The huge rock, dubbed YU55, will pass within 201,700 miles of our planet in November.
The best times to view it will be between 23:28 on 8 November and 07:13 on 9 November (UK time).
Okay, not the most romantic of names for something that will no doubt be spectacular in the sky, but nonetheless, I have no doubt it will be a sight to behold.
Today's a voting day in the UK yet again. However, unlike voting for who you want to stay in the Big Brother house, who to get to the next stage of Britain's Got Talent or who you want to watch on Eurovision (which is next week, for those who like their annual dosage of high octane cheesy pop like yours truly), voting on the AV Referendum isn't as rivetting or as popular.
I have to admit, I was a little floundered myself by the whole thing when I first heard it. New voting system? What's wrong with the old one? HOW does the new system actually work? Research was a little touch and go for me because I have to admit, voting does bore me a little bit. Okay, a lot. But then my Dad's words popped into my head - If you had the chance to vote and didn't take it, you have no room to complain if you don't like the end result. So I decided to take a little time out today to read up on the alternate voting system. At the moment, the current voting system is First Past The Post, which is basically whoever gets the most votes in. It's not entirely flawed - it's direct, it's simple, it ensures one clear winner.
Or does it?
After all, if you only get one vote, but you vote for an unpopular person, then you'll have to make do with the knowledge your voice wasn't heard and someone you probably really didn't want in power gets in. There is a sense of "tough luck" about it and having to put up with someone else's decision trumping yours. It's also flawed in that if there's no single clear victor, then the Government has to go into a coalition like is has at the moment with David Cameron of the Conservatives and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats. People thought this was a good thing initially - even though David Cameron is the Prime Minister, Nick Clegg could still speak up for the Lib Dem voters and get some of his policies through, right? Not so - Clegg has unfortunately proven he hasn't a backbone when placed next to Cameron. His policies have been watered down to near enough non-existance, his own supporters have lost faith in him and he's become a bit of a joke as a deputy PM.
On the other hand, the new vote system being proposed is a numbering system that sounds complicated at first, but only if you don't concentrate. The MP you most want in power is labelled as "1", your second choice as "2" and so on. And you needn't number all of them, just the ones you support the most in the order of your own preference. Then those first choice votes get counted up. If one person gets 50% or more of the first choice votes, they get in. If there's no such clear winner, then the person who gets got the least is eliminated and using the wonderful tool known as maths, you distribute the remainder 2nd, 3rd etc votes to their respective MPs. This process continues until one person clearly comes out on top. In theory, it means the end of coalition governments and extremist groups like the BNP won't even have a look in. It's also been said though that it was only an excuse for Nick Clegg to ensure a victory for his party next election. But to the people who say this, I ask this - wouldn't his party only get a victory if he gets a lot more second choice votes as well? And it's not entirely a bad thing. If you don't want him to be in with a chance at all, just don't put him down as your second or third choice, or as a choice at all. You still have a say in that, after all.
Some people have complained this system is unneccessarily complicated, but is it? I admit I found it a little confusing at first but that was down to the poor explanations I came across. I probably haven't explained it all that well either myself. Though I did draw parallels to one system that's in popular use at least once a year in Europe.
(Side note: I have grown rather fond of Graham Norton's commentary - he's a good step from Terry Wogan.)
See, not honestly that hard at all when you think about it. And if someone is obviously popular, then they will win anyway. The least popular ones still won't get in. And you can still sit well in the knowledge that even if your first choice didn't win, your second choice might. And isn't it better than letting your last choice get in at all?
As you will have no doubt heard, one of the most high profile criminals in the world has been killed in Pakistan. Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda and the man behind the deaths of hundreds of innocents, was shot dead in his compound during a US raid on his home. When I first heard the news yesterday morning before work, I felt some grim satisfaction about it. The world can heal a little bit more now that there is one less madman killing in the name of some ill-placed ideal and expert manipulation. However, as the news broke through the day as I was listening to the radio, I felt a different grim sickness in my stomach.
Yes, Osama bin Laden was a vile, evil man with no compassion for fellow human beings. Yes, he killed without hesitation. Yes, he made many many lives miserable. But is his death really a cause for celebration? A lot of people, most of them being American, seem to think so. The raucous cheers of joy from the streets of New York and the noise of jubilation was something akin to a street party. Is it really right that we celebrate the death of another human being? People have been saying that justice has been done, but wouldn't a better practice of civilised justice be to bring him to trial in a court of law, to judge him in front of millions and hold him accountable for his crimes? It was good enough for Saddam Hussein, why isn't it good enough for Osama bin Laden? A lot of people seem to believe that making him stand in court would be too humane, but wouldn't it be a better example to him? Why should we stoop to his level and regress to barbarians? We should be better than that. We are better than that.
I have said this a lot to people in the past 24+ hours, but it still holds true to me - death should never be celebrated. Death should never be "right". Sometimes necessary, but never right.
Religion is often an inspiration for people to do good in the world - a ready moral compass for some. For others, religion is nothing more than a mask - a horrible, mangled mess of a facade to hide their cruel and heinous behaviour behind. It's an easy tool for the spiritually immoral to wave around and manipulate those who are scared or weak-minded to do the bidding of those less scrupulous people.
It doesn't strike me as too odd that this story came out of Africa, but nonetheless, I am in shock that a community in South Africa allowed such an incredible monster into their midst. Paseka Mbhoro Motsoeneng claims to be a prophet, a son of God and performs "demon banishing rituals" in his Incredible Happenings Church. The explicit stories that reporters have bourne witness to and subsequently reported have done nothing but leave an uneasy sickly feeling in my gut.
Sitting on the lap of a female congregant, Motsoeneng placed his hand on the head of a 17 year-old teen, who cannot be identified due to her age, and started praying for her.
Motsoeneng told the congregants her tummy had swelled up because some sorcerers had cast an evil spell on her.
As he was praying for her she collapsed. Motsoeneng then told the teenager, who was lying on her back, to open her legs, which she did.
He then plunged his fingers into her private parts and started moving his fingers inside her vagina.
There's just no words for this. But wait, there's more!
Part way through this ridiculous farce, another woman brought and fed him ice cream. So, he's sat in the lap of one woman, fingering a teenage girl and being fed ice cream by another woman. This scene would probably have made a straight-to-dvd movie in a sex shop somewhere, but no, this was one man claiming to wield divine power when he's really just getting his rocks off. And all the more unfortunate for the poor girl being sexually assaulted, the ordeal isn't over.
He then invited a woman he said was a “medical doctor” and whom he called Zozo to examine the teen.
“This is a qualified doctor who will tell us what the problem is with this woman,” he said.
By this time a group of female congregants had draped her lower body with what looked like a towel and surrounded her to prevent voyeuristic people from seeing her private parts.
“Dr” Zozo then inserted what she said was pregnancy test apparatus into the girl’s vagina, with Motsoeneng looking on.
“The pregnancy tests came out positive. She is pregnant. I could also feel the limbs of the foetus,” Zozo announced .
Pregnant? This girl needs a PROPER medical professional, a hospital and a clean and safe environment AWAY from this monster's grasp. But unfortunately, what happened next is all the more sickening and tragic.
As Zozo was leaving the scene, Motsoeneng screamed: “Zozo, she is bleeding and her tummy has subsided.”
Zozo went back to inspect her before she rushed outside. She then came back wearing gloves and holding a pregnancy test kit.
She inserted them into the teen’s vagina and took them out.
She announced: “Now the kit shows neither positive nor negative results.”
Motsoeneng chimed in: “It is because she was sleeping with an animal.”
~~~
Motsoeneng then asked a women(sic) to fetch a bucket.
The young lass was then lifted from the ground and made to sit on the bucket with her legs wide open, bleeding profusely, while Motsoeneng looked on.
Let that sink in.
This horrendous monster, this scum of humanity, stood by and watched as a poor girl miscarried in front of an entire congregation, offering no help, no real medical expertise or heck, even any hint of sympathy. Even more amazingly, the same girl appeared on his TV show a fortnight later with two stones, claiming she had given birth to them, when no such thing even happened! I don't know which is more incredible, the fact Motsoeneng was able to get away with such deplorable behaviour, or that the girl went along with his scheme.
This girl wasn't his only victim - he also "helped" a woman have better sex with her husband by feeling her up in front of him (but it's okay, the hand he used was sprinkled with holy water!) and also accused another girl of being a Satanist (the girl was spared expulsion after pleading from the congregation, but not until after he ordered her vagina be checked if it was wet. How that became grounds for Satanism, I cannot fathom.)
It completely and utterly blows me away how this filth could get away with these crimes in front of EVERYONE - it's sexual and indecent assault. It's deplorable, it's despicable and it's WRONG. But because he's hiding behind religion and manipulating the weaker wills of everyone else, it's okay, because he's sent from God to help them. I can only hope these people will one day wake up to the monster in their midst.
I'll be the first to put my hand up to admit that I used to be quite the poster of chain statuses on Facebook. Back in the day, I also used to be prolific in sending out SPAM to people in the form of chain emails. Now, I look at some of them and my face meets my palm.
One that's cropped up in my feed at the moment is this old gem:
All of us have a thousand wishes. To be thinner, to be bigger, have more money, have a cool car, a day off, a new phone, to date the person of your dreams. A cancer patient only has one wish, to kick cancer's ass. I know that 97% of you won't post this as your status, but my friends will be the 3% that do. In honor of someone who died, or is fighting cancer, or even had cancer, post this for at least a day..
Yes, it's one I myself posted as a status; after all, I knew people who suffered with cancer in various forms, why shouldn't I show my support? Nowadays though, these kinds of statuses annoy me. First off, the so called statistic. I didn't repost the status on my Wall when I saw it - does that mean that the original person doesn't regard me as a true "friend"? Does it make me a terrible person because it means I don't support or "honour" the struggle against cancer? Not at all - just because I don't copy and paste a few words or forward an email doesn't make me any less of a person. I still support those who suffer from this horrible disease. I hug them when they're upset. I donate to the charities and buy from their shops. I think of my Oma and remember the stories my dad would tell me about her and her fight. Does the lack of being a link in a spam chain make me less of a supporter?
I should hope not.
Edit: Not long after posting this, I find another one in my feed.
It has been said that everlasting friends go long periods of time without speaking and never question the friendship. These friends pick up like they just spoke yesterday, regardless of how long it has been or how far away they live, and they don't hold grudges. They understand that life is busy and you will ALWAYS love them. Re-post if you have at least 1 of these friends. They will know who they are.......
If that's so, they'll understand why I didn't repost it eiter.
