Pope Contradiction, Dolphins and Penguins, Fantasy Imperium and Borat, New Zealand

[tcpip]

The Pope has presented two Christmas messages; overcome prejudice (to the laity) and condemn gay marriage (to the clergy). The Age publised my letter this morning on said contradiction.

On another moral theme, recently the 20 million year old Chinese river dolphin was effectively sacrificed to the altar of economic development. When doomydoombear was visiting us from BrisVegas we took her to the St. Kilda pier and spotted some of the local penguins. Now some damn fools have murdered several of them. Human beings are a bad species.

In entertainment news my rather blunt review of Fantasy Imperium has attracted a fair bit of attention. Last night saw Borat. I find the reaction of various government agencies against Borat's (fictional) prejudices utterly bizarre given the unscripted real-people prejudices that are filmed. It's a great film; highly recommended.

caseopaya and I are off to New Zealand in a couple of days. taavi is visiting from Laos and will be housesitting over the new year, followed by severina_242 who will be dropping in in subsequent days to ensure that rodents and lagamorphs have sufficient food and water. My thanks to both of you.

Comments

[morrigan77.livejournal.com]

Travel safe :)

[cluebyfour.livejournal.com]

Bad species, or just bad humans? Or even bad incentives? If truly the former, we would have killed ourselves off long before now, unless Darwin really was wrong. ;-)

That penguin attack is truly sickening, however. And the fact that folks like you and I find it so provides hope for the species yet.

Have fun in NZ!

[gevauden.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's a nice start that the Pope is preaching tolerance. If only he'd start following his own advice...

I wish I could say the penguin killing shocked me, sadly it did not. There have been so many reports of cruelty up this way this year that I'm hardly surprised by anything any more. Considering the way humans treat each other these days, this kind of behaviour towards the "lesser beasts" is almost to be expected. Or maybe I'm a great big cynic.

Wow. Fantasy Imperium looks like a great game for anyone who has far too many dice and really, realy wants to use them all. I'll make sure I steer clear of that one.

Have a great time in NZ. Try not to get eaten by a Balrog.

[amphigori.livejournal.com]

Loved Borat. Could do without all the faux 'political' hype and found the lawsuits laughable, but loved the movie. Had the great pleasure of taking my mom to see it and watching her weep with laughter.

Have a safe and lovely trip to NZ. :)

[damien-wise.livejournal.com]

Did you see the letter on the same page from Bill Hartigan? He didn't identify himself as a Liberal stooge, but his pro-government, racist and ill-researched letter gave-away his agenda. Oops.
Let's look at his three points:
(1) Myth peddled by opponents of alternatives energy, like the one that claims it takes more energy to make solar cells than they'll save.
(2) WTF?!
(3) Seems to be burying his head in the sand and pandering to existing big business rather than asking them to change for the environment and offer consumers some practicable choices.

[lardarsegreg.livejournal.com]

I find the reaction of various government agencies against Borat's (fictional) prejudices utterly bizarre given the unscripted real-people prejudices that are filmed.

That's a good point, actually...

Oh, and time for a question that I probably should know the answer to: Who is this caseopaya ?

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Why the heck do we kill penguins? They're utterly inoffensive to humans, and quite charming both in their aquatic grace and their ability to survive under conditions that we would have difficulty under.

I don't know if we're a "bad" species, but we're frequently unnecessarily cruel.