Just a little music to end the day.
One of my all time favourites, and the archetypal Patsy Kline song:
Day: January 4, 2010
An interesting list of the top money-making films.
Avatar has made it into the top ten in just two weeks. This makes two films by James Cameron in the top ten – Avatar and Titanic.
Of the others, three of the top ten are Harry Potter movies, two are from the Pirates of the Carribean series, and two are Lord of the Rings.
That makes nine – the other is Dark Knight.
With the exception of Titanic, all of the top ten are fantasy.
Further down the list is Jurassic Park, Star Wars Episodes one and three, Spiderman, and more Harry Potter.
If nothing else, this proves people go to the movies to be entertained.
A startling revelation, I know, but it still doesn’t seem to have made it into the heads of Australian film producers.
We arrived home in SA on Saturday night. Before church the next morning, we went to McDonalds for breakfast (Well why not? – It is cheap and convenient, they make good coffee, and the hot cakes aren’t bad) and picked up a copy of the reliably abysmal Sunday Mail.
There was a short article about the tribunal into the behaviour of Bishop of The Murray Ross Davies.
The Archbishop of Adelaide has had an extraordinarily difficult task in dealing with what is the worst crisis in episcopal leadership in the history of the Anglican church in Australia.
Earlier in 2009 the Archbishop had announced an enquiry into Bishop Davies’ actions as Bishop. That enquiry produced some 100 signed statements from people around the diocese alleging various kinds of verbal, spiritual and emotional abuse. Once those statements had been received, a tribunal could not be avoided.
The legal status of the tribunal is doubtful. Bishop Davies has made it clear he will not be stood down while the tribunal proceeds, and that he does not believe the Archbishop or the Primate have any right or authority to intervene in the Diocese of The Murray. He may well be right.
I suggested a couple of months ago that it was doubtful anyone outside the Diocese of The Murray could act to remove Bishop Davies. Nonetheless, clear findings of ongoing abuse by a carefully conducted and impartial tribunal might give Diocesan Council the stateable reasons and courage it needs to end Bishop Davies’ employment.
I hope and pray that the tribunal will reach its conclusions reasonably quickly, and that actions will then be be taken which will give the best possible outcome for the Diocese and for Bishop Davies and his family.
Whatever that outcome is, it is likely that this will be the end of The Murray as a conservative anglo-catholic diocese.
That statement needs to be clarified a little. The Murray is not an anglo-catholic diocese. It is a polychromatic middle of the road Anglican diocese which has been served by traditionalist anglo-catholic clergy.
As long as their views have been heard, and they have been treated with care and respect by their clergy, the people of the Diocese have been generous in accepting that the Diocese and the wider australian church have been well-served by the special witness of The Murray to a particular and important strand of Anglican faith.
That has changed.
Traditionalist clergy in the Diocese, and organisations like the Society of the Holy Cross (SSC) and Forward in Faith, have supported Bishop Davies to the point of refusing to hear or give any credibility to reports of inappropriate behaviour by Bishop Davies.
Even worse, they have shared with him in efforts to damage the credibility of anyone who complained or did not toe the line. This has left lay people feeling betrayed and deeply hurt.
The crisis in the diocese is not just over Bishop Davies’ leadership. It is a crisis of trust in the clergy.
This sense of having been betrayed, not just by a traditionalist bishop, but by almost all of the traditionalist clergy and the organisations to which they belong, means that it will be near impossible for someone who shares Bishop Davies’ conservative views to be elected.
The Anglican Church will be poorer for this.
Finally, proof of global warming:
Proof of Global Warming
But then, what about this:
A new study shows no change in the proportion of atmospheric and absorbed CO2 for the last 150 years.
Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.
To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.
In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Oh, hang on. He looked at real world data. The man’s obviously completely unreliable.
There’s no reason why we should tolerate litter, or domestic violence, or falsification of scientific data, for example.
What do we need to tolerate to be a civilised society? What do we need to refuse to tolerate?
Some thoughts from a commentator at The Guardian.
Climate changes all the time.
How do we adapt to these changes in a way that assists the most vulnerable – that is, the poor?
One way is to adopt policies which will assist poorer people to develop the resources and strategies they need to buffer them from rapid climate change.
Another is to make sure we know what is going on, so we can make plans to cope with the changes that are actually occurring.
Because so much data has been lost/manipulated, etc, we have very little idea what has really happened over the last fifty years.
One thing is for sure. it isn’t getting any warmer.
There are record low temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere, from the US and Canada to the UK to China and Siberia.
Bitter Winters in the Andes can no longer be described as an anomaly. Growing numbers of children – hundreds in some small rural districts – are dying each year from cold.
It’s time we stopped playing global warming computer games, and started dealing with real world changes, and the real world needs of people who cannot, as Al Gore can, squander 200,000 kilowatt hours of electricity each year.
via Hyscience
Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Can he recover as a person?
Brit Hume says it depends on his faith – what he needs is forgiveness and redemption.
Brit’s answer: Think about what the Christian faith has to offer.
Wow. It is interesting (and encouraging) to hear that kind of straight talking in a secular news commentary program.
Qohel Blog Author Peter Wales
