The Cost of Political Activism

February 24, 2019 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

From “Men Of The West”

MARTIN LUTHER KING MURDERED SELMA, ALABAMA

Economics teaches us that nothing in this broken world is free but God’s Grace. Everything has a cost. Not matter how universally good you think a thing is, there is always some price to it. Sometimes that price is obvious and well worth it. Other times that price is not so obvious. Often the costliest decisions we make are the ones with the least obvious prices.

You’ve all been indoctrinated, so I know I don’t need to recount the story of the Civil Rights Movement to you. Blah blah blah… fire hoses… marches… evil whitey being evil… noble black man being noble. What I want to point out is one small look at the price that was paid, and who paid it.

Now before we get to deep into this, I have to explain some methodology here. Any research you do on Selma is going to focus almost entirely on the Civil Rights Movement. Period. Wikipedia? The whole article is written through the context of the movement. To get the real story of Selma, you have to talk to the people that lived there, which is exactly what we’ve done.

Rewind past all that, back to 1950. Selma, Alabama in 1950 is something close to idyllic. Its population of almost 23,000 was booming. It had grown 15% in just a few years before. Businesses were opening, new factories were being built, and folks were working and living in what was one of the prettiest little towns in the United States. At the time, the population of Selma was about half white and about half black. Crime was low to non-existent, and jobs were plentiful. The town had extremely high marriage rates and high birth rates.

By 1960 the population of Selma has blown up to over 28,000. The demographics are still pretty much the same, and the town is still in boom mode. More factories are showing up. More businesses are opening. Churches and shops are thriving in a gorgeous down town. The United Methodist Church has build a large children’s home that is something akin to a large orphanage, except it is a lot less like all the negative stereotypes you associate with orphanages, and a lot more like a bunch of kids living at summer camp year round. The adults around today who spent time there still get emotional when they talk about their time there. And they still get emotional when they talk about what a beautiful place Selma was back then. Before Martin Luther King came and killed their town.

Read the rest of the story here

Martyn Iles: The Bell Is Tolling

May 30, 2018May 30, 2018 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

From ACL, a timely warning about where our society is heading in regards to the freedom of Christians to be Christian.

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Martyn Iles | May 30, 2018

Scripture seldom commands us to do anything directly in relation to the State.

A rare exception is found in 1 Timothy 2, where Paul urges us to pray for those in authority – “for kings and all who are in high positions…”

But it’s not just prayer in general. It is prayer for a specific thing – “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

This is prayer that the governing authorities might grant us to live in peace, even as we live godly lives.

Paul is saying we should pray for religious freedom.

In our own nation religious freedom is on the ropes. As Christians, we are less free to live godly lives than we were a year ago.

Many small changes have come along over the years, but the same-sex marriage law was a decisive moment.

The law on marriage used to tell us not only what marriage is, but that gender is ordered a particular way, sexuality is directed towards a particular end, and family is structured around both gender and biology. It was a heteronormative foundation for society. It taught us a great deal about human relationships.

The law on marriage now tells us something quite different about all of these things. Gender does not matter, sexuality is fluid and open-ended, family is whatever we say it is.

But it’s worse than that.

The great English common lawyer Sir William Blackstone wrote that, in an English legal system such as ours, laws are “rules of right conduct.”

Note that – they are rules. Not mere suggestions. Not symbolic. Not flexible. They are rules… And they are rules concerning what is right and what is wrong.

It is accurate, therefore, for me to say that the law on marriage now tells us that gender must not matter. Sexuality must be fluid and open ended. Family must be a flexible idea.

As Christians, we have a collection of convictions about marriage, creation and the human person which are contrary to the new rules.

We have a collection of beliefs that are, strictly speaking, against the law.

Can such beliefs be declared as true and the alternatives false in our preaching?

Can we declare the same thing in our conversations with others?

Can we create institutions and businesses that not only codify these beliefs, but conduct all of their activities in accordance with them? What about Schools? Campsites? Charities?

Can we be fit and proper people to live in society without suffering disapproval or even persecution? To hold qualifications? To teach in schools? To work in corporations and governments?

ACL’s work in the field of religious freedom indicates that the answer is increasingly uncertain.

A Tasmanian pastor is currently fighting a Supreme Court case to preserve his freedom to write blogs on marriage and distribute Christian literature in the street.

A Western Australian couple are fighting for the right to become foster parents after the agency told them it would be “unsafe” to place young children in their care because of their Christian convictions on human sexuality and gender.

A CEO was summarily dismissed for expressing his opinion on the Safe Schools program at work when challenged by a colleague.

Teachers, university academics, students, public servants and professionals across the nation are being placed under suspension, discipline and are even being sacked for their beliefs.

Faith-based schools are being sued by transgender activists because their policies reflect the belief that God made us male and female.

All these and more are cases receiving aid from the ACL.

Without very robust religious freedom protections, Christians are now sitting ducks. Our beliefs are against the law and it will become increasingly obvious with time.

Now is the time to do something about it. The window of opportunity is fading fast.

It is worth noting that Paul and Timothy could do little more than pray. They did not live in a democracy where political action was possible. They couldn’t vote, campaign, speak to their MP, or run for parliament.

But Paul set us an example for action by making the most of the scant opportunities to speak truth to power when they came his way.

The Lord told Ananias concerning Paul that he would speak to kings.

By Acts 23, Paul is speaking to Governor Felix and in Acts 26 he is telling his testimony to King Agrippa. No opportunity was wasted.

God has given us a great gift: the freedom that comes with life under democratic rule.

We live in an age where we can all make representations to our rulers, either directly or through lobbying platforms that unite and amplify our voices like ACL.

If Paul had contemplated the possibility in his time, I am certain he would have told us to both pray and act.

That is why I am asking you to do three things:

Pray for your religious freedom;
Be ready to engage with our religious freedom campaign once the Ruddock Review is publicly released;
Donate to our end of financial year appeal.

Let’s not squander our gift of freedom whilst we still have it.

Israel Folau, heaven and free speech

April 13, 2018April 13, 2018 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

From The Centre For Independent Studies, a defence of free speech in Australia.

Right to speak threatened

Peter Kurti

13 APRIL 2018 | IDEAS@THECENTRE

Enjoy speaking your mind and sharing your views while you can. The rights to freedom of speech, conscience, and religious belief look set to disappear very soon from Australia.

And it will certainly happen if the corporate guardians of public morality have their way following the grilling given to Wallabies superstar Israel Folau who is a devout, conservative Christian.

Falou holds some very traditional Christian beliefs about sin, heaven and hell, and homosexuality. He expressed his view that gay people should repent in this life to avoid being sent to hell.

You can agree or disagree with Izzy. But either way, if Australia is a genuinely free country, he should be free to express his genuinely held religious beliefs.

And if we are a genuinely tolerant country, we will let Izzy say what he thinks even though many of us may strongly disagree with what he says. Remember: tolerating views you agree with is easy.

We often confuse tolerance with ‘respect’. But real tolerance means putting up with the opinions of others that you think are simply wrong — or even abhorrent and repellent.

After all, we clearly expect Izzy to tolerate all the views bluntly expressed by his many critics, including corporate sponsors such as Qantas and ASICS, who accuse him of homophobia, and worse.

Obviously, when he answered the Instagram question, Izzy wasn’t representing the views of Rugby Australia, or ASIC, or Qantas. Only a fool would have failed to see they were his personal views.

Yet now there appears to be a concerted push to silence Izzy and force him to keep his religious beliefs to himself. But why should he keep quiet?

Freedom of speech means sometimes people will say things that others find disagreeable. And if we truly value such freedom, we will stop trying to silence those who offend us.

We are gradually, but inexorably, tipping towards a new kind of totalitarianism where any controversial or awkward opinion is silenced, and all dissent is crushed into submission.

Now is the time to stop this dangerous slide towards tyranny and intolerance. If we delay too long, it will be too late for us, and we will all be muzzled for good.

This is an edited extract of a piece written for the Daily Telegraph.

Gay Marriage Nothing To Do With Freedom of Speech

September 19, 2017 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Bill Muehlenberg: Affirm Traditional Marriage and You Can Lose Your Job for “Hate Speech”

Sep 19, 2017

Let me cut to the quick: if you dare to question the radical homosexual agenda, or if you dare to publicly defend what the institution of marriage has always been about, chances are very good that you can lose your job, be fined, or face other heavy-handed penalties for your views.

All over the West today free speech, religious freedom, and the democratic process itself are under direct attack. And overwhelmingly those stomping on our freedoms are the activists from the homosexual lobby and their many and various supporters.

The way things are going, I really need to write a book featuring all those who lost their jobs for daring to stand up for heterosexual marriage. Oh wait – I already did this. The first chapter of my 2014 book Dangerous Relations features not one, not two, but 165 cases of pink persecution.

They come from a 34-month period (January 2011 to October 2013) and feature just some of the cases of people losing their freedoms, being kicked out of a job, fined, or even jailed – all for the “crime” of insisting on the usual understanding of marriage, and refusing to bow down to the homosexual juggernaut.

And these were certainly not all of the cases that took place during this period. And of course not every case of this kind gets a wide public hearing, as the ones I reported on did. Thus I think it is safe to say that we now have many hundreds – if not thousands – of occurrences of this happening.

Not a day goes by when some poor soul who thought living in a free democratic society meant he could speak out on things that matter – including the historic understanding of marriage – has found himself on the receiving end of rainbow repression.

And in some places things are now this bad, but homosexual marriage has not even been legalised yet. Just imagine how much worse things will get if and when it is! Australia is one such nation, where the rainbow activists have been on a search and destroy mission, targeting anyone who dares to disagree with their radical agenda.

I have heaps of examples of this already documented on my site. Well, it is a new day, so we of course have plenty of new examples to include in this ever-expanding list of victims of the pink mafia. Let me offer just three more of them.

The first involves a small business owner in Canberra who has just fired one of her staff members. Was he caught stealing company goods? Did he seek to molest a customer? Did he trash the joint in a drunken rage? Nope, he did something far, far worse: he actually said he affirms heterosexual marriage.

Yes that is now such an horrific offence that you can lose your job over it. Try telling this guy nothing changes when we seek to redefine marriage. It has not even been legally changed here yet and we already have people losing their jobs! Wakey wakey folks!

The shop owner, Madlin Sims, wrote this on her FB page (I slightly edited one word):

Today I fired a staff member who made it public knowledge that they feel “it’s okay to vote no”.
Advertising your desire to vote no for SSM is, in my eyes, hate speech.
Voting no is homophobic. Advertising your homophobia is hate speech. As a business owner I can’t have somebody who publicly represents my business posting hate speech online.
1. Its bad for business
2. I don’t like sh*t morals
3. I don’t want homophobes working for me, especially in an environment with children.
It’s not okay to vote no. It’s not okay to be homophobic. This isn’t a matter of opinion or even religion. It’s a matter of the love & livelihood of real human beings. Freedom of speech is there for a reason and so are consequences.

Wow, did you get that? To support traditional marriage is “hate speech”! Affirming male-female marriage is “sh*t” morals! If you say marriage is about one man and one woman you are being “homophobic”! And the real howler is this: “It’s a matter of the love & livelihood of real human beings.”

Um yeah, try telling this real human being who just got fired what this love is all about, and how it impacts one’s livelihood! Usually the leftists are the first to scream about unfair dismissals and authoritarian bosses running roughshod over workers’ rights. Um, just where are all these lefties now? As Martyn Iles pointed out:

This woman has sacked a contractor for using an “it’s ok to vote no” frame on Facebook. She has a problem, though…
1) Discrimination Act 1991 (ACT) s13 — “It is unlawful for a principal to discriminate against a contract worker… (b) by not allowing the contract worker to work or continue to work”
2) Discrimination Act 1991 (ACT) s7(1)(o) — “political conviction” is a protected attribute.
It appears that what she has done is plain illegal.

My second case is not much better. One person actually rented a plane to sky write the words “Vote No”. For daring to do that all hell has broken out. They are now after his head, and he is now likely hiding in fear of his life! One news item puts it this way:

The electoral watchdog has received complaints about the “Vote No” skywriting over Sydney on the weekend not being properly authorised. A grassroots campaigner against same-sex marriage commissioned a pilot to write “Vote No””Vote No” in the sky four times on Sunday, a day after the anti same-sex marriage campaign launched nationally.
The skywriting, which was not organised by the key “no” case group Coalition for Marriage, attracted much discussion on social media, and the website from which it was crowdfunded was inundated with comments. The Australian Electoral Commission has received a number of complaints regarding the skywriting.

But get a load of all the love and tolerance he is now getting:

Social media users quickly began circulating the company’s contact information, abusing them for taking on the job. One message said the business owner is an “a***hole”. Another post said it was “probably the end of your business”.
One text message to the business owner read “you really are a sh** human. You’re definitely the biggest piece of sh** in Australia today. Probably tomorrow too. Hope you’re proud of yourself. Don’t be surprised by the hate coming for you. Titt for tatt, it’s only fair, right? You stupid, ignorant, remorseless, pathetic, old, LOSER”.

My final case involves a church that had the audacity to actually affirm two-thousand years of Christian social teaching on this issue:

A billboard outside a Brisbane church has sparked outrage ahead of the same-sex marriage vote. The Bellbowrie Community Church posted the sign: “God designed marriage between a man & a woman”. It was condemned on social media, and critics took to the church’s Facebook page to object.
“Hopefully there are churches in the area that cater to ALL Christians and not just the ones who fit in the narrow minded view of this “Church of God”. I’m sure Christ would be very disappointed in your view of Christianity,” one post said. Others started taking to the church’s review section and posting one-star reviews.
“A closed-minded group which overtly discriminates against members of our valued community and their (very reasonable) quest for marriage equality,” one woman wrote. Cartoons of same sex couples and sailors waving rainbow flags were posted in the comments under unrelated posts by the church.

So let me get this straight: now churches cannot even state publicly what the Christian view of marriage is without the haters and frenzied mobs coming out in force? I repeat: if things are this bad now, can you imagine how much worse things will get if faux marriage is legalised here?

And yet the other side keeps pushing the same old mantra that nothing changes when we change marriage. There will be no negative repercussions, they keep insisting. They are lying through their teeth and they know it. As just one of a kazillion examples, just yesterday lesbian activist and sister of Tony Abbott Christine Forster said the same thing.

She claimed on Sky News that homosexual marriage would have zero impact on free speech. She claimed that “there is nothing about changing same-sex marriage laws to allow same-sex couples to marry that will have any impact whatsoever on people’s ability to speak freely about their religion and their beliefs.”

Sure Christine, sure. Try telling that to the guy who just lost his job, or the skywriter facing the wrath of the militants, of the Queensland church subjected to so much hate and abuse. Try telling them their ability to express their beliefs – whether religious or not – will not be put at risk.

www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/its-not-okay-to-be-homophobic-canberra-contractor-sacked-for-vote-no-facebook-post/news-story/4ed027f47b5810e87036450054a8b6dd
au.news.yahoo.com/a/37132053/same-sex-marriage-no-case-skywriting-triggers-complaints/
www.couriermail.com.au/questnews/southwest/same-sex-marriage-supporters-critical-of-brisbane-church-billboard/news-story/240c1a37342c85ee0d50ecea0e6f2513?nk=6b87ac2934e63127b3027c05d2a15a8e-1505782321

Greens Want To Kill Christianity

May 18, 2016May 18, 2016 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

I don’t know how any christian can vote for the Greens given their anti-christian agenda.

From Andrew Bolt:

The Greens are on the road to declaring Christianity illegal:

The party’s LGBTI policy, announced by sexuality spokesman Robert Simms and gender identity and intersex spokeswomen Janet Rice, also promised the end of religious exemptions in anti-discrimination law…

Vowing to strip the religious exemption from anti-discrimination laws, Senator Simms said the party wanted to stamp out sexuality and gender identity-based discrimination. “Under current anti-discrimination laws, a gay man can be fired from working at a private school and a transgender person can be turned away from a religious homeless shelter,” he said. “We shouldn’t be giving religious organisations a get-out-of-jail-free card and the right to discriminate. Allowing a right to discriminate undermines the effectiveness of these kinds of laws. These exemptions can ruin someone’s life.”

The Greens’ move comes a week after an anti-discrimination complaint against Hobart Archbishop Julian Porteous was dropped. He had been accused of humiliating gay, lesbian and transgender Australians by distributing a booklet on traditional marriage.

And the Greens are meanwhile panicking Labor into restoring a program that effectively demands primary school children consider being gay or of no real gender:

Labor is considering restoring the controversial Safe Schools program after the Greens promised to roll it out fully….

Labor may reverse changes the Coalition made to the program this year amid an outcry over 11-year-olds being asked to role play as gay teenagers.

Labor’s education spokeswoman, Kate Ellis, told The Australian: “We established the Safe Schools program and we think it does incredibly important work.

“In contrast, the Liberals are cutting the program entirely next year…”

Full article here

Human Rights Commission to Consult About Religious Freedom

September 3, 2015 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

I suppose this is, well, needed. But here is the problem- once we consider that human rights are granted by Government then we give them the ability to take rights away.

I wouldn’t trust the Human Rights Commission with my freedom.

From the Bible Society:

National conversation about freedom of religion set for November

NEWS | Tess Holgate

Thursday 3 September 2015

A new roundtable is set to put a spotlight on religious freedom in Australia, intended to spark a discussion that many commentators say is long overdue.

This November will see the Human Rights Commission convene their first religious freedom roundtable, with the aim of “stimulating much needed dialogue on exercising religious freedom in 21^st century Australia,” said Commissioner Tim Wilson in a press release.

“Religious freedom is not only central to human rights, it is inextricable from other fundamental freedoms such as freedom of thought, conscience, speech and association, as well as property rights. But religious freedom cannot be unlimited. It has to be exercised with a respect and mindfulness of the rights of others such as equality before the law and government, and the freedoms of those without faith,” said Wilson.

In a speech for University of Notre Dame last year, Senator George Brandis wrote, “one of the fundamental freedoms of which we have heard far too little when we speak about human rights is the right to religious freedom. In fact, not only has religious freedom been neglected; it has actually been the subject of open attack from those who dominate much of our political discourse.”

In his speech, Senator Brandis explored the connections between the liberal view of society and traditional Christian theology, concluding that the former is a direct product of the latter.

“Religious belief is central to the human condition. Faith provides a means to help people that cannot be explained, even though it might be apprehended. It can also enable us to see ourselves as part of something larger, and thereby free ourselves from our base, everyday selfish concerns. Faith also has a unique ability to provide consolation in the face of life’s vicissitudes and to help us cope with its hardship,” says Senator Brandis.

“The Australia we know today is home to a diversity of faiths, united by tolerance, mutual respect and a commitment to democracy. Australians are free to choose their religion, and are able to practice their beliefs without intimidation and without interference, within the framework of Australian law and any attempt to interfere with that freedom is a profound outrage against our nation.”

Lyle Shelton, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby says the roundtable is a positive move. “Tim Wilson is showing tremendous goodwill in wanting to address issues of religious freedom in Australia. I appreciate his desire to ensure there is religious freedom in this country.”

Shelton says the issue of religious freedom is most pronounced where there is a clash of rights. “Certain rights can come into conflict with the very important right of religious freedom and freedom of conscience. I don’t think we’ve worked out how to adequately address this.”

These competing rights make resolution “very difficult,” says Shelton. “The political debate at the moment is that if you don’t support people’s right to sexual expression, then somehow you are bigoted. While the debate remains framed like that, then it’s going to be very difficult [to find a resolution].

“Until we see a change in the way that this debate is conducted, I think the logical extrapolation is that it’s going to be hard for freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.”

Shelton wants to see a renewed emphasis on human rights as explained in the United Nations charter. “We’ve got to see the principles of the UN applied. That is, that religious freedom and freedom of conscience are a higher right that the right of sexual expression.”

Gordon Preece, director of the Ethos EA Centre for Christianity and Society thinks of it more as a balancing act, saying, “the balancing of religious freedom, which is a fundamental freedom, with things like sexual freedom is really important, and requires a lot of fine tuning.”

Preece is not naïve about the challenges to religious freedom in Australia, suggesting that one of our biggest challenges is figuring out how to make space in a secular society for both those who see religious freedom as an ultimate and fundamental freedom, and those who see sexual freedom as ultimate.

“It’s a big challenge for our society because sexual freedom is seen as an identity issue rather than just a behavioural issue. And then it lays claims on ultimate position. When it does that, that’s when you really get the clash with religious freedom because it will not book any competitors.”

This clash of freedoms is not going to be resolved with one sit-down at a roundtable.

“I think it’s going to be an ongoing conversation, over time. There are some major philosophical and worldview clashes which may not be able to be completely resolved – at the level of worldview – but may be able to be accommodated with compromises that allow for various groups to still have a sense of maintaining their integrity.”

Preece admits that finding and agreeing on such compromises will take a lot of grace and good listening – something that social media, and even mass media is not very good at doing.

“I think it’s important to try and develop non-adversarial forums that are face-to-face and allow the humanity of all parties to come through,” says Preece.

The challenges to religious freedom aren’t stopping any time soon. “In Victoria,” Preece says, “the Greens are proposing a bill that would drop religious exemptions in relationship to employment of practising gays in schools.”

“So [the roundtable discussion] is a good thing, and it’s good that Tim Wilson is proposing it. I think it’s helpful that this is coming to light now.”

The Human Rights Commission is calling for submissions from faith-based and other interest groups. Submissions close September 25.

– See more at: http://www.biblesociety.org.au/news/national-conversation-about-freedom-of-religion-set-for-november?utm_content=bufferb3ea2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#sthash.mMCXSjN3.dpuf

Life Site News: The totalitarianism of same-sex ‘marriage’

February 4, 2015 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

In November of 1996 First Things hosted a symposium titled “The Judicial Usurpation of Politics” in which contributors discussed the threat to American democracy posed by the Supreme Court instated imposition of abortion on America. Nothing rivals the sheer volume of innocent human beings killed by abortion and yet First Things saw fit to focus not on the babies themselves or the mothers and fathers, but on the threat to democracy and the American experiment posed by the judicial over-reach that legalized abortion.

The legalization of same-sex “marriage” does not bring with it the innocent blood which cries to heaven, though it is perhaps the single most audacious social engineering initiative in American history. But the way in which it has been imposed in state after state, as courts have seen fit to ignore ballot initiatives, sets the stage for a United States Supreme Court ruling on par with Roe vs. Wade. The Supreme Court has announced it will rule on same-sex “marriage” in this sitting—exactly ten years after Canada legalized same-sex “marriage.” It is important for Americans to look at what has happened in Canada.

On July 20, 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex “marriage.” On that day the sun rose as it always does, people went to work, daily Mass was celebrated in Catholic Churches and daily life continued to unfold as it normally does. In the days and months following there was no massive spike in the numbers of same-sex couples getting “married” (it had already been legal in 8 of 10 provinces since 2003), the speculated upon possibility of same-sex “marriage” tourism from the United States never really materialized and the Canadian flag was not changed from the maple leaf to the LGBT rainbow. But something very significant happened with the legalization of same-sex “marriage” in Canada and it wasn’t about the freedom of gay people to marry, and it wasn’t really about marriage.

July 20, 2005 marked a very significant step towards totalitarianism in Canada.

Free speech, the rights of parents, the right to preach and practise one’s religion and the worn and tattered fibers of normative decency were all deeply damaged. With the legalization of same-sex “marriage” what had been aberrant only a few years earlier became entrenched as a legal right, and what had been a normal and natural view of sexuality had been reduced to the retrograde thinking of hate crime dinosaurs.

Read the rest here

The End of Science

January 18, 2014 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

When I was younger, I loved science. I think it was because of the amazing knowledge that the disciplined examination of the world produced- quantum physics, chemistry and so on.

But something happened along the way. Sure, chemists kept doing chemistry and physicists kept on producing weirder and weirder insights in to the universe. But science was being hijacked by causes and new “disciplines” sprang up with non-scientific names and practices, usually with words such as environmental, social or sustainable tacked onto the title.

Science became politicised and, with the clmate catastrophe, turned into a religion. Now there are certain things which may not be said, even if they are true. Censored science is anti-science.

So we come to this, from Jo Nova:

Science paper doubts IPCC, so whole journal gets terminated!

…

In extraordinary news, the scientific journal Pattern Recognition in Physics has been unexpectedly terminated, a “drastic decision” taken just ten months after it started.

The publisher appears to be shocked that in a recent special issue the scientists expressed doubt about the accelerated warming predicted by the IPCC. For the crime of not bowing before the sacred tabernacle, apparently the publishers suddenly felt the need to distance themselves, and in the most over-the-top way. The reasons they gave had nothing to do with the data, the logic, and they cite no errors. There can be no mistake, this is about enforcing a permitted line of thought.

I must say, it’s a brilliant (if a tad expensive) way to draw attention to a scientific paper. It’s the Barbara-Streisland moment in science. Forget “withdrawn”, forget “retracted”, the new line in the sand is to write a paper so hot they have to terminate the whole journal! Skeptics could hardly come up with a more electric publicity campaign.

Naturally, as with all good Barbara-Streisland-moves intended to suppress information, as soon as I heard, the first thing I did was to seek out and download copies of all the papers. Right now, people everywhere would be starting to do the same, curious to know what could be so unsayable. (See the links at the bottom).

In the official announcement the excuses are amazingly transparent. There is little attempt to cover up the reasons. The publisher pays the usual lip service saying science needs disputes and discussion of controversial topics. But some things are apparently too awful to contemplate — like pointing out how the high priests of the IPCC might be incorrect.