Gesta Riani de Renfroana

Changes to Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service

2012-01-28T04:28:00.001Z

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Dear Google user, We're getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that's a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google. We believe this stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read our updated Privacy Policy and Terms of Service at http://www.google.com/policies. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012.
One policy, one Google experience

Easy to work across Google Our new policy reflects a single product experience that does what you need, when you want it to. Whether you're reading an email that reminds you to schedule a family get-together or finding a favorite video that you want to share, we want to ensure you can move across Gmail, Calendar, Search, YouTube, or whatever your life calls for with ease.	Tailored for you If you're signed into Google, we can do things like suggest search queries – or tailor your search results – based on the interests you've expressed in Google+, Gmail, and YouTube. We'll better understand which version of Pink or Jaguar you're searching for and get you those results faster.	Easy to share and collaborate When you post or create a document online, you often want others to see and contribute. By remembering the contact information of the people you want to share with, we make it easy for you to share in any Google product or service with minimal clicks and errors.

Protecting your privacy hasn't changed Our goal is to provide you with as much transparency and choice as possible, through products like Google Dashboard and Ads Preferences Manager, alongside other tools. Our privacy principles remain unchanged. And we'll never sell your personal information or share it without your permission (other than rare circumstances like valid legal requests).	Got questions? We've got answers. Visit our FAQ at http://www.google.com/policies/faq to read more about the changes. (We figured our users might have a question or twenty-two.)

Notice of Change March 1, 2012 is when the new Privacy Policy and Terms will come into effect. If you choose to keep using Google once the change occurs, you will be doing so under the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Please do not reply to this email. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. Also, never enter your Google Account password after following a link in an email or chat to an untrusted site. Instead, go directly to the site, such as mail.google.com or www.google.com/accounts. Google will never email you to ask for your password or other sensitive information.

Little Angels

2010-01-17T17:07:00.001Z

I left my one-year-old and two-year-old little angels alone in the living room for five minutes and this is the sight to which I returned!

Kumbaya my Lord, Kumbaya

2009-07-23T15:23:00.004Z

TIME/CNN: "Abortion: Can A New Bill End Decades of Post-Roe Conflict?"

Answer: No.

Time.com reports on a new bi-partisan abortion bill working its way
through Washington. Although I would theoretically support finding
any common ground on the issue, I can't say I am anything more than
lukewarm on the bill at hand. Does this indicate that there really
isn't much common ground to occupy?

Anyway, Time's summary on the details of the bill: "Aside from its
support for contraception, none of the new or expanded initiatives it
contains are terribly controversial: A national campaign to teach
parents how to talk to their kids about sex. Efforts to educate the
public about adoption. Home nurse visits for low-income mothers.
Expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage."

A large portion of contraceptives are also abortifacients which would,
in those instances, merely switch the abortion from a reported,
surgical abortion to an unreported, non-surgical one. The expanded
Medicaid coverage might help to tip the balance in favor of life in a
small number of cases, but home visits from nurses? Do elected
representatives really think that there are people out there thinking
they would gladly have a child if only the nurses would come to their
house for a couple of post-natal visits? We have home-visits here in
the UK after birth and I can assure you it's the last thing I thought
about when I first heard the rabbit was late in wonderland.

And then there is the "national campaign to teach parents how to talk
to their kids about sex". It's really a shame that Fed-Ex can't
overnight a letter to the eighteenth century. Wouldn't it be
enlightening to hear what the Founding Fathers would have to say about
that idea? Hmm, should a campaign to teach parents how to talk to
their kids about sex be a federal or a state issue?

"The volume in the abortion debate has been stuck at "rancorous
screaming" for so long that when it gets turned down, it's
disorienting, like walking outside after a rock concert and trying to
hear again. … But regardless of whether their bill succeeds or fails,
the broad array of supporters behind it represents a dramatic break
from nearly four decades of post-Roe politics."

The debate has been stuck at "rancorous screaming" largely because the
Supreme Court decided to curtail the normal democratic process back in
1973. Until that is reversed and the laws brought back into line with
the desires of the population, the debate will largely proceed as it
has done.

My Candidate Matches

2007-12-26T06:45:00.001Z

	44%	Fred Thompson Former Republican Senator (TN)
	42%	Ron Paul Republican Representative (TX-14); Libertarian nominee for President in 1988
	39%	Duncan Hunter Republican Representative (CA-52)
	37%	John McCain Republican Sr Senator (AZ); 2000 Primary Candidate for President
	30%	Mike Gravel Former Senator (AK)
	30%	Mitt Romney Retiring Republican MA Governor
	29%	Hillary Clinton Democratic Jr Senator (NY); former First Lady
	29%	Chris Dodd Democratic Sr Senator (CT)
	28%	Rudy Giuliani Former Mayor of New York City; Republican Candidate for 2000 Senate (NY)
	26%	John Edwards 2004 Nominee for Vice President; Former NC Senator
	24%	Bill Richardson Democratic NM Governor
	23%	Joe Biden Democratic Sr Senator (DE)
	23%	Dennis Kucinich Democratic Representative (OH-10)
	23%	Barack Obama Democratic Jr Senator (IL); previously State Senator
	5%	Mike Huckabee Republican AR Governor

re-Considering the Environment

2007-08-06T20:27:00.002Z

To update the post below, I noticed last week that our printed emails at work no longer included the environmental plea. Instead, it only shows at the bottom of our email window, as it should.

Since our IT department is apparently among my readership (okay, they comprise my readership in its totality) here is another thing they could do to convince us to change our printing habits: change the message to “please consider the bottom line…and your paycheck!” The fact is that wasted company resources will diminish company profitability, resulting in either higher fees to our clients, loss of value to our stock owners, or decrease of funding to the payroll department. Now that’s motivation!

You’ll note that in both the US and the UK the populations operate a large number of automobiles. These populations are subjected to the same environmental agenda on a daily basis by the media and the same plea to reduce consumption. Yet only in the one country with financial penalties for owning large vehicles - in the form of outrageous petrol taxes for which US politicians could expect to be, well, shot – do we find frequent ownership of small, fuel-efficient vehicles. Warm and fuzzy slogans will never accomplish anything where brute economics are necessary.

...or not to pass.

2007-08-06T20:23:00.001Z

And now it’s time for a slice of humble pie. I took my driving test in Falkirk and managed to fail in the first three minutes, making the remaining 37 minutes largely an exercise in futility save for perhaps some practice in emotional restraint. I managed to mess up on my reverse parking, thanks to my late signal and a car behind that choose to back up instead of pass me. I guess it goes to show that 10 years of mostly good driving is not a good indication of whether or not one can still pass a driving exam.

On the bright side, if our appeal is rejected by the Home Office, I may be able to trade in my US license for an UK one, thus bypassing the test entirely.

One observation about the difference between an US and UK driving test is that the former is executed with the goal of allowing people to pass, while the later is executed in the hopes of identifying reasons to fail. This is of course done to keep unsafe teenagers off the streets, no doubt by some government official trying to meet a road death reduction target. It almost certainly helps to achieve this, but not in the manner intended by the government. Teenagers are unsafe drivers not because they might, Heaven forbid, signal to turn whilst simultaneously checking their mirrors instead of checking and then signaling; they are unsafe because they don’t take safety seriously while doing 80 in a 40 zone at 3:00 in the morning. They are unsafe because they talk to their friends over 172 db music and cannot see due to the fog formed inside the vehicle by the vibrations (depending on temperature, dew point, and humidity). The road is safer because it keeps some of them off the streets, period.

Having thus criticized the test, it must be said that it should be somewhat harder as driving is much more difficult in the UK than in the states thanks to the necessity of forcing 21^st century traffic on an 18^th century road system. I suppose that, should the Middle Eastern surgeons now working for the NHS ever figure out how to ignite a bomb without igniting themselves, doing to Britain what the Allies did to Germany, the British public can look forward to a modern transportation network of the first rate – traveling, of course, on the wrong side.

Driving lesion no. 43: Parking the car

2007-07-15T17:40:00.000Z

Just in case some hint of uncertainty is troubling you as to how to position your car when parking in a parking lot (or car park as they refer to them here in Britain), here's an example of what not to do:

Morag and I stumbled across this car at Tesco in Linlithgow. We must confess to rubber necking as we passed. Others stared in bewilderment as they walked past, trying to determine if there was someone still sitting in the car, or if this was in fact the worst parking job in the history of the internal combustion engine.

One might be tempted to suspect an obstacle prevented the driver from pulling the whole distance into the parking space; however, this is not the case as there was a good four feet of space in front of the car and plenty of room on either side. As I had my camera at the time, I thought I would give this particular piece of motorist excellence the infamy it deserves.

Considering the Environment

2007-07-13T21:55:00.001Z

Someone in the IT department at work had a bright idea the other day. Wanting to show that just because we have the entire value of South America under management doesn’t mean we are not environmentally friendly, he added an image to the bottom of all emails on our server. The message simply asks the employee to consider the environment before printing an email.

This would perhaps be a good plan if anyone read the footer of emails. Unfortunately, this is hidden below about 200 words of corporate disclaimer – none of which is ever read, I assure you – so its chances of getting noticed are slim. Its efficacy is also contingent upon a few whimsical employees who print out emails for very little reason whatsoever. Considering that most desks are not so close to the printer as mine is, I suspect the walk does more to dissuade these fops than any footer. However, it is still theoretically possible that some youngster out there is printing his email four or five times over in the hopes of encountering the girl he fancies at that timeless rendezvous scene of yore: the Fujitsu.

There is yet a more serious objection to the footer: not only is it shown in Lotus on all emails, but it is included when these are printed out. On a standard British A4 sheet of paper, emails print out utilizing 9 ¾” of paper. The new environmental plea adds an additional ½” of text to the bottom of a printed email, which is fine if the email ended at 6 ½” or 8 ¾”, but there is a roughly one in twenty chance that the footer will be printed out on the following page. This happens so routinely that I have decided to start a collection of the wasted pages.

I find this quite representative of the entire environmentalist movement. A strong tendency exists to elevate motives and ‘raising awareness’ over pragmatic concerns. It doesn’t matter how many excess pages are wasted by the 400 workers in my office over the course of a year compared with the potentially saved pages; the footer is implemented because it symbolizes a commitment to green principals and responsible business practices.

The same tendency was at work this weekend at the Live Earth events. It doesn’t matter how much energy was used to fly aging rock stars around the planet, or for that matter how much CO2 was released by the thousands of fans traveling millions of miles – collectively, of course - to see them. What mattered was that consciousness was raised – or would have been, had anyone actually bothered to watch the thing. From Al Gore’s $20,000 utility bill to hybrids loaded with toxic batteries, consciousness over practice rules the day. The local Green party here in Falkirk stated it best on their signs during the last Scottish elections: “First Vote Green.” They might have get respect if they lived green first.

Corpus Riani

2007-07-12T18:34:00.000Z

With the price of complying with new Home Office regulations increasing on a daily basis, I have decided to sell myself for scientific experimentation. According to online calculations, here is how much I expect to receive:

$4175.00

I know this may seem like a foolish plan at the moment. But, rest assured, I shall cheat them all in the Resurrection!

Were Europeans first?

2007-07-07T21:06:00.000Z

The BBC ran a show last Thursday on a new hypothesis concerning early migrations to the Americas. It was more or less universally believed that humans first reached the Americans over the land bridge from Asia during the last ice age.

“This version was so accepted that few archaeologists even bothered to look for artefacts from periods before 10,000BC. But when Jim Adavasio continued to dig below the Clovis layer at his dig near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he found blades and blade cores dating back to 16,000BC. His findings were dismissed as erroneous; too astonishing to be credible. The Clovis consensus had too many reputations behind it to evaporate easily. Some archaeologists who backed Adavasio's conclusions with other similar data were accused of making radiocarbon dating errors or even of planting finds.”

What’s even more surprising is from where these immigrants may have come.

"[Douglas Wallace] spotted the similarity in production method between the Clovis point and tools made by the Solutrean neolithic (Stone Age) culture in southwest France. At this stage his idea was pure hypothesis, but could the first Americans have been European?

The Solutreans were a remarkably society, the most innovative and adaptive of the time. They were among the first to discover the value of heat treating flints to increase strength. Bradley was keen to discover if Solutrean flintknapping styles matched Clovis techniques. A trawl through the unattractive flint offcuts in the storerooms of a French museum convinced him of the similarities, even though five thousand kilometres lay between their territories."

Although the evidence from stone-working techniques is not so impressive, modern genetic techniques provide strong support for this theory.

“In the DNA profile of the Ichigua Native American tribe he identified a lineage that was clearly European in origin, too old to be due to genetic mixing since Columbus' discovery of the New World. Instead it dated to Solutrean times. Wallace's genetic timelines show the Ice Age prompted a number of migrations from Europe to America. It looks highly likely that the Solutreans were one.”

The implications of this new theory are obvious:

“The impact of this new prehistory on Native Americans could be grave. They usually consider themselves to be Asian in origin; and to have been subjugated by Europeans after 1492. If they too were partly Europeans, the dividing lines would be instantly blurred. Dr Joallyn Archambault of the American Indian Programme of the Smithsonian Institute offers a positive interpretation, however. Venturing across huge bodies of water, she says, is a clear demonstration of the courage and creativity of the Native Americans' ancestors. Bruce Bradley agrees. He feels his Solutrean Ice Age theory takes into consideration the abilities of people to embrace new places, adding, ‘To ignore this possibility ignores the humanity of people 20,000 years ago.’”

Feel Will and Grace

2007-07-06T07:59:00.001Z

"Take away Free Will, and there is nothing that needs to be saved; take away grace, and there is nothing to save it" - St. Bernard.

On Being Deported

2007-06-30T12:34:00.000Z

As you may have heard, I have in fact been denied leave to remain in the United Kingdom by the Home Office. Thanks to an emergency appeal by my local MP, Eric Joyce, I may legally remain in Her Majesty’s realm for the duration of my appeal. With luck, the appeal will be processed with customary bureaucratic haste, giving me at least another 6 weeks to hang about until such time as they cut our progeny out of my wife’s tummy.

This all started back in late March, when I downloaded the forms to remain in the UK from a government website. Knowing that we would be moving house and visiting London in the weeks leading up to the deadline for renewing my visa, I thought that I would be proactive – no, seriously – and make my application early. Unfortunately, such punctuality is not permitted as one is prohibited from applying prior to 28 days before the deadline. So Morag and I packed up everything we own and, with the help of some friends, migrated to Polmont.

Once the house was settled enough that I could remove the lawn chairs from the living room, I set about on my application. I spent several nights assembling the necessary documents proving that we were indeed living together as a genuinely married couple. This, it seems, is the entire point of the second application, as one in three marriages in London in recent years has been a sham perpetrated to smuggle new individual members of the huddled mass into the country. Placing the final touches to my application on Friday evening in order to postmark by the Saturday deadline, I decided to search Algore’s information superhighway to see if I could find my Home Office number. What I discovered was that I have a notable reserve of subconscious French words which can boil to the surface when no one else is present.

At some unfortunate point during the seven weeks since I had downloaded my application, the government had decided to completely redesign the 10-month-old form, up the fee from £300 to £700, and require a “Life in the United Kingdom” test. Did they notify us, you ask? No, but they did publish it in a Home Office document back in December. Immigrants, you see, are expected to read the latest Home Office press release with their morning tea. Unsure as to whether I could still submit the now outrageously-priced £700 permanent leave to remain form, which required the new test, or if I would have to submit a £400 extension and then the £700 later, I determined to call Monday morning. Morag was out of town at the time anyway and would not make it back Saturday to sign the new documents before the post office closed early. I discovered Monday that, naturally, I needed to submit the extension as soon as possible. The essence of the problem at this point was that I owed the Home Office another £400, to which their solution was to pay yet another £400. (From what I gather, the government appears to be sheltering native citizens from the high costs of their broken asylum system by sticking it to other immigrants.) So we threw together the application and included a nice letter explaining the situation and posted it the next day.

Six weeks later, we received an improperly punctuated notification that, as my application was postmarked three days late, I have been denied leave to remain in the United Kingdom. The letter –enclosing Morag’s passport - was of course delayed by a week as they had posted it to our old address despite the new address clearly marked on the application.

We currently have three options:

1) My MP and his staff are petitioning the Home Office on our behalf to have the decision overturned on grounds that Morag is giving birth in six weeks. If anyone can persuade the Secretary of State, it is him. This would be the quickest and least-expensive solution.

2) I am seeking legal consultation on my right of appeal to the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, an external agency that audits the decisions by the Home Office. This does not look promising at the moment; I will find out more on Monday morning.

3) Fly back to Los Angeles and re-apply from there. This could be a quick-fix option and it would be nice to see the family, but would add the price of a trans-continental flight, a 44-hour round trip, and there is no guarantee how long it might take.

Such is the situation as it stands. One might think that the Home Office would do better to weed out Benz bombers or to punish those who abuse the system and don’t give a fig about Britain or its laws, rather than deporting law-abiding fund accountants from Polmont who, despite their good-faith efforts, fail keep abreast with ever-changing and poorly-advertised regulations. But then again, the American INS is well-known neither for the high service standards provided to Americans with alien spouses, nor for its ability control flagrant immigration violations.

Please pray for a swift and inexpensive resolution of our situation.

Please support common sense immigration reforms which place family in its proper place - before the state. Such common sense is possible: Michelle recently walked in to renew her spousal visa three months past the expiration date. The German official smiled, wondered that anyone had ever emigrated from California, and renewed her visa with no hassle and at zero cost. Meanwhile, my passport is detained by a shadowy agency called the “Local Enforcement Office.” Next time, I’ll know where to relocate.

Baby Renfro May 18th, 2007

2007-05-23T21:16:00.001Z

Here are the latest ultrasound images from last Friday. Everything is going well and Mummy Morag has quite a large bump as both mum and baby enter into the third trimester!

Swimming the ocean blue

2007-05-19T13:14:00.000Z

Here are some quality online directions from Polmont to Ventura. Be sure to read number 41. Glad to see some of the programmers over at Google have a sense of humour.

Womb Cam

2007-04-16T21:07:00.000Z

Morag, baby, and I went in for an ultrasound on Monday. The doctor lady was kind enough to allow me to film a portion of it. We counted 10 fingers and 10 toes, but did not receive any indication of a 21^st digit. The doctor confirmed that everything looks fine. She spent most of the time looking at the heart, as you can see from the videos below. The baby is growing quickly and is approximately 15 cm from head to tail. I found the experience much more joyous and interesting than examining my pancreas, which was the last thing that I saw on an ultrasound.

Athur No. 1: Heart
Athur No. 2: Spin, ribs, and organs
Athur No. 3: Heartbeat
Athur No. 4: Head, ears, torso.
Athur No. 5: Torso and heart.

World's Strongest Dad

2007-04-03T21:10:00.001Z

Here’s some inspiration for fathers new and old. You can read about the Hoyts here:

The Great Global Warming Swindle

2007-03-10T22:10:00.000Z

Wee Arthur Pictures

2007-02-26T20:25:00.000Z

"Hello, world!"

Morag went for her second scan today. Both mother and baby are doing well. Baby Arthur - so named because mother refuses to give baby a cool name post-gestation - was in good form and waved for the camera.

Arthur is about 3 1/2 inches long (9cm) and weighs one and a half ounces (43 grams). Arthur can grasp, squint, frown, and suck his/her thumb. Arthur has come a long way since the 4.9 mm on January 4th (seen below):

"Just bean growing a wee while"

A more in-depth scan has indeed confirmed the child's paternity:

"Deus lo Volt!"

Ansgarr's Technology Problems

2007-02-20T21:14:00.000Z

This clip is hilarious!

Jesus through the Centuries

2007-02-12T13:34:00.000Z

Following are some passages from Pelikan's Jesus through the Centuries:

“As even her most fervent enthusiasts acknowledge, Christian language about the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Orthodox and Catholic traditions has let itself get into great difficulties whenever it has made her an object of devotion in her own right rather than, in Dante’s phrase, as “the face that most resembles Christ’s,” who was her Son and her Lord and Redeemer. And in the Protestant traditions, on the other hand, the violent act of separating loyalty to Jesus Christ from the celebration of Mary of which it has so long been an essential partner has led not to the glorification of Him alone, as was intended, but to Christological chaos instead of Christological confession.” – Preface to the History Book Club Edition

“Everyone must acknowledge, therefore, that Christian tradition had precedence, chronologically and even logically, over Christian Scripture; for there was a tradition of the church before there was ever a New Testament, or any individual book of the New Testament. By the time the materials of the oral tradition found their way into written form, they had passed through the life and experience of the church, which laid claim to the presence of the Holy Spirit of God, the selfsame Spirit that the disciples had seen descending upon Jesus at his baptism and upon the earliest believers on the fiftieth day after Easter, in the miracle of Pentecost. It was to the action of that Spirit that Christians attributed the composition of the books of the “new testament,” as they began to call it, and before that of the “old testament,” as they referred to the Hebrew Bible. Because the narrative of the sayings of Jesus and of the events of his life and ministry had come down to the evangelists and compilers in this context, anyone who seeks to interpret one or another saying or story from the narrative must always ask not only about its place in the life and teachings of Jesus, but also its function within the remembering community.” Jesus through the Centuries, p. 10

“Very often, of course, this description of the opposition between Peter and Paul, and between law and gospel, was cast in the language of the opposition between Roman Catholicism (which traced its succession to Peter as the first pope) and Protestantism (which arose from Luther’s interpretation of the epistles of Paul). Luther’s favorite among those epistles, the letter to the Romans, became the charter for this supposed declaration of independence from Judaism.

Since then, however, scholars have not only put the picture of Jesus back into the setting of first-century Judaism; they have also rediscovered the Jewishness of the New Testament, and particularly of the apostle Paul, and specifically of his Epistle to the Romans. They have concluded, in the words of Krister Stendahl, that “in this letter Paul’s focus really is the relation between the Jews and the Gentiles, not the notion of justification or predestination and certainly not other proper yet abstract theological topics.” For such a reading of the epistle, moreover, “the climax of Romans is actually chapters 9-11, i.e., his reflections on the relation between the church and synagogue, the church and the Jewish people – not ‘Christianity’ and ‘Judaism,’ not the attitudes of the gospel versus the attitudes of the law.” Jesus through the Centuries, p. 18

“For that assertion of Tertullian represents nothing less than a new understanding of the meaning of history, and understanding according to which Jesus was not simply going to be the end of history by his second coming in the future, as a naïve and literalistic apocalypticism had viewed him, but already was the Turning Point of History, a history that, even if it were to continue, had been transformed and overturned by his first coming in the past. …During those centuries, however, it was…also the cultural significance of Jesus as hinge on which history turned and therefore as the basis both for a new interpretation of the historical process and for a new historiography.” Jesus through the Centuries, pp. 25-26

“Thus the entire history of Israel had reached its turning point in Jesus as prophet, as priest, and as king. After the same manner, he was identified as the turning point in the entire history of all the nations of the world, as that history was encapsulated in the history of the “mistress of nations,” the Roman empire. Although this was in fact a leitmotiv of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, the most massive and most influential monument of that identification was what the author himself called in his preface his “great and arduous taks,” Augustine’s City of God. For this task of locating Jesus within world history, as indeed for the entire enterprise of interpreting the person and the message of Jesus to the Gentile world, the New Testament, as a book written chiefly by Jewish Christians, offered far less explicit guidance than it did for the specification of his locus within the history of Israel. But it did speak of his having come only in the fullness of time.” Jesus through the Centuries, p. 28

“And the clinching argument against the theory of cycles in history was the life and person of Jesus Christ: Because “Christ died for our sins once and for all, and, rising from the dead, dies no more,” it also had to be true that Plato had taught in the Academy at only one point in history, not over and over again “during the countless cycles that are yet to be.” It was the consideration of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, as an event that was single and unrepeatable and yet at the same time as a message and “mystery announced from the very beginning of the human race,” that made it possible for Christopher Dawson to call Augustine, with only slight exaggeration, “not only the founder of the Christian philosophy of history,” but “actually the first man in the world to discover the meaning of time.” Jesus through the Centuries, pp. 29-30

“The modern skeptical world has been taught for some 200 years a conception of the human nature in which the reality of evil, so well known to the ages of faith, has been discounted. Almost all of us grew up in an environment of such easy optimism that we can scarcely know what is meant, though our ancestors knew it well, by the satanic will. We shall have to recover this forgotten but essential truth – along with so many others that we lost when, thinking we were enlightened and advanced, we were merely shallow and blind.” Walter Lippman, 30 October 1941. Jesus through the Centuries, p. 76.

“The clinching argument in favor of the holiness of marriage came for Augustine from some other words of the apostle Paul: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for it…This is a great sacrament [magnum sacramentum], and I take it to mean Christ and the church.” Marriage was a sacrament of Christ and the church.” Jesus through the Centuries, p. 78

“Jesus was the only unqualified exception that Augustine would grant to the rule of the universality of original sin. There was, however, one other exception that he had to consider: Mary the Virgin Mother of Jesus. After rejecting the contention that various other saints, both male and female, had been totally sinless, Augustine continued: “We must except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honor to the Lord; for from him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and to bear him who undoubtedly had no sin.” Jesus through the Centuries, pp. 80-81

“whenever devotion or speculation glorified Christ as Lord and King in such a way as to lose touch with the Man of Nazareth, Mary would become a substitute for him – human, compassionate, accessible. And then the devotion to her and the speculation about her were no longer being carried on “out of honor to the Lord.” Jesus through the Centuries, p. 81

“Because the one who by excellency of nature transcends all quantity and size and magnitude, who has his being in the form of God, has now, by taking upon himself the form of a slave, contacted himself into a quantity and size and has acquired a physical identity, do not hesitate any longer to draw pictures and to set forth, for all to see, him who has chosen to let himself be seen: his ineffable descent from heaven to earth; his birth from the Virgin; his baptism in the Jordan; his transfiguration on Mount Tabor; the sufferings that have achieved for us freedom from suffering; the miracles that symbolized his divine nature and activity when they were performed through the activity of his [human] flesh; the burial, resurrection, and ascension into heaven by which the Savior has accomplished our salvation – describe all these events, both in words and in colors, both in books and in pictures.” John of Damascus, On the Images, Jesus through the Centuries, p. 92

“Thus the God who had prohibited religious art as the idolatrous effort to depict the divine in visible form had now taken the initiative of depicting himself in visible form, and had done so not in metaphor or in memorial but in person and, quite literally, “in the flesh.” The metaphysical had become historical, and the cosmic Logos who was the true image of the Father from eternity had now become a part of time and could be portrayed in an image of his divine-human person as this had carried out the events of salvation history. The creation of Adam and Eve in the image of God had been an anticipation of the coming of Jesus the Second Adam and of Mary the Second Eve, so that the description of Christ and of his Mother could be at the same time the description of Christ and of his Mother could be at the same time the description of the true image of God in humanity. The image portrayed him in the individual specificity of his unique person, not as humanity in the abstract. Nevertheless, the humanity of his saints and of all who had been made alive in him, was a humanity suffused with the presence of divinity: it was, in this sense, the “deified” body of Christ that was being portrayed, and the most characteristic Eastern Orthodox way of speaking about the salvation granted in Christ has been to call it “deification” (theōsis in Greek, obozhenie in Russian). The iconography of the icon (to resort deliberately to an almost unavoidable tautology) was well designed to carry out both of these themes simultaneously: specificity and deification, and therefore what one of the most profound twentieth-century interpreters of icons, Evgenii Nikolaevich Trubetskoi, has called “theory of colors” or “contemplation in images.” Jesus through the Centuries, pp. 92-93

“The use of the sign of the cross, as a mark of identification and a means of warding off the power of demons, is not mentioned as such in the New Testament; but it appears very early in Christian history, and when it is mentioned it is already being taken for granted. Tertullian declares that “at every forward step and movement, at every going in and out… in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we mark upon our foreheads the sing,” and the sign of the cross became the prime evidence for the existence of an unwritten tradition that everyone observed even though it was not commanded in the Bible. Those who did not belong to the church could not help noticing the practice. The emperor Julian, whom Christians called “the Apostate” because he had forsaken the Christianity of his childhood, complained to the Christians in the fourth century: “You adore the wood of the cross and draw its likeness on your foreheads and engrave it on your housefronts…” Jesus through the Centuries, p. 96

“The Cross was believed to possess all of this victorious power because it had been the instrument for the greatest victory of them all, the cosmic victory of the power of God over the power of the devil in the death and resurrection of Jesus. “The word of the cross is called the power of God,” John of Damascus said, “because the might of God, that is, his victory over death, has been revealed to us through it.” The earliest versions of the idea had described this victory as a trick that God had played on the devil, death, and sin, the alliance of enemies who had held humanity in thrall. In one of the most striking – and one of the most problematical – of images for the trick, the devil whit his allies was depicted as a giant fish that had devoured every human being since Adam. When the humanity of Christ was cast into the pool, the fish took it to be yet another victim to be swallowed up. But hidden within this bait of the human nature of Christ was the hook of his divine nature, so that when the devil gobbled up the man Jesus in his death on the cross, he was impaled on the divinity. He had to regurgitate the humanity of Jesus, and with it all those whom Jesus had taken as his own; and death and the devil, who had taken the human race, were now themselves taken. Through the cross, therefore, liberation and victory had come.

In a more subtle and sophisticated form, this theory of the cross became the metaphor of Christus Victor, which Gustaf Aulén made the title of a controversial book on the meaning of the cross. Here, in what Aulén does not hesitate to call the “classic” theory of how the cross saves, the cross became the sign of God’s invasion of enemy territory and of the “wondrous battle [mirabile duellum]” by which Jesus Christ had accomplished the salvation of the human race. Shedding the cruder aspects of the earlier metaphor of deception, the theme of Christus Victor nevertheless retained the interpretation that the enemies of God and man were the ones with whom Christ on the cross had to contend. The death of Christ on the cross was therefore his capitulation to those enemies and to their power, before which he made himself weak. But he took those enemies into the grave with him. In the resurrection Christ was set free from their power, but they remained behind in the grave. Although this interpretation of the cross as the power of God was more prominent in the Greek East than in the Latin West, it was never lost even in the West; and, according to Aulén, the Reformation revived it…

As the act of divine power manifest in Christus Victor, the cross was interpreted as the enactment, in the arena of the cosmos and of world history, of the dramatic battle between God and the enemies of God over the future of humanity. Whatever its theological advantages or disadvantages may have been, this theory of the atonement had the advantage, in relation to the art and music of the Middle Ages, of being able to connect the cross with the resurrection as two parts of a single action. In the liturgical music of the Middle Ages, that connection took the form of setting Good Friday and Easter into the greatest possible contrast: Good Friday was the only day in the church year when the sacrifice of the Mass was not celebrated, because on that day it was the original sacrifice of the cross on Calvary that was to be commemorated. Following a tradition that went back at least to Origen in the first half of the third century, medieval art depicted the crucifixion as having taken place on the very place where the skull of Adam was buried; and the processions and the liturgical drama of the Middle Ages kept the motif of Christus Victor alive even when Latin theology was no longer able to deal with it adequately because of its preoccupation with interpreting the death of Christ as an act of satisfaction.” Jesus through the Centuries, pp. 99-101

“Abelard’s critics found such language [i.e. “to reveal the love [of God] to us or to convince us how much we ought to love him ‘who did not spare even his own Son for us] about the wisdom of the cross not so much incorrect as inadequate. Of course Christ crucified was an example of patience, everyone would agree; and no one would deny that the cross of Christ was the supreme revelation of the love of God, and indeed the very definition of love, whether divine or human. The question was whether this language exhausted the wisdom of the cross or whether a more profound consideration of the cross would lead to some other way of thinking and speaking about it. That other way found its definitive formulation in one of the most influential works of medieval thought, Why God Became Man (Cur dues homo) by Anselm of Canterbury. More than any other treatise between Augustine and the Reformation on any other doctrine of the Christian faith, Anselm’s essay has shaped the outlook not only of Roman Catholics, but of most Protestants, many of whom have paid him the ultimate compliment of not even recognizing that their version of the wisdom of the cross comes from him, but attributing it to the Bible itself.” Jesus through the Centuries, pp. 106-107

“Throughout his life Francis identified himself with the events of the suffering of Christ – so much so that it would probably be possible to reconstruct almost the entire Gospel history of the Passion from the individual scenes in which Francis has been depicted as a participant. “Christ hung upon his Cross, poor and naked and in great pain,” Bonaventure writes, “and Francis wanted to be like him in everything.” Jesus through the Centuries, pp. 139-140

“In the words of Beatrice to Dante that follow, Mary is “the rose in which the divine Word was made flesh,” but like all other flowers in the divine “garden,” she, too, “blossoms under the rays of Christ,” not finally of her own powers.” Jesus through the Centuries, p. 150

pariah?

2007-02-12T09:27:00.000Z

Have you noticed the word ‘pariah’ being used quite a bit in beltway vocabulary in the last couple weeks? I believe it started when a former US presidential candidate who served in Vietnam referred to the US as an “international pariah.” It’s surprising that no one has bothered to look up the etymology behind this word. It derives originally from the Tamil word for drum or drummer, but came to be applied to the Pariah caste in India and appears to be analogous to untouchable. In a political climate in which a firestorm erupts immediately and without fail over the use of ‘articulate’ and in which one can be fired form a normal job for using ‘niggardly’ - a word of perfectly innocent Scandinavian derivation - how is it possible that so many politicians and talking heads can use what might be described as another country’s ‘N’ word?

N.B. At the time of posting this entry, there is an apparent act of vandalism on the wikipedia entry for 'pariah'. It currently states that "John Kerry, the pariah of the democratic party, in an apparent jab at President Bush, used the word to describe the United States in 2007."

G. K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense

2007-02-04T09:39:00.000Z

EWTN ran a series for two seasons on G.K. Chesterton that was fantastic, primarily because they allowed the subject to speak for himself! You can download audio for all the episodes from the EWTN audio library. Do so!

G. K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense with Dale Ahlquist and Chuck Chalberg

An Introduction to G.K. Chesterton

Orthodoxy

Heretics

What's Wrong With the World

The Catholic Church and Conversion

The Thing: Why I am a Catholic

The Well and the Shallows

St. Francis of Assisi

St. Thomas Aquinas

The Everlasting Man

The Outline of Sanity

The Superstition of Divorce

Eugenics and other Evils

Fr. Brown

Chesterton for Today

Another Introduction to Chesterton

Wonder

The Riddles of God

The Signature of Man

Uneducating the Educated

Fancies and Fads

The "D" Word

Puritans and Pagans

The Art of Defending the Faith Part 1

The Art of Defending the Faith Part 2

Talking in Rhyme

Recovering the Lost Art of Common Sense

A Chesterton Reading Plan

New sword!!!

2007-02-03T10:13:00.000Z

Last week I commissioned a new sword from Albion Swords and Christian Fletcher. I have decided on a Albion generation 2 'Ritter', which was inspired by a sword I saw ten years ago in the Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, Berlin. It has a narrow fuller making it close to an Oakeshott type XI, but it is a sword that does not fall precisely into any category. The cocked-hat pommel matches one of my Del Tin models from a decade ago, creating something of a matching set. For cord-wrapped, leather-covered the grip I have chosen a dark oxblood dye. I have also asked Christian to mount a different style grip, which a buldge in the middle as is standard on the Albion 'Knight'.

Christian will make the scabbard and sword belt, which will be as show below but with a black scabbard and white sword belt, in the style of the Manesse Codex show below or at the top of this web site. The design of the integral-belt, which is light years ahead - or perhaps that should be behind! - anything available ten years ago when I was collecting - will be like the 'Ritter' set shown below, but the front strap will flare out by approximately 1/2".

The sword won't be ready for a good 5 months, and I will not be able to collect it until I come home to the states. Until then, it will remain a flashy desktop background at work.

Minne

2007-02-03T09:42:00.000Z

“Anyone who has a beautiful woman for his wife or lover ought to be the better for it, for it cannot be right that she should love him after he has lost his fame and his worth… Now more than ever it is of the first importance that your worth should increase!... Now you must not idle your time away, but you must frequent the tournaments, engage in combat, joust hard, whatever it costs you!” - Chrétien de Troyes, (quoted in Marth Yeilding Scribner, Love and Longing in the Age of Chivalry).

Jaroslav Pelikan's "Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution"

2007-02-02T23:40:00.000Z

I read Jaroslav Pelikan's Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution last week and thought I would type up several of the passages I held to be of interest. The book itself was the first-rate scholarship I have grown to expect of the author and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in one or the other of the 'Great Codes' discussed. The comparison between the interpretation and American religious and civil texts is a fruitful one, and the history of each can serve to illuminate the other.

“To those questioners who identify themselves with the mainstream of the Christian tradition, I have often responded with one of my favorite quotations from Cardinal John Henry Newman’s Apologia pro vita sua (which may, for that matter, be more true of me than it was of him): ‘I have changed in many things: in this I have not. From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion.’ But when others, who stand outside that tradition or who identify themselves as ‘secular humanists,’ have pressed me about the nature of ‘dogma’ as the normative teaching of the church in relation to the doctrinal authority of the Bible, I have found that the most helpful analogy for it is the authority of the United States Constitution in American society and its complex relation to the standing of the Supreme Court of the United States as its official and decisive interpreter.”

“Great Code[:] There is a familiar and venerable text, centuries old by now, which is the product of multiple authorship (although even after generations of historical research and literary analysis we are not always in a position to determine with absolute precision just who wrote, or rewrote, which parts of it). The text was originally composed under very specific circumstances, which modern historical scholarship has done much to illumine. But far transcending the history of its original composition is its official standing ever since, for it has been adopted by a community as its normative Great Code, and therefore as occupying a position that in some profound sense stands beyond its own history: ‘not spake but speaketh!’ That normative status is based on the assumption that it can be applied to any and all of the radically changed situations of later times, many of which the writers who originally framed it could not themselves conceivably have foreseen. Every official action of the community thus had the obligation of conforming to it, or any rate of not violating it, and of demonstrating that conformity when challenged to do so; and members of the community are under the strictest possible obligation to obey it. Therefore its words and phrases have for centuries called forth meticulous and sophisticated – and sometimes painfully convoluted – interpretation, as well as continual reinterpretation. By now, this interpretation has grown into a massive corpus of authoritative, if often controversial, commentary. Yet the text does not itself prescribe the method of such interpretation; nor does it specifically identify the authoritative agency that bears the ultimate responsibility for determining the binding interpretation, much less for revising it”

“With the reduction in the private authority of Christian Scripture, and especially in its public authority, American Scripture has been called upon to fill some of the gap. At least for some Americans, therefore, the Ten Amendments of the Bill of Rights now seem to provide a version of the function that used to be preformed for their grandparents by the Ten Commandments of the Decalogue – with the arts often being called upon to provide them with a substitute for the mystical experience of divine transcendence.’

“[The Nicene Creed] affirms that the resurrection of Christ took place ‘in accordance with the Scriptures.’ This New Testament formula (I Cor 15.4) refers most directly to various passages of the Old Testament – which is what the term ‘Scripture [graphe]’ means in the New Testament – that are said to have prophesied the death and resurrection and that are said now to have been fulfilled; in fact, in some passages of the Gospels (for example, Mt 26:54-56) it almost sounds as though the very purpose of an event in the life of Jesus had been to fulfill a passage of the Old Testament Scripture. But ‘according to [kata] the Scriptures’ has, of course, an unavoidably normative connotation as well, which is why ‘in accordance with’ is often preferable to ‘according to’ as a translation of the Greek preposition.”

“Yet the contrary Catholic and Orthodox doctrine of authority, as restated in the nineteenth century, that not Scripture alone but ‘genuine tradition, i.e., the unbroken transmission, partly oral, partly in writing, of the doctrine delivered by Jesus Christ and the apostles, is an authoritative source of teaching for all successive generations of Christians’ could make theological learning even more important; for ‘this tradition is partly to be found in the consensus of the great ecclesiastical bodies, standing in historical continuity with the primitive church, partly is to be gathered by a scientific [wissenschaftlich] method from the written documents of all centuries.’”

“At the same time, an Eastern Orthodox confession of the seventeenth century, written in Greek, could quote the Greek verb ereunate [search] from this verse, in opposition to the universally Protestant doctrine of the ‘perspicuity of Scripture,’ to prove the exact opposite, namely, that ‘if Divine Scripture were clear to all Christians who read it, the Lord would not have commanded those who desire to obtain salvation to search it.’”

“To account for the puzzling, or even (to him, at any rate) troubling, discovery ‘that there was no formal acknowledgement on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity till the fourth [century],’ namely, at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, John Henry Newman formulated the axiom: ‘No doctrine is defined till it is violated.’”

“Yet in the event, that affirmation of sola Scriptura in principle was accompanied, in Luther and even in Zwingli and even in the Anabaptists, by the retention in practice of a substantial piece of the creedal and dogmatic tradition. But later Protestants in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, claiming to be carrying out for various doctrines a radical intention that the Reformers of the sixteenth century had been able to accomplish, sought to be more consistent than they had been in pressing for the original intent of the New Testament over against the later creeds and liturgies.”

“According to John Henry Newman, when the Virgin Mary was named Theotokos by the Council of Ephesus in 431, this was ‘an addition, greater perhaps than any before or since, to the letter of the primitive faith’ – although that council itself made a special point of explaining that this was not an addition [prosthēkē] but an amplification [plērophoria].”

“in response to the Protestant insistence on sola Scriptura, the Council of Trent codified the correlation in this way: ‘Following the example of the orthodox fathers, the council accepts and venerates with a like feeling of piety and reverence [pari pietatis affectu] all the books of both the Old and New Testament, since the one God is the author of both, as well as the traditions concerning both faith and conduct, as either directly spoken by Christ or dictated by the Holy Spirit, which have been preserved in unbroken sequence in the Catholic Chruch.’ It is instructive to trace this correlation through the legislation of the early ecumenical councils of the church.
Adopting a formula of the New Testament (1 Cor 15.3-4) about the Old Testament, the Second Ecumenical Council, which was the First Council of Constantinople in 381, expanded the creed originally set down by the First Ecumenical Council, the Council of Nicaea in 325, to confess that Christ ‘rose up on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.’ The Third Ecumenical Council, the Council of Ephesus in 431, adopted its statement of faith ‘not by way of addition but in the manner of a full statement, even as we have received and posses it from of old from the Holy Scriptures and from the tradition of the holy fathers.’ The Fourth Ecumenical Council, the Council of Chalcedon in 451, concluded its definition of faith about the one person and the two natures of Jesus Christ with and appeal to a multiple authority: ‘just as the [Old Testament] prophets taught from the beginning about him, and as [in the Gospels of the New Testaement] the Lord Jesus Christ himself instructed us, and as the creed of the fathers [the tradition of the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople] handed it down to us.’ The Fifth Ecumenical Council, the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, similarly concluded with an appeal jointly to Scripture and to tradition, including the tradition of its predecessor councils: ‘Such then are the assertions we confess. We have received them from Holy Scripture, from the teaching of the holy fathers, and from the definitions about one and the same faith made by the aforesaid holy councils.’ The Sixth Ecumneical Council, the Third Council of Constantinople in 680-81, declared that it was ‘following without deviation in a straight path after the holy and accepted fathers [and that it] piously accorded in all things with the five holy and universal councils,’ to which ‘this holy and universal council of ours has also, in its turn, under God’s inspiration [theopneustōs], set its seal,’ therefore employing for itself (and for the other orthodox councils and traditions) the technical New Testament term for divine inspiration (2 Tm 3.16) that had originally been applied to the Old Testament Scriptures. And the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, declared its purpose to be ‘that the divinely inspired tradition of the catholic church should receive confirmation by a public decree,’ anathematizing ‘anyone [who] rejects any written or unwritten tradition of the church.’”

Praise of Folly

2007-01-29T21:40:00.000Z

I recently finished reading Erasmus’ Praise of Folly on my daily commute to Edinburgh Park. A masterpiece of satire, Praise of Folly was written for Erasmus’ friend, St. Thomas More. I wanted to post a few passages that caught my eye:

“Closely related to them are the people who’ve adopted the foolish but pleasurable belief that if they see some carving or painting of that towering Polyphemus, Christopher, they’re sure not to die that day, or if anyone addresses a statue of Barbara in the set formula he’ll return unhurt from battle, or a man will soon become rich if he approaches Erasmus on the proper days with the proper bits of candle and the proper scrapes of prayer. They’ve already got a second Hippolytus, but in George they’ve found another Hercules, too. They piously deck out his horse with trappings and amulets and practically worship it. Its favours are sought with some new small offering, and an oath sworn by the saint’s bronze helmet is fit for a king. And what am I to say about those who enjoy deluding themselves with imaginary pardons for their sins? They measure the length of their time in Purgatory as if by water-clock, counting centuries, years, months, days and hours as though there were a mathematical table to calculate them accurately. Then there are people who rely on certain magic signs and prayers thought up by some pious imposter for his own amusement or for gain – they promise themselves everything, wealth, honours, pleasure, plenty, continual good health, long life, a vigorous old age, and finally a seat next to Christ in heaven. However, that’s a blessing they don’t want until the last possible minute, that is, when the pleasures of this life have left their tenacious and reluctant grasp to make way for the heavenly joys to come.” - Erasmus, Praise of Folly.

“I must press on, and yet I can’t pass over without a mention those who are no better than the humblest worker but take extraordinary pride in an empty title of nobility, one tracing his family back to Aeneas, another to Brutus, a third to Arcturus. They display the statues and portraits of their ancestors everywhere, tot up their great-grand-fathers and great-great-grandfathers, know all the old family names by heart, though they’re not far off being dumb statues themselves and could well be worse than the statuary they display. And yet, there are always plenty of fools like themselves to look up to this sort of brute as if he were a god.” - Erasmus, Praise of Folly.

“Now, just as Nature has implanted his personal self-love in each individual person, I can see she has put a sort of variety in every nation and city. Consequently the British think they have a monopoly, amongst other things, of good looks, musical talent and fine food. The Scots pride themselves on their nobility and the distinction of their royal connexions as much as on their subtlety in dialectic. The French lay claim to polite manners, the Parisians demand special recognition for their theological acumen which they think exceeds nearly everyone else’s. The Italians usurp culture and eloquence, and hence they’re all happy congratulating themselves on being the only civilized race of men. In this kind of happiness the Romans take first place, still blissfully dreaming of the past glories of Rome, while the Venetians have their own opinion of their noble descent to keep them happy. Meanwhile the Greeks, as originators of the arts, imagine they should still share the honours of the illustrious heroes of their past; while the Turks and all the real barbarian riff-raff actually demand recognition for their religion and pour scorn on Christians for their superstition. The Jews go even further, still faithfully awaiting their Messiah and clinging fast to their Moses to this very day. The Spaniards admit no rival in the glories of war, while the Germans boast of their height and their knowledge of the magic arts.” - Erasmus, Praise of Folly.

“Finally, man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth. If anyone wants an immediate clear example of this he has only to go to church at sermon time, where everyone is asleep or yawning or feeling queasy whenever some serious argument is expounded, but if the preacher starts to rant (I beg your pardon, I mean orate) on some old wives' tale as they often do, his audience sits up and takes notice, open-mouthed. And again, if there's some legendary saint somewhat celebrated in fable (you can put George or Christopher or Barbara in that category if you need an example) you'll see that he receives far more devout attention than Peter or Paul or even Christ himself. But this is not the for the moment.” - Erasmus, Praise of Folly.

“Think of the many who set up a candle to the Virgin, Mother of God, and at midday too, when it isn't needed, and of the few who care about emulating her chastity of life, her modesty and love of heavenly things. Yet that is surely the true way to worship and by far the most acceptable to heaven.” - Erasmus, Praise of Folly.

“And in my opinion Christians would show sense if they dispatched these argumentative Scotists and pigheaded Ockhamists and undefeated Albertists along with the whole regiment of sophists to fight the Turks and Saracens instead of sending those armies of dull-witted soldiers with whom they've long been carrying on war with no result. Then, I think, they'd witness a really keen battle and a victory such as never before. For who is too cold-blooded to be fired by their ingenuities, too stupid to be stung into action by their attacks? And is there anyone so keen-sighted that they can't leave him groping in the dark? You may suppose that I'm saying all this by way of a joke, and that's not surprising seeing that amongst the theologians themselves there are some with superior education who are sickened by these theological minutiae which they look upon as frivolous. Others too think it a damnable form of sacrilege and the worst sort of impiety for anyone to speak of matters so holy, which call for reverence rather than explanation, with a profane tongue, or to argue with the pagan subtlety of the heathen, presume to offer definitions, and pollute the majesty of divine theology with words and sentiments which are so trivial and even vile. Yet all the while they are so happy in their self-satisfaction and self-congratulation, and so busy night and day with these enjoyable tomfooleries, that they haven't even a spare moment in which to take a single look at the gospel or the letters of Paul. And while they're wasting their time in the schools with this nonsense, they believe that just as in the poets Atlas holds up the sky on his shoulders, they support the entire Church on the props of their syllogisi and without them it would collapse. Then you can in their happiness when they fashion and refashion the holy scriptures at will, as if these were made of wax, and when they insist that their conclusions, to which a mere handful of scholastics have subscribed, should carry more weight than the laws of Solon and be preferred to papal decrees. They also set up as the world's censors, and demand recantation of anything which doesn't exactly square with their conclusions, explicit and implicit, and make their oracular pronouncements: "This proposition is scandalous; this is irreverent; this smells of heresy; this doesn't ring true." As a result, neither baptism nor the gospel, neither Paul, Peter, St Jerome, Augustine nor even Thomas, the 'greatest of the Aristotelians', can make a man Christian unless these learned bachelors have given their approval, such is the refinement of their judgment. For who could have imagined, if the savants hadn't told him, that anyone who said that the two phrases "chamber-pot you stink" and "the chamber-pot stinks", or "to boil in a pot" and "to boil a pot" mean much the same thing can't possibly be a Christian? 106 Who could have freed the Church from the dark error of its ways when no one would ever have read about these if they hadn't been published under the great seals of the school? And aren't they perfectly happy doing all this?” - Erasmus, Praise of Folly.

“To sum up (or I shall be pursuing the infinite), it is clear that the Christian religion has a kind of kinship with folly in some form, though it has none at all with wisdom. If you want proofs of this, first consider the fact that the very young and the very old, women and simpletons, are the people who take the greatest delight in sacred and holy things, and are therefore always found nearest the altars, led there doubtless solely by their natural instinct. Secondly, you can see how the first great founders of the faith were great lovers of simplicity and bitter enemies of learning. Finally, the biggest fools of all appear to be those who have once been wholly possessed by zeal for Christian piety. They squander their possessions, ignore insults, submit to being cheated, make no distinction between friends and enemies, shun pleasure, sustain themselves on fasting, vigils, tears, toil and humiliations, scorn life and desire only death - in short, they seem to be dead to any normal feelings, as if their spirit dwelt elsewhere than in their body. What else can that be but madness? And so we should not he surprised if the apostles were thought to be drunk on new wine, and Festus judged Paul to be mad. But now that I have donned 'the lionskin', let me tell you another thing. The happiness which Christians seek with so many labours is nothing other than a certain kind madness and folly. Don't be put off by the words, but consider the reality. In the first place, Christians come near to agreeing with the Platonists that the soul is and bound down by the fetters of the body which by gross matter prevents the soul from being able to contemplate and enjoy things as they truly are. Next, Plato used philosophy as a preparation for death because it leads mind from visible and bodily things, just as death does. And so as long as the mind makes proper use of the organs the body has it is called sane and healthy, but once it begins to break its bonds and tries to win freedom, as if it were planning an escape from prison, men call it insane. If this happens through disease or some organic defect, by general consent it is called insanity. Even so, we see this type of person foretelling the future, showing a knowledge of languages and literature they had never previously known and giving clear indication of something divine. Undoubtedly this happens because the mind is beginning to free itself from contamination by the body and exercise its true natural power. I think this also explains why those who are struggling at the hour of death often expel something similar, so that they speak wonders as if inspired. Again, if this happens through pious fervour, it might not be quite the same kind of insanity, but is so much like it that most people make no distinction, especially as the number of humble folk who differ in their whole way of life from the general run of mankind is very small. And so we have a situation which I think is not unlike that in the myth in Plato, where those who were chained in a cave marvelled at shadows, whereas the man who had escaped and then returned to the cavern told them that he had seen real things and they were much mistaken in belief that nothing existed but their wretched shadows. A man who has gained understanding pities his companions and deplores their insanity which confines them to such an illusion, but they in their turn laugh at him as if he were crazy and turn him out. In the same way, the herd of men feels admiration only for the things of the body and believes that these alone exist, whereas the pious scorn whatever concerns the body and are wholly uplifted towards the contemplation of invisible things. The ordinary man gives first place to wealth, the second to comforts, and leaves the last to the soul - which anyway most people believe doesn't exist because it is invisible to the eye. By contrast, the pious direct their entire endeavour towards God, who is absolute in purity, and after him towards what is closest to him, the soul. They have no thought for the body, despise wealth and avoid it like trash, and if they are obliged to deal with such matters they do so with reluctance and distaste, behaving as if they do not have, possessing as if they did not possess.138 There are moreover in each of these things widely differing degrees. To begin with, though all the senses have some kinship with the body, some of them are grosser, such as touch, hearing, sight, smell and taste, while other faculties are less physical, for instance, memory, intellect and will. The power of the soul depends on its inclinations. Since, then, all the power of the pious soul is directed towards what is furthest removed from the grosser senses, these become blunted and benumbed. The vulgar crowd of course does the opposite, develops them very much and more spiritual faculties very little. That explains what we have heard happened to several saints, who drank oil by mistake for wine. Again, take the affections of the soul. Some have more traffic with the grossness of the body, such as lust, desire for food and sleep, anger, pride and envy and on these the pious wage unceasing war, while crowd thinks life impossible without them. Then there are what we could call intermediate affections which are quasi-natural to all, like love for one's father, and affection for children, relatives and friends. The crowd sets great store by these, yet the pious strive to root them too from their soul, or at least to sublimate them to the highest region of the soul. They wish to love their father not as a father, he begot nothing but the body, and this too is owed to God the father, but as a good man and one in whom is reflected the image of the supreme mind which alone they call the summum bonum and beyond which they declare is to be loved or sought. This is the rule whereby they regulate all the remainder of life's duties, so that any visible, if it is not wholly to be despised, is still valued less than what cannot be seen. They also say that even in the sacraments and the actual advances of their religion, both body and spirit are involved. For example, they think little of fasting if it means more than abstaining from meat and a meal which for the common man is the essential of a fast. It must at the same time reduce the passions, permitting less anger or pride than usual, so that the spirit can feel less burdened by the matter of the body and can aim at tasting and enjoying the blessings of heaven. It is the same with the Eucharist: the ritual with which it is celebrated should be rejected, they say, but it serves no useful purpose or can be positively harmful if it lacks the spiritual element represented by those visible symbols. It represents the death of Christ, which men must express through the mastery extinction of their bodily passions, laying them in the tomb, as it were, in order to rise again to a new life where in you can be united with him and with each other. This then is how the pious man acts, and this is his purpose. The crowd, on the other hand, thinks the sacrifice of the mass means no more than crowding as close as possible to the hearing the sound of the words, and watching the ritual down to the smallest detail. I quote this only as one example; in fact the pious man throughout his whole life withdraws from the things of the body and is drawn towards what is eternal, invisible and spiritual. Consequently there is total disagreement between the two parties at every point, and each thinks the other mad; though in my view, the epithet is more properly applied to the pious, not the common man.” - Erasmus, Praise of Folly.

“And then those who can be offended by a book where no names are mentioned seem to me to react in much the same way as those silly women who get worked up whenever anything is said against a loose living woman as if it were a personal insult to them all, and conversely, if a word of praise is spoken about virtuous women they are as pleased with themselves as if a tribute paid to one or another applies to the whole sex. Men should be far removed from silliness of this kind, learned men further still, and theologians furthest of all!” - Erasmus, Letter to Martin Dorp, 1515.

“Instead of behaving like this, tearing others to pieces and then being torn themselves, wasting their time and everyone else's, how much better it would be if they would learn Greek or Hebrew, or Latin at least! Knowledge of these languages is so important for understanding the holy scriptures that it seems to me gross impertinence for anyone to assume the name of theologian if he is ignorant of them.” - Erasmus, Letter to Martin Dorp, 1515.

Free Book of Kells Font

2007-01-20T23:50:00.000Z

Book of Kells Wedding Invitation

I've spend the last few weeks using FontCreator 5.5 to save the image files used to make our wedding invitations (above) into TrueType format. The characters were taken directly from the Book of Kells, where possible. Despite numerous hours of editing, the spacing is still not perfect. Due to the nature of Insular Majuscule, I have concluded that its spacing cannot be perfectly replicated in a digital font format.

Variants for some letters such as e, t and s have been set to the -, =, [, ], and \ keys, both with shift on and off. You will just have to experiment as to which one is which. Arabic numbers and punctuation have been taken from the freeware Libra font as these are absent in the original manuscript.

I have seen similar fonts available for purchase online at $20 and up. No other freeware font replicats the Book of Kells this well, so I decided to make my own!

I am happy to offer this free Book of Kells font as freeware, so long as you link to this site when posting it online. Enjoy!

Pelikan, Poledouris, and Friedman

2007-01-20T18:08:00.000Z

With the passing of 2006 some three weeks ago, I wanted to post a remembrance of three men who passed away in 2006. All were at the top of their fields and will be greatly missed by many:

Jaroslav Pelikan, 7 Dec 1923 – 13 May 2006. Pelikan received his PhD at 22 and spent four decades as a Professor at Yale. His five-volume magnus opus, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, was one of the greatest scholarly enterprises of the last century. I also highly recommend Jesus through the Centuries, Mary through the Centuries, and Whose Bible is it? Although a Lutheran for most of his life, returning to his eastern roots Pelikan joined the Orthodox Church in 1998, stating he "returned to it, peeling back the layers of my own belief to reveal the Orthodoxy that was always there." His deep knowledge of Christian doctrine, second to none, and his ultimate adoption of Orthodoxy make Pelikan an invaluable source of ‘unbiased’ information for many of the doctrinal issues I’ve pondered over the years. I am currently reading one of his last books, The Bible and the Constitution. An interview with him concerning publication of his introduction to Christian Creeds is available here and a video lecture concerning Christianity and Islam is available here.

Basil Poledouris, 21 Aug, 1945 - 8 Nov, 2006. Powerful and intricate, his movie scores are among the best ever composed. The score for Conan the Barbarian is my favorite of all time. Using very little dialogue throughout the film, director John Milius relied mostly upon the emotional content of Poledouris’ score to draw the viewer into the story.

Milton Friedman, 31 July, 1912 – 16 Nov, 2006. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976, Milton is the man most responsible for rescuing the world from Keynesian economics. The Economist called him “the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century…possibly of all of it" and Alan Greenspan stated “There are very few people over the generations who have ideas that are sufficiently original to materially alter the direction of civilization. Milton is one of those very few people.” His ideas on Capitalism and free markets guided by minimal governmental interference are a bright light for the future freedom of economic man.

Mappa Mundi

2007-01-01T22:22:00.000Z

Blueneck's Guide to Christian Symbolism

2006-12-29T12:48:00.000Z

Merry Christmas MMVI! May the blessings of Christ be upon you on this anniversary of His incarnation.

One thing that has struck me this year is the total disregard of the majority of the population here in once-Great Britain toward the proper etiquette of winter holiday title usage. For goodness sake, real damage could be done! Perhaps the airlines should warn passengers travelling from metropolitan areas of the United States to cover their children's ears, lest some ignorant well-wisher disrupt her/his/its secular development with the "C" word. Perhaps British Airlines could use the woman who is no longer permitted to wear a "crucifix" at work despite the montage of tribal religious symbols now on display at every major British airport.

Speaking of Nadia Eweida, I have intended to post something about this for quite some time. Despite what you may think, I am not going to ramble on at length about the de-Christianization of Western society (for that, see above). No, the real story here is the invincible ignorance of the press regarding matters of religion and faith, and most other things besides. Time and again throughout Ms. Eweida's appeal to display the Christian symbol, the press referred to the item of jewellery as a "crucifix", despite showing a picture of Ms. Eweida wearing a plain cross with no corpus attached. Although this may seem a rather trivial error, the distinction is one that no uneducated person reared in the most nominally Christian country should miss. Is it possible that not a single reporter or editor remains at these outlets who knows the difference between a cross and a crucifix?

It is thus with great sorrow that I include the following "Blueneck's Guide to Christian Symbolism":

Ms. Eweida's cross

A crucifix

A cross

Did you put down the Latte long enough to get that?

Blog Updates

2006-12-28T22:09:00.000Z

I am doing a bit of work on the blog template at the moment. Apologies if things don't look right for the next week or two!

Proverbs 26:11

2006-11-08T15:19:00.000Z

Proverbs 26:11

Happy Halloween

2006-10-31T20:28:00.000Z

Happy Halloween 2006 from the Renfros!
Check out the flaming pumkins here.

Also, pictures from my brother-in-law Colin I'Anson's stag weekend are now online here.

Austria

2006-09-22T09:52:00.000Z

Well, Morag and I just got back from Austria. We had a great time travelling around. I got to see the imperial treasury in Vienna containing the regalia of the Holy Roman Empire such as the imperial crown from the Ottonian dynasty, the Holy Lance from the Carolingian, a ceremonial sword created for the crowning of Emperor Frederick II and the Sword of St Maurice (not to be confused with the similar Sword of St Maurice now residing in Turin, Italy), and a coronation mantle made for Roger II of Sicily. I missed the Schatzkammer last time I was in Vienna, so I was very thankful of the opportunity to see it this time around.

Morag enjoyed visiting her friend Pia in Vienna, as well as going on the "Sound of Music" tour in Salzburg and going to the Marionette Theatre . We did get to do some hiking up to a waterfall near Golling. Pia introduced us to Sturm, a fermented grape drink somewhere between grape juice and wine which is definitely worth a try. Castle Hohenwerfen is also worth a visit, with stunning views and a falconry exhibit. All in all it was a good holiday and a much needed break from working loads of overtime and weekends!

If you would like to see pictures from our holiday, they are currently available here.

--
Posted by Ryan to Ryan and Morag at 9/22/2006 02:10:00 AM

Ibog

2006-06-16T06:30:00.000Z

Reason #543 that the Ipod is entirely too popular:

Might I sugest that 70's classic "Takin' Care of Business" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive?

6/6/6

2006-06-06T06:47:00.000Z

Today is 6/6/6 and there is apparently a party in Hell, Michigan. I don't know if it's a hot day there, but it certainly is uncomfortably warm here in Edinburgh. Speaking of Hell, there is one in Norway as well. Here's a humourus sign brought to my attention several years ago by Nils Sandberg:

'Gods Expedition' is the old Norse spelling for cargo handling office. The town has reportedly been deserted since the Harrowing.

What's wrong in our country right now

2006-03-20T07:22:00.000Z

The Salt Lake Tribune reported this from a notably small anti-war rally held in Salt Lake City:

"Jacob Floyd, a 22-year-old Brigham Young University student, said he was thinking of the future when he decided to attend.
"I came today because I want to tell my kids I did everything I could to stand up for what's wrong in our country right now," he said.
Floyd announced his politics on his chest, thanks to a homemade white T-shirt with the headline "They lied" over the faces of administration officials, including Bush and Cheney, and the words "They died" over a list of names of dead U.S. soldiers."

I couldn't agree more, Mr. Floyd. I couldn't agree more.

Ready for California

2006-03-10T19:46:00.000Z

It's two weeks until Morag and I come to California - not a minute too soon:

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Posted by Ryan to Ryan and Morag at 3/10/2006 11:43:00 AM

Morag's Birthday

2006-02-16T22:18:00.000Z

Well, the Princess of Pilgrims Hill will be 26 years young tomorrow. Happy Birthday, Princess Morag!

--
Posted by Ryan to Ryan and Morag at 2/16/2006 02:16:00 PM

Jesusland Revisited

2006-02-09T22:08:00.000Z

I thought I would update the Jesusland map following the Canadian election several weeks ago:

Nota Bene

2006-02-01T09:07:00.000Z

Great quote from George Will's latest column:

"Regarding cynicism, Jimmy Carter, an even worse ex-president than he was a president, responded to the Hamas victory by quickly suggesting a way to evade the U.S. law against providing funds to terrorists. He suggested that the executive branch of the U.S. government could launder money destined for Hamas, passing it through the United Nations. This suggestion has a certain piquancy, coming as it does from someone who was elected president as a national penance for President Nixon's lawlessness, and coming as it does after the oil-for-food program in Iraq, which demonstrated the United Nations' financial aptitude."

also:

Kyoto’s Seppuku: It looks like the world most ridiculous treaty has been emasculated by those nations supporting it. It looks like the only thing this treaty will ever accomplish is releasing tons more CO2 into the atmosphere as diplomats jaunt across the globe to meetings, at which they agree to more pre-arranged meetings and all on your tax dollar.

An article about the Asia-Pacific rivals at the Asian Wall Street Journal with a great quote by Indian Environment Minister Andimuthu Raja: “economic growth and the elimination of poverty must take precedence over mitigating the effects of climate change.” The choice between starving at current temperatures or eating when it’s a bit warmer outside is not a difficult one for many of the world’s poor.

Speaking of CO2, it appears that interest is growing in nuclear energy internationally. Looks like the environmentalist movement might loose the battle to prevent us from using the only practicle solution yet available to the carbon emmissions crisis which they have fabricated. We applaud this development.

The Independent reports that Russia is working on plans to mine the moon for helium 3, an isotope which might be used to power thermo-nuclear power stations for the next thousand years. Rare on earth, there is believed to be between one and five hundred million tons on the moon. American scientist have also expressed interest, stating that “one shuttle-load of the isotope would be sufficient to meet US electrical energy needs for a year.” Now we just have to master fusion…

And on the lighter side, the Onion reports Nation's Snowmen March Against Global Warming.

Support the Spear-Danes

2006-01-31T10:47:00.000Z

‘Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.’

‘So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns.’

It seems the Spear-Danes have made their way back into the news. The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten has recently published a number of depictions of the prophet Mahomet following a Danish author’s failed attempts to find an artist willing to illustrate his children’s book on the Islamic prophet. Although one cartoon depicted him with a bomb as a turban, the subject of the collection was clearly free speech. The illustrations were later republished in Norway. It seems this illustration has caused quite an uproar in the middle east, where images of the prophet are banned. Danish flags were burned in Palestine (stockpiles of American and Israeli flags were running low) and the Kuwaiti and Saudi governments have issue protests, while retailers pulled Danish products from their shelves. In fact, retailers are even advertising this fact.
Arab governments are now calling on the UN to pass a resolution banning attacks on religious beliefs. A deputy secretary-general of the Arab League explained:

"Consultations are currently taking place at the highest level between Arab countries and the OIC to ask the UN to adopt a binding resolution banning contempt of religious beliefs and providing for sanctions to be imposed on contravening countries or institutions.”

Wait, I though it was the Islamic countries that don’t allow rival religions to evangelize in their countries, that blow up ancient monuments built by other faiths, and whose media regularly publishes anti-Jewish cartoons and literature (Arabs are a Semitic people and it’s a bit of a misnomer to call Islamic Jew-hatred anti-Semitism.) It seems the first area of enforcement of such a law would be the Arab nations now pushing for it. Just imagine the effects of such world-wide censorship: Richard Dawkins could be imprisoned and the United Kingdom place under sanctions for his documentary savaging all religious beliefs as the root of all evil, American Jewish organizations banned for their criticism of the Passion while Mel Gibson is imprisoned for anti-Semitism, the US removed from the Security Council for playing reruns of South Park.
For a brief history of depictions of Mahomet put together by another blogger, including some made recently and sold openly in Iran to a Norwegian scientist, as well as the ones published in Denmark, look here. And remember to drink a Carlsberg, eat some Havarti cheese, and buy the kids some Legos. Here’s to Denmark’s ‘courage and greatness’ – may it survive their honour killings.

Swing votes and Ideologues

2006-01-27T16:50:00.000Z

Sen. John Kerry, who lost his 2004 bid for the US presidency despite his service in Vietnam, has recently echoed the thoughts of many Democrats (synonyms: progressives, socialists, the mainstream media, etc.) in stating “We can't afford to see the court's swing vote, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, replaced with a far-right ideologue like Samuel Alito.” Their argument is that you cannot replace a ‘swing’ vote with a partisan one, and that we must somehow retain the current ideological or philosophical balance of the court. I suspect that had Sen. Kerry - highly acclaimed for his steadfast consistency - been elected to the presidency, he would have replaced the strict-constructionist Chief Justice Rehnquist with a similarly-minded Sam Alito or John Roberts, and would currently be pursuing a ‘swing’ vote for the O’Connor vacancy.

Such concern for the ideological balance of the court was displayed by the last Democrat president, Bill Clinton. During his administration, Clinton made two additions to the court. He replaced Harry Blackmun, a Nixon appointee. Blackmun authored the majority opinion on Roe v. Wade in 1973, beginning a drift to the left as he gradually betrayed expectations that he would interpret the Constitution conservatively. Clinton’s pick for this conservative-turned-liberal seat was Stephen Breyer, one of the liberal justices on the court today. Breyer was confirmed by a vote of 87 to 9. Clinton’s other appointment was for the Byron White seat. White and Rehnquist were the only dissenters from the original Roe decision and Tim LaHaye, author of the popular rapture fiction series, called White the only true conservative justice to serve during his lifetime. Clinton thus had no qualms about replacing one of the most conservative justices with a liberal – and probably in the superlative – justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. When the Senate performed its ‘Advice and Consent’ function for Justice Ginsburg, she avoided most questions on her personal views. She was confirmed by a 96 to 3 vote to a formerly conservative seat.

When we compare this with the recent Republican nominees, we find a trend developing following the borking of Robert Bork in 1987. Scalia had been nominated the year before by a vote of 98-0. The Bork debacle appears to have changed the dynamics of court appointments. Moderate nominees such as "stealth justice" David Souter or Reagan’s compromise candidate for the Bork position, Anthony Kennedy, have passed the Senate by a vote of 90 to 97, respectively. The liberal nominees mentioned above passed by 87 to 96 votes. The problem is with the conservative nominees, which is to say with the liberal senators. Clarence Thomas was subjected to the same media prostate examination as Bob Bork, narrowly beating back his accusers – groups whose mission statement is the advancement of people his ancestry - to pass 52-48. G.W. Bush’s first nominee, John Roberts, passed with a high 78-22 due to the opening of a second seat. This switched the controversy from the Rehnquist seat, which Roberts now holds, on the O’Connor seat to which Samuel Alito is expected to be confirmed by no more than 60 votes.

Why is it that Democrat senators have opposed strict-constructionist nominees by Republican presidents while Republican senators have consented to loose-constructionist nominees by Democrat presidents? Is it because the Republicans have more respect for the constitutional process of judicial appointments? The president does have the power to appoint judges. Presidential candidates normally make explicit what judicial philosophy they would look for in their nominees. The Senate’s ‘Advice and Consent’ should be little more than approving or disapproving a Supreme Court nominee’s character, not blocking one’s opponents in the arena of ideas. Or perhaps the Republican senators are just wimps compared to the Democrats. Let’s hope that it is the former: at least the evidence reveals which tent houses the real radical ideologues.

Quotations - Love, Marriage, and Family

2006-01-02T11:38:00.000Z

"Love means loving the unlovable - or it is no virtue at all." - G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1905

"The whole pleasure of marriage is that it is a perpetual crisis." – G. K. Chesterton, "David Copperfield," Chesterton on Dickens, 1911

"A good man's work is effected by doing what he does, a woman's by being what she is." - G. K. Chesterton, Robert Browning

"Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline." - G. K. Chesterton, Manalive

"The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous." - G. K. Chesterton, ILN 1/9/09

"I have little doubt that when St. George had killed the dragon he was heartily afraid of the princess." - G. K. Chesterton, The Victorian Age in Literature

"I might inform those humanitarians who have a nightmare of new and needless babies (for some humanitarians have that sort of horror of humanity) that if the recent decline in the birth-rate were continued for a certain time, it might end in there being no babies at all; which would console them very much." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 5-24-30

"The whole structural system of the suburban civilization is based on the case for having bathrooms and the case against having babies." - G.K. Chesterton, G.K.'s Weekly 7-6-29

"Let all the babies be born. Then let us drown those we do not like." - G.K. Chesterton, Babies and Distributism, GK's Weekly, 11/12/32

"Our materialistic masters could, and probably will, put Birth Control into an immediate practical programme while we are all discussing the dreadful danger of somebody else putting it into a distant Utopia." - G.K. Chesterton, GK's Weekly, 1/17/31

"What is called matriarchy is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible." - G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, CW II, p.186

Quotations - Economics

2006-01-02T11:36:00.000Z

"[No society can survive the socialist] fallacy that there is an absolutely unlimited number of inspired officials and an absolutely unlimited amount of money to pay them." - G.K. Chesterton, The Debate with Bertrand Russell, BBC Magazine, 11/27/35

"A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine, except that the fine is generally much lighter." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 5/25/31

"Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists." - G.K. Chesterton, The Uses of Diversity, 1921

"Price is a crazy and incalculable thing, while Value is an intrinsic and indestructible thing." - G.K. Chesterton, Reflections on a Rotten Apple, The Well and the Shallows, 1935

"Business, especially big business, is now organized like an army. It is, as some would say, a sort of mild militarism without bloodshed; as I say, a militarism without the military virtues." - G.K. Chesterton, The Thing

"Our society is so abnormal that the normal man never dreams of having the normal occupation of looking after his own property. When he chooses a trade, he chooses one of the ten thousand trades that involve looking after other people's property." - G.K. Chesterton, Commonwealth10-12-32

"The real argument against aristocracy is that it always means the rule of the ignorant. For the most dangerous of all forms of ignorance is ignorance of work." - G.K. Chesterton, NY Sun 11-3-18

"I would give a woman not more rights, but more privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in which she can be free." - G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong World

Quotations - Art and Literature

2006-01-02T11:35:00.000Z

"Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 5/5/28

"By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece." - G.K. Chesterton, "On Detective Novels," Generally Speaking

"And all over the world, the old literature, the popular literature, is the same. It consists of very dignified sorrow and very undignified fun. Its sad tales are of broken hearts; its happy tales are of broken heads." - G.K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens

"The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say." - G.K. Chesterton, Daily News.4-22-05

"The sort of man who admires Italian art while despising Italian religion is a tourist and a cad." - G.K. Chesterton, "Roman Converts" Dublin Review, Jan-Mar. 1925

Quotations - Morality and Truth

2006-01-02T11:31:00.000Z

"The vast mass of humanity, with their vast mass of idle books and idle words, have never doubted and never will doubt that courage is splendid, that fidelity is noble, that distressed ladies should be rescued, and vanquished enemies spared. There are a large number of cultivated persons who doubt these maxims of daily life, just there are a large number of persons who believe they are the Prince of Wales; and I am told that both classes of people are entertaining conversationalists." - G. K. Chesterton, A Defense of Penny Dreadfuls

"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 10/23/09

"It's not that we don't have enough scoundrels to curse; it's that we don't have enough good men to curse them." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 3/14/08

"The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 6/11/10

"Truth is sacred; and if you tell the truth too often nobody will believe it." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 2/24/06

"Civilization has run on ahead of the soul of man, and is producing faster than he can think and give thanks." - G.K. Chesterton, Daily News, 2/21/02

"It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong." - G.K. Chesterton, The Catholic Church and Conversion

"There'd be a lot less scandal if people didn't idealize sin and pose as sinners." - G.K. Chesterton, The Father Brown Omnibus

"All men thirst to confess their crimes more than tired beasts thirst for water; but they naturally object to confessing them while other people, who have also committed the same crimes, sit by and laugh at them." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 3/14/08

"Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 9/11/09

"I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 8/4/06

"To the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sun is really a sun; to the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sea is really a sea." - G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, CW I, p128

"Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 9-30-33

"The voice of the special rebels and prophets, recommending discontent, should, as I have said, sound now and then suddenly, like a trumpet. But the voices of the saints and sages, recommending contentment, should sound unceasingly, like the sea." - G.K. Chesterton, T.P.'s Weekly, Christmas Number, 1910

"All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive." - G.K. Chesterton, The Thing. CW. III 191

"Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities." - G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World

"If we want to give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them luxuries. If we will not make them rich enough to be clean, then empathically we must do what we did with the saints. We must reverence them for being dirty." - G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World

"What we call emancipation is always and of necessity simply the free choice of the soul between one set of limitations and another." -G.K. Chesterton, Daily News 12-21-05

"There are some desires that are not desirable." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy "In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn." - G.K. Chesterton, The Speaker 2-2-01

"Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Church of the Servile State" Utopia of Usurers

"The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice." - G.K. Chesterton, A Defense of Humilities, The Defendant, 1901

"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance." - G.K. Chesterton, The Speaker, 12/15/00

"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 4/19/30

"I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 6-3-22

"When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 11-7-08

"The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 10-28-22

"Man is always something worse or something better than an animal; and a mere argument from animal perfection never touches him at all. Thus, in sex no animal is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal invented anything so bad as drunkeness - or so good as drink." - G.K. Chesterton, "Wine when it is red" All Things Considered

"A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish." - G.K. Chesterton, Maycock, The Man Who Was Orthodox

"There are two kinds of paradoxes. They are not so much the good and the bad, nor even the true and the false. Rather they are the fruitful and the barren; the paradoxes which produce life and the paradoxes that merely announce death. Nearly all modern paradoxes merely announce death." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 3-11-11

"There are two kinds of charlatan: the man who is called a charlatan, and the man who really is one. The first is the quack who cures you; the second is the highly qualified person who doesn't." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 2-15-08

"Modern man is staggering and losing his balance because he is being pelted with little pieces of alleged fact which are native to the newspapers; and, if they turn out not to be facts, that is still more native to newspapers." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 4/7/23

"Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition." - G.K. Chesterton, Lunacy and Letters

Quotations - Religion and Faith

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"One of the chief uses of religion is that it makes us remember our coming from darkness, the simple fact that we are created." – G.K. Chesterton, The Boston Sunday Post, 1/16/21

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 7/16/10

"If there were no God, there would be no atheists." - Where All Roads Lead, 1922

"There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 1/13/06

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." - G.K. Chesterton, Chapter 5, What's Wrong With The World, 1910

"When people ask me, or indeed anybody else, "Why did you join the Church of Rome?" the first essential answer, if it is partly an elliptical answer, is, "To get rid of my sins." For there is no other religious system that does really profess to get rid of people's sins. It is confirmed by the logic, which to many seems startling, by which the Church deduces that sin confessed and adequately repented is actually abolished; and that the sinner does really begin again as if he had never sinned." G.K. Chesterton, Autobiography

"The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man." - G.K. Chesterton, Introduction to the Book of Job, 1907

"It has been often said, very truely, that religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary." - G.K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens

"Theology is only thought applied to religion." - G.K. Chesterton, The New Jerusalem

"The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 1-3-20

"These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 8-11-28

"Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, it was a highly creditable mistake." - G.K. Chesterton, Blake

"Any one thinking of the Holy Child as born in December would mean by it exactly what we mean by it; that Christ is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate." - G.K. Chesterton, The New Jerusalem, Ch. 5

"The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why." - G.K. Chesterton, "On Christmas," Generally Speaking

"Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point and does not break." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

"There are two ways of renouncing the devil," said Father Brown; "and the difference is perhaps the deepest chasm in modern religion. One is to have a horror of him because he is so far off; and the other to have it because he is so near. And no virtue and vice are so much divided as those two virtues." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Secret of Flambeau"

"There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there." - G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

"There are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don't know it." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Mercy of Mr. Arnold Bennett" Fancies vs. Fads

“I am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.” - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Quotations - Islam

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"A good Moslem king was one who was strict in religion, valiant in battle, just in giving judgment among his people, but not one who had the slightest objection in international matters to removing his neighbour's landmark." G.K. Chesterton, ILN Nov. 4, 1911

"I do not know much about Mohammed or Mohammedanism. I do not take the Koran to bed with me every night. But, if I did on some one particular night, there is one sense at least in which I know what I should not find there. I apprehend that I should not find the work abounding in strong encouragements to the worship of idols; that the praises of polytheism would not be loudly sung; that the character of Mohammed would not be subjected to anything resembling hatred and derision; and that the great modern doctrine of the unimportance of religion would not be needlessly emphasised." G.K. Chesterton, ILN Nov. 15, 1913

"A man making the confession of any creed worth ten minutes' intelligent talk, is always a man who gains something and gives up something. So long as he does both he can create; for he is making an outline and a shape. Mohamet created, when he forbade wine but allowed five wives: he created a very big thing, which we have still to deal with." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Victorian Compromise and Its Enemies" The Victorian Age in Literature

"To do Mohammed justice, his main attack was against the idolatries of Asia. Only he thought, just as the Arians did and just as the Unitarians do, that he could attack them better with a greater approximation to plain theism. What distinguishes his heresy from anything like an Arian or Albigensian heresy is that, as it sprang up on the borders of Christendom, it could spread outwards to a barbaric world." - G.K. Chesterton, "A Note on Comparative Religion" Where All Roads Lead

"When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the strangest way that Islam itself was only an aggressive raid against the old and ordered civilization in these parts. I do not say it in mere hostility to the religion of Mahomet; I am fully conscious of many values and virtues in it; but certainly it was Islam that was the invasion and Christendom that was the thing invaded." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Way of the Desert" The New Jerusalem

"The effort of the Crusades was sufficient to stop the advance of Islam, but not sufficient to exhaust it. A few centuries after, the Moslem attacked once more, with modern weapons and in a more indifferent age; and, amid the disputes of diplomatists and the dying debates of the Reformation, he succeeded in sailing up the Danube and nearly becoming a central European Power like Poland or Austria. From this position, after prodigious efforts, he was slowly and painfully dislodged. But Austria, though rescued, was exhausted and reluctant to pursue, and the Turk was left in possession of the countries he had devoured in his advance." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN Oct. 10, 1914

"Islam was something like a Christian heresy. The early heresies had been full of mad reversals and evasions of the Incarnation, rescuing their Jesus from the reality of his body even at the expense of the sincerity of his soul." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Age of the Crusades" A Short History of England

"Now a man preaching what he thinks is a platitude is far more intolerant than a man preaching what he admits is a paradox. It was exactly because it seemed self-evident, to Moslems as to Bolshevists, that their simple creed was suited to everybody, that they wished in that particular sweeping fashion to impose it on everybody. It was because Islam was broad that Moslems were narrow. And because it was not a hard religion it was a heavy rule. Because it was without a self-correcting complexity, it allowed of those simple and masculine but mostly rather dangerous appetites that show themselves in a chieftain or a lord. As it had the simplest sort of religion, monotheism, so it had the simplest sort of government, monarchy. There was exactly the same direct spirit in its despotism as in its deism. The Code, the Common Law, the give and take of charters and chivalric vows, did not grow in that golden desert. The great sun was in the sky and the great Saladin was in his tent, and he must be obeyed unless he were assassinated. Those who complain of our creeds as elaborate often forget that the elaborate Western creeds have produced the elaborate Western constitutions; and that they are elaborate because they are emancipated." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Fall of Chivalry" The New Jerusalem

"There is in Islam a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace. The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy out of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. It affirms, with no little sublimity, something that is not merely the singleness but rather the solitude of God. There is the same extreme simplification in the solitary figure of the Prophet; and yet this isolation perpetually reacts into its own opposite. A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude of lawless prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets. Of these the mightiest in modern times were the man whose name was Ahmed, and whose more famous title was the Mahdi; and his more ferocious successor Abdullahi, who was generally known as the Khalifa. These great fanatics, or great creators of fanaticism, succeeded in making a militarism almost as famous and formidable as that of the Turkish Empire on whose frontiers it hovered, and in spreading a reign of terror such as can seldom be organised except by civilisation…" - G.K. Chesterton, Lord Kitchener

"…but out of the desert, from the dry places and the dreadful suns, come the cruel children of the lonely God; the real Unitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world. For it is not well for God to be alone." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Romance of Orthodoxy" Orthodoxy

Quotations - Atheism

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"Atheism is indeed the most daring of all dogmas . . . for it is the assertion of a universal negative." - G.K. Chesterton, "Charles II" Twelve Types

"It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian." - G.K. Chesterton, "Introductory Remarks" Heretics

"There is no bigot like the atheist." - G.K. Chesterton, Magic

"The atheist is not interested in anything except attacks on atheism." - G.K. Chesterton, "Frozen Free Thought" The Well and the Shallows

"An interesting essay might be written on the possession of an atheistic literary style. There is such a thing. The mark of it is that wherever anything is named or described, such words are chosen as suggest that the thing has not got a soul in it. Thus they will not talk of love or passion, which imply a purpose and a desire. They talk of the "relations" of the sexes, as if they were simply related to each other in a certain way, like a chair and a table. Thus they will not talk of the waging of war (which implies a will), but of the outbreak of war - as if it were a sort of boil. Thus they will not talk of masters paying more or less wages, which faintly suggests some moral responsibility in the masters: they will talk of the rise and fall of wages, as if the thing were automatic, like the tides of the sea. Thus they will not call progress an attempt to improve, but a tendency to improve. And thus, above all, they will not call the sympathy between oppressed nations sympathy; they will call it solidarity. For that suggests brick and coke, and clay and mud, and all the things they are fond of." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 12-7-12

"Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle." - G.K. Chesterton, "Wells and the World State" What I Saw in America

"There are arguments for atheism, and they do not depend, and never did depend, upon science. They are arguable enough, as far as they go, upon a general survey of life; only it happens to be a superficial survey of life." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 1-3-31

"I do not feel any contempt for an atheist, who is often a man limited and constrained by his own logic to a very sad simplification." - G.K. Chesterton, "Babies and Distributism" The Well and the Shallows

"Even in an empire of atheists the dead man is always sacred." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Meaning of Dreams" Lunacy and Letters

"Somehow one can never manage to be an atheist." - G.K. Chesterton, The Ball and the Cross

"If there were no God, there would be no atheists." - G.K. Chesterton, Where All Roads Lead

Quotations - Politics and Government

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“My friends, I must tell you that a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Although it is now put forward in the main by people who have a good grounding in the liberalism and radicalism of the early part of this century, there can be no doubt that socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State. It is not alone that property, in all its forms, is struck at, but that liberty, in all its forms, is challenged by the fundamental concept of Socialism.” – Sir Winston Churchill

"The only object of liberty is life." - G.K. Chesterton, Irish Impressions. 219

"Liberty is the very last idea that seems to occur to anybody, in considering any political or social proposal. It is only necessary for anybody for any reason to allege any evidence of any evil in any human practice, for people instantly to suggest that the practice should be suppressed by the police." - G.K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, June 5, 1920

"Without authority three is no liberty. Freedom is doomed to destruction at every turn, unless there is a recognized right to freedom. And if there are rights, there is an authority to which we appeal for them." - G.K. Chesterton, G.K.'s Weekly, April 28, 1928

"The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust." - G.K. Chesterton, G.K.'s Weekly, August 18, 1928

"Comradeship is quite a different thing from friendship. . .For friendship implies individuality; whereas comradeship really implies the temporary subordination, if not the temporary swamping of individuality. Friends are the better for being two; but comrades are the better for being two million." - G.K. Chesterton, "A Case of Comrades" The Apostle and the Wild Ducks

"The professional soldier gains more and more power as the general courage of a community declines." - G.K. Chesterton, Heretics 1905

"I would rather a boy learnt in the roughest school the courage to hit a politician, or gained in the hardest school the learning to refute him - rather than that he should gain in the most enlightened school the cunning to copy him." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 8-31-12

"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." - G.K. Chesterton, Christendom in Dublin

"America is the only country ever founded on a creed." - G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw In America, 1922

"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man." - G.K. Chesterton, Chapter 19, What I Saw In America, 1922

"The unconscious democracy of America is a very fine thing. It is a true and deep and instinctive assumption of the equality of citizens, which even voting and elections have not destroyed." - G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw In America, 1922

"When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws." - G.K. Chesterton, Daily News, 7/29/05

"He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative." - G.K. Chesterton, Varied Types

"You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution. - G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles, 1909

"When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 4/6/18

"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged." - G.K. Chesterton, The Cleveland Press, 3/1/21

"There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there never has been a nation of Utopian comrades; but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants."- G.K. Chesterton, Outline of Sanity

"All government is an ugly necessity." G.K. Chesterton, A Short History of England.

"It is a good sign in a nation when things are done badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is bad sign in a nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely looking on." - G.K. Chesterton, "Patriotism and Sport," All Things Considered

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 4/19/24

"Self-denial is the test and definition of self-government." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Field of Blood" Alarms and Discursions

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." - G.K. Chesterton, A Short History of England

"There are only two ways of governing: by a rule and by a ruler." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Queen and the Suffragettes" What's Wrong with the World

"There are two kinds of revolutionists, as of most things - a good kind and a bad. The bad revolutionists destroy conventions by appealing to fads - fashions that are newer than conventions. The good do it by appealing to facts that are older than conventions." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 4-30-10

"Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it." - G.K. Chesterton, Autobiography, 1937

"Anyone who is not an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman half-way down the chimney or even under the bed." - G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw In America, 1922

"The position we have now reached is this: starting from the State, we try to remedy the failures of all the families, all the nurseries, all the schools, all the workshops, all the secondary institutions that once had some authority of their own. Everything is ultimately brought into the Law Courts. We are trying to stop the leak at the other end." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 3/24/23

"Though the academic authorities are actually proud of conducting everything by means of Examinations, they seldom indulge in what religious people used to describe as Self-Examination. The consequence is that the modern State has educated its citizens in a series of ephemeral fads." - G.K. Chesterton, Nash's Pall Mall Magazine. April, 1935

"The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 9/7/29

"For my part, I would have no executions except by the mob; or, at least, by the people acting quite exceptionally. I would make capital punishment impossible except by act of attainder. Then there would be some chance of a few of our real oppressors getting hanged. - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 2/13/09

"Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions… . Despotism may govern without faith but liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic … than in the monarchy … ; it is more needed in democratic republics than in any others. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened as the political tie is relaxed? " - Alexis de Tocqueville

Quotations - Modernity

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"We are learning to do a great many clever things...The next great task will be to learn not to do them.- G.K. Chesterton, "Queen Victoria" Varied Types "A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." - G.K. Chesterton, Everlasting Man, 1925

"Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative." - G.K. Chesterton, Chapter 2, Heretics, 1905

"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908

"My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday." - G.K. Chesterton, New York Times Magazine, 2/11/23

"Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back." - G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World, 1910

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908

"The modern world is a crowd of very rapid racing cars all brought to a standstill and stuck in a block of traffic." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 5/29/26

"Comforts that were rare among our forefathers are now multiplied in factories and handed out wholesale; and indeed, nobody nowadays, so long as he is content to go without air, space, quiet, decency and good manners, need be without anything whatever that he wants; or at least a reasonably cheap imitation of it." - G.K. Chesterton, Commonwealth, 1933

"A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive." - G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

"None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them." - G.K. Chesterton, Daily News 7-21-06

"The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is, the idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity of the mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is dead that he swings." - G.K. Chesterton, "The New House" Alarms and Discursions

"This is the age in which thin and theoretic minorities can cover and conquer unconscious and untheoretic majorities." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 12/20/19

"The past is not what it was." - G.K. Chesterton, A Short History of England

"There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past." - G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World

"There are two ways of dealing with nonsense in this world. One way is to put nonsense in the right place; as when people put nonsense into nursery rhymes. The other is to put nonsense in the wrong place; as when they put it into educational addresses, psychological criticisms, and complaints against nursery rhymes." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 10-15-21

"A modern vegetarian is also a teetotaler, yet there is no obvious connection between consuming vegetables and not consuming fermented vegetables. A drunkard, when lifted laboriously out of the gutter, might well be heard huskily to plead that he had fallen there through excessive devotion to a vegetable diet." - G.K. Chesterton, William Blake

“There are two kinds of peacemakers in the modern world; and they are both, though in various ways, a nuisance. The first peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that he agrees with everybody. He confuses everybody. The second peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that everybody agrees with him. He enrages everybody. Between the two of them they produce a hundred times more disputes and distractions than we poor pugnacious people would ever have thought of in our lives." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 3-3-06

"Properly speaking, of course, there is no such thing as a return to nature, because there is no such thing as a departure from it. The phrase reminds one of the slightly intoxicated gentleman who gets up in his own dining room and declares firmly that he must be getting home." - G.K. Chesterton, Chesterton Review, August, 1993

"The modern city is ugly not because it is a city but because it is not enough of a city, because it is a jungle, because it is confused and anarchic, and surging with selfish and materialistic energies." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Way to the Stars" Lunacy and Letters

"Over-civilization and barbarism are within an inch of each other. And a mark of both is the power of medicine-men." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 9-11-09

"A great curse has fallen upon modern life with the discovery of the vastness of the word Education." - G.K. Chesterton, "A Grammar of Shelley" A Handful of Authors

"A strange fanaticism fills our time: the fanatical hatred of morality, especially of Christian morality." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Moral Philosophy of Meredith" A Handful of Authors

"It is not merely true that a creed unites men. Nay, a difference of creed unites men - so long as it is a clear difference. A boundary unites. Many a magnanimous Moslem and chivalrous Crusader must have been nearer to each other, because they were both dogmatists, than any two agnostics. "I say God is One," and "I say God is One but also Three," that is the beginning of a good quarrelsome, manly friendship." - G.K. Chesterton, "The New Hypocrite" What's Wrong with the World

"A queer and almost mad notion seems to have got into the modern head that, if you mix up everybody and everything more or less anyhow, the mixture may be called unity, and the unity may be called peace. It is supposed that, if you break down all doors and walls so that there is no domesticity, there will then be nothing but friendship. Surely somebody must have noticed by this time that the men living in a hotel quarrel at least as often as the men living in a street." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN September 8, 1917

"These are the things which might conceivably and truly make men forgive their enemies. We can only turn hate to love by understanding what are the things that men have loved; nor is it necessary to ask men to hate their loves in order to love one another. Just as two grocers are most likely to be reconciled when they remember for a moment that they are two fathers, so two nationals are most likely to be reconciled when they remember (if only for a moment) that they are two patriots." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN June 4, 1921

"Moderns have not the moral courage, as a rule, to avow the sincere spiritual bias behind their fads; they become insincere even about their sincerity. Most modern liberality consists of finding irreligious excuses for religious bigotry. The earlier type of bigot pretended to be more religious than he really was. The later type pretends to be less religious than he really is. He does not wear a mask of piety, but rather a mask of impiety - or, at any rate, of indifference." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 12-27-19

"A fad or heresy is the exaltation of something which even if true, is secondary or temporary in its nature against those things which are essential and eternal, those things which always prove themselves true in the long run. In short, it is the setting up of the mood against the mind." - G.K. Chesterton, William Blake

Quotations - Other

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"Psychoanalysis is a science conducted by lunatics for lunatics. They are generally concerned with proving that people are irresponsible; and they certainly succeed in proving that some people are." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 6/23/28

“ I know that I shall never see
A poem lovely as Skippy’s peanut butter." - William F. Buckley

Quotations - Scepticism

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"The questions of the sceptic strike direct at the heart of this our human life; they disturb this world, quite apart from the other world; and it is exactly common sense that they disturb most. There couldnot be a better example than this queer appearance, in my youth, of the determinist as a demagogue; shouting to a mob of millions that no man ought to be blamed for anything he did, because it was all heredity and environment. Logically, it would stop a man in the act of saying "Thank you" to somebody for passing the mustard. For how could he be praised for passing the mustard, if he could not be blamed for not passing the mustard?" - G.K. Chesterton, Autobiography

"It is assumed that the sceptic has no bias; whereas he has a very obvious bias in favour of scepticism." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 5-4-07

"Pride consists in a man making his personality the only test, instead of making truth the test. The sceptic feels himself too large to measure life by the largest things; and ends by measuring it by the smallest thing of all." - G.K. Chesterton, The Common Man

"It is the decisive people who have become civilised; it is the indecisive, otherwise called the higher sceptics, or the idealistic doubters, who have remained barbarians." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 11-30-12

"Latter-day scepticism is fond of calling itself progressive; but scepticism is really reactionary. Scepticism goes back; it attempts to unsettle what has already been settled. Instead of trying to break up new fields with its plough, it simply tries to break up the plough." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 2-6-09

"No sceptical philosopher can ask any questions that may not equally be asked by a tired child on a hot afternoon." - G.K. Chesterton, George Bernard Shaw

"The sceptics, like bees, give their one sting and die." - G.K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions

"It is quite an old-fashioned fallacy to suppose that our objection to scepticism is that it removes the discipline from life. Our objection to scepticism is that it removes the motive power. Materialism is not a thing which destroys mere restraint. Materialism itself is the great restraint." - G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

"It is ludicrous to suppose that the more sceptical we are the more we see good in everything. It is clear that the more we are certain what good is, the more we shall see good in everything." - G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

"Liberty has produced scepticism, and scepticism has destroyed liberty. The lovers of liberty thought they were leaving it unlimited, when they were only leaving it undefined. They thought they were only leaving it undefined, when they were really leaving it undefended." - G.K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils

"The sceptic ultimately undermines democracy (1) because he can see no significance in death and such things of a literal equality; (2) because he introduces different first principles, making debate impossible: and debate is the life of democracy; (3) because the fading of the images of sacred persons leaves a man too prone to be a respecter of earthly persons; (4) because there will be more, not less, respect for human rights if they can be treated as divine rights." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 1-13-12

"The average businessman began to be agnostic, not so much because he did not know where he was, as because he wanted to forget. Many of the rich took to scepticism exactly as the poor took to drink; because it was a way out." - G.K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils

Quotations - War and Conflict

2006-01-02T11:04:00.000Z

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

"War is not 'the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 7/24/15

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 1/14/11

"No country has ever profited from protracted warfare. Those who do not thoroughly comprehend the dangers inherent in employing the army are incapable of truly knowing the potential advantages of military actions.” - Sun Tzu, Art of War.

“…attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy’s army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence.” - Sun Tzu, Art of War.

Wedding Website

2006-01-01T17:09:00.000Z

If you are interested in keeping any of the videos from our wedding website, you may wish to do so now. They will only be hosted online for a few more days. After that, the site should convert to a free site and while the pictures will remain online, all video will be available only upon request.

Hogmanay

2006-01-01T14:09:00.000Z

Happy New Years! Morag and I couldn't come up with anything we wanted to do this year, so we spent the evening speaking with people in the States and working on this puzzle that Andrew and Sarah gave us as a wedding present. Hope your evening was more exciting than ours. Here we come, 2006!

Garden of Prayer by Thomas Kinkade

Christmas 2005

2005-12-29T11:08:00.000Z

Merry Christmas!
Best wishes to all from Morag this Christmas. We spent Christmas this year in Stewarton before traveling down to Dalbeattie to visit the rest of her family. Hope yours was a merry one as well.

“One writer against Christmas went so far as to say that the shopkeepers for their own commercial purposes alone sustain Christmas Day. I am not sure whether he said that the shopkeepers invented Christmas Day. Perhaps he thought that the shopkeepers invented Christianity. It is a quaint picture, the secret conclave between the cheese-monger, the poulterer, and the toy-shop keeper, in order to draw up a theology that shall convert all Europe and sell some of their goods. Opponents of Christianity would believe anything except Christianity. That the shopkeepers make Christmas is about as conceivable as that the confectioners make children. It is about as sane as that milliners manufacture women.” — G. K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, January 13, 1906.

Also, see this good article on the dark side of Christmas.

Ryan and Morag's DVD List

2005-12-15T17:01:00.000Z

Want to borrow a DVD? Looking to give us a DVD but don't know if we already own it? Here's the list of our DVDs. I will do my best to keep this list updated.

13th Warrior
24: Season 5
50 First Dates
A Knight's Tale
About a Boy
Alex & Emma
Alexander
Baby Boom
Back to the Future
Back to the Future II
Back to the Future III
Ben Hur
Big
Braveheart
Calamity Jane
Chicago
Chicken Run
Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
City Slickers
Conan the Barbarian
Dances with Wolves
Dirty Dancing
Dragonheart
Dragonheart: A New Beginning
Dragonslayer
Elizabethtown
Ever After
Excalibur
Failure to Launch
Flashdance
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Garfield
Gladiator
Grease
Hitch
How to Loose a Guy in 10 Days
Ivanhoe
Joan of Arc
Kate and Leopold
Kingdom of Heaven
King Arthur the Young Warlord
King Kong
Knights of the Round Table
Lawrence of Arabia
Lonesome Dove
Love Actually
Maid in Manhattan
Master and Commander: The far side of the World
Maverick
Millions
Mona Lisa Smile
Monarch of the Glen: Season I
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Moulin Rouge
Must Love Dogs
My Fair Lady
Nanny McPhee
Notting Hill
Open Range
Pirates of the Caribbean
Rent
Restoration
Rob Roy
Robin and Marian
Robin Hood (Costner)
Robin Hood (Disney)
Robin Hood (Flynn)
Romeo and Juliet
Runaway Bride
Sahara
Santa Fe Trail
Secondhand Lions
Sense and Sensibility
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Shakespear in Love
Shall we Dance?
Something's Gotta Give
Spider-man
Spider-man 2
Sweet Home Alabama
Swiss Family Robinson
Sword of Lancelot
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Greatest Story Ever Told
The Last Samurai
The Legend of Zorro
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Magic Sword
The Mask of Zorro
The Merchant of Venice
The Musketeer
The Name of the Rose
The Notebook
The Passion of the Christ
The Return of Martin Guerre
The Sound of Music
The Ten Commandments
The Three Musketeers
The Vikings
Timeline
Tombstone
Top Gun
Tristan + Isolde
Troy
Two Weeks Notice
Van Helsing
Vanity Fair
Walk the Line
What Dreams May Come
What Women Want
Where the Heart Is
Willow
Wimbledon

Windfalls and Hot Air

2005-11-10T10:40:00.000Z

This really chaps my hide:

Oil Company Execs Defend Profits to Senate

“Oil executives sought to justify their huge profits under tough questioning Wednesday, but they found little sympathy from senators who said their constituents are suffering from high energy prices.
"Your sacrifice appears to be nothing," Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., told the executives, citing multimillion-dollar bonuses the officials are receiving amid soaring prices at gasoline pumps and predictions of more of the same for winter heating bills.
There is a "growing suspicion that oil companies are taking unfair advantage," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. "The oil companies owe the American people an explanation."

The government is investigating ‘big oil’ for making money. Did they want companies to loose money? Or perhaps just break even?

It’s true that oil companies are making lots of money right now. That is because demand is high and supply is relatively low. When supply is higher and demand lower, they don’t make so much money. That’s the free market. The recent hurricanes in the gulf disrupted supply. Because demand remained roughly stable, the price should increase until consumers decide to decrease consumption to meet the level of supply. This is simple economics.

What angers me is not so much the public’s frustration with the oil companies (although if they really wanted to offset or even profit from the high price of oil, they could just purchase stock in ‘big oil’!) as Washington’s deceit in blaming ‘big oil’ for ripping off consumers. The truth of the matter is that it is ‘big government’ that has been gauging consumers for years, much more so that the oil companies. Government’s profits over the sale of gasoline have far exceeded corporate profits for the last thirty years. These are nothing compared with Europe. We currently pay around six dollars per gallon for gasoline in the United Kingdom. Oil company profits are more or less the same as in the States; the vast majority of the price difference goes to – you guessed it – government. And now, while complaining that high gas prices hurt consumers, politicians are simultaneously proposing a ‘windfall tax’ on ‘windfall profits’. Are they really out to protect consumers or to increase their own budgets?

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/1139.html

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Energy Information Administration

There appear to have been illegal cases of price gauging in places such as Atlanta during Katrina which should be prosecuted. Any national investigation of gasoline prices, however, would be incomplete without an investigation of government’s price gauging. That means you, Sen. Boxer.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/business/cst-fin-wind07.html

Helping the good people of France

2005-11-09T15:24:00.000Z

German interior expansion minister Horst Schnellpanzer announced this morning that high government officials had crafted a plan to restore order to their beleaguered western neighbor. France has entered its second week of urban riots, its top leaders scrambling to capitulate as civil unrest spread from a northern Parisian ghetto across the entire cheese-loving nation.

“France is a great nation,” Herr Schnellpanzer declared, “They have good wine, licentious women, and a towering mass of inexpensive, accessible iron. It is a great place to make your holidays.”

The riots began after several North African teenagers, fleeing from the police, launched a suicide attack on French power lines in an apparent attempt to disrupt power and thus precipitate the downfall of western civilization. Neighbors and relatives were outraged by the youths’ deaths, claiming that the wasted martyrdom did not kill any Jews or Crusaders and would therefore not merit more than forty seven virgins in paradise. They decided to take action, hoping that their car-burning and trolley-torching merits could be applied to their dearly departed loved ones through the Communion of the Terrorists. Other immigrants throughout France, confounded by the fact that the French only wanted them and their children to sweep floors and clean dishes, decided to join in the fun. French president Jacques Chirac immediately called upon British and American to come to France’s aid. Bush and Blair declined, citing that Chirac had been a “bloody bastard” during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"Not to worry" declares Schnellpanzer. "Germany will soon control ...ich mein... help France control the problem with Blitzspeed."

Douglas and Rachel’s wedding

2005-11-09T10:53:00.000Z

Morag and I went to Douglas and Rachel’s wedding over the weekend. Rachel is from Shropshire so they held the wedding there at her tiny parish church in Woolstaston. Luckily I was able to get the weekend off work, so I headed down on Friday night and met up with Morag at Church Stretton. The older Tudor buildings in Shropshire are timber framed and resemble magpies in their dark wood and whitewashed exteriors. The roads out in the countryside surrounding Woolstaston were barely wide enough for a single automobile and were bordered by seven-foot hedges on each side! It was actually safer to drive on them at night because you could at least see the headlights from the oncoming car. However this still left the challenge of one car backing up for considerable distance to let the oncoming traffic pass.
The wedding itself was lovely. The church was a recently restored country parish, complete with a set of ropes for ringing the bells at the end of the nave. Douglas’ uncle, who is a Church of Scotland minister, reversed the readings from Paul’s epistle into a warning on how to ruin your marriage. Morag and I agreed that this was much more relevant to us after six months of marriage than it would be to the actual couple. The wedding took place on Saturday, which was Guy Fawkes night, and the four-hundredth anniversary of the failed attempt to blow up the king and parliament at that. I suspect that the reason for that date was so that Douglas could ‘remember, remember, the fifth of November’ and have fireworks every year on their anniversary, but seeing as we managed to get married on St George’s day I should withhold any comments. The music was surprisingly good, with a local band playing Ceilidh/Barndance music followed by a younger band which played songs by the Beatles and even ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ with skill. Having said that, there are few things in this world that are more pathetic than a bunch of English people trying to Ceilidh. Bad things happen when one side of the dance floor dances clockwise as the other side dances counter clockwise. It just doesn’t work, folks! In the end, however, it was a good evening.

SCOTUS WARS: Episode II – The Phantom Nominee

2005-10-15T10:59:00.000Z

(click to enlarge)

Narrator: Not very long ago, in a galaxy called the beltway. SCOTUS WARS: Episode II – The Phantom Nominee. For a dozen generations, the Originalist Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Republic – before the dark times. Before the rise of…the Warren Court. The court twisted the Constitution, seizing private property and stripping the senate of its power to create law. The voters, appalled, embraced Originalism, supporting the young George Sky-Spender. But a dark cloud overshadowed the Republic. Fourteen rouge senators, led by the cocky maverick John McSolo, were led into a back-ally deal by the ambitions Sith lord, Senator Hillary Rodham Unpalatable.

Sen. Unpalatable: [waves hand] McSolo, you will support the filibuster deal.

John McSolo: I will support the filibuster deal…

Teddy the Kennedy: Hey, ahh…McSolo! You still ah…owe me ahhhh…5,000 martinis!

John McSolo: But we passed martini-financing reform.

Teddy the Kennedy: Dammit ahhh… McSolo, you get those martinis to me or else I’ll ahhhh… I’ll have Princess Bader Ginsburg cast into the sea of Chappaquiddick!

Princess Bader Ginsburg: Oh no! Someone save me!

Bubba Fat: Hey Baby. I’ll save you. Come over here. Say, what are you doing next Friday? Ever seen a light saber? I’ve got a little Wookie for you. Come on!

Sen. Unpalatable: [Slap!]

Narrator: Distracted by the search for the menacing Bin Dooku and the unilateral war of the allies in Alderaaq, George Sky-Spender faces the biggest challenge of his galactic presidency, the second appointment to the Supreme Council. Will George Sky-Spender remain true to the Originalist Knights, or will he go over to the country-club dark side?

Darth Bushuru: I am your father.

George Sky-Spender: No. No. That's not true! That's impossible!

Darth Bushuru: Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

George Sky-Spender: You’re not my father! I’ll never raise taxes!

Darth Bushuru: You underestimate the power of the country club. If you will not fight, then you will meet your destiny. You will appoint another Souter!

George Sky-Spender: Your thoughts betray you, father. I feel the good in you...the conflict… you appointed Clarence Thomdu!

Darth Bushuru: Obi-Cheney has taught you well. Give yourself to the country club. It is the only way you can save your…galactic presidency.

Narrator: Watch, as C86’d’04 and RUQT2 aimlessly wander the Senate halls.

C86’d’04: Sir, it's quite possible this party is not entirely stable.

RUQT2: Beep, pop, click.

C86’d’04: Sir, I actually did vote to confirm, before I voted against it! Oh! Sometimes I just don't understand human behaviour.

Narrator: Experience the frustration as Ar Ar Blinks chairs the galactic judiciary committee.

Ar Ar Blinks: Meesa Ar Ar Blinks. Meesa your humble RINO!

Narrator: Be there, as Ron’sgone Jinn advises George Sky-Spender from beyond the grave.

George Sky-Spender: Oh mighty Ron’sgone, what should I do?

Ron’sgone Jinn: Well, appoint an Originalist Knight like Antonin Yodlia or Clarence Thomdu.

George Sky-Spender: But Harriet Mired might turn out to be like them!

Ron’sgone Jinn: Well, ever heard of Earl Warren? A great Originalist Knight until he was, well, seduced by the Sith. Biggest damn fool mistake…

Antonin Yodlia: Your nominee well know you must, young Sky-Spender, or else liberal appoint you may.

Narrator: Will the phantom nominee remain true to the Originalist Knights, or is she a Sith lord in disguise? Will Senator Unpalpable take over and destroy the Republic with her sinister Entitlement Star? Don’t miss the biggest motion picture event since Starr’s War: Episode I – The Female Menace.

JP Morgan

2005-10-11T22:27:00.000Z

Good news! I have been offered a position at JP Morgan Edinburgh as a fund accountant. Looks like I will start work next week.

"O God, my heart is fixed;
I will sing and give praise, even with my glory.
Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.
I will praise thee, O LORD, among the people:
and I will sing praises unto thee among the nations.
For thy mercy is great above the heavens:
and thy truth reacheth unto the clouds.
Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens:
and thy glory above all the earth;
That thy beloved may be delivered:
save with thy right hand, and answer me. "
-Psalm 108

New Cherone EP "Need I Say More" due out October 15th

2005-10-06T19:39:00.000Z

Gary Cherone's new album is scheduled out October 15th. It is named after a song that has been out on the net for about a year or more now, "Need I Say More". This rekindles much of the sound of "More than Words", but is lyrically speaking the anti-more-than-words. The other three songs sound like a return to 70's style pop/funk. Looks like the album will be available for download directly from the website. Previews play on cherone.com's flash site. From 'smash the dashboard' to 'ride the elevator.' Long live Van Harrods!

Why I live in Europe

2005-09-28T08:54:00.000Z

I live in Europe because it is so much more progressive and enlightened than the backwards, reactionary, gun-totting, George-Bush-voting, racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, xenophobic United States. Take, for example, this recent illustration of cultural diversity in Denmark. This young Pakistani man’s (29) family was dishonoured by the actions of his younger sister (19). In order to rescue the good name of his family, the man responded in a culturally appropriate and perfectly valid way by ‘busting a few caps’ into her in the middle of a picturesque cobblestone street. Several of the projectiles were also lodged into the abdomen of her Afghan husband. In non-progressive areas of the United States, this action would be labelled as barbarous and exploited as a justification to possibly rethink recent patterns of immigration. Such a response, however, would be the only real act of barbarism, lacking the cardinal virtues of tolerance and cultural sensitivity. Join me in celebrating diversity: three cheers for non-western cultural practices! Hip, hip…

Interviews

2005-09-16T10:00:00.000Z

I had two job interviews on Thursday. It appears things may be picking up in the financial job market around here. Prayers are welcomed!

Senators on Ice

2005-09-16T09:33:00.000Z

Here's a good contrast between our two favourite Senators and the New York Times of all places:

"The question is how much damage will be done before we start taking concrete action," Mr McCain said at a press conference in Anchorage. "Go up to places like we just came from. It's a little scary." Mrs Clinton added: "I don't think there's any doubt left for anybody who actually looks at the science. There are still some holdouts, but they're fighting a losing battle. The science is overwhelming."
-http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article306881.ece

vs.

"But the increase might also be related to the recent warming, which could be helping bears in some places. After all, the bears have thrived in warmer climates than today's. In the 1930's, the Arctic was as warm as it is now, and in the distant past it was even warmer. The doomsday reports of the melting Arctic have focused on the rise in temperatures compared with the late 1970's, but that was a particularly cold period. So the bears can cope with some global warming, which would increase the diversity of species in the Arctic - and maybe the number of humans, too."

"The Good News Bears", August 6, 2005, The New York Times

Save the Polar Bears: Drive an SUV. Someone probably got fired over at the NYT for letting that one through!

Oh, and for those temped to believe that climate change is fuelling the recent hurricanes, look at the U.S. Hurricane Strikes by Decade chart here.

911@4

2005-09-11T14:28:00.000Z

Do you remember?

Oh, and here's a quiz for extra credit for those of you who liked to get frisked at the airport:

1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by

a. Superman
b. Jay Leno
c. Harry Potter
d. a Palestinian male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40

2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by

a. Olga Corbett
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwarzenegger
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

3. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:

a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

4. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:

a. John Dillinger
b. The King of Sweden
c. The Boy Scouts
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

5. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:

a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old
American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:

a. The Smurfs
b. Davy Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver
trying to rescue passengers was murdered by:

a. Captain Kidd
b. Charles Lindberg
c. Mother Teresa
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

8. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:

a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

9. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:

a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

10. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:

a. Mr. Rogers
b. Hillary Clinton, to distract attention from Wild Bill's women problems
c. The World Wrestling Federation
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

11. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to
take out the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed
into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the
passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:

a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Mr. Bean
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

12. In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against:

a. Enron
b. The Lutheran Church
c. The NFL
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

13. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:

a. Bonnie and Clyde
b. Captain Kangaroo
c. Billy Graham
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

14. In 2004, a school in Beslan full of children and parents was taken hostage and several hundred were killed by:

a. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
b. Scunthorpe Ladies First Eleven.
c. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
d. Muslim extremists aged between 17 and 40.

15. In 2005, four bombs were detonated on London's public transportation by:

a. Prince Charles
b. St Thomas Moore
c. Michael Moore
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

16. The department of homeland insecurity released tapes this week with threats against Australia and Los Angeles made by:

a. Yoko Ono
b. Halliburton
c. Enron
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

17. The innocent people in Iraq are currently being killed by:

a. The Spartans
b. Hannibal
c. Aethelred the Unready
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

Wee Sir Thomas

2005-09-09T09:30:00.000Z

Chris and Katie’s son, Thomas Paul Hennigan, arrived on September 6^th, 2005. Congratulations! (Does anyone else think he looks like a Franciscan friar?)

Do you know your American lyrics?

2005-09-06T09:36:00.000Z

The Star-Spangled Banner

Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Battle Hymn of the Republic

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free;
While God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave;
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of wrong His slave,
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

My Country ‘Tis of Thee

My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From every mountainside,
Let freedom ring!

My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills,
Like that above.

Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees,
Sweet freedom’s song;
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.

Our fathers’ God, to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing;
Long may our land be bright
With freedom’s holy light;
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King.

Liturgical Changes

2005-09-05T09:29:00.000Z

Word on the street is that newly elected Pope Benedict XVI, better known amongst the Italians as ‘Papa Razi’, has introduced a few liturgical changes deemed appropriate for the duration of his Teutonic pontificate. Does anyone know if pretzels are leavened or unleavened?

Wrath of the Wettergötter

2005-08-29T20:46:00.000Z

Rev. Jerry Falwell once prophesized that Disneyworld’s tasteless promotion of a certain ‘lifestyle choice’ would elicit a hurricane sent forth from on High in retribution for the sin of Sodom. If such is the case, Rev. Falwell, does the coming assault by the Wettergötter on Louisiana and Mississippi then verify that, indeed, God disapproves of the French and the Klan?

***Nope, I stand corrected. It was Bush, Haley Barbour, and climate change according to Robert Kennedy. And here I was thinking that we had hurricanes before anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Note again the strong parallels between religious and environmentalist thought.

Milk Madness

2005-08-18T07:42:00.000Z

British farmers are lamenting that they just don’t make enough money from producing milk. They receive, on average, less than one third of the price of a litre of milk: a price, they say, that has changed very little over the last few decades. Such a low profit margin threatens to drive them out of business. Their solution is now to threaten to halt milk production altogether in order to force supermarkets to pay more for their product, much to the displeasure of the cows needing to be milked I assure you!
The problem with this is that they seem to lack a basic understanding of the free market. Alas, in the very home of Adam Smith! The problem is not that the supermarkets pay them to little. What the supermarkets pay them is the fair market value of the commodity which they produce. The ‘fair’ price for that commodity is determined by supply and demand: not by a committee somewhere or some fanciful notion of the ‘fair’ price of their product, but individuals deciding just how much they will pay to drink milk. Supermarkets don’t determine the price of milk; consumers and producers do. Consumers such as myself demand milk, but naturally desire the lowest price.
If milk farmers want to increase the price at which they are able to sell milk, they have one real option – decrease milk production. This will create milk scarcity, forcing consumers to pay more if they want to get milk. Farmers can achieve this by either producing less milk per farm or by switching some milk farms to produce something else, which is exactly what the free market is forcing them to do. The problem with their present solution of forcing supermarkets to pay more is that it is an artificial increase that will only last until inflation brings them back into the present situation. Unless they address their overproduction problems, consumers and middlemen will continue to milk them for all they are worth.

"With it, or on it."

2005-08-16T12:08:00.000Z

Reports have reached us concerning the Californian mother camped outside of President Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch calling for his impeachment and “America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine”. There was a time when, upon seeing her son depart on a military campaign, a Spartan mother would point at his shield and warn “with it, or on it.” This meant that the soldier was expected to stay and fight to the death, and never to dishonour himself and his family by discarding his shield and fleeing. Ah the good ol’ days. You have to wonder whether this woman realizes that she has made herself one of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal of her son’s killers or, for that matter, that Israel and Palestine are in fact the same place.

One of our best friends will return to Iraq shortly. Although the highest honOr and the sacrifice belongs to him and the thousands of Allied troops like him, it is vital for the rest of us to understand that this war is not going to be won on the battlefield. Like many wars in the past and future, the outcome of this war will be determined by an act of the will. Apart from mutually assured destruction, there is no military means of defeating the US Armed Forces. The enemy is painfully aware of this. The goal of the Islamists is therefore not to defeat us militarily, but to wear us down. Exploit our democracy by using incremental violence to turn public opinion against the war. Exploit our obsession with tolerance in irrational degrees to recruit, incite, and carry out attacks in our own countries. Our casualties in this war by a volunteer service have been minuscule compared to that which our forefathers, or even our fathers, bore. Do you have the will to win?

Munrobagging with Steve

2005-08-15T20:05:00.000Z

August 8th and 9th, 2005

Munros bagged: Loch Nagar, Broad Cairn, Cairn Bannoch, Carn An Sagairt Mor, and Carn a Choire Bhoidheach

Steve rang me up last Thursday desiring to meet up to go backpacking in the highlands. I looked at the roadmap of Britain, and reckoned it would be best to meet him at Montrose railway station and then head up the B955 up Glen Cova to Glen Doll. I could not have picked a much better location. We hiking both days, covering about 37 km or 23 miles. Our exact route is laid out on the map. The highlights of the trip were the five Munros we bagged, part of a RAF wing from a crash on the side of Carn An Sagairt Mor, and a herd of between 150 and 200 deer. The deer were magnificent, as many had large racks of antlers. I tried to approach them coming down the side of the mountain, but only managed to stir up the outer edges of the herd. We camped for the night above Dubh Loch. My stove didn't burn the Meths properly, but luckily we had more than enough food to survive, including leftover haggis. The herd of deer approached our camp along the side of the mountain in the late evening sun, making for a majestic view as we prepared for sleep. Monday was a gloriously sunny day, but the sky soon corrected its error and returned to standard Scottish weather. I think my boots have just about dried.

To see pictures from our hike, click here.

Portuguese Irregular Verbs

2005-08-12T10:49:00.000Z

Guillelmus Campobellens recently gave me a little gem of a book, Portuguese Irregular Verbs. I have been reading it to Morag before bed and we have both really enjoyed it. No, it’s not actually about Portuguese irregular verbs, but the adventures of a German philologist, Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld. The book is not for everyone, but anyone who has been involved in academia will be highly amused by its portrayal of Dr. Ingelfeld and his colleagues from the department of Romance Philology, Professor Dr Dr (honoris causa) Florianus Prinzel and Professor Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer. Author Alexander McCall Smith, a Professor at the University of Edinburgh, portrays the relationships and mentality of academics with comic insight. Von Igelfeld’s concern that he ‘ur-rachied’ a woman following a lecture by Indian Professor J.G.K.L. Singh on Terms of Ritual Abuse in the Creator/Debtor Relationship in Village India brought up lost memories of sitting in Byzantium and the West and wondering who really cares whether or not Robert Guiscard intended to conquer the Byzantine Empire.

My favourite episode in the book is when the three professors decide to play Tennis after the Annual Congress of Romance Philology in Zürich. Although not one of the three had played before, “’that’s no reason not to play,’ von Igelfeld added quickly. ‘Tennis, like any activity, can be mastered if one knows the principles behind it. In that respect it must be like language.”

So they obtain tennis equipment and “The Rules of Lawn Tennis by Captain Geoffrey Pembleton BA (Cantab.), tennis Blue, sometime country champion of Cambridgeshire; and published in 1923, before the tie-breaker was invented.” The three men study “this great work of Cambridge scholarship”, learning the rules and techniques, the major strokes and the disposition of the body. Prinzel and Igelfeld begin to play, but neither can make it over the net except for the odd occasion! As the match extends, no one can win other than by default of the server. They consult the book, but it merely says that a player wins by winning six games, provided they are two games ahead. But neither player can get two games ahead!

“’This is quite ridiculous,’ snorted von Igelfeld. “A game must have a winner – everybody knows that – an yet this…this stupid book makes no provision for moderate players like ourselves!’”

“So much for Cambridge!”

The three then decide on a swim. “’Do you swim?’ asked Unterholzer.”

“’Not in practice,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘But it has never looked difficult to me. One merely extends the arms in the appropriate motion and then retracts them, thereby propelling the body through the water.’”

As for Morag, I suspect the reason that she enjoyed this books so much was that it reminded her of… close acquaintances.

-our vs. –or.

2005-08-12T08:30:00.000Z

The staff here at Gesta would like to thank Lt. Swaney POTUS ’36 for his recent comments. We wish him the best of luck in the nomination process, and agree to make him our running mate should he agree to do likewise. Let us clarify our spelling standards: Our software has been switched to standard UK spelling for the purpose of job applications and formal correspondence and thus the only way to eliminate the annoying red squiggly lines is, alas, to conform to Her Majesty’s English. In some cases this actually assists our poor spelling skills, as ‘judgement’ seems more natural than ‘judgment‘. Additionally, as you can tell from the Latinate Blog title (which translates “The Deeds of Ryan of Renfrew”), we are a bit old fashioned and something just appeals about the auld spellings, e.g. the theatre centre.

The same applies to –our vs. –or. Americans are a very practical bunch, and we understand and respect why we would settle on a more efficient way of writing. However, we feel that it is precisely the superfluous nature of the added ‘u’ that makes for its appeal. That ‘u’ elevates language beyond mere practical necessity to the highest aspirations of human art and expression. I feel I am well justified in so doing, given it was only in the nineteenth century that spelling was standardized. Turn your eyes, my dear friend, to the Founding Fathers; may their free use of both spellings guide our pens!

The United States Constitution

“…punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour…” - Article. I.
“No Person held to Service or Labour in one State…” - Article. IV, Section. 2, Clause 3.
“Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor…” - Article. I, Section. 3, Clause 7.

Declaration of Independence

“He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States…For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province…and our sacred Honor.”

Founding Fathers

"…As I have the Honour of enclosing the Resolves on this Subject, I beg Leave to refer your Attention to them.(1)” - John Hancock to George Washington, April 9th. 1777

"I had the Honour to serve with him upon the naval Committee… An Honour, that I make it a Rule to boast of…a Man of Honour and Integrity…” - John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 11. 1777

“The plan of converting the blacks into Serfs would certainly be better than keeping them in their present condition, but I consider that of expatriation to the governments of the W.I. of their own colour as entirely practicable, and greatly preferable to the mixture of colour here, to this I have great aversion; but I repeat my abandonment of the subject. My health is at present as good as I ever expect it to be, and I am ever and affectionately yours, ... TH. Jefferson.” Thomas Jefferson to William Short, January 18, 1826

“I have ventured to trouble you with the Commission of purchasing enough to make me a Suit of cloaths. As to the colour, I shall leave it altogether to your taste; only observing, that, if the dye should not appear to be well fixed, and clear, or if the cloth should not really be very fine, then (in my judgment) some colour mixed in grain might be preferable to an indifferent (stained) dye.” - George Washington, January 29, 1789.

post scriptum: Let not your heart be troubled. We will never end our alphabet with “zed”.

Is the Constitution of the United States of America a Living Document?

2005-07-26T08:50:00.000Z

Title: Is the Constitution of the United States of America a Living Document?: An Analysis.

Abstract: The US Constitution is not alive. However, the Constitution of the United States of America is a living document because is it is in force in the United States. Its life, however, is threatened by the very proponents of the living document theory.

Introduction: A debate rages between loose and strict constitutional constructionist over whether or not the Constitution of the United States of America is a Living Document. This study explores that question.

Methods and Materials: Webster’s Dictionary was consulted for word definitions as it is the traditional American dictionary. This was used to define ‘living’, ‘live’, and ‘alive’. The university of Leicester was consulted on the biological characteristics of living things. Using these sources to determine what characteristics the COTUS must exhibit in order to be considered alive, a wide range of chimerical scientists and studies were consulted to determine if previous studies on COTUS show any indication that the document is, in fact, a living document. All results were then confirmed with constitutional expert Nicholas Cage.

Results: Webster’s Dictionary states that ‘living’ is an inflected form of ‘live’. The relevant entries for ‘live’ were as follows: “1) to remain in human memory or record lives in us all”>, or 2) to be alive : have the life of an animal or plant.” The entry for ‘alive’ states: “1) having life : not dead or inanimate or 2) still in existence, force, or operation : Active”.

From the University of Leicester website, the characteristics which most biologists believe is common to all living things are:

Living things obtain nutrition and use energy.
Living things move and grow.
Living things reproduce.
Living things respire.
Living things excrete.
Living things are sensitive to their environment.

Hall and Oats’ (1971) study of COTUS determined that all extant original copies of the document did not require nutrition. In the study, a large Ruth’s Chris steak was place in front of the document, free of charge, but no consumption or attempted consumption followed. They further determined that when light was shined upon the document, photosynthesis did not take place.

A further study by the Doobie Brothers (1972) found that COTUS failed to respond to music, leading them to conclude that the document did not, in fact, “listen to the music”. Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, also a Pentagon consultant on missile defence systems, believed at one point that the COTUS acted defensively against “China Groove”. The ACLU weighted in, stating that the COTUS should not be subjected to further tests, citing concern that “Jesus is just Alright” should not be played to the document due to the separation of church and state which is not actually in the document. This study is widely cited as the conclusive proof that COTUS does not move, since who can resist grooving to “What a Fool Believes”? COTUS may not move, but does it, in fact, grow? Mac Fleetwood looked into the issue, finding that although COTUS experiences minimal expansion and contraction due to changes in temperature and humidity, the manuscript itself is not believed to have grown any larger in the last two centuries.

The question of reproduction is a more complicated matter. Donald Henley’s 1980 book is widely held as the most comprehensive survey of COTUS reproduction, getting to the heart of the matter better than any competing study. Although Henley found that there existed an increasing number of similar documents which could be the offspring of COTUS, extensive historical research found that such documents were not in contact with COTUS at the time of their creation. Such documents are believe to be mere copies produced independently from COTUS. Henley further concluded that COTUS showed no ability to reproduce either sexually or asexually, even when easy access to glossy codices was provided.

COTUS shows no evidence of respiration. Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds found that the document lacked a respiratory system and that levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide remained constant in COTUS’ glass case.

Concerning COTUS and excretion, the historical record shows that while George III, upon reading the document, exclaimed that it was “full of $*&#”, most scholars now believe that he was only employing an idiomatic phrase and should not be taken literally. No evidence of excrement has been found over the years.

COTUS is sensitive to its environment. NASA studied the effects of the environment on COTUS in order to determine the ideal conditions in which to preserve the document. Although poor conditions will cause the vellum to deteriorate (COTUS is printed on sheepskin, not hemp as the potheads would have you believe), COTUS itself in unable to respond to the environment and therefore does not meet the necessary qualification for life.

In conclusion, COTUS exhibits none of the characteristics common to living organisms. The document, however, could be said to be living due to the fact that it lives in human memory and remains in force in the United States of America.

Discussion: COTUS itself is not alive. It does not adapt to environmental or cultural changes. It can, however, be externally altered through the amendment process as detailed in the document. Although it is a ‘living’ document to the extent that it is still in force and in human memory, it is not a ‘living’ document as the loose constructionists would like it to be. In fact, the more the legitimate amendment process is bypassed by judicial activism, the more an extra-constitutional law rules the Unites States and the less the actual COTUS is in force and, therefore, fades from human memory. The advancement of the ‘living document’ theory is thus killing the document.

Myth of the Flat Earth

2005-07-21T21:04:00.000Z

Emperor Frederick Barbarossa

The orb topped with a cross in his hand symbolizes the world (spherical) ruled by the cross.

Of all the erroneous ideas in modern popular history, perhaps none annoys me more than the notion that mediaeval man thought that the world was flat. This persistent falsehood is almost always perpetuated in one of two ways: in reference to Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the New World or to the ignorance of the ‘Dark Ages’, particularly in allusion to mediaeval Christians.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes that “Columbus reported to his king and queen that the world was round, and he went down in history as the man who first made this discovery”. I hope Pythagoras and Aristotle weren’t reading MSNBC’s website that day. And then there is poor Eratosthenes. He knew that the sun was directly overhead at noon on the summer solstice at Syene, in Egypt. Assuming that the sun was so far away that its rays could be considered to be parallel, he used geometry and trigonometry to calculate the circumference of the earth based on a stick placed in the ground at Alexandria in c. 240 BC. He was within 2% and 20% of the actual measurement. Although a few isolated pagan philosophers and early Christians still doubted the round earth theory, the evidence points to the predominate belief in Western Civilization in a round earth since Classical Greece. It’s hard to argue with Bede, Thomas Aquinas, and Dante on the mediaeval weltanschauung. The myth may make the Columbus story more exciting – the adventurer and explorer convinces the crown that he can do the impossible, despite fears that he would sail off the end of the earth – but does it really make sense? This would be like the United States and Russia competing to go to a Moon that most people didn’t believe existed. Would NASA really have gotten the funding?

A mediaeval world map

So when was this falsehood born? Jeffrey Burton Russell at UCSB has tracked the invention to two individuals in 1830s France: the French anti-religious scholar Antoine-Jean Letronne and the American writer Washington Irving. My guess would be on the Frenchie, as he studied both geography and patristics, promoting the medieval flat earth view in On the Cosmographical Ideas of the Church Fathers. Depicting the mediaeval view as such would well fit his secular polemic. Irving popularized the idea that Columbus faced a hostile crowd of inquisitors and sinister theologians who ridiculed his plans to reach the east by sailing westward. Columbus was opposed not by silly, superstitious clerics who thought the world flat, but by wise men who knew the earth was rather larger than he estimated it to be. That he stumbled upon a unknown continent and did not perish crossing both the Atlantic and the Pacific is pure Serendipity.

The distortion probably survived in the case of Columbus because it made the story so much better to tell to schoolchildren. In a way, we rather like the idea of falling off the end of the earth. On a hike following High School, my friend Alex and I concluded that the world was none other than a giant pyramid standing on its tip and rotating like a top. Not that we believed this, mind you, but it does offer a more entertaining cosmology than a bunch of spheres. (The solar system is rather like a slow game of billiards…perhaps the Creator is off playing hungry hippos in another section of the universe?)

There is, however, another reason the myth survives. It was a useful attack on religious faith in the conflict between science and religion (when are we going to get an exit strategy on that war?), particularly in the debate over Darwinism. It became the standard attack by proponents of ‘science’ on proponents of ‘religion’: ‘these are the same ignorant fools who thought that the earth was flat’. Of course the ultimate irony of such attacks is that they display the ignorance of the attacker, not of the intended victim. And so should they. As Edward Grant observed, “If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed in the Age of Reason, they were only made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities”. I suppose the only solution is a more well-rounded history education.

Habemus Papam Saeculi!

2005-07-20T08:51:00.000Z

Roberts, a strict constructionist, is described by friends as "one of the nicest guys I've ever met. Devout but light-hearted, a devoted husband, and the doting father of two adopted children." Leiberman has already stated that he may be acceptable. One thing is for certain: he will test the 'extraordinary circumstances' clause for the Gang of 14. How long can the moderates punt this one down the field? They may have to take a stand! If Roberts stays true to his stated principles, it may deal a serious blow to judicial activism for the immediate future.

Unfortunately, this won't be enough to overturn Kelo vs. City of New London, as the departed Justice O'Conner wrote the principal - not principled - dissent in that dreadful decision to allow the seizure of private homes for private profits.

There is also some question over how he might rule over you-know-what. During his confirmation to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the apply-named Sen. Dick Durbin - yes, the same compared Club G'itmo to Soviet Gulags and Nazi death camps - questioned Roberts on Roe. "I'll be bound to follow the Supreme Court precedent regardless of what type of constructionist I might be," Roberts responded. Although his may indicate that he regards the 'right' to an abortion as a constitutional issue already settled by the court, I would be hesitant to agree. What I believe it actually shows is a respect for the law and for the judicial process. A judge on the Court of Appeals, for which he was applying, should not overturn what SCOTUS has already settled. This is precisely the characteristic we should demand in a justice - willingness to subordinate personal legal opinions to the laws as set out in the Constitution and as passed by the legislative bodies. Of course as one of the black-robed Nine, he may be required to revisit that decision, which would be above and beyond what he has stated before. Given the tenuous legal reasoning behind Roe, it's a safe bet that any strict constructionist worth his salt might alter the big case.

The lay investiture of Roberts wil bestow on him the judicial authority passed down through Apostolic Succession from Chief Justice St. John Marshall. Well see how he speaks ex cathedra.

"We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final." - Justice Robert H. Jackson

post scriptum: The humour in this post was intended at the quasi-divinely appointed authority invested in supreme court justices, not at how Mr. Roberts will perform as a justice. The fact that Roberts is a practicing Catholic will itself constitute 'extraordinary circumstances'. The libs won't say this, masking their bigotry towards any form of traditional Christianity behind phrases like 'his deeply-held beliefs' and so forth.

Wedding Website Launch!

2005-07-19T11:02:00.000Z

The Ryan and Morag Wedding website launches today. We had a few unsuccessful attempts during the last few weeks when a few tiles broke loose, but everything appears to be in working order now. Enjoy!

Beinn Climbed

2005-07-18T23:43:00.000Z

(Click to zoom)

Bagged another two Munros on Saturday. We had hoped to do three, but a late start combined with poor visibility limited us to Beinn Narnain (Hill of the notches) and Beinn Ime (Hill of butter). Morag was upset when I asked her if she loved me and if I could spend a Saturday with the blokes, but she seems to have had a good time with Leigh in Glasgow so it all worked out just fine.

We didn't start climbing until half past twelve. Luckily it stays light out until after 9:00, or else we would have had difficulty getting down to the cars before dark. As you can see from the map above, we left one car at Arrochar (who would have thought that six grown men could fit into a Ford Fiesta!) and collected the other one at Inveruglas. The ascent of Beinn Narnain met with little difficulty. We met a lady along the way who had lost her dog in the mist, but we didn't find the poor creature. Embarrassingly, we were passed on the final leg of the trail up by a nearly naked man running up the mountain, who seems to have run the remaining 800 feet up and back down before we had climbed 400 feet. By this time, the mist had engulfed us. It was only with the help of the GPS and our maps that we managed to find the ridge leading to Beinn Ime.

The taller mountain (1011 metres, compared to 926), a few of us had some difficulty climbing it. Thankfully, my trekking poles greatly helped to carry my extra stone or two up the hill. The descent was actually more of a challenge, as we had to navigate the northeast face down through some fairly steep crags. Once was pasted the crags, the mountainside turned to marsh. I really need a pair of gortex or waterproof boots. Luckily, wool socks are not as bad as cotton once your feet get soaked. The marshy hillside then gave way to a proper bog in the stunning glen near Lag Uaine, eliminated any remaining dry patch on our clothing. I sank in to my knee at one point, and it was impossible to determine where the ground actually was through the grass and water. At last we reached a road, where we all rung out our socks and started the final hike to Unveruglas.

It was 9:00 when we reached Douglas' car, so we decided to get some chow. The nearest place open was a church-restaurant conversion, the Ben Lomond in Tarbet, with medieval decor. We all enjoyed a cold drink, and warm meal - haggis, for the most part-, and some good cheer. Chris dropped me off in Linlithgow at 1:30.

I love the great outdoors.

Discover the greatest American

2005-07-10T11:33:00.000Z

The Discovery Channel has concluded it's poll, the 100 Greatest Americans of all time. And who is the most admired American off all time? It is none other than Ronaldus Magnus. Reagan ended the dominance of modern libralism that began with FDR, ushering in the new age of political conservatism and restoring Americans' belief in themselves. Thanks to all who went out there and won one for the Gipper.

Saturn or Stupider?

2005-07-05T13:49:00.000Z

I hope this is the last time I have the privilege of a G8 summit hosted locally. I can’t get into Edinburgh this week to look for work thanks to the thousands of long-haired, unwashed, maggot-infested anarchists, communists, hippies, and other unsavoury characters clashing with police. At least the “Make poverty history” crowd managed to have a relatively respectable demonstration last Saturday.

One thing the G8 has provided is a plethora of humorous material on climate change. I don’t think any piece sums up the current state of the movement quite as well as this one: ‘Earth may have its own rings like Saturn’. A group of ‘scientists’ are suggesting that we create an artificial ring around the Earth to shade the tropics and thus help cool the planet. Only drawback is it would create a glow in the night sky as great as a full Moon and cost between $6 and $200 trillion for a particle ring or a bargain $500 billion for small spacecrafts. Did they ever think about creatures that rely on the full moon for mating habits or the effect of cooling the equatorial regions would have on the ocean and air currents? Are these honestly the people getting research grants?

Also out of Live Science, ‘Global Warming Might Create Lopsided Planet’. Remember how a few months ago Antarctic ice sheets were disappearing? Well that was so February! This is July, dude, and the ice is going to expand down under!

A great quote from that article is “overall warming, which most but not all scientists believe is underway”. Wait, I thought “The debate is over” according to Arnold Schwarzenegger this week. “We know the science. We see the threat posed by changes in our climate. And we know the time for action is now.” Isn’t this the man that owns a fleet of Hummers and commutes cross-state on a weekly basis, now promising an 80 percent reduction by 2050? I like how he requires lower-emissions vehicles to be sold in California beginning in 2009, about the time he leaves office. Fantastic guarantees he will never live to see fail in the future and sacrifices he will not personally practice today: welcome to politics, Mr. Governator.

Last weekend, Morag and I watched a program on BBC Scotland on climate change to coincide with the G8 summit. It featured three ‘experts’ on climate change and a group of teenagers. The first ‘expert’, the most radical one, set up the debate by giving the standard climate change apocalypticism. The next two debated nuclear energy versus massive small-scale, renewable energy coupled with drastic increases in energy efficiency. One did mention, albeit in passing, that there were a few scientists who disagreed with anthropogenic climate change, but there was absolutely no representation of this view whatsoever during the program. Instead, Mr. Blair’s assertion that climate change was the most important issue of the 21^st century was repeated. Why is it that with the number of distinguished climatologists who disagree with or are sceptical of the so-called ‘consensus view’, they can’t even get a public hearing? Why just a few weeks earlier either the BBC or Channel 4 had given extensive time to the moon-landing disbelievers!

As for the notion of a ‘consensus view’, it is the disingenuous construct by green political action groups, backed up with bad research. It has entered the public dialogue despite the debunking of the research behind it. (see Dr Peiser of John Moores University’s discrediting of Dr Naomi Oreskes’s assertion that 75 per cent of 1,000 papers explicitly or implicitly backed the ‘consensus’ view with no dissentions). I think that fellow global warming sceptic Michael Crichton sums the ‘consensus’ up best here. Also see: Why Politicized Science is Dangerous (Excerpted from State of Fear).

Science, like religion, is not a democracy. The truth is not reached when a majority of scientists consent to a given proposition. We hear ad nauseam of a scientist’s dispute with outside authority such as the Galileo affair, but what is less often mentioned is that many of science’s great innovations have been made by a lone researcher standing up to scientific consensus. Not that I am suggesting that it is the case that the ‘consensus’ view is as much of a ‘consensus’ as proponents are selling to the public. What is happening in this case is that climate change proponents are attempting to avoid debate by stating that the matter is settled because they know they cannot convince the public and politicians to enact the radical changes they believe necessary based on a sober analysis of the scientific data available.

Two last points while I am on the subject. Proving my assertion a couple of weeks ago that anthropogenic climate change is the eschatology of the environmentalist religion, UK Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett made two illuminating statements this week:

"I think what matters more than the exact theology is where people end up," she said. "What we hope for is quite an ambitious action plan on steps that the international community can take and also agreement to try and take forward discussion and dialogue about the future." [emphasis mine]

“The environment secretary, Margaret Beckett, hinted at a compromise by responding to Mr Bush's remarks about uncertainties in the science. ‘The UK is in no doubt about the strength of scientific evidence on climate change. But the theology is less important than action.’” [emphasis mine]

Tell me again who is blurring the ‘separation of church and state’?

Best of all, ‘Clearing smoke may trigger global warming rise’. “Global warming looks set to be much worse than previously forecast, according to new research. Ironically, the crucial evidence is how little warming there has been so far.” The article details how some industrial emissions such as smoke and dust have been counteracting CO2 warming, and that as we clean those emissions, the world will dramatically increase in temperature. “It is so far outside the range covered by our experience and scientific understanding that we cannot with any confidence predict the consequences for the Earth” states Meinrat Andreae of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. A alternative title for this article could be ‘Global climate catastrophe looms despite lack of evidence.’ The problem with it is that they let the cat out of the bag by admitting how little warming has actually taken place. In fact, if you take it to the next level, you can see the thinking that went into the hypothesis in the first place: Massive global warming is a real catastrophe. Global warming doesn’t seem to be occurring as much as it should. What could be preventing the global warming that we know is happening from actually happening?

Oh, and I almost forgot: despite the anti-Bush and anti-American rhetoric surrounding the G8 summit concerning climate change, it seems that most European countries are behind schedule and do not foresee fulfilling their Kyoto promises. In fact, if the USA were participating, it would only be tied for fourth with Ireland as most behind Kyoto CO2 emission reductions in Europe.

Stay tuned for how I believe the CO2 problem will solve itself.

African Dictators Preservation Society

2005-07-04T08:46:00.000Z

“Hello and welcome to the African Dictators Preservation Society. Please select one of the following options:

If you are an African dictator in need of funding for arms, expensive foreign luxury items, or western money to consolidate your despotic rule, press one.

If you are one of the very few well educated Africans capable of actually making a difference in your home country but who has instead immigrated to the West to improve your lifestyle and are now puzzled at how nothing is changing back home without you, press two.

If you attended one of our aid concerts and were offended by Fiddy Cent’s rendition of ‘Smack a ho for the homeland’, press three.

If you are a celebrity involved with the recent protests and need help finding Africa on a map, press four.

If you plan to attend the concerts but are concerned whether or not you should applaud bad music by big-hearted has-beens, press five.

If you live under an African dictatorship and are upset at western democracies for giving money to your authoritarian regime in order to help consolidate their dominance over your people and their earnings, press six.

If you reside in a responsible African nation who has paid back your loans at or below inflation rates and are bitter that more aid is being given to irresponsible regimes when it could actually be put to good work in your country, press seven.

If you are an African interested in improving the quality of life on your continent, seek out a local missionary. Manage to work out a visa to study or work in the United States or the United Kingdom. While there, avoid the culture of victimization your will encounter in the press and at the universities. Study Smith, Locke, Hayek and the Founding Fathers. Read the National Review. Pay attention to the modernization of Japan. Believe that the future of your continent depends not upon the generosity of others, but upon the willingness and determination of yourself. Discover the cultural traits that enabled the West to succeed, such as the rule of law, democracy, freedom, and liberty, and help to spread those traits back home. Participate in the global economy. Ignore this latest manifestation of the white man’s burden; only you can make poverty history. Please press 1776.

If you are a blueneck outraged at the suggestion that Africans can and must do this themselves, please note that a majority of Kenyans believe previous aid has done little to help them permanently, that massive aid is unnecessary and that the problem is their own corrupt governments (BBC One broadcast, 4 July 2005). Thank you, and have a nice day."

European Community legislation

2005-06-30T10:03:00.000Z

Well, I heard back from Historic Scotland concerning that job I was so excited about:

"Unfortunately as Civil Service posts are classified as 'Public Service' under European Community legislation, applicants for these posts must be British or Commonwealth citizens. Therefore I am afraid we cannot consider your application."

Under European Community legislation? I could understand if the British government had made the regulation, but the EU? This means countries like France and Germany, whose economies are strangled by their rampant workers unions and failed socialistic policies, have rammed through legislation protecting their precious civil service jobs from those blasted Auslanders because their wonderful workers' paradise has a normal unemployment rate in excess of ten percent. Yippy skip.

What’s worse is that I would qualify if I were a British Commonwealth citizen. I could accept this if it was Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but it’s not. Now despite the fact that the US and Britain are two of the closest allies in the world or that I am a native English-speaker of British-descent and married to a British subject with a work permit for which I spend an exorbitant sum, I still take a back seat on the bus to citizens of the following countries:

Antigua and Barbuda
Nauru
Australia
New Zealand
Bahamas
Nigeria
Bangladesh
Pakistan
Barbados Papua
New Guinea
Belize
St Kitts and Nevis
Botswana
St Lucia
Brunei
St Vincent and the Grenadines
Canada
Seychelles
Cyprus
Sierra Leone
Dominica
Singapore
Gambia
Solomon Islands
Ghana
Sri Lanka
Grenada
Swaziland
Guyana
Tanzania
India
Tonga
Jamaica
Trinidad and Tobago
Kenya
Tuvalu
Kiribati
Uganda
Lesotho
United Kingdom
Malawi
Vanuatu
Malaysia
Western Samoa
Maldives
Zambia
Malta
Zimbabwe
Mauritius

Is there anyone out there that can even place Kiribati or Seychelles on a map? We really need to form an Anglo-American treaty organization. Get Britain out of Europe and into the Anglo-American world!

David Souterus Augustus?

2005-06-29T10:19:00.000Z

Once upon a time, the Roman Emperor Augustus decided to reshape Rome. He would later declare that he found it a city of brick and left it a city of marble. Rome had outgrown its old forum by the time of Augustus, a location that also carried too many associations with the old republic. So he rebuilt it on a grand scale, surrounding it with an enormous wall to protect it from fire. But he ran into a problem. A little old lady’s house stood in the way of the proposed project, and she refused to sell her house. The emperor could well have seized her house in the name of the public good, but the great statesman did not. He added another turn in the wall; her house was spared, standing for centuries as a testament to the magnanimity of Augustus.

Two thousand years later, another 87-year-old lady was faced with a similar eviction. This time, the city of New London, CT wished to destroy the house in which she was born in order to develop their coastal district. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), the nation’s chief lawmakers, ruled in Kelo vs. City of New London that government has the power to seize private citizens’ property for “economic redevelopment” through eminent domain. This means that the government can force you to sell your home in order to redistribute it to another private citizen or group if it be to the fiscal advantage of the government…and we are fighting against tyranny and oppression abroad? Typically, this was a 5-4 ruling by the five justices who haven’t actually read the Constitution or the Founding Fathers but instead pay attention to international law and their own personal fancies. Of course once one accepts the principles behind wealth redistribution, is property redistribution all that different? The need for strict constructionist judges is apparent.

Enter Logan Darrow Clements. The CEO of Freestar Media has entered a request for the city of Weare, New Hampshire to bulldoze Justice David Souter’s home in order to build ‘The Lost Liberty Hotel’, featuring the ‘Just Desserts Café’ and a museum featuring an exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Guests will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's ‘Atlas Shrugged.’

I glanced around the internet, and found the local authorities in Weare, NH capable of processing Mr. Clements request. If you wish to contact them, you may do so here:

Town of Weare Building Department

Wearne, N.H. Board of Selectmen

You might be a Blueneck.

2005-06-22T13:00:00.000Z

There are a lot of misconceptions about California. A lot of people think everyone from California is a blueneck. Well I’ve been all over the place and there are bluenecks everywhere you go. The problem is a lot of people just don’t know if they are a blueneck or not so I came up with a test to help people out:

-If you have ever purchased artwork by a dead chimpanzee, you might be a blueneck.
-If you have multiple piercings, none of which are visible in public, you might be a blueneck.
-If you have the same piercings that are visible in public, you might be a blueneck.
-If you make six figures and cannot afford a house, you might be a blueneck.
-If you go to Starbucks or Barnes and Noble to complain about greedy, multi-national corporations, you might be a blueneck.
-If you can determine the national origins of your coffee, you might be a blueneck.
-If your car insurance exceeds your mortgage payment, you might be a blueneck.
-If you are happy to find another person who speaks English in your hometown, you might be a blueneck.
-If you are angry to find a person who speaks English in your hometown, you might be a blueneck.
-If you are a male who goes to a hairdresser, you might be a blueneck.
-If you own a Geo Metro with a Darwin fish on the back, you might be a blueneck.
-If you have ever taken off your sandals because you felt they were too formal, you might be a blueneck.
-If you think that pot should be legal, you might be a blueneck.
-If you think that pot is legal, you might be a blueneck.
-If you have ever been to a baby shower for two mothers and one child, you might be a blueneck.
-If you have not yet been mugged, you might still be a blueneck.
-If you have ever purchased a Che Guevara T-shirt made in a third world sweatshop, you might be a blueneck.
-If you think “The Passion of the Christ” is a romance movie, you might be a blueneck.
-If you have ever been confused with a tropical fish, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe that living in sin means not using your recycling barrel, you might be a blueneck.

True, but not necessarily funny:

-If you believe gender is a social construct, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe the ‘facts’ in ‘The Da Vinci Code’, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe rats have rights and babies have none, you might be a blueneck.
-If you regularly use French words greater than four letters, you might be a blueneck.
-If Michael Moore comes to town and your first thought is not to buy stock in the local doughnut store, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe that diversity is what occurs when a group of people all look different but think the same, you might be a blueneck.
-If you are glad that ‘Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms’ is a government agency and not a convenience store, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe that the federal government should distribute Korans and support prayer on public property for a fanatical group of zealots sworn to kill American civilians but should always and everywhere prohibit any connection whatsoever with the faith of the majority of God-fearing, patriotic Americans here at home, you might be a blueneck.
-If you fear the US may win in war, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe that conflicts between sovereign entities can be illegal, you might be a blueneck.
-If you have ever compared American soldiers with the Nazis, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe that God is dead, you might be a blueneck.
-If you promote evolution as a means of disproving the existence of God but discount its necessary implications for human individuals and societies, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe that contradictory claims to absolute truth can be equally true, you might be a blueneck.
-If you would jump out of an airplane with a parachute that successfully opened 85-97% of the time, you might be a blueneck.
-If you would do the same with a condom, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe in ‘accidental’ pregnancies, you might be a blueneck.
-If you don’t understand why abstinence works, you might be a blueneck.
-If you think that morality can be defined by individual opinion, you might be a blueneck.
-If the word ‘evil’, ‘sin’, ‘vice’, or ‘virtue’ causes you discomfort, you might be a blueneck.
-If you can’t use a ballot properly, you might be a blueneck.
-If you have recently immigrated to Canada, you might be a blueneck, eh?
-If you have ever bragged about voting for something before voting against it, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe that other people should pay high taxes, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe that you can help the poor by destroying the rich, you might be a blueneck.
-If you fear your country but love your government, you might be a blueneck.
-If you think a republic that promotes common decency and basic moral principles is a theocracy, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe that freedom can be imposed, you might be a blueneck.
-If you confuse a right with an entitlement, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe that others are ultimately responsible for your position in life, you might be a blueneck.
-If you have never read the Constitution, you might be a blueneck.
-If you don’t know the meaning of ‘keep’, ‘bear’, or ‘infringed’, you might be a blueneck.
-If you don’t know what the meaning of ‘is’ is, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe in evolution but view the world as a static and fragile balance capable of unravelling at the slightest change, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe that CO2 emissions are destroying the Earth yet still drive a car and take hot showers, you might be a blueneck.
-If you believe hypocrisy is the only vice, you might be a blueneck.
-If you avoid hypocrisy by refusing to make any moral judgements, you might be a blueneck.
-If you think you can spell ‘unethical’ without ‘UN” , you might be a blueneck.
-If you have ever threatened a fifteenth non-binding resolution, you might be a blueneck.

National Healthscare

2005-06-21T18:21:00.000Z

It is not uncommon for Americans to be dissatisfied with their healthcare system and there are many improvements which need to be implemented. One of the proposals has been to create a national healthcare system or some other plan to nationalize the healthcare industry. With Hillary's impending White House bid, such a proposal is worth revisiting.

The United Kingdom created such a system following WWII. Proponents of nationalization cite universal access to care as one of the chief benefits of government-run healthcare. The problem is that patients often have merely universal access to a waiting list. A couple months ago I registered with the local GP. As part of the application process and examination, I mentioned that my knees had been giving me some problems from jogging. The doctor offered to refer me to a specialist, stating that I needed to get on the list now because it would take a while. I consented, and it wasn't until about a week ago that I finally got this letter:

Dear Mr. Renfro

We have received a letter from your GP requesting an outpatient appointment for you to see ____ in Orthopaedic Surgery.

A consultant has reviewed your referral letter and we have been asked to make you a non-urgent appointment. The current waiting time for this kind of appointment is approximately 7 months from the date of this letter. To ensure that outpatient waiting times are kept to a minimum and clinics are used effectively we now book patient appointments by phone no more than 5 weeks prior to the clinic.

We will write to you again 5 weeks before your appointment is due, asking you to phone us. We can then arrange a convenient date for you to see the consultant, or a member of their team. As we will need to write to you again about your appointment, please remember to phone us if your address or phone number change.

Should your condition worsen while you are waiting for you appointment, please inform you GP.

Also, if you no longer wish to attend this hospital appointment, please phone us. We will then remove your name from the waiting list....

Yours Sincerely,

Patient Appointment Centre Officer

Seven months to have a specialist take a look at my knee?! I could have gotten a new liver in that time in the US!

While it is true that the NHS probably offers better coverage for the poorest in Society who would have no coverage except for State programs for kids and guaranteed emergency room care, it is decidedly worse for the middle and upper classes. The rich must first pay more than their share of the NHS cost, and once they have finished paying that they get to pay for their own private insurance so they can actually get efficient healthcare when they need it. As for the middle class, most of them can't afford private insurance so they are stuck on a waiting list somewhere. It is not uncommon for patients needing surgery to either go private or pay for it themselves or to go to the continent for care. Even with that said, people have become dependent upon the NHS as is always the case with government programs. One of the principal fears Brits have when they consider relocating to the United States is the lack of nationalized healthcare. Who will look after them? How would they cope with independence? How will I cope with dependence?

Gesta Riani de Renfroana

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