The wages of spin

a Biblical thought...
When the captain there saw what happened, he honored God: "This man was innocent! A good man, and innocent!" (Luke 23:27)

a Book thought...
In seeing and responding to the vision of Christ as the hope for the whosoever, the Church is allowing itself to be moulded by God's future. (p98 Needham)
Dave thought...
In yesterday's Age it was great to see our communication director offer some wise words on the gambling debate...

Major Brad Halse, Salvation Army communications director and a member of the Interchurch Gambling Taskforce, says it is time for both the State Government and the Opposition "to imagine a Victoria without poker machines". He says the Government should show political courage by moving the debate beyond issues about ATMs and community support funds, and instead ask whether we need poker machines at all.
"We think a Victorian community would be open to understanding a Victorian government who said 'let's work at ways of phasing these out, let's replace this tax with other means'," he says. "We're not trying to be simplistic or naive, but the debate is only ever about how do we manage the problem."

The article began with the tricky ethical question: adults should be able to decide how they spend their money and accept responsibility for their actions. But governments have some responsibility for saving their constituents from harm.

At what stage does the government need to step in? When it begins to destroy numerous families, and results in more crime I would suggest. Anyway good to here the WA gaming minister has managed to keep pokies out of her local communities, she says "we've also observed from afar the destructive effect of community-based gaming machines in other Australian jurisdictions". So when you have a gambling minister who won't support pokies surely they must be destroying our society.

Just a thought.