The countdown to 1,000 begins

Just kidding, kinda, but I guess I have to start thinking about what I can do special for number 1,000, right? Though, going by my recent output, it'll probably be a good year away or more. So stay tuned, folks!

Speaking of being a bit slack, my movie reviews (such as they are) have been a bit thin on the ground of late, but I did put one up yesterday, so why not check it out by clicking da linkz, innit? See the comments on that latest one, and you'll see how big my backlog is, too, so I'm hoping to get my shit together. Also awaiting my eyes are Constantine and Black Book.

So, what's in the news? Well, of course there is a lot of talk about the UK's return to nuclear power over the coming years. Man, I don't know... Nuclear power? I mean, have we not learned anything from the past? Okay, let's say for a minute that nuclear has had bad press. Let's look on the bright side. Apparently it's clean and it's therefore better for the environment than coal and oil.

But it has a half-life of 10,000 years. I mean, you can't just bury this shit under the Irish Sea once you're done with it and forget about it. And yes, that apparently was the plan mentioned by an unnamed governmental minister just a couple of days ago. Then last night, on Newsnight some other dude was saying that he's sure there are communities across the UK that would only be too glad to have a nuclear dumping ground and all the jobs that would entail. Um, really? Cos I can't see people lining up for that business opportunity.

This, in my humble opinion, of course, is a fucking global disaster waiting to happen. What's next? "Oh I know, let's take all this old nuclear waste material and dump it on an uninhabited island somewhere. That's fine." Yeah, and with all the ocean liners that seem to constantly crash causing massive oil spills, imagine the severity of a similar situation with a liner full of nuclear waste... Not good.

Still, most people, who probably know more about it than I do, seem concerned more about the costs of the nuclear programme than about the dangers, so what do I know...?

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Also in the news is talk of abolishing the blasphemy law. What's particularly interesting about this is that the Church of England is in favour of its abolition, while the government is keen to keep the law in place (what's that about separation of Church and state again...?)

Personally, I'm all for the abolition of the blasphemy law, of course. I blaspheme from time to time. I take the Lord's name in vain. I don't necessarily think it's big or clever, but as an atheist I see it as my God-given right (ha ha!). And I certainly don't see that anyone should be punished in law for blasphemy, especially writers, artists and broadcasters, people in the public eye who are the most likely to find themselves at the end of such legislation.

Something funny is that if I blaspheme in English, the missus is mildly tutty at me, but if I do it in Italian she virtually blows a fuse. It's bizarre. Also weird is that they have this exclamation in Italian: "Cazzo di Buddha!" This means, "Buddha's cock!" This is deemed perfectly okay, but if I replace Buddha with "Dio" (God) or "Cristo" (Christ), that's highly frowned upon. So it's okay for Italians to be rude about other people's deities but not their own!

Religion is funny. Well, it would be if it weren't for the fact that it's the cause of so much of the trouble in the world... Have a great weekend, y'all.

Global law?

I was watching the news over breakfast this morning, and there was a report on a minority religious group in Iraq. I'd never heard of this group, but then I'm pretty sheltered like that. They are called Mandaeans, and their beliefs are considered by many to be older than those of Christianity, although some schools of thought believe the sect may have been started by John the Baptist himself.

Regardless of how or when their religion was started, the Mandaeans are under threat of extinction, through murder, torture, rape, and forced conversion to Islam.

The news story focused its attention on two recent cases of abuse of Mandaeans: a jeweller who had been blinded (thereby unable to continue working his trade) by having acid thrown in his eyes, and a boy of about 10 years old who was kidnapped from outside his school and forced to jump through a bonfire to win his escape. His jump was too short and he landed in the fire, suffering burns to his body.

And I got to thinking...

Isn't it about time we got some world leaders in power who would stop all this fucking bullshit and start telling people like it is?

"There is no God. There is no higher fucking power. There is no point to your religions. Your religions that are the root cause of all the world's wars and grief. From now on, the practice of any religion is a criminal offence, punishable by life-long imprisonment. Denounce your religions. Denounce your gods. Or pay the price."

I truly believe this is what the world needs. Too many of the planet's citizens are adhering to nonsense that was invented centuries ago to keep the people in order. These "laws" were devised for an uncivilized time. We should now be beyond all that. The religious books have served their purpose and now they are being misused and abused to serve extremists' own ends. We should no longer be slaves to this sort of mind control.