The Diocese of Niagara is advertising in WoW Jobs for a Treasurer and Director of Finance.
The question is, why not a proofreader?
Mike and Fred even sent me a letter – presumably in the hope that I sink into advanced dementia before joining the choir invisible – asking to be remembered in my will.
The first sentence of the second paragraph had obviously been partially deleted; one presumes the ACoC can’t afford a proofreader until someone else dies.
I had assumed it should have read something like this:
As you reflect on your contributions to the church, we encourage you to consider including your parish or diocese in your will or in an insurance policy. By designating the church as a beneficiary, you will be strengthening our ability to fulfil God’s mission by continuing to sue ANiC parishes.
But apparently not; according to the Niagara web site the last part of the sentence should read…. “fulfill God’s mission well into the future”. I expect Fred made Mike change that bit.
Having made millions of dollars telling the serfs what they have to give up to make this world a better, cleaner place for him to live in, Al Gore has 
spent some of this well-earned cash on a little cottage where he can get away from all the pollution, noise and inconvenient-truth-nagging that the rest of us have to put up with.
From the National Post:
What is a multi-multi-millionaire Nobel Prize winner and environmental super-crusader to do with the riches that keep piling up from his international mission to save the planet?
If you’re Al Gore, you spend a chunk of it on yet another mega-home, this one in Montecito, California, a pleasant community for really, really rich people along the Pacific Coast near Santa Barbara.
The Los Angeles Times reported recently:
Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, have added a Montecito-area property to their real estate holdings, reports the Montecito Journal.
The couple spent $8,875,000 on an ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains, a real estate source familiar with the deal confirms. The Italian-style house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms.
This makes four mega-homes for the Gores, who have made vast amounts of money urging people to reduce the amount of energy they consume. It’s safe to say approximately everyone in the world (give or take a plutocrat) has fewer mega-homes and uses less energy than the Gores. Nine bathrooms? Is that because it’s so far from one end of the house to the other that Mr. Gore’s bladder can’t hold out? And six fireplaces: because in California, unlike, say, Canada, it gets cold in the winter, and the Gore’s need six fireplaces. Five wouldn’t be enough. Plus fountains. You can’t have enough fountains, especially as they consume no energy at all. The water just spouts into the air of its own volition.
h/t Directorblue
Capitalism: the Abortion Supercenter:
Communism: compulsory state supplied abortion with side effects:
Chinese farmer kills official for forcing wife’s abortion.
A farmer allegedly killed a family planning official in China’s Jilin province and injured her two minor children, after she forced his wife to undergo an abortion.The farmer, identified as Zhang Xuezhong, killed Jiang Xiaoling May 1 because he was angry she forced his wife to abort their baby, officials said Monday.
A rare case of capitalism and communism being equally horrific.
From Slate:
French attempts to outlaw the burqa strike a blow for the rights of women.
The French legislators who seek to repudiate the wearing of the veil or the burqa—whether the garment covers “only” the face or the entire female body—are often described as seeking to impose a “ban.” To the contrary, they are attempting to lift a ban: a ban on the right of women to choose their own dress, a ban on the right of women to disagree with male and clerical authority, and a ban on the right of all citizens to look one another in the face. The proposed law is in the best traditions of the French republic, which declares all citizens equal before the law and—no less important—equal in the face of one another.
In contrast, Bishop Barry Clarke – a bellwether whose proclamations I routinely use as a litmus for ideological buffoonery – unsurprisingly opposes a similar ban in Quebec:
MONTREAL – A bill that would bar a woman wearing a face veil from receiving government services is an attack on women’s rights in the guise of defending equality of the sexes, say the Anglican diocese of Montreal and the Simone de Beauvoir Institute.
In a statement approved Monday night by local clergy and Bishop Barry Clarke, the diocese said the bill erodes freedom of religion guaranteed under the Quebec and Canadian human-rights charters.
I had no idea that Bishop Victoria Matthews had made life difficult for Michael Ingham; thank you, Bishop Victoria, you and your irenic presence are now on my Christmas card list.
Bishop Matthews previously served in the Anglican Church of Canada. Anyone familiar with how difficult she made life for Bishop Michael Ingham after he and the Diocese of New Westminster approved the blessing of same sex relationships will have a hard time accepting her self portrait as an irenic presence.
The Pagan Police Group UK has a web site that proudly proclaims 19,702 hits; not a lot, you may think, but considering you have to be a policeman, a pagan and over 18 to join, it’s not bad. I myself applied for membership status in order to peruse the more interesting parts of the site. For pagan affiliation, I inserted “Anglican”; unfortunately, I fear my application may be refused because I am not actually a policeman.
It seems that pagan policemen in the UK can now take holidays in order to prance naked in abandoned bliss on the bacchanalia of their choice; such is the march of progress in an enlightened society:
Being serving police officers, they would no doubt leave their sun worshipping, mead drinking and naked dancing for their days off, not to mention the annual practice of leaving food out for the wandering dead.
As of today, however, pagan police have the right to take their festivals as official holiday after their support group won formal recognition from the Home Office.
The eight main festivals include:
• Samhain — On Hallow’een (October 31), pagans celebrate the dark winter half of the year by leaving food outside for the wandering dead, dressing up as ghosts and casting spells
• Imbolc — the festival of the lactating sheep held on February 2. Pagans pile stones on top of each other and make “priapic wands” to celebrate fertility
• Beltane — on April 30/May 1, pagan and Wicca worshippers celebrate the Sun god. In Celtic times it was an opportunity for unabashed sexuality and promiscuity
• Lammas — On July 31, pagans celebrate harvest time and go on country walks
• Yule — On December 21 pagans go door-to-door singing and burn a yule log to honour Kriss Kringle, the Germanic god of yule.
• Ostra — On March 21 pagans celebrate spring and heap praise on the Sun god
• Litha — or summer solstice. Members drink mead and dance naked to celebrate the harvest
• Mabon — pagans celebrate the autumn equinox with an outdoor feast.
A fact that he appears to be proud of. From here:
‘With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations – none of which I know how to work – information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.’
He also laid into the Internet gossip sites for spreading rumour around the world, even if it was false.
‘With so many voices clamouring for attention on blogs, on cable, on talk radio, it can be difficult, at times, to sift through it all; to know what to believe, to figure out who’s telling the truth and who’s not,’ he said.
‘Let’s face it – even some of the craziest claims can quickly gain traction. I’ve had some experience of that myself.’
And one of those crazy claims is that Obama doesn’t know how to use – how can I put it – easy to use devices designed for techno-dummies. Let’s hope no-one has told him where the nuclear button is kept: he might mistake it for a coffee maker.
From here:
Preston Blackwelder proudly showed off a painting of his grandmother that had hung next to the front door of his Port Wentworth home.
She was the woman who led him to God, Blackwelder said Friday.
And with that firm religious footing, Blackwelder said it would be preposterous to stop praying before meals at Port Wentworth’s Ed Young Senior Citizens Center near Savannah because of a federal guideline.
“She would say pray anyway,” Blackwelder said of his grandmother. “She’d say don’t listen.”
But Senior Citizens Inc. officials said Friday the meals they are contracted by the city to provide to Ed Young visitors are mostly covered with federal money, which ushers in the burden of separating church and state.
On Thursday, the usual open prayer before meals at the center was traded in for a moment of silence.
I trust the instinct of the seniors will be that of Daniel on hearing that King Darius – the ancient equivalent of Western governments, it appears – had forbidden prayer to all but himself:
When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. Dan 6:10
Update: it appears that the ridiculous anti-prayer policy has been changed.
From the BBC:
Some West Midlands Ambulance Service staff contacted their union after being asked if they thought Adolf Hitler was a “cool” leader in an NHS survey.
Unison said it had received complaints from a few members who found the question inappropriate.
The service defended the survey, which asked staff to rate leaders like Gordon Brown and Richard Branson.
I can’t see the problem: is there a more egregious insult than being viewed as cool?