A dove perched outside my study window – studying me.
Garden Dove
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Thomas Edison wept
At the behest of the green gestapo, Canada is set to ban the incandescent light bulb in 2012. The only problem is that, as often happens when the government meddles in things it shouldn’t, the result is likely to backfire and increase pollution not reduce it – mercury pollution in this case.
From here:
The Canadian government’s new energy-efficiency rules for light bulbs are fast approaching implementation, but no national standards exist to deal with the toxic waste they are expected to create.
The federal government admits the patchwork of regulations for disposing of compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs, is one of the unintended consequences of rushing in the new energy-efficiency regulations.
Environment Minister Peter Kent said he was surprised to hear from CBC News that the provinces — which are responsible for setting garbage disposal regulations — were at different levels of preparation for the new light-bulb regulations, which begin Jan. 1, 2012.
Traditional incandescent bulbs won’t meet the energy-saving rules. Kent said a national technical group is working out a system for recycling the mercury-containing bulbs that consumers will buy instead.
“If you’re finding a patchwork of understanding, I’ll make sure that we issue communications to my provincial colleagues and suggest that they come up to speed,” Kent said.
But experts in mercury pollution and recycling say they are unimpressed, and they worry the mercury will end up in municipal garbage dumps.
“They don’t really have a plan,” said Dana Silk, the general manager of Envirocentre, an Ottawa non-profit organization that works to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by delivering energy-efficiency goods and services.
Even worse is the fate suffered by the poor suckers who make CFLs:
From here:
WHEN British consumers are compelled to buy energy-efficient lightbulbs from 2012, they will save up to 5m tons of carbon dioxide a year from being pumped into the atmosphere. In China, however, a heavy environmental price is being paid for the production of “green” lightbulbs in cost-cutting factories.
Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. A surge in foreign demand, set off by a European Union directive making these bulbs compulsory within three years, has also led to the reopening of mercury mines that have ruined the environment.
The longest lasting light bulb in existence is an incandescent one: the Centennial incandescent light which has been burning for 109 years. The only thing that could put it out is the government.
Rowan Williams: "words have results"
He’s right: it’s a shame that Rowan so often employs words to obscure what he is thinking rather than clarify it, though.
Rowan Williams places the blame for David Kato’s murder squarely on those in Uganda who routinely vilify homosexuals with – words.
From here:
Dr Williams said Mr Kato’s murder illustrated the fact “words have results”.
“You cannot go around sharing information about the identity of proposed lesbian and gay persons and urging people to ostracise them or worse ‘Hang Them’ as in the headlines of one of the Ugandan newspapers,” he said, speaking to the media at the Emmaus retreat centre in Swords, Co Dublin.
“You cannot do that without taking responsibility for the consequences. Language which demonises gays and lesbians has consequences.”
As it turns out, it is quite probable that Kato’s murder had less to do with inflammatory anti-homosexual newspaper articles than it did with a criminal whom Kato paid – not enough apparently – to have sex with him.
From here:
“We have taken him to Mukono Magistrate’s Court to record an extrajudicial statement,” the source said. “He told us that he killed Kato after he failed to give him a car, a house and money he promised as rewards for having sex with him,” the source said.
Kato is alleged to have bailed the suspect out of Kawuga Prison on January 24, where he been remanded on charges of theft of a mobile phone. The suspect told police that he stayed with Kato for two days. He accused the deceased of having sex with him and promising to pay him during the period.
The suspect allegedly told the police he got tired of having sex with Kato but the latter would not have any of his excuses. “The suspect said he left the bedroom, went to a store and picked a hammer which he used to hit him [Kato] while he was still in bed,” the source said.
Rowan’s statements aren’t particularly surprising: at the Dublin Primates’ meeting no-one was allowed to talk about homosexuality at all, so the subject had to be introduced somehow.
Katharine Jefferts-Schori laments:
His murder deprives his people of a significant and effective voice, and we pray that the world may learn from his gentle and quiet witness, and begin to receive a heart of flesh in place of a heart of stone.
Not only that, of course: those imprisoned for stealing mobile phones have one less person to bail them out as a gentle and quiet witness – or for sex.
The Ugandan murder rate is around nine people per day which means that on the day Kato was killed, eight other people were too. There were no denunciations from prominent Anglicans for the other eight murders; so much for inclusion.
Anglican Primates “journeying together in honest conversation"
The Anglican Primates’ meeting, apart from producing copious travel related quantities of carbon dioxide – a gas readily found in nature, at least – also resulted in wind of a less wholesome kind.
From here:
“By God’s grace we strive to express … unity in diversity which is the Spirit’s work among the churches of the communion and the community of primates,” the document says. “In our common life together we are passionately committed to journeying together in honest conversation.”
A phrase like that, apart from setting the teeth of every right-thinking person on edge, is a sure sign that someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. And they are: the Primates representing the majority of Anglicans didn’t show up so, obviously, they won’t be journeying together in any sort of conversation.
The Primates deliberately avoided talking about the issue that is dividing their church, preferring, instead, to concentrating on trying to decide what a church is, on mouthing the expected platitudes, pontificating on anthropogenic global warming even though it may not exist and deploring the murder of Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato as violence against members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community even though it may not be.
The obvious thing they didn’t talk about was winning souls for Christ; but why would they? – they are Anglican Primates and, as such, far too sophisticated to fall for that kind of fundamentalist hooey.
Google Art
The site is here. It’s well worth a look.
Imam guilty of raping boy at mosque
From here:
A Muslim cleric has been convicted of raping a young boy as he attended Islamic education lessons at his mosque.
Mohammed Hanif Khan, 42, was also found guilty by a jury at Nottingham Crown Court of sexual activity with a child, as well as the two counts of rape.
The charges relate to two boys who attended the mosque in Capper Street, Stoke on Trent, where he was imam, in 2009.
Prosecutor Tariq Bin Shakoor told the jury part of Khan’s job was to lead prayers and give Islamic education lessons to boys at evening classes.
He told the court one of the boys claimed in police interviews that he was singled out by Khan after evening prayer on several occasions. He was sexually assaulted in various areas of the mosque which were not covered by CCTV, Mr Shakoor told the court.
The other boy was assaulted when he was an overnight guest at Khan’s house, the jury of six men and six women were told.
Some have enjoyed claiming that the sexual abuse of young boys by Catholic priests was caused by their not being allowed to marry: having no wife led to taking a catamite instead. Imams must be driven to the same extreme by having too many wives.
Before the storm
A furry guest contemplating the winter storm that is about to start.
The Anglican Church of Canada doesn’t approve of more incarceration for criminals
From here:
The Anglican Church of Canada’s long-time partner, the Church Council on Justice and Corrections (CCJC), has criticized a federal plan that would increase prison capacity and rates of incarceration. CCJC has prepared an information packet for churches and is encouraging all Canadians to consider the implications of this plan.
“Proposed new federal laws will ensure that more Canadians are sent to prison for longer periods, a strategy that has been repeatedly proven neither to reduce crime nor to assist victims,” wrote CCJC president Laurent Champagne in a recent letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
“Increasing levels of incarceration by marginalized people is counter-productive and undermines human dignity in our society,” he wrote. He encouraged the government to consider other methods of dealing with offenders, including well-supervised probation or release, bail options, reporting centres, and supportive housing programs.
There are two ways to reduce crime: the first and best option is to bring the criminal into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ; the second is summary execution.
The Anglican Church of Canada is in favour of neither.
Julian Assange is indifferent to lives being put in jeopardy by Wikileaks
From here:
Julian Assange said U.S. informants named in secret cables ‘deserved’ to be killed and initially refused to redact their names, a new book has revealed.
WikiLeaks published thousands of names of Afghans in 77,000 classified war files put on the whistle-blowing website, attracting criticism from international charities and governments.
In later releases of secret U.S. embassy cables in November around 15 per cent of files were withheld to protect lives and every file was checked before release.
Amnesty International said in a letter to WikiLeaks last year that all names in Afghan war logs should be redacted.
‘We have seen the negative, sometimes deadly ramifications for those Afghans identified as working for or sympathizing with international forces,’ it said.
Assange’s apparent gung-ho attitude in an early meeting to naming to naming U.S. informants stunned his media collaborators, the new book claimed.
The title said he told international reporters: ‘Well, they’re informants so, if they get killed, they’ve got it coming to them. They deserve it.’ The book continues: ‘There was, for a moment, silence around the table.’
If this is true – and there is little reason to doubt that it is – Assange has painted a rather large target on his back. Of course, if he is assassinated – well, he had it coming to him.
The adoption mess in the UK
From here:
A leading children’s charity complained yesterday that too many people think gays make inferior parents.
A survey by Barnardo’s said nearly a third of the public think heterosexual couples make better parents than same-sex couples.
The charity’s new chief said that prejudice against gays is harming the chances for young people in the care system winning new homes through adoption.
In 2008, a Christian couple were turned down as foster parents – even though they had already fostered 15 children – by the Derby city council because the couple would not “agree to tell any children in their care that homosexual lifestyles were acceptable” and the children would have to attend church. Pretty sinister.
From here:
Lawyers are to seek a judicial review of a decision by social workers to ban a Christian couple from fostering young children because they refused to sign up to new gay equality laws.
The action against Labour-controlled Derby City Council is likely to become a test case for the Government’s Sexual Orientation Regulations. Social workers rejected an application by Eunice and Owen Johns, who have four grown-up children, to be foster parents because they refused to agree to tell any children in their care that homosexual lifestyles were acceptable.
The couple, who have been married for 39 years, had applied to offer weekend respite care for foster children under the age of 10.
But the adoption panel was also unhappy that the couple was adamant that any child in their home would have to go to church with them on Sundays. Mrs Johns, a retired nurse, is a Sunday school teacher.
The rejection is being challenged in court, but it’s hard to be optimistic for the couple: as of 2010 in the UK, Christian adoption agencies in the UK have been forced to close for much the same reason.
From here:
Nearly every Christian adoption agency in the United Kingdom has been forced to close after resisting the government’s equality laws.
The legislation prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, and requires adoption agencies to consider same-sex couples as potential parents.
However, Christian agencies say they can’t comply because homosexuality goes against their beliefs.
Since the U.K. equality bill was passed in April, the number of adopted foster care children has dropped by 30 percent, and it’s estimated there are 4,000 children still awaiting adoption.
Clearly, the UK’s adoption strategy is not one of finding enough caring people to adopt children, but of finding enough people who are either in or approve of same-sex relationships to adopt children. And all the better if they are anti-Christian.