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The Seismic Effect of Short Skirts


Given that the pall of volcanic ash had drifted over Europe for a week, grounding most commercial air traffic, I was just thinking that we hadn't heard any pronouncements from Pat "Rent-a-quote" Robertson or his ilk, telling us that this was a sign of God's wrath (perhaps if the wind had blown the ash over the US rather than over Europe it would have registered), when I came across this reference to a report by the Association of Orthodox Experts. According to them this is a "menacing sign of God" caused either by the fact that Iceland is a centre of Aryan neo-paganism or/and the hoary old issue of homosexuality.
However as William Crawley pointed out on his blog a couple of days ago, it is not just fundamentalist Christians who offer such supernatural analyses of natural disasters. Last Friday, Islamic cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, told worshippers in Tehran that the all-too-frequent earthquakes in Iran were down to the immodest dress of women there.

A couple of days ago my wife, who is a woman of the world not easily given over to Daily Mail-esque rants about "young people today" came home shocked at the length of skirt worn by 2 girls in the school uniform of a local girls grammar school. As a married, middle aged man with fully functioning hormones I do not need such things pointed out... in fact I do my level best NOT to notice them... But if this Muslim cleric is right, then I expect Northern ireland to be wiped off the map by a massive earthquake/ volcano/ hurricane/ tornado/ flood/ asteroid or combination of all of these any day now...
But over at FaithinIreland Patrick Mitchel points out that at least one archaeologist believes that a previous volcanic eruption may have brought about the wholesale Christianisation of Ireland (its only slightly less believable than some of the St. Patrick legends)... So you never know the repercussions of a grammar school girl in a short skirt.

ps. Scotteriology highlights a proposed experiment to test out the theory of the above mentioned Muslim cleric...





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