UK Atheist

More Intolerance

2006-03-28T13:05:00.000+01:00

Apparently under Sharia "Law" (quoted because in no way can this be described as a system of justice) the penalty for denying Islam is death.

Thats right just because this guy didnt sign up to their particular fairy tale (and in fact went for a different fairy tale) they wanted him dead. Of course the Afghan government mindful of the international community's concerns have managed to free him on the basis of mental incapacity. I suppose its better to be declared mad than strung up for your beliefs.

The real mad nutters of course are the fuckwits you chant "Death to Christians" and other intolerant crap. One more tale from the "What happens when you let religion fuck up your brain" dept......

Just a Cartoon ?

2006-02-03T13:42:00.000Z

I've been holding off writing a few words about the controversy surrounding the now infamous cartoons published at first in the Danish press, and now in other parts of Europe, but the articale above has finally inspired me to put someting down.

First of all make no bones about it, below is a link to the cartoons in question. I do this so that a) you can see for yourself what the fuss is about, and b) I beleive in free expression and that such images shouldnt be banned for their own sake.

WARNING Moslems may find these offensive

and this is the thing... Feel free to be offended... but remember that that fact that you can be offended is a reminder of the fact that you live in a country that has free expression.

If Islam wants to come across as a more tolerant religion (I say more because it is de facto intolerant in part due to its discrimination against homosexuals) then it should react better than it has to criticism and satire. Its no use bleating that these cartoons reinforce a stereotype and that only a minority of fanaticals when you get thousands of people in the streets shouting for Jihad, holding banners theatening terrorism and death, and violence and murder. The shit is in your house, clean it up.

Storm in a hot coffee cup

2006-01-30T13:26:00.000Z

The strange thing about this case where the the city of LA is suing the makers of GTA:San Andreas is that it kind of shows how some Americans are totally fucked up about sex.

Here is a game that involves the player going around stealing cars, shooting civilians and police officers, drug running, pimping, arson, burglary, gang violence and other wholesome activities. In the UK this game has (quite rightly) got an 18+ rating. It is not a game for kids.

In the US apparently its OK for 17 year olds. Only when a bit of sex is added (or actually found within) does it warrant an 18 rating. Thats right folks, shooting prostitutes is OK for 17 year olds, but having sex with one is for 18s.

This country has its hang-ups as well, at least they allow adults the freedom to watch adult material in the US (including broadcasting). Over here in the UK our "regulator" OffCom appear to be stuck in the 19th century....

Intolerant Hatred

2005-12-13T13:55:00.000Z

Stuff like this just makes me want to go grrrrr.....

Im usually fairly open-minded about Christians expressing their views but sometimes I see stuff that makes me plain mad...

Sadly, Tesco, Asda and WHSmith are still selling at Christmas the DVD which portrays Jesus Christ as a foul mouthed woman-beater who declares himself to be 'a bit gay'.

Well done these shops... Stand up to the intolerant nutters....Protect free speech

Download our leaflet about why it is an "Intolerant hate show"

Fine, you are entitled to yor opinion, but you are not entitled to call for the DVD to be banned...So it denigrates your faith...Good... Intolerant fuckwits like you should be denigrated...

Worst of all

The Christian Institute is a registered charity

Thats right, the narrow minded intolerant bastards get tax breaks.... Out of my pocket....

Roll on the separation of church and state...

Semblance of Reason

2005-12-08T12:51:00.000Z

This story just illustrates that (at least in the highest court in the land) there is some island of reason and humanity within the sea misguided knee-jerk prats who run our country.

The issue at hand is whether we can prosecute people using evidence that may have been obtained by foreign powers under torture. The government wanted to (national security at any price, fuck human rights), the high court agreed (?*!*?). The law lords have just said no. Thank fuck for that.

Any reasonable person would say, not can you use such evidence, but can you trust it at all. If the Syrians, or Iranians or Chinese or some other security service whose human rights record is suspect, say that a person is a terrorist, how can we trust them. After all a name shouted out by some poor bastard with his goolies wired up to the mains is not "intelligence".

The argument put forward of course is that the harm done by the torture is preferable to the potential loss of life due to a terrorist act. I have a couple of points to make about this. The first is, why stop at torturing the buggers overseas, If torture is acceptable for national security purposes why not DIY. The second of course is that we have a principle we uphold, and which we are trying to protect. One that all humans have the right to be presumed innocent, and the right not to be tortured (including the stress torture that the US govt thinks is OK). Id rather take my chances of getting blown up (and rather a small chance at that) and sleep in my bed at night with a clean conscience.....

Official gagging act

2005-11-25T14:25:00.000Z

This is another example of how our government is ignoring another principle
on which all free countries are based...This time its the freedom of the press.

The newspapers got hold a a memo allegedly relating to a discussion between Blair and Bush in which the latter is said to have been planning military action against the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera.

Now the government is threatening to prosecute the editors if they publish the document. It is using the official secrets act to gag the press.

The person responsible for leaking this document has been charged under the same act with "damaging disclosure of a document relating to international relations".

Now what is "damaging" about this document, at least to national security which is what the OSA is designed to protect. I cannot see anything, though our relations with our US allies might be ruffled.

No, what is going on here, the damage is to Blair's already ruined credibility, and to Bush's as well. Far from protecting national security, the OSA is being used to suppress information which is embarrassing for the government.

Train to 1984 keeps a rollin

2005-11-14T12:51:00.000Z

So now we are going to have security screening at railways to prevent further terrorist attacks.....

Does our government have any sense whatsoever, or do they just react like someone playing whack-a-mole to the latest tabloid headlines.

So this is going to prevent attrocities like the one that happened on the 7th of July in London. Yeah the super regular attacks that happen like once every 5 years or so.....

Well Mr Blair, you've put security at the railway station... So I'll blow myself up on a London bus, just as many people there... Are we going to have security searches of everyone entering a bus ?

Or how about the security queue itself.. Perfect.. lots of people milling about.. should make a nice splattery carnage...

There are 1 million or so people travelling into-out of London every day..Imagine the queues if each of them had to pass even the most basic of security checks.... All to try and catch the half dozen or so terrorists that might turn up once every 1000 days or so...

Every time we pass laws turning us more into a police state the terrorists have a good laugh.... Thanks Big Tony..

Licked!!!!

2005-11-09T14:00:00.000Z

Some Hindus are organising protests against the Royal Mail's Christmas stamp.

They are offended by the fact that the picure (which is a rendition of a 17th century painting that itself hangs in Bombay, India - where Hinduism is a major religion ) is a depiction of the madonna and child but with a traditional "kumkum" mark on the woman's forehead as used my married Hindu women.

So they plan protests and organised send ins of unstamped mail.. All well and fine that they can exercise their free expression (though typical that their aim is of course to restrict other peoples'). The question is do they represent the view of the majority of Hindus....

Feel free to be offended but bear in mind that the fact that you find it offensive arises from the fact that you live in a free nation...

More relgious intolerance

2005-10-31T12:35:00.000Z

Omar Sharif is playing the role of St Peter in a TV film. That alone has got him death threats from the nutters..

I wonder if he would have got the same reaction had he not been a moslem.

But its not always the extremists.. Egypt banned the film Funny Girl because he kissed Barbara Streisand who is Jewish.

When I see this sort of stuff it makes me wonder how some people can be so fucked up in the head...

Employed by God

2005-10-24T13:08:00.000+01:00

A recent employment tribunal has ruled against a ex-church of Scotland minister in her claim for unfair dismissal and sex discrimination.

Now the interesting part of this is why the tribunal ruled the way it did. They ruled that they had no jurisdiction over her case because under a very old law, clergy in the UK are "office holders" and are in effect employed by God.

This case is now going to the House of Lords where the law lords will decide if the churches can continue being exempt from employment law. It is anticipated that they will rule that the churches are indeed empoyers of the clergy. I hope that they do.

It will be interesting to see the reaction of religious groups if they do. I can imagine certain groups such as the catholic church or the evangelicals being unhappy at having to follow equal opportunities law.....

Who Ya Gonna Call !!!!

2005-10-14T13:13:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure whats sadder, the fact that the catholic church still performs exorcisms (though thats not surprising given that it is still back in the middle ages in other policies), but that there is increasing demand for it in a modern well educated democracy such as Italy.

Exorcism rites have been notorious recently in several cases of child abuse. Children who have mental problems or who are just hyperactive have been accused of witchcraft or possession and have been subjected to exorcisms often including serious physical abuse. Some of these have resulted in the death of the child in question. Now I can't stop exorcism rites being performed on consenting adults, but I think that these should be banned on children as parental corporal punishment is now. Why do we have to wait for more children to come to harm....

Link:

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X Con

2005-10-10T16:50:00.000+01:00

After a short break, down in Roch Castle again in Pembrokeshire, Wales I'm back.....

The European Court has ruled that UK law preventing convicted prisoners from voting is contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. As usual this has caused a furore in the right wing tabloids of which the above article is a perticularly choice example.

Now I'll admit that I never really thought about the current law until now, but I think that the European judges were right. Whilst convicted offenders are denied certain human freedoms (such as the right to move freely) that doesn't mean that we can trample all over their other human rights without just cause. In addition, voting is an activity which connects us all as parts of society, and is thus important when you remember that the main purpose of prison is to rehabilitate, not to punish. Finally, prisoners have needs and an environment which is affected by government and thus should have a say in who governs.

If that means that serious offenders get to vote then well yes.... But there are most likely many people outside prison who can vote now, who are just as nasty....

Big Labour

2005-09-15T11:25:00.000+01:00

A few snippets from our elected representatives over their attempts to bring in legislation associated with the "War on Terror"

Charles Clarke (our home secretary), he who has the power to chuck you out of the country if he feels your a bit dodgy, no trial required.... Reported in the Scotsman after he failed to persuade the EU that we need to store all phone and email records...

After the meeting broke up without an agreement, Mr Clarke insisted that neither civil liberties nor costs should stand in the way of his plan.

"We don't think either of those issues are justified, though we understand them," he said.

So basically he doesnt give a fuck about our civil liberties or indeed how much it costs, just as long as he's seen to be tough on the terrorists.

But we can do better than that... Here is Tony Blair, the leader of our great nation, the leader of a supposedly left wing government, Reported in The Guardian

'A lot of the stuff that we have on computers is encrypted, and for that reason I am interested in creating an offence of refusing to reveal an encryption key,' Blair said. 'It has to be punishable by a term of at least 10 years.'

So simply keeping your mouth shut can send you to prison for 10 years, no evidence that you are actually guilty of anything. Just a suspicion that the encrypted file might contain some terrorist stuff....Lets not forget the fact that Blair, like Clarke, likes to spout this stuff whilst being ignorant of technology (though at least Blair is aware of RSA encryption). If they had been briefed they would know that most computers have encrypted files on them (mostly to do with internet commerce) and a lot of encrpypted exchanges involve keys that are deleted once the exchange ends.

Plus, even if I was encrpyting stuff with passwords, ask yourself, can you remember every password to every site, file, service that you use. I must have loads of old ones that I have forgotten. No doubt that bad memory can now send you to prison as well.....

Selling a fantasy world

2005-09-12T16:44:00.000+01:00

The Christian course Alpha is trying to promote its brand of theism by advertising in cinemas..

Now I dont know a lot about Alpha, but from its Wikipedia entry it appears to be fairly fundamentalist but without being totally bigotted like the "Christian Wrong"

Now I can't ask for this to be banned, after all they paid their money. But I do think that this is an interesting place for them to advertise. After all they are basically selling god using some minor celebs and the line "Is there more to life than this". The true message is of course "Are you naive and gullible, then let us tell you how to think"..

But selling religion in an arena which itself sells fantasies may backfire. After all who is going to be able to take any kind of god as a real thing after watching War of the Worlds or Land of the Dead. It would be OK alongside religious films, but there aren't a whole lot of those. Most likely they will target "family" films, where the young and impressionable will be watching.

Big Brother - is blind

2005-09-07T17:06:00.000+01:00

Charles Clarke and indeed many other polititicians are so obsessed with being seen to combat terrorism (at any cost to our human freedoms) that they dont even seem to care about the fact that the draconian measures they want to put into place will have no effect at all.

Lets not get into the actual cost of recording and storing all communications by phone email and web. That is a vast amount of data which will cost hundreds of millions to store.... Lets also net get into the fact that maybe somewhere within the Terabytes of humdrum everday stuff there might be an actual terrorist organising stuff. I dont think a filter looking for the words "Bomb" and "London" will do the trick. We're talking needle in haystack here.

Mr Clarke is right that terrorists use modern technology to talk to each other. If Mr Clarke knew anything about modern technology (and he doesnt appear to have talked to any experts). He'd know that none of his data retention will be of any use whatsoever. First of all, if I was a terrorist and I wanted to communicate with my mates I'm not going to do it in the clear.. Oh no I'll be installing PGP onto my email so that I'm perfectly secure. Now the security services have no chance of reading my email, Thus no point in them recording it. OK now they want to record all my phone conversations.... Well I'll stop using the phone and speak to people via secure voip. Skype claims to use RSA security and it appears to be very secure. Even if the powers that be can crack it, no doubt more secure ones will take its place.

In short, the presence of RSA means that any attempts to control terrorism via knee jerk laws to just store everything are a complete waste of time and money. We should concentrate on preventing people from becoming terrorists by educating them to be rational and skeptical so they recognise the extreme nutters for what they are. We should also tackle the injustices in this world that the terrorists can use for propaganda. We should stop invading countries and blowing up their civilians based on lies. And we should accept that occasionally there are going to be attrocities, but that they do less harm than cars, or cancer, or hurricanes, or nicotine etc....

ID ology ?

2005-09-01T15:45:00.000+01:00

Its nice to see a piece in mainstream media which shows up Intelligent Design for what it is, a philosophy masquerading as a science. Whilst it may be appropriate to teach such a theory in a philosophy class, it has no place in a biology lesson.

Here in the UK we are lucky enough to have a National Curriculum which dictates what is taught in all state and private schools in the UK. Unlike the US where the ID people are challenging individual school boards, here they would have to go through the department of education (where of course (at least I hope) we have some rational scientists helping to make the decisions).

Of course we are not free from the creationists here in the UK. No, just as there are UK based Evangelicals there are also a few creationists trying to promote their anti-science.

Not Human

2005-08-24T13:37:00.000+01:00

The closure of a farm which bred guinea pigs for animal experiments is being seen by even the moderate animal rights groups as a victory...

Johnny Holmes, a spokesman for Stop the Newchurch Guinea Pigs, said: "This is the most fantastic day of my life.

"It's a victory for the animals and it's a fundamental victory for the animal rights movement

No it isnt and if he actually could think rationally he would know this. The researchers will go elsewhere to source their animals, some other farm maybe outside the UK where the legislation which protects animals is not as strict....

But the animal rights campaigners do not seem to be by and large a rational bunch. They dont seem to have grasped the simple fact that animals are just "animals" i.e. not human beings. A rational animal right person would recognise this and campaign for good treatment of animals (which minimised suffering), whilst accepting that we as human beings exploit animals for our own benefit (and have done for thousands of years). Feel free to call for a debate over the legislation concerned with animal experiments or farming practises. Feel free to make the scientist justify whether their animal experiments are trully necessary. But dont just call for the banning of experiments because of all the "ickle fluffy bunny rabbits"

All we are saying......

2005-08-19T13:18:00.000+01:00

It looks like the anti-war protests in America are beginning to hot up... Shades of the anti-Vietnam protests of the 60s

I cant help but think that the people of the US would have woken up to the truth about this illegal, immoral, fuck-up of a war a lot sooner if it wasn't for the fact that the UK was dragged into the same by Tony Blair and his classic fairy tale about WMD's being deployed in 45 mins.

I mean, reasonable people, maybe Democrats who may distrust Bush, looked at our support and must have thought that if the Brits are with us then it must be OK. The presence of the UK turned the conflict from a gung-ho US bully boy affair into a "coalition" (at least as spun to the media). I'm not sure if the US people knew how much the war was opposed in this country, even as it was being started.

Now I dont know what we can do about this mess. Both leaders have been re-elected, in part because the main opposition in both countries have had their hands tied by being supporters of the war. I would like the future of security in Iraq to be handled by the UN with peacekeeper troops from suitable countries. That at least would be better than what we have now. I'm not sure if this is acheivable however. It may be that we are stuck with this disaster (not to mention paying for it) for a long long time to come. I can only hope that the people of both countries learn from this, and pass this experience onto the next generation.

Drink..Drink and be Merry

2005-08-16T13:25:00.000+01:00

There have been a lot of news stories recently regarding the new licensing laws going through parliament. Most of these are to do with various people expressing concern of the effect that potential 24hr drinking will have on the binge drinking alcohol related violence that already exists within some of our major towns and cities.

Now when senior judges and policemen have concerns they no doubt speak from a position of authority. But have they thought things through. Firstly, for each problem pub in the inner cities there are many small local rural pubs out in the sticks where people are having a quiet drink and a chat, and may not want to be kicked out at 11pm. Secondly the inner city problems are caused by other factors. We have lots of licensed premises, packed in people, poor security, irresponsible drinks promotions that encourage fast early consumption, and young people who have jobs and money and a drink till you drop philosophy.

The way to fix this is not to limit the freedoms of responsible drinkers in other quiet premises but to tackle the problem at cause..

i) Start imposing rules on inner city problem premises.. Limit numbers inside.. ensure no standing up...Monitor or ban happy hours, Ask for improvements in security (including adequately trained staff)... If they break these conditions or they serve irresponsibly (i.e. to underaged people, or too drunk people).. then remove their license, and shut them down.

ii) Start issueing some bigger punishments to the drunker yobbos. These people are not unemployed layabouts, they have jobs and money. A night in the cells could be considered scars of battle for some. A conviction for D&D or theatening behaviour may not involve an big fine....But for repeat offenders it should. A large (say £1000 plus) fine may make some people think more in the cold light of day. (whew...I do sound like a good old hang'em and flog'em tory here)

iii) Send CCTV footage of some of the more outrageous behaviour to peoples parents.. That might result in some "home truths"

iv) Educate, Educate.... I myself can go over the recommended units per week quite easily. Heck a can of stella is 2.2 units. Im not sure most people even realise how little 21 units is.

In the light of the governments other attempts to piss all over our freedoms in the name of "security" its nice to see them repealing 90odd year old restrictions in line with the more liberal Europeans, even if it is more at the drinks lobbies request that respect for personal liberty.

Tonys knee jerking again

2005-08-05T17:13:00.000+01:00

Ive just listened to Tony Blair outlining the latest set of anti-terror measures and I'm actually spitting......

As usual our government sees 50 people dead in London as an excuse to add another swath of legislation removing some more of our basic freedoms.....

Lets look at the details....

New grounds for deporting and excluding people from the UK - including fostering hatred or, advocating and justifying violence to further beliefs. The powers will cover statements already on record. Consultation on the plans will finish this month

So we can deport you just for saying stuff. Bollocks to freedom of speech.. Now I'll admit that it would be better if the extremist nutters were shut up, but the best way to combat them is to educate the young and impressionable to be more skeptical and rational, and to engage with them to find out what their griefs are. If they cant get the anti-west rhetoric from the extremist clerics, they'll get it off the internet.

Agreements with other countries, such as Jordan, to ensure people can be deported to their nations of origin without being tortured or ill-treated

This one I love... Im sure the Jordanian minister shook Tony's hand, smiled and said.."Dont worry Mr Blair... We promise we'll not mistreat them ". Blair has obviously overlooked the fact that if a country condones torture within its borders then their promises arent worth shit... No doubt the first one we send will have an "accident", or will be arrested and lost within the system. or maybe they'll just torture the hell out of them and then lie like the UAE

Amend human rights laws, if necessary, to prevent legal obstacles to new deportation rules

Thats right...fuck the human rights laws... we want to stop another 50 people being blown up in 5 years time... The fact that more people have died on the roads, or from cancer, AIDS, flu, or due to smoking/drinking/obesity is not important...

Home secretary automatically to consider deporting any foreigner involved in listed extremist bookshops, centres, organisations and websites

No judge involved here..Nope if the home secretary thinks your bad then out you go..

Make justifying or glorifying terrorism anywhere an offence

Interesting one this one. Apart from the free speech aspect again. It depends on defining terrorism. Some people would suggest that prosecuting an illegal war which kill civilians would count as such....

Automatically refuse asylum to anyone with anything to do with terrorism anywhere

So countries who want their torture playthings back will no doubt supply the UK with vital "intelligence" of their terrorist activities so that they cant escape into asylum.

Consult on setting a maximum time limit for extraditions to other countries - Mr Blair said it was unacceptable that Rashid Ramda, wanted for the Paris Metro bombing 10 years ago, was still in the UK

I'm not sure of the facts of this, but to set an arbritrary time limit is to effectively assume guilt. There may be a need to speed up the process, but I'd guess that if hes still here after 10 years then the French case may be pretty weak..

Examine calls for police to be able to hold terror suspects for longer before pressing charges

Thats right folks...Welcome to the UK.. A free democratic nation where we lock people up for long periods of time without due process because we're scared of them...

Use more control orders against British terror suspects, who cannot be deported

OK we cant lock them up or deport them, so we control their movement or restrict their access to certain people or media... No sorry we dont want to have to go through the awkward process of charging them and trying them in court because it would show up that our case is so fucking non-existent.. No trust us these guys are a bit dodgy...

Increase the number of special judges hearing terror cases

Why do we need "special" judges. Whats so special about them... Ill have to research this

Ban the Hizb ut Tahrir and the successor organisation of Al-Muhajiroun - and look at whether the grounds for banning such groups need to be widened

Review the threshold for gaining British citizenship and establish, with the Muslim community, a commission to advise how to better integrate parts of the community "presently inadequately integrated"

Create a list of foreign preachers who will be kept out of the UK and consult on creating new powers to close places of worship used to forment extremism

As said above, the young impressionable people who are responsive to the extremist rhetoric will go elsewhere to find it.

Use biometric visas for those from designated countries and compiling a database so people whose views or activities pose a threat to UK security can be kept out of the country. They could only appeal against the decision from overseas.

Biometric visas (and indeed passports) may be useful, but only in terms of speeding up the process of getting friendlies into a country. However the technology for a 100% unhackable perfectly recognising system does not exist, and the whole thing could be very very expensive...

I think Ill stop there.... Enough bile rid of for one day...

Not Right

2005-08-03T15:46:00.000+01:00

Those few of you who actually read this thing ( and I believe there are one or two now) are probably aware that I am a bit liberal....However I am not a complete lefty.

I used to be much more socially minded, and indeed am a firm supporter of such great entities as the NHS and the welfare state. But I am not a supporter per se of state ownership of everything, nor of total wealth distribution. Like many of my age, who have prospered due to the access of the working classes to university in the 80s my new found wealth has seen me drift into the centre ground.

I say this because it is often that liberatarianism seems to be associated with being left wing. I think that this is often an atttempt by those who would choose to deny us our human rights to paint their enemies red to make them an easier target.

But in reality I have seen libertarian views from all sides of the political spectrum. I even found myself agreeing with the likes of Peter Hitchens the other day, with respect the use of the war on terror to make laws which take away long held liberties. Now whilst there are many on both the right and left with whom I would disagree with respect to the degree to which the state should tax us and spend on us, there are both hardline socialist and fiscal conservatives who are in agreement on such subjects as human rights, abortion, civil liberties etc.

And this is where I have a problem with terminology. We speak of the Christian Right as if the two words go together, as if to be right wing is to share all the bullshit oppressive views of the evangelicals. But this is not the case. Worse still the word right itself suggests correctness when in fact they are so so not right at all.

So from now on I suggest a new terminology for the bible thumpers....Tell it like it is... they are the Christian Wrong

Religious "Teaching"

2005-07-22T10:45:00.000+01:00

In the light of the second attack on London from religious extremists there much discussion going on in the UK about how reglion is being taught to our children.

Now we have a state religion (the C of E) in this country, and a considerable number of religious schools (of many different types), many of which are state funded. Some are saying that the way to combat the preaching of extreme religious views is to have more such schools where the more moderate views can be put forward. This is an interesting idea, but I disagree...

The last thing we need is more schools pumping dogma of any type into impressionable minds. They get enough of it in church/mosque/synagogue at the weekends. Schools should be about teaching facts and encouraging rational thinking. A religous school is de facto segregationist. It says to children "you're different from them, and you're better". A religious school in part is about teaching facts like evolution one day, then talking about the big sky daddy and his magical talking snake the next. How can children separate their rational evidential scientific life, from the spiritual life.

By separating the factual world from the spiritual, we give our young the ability to criticise and to be skeptical. These are the defenses they need to recognise the extreme religious bullshit for what it is. Moderate religious views have nothing to worry about because much of what they teach (eg respect for your fellow man) is common sense.

Non religous schools will have mixed student bodies which encourages tolerance. Its difficult to hate another religion when their representative is just another kid at the next desk. Of course, being non-religious doesnt mean not learning about religion. Its important that kids learn about other religious cultures as well as other racial ones.

We cant stop all religious schools, after all, people can to set up a private school, but we should stop all STATE funding of religious schools...

.... can be devastating

2005-07-13T15:06:00.000+01:00

And yet another example of what happens when religious dogma is allowed to run unchecked....

The abuse and torture of children is something that no person, relgious or otherwise should tolerate. It arises from ignorance and the irrational belief in the supernatural.......

The effects of dogma.......

2005-07-13T14:59:00.000+01:00

The four suicide bombers who hit London last Thursday all seem to have the same thing in common. I have read several reports now which include comments from their friends and family as to how so and so was a nice kid who wasnt the sort of person who would commit such an attrocity...

Now of course we know they were, at least when you find out that they recently became more religious... Thats right folks, a perfect example of how religion can fuck up your brain and turn you into a hate filled irrational murderer...

There needs to be something done to hate filled rhetoric that is being preached to vulnerable gullible young men.... And I beleive it is the responsibility of the Muslim community in this country to clean up the mess in its own house....

A week of ups and downs

2005-07-12T07:03:00.000+01:00

Ive just returned from a weeks holiday chugging around the canals of the west midlands in a narrow boat. A mixed week in terms of weather and in terms of news.

Whilst I've been away we have had Live8 (a good thing), G8 (a mixed bag), London 2012 (another good thing) and the London bombs (a very bad thing). I cant help but think that if these bastards had pulled their tricks on Tuesday then we would have lost the Olympic bid....

A step forward

2005-06-30T12:51:00.000+01:00

Spain has voted to allow homosexual couples the same rights to marry as heterosexual ones. This follows a similar move by the Canadians.

This is despite attempts to prevent it by the bigots who make up the evangelical branch of christianity, or the outdated fools who make up the catholic church leadership. The politicians in both these countries are listening to the rational arguments that all humans should be treated equally, not to the dogma based on the belief in some invisible sky daddy. I hope that this starts a trend amongst similar countries. I would certainly like to see the UK follow suit.

Now maybe we'll see thousands of US gays flocking north to petition for Canadian citizenship.

Actually, I wonder what international law says about marriages in one country being recognised by another....

To ID or not to ID

2005-06-27T16:47:00.000+01:00

The controversy surrounding the governments plans to introduce ID cards gathers pace with many now arguing against them...

This is one more example of the government blindly lumbering on with a bill that is clearly unpopular...After a while they just begin to believe their own spin so much that they are locked into it. They just dont seem to have the balls to say "OK we thought it might be a good idea but it sucks so well drop it"

Now I'm not totally against ID cards per se...After all most people have IDs of one form or another be it driving licenses, passports, union cards, work passes etc. But these are in many cases voluntary, and in all cases are entitlement cards (i.e. they are used to confirm ones ID to access a service). Compulsory cards are another thing altogether, and production on demand is definately restriction on my civil liberties.

But the biggest problem I have with the current bill is with the spin... First it purports to be a pro-security anti terror measure (despite the fact that most terrorists are perfectly legit people..The 20 involved in 9/11 were all on valid visas). Then it is an anti-fraud measure (well maybe, but shouldn't existing ID checks be enough). But mostly it is the attempt to push biometric ID's that is the problem. The technology does not even appear to be 99% perfect, and the cost provided by the government (itself at 6 billion being very high indeed) are being questioned as being conservative. After all how many large govnernment IT projects have been delivered to time and to cost.

I wish the government of this country would stop fucking about with ID cards and anti-free speech crap and get on with sorting out health and education and the roads and other stuff that they were voted in to do.....

Missing the Point

2005-06-24T13:01:00.000+01:00

The CoOp bank are to be congratulated on their insistence that the Christian Voice group go do their banking elsewhere. The CoOp have done this on ethical grounds after seeing the groups obvious homophobic bigotry. I give the the following from the Christian voice website..

As a result of pressure from ‘gay activists’ many if not all police forces now place recruitment adverts for practising homosexuals in the ‘gay press’. This is a decision driven by political correctness and expediency, but is it wise in pure policing terms?

Homosexual police are involved in some of the most disgusting perversions imaginable; how can they bring clean hands to any police investigation?

Homosexual police are corrupted by what they do; how can they investigate cases of corruption?

Their whole life is lived in denial; how can they be expected to tell the truth in Court?

Homosexual police are likely to seek sexual encounters in public conveniences and in the open (most homosexual men do); are they going to take part in exercises against ‘cottaging’ and ‘cruising’?

Their sexual behaviour is deviant and indecent; how can they uphold public decency and morality?

As an aside, you wont see this directly on their website...Instead you have to download one of their articles in pdf format which is maybe an attempt by them to discourage the more distasteful stuff from being spotted by search engines.

Now Christian Voice are complaining that the CoOp bank are discriminating against their religion....They are missing the point. The CoOp are chucking them based on ethical grounds, not because they are Christian. The CoOp have many accounts from other religious groups because of their ethical investment policies. No doubt they prefer to support views of the more tolerant to the money from the bigots...

The oldest profession

2005-06-22T17:25:00.000+01:00

Prostitution in its many forms has been with us for thousands of years and despite the many laws and punishments devised to prevent it still thrives...

In fact, prostitution (i.e. the sale of sexual services) is as far as I am aware not illegal in the UK. What is illegal is soliciting (i.e. advertising) and the touchingly Victorian offence of "imoral earnings", which appears to be what they have used to convict the woman in the above article.

Now I have to point out that I am fully aware that prostitution (particularly in the street) is often exploitative, involving violence, drugs and people trafficking. It does not sometimes provide a nice environment for people living nearby. Of course we have to do something about this.

But we should recognise that for some women (and men) it is a profession that they choose to do by their own free will. We have to recognise that no amount of legislation is going to stop it. In fact we have to recognise, as some parts of the world have done, that it is better to legalise and control it.

In other words, I feel we should legalise prostitution in this country. Sex workers should be licensed, with mandatory health checks and condom use. They should then be able to work in well run establishments which have regular hygiene inspections and proper security. Of course we can tax them and make some money for the exchequer.

Once we have done this we can tell the police to get on with going after the pimps and human traffickers, and use the tax money to provide treatment programs and refuges for the victims....

Red sky at night

2005-06-13T15:02:00.000+01:00

Sometimes you see a picture and it just takes your breath away...

When I saw this I just thought....WOW....Ive seen sunsets before, but to see one on another planet is just amazing. Its all so familiar, and yet, with the red sky and the smaller sun, so alien. I particularly like the blue sky, not what you'd think you'd see on the red planet.

It got me to thinking about man's future in space exploration. The age of commercial space travel is just beginning. I expect to see it become commonplace this century. The first person to walk on Mars has no doubt, already been born, as well as the thirteenth to walk on the Moon. I may see the next manned missions other planets before I die, but I will not go there myself. The colonisation of our solar system is hundreds of years away and will happen to another generation....

I envy them.

Atheists are Coming Out

2005-06-10T12:11:00.000+01:00

Ive seen a lot more athiest blogs appear in recent months. Some have been added to my new Links section which I worked out how to do in Blogger.

All the atheist blogs I've seen are based in the US. Their recent appearance is probably a reaction to the christian right which is trying to gain control of all 3 parts of the government over there. I may be the only atheist blogger in the UK, but I doubt it.

Atheists are definately becoming more vocal and more organised in America. Here, prominent atheists do appear in the media, but the athiest organisations are fairly low profile. I suppose this is more to do with the fact that we dont have a large number of right wing religious organisations trying to push their "morality" onto us.

Its odd really, in the US they have the separation of church and state in a written constituton and a large number of believers. Here we have a head of state who is head of the church, D.G.REG.F.D on our coinage, God Save the Queen as our national anthem, and yet this nation is becoming more secular and liberal.

Maybe, if the christian right in the US manage to get their theocracy it will start the secularisation of the nation.....

Addendum:

Apparently I'm not the only Atheist blogger in the UK, see here. I note that this blog also started up this year....

sick acts of the gullible

2005-06-04T08:15:00.000+01:00

I cant express how sick I feel after reading about this case...

We have a small group of adults toruring and almost killing a child because they beleived she was a witch. This is the 21st century and yet some people are still living in the 15th....

Of course what is going on here is the misguided actions of people who have come from the developing world where such beliefs are commonplace. The problem is that these beliefs are not being squashed when they come to this country. In fact the church these people belong to appear to promote the belief in witchcraft.

This is just another example of what can happen when poorly informed irrational people are indoctrinated by churches (and in particular charismatic preachers) who in some instances are equally deluded, but in many cases are manipulating teir flock for personal gain and power.

I hope the courts send these people to prison for a long time.... A message needs to be sent....

jamster today

2005-05-25T13:28:00.000+01:00

Im not surprised to find that 150,000 copies of the Jamster frog thing have been sold. The fact that it outsold Colplay's single merely reflects the fact that people are more likely to buy their album. No I'm not suprised at all, after all people are gobbling up the ringtones at an atonishing rate.

Now I have to say that its a free country and people can listen to what they like. But personally I find the frog intensely irritating and the tunes equally so. I am also surprised how much people are prepared to pay...2 quid for a 10 second ringtone when you can get a 3 minute track from itunes for 69p. Alternatively you can make your own ringtones. It just appears to me that the mobile phone companies are making a fortune out of people who are not exercising much rational thought when it comes to spending money....

But as I say its a free country....Nobody puts a gun to their head...

.....Now where can I buy shares in Vodaphone ??????

One Year On

2005-05-13T15:18:00.000+01:00

Well I've managed to keep prattling on this thing for a year now. I see that this is my 44th entry which puts me at less than 1 a week, probably a bit slower than your average blogger.

I'm not sure how many people have seen this stuff. Maybe a few, so maybe this is becoming a vanity blog...

We'll see how we go...

A new Atheism ?

2005-05-02T18:17:00.000+01:00

Dylan Evans' article is both unusual (in that articles concerning athiesm are few and far between these days, particularly in the mainstream media), and interesting.

Dylan appears to object to the view of many atheists (and I use the word "many" having trawled a lot of the atheists' areas on the web) which is on general anti-religion and pro-science. In particular he focuses on Richard Dawkins whom he obviously considers to be in a minority. I'm not sure if this is the case. I think that Richard Dawkins is more prominent and outspoken than most.

To say that this form of atheism is "naively pro-science" is I think, a strawman.. Athiesm is pre-REASON, i.e. it supports things that have a rational argument to back up there existence. He accuses "old atheism" of being "artistically illiterate" when in fact art has a perfectly rational justification in its ability to relate man to his world and to communicate ideas, thoughts and emotions.

Mr Evans would like to treat religion as a kind of art, as a kind of human made form which attempts to deal with mans need for "transendence" (ie mans fear of death and the trip to nothingness that goes with it). But this kind of art already exists in the stories and depictions of the supernatural that we all know and love. Mr Evans conveniently forgets the other aspect of religion. That its main purpose in life is to exert control on its believers.

The reason that Mr Dawkins, I and many others are anti-religion is because of the control aspect. Whilst we see that many people benefit from their religious devotion, we see much more harm than good. Mr Evans may want to value a movement some of whose members, have caused many wars, have tortured those who dissent from their views, would like to remove science from science class, would prefer pregnant women to risk death carrying a child they do not want, consider homosexuals to be less human, and are happy for millions of Africans to die of AIDS than to use a condom. I value no such movement.

A world without religion can still have art and culture...without the irrational oppression.....

The wrong end of the stick

2005-05-02T17:11:00.000+01:00

The music industry continues to try and protect its intellectual property.. This time by tightening up the laws to impose draconian penalties for people who download and copy their stuff...

Now I'm not an advocate of free-for-all swapping of movies and music with no comeback to the artists and publishers. But it seems to me that instead of researching the subject of internet downloads (ie who is downloading, what they grab, how often, how much, what they share, and how they use it) they instead seem intent on trying to solve the problem by lobbying governments for big laws, and pushing expensive lawsuits on the few large users that stand out from the crowd, whose identities they can extort from the ISPs. This is like trying to stop a flood of water with a baseball bat.

There are several important points to make about the downloading of music and films. Firstly, people have been copying stuff for years. MP3 and MP4 may be more modern, but people have taped music off the radio, and programmes/films off the TV for years. The industry raised a furore in the 80s about this and even tried to stop it then but they failed. Instead they got on with selling more tapes and CD's and even to this day sales are not falling due to P2P sharing despite what the industry would have us believe.

So what are the industry getting wrong and how SHOULD they sort things out. Well first off all they should recognise that P2P is not going to go away. Digital copies will always be out there. But P2P digital copies come with caveats, they may not be the best quality, may have viruses and are in the end just plain computer files (which themselves need to be stored on some form of optical media). The industry should realise that what they offer is a content delivery platform, plus a value add business. They should do the following...

1)

Change there own legal download pricing to reflect the true costs involved and not try to keep it at CD prices. If people can get legal (high quality, non virus) downloads at a few pence each they are less likely to go for the illegal versions

2)

Combine together to put all music onto one download site. People will not want to sign up to different services, all using different formats.

3)

Stop with the copy protection on music files. It isnt well supported and in any case is easy to remove. Stick to MP3s. They can if they want tag the file with the original downloader so they know who is releasing files into the public domain.

4)

Use P2P themselves. It shouldn't be difficult to adapt P2P so that any song downloaded across the network is tagged and the downloaders account debited accordingly. The money of course is then credited to the relevant publisher and from there to the artist. Of course the uploading peer can earn a penny or two for each track they supply. This will reduce bandwidth from the publishers' servers and thus reduce costs for all.

5)

Realise that CD's and DVD's will have to compete with the new media. Use the advantages that these provide. Add extra pictures, special editions, more extra features. Maybe the disc unlocks extra areas on the bands website, gives money off concert tickets, has extra live footage from the latest tour..

I think however that the music industry will not do any of these things. They appear to be run by suits who have little understanding (or have little inclination to understand) the internet. The first small independent that clues in to the way people use the new media today will gain a significant advantage

X marks the spot

2005-04-22T17:12:00.000+01:00

Its offical.....Im a leftish liberal greeny kind of person....

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Liberal Democrat

Your actual outcome:

	Labour 4
Conservative -44
	Liberal Democrat 60
UK Independence Party -26
	Green 39

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Free expression cuts both ways

2005-04-21T14:15:00.000+01:00

Tonight the democratic process in the UK continues with the party election broadcast from the British National Party (BNP).

For those of you who are not British, in our system, every party who fields enough candidates at the election gets at least one (and for the main parties more) election broadcast on TV and radio (roughly 5 min long) for free. In fact, no party is allowed to pay for time.

The BNP are a right wing party whose main policy is one of little or no immigration, and I beleive they also wish to withdraw from Europe. Whilst at least in public, they present the face of a group that is no more than a right wing political party, some of their members are known to have expressed racist views in private.

Now I dont much care for the policies of the BNP. But I would not myself deny them their right to express their opinions, even in the national media. It appears that unite against facism do not share my view. They have a right to protest, and to argue against the BNP's poicies. But they should not be calling for the BNP election broadcast to be pulled.

4 New Wheels

2005-04-18T10:49:00.000+01:00

Two Weeks ago I get delivery of my new motor.. a Renault Megane 2 litre VVT, 3 doors with lots and lots of extra toys added as options....Isnt she pretty

Heres a picture of my car "shakin its aaassss"

Why did I choose this car.. Well I wanted a hottish hatch (not too much oommpph) so 2 litres was the way to go (135 bhp). I also wanted a bit of style which the german cars like the well reviewed new golf GTI dont really provide. With the funny back end my car stands out from the crowd. Its also much cheaper than the VW or Audis. I was also swayed by the fact that I got good reliability from my old car which my brother now has.

ASBO Abuse

2005-04-11T15:36:00.000+01:00

This story reminds me how some people dont realise what sort of country we are suppose to live in...

Mr Humm said: "What Mr Hawkin has said about the Pope is disgusting and outrageous. Mr Hawkin should be charged."

Mr Humm and a local councillor have been pressing for an Asbo to be taken out against the alternative site.

Mr Humm et. al. should be reminded that there is something in this country we call free speech, and whilst they have the right to be offended, they do not have the right to censor... If I want to say fuck the pope then I can (particularly if I mention his contribution to millions of deaths in Africa from AIDS, due to his no condoms policy)....

If Mr Hawkins gets an ASBO, then I hope he continues with his website and fights it in court. We need to stand up in this country for the rights our ancestors fought for....

A hard choice, yet not the most humane

2005-03-23T13:01:00.000Z

The tragedy surrounding the case of Terri Schiavo continues... The next stop as I suspected will be the Supreme Court. At least it willbe decided there one way or another.

I am however not going to discuss this case any more. Instead I want to talk about the consequence of what is being decided. We have a human being who is severely disabled and the question being asked is. Does that person have the right to ask for their own life to end. But if we answer this question in the affirmative (as the courts seem to have done). Then why dont we have the guts to finish the job properly and humanely... Why do we have to let her effectively starve to death because we pussyfoot around the true consequence of the decision that she is better off at rest....

Due process down the tube

2005-03-22T15:22:00.000Z

The right to life is a very difficult subject to address. In the case of Terri Schiavo it is a very complex issue revolving around her current quality of life, her future prognosis, and her own wishes made before her entrance into a vegetative state. Now it would be wrong of me to say that she should be allowed to die. I am not fully aware of the facts of the case. However, I do know that this case has been through several courts and in front of several judges. So the decision made by the state court to remove her feeding tube is one we shuold respect. After all we live in a society where there is a legal process where we have to accept the final answer, even if it is one we disagree with.

But George W doesn't appear to believe in due process.. The answer is wrong so he gets out of bed and signs a resolution to bump it up another level to the federal court. Not that he examined all the evidence pro and con.... Not that he took legal advice from both sides... Nope he just did it because it didn't fit with his own world view..."Fuck the state court my way's right"..

The federal court judge has upheld the state court ruling, so no doubt this ones going up to the supreme court...Its good that the president will have to accept the ruling of that court... Its bad however that he will soon be able to affect who sits on that bench....From his current behaviour I dont think thats good for justice in the US....

Religious Intolerance

2005-03-14T17:22:00.000Z

The evangelicals are now trying to censure the BBC over the Jerry Springer opera. Another example of the religious right trampling over other peoples right to free expression. Of course if someone were to say that their homophobic, sexist dogma should be banned they would be whinging about free speech themselves.

I hope the judge tell them where they can shove their legal challenge....

New Labour ..... New Paranoia

2005-03-07T14:45:00.000Z

A while since I blogged... mainly because I am a lazy git... not the best blogger in the world Im afraid.

A lot has happened in the last month. I have bought a new car (more later) and I have been to South Africa on a field trip. Its weird therefore that what has pushed me into another blog entry is the same subject as the last one.

I still cant believe I live in the same country that fought Hitler and Mussolini. The anti terror (AKA were the government we can do what the hell we like) bill was narrowly passed in the commons, and will be soundly thrashed in the Lords (its not often I am glad we have the House of Lords in its current form). But New Labour are still set on abandoning hundreds of years of due process in the name of security. I have one question for these people. If there are "hundreds" of people in the UK capable of performing "terrorist acts" then why haven't we had any. Either they are being foiled by the security services already (in which case why do we need more restrictions) or more likely they dont exist. Now I'm sure there are those who are actively fundraising, and preaching terrorism and hatred, but I dont think that there are many actually planning acts of violence. I also suspect that many of the "names" are have been named by people under torture in other countries (such is the nature of the "intelligence" that this government is prepared to accept).

Human Wrongs

2005-01-26T15:21:00.000Z

Today I'm actually ashamed of the actions of our government...

We hold dear the right we have to be considered innocent until proven guilty, and to have our guilt determined in a court of law, by a jury of our peers, to know the evidence against us, and to have adequate legal council.

Its important that in defending these rights we dont ignore them... For these people in Belmarsh jail the government seems to think that because they can legally ignore their rights (because they are not UK citizens) then they should...

Now maybe these people do as Charles Clarke says "pose a threat to national security" but if so then he should put up or shut up....Show us the evidence in a court. If the government hasnt the evidence to charge them then they should let them out.....

"Free" Expression

2005-01-12T13:44:00.000Z

Im among many people in this country who are getting concerned over the increasing trend towards the calling for bans of works based on their potential to upset religious groups...

Now the reaction of the radio 3 producer (ie resigning) is not something I object to.. He has after all the right to express his outrage at what he feels is "blasphemous", and after all, unlike many of the other complainants, at least he has viewed the programme in question.

No, what annoys me is that people call for these broadcasts to be banned altogether. It happened with Popetown, then with Behzti and even where things aren't banned, they are having things taken out. The protests involved havent been exactly peaceful and democratic either.

We have a basic right in this country to free expression. In the US that right is enshrined in the first amendment to the constitution. People have fought and died so that we may continue to enjoy it. Yet some people have forgotten that with that right comes an acceptance that we have to tolerate the rights of other people to say things that we might find distasteful. I personally find lots of stuff annoying be it religious evangelical homophobia, racism, alternative medicine bullshit or manufactured plastic buy/girl band pop music but I wouldnt want it banned.......

Steamed Up

2005-01-08T23:27:00.000Z

I'm pissed off......

Five days ago I finally got around to buying Half Life 2. I was entranced by the gameplay and atmosphere of the original and saw that the sequel had very good reviews...

But I haven't got to play it yet.... Why.... Because you cant play the game until
you have validated it online with Valves server "Steam".

Now I understand why Valve are making people register online to play the game.. They are worried about piracy. In fact they have just deleted 20000 dodgy Steam accounts. The problem is that they are pissing off legitimate users at the cost of a few pirates. Note that the pirates aren't going to be hurt that much... They've already hacked around the security...

My problem with the game is that my CD key had already been registered on Steam. So Valve or Sierra have not been able to send out CD keys properly in shrink-wrapped retail product... This leaves me unable to play...

So I have emailed VUgames (the publisher) as requested with all the relevant details in order to get another key (or reset the one I have)... And this is where it gets really bad.. I have had no reply in 5 days.. not even an acknowledgement. If you are going to have a draconian system that screws legitimate players... Its best not to have piss poor customer service......

I'll bet that I am not the only one in this position... I wouldn't be surprised if there is a big stink about this that will knock this online validation crap on the head for other games...

Happy New Year

2005-01-04T17:51:00.000Z

Well a new year dawns....

I had a good Christmas...in Wales with my family... I suppose I'm lucky to have a family to spend Christmas with... But then I'm also lucky to not have been swept away by a tidal wave....

One might wonder how it is that an Atheist celebrates Christmas. Well although it is named after Jesus, midwinter festivals have been going on since Roman times (Saturnalia). Much of the paraphanalia we have now (trees, santa, snowmen etc..) are not Christian in origin, or have become secular...a need for society to celebrate without being too religious.

In the UK we still have "Christmas", in the US (a more religious country) they say (at least in the media) "Happy Holidays", recognition of their separation of church and state. Im not sure but I think that it is the US (probably the corporate US) that has made Christmas more a secular holiday..

I think thats a good thing. Its a time we can all enjoy, be with family, eat to much, drink too much and not have to worry about excluding any one group. Those of us who are Christian can go to church. Those who aren't can give it a miss......

Personal broadcasting in the 21st Century

2004-12-03T10:33:00.000Z

The more I roam around the net, the more I marvel at the new ways in which we can communicate. I feel that if there is one thing that will reduce conflict and improve rational and humanist thinking in the world it is the open and free exchange of ideas...

Broadcasting in the last century tended to be one to many. You got your news from the news media (TV or newspapers) which all had bias in one way or another. The news was edited and selective. With the arrival of the web broadcasting became many to many... Anyone could put there experiences up there. Of course there is a lot of lies on the web (and a lot of porn) but at least you had access to plenty of sources and nothing was hidden..

First we had webpages, and newsgroups, then we had blogs, but to access these you needed to be at your PC.

But now a new media has emerged and I am just dipping my toe into it. Podcasts are audio broadcasts, usually made by individuals covering a wide range of issues, which you can download to your PC. The downloading is done automatically by manager software such as Ipodder. Of course you can play the audio on your PC, but as it is mp3 you can of course take it away with you on your mp3 player....

Meet the new Boss......same as the old Boss

2004-11-03T20:23:00.000Z

So the people of the USA went for the status quo...

This time Bush got in with a majority of the popular vote and on an increased turnout. I suppose the Iraq issue was key and people felt that the devil you know was preferable when it comes to security.

Ill admit here that I would have preferred Kerry. Im not too familiar with his domestic policies but its more because I dont like many aspects of Dubya's administration to date.

Firstly theres the war in Iraq. Sadam was a bad guy true, but the reasons given for the war were LIES, pure and simple... no 9/11 connection...no WMD.... There were ways and means to deal with Sadam. Even if we had to take Iraq by force, then we shoulds have had plans for post war internal security. In addition, the job would have been easier if the invaders were a UN combine instead of the "imperialist American infidels"

Then theres Bush's disregard for human rights. He wants to amend the US constitution to make gay people second class citizens (so much for "all men are created equal") . He thinks that a blob of cells has more rights that a fully grown female. And then theres the orange jumpsuit holiday camp in Cuba. After 3 years of detention we still dont have thousands of convictions of all the "terrorists" they have down there. Not that a fair public open trial by a jury is an option....In the war on terror we seem to be ignoring the values which we are in fact fighting to protect.

I wonder if all those people who went for security actually realise what they have voted for..........

Polls Apart

2004-10-18T13:26:00.000+01:00

Just looking at the reaction to the Guardians Operation Clarke County is an eye-opener.

I must admit that I am in two minds about the Guardian's push for people here in the UK to write letters to US voters. On the one hand we as world citizens will be affected by US foreign policy (as the US is the worlds biggest power) and to some extent by its economic policy and other things such as environmental activity. Thus we should at least be heard with respect to our views on who we would like as president. Indeed the Guardians direct approach may be because US voters are not hearing the rest of the world's view via their own media.

On the other hand I am uneasy about interfering directly with the electoral process in another country. As some of the more reasoned US responses have stated, it is their election, and there are domestic issues which dont affect us. I will not be participating in Operation Clarke County.

Having said all that I do have an opinion on who I want to be president. In the first place I suspect I would rather not have a president whose support appears to include some of the insulting and indeed racist remarks from the link above. In the second place I do not support the war in Iraq (I didnt vote for Tony Blair either). In the third place I do not agree with Bush's withdrawal from the Kyoto treaty, or his disrespect for human rights. And lastly I wish he would keep his narrow minded religious prejudices out of his government....

Whew.....

Out of the Blue

2004-10-12T03:23:00.000+01:00

Just back from my holiday down south of which more later....

But just before I left I got a big surprise.......

My Boss (or in actual fact my old boss as I have moved to a new asset team) comes into my office and closes the door.... This usually signifies something serious is about to occur... As always one gets a little knot in the stomach as to what sort of bollocking is one about to get.....

But this time it was good news.. A letter informs me that I have been promoted a grade with a nice pay rise on top.... This one came right out from nowhere as far as I'm concerned..

Sometimes its nice to feel appreciated.....Go Go Kerr McGee

I-Pod Mugging

2004-09-23T16:43:00.000+01:00

A last entry before my main holiday of the year down to Roch Castle in Pembrokeshire, S Wales.

I was packing my stuff and as part of that exercise I was filling up my Archos Jubebox mp3 player and I was thinking...

The player which cost me around £300 has about 18GB of mp3 files on it from hundreds of albums and talking books. This represents thousands of pounds worth of intellectual property which is entirely unprotected if my player were stolen. This makes it an attractive target to the bad guys.

So I suspect that soon, now that with high capacity mp3 players are becoming more mainstream, we'll start to see a rise in mp3 player theft. These devices have no security features to prevent their use by non-owners (unlike modern mobiles which are beginning to acquire these features). The big manufacturers like Apple, Sony etc will need to consider putting in somthing like PIN access to players before long ...

I'm out till early October....See you all then

Do you ken John Peel....

2004-09-20T23:22:00.000+01:00

A big subject for debate in the UK at moment is the upcoming ban on hunting foxes (and some other animals) with hounds...I suppose I ought to add my 2p worth

Like other issues (such as abortion) the pro and anti arguments tend to include other stuff which is not actually relevant. In the case of foxhunting the pro lobby go on about the fact that it is a tradition, that it would cause severe problems for the rural economy and that there is lots of equally cruel practices going on elsewhere....

All these are irrelevant, if it was a tradition...well so was bear baiting and slavery before our moral outrage banned both. The fact that the economy would take a hit is irrelevant when animal cruelty may be involved, and the fact that it goes on elsewhere does not excuse it here....

What is the key relevant issue for or against foxhunting is whether it IS cruel to the fox. For this we need evidence from experts (presumably vets). Im not sure we have enough research on this subject (or at least I havent seen it) so as yet (and rather suprisingly you might think given that I am a townie) I am not convinced that we should ban foxhunting outright.

Now the call to ban it is not entirely out of a sympathy for the fox. The urban majority who make all the GDP in this country are fed up of the arrogant whinging of people like the Countryside Alliance. After all, we pay a lot in taxes to the central fund which pays for services in rural areas. Im not sure I agree with this backlash against the foxhunters which is based on a need to give them a bloody nose because after all is not too rational. However they have sort of asked for it.

There are after all several issues which are important to rural folk and should be addressed eg) the closure of post offices, fuel costs, rural unemployment, and the problems local people have competing with the townie downsizers for property. However these important issues are not put forward properly as a sensible case for debate. Instead we have red jacketed, horn blowing, horse riding landowning rich toffs arrogantly strutting around and excpecting the lower classes to pander to their whims... They need to learn that they dont run the place anymore.......

I-Gouge

2004-09-15T21:46:00.000+01:00

BBC NEWS | Business | iTunes under fire over UK pricing

Notice I-tunes reply when approached about their policy of charging more for UK customers....They note that CDs cost more in the UK so why shouldnt their online downloads.. In other words, because other people rip us off so they... Well as I have said before they chargetoo much evern in Europe and the US let alone here... With no CD manufacturing costs or wholesal/retail overhead the prices should reflect the musicians' royalty, online server costs and some profit

Well they wont get any of my money.....

"Goddag"

2004-09-15T11:48:00.000+01:00

I'e just returned from a business trip to Denmark. My first visit to the country and to the beautiful city of Copenhagen.

A few throughts......

Most of the Danes cycle everywhere. The city has an extensive network of cycle lanes and is fairly flat which encourages cycling. Apparently cars are taxed to the hilt which also puts people on 2 wheels. Of course the population is small (only 1 million in the city) so they have space to do this. I didnt see a traffic jam anywhere.

The food is very healthy. Lots of bread and cold meat and cheese and salads with not too much fat. Combined with the cycling above you get a thin country. I didnt see one fat Dane..

The little mermaid is a bit of a shock. First of all its right on the shoreline, and its quite small. I was surprised how unprotected it is but this is Denmark where there do not appear to be any lager louts..

The taxi drivers havent a clue where to go... This something the Danish tourist board have to sort out. After all if foreigners visit your city they wont know where their hotel is on the map.

When terrorists have a point

2004-09-03T13:24:00.000+01:00

The fate of the two French journalists kidnapped in Iraq is still in doubt. I hope that ultimately things work out and that they are released.

Their capture however raises a point about how far we should go as a society when it comes to religious freedoms. France as a secular state has made a law that prevents the wearing of religious insignia within the school, mainly on the ground that such emblems are divisive and that the schoolroom should be a secular place. The terrorists who captured the 2 journalists are protesting against this law which prevents moslem schoolgirls from wearing the hijab. Much though I disapprove stongly of their methods (and I would never condone such acts) I have to admit that they have a point..

Now, I'll accept that a religious garment or symbol in school can label someone out as different and possibly make them a target for racial harassment (particularly if they are in a minority). However, by forcing all children to deny their religion the state is itself deny them their right to free expression. A moslem shoolchild does not become unreligious without their headscarf, anymore that a cathlic child would without a crucifix. The elimination of religious symbols might remove the triggers for racial intolerance but would not root out the causes which are of course, lack of understanding of other cultures.

I feel that children should be allowed to display their religion and that schools should take advantage of the multiplicity of religions represented to educate children in the practices and beliefs of schoolmates. Of course where garments are involved (such as the hijab) we should make sure that it is the child's decision of their own free will and not one forced onto them by their parents.

One could take the argument to extremes and allow the fully covered up option such as the Burka. From a free will point of view this is correct, but in this case other important arguments come into play which would deny the Burka. Such a garment has implications for security (ie establishing identity) and health and safety.

No Justice in the Land of the Terminally Gullible

2004-08-20T16:46:00.000+01:00

I see stuff like this all the time on the Web and it sickens me that this goes on in the 21st century....

I'll post some the text of this article here with my comments. The article appears in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A Milwaukee minister whose attempt to perform an exorcism ended in the death of an 8-year-old boy was sentenced Tuesday to 30 months in prison and 7 1/2 years of state supervision for the botched ritual last August.

A Theist conducts a ritual which involves physical contact. A full grown man sat on an 8 year old child...squish....Some people might think that this would be dangerous... that's why we separate people into weight categories before they wrestle at the Olympics...But of course this is religion here and so rationality goes out the window.....

The sentence bars Ray Anthony Hemphill, 46, a former maintenance worker with no religious schooling who conducted services in a strip-mall sanctuary, from attempting any more exorcisms during the next 10 years without formal training in the practice. Circuit Judge Jean DiMotto said the prohibition, and the extended supervision, were needed to protect Milwaukee from Hemphill's unorthodox religious practices.

"The community cannot risk another child being hurt, much less being killed, in a religious ritual," DiMotto said.

No, a stiff jail sentence is needed to deter other unschooled "ministers" from repeating this tragedy. Yes we may keep this guy off the streets but what about the other ones in other malls...

Hemphill was also ordered to pay $1,224.75 in restitution.

Well wow...a thousand bucks....A child's life is cheap in America.

The boy had been coming to prayer services at Faith Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith, 8709 W. Fond du Lac Ave, for about three weeks. They were intended to cure the boy's autism.

This is example of a tragic condition which the medical community cannot cure. Parents will grasp at anything that will help their child. This of course allows any crank to pray on the vulnerable an sell them a "miracle" cure be it homeopathy, crystal healing or exorcism... In this case it appears to be a case of the someone who is well meaning but deluded.

Cottrell's mother, Patricia Cooper, said, "He would still be here today if I never would have taken him to that church."

A shame and a tragedy...Perhaps she has learnt a valuable lesson......

GIGO ahead in the Polls

2004-08-20T16:15:00.000+01:00

It appears that the US is forging ahead with paperless voting despite all the glitches. This kind of thing disturbs me.

Democracy in the US is already tainted by the corruption of open "soft" contributions to campaigns by parties with vested interests. Given that a lot of the campaign spending seems to go on TV adverts maybe they should disallow all political TV ads in favour of publicly funded party political broadcasts of a given set number (equal for GOP and Dem with a fewer number for smaller parties.). This seems to work well in the UK

The election is also tainted by the removal from the electoral rolls of people who have a felony conviction. Now if you are currently serving a sentence (either in prison or out), or are obviously incapable of voting (e.g. due to insanity) then I can accept that you should not be on the list. But in the US people are being denied their vote despite the fact they they have served their sentences (not including those who of course were in fact innocent and were excluded based on mistaken identity). Its important to note that this is not happening in all states in the US, but in a few. Is it a coincidence that the electoral officials in charge are leading republicans, and that the states in question are key swing states in this election....I think not...It stinks...

Now they want to move the vote onto paperless system...No receipt...No physical tracking...Just press a button and hope that the computer counts it all up correctly..This assumes that the computer is not tampered with, or that the count isnt messed up by a bug....Hmmm

"Microsoft Election has experienced a problem and will be shut down, please contact the manufacturer of this software for assistance".......

The problem with elections are that they are a one time thing...You need to be able to record everything that goes on with 100% confidence or you are in deep doodoo if it all goes wrong. Just think...In the UK we have a general election every 4-5 years. We vote with paper (put your X in a box).. Over 25 million votes in one day... These are all counted without any major discrepancy within 48 hours. the election result is known generally with 24 hours. The system works and I think that we should NOT change it... Even a forced postal ballot is in my opinion a mistake.

BayCon

2004-08-13T12:08:00.000+01:00

One of my many interests is playing board games. Now we are not talking tradational games like chess, monopoly or trivial pursuit here (though I do enjoy the odd game of triv).. Nor are we talking about wargames, figure games, RPGs or trading card games (though I do play Magic the Gathering).

No the games in question are the sort that do not fall into any of the above categories. They range from the modern family games which are produced mainly in Germany, through rail games to more complex games.

Now these games are not played by a large number of people in this country (they are more popular in Germany). There are a number of gaming groups throughout the country, but there is more opportunity to play new games and old favourites, meet new people with a similar interest and drink beer at a board games convention.

There are a number of these in the UK ranging from the larger events such as ManorCon (held in Brum in July and hosting the national diplomacy championships) down to small housecons with just 5-10 people or so.

One convention which I went to earlier this year is BayCon held down in Exeter every year just after Easter. The piccies have just been put up on the web...Sure enough there one of me in there...

Its a shame that board games are not more popular in this country.. one thing they are good for is the social interaction as well as the intellectual stimulation. They bring people (and in particular families) together. I also like the tactile element of moving game pieces around on the board.

Links:

BoardGameGeek

Baby Killers

2004-08-11T17:39:00.000+01:00

The Government has just announced the replacement of the old 4 in 1 multi vaccine jab, with a new one that adds in a safer polio vaccine and removes the mercury in line with the rest of the western world.

Its a shame that the media seem to treat this as an excuse to stir up all the old anti-vaccine scares again. I think that (given the lack of any conclusive evidence for a link) the scare against MMR was beginning to die down a bit.

To be honest the government and the medical profession are in a bit of a bind here. All they can do is put out the line that there is no known link, and that these vaccines are safe (by which they mean the risk of any harm is much much lower than the risks due to catching the disease). Lined up against them are the anti-vaccine lot who fall into 3 camps...

First is the media such as the Mail and the Telegraph which have an agenda which is more about selling papers than the truth (even if it affects the health of children). Its odd that when you look on the websites of these papers the tabloid sensationalised tones are replaced by more solid advice.... The problem is that parents read the papers, not the web and trust their peers more than their doctor or "experts".. after all they were wrong about BSE..... This make parents listen to....

The second group who are the concerned parents. These range from those who read the papers and just are confused, to those such as JABS who are pushing for single vaccines. I feel a bit sorry for these people. Many have children who are autistic and are desperate to pin the blame on something. They cling to Wakefield's study like a bible despite the fact that it has been thoroughly discredited. Unfortunately their case is based on anecdotal evidence and an emotional response and not on any rational thinking. This means they are vulnerable to the bullshit put out by...

The third and most evil group who are the anti medicine nuts.. These guys generally are interested in flogging whatever alternative quack remedy they want to make cash out of other peoples ignorance and confusion.. A lot of these people are self deluded but I think some of them know exactly what they are doing.... These bastards really need to be put out of business... Every child whose mother forgoes vaccines in favour of homoepathy or prayer or crystal healing or other some junk, is a child at risk....

Links:

Medinfo
Institute of Vaccine Safety
Quackwatch

Wiki 3

2004-08-08T13:31:00.000+01:00

Another addition of mine to Wikipedia, this time to explain what crayon rails are.....

I'm amazed at how quickly this store of knowledge is growing, in the five minutes since I made my addition there have been 30 other changes to the resource..

maybe we add another W to the 3 we have..... the Wonderful World Wide Web.......

webbed wonder

2004-08-01T11:03:00.000+01:00

Film review time again.....

Last night I saw Spiderman 2, after a long hiatus away from the cinema, mainly because my usual filmgoing companion or myself have been away on holiday...Thus I saw the film about a month after release in a spookily empty (well 80% empty) theatre.

Now most superhero films follow a similar pattern with the sequel being "bigger" than the original. In the first film you have to go through the origins of the hero, then the villian which takes up half the movie, leaving you with an hour or so to do a couple of set pieces, one of which has to be the big finale fight scene. In the sequel the hero is established so you can go for a bigger villian with a bigger evil plan and more effects and stuff.. This is why superhero sequels can end up as popcorn films which lack the depth of the original..

Spidey 2 doesnt do this...Indeed the villian of the piece Dr Octopus is actually the sub-plot to the main event which is Peter Parker's coming to terms with his identity and the love match between himself and MJ. Yes you guessed it ... Spider Man is a chick flick....one for the girl in your life. Sam Raimi has produced a film in which the action stuff doesnt get in the way of character development. All the main characters here, PP, MJ, Harry Osborne and even Aunt May are given room to grow. Eve Dock Ock has some inner struggle to deal with. Whats more even the jokes are funny...

Whilst I enjoyed the popcorn eye candy of Van Helsing and Troy, I enjoyed this a lot more, mainly because I was expecting a film like those other two, but I got more... This is a film you'll want to see again when it arrives on DVD....

What is the sound of one knee jerking

2004-07-29T13:41:00.000+01:00

Once again we have videogames being blamed for causing violent crime.

The reaction of Dixons not unsurprising, if a bit wimpy. Its annoying that they pander to these accusations in the face of the lack of evidence. I did find one article in support of their point of view but the references in said article are all to papers by the same guy...... If nothing else it is clear that there is no proven link.

Most of this debate was reawakened by the Columbine massacres which were linked to the 3D game Doom (quite an old game by that time). As Michael Moore put it in his film, these kids also went bowling so why dont the we link the crimes to that.....

Of course the crime committed in Leicester was just as horrific, but to link it to Manhunt is to ignore all other possible causes. It is to be noted that not all the reports on this story made it clear that the game is rated 18+ and should not have been in the possession of the teenager in question. Again this comes down to the fact that we should not be censoring products aimed at adults just because some people are irresponsible enough to let minors access them....

Links:

Telegraph - 'Manhunt' computer game is blamed for brutal killing

Guardian - Killing 'incited by video game'

BBC - Caution call on video game storm

The Sun - The Playstation Killer

The genuine article

2004-07-28T01:23:00.000+01:00

Tonight I have had a few cans of lager in particular the new 5% Heineken which is now availablein this country. It appears that Heineken have followed Becks in supplying the actual beer brewed in the relevant country of origin. Thus we get to drink the actual lager behind the brand and not the UK manufactured labelled piss water we get from brands such as Kronenburg, Fosters, Stella et al.

So I will continue to buy Heineken and Becks were possible and suggest you all do too. We need to push sales of the genuine imported product and send a message to the brewers that we dont want to drink the "Brewed in the UK under license" crap... For goodness sake, even Carlsberg Export is BIUKUL...Where the hell do we export it to.......

A time of changes

2004-07-25T12:18:00.000+01:00

Ive just switched to using Mozilla as my web browser at home...

The reason for this is jsut that i found it to have more features than IE... I dont have anything against Bill Gates et al. I suppose in the need to keep IE as a standard across platforms Microsoft have lapsed on IE development. IE has been left behind...

Mozilla has customisable themes, tabbed browsing and better security, and is in constant development all the time...

Wiki Wiki 2

2004-07-21T02:20:00.000+01:00

To continue to amazing power of the wiki, in particular wikipedia I see that my original 18xx contribution has been updated (admittedly in more detail than I could be bothered to put in at the time).. Wow I love this kind of technology... the way anybody can just add to the knowledge.. Its the kind of freedom of speech thing that makes lives better.....

Human vs Blob

2004-07-15T16:58:00.000+01:00

...Another feature in todays Guardian discussing the division amongst Americans over abortion.

This is another subject in which the fundy Christians (or pro-life) would have us believe that their way is the moral one, whilst in fact it is just another example of them trying to reduce other peoples rights based on the teachings of their religious doctrine....

At the heart of the matter they want us to accept that a fertilised human ovum should possess the same rights as a human being. The fact that some pregnancies spontaneously abort anyway is not relevant to them (apparently when God does the abortion thats alright). Im not sure what they would say about an ectopic pregnancy.

This means of course that they would rather force a woman to undergo pregnancy and birth against her will, rather than allow her to abort. They remark on the risks to health of an abortion, without mentioning the risks to health that also come with carrying a baby to full term. In the decision whether to have an abortion there are risks and benefits to weigh up on both options. It is important that the woman is fully informed of all the risks, and is able to make a decision based on her own needs. There is a reason why pro-abortion arguments (I dont think anybody actually is pro abortion) are in fact, arguments for choice.

The key to the abortion argument is to be rational, particularly when framing laws. The rights of two individuals are important here, the pregnant woman and the fetus. The important question to ask is when is a fetus sufficiently developed to acquire all the rights afforded a human. A just fertilised egg does not have these rights (its just a blob people). A newborn baby clearly does have these rights. Somewhere between these two is the true answer, but I dont know where, nor am I qualified to say where. Thats the jobs of specialist doctors.

In the UK the current law says the fetus aquires rights at 24 weeks. I am prepared to accept that this needs to be reduced (in the light of some premature babies surviving from 22 weeks), but it should be a medical argument, not a moral or a religious one.....

x+y=z

2004-07-14T13:31:00.000+01:00

The argument across the pond regarding the rights of gays to "marry" is tearing that nations electorate apart.

It scares me that the religious right are supporters of an amendment to the US constitution which itself appears unconstitutional. But they dont appear to believe in the actual constitution as written, only a mythical one in which America is a right wing straight Christian nation...

To me the concept of "marriage" as understood by most Christians isnt recognised by the state at all. For some time now both here and in the US the government has treated "marriage" as a legal contract between a man and a woman, irrespective of the religion (or lack of religion) of the two. To extend exactly the same legal rights to same sex couples seems to me to be an inevitable result of the recognition of basic human rights. In Europe these are enshrined in the Convention on Human Rights articles 14 and 16. In the US there is no clause that I can see in the Bill of Rights which prevents discrimination against people based on their sexual preference, but the only arguments against the recognition of same sex unions I hear are religious ones, which are thus irrelevant because of the 1st amendment. The US declaration of Independence whilst not being a part of US law, does assert that "all men are created equal" and reflects I feel the intent of the founders of that nation that no-one should be discriminated against because they are different.

If anything the US constitution should have an amendment preventing discrimination against homosexuals.

Animal Crackers

2004-07-12T13:55:00.000+01:00

Wow...two entries in one day..... I suppose in some ways blog entries are like buses....

Well the link above just shows how you can flog any old crap to the terminally gullible. I mean, bottled water is bad enough in itself. When I buy bottled water (sometimes in a restaurant) I make sure I get the fizzy stuff... At least then I'm paying for the CO2. But flat bottled water is no better than stuff out of the tap. I'll bet that most people couldnt tell the difference in a blind tasting. I think that the reason people think that the bottled water is better is because they drink it chilled, whereas the tap water usually comes out tepid.

But if bottled water for people was bad, the concept of the same for pets is much worse....Just think how much money is wasted on bullshit like this....

Formula Yawn

2004-07-12T13:35:00.000+01:00

Another Grand Prix....Another victory for Schumacher...Another pointless exercise

Whatever you call this it certainly isnt a sport anymore. Formula 1 has a big problem. The main principle behind it, that the cars use technology at the cutting edge, is to be honest quite a good thing.. What Schumacher et al get to play with today, we all get in our road cars tomorrow, be it traction control, active suspension, semi-automatic gears etc etc... The problem however is that does not leave a level playing field. Some manufacturers dominate.

Add to this the fact that the cars have better brakes and better handling than before. Now you rarely see any overtaking during a race (certainly not unless one car has problems). The races have become a procession of cars, with fuel and pit strategy, together with grid position and the first bend madness determining the winner.

Of course they could make the cars more competitive, a reduction in brake power would help as they would be able to scream into the corners at full whack and slam on the anchors at the last minute...but of course that would make the whole thing more dangerous....

I'm not sure there is much they can do to fix Formula 1. Maybe we just have to accept it as a technology demonstration event....

Links:

Official Formula 1 Site

Caveat Emptor

2004-07-05T22:31:00.000+01:00

It amazes me sometimes what people will try to sell on EBay, well ... actually come to think of it selling weird stuff isnt that odd, after all there's always someone out to play things for a laugh....

No, what I really find amusing are the prices that some of this stuff goes for, or even that idiots bid on it at all...Consider the mud being sold above..Could you be sure its actually from the festival site and not just scraped up from someones back garden, Maybe a DNA test on the mixed in cowshit would prove it.

In recent months we have had nuclear weapons, a persons soul, someones virginity, an air guitar (genuine as used at a Bon Jovi concert) and the answer to life the universe and everything, all up for sale...and some of them actually sold...

A new religion

2004-07-03T04:01:00.000+01:00

Just found quite a good parody of the way religion tries to spread its message, and the sort of arguments theists come up with.

Prince of Pratts

2004-06-30T18:21:00.000+01:00

An interesting article in many of the papers today referring to Prince Charles and his endorsement of Gerson Therapy for the treatment of cancer.

Gerson therapy is one amongst many quack treatments that have of course no evidence to support their claims. This one is so crap even the Americans (who are lets face it one of the more gullible nations on the planet) have banned it..

Now I dont particularly care if Charles is into alternative medicine, as a free person he is entitled to his own opinion. But it annoys me when he speaks out on this stuff. As a royal his words (right or wrong) carry some sway with the public. No doubt some poor cancer patient is as we speak thinking of ditching their chemotherapy in favour of a trip to Tijuana.. Well if Charles is in favour it must work...right !!

Personally I wish he would keep his nose out of public speaking altogether (particularly his political views). Her Majesty is adept at staying out of politics but the big eared hippy cannot keep his gob shut...

Apparently the majority of people now think that we should have an elected head of state after the Queen. I used to disagree with this based on the its not broken so dont try to fix it argument... I'm not so sure now....

Links:

Quackwatch on cancer

"Always look on the Bright Side of Life"

2004-06-25T14:49:00.000+01:00

I've left things until the cold light of day to write this....

Last night was a novel experience for me... Not watching England go out on penalties...Ive seen that 3 times before now...No, last night because I am on emergency response call all this week, I was stone cold sober for the whole thing...

Now watching England play jangles the nerves at the best of times. England are a team who rarely make things easy. It would be nicer to support a team who either win by a truckload, or go down in flames.

Yes it would be nice to sit back and enjoy the second half with England leading by 2 or 3 goals, with the job done.. and enjoy the football... Last time I could do that was vs Denmark in 2002. Equally If we were going out I would prefer us to concede a load early on so I can switch off and go and do something else...

But no, England always seem to make things hang on tenterhooks.. and last night was a doozy.. We scored early on (this tends not to be good for us) and then couldnt get a second goal for a cushion. Portugal had all the possession and you knew that eventually they were going to get one back.. Typically they got it 7 minutes from time just when you thought England might just hold on... Then we get a goal disallowed just before the end

Then in extra time Portugal take the lead....Aha says I that should do it for us...But no England find a second wind and start playing.. Why couldnt they do that before, and just before time we equalise..

So to penalties...not our strong suit and less so when Beckham missed the first one, but at least we scored the others....

But finally we went out, on sudden death penalties.....And I couldnt even drown my sorrows.. L

I suppose you could blame Vassel or Beckham for missing, but penalties are a lottery to some extent anyway..You could say the refereeing was a tad biased to the home side, or that we were unlucky to lose Rooney early on...or....or.. but these things are all part of international football, and we have to live with them..

I have only one complaint about the organisation of Euro 2004 and looking at England last night(or even Portugal in the late stages) I think it is a valid one. I think thats its wrong to have no rest days between the group stages and the fist knockout games. England had 2 days off between matches and they looked tired last night. Compare Gerrard or Scholes last night vs the Croatia match. In the world cup there are 8 groups so the teams have more time to rest. In the Euro cup there are only 4 groups so I think that there should be a couple of rest days...

Anyway....Onto Germany in 2006

Links:

Euro 2004
World Cup 2006

Another small step .......

2004-06-22T01:59:00.000+01:00

I have been following the progress of the X Prize with some interest. Today one of the entrants managed to fly into space, the first spaceflight from a private firm.

This is the research that NASA should have been doing rather than propping up the ancient shuttle (itself a compromise). I think that the future of space lies in some considerable way with a more commercial approach.....

I'm not old enough to have witnessed the first moon landings. I think that they are the pinnacle of human acheivement. Manned space flight since then has been limping along. However, commercial space travel is now becoming a reality, and I expect to see it become routine during my lifetime...

up up and away....

Links:
Scaled Composites

Wiki Wiki Woo !!!!!!

2004-06-21T02:24:00.000+01:00

Today I discovered the wonderful world of Wiki.

These are web pages that anyone can just add stuff too. The idea is that they grow as people contribute bits to the pages. The first wiki I found was wikipedia, but I am led to believe that there are others..

Anyway, I'm not one to miss a chance to share knowledge so you can see my first wiki addition on 18XX up there in the board games section.....

4 New Eyes

2004-06-18T19:15:00.000+01:00

Mission for today was to upgrade my specs... Ive managed for 5 years with my current pair but yesterday I noticed that the powerpoint slides I was looking at were blurry because my vision had got worse, not because the projector was out of focus..

So off to Vision Express I go for some new glasses... This time I get the Glaucoma test where they puff air into your eyes.. Another sign of the impending entry into middle age (I passed).

Anyway, I have opted for a thinner style which I am just getting used to

See......

itune$

2004-06-10T14:25:00.000+01:00

Another story about the music industry getting scared over file swapping... this time between 3G mobile phones..

I think the music industry is as usual completely clueless about the way people get their music...Most poeple still buy CD's from shops, but only after evaluating stuff by listening on the radio or MTV.. But then people also tape stuff off the radio/TV as well, particularly when they like just the one track. Of course by tape I mean I use mp3 (via Total Recorder ) or onto mini-disc. Having a TiVo helps cue songs to the start so I dont miss a recording. Now I dont buy less CD's because I grab the odd song off the TV, I probably buy more.... I can think of several albums I have bought because certain songs "grew" on me.

But the music industry is against any kind of home taping (even the casual sort, which if anything serves to help promote their music)... They spend too much time agonising about Napster and BearShare that they miss out on what is really hurting their business....

In the first place most pirate music is done by the large organised CD copiers. These guys must sell far more albums worth of stuff than is swapped on the net.

In the second place most of the music out today is formulaic plastic manufactured rubbish... Yes I know I sound like an old crusty saying this..but I stand by it... I though that music in the 80s was a bit plastic, but the crap you get today is much much worse...

Finally and most annoyingly, when the music industry got its act together to sell music online it misses the key point of online selling...pricing. At mycokemusic and ITunes the prices are a 50-99p a track, or £5-8 per album... Now I can a current chart CD for £10, and older albums for down to a fiver in my local music shop. The prices for online music seem thus a little high. After all they only need a large server and decent amount of bandwidth and they are in business. There is no need to pay for CD burning, packaging, distribution, or any of the wholesaler and retailer overheads. Promotion needs to be done anyway for the CDs, and I'll bet that the performers/songwriters dont get a bigger cut from the online-sales. So the prices for online music downloads are (I think) a rip-off. If the music industry priced them according to the royalties plus server overheads plus some profit I'll bet they could sell tunes for maybe 10-20p a track, with even cheaper costs (maybe 5p) for older music...

And thus here's the thing...If I can download a track legally for a few pence then most people will happily do that rather than having to scour the net for an illegal copy (risking viruses and trojans etc etc). There is a point where the price is low enough that you dont care too much...

Obscured by Clouds

2004-06-08T17:36:00.000+01:00

So for the rest of Europe (and presumably Africa) a wonderful astronomical event has just occurred....

For us in Aberdeen we had a great view of some thick fluffy clouds all day...

Its bloody typical of Aberdeen weather...fine over the weekend then cloud city on the one day in 130 years that one can see Venus crossing the Sun.... Anyway there are at least some good pictures on the web...Roll on the next one in 2012 though it wont be as good..

Come to think of it...the weather buggered up the last 2 lunar eclipses as well :(

Other Links:

vt-2004
transitofvenus
transit-of-venus uk

A test of skill

2004-06-04T20:18:00.000+01:00

I was idling through the usuall afternoon dross on TV today, just flicking channels when I spotted a quiz show I hadnt seen before.. Now this isnt unusual, after all I havent looked at TV on a Friday afternoon for some time.. What wasn't unusual was the viewer quiz they set where one could win £1000.

Now this was of the form.. here is a multi choice question... ring in with your answer and we'll pick a winner at random from the correct ones...fair enough. Bur as I've seen so many times before, and note doubt dear reader so have you, the question is so easy only an amoeba could get it wrong...eg

What has 4 legs and goes "woof"

A) Fish

B) Dog

C) Car

Now I dont mind a quiz question, but it annoys me when the question is so stupidly easy, that you know they are just trying to make money out of people. The laws in the UK forbid outright lotteries without a license, so this is technically a game of skill.. Of course it is a game in which you ring up and spend your 50p in the hope of getting a grand..if 2000 people or more ring up then the programme makes make money.. Its cynical and pathetic and I wish the law was changed to make the question at least require some brainpower...

Actually in one way it is a test of brainpower...It tests whether you are stupid enough to enter....

Reports of ones death have been exaggerated

2004-05-31T23:57:00.000+01:00

What can I say ... even I was gobsmacked tonight..

Just after Big Brother (on which more later) I saw Derren Brown's Seance programme. I have to admit, at first I thought that, whilst I know Derren doesn't put himself forward as a real psychic (like those frauds such as Derek Acorah, Slyvia Browne and James Van Pragh), I expected him to do his stunts without letting on that they were just that. He tends to call his tricks psychic experiments and tends to leave the question as to whether they are actual paranormal events to the viewer to answer...

Tonight he ran a seance programme purportedly revolving around a student death cult who comitted suicide within the walls of the rooms in which they were doing the experiments. There were a number of pre seance demos in which some of the student audience did stuff they couldn't themselves explain (such as throwing a tambourine out from behind a curtain without remembering it, and writing the name of a particular city). I put these phenomena down to hypnosis/suggestion that I have seen Derren do before....

Then there was the suggestion to focus on one of the students (the subject spirit for the following seance). This was the weakest bit of the programme. TO anybody with any sense you could tell that following the instructions given as to moving up/down/diagonally between coloured and b/w photos, would push onto one student no matter where you started.

So we go to the seance itself....in the dark...balls move cups move...and one of the students themselves is the medium (more suggestion) and secrets are revealed about the dead student...

After the seance the participants were visibly freaked out...As they all looked a fairly sensitive lot, Im not surprised. No doubt Derren screened a much larger bunch to weed out the more rational ones.

Then the end...and the best bit.. up till now weve been following the fortunes of these seance participants and matching up their actions to the life details of one particular spirit...Then Derren walks out of the room and wanders off to a broadcast van.. and the final thing we see is Derren greeting the spirit in question and escorting her off to presumably meet the seance participants..yes its true... Derren did a seance for someone who is still alive

I must admit, I have new respect for Derren now... He is up there with Penn & Teller....

Nothing Ventured Nothing Gained

2004-05-25T02:08:00.000+01:00

From the very first time I heard of it I was happy to see that at last we Brits were doing something towards human exploration of the solar system.

I was very sad to see Beagle lost, presumably crashed on the surface of Mars. I have been astounded by the results coming back from the NASA Rovers which is a little consolation, but it would have been nice to see Cool Britannia singing Blur and visualising Damien Hirst back from the red planet.

Now that Beagle has been declared a failure the knockers are coming out of the woodwork to say that it was all of waste of time and money. Particular scorn is being laid on Colin Pillinger the British scientist in charge of the project. The main naysayers are the British National Space Centre (ie the British Government who ahve for years had no interest in space at all), and ESA.

Now Ill accept that the project was run on a shoestring, but what else could they do... If no-one is prepared (and Im talking about our government here) to put in the money needed to dot every "i" and cross every "t" to ensure the project would be successful, then the team are going to cut a few corners... It seems sad that we have a lottery to fund sports ( for the masses ) and the arts (for the cultured ), yet our intellectual improvement is left to the pathetic funding dribbled out to our destitute universities, and a few museums etc. If we can bid for the 2012 Olympics (a bid in which I am in favour of) costing (if successful) several billion pounds then we should alot some lottery money for great science projects.

Smarter than the Average Bear

2004-05-24T01:51:00.000+01:00

Well... I did it...

Not bad this year.. I did better than I expected given that there was more emphasis on visuo-spatial ability and less on numerate ability...

I got 60/70 for an IQ of 147 which is probably too high... I usually get in the early 140s

Why America Why ?

2004-05-22T23:37:00.000+01:00

I cant see why the majority (alright 40% plus ) of Americans vote for this bozo

He comes in with a national debt thats unbelievable and proceeds to make it worse with a 1.5 trillion dollar tax cut, most of which goes to the richest 10% of Americans.. He promotes outright discrimination against homosexuals for no reason other than a religious one (contrary to the first amendment). His party's policy seems to be this if you are poor then fuck you.. unless you want to sign up for the US army and die for your presidents foray into another country (based on a lie of course, and far from making the world safe, making it worse). And of course, if you are order to do some bad things to Iraqi prisoners then you the poor grunt take the fall, not the generals or CIA chiefs or politicians who tacitly ordered it all.

Everything I see from the US government nowadays makes me happy to live in the UK.. Our system may have its faults but at least..

We have a working voting system, not dominated by money and TV ads, we had 35 million votes at the last general election all on paper, counted within 36 hrs with no discrepancies

We have a welfare state... If you are poor you have a safety net.. just got a long term illness and cant work.. well the state will look after you until you can get back on your feet. Got cancer.. well we dont care about your income.. you get the treatment you need (though you may have to wait in a queue)

Our government is not dominated by religious doctrine..Our leader may be a devout catholic, we may have a state religion, religious assembly in schools, god on our coins. But religion does not generally enter into government policy. Thus, the policy on abortion, homosexual rights (inc marriage), age of consent, genetic research, drugs etc.. are made based on advice from sceintists and social scientists... not church leaders

We have a judicial system that does not lock people up just because it makes people feel better.. We try to put poeple into community service programmes, or electronically tag them, or drug rehab, or other non-custodial (unless they are violent or mentally ill). We recognise that prison is not the answer to crime prevention (although we could spend more on the other programmes)

We dont execute people because we recognise that no justice system is 100% perfect and our politicians dont want to bring back hanging just to grab few votes

We try to put the country ahead of big business to some extent.. at least if a company gives a large amount of money to a politcian or party there is a big stink if said company gets a beneficial break (eg this)

So maybe the Americans will see the light this year and vote Dubya out...However I'm not too confident....

Troy 0 Greece 1

2004-05-21T23:51:00.000+01:00

Troy

OK so its movie review time again...

Tonight I saw Troy.. a big budget Hollywood telling of Homers epic poem...And jolly good fun it was too...

Ive heard comments about this film in that it is not true to the poem...well good for that... Homers Illiad is an old very long poem and would make a very dry movie...Hollywood have done the usual thing of stripping out the basic elements and making a standard ancient epic movie around them.. SO we have large sets, lots of CGI, cast of thousands fire, blood, rousing music etc etc... If youve seen Ben Hur, Spartacus, Gladiator then you know what I mean.

You shouldn't come to this film looking for deep character development (though you get some), nor should you expect great acting (though Peter O'Toole and Eric Bana are pretty good). Pitt plays Achilles as the troubled anti-hero he is, Bloom plays Paris as a weedy wet trying to be like his big bro, and Cox plays Aganemmnon as a power crazed dictator.

There are some nice touches... The greek ships appear out of the mist im a homage to the Allied Invasion on The Longest Day, Aeneas makes a brief period at the end (are they setting us up for the Aeneid ?), and the 1-1 fights have an element of martial arts in them rather than being slah and hack jobs... Oh and if you want to have fun, count the number of forehead kisses in the movie.

All in all, a good romp

Imagine theres no heaven....Its easy if you try

2004-05-19T23:33:00.000+01:00

As the title of the blog itself suggests... I am an atheist..

I wasnt always this way.. I suspect that few atheists are brought up in a
totally non-religious environment. I was christened (and confirmed) a fully paid up member of the Anglican church.

However I never felt anything "spiritual". Religious people are always saying that they feel their gods presence within themselves, that they hear him. I have never heard anything. For much of my life I went through the motions. A few years ago I felt it was time to stop lying to myself. I am not a Christian (and I never was really).

As far as I can see there is no god.. Now I'm prepared to admit that one may exist, but I would need to see some pretty convincing evidence. I'm not going to accept peoples' word for it. After all they may be feeling gods presence, but it could just as easily (and indeed more likely) that its all in their mind.

When we were children we were all told about Father Christmas, and the existing of elves and fairies along with the bible stories... When we got to 4 or 5 or so the grown ups let out the secret that Santa and elves are made up.. But somehow despite the deception over these characters we were supposed to swallow the whole Jesus stuff without a spit of evidence...Now many kids of that age are quite perceptive and I'm sure if they were allowed to explore their doubts we may have a few more free-thinkers in the world.

Instead the stories are drilled into developing minds from day 1.. This is how it is..dont question it...in the home, in the church and worst of all in schools...

More on this later.........

Stars in their eyes

2004-05-18T17:30:00.000+01:00

I have never been convinced by astrology... The idea that planets far far away from us can influence ones behaviour is laughable. Of course the astrologers would say that it works through quantum energy or (insert scientific sounding blub here)

What really annoys me is when proper scientists go off the rails and start saying there may be something in it. It annoys me not because I'm against scientists investigating this stuff, but because when a bone fide astronomer says there's something to it and proposes a mechanism it gives credence to all the blurb put out by the pseudos.

Now I'm not against scientists proposing theories...after all that is what science is all about... but they should be aware that there words are going to be used by people who are less interested in the science and more interested in relieving the gullible of there hard earned...

This particular astronomer provides no real evidence to support his theory (at least in a published peer reviewed form). Indeed he appears to be trying to flog another book to the devoted.

If you want to know where we came from I suggest you read this or this

To sleep perchance to dream

2004-05-17T02:08:00.000+01:00

So its 2am and I and suffering the usual curse ....insomnia..

Sleep is something I dont need much of, I can get by on around 4 hrs per night with a bit of catch-up at weekend. Indeed I dont really get the chance for more during the week. Its the middle of the night when most people are happily shooting Zs and I am wide awake.. If I try to go to bed Ill toss and turn for another hour or so. Some nights I dont get to sleep till 4 am.

But it gives me a chance to work/play on the PC. Its been a computery kind of weekend (another failure to sort out the front garden though). I fitted a new hard drive in this PC, a 160 GB Maxtor... Given that I am fairly hardware savyy, it amazes me how rubbish modern stuff is at plug & play. I have a 1 yr old Dell top end PC with the latest BIOS and motherboard, but I had a bit of a nightmare putting in the new drive.. Firstly Maxtors windows install software just crashed, then the DOS equivalent couldnt add more than a 137GB partition, the when I did manage to get the disk formatted (with 2 partitions) I find that it installs some software to "help" the drive work called DDO. This software of course crashed the PC on startup and it wasnt until I removed it that windows recognised the disks.... After all that hassle I'm amazed that the everage person even bothers with hardware upgrades...I suppose thats why the IMac sells so well...

Oh well.... And I am about to install Linux on the other PC (assuming I can download the .iso files without it crashing)

Q wears a habit

2004-05-15T01:29:00.000+01:00

So its just turned into Saturday and Im just jotting this down before bed time...

Tonight I went out with a friend and saw Van Helsing... We meet up on the occaisonal Friday for curry + cinema.. Mainly to see films his wife doesnt want to see..

So what did I think of Stephen Sommers latest...Well I'd give it a 7/10 which may sound generous, but Im marking the movie based on its intentions. So many times you see movie reviews from critics whowalk into a movie like this expecting it to be some major important work of cinema...every film has to be as good as Casablance or Schindlers List

Well VH isnt as god as those movies, nor was it trying to be.. VH is a basic action fest CGI popcorn flick... 2 hours of escapism aimed at the masses.. And as such a film it almost carries it off... Basic problems abound (as with all films of this ilk). With so many characters thrown in we have no time to dig into any kind of depth, and we lurch from one set piece to another without any quiet bits to give us all a break. The set piece actiony bits are a touch formulaic.. We have the villian set up, meet the hero, hero kills minor baddy, back to the good guys HQ..Meet heroine...Hero sets out on mission... Save heroine from first baddy attack in village etc etc etc. For the first third of the film the bits dont quite hang together and we lurch around trying to find a story.. Once we meet up with Franks monster things become more focussed building up to the big finale..

There are a couple of nice touches..VH's sidekick (friar Carl) is quite cool as the boffin monk who supplies VH's gadgets (aka Friar Q). Franks monster is quite good fun, and there are some decent movie references, homages to the old Bela Lugosi stuff.

The worst bit is a schmaltzy end piece involving people going up to heaven which is both crap in its execution and completely unnecessary. We know what has occurred, and we dont need to see it.. believe me youll have to reach for the sick bucket its so bad...

Anyway...Next week its Troy....

OK so its Blue Friday

2004-05-14T09:30:00.000+01:00

One of the greatest things ever invented arrived here at work on February this year.

I'm talking about the nine day fortnight. Its blue Friday and I am here at work (being a red person)...

For those of you still stuck in the world where time=effort the nineday is effectively a compression of two 40 hour weeks into 9 days so you do 8x9hr and 1x8hr day and have every other Friday off. In reality, here in the petroleum industry time does not equal effort.. I can go a whole day without adding much value to the company, then spend 30 mins the next day making a decision which makes the company millions of dollars. As a results when we switched to the nineday most people did not change their work patterns significantly (other than taking their Friday off)...

One interesting aspect of the nineday is that your other Friday (when your are at work) you tend to get lots done.. There are less people in, no meetings, no interruptions, so you can get down and graft.....

The Beginning is a very Delicate Time

2004-05-13T20:58:00.000+01:00

I suppose the first post shoulg be to introduce myself

My name is Richard and I am an atheist...

That sounds like something one would say at an AA meeting (ironic since to join AA you have to be religious).. I suppose in some parts of the world you would be better accepted as an alcoholic than as an athiest... Fortunately I live in the UK where ones religion is generally of no consequence... In fact most brits are pretty unreligious anyway... at least they are "non-practising"

I am also a fairly liberal person, in that in general if it doesnt hurt me or someone else, then people can practise whatever they want, be it homosexuality, soft drug use, polygamy, prostitution...

I am also a board gamer.... thats not good old family games like monopoly, totopoly, careers etc. (though I did love those when I was a kid). Nor am i into tradional board games like chess, drafts. I am also not a card player (or rather I am a crap poker player, feel free to take money off me here )

No I am into more adult (as in grown up not sexual) games which fall into several categories including rail games (crayon rails, 18xx), fluffy games, race games, battle games... in fact.. this is the sort of stuff I like..

Thats all for now.... more later