I was originally intending to post this video on New Year’s Day, but given the subject matter, I think it will actually be more appropriate to post it on Inauguration Day. So look out for it on January 20!

Oh, and merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it, and happy holidays to everyone who is lucky enough to be having them now.

Here’s a brilliant parody of the ludicrous idea that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God would send somebody to hell simply because they didn’t believe in the Bible, no matter how good a person they were. This video’s creator (Edward Current) has several other funny religious parodies as well.

BTW, sorry for the less substantial posts recently, but with all the doom and gloom around at the moment, I feel I would like to write about less weighty issues for now. But rest assured I will be returning to my favorite topics of religion and politics (and the environment as well) next month!

While we’re on the subject of Christmas, I couldn’t resist posting this absolutely hilarious spoof of R. Kelly’s “hip hopera” Trapped in the Closet, which has got to be the funniest and most creative (not to mention sick, twisted and blasphemous!) Christmas video I’ve ever seen - not for the faint of heart.

Talking about funny and creative Christmas videos, remember there’s only three weeks left to win a kiss from me for Christmas. Even if you don’t win, at least by entering you can give me a good laugh!

Also, if you were intending to buy something for yourself from my online store for Christmas, you’d better hurry, as it will usually take about two weeks for orders from outside Australia to reach you. We’ve also become aware of some intermittent mail server problems at our ISP, which means there is a small chance we may not have received your order. If you’ve tried to place an order with us and haven’t received a response, please try again now. We are 100% confident the issue has been fixed.

First of all, there are the obvious practical and commercial considerations: this is the time of year when sales will be maximised, and my fans simply want and expect new stuff to be available from me at this time, so I obviously have to respond to that. However, even though I don’t personally believe in Christmas itself, I still think it is a good thing to have something like it at this time of the year. Indeed, I’m sure that even if humans never invented religion, we would still invent something like Christmas. I think many of us need some time off at the end of the year to take a break from work, and reflect on the year that was. I also think it is appropriate that many of us will wish to spend that time with family and friends. However, this is where I start to disagree with Christmas as it is now.

For one thing, the natural desire of many people to spend time with their family at Christmas has become an obligation. This not only takes the fun out of it, but also potentially generates enormous amounts of stress - we don’t all get along with everyone in our family, and Christmas is often the one time of year when we are forced to come together. Even worse, it makes those people who don’t have a family to spend Christmas with feel left out, lonely or even rejected by society. This potentially creates enormous stress as well, particularly as the modern world is becoming increasingly single.

Perhaps the biggest problem of all though is the fact that the desire of many people to give gifts to their loved ones has been replaced by an obligation as well, and often forces them to buy gifts for people they don’t even like! This is obviously an enormous problem for those in financial hardship. And even if you have plenty of money to spend, choosing the right gift for somebody else can be a hugely difficult task in itself. Will they like it? Do they already have it? Is it appropriate? Are you spending the right amount of money? The list of headaches goes on. No wonder more people run into financial difficulties at Christmas than at any other time of the year. And even worse, it is also the time of year when there are the most marriage breakdowns, murders, suicides and violent crime.

I would really like to see these negative elements taken out of Christmas. First of all, I don’t think there should be any compulsion to buy gifts for other people. Of course, you can do so if you want to, just as you can at any other time of the year. If anything, I think people should be more focused on buying something for themselves - after all, you know exactly what you want, as well as what you can afford! And we certainly should not be compelled to spend time with people we don’t like - the holidays should be a time for people to do what they want with the people they want to do it with. If that happens to be family, of course that’s fine. But if you’d prefer to spend time with your friends instead or even just by yourself, that should be fine too. In short, the holidays should be a time for us to release our stress in any (legal) way we see fit, not give ourselves even more stress on top! Plus of course, as an atheist I would like this time of year to be a completely secular celebration.

And if you’d like to follow my suggestion of buying something for yourself for Christmas, might I suggest a little something from my online store.

This is just another quick post to let you all know that we’ve just posted a promo video for my DVDs on YouTube - check it out! It is also available at my online store as two higher quality promo clips.

Also, as negotiations with publishers for my health and beauty book have taken far longer than we ever anticipated, we have decided to release the Exercise and Yoga DVD we shot to accompany it as a separate product. Because this DVD is intended for the general market, it is non-nude, but I wear some very sexy, exposing outfits, and get into some remarkable poses! Plus of course, it is a great guide to healthy and sustainable exercise that will keep you slim and fit, yet is also very low impact. In addition, I demonstrate the full range of yoga poses I perform, from simple and basic to quite extreme and advanced (of course, you don’t need to perform all of these poses yourself to stay fit - you only need to do what you feel comfortable to do). Although we still aren’t sure at this stage what the publishing arangements for my book will be, if it turns out that we do end up packaging the Exercise and Yoga DVD with the book, then we will give anyone who has already purchased the DVD a credit toward the book and DVD package. So you can but it now and enjoy it in the mean time!

Wow! After eight long years, the reign of the neo-cons is finally ending! And with a college vote of over 2:1, a popular margin of 6 points, and more total votes than any other Presidential candidate in US history(!), it may even be emphatic enough for the Republicans to re-think their position, and get rid of the religious right and neo-conservative cancers upon their party. Sadly however, I doubt it - early signs are that they may go even further to the right. If they do, I can only imagine they will lose by an even bigger margin the next time around, and maybe that will do it. We can only hope.

Although Obama’s victory speech was quite impressive, I was if anything even more impressed with John McCain’s very gracious concession speech. It’s almost as if he secretly wanted Obama to win - perhaps after butting heads with the religious right throughout his campaign, he really did think it would be for the best! I now understand why he didn’t try to use Pastor Wright in his Obama smear campaign (which surprised me): it seems he really is sincerely anti-racist, unlike much of his party.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to come up with an appropriate way to celebrate the win, and I’ve also been wondering what I can bitch about now that the neo-cons are gone. Actually, not really - I still have plenty of things I want to write about! But I thought some funny and creative answers to these two questions would make for a good, fun competition for my readers and fans, so I’ve decided to do the following: whoever can come up with best answer to one or both of these questions wins a kiss from me! That’s right - I will do a video where I blow a kiss to you with your name on it, which I will publish here. And if you’re a member of my main web site, I will do an adult version for you as well!

The rules of the competition are pretty simple - just post your response to either the question “what should I do to celebrate the US election result?” or “what can I write about now that the neo-cons have been voted out?” (or both!) below. I’m not really after serious answers - what I actually want is something funny and/or creative. The person who posts the funniest and/or most creative answer(s) as judged by me will be the winner. I will make my choice on Christmas day, and we will then try to post your video(s) on new year’s day. Anyone is welcome to enter, although you will have to already be a member of my main web site as of Christmas day to be eligible for the personalised adult video.

So what will I do in the video apart from blowing you a kiss? That’s pretty much up to you. I can do, say and wear whatever you want, as long as it isn’t X-rated (and the video for this blog will have to be non-nude, although obviously the one for my main site can be nude), it isn’t too dangerous or difficult (or illegal), and the type of clothing you want is something I have (or is worth my while to acquire). I must also be able to do it within 5 minutes. Apart from that, pretty much anything goes, although I reserve the right to add a disclaimer if you want me to say something I don’t believe in.

So post your wittiest response below, so you can receive a very special Christmas present from me! (If you’re hoping to buy something new from me for Christmas, please hold on for a few more days!)

Dear Red States:

If you manage to steal this election too we’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren’t aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.

We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss.

We get 85% of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country’s fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95% of America’s quality wines, 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, 95% of the corn and soybeans (thanks Iowa!), most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

Finally, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico

Peace out,

Blue States

Although this is obviously in jest, I think it raises an important point: it’s the progressives who have been responsible for just about everything that’s great about America, and the conservatives have been a drag on them. If the US did split along these lines, the red states would become a second or even third world country, while the blue states would become stronger and more powerful than ever.