Magic Statistics

These responses given on various British quiz shows are not just hilariously wrong, they're bonkers.

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE (BBC2)

Jeremy Paxman: What is another name for "cherrypickers" and "cheesemongers"?

Contestant: Homosexuals.

Paxman: No. They're regiments in the British Army who will be very upset with you.

—

BEACON RADIO, Wolverhampton

DJ Mark: For £10, what is the nationality of the Pope?

Ruth from Rowley Regis: I think I know that one. Is it Jewish?

—

THE BIGGEST GAME IN TOWN (ITV)

Steve Le Fevre: What was signed to bring World War I to an end in 1918?

Contestant: Magna Carta?

—

JAMES O'BRIEN SHOW (LBC)

O'Brien: How many kings of England have been called Henry?

Contestant: Well, I know there was a Henry the Eighth. . . er . . . Three?

—

STEVE WRIGHT IN THE AFTERNOON (RADIO 2)

Wright: Johnny Weissmuller died on this day. Which jungle-swinging character clad only in a loincloth did he play?

Contestant: Jesus

—

DAVE LEE TRAVIS SHOW (BREEZE FM)

DLT: In which European country are there people called Walloons?

Contestant: Wales.

One hopes this final howler is not indicative of the average Briton’s knowledge of Islam.

PHIL WOOD SHOW (BBC GMR)

Wood: What 'K' could be described as the Islamic Bible?

Contestant: Er. . .

Wood: It's got two syllables . . . Kor . . .

Contestant: Blimey?

Wood: Ha ha ha ha, no. The past participle of run . . .

Contestant: (Silence.)

Wood: OK, try it another way. Today I run, yesterday I . . .

Contestant: Walked?

For more hilarity, read the full list at the Daily Mail.

Two more scientific studies corroborate earlier findings indicating that smoking cannabis damages one's lungs far more than does smoking tobacco.

One study found a higher risk of lung cancer for those who smoked one joint a day compared with those who smoked 20 cigarettes a day over the same period.

Another found bullous disease – a form of emphysema – occurs 20 years earlier in cannabis smokers.

The studies appear in Respirology and the European Respiratory Journal.

Cannabis use has been linked to serious physical and mental illnesses.

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I add my voice to the choruses of “Bravo!” rising from the Canadian blogosphere.

MP Keith Martin (Lib – Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca) has launched a private members’ motion to repeal the section of the Canadian Human Rights Act empowering human rights tribunals to investigate thought crime.  The motion, designated M-446, is short and sweet (to those who support freedom of speech):

That, in the opinion of the House, subsection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act should be deleted from the Act.

Dr Martin’s political history makes it plain that he is not a closet Conservative masquerading as a Liberal.

Martin, a medical doctor and pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia Liberal MP for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca on Vancouver Island, was the former Reform Party's Opposition Health Critic. He left the Canadian Alliance party in 2004 after complaining that the party was allowing "social conservatives" and pro-life members to have a voice in the party.

For acting to restore free speech rights for Canadians, a Liberal-supporting blogger has accused Martin of “mov[ing] to ensure Nazi rights!”.  (Mike Brock has a screen shot.)  Hmmmm.

As Binks wisely says, freespeechers must make Canada’s parliamentarians aware of our strong support for Martin’s motion.

First, “send a thank-you note to Keith Martin. — one cannot communicate how important a step is that he has taken here.” as TimeImmortal suggests.

Second, take time to mail your MP & the PM’s Office. Now. “Support & vote Yes on M-446.”

Third: Spread The Word.

A list of current MPs is posted at Parliament’s website.

I agree with Ezra Levant that this is a golden opportunity for the Conservative government to put human rights tribunals in their place.  Stephen Harper, do the right thing: Support Motion M-446.

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The Rev John Piper preaches from Psalm 106:32-48, which summarises the repeated sins and disobedience of Israel and the repeated judgment and mercy of God.  The psalmist focuses on the shedding of innocent blood when the people of Israel were seduced by idols of the Canaanites and offered their children as sacrifices to demons.

Rev Piper then connects the abominable practices decried in Psalm 106 to the present practice of abortion.  Here is his conclusion.

Abortion: Sacrificing Our Sons and Daughters to Demons

It is the sacrificing of our sons and daughters to demons. And someday we will see this. And we will be as amazed that it could have endured so long as we are that the enslavement of Africans lasted as long as it did. The issue is just as clear as that one was. And we are just as blind today as they were then. The big difference is that the babies can’t run away. The underground railroad is entirely dependent on you, not them.

The strength to stand up and make a difference in this cause comes not mainly from the raw horrors of abortion, but from the amazing grace of verses 44-45: “Nevertheless [that is, in spite of sacrificing their children to demons], he looked upon their distress, when he heard their cry. For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love.” This is what Jesus Christ came to achieve for all who will receive it.

Take Up the Challenge

I pray that the horrors of abortion and the glory of God’s grace will move you to take up the challenge of prayer on the back of the worship folder and to extend yourself in other practical ways for life, both temporal and eternal. Amen.

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the rights of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
(Psalm 82:3-4)

Amen, and amen!

h/t: Peter Ould at An Exercise in the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy

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• “The Triumph of the Will”
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On 27 December, Glasgow resident Sobia Wali secretly married a man her parents disapproved of.  She was three months pregnant at the time.

Ms Wali died last week under mysterious circumstances in Lahore, Pakistan, where she went with her family to attend her grandmother’s funeral.  The family says she died of an infection, but it has emerged that she was admitted to an abortion hospital and died shortly thereafter at a second hospital. She was 22 years old.

A police source in Lahore said Wali, from Crookston, Glasgow, was initially admitted to Najma Zia, understood to be a hospital, for a termination, but was subsequently taken to the Surgimed hospital in Lahore where she died.

Her husband, Usman Gulzar, 24, a shop assistant from Glasgow, has reportedly told friends she had sent him text messages from Pakistan asking for his help.

A day after sending the messages, she died apparently from food poisoning or a virus. A close friend of the couple told the Daily Record that Wali, who married Gulzar on December 27 in a registry office in Glasgow, had not told her parents of the wedding because they had banned them from seeing each other.

Some Scottish news sources are reporting that she died of complications following a forced, botched abortion.

Family members reject allegations that an abortion led to her death, saying that she fell ill and died tragically despite receiving the best medical care available.

Strathclyde Police are investigating the circumstances of her death.  Mohammed Sarwar, a Muslim MP from Glasgow, will speak to detectives tomorrow.  He is reportedly urging that Sobia’s body be exhumed for an autopsy.

Detectives in Pakistan and the British High Commission in Lahore are also investigating.

“How can speed bumps possibly have any effect on trees”, you’re probably wondering.  Stay with me for a moment.

Step one: Engineering research has shown that speed bumps increase carbon dioxide emissions.

The traffic-calming measures double the carbon dioxide emissions and fuel consumption by forcing drivers to brake and accelerate repeatedly, according to a study commissioned by the AA. A car that achieves 58.15 miles per gallon travelling at a steady 30mph will deliver only 30.85mpg when going over humps.

Notice how Brits refer to speed bumps as a “traffic-calming” measure.  A euphemism if I ever heard one.  And, yes, in the UK, gasoline is still sold by the gallon—Imperial gallon, that is.

Step two: Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been found to stimulate growth of trees.

Results of a decade-long study on primarily aspen trees near Rhinelander, Wis., suggest that elevating carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere may prolong the growing season for northern forests.
. . .
“We’re seeing about a 30 to 40 percent enhancement in growth and that’s been maintained pretty much throughout the 10 years of the experiment,” Michigan Technological University Forestry Professor David Karnosky said.

There you have it: Speed bumps increase CO2 emissions, which in turn encourage tree growth.

Isn’t climate science fun!

h/t: Eye on Britain and Greenie Watch

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Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy (at right) is perhaps the most hated Christian in Egypt.  He has received numerous death threats because he is the country’s first convert from Islam to Christianity to sue for official recognition of his conversion.  He launched a legal action to force the government to change the religion recorded on his national identity card in accordance with his chosen faith.

Today the administrative court that has been hearing often-heated arguments in the case issued its conclusion: It refused to make a decision, in effect rejecting Mr Hegazy’s petition.  The reasons given seem bizarre.

[T]he Court of Administrative Justice in Cairo said that Hegazy, the country’s first former Muslim to sue Egypt over the issue, had not followed proper legal procedures. In addition, the court said, he could not convert "to an older religion."

"Monotheistic religions were sent by God in chronological order… As a result, it is unusual to go from the latest religion to the one that preceded it," the court added in a published statement. "The person who has such an attitude is straying from the right path and threatening the principles, values and precepts of Islam and of Egyptian traditions," the judgment said.

However, the same court today granted a favourable ruling to members of another minority religion.

Yet, the same court ruled that Egyptians from the Bahai minority could leave their religion blank on official documents, in effect restoring their access to jobs, schools and medical and financial services.
. . .
It was not immediately clear why the court did not give Hegazy the option to leave his religion blank on official documents.

The government has not said whether that ruling will be appealed to a higher court.

Earlier, Hegazy spoke about his reasons for converting from Islam to Christianity.

Hegazy converted to Christianity and took on the Christian name Beshoi, after a classmate left a book with quotations from the Bible on his desk. "I began to read the book and was consumed by the love of Jesus," he explained last year in interviews at a secret location. "The major issue for me was love. Islam wasn't promoting love as Christianity did."

When his wife became pregnant last year he decided to make the change official. "Otherwise my child will automatically be registered as a Muslim," he said in published remarks. However, his application was rejected.

Hegazy says he will appeal the non-decision to Egypt’s supreme court.

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As every Canadian should know, the Supreme Court’s Morgentaler decision twenty years ago today struck down as unconstitutional the then-existing Criminal Code abortion law.  Since then, Canada has had no legislation regulating abortion beyond that applicable to any surgical procedure.  Doctors are free to perform abortions up until the time of birth.  (That no Canadian doctors are willing to do late-term abortions does not alter the fact that no legal impediment exists.)

Since the Morgentaler decision, Canada has, as David Warren puts it, "the world's most radical abortion regime".

The title of my post comes from a 1988 essay by Canadian philosopher and professor George Parkin Grant (at right), written in reaction to the Supreme Court ruling.  As we have seen in the intervening twenty years, what Dr Grant wrote is truer than ever today.

The Triumph of the Will
George Grant

The decision of the Supreme Court concerning abortion could be seen as comedy – if it did not concern the slaughter of the young. Any laughter is quelled by a sense of desolation for our country. Yet the comedy too must be looked at to understand our political institutions. The comedy arises from the fact that the majority of the judges used the language of North American liberalism to say "yes" to the very core of fascist thought – the triumph of the will. Their decision is a good example of Huey Long's wise dictum: "When fascism comes to America it will come in the name of democracy." The court says yes to those who claim the right to mastery over their own bodies, even if that mastery includes the killing of other human beings.

Indeed, the advocates of abortion have shown since the decision how much they are believers in the triumph of the will, when they "demand" that the government "must" immediately guarantee access and payment for all abortions. That is, the state must pay for these processes, even when they are not medically necessary. The triumph of the will realises itself when its advocates understand that the individual will is only liberated to its full power when it can dominate the state.

As a political philosopher and professor of political science, Dr Grant does not use the word "fascist" lightly.  To say that the fundamental principle of fascism is the triumph of the will raises the question: Exactly what does "will" mean in this context?

In Christian thought, will meant "appropriate choosing by rational souls", but in modern thought, influenced by technology, it means something quite different: "mastery of ourselves and the world".

Nietzsche understood this.  "Life itself is the will to power", he wrote, meaning, says Grant, that

will is power itself, not something external to power. What makes Nietzsche such a pivotal thinker in the West is that he redefined "will" to make it consonant with modern science. "Will" comes to mean in modernity that power over ourselves and everything else which is itself the very enhancement of life, or, call it if you will, "quality of life." Truth, beauty, and goodness have become simply subservient to it.

Grant is not saying that those who support abortion on demand are advocates of fascism.  He is saying that this is what politics becomes when large and powerful groups find meaning in getting what they want most deeply at all costs.  The weak and powerless are the losers.  Liberalism itself is turned against justice.

"The Triumph of the Will" was first published in The Issue is Life: a Christian Response to Abortion in Canada (1988), ed. Denyse O'Leary, now out of print.  It has been re-printed in The George Grant Reader.  Unfortunately, the full text does not appear to be available online.

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

O Lord, God, who seest that we put not our trust in any thing that we do; Mercifully grant that by thy power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 11:19-31
The Gospel: St Luke 8:4-15

The pastor of a house church in Somaliland was imprisoned and tortured last month after an official’s niece was converted to Christ under his ministry.  All the members of his church fled to Ethiopia to avoid arrest, but he stayed behind.

On the order of one of Somaliland's high-ranking government officials, [Pastor] Mohammed [not his real name] was imprisoned on December 3, 2007, for leading the official's niece to Christ. Though Pastor Mohammed was released on December 7, 2007, he has been placed under 24-hour surveillance by Somaliland security officials.

During his imprisonment, Somaliland's Criminal Investigation Department tortured Pastor Mohammed in order to obtain the names of the members of his house church, but failed to obtain any information from him.

The Republic of Somaliland broke away from Somalia in 1991, but its independent existence is not recognised by any country.  The state religion is Sunni Islam.

International Christian Concern has received information that the country’s Criminal Investigation Department has been infiltrated by militant jihadists from the Salafi movement, whence Al-Qaeda was born.  They are said to be working to neutralise several church leaders.

Food prices are rising around the world, but not because of crop failures or other supply disruptions.  Rather, demand for agricultural products has increased, due largely to government programmes to encourage use of plants as fuel sources.

Record prices for grain from corn to rice have ignited food riots from Jakarta to Rome. In Pakistan, troops now guard wheat stocks. China and Russia have imposed price controls. Connect the dots and there's a need for a fix to a crisis that, strangely, isn't caused by smaller harvests.
. . .
One reason is an ill-conceived dash by both the United States and Europe to use grain and valuable farmland for biofuels, motivated more by powerful farm lobbies than concerns about global warming. (Telling factoid: To fill up the tank of one SUV with ethanol would require enough grain to feed one person for a year.)

Riots over food prices have erupted in Mexico, Morocco, Senegal and other countries.  In Indonesia, riots were triggered by a tripling of soybean prices over the past year.  Soybean production has been increased by leveling and burning dense forests, discharging enormous quantities of carbon dioxide.

Environmental groups have started to campaign against biofuel production.

The evidence against biofuels marshalled by [UK Green Party councillor Dr Andrew]  Boswell and other environmentalists appears quite damning. Advertised as a fuel that only emits the amount of carbon dioxide that the plants absorb while growing — making it carbon neutral — it actually has resulted in a profitable industrial sector attractive to countries around the world. Vast swaths of forest have been felled and burned in Argentina and elsewhere for soya plantations. Carbon-rich peat bogs are being drained and rain forests destroyed in Indonesia to make way for extensive palm oil farming.

Because the forests are often torched and the peat rapidly oxidizes, the result is huge amounts of CO2 being released into the atmosphere. Furthermore, healthy peat bogs and forests absorb CO2 — scientists refer to them as "carbon sinks" — making their disappearance doubly harmful.

An agricultural expert with Greenpeace says encouraging use of biofuels is “causing a climate catastrophe”.

h/t: Greenie Watch and Brussels Journal

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