Thursday 27 March 2008

Get Rich Quick - Guarranteed


I notice another get rich quick scheme has recently been launched.
While I'm all for get rich quick schemes, I have just a couple of problems. You never really know whether one will succeed. And they all involve such hard work.
So I have developed this scheme which I am willing to share with you. You know this scheme will work because you have seen it work so many times before.
Here it is:
1) Forget all that investing and working and financial planning.
2) Write a self help book "How to get rich quick for dummies" or suimilar.
3) Sit back and watch the royalties come in. Maybe you could study to be a plastic surgeon on-line while you wait.
4) Send me 15% of all royalties you receive for your book, and 15% of all the 15% that your readers send you, and 15% of the 15% of...
5) Do your own plastic surgery and move to Majorca

It will work if you believe in it - trust me.

Wednesday 26 March 2008

Worth The Wait


Sight Unseen takes a while to warm up, but it is worth the wait. The connections, especially the historical ones, seem a bit tenuous at the start but they are skilfully weaved together in the last half. There are still a few things that are too abrupt, like the father's departure, but on the whole the book is a good read.

It's also refeshing to see an historical investigation novel that actually takes seriously the methods and current concensus of historians. Very refeshing. It may be harder work to do the research and put forward a plausible hypothesis for the identity of Junius, but it gives the book a great deal more integrity.

What Is It They Really Want?

Secular tolerance only works one way. Try to convince me otherwise.

Why is the "Hunky Jesus" competition okay? Hunky Jesus Competition

What is it that they are trying to prove? Why on Easter Sunday? Why the Hunky Jesus? Why not the Hunky Guy, or the Hunky Historical Character, or Hunky Famous Person Competition?

How does this "promote universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt" or are they trying to achieve something else here. Isn't this a plain and simple act of mockery of Christians. So much for the gay lobby just wanting acceptance and equal opportunity, there's another agenda here.

Or is it "Heterophobia" in its correct meaning - fear of the other. Or perhaps a word that avoids confusion might be xenophobia - fear of the different.

Human kind, at it's worst, has always feared, and so mocked and abused those who are different. Has always turned the different into 'the enemy'. In this case, you don't even have to be different, just disagree, then immediately you are an object of mockery.

Well, join the queue. Christians have been mocked, abused, persecuted, arrested, spat on, vilified for the two thousand years of our history. In fact we've come to expect it, because it happened to our Lord back in the beginning. That first Good Friday Jesus was mocked then, abused and unfairly tried and executed unlawfully under an unjust system.

Be careful, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, you are in danger of losing your special politically correct status as endangered species and protected minority. You have just joined the establishment, the vast mass of peoples, kings, rulers, commoners, men of the street who have mocked the Lord. From the Roman Governor to the Russian political machine to the spitting soldier, now we have the Hunky Jesus Competition. All in the name of joy and freedom from guilt.

Yeah, Right. If you poke the other guy's eye out, maybe you'll look better.

Friday 21 March 2008

Something wrong here

Jenna Jameson is PETA's new pin up girl.

"Adult movie superstar Jenna Jameson is best known for hard-core pornography but her latest sexy pose is for a good cause - animal rights." According to the Syndey Morning Herald.

People for the Extravagent Treatment of Animals are happy to use porn to promote their agenda.

At first I thought there was something wrong here, but then I realised it was entirely coinsistent with PETA's weird philosophical basis,

“A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.” — Ingrid Newkirk, President, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

Something Wrong Here

This quote is supposed to come from Bin Laden,

A voice meant to be bin Laden's said: "You went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings, this is the greatest misfortune and the most dangerous."

Sydney Morning Herald March 2008

There's something wrong with Bin Laden talking about the etiquette of dispute. The secular press print some cartoons, insulting cartoons admittedly, but just cartoons. Words and pictures. A newspaper prints some cartoons and 50 people are killed around the world in reprisals, err, 'protests'.

Muslim 'protestors' kill 50 people around the world, including nuns and aid workers to prove that Muslims are not terrorists, as those vile cartoons suggested.
If the turban fits…

Wednesday 19 March 2008

All prostitution is abuse

I think it's as terrible as anybody else.

Recent allegations of routine engagement of underage aboriginal girls as prostitutes by truck drivers are under investigation. Sydney Morning Herald story here.

It should be investigated, by the police, perhaps. It is shocking. But what I want to know is why is this so shocking?
Is it because the girls are under age?
Or because they are aboriginal?
Or both?

I'm not saying it's not terrible, But can't you see, all prostitution is terrible.

I recently read an article by Emma who works as a support and outreach worker with Hope Street, an urban ministry in Sydney. She says this:

"Up to 97% of the women we work with were sexually abused as children, have been in violent relationships, and all sex workers experience horrific physical violence from clients."

97%!! Prostitution of any kind is abuse. Prostitution of a consenting adult is often just a continuation of the abuse received as a child. Why is there no outrage over this? Is this OK? Or are the "common garden variety" prostitutes not worth worrying about.

As long as it is legal to run a brothel, as long as it is socially acceptable for a man to visit a prostitute, as long as people continue to look the other way, as long as this dysfunctional industry continues to be glamourised by movies like "Pretty Woman", as long as these continue, girls will continue to be abused.
Some of them will be aboriginal.
Some of them will be under age.
Some of the 'clients' will be truck drivers, far from home, tired, lonely, and told that it's OK.

It's not OK is it.

Monday 17 March 2008

Love God, Love Your People

"Love God, love Your people. it's not advice so much as a command of the most uncompromising sort-the structure of the Decalogue, the substance of Jesus' summary of the law. Get that right, and the rest follows; if it doesn't follow, what is missing will ultimately show itself to be less than essential. Get that wrong, and in the end, all the achievements apart from it-every spiffy sermon, every leap in the membership rolls-will reveal themselves for the dust that they are."

Marguerite Shuster Ministry March 2008

Even though you can summarise it in a simple statement, it's still a difficult calling.

Wednesday 12 March 2008

Affectionate Cynicism

An interesting quote...

"Pastoral wisdom cannot be universally critical or universally accepting. People are different. The cure of souls cannot take a "one-size-fits-all" approach. Affectionate cynicism is in order. One time when my grandson Rory was about two years old, the adults were sitting around in the living room after Sabbath dinner. We were having a good time visiting with guests, and in that setting, Rory came barreling out into the living room and announced to his father Nate, "I love Jesus." The same suspicious thought came into my mind and into his father's mind at right about the same moment. The guests were saying awwhhh while Nate headed off to the back of the house to see what his son had broken. It turned out in that case that nothing had been broken, and that Rory really did love Jesus.
And so should we all. "

from here:

http://www.credenda.org/issues/19-3caution.php