Is Oprah proof of God or like religion has she had her day?

Here at Faults we don’t like to appear closed minded. So occasionally we have to give a token gesture to the other side. We decided to discuss whether the case of a woman who rose from rags to riches simply by being a good person is proof of God or that we should just quit while we are ahead.

Sharon: Oprah has achieved many things some may even say she is an inspiration but that doesn’t change the fact that she should have stopped the Oprah Winfrey chat show back in 1998 when she received her lifetime achievement award.

Dom: Sharon, the people still need her.

But after that it was mainly DIY and makeover shows; do the viewers really need to know how to put up a shelf?

What about her book club she got people reading and some of those books were pretty good?

That’s a good point what books did she recommend that you enjoyed?

I don’t have one that springs to mind. ‘The Reader’ has some major flaws but it’s not all together a bad book.

Ok as much as I would love to spend my life talking about Oprah and her library of books, what about the point that she is now a bigger celebrity than most, if not all of her guests. When she started she was the peoples’ champ, we all could relate to her in some way. Now she is too busy worrying about offending her guests and then not being invited to the latest charity event. It’s a love in. Her show is about as ’real’ as the Oscars, with as penetrating an interview technique as Johnathan Ross’ interviews with his best mate in show-business Ricky Gervais.

Some of her recent interviews are the most infamous like the Tom Cruise. She asked him If he loved his fiancee and he jumped around on the furniture with his shoes still on, shouting “yes I’m in love” now if that doesn’t encapsulate the modern celebrity I don’t know what does. Plus her celebrities are being stalked, hunted, starved and exposed, more often than not the warm honey of Oprah’s voice is the only sugar they got that day.

Firstly what did Oprah actually do in that interview: she asked one simple question and that’s the response she got, proving something we already knew about Tom cruise, that he is crazy . Secondly sorry if I don’t feel sorry for all those celebrities with all their money going on Oprah to sell their many products. It’s no longer about interviewing there is so much product placement it’s more like watching a shopping channel. She also sold out politically because she always said that she would remain impartial that was until Obama came along and she had a chance to be involved in politics. What’s next for Oprah, starting her own religion?

I’m glad she stepped out and stepped up for Obama but if she invents her own religion she really will prove there is no god

The Three Blind Mice

Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg are lost side-kicks in search of missing leaders.
British politics has become a battle between three blind leaders and their short sighted parties.

Tony Blair was to New Labour what Captain Kirk was to Star Trek, which makes Gordon Brown rather like Scotty. Kirk, like Blair, had a dashing yet casual style of government, and a perfect haircut. Either by charming the pants off foreigners or bravely leading boarding parties in reckless planetary invasions Blair and Kirk were brothers from another mother. Scotty meanwhile would answer every request from his Captain with an obstructing negative; ‘she won’t hold.’ You can picture him, or Brown, skulking around the dark engine room muttering to himself in the third person about how ‘it should have been Scotty.’ Without Blair New labour appears to have no bold plans to go anywhere. Not so much a sinking ship as a kind of reverse Marie Celeste; the mystery being why they’re all still on board. Their last claim to cult status left the big tent he created saying he was going for a walk and might be some time. Of course back then the political weather was only slightly overcast. Blair wasn’t doing a Captain Oates but Labour is now left freezing in what looks to be a long winter of discontent.
So enter the Tories right on cue. Like the sympathetic face of a sinister repo firm David Cameron intends to re-claim on a government that over-borrowed. In fact he’s already wearing Blair’s clothes, copying his shallow style while retaining none of his depth. Every time you see Cameron you half expect the writing underneath to simply detail the price of every item he’s wearing. When under any pressure Cameron cracks, reverting to the old political hacks trick of telling you not to trust the other side. Every time Cameron attempts to address the problems in his own party he seems to annoy everyone, just take a look at the old grammar school row or their relationships on Europe. Half the party want into Europe and half will sleep with semi-fascists to get out. His job is to be more bandage than man. A walking haircut sent in to hold the wounds of the Tory body politic together and in shot, long enough for their moment in history to be taken. His best comparison is with Poirot’s side-kick Captain Hastings. In looks and manner Cameron is reminiscent of that good-natured buffoon in the ITV series. The best you can say of Captain Hastings is that you don’t actually suspect him of committing the murder. This modest but no doubt important quality in a leader is an improvement on previous Tory offerings. But where is the moderniser with the iron and passion of Thatcher. Of course there isn’t one because for that you need to hold the project closer to your heart than your career prospects. It will be awhile before a young Tory cares as much about libertarianism and liberalism as Thatcher did about breaking the unions. For all the mistakes she made, they were her mistakes, not the result of incanting a shibboleth to get into power.
Then we have Nick Clegg trailing behind in every poll that remembered to put him in. He is really a side-kick to the other two. Clegg is a geography teacher that would under-whelm a class of year nines. As a national leader he seems faintly delusional. At his party conference he said he wanted to be Prime Minister. His party were so shocked he had to say it again. Like Robin in Batman films, he’s never missed when absent.

Mutually Assured Destruction

America and North Korea are technically still at war. It has been boiled down from a live conflict that cost tens of thousands of lives in the 1950's to your basic post cold war nuclear stand off mine fields for borders kind of thing. The acronym for a nuclear stand off is M.A.D {see title}. The principle doesn't work if one of the actors in this stalemate actually is mad which is not good news considering that the North Korean President Kim Jong I11 boasts of retiring from golf after getting a hole in one for every hole on his first round. Now that's what I call crazy golf. On top of this the old cold war conflict is heating up again. Hilary Clinton fired a back hander across the bows at a meeting of foreign ministers in Thailand in response to recent nuclear testing from North Korea.

" Maybe it's... the experience that I've had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention - don't give it to them, they don't deserve it, they are acting out". she said.

If she seems blase about another batch of nuclear bombs in the world remember her nation do have over ten thousand of them, Naturally the North Korean ministry of insults had to strike back.

"Her words suggest that she is by no means intelligent. We cannot but regard Mrs Clinton as a funny lady....... Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping.

If the boys at the insult ministry seem to be losing their touch remember they are working to tough quotas on a daily basis. Specifically on the South Korean President, Lee Myung Bak. A report by the Seoul Government recorded that Mr Lee was personally insulted by Pyongyang 1,705 times from the start of the year to June 22: an average of 9.9 times a day compared with 7.9 times daily last year.

The most interesting aspect of this story is that the South Koreans have been recording all these insults and compiling a report on the subject. Why? and what will happen when they get 2000 is Lee Myung Bak finally going to break down and cry. He has feelings you know.

Round up of Strange News

Making use of the element of surprise and the unexpected was a theme in today’s international news. David Milliband MP, the British Foreign Minister, who has absolutely no military experience whatsoever, was used by the administration to make a comment on morning T.V. with regards military strategy. This bold move was followed by the even bolder comment that equipment was not the answer in Afghanistan. He stated that: ‘We’re not going to be able to do our mission in Afghanistan through tanks and helicopters alone.’’ Unfortunately the British government are also sending fewer troops than the army requested so they probably won’t be able to ‘do’ the mission with troops either. So if you take out equipment and troops…. you’re left with rations. Force feeding the enemy is a somewhat surprising tactic for a military offensive but.. British food being what it is?

One military that will be relieved to hear that equipment is not the answer is the Indian. After a deregulation on equipment purchase rules the Indian army have invested in ‘Dhruv helicopters that can fly to a height of only 5,000 metres (16,400ft) — well short of the 6,500 metres required to patrol the Himalayan battlefields. Thousands of Russian-made heavy artillery shells that do not fire… and the Northern Command, which oversees Kashmir, bought stretchers that were unsuitable for evacuating combat casualties.’A stretcher unsuitable for evacuating combat casualties really is a bit of a lemon, I guess they can always be used as hammocks in peace time. I would say that someone saw them coming but that surely is not possible as the Indian army also spent ‘10 million rupees (£127,000) on silent reconnaissance vehicles for missions beyond enemy lines’. Unfortunately it was revealed that these were in fact ‘22 golf buggies, several of which were deployed to patrol the army’s Shivalik Golf Course in Chandigarh.’ Yes well…there is a daring logic here after all if you are doing reconnaissance behind enemy lines the last thing they will expect is for you to turn up in a golf buggy.

Speaking of unexpected Trojan horses. ‘He was here because he thought this was the last place they would look for him,"said Sabine Haddad, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Interior Ministry. She was of course referring to Micky Mayon and American neo-nazi and suspected member of the Klu Klux Klan who had gone to Tel Aviv on the lamb. Apparently he had already been kicked out of the N.A.A.C.P. central office, for loitering. Why he didn’t stick with the traditional under a white sheet surrounded by lots of the people under white sheets tactic for hiding, employed by cowardly, pathetic, impotent American racists for centuries is still a mystery however racists aren’t famous for their intelligence, surprisingly.

Finally a man named Hogg who breeds… pigs…. of all things, has got so tired of waiting for the Irish Department of Agriculture to pay him compensation after he had to destroy a contaminated herd last year that he is doing the last thing they expected. He is suing himself. Actually he is suing his own firm to be precise. You see Hogg owns Hogg’s Hogs. Hogg’s Hogs bought feed from, well I think their called ‘The Hogg Feed Company that Hogg’s Hogs Feed On Ltd.’ Anyway this feed company is also owned by Hogg and he is suing them because they, that is he, sold him, that is he himself, a batch of feed that contaminated the hogs at Hogg’s Hogs and therefore they, that is he, is guilty of breach of contract, to himself. In this way he imagines he will get the compensation he so richly deserves, though somehow not from himself. Anyway the upshot is Hogg believes the ministry are playing ‘hardball’ and so he decided to play hardball back although now it kind of looks like he is just playing with himself.

All news stories courtesy of The Times.

News

Television has long been attacked by the great and good for shortening attention spans, morphing peoples’ eyes into a square shapes {no evidence} and one channel has even been accused by American singer Beck as making him want to smoke crack, of course even crack makes you want to smoke crack so I don’t see his point. Now the Indian Health and Family Welfare Minister claims that it can not only be used to ruin society but indeed to end it, or at least slow it down in the rural areas of India. Yes with the risk of doing himself or rather his successor out of a job the Family Welfare Minister believes late night T.V. is the answer to having fewer families. The Minister Mr Azad, insists : If there is electricity in every village, then people will watch TV till late at night and then fall asleep. They won’t get a chance to produce children,”
Obviously he’s not a morning person. Mr Azad went on to say: “Don’t think that I am saying this in a lighter vein. I am serious. TV will have a great impact. It’s a great medium to tackle the problem . . . 80 per cent of population growth can be reduced through TV.”
Where he gets the figure of 80% from is a mystery. Presumbably he believes 8 out ten conceptions are the result of people having nothing better to do and I thought it was more like 100%.

The Human Body. Part 1 The Smell;

"Deodorant research, its the pits" says nobel prize winner


Most living organisms give off a smell whether intentionally or unintentionally. Some animals use scent as an aid to sexual courtship, some use it as a deterrent to predators. The human being is possibly uniquely cursed in nature by having a smell that is an aid to predators and a deterrent to sexual courtship. Humans greatly dislike the smell of other humans and to a lesser extent themselves.

The secretion known as sweat is one of the body’s main tools to regulate its temperature. When sweat evaporates from the skin it removes excess heat. When bacteria on the skin and hair metabolise the proteins and fatty acids in sweat they produce an unpleasant odour. As a result of finding the odour this secretion gives off completely repellent, humans are obliged by social understanding and indeed by law in the American state of Mississippi to keep up a sufficient level of personal hygiene and scent application. As almost any physical activity results in this secretion also known as ‘sweat’ being released this process of washing and scenting is a constant and thankless struggle. It is however essential. In going to work and from work and working human beings will invariably be in close proximity with other humans. If the scent of a person’s body odour is detected in a closed environment it can cause other humans to experience huge discomfort. Firstly their eyes may water, a simulation of the crying technique humans employ to show real misery, the human may then start to feel weak and light headed and start to gasp oxygen into the system erratically as if trying to stock up on any clean air that may be left in their vicinity. If the scent is combined with gas emissions from other human orifices, a highly likely event given the amount of gas humans have to expel on a regular basis, this can make the other humans in the bus/train/office feel physically ill, and disorientated close to the point of collapse. Note in any group of humans larger than say 10 it is quite likely that at least one in the group has a particularly strong odour. It is possible this person is unaware of how badly their stench affects those around them having become somewhat immune to its effects, this only compounds the problem they create and such people must be avoided in closed environments at all costs.
As nose and mouth are the only means of inhaling oxygen, the human body has no means of blocking out unwanted air borne stenches for any serious length of time. The only question is in which way they should enter the body.

Coping Strategies:

Breathe through your mouth.

Avoid large and overweight humans as they secrete more sweat than others in general.

Avoid using public conveyances on a hot day; as sweat is used to cool the body more of it will be created in hot temperatures.

Carry a hand towel and deodorant with you everywhere you go to remove the smell of your own odour and also carry a gas mask about your person to filter your inhalation of oxygen to remove the smell of others.

Irreparably damage your nose in order to remove your sense of smell completely. Note while the sense of smell is rarely a benefit or necessary to humans it is a major component of their sense of taste which can be extremely pleasurable and useful and so this method would by and large be very counterproductive.

The Three Age Groups

Getting old does funny things to a man


Human beings have many arbitrary forms of allegiance one of them is age. It can be so important to an individual’s identity to be different from the other generations that in some circumstances they would be horrified to be even seen in company with them. There are three main age groups.

The young age 0-25: they live in denial about death, are in a constant state of rebellion and discovery and have very little hard work to do, thus their amazing capacity for sitting around taking brain retarding drugs and generally misbehaving. Their main contribution to society comes from this unofficial medical and psychological research.

The workers age 25-65: they are often too busy to think about death because they have to work for material gain to support themselves and the lifestyles of the young and the old. This task is admittedly made slightly easier by the design of making old age a second childhood. If a worker is spoon feeding their child they might as well be spoon feeding their elderly parent at the same time.

The old age 65 and onwards: they do not have to do any work anymore. Nonetheless they are so depressed by what their children have done to the world they created they often look like they would happily fall down and die at any moment and are only staying alive out of pure stubbornness. They are characterized by a belief that society is getting slowly worse and worse, a belief that all stories about the past no matter how obscure or pointless are very interesting and a cast iron refusal to try any new food dishes, especially foreign ones.

Cities

Humans either live in the country or the city. The country has lots of animals to stroke and eat and plenty of green, open spaces. The city also has lots of animals, unfortunately you cant eat or stroke any of them because they are vermin; rats and mice that carry disease and break into your house to steal food, or Pigeons who hang around in gangs in public places preying on naive tourists. Also unlike the country the city does not have many open spaces or pleasant greens. Possibly to make up for this fact city dwellers are obsessed with knocking down the walls in a building and making it ‘open plan’. No city dweller worth their salt wants to work in an office that is not ‘open plan’ or has not considered having a wall in their home ‘knocked through’ at some point in their lives to make an ‘open plan’ kitchen. To be fair things can get pretty crowded in a one bedroom city flat once a rat has moved in and without removing at least one wall there is no way the two of you will be able to turn round in there.

Before cities were set up it was common for visiting armies to rampage through the country destroying crops, stealing livestock, burning down homes and being rude to strangers. Humans found that by grouping together in large numbers and erecting some form of defensive structure such as high walls around themselves, {possibly with a sign up saying ‘Vikings Not Welcome’} they were better able to defend themselves and thus created the city. However nowadays in times of war, what with missile and artillery technology, having a large group of humans packed together in one small place is one of the surest ways of getting a large group of humans killed in one go, another way is telling everyone in a city there is a sale on at their local IKEA.

Cities are also notorious for high crime levels. If you are being attacked in a city street yell ‘fire’ instead of ‘help’. If people hear ‘help’ they will assume that someone else will deal with the problem. If you yell ‘fire’ people will be curious to see the inferno. They will also see the problem as one that could directly affect them if unstopped. Note: if they do come running and find you are actually being attacked instead, this may be slightly awkward at first. Also note to get a city dweller to do anything there has to be something in it for them.

Cities were also intended to help with economic efficiency. They have had complete success with social efficiency as everyone in a city is now too busy to talk to anyone but financially it’s been more mixed. Some make fortunes in the city some live in poverty all their lives. Greater efficiency can mean greater unemployment, which when coupled with the increased access to drink and drugs can make some parts of the city pretty inefficient indeed.
If you are lucky enough you could use the cities resources to make a fortune and then move out. This is the classic English approach to their capital city of London. London is more like a geographical vortex than a city; no one knows where it begins or ends but people come from all over the world to London in the hope of earning enough money to live somewhere else. It has long been the attitude of the English that success is defined by a persons ability to live outside London and only go ‘to town’ under the most pressing of engagements.

Coping Strategies
Some people try to have the best of both worlds by ‘commuting’ i.e. living in the country and working in the city. In many cases this leads to the worst of both worlds and a feeling of being very, very tired all the time.

Queues- because sometimes life's not short enough.

In early times queues were seen as a novelty.


One of the most frustrating parts of everyday life on earth is the fact that humans will invariably have to stand one in front of the other in a line in order to receive goods, services, and carry out various business transactions. This process is called queuing. Humans also find that even moving from one place to another can lead to queues as other people will often be traveling in the same direction by the same means. Its incredible that despite the amount of technological and human resources dedicated to servicing humans needs instantaneously and no matter where a human may be going or what a human may be buying be it a pint, ice cream, or scuba diving gear they will inevitably not be the first person at that point in time on that day to have that idea. Even if the human is not there in person to queue they still often find themselves in a queue on the telephone or the Internet. There will be nothing for it but to form a queue and wait….and wait…

The queue takes on a social significance because it happens to everyone. Some societies pay closer attention to the unwritten rules of queuing than others but it is generally accepted by most humans that the queue should work on a first come, first served basis regardless of race, religion, creed or status.

For those societies that pay almost sacred regard to the law of the queue attempting to get served before a person who has been waiting a longer time than you is to imply that you are somehow a better, more worthy human being than them; their sexual, intellectual, physical and social superior. If a person accidentally obtains service before someone else who has been waiting longer they may be politely reminded of the queues order, they may be aggressively insulted as to the arrogance of their nature, or they may be completely unaware as they obtain said pint, ice cream or scuba diving gear that the person in the queue behind them would gladly see them choke on the pint or the ice cream or even help them choke on the scuba diving gear if there were fewer witnesses.

Coping strategies

• The best advice is to get their early or pre- book where ever possible.
• If you have the options it’s always best to queue in the comfort of your own home via Internet or telephone.
• Generally people find their elbows and arms in packed queues are good tools for queue burrowing.
• If the queue is taking place in person tall friends are good allies, but the best are beautiful blond women with large breasts, in fact just beautiful women in general have an immense power over the average queue.

Politics and Family - "But why?.... Because I said so"

'When it comes to a good game of musical chairs politicians never grow up.'
In order to deal with large problems humans find it necessary to form large groups. Unfortunately it’s impossible to get a group of humans to all agree on anything unless it’s how much they disagree with another group of humans. Many different systems of government have been used to try and compensate for this condition. None of them worked. So they tried democracy. As Churchill stated, quite literally, democracy is the worst form of government ever tried, except for all the others. If a large group needs to come to a decision then every member has a vote on what should happen or who should lead them and it is the opinion with the most votes that is put into action, therefore a unanimous decision is not necessary. The most essential elements to a modern democracy are;

1. Free and fair elections.

2. A free media so that the people who voted for the other side can complain and remind us of that fact ad nausea.

3. A rule of law that guarantees all those accused of any crime a fair trial, under law created by elected officials, exercised by a court and judge acting independently of those officials, operating with all citizens accountable and equal before it {except for the President or the Queen or Diplomats or people who can afford much better lawyers than everyone else or.., well as stated the systems not perfect yet}.

If democracy is the best method humans have found for running a society the best method they have found for raising their children to prepare them for such a society is anything but democratic.

This is an actual transcript of a parent child conversation.

Parent: Didn’t I say you had to be back by nine?

Child: But I am only half an hour late.

Parent: Nine means nine.

Child: But all my friends are allowed out till ten.Parent: Well you’re not so I’m afraid you’re grounded for tomorrow night now go to you’re room without dinner.

Of course in a fair trial a person cannot be prosecuted or judged by their parents and yet as we see here parenting actually consists of very little else. It’s nearly all a process of prosecution and judgment. ‘What are you up to? Where are you going? What are you doing with that?’ These are the prosecuting questions children hear all the time followed by the summary judgements; ‘Get down. Get up. Get out. Put that down. Go to your room. Stop it. Be quiet.’ and we allow this desecration of jurisprudence and silence of free speech to take place in family homes on a daily basis. As if that were not bad enough the parent in question is both prosecution and judge and will often pronounce an arbitrary punishment that is both cruel and {outside the confines of the family} unusual. Not even murderers are sent to their punishment without dinner, even if it is their last meal. Attempts at mitigation and appeals to the democratic majority of their friends are useless for the child. What’s more the child is never offered a professional defense counsel who could represent them in an argument or ask for an out of home settlement. The child more often than not is forced to admit their guilt in this show trial against the blackmail of further punishment and only offered the ultimate solipsism as explanation: ‘Because I said so.’

Coping Strategies: A child can now divorce their parents and apply to a court to have their status as legal guardians removed making the child a ward of the state or the court until suitable arrangement can be made. This really should be a last resort by desperate children and yet is more commonly used as a first resort by greedy child stars that want all their money for themselves.