Wednesday 20 August 2008

We come in peace. Shoot to kill.

Ah, once again we hear the sweet, dulcet, reasoned tones of the Democratic Unionist Party (Remind me, what's democratic about their views again?). Recently we've had the lovely Iris Robinson spreading her venomous bile concerning the possibility of "saving" anyone who's gay in Northern Ireland.

I thought it would be difficult to top this, both in terms of sheer bigotry and downright stupidity. However, Mr. Ian Paisley Jr. has swept aside my doubts with ease.

Ian, in his wisdom, has decided to call for a shoot-to-kill policy against dissident republicans. It's really difficult to know where to start with this one.

First, if you're going to call for a policy or legislation of any kind, you cannot apply it to one half of a community and not the other. That is sectarian bigotry at its purist.

Second, anyone with an iota of knowledge of the history of Northern Ireland would understand that a shoot-to-kill policy has never worked there (even if SAS and security forces in the North always denied the existence of such a policy).

Thankfully, there are still some level heads in the political arena in the North. While the SDLP labelled Paisley's rhetoric as "dangerous nonsense", Sinn Fein managed to hit Junior where it hurts...his knowledge of A-Level history, claiming that Junior "hasn't learned anything from the history of the last 40 years".

The sooner people realise that religious or any fundamentalist attitudes get us nowhere in Northern Ireland, the sooner we can be rid of these well-funded mentalists. *

Sunday 17 August 2008

God doesn't drive a hybrid?

I was sure that it was standard economic pressures that were behind the recent drop in oil prices. Following the massive surge in the price per barrel over the last few months, it became prohibitive for companies and consumers to purchase oil, resulting in lower demand, which in turn lowered the market price. I really thought that might explain it. I was fool. I was more than a fool; I was wrong.

In fact, we have the good folk belonging to the "Pray at the Pump" campaign to thank. Apparently they've been praying hard around fuel pumps in the Washington DC area since April for God to reduce the punitive $4 a gallon price for gas. Many sceptics felt that God would not take a hit on the price per gallon, given that he invested heavily in the petrochemicals when he buried all that organic material deep in the Earth to be later found and put to good use by the human race and the major players in the petrochemical industry.

However the heartfelt murblings of the pray-at-the-pump campaigners found a kindly ear upstairs resulting in a massive 20 cent drop in the price per gallon. Praise be! Thank the Lord!! Get the Vatican on the phone!!!

Although I do wonder why it took four months for their prayers to take effect...