How to answer a "Would you like to take part in our customer satisfaction survey?" question

After a frustrating and entirely unsuccessful trawl through a support site of a well known and very large IT company I was presented with a pop up asking me did i want to take part in a survey? ... In Hind sight this was probably a mistake to give me the opportunity to respond, but they did ask and given a nice wee [textarea] for Other comments I add this ...

My visit to your support site was one, and I can say this without fear of contradiction, that filled me with a mixture of raw despair, sphincter tightening anguish and the urgent need to increase my anti depressive medication! I can only imagine that the reason your support site is such a heap of Rhino diahorrea left festering in the raw heat of the Serengeti sun is to allow the employes of ****** to relaxin the warm glow of schadenfreude radiating from the pain this site brings to us, the users.

I have left feedback about the careless nature with which you scatter hundreds of characters willynilly in your URLS. I have waxed long and lyrical about the less than purple nature of your prose in ***** documentation. I have gloried in the princely obfuscation with which you commission even the most simple of Installation Instructions. I have marvelled at the depth with which you can iterate the humble footnote ... but satisfaction? Alsa no! Satisfaction and myself are not loving bedfellows when it comes to the ***** Support site. I would go so far as to say that no longer do we share a bed but we have had expensive counselling followed by an acrimonious divorce and are now happily existing at either end of the universe!

I would love to be able to say "Thank you" but it hardly seems appropriate does it?

Pope Benedict the Anglicans the Guardian and married Priests

I was in a conversation the other evening about Pope BendyDick's recent repeated offer to the Anglican communions that should get get all annoyed, cross and fuming over the fact that someone who naturally has a uterus and no willy be made a bishop can come and be Catholics. Now the offer is open not only to Anglicans one at a time but aslo for full congregations including the priests, now this poses somewhat of a problem for those priests that are Anglican and are married.

Now the Guardian is a paper I seldom readm but it usually is reasonably up to speed on the idea of research however one of the people I was in conversation with made the comment when I brought up the problems of being married and a priest retorted that "Well I read it in the Guardian they could be married", She would not be swayed in her belief, something that is in the Guardian is to be believed more that the internal rules that govern the Catholic Church .. aka "Canon Law".

For all you Guardian readers out there who may have read that and are now defending the idea that the Catholic Church has done a U-Turn on this policy .. here are some facts the Guardian missed.

Up until 1139 all the clery could be married (Infact 39 popes where offically married). The Second Lateran council changed the rules. All existing priest marriages were declared invalid and future priests were required to maintain celibacy.

Celibacy as defined by the 2nd Lateran council is quite rigidly defined (in Latin) Priest are not allowed to be married or have sex with females, males, self, animals, etc... it makes an interesting and funny if it were not the document that sentenced the priesthood to centuries of misery really for no good reason other than they didnt like sex getting in the way.

The Church resists to this day married priests. For a priest to legally get married under canon law he must be granted a special dispensation to release him from the rule of celibacy, (in fact if a priest wants to have an offical period of "self love" he needs to have this permisson as well)

However the process to grant the dispensation and the actual wording of the dispensation are problematic. When applying for the dispensation a priest must put together a lot of paperwork. Part of the paperwork almost requires him to say that he never should have been ordained a priest in the first place.

The document that grants dispensation from celibacy is called "a rescript", and it includes wording that says the priest loses rights to
1. the clerical state
2. loses his office of priest
3. is no longer bound by the duties of the clerical state.

The priest is then allowed to marry under Church rules.

However, the rescript wording also includes a prohibition of exercising any sacred ministry. Thus the priest may not participate in a parish as a lector/reader, eucharistic minister, or any functions of a deacon or priest.

So, when Anglian priests decide to jump ship and are all ready married will all of them have to apply for and get the dispensation? Yes if they want to stay offically married then yes they do.

The canon law that applies is number 1394 which is

"Without prejudice to the provisions of can. 194, ß1, n. 3, a cleric who attempts marriage, even if only civilly, incurs a latae sententiae suspension. If, after warning, he has not reformed and continues to give scandal, he can be progressively punished by deprivations, or even by dismissal from the clerical state"

However there is a "get out" rule in Canon law 1335

"Provided it is not reserved to the Apostolic See (the Vatican), a penalty which is established by law and has been imposed or declared, can be remitted by the following:

Provided it is not reserved to the Apostolic See, a latae sententiae penalty established by law but not yet declared, can be remitted by the Ordinary in respect of his subjects and of those actually in his territory or of those who committed the offence in his territory. Moreover, any Bishop can do this, but only in the course of sacramental confession."

So basically as long as no-body says anything and the priest do not apply for permission to be married and the See does not declare or impose a "latae senentiae" then everything is fine, the priest remains as he was before, cept he is no longer lonely in bed.

Aint it grand to see the high-heejin-god-bothers being clever?

So in answer to the the lady who queried me on why i believed Anglican priests cannot remain married, No they can't if they want to follow the rules of the organisation they belong to, they will become "latae senentiae" if they do.
But if they want to just keep on going and ignore that particular rule then they can, but you do have to then question any stand they make on Abortion, Divorce etc etc etc, which are also against canon law.

Another case of "Do as I Say not as I do" from the men in the funny frocks!

Rage, rage against the dying of the light! Teenage Zombies, Shopping and the cost of a cup of Coffee

It has been one of those days....
As I sit here in McDonagh Central, the words of Dylan Thomas come rocketing into my mind

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Yes I have been shopping in Londonderry / Derry (affectionatly known as "Stroke City" cos the Prods afix the suffix London and the Catholics do not , hence "Stroke City"). But that is not ther reason for this rant....

After a quick wander around PC world to look at the tech and all things geeky, sundry females dictated that it was time to hit Foyleside Shopping Centre, what our American cousins call "a mall". Oh Joy Unbounded!

To me shopping centres of any type are as Douglas Adams would have it "..the long dark tea time of the soul" and on this late October day never was it more true. Gales and heavy rain had moved in from the Atlantic and the north coast of Ireland was being drenched and blown hither and thither in equal measure.

So there I was abandoned in one of the temples of Mamon with not a great deal to do for a couple of hours. Don't get me wrong there is a place in the world for clothes shops otherwise we would all be naked and in the case of Northern Europeans blue with the cold. However the nature of clothes shops is defined by a select group of deamons that have slipped through a dimensional gateway and rather than douse everyone in nasty smelling ectoplasm have instead taken it upon themselves to damn humanity to a multitude of evils wrapped up in the gaudy glitter of "department stores".

It being close to Halloween, the store fronts are packed with the tat all parents of the under 10's are nagged incessantly for. Witches harts, skeletons of varying sizes, colour and luminosoty (all of which are anatomically total crap!) gouls, ghosties and other miscellanea that go bump in the night. (perhaps only in the minds of people that have had too much cheese before bed - nocturnal Stilton nibblers have a lot to answer for!)

I sat at the central crossroads of the four "legs" of the mall, three floors above and two below and let a seething horde of humantiy bumble past. It struck me there really wasn't that much difference between the shuffling gait of these Halloween consumers and that of the Zombies in the "[insert time of day here]... Of the Dead" movies.. All they needed was a little less colour and some dribble and it would have been perfect.
Way and above any other group represented in this mass of humanity was the packs of PPTGs [Post Pubescent Teenage Girls]. Now I am the father of a 20 something male, a fact that I give thanks for every waking day for I as a father would not let any daughter of mine out on the street looking anything like these lassies.

There was a palable tension as each group of PPTGs passed by. Where as teenage boys seldom are not awake enough at 3pm to pose any threat (other than the sudden discovery of last night's socks in the linen basket) these lassies where on the hunt, tracking down their prey by some form of collective telepathy... or could it be the high pitched giggling and overly enthusiastic ejectualations of camardarie - Hmmm there could be rich pickings for a piece of scientific study there.

I retired to the relative peace and quiet of the Gentleman's department of Debenhams which has one small floor in the basement which is around the same size as the portion of the next floor up set aside to sell handbag deodourisation utensils.

There amongst the suits, 3 colours in a variety of sizes from "Skinny Git" to "Fat Bastard" I found a modicum of sanity and peace. This was not a place for the predatory packs of PPTGs or there older but much more deadly YMWPs  [Young Mother With Pram] or the vicious solitary MAWLFAPFs [Middle Aged Woman Looking For A Party Frock] I spent a pleasant hour picking through a sizeable array of goods branded by "Stig" from Top Gear. (you can get Stig on a Rope if you feel the need to wash those intimate places with a dark visored helmeted Racing driver!) and some suits by "Rocca, John Rocca" why on earth does he need to have name mentioned twice .. it is not like it is a difficult name.. and I heard it the first time.. so WTF is there twice for?

Venturing back into the meleé i girded my loins and set off in search of a cup of coffee. Now I have said this before and I will say it again.. I WANT A FECKING CUP OF COFFEE. I do not want a trough, a bath or a small resevoir of the fecking stuff flavoured with caramel, cinnamon and essence of Papal Sweat!
I want a simple uncomplicated cup of coffee that taste of coffee, with perhaps a splash of milk, milk that came from an ordinary cow, not a skinny or lord perserve me a Soya cow! I want to be able to go up to the spotty oik behind the counter and say "A cup of coffee please" and not have to endure the endless fecking questions about the additional extras. Was not my instruction simple enough and put in such a way that there should be no misunderstanding? So to all you "baristas" out there, you are NOT some form of intellectual giant whose right it is to question the nature of the universe and coffee's place in it, you are there to give me a cup of smegging coffee when I ask for one and take whatever mortage level price your establishment is currently selling it for.How in gods green earth does some hot water, coffee beans and a serving attitude taught by Attilla the Starbucks Paradgim Moderator come to £3 fecking 50?

Ah well tis over for another wee while, I have been there done that and now I am at home, with the computer, a coffee and a good book, so for now I have done my "Rage Rage..." bit and the night having come lies ahead
Toodle pip for the now gentle reader :-)

A timely reminder about our attitudes !

I am a bit late to the game here.. but when I read Francie's post about the crap she has to put up with I got really really cross. Like Cuz Rob I am moving my post off Francie's or Kathy Brown's or Greyhawk's blog because I am still cross and I may trawl the epithets drawer more deeper than usual. You have been warned

My anger comes not only from the fact that I count Francie as a friend and colleague but that I have seen and heard exactly what Francie describes as

Turns out trying to minimize your gender in the way you look or act is a fairly standard thing, which I discovered after many conversations with other women in male dominated fields. And you might have guessed that this post isn't really about "just" me but rather about the effect those stereotype comments have and the lack of diversity that creates in turn.

How often do you have to watch what you say, how you act or look in order to not lose technical credibility?

FUCK! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I have been on the receiving end of a similar gender specific stereotyping. When I was nursing I was told by a senior nurse manager that ".. there is no place for men in this profession ... " When I mentioned my career to new colleagues for many there was an immediate reaction that was a look that said "...oh you are gay then..." This assumption was so prevalent and so strong that on two occasions I was approached by fellow nursing professionals who took it upon themselves to save me from the sin of "sodomy" during lunch. The assumption then and to a certain extent now is Male Nurse = Homosexual. Mostly I picked up that they considered this a bad thing, this was underlined by a "gentleman" in a bar one night, a husband of a colleague, came up to me and spat through clenched teeth "You fucking bender - can't you get a proper job?"before turning on his heel and walking off.

It was not being thought of as a homosexual that annoyed me, it was the assumption that that was in some way "bad" and I was somehow incapable of doing a proper job because of it. I still feel that folk who think like that can take a very long walk off a fucking short pier

Professional capability is NOT defined by what orrifice you prefer, the friends you have ,the clothes you wear, how big your tits are or how well turned your ankles are in a button boot or for that matter if you got more than an average thumping with the ugly stick..if you make assumptions based on any of the above you are a A+ Gold Plated petty, evil, small minded, fuck-witted TWONK!

Now Francie and Kathy do not need me to defend them , they are more than capable of doing that themselves and this post comes from me being mightly pissed off by the idea that every professional community I wander through seems to have it's share of arse holes who sit wrapped in a blanket of their own prejudices, pulling at the lace curtains of their cubicles and "tut tut"-ing

[sigh]

I was reminded the last couple of lines of a poem by Philip Larkin.

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence

Is always the same; we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.


Emphasis mine.

Some thoughts on Tradition

I have recently returned from a business trip to the far east and arrived back just in time for the annual tradition of the 12th of July. The "Glorious Twelfth" as it is known in some circles is the traditional celebration of the The Battle of Boyne in 1690 when the Protestant King William of Orange gave the Catholic King James a bloody nose. Now it was far from the simple matter of two denominations of Christianity being belligerent, it was more about the power of the royal families in Europe at the time. In fact Pope Alexander VIII lent King William troops for the war against King James. King William and the Pope and several other countries were in the League of Ausburg which was set up to defend the Palatinate of the Rhine from the French. A fact sadly lacking from the history expounded by organisations like the Orange Order who much prefer the world view that the Battle of the Boyne was a "Protestant Victory for a Protestant People" which is in fact a load of revisionist knob cheese, but what is a bit of revisionism when it is the absolute right given by God and justified by Luther, Calvin, Knox and the tooth fairy to be a raving bigot at the drop of a bowler hat each July.

I overheard a conversation at the airport where a grandmother was telling her grandchildren of the "good old days" when her grandfather paid her 1 old penny each time she sat on his knee and shouted "To hell and the flames with the pope and all Catholics". Ah yes the good old days of vitriol and hatred ... such a fine gift to pass on to one's children!

When I was a teenager if you travelled outside the streets where you were known it was inevitable that you would be asked "What are you?". Now for other traditional forms of hatred like racism it is easy to pick your targets by visual cues alone. Picking which person to abuse is harder when based on religion hence the blunt interrogative method. It became second nature for most to quickly work out who was doing the asking and switch sides accordingly, this whilst being ethically suspect was a sure fire way to avoid getting a black eye or worse. Needless to say one had to learn the responses to the follow up questions of "Well sing the Sash" or "Say the hail Mary" but that was a small price to pay.

You could not answer "neither", that was not an option, you could not sit on the fence. You had to plant yourself firmly on one side or the other and be prepared to defend that position from all comers, needless to say expressions of distrust or outright hatred of the "other" side were mandatory if you were to be believed.

As a callow youth the painful experience of having to fight off both sides soon lead to the my questionable position of variable allegiance, although in hindsight I was put in the position of having to repeat parrot like the vitriol of one side or the other, something I could not and hopefully would not allow myself to do now.

Now do not get me wrong, tradition can be a wonderful thing. The traditions of openness, friendship, philanthropy and generosity of spirit are fine things to pass on to the next generation. Such traditions are the glue that holds societies together and makes them work. However on the other side of the coin are the traditions that are divisive, that are driven by the sure and certain knowledge that your tradition is the ONLY one that is right, the only one that is useful and in this case that it is the only one that is God Given to you and your side only.

Traditions are dangerous when they are the only thing that defines who you are. I do not define myself by the country that I live in, nor do I wrap myself in the dubious comfort of a flag, as this only succeeds in hiding me from others. If I was holding that tightly onto a flag how could I hug a stranger or extend them the hand of friendship?.. and there is the rub ... i do not think that is part of the traditions I see unfolding each July. There are no hands of friendship, no hugs expect for those in your tribe. It is all inward looking, incestuous, foetid reinforcement of generationally transmitted regligious hatred and distrust.

Tomorrow, tens of thousands of bowler hatted, white gloved men will march behind banners that display their commitment to the British monarch (but ONLY with the strict condition that the monarch is Protestant, or more exactly, not Catholic) and commitment to the Bible (the protestant one not the catholic one). The banners they march behind will be flanked by men carrying swords and pikestaffs in rememberance of those that were killed and the fact that they needed to be killed to protect the faith. There will be marching bands playing military marching tunes mixed with sectarian anthems, some of which will have words that call the listener to arms to defend with violence the God given right to be Protestant. There will be acts of worship in which ministers will pillory the "church of rome" and declaimed it as the worst evil in the world. There will be speeches where the leaders of the Orange tribes will extole their members to stick together for God and Country at all and any cost.

This is not a tradition I want any part of.

The "YEC " scientific method

I recently had a run in with some anti-Darwin YEC (Young Earth Creationists) I am a card carrying "Grumpy Old Atheist Fart" and as I get older my capacity to put up with the tawdry dribbling of the wilful ignorant gets less and less.

In a perfect proof of Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies i was sent this

"However, the Western nations have not learned the lessons of the horrific wars and genocides this century. Evolution is today entrenched in our universities even more than it was in Nazi Germany. "

and a sentence later not satisfied with reductio ad hitlerum, Darwin is up to his evil ways again 150 years after his death.

.. our report of the Columbine High School massacre documents the on-going effects of evolutionary thinking in the young

This load of advanced gobshitery set me to thinking and I believe I can now reveal that YEC's have adapted the standard Scientific Method the orginal one goes like this

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.

2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.

3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.

4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

And this has evolved (ooops sorry strike that) stayed the same into the YEC METHOD which goes like this

1. Observe the scientists observing Phenomena, look grumpy, pray a bit, blame Darwin for the Holocaust.

2. Start mining "The Sunday Sport" and "The National Enquirer" for phenomena that could be useful later on. "Aircraft buried under 1000 years of ice" is a good one.
The startling news that the Piltdown Man was a fake is another. Stop looking grumpy and try looking saintly for a while, grow a Moses-esque beard, pray some more, twiddle thumbs and wait for a scientist to publish something you don't like. Blame Darwin for Columbine, Pol Pot,the third world debt and the disappearance of Orange Smarties.

3. Have a good long pray, fleece some true believers of a few more quid, wonder why scientists bother with all this work since they are wrong all the time ... blame Satan ... Jesus tells you that Darwin IS Satan and he hid his horns using genetic manipulation.

4. Form a "ministry", start a web site, make a documentary about how Darwin IS actually Satan . Prove beyond doubt that Darwin's Beard is a portent of the end of times. Form a hypothesis that affirms that the Man and, consequently, the Earth, is in the centre of the creation, prove hypothesis using bible verses ,repeal Copernican celestial model because Copernicus was a Catholic and very probably a relative of Darwin and therefore the second cousin twice removed of "the beast" .. underline this by showing their beards were VERY similar.

5. Ban Science for being always wrong, co-opt the Orange Order as the NEW Protestant Inquisition, burn Richard Dawkins at the stake even if he does recant.

Irish Government, The Catholic Church and abuse

There are paragraphs and links in this post that are not easy to read ...

In Ireland for decades children were systematically abused, physically , sexually and psychologically by agents of the Catholic Church in Ireland. When they did report the abuse the children were ignored, when the complaints got to great to ignore the church simply moved the nuns, priests and brothers to other parts of the world out of the jurisdiction of the state ... not that they would have done a whole hell of a lot about it if they had got their hands on the abusers.

Justice Ryan a senior Irish Judge was tasked with investigating the 1000's of claims of abuse and his report was published this week all 5 volumes of it. The Christian Brothers went to court and won an injunction which means that Justice Ryan's report could not name the abusers in his report even when evidence exists that abuse did take place.

The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland Cardinal Brady, a mealy mouthed useless stream of piss is "saddened and sorry" by the report. SADDENED BY THIS?

from the Ryan Report ...
Physical abuse
More than 90% of all witnesses who gave evidence to the Confidential Committee reported being physically abused while in schools or out-of-home care. Physical abuse was a component of the vast majority of abuse reported in all decades and institutions and witnesses described pervasive abuse as part of their daily lives. They frequently described casual, random physical abuse but many wished to report only the times when the frequency and severity were such that they were injured or in fear for their lives. In addition to being hit and beaten, witnesses described other
forms of abuse such as being flogged, kicked and otherwise physically assaulted, scalded, burned and held under water. Witnesses reported being beaten in front of other staff, residents, patients and pupils as well as in private. Physical abuse was reported to have been perpetrated by religious and lay staff, older residents and others who were associated with the schools and institutions. There were many reports of injuries as a result of physical abuse, including broken bones, lacerations and bruising.

Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse was reported by approximately half of all the Confidential Committee witnesses. Acute and chronic contact and non-contact sexual abuse was reported, including vaginal and analrape, molestation and voyeurism in both isolated assaults and on a regular basis over long periods of time. The secret nature of sexual abuse was repeatedly emphasised as facilitating its occurrence. Witnesses reported being sexually abused by religious and lay staff in the schools and institutions and by co-residents and others, including professionals, both within and external to the institutions. They also reported being sexually abused by members of the general public, including volunteer workers, visitors, work placement employers, foster parents, and others who had unsupervised contact with residents in the course of everyday activities. Witnesses reported being sexually abused when they were taken away for excursions, holidays or to work for others. Some witnesses who disclosed sexual abuse were subjected to severe reproach by those who had responsibility for their care and protection. Female witnesses in particular described, at times, being told they were responsible for the sexual abuse they experienced, by both their abuser and those to whom they disclosed abuse.

The Irish Tax payer is fronting up a billion euros in compensation for their part in the conspiracy of silence over decades of abuse. The prime offenders, the catholic church has managed to find a paltry 128 million euro, obviously the shame of allowing the systematic abuse of children and then covering it up is worth 128 million.

The perfidious devils in the church that allowed this to happen and covered it up after discovered are still doing it today! Bishop John Magee supported by three of the senior members of the church refused to resign when an inquiry found his child protection policy inadequate and dangerous after complaints of abuse where investigated. The Bishop "stood aside" from the running of the diocese of Cloyne, although he STILL retains his title and is fully supported by the Vatican in his stand, although it does appear he has his head up his arse if he can't see what is happening around him.

There is shame enough for everyone in this report, for the state for ignoring it under church pressure, the public for thinking "it couldnt be true they are religious" .Both state and public are talking openly of their shame and trying to find ways to make some difference to lives of the survivors (and yes there were many who did not survive) and yet so far the Catholic Churtch through its senior representativea is "saddened" ... well Pope Benedict, Ireland is looking to you as God Botherer in Chief to be WAY more than saddened or "unable to comment at this time" .... get off your fecking arse and do something about it! The buck stops with you!

Have a read at the summary report here the full report runs to 5 volumes... 5 fecking volumes of documented misery all done by the agents of "The Catholic Jesus"

Have a listen to the discussion on Everyday Ethics

The Irish Times take on Justice Ryan's report.

SOCKS ARE EVIL!

Yes you read that right ... socks are indeed evil. It says much of their devious ways than not many of the human population have noticed the depths of their perfidy!

I am sure you have noticed that regardless of the care with which you prepare your laundry at least one sock with mysteriously vanish (and i can hear a choked gurgled "how would he know" issue from the massed female mcdonaghs). BUT IT IS TRUE, socks vanish, it may seem arbitrarily however i can reveal here and now it is a cunning sockisously plan!

They slip, lubricated by comfort fabric softener (Spring Fresh variety), between the threads of the space time continum and enter the dark kingdom of Los'tlondery (you have to spit at the "t") where the current sock tyrant Angus the Great, the left foot of a pair of Argyle Golf Socks with reinforced heel, holds both sock world and the world of humans to ransom.

Where do you think all the "expense" money for MPs is going? Fixing the Mote? Cleaning the swimming pool or building a helipad ... NO ... MPs have to create these expenses so that they can keep up on the tributes to Angus the Not-Holey ... and it is not just the UK ... look at NASA ... in the 60's and 70's it was trips to the moon every 6 months, now well they have the "wrong sort of clouds" or "the wind is blowing from the south west" and nary a rocket gets off the ground. All that money .. where is it going?.. Simple! It goes to placate Angus so that he does not release his sockly horde of zombie socks into our world where they will suck your brains out as your sleep through a straw!!!!

Angus and his army is getting stronger and stronger with every sock that vanishes, soon it will be too late. Rise up Humanity! Now! Break the chains of sock based tryanny, go commando in your Crocs, slip into your hush puppies au natural or wear your Doc Martins in the buff!

You have been Warned!

More scantimonious dribbling from the Zombies that run the country

It has long been a bone of contention (for me anyway) that Ireland still has a Blasphemy law. Currently, section 13 of the 1961 Defamation Act provides for sanctions, both monetary and prison, where a person might be convicted of publishing a blasphemous libel and this HAS to be enacted since article 40.6.1.i of the Constitution of Ireland imposes an obligation to implement the constitutional offence of blasphemy. Now there is a bit of a debate going on at the moment should we keep it, change it or get rid of it and if it goes would the nun's go on strike?

So were I to make a claim that Mr Cowen current "TeaShock" and chief of the Zombies that currently run the country not only had problems with Onanism but has a face like the back end of the donkey that carried the holy family to Egypt shortly after Christmas 2009 odd years ago, a special arm of the irish police "the Be'Jaazus Squad" would appear at my door and drag me off to face a nice big fine and a term in Jail for taking the name (or arse in this example) of a holy donkey in vain.

Were the changes being discussed enacted, hundreds of thousands of euros could be raised by the "Be'Jaazus" squad were they to hang around all the parents of teenage sons in Ireland ready to slap a 5,000 euro fine on any parent that intoned the phase" Jesus, Mary, Joesph and the wee donkey too!" when their offspring came home with their tongue, eyebrow and foreskin pierced.Ireland would be free from the pecuniary effects of the credit crunch!

What annoys me most is the "special treatment complaint" proposal which would ban speech where:

the material be grossly abusive or insulting in matters held sacred by a religion; that it must actually cause outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion; and, crucially, that there be an intent to cause such outrage

How fecking daft is that? Lets take the word “religion” out of that phrase and put in “sport” or “political party”. No one would suggest that politicians or football teams get such protection, although it would appear that Chelski need it. If you were just generally making comments that caused outrage amongst the 4 or 5 people that make up the enitre congregation of the Church of the sacred bleeding turnip of Ballymunn in the back bar of McNulty's gin palace on a wet Tuesday in May would it be okay given that I have just outraged then all?

Now I suppose on the face of it that doesn't sound like a bad idea, pluralism and all that, lets be nice to each other and just get along. However as an atheist this fills me with a certain amount of foreboding. For a god botherer could say that my position of total rejection of the sanctimonious bollocks that dribbles diarrhoea like from the pulpits, prayer mats and gospel tents of Erin's green land falls under the remit of "causing an outrage" (quite frankly I can't find the face that fecking cares whether they are outraged or not) But ... if it becomes law I will HAVE to be nice and polite to these people or face the legal consequences. Should this be enacted in law they can continue to spout their deluded crap but with protection under law from people like me who laugh at their frankly dangerous ramblings. For example when Pope Bendydick comes out with a statement Condoms Make Aids Worse that claims sacréd authority for his Pythonesque view that "Every Sperm is Scared" and sex is for "Procreation not Recreation" [isn't it odd how the Pope and the Arch Demon of Proddy rhetoric the Rev Ian Paisley agree on the sins of the flesh] . Obviously his senile ex cathedra pronouncements are fact because they are backed up by the words of talking camel that once took a crap on Moses's doormat on the instructions of an angel

And then there would be me ... I could no longer say that he is a child molester protecting, delusional old fecker who believes he eats the flesh and drinks the blood of his god every Sunday and not only should he be ignored but should be locked up under the mental health act. Well I can .. but can I afford the 5000 euro fine and the up to 7 years in jail?

BAH HUMBUG! Why give one section of society a right to ban the speech of the rest on grounds that they are offended when reason and rationality point out they are daft?

The Weight Loss, Wallace and Gromit Boxers, Clothes shops and Lingerie Rant

During my 2008 annual trip to the doctors I was told "Everything you do is BAD for you ... so STOP IT" as a result of being in the late ultra-violet of my adolescence such prognostications from your local doctor, shamen or wise woman should not be ignored.

So to cut a long story short, I reduced my calorific intake from one that when added up on my calculator required it to be expressed with exponentiation (you know ... when that "e" appears in the middle of a big number) to one that only had 4 numbers in it and I started to walk ... briskly ... while glowering at teenagers who were to a spotty sullen hoodie garbed androgynous individual skinnier than me ... bastards!!

12 months has passed since I started my lifestyle change the bathroom scales have stopped trying to hide every Saturday morning and no longer require Prozac. I have to pass on my thanks to Rob Novak who pointed out that weighing yourself AFTER your shower could add a pound to your weight, so weight watchers .. this is important ... weigh yourself, POST visit to the toilet, POST shave but PRE breakfast and PRE shower to minimise the distance your scales needle has to move!

I have lost nearly 28 lbs and now none of my fecking trousers fit! This came to a head (or an ankle in this case) on Friday when I discovered that if I jumped up and down vigorously OR had more than £3.76 in small change in my pocket, my work combats gradually worked their way over my hips and if not stopped would leave me deeply embarrassed ... particularly if I am wearing my Wallace and Gromit Boxers with the light up, glow in the dark LED eyes.

I should have realised this would happen as I can now look down and see both of my feet without having to wave them like an eejit cockney pearly king doing the hokie cokie on the Queen's birthday. So today I had to do that thing that no grown man should have to do more than once every 10 years, I had to go shopping for clothes and actually do more than pretend interest.

I discovered that I am not longer a generous 36" waist. I am a comfortable 34" and even more wonderful is that if I lie down flat and use a coat hanger with the hook through the eye of the zip and pull like a mad thing for half an hour I can just about get a 32" waist past my hips! I am so proud :-)

I bought a nice pair of trousers and as it is the start of the "less rainy season" in Ireland a pair of suitably restrained "where is my surf board dude?" shorts and lastly a Belt so that I get the wear out of the 36" items in my wardrobe but do not expose my Wallace and Gromit's to the world at large ... #WIN #WIN #WIN!

However what is it with clothes shops "tryin' on" rooms?? There I am with my selections wanting to try them on to see if I can strut my stuff in sartorial elegance and where do the shop designers hide the cubicles?? In the fecking Lingerie section. Don't get me wrong, I like ladies to have the odd bit of lacy frippery as much as the next chap but I do not have to walk thru racks of thongs, bras and whale bone reinforced gussetted underfrillies on my way to try on my prospective purchases.

I need an quiet avenue of suits, ties and shirts with the odd sycophantic sales person bowing to me at every opportunity and muttering the sacred mantra of men's apparel "suits you sir.. oh yes suits you". What I do NOT need is a 6'x3' picture of a lady in her underfrillies informing me of the virtue of the new blue satin bra with inflatable pouches so you too can go from a 34a to a 36C with just a bit of puffing and blowing. I do NOT need independently inflated cleavage satin clad or not! AND I most certainly do NOT want to see an octogenarian lady holding up a black lacy thong to her waist in front of a mirror! Now don't get me wrong, octogenarian ladies should feel free to buy and wear black lacy thongs and when and if I hit the 80 mark I hope they do! For now I just don't need to be an on-looker in her purchasing experience. #shudders#

So all you shop designers out there, get the finger out and put your male changing rooms somewhere else. Guide us through the retail experience with gentle hands, by all means direct us as to what is and what is not cool this season, but please please pleeeeeaaaase end this inhuman practise NOW!.

Arch Harridan Iris Robinson gets off

Arch harridan, MLA and wife of the First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly who I have ranted long and hard about in the past got official notification from the cops that

"On receipt of the advice of the Public Prosecution Service and considering all of the matters raised, the police service is satisfied that on the occasions considered, Mrs Robinson did not commit an offence,"

Sorry but WTF??

see here
for the story and other links on the Beeb.

I don't protest her having the views she has, she can believe that little purple pixies live inside her clit and give her orgasms for all I care. What I get very very very cross about is that she as a representative in high public office when she expresses her opinions it can and is construed as coming from her position as the Chair of the Stormont health committee

In summary she said that Homosexuality could be "turned around" with the help of a psychiatrist. Would I be surprised if a lot of people end up believing that someone in her position she might actually know what she is talking about? No of course I wouldn't!

How DARE she make value judgements on air and in the press that compare a legal, accepted form of human sexuality to the crimes of murder and child molestation.
Let her keep such idea to herself and keep the airing of such statements to the times when she is in the company of fellow Xtian wannabe sybarites who all ache for the luxury of an afterlife free of Catholics, Gay People and Sinn Fein.

You may have got away with any form of censorship or sanction this time Mrs Robinson but there are those that disagree with you and will continue to disagree with you and some of us will be as offensive about you as you are about others!

Oh and if you like to indulge in a lobster thermidor once in a while... be afraid be VERY afraid.. you will be next on Iris's hit list. I am sure she has a nice wee psychiatrist in her offices that will be able to "turn you around" too!

In regards to the lobsters I am referring to Leviticus “Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.” In regards to male homosexuality: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” Both abominations to the Lord and using Iris's reasoning both in the same scale as child molestation and murder. You have been warned!

Creme Eggs - the scandal!

Dearest assembled geeks, geekettes and nerds of the associated and allied trades!

I am DISGUSTED and outraged at the scandal of the shrinking Creme Egg. As a callow youth I remember creme eggs as being much more substantially sized and only cost 3d (thats 1.5p to you young whipper snappers).

This is the situation the world finds itself in yellow and white centred microcosm, the men with Ex-Hell spreadsheets and their pencils neatly arranged on a tidy desk have gradually over the years scrimped and nipped and tucked the majestic creme egg from it's once majestic glory into the modern shadow of it's former self.

Yes J'accuse those second cousins of bankers, accountants, for tis with them that this crime lies!


Above a creme egg being delivered circa 1965 cost thruppence weight 14 hundredweight

The creme egg today a shadow of it's former self you can fit 2 on your hand for goodness sake!

BAH HUMBUG is say.. nay THRICE BAH HUMBUG!

Pope and Rabid Free Presbyterian Pastor find common ground!

To none Northern Ireland readers this will probably come as a surprise but the rest of the world it may need some explaining.. The Free Presbyterian Church is (or was) run by Rev. Ian Paisley and twas he that in a protest when the last pope spoke to EU called him an Antichrist so no great love lost there. The odious Rev David McIlveen whom I mentioned in a previous post here and the dried up auld bitch Iris "I know someone that can cure homosexuality" Robinson whom I was less than pleasant about here have a new supporter all be it not directly...Both Iris and David are members of the same coven as the aforemention ayatollal of twonk, the arch bishop of WooWoo "Big Ian".

So the antichrist himself Pope Bendy Dick the whatever has aligned himeself with the Norn Iron Twonk squad ... see here ... Since Iris got in early with "it is up there murder and child molestation" El Papa and the papal possee had to box clever and have joined in with " ....saving humanity from homosexual behaviour is more important than saving rainforests from destruction."

WTF?

Stop your priests fiddling with altar children and stop whisking the ones that do to the other side of the world when they are caught, until then do the world a favour and shut the fuck up unless you have something sensible to say!

The Advertising Standards Authority's response to the offical complaint about "The word of god against Sodomy"

Belfast has an annual Gay Pride March which this year attracted 5-8,000 marchers from all over the province and Ireland. Nothing odd about that many cities have similar marches.

However this year Rev David Mcilveen and his church the Sandown Free Presbyterian felt they were "obliged under God to publicly challenge the vices of this generation" so they took out a full page ad in a local newspaper "The Newsletter". The 540 word advert was exactly the sort of intolerant bollox that you would expect .. it described homosexuality as an abomination, defined homosexuals as perverts and called on all religious followers to maintain a very public stance against the gay community. The church, led by the Rev David McIlveen, justifies its hostility towards the gay community by ‘quoting’ from the Bible and lambasting the need for a parade which celebrates a “profitable lifestyle”, (I think he may mean "profligate" rather than "profitable")

The ASA and The News Letter received complaints about the advert and it was then legally bound to investigate and report on the complaints which came in 2 parts

1. The ad's content was homophobic and, therefore, offensive
and
2. was likely to provoke hatred and violence against the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

The ASA reported on the 3rd of December (full text here) but basically upheld complaint (1) and rejected complaint (2) . The Sandown Church's advert WAS homophobic and, therefore, offensive. Good for the ASA! Common sense at last!

Let us not forget the other "powerful" moral message the bible teaches in the whole Sodom affair. Just before God destroyed Sodom (from whence the act of Sodomy gets it's name) he sent two angels down to recce the lay of the land prior to sending the fire and brimstone. Lot puts them up for the night in his house... Genesis 19 takes up the story

4 But before they [the angels] lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: 5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. 6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, 7 And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. 8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

(emphasis mine)
Lot's daughters survived unmolested however in Judges 19:24-29 almost exactly the same thing happens to a different set of people. The ladies involved on that occasion were gang raped and unfortunately died after a long night of abuse, not that anyone god included (and he stuck his nose into human affairs a lot more back then) seemed to mind that much certainly it would appear that no-one was brought to account for gang rape and murder by human or divine entity.

The Rev McIlveen and his congregation are odious people with odious minds peddling an odious message which sadly is listened to more often than not.

What annoyed me this weekend - Obama Vs McCain

Oh KNOB!

I can't avoid it any longer, I have, for the sake of international politeness and Irish/American detante, not made mention of the imminent exercise of electoral manumission in USia. However I have just watched the news and the pointless strutting and posturing that is being beamed onto every TV in the world has incensed me and I am monumentally fucked off with the whole thing.

Now I make no bones about my total disrespect for politicians and for the political process. If you follow my twitter stream you will have no doubt seen my description of the legacy of Pericles thus :-

If Politics is shite then politicians are the very thin toilet paper through which your fingers are prone to slip

@duffbert thought this was "Ewwwwww...." and @andreaw_m "YUCK!" and whilst @BillMalchisky thought the metaphor somewhat earthy, he then posited that ".. the purchase of a better quality paper would avoid the experience". Hmmm I am not sure about the purchasing of a new and better legislative assembly. Isnt that what we in the free world have already? For what are lobbyists if not the political machine's purchasing department?

USia is when it comes down to it, a two party system. Fair enuff. In the rest of the world where there are 2,3,or 4 party systems a stranger can ask "Which is which?" and you will probably be told that Party A is the "Right Wing" and favours big business, small government, the free market and trickle down economics. Party B is the Left and favours the working man (or woman), has it's big hairy nose into every facet of life and pushes a more regulated economy with a more structured distribution of wealth. Party C is in the centre and they really don't have policies they just want what YOU, the people want.

This is nice and simple and gives the stranger a grasp of what sort of political system the country operates under. However USia suffers from an advanced and debilitating phobia. It cannot,as a nation bring itself to say the word "socialist" without depositing a healthy gob in the nearest spittoon. As a result of this debilitating affliction American politics has had to evolve in a different direction. There are two parties which in the rest of the world would be a Left and Right but in USia there is the "Definitly-not-left-no-siree-we-are-very-right-but-not-right-enough-to-be-nasty" party and the "Not-as-right-as-them-but-hey-we-are-not-socailists-you-hear-defin-fecking-tootly-not-socialist" party.

AS far as I can see these two parties comprise of very very rich people who have meetings and take lots of $'s from other very very rich people and manage their affairs so that over the last 50 years the status quo has remained the same. There was a fairly recent rally at which McCain compared Obama to a European Socialist Leader.The BBC found a "talking head" (who must have been totally unaware that the BBC was a European company) who went somewhat further by saying "A vote for Obama was a vote for America taking the first steps towards a socialist tyranny like they have in Europe."

[sarcasm]Oh woe is me! Living in this despotic hell , this arbitrarily oppressive purgatory run by socialist deamons ready to strip me of my things and feed me piecemeal to the plebs OH America save me from this curse! [/sarcasm]

That took me a little by suprise as the only tyrannical sort of behaviour I have come across recently was the TSA in Newark Airport who indeed brought to me a new understanding of the phrase "abitaryly oppressive despot".

So lets alienate all my USian "Definitly-not-left-no-siree-we-are-very-right-but-not-right-enough-to-be-nasty" party readership. Ms Palin or as I prefer to call her "The Anti-Strumpet" would appear to have eclipsed any grey haired gravitas that Mr McCain has brought to the proceedings. Worries about her underwear budget and whether her knicker gussets have been federally funded have rocked not only America but the rest of the world and the fact that contrary to good non-socialist policy she appears NOT TO HAVE GONE TO SPECSAVERS preferring the Dolci and Gabbana Joe Ninety/Chairman Mao look! That being said for my office party I am going to get my hair Palin'ed Never let it be said that I am not at one with the Throb and Ebb of modern fashion!

Still on the "Definitly-not-left-no-siree-we-are-very-right-but-not-right-enough-to-be-nasty" side. Has no one thought to ask OK you have had 8 years - what have you done? The government is exactly the same size, (**Update** Bob tells me it is bigger) the tax burden on the population is pretty much the same as it always is (**Update** Bob tells me it is bigger) your have allowed the economy to get fucked on a global scale, china now near as damn it owns the country, we are fighting 2 wars that show no signs of ending now tell me why the fuck I should vote for your lot again? It would be a question I would ask regardless of my politics. But like over here in Ulster were we have the "We Hate Catholics" party and the "Kill all Protestants" party the WORSE thing you could do is vote for the other side for the simple reason they ARE the other side and they eat babies and have forked tails and are very possibly closet socialists.

Ok t'other side
Obama is all for "change" HA! my fat arse he is. He is a politician and they no more like change than a Notes geek likes Exchange!

We have an MLA over here Caitríona Ruane who is all for change too, but has managed in 5 years to make absolutely NO DIFFERENCE WHAT SO EVER and she has only 1 thing to do. This is because everyone thinks change is a wonderful thing until they have to do it, then they don't like it.

Change is Paisley shaking hands with Adams, Mandella shaking hands with de Klerk That is REAL change. That is a sea change that you can feel as the hair on your neck stands up with anticipation. Does Obama herald that change? Bollocks he does! My hair is sullen in it's refusal to stand. "He will be the first black president" so fecking what? Is the amount of melanin in the skin a measure of a man's worthiness? I have a sister with loads of freckles perhaps she could run for President over here. Similarly I have heard "But she will be the first woman president!" when Hilary was around. So not only colour but the possession of ovaries, uterus and breasts are the defining paradigm of this brave new "changed" world we are being ushered into?

The change that Obama champions is as ethereal as pixie dust and in 4 years time people will be asking "so what did change?" and as usual the answer will be ...nothing, nada, not a thing, zippo. This is the way the world works and particularly it seems in modern America. In January in the vaulted halls of power it will (probably) be the same old whore wearing a different dress.

I hope it won't. I really do! So this time next year lets all meet back here and see what has happened in the intervening 12 months any bets that anything will have changed?

**Udpate** Down in the comments Bob informs me that the US government is a LOT bigger than it was 8 years ago, as is the annual budget deficit, not to mention the national debt. LOTS bigger and the tax burden on the middle class is WAY higher than it was 8 years ago... in that case perhaps things CAN only get better.. we shall see. ...oO(but wait isnt Bush in the "Definitly-not-left-no-siree-we-are-very-right-but-not-right-enough-to-be-nasty" party which is the wee gov,low taxes party? Ah the sweet sickly taste of pure irony!)

The British Humanist Society take a stand .. probably.

Well this a start I suppose :-)

It is almost definitely maybe making a stand what what we probably are sure about sort of.

I love the quote frm Christian Voice's spokestwonk Steve Green

"Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large

Hey if that is the level of my danger to the public I feel a lot better! I have always been told that I am a "servant of Satan" but it seems I may be a "Servant of Volvo"

A bit of a rant - Faith Healing

It has been at least a couple of months since I have had a rant and today I will rectify that as I am monumentally pissed off and I have a feeling I may really "go off on one", so consider this a warning and if rants about religion are not your thing don't read the bit in the box below!.

Here we go..
If you are a regular reader of my blog you will know that I sometimes get a bit cross about not so much "religion" but "religious people". My last rant was about a certain MLA (like an MP but a Northern Irish version) who believes that being Gay in the eyes of God and humanity is comparable to Child Molestation and Murder. This MP is the chairperson of the Health Committee and remains uncensored and unpunished for such dreadful utterances. This rant is not about her this time, another group of "happy smiley people" have raised my ire.

Every Saturday for the last year or so a local church group have set up chairs, speakers and a big banner in the centre of town. This is a large blue banner claiming "HEALING" in large white letters, soothing music plays in the background and lots and lots of leaflets like the one opposite are handed out by "Happy Smiley People"

There are usually only a few HSP leafleting but today there were dozens of them! Some of which would not take a polite "no thank you" as a reply. But it is not my discomfort at their antics that I am ranting about today.

You can click on the image above .. but for those not bothered the leaflet says ...
"Need Healing? God can heal you today!
Do you suffer from Back pain, Arthritis, MS, Addiction,Cancer, Ulcers, Depression,Allergies, Fribomyalgia,Asthma, Paralysis, Crippling Disease, Phobias, or other sickness? We'd love to pray for your healing right now!"
... It continues ...
"God loves you and can heal you from any sickness today"
... and concludes ...
"You have nothing to lose, except your sickness!"

Quite frankly this is appalling! Where I to set up in a similar way and give away "Purple Pixie Dust" making the claim that "Purple Pixie Dust can heal you form any sickness today". I would be taken away by the local constabulary and told in no uncertain manner to cease and desist. Yet Saturday after Saturday there they are under their HEALING banner extolling something that has the same efficacy as my imaginary Pixie dust.

J'accuse - Reeling in the sick with well chosen words.

Now lets be clear here, they specifically ask if you have "Back pain, Arthritis, MS, Addiction,Cancer," etc , and then claim "... can heal you from any sickness today". This is not a claim that God MIGHT heal you. This is a claim that God CAN heal you and not tomorrow or the next daty.. but today! As there is a time frame mentioned this adds to the implication that it will happen today. For example "I can fix your computer today" would be taken by 99% of people to mean "I will fix your computer today". There are very very few people, if any at all , that would believe I meant "I might fix your computer today"

To most people the verb "to heal" means to make healthy or restore to health and to be free from ailment. Their claim is "to heal" so the public is more than justified in expecting that they will be made free from illness and returned to health.

For misleading the sick - HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME

J'accuse - Peddling the fantasy of efficacy to the sick

Now before I am accused of being "anti-god" I am not! The published claim on the leaflet ".. can heal you from any sickness today" I am not disputing at this time the existence of God what I am disputing is the claim that by whatever method actual measurable things will happen today. There is zero supporting evidence on the leaflet and only anecdotal "Oh I saw [someone] cured of [something] " evidence.
Which is fine but when I inquired about the "Morbidity and Mortality" figures which any orthodox treatment or medical practice would have, I was met with blank looks. M&M statistics record the details of both the successes and the failures. These are very important for the continued development of treatments and ability of a Doctor to give an accurate prognosis but sadly missing from this group's mindset.
Would you feel safe if a doctor treated you on the basis of his cleaning lady telling him"Oh I saw another doctor in a different practice do this and it works".

Were there even the slightest shred of truth in this claim or any noticeable efficacy on the ill why is the NHS not rushing people to the prayer ward rather than ICU? Why do the legions of oncologists not prescribe prayer as the cure for cancer before starting chemotherapy or radiotherapy? The answer to both these questions is because "prayer therapy" to whatever supernatural entity has never had any demonstrable effect! It is simple market forces.

People want to be well
When they are ill they want to get better
They go to the place most likely to make them better

If prayer therapy had any demonstrable, reliable, repeatable effect people would go "Oh that works really well" and all of a sudden we wouldnt need the hospitals we have now.

People have voted with their feet with the option that works most of the time.

For peddling this fantasy of efficacy as truth - HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME!

J'accuse - Gross Medical Ignorance and Misconduct

Before I am accused of ignorance of my chosen subject I was a nurse for many years before becoming a geek and I come from a family of Doctors, Nurses and Therapists so I am very familiar with medicine. Should this group ever have taken an interest in the ethics of orthodox medicine they might have come across the medical bon mot, primum nil nocere (First do no harm) or the more recent addition "and to avoid attempting to do things that other specialists can do better"

They do not do a review of your medical history, they do no diagnostic tests, they sit you down, accept what you are telling them at face value and then ask an invisible supernatural being to make the illness go away. That is all there is, no more no less.
And this in my opinion is dangerous.

For example a man approaches the group one Saturday and presents himself to be cured of Asthma. Unknown to the people praying he is suffering from a psychotic disorder, one of the symptoms of which is very low self image. The prayers don't work. The patient is then left wondering why the treatment did not work or worked with less than a total cure. Since he has low self image he naturally blame themselves rather than God or the people praying for the failure, thus reinforcing his own pathology and making him worse! How does this fit in with primum nil nocere. Do these agents of a supernatural healing entity even care that this might be the case? Do they do even a rudimentary medical check of who they are treating? Are they treating someone with Münchhausen's syndrome? Are they aware that when treating a person with sore shin for pain they in fact may need to be treating for cancer as the pain is caused by a spinal tumour in the sacral area?

It certainly appears they do not!

Do they wash their hands between patients as anyone with half a notion of basic hygiene would do?

It certainly appears from my observation that they do not. I do hope none of the patients has MRSA or C.Difficile!

HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME!

J'accuse - willfully making a spectacle of the sick in their time of need.

Do they treat the person with the respect and dignity they deserve by treating them in private out of the public gaze. You would expect a doctor, nurse or even an agent of "WooWoo" magic like a homeopathic practitioner to do?

No they do not!

You are perhaps desperate for relief so you sit down on a chair in the center of town on a crowed Saturday morning and allow yourself to be surrounded by people who lay hands on you and pray. In doing so you become the focus of the attention of not only the people praying, but of the passing public who can if they so desire watch as the patients sit clutching their handout hoping that they will be the case that proves the claim for a cure today just like the handout implies.

Like some awful form of "Big Brother" or "X Factor" the town center has for 3 hours on a Saturday become "Coleraine's Got Diseases!" I half expect a preacher with a microphone to declaim "Debbie with the Arthritis in your knees COOOMEEEE ON DOWN!"

For treating the people in need of help with less decency and dignity than a carnival show man. HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME!
If you have not realised that the people who come to you for help are regarded as objects of public spectacle. HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME!
If you are doing it deliberately you are without doubt loathsome attention seeking whores who use the sick for your own proselytizing purposes - HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME!

Is it just me? Am I the only one that finds this horribly wrong and a ghastly abuse of those in need of real help and medical support?

I think that you (the group) should

a) WASH YOUR HANDS BETWEEN PATIENTS if not for their sake for your own!

b) At least pay lip service to the fact that you could potentially be causing harm and offer proper non-religious medical counseling for the cases that God chooses not to cure

c) Take the process of praying inside NOW and allow their "patients" the dignity of privacy afforded by every orthodox medical practice and the lion's share of the alternate ones too.

d) Be considerably more honest about the prognosis in your leaflet.

"We will pray for your healing, however while we believe that God can cure you, this claim has not be substantiated by the same rigorous methods and standards you demand from other medical practitioners. These methods and standards are enshrined in law for your protection - we do not offer these standards as part of our service.

Indeed it would be dishonest of us to say that God Will Cure You. Likelwise we do not mean to suggest in any way that a cure will happen today or in fact any time soon. God may or may not help you or he may help you in a way that you don't expect, (this may include death - we just can't say at this time). In short we just don't know if this will work for you.

If you do get better we reserve the right to claim that our prayers cause it but should you not be healed or get worse ... well we are sorry but God moves in mysterious ways. These ways may seem entirely arbitrary but we just don't know the mind of God. Please don't ask for the number of people who were NOT cured today as we don't appear to know that either. We don't keep medical records like other more orthodox medical practitioners so we don't know which prayers work best if at all.

***PLEASE NOTE*** God at this time chooses not cure amputees or people afflicted with genetic disorders"

This would at least be a more honest approach! Oh and while I am on "honest approaches" One would hope that the earthly agents of a supreme being would at least aspire to honesty. But I now know this is not the case, I was approached by a group from the same church whilst out for a walk by the river not long ago. They approached me initially saying they were on a "treasure hunt" and needed my assistance in finding some of the stuff on their list. However after some beating around the bush what they REALLY wanted was to find out if I had any illnesses.
Yes one of the items on their list was
"DO YOU HAVE ANY OF THESE ILLNESSES..."
I was gob-smacked at the temerity of it!
The group consisted of 5 or 6 some of whom where young children, such a good example of "ethical" religion at work, but hey! it is lying for their buddy Jesus and that makes it fam-dabby-fecking dozy!

If I complain, which I have, there is an inertia inherent in the powers-that-be to get involved in something to do with "religion" the police believe it to be a council matter and the council believe it to be a police matter. So I am left with having to cope with a status quo that stinks of all that is wrong with religion.

the credit crunch (some scarey reading)

I am going to do a "What I did on my holiday" post in a wee while but this is way more interesting and much, much more scary , even more scary that me in my swimmers!

I asked a chum of mine, a geek that works in a bank, to explain to me what all this credit crunchiness was about and some background into what was going on and he sent me this there is loads of it so


*** START EXCERPT ***
The Credit Default Swap was invented a few years ago by a young Cambridge University mathematics graduate, Blythe Masters, hired by J.P. Morgan Chase Bank in New York . The then-fresh university graduate convinced her bosses at Morgan Chase to develop a revolutionary new risk product, the CDS as it soon became known.

A Credit Default Swap is a credit derivative or agreement between two counterparties, in which one makes periodic payments to the other and gets promise of a payoff if a third party defaults. The first party gets credit protection, a kind of insurance, and is called the "buyer." The second party gives credit protection and is called the "seller". The third party, the one that might go bankrupt or default, is known as the "reference entity." CDS's became staggeringly popular as credit risks exploded during the last seven years in the United States . Banks argued that with CDS they could spread risk around the globe.

Credit default swaps resemble an insurance policy, as they can be used by debt owners to hedge, or insure against a default on a debt. However, because there is no requirement to actually hold any asset or suffer a loss, credit default swaps can also be used for speculative purposes.

Warren Buffett once described derivatives bought speculatively as "financial weapons of mass destruction." In his Berkshire Hathaway annual report to shareholders he said "Unless derivatives contracts are collateralized or guaranteed, their ultimate value depends on the creditworthiness of the counterparties. In the meantime, though, before a contract is settled, the counterparties record profits and losses -often huge in amount- in their current earnings statements without so much as a penny changing hands. The range of derivatives contracts is limited only by the imagination of man (or sometimes, so it seems, madmen)." A typical CDO is for five years term.

Like many exotic financial products which are extremely complex and profitable in times of easy credit, when markets reverse, as has been the case since August 2007, in addition to spreading risk, credit derivatives, in this case, also amplify risk considerably.

Now the other shoe is about to drop in the $62 trillion CDS market due to rising junk bond defaults by US corporations as the recession deepens. That market has long been a disaster in the making. An estimated $1,2 trillion could be at risk of the nominal $62 trillion in CDOs outstanding, making it far larger than the sub-prime market.

No regulation

A chain reaction of failures in the CDS market could trigger the next global financial crisis. The market is entirely unregulated, and there are no public records showing whether sellers have the assets to pay out if a bond defaults. This so-called counterparty risk is a ticking time bomb. The US Federal Reserve under the ultra-permissive chairman, Alan Greenspan and the US Government's financial regulators allowed the CDS market to develop entirely without any supervision. Greenspan repeatedly testified to sceptical Congressmen that banks are better risk regulators than government bureaucrats.

The Fed bailout of Bear Stearns on March 17 was motivated, in part, by a desire to keep the unknown risks of that bank's Credit Default Swaps from setting off a global chain reaction that might have brought the financial system down. The Fed's fear was that because they didn't adequately monitor counterparty risk in credit-default swaps, they had no idea what might happen. Thank Alan Greenspan for that.

Those counterparties include JPMorgan Chase, the largest seller and buyer of CDSs.

The Fed only has supervision to regulated bank CDS exposures, but not that of investment banks or hedge funds, both of which are significant CDS issuers. Hedge funds, for instance, are estimated to have written 31% in CDS protection.

The credit-default-swap market has been mainly untested until now. The default rate in January 2002, when the swap market was valued at $1.5 trillion, was 10.7 percent, according to Moody's Investors Service. But Fitch Ratings reported in July 2007 that 40 percent of CDS protection sold worldwide was on companies or securities that are rated below investment grade, up from 8 percent in 2002.

A surge in corporate defaults will now leave swap buyers trying to collect hundreds of billions of dollars from their counterparties. This will to complicate the financial crisis, triggering numerous disputes and lawsuits, as buyers battle sellers over the technical definition of default - - this requires proving which bond or loan holders weren't paid -- and the amount of payments due. Some fear that could in turn freeze up the financial system.

Experts inside the CDS market believe now that the crisis will likely start with hedge funds that will be unable to pay banks for contracts tied to at least $150 billion in defaults. Banks will try to pre-empt this default disaster by demanding hedge funds put up more collateral for potential losses. That will not work as many of the funds won't have the cash to meet the banks' demands for more collateral.

Sellers of protection aren't required by law to set aside reserves in the CDS market. While banks ask protection sellers to put up some money when making the trade, there are no industry standards. It would be the equivalent of a licensed insurance company selling insurance protection against hurricane damage with no reserves against potential claims.

Basle BIS worried

The Basle Bank for International Settlements, the supervisory organization of the world's major central banks is alarmed at the dangers. The Joint Forum of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, an international group of banking, insurance and securities regulators, wrote in April that the trillions of dollars in swaps traded by hedge funds pose a threat to financial markets around the world.

``It is difficult to develop a clear picture of which institutions are the ultimate holders of some of the credit risk transferred,'' the report said. ``It can be difficult even to quantify the amount of risk that has been transferred.''

Counterparty risk can become complicated in a hurry. In a typical CDS deal, a hedge fund will sell protection to a bank, which will then resell the same protection to another bank, and such dealing will continue, sometimes in a circle. That has created a huge concentration of risk. As one leading derivatives trader expressed the process, “The risk keeps spinning around and around in this daisy chain like a vortex. There are only six to 10 dealers who sit in the middle of all this. I don't think the regulators have the information that they need to work that out.''

Traders, and even the banks that serve as dealers, don't always know exactly what is covered by a credit-default-swap contract. There are numerous types of CDSs, some far more complex than others. More than half of all CDSs cover indexes of companies and debt securities, such as asset-backed securities, the Basel committee says. The rest include coverage of a single company's debt or collateralized debt obligations...

Banks usually send hedge funds, insurance companies and other institutional investors e-mails throughout the day with bid and offer prices, as there is no regulated exchange to prices the market or to insure against loss. To find the price of a swap on Ford Motor Co. debt, for example, even sophisticated investors might have to search through all of their daily e-mails.

Banks want secrecy

Banks have a vested interest in keeping the swaps market opaque, because as dealers, the banks have a high volume of transactions, giving them an edge over other buyers and sellers. Since customers don't necessarily know where the market is, you can charge them much wider profit margins.

Banks try to balance the protection they've sold with credit-default swaps they purchase from others, either on the same companies or indexes. They can also create synthetic CDOs, which are packages of credit-default swaps the banks sell to investors to get themselves protection.

The idea for the banks is to make a profit on each trade and avoid taking on the swap's risk. As one CDO dealer puts it, “Dealers are just like bookies. Bookies don't want to bet on games. Bookies just want to balance their books. That's why they're called bookies.”

Now as the economy contracts and bankruptcies spread across the United States and beyond, there's a high probability that many who bought swap protection will wind up in court trying to get their payouts. If things are collapsing left and right, people will use any trick they can.

Last year, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange set up a federally regulated, exchange-based market to trade CDSs. So far, it hasn't worked. It's been boycotted by banks, which prefer to continue their trading privately.

*** END OF EXTRACT ***

.... Hope you read all that ... or the next bit doesn't make much sense
Sorry for the language but what the f**K?

This is just stupidity stacked up with greed, iced with incompetence and decorated with dick heads in striped shirts. Whats worse it is it seems going to leave a $62 trillion dollar hole in someone's pocket and I have a feeling that some of it it going to from my fecking pension!

"Un-regulation works" does it indeed Mr Greenspan? My fat hairy arse it does! Who needs international terrorism when you have twonks that can come up with a wizzard wheeze like CDS and even bigger wankers that think it is a good idea to let it run?

Because I don't know about it therefore it doesnt exist

Gentle reader I was challenged the other day by a passing "person of faith". In the summer we have have a plethora of missions one of which "New Horizon" had as a guest speaker this year Dr John Lennox Oxford mathematician and Christian apologist. This has had the side effect that we now have "people of faith" who now have a scientist who can be waved at recalcitrant heathens like my self as proof that both god exists and there is a scientist that can prove it.

Now I have no great problem with Dr Lennox he is a fine mathematician, he writes a good book, I may not agree with what he says but he is being horribly misrepresented by those that listened, well I assumed they listened but I feel very probably they didn't. (If you are interested there was a very good debate here between Dr Lennox and Professor Richard Dawkins)

According to the book waver who accosted me as an out an proud atheist, it was ALL explained by Dr Lennox. The world's beginning is explained by the bible Dr Lennox and he is a scientist says so. Evolution doesn't exist Dr Lennox and he is a scientist says so... are you seeing a pattern develope here? To cut a long story short what I was challenged to was "how could the universe be created out of nothing". Now I have no answer for that but I do like to keep my finger on the pulse of what is going on, but for some time there has been head scratching about virtual particles, quantum perturbation, Willis Lamb in 1955 proved the existence of virtual particles that appear out of "nothing" (He got the nobel prize for it) He was able to show that matter in the form of "virtual particles" pop in existence and whilst cannot be observed directly their effects can be seen and measured. These virtual particles appear because of quantum perturbation. Now there is a theory that posits the "big bang" was in fact a massive quantum perturbation where there was more virtual matter than virtual antimatter created so there was a "bang" of sorts and because there was more matter our Universe was the matter that was left behind. I am not pushing this as truth, the maths that promotes this is very hard and I don't pretend to understand all of it. However I have given it the time of day and as we as a species learn more and do more experiments the balance of probability will push one theory of what happened more than another and I will watch this with interest. But there is very little to gain in the static world of the supernatural explanation. I have no interest in a following a supernatural reason because it never changes.

But I was told this is totally wrong and instantly dismissable because "Dr Lennox didn't mention it at all and he is a scientist and nobody I know has heard about it but you" Now to me this means "because I don't know about it therefore it doesn't exist" and this is meant to convince me?

~sigh~

Dieting Is Fun - My ARSE! (or Standing on Scales Tension Syndrome)

Now I am fairly close to what used to be called a "new man". I am in touch with my feminine side. I cry at some DVD's, I can iron my socks I can throw together a dinner party for 6 on the way home from work. What I am not is one of those men to whom dieting comes naturally or easily.

I started on this particular spree of under-indulgence a month ago and the exercise is OK. I didn't go all out mad and join a gym. No %^$&ing chance of that! Too much damp lycra riding up the sheughs of my portly colleagues collective arses for a gentlemen of my taste and refinement. For my increased calorific duty I walk and I believe the correct term is "briskly" around the highways, byways, beaches and forests of my locale. That bit is fine, tis a manly thing to tramp around wondering if there are fish still in that stream, rabbits in that field and convent girls playing tennis down at the sports ground.

BUT and tis a major BUT I have started to read the contents and nutritional tables on the back of consumables. I wake in a cold sweat most nights should they every start this nonsense on pint glasses. Here in the UK/Ireland it is even worse that just the figures.They have this sort of traffic light on the values just you know that 195g of lovely tasty fat laden calorie rich pre processed weapon of mass constriction is not good for you it appears in sudden aortic aneurysm red. Where as a packet of wholesome, fibrous and totally taste free natural recycled bran cardboard is in a nice summery green. Basically you aim at getting as much green and as little red as possible.... B**T**Ds! That makes it to easy!! There is no excuse anymore!

I really don't mind some of the stuff "Weetabix Oatie Flakes" are ace with ice cold milk and a glass of green tea really does hit the spot. But I ask you when the very core of your being screams out for some deep fried goodness and then to be presented with reconstituted seaweed and soya goop on Ryevita just skunders my pish!

I know! I know! smoker for all those years, overweight, out of condition, a heart attack waiting to happen yada yada yada. I know! I am trying , the ciggies are a thing of the past, I am exercising, I am forcing down my 5 a day fruit and veg portions. I am avoiding cheese like Liam Gallagher avoids Head and Shoulders. My cry is WHY OH WHY AM I SO FECKING HUNGRY ALL THE FECKING TIME? When does the urge to eat one of our cats (with a nice hot salsa) disappear. When passing a field of cows when does the "will they miss one and is raw cow without horseradish tasty?" question stop jumping to the front of my mind?

~sigh~ I suppose I will continue on this road to wellville if for no other reason than I don't want the other NotesTubbies to beat me (Chris Coates, Bill Buchan and John Mill) in the diet contest.

**PS** yes I know i had a bit of a binge last Friday, but pint glasses don't have the contents stickers on them so it must have been OK??? Right?? ~sob~ Plllleeeeeassse make it right!