Here we go again; why is it that the moment a group of people invoke their own version of the ‘magical sky-fairy’ myth, they're imbued with some form of special privilege? Today’s case in point is the frankly idiotic ruling by the High Court to quash a destruction order on Shambo the bullock - because somehow, even though the animal has been diagnosed with Bovine Tuberculosis (which is highly infectious, and puts other livestock at risk) it's spared the abattoir because it'll put some lunatic religious adherents’ noses out of joint.

Why should the ‘religious principles’ of a minority be allowed to run roughshod over the laws by which the rest of the country must abide by? For crying out loud, it’s just an animal – before it contracted TB it might have made a nice steak or five – it shouldn’t earn special protection by virtue of a small community of (probably well-meaning but completely deluded) monks venerating it.

And as for those 20,000 imbeciles who’ve signed an online petition to save the animals’ life – what if Shambo had been, say, a swan had been found with H5N1 Avian Influenza and was being worshipped, would you petition to save its life as well?

Just stumbled on this face recognition system on MyHeritage.com (via Phil South's blog) and just had to have a go. And the results are, well, slightly dubious!

David Lloyd George? Naah.

I just stumbled across this video by Pat Condell while I was looking around www.earthsgreatestlawsuit.org (I hope they're serious; if there's one thing I despise as much as religion it's slimeballs fleecing those guillible enough to believe in the first place. Step forward Benny Hinn, Peter Popoff, Robert Tilton, Mike Murdoch et al).

Anyway, here's Pat's analysis of Religion in the UK. Nailed it as as far as I'm concerned...

As various sources have reported, yesterday was the 25th birthday of the ZX Spectrum - the launchpad of many a software developer (myself included). The speccy was my first home machine, originally in the 16k flavour before quickly getting it returned and upgraded to a whopping 48k.

In honour of this auspicious event, allow me to donate a completely useless piece of code - isn't it amazing what rubbish gets stuck in your head? I've not touched a Spectrum since, oooh, 1990 or so and I could still remember the POKE involved without having to look it up. Sad really....

10 LET A$="Happy 25th Birthday Speccy!"
20 FOR X=1 TO LEN(A$)
30 FOR Y=15 TO 0 STEP -1
40 POKE 23606, Y
50 PRINT AT 10, X; A$(X)
60 NEXT Y
70 NEXT X

Fire up a Spectrum emulator, type in the listing and see what it does! It's hardly OpenGL, but what the hell!

As a long standing atheist (product of a Roman Catholic education), I have long been uneasy about the grip on education exerted by various religious groups – be they Islamic, Church of England, Roman Catholic or Pastafarian.

One of the presents I was given over the festive period was Richard Dawkins' superb "The God Delusion" (yes, I am aware of the irony) - a book which I suspect will only be preaching to the converted, because those that really need to read it will have had their minds long closed to the uncomfortable truth. This tome has convinced me that it's about time that atheists stood up to religion in areas such as education - there is no excuse in this day and age for any institution to promote one divisive creed above another, and with the rise of nut-job fundamentalists who are determined to promote rubbish such as Creationism and 'young-earth' doctrine the need to take a stand has never been greater.

Why on earth should my daughter be indoctrinated by the school she attends?

For those that feel the same way as me, I would urge you to visit this online petition and make your feelings known. It's unlikely to have an immediate effect (especially with our current Prime Minister), but over time it might serve to influence future occupants of Number 10. We can but hope.