Recycling souls

I was intrigued by Buddhism and contemplated converting to the religion recently. I have always heard that it is takes a very practical take on life which is a fresh breath of air amidst all the fanaticism around. As a start, I figured I should start with understanding the religion better. It didn't however take me long before I hit the first obstacle. Buddhism is big on rebirth. In fact, one of man's biggest objectives in life appears to be escaping rebirth. But I've never considered this practical at all. On one hand, when we can't even get ourselves to recycle paper, recycling souls seems far fetched. More importantly, if every birth is borne out of a recycled soul, how do you explain increase in population. On top of that, some of us apparently escape rebirth, further worsening the shortage.

I've heard parents having to reserve a slot in kindergarten even before childbirth. Very soon parents may be required to reserve a soul even before considering having kids!

A rare moment of hope

I had the BBC running in the background today while I was working on something else and I happened to feebly hear the only encouraging news I've heard in a long time - "After being severely impacted, we are now seeing signs of a recovery...". For a second, I thought (or wanted to hear) that someone has predicted or noticed signs of recovery in the economy. Not a snowball's chance! It's not the economy, stupid! She was only referring to how UK is slowly recovering from the blanket of snow.

If only recession were like snow, just wait for a few days and it just melts way... of course, as long as it stops snowing soon enough, just as we expect the economy to not shrink two quarters in a row... This has to be more than just coincidence - UK can't possibly be hit by one of the worst snow showers and recession in the same year. You can blame the former on global warming; what about the latter... global greed?