Envoy to WHERE?!

Around fifteen years ago a friend and I compiled an imaginary tape to have been entitled 'Thatch No More'. The details are lost in the mists of time and that long ago drunken haze, but the lead off track was to have been 'Glad To See You Go' by the Ramones.

Please don't misunderstand, I love America, but no one can embarrass you like those you love...

Well, now. I recognise that brainstorming can be very productive, and that you've got to throw around as many ridiculous ideas as you can in order to get at the good ones. But Gay Bombs? Gay Bombs? Only in the confused, repressed, creationist mind of a midwestern Colonel, surely.

As is often the case, Stephen Fry has expressed it in a way which probably cannot be bettered:

“Tell you what, lovely army, very nice vehicles and things; d’you have any grown-ups anywhere?”

As if I didn't have enough to do

I fear I'm going to have to read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire at some point. Try this passage:

‘But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the world.’

Isn't that lovely? I'd count myself a serious writer if I could manage a passege that good just the once...

Life in a Secular State

On the radio this morning, I heard one of the Republican candidates for the Presidency of you know where. It seems that following outcry from various scientists and the like, he had decided to moderate his earlier comment that he did not believe in evolution. He now said that all he knew was that God had created the world, but was not too concerned with how, and didn't see that it affected his ability to carry out the duties of the President.

Well, as far as relevance to his duties goes, it would demonstrate a capacity for rational thought. And it would demonstrate that he could take on board uncomfortable information, rather than just pretending the world was the way he wanted it to be and acting accordingly.

So I suppose he was right, at that.

I need a badge.

As I was saying, it turns out that in the fifties, America's motto was changed from "e pluribus unum" to "In God We Trust". Now, far be it from me to slag off America when it's been so popular to do that lately. "From the many, one", is, it must be observed, a lovely sentiment, packed with meaning, speaking into being a state that makes democracy its central ingredient. The nation exists in that it is a democracy; democracy is not a new style of government for a pre-existing nation. More than that, it evokes a pluralism which remains a bold ideal, even now - particularly now. It is entirely appropriate for the secular state that the USA is constitutionally bound to be.

"In God We Trust", by contrast, is psycho imperialist religious paranoid bollocks.

Meanwhile, it seems that the airline worker who insists on wearing her emblem of murderous torture (that would be a cross) over her uniform may well be allowed so to do in future. I don't care whether she wears it or not, really. But the thing is, in contrast to some of the symbols of other religions, which symbols are tolerated, there is no stricture within Christianity which says that she will go to hell, or suffer ostracism, or some similar opprobrium if she doesn't wear it. She just seems to think that she can't do her job unless she can declare to all and sundry that she is a Christian while she does it. I'd really quite enjoy going to work wearing some kind of symbol which meant "there is no God, you stupid bastards", but I don't expect it would be popular.

Rumsfeld lives, while...

"I personally don't believe in God;

I tend to think, if God wanted us to believe in Him,

He'd exist."

Linda Smith

This decision is a great erroneous.

According to the White House, apparently, "Saddam's death sentence is a great day for Iraq." I've heard this repeated often enough to assume that it is, in fact, what they intended to say. I suppose that, by now, we shouldn't be surprised that they have such a poor grasp of the English language; more than that, these are people who are quite happy to assert that where the facts don't agree with what they say, it is reality that has got it wrong. How many legal judgements make a month?

On a slightly less obscure point, I have for a long time found it rather ironic that in a country where the State is seen as a necessary evil at best, the viewpoint that the State should keep as far out of people's business as possible is held by essentially the same demographic that believes that the State should have jurisdiction inside women's bodies.