Halal meat in supermarkets

As the great month of binge eating begins it seems a good time to have been alerted to a situation where, apparently most of the meat on our supermarkets is Halal slaughtered but not labelled as such (Morrison’s aside which does not use any Halal slaughtered meat). This has been raised in an article by the Christian Voice e-magazine which you may find helpful for a fairly detailed analysis and report:

http://www.christianvoice.org.uk/Press/press167.html

I flag this up as a matter of real concern, which I was unaware of, since I understand from the article that:

· Such animals are killed by having their throats cut and some supermarkets do not require stunning of the animals, which is inherently cruel.

· Many may object to the use of an Islamic blessing as a necessary part of the slaughter process

· For Sikhs it is totally unacceptable to eat Halal meat

I would value hearing your views on this as I would like to lobby our MP’s but would want this to represent our collective mind on this. Please note that this is not in anyway meant to be anti-Muslim; my concern is that people are appropriately informed so they can choose what they eat, and by implication, how it is slaughtered.

Harry Potter found buried in Israel

A graveyard in Israel has become besieged by Harry Potter fans, after it was revealed a tombstone bears the same name as the teen wizard.

Private Harry Potter was a British soldier killed in 1939 after a battle with an armed band. He was 18, but is mistakenly marked down as 19 on the tombstone after lying about his age in a bid to enlist in the army.

A tour guide at the small Israeli town of Ramle said, "There is no connection with the Harry Potter we know from literature, but the name sells, the name is marketable."

The morbid interest began about five years ago, and its popularly has grown and grown after it was listed on a tourism website.

"It's a type of pilgrimage for some man whose name stands out. If you didn't say that Harry Potter was buried here, no one would come here," said Josef Peretz from Tel Aviv.

Gingerbread man? No, it’s gingerbread person

The Shropshire home of gingerbread today hit back at council bureaucrats who took away the biscuit’s manhood.

Council bosses in Lancashire have renamed gingerbread men gingerbread persons in their latest menus for the area’s primary school meals.

But people in Market Drayton have described the news as “very sad” and have called on the PC Brigade to stop meddling with tradition.

Councillor Roger Hughes, of Market Drayton, says the name change represents everything that is wrong with the country.

He said: “I don’t understand people’s views on wanting to change it. What is wrong with using the name people have used for years?

“I think changing the name is very sad. Every time something like this happens it costs money which we haven’t got.”

A Market Drayton resident, who did not wish to be named, said: “My personal opinion is that it is wrong to start changing the name of the gingerbread man.

“I can understand that it comes across as a bit sexist but it has always been the gingerbread man and people still refer to that today.”

Parents in Lancashire said they were were astonished when they discovered the change with some describing it as “absolutely ridiculous” and “almost offensive”.

Lancashire County Council confirmed the gingerbread man would be back on school menus.

It is not the first time the gingerbread man’s gender has come under threat from political correctness.

In 2006 branches of Bakers Oven in the West Midlands changed the name of gingerbread men to gingerbread persons, but reversed the decision after opposition from the public.

Laura Midgley, of the Campaign Against Political Correctness, added: “It is totally ridiculous political correctness, nobody wants to talk about gingerbread people. They are what they are. It is not just an innocent mistake. Whoever did it, I hope they will think long and hard about it.

“If these sorts of things go unchallenged, they become the norm.”

No Comment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dead Sea Scrolls to go online

The 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls are to be opened up to all with 21st-century technology. The Israel Antiquities Authority is working with Google to display the 30,000 pieces of manuscript in high resolution on the web. Access to the scrolls, that illuminate the world of the Jews around the time of Jesus, will be free. The IAA announced that the photos will be as good as seeing the real thing, ‘eliminating the need for re-exposure of the scrolls and allowing their preservation for future generations.’ In fact the scans will be easier to read than the originals, because they will restore faded text. The fragments of parchment include the oldest existing copies of the Old Testament, dating from three centuries before Christ to the first century AD.

Sexual attraction could be due to the wiring of the brain.

Sexual attraction between males and females could be down to differences in the way the brain is wired up, according to work from the lab of Dr Greg Jefferis at LMB. The research was carried out in fruit flies in collaboration with colleagues at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna.
Fruit flies share many genes with mammals, and are at the forefront of research into the neural basis of behaviour. The scientists studied fly neurons expressing a gene called fruitless which is present in less than 5% of the 100,000 brain neurons. Fruitless is normally only active in male flies, where it is important for controlling sexual identity. Earlier research at the IMP showed that female flies manipulated to express the Fruitless protein in their brain cells will try to court normal female flies. So the fruitless gene, and the approximately 2000 neurons in which it is expressed, are clearly very important for controlling the sexual behaviour of the fly.

flybrain
The new study investigated how neurons expressing fruitless are wired up. They identified the majority of differences between male and female fly brains both at the level of brain shape and at the level of differences in wiring. These included differences in neurons carrying information about a male pheromone – a scent given off by male flies. Signals initially followed the same path through two layers of neurons. But at the third neuronal layer, the connections suddenly diverged in males and females. This may explain why female flies like the scent and males do not.

Greg, who led the research, explains: “Previous work in mice has shown that pheromones are critical for regulating sex-specific behaviour, but has yet to identify wiring differences in the brain that might explain why the same smell is processed differently by each sex. This is what we seem to have found in the fly. Now we are working hard to prove that these wiring differences really do alter brain function and behaviour.”

This one takes after Grandma.......

I deny any responsibility for this one. The genes come from the distaff side!

Blessed John Henry Newman

O God, who bestowed on the Priest Blessed John Henry Newman

the grace to follow your kindly light and find peace in your Church;
graciously grant that, through his intercession and example,
we may be led out of shadows and images
into the fullness of your truth.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.Amen.