When the world is free

And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.

There'll be blue birds over...

There'll be love and laughter
And peace ever after
Tomorrow
When the world is free

The shepherd will tend his sheep
The valley will bloom again
And Jimmy will go to sleep
In his own little room again

There'll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow
Just you wait and see

Speaking of Irish fightyness

Flogging Molly

And on that cheery note...

how 'bout some poetry?


Limericks by an anonymous source:

THE LADY OF LEICESTER
There was an armed lady of Leicester
Who, when some fool tried to molest her,
Deftly clove him in twain
And skipped over the plain
Leaving him who would pester to fester.

OBI-WAN'S LIMERICK
Now no one, I think, will refute us
If we say this Chewbacca's hirsutus.
But, be that as it may,
Luke, it's our lucky day:
He's first mate on a ship that might suit us.


RUINS *
This castle, though built to be strong,
Would scarcely, I think, last for long
Under rocket attack:
The old stonework would crack.
If you thought otherwise, you'd be wrong.



* this was inspired by a discussion I had with the poet about a ruined castle near my village, perched up high on a rocky crag that has been inhabited and fortified for defense since the bronze age. I said it would be useful for those of us in the resistance to learn where these are and resort to them in...ah...times of trouble.

My friend noted that this would be a great plan had man not achieved flight. It's sadly true that the remaining 13th century walls of Beeston Castle did not stand up even to the artillery technology available to Cromwell's troops.

Too bad.

Why socialism is bad

*

Once the State pays your wage, and grants you the roof over your head, you are caught.There is no such thing as affordable housing but there is such a thing as the State seeking to get bigger and more powerful and if you share my sense of horror at this, you too will cringe as this socialist agenda is advanced, all in the name of the common good.

*it's a leg-hold trap.

Falling down on the job

Haven't done any Islamophobe racist stuff in ages.

Aaages.

And we know how I hate to disappoint my fans.

Civilisation-phobia

"...No shortage of politicians, however, lining up to accuse the film of falsely equating Islam with violence. Which is a bit like falsely equating Walt Disney with Mickey Mouse...Islam without violence is like an egg-free omelette. The religion is predicated on violence and the threat of violence. It's a religion of peace in the same way that North Korea is a people's democratic republic. But we're not allowed to say that, because if we do, we'll be threatened with violence."

How to tell if you suffer from Islamism:
Symptoms iclude
eleutherophobia: fear of freedom
epistomophobia: fear of knowledge
catagelophobia: fear of being ridiculed

In general a morbid aversion to growing up, dealing with reality and a pathological need to blame others for your own faults.

It certainly does not surprise me that the Islams and the "liberal left" have become such closely intertwined symbiotes. The psychology of whiney permanently offended adolescence is identical. The need to make the world conform to their ideas and a total inability to contemplate the possibility that they are in need of moral improvement.

The sexual deviancy is the same too. Never met a bigger bunch of sexual perverts than the social and moral activists on the left, except perhaps among frustrated adolescent boys. But I've never been to a mosque.


Bombturban quote of the week:

“Your Lord inspired the angels with the message: ‘I am with you. Give firmness to the Believers. I will terrorize the unbelievers. Therefore smite them on their necks and every joint and incapacitate them. Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.’“ (Koran 8:12)

Now there's a god I'd be keen to worship.

(Don't worry Anastasia, when the time comes, I'm sure your new overlords will be happy to let you shoot me.)

So, let me get this straight,

Two years ago, the government proposed plans to make it a criminal offense to force someone to marry.

Then the Islams shouted and howled, so the government backed down.

...

Have I got it right? The government saw that thousands of girls, some of them not out of primary school, were being sold by their families into marriage to grown men in foreign countries.

They thought, "Hey, this is bad. This is a violation of our moral principles about human freedom and the protection that families should give to their children. We should make this a crime." Then, the people committing this act screamed and howled about how they wanted to continue to commit it, so the government changed its mind and did nothing.

Ministers angered campaigners two years ago by dropping plans to make it a criminal offence to force someone to marry, after Muslim groups objected strongly to the plans.

A charity operating a national helpline on forced marriage, Karma Nirvana, yesterday highlighted one incident where a nine-year-old girl from a Pakistani family in the east Midlands was taken into care after her parents told her she was to be married.

Director Jasvinder Sanghera said that on average one child a week aged under 16 had sought assistance since the helpline launched in April.

'The youngest child we have dealt with was nine years old,' she said. 'The girl told her teacher she was going to be forced to marry someone and initially she was not believed.

I think I would like, at this juncture, as a person of Irish descent, to claim the right to slaughter the descendants of the Protestants, (and take all their stuff as compensation) who invaded my country, razed my churches, murdered my priests and starved to death millions of my countrymen and relations. Obviously fightyness is a legitimate Irish cultural expression and it is wrong of the government to suppress this traditional aspect of who I am as a person.

'But we have no idea how many children under 16 are at risk, and this is compounded by a reluctance of schools to engage with the issue. Many schools shy away due to supposed cultural sensitivities.'

A portrait of modern Britain

Philip Clarkson Webb, retired Classics teacher.

Police confiscate a 78 year-old man's walking stick to protect "climate change" protesters from this "offensive weapon".

Go ahead and read the article if you want, but there doesn't really seem much more to say.

Oh wait, except there is one more thing:

the cops lost his stick.

When he later went to collect it from his
local police station in Southborough, Kent, with his police receipt,
he was told it had been misplaced.

It took a string of phone calls for Kent Police to finally admit
they had lost it and to offer to buy him a brand new one.

That's the trouble with reality,

it does so get in the way of our plans.

India Knight on why feminism is bunk:

See also the extremes men now go to in order to punish their former wives or girlfriends: horrific news stories about fathers murdering their children and then killing themselves have become, if not quite commonplace, frequent enough to ring loud alarm bells. There was another one just last week. There's not much point in women saying, "Oh dear, how horrid - but anyway, about my right to breastfeed in public . . . " These are issues that need to be looked at urgently before the situation gets wholly out of control.

Women aren't powerless - au contraire. What is interesting about the sexist pay packet is that it doesn't happen despite women, but rather with their consent and, in many cases, their covert approval. The fact of the matter is that biology will always get in the way of gender politics; you can cogitate and reason all you like, but it isn't easy simply to eradicate attitudes and desires that have been hard-wired into us for millennia.

Wet men aren't generally considered desirable or attractive; manly men are. Manly men, knowing they are considered attractive, continue to behave in their retrograde way and are rewarded for it with popularity, success and, if they're good at their jobs, a heftier pay packet than anyone else's. And then everyone likes or admires them even more, secretly or otherwise: success, money, esteem - what's not to like, apart from the little matter of gender politics?

And of course, feminism's global emasculation of men has had a few unforeseen drawbacks. Like more violence against women.

This says a great deal about men’s sense of being emasculated at every turn in modern Britain - a complaint that is, I think, pretty much justified and needs to be addressed before it does considerable damage.

It is surely no coincidence that men seem angrier than they have ever been; you notice it especially when it comes to pornography. Wanting to subjugate and violate powerless women used to be a specialist minority interest; it has now become mainstream. Nobody seems to mind much. I find that pretty alarming.

What a shock!

Rome update

In case anyone cares what I'm doing.

I spoke this morning with a nice lady who will be searching out a suitable flat in a coastal town in the vicinity of the Urbs. Hope to actually make the transition by the end of Oct.

The only advice I can give to people intending to move to Italy is, forget about your preconceptions of how you want to live. Italy does not work by your rules. It does not work by any rules at all. Just go there and take what it offers; like Divine Providence, what Italy offers is probably better than what you had in mind anyway.

A man of unmistakable intellectual breeding

Secularists: hopelessly tone deaf.

The BBC is "thinking" about Brideshead, and wondering why everyone still thinks its so great, now that no one cares about all that Catholic stuff:

For author Evelyn Waugh, a Catholic convert, the central theme of the book was religion. As he put it, "the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters". In an era that celebrated the Catholicism-infused novels of Graham Greene and others, there was nothing strange about such a leitmotif.

In today's Britain, the Catholic aspect is no doubt lost on many, and yet the grip of the story remains.

"There is so much in it apart from that Catholic theme," says Alexander Waugh, grandson of the author, and writer of the Waugh family biography Fathers and Sons.

"It is a very rich book - nostalgia, of fading youth, beautiful language, a bit of sentiment. We all look back with a mixture of regret and pleasure. It is very beautiful and very warming.

It is a peculiarity of the "post-modern" mind, one that cannot accept the existence of any objective or "real" or "true" viewpoint, that it cannot understand literature. Pomo literary criticism is all that is taught in universities now and students are instructed to interpret for themselves, according to whatever political paradigm is being used, whatever piece of literature they are reading. Thus we get the "LGBTQ" or the "feminist" approach to Waugh's characters in which students are instructed to "read in" the various political causes to the characters' motivations. For our postmodern barbarians, the idea of trying to find out from the text the "real" or "objective" meaning of what they are reading, what the author intended, is merely laughable, archaic. A notion that died out in academe with academic gowns and Latin grace at the college dinner and evensong in the college chapel.

To the PMBs, there is no such thing as an external reality to apprehend in literature, and therefore all literary study and criticism is entirely a matter of subjective interpolations rather than objective interpretations. I have tried to read postmodern literary criticism and found it is not only so heavily jargoned as to be incomprehensible, but also, once the meaning is excavated from the piles of gibberish, intolerably shallow. It is ironic that the modern interpolators criticised the old school as being narrow-minded. The idea that one can actually learn anything from literature has been swept aside.

I was reading Sir Arthur last night on the reason one should read and understand English literature and I realised that what he believed about literature, and truth, would have made it impossible for the great man to have been given employment in the academic field today. Examining the difference in approach to literature between this, what we must now call the "old school" represented by Sir Arthur and the new post-modern interpolative criticism, can give us a great many hints as to the difference in character and outlook between what has elsewhere been called the "Newfangled Person" and the "traditionalist", in every field of life, whether religion or politics, in grammar and usage or in table manners.

Sir Arthur was taking the then-new chair of English literature at Cambridge in 1913, and gave a speech to the learned gentlemen assembled, expounding how he would approach this nascent field of study:

"Let me, then, lay down two or three principles by which I propose to be guided. For the first principle of all I put to you that in studying any work of genius we should begin by taking it absolutely: that is to say, with minds intent on discovering just what the author's mind intended; this being at once the obvious approach to its meaning, and the merest duty of politeness we owe to the great man adressing us. We should lay our minds open to what he wishes to tell, and if what he has to tell be noble and high and beautiful, we should surrender and let soak our minds in it. [italics in the original]

...

As we dwell here between two mysteries, of a soul within and an ordered Universe without, so among us are granted to dwell certain men of more delicate intellectual fibre than their fellows - men whose minds have, as it were, filaments to intercept, apprehend, conduct, translate home to us stray messages between these two mysteries, as modern telegraphy has learnt to search out, snatch, gather home human messages astray over waste waters of the Ocean."

A man reading a great work of literature knows by instinct that something True has been uncovered. The purpose of studying literature is the same as that of studying anything True, therefore: to make a better man.

"If, then, the ordinary man be done this service by the poet, that (as Dr. Johnson defines it) 'he feels what he remembers to have felt before, but he feels it with a great increase of sensibility'; or even if, though the message be unfamiliar, it suggest to us, in Wordsworth's phrase, to 'feel that we are greater than we know,' I submit that we respond to it less by anything that usually passes for knowledge, than by an improvement of sensibility, a tuning up of the mind to the poet's pitch; so that the man we are proud to send forth from our Schools will be remarkable less for something he can take out of his wallet and exhibit for knowledge, than for being something , and that 'something' a man of unmistakable intellectual breeding, whose trained judgment we can trust to choose the better and reject the worse."

Can you imagine a modern university anywhere saying that its purpose is to create a man of "intellectual breeding" capable of distinguishing good and evil?

Didn't think so.

A right to his opinions II

Fan mail. The highlight of a pro-lifer's day:

"I would like to say that your website is full of Christian based bullshit. A fetus isn't a life until birth. Deal with it you single minded white Christians. You suck ass."

A right to his opinions

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch was one of us.

I picked up a little paperback of a series of lectures he gave at Cambridge in 1913, the year before the world ended, on the merits of studying English Literature.

He, like all men properly educated in his time, was an objectivist.

On the need for clear definitions:

Definitions, formulae (some would add, creeds) have their use in any society in that they restrain the ordinary unitellectual man from making a public nuisance with his private opinions.

I never get a link

The Catholic bishops' Magic Circle wants to close down this blog. In fact, it has a whole list of Catholic blogs it would like to suppress. Why? "Misleading information," say the bishops. I don't think so. It's accurate information they don't want to leak out.

A few nights ago I joined a group of Catholic bloggers in a pub in Victoria. They included the world-famous Fr Z from America, Fr Tim Finigan and Mac McLernon ("Mulier Fortis"). We felt like a group of East European dissidents swapping samizdat literature in the 1970s.

There are liberal Catholic bloggers out there [there are? Does anyone read them?], but it is persecuted traditionalists who have seized control of cyberspace in the English-speaking world, with disastrous results for the secretive Futurechurch project...

Every vindictive move against the traditional liturgy is reported. Every slip is exploited. And, worst of all, conservative Vatican rulings can no longer be concealed from the faithful. No wonder the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales discussed controlling blogs at its last meeting.

They're going to have to take a number. I understand the EU isn't too pleased with the bloggers either.

"Catholics have an inherent love for all customs obscure and funny-looking."

Someone was just asking about the term "POD". It is listed as "Catholic blog slang" and is an acronym for "Pious and Overly Devotional". I'm not sure when it began to be used by bloggers but I know that it orginated, or so the legend goes, in US seminaries where being labelled "Pious and Overly Devotional" was one of the things that got you kicked out of the seminaries of places like Washington, Baltimore and Chicago.

I think I saw a reference to it in Michael Rose's book Good-Bye Good Men. The appellation of POD was usually assigned by one of these be-pantsuited anti-nuns with the Masters' degrees in "pastoral psychology" hired by dioceses to be the door keepers. You had to get past them to get in and to do that you had to convince them what a progressive and forward-thinking Catholic you were. Praying the Rosary every day would get you PODstamped. Praying the labyrinth was the key that opened the door.

So, POD on the Catho-blogs is one of those "take it back" kind of backlash things. If you're interested in the Restoration of all Good Things, you're POD and will probably have a very hard time in the seminary. Or the Church in general.

What's POD?

The London Oratory is POD.
The Rosary is POD.
Incense is POD.
Benediction is POD.
Kneeling to receive Communion on the tongue is POD.
Bits of dead saints in golden caskets is POD.
Deacons and subdeacons at Mass is POD.

Baroque Masses at Mass with an orchestra: POD.
Baroque Masses at a concert held in a church: not POD.

Full length womens' religious habits with a wimple and guimpe: POD
A polyester jumper and tea-towel-perched-on-the-back-of-the-head: not POD.

Fifteen decades of the Rosary: POD
"Luminous mysteries" messing up the weekly Rosary schedule: not POD.

An alb with hand made lace from knee to ankle: POD.
The De-Luxe cotton/poly blend albuble: better not even to think about it.

Liturgical new year's eve parties held on the Saturday before the first Sunday in Advent: POD. (Yes, I know people who do this).
World Youth Day: not POD.

Ember Days, Maniples, Papal tiaras and flabella: POD
Popemobile: not POD.

If you jumped up and down and screamed for joy when the name "Ratzinger" was announced, you're probably POD.

If you know where on your vestments the "orphreys" and "clavi" are supposed to go, you're POD.

If you get the Granda catalogue every year, you're probably too POD for your own good.

This on POD from the Whappsters:

A while ago, I wrote: "Catholics have an inherant love for all customs obscure and funny-looking." And actually, more thought went into that than may have appeared.

Christianity claims to be one body, set apart and sanctified by the work and teaching of Christ, given to all men of all times and places, descendant from the Apostles and following their example in continuing to reach out to the world. To wit: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

"POD" things, at least the ones which are awesome because they are "obscure" and "funny-looking," express particularly, I think, the holiness and catholicity of the Church, and even hint at its apostolicity.

Our obscure traditions are obscured, usually, by the passage of time and the remoteness of the culture(s) from which they originated. Anyone who has studied the history of the old Mass knows that it is a jumble of symbols dating from many different times and many different places; as is, for that matter, clerical vestry. This very obscureness necessarily shows forth the catholicity of the Church: seeing a medieval custom continued today demands the recognition that the Church was present in the Middle Ages and, in continuity, is present today. Seeing a Gaulic or Greek or Italian symbol demands the recognition that the Church was present in that place, and now, across cultures and continents, is present here. The living obscurities of the Church witness to her character as universal, universal to all people and through all time.

Took a little trip to Manchester yesterday

to visit with the Norbertines, a very jolly bunch.

They're moving in a week or so down to Chelmsford, but will be keeping someone at St. Chads to keep things going.

Got to go to Mass, and was very kindly invited to a nice lunch and a very pleasant chin-wag after. I do so miss shop-talk.


St. Chads is a lovely church, in one of the nastiest neighbourhoods of Manchester. Fr. Hugh told me that it had been a Catholic neighbourhood back in the day. The same day when the mills were still open and the labourers were Irish.

I was told that there had once been a very beautiful Gothic rood screen, but that it had been the first to go in the '60s. It is indicative of the quality of education given to priests of the previous generation that the reason it was destroyed was that a rood screen was "too Protestant", because, of course, all the old English parishes churches retained them after the Anglicans stole our churches and started murdering our priests.

Fortunately, the parish was too poor for very much more VaticanII-mandated vandalism and they satisfied themselves with mere liturgical terrorism and bullying after that. But it is in lovely shape and the Norbies have used it to good purpose.


The real treat though is the side chapel where statues of Norbertine saints keep watch with Our Lady of Walsingham.






Br. Rupert serving


...and tidying up after




At least some people don't mind having their picture taken.

Can it go the other direction?

I've always been struck with the series of photos of Ven. Charles de Foucault. I showed them to my catechism students as an example of what the Christian life is supposed to do to a person. It is supposed, I told them, to fix you. To undo the damage of sin.


The libertine atheist soldier.

There was an earlier one, of Charles as an unsmiling aristocratic child. It was easy to see that his unhappiness in young adulthood started very early. I cannot find a copy of the picture though.


On the mend: the monk-hermit


The saint.

Here's a thought

What if our sins showed on the outside?

I mean, what if we couldn't hide our wicked deeds and thoughts because they showed on our faces?


Apostasy, fornication, lust, lies, abuse of love and trust, petty thefts from the office? What if it all showed and only Confession could restore your face?


What kind of attraction would sin have then?

I think God should have thought of that.

If I were a giant pharmaceutical company,

with £100m a year to spend, I'd totally buy myself a few politicians.

The Health Secretary also confirmed that there would be a two-year catch up campaign starting in Autumn 2009, for girls up to 18 years. The routine programme could cost up to £100m a year and the catch up programme could cost up to £200m in 2009/10 and 20010/11, but the Department of Health aims to negotiate a reduction in vaccine price during the procurement process.

...get a lot of drugs approved for sale in the UK with that kind of money.

Healthy Interests

This just in via email:

"Look at this BBC page, about a married Anglican paedo. The sentence 'The prosecution said Hart had an unhealthy interest in child pornography since the mid 1980s' really makes me wonder, does the the BBC consider there to be a healthy interest in child pornography?"

For your security

Home secretary Jacqui Smith unveiled the first UK identity card on Thursday, reopening the debate about their necessity.

Many campaigners are vehemently opposed to the government's ID card plans, which will begin when the government rolls out its biometric residence permits for foreign nationals in November.

The first ID cards for British citizens are expected to be introduced in 2009 while from 2010 they will be available on a voluntary basis.

Those against them argue they undermine civil liberties by providing the government with unnecessary information. Ms Smith insists they are necessary as a means of allowing legitimate foreign nationals to claim public services.

But cost is also an issue, as their development has already produced a bill of over £100 million.

How much would it cost to put more cops on the street?

Just askin'.

Miracles

Jeff Culbreath gets a free cow from God.

Last week, Kelly - the young cowboy who rents our pasture - pulled up in his dusty old truck and asked to speak with me. Did I know that one of my cows just had a calf? he asked. I said that was impossible, there must be some mistake. No mistake, he insisted. He had been treating the calf for pneumonia for a couple of days, and it looks like she’s going to make it. I was incredulous. How can that be? We don’t keep a bull, and her AI treatment was 15 months ago. So far, despite the advances of technology, they still haven’t come up with a self-fertilizing breed of cattle!

Nevertheless, there it was: a calf. Facts are facts.

I always knew God liked Jeff best.

Coming up next:

on the CBC's New autumn lineup.

CBC – Welfare Wampum: Indians, head feathers, drums and white Liberal guilt.

David Suzuki - Earth God: why you deserve to die so the 3-toed Siberian tree frog can live.

Little Jihad on the Prairie : The zany antics of sleeper cell- redneck culture clash.

Ottawa Report: running the country and designing society is a job for the ivy-walled university clique. 1 hour a week we make you feel disempowered and insignificant.

Election Night in Canada: socialism is good for you so we have packaged 4 brands of it to chose from

Marketplace: The urgent need for more government regulation to protect consumers against an industrial capitalist economy is explored weekly

I've started a meme. Cool.

Thoughtcrime of the Day: Culturally speaking, "Asians" are whiney, spoiled, manipulative, perpetual teenagers

with chip on their shoulders the size of Surrey.

Ten years ago, on Feb. 9. 1998, Chopra was in the audience when his incoming boss, one André Lachance, introduced himself to colleagues with the declaration that — horror of horrors — “he liked visible minorities.”

Chopra declared this to be “a racist remark,” and used it as Exhibit A in his ongoing human-rights nuisance suits.

So, saying you're not a racist means you're a racist. And I suppose pointing out the logical contradictions of the HRCs and their Complestants also makes you a racist. Does having the capacity for rational thought make you a racist, I wonder? Maybe wondering if the capacity for rational thought makes you a racist, makes you a racist.

I wonder: does the HRC think that if a woman says no, she really means yes too?

Apparently John Ralston Saul, Canuckistan's Philosopher King, thinks that thinking too much about racism makes you a racist:

John Ralston Saul argues that Canada is “a Métis civilization” that owes all it has (except for the nasty racist bits, of course) to “Aboriginal inspiration.”

The question of how, exactly, a bunch of warring, pre-literate aboriginal hunter-gatherer societies can claim credit for the creation of a modern, democratic, capitalist, industrial powerhouse built entirely in a European image is one that, alas, I must leave for others. That’s because I could not get past Saul’s ridiculous introduction, in which he claims, Deschamps-style, that white, liberal sympathy and guilt regarding the plight of Canada’s natives are merely manifestations of — you guessed it — racism.

Does thinking about people thinking too much about racism make John Raulston Saul a racist? Maybe wondering if John Raulston Saul is a racist makes me a racist. Oh right, I forgot. I'm already officially a racist.

My head hurts.

...

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (HRT) adjudicator became the first jurist in recorded human history to convict someone of racial discrimination for praising visible minorities.

Let's give 'em a big hand.

Chopra was frustrated by a career stalled in middle management. He was particularly incensed when he was passed over for acting Division Chief — even though he went on to flunk a test that was a prerequisite for the post.

A Punjabi Hindu who’d emigrated to Canada in the 1960s, Chopra decided there was a racist conspiracy against him.

Yeah, "visible minorities" ("Asians" in BBCspeak) are like that. It's pretty much the reason no one likes them in the soap-loving countries where people are supposed to know how to behave and don't usually rely on the mutaween to help them prove how manly they are by bullying women and Christians.

I worked with a guy once who'd come over from some godforsakenhellhole and obviously thought it was a big come-down in life to work with his hands in a bakery...and with a bunch of women to boot. Particularly women who refused to do his work for him and thank him for the privilege.

I think what really got under his skin was the contempt we held him in. He insisted it was racism. We just thought he was a jackass who, at 50-odd, seemed to be stuck in a permanent state of whiney adolescence.

From his early years as a drug evaluator at Health Canada, he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Colleagues complained he was authoritarian and confrontational — not the sort of scientist you wanted running a department.

Oh, how well I remember.

Everyone applauded the day he stomped off the job in a huff shouting about how no one respected him.

During 37 days of HRT hearings over the last two years, he let loose with a slew of theories about why he’d been denied the job — some so unhinged that even the otherwise sympathetic Deschamps chastised Chopra for undermining his own credibility.

Yeah, that's the guy.

Well, it looks like that Mutaween is finally coming through for them in Canada:

But in the end, Deschamps still came down on Chopra’s side — awarding him $4,000 in damages, plus a few thousand extra in interest and extra wages.

Mr. Kay concludes:

Aside from being another advertisement for why we should be closing down Canada’s human-rights commissions, the episode nicely illustrates the absurd lengths to which our society’s elites will now go to demonize Whitey. Used to be that us white males had to actually say or do something racist to get put on the human-rights dock. That criterion has now been downgraded to “preferred, but negotiable.”

Spike!

Further to the HRC GameShow idea that I left in Blazing's commbox earlier:

I should leave comments on other people's blogs more often.

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State of the Blog:
I was just looking and noticed I'm coming up on 2000 posts to this site. It used to be called The Devout Life, but I realised after a while that I was getting a bit bored as a "Catholic blogger" and thought I'd try just writing in general about life. Life in the Kingdom of Doom. It seems to have worked out fairly well. Site stats have shown that it is getting a steady readership.

I put the site meter on in March and it was up and down for a bit but seems to have steadied out at a little over 4200 "visits" a month and a total as of today of 44,635 "page views" (I don't know what the difference is between these...no, that's OK, I don't want an explanation).

I've seen that the photos of my various adventures around Britain and in Rome are particularly appreciated and get lots of links. You can thank my mum who made a point of leaving me her digital camera. The Judy Doloughan Memorial Camera.

I was talking with Fr. Finigan last night and he said it was nice to go to the London Blognic and meet ordinary non-bloggers who told him that they follow his blog and appreciate it. I've met a few people over the years who have said more or less the same thing, and it is nice. Weird, but nice.

We both agree that it is odd though, because as much as we think of the 'sphere, especially the catho-sphere as being like a little gossipy village, there is an equally strong feeling of sitting here in one's sitting room with one's screen and talking to one's self. Or to just the usual crowd of five or six people who regularly comment.

We also agreed that the blogging urge is incurable. Not everyone has the gene to get addicted to this peculiar hobby, but if you do, and once you start, it seems that there is just no going back. Even if you are only a small potatoes blogger like myself. One simply cannot stop. I know. I've tried several times. I always enjoy going through the site meter's location list and marvel at the incredibly vast distances my little obsession travels. It's also fun to watch the time zone thing as different countries sign in at different times of day as the dinner hour travels around the planet.

The usual thing is lots and lots of 'Mericans where I have loads of blogging buddies, peppered with Canuckistanis dreaming of freedom. But increasingly I've got people from some very obscure and mythic realms. Exotic Shangri-la kind of places like Singapore and Thailand, Jakarta and Guadalajara, Denmark and Leicestershire. Places I never dreamed I'd be visiting, even virtually.

Anyway, before I get down to some more serious work, I thought I'd say hello and a sincere thank you, especially to all my little gang of buddies (and my loyal enemies) who have come along for the last five or so years. Thanks for all the links and comments, insults and jibes, discussions and contributions (and books sent in the post, of which there have been not a few). And thanks for laughing at my jokes, which I know aren't always very funny. You'se is pals.

You know who you are.

Evict the UN

I want to vote for this guy

Today, Tom Tancredo introduced a bill, called the UN Eviction Act, to evict the UN from the United States.

“The U.N. has coddled brutal dictators, anti-Semites, state sponsors of terrorism, and nuclear proliferators – while excluding democratic countries from member ship and turning a blind eye to humanitarian tragedies and gross violations of human rights around the globe,” Tancredo said. “The U.N.’s continued presence in the United States is an embarrassment to our nation, and the time has come for this ineffective organization to pack its bags and hit the road.”

The United Nations is hosting dictators from around the world this week, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s brutal dictator. His speech has drawn thousands of protestors in New York City.

But of course, they'll show up in London like a bunch of boat people in thousand dollar suits and start demanding champagne breakfast meetings and free hotel space.

On the other hand, it does mean they'll be there when the oceans rise from global warming and London is under water...

Four thousand smackaroons!

I could use some of that.

I liked Kathy's idea that all the Canadian conservative bloggers file HRC complaints against each other, and then split the dough.

Health Canada scientist gets $4,000 for 'hurt feelings'
Don Butler , Canwest News Service

OTTAWA - The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has awarded a former Health Canada scientist $4,000 for "hurt feelings" after a supervisor's comment that he liked visible minorities was deemed to be racist.

When he was introduced to staff, Lachance told his audience that he liked visible minorities. An offended Chopra complained that the comment was a "deeply insensitive racial remark toward visible minority employees of the bureau." The tribunal concurred, finding that Lachance's comment was "offensive to Dr. Chopra and, by any standard, racist, even if some people in attendance did not find it to be so."
...

The tribunal chastised Dr. Chopra for asserting that every manager at Health Canada practices system racial discrimination, and every appointment in the past 20 years has been discriminatory. It said such sweeping assertions, made "without a proper evidentiary basis," undermine Chopra's credibility and "have a negative impact on the promotion of human rights."

Heh. The CHRC has learned to spell "evidentiary". Bet they had to look it up in the library.

comment from BCF: "We don't believe you but here's 4 Grand. Ok I'm suing Canada at the CHRC"


update:

I've had a GREAT idea!

I think the HRC could make a lot of money if they put it on TV on Saturday afternoons as game show.

The HRC Show.

They could do it like those big American shows like the Price is Right and Family Feud I used to watch in the 70s. Lots of glitter and sparkles and the HRC commissioners could dress up in ruffle shirts and dinner jackets and black ties and go around kissing the female contestant complainants.

Every week you could get a set of four or five contestants complainants, and you get the complainee (or whatever you call the victims) to put on a black hood and sit on a chair in a spotlight. Then the conplainants would get to write down their complaints on a little card that the studio audience could see and the complainee has to guess what the charges are. The audience gets to shout out hints like "Homophobe!" and "racist bastard!" to help him out. The complestants get an extra $500 whenever the victim gets the answer wrong (or you can't make out what he's shouting through the hood).

And Shirlene McGovern could put on a ball gown and a big smile and turn around some illuminated blocks that say, "Hurt feelings for $5000.00"

Maybe the audience could get in on it too. We could buy tickets and once a week the audience could do a draw to see if a Christian will get publicly flogged that week for discrimination against sodomites.

It would be the most popular game show in the world!

Think of the syndication possibilities, I mean, I just found out that Big Brother is made in 70 countries. And they don't even flog people on that one.

Canada would be the envy of the world. Governments would look on it as a big cash cow and start putting their own HRCs together.

Better than lotteries.

Like lotteries with flogging and ruffled shirts.

It'd be great.

They've noticed!

finally:

US State Department on religious freedom in Canada

International Religious Freedom Report 2008
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

Civil liberties organizations, the media, and some members of Parliament occasionally criticized federal and provincial human rights commissions and tribunals for their application of hate speech restrictions included in federal and provincial human rights acts, claiming that the commissions and tribunals at times limited free speech and expression, and religious rights. The commissions are required by law to process all complaints they receive.

A complaint against the editor of Catholic Insight, alleging the magazine promoted hatred against homosexuals,remained before the Canadian Human Rights Commission at the end of the reporting period. The complainant alleged that he was upholding Catholic teaching on homosexuality in the magazine.

...and a stone fox!

Pier Giorgio Frassati, beatified by JPII as a model saint for the third millenium.

But I think more to the point...look at the guy!

Do saints come that good looking?

I had no idea.

Carriere on

Britishness:

No, I should not have been British. If that were so, the Almighty would have seen to it that I was, you filthy blasphemer.

Anyway if I was, I'd probably not be spending the evening smoking a pipe but instead vomiting in the streets amongst young, and not-so-young women, in knicker-showing miniskirts who would probably be pleased to have me father for them another bastard child the better for them to suckle at the teat of the bloated Tony Blair State.

Socialism:

The income tax proposes that since you have produced something, the State will have it. It has no legitimate claim to it, and no useful purpose for it, but the State will confiscate it anyway.

The income tax leads the good citizenry toward thinking that productivity, being punished, is best avoided. The State, as conceived in the socialist car wreck of Canada, owns everything, from your goods to your labour, to your mind.

Pleased am I to have such clever friends.

Top Heavy

Now, I'm the first to admit that I don't know much (anything) about macroeconomics or even the basic ins and outs of banking, but this:

the total liabilities of Deutsche Bank (leverage ratio over 50!) amount to about €2,000bn (more than Fannie Mae) or more than 80 per cent of the gross domestic product of Germany. This is simply too much for the Bundesbank or even the German state, given that the German budget is bound by the rules of the European Union’s stability pact and the German government cannot order (unlike the US Treasury) its central bank to issue more currency. Similarly, the total liabilities of Barclays of around £1,300bn (leverage ratio 60!) are roughly equivalent to the GDP of the UK.

just doesn't sound good to me.

If a bank like that fails, who could possibly bail it out?

Given that solutions for the largest institutions can no longer be found at the national level it is apparent that the European Central Bank will need to be put in charge as it is the only institution that can issue unlimited amounts of a global reserve currency. The authorities in the UK and Switzerland – which cannot rely on the ECB – can only pray that no accident happens to the giants they have in their own garden.

What goes up will, inevitably, come down.

More at Open Europe

Rebuild my Church, which as you can see, is falling to ruin

The British government is more interested in saving English Catholic churches than are the English Catholic bishops.

The Archdiocese of Liverpool tried to have St Marie's demolished last year despite protests from local residents and the local council.

It was saved at the eleventh hour after being designated as a Grade II listed building, but has remained closed and now faces falling into disrepair.

"The Archdiocese is refusing to talk to us about their decision and seems determined to ensure that no-one can use it if they can't demolish it," he said.

"With so many churches struggling on in the face of dwindling congregations and punitive maintenance costs, it's particularly frustrating to see a church with an enthusiastic community around it which is forbidden to use the building."

Making us look good to all the world.

So, it looks like the crack Canuckistani Peace-Love-Groovy Tolerance Squad has struck again.

Nice going there. Good work.

Two peas in a pod

Arch"bishop" Rowan is going to Lourdes. Maybe he's asking for something special.

He will preach at the International Mass on 24th September 2008 which is being celebrated by His Eminence Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.

"Pathogens"

There is no more distasteful spectacle, morally and aesthetically, than the annual gathering of the Great Uncleanness that has debauched our country since 1997. Among the swarming pathogens at Manchester can be observed every strain of totalitarian, anti-British, anti-Christian prejudice that has undermined our civilisation for the past 11 years.

Oh come on now, Gerald, stop holding back, and tell us what you really think.

Quite simply, the governing party is alien to the nation, is now perceived as such, and there is no road back from that fundamental schism between all that is British and everything that is Labour.

Or so I most fervently hope.

Walsingham, Oh farewell!

Pray for the conversion of England.

From the Walsingham Project

Weep, weep, O Walsingham
Whose days are nights,
Blessings turned to blasphemies,
Holy deeds to despites.
Sin is where Our Lady sat,
Heaven turned into hell,
Satan sits where Our Lord did sway,
Walsingham, oh farewell!

England was not to remain merry for long. In 1538, twenty years after his last visit, Henry VIII saw to the proclamation of his Oath of Supremacy, thereby tearing England from the Holy See of Rome. The Protestant Revolution exploded on the continent. Needing funds, Henry turned and crushed any opposition from the monasteries and religious orders. Walsingham was one of the first to capitulate to the king's commands, and the canons who surrendered the Walsingham lands were awarded generous pensions. Only two canons refused. They were promptly martyred.

But Henry and Cranmer were not satisfied. Accusing the shrines of idolatry, the soldiers of the king pillaged the holy places of England and Wales, carting the statues and sacred articles back to London. In 1538, military divisions were sent into Walsingham to destroy it. The canons and Grey-Friars tried to defend the shrine, desperately pleading their immunity. All in vain. The priory was torn down, the buildings ravaged. The monks and canons who continued to resist were hung, drawn and quartered on a field now known as Martyr's Field.

* ~ * ~ *

In a happier vein:

Mary in Monmouth is a blog I've just discovered about the Christian history of Wales.

A site tracing the Catholic life and history of the Ancient Kingdom of Gwent, now known as Monmouthshire,UK from Silurian times. Linked to Mary in Monmouth download free from iTunes Store or RSS feed at end of this blog.Also MaryinMonmouth Group of Face book. Photographs of interesting places. Some Catechesis. Strength of site is in tracing obscure Gwentian saints and martyrs and digging out gems from forgotten sites.

And again

only this time, backwards and in high heels

Watching a peformance like this, one has to wonder

...just what is the point of Brad Pitt?

What a voice!

Canal Walk Today

Canal bridge. First person to guess how these grooves got worn in the stone and brick of the bridges gets a prize.


A life messing about with boats.


The moorages are like little villages. We're miles from anything, but never more than a shout away from people. And everyone is very friendly on the canals. Anglers, boat people, walkers, collectors, even tramps. It is very bad form to allow a narrowboat to pass without giving a wave and a smile and saying hello. They will often inquire as to what you are collecting, if you've got a bucket or a bag over your shoulder. I think I'm the only one who comes for rosehips.


Lots of people live full time on the narrow boats (they're not barges), and the English gardening instinct is as strong with them as with anyone.


Made it back just before dark. The nights are closing in, as they say. It was full dark by 7:30. The only reason I made it home was the bells at St. Peter's church in Waverton, ringing 6 pm.


Meanwhile, back at the lab.
Boiled up the first batch of rosehip and crab apple today.


And the hops have dried a treat. I'm going to put them in a jar with the chamomile tomorrow.

Elderberries

The canal towpaths are a buffet of wild stuff ready to eat. I took home at least five pounds of rosehips, and two of elderberries, and I'm going to use the last of the blackberries from last week to make elderberry and blackberry cordial.

Elderberries contain more vitamin C than any other herb except for black currants and rosehips, and researchers at the university of Anglesea (first I've heard of such a place) have found out that they are extremely good for the skin.

I have a row of bottles I've been saving for cordial making, but I was worried about sealing them and having the cordial mould, but with the recipe below I think there will be no problems. It's the hooch, see. And cloves are a preservative, apparently.


Elder is one of those trees that has a lot of history in this country:

Evidence of the elder tree has been traced back to the stone age village sites in Italy and Switzerland. It has a history of myth and magic as well as healing. The shrub was said to be a haven for lost spirits and medieval people refused to cut it down or burn it. Hippocrates mentioned the elder as an early purgative and Pliny mentions it's use by the Romans as well. "Elder" comes from the Anglo-Saxon word 'aeld' which meant 'fire' as the hollowed out stems were used to blow up a fire, and the hollowed out tubes were also used to fashion early pipes, giving it the name of "Pipe Tree."

Shakespeare refers to the elder in "Cymbeline" as a symbol of sadness and grief, yet for the English it forms one of the prettiest hedgerows and it's varied early medicinal use has made it a tree they welcome into their countryside.

There are many references to the elder being the tree Judas used to hang himself from, and one of it's names is the "Judas Tree." Other historical accounts say the Cross of Calvary was made of elder wood, hence linking it to sorrow and death. Yet with all of the tales of sorrow attached to this amazing tree it regenerates into a medicinal wonder.

The popular pop-gun of small boys in the country has often been made of Elder stems from which the pith has been removed, which moved Culpepper to declare: 'It is needless to write any description of this (Elder), since every boy that plays with a pop-gun will not mistake another tree for the Elder.' Pliny's writings also testify that pop-guns and whistles are manufactures many centuries old!

This old fashioned recipe is a favorite during cold and flu season, but can be enjoyed anytime.

* 1 tablespoon whole allspice
* 1 tablespoon cloves
* 1 piece stick cinnamon
* 8 quarts blackberries or elderberries
* 2 quarts cold water
* 4 pounds granulated sugar
* 2 quarts whiskey or brandy

Tie spices in a cloth bag. Pick over and wash berries. Place in preserving kettle; cover with water, and boil until thoroughly soft; then strain. Measure, and to each quart of juice add 2 cups sugar. Add spice bag and boil 20 minutes. Let cool, and measure again. To each quart of syrup, add 1 pint or whiskey or brandy. Bottle and cork tightly.

Vespers

I am listening to the recording by the BBC of Vespers at the London Oratory and it is making me terribly sad.

I don't know why.

We've lost something of incalculable worth.

No, it's worse than that.

We've thrown it away.

No no, after you

Elderly Peers who have significantly contributed to the re-engineering of British society into a vast death camp in which cold materialist utilitarianism has replaced Christian mercy and charity as the guiding principle of society, have a duty to be the first to volunteer for the disintegration chamber.

Elderly people suffering from dementia should consider ending their lives because they are a burden on the NHS and their families, according to the influential medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock.

"Blimey! I'm a foreigner!"

One of my all-time favourite films: Passport to Pimlico.

When I grow up, I want to be Margaret Rutherford.

Status: Worried

Hilary is glad the Big Yellow Sky god has gone away, but fears it will return in the morning. Where, O where is Greyroof? Has the god Greyroof forsaken us? Is he angry with us for having gone outside and squinted up at his rival, the Big Scary Yellow Thing?

I've heard that the Big Yellow Thing makes you turn a funny colour if you stay outside too long when it appears. I know what others say, that it makes the crops grow and brings happiness and delight at the beach...Some even make burnt animal sacrifices to it when it appears.

But I am not led astray. Lo! Greyroof is our friend. He maketh the waters to come down and the green to remain, yea, even unto the very month of August. He keepeth the brolly-makers in business and inspireth the English with stoicism and furnisheth the English poets with gloom and a marvellous melancholy. Verily, he giveth us something to talk about with our neighbours at the bus stop and doth wondrously distract our minds from the Labour party.

* ~ * ~ *

I put on some x-tra strength sunblock today, and with big floppy hat firmly on head and ratty old bag on shoulder, went out collecting.


Everything looked very bright and sparkly. Even the sheep.


Crab apples.


Apart from the no-sun-all-summer thing, the fruit trees are having a bumper year. Now if only they will ripen.


Hops, growing wild on a hedge.


If you dry the flower heads and combine them with chamomile, it makes a nice soothing tea that helps you sleep.


Most of the rosehips are still orange, but there are a few that are ready. I ended up with about three pounds worth. Enough to put together with some crab apples for another attempt at jelly.

More children in Britain have televisions in their rooms than fathers in their homes.

58% of children eat their evening meal in front of the TV
36% never eat any meals together with other family members
34% of households do not own dining tables

The British, never fond of children, have lost all knowledge or intuition about how to raise them; as a consequence, they now fear them, perhaps the most terrible augury possible for a society. The signs of this fear are unmistakable on the faces of the elderly in public places. An involuntary look of distaste, even barely controlled terror, crosses their faces if a group of young teens approaches; then they try to look as if they are not really there, hoping to avoid trouble. And the children themselves are afraid. The police say that many children as young as eight are carrying knives for protection. Violent attacks by the young between 10 and 17, usually on other children, have risen by 35% in the last four years.

What's Good

Devilled Kidneys

Take

two pork kidneys, cut up in cubes
three tablespoons flour
tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 chicken or beef Oxo dissolved in 1/2 cup hot water
2 tbs Lea n' Perrin's
2 tbs prepared English mustard
1/2 tbs brown sugar
2 tbs butter

Combine flour, cayenne and salt. Cut up the kidneys and dredge them in the flour, then roll in the mustard.

Melt the butter in a skillet and cook the kidneys for about five minutes over a low heat (stir carefully to avoid burning the flour/butter mixture on the pan).

Add worcestershire sauce to stock, and pour over the kidneys. Give a stir and cook until the gravy thickens. Add a wee bit of brown sugar if the gravy is too salty.

Serve on a slice of hot, white buttered toast.

Eat.

Devilled Kidneys are a traditional breakfast food of England, v. popular in Edwardian times. Excellent also for a late snack, and good with a cup of Darjeeling.

No One Expects the Westminster Inquisition

So, if they can do this,

why can't we do this? I can certainly think of a few candidates for a couple of days in the stocks.

Fair's fair, after all.

Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996.

Siddiqi said: “We realised that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals. This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are.”

Siddiqi said he expected the courts to handle a greater number of “smaller” criminal cases in coming years as more Muslim clients approach them. “All we are doing is regulating community affairs in these cases,” said Siddiqi, chairman of the governing council of the tribunal.

Heh.

Yeah. I like that: "regulating community affairs".

We could do a little (heh) re-branding of our own (nudge nudge wink wink). I think "Catholic Community Affairs Commission of the Westminster Archdiocese", sounds great. Very warm and fuzzy.

Or how about something like, "Liturgical Inquiry Committee".

Note to self

Four pounds of blackberries makes ten jars of jam.