Fist, this fantastically silly story from the Telegraph:

Satanist father and Christian mother fight for Sunday morning custody rights

Kristie Meyer has cited the religious beliefs of her former husband, Jamie, as the main reason why an Indiana judge should restrict his visitation rights. … However, legal experts have warned that the American Constitution prevents judges from showing a religious preference. …Mr Meyer may now be asked to prove that Satanism, which he says is about celebrating man’s desires rather than worshipping the devil, is a real faith.

Sounds to me like an eminently sensible faith, compared at least to Christianity.

Meanwhile, legal observers say his former wife may have to show that Satanism - which is recognised as a religion by the US Internal Revenue Service - is harmful to their daughters’ upbringing. Mrs Meyer has argued that her ex-husband’s public expression of satanic beliefs has embarrassed their children.

Can you really legislate on the basis that parents mustn’t embarrass their children?

Pat Roberts, her lawyer, has asked the judge to order Mr Meyer to drop off the children at his ex-wife’s church so they can attend with her during his visitation time. “Frankly, (it) can be emotionally damaging or confusing to children when they’re faced with these two different forms of worship,” Mr Roberts told the Chicago Tribune.

Yes, if you go around exposing children to alternative viewpoints, the indoctrination might not work. Honestly, I can’t see any other way of reading this.

… “Allowing them to go to church for a couple of hours on a Sunday morning is… not unreasonable.”

I think it is, but probably for a different reason. I hope that reason prevails in this case, and honestly I think it will.

Also, in case you missed it, here’s a comic I drew at Ghost Hamster.

Now, below the fold, some replies I sent to 419-scammers which the scammers did not respond to.

From: joanna_benz44@yahoo.com.hk
To: joanna_benz@yahoo.com

Greetings!

I have been waiting for you since to contact me for your Confirm able Bank Draft of $800.000.00 United States Dollars, but I did not hear from you since that time. Then I went and deposited the Draft with TNT COURIER SERVICE, West Africa, I travelled out of the country for some Months Course and I will not come back till the end of September.

What you have to do now is to contact the TNT COURIER SERVICE as soon as possible to know when they will deliver your package to you because of the expiring date. For your information,I have paid for the delivering Charge, Insurance premium and Clearance Certificate Fee of the Cheque showing that it is not a Drug Money or meant to sponsor Terrorist attack in your Country. You are advice to contact the courier services immediatey

Again, I would have paid for the Security Keeping fee but they refused because they said they don’t know when you will contact them and in case of demur rage. You have to contact the TNT COURIER SERVICE now for the delivery of your Draft with this information, All you have to do is contact or furnish TNT COURIER SERVICE with your identification for verification of the details there in their office: send them the following details

Names in full, ………….
Residential Address ……………
Telephone number, ……….

Contact Person: Mr. James Collins
Email Address: tnt_courierservices1@hotmail.com
Telephone:+234-803-296-6083

Contact them there and know when the Draft will get to your address, Let me repeat again, try to contact them as soon as you receive this mail to avoid any further delay and remember to pay them their Security Keeping fee of $285.00 US Dollars for their immediate action.

You should also let me know through email as soon as you receive your Draft.

Yours Faithfully,
Mrs. Joanna Benz

I replied

Mrs Benz

Are you sure it’s safe to contact a TNT courier? That sounds dangerous to me. What if it goes off?

Andrew

She ignored me.

From: donotreply@worldheinekenlottry.com
To: donotreply@worldheinekenlottry.com

HEINEKEN PROMOTIONAL GAMES
#54 SCHOOL GATE PLACE,STAMFORD BRIDGE,
LONDON,SW1V 3DW.
UNITED KINGDOM.

“Heineken Light Champions” Promotion Notification.

Dear Winner,

This is to inform you of the Award of Five Hundred Thousand Great Britain Pounds Sterling (£500,000 GBP) from Heineken Beer Company Promotions.

This promotional award is to raise the profile of Heineken beer males and females consumers aged 18 to 85 in rural and urban areas to support their spirit of Sportsmanship.

This promotion programme was successful through the help of our online built email lists which were generated through the World Wide Web (www) and Microsoft Network.

This promotion takes place annually to challenge and to take market shares from the popular Dutch import beer Heineken.

In this programme, the tactics includes live events, local campaigns and general buzz to establish the brand one neighborhood relationship at a time in major urban / rural areas to support the spirit of Sportsmanship.
Your Email falls within our United Kingdom booklet representative’s office.

In view of this, your award of Five Hundred Thousand Great Britain Pounds Sterling (£500,000 GBP) will be released to you by our offshore payment office in United Kingdom.

You are to contact your claim agent immediately upon the receipt of this email notification.

Dr. Maxwell Duke
London, United Kingdom
drmaxwellduke@worldheinekenlottery.com
Tel: + 44 704 578 4961

Your award verification number is: heineken/014/4474/08, Verification Pin Code: 001144UK.

You are to contact your claim agent with your above verification number and pin code for the release of your award.

Your claim agent will commence the process to facilitate the release of your funds as soon as you contact him.

Congratulations

Yours in service,

Mrs. Mary White
Promotional Secretary

Note: Do not reply directly to this email, contact your claim agent for release process.

I replied:

Dear Dr Duke,

This promotion is a good idea. Heineken currently has a poor profile here. Just a thought, though: have you tried making the beer taste better? It’s not cheap or widespread enough to compete with Fosters or Carling, but it’s not really nice enough to compete with Stella or Staropramen.

Also the branding and advertising doesn’t have a consistent message or feel to it. I’m surprised you even have £500,000 to give away.

Andrew

I got no answer.

I can’t help shake the feeling this would make a great T-shirt. (Or at least my hi-res version would.)

I looked up the lyrics on a website just to be sure. And it had Google ads, which offered to sell me almost all the items I’d lost. How lovely, in a misguided kind of a way.

Facebook, for those who aren’t members, is a “social networking” site. You make a page for yourself, then you add friends to your list. In that sense, it’s just like MySpace, but the difference is that MySpace is shit and Facebook is fantastic. MySpace gives you a little page to write on and a way to send messages, and a contact list, and that really is it. That’s just called “the Internet”. Google give me all that, with nicer layouts, and don’t try to play Slipknot at me every time I visit a page.

Facebook is more for Real Life Friends. If you tell Facebook you’ve got a new girlfriend then it’ll tell all your friends for you. And you can put your address and phone number on it and be sure only your friends can see them. It’s very useful, and it’s been great for my social life because I get invited to more things through Facebook. Mostly I think this is because it gives you a list of all your friends when you make an event and lets you choose who to invite. My last party I invited people I’d never have thought (or been able) to invite without it, and consequently had a fantastic time.

Some people say Facebook is a privacy concern. Some people are idiots. They’re mostly the same people who say Google are a privacy concern. (Not really sure why I’m hyperlinking Google, but it seems polite since I did MySpace and I hate them.)

I can see why people might be concerned about Google. They have all my emails, via Google Mail. Doubtless these contain my address, bank details and so forth somewhere. (They know my bank details anyway because I use AdWords, but let’s pretend I don’t.) They also know what things I’ve been searching for, my favourite websites (via Google Reader), my web history (if not by Google Web History then by AdWords tracking cookies), and so forth. And that concerns people.

I’ve never understood the problem with tracking cookies. They don’t know who you are; they just know that this particular computer has visited website A and website B, and if that lets them know that the person sat in front of it is more likely to want product A than product X then that’s good, surely? It means I’m more likely to see adverts for things I want, which is good for me as it lets me know about awesome things I might want to buy, and it’s good for the advertisers as it means they get more clicks, and it’s good for me as it means I have to see fewer adverts to keep my favourite sites in profit. Everyone wins, and nobody has any significant privacy concerns.

And sure, Google index all my emails, but all email providers do that. And sure, a computer scans them for advert-inspiring words, but it’s a computer. It can’t read; it just executes its little programme. The only valid concerns with any of Google’s services are what happens if they get hacked, and that they have the capability, just like all search engines, browser plugins, ISPs and email providers, to monitor your Internet use. But really, don’t you think they have better things to do than spy on strangers?

Much the same is true of Facebook. People say it’s creepy having all that information about yourself on the Internet, but it’s not really “on the Internet”, is it? It’s on one server, which nobody can access without your express permission. And Facebook only knows what you tell it, and only shares what you let it. If you know what you’re doing with Facebook then it’s of no concern, and if you don’t know what you’re doing with something, learn before you use it.

As some of you will know, I recently completed four years learning physics at university. As well as an MPhys, this has left me with three big boxfiles and several more big leverarch files full of a combination of notes and doodles. Some of those doodles are quite funny. Others were rubbish. Some of them you’ll understand. Some of them only I understand.

These are the ones everyone will get, or at least, everyone except the very stupid.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a scanner anymore. (That’s not true, last time I saw it, it was sat in the same cupboard as the boxfiles, but it’s not compatible with Windows XP, and that’s that.) So here is a selection of things I scanned at the time — mostly from the first year. The ones from later years are mostly better, but also far more dependant on you having been in most of my classes, which you weren’t.

These were the first ones I came up with, I think:

I like to think I’ve improved since I drew this.

TV22 is a play on TV21, who filmed Techno Games 2000.

Of course, they’re still mostly themed around whatever lecture I was in when I drew them.

This is based on Annie who sat next to me, and is four foot eleven. A few weeks ago she married Alex, another friend of mine who is five foot one. They make a great couple and they saved a few quid on little plastic people for the cake by standing on the top tier themselves.

Your guess s as good as mine on this chap.

Hamsters are funny.

I think there might be a Far Side cartoon along a very similar theme to this.

A lot of people don’t get this one. Nuts to those people.

When I drew the first frame of this I didn’t think it would ever have a second. Funny how these things work out sometimes.

Asking to phone a friend is never funny. Never.