Charlie

It makes me sick. People were murdered and you ARE helping to condone it. Every time you say that they were merely "mis-interpreting" the words of a book that they frankly explicitly hideously obviously using to justify their action.

Islam is not a race anyway, it is an idea. Some think a good idea and some think a bad idea. The sort of idea that is "encouraged" by nonsensical crimes of blasphemy and apostacy.

If an idea is scientific it is open to scientific testing. If an idea is ridiculous it is open to ridicule.

Mais je ne suis pas Charlie. Je n’ai pas le coeur ou le génie. Désolé.

Cricket and Life and Death

In memory of Harold Pinter who died on Christmas Eve, my top five test batsmen:

5. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar - Needs no introduction

4. David Ivon Gower - Apparently all style and grace and elegance, played as if without a care in the world, but still England's most reliable run-getter

3. Sourav Chandidas Ganguly - India's David Gower, but also an explosive one-day batsman and an agressive inspirational captain. And he's Bengali.

2. Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards - While the rest of the world complained of West Indies' fast bowler policy, Viv just swatted away bouncers from in front of his unprotected head. In an era before batsman-friendly field restrictions, he scored just as fast as he liked. Simply the best batsman I've ever seen.

1. Bradman - obviously.

The Bond Villain

I mentioned it briefly in the old world. Now, as Quantum of Solace is about to hit the screens, five reasons why we should support the James Bond villain rather than James Bond himself.

1. They are more diverse. Not just upper class Englishmen. All sorts of strange foreigners. And we like diversity.

2. They give the opponent a chance. Could easily just shoot Bond in the head, instead always give him an opportunity. Bond just coldly eliminates.

3. They inspire loyalty from vast numbers of henchmen (and women). Must be doing something right.

4. Charisma and Style. Hard to define, particularly within my strict word limit. But possibly the clearest distinction of all, the chief villains have more of it than Bond.

5. They always end up losing. And we all root for the underdog.

Se7en

The Catholic Church has released seven new mortal sins. I have a word limit, I have no comment on two of them, so in High Fidelity style, I question just five:

1. Accumulating excessive wealth - Perhaps we could also remove tax breaks for historic institutions that accumulated excessive wealth in earlier generations?
2. Genetic manipulation - it may be god's will to inflict hereditary disease upon the next generation and to encourage deaths from cancer, but maybe we should work to prevent it?
3. Drug trafficking and consumption - not sure what coffee traders and pharmacists would think of this?
4. Morally debatable experiments - well surely we should morally debate experiments?
5. Violation of fundamental rights of human nature - are those the fundamental rights espoused in common sense and the age of reason?

Welcome to Sin City.

Celsius 233

I am sadly ignorant of much "serious" literature, and I only mention this for the ethical interest rather than the literary one.

But according to the famous Tom Stoppard in the Times, regarding an unpublished work that an author wanted burned after his death, there is a very simple answer: It’s perfectly straightforward: Nabokov wanted it burnt, so burn it.

That is probably the majority opinion. But this blog does not follow the majority. Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution offers a very different view. Dead people don't count in the social welfare function.

That is true. The degree to which we respect historical legacies is a decision for those who are currently alive. The question remains: do future people count in the social welfare function?

Miles Away

I am not going to write an obituary for Miles Kington. Although I should. This after all was the guy who "wished his obituary to begin with a series of utterly false statements".

But he managed to do every day for many decades what I struggle to do for just a day - to write an original topical witty grammatically perfect concise funny article and deliver it to a rigid journalistic schedule. If only this blog was like that.

So instead I will just recall his poetic advice to anyone in this field:

You can say all you like
About science and art
But if nobody's listening
It's not worth a fart.
You can utter pure wisdom
On art and on science
But none of it works
If you haven't got clients.

And the moral of the tale, The Leaf on the Tree:

Get a life. And leave it gracefully, when the time comes.

The Dark Night

The star of A Knight's Tale had just finished filming a new Batman movie in which he plays The Joker, surely the ultimate scary clown. He died young.

Many blogs seem to have a periodic "random factoid", often once per week. Today, in this link, something horrific ...

But in a blog as holistic as this, nothing published is really random. My last four posts:

One day ago: I used to live in Zambia
Two days ago: Some African animals are in trouble
Three days ago: I no longer fear clowns
Four days ago: "39"

Factoid: The average life expectancy in Zambia is 38 years for men and 37 years for women.

Chipolopolo

As mentioned before on this blog, I enjoy playing football. We played after work today. We missed a few open goals and also gave away a dubious penalty. Their keeper had a blinder. We lost by one goal. I thought our team was unlucky today.

I also enjoy watching football. This evening I had a choice of viewing - Tottenham were playing Arsenal in the Coca-Cola semi-final, but instead I chose to watch Zambia play Sudan. Why?

While at primary school, I supported Liverpool, enough to have LFC mugs and souvenirs, posters of the team on my wall, even a club logo sewn onto my shirt. Some other time I will explain the attraction of the beautiful game. But today I no longer support Liverpool.

One reason that I stopped supporting any particular club was that we moved around a lot, I never really had a local, and spent many of my secondary school years living in Zambia.

According to the BBC Guide to the African Nations Cup: Zambian coach Ben Bamfuchile, who engineered Namibia's shock qualification, died last month. The country also lost 12 supporters in June during a stampede that followed a qualifying win over Congo. Two months later, international Chaswe Nsofa died of a heart attack while training with his Israeli club. The 27-year-old, who scored in the 2006 Cosafa Cup final as Zambia won the Southern African tournament, was a key player.

And some fans of international football are not even aware that he was part of a new generation of talent. Just 15 years ago, the plane carrying the National Football Team home from a World Cup qualifier crashed into the Atlantic. Not a single player or official survived the crash.

Our team was not unlucky today.

Auto-bituary

As I mentioned before, my drive to work spans the BBC thought for the day, which instead of being a genuine alternative viewpoint on the day's news is usually just a short snatch of religious dogma. And today the speaker gave a short lecture on organ donation.

There are victims who are suffering and dying every day because of a lack of sufficient people who are willing to donate organs after they die. Some members of parliament have proposed that we amend the process from the current "opt-in" system to an "opt-out" system - so you would still be allowed to insist that essential organs should not be removed from your dead body, but that denial option would no longer be presumed as it is today.

But instead of using his privileged slot to argue for the benefit of real diverse people instead of for the benefit of imaginary christian souls, the speaker blathered about "both sides being right" and came down with the recommendation that the opt-in process should stay. Pathetic.

Recently posted on the web was the obituary of a soldier who just died in Iraq. Interestingly, the obituary was self-penned, the soldier kept a blog, but had requested that one post be held back until after his death. But I think that things should be said while you are alive to hear the response to them.

I don't even know if I have a donor card. But when I am gone, do whatever you like with my body. Cut it, burn it, sell it, whatever. Please just wait until I'm dead first.

Fierce Creatures

As I write this, the police are still investigating the incident at San Francisco zoo where a Siberian tiger called Tatiana killed one man and severely injured two others.

The article suggests that she may have been "provoked". Obvious enough, though I'd go so far as to say that for any stranger to violate the animal's "territory" in any way is natural and understandable provocation. In a zoo that territory is very clearly defined.

No suggestion of common motive, but a completely different story springs to mind from last year. A man jumped into a lion's enclosure at Kiev zoo apparently shouting out "God will save me, if He exists". You can guess what happened next.

Lethal Weapons

Another gunman has gone on the rampage in the US. Another renewed call from some quarters to tighten gun laws.

I don't write here to expound my general political leanings. I do sometimes write here to make rarely heard (but obvious) political points.

So I suggest that these mass shootings do not really encourage more gun control. In fact I have some sympathy with the right wing NRA view that having "everybody" armed might have restricted the number killed yesterday from eight to perhaps four.

But it is madness to relax gun control. Not because of these isolated major news stories, but because of the intrinsic variability of human behaviour. There are always people who react badly to little incidents. From cutting them up in traffic, to looking at their girlfriends, to just not showing enough "respect", some lunatics react unpredictably and violently. Imagine if more of them were allowed to have guns.

So the thing that warrants even tougher control is that slow drip of unnecessary murders in areas where everybody has a gun, not these rare major incidents.

Gibbons

No surprise, the teacher apologised. She did a number two. Fair enough. I'd be scared of causing offence too - if I lived in a place with lunatic nutters who think that their own religion is so pathetic that it can't take any criticism or mockery. Oh hell, I do live somewhere like that.

Because I am not so offended by the fundamentalist madmen who are orchestrating demonstrations in poverty-stricken Sudan, I'd expect nothing less of them. I am more offended by those in the west who say that the reason that she should be pardoned is because it was the children who named the bear, not her. Implication - it would be ok to imprison/lash/execute her if it had been her own decision.

At least we don't have blasphemy laws in the UK, we can mock bronze age superstitions without fear of reprisal here? Or maybe not.

Nadus

So the teacher did not get lashed, but instead was sentenced to what today's headlines describe as "15 days in hell", though others claim that was not enough When she gets out and gets home, what will she say? Three possibilities:

1. I have realised the true error of my ways and converted. I now accept that xxxxx (whoever) is the one true messenger of god. All other supposed messengers were deluded.

2. I apologise sincerely. I did not mean to cause offence. I fully respect all those ancient laws. Islam is a religion of peace and understanding, and I did not understand.

3. What a bunch of fascist cowards. Is their religion really so pathetic that it can't take a bit of criticism? Or a joke. Are punishment and suppression their only responses to dissenting views?

I wish her well, but I predict she'll do a number 2.

Brian May Not Like This

Two recent news stories about the sea have been the resumption of whaling and the wastage of cod. Both were referenced in last Tuesday's musing/raving by a well known astronomer, physicist, guitar-maker, animal-rights activist and rock legend.

I share his disgust regarding the slaughter of whales. There is no scientific research that justifies it. Whales seem to have an intelligence, a compassion and a "conscience" that corresponds to that shown in many human societies. The care and attention that they show for society members, as with humans, goes way beyond personal survival. Weaker animals who would never survive alone are nurtured and defended by others. Youngsters are taught, praised and punished. They develop customs over time and over generations. And those who have lost family members can behave with what appears to be genuine grief.

But cod are completely different. There are various technical definitions of pain, but I would expect extreme stimulation of nerves to elicit withdrawal responses in any animal. Yet fish generally do not care for their colleagues or even for their offspring, although those species that have survived evolution tend to be those who tend not to eat their own, whether by migration or instinct. An individual fish seems to have little objective in life except to reproduce.

Dr Brian May remains an icon, my all time guitar hero. I am sure he knows the difference between a fish and a whale. Only an ignoramus could confuse the two.

DNR

It would be too easy for me to take apart the leaders from the tabloid press, still easier for me to echo their populist outrage ... but maybe I can start from there to make a more sophisticated yet even more controversial suggestion.

A sick murderous cruel brute tried to kill himself in jail. And like most people I think we should have let him do it instead of spending a fortune on eternal "suicide watch". So does that make me like the red top editors?

In fact it's probably the sickest most vengeful members of the public who want him alive, just so they can drag out his torment.

Back to the villain of the piece, he was not even allowed to starve himself to death. Even though starvation is surely a horrible slow painful miserable tortuous way to die.

So why do we let our dying loved ones go that terrible way instead of hastening the end?