Magic Statistics

British police arrested nine Birmingham Muslims on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks against British Muslim soldiers.  Nigel Farndale of the London Telegraph watched BBC reporting of the arrests and their aftermath, and doesn’t like what he saw.

[The BBC] doesn't seem to employ reporters any more so much as Racial Sensitivity Police. Arriving en masse in Birmingham to interview friends and relatives of the suspects, they came away with the following insights: 1) That all the suspects were proud to be British. 2) That they were all innocent. 3) That they definitely were not extremists engaged in jihad.

Well, they all sound great, these suspects. Our sort of people. They probably like cricket, too, living so close to Edgbaston. Judging by these testimonies I would say they were probably not the sort of fundamentalist nutters who live in a fantasy world fuelled by the internet porn of filmed beheadings. Not at all. One scruffy looking interviewee said he could "personally vouch" for his arrested cousin. Phew. We can sleep easily in our beds tonight then.

Frankly, I couldn't care less what the friends and relatives of these suspects think. I will if the suspects are released without charge. If. Right now I'd rather know what the police think. And I'd be quite intrigued to know the reaction of Birmingham's non-Muslims to these arrests, too. You won't find out from watching the BBC because its reporters dare not ask them. That would be insensitive. But the BBC is happy enough to leave its viewers with the impression that the police have made a terrible mistake in arresting these nine suspects. Some of those viewers will be Muslim. What's that going to do for race relations?

The BBC’s coverage may help explain why a British Muslim leader has made the absurd claim that Britain is becoming a police state like Nazi Germany.

It has now emerged that al-Qaeda instructed terror cells in Britain to instigate a series of kidnapping and beheadings.  Hmmm.  I wonder how BBC will report that?

h/t for Breitbart link: little green footballs

Britons lead the way in toilet paper use

Every Briton flushes 17.6 kilos (39lb) of toilet paper down the lavatory every year, almost two and half times the European average, according to tissue industry figures.

British toilet paper consumption of 110 rolls per capita is 25 times that of Ukraine's, Europe's lowest.

OK, hold it a sec.  Brits flush 110 rolls of toilet paper per person per year, which does seem rather a lot.  But what's with the Ukrainians?  Their usage is 1/25th that of the British, i.e., only 4.4 rolls per person per year.  I’d say the Ukrainians have the problem here.

In preparing for the meeting of Anglican primates in Tanzania next week, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams invited Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori (photo at right).  Apparently, he had hoped that a face-to-face meeting between the liberal American primate and conservative Global South primates could help to dispel the storm gathering over the church.

If that was his hope, it may have backfired.  The London Daily Telegraph is now reporting that several primates have objected to Bp Schori’s invitation and want to add to the agenda a discussion of whether she should be allowed to attend.

The primates' meeting is regarded as a last-ditch attempt to avert a formal split over homosexuality, and Dr Williams has even asked conservative American bishops to fly in to appear even-handed.

But in a humiliating blow to the Archbishop's authority, senior conservative leaders privately wrote to him last month warning that he had no right to invite Bishop Schori to the summit without their consent.

In an atmosphere of growing distrust, they have now demanded a change to the agenda so they can decide whether to admit her at all.
. . .
A number of the African archbishops have indicated that they may not "sit at the same table" with Bishop Schori, who supported the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson and gay "marriages".

There are indications that they also object to Dr Williams’s unilateral appointment of Archbishop of York John Sentamu as representative for the Church of England.

The conservative Global South primates comprise at least 20 of the 38 primates in the Anglican Communion.

The five-day meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, formally begins on Thursday, 15 February.

Previous related posts:

• 2007 Primates Meeting Prayer Campaign
• Is Bishop Jefferts Schori a Unitarian? I dunno.
• Anglican Communion on the brink

On 4 January, The Rt Rev Mark L. MacDonald, was named the first National Indigenous Anglican Bishop for Canada.  Bp MacDonald resigned his position as Bishop of Alaska in The [US] Episcopal Church, but he will stay on as bishop of Navajoland Area Mission with The Episcopal Church.

Bp MacDonald thus simultaneously holds bishoprics in two different provinces of the Anglican Communion and is therefore a voting member in two different Houses of Bishops.  Not only that, his bishopric in Canada has no set geographical boundaries.

Bishop MacDonald will be based in Toronto for the first three years, with a possibility of relocating his office elsewhere in Canada in the future. His position was described at the news conference as “a rarity in Anglican tradition” – a bishop who is pastor to a group of people irrespective of where they live, rather than to residents of a geographic diocese. In Canada, only the Bishop Ordinary to the Armed Forces is in a parallel position.

A companion editorial in Anglican Journal notes joyous and hopeful reactions to the appointment from a many religious leaders and secular media, and then takes an incoherent pot shot at the Journal’s bug-bear—orthodox Anglicans.

Criticism, though, surfaced on the Web site Virtueonline that caters to right-wing Anglicans. One writer, posting under the name Gander, noted sarcastically that, “I thought that perhaps the backward orthodox were going to get their own bishop!”

Those "right-wing Anglicans"—always complaining.  The criticism, of course, is not against Bp MacDonald but the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC).  But, since the ACC’s budget problems threaten the Journal, the spin is perhaps understandable.

In any case, the appointment of a bishop with no geographic boundaries sets a precedent of obvious usefulness to the situation of beleaguered traditional Anglicans.

Some theologically orthodox Anglicans are also greeting the concept of a non-geographical bishop. Dr. George Egerton, professor of history at the University of British Columbia, told the Planet: “If Mark MacDonald is welcomed as a bishop crossing national and episcopal territorial boundaries, why not extend the same welcome, and episcopal innovations and jurisdiction, to orthodox bishops to give oversight to oppressed orthodox Anglicans in Canada?”

Good question.  To this semi-informed layman, FWIW, Dr Egerton’s suggestion appears an appropriate way to implement the recommendations of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference report on New Westminster.

Archbishop Hutchison, how about it?

Previous related posts:

• Homosexual activists offend an entire nation
• Michael Ingham draws a bead on Donald Harvey

The collect for today, Septuagesima, or the Third Sunday Before Lent, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

O Lord, we beseech thee favourably to hear the prayers of thy people; that we, who are justly punished for our offences, may be mercifully delivered by thy goodness, for the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
The Gospel: St Matthew 20:1-16