Tetherd Cow Ahead

Found by Phoebe Fay. Well, OK, maybe it’s a l-e-e-e-e-tle bit different to the one she discovered.

The Chinese Government has just passed into law a 14 part regulation banning Tibet’s ‘Living Buddhas’ from reincarnating.

Aside from the obvious idiocy of the notion of an atheist government attempting to impose laws on a system of belief that they deny has any basis in reality, the natural question must arise: if someone should disobey the law and reincarnate, what is the government going to decide is a suitable deterrent?

The Death Penalty?

… and since we’re astrologizing, did you all catch the total lunar eclipse and corresponding ‘Blood Moon’ last night? The park near my house was filled with folks looking skyward, which for me was almost as big a thrill as the event itself.

It still amazes me, though, how confused and ill-informed people continue to be about events like this. As I walked up the street to the park, glancing up at the beginning of the eclipse, an old bloke said to me knowingly “Better get a good look – you’ll never see that again in your lifetime…”*

Lunar eclipses occur frequently, sometimes two or three times in a year, total eclipses a little less frequently. ‘Blood’ or ‘Hunter’s’ moons appear whenever there is a total lunar eclipse.† I’ve already seen a few, and I hope to see a few more, all things going well.

Acts 2:20 ~ The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.

Of course the religious loonies leap upon this sort of thing with gusto. As an omen, the red moon is surely the lamest of portents to choose – by my calculation, the Earth has seen at least two thousand of these since the apostle Peter penned the above prediction. Even if you assume that St Peter was referring to a combination of solar & lunar eclipses, it’s not such a rare thing for those things to occur in tandem.

If you want to know when your next Blood Moon occurs, you can do no better than fire up the Javascript Lunar Eclipse Explorer at NASA. Plug in your capital city and your century and you’re set to plan your next End Times Picnic!

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*Of course, it is possible that he was clairvoyant, and the real meaning of his pronouncement was that I’ll be turning up my toes before the next lunar eclipse occurs…

†Unless there are extenuating circumstances – a lunar eclipse on December 30, 1982 was almost completely dark. Dust from the recently erupting Mexican volcano El Chichon clouded the atmosphere to such an extent that it occluded the sun’s rays, preventing them from casting their filtered red light on the moon.

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I know you’ve all been on the edge of your seats for further updates in the Prophet Peter Popoff saga and today’s good news is that I’ve finally sent off a letter to him!

A Swish of the Cow’s Tail to Colonel Colonel for planting the inspiration for ‘The Pancake of Hope’ and I am hereby pleased to award him a Cow Medallion for his part in the Prophet Peter Popoff Panto.

ClickOnThePicâ„¢ to read!*

Now we shall see of what kind of stuff Prophet Pete is made, and whether his prophecies standard up to The Cow Challenge!

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*I figure that if Amazon can patent OneClickâ„¢ then I’m going to attempt to patent anything that occurs to me.

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So anyway. The Vatican has evidently decided that, in keeping with their habit of meddling in matters in which they have no expertise (nor even barely adequate knowledge for that matter), they need to hand down some rules, Commandments, even, for the drivers of motor vehicles. Yes, you heard right, The Holy Office has decided that what the world really really needs is a Catholic Church endorsed Ten Commandments of Motoring.

What? I say, what?

How do they get an imprimatur to do this kind of thing? Where the hell is anything about motoring mentioned in the Bible? (OK, OK, not counting that bit about Moses charging across the desert in his Triumph)

To demonstrate the clarity of mind with which The Holy See tackles this matter, I ask you to scrutinize the above image taken from their 36-page document Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road. In case you can’t quite make it out, this a picture of a chap wearing a t-shirt that says ‘Being Drunk is Fun’ whilst directing traffic. The traffic consists of rabbits in open-top cars. The man holding the sign has some kind of radiation emerging from behind him. Note the black arrow that points upwards near his Stop sign.

OK. Without reading further, anyone have even a remote idea what this is supposed to convey?

Let me enlighten you: this is Commandment of the Road #9 – On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

Do I need to offer a more persuasive example of why religion in general, and The Pope in particular, should not be allowed even close to matters of the Actual Real World. To further emphasize the tenuous grip on reality that the Catholic Church is demonstrating with their release of the Asphalt Tablets, I note that they also suggest that ‘praying while driving’ is to be encouraged. I’d like to suggest that concentrating while driving would be far more useful, having experienced my fair share of drivers who have evidently substituted prayer for road knowledge.

Well, if the Vatican can get in on the act, I see no reason at all why I shouldn’t have a say. I submit for your delectation:

The Church of the Holy Cow Ten Commandments of Motoring.

#1: Thou shalt not drive big gas-guzzling SUVs nor Hummers nor those stupid trucks with unnaturally big wheels.

#2: Thou shalt not sit in thy motionless car for hours with thine engine running for absolutely no reason.

#3: Thou shalt not install in thy vehicle a music system that has more power than thine engine.

#4: Thou shalt not display ‘wobbly head’ dogs on thy dashboard.

#5: Thou shalt not display ‘clever’ number plates like CUL8R or S810*

#6: Thou shalt not have a horn that plays ‘krazy’ tunes like Yankee Doodle Dandy.

#7: Thou shalt not drive around gratuitously burning fossil fuel in a convoy of stupid little vehicles towing advertising signs.

#8: Thou shalt not be a seller nor a buyer of a vehicle with a stupid brand name.

#9: Thou shalt not make “motoring-related” music video clips such as this.

#10: That last one contains enough sin for two Commandments.

Here endeth today’s Lesson.

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*I feel very pleased with myself that I just made that up!

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