No Tits Please, We're Christian Politicians

A bunch of throwbacks in Australia are trying to mess with evolution again - only this time it's a cultural evolution, not a biological one. I have to admit this story is over a week old, but it's too good not to report on it.

A group of Conservative Christians in New South Wales are trying to ban topless bathing on the the state's glorious beaches. Led by moral throwback, which Reuters describes as "Christian lawmaker and veteran morals campaigner Reverend Fred Nile" the group wishes to constrict laws governing nude sunbathing on the beaches.

Topless bathing has been acceptable and commonplace in this part of Oz since the 1960s - yes folks, nearly half a century ago - but Reverend Fred is disgusted (and old). Perhaps he hails back from the Victorian era when covering up was the order of the day: not just a sensible thing to do on our terribly chill beaches.

It's certain his ideas do. Fred told Reuters in heavily accented Oz dialect:

"She demeans herself. I believe that she's taking away her own self-respect and I'd say any of the men around that area would not have any respect for that girl and probably would think that she's cheap and maybe even trying to pick up somebody"

There's that word "probably" again.

When did breasts become offensive? We're used to covering ourselves - originally it was to keep warm and clean, but then later when the god-botherers got involved it was to cover our reproductive areas.

To me, Fred and his supporters are performing a sort of self-flagellation because they can't get close to a pretty young girl any more and being denied that, they want to stop everyone else.

Breasts are there to feed our children before they are able to take solid food. That's what nature developed them for and we all have them - it's part of being mammal. They're just less developed in men and no one complains about men going around topless!

Which brings me to a super song about this very topic, the great Rodney Carrington has a song about it: "Show them to me!" - you'll find it on Youtube.com and I'd recommend going there now if this story depresses you.

Because it seems that Fred and his followers might be making some headway and the idiots may actually get their way and prevent women having a another choice. Did I mention that? It's not compulsory for a woman to put her funbags on display in NSW, but it's her right to do so if she wants to.

Excuse me now while I nip to Oz before evolution goes into reverse like it did on that Guinness advert a while back.

Tony Blair Is Still Interfering

It's said you can't keep a good man down; but, as the marketing goes you can't keep a Weeble™ down either.

Former British Primeminister and Catholic convert is now trying to meddle in American politics by leaning on Barack Obama to, "Unify the world." Writes Joe Murphy in the Mail.

Mr Blair is now an international peace envoy, which is sort of ironic considering his hand in deceiving the British people and leading us into an unjust and possibly illegal war against Sadam Hussain. He also claims to remain on friendly terms with President Bush (jnr.). Says Blair:

"I'm not a fair-weather friend. I say this to people all the time, even [to] liberal people who cannot believe I can possibly like George W Bush."

Now I believe Blair likes Dubya because if he said anything else, he'd come across looking like a hypocrite - oh wait...

Blair went on to say of the Iraq war and Bush's "war on terror":

"He [Dubya] had very difficult decisions to take after September 11th, and I think he took the right decisions, actually. I'm afraid that if there was any collective mistake that was made, it was not understanding how deep the struggle is and how long it's going to have to be fought."

You think, Mr Blair? You THINK! Dubya had some hard decisions to make for sure, but if there's one thing we've seen admirably demonstrated over the last eight years, he's prone to make the wrong ones - and run with them no matter what the cost is: provided it doesn't cost him.

So here we have a warmonger rubbing shoulders with an idiot (you decide which is which) and both of them have the gall to call on President elect Obama to fix their mess for them. Religious wars have gone on for as long as religion has existed: even the Abrahamics (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) have fought through history vying for power: and they still are despite all claiming to be one people under the same god!

The best way to win a religious war is to not get into it in the first place, but thanks to this idiot and his puppet, we're all neck-deep in shit and resentment. I want to know which fucking idiot thought that a guy responsible for the Middle East hating Britain thought it would be smart to give him a job as a peace envoy. For fuck's sake, he's a new-born member of the most hated and power-hungry major Christian sect of them all.

Thank god for atheism, I say.

Bishops Can't See The Irony

Next to the state and possibly the monarchy, probably the wealthiest landowner in the UK is the Anglican church. The church of Rome is similarly rich.

Yet what do they actually do to accumulate this great wealth? Very little.

I'd like to say, they do sod all, but they do perform certain ceremonial duties and I have to admit that there are still people who desperately need something to cling to.

Yet today, in another foot-in-mouth feat of (Douglas) Adamsian irony, five top Anglican bishops are have criticised the government for failing the poor. Bishop of Manchester the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch said that Labour is "beguiled by money" and "morally corrupt".

Hey buddy - look in the fucking mirror will you!

I don't see either church handing out millions of its accumulated wealth to the poor. Sure, they preach to their followers to "give generously" (often to them, of course) but do they give any back.... errrrr....

Now I won't argue that in recent years, Labour has lost the plot. But in recent years, led by Tony Blair, the party has massively extended the City Academies programme. This education initiative was supposed to help the poor by building massively expensive, state-of-the-art super schools in the heart of deprived areas.

Hot on the heels of Sir Peter Vardy, Bob Edmiston and Graham Dacre offered to sponsor academies. Each one a car dealer, each a "Christian" and all three amazingly rich - a factor fuelled almost entirely by the consumer credit explosion. In all three cases these "Christians" only had to stump up less than 10% of the cost of the schools, got to set the agenda while the taxpayers got to carry the rest. For ever.

Then what happens? The offspring of well-to-do families are bussed (or more usually driven) in while the poorer children are pushed to one side. All this does is widen the gap between rich and poor - and the naturally better performing richer kids make everyone hail the Academy a success - where the opposite is true.

The Bishop of Durham, Rt Rev Tom Wright said:

"We have not seen a raising of aspirations in the last 13 years, but instead there is a sense of hopelessness. While the rich have got richer, the poor have got poorer."

Yes indeed - like three representatives of your flock that I've just mentioned, Reverend.

Jesus would be ashamed of the lot of you.

UPDATE (29/Dec/2008):

Liam Byrne MP came out punching, he said "Labour had fought hard to narrow the gap between rich and poor." And Sir Stuart Bell, MP, the Church's own Commons representative, called the bishops' claims "nonsense".

Christmas (Credit Crunch) Message

One of the things I hate about Christmas is the way that so much airtime is given over to the religious nutters. Look, Christmas was nicked from the poor Pagans - it's a celebration of the winter solstice. No one knows when (or frankly even if) Jesus was born - the odds of him being born on 25th December on our calendar are about 365-1 against.

I love the idea of being around family and giving of gifts (because I love to give) but the supernatural message is lost on me. The churches cling on to it because they don't have a lot to offer frankly in these days of manic consumerism.

But they've been handed a gift this year.

Most of the west is suffering a massive downturn and they're milking it for everything they can get. Lots of hand-wringing about how we should be good to each other and how Jesus said this and that... the usual stuff. Credit is hard to come by and the effect of the greed that governments allowed to run unchecked for decades has finally burst a bubble and we're in a recession - a bad one.

So you will forgive me for observing that not all so-called Christians are so thrifty. Sir Peter Vardy, a favourite of god-bothering former British PM, Tony Blair built a multi-million pound car business thanks to cheap credit: and became enormously rich into the bargain.

He got out when the going got good and once commented that the lord (God) had given him a "very full cup" which made me want to vomit.

God, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Vardy is a businessman and with some good judgement and shrewd decisions, he rode a tide of easy credit and explosion in personal debt to dizzying financial heights. I have my doubts he would fair so well selling cars in the current financial climate where even the car-makers are having to be bailed out by governments.

But Vardy doesn't do motor cars now - he jumped ship, becoming even more personally wealthy than before and ploughed some of his gains into another sure thing: City Academies - and it's his belief in promoting the supernatural that brought him onto my radar. (The guy is a snake-oil salesman and we're letting him decide the future of some of our children!)

At the same time the very practices that made Vardy so eye-wateringly rich are being decried as wicked from virtually every pulpit in the land: by senior members of his own sect.

BBC reports Right Reverend Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester as saying:

"Society is facing an inevitable come-uppance for its 'buy now, pay later' culture."

I wonder how Sir Peter can sleep at night knowing that his millions come from precisely that? Rather well, I expect.

One day Stephen Green goes on holiday...

One day a Jew, a Hindu, and Stephen 'Bird Shit' Green all arrived at their hotel to find that there had been a mix-up with the bookings, and that there was only one room left for them to share.

The manager explained that this room only had two beds, but that there was a barn at a neighbouring farm which the farmer, an old friend of his, would let one of them sleep in free of charge. They complained a bit, but since there was nowhere else to go, the Jew graciously said he'd sleep in the barn.

The Hindu and Green were just settling down to sleep in their room, when there was a knock on the door. It was the Jew. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but there's a pig in that barn and because I'm Jewish I feel uncomfortable about sharing the barn with it.'

'No problem,' said the Hindu. 'I'll sleep out there instead.' So off he went to the barn, leaving Green and the Jew to share the room. They were just settling down to sleep, when there was a knock on the door. It was the Hindu. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but there's a cow in that barn and because I'm a Hindu I feel uncomfortable about sharing the barn with it.'

Green grudgingly agreed to give up his bed and stomped off to the barn leaving the Jew and the Hindu to share the room. The Jew and the Hindu were just settling down to sleep, when there was a knock on the door.

It was the cow and the pig.