Hypocritical Canada attacks Sri Lanka

Canada has no right to criticise Sri Lanka for its record on human rights when Ottawa's repudiation of Kyoto is condemning states in the Pacific to annihilation as they sink beneath the rising sea water. Canada's refusal to help combat climate change makes her complicit in driving Bangladeshis from homes, threatened by the rising water; in the melting of the Arctic ice ; and in desertification in Europe and Africa. Yes, Sri Lanka has much to answer for but Canada has no right to criticise while she betrays many of the worlds most vulnerable people.

Sun at last!

Isn't it remarkable that, however urban we become, we are still creatures of the weather. After the long, cold, wet winter the sun has brought a new spring to our steps. There's nothing virtual about the weather - its influence is still direct and real and reaches even into the most dismal city street.

Teachers want to teach walking instead of reading, writing, maths, and religion

The Teachers Unions completed their disastrous conferences wingeing and blaming everybody else. When questioned about his objections to Mr Gove's determination to teach fundamentals, the deputy secretary of the ATL told the Guardian that children should have lessons in walking! Evidently being literate or numerate is much less important than knowing the difference between strolling and walking fast. Heaven help our children!

The rich and famous are braced for more revelations

Next week the Guardian and Le Monde will reveal more names of tax dodgers. Already the information is shaking the French government where top Socialists who have been inveighing against tax evasion have been caught with off shore bank accounts. Hypocrisy is specially hateful. Paying your fair whack towards the state's cost is a Christian as well as a social duty. However, sensible societies do not demand so much of a person's income that he sees no point in working. Get much above 40% and you begin to stifle enterprise and reduce the tax take. Evasion is never justified but governments that overdo their demands can't be surprised if people up sticks and move elsewhere. Hence 200,000 French people in England!

Second Coldest March ever recorded

Last year we were walking round the garden with a glass of wine inspecting the daffodils in full bloom. This year we scuttle to and fro to pull the baby leeks and cut the miraculously surviving salad leaves. Yesterday's sun cheered us. Today we're back in the gloom of days when the sky and the road are much the same colour. Thank God for Easter. The glory shines through the darkest of days.

Setting one Pope against another

The supertrads are busy creating division by suggesting a dichotomy between the teaching of Pope Benedict and that of his successor. Yet they ought to be the first to support and obey the successor of St Peter. Catholics are not called to believe what they think the Holy Father should teach, they are called to accept his authority even if they would have preferred someone who only washed the feet of men. That's not what the Holy Spirit gave them and they, of all people, should stop whinging and buckle down to it. The Faith remains constant, its presentation changes. Those who get hung up on the accidence of change miss the substance of continuity. Those who try to drive division substitute personal opinion for the teaching of the Church. It's surprising how close to Protestantism the supertrads get.

An unpleasant blog from John Smeaton

He attacks those who disagree with him as "time-serving politicians". Not a Christan way of approaching an argument. It must be very hard if you are a practicing Catholic or Anglican who genuinely believes that, in a secular society, same sex marriage is a secular right even though it is unacceptable as a religious rite. I don't doubt Mr Smeaton's sincerity but he really must not accuse others of bad faith. Particularly as he allows no answer to his allegations on his blog which does not provide for comment. I am a wholehearted believer in the infallibility of the Pope but the doctrine does not extend to Mr Smeaton.