Monday, August 31, 2009

Fruit.

Let us abolish the political class.

One of the principal reasons why this country has quite so many problems is the development, indeed increase, in the political class.
A century ago this used to be made up of patrician liberals and conservatives and a move away from that seemed beneficial. If it was - it is hard to tell.

What has happened is that Westminster is heavily made up of lawyers, the non-productive and activists who went straight into politics from their university political societies.
Where is the experience of real life? - A new report suggests that the 2010 intake will be no better.
Complaints are made that women are under-represented but that is inevitable when fewer women put themselves forward - so with a smaller pool to choose from, only artificial and inappropriate manipulation can address this. Consider the poor quality of the Blair Babes who really have not covered themselves with glory.
I think we really need a 'Campaign for real politicians' - incidentally, UKIP would come out of such a situation rather better than would the three main parties!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Though defeated ...

Goldsmith's school master in The Deserted Village is mocked with these words, " ...though defeated he could argue still."
In the aftermath of the new, even-more-diluted examination results, Goldsmith could have had an 'irony field day'!

In the last week and a half I have encountered so many apologists who have: wriggled; affirmed; ignored evidence; used specious arguments; defied all logic; contended that black is white and down is up that, overwhelmed - I have had to start the thinking process anew.
No. The facts are there to be found and the argument that "These are now the first children coming through from when Blair's 'education, education, education' kicked in is beyond disingenuous.
But the worse it gets of course, the fewer people there are sufficiently well educated to see through the blarney.

Our quangocracy.

The massive increase in the costs of quangos between 2006 and 2007 goes a long way towards explaining the financial difficulties being experienced by the government in 2008 and this year.
The rise, which was over a third in a single year to a whopping £167 billion, just takes my breath away.
Those who care to investigate will find that the majority of these high-salaried, patronage-buying wastes of space have a single purpose - making life easier for the Brussels takeover of our nation.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Moral differences.

I hope you agree that I always try to be factual in the opinions I put forward on this Blog but today I shall respond to a situation with a 'gut reaction'.
I look at the attitudes put forward by 'ordinary people' and I note that the majority tend to want 'the punishment to fit the crime'. In this, nothing has changed over the last forty years or so.

I contend however, that there is a genuine distinction which can be made between then and now. In days of yore, there was a practical base to this, of course, but there was also a moral portion which wanted 'right' to triumph and this feeling ran very deep.

Today, I see school parents prepared to make phoney excuses for children; those who write notes to defend misbehaviour; the ones who take the word of their mendacious offspring over school staff who have actually witnessed misbehaviour - thus effectively calling them liars!

I know of parents who have lied to shield children from the consequences of their actions and of one who said to a staff member "Well, I am not going to grass him up."

These same parents will want, indeed demand discipline, but not when it applies to their own.

So, have things changed? - OH YES!

Friday, August 28, 2009

Ryanair will NEVER have my custom.

'Irish cut-price airline Ryanair has said it will spend half a million euros on a campaign backing the Lisbon Treaty ahead of Ireland's second referendum on the document, scheduled for 2 October.'

If it costs me a lot more, Ryanair will still not get my custom - ever!

Price transparency.

Many will recall the horrors which followed the imposition of VAT. Prices up in lights only for you suddenly be told that VAT had to be added, Really annoying; really dishonest.
Well it is back and airlines are the worst offenders. Low prices are given and then you must add extras for: luggage, booking online, seating choices, queue jumping, taxes, using a credit card, (some even using a debit card!), wings on the aircraft etc.

Okay. So the last one was a slight exaggeration but it is still extremely dishonest - and I promise to start preferring the airline which is straightforward with its prices.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Somalia.

'Islamist extremists trying to 'cleanse' Somalia of Christianity have struck again, this time murdering four charity workers.
Rebels from the Al Shabaab group, which has links to al-Qaeda, beheaded the four Christians after kidnapping them on July 27 in the coastal town of Merca, according to International Christian Concern news agency.
Fatima Sultan, Ali Ma'ow, Sheik Mohammed Abdi and Maaddey Diil were all working for a non-government organisation supporting orphans in southern Somalia. They were apparently killed for refusing to renounce their faith. Al Shabaab militants later informed the Christians' families that they had been executed as promoters of fitna ('religious discord'). Their bodies have not been returned to their families... ' Release Int.


1] I wonder how many Somalis currently living in the UK have similar feelings to this evil group?( Claims that the UK population of some 43,000 Somalis form a rather small caucus are appalling underestimates.)
2] Please pray that God will 'change the hearts' of these wicked individuals.
3] Please pray for the Christians whose lives are at risk from this terror group.

Nice one, Smithy!

“A growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the Evolutionist camp ... moreover, for the most part these ‘experts’ have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on scientific grounds, and in some instances, regretfully.”
Wolfgang Smith, - Ph.D., Physicist and Mathematician.
PS. Professor Dawkins is fully aware of this point!

Revenge and retribution.

As both an onlooker and one who has worked inside the justice system, I have recently been horrified many times over by some extremely feeble sentencing.

A recent CrimeWatch showed a group of four Chinese people in London involved in an international fraud using false credit cards. £70,ooo of illegal cash and goods were found in a tiny flat and it was stated that they saw £3.5 million taken in a single week. They had been operating for a very long time!
The combined sentence for the group was a trivial 18 years. Put another way - all will be free in around 2 years from now! [The primary sentence will be halved for 'good behaviour' inside.]

The liberals and do-gooders will now claim that I want revenge. What they fail to see is that revenge is personal and retribution is neutral. I have no personal thoughts or feelings at all about these criminals in a justice context.

I wish to see the needs of both society and justice served and derisory sentencing does not achieve that.

To the trial judge I award a LoonyTunesWatch coconut. To the system which spawned him - a lorryload!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Iran. Pray for the victims, please.

'A judge has sent two young Christian women back to jail to consider their options after they refused to deny Christ in court.
Maryam Rostampoor, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, who is 30, were asked if they would renounce their new faith and return to Islam – but they refused. When asked if they had any regrets over becoming Christians, they said they had none. The judge reportedly sent them back to their cells at the notorious Evin prison in Tehran to 'think about it'.
The women have been held without charge since their arrest on March 5 – although some reports say they have been threatened with apostasy charges.'


Release International.

Foxhunting: an analysis.

I have no particularly strong feelings about hunting foxes. I compare it to falconry where man oversees predator and prey but does not commit the kind of enclosed atrocities seen in bullfighting, dog fighting, bear baiting et al. In other words - man tags along and attaches himself to what I view as 'nature in action'.
That people might take a totally different view to me is entirely fine provided that it is not based on some kind of anthropomorphic, bunny-hugging, dewy-eyed wimpishness which believes that lions should become vegetarian and similar nonsense - or based on pure malice, of course.

Largely, I see foxhunting as nothing to do with me. I adore animals and hate cruelty - being nature, this barely registers on my scale.

Let us consider the hunting opponents, however. Some are honest in their thinking that the 'sport' is indeed genuinely cruel and make a reasoned, albeit rather weak argument against it, however these are the minority. So, who are the anti-hunt lobby?
1] The uninformed; those who fail to see that control of this vicious and indiscriminate predator is 100% necessary.
2] The uninformed; those who fail to take into account that foxes will still be killed, the question being whether they will be gassed, trapped or shot - and shooting often leaves wounded animals to die a terrible, lingering death.
3] The uninformed; those who react emotionally to carefully chosen film clips of dog packs tearing a fox to pieces, failing to take into account that this is long after the fox is dead. The 'lead' hound kills the fox very quickly.
4] The 'uninformed' who do not believe that hunting creates significant employment.
5] The 'uninformed' who think that 'hunting is a rich man's sport' when hunt followers come from every level of society.
The 'uninformed' would perhaps think differently if they knew more - maybe not.
They are not my target today.
My targets are:
1] The hypocrites who attack foxhunting with a selective venom which is carefully concealed if talking about the genuine cruelty in kosher and halal slaughter.
2] All politicians who jettisoned the findings of the government sponsored Burns Report which concluded that killing foxes by hunting was not any more or less cruel than the alternative methods employed and especially
3] The nasty, embittered, spiteful left who view a foxhunting ban as an ideal way 'to have a go at the toffs'; people who would not give hunting another thought were it 'a purely working class activity'.
Remember too that foxhunting is about CONTROL and management and NOT about extermination.
Me? It doesn't affect me at all but I do hate to see the petty-minded, the spiteful, the uninformed and the wet prevail.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

A wonderful gift which you can give and costs nothing!

May I please remind my reader that it would be a truly wonderful gift to pass the details of this Blog onto any like-minded people!

http://christianityisnotleftwing.blogspot.com/

Another open tap! You can probably guess the excuse.

'An explosion in the number of non-EU students allowed to stay in the UK is adding 100,000 to the population every year, figures show.
It is by far the biggest factor in the boom in net migration from outside the European Union - the only immigration route over which the Government has any control.
The number of foreign students granted permission to stay for a year or more has trebled to 110,000 a year since Labour came to power.'

But annually only 10,000 go home - a ratio of 11 arrivals for every departure.


LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208816/Overseas-student-surge-hits-110-000-And-tenth-decide-theyll-stay-Britain.html#ixzz0PAePGhK9

Darwin admitted it and nothing has changed since!

“Not one change of species into another is on record ... we cannot prove that a single species has been changed.”

Charles Darwin, - My Life & Letters

Southport.

About 35 years ago, I went to Southport twice in quick succession - what a dump!
My wife remembered and nearly refused to go with me yesterday.

BUT what a transformation! it is now pleasing to the eye, vibrant, interesting and - for a seaside resort - tasteful.
Well done to all concerned!

It is also the venue for The UKIP Conference at the beginning of September. Book early to avoid disappointment!

Monday, August 24, 2009

HOW MUCH????

' Nearly half of all income tax is being squandered on growing inefficiency in the public sector, it is claimed today.
The failure of the State sector to keep pace with productivity in private business is costing taxpayers £58.4billion a year, according to the independent Centre for Economics and Business Research.'


If they are only 20% right ....

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1208398/Half-income-tax-wasted-State--58bn-cost-public-sector-inefficiency.html#ixzz0P0P9n4SK

LINK:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1208398/Half-income-tax-wasted-State--58bn-cost-public-sector-inefficiency.html

Sunday, August 23, 2009

TRIUMPH!




A nice photo of Gordon.

The politics of envy.

It is quite a long time since I last addressed the issue of 'the politics of envy'. It is one of the most unendearing features of socialism and of their leftist imitators.
It means that anybody who: pays to educate their own children; pays for their own medical care; has savings; takes responsibility for their own life; is born one social stratum ahead of you, may be freely abused as a milch cow for taxation and is fair game for the kind of vile insults which would inevitably get you arrested if used in much diluted form against leftist 'favourites'.
Hatred of the middle classes and higher is legitimised.

Ironically, the owner of a company who makes £80k per year by: taking risks; working disproporionately hard; absorbing stress; providing employment and taxes for the exchequer is pilloried. In the meantime, council bureaucrats can earn salaries well into six figures - often much more than the Prime Minister and these are apparently 'to ensure that they get the best people for the job'.
[The irony is completely lost on them!]

Job 5:2 For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one.

Proverbs 14:30 A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.

Poll.

The BPIX poll for the Mail on Sunday found 69% did not believe that British forces should be fighting in Afghanistan, as against 31% who thought the mission was worthwhile.

Tory thinking failure.

The tories have had a grand idea - a hike in alcohol taxes so that people who can now afford a few drinks by the skin of their teeth in our ever more impoverished society will not be able to do so any longer!
Will this control binge drinking? - Well, do high prices for drugs reduce the number of addicts? - Of course they don't! It is quite possible that 'the law of unintended consequences' will kick in and crime might actually increase to fund the binges.

Let us be kind to Cameron and co and assume that this is not just a Gordon-style tax hike and is a genuine attempt to curb alcohol abuse.
The simple question would be to ask why the obvious remedy is not used - HEAVY PUNISHMENTS FOR THE GUILTY!

I utterly despise the leftwing idea that 'all must be punished in order to rid us of a social probem caused by a readily targetable few'.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Christians are persecuted in many nations

'Another Christian prisoner of faith has died in an Eritrean prison after his guards refused him medicine – the third Christian to have died in the same jail this year.
Yemane Kahasay Andom, who was 43, died at the Mitire Military Confinement Centre in north-east Eritrea on July 23 and was secretly buried inside the camp, it has emerged. He had been tortured brutally and continuously in an attempt to make him deny Christ, according to religious rights charity Open Doors. Yemane refused.'


Information from Release International.

Spiteful, petty-minded, leftwing evil! - Just what you'd expect!

'A teenager who scored A grades in six A-levels has been turned away by every university she approached.
Philippa Scott was rejected even though teachers at her feepaying school were confident she would get top grades.
Her experience will fuel concern that universities are actively discriminating against privately educated applicants.'


Let's hear it for Will!

William Grimshaw of Haworth in Yorkshire, born 14 September 1708, was regarded as one of the three greatest men of the eighteenth century Evangelical Revival; the other two being John Wesley and George Whitefield. And yet he is little known today. Pity!

I have warned about misplaced idealism many times.

'All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.'

Thomas E. Lawrence

Useful idiots.

In political jargon, the term 'useful idiot' was used to describe Soviet sympathizers in Western countries and the attitude of the Soviet government towards them. The implication was that though the person in question naïvely thought themselves an ally of the Soviets or other communists, they were actually held in contempt by them, and being cynically used.
The term is commonly attributed to Lenin, sometimes in the form 'useful idiots of the West'.


Wikipedia.

Friday, August 21, 2009

THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST IN MINIATURE


SKY.

Considering how superbly well Sky TV cover cricket and that I now watch more Sky than I do terrestrial TV, you may be surprised to learn how much I detest them!

I now pay a whopping £37 per month for the service - quite an advance from the £5-99 when I first started!
As a boxing fan, I am horrified by their appalling coverage of boxing. Whole weeks go by without any coverage of British pro bills and amateur coverage is close to zero.
Whenever a big fight comes up, they have the gall to charge £14-99 to watch it ON TOP OF the monthly payments. This is scandalous!
As for football - it seems that my team is one of the handful which rarely gets coverage.
I am away for 3 weeks in Spring. I shall happily cancel SKY for a month; mess them around and insist on a good intro deal as a 'new' customer when I get back.

New migrant workers.


New migrant workers here in 2008 reached 733,090?
Yet, the broad left tell us constantly that these astonishing numbers are not displacing native workers onto the dole.
They really do think that we are total idiots, susceptible to slogans and soundbites!

So - we are not an evolutionary accident.

“That a mindless, purposeless, chance process such as natural selection, acting on the sequels of recombinant DNA or random mutation, most of which are injurious or fatal, could fabricate such complexity and organization as the vertebrate eye, where each component part must carry out its own distinctive task in a harmoniously functioning optical unit, is inconceivable. The absence of transitional forms between the invertebrate retina and that of the vertebrates poses another difficulty. Here there is a great gulf fixed which remains inviolate with no seeming likelihood of ever being bridged. The total picture speaks of intelligent creative design of an infinitely high order.”

H. S. Hamilton, - (MD) The Retina of The Eye - An Evolutionary Road Block.

'A' Levels almost worthless now?

Yet AGAIN, 'A' Levels have created records. Yet again, top grades have increased.
Note too how anybody completing the exam is virtually guaranteed a pass whether idle or incapable. Note that you get extra chances to scrape higher grades.

For many years the cut-off point in the career market has been 'two passes at 'A' Level'. That is now approaching worthless. The pair of grade 'E's which had long been a sign of genuine achievement and which set you head and shoulders above the also rans who only had GCSEs, is no more.
This is a social disaster overseen by recent governments for cheap, short term, political gain.

But as Abe said, "You can fool some of the people .... " - and they do!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

The tories? - This is what you'd get!


[ No pretensions for the appalling Alan Duncan!]

A children's prayer.

"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild ....."

Wanna bet?
[To children - yes!]

Hide the negatives!

What do The Independent, The Guardian, the BBC and to a lesser extent, all the remaining 'posh papers' have in common?

They all filter news on the EU and conveniently forget to include the bad bits!

For you perusal and far beyond my intellectual capacity!

Some Dawkins "arguments" easily refuted.

Part of the problem is that some of Dawk's arguments are so bad than no-one has yet bothered to publish refutations. So even obvious logical points get deleted cos they are "Original Research". For example the 747 Gambit is obvious rubbish the moment you think about conditional probabilities.
Dawkins does not explain what he means by statistically improbable. The standard probabilistic form of the argument from design is to take some feature of the universe (X) and to argue that p(XGod) >> p(XNo_God). Obviously p(GodNo_God)=0 <> "Richard Dawkins is probably among the finest evolutionary biologists of our time [hmm..????] but ... that does not preserve him from making some remarkably bad - indeed, in some cases embarrassingly bad - arguments when he steps outside the domain of his own area of expertise. To notice the badness of his arguments, however, is not the same thing as to be fully immune from their effects."

LINK: http://starcourse.blogspot.com/2006/11/some-dawkins-arguments-easily-refuted.html

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Good news for once.

The rare Duke of Burgundy butterfly has produced an even rarer, second brood in Gloucestershire.
Bravo!

Oh dear, Caroline.

Former Labour Minister Caroline Flint said on the BBC recently that the NHS is “the perfect model” for healthcare.

Just when did socialist standards fall so low?

Sacking scandal!

'A nurse sacked from a leading public school after smacking her son in her home has lost her appeal for unfair dismissal.
Susan Pope, 46, furiously condemned the political correctness which she blamed for the decision.'

The situation was simple. The 11 year old had sworn at her! She was sacked for having standards.
It gets worse. Because the sacking had been done for politically correct reasons, an Industrial Tribunal in Birmingham upheld the decision even though she had acted fully legally. [When do Employment Tribunals ever support employers, under normal circumstances?]
What a truly sick society we inhabit!

Corruption means ...

If there is a 'bent copper' - we do not say "Let's do without a Police Force."
If a surgeon makes a mistake in an operation and a patient dies - we do not say "Let us forget about operations, they are clearly a very bad thing."
If a pop star becomes a raving druggie - we do not say "It's time to abandon music."
If a politician dips his greedy hand into our taxes - we do not say "Politics must go." [ If only!]
Such examples are countless.

Yet wrongdoing by Christians means that seeking God must be abandoned. Odd!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Admitted at last- but nothing to be done!

Planning laws are deliberately biased in favour of gipsies and travellers, a Government minister has finally admitted.
After years of official denials on the issue, Communities Secretary Shahid Malik confessed that travelling families are treated differently from 'the settled community'.


Are they allowed?


Shop sign in Scarborough!

Please note.

The Episcopal Church [Anglicanism in the USA] at its General Convention has officially authorised liturgies for the blessing of those in same sex unions and the ordination of those in such partnerships.


Incidentally, and a propos of nothing in particular, the picture is a representation of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Reaching out.

Our need for faith in The Lord Jesus Christ has never been greater in a world which is surely plummeting into self-destruction and alienation from God.
It is good to remember that Jesus is only a small stretch away.

The woman who was healed simply by 'touching His garment' exemplifies the simple faith we should all be demonstrating.

Value for money, EU-Style!

It is reported that: 'EU Communications Commissioner Margot Wallstrom has earned almost €1.9 million in her ten years as a Commissioner, and if she lives to be 85, she will receive another €1.9 million in retirement payments. In addition she will receive €450,000 after taxes in a one-off payment before cashing in €8,000 a month after taxes as a pension for the rest of her life.'
Well, I am certain that hard pressed British taxpayers do not begrudge her a single penny - or cent, even!

She has worked long, hard and consistently against our nation's interests for a lengthy period - she deserves her reward!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Norman is right.

Norman Tebbit has stated that many tories will defect to UKIP as 'Dave' Cameron takes the conservative party ever more to the left.
He is perfectly correct.
The irony of course, is that the conservatives would have won the next General Election in any case without 'selling their souls'.
There is a very nice, right of centre, ex-tory slot in the political spectrum which UKIP must now fill. Being 'the broad church' it now is, is not a preparation for power.
Not only would UKIP take vast numbers of conservative votes but also goodly amounts from the other parties whose right of centre supporters hate tories and always have.

Making monkeys of us all.

Fred Attewill in The Metro tells us [17/8/09] that "Today's ['A' Level] students are getting better results than in the past because they are spoon-fed syllabuses AND given more chances - via modular courses and re-sits - to succeed. ..
One Director of 'A' levels based in the North West told researchers "You could train a monkey to do the questions today.' ....
Last year 25.9% of 'A' levels were grade A. In 1990, just 12%."

Between 1977 and about 1988 I personally taught difficult 'A' levels. Thereafter they got considerably easier. My 'A' grades were as rare as rocking horse droppings in the first spell and every other grade in the second.
I stopped teaching 'A' level Spanish in 2002. There is no doubt that standards have deteriorated since then.
It is shameful. Those who decide 'where the lines are drawn' - under relentless pressure from on high - are letting our society down badly. Every effort is made to hide the truth - usually by complaining non stop about "undermining the fine efforts of youngsters" at the times the results come out.


LINK:
http://e-edition.metro.co.uk/2009/08/17/

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Dumbing down? - Surely not!

'A schoolboy has gained a qualification for getting on a bus - despite not knowing he had taken the test.
Bobby McHale, 15, received a letter from an exam board recognising his ability to walk to the bus stop, wait for it to arrive and to board the vehicle.
It came from the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, the largest of the three English exam boards, and was titled Using Public Transport.'


LINK: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hAD3AEPZbIjI7w6k7GxjuSq5Ymsg

Rejoice!

"This is the day which the Lord hath made: let us rejoice and be glad in it."

Psalm 117: 24,1.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Our failing NHS.

Dan Hannan the rebel tory MEP has incurred the wrath of David Cameron for daring to criticise the NHS.
Mr Hannan was joining the debate in the USA and explaining to American viewers how our system has been a disaster since its inception and should be copied under no circumstances whatsoever. He was perfectly correct, of course! It doesn't work very well.

What Dan did not do, of course, was to speak against healthcare provision by the state which is how his enemies present his case.

We have a failing system which can only deteriorate further. The 1940s model is utterly incapable of being adapted to 21st century needs.
BUT nonetheless, this crumbling edifice is above all criticism and is into 'sacred cow' territory.
It eats money and fails to deliver. Our healthcare system struggles to get into the top 30 worldwide; is apparently unreformable; is inefficient; irredeemably bureaucratic and worst of all - the money does not follow the patient but is top funded.
No political bravery from Dave Cameron then, is there? No considering the needs of the nation?
One tip Dave. Which is the most selfish and self-absorbed nation on the planet?
Which nation has the best healthcare in the world? Which nation must we eventually copy after the 'sacred cow' has been slaughtered??
YOU KNOW PERFECTLY WELL! - FRANCE!

Friday, August 14, 2009

Euthanasia.

In a society where medical science has not just 'moved the goalposts' but 'transported them to a different hemisphere', where do we stand with euthanasia?

Today 'the old man's friend' - pneumonia - is no longer allowed to take its merciful course.

You would literally be prosecuted for allowing an animal to suffer like we permit some humans to do.

Yet consider the dangers; the undue pressures; the misdiagnoses; the suicide mentality being encouraged.

We argue that Man should not take life as he is 'playing God' but to what extent is Man 'playing God' by ill-conceived preventions of dying?

I cannot get my head around this issue. It is not very often when I refuse to take sides.

Why Do Our Police Hate Christians So Much?

Police officer told Christian singer she couldn't sing church songs on Oxford Street. Staff writer    29 January 2024. The volunteer off...