Margaret Court is the women’s tennis equivalent of Don Bradman.

Perhaps the greatest female athlete Australia has produced.

Winner of all four Grand Slam tournament singles titles in the same calendar year (1970).

She won a record 62 Major titles overall.

The International Tennis Hall of Fame states, “For sheer strength of performance and accomplishment there has never been a tennis player to match her”.

* * *

Margaret Court still gets into the news.

Yesterday, for example.

She apparently said, “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman . . . I believe it’s important for young people to know that . . . .”

And, “I say what God says, and that’s why I’ve spoken out.”

Mrs Court, a lapsed Catholic, is now an office bearer in a Pentecostal group.

She has said that homosexuality is often the result of sexual abuse.

This resulted in a “backlash” with people saying there is no scientific evidence of such a connection.

There is, of course, but that is hardly the point.

The point is that homosexual acts are contrary to natural law and young people should know that and should be protected from entrapment.

Canada’s Liberal Party has voted to legalise marijuana if and when they get into power.

Their policy is that legalisation will “ensure the regulation and taxation of its production, distribution and use, while enacting strict penalties for illegal trafficking, etc.”

An unrealistic policy, rivalling the naivety of Australia’s Greens Party.

* * *

We have had, for years, scientific proof that marijuana has serious mental health risks

Marijuana is known to trigger psychosis in some people and makes any pre-existing mental illness worse.

Marijuana users with a family history of mental illness are the ones most likely to develop schizophrenia.

* * *

Yet there are still paid “experts” in the drugs field who espouse what they call “harm-minimisation”.

Which, in English, means tolerating the use of addictive and dangerous drugs and hoping nothing bad will happen.

Such a slack attitude will seem to future generations to rank alongside those tame “experts” of the past, who used to make statements suggesting that cigarettes were not a health hazard.

Ex-Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, has written a foreword to a book which promises to be political dynamite.

“How to get expelled from school”, by Professor Ian Plimer.

Its message is that “man-made-climate-change”, as taught in our schools, is not based on good science.

* * *

Prof Plimer also promotes conspiracy theories about government backing climate-change views simply to collect more taxes.

He would do better to stick to the point, i.e. to the scientific facts.

If Plimer and co. can demonstrate that the “changes” have been exaggerated — and won’t be reversed by decimating industry . . . .

No need then to resort to attacking personalities and motives.

* * *

Yes, we should care for the environment better.

Australians consume too much – mainly products made by workers (God’s children) who are virtually slaves, e.g. in China.

We say we don’t believe in slavery. We like an affluent lifestyle. We want it both ways. We are hypocrites.

The moral issue is more important than “climate-change”.

Sort that out and the “climate-change” issue — such as it is – may well sort itself out.

An Australian citizen, Brian Schmidt, is one of the winners of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics.

His work is said to show that the universe is expanding faster and faster – not slower and slower, as we were being told to believe until recently.

Why so fast? Because of “dark energy” mate.

Dark energy is something that possibly does not exist. But if it does exist, it comprises 70-odd percent of the universe.

The Nobel Academy spokespersons described his discovery as “astounding”.

It isn’t easy to be astounded by something you can’t really imagine . . . .

And something which we will, almost certainly, be told is wrong after all, within a few months or years.

,* * *

Science is something beyond most of us.

The one thing we know for sure is that science is always wrong.

Isn’t that  what “progress” means?

That what we know today proves that what they believed yesterday was wrong . . . . .

And, presumably, what we believe today will be proved wrong tomorrow.

* * *

Fortunately science doesn’t matter very much.

What matters more is how we use the things scientists make it possible to invent.

Things as diverse as life-saving antibiotics . . . and life-terminating bombs . . . .

Plus chemicals to increase crop yields . . . and chemicals to defoliate the crops of those we hope to starve to death.

Science has nothing to do with right and wrong.

Yet are not right and wrong, ultimately, all that matters?

Science can help a little bit, insofar as it reveals a universe (multiverse or whatever) that has Order.

Which confirms, to the un-blinkered, that God exists.

The media were yesterday quoting recent research suggesting that women in their 50s who drink alcohol are more likely to have a healthy old age than non-drinkers.

Popular news, no doubt.

But does it tell us anything of practical relevance?

The small print reveals that the research is talking about women who drink one standard drink or less per day.

Microscopic amounts – especially by Australian standards.

Less than two thirds of a can of standard strength beer . . . .

Less than 20 teaspoons of table wine . . . .

Professor Jennie Connor of the Dunedin Medical School in New Zealand comments, “I feel very strongly that there is no scientific justification for the promotion of alcohol as health-enhancing for any subgroup of the population. The potential for harm is great and the potential for good is unknown.”

* * *

This Friday, September 9, has been designated Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) Day.

Did you know that FASD is the leading cause of mental retardation in Western countries?

The media don’t seem keen on telling us that. **

FASD is totally preventable if mothers-to-be drank no alcohol.

It seems there is no safe minimum amount of alcohol-drinking in pregnancy.

For more facts on this, Google “Isabella’s List”.

** www.come-over.to/FAS/FASDfacts.htm

The Gillard government is using our money to inflict on TV-watchers and commercial radio-listeners endless advertisements promoting a Carbon Tax to stop climate change.

You cannot stop climate change.

The climate has always changed – and climate is very complicated.

We are told that “the science is in” – meaning it is now proved that global warming is caused by carbon dioxide emissions resulting from human lifestyles.

But the science is not in.

Lewis Carroll’s character, the Bellman, said that “What I say three times is true.”

We are all at risk of hearing how a Carbon Tax will improve the climate.

More than three times.

But it still won’t be true . . . .

* * *

Climate is complicated.

Won’t what we do on the land, about one quarter of the earth’s surface, affect the weather less than changes in the OCEAN which covers three quarters?

We know there are various cycles in the temperatures of different parts of the ocean.

Apart from thinking up fancy names for them: “el Niño”, “Pacific Decadal Oscillation”, “North Atlantic Oscillation” etc., we have minimal idea what makes them happen, or when they will happen next.

More like 100 percent of the energy affecting the atmosphere comes from the SUN. It varies with the comings and goings of sunspots and all kinds of other factors about which we don’t know much.

When we do find out more about the sun’s effects on climate, the next step will be to learn how to turn the sun on and off. Or at least up and down.

It may take more than a Carbon Tax to achieve that.

Fortunately, the earth’s gradual temperature rise over the last 30-odd years seems to have stopped and started declining – WITHOUT WAITING FOR OUR HELP.

For which we should thank God . . . .

* * *

So many facts and theories to try to get one’s head around.

One simple fact we can probably rely on, however.

The Gillard and her government tell lies.

That seems unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

(But is the other party any better?)

Pray for them.

All of them . . . .