From there it’s a reasonably simple cross-country path through Casey and Cardinia, around the populated bits of Cranbourne South, past Pearcedale and down the Westernport Highway (either beside it or in its median) to the Port of Hastings.

In order to serve Dandenong South it would be advantageous to run a spur line up Westernport Highway and put another intermodal facility on the fringes of the industrial development.

Additional benefits

We know that mixing freight traffic with suburban passenger trains is a major problem. However if we converted the Gippsland line (beyond Pakenham) to standard gauge we could run all the logs and paper around the ring line, and totally avoid the Melbourne suburbs. 22 level crossings (as at 2010 – some are slated for removal) will benefit. Noise levels for houses backing the rail line will be reduced to just sparks. And we might even be able to resurrect the old Gippsland Intermodal Freight Terminal, which died a grim death of trans-shipping for any freight not destined for Melbourne.

Of course unless we dual-gauge (technically nasty) or lay separate standard gauge tracks (expensive) we’d have to run the Gippslander V/Line services on the Gauge too. Probably the best option would be to run them past the Dandenong South terminal and up a standard gauge line parallel to the Cranbourne line to Dandenong station, from which they could take an express suburban train to the city. Buses could run from Nar Nar Goon to Pakenham and Monash University Berwick Campus for convenience.

Conclusion

The transport companies have realised that in order to provide themselves with capacity, high quality facilities and operating economies in order to provide the service their customers want, it’s necessary to up stakes and move to the fringes of suburbia. The rail industry, a natural partner of the transport industry, needs to follow suit.