This is really true.
More than ever perhaps :
• Space is at a premium.
• Time is at a premium.
• Cash is at a premium.Hence the need for the -
‘ Easy Inter Burial Container ‘
For which a new US patent was granted yesterday.
‘ This invention relates to conserving land area and easy to install burial containers which can be pressed, agitated, screwed, self bored or by other means set into earth or other receiving materials and do not require a large amount of land area or a large pre-dug rectangular hole with subsequent refilling after the placement of the burial container. ‘
The screw-into-the-ground casket will use only one third of the normal space required – and ‘ bores its own final hole ‘ with assitance either by hand :
or, even more rapidly, with a specially adapted tractor backhoe.
• Full details of US pat. 7,631,404 here
• Previous patent app. with drawings here
Yes, you read that right – a new US patent was granted yesterday. Crikey…
Tags: Backhoe, Casket, Containers, Drawings, Earth, Invention, Monday Morning, Receiving Materials, Rectangular Hole, Screw, Us Patent
Controversy in some corners today over an interview Gordon Brown has done with Piers Morgan (to be shown next week) where he publicly cries over the death of his daughter Jennifer Jane in 2002. Tory Bear sums up one perspective.
Make no mistake, his appearance on the Piers Morgan show would have been negotiated and debated behind the scenes, with the exact line of questioning known to him. He has spoken before and even attacked David Cameron for using his children in the political world so the sudden u-turn can only be for electoral reasons. Of course the pain is real but you can’t have it both ways. You can’t attack people for using their children and then expect not to be called out when you do it yourself to a far far greater scale. Labour were quick to jump on Cameron’s one line mention of the death of his son, just months previously, in his conference speech. Yet deafly silence from the left about this. Funny that.
Hmmm…
Half of me agrees with the Bear and half of me is reticent to take this critical approach. Is this electioneering? If it is, is it actually wrong? I mean, most politicians will use their family at times, from shots of Blair with the kids entering Downing Street in 1997 to the “at home” videos of David Cameron in recent years. In that sense, is it wrong to occasionally talk about personal matters or can you never refer to them in politics? Are we not interested in the whole person, not just their public work? If so, why should politicians be allowed to refer to living sons but not dead daughters?
Thoughts?
Tags: Blair, Conference Speech, Controversy, Critical Approach, Daughter Jennifer, David Cameron, Downing Street, Electioneering, Exact Line, Gordon Brown, Home Videos, Interview Gordon, Labour, Personal Matters, Piers Morgan, Politicians, Silence, Sums, Tory, U Turn
Back in the summer I began a series examining the Biblical passages around homosexual behaviour with a view to approaching the texts afresh to explore whether some of theology that I currently have was in any sense assumptive. You can read the first four parts of this series by clicking the links on the right hand sidebar where I have examined the New Testament cultural context, the argument over pais and the two “clobber words” used in 1 Corinthians 6.
I now want to turn our attention to Romans 1, and in particular to look at the arguments over what Paul means when he refers to “nature”. Specifically, it is Romans 1:26-27 where the discussion has its focus. Simplifying, the conservative understanding of the texts is that “nature” here refers to the natural order of how men and women should behave, i.e. heterosexually. So those who go against nature are behaving (and desiring) sexually in a way that they are not meant to. The revisionist response is that those who go against nature are going against their nature, so verses 26 and 27 they suggest refer to those who are naturally heterosexual and engage in homosexual behaviour.
Tags: 1 Corinthians 6, Arsenokoites, Assumption, Biblical Passages, Couples, Cultural Context, Homosexual Behaviour, Men And Women, Monogamous Relationships, New Testament, Pauline, Romans, Scripture, Sexual Behaviours, Sexuality, Sidebar, Slavery, Subset, Texts, Theology
If you read Morning Prayer this morning in the Church of England you’ll have noticed that a portion of the Old Testament text for today was omitted from the official reading. Here for all to see is what we were asked to read.
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”
“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.” But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.…
The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”
So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”
When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”
But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please! Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”
He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.)
By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
Tags: Baking Bread, Church of England, Cutting, Dawn, Dis, Face To The Ground, Kindness, Led, Morning Prayer, Mountains, Old Testament, Outcry, Scripture, Servant, Sodom, Testament Text, Two Angels, Two Daughters, Two Men, Yeast
The Telegraph (via Martin Beckford) has it all!
Benedict XVI claimed that legislation introduced by Labour to end discrimination “actually violates natural law” because it stopped worshippers remaining true to their beliefs.
Rather than making society more equal, the Government’s new rules limited religious freedom, he said.
His strongly worded intervention in British politics comes after leaders of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England clashed with Labour over its Equality Bill, which they fear will make them admit homosexuals to the priesthood or face prosecution for discriminating against them.
In an address delivered yesterday to 35 Catholic bishops from England and Wales, the Pope attacked Labour’s equality proposals. He said: “Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet … the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs.
“In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed.” Harriet Harman’s Equality Bill, currently going through Parliament, contains a new, narrow definition of religious workers. It means clergy will not be allowed to opt out of the rules and so will either have to go against their teachings by employing homosexuals, or face prosecution.
It is also believed the law, intended to outlaw discrimination against any group in the “provision of services” from health care to shopping, would restrict the right of a church school to employ a head teacher who shared their faith, and would open the job up to members of any religion or atheists.
So basically, Harman is now taking on not just the Church of England but the Roman Catholic establishment as well. Anybody else want to take a shot?
Tags: Atheists, Benedict Xvi, British Politics, Catholic Bishops, Church of England, Equality Bill, Equality Of Opportunity, Face Prosecution, Firm Commitment, Harriet Harman, Head Teacher, Homosexuals, Outlaw, Priesthood, Provision Of Services, Religious Communities, Religious Freedom, Religious Workers, Roman Catholic Church, Worshippers
