Ed Mililband and The Parable Of The Talents

From Matthew 25:29 and 30:

For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

From the BBC:

Unemployed young people could be denied out-of-work benefits unless they agree to training, Ed Miliband is to say.

In a speech, he will say those aged 18-21 should get a means-tested "youth allowance" rather than Jobseeker's Allowance, if they train in key skills...

Mr Miliband will also propose an increase in Jobseeker's Allowance from £72 to £100 a week for those who had been in work for the previous five years - rather than the current two years.

Or as Frank Zappa put it "And the meek shall inherit nothing".

Happy Second Blogday To ... "Fisking The Bible"

Having today decided that the world has gone mad anyway, I thought I'd wish a Happy Second Blogday one of the most heroic - pointless, but heroic - 'blog projects of all time, Jackart's Fisking The Bible.

A project which he abandoned a while later, it appears.

Matthew Parris

... was on the Today programme just now, commenting on The Goblin King's selective quotations from The Bible. He reminded us that 'talent' in that parable means a unit of currency, not a skill.

But best of all was Matthew Parris' comment that all the time he was listening to The Goblin King rambling on about everything-is-going-to-get-better and we-are-going-to-spend-more-on-everything, he was wondering whether The Goblin King would mentioned more tax rises or whether he'd trot out the feeding-the-five-thousand parable to explain that all these wonderful things would somehow magically pay for themselves.