Musings of a free mind...

Freedom of sp-

Yahoo (UK) news reports today that a third MP has been sacked, since Friday.  This MP, Barry Gardiner, also happens to be one of the many MP's who have spoken out in saying that there should be a leadership contest in order to determine a new leader of the Labour party and, therefore, of the current British government.

Don't get me wrong here, I don't think we're exactly approaching dictatorship rule, but when you're being sacked just for voicing your opinion against the current leader, I'm pretty sure we're heading in the wrong direction as a 'democratic' nation.

I mean, bless Mr Brown, he wanted to be Prime Minister for so long, through all the Blair years, and now he finally is.......... and no-one wants him.  It's gotta be tough.

But, Gordon, the people have a right to say they don't want you.

Maybe if you stopped silencing people and listened instead, people would be willing to give you a little more time to try and fix the mess that Blair left behind.

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Terrorisn't.

Ansyaad Mbai, Indonesia's head of counter-terrorism, has today claimed that the West has taken the wrong approach in 'the war against terror' and that it, in fact, makes the fight more difficult.

He says that the all out aggressive approach (that'll be invading Middle-Eastern countries) makes it harder for morderate Muslims to tackle terror in their own countries.  He says that this imperial approach by the U.S has left Muslims feel like the whole thing is an attack against Islam.

Don't get me wrong here, I agree with him entirely.  But he's missing the point.  He's assumed that the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan is actually part of a 'war against terrorism'.

Of course it isn't.  It's a front for America to further its economic interests and put a financial strangehold on the rather lucrative, oil-rich Middle-East.

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Get over it, homophobe.

I just read a news story on 9news that was so ridiculous it made me laugh.

An Ohio church displayed on its public message board, a message that read:  "I kissed a girl and I liked it, then I went to Hell."

The message was a reference to the pop song 'I Kissed A Girl' by Katy Perry and, according to Pastor David Allison, it was a loving way to remind young people that the Bible denounces homosexuality.

What about the things that the Bible advocates?  Like genocide, infanticide and slavery.  Why do the higher clergy always get up in arms about homosexuality which is, let's not forget, a personal choice that affects no-one else but the consenting indivduals involved?

Pastor Allison also said the music video for the song was so suggestive that it borders pornography.

So?

At what point did sexual thinking become a bad thing?  Without it none of us would be here today.  That's right, there's nothing wrong with sexual thinking, it's just the Church with it's head so far up it's own arse (as usual) that it's getting all morally confused again.

I bet the Church could do something good and productive in this world if it focused on things that actually mattered.

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Come on America. Open your eyes, but more importantly, open your mind.

First things first, people.  I'm BACK!  Yes, that's right, finally got my new cable internet today so I should be back up and running with regular posts from now on!

I've been sitting back and watching the American presidential race run it's course, just as everyone else has, and I can't believe what I'm seeing.  That's right, the same thing that happens every time a presidential election is on; Americans getting overly patriotic and forgetting to think about what really matters.

All I've read, from pretty much everywhere on the internet, is the usual talk of; left Vs right, democrats Vs republicans, elephants Vs donkeys and liberals Vs conservatives.  Being liberal or conservative isn't really an issue when it doesn't matter who gets into power anyway.  It's all a screen for what goes on behind closed doors:  The few, financial elite who control (almost literally) everything and dictate their will regardless of what the people think.

Bill Hicks' analogy sums it up perfectly:

"I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs."
"I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking."
"Hey, wait a minute!  There's one guy holding up both puppets!!"
"Go back to bed, America, your government is in control."

The problem is that the 'people', in this case, 'America', accepts this façade.

Read, listen, think and, finally, see through it all.  As the world's largest terrorist state (a deliberately provocative use of words, I'll admit, but it's all relative, just think for a moment about how America affects the rest of the world), America has more influence and power than any other nation in existence.

Americans need to wake up and PROVE they have 'freedom' and 'democracy'.  They need to free the rest of the world from planet Earth's largest and most terrifying bully.

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Catholicism: It's all me, me, me.

I thought without internet access I'd be without material to blog about.  Luckily you can always rely on the Pope and some hardcore catholics for a bit of irrational thinking, blog-fodder.

I'm sitting here in the library of my university trying to get Virgin Media to install internet into my new house, when I stumble across a story on Yahoo (UK) news.  In a nutshell, a now dead German artist created a sculpture of a green frog, up on the cross, holding a beer mug in one hand and an egg in the other.  Despite the obvious religious connection, I must admit that the first thing that occurred to me was that the frog was able to grasp things in his nailed hands.  Clearly a feat that Jesus wasn't capable of.  Pussy.  You've gotta work through the pain, man.

Anyway, I'm not here to have a go at Jesus, I'm sure he was a good chap, and he was definitely a great magician.  No, I'm here to have a go at the Pope.

His Holy-Popeness is up in arms (nailed ones?) at this sculpture, claiming it's offensive.  One of his representatives, Franz Pahl is president of the regional government that opposes the sculpture.  He went to the lengths of hunger-strike over the summer in a bid to get it removed.  His faith clearly didn't allow him the strength to follow through with this threat as he was taken to hospital and has subsequently recovered.  He's now threatening to step down as president of the regional government.  Isn't this obvious?  Let him!  The last thing anyone needs is some guy being president of anything if their judgement is so obviously blinded by religious dogma and superstition.  It's like a mini version of the Bush administration.

But here's what annoyed me most about this story:  The catholics involved are making a massive assumption that the sculpture is some kind of anti-God statement.  It's not.  The artist said himself that the sculpture represented a self-portait of human angst.

Doesn't catholicism remind you of that annoying guy in the workplace who always thinks you're talking about him?  The one who tries to get in on every conversation because he's so 'holier-than-thou' (excuse the pun) that you MUST be talking about him.  Pull your head out of your own arse, grow up and, please, go away.

Finally, even IF the sculpture was deliberately having a go at the catholic belief system, that doesn't make it wrong.  Offensive, yes, but not wrong.  I find things offensive every day, as do most people, but that doesn't mean I should be able to just click my fingers and make it go away.  It's called Freedom of Expression.  And it's beautiful.

Just because religion's involved doesn't mean it should be afforded more respect than any other belief system.  After all, if you're insulting God, so what?  Remember, I'm pretty sure he can look after himself.

I must credit the artist who created this sculpture.  Without him I would never have been able to write this blog post.  But, more importantly, without him so many catholics would not be upset right now.  Ladies and gentlemen:  Martin Kippenberger.

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A neccessary post...

I don't like making personal posts on a blog.  I like my blog to me insightful and, hopefully, informative.  My ultimate goal is that it provokes thought.  If it does any of these things then I'm happy.

Unfortunately I have to post this personal post, just to let you, my readers, know what's happening.

I haven't posted in a while because I'm moving into my new house and currently have no internet access.  It's horrible.  As someone who's grown up alongside the internet I feel very disconnected at the moment.

I should be back as normal within the next week or so.

Keep checking back people...

The problem with marriage.

I'm going to take the opportunity of the first paragraph to apologise for the lack of posts in the last 4/5 days.  I'm in the process of moving permanently to London and I have limited internet access.  All shall be back to normal soon.  Thanks to all my readers who have kept coming back, and thanks to all those who have visited, pushing this site into the good side of the top 1million Alexa ranked websites.

Now, the problem with marriage.

This area of thought has spawned due to conversations with my sister recently.  She can't understand why I don't want to get married.  Equally, I don't understand why she would wish to marry at all.  I mean, what's the point?

I could understand if marriage was a symbol of love, but is it really?  Don't get me wrong here, I know it CAN be, but surely there are greater, more powerful symbols of one person's love for another.  Also, of course, there's the issue of whether human beings are cut-out for 'mating for life'.  It's a rare sight!

The main, traditional reasons for marraige are, to me, superficial at best.  Religion and financial gain.  People marry because their religious beliefs dictate they must do so, especially before they have sex.  And, let's face it, sex is a pretty important thing for most people in a relationship (pretty much all people, with the exception of asexuals) and so religion denying this pleasure forces marriage upon you.  It's entirely irrational.  I don't understand at which point the major religions decided that sex was a bad thing.  It's another sign that illustrates how stuck in the Dark Ages they are, but I digress...

The other reason marriage has survived as an insitution is for financial gain.  It was a way to ensure property and capital was passed on to the 'correct' family.  This is much less neccessary in the modern world.

Marriage is an outdated institution and barely shows any correlation with love.  If two people love each other, surely that would be enough for them to be together forever?  Or maybe you could have a child together to symbolise your undying love for each other?  'Cos no-one's parents get divorced, right?

As for marriage, well, a friend of mine once said:  "'Cos it's all about the romance.  And there's nothing more romantic than a legally binding contract."

How about we all experience REAL love for a change?

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Stop moaning America...

I've read many, many articles over the past few days written by disgruntled Americans complaining about their 'gas' prices.

Man, they should try coming to live over here in the UK.

As I understand it, prices in the US are roughly $4.00 per gallon, depending on your state (after all, it's a big place) this will vary.  The Americans are having a hard time dealing with this, but imagine how we feel over here.  After some quick dollar/pound and litre/gallon conversions I'd like to inform our cousins in the States that we're paying:

- $7.85 (Unleaded)
- $8.53 (Diesel)

Again, these are rough prices and it depends whereabouts in the UK you are, but it illustrates my point!

And to think, our government forced us to follow the US into war over all this oil (well, depending on how cynical you are) and yet we still don't get their lovely cheap prices.

It's gonna cost me £20 to drive to London tomorrow...

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We're all going to die!!

As sarcastic as the headline was supposed to appear it is also, ironically, true.  Sorry.  Nothing I can do about that one.

Today's post has been triggered by an article I read on Yahoo (UK) news.  The headline was:  "Thousands of Brits may have fatal disease."  Naturally, being British and NOT wanting a fatal disease, I was compelled to read further.  I simply must find out what this fatal disease is, why it applies only to the British, (maybe it's called 'Gordon Brown?') and how I can avoid it.

The article itself turned out to be something quite different to the apocalyptic scenario I had imagined.  Apparently two thirds of doctors (i'm assuming, British doctors) do not know how to read Hepatitis C results and this means that 90% of sufferers do not even know they are ill.  (I'd love to know how they did the maths to get the 90% figure.)

Firstly, there are thousands upon thousands of conditions that a person may have without knowing.  You simply can't cover them all.  Unless you can afford full body scans and intensive check-ups every 3 months then there's, I assume, quite a large probability that you're going to have some condition that you're unaware of.

Secondly, doctors are only human.  (Again, I'm making assumptions here.)  These guys study for many years, intensively, through a gruelling medical school and then go on to serve the millions of people who need medical attention each year.  They do an incredible job that many of us simply are not capable of.  But whilst they do hold this kind of 'gift of life' status, we must understand that they cannot know every one of the thousands upon thousands of medical conditions off by heart, inside out and back to front.  Eventually, mistakes will be made.  It's inevitible.  But give them a break.

Thirdly, if you think you may have Hepatitis C, go to the doctor and insist your GP double checks your results.

Finally, stop fear-mongering, Yahoo.

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Annoying Bible verse of the day...

Ok, so I'm not going to do this every day, but this one annoyed me enough to post it.

I was just reading through some other blogs when I came across this proudly displayed verse:

ROM 8:28 "We know that in all things God works for good with those who love Him, those whom He has called according to His purpose."

(Yes, in the interests of grammar I'm sticking with the convention of capitalising the pronouns of our imaginary friend.)

These Christians aren't doing their God any favours here.  Surely God is above the petty jealousy of only working for good those who love him?  What about other good people who don't believe or follow Him?  I guess God just ignores them.  As the great Bill Hicks said:  "No, you're WRONG.  Because God would be very sane.  Don't you see?" 

Once again I feel compelled to state that the Bible is JUST A BOOK.  A self-prophecised 'gospel' adapted by various men and women (although mostly men) over the centuries.  By this fact alone, IF it ever was the word of God, it certainly isn't anymore.  So, please, don't live your lives by those verses, the very idea people do is a very worrying thought indeed.

And, to finish, the famous quote:  "If God exists, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion." - Edmond de Goncourt

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