“Parents have forced a school trip to a mosque to be abandoned because they did not want their children exposed to a religion that was not their own.
…
But a number of parents withdrew their support saying their children were too young to learn about other faiths.” BBC
It’s not April 1 so this must be real. I know I was a precocious brat, but I’d rejected the Catholic church and become an atheist by seven or eight. How can ten year olds be too young to learn about other religions? What better time to teach them?
I don’t know if my primary and secondary schools were unusual but we studied comparative religion the whole way through. (And I turned out just fine… oh, ok, fair enough.)
Monthly Archives: November 2006
Today is exactly four years since the start of my first UK Work Permit, so if the legislation hadn’t been changed retrospectively (not that I’m bitter, oh no) I could have applied for Indefinite Leave to Remain last month. This would have meant I could work for any company in the UK without worrying about work permits, and that a year later I could apply for a UK passport. More importantly, it would have provided some security and hopefully reduced sarcasm from Immigration officials.
Oh well. Overall, I’m still incredibly lucky to have grown up in first world country with enough education and the opportunity to travel and work overseas so I shouldn’t whinge too much.
“The Natural History Museum in London is to repatriate the remains of 17 Tasmanian Aboriginal people to the Australian Government.” 24 Hour Museum
Apparently everyone who saw this on the recent trip to Berlin thought of me.
For the record, I won’t fsck your girlfriend unless you both ask me very nicely. Your mother, on the other hand…
I went to Belfast as a tourist a few years ago, and almost every single person I encountered asked what on earth I was doing there. They couldn’t believe that someone would voluntarily visit their city. I guess that’s all about to change: NI is tipped as top travel spot.
People there were incredibly friendly, Belfast still felt like a big country town.
Scary stuff:
“Hiring a car can now mean leaving a fingerprint. And check-out staff are scanning the customers as well as the shopping. Biometrics are entering every day life.” BBC
Getting music off your iPod onto your computer. Cos I’ll need to do this sooner or later.
Sir Elton John says: “…the reality is that organised religion doesn’t seem to work. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it’s not really compassionate” (BBC) just in time for Wired to report a sighting of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Coincidence? You decide.
Interesting. Given the way Australian politics seem to have been swinging more and more to the right, I’m almost surprised by this:
“The right to a “fair go” is the thing almost all Australians put at the top of their list when it comes to values.
A survey released today shows 91 per cent of people believe a fair go is important, with most listing the need for rights to welfare, housing and indigenous reconciliation to make the country fairer.”
This is kind of sad, considering people could take a ‘fair go’ into their own hands, but I guess at least it could be applied as a test to new legislation:
“The survey found 82 per cent believed it was government’s responsibility to make the country fairer.” Age
Check out record of the day, a great selection of clips of random new music.
Otoh, they do site launching Crazy Frog/Axel F in the UK as a ‘success story’.