Women

"Here and now, everywhere, those with eyes to see can see for themselves that religion has for thousands of years perpetuated the oppression of half our species. Half of the great minds our peoples have produced have lived and died unknown and forgotten, their educations neglected, their lives spent doing laundry and other menial tasks for men — their merits unrecognized and buried under lies promulgated by religion, in cultures soaked in the destructive myths of faith which codify misogyny and give it a godly blessing.

Isn’t that reason enough to tear down the cathedrals — that with this one far-reaching, difficult change to our cultures, we double human potential?"~ P Z Myers

US Christians & their guns

Quedula is gratified to learn that her various comments on Rural Revolution have inspired a spirited defence of  American gun ownership.

I think the arguments go something like this:-

• I believe in God because I believe God wants me to believe in Him.
• I need guns to protect my right to have guns.

Some connection perhaps?

An Arab on Arabs

An impressive analysis.

Robin Williams speaks his mind

Robin Williams, wearing a shirt that says 'I love New York ' in Arabic.


I'm sure we all have thoughts similar to the following from time to time, but RW comes out with it:-




"I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan. 



1) 'The US / UK ?AUSTRALIA will apologize to the world for our 'interference' in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those 'good 'ole' boys', we will never 'interfere' again.



2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany , South Korea , the Middle East , and the Philippines . They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.

3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are from. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them.. 

4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.



5) No foreign 'students' over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a 'D' and it's back home baby. 

6) The US /UK/ Australia will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.



7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.) 

8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not 'interfere.' They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.



9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.



10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us 'Ugly Americans' any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH..learn it...or LEAVE...Now, isn't that a winner of a plan? 
'The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'you want a piece of me?' " 



People Power

This seems like a good idea: "cc all your emails to Jacqui Smith". I wonder if it can have had any influence on the recent rethink?

Don't do anything yet but join the Facebook group to be kept informed.

Politicians and religion

To quote a memorable phrase politicians in the UK "don't do God". What they really mean is that they want to hedge their bets. They don't want to upset any religious group sufficiently for them to withhold their votes.

We always suspected Tony Blair was religious but he didn't come clean about it until he left office. How hypocritical is that!

We aren't sure about the strength of Gordon Brown's religious beliefs but why on earth shouldn't we know? Why shouldn't politicians be precise about their religious position when they ask us to vote for them? Are politicians in effect  saying that we don't need to know because their beliefs don't make any difference to the way they act in office? Some beliefs in that case! And if their beliefs do make a difference to the way they act, aren't we, the voters, entitled to have chapter & verse?

Refreshingly Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has come out as an atheist and the Lib Dems are promoting a Freedom Bill. It makes one almost want to vote for them, but anyway, one can a least sign their Freedom Bill petition:-
http://tinyurl.com/dhbj9n