11 Sep 2024.
Baraminology of Cucurbitaceae Based on Chloroplast Genome Analysis
This study demonstrated how chloroplast genomes can be used to classify species into holobaramins.
Monday, September 16, 2024
Sounds More Than A Tad Dickensian. (Little Dorrit.)
The Falsehoods and Culpable Demonisation Office.
Under Israel-bashing Labour, bigotry at the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office is out of control
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The UK government’s partial arms embargo against Israel has caused considerable blowback. People have been appalled that, when the Jewish state is fighting for its life, the Starmer administration is punishing it on the basis of demonstrable falsehoods put out by Hamas and its echo chamber of international courts and NGOs, waging lawfare against Israel’s existence.
British Jews who believed that Sir Keir Starmer had rid Labour of its hard-left animus against Israel are now being forced to confront what they so unwisely chose to deny: that anti-Zionism and antisemitism remain hardwired into the Labour Party and the left in general.
Others have pointed to the increasing importance to Labour of the Muslim vote, and the emergence in the Commons of a sectarian bloc of five independent MPs who campaigned in the general election “for Gaza”.
These factors have certainly played a large part in the new government’s hostility to Israel. However, we shouldn’t downplay the stupefying ignorance and institutionalised malice of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.
Last week, I set out in The Times Israel’s excruciating dilemma over the need both to rescue the hostages and defeat Hamas. In a subsequent letter to the paper claiming that I was “on another planet”, Edward Chaplin, Britain’s former ambassador to Jordan and Iraq, wrote that Israeli leaders needed the “moral courage” to persuade the country that peace could only be achieved “via negotiations that give the Palestinians a state they can call their own”.
This is the kind of boilerplate ignorance that might be expected from the “globalise the intifada” mob who don’t know from which river or to which sea “Palestine” must be free. But from a former senior diplomat? Does the former ambassador to Jordan and Iraq really not know that the Palestinian Arabs were offered a state of their own (to which the Jews agreed) in 1937, 1939, 1947, 2000 and 2008, but rejected it on every occasion in favour of war or terror?
Apparently not. Nor do his current equivalents in the US State Department, who insist that the way to stop the seven-front genocidal war being waged by Iran and its proxies to destroy Israel and the west is to establish a Palestinian state run by more Iranian proxies intent upon destroying Israel.
In both Britain and America, the foreign policy establishment similarly regurgitates as truth murderous Hamas lies.
The Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, intoned: “Israel’s actions in Gaza continue to lead to immense loss of civilian life, widespread destruction to civilian infrastructure, and immense suffering”.
An American diplomatic official complained to The Times about the “relentlessness and ferocity” of Israel’s war and said it was a “head-scratcher” why Israel thought “this scorched-earth policy” was the best way to fight its enemies.
This was all drivel. If Israel’s war had really been “ferocious” and “scorched- earth”, the population of Gaza would have been decimated. Instead, the IDF has been regularly moving the entire population out of harm’s way — while Hamas has been using those civilians as cannon fodder and human shields.
The only people claiming “immense loss of civilian life” are Hamas, its UN patsies and other fellow-travellers. The number of civilians killed in Gaza according to Hamas statistics is ludicrous, since not one terrorist is acknowledged among the total. Given the number of terrorists whom Israel says it has killed in this war, the ratio of civilians to combatants killed in Gaza is unprecedentedly low and a fraction of the proportion of civilians killed in British and American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Of course, this hallucinatory anti-Israel derangement is now widespread. But how does one explain its grip amongst officials in government departments that actually deal daily with foreign affairs?
The British foreign service has a history of vicious opposition to the Jewish homeland, going back to the Palestine Mandate in the 1920s. Foreign Office diplomats were entranced by an entirely romantic view of the Arab world combined with an entirely cynical estimation of its value to British interests.
This older “camel corps” has been superseded by a new breed of Israel-hating officials, the “progressive” leftists who subscribe to the brain-dead myth that Israel is a colonialist interloper that has oppressed the “indigenous” Palestinians and deprived them of a state of their own.
Precisely because they specialise in world affairs, western diplomats are the supreme worshippers at the shrine of universalism, the doctrine that fetishises transnational courts where international law has been turned into a weapon of Israel’s destruction.
In addition, the one-time intellectual powerhouse of the Foreign Office has become dismayingly dumbed down. In the London Review of Books in 2016, a despairing letter from a former Foreign Office official lamented that, from 2007 onwards, it had become a “hollowed-out shell”, with “a cult of managerialism that seemed to regard foreign policy as an inconvenient side-issue” — and was now known to the general public only for its travel advice.
It was bad enough under the (mostly) Israel-friendly Conservatives. Now that Israel-bashing Labour is in the government stables, Foreign Office bigotry is free to gallop out of control. DM.
Fired?
Earlier this year, Clergymen Brett Murphy did not face punishment after calling a trans archdeacon a 'bloke' when discussing the appointment of Rachel Mann.
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Blogger: I respect this man's view on women priests, even if I disagree,
but am horrified that he needs to resort to loaded insults.
I assume there is much more going on here. Firing a man for one comment?
Literalism or ...?
Are Theological Progressives Smarter and More Spiritual than “Literalists”?
Responding to a listicle claiming that it is better to interpret the Bible figurativelyby Lita Sanders on September 14, 2024.
The media often attacks Christianity in ways that are not intellectually sound or honest. A careful examination of media pieces shows that their accusations against Christianity are baseless, but the sheer volume can prove overwhelming to Christians. As an example of how Christians can think about media pieces that are shared with them, we’re responding to a listicle that was sent to us, “17 Important Reasons the Bible Shouldn’t Be Taken Literally.”1 Part 1 dealt with arguments attacking the Bible, and this article will deal with arguments attacking believers who interpret the Bible as written.
Objection: Ancient Believers Were Stupid.
While most attacks against ancient worldviews wouldn’t necessarily call ancient people stupid, they certainly imply that we’re more sophisticated today, not least because we have modern science and they didn’t. However, ancient people were more intelligent than modern people often give them credit for.
Ancient cultures thought differently about truth than we do.
The listicle uses creation in six days as its example for this item and claims, “It’s about conveying God’s power, not being a geology textbook.”2 Creationists should be glad that the Bible isn’t a scientific textbook because those have to be updated every few years to keep up with new discoveries! Rather, the creation account is history. It doesn’t give details of how God set the laws of physics to just the right values to allow for life, but the simple, factual account gives us a framework for thinking about science.
Ancient people also didn’t attribute everything to miracles just because they didn’t know about microbes. Ancient people knew that at a certain age, a woman was unlikely to get pregnant and that virgins don’t normally get pregnant at all. They knew that men normally sink in water and donkeys don’t normally talk. In fact, the average ancient person’s life was more immediately dependent on cycles of seasons relating to harvest so could probably discern more about the natural world than the average person today. They sometimes expressed truth in poetry and other figurative ways, and so do we. If your friend tells you, “It’s raining cats and dogs outside!” you don’t ask if there are any dachshunds. And your meteorological report will probably tell you what time “sunset” is, even though we all know the earth revolves around the sun.
In a more scholarly setting, you may hear that Hebrews thought about existence in terms of function and that creation week was more about assigning existing things their function rather than creation out of nothing. In many ways, the Old Testament is concerned about the function of things, but that does not mean that there is no way for the Old Testament authors to consider existence apart from function.
Objection: Believers Today Are Stupid
Again, most articles would not put it quite that bluntly. But there’s a certain smug superiority about how much more sophisticated progressives are. However, people have been looking down on people who believed Scripture as written from almost the moment it was penned, so we are in good company! And we can see how weak these attacks really are when we take a moment to examine them.
Literalism often leads to cherry-picking.
The listicle claims that believers ignore passages about loving the poor but focus intensely on ones condemning homosexuality and pronounces, “This isn’t true faith; it’s using the Bible to justify existing prejudices rather than being challenged to actually live as Jesus taught.” Jesus actually taught that marriage was between one man and one woman for life (Matthew 19:3–9), which is mildly inconvenient for the listicle. But even more inconvenient is the fact that Christians are the most generous group of people, giving far more to charity than other religions or atheists.3
Progressives, however, cherry-pick what they believe is important. It’s important to give to the poor, but not to “judge with right judgment” (John 7:24) regarding behaviors that the Bible and even secular culture have condemned until recently. It’s important to practice hospitality, but the moment you insist that Jonah was actually in the fish for three days, you’re an ignoramus who clearly doesn’t appreciate the finer nuances of literature.
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Literalism encourages rigidity.
The listicle opines, “If there’s one right answer, it shuts down exploration. Faith is a journey!” Anyone who has been involved in circles that take the Bible as written knows that simply interpreting the Bible as a historical document does not mean that we have all the answers about it. People who believe that the Bible is God-breathed debate about how long the Israelites were in Egypt, what the nature of the Bethlehem star was, and how best to obey God’s commands in a host of different areas. However, taking the Bible as written gives us a starting point and the hope of going in a concrete direction, rather than endlessly wandering around feeling in the dark.
But beyond that, the Bible does demand “rigidity” on some topics. There is only one Gospel (Galatians 1:8), and one way to be saved. Jesus expects that his followers will obey him (Luke 6:46). Paul demanded that the church in Corinth excommunicate the man who was immoral with his father's wife (1 Corinthians 5:1-2). There was no flexibility in the Bible's stance on sexual sin; rather, there was grace for the offender when he repented (2 Corinthians 2:8.
AIG.
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Edward De Vere Was The Actual Writer of Shakespeare's Plays. (Chuckle!)
Wow. What a guy! He wrote all Shakespeare's plays - 14 of them after his own death in 1604!
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Incidentally, Will did not die until 1616!
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Suffering Christians.
From China and North Korea to Eritrea and Pakistan untold numbers of Christians across the world today are suffering behind bars. Some have been detained for many years but, helped by partners of Release International, they continue to follow their Saviour, writes Tom Hardie.
It may be difficult to determine the exact number of Christians behind bars but wherever they are – whether it’s an Eritrean prison, a North Korean labour camp or a Pakistani jail cell – they need our prayers.
Some have been locked away for more than a decade, separated from family and loved ones and suffering brutal conditions.
Dr Berhane Asmelash (pictured) says the main reason Christians are arrested or detained long-term in Eritrea is to break their spirit.
Fellowship vital for survival in Eritrea.
In Eritrea alone, the persecution of evangelical Christians in the past two years is worse than it’s ever been, according to our partner, Dr Berhane Asmelash of Release Eritrea.
Since the Asmara Government ordered all evangelical and Pentecostal churches to be closed in 2002, thousands of Christians who belong to this group have been victims of arbitrary arrest, torture and disappearances.
The persecution is not confined to the non-recognised religious groups such as evangelicals and Pentecostals but several members of the legally recognised groups have also been victims of arrest and restrictions, such as the Orthodox, Catholics, Lutherans and Muslims.
Currently there are around 400 evangelical prisoners – 25 per cent of whom are deemed long- term (sentences of four years or more). These include Pastor Kiflu Gebremeskel and Rev Haile Naizgi from Full Gospel Church, who were arrested in 2004. They have not been charged, nor has Milion Gebreselassie, a nurse and anaesthetist, who has been in prison for more than nine years.
Three Orthodox clergy members, Dr Fitsum Gebrenigus, Dr Tekleab Mengisteab and Rev Gebremedhn, were arrested in November 2004 and remain in prison without trial.
Since March 2023, 130 have been imprisoned, while 28 long-term prisoners have been released, including 13 who had been locked away for around ten years.
‘We don’t know why they are releasing them now but the main reason for arresting or detaining them long term is because they want to break their spirit,’ Dr Asmelash said.
‘Once they think that prisoners are deteriorating emotionally – when they’ve broken them – then they release them.’
Which is the main reason why some are still detained even after many years. They remain strong in their faith. If they are well-educated then the authorities fear how they can influence others when they get out.
‘The Government is anti-education so anyone with a degree is a potential target. All of those in government have only elementary school education.’
For prisoners who are released because they have suffered breakdowns life outside can be equally difficult. ‘In prison they were active but when released they become paranoid.
A lot of the pastors won’t leave their homes, especially if they signed a document renouncing their faith. They are ashamed and don’t want to see other Christians. They regret it but there is no one to comfort them.’
Dr Asmelash said: ‘We offered one pastor I met, who had been in prison 16 years, help to start a new life but his brain had frozen. He comes to church, listens but doesn’t talk to anyone.
‘What we have learned from former prisoners is that fellowship is vital. They form a community in prison, pledging to one another not to compromise or renounce their faith, being prepared to die for it.
They understand what it means to be “crucified with Christ”, so they are strong whether in prison or outside. If you can stay with your group, then you can survive in prison.’
Prisoners are not allowed to read, even the official government newspaper, because the authorities want their brains to remain inactive.
‘They want them to forget even the alphabet so no reading material, including Bibles, is allowed,’ said Dr Asmelash. On top of that the food is mostly inedible so prisoners frequently lose weight and become unwell.
On top of these inhumane practices, visits from family are forbidden so it can be many years before they see each other again.
LIFE OUTSIDE
Sadly, even once they are freed a new set of challenges arises, including trying to find accommodation, because landlords will not rent to anyone who has been in jail.
Most would go to live with their extended families but former prisoners, especially women, are often abandoned by those closest to them. Previously their families wanted them to study, marry and have children but after 14-15 years in prison they could be aged in their early 40s and seen as unable to contribute. Their only option may be to stay with friends, having to move on every few days to avoid questions from suspicious landlords.
Release Eritrea helps pay for accommodation and healthcare; prisoners can leave detention with serious medical issues. One woman who was released weighed only 34kg (5 stones 5 pounds), while another, a Christian singer who was denied release in order to have treatment for cancer, was set free only when the authorities were certain he would die.
As well as supporting hundreds of former prisoners, the ministry has helped about 2,000 Christians displaced by the Tigray conflict who need food, housing and healthcare.
It also assists Christians who have escaped the country to retrain in their new homeland. ‘In the past three years we have trained 815 people to start their own businesses, for example, in cooking, tailoring or photography,’ said Dr Asmelash.
Release.
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Sorry BUT The State Pension Is NOT An Entitlement It Is Merely A Benefit. Very Scary Stuff!
Sorry, but you’re not ‘entitled’ to the state pension. You’ll get what Starmer gives you.
Deep down, most of us think the state pension is ours by right. And why wouldn't we? Most of us have paid into it for decades. Unfortunately, I've got some bad news.
The state pension is a benefit, just like any other. That puts it on a par with Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support, Tax Credits and Income Support. Even JobSeeker’s Allowance.
There, I’ve said it.
I’ve said it before, in fact, and whenever I do, readers react with fury and claim the state pension is an entitlement.
And I don’t blame them for thinking that.
I’d think exactly the same, if I wasn't in this job.
We’ve all been contributing towards the state pension throughout our working lifetime, via our national insurance (NI) contributions.
Some may have paid NI for more than 40 years. Surely we're all building up entitlement in return?
I wish we were, but we're not.
It gives me no pleasure to write that. If the state pension had been set up correctly at the outset, it would be an entitlement.
How much we got at retirement would depend on how many NI contributions we'd made, and nothing else.
Sadly, that isn't the case.
Don't miss... Labour plot to make retirees ‘give up their full state pension’ to fund splurge [LATEST]
Unfortunately, the state pension wasn't set up correctly. It is based on very shaky foundations, and most people would rather not accept that.
That's understandable. It leaves us all in a much more precarious position. Benefits are something given. They can be taken away, too.
Which is terrifying, given that a key Labour Party tax adviser has called for the state pension to be means tested.
Sir Edward Troup, who was appointed by chancellor Rachel Reeves in April, has just called for wealthy pensioners to be forced to "give up” their full state pension.
Labour could direct the saving towards helping younger people get on in life, under Sir Edward's proposal.
PM Keir Starmer is free to do that, if he wishes, because the state pension is a benefit and UK state benefits are means tested.
The logic is frightening.
Last year, Express reader newresistance2023 took issue with an article on our site saying: "DE....the State Pension is NOT a Benefit...why can't you get it right?”
Sadly, we did get it right.
In 2016, the governmeny made its position clear, saying that the state pension is described in legislation as a benefit.
That isn't accidental, it's deliberate. The aim is to "root it within the existing social security framework”. Express.
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Phew!
Matthew Cserhati • 11 Sep 2024. Baraminology Baraminology of Cucurbitaceae Based on Chloroplast Genome Analysis This study demonstrated...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-__pY6Dp5M FRAUD! Nothing less. EXPOSED!
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Between spooky Dracula and a saintly woman who helped found Christianity in England: contradictions and contrasts at the seaside town of Whi...
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Populist parties surged as the hubris of the European political establishment was exposed in 2023 and the failures of the open borders agend...
