Kept Out!

Back in December it was reported that the pastor of a Florida church with less than forty members and who had caused widespread contoversy by threatening to burn the Koran on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks had been invited to speak at an English Defence League rally in February.

I commented then that we had enough home-grown extremists of our own and that we didn’t need to invite any more into the country to stir things up. As it happened, the original invitation was withdrawn though another group, England Is Ours, popped up to issue an invitation for the man to speak at a rally next month.

Commonsense has been applied by the Home Office and the pastor has now been banned from entering Britain on the grounds that ‘Coming to the UK is a privilege not a right and we are not willing to allow entry to those whose presence is not conducive to the public good.’ That is absolutely right.

It is reported that the pastor is now promoting an ‘International Judge the Koran Day’ on March 20, which he said would put the Koran ‘on trial’.

Let’s hope he keeps this nonsense and the untold trouble it is likely to cause well at home in his own backyard of Gainesville, Florida.
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Change Of Mind

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The so-called pastor of a small church in Florida has bowed to world-wide condemnation and announced that he will not be burning copies of the Koran today.

What surprises me most about this whole affair is why he was not immediately arrested on charges of inciting racial hatred and jailed pending trial.

That would have kept him safely out of the way today!
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Next Time It Could Be A Child!

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Burmese pythons, once kept as pets and released into the wild when they get too big for their owners to manage are now a major problem in Florida’s Everglades. Some experts are now licensed to hunt and kill the creatures, native to Asia, which have flourished in Florida’s warm, moist climate and which are now threatening some of the area’s own endangered species by eating them.

Not interested in this? Too far away? Not a bit of it, for stories about these dangerous creatures keep popping up in our own country almost every year.

In 2003, a Sheffield family were said to be ‘overjoyed’ when their 11 ft Burmese python was found safe and well after it was found in nearby allotments after having been missing for two weeks. The following year a Burmese python attacked a collie in a sports field in Kent; fortunately, the dog escaped with just the loss of one eye, but the snake was never found. The next year a 12 ft Burmese python was found dumped in a Lancashire wood, and in 2007 a 9 ft Burmese python was found abandoned by the roadside.

Just last month, a cat named Wilbur was crushed and eaten by a 13 ft Burmese python kept as a pet by a Bristol man in his garden. While the cat’s screams were heard but the deed not actually witnessed, it seems that the moggie's microchip was scanned inside the python.

While the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976 has many restrictions, it doesn’t include constrictor snakes. It should do, for next time it could be a child.
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