A vestige of Occupy Toronto lives on

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From here:

TORONTO – A dozen Occupy Toronto members set up a small tent city adjacent to City Hall Tuesday to protest the cuts in the city’s 2012 budget.

Late Wednesday, they were still there and determined to have their voices heard.

Why do you need a tent to make your voice heard? Are they talking tents?

This ragtag assortment is protesting the Toronto budget cuts. Except, that is, for Wes Trotman who seems to be on a camping vacation and has just lost his way:

Wes Trotman is camping out, but admits he doesn’t know anything about the budget.

St Paul's occupiers to be evicted

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The Occupy St. Paul’s protesters have lost their court battle and will be evicted.

Reaction from the church was predictable:

The Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, commenting on the ruling, said: ‘Whatever now happens as a result of today’s judgment, the protest has brought a number of vital themes to prominence.

‘These are themes that the St Paul’s Institute remains committed to exploring and, now through London Connection, we want to ensure they continue to have a voice.

‘Bishops cannot have all the answers to what are complex economic problems. What we can do, however, is broker communications and make sure that a proper connection between finance and its ethical and moral context is found.’

It will be a profound relief to the clergy of St. Paul’s to return to the main mission of the Church of England: criticising capitalism from comfy armchairs, sherry in hand, without the tedious inconvenience of having to wade through a tide of smelly protesters first.

 

Iraq wants Saddam Hussein’s buttock back

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Yes, you’re right, I’m only posting this so I could write that headline.

From here:

More than five years after Saddam Hussein was executed, Iraq still wants a piece of its former president: his buttock, currently being held by an ex-UK soldier.

Nigel Ely, 52, grabbed a 2-pound piece of Hussein’s bronze statue – that made up part of his rear-end — when it was pulled down by Iraqis in 2003, the Sun reports.

Ely claims he is the legal owner of the buttock since he has turned it into a work of art. But the Iraqi government is demanding that he returns it or face possible theft charges, as it views the piece of scrap metal as a “cultural antiquity”.

I had thought that Iraq was sinking into barbarism but clearly I was wrong: it takes a certain degree of cultural sophistication to regard a buttock fragment as a “cultural antiquity.” This could never have happened in Afghanistan.

Atheists offended by their own dogma

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This billboard was removed from outside a Johannesburg church because an atheist was offended.

From here:

A church advertising campaign that depicted atheists as stupid has been banned by a watchdog in South Africa.

Officials ruled a billboard that suggested non-believers considered their existence to be accidental was likely to be found offensive.

[…..]

the ASA noted that it was obliged to consider the advertisement’s content after it received a complaint from a non-Christian member of the public.

Laying out its judgement on the matter, the authority stated that the complainant, Eugene Gerber, felt offended by the suggestion he was stupid.

The ruling stated: ‘In essence, the complainant submitted that the billboard offends him as an atheist as he does not consider his existence to be an accident.

‘Secondly, the depiction of a man with an empty head communicates that atheists are stupid.’

A few points:

First, I can’t see anything wrong with offending atheists. After all, Richard Dawkins has made a career out of offending Christians.

Second, if there is no God,  Eugene Gerber is a product of unguided evolution: an accident. An unfortunate accident, perhaps, but an accident nevertheless.

Third, a vast number of atheists, particularly the new atheists and those who have fallen under their spell, are stupid. They are incapable of applying the critical reasoning that they think demolishes religion to their own belief system: that is stupid.

The Church of England is being silly about homosexuality

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According to homosexual MP, Chris Bryant.

From here:

Anyone who has ever heard Jeffrey John preach, read his poetry or met him knows that he is a man of immense spirituality who should have been made a bishop years ago.

Sadly, the Church of England has got its cassocks so firmly in a twist that it seems completely incapable of coming to the same conclusion, purely and simply because he’s gay.

[….]

But in a classic twist of English logic, the Church still maintains that it’s fine and dandy to be gay just so long as you don’t do anything about it.

Celibacy is the rule – especially for the clergy – as same-sex sex is definitely off-limits.

There are two problems with this. For a start it is a great big lie. It ludicrously pretends that Jeffrey would be the first-ever gay bishop.

But I remember terribly anguished and frighteningly closeted gay bishops in my theological college back in the Eighties. One became quite a close friend, and his relief the moment he retired and took up residence with his lover of 20 years was a sad joy to behold.

And 10 years ago a bishop asked me, in all seriousness, whether it was wrong that he had just decided that he had to appoint a straight man to a particular inner-city parish because literally every other vicar in the area was gay.

There are that many homosexual priests and bishops in the Church of England?

If it’s twisted logic to expect a homosexual priest to be celibate because his condition is a part of his nature, it must also be twisted logic to expect a sinner not to sin because his condition is a part of his nature. Welcome to the Church of Antinomianism.

The ultimate alternative fuel

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The problem with electric cars is that their batteries run flat after driving about 65 miles and they take 8 hours to recharge. But there is a solution:

From here:

An astronaut has many things to worry about – the safety of the mission, the claustrophobic surroundings and the loneliness of the venture.

But now, they have one more thing to worry about – flatulence.

As humans produce two flammable gases – hydrogen and methane – which ignite when accumulated in an enclosed space and can ignite astronauts are potentially at risk as they are cooped up in their spacecrafts.

Some imaginative plumbing, a trunk full of baked beans and you can drive across the continent – or fly to the moon.

Those who need to go even further can install one of these extra large tanks in the passenger seat:

 

Rev Jeffrey John threatens legal action because he wasn’t made a bishop

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From here:

A controversial gay dean has threatened to take the Church of  England to court after he was blocked from becoming a bishop.

The Very Rev Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, has instructed an eminent employment lawyer to complain to Church officials after being rejected for the role of Bishop of Southwark.

Sources say the dean, one of the most contentious figures in the Church, believes he could sue officials under the Equality Act 2010, which bans discrimination on the grounds of sexuality. Such a case could create a damaging new rift within the CoE.

[…..]

Dr John has instructed Alison Downie, partner and head of employment at London lawyers Goodman Derrick, to write to the Commission to suggest it risks breaching gay equality laws if it is blocking the dean over his homosexuality.

Even if his homosexuality didn’t disqualify the Very Rev Jeffrey John from becoming a bishop, in appealing to secular laws to make his case, he surely further disqualifies himself by demonstrating that he prefers manmade secular authority to the church’s authority.

If he’s successful, John should, at his consecration, not be asked “Do you believe that God is calling you to this ministry?” but, instead: “Do you believe that the Equality Act is calling you to this ministry?”

MI5 becomes politically correct

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From here:

MI5 has been named on a list of Britain’s most gay-friendly employers for the very first time.

The security service was ranked at number 62 in the top 100 list of Britain’s best employers for lesbian, gay and bisexual staff.

It is the first time MI5 has appeared in the list compiled by the equality charity Stonewall.

I no longer live in the UK, but if I did, I’m sure I would feel a lot safer knowing that MI5 is taking the battle right to the doorstep of freedom hating terrorists by becoming gay-friendly. If this had happened earlier it could have prevented 7/7.

Some good news at last

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The U.S. was behind the assassination of one of Iran’s top nuclear scientists. The fact that Iran is making this claim makes it highly unlikely to be accurate, but if it is true, it’s good news because it means the U.S. still has the balls to do what needs to be done.

From here:

Iran said Saturday it has evidence that the United States was behind the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist this week in Tehran, state media reported.

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was killed in a brazen daylight assassination Wednesday when two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car in the Iranian capital.

The killing bore a strong resemblance to earlier killings of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program, and has prompted calls in Iran for retaliation against those deemed responsible.