A new strategy in law enforcement

The police force in the UK has a new weapon to fight crime: the cardboard cut-out.Add an Image

Police forces have spent more than £20,000 on cardboard cut-outs of uniformed officers designed to confuse criminals.

It was billed as the latest police tactic to combat crime and now the idea has taken off nationwide.

Police figures show that forces across the country have spent more than £20,000 on the flat-pack PCs.

It must be a considerable relief to British taxpayers to know that two dimensional replicas are on the job terrifying would-be criminals, freeing up their three dimensional counterparts to pursue the criminal hard-cases:

Beach bobbies: Police officers use hand-held cameras to trap cyclists speeding along seafrontAdd an Image

Police were today accused of wasting taxpayers’ cash by stopping cyclists accused of speeding.

Officers armed with hand-held speed cameras are catching bikers who exceed the 10mph limit on Bournemouth’s promenade.

A uniformed PC will hide behind a beach hut and, when he spots an errant cyclist, radio a council ‘seafront ranger’ waiting 200 yards down to request that they are stopped.

Couple Ordered to Stop Holding Bible Study at Home Without Permit

This is not in Communist China, it’s in San Diego:

Pastor David Jones and his wife Mary have been told that they cannot invite friends to their San Diego, Calif. home for a bible study — unless they are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to San Diego County.

“On Good Friday we had an employee from San Diego County come to our house, and inform us that the bible study that we were having was a religious assembly, and in violation of the code in the county.” David Jones told FOX News.

“We told them this is not really a religious assembly — this is just a bible study with friends. We have a meal, we pray, that was all,” Jones said.

A few days later, the couple received a written warning that cited “unlawful use of land,” ordering them to either “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit,” the couple’s attorney Dean Broyles told San Diego news station 10News.

But the major use permit could cost the Jones’ thousands of dollars just to have a few friends over.

For David and Mary Jones, it’s about more than a question of money.

“The government may not prohibit the free exercise of religion,” Broyles told FOX News. “I believe that our Founding Fathers would roll over in their grave if they saw that here in the year 2009, a pastor and his wife are being told that they cannot hold a simple bible study in their own home.”

“The implications are great because it’s not only us that’s involved,” Mary Jones said. “There are thousands and thousands of bible studies that are held all across the country. What we’re interested in is setting a precedent here — before it goes any further — and that we have it settled for the future.”

The couple is planning to dispute the county’s order this week.

If San Diego County refuses to allow the pastor and his wife to continue gathering without acquiring a permit, they will consider a lawsuit in federal court.

A salutary wake-up call for Christians: our faith is under attack on all fronts. We are thrown out of our buildings and now we can’t even meet in our own homes.

In spite of being an incorrigable misanthrope, I have an overwhelming urge to hold a large bible study in my home.

An infectious cross

Apparently, wearing a crucifix has become an infection hazard:

A Christian hospital worker fears for her job after refusing to take off a crucifix which ‘could harbour infection’, it emerged today.

Helen Slatter, 43, says she will not choose between her faith and her job after the NHS claimed the jewellery could spread disease or even be used as a weapon.

Gloucestershire Royal Hospital explained today that health and safety rules applied to everyone and the regulations had nothing to do with religion.

The blood collector – or phlebologist – said she was called to a disciplinary meeting yesterday and warned she would be sent home if she failed to comply.

A spokesman for Gloucestershire NHS Trust said today: ‘The issue is not one of religion. The trust employs a uniform policy which must be adhered to at all times.

‘Necklaces and chains present two problems – firstly they provide a surface that can harbour and spread infections and secondly they present a health and safety issue whereby a patient could grab a necklace or chain and cause harm to a member of staff.’

Medicine is supposed to be based on science; where is the science that demonstrates cases of a crucifix infecting anyone or being used as a weapon? Where are the studies? Could the NHS be exhibiting religious bigotry?

The cross is infectious in a positive way; is this what really worries the NHS?

I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay

The only thing that will be more confused than this is the Anglican Church theological commission’s report on why it is perfectly normal:

Here come the brides… transvestite groom cuts the cake as ‘Susan’ after taking wedding vow as Add an ImageIan

With long blonde hair, flowing ivory wedding dress and proud smile, Susan looks every inch the blushing bride.

Only Susan is really Ian Platt, 51, who performed the incredible feat of being both the bride and groom at his own wedding.

The transvestite father-of-three appeased his future in-laws by sporting a conservative dark grey morning suit for the registry office ceremony.

But after tying the knot with fiancee Lisa, 42, in a traditional wedding he left to perform a quick costume change.

And by the time guests arrived at a hotel for the wedding reception Mr Platt had transformed himself into a radiant bride.

The 100 guests roared with approval as the two brides cut their two wedding cakes – one saying ‘Ian and Lisa’ and the other saying ‘Susan and Lisa.’

The newly weds also had their first dance as brides and gave speeches thanking family and friends before jointly throwing a bouquet of flowers over their heads towards guests.Add an Image

Mrs Platt, a mother-of-three, from Leeds, West Yorks, said: ‘Some people might not understand our relationship but it works perfectly for us.

‘I truly believe that people should be themselves and enjoy life, and that is what Ian, Susan and I do each and every day. There are three people in this marriage – Ian, Lisa and Susan – but I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

Mrs Platt said: ‘I met him as Ian first, he was really nice – he would always say he was quiet as Ian. Then he said I should meet Susan. I just thought it was brilliant. She was so confident and had the best legs I’d ever seen on a girl, let alone a man.

‘Ian said that when he was a boy he loved dressing up in women’s clothes and had gradually developed his alter ego – Susan.

‘She was confident and flamboyant and loved dolling herself up for a night on the transvestite scene in Leeds and going out with her transvestite girlfriends.’

Obama sounds like Rowan Williams

A modern foible is to take two irreconcilable viewpoints, either of which could conceivably be correct, and pretend to synthesise them into a middle ground which almost certainly is not. This is peddled as some kind of virtue: it’s common in the Anglican Church and appears to be an Obama preoccupation:

President Obama used the controversy surrounding his Notre Dame address Sunday as a lesson on the need to bridge cultural divides in America, as he urged graduates to seek common ground on issues, like abortion, that stir passion on both sides.

What common ground could there possibly be between those who believe life begins at conception and therefore should be protected, and those who believe a foetus is a cluster of disposable cells. This apparently:

On the specific issue of abortion, Obama urged the public to at least agree that it is a “heart-wrenching” decision for any woman, and that the country should work to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unwanted pregnancies and making adoption more available.

“When we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe — that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground,” Obama said.

Rowan Williams expresses similar sentiments in trying to bring together those who agree and disagree with same-sex blessings in the Anglican Church:

The challenge is, “how can those who share that cost, that sense of profound anxiety about how to make the Gospel credible, how are they to come together for at least some measure of respect to emerge, so that they can recognize the cost that the other bears and also recognize the deep seriousness about Jesus and the Gospel that they share?”

In both cases, the common ground has nothing to do with the actual issue, but is merely the intensity with which each side holds its belief. In reality this is little more than a sleight of hand on the part of liberals to pacify the opposition while the real agenda continues unimpeded.

Both Obama and Williams have placed a higher value on attaining a bogus middle ground than on truth: it explains how the West has lost its way and how the Anglican church – hot in pursuit – has too.

Transphobia, a new social disease

Transphobia could, I suppose, be the irrational fear of any number of things: transubstantiation; trans fatty acids; GM bringing back the Trans-Am. We all know that it’s really the irrational fear of “gender variance in society”, though, don’t we. I don’t know about you, but I can scarcely bring myself to step outside my front door for fear of encountering rampant gender variance.

The usual Episcopalians, Unitarians, and other left-leaning quasi-religious dubbed those who believe one is born either as a man or a woman harbingers of violence. Rabbi Steven Jacobs of Temple Kol Tikvah in Los Angeles warned against an apparent new social disease, “transphobia,” which is “the fear of gender variance in society.” The rabbi lamented: “Gender rigidity impacts all of us, even if we are not transgender. That belief that there are only two ways to be human leads to violence and oppression.”

Sadly, evangelicals are now being recruited into this lunacy. Tony Campolo, although always a willing victim of political leftist fantasies to some degree, now seems to have gone completely off the deep end:

“Justice is love translated into social policy,” Campolo insisted at the Human Rights Campaign Clergy Call press conference. “This [legislation] is a chance to practice that love.” Previously expressing support for traditional marriage, and a popular speaker for evangelical conferences, Campolo appeared slightly uncomfortable surrounded by hard-line sexual identity activists, many of them seemingly post-operative transsexuals. Still, he soldiered on, asserting that supplementing federal hate crimes legislation with protection for “sexual orientation” would not threaten free speech among the clergy, “as long as [a sermon] does not promote violence.” Campolo declared:  “We evangelicals who have such a high view of scripture should want justice for gays, lesbians and transgendered persons.”

Imagine there’s no Anglican Church

Reverse psychology evangelism from Liverpool:

The bells of Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral are to ring out to John Lennon’s anti-religious anthem Imagine.

The bells will play the 1971 song, which begins “Imagine there’s no Heaven”, as part of an arts festival on 16 May at 1200, 1230 and 1330 BST.

A cathedral spokesman said: “Allowing Imagine to be pealed on our bells does not mean we agree with the song lyric.”

The song has drawn criticism from some religious figures as Lennon himself has called the anthem “anti-religious”.

Liverpool Cathedral said it had carefully considered the “sensitivities” surrounding the song’s lyrical content.

“But we recognise its power to make us think. As a cathedral we do not shrink from debate. We recognise the existence of other world views,” added the cathedral spokesman.

This, of course, opens a whole new technique for evangelism in the 21st century: you make the atheist’s case for them instead of the case for Christ – to make people think. I wonder why no-none thought of that before. I expect Liverpool Cathedral helped pay for the atheist bus advertisements.

The new Poet Laureate

Carol Anne Duffy, a bisexual 53 year old is the new Poet Laureate:

Her predecessors stretch in an illustrious line all the way back to 1688.

But as she was appointed Poet Laureate yesterday, Carol Ann Duffy, the first woman to hold the post, insisted she will be carving out her own path.

Verses on demand for royal occasions, she declared, are simply not her style.

‘I don’t have to write anything about anything if I don’t want to,’ she told Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour programme.

Yesterday her appointment to the ten-year £5,000-a-year post was welcomed by Gordon Brown.

‘She is a truly brilliant modern poet who has stretched our imaginations by putting the whole range of human experiences into lines that capture the emotions perfectly,’ he said.

Lines like:

‘Today I am going to kill something. Anything/I am tired of being ignored and today/I am going to play God.’

I expect that has captured Gordon Brown’s emotions perfectly considering his plummeting popularity.

One of my favourite poems is “Stuffed”; here is an excerpt – plagiarised from The Idiot’s Guide to Taxidermy:

I put two yellow peepers in an owl.
Wow. I fix the grin of Crocodile.
Spiv. I sew the slither of an eel.
I jerk, kick-start, the back hooves of a mule.
Wild. I hold the red rag to a bull.
Mad. I spread the feathers of a gull.

I have it on good authority that the Queen is secretly relieved that Duffy won’t be putting pen to paper for royal occasions.

Celebrating Earth Day

I celebrated it by turning on my gaming computer with its 1KW power supply and using it to find out who started the nonsense.

One of the founders of Earth Day was Ira Einhorn. In 1977 Ira bludgeoned his girlfriend, Holly Maddux to death and stuffed her body in a trunk. 18 months later, when other tenants in his apartment building complained about the smell, Holly’s mummified remains were discovered. Ira is now serving a life sentence in a state prison; I understand his cell has a low wattage light bulb.

Clearly, the green thing to do would have been to bury the body in the ground: Ira was blazing the trail of hypocrisy – albeit in a rather disagreeable way – for the tartuffes who were to follow: Al Gore, David Suzuki  and most of the dignitaries of mainline churches.

The elderly in a civilised society: do we treat them as human?

My father-in-law, John, is 86 years old, can no longer walk, has largely lost control of his bodily functions and suffers from chronic arthritis. He also suffers from dementia so, although we can still recognise the person that we once knew within his disintegrating body, much of the time he does not know who we are. He has lost some of his ability to use language so  only half the words he uses are recognisable; a part of him realises this and he becomes very frustrated at his inability to communicate.

His dementia can appear comical: he often phones us at 6:00 a.m. to tell us he can’t find his left toe. He regaled me a few months ago with the tale of how, yesterday, he had been in a plane crash and had smashed one of the windows to help people out of the burning aircraft onto the wing and then to safety.

His heart is strong and his blood pressure is enviably low so he could live for years; in his cogent moments he questions why he is still alive. A man who led a productive life, built houses, ran a business, helped others, was a loving husband and father reduced to an immobile shell that has to wear diapers.

The question is, is his life worth any less than yours or mine? The fact that he is still alive and that he is created in God’s image tells me that his life is worth as much as anyone’s. And this is why he and others like him must be treated with the dignity due to an image bearer of the Divine.

He is presently in a nursing home, Northridge Long Term Care. This is my first encounter with a nursing home and its nightmarish Kafkaesque administration. In the last week we have seen the following:

My father-in-law has to be lifted from his bed to his wheelchair with a hoist operated by 2 people; in the process of moving him to his chair, his hand became jammed between the chair and the bed. It became swollen but was not treated by a doctor; we were not informed of the accident.

Although my wife visits her father every couple of days, she has also hired a private care worker to sit with him, talk to him and take him to activities. A few days ago, we had a call from the private care worker to tell us that John was experiencing tremors and was unresponsive. There was no call from the nursing home; phone calls to the nursing home’s administration yielded an answering machine; calls were not returned. My wife drove to the nursing home to find out what had happened. The nurse in charge informed my wife that, at lunch, the activities coordinator could not find a pulse in her father, so he took John to the nursing station and they took him back to his room. At this point he was unresponsive and shaking; my wife asked for a doctor; the nurse in charge did not page the doctor (the Director of Care later told us that there isn’t much point, since he doesn’t usually respond). Florence Nightingale then informed my wife that there “did seem to be something wrong”. An ambulance was called and he was taken to the hospital; tests ended up showing that he had a high temperature and was suffering from a fever; the nursing staff at Northridge had assured my wife that he had a normal temperature.

After this little adventure, John, returned to the nursing home. Northridge, who by now are a little twitchy about calling us, phoned to say John had fallen out of bed. After my wife went to investigate, the Director of Care declared that he had “climbed over the bed railing”. The absurdity of this is fairly apparent since John can’t even sit up on his own: someone had forgotten to put the bed rail up. In falling out of bed, John had injured his leg; the injury had not been treated. While my wife was there, John expressed a need to have a bowel movement – this takes a hoist and 2 people; my wife informed the staff who said they “would be right there”. After 20 minutes, no-one had appeared. To make matters worse, the staff has complained that John often soils himself.

Many of the workers at Northridge are decent, caring and hard-working; nevertheless, there are not enough workers and the administration appears bungling and indifferent.

John has a family who love him and are prepared to do what it takes to make sure he gets decent care. Many in Northridge cannot move or speak and have no-one to stand up for them: God help them.

Our elderly deserve better.