I saw this video on Gavin’s blog and I’m reposting it here because I think it’s important that people see it. I felt sick watching it.

I’ve never been keen on religion, but I’m genuinely shocked by just how downright evil the people running religious institutions in Ireland were/still are. These swine are worse than Nazis, and yet hordes of fools still go to mass in this country every week and queue up for bread that they’re supposed to believe is Jesus and then give money to one of the richest organisations in the world via the collection plate. If you believe in God, fine, but don’t go to some church to hear some depraved paedophile-rapist lecture you on morality.

A court in Sweden has jailed four men behind The Pirate Bay (TPB), the world’s most high-profile file-sharing website, in a landmark case.

Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail.

They were also ordered to pay $4.5m (£3m) in damages.

[...]

Speaking to the BBC, the chairman of industry body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) John Kennedy said the verdict sent out a clear message.

“These guys weren’t making a principled stand, they were out to line their own pockets. There was nothing meritorious about their behaviour, it was reprehensible.

“The Pirate Bay did immense harm and the damages awarded doesn’t even get close to compensation, but we never claimed it did.

“There has been a perception that piracy is OK and that the music industry should just have to accept it. This verdict will change that,” he said.

I’m downloading six torrents as I type this; nobody’s going to stop downloading music and films because of this trial. If anything, it will only make people less likely to pay for music and films, since everyone has been given fresh evidence that record companies and film studios are run by unpleasant people. I’ll never buy a CD again, but if I had the money I’d buy a Pirate Bay t-shirt to show my support for Messrs. Neij, Svartholm Warg, Lundstrom and Sunde, who are nothing short of internet heroes.

Long live The Pirate Bay!

OPINION: CONOR CASBY, the artist claiming responsibility for the notorious nude paintings of the Taoiseach hung for a “joke” in the National Gallery and RHA, has said that he wants to let the paintings “speak for themselves”, writes JOHN WATERS

He did not intimate what he thinks they might be saying. That the artist has an infantile obsession with toilet humour? That he nurtures some deep animus towards politicians?

That he cannot draw?

The only amusing thing here is Casby’s deluded belief that he has something to say. His response is typical of a public discourse almost fatally degraded by internet auto-eroticism and an obsession with what is called “comedy”. His works are crude, unfunny, vindictive, without intrinsic content and wholly lacking in artistic merit.

Waters goes on to write that politics is very serious business and should not be subject to jokes, and claims that the internet is to blame for “[reducing] public debate to the level of a drunken argument”.

From The Telegraph:

A family of four with a combined weight of 83 stone say they are “too fat to work” and need more than the £22,000 they currently receive in benefits.

…

“All that healthy food, like fruit and veg, is too expensive. We’re fat because it’s in our genes. Our whole family is overweight,” she added.

I don’t really know what to say about this; it’s quite astounding. If anything, fat people should pay more taxes than everyone else in countries with universal health-care systems because their gluttony means that they’re more likely to get sick. If their benefits were taken away I bet they’d start losing weight pretty sharpish.

If the Pakistani state can’t control parts of its territory 100 km from the capital, then how can it be safely relied upon to keep its nuclear arsenal out of the Taliban’s reach?

Irish budget airline Ryanair has said it is considering charging passengers for using the toilet while flying.

Chief executive Michael O’Leary told the BBC that the Dublin-based carrier was looking at maybe installing a “coin slot on the toilet door”.

The fortune left by late real estate tycoon Leona Helmsley can go to charities other than those solely related to dogs, a US court has ruled.

A New York City judge said that Helmsley’s legal documents allowed her estate’s trustees “sole discretion” in donating the money to charity.

When Helmsley died in 2007 it was widely reported that she wanted her $8bn fortune spent only on canines.

…

Animal rights groups had reacted gleefully at the reports last year that all of Helmsley’s fortune would go to the care of dogs.

Charities had said the money could be used to rescue dogs from disaster zones and to tackle dog fighting, rabies in China and India as well as the canine over-population problem.

It is not clear now if any dog-welfare organisations will receive any of the funds.

If I left a lot of money in my will to something I cared about, I don’t think it would be alright for a judge to award the money to some other ‘more worthy’ causes after I died. I can’t speak to the legal reasoning involved in this judgment, but it seems to quite obviously go against the spirit of the law involved in the making of wills.

Something I stumbled across on YouTube. It’s pretty striking, seeing a camera track a falling body as it flails and spins. I’d forgotten just how wretched the whole event was.

The parents of a six-year-old boy in the US have been charged with neglect after the boy drove their car for 10km in an attempt to get to school on time.

Police in Virginia said the boy, who was not named, took the keys to the car after he missed the school bus.

He drove for six miles (10km) on major roads, weaving through traffic and overtaking slower cars, before losing control and going off the road.

The boy told police he learned to drive by playing video games.

Proof, as if it were needed, that video games can teach players important life skills.

The makers of a prosthetic penis to help men cheat on drugs tests have pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy in a US federal court.

The two men, George Wills and Robert Catalano, had been selling the device – known as the Whizzinator – over the internet for three years.

Source.

I really don’t see how what they did could be considered illegal. The law’s an ass…

A judge in New Zealand made a young girl a ward of court so that she could change the name she hated – Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.

Judge Rob Murfitt said that the name embarrassed the nine-year-old and could expose her to teasing.

He attacked a trend of giving children bizarre names, citing several examples.

Officials had blocked Sex Fruit, Keenan Got Lucy and Yeah Detroit, he said, but Number 16 Bus Shelter, Violence and Midnight Chardonnay had been allowed.

Makes “Athens Trent Boland” sound eminently reasonable…

An Italian woman artist who was hitch-hiking to the Middle East dressed as a bride to promote world peace has been found murdered in Turkey.

The naked body of Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, 33, known as Pippa Bacca, was found in bushes near the city of Gebze on Friday.

She had said she wanted to show that she could put her trust in the kindness of local people.