In one state of India, the recently elected Hindu government has been trialling a novel version of the US “three strikes” law for those who harass or commit violence against other religions. After one offence (unless the offence is very serious), perpetrators receive a warning; after the third offence, they are taken to court with a recommendation that they receive the maximum sentence for that offence. But the innovation comes after the second offence; their victims are asked to decide what penalty their oppressors should receive, ranging from nothing to the full recommended sentence for that offence. Statistics show that Christian groups have shown remarkable forbearance. The most common request from Christians is for a community service sentence to be imposed instead of a jail sentence. But more unusual requests include requesting that the perpetrator be fined the maximum allowed by law, and then raising the money to pay the fine from the church community; freeing a perpetrator from all punishment and also giving him a large gift of money and possessions; and, in one case where an orphaned Hindu youth killed a Christian youth, the parents adopted the Hindu youth into their family. A spokesman for the local Christian community said, “We thank God for this opportunity to demonstrate the love that Christ has shown us to others.”
David Cameron has announced that the UK Government will be promoting a “conscience clause” as an amendment to the Equality Act. The clause will be similar to the one recently proposed in Northern Ireland, requiring ‘reasonable accommodation’ of religious or other beliefs. The proposal is being seen by critics as an olive branch to opponents of gay marriage before the General Election; while gay marriage legislation is not affected, the Equality Act has frequently been used against those who expressed their opposition to gay marriage, or even against those who have failed to demonstrate active support to gay marriage. Critics say that this will undermine equality, but supporters say that an Equality Act which lists ‘protected’ groups as more equal than others doesn’t support equality anyway, and quote Milton Friedman saying, “A society that puts equality above freedom gets neither.”
Also in Parliament, a Private Member’s Bill to lessen the severity of restrictions on welfare benefits has been passed with support from Labour, Liberal Democrat, and even some rebel Tory MPs. Under the new Bill, anyone whose benefits are sanctioned (i.e. withdrawn because they have failed to meet certain conditions) must be given a month’s notice that their benefits are to be withdrawn, rather than having it happen immediately. A Tory MP who supported the Bill said, “This Government is trying to modify the benefits system to help people be ready for employment. Any respectable employer gives employees at least a month’s notice with pay rather than firing them immediately.” The Bill also introduces an appeal system against benefit sanctions, and modifies the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2013 (which withdrew legal aid from most welfare benefit cases) to offer legal aid to a new online form-based appeal system. A spokesman for the Citizen’s Advice Bureau said, “We welcome this new system. The form is designed to be completed by paralegal staff in law firms, which will not only make sure that the appeals submitted are realistic and reasonably well drafted, but will also provide some employment, albeit low-paid, for the high number of law students who graduate every year only to find there are insufficient jobs available in the field.”
Following the success of the Ig Nobel prizes for daft research and the Darwin Awards for people who have accidentally killed themselves in creative ways, a group of UK bloggers have instituted the Pullover prize for bad journalism. The prizes celebrate all that is bad in truth, logic, and taste in journalism; winners get a sweater with arrows pointing in four directions, labelled “Truth”, “Logic”, “Taste”, and “Us”. The two big … umm … winners this year were the Daily Mail and the Independent. The Mail’s awards included the Bad Taste Photo Caption award for “ISIS chief executioner winning hearts with his rugged looks”. The Independent’s collection included the Foreign Political Bias award for an article at the height of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, just after the BBC had reported Palestinian accusations of Israeli violence but, unusually, had also reported Israeli accusations of Palestinians faking atrocities; the article called for a “return to balanced reporting by the BBC.” A spokesman for the bloggers said, “We had thought of making the prize a knitted hat rather than a pullover, but none of us could agree how big the hat should be to fit some of these journalists’ heads.”
A Christian IT programmer in the UK has created a program that automatically lobbies MPs for religious freedom. Users simply provide the email address of their MP and their own name and address; the program then creates email messages to MPs asking them to act on issues affecting religion in public life. The program uses various different phrases to make sure that MPs do not get several similarly worded emails. When asked how the program selects issues to lobby on, the programmer said, “All it does is monitors the website of the National Secular Society. If their website posts an issue that they are lobbying on, the program copies it, and changes the language around to lobby for the opposite outcome.”
And finally, a physicist has claimed that new theories of quantum physics contradict the widely accepted theory that Santa Claus could not possibly exist, because the speed he’d have to travel at and the huge weight of presents would cause him and his sleigh to burn up in the atmosphere in a fraction of a second. Quantum theory asserts that no-one can know both how fast a quantum object is travelling and also where it is, but claims that until the uncertainty is resolved, it could be travelling at immeasurable speeds. The physicist reasoned that, as long as Santa knows how fast he has to go, he can achieve whatever speed he likes as long as he doesn’t know exactly where he is. However, if the reindeer know where they are but not how fast they are going, then the sleigh can achieve quantum speeds to get around the world in the required time, and still land in the right places. However, this theory still doesn’t account for the 4,000 tonnes of mince pie or the 4 million litres of milk or whisky that Santa apparently consumes during his trip.
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