Nearer my God to ....

I do not like glib or trite sayings and the expression "There are no atheists on a battlefield" seems a way of getting your point across somewhat insidiously.
Not that the saying is entirely without merit of course, as many will have indeed turned to prayer in extremis. The real test is how many of these people keep the promises they have attempted to make to God; how many will keep to their part of a one-sided bargaining as the years go by.
Children sometimes ask me why prayers are not answered - again of course, we have a set response - "They are answered, it is just that the answer may be 'no'." - That also smacks as being a bit trite to me.
One response to their question which is not strictly accurate in any theological sense but does point them in a logical direction at least, is to compare with having money in the bank.
I ask them if you can take money out of a bank [forget ATMs, please] where you have no account.
The point is usually grasped pretty quickly - although one must remember to remind them that there can be some pretty mouth-watering deals to tempt you to open new accounts on occasion!

Oh sweet irony, thy name is Labour.

If you had to seek out the most limp, wet, politically feeble figure in the parliamentary conservative party, the man who would probably get the most votes would be Damian Green.
He was appointed as Shadow Minister of Uncontrolled Immigration by Cameron because he is so wet. He could not possibly offend the most dyed-in-the-wool leftie if he tried. He is quite possibly in the wrong party altogether.
Yet this is the man that Labour, probably led by the dreadful Mick Martin, target for arrest.
Amazing but wonderful too! Perhaps now these insipid tories will begin to grasp how our liberties are being eroded; perhaps now they will finally get the message.
Frankly, I doubt it. Don't hold your breath. They will see this appalling business as a mere aberration and will fail to grasp the deeper and more sinister undertones.

The abortion horror goes from bad to worse.

Shortly, the UK will overtake the USA as the most morally degenerate nation in the world as our percentage of abortions is set to overtake theirs.

Last year, the total of abortions in this nation has exceeded 200,000 for the first time.

That our abortion limit permits the murder of children possibly and probably viable outside the womb at 21 weeks and continues for a full three weeks thereafter is an abomination. NO! The word 'murder' is not emotive at this point - it is objective fact.

Please read Psalm 94. [The RSV version gets the point across especially well, I think http://www.keyway.ca/htm2007/20071214.htm ]

Sad to relate, God's judgement on our nation will have been well earned.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090057/Abortion-rates-rocket-record-high-Britain-set-overtake-US-world-termination-capital.html

Teaching - a great job ruined.

Teachers are leaving state schools to work in the independent sector in high numbers.
This has the leftwing NUT hopping mad. What they fail to recognise however, is that many of these are not teachers lost to the profession because of private education but teachers who would have otherwise have left teaching altogether.
It is hard to describe what an awful job teaching has become - and that is even in the better state schools where bureaucracy and matters which prevent you getting on with your real work are soul-destroying.
In the average comprehensive, there will also be classes which will give you sleepless nights and in the sink schools - well ... perhaps the words 'glimpse into hell' might offer the odd clue!

In Handsworth Christian School in Sheffield, our full and part time staff work for literally half the pay they could expect in a state school and we have no pension scheme either.
The working conditions however, are such that when staff come to us - they seldom leave.

Fancy doing some work for us either badly paid or voluntary? If you have a Maths or Science degree - or indeed any subject with a PGCE and you would like to submit a CV - please ring Renee, the School Secretary, on 01142 430276. We can always keep your details on file.
As this is not a job advert I can state 'Christians preferred - denomination is of no consequence'.

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090114/More-state-teachers-quitting-jobs-better-working-life-independant-schools.html

Turbans.

A Sikh man who wanted the right to wear a turban while being photographed for his French drivers' licence has lost his case in the European Court of Human Rights.

We have to go back over thirty years to when the British government capitulated over the issue of Sikhs not wearing crash helmets because of turbans in order to see a similar situation.

Common sense dictates that the law should not be bent to accommodate people where that law has been enacted reasonably.

Surely, the issue in both cases is whether or not the matters of riding a motor cycle or being permitted to drive lies within the conscience of each individual. Most assuredly, they do have a choice.

You may either drive or alternatively can refuse to remove your turban for a photo - in which case there will be the consequence that you may not drive.

The reason why this wretched court is right for once is clearly because they dare not allow any loopholes which may be used by applicants for licences who 'must wear the burkha' for identifying photos.

Link; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1090031/Freedom-religion-does-right-flout-countrys-laws-says-EU-court-backs-ban-Sikh-wearing-turban-ID-pic.html

RSC.

Science standards in schools have slipped ‘catastrophically’, the Royal Society of Chemistry declared yesterday.
The eminent scientific body said it had ‘hard evidence’ that exams had been dumbed down since the 1960s.
It said that record-breaking pass rates at GCSE and A-level were merely ‘illusory’ and universities were being forced to give new students costly remedial classes.

No comment!

When you think the stupidity can go no further ...

We now have The Youth Restorative Disposal. This is the next piece of utter piffle to emerge from the ASBO stable.

Yobs will escape court for a variety of serious offences if - wait for it - if they apologise.

Perhaps the authors of this lunacy may care to explain just how they are going to know whether the apology is heartfelt or genuine!

I can assure them that the raucous, piercing laughter, echoing that heard outside so many Youth Courts after a feeble disposal, will definitely be heartfelt!

These sickening do-gooders are now sold on the idea of 'restorative justice', 'meeting the victims', 'personal apologies' etc.

Have they no grasp of human psychology whatsoever? This is all simply deemed to be WEAKNESS by the average yob.

It is one more example of being tolerant of appalling behaviour.

They have had nearly 60 years to prove that their approach to crime works and have failed at every step! - So they offer more of the same. Unbelievable!

Test runs are taking place in various counties. What are the odds that every one will 'prove to have been a resounding success'? Then of course, we shall see these introduced nationally.

Naturally the tiny percentage of claimed successes will be trumpeted from the rooftops.

Making yobs apologise in schools hasn't worked with all but the tiniest of numbers - why should it work on the streets?

Just what is it that makes these witless buffoons hate the concept of punishment so much? Is it that they are unable to grasp any concepts of righteousness whatsoever?

I predicted what would happen with ASBOs and was proved right. Sorry to sound conceited - but I am right AGAIN!

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1089806/Teenage-muggers-let-say-sorry-new-plans.html

Morrisons.

I have a good memory for prices - it makes it much easier to recognise the bargains which many others easily miss.

Yesterday was shopping day at Morrisons and, on this occasion, I studied a whole range of prices of basic goods under their own labels and was able to compare price changes over the last year. It was horrific - particularly if you looked not so much at the pennies added, but rather at the percentage increases.

A small can of peas from 14p to 19p as just one example. That is FIFTY per cent! This is not untypical. 30%+ is extremely common.

Little wonder that I cannot trust this government's published figures on inflation!

Kilroy

Apparently the destructive Mr Kilroy-Silk has 'been voted out of the jungle'.

Perhaps the jungle would have been the best place for him.

1 John 3:23

"And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment."

The UK produces a bigger percentage of graduates in 'soft' subjects than any other developed nation, according to a study by the Reform think-tank.

Phew! Who would have thought it?

They're back! - Did they ever go away?

Astronomical borrowing - reckless spending - burgeoning, unproductive public sector?

Indeed, Old Labour have returned to haunt us!

BNP policy

As much as I decry immigration levels and 'multiculture' I am afraid that the BNP's claim to be 'a non racist party' does not wash with me and they could never get my vote.

The reason? - Ah well - consider this from their constitution:

"The British National Party stands for the preservation of the national and ethnic character of the British people and is wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between British and non-European peoples. It is therefore committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent, the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948"

No comment - just the award of a LoonyTunesWatch coconut - and NO it is not to the charitable bakers of the North West to add to their delicious fare!

Volunteers at a seaside town’s hospital have spent decades baking cakes to raise money for equipment the NHS cannot afford.
But now the hospital has banned home-made cakes from its fundraising events – because of health and safety fears.
Officials at West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven, Cumbria, claim the League of Friends’ sponge cakes and tea loaves contravene guidelines.

Brown is presiding over disaster.

I have not always agreed with Sean Gabb, with me as a Christian and he as a total libertarian, it is unlikely that we could ever agree more than a maximum of 80% of the time - even so, he is a man for whom I have respect and therefore, I commend to you his assessment of our current situation:

Tomorrow afternoon, all the journalists have been primed to say, the British Government will cut taxes and increase spending. The alleged purpose of this is to prevent a deep recession. The real purpose, there can be no doubt, is to win the next general election for Labour - and, since the Conservatives remain as useless as ever, it may well work. I will, however, discuss the alleged purpose. Politics aside, it will be about as catastrophic a response to our current troubles as can be imagined.The politicians of every party, and every journalist I have read, are agreed on the nature of these troubles. The crises of the past year in the banking sector have caused investment to fall. Consumption is now beginning to fall. To use the Keynesian jargon, aggregate demand has fallen, or is falling, below the level needed to keep national income at its full employment level. The answer is for the Government to cut taxes,thereby encouraging people to spend, and to increase its own spending.It is also agreed by all that interest rates should be cut, thereby encouraging people to spend still more and encouraging firms at least to go back to investing as much as they were until the troubles began. It is admitted that doing all this might cause other problems. But this admission is followed by warnings about the horrors of the deflation we otherwise face.This kind of economic reasoning is not as worthless as some of my friends believe. In countries as heavily regulated and corporatised as modern Britain and America, an increased preference to hold cash will not bebalanced in the short or medium term by changes in the structure of relative prices. Firms will cut production rather than prices. Trade unions will prefer job losses to wage cuts. This can mean a very long and severe recession. There can be little doubt that, regardless of whatever would have followed, even without the Second World War, the currency debasement of 1931 moderated the effect here of the Great Depression.However, while not entirely worthless in certain conditions, what we are now being told is entirely worthless now. There is no doubt that people are spending and investing less than they were, and that they will continue to spend and invest less for some while to come. But, before agreeing that the politicians should be allowed to do what they most enjoy - namely, spending money that is not their own and that often does not yet even exist - we need to ask why we are in such trouble. The answer will explain why the proposed response will be catastrophic.For many years, interest rates have been held below the sort of level needed to balance the supply of savings and the demand for loans. The result has been inflation. That many consumer prices have been falling is no argument against this proposition. Inflation is best seen not as price increases but as monetary expansion. There was a time when monetary expansion led fairly soon to price rises. Where at least Britain is concerned, though, most consumer goods are imported. So long as foreigners are willing to finance a growing current account deficit without devaluation, demand for imported consumer goods can expand rapidly and for years without any increase in prices.The new money will therefore be used partly for investments in newproduction that may or may not be wise in the long term - and also to bid up the prices of property and of paper assets.These bubbles never last. There comes a point where people lose faith in a currency, and where the upward spiral of asset prices is checked. The fall in the currency will push up consumer prices. Overvalued assets will fall in at least real terms. Many other investments will be shown to have been unwise. The immediate reasons for their bursting are less important than that they always will burst. This has now happened. There is no definite rule in these matters. But it seems that the length and intensity of the boom is roughly in proportion to the scale of the recession that follows.The financial collapse we are now witnessing, therefore, should not be seen as some autonomous fall in aggregate demand that can be offset by increasing other variables in the national income income equation. It is instead part of the unavoidable correction to past experiments in demand management. All the clever people disagree. They do believe that playing with aggregate demand can avert, or at least moderate, the coming recession. Now, these people are often very clever - most of them more so than I am. They are still wrong. Cutting taxes is always a good idea. Not balancing them with spending cuts is not so good. If the British Government will do tomorrow what the journalists say it will, the inflation will be continued, though now without the confidence in sterling that allowed it before last year to create the illusion of prosperity. Taxes will fall. Government and other spending will rise. Interest rates will be cut. In the short term, this may be enough to win the next election for Labour. It not even before, though, the pound will collapse shortly after. Interest rates will then need to rise sharply, if the Government is to continue selling its bonds and if consumer prices are not to rise sharply and continuously.There is no reasonable chance of deflation. For the next few months,while the collapse of sterling is only gathering momentum, firms will be able to reduce prices to keep up demand for their products. This will give the appearance of deflation. Eventually, though, their margins willnot be further reducible, and the collapse of sterling will raise costs that must be handed on. This will happen even without further action. The bank rescues of last month were financed by money creation that will, sooner or later, find its way into circulation. Deflation is the last of our worries.I have no professional expertise in finance, and so give no warranties ofany kind. This being said, I think it a good idea for anyone who has a mortgage to get the best fixed rate he can between now and Easter, and otherwise to avoid saving money at any rate fixed longer than six months ahead. If he wants to buy imported consumer goods, he should do so now or, at latest, in the sales after Christmas.Beyond this, I have no advice. Just because I do not believe in the solution that everyone else is urging on us does not mean that I have any alternative solution to offer. We should never have got ourselves into this mess. Failing that, the recession should have been allowed to hit last year. Since it was then deferred, it should be allowed to hit now.It will do nothing to moderate the inevitable recession. But there is a good case for cutting taxes and government spending now by at least a third, and then by five per cent a year every year for the next decade.And there is a case for returning to a fully convertible gold standard.Of course, no politicians will take my advice. If any do read what I have just said, they will at best laugh with contempt. But I am right, and I feel some grim satisfaction in being able, come 2010, to send this article out again under the heading “See - I Told You So!”.

-- Sean Gabb Director, The Libertarian Alliance.

Campaign for REAL Christmas cards.

My campaign for REAL Christmas cards moves inexorably into its third year.

Please complain if you are unable to buy Christian cards in your local shops. Make it clear that they will be losing your business.

Bonkers Boris.

The Mayor of London has stated that he thinks we should consider an amnesty for illegal immigrants.

No, no and thrice no!


This has been tried in a number of countries and differing situations and all it does it to legitimise illegality and encourage further illegal immigrants who then know that if they keep their heads below the parapet for long enough, they will eventually be allowed to stay.

NO!


Thanks Melanie for the support!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088802/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-An-amnesty-illegal-immigrants-What-staggering-stupidity-Boris.html

Inflation

Am I the only one to wonder how a 30% increase in petrol costs had only a marginal effect on upward inflation but creates a massive difference to the figures when the price drops?

AND - I note that the foods which went up so fast in the shops have not plummeted in price either!

Our mad world.

A police officer has been suspended from duty for membership of a legal political party.
Meanwhile, social workers in an area where a child was tortured to death carry on as if nothing had happened.

ICI and cannabis.

Last night I was talking to a leading scientist who had worked for ICI in the early 70s.

On the subject of cannabis, he stated that all those decades ago - when the drug was at approximately 3% of the current strength levels - its links to schizophrenia and psychosis were well known.

We really need to get this message across to young people who think that this drug is 'cool'.

Littlejohn.

At his wicked best!

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1087974/LITTLEJOHN-Exposed-The-sinister-secrets-Labours-party-list.html

A greeeaaat Christmas gift idea!

Do you know of anybody who likes a thundering good read? Somebody who likes a modern style thriller with everything from psychology to love, from sex to local history, mystery to horror?

If they are a Christian, they will enjoy it because it investigates moral dilemmas based around themes of justice and vengeance; a real makes-you-think sort of book.

If they are a non Christian - without ever feeling threatened or preached at in any way - by the end, they will understand what the Gospel is.

£9-99 will get you a copy of this excellent novel set in N.Lincs and Sheffield - postage free.

Contact: arnottl@aol.com

You may even buy it to treat yourself!

BNP membership lists.

I have so many reasons to dislike the BNP that I consider it quite embarrassing to have to come to their defence - but you see, I believe in democracy and liberty and therefore have no alternative.

In view of the 'amended' membership lists maliciously published this week and apparently also doctored to add the names of people who have never been members, as well as the publishing of the list in the first place being so appalling, I have to register my horror.

One of my first reactions is to say that I believe this will give more grist to the BNP mill! Many decent people will now vote for them as a reaction - and NO - it is not a clever ruse by Nick Griffin!

Last night on TV news, a leading leftie was wheeled out to describe the BNP as being 'racist' and advocating the sacking of its members who are in positions of authority.

This brings up two important matters. The first is that the BNP clearly attracts more racists than any other party but that does not make it racist per se [even though aspects of its constitutions are less than palatable] - and the frequent declarations from the far and liberal left that this is the case does not make it holy writ.

The left must refer to 'hidden nazi agendas' and as usual interpret being anti immigration as equating to thepurest of racism.

The second point regarding the lady on TV last night in her demands for sackings [or was it heads on platters?] is that surprisingly she was not calling for the sacking of all extreme lefties in positions of authority. I assume that the point must have slipped her mind!

This Christmas the Post Office are to issue both secular stamps and religious stamps; but just like last year, you have to stipulate if you want Christian stamps!!


PLEASE DO SO!

Dan Hannan and why the euro is unthinkable.

As usual, if somebody can put it better than I can - I let them. This is what Dan Hannan has to say about euro membership:


THERE WILL NEVER BE A GOOD TIME TO JOIN THE EURO
The slide in the pound has Euro-enthusiasts slavering with anticipation. “Calls for the euro are likely to reach fever pitch if there is a collapse in sterling,” writes Roland Rudd, chairman of a pro-euro lobby group, in the London Evening Standard. “Suddenly membership of the euro is beginning to look a very attractive escape route,” agrees Will Hutton in The Observer.
Hang on, chaps: weren’t you arguing that we should join eighteen months ago, when the pound was more than 30 per cent more valuable than now? What if we had taken your advice then? The financial crisis in Britain could not have been cushioned by the exchange rate; it would instead have been felt in output and jobs. Rather than a 30 per cent reduction in sterling, we’d have suffered a 30 per cent reduction in wages, with a cycle of strikes and sackings as people struggled to adjust to the new reality.
Happily, being outside the euro, we are able to respond to the shock with policies determined by our own needs. We have fiscal and monetary independence, and we are using both. The cheap pound means that Britain can now price itself into the market. It makes possible an export-led recovery.
I know that the decline of sterling is painful for some of this bulletin’s overseas readers. It’s no picnic for me, either: I’m paid in sterling, and I work in Brussels and Strasbourg. But there is a reason why the pound is taking a pounding. Investors can see that Gordon Brown squandered our resources, leaving Britain with the worst deficit of any advanced economy.
They know that he has committed more to the bail-out than any other country. It gives me no pleasure to say this, but the sterling crisis is a market comment on eleven-and-a-half years of Labour profligacy. The Broon, to borrow John Smith’s phrase after Black Wednesday, is “the devalued prime minister of a devalued government”.
If the ERM taught us anything, it is that there is no such thing as a permanently correct exchange rate. After Black Wednesday (or, rather, White Wednesday), Europhiles toured the studios telling anyone who would listen that “we joined at the wrong rate”. But the idea that 3 DM to the pound was too high a rate is hard to reconcile with it having been too low a rate two years before; and, sure enough, we had reached that rate again within five years.
The Hutton/Rudd arguments for joining the euro are terrifyingly similar to the arguments for joining the ERM. Then, as now, Europhiles claimed that membership would boost business. In fact, more than 100,000 firms went bankrupt during our 23 months inside the system.
Then, as now, they promised that membership would create jobs. In fact, unemployment doubled to just under three million. Then, as now, they claimed that it would bring lower interest rates. But interest rates were in double figures for most of our time in the ERM – despite inflation at barely three per cent – and 1.75 million homes were overtaken by negative equity.
Then, as now, they assured us that participation would bring stability. In the event, our trade-weighted exchange rate was less stable during membership than before or since.
Is there any circumstance in which these zealots would not advocate euro membership? If the pound bounces back on the basis of a recovery, will they still be whistling the same old tune? How many times do they need to be proved wrong before we stop listening?

Immigration madness.

Immigration has swollen the population of Britain by 1.8million since Labour came to power, according to Government statistics.

This to England, the most crowded country in Europe. Note I say England, because the migrations have left Scotland, Ireland and Wales relatively untouched.

Madness!

Joan Bakewell.

"Old people should be allowed to die if they become 'vegetables', Joan Bakewell has said.
Labour's czar for the elderly said she had made a living will that will mean she is 'not kept alive if I'm a vegetable'.
She added that people should not be helped to go on living by machinery if they had outlived their normal lifespan."

I hope that I do not upset too many of my Christian readers on this one but I have much sympathy with her views and have expressed that in writing to my GP.

The argument that God must choose the very moment of our deaths does not hold any water. If you look at Genesis 9:6 - that is left to man.

Also, it is very unlikely that those who would argue with Joan have taken into account the "Science has moved the goalposts" argument.

For me, I have more problems with where the lines are drawn.

Freezing heat - or why we should not necessarily trust scientists.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml

Charity.

If we recall the story of the widow in the Temple, Jesus said that the tiny amount she had given was worth more than all the hefty donations from the wealthy.

A question to all my fellow Christians out there.

- Does your giving hurt and if not, why not?

Who needs these statistics?

"Black women are earning more than white women in Britain for the first time, official figures suggest. "

Good. Fine. Excellent. - So what?

Thanks, Melanie.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1086398/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-The-liberals-did-destroy-family-share-blame-Baby-P.html

Tragic.

To nobody's great surprise, The Office of National Statistics has revealed that children from broken homes are five times more likely to suffer emotional disorders.

LINK: http://www.christian.org.uk/news/20081022/broken-homes-leave-children-miserable/?e241008

Harriet

So. Harriet Harperson wants to have a major increase in the number of openly homosexual MPs to represent their 6% part of society.

Just how many problems this represents, I cannot say but here are two:

The figure of 6% is a gross exaggeration. The only figures worthy of stating are those from the largest sex survey ever, which used a sample of over 40,000. To the best of my recollection, that was by the Wellcome Trust and their figure was around two and a half percent for male homosexuals and about half a percent for lesbians.

Furthermore, she implies that there are other non 'open' MPs.

Does not her system leave homosexuals over-represented?

Maggie wouldn't have done that!

For all her many faults, I think it fair to say that Margaret Thatcher will be very kindly treated by history.
Perhaps it is very the fact that she attracted so much opprobium from the left that makes us recognise that she must have got most things right!
She took the courageous, unpopular decisions because they were the right ones - a true conviction politician.
She got the big decisions right, broke the back of the marxist unions by democratising them, standing up to them where necessary, and at the same time, turned our sick-man-of-Europe economy into a success.

When she took over, the economy was in the same kind of mess that a decade of socialism has brought us to today and her tactics were diametrically opposite to the ones being used by Brown today.

'Spend, spend, spend' did not work for Viv Nicholson and I doubt that it will work for Brown, especially as it is based on criminal levels of borrowing.

If anybody told a couple who were in debt to spend and borrow - we would laugh in their face.
And the difference is ...?

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1085934/PETER-OBORNE-Have-Tories-guts-voice-financial-sanity.html

Sky - boxing.

I am one of the suckers who pays for Sky Sports. I do quite well on cricket, reasonably well on football [too much emphasis on the 'big names'] and truly badly with boxing.
About 40 times a year they put on a reasonable bill listed as Friday Fight Night - which generally is their only programming of British Boxing in any week.

Amateur boxing is generally shunned - surprising for such a cheap option and professional bills from around the UK other than Fridays are noticeable by their absence.

The insult-to-injury comes with the really big fights with British boxers such as Hatton and Calzaghe. These sharks MAKE US PAY AGAIN! Not satisfied with taking £9 per week off me, they want to grab an extra £15 quid every time there is a top bill!

It doesn't happen when Manchester United play Chelsea, does it?

The feminist lie - nailed.

Sex equality - YES! Special cases - NO! Special treatment - NO! Feminism - NO!

'Further sex equality legislation should be stopped because it is unfair to men, according to an analysis published by a Labour think tank. [???]
The idea that all women at work are victims of discrimination is a 'feminist myth', argued a senior academic. Many want to raise families rather than pursue careers.
'The myth that all or most women would be just as careerist as men, if only they were given the opportunity, has been exploded,' Dr Catherine Hakim said.

While women can choose between work and family, men have fewer choices, a senior academic said
'The trend towards flexibility in the workforce has also made it clearer that some occupations and jobs will never be family friendly.'
The call from Dr Hakim will provoke unease among ministers and Labour MPs because it has been published by the Institute for Public Policy Research, the party's most influential think tank over the past decade.'

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1083966/Feminist-myths-making-equality-laws-unfair-men.html

Déjà vu?

'It has plagued scientists and politicians for decades, but scientists now say global warming is not the problem.
We are actually heading for the next Ice Age, they claim.
British and Canadian experts warned the big freeze could bury the east of Britain in 6,000ft of ice.'

Déjà vu indeed! Back to the old story we had to swallow back in the 1970s!
Pardon my deep suspicion of these pseudo scientific know-it-alls.

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1085359/Global-warning-We-actually-heading-new-Ice-Age-claim-scientists.html

Unitarianism.

All the worst features of a cult, with the possible exceptions of kidnapping, low carbohydrate diets, brainwashing and leaders who are sexual predators, can be found in unitarianism.
The theology is fundamentally a rejection of Scripture and goes beyond the modalism and monarchianism et al found at times in the early church.

Although broad as a movement, it has a marked tendency towards liberal christianity which is unsurprising when you consider how ready it is to abandon substantial amounts of the Scriptures. It happily reduces God the Son to the status of a mere man or on occasions, to a vague, supernatural being.
It holds an optimistic view about 'the basic goodness of man' - it is at this point where even the most unscholarly Christian will see the basic flaws in their teachings.

The Arianism which underpins their beliefs has long been the 'mark of a cult'. Indeed, it is difficult in the extreme to find any cult which is not essentially unitarian in character.

Happily, their influence seems to be declining year on year.

Cuckoo!

If your political philosophy is based around the false notions that: we are all victims; there is no God; we are not ultimately responsible for our actions; that we have all been put under subjugation in 'the class struggle' and however we live our lives we should not have to face the consequences thereof - then you are part of the 'cuckooland conspiracy' which has been dragging this nation to its knees over the best part of 50 years.

These are ideas which stem from within certain parts of socialism, the liberal elite, the very worst of do-gooders, ivory tower dwellers and the essentially 'nice but dim'.

What you have brought is a society with a burgeoning underclass, wall-to-wall criminals, summat-for-nowt lifestyles and a system where justice is becoming increasingly rare.

THANKS A LOT!

Whither weather?

I am really getting fed up with the poor quality of weather forecasts. I believe that they are actually getting worse.
I use BBC online for 5 days of local weather. Quite often it is 100% wrong - even on the day.
For example, on one recent day it forecast 'dry' at the same time as I was looking out of the window at a major deluge.
On other occasions, the weather just three days ahead may change as much as three times in the runup to the actual day.

And to think the 'experts' claim to be able to predict 'warming' umpteen years ahead!

Fill these hands, please.

Beware of Texans bearing gifts!

Justice? - I think not!

'An air stewardess who stole up to £100,000 donated by her passengers to a children's charity was yesterday given a suspended prison sentence and fined £13,000.
Gillian Paterson was described as 'despicable' by a judge and told she was lucky to escape jail.'

I despair!

The system stinks!

I am, as yet, unable to comment on the sentences handed out to nine schoolboy rapists who have now been found guilty of a vicious attack on a 14 year old girl. The reason for the delay is that the Judge, Wendy Joseph QC, has been obliged to send out for pre sentence reports. Whenever imprisonment is considered - and for disposals of a much lesser nature - these are required.
She also declared that she wanted to know what these youths had in their backgrounds.
For the sake of all pity - WHY?
When you have been part of a street gang which has brutalised a girl over a lengthy period inducing the worst terrors imaginable and undoubtedly making her fear for her life, what does their background have to do with sentencing?
They must be sentenced for the crime purely and simply and any youth receiving a sentence of less than eight years must be considered to have 'got away with it' entirely. I would hand out even greater penalties of 10 years plus. If they had been older, I do not see how 15 years could have sufficed for anything this heinous and I would have thought 20 years to be entirely appropriate.

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1084469/Nine-schoolboy-rapists-facing-jail-punishment-attack-14-year-old-insulted-gang-leaders-girlfriend.html

David Bellamy.

I miss David Bellamy on TV. But as he has gone against [un?]official BBC policy; as he has spoken his mind; as he has not been sufficiently PC, he has been cast into the Beeb's version of outer darkness.

What are the heinous sins committed? - Well. He had the temerity to point out that wind farms are ineffective and dared to comment on the stats which have shown accretions of Arctic ice and lower world temperatures in the last decade or so.

The bounder! [Please contrast with treatment of Jonathan Ross.]

Pacifism.

Vera Brittain, authoress of 'Testament of Youth' but perhaps better known as the Buxton born mother of former politician Shirley Williams, was featured on BBC 1 on Remembrance Sunday.
If anybody had the right to become the raving pacifist that she did, it was most certainly her. Her much loved brother Edward, her fiance and two extremely close friends died in World War One and she saw first hand as a nurse the horrors of the wounds so tragically inflicted upon a generation of idealistic young men.
The phrase 'the futility of war' has been much heard over the last week in the approach to our remembering the fallen and it was certainly not absent in this programme.
There can be futility in war - indeed futility in many wars and aspects of wars - but the term itself cannot be used as an objective fact in isolation or as a generality as that can never be more than an unsubstantiated opinion or value judgement.
Terrible as war is, and essential that it be that we should try our utmost to avoid it, it is not always the simplistic fact of being a matter of our own choice as postulated by the pacifist. To oppose particular wars will often be legitimate, of course.
Pacifism is in itself an extremely simplistic philosophy and consequently one which I have great difficulties in respecting.
Where the pacifist offers to work in the danger area helping the wounded and the victims of war, I am prepared to revise that judgement on them as individuals.
I have prepared many students for RS exams and this is a topic which has been much debated in a Christian context.
The usual examination question is "Was Christ a pacifist." After considering the whole of Scipture rather than carefully selected chunks, I would venture to suggest that He was not.

Curved cucumbers making a comeback.

Food wastage having reached absurd levels in the European Union, with often 20% of perfect produce having to be thrown away because it does not fit that organisation's aesthetic criteria, decisions have had to be taken to allow this produce to be sold once again.

Having seen the levels of ugliness of most EU Commissioners, we must ask the question as to whether the figure would have been as low as 20% if they had been required to pass a 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' test.



So that I may avoid legal action, I shall publish no photos of such worthy people but shall restrict myself to what has previously been an unworthy cucumber.



LINK: http://euobserver.com/9/27069/?rk=1

John Maynard Keynes.

Regrettably, I have never taken the time to study properly the theories of John Maynard Keynes and as a result, my views of the man have tended to be in error.

Dominic Sandford's article is a must for anyone who wants to gain an overview of this important but largedly misguided figure in a mere 10 minutes.

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1083998/The-great-Keynes-Labour-s-plans-spend-way-recession-argument-built-lies-says-historian.html

A step in the right direction.Thinking allowed!

'Thirty-one per cent of teachers believe creationism should be given the same status as evolution in the classroom, a survey suggests. A poll of 1,200 teachers also found that 30 per cent already consider creationism or intelligent design, to some extent, during science lessons. And 87.9 per cent of those interviewed for the Teachers TV poll think that they should be allowed to discuss the subject in science if pupils raise the question.' Daily Mail.

Many people think that I am anti-evolution because I am a Christian. Not so.
I am against the hypothesis because it falls down badly in so many disciplines.
Incidentally, I became a Christian in spite of believing the evolutionary tosh I had been taught at school.
It was only after I became a Christian that I even discovered that there was an excellent scientific basis for challenging evolution.
[In all honesty - the whole concept had always seemed rather far-fetched.]

Smacking.

I have never been somebody who thinks that a first response to the bad behaviour of children is to give them a smack as there are many tactics which can be used to moderate naughtiness and besides, smacking for all misdemeanours means that it loses the 'fear factor'.

Children should however, be in awe of a smacking and feel threatened by the possibility. Furthermore, no child should ever be smacked because of the temper or frustration of a parent.

There are some children who may possibly never need to be smacked at all but I believe this to be rare.

You only have to see how some youngsters who control their parents and teachers with tantrums are being brought up incredibly badly.

The secret of basic child rearing is that there must always be fairness from the parent and the child must never win any battle.

The first time a toddler wins a battle - a line has been crossed. The child now recognises that there is always the possibility of future victories and the parents have heaped up massive future problems for themselves.

Boundaries must be set in stone. Ultimately, the main provocation for physical chastisement should be outright defiance of the parental authority.

Pity the poor infant teachers who now have considerably fewer powers to control renegades than ever before.

Thousands of children aged between two and five were thrown out of school last year for violent attacks on classmates and teachers, official figures show.
Overall, there were 46,000 expulsions and suspensions of primary school children aged 11 and under for a range of offences including drunkenness, drug-taking, sexual misconduct, racism and bullying.
Just over 4,000 cases involved children aged five and under. It means 240 pupils were excluded from primary school on average each day.

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1083582/Thousands-fives-suspended-school-attacking-pupils-teachers.html

Judge not lest ....

'The new Lord Chief Justice yesterday called for tougher sentences to punish criminals and deter crime.
Lord Judge, the most senior member of the judiciary in England and Wales, said the guilty should be ' frightened' by the prospect of being brought before a court.'


Well. I am nearly speechless.

Go get 'em boy!

Racism in presidential election?

It had occurred to me when I published the piece about Obama voters in Harlem being happier with McCain's policies that the election could be a racist victory - and now I believe that that may well have been the case.
White voters have happily voted for either candidate.
Non-whites have voted Obama en bloc.
Hmm.

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1083335/Breakdown-demographics-reveals-black-voters-swept-Obama-White-House.html

Sorry. Charisma ain't enough.

When I first came across this man, I found him promising. The more I have found out about him, the more convinced I have become that his election may turn out to be the worst mistake in democracy since Hitler took power via the ballot box.
It appears that he is the most unrepentant liberal leftie ever to appear on a major stage in the whole of modern history.
I cannot believe that I would have actually preferred Hillary to have won!

TV licences must go!

Sometimes we just get used to something and therefore accept it as being quite normal, whether it makes any sense or not.

Take the TV licence. Precisely what is it for?

- Er - it funds the BBC.

Correct. I shall not enter the debate as to whether or not the Beeb should be self-funding but shall just consider the bureaucratic nightmare which is the present system.

What is the point of a licence at all when virtually every household has TV? - Whether that is black & white or colour is actually irrelevant.

You have a complex system to collect a mere percentage of what should be collected. When that fails, you have to have TV detector vans, prosecution cases being made, courts time wasted, fines which have to be enforced etc.

Why not simply fund the national broadcaster from general taxation?

Let's see how it all breaks, shall we?

Hasanali Khoja, who is a devout muslim chef, is accusing Scotland Yard of making him cook pork.

Naturally, he is suing for telephone number compensation, after all, his employers are making him do something which apparently goes against his religion.

Meanwhile, as portrayed on this Blog a day or two ago, a Christian, Gary McFarlane is to be booted out of RELATE for not telling homosexual couples how to have sex properly!

Let us sit back and compare the ultimate treatments of these two men. If I were a gambling man I would have perhaps been prepared to have a large wager that one will be treated abominably and the other as the ultimate victim. Maybe readers can guess which way my bet would have been placed?

You cant't even debate with people this hidebound!

Prescott argues public schools are unfair because they breed confidence.