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Here is a great song from a great album released back in the 90’s. The album itself took longer to release than to make due to it being made up of a mishmash of samples from other artists and it took years to licence everything, but this video in particular will give you a good feel for how much fun the album was.
Enjoy, and I hope to be seeing you on the 21st!
Filed under: Friday music, Video | 2 Comments »
This week I was trying to decide between something from Jonathan Coulton or something from They Might Be Giants. You can imagine my glee when I found this
Now if I can just find the Decemberists covering a Smiths song…
Filed under: Friday music, Video | Tagged: Jonathan Coulton, They Might Be Giants | 1 Comment »
This is part 1 (of 6) of an extended version of the interview from the Channel 4 series “The Enemies of Reason“.
The rest can be found here.
Filed under: atheism, skepticism, Video | Tagged: Derren Brown, Richard Dawkins, The Enemies of Reason | Leave a comment »
A bit off topic for this blog but what the heck.
Apparently the use of drugs like Ritalin and Adderall to boost academic and work performance is on the rise with up to 7% of University students in the USA using these drugs. A recent paper in Nature suggests that rather than trying to stop this rise we should legalise the use of performance enhancing drugs, or as they put it “Mentally competent adults should be able to engage in cognitive enhancement using drugs.”. While Ritalin and Adderall are the most common drugs now newer drugs like modafinil (brand name Provigil) also offer new benefits like reducing the need for sleep.
My own initial reaction is to agree. If there are no major side effects, or if those side effects are known and someone chooses to accept them, then people should have the right to use anything means to improve themselves. One day soon this may apply not just to drugs but to cybernetic enhancements.
In general I’m in favour of the maximum amount of freedom people can take and this seems a clear case to me but as always I’m open to being corrected. What do you think?
via Wired
Filed under: debate | Tagged: medicine, science | 3 Comments »
Great presentation from Michael Shermer of Sketpic Magazine – well worth a look, and the TED site has some great videos on it.
Filed under: skepticism, Video | Tagged: Michael Shermer | Leave a comment »
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Needless to say the attempt fails. It’s a sad state of affairs but this is probably the toughest interview Huckabee will face on his current book tour.
Filed under: humour, religion, Video | Tagged: jon stewart, mike huckabee, politics, USA | 4 Comments »
The below is taken from a Wall Street Journal article on the upcoming Durban II conference.
The draft declaration… goes after the West’s freedom of speech and antiterror laws under the guise of protecting religion (read: Islam) from “defamation.” The entire West will be in the dock for allegedly persecuting Muslims. “The most serious manifestations of defamation of religions are the increase in Islamophobia and the worsening of the situation of Muslim minorities around the world,” the draft reads. “Islamophobia” is a term used to brand any criticism of Islam as a hate crime.
The Islamic terrorists who have killed hundreds of thousands of their co-religionists get a free pass. Instead, the draft calls for a media code of conduct and “internationally binding normative standards . . . that can provide adequate guarantees against defamation of religions.” If this sounds like censorship, that’s because it is.
…If the Durban II drafters have their way, any challenge of Islamic teachings, including teachings used to justify violence, would be taboo. Reprinting the Danish Muhammad cartoons, exploited by Muslim agitators in 2006 to incite riots around the world, would be a criminal offense. Even gross human-rights violations in Islamic countries — such as stoning adulterers in Iran — could be immune from criticism.
It seems pretty clear that this is just another attempt at special pleading by the religious, in this case Islam. The Canadian government has already said it will not participate in this farce and it seems likely that the US will follow suit. It’s probably too much to hope that the EU will take a similar stand.
Free speech is a core western value and we cannot accept any erosion. My advice to Muslims (or anyone else) is simple, if you can’t deal with open debate, if your faith is so weak that it cannot stand up to any criticism, then you need to seriously examine the validity of that faith. The future has no place for ancient magical superstitions.
Edit: I take the point made by commenters below. What I should have said is I hope the future has no place for ancient magical superstitions, but people will have to embrace reality on their own and in their own time. It certainly isn’t something I could or would force on them.
Filed under: debate, religion | Tagged: free speech, Human Rights, islam, UN | 3 Comments »
To Romania first and the news that the Romanian Ministry of Education has removed the teaching of Evolution from schools. This is apparently prompted by a growing conservative movement in the country.
Information on natural selection, how fish turned into lizards and, more or less, a summary of the first 4.5 billion years of the world until man walked the earth is now optional.
…
Meanwhile, in religious classes, pupils are taught that the world was created in seven days and God made plants on the third day and the sun on the fourth. Textbooks claim the first man was Adam, who was ‘made of ground’, and that Eve, the first woman, was made from one of her husband’s ribs.
In case you’ve forgotten Romania has been an EU member state since last year. Hooray we have our own Kansas now 😦
Romania please learn a lesson from Ireland, they only way a poor country can become a prosperous one is by throwing off the shackles of religious dogma and embracing science and technology.
via Bad Astronomy
In case that’s not depressing enough, news that the Vatican’s oft touted ‘Culture of Life’ apparently doesn’t extend to gay people. OK, maybe that doesn’t actually count as news.
When France proposed a resolution seeking all nations to decriminalise homosexuality, the Vatican immediately said it would oppose the resolution. This is despite the fact that up to 70 nations still have legal punishments for gay people including, in some instances, the death penalty. In a number of Islamic countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen, homosexual acts are still a capital offence.
The UN resolution is due to be proposed by France later this month on behalf of the 27-nation European Union. But Archbishop Celestino Migliore said the Vatican opposed the resolution because it would “add new categories of those protected from discrimination” and could lead to reverse discrimination against traditional heterosexual marriage.
So to sum up, better that a few Gay people get killed than we risk “traditional heterosexual marriage”, you know where your parents chose your husband or wife. If we’re not careful you might end up with people who love each other making solemn life long commitments!
Last but not least, another in a long line of daft articles about European ‘Islamophobia’, all the usual canards are there – Islam is a race, no mention of the inherent sexism of Islam and of course no acknowledgement that Europe is open to those that embrace our values but is going to be pretty uncomfortable to those who want to follow idiotic tribal religions. The article itself is fairly weak stuff but some of the comments are on the money.
Anyway, I have to go and weep softly at the foolishness of man.
Filed under: religion | Tagged: gay rights, islam, news, romania, vatican | 3 Comments »
Hello all,
I would just like to take this opportunity to share this greeting with you all:
Have an worry-free Winterval, a yuley Yuletide, a salacious Solstice and most of all, enjoy the bloody snow when you can get it!!!
Filed under: atheism, debate, humanism, religion | Tagged: FFRF | 3 Comments »
Well, from the number of page views it would seem that dj357/FXR’s “I’m an Atheist and I’m OK” is quite popular. In fact this morning I got the below mail –
I just listened to “I’m an Atheist and I’m OK”, and it was wicked funny. And you have great timing on that post.
I’m one of the hosts of Q Transmissions, a weekly skeptical call-in talk show in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
We’ve just posted a contest on the show’s blog, asking people to send us their best rendition of a new atheist anthem. You can read about it on qtransmissions.wordpress.com.
Would you please mention the contest on your blog? We’re hoping to get as many entries as possible, and the only way to do it is to… well… spam the skeptical and atheist community and hope to get the word out. We’re really sorry. Honestly.
And it goes without saying that you are welcomed and encouraged to submit an entry yourself. 🙂
We’re always happy to help out other Atheiskeptihumanists so if you’re feeling creative get recording!
Filed under: announcements, humour | Tagged: music, Q Transmissions | Leave a comment »
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