I have worked in large corporations for the last 43 years; one of them was IBM. The main thing I have learnt is, as Jeremiah says, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? – Jer 17:9.

Apparently there has been financial hanky-panky at the most senior levels of IBM:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – It isn’t often that big blue gets a black eye.

But Friday IBM , the leading U.S. technology firm known for its conservative management, found itself entangled in the largest ever hedge fund insider-trading scheme involving Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam.

Robert Moffat, senior vice president and head of IBM’s systems and technology group was named as a defendant. Executives at leading chipmaker Intel Corp and management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. were also implicated.

At IBM, when the mighty fall, they are not put on display for public excoriation as an example to plebeians who might otherwise be tempted to follow in the footsteps of their putative betters: instead, they disappear. An attempt to look up Bob Moffat at IBM yields: The biography you tried to access does not exist. He has been cast into outer darkness.

Moffat had been with IBM since 1978, so he was a true blue IBMer; clearly he didn’t take the yearly pledge of obedience to IBM’s Business Conduct Guidelines very seriously, though. In recent years his popularity with the rank and file at IBM has not been high since he was the architect of numerous purges and of moving North American jobs to India, Brazil, Argentina – anywhere where labour is cheap. IBM euphemistically calls this “Global Resourcing” – GR for short.

Unsurprisingly, when the news of Moffat’s arrest was made public, there were reports of cheering employees in IBM buildings all over North America. I confined myself to a smile.

Funerals for the lost:

A LEADING Tunbridge Wells clergyman has been branded “insensitive” after unleashing a scathing attack on modern funerals.

Father Ed Tomlinson, of St Barnabas’ Church, Quarry Road, said he had better ways of spending his time than at crematorium services where the dead were “led in by the tunes of Tina Turner…and sent into the furnace with ‘I Did It My Way’ blaring out across the speakers”.

The vicar whose blogsite rants attract a cult following, said the widespread fashion for “a poem from nan combined with a saccharine message from a pop star before being popped in the oven” left him feeling like an unwanted guest at many funerals.

He added: “I have… stood at the ‘crem’ like a lemon, wondering why on earth I am present.”

There was a time when even non-believers craved the aesthetics of the Church at the important moments of their lives: marriages and funerals. Now, it seems, all that is left is the expectation that a tame vicar will do the honours while trite secularisms-du-jour are injected into the ceremony. Congratulations to Father Ed for speaking his mind.

On the same day there are two stories, one of the intense romantic love of Queen Victoria:

By Victorian standards, it is really rather daring.

Even more so when one realises that the lovely young woman languorously baring her shoulders is none other than Queen Victoria.

The portrait, known as ‘the secret picture’, was commissioned by the young Queen in 1843 as a 24th birthday present for her beloved husband Albert. It was painted by the respected artist Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

By all accounts it was well received. Victoria, also 24 at the time, referred to it as ‘my darling Albert’s favourite picture’.

He was said to particularly like the way he hair, half released from its traditional knot, cascaded down her back.

The phrase ‘the secret picture’ was taken from Victoria’s journal and referred to the fact that she had commissioned it for her husband’s eyes only. It has only been displayed in public on one occasion since she gave it to him 166 years ago.

And the other of a tawdry and repulsive 21^st Century meretrix:

Britney Spears is racy in lace as she films video for controversial new song 3.
The track has already claimed the top spot in the U.S. charts and is taken from her forthcoming album The Singles Collection, released next month.

Cavorting with two men in a skimpy see-through lace outfit, this is Britney Spears filming scenes for her latest controversial song 3.

Victoria had 9 children, was publicly modest and, contrary to the preconceptions of contemporary bigotry, enjoyed sex.

You can keep Britney, give me Victoria.

For once I agree with the ACLU – sort of:

Perched high above the ground in the middle of California’s Mojave National Preserve is a two-metre-tall structure known simply as the cross in the desert.

The white cross, erected 75 years ago by veterans to honour soldiers killed in the First World War, has plunged the U. S. Supreme Court once again into a debate on the separation of church and state.

In trying to defend the cross that sits atop Sunrise Rock, Justice Antonin Scalia has raised a far thornier issue: What does the cross represent? Is it a religious symbol of Christianity, and therefore an affront to other religions? Or is it simply a common symbol marking the place of the dead, which therefore transcends religiosity?

For now, the cross — made out of metal pipes — is covered with plywood to hide its significance.

The Supreme Court case, which is actually over complex land transfer rules, has prompted a fascinating philosophical exchange.

Peter Eliasberg, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, told the Supreme Court many Jewish war veterans would not wish to be honoured by “the predominant symbol of Christianity” and that the cross “signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind.”

The lawyer is right: of course the cross “signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind.” To pretend otherwise in an effort to surreptitiously slip Christian symbolism into public life is less than honest. The real problem is, the Cross and what Jesus bought for us when he died on it, is the foundation upon which Western civilisation was built: remove it and our concepts of good, evil, justice, charity, fairness, the sanctity of life and human dignity will all be blown away by the first puff of wind.

It has already begun: scientist, Peter Singer advocates infanticide for “defective” babies; situational ethicist Joseph Fletcher advocated decontaminating our gene pool by weeding out “idiots” and the “diseased” through compulsory abortions; Linus Pauling proposed a policy of segregating genetic “inferiors” by branding them with indelible marks; transhumanists like Lee Silver wish to develop human chimera (something that has already been done in the UK) by combining human and animal DNA to “improve” the species. These ideas have infiltrated today’s society, unfettered as it is by the restraints once imposed by the morality of the Cross. What a nightmare.

There are few things that I find less motivating than a motivational speaker and there is no motivational speaker that can provoke a stronger desire in me to do the opposite of what is being peddled than Anthony Robbins.

In one of Robbins’ latest endeavours, the use of other people’s tragedies to hawk his brand of self-stimulating vacuous ambition sets a new low even for motivational speakers:

At the same time that Spotted Dick is being renamed “Spotted Richard” to avoid giving the Flintshire County Council an attack of the vapours, we have this from the UN:

Children as young as five should be taught about explicit sex acts, according to guidelines from the United Nations.

The advice also calls for youngsters to learn about abortion, same-sex relationships and sexually transmitted diseases.

The draft report on sex education has been compiled by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

Not to worry, everything should be fine so long as they can keep the children away from the Spotted Dick.

In a subtle move to counter their overly butch image, the police in the UK have come up with this:

The trans-gender police roadshow spreading the word at a gay festival.

Dressed in matching black t-shirts and handing out balloons, these are trans-gender members of the National Trans Police Association.

They were pictured at the recent Sparkle 09 festival in Manchester’s Gay Village in a bid to encourage the trans community to report more incidents to the police.

I understand the next pioneering effort will be to dress like criminals complete with tattoos and piercing, get to know the criminal community, hand out ducky little switchblade and lock-pick sets and encourage thugs to give themselves up on their own.

It’s not safe for a goat in Texas:

Jose Merced seems like an average Texan: He has a good job with an airline, a house in a suburban cul-de-sac, three chihuahuas and strong religious faith.

It is what transpired in a bedroom attached to his garage, however, that piqued his neighbours’ interest about five years ago. Police in Euless, a suburb of Fort Worth, received two anonymous calls warning that Mr. Merced, 46, was preparing to slit a goat’s throat.

When officers arrived at his door in 2004, they learned that for the past 16 years, Mr. Merced had been sacrificing more than goats — ducks, chickens, doves and turtles had all been brought to his door, and killed at the same time in ceremonies for a little-known religion.

Jose Merced astutely acknowledges that Goat sacrifice is never going to be popular in Texas; nevertheless, he is insisting that he has a right to practice his religion in spite of what the neighbours think. Curiously, the law is agreeing with him – which goes to show that the law, once freed of its tether to Judeo-Christian morality, has become just as deranged as Mr. Merced and his exsufflicate god.

In addition to the occasional goat and chicken, during 2005, with the law’s permission, the good people of Texas also sacrificed 77,374 babies to the god of convenience in abortion clinics – which goes to show that the law is not just daft, but scelestious.