Blessed Are The Blasphemers

I suppose the temptation when confronted with a new crime of blasphemy would be to try and commit it, like selling consecrated hosts in Chicken Tikka sandwiches outside the Pro Cathedral. Or maybe we should phone the Gardai to report Jesus for wilfully infecting pigs with viruses. But that would be too easy and too much work at the same time.

The interesting thing about a crime of blasphemy from my perspective is the fact it covers Christian blasphemy. Yet as anyone who knows anything about the New Testament could choose to know, Jesus appeared before the Sanhedrin on the charge of blasphemy, which was a capital offence. So it seems to me that if the Christian churches are serious about following Jesus, they should be campaigning for the criminal offence of blasphemy to be dropped.

And as long as they fail to do so, we should campaign that they be charged with blasphemy.

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Flushing The Toilet That Is My Brain

OK, this is a bit silly. Baruch Spinoza is also known as Benedict Spinoza. Baruch means blessed in Hebrew, Benedict in Latin is Benedictus, which means blessed. Now it also happens that “Barack, interestingly enough, means the same as Baruch,” he said. “They have the same Semitic root. So you can call me Baruch Obama.” It therefore seems perfectly reasonable to me to refer to the current Pope as Pope Barack XVI, and only custom prevents us from doing so.

….he’s a very naughty boy

Politics » ‘He Who Is Not With Us Is McGuinness’

McGuinness is probably making a mistake by going on about his poor relationship with his senior minister Mary Coughlan. People will be inclined to put that down to a personality clash – “They just didn’t get on” – rather than a deep philosophical difference over the future of the country.

The possibility of there being a deep philosophical difference between the two depends, I think, on the existence of a)philosophy and b)depth. I remain to be convinced.

I watched a replay of McGuinness’s appearance on the Late Late Show. Embarrassingly, I thought I might witness a Fianna Fáil politician say something interesting. Turned out that the geezer’s ‘very new and radical dynamic way’ entailed asking my old bridge partner Peter Sutherland, Ray McSharry and maybe Michael O’Leary to come aboard the ship of state and steer it away from the rocks amid the stormy waters of the latest crisis of global capitalism. Yeah, that’ll work.

I heard murmurings beforehand about how he was going to say something to the effect that Fianna Fáil had to get back to its republicanism. I know nothing about Fianna Fáil’s republicanism, but on the basis of what he was saying, it seems to have something to do with consolidated oligarchy in the service of business interests, ‘real time’, as he says.

My Brain Is This Big

Have economists answers to the financial crisis? – Times Online

I am in the top 5% of academic economists anywhere out of 19,000, and I am about seventh in Ireland. Philip Lane or Karl Whelan would be in the top 2% in the world.

In terms of knowing things about economics, I am in the top 50% of people living on this planet. Swivel on that.

Les Français adorent…

Europe ‘amazed’ at steps taken in budget – Lenihan – The Irish Times – Mon, Apr 27, 2009

Speaking at the Irish League of Credit Unions conference in Killarney on Saturday, Mr Lenihan said other European governments would not have been able to impose the kind of pain the Government had.

Mr Lenihan said there would be “riots” in France, were the pension levy on public servants to be introduced in that country.

Be a dear and let me know when the mass influx of French people starts. Given France is such a ghastly place, I expect their huddled masses will be besieging Fishguard and Rosslare seeking refuge from the dreadful historic tendency among some French people to stand up for themselves. We should give them a rousing welcome: we can feed them our potato salad as they regale us in hushed tones of awe with tales of their admiration for the Fianna Fáil government of Cowen and Lenihan.

Show Off

John Legend makes some exhibitionist propositions that might involve getting found out by the boss among other people. Durty dog.

Who Moved My Panzers

Indian business students snap up copies of Mein Kampf – Telegraph

Booksellers told The Daily Telegraph that while it is regarded in most countries as a ‘Nazi Bible’, in India it is considered a management guide in the mould of Spencer Johnson’s “Who Moved My Cheese”.

I read Who Moved My Cheese once. I was seriously disappointed by the lack of clarity on the question of how to embark on a strategy of grand racial war.