Basically, her premise is that many Islamic people find it difficult to hold on firmly to their religion in a country which she sees as having no morals, and therefore they turn to extremism, and that therefore to combat extremism it is necessary to rein in some of the worst excesses of society. She references Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (the ‘underpants bomber’):

At university he apparently cut himself off, tried to hold on to Islamic Puritanism in a country of no shame, no restraint. Millions of Britons of all backgrounds are alarmed by the dissipation and debauchery that now defines Britain.Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Don’t get me wrong — she is not in any way supportive of violent extremists and is critical of a lot that is wrong:

Sexual abuse, rape and forced homosexuality remain the dirty secrets of British Muslim communities, kept under wraps as it were, while they flap around proclamations of purity. I cannot stand these false virtues and self-reverential pieties nor am I pleading on behalf of screwed-up men who would murder us naming Allah.Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

However, whilst I understand what she is saying– that a society seen as permissive may make it difficult for people used to a much stricter regime — I cannot agree with the conclusion she arrives at. I find it very difficult to separate her arguments from these other two…

• A society with a lot of sexual permissiveness is ‘pushing some Muslims to the edge of reason’ (her words). Therefore we must change our society to avoid having problems with extremists
• A woman who goes out wearing a short skirt knows the effect that this will have on men. Therefore she cannot complain if someone rapes her as she was ‘asking for it’
• Some British people don’t like Muslims, and don’t want them in their communities. Therefore Muslims should not be allowed to go in those communities

Basically, all of these arguments are along these lines.

• A doesn’t like B. Therefore B is at fault and must change

It’s utter nonsense. I don’t particularly approve of people binge-drinking and sleeping around and being sexually permissive but — and here’s the important point — it’s none of my damn business.

It’s none of my damn business if someone wants to binge drink. It’s none of my damn business if someone wants to wear revealing clothes. It’s none of my damn business if someone wants to sleep with someone else.

If they do these things in such a way that another person is brought to harm, then society has a right to stop them, and indeed you will find that we have laws in place. But if you’re not hurting anyone else: if what you are doing is mutual, and consenting, then what right have other people to stick their noses in because they don’t like it?

But to be honest, it was the holier-than-thou, ivory tower, let’s sneer at the estate folk attitude which really annoyed me. See if you can guess which was the key word or words that told me there was a problem with Yasmin’s argument.

A list was sent home to the parents of girls at a middle-class school in London last week sternly reminding non-uniformed sixth-formers that there were still rules of decorum to follow. A list followed of garments henceforth disallowed: no tops that show the midriff or cleavage, no tight mini-skirts, no underwear showing, no clothes with holes in them, etc, etc.Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Yes, that’s right. Middle-class. This word is entirely surplus to requirements if you’re trying to make the point that this is happening at a London school. It’s only required if you’re trying to say “and it’s not just the vermin from the estates, you know”. I mean, I knew people were saying that the Independent was going downhill, but I hadn’t expected it to turn into the Daily Mail quite that quickly.

I have a perfectly simple rule for racial, ethnic, and religious harmony. Whenever someone tries to convince you that there is something wrong with a particular group, remind yourself of it. It’s easy to remember, it can be applied to members of almost any grouping, and if everyone followed it, the world would be a much nicer place.

Live and let live.

And if that one’s too difficult for you, may I instead refer you to the fall-back rule I mentioned earlier: what other people are doing — so long as they aren’t hurting anyone else — is none of your damn business.

And that, not sexual inhibition (or exhibition), or religion (or lack of it) ought to be the one thing enshrined in society.

It would appear however that this wasn’t quite as much of a “spoof” as previously imagined.

Workplace bullying of the clergy has become “rife”, according to the union Unite which says priests are being picked on by bishops [...] “Bishops have got a lot nastier”, says the Reverend Gerry Barlow, chair of the faith workers branch of Unite. BBC News

When Chris Morris talked about it on the day today, it was a joke. It was a joke because this is not the way Christians — let alone people who have devoted their lives to Christianity — are supposed to behave.

It is disgraceful that people are allowed to represent a religion — any religion — whilst consistently behaving in a way which undermines the tenets of that religion. While I would suggest that as forgiving seems to be one of the important points, it may be appropriate, depending on circumstances, to allow people who are willing to change their behaviour another chance.

Of course, it’s not just those within the church who are capable of acting shamefully, but just as we expect police officers to uphold a higher standard of behaviour than the general public because it’s their job, then exactly the same should apply to those in the church.

Discuss.

I’ll just make it explicitly clear at the outset: you don’t have to be Muslim to want to protest; you don’t have to be Muslim to be the sort of jerk who inflicts violence on others who you disagree with. It’s just that the main focus of the news has been of the Islamic side of things, so that’s where I’m going to look at mostly. Please take this paragraph as read throughout the rest of this post, as I have no intention of qualifying every statement with the additional statements like “…and there’s plenty of non-Muslims who disagree with the war”, or “…but you get nutters in every walk of life” or “…it’s only a tiny minority, most are perfectly happy to live and let live”.

Cartoon Violence

Remember that chap who produced the Danish cartoon which depicted the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist? That was a jolly impolite thing, I think most of us were in agreement about. But the reaction to it by some Muslims was not something which should be tolerated even less.

And recently there was the guy who tried to kill the cartoonist, when he was at home with his five year old grand-daughter. This is wrong on so many levels, as it suggests that you are not prepared to countenance any point of view which is different to your own, and the appropriate way to silence that dissent is through murder. I thought we’d all moved on from that, but it seems some haven’t.

But it’s the lack of self-awareness which makes it really stupid. Look at the steps:

1. Person is offended by cartoon describing major figure in their religion as murderous terrorist
2. Person decides most appropriate way to rebut this is by becoming a murderous terrorist, just to show how wrong the cartoonist was

What a fucking idiot. How exactly does that defend Islam against the charge of being murderous?

My God Is Bigger Than Your God

The beliefs of another person ought to be something that we are, generally, tolerant of. Whether someone believes in a God, in multiple Gods, or actively disbelieves in any of ‘em, ought to be something which is their business, not yours. But that is not to say that religions should be exempt from criticism. Particularly religions which react badly when you do criticise them.

I’ve been critical of the Catholic Church, in their attitude towards the use of condoms, which has led to more HIV infections and people dying. I’m critical of religions — and there’s more than one — which are intolerant of homosexuality. And I have a right to voice my opinions, and my beliefs, whether or not they are directly associated with a named religion or not.

When people are critical of the beliefs of others and speak about those beliefs in a critical way, implying someone must be stupid for believing that sort of thing (and/or assuming that because some adherents to a religion think X, that all adherents do), that annoys me. I find that a bit rude and unpleasant to be honest. I tend to feel that irrespective of whether or not that person is right, they are a fairly intolerant human being. attitude intolerant and offensive.

But when someone says that you are not allowed to be critical of beliefs or to speak about them in a critical way, at the risk of being attacked or prosecuted, then that annoys me for precisely the same reason. It’s intolerant and offensive. Plus it makes it seem as though people are worried that the religion won’t stand up to proper scrutiny and frankly, if there is a God, I rather suspect He is big enough to cope with a bit of disbelief. After all, he’ll get his chance to point out the error of their ways in his own manner…

And that’s why, I think this new Irish blasphemy law is a bit shit. If I were to say something in Ireland which you felt outraged or offended your religion, I could be fined €25,000 fine unless I could justify it. Not surprisingly, many people are critical of this (rightly in my opinion) as damaging to freedom of expression.

The Blasphemy Ireland website (set up, I presume, specifically to challenge this), sums it up perfectly:

In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.Blasphemy.ie

And, to point of the stupidity of the whole thing — every religion will have, somewhere, something contained within it that adherents to another may find objectionable — they have a list of quotations from a variety of figures, but three of the main venerated types are represented — Jesus Christ, Muhammad and Richard Dawkins.

Wootton Bassett

And then there’s Anjem Choudary. He suggested that his group — which I’m not going to name because I think they’ve gone about this primarily for the publicity, and I’m not going to contribute to that — should march through Wootton Bassett, where British servicemen killed in action are returned, in protest against the Muslims being killed by British forces in Afghanistan (and/or Iraq? — not sure on this one).

If he’d wanted a peaceful march through the streets of anywhere else, no one would have given a toss. But he picked Wootton Bassett primarily because it would spark in the national consciousness, and infuriate people who felt that dead servicemen who weren’t responsible for the war in the first place and surely who had already sacrificed quite enough thank you very much should be used as pawns for his political ends.

And yet the media helped serve his political ends by this suddenly becoming a national media item; with everyone debating whether or not his potential march (which, so far as I know, he never actually asked permission for in the first place) should be banned — and he’s suddenly seen as the face of Islam in the UK. Do the papers speak to the vast majority of British Muslims to find out their views? Certainly not at first. Not until after they’ve painted Anjem Choudary as the face of Islam in the UK.

The vast majority of atheists, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Pagans and God/Deity Of Choice knows what else are quite capable of doing this. So why do we spend so much of our time pandering to the intolerant?

So how do I feel about this. Should it be banned? Should it be allowed to go ahead? Well, there’s a You Tube video which expresses my thoughts probably better than I can here…

Dan Bull, thank you.

But that’s just my opinion. There might be something in it. After all, Nancy Reagan believed in it. And surely it’s likely that one-twelfth of the world’s population will be experiencing pretty much the same set of circumstances at any given time, isn’t it?

So in the interests of fairness, and since someone sent me a link to one of these horoscopes, I’ve decided to take a look at what my horoscopes say for 2010…

I did have the intention of including more predictions than this, but was prevented somewhat by there being a lot of talk about how it was the first time for seventy five years that I would find Jupiter in Uranus, and much less on not ridiculously over qualified predictions such as this one:

Jupiter ensures your luck is in and that most of what happens will be for the best, providing you watch the usual provisos where this expansive planet is concerned, like showing a little caution and keeping your feet somewhere near the ground.Astrology Wizard (Aries, 2010)

In other words then, my luck is in, except where it isn’t. I might form a new business alliance or romantic interest in August or September — or I might not; something I don’t quite understand is due to happen in June, and it’s not a year to be taking up Russian Roulette. Well, thank goodness I’ve found that out. I don’t know how I could have possibly faced 2010 without that information.

If anyone actually gives a toss — or can find a horoscope which actually has testable predictions in it, I might revisit this later in the year.

Let’s see… what’s been happening in the last couple of weeks? Well… there was something of a selection of weirdness…

The Prague Daily Monitor reports on activity ‘experts cannot explain’, although they seem to think calling the thing ‘a poltergeist’ is sufficient explanation for anyone. There’s the happiness hat, which drives a metal spike into your head if you should stop smiling (no, seriously).

A bank robber has failed in his appeal to give his mother visiting rights. Well, I say his mother: it’s the cat his mother has reincarnated as. If you’ve not already seen it, there’s the forklift truck driver who had a bad day at work…

On the theme of accidents, there’s the man who survived accidentally ejecting himself from his plane. While not specifically causing an accident, there was the man who had been visiting a fancy dress party and was arrested for drink driving while dressed as a breathalyser. You’d have thought he’d have blown on himself before setting off…

Mind you, he probably wasn’t as drunk as the chap who challenged a lamppost to a fight.

There’s the aftershocks still being felt from the earthquake in the early 1800s, the man who turned up alive at his own funeral.

There’s the woman who discovered on her wedding night that she’s allergic to her husband’s sperm. Yeah, I bet she’s got a headache as well. Mind you, there was this other woman who has amnesiac episodes whenever she climaxes. I think that while the woman who has a court order restraining her from loud noises during sex might be a little more embarrassing, it’s probably less to worry about in the long run.

You could always gag her, after all. Indeed, if I am to believe the porn-related spam comments on my filter, there is a specific niche of people who are very interested in this idea. Although to me it seems to miss the point. Surely during sex is the one time when the missus won’t be complaining that it’s about time you hoovered the dining room…

And then there’s the woman who likes to live as a vampire. Bloody Anne Rice has a lot to answer for…

…and then the Telegraph report on the police spending £20 grand on a murder hunt after a psychic tip-off, only for it to transpire — obviously — that their initial suspicions of suicide were correct. If this gave you some concerns about the police, these may be added to when you hear the police tasered a man who was rescuing his family from a house fire (although there are hints that the police’s side of the story might be different). Only a few days later, a police worker fired for backing psychic investigations claims religious discrimination. Wonder if he’d had anything to do with that ‘murder’ tip-off…

Also on the legal front, it turns out that the French never got round to repealing a law which bans women from wearing trousers in Paris.

More worryingly, NASA say the world will not end in 2012. I say worryingly, because I didn’t believe it was going to until then. Fortunately someone is around to debunk the 2012 apocalypse theories. Continuing the apocalyptic feel, the Mail tell us that an asteroid passed 30 times closer than the moon and nearly hit us, and we only had 15 hours warning of its approach! Shock! Although they do ruin a good scare story headline in the detail, which points out that the thing was only 23 foot across, would have completely burned up in the atmosphere and have had no impact on the ground.

The lost army of Cambyses may have been found(-ish), there’s a coral that eats jellyfish, Jupiter’s moon may have tons of fish (yeah, right)… and the Indonesian hobbits are a new species of human (if now sadly extinct).

There was a Glasgow research centre which tried to determine whether Friday 13th was actually unlucky. Presumably unless they find a way to counteract the unluckiness (or Murphy’s Lawiness) of it, they’ll never get accurate results… meanwhile the universe continues to conspire against the Large Hadron Collider as a bird drops a bit of bread on it, breaking it.

There’s the guy with the bionic bottom, the human body parts sold to a kebab shop, the Vatican researcher who has ‘proved’ the Shroud of Turin real;

But what, you may ask, what news is there from our American cousins? Well, Texas may have accidentally made marriage illegal; it appears Balloon boy’s parents may plead guilty; the FBI are hunting a bank robber in his 70s who uses oxygen and who has hit five banks in the last three months

But after all the science, the law, the sex, the drunkenness, and the general stories of madness, I have to return to crime for my personal favourite of the last few weeks. There was a roadside cafe by Keighley in West Yorkshire… until someone nicked it. I can’t imagine many opportunist thieves would have the wherewithal to shift a large green building… but I’ve got to give a grudging credit to any that seem to have managed it!

Oldham Couple Get Hundreds Of Calls From Rap Fans

An Oldham couple in their fifties have been receiving loads of calls from fans of the 18-year old US rapper Soulja Boy…

Thousands of music fans have been bombarding an Oldham family with calls – ever since their telephone number featured on a rap track. US rap artist Soulja Boy included the ex-directory number in his latest hit, Kiss Me Thru The Phone [...]

Ms Howard Smith added: “If they called the number with the American dialling code in front of it they will get through to a recorded message from him.”

BBC News: Rap fans bombard family’s phone

We’ve been talkin’ ’bout Jackson ever since the fire went out

The Peter Pan of Pop and purported paedophile, Michael Jackson died. But now he’s back. Forget your Virgin Mary visitations and Jesus in the form of a Cheeto appearances and make way for the ghost of Michael Jackson in Neverland and a tree stump which bears an image looking spookily like Jacko. Please note: the quality of ghostly apparitions and tree stump images may go down as well as up.

Although no doubt feeling somewhat narked at being upstaged by Jacko, the Virgin Mary appeared in a tree stump as well.

Swearing Reduces Pain

Then there’s the fact that research seems to indicate that swearing actually reduces pain. So when you stub your toe and swear, the swearing does actually help — and more so than saying a non-swear word, apparently…

Stephens and his fellow Keele researchers John Atkins and Andrew Kingston sought to test how swearing would affect an individual’s tolerance to pain. Because swearing often has an exaggerating effect that can overstate the severity of pain, the team thought that swearing would lessen a person’s tolerance. As it turned out, the opposite seems to be true.

The researchers think that the increase in pain tolerance occurs because swearing triggers the body’s natural “fight-or-flight” response.

Livescience: Swearing Makes Pain More Tolerable

The Naked Collection

If you’re five days late for a dental appointment, don’t show up naked. Nor the claim of being a Terminator from the future likely to succeed if you wander into a casino naked — the police did not believe he was in fact a terminator from the future, but was a naked man who had been using lots of LSD and marijuana.

High Credit Card Bills

A man in the United States popped out to his local petrol station to buy a pack of cigarettes — only to find his card charged $23,148,855,308,184,500.[...]

He says his appeals to his bank first met with little understanding, though it eventually corrected the error. It also waived the usual $15 overdraft fee.

BBC News: US Smoker Chokes on cost of habit

Miscellaneous

There was a ‘Grand Canyon’ formed overnight in Durham; with interesting security implications, Scientists supposedly find a way to make electronic data self-destruct; there’s the ‘do not allow an elephant to stand on your genitals’ road sign and of course there’s the cat that dialled 999.

Bizarre. Entertaining. Bordering on madness. And all of them have been submitted to Fortean Times’ Breaking News Section; which is worth keeping your eye on…

And the person who woke up the following morning would never know. They would have the memories, the same sorts of thought patterns, and the same environment as the brain which had died the previous night. They would believe that no death was involved: they would believe that they were the same person, only that particular consciousness would no longer exist.

Obviously, all interactions with other people later would be the same. To all intents and purposes, everything would appear as if the first person was still there. The person would indeed still believe themselves to be the first person. Indeed, some people would argue that if this was the case, they actually were the first person.

But to me that’s wrong: if I could implant your thoughts and memories into a second body, so there were two people who thought they were you, and then kill the original, most people would think that this wasn’t okay, and they would object to being murdered.

In this manner, I’d argue that it’s not the same. Just because someone looks like me, thinks like me, and acts like me, doesn’t mean that they are me. For all I know, the consciousness that is me today isn’t the consciousness that was me yesterday, or the one that will be me tomorrow.

When you go to sleep, and your consciousness ends, that might be it permanently. It might be a different you waking up tomorrow.

Sweet dreams…

I don’t really see myself as having a side, other than in being tolerant about other people’s beliefs, so I’ve also written about intolerance by religious people, the fact that some religious groups would support torture more than others (and how that was also incorrectly presented as a ‘Christians support torture’ agenda).

But thanks to @aaronbassett, I came across a site called “Republican Faith Chat” with the tag line “Conservative Christians ONLY. Liberals, Atheists Not Welcomed”, and in particular a post about baptism.

Jesus loves the little children. But make no mistake: He will fling them into HELL in a New York minute if they don’t tell Him how much they love him (not just think it!) and have a FULL IMMERSION baptism.Prophetess Debbie: “Will Jesus Send Your Baby To Hell?”

Now everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, and I know different Christian groups have their own interpretations of what God/Jesus wants: I just find it difficult to believe that a God which would sentence an innocent child, not even old enough to understand what is going on, to everlasting torment is one that anyone would want to believe in. If there is a God, I don’t think this fits with the Christian message.

I’ll go further: if there is a God, and He would effectively torture innocent children because they have not been baptised through no fault of their own, then I’d feel obliged to support those who were standing against him. Fortunately, I don’t believe that this would be necessary…

The post also recommends that parents video their kids saying that they love Jesus — and much, much more than they love their parents. I’ve got no objection to people wanting their kids to love Jesus: for people who believe, Jesus was a great teacher, and was sacrificed for mankind. What I do worry about is the need for it to be on tape.

After all, surely God / Jesus whoever is capable of looking into our hearts and knowing what we really believe, and/or of being omniscient. In such case, what’s the point of it being on tape? Someone added a comment which highlights the technical issues you might want to worry about whilst filming your little ones…

Will they have VHS, DVD or Blue Ray format? If it’s going to be a while before JD [judgement day], disks will probably hold up better in the coffin while the body decomposes… I’ve got old VHS tapes that don’t run any more. It would be a shame to watch your little ones be sent to damnation because the sound track on the VHS was ruint.‘Shocked Silly’

And then of course when someone dares to suggest that Jesus was a bringer of peace and would not condone torture, particularly not that of innocent children, they are dismissed thus:

Stop trying to turn our Lord into a sissified, hippie peacenik. Take your blasphemy somewhere else.‘Tiffany’

This Tiffany then goes on to point out that when a bald headed prophet was mocked by youths for being bald, they were set upon by bears, thus proving that the Lord is quite happy to allow children to suffer. Well, that’s maybe a tricky passage (2 Kings 2:23-25) for someone interpreting the Christian message, but of course it is in the Old Testament, which has a much more ‘fire-brimstone-and-smiting-thy-enemy’ sort of a tone, so much so in fact that some early Christians (e.g. Marcion c.85-160) believed that they must in fact have meant two different Gods.

However, I’ve got sidetracked here. Because of this admonition not to mock people for being bald, Tiffany goes on to add:

that verse has had a profound effect on my life. I never make fun of anyone I know who has cancer and has thus lost all her hair from chemotherapy‘Tiffany’

…from which we are invited, no doubt, to draw our own inferences of whether or not it would have been okay if not specifically mentioned in the Bible.

…unfortunately after this, the comments section deteriorates into two-way abuse (people mocking the site/Christianity and being abusive, people defending the site and mocking atheists).

But I’m not disputing that these people have a right to their own beliefs. I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the repeated assertion that they are right, and that God/Jesus must be the way they say he is, and that everyone else is wrong. But then again, it is their site: specifically for conservative Christians — so it’s not like they are going out to try and convince anyone else, is it?

So in this case, whilst I may suggest that this message does not represent Christianity as I know it, they aren’t trumpeting that message to a wider audience, so shouldn’t they be allowed to get on with holding those beliefs without people attacking them? Tricky one, that. Obviously if there is a God, then ultimately at the end of the day He will have to sort out punishments/rewards and possibly tell people if they were believing the wrong thing.

However, I do think that at least while we’re here, we ought to be a little more respectful of one another. If there is a God, He can sort out who was right at the end. If there’s no God, or afterlife, then oughtn’t we try and be as pleasant to each other as we can so we can all enjoy life? And that means not dismissing someone else’s God as being a “sissified beatnik”; that means not telling someone else that their interpretation of God is wrong, and it means not dismissing someone else’s religion (or telling them they will burn in hell for not having one).

That’s what I’d like to see. But then again, it might be difficult to find common ground with someone who truly believes this…

Maybe most of you are fortunate not to have to ever met a lib[eral], but let me tell you this: They are wicked, horrid people with no souls. Be on your guard: They may seem friendly, but it is only a ruse to get into your precious child’s one-piece. It is a well known fact that Libs like to take baths with infants so they can size them up for sex.

What can you do? Well, it is really quite simple. If you know any libs in your neighborhood, make a preemptive call to Child Protective Services! Tell them that the family in question is probably getting naked and having sex with all of their children. Chances are you will be right!

…is either incredibly misguided, foolish, stupid, deliberately deceitful, or simply barking mad. Anyone who truly honestly believes that would be. But do they?

You see, I think — nay, am convinced — that the whole thing is a spoof, after having read several of the posts. A very clever spoof that not only parodies right-wing conservative Christians, but also sends up people who will believe almost anything of right-wing conservative Christians (including probably some right-wing conservative Christians). There’s maybe a little lesson in tolerance there too: we shouldn’t be so ready to believe negative things of groups we don’t necessarily support.

I’ll be honest: at the time I started writing this post, I thought the site was genuine. Initially I thought it was a spoof: then the comments made me think it was real, then further posts (some authored by the more unhinged-sounding commenters) convinced me of the spooficity of the site.

Of course, if by some chance I’m mistaken and it isn’t a spoof, you might want to be a little bit worried. It’s a little unpleasant even if it is a spoof of course (I can’t agree with even pretending to support some of the things they say), but a lot less worrying…

I will present some of his claims and suggestions and see what you think. Firstly, let’s start with a quote made on the BBC’s “Have Your Say” site:

Ted Heath used to boast of having killed the inventor of Economy 7 (he missed and killed another school boy) and giving the invention to PM Harold Wilson.Andy Kadir-Buxton, on ‘Have Your Say’

Now some of us, like me for instance, would suggest that this is a rather extraordinary claim, and therefore any suggestions of this nature could reasonably do with some evidence to back them up. Unfortunately, it would appear that Andy Kadir Buxton is unwilling (or, if I was being less generous, unable) to provide any evidence of Ted Heath’s murderous activities.

So who did come up with Economy 7, anyway? Why, it was Andy Kadir-Buxton:

At the age of 12 I invented Economy 7 to cut pollution and put the idea to Prime Minister Harold Wilson. For this ‘crime’ Ted Heath attempted to assassinate me. He killed a 14 year old boy in a local school who he thought was the inventor of Economy 7. For the rest of his political career Ted Heath boasted of killing the inventor of Economy7, even when he knew I was alive.‘Red Rose Andy’ on Daily Express ‘Have Your Say’

Red Rose Andy is Andy Kadir-Buxton: he links off to the main Kadir-Buxton site, and of course the name ‘Red Rose’ Andy comes from the fact that Andy Kadir Buxton tells us that he invented the Labour Party’s Red Rose logo.

Let’s start with his “inventions, campaigns and ambitions”. As he doesn’t state which things are his inventions, and which things he has just supported, it’s sometimes difficult to be entirely sure which is which, but here are some of them:

• The Labour Party Red Rose Logo
• Microsurgery
• The Buxton Coefficient of Voting Behaviour that proves that the Labour vote is inversely proportional to the price of oil
• Saved the ‘Dodo Tree’ from extinction

The Kadir Buxton method: curriculum vitae

Now my research into these four things, picked more or less at random from things which sounded like “inventions”, has been unable to come up with a definite answer for who suggested that the Labour party start using the red rose symbol, which replaced the Red Flag in 1986. However, as the Swedish equivalent were using a red rose prior to this time, I don’t really see it as an ‘invention’ as such…

So far as I can ascertain, microsurgery was pioneered in the US and Japan during the 1960s, but obviously if I’ve missed some crucial evidence. Although since Andy was allegedly 44 in 2006, this would have made him 2 in 1964 when the “first true series of microsurgical free-tissue transfers” took place. If we are to believe Andy on this one, he must have been a particularly precocious child.

As for “The Buxton Coefficient of Voting Behaviour”, well, I can’t find any reference to it online (when searching with quotes around it). I can’t therefore assume it’s any more widely accepted than the “Pickard Made Up Off The Top Of My Head Rules Of Voter Behaviour”. But I am willing to accept that he came up with it.

And then there’s the Dodo Tree, which was believed to be near extinction in 1973, when it was believed there were only 13 specimens which had not germinated since the Dodo had become extinct (because it required the Dodo to germinate). It didn’t require the Dodo to germinate, that younger trees existed, although admittedly it was a rare species.

Next let’s look at some of his less crackpot controversial schemes: — I’ll leave aside his free clean planet-saving energy and the bringing the dead back to life by stamping on them ones for now:

Firstly, there’s brain-washing. No, wait, this is a good thing:

The simple fact is that the ability to remove unwanted character traits, whether voluntary ones that lead to a life of crime, or due to illness such as Alzheimer’s, or due to brain injury such as being wounded in wars is a good thing. Removing bad memories that lead to such things as depression, manic depression and psychopathy can also be treated in the same way.

The Kadir-Buxton Method is done by making a fist of both hands, and striking both ears of the patient at exactly the same time and pressure with the soft part of the inner hand which is where the thumb joins the hand.

Kadir Buxton: Brain Washing

Basically then, by hitting people about the head in precisely the correct manner, Kadir-Buxton asserts that you can remove unwanted character traits, memories, and at least make a partial recovery from traumatic brain injury. Which is fortunate, as I imagine repeatedly hitting people about the head could cause percussive brain injury…

Kadir Buxton then looks specifically at Alzheimer’s, saying:

The work of Clive Holmes reported in New Scientist Issue No. 2666 suggests that there may now be a permanent cure for this most cruel of diseases when the two methods are combined in the treatment of the patient.Kadir Buxton: Cure for Alzheimers?

Now when I read this, I assumed this meant that Clive Holmes had somehow endorsed the Kadir Buxton method. Only upon reading the specific quote from Clive Holmes was I disabused of this notion:

Clive Holmes is quoted in ‘New Scientist’ Issue 2668 as saying: “With Alzheimer’s, the damage to the brain happens gradually over a period of years. The best thing you could normally hope for it to keep things where they are. The underlying structure-of dead brain cells-will still be there.”Kadir Buxton: Cure for Alzheimers? [2]

In other words, the only evidence that clouting people round the side of the head (in a very particular manner, of course) can cure Alzheimer’s is the word of Andy Kadir-Buxton. Now I would assume that you’d need some sort of medical evidence for this: some methodology, some experiments, some mechanism by which the clump around the head cures Alzheimers’.

I would suggest that this lack of evidence is why the medical profession are reluctant to abandon all of those methods which have been proven to work. But there is of course another potential reason, that of the conspiracy:

I am having a hard time getting the Kadir-Buxton Method used in the UK because it would cut down the number of professionals that are needed at present, and of course, cut the amount of expensive drugs that drug companies sell at present.Kadir-Buxton Method

I myself have my own doubts. Doubts firstly — based on there not being any scientifically reviewed journals — on the efficacy of this method, and secondly on Kadir-Buxton’s claim to have invented it. I have found documentation which would seem to suggest a similar method was known to used to cure liver problems, and their mental effects, as early as 1889.

I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being “a general disinclination to work of any kind.”

What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.

“Why, you skulking little devil, you,” they would say, “get up and do something for your living, can’t you?” – not knowing, of course, that I was ill.

And they didn’t give me pills; they gave me clumps on the side of the head. And, strange as it may appear, those clumps on the head often cured me – for the time being. I have known one clump on the head have more effect upon my liver, and make me feel more anxious to go straight away then and there, and do what was wanted to be done, without further loss of time, than a whole box of pills does now.

Jerome Klapka Jerome: Three Men In A Boat (1889)

Andy informs us that we can all increase our IQs…

Learning logic and then thinking logically takes time and patience but an increase in IQ brings with it an increase in the ability to solve everyday problems which is socially useful. An IQ of over 150 brings with it the bonus of being able to invent which can be economially useful.Buxton-Kadir: Increasing Your IQ

I particularly like the way that when you reach an IQ of 150 you will suddenly be able to invent. It’s like “going up a level” in some sort of role-playing game. Of course, the fact that IQ tests are crap as a measure of actual intelligence (see The Mismeasure of Man if you’ve not already read it) also needs to be thrown into this argument somewhere.

It would be foolish of me however to suggest that I think everything Kadir-Buxton has put forward is a load of hogwash nonsense ideas which may or may not be correct, he has also come up with another Kadir-Buxton Method, which in this case cures mental illness.

The Kadir-Buxton Method is a thirty second cure for mental illness. Only manic depression, psychopathy, and eating disorders take a little longer.

I will now reveal the secret. Basically, what you have to do is to drink a yard of ale as quickly as possible. Or 1.5 litres of ale, if you don’t have a yard glass. I guess I’m not 100% convinced that I have a mental illness (indeed, I’m beginning to think that compared with the next person I may well be perfectly sane), but if drinking three pints of beer quickly will cure me of any mental illness, then there’s no harm in playing things safe, is there?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the pub to cure myself of mental illness.

Oh: and one more thing, while I’m on. If after all of this you think that the ‘clumps on the head’ Kadir-Buxton method ought to be used in this country as part of the National Health Service, you might wish to sign Andy Kadir-Buxton’s e-petition.

Current signatories include:

• Loony McBin
• This man is a a crunchy nutter. Don’t listen to him
• I actively wish to vote against this absurd petition.
• Lazarus J Alzheimer III
• Pee-Pants, the Hobo Clown
• Why Not Try Trepanning While You’re At It
• Deborah Rock

…and four others.

Or, if you don’t support Andy, you might like to join the slightly tongue-in-cheek facebook group The Andy Kadir-Buxton Appreciation Society.

Dallas Couple find Cheeto image of Jesus

No, seriously, and they’ve even called it “Cheesus”. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? It would appear however that her religion tends more towards the great Mammon than Christianity since she plans to sell the Cheeto on ebay. What would Cheesus do?

US Teenager in thwarted holdup eats imitation firearm

The imitation firearm in this case being a banana which was concealed under his t-shirt.

Franco has only got one ball

Despite the general anti-nazi stanza…

Hitler has only got one ball,
Göring has two but very small,
Himmler is somewhat sim’lar,
But poor Goebbels has no balls at all.Wikipedia: Hitler has only got one ball

… and the confusion over whether or not Hitler was monorchic, it would appear that General Franco was in that category too. I’m beginning to wonder whether having more than one testicle is sufficient to disqualify someone from being a fascist leader…

Atheist offers to pass on messages to friends/relatives of those taken by the Rapture

Makes sense. If he’s right, people will have wasted $8. If he’s wrong, he’ll have to spend his last days on earth battling plagues and running around trying to deliver letters, presumably thinking “whoops”. Seems fair to me.

Raindrops fall faster than the terminal velocity of raindrops

Er… sounds weird — my initial reaction was “surely this just means they miscalculated the actual terminal velocity?” — but on reading the story it makes sense. Basically, bigger raindrops have a faster terminal velocity than smaller ones. But if big raindrops fragment into smaller ones on the way down, they will initially be going faster than the terminal velocity for their size, until braking forces reach equilibrium with gravitational ones…

BBC journalist takes photo of ghost

… a ghost, that is, which appears to be wearing blue jeans. Which presumably mean that it would therefore be a ghost from the last 40 years or so. Or possibly the fact that the colour of the jeans in the open doorway is exactly the same colour as the paint on either side of the door could mean that it’s simply some sort of atmospheric/light effect as, apart from the ‘jeans’ part of it, nothing else looks even remotely humanoid, oh, and it’s smack-dab in the middle of a big pool of light. But of course if the cameraman doesn’t think it was a trick of the light, then it must be a ghost, eh kids?

Komodo Dragons have venom glands

…which seemingly no-one had actually noticed before.

Strong, as yet unexplained laser signal detected by SETI

Que Sera, Sera,
D’you think it’s E.T., SETI?
The future’s not ours to see
Que Sera, Sera