[reason and enlightenment] the greatest joke perpetrated on man

Would you place your faith and the fate of your family in the hands of these murderous buffoons and their prostitute goddess or something a bit more eternal?

The reign of terror is reason? Sigh.

"Goddess of Reason, The. The central figure in an attempt to supersede Christianity during the French Revolution. The first Feast of Reason was held on 20th Brumaire [November 11], 1793, when the 'goddess', Mlle Candeille of the Opera, was enthroned in Notre Dame Cathedral, which became the Temple of Reason.

She was dressed in white with a red Phrygian cap (liberty cap) and the pike of Jupiter-Peuple in her hand. Mme Momoro, wife of a member of the Convention, was later installed at St Sulpice. Goddesses of Liberty and Reason were soon set up throughout France, one allegedly wearing a fillet bearing the words 'Turn me not into License!'

Saturnalia of an uninhibited kind accompanied these installations." [Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, 15th Ed. Revised by Adrian Room, HarperCollins, 1995]

Also see here and here.

For 3½ years, beginning November 24, 1793 to April 1797, religion was banned and a substitute put in place. They even changed the calendar.

Beginning with that period (November 24, 1793 or 3rd Frimaire in Year II), the churches of Paris were closed and the public reading of the Bible forbidden. Immediately, almost all parts of the town renounced religion, closed parish churches and reopened them as temples of reason.

In these temples, a prostitute, Désirée Candéille, was installed as the Goddess of Reason after she paraded naked through the streets of Paris. The goddess, after being embraced by the president, was mounted on a magnificent car, and conducted, amid an immense crowd, to the cathedral Notre Dame, to take the place of Deity.

There she was elevated on a high altar, and received the adoration of all present.

The forces of chaos are never chaotic - they have their agents in the field and in the revolution, these were the Illuminati Masons. The three greatest obstacles to chaos are the presence of G-d, through socially constraining scripture, the family unit and loyalty to a nation.

Once these can be broken down and it takes generations to achieve this - just look at our current four decades of history - once you have your people in place in the law, in medicine, in education and in all arms of the government, you're ready to move, through subterfuge and misdirection.

Once you've got the chaos moving along nicely, then you can drop in mischievous little hints - a Noyade here, a massacre there, the reign of terror facilitating all. People are easily cowed and when they sign away all freedoms in their rage against an organized grain shortage and happily go along with the sweeping away of that which they no longer value, e.g. the Christian message, only then can the wolves reveal themselves and run amok among the sheep.

The solution is oh so simple - retain your faith in G-d and keep the precepts in the back of your mind, no matter how much against the grain it goes with you, as there lies the knowledge of right and wrong on a sustainable basis, especially for your children, try to stay with your partner and family and be loyal to your nation. As long as sufficient people can hang on to these, the forces of chaos are not going to prevail.

This is what reason dictates. This is what enlightenment really is. The opposite - your Kants, Hegels, Voltaires and Nietzsches, those who argue the perfectability of Man, the fools - that is the road to darkness and chaos and that's where we're now headed, inch by inch.

These are times we're now living in when primal concepts will once again come to the fore.
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[charlotte corday] murderess, feminist or heroine

Wiki says that under the Second Empire, Marat was seen as a revolutionary monster and Corday as a heroine of France, as represented in the wall-map. I admit to much preferring the 1860 painting by Paul Jacques Aimé Baudry.

To the upside-down and wrong-way-round question: 'Would Charlotte Corday have killed Jean-Paul Marat if the political motivation had been removed from the equation?' the answer must surely be: 'No, she would not have.'

Therefore, her action might be construed to be patriotic - in support of her country, killing a maniac who was urging everyone - and in particular, the Jacobins - on to bloodier and bloodier mayhem, from the safety of his printing press, playing on the populist reputatation he'd already built up.

Corday was obviously a thinking woman. Of the Girondin persuasion, she was pro-revolution, in the sense of the relief of the suffering of the poor and especially that of the oppression of women - and the coming Reign of Terror was to be quite misogynist in places - so much so that she'd brooded on all these things and on the rantings of this man Marat.

Thinking through her mind's eye, she'd just lived through the September Massacres, she'd have been well aware, from history, of the Massacre of the Huguenots and above all, she would have feared all out civil war. It was a quite political, dare we call it 'assassination', one which, unfortunately, added to the woes rather than nipped them in the bud.

Her claim, at her trial, was that: 'I killed one man to save 100,000," possibly a reference to Maximilien Robespierre's words before the execution of King Louis XVI. Of course, it cut no ice and she was guillotined by the Jacobin push who were turning on anyone not of their persuasion, beginning with the Girondins.

Truth is, if a man or group of men are absolutely determined to grab power for themselves - and I don't trust ANY revolutionary not to be like this - then nothing is going to stand in his/their way, nothing. It's not unlike the EU monster and its determination to ride rough-shod over the No-votes and protests and have us under its jackboot.

A sidelight to the whole matter was that the agents-provocateurs were certainly out in force and the Masonic element was well represented whenever the situation took a turn for the worse, especially at the time of the dechristianization, culminating in the placing of the prostitute on the altar of Notre-Dame.

This has always been the aim of Them, only in the revolution, it was more openly naked than usual.
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[weekend poll] mid-poll report

Confessional style


It was a risk running this poll, not on account of the ire of Muslims but on account of the reactions of readers. Quite frankly, to be suddenly confronted with ten burqa clad women [you could split hairs as to whether they are, technically, burqas in all cases] was always going to produce emotional reactions.

For a start, there was dismay from those who saw oppressed women inside that garb and to put them in a parade, accompanied by the word 'sexiest' could be construed as low-class Trump and a sick joke. I confess that that is my own reaction and I'm uneasy about this week's offerings.

The second reaction is to say it is a statement against the oppression of women in those ridiculous robes in all weathers but against that, at least some of those women have chosen to take the hijab.

The third reaction is to be offended by the burqas, that women adopting them are deliberately driving a wedge between themselves and other members of society and I'm onside with this as well. Whichever way you look at it, the burqa certainly does nothing to endear the Muslim to the non-Muslim.

The fourth reaction is to see the funny side of it.

Interesting that people have actually voted [including me]. Are we abetting oppression? The bottom line is that it produces so many reactions, the burqa and none of them could be called positive. The moment we go banning them though, what has happened to our libertarianism?

So this week's 'sexiest' format poll has left many of us non-plussed, not least about what I was thinking in running it. I just felt it should be run, that was all.

[july 4th] or was it the 2nd or maybe august 2nd

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n-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"

America, a double ration of rum for every soldier and an artillery salute to you on your day.

[oceanos] cowardice and courage

Click pic to enlarge

The sinking of the Oceanos, on August 4th, 1991, was a tale of cowardice and courage.

A French built, Greek owned cruise ship, she was travelling from East London to Durban, which is against the prevailing sea. That particular stretch of water is one of the most treacherous in the world, having claimed many, many craft over the centuries.

The Oceanos, by this time, was already neglected and internally derelict but that didn't worry the company, which happily packed people on board. In heavy seas, a leak in the water scoop below, which brought in cooling water and was connected to baths and toilets throughout the ship, began taking in water in increasing amounts.

The captain and crew were seen heading for a life raft, leaving the passengers and ancillary staff to fend for themselves, not even closing lower portholes, standard procedure. Passengers were unaware until they saw water around them in their bunks and wherever they were.

Later reports state that the Captain in fact stayed and was the 7th person airlifted to shore but then he came back by helicopter to 'supervise', from the safety of the helicopter, the rescue of those below. Either way, neither he nor his crew were down below organizing the rescue, which he very much should have been doing.

Two entertainers, Julian Butler and Moss Hills, not only filmed it all on a home video recorder but also coordinated the rescue effort, getting people into lifejackets, going to the bridge and issuing a mayday , then awaiting the naval helicopters, which duly arrived and airlifted the passengers in a large operation.

Captain Avranos claimed, in the aftermath, that he was only going for help and that it didn't matter at what stage he did that. Naturally, he was found guilty of neglect and as far as I can see, was reprimanded. Reprimanded? By maritime procedure, he qualified for execution!



There is not only precedent and accepted practice at sea but also now in International Maritime Law, which not only gives the Captain near absolute power but also near absolute responsibility, on pain of penalties. This, in turn, has been reinforced in healthcare, where 'Captain of Ship' is a possible defence in cases of negligence. In one particular case, this was stated:

Of course, maritime law had a totally different development than did tort law. The fact that the captain of a ship was liable for the negligence of all members of the crew had never been (and has never since been) applied to any other area of the law of negligence except medical malpractice. It is somewhat easy to see how a court was drawn into the simile of Captain of the Ship.

The problem is that it is not easy to apply as actual law and courts in various countries see it different ways. It is most certainly de rigeur for the Captain to be last off and this was another case in point:

In 1965, a cruise liner called the Yarmouth Castle caught fire in the Caribbean and began to sink. A nearby ocean liner, the Bermuda Star, sent lifeboats to help. When the sinking ship's captain was one of the first people rescued to climb aboard the Bermuda Star deck, the Bermuda Star's captain was so incensed that he forced his colleague to return to the burning wreck until all the passengers were accounted for.

Most operators of luxury liners tell ship captains "to insure the safety of everyone else before their own," said Priscilla Hoye, a spokeswoman for Cunard Line Ltd., operator of the Queen Elizabeth 2 and other vessels. But she acknowledged that in the heat of an emergency, ship commanders are allowed flexibility.

Avranos stated, in an interview with ABC News:

"When I order abandon ship, it doesn't matter what time I leave. Abandon is for everybody. If some people like to stay, they can stay."

To me, this is outrageous. For a start, he did not issue that order before he was seen preparing for his and his closest officers' departure. Secondly, he did not remain behind to supervise the rescue. He claimed he could 'supervise the rscue better from the shore'.

Naturally we and every passenger on that ship saw him as a coward, a rat who had abandoned his own ship and broken every law imaginable but you know how it is with the law and [some] lawyers. They say, 'Not necessarily,' and attempt to bring elements of Tort Law into Maritime Law.

On the other hand, in law, precedent is a major factor and the precedent in this case is overwhelming. Also, this is not the first cowardly captain to have abandoned his responsibilities. This Philippines example is more to the point - they wanted the Captain found, dead or alive. So it should be.

I can't get information as to what eventually happened to Avranos.



The people who really should have been hauled over the coals were those who headed the shipping company. To allow that level of neglect of the ship's infrastructure, in that part of the world, is in itself criminal negligence. That a shipping company were not aware of the aquadynamics which act in relation to a ship's hull in heavy seas is too much to believe.

Many people cannot understand how a huge liner or tanker can break up and sink when a little sailing boat, like a cork, can be blown every which way but come out of it alive. In the end, it comes down to stresses and the size of the sea. A 40 foot boat, when the wave crests are 30 feet apart, is going to find itself suspended and sagging between two crests at some stage and this puts strain on the infrastructure. An 18 foot boat in that situation will ride up and down the waves - more uncomfortable but structurally safer.

On the other hand, an 18 foot boat in high seas is in real danger. There is a rule of thumb that your vessel needs to be of a length, to be safe, that the highest seas it will encounter are no more than 55% the length overall. In practice, the highest seas encountered [with some exceptions] are around 30 feet, more usually 20 feet. Therefore, in round figures, the boat needs to be at least 35 feet long and preferably 60 feet long to go to sea.

This, in fact, is what most ocean going sailcraft are.

The boat I've designed for myself is a 63 foot outrigger, 7 feet wide, built in compartments and with two junk sails of 1400 square feet. That, to me, seems the best compromise.
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[weekend poll] sexiest muslims

1. Burqa beach babe

2. A rose by any other name

3. Hospital green

4. Siberian tigress

5. Daring revelations

6. Grey on grey

7. Total effect

8. Ninja black

9. It's all in the eyes

10. Bearded ladies

Remember, you're allowed three votes at any one time.