October 31, 2006
I'm in ur house eatin ur cat
From the makers of lolicon, yuri and tentacle porn, comes this.
Guess that comes from foiling their plot for world domination 60 years ago, eh?
(via SpinStartsHere)
October 28, 2006
Let the cats come out and play
Uncovered meat.... the T-Shirt!
October 27, 2006
Sheik, Prattle and Dole
Australia's favourite wacky "spiritual leader" Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali is in the news again, pissing off everyone with his "women get raped because of their enticing clothes, and if they stayed at home in a hijab they'd be fine." theory.
More on that.
Now, for reasons not clear, not only has he a) Not really apologised ("I was taken out of context!"), b) Whined that he's all stressed at the reaction, but he's now, somewhat bizarrely, bringing the White House into it.
Australia's leading Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hilali, says he will only resign when the world is "clean of the White House".
What man, you going to scrub the floors or something? Might be a better fit to your intellectual capabilities.
(More on the Sheik here and transcript of his sermon.)
"Those atheists, people of the book (Christians and Jews), where will they end up? In Surfers Paradise? On the Gold Coast?
"Where will they end up? In hell. And not part-time. For eternity. They are the worst in God's creation.
I'm pleased we atheists get a gong.
UPDATE: A somewhat...disturbing comment from the assembled as the Sheik reappears during Friday prayers.
"The grass roots are behind him."
For pity's sake.
October 24, 2006
I'll let you be an idiot if you want, but don't expect me to congratulate you for it.
Oliver Kamm's blog is one of the few where I find myself nodding my head in agreement at nearly every one of his posts. His latest is no exception.
On the subject of a religious figure feeling he is entitled to respect, Kamm says:
He was, and is, entitled to no such thing. He is entitled in a democratic society to no more and no less than religious and political liberty. Whether he enjoys respect as well is entirely up to him; it is not up to our political and juridical system. The notion that in suffering offence he is done an injustice is false and pernicious. It's also dangerous, because it places no limit on how far the state should regulate people's lives.
Exactly, and it is something few seem to grasp. Respect isn't an entitlement - it's something you earn, through your own actions. If you are worthy of respect, you will receive it - but it's not a civil right.
Freedom of expression is, but just because you are left to live your life the way you please, doesn't mean people are forced to "respect" your opinions as a matter of course. Religion is a case in point.
Religious beliefs are not entitled to "respect" simply because they are religious beliefs. Otherwise you have the absurd situation of having to "respect" the beliefs of the Branch Davidians, or Jim Jones, or the ancient Aztec tradition of live human sacrifice.
The rest of Kamm's post is just as good. Read the whole thing, as they say on the Interwebs.
October 21, 2006
Celtic Tiger
Some weekend reading.
Ireland swims, Belgium sinks....and this is why.
October 18, 2006
It's a little town where I grew up...
I love it when my hometown gets in the news. It's always stuff like this - "Too young to marry."
Also, I thought at first that this gentleman was the fellow who walked around town dressing like Jesus, but I think he might be another guy.
Yes, it's scary that in a small town you can find two people walking around dressed like Jesus...
I for one welcome our new master-race overlords!
Social division might split humans into two sub-species 100,000 years from now - just as British author HG Wells predicted more than a century ago.
The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative.
They would be a far cry from the "underclass" humans who will have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.
The forecast was made by British evolution expert Dr Oliver Curry, who spent two months investigating the ascent and descent of mankind over the next 100 millennia.
Obviously a productive area of study...
Within a thousand years, humans will evolve into coffee-coloured giants between 1.85 to 2.15m tall, he predicts.
Improved nutrition and medical science will see people growing taller and fitter, while life-spans are extended to 120 years.
Physical appearance, driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility, will improve.
Men will exhibit symmetrical facial features, look athletic, and have squarer jaws, deeper voices. Women on the other hand will develop lighter skin, large clear eyes, pert breasts, glossy hair and even features.
EVEN features? You're telling me the women of the future will even have features!
Wow! I'm impressed.
October 14, 2006
October 11, 2006
Just Shut Up and Drive
This was a stupid idea, and it's a good thing it was canned. What's next? Yellow stars on Jewish passengers so they don't have to take them either?
Meanwhile, great post by Oliver Kamm on creationism.
Here's the kicker.
In the Scopes trial, creationists secured legal victory at the price of national ridicule. Their descendants stress the ostensibly scientific notion of Intelligent Design, and the superficially democratic demand that it be granted equal time with the teaching of evolution. A liberal education certainly includes knowledge of the religious doctrines that have shaped Western civilisation. But the myths of the Creation and the Fall have no place in science education. Evolution, wrote the biologist Ernst Mayr, is not just a concept but “the name of a process in nature, the occurrence of which can be documented by mountains of evidence that nobody has been able to refute”. Its deniers – there is no polite way of putting this - are a menace to children.
Good thing it was only a "link"
Apparently, there was a "religious" link to this event.
A religious feud between a Muslim father and his teenage daughter may have sparked a bloody domestic dispute on the Gold Coast which left the man's wife dead and him fighting for life in hospital.
Police are investigating suggestions the violence erupted after the 17-year-old girl told her father she wanted to opt out of the Islamic faith and convert to Christianity. The girl's mother is believed to have stepped in to protect her daughter, only to be fatally stabbed with a kitchen knife.
Neighbours reported hearing "blood-curdling" screams before the hysterical girl ran half-naked from their Southport home unit covered in scratches.
Police later found the body of the girl's mother, 41, inside the blood-smeared unit. Her husband was taken to the Gold Coast Hospital with a stab wound to the chest. He was last night in a critical condition under police guard.
Neighbour Caitlin Dalton was taking out the rubbish about 7pm on Monday when she heard "loud, huge, terrifying screams" coming from the unit complex.
"She (the teenager) was yelling, 'Help me, help me, they're trying to kill me'," Ms Dalton said. "Everybody heard the screams but we couldn't work out which unit they were coming from. Then this girl emerged in the stairwell hysterical and crying.
"Her clothes had been ripped off, she was just in her underwear and she had quite severe scratches down her arm and across her back."
Ms Dalton said that as residents tried to comfort the sobbing girl, she told how she had wanted to "convert from the Islam religion . . . and obviously her father didn't handle it very well".
Well...no...not really.
"She said her parents were really strict," Ms Dalton said.
Hmmm...you don't say.
I mean, this shit can't be real, can it? It seems so bizarre that people would try and maim their own daughter over this. I keep having this strange feeling that this is all some collossal practical joke, and tomorrow we're going to hear the words:
"Islam? Naw...we made the whole religion up as a gag, man! You really think we were that crazy? Fo-ol-ed you!
UPDATE: According to the Gold Coast Bulletin.
A Muslim source told The Gold Coast Bulletin last night that Dr Hussain arrived a month ago to take up a position as a GP and prepare for his family to join him.
"From what we understand the daughter decided to tell her father of her radical plan to convert to Christianity which, in the eyes of most Muslims, is totally unacceptable and to be honest, sadly, many would react as he has done,” said the source.
"It is the Islamic way that if a son or daughter does or plans to do something that is unacceptable or wrong for a Muslim then it is the mother who is automatically at fault and will bear the brunt of the blame."
How this squares with the fact that the vast majority of Western converts are women, I am unsure. I guess its the people who would have normally become Breatharians.
October 08, 2006
Those Crazy Kids
It seems that Keisha Castle Hughes, mostly known as the Maori girl in Whale Rider (but to nerds like me as Queen Apailana), is up the duff at the tender age of sixteen.
It is hoped the news Whale Rider star Keisha Castle-Hughes is pregnant will not hurt her future as an actress. The 16-year-old is expecting her first child in autumn.
The father is her New Zealand boyfriend of three years, 19-year-old Bradley Hull.
Well...yes.
Wikipedia, which has never set me wrong, says this:
Castle-Hughes and her boyfriend, Bradley Hull, 19, are expecting a child in spring 2007; the couple have dated since 2003.
Um...2003...wasn't she thirteen then?
I thought that kinda thing was illegal....
You're just jealous!
Sure am! I wish I had my own Oscar-nominated jail bait.
Top at something
Apparently there are 7 Australian universities in the Top 50 world universities.
Highest ranking Aussie is ANU, followed by Melbourne University.
There you go Engels...you aren't wasting your life after all!
Except with bacon!
All the time, I never knew!
Australia is a Muslim nation, the head of Prime Minister John Howard's Muslim advisory board says.
Who knew?
And how about a no-prize for the most bizarre analogy I've seen this year.
"We want an Australia which is like a fruit salad with a nice juice in it, not a mega fruit juice."
What the heck is a mega fruit juice?
Personally, I've always thought of Australia as an ice-cream sandwich.