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The January Parliament: marking 750 years of British democracy
From The Week
The January Parliament: marking 750 years of British democracy
This year is the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, the treaty which limited the power of the monarchy and laid the foundation for British democracy. But today marks another, less well remembered anniversary: 750 years since the January Parliament.
What was the January Parliament?
On 20 January 1265, knights, burgesses and aldermen met in London for the first real parliament in British history. Of course, the representatives were ‘elected’ in a far less democratic way than they are now, but the meeting is still seen by academics as the birth of British parliaments.
Why isn’t the January Parliament better known?
The BBC suggests the gathering has been eclipsed in history by the signing of the Magna Carta, fifty years previously. Magna Carta limited the power of the monarch and, after some teething troubles, changed history – but it did not institute anything resembling a parliament.
Who called the meeting?
The January Parliament was summoned by French-born noble Simon de Montfort”, says the Daily Telegraph. He had beaten and taken prisoner both Henry III and his heir – later Edward I – at the Battle of Lewes the previous year, becoming de facto monarch, though ruling in Henry’s name.
Why did Montfort institute a parliament?
Montfort’s position was tenuous – he had risen to the top as one of a group of barons and could expect to be unseated at any moment. He wanted the backing of “as wide a section of society as possible”, the BBC says. But his motive wasn’t purely self-interest: as a Christian, Montfort was advised by the church he should work for the good of the poor.
Who were the first ‘MPs’?
Montfort ordered each county of England to send two knights, says the Telegraph. Towns were asked to send two burgesses and two aldermen. The delegates were ‘elected’ locally – in some cases chosen by lot.
Was it really the first parliament?
There had been parliaments before – but in a more limited sense. They were “elite gatherings between the king and his chosen advisors”, says the BBC, to which knights were occasionally invited – but only to discuss taxation. The January Parliament discussed wider affairs of state, was not called by the king, and included burgesses from the towns. ·
Quantum Computing
From xkcd:
Why We Need to be Careful.
It’s easy to assume that there is no hope for people in certan medical conditions. Sometimes we write people off too quickly. From Lifesitenews.com
Man wakes up after 12 years in ‘vegetative state’: reveals, ‘I was aware of everything’
Martin Pistorius hates Barney. And it’s no wonder why. For 12 years, while he was in a coma that doctors described as a “vegatative state,” nurses, thinking that he couldn’t see or hear anything, played endless re-runs of Barney as he sat, strapped into his wheel chair.
But Martin wasn’t the “vegetable” that doctors said he was. In fact, he could see and hear everything.
“I cannot even express to you how much I hated Barney,” he recently told NPR.
In the 1980s, Martin was a typical active youngster growing up in South Africa. But, then, at age 12, he came down with an illness that baffled doctors, and that eventually resulted in him losing his ability to move his limbs, then to make eye contact, and finally to speak.
His parents, Rodney and Joan Pistorius, were told that he was a “vegetable” and the best thing for them to do was take him home and keep him comfortable until he died.
But the youngster continued to live despite the diagnosis.
“Martin just kept going, just kept going,” his mom said.
Now, in a new memoir, “Ghost Boy: My Escape From A Life Locked Inside My Own Body,” Martin has revealed that, although he was initially unconscious as doctors thought, after about two years he started waking up, eventually becoming fully conscious of everything around him.
Martin’s dad, Rodney, cared for his son throughout the ordeal, and recalls the daily routine of rising at five in the morning to get Martin ready for a day at a special care center.
“Eight hours later, I’d pick him up, bathe him, feed him, put him in bed, set my alarm for two hours so that I’d wake up to turn him so that he didn’t get bedsores,” Rodney said in an NPR report.
Martin remembers, however, that his mom at one point lost hope, and while gazing at her son and thinking he could not hear her, said “I hope you die.”
But he did hear her.
“Yes, I was there, not from the very beginning, but about two years into my vegetative state, I began to wake up,” Martin said.
Read the rest here
Today’s Sermon
Matt Walsh on the Paris Slaughter
Islam is the Most Violent Religion in the World, But Let’s Keep Calling it ‘Peaceful’ Anyway
This time around, three masked gunmen stormed the offices of a French satirical newspaper, executing 12 people in cold blood, including two police officers. This is the same newspaper that infamously published a cartoon poking fun at the Prophet Mohammed a few years ago, and was promptly greeted with death threats and a Molotov cocktail for their troubles. In fairness, there’s still a lot we don’t know about this attack, but it seems very certain that this was another case of Muslim terrorism. The gunmen took out 12 people while shouting “Allahu Akbhar” and “the Prophet has been avenged.” All of this over some jokes in a magazine.
Can you imagine Christian radicals committing mass murder at The Onion offices because they’re upset about something they found on its website? Can you even fathom such a thing? Probably not, because it never happens. It just never happens. And it’s not like Christians don’t have plenty of provocation. I still remember stumbling upon this lovely little gem from The Onion last year. It’s a hysterical article imagining that Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, became a prostitute to make ends meet. Haha?
In this Sept.19, 2012 file photo, Stephane Charbonnier also known as Charb , the publishing director of the satyric weekly Charlie Hebdo, displays the front page of the newspaper as he poses for photographers in Paris. Masked gunmen shouting “Allahu akbar!” stormed the Paris offices of a satirical newspaper Wednesday Jan.7, 2015, killing 12 people including Charb, before escaping. It was France’s deadliest terror attack in at least two decades. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)
Yet nobody ever died because of any of that.
Read the rest here
Book Review. “A.D. 30” by Ted Dekker
Ted Dekker at his best!
This is a story of betrayal, violence, shame and honour.
A Bedouin woman, Maviah, finds herself at the mercy of conflicting kings and warriors in the convoluted politics of the Middle East around the year 30 AD.
She meets up with another king, Yeshua (Jesus), who shows her that there is another kingdom that is not of this world- a kingdom of love rather than hate, of forgiveness rather than fear.
It is different to much of Dekker’s writing, but still has his trademark action plots exploring confrontation between good and evil.
Life Site News: Outlawing Abortion is Good for Women’s Health
The world says outlawing abortions “forces” women to seek so-called backyard operators. The truth is different.
From Life Site News:
This country banned abortion and now, abortion promoters can’t believe their eyes!
“Outlaw abortion and abortion won’t stop. Women will just do it illegally and women will die!”
Or so the argument goes… But facts are pesky things, and they show that the opposite is true in Chile.
According to new research from the MELISA Institute, since Chile’s ban on abortion, not only has maternal health improved but the number of women seeking illegal abortion has plummeted!
Since Chile banned abortion in 1989, the number of maternal deaths decreased from 41.3 to 12.7 per 100,000 women (69.2% reduction). That puts Chile in second place for the lowest maternal mortality rate in the Americas (that’s right, even better than the United States).
Prof. Elard Koch, a molecular epidemiologist and lead author of the study, says educating women enhanced their ability to access existing health care resources, and since those resources included skilled attendants for childbirth, that directly led to a reduction of maternal deaths during pregnancy and childbirth.
As Dr. Koch explains, “it is a unique natural experiment conducted in a developing country.” During the fifty-year period under study, the overall maternal mortality rate dramatically declined by 93.8%, from 270.7 to 18.2 deaths per 100,000 live births, making Chile a leader in maternal healthcare outcomes in the Americas.
But wait. If abortion is legally banned, wouldn’t we expect to see the number of women hospitalized due to illegal abortion procedures increase? Aren’t women just seeking abortions outside of proper healthcare facilities?
No. Not only is Chile one of the safest places in the world for women to give birth, but the number of women actually seeking abortion is also declining. According to data from the Chilean Ministry of Health, the country displays a continuous decreasing trend of hospital discharges due to complications of abortions suspected to be illegally induced at a rate of 2% per year since 2001. In contrast, a decreasing trend was not observed in hospital discharges due to miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, which have remained constant during the same period.
Dr. Koch’s research also found that a large sample of abortion-minded women in Chile displayed a vulnerability profile marked by coercion and fear, which accounted for nearly 70% of the reasons women considered abortion. Moreover, the research indicated that support programs directed to vulnerable women can prevent most illegal abortions, with an outcome of live birth (with or without adoption) ranging between 69% and 94% depending on the risk group.
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It’s not sheer coincidence that Malta, The Republic of Ireland, and Chile, all of which have prohibited abortion, have lower maternal mortality rates than the United States. In Africa, where 56% of all maternal mortalities occur, abortion-related maternal mortality is less than half what it is in developed countries. Yet there are more restrictions on abortion in Africa than in developed countries! So what’s the deal? In countries with higher abortion restrictions, fewer women have to seek treatment for “unsafe abortion” than in countries where abortion is “safe and legal.”
The result’s of Chile’s natural experiment is bad news for the pro-abortion lobby. But it’s great news for mothers and the unborn!
Skylon Space Plane
This is just breath-taking. I was blown away by the thought of a heat exchanger cooling air from 1000 degrees to 150 in a few hundredths of a second. You can take the man out of chemical engineering….
From The Week
Skylon space plane ‘could reach Sydney in four hours’
Skylon space plane
Approval for British Sabre jet engine marks another step towards hypersonic Skylon passenger plane
The European Space Agency has given its approval to technology developed by a British firm which could transform space travel – and lead to the development of an airliner capable of taking 300 passengers from Europe to Australia in four hours.
The Skylon aircraft is still at the theoretical stage, but the government is funding its development.
Reaction Engines Ltd, based in Oxfordshire, has developed a new type of jet engine, known as Sabre (Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine), which they say could power the space plane. The company has not yet built a full version of the engine, but it has constructed a critical component.
The heat exchanger made by Reaction is the key to the new technology, says The Independent. It cools air from 1,000C to 150C in one hundredth of a second, allowing the engine to use air as fuel, rather than oxygen from a tank.
Existing space rockets must carry tanks of oxygen with them – and the weight slows everything down. Reaction believe their new technology could make space travel 95 per cent cheaper.
The latest development is that the ESA have looked at Reaction’s data and agreed that the heat exchange technology is viable and workable. The next stage is to build working prototype of the full Sabre engine.
Last year, says the Daily Mail, the government announced it was investing £60m in building just such a prototype.
The Sabre technology could make space travel much cheaper and easier, allowing a jet aircraft to carry satellites and other spacecraft beyond the earth’s atmosphere before returning to the planet below. It could also be used to transport passengers quickly between distant locations on earth.
Reaction have designed an aircraft, the Skylon, which would use Sabre engines to carry 300 passengers from Europe to Australia within four hours. They hope to launch it as soon as 2019.
New Life Narrabri 