Terrorism stalks the world.

For how much longer will Australia be the lucky country which hasn’t yet had a major terrorist blood-bath?

A Counter-Terrorism White Paper (2010) prepared by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet reveals that Australia is very much a potential terrorist target.

It says that, “Although al-Qa’ida has not itself launched a direct attack on Australia, it has shown an operational interest in doing so.”

Multiple planned attacks have been detected and prevented. Since 2001, twenty people in Australia have been convicted of terrorism offences.

* * *

Terrorist attacks cost money to organise.

The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) tracks financial business deals relating to the financing of terrorism and money-laundering.

In 2008-09, 29 such cases related to terrorism financing were investigated.

The enormous global drug trade is vital to financing terrorist criminal activity — what they call “narco-terrorism”.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration has evidence that 60 percent of identified foreign terrorist organisations are in some way connected to the illegal drug trade — and that the drug trade is increasingly used by Muslim terrorist groups to finance their activities.

* * *

Money-laundering is facilitated by the existence of Casinos.

In the Lu Hong case in Australia in 1997, four people were convicted of laundering $10 million as part of a heroin-distributing operation.

It was in Melbourne’s Crown Casino where they laundered the money. (Herald Sun, 25/9/1997)

The last thing a small city like Mildura, in Victoria, needs  — with its thousands of families trying to live decent lives — is a Casino.

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There are approximately 117,000 problem and moderate-risk gamblers in Victoria.

About 33 percent of them admit to having made plans to commit suicide.

About 18 percent admit that their gambling has led them to break the law.

On a population basis this is the worst for any Australian state or territory.

Gamblers lost over $1.2 billion at Melbourne’s Crown Casino last financial year.

* * *

Victorian Premier, Mr John Brumby, knows all this.

Yet on March 26, he told the media, “There is nothing to stop a second casino opening in Mildura”.

Mr Brumby will license a casino in Mildura, he says, ”if there was clear community support and if there was clear bipartisan support . . . we will see how people think about this issue in Mildura.”

Mr Brumby doesn’t say how he’ll know what Mildura people think.

Despite pleas from the community for a referendum on the issue, there has been no response.

Presumably Mr Brumby thinks he can will get away with declaring, on the basis of no evidence whatever, that Mildura people want a casino — then proceed to establish one and start raking in the extra gambling taxes.

* * *

The would-be developer has released design plans for the proposed casino which he openly admits will include ”a couple of hundred poker machines”.

The increased suicides and increased crime rates will be of no concern to him.

They won’t bother  Mr Brumby much either.

Sources: (1) A Study of Gambling in Victoria Problem Gambling from a Public Health Perspective, Department of Justice, September 2009. (2) The Age, 27 March 2010.

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The most momentous world event last weekend was when one large AFL footballer put his opponent in a headlock.

Most Australians seem agreed on that.

But from there on the nation is divided.

Was BAZZA hard done by in being fined $3000?

Was he lucky not to be rubbed out for the rest of the season?

Was the whole thing the umpire’s fault?

* * *

Australians are often said to be sport crazy.

But sport can be a good thing, can’t it? It will make you a better person, won’t it?

Yes, sport can teach you to lose cheerfully . . . to win graciously . . . to improve your fitness.

Playing for the love of the game, regardless of winning or losing, fosters mateship.

You can’t fault that.

These are good things about sport

* * *

It’s important, however, to remember that sport, of itself, is unimportant.

Sport is only justified if it really does make you a better person.

If it doesn’t, stop playing.

If you become grumpy when you lose, give it up.

* * *

Another bad aspect of today’s sport is that has destroyed our Sundays.

On every public park, every Sunday morning, so many children gathered for hours — hitting rubber balls, kicking leather balls, running, jumping . . . .

Why?

Do their parents want them to grow up little miserable, meaningless, atheistic materialists?

* * *

What these children need is a reason to exist.

Nobody is telling them one.

Children need to learn about God — how we can know that he exists — how he loves us — how he wants us to live in obedience to him here on earth and finally to come and live with him and enjoy him forever in heaven.

Children need the Sacraments of the Church to give them the supernatural power required to turn their backs on the emptiness so insistently forced on them.

* * *

Especially on Sundays, put God first. Teach your children to put God first.

Deep in your heart, say, “Dear God, help me to give up all worldly desires, pleasures and ambitions, so that you may be everything to me.  And may Thy kingdom come.  Amen.”

Australian Communications Minister, Mr Stephen Conroy, has been named “Internet Villain of the Year” by Britain’s internet industry.

Why?

The Australian federal government plans legislation to force Internet Service Providers to block websites carrying illegal and offensive material.

This has raised shrill complaints from internet and software companies and “free speech” advocates — some claiming that Australia will soon resemble repressive regimes, China and Iran.

About one third of the blacklisted sites will be child pornography.

The rest will include sites promoting euthanasia practices, recreational drug use, recruitment of  young homosexuals, the views of terrorist organisations etc.

* * *

Many people, of course, support such a policy.

Last week, Mexican bishop, Felipe Arizmendi, spoke about how the pervasiveness of erotic material makes celibacy difficult.

“If on television and the internet and so many media outlets there is pornography, it is very difficult to stay pure and chaste,” he said.

It is important that everybody – especially priests – be careful what they watch.

A helpful self-test is to ask yourself whether you could comfortably watch this film or television show, with the Mother of Jesus sitting beside you.

The Catholic Church obviously has much soul-searching to do.

Its enemies are, however, mistaken in attempting to destroy the Church.

* * *

The world needs the Church.

To be honest, only belief in God offers sufficient motive to raise us above our worst instincts.

The Church has always known and taught this.

Every day, every Catholic priest must say his Breviary prayers. These includes Psalms (all 150 of them over the course of a week) divided up into eight sets of prayers each day: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline.  His day also includes times of spiritual reading, silent mental prayer, the Rosary, the Angelus three times a day – plus the Mass of the day.

This all takes about four hours per day. These devotions should so fill one’s mind with God’s presence that impure thoughts are literally pushed out of one’s head.

* * *

Non-priests should do similar devotions. We could all manage an hour. Do not lie to yourself.

The rest of the world should support and applaud the Church for such marvellous traditions — and encourage it to prosper in spreading the message of the gospels and its sacraments.

Mildura, riverside tourist destination and centre of Australia’s Sunraysia fruit-growing district, has been selected by corporate interests as a site to set up a casino.

The tycoons involved are being represented publicly by a mouth-piece, Mr Haddad, who visited Mildura yesterday for an invitation-only release of plans to councillors etc.

* * *

The casino, with 220-room hotel attached, is described by its proponents as “iconic and grand in all respects”.

Yes it does sound stupidly ostentatious — for example, its third floor swimming pool with a view over the river . . . .

At bottom, of course, it will be your normal casino – squalid, crime-associated, and a fly-paper like attractor of money-launderers, prostitutes and drug-dealers.

* * *

Ross Douglass, chairman of the “Sunraysia Against Casinos” action group, warns that any town giving a permit for a casino, is asking for it – money-laundering, prostitution, assaults etc. — plus the drugs.

Mildura will be no exception.

Well-known Mildura businessman, Mr Don Carrazza, owner of the land on which the casino will hopefully not be built,  has for decades made his living pushing number-one addictive drug, alcohol.

Now he wants local business to increasingly exploit those addicted to gambling.

* * *

Mr Haddad advises the district “not to look at the negatives, but embrace the employment opportunities it will create, both during construction and ongoing, which will inject so much into Mildura’s economy . . . .”

“It will be a plus all around,” he says.

Not quite all around.

A casino might be a “plus” for some – those who exploit addicts. Perhaps, also, for vendors of hand-guns, the local sexually-transmitted diseases clinic, social workers for mums of broken families, the hospital emergency department — people like that . . . .

But a MINUS for ordinary citizens, trying to balance their budgets, to keep their kids out of trouble and to lead decent lives.

They hate the casino idea.

* * *

There will be a public protest meeting against the proposed casino on Tuesday 6 April at 6pm at the Mildura Settlers Club.

Speakers will be: Senator Nick Xenophon, Reverend Tim Costello and Mr Paul Bendat.

What will the New Year bring?

One thing we may have to cope with is a kiddies’ story book by Australia’s Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd.

It is about the PM’s cat and dog. It will be published later this month.

Why?

* * *

This project must be considered a vote-catcher, an image-softener.

Media-aware prime ministers know there’s more political mileage in being a celebrity than in facing moral issues.

Children are being exploited as part of this – being brainwashed again – taught how not to think — certainly not to think about God.

* * *

Children are uneasily aware that things are going wrong in the world.

Like their TV-watching parents, they are being fed a never-ending series of panic-inducing sideshows to be anxious about.

Global warming (man-made and man-fixable)

Pandemics (spread by humans, preventable by human-invented vaccinations)

Economic crises (caused by human greed, fixable by human-stimulated spending-sprees)

Because rational creatures can’t be convinced by such yarns, it’s politically important to prevent creatures being rational.

Adults succumb best to violence, sport and pornography.

Children, up to a certain age, still fall for cuteness and Prime Ministers who can speak, not only Mandarin, but also baby-talk.

* * *

When things go wrong in the world we should be looking to the primary Cause (God), not just airbrushing the secondary causes.

Children are capable of understanding that there is a God who rules the universe and who loves us — and that we should spend our lives seeking, not just to “feel good” and “look good”, but in trying to please God by being good and showing him by our lives that we love him.

* * *

God has put the Catholic Church into the world to lead us, adults and children, into union with him through the Sacraments of the Church.

God wants to dwell in your soul (your intellect and your will).

That is what we need to focus on and talk to our children about.