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My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land – a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America – they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions – that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act – not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions – who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them – that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works – whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day – because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control – and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart – not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort – even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West – know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment – a moment that will define a generation – it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends – hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism – these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence – the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed – why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

“Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Many thinks that money is the root of all evil or the Love of it. But WHAT is the root of MONEY?

Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the “Benefits Receiver” who claim your produce by tears, or of the fraudsters, who take it from you by force or stealth. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what we consider evil?

When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the “Benefits Receiver or the Fraudsters” who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those piece of papers in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor-your claim upon the energy of men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on the  moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what we consider Evil?

Have you ever looked at the root of Production? Take a look at a Motor car and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions – and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the Lazy? Money is made-before it can be frauded or received as benefit-made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he cannot consume more than he has produced.

To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labour that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgement of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their injury, for their gain, not their loss-the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery-that you must offer them values, not wounds-that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men’s stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer,but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade-with reason, not force, as their final arbiter-it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgement and highest ability-and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of the reward. This is the code of existense whose tool and symbol is money, Is this what we consider evil?

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desire. Money is the scourge of the men who attemp to reverse the law of casuality-the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he want: money will not give him a code of values, if he’s evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he’s evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgement, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why we call it evil?

Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth-the man who will make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroy him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why we call it evil?

Money is our means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men’s vices or men’s stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchaser you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you’ll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of our hatred of money?

Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of our hatred of money?

Or do we say it’s the love of money that’s the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It’s the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money-and he has a good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it. The man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respect it has earned it.

Run for your life from any may who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an aproaching fraudster. So long as men live together on earth and need meals to deal with one another-their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun. Money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologise for being rich-will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of fraudsters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve of the guilt-and of his life, as he deserves.

Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard-the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money- the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protct you against them. But when a society establishes criminals by right and looters by law-men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims-then money becomes its creators’avenger. Such fraudster believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their fraud becomes the magnet for other fraudster who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. Then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion-when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permissin from men who produce nothing- when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favours-when you see that man get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws dont protect you against them, but protect them against you-when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice-you may know that society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality.

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standard and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a cheque drawn by legal fraudsters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces marked “Account Overdrawn” (The financial meltdown we are experiencing now)

When you have made evil the mean of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and fraud is rewarded. Do not ask, Who is destroying the world? We are.

We stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why its crumbling around us, while we’re damning its life blood-Money. We look upon money as the savages did before us, and we wonder why the jungles is creeping back to edge of our cities. Throughout men’s history, money was always seized by fraudsters of one brand or another whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of men, which we mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves-slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody’s mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer.  Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted fraudsters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers-as industrialists

Until and unless we discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns-or dollars. Take your choice-there is no other- and our time is running out.

An excerpt from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

No one knows the wonder

Our child awoke in us

Our heart a perfect cradle

To hold its presence

Inside and Outside to become one

As new waves of love

Kept surprising our soul.

Now we sit bereft

Inside a nightmare,

Our eyes numbed

By the sight of a lifeless one

No parent should ever see.

We will wear this absense

Like a secret locket

Always wondering why

Such a new soul

Was taken home so soon.

Let the silent tears flow

And when our eyes clear

Perphaps we will glimpse

How our eternal child

Has become an unseen messenger

who parents our heart

And persuades the earth

To shower new gifts ashore.

He came in the stillness of night.
He grew in the warmth of darkness
And quietly and silently as He came
He went back into the darkness of night.

Those in the light
Waiting for his appearance
Grew weary and sad
Knowing that him whom they look for
Shall not come to enjoy the Light.

Mystery, oh mystery
Where is He? Why has he gone back?
What took place in the dark night of the womb?
Unanswered question shall remain unanswered
Till light dawn and those in the light succumb to the knowledge of darkness.

The Age of Grace had dawned, but mankind was still not ready for it. As great and awesome and wonderful as the Crucifixion was, it only concluded God’s purpose for the previous time period (Age of Law): It didn’t start something new. It wasn’t until the Resurrection that the Tree of Life was made available again to any who were without sin (all sins were paid for, even those not yet committed). It was this Tree, Jesus, which changed the very nature of man, making him a new creature, not a re-newed one.

I got this piece from a blog and it was written by a guy called Ole Gunner. I enjoyed it

5. A club shouldn’t worry about getting its finances right.

This is a really baffling one. Arsenal get a lot of stick for keeping a close eye on making sure incomings are more than outgoings. It’s hard to understand why though.

One would expect anyone who’s made it through teenage years would know the very fundamental wisdom inherent in making sure you stay on top of your finances. Well, truly after the last 8-10 years or so, it seems large numbers of people in industrial societies didn’t learn that lesson but one expects the media to be enlightened.

The criticism of Arsenal often centres on another myth. The myth that football clubs exist only to win trophies. A useless myth if ever their was one.

90% of football clubs will NEVER win anything. The Premier League is a competition which has been won by 4 teams in all its history, but no fewer than 30 clubs have participated in it.

If it were true that football clubs exist solely to win trophies, then the likes of Chelsea would have ceased to exist from 1970 to 1997 in which they won f*ck all.

Football clubs, like most organisations, exist to survive and to continue their business. Football is about competition. Competition means striving to get the best performance given your resources.

Sport might be about winners and losers, but above all, sport is about competition. 99% of the people who enter into the Tour de France have no chance of winning, but they sure do compete. Tennis is a sport where 99% of players will also never win a grand slam but they compete, and have fulfilling careers.

It is really very perverse that Arsenal get so much stick for trying to do the right thing. Life is about values, and even business valuations depend on values. The rules of the game.

If the media and the football culture value spending (to win trophies) more than competition within resources, it’s no wonder that most sports have become riddled with cheats, dopers, and morons. That’s why boxing is dead. That’s why athletics has lost its credibility. That’s why deep down we all know our football culture is stagnating or decaying.

The likes of Chelsea, Manchester United & Liverpool are more at risk at Arsenal. They are more in crisis fundamentally than Arsenal. They are praised no end, for their ‘pragmatism’ while Arsenal is the quaint old club that’s lost its way. Perverse is the one word that explains this.

4. Injuries can hurt other teams but never Arsenal.

This is a rather amusing one. Jose Mourinho, the media’s masturbatory god, threw a strop in December 2006 after John Terry’s injury derailed Chelsea’s season. He wanted a new player signed in the January window. The owner refused, and he claimed they lost the league for this reason.

The media accepted this narrative. Even more, I can’t count how many times we’ve been told about how well Chelsea were doing despite big injuries. (A statement that acknowledges that injuries would accept teams). Since their form changed, pundits keep talking about them missing Essien, Drogba, and Carvalho.

Real Madrid were in outstanding form last season. They simply overwhelmed Barcelona and the rest of La Liga. Well, this season they have numerous injuries, and they’re in 5th place. Real Madrid, with a squad packed full of expensive big names.

The team, however, that can never be affected by injuries is Arsenal. Just mentioning the impact of injuries on Arsenal in any way is making excuses. The reason is that it has been decided, that Arsenal have no “strength in depth”. And if you have no strength in depth it does not matter if you’re hit by injuries or not.

Look, as a fan I am sick of our struggle with injury. Is it an issue that Wenger has to find a way to deal with? ABSOLUTELY! But you can’t pretend it doesn’t affect the club.

3. Arsenal are always in crisis.

It was surprising to see a strong outpouring of criticism of this article by Kevin McCarra in the Guardian yesterday.

Apparently, Arsenal fans have simply become sick of reading the same unending story of Arsenal crisis. Every situation bodes badly for Arsenal.

You only have to wonder, reading the media and listening to pundits for 6-7 years now, why Arsenal has continued to prosper.

Every season, right from the Overmars-Petit exodus, every exit has been the signal of impending doom for that little French club in North London.

Every Red Card for Paddy Vieira was the sign of something deeply wrong about Arsenal.

In this era, it’s the impending exit of Cesc Fabregas who’s now been equated to Arsenal Football Club.

The number of articles saying exactly the same thing as McCarra’s is quite a lot and you wonder why Arsenal continue to even exist.

Seriously, if you read the newspapers you would think Arsenal are in relegation zone.

To be fair, lately, boardroom worries have left the notion that something might be about to unravel. But some of us have heard of impending doom so often that even that seems trivial.

2. Arsenal players have no quality

This one is related to Myth 4. Here are the facts: Here is Arsenal’s line up with all players fit.

Almunia
Sagna Toure Gallas Clichy
Rosicky Denilson Fabregas Nasri
Adebayor Van Persie Bench: Walcott, Eduardo, Silvestre, Fabianski, Djourou, Diaby, Vela

If that’s not a quality side, I want to see one.

I am just tired about hearing about how Arsenal don’t have quality and all that crap. The core of the side is pure quality and I have to think we’re the only top 4 side that hasn’t had this core fit for one whole year.

Arsenal fans might argue about what needs to be added. Improvements have to be constant and continuous. The squad is not perfect by any means. Bodies are needed given the injury situation.

It is however wrong to forget the basic fact that we actually have a core of players who, kept fit are good enough to win titles.

We have a squad that despite a particularly difficult set of circumstances; the disappointment of falling away last season, the loss of important players, injuries, a hostile footballing environment, discord within the squad….despite it all we’re 8 points away from the leaders at Christmas time.

When one really thinks of it, that’s amazing! Our squad can’t be crap and still be up there. It’s just not possible. People had better recognise this.

1. Wenger has lost it

Far be it from me to think I can defend Arsene Wenger. Wenger’s record defends Wenger.

Even in the famous last three seasons since we last won a trophy here are his results;

1. Champions League Final.

2. Topping the table and looking the part for 3/4 of a season until rather extreme circumstances derailed all that. Even after the loss of the club’s greatest every player who the team had been built around.
3. Carling Cup Final with a team of kids.

I want to know how many managers in the League have done better than that in the same period.

By the way, why don’t I hear unending stories about how Liverpool haven’t won a trophy since 2005? Unless I am missing something, the last time Liverpool won a trophy is 2006. I am looking forward to hearing unending references to this fact.

Anyway, Wenger hasn’t lost it by any means. He is getting a lot of stick for not recruiting players and not replacing the invincibles. However, unless I am missing something, here are the players he has acquired since 2004/05; Gallas, Sagna, Eduardo, Rosicky, Diarra, Adebayor, Diaby, Walcott, Denilson, Nasri, Hleb, Eboue…etc etc. I am unaware of anyone putting a gun to his head to make him acquire those players.

Seriously, Wenger has constantly fortified his squad.

I know that the criticism is that he did not buy last summer. Like most fans, I was very disappointed we didn’t get direct replacements, if only to quicken the heart of the squad, and please the fans.

Deep down, however, I find it hard to believe he didn’t try. Even when we had the invincibles Wenger bought every year. Even when we had Gilberto, Flamini, Diaby, Cesc, Song in central midfield, he still went out and got Diarra. It would be completely out of type for him to not buy, and he did buy.

I think what happened was that he was focused on trying to keep the squad, and not lose his players, and the Adebayor, Hleb situations (and others we might not know about) took his time and focus,

I see the criticism of Wenger for letting Diarra go and I am incredulous. His move to Real Madrid is supposed to reflect badly on Wenger. If anything it does the opposite. Wenger got this player for £2M. His apparent valuation is €20M. If that’s the case it just underlines the rank folly of persecuting Wenger for not spending big.

The mark of Wenger’s true greatness is being willing and confident enough to start again from scratch when he was at the top. This was inevitable anyway. Even Real Madrid had to do it after the Galacticos. AC Milan are having to do it now.

Arsenal’s football and style of playing as much as quality players is a strength. The reason clubs go crazy, and treat playing Arsenal like a crusade is that Arsenal’s way of playing can tear teams apart. it is effective.

A lot of recent problems this season has had to do with not finding a way to play as Arsenal do. The team has been unrecognisable due to a serious lack of confidence within the squad.

It’s hard not to admire a man able to swim against the tide and go against the mob. Balls! That’s what he’s got.

In the final analysis, everything that has made Wenger great is still in action.

He works harder than ever.

He knows better than ever about football.

He is as able as ever to pull out quality players at a premium.

Arsenal’s football is still effective.

He is still a brilliant man manager.

He is still a man of deep character.

He is still a brilliant manager of the team’s operations and organisation.

He is still a winner.

To me, anyone who wants to throw away the best Manager in the world, doesn’t want the best for Arsenal. Pure and simple.

And yes, Arsene Knows. And I am a Brigadier for that cause.

If a man looks upon the Scripture as merely a historical narratives and laws that pertains to everyday matters, What a foolish mind that will be!!!!!!! Such a book, one treating with every day concerns and indeed a more excellent one, we too, even we, ordinary humans humans can compile. Read “the Republic” of Plato or “the Utopia” of Thomas Moore, these are works that dealt with every day matters and were excellent.

So the tales and stories related in Scripture are simple outer clothing, and woe to the man who regards the written word as the true inspired scripture, for such a one will be deprived of experiencing the power and realities of the ages to come. How wonderful when the Psalmist said “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of  your law.” Psalms 119: 18

The most visible part of a man are the clothes that He has on, and they who lack understanding, when they look at the man, are apt not to see more in him than these clothes. In Reality, however, it is the body of the man that constitutes the pride of his clothes, and his soul constitutes the pride of his body.

The Truly wise, those who serve and travel with the King and stands on Mount Zion, pierce all the way to the soul, to the true law written by the ink of the spirit which is the root principle of all things. These same will in the future be permitted to  the uttermost soul which is the spirit of God that permeates all things