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European madness appears to be rollicking its way across that continent of late as politicians vie and jostle for position amid their never-ending displays of vanity and political coquettishness.

Italy’s richest man and ex-premier, Silvio Burlusconi, had to swallow his pride – quite an achievement, even given the size of his mouth – when his second wife, Veronica, publicly accused him of “damaging her dignity” by flirting with a group of bellisima senorinas at a TV awards dinner. That she chose the publication, La Repubblica – a left wing paper critical of Berlusconi – to publicize her outrage was truly rubbing salt into the wound. Berlusconi apologized profusely to his wife, but only after the paper had gleefully splashed her demands all over their front page.

Just across the border in France, presidential election fever is rising as the Socialist candidate, Segolene Royal, demands the sacking of her main rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, whom she accuses of pulling “dirty tricks” to scuttle her chances in the election. Apparently, Sarkozy has used his position in the government to dig the dirt on the former head of Greenpeace France, Bruno Rebelle, now adviser to Segolene Royal on matters of the environment. Unfortunately for said lady, she has committed a few gaffs of her own in recent weeks by praising the Chinese justice system and calling for independence for Quebec. The Chinese hierarchy love her, but Canada’s not so keen.

While many may criticize the French, they can be eminently rational. A fine example of French commonsense is displayed in their present attitude to the new government ban on smoking in public places. One might expect these exponents of the Gaulloise and Gitanes to rise up in revolution at the very idea of authority displacing their major pleasure in the bars and cafes of gay Paris. Not at all. Seventy-five percent of the population has voiced its approval for the new law and even the most ardent of smokers admit it’s une bonne idée.

Meanwhile, across the English Channel, a furore (or, as they say in American – “furor”) still rages in the British parliament over large sums of money paid to the Labour Party in exchange for the title “Lord”, “Earl”, or possibly “M’lud”. Super-wealthy British businessmen, who love to swag about in ermine robes and fancy wigs, are it seems prepared to pay big for a seat in the parliament’s Upper Chamber, or “House of Lords”. The Labour Party appeared quite happy to take the cash and dish out the peerages, even though it is just a teensy-weensy bit illegal. So far, four people have been arrested, one of them twice. This was Lord Levy, the Labour Party’s chief fundraiser and a Middle East envoy, who was fingered by the police for a second time on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. It may well transpire that Lord Levy becomes Britain’s answer to Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Of course, Tony Blair is well and truly in the midst of this kerfuffal, and has himself on two occasions been the subject of police interrogation.

Today is a great day to be a Tory in Britain.

More on these stories: HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Filed under: European capers

While George W Bush pretends to take climate change seriously, yet only kowtows to a grain industry already forcing price rises in Third World Nations by a shortage of grain on world markets – oh, wow, Mister Andreas, your bank balance must be going through the roof! – the government of New South Wales, Australia has just received a scientific report it commissioned into the effects of climate change on the city of Sydney.

To say it was shocked by the report is to put it mildly.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization report says bluntly that if nothing effective is done to combat climate change and global warming, the city of Sydney is likely to be uninhabitable by 2070 – only slightly over half a century away. The state’s premier said it was a “doomsday scenario”, but one that had to be confronted.

Australia is already seeing the effects of global warming as it struggles with a drought that has lasted six years. Bush fires have devastated large areas. John Howard, the Australian prime minister, recently unveiled a $7 billion package to try and tackle the country’s water problems.

More from the BBC HERE.

Meanwhile, as George Monbiot reports in his Guardian column this week, US President George W Bush is sticking with technology to solve the climate problem, and keep his pals in the business industries happy. One idea, the government insists, is to launch mirrors, or clouds of small particles, into the atmosphere to reflect the additional sunlight radiation produced by carbon dioxide build-up. This idea was in a recent memo to the US Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It states that “modifying solar radiance” is an important insurance against the threat of climate change.

As Monbiot declares, “A more accurate description might be ‘important insurance against the need to cut emissions’.”

Other hair-brained schemes presently on George Bush’s desk include that of a group of nuclear weapons scientists from Lawrence Livermore laboratory in California who suggest “launching into the atmosphere a million tonnes of tiny aluminum balloons, filled with hydrogen, every year.

One effect of such a practice, Monbiot notes wryly, would be to “eliminate the ozone layer”.

Yet another scheme, this time from scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, suggests spraying billions of tonnes of seawater into the air. That, too, Monbiot concludes, would have devastating effects.

One positive note, Monbiot continues, is that the debate over global warming is well and truly over:

“On Friday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes the first instalment of its vast report, which collates the findings of the world’s climate scientists. Though conservative in its assumptions, it shows that if you persist in believing that there is no cause for concern you must have buried your head till only your toes are showing. If even George Bush now grudgingly acknowledges that there’s a problem, surely we’ve seen the last of the cranks and charlatans who had managed to grab so much attention with their claims that global warming wasn’t happening?”

It seems the only issue now remaining is to persuade George W Bush he can’t solve the problem by declaring war on Iran.

Read George Monbiot’s full article HERE.

Filed under: Global warming

Usually, writer’s block is due to an empty head with seemingly nothing worthwhile to put on paper. Occasionally, the reverse may be true; a head so full of ideas and subject matter that trying to pick out one and concentrate on it is next to impossible. Thoughts on many topics keep crowding in; a mishmash – like a ball of tangled string with no apparent end to work on.

That’s how I feel today.

It was my intention to write of my views on sex and religion – the effects of one on the other – but again, I can’t find an end to get me started. Perhaps if I write just about sex, the involvement of religion may drop into place?

Ever since I was old enough to think of such matters, I have never been able to fathom why sex is so difficult for human beings to assimilate and accept. Why so many taboos; so many rules? After all, it’s one of the most natural things we experience, isn’t it?

Now that I’ve lived long enough to have gained some perception of human life, the answers to those questions are more obvious. But, if the answers are so clear to me, why is the rest of the world seemingly oblivious to them?

OK, here’s where the religion bit come in.

To discover the source of our species’ unease with matters sexual it is necessary to unearth a society where sex was accepted as a normal, everyday practice to be enjoyed without the restraint of pernicious societal law that regulated when, where, and most definitely how, the function and everything related to it, was carried out.

That’s not an easy task, but possibly one of the best examples was in Polynesia, before the Christian missionaries arrived and spoiled it all! The warm waters of the Pacific Ocean, the balmy sun-kissed beaches and relaxed atmosphere apparently had a similar effect on the inhabitants as when British tourists first discovered the Spanish Costa del Sol. Not only heterosexual, but also homosexual behavior was considered normal and deregulated in these idyllic surroundings.

Or, at least, they were until recently when a New Zealand researcher, Dr Lee Wallace, wrote in her book, “Sexual Encounters” that such ideas were all hogwash and the Polynesians were, in fact, a male-dominated, vicious race of people who practiced homosexuality and treated females as property – before the Christian missionaries arrived and taught them better ways!

While Margaret Mead’s 1928 book, the only modern, authoritative account of Polynesian pre-Christian life, was ridiculed much later by Derek Freeman, his refutation of Mead’s work was seen by many as suspect, not least because he himself was a strong Presbyterian, and most of those women who had contributed to Mead’s work, and whose testimony he used to base his refutation, were old and had long converted to Christianity.

While Lee Wallace states that we learned our modern interpretation of homosexuality from the Pacific Islanders, and before that the practice never really existed (she seems to have totally ignored the ancient Greeks!) and both she and Freeman insist the idea of a relaxed sexual attitude among pre-Christian Polynesians never existed – despite the writings of Cook and his lieutenant, Joseph Banks, William Bligh, and even the French artist Paul Gauguin – Margaret Mead reached the conclusion from her research that the transition from childhood to female adolescence in those islands carried none of the emotional or psychological distress, anxiety, or confusion she had seen and studied in the United States.

I, personally, have no doubt she was correct. Our evolution has not caused the stress-related state our society suffers when dealing with sexual matters, it has been created by our society in vain attempts to regulate and control.

Without doubt, one of the most successful of society’s sex-control ideas has been – the invention of “SIN”.

“SIN” – the “evils” thereof preached from a million pulpits every Sunday morning.

“SIN” is the ultimate control tool. “SIN” is not a wrong committed by one person on another, “SIN” is a wrong-doing against “GOD”.

Has God told us this himself? Does He stick His Divine Head down through the clouds and bellow, “THAT’S A SIN! DON’T DO THAT!”

No, he conveniently leaves it to a group of individuals, sometimes dressed in fancy robes, often wearing silly hats, occasionally carrying a stick to hook sheep, ALWAYS telling us what to do, and WHAT NOT TO DO!

Why?

Because GOD says you can’t do that.

How do THEY know GOD says that?

BECAUSE GOD TELLS THEM! He doesn’t tell US – He tells THEM – in their silly hats, fancy robes and sheep sticks!

IT’S A “SIN”.

Suppose they’re wrong? They pore over one book all their lives in order to tell us how to live our lives.

Suppose they’re wrong?

Jesus never said we should listen to men in silly hats with fancy clothes and sheep sticks, who yell at us every Sunday. Yet these same men tell us HE was the Son of God.

Organized religion created the concept of sin, and its accompanying polarities of “right” and “wrong” to better control the masses. It worked – probably beyond their wildest dreams. The same concept is used today by politicians. They create a fabric of deceit, spin it to the masses as truth, and because we have become so indoctrinated into accepting the word of those “in authority”, we believe it without question.

Take Iran as a current example. A member of the “Axis of Evil” – (“evil” equals “sin”) Politicians spin so much crap they soon believe it themselves. Iran has done absolutely nothing against America. It’s nuclear aspirations are totally legal within the framework of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, but by labeling Iran an “evil regime” it allows the US government to attack Iran, or goad Iran into attacking America, when the US government decides it is ready to commence stage two of of its invasion of the Middle East – which is scheduled, of that there is no doubt.

There will never be peace in the world while the concept of “SIN” remains. There will be no happiness, either. “Sin” is so bad it demands wrath and punishment. Isn’t the tale of Iran a good example of that?

All of Jesus’ teachings can be condensed into three words. He said, “Love one another.”

Isn’t that what sex between two people who care about each other really is? The physical manifestation of spiritual Love?

Filed under: Nature ramble