The joys of semi retirement.

This Blog will now not be updated until next weekend.
Have a nice few days - I certainly shall!

What price justice?

Brown is to cut £102 million from the Court Service Budget and this will have some knock-on effects into legal aid.
As one angry letterwriter in a newspaper recently commented: "What do I care! I am middle class and so can't afford to go to court. Justice, whatever that is, is only available to those at the top of our society and at the bottom."
Oh dear. He is absolutely right.

True inflation.

Yes. The government are lying again. Surprise, surprise.
My latest inflation figure is from September and is apparently 1.8% as lovingly produced by the CPI [Consumer Prices Index].
So, eggs, milk, bread, petrol, coffee, mortgages, insurance and Council Tax have not exceeded this level then?
Ah well, that is not the point. Some maybe, but the CPI does not cover all expenditure, it is in fact quite limited in its scope, and so the 1.8% will undoubtedly be true for the prices it does cover. The lie is in the countless price rises which wily, labour politicians have decided not to include.
Lying by omission is still lying. In a Court of Law you are sworn to tell "the WHOLE truth".

LINKS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7000298.stm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/04/ninflation04.xml

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=501124&in_page_id=1770

Meals on three wheels.

Our caring government is allowing the running down of the Meals on Wheels Service.
What? Have they spent all the money [that is OUR money]on the EU, pointless wars, funding illegal immigrants and the workshy? Starved Councils of funding?
Councils too filled with bureaucrats?

I do not know which level of power is where I should best be directing my opprobium - what I do know is that I am fizzing with anger!

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=495511&in_page_id=1770

Fair Trade.

According the highly perceptive Andrew Alexander, Fair Trade is subject to the immutable Law of Unintended Consequences.
Even if he is only partially correct, it would appear that what, on the surface seems a truly excellent way of helping poor in the Third World, is actually working to the detriment of the very poorest..
Oh dear. I do hope he is wrong but suspect that we could be looking once again at a scenario similar to the damage done by simply giving aid to poor nations which made their problems significantly worse. It took aid charities decades to get the point.
If AA is correct, a way out of this must be found sooner than later.
[You do not want to hear what I would like to do to those who use Fair Trade as an easy means for profiteering!]

Read the link below to follow the worrying logic.

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=495808&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=248

Hate crime fiasco.

'Hate crimes' are regularly put forward by the politically correct as being 'worse' than other crimes. At a time when sentencing has never been so feeble, judges and magistrates are instructed to 'crack down' on offences against identifiable minorities EVEN IF there is no evidence whatsoever that the crime was committed because that person hailed from a minority. Even if it were true, is it really worse than somebody targeting me because they do not like bald people with glasses, and if so how?
Yes. It really is that crazy.
How do I know? - I have done the magistrate training!
Let us consider several scenarios: 1] I am robbed in the street and struck in the face with a sock full of wet sand by somebody with a fairly poor criminal record. My attacker might go to prison. 2] Same crime but the victim is classed as 'vulnerable' as they are 10 years older than me making them an OAP. The attacker will inevitably get a custodial sentence of probably not more than 2 years. 3] Same crime but the victim is black or homosexual. The attacker will receive at least 4 years at Crown Court.
You can say that the offence is exacerbated against an OAP but why am I valued less than somebody who just happens to be black or homosexual and probably younger? {Crimes by non whites on whites do not qualify, of course.}
Is justice really blind any more?

Andrew McKlintock.

"It is now the case that if you sit on an adoption panel in Britain, you may no longer act in the best interests of children by insisting upon placing them for adoption with a mother and a father; nor may you freely exercise your conscientious refusal to place them in a household where you suspect their interests might be harmed. Today, the Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled against Andrew McClintock, a Justice of the Peace and a member of an adoption panel. He had asked to be relieved of the duty to hear cases which might raise the possibility of children being handed to same-sex couples for adoption. This was because
...he considered that there was insufficient evidence that this was in the child’s best interests and he felt that children should not be treated like guinea pigs in the name of politically correct legislation. Since the Department of Constitutional Affairs refused to allow him exercise this conscientious objection, McClintock had no option but to resign from the adoption panel. As he is a Christian, he believed that this constituted discrimination and harassment. The Tribunal ruled not only that this was not the case, since McClintock had not indicated that his objections were rooted in any religious or philosophical belief." COP OUT!

Post Office closures.

Ministers have delayed the closure of hundreds of post offices until after next year's local elections. Cunning, eh? Wicked, evil, electioneering. They want 2,500 branches to shut by the end of 2008 - but decisions on which ones will go have yet not been made. Please remember that the dead hand of the EU may be detected behind ALL of this, something which the government has never made public. [Postal Directives: 97/67/EC and 2002/39/EC.]

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=495466&in_page_id=1770

Big Bang is whimpering.

I have just caught up with a rather major piece of information from 2006 wherein the so-called Big Bang Theory is discredited - yet again.
In addition to many scientific proofs already extant that the BB is just hot air, as well as the work by Dr Robert Gentry - already covered on this site - there is now the issue that one of the alleged ‘proofs’ of the big bang model of origins is said to be the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). This is claimed to be the ‘afterglow’ of the original ‘explosion’.
To put it all in layman's terms. "It don't work!"
If you wish to see the actual scientific base of this, please check the link below.

LINK: http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4643/

1 Corinthians 7, Verses 3, 4 and 5.

We all know that Christians are against sex - the anti-Gospel types have advertised this fact ad nauseam in order to ensure that ordinary non-Christians would never dream of turning to God under any circumstances. It may be a lie but it is a very good tactic nonetheless.
Actually, the Bible is VERY pro-sex BUT only in its correct context which remains marriage between one man and one woman.


The husband should fulfill his duty toward his wife, and likewise the wife toward her husband.

A wife does not have authority over her own body, but rather her husband, and similarly a husband does not have authority over his own body, but rather his wife.

Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, to be free for prayer, but then return to one another, so that Satan may not tempt you through your lack of self-control.

SO. Not only is sex okay, verse 5 makes it perfectly clear that it is an OBLIGATION.

The Azusa Street Revival.

It is old. It is dated. It is well worth the reading. [Go on, you know you want to!] Download the link.
What happened to shake the lethargy out of Christianity just 101 years ago?
Were lessons learned for the Church and by the Church?
Decide for yourself.

LINK: http://dariusthemede.tripod.com/azusa/

The Sun is not shining.

Apparently the Unification Church which abandoned the UK many moons ago is getting ready to return.
This is one of the very worst cults ever to grace the planet in recent centuries.
Its incredibly rich founder, the Korean Kim Il Myung Sung Moon, is the egregious leader who considers himself the 'messiah returned' and from whom arose the sect's nickname - The Moonies.
Beware! Beware! Beware!

ID cards - a disaster waiting to happen.

So. The government in all its efficient wonder, has just lost, mislaid or had stolen the personal details of a mere 25 million people, thus making literally millions vulnerable to identity fraud.
What a tremendous advert for their proposed ID cards! [Tony's idea - Gordon carries it on. ]
Remember the mantra? - "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about."?
Really?

Go John, go.

Archbishop says embryo Bill undermines fathers!



The Archbishop of York has spoken out against Government plans to make it easier for lesbian couples to become parents through IVF.

Another winner from John Sentamu.

Well done.

Congratulations to the Catholic Bishops who have been urging catholic schools to boycott the charity Amnesty for its support of abortion.
I have long boycotted this front for leftwing activism which has always had phenomenal and highly disproportionate publicity granted by the leftwing media.
At first sight, a charity which fights torture worldwide looks a most worthy destination for your hard earned cash.
However, I find it impossible to believe that this undiscriminating group which fights the death penalty in all cases and situations thus protecting the violent and guilty, can then support abortion which butchers the innocent.
Just what kind of morality is that?
It is also noteworthy that they are always the first and loudest voice to criticise our troops and police when placed in dangerous, difficult and life-threatening situations.
They are close to number one slot on my rather lengthy, charity blacklist.
Three more from the rejected top four are:
The RSPB, The RSPCA and the NSPCC.
I am however, prepared to lend regular support to: Lepra, Sense, Tearfund, Salvation Army, British Legion, the PDSA and The Songbird Survival Trust, Lindsey Blind, Christian Aid - others too if I find they have no axe to grind.

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=494588&in_page_id=1770

Poverty - is it knocking?

My second son spent a lengthy spell in Malawi working to help the fight against poverty.
Tell him that a fifth of kids in Scunthorpe and a third in Hull are living in poverty and he would laugh in your face.
[I myself have seen the street urchins in Port Said and the appalling conditions in rural Egypt.]
Not having as much as others - very often [but clearly not always] because of: lifestyle choices, refusal to work or budget - well, is that really poverty?
[Remember that in a society where the average wage is £100k and you are on £50k - this will be referred to by social scientists as relative poverty.]
Social workers and visitors to many households 'in poverty' have told me countless stories of money spent on:-
expensive hair dos/ designer jeans at £70 per pair instead of £8 jeans from supermarkets/ same with trainers/ smoking/ regular pub visits/ gambling/ lottery tickets/ takeaways 7 times a week and consequently no money for essentials for the children. There will of course be sticks of furniture, a computer, a widescreen TV and an expensive stereo all bought 'on the drip'.The mobile phone will reign supreme.
Many of these have more in benefits than the people working their guts out next door. So is this 'poverty'?

Why do what must be a majority of the 'poor' not visit bargain shops? Why do they only go to supermarkets and shun markets? Why would so many 'not be seen dead' in clearance shops/ pound shops and secondhand shops? - Indeed, if poverty is so rife, why are secondhand shops in terminal decline?
I use Lidls, Aldi and Netto to make my budget stretch to the maximum. So why are these shops never crowded?

I think I'll check with my 86 year old mother to find out what REAL poverty is - she lived it in the 30s and is deeply embittered by this piffle.

In a nation with the worst Old Age Pensions in W. Europe, perhaps we should be looking more towards the elderly who avoid food in order to be able to heat their homes.
They are rather closer to the poverty line than families on the benefit levels described below who are oft chosen as examples.

* Read the posting for Saturday June the 16th 2007 if you do not believe me. The relative figures WILL shock you.
Note the contradiction from Ed Balls reported on the 20th november: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=495023&in_page_id=1770
Also:-
LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=493281&in_page_id=1770

Sun readers.

It was probably Jasper Carrott who brought criticism of Sunreaders to the fore and I have no real problem with the barbed joke.
Even so, it must be admitted that the Mirror and the Daily Star are actually significantly worse and pitched even lower.
I buy The Sun on a Saturday as Mum likes their TV magazine and having been in a school staffroom which had the Mirror delivered and once having bought a Star on an airport when it was either that or the Guardian, I feel qualified to comment.
The Sun beats the other two rags into a cocked hat.

Somalis.

I shall take the risk of being accused of racism in order to reveal facts I recently uncovered in the press and which I shall add to personal knowledge from S. Yorkshire.
Somalis in the UK ,whose numbers run into hundreds of thousands, have an atrocious record, indeed by far the worst of any immigrant group for being in work. A minute 19% are employed and thus 81% are either unemployed or economically inactive. [Compare the latter figure to Indians where this figure is a highly respectable 25%]
80% of Somalis live in social housing - compared to a tiny 21% of Irish immigrants.
At 40%, Somalis have the highest benefit claims of any identifiable group.
Several years ago, long before a Somali gang had murdered one of his colleagues in Bradford, I asked a policeman about racist attitudes in Sheffield and he said the police were generally very happy dealing with all ethnic communities with the single exception of the Somalis, whom he personally detested, as their malicious attitudes to police, law and order and society in general were consistently self-serving and despicable.
I write this on here knowing that some will be horrified that this has been brought to light. Just because it is politically incorrect to report negative comments about a racial group, does not mean that facts should be concealed.
I shall however, make no personal comment.
Incidentally, was Somalia ever a part of the Empire?

Embarrassing UHP minerals.

Heard of Coesite, Eclogite, micro diamonds, blueschist and any other UHP minerals?
Probably not. They should not exist - but they do.
When I say "should not exist", I of course mean in the context of uniformitarian, evolutionary geology.
Desperate attempts have been made to explain their existence - all pretty lame. The 'fact of long geological ages' cannot of course, be abandoned.
What a dilemma!
Check the link below for all the lovely, evolutionist-embarrassing, scientific details.

LINK: http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/5392

Pre-sentence reports - a timewasting joke.

I was a magistrate and latterly chairman for about ten years .
During that period I read many pre-sentence reports and not one in ten was actually helpful in sentencing.
Unfortunately, whenever a sentence much above a fine was going to kick in, such reports were obligatory.
I once asked the Chief Clerk to The Justices about this and he said if somebody were to be inevitably going to prison, a report was not required. All good theory.
Court clerks ensured that one was always requested - many causing an absurd 3 week delay in concluding the case.
When the reports were received in serious cases, they were as good as useless as the Probation Service refused ever to recommend custody!
This piece of PC lunacy effectively invalidated all reports - whether custody was contemplated or not as the full scale was not represented.
Laughable if it were not all so terribly serious.

Victoria Young.

Victoria Young is reported as facing a 'possible prison sentence'. All she did was to claim £40,000 in fraudulent benefits and invent seven children she did not have.
How can there be any doubt? This 25 year old should face a minimum of five years otherwise what message does it send out? I shall try to keep you posted.
Interesting how benefits staff accepted her illusory quads with no questions asked; a 'baby' a mere 8 months later and an afterthought baby born one week after that!

Massacre

• ‘Evolution is both a theory and a fact, creationism is neither one.'
• ‘Human life is not sacred. Humans are just a species among other animals and [the] world does not exist only for humans.'
Just words, eh?
I have long argued that the logical conclusion of evolutionary thinking is that rape and murder MUST be a good thing. If survival of the fittest is seen as an evolutionary vehicle, what other conclusion may be drawn?
Well, the Finnish lad who butchered eight people at a school in Finland earlier this month uttered the words above on You Tube just before his bloodfest. This fits in well with the thought processes of other young people whose dark side has prepared them for their own massacres over the years.
Let us for a fleeting moment assume that his pronouncements are correct, then what a dark, terrible and ultimately hopeless world we inhabit.
Trying to unite the first 11 chapters of Genesis with the evolutionary hypothesis is a cop-out and people should not consider this a solution.
[More to come on why the scientific base of evolution is so flawed in my next posting on this topic when we shall consider the impossible existence of UHP minerals.]


LINK: [Strongly recommended] http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/5435

Ill Met.

Murders in London are at such high levels according to many commentators because there are so few police out on the streets.
Perhaps it would be unfair of me to point out at this juncture that Sir Ian Blair's Metropolitan Police Force has thus far spent £130 MILLION on so-called diversity issues.
Juxtaposing these two facts is all I need to do.

Any comment would be entirely superfluous.

Pure poison - avoid like the plague.

"There will be a new children's movie out in December called "The Golden Compass". The movie has been described as "atheism for kids" and is based on the first book of a trilogy entitled "His Dark Materials" that was written by Phillip Pullman. Pullman is a militant atheist and secular humanist who despises C. S. Lewis and the "Chronicles of Narnia". His motivation for writing this trilogy was specifically to counteract Lewis' symbolisms of Christ that are portrayed in the Narnia series.

Clearly, Pullman's main objective is to bash Christianity and promote atheism. Pullman left little doubt about his intentions when he said in a 2003 interview that "my books are about killing God." He has even stated that he wants to "kill God in the minds of children". It has been said of Pullman that he is "the writer the atheists would be praying for, if atheists prayed."

While "The Golden Compass" movie itself may seem mild and innocent, the books are a much different story. In the trilogy, a young streetwise girl becomes enmeshed in an epic struggle to ultimately defeat the oppressive forces of a senile God. Another character, an ex-nun, describes Christianity as "a very powerful and convincing mistake." In the final book, characters representing Adam and Eve eventually kill God, who at times is called YAHWEH. Each book in the trilogy gets progressively worse regarding Pullman's hatred of Jesus Christ. "

MILLSTONES COME TO MIND.

Addendum. The illustrious Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is SO impressed that according to the Wikepedia profile of Pullman, he would actually like this material to be part of religious education lessons in schools. I despair!

ROSPA

What is the difference between the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and The Health & Safety Executive?
Well, the latter is a meddling, intrusive, rule-bound, government over-funded, lickspittle puppy of the worst excesses invented by EU bureaucrats.
ROSPA is a sensible body dedicated to reducing accidents but not exemplifying the 'nanny state'.

LINKS: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/12/naccident112.xml

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=493274&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=322&in_check=N

The evidence mounts.

It appears that CBC Newsworld has made a similar but an even more far-reaching programme to explode the myth of man-induced global warming than the excellent Channel 4 Dispatches programme achieved on the 8th March.
Would have loved to have seen the new version!

LINK: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doomsday.html#

ROSLA - again.

Just how stupid you have to be to want to raise the school leaving age to 18, I really cannot imagine. It would be naive in the extreme to believe that this is being implemented for sound educational reasons.
There are already many tens of thousands of disaffected youths of 14, 15 & 16 who are desperate to leave an education which was not designed for them but was merely created to engineer the destruction of grammar schools.
In the 60s the left and their acolytes voiced the slogan "A grammar school education for all!"
Folly to think that such an education would suit all youngsters, many of whom have already peaked and plateaud well before 14. You were offering the kind of liberal education for which a particular brain pattern and level of intelligence were required.
The comprehensives were born out of a false premise and their primary intention was always to combat 'social elitism' rather than to improve education. Education at its best should always be attempting to give the most appropriate learning base. Fail on this - fail on everything.
A number of recent studies - not least from the LSE - have shown that social mobility has actually deteriorated in the comprehensive system.
Raising the leaving age to 18 compulsorily is the final admission that the system has failed completely.
[Would you fancy teaching a class of disaffected 17 & 18 year old youths in a school or college of F.E.? No! Me neither. 14 year olds are quite bad enough.]
Can't recruit enough teachers now? Well, see how hard it will be to recruit new staff and keep existing ones when this all kicks in.

Doug.

When I lived as a student in Madrid, I met a Christian evangelist called Doug Benshoof, an american and still young veteran of the Vietnam war.
When I was investigating the faith and far from becoming a Christian, I remember him telling me about him being a tank commander in that war and how his tank was hit by vietcong fire.
He told how one of his crew had died in his arms - an event which would stagger almost anybody. But he went on to explain that in his last moments, this young soldier had given his life to Christ. - a moving time. However, what really struck me was the fact that this embracing of Jesus was SO important to him - the importance of that to him hit me hard as I looked at the tears in his eyes. This Christianity thing MATTERED above all else.
This encounter did not cause me to become born again but it was certainly an identifiable step along the way.

Shame.

To the teacher who made a cadet remove a remembrance poppy saying that it glorified violence - SHAME ON YOU!

To the headmaster who backed this appalling act - SHAME on you for being so gutless!

Oh. I wish I'd said that!

Ruth Dudley-Edwards writes:


"Our ministers are not bad people. Their intentions are honourable. They wish to make us safer. But their instincts are those of the authoritarian Left. They have no sense of our history and are also incompetent.
In their complete inability to grasp the law of unintended consequences, and in their technological and administrative ignorance and hopelessness, we have ended up with the worst of all possible worlds.
New Labour, in its idiotic submission to the human rights industry and political correctness, has hamstrung the police and the security services and made the judiciary over-mighty.
Terrified by the consequent rise in crime and the menace of murderous Islamist terrorism, they proceeded to overreact by treating every man, woman and child in this country as a potential danger to society.
Is there any sane person who, if forced to think about it, would believe it right that children accused of playground misbehaviour should have their DNA samples placed permanently on a police computer along with rapists and murderers? "

Tribalism .

There is an over simplistic tendency to try to unite the population against racism by the liberal left.
Christians should obviously find no merit whatsoever in racism but it is about time the liberal church began to look at the greater picture.
The problems attributed to racism are very often more to do with tribalism.
Tribalism is what has guaranteed problems from Iraq to Sierra Leone.
Tribalism in such societies can often be clear cut across boundaries of ethnicity, language, colour, religion, location and of course, tribe.
In our mixed up conglomeration which passes for a society, all the above may apply but the tribalist boundaries extend much more widely. For example, we have divisions caused by: politics, class, football teams, city versus rural, fashion, school attended, salary level, mason or non mason and countless others too trivial to mention.
These all cause defensive posturing and worse but are part of human nature as we all have inherent preferences based on our own experiences.
It is a foolish government which will try to expunge such factors which are already incredibly complex. You cannot change the nature of man by legislation.
The Army in days gone by used to have a saying; "They can give you a baby but they can't make you love it."
In view of how many identifiable tribes we all belong to, it will be rare indeed that two individuals will belong to precisely the same 10 - 20 - 30 or even more tribal groups.
The crossovers are immensely complicated.
Interfering, do-gooding busybodies of the liberal left simply leave people irritated and resentful by their intrusive nonsense. From the old Race Relations Board to the bevy of replacements today including the Commission for Racial Equality, it is most arguable that more harm than good has been the outcome.

Even that vociferous 'liberal' Trevor Philips has backtracked considerably in the last two years as he at least, seems to recognise the damage done by the 'guardianistas' and those of their ilk.

If you want to find a way through the mess, it would be better achieved by showing people the love of the Saviour, as the love of Christ transcends all such pettiness and unprofitable attempts of man to dig himself out of his self created pit.

Jesus or legislation? - I know which I prefer!

Leo McKinstry

"Sometimes it feels we are living in an inverted universe where we have an ostensibly leftwing government that treats the British working class with contempt so capitalist employers can exploit poor migrant labour."
The key word from the excellent Christian journalist, Leo McKinstry, is "ostensibly". Much as I dislike the left which is built on a totally false premise, it is the liberal left who are today, the greatest danger of all.

Fashion.

If ever there were something utterly pointless, that 'something' would have to be the 'cult of fashion'.
A little variety; a little change is to be welcomed. Fashion however is a dictator and has enslaved massive sections of society to no valid purpose. People throw away money in large amounts just to buy a brand name, logo or a mere label.
It is designed to make people spend absurd amounts of money on clothing, shoes and so-called accessories for which they have no need so they may feel at one with their equally small-minded peers. It extends into the foods we eat, the type of music we must listen to, the films we see and the cars we drive. Heaven help us if anybody could regard us as being 'out of fashion'!
If all the redundant 'out of fashion' clothing were to be sent to the impoverished and destitute in the Third World it would not be quite so bad but the majority are simply binned and many garments are so outlandish that they would be of no practical use.
Christians are urged to be 'good stewards'. I really cannot see how wasting vast amounts on something of no intrinsic value fits into a Christian lifestyle.
Buy in markets. Buy good clothes on reduced rails and then help Tear Fund or similar by sending the difference to the needy.
Go on. However you like to spend your money you know that you can never justify being a fashion-slave!

Another tragedy from a cult.

The death this week of young mother, Emma Gough, is an unmitigated tragedy. This poor, sad woman died because she did not receive a blood transfusion as a result of her and her family having embraced the spurious teachings of that wicked cult, the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Let nobody be in any doubt. This group bears little relationship to Christianity. It even had to retranslate the Bible to make it match up to the teachings of the egregious Charles Taze Russell who was their appalling, hypocritical, dishonest and criminal founder.
When they knock on your door - remember Emma. Undoubtedly, the dupes who follow this mockery of a religion will no doubt be celebrating her unnecessary death as some warped form of martyrdom.

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=491791&in_page_id=1770&ICO=NEWS&ICL=TOPART

Stamp on Political Correctness.

Tremendous news on the Christmas stamps front.
Undoubtedly because of pressure last year the powers-that-be have decided to cease totally undermining Christmas - in one excellent way at least - they have produced a set of much improved, traditional stamps for this season's festivities - some even with Christian scenes.
Please remember that this Blog supports the 'Campaign for Real Christmas Cards' to go along with the stamps.
NO to: Santas, cartoons, cottages, snow, holly, reindeer,
Christmas trees, yule logs, robins, snowmen, Dickensian scenes et al.
YES to: Nativity scenes, shepherds, angels, Wise Men.

Come off it vicar!

"The opening chapter of the Bible is neither history nor science but an early poet's picture of the creation of the world." - These are the words of an anglican vicar in this quarter's parish newsletter.
And we wonder what is wrong in Christianity. This man has accepted the whole evolutionary con, hook, line and sinker and then passes it onto his flock who will then probably accept the premise without bothering to investigate it.
"Well, if even the vicar says...."
When I became a Christian I accepted what I had been told in school that the first 11 Chapters of Genesis should be seen as a mere parable.
When I read books by Phds, professors and Masters of Science who made a rather different case, I began to sit up and take notice. Okay, it troubled me slightly that all were already Christians presumably with an axe to grind, but then the non Christian anti-evolutionists began to emerge.
I read countless scientific texts and found that even renowned evolutionists were admitting that every 'proof' I had been taught in school was a deceit
I have now covered most scientific disciplines in the last 30+ years and have no doubt at all that, not only is the evolutionary hypothesis unproved, but it is built on pure sand.
I have in my possession literally hundreds of articles and pieces of information all of which destroy evolution.
Little wonder the likes of Attenborough, Dawkins and Jones refuse to debate with Mackay, Wieland and Ham - they know they cannot defend their cause; they know that its automatic right to be granted the staus of 'honorary fact' would be shattered.
Come on vicar. Before talking you-know-what, at least do the research.

Our PM.

Gordon Brown possesses only two advantages as our Prime Minister. The first is that he is not Tony Blair and the second is that he is not married to the repugnant Cherie. For these things he enjoyed a brief surge in the opinion polls.
From there, I am afraid, it is all downhill.
As Chancellor of the Exchequer he: frittered away our gold reserves, put into place failed policies for job creation for young people, introduced at least 110 stealth taxes, reduced wealth and spending power for workers, knowingly and wantonly wrecked hundreds of thousands of pension schemes, upped public spending with very little to show and in his last budget announcement reduced living standards for the poorest with his assault on 10% income tax rates.He not only broke his promise to reduce bureaucracy in the Civil Service, he actually increased it.
So how did this dangerous man gain a reputation as a prudent Chancellor? - Firstly, he built on and continued the corrective work from the tories for which he can only glean the very minimum of credit; then the socialist broadcasting corporation gave him both an easy ride and free propaganda but best of all, he never had to face a world recession - in 17 years the tories had faced four.
Oh lucky man!
He won his premiership without having to lead his party into a general election and within weeks shows that he is no more than Tony Mark 2.
The troops remain in Iraq; the troops remain in Afghastlystan; he has betrayed us to Brussels [one more in a very long, mixed party line], he has rejected the promised referendum on the most spurious of grounds; he cosies up to Dubya and is not prepared to tackle issues such as the West Lothian Question and the Barnett Formula.
He tells us what he knows are lies about the effectiveness of his 'economic tests' and 'red lines' which are mere chaff in the wind. He has not stood up against one single piece of politically correct nonsense.
Even so, after all of that, do we really believe that 'Our Dave' is any better?
In the name of sanity - please stop casting votes for parties of the liberal elite!

Ephesians 1.

"[7] In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, [8 ]which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight [9 ]making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ [10] as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
[11] In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will..."
This is a passage which along with references to 'the elect' is commonly used to support a calvinist viewpoint. I feel that we encounter considerable problems of interpretation here if we do not factor in God's foreknowledge of how humans will respond to His Son. Surely, the predestination can only arise from this fact as any other view is suggesting that God's 'chosen or 'elect' have been arbitrary choices by God. The principle of freewill is undermined and if many are arbitrarily already condemned when born - then what is the point? This was put into extreme forms in the 18th century by the Jansenists as described in "L'histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut" by L'Abbe Prevost. [Later an opera]
In Acts 15:18 -- “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.”
There is nothing here to gainsay the importance of foreknowledge as the key.

Ian Blair.

Calls for Ian Blair's resignation over the Menezes affair are misplaced.
He had no direct input where that tragedy was concerned. Being pushed out for that would be profoundly immoral.
However, as a politically correct, Bramshill trained buffoon, he should never have been given the job in the first place.
Police should not be political pawns - that is why the man should be removed at the first opportunity.!

Elf 'n' Safety.

A recent letter by Ray Hurst of The Institute of Occupational Safety and Health to several newspapers has made an interesting, albeit only partially valid, point.
He wants us to believe that the regulations are fundamentally sound - which is hard to believe - BUT he claims that Health and Safety regulations are not the cause of all that bureaucratic nonsense and namby pamby attitudes to everything from slides to playing conkers.
No. He points out that the litigious culture inherited from the USA is to blame and there is much truth in this.
It appears that in a modern world, there is never any such thing as an accident; people will always try to 'milk' any situation to the very maximum for personal gain.
The NHS lives in a permanent state of nervous panic. Ambulance-chaser lawyers are proliferating along with no win-no fee solicitors who help some genuine cases but pave the way for much of this culture by representing the wrong people equally.
If there has been a clear wrong done to somebody - they should be allowed compensation - accidents, often of your own making should not qualify you for a bumper payout, nor should hurt feelings, nor should signing a contract then later griping about the provisions as did Navy Wrens some years ago.
But what of the recent report of Muslim jailbirds suing for £10,000 apiece because they had been mistakenly offered a ham sandwich?
How could £50 compensation be justified? How can any?
A mistake was made and rectified. How can there be any monetary value placed on this?
I think of my friend whose life was totally wrecked by wickedly irresponsible prescribing by his doctors over more than 15 years and he received a miserly £40k instead of the £2.5 million he should have realised for the loss of an entire career.
Where is the perspective?

Who are The Institute For Public Policy Research?

The simple answer to the above question is of course, 'a Labour-leaning think tank'.
Indeed it would be hard to find too many of the pieces of liberal left madness embraced by Labour which did not have at least some origins amongst this brood of vipers. Naturally enough, the Lib Dems seldom question anything that comes out of this egregious body.
"Christmas should be downgraded" is their latest brilliant conclusion. It gets worse. The slack should be taken up by promoting ceremonies from other religions.
Once again, fools have failed to learn that 'multiculture' has been an unequivocal disaster for this nation.
This Blog will explain once again that integration is the only hope. Multiculturalism is just a pure form of enacting divisive principles to facilitate ultimate, social breakdown.
So dear Christian, are you still prepared to vote Labour or Lib Dem?
Do you trust 'volte face Dave' with our nation's future?

LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=490925&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

Polkinghorne

On the 8th March 2005, John Mackay, geologist, geneticist and arguably the leading scientific creationist entered into a debate with John Polkinghorne, a leading evolutionist, in front of 1,100 people in Liverpool.
John won. - John Mackay, in fact, won handsomely and the debate can even be purchased on DVD.
It is far from unusual for creationist scientists to win such debates - I have seen it myself - even in front of an audience where Christians were clearly well outnumbered.
From this we may infer that there has to be at the very minimum, an acceptable scientific argument against evolution.
Richard Milton is an Msc who has written several books totally debunking the evolutionary hypothesis - and as I understand it, he posesses no religious beliefs.
This is one more area where we are told that we MUST believe - in spite of, not because of, the evidence available.
The Council of Europe stated this month: " “If we are not careful,creationism could become a threat to human rights."
Excuse me! It has already been marginalised, denied the oxygen of publicity, pupils are lied to in schools and 'examples of evolution' given in schools today have ALL been rejected even by orthodox evolutionists.
Galapagos finches, peppered moths, evolution of the horse, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, Haeckel's work, Olduvai Gorge findings, Dubois' Java Man are all still taught when having been proved emphatically not to be proofs.
And so creationism is a 'threat'? - Well yes, indeed it is. It threatens orthodox thought, vested interests and anti God philosophies.