Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Christian hotel owners charged with criminal offence for saying that hijab is oppressive

'A Christian couple are awaiting trial accused of breaching public order by insulting a guest at their hotel in Aintree, Liverpool, about her religion. If convicted they face a fine of up to £5,000 and a criminal record. They also face losing their livelihood as their business takings have badly suffered as a result of the case.



In March 2009, Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang had argued with a Muslim guest at the breakfast table in their hotel, the Bounty House Hotel in Aintree, about the history of Islam and Muslim traditions. The unnamed guest, who was staying at the hotel while being treated at a nearby hospital, came down to breakfast wearing a hijab, a traditional Muslim headdress covering the hair.



It is alleged that during the conversation the couple suggested that Mohammad, the founder of Islam, was a warlord when the guest challenged them about their Christian beliefs. The woman guest also claims that the couple, who vehemently deny the allegations and say they were simply defending their faith, described her traditional dress as a form of bondage.



After the conversation ended, the guest complained to police and the couple were charged under the Public Order Act 1986 – with a public order offence designed to target anti-social behaviour on the streets for using ‘threatening, abusive or insulting words’ which were ‘religiously aggravated’. The couple will have to stand trial at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court on 8 December 2009.



The unnamed guest had been staying at the Bounty House Hotel racecourse for four weeks while receiving treatment at a local hospital, but the couple had never seen her wear her religious clothing before. The hospital routinely referred outpatients to stay at the hotel. But when management found out about the court case they decided they could no longer recommend it, leading to the catastrophic drop in bookings, the Daily Mail reported.



Mr Vogelenzang denies calling Mohammad a ‘warlord’. It is understood that his wife accepts that she used the word ‘bondage’ about Islamic dress but denies deliberately causing offence.



Neil Addison, a leading criminal barrister and expert in religious law, explained that the law ‘should never be used where there has been a personal conversation or debate with views firmly expressed’.



Mike Judge, spokesman for the Christian Institute, said:



‘Important issues of religious liberty and free speech are at stake. We have detected a worrying tendency for public bodies to misapply the law in a way that seems to sideline Christianity more than other faiths.



'Nobody was being threatened and while the Vogelenzangs were fully aware that a robust exchange had taken place and the woman had been perhaps a little offended, they were shocked when the police became involved.



‘We feel their treatment has been heavy-handed and it is not in the public interest to go ahead with this prosecution. People see the police standing by when Muslims demonstrate holding some pretty bloodthirsty placards, but at the same time come down hard on two Christians having a debate over breakfast at a hotel.



‘We are just hoping the magistrates use their common sense and find them not guilty.’



Lorne Gunter, a senior columnist at the Edmonton Journal, wrote in the National Post blog:

'... the Vogelenzangs lost four-fifths of their business overnight because public hospital administrators decided to punish them economically for their political incorrectness. Would these same administrators have withheld referrals to Muslims hoteliers who similarly defended their faith with guests? It's hard to know, but it seems unlikely.

'Muslims routinely demonstrate in Britain while displaying the most heinous placards urging death on anyone who defames their religion or prophet and are never charged with offending mainstream British society.'


Henry Porter, commenting in The Guardian, said:

'You may, or may not agree, with these sentiments but surely they don't merit a prosecution in a society where a good deal of latitude shown to the racism and homophobia preached by some imams. I can't comment on the exact details of what the couple may have said, or their manner, or the offence taken by the customer but I can say that free speech – even about religion – is the freedom to be offended, and that the decision to prosecute is about as daft as it gets.'



The case of Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang was mentioned on the BBC’s Question Time debate on Thursday, 24 September, when Fraser Nelson, the editor of The Spectator magazine, told Harriet Harman that Government officials, like Baroness Scotland, get away easily if they do something wrong whilst for simple people the law comes 'like a tonne of bricks' for saying minor things. Mr Nelson gave the example of the Vogelenzangs who were arrested for offending a Muslim during a simple discussion about religious traditions. He added:

'I don’t think the Government realises just how heavy-handed [the law] has become with the small people while the big guys get away with anything.''- from CFCON

So when was the right to free speech abolished?

Yorkshire - christiansquoting.org.uk

You can always tell a Yorkshire man...... but you can't tell him much

More than any other county in England, Yorkshire retained a sort of social independence of London. Scotland itself was hardly more distinct... To a certain degree, evident enough to Yorkshiremen, Yorkshire was not English--or was all England, as they might choose to express it. --Henry Adams, 1906

I lingered round them [tombstones], under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth. --Emily Bronte (1818-1848) _Wuthering Heights_ [1847], "Conclusion"

Ah's Yorkshire! bi mi truly!
Ah is, Ah'm proud ti say;
Just try ya ti get ower mah,
Ye'll heve eneaf ti deah.
Ah's oppen-gobbed an's soft-life;
Ah knaw mare than ah tell;
The fellah that wad bite mah
All seaf get bit his sel. Ah's Yorkshire.

Ah's Yorkshire! Ah's a plain stick,
What's that? It's been mi luck
Ti bi like monny a diamond,
Covered at top wi muck.
Some fooaks weear t'muck at insard
Seeah deep its scarcely seen
Nooah's flood a pure soft watter
Wad scarcely wesh em clean. Ah's Yorkshire.

Ah's Yorkshire ti the back beean
Out-spokken, frank and free,
Ah hat a leear as Ah hat
Awd Nick, that tell'd first lee.
Ance Ah may be catch'd nappin,
We all may slip sum day
But twice if ye get ower mah,
Ah nivvr mair al say, Ah's Yorkshire.
William Hall Burnett, _Ah's Yorkshire_, 19C

He is Yorkshire--said of a shrewd man.-- quoted in John Ray, _A Compleat Collection of English Proverbs_, 1670

My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was eleven miles away from a lemon. - Sydney SMITH

Topcliffe formerly denominated the Jordan of England, because in the year 620, Agustin and Paul baptized in this river Swale 10,000 men in one day, besides women and children. This took place somewhere between Topcliffe and Helperby. -- Langdale's Yorkshire Topographical Dictionary
(I have no corroborative source for this and suspect it may result from a confusion with Swale in Kent)

I rode over the mountains to Huddersfield. A wilder people I never saw in England. The men, women and children filled the streets and seemed just ready to devour us. John Wesley June 1757

The Court here stopt him, and the Prince did say,
Where may we find this Nectar, I thee pray,
The Boon Fellow answer'd, I can tell,
North-Allerton, in Yorkshire doth excell
ASll England, nay all Europe for strong Ale,
If thither we adjourn, we shall not fail
To taste such humming Stuff, as, I dare say,
Your Highness never tasted to this day.
They hearing this, the House Agreed upon
All for Adjournment to North-Allerton.
George Meriton The Praise of Yorkshire Ale, Wherein is enumerated several Sorts of Drinks, with a Discription of the Humors of most sorts of Drunkards.1685

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Christian Legal Centre statement on DPP's Assisted Suicide Guidelines

'The Christian Legal Centre is deeply concerned at the publication by the DPP today, 23rd September, of interim guidelines relating to assisted suicide and factors which will weigh against prosecution.



Although the guidelines will be subject to consultation before becoming fully established policy, the Centre’s Executive Director, Barrister Andrea Williams has serious misgivings.



‘Our hearts of course go out to elderly and unwell people who are suffering from horrible medical conditions and to their loved ones. But we believe that all life should be protected in law and that the guidelines published today will cause great harm to individuals and society.



We should learn from other jurisdictions where assisted suicide has been legalised. Very soon, elderly and vulnerable people surveyed by researchers report a shift in perception towards seeing themselves as a burden on their families and being under a ‘duty to die’.



Additionally, we are concerned that the system will be open to abuse and to a creeping, ever-widening application, which has been observed in previous cases in our own legal history where laws have been injudiciously liberalised.



We shall do all we can to raise awareness of these underestimated factors in the run up to the consultation. In other jurisdictions similar laws have soon been abandoned when the damage becomes evident, but only after that damage has been done. We would rather we turn back from this profoundly mistaken policy before that is allowed to happen’



To read full coverage on this breaking story please click on the link below to be taken to our website:



http://www.christianlegalcentre.com/view.php?id=858'

The bottom line here is 'Whose life is it?' Is it mine, a mere product of time and chance, to be disposed of as I see fit? Or is life a gift from God, given to me, and not to be shortened for whatever reason I may deem sufficient.

Iranian Christian Women Still Held in Prison

"The Voice of the Martyrs" says,'Maryam Rustampoor, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh, 30, were arrested and sent to Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran. The two women did not rob a bank, kill a man or beat up someone.

Their crime? Loving Jesus. And it is for this reason alone they are still imprisoned.

In August during a court hearing, the two were questioned repeatedly about their faith. They were told to return to Islam.

"We love Jesus," was their reply. Prosecutors asked the women, who had already spent five months in prison, if they regretted being Christians.

"We have no regrets," they said. "We will not deny our faith."

The judge sent them back to Evin Prison - notorious for its brutality - to "think about" their decision.

"We have already done our thinking," they told him.

Maryam and Marzieh are among dozens of Iranian Christians arrested, detained or interrogated in Iran in recent months. The harassment is the radical Islamic government's response to an Iranian revival that has thousands of Iranians coming to Christ each month.'

Wrath - christiansquoting.org.uk

We may sum up the relationship between God's love and wrath with the statement, so vital for understanding His plan in redemptive history, that God's kindness...is His free, ultimate work in which His soul finally and fully delights, whereas God's wrath in punishment is His necessary, penultimate work. Though He finds no pleasure in punishing the wicked, He nevertheless does it as somehting He must do, so that without devaluing His glory, He can fully rejoice in being merciful to the penitent. DANIEL FULLER

Monday, September 28, 2009

Act now to stand by Christian organisations in your Community

Public Sector ‘Equality Duty’ aims at ‘Culture Change’

Act now to stand by Christian organisations in your Community

Consultation closing date 30 September 2009 (for England)

Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) in the Equality Bill is to be extended to cover age, pregnancy and maternity, sexual orientation, religion or belief, and gender reassignment.

CCFON objects in principle to the PSED extending to sexual orientation, religion or belief and gender reassignment, noting the threat to Christian Groups who will face a stark choice between eliminating the Christian element of their projects or services and being shut down for lack of vital public sector funding.

Under the proposed provisions public bodies such as local authorities, schools and health bodies will be able as part of their core business, to promote equality. As is so often the case, what is presented as tolerance and inclusiveness will in reality have the effect of shutting Christian groups out of publicly funded services.

Alarmingly, the proposals overtly state that the move is aimed at bringing about ‘culture change’.

Religious organisations are already facing local authority funding difficulties due to all- inclusive equality conditions. Charities and religious organisations have had to consider taking “Church” or “Christian” out of their name to facilitate funding. We strongly oppose this and fear these new moves will only serve to deepen the problem.

Christian individuals, schools including faith schools and religious organisations should not be required to promote other religions or sexual orientations contrary to their beliefs.

Promotion is different from not discriminating and showing respect for diversity.

The consultation even proposes a ‘national equality standard’ to reward organisations that tick all the “culture change” Equality Award boxes. It can be assumed that holding this ‘national equality standard’ for suppliers will be a factor determining who receives public funding.

These moves threaten nothing less than the exclusion of Christianity from public services. Please raise your voice against these moves, which will result in a further erosion of our faith in our communities, hitting quality of services, parental choice and putting good Christian service providers out of business.

Please act by the 30 September using the simplified proforma reply on this vital issue.
To see the consultation and how to reply by the 30th of September 2009 click here:
http://www.equalities.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=1383


Andrea Minichiello Williams
Christian Concern for our Nation
http://www.ccfon.org

Worship- christiansquoting.org.uk

Overvalue not therefore the manner of your own worship, and overvilify not other men's of a different mode.- Richard Baxter

Remember the perfections of that God whom you worship, that he is a Spirit, and therefore to be worshipped in spirit and truth; and that he is most great and terrible, and therefore to be worshipped with seriousness and reverence, and not to be dallied with, or served with toys or lifeless lip-service; and that he is most holy, pure, and jealous, and therefore to be purely worshipped; and that he is still present with you, and all things are naked and open to him with whom we have to do. The knowledge of God, and the remembrance of his all-seeing presence, are the most powerful means against hypocrisy. - RICHARD BAXTER

Of what significance is it to us that, on this particular occasion, at this particular time, there are but half a dozen of us, or thirty of us, or a hundred of us, gathered together for the breaking of bread and for prayers,when these acts themselves unite us with millions who have repeated them daily throughout the centuries and now gather unseen at our side?--Harry Blamires, The Tyranny of Time

See, therefore, how, reguarding the faith, men must by no means bring forth anything from their own brains, but must simply content themselves with what God shows them on the subject...St. Paul declares that the man is the head of the woman,as Jesus Christ of the man, and the covering a sign of that subjection, then all dispute is laid low; unless one cares to contend with God, who is the author of these rank and distinction that St. Paul makes here... So if Women are thus permitted to have their heads uncovered and show their hair, they will eventually be allowed to expose their entire breast, and they will come to make their exhibitions as if it were a tavern show they will become so brazen that modesty and shame will be no more; in short they will forget the duty of nature...'if a woman goes bareheaded, she dishonors her head' he says. And what shall we say, except that she has lost all shame, and that she has cut off her own nose by mocking everyone, and that she is altogether exposed in her shame, and that it doesn't bother her if people stick out their tongues at her. Now then, when a woman acts this way, she dishonors every man on earth...Yet consider now, whether women are not quite past sense and reason, when they want to rule over men. In a word it is a madness...he adds by way of conclusion, that 'the women must have power on her head because of the angels.' This word 'power' seems obscure on the face of it. Nevertheless, there is no doubt but that Paul is referring to women's veils or head-coverings...And let this passage be carefully observed in which St. Paul says that the veil is for a sign and a testimony of a higher power, which should humble a woman and cause her to lower her head. And this is why, when Abimelech reproved Sarah for not telling him in the beginning that she was Abraham's wife, he told her that now he would be aveil to her, which means that it was to refer to her husband, and she was to keep under his shadow and protection. For, if a woman renounces the covering which God has given her, surely she is exposing herself recklessly. This is also why modesty is a woman's chief virtue...St. Paul now continiues with the subject he had begun: namely that women must have the decency not to come to thepublic assembly with their heads uncovered; and that men must also be decently attired so that ther be no beastly confusion. To confirm it, however, he adduces further reason. 'Does not nature itself teach that if a woman have no head covering, it is a shame to her? he says. One would surely say that a woman was mad, if she came without hair. When he says 'her hair is for a covering,' he does not mean that as long as a woman has hair that should be enough for her. He rather teaches that our Lord is giving a directive that He desires to have observed and maintained. If a woman has long hair, this is eqivalent to saying to her "use your head-covering, use your hat, use you hood; do not expose yourself that way! Why? Even if you have neither headcovering, nor hood, yet you already have something to conceal yourself. You see then that it would not be fitting to go bareheaded; that it is something against nature" This is how this passage of St. Paul must be understood.
With reguard to men, he says just the opposite: 'it is a shame to them if they where long hair'...If we suggest that this is of no great importance, we see what God says about it by his Prophet: namely that He will reform the strange clothes.--John Calvin For Men Women and Order in the Church

Let us remember therefore this lesson: That to worship our God sincerely we must evermore begin by hearkening to His voice, and by giving ear to what He commands us. For if every man goes after his own way, we shall wander. We may well run, but we shall never be a whit nearer to the right way, but rather farther away from it.
John Calvin, Sermon 155: Deut. 28:9-14, "Seperation unto Blessing", Thursday, March 12, 1556

We may be truly said to worship God, though we lack perfection; but we cannot be said to worship Him if we lack sincerity. - STEPHEN CHARNOCK

I will not urge anyone to comform to the Puritan style of worship or to any other style. ...Rather, I shall present the regulative principle as one that sets us free, within limits, to worship God in the language of our own time, to seek those applications of God's commandments which most edify worshipers in our contemporary cultures. We must be both more conservative and more liberal than most students of Christian worship: conservative in holding exclusively to God's commands in Scripture as our rule of worship, and liberal in defending the liberty of those who apply those commandments in legitimate, though nontraditional, ways. John Frame Worship in Spirit and Truth p.46.

You can either bow down before God or shove up against Him. - W Philip

God did not put his glory on display in creation and redemption in order that it might be taken for granted as a foundation beneath the building of our church activity, or the school of our academic enterprise, or the clinic of our psychological technique, or the house of our leisure. Woe to us if we get our satisfaction from the food in the kitchen and the TV in the den and the sex in the bedroom with an occasional tribute to the cement blocks in the basement! God wills to be displayed and known and loved and cherished and worshipped always and everywhere and in every act. --John Piper, Preaching as Worship

The worship most acceptable to God comes from a thankful and cheerful heart. - Plutarch.

Christ, in His divine innocence, said to the woman of Samaria, 'Ye worship ye know not what' -- being apparently under the impression that it might be desirable, on the whole, to know what one was worshipping. He thus showed Himself sadly out of touch with the twentieth century mind, for the cry today is: 'Away with the tedious complexities of dogma [doctrine] -- let us have the simple spirit of worship, no matter of what!' The only drawback to this demand is the practical difficulty of arousing any sort of enthusiasm for the worship of nothing in particular. -- Dorothy Sayers

A holy reverence checks our speech,
And praise sits silent on our tongues.
Isaac Watts

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Worldview- christiansquoting.org.uk

Everything in life has to do with your world view. You go to the zoo either to rejoice in the Creator or to find some alternative to Him. Your help for the needy is wrapped either in the arrogance that you are godlike and can figure out every detail, or in the modesty and humility that admits even your kindness might be wrong. Your starting point, and your discoveries along the way, determine how you build and manage both your zoos and your governments --- if, indeed, these days you can tell the difference. --Joel Belz in WORLD

Wherever man may stand, whatever he may do, to whatever he may apply his hand, in agriculture, in commerce, and in industry, or his mind, in the world of art, and science he is, in whatsoever it may be, constantly standing before the face of God, he is employed in the service of his God, he has strictly to obey his God, and above all, he has to aim at the glory of his God. - ABRHAM KUYPER

In the last chapter of Death in the City, I point out that each person sits in one of two chairs &emdash; either the naturalist chair or the supernaturalist chair &emdash; and he perceives everything in the universe from the perspective of that chair. When an individual is born again, he moves from the former chair to the latter. The tragedy is that even after a Christian has affirmed the supernatural it is perfectly possible for him, in practice, to move back to the naturalist chair and spend most of the rest of his life there, seeing things from the same perspective as the world and living on the same basis. If a man does not believe the promises of God for salvation, we say he is in unbelief. The position of a Christian who sits in the naturalist chair is what I call unfaith. Many Christians live much of their lives there. - Francis Schaeffer, No Little People, Chapter 16

No man can live without a world-view; therefore, there is no man who is not a philosopher.-- Francis A. Schaeffer, He Is There and He Is Not Silent, Ch. 1

Saturday, September 26, 2009

World- christiansquoting.org.uk

The real world is not easy to live in. It is rough; it is slippery. Without the most clear-eyed adjustments we fall and get crushed.-Clarence Day

He was as fitted to survival in this modern world as a tapeworm in an intestine. - William Golding (1911-1993) : Free Fall, 1959.

Whatever we have of this world in our hands, our care must be to keep it out of our hearts, lest it come between us and Christ.-- Matthew Henry

The curse should no longer rest upon the world itself, but upon that which is sinful in it, and instead of monastic flight FROM the world the duty is now emphasized of serving God IN the world, in every position in life.- Abraham Kuyper

If nothing in this world satisfies me, perhaps it is because I was made for another world. C. S. Lewis

One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring.H. L. Mencken

The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the error and truth are simply opposite. Theyare nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured on one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.
H. L. Mencken

The world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.~Sean O'Casey

[The Christian] refuses to give his heart to, or be taken in by, the values and pleasures off this passing world. He does not hesitate to use all that is good and beautiful and true, partly because he knows that his God gives him "richly all things to enjoy", and partly because he knows that in all life's impermanent beauties and pleasures, there is the promise of the real and permanent which he is thoroughly convinced will exceed his wildest expectations.... J. B. Phillips, New Testament Christianity [1956]

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.... Bertrand Russell

Build your nest upon no tree here; for ye see God hath sold the forest to death; and every tree whereupon we would rest is ready to be cut down, to the end we may fly and mount up, and build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock. - Samuel Rutherford, Letters, II. To LADY KENMURE, on the occasion of the death of her infant daughter, ANWOTH, Jan, 15, 1629

I have comfort in this, that my Captain, Christ, hath said, I must fight and overcome the world, and with a weak, spoiled, weaponless devil, 'the prince of this world comets, and hath nothing in me'....Remember Zion. Hold fast that which you have, that no man take the crown from you. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit. - Samuel Rutherford, Letters,III. To MARION MCNAUGHT, when his wife was ill ANWOTH, Nov. 17, 1629

Alas, we but chase feathers flying in the air, and tire our own spirits, for the froth and over-gilded clay of a dying life. One sight of what my Lord hath let me see within this short time, is worth a world of worlds.- Samuel Rutherford letter Feb. 9, 1637

The Christian is to resist the spirit of the world. But when we say this, we must understand that the worldspirit does not always take the same form. So the Christian must resist the spirit of the world in the form it takes in his own generation. If he does not do this, he is not resisting the spirit of the world at all.
Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who Is There

Console yourself
by remembering
that the world
doesn't deserve
your affection
Schoepenhauer

The world is wrong side up. It needs to be turned upside down in order to be right side up. - Billy Sunday (1862-1935) In "Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian World," by Edythe Draper, 1992.

All the danger is when the world gets into the heart. The water is useful for sailing the ship; all the danger is when the water gets into the ship; so the fear is when the world gets into the heart. --THOMAS WATSON

Friday, September 25, 2009

Doncaster leads the way

DONCASTER, UK, September 2, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The recently elected mayor of Doncaster, in South Yorkshire, has infuriated Britain's politically powerful homosexualist lobby by attempting to withhold local funding for this year's Gay Pride celebrations. The funding for this year's event in June went through, but Mayor Peter Davies, a member of the English Democrat party and the father of Tory MP Philip Davies, has scrapped all future funding for the annual Gay Pride event.

"I'm not a homophobe," he said, "but I don't see why council taxpayers should pay to celebrate anyone's sexuality."

Davies is only the second mayor of Doncaster to have been elected directly by a popular vote rather than by council members. He campaigned on a popular platform, that has reportedly alarmed the political classes on both the Labour and Tory sides of the House, in which he pledged to "stamp out political correctness" in every area of Doncaster's local government.

To accomplish this, Davies has recruited the group Campaign Against Political Correctness (CAPC) to consult on his planned reforms. A spokesman for the CAPC, John Midgley, said that "people are crying out" for an end to the wave of politically correct policies in Britain. "We commissioned a survey by ICM," Midgley said, "that said 80 per cent of people are fed up to the back teeth with it."

Davies promised to end council funding for "politically correct initiatives" and to "scrap politically correct non-jobs" such as "community cohesion officers" and "encourage the former employees to seek meaningful employment."

In his first week in office, Davies fulfilled his promises by cutting his own salary from £73,000 to £30,000; reducing the number of councillors from 63 to 21, saving the town £800,000 a year. He immediately announced plans to reduce council tax by 3 per cent and got rid of the mayoral limousine. He ended a "twinning" arrangement with five towns around the world, which he described as "just for people to fly off and have a binge at the council's expense."

While campaigning earlier this year, and in the midst of a national pandemic of violent youth crime, Davies, who is a retired school teacher, called for harsher punishments for "young thugs." As a founding member of the Campaign for Real Education, Davies has pressed for restoration of traditional methods in schools that he says will reduce crime and restore Britain's once-legendary public order.

He also called on the government to withdraw Britain from the European Union "in order to save billions of pounds each year and return control of the country's affairs to our own parliament."

Calling him the UK's "most gloriously un-PC" mayor, the Daily Mail's Robert Hardman asked, "Who should be most worried about his success: Labour or the Tories? Because his message threatens both."

Hardman commented, "To the shock and dismay of many local councillors and MPs, most of Westminster and the entire Government, the assiduously straight-talking Mr. Davies has just become one of the most powerful politicians in Britain."

Columnist and pundit Gerald Warner, writing for the Daily Telegraph's blog, called Davies's tenure "the beginning of the end for political correctness" and a sign that "the counter-revolution has begun." His agenda, Warner wrote, "against all the tenets of consensual British politics, consists of doing what the public wants."

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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Lockerbie victim’s sister meets with Gaddafi in New York

On Thursday, September 24, 2009 Dan Wooding Founder of ASSIST Ministries NEW YORK, NY (ANS) writes,
Lisa Gibson is an attorney and Executive Director of the Peace and Prosperity Alliance who lost her brother Kenneth Gibson on the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
But rather than succumbing to bitterness, she chose to take the road less traveled. She has chosen to focus her efforts on overcoming evil with good by serving the country of Libya through humanitarian and education projects. She met with the leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi on Wednesday, September 23rd at the Libya mission in New York City.
Like the other family members, she initially struggled with anger.. But her Christian faith called her to forgive and find a way to love her enemies. In 2004, she wrote a letter to Megrahi at the Scottish prison where he was serving his sentence. In her letter she said, “Only God knows if you are really responsible, but as a Christian, I need to forgive you.” Megrahi wrote her a kind letter back, expressing his sadness to hear of her loss, but maintaining his innocence.
In January of 2005, she was the first American Lockerbie family member to go to visit Libya. She was assisted by Libyan Ambassador Ali Aujali in making her visit to Libya. She participated in a tour and met with individual citizens and government officials, in each instance simply telling them her story and that as a Christian she needed to come to Libya to meet the people so she could begin to see them differently than she had seen them. As she would tell her story, the walls fell and transparency flowed between her and the Libyans. Even grown men wept when they heard her story, saying, “It is so good for you to come, I will do anything I can to help you.”

Seeing how the Libyans have also suffered she committed to overcoming evil with good. She launched out to start the Peace and Prosperity Alliance three years ago with the goal of addressing social evils such as terrorism, oppression and injustice. The PPA has officially “adopted” Libya and is working with the Libyan government and the Gaddafi Development Foundation to build bridges of people-to-people diplomacy through service, goodwill and humanitarian and education projects. They have raised money to help children in Libya with HIV/Aids and piloted their first English language training project in Libya, in December of 2008 which marked the 20th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing. There next project is to help facilitate reconciliation between the US and Libya through an art festival in Libya, between Libyan and American artists.
Lisa says “It has been a long 20 years, we have seen justice achieved. Now it is time to focus on reconciliation between the US and Libya.”
For more information visit www.peaceandprosperityalliance.org
ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com

Work- christiansquoting.org.uk

The objective of all dedicated employees should be to thoroughly analyse all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve these problems when called upon. However, When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remind yourself your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Work Rule: Leave of Absence (for an Operation):
We are no longer allowing this practice. We wish to discourage any thoughts that you may not need all of whatever you have, and you should not consider having anything removed. We hired you as you are, and to have anything removed would certainly make you less than we bargained for.

There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get any worse.

My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

No husband has ever been shot while doing the dishes.

Action is the antidote to despair.

I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect men.

We, the unwilling,
led by the unknowing,
are doing the impossible
for the ungrateful.
We have done so much,
for so long,
with so little,
we are now qualified to do anything
with nothing.
It's true that the willing horse gets the heaviest load. It is also true that he develops the strongest muscles and gets the most oats.

Some folks are so busy laying up for a rainy day that they cannot enjoy good weather.

I no longer need to punish, deceive, or compromise myself. Unless, of course, I want to stay employed

Begin to weave and God will give you the thread.

Hard work will never kill you,
'Tis said all over town;
Sweat is the only liquid
In which you cannot drown.
A considerable number of persons are able to protect themselves against the outbreak of serious neurotic phenomena only through intense work. --Karl Abraham

It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up. --Muhammad Ali (1942-____)

Remember this,--that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 121-180 A. D.

People should tell your children what life is all about -- it's about work. Lauren Bacall (1924-____)

Business is really more agreeable than pleasure; it interests the whole mind, the aggregate nature of man, more continuously, and more deeply. But it does not LOOK as if it did. --Walter Bagehot

The humblest and the most unseen activity in the world can be the true worship of God. Work and worship literally become one. Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever; and man carries out that function when he does what God sent him into the world to do. Work well done rises like a hymn of praise to God. This means that the doctor on his rounds, the scientist in his laboratory, the teacher in his classroom, the musician at his music, the artist at his canvas, the shop assistant at his counter, the typist at her typewriter, the housewife in her kitchen -- all who are doing the work of the world as it should be done are joining in a great act of worship. ... William Barclay, The Revelation of John, vol. 1 [1961]

Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.-- Charles Baudelaire

As a remedy against all ills - poverty, sickness, and melancholy - only one thing is absolutely necessary: a liking for work. --Baudelaire (1821-1867)

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment. - Robert Benchley (1889-1945) In "The Algonquin Wits," ed. by Robert E. Drennan, 1968.

There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes. --William Bennett

Helping his wife wash the dishes, a minister protested, "This isn't a man's job." "Oh yes it is," his wife retorted, quoting 2 Kings 21:13: "I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down." --Tal Bonham

By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task completely overwhelm you.-- Ashleigh Brilliant

I get satisfaction of three kinds. One is creating something, one is being paid for it, and one is the feeling that I haven't just been sitting on my ass all afternoon. --William F. Buckley

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice. --John Burroughs

A bus station is where a bus stops.
A train station is where a train stops.
On my desk I have a workstation. --George Carlin

Work is the grand cure for all maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind - honest work, which you intend getting done.-- T Carlyle (1795-1881)

All men, if they work not as in the great taskmaster's eye, will work wrong, and work unhappily for themselves and for you. --Thomas Carlyle

Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.... Dale Carnegie

I know of very few people who actually enjoy retirement, the notable exceptions being those people who have found some other job, usually on a part-time basis and working on something they find worthwhile. ...most men dislike a world away from work, feeling redundant and unwanted.
John Copelnad, Diary, w/e 12.6.99

There's no labor a man can do that's undignified, if he does it right. - Bill Cosby

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. --Thomas Edison

Every man's task is his life preserver. -- Emerson

All work and no pay makes a housewife. --Evan Esar (1899-1995)

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all. Sam Ewing

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labour by taking up another. -- Anatole France (1844-1924) "The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard."

Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.--Anne Frank (1929 - 1945) German-Dutch diarist "The Diary of a Young Girl," 1947; tr. 1952

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.-- Benjamin Franklin

The long-range sloution to high unemployment is to increase the incentive for ordinary people to save, invest, work, and employ others. We make it costly for employers to employ people; we subsidize people not to go to work We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.
Milton Friedman, article in US News & World Report (March, 1977)

The world is full of willing people. Some willing to work, the rest willing to let them. --Robert Frost

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.--Attributed to Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Employment is nature's physician, and is essential to human happiness.-- Galen

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition. - Indira Gandhi (1917 &endash; 1984)

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.- John W. Gardner

If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. - James Goldsmith(1933 &endash; 1997)

Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry. - William Golding (1911-1993) Rough Magic, lecture, 16 Feb 1977.

I awaken in the morning with confidence, rejoicing in whatever work is given to me to do. Whatever that work is, I do it, not in order to earn a living or in a sense of performing an onerous duty; but, with joy and gladness, I let it unfold as the activity of God's expression through me. ~ Joel S Goldsmith

When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery.
Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) "The Lower Depths," 1902.

A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and the action fine.
George Herbert The Elixir.
To reach the port of Heaven we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it. But we must sail, and not drift or lie at anchor.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

Jesus... did not finish all the urgent tasks in Palestine or all the things He would have liked to do, but He did finish the work which God gave Him to do. The only alternative to frustration is to be sure that we are doing what God wants. Nothing substitutes for knowing that this day, this hour, in this place, we are doing the will of the Father. Then and only then can we think of all the other unfinished tasks with equanimity, and leave them with God. ... Charles E. Hummel (1923- ), The Tyranny of the Urgent [1997]

They intoxicate themselves with work so they won't see how they really are. --Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) : "Three Men in a Boat," ch. 15, 1889.

If I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment. - Douglas Jerrold (1803 &endash; 1857)

All industry must be excited by hope. -- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #117

Employment, sir, and hardships prevent melancholy. --Johnson

It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge on any profession. No man would be a Judge, upon the condition of being totally a Judge."-- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)

We are challenged on every hand to work untiringly to achieve excellence in our lifework. Not all men are called to specialized or professional jobs; even fewer rise to the heights of genius in the arts and sciences; many are called to be laborers in factories, fields and streets. But no work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. If a man is called to be a street sweeper he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say "Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well." --Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

I firmly believe that any man's finest hour - his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear - is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle -- victorious.--Vince Lombardi

Every job has drudgery. ... The first secret of happiness is the recognition of this fundamental fact. -M. C. McIntosh

Yes, there's such a thing as luck in trial law but it only comes at 3 o'clock in the morning. . . . You'll still find me in the library looking for luck at 3 o'clock in the morning. -- Louis Nizer (1902-1994) In "Simpson's Contemporary Quotations," by James B. Simpson

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
Helen Keller (1880-1968)"The Treasure Chest."

We are challenged on every hand to work untiringly to achieve excellence in our lifework. Not all men are called to specialized or professional jobs; even fewer rise to the heights of genius in the arts and sciences; many are called to be laborers in factories, fields and streets. But no work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. If a man is called to be a street sweeper he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say "Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well." --Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

I realized that with hard work, the world was your oyster. You could do anything you wanted to do. I learned that at a young age. Chris Evert Lloyd (1954--)

And all young people are concerned environmentalists, but no one is interested in keeping the schoolyard clean!-- David McKay

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work, or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."
John Milton (1608-1674) On his Blindness.
The obedience that is enjoined upon servants is obedience in its true and proper connotation because it is rendered to masters 'as unto Christ' (Ephesians 6:5). It is obedience, therefore, with all the qualities which distinguish > obedience < from coerced, involuntary, formal compliance with the master's directions; obedience is not merely subjection. This concept gives to the labour of the bond-servant an entirely different complexion; when the forces of redemptive grace were brought to bear upon slaves and bore fruit in the recognition of the lordship of Christ, the whole attitude of the slave to both labour and master was transformed.We must not become so absorbed in the questions that pertain to slavery thatwe discount, or overlook, the demand for obedience as it applies to the free. That Paul, for example, has the free in view as well as the bond is apparent from Ephesians 6:8 (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:21,22).The important consideration here is that it is not the fact of bond-service that grounds the necessity of obedience. It is grounded in the master-servant relationship however that relationship may have come to be constituted; it is the authority vested in the master by divine ordinance that makes subjection mandatory. Here again we have a principle of the biblical ethic that has far-reaching consequences.- PRINCIPLES OF CONDUCT [John Murray. Eerdmans.1984. p93-104]

Yes, there's such a thing as luck in trial law but it only comes at 3 o'clock in the morning. . . . You'll still find me in the library looking for luck at 3 o'clock in the morning. -- Louis Nizer (1902-1994) In "Simpson's Contemporary Quotations," by James B. Simpson, 1988.

Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes. --P.J. O'Rourke

Do little things as though they were great, because of the majesty of Jesus Christ who does them in us, and who lives our life: and do the greatest things as though they were little and easy, because of His omnipotence. ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), PensÈes [1660]

No man on his death bed ever looked up into the eyes of his family and friends and said, "I wish I'd spent more time at the office."-- John Piper

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.-- Theodore Roosevelt

The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it. --John Ruskin (1819-1900)

The only place where success comes before work is in a dictionary. -- Vidal Sassoon

The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure is occupation. --George Bernard Shaw

The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic, and to some extent even antibiotic--in short, the closest thing to a genuine panacea--known to medical science is work. --Thomas Szasz

Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that in your own time.
Charles Sykes DUMBING DOWN OUR KIDS.

I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair. --Lord Tennyson

There is nothing so easy that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly. --Publius Terentius

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It is not a day when you lounge around doing nothing: it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it. Margaret Thatcher

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. --Henry David Thoreau_Walden_ (1854)

The Gospel, like its blessed Master, is always crucified between two thieves -- legalist of all sorts on the one hand and Antinomians on the other; the former robbing the Saviour of the glory of his work for us, and the other robbing him of the glory of his work within us. - James Henley Thornwell, from Antinomianism

You can employ men and hire hands to work for you, but you must win their hearts to have them work with you.--- Tiorio

Work spares us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.- Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire), 1694 - 1778

Inactivity is the beginning of all vice.-- CARL F. W. WALTHER

That which is everybody's business is nobody's business. Izaak Walton (1593-1683)

Our aim is not "success" the way the world measures it but to please Christ by the way you tackle even work. Work is an act of worship to a Saviour.-- John White

The better work men do is always done under stress and at great personal cost. -William Carlos Williams

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Invitation: 14th November Annual Rally for Christian DemocracyWednesday

From: "Christian Peoples Alliance" Add sender to Contacts

Dear Friend,

Annual Consultative Assembly and AGM
Saturday 14th November 2009 1000am - 1600
Moulin House, 24/26 Mount Park Road Ealing - London W5 2RT
The venue is 5 mins walk from Ealing Broadway BR & Underground

After an exciting political year in which our party contested national
elections for the first time, I am writing to invite you to contribute to the
development of the Christian Peoples Alliance and the advance of
Christian Democracy by coming to the Annual Consultative Assembly.
You will recall that in June, a quarter of a million people in Britain
voted for a Christian vision of Europe by backing candidates from the
Christian Peoples Alliance and our colleagues in The Christian Party. The
Times newspaper said the joint ticket was among the "key winners" of the
smaller parties. Will you join us in deciding the next steps? We want to
hear from you and hear your views too.

A feedback session was held in June at our national office where activists from
around England came together to plan ahead for next year's parliamentary
and local elections. This conference will be an important stage in that
planning. Although there are 250,000 people voting for Christian
Democratic policies, the CPA has insufficient paid up members! We rely on
volunteers and the big challenge is to translate goodwill into proper
organisation and a functioning office. The reality we face is that
unprecedented numbers of people are looking for a political alternative to
the big parties. The CPA stands for values of honesty and integrity. All
that is required is for you and those like you in CPA to come forward and
be the difference the public is seeking.

So please come and find out more. Perhaps you would like to meet other CPA
supporters where you are? Or be a local or parliamentary candidate? We
also have vacancies on the CPA Federal Council which decides vision and
party policy. Full details available on the day or by writing to me at the
office, or calling me on 07873 625396 or emailing press@cpaparty.org.uk

We are committed to hearing from members on what they think. You can also
submit a resolution for debate at the conference. We of course value your
prayers and any support by standing order that you can give. A donation of
£20 per month will go a long way in helping us meet our campaign and
election budgets for this coming year. For example, we need £500 per
constituency for election deposits and more to send out election leaflets
for maximum voter support. You can support us online by visiting:

http://www.cpaparty.org.uk/?page=help_support_us

Looking forward to seeing and meeting you on 14th November.

Yours for Christian Democracy

David Campanale
CPA President

Words- christiansquoting.org.uk

Sedulously eschew obfuscatory hyper verbosity and prolixity.

Use tasteful words. You may have to eat them later.

There are more than 200,000 useless words in the English language and at some committee meetings you hear all of them!

The mind of fools is in their mouth, but the mouth of wise men is in their mind. Sirach 21:26

We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them. - Abigail Adams (1744-1818) Letter to John Adams, 1774

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.ADAMS, DOUGLAS (1952-2001) {Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.-Henry Brooks Adams "The Education of Henry Adams"

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery of party, faction, and division of society. -- John Adams

Words are the physicians of a mind diseased. -- Aeschylus

How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms. --Aristotle (384-322 BC)

The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone? --Ecclesiastes 6:11 NIV

By words the mind is winged. -Aristophanes (448BC - 385BC) Greek dramatist

A man finds joy in giving an apt reply -- and how good is a timely word! - Prov. 15:23 NIV

The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding.-Francis Bacon_New Organon_I, Aphorism 42

Incomprehensible jargon is the hallmark of a profession.
Kingman Brewster, Jr. (1919-1988) In "Quotable Business," ed. Louis E. Boone, 1992.

If I take refuge in ambiguity, I assure you it's quite conscious.
Kingman Brewster, Jr. (1919-1988) In "Webster's Electronic Quotebase," ed. Keith Mohler, 1994

[Poetic words] set echoes going the way a choir in a great cathedral does, only it is we who become the cathedral and in us that the words echo
Frederick Buechner

You can get a lot more done with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind word alone. -- Al Capone

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all." -- Lewis Carroll (Through the Looking Glass)

Men are twisted out of the path of truth by the terms they are forced to use. G. K. Chesterton

Eating words has never given me indigestion Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer

By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer

When Calvin Coolidge was vice president, Channing Cox, who had succeeded Coolidge as Governor of Massachusetts, came to Washington and stopped in to see him. Cox was impressed by the fact that Coolidge was able to see long lists of callers every day, yet finished his work by five o'clock. Cox pointed out that he often found himself tied up with visitors until nine in the evening. "What makes the difference?" he asked.
"You talk back," Silent Cal explained. - Bits & Pieces, October 14,1993

Language is the apparel in which your thoughts parade before the public. Never clothe them in vulgar or shoddy attire. George Crane

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.-- Philip K. Dick (1928&endash;1982)

Blessed is the person who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact. -- attr to George Eliot

Some people are much like blisters-they don't show up until the work is done. -- Sam Ewing , The Saturday Evening Post ,August '92

Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.--Anne Frank (1929 - 1945) German-Dutch diarist "The Diary of a Young Girl," 1947; tr. 1952

Loquacity storms the ear, but modesty wins the heart. -- Thomas Fuller

Abstract words are ancient coins whose concrete images in the give and take of talk have worn away with use. -Julian Jaynes

Language most shewes a man: speake that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired, and inmost parts of us, and is the Image of the Parent of it, the mind. No glasse renders a mans forme, or likenesse, so true as his speech. - Ben Jonson "Oratio Imago Animi"

Among those who have endeavoured to promote learning and rectify judgment, it has long been customary to complain of the abuse of words, which are often admitted to signify things so different that, instead of assisting the understanding as vehicles of knowledge, they produce error, dissension, and perplexity, because what is affirmed in one sense is received in another. - Samuel Johnson: Rambler #202 New Quote 10

Tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language. - Samuel Johnson: Preface to the Dictionary

Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use. - Wendell Johnson (1906 &endash; 1965)

Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking. -John Maynard Keynes

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind -- Rudyard Kipling

The description is not the described; I can describe the mountain, but the description is not the mountain, and if you are caught up in the description, as most people are, then you will never see the mountain. -- J. Krishnamurti

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. -- Abraham Lincoln

We might knit that knot with our tongues that we shall never undo with our teeth ~ John Lyly

Language screens reality as a filter on a camera lens screens light waves.
Casey Miller and Kate Swift, _Words and Women_ (1976)

I once spoke to a human geneticist who declared that the notion of intel-ligence was quite meaningless, so I tried calling him _un_intelligent. He was annoyed, & it did not appease him when I went on to ask how he came to attach such a clear meaning to the notion of lack of intelligence. We never spoke again. --P. B. Medawar, _Advice to a Young Scientist_

I am a bear of very little brain, and long words bother me. --Alan Alexander Milne (1882-1956) _Winnie-the-Pooh_ [1926], Chapter 4

I am not denying anything I did not say. - Brian Mulroney (1939 &endash; )

The thoughtless are rarely wordless.... Howard W. Newton

It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. -Oxford University Press, EdpressNews

Words are like leaves, and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism
One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called "weasel words." When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a "weasel word" after another there is nothing left of the other.
Theodore Roosevelt

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.
William Shakespeare. Love's Labour 's Lost. Act v. Sc.

A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off. William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona

Commonly they must use their feet for defense whose only weapon is their tongue. - Sir Philip Sidney (1554 &endash; 1586)

If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as it is with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. -Robert Southey

It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. ~Robert Southey 1774-1843

Don't rely to much on labels,
Far too often they are fables.
C.H. Spurgeon, Salt-Cellars

Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone but principally by catchwords. --Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) _Virginibus Puerisque_ [1881], Part 1, Chapter 2

What's another word for Thesaurus? Steven Wright

If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know? Steven Wright, 1994

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Christian Nurse in 'Confirmation Cross Suspension' Forced to Accept Redeployment and will File Claim for Discrimination

A CHRISTIAN nurse from Exeter, facing disciplinary action for simply wearing a necklace on which hung her Confirmation Cross, has, under duress, today accepted an offer of redeployment and has instructed lawyers to file an action at the Employment Tribunal for discrimination.

Shirley Chaplin, 54, having served as a nurse for nearly 30 years, was threatened with disciplinary action after refusing to remove a necklace bearing a Cross - a symbol of her deeply felt Christian faith. NHS bosses had insisted that the Cross must be removed from sight. Despite wearing the cross ever since studying to be a nurse, bosses at The Royal Devon & Exeter Trust Hospital ordered her to remove the personal item, deeming it a breach of uniform policy and a health risk to her and to patients.

Despite claiming no accident had been recorded in relation to the cross in nearly 30 years, or that any complaint had been made against her by a patient for wearing the religious item, or offering to sign a disclaimer absolving the Trust from any liability if she were injured by the one inch silver object, the Trust refused her 'Risk Assessment' evidence. The Trust insists that the Cross should not be visible.

Mrs. Chaplin claims the demand to remove her Cross has nothing to do with Health and Safety, but is an infringement of her Human Rights, and that of being able to express her faith, which has been her foundation and strength for nearly 30 years of serving members of the public through nursing. Mrs. Chaplin informed managers that necklaces were worn by other members of Staff and the Trust had promoted the hospital in photographs where staff were wearing jewellery, many staff wore visible medialert chains, and Muslim staff wore scarves, each of which had complied with their health and safety policy.

Mrs Chaplin said: "This blatant piece of political correctness amounts to the marginalising of employees' personal human rights, a blanket 'secularising and neutralising' of the NHS intended to stop Christians from expressing their faith in the public services of the NHS." Today, September 21, the nurse was told she either accepted redeployment to non-nursing role or face the sack.

Andrea Minichiello Williams, barrister and director of the Christian Legal Centre which is supporting Mrs Chaplin in her case said: "Today, a nurse who has faithfully served members of the public in Exeter with her professional skills was forced, under duress, to agree to stand down from nursing and take up an administrative role, all because the Trust would not permit her to wear a Cross the world-wide, recognised and cherished image of Christianity.

"Mrs Chaplin was left with no option other than to accept, but has today instructed us to file for action at the Employment Tribunal for discrimination by her employers."

The CLC has also instructed barrister Paul Diamond to represent Mrs Chaplin. Mr Diamond advised Caroline Petrie, the nurse who was suspended for offering to pray for a patient and then reinstated, and many other high profile Christian discrimination cases in recent years.


If you would like to donate to support the Christian Legal Centre in this case we would be very grateful. To do so, please click the button below.'

Andrea Minichiello Williams
020 7467 5421
Christian Legal Centre
http://www.christianlegalcentre.com

Women- christiansquoting.org.uk

The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.

WOMAN: An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication.

What is worse than a male chauvinistic pig?
A woman that won't do what she's told.

Women have more imagination than men. They need it to tell us how wonderful we are.

Women have their faults. Men have only two: Everything they say; Everything they do.

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

Men always want to be a woman's first love. Women have a more subtle instinct: What they like is to be a man's last romance.

There are two times when a man doesn't understand a woman - before marriage and after marriage.

Only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

Some husbands are living proof that a woman can take a joke.

A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

Women have two weapons - cosmetics and tears.

Why do brides wear white ?
Because it's the most popular colour for kitchen appliances.

In the beginning, God created earth and rested.
Then God created man and rested.
Then God created woman
Since then, neither God nor man has rested.

Here's to women! Would that we could fall into their arms without falling into their hands!

Be it resolved] that all women, of whatever age, rank,profession, or degree; whether virgin maids or widows; that shall after the passing of this Act, impose upon and betray into matrimony any of His Majesty's male subjects, by scents, paints,cosmetics, washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes, or bolstered hips, shall incur the penalty of the laws now in force against witchcraft, sorcery, and such like misdemeanours, and that the marriage, upon conviction, shall stand null and void. Act of Parliament, 1670

If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.--Abigail (Smith) Adams (1744-1818)_Letter to John Adams_ [March 31, 1776]

To which John Adams replied:
I cannot but laugh...We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bands of government everywhere; that children and apprentices were disobedient; that schools and colleges were grown turbulent; that Indians slighted their guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their masters. But your letter was the first intimation that another tribe more numerous and powerful than all the rest were grown discontented. This is rather too coarse a compliment, but you are so saucy, I won't blot it out. Depend on it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems. Although they are in full force, you know they are little more than theory. We dare not exert our power in its full latitude. We are obliged to go fair and softly, and in practice you know we are the subjects. We have only the name of masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petticoat, I hope General Washington and all our brave heroes would fight. --from the letters of John and Abigail Adams, written while he was attending the Continental Congress, about to Declare Independence: quoted in _John Adams_, David McCullough

Women like silent men. They think they‚re listening.-- Marcel Archard

Women ought to be quiet. When people are talking, they ought to retire to the kitchen.~W.H. Auden, Table Talk (1947)

A man's mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault. -- Walter Bagehot

Woman--last at the cross, and earliest at the grave.-- Eaton Stannard Barrett

To judge from the covers of countless women's magazines, the two topics most interesting to women are: (1) Why men are all disgusting pigs and (2) How to attract men. -- Dave Barry

The way to beat a woman is with your hat. Grab it and run. -- John Barrymore

Men and women chasing each other is what makes the human race.-- Mark Beltaire

Female: One of the opposing, or unfair, sex. Ambrose Bierce

Global capitalism and Marxism share a belief that it is far better to have women in the marketplace than at home. The old Marxists - Marx, Engels and the others - wanted to bring down the traditional family, and move women out of the home and into the marketplace, to make them independent of the family. The global capitalists want the same thing. Women who live at home are not consuming or producing enough, they think. Global capitalism seeks to make everyone an employee, everyone a worker. There is a tremendous premium on bringing into the marketplace talented and capable women workers - who are more reliable in many cases - so that they can boost productivity and consume more goods.- Patrick Buchanan, Right Now! June 2022

No lady is ever a gentleman. James Branch Cabell, Something About Eve: A Comedy of Fig-Leaves(1927)

Strong-minded, able-bodied women are my aversion, and I run out of the road of one as I would from a mad cow.
Jane Welsh Carlyle, Letter to Mrs Russell, Aug 30, 1861

Women desire six things: They want their husbands to be brave, wise, rich, generous, obedient to wife, and lively in bed.
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) "The Shipman's Tale," The Canterbury Tales

We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman&emdash;scorned, slighted, dismissed without a parting pang. - Colley Cibber (1671 &endash; 1757)

A man must understand a woman's needs, which are simple and constant. Women need to: Feel young , Feel skinny, Feel sexy~ Anna Collins and Elliott Sullivan, Women Are From Bras, Men Are From Penus

I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.~Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes in The Man With the Twisted Lip

The test of civilization is the estimate of woman.-- George William Curtis

Women we read beween lines better than on them -Sheila Dundee

The awe and dread with which the untutored savage contemplates his mother-in-law are amongst the most familiar facts of anthropology. - Sir James George Frazer (1854 &endash; 1941)

A man without a woman is like a neck without a pain. --W C Fields

The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ``What does a woman want?' Sigmund Freud, Letter to Marie Bonaparte

If the heart of a man is depress'd with cares,
The mist is dispelled when a woman appears.
John Gay (1685-1732)_The Beggar's Opera_ [1728], Act II, Scene III, Air 21

Women are just like cats. To win them, you must first make them purr. Sam "Sully" Gehring

A woman should be home with the children, building that home and making sure there's a secure family atmosphere.~Mel Gibson (1991)

I think I've scratched the surface after twenty years of marriage. Women want chocolate and conversation. ~ Mel Gibson,1956-

It all goes back ,of course, to Adam and Eve -a story which shows among other things, that if you make a woman out of a man, you are bound to get into trouble. ~ Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice (1982)

Women are hard enough to handle now without giving them a gun! -- Senator Barry Goldwater on women in the military

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. --Robert A. Heinlein

I came, I saw, SHE conquered. (The original Latin seems to have been garbled.) -- Lazarus Long (Robert Heinlein)

They say one tongue is enough for a woman.-- Matthew Henry, on hearing his sister was to learn French

A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's. She changes it more often. - Oliver Herford

Can you imagine a world without men? No crime and lots of happy fat women. Nicole Hollander

How can we have an invasion when the troops storm ashore and then change their minds. ~Bob Hope, on women in combat (1991)

I wish that men were as resolute as women. Anne Javouhey

I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence. Samuel Johnson

Were it not for imagination, sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as a duchess. Dr. Johnson

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little. Dr. Johnson

To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion or empire, above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature; contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to his revealed will and approved ordinance, and finally it is the subversion of good order, of all equity and justice." - John Knox

There is a woman at the beginning of all great things.-- Lamartine

Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square
Eternally noble, historically fair
Who when you win will always give your back a pat
Why can't a woman be like that?
Alan Jay Lerner, lyric , A Hymn to Him

No good ever came out of female domination. God created Adam master and lord of all living creatures, but Eve spoiled all. --Martin Luther, "Table Talk"(1532)

Who loves not woman, wine and song
Remains a fool his whole life long.
Martin Luther
Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men, the other 999 follow women. Groucho Marx

On one issue at least men and women agree: They both distrust women. - H.L. Mencken

That it should still be necessary, at this late stage in the senility of the human race to argue that women have a fine and fluent intelligence is surely an eloquent proof of the defective observation, incurable prejudice, and general imbecility of their lords and masters. -- H.L. Mencken

I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man.--George Meredith (1828-1909) _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ [1859], Ch. 1

Grace was in all her steps, Heav'n in her Eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.
John Milton, Paradise Lost Book VIII, 487 - 88
Disguise our bondage as we will,
'Tis woman, woman, rules us still.
~Thomas Moore, Miscellaneous Woman.

I asked a Burmese man why women, after centuries of following their men, now walk ahead. He said there were many unexploded land mines since the war.--Robert Mueller

In revenge and in love, woman is more barbarous than man.--Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)_Beyond Good and Evil_ [1886], "Maxims and Interludes," No. 139

The sexes deceive themselves about one another: the reason being that fundamentally they love and honor only themselves (or their own ideal, to express it more pleasantly). Thus man wants women to be peaceful--but woman is essentially unpeaceful, like the cat, however well she may have trained herself to present an appearance of peace. --Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) _Beyond Good and Evil_ [1886], "Maxims and Interludes," No. 131

Men seldom make passes/At girls who wear glasses Dorothy Parker
Men do make passes at girls who wear glasses - but it all depends on their frames. Optician

At night there is no such thing as an ugly woman. --Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso] (43 BC-18 AD)

A woman is a foreign land,
Of which, though there he settle young,
A man will ne'er quite understand
The customs, politics, and tongue."
Coventry Patmore
Women are rarely as successful as men . They have no wives to advise them. --Bob Phillips

Some women are not beautiful‚ they only look as though they are. Bob Phillips

Men and women are like right and left hands; it doesn't make sense not to use both.- Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) In "American Political Women." by Esther Stineman, 1980.

Men of today's older generation grew up in the chivalric miasma of their time, which held that women were morally superior to men, and that civilized men protected women against any available vicissitude. A corollary was that women needed protecting. So common has this understanding been throughout history that one may suspect it of being based in ancient instinct: In a less hospitable world, if men didn't protect women, something disagreeable would eat them, and then there would be no more people. So men did. And do. --Fred Reed

When a woman says she wants to go out and get a job to express herself, it usually means she's hopelessly behind in the ironing.~Oliver Reed (1978)

A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please. --Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

A happy woman is one who has no cares at all; a cheerful woman is one who has cares but doesn't let them get her down.Beverly Sills (1929-____) On "60 Minutes."

There is a growing strength in women, but it's in the forehead, not the forearm.-Beverly Sills (1929-____): In "The Dallas News."

I know I'm not going to understand women.I'll never understand how you can take boiling hot wax, pour it on to your upper thigh, rip the hair out by the root...and still be afraid of spiders~Jerry Seinfeld

B is for Breasts
Of which ladies have two;
Once prized for the function,
Now for the view.
Robert Paul Smith, "From A to Z" in And Another Thing
Behind every successful man you'll find a woman -- who has absolutely nothing to wear. -- James Stewart, _Film Yearbook_ (1990)

CELIA: Oh Charles - a woman needs certain things. She needs to be loved, wanted, cherished,sought after, wooed, flattered, cosseted, pampered. She needs sympathy, affection, devotion, understanding, tenderness, infatuation, adulation, idolatry - that isn't much to ask, is it Charles? --Barry Took and Marty Feldman Round the Horne, BBC Radio,

He is a fool who thinks by force or skill
To turn the current of a woman's will.
Samuel Tuke (---- -1673): Adventures of Five Hours. Act v. Sc. 3.

What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce. Mark Twain

Women have the right to work wherever they want, as long as they have the dinner ready when you get home-- Attributed to John Wayne

When women go wrong, men go right after them. Mae West

The Two Things about Women
1. When complaining, they don't want your advice, they want your sympathy.
2. Don't you dare tell them you can sum them up with just Two Things.
Glen Whitman

Men always want to be a woman's first love. Women have a more subtle instinct: What they like is to be a man's last romance.- Oscar Wilde

Monday, September 21, 2009

Wit- christiansquoting.org.uk

I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.

My witticisms are both good and original. Unfortunately the good ones are not original, And the original ones are not good.

Wit is educated insolence. Aristotle (284-322 B.C.)

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit. Ralph Waldo Emerson

We cannot decide if she is blunt or sharp. -- Judy Johnson

He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it. --Boswell. The Life of Johnson, for October 16, 1769

Wit, you know, is the unexpected copulation of ideas...-- Samuel Johnson, Rambler #194

Of Mr. Johnson's erudition the world has been the judge, and we who produce each a score of his sayings, as proofs of that wit which in him was inexhaustible, resemble travellers who having visited Delhi or Golconda bring home each a handful of oriental pearls, to evince the riches of the Great Mogul.
Mrs. Hester Piozzi, _Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson_, 1786

There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) In "A New Dictionary of Quotations," by H.L. Mencken, 1942.

An ounce of wit is worth a pound of argument. Sydney Smith

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Wisdom- christiansquoting.org.uk

Wise men are not always silent, but they know when to be.

A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top.

It is better to weep with wise men than to laugh with fools. Spanish Proverb

Three things it is best to avoid: a strange dog, a flood, and a man who thinks he is wise.... Welsh Proverb

Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.- Abigail Adams (1744-1818) Letter to her son, John Q. Adams, 1780.

We are ensnared by the wisdom of the serpent; we are set free by the foolishness of God. -- . Augustine

Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other. For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves ...Opening words of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.--Sandra Carey (1941- )

Should it be said that the Greeks discovered philosophy by human wisdom, I reply that I find the Scriptures declare all wisdom to be a divine gift.
Clement of Rome

A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)_The Ancient Mariner_

Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
William Cowper

Wisdom itself is often an abstraction associated not with fact or reality but with the man who asserts it and the manner of its assertion.
John Kenneth Galbraith , The Great Crash 1929

The road to wisdom?
Well it's plain and simple to express:
Err and err and err again
but less and less and less.
Piet Hein

It is the province of knowledge to speak And it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, 1841 - 1935

The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are --C.S. Lewis, Selected Literary Essays

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom. The music is nothing if the audience is deaf. --Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) _A Preface to Morals_

The wisdom of the Greeks, when compared to that of the Jews, is absolutely bestial; for apart from God there can be no wisdom, not any understanding and insight. Martin Luther

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next. - John Stuart Mill

Faith keeps the soul at a holy distance from these infinite depths of divine wisdom, where it profits more by reverence and holy fear than any can do by their utmost attempt to draw nigh to that inaccessible light wherein these glories of the divine nature do dwell. ... John Owen (1616-1683)

Not until we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God's holiness and sovereignty...acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts, and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours. - James I Packer

". . . the heart of God's wisdom is God's passion to display the glory of his grace in Christ for the everlasting enjoyment of those who believe. Since we are all undeserving sinners, the cross is central to this wisdom. - John Piper,_The Pleasures of God_.

. . . the nature of God's wisdom governs the way it is revealed and known, namely, in a way that will subdue our boasting in ourselves and sustain our boasting in the Lord.- John Piper,_The Pleasures of God_.

Since God's wisdom aims to exalt the glory of god's grace in Christ crucified, God reveals this wisdom in a way that nullifies human pride and boasting. - John Piper,_The Pleasures of God_.

Therefore we may conclude that the ultimate difference between divine wisdom and human wisdom is this: God's wisdom has the supremacy of God's glory as the beginning, middle, and end of it, but man's wisdom delights in seeing himself as resourceful, self-sufficient, self-determining and not utterly dependent on God's free grace. Divine wisdom begins consciously with God.- John Piper,_The Pleasures of God_.

When divine wisdom is revealed to humans, its effect is to humble us and give us the same God-orientation that God himself has.- John Piper,_The Pleasures of God_.

That man is wise to some purpose who gains his wisdom at the expense and from the experience of another.-- Plautus

No man is wise enough by himself.... Plautus

Judge: I am no wiser now than when you began summing up.
F E Smith: Possibly not My Lord; but better informed. - F. E. Smith (1872 &endash; 1930)

Do you think yourself wise? Then there's a donkey inside your waistcoat. - Spurgeon's Proverbs

Wisdom is the daughter of experience. -- Leonardo da Vinci

Friday, September 18, 2009

Big Sam J is 300 today!

“Samuel Johnson, a man whose talents, acquirements, and virtues, were so extraordinary, that the more his character is considered, the more he will be regarded by the present age, and by posterity, with admiration and reverence.”
(James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791)

Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult. -- Samuel Johnson

Wickedness must be opposed by some, or virtue would be entirely driven out of the world. -- Samuel Johnson: Sermon 17

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself. - Dr Samuel Johnson, 1709 - 1784

To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals; but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness. -- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #107

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed. -- Samuel Johnson: Rasselas [said by the character Imlac]

Inquiries into the heart are not for man. - Samuel Johnson: Dryden (Lives of the Poets)

The book which is read most, is read by few, compared with those that read it not; and of those few, the greater part peruse it with dispositions that very little favour their own improvement. -- Samuel Johnson: Adventurer #137 (not written about the Bible, but it fits)

The most important events, when they become familiar, are no longer considered with wonder or solicitude; and that which at first filled up our whole attention, and left no place for any other thought, is soon thrust aside into some remote repository of the mind, and lies among other lumber of the memory, overlooked and neglected. -- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #78

Where no man thinks himself under any obligation to submit to another, and, instead of co-operating in one great scheme, every one hastens through by-paths to private profit, no great change can suddenly be made; nor is superior knowledge of much effect, where every man resolves to use his own eyes and his own judgment, and every one applauds his own dexterity and diligence, in proportion as he becomes rich sooner than his neighbour. -- Samuel Johnson: Introduction to the Political State of Great Britain

It would be undoubtedly best, if we could see and hear everything as it is, that nothing may be too anxiously dreaded, or too ardently pursued. - Samuel Johnson: Idler #50

Domestic discord is not inevitably and fatally necessary; but yet it is not easy to avoid. - Samuel Johnson, Rasselas [the princess Nekayah]

Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things. - Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)

You must not mind me, madam; I say strange things, but I mean no harm. -- Dr. Johnson, in Fanny Burney, diary 23 August 1778

Every man has something to do which he neglects; every man has faults to conquer which he delays to combat. -- Samuel Johnson: Idler #43

I dogmatise and am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinion and sentiments I find delight. --Dr. Samuel Johnson

Tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language. - Samuel Johnson: Preface to the Dictionary

He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed.The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich. - Samuel Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

Rousseau, sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations.-- Dr. Johnson, in Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, 1791

Thursday, September 17, 2009

EU Equal Treatment Directive will lead to Oppression and Censorship.

'The proposed EU Equal Treatment Directive has the potential to be used as an instrument of cultural genocide. Its provisions are likely to restrict Christian freedoms to the extent that, in certain cases, we would be silenced and prevented from providing goods or services to the public without violating our consciences, particularly if required to promote other religions or the practice of homosexuality.

The Directive ignores the necessity of providing protection in connection with conflicts inevitably arising out of:

Differences between those expressing religious tenets of one religion and the doctrines of another religion; or
Differences between those expressing religious tenets on sexual conduct and those professing a homosexual orientation.

The Directive purports to eliminate discrimination on the grounds of (amongst other things) “religion or belief” and “sexual orientation” from the provision of goods and services in every European Union country. That means that when providing a service (such as a hotel room) or selling goods (such as books) in the EU, businesses and their employees will have to provide them or risk being sued, irrespective of whether they find themselves facilitating sexual ethics contrary to their religious beliefs, or helping to promote another religion.

If a Christian says or does something whilst providing the goods or the service that someone finds offensive, they can be sued for an unlimited amount of compensation for “harassment”. This will cast a chilling shadow over free speech and freedom of expression for Christians, as it will for those with any views that challenge the prevailing ‘politically correct’ ideology . At the Christian Legal Centre, we have already seen numerous cases in the UK where similar equality laws and policies in the employment field have been used to silence Christians and to suspend or dismiss them from their public sector jobs, such as the homelessness officer who was dismissed for suggesting to a terminally ill client that she might consider putting her faith in God.

“Harassment,” as vaguely defined in the Directive, allows an individual to accuse someone of discrimination merely for expressing something the individual allegedly perceives as creating an “offensive environment”. For example, once someone decides to perceive an offer of prayers or words of comfort by a hospital chaplain (a Christian Minister who is employed in a UK hospital) based on his faith as offensive, that person can bring legal action against the chaplain and the hospital, even if the chaplain at the hospital intended no offence. To further chill fundamental freedoms, the burden of proof then shifts to the chaplain to disprove the allegation.

The Directive contains a number of proposals that will limit the freedom of expression of broadcasters and the press; that will limit academic freedom in education, particularly outside national educational systems; and that will undermine Christians’ right to freedom of association by compelling them to ensure that the principle of equal treatment is applied to all internal rules. For example, it could affect religious associations such as Student Christian Unions in internal membership rules and allow unbelievers the same access to membership as Christians. The Directive also breaches a number of the rules of fairness in law-making, such as the principle that whoever claims to have been wronged must prove his/her case rather than making the defendant prove the negative that they did not discriminate against the claimant.

There is no protection in the Directive for the freedom to follow one’s religious conscience and there are no balancing mechanisms to arbitrate between competing sets of rights, such as when a Muslim’s rights conflict with a Christian’s rights, or when the supposed rights of a homosexual to practise his or her lifestyle conflict with a Christian’s rights to refuse to facilitate that practice.

We believe that Member States should veto the Directive. It requires unanimity amongst all Member States. One country could say “No”. Please pray that it will not be passed and encourage a Christian campaign across Europe to “Say a Loud No to the EU Equal Treatment Directive” before it’s too late. It undermines Christian values, traditional family values and has the potential to be used as a tool to sue and persecute Christians for simply professing their faith in the course of everyday life when they provide a wide range of goods and services. It will cover social security, healthcare, education, housing, and access to the supply of goods and other services that are available to the public in both the public and private sector including public bodies.

The harassment provision should be removed completely, as it will affect freedom of speech and freedom to preach, and the Directive should include a general religious conscience exception as well as balancing mechanisms that prevent indirect religious discrimination. Education, the media and advertising, and Christian businesses should be excluded from the scope of the Directive. Likewise, the Directive should not cover discrimination on the grounds of “sexual orientation”, nor should it include “religion or belief”. The European Commission’s initial proposal was for a Directive that would prevent discrimination on the grounds of disability, which was a constructive suggestion. It is highly regrettable that the Commission changed their proposal to include the controversial grounds of “sexual orientation” and “religion or belief” and they should be removed.

The Directive is currently being amended by the Swedish Presidency, who are leading negotiations (with representatives from Member States) with a view to the final vote being taken in the next month or two (aiming for November 2009) in the Council of the European Union (Council of Ministers). If passed, national Governments would then be obliged to implement the provisions of the Directive within two years. This means that the Directive will be transposed into the laws of all European countries including the UK.

Please download our Information and Action Pack and use it to find out about the Directive so that you can write to your MP, MEPs and Equality Minister. Please encourage your friends in other European countries to do the same. The pack contains example letters and a list of Ministers from each EU country that might be responsible for equality matters. It is vital that Christians across the EU realise the seriousness of the situation and that Equality Ministers are informed that they can vote “no”.' -Andrea Minichiello Williams Christian Concern for our Nation