From the world of Christian tat

Now, I'd like to commence by being fair. You see, in the rest of the range from which this product is drawn, the worst I can say is that they seem to have paired the story of David and Goliath with the phrase "Be bold and strong", which is Joshua's, isn't it? Well, there's an implication there that the children ought to be like David, facing down the Goliaths in their lives: not the way to teach that story, but you'd only come up with that if you'd been taught to read the story that way to start with. As for the others, well they're things like "God cares for me" and "Jesus loves me"; while Christian tat isn't really my scene, I also freely acknowledge that I'm not eight. When I was, I probably loved stuff like this: I always enjoyed puzzles as a kid.

But then you get this one. Now, you probably can't see it very well, but the picture is what I presume is Samson triumphing over the lion, and the caption is, "I am God's champion". When I saw this, I quite literally put my head in my hands. Would it have been any skin off their noses to have put, "Jesus is God's champion"? Or, even more personally, "Jesus is my champion"?

C'mon guys, you do know the identity of God's champion, don't you?

Stock portfolio, 2008Q4

The main portfolio page has been updated.

Commentary

Well, the general economic outlook is bleak, which is the kind of market a buying investor likes. Shares are cheap at the moment, because the short-term prospects appear to be getting grimmer. Since I expected things to this way, and since I'm looking to further to the future than traders, lower prices are something I welcome. They're an opportunity to pick up decent companies paying good dividends at a reasonable price.

However, this has meant that the unit price is continuing to slide, from 85.03p at the end of December to 77.37p now, the end of March. The income side of things, though, has been good, as the activity report shows. A total unit income of 0.9557p was received over the quarter, bringing the total for the year to 5.9377p. This gives an historic yield of about 7.37%, which should give you an idea of the high yields which can be picked up in the market at present.

On the basis of those falling prices, it was fortuitous that a neat bonus from teaching work allowed me to go for three shares this quarter. I bought shares in BT Group, whose business needs no introduction; LogicaCMG, a consultancy company; and Marston's, the pub and brewery-operating chain.

Year-end results were received from Trinity Mirror and interims from Barratts. The former held their dividend, while the latter raised it 7.5%: not that I've received any dividend from either previously, so the raising makes no material difference to me. However, it is always heartening to see a company announcing a raised dividend even in straitened circumstances, as it tends to suggest that I will see the portfolio's income rise, quite possibly above the rate of inflation.

Activity report

Jan 08
Receive dividend 6.5p per share from TATE.
Receive dividend 2.02p per share from DSGI.

Feb 08
Receive dividend 15.2p per share from UU.

Mar 08
Buy BT-A (BT Group) at 217.03p.
Buy LOG (LogicaCMG) at 104.69p.
But MARS (Marston's) at 204.71p.

Outlook

The two banks, LloydsTSB and Bradford & Bingley, went ex-dividend in 2008Q4 but will pay out in 2009Q1; together with Barratts which I expect to pay out in that quarter, these amount to an estimated distribution of 1.42p per unit.

Brothers, you are not preaching

One of the issues which was raised in biblical theology over the last century was the distinction between the Greek words didache and kerygma. The point is that the former is teaching, while the latter is proclamation; and it is as both that the minister is called. The distinction is captured in our English words teaching and preaching, and it is on that basis that I say that evangelical preachers must learn once again the regular preaching of the evangel.

Too often, what passes for a sermon is a helpful perspective on life's troubles, or ways in which we can honour God better in our homes, or a message of positive thinking; or perhaps, in more conservative circles, a learned disquisition on the majesty of God's providence or the inscrutability of his electing purposes. But this is not preaching. Some of it is teaching, and occasionally, good teaching; but it's not proclamation. If I hear a sermon in which the main message is, "Do this," I truly leave downcast, for I cannot do this, neither consistently nor perfectly. If I hear that God's in control of my life, that can be a comfort of a sort when things are going well, but divorced from the Gospel, it is a source of real terror when I am brought low. God is in control, and yet he seems to be against me. How can I know he is not?

This is where proclamation is so vital. The Gospel assures me that not only is God over me, but he is also for me. I do not gain comfort from knowing that God is in control unless I know that he is also benevolently inclined towards me. Thus, I must hear of the cross, for it is there that God both establishes and proves his good-will towards me. Likewise, every encouragement a minister would seek to bring will only be a true encouragement if seen in the light of the cross of Jesus; and every challenge to behaviour will only be of help if the Gospel is clearly proclaimed around that challenge.

This isn't to deny the importance of teaching, and those churches whose tradition is to have a preaching service in the morning and a teaching service in the evening could well be onto something quite helpful. Such an ordering would make it plain that hearing the Gospel is something for Christians as well as non-Christians, and also that whatever we say, it must be tied firmly to the cross. But even there, the minister would have to be clear-minded about how the Gospel applies to the evening's teaching.

So, ministering brother, what's the aim of your sermon? For Christians to feel a weight of obligation to be moral? For them to know things in their heads which are at best faint comfort, and at worst real terror? Or for them to leave with hearts gladdened and lips filled with praise, having heard once again the good news about Jesus?

You're a herald of King Jesus. What's your job?

Elementary apologetic

I'm interrupting my series briefly to tell you about a rather beautiful apologetic discussion-starter. On the Motley Fool's "Christian Fools" board, we've had a bit of a discussion about the reliability of Scripture (we're not talking "in-" words here, just reliability). As a working mathematician, I was rather touched that someone should choose to tell us that we have more copies of parts of Scripture than of Euclid's Elements, drawing the conclusion that we should trust Scripture at least as much as Elements. I read the Wikipedia article on Elements and spotted some immediate extensions to the argument which I'm putting down here, for my reference, at least.

Firstly, we don't have the original text, we only have fragmentary copies. Yet, somehow, we have contrived to have pretty much the entire text. Text-critical scholarship is a marvel to behold.

Secondly, the best attestation to Euclid's authorship came several centuries after Euclid died. And yet no-one seriously suggests that anyone other than Euclid wrote it.

Thirdly, pretty much all our detail for Euclid's life comes from that one source, Proclus. That doesn't stop us from believing that the stories recorded probably happened.

Fourthly, the best modern scholarship suggests that the material is a mix of original work and known theorems collected by Euclid. But we still give Euclid the credit, because he brought the work together and added his own contribution to produce the classic we have today.

Finally, Elements was written fully three centuries before Jesus even lived, much less were the Gospels written.

Most modern criticism of the Bible can also be levelled against Euclid, in one of those four categories. We don't have the original text; the author's identity frequently comes from tradition; the life of Christ was recorded by four people—three claimed eyewitnesses and one investigator— who lived not eight hundred years later, but within a lifetime; and although the texts, especially the more ancient ones, might have evolved, they eventually reached a stable form which we now ascribe to the final redactor/author (e.g., parts of Genesis could well have ancient roots, but Moses is the final redactor and author).

In other words, Euclid's Elements is a powerful apologetic tool for the reliability of Scripture, since it is far less reliable and yet far more relied-upon. And as I say, as a working mathematician, this speaks pretty powerfully. If only I'd known about it when I was having some interesting conversations in our coffee room earlier this year…

Brothers, you are not immortal!

I know of no ministers who read this blog, and I'm pretty sure that most people who read it regularly are, to one extent or another, in agreement on my basic point. But I'm writing this as though it were to a minister in the twin hopes that (a) a casually-visiting minister may read it and find something which will challenge and, in due course, encourage; and (b) someone who agrees but needs to talk with their own minister may find something of use. Onto the second part of "Brothers, what else are you not?"

Preach every sermon as though your last, as a dying man to dying men.

(J Wesley)

My second point is that ministers are not immortal; I think I ought, for the sake of symmetry, point out that their congregations aren't, either. On the face of it, this seems obvious, but too many ministers preach as though there is something they can leave until tomorrow. I'm not advocating what Michael Spencer decried as "wretched urgency", but I am advocating making the most of every opportunity.

Challenge the minister that he didn't preach the Gospel clearly, or purely, or at all, and the easiest response to make is, "I was going to do that next week." But this assumes that he has "next week" in which to preach that message. The truth is, as the author to the Hebrews reminds us, "next week" doesn't really exist. All we have is the day we call Today. And thus it is important that we trust Jesus while it is called Today, and it is also important that we hear Christ preached for trust while it is called Today. Chief Vitalstatistix, of the Asterix comics, knows better than so many of us, since he always expects the sky to fall on his head tomorrow—but as he says, tomorrow never comes.

As I said, this goes in spades for the congregation, too. We won't live forever, nor will all our days be filled with ease. Does the message from the pulpit prepare us for those days of darkness which still come o'er us, or will it only work as long we are able to keep ourselves going? The worst example I ever heard of this was a sermon in which the overall message was "if you fail: keep going, pick yourself up, try again." What of those of us who have been in days when we cannot "just keep going"? Where do we turn? And even if we survive our threescore and ten, not a one of us will live forever. Surely the most damning indictment of the ministry from the pulpit would be that the message proclaimed failed to help us in showing how true believers die!

And so we come to the question of personal death. Suppose that the Lord calls a minister home on a Sunday afternoon. What sermon would he wish his hearers to remember as his last? And what message would he hope would summarise his life's work? "Just muddle on through"? "God loves you anyway"? Or, "Christ Jesus died to save sinners, of whom I am chief"? For Christ's sake, why preach anything else?

To conclude this instalment, I'll quote another hymn that we (sometimes) sing, Jesus, the name high over all, whose final lines should surely summarise any pastoral ministry as truly as the lives of all believers, and even more so.

Happy if with my latest breath,
I may but gasp his name;
Preach him to all, and cry in death:
"Behold, behold the Lamb!"

(C Wesley)

Brothers, you are not immortal. Does this affect your preaching?

Brothers, what else are you not?

John Piper wrote a book called Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, in which he didn't really say much about the over-professionalisation and managerialism which has somehow replaced creeping clericalism as the main enemy of true Gospel pastoral ministry. But for all that he managed not to stick to his brief, it's (according to those who've read it) a good book. It's certainly a good title, and I'm shamelessly nicking it for a series of other things that ministers, especially of the evangelical variety, aren't. You may guess, from the first title, that I'll be focussing on some of the things ministers aren't which they should be.

Brothers, you are not consistent

Evangelical apologetic literature makes much play of the fact that the Bible has one message, and that that message is Jesus. It's entirely justifiable, too, as it is a powerful apologetic for the Scriptures' inspiration and authority.

If you look at the hymns we sing, we often acknowledge this truth. For instance, in O Word of God incarnate, we sing,

The Church from thee, dear Saviour, received the gift divine,
And still that light is lifted o'er all the earth to shine.
It is the sacred vessel where gems of truth are stored;
It is the heaven drawn picture of Christ, the living Word.

And of course, it's not just these areas, but Scripture itself which points us towards this. Jesus said that the Scriptures testify of him, and Paul was resolved to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. As evangelicals, we will use the truth of the primacy of Christ in Scripture as an apologetic tool, we will sing it in praise, we will read it in our Bibles: but when will our ministers begin to realise that it affects their preaching?

Occasionally, I've reached tipping point and had this discussion, pressing that Jesus is the central message of Scripture and that this has a direct effect on what sermons should be preached. In response, I've been told that I'm "right in theory but wrong in practice," whatever that means. I've been told that you can only go as quickly as the slowest member in the congregation, with no defence of why the slowest member needs to hear about Jesus less than the quicker ones. I've been told that the whole Bible points to Christ, but you can't apply that to individual pericopes, even in the obvious cases. I've been given excuse after excuse, but I've never been told why it's a good idea to disobey Jesus' own example in exegesis.

I under it to be a standard point in epistemology that you can't be said to believe something if you act as though it is untrue. For instance, if I were a member of the Flat Earth Society, and yet excitedly spoke of my dream to sail around the world next year, you'd be rightly suspicious of whether I really thought the earth to be flat. Likewise, evangelical ministers who mouth the words "Christ in all Scripture" but who fail to preach that way deserve our scepticism as to whether they truly believe the doctrine they profess. When will our ministers preach in manner consistent with what they confess?

A broken window on the credit crunch

Many people know the story, and for those who don't, it is instructive. I suspect it forms a part of every basic economics course; and if it doesn't, it should. Frederic Bastiat [1] wrote what is popularly described as a parable, of a broken window, in 1850, and it's still cited today for its clarity of thought. The parable goes a little like this.

M. Boulanger, the baker, had a brick put through his front window by a local yob. The local populace caught the youth not fifty yards from the crime, and he'd been seen to do it so didn't deny his act. Before they could haul him off to local gendarmerie to begin correctional proceedings, he spoke up and said to the crowd,

"You're going to call me a criminal for breaking M. Boulanger's window, and I don't deny I did it. But I'm no criminal, I'm a public benefactor, because he now has to go to M. Vitrier, the glazier, to get his window repaired. M. Vitrier will now have the cost of the new window, let us say a hundred francs, to spend at the butcher's shop, or at the cobbler's, or to give to the poor. I have just put a hundred francs into circulation: you should all be thankful!"

Having been persuaded of the youth's oration, the crowd was almost ready to let him go, until one man spoke up. It was not, as you might have thought, M. Boulanger; it was, as it happens, M. Tailleur, the tailor. And he had this to say.

"You all think that youth has just put a hundred francs into circulation by his act of vandalism! I can't believe it. You all know M. Boulanger's daughter is to get married next month, and perhaps he would have wanted a new suit. But that is a hundred francs he shall have to do without now, and it may be that he cannot afford a new suit. Or maybe the vintner won't get such a large order for wine for the festivities, or maybe the florist will not have so many flowers to arrange. You all look at what this tearaway has put into effect, but you haven't given a thought to what he has stopped from happening!"

The point of Bastiat's story is that we can chart the positive effects of an action, the things which will happen and which we can see, but we must make ourselves think of the negative effects, the things the action stops from happening. His secondary point is that negative actions, like vandalism, will cause the economy to contract since previously, the baker had a window and a hundred francs, and now he only has a window. Therefore, everyone has lost out on the spending that he would have done, wherever it would have been. The entire economy is a hundred francs the poorer for this act of vandalism.

And what's this got to do with the credit crunch? The news this week [2] has been how the Fed and the Bank of England are going to expand the credit supply to banks in order to try and stop them from suffering. Although I don't know how the US system works, it is certain that in the case of the Bank of England, taxpayers' money would be funnelled into the banking system to prop it up.

But that taxpayers' money is now being spent propping up a system which should be left to struggle with its own difficulties [3]. People like to claim that banking is so central to our economy that we can't afford to let it struggle, but we were prepared to leave it alone when times were good. Instead, we need to look where else the money could be spent. It could go on the NHS, or on schools. It could be spent on pensions or job-seeker's allowance. Given times could be getting harder, I'd like to suggest that cutting down government debt is important, and a reduction in the overall tax burden wouldn't be a bad idea either [4].

Modern neo-Keynesian economics, as proclaimed every so often from Downing Street, declares that government spending will stimulate the economy. But it misses the point, because the money for that spending has always to come from somewhere[5]. Therefore, spending never stimulates an economy, because all it can do is re-direct resources. Such re-direction always requires bureaucratic administration, and therefore government spending acts frictionally on an economy to slow it down. In other words, you don't save an economy by government spending.

The world won't end if a few banks get bought up because they made some dodgy investments: there'll be winners and losers, as usual. But if the taxpayer gets his hands messy, the entire country will be the loser.

[1] The original essay can be found here.
[2] For example, this BBC report on the BoE.
[3] For full disclosure, I hold shares in Lloyds TSB and Bradford & Bingley. So when I say let the banks suffer, I'm not actually unaware of the dangers.
[4] Yet more disclosure: I'm not a taxpayer, and my view on tax cuts is entirely out of opposition to the frictional effect of government spending (see following paragraph). We need to get rid of all these quangos which do things like advertising British beef. The beef industry should be able to support that itself, and if it can't, what's the point?
[5] I'm glossing slightly, as I ought to have said that the value (or resources) for the spending must come from somewhere. You could, of course, mint more money. Money, though, is merely a store of value, and minting money doesn't create more value, so the value for your new money has been taken away from the old money.

Three uses, two propositions

The three uses of the law are interesting to me, mostly because they really help us get a grip on what all those imperatives are all about, and evangelicals have lost their way to a greater or lesser extent on this. To remind readers [1], I quote Calvin's Institutes.

That the whole matter may be made clearer, let us take a succinct view of the office and use of the Moral Law. Now this office and use seems to me to consist of three parts. (2.7.6)

1. First, by exhibiting the righteousness of God,—in other words, the righteousness which alone is acceptable to God,—it admonishes every one of his own unrighteousness, certiorates, convicts, and finally condemns him. (2.7.6)
2. The second office of the Law is, by means of its fearful denunciations and the consequent dread of punishment, to curb those who, unless forced, have no regard for rectitude and justice. (2.7.10)
3. The third use of the Law (being also the principal use, and more closely connected with its proper end) has respect to believers … For it is the best instrument for enabling them daily to learn with greater truth and certainty what that will of the Lord is which they aspire to follow, and to confirm them in this knowledge. (2.7.12)

I probably wouldn't go as far as Calvin on the third use of the law being the "proper" use; I tend to think the Lutherans get it closer when they say that the third use is the first use applied to Christians. But onto my propositions.

Proposition 1. The three uses of the law describe not merely how some abstract category of "Law" may be applied, but how actual laws are expounded in the pages of Scripture.

I would contend that the Sermon on the Mount is an application of the third use of the law, while the story of the Rich Young Man is an application of its first use. Clearly, there remains the presentation of the law, as at Sinai, but even there, I think we could see that much of what follows the Decalogue is second and third use exposition. Furthermore, I would suggest that this is the witness of the Reformed catechetical tradition, at least, in expounding the Decalogue as broadly as it does (vid. e.g. HC 94–113).

Proposition 2. Preaching which doesn't respect the way that the law is applied in a passage will miss the point of the passage and, so doing, fail rightly to divide the word of truth.

The number of times you hear the story of the rich young man referenced as if Jesus is telling him how to become a Christian is staggering. Once would be far too many. Then two instances I've not heard, but can imagine: it would seem bizarre to argue that when the prophets called for people to stop oppressing the poor, they only intended for people to return to trusting Yahweh; and to treat the last few chapters of Romans as though they're making the same argument as the first three would be loopy.

[1] The use of the plural is more in hope than expectation.

Passive regulatory failure

Regulators can have good effects on industries, especially on those with monopoly or near-monopoly positions. However, it can also stifle innovation pretty badly. This isn't just some kind of laissez-faire "regulation is evil" statement, either: my example actually shows business stifling itself in the mere presence of a regulator. Don't believe me? Today, the BBC is reporting,

BT calls for action on net speeds

The UK's largest broadband supplier has called for the industry to be clearer about how it advertises net speeds. …

The firm said regulators needed to agree rules about how broadband speeds could be sold to the public. …

Cameron Rejali, Managing Director of Products at BT Wholesale, said it is up to the ISPs how they market broadband, "but if they are marketing it badly, the market will punish them."

(Source.)

Get that? The industry leader [1, 2] has called on the industry to do something: but they are the industry, to a great extent. So why the delay? Oh, they want the regulator to get involved first; but an off-message, on-target MD accepts that bad marketting gets punished by the market (without any need for regulatory involvement). So BT won't do anything on their own, because, um, why?

Regulation does good, as I say, but it can also take all the enterprise out of business. Hopefully, Ofcom will tell BT to shut up and do whatever it is they were thinking of. If it's a good idea, it'll work; and if not, they've only got themselves to blame. And if they're not willing to take a risk, then they can watch their position as "industry leader" slide away from them as more innovative competitors beat them to the punch.

Enterprise is one of the better parts of capitalism, folks. Let's not destroy it.

[1] I accept there is a slight nuance to this story, as it's BT Wholesale, the supplier of broadband to ISPs, which is calling for action by ISPs to market themselves better. But BT Wholesale is a sister company in the BT Group with BT Retail, which retails broadband and has a 25.3% market share [2]. As, um, someone in moral authority used to say to me, "When you point the finger, three point back at you."

[2] Source.

And while I'm on the radio

Which is to say, on the subject of the radio.

Anne Atkins' latest Thought for the Day (about a week ago) didn't just hit the ball for six, she knocked the thing into orbit. Around Jupiter. She talked about mystery and surprise, and how the revelation of a secret is an exciting event, and linked this to trusting God, whom we cannot see, and why people don't trust God. Her conclusion was,

Someone once said to a clergyman friend of mine, Why God doesn't reveal Himself un-ambiguously, so I can believe in Him? What do you want Him to do, said my friend: align the stars into a pattern in the sky—would you believe then? Well, no, came the honest reply. I want Him to come down to earth, and live among us. Do extraordinary things: heal the sick, perform miracles.

Then I'd believe...

Read it here or listen here.

And still they miss the point…

I don't wish to go on about this, but I feel it's a key point and no-one but no-one is making it. The destruction of potentially deaf embryos was the topic for discussion on tonight's Moral Maze, as you might expect. I suppose it would take someone from one of the pro-life organisations (on which, more later) to make the point, but I had thought Melanie Phillips was broadly pro-life. Yet even she didn't challenge Ian Hargreaves, who asserted that there was a moral similarity between bringing a deaf embryo to term and refusing to treat a deaf child. The similarity, if similarity it be, is that in the second instance, you're refusing to cure a child, while in the first, you're refusing to kill it. That's a pretty strange sort of similarity.

And so onto the plug for the pro-life organisation. If you're a voter in the UK, then in addition to contacting your Parliamentary representative (something I plan to do when I've got the time, along with sending money to Liberty and a dozen other worthy activities), you can sign up to support Alive+Kicking, which is a recently-founded pressure group aiming "to make abortion rare". They've got a petition going, calling for an earlier term limit for abortions, an end to the discrimination against disabled foetuses, and better information for pregnant women; said petition has nearly hit 7,000 signatures in three days. (Alerted by John H.)

BBC: Labour's general secretary named

Link.

David Pitt-Watson is Labour's new general secretary. He was chosen over an official at Unite, one of the trade unions, and will be stepping down from his job as a City hedge fund manager to run Labour. I'm sorry, I'll read that again. The new general secretary of the Labour Party is a City hedge fund manager.

The world's gorn mad. What next? Will Ukip announce that they're looking to appoint Valery Giscard d'Estaing as head of the party executive? Will the Tories, that they're going to offer their job to Arthur Scargill?

They're all missing the point

The Today programme reported this morning [1], in tandem with the BBC disability magazine Ouch![2], that there is a section of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill which reads as follows.

Persons or embryos that are known to have a gene, chromosome or mitochondrion abnormality involving a significant risk that a person with the abnormality will have or develop—
(a) a serious physical or mental disability,
(b) a serious illness, or
(c) any other serious medical condition,
must not be preferred to those that are not known to have such an abnormality.

[Clause 14(4)(9)]

The reason this is causing a fuss is that deafness is clearly a serious physical disability, but some, at least, in the deaf community are furious at this clause. They argue that to force the destruction of embryos which are at risk of being—or even certain to be—deaf implies that deaf people are valued less in society; they are, to use the phrase of the bill, "not to be preferred". Also, although I heard less discussion on this point, it looks as if people whose deafness is caused by an hereditary condition (if such exist) will be barred from using IVF services: persons, and not only embryos, are "not to be preferred".

But in all the discussion, the questions revolved around peripheral concerns which were, at points, nonsense. The interviewee was firm in his belief that he should define whether he is disabled, in spite of John Humphrys' reasonable point that anyone who can't listen to a Beethoven symphony cannot possibly be fully enabled. However, Humphrys insisted on suggesting that by bringing an embryo with a condition to term, we were "imposing" that condition on the child. The logic of the coverage has been flawed in several key respects.

Firstly, it's not like I have a choice between a deaf child A and a hearing child A. Everyone would choose the hearing child, and it would be monstrous to do otherwise. The choice I have is between a deaf child A and a hearing child B. Of course we have no prior knowledge of what either person may be like in future, but the choice is not the simple imposition of deafness.

Secondly, the choice is not about deafness at all. The choice is about life and death. We wouldn't be choosing to give a child hearing instead of deafness, as Humphrys suggested; we would be choosing to kill a deaf child and to sustain the life of a hearing one. The Ouch! article suggested that the bill teeters on the brink of eugenics; actually, the text of the clause clearly is eugenic, in design and intent.

Thirdly, the Ouch! article talks about infringing people's reproductive rights, which is odd language. Normally, "reproductive rights" is the code-word for abortion, but here the option being removed is the option not to abort an embryo. This, in itself, should cause grave alarm: abortion has gone from being permitted to being mandated in the space of about forty years. Look at the enlightened United Kingdom, where the law makes you kill the deaf, the blind and the lame; look at us, and despair.

Fourthly, the talk about rights is always flawed, because no-one ever thinks that the embryo has rights too. As long as the person whose life is being treated as merchandise is ignored, then they will be systematically slaughtered without a care. It's all well and good for the deaf community to ask for the "right" to bring up deaf children, but what happened to the right of deaf children to exist at all? It seems barmy to assert, as did the interviewee, that he has the "right" to decide whether he has a disability, but that his hearing child doesn't have the right to live.

It's too easy to defend the rights of those who can speak for themselves. When will the "modern, caring" Britain think again of the rights of those who have no voice?

[1] You can listen to the interview here; transcript here, courtesy of Stop Eugenics!.
[2] The webpage is here.

I hain't dead, but being as I've just altered my dwelling arrangements, my computer is in about five different boxes. I have a nice series playing on John Piper's "Brothers, we are not professionals" planned for when I can get my house in order. Four days without my computer and I'm so disorganised it's scary. I sorted out the last four days' financial chicanery and it took me an hour to pin everything down.

I've had problems with paperwork (resolved and compensated), an entire four-bed house to clean (with a help from my housemate) and moved enough stuff to fill over half a long wheelbase van. Welcome to real world, Phil.

Bizarre fact for the day: Did you know there's an Ottawa in Kansas? Neither did I.