Tell It Like It Is...

A status update on a friend's Facebook page reminded me of a (probably apocryphal) story I once heard...

A barrister had spent the best part of an hour explaining the finer points of a case to an increasingly confused and irritable judge.

At the end of the barrister's speech, the judge shook his head and said, "You can talk all you like, but I really am none the wiser!"

"No, my Lord," came the swift rejoinder, "But you are better informed!"

Courage Of One's Convictions...

I just read on LifeSite News that the Cardinal Archbishop of Montreal, Jean-Claude Turcotte, has just announced that he is returning his Order of Canada Insignia. He made this decision because abortionist Henry Morgentaler has also been nominated to the order.

His Eminence has issued the following statement:

"On May 9th 1996, the office of the Governor-General of the time, Mr. Roméo Leblanc, announced that I had been named to the Order of Canada. I had accepted this honour on behalf of all those who, because of their faith in Jesus Christ, work in the social domain to serve the most disadvantaged of our society.

"I have the greatest respect for the Order of Canada. It is meant to recognize the contribution of persons who help to bring about the progress of our society and who are concerned about the future of our world. Until recently, I sincerely believed that the Order of Canada was bestowed upon persons about whom there was a consensus.

"I was away when the Governor-General, Madame Michaelle Jean, announced the nomination of Dr. Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada. This announcement generated a great deal of criticism on the part of those who do not share Dr. Morgentaler's views regarding the respect for human life.

"I must admit that I had hoped that, in light of the large number of protests, the Consultative Council for the Order of Canada would revise its decision. Because it has not done so up to now and because silence on my part might be misinterpreted, I feel obliged in conscience to reaffirm my convictions regarding the respect for human life, from conception to death. We are not the masters of human life; it rests in the hands of God.

"As a result, I wish to declare that I am renouncing the title of Officer of the Order of Canada, bestowed upon me in 1996, and that I am returning the insignia that was given to me."

If you wish to write to the Cardinal to express your support for his decision, you can email him HERE.

It is very heartening to see a Prince of the Church stand by his convictions and show such open support for the protection of human life.

The Things They Say (2)...

Another little pipsqueak thought he was being funny this morning...

"Miss, Miss, you can't give us homework... the world's going to end today..."

"Don't worry, I promise you that if the world does come to an end today, you won't have to hand the homework in tomorrow..."

The Things They Say...

Blogging may well be rather sporadic over the next week: I am getting to grips with a new timetable, new classes and a new subject specification (all the AS Level courses changed: I mean, you wouldn't want teachers to have too easy a time of it, would you?)

Still, I can't quite bring myself to stop blogging completely, and so I thought I'd share the odd quote from the chalkface... yes, I know we don't use chalk any more...

From a lesson on the states of matter, after explaining that steam (or water vapour) was the gaseous state of water, and ice was the solid state...

"Miss, what's the liquid state of water called?"

Conspiracy Theories...

I have been wooed away from Thunderbird as my preferred email retrieval system by Google Mail, mostly because of the marked reduction in spam emails.  Strange to tell, I'm not interested in purchasing supplies of Viagra, having a penis extension, or giving my bank details to a rich businessman's widow in Nigeria in order to earn myself a a few hundred thousand pounds...

I have occasionally pondered whether Google itself is sending out all the spam emails, and then making sure that they don't get through Google's filters... so that everyone will eventually switch to Google...

Paranoid?  Moi?

I read Fr. Tim's post on how wonderful Google Chrome was, and decided to have a little play with it.  I wasn't completely happy with it... I guess I'm quite resistant to change... but I didn't really "take" to the new look, or to the tabs being way up top, or to the fact that a page can only be bookmarked under one set of bookmarks, rather than, as with Firefox, as many times as you want it...  small things, nothing earth-shattering, but enough...

In the meantime, the new version of Firefox appears to have installed itself on my computer.  I'm not entirely sure how it did this, as I tried to block it the last time I received an "Install Update?" query box...  Since then, Firefox has been playing silly beggars.  The bookmarks won't complete loading, and so it gets very slow trying to click on a link or a com-box.  In the old version of Firefox, I could just close the whole thing down by clicking on the close "X" at the top, and then re-open the browser.  Now, when I try to re-open the browser, I get a little box telling me that Firefox is open, but not responding, and I need to restart my computer.  However, the Google Chrome icon is working perfectly well, with a very fast connection and upload speed...

Is Firefox in cahoots with Google, making the system so annoyingly problematic that people turn to Chrome out of sheer exasperation??

... just a thought...

Pondering Life's Imponderables...

Why is it that, when painting one's nails, "One Minute" nail polish will still be slightly wet after three hours?

And why, during this time, will it smudge or have bits gouged off, and when dry, will chip if you so much as brush against a hard surface, yet, when you actually try to remove the stuff with nail polish, it takes on the consistency of cement, and won't budge?

(It's been a while since I did a frivolous girly-nail post, and I have a reputation as a ditsy blonde to maintain...)