Thursday, September 30, 2010

New Earth-like planet discovered


2 days after I predicted that a new Earth like planet will be found(see post below), scientists have found one!
http://letstryeurope.blogspot.com/2010/09/700-new-planets-discovered-many-like.html


Source-THE GUARDIAN http://bit.ly/9ujxJS

Gliese 581g in 'Goldilocks zone' of space where liquid water could exist is strong contender for a habitable world

An artist's impression of  Gliese 581g An artist's impression of Gliese 581g, which astronomers say is near Earth - relatively speaking - at 120 trillion miles. Photograph: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation/AP

Astronomers have discovered a potentially habitable planet of similar size to Earth in orbit around a nearby star.

A team of planet hunters spotted the alien world circling a red dwarf star called Gliese 581, 20 light years away.

The planet is in the "Goldilocks zone" of space around a star where surface temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to form.......cont

http://bit.ly/9ujxJS

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

700 New Planets Discovered - Many Like Earth

new-giant-planet 

Scientists throughout the world have now found hundreds of new planets in our solar system and in neighbouring solar systems, and continue to find more every day. This is remarkable as just a couple of years ago, we had still not been able to confirm their existence. Due to new technology, that is now changing.

It is only a matter of time before we find a ‘blue planet’ similar to our own.That will be within the next few years! As our ability to look at these planets improves, it is only a matter of time before we are able to confirm that there is indeed life elsewhere.

When that happens we will have no choice but to think of our own existence very differently. For the benefit of religion let us for a moment continue to accept the fact that a god may have created the universe or the conditions for the universe to exist.

What we cannot ignore, and no longer accept is that we are at the centre of that universe. As man is now proving that each of the stars in the sky have their own set of planets, it is the same as when we found that the sun does not circle the Earth. We will only ever be able to see the planets in our neighbouring area, but we already know that our solar system is only one of thousands in our galaxy.We also know that our galaxy is but one of trillions within our universe. This adds up to a lot of life, so much in fact that it is unlikely that we are even able to comprehend such a large number. To add insult to injury there is now a growing suspicion that our universe is not the only one!

We are but atoms on an infinite carpet teaming with life. Our continued arrogance that the creator of this wonder is watching us is ridiculous to the extreme.The idea that we are made in his image is laughable.

The continued belief in his existence is in the end a personal choice, as is the belief in an afterlife.The life of the soul may be something that we cannot comprehend, and the search for some ‘inner truth’ does not necessarily need to end. The molecules that make up our bodies do continue to exist, even when we don’t.Those molecules then form part of something else, and always will. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust is indeed the truth.

Chris Mercer 28.09.10.

The article below discusses Nasa’s recent discoveries.

Kepler Spacecraft - NASA

Kepler Spacecraft - NASA

Michelle Strozykowski

The NASA space satellite project Kepler has sighted more than 700 potential exo-planets, many similar in size to Earth and thought to be solid masses.

 

Despite the presumption, based on previous knowledge, that planets outside the solar system (exo-planets) were likely to be balls of gas similar to Jupiter, the Kepler mission has found startling evidence to the contrary. It would appear that the gas giants have only been more prevalent due to their size, which made them easier for astronomers to spot. Now Kepler has discovered over 700 potential new planets, 140 of which are similar in size to Earth, which suggests such planets are actually far more common.

What is the Kepler Mission?

The Kepler mission is a search for habitable planets. It is designed specifically to search our region of the Milky Way to find small planets orbiting stars, and hopefully extrapolate from this information how many planets there might be circling the hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy.

The Kepler spacecraft, named after astronomer/mathematician Johannes Kepler (he of the laws of planetary motion), is a deep space telescope with a wide field of view photometer (light meter). It uses the transit method of detecting planets, which observes the changes in light density when a planet passes in front of its star.

Read more at Suite101: 700 New Planets Discovered - Many Like Earth http://www.suite101.com/content/700-new-planets-discovered---many-like-earth-a271411#ixzz10oW6J7Hl

Sunday, September 26, 2010

The legacy of John Lennon

John-Lennon-006

Next month, the ex-Beatle would have been 70. Here, one of his confidantes reflects on his enduring importance and how he might have reacted to events since his death – from 9/11 to punk and the advent of Twitter

Full Article-http://bit.ly/94Hefh The Observer- Richard Williams (Who knew him in his prime)

……And Twitter, of course, to bring it right up to date. He would have loved Twitter. He was an inveterate sender of postcards, often decorated with doodled self-portraits, and he wasn't the sort of person to write a letter and then put it away in a desk drawer overnight before inspecting it the next morning and removing anything that might have been set down in haste. His generosity and his venom were equally impulsive in their nature and second thoughts didn't really interest him.

I happened to be there when he was learning to type, in the suite he and Yoko occupied in the St Regis hotel in New York as a temporary accommodation after making the move to the US in the autumn of 1971. He was sitting on their bed with a small portable machine on his lap, tapping away. One of the things he wanted to be able to do was type letters to newspapers.

My paper, Melody Maker, subsequently became the recipient of several lengthy broadsides, usually disputing assertions made in interviews by Paul McCartney or George Martin. He saw everything and let nothing go without comment. Twitter's immediacy, and its encouragement of the urge to respond, would have suited him down to the ground. Once Sean had shown him how, you wouldn't have been able to get him off it………..

……..He had been away from England for almost a decade when he died and visitors from the old country were often regaled with his yearning for Chocolate Olivers. London certainly missed him. As long as the Beatles were headquartered at 3 Savile Row, with its parade of bizarre hangers-on, the city seemed to have a centre of vibrancy and an unfailing source of headlines. New York turned out to be a better place to live, but he had been bruised by the battle to obtain his residency permit and by the discovery that J Edgar Hoover's FBI had been watching him as a result of his association with the Yippies and the Black Panthers…..

…There was talk of returning on the QE2 for a voyage that would end with the ship docking in the Mersey. He even speculated that he and Yoko would spend their later years, after Sean had left home, living among the artists in St Ives. Perhaps he would have resumed the engagement with art that began at Liverpool College of Art in 1957, or found time to explore once again the love of surrealistic wordplay that crackled through In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works.

No doubt, some version of those notional events would have taken place. If all other lures had failed, the death in 1991 of his Aunt Mimi – the loving but stern Mimi Smith, his mother's sister, who brought him up from childhood through adolescence – would have drawn him to Poole in Dorset, where she lived out her last years in a bungalow paid for by a nephew who adored her despite that celebrated early warning: "Music's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living from it." Perhaps it was the formative supervision of the disciplinarian Mimi that gave him the habit of putting his trust, not always wisely, in strong, self-assured characters: Yoko, Spector, and the New York hustler Allen Klein, whom he brought in after Brian Epstein's death to sort out the Beatles' affairs, to McCartney's disgust.

And then there was George Harrison's death in 2001. Lennon and McCartney eventually settled their differences, major and minor, but as long as the four of them were still alive John always stood in the way of what he believed would have been the inevitable anticlimax of a public get-together with Paul, George and Ringo, even when implored by Kurt Waldheim, the secretary-general of the United Nations, to perform at a fundraiser for the survivors of the Cambodian genocide.

Loyalty to Yoko surely played a part in turning him against a project that would inevitably have reminded his audience of how much they missed the old relationships between the four musicians, before the arrival of powerful women pulled the two principal figures into a new phase of their lives from which retreat became impossible. Whatever else the future might have held, there would have been no Beatles reunion.

An Idiot Abroad

Ricky Gervais sent Karl Pilkington to the Seven Wonders of the World. The programme is called An Idiot Abroad, and it is the funniest thing on TV for a very long time.

Here are some quotes from Karl in China.

"Look at her! just munching on a scorpion on a stick. Why do they put everything on sticks?" - Karl Pilkington

Karl Pilkington on the Chinese alphabet - 'it looks like someone testing out a biro'

"Meant to be able to see it from the moon, aren't yer, the Great Wall!? Would you want to?

Karl Pilkington. - re the Great Wall of China "It goes on for miles...so what, so does the M6"

"these fish are for company, it's not an appetiser or something is it?" Karl Pilkington discovering a fishbowl in his chinese hotel room

"this ain't a place where they need an ipod, have a toilet roll first" Karl Pilkington on why the toilets don't have toilet roll in China

"I've seen the wall. It's not great, to be honest with you. It's alright. It's The Alright Wall of China" - Karl Pilkington

Ricky Gervais; You have got to be the strangest man in the world! Karl; You haven’t been to China!

Mother not seen since Manila business meeting

By Annemarie Evans

[From the South China Morning Post Carole Day, a widow, believed in the innate goodness and the warm hospitality of Filipinos.]

A Hong Kong mother of two has been missing for 11 days after flying to the Philippines on September 10.

Carole Day, a long-time HK resident, has been missing in the Philippines for 10 days. Credit: Courtesy of Jai Day

Carole Day, the widow of District Court Judge Richard Day, was last seen by her Philippine business partner, Tschai Ma, on September 12 in Manila’s Makati business district. She had planned to continue on to Cebu and also to fly briefly to Thailand before returning to Manila to fly back to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong-Manila flights were booked ahead, with the return set for September 15.

Day’s older son, Jai Day, 24, does not know in what order his mother planned to visit Cebu and Thailand. “But I’ve been told by immigration here that she never left the Philippines,” he said.

What has deeply concerned relatives and friends is that Day was due to return on September 15 to attend a close friend’s funeral. “She just wouldn’t have missed that,” close friend and business associate Mina Mahtani said. “I’ve known Carole for 18 years. She’s very reliable and would do anything for a friend. But Carole is too honest, that’s the problem, she trusts people too much.”

Mahtani, who has a boutique in Hollywood Road called Maya where Day sometimes works with her, said Day was also due to host a friend from Britain a few days later. “She was also going to a wedding in England and she’d been preparing for that for the past six months.”

Jai Day, an actor based in Los Angeles, flew to Manila on Wednesday to try to find his mother. By yesterday, he said, he had checked with the two main airlines that fly to Cebu and she was not on the manifest of either.

Carole Day has lived in Hong Kong for 22 years and was sourcing decorative items for a local hotel through her company, Ginger Lily, on the trip. The last confirmed sighting of the 56-year-old businesswoman was her meeting on September 12 with Ma at the LRI Design Plaza.

“I last saw her at 9.15am or 9.30am [on Sunday, September 12], Ma said. “She stayed in the showroom to do some pricing [on items she was selling there]. I left her to go to the factory in Pampanga, about two hours’ drive away.” Day had ordered a metal ornamental branch with leaves for the hotel, and he was visiting the factory to get the item made in time for Day to take it back to Hong Kong.

Day, a former long-distance runner and model, had already checked out of her hotel, The Corporate Inn, when Ma saw her on September 12. “We had meetings on [September] 10, 11 and 12. She always travelled light. She had a big handbag, but I don’t know whether she was carrying everything in there.”

Before returning to Hong Kong, Day was due to pick up some cushions in Cebu. She was planning to fly to Thailand to shut down a showroom that had experienced problems in the economic downturn. “She was positive, she said it was a fresh start,” Ma said. “She was fit, she was happy.”

Ma and friends have checked all Manila hospitals and a friend was asking at Cebu hospitals yesterday.

Jai Day has spoken to the Philippine and Hong Kong police, the British missions in Hong Kong and Manila as well as the Philippine consulate in Hong Kong.

Mahtani said: “The Philippine vice-consul gave us a personal interview. She was very friendly and helpful. After all those murders in Manila [of eight Hongkongers by a former police officer in the August 23 bus hijacking], the consulate have made it very clear to the Philippine police that this is a Hong Kong resident and it should be given top priority.”

Jai Day has set up a Facebook page: Missing: Carole Day. His e-mail address is jaicool@hotmail.com

Friday, September 24, 2010

A case for Miss Marple,

Poirot, Sherlock, Monk, or the Mentalist!Ship-Star-Cruises-Star-Pisces-Ocean-Terminal-Hong-Kong-Dec-2008-02miss_marple_uk-show

Woman killed off Waglan Island

25-09-2010

Police are investigating the murder of a Mainland woman, who was reportedly pushed off a passenger cruise ship in the seas off Waglan Island yesterday morning.

Officers were tipped off about the killing, and firemen later recovered the body of the 43 year-old from the water. She was certified dead at the scene.

Officers subsequently arrested a 47-year-old mainland man on board the ship in connection with the case. He remains in detention for further investigations.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Want to be happy? Don't live in the UK

Source
http://bit.ly/bAQ2v6
UK and Ireland are the worst places in Europe for quality of life – and France is the best – new study finds

london britain rain
Miserable weather, not enough holidays, and lower life expectancy ... why live in the UK? Photograph: Gerry Penny/EPA

The UK and Ireland have been named as the worst places to live in Europe for quality of life, according to research published today.

The UK has the 4th highest age – 63.1 – at which people choose or can afford to take retirement, and one of the lowest holiday entitlements. Net household income in the UK is just £2,314 above the European average, compared with £10,000 above average last year, falling behind Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark......

....The study examined 16 factors to understand where the UK sits in relation to nine other major European countries. Variables such as net income, VAT and the cost of essential goods, such as fuel, food and energy bills, were examined along with lifestyle factors, such as hours of sunshine, holiday entitlement, working hours and life expectancy....

...Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at uSwitch.com, said: "Last year compared with our European neighbours we were miserable but rich, this year we're miserable and poor. Whereas some countries work to live, UK consumers live to work. The picture looks bleak for British consumers, with confidence crumbling as the reality of the government's deficit reduction starts to bite. But for those of us who decide to stick it out and ride the storm, there will be no choice but to batten down the hatches....

Follow link for complete article.

http://bit.ly/bAQ2v6

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

中秋節 Happy Mid Autumn Festival

If Tommy Cooper were alive today

 
Cheers Giles!
I met this bloke with a didgeridoo and he was playing Dancing Queen on it. I thought, 'That's Aboriginal.' 
----------------------- 
This lorry full of tortoises collided with a van full of terrapins. It was a turtle disaster. 
------------------------ 
I told my girlfriend I had a job in a bowling alley. She said 'Tenpin?' I said, 'No, permanent.' 
----------------------- 
I went in to a pet shop. I said, 'Can I buy a goldfish?' The guy said, 'Do you want an aquarium?' I said, 'I don't care what star sign it is.' 
---------------------------- 
I bought some Armageddon cheese today, and it said on the packet. 'Best before End' 
--------------------------- 
I went to buy a watch, and the man in the shop said 'Analogue.' I said 'No, just a watch.' 
------------------------------ 
I went into a shop and I said, 'Can someone sell me a kettle.' The bloke said 'Kenwood' I said, 'Where is he then?' 
-------------------------- 
My mate is in love with two schoolbags. He's bi-satchel. 
------------------------ 
I went to the doctor. I said to him 'I'm frightened of lapels.' He said, 'You've got cholera.' 
--------------------------- 
I met the bloke who invented crosswords today. I can't remember his name, its P something T something R. 
---------------------------- 
I was reading this book today, The History of Glue. I couldn't put it down. 
---------------------------- 
I phoned the local ramblers club today, but the bloke who answered just went on and on. 
--------------------------- 
The recruitment consultant asked me 'What do you think of voluntary work? I said 'I wouldn't do it if you paid me.' 
-------------------------- 
I was in the jungle and there was this monkey with a tin opener. I said, 'You don't need a tin opener to peel a banana.' He said, 'No, this is for the custard.' 
---------------------- 
This policeman came up to me with a pencil and a piece of very thin paper. He said, 'I want you to trace someone for me..' 
-------------------------- 
I told my mum that I'd opened a theatre. She said, 'Are you having me on?' I said, 'Well I'll give you an audition, but I'm not promising you anything.' 
---------------------------- 
I phoned the local builders today, I said to them 'Can I have a skip outside my house?' He said, 'I'm not stopping you!' 
-------------------------------- 
This cowboy walks in to a German car showroom and he says 'Audi!' 
-------------------------- 
I fancied a game of darts with my mate. He said, 'Nearest the bull goes first' He went 'Baah' and I went 'Moo' He said 'You're closest' 
------------------------------ 
I was driving up the motorway and my boss phoned me and he told me I'd been promoted. I was so shocked I swerved the car. He phoned me again to say I'd been promoted even higher and I swerved again. He then made me managing director and I went right off into a tree. The police came and asked me what had happened. I said 'I careered off the road' 
---------------------- 
I visited the offices of the RSPCA today. It's tiny: you couldn't swing a cat in there. 
------------------------- 
I was stealing things in the supermarket today while balanced on the shoulders of a couple of vampires. I was charged with shoplifting on two counts. 
------------------------ 
I bought a train ticket to France and the ticket seller said 'Eurostar' I said 'Well I've been on telly but I'm no Dean Martin. 
--------------------------- 
I phoned the local gym and I asked if they could teach me how to do the splits. He said, 'How flexible are you?' I said, 'I can't make Tuesdays or Thursdays.' 
-------------------------------- 
I went to the local video shop and I said, 'Can I borrow Batman Forever?' He said, 'No, you'll have to bring it back tomorrow' 
-------------------------------- 
A waiter asks a man, 'May I take your order, sir?' 'Yes,' the man replies. 'I'm just wondering, exactly how do you prepare your chickens?' 'Nothing special, sir. We just tell them straight out that they're going to die.'

Monday, September 20, 2010

HK people most arrogant in the world! 'Manila Inquirer'

HK-Filipino realtions continue to worsen.


Source-http://bit.ly/bYdnYs

The Aquino government is stepping out of bounds in overly appeasing the Beijing government and the Hong Kong administrative regional government by having them receive the De Lima report first over the Filipino public.

Haven’t we collectively asked forgiveness for the ineptitude of our police and security officials?

Haven’t we humbled ourselves by practically kneeling down before Mainland China and Hong Kong and being lectured by their people?

What more can we do to appease them?

* * *

In trying to appease the Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong people we’re making other countries trample upon our dignity and pride as a nation.

We are feeding on the Hong Kong people’s arrogance by our seemingly servile stance towards them.

The people of Hong Kong are the most arrogant in the world.

Tourists from all over the world have complained of discourteous restaurant servers and department store clerks.

Several years ago, I approached a Hong Kong policeman standing at a street corner in Kowloon

district to ask for directions.

I didn’t know how to get to a restaurant where I was to have an appointment.

The Hong Kong policeman shouted at me and shooed me away.

Discourtesy toward foreigners seems universal among Hong Kong people.

Anywhere a tourist goes, he invariably meets discourteous or arrogant Hong Kong residents who never smile.

I was asking for the price of a pair of glasses at an optical shop in Hong Kong when the clerk said I shouldn’t be asking if I didn’t have any intention of buying.

Missing. Can you help?

http://bit.ly/aWwkqP
Appeal for information on missing man in Lantau (with photo)
Photo
************************************************************

Police today (September 20) appealed to the public for information on a man missing in Lantau.


Terry Ridgley, aged 45, who lives at Tai Tei Tong in Mui Wo, went missing after being reached by his family by phone on May 8. His younger brother made a report to the Police on July 22.


He is about 1.83 metres tall and 86 kg in weight. He is of medium build with white complexion, a long and pointed face with short straight black hair.


Anyone who knows the whereabouts of the missing man or who may have seen him is urged to

contact the Regional Missing Person Unit of New Territories South on 3661 1172-6 or any police station.

Police Report No. 11
Issued by PPRB

Ends/M

onday, September 20, 2010
Issued at HKT 15:53

NNNN

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The Rose



Some say love, it is a river
That drowns the tender reed
Some say love, it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love, it is a hunger
An endless aching need
I say love, it is a flower
And you, its only seed

It's the heart, afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It's the dream, afraid of waking
That never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul, afraid of dying
That never learns to live

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snow
Lies the seed
That with the sun's love, in the spring
Becomes the rose

It's Monday

As a family we r trying 2 keep up with technology.. So I bought my son an iPod, my daughter an iPhone and myself an iPad. I felt sorry 4 the wife so I bought her an iRon and that's when it all bloody kicked off.Talk about ungrateful!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

A secularist manifesto

Source-http://bit.ly/bZWgMq

The Pope and Sayeeda Warsi are warning about 'aggressive secularism' and 'militant atheists'. Here's my secularist manifesto


Secularism is unfairly characterised and attacked by religious leaders as a way of seeking to protect their privileges.

Secularism is not atheism (lack of belief in God) and nor is it humanism (a nonreligious belief system). It is a political movement seeking specific policy end-points. Many secularists are religious and many religious people – recognising the value of keeping government and religion separate – are secular.

Secularism seeks to defend the absolute freedom of religious and other belief, seeks to maximise freedom of religious and other expression and protect the right to manifest religious belief insofar as it does not impinge disproportionately on the rights and freedoms of others. This is essentially a summary of article 9 of the European convention on human rights. In addition secularism aims to end religious privileges or persecutions and to fully separate the state from religion which is a necessary means to that end.

A manifesto for secularist change would look like this:

1. Protect free religious expression that does not directly incite violence or crimes against others or publicly and directly cause someone distress or alarm.

This is why secularists:

• Led the battle against Tony Blair's over-broad religious hatred bill working alongside some religious people who wanted the freedom to attack other religions and against some religious organisations.
• Achieved a singular success with the abolition of English Christian-only blasphemy laws.
• Seek to abolish public order offences that lead the police to question religious people for speaking their minds, short of direct abuse of someone else.
• Oppose a defamation of religion law that has been proposed at the UN by some Muslim-majority states.
• Oppose burqa bans except where it is necessary for security, safety or effective delivery of public services
• Support the right of Muslims to build mosques subject to normal planning rules

2. End discrimination against nonreligious belief systems or organisations by ending their exclusion from:

• Protected religious broadcasting slots.
• Committees that draw up the syllabus for religious studies.
• Bodies that advise the government on matters relating to religion.

3. End unjustified religious discrimination by:

• Stopping faith schools from sacking or rejecting a teacher based on his/her religion or marital status.
• Preventing state-funded faiths schools from discriminating against, and segregating, children on religious grounds.
• Allowing royals to marry Catholics by amending the anti-Catholic Act of Settlement.

4. Where religious organisations join others in delivering public services, ensure they do so without:

• Discriminating against their employees.
• Withholding services from users on religious or sexual grounds.
• Proselytising when delivering that service.

5. Limit the right of religious people delivering public services (for example marriage registrars, judges, pharmacists, or care workers) to conscientiously object to carrying out lawful parts of their job to rare and specific exemptions (eg doctors and abortion) agreed by parliament.

6. Allow for reasonable adjustment to cater for religious practice in employment or in facilities (eg Sikh turbans in the police force, the hijab or kara in uniform policies, and prayer facilities in the workplace) but not to extend this to a blanket religious exemption based on subjective feelings, nor to impose religious practice on nonbelievers.

7. Cease religious inculcation by the state by ending compulsory worship in schools and making religious education the study of what religions and other belief systems believe, rather than instruction in what to believe.

8. Disconnect religion from the state by:

• Disestablishing the Church of England.
• Ending prayer in the parliamentary or council chamber.
• Abolishing bishops automatically sitting in the House of Lords. We are the only country outside Iran to have reserved seats in parliament for clerics. Religious people can and do stand for election in the normal way.

9. Resist the imposition of parallel legal systems based on scripture, or the legal presumption that religious people are any more or less moral than nonbelievers.

10. Work to end segregation of people based on religious dividing lines.

None of this involves anything to do with doctrinal matters such as women bishops, gay priests or Latin masses, which are matters for religions. Nor does it involve the banning of religious opinion from the public square.

None of it engages with what families get up to in their home, or religious leaders within their own families.

If you agree with all the above, while you may be an ardent secularist, you are in no way "militant" or "aggressive". If you agree with only most of that manifesto, you may well be a vicar. If you oppose it all then you are probably archbishop material.

The worst excesses carried out in the name of secularism – neither of which are supported by UK secularists – involve a proposed burqa ban in France and bans on religious dress in Turkish universities. They are wrong but they hardly rank compared to what is carried out by religious regimes.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Pope Blames Atheism For Holocaust

http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/pope-blames-atheism-for-holocaust/

Click on link above for full post.

......The Jews of Europe, and the gay men and women, the gypsies, the Slavs and all the rest murdered by the Nazis did not die so that Joseph Ratzinger could try to shift the focus of moral attention from what actually happened — including the entanglement of religious believers in the Nazi program — to what he wishes we would believe that happened.

Instrumentality again: those deaths, no one’s death, should be morally available as an means to advance some other program.

Joseph Ratzinger should be ashamed of himself.

We believe in people's freedom NOT TO believe.



Pope Benedict warned of the 'sobering lessons of atheist extremism' in a speech today.

In his address to the Queen at the Palace of Holyroodhouse the pope praised Britain's rich Christian history but warned of "the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the 20th century", and urged "respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate"......

And so the pope has declared war on atheists. I fear this may be a very big mistake not only for himself and the Catholic church but for the immediate future of Christianity within the UK.

To begin with, he has inexplicably blamed atheism for the Nazis and therefore also the Holocaust! Nazi Germany was a Catholic country, Hitler was himself a Catholic, he was schooled in a Catholic school. A German soldier was just as likely to wear a cross as any other soldier.This idea of 'the atheist extremism of the 20th Century' is a stupid, ignorant one. I have never heard atheism being raised as the cause of WWII, ever!

In this country we believe in people's freedom to pray and worship whoever they want-God, Allah,Buddha, Jedi...whoever/whatever!

We also believe in people's freedom NOT TO believe. To come to this country and single those people out for insult, and to state that having no god is equal to having no values is simply outrageous.

Atheists have no Values?! Who the fuck is he to come and spread this kind of poisonous vitriol?I believe this statement and whatever other tosh this idiot sprouts over the next few days, will draw battle lines that weren't there before.

The pope also told his own flock, you cannot have a 'pick and mix' view of morality.His stance is clear-nothing will change. Abortion, divorce and contraception are still as wrong as they have ever been. I wonder if he is aware of the numbers attending mass in 2010? How many of those practising catholics follow the church line?

Just as I would protest if a Rabbi came here and said that Islam is wrong, or if an Imam claimed that Buddhism is the devil's work-the pope cannot come here with his 'aggressive' bigotry and messages of intolerance.

'Aggressive' atheism, which in reality has only been 'indifferent' or 'apathetic' until now, will now wake up after being kicked. Most atheists have been happy until now to quietly carry on 'not believing'.

Morality has always been associated with the belief in a god.It is time to break that nonsensical link. Godliness is not fucking goodliness, or cleanliness.The one has nothing to do with the other! It is absolutely possible for a godless person to be good and to do good.

I, for one believe that atheism should have the same standing as any other 'religious' belief, and we need to 'aggressively' protect that right, just as we protect the right to believe in a god(s).

Chris Mercer 16.09.10

More

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/16/papal-visit-linking-godless-lack-values-wrong

Pope in Glasgow

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! The pope warned young people of the dangers of money, sex and alcohol. Wouldn't it be better to lead by example? The church should give away all of its money and treasures, its priests should stop drinking alcohol and the church needs to get real about sex, both within and outside of the church.

This is what he said.

Finally, I would like to say a word to you, my dear young Catholics of Scotland. I urge you to lead lives worthy of our Lord and of yourselves. There are many temptations placed before you every day — drugs, money, sex, pornography, alcohol — which the world tells you will bring you happiness, yet these things are destructive and divisive.

There is only one thing which lasts: the love of Jesus Christ personally for each one of you. Search for him, know him and love him, and he will set you free from slavery to the glittering but superficial existence frequently proposed by today's society. Put aside what is worthless and learn of your own dignity as children of God.



mouse

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Custard, my wife’s worst swearword

By Jeremy Clarkson
Today there are bare naked ladies in the newspapers, homosexual men in the woods, homosexual bare naked transsexuals on the internet, and I’d like to bet you have no plans to visit church any time soon. Time moves on, habits change and as a result what would once have shocked the nation to its core is now considered normal.

And yet, while you’re happy to watch a televised autopsy, you would be astonished and amazed if Michael Howard were to make a speech this afternoon in which he described Tony Blair as a “f***wit”.

Why? You use the f-word all the time, and so do your children. Buzz Aldrin used it on the moon and we know it nestles in the vocabulary of both Prince Philip and Princess Anne. We think Alastair Campbell uses it, too, while addressing the Newsnight team, but we can’t be sure because journalists can’t use it in print. Don’t you think that’s weird?

I can say a couple copulated, or that they had sexual intercourse. So obviously it isn’t the act itself that causes offence, just the word. And I can’t quite work out why.

We’re fast approaching the 40th anniversary of the first time it was ever used on British television — by the critic Kenneth Tynan — and at the time four motions were tabled in the Commons, with one Tory MP suggesting the foul-mouthed perpetrator should be hanged.

Eleven years later Bill Grundy was suspended because some of his guests used it during his show, and Sir Peregrine Worsthorne was denied the editorship of The Daily Telegraph because on one of his television appearances he’d used it, too. And things haven’t changed. According to the last set of BBC guidelines I saw, it is still more likely to cause offence than the word “nigger”.

Nigger is a good case in point. When I was growing up, it was no more shocking than “cauliflower”. You didn’t see Bill Grundy being escorted from the building because you were watching Alf Garnett on the other side, roaring with laughter as he peppered the screen with his racist abuse.

And yet now, just 30 years later, it’s gone. In fact it is just about the only word I simply would not let my children use. So why, if words move into and out of common parlance so quickly, has the f-word been a taboo since the dark, muddled dawn of the English language? You may argue that this isn’t the case. People with pipes and bifocals will certainly claim that in the not too distant past, words of an anatomical or scatological nature were not frowned upon at all, and that the swearwords of the time were religious: Jesus Christ, goddammit and so on. So they would tell you that there has most definitely been a shift in the nation’s choice of profanity.

Really? Well let’s take the worst word in the world as a case study. You know what I’m talking about and you’ll know why I can’t even camouflage such a thing behind a mask of asterisks.

We know it was used, in various forms, since before the Norman conquest, and we know it was in common parlance from the 13th century. But if it had been socially acceptable, then why, when Ophelia says Hamlet cannot lay in her lap, does Hamlet reply: “Do you think I meant country matters?”

By beating about the bush, so to speak, Shakespeare is getting a titter out of the worst word in the world, same as he does in Twelfth Night. And he couldn’t have done that if it wasn’t the worst word in the world back then, too.

Even earlier, Chaucer wouldn’t come out and write it, hedging the issue by saying “Pryvely he caught hir by the queynte”. Mind you, this might have something to do with the fact old Geoff couldn’t spell.

In 1961 it finally appeared in a dictionary, but despite this it’s still a massive no-no. In fact it’s probably fair to say that this one word is the most enduring taboo in the English speaking world. When Johnny Rotten used it on I’m In the Jungle, Send Me a Big Cheque, there were 100 complaints — and that, speaking as someone who presents one of the most complained-about shows on television, is a lot. And who can forget the furore when the BBC recently screened Jerry Springer, the Opera.

This word, then, is Custer’s last stand for the morally upright and the tweedily decent. The Guardianistas and the foul-mouthed have crossed the moat, scaled the walls and traversed the bailey. But so long as the keep is held up by the C-word cornerstone all is not lost.

Frankly, I’m delighted because those of us who use it need it to be socially risqué. Or it ceases to have a point.

My wife is especially glad because it’s a word she uses all the time. She loves it. Sometimes, when the children are listening, she combines it with “bastard” to create the word “custard”, but mostly it’s the full uncensored version that’s hurled in the direction of anyone she doesn’t like. Local radio DJs cop for it a lot.

She’s even developed it into a test at parties, using it as soon as practicably possible, whenever she’s introduced to someone. Her argument is that those who fall into a dead faint and need to be brought round with smelling salts weren’t worth talking to anyway.

I think she has a point, because many years ago my grandfather told me that those who swear are simply demonstrating they have a limited vocabulary. That can’t be so because when Tony Blair comes on the news you feel naked and underequipped if you don’t have some choice profanities in your quiver. Sometimes only the c-word will do.


Jeremy Clarkson
From The Sunday Times
February 13, 2005

Monday, September 13, 2010

An Englishman, Scotsman and a Pakistani....

An Englishman, Scotsman and a Pakistani man are in hospital, waiting for their wives to give birth. There is quite a bit of pacing up and down when the nurse comes out and happily announces that they are all fathers of bouncing baby boys.

"There's just one problem" she says. "Because they were all born at the same time we got the tags mixed up and we don’t know which baby belongs to whom. Would you, as their fathers, mind coming to identify them?" The men agree and walk into the delivery room and look at the babies.

Immediately the Englishman stoops down and picks up the brown baby. "Yes, this is definitely my baby" he says confidently.

"Um, excuse me" says the Pakistani "but I think it's fairly obvious that this is my son"

The Englishman pulls him aside and says "I see where you're coming from mate but one of these babies is Scots and I'm not prepared to take the risk"

Current Religious Wars

    behead2 religious_wars1

  1. Afghanistan:......Extreme, radical Fundamentalist Muslim terrorist groups, non-Muslims. Osama bin Laden heads a terrorist group called Al Quada (The Source) whose headquarters were in Afghanistan. They were protected by, and integrated with, the Taliban dictatorship in the country. The Northern Alliance of rebel Afghans, Britain and the U.S. attacked the Taliban and Al Quada, establishing a new regime in part of the country. The fighting continues.
  2. Bosnia:......Serbian Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholic), Muslims. Fragile peace is holding, due only to the presence of peacekeepers.
  3. Côte d'Ivoire:......Muslims, Indigenous, Christian. Following the elections in late 2000, government security forces "began targeting civilians solely and explicitly on the basis of their religion, ethnic group, or national origin. The overwhelming majority of victims come from the largely Muslim north of the country, or are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants..." A military uprising continued the slaughter in 2002.
  4. Cyprus:......Christians, Muslims. The island is partitioned,creating enclaves for ethnic Greeks (Christians) and Turks (Muslims). A UN peace keeping force is maintaining stability.
  5. East Timor:......Christians, Muslims. A Roman Catholic country. About 20% of the population died by murder, starvation or disease after they were forcibly annexed by Indonesia (mainly Muslim). After voting for independence, many Christians were exterminated or exiled by the Indonesian army and army-funded militias in a carefully planned program of genocide and religious cleansing. The situation is now stable.
  6. India:......Animists, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs. Various conflicts that heat up periodically producing loss of life. Indonesia, province of Ambon:......Christians, Muslims. After centuries of relative peace, conflicts between Christians and Muslims started during 1999-JUL in this province of Indonesia. The situation now appears to be stable.
  7. Iraq:......Kurds, Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslims, western armed forces. By mid-2006, a small scale civil war, primarily between Shiite and Sunni Muslims started. The situation appears to be steadily degenerating.
  8. Kashmir:......Hindus, Muslims. A chronically unstable region of the world, claimed by both Pakistan and India. The availability of nuclear weapons and the eagerness to use them are destabilizing the region further. More details Thirty to sixty thousand people have died since 1989.
  9. Kosovo:......Serbian Orthodox Christians, Muslims. Peace enforced by NATO peacekeepers. There is convincing evidence of past mass murder by Yugoslavian government (mainly Serbian Orthodox Christians) against ethnic Albanians (mostly Muslim).
  10. Kurdistan:......Christians, Muslims. Assaults on Christians (Protestant, Chaldean Catholic, & Assyrian Orthodox).
  11. Macedonia:......Macedonian Orthodox Christians, Muslims. Muslims (often referred to as ethnic Albanians) engaged in a civil war with the rest of the country who are primarily Macedonian Orthodox Christians. A peace treaty has been signed. Disarmament by NATO is complete.
  12. Middle East:......Jews, Muslims, Christians. The peace process between Israel and Palestine suffered a complete breakdown. This has resulted in the deaths of thousands, in the ratio of three dead for each Jew. Major strife broke out in 2000-SEP. Major battle in Lebanon during mid-2006. No resolution appears possible.
  13. Nigeria:......Christians, Animists, Muslims. Yourubas and Christians in the south of the country are battling Muslims in the north. Country is struggling towards democracy after decades of Muslim military dictatorships.
  14. Northern Ireland:......Protestants, Catholics. After 3,600 killings and assassinations over 30 years, some progress has been made in the form of a ceasefire and an independent status for the country.
  15. Pakistan:......Suni, Shi'ite Muslims. Low level mutual attacks. Philippines:......Christians, Muslims. A low level conflict between the mainly Christian central government and Muslims in the south of the country has continued for centuries.
  16. Russia,Chechnya:......Russian Orthodox Christians, Muslims. The Russian army attacked the breakaway region. Many atrocities have been alleged on both sides. According to the Voice of the Martyrs: "In January 2002 Chechen rebels included all Christians on their list of official enemies, vowing to 'blow up every church and mission-related facility in Russia'."
  17. South Africa:......Animists, "Witches". Hundreds of persons, suspected and accused of witches practicing black magic, are murdered each year.
  18. Sri Lanka:......Buddhists, Hindus. Tamils (a mainly Hindu 18% minority) are involved in a war for independence since 1983 with the rest of the country (70% Sinhalese Buddhist). Hundreds of thousands have been killed. The conflict took a sudden change for the better in 2002-SEP, when the Tamils dropped their demand for complete independence. The South Asian Tsunami in 2004-DEC induced some cooperation. The situation in mid-2006 is degenerating.
  19. Sudan:......Animists, Christians, Muslims. Complex ethnic, racial, religious conflict in which the Muslim regime committed genocide against both Animists and Christians in the south of the country. Slavery and near slavery were practiced. A ceasefire was signed in 2006-MAY between some of the combatants. Warfare continues in the Darfur region, primarily between a Muslim militia and Muslim inhabitants.
  20. Thailand:......Buddhists, Muslims. Muslim rebels have been involved in a bloody insurgency in southern Thailand -- a country that is 95% Buddhist. The army has seized power and has agreed to talks with the rebels.
  21. Tibet:......Buddhists, Communists. Country was annexed by Chinese Communists in late 1950's. Brutal suppression of Buddhism continues.
  22. Uganda:.... Animists, Christians, Muslims. Christian rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army are conducting a civil war in the north of Uganda. Their goal is a Christian theocracy whose laws are based on the Ten Commandments. They abduct, enslave and/or raped about 2,000 children a year. List obtained from religioustolerance.org, which of course is an oxymoron.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Britain 2010

hypochondria

10% of Hong Kong people suffer from hypochondria, only 10%?! Is it contagious?Does wearing a mask protect us?

A new study has shown that more than ten percent of people in Hong Kong - aged between 15 and 65 years - are suffering from excessive health anxiety, known as hypochondria. This is a condition that makes people believe that they're stricken with a disease when they are not. A medical expert has warned that if these people are not helped, the condition could deteriorate into severe depression.
Rthk-12.09.10
http://rthk.hk/rthk/news/englishnews/news.htm?main&20100912&56&697990

Friday, September 10, 2010

Noodles and fags

    

From the Hotel in Bucharest Bucharest (2)

Bucharest

Romania Bucharest

This week I flew in 72 hours;

Manchester-Amsterdam-Bucharest-Amsterdam-Seoul-Changchun-Shanghai-Amsterdam-Manchester.

I spent a night in Bucharest and a night in Changchun. It was my first time in Changchun, which is in Jilin Province in the far North of China. Although interesting I would have much preferred Beijing or Shanghai, and a quick visit to Hong Kong would have been very welcome.

Changchun jilinChina

 changchun chinachangchun to airport

Changchun

 

I was the only foreigner on the plane from Seoul to Changchun, and that was the way it stayed until I got to Shanghai the next day. I have travelled to Shenzen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Beijing over the last few years, but Changchun was by far the hardest. Nobody spoke English (or Cantonese) which was challenging to say the least. Even in the airport nobody could tell me where I could find a hotel or even how to get to the city.I took a gamble and jumped on the first bus that came along and just kept on saying Changchun.

Try saying that after a few bevvies-

‘Changchun Changchun Changchun…’ or even better ‘Changchun China Changchun China Changchun China’ see?!

Two hours later(!) I arrived in a pretty nondescript city which appeared to have no centre.I won’t go into the hassle I had to find the hotel, actually get a room and find something to eat, but it wasn’t easy(got to try and learn some Mandarin!) I bought as many packs of noodles that I could carry and some mini-moon cakes as Teosdee finds it difficult to buy decent noodles here. I stocked up with fags and flew home via Shanghai. In China people do literally stop, stare and even wander over for a closer look, which can be quite disconcerting if you’re not used to it, to give them something a little more interesting to look at I kept my shades on the whole way back to arouse suspicion, which worked a treat judging from the reactions I got.

Definitely made a nice change from doing the shopping at Asda!

seoul airportTo Shanghai

Seoul                                    Plane to Shanghai

Sunday, September 05, 2010

The scumbag British (tabloid) press



Two days before a major qualifying game, the scumbag British (tabloid) press once again throw a spanner in the works. Before the world cup it was the John Terry/Wayne Bridge and Ashley Cole stories, and over the last few weeks they have gone after Peter Crouch. These stories only serve to destabilise the England team.
I think we can safely say that footballers don't think with their heads, and being filthy rich, famous and in their 20s are quite likely to get themselves in trouble, as are most blokes(and women) in their 20s. The difference being, is that when Joe Bloggs gets lucky on Friday night, he doesn't find himself on the front cover of the sunday papers.
A question we need to ask, is are these newspapers purposefully trying to unsettle the English (football) Team? Why do these stories emerge when England are due to play?
As well as not buying the papers that print this crap, surely the time has come to say and legislate that footballers' private lives are private, and it serves no (public) purpose to invade that privacy.

Friday, September 03, 2010

Word of the month- multiverse



Stephen Hawking says that our universe exists as just one universe, which is only one of many.How many?

10500

That is the number of possible universes quoted by Hawking, to give you an idea of how big that is; If it took you a millisecond to look at each one, and you had startedat the moment of the big bang, today you would only be at number-

1020

(please excuse the layout, it was very hard to find a font to write these numbers!)
Our universe exists as just one universe within this 'multiverse'.

Multiverse

The multiverse (or meta-universe, metaverse) is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including the one unique universe we are pretty sure we consistently inhabit) that together comprise everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and constants that govern them. The term was coined in 1895 by the American philosopher and psychologist William James.[1] The various universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes.

The structure of the multiverse, the nature of each universe within it and the relationship between the various constituent universes, depend on the specific multiverse hypothesis considered. Multiverses have been hypothesized in cosmology, physics, astronomy, philosophy, transpersonal psychology and fiction, particularly in science fiction and fantasy. In these contexts, parallel universes are also called "alternative universes", "quantum universes", "interpenetrating dimensions", "parallel dimensions", "parallel worlds", "alternative realities", and "alternative timelines", among others.