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October 31 is All Hallows Eve. Over the years it has been corrupted into Halloween. The Church of England Diocese of Manchester is promoting a campaign called Halloween Choice. It's not intended to eliminate all the gruesome "fun" of Halloween, but rather to promote the positive and Christian aspects of All Hallows Eve and lobbies retail outlets to provide more diversity in their marketing.

halloweenchoice.org has more information. I think it would be nice to see this campaign taken up by the church in other areas, including Australia.

The report by Sir Nicholas Stern on the projected impact of climate change is out, as we all know by now. It is available in full from the British Treasury web site.

I'm flagging it now till I read the 27-page executive summary and then make some comments based upon that.

"Gov [Mitt Romney, R-MA] would like to have Rick Eyre join that meeting as a source of names throughout the country, which is probably a pretty good call."

- Romney's Salt Lake City political consultant Don Stirling, from an email reported in the Boston Globe of 22.10.06

" A Dallas Cowboys coach, his wife and the family's nanny have sued a McDonald's [NYSE:MCD] owner, alleging they found a dead rat in a salad purchased at a Southlake restaurant."
- Dallas Morning News, 27.10.06

Papa John's Pizza [NASDAQ:PZZA] are the fast-food sponsors of the Dallas Cowboys, who are 3-3 so far this season and play the Carolina Panthers this Sunday night.

It's not just Sydney's Islamic and Anglican clerics who have been shooting themselves in the foot lately, as rabbis from the Sydney Beth Din demonstrate that orthodox Judaism can do daft things as well.

The Australian Jewish News takes up the story. (And I'll have a lot more to say about the Anglican Synod at another time.)

"Perhaps in the eyes of those who cling to the myth that everything Aboriginal is beyond criticism, naming a 22ha prime port precinct after such a pitiless termagant is a form of retribution for real or imagined wrongs committed by white colonists, but a better role model could have been chosen."
- Piers Akerman, "Hullabaloo about Barangaroo", Sunday Telegraph, 22.10.06

The Baptist church campus ministry at the University of Louisville, Kentucky has begun conducting evangelical sports events with the university's cricket-playing students from India.

The Baptist Press takes up the story, which doesn't make it totally clear whether the evangelism is aimed at converting the Indians to Christianity, or to baseball. (Or indeed, both.)

Mrs Madonna Ritchie, 48, of Marylebone has been copping a lot of flak this week, what with "adopting" a Malawian child and transplanting him to a foreign society. Is that what the American Family Association is worried about? Nope:

AFA helps force NBC to cancel scene mocking crucifixion of Christ

AFA supporters have won a great victory! The efforts of AFA Online supporters has forced NBC to cancel a scene in the upcoming Madonna special in which she mocks the crucifixion of Christ!

More than 750,000 AFA supporters emailed NBC asking for the scene to be deleted from the special which is scheduled to air in November. NBC saw a potential loss of $25,000,000 and decided to edit out the scene.