Secular Societies Fare Better Than Religious Societies

Religion – or so the age-old hypothesis goes – is therefore a necessary glue for keeping society together. And conversely, secularism is a danger to societal well-being. For if people turn away from God and stop being religious, then crime will go up, corruption will increase, perversion will percolate, decency will diminish, and all manifestations of misery and malfeasance will predominate.

It is an interesting hypothesis. Perpetually-touted. And wrong.

via Secular Societies Fare Better Than Religious Societies | Psychology Today.

Why am I not surprised?

H/T to WWJTD for bringing this to my attention.

22 of the Best Stephen Fry Quotes Ever

22 Of The Best Stephen Fry Quotes Ever – Urban Times.

Stephen Fry is one of my heroes. My favourite out of these 22:

It’s now very common to hear people say, “I’m rather offended by that”. As if that gives them certain rights. It’s actually nothing more…than a whine. “I find that offensive.” It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. “I am offended by that.” Well, so fucking what.

It wasn’t me!

This is another hilarious cartoon from the Jesus and Mo archives. I was going to publish this on its own for today’s entertainment, but decided to check out Jesus farting on DuckDuckGo. It turns out that “Did Jesus fart?” is a question that’s been asked lots of times.

The Urban Dictionary had this definition:

fart of jesus: Thought to have been named after the actual farts that the Lord Jesus Christ was reported to have made on many occasions. A fart having a fragrant aroma not dissimilar to that of summer berries with a hint of coriander and wood smoke.

Mmmm, smells like the fart of Jesus.

They also offered:

jebus parp: Nice smelling fart.

Wow! That’s nice. You could say it was quite the Jebus parp.

I found several offerings on YouTube. Here’s a couple: the first dealing with the immediate question, and the second considering the theological ramifications of an affirmative answer.

Of course, for parents this can be an awkward topic as this post indicates, We Don’t Use ‘Jesus’ and ‘Fart’ in the Same Sentence.

My favourite question was from the person who wanted to know whether Jesus’ farts had healing properties like curing asthma. The most popular response was that Jesus would have needed a Dutch oven to do this. I had no idea what this was, but the Urban Dictionary came to my rescue again.

dutch oven: The act of trapping a person under bed covers after releasing vile ass fumes

Dave vomited on the sheets when his wife gave him a white castle dutch oven.

Land of The Free (7): The Lady Vote

I picked this item up from watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Republicans have started a new campaign that compares voting to choosing a wedding dress. Here’s one of the ads:

The ad is mind-boggling in its inanity. I can’t believe that anyone would not see these ads are offensive, demeaning and patronising to women. But apparently the College National Republican Committee who paid for it doesn’t think so.

Here’s a link to the Daily Show piece. It’s on the ComedyCentral UK site, so quality is pretty crappy.

Lebala Sunsets

We spent three nights at Lebala and each evening we had a beautiful sunset while we enjoyed our sundowners.

If you’d like to know about the camps we stayed at, Lebala and Little Kwara, you can read my TripAdvisor reviews on the camps here and here.

If you’d like to see more pictures, I’ve created a bunch of albums that you get access from this page.

Remains of a Hippo

I found several photos that I had incorrectly tagged, so were overlooked then when I was creating the post, Death of a Hippo. These show what was left of the hippo about 2 days after she died, and the scavengers still around.

An Elephant Comes To Call

Another safari post: it shows how close a bull elephant came to the Little Kwara camp.

This video does take a little while to download. Naturally, I think it’s worth the wait, otherwise I wouldn’t have posted it. 🙂

Death of a Hippo

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This photo is the first in a series that some people may prefer not to see. We were on safari, staying at Lebala Camp. We had stopped by this lagoon for sundowners when I spotted activity on the opposite shore. It was a hippo being attacked by two hyenas. I gulped down the rest of my G&T and our guides hurriedly packed stuff away and we raced around to see what was happening.

On the next page, there are pictures showing the attack in more detail. They aren’t pleasant and you may prefer not to look. For the six of us in the Land Cruiser it was a lesson in the hard facts of life on the Africa plains. The hippo had clearly been badly injured in a fight, probably with another hippo—two hyenas would not have been able to take down a healthy one.

[Read more…]

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Victoria Falls

I’m posting these two pictures because it was the first time I’d ever taken photos with a shutter speed of 1/8000 sec; this seems to be too fast for WordPress media library as it reports 1/501s. Other meta data: ISO 160, f/2.8, -0.3 EV, 40mm. The camera is an Olympus OMD E-M1; the lens is the Olympus 12-40 f/2.8 Pro.

The Falls were pretty amazing even in the low season without much water. I’ll be posting more photos in a new album when I have finished processing and weeding.

The HoseMaster’s Guide to Drinking Wine at Home

Many people who profess to love wine only drink it on special occasions, or in church. But the authentic wine lover sees wine as an ordinary part of every meal, like bread or salt or long, uncomfortable silences. The confident wine lover knows that regular consumption of wine makes you an expert much as regular bathing makes you a mermaid.

via HoseMaster of Wine™: The HoseMaster’s Guide to Drinking Wine at Home.