According to my UK newspaper today,

fortune tellers are now forced to admit that there is no proof in their claims. Psychics must now inform would be clients that their services are "for entertainment only".

The Spiritualist Workers' Association says that: "We do not believe we are conducting scientific experiment. To have us stand up and say so is a denial to our beliefs. It is also sending out the message that we do not believe what we are saying and doing".

Fortune tellers at funfairs will have to display a sign in the form of a disclaimer at their place of work stating that their work is not "experimentally proven".

Lawyers say that spiritualists and mediums who claim to have the powers to contact the dead and faith healers offering cures through the laying-on of hands will also have to post warning on their websites. Anyone who is found to be breaking the law could end up in court and be fined up to £5.000 ($10,000) or land a two year jail sentence.

This measure is part of the biggest overhaul of consumer legislation for 40 years. Its purpose is to tighten controls on everything from door-to-door selling to children's advertising.

The new rules state that anyone offering a service must not be aggressive to buyers, engage in unfair practices or post misleading statements.An outraged clairvoyant, Lyn Guest de Swarte argues that it was; "Like trying to regulate God".

Well now, seeing as she has raised the spectre of God, shouldn't similar measures be taken at churches? Shouldn't churches be ordered to display notices outside stating:

"Our work IS NOT experimentally proven"?

and:

"Open For Your Entertainment Only."

Food for thought here!

"No legs" man CAN run in Olympics

goes the headline in my newspaper (Sun UK).

A man with no legs has been given the chance to compete for a place as a runner in the next Olympics. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm one of the fairest men I know, but:

Oscar Pistorius, 21, of South Africa, won an appeal against able-bodied athletes to take part even though he is a double amputee. Oscar, nicknamed Bladerunner, says that he is ecstatic to have been given the chance to compete even though other athletes protested because he had an obvious advantage over them. But the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled, on appeal, that the high tech carbon fibre blades DID NOT give him an advantage!!! Eh!?

How do they KNOW that he can't run any faster with blades than he could without them?

Pistorious, who holds the 400 metre Paralympic world record at 46.56 seconds said, "When I found out I cried. I think that this day will go down in history for the "equality?" of the disabled people."

And I say: NO IT DAMN WELL WON'T!!

Unless ALL the runners can have the option of running in blades or any other device that will help them run faster, or even run at all! It makes no sense to me that if he can reach the Olympic qualifying standard of 45.55 he could take his place at Beijing this summer.

IAAF president Lamine Diack said: "Oscar will be welcomed wherever he competes this summer. He is inspirational!"

Creationist Kids Education.

Pillars of (SALT) community?

Children as young as five at an Ofsted-approved school are being taught that the world is only 6,000 years old and that sinners used to be turned into pillars of salt.

UK TVs Channel 4 Dispatches program gained access to a secretive school in Bristol run by the Carmel Centre which teaches a Creationist curriculum from the US.

Despite being registered by the government, the school for 5 to 18 year olds, treats the Bible like it's scientific fact.

Disturbing scenes show a bubbly teacher in front of a class of enthusiastic six year olds as she tells them that: "Before Jesus came, people who sinned, died. People who disobeyed would turn into a pillar of salt. So thank God for Jesus."

The Carmel Centre also believes that abortion and homosexuality should be made illegal, blasphemy laws should be reinstated and enforced rigorously and other faiths should be barely tolerated.

So, there you have it. They (the religious nutters) aren't all locked up in the loony bin.

ET Phone Rome.

I came across this little gem in my SUN today.

The gist is that the Vatican is now prepared to admit that there may be other life in outer space besides that life existing on Earth.

The Pope's astronomer, Father Jose Gabriel Funes, has admitted that God may have created extra-terrestrials.

I cannot for the life of me recall reading anything in the holy books about there being other life on other worlds out there in the universe. God is supposed to have created the heavens and the Earth and all life therein but there is no mention of creating life thereout! Come to think of it, there is not even a mention in the holy book of any planets being created by God.

Jose adds, "It is possible even if - until now - we have no proof. If we consider some Earthly creatures as; 'brothers or sisters', why could we not speak of 'Brother Alien?' He/it would also belong to creation."

You don't think that the Catholics - in the light of TV programs around SETI and the possibility that may lead to the discovering extraterrestrials -  may be covering themselves, do you?

It would be be wonderful to discover the existence of intelligent life out there and even more wonderful to discover that not ONE of their TV shows have religion as the subject. I would be the first to sing hallelujah to that.

So there you have it. After centuries of believing that the Earth was not only flat but at the centre of THE UNIVERSE and that THE INQUISITION and other forms of PERSECUTION of non-conformists et al, was a complete and utter waste of lives and time - the Catholics could now be conceding that we may not be alone after all!

May your alien god go with you.

Armageddon.

Evolution and the Master Race.


So, we humans have now reached a point in the course of Evolution where we can safely regard ourselves - somewhat smugly - as being the Master Race. We are at the very acme of life here on this planet. Apart from a little honing, here and there, we cannot get much better. This is OUR world and there is nothing and no one who can wrest it from us.

Unless?

What if? The Earth were to lie in the path of a huge asteroid or small planetoid that will destroy this planet and all human life - in seconds.

What if? A deadly disease is created, either by Man or Nature that cannot be combated and that NOBODY has immunity to.

What if? We are invaded by an alien foe that is far superior in every way to we mortals. An alien that perhaps is as strong as or stronger than a gorilla.

It has limbs that regrow, much like a crab's does.

It has a superior brain to ours. It can see as well in the dark as a cat and also has hearing equal to a bat.

It has five opposable digits on each of its four arms and each digit houses a retractable claw tipped with a natural deadly venom.

It can fly like an eagle and can see detail through eagle eyes and it can run like a cheetah, if it needs to.

It regards human flesh as a delicacy in much the same way as we like chicken or beef. It has no conscience so has no concept of right, wrong or pity.

We, The Master Race, would be doomed to extinction!

But wouldn't God step in and thwart any or all of this?

I doubt it. Believe me.

I like a good stuffing.

My malcontentment.

This is an aside to my current bout of shingles and occurred just before the onset of that insidious malady. About four weeks ago and during our Sunday dinner, I happened to bite on a hard piece of my wife's stuffing. I felt and heard a sharp crack in my mouth (this is a due warning to steer clear of my wife's culinary pursuits). The top of my head almost flew off with the pain. Bugger! I thought - or oaths to that effect - I've cracked a tooth. Not only A tooth, it was THE tooth. The one that stands/stood proud and unsupported in my upper gums which I treasure(d) but it is/was in a very vulnerable position. EXTREMELY vulnerable to my missuses crispy stuffing.

After the attack of the crispy stuff I immediately became malcontent 'cos it was then also extremely painful to the touch and masticating on that side of my mouth was impossible.As I mentioned, this was a Sunday, so no dental surgery was available to me. On the Monday - after I'd struggled to get a bowl of lukewarm porridge inside me - I made for the dentists chair. The dentist, I fine upstanding Dutch lady, took everything on board what I told about the incident and she looked at the tooth and then prodded it a bit with a gloved finger. I hurt. It BLOODY HURT! But she tried to convince me that it wasn't broken. I argued that it was. It was my tooth, I broke it and I wanted it out of my head!

But she knew different and she is the expert. So she X-rayed it. Ten minutes later she proudly showed me the X-ray picture of my sentinel tooth and declared in triumph that indeed it wasn't broken! What I had probably done is bruised the surrounding tissue which should respond to a course of antibiotics which she would supply me with. I was to give it a week or so in order for the antibiotics to do their stuff and to come back if the pain still persisted. I went home with my tooth still giving me gyp.

Even during and after that seven day course of antibiotics the pain was horrendous if I as much as chomped on jelly (jello), but I couldn't return to the dentistry 'cos now I had ugly shingles affecting my head from my left eye across my head and into my left ear. Charming! So I had to - not only suffer my hurting tooth, but I had painful and unsightly shingles to contend with while my wife Beryl, (who's stuffing had floored me, remember?) sat sunning herself in the Mediterranean for three weeks on the liner Arcadia!

Anyway, yesterday after about four weeks of discomfort, I took my pain back to the dentist. This very nice Dutch lady invited me to sit in the chair and when I told her that I still had trouble eating and that I definitely wanted the fang out she prodded my hurting tooth AGAIN!! SHE still didn't reckon it was broken and fished out from my notes the X-ray photo as if to prove it. And I must admit that the photo did show my good side and there was absolutely no evidence of a break. But when I continued to insist, she reluctantly agreed to abide by my decision to have it removed and prepared me with the usual needled dose of nova cane.

When my mouth was well and truly numbed she brought the extractor to bear on my tooth and the damn thing almost fell out! Well HALF of the damn thing fell out, the other half is still in and the dentist won't even TRY to remove it 'cos it's too near my sinus gland and I will require hospitalisation to remove it!!! She stood there with the half tooth in the jaws of the extractor, waving it in front of my eyes and said:

"It WAS cracked!" Doh!!!

The Grand Tapestry of Life.

Putting in the pieces.

As I sit here contemplating the chaos that
surrounds me,
my thoughts drift to happier
days to when the sons' of man wandered aimlessly
under cloudless skies.

Where bare feet trod new paths with every step.
Lush vegetation covered the fertile earth

with a thick carpet of green broken only by a
myriad brightly coloured flowers
that gave off the heady
sweet aroma of paradise.
The warm air was alive with abundant activity.

The gentle sound of bees droning as they went about their business collecting nectar fit for Man or Gods.

All manner of insects did their
part in the creation that is Mother Nature's splendiferous design.
We are each in our own way just a piece in the
eternal and beautiful mosaic of life.

It matters not that you be dull,

or brightly coloured.

We each of us fit somewhere in the grand tapestry of life.

Anthony W Allsop © 2008