On Sat, 2008-08-30 at 21:14 +0530, Amit Varma wrote: > And on 295(a) and its impact on free speech: > http://indiauncut.com/iublog/article/dont-insult-pasta/
amit, shouldn't insulting pasta be illegal under british hate crime laws too? unfortunately, pastafarians may have to wait a couple of centuries for equal treatment, as societies seem to provide more respect to older sets of irrational beliefs. memetic darwinism, if you will. an example: germany is currently waging war against scientology, an organised cult that tries to include powerful people and get them addicted to bizarre beliefs in order to extort money out of them. at the same time, the german state collects taxes from its citizens and pays them out to older organised cults (you can choose protestant or catholic). i encountered the weirdest example of this ageist approach to people's preferred delusions in ... a public tender for german development aid! normally, when we prepare bids we have to do swear all sorts of things e.g. that we are of good moral character and not bankrupt. the germans weren't interested in most of that, but they did want a sworn statement that we will not employ nor associate with any scientologists! subject to immediate termination of the contract and return of german funds. -rishab
