...for a fun-loving scientologist...

whilst religions regularly set themselves up as an
 easy source of hilarity, cults surely serve no other
 purpose than merely to be ridiculed.

following my wednesday post ...for the freedom to disbelieve... 
a sharp-eyed reader sent me the link to this story -

stupid scientology revisited on the blog 'jack of kent'.

it's a lesson in abuse, tweeting, the law, and idiocy. 
and for that, i love it.

...for the next tsar...

the results of russia's 2012 presidential election have, in a throw-back to the soviet era, already been announced. 

and the winner is... 

vladimir putin.

his overwhelming victory in the election, due to be held next spring, has cemented his leadership of the country for a further twelve years.

congratulations vlad. it's like you never went away. 

how do you do it?

...for the freedom to disbelieve...

intra-faith back-biting - 

there's nothing more fun (to an outsider) than the scent of it.

this time it's the jehovah's witnesses.

it seems their official magazine, the watchtower, has described those who leave the church as 'mentally diseased' apostates.

their's is a faith with an ultra-centralised leadership, and one which calls for unquestioning discipline from the followers of its rigid doctrine. it's not the only one.

how they all got themselves in this mess, 'god' only knows.

the following is taken from 'will you heed jehovah's warnings?'

 the watchtower, 15 july 2011

"because of love. we love 'the god of truth', so we are not interested in twisted teachings that contradict his word of truth"

blimey. they all sound as mad as hatters.

the benefit of being genuinely engaged with those whose 

beliefs differ from ours is that it serves as a safeguard

 against idolizing our own ideology.

...for the other sock...

i think this post was supposed to be a metaphor for something.

i just can't quite remember what for.

...for the next nancy kominsky...

long before tv went 24/7 there was nancy.

nancy kominsky (b. 1915 - d. 2011), improved the lives of many

it's impossible to imagine the likes of her show 'paint along with nancy' being commissioned in our slick, modern era. instead we're fed a diet of fantasy masquerading as reality.

she regularly extolled the virtues of painting with a knife.

when a tissue was required she thought nothing of tearing a sheet off her always-to-hand toilet roll.

she could have been liberace's sister, or perhaps he hers. 

but this was the 1970s and it all seemed so right.

you can be reminded, or introduced, here...

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg4TvOIfw6o

...for a segregated polling booth...

saudi women get the right to vote.

bravo, king abdullah.

saudi women will be able to run and vote in municipal elections in the kingdom. but not in this thursday's elections, from which they remain barred. the next ones. we promise.

...for a reason to be bothered...

so, albert einstein has been proved wrong. so what?

the interweb has been ablaze with news that sub-atomic particles have been measured travelling at a speed exceeding that of light. much of modern physics - as largely defined by albert einstein in his theory of relativity - is tied to the fact that nothing can exceed it.

well, something has. and they're called neutrinos.

i just want to ask all those that have tweeted, re-tweeted, blogged and forwarded the story - "so what?"

i guess we all know it's an important discovery, 

but can anyone explain why?

answers on a postcard to:

CERN,

somewhere under the alps

switzerland