Yes, these normally come out on a Sunday, its a bank holiday weekend, shoot me.

Mr. Hollande has won the French Presidential election. Interesting to say the least. Europe's response to the sovereign debt crisis has been steered up till now by a combined German-French policy. My. Hollande disagrees with this policy. Presuming local elections go his way next month and he is able to form a government and enact his policy, how will Europe fair. In my opinion very little will change. I think this because firstly, it doesn't matter what France says. Germany are too big and if they say austerity is the way to go then, tough luck Hollande. Secondly what is the alternative to austerity? The poorer countries don't have a sufficient tax base to simply raise taxes. The amount of inflation required to mitigate the debt would unfairly affect the other eurozone members. The debt is being serviced at too high an interest rate to just take on more of it. This leaves you with the final option of reducing government spending. Or as we like to call it these days, austerity.

Rupert Murdoch has been found "not fit" to run a company as large as News Corp. by a committee of MPs. Though unsurprisingly the Tories are remaining more neutral, given there links to News International, a subsidiary of News Corp., who still run several influential papers here in the U.K. It does lead me to wonder, now that this inquiry is over, what the police will do. Is a member of the board going to be arrested? I will not be at all sad to see any demise of Murdoch's business. Though this whole state of affairs has brought to surface a debate of how influential the major media outlets are in swaying public opinion and thus governmental policies. Are we truly in a democracy, or are we just pawns in a much more sinister game?

Russia has threatened to make pre-emptive strikes against U.S. missile shield facilities. These aren't what you may conventionally called a shield. They are missile bases located in strategic places around the globe. They contain short-range missiles which are faster than the ICBMs which would be used against the U.S. and are meant to strike the ICBM mid flight. Detonating it harmlessly in the air. Russia are annoyed at a planned new shield site to be located in central Europe. The idea being that these missiles would be close enough to either attack Russia directly, or intercept Russian missiles targeting someone other than America. This could compromise Russia's defence capabilities, leaving them at America's mercy. I'm not sure if this would be a good or bad thing. It raises tensions, but gives the U.S. a major strategic advantage if the shit does hit the fan.

The Independent has brought to light horrifying statistics on the slaughter rate of Rhinos. There is now a legitimate fear of them going extinct within a generation. The astonishing kill rate of rhinos is primarily for their horns. Demand in Vietnam sky-rocketing due to a belief that the horn can cure cancer! I don't know what we can do about the risk of Rhino extinction. I wish I did.

The Vatican has backed a high ranked catholic priest in Ireland, who failed to protect child abuse victims. He knew the molestation was going on, he knew who was involved, and he didn't report anything to the police. What a horrible person. I don't care how your morality is formulated, if you allow children to have their innocence violated, your morality is wrong. Then the Vatican has the nerve to support this enabler. It's disgusting. How the Vatican are allowed to get away with this kind of shit really gets my blood boiling, people can believe whatever they want, just don't affect the happiness of others with your crap. Tim Minchin sings about this better than I ever could, warning, strong language: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYDXrPy04sc

Canada has stopped minting the penny, saying it was too expensive to make. I live in the U.K. and I wish we'd follow suit. Pennies aren't even worth picking up off the ground. Whenever I get given change and it includes coppers, and theres one of those charity change pots, that's where my coppers go. In a way though, if everyone did that, across the entire country, that'd be a fair chunk of money going to charity. Just a thought.

Drug firm Novartis has taken legal action in the U.K. to make hospitals use $1,000 eye drug over $97 alternative. Let's hear them out though, state-run hospitals have recently started prescribing a much cheaper drug to treat an eye problem. The cheaper drug hasn't been officially approved yet, Novartis say this is potentially putting patients in danger. However, a medical study has shown no significant difference between the two drugs. When you consider Wikipedia says Novartis made $10B profits in 2010, I don't really feel sorry for them.

India will pass a law making sexual contact with a girl under 18 a criminal offence. Interestingly this says nothing about boys. I do believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that a female cannot rape a male. Which would make it difficult to create a gender-neutral version of this law.

Libya has passed a new law banning religious parties from government. I did wonder how the power vacuum left by Gaddafi (or however his name should be spelt in English) would play out. I like that they appear to be taking a secular route. It remains to be seen however whether this is a ploy to ensure an Islamic party can grab full power. Time will tell.

Anders Breivik, the Norwegian killer, has claimed no-one would call him insane if he were a bearded Jihadist. In a weird way though he's right. Look at the language that's been used by our media, he's not a terrorist, he's a killer. He couldn't possibly represent Christian views. You can be damn sure if a muslim did the same thing the media would be up in arms about how Islam is a religion of hate. Related, some Norwegians are protesting him by singing a song he hates. Though it should be noted that I don't think this song is targeted at Breivik, rather at his ideals and beliefs. A nice quote from reddit about the matter:

As a Norwegian I will say it here, because many of you have this idea that we are taunting breivik with our way of justice, our way of living, with this song.

This is not a song meant towards Breivik, it is meant for his ideals, his thoughts his unjust foundation of belief.

Breivik wasn't someone who had/has thoughts and beliefs that are only his. His views were shared by many, many Norwegians here still share those views. He was a normal man, just like you and me, who chose to act out in atrocious ways because of his beliefs.

This song isn't against him, we accept that he is a product of fear mongering, he is a product of ignorance, he is a product of Norway.

So no this song isn't for him, its for us. For Norway, for the world. Its to show and tell people around the world, people who think the same way, people who hate out of fear and differences.

That there is more, there is love, there is unity. That no matter what you do to us, no matter how much terror you inflict on us. We will never succumb, we will never give our brothers and sisters away out of fear. We will never give our freedom away.

This isn't a song for Breivik. This is a song for us. For Norway.

The Dutch government has resigned, which will likely lead to an election sometime before summer. This is primarily due to a disagreement on budget cuts. I'm pretty sure the Dutch will lose their AAA credit rating now. I always wonder when I look at some of the European governments how they can function when they comprise of so many different parties. It makes me glad our referendum didn't pass in the U.K. and we still use first pass the post instead of proportional representation. At least that means we get an actual government that can get things done. The Hague court has upheld a plan to ban cannabis for tourists, and with the collapse of the government its unclear how this legislation will be affected. I hope it ultimately gets scrapped, but that's just because I like the idea of going over to Amsterdam and smoking some cannabis.

The Dalai Lama has said the world belongs to humanity, not leaders. The context for this statement is with him offering his support for the Arab Spring protests. I absolutely agree with the Dalai on this point. A government that suppresses their own people purely for their own gain is reprehensible. We could now get into a discussion about how a governments job is to protect the people they govern, and how at times that might mean the removal of certain civil liberties. But this is a whole discussion in itself.

ALDE, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament, have said they will reject ACTA. Finally a small victory for civil rights! There are also stories going around that the White House will formally veto any CISPA bill. Oh how this makes me happy.

And finally, Kazakhstan has thanked 'Borat' for boosting tourism. Didnlt they complain about the film when it was first released? Also, a contender for the Darwin Awards, a Swiss woman has died after attempting to live on sunlight. Lets just call that evolution in action.

Last Saturday no-one was murdered in El Salvador, the first homicide-free day in nearly three years. Which is some of the most depressing good news I've read in a while. Three years! I don't know how bad things are economically, but for such a small country...

In Afghanistan an all-girls school had their water supply contaminated, poisoning about 150 girls. This was clearly a religiously fuelled attack. I've said it before and I'll say it again, religion sucks. Particularly when you look at Afghanistan, it use to be such a forward looking country. Speaking of Afghanistan, the Pulitzer prize was awarded to a photo taken in the country of a girl screaming after a suicide bombing.

More news that the EU may reject ACTA. Though things are looking glum on the CISPA front.

Anonymous hacks Formula 1's servers and dumps redacted info on attendees of the race. I may not agree with all Anonymous do, but fair play here. We can't let Bahrain get away with all that it has done to its people. It is a disgusting breach of basic human rights.

And finally, inhabitants of Fucking are voting on a name change due to too many place name signs being stolen by tourists.

Here are just a few recent examples of detestable behaviour which is either justified by religion, or a direct result of its ideology.

ISLAM

A Danish cartoonist who drew a cartoon depicting Mohammed survives an axe attack. He had already spent a few months on the run with his wife due to receiving death threats from critical Muslims. Indeed the controvesy of the Danish cartoonist's depiction of Mohammed caused rioting in Nigeria, during which 16 people died. Two Muslim men were also charged over an attempt to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks. He also depicted Mohammed, this time Mohammed's head on a dog. This happened in Ireland, an apparently modern forward-thinking country.

In Malaysia Churches are being fire-bombed by Muslims. Thankfully no-one has been killed. Why are Muslims so upset, because when the Christians publish material in the Malay language they use the word for 'Allah' when they translate the word God, being the word used traditionally in the area for centuries.

Iran executes 2 gay teenagers. One was 18 years old and one was a minor under the age of 18. Interestingly they claimed most young men had sex with each other and they didn't know it was punishable by death.

XTIAN

A dose of irony is provided by the story of Christopher Jarvis. He was hired by the Catholic Church as a child safety coordinator in 2002, he was tasked with investigating paedophile abuse within the church. Jarvis was arrested in 2011 for 'possessing, making and distributing' child pornography images. More than 4,000 photos, mainly of biys aged 10-12, were found to be in his possession. This being the man meant to be protecting them. A report found that children in Irish Catholic-run schools and orphanages were subject to endemic rape and abuse.

When Obama tried to expand hate-crime laws in order to protect those in minority groups, guess who some of the most vocal opponents were, Christian conservatives who feared it would oppress their ability to speak out against homosexuality. Oppressive speech wrapped in a veil of religion is still oppressive speech. A gay-couple were prevented from entering a Church, the Pastor and his deacons even physically assaulted the couple. What makes this even worse is the Pastor is the father of one of the members of the couple. So much for unconditional love hey. More disgustingly the local authorities initially denied the couple the right to file charges for the assault.

There is also the issue of homosexuality in America, awareness being raised after a boy commits suicide who had earlier filmed a clip for the 'It Gets Better' campaign. Evidently things didn't get better for the boy. His story isn't unique, there was a surge of suicides in America due to bullying of gays. This has sparked a debate about anti-bullying campaigns. Religious conservatives argue that anti-gay bullying campaigns in particular are swaying young peoples opinions about homosexuality and its acceptability. As if I, as an individual, can't decide how to live my own life.

XTIAN AFRICA

In Africa there is a worrying trend of children being denounced as witches by Christian pastors. These children are then often tortured or punished as a form of "exorcism" by their family which can easily result in death. This trend is a result of the rapid recent growth of evangelical Christianity. In Swaziland an albino girl was shot and then behaded for witchcraft.Also in Nigeria an atheist organised a conference to discuss child rights and witchcraft. At this conference he was attacked by a group of Christians. At the beginning of the conference the religious protesters raided the venue and loudly disrupted proceedings.

ISLAM AFRICA

In Nigeria Muslim preachers opposed Polio vaccination programs. There initial fears may have been reasonable with primary tests on the drugs used not being conclusive. They continued their campaign against the vaccine, particularly in the north, where the rhetoric just descended into conspiracy, claiming the vaccine was part of a "Western plot". Despite the efforts of those involved the Polio virus, after an initial success in the vaccination program, made a comeback.

JEW

In Israel Ultra-Orthodox Jews harassed an 8-year old girl because they felt she wasn't dressed appropriately. Why, because they might be too tempted otherwise and rape her? This isn't an isolated incident of detestable behaviour from certain Jewish sub-sects in Israel either. Some Ultra-Orthodox Jews are picketing a girls' school. They argue their religious modesty is being offended. A singer who performed in front of a mixed-sex crowd, i.e. both males and females, was whipped 39 times by rabbis to make him "repent". This punishment has been handed down by a rabbinic court who's founder has said its his stated aim to \"bring Jews back to religion\". In Brooklyn Hasidic Jews are abusing young boys. The article is an uncomfortable read about how Diangelo has tried to overcome being raped at age 7 in his local synagogue's mikvah. NYC authorities said they will shut down a bus service run by Jews if they don't stop making women sit at the back. These Jewish men really seem to lack self-control don't they?

MISOGYNY

National Geographic reports on women being killed for family "honour". This is said to have happened even in countries which are apparently more forward-thinking, such as Great Britain, Italy or Sweden. The article goes further to say that this part of a much deeper problem of how women are viewed and treated in various societies and is something that religion has clearly been complicit in. A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has said women should wear a niqab that only reveals one eye. He suggests showing two eyes encourages women to wear eye make-up and therefore be attractive to the opposite sex, because again, men clearly can't control themselves!

MISC

A NYC cab driver was violently attacked simply for being a Muslim. The perpetrator slashed him several times in the throat with a pen knife. Thankfully the cab driver has survived this ordeal.

Death threats aren't solely the purview of Muslims, Christians can stoop just as low. An American Atheists' Communication Director receives death threats after an appearance on a Fox news show.

A doctor who performed abortions was shot to death in Kansas. Admittedly Dr. Tiller did perform late-term abortions.

In Pakistan a Christian family is burned to death after allegations that the Koran had been defiled. Because we don't need actual evidence or anything like that!

SUMMARY

These are all relatively recent events and I feel that I have not unfairly picked on any one religion in particular. I admit I have only talked about Judaism, Christianity and Islam but these are the main religions that influence my western culture. This also barely scratches the surface of some of the behaviour that is seen.

How can religion be said to be a force for good when all this happens? Whilst there are good people doing good things, this is more an homage to the innate good within humans. For the most part we want to help people. Something I haven't mentioned above is the situation where parents refuse to get medical help for their children because they believe God will cure, thus causing immense suffering for their children, or even worse death.

All that religion does is label people and thus divide them into groups, giving more ammunition to intolerance. An excuse to not help someone. This agenda is pushed mainly by the extremists within a religion; but why aren't they being called out for this? Surely moderates must take some of the blame here? By pushing religion as something to be respected they give a cloak for the extremists to hide behind.

What annoys me is the 'intellectual immunity' that religion enjoys. If I attack religion based on the above then someone might defend it with the excuse that the perpetrators were acting as an individual, and I should denounce the behaviour of only that person. Religion is not an individual endeavour. It is a communal activity in which religious ideology is passed from one person to another. The faith of one member is supported by the rest of the group. This necessarily contradicts the idea of individual conciousness.

My liberal values require that I respect someone's right to be religious, to tolerate their choices. I do not however, have to respect the religion itself just because you believe in it or that it holds great value for you. I do not respect wilful ignorance. I do not respect hatred or bigotry or misogyny. I do not respect oppression or intolorence. I do not respect religion.

Spotify recently announced their new Play Button. So I thought it'd be cool to incorporate it into my homepage. But what tracks should I have be played? Then I got the idea of using my Last.fm charts to generate the tracklist.

So first I had to grab my weekly track chart from Last.fm, thankfully they provide a nice xml feed which can be found at ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/user/[username]/weeklytrackchart.xml. I just used the cURL extension in PHP to grab the XML and the parsed it to grab the track names and artist names and store them temporarily in an array.

Now, for getting the Spotify track IDs so I can generate the play button. Thankfully Spotify has an open MetaData API that I can use to search for and retrieve the IDs. I took great influence from this PHP library called metatune. However, it does far more than I need, and it uses file_get_contents to query the API, which requires having allow_url_fopen set to true in my php.ini file. I'd rather use cURL, its faster and more versatile.

There is one caveat, searching Spotify normally leads to multiple results. I've assumed that the first track is the one I want. I then get this list of track IDs and save them to file. Its then just a question of reading this list and dumping it into the HTML of the homepage.

You can have a look at my code on GitHub, its not quite finished, I need to incorporate some sort of actual error handling.