Buddhists are pretty laid back about their symbols. I’m certainly not offended by things like this Buddha dildo, it’s rather amusing, and a lot less rude than some of the things I saw in a shop window in Norway recently.

However, the “Baby Jesus Butt Plug” is much funnier, even if I don’t quite understand what the point is.

This post really deserves to be on Samwise.

Remember the dramatic moment as crowds pulled down Saddam’s statue and rejoiced? That big photogenic moment of popular uprising that the Coalition leaders had been longing for?

Well, maybe it didn’t happen quite like that. This article claims that the crowd was small and mainly made up of coalition allied militia. I’m not sure about this claim, but given the long list of lies I’ve heard from the Coalition so far, I’m strongly tempted to believe it.

It’s quite clear that there is extensive looting going on in Iraq, gang warfare, murder, rape, vandalism. There is overwhelming evidence from free media reporters all over Iraq, video evidence, interviews with staff at hospitals and universities. Universities, hospitals and museums are being destroyed. Iraq as a nation state is being destroyed.

And yet the coalition forces have so far done three significant things:

1) Guard the oil. Guard the oil offices. 2) Deny there is a problem. 3) Threaten the press

Geneva convention? Common sense? Wasn’t this meant to be about helping the people of Iraq?

In the 1970s, my generation experienced Star Wars. We got older. Some of us got good disposable incomes, and the opportunity to buy things we really want.

So people are now buying $300 light sabers.

Link: Park Sabers (cheers Haddock)

Nice comic.

Link: The Jain’s Death

During the recent war in Afghanistan, US troops “accidentally” destoyed the al-Jazeera offices in Kabul. Today they managed to “accidentally” destroy the al-Jazeera offices in Baghdad, killing a journalist, but also managed to “accidentally” attack the offices of Abu Dhabi television.

The Palestine Hotel, housing most of the foriegn journalists in Baghdad, was also attacked today. Two people were killed.

In the Kosovo conflict, US forces deliberately bombed a Serbian TV station, killing studio staff.

Kate Adie claims to have been warned, just before this war, that unapproved journalists would be targeted by the USA military. Is this threat being carried out? Reporting from a war zone is obviously rather dangerous, but these attacks have been against known neutral locations.

Then there’s the tragic and mysterious deaths of Gaby Rado and Terry Lloyd.

I generally don’t have a high opinion of journalists, but I’m beginning to admire the bravery and undaunted professionalism of many war reporters, especially the non-“embedded” ones.

Link: Outcry over journalists’ deaths

Sheep sometimes eat birds and eggs. Wolves sometimes eat vegetables. Naturally eating a variety of food is quite normal - “vegetarian” primates depend on accidental insect consumption for some of their vitamins.

But if a sheep eats too many eggs, or a wolf eats too many vegetables, they’re going to get ill. Their bodies are adapted to specialise in certain types of food, and don’t cope well with the side-effects of other foods.

For instance, meat turns nasty in a long digestive tract. Meat eaters have short powerful digestive tracts to get the meat in and out as fast as possible. Humans have long digestive tracts that process slowly. Meat rots in us.

Humans aren’t designed to cope with modern “western” diets. We can eat it, we’ve traditionally eaten it, but our bodies haven’t caught up. I don’t believe that we’re profoundly different from other animals, that we have the bodies of herbivores but somehow are suited to meat eating via our hands and brains. Our hands and brains simply enable us to obtain a diet we’re not capable of processing safely.

Link: Comparative Anatomy & Taxonomy

Forget GIF buttons, just use CSS. CSS is wonderful.

Link: Steal these buttons too

To make Crufts more popular, the organisers should add a competition in which beautiful dogs are whipped until they charge around around a dangerous obstacle course in a tight pack. Every year a number of dogs would die. The organisers would need a special team to rapidly kill any dogs that make a fuss. Otherwise it would be cruel.

The public could watch this on TV, and feel more involved by betting on the outcome. To add a subtle twist, the new style dog show industry should be rotten with fraud, fixes and criminal gangs.

People would love it. After all, they love The Grand National. Only one dead horse this year too.

Yup, a bitter sarcastic rant, but this is a blog after all. I’m cynical enough to believe that most people are opposed to fox hunting, bull fighting, badger baiting and so on only because it’s a pleasure-from-killing experience they don’t already enjoy.

The “coalition” military have put a lot of effort into “embedding” journalists, giving them fun rides and ever-present press officers to tell them what’s happening, far from whatever is actually happening. I’m beginning to wonder what the point is - do these journalists realise that repeating what they’ve just been told by the military, 20 miles from the fighting, is almost pointless? Why not just read it from the studio? The truth is that embedded journalists give the impression of real reporting, while mainly repeating official information.

ITN (who make Channel 4 News) had a film crew acting independently, away from minders. Of course, I suspect that when the US Marines attacked, killing all but one of them a couple of days ago, they involved the emotions of ITN’s staff rather more than they intended.