Some religious people believe that serious illnesses such as cancer do not require medical treatment, and can be cured by the power of prayer alone. Sceptics may chuckle, but there is a scientific basis for this kind of thinking. It's called natural selection.

Well, the kids are making me sigh again.  I know that I am grateful that I have them and I know that I am glad that they are so well behaved, most of the time that is.  Most of the time, they get on so well, but recently, they have just been causing each other friction more often than normal.

I know that this is normal but there are times that it drives me mad.  Let alone my poor wife who has to put up with this more than I do.  I also have a lot of sympathy for my mother as I was far worse to my brothers than they are to each other.  Though I know it is wrong, I still smile every time I think of the time I got the cat to run up my brothers leg.  Okay, it was a kitten when I was playing with a bit of string, my brother came into the room wearing jeans and I ran the string up his leg.  The kitten got the string and my brother did not speak to me for two days.  So really, my two are angels compared to what I got up to.

The highlights recently though have included the time my daughter was in a bad mood and shouted down the stairs and my son called her Mrs Wolowitz.  Though to be fair, she did sound like her when she screamed down the stairs.  The kids do love watching The Big Bang Theory and my wife got us a box set of them (missing series seven for the readers) though some of the episodes are certainly not child friendly!  They are making progress with swimming, my son has joined the Beavers, by daughter is loving being a Brownie and she has just started to play hockey.  Anyway, we are now going to watch television as we have to catch up on the X-Factor but more importantly Strictly Come Dancing!

Man Utd...LOL

It has been a good weekend for football from my perspective.  We won, ManUre lost, Chelski and 5hitty drew and of course, the Scum lost again.  What has been more interesting is the way people seem to think that racism on the internet is acceptable.  Balotelli made a tweet, one which many across the nation will agree with, and some idiots think that it is acceptable to post racist abuse about him.  And let us face it, for those who do not like ManUre, for them to throw away a two goal lead and despite leading by three goals to one, to lose 5-3 is funny, very funny.

So, Welbeck scored, as did Ozil.  Both great players and hopefully, our fans will continue to trust in Arsène. Of course, I also hope we win the league, the league cup, the FA cup and the European cup, but I can dream.  Just as I will dream that we live in a world where racism is less prevalent.

I was trying to watch Manchester United in the Champions League this week. Oh wait.

Not that I can really talk with the way that Arsenal were destroyed in the league in the week.  I am of course hoping that we beat Aston Villa today.

My son last week was asked by me to practice some handwriting.  We got into an argument about what he should write, so I told him to write some lines.  He was not happy and added his own words to it.  It did make me smile.

What's the difference between terrorism and democracy? Whether the United States is attacking or being attacked

Sorry about the title, as to be fair, the evils of the world are not the fault of the USA.  And also, the way that the west says it wants democracy and does not act to support it also has not been the fault of the USA.  I am just a bit biased against the USA on the issue of terrorism due to the way the US allowed funds to be collected there when the IRA was conducting a terror campaign in the UK in the past to kill innocent people.  This post is about why some Muslims do not think that we, in the west, are really in favour of democracy.

This post is not to excuse the barbaric murder of David Haines a person who had gone to Syria to help those who were in need, by the Unislamic State, nor the other acts that extremists have engaged in, but to explain some of the reasons that such evil twisted people justify what they do.

Most of us in the west, love living in a democracy.  Despite the views of the EDL and other extremists, this love and respect for democracy includes Muslims living here as well as in other nations as well.  The problem is that many of us are not aware of how the actions of government agencies in the west have undermined democracy in the across the world.  And here are a few examples.

March 1949 Syrian coup d'état - elected Syrian President overthrown in a coup backed by the CIA
1953 Operation Ajax - overthrow of elected Iranian leader by the UK and the USA over oil to instal the Shah
1954 Guatemalan coup d'état - Operation PBSUCCESS where the CIA was involved in the overthrow of an elected government to instal a dictator
1964 Brazilian coup d'état - overthrow of a democratic system to a dictatorship which was then supported by the US
1973 Chilean coup d'état - overthrow of a democratic government, installation of a dictator who was supported by the US and the UK
1976 Argentine coup d'état - a coup that the US knew was planned before of and did nothing to stop allowing human rights abuses to take place supporting the government rather than working for democracy
1979 South Korea - continued support by the west for South Korea after a military coup overthrew a democratic government
1980 Turkish coup d'état - overthrow of a democratic government by the US backed military
1983 Supporting Saddam - the west helped Saddam despite his use of chemical weapons
1984 Rejection of elections in Nicaragua - despite internationally recognised elections, the US supported the right wing terrorists, the Contra's 
1991 Gulf war - installation of Sheikh Jaber III as unelected ruler of Kuwait after its liberation from Iraq
1999 Pakistan - support for the military dictatorship in Pakistan (though this was mainly after the attacks of 2001)
2007 Gaza - Support to overthrown a democratic government in Gaza as it is not in keeping with the ideals of the west
2009 Afghanistan - continued (though admittedly reluctant) support for Afghanistan after electoral fraud returned the president.
2009 Palestine - support for Mahmoud Abbas continues after his democratic mandate expires with no new elections
2011 Bahrain - continued support for an unelected leader despite wide spread protests being put down with violence when those protests are supported in other nations
2013 Egypt - support for the military as they overthrew a democratic government though hopefully, free and fair elections will happen this year

There have been times when the excuse for backing one regime or another was that it was, over all, the least worse option due to the fight against communism etc, the most recent example being in Egypt.  But, when you look at the examples, it does not look that we really do support democracy.  The terrorists in the Middle East are wrong to do what they do.  Terrorists who use a perverted interpretation of Islam forget that Muslims do make a difference with democracy in the west.  But we in the west need to do more to show all faiths and political views in the world that we really do respect democracy.