The official line is that the Notre Dame fire was an unfortunate and innocent accident, probably related to ongoing renovations. If so, that would make it the exception, as hundreds of churches and cemeteries were desecrated last year alone

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Curious to find out what it is that constitutes the desired qualities of a federal public servant, I once sat the exam for aspiring recruits when they still placed credence in such sifting. As I am by nature curious, industrious and sometimes disputatious, I didn't have a chance

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The true auto-da-fé, the true 'act of faith', involves passing through the fire to emerge stronger and wiser. Thus it was for those consigned to Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace and, in Paris, the Rev. Jean-Marc Fournier's rescue of the Crown of Thorns from the flames Notre Dame

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Around 9.30am, we reached the island, where the bridge that connects it almost to rear of Notre Dame was closed, so people lined up along one of the riverside streets to look at what remained. Like us, they were quiet and restrained. The same sadness was evident later at the butcher’s and the wine store

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I'm pleased to report that great minds charged with protecting public safety in Britain have made a momentous discovery: to combat violence it is essential to put policemen where violence is occurring. Perhaps, when knife crime has been remedied, the police could do something about dogs on bar stools

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While Israel Folau also consigned drunks, philanderers and aficionados of other assorted vices to Satan's care, it was the inclusion of homosexuals that incited the current fury. Holy-rollin' ratbaggery it might have been, but corporatised PC edicts on what can be said, taught, researched or believed are the infinitely greater sin

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At the Sydney Morning Herald, where original thought is a spurned concept, someone must have felt the need to garnish the opinion page with even more tendentious rot than is that ailing newspaper's norm. Tim Soutphommasane, always ready for his closeup, was happy to oblige

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When the Sydney University academic fumes on op-ed pages about the wickedness of the Ramsay Centre and its promotion of the West's great books and thinkers, he does more than illustrate the decline of our tertiary institutions. Better than that, he proves the need for an antidote to the toxic piffle that is his and others' stock in trade

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You won't have heard of it, as the pilots of the Virgin A320 brought their plane safely back to earth despite being blitzed with erroneous warnings of imminent catastrophe. Three years after that close call, an ATSB report has laid out the peril of avionic systems that, like those of the 737-MAX, can be too smart by half

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Unlike the weather, which never stays the same, the ABC remains a model of consistency, not to mention one-sided reporting, whenever there is an opportunity to beat the warmist drum. Reporter Stephanie March and her favoured talking head, Bill Hare, provided more of the familiar same

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