Friday, December 29, 2006

A Bizarre Story From Derby



Derbyshire County Council have ordered their webmasters to use content filtering to prevent the Ramblers' Association Derby Dales Group web page being accessed from library internet cafes in the county.

The Derby ramblers' web content falls within the county councils' definition of a sex website the press release reveals.
No surprise then that Derby ramblers "love to go a - wandering along the mountain track" then but just what the hell does rambling involve in the Derby Dales we wonder?

I must ask artist and blogger Mike St. Mark if he has experienced any interesting variations from the norm while walking in the dales.


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Bizarre >> Pagan >> Internet
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Thursday, December 21, 2006

Read LITTLE NICKY MACHIAVELLI

...on the Ipswich murders,

...on decriminalising Drugs and Prostitution to stop this violence against women.

Always controversial Little Nicky Machiavelli, economically socialist, socially liberal, envioronmentally Green, represents the cutting edge of libertarian thinking.

Another good read on an equally pressing social problem, anti-social behgaviour in young people from one of my friends. The writer of the letter reprinted on my friend Teri Rotherham's blog is a teenager in a run down industrial town.
http://rotherhamblogspace.blog.co.uk/2006/12/18/youn_people_s_points_of_view~1453001

Friday, December 15, 2006

Those whom the Gods Would Destroy - #1

Those whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad ...



Those Whom The Gods Would Destroy #6

EU Diplomat: My Government ‘Believes Obama Is Quite Mentally Unwell’


from Infowars:

A former NSA intelligence analyst has claimed that a senior European diplomat told him that the entire government of a European country considers president Obama to be literally mentally unwell.

John Schindler, a security expert and whistleblower who now writes for The Daily Beast, has claimed that a senior EU official from an undisclosed country also inquired about impeachment proceedings, saying that the nation believes Obama is not fit for office.

Schindler tweeted out the revelation Monday:

John Schindler @20committee

Had a senior EU diplomat, old friend, ask me today, "How does your impeachment work? My government believes Obama is quite mentally unwell."
10:08 PM - 12 Oct 2015

The wording indicates that the opinion is not that of a single person, but rather the whole government of whichever European country the diplomat is from.

According to Schindler’s source, one of the governments of the EU's twenty eight member nations considers Obama to be mentally unstable.

Schindler is a former U.S. Naval War College lecturer and is known to have many high level military and government contacts.


Those Whom The Gods Would Destroy # 5

Blair Still Out Of Touch With Reality


The worst thing any recent Prime Minister has done was not the Iraq war, not selling off the gold at knock down prices, not the benefits cuts, not having an affair with Edwina Curry and not declaring war on the working class.



The worst thing was Margaret Thatcher's "care - in - the - community" policy which closed all the mental hospitals. Thanks to her, dangerous psychopaths are now at large. People like this guy:



Tony Blair has boasted he would have given David Cameron a "run for his money" in the last election and could have been even richer if he was motivated by money.



In a sane world Blair would be banged up in a padded cell somewhere, instead he is not just wandering the streets telling everybody he is Napoleon like Gordon Brown does, he is still a figure of some influence in political circles.



Well if he wasn't motivated by money he would not charge £100,000 for a public speaking gig. And if he, rather than Brown had led Labour in the last election there would have been no coalition and Cameron's Tories would have had a huge majority.



Tony mate, we all hate you because you're a lying, money grubbing, deluded scablouse. Now fuck the fucking fuck off.









MORE FROM THE GREENTEETH STABLE


Boggart Abroad ... Daily Stirrer home ... Greenteeth Bites ... Boggart Blog ... Greenteeth Labyrinth ... Author ... Gather ... Bubblews ... Authorsden ... Scribd



Those Whom The Gods Would Destroy # 4

Not just stupid but "Obama Stupid"


There was a saying about stupidity in Liverpool when I was young and visited the town with my Dad. It went "Not just stupid but Irish stupid."

It is neither politically correct nor true. but most Scousers have Irish antecedents so they can be excused. What has reminded me of it is an extract from a speech by someone who is the most intellectually gifted individual in the world according to his supporters, brack Hussein Obama. It redefined stupid.

You may have thought that George W Bush was a moron, Tony Blair a delusional imbecile, David Cameron an inbred congenital idiot, Nicolas Sarkozy a shit - for - brains, Slick Willie Clinton a slack jawed hillbilly and Gordon Brown a psychotic scottish lunatic but some of us did try to warn you Obama trumped them all.

These are his words from a speech in which he floated his latest idea, that military personnel should take out medical insurance to cover they cost of healthcare they receive while on active service.

"Look, it's an all volunteer force," Obama complained. "Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice?"

In the face of outrage the idea was quickly dropped and the Obama friendly mainstream media reported that he had never uttered these words. The reason this is back in the news is it has now emerged he did actually say this.

Not just stupid but Obama stupid.

Obama drops controversial plan for the military - Washington Post


Those Whom The Gods Would Destroy #3

The Story Of The Medman And The Bigot


Gillian Duffy, professional northerner, Gordon Brown's favourite bigot and dyed in the wool posh-boy hating 'what-about-the-workers' chanting woman of Rochdale should have feaded into obscurity after she became a 'celebrity' because Gordon called her a bigot.



Mrs Duffy was not a bigot on that occasion.



Unfortunately she has lost any credibility she had bey becoming Rochdale Labour Party's attack dog.



Boring?

Yeah. It was mildly amusing when she ambushed Nick Clegg this week. The exchange would have been funny if Mrs Duffy had showed any signs of understanding the issues she challenged him on.



It became amusing in an ironic sense when the local Labour MP tried to deny that he had used Mrs Duffy in an attempt to embarrass cry baby Clegg. Fortunately Nick is a real posh boy and too well brought up to call anyone a bigot while the media are anywhere near so he didn't fall for the trap.



The story really descended into farce however, or tragedy depending on your point of view, when it emerged today that Mrs. Duffy not only hangs around Labour MPs offering her services as a cruise missile to aim at coalition ministers but that she has a PR firm working for her.



Are we really that desperate?





How to be a bigot

Those Whom The Gods Would Destroy # 2

Don't Listen To Him He's (Phtang Phtang Drrrrrr Yibble Yibble) Mad


If Peter Mandelson's memoirs are to be believed and that's a big IF (I saw a clip of Lord Mandy walking in a London Street today and I'd swear he left a silvery trail behind him) Tony Blair while still Prime Minister said Gordon Brown was unfit to be Prime Minister because he is insane.



Now let's think back, this is the same Tony Blair that believed God spoke to him in a dream, saying "Tony, my good and faithful servant, invadeth thou Iraq for verily I say unto theee that bastard Saddam haveth a stash of Weapons of Mass Destruction that are called WMD and also an elite regiment of invisible elite MWB that are called Men With Beards who are ready to attack the west."



Does a phrase containg the words pot and kettle come to mind?



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Blair's Journey


Those Whom The Gods Would Destroy... #1

The Madness Of King Blair


Those whom the gods would destroy they first make ridiculous. Dare we hope then that the forces of natural justice have something spectacularly nasty planned for the Labour politicians who have surpassed in arrogance the last days of John Major's tory government. Because events are certainly making the dark lords of the New Labour project look a right bunch of twats.

Let us all rejoice then at the news that in this season of merriment an official Labour Party DVD containing Blair's last speech to conference as leader and a film record of Labour's years in office titled Labour Achievement Film (interesting acronym there BTW) has been reduced to £5 per copy to clear stocks.

http://authorsden.com/ianthorpe



US Supreme Court Judge Found Deat 'With A Pillow Over His Head'

Monday, December 04, 2006

Killjoymas - the favourite festival of The Bansturbators



This item was first posted back in 2005 (it had few page views for the next ten years because I used to use this blog only to get my new content elsewhere indexed rapidly - all that changed on 2014 however. But Christmas is approaching again so perhaps it is time to give it a revamp. It is interesting to note how the Politically Correct Thought Police have progressed from banning Christmas festivities on health and grounds to banning everything on the grounds that it might offend Muslims.


Following on from last weeks revelations about the Health and Safety Executive's plan to make sure all trees with the potential to fall over in high winds are properly managed with public safety the foremost consideration we bring you more news of Health and Safety fascism from the uber - jobsworths of Tower Hamlets Borough Council.

Last year these halfwit bureaucrats earned ridicule for banning all Merry Christmas type messages lest they offend the delicate sensibilities on non - Christians.

This year, with the complicity of Health and Safety Inspectors they have banned all wall and ceiling mounted decorations in all council premises because staff could be seriously injured while putting them up.



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Bacon Sandwiches to Be Banned In The Workplace? (they offend Muslims
Muslim intolerance
Multicultural jihad
The Adventures of Supermuslim

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Tuesday, November 28, 2006

WMD in Mayfair



Alexander Litvinenko - poisoned in London (Image source)

Recalling yesterday's Machiavelli Blog which commented on events surrounding the unfortunate death of the alleged former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, it seems the murder investigation has now found evidence of many caches (well OK, traces) of radio active toxins in various fashionable establishments in London's West End frequented by former Russian intelligence agents. Clearly Russia's oligarchs were keen to silence anyone who can dish the dirt on how they acquired their money.

Far more evidence of weapons of mass destruction has been found by fat sweaty coppers investigating the Litvinenko affair than was found in the whole of Iraq, yet the WMDs not found in Iraq were considered justification for reducing a country to rubble.

So when can we expect Obama and Cameron, successors of the Bush / Blair axis of stupidity to occupy the area of expensive shops and restaurants bounded by Oxford St., Regent St., Park Lane and Piccadilly with a view to imposing regime change? Will they launch drone strikes on fashionable restaurants or demand the removal of the tyrannical regime of London mayor Boris Johnson?

A team of comedians wanting to launch a new television comedy show, a kind of updated Monty Python's Flying Circus would have no chance of getting their work commissioned. Python is much too realistic to be considered comedy these days.


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Obama, Russia and the Petrodollar
Imminent Collapse Of The Petrodollar
Syria: USA - Russia Proxy War
USA - Russia proxy war in Ukraine
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Monday, November 27, 2006

A Very Funny Blog Post

Liz Davis posted this especially for me but I had to share it, its so funny. If you're not English but know who Tony Blair is is still very funny. If you don't know who Tony Blair is, he's head of the British Government so armed with that you can still laugh at this blog. Though not perhaps as much as a British person would.

The New Union Jack


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Those whom the Gods Would Destroy - #1
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Thursday, November 23, 2006

Oo-er missis; its the tree hugging cannibals

In last night's episode of Torchwood (yes, I like Torchwood, after a dodgy first episode it has me suspending disbelief with great enthusiasm) the story was set around a remote farm in the Brecon Beacons. The locals had a very quaint tradition. Every ten years they would round up strangers in the area and eat them (shades if I'm the only cannibal in the village there I thought.)

When the Torchwood statutory pretty girl asked the chief cannibal why they did this he replied "because it makes me happy." A chilling reminder there that among all the humandroids, shapeshifters, pan dimensional fart creatures and orgasm - eating aliens that pass through Cardiff's rip in the time - space continuum, good old human evil still has a lot to answer for.

Well that was how I saw it last night.

In this morning's paper I read that the nation's most famous tree hugger, Prince Charles, has just bought a run down farm in the Brecon Beacons.

Oo-er missis, is that coincidence or are sinister forces at work here?


Check out this poem about the consequences of messing with stuff we don't understand ...



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Menu of the weird and supernatural
The Grey Lady Of Dunkenhalgh

Ghost Girl
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Sunday, November 12, 2006

I Just Met A Girl Named Maria

From time to time something happens that makes me feel I am once more young and attractive to the opposite sex. Such an instance was the e-mail I received this week from Maria. She wrote:
"Hello Mr. Thorp. I am dark hair Russian, age 26, attractive professional lady and working in marketing structure selling cosmetic (ooh that accent sends chills up and down my spine.).I read your details on world wide web and find you interesting, attractive man (Isn't she wonderful?) I am intelligent, mature woman who is ready for creating family with good man. (ah - erm, creating family? As in making babies? She obviously didn't read the bit about the vasectomy...) Even if this is not your searching for in the future it would be fine if we can meet and do friendship (friendship, bugger! I thought I'd scored) or maybe do more than just friendship (I have scored!)
Mail me,
yours with love and many kisses, (now hang on girl, we haven't been properly introduced)
Maria.
Needless to say I'm all of a flutter wondering does she have green eyes and those classic Russian cheekbones, is her accent really that cute and will the overdraft stretch to an hour of her time or just a quickie?

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Lightning Exits Woman's Bottom

It must be the greatest newspaper headline of all time or the ultimate in anal eroticism and so long as there are such stories the traditional media has nothing to fear from us miserable rabble of bloggers.
But can this story from The Australian possibly be true?
Well yes, it is actual actuality actually.

Mrs Natasha Tomarovic told The Australian's reporter, "I was brushing my teeth and had just put my mouth under the tap to rinse when the bolt must have struck the building. I don't remember much else.
After treating Mrs. Tomarovic for burns to the mouth and anus a doctor said, "its a bizarre occurrence but not impossible: she was wearing rubber bath shoes at the time so instead of earthing through her feet the electricity shot out of her backside."

Its not quite the same as the sun shining out of someone's arse but is probably as near as anyone will get in this realm of reality.



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Thursday, September 14, 2006

Sewer Thing



Belgium, where the sretts are paved with ......... cast iron (image source)

The Belgian city of Charleroi has been hit by a spate of drain-cover thefts because of rising metal prices. About 70 sewer lids made from cast iron have vanished since Thursday of last week, an official at the town hall said. A 40kg sewer lid can be sold on the black market for roughly e6 (£4), the official said. "We have put pressure on resellers of metals and warned them they will be prosecuted if they are found with lid covers," he said.

As they say in my part of the world "where there's muck there's money."

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Shot Through The Foot Again

by Little Nicky Machiavelli:


American Civil War (image source)

We should never underestimate the ability of Americans to shoot themselves in the foot. The hymn chosen for yesterday's wrath laying ceremony at Ground Zero was the unsurpassably inappropriate " The Son Of God Goes Forth To War."

The lyric starts off like this:

The Son of God goes forth to war,
A kingly crown to gain,
His blood red banner streams afar,
Who follows in his train.

It then goes on in the same vein for several mote verses. Now call Little Nick an namby - pamby appeaser if you like but I would have thought that is just asking for trouble. Its a bit like slapping your enemy's face with your golve and then unzipping your pants and pissing on his boots.

So are we surprised to hear on this morning's news that the USA stands accused of faking its eforts to oppose ISIS in Syria because the real agenda all the time was to overthrow Assad, and that now ISIS fighters are firing on US non - combatant troops with weapons supplied to them by the USA?

All together now, The son of God goes off to war ....


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Sunday, September 10, 2006

Our Debt to Islam




A Zoroastrian symbol for wisdom. (source)

The extremism and religious fundamentalism we associate with Islam is quite a modern phenomenon, the religion, like Judaeism and Christianity grew out of middle eastern belief systems such as Zoroastrianism and Brahminism, although the so - called Abrahamic religions also incorporate quite a lot of Hellenic and Egyptian paganism. Untangling the development of human societies from the earliest civilisations is a complex task however. and the extremist fundamentalism of modern Muslims does not make it any easier for the western mindset to understand the Islamic point of view.

As right wing politicians and commentators ramp up the rhetoric about fundamentalist Islamic ideology and the left grow ever more desperate in their efforts to defend Muslims against accusations of brutality and medievalism, I decided that the western world forgets too easily what we have to thank for our modern civilisation. During the "dark ages" it was Christianity, not the Muslims, pagans of northern Europe or Hindus that tried to eradicate learning and knowledge and the sciences we now depend on so much were only preserved by those pagans and in the Jewish and Islamic world.

A good example is during the Crusades, the barber - surgeons who travelled with Christian armies were known as 'sawbones' because what yhey mostly did was amputate limbs that had become infected when the physician priests had treated open wounds with a poultice of dung and urine, "to draw out evil humours from the flesh" and presecribed prayer. Some of the soldiers however chose to be treated by Jewish or Muslim physicians, who would bathe an oen wound with warm wine, close it by stitching with sterilized (boiled) sinew and bind it with cloths soaked in antiseptic herbs such as lavender. The Jews and Arabs got much better results than the Christian priest physicians with their poop and piety therapy and so the barber surgeons learned the techniques, brought them to Europe and were burned or beheaded for heresy if caught using them.

Northern Europe also had healers who used similar techniques and obtained amazingly good results, from the complex surgery carried out with primitive tools and techniques by Druids, to some herbal cures used by the village 'wise women' some of which are to the present day equalling the results of Big Pharma's expensive products.

It was not just medicine and health in which the east was ahead of Christians. Mathematics, building, engineering, horticulture, astronomy and map making (geography) were fields in which they excelled.

Not that I would ever suggest the world of Islam was responsible for the development of the arts and sciences. Their contribution was that, unlike the fanatical, obsessive early Christians, they did not kill people for valuing and teaching the things we had inherited from the learned scholars of Zoroastrianism (The Magi of the New Testament), the Brahmins of India, and the aristocratic castes of Hellenic and Egyptian pagan cultures.

The scholars of the Islamic world were instrumental in preserving that knowledge and taking it forward. They were a bridge between the Magi and modern science.

Read my article Our Debt To Islam at Greenteethmm.com or at Authorsden.com


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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Ed Butt Is Back

After taking a long break from verbally nutting celebrity, political and corportate two faced bastards bastards and helping consolidate the position of my friend Little Nicky Machiavelli I, Ed Butt am back.

Chck out these stories and the accompanying comments to get a taster of what you are in for

The troubles of and teachers with boobs

Is Big Business The Baddie

You can also see more of the most irreverent, funniest writing on the web at
Machiavelli hard hitting political and social comment
Boggart Blog from the surreal to the ridiculous, you will not find a finnier blog.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Pals (In Memoriam)

Today is the 90th anniversary of the battle of the Somme in which over a million men died. My hometown, Accrington was badly affected. Young conscripts had all been assigned to the same battalion of the East Lancashire regiment and went "over the top" together. In a few minutes an entire generation of the town's men had been wiped out.

As America looks with incresing belligerence towards Iran and the slughter continues in Afghanistan and Iraq, remember with me The Accrington Pals and join the movement to stop this insanity repeating again and again.

More anti - war and anti oppression poems by Ian Thorpe
Songs of Glory
western monkeys
Afghan Woman

Sunday, June 11, 2006

The World Cup


The World Cup

Once every four years the world unites and America stands on the sidelines affecting diffident superiority but really seething because the world's premier sporting fixture is taking place (forget the Olympics, what has synchronised swimming to do with sport) and neither America's money nor military might can ensure success.

To find out more about The World Cup and why America's most gallant sportsmen and best ambassadors with once more be ignored in their own country, go to Welcome To Our World Cup

One of the great traditions of the world cup is the crappy songs supporters sing. As America does not have one of these because the American media have as usual, remained oblivious to the fact there is a world outside America, I revampred an old England song for them. check out the lyric for Vindaloo, with links to audio and video

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Before We Forget How To Be



Have you forgotten how to be? Not do, just be. We are all encouraged to identify ourselves by what we are doing but I think that's what is driving us crazy. Spirituality to be is being connected. The English writer D H Lawrence summed it up when he penned this line: Mankind needs to get back in touch with the rhythms of the universe.

before we can do that I believe we have to stop frenetically 'doing' and learn once more how to enjoy simply being. Unless we can break out of the cycle of doing we risk losing our freedom to make choices.

Read Before We Forget How To Be and maybe you will find out how to get a different perspective on life.

And as that is a tad serious by my standards why not check out What The Dickens, a surreal comedy tale in the style of Charles Dickens.

The secret of invisibility A poem about a different state of being.


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A Song Of Servitude (poem)

https://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewpoetry.asp?id=333184
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Monday, May 01, 2006

Fires of Love (Beltane celebration)


A Beltane Fire Festival in Scotland (image source)

All around the world Mayday is celebrated in many different guises, but all the various celebrations have a common root in the pagan festival of renewal that in Western Europe is known as Beltane. The pagan year, sometimes known as the eightfold year, is divided into its main seasons by the two solstices (longest and shortest day) and two equinoxes (when hours of light and darkness are equal). This roughly coincides with the farming calendar with seasons for planting, growing, harvesting and a barren season for ploughing and maintenance.

A secondary calendar (because four feast days is not enough) splits each of these seasons. Beltane (May), Lughnasa (August), Samhain (November) and Imbolc (February) marked the seasons of the herdsmen's year. But what has animal husbandry to do with the good fire (Bel Tane) you might well ask. Dunno. Possibly nobody really does. But one idea that has some traction is that it was delousing day after the animals had been shorn of their winter coats.

Hop over to Authors Den and check out Ian Thorpe's Beltane poem Fires Of Love and the write up of the significance of Beltane to our ancestors.

Fires of Love at Authors Den

The Sacred Feminine

Friday, April 28, 2006

Cheesier than Stinking Bishop?



Stinking Bishop cheese, we thought Camlbert was too smelly to show a picture of.

Camelbert (A soft cheese made from camel's milk) is the new cheese for Bedouin hipsters in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott. The "fromage de chamelle" slips down a treat with a glass of red wine, and tastes 'like a tangy goat's chees' according to cheese connaiseursnyone who has stood close to a camel will be familiar with we think.

Camelbert also has a strong, distinctive smell, the people who sell it online admit. A smell we think a Cheese connoisseurs can choose between the original brand Caravane, and the newly launched Sahara. Both sell for 800 ouguiya, or about £1.70.

I love cheese but I will pass on that one. Our own Stinking Bishop cheese, a rival surely to Sweden's Surstromming as the worlds most repulsively smelly food, at least tastes good if you can hold your breath until you get it in your mouth.


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Friday, April 21, 2006

An Exclusive on the World's Greatest Celebrity



Queen: Phillip, have you farted?

Phil The Greek: Of course not Lizzie old thing, it was probably one of the Corgis

Everybody loves a celebrity story and there is no bigger celebrity that the Queen of England. Our sister publication Boggart Blog managed to get ace undercover reporter Jenny Greenteeth, the evil water spirit (and world's first celebrity evil spirit) into Windsor Castle disguised as the brackish water in a vase of flowers and she sent back this exclusive recording of the conversation that went on between The Queen and Prince Philip over breakfast.

Foreign admirers of the royal Family might be shocked at some of the language used in by the couple, but hey, when they are off duty they are just ordinary people like the rest of us.

Find it online now at Boggart Blog Inside Windsor Castle



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Report Predicts Everyone Will Be a Sexy Millionaire by 2050

History is full of failed predictions from the Oracle at Delphi through Nostradamus, Mother Shipton and just about every twentieth century stargazer and futurologist who ever found an audience.


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Sunday, April 16, 2006

Cruisin' for a (verbal) bruisin'

So Tom Cruise has relented and said that his wife can scream as much as she likes when their pointy - eared Thetan sprog is born. I should think so too, engrams be damned; if there is one time a woman needs to let of steam it is when she is pushing a baby into the world.

Cruise is a scientologist of course and so believes that civilisation was dropped of on Earth by a race called the Thetans whose women did not scream when they gave birth because it filled the baby with negative energies. (What is not mentioned in L Ron Hubbard's philosophy though is that the Thetans were pinheads.

Read more on noisy human childbirth at The Birth of the Air Turns Blues

Also as a follow up to yesterday's item check out the truth about the

Saturday, April 15, 2006

The True Tale of The Easter Bunny

Ever thought the Easter story does not make sense. How did eggs and bunnies get mixed up with the crucifixion myth?
Is there something we weren't told in school.

You bet there is.

Check out The True Tale Of The Easter Bunny for the real story on the crucifixin myth, the easter egg thing and the easter bunny.

and if you need a laugh to brighten up the holiday check out the latest at
Boggart Blog

Sunday, April 09, 2006

A Few Snippets To Amuse Or Provoke

I found this item at Sara Coslett's blog over at Authorsden.

*** Please Spread This Poll All Over The Internet -- Especially to News Media so They can see that it is Now Alright to Tell The TRUTH About the Bush Crime Family. That they seemed to have started doing on Thursday about the Bush / Cheney Responsibility for the Plame leaks !

Poll - Should Bush be in jail

Then I came across some amusing Bushisms at Very Random Blog of a Very Random Person. I am amazed the Scientologists are not hailing Bush as a God, he's not from this planet is he?

And finally, find out how we Brits go about belittling our politicians at Boggart Blog

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Murdoch's Myspace Mistake?

Have you signed up for myspace, The Dirty Digger's music and social networking site yet. It is said to appeal to "the young" so why are Jenny Greenteeth (5000) and Little Nicky Machiavelli (570) there you might well ask, I mean they are hardly in the 16 to 24 demographic are they?Well these two have a nose for a disaster of course and were drawn to the site when they heard Rupert M has invested upwards of $500million.
Now he didn't do that from charity, so how can the cash be recouped? A web pundit says the site, with its 63million members worldwide is a cash cow waiting to me milked. Trouble is whenever new media pundits say things like that about anything on the web, the fools who invest find they are not milking a cash cow but pulling an angry bull's dick.
Read more at
Murdoch's" Myspace Mistake

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Condi In The Land Of Pie Eaters



So what was the real reason for the visit of Condoleeza Rice to the old industrial towns of Lancashire this week. Was it simply to promote better relations between Britain and America as we were told?

Well when was anything the politicians told us true?

Could the whole thing really have been about neutralising Iran with a secret weapon the British have previously kept to themselves?

Find out what was really going on, read the whole story of Condi In The Land of Pie Eaters:

The real reason why Condi Rice visited North West England is revealed.


It is not often those of us who live in Lancashire, the Wars of The Roses county in the old industrial heartland of England's North West get a visit from a major figure in world politics. Can it be coincidence then that last week's visit by Condoleeza Rice was synchronised with the leak of information to the British media about secret meetings between the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence to work out a strategy for military action against Iran?

In order to avoid a repetition of the Iraq debacle it is obvious even to those covert government agencies we laughingly call Military Intelligence that a somewhat more subtle approach was needed if the western powers are to debilitate the theocratic rulers and effect regime change while winning the hearts and minds of the Iranian people.

It does not require a mastermind then to work out that Condi was here in Blackburn to secure supplies of the world's most potent weapon against terrorism, the industrial strength meat pie.

Lancashire is the traditional home of the meat pie of course, us natives are not called pie eaters for nothing. To subsist on a staple diet of industrial strength meat pies as many generations of our ancestors did requires an indestructible digestive system comparable to that of a goat and a fortitude of spirit that is otherwise only found in salmon as they battle their way up rapids to their spawning grounds.

Such is the toxic potency of a dodgy pie that they are banned as weapons of modern warfare under the Geneva convention (we Lancastrians, being weaned from our mothers' breasts on them are immune of course) but so long as war has not been officially declared they can be sneaked into an enemy country disguised as food aid.

How does a meat pie work and how can people be fooled into eating them? The elegance of their use as an assault weapon lies in the fact that non - industrial meat pies, those made by your mum or granny, are not only completely harmless but also nutritious and delicious and even the ones served in respectable catering establishments are usually quite appetising. The industrial variety however is made with meat of very dubious origin. Everything the abattoir cannot get rid of even for cat's meat ends up in meat pies. Lips, arsholes, eyes, tails, unmentionables and things that defy forensic analysis all go into the melange along with dodgy chemicals to add flavour and colour (which is a joke, the inside of a meat pie is a dull grey in hue, even after cooking) all go into the melange along with crumbs of stale bread and a glob of glutinous goo so vile it would make a cockroach choke. This melange is then formed into balls which are encased in a pastry made from paper dust and sump oil. They are then baked in batches at very high temperature which triggers a quantum reaction that causes the atoms to become unstable.

The terminally naive have been known to eat meat pies unaccompanied. Those endowed with native wisdom will only eat an industrial meat pie if it is accompanied with mushy peas. These are marrowfat peas marinated in a solution of bicarbonate of soda and overcooked until they are reduced to a green puree. On contact with this substance the unstable atoms are neutralised.

Travellers visiting Lancashire should avoid putting themselves at risk. Avoid buying pies from street vendors, roadside food vans and stalls at sporting events. Sports events always arouse passions and none more so than soccer matches. Soccer crowds have been known to throw toilets rolls, coins, half eaten sandwiches, dead fish and molotov cocktails at match officials but there is no case on record of anybody throwing a meat pie at the referee. That would be too inhuman to contemplate. On the other hand, soccer crowds are known for insulting chants and the worst one, directed at any official or member of security staff who appears slightly overweight goes:

"Who ate all the pies?
Who ate all the pies?
You, fat bastard, You, fat bastard,
You ate all the pies."

The insult lies in the fact that the target is not only being accused of being so greedy he has deprived the paying spectators of their half time fun; watching the visiting team's supporters spontaneously combust after two or three bites of pie, but that he must have the constitution of a sewer rat in order to have survived such a feat.

On the issue of homeland security it is worth noting that Lancashire has never suffered a terrorist attack since the Vikings raided Shuttlebotham's pie factory in Oswaldtwistle and the resulting flatulence propelled them at each other with such force that all but two were fatally impaled on the horns on each others helmets. We say let Al Qaeda come with their dirty bombs, we will be ready for them with our pies of mass destruction and our local exponents of the science of fart lighting.

A portion of Hollands Meat Pie with mushy peas can produce up to ten farts with the brisance and explosive velocity of nuclear warheads on cruise missiles. ISIS you have been warned.



RELATED POSTS:
Cheesier than Stinking Bishop?


Elsewhere: [ The Original Boggart Blog] ... Daily Stirrer ...[Little Nicky Machiavelli]... [ Ian's Authorsden Pages ]... [Scribd]...[Wikinut] ... [ Boggart Abroad] ... [ Grenteeth Bites ] ... Ian Thorpe at Flickr ] ... [ Tumblr ] ... [Ian at Minds ] ... [ Authorsden blog ] ... [Daily Stirrer News Aggregator]

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Heard about new Britpop sensation The Arctic Monkeys?
Have you read how they are taking America by storm?
Does it start to sound like you've heard it all before?
Did it leave an unpleasant aftertaste like the chemically laden empty calories of fast food?

To find out if there is any substance to the Arctic Monkeys or if it is all just hype visit Boggart Blog, probably the funniest blog on the web

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Beloved Succubus (poem with audio track) - Gothic Horror


hot Vampire (Image source)
There seems to be quite a fad for Vampires, Werewolves, ghosts and monsters at the moment no wonder beloved Succubus is my most popular poem at AD. Its just a love story about an undead girl seeking a willing blood donor (not!) Check out the spooky audio track with the poem performed as a dialogue for two voices accompanied by the music of Camille Saint Saens' Danse Macabre.

Though I spend the long day seeking
in crowded streets where memories teem
she only comes while I am sleeping,
in the stillness of my dreams.
"Come to me my one true lover,
bravely walk beyond the dark divide;
take my cold hands or I must rest here,
There is no way back but by your side."
At dawn the image stays; repeating

"Please my love, please do not desert me,
endless darkness fills my heart with fear.
But the shadows can never hurt me
if I could only feel you near.
Find me in this love - forsaken desert,
caught between the living and the lost,
kiss once more these cold pale lips, caress
cheeks death's insubstantial hand has blessed
Hold me, warm me and reclaim me.
"

I feel her here in children's laughter,
soft wind; her kiss upon my cheek.
A movement at the edge of vision,
hint of perfume; her Mystique.
But she is gone, her light extinguished,
dead; without goodbye or parting kiss.
Fate has aborted all we wished
and now she cries for my catharsis
Should I cling on or follow after.

Shadow words like sharp little knife cuts;
her message fading on silver screen;
"I need your love to quell my hunger,
sacrifice your blood for me.
Come warm me with your vital body,
let new life flow in these dry veins.
else reject me, cast off your ennui.
One tiny drop love, will sustain,
Life cannot end where love survives.
"

Her photograph's changing expression,
(foreknowledge clouds bright, laughing eyes.)
Brushes shifted on her dresser,
curtains moving without a breeze.
A spot of blood staining my pillow
an addict's trackmarks on my neck.
These dark ringed eyes say I must follow,
discover some way to bring her back.
Is love beyond death a transgression?

The months of yearning have fatigued me,
I grow more pale, my soul is weak.
I cannot turn from her completely
One embrace is all I seek.
In darkest hours she waxes stronger,
her compelling pleas never desist.
Every night she feeds my hunger,
The darkness calls, I cannot resist.........
Instinct protests but will cannot resist.

Her photograph's changing expression,
(foreknowledge clouds bright, laughing eyes.)
Brushes shifted on her dresser,
curtains moving without a breeze.
A spot of blood staining my pillow
trackmarks, bruising purple on my neck.
These dark ringed eyes say I must follow,
discover some way to bring her back.
Is love beyond death a transgression?

The months of yearning have fatigued me,
I grow more pale, my soul is weak.
I cannot turn from her completely
One embrace is all I seek.
In darkest hours she waxes stronger,
her compelling pleas never desist.
Every night she feeds my hunger,
The darkness calls, I cannot resist....
Instinct protests but will cannot resist.


Copyright (c) Ian Thorpe, 2004


Beloved Succubus
To hear audio version CLICK HERE


The Boggart Wades In To The Abortion Debate



Equitiquas by h R Geiger. Geigers nightmarish images at time convey perfectly the conveyor belt womb of poor women down the ages as they fell pregnant every year, most of their pregnancies not going to full term, and of those that did the new life ended in infant death as many times as the child survived to adulthood. Herbal contraceptives, not as efficient as modern methods, but much better than nothing, were always available to those wealthy enough to buy indulgences against the strictures of the church.

Expect a headbutt of an article when you visit Abortion - Pro Life equals Pro Death . Boggart Blogger Ian does not mince words in his attack on moves in the US to make all abortion illegal.
Strong stuff here, arguing for an enlightened approach to the difficult question of abortion and steering a course between the extreme views of both the pro - life and the pro - choice factions.

While the position of no terminations at all, even in the case of medical emergencies is clearly untenable, those advocation that termination of a pregnancy should be available on demand right up until the mother goes into labour is just insane but even that does not go far enough for some liberals who have campaigned for post - birth abortions.

While parents of teenagers might be tempted sometimes to say that terminations should be available up to 974 weeks after conception [work it out :-) ] I think most resonable people would agree terminations should only be available in the case of medical emergency after the point at which the foetus would normally become viable.



A Brief History Of Contraception And Abortion (Part 1)

A Brief History Of Contraception And Abortion (Part 2)

A Brief History Of Contraception And Abortion (Part 3)

A Brief History Of Contraception And Abortion (Part 4)

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Father's Away Day

Should the father be present at the birth of a child or should we go back to the traditional approach of dispatching him to the pub where he can't get in the way. Get a new perspective at Boggart Blog

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Return of the Boggart

Wow, is it really that long since I was here.

Been having a lot of fun working on audio poems for a CD release, its very time consuming sitting around in a studio for days.

Take a look at what we have been doing by checking out Beloved Succubus and watch this blog for more audio coming online.

And visit Boggart Blog my regularly updated blog site full of whacky British humour

 Back Soon - meanwhile here's a scene that expresses a mood of tranquillity



Monday, January 30, 2006

"Don't Be Evil" - Unless There's Money In It For Google



One problem with geeks is their tendency to leap in the air and clap their hands when any new technology is announced. Another problem is that given the slightest scent of power they go off on a world domination trip. The guys at Apple have tried it as have the Microsoft people, Adobe, Oracle and Cisco all tried it in their own modest way and many others have tried too. “Hey, the world will be a much better place if everybody abandons independent though and buys one of my widgets,” goes the pitch. But a computer, a web browser, an i-Pod and a web-cam are no substitute for a life.

This does not discourage the nerds of course and now we have the inventors of Google trying to jackboot their technology into every aspect of our lives. OK the metaphor might be distasteful but don’t forget, Hitler was a nerd.
With “Don’t Be Evil” as their slogan from day one Google managed to ooze into the public consciousness as nice chaps who only wanted to help us get better results from our web searches. It was so easy to miss the fact that they were totally focused on the aim of making technology in general and their technology in particular our master and so they are not capable of being anything but evil. And addiction to the web is causing us to help them every step of the way. You should pay more attention when you watch Austin Powers movies.

The first question we should all ask ourselves is “how good is this technology really?”

Back in 2001, just as Google was attracting effusive praise from industry pundits for the way it was elbowing aside other search engines that used different criteria for rating pages by relevance rather than the number of other pages linking in to them, I recall one maverick, an Information Technology veteran of twenty – five years experience saying in his weekly radio slot “Google is the worst search engine possible – except for all the others. The obvious problem was that people were being impressed by sheer numbers of search results and forgetting quality. To reaffirm this for the current article I ran a search on P.C. Plus, a well known UK mag. Google gave me 900,000 search results; one of its rivals that uses similar technology gave 950,000 (figures rounded).

Because on the Google search the PC Plus homepage came at the top of the list Google might use that as proof of their efficiency. But on Google the top link was trying to sell me PC Plus, the next twenty were advertisers in PC Plus trying to sell me other stuff. One way or another the owners of these pages had paid money for their high position in the listing. On the rival search engine I found information telling me what kind of readers might choose PC Plus and what other mags covered the same ground. I do not consider an advert can ever be as relevant as an impartial review. Google is therefore not about “not being evil” but making money. And the company is making money – sort of. Ad-words mini adverts that appear alongside search results and ad-wise targeted ads that appear on web pages are pulling in a very respectable revenue stream.

Most business ventures that depended on the web for revenue generation have so far been abject failures (Amazon being the most outstanding exception) and yet the slightest hint of possible future success is enough to ignite the same kind of hysteria as fuelled the dotcom bubble.

Google went to the stock market and was rejected because their figures did not add up. They then decided to directly market their own shares and despite warnings from banks and experienced dealers, since their launch stock in the big G has gone through the roof. The financial warnings were based on the fact that Google’s initial share offer was overpriced. Even the most optimistic projections showed the shares would take around two hundred years to repay the capital investment. At the present trading price that is closer to a thousand years. The “don’t be evil” boys didn’t pay a penny for their shares of course and are currently worth around $10 billion each. “Don’t be evil” unless there is serious money in it perhaps?

Another problem is emerging for Google through its method of gathering revenue. This is “click fraud.” At its most basic click fraud involves people visiting their own sites and clicking on the Google ads, so that they and Google earn a few cents for the referral. The flaw in the Ad-wise business strategy then is that it provides an easy way for the greedy to render it totally ineffective as an advertising medium as there is no chance of a sale resulting from the vast majority of referrals. When the simplicity of automating these fraudulent clicks is considered it quickly becomes clear that advertisers are not getting much for their money.

Like the lead character in a Shakespearean tragedy, the seeds of Google’s downfall are sown in the flaws in its own character. The people behind the company have built much on the fact that Google is cool. Now the idea that technology can be cool may have some currency among the nerdier students in the world of further education but “cool” is a quality always in thrall to fads. And a new generation of nerds may easily latch on to a new fad.

At the heart of the Google technology is the Page Rank algorithm which as already mentioned is determined by links. When, sometime in the next month, Google gets round to indexing this article it will pick up on the phrase “Shakespearean Tragedy” because a lot of pages already contain that phrase, even though my article is of no interest to fans of Shakespearean Tragedy. Thus Shakespeare readers, irritated by the bizarre results their Google searches throw up (!!!) will start looking around for a way to search the web that is relevant to their interests. Such search technology is already well along the development path.

The continuing success of Google really depends on our willingness to delegate all our personal decision making to a piece of computer software. If we can be persuaded to do that however, current development projects which would put Google in a position to destroy the publishing, newspaper, T.V., movie and music industries and replacing their products with an infinite stream of dross. Anyone in doubt about this only needs to take a look at Google Video. Can one company be allowed to weild so much power?

Finally there are the privacy issues some of Google’s business methods raise. Side-stepping those extremist lobby groups who praise the heroism of resisting the U.S. Government’s reasonable requests for access to databases we ought to be questioning why Google think they have a right to gather and store information on all of us who use the search engine. While the United States Government (and European Governments on this side of the Atlantic pond) only desire to identify web users whose use is connected with pornography that involves criminal atcs (child abuse, violent sex, torture, rape etc.); fraud and terrorism and not the pattern of web use by individuals (Governments can already track us as individuals without our knowledge) Google is busy building a profile on each one of us in order that they may better target us with advertising material. That in itself poses a far greater threat to the privacy of anybody who is not a sex criminal, fraudster or terrorist.

The whole business model is built on unproven and very inefficient forms of advertising and the only way to make those ads more cost effective is to identify the users who are likely to respond. So if you use G-mail, your messages are scanned, keywords extracted from what you say to your friends and the information added to both your Google profiles. Thus you can be targeted for a constant stream of unsolicited ads.

For similar reasons your searches are stored and may be kept indefinitely. It is known also that systems are being created to search your desktop and suck up information to the great database.

And people think this organisation is cool.

Web addicts of course are always ready to believe the latest Geek Mythology. The business community is more hard headed however and last week’s near 10% drop in Google share prices should have sent warnings around the world. The Google people may still say “don’t be evil” but in the cloud – cuckoo land they inhabit how can evil be defined in a way relevant to any kind of reality.

Little Nicky Machiavelli thinks they do. Check out what he has to say on the subject at Machiavelli: Don't Be Evil - unless its for money

Monday, January 23, 2006

Lots of Stuff

Plenty to read today from Ed and his friends

If you are into scientific demolition jobs you will enjoy:

Intelligent Design or Incredible Dumbness

but if Intelligent Design advocates make you laugh this site will make you piss yourself
God's Blog
The original God - Dagda (his name means Good in ancient Irish and in medieval English and modern Scandinavian languages God simple merans good) talks about INTELLIGENT DESIGN - STUPID LOGIC

or you can take a look at The Boggart's p.o.v. on the latest sex scandal in British politics here:

Lib Dems shot themselves in the dog

Sunday, January 22, 2006

How Very Dare They?



Artificial Intelligence? Still Science Fiction (Image source)

People often ask me how I can say that Google is the worst search engine on the web (except for all the others) and that Google's raison d'etre is to help governments spy on their citizens, while filtering out of search results any information that challenges official propaganda.

Well I just looked at my blog and saw that on Greenteeth, probably one of the most irreverent and anti religion blog on the web I am featuring two adverts for fundie "give us your money to help us do God's work" type websites. In my view, if God is as good as his fsns rate him, he should be able to do his own work.

So when Google make such big claims about contextual links and targeted ads, and Google adsense uses "artificial intelligence" to target ads at particular users based on a web page's content and the users interestes divined from their browsing habits, why do I get so many ads for beautiful Russian girls who want to marry me whenever I've been looking at Russia Today if Russia Today is a news site and I never look at dating sites or sex sites.

Artificial intelligence my arse, the spam I get is more discerning in targeting its confidence tricks at my interests.


RELATED POSTS:

Google algorithm cheating
Is Google governing the USA
Google Ministry of Truth?
Artificial Intelligence and Google
More on GoogleDon't Be Evil, That's Our Job
Latest Posts

Elsewhere: [Boggart Blog]...[Little Nicky Machiavelli]... [ Ian's Authorsden Pages ]... [Scribd]...[Wikinut] ... [ Boggart Abroad] ... [ Grenteeth Bites ] ... Ian Thorpe at Flickr ] ... [ Tumblr ] ... [Ian at Minds ] ... [ The Original Boggart Blog]

Friday, January 20, 2006

Welcome Back Osama

Nice to see old OBL back on our screens. But is it a coincidence that the old pantomime villain has reappeared just as the 2005 panto season winds down in theatres all over Britain.

Check out a typically British take on Osama's reappearance at
Boggart Blog

And for those of you unfortunate enough to be foreigners here are a couple of sites that may explain the uniquely British form of theatre that is PANTOMIME:

It's Behind You dot.com - the magic of pantomime

What makes the British so British

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Do You Need A Life Coach



Miley Cyrus' Life Coach

Since the great manufacturing industries, engineering, shipbuilding, electricals, textiles etc. went into terminal decline in the 1970s the surplus labour has been sucked up by various means, Government sponsored Business Start-up Schemes created an army of self - employed service providers, re-training which is a polite words for sending people back to school in order to make the statistics look better, created an army of mature students, in some cases mature studenthood turned into a career for life, and the job creation program kept thousands occupied digging holes and filling them in again.

Government fiddles cannot go on forever of course and eventually instead of the activities that had provided meaningful work we developed the candy - floss industries, computer games, mobile phone ring tones and all the other stuff no-one really needs but media hype convinces us we must have. But even further along the road to extinction of human intelligence come the bullshit industries. My favourites among the providers of status enhancing bullshit are the life coaches, the people you pay vast sums of money so they will tell you that you are not such a total losers as you imagine (and everybody else knows) you are.

Leaders among Britain's growing legion of life coaches are husband and wife team are the positively scary Speakmans from Rochdale. These two will gladly relieve you of a grand a session and in return put you on a diet of grass, and I mean grass - the stuff sheep eat - smoothies and convince you that you cannot fail to be successful (or seriously deluded perhaps) if only you are always positive.

On planet Speakman this empowering positivity is achieved by being nerve janglingly cheerful and enthusiastic and by wearing constant insane grins that could only have been created under anaesthetic.

Sceptics may think that plastic surgery is the last resort of the terminally insecure but Nik and Eve seem to believe that "reinventing yourself" by simply having someone chop off the bits you don't like is the way to true happiness. It is hard to say whether the therapy works for them, both believe they look incredibly good for their ages (respectively 42 & 36 allegedly) as both have faces that do not quite seem to fit their skulls. But they are almost evangelical about their venture, in fact Nik, a former financial products salesman ('nuff said?) displays an Evangelists knack of deflecting awkward questions as they both grin on enthusiastically. It starts to seem quite sinister after a while.
Thanks to their persistence the pair have now landed their own T.V. show in which they will provide "life coaching" to a number of volunteers. Unfortunately the show is on an obscure digital channel so only about three people will be watching even at peak time.

One wonders what ever was going on in the mind of the Producer who decided to let these two self - anointed therapists and their crackpot theories loose on people who might have genuine problems. But then perhaps I am being unkind, the day may be about to dawn when that nice Mr. Blair gives us all life coaches paid for by the National Health Service.
Should that day come, its sad I am too late to hire Oliver Reed or Keith Moon as mine.



RELATED POSTS:

Back to Contents table


Latest Posts

Elsewhere: [Boggart Blog]...[Little Nicky Machiavelli]... [ Ian's Authorsden Pages ]... [Scribd]...[Wikinut] ... [ Boggart Abroad] ... [ Grenteeth Bites ] ... Ian Thorpe at Flickr ] ... [ Tumblr ] ... [Ian at Minds ] ... [ The Original Boggart Blog]government, business

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Laughs

After yesterday's seriousness here there are still loads of laughs to be had at Boggart Blog

Goodbye Charlie
Size Does Matter

and many more hilarious posts.

Saturday, January 07, 2006

My Problem With God

A friend of mine in the U.S.A. after having a few emotional problems has been targeted by an evil Christian mindbending cult who are polluting her brain with the most repugnant nonsense I have ever engountered. So I have gone to war for her, I hope I can win here in cybersoace because I don't fancy storming a fortified compound in Waco single handed.

Let me say before I start, there is only one God I have a problem with, the God of the Bible fundamentalists, the great celestial puppet master whom they would have us believe is pulling everybody's strings. The more distant God of the Anglicans, the Unitarians, Quakers, Wesleyans, Allah, Brahmin etc. are all fine by me.

Some years ago, as most people who have read me will be aware, I spent almost a year hospitalised, much of it in a rehabilitation unit. I recovered from the after effects of a massive brain haemorrhage pretty well but occasionally get messages from people who have read my story and want to tell me how God was with me, and loved me and gave me the strength to get through my ordeal. And those messages really make me really angry.
I guess my responses have confused a few well meaning but misguided people; sorry about that, but you should not assume we all share your religiosity.
When that life illness changed my life I was forty - eight, had a very successful career behind me having got started on that career late following ten years of good times in the valley of hippiedom. Also I have promoted rock bands, owned race horses, worked in radio, had some success as a writer, travelled, had many lovers, brought up a family; in short I had already lived a life and a half when, prematurely, it almost ended.
Once out of intensive care and finding myself in a unit for the newly disabled, reality hit hard; though the therapy was good and the staff very helpful, this experience was more emotionally draining that the immediate aftermath of the haemorrhage.
There were young people in the unit who had terrible problems health problems with no hope of recovery. Worst were the people suffering from degenerative diseases that had been causing loss of body and brain function since childhood. There was one young girl, Susan, whose degenerative illness had started at adolescence. She would have probably developed into a very pretty woman with an engaging personality had things not gone wrong. By the time we met she could not speak, had no control of any muscles, was doubly incontinent ( a medical euphemism that glosses over the utter loss of dignity involved) and yet when I used to read aloud to her, because she could not hold a book, the gratitude in her eyes for that simple human contact often reduced me to tears. She still had a very human need for contact and companionship, so think of the humiliation she suffered every day, isolated in that dysfunctional shell of a body. Yet some people would insist the will of God in his wisdom was somehow involved in prolonging her life - but to look at it from my perspective the intervention of any supreme being was only condemning her to a slow, lingering death.
There was no getting better for Susan, she was in the unit because she could no longer be looked after at home and the unit was the only place that had the facilities to give the care needed until a place in a hospice became available.
In the end time did its grim work before she could be moved. Another thing I remember about her is the guilt of her parents who felt that in some way they were responsible for what had happened.
Around that time a hate - fuelled Pentecostalist preacher (I think it was Falwell) was expounding the notion that people who are disabled are being punished by God for the sins of their ancestors. There are many aspects of "Christian" doctrine I find absolutely repugnant but that is surely the worst, apart maybe from the people who would say that whatever had happened to Susan, God still loved her (if that is how God loves people I hope he hates me.) From what I know of the lifestyle and personality of Yesu bin Yussuf a.k.a. Jesus of Nazareth, (which is a whole lot more that most Christians know,) he would be pretty pissed off to hear people connecting his name with such despicable ideas.

Susan was not the only tragic case of course, diseases that cause damage to and degeneration of the brain are made worse by their unpredictability. There was a woman who would deliberately spill food onto the table and sit banging a spoon in it in order to get attention (regression to infant behaviour is quite common), a man who could only say "when," a woman who would scream like wounded animal but could not tell anybody why she was screaming, a young mother who some days did not recognise her children, many others; most younger than me and none of whom had had my advantages in life. There were people who had lost all power of communication as familiar words would just not come on demand, people whose memories had been wiped out, people who just slumped in chairs twitching and dribbling.
And you know something, none of these were bad people, they were just unfortunate. Chance plays such a huge role in our lives it is constantly surprising that the religious cannot see as such most of what the ascribe to God. The proof that any superior being that might exist plays no part in our lives lies in the randomness of misfortune, so often the bad, the amoral and selfish seem to sail though everything totally unscathed while it is those who try to treat everybody fairly, who show tolerance, who "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," who get shafted by cruel chance. It is the sheer inconsistency with which good fortune is distributed that condemns the God of Abraham and Ezekiel as the creation of charlatans, confidence tricksters and control freaks. This explains why they are such liars, constantly concocting false evidence and claiming it proves the Bible is true, or naming a real person and passing it off as proof of the Bible's veracity. Yes, there was an Emperor Tiberius and a Governor of Palestine called Pontias Pilate, there was also Kings Macbeth, Duncan and Malcolm but it does not makes Shakespeare's play a documentary, the fact that there was a Scottish renegade called William Wallace who rebelled against King Robert the Bruce and led an army against King Edward the First of England does not make the film Braveheart factual. There was actually a King Midas. Did his touch turn his daughter to gold? Decide for yourselves, there is no evidence that it didn't but it seems unlikely. See what I am getting at?

What did you think of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? Did you say "Hallelujah to that!" each time some preacher of the Pauline gospel of hatred and bigotry stood up and said that God had punished the city of New Orleans for the sins of its gays, prostitutes and drug users? Or did you think "hey, hold on, weren't there a lot of evangelical Christians killed too, a lot of innocent children and many people who had just worked had and tried to live good lives, people who did not deserve to suffer (not that the gays, prostitutes and druggies deserved to suffer anyway. I am not aware of any preacher saying that the shyster lawyers, the crooked accountants and financiers or the corrupt officials, the people who do untold harm, deserved to suffer.) Yes the Hurricane and its attendant flood killed indiscriminately. Randomness again you see, we know why hurricanes and tsunamis happen but cannot stop them or control the damage they do. Could a natural disaster ever single out the Al Quaeda activists and spare the people who are Muslim simply because they were born in a Muslim country just as many of us are nominally Christian just because we were born in a Christian country.

Look at the third world. Now I accept that some of the arguments that the problems of Africa and Asia are self inflicted, certain traditions do not help in the fight against hunger and disease. African witch doctors who recommend having sex with a pre-pubescent virgin as a cure for Aids should be locked up as should Indian politicians who support forced marriage and "honour killings". But they should be locked up with the Christian loonys who say that anyone who uses a condom will be cast down into hell. Such ignorant and Neanderthal attitudes are not exactly going to help solve the problem are they?
Malaria is Africa's other great killer of course. It would be very simple to eradicate Malaria due to the fact that the mosquitoes known to carry the infection tend to get the munchies between one and two a.m. So if people are asleep under their mosquito nets at that time they are much safer. It costs less than $10 per home to provide netting impregnated with a slow release mosquito repellent. There will still be some infections of course but the numbers would be so reduced that the drugs needed to treat those cases could easily be funded. Yet what did one European aid worker find when she asked the congregation in a Ugandan Baptist church what they needed to fight Malaria? She reported that they replied with one voice, that of the pastor, "We need Bibles and Prayer Books and a new church." It makes me want to swear. But you have to give them credit for consistency. If there are a thousand sensible solutions to a problem and one that is idiotic, they will go for the idiotic one every time.
If we did eradicate Malaria and Aids there would be a population explosion and ensuing famine. This is why we need to get reactionary Christian groups attached to the Catholic and Pentecostalist factions out of Africa. They do more harm than good.
Surely malaria has been around so long even the most idiotically insane religious maniac can understand that empty prayers thrown at an empty sky will never solve anything. Take God out of the equation and we have a chance of getting somewhere. If there is a God and he loves the people of those African and Asian states, truly loves them, he would get out of their lives and let the modernisers and project managers get on with the job of changing things.
The reality is that as time goes on torture is heaped on torture, misery is piled on misery until it seems this God creature created humankind simply so that he would have somebody to be mean to. Preachers of all the Abrahamic religions must accept that people will have sex, its what we are programmed to do. When the hormones call no holy book can make our ears deaf. The message of the three Abrahamic religions and of some forms of Hinduism though is a message that makes us loathe our humanity, as if it is flesh rather than the holy book that stands between us and our Holy Grail.

And God loves me does he. You may have guessed by now that the feeling is not mutual. I would like to know why the mean old bastard hated those other hopeless people that he tortured so randomly, the poor, the ignorant, the sick, the unfortunates who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, because most of them had not had the chance to sample the things I had enjoyed. Why did he not show a bit of compassion to the kid in the rehab unit whose nervous system was decaying, or to the little girl whose body was pictured floating face down in a New Orleans street. I refuse to abase myself before an imaginary being who is simply the vehicle for politicians who seek to rule through fear and preachers who seek to inflate their own importance by undermining the self - esteem of ordinary people. I refuse to give credibility to that imaginary being. Does anyone apart from me deserve credit for my recovery? Yes, my family and friends who never let me give up and never allowed me to lose my sense of humour, the doctors, nurses and therapists who responded brilliantly when I said "let's forget the textbook, my vocabulary does not contain words like impossible. I am going to walk again, end of story." I did walk again and built a decent quality of life but only through sustained effort, self - belief, pride and the encouragement of human beings. For the first time in their careers those health workers who cared for me had someone with real leadership qualities to respond to and they responded brilliantly. Its the human beings who do great things when something can motivate them to work together. and when human beings join together great things are bound to happen. Once God is involved because some self - serving preacher insists on giving God credit for what people have done, everything falls apart. God never does anything. Look at the history of the world over the last 2000 years if you do not believe me.

If anybody had said to me that God was punishing me for things in my life I could have accepted it although I would put it rather differently; living too fast for too long caught up with me, God had nothing to do with it because God only exists in the minds of those who believe. I know I am right because were I to give God any credit for my recovery it could only be on condition that he accepted responsibility for Susan and all the others, for the victims of earthquake, tsunami and hurricane for all the bad things. You can't be omnipotent and have Teflon shoulders. Unless we all forget about God, and start working together regardless of creed, colour and nationality, things can only get worse. Pray as much as you like, God is never going to save our world.
Now those people who want me to accept that my recovery is all thanks to the intervention of God will be rushing to make excuses for him, the idea that an omnipotent, omnipresent super being who needs mortals to make excuses for him will not strike them as ridiculous, they will remind me that we are "not meant to understand the ways of God", that "the will of God should not be questioned," and that the Lord moves in mysterious ways his woodwork to perform, (or something like that.) I challenge you to stop protecting God. Let him be subjected to critical analysis. open your eyes and see. Believers will not agree of course, because once God is subjected to examination it becomes clear that the God of Ezekiel and Abraham is purely the invention of a politically motivated priesthood.
You have two options, (1) Gods is an incompetent clown (2)God does not exist.
but being a generous kind of guy I will give you a third, one that Jesus would not have a problem with; God, Jah, Brahmin, Allah, Manitou, Cronos, Awen, call him what you like is a being without consciousness, a unifying idea or energy that can only help us when we learn to help each other regardless of colour, creed, sexuality or language. You may believe what you like but you prove your beliefs false the moment you start to say that there is no other way of viewing the world but that decreed by your religion.

As the British poet and visionary William Blake said, "religion wages war on human nature."