LAND FOR OIL, sort of. Food for fuel …

The greenies, are they hellbent on reducing all but the very wealthiest to the status of home-tied serfs?
The popular misconception of the medieval serf is that in a lifetime he never ventured beyond the bounds of his village. Our international ‘environmentalsts’ and their merry minions seem determined to make this a modern fact.

There seems something obscene, too, in the way Spiegel (a German news outlet) rejoices in the current price of oil while slavering for yet further increases; fully prepared to write off any and all economic devastation so long as the Environment ‘benefits’.

“… there are not just one, but two strong reasons to move away from oil and to reduce energy use: the geopolitical danger that is created in the competition for oil reserves, and the climatic effects of burning fossil fuels. Everyone knows about the greenhouse effect …” — Berliner Zeitung (via Spiegel Online) (”Oil Prices Are Still Too Cheap”)

But it’s a two-edged sword.

Fighting the inevitable by destroying economies could well lead to human warfare with a less than benign effect on that same Environment — all those sunken ships leaking hundreds of thousands of tonnes of oil, all those oil wells torched, all the depleted uranium and land mines scattered about with rapturous abandonment; and of course the occasional human missing a few teeth and other bits.

Converting whole economies to biofuels would cause widespread starvation. This point is most important and most ignored, why do we need repeat it in italics?

Converting whole economies to biofuels will cause widespread starvation.

WE ARE TOLD that the world can just about almost feed itself right now on current resources; switching land use from producing food to producing fuel will achieve …
what? Has anybody actually thought it through or are we still into ‘miracle thinking’ here?
Wars, anybody? Ferocious punch-ups over pasture, trees, water, meadows, vegie plots?

Or are we back to the rising-wave of thinking — that there are simply too many people alive so after a few good wars to thin ‘em out a bit the survivors can regroup to a new society, wherein only some get to reproduce (then only by licence)?

It won’t be my problem … but IT WILL BE YOURS.

KISMET

ALPHA AND OMEGA of Religions

In the beginning all was void and without form. Then after a very busy few days and nights God created Man, in His own image.

This is the gospel truth, which has to mean then that there’s also a female of God …

Flash forward oodles of years (about six thousand by some counts, about 14,000,000,000 by others; you choose, it’s a free universe) to me in the kiwi here and now:

====

Knock knock!

Who’s there? Damn. I’m busy—delegate.

“Toots?”
“Yo?”
“Can you get that, please?”

Mutter mutter mutter … click, followed by indistinct voices.

Door closes, two lots of footsteps.
Uh oh. A visitor, and me up to my elbows in old-fashioned pen and pages, blasted power cut.

Damn again.
Curiosity.

“Who is it, Toots?”
“No-one you know — it’s Mrs God. She says she’s calling in person to see you after your recent blog posts. Who’ve you cranked up this time?”

Bugger.

“What’s she want?”
“Just a chat. Says she knows you’re busy and will be until you finish that commentary on the polar bears — I didn’t know you wrote about polar bears?”

Poop. Other than me no-one does, I’ve just started it. Oh. Mrs God, of course.

“Tell her I’ll be right out—”
“In about twelve minutes, She says. I’d offer Her a coffee but the power’s still off — oh, no problem, She’s got the jug going.”
“It’s still off in here.”
“And here — it’s only on at the jug. Weird.”
“Whom did you say it was?”
“Mrs God … … … … … … … … … … … oh!“

That might explain something.

“Can you get Her to—”
My computer boots into life.
“—thanks. Appreciated.”

Again I marvel at my own ability to accept the unacceptable at a moment’s notice. Okay, miracles sometimes do take a little longer, no problem.
Now, polar bears, something important in the great scheme of things … aaaah.
Still marveling I shift from pen to keyboard, momentarily resenting that She hadn’t called earlier. Honestly, some People …

“She says She’s sorry about that! A minor miracle was needed at short notice in Afghanistan, to stop some more Buddha statues being blown up. Took a bit longer than She expected. Bloody heathens.”

Oh.
A thought—
“Couldn’t Hubby have done it?”
“She’s not speaking to Him right now. Something to do with His eternal ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude, She says.”

Coffee noises float in through my doorway, followed by a heavenly scent. Blue Mountain, my favourite, how did She know? Dumb questi—

“Omniscience, She says. It can be a bit of a pain too, sometimes.”

Wait—
“Buddhas? I’d have thought She’d be happy that the competition was being blown up?”

A loud appreciative slurp is followed by Spouse’s voice, tinged with deepest appreciation (think orgasmic).
“She says that it’s Mr God who’s the jealous one, she’s more the live-and-let-live type Herself. Anyway, competition is healthy, lowers the costs, so the believer benefits all round.”

Ye gods. A capitalistic free-thinking God? Goddess?
A thought.
“What’s She look like?”
“She says get on with your writing — and to stop hammering anthropogenic as being too man-made, it’s a lost subtlety.”

Gone. Just like that, a whole morning’s scratchings.
Rip. Shred, tear. Control A + delete. Start again.
“Does She have any suggestions?”

“Cass, She’s gorgeous! And says to use your own free will, She’s not going to write it for you … eh? What? … Oh! (Okay, I’ll tell him) … but your article on revamping NZ politics sure stirred ‘em up!”

“I haven’t written one!”
“Next week — She apologised for mixing the dates up, says being in next week as well as here right now can sometimes get a little confusing.”

NZ politics? Now there’s a thought.
“Should I come out there?”
I know the Spouse, her idea of gorgeous means absolutely divine. Oops.

“No point, She says. You have to believe first. Disbelievers can never see Her.”

Bum.

I watch in disbelief as a coffee floats in through the doorway and parks itself neatly between keyboard and mouse. Coffee at least is real. My hair fluffles to an unseen soft touch and I feel a light kiss on the back of my neck. Instant goosebumps.
“So you believe in God, Toots? I never knew that.”

“Not in God, no. Mrs God, yes — it’s a girlie thing, you wouldn’t understand.”

Witch.

Thanks for the coffee, anyway. A thousand questions flood my mind. At last, a chance for some answers.

“Cass! She’s grabbed her bag and is heading for the door—”

Damn! So close, yet so far.

“—She says that if you’re going to get all metaphysical on Her She’s out of here—what have you done?”

Me? Nothing. Yet.  Eek.
My keyboard explodes into life and this posting writes itself before my eyes in mere milliseconds. I lean forward and obediently sip from the coffee now floating in front of my lips whilst the keys rattle on. Cute.

The script switches to bold italics — goody, I like italics — and the post finishes itself just as the front door closes with a gentle, final, and perfectly omnipotent click.


KISMET

EVER REGRET WINNING LOTTO?

Money can’t but happiness, the sage says. From this onion’s point of view that sage is a goat, so far off track he’s entered the fluffy realms of political promises.

Money can — and does — buy happiness. No?

Deduce my thrust from this lot, then:

• People want to be happy.
• People without money are in the main unhappy.
• Unhappiness is in direct proportion to the amount of money not got.
• People use their rationed time in pursuit of money (income).
• People without income (in NZ) trade their pride for Welfare (i.e. dole).
• People with money actively pursue yet more money, and more.
• Quick ‘easy’ money is desirable —

—so people buy £otto ticket$
—as do The Spouse and I
—millions of us, every week
—at horrendous odds against a big win, every week

To not digress, what would I do if I won? I’d use my new riches to buy happiness, that’s what—and so would you—read on:

I’d make myself happy by eliminating regrets. And my major (effectively my only) regret is that although by accident of birth I was given powerful tools to use in this life, I squandered them. Prodigal son? I was his role model.

I allowed my potentials to float away—dust into dust, and under dust to lie, sans wine, sans song, sans singer etc etc but you get the drift.
A powerful injection of cash right now would enable me to buy back a little of that lost opportunity, as it were. It would be a chance to correct some of my mistakes, to acquire formal education (if ‘education’ worthy of such name can still be found) and gain some knowledge.

Knowledge is everything. Almost.

“Knowledge is power,” further bleats our sage, thereby demonstrating his convincing lack thereof.

“Rubbish!” squawks this onion, “knowledge is well and good but it needs to be applied. Action, guided by knowledge, is what brings power.”

True, knowledge per se is merely facts in record — recorded in a book, recorded on tape, recorded on discs, recorded in brains … just cached facts. Stack ‘em and forget ‘em.

I do have a lot of knowledge informally acquired by experience (I made many mistakes and learned from some of them).
Now I seek the right avenues to use those knowledges as tools, as levers which if applied to the right fulcrums may yet change the course of human destiny. (Oh, wow!)

Ambitious? Perhaps. Took me long enough.

To create change means a leadership role, which on any meaningful scale means politics. A truly bitter thought.

But not politics as we know them. Politics as we know them are wrong—the wagon has wonky wheels, a disconnected yoke, a team of reluctant horses and a hugely overcrowded bench of intoxicated squabbling would-be drivers. The blasted horses would do a better job.

Repeat that, the horses would do a better job. Even I can see it and I’m just a bog worker from a peat bog. However, I’m not alone in the perception, it’s blatantly obvious.

But the wagoneers have set their wagon up to be self-perpetuating such that no number of irate or embittered horses could ever change anything worth changing. True, an occasional horse is promoted from the team to join the drivers on the bench but in so doing that horse ceases to be a horse—in exchanging oats for lotus it loses it all contact with reality.

THIS HORSE WANTS TO KICK THE WAGON TO BITS and remould it nearer to the heart’s desire. Put the drunken drivers out to graze as it were, or even better, make ‘em pull for a change. So what is holding him back?

It’s that leadership thing again, and money—anything worth having needs money somewhere along the line (even love, unless you live near a graveyard* ).

And the other horses … the other hacks and nags are pathetic in their misery, content in the daily grind of hauling that heavy great wagon filled with pie-eyed freeloaders up ever steepening hills; so long as they are left alone to be them-sorry-selves.
They even give the drivers sackfuls of carrots every day but are ecstatic if promised a carrot or two back “sometime in the future”.
They keep quiet, faithfully sweating in their dusty traces and they never notice the vast fields of sweet green grasses on either side.

I said “leadership role” which blows it for me, I am no leader. I don’t look the part, I have a voice reminiscent of a startled duck and I simply can’t be bothered with all the traditional “leader” things anyway—so go kiss your own baby, press your own palms, hail your own fellows well met … not for me, thanks. Action, not window dressing; substance, not shadow, presence, not illusion; advisors, not spin-doctors.

There exist worlds beyond the indoctrination, the social engineering, the endless conditioning and other tools so shamelessly used to preserve the status quo (wherein illusion is everything and promises are endlessly recycled)(and bought). Sleight of hand always leaves integrity bleeding at the side of the road; people are so gullible.
I simply cannot be bothered arguing the petty points and do not know how to get the major ones across.

In short, I need me a leader. A charismatic leader-type who marches to the same drum and can motivate in plain English. Lacking charisma myself I need a charismatic to pick up this baton and run with it.

In some upcoming posts I’ll outline what may be described by some as the simplistic basics of my (also simplistic) vision.
Simplistic? Yes, because it really is simple — and I challenge anyone to say that he or she hasn’t thought the same things in the past. Nothing new.

But out of nothing grows something and the time is right for it.

A new political movement that will make changes is now groping towards the surface for its first breaths. It will break through, breathe, look around, and act. Think breaking wave, think tsunami sweeping all before it; think Rebirth.

Yes, it really is simple. It’s also risky, it’s actually outright bloody dangerous.

KISMET
* I had an impecunious friend once who used to give his girlfriends lots of flowers. He lived right next door to a cemetery.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR — you just might get it …

Funny — whilst rabbiting about in my hard drive looking for something else I stumbled across a short story I wrote back in 1998 . I used it at the time to illustrate some thoughts (life and death, time, eternity, life after death, justice, sexism, ambition, religions etc) to a discussion group, but you are most heartily welcome to have a read:

=====

THE BLESSING

He called me a vindictive witch once too often.
Vindictive? No, I have a keen sense of justice, but I’m not vindictive. All I ever want from life is a fair shake of the dice. Cheats make my stomach hurt and seeing a rat like him fleece the innocent made me want to spit. Having him use the system against me was even worse.

The biggest mistake of my life was marrying him.
The second biggest mistake was expecting a fair deal in the divorce, he’s a lawyer. Sure, I fought tooth and nail for my rights, and fell right on my face. There was nothing I could do — the final ruling wrapped me up so tight I squeaked and left me with nothing. I had to go to him cap-in-hand and beg. It’s hard to be vindictive when you’re begging.

Vindictive? No, definitely not.

Witch? Oh, yes.

I am a witch. Not your traditional ‘black cat and broomstick’ witch, more your 20th century witch, high-tech and hold the eye of newt. I do have a cat, though. She is my darling and has been with me ever since I was a little girl; she is now my only family, my beloved, and my entire world.

As far as witches go I’m fairly successful despite the big mistake in choice of husband (even we witches can be blind sometimes).

He knew, of course — the slimebag knew I was a witch right from our first night. There were certain things that had to be explained, and of course he wanted proof, and one thing led to another.
His wealth multiplied as a result. Not that I minded, who wouldn’t want to be married to a highly successful lawyer, tops in his field? But as time went by his demands grew, and grew, taking over until he was obsessed by ambition. The more he prospered the more I saw him for what he really was, and the more I grew to despise him.

But there was one thing I always denied him, one thing he coveted above all else. There was one thing he craved; for which he pleaded, threatened, bullied and begged. This I would never grant, no matter how much he groveled or blustered. Sure, it was within my power, and his desperate efforts to force it became the final nails in our marital coffin.

So, just as he’d planned, I went to him on my knees, begging.
He was munificence itself.

Sure, I could have access to the house. Sure, I could take my things away — my Book of Shadows, my waxes, my herbs, my robes, and iron dagger.

No problem, I could even have the house itself, if I wanted. I could have the house and pool, the garages and buildings, the trees and gardens, the stables and fields and woods and beach. Sure, I could have the cars and bank accounts and investments, he would relinquish all claim to everything … if only … if only I would make him immortal.

Of course I said no.

So he called me a vindictive witch.

Vindictive I’ve never been, but I, too, have a limit and can be pushed only so far. He pushed me too far with those words on top of everything else.

So I gave him what he wanted.

He was over the moon with my decision. Overcome with emotion, tears streaming down his face, blabbering with gratitude — gave me everything. Lock, stock, barrel, and bolt.

The fool!

It cleaned him out. But he knew, and I knew, that even if it took a lifetime he would recoup his losses.
In three lifetimes he could be the richest man in the world.
In four lifetimes he might be ruling the world, we both knew that.

The imbecile!

He’d thought that by withholding immortality I was being vindictive? Vindictive didn’t come into it — not until he’d pushed me that little bit too far. Vindictive only began once I gave him what he wanted. He wanted immortality, “the same as you witches”.

Immortal? I’m not immortal.

No witch is immortal. Certainly we could be, we can choose to live for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, but no witch would ever be immortal. Given the snap choice of immortality or instant death, every witch in the world would opt for death, at once, without hesitation.

Immortality, that ancient dream of mankind — and this fool thought I’d withheld it from spite! I wouldn’t wish that dream on my worst enemy, not even on him.

Not until he threatened to let my cat starve slowly to death, locked in his house … then I saw red.

Then I granted his wish.

Certainly, he will prosper.

He is much too clever to fall in love. He will enjoy thousands of years of affairs and amorous adventures, but he will never be fool enough to love.

In a hundred years, lonely or otherwise, he will be one of the wealthiest men on earth. His personal accounts will rival those of sovereign nations; and the centuries of endless adulation will never tire him. He will be enjoying the fruits of my labours aeons after I am gratefully dust, myself. Millennia after I have shuffled off this mortal coil he will be drinking the finest wines and sleeping with the cream of the world’s women. Long after my forgotten atoms have dispersed themselves on the winds of time he will be fearlessly conquering anything and everything the world can throw at him. And why not?

He is immortal.

As part of the package I made him invulnerable as well, nothing in the universe can harm him. He stands at the very peak of development, too, physical and mental. His brain is razor sharp, perceptive, brilliant; and he is the perfect specimen of manhood. He has it all.

The idiot.

He won’t even begin to see the cracks until several thousand million years have passed. By then he won’t even remember my name, but my atoms will be laughing, laughing, laughing.

Laughing as the sun slows down, expanding as it cools. Laughing as our friendly little star becomes a swollen red giant, drying up all the waters of this planet, killing off all life.

All life-forms, that is, except one.

The surviving perfect specimen of Homo Sapiens will be able to reach out his lonely arm from the seared surface of our home and touch the face of the sun itself, so obscenely large will it have grown as it dies.

His agonies will last for billions of years more, then billions of aeons, until in about three trillion trillion years the universe collapses inwards upon itself in a reversal of the Big Bang from whence it sprang. Eventually it will collapse into a singularity, a dimensionless point of infinite mass. Somewhere in that nowhere will be a demented yet perfectly formed human being, alone and endlessly screaming in the midst of an eternal non-existence.

Vindictive witch, he’d called me.

Witch — yes.

Vindictive … ?

— END —

Yay! Yanks move to ban torture — sort of.

There is a sickness loose in the world, a rabid rottweiler and its name is America. Specifically the United States of America, the paradigm of Truth, Justice, Democracy, Liberty etc etc ad nauseam (and of course, Freedom).

Freedom to torture? (Might is right — so why not?)

Now this gem (from which I quote):

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071213/pl_nm/security_usa_torture_dc

” … On a largely party line vote of 222-199, the Democratic-led House approved a measure to require intelligence agents to comply with the Army Field Manual, which bans torture in compliance with the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. … The measure, part of a sweeping intelligence bill, passed amid a congressional probe into the recent disclosure that the CIA destroyed videotapes of al Qaeda suspects undergoing waterboarding, a simulated drowning …”

Couple of points, here:
a. Specifies the CIA and the Army — everybody else is still free to use “robust interrogation tactics” (don’t you just love these American cutesy euphemisms*)?

EMPIRES, just passing through

 A few quick thoughts (more worms to the cannery, as it were) on property:

PROPERTY, specifically LAND, who owns it?

GIVEN (well, to me it’s self-obvious) that land is the only true wealt* there is — which makes it eminently desirable — how can we define ownership?

I say —this in the most challenging way I possibly can — that YOU ONLY OWN THAT WHICH YOU CAN HOLD ON TO BY FORCE.

As a corollary, by force against all comers:

ergo:  greater force = new owners

And you thought YOU owned your house? Your car? Your farm? Your life … ?

Any takers?

* you can’t eat banknotes. You can’t eat diamonds. You can’t even eat gold. Soon there will be no more fish left to eat … but you can, however, eat land**

** Oh, puh-leeeeze!

PERAMBULATING PENSIONER POUNCED BY POLICE

PERAMBULATING PENSIONER POUNCED BY POLICE, who watches the Watchers?

Further to the Great NZ Tuhoe Terrorist Hunt (have they got their medals yet?) one has to ask (how about Ben and Ollivia’s killer? — oops, sorry, they got that one) (!).

If this snippet is true, of course, one might have to think; but this Australian sort of thing couldn’t happen here in New Zealand, thank heavens:

=====

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/12/07/1196813021247.html

” … TWO police officers handcuffed a 64-year-old pensioner, threw her to the ground and then searched inside her bra and underpants on a busy suburban road in the mistaken belief she was a drug dealer.
… the ordeal left an ailing Leentje McDonald, of Maroubra, in hospital and severely traumatised. But she did not receive an apology from police. Rather, she has been charged with assaulting an officer.
…while it is unusual for a pensioner to be mistaken for a 40-year-old ...”

=====

ONE WONDERS whether this fits the same classification as the “He didn’t stop so we fired six warning shots. He still didn’t stop so we fired one more that stopped the bugger in his tracks …” (my paraphrasing—Pan).
Given:
a. He couldn’t stop ‘cos he wasn’t going anywhere at the time (sitting! Oh, he also had a plainclothes cop hanging from him like a rabid rottweiler).

b. All six of those warning shots were through his head.

c. The one that stopped him was effective only ‘cos it followed the tracks of the first six (beautiful grouping though, let’s give credit where it’s due).

d. Six! Ye gods … and this on a crowded tube train (memo: in London, take the bus)

Top marks to the London police for a well planned anti-terrorist action; certainly that bugger will think twice before doing it again.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/menezes/0,,1691452,00.html

Could it happen here, in New Zealand?

I doubt it — in NZ we still have friendly neighbourly bobbies, not armed thugs running round dressed as Rambo-cop.
Our police still knock on doors, they don’t just sturmbannfuhrer out of the darkness in great numbers with battering rams in the wee small hours.
Often wondered, though, who pays for the damages? Who rebuilds innocent doors? Just askin’.

And is that nice Mr Rickards still picking up his police top-dog salary for not policing? Or did he do the decent thing and fall on his sword — why, if innocent? Mind you, for that money and those perks it would have taken me a while, too.

Meanwhile, the All Blacks have a coach …

SEMPER VIGILANS

NO BOMBS FOR IRAN — send ‘em Southland coal instead (better, send ‘em Jeanette)

This headline from this afternoon’s New York Times freebie e-mailer:

” …
U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work
By MARK MAZZETTI
A new assessment by American intelligence agencies, which concludes that Iran’s weapons program is on hold, contradicts a report two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb.
…”

Eeek!

They’re NOT building a bomb? (Guess not, America’s spooks have spoke.) George (and that English tub thumper, Tony …  Something* ?) were both wrong?

Now I really AM worried …

Damn. I was thinking rerun of the “Coalition of the Willing Takes out Saddam” (aka “Son of Bush Rides Again“) show. Even bought the popcorn and dusted my favourite chair … and now, after all that preparation, it turns out the Bush baby was only bluffin’?

Naaaaaa …

*  It was Blair (or was it B. Liar … ?)
KISMET

MEDALS STOLEN FROM DEAD HEROES by living parasites.

(I apologise for the length of this one — after I cut it down, too.)

The headline might well read “MEDALS STOLEN, NZ HAVING CONNIPTIONS”.

Some Victoria Crosses were stolen from the New Zealand Army museum at Waiouru during the weekend.

As ever with security, defense was based on probability. As ever, the first guy to think outside the square gets the prize and everyone else gets eggy face. Kismet. Planning and audacity beats encumbent comfort any time (nine eleven, anyone?).

In the meantime as a nation we are going through angst to the nth degree; these were valuable artefacts that have been stolen. Possibly worth millions in monetary terms, irreplaceable national heritage in other terms.

Men died in the winning of them. They were awarded, not lightly, for extreme courage in the face of the enemy.

To not digress:
As a seagoing nipper I once served with a salty old Chief who told us lads that he missed out on being a hero by two days. He wasn’t bitter or anything, just philosophical; it was literally the luck of the draw.
His ship had been in a fierce scrap with some bugger, hits all round with arms and legs and things flying in all directions; afterwards the captain decided that he was going to put the for’d turret’s crew in for recognition.
After debate it was decided that the gong would go to the youngest member and Chief dipped out by just two days. Had he been born three days earlier he’d have been a hero, feted far and wide (it was a prestigious gong that the younger guy got) for the rest of his natural with girls swarming all over him (tars, especially heroic ones, were flavour of the month in those days) and showered with beer in pubs. Opening baby/flower shows etc etc.

BUT: for every act of gallantry noted and ‘rewarded’ there are/will be many acts equally as “gallant” that are not noted. C’est la guerre.

So, what is a medal? Something desirable?
Must be. People win them, others steal them. Some simply get given them and spend the rest of their lives saying “Aw shucks” (my kind of hero).
George Armstrong Custer wanted one. Badly. His brother had two, both of them Congressional Medals of Honor (real top shelf) … brother once attended a ball to which George didn’t go, but afterwards George (on being told that brother had been there) was heard to growl: “Did he wear his bauble?”. Poor old George, he tried so hard, too …

HEROISM?

Sometimes it’s in the eye of the beholder.
Nazi submarine popping up after torpedoing a ship and loosening up the survivors with machine guns — the foul fictional cliché of Hollywood, right? Hardly heroic …
But the heroes that sank the Lusitania (full of civilians) in the First World War (1,198 died—no machine gunning, though) got medals for it. The one act is a barbarous war crime and the other heroic?
How about the submariners (real this time, not Hollywood) that torpedoed a troop ship, popped up and loosened up the survivors with every gun they had? The skipper of the USS Wahoo (LCdr. Dudley W. “Mush” Morton) was recognised for his gallantry with the Navy Cross. C’est la guerre. We won, so he’s a hero.

A pilot having his plane shot to bits rides it all the way down and smacks it into the ship that shot him up (down) … heroic? Or adrenalin? Both? “Winning” a medal?
Only if observed, and duly written up. No see, no medal, so sorry.

Kamikaze as hero? No! It’s heroic when WE do it, it’s fanatical when THEY do it. Of course — nobody gives medals to enemies, no matter how undeniably heroic.

In the meantime let’s hope that those dregs who stole our medals didn’t drive all night to a major centre (Wellington?) and pop ‘em in Fastpost to Hawaii or somewhere; gone as soon as the country opens for business on Monday.

Why steal heritage? Because there’s a market, of course. What those medals mean, how they were come by, is quite beyond the ken; just objects. Valuable objects. Money talks.

There may be mana, prestige, virtue, in a medal as an object (I don’t see it myself). It’s this charisma and the provenance that makes them desirable to some and thus worth stealing. Stolen by lesser men they are onsold to yet lesser men still, until they end up in the sock drawer of some wealthy human insect. Maggots crowd the corpses of heroes.

Medals? Put me down for the “swords into ploughshares” department …

MIRACLES TAKE LONGER to evolve, says Darwin to the USA

I love it! The greatest power on earth believes in goblins …

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10479624

===== quote =====

” … Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin

DALLAS
More Americans believe in a literal hell and the devil than Darwin’s theory of evolution, according to a new Harris poll released on Thursday.
… poll of 2,455 US adults from Nov 7 to 13 found that 82 per cent of those surveyed believed in God … it further found that 79 per cent believed in miracles, 75 per cent in heaven, while 72 per cent believed that Jesus is God or the Son of God. Belief in hell and the devil was expressed by 62 per cent … only 42 per cent of those surveyed said they believed in Darwin’s theory … of “natural selection.”
… born-again Christians are more likely to believe in the traditional elements of Christianity than are Catholics or Protestants. For example, 95 per cent believe in miracles, compared to 87 per cent and 89 per cent among Catholics and Protestants,” according to the poll.
… substantial minorities in America apparently believe in ghosts, UFOs, witches, astrology and reincarnation … 35 per cent of the respondents believed in UFOs and 31 per cent in witches … “

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Taking just one item from the above unsurprising list; say, Miracles?

A miracle is intervention by God often at short notice — someone’s ship hits an iceberg, the non-swimmers or chilly-dippers pray frantically and God promptly intervenes by lifting the ship out of the water and placing it on a tropical beach. Now newly saved they stroll ashore, extolling his virtues in song of praise.

Right!

But—?

God is omniscient, He knew in advance (a very long time in advance) that the ship was going to smack that blessed iceberg and the frantic were going to pray for His mercy. Of His own Free Will he chose to let that happen—then changed His mind? Our Creator is indecisive?

I’m a simple soul. I get confused easily.

Sometimes it’s easier to just go with flow …