"ALL THAT WE'RE ASKING IN RETURN IS YOUR CO-OPERATION IN BRINGING A KNOWN TERRORIST TO JUSTICE" I just read that Viz (nothing to do with the UK comic - no Fat Slags here) over in the States are finally going to distribute real manga comic books - by real I mean the phonebook sized bastards - starting with the excellent Shonen Jump - however this being America, the land of the free, they've decided to drop one or two of the more 'Japanese' storylines in case parents take offence. First two tales to be cut are Pretty Face "A teenage boy wakes up after a school bus accident to find his face reconstructed to look like the girl he has a crush on. She mistakes him for her long-lost twin sister and invites him to live with her" and the beautifully entitled Strawberry 100% "The adventures of young Manaka, a junior-high student who is enchanted by his classmate -- and her fruit-print underwear". Of course they are allowing all the ultra violent stuff that already has spinoffs on Cartoon Network - it's ok to let the kids see limbs hacked away but god forbid they should start thinking about underwear... hmmm strawberry.... I've been a little out of the loop on news lately so maybe this is old hat and already been discussed elsewhere but I just read that the Russians are wrapping the bodies of the terrorists killed in the Moscow theatre siege in pig skin in order to deter future attacks by Islamic fighters. The idea, according to the newspaper Moskovski Komsomol, is to turn the terrorists' own beliefs against them. While jihad martyrs believe they ascend immediately to heaven upon fulfilling their duty, Islam regards the pig as unclean. Corpses wrapped in pigskin, the Russians say, will therefore be barred from entering heaven for eternity. I really don't know how to react to this. Being a dog-fearing atheist it shouldn't worry me at all but attacking someone's strongest held belief like that... maybe it just doesn't sit easy with my veganism. Or maybe the whole thing just reeks of the barbaric... Will this stop people dying for things they believe in? I doubt it. I would have thought that rather than being beaten by this it would simply enhance certain governments perceived roles as 'The Great Satan' - after all, if you are going to stand up and deny another person their god for all eternity it's not going to be easy to dispel the image of horns and a pitchfork... I wonder what would happen if an atheist terrorist group sprang up - I guess we'd have to kill them and then have them canonised. Saint Kevin the Unbeliever... Mike is blogging to: Shellac