BBC News - Sainsbury's chief attacks plans to reform Sunday trading

BBC News - Sainsbury's chief attacks plans to reform Sunday trading

Banned | South African History Online

Banned | South African History Online: People banned under Apartheid

Catholic Charismatic Renewal in England - Goodnews online

Catholic Charismatic Renewal in England - Goodnews online: it's packed with news and articles, plus masses of information on what's happening in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

MYSTAGOGY: Is Augustine of Hippo A Father of the Church?

MYSTAGOGY: Is Augustine of Hippo A Father of the Church?: Augustine is indeed Orthodox by intention by his willingness to be corrected. The real problem is that he does not theologize from the vantage point of personal theosis or glorification, but as one who speculates philosophically on the Bible with no real basis in the Patristic tradition. Furthermore, his whole theological method is based on happiness as the destiny of man instead of biblical glorification. His resulting method of analogia entis and analogia fidei is not accepted by any Orthodox Father of the Church. In any case no Orthodox can accept positions of Augustine on which the Father’s of Ecumenical Councils are in agreement "against" him. This website (www.romanity.org) is not concerned with whether Augustine is a saint or a Father of the Church. There is no doubt that he was Orthodox by intention and asked for correction. However, he can not be used in such a way that his opinions may be put on an equal footing with the Fathers of Ecumenical Councils.

Gay. Mormon. Unicorn. | The American Conservative

Gay. Mormon. Unicorn. | The American Conservative: Via reader DeeAnn, here’s an amazing post by a Mormon therapist who comes out as a happily married gay man. Happily married — to a woman.

Research Shows That the Smarter People Are, the More Susceptible They Are to Cognitive Bias : The New Yorker

Research Shows That the Smarter People Are, the More Susceptible They Are to Cognitive Bias : The New Yorker: Here’s a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

The vast majority of people respond quickly and confidently, insisting the ball costs ten cents. This answer is both obvious and wrong. (The correct answer is five cents for the ball and a dollar and five cents for the bat.)

The Witness

The Witness: JUNE 2, 1972, was a day Cape Town should remember: a peaceful UCT student protest outside St George’s Cathedral was bludgeoned apart by the SA Police (SAP): the first occasion in South Africa where white students had been physically attacked and injured in significant numbers during any political demonstration.

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part I

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part I: One of the earliest on the Laurel Canyon/Sunset Strip scene is Jim Morrison, the enigmatic lead singer of The Doors. Jim will quickly become one of the most iconic, controversial, critically acclaimed, and influential figures to take up residence in Laurel Canyon. Curiously enough though, the self-proclaimed “Lizard King” has another claim to fame as well, albeit one that none of his numerous chroniclers will feel is of much relevance to his career and possible untimely death: he is the son, as it turns out, of the aforementioned Admiral George Stephen Morrison.

And so it is that, even while the father is actively conspiring to fabricate an incident that will be used to massively accelerate an illegal war, the son is positioning himself to become an icon of the ‘hippie’/anti-war crowd. Nothing unusual about that, I suppose. It is, you know, a small world and all that. And it is not as if Jim Morrison’s story is in any way unique.

Outside the Walls, But Not the Tradition | Emergent Village

Outside the Walls, But Not the Tradition | Emergent Village: But I do have to say, I’m uneasy with one of Halter’s assumptions. And since he’s so adamant about questioning our easy assumptions, I have to mention it here. From the very beginning of Sacrilege, Halter says that he wants to show us the real Jesus—the Jesus who walked in Nazareth, who comes alive when we read the Scriptures aright. He wants to give us Jesus without tradition. The assumptions of American Christendom, (assumptions, I should repeat, that deserve to be questioned) get lumped into a category called “tradition.” But my worry is this: I’m afraid it’s actually a deeply American assumption to think that we can get back to “the real Jesus” without tradition. We love to jump from the New Testament to now. But a plethora of Jesus scholarship has shown us that when we make that leap, we almost always end up creating Jesus in our own image.

Alice Grist: Momma was Gay, Poppa Was a Witch - A Personal Account of Gay Parenting and Gay Marriage

Alice Grist: Momma was Gay, Poppa Was a Witch - A Personal Account of Gay Parenting and Gay Marriage: I was born and initially raised by a handsome stable of heterosexuality. Dad was the local church vicar, Mum his loyal wife. My playground was the extensive vicarage with views of a graveyard. I was a good girl who refused to snack on the body of Christ, even when offered. I knew I wasn't old enough. Life was all sunshine and loveliness.

Then real life struck. Like many children before and after me, my parents divorced. Daddy was to become a 'writer' needing his own space, whilst Mummy moved in with a woman. Life never looked different. My main devastation in all this was that I had to leave my beloved Brownie troop. It didn't occur to me that the lesbian partnership I was about to be raised by was anything less than normal.

The weirdest thing about my childhood was probably when Dad turned his back on the church and became a Pagan High Priest. I was taken aside and point blank informed, "Alice, I'm a Pagan."

Owl of the 80s

Owl of the 80s. Thoughts on 1990s culture.

Deformable Mirror

Deformable Mirror

Is this thing working?

For the last day or so I (haven't been able to post anything on my Blogger blogs. because it keeps telling me "Illegal post time (format is: hh:mm AM/PM)"

But it seems to work OK in this blog.

Since it enters the posting date/time automatically, it must be a fairly new bug in the software.

The Western Confucian: I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

The Western Confucian: I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: "# Sandro Magister on an unenviable position — Christians in the Middle East. Crushed between Islam and Israel.

# 'Somebody eventually had to say it -- and German chancellor Angela Merkel deserves credit for being the one who had the courage to say it out loud,' says Thomas Sowell; 'Multiculturalism has 'utterly failed'' — The Multicultural Cult."

BlogExplosion - Paros Paradise - Greek island life

BlogExplosion - Paros Paradise - Greek island life

How the New Atheists are abusing the truth | spiked

How the New Atheists are abusing the truth | spiked: "Apparently the British state is about to roll out the red carpet for a seriously evil rape facilitator. Pope Benedict XVI is the boss of a church that acts as a ‘patron, protector and financier of child rape’, says one secularist writer. Last week the UK Independent reported that in America, ‘over 10,000 people have come forward to say they were raped as part of this misery-go-round’ overseen by His Holiness and His Lackeys. In Ireland alone, a tiny country of 4.5million people, ‘Thousands were raped in reform schools’, said a British broadsheet headline last year, ramming home the ugly truth of how many kids have been raped by the Catholic Church’s army of paedophile priests.

But how true is this ugly truth? Were 10,000 children in America and thousands more in Ireland really raped by Catholic priests? In a word, no."

Lesley's Blog: Gospel Personality types

Lesley's Blog: Gospel Personality types

Bishop David's Blog: Orthodoxy, a Vicar in Sunderland, and Pentecost

Bishop David's Blog: Orthodoxy, a Vicar in Sunderland, and Pentecost

Srebrenica: The Sacred Lie by Nebojsa Malic -- Antiwar.com

Srebrenica: The Sacred Lie by Nebojsa Malic -- Antiwar.com: "And as the forensic evidence mentioned indicates, a number of them were captured, bound, and shot. This was clearly a war crime, and should be prosecuted as such. But to call it genocide requires stretching the definition of the act beyond recognition."

Ivan Illich, "Brave New Biocracy: Health Care from Womb to Tomb"

Ivan Illich, "Brave New Biocracy: Health Care from Womb to Tomb": "DNA maps and genetic cleansing; embryo cloning and euthanasia; organ transplants and physician-assisted suicide--never before have the traditional boundaries of life and death become so blurred. Never before has science intruded so pervasively into the sanctuary of the person. Where once only angels would tread, the medical establishment now treats. Are we closer to the secret of life, or just farther from God and nearer to the dust?"