Magic Statistics

In 2005, the Rt Rev Jim Njegovan, Bishop of Brandon, banned in his diocese all activities of that subversive group Anglican Essentials Canada and its minion rag The Anglican Planet.

The issue was raised at the diocesan Synod meeting last October.  After contentious debate, a motion expressing opposition to the bishop’s policy of excluding the Manitoba branch of Anglican Essentials from churches in the Diocese of Brandon was passed in a secret ballot vote.

An observer at the Synod meeting reported that Bp Njegovan gave his concurrence to the motion.

Bishop Njegovan gave his assent to all acts of Synod. Also, in a sincere and impassioned manner, the Bishop stated his love for the Diocese and all of its constituent members. He declared that he has never intended to harm anyone in his actions and apologised to anyone who felt so hurt.

It now emerges that, in a confidential letter to diocesan clergy dated 2 November, the bishop appeared to reaffirm his old exclusionary policy.

“I also feel I need to comment on Resolution #14 concerning ‘Essentials Meetings’ in parishes with consent of the Corporation. I hope that I do not need to remind you that in your ordination promises you state that you will respect and be guided by the pastoral direction and leadership of your bishop. As licensed clergy you also swear Oaths and Subscriptions, one of which states, ‘I will pay true and canonical obedience to the Bishop of Brandon in all things lawful and honest. So help me God.’ I also trust that you are all fully aware of my position and pastoral direction with regard to Essentials Manitoba; if you are not, please feel free to speak with me about it. To date no one has shown me any example of how Essentials Manitoba or Essentials Canada is building up the family of God within this Diocese of Brandon or within the National Church and I see it doing just the opposite. From my perspective, it operates from [a] secular political model, not a Church one, but enough said.”

With all due respect, sorry, but that’s not enough.  What exactly do you mean by that?

When asked to comment by Anglican Planet, the bishop offered this clarification brush-off.

“My intention was that it was a confidential letter between bishop and clergy. My assent to the Resolutions of our 43rd Synod was given and has not been withdrawn. If there is confusion, my clergy are welcome to speak to me directly.”

But the rest of you lowly pew-warmers can take a hike.

The results of voting on controversial motions at Brandon Synod indicate that laity are more sympathetic to Anglican Essentials concerns than are clergy.  Given that, Bp Njegovan’s stonewalling of ordinary Anglicans would appear likely to discourage mutual trust and open dialogue in his diocese.

h/t: Binks

Previous related post: Banned in Brandon

h/t: Andy at All Too Common

Another sign of the end?  What on earth could have prompted a deputy secretary general of the Zionist-entity-vilifying United Nations to say this?

Gregoire de Kalbermatten, deputy secretary general of the antidesertification group at the United Nations, said, “We need to learn from the resilience of Israel in developing dry lands.”

It must be a miracle.  And, frankly, it does sound like a miracle: Advances made by Israeli scientists have enabled development of fish farms in the Negev Desert.

Scientists here say they realized they were on to something when they found that brackish water drilled from underground desert aquifers hundreds of feet deep could be used to raise warm-water fish. The geothermal water, less than one-tenth as saline as sea water, free of pollutants and a toasty 98 degrees on average, proved an ideal match.

“It was not simple to convince people that growing fish in the desert makes sense,” said Samuel Appelbaum, a professor and fish biologist at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at the Sede Boqer campus of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

“It is important to stop with the reputation that arid land is nonfertile, useless land.”

That’s not all: water from the fish farms is recycled to irrigate olive groves and date palms.

The next step in this country, where water is scarce and expensive, was to show farmers that they could later use the water in which the fish are raised to irrigate their crops in a system called double usage. The organic waste produced by the cultured fish makes the water especially useful, because it acts as fertilizer for the crops.

Fields watered by brackish water dot Israel’s Negev and Arava Deserts in the south of the country, where they spread out like green blankets against a landscape of sand dunes and rocky outcrops. At Kibbutz Mashabbe Sade in the Negev, the recycled water from the fish ponds is used to irrigate acres of olive and jojoba groves. Elsewhere it is also used for irrigating date palms and alfalfa.

Could this system be used in the Saudi and other Middle Eastern deserts?  One would think that a possibility worth investigating.  Before that can happen, however, Israel’s Muslim neighbours would have to forego suicide bombing and other murderous acts in order to demonstrate their trustworthiness as potential business partners.

So, Arabs, which is it?  Continue a self-destructive campaign aimed at eliminating Israel, or embrace the opportunity of a decent life for you and your children by asking Israel to make your desert bloom like theirs?  I hope you’ll think on that.

h/t: American Thinker and Brad Drell, who also point out that the desert fish farms are quite embarrassing to mainline Protestant denominations that promote boycott and disinvestment campaigns against Israel.

Previous related post: Israel to begin producing energy from oil shale

My traffic has jumped today because of a post from one of the world's leading Anglican blogs Stand Firm, recently voted Best Overall and Best General Convention Coverage in the 2007 Anglican Blog Awards.  Thanks to Greg Griffith for the link, and congratulations to everyone who blogs at Stand Firm.  That would include Sarah Hey and the amazing Matt Kennedy.  (My apologies if I’ve omitted anyone; there doesn’t seem to be an “about” box at Stand Firm telling us who’s in charge.)

As Greg mentioned, I’ve been blogging for a while, but I finally got around to requesting a link from his site.  I didn't expect an actual post, however.

I run an undisciplined eccentric eclectic blog, covering a wide range of subjects and places mostly related to religious or other current news.  I also write a goodly number of humourous items—at least, I think they're humourous.  Although I’m an Anglican, I don’t post a lot of items directly related to Anglicanism because other bloggers with more theological insight and in-depth knowledge cover the angles far better than I could.  But when a Canadian—especially northern Canadian—Anglican story comes along, I generally throw in my two cents’ worth.

I hope visitors will find something of interest here.  The three boxes to the right of “About” at the top of the page contain links to more organised collections of posts.

For those wondering about the significance of the blog’s name, it comes from the Robertson Davies quotation in the header and the fact that I’m a statistician.  Statistics is by no means the focus of the blog, although there are some posts on that, too.

When I posted “Ken Kesey still inspires hallucinations” two days ago, I thought I was exaggerating a bit.  It turns out I had no idea how accurate it was.

Mike Males of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice has taken a close look at last week’s report from the Office of National Drug Control Policy and found some ominous trends.

[T]he fastest-growing population of drug abusers is white, middle-aged Americans.
. . .
Among Americans in their 40s and 50s, deaths from illicit-drug overdoses have risen by 800 percent since 1980, including 300 percent in the last decade. In 2004, American hospital emergency rooms treated 400,000 patients between the ages 35 and 64 for abusing heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, hallucinogens and “club drugs” like ecstasy.

Equally surprising, graying baby boomers have become America’s fastest-growing crime scourge. The F.B.I. reports that last year the number of Americans over the age of 40 arrested for violent and property felonies rose to 420,000, up from 170,000 in 1980. Arrests for drug offenses among those over 40 rose to 360,000 last year, up from 22,000 in 1980. The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 440,000 Americans ages 40 and older were incarcerated in 2005, triple the number in 1990.

Those boomers: they’re just going from bad to worse.

Mr Males argues that a narrow concentration on teenage drug abuse overlooks much of the problem.

[T]he biggest contributors to California’s drug abuse, death and injury toll are educated, middle-aged women living in the Central Valley and rural areas, while the fastest-declining, lowest-risk populations are urban black and Latino teenagers. . . . These are the sorts of trends we need to understand if we are to design effective policies.

h/t: Family Scholars Blog

Previous related posts:

• Ken Kesey still inspires hallucinations
• Cocaine users at risk of contracting Hepatitis C
  
• Boomers elevated individualism above common good
• Think marijuana’s not addictive? Think again.

Once again, our unelected robed masters have cut the people’s representatives out of an important public policy decision and overturned centuries of settled family-law jurisprudence.

The highest court in Ontario yesterday ruled that a five-year-old boy can legally have a father and two mothers.  In addition to the boy’s biological mother and father, the court accepted the application by the mother’s same-sex partner to be listed as a mother.

The court was told the child has three parents: his biological father and mother (identified in court documents as B.B. and C.C.) and C.C.'s partner, the appellant A.A.

A.A. and C.C. have been in a stable same-sex union since 1990. In 1999, they decided to start a family with the assistance of their friend B.B.

The two women would be the primary caregivers of the child, but they believed it would be in the child's best interests that B.B. remain involved in the child's life.

One would have presumed that compelling reasons were given for legalising a radically innovative precedent—one that contravenes not just all previous Canadian law but the virtually universal experience of Western civilisation.  The logic of the Ontario Court of Appeal, however, seems to be based entirely on (allegedly) changing social mores and advances in medical technology.

Justice Marc Rosenberg, writing on behalf of Chief Justice Roy McMurtry and Justice Jean-Marc Labrosse, found that due to a gap in legislation, the court in this case can exercise its "parens patriae" – the legal term for the state to act as the guardian for a minor – in declaring the partner a mother.

"Advances in our appreciation of the value of other types of relationships and in the science of reproductive technology have created gaps in the (Children's Law Reform Act's) legislative scheme," Rosenberg wrote. "Because of these changes, the parents of a child can be two women or two men."

If that’s all that matters, there is no limit to the size or permutations of legal “families”.  The court apparently failed to delineate exactly how more efficient medical science or changing social attitudes affect what is in the best interest of the child.

The CBC reports this lame “reasoning” from the father’s lawyer.

"If the biological parent is away, and the child gets sick and they [sic] have to go to the hospital, and the doctor wants the parent to sign a consent, there has to be the ability to do that," said [Alf] Mamo.

That's why this poor kid needs a third parent?  One wonders how two-parent families (never mind lone-parent families) have managed to rear children successfully for millennia of human existence.

h/t for CBC link: Proud To Be Canadian

Previous related posts:

• Lesbian seeks legal recognition as child’s third parent
• Can a child have three parents?

Release International, a UK-based organisation monitoring persecution of Christians around the world, warns that one-quarter of a billion face persecution in the coming year simply for following Christ.

According to Release, most persecution takes place in four distinct “zones”: those of Islam, Communism, Hinduism and Buddhism. But persecution is growing fastest of all in the Muslim world.

Governments in even moderate Muslim countries often fail to safeguard the rights of their Christian minorities, explained RI. Abuses suffered by Christians include kidnapping, forced conversion, imprisonment, church destruction, torture, rape and execution.

One of the world’s worst abusers of religious freedom is Saudi Arabia, guardian of Islam’s holiest sites – Mecca and Medina. Saudi Arabia forbids all other religions. A Muslim found “guilty” of converting to Christianity could face the death sentence for apostasy. And anyone who leads a Muslim to Christ faces jail, expulsion or execution.

“There’s a conspiracy of silence around Saudi,” said Release International’s CEO Andy Dipper, “probably because the West wants their oil and their money. But this is a government that hands out the death sentence for its own citizens who want nothing more than the freedom to choose their own faith. And while Saudi bans all Christian literature, it spends billions of dollars each year propagating Islam around the world.”

Much Christian persecution in the Muslim world also arises from the growing influence of Islamist extremist networks.

h/t: Persecution Blog

Previous related post: International Day of Prayer, 2006