My thanks to Kapgaf yesterday for stepping into the breach.
Given all the recent posts containing material regarding faith, evolution and creation, for the benefit of newcomers I though it about time I reiterated my credentials on these weighty philosophical matters.
Firstly, I’m a Reverend – in fact a Hierophant within the Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic. Here’s the proof. I chose the title myself – quite shi-shi, ain’t it? The buggers wouldn’t let me become a Grand Hierophant of the Order of the Black & White Eagle.
Secondly I have an MA from the IUN (International University of Nescience). Again, here’s the proof. I had to get that before they’d ordain me as a Hierophant.
IUN Experimental Theology Laboratory
One of the many IUN Religion & Alcohol research facilities
Demonstrators have been protesting for two full days in London while the G20 summit has been taking place. I can’t understand how they get the time to protest - don’t these people have DSS offices to visit or Community Service Orders to serve? I’m not 100% sure what they’re protesting about, as they’ll still get their social security cheques from we taxpayers regardless of whether the world’s economies go into meltdown or not.
I’m violently pacifist, but when I see the way some of the protesters goaded the police, I wish I was in the police ranks with a riot shield in one paw and a truncheon in the other. Purely in self-defence, I hasten to add. I’m all for peaceful protest, but peaceful scribbling of graffiti on walls and peacefully breaking into the Royal Bank of Scotland offices in order to liberate some sterling and hopefully lynch a few bankers is taking peacefulness to extremes.
Even the Salvation Army sent an expeditionary force to the demonstrations. I’m sure I saw a number of people in the crowds wearing balaclavas and combat jackets – must be from SACU, the Salvation Army Commando Unit.
The Stop The War Coalition was also there, but I’m sure I saw some scuffles between a couple of the factions that comprise the coalition.
There was even a contingent from the British Muslim Initiative. Have a look at their website and you’ll see load of stuff about protesting for the cessation of Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, but hardly a word of condemnation of recent Islamist terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Iraq or India. Where terrorism is mentioned, it’s used in order to justify wallowing in victimhood. Utterly incomprehensible (or is it?).
There’s a group calling themselves G20 Meltdown. Their aims are to persuade governments to:
1. Oust bankers from power
2. Get rid of corrupt politicians
3. Guarantee of job, home, future for everyone
4. Become patriots of the planet, not countries
5. Stop climate chaos
6. Make capitalism history
Looks suspiciously like a communist manifesto to me, but even communism didn’t get rid of corrupt politicians and communism is incompatible with stopping climate chaos. Communism certainly provides a job and a home for everyone, but not a future, unless you happen to be a corrupt politician. However, serried ranks of grey and featureless broom cupboards shared with 3 or 4 other families generally tend to be woefully lacking in privacy – and you want a bit of privacy before you trudge off through the smog to your wonderful job in the local tractor factory collective to build shoddy shite that no bugger in his right mind would ever want to buy and get paid in bags of potatoes.
Could this G20 thing be an April Fool joke?
Here’s a story about statistics. According to the Nationwide Building Society House prices rose in March for the first time since October 2007. Property prices apparently increased by 0.9% compared with the previous month. Now when you can’t get rid of a house for love nor money, even if you throw your wife and kids in with the deal, and when it’s easier to get your MP to declare his expenses than get yourself a mortgage, the sample from which the statistics are taken obviously falls to a mere fraction of the pre-slump cohort. When you get a very small cohort, small variations tend to produce massive and unrepresentative statistical effects, which is what I suspect is happening here. All you need is some footballer to sell his palace to another footballer (who can’t even add 2+2) for a few million more than he would have gotten last month and suddenly the media reports that the housing market is overheating. Methinks it’s actually the kind of bounce you get on the very top step when you roll a rubber ball down a staircase.
This is a bit of an old story, but Labour MP, Ann Cryer, had been criticised for calling for a public debate on the genetic risks of first-cousin marriages among British people of Pakistani origin. Why should she be criticized when we all know of the harm of inbreeding? You only have to look at the hideous deformities and rampant levels of psychotic behaviour within the British and European royal families to see that marrying your cousin is not something to be considered lightly.
London mayor and illegitimate descendant of George II, Boris Johnson, walked out of a House of Commons Transport Select Committee inquiry after criticism of the travel chaos which followed heavy snowfall on the 2nd of February. MPs are now looking to blame Boris and his policies for Jade Goody’s death, the recent Taliban attack on a police training centre in Lahore, the 1,000 redundancies at Bombardier in Northern Ireland and the global financial crisis. I’m sure, if they try really hard, they could also blame him for the wobble in the Earth’s orbit.
Breaking news: Martha Carney, reporting for Woman’s Hour, has learned that the G20 summit has announced that they will abolish money as part of a radical plan to combat the global financial crisis. In future, we’ll all have to use cars as a medium of exchange.
A trillion dollars! Which trillion though? I learned my numbers before 1974. I'll bet Cameron is spitting feathers now that Gordon Brown has saved the universe.
Hay had a go at me last night for not flossing between my teeth. Told her it’s pointless when you can fit a toothbrush between the few remaining teeth.
I found out yesterday that while you can divert calls to another mobile, you can’t divert text messages. Inexplicable. I always though that diverting data calls diverted texts, but obviously texts are not data. It’s somewhat counter-intuitive, but if texts are not data, then what the hell are they?
Given all the recent posts containing material regarding faith, evolution and creation, for the benefit of newcomers I though it about time I reiterated my credentials on these weighty philosophical matters.
Firstly, I’m a Reverend – in fact a Hierophant within the Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic. Here’s the proof. I chose the title myself – quite shi-shi, ain’t it? The buggers wouldn’t let me become a Grand Hierophant of the Order of the Black & White Eagle.
Secondly I have an MA from the IUN (International University of Nescience). Again, here’s the proof. I had to get that before they’d ordain me as a Hierophant.
IUN Experimental Theology Laboratory
One of the many IUN Religion & Alcohol research facilitiesDemonstrators have been protesting for two full days in London while the G20 summit has been taking place. I can’t understand how they get the time to protest - don’t these people have DSS offices to visit or Community Service Orders to serve? I’m not 100% sure what they’re protesting about, as they’ll still get their social security cheques from we taxpayers regardless of whether the world’s economies go into meltdown or not.
I’m violently pacifist, but when I see the way some of the protesters goaded the police, I wish I was in the police ranks with a riot shield in one paw and a truncheon in the other. Purely in self-defence, I hasten to add. I’m all for peaceful protest, but peaceful scribbling of graffiti on walls and peacefully breaking into the Royal Bank of Scotland offices in order to liberate some sterling and hopefully lynch a few bankers is taking peacefulness to extremes.
Even the Salvation Army sent an expeditionary force to the demonstrations. I’m sure I saw a number of people in the crowds wearing balaclavas and combat jackets – must be from SACU, the Salvation Army Commando Unit.
The Stop The War Coalition was also there, but I’m sure I saw some scuffles between a couple of the factions that comprise the coalition.
There was even a contingent from the British Muslim Initiative. Have a look at their website and you’ll see load of stuff about protesting for the cessation of Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, but hardly a word of condemnation of recent Islamist terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Iraq or India. Where terrorism is mentioned, it’s used in order to justify wallowing in victimhood. Utterly incomprehensible (or is it?).
There’s a group calling themselves G20 Meltdown. Their aims are to persuade governments to:
1. Oust bankers from power
2. Get rid of corrupt politicians
3. Guarantee of job, home, future for everyone
4. Become patriots of the planet, not countries
5. Stop climate chaos
6. Make capitalism history
Looks suspiciously like a communist manifesto to me, but even communism didn’t get rid of corrupt politicians and communism is incompatible with stopping climate chaos. Communism certainly provides a job and a home for everyone, but not a future, unless you happen to be a corrupt politician. However, serried ranks of grey and featureless broom cupboards shared with 3 or 4 other families generally tend to be woefully lacking in privacy – and you want a bit of privacy before you trudge off through the smog to your wonderful job in the local tractor factory collective to build shoddy shite that no bugger in his right mind would ever want to buy and get paid in bags of potatoes.
Could this G20 thing be an April Fool joke?
Here’s a story about statistics. According to the Nationwide Building Society House prices rose in March for the first time since October 2007. Property prices apparently increased by 0.9% compared with the previous month. Now when you can’t get rid of a house for love nor money, even if you throw your wife and kids in with the deal, and when it’s easier to get your MP to declare his expenses than get yourself a mortgage, the sample from which the statistics are taken obviously falls to a mere fraction of the pre-slump cohort. When you get a very small cohort, small variations tend to produce massive and unrepresentative statistical effects, which is what I suspect is happening here. All you need is some footballer to sell his palace to another footballer (who can’t even add 2+2) for a few million more than he would have gotten last month and suddenly the media reports that the housing market is overheating. Methinks it’s actually the kind of bounce you get on the very top step when you roll a rubber ball down a staircase.
This is a bit of an old story, but Labour MP, Ann Cryer, had been criticised for calling for a public debate on the genetic risks of first-cousin marriages among British people of Pakistani origin. Why should she be criticized when we all know of the harm of inbreeding? You only have to look at the hideous deformities and rampant levels of psychotic behaviour within the British and European royal families to see that marrying your cousin is not something to be considered lightly.
London mayor and illegitimate descendant of George II, Boris Johnson, walked out of a House of Commons Transport Select Committee inquiry after criticism of the travel chaos which followed heavy snowfall on the 2nd of February. MPs are now looking to blame Boris and his policies for Jade Goody’s death, the recent Taliban attack on a police training centre in Lahore, the 1,000 redundancies at Bombardier in Northern Ireland and the global financial crisis. I’m sure, if they try really hard, they could also blame him for the wobble in the Earth’s orbit.
Breaking news: Martha Carney, reporting for Woman’s Hour, has learned that the G20 summit has announced that they will abolish money as part of a radical plan to combat the global financial crisis. In future, we’ll all have to use cars as a medium of exchange.
A trillion dollars! Which trillion though? I learned my numbers before 1974. I'll bet Cameron is spitting feathers now that Gordon Brown has saved the universe.
Hay had a go at me last night for not flossing between my teeth. Told her it’s pointless when you can fit a toothbrush between the few remaining teeth.
I found out yesterday that while you can divert calls to another mobile, you can’t divert text messages. Inexplicable. I always though that diverting data calls diverted texts, but obviously texts are not data. It’s somewhat counter-intuitive, but if texts are not data, then what the hell are they?
24 comments:
Me, into the breach ? Guess that’s the quintessential me (it’s a joke, if you get it, postcards please).
Think I’ll enrol for an Adequacy Degree and work my way up. The IUN & Alcohol research facilities in my country of residence are few and far between so I’m afraid that worship is going to be a bit sporadic.
The Salvation Army going commando ? Musht be shum mishtake. But if they need some gendarmes to help, we could probably send them some. They’re packed in boxes of 150.
Yes, it does look like the communist manifesto but I don’t think that Stalinism or a totalitarian state (or the French communist party of today) have anything to do with communism. Is capitalism better ? In France, there are more than 70 000 people who don’t even have a grey and featureless broom cupboard, although there are insalubrious buildings into which 20-30 families can be crammed. In the world, there are approximately 30,000 children who die from starvation every day. We have the means to produce food that would enable every one to eat. The reasons that we don’t ensure that people eat are purely economical. http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm
Trillion, schmillion, just bung on a few more 0’s. Is it just me or does anyone else find that after all the billions bandied about in this financial crisis, a few millions seems like very small potatoes ?
Gordon Brown did NOT save the universe (see yesterday’s post).
Good for Hay ! Floss away.
According to the kapgaf church of the indifferent techknowledgeable, text messages are an abomination.
Kapgaf: If 30,000 children are dying of starvation every day, why the hell do people keep having more? Before you answer, I think I know - insurance against old age.
Give a hungry man food, and he's your slave forever; give him a fishing rod and he's self sufficient.
Even better, make sure that he has the means to do so and teach him how to make his own rod, providing of course that all the fish haven't been bought up by a huge conglomerate to be sold in another country ...
Actually, do fish still exsist anywhere? Not sure about where you live, but our fishing fleet comprises about 3 boats which are allowed out only on a blue moon.
Course they don't, the French go fishing in other people's ponds.
OK, I'm off for a power lunch (don't do power breakfasts - can't handle croissants, coffee and the nitty gritty of international shenanigans simultaneously).
There were protesters outside of the Air Force base here. It was more of an inconvenience than anything because I had to use the back gate (because they forced the military to close the front one because the protesters kept trying to run onto the base) and it took me 30 min to get from the commissary on base to the back gate which normally takes me 2 min. I had frozen food in the back of the car. I was not a happy camper. Mind you I think they are perfectly within their rights to protest, but trying to run on base, that is just stupid. Hello? Armed guards.
Population is the elephant in the room - no-one dares mention it of course - but it is over population that is the root cause of most of the worlds ills - We desperately need a sustained education policy that dissuades people from having more than 50% of a child per person and a benefits system that penalises any one with more than that - And for those who just must have more than one child per couple perhaps some form of futures market?
I'm saying 50% of a child per human so we can reduce the population fast.
In Elizabethan times the population of England, Wales and Scotland was between 10 and 11 million - we should be heading back to that.
Richard - x x x
Richard: I agree, but how would you solve the pensions crisis? That relies on a Ponzi scheme.
I have a solution to all the world's ills, and will pontificate on it in tomorrow's post.
Kat - stupid protesters? - armed guards - the guards couldn't use their guns and had to lock the gates instead - so why were the guards armed in the first place?
Richard x x x
Again a very interesting post.
As the greenhorn here, may I say how reassured I was by your list of credentials.
Although the word 'ain't is not very shi-shi, is it now?
The People's Republic of China could teach us a thing or two about crispy duck and the one-child policy. Amongst other things..
It's hard to disuade people from having children when Mr Brown hands out benefits like cigars to those that breed prolifically.
Belle: Hoyo de Monterrey, I trust?
What else? Why - just the other day, I saw a 16-year old girl, pushing a pram with a young child. On her hip she had another and attached to her - er - breast, was a newborn. - All this whilst smoking a Cuban.
Belle: OMG - that's filthy. In broad daylight?
Belle: I suspect that additionally begs the question of whether the Cuban was also the father.
The sun was high.
Sorry - we must have been pushing buttons at the same time. I imagine he was the father, but of which one, I am not sure.
I disagree about population being the problem: there's enough to feed everyone !
P.S. and talking of food, power lunch was poor sushi and jasmine tea. This is France ! Where was the steak frites, the wine, the cheese ? I don't see how you can get power out of limp tuna (tho' I'm sure that our Chairman or the Curate's Kitchen would know)...
Kapgaf: So you think we can go on increasing the population exponentially?
No, of course not but fertility levels drop when infant mortality levels drop. Have a look at the following webpage of the French National Institute for Demographic Studies:
http://www.ined.fr/en/everything_about_population/graph_month/fertility_mortality_africa/
Although the graph is specific to sub-Saharan Africa, the same classic pattern is seen in other developing areas of the world. This one concerns a much wider geographical area :
http://books.google.fr/books?id=xP-ZPPRMU8gC&pg=PA225&lpg=PA225&dq=relation+fecondite+mortalite+infantile+asie&source=bl&ots=Zjvpsjv976&sig=TlWWaWppPuY2HgByfHCdZTKQQq4&hl=fr&ei=YFHWSc_MJZGsjAenxsWADw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#PPA226,M1
And this one is a study of the figures for the Caribbean in the 70s :
http://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/pleins_textes_4/sci_hum/17832.pdf
So if people are properly fed (and maybe have access to health care) infant mortality will decrease and so will fertility.
I cannot however guarantee that the population would stop growing but I'm sure that the British and French superheroes could help on that one. They could probably even bring about a population decrease - just keep voting them back in and people won't want to live, let alone have children!
Hello, is this the Open University's introductory course to Darwinism, Socialism, Satanism and Social Change?!
Yes and please send your registration fee, pronto!
It's in the post - Tell me I won't miss the start of term?!
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