[blasphemy] another nail in the coffin

Python, Life of Brian, Stoning Scene - script here

Does G-d have a sense of humour? I certainly hope so, otherwise I'm in big, big trouble. If we are made in His image, then it must be so.

So when Ginro reports that Cranmer reports that Gerald Howarth gave his thoughts on the blasphemy bill, a smile played on the lips until I actually started reading:

There was a debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday 6th May about the blasphemy laws, of which the entire debate can be read in Hansard.

This nation has been forged and fashioned down the centuries by its Christian tradition. Every Act of Parliament is prefaced by reference to the support of the Lords temporal and spiritual and the Commons assembled.

That indicates that our Christian faith has played a hugely important part. Therefore, while I have enjoyed the frivolities of this evening’s proceedings, we should be under no illusions that a serious issue is at stake.

I am afraid that I am not interested in the Joint Committee on Human Rights or the European Court of Human Rights; I am interested in my views and beliefs, which are profoundly held and shared by a lot of people in this country.

Those of other religions who have come here down the centuries have done so in the full knowledge that this is a Christian country. One of the reasons why they come here is that our Christian faith is a tolerant faith—one that allows mosques to be built and that allows people to observe their traditions, to bring those traditions with them and to practise them.

It is a mistake that some of them should now assert that, because they have come here in rather large numbers, they should be entitled to overturn centuries of tradition in this country.

The Minister relied, as Ministers of course do, on the assertion of the Government’s new religion, which is discrimination: anything that is discriminatory is to be resisted, if not completely rejected.

Of course the law of blasphemy is discriminatory—but then, as was pointed out to her, so is the fact that the Church of England is the established Church. That discriminates against everybody else ... We are discriminating every day of our lives; we discriminate when we go to the shops.

Furthermore and as has also been pointed out, we have Christian prayers in this place, which you, Mr. Speaker, of course preside over ... Clearly, this is an undisguised attempt at promoting the case for the disestablishment of the Church of England ...

[A] Jewish headmistress, whom I was sitting next to at a lunch ... said, “It is very important to our school that there continues to be an established Church, because it provides some protection to us in the practising of our religion.”

That message must not be forgotten.

It is a time when we desperately need to reassert moral values in this country. The fact that the archbishops have deserted the field is unfortunate, because that again sends out the wrong message, but my simple role in the Church is as a mere church warden.

Our children will not understand if this House says that it is not important, because why then should anything be sacred? That would send a dreadful message to the young people of our country…

“I think that this is no time to be abolishing the law of blasphemy.

When I go to a synagogue, I wear kipar and the prayers are in Hebrew. When I go to a mosque, I dress accordingly and show reverence. When in Rome ...

This dismantling of the rule of law does not really stem from the devout - it stems from Them - the ones this blog has long been railing against. It was so at the Wren Chapel, it was so at Harvard, it is so here. In Robert Bolt's Man for All Seasons, this exchange took place:

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's!

And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

The most fundamental mistake you can make, if you are atheist, agnostic or of another religion, is to think that to go along with this dismantling of a nation's legal and societal underpinning will not rebound on you. I'm talking directly here to fellow libertarians who are anything but Christian.

The most fundamental mistake you can make is to sit back and let this bill go through unchallenged because you disagree with Christianity per se and it's going to come back on you - it is just another nail in the coffin of all our freedoms which the Christian religion has had the decency to allow us in some small measure over the centuries.

The enemy is at the door, his weapon is divide and conquer and far too few realize it.

[when champions age] it's sad to see

It was the MCG in a year I can't even recall. On a visit to Melbourne, my mate had tickets for the Test match with the Windies and we went along on a perfect day for cricket.

The Aussies were batting and the new ball was not given to Malcolm Marshall from the other end, as I'd supposed but to other bowlers. I wanted to see Marshall bowl, recalling the terror he'd inspired from a few years earlier with that whippy action and lethal projectile.

After lunch they threw him the ball and it was a different man. Line and length, medium fast, he was hit away by, at that time, only reasonable Australian top order batsmen. The essential thing I could see was that there was no fear any more in the opposition's eyes.

The Third Umpire sums up Marshall's gifts:

Malcolm Marshall was their finest quick during their 1980s heyday, seriously rapid, hostile and extremely consistent; but he complemented these gifts with subtlety and real cricketing intelligence.

Plus he was a lovely man off-field, by all reports.

Cue Schumacher. As the BBC said in 1996:

The seven-times world champion celebrates his 36th birthday on Monday, but the German said he is confident of continued success.

"I have the odd small ache or pain every now and then but they are only small ones," he said. "I am not getting worn out and especially not psychologically. I still enjoy what I do immensely. "In sport, you can't rest on your past victories. You have to take the challenge again and again."

Ian Botham, Denis Lillee, Michael Jordan, Tyson, Martina Navratilova, Gary Ablett Snr at Geelong - they all started playing smart or not so smart with age. It's truly sad to see a magnificent champion no longer able to cut it when he could have blown away the current opposition on his day.

Yes, they know it one day has to end. Yes, they know they must be a bit more subtle, a bit more roguish these days. They see the writing on the wall. As champions, of course, they'll get over it, come to terms with it [excepting Ablett and Tyson and to an extent - Jordan].

So is that what we're seeing now with Federer, a truly wonderful player, as Sampras was before him? One commenter's thoughts expressed at BBC Online:

It is the SIXTH defeat by six different players in SEVEN tournaments for Federer this season. This also credits all the analysts who clearly previewed the end of unilateral dominance of Federer since last year as all the guys know he is no longer unbeatable.

With this technically very limited backhand,it is obvious that Federer will not win the FO this year again bacause there are better clay-courters like Ferrer, Almagro, Davidenko and Nalbandian who will cause him all sorts of trouble on the surface.

Maybe it would be better for Federer to start thinking now about defending his title in Wimbledon which will be very difficult. I expect many more defeats for Federer to come this season as winning a serious title this year (Master Series or GS) looks so laborious for him.

Martina on aging:

"I did this for the enjoyment of the game and that still is there. I'm pleased with how I'm playing. I can still put it together at this age and not having played for four years. I'm having a great time. It doesn't get any better."

Navratilova said she was moved when she spotted an elderly woman with a walking support who came to watch her play in Eastbourne.

"How honored can you get for people to be making an effort like that to see you play tennis?" she said. "It's a treat and why there will never be any regrets if I don't win."

And a comment all former champions could relate to:

I've been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.

[thought for the day] friday evening

I think I see some light at the end of the tunnel but maybe it's just an oncoming train.

If you haven't yet read it, good messieurs et mesdames, might I suggest this for your bedtime reading tonight?

[st louis ghost train] mystery solved ... perhaps

The legend

One night in the 1920s, a CNR engineer was checking the tracks near St. Louis when he got hit by a train and lost his head. Now, at night a light from a phantom train or lantern appears - it's the engineer looking for his head.

Some people checked it out:

St. Louis Saskatchewan Mayor Emile Lussier, who runs a hotel at the foot of an iron bridge once used by the old trains, did not believe tales of the nightly ghost train. So he once went with his brother-in-law to the crossroads with a somewhat daring plan in mind.

"So far as we knew, nobody had actually walked the tracks. So we did," says Lussier.

They walked about a mile along the old track bed, without seeing anything. Then suddenly, "there was a light right at our heels -- a strong light that cast shadows. When we turned around, it was gone."

Lussier's son and some friends decided to go out to the old track bed to see for themselves. Lussier stayed at the crossroads as the boys hiked off down the old track bed. As he watched them in the distance, something very strange occurred.

"The light lit everyone up. It looked just like a globe -- really bright. And yet, they didn't see a thing."

Lussier points to that episode as an indication the "phantom light", as some people in St. Louis prefer to call it, "appears in two very different ways".

Serge Gareau took some visitors from Alberta one evening for the midnight phenomenon.

"We sat there for about an hour, and nothing was happening," Gareau recalls. "And then all of a sudden we saw this light. It was just like a train coming. A bright light coming at us, with a little red light towards the bottom."

Enthralled, the Gareaus and their friends watched "for a good two hours" as the steady white beam and its crimson companion appeared to approach, but never arrive.

The solution to the mystery is quite possibly in white below.

Click here

All right, that appears to be that. Well, what about this then?

"I don’t think it’s car lights," says Rita Ferland, one of the few people who’ve seen the phantom beam in broad daylight.

... or this?

Scientists on the scene have also confirmed sighting this apparition. They saw the light of the train on the tracks and saw it get closer like the train was travelling forward.

The Ghostlight

Windows Media - Low Quality (3.2 Mb for dial-up connections)
Windows Media - Mid Quality (10.6 Mb for faster connections)
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RealPlayer - Mid Quality (15.1 Mb for faster connections)

Well I've looked at everything available now and the footage is not exactly conclusive. I don't see everything flooded with light although they all report it does sweep around the trees at them. Why not photograph that? If true that it does flood the area in light, can't see how that can be headlights 5.3 miles away. And why not everyday? And how in the middle of the day?

Two teenagers reported their alternator caught on fire. Again - their word. I can see the taillights might be the red lantern but why not two lanterns? The light splitting could be car headlights front on at a dip in the road.

Wish we could see a vid of the whole thing.

[new nationalism] the writing on the wall

There is most definitely a new trend around the world. Actually, the feeling was always there but now it is more articulated at governmental level:

Foreigners go home.

Starting with an extreme example, Burma:

Burma wants supplies but not foreign aid workers, its foreign ministry says, hours after the UN chief urged military leaders to prioritise relief work. Burma was "making strenuous efforts" to get aid to affected areas by itself and was not ready for foreign teams, a statement in a state daily said.

Pleading guilty myself, sitting, eating a Russian breakfast while I posted this weeks ago, there does seem to be a new nationalism afoot, a new withdrawal into the national self. Applying that old chestnut to any country you care to name:

It might be a hopelessly disorganized cesspit but it's OUR cesspit!

So while the whole thrust of the sphere is global - look at the visitors to this site for a start - in RL there is an opposite discernible trend. According to The American Conservative, in a recent piece in the FT , Larry Summers, Clinton's old aide, warns that:

…growth in the global economy encourages the development of stateless elites whose allegiance is to global economic success and their own prosperity rather than the interests of the nation where they are headquartered. As one prominent chief executive put it in Davos this year:

“We will be fine however America does but I hope for its sake that it will cut taxes and reduce regulation and put more pressure on young people to study in the ways that are necessary for it to be able to keep competing successfully.”

The AC goes on:

Similar concerns about the way the “rise of nationalism” frays global economic ties, have been raised by Bob Davis in another anti-business daily, the Wall Street Journal on Monday:

During the long march toward globalization, international borders and trade barriers came down. Communism fell. Protectionist walls in Latin America and elsewhere were dismantled. Governments — long prone to meddling in trade — took a back seat to broader market forces.

In a globalization manifesto, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman declared that the Internet and other planet-spanning technologies were erasing national boundaries. The world, he said in a 2005 best seller, was flat.

No longer. The global economy appears to be entering an epoch in which governments are reasserting their role in the lives of individuals and businesses. Once again, barriers are rising. Call it the new nationalism.

And:

Now borrowers shun the IMF and World Bank. Trade talks are shelved. Barriers to foreign investment are rising around the world. State-owned companies are expanding, particularly in oil and gas. Public support of immigration restrictions is growing in countries from the U.S. to India.

Sovereign wealth funds from Asia and the Middle East are now propping up wobbly financial institutions in the U.S. and Europe, and may hunt next for real-estate bargains. All three presidential candidates say they would pass tougher financial-market regulation and would also boost government programs to retrain workers battered by the global economy.

In rich and poor countries alike, immigration has become a powerful political issue, as improved transportation makes it easier for people to move across borders and compete for jobs with locals.

Where does that leave a person who resides outside his own country? I'd like to think it comes down to how deeply integrated he's become in his host country, what roots he's put down and how committed he is to putting back into that host economy. In the end it is how the host country perceives him and his value.

But other factors come into play as well - the new nationalism, the need for governments to be seen to be working in the best interests of its own natives and the lumping in of all "foreigners" together, irrespective of who they are and what their purposes are.

This spills over into the restriction of foreign influences. The Chinese are not the only ones planning to control the net:

A September 25 statement from the Ministry of Information Industry banned “subversive” material—including pornography, criticism of the government, and sensitive topics like Tibet and Taiwan independence—from the country’s computer networks.

Instead, only “healthy, civilized news and information beneficial to the nation” can be posted, the ministry said. It is already a crime in China to defame government agencies, divulge state secrets, or promote separatist movements.

This plus Tibet, in the lead up to an Olympics which is looking increasingly like 1936. The pornography issue is interesting in itself if you can put the moral aspect to one side for the moment and concentrate on the strategy:

While the rest of the net is reeling from crumbling ad revenues, the sex industry has not even taken a hit because its main revenue stream is subscriptions, not advertising.

Yet companies such as Yahoo! are opting out of the porn industry. Given the demand, the big business and the job security,this seems like a mad decision. Why?

Especially as the slavery issue is closely connected to such big business:

It is estimated that 2/3 of women trafficked for prostitution worldwide annually come from Eastern Europe, three-quarters have never worked as prostitutes before. An estimated 500,000 women from Central and Eastern Europe are working in prostitution in the European Union alone

... Sexual slavery in Pakistan is one of the worst in South Asia. Young girls (sometimes as young as 9 years old) are sold by their own fathers to brothels as sex slaves in big cities. Often this happens due to debt accumulated from gambling, whereby the father has no other way to raise the money than to sell his daughters.

Yahoo clearly reads either the force of public reaction to the glut of porn or else it sees a closed market of high stakes and surmises that there are better ways to turn a relatively safe profit or else it knows something and isn't saying.

Maybe that thing it knows is that morality also pays and will increasingly pay as parents and other concerned citizens turn savage and demand better porn filters but when it is seen that these are useless, in steps a regulatory agency offering a two tier internet - one protected and restricted by the agency and the other free and unfettered, eventually to be closed down, once it's served its purpose.

Meanwhile we bloggers blithely type away and post things like this article, eventually read by 2 or 3 hundred people and we feel pleased that we are doing society a favour. Actually we are pretty irrelevant and riding on the back of a game with far higher stakes. That game is the new feudalism:

The new Middle Ages will be worse for most of humanity than the older ones were for the serfs; the latter were at least needed in productive processes and thus received employment and a certain amount of maintenance.

So-called progress in technology and management methods is reducing this need, a fact currently masked by migration of formerly productive employees to service sectors, which, in the long run, are unsustainable.

In general terms, tomorrow's serf will find himself not only sub- or unemployed, but socially excluded from state-of-the-art living, be it in communications, transportation, health care, education, or recreation.

We're moving to a stage now where people are either integrating fully [i.e. citizenship] or else are being repatriated. The days which Martin Kelly refers to are rapidly coming to a close, the same days Tom Paine refers to here:

100% or more of all my contacts with clients (I am a lawyer) are by phone and email, but it's just not conceivable to execute complex deals without spending time together. If those deals are across borders, that involves travel.

I very much feel these days are rapidly drawing to a close and that if we are propertied, hopefully multi-propertied, we'll be part of the "state-of-the-art living" referred to above but if we are in credit-delusion land, we are the new serfs.

I'm already rapidly adjusting my sights and coming to terms with the future. Here is an old post dealing with this.

[thought for the day] thursday evening

As the cow said after attempting to jump the moon and crashing ignominiously to the earth:

The old legs just haven't got that spring in them any more.