Leonard Cohen.

This is the greatest rhyming couplet I have heard today. I think it will become Barack Obama's theme.

From Leonard's song 'Everybody Knows.'

Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old black joes still pickin cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

Religion, delusion and prison

Here's a great statistic that I came across earlier.
10% of Americans are Atheist (or Agnostic). However .25% of the prison population is Atheist. I checked a registry of UK Prison population and found .2% of the prison population are Atheist, and in the UK the percentage of Atheists/Agnostics is approaching 50%

My conclusion is that the neediness and weakness that leads believers into choosing a value system that is so clearly disempowering, divisive and at odds with basic common sense, as is the case with the major religions, results in the non-accountable delusional belief that accompanies crime of a prison worthy nature.

Atheists on the other hand have accepted personal accountability and do not seek to apportion blame for their personal inadequacies on spurious notions like 'Original sin' and penitence leading to forgiveness. They are therefore more likely to not commit criminal acts because they are not trained to believe someone/something else is responsible for everything they do and will forgive them for the price of a few spoken words.

It is interesting to see the top and bottom list of the Countries by percentage of Atheists:

Most Atheist are:
Sweden. Vietnam. Denmark, Norway, Japan, Czech Republic, Finland, France.

Least Atheist are:
Somalia, Tanzania, Yemen, Western Sahara, Philippines, Romania, Pakistan, Cambodia, Iran

Success in Afghanistan

While American and British forces put in place by the Bush/Blair axis of evil continue consuming Billions of dollars that may or may not be helping fuel the global recession in Afghanistan, I have to admit at this point that I have for some time felt that:
1. Making War without provocation threatening survival is indefensible and should be treated as a crime.
2. People who justify and support war (unless when facing a threat to survival) are not acting for the highest good and
3. Dropping expensive bombs by remote control on poor people and their children, is an open invitation for karmic return that will mean returning as a mosquito - or worse.

So I have been clear from the outset in my disgust at the barbaric abuses of power by the Bush and Blair regimes of terror, especially in their inhumane use of expensive technology to bomb a Country already more bombed than any other. Afghanistan is an almighty mess. As if they weren't buggered enough by centuries of exploitation by the evil cult of submission that mires them in a dark age mentality, requiring the men to grow beards, wipe the poo off their bottoms with their left hands, avoid pork whilst simultaneously praising the deified memory of a 53 year old fellow who had sex with a 9 year old, but is not considered a pedophile. This same fellows book designates all women inferior status to men, requiring them to dress in Burqas and legally sanctions assaults by their husbands at a whim.

Easy then to see why Western conscience would be outraged by stories of Taleban men raping 10 year old boys and committing all kinds of Muslim themed atrocities on defenseless civilians. That outrage was used to raise the Christian Armies of Bush and Blair to go 'teach the Talies a lesson.'
Years have passed and now we can review the outcome of the Blair/Bush zealotry.

Since December 2004 Afghanistan's leader is Hamid Harzai.
We should remember his name as our tax dollars were the cause of his election.

Hamid is a Muslim and so sees nothing untoward about his most recent contribution to Afghani law. A bill which legalizes rape in marriage. The law, which has not been publicly released, is believed to state women can only seek work, education or doctor's appointments with their husband's permission.
Only fathers and grandfathers are granted custody of children under the law, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

Opponents of the legislation governing the personal lives of Afghanistan's Shia minority have said it is "worse than during the Taliban".
Mr Karzai has been accused of electioneering at the expense of women's rights by signing the law to appeal to crucial Shia swing voters in this year's presidential poll.

So in a nutshell. We raised an Army to go teach the Taleban that their Muslim ways were not acceptable. Bush explained how we gave them democracy - out of which came Karzai to give us this new consideration.

Islam. Whats not to love about it?