Nnnyeah, so I have a feeling one bit or another of today's commentary will get me flamed. Nevertheless, rants away and damn the torpedoes!

My Action Moses came with more plastic bulrush lasers than yours!

Know why Transformers and so on are more popular than Bible action figures? Cannier marketing yes, but also... Characterisation. Storytelling. The more I read about the bible, the more I realise how nonsensical it all is.¹ That is, I knew the beliefs and reasoning were nonsensical to me, but never realised the narrative was too. Never mind the simplistic religious-right good-vs-evil claptrap; they'll have had to read very selectively indeed to ignore all the times innocent people arbitrarily get murdered and mutilated, the questionably guilty get punished out of all sane proportion, god's chosen get cursed for obeying god because nobody hired a continuity editor², etc. Maybe volume 2 makes more sense; I don't know, only having read Revelation. (Curiously anticlimactic.)

I'm cool with people who regard the bible as great (fictional) literature, but disagree. Historical and linguistic value only for me. But then, other people dislike Jane Austen and like LOTR, and I don't bomb them either. Clearly the OT isn't meant as any sort of moral lesson, it being so self-evidently morally contemptible, so I don't judge it on that basis.

¹ Same goes for Transformers, to be fair. However, when people try to affect the running of my country based on the claim that these shapeshifting robots are real and coming to Earth, then I'll bother with them as much as I do with the invisible magic friend squad. (If anyone has Decepticon Chick tracts, please share with the class!)
² <injoke> Kristin Voumard! </injoke>

US pigeons to get contraceptives

'Terrorist musical' under attack

Instantly makes me want to go and see it, of course. Laughing at these people is the best medicine — hence why I idolise Monkey Dust...

The first gene contributing to left-handedness, as well as some other stuff, has been found.

Obesity triggers the same sort of in-built disgust mechanism as disease.

"Human beings have been given powers of reason, so people can overcome the discrimination." (Dr Colin Waine, chairman of the National Obesity Forum).

Yes, but can I just put in that we lardarses also need to lose weight. Going the other way and fetishising fat is supremely unhelpful; this sort of thing frankly creeps me out, as does all brainless prejudice. (Horribly catchy, though.) Anyway. Yes, you stop demonising people with diseases, but you combine it with treatment.

And I would've said this before managing to lose a lot of weight, too. I never thought I was studly; I was just mired in enough depression not to care. (And I'm still obese if you go by height and weight, though not if you discount all the loose skin.)