Father Tom Knowles returns to duty

The Catholic Church knew that one of their leading priests, Father Tom Knowles, had chosen a disabled girl from his parish as a sexual partner for 14 years. They apologised and gave her $100,000 compensation for ruining her life.  But he's been allowed to return to duty and allocated one of Victoria's busiest parishes - St Francis Catholic Church - in the central business district of Melbourne.

Jennifer Herrick, who has bilateral congenital hip dysplasia, first met Father Knowles when she was a shy 19 year old.  He was her family's priest at Our Lady of Dolours in the Sydney suburb of Chatswood. Three years after they met, Knowles initiated sex, an act she described as unpleasant and painful as it was her first experience.

"I now understand that my very severe vulnerability allowed him to exploit me by abusing his priestly powerful position for nearly two decades for his sexual needs" she said. 

She had a promising career as a high school teacher but Father Knowles destroyed that ambition. The situation became unbearable and she eventually withdrew from family and friends and broke down completely.  But in 2011, she had the courage to lodge an official complaint.

The church sent him on "administrative leave" for 16 months but he's back in business.  A senior Catholic church official, Michael Samon, sent a letter to Ms Herrick's lawyer that said Father Knowles had "committed to a prolonged, regular and very intensive and personally confronting programme of therapy."

Well that's alright then.

In the above photograph we see the pious priest preaching to his flock at St Francis last week, eyes closed, in deep communion with the Lord, and arms extended up to heaven.  It's enough to bring a tear to the eye.

Edit February 24, 2013:  In an embarrassing backflip, the Melbourne Archdiocese has removed Father Tom Knowles from one of the nation's busiest churches just weeks after reinstating him.

Hottest Sydney day ever

Sydney had its hottest day on record yesterday - 45.8C at 2.55pm, breaking the previous record of 45.3C on 14th January 1939.

Train infrastructure crumbled, overhead wiring couldn't cope and rail lines buckled in the heat, leaving hundreds of commuters stranded. Many elderly people were taken to hospital and paramedics were flat out helping people who fainted and others who started to vomit.

The outside air was like a furnace and birds sat on the ground in any shade they could find, with their beaks wide open, obviously very stressed. Several suburbs had their power cut off as grids couldn't cope with the demand.

But there were 57,000 kids at the Big Day Out rock festival who didn't care about the weather.  

American funk rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers closed the proceedings in the main arena and The Bloody Beetroots performed an exciting finale in the Boiler Room.  The Killers were also a hit. 

Big Day Out is always a worry for parents after Jessica Michalik was crushed in a mosh pit during a performance by Limp Bizkit in 2001.  She was rushed to Concord hospital but died of a heart attack five days later.

This year, organizers should be congratulated, as a careful eye was kept on everyone.  Common sense prevailed, less alcohol was consumed and fans kept cool under water sprays and hydrated themselves with plenty of liquids, mainly water. No violent incidents were reported.

Religious freedom dead and buried in Egypt

President Morsi

It's clear that the new Sharia-based constitution in Egypt doesn't tolerate religious freedom anymore, it's Islam or else.

When Nadia Mohamed Ali's husband died, she wanted to convert her family back to Christianity and because of this, she and her seven children have been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

She was raised as a Christian but converted to Islam when she married 23 years ago, and in order to receive an inheritance from her family, she needed to change back.

Coptic Christians

She went to the registration office to process new identity cards and when her conversion came to light under the new regime of President Morsi, Nadia, her children and the clerks involved in processing the identity cards, were all sent to prison.  The shocking sentence occurred in a criminal court in the Egyptian city of Beni Suef, 75 miles south of Cairo.

And it's all down to the new President.  The secular reign of his predecessor Hosni Mubarak was well and truly over when he was sentenced to life in prison last summer for not stopping the deaths of 800 civilians.

It's just been announced that Mubarak will receive a re-trail and although the real reason is unclear, some believe it's a ploy to cut his severe sentence. 

Hosni Mubarak

The new Egyptian constitution says "religious freedom has to be understood within the boundaries of Sharia" and the highest Sunni authority should be referred to as an interpreter.  So poor Nadia and her children didn't stand a chance.

What a tragic end to what was initially optimistic excitement that the Arab Spring would move the Egyptian people further into the twenty first century. Instead, Christians would be wise to pack up and move somewhere else. 

New gun laws in America

President Obama said yesterday he avoided the gun issue during his first term but vowed to do whatever he can to fix it.  "I will put everything I've got into this" he said.

But will his "everything" be enough to get the new laws passed when the opposition is so fierce and overwhelming.  Guns are firmly entrenched in the American culture and the National Rifle Association and other gun groups have successfully fought new gun laws for years.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, considered to be a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, said the President's proposals will be howled down in Congress. "Nothing the President is proposing would have stopped the massacre at Sandy Hook" he said. President Obama is targeting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens instead of seriously addressing the real underlying causes of such violence."  

Here is the list of executive actions taken yesterday. 

1.  Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

2.  Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.  

3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks. 

5. Propose rule-making to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun. 

6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers. 

7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.

8. Review safety standards for gun locks ad gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission.) 

9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations. 

10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement. 

11. Nominate an AAFT director.

12. Provide law enforcement, first responders and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations. 

13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime. 

14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centres for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence. 

15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies. 

16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes. 

17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities. 

18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.

19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of workship and institutions  of higher education.

20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.

21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.

22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.

23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

If you haven't already seen the video of Piers Morgan interviewing Alex Jones, it's worth a look.  If you can stomach the maniacal screaming match until the end, Jones reveals his belief that President Bush was behind the twin towers terrorist attack.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Ddb3oa5CE 

Alex Jones

Good luck America.

Lance Armstrong finally admits guilt

Lance Armstrong finally admitted he was a serial drug cheat in an interview with Oprah Winfrey yesterday.  We are yet to see the interview, but it sounds like Oprah was a bit disappointed that Armstrong didn't come completely clean, but we will have to wait and see.


World Anti-Doping Agency Director-General David Howman said that Armstrong must make a full confession under oath if it is to mean anything at all, and dismissed the interview with Oprah as hardly the same as giving evidence to a relevant authority that deals with doping rules.

Lance and ex-wife Kristin

There were so many people involved who were prepared to go along with Armstrong's lies, including his ex-wife Kristin.  According to former team-mate Jonathan Vaughters, he used the code word "butter" to describe the synthetic blood-boosting hormone EPO which he kept in the couple's fridge.  It's also alleged that Kirstin wrapped tablets of cortisone in aluminium foil and handed them out to riders.

Betsy Andreu

But there was one brave woman who refused to co-operate - Frankie Andreu's wife Betsy. In a sworn affidavit, cyclist Frankie Andreu said that in 1996, he and his future wife Betsy went to visit Armstrong in hospital when he was battling cancer.  During that visit, he alleges Armstrong told them he was using EPO, testosterone, growth hormone, cortisone and steroids.

Betsy was shocked and went to the media.  When Armstrong found out, he started an intimidation campaign against her that lasted for years. He sent an email to her husband Frankie that read "Helping to bring me down is not going to help y'alls situation. There is a direct link to all our success here, may I suggest you remind her of that."


In 2008 Betsy received a sinister voicemail that said "I hope somebody breaks a baseball bat over your head, I also hope that one day you have adversity in your life and have some type of tragedy that will definitely make an impact on you."


So now we wait for the interview with Oprah and are left to wonder what his motives are, does he want to get back into competition?  


Howman says a reduced ban is possible, depending on the level of co-operation.  "Is he trying to do something for himself, to have the sanctions changed?" he said.  "Does he want to do something for the benefit of the sport itself?  In both instances, he will need to make a full statement under oath."

The International Cycling Union (ICU) has urged Armstrong to testify before its independent commission on doping to discover whether any ICU officials helped cover up the drug taking in exchange for financial donations from him.  Armstrong is reportedly considering testifying against ICU officials.

Hein Verbruggen

Former ICU president Hein Verbruggen said he wasn't ready to speak about Armstrong's case. "I haven't seen the interview, it's all guessing" he said.  "We have an independent commission which I am very confident will find out the truth of these things."

Verbruggen has always maintained that Armstrong had "never, never, never" used doping.  The 71 year old Dutchman is still honorary president and a member of the UCI's management committee.

Sign in Manly Library, Sydney

Edit January 19, 2013: After seeing the first interview, I think Armstrong was in complete control and intimidated Oprah, she seemed scared of him.   My suspicions were confirmed, he’s an unrepentant, narcissistic, lying psychopath.

Did Simon Gittany murder Lisa Cecilia Harnum?

Simon Gittany 39, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Cecilia Harnum by "causing her to fall" off the balcony of their rented 15th floor apartment overlooking Hyde Park on 30 July 2011.  Gittany maintains he was trying to help her back to safety when she slipped.  He faced a committal hearing yesterday in Downing Centre Local Court.

Lisa Harnum was a beautiful Canadian girl engaged to Simon Gittany. They lived in a very smart part of town, on the 15th floor overlooking the park in the heart of the city.  Two months after Gittany asked her to marry him, he is accused of throwing her off their balcony to her death.


Gittany wanted to prove his innocence to the world so he posted online a series of intimate home videos and tender moments the couple shared, including his surprise proposal.

In one video, Gittany gets down on one knee and says "......I thank God every day for Cecilia, because she's a beautiful person, she has a beautiful heart and she's basically a gift from God for me."  He went on to say how he had lost faith in women because "I couldn't find a woman that was going to serve me, going to love me."  Cecilia then self-consciously covers her face with her  hands, nods and tearfully embraces him.


Another video shows Cecilia being baptised into the Catholic Church. "After this moment, she knew heaven would be her eternal home with God her creator" the YouTube caption reads "Lisa Cecilia Harnum is in heaven and she has appeared to a few of us confirming that she truly made it to heaven."


Gittany's barrister Anthony Bellanto QC said that some police were baffled as to how Ms Harnum could have been forced off the balcony when it has glass barriers and metal bars.  He also pointed out that Ms Harnum suffered from eating and sleeping disorders and the medication she took was known to have side effects that included irrational behaviour.


When asked to explain why Ms Harnum's fingerprints were not on the railings of the balcony, last year Mr Gittany's barrister Robert Richter QC told a Supreme Court bail hearing that Ms Harnum was a ballerina and suggested she could have leapt over the ledge, and subsequently to her death, quite easily.


It became clear that Cecilia was worried about her partner when she discovered he had been monitoring her phone calls and emails and she allegedly told friends he "absolutely controlled" her life.


But there is damning evidence.  When Cecilia tried to escape, one minute after a cctv camera captures Simon Gittany violently dragging his fiance back into the apartment with one arm around her neck and a hand over her mouth, she lay dead on the footpath 15 storeys below. That final moment of her life was played to the committal hearing yesterday and a neighbour also gave evidence that she heard her screaming "God help me, help me" moments before she died.


Police found a packed travel bag with Ms Harnum's Canadian passport inside.  Last year in March, her heartbroken mother said "All she wanted to do on that fateful day was get on a plane and come home to her family, knowing full well it was giving up her dream of getting Australian residency."


Crown Prosecutor Daniel Noll and Anthony Bellanto will appear again today before Magistrate Clare Farnan.

Ladies, be wary of a man who wants to make a big show of his proposal, http://annamariacom.blogspot.com.au/it reeks of narcissism.  We see it more and more every day, frustrated wannabes who crave attention, getting down on one knee, preferably in front of a large audience, and then uploading it onto YouTube.  It's sad and pathetic.


Edit 16 January 2013.  The thing that saddens me most about this tragic case is that when a woman dies as a result of domestic violence, somehow the blame is taken off the man and turned back onto the woman. We know that his defence team has already tried to portray Cecilia as unstable by pointing out she had an eating disorder and sleep problems, which has nothing whatsoever to do with her death.

Edit 18 January 2013:  Simon Gittany, 39, showed no emotion this afternoon when he was committed to face a jury for allegedly killing Lisa Cecilia Harnum, 30, in July 2011.

Simon Gittany trial begins http://annamariacom.blogspot.com.au/ 

Simon Gittany Guilty http://annamariacom.blogspot.com.au/

New witness in Simon Gittany case http://annamariacom.blogspot.com.au/

Planet stopped warming 16 years ago

John Hirst, Chief Executive of UK Met Office

Just when I was beginning to believe that global warming was real, the UK Met Office's own figures show there has been no significant increase in the world's temperatures since 1997.  Even though Mr Hirst earns more than the British Prime Minister, he failed to predict a wet summer and one of the snowiest winters in British history.

The world stopped getting warmer 16 years ago, he tells us, and since then, global warming has 'plateaued' or 'paused.'  Between 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in global temperatures.

The new study was compiled from 3000 measuring points on land and sea and released quietly on the internet on Christmas Eve.  The Met has come under fire for deliberately releasing the report at a time when most journalists around the world were on holidays, hoping that nobody would notice.

Professor Phil Jones

Remember Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climate Change Unit from the British University of East Anglia?  He was at the centre of the Climategate debacle over leaked emails three years ago, so it was no surprise to learn that he has dismissed the study, saying that 16 years is not a long enough time-frame from which to draw conclusions.

Yet in 2009, when the plateau was already becoming apparent and being discussed by scientists, he told a colleague in one of the Climategate emails:  Bottom line - the 'no upward trend' has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.

Professor Curry

Professor Judith Curry, head of the climate science department at America's Georgia Tech University said the computer models used to predict future warming were 'deeply flawed.'

Prof Jones also admitted that climate models were imperfect.  "We don't fully understand how to input things like changes in the oceans, and because we don't fully understand it, you could say that natural variability is now working to suppress the warming - we don't know what natural variability is doing."

According to the Met's latest figures, since 1880, the planet has only warmed by 0.75 degrees.  So what about all that muck that poured into the atmosphere as world industrialization took hold?  The study shows that over the last 130 years, it's hardly made a difference.

It's easy to be convinced that the planet is heating up when we see with our own eyes how our weather patterns have become more extreme - last year we had devastating floods and this year raging bush fires and heat waves.  

Professor David Karoly

And there aren't many people who know more about climate change than Professor David Karoly who is scientific advisor to our Climate Commission.

He tells us that Australia's average temperature has increased by 0.9 degrees since 1910 and over the next 50 years, he is expecting 2 to 3 degrees more warming.

I just wish they'd make up their minds.