February 2012
“With a necessary part of its collective mind, religion looks forward to the...”
– Christopher Hitchens, god Is Not Great (via hitch-22)
“Like most clerical discourses, Buddhism is indeed relentlessly misogynist, but...”
– Bernard Faure as quoted in “Women in Buddhism” - Wikipedia
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Friendly Fuedalism - The Tibet Myth →
“History belies the Shangri-La image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living together in mutual tolerance and nonviolent goodwill. Indeed, the situation was quite different. Old Tibet was much more like Europe during the religious wars of the Counterreformation.”
Most civilian deaths due to Taliban: UN →
A UN report states that last year 80% of civilian deaths in the war in Afghanistan were the responsibility of the Taliban and other insurgent groups.
This despite the fact that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar said that civilian casualties were unacceptable, and that deliberately killing civilians was a breach of human rights.
The Taliban strategy in Afghanistan relies on acts of terrorism...
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British Christian group banned from advertising... →
The British Advertising Standards Authority found the adverts to be misleading and that they would encourage false hope and were irresponsible.
One point to sanity.
Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot →
There are people in this world who believe that the introduction of bicycle lanes are a UN led conspiracy to remove people’s property rights.
As the world gets more technologically and scientifically advanced, the average person on the street seems to be getting stupider and stupider. And many on the conservative right seem to see this as a virtue. And rather than campaigning for better...
Aussie mothers protest against Facebook for... →
Aussies offending American sensibilities again by doing what comes naturally.
Comic sentenced to jail for Islam insult →
Adel Imam, an Egyptian comic, has been sentenced to jail for poking fun at the region’s autocratic leaders and Islamic fundamentalists. It was ruled that Imam had defamed Islam.
Given the political control that the Muslim Brotherhood now has in Egypt it can only get worse for Imam.
Is It Ethical to Own an iPhone? →
Isn’t there an app for that?
The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam →
WARNING: The video at this link contains violence & graphic content, including two stonings. This is NOT for the faint of heart or those with a weak stomach.
January 2012
Finally a real application for "miracle material"... →
Turns out you can use it to distil alcohol. Explains why so many scientists got excited about graphene, they’re a boozy lot.
Wiccans and Mystical Women: How New Age is... →
It’s not hard to argue how oppressive the Abrahamic religions are towards women. If you take a close look at most Eastern Asian religions as well, avoiding the cherry-picking found in the cliché “California-style” hodgepodge of Dharmic and Taoic practices, you’ll find an equally strong tradition of misogyny-inspiring credulity. I imagine most skeptics and humanists will find the word...
Indiana Senate Panel Approves Creationist Bill →
Despite the Center for Inquiry’s best efforts, an Indiana Senate panel on Tuesday approved a bill that would allow school boards and other authorized educational administrators in the state to “require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science, within the school corporation.”
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Student Faces Town’s Wrath in Protest Against a... →
” She is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years.”
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In the Developing World, Solar Is Cheaper than... →
“Technology advances are opening up a huge new market for solar power: the approximately 1.3 billion people around the world who don’t have access to grid electricity. Even though they are typically very poor, these people have to pay far more for lighting than people in rich countries because they use inefficient kerosene lamps. While in most parts of the world solar power...
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Unprecedented, human-made trends in ocean's... →
“Nearly one-third of CO2 emissions due to human activities enters the world’s oceans. By reacting with seawater, CO2 increases the water’s acidity, which may significantly reduce the calcification rate of such marine organisms as corals and mollusks.”
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The taboo around body parts →
140,000 people died in Australia last year and only 337 of them had their organs donated. The rate of organ donation in Australia is about half the going rate of other countries in the developed world.
Not good enough people!
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Lies, damn lies, and statistics →
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky explains why cherry picking data as well as being dishonest is also giving statistics a bad name.
Australian Day Celebration
I celebrated a day early.
Washington at the Sydney Opera House last night.
“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe”
– Me, culling books from my Kindle DX after I filled the sucker up.
James Burke: Connections (1978) →
If you can spare about 45 minutes you should watch an episode of Connections.
As well as been blown away that educated men actually wore zip-up suits with wide lapels and flared parts and that most of us back then figured we wouldn’t make it through to the end of the century without blowing ourselves up in an all out nuclear war, your mind will be totally blown away by how many ideas can be...
Anti-Choice people?
republicanidiots:
If God is on your side, why doesn’t he give you science to support your point of view? Why are you left making shit up like “PASS” or “partial birth abortion” or getting an abortion causes cancer? Or do you believe God wants you lying to girls and scaring them into doing what you want?
