Typo of the month

'Social networking sties means [sic] that animal-rights campaigners can spread their message with touch-of-the-keyboard ease, says Judith Woods.' (here)

I'm all for confining the persons who have been harassing the Koupparis family to sties in which they can network with each other to their hearts' content. Not that I would want them to share their accommodation with pigs - that would be most unfair to those intelligent and pacific animals.

And since you ask, I only eat pork if free-range.

A dangerous moral non-equivalence

Dashing trendy vicar George Pitcher has picked up on the well-worn phrase "moral equivalence", and thinks he has nailed a dodgy one:-

'The British Army represents our parliamentary democracy and defends our freedoms. We are entitled to expect better of it than terrorists. Its actions must be entirely professional and accountable.'

So far so good. It does, we are, they must be. However...

'Furthermore, to kill civilians is more morally reprehensible for our soldiers and degrades their moral integrity to a level lower than the actions of IRA terrorists, because that is what we expect of terrorists – it is not what we expect of the British Army.'

No George, no. That doesn't work. The moral equivalent to murdering innocent civilians is murdering innocent civilians, actually. If by murdering innocent civilians you confirm a prior expectation that you will murder innocent civilians, all that means is that you have acquired your moral infamy by instalments. But the end result is the same.

Maybe not the strongest argument ever against GM food?

...this one from Martin Kelly:-

'Genetically modified food seems to be where the mindset of 'Star Trek' meets
that of 'Old MacDonald Had A Farm', the intensely modern, ultrarational view
that believes technology is the cure for all our ills applied to the most basic,
most ancient of human practices. GM may have some value. However, there may also
be some value in the human race deciding to recite the words 'Give us this day
our daily bread'. It works for me. Which of the two is more likely to lead to
you having bread to eat is one of those many things in life to which we will
never know the answer. We might think we know; but we won't, not really.'

Well, I don't what I'm doing wrong in the prayer department, but, no matter how often I say that one, all the shops round here still expect me to fork out money for the stuff.

Seriously, does Martin have the faintest idea how much he would have to eat if agricultural technology had remained static since the day the prayer was first uttered?

"God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform", says William Cowper's well-loved hymn. Sometimes, though, the mystery is merely mystification of our own making. Sometimes he's just asking "what did I give you lot brains for?".