Scientific Approach

This just about sums up Alarmism, which is somewhat ironic, as the author of this particular strip is a True Believer.

Thou shalt neither mock nor question the Holy Scriptures.

From the BBC:

HSBC has reportedly suspended a senior executive who accused central bankers and other officials of exaggerating the financial risks of climate change... During the 15-minute address at the FT Moral Money Summit, Mr Kirk said "Climate change is not a financial risk that we need to worry about."

"Unsubstantiated, shrill, partisan, self-serving, apocalyptic warnings are ALWAYS wrong," a slide shown as part of the presentation said... Later in the presentation, he said: "Who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years? Amsterdam has been six metres underwater for ages and that's a really nice place."

In cases of transgression, thine employer shalt say Three Hail Mary's and beg for forgiveness:

... a spokesperson shared a statement by HSBC Asset Management chief executive Nicolas Moreau referring to climate change as "one of the most serious emergencies facing the planet... HSBC Asset Management is committed to driving the transition to a sustainable global economy and has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure its clients' monies are managed for positive long-term environmental and social outcomes."

Amen.

Not a religion.

From Al Jazeera:

The sea level is rising twice as fast as previously forecast around parts of New Zealand, according to research published on Monday, putting the country’s two largest cities at risk decades earlier than expected... Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said adaptation planning was already under way, including budgeting for the relocation of some communities and infrastructure away from vulnerable coastlines.

“The first port of call isn’t necessarily managed retreat because there are a range of options that can be used,” she told Radio New Zealand, “We’re working alongside local government and insurers to work through who bears the costs of some of these options. The cost that needs to be borne won’t fall on one party.”

Ardern said New Zealanders should not accept that sea level rises are inevitable beyond those predicted for the near term, and every citizen should do all they can to reduce emissions and diminish the effects of climate change.

Hopefully she has tipped off the Dutch. Instead of spending all that money on flood defences, they should spend in on Tesla cars. Apparently the results are the same.

"Check your privilege chart"

From The Daily Mail.

The article is well worth a read, actually. Over the last decade or so, the Mail's journalism has improved (just ignore the Harry & Meghan stuff and the Home-Owner-Ist ranting) while the BBC's has worsened. At this rate, they should cross over soon.

Here's the highlight: They missed at least two very important categories:

a) Where you live. Just about everybody in the UK (democratic, developed) is better off than the downtrodden majority in dictatorships, theocracies or kleptocracies.

b) When you were born. Land speculation aside, things have improved immeasurably in most countries over the last fifty years. Fewer wars, fewer famines, economic development, overall slow drift to democracy, increasing life expectancy etc.

So, while societies are 'a bit racist', a non-white (or disabled, or gay, or whatever) person in the UK today faces much less discrimination than a non-white person here fifty years ago; a non-white person in the UK is probably much better off than most people in the non-white parts of the world, which by population is most of it.
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I'm happy to report that I am in the top tier in all but one* of those categories (pure blind luck, as are most things in life, and I am eternally grateful for this), including the missing categories 'where you live' and 'when you were born' (*apart from socio-economic status, but I'm doing OK and nothing to complain about).

I can even tick the 'Protestant' box (albeit agnostic-atheist Protestant), but what the heck are Catholics doing in the same tier? Aren't they the next tier down? Can't we play this stupid game from the point of view of The Top Dogs, and we get to decide who is in the top tiers?

Oh the irony.

From The Daily Mail:

A Catholic Bishop has been forced to apologies to outraged parents after telling a group of children that Santa Claus does not exist. The Roman Catholic diocese of Noto in Sicily insisted that Bishop Antonio Stagliano did not mean to dash the dreams of youngsters two weeks before Christmas.

Why stop there? Why not tell them that the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny (or their Italian equivalents) are also completely made up, and really piss off your employers by admitting there is no Sky Fairy?

Is Climate Alarmism a religion?

From the BBC:

Thousands of activists arrived in Scotland's largest city to make their climate change concerns known.

They included Greta Thunberg who was mobbed as she arrived by train in Glasgow. The Swedish activist was surrounded by police, media and activists at the city's Central Station.

Earlier, faith groups making pilgrimages to Glasgow converged in the city as protests build ahead of COP26 which starts on Sunday. Many had walked thousands of miles to join in a procession through the city centre.

Hundreds of people from Extinction Rebellion (XR) Faith and pilgrimage groups converged at the McLennan Arch on Glasgow Green, where XR Scotland's "Blue Rebels" formed a guard of honour for them. The bells at St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow led a UK-wide toll from 18:00, offering a traditional warning to humanity to "pay heed to the climate crisis".

Those arriving in the city include Marcha Glasgow, a group of Spanish activists who took a ferry from Bilbao to Portsmouth to embark on a 30-day hike to Glasgow. Camino to COP26* members have walked from London and Bristol to Glasgow in just under two months. Young Christian Climate Network activists arrived in the city on Saturday after walking 1,200 miles from Cornwall**.

This wasn't just about getting there, it was about playing the martyr or finding redemption through suffering or some such bullshit. After many similar publicity stunts, Ms Thunberg is now venerated as a minor saint.

* Google Maps says that London to Glasgow is 387 miles on foot, do fifteen to twenty miles a day, you could do it in half the time.

** Did they get lost along the way or is this just poor reporting by the BBC?

Splendid bit of Indian Bicycle Marketing

With a startling lack of imagination, the Islamists have decided to have a go as well.

From the BBC:

The Muslim Council of Britain has reiterated a call for the Conservatives to launch an independent inquiry into alleged Islamophobia within the party.

The MCB has repeatedly demanded an investigation, and says there are now "more than weekly incidents" involving Tory candidates and representatives.

In an open letter, it tells chairman Brandon Lewis he must "ensure racists and bigots have no place" in the party. A Tory spokesman said it took all incidents of Islamophobia seriously.

I hope the Tories maintain a sense of humour and get Shrami Chakrabarti in to do a whitewash!

Anyway, this'll be fun! Most people can distinguish between criticism of Israel (the country) and straightforward racism towards Jewish people*. For some reason however, any criticism of Islam (a weird set of anti-democratic, anti-Western and anti-liberal beliefs) is immediately portrayed as straightforward racism merely masquerading as criticism of those beliefs, which it clearly isn't.

If it were, then those same racists would engage in Hinduism-phobia, Sikhism-phobia, Buddhism-phobia etc, which they clearly don't. Not even the EDL have been accused of those, the words don't even exist, let alone the actual -ism itself.

* Clearly, criticism of the actions of a country is always legitimate, whether correct or not, as is criticism of political, religious or other beliefs, whether correct or not. I spend a lot of time criticising what the UK government does and criticising Home-Owner-Ism, that doth not somehow make me racist, doth it?

Reader's Letter Of The Day

Emailed in by the author:

CAN someone explain why anyone who criticises a religion risks prosecution, while insulting a political party is OK?

The idea that religions have benefitted humanity more than political parties is very debatable.

For example, various Muslim groups in Syria are responsible for a hundred thousand deaths in recent years, and over a million refugees.

As for the Church of England, that is traditionally referred to as “the Tory Party at prayer”: i.e. the C of E has spent most of life ingratiating itself with the rich and powerful.

In contrast, it’s political parties that arguably have brought the really big benefits: e.g. the Labour Party helped give us the NHS and state pensions. Religion cannot match that achievement.

It’s the height of cheek for the anti-free speech non-entities in Westminster to tell ordinary people what they can and can’t say about religion.

Ralph Musgrave, Durham

Reader's Letter of Last Week

From The Metro:

If the Supreme Court finds that Daniel and Amy McArthur discriminated for refusing to do a 'gay cak' (Metro, Wed), does this mean halal butchers can be forced to provide port to customers if asked?

Anon.

Possibly not the best analogy, but surely there is a Muslim cake shop somewhere we could use as a test-case? Ask them to lace a cake with alcohol and decorate it with a pig?

Bradford's "Jesus Man", RIP.

From The Daily Mail:

For more than 50 years the ‘Jesus Man’ of Bradford walked the streets spreading good cheer wherever he went with a wave and a warm smile. Geoffrey Brindley cut a distinctive figure dressed in his familiar brown robe and sandals with a satchel around his neck.

No one really knew where he was walking to or what he was doing, but this Christian figure somehow brought joy to people’s lives by his friendly demeanour. A ‘gentle and spiritual man,’ he simply brightened the day by smiling at strangers as he passed by...

It's true! When I was a lad, we saw him a couple of times out of the car window on the way home from the shops, and even from that distance, you felt he had given you all a smile and a wave. My Dad claimed that the man had been walking around since time immemorial (which wasn't quite true, the man was only ten or fifteen years into his journey by then) and pondered whether he was The Actual Wandering Monk.

My Dad also said that once when it was really chucking it down, he had pulled up and offered the man a lift, but the man just said that didn't need a lift where he was going.

I always wondered whether I had somehow imagined all this (a bit like small children believing in Santa Claus) and/or that my Dad had embellished one or two chance incidents into an urban myth. Turns out it was true.

A couple of theological questions for Sunday...

1. Several centuries ago, the Catholic Church decided that priests etc. had to be male and unmarried.

So what happened to all the priests etc. who were married when the rule was introduced? Surely they can't have all got divorced, because that's against the rules as well.

2. A couples of centuries later, lots of Christians left the Catholic church to form their own 'protestant' churches, for different reasons in different countries.

The power to declare somebody a saint has been the sole preserve of The Pope since about AD 400. For some reason, most protestant churches recognised all saints who had been declared saints before they broke away, but not those afterwards, and in the meantime, some protestant churches have had their own system for declaring somebody to be a saint, but that person only counts as a saint in his own territory.

So for example, you can see both Catholic and protestant churches called "St John" or "St Peter" (old saints), but after that, the systems have diverged. You won't see a Catholic churn called after a modern protestant saint or a protestant church called after a modern Catholic saint.

3. Can anybody reconcile this with any underlying logic?

Er, no it doesn't.

From the BBC:

Mohammed Shafiq is from The Ramadhan Foundation, an organisation which represents Muslims in Britain.

He says: "In the end, if you make that choice to leave Islam you're making a conscious choice to move away from your family as well and move away from the wider community."

Yes, that would appear to be true so far...

"This applies equally to all the other faiths."

Nope, nope and thrice nope.

Newsthump nails the gay cake story

From Newsthump:

Judge Johnson declared that not only were the bakers a pack of twats for denying the commission based on a person’s sexual orientation, but also that the bakery should “check out its own shop-front sometime”.

“Seriously, I’ve walked past it, and it looks camper than Dale Winton admiring a row of tents” said Johnson. “So where exactly they get the nerve to tell someone else that their gayness is inappropriate for something covered in pretty icing is absolutely beyond me.”

Beyond satire

From The Telegraph:

A primary school headmistress has been accused of "humiliating" pupils by making them lie face down on the floor while she pretends to ring God on her mobile phone to say they have been naughty.

**drumroll**

Furious parents of children at St Joseph's Roman Catholic primary in Devizes, Wiltshire, have written to the governors and complained to education watchdog Ofsted.

**cymbal splash/rim shot**

Christianity is finished - declare Thatcherites

From the Telegraph

Christianity should be consigned to history because it no longer has the answers to Britain’s problems, Thatcherites claim.

In a highly sensible pre-Synod intervention which has angered clerics and prompted a response from Justin Welby, Thatcher's most senior disciples said the religious ideas embodied by The Church were “lobotomising” society and “entrenching” stupidity among everyone.

They urged Conservatives to resist the nonsense of big religion as much as that of any over-mighty state and threw their support behind efforts to bolster aetheism in religion.

The intervention came in the form of a 52-page letter from some people who aren't complete idiots.

Bah humbug priest tells pupils God exists (but don't worry, their head teacher has put them right)

From the Telegraph

A head teacher has reassured puzzled pupils by asking God whether it was true that Santa did not exist and being able to report that he did not get an answer.

Angry parents said Father Dennis Higgins was "plain mean" after he upset the youngsters by telling them the man with the white beard and red hat was fake but the other man with the crown and the grey beard was real.

The stark sermon was handed out during mass at a nearby secondary school where pupils from the primary school were invited to celebrate the forthcoming religious season.

Instead of presents and Santa they got a revisionist message about the meaning of Christmas during which it was claimed that the festive season had nothing to do with sleighs full of toys and everything to do with the birth of a baby, which even theocracy scholars dispute.

Fun Online Polls: Is England (still) a Christian country & EU Parliament elections

The results to last week's Fun Online Polls were as follows:

Is England (still) a Christian country?

Yes, and that's a good thing - 54%
No, and that's a good thing - 20%
Yes, and that's a bad thing - 2%
No, and that's a bad thing - 24%

It was a good turnout (101 voters), thank you to everybody who took part.

Whatever you make of it, it would appear that 74% of people are reasonably happy with the way things are, case closed, I think.
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The next EU Parliament elections are looming (22 May), so that's our next Fun Online Poll.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

In total, 39 parties are fielding candidates, so I've narrowed it down to parties putting up candidates in at least half of all UK regions, plus the Pirate Party for luck (North West region only).

Fun Online Polls: Snails & Christian countries

THe responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Have you ever thrown a snail into a neighbour's garden?

Yes - 41%
No - 28%
I don't do any gardening - 31%

Thanks for responding. that seems about right to me.

The Royal Horticultural Society society did a similar survey and only a fifth of gardeners said that they did. Maybe they did their survey face-to-face and people were somehow ashamed to admit it?
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This week's Fun Online Poll.

David Cameron made the claim, for reasons best known to himself, that England was a Christian country, which generated many acres of verbiage, response and counter-response, a fine example by Peter Hitchens here.

So that's the question: "Is England (still) a Christian country, and is that a good or a bad thing?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

"George W Bush and I were at root of 21st-century wars, says Tony Blair"

From The Observer:

Tony Blair has reignited debate about the west's response to terrorism with a call on governments to recognise that politicians like himself and George W Bush have become the biggest source of conflict around the world.

Referring to wars and violent confrontations from Syria to Nigeria and the Philippines, Blair, writing in the Observer, argues that "there is one thing self-evidently in common: acts of terrorism are perpetrated by people like me who think they have a divine right to impose their will on others. It is a perversion of faith."

Identifying Bush and more recently Obama as an ever more dangerous phenomenon, the spread of which is easier in a one-party-two-brands system, he says: "The battles of this century are likely to be the product of extreme political ideology, just like those of the 20th century – and they could will be fought around the questions of the cultural or religious difference between the USA and their poodles on one side, and 'everybody else' on the other."

The former prime minister, who led the country into the Iraq conflict in 2003, appears to acknowledge that previous aspirations to export liberal democracy were complete hokum at best.

UPDATE: Newsthump did much the same article a day later, theirs is probably better Religious extremism at root of wars, insists religious extremist at root of wars

"Wise man 'offered bribe' for Baby Jesus visit"

From the BBC:

Once again it is that time of year - when we remember Joseph's selection process for the original Nativity line-up.

Some wise men took matters into their own hands in a bid to be immortalised as one of the first to see God's Chosen Son.

New father Joseph later told scribes: "A lesser known wise man did come and offer me 'to see me right' if he could join the other three."

He added, "As I'd just become a father for the first time, I didn't know how to handle it - but Mary and I had decided that three well-wishers was quite enough for the time being.

"It was already getting a bit crowded, what with the animals, angels, shepherds and whatnot."