Another Anti-Google Post

As long-term readers may know, I have a bit of a history of being annoyed by Google. (To be found here  here  here and here.) Whilst there's not much I can do about their seeming desire to take over my entire online life, I have made it something of a mission to at least keep some control over how their search results are displayed, and to keep their annoying 'helpful' features out of my face. In terms of the latter, I was doing pretty well, but it involved several different tweaks which had to be combined.

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On The Morality Of Forward Planning

Here's an interesting dilemma that came up in the discussion under my piece on sin, a while back.

We'd all agree, probably, that a starving person stealing food should be punished very lightly, if at all. Most would say the same if the person stole enough money to buy that food. But what if they stole an amount large enough to buy a week's worth of food? Maybe a few less would agree, but if it were shown, on examination, that the person could reasonably expect their circumstances to remain unchanged over that week—that is, they didn't have any real hope of obtaining food or money legally—then I suspect most would still agree. After all, it's one large-ish theft instead of seven smaller ones, and it would be natural to want to take only one chance of being caught, instead of seven.

On the other hand, no one in their right mind would say that stealing enough for, say, a year would be in any way condonable.

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Songs That Get Stuck In My Head

In a recent email conversation, I mentioned a couple of songs and went off to YouTube to provide links. And, of course, I just had to play them. Thing is, they're both songs that I can't play just once. Then, watching a rerun of an old Top Of The Pops just now, I ran into two more that have the same effect.

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Alain de Botton, Please STFU

Three posts in one day! I swear there's smoke curling up from my poor, overworked keyboard. Anyway, on'ards and up'ards…

I'm getting really sick of the sight of this Alain de Botton bloke. If you've somehow managed to miss his whimpers about how society needs a religion-like framework, here's the video that's been doing the rounds lately.

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An Unexpected Development

A really unexpected twist! (Click picture to enbiggen.)

Yep, I have a Twitter account. I've never used it, but apparently my posts on WordPress get tweeted, or twitted, or whatever the verb is. And given the … vociferousness of my ramblings and/or rantings on the subject of religion, being suddenly followed by a church is somewhat dumbfounding, to say the least.

I must admit that it brought to mind visions of a large building, slowly extending its wings to tap tentatively at a keyboard. Or worse still, rising up on its footings and physically following me down the road. But then, I'm just weird that way.
—Daz

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Catholic Church Sex Abuse Scandals Around The World

Just a quicky, this one.

The BBC has put together a list of the "major" Catholic abuse scandals. Sometimes it's easy to get bogged down in the details of this or that individual case but, with a story as wide-ranging as this, it's sometimes useful to get a thumbnail overview. If we constantly focus on just a few trees, the enormity of the forest can get forgotten.
—Daz

H/T: Alice.

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Racism & Islam In The UK

I'm getting sick of people (usually not British, often American) throwing up the phrase 'Islam isn't a race,' as if it's a killer argument, when confronted by stories of British Muslims, or those who defend their alleged right not to be offended, playing the racist card. Not because it's wrong (it isn't), but because it fails to take reality into account and is, frankly, not fucking helping. I've seen many Brits try to explain this to Americans, and usually to no avail. Too many Yanks, even educated, progressive, liberal ones, seem to have some sort of unconscious idea that their constitution applies to the whole English-speaking world, and that all Western culture follows exactly the same rules and patterns that theirs does.

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The ScrewJake Letters

Just found this delightful parody of CS Lewis's The Screwtape Letters.

My dear Reverend Wood,

Greetings in the name of the Lord our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I am delighted to hear that you have been called to serve as a pastor in your local church; I can remember when you were but a mere student at our seminary, a naïve lad to the teachings of theology and godliness. Nevertheless I am slightly perturbed to find that you are already encountering difficulties in the administering of your duties. You wrote to tell me that a young man placed under your charge (Jake, was it not?) has undergone some manner of a crisis of faith. Do not take this matter lightly for an instant- is it not said in the book of Matthew that it is better for one to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and drowned than to lead a young one astray? Nevertheless, I believe your panic is an overreaction to what will be a commonplace happening throughout your work in the Father's Ministry. We of the Church have been dealing with defections and infidels since our very foundation.

Consider the circumstances in your favor for an instance. The young man you mention has been brought up within the very bosom of the Church, his entire community of friends and family are steeped in the ways of Christianity. Could you imagine the ostracizing that will take place should he choose to leave his faith? The maxim 'Give me the child for seven years and I will give you the man' is not limited to the Jesuits after all. The lad has been indoctrinated in our ways since birth; it will take a mental shift of gigantic proportions to make him change his mind. You mention that the lad is entering the phase of his life of higher education, having recently enrolled at a university. This sudden exposure to intellectual discourse (even in their incompetent states, most universities do encourage some measure of critical thinking) may have caused the wavering in his heart, a momentary fluttering of his cerebral cortex. It is our duty to cease his heretical thinking, freeze his mental faculties, and return him to the blissful comfort of faith-based thinking.

Read the rest of this at The Young Contrarian Speaks.

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Victimisation

This is one from my old site, that I wasn't going to republish here. In view of the latest round of Muslims shouting about being victimised whilst attempting to victimise, and also the disgusting treatment of schoolchildren Rhys Morgan and Jessica Ahlquist, I decided to repost it. On re-reading it looks like rather bad poetry, I know, but the repeated refrain was used for emphasis purposes, not as an intentional poetical device. I also thought of adding more lines, but nah; I'll let it stand as-is.
It's originally dated July 2010.

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Compliments

Right. The last few posts have been of the ranty kind, so let's lighten up for a bit shall we, Gentle Reader? And talking of readers, hello to the several new followers I seem to have attracted over the last week or so. I know not what you saw in my inane blitherings, but thanks anyway, for voluntarily subjecting yourselves to more. You fools!

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