Yesterday, I was shocked to hear such comments from the Pope, a well known bastion of equality, supporter of human rights, and devoted to promoting tolerance towards every human being -having been created after all by God himself in his image.

So, as the BBC reported:

The Pope has urged Catholic bishops in England and Wales to fight the UK’s Equality Bill with “missionary zeal”. Pope Benedict XVI said the legislation “violates natural law”.

Let’s not even get started on why the heck do religious leaders get involved in politics, legislation, or… well, or pretty much anything that has to do with reality? What sort of expertise do they bring on the table?

Second, and as always, the Catholic Church is once again publicly advertising its intolerant characteristics, by labelling anything that has the word “equal” as a “violation of nature“, the “decadence of morality“, the “end of society” and other such ponderous bull****.

In response to these comments, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, said that this (and similar legislations) have been driving religious belief and practice into “the sphere of the private only”. Not quite there yet, are we? But that should in fact be the sphere of action for fairy tales, religions, unsubstantiated irrational beliefs that fall squarely outside reality.

Private only.

Keep it to yourselves.

You can do anything you like in private, and I will not complain so long as you don’t try to push your beliefs to defenceless people;

so long as you don’t try to influence society and legislation based on your beliefs;

so long as you don’t try to teach your beliefs in schools as science (!);

and so long as you don’t go around discriminating against or killing other people, merely because they happen to believe in some other imaginary guy in the sky or even (gasp!) believe in none!

[Slowly trying to get back to normal blogging after my moving into a new place, in a new area... And the DIY stuff are not even close to finished]

[source: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]

Amidst a pile of obligations, a moving out / moving in phase with severe delays, some lost flights, and a crazy (albeit particularly enjoyable) Christmas break, further journeys through burning minds had to stop for a while…

As things get back to normal slowly, I promise it will be business as usual within the next couple of weeks. I don’t want to keep my (three) readers disappointed for too long and there is certainly lots of stuff to write about in this crazy, god-fearing, new age world of ours.

Happy new year everyone!

Finally some good news on the front of freedom of information: Prof. Colquhoun has achieved an important victory in this domain! For years now (literally!) he has been asking the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) to provide their teaching material for their infamous BSc degree in homeopathy^* under the Freedom of Information Act.

The rationale behind this request, was a reasonable public interest in knowing how tax money are spent in publicly funded institutions like UCLAN. However, UCLAN rejected the requests citing “commercial interests” in handing out their teaching material… Courts were involved; first round won by Prof. Colquhoun (March 2008); appeals were raised by UCLAN; until finally:

The Tribunal upholds the decision notice dated 30th. March, 2009, dismisses the appeal and directs that all the steps required by the Decision Notice be taken within 28 days of the date of this Decision

See the history of this case over at DC’s improbable science.

Now what’s left is a win for freedom of expression as well…

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Footnotes:

1. * this degree has been abolished as of 2008 -wise move but won’t spare them the ridicule… [↩]

I have been watching some episodes of “House, MD” series lately -I find the main character particularly entertaining^*. In the last episode I watched (which is still from season 1), there is Harvey, a patient that visited the clinic because for some months now he has been grinding his teeth (!) The fun part begins when a doctor asks Harvey (and his friend) if he had had any treatments for his condition. Here is the whole woo dialogue:

• Doctor: Have you had any treatment for the teeth grinding?
• Friend: He saw an acupuncturist
• Doctor: Do you know what the acupuncturist did?
• Friend: She diagnosed liver chi stagnation and send Harvey to a zen balancer. He referred him to a homeopathic doctor who send him to a chiropractic
• Doctor: Naturally
• Friend: But the chiropractic thought it might be food sensitivity and send Harvey to a naturopath
• Harvey: And the naturopath send me back to the…
• Doctor: Back to the acupuncturist…

The acupuncturist diagnosed a liver chi stagnation!!! Here is a quick explanation according to a random google search hit (*real* natural medicine):

When chi flows smoothly, health is in a balanced state. When this vital force is interrupted or flowing in the wrong direction, health problems occur. Liver chi stagnation is a term used to describe an unharmonious flow of the liver’s energy, or simply put, ‘a sluggish liver’.

Yes!

Good thing Harvey was so early diagnosed, because then he could be ‘fixed’ by a zen balancer! According to another random google search hit (some Glasgow aromatherapy shop), here is what zen balancing is about:

Wrapping you from head to toe in luxurious warm Rose oil. using acupressure points on the head and face. followed by a soothing back, neck and shoulder massage with cleansed rose quartz placed on the body to re-balance energy. Reflexzone on pressure points of the feet as they are gently massaged. 60mins of pure bliss is completed by a soothing cup of green tea and honey. The perfect body balancing treatment

The poor guy has been circling around every imaginable form of pseudoscientific woo: homeopathy, acupuncture, chiropractic, crystals, reflexology, aromatherapy, energy healing, naturopathic diet fads! I wonder if anything has been left out? Maybe prayer?

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Footnotes:

1. * hmmm, perhaps I see elements of him in me? [↩]

Totally mind blowing live set from Combichrist at Slimelight -yeah yeah that was two weeks ago but I didn’t have time to upload anything as I was in Japan for a week… Enjoy a brief part from “Today I woke to the rain of blood” (and excuse some slight focusing issues in the beginning) and some photos as well:









A few more and of higher resolution at the galleries here.

A sad story came out today by the Associated Press: A 20 year old woman in Somalia was stoned to death for adultery…

A judge for an Islamic militant group in Somalia says a woman has been stoned to death and her boyfriend given 100 lashes for having an affair.

Sheikh Ibrahim Abdirahman, the judge for the group al-Shabab, says the woman was killed Tuesday in front of a crowd of some 200 people near the town of Wajid.

And what’s even sadder, is that this is neither a rare occurrence, nor is it poised to be the last one.

The stoning death was at least the fourth for adultery in Somalia over the last year. It was the second time a female has been killed.

Absolute nonsensical laws and actions by people that are supporters of the “religion of peace“.

I only managed to take photos from my night excursions in Tokyo last week -mornings were busy. So here’s a few photos from my trip (see more here)



A glimpse of a huge supermarket in Musashi-kosugi. This one was open 24 hours a day -very useful if you are jet lagged and wake up in the middle of the night feeling hungry!



A small back alley in the very dark hours. Still reasonably lit and colourful though!



While this looks more “Western”, the whole meal and experience was anything but. For starters, we had to cook the food we ordered ourselves!



An interesting Japanese restaurant trying to adhere to a 60’s Japanese theme as I learned from my colleagues.



Shinagawa, one of the busiest and biggest stations in Tokyo. At this time of the day though, it is relatively peaceful as you can see

Hope you enjoyed! You can see more photos at the galleries section here.