Catholic Church split on homosexuality?

From the Daily Telegraph:

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan says "Transsexuals and homosexuals will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven and it is not me who says this, but Saint Paul".

Fairly clear. Though one wonders why he doesn't mention the elephant in the Catholic room, maybe it goes without saying, although funny how others have had to say it.

However, he's being too tough apparently because:

Father Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman quoted from the official Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, which says homosexual acts are a “disorder” but acknowledges that many people have “innate homosexual tendencies” and should be treated with respect and not be subject to discrimination. The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are sinful but homosexuality in itself is not.

Respect being fair enough. Of course given the number of clergymen who no doubt have "innate homosexual tendencies", it is hardly surprising.

The elephant in the room is this.

As Austen Ivereigh in the Guardian said "The real scandal is that the church ignored its own law, derived from explicit and unambiguous biblical teaching, a law valid for the church in all political and legal contexts around the world. The principle in canon law is clear and unambiguous: whatever the inadequacies of the civil law, minors must always be protected by the church's law, and their abusers brought swiftly to justice."

Fortunately the Irish Government is refusing to tolerate any cover up and is accepting the state's substantial share of responsibility:

Whatever the failings of the past, the Government is determined that there will be no hiding place for those who break the law - whatever their status. The people who committed these abominable crimes should pay for them. A number have already been brought to justice, proceedings are pending against some others and a number of investigations are ongoing. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Dermot Ahern TD made available a copy of the report to the Garda Commissioner and the Director of Public Prosecutions as soon as he received it in July. The Commissioner has assured the Minister that pursuing the perpetrators, whenever the abuse occurred, is an absolute priority for the Force.

Ireland for too long operated almost as semi clerocracy, with the church unaccountable to the state, and working in partnership, sometimes for good and clearly sometimes for evil. It is a clear reminder that only with clear separation of church and state, can institutions of religion start to effectively be held responsible when they conspire to commit crime or to conceal those within it who do.

Useless university research: men and porn

"All men watch porn" says the headline referring to a University of Montreal study.

Apparently the "study" investigated 20 something men, who appeared to all be university students, presumably in Montreal. Wow, cutting edge stuff, such diversity of men!

Furthermore:

Single men watched pornography for an average of 40 minutes, three times a week, while those in relationships watched it 1.7 times a week for around 20 minutes.

1.7 times? "Sorry dear it wasn't a "full" time, it was only 0.7 of a "watch"". Don't let your imagination go too far in figuring out what an "incomplete" watch might represent.

The study found that men watched pornography that matched their own image of sexuality, and quickly discarded material they found offensive or distasteful.

Surely not?!!?? Who'd have thought?

So was it "bad" for them?

“Not one subject had a pathological sexuality,” he said. “In fact, all of their sexual practices were quite conventional.

“Pornography hasn't changed their perception of women or their relationship, which they all want to be as harmonious and fulfilling as possible,” he added."

Or perhaps they told you this, the sample was woefully small, none would admit to liking bestiality, dp, bdsm, urophilia and other kinks, or all the before mentioned is conventional in Montreal.

Maybe a better measure is to consider how highly ranked certain particularly kinky sites are on Alexa, how many are reporting addiction to pornography, how many relationships deteriorate as a result.

Indeed, the study that appears not to have been undertaken is what it is doing to teenagers, as increasing numbers take what are illegal photos of themselves and share them with each other, and it then ends up getting widely distributed. It is change that is profound, likely to disturb many parents, and may well change views on what censorship should be. After all, what do you do when the vast majority of what is defined as child pornography producers, are the subjects of the images themselves?

Daniel Hannan on Climate Change

The Conservative Party's best MEP, the somewhat libertarian Daniel Hannan expresses his view on climate change in the Daily Telegraph, and it is probably closest to my own:

I think the world is warming (I especially dislike the phase “climate change denial”: no one, as far as I’m aware, is positing climate stasis). And it may well be that human activity is playing some part in the process, although probably not to the degree claimed by some climate change professionals.

I also tend to agree with Nigel Lawson that adaptation would be more effective and cheaper than a programme of greenhouse gas reductions which, even according to its proponents, would slow global warming by only around 0.2 degrees.

So in other words, yes it might be warming, yes it might have some human contribution, but does it justify the draconian interventions being proposed? No. Is it the end of the world as some predict? No.

He characterises the core of the debate as follows:

Just as those who already believed in more regulation, more government, supra-nationalism and higher taxes honestly think that carbon emissions are overheating the planet, so libertarians and small government types honestly think that the whole thing is a crock. Each faction, convinced of its own sincerity, distrusts the motives of the other.

Which of course I do, it is seen most clearly in how the left hijacks this issue to wage war on international trade (because it likes protectionism and localism), the private car (because it is a symbol of individualism) and aviation, whilst being lukewarm on nuclear energy, eliminating trade barriers that could increase efficiency and reduce waste and cutting government barriers to low carbon industries. The holes appear when the Green Party ignores that increasing public transport is more likely to reduce people walking and cycling than switch people from driving, or when it seeks to ban foreign ships carrying domestic cargo between coastal ports as part of an international trip, because it supports the maritime unions and their Marxist closed shop agenda.

In other words, the policies promoted by the likes of the Green Party on climate change are in some cases fundamentally flawed, but in most cases are parallel with an agenda of more state control, more taxation, more regulation and less individual responsibility and freedom. The Green Party wouldn't promote people on welfare not breeding, even though that would reduce CO2 emissions.

Funny that.

What has happened is that a possible issue has been hijacked by one part of the political spectrum which has run off with grand solutions that come from the past, solutions that include enormous transfers of wealth to vested interests and in letting much of the world do nothing other than gain relatively from the kneecapping of developed economies.

It's about time that a new approach was taken to those who do this.

It's time for anyone promoting "climate change" policies to be honest about the costs of doing so, and what benefits will accrue. Real substantive benefits, and who will gain them. The true answer in most cases is "costs lots, gains nothing".

It's time for those arguing for any money to be spent on "climate change" to argue why it isn't better spent elsewhere.

It's time for those who seek to implement policies to address climate change to first, and foremost, advance policies that are consistent with less government, more freedom and more individual responsibility.

In other words, if we assume there is climate change and that there may be good reason to be cautious regarding it, what can governments do to get out of the way of individuals making better choices to reduce CO2 emissions, and let's not stop those wanting to voluntarily take their own steps to promote reducing emissions from doing so.

Finally, it may seem petty, but it is time to fisk the scum who continue to call those who question the climate change orthodoxy as deniers. They know they are seeking parallels with the Holocaust denial lowlives. Such language demeans and denigrates those who went through the Holocaust, by aligning the deliberate cruelty and sadism of that piece of history to theories of environmental changes that have largely occurred inadvertently. It also seeks to close any debate regarding the scale and extent of climate change, and the possible solutions.

Anyone using such language is beneath contempt.

So on climate change, first do no harm, and beware that all too many who want to do something, have a monomaniacal interest in reducing emissions at all costs, except, of course, the obvious option - which would be to do away with themselves.

John Key aiming low

You know something's wrong with government policy when you can read this:

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Prime Minister John Key speaking from Trinidad yesterday when he said that New Zealand had adopted and implemented a radical set of policies in the 1980s with rapid and far reaching change. Key said Australia had not followed the same path but had made changes incrementally and had done much better as a result. John Key is right.

Of course this comes from John Minto. The Marxist journalist agrees with John Key, of course Key is dead wrong.

There are many reasons why Australia didn't take such a radical course, primarily because Australia wasn't in such a dire fiscal and economic state as New Zealand. On top of that Australia has long ridden on the back of a broader base of commodity exporting (digging minerals out of the ground) that has subsidised a rather profligate multi layer government.

However, what is also ignored is that, until recently, Australia hadn't turned the clock back. The Hawke/Keating governments stayed the course, and the Howard government went further, although in the latter years it was fond of dishing out pork, it did not turn back the clock. The New Zealand parallel would be if David Lange hadn't had a cup of tea, and the Bolger/Richardson government had lasted until a year ago. Australia has had 24 years of steady albeit slow economic liberalisation. New Zealand had 4 fast years, another 2 slower years, another 3 fast years, then 6 glacial years, and since then 9 years of largely going backwards.

Minto of course is an economic imbecile. New Zealand's GDP per capita had fallen behind Australia years before the 1984 election, indeed it fell from being one of the highest in the world to being down with the likes of Spain by the 1980s, lower than any other Western country, unless you counted Portugal and Greece, then the poor members of the EEC.

However, for Key to express the same imbecility is absurd.

I don't expect the government to adopt all of the policies, I do expect it to be interested in some, and in encouraging further debate and discussion. At the very least I expect this term of government to be about some level of reform and turning the opposite direction of the years of Helengrad, and gearing up voters to go much further in three years time.

It isn't about that, it is about National being a Conservative party, the very same party that sat on its hands and did sweet f'all for decades whilst the New Zealand economy slowly stagnated. The same party that allowed Muldoon to inflict nine years of control freak economics, waste and bullying upon the country, whilst they meekly let the likes of Derek Quigley get crucified for standing up against this destructiveness.

Say one thing about the Labour Party, when it gets into power it has the courage of its convictions to act, to do what it believes in, and to make changes quickly and radically. It did so after 1999, after 1984, after 1974, after 1957 and after 1935. National? It's only by sheer luck and dire circumstances that Ruth Richardson was able to drive the agenda so far so fast after 1990, after Bolger lied his way to power having been warned of how unaffordable some of the promises were.

National Party = party of professional "born to rule" conservative politicians
Labour Party = party of professional "chosen to rule" socialist politicians

For now

It is worth simply linking to this and that.

It's inevitably sad and death is damned annoying. It is not "part of life", it's the end of it.

Anna's blog showed how she has lived facing death with more certainty about its imminence than others. She sadly appears to now have rapidly slipped closer to the inevitable, so now may her family and friends simply surround her with the love, affection and joy they hold for her life.

It is only because of the joy we have from the life of one that we fear and feel such sadness for the loss.

It's a lesson to be reminded of day after day.

Enjoy life, it's the only one you have, you don't know when it will come to an end. It does have a purpose, the purpose is for you to pursue your values, your passions, your joy and to do so alone or with others as you and they may choose.

It is, after all, what Anna has been doing, even with the rude interruption.