On this day in 1946 a Frenchman, Jacques Heim, unleashed the bikini on the modern world (and specifically on Micheline Bernardini). It was hardly a new invention. The Minoans were wearing them in 1700BC. The garment has oppressed women ever since. So totally unlike the burkha which protects their dignity and makes all men potential rapists even if it isn’t their fault. Of course it isn’t mate! She accidentally showed her knee, how could you have done otherwise than have you and your mates brutally gang-rape her? Totally understandable in the circumstances. Actually it is. It is totally understandable that that sort of thinking is prevalent within a society which totally precludes the “free-mixing” of the sexes. As is the stunningly high rate of situational homosexuality in the Islamic world.
My first encounter with Islam was in Spain as a kid. I asked my dad why there was a woman paddling in a tent when all the other women on the beech were wearing suitable swimwear. Some were wearing bikinis. Some were wearing racing one-pieces and some were wearing little more than a thong and a grin (the later were of especial interest to moi).
It’s not really about sex (though it is) but about being sensible. Capering on the beech wearing something last used by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay half-way up Mount Everest is fucking ludicrous. It isn’t modesty. It’s silliness. It’s making a complete tit of yourself and it is insulting me personally. I was taught to dive in Spain by a topless British woman when I was thirteen. Yes that was as fun as it sounds. Was I gonna take her roughly from behind round the back of the pedalos? Was I hell. I wasn’t because I’m civilized unlike those ass-clowns from the sandpit. Even as a hormonally-charged teen I knew right from wrong and this woman taught me a skill with her husband watching and telling me I was a “good ‘un”.
Islam teaches that we can’t be trusted to conduct ourselves decently without following strict and ludicrous rules. This is possibly because it was created by a total prevert who fucked his best mate’s nine-year old daughter (betrothed when she was six - he waited three years - what a gent?) and clearly couldn’t fucking help himself. This is a religion who’s followers will beat the hell out of women for “inappropriate” hijab yet is also happy to whip rape victims. Iran and Shoddy Absurdia respectively. Google it if you don’t believe me.
There will be no happy settlement with Islam until they grow-up about sex and maybe get a fucking life. We might dance and drink and screw but we don’t beat our daughters for wearing make-up. My wife sometimes drives to Tesco on her own (yes, a woman driving a car, which is an unpossibility to the beards) and maybe she’s got mascara on and tight jeans. Clearly she is being immoral. Clearly she’s the whore of Babylon (or aisle three). Either that or she’s buying groceries and she’s more concerned about whether the 3 for 2 scanned right than the kid at the till looking at her tits. See how alien Islam is? It is a belief system that is so sexually repressive that it sexualizes everything.
Oh crap. I am all in favour of ethics, but real ethics, not this PC tripe.
I pomise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness or ambition cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship. I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good, but never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars of which I am now a member.
I will not seek knowledge if it is to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars of which I am now a member. Wot? I can’t work in climate science in case I discover that James Hanson, the IPCC and the mythical 2,500 are talking bollocks about global warming? After all, for James to have his career destroyed could be considered detrimental. Beneficial to the rest of us to be rid of this lot, sure, but detrimental to them - what a pleasant thought.
Apparently this garbage was recited by all graduate students in biological sciences at the University of Toronto last year.
This oath, if kept, would prevent all contentious research; how ethical is that? I can’t believe anyone would be stupid enough to recite it.
Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.
(…)
One parent, Sharon Luinen, said: “This isn’t right, it’s taking things too far.“I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn’t join in Muslim prayer.
“Making them pray to Allah, who isn’t who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful.
Disrespectful? DISRE-FUCKING-SPECTUL?
The teachers actions were not just disrespectful of the students, they were contemptuously repulsive.
Had I been a parent I would have been up to that school looking for blood (metaphorically, of course).
(…)
“Then two boys got detention and all the other children missed their refreshment break because of the teacher.“Not only was it forced upon them, my daughter was told off for not doing it right.
(…)
“if Muslims were asked to go to church on Sunday and take Holy Communion there would be war.”
Gee, ya think?
(…)
“The particular member of staff you need to speak to isn’t around. I think that it is a shame that so many parents have got in touch with the Press before coming to me.
“I have spoken to the teacher and she has articulately given me her version of events, but that is all I can give you at the moment.”
(…)
“Educating children in the beliefs of different faith is part of the diversity curriculum on the basis that knowledge is essential to understanding.
“We accept that such teaching is to be conducted with some sense of sensitivity.”
Wot? Like not indulging in the forced conversion of children to Islam during RE lessons?
There are times when I regret not possessing the rather ‘forceful’ turn of phrase of my co-blogger, this being one of them. And I would very much like to discuss religion with this woman.
Allah’s Apostle said, “Who is willing to kill Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?” Thereupon Muhammad bin Maslama got up saying, “O Allah’s Apostle! Would you like that I kill him?” The Prophet said, “Yes,” Muhammad bin Maslama said, “Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Kab). “The Prophet said, “You may say it.” Then Muhammad bin Maslama went to Kab and said, “That man (i.e. Muhammad demands Sadaqa (i.e. Zakat) from us, and he has troubled us, and I have come to borrow something from you.” On that, Kab said, “By Allah, you will get tired of him!” Muhammad bin Maslama said, “Now as we have followed him, we do not want to leave him unless and until we see how his end is going to be. Now we want you to lend us a camel load or two of food.” (Some difference between narrators about a camel load or two.) Kab said, “Yes, (I will lend you), but you should mortgage something to me.” Muhammad bin Mas-lama and his companion said, “What do you want?” Ka’b replied, “Mortgage your women to me.” They said, “How can we mortgage our women to you and you are the most handsome of the ‘Arabs?” Ka’b said, “Then mortgage your sons to me.” They said, “How can we mortgage our sons to you? Later they would be abused by the people’s saying that so-and-so has been mortgaged for a camel load of food. That would cause us great disgrace, but we will mortgage our arms to you.” Muhammad bin Maslama and his companion promised Kab that Muhammad would return to him. He came to Kab at night along with Kab’s foster brother, Abu Na’ila. Kab invited them to come into his fort, and then he went down to them. His wife asked him, “Where are you going at this time?” Kab replied, “None but Muhammad bin Maslama and my (foster) brother Abu Na’ila have come.” His wife said, “I hear a voice as if dropping blood is from him, Ka’b said. “They are none but my brother Muhammad bin Maslama and my foster brother Abu Naila. A generous man should respond to a call at night even if invited to be killed.” Muhammad bin Maslama went with two men. (Some narrators mention the men as ‘Abu bin Jabr. Al Harith bin Aus and Abbad bin Bishr). So Muhammad bin Maslama went in together with two men, and sail to them, “When Ka’b comes, I will touch his hair and smell it, and when you see that I have got hold of his head, strip him. I will let you smell his head.” Kab bin Al-Ashraf came down to them wrapped in his clothes, and diffusing perfume. Muhammad bin Maslama said. ” have never smelt a better scent than this. Ka’b replied. “I have got the best ‘Arab women who know how to use the high class of perfume.” Muhammad bin Maslama requested Ka’b “Will you allow me to smell your head?” Ka’b said, “Yes.” Muhammad smelt it and made his companions smell it as well. Then he requested Ka’b again, “Will you let me (smell your head)?” Ka’b said, “Yes.” When Muhammad got a strong hold of him, he said (to his companions), “Get at him!” So they killed him and went to the Prophet and informed him. (Abu Rafi) was killed after Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf.”
Dishonest dissimulation, incitement to murder, lies, murder, fratricide.
This is the moral perfection that all must emulate?
There is a whole series on Youtube, have a look. Simple, stylised, and thought provoking. I don’t agree with all their assumptions, but a really great overview on the nature and basis of civil liberties. Here is the introduction -
It is the fourth of July and a beautiful day here. I hope it’s OK on the other side of the ‘lantic because America is 232 years old today. My small cat has the same birthday but he’s only six. I shall buy him a nice bit of fish though.
In 1976 NASA dropped Viking onto Mars for the bi-centennial. They had planned it for the 4th of July but it landed a day late due to dust-storms (which can’t even be blamed on Jimmy Carter). That is how amazing America is. I will not even mention Voyager.
I dragged my wife to the Smithsonian in DC (and the Stephen F Udvar-Hazy annex in Virginia) to see the planes and her jaw hit the floor when she saw the Shuttle Enterprise. She’d never seen a spaceship before. I was more interested in their SR-71 because I’ve been on the Enterprise before (static display, Kennedy Space Centre, FL - had a bird’s nest in it’s starboard retros) and the Enterpise has never been into space and all that but it’s still a proper ship and she’d never seen anything like it before.
That’s America. There are steam engines (lots of them) in the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. There are spaceships in the Smithsonian. For me, though, the most touching exhibit in the Smithsonian was a pocket watch. It was the watch that Orv timed Will’s first flight with (Will won the coin-toss for first flight in their $1000, 12hp machine). The Flyer itself is in Dayton, Ohio. One day I shall pay my homage (they also have the only surviving XB-70 Valkyrie which is a Ferrari to the B-52’s ride on mower). America made the world literally take-off. I have spent quite a bit of time there. All courtesy of an invention knocked up in a shed by a pair of bicycle repairmen from Ohio which enabled me to traverse the mighty Atlantic for a week’s wages as a temp. What was half a world away is now 8 hours away. I can smell the grits from here.
Of course America has done much more than make us inhabitants of the stratosphere but if I could just be present for one moment of time it would have to be Kittyhawk, December 17th, 1903. If another, it would be with Buzz and Neil in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20th, 1969. I’d be the one behind the flag having a cigar. Well, why not? It’s not like it happens everyday. Even if it cost the same as Americans spent on lipstick and potato chips during the entire 1960s (an outrageous sum BTW) it was worth it because it was beautiful.
Happy Birthday America. You have always been amazing. Now just don’t fuck it up because we need you. OK?
if Barack Obama enters the White House as president next January, he declared, “it will represent a quantum leap in American consciousness”.
Probably true. I can endorse this. Given that a quantum leap, to a physicist, is the smallest possible change which can take place, below which no change occurs, I certainly regard this statement as possible.
And Obama has quite enough to do to fight the threat of pigeonholing - as “the black candidate”, “the elite candidate” -
The black candidate? Well, that has been pretty much the thrust of his campaign so far. He certainly has not been fighting it on his record. If this is a problem, well, self inflicted wounds and all that.
<snigger>He could have fought on his record, had he wanted to…..</snigger>.
without becoming the kooky candidate too.
Way, way too late for that. Been there, done that, hidden the t-shirt.
Well, If I want Imperial glory, I normally just fire-up Civ4 on the computer but that option didn’t exist in the C19th. So Joshua Norton, a resident of San Francisco, just proclaimed himself “Emperor of these United States”. He later added, “and protector of Mexico” for good measure. He then embarked on a truly quixotic 21 year reign as the first and only man to ever hold those titles. He even issued imperial decrees such as calling for Congress to be disbanded.
WHEREAS, a body of men calling themselves the National Congress are now in session in Washington City, in violation of our Imperial edict of the 12th of October last, declaring the said Congress abolished;
WHEREAS, it is necessary for the repose of our Empire that the said decree should be strictly complied with;
NOW, THEREFORE, we do hereby Order and Direct Major-General Scott, the Command-in-Chief of our Armies, immediately upon receipt of this, our Decree, to proceed with a suitable force and clear the Halls of Congress
His attempted coup was ignored. Amongst his, occasionally bizarre demands, he also called for religious tolerance, the foundation of a league of nations and a bridge across San Fransisco Bay. He hated people calling his town “‘frisco” and declared it a “High Misdemenour” punishable by a fine of $25 to be paid to the “Imperial Treasury”. He once showed remarkable personal courage by defusing an anti-Chinese riot by walking between the sides and reciting the Lord’s Prayer. And, yes, as you can see, he issued his own currency which was accepted by San Fransisco tradesmen and restranteurs.
Of course he was arrested once but a public outcry resulted in his rapid release. The chief of the SFPD said,”that he had shed no blood; robbed no one; and despoiled no country; which is more than can be said of his fellows in that line.” SFPD officers subsequently saluted their Emperor when he passed by in his tatty uniform with gold epaulets (a gift from the US Army).
Upon his death in 1880 local businessmen paid for a rosewood casket and tens of thousands lined the streets.
He was a charming and whimsical eccentric. He was even right about some things like the bridge (built in the ’30s). He became a legend in his own lifetime (and inspired the character of the King in Huck Finn) and was rightly celebrated. He added to the gaiety of nations and as the police chief said, he did no harm. Somehow I think he wouldn’t have managed as well in modern, C21st, “liberal” San Francisco. Yes, they would have kept him in the nuthouse. Yes, he would definitely have been jailed for printing his own money and his habit of “inspecting” public amenities would not have been looked upon kindly either.
Huckleberry Finn is the great American Novel. It is definitively brilliant. It is banned from public schools and libraries in Georgia, perhaps other states too. It’s banned because Mark Twain, in a story set along the Mississippi before the Civil War, uses the word “nigger”. Quite how he could have written such a tale, involving as it does, the escape of a black slave, without using that word is beyond me. And quite how legislators could conceive of the book as in any way racist is over the hills and far away.
We have certainly gained a few freedoms since Victorian days. But we have lost more. One of the principle means by which we have lost freedoms is by officialdom becoming utterly poe-faced and inflexible. C19th San Francisco indulged their Emperor’s flights of fancy because despite printing his own money at his own rate (so unlike the modern Federal Reserve) and calling for an armed insurrection against the state he was, rightly, deemed a harmless, charming eccentric. The character he inspired is now denied to millions of American children because Mark Twain used the word “nigger”. That Twain wasn’t writing in defence of slavery or against black people is beside the point. It’s rules you see. Rules. Judgement is out the window, no need for it when we’ve got rules. And we have lots. The sum total of Britain’s anti(?)-discrimination laws is four times the length of the Lord of the Rings. With that much law there’s no need for judgement or thought and no room for self-declared emperors.
I call it for what it is. A Royal Nonesuch (aka the King’s Cameleopard). You can read more on Norton’s remarkable reign here
Jack Steinberger, the 1988 physics Nobel prize winner for the discovery of muon neutrinos, argued that it was pointless to wait for thermonuclear fusion because Edward Teller already promised him the new source 53 years ago.
French-fries are junk-food, but roast potatoes are not; bread is a basic food-stuff, but biscuits are junk; wine comprises “empty calories”, but fruit juices are health foods; the sugar in cake is detrimental to health, but the sugar in honey and grapes is not. White bread is not “nutritious”, but cauliflower is, though it consists of 90% water, 5% starch, a minute amount of protein, and only traces of vitamins and minerals (other than potassium). What then is “junk” food?
(…)
The real definition of junk food (or, of any of its synonyms) should recognize the fact that the adjective is applied exclusively to food items that children, and especially teenagers, find appetizing. Thus, codliver oil, despite its undeniable greasiness and artificially added vitamins and preservatives, is not junk food, because children loath it. Cake, which children love, is, on the other hand, a non-basic (or junk) food, despite containing flour, eggs, milk products, fruit, and sugar (which, with the inexplicable exception of the sugar, are all individually classed as “basic” food items).
Another factor which distinguishes “junk” from “basic” (or “nutritious” food), is the amount of effort the lady of the house expends on preparing that food. All “fast-foods”, “take-aways” (USA: “Take-outs”) and commercially “pre-cooked TV dinners” are, thus, without exception, junkous by nature. Potatoes, if they are peeled and roasted in the home, are “highly nutritious”, but if they are bought appetizingly ready to eat, then they are “empty calories” (what does this term mean?). Popcorn bought at the cinema is junk food, but mielie-pap (maize-meal porridge) laboriously cooked by mother is basic food.
(…)
“Junk-food”, we must therefore conclude, is any consumable prepared outside the home which children find delicious.
(…)
All that is known is that the mortality rate among children who subsist entirely of home-grown and home-prepared “basic” foods is more than 20 times higher than it is among those who also eat junk food. This is true in both the longitudinal sense (if one compares modern western children with their counterparts of 200-300 years ago), as well as in the cross-sectional sense (if one compares children from different present-day communities).
I got to admit, even today, at my advanced age, my mother has firm opinions over some of the things I eat. Giving her my standard response, there is no such thing as bad food, only a bad diet, really does not improve the atmosphere.
During the war my wife’s granny lived in Salford. She was a a high-ranking secretary for Metro-Vickers so she got her own back on the Hun. Her boss was Barnes-Wallis and she witnessed the testing of the bouncing bomb.
Anyway, She had cause to hate the Krauts. The first night Salford was hit by the Luftwaffe a bomb landed just down the road and amongst other damage it broke a bottle of castor oil over her Persian cat, Tiddles. Poor little Tiddles (I am not making the name up) was drenched in oil and deeply upset despite being left permanently regular. She had to be washed. Can you imagine that? Washing a long-haired cat in the sink during an air-raid. All of Manchester was going up in flames but Tiddles needed a cleaning so what d’ya do? You clean the cat even if all hell is breaking out around you. You do that because you’re English and in an existential battle for the very survival of civilization you just have to do the right thing even if it means getting scratched and spat at.
That is how we beat Hitler. It could still be how we win this one. I hope so. The alternative is to simply astonish with our violence. And I mean Vanguard-class violence.
This is how I woke up this morning. I normally wake up with the light but I’d been up late last night with a particularly awkward Dell (I fucking hate Dells) so I woke up about 9-15am. I had been up before and was snoozing on the bed with the the cat who was purring like a little two-stroke motor in my arms.
It was the phone. Well, the cat had to remove his paw from across my left arm (and looked most put-out about it, sorry Timmy) and I answered the phone. I had to answer it. It could have been a job for me or my wife, right? It was instead Her Majesties Revenue and Customs. The chill reached my bowels in seconds and the kitty ran off afrighted for similar reasons. Fortunately it wasn’t for me. Unfortunately it was for my wife. Apparently she owes them 1500 quid. This is primarily because they use self-assessment forms which NASA would deem a bit complicated, actually. This isn’t an outstanding debt. Oh, no! This is 2008/2009 tax year. This is on the basis of monies they think she’ll earn. And get this. If she doesn’t pay on the nail they are going to charge interest on it. Yes, interest on money not yet earned.
If I could get away with that I’d be sitting pretty. I could charge all the local owners of crappy Dells fifty notes (at least) up-front in case they go wrong. And if they didn’t pay I’d drag them into the courts.
But, of course, my wife’s (and mine and your) tax pays for vital stuff like schools and hospitals doesn’t it? So, why can’t we get an NHS dentist? Why can’t she get a blood-pressure monitor? Why can’t she get Implanon without driving half-way across the county? Why are the roads in a total fucking state? Why are the railways crap? Why are they closing down Jodrell Bank? Why, on 47% of our GDP, do we not even have the hint of a space program? What the fuck is it being spent on? What the fuck is it being spent on?
I’ll tell ya what. I have temped for UK Gov and they couldn’t find their arse with both hands guided by GPS. It doesn’t fucking work. The whole system is a cluster-fuck. They disturb me and the cat (I was dreaming of Uma Thurman and liquorice sticks and he was dreaming of meeces at the time) and then I disturb my wife and everyone is disturbed by what is essentially extortion to what end exactly? I would rather see my cat in the cabinet than the likes of Roof Kelly or Ed (balls by name, bollocks by nature) Balls.Timmy would look cute and not demand 140 grand a year, a grace and favour gaff and a bullet-proof Jag. Some Felix, IAMS and the odd game of string is all he needs and he also wouldn’t piss money down the drain like this bunch of cunts.
Why do we put up with them? Why?
I’m a classical liberal. I will not scare the horses (too much). I regard Rothbardians and Anarcho-Capitalists as mentalists. I am a loyal citizen of these British Isles. I believe in the Queen (though not her idiot son) so why are my views beyond the pale?
I am stunned that my Kitty Kounting Komrade missed this. Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of the reading of a paper by Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin to the Linnean Society of London.
It was the most profound unleashing of a cat amongst the pigeons in scientific history. A year later “On the Origin of the Species” was published and the world turned. The Times ran with the headline, “Grandfather was a Horse” which just goes to show that pignorance in journalism is nothing new. Now, obviously, Origin was no Principia (the single most important book ever written and I will fight to the death anyone who says otherwise) but… Still it changed everything. It made biology a proper science. As indeed did the work of an obscure Austrian monk called Gregor Mendel - I have sweet peas outside my shed and I just can’t look at them as merely pretty. Biology is not the same as physics. It is as Huck Finn might put it, “all to various” but Darwin and Mendel gave it a focus and made it whole like Newton did with physics which is obviously more important because it’s logically (not just chonologically) prior. Otherwise we’re back to vitalism and burning Edward Woodward in a whicker men.
Some truly phenomenal work was done in the C19th. That was the Century when we took off, literally, a couple of years late (who’s counting), on December 17th 1903. We had Chemistry and Electricity and Thermodynamics. We had photography and automobiles and telegraphy and telephones and Tesla. We recorded sound and made pictures move. We were brilliant. But for me, the greatness of of that era is best represented by Maxwell’s equations (the four of them can be written on a Post-It and are still the basis of all macroscopic electromagnetism - which is all the electricity you’re likely to use - and are heartbreakingly beautiful in vector form) and Darwin’s book.
Origin is often classed as a revolutionary tome from that era and placed along with the musings of Freud and Marx. It is a dangerous book because it re-wrote the rules but unlike those other two it is a work of science. It is not drawing broad conclusions on the basis of a small number of middle-class Viennese housewife’s sexual hang-ups or suggesting a grand socio/historical/economic theory on the basis of bugger-all. It is a work of science which puts forward a simple, comprehensible, idea. That some people still don’t get it is beyond me. That many of them don’t understand quite how beautiful it is appals me.
I shall leave (almost) the final word to Charles Darwin.
There is a grandeur in this view of life….. Whilst this planet has been cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, forms most wonderful have been and are being evolved.
The alternative is not even wrong. It’s facile.
PS. As a Brit I’m somewhat proud. We have had Newton and Darwin, Maxwell and Stephenson, Turing and Whittle… What the fuck have the rest of you brought to the party? We pitched-up with a Grand Cru and most of the rest of ya seem to have turned up with half-empty bottles of flat Diet Coke. Sheesh!
Muslims outraged at police advert featuring cute puppy sitting in policeman’s hat.
A postcard featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman’s hat advertising a Scottish police force’s new telephone number has sparked outrage from Muslims.(…)
The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert.
(…)
‘They (the police) should have understood. Since then, the police have explained that it was an oversight on their part, and that if they’d seen it was going to cause upset they wouldn’t have done it.’
(…)
‘We did not seek advice from the force’s diversity adviser prior to publishing and distributing the postcards. That was an oversight and we apologise for any offence caused.’
This is bullshit on so many levels.
There is nothing in Islam which objects to the sight or image of a dog, or a pig for that matter.
Touching a dog renders a muslim ritually unclean, seeing one does not. This is invented offense, faked outrage. These people are choosing to be outraged for no reason associated with their religion. And the dhimmi coppers are falling for this twaddle.
If people wish to follow a set of religious belief in their private life, that is their option and choice, but when they try to push their imaginings into the public sphere they risk having a real and unpleasant truth being pushed back. The reality is, the concept of ritually unclean is meaningless gobbledegook. Allah does not exist, Mohammed was not a prophet, and ‘ritually unclean’ is baseless fantasy.
Dogs can be pretty grubby, but they are just another living thing.
What has never been made clear to me is why Allah would make a creature so offensive to his sight. Surely nothing created by Big Al can possibly be offensive to him; is it possible there is a logical contradiction in the belief system there?
