tales of an ordinary girl

At first this just started out as a series of posts to point out excellent articles I found on the web, but it's grown into a lot more. I read over 1,000 articles to narrow it down to these few. But they don't seem like few as I'm going through my list for the week, nor when I publish the post.

I hope you, as a reader, find the list valuable. I'd like to continue the series, but it takes up more and more time every week. I've cut down my list of blogs to read a couple of times in the last couple of weeks just to keep up. And that makes me think that instead of broadening my focus, as I'd like to do, I'm narrowing it.

What I'd most like is for the readers to contribute as well. If you see an article that should be included in this list, please link it in the comments, or email me at the contact link in the sidebar.

Art
Evolutionary Art
Ilana Yahav's work is definitely unique (at least to me - never seen anything like it). With the depth of my artistic knowledge it's quite possible that this is a very common artform that I know nothing about. It’s a combination of painting and performance, done with sand instead of paint. I really like this particular one.

Atheism
Sunday Funnies #4: Billboard Battles!


Question # 1: What Kind Of Atheist Are You?
Do you atheize (I just made that word up) primarily to yourself, or are you a joiner? Do you socially interact as an atheist, or is your atheism simply incidental to your everyday life? Are you outspoken about your lack of belief, or do you keep it to yourself unless directly asked.

In short, are you an extroverted or introverted atheist?

Books
Lies Women Believe
I’d like to point out some other lies that women believe. Thankfully, skepchicks don’t fall for this kind of crap:

* Lies about themselves: Fulfilling your longings is selfish and evil. Women should never put themselves first. Jesus, Others, You is the way to JOY.
* Lies about sin: Sin is a real thing that you should worry about. Offending God is really, really bad, even worse than committing crimes that actually hurt people.
* Lies about their marriage: You should submit to your husband but your husband doesn’t have to submit to you.
* Lies about their emotions: Emotions are a sign of weakness or evil and only women have emotions.
* Lies about their circumstances: Women are weak and need help from God or men to deal with daily stresses.

To The Point, Rational Discussion
If a participant's argument is reformulated by an opponent, it should be expressed in the strongest possible version that is consistent with the original intention of the arguer. If there is any question about that intention or about implicit parts of the argument, the arguer should be given the benefit of any doubt in the reformulation.

Interview with Jessica Hagy, Author of Indexed


Games
Demo shows UI, PSP integration in PlayTV for the PS3
Europe will be getting a very neat product for the PS3 long before we do: PlayTV. The device features two high-resolution tuners and allows you to use your PS3 as a DVR, as well as use your PSP to tell your system to record a show or to watch your content from any WiFi connection. It's a pretty neat idea, and it gives Sony yet another corner of your home entertainment experience. Unfortunately, until the US embraces terrestrial digital broadcasting, we're locked out.

Government
Three Cases to Consider
Here we have, from three completely different milieus, victims of torture inventing crimes and incriminating others under torture. Does anyone really think that Herr Junius was a witch? Did he fly through the air to attend covens with the other witches of Bamberg? Did the rabbis of Damascus kill Father Thomas so that his blood could be used in Passover matzos? Does any but the most rabid anti-Semite believe the ‘blood libel’ really exist? Did a mysterious ‘rabbi Jacob’ create a poison out of frogs, spiders and communion wafers and, through a Europe-wide conspiracy, spread plague through poisoned wells?

A Blog Post That Deserved More Comments …let’s start with mine
But if civil union was the only thing a state granted, then it could be granted to a number of different relationships — not all of which would even necessarily be sexual. Perhaps two heterosexual women with children could decide to establish a civil union. I could think of several reasons they might choose to do so.

International
Williams is dangerous. He must be resisted
Faiths capture people. I do not mean this disparagingly. So of course do patriotisms, ideologies, families. But a religion, properly understood, makes profound claims on an individual and community, quite unlike the demands of a golf club. It involves the use of public places and public services, the subordination of the individual's will; and may demand that he subordinate his spouse's and children's wills too. Hence our unease about duress, and the completeness of “consent”.

Johann Hari: Rowan Williams has shown us one thing – why multiculturalism must be abandoned
Where a multiculturalist prizes the rights of religious groups, a liberal favours the rights of the individual. So if you want to preach that the Archangel Gabriel revealed the word of God to an illiterate nomad two millennia ago, you can do it as much as you like. You can write books and hold rallies and make your case. What you cannot do is argue that since this angel supposedly said women are worth half of a man when it comes to inheritance, and that gay people should be killed, you can ditch the rules of liberalism and act on it.

The job of a liberal state is not to stamp The True National Essence on its citizens, nor to promote "difference" for its own sake. It is to uphold the equal rights of every individual – whether they are white men or Muslim women. It has one liberal culture, with freedoms used differently by different people.

ESA, IIPA slam Canada for not fixing copyright "deficiencies"
Of course, just because a game is pirated doesn't always mean a sale has been lost. When pirated games are produced en masse in China and Russia, then moved through Paraguay into markets like Brazil—where the ESA admits high tariffs make the sales of legitimate games almost non-existent—the issue becomes even thornier, and the local governments may not have high levels of sympathy for the US economy. This could be why we're seeing a focus on Canada in these reports; our northern neighbor has a thriving game development community but suffers from easy availability of pirated games on the retail level.

The law, Sharia, and religious control
What Williams appears not to acknowledge is that secular civil law was set up to prevent religious interests over-riding the interests of individuals, and more than any other system in the history of the planet, it has done so. Canon law once permitted Catholics to take Jewish children away from their parents if a third party baptised them. Sharia permits the amputation, without anesthetic as if that made it better, of the hands of thieves. So far as I know Jewish law, not being of a proselytising religion, tends not to seek global domination, but it is so closely tied to the religious traditions of a particular ethnicity that it cannot function for all members of a multicultural and polyreligious society. Only secular law can do that.

Euthanasia may be illegal but it’s not exactly unpopular
What I found even more interesting is that even though Euthanasia is illegal in almost all of the world, public attitudes are largely sympathetic to Euthanasia. I got these charts from this blog, and the data is originally from this world survey. I had saved these charts on my pc months ago, and now cannot find them on the original site.

Pleas for condemned Saudi 'witch'
The illiterate woman was detained by religious police in 2005 and allegedly beaten and forced to fingerprint a confession that she could not read.

Movies
Whisper (2007)
I really hope that someday ABC buys the rights to Whisper and they just use some footage for it as a Sawyer flashback on Lost (in the movie, there's a back-story about his girlfriend cheating on him, maybe they can use it on Lost to explain why he refuses to get close to Kate). It will make Josh Holloway look better. Because honestly, he may call himself “Max” in the film, but he’s fucking Sawyer through and through. Same hairstyle, same mannerisms, and yes, same character (a two bit crook with shades of nobility). So either the guy is afraid to play outside of his comfort zone, or he simply just can’t act.

Politics
The Obama failing
There's much more in that speech that grates. For instance, he praises Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech for it's religious content, which he claims was necessary. NO. Read it again. King was a minister, and of course his religious tradition informed his speech, and the cadence of the speech is straight from good ol' sermonizing, but the religious references are nothing but little fillips on a call for social justice, for equality and freedom. If you read that speech and come away thinking it's a paean to religiosity, you're missing the point. Atheists and other secularists are moved and inspired by that speech; the religious content is background, not purpose.

Religion
I once was a born-again Christian…
I know that many Christians are unable or unwilling to contemplate that someone can have had the same experiences they’ve had and then turn away from it all. It’s a scary idea. It means they might be wrong. It means that they can’t say, “If you only felt what I’ve felt and lived what I’ve lived you’d turn your life over to God forever.”

10 cc of Atheism

Where Was God?
Clearly, not close by, or even in the general vicinity. He had failed to use his magical powers to prevent the accident from happening, though I can hear those of a religious nature saying that it could have been worse, but for god. However, I was focused on the actual work being done to help. I saw a very organized team of men and women, people who had trained for just this situation, using equipment and knowledge purchased by the taxpayers, probably with the help of some charitable contributions to volunteer companies, doing exactly what they had probably dedicated a portion of their lives to doing - saving the lives of others.



The End of Conservatism
Conservatism grew powerful in the 1970s and 1980s because it proposed solutions appropriate to the problems of the age—a time when socialism was still a serious economic idea, when marginal tax rates reached 70 percent, and when the government regulated the price of oil and natural gas, interest rates on checking accounts and the number of television channels. The culture seemed under attack by a radical fringe. It was an age of stagflation and crime at home, as well as defeat and retreat abroad. Into this landscape came Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, bearing a set of ideas about how to fix the world. Over the next three decades, most of their policies were tried. Many worked. Others didn't, but in any event, time passed and the world changed profoundly. Today, as Frum writes, "after three decades of tax cutting, most Americans no longer pay very much income tax." Inflation has been tamed, the economy does not seem overregulated to most, and crime is not at the forefront of people's consciousness. The culture has proved robust, and has in fact been enriched and broadened by its diversity. Abroad, the cold war is won and America sits atop an increasingly capitalist world. Whatever our problems, an even bigger military and more unilateralism are not seen as the solution.

Ellen Johnson is Wrong, Atheists Should Vote
Given that atheists represent at least 11% of the American population, we could be a powerful voting block if we chose to organize. But even without any formal organization, I think it is fair to assume that we tend to be a bit more oriented to reality than many of our theistic neighbors. I suspect that we are more likely to value secular humanism, science, reason, and critical thinking. Why would we not want these priorities to influence presidential politics?

Science
The galaxy that ate Detroit
NGC 1132 is also quite huge, bigger than the Milky Way (which has eaten its share of smaller galaxies over time too), and sits in a vast cloud of dark matter - normally invisible, but in this case revealing itself by its gravitational effect on the stars in the elliptical itself (actually, to be honest, I’m guessing how they found it: there are many ways to detect dark matter, but the venerable method is to measure the velocities of the stars in the galaxy, which are affected by dark matter; stars move faster when more dark matter is present in a halo around the galaxy). The amount of dark matter detected is way more than usually seen for a single galaxy; more evidence that this galaxy has been busily gobbling up companions — and their dark matter, too.

60 Second Science


Sociology
The Content of Their Character: Judging On the Basis Of Beliefs
If someone believes that gay couples shouldn't be allowed to adopt because homosexuality is a crime against God and humanity, should I really not judge them on their morality? If someone believes that their tax money shouldn't pay for poor children's health care because "those people are always looking for a handout," should I not judge them on their compassion? If someone believes that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago despite human historical records dating well before that, should I not judge them on their good sense? If someone believes that all human beings have been infested by space aliens, should I not judge them on their sanity? If someone believes that they don't have to reduce their fuel consumption because one person can't make any difference -- or because the Rapture is coming and none of this pollution and global warming stuff will matter -- should I not judge them on their social responsibility? And if someone believes that the moon landing didn't happen because they read it in the Some Guy On The Internet Journal, should I not judge them on their... well, on their judgment, their ability to discern, among other things, what is and is not a good source of information?

Why I Hate Valentine’s Day (Oh, and Jane Fonda Said “Cunt”)
Valentine’s Day makes me nauseous. Every year it’s the same thing: over-commercialized, prewritten crappy poetry on cards, chocolate, roses, chocolate roses, candy, hearts, candy hearts that say “do me,” paper hearts, dinners, “Kiss Kiss” Bears, poems, balloons, stuffed animals, balloons shaped like animals, chocolates arranged in the shape of hearts, and anything else one can fit into this prepackaged love fest. This whole holiday reeks of artificiality, consumerism, and bullshit.

Sorry this is a day late this week, but the podcast has taken up more of my time than I thought it would. But I'm having a blast, so I can't complain.

Art
The difference between the East and the West in pictures
I found these pictures brilliant, as they explain the differences between the East and West in a way that words never could. Although Yang Liu orginally made them to show the differences between Germany (where she lives) and China, Germany could easily be the West and China could represent the East. At times I have used the term West instead of Germany and East instead of China, but this may not necessarily be so. Quite a few of the pictures used to represent China could represent the Indian way of life pretty well.

Education
Seen and unseen parenting responsbilities
Older male colleagues (there are no older female colleagues) are so accommodating to the Active Dads. They praise the guys' involvement with their children's lives. Yet these same older male colleagues don't understand why myself and the one other mom don't want to do things like have all-weekend retreats or 5 pm meetings. Women's parenting responsibilities are completely unseen by our senior colleagues.

Games
Video games, the male brain, and addiction
There was no difference in motor performance-that is to say that men and women both had the same skill, but male volunteers were significantly quicker to pick up on how the game worked, and scored better than their female counterparts. Using fMRI scanners, the authors then generated brain activation profiles for the gamers, and they discovered a significant difference between male and female brains: the male brains showed a greater activation of the right nucleus accumbens, right amygdala and the bilateral orbitofrontal cortex. In addition, there was a positive correlation between success in the test game and male brain activation, but not in female brains.

GamePro hypes Gears of War 2 coverage, delivers speculation
We're sure that there's work being done on Gears of War—games that are successful don't end with only one title—but no one has any information to report, and teasing your readers by saying you do is a little... well, shady. One has to sell magazines, granted, but why not try to be a little bit more forthcoming about what information you actually have?

Another editor down: Ryan Davis leaves GameSpot
Torres also provided some new insights into GameSpot's past conflict between editorial and sales/marketing. It seems that after former editor-in-chief Greg Kasavin left for a position at Electronic Arts back in January of last year and the editor-in-chief position was still vacant, CNet (GameSpot's parent company) executive Josh Larson was put in charge of both the business side as well as the editorial side. "Last year, because we didn't have that position, he was kind of like straddling–he was trying to do business and kind of support editorial," Torres noted. "Clearly there needed to be a better line drawn, so that's why the EIC position came up and that's what I'm doing."

Cock the vote: Gamecock gets political
Gamecock Media Group, so far better known for its absurd marketing tactics than for actually making games, is continuing this tradition with its Cock the Vote campaign.

The project is affiliated with Rock the Vote, a program that attempts to encourage young people to vote, but it's clear that this is more about getting the Hail to the Chimp name out there and less about raising social awareness. Still, any attempt to politicize gamers by dressing up like furries is worth... something.

Percentage of M-rated titles halved since 2005. What gives?
So why isn't the number of M-rated title increasing as fast as the rest of the gaming market? It's possible that the drop in percentage of M-rated games is purely a financial decision. Anecdotally, it appears as if many of the successful M-rated games are sequels, games that are a part of a proven franchise. Assassin's Creed may have been new IP, but that game also enjoyed a huge marketing budget and was hyped for years before release. With outsized budgets, M-rated games that don't live up to sales expectations have become riskier endeavors for developers.

Drink the Kool-aid: get Left Behind Eternal Forces for "free"
To enter, navigate to the promotion page and select either "download" or "ship." Though the game itself is free, you'll still have to fork out a few bucks. Selecting the download option will prompt you to pay a $4.99 processing fee, while the ship option requires you to pay the shipping fees. Left Behind: Eternal Forces normally retails for $24.95.

History
American Jacobin
First, the Bible is not at all a political revolutionary book. Jesus (or his disciples like Paul) did not abolish one social or political institution. Not tyrannical government, not chattel slavery, not rule of Kings, not one. Today social liberals who preach the “social gospels” I believe misuse the Bible as do the Christian Marxists who advanced “liberation” theology. However, American Whigs who used the Bible in revolt against Great Britain were just as guilty of advancing something the Bible does not support: the right to political revolution. Be it the American or French (or quite frankly any political) Revolutions, Marxist governments or a modern social welfare state, none of these notions is “biblical.” And all who would use the Bible in support of such are equally guilty of misusing the good book.

International
What price social cohesion?
Dr Williams says that the idea, that one law should apply to all, is dangerous. So, let me try and understand this. You want to create separate legal systems so that whatever little interaction or participation that the Muslim community does have with the British mainstream can also be eliminated? Nice one!

What next? Separate MPs for Muslims? Oh, wait. They won’t need any MPs. Nobody needs to legislate once the Sharia is adopted into the British law. It is God’s word or something, isn’t it?

Our Friends, the Egyptians
The arrests began in October 2007, when police stopped two men having an altercation on a street in central Cairo. When one of them told the officers that he was HIV-positive, police immediately took them both to the Morality Police office and opened an investigation against them for homosexual conduct. The two men told human rights defenders that they were slapped and beaten for refusing to sign statements the police wrote for them. They spent four days in the Morality Police office handcuffed to an iron desk, sleeping on the floor. Police later subjected the two men to forensic anal examinations designed to “prove” that they had engaged in homosexual conduct.

Movies
Monster
This brings us to Monster, which, like all Asylum films, is a copy of another film, with superfluous changes and a much lower budget. This one is set in Tokyo, but otherwise the structure and plot are the same – some attractive folks are shooting on a consumer camera and end up making a documentary about a monster attacking a giant city. Instead of a bunch of hipsters, our characters are just two incredibly cute Americans who planned on making a documentary about global warming. The fact that the one scene in which they do this is almost entirely inaudible is sort of a blessing in hindsight – it would have been a shame if they had made their entire documentary, then went to edit it and discovered that they should have invested 60 bucks in a boom mike.

Nonbelieving Literati
A Plague of Carnivals. No, Wait! A Carnival of Plagues!
The current book under discussion is Albert Camus‘ The Plague, a novel about…well, I’m getting ahead of myself. One of the prime directives of the Nonbelieving Literati is to read a book picked by one of the participating blog members within the alloted time, and write an essay about it. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a straight forward review of the book, but can be on anything that uses the book as a starting point of discussion. Due to time constraints and a backlog of other reading material, I failed to read or participate this time around. Having read the essays submitted so far, I thought it would be a good idea to make my contribution a mini-Carnival where all of the essays could be accessed from a central location. Actually, it wasn’t my original good idea, it was the Exterminator’s, which I freely swiped (I did say he was the original original, didn’t I?).

Nonbelieving Literati: The Plague
Camus isn't using 'humanist' in the sense of, say, the Humanist Symposium. I suspect he is referring to something closer to Renaissance humanism, and more specifically to the notion that men and women are, or should be, free to control their own destinies. We think we're free, he says, and we go on making plans, but in fact we are not free; certainly not so long as there are pestilences or invading fascists. The use of a plague -- a natural phenomenon -- as an allegory for an occupation -- a human phenomenon -- is interesting here. Whatever he thinks of the moral issues surrounding the behaviour of the German government and army, they are not the focus of this book. This book is not arguing that we should create a world which does operate the way we want it to. This book takes it for granted that there are pestilences of all types, at looks at how we deal with them.

Sick of The Plague
The reporter trapped in the town was supposed to, I guess, give me some sense of urgency. Being cut off from his lover in Paris he’s motivated to try and find a way to circumvent the bureaucracy and be allowed to leave. I felt more that he was driven by a sense of entitlement than any true feeling for his lover.

Politics
How The Middle Class Fucked Itself in This Gilded Age
The illusion of wealth in the middle class is much greater than the reality they truly face. Their real wages are down, their health care costs are astronomical, and their personal debt load would make previous generations shocked beyond belief. Now we are seeing the value of their homes, the single greatest source of wealth for the middle class, dropping in many areas of the country. Things are not good. Prosperity has been replaced by economic uncertainty and panic in some sectors. Foreclosures are higher than they have been in a generation. Banks are losing their ass right now. The Fed just dropped the prime lending rate 1.25% to stave off a recession, inflation be damned. The government is pumping $150 billion (as tax cuts) into the economy right when we owe the fucking Chinese our ass in government bonds to pay off our already astronomical national debt. The dollar isn't worth shit. This is all fucking scary, folks. It's 1929 all over again. Or maybe worse.

Mitt Romney: Secularist… Kind of.
Earlier on in the speech (alright, yeah, this is not in chronological order…), he said another very curious thing.

Again, I’m not quoting verbatim here, but…

“The people in this country believe in something. For some people that’s faith. For those who don’t have faith, that’s their ethnicity or their communities…”

Again, I don’t really support Mitt Romney, but I was very surprised to hear him say that. When the secularists got outraged by his faith speech, I think he learned a lesson, and for once, politicians seem to be acknowledging that there are non-believers in this country.

Granted, I didn’t pay much attention to how secular presidential candidates were in the past, and I haven’t heard in full any of the other candidate’s speeches, but after hearing all the Republicans and Democrats take so many opportunities to talk about their faith, it was a (refreshing) surprise to hear one mention that there are people who don’t have faith.

The Wrong Experience
This is the problem with Hillary Clinton. She is highly intelligent, has real experience and is an attractive candidate. But she is terrified to act on her beliefs. In fact, she seems so conditioned by what she sees as political constraints that one can barely tell where her beliefs begin and where those constraints end.

Putting Candidates' Religion to the Test
As much as possible, the presidential candidates should refrain from talking about their religious beliefs. Perhaps even a self-imposed ban on public avowals of religious would be wise. It's all too easy to cross the fine line between expressing faith and aggressively declaring it, and religious tolerance is, I think, inversely proportional to the latter.

Jesus Loves Sleazy Politics
The thing I find interesting is that, while Dobson has taken great care to meet his legal obligations to keep the entities distinct, he has been less careful about enabling his disciples to distinguish between the two groups. By carrying the familiar name over to the new organization, he has deliberately muddied the waters to such a degree that devotees of his ministry will be unlikely to distinguish his pastoral statements from his political pronouncements. Moreover, his continued involvement in both the ministry and the political group makes it clear that he wants to be identified with both. I can only conclude that his political group is merely a very thinly veiled mouthpiece for his ministry.

On Using Feminine Cultural Advantage
Well, it's true. The ability to show emotion and have people react sympathetically rather than scornfully is a cultural advantage that women have over men. And Clinton should have no more qualms over using it than a male politician should over using, say, a tough-guy image to try to attract votes. That is to say, it's silly image politics, but it happens all the time. Why should it be more wrong to use a feminine cultural advantage? Masculine ones are used every day and nobody blinks. And if the aim is to try to even the playing field, that doesn't mean that women should always try to conform to masculine methods of gaining respect.

Barack O-Bible
Just a few decades ago, the Bible Belt voted overwhelmingly Democrat. Christian morals and the Democrat political values were a natural match. The Democrats stood up for the poor and disadvantaged. But this lead to supporting the Civil Right movement of the 60's, and this was highly unpopular in the Bible Belt. And honestly, the Bible is not a great champion of Civil Rights.
But the Civil Rights movement worked very well for the Democrats, and so they became the party supporting women's rights as well, and this lead to supporting abortion, and even attracted supporters of gay rights and animal rights.

Religion
I'll make up for it, okay?
I mean, enough that God actually would care about who won the Super Bowl. But this story - that he killed Tyree's mother, and then - I dunno, felt bad about it? she badgered and/or begged Jesus into it? what? - made up for it by letting him win the Super Bowl?

Wilfred Laurier Loves Jebus - Freethinkers, Not So Much
A student named Tyler Handley, the president of the soon-to-be group, said in the comments over at The Frame Problem, "Our campus has 6 campus clubs of a religious nature." SIX groups that love Jebus or Muhammad or Buddha or some other fella of dubious paternity, existence, or distinction. You can bet your lunch money that those groups, "...respect and tolerate the views of others...." Especially atheists and agnostics. Religious folks are known for their tolerance.

Is Sex for Procreation?
These difficulties persist as long as one clings to the view that the only reason for sex is procreation. But if we discard that assumption, the matter comes into clear focus. An alternative explanation that accounts for the facts much better is that sex has two primary purposes: for procreation and also for pair bonding. And while pair bonding strengthens the family structure needed to raise healthy children, that is not its only purpose. In nature, it can also be used as a stress reliever, to strengthen group cohesion, as social currency, and simply for pleasure. Even homosexual sex exists in nature. Are animals violating "natural law" when they use sex for these purposes?

Science
Building Blocks of Life Detected in Distant Galaxy
Esteban Araya is an astronomer at New Mexico Tech in Socorro and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

He said the discovery of methanimine in Arp 220, along with "abundant circumstantial evidence, such as the short time it took life to appear on the early Earth, suggest that life ... may be quite common in the universe."

Moreover, he said, the discovery shows complex organic molecules can exist in very inhospitable environments, such as starburst regions.

The shake-ups during rapid star formation probably created the molecules in the first place—but the chance that they'll yield complex life in such a wild scene is low, Araya pointed out.

Highly moral - yet highly irrational. Steven Pinker and the colors of morality
Let's think first about two distinct cultures - and I'll use Southeast Asian and Western European. It's very likely, as Pinker shows us, that different cultures would have distinct "colors" that are more heavily emphasized than others. We might expect that in Southeast Asia, the moral values of "authority" and "purity" are given higher moral emphasis. For the Western European cultural community, we might see "harm" and "fairness" as more heavily expressed moral features, while each may treat "group loyalty" approximately the same.

Within cultures you will have this same sort of dichotomy based on politics, religions, race, ethnicities, etc. One group may most heavily weigh "group loyalty", another "purity" and yet a third group views "harm" as the highest moral consideration (and so on).

Three Month Composite of Comet Holmes


Sports
I'll make up for it, okay?
I mean, enough that God actually would care about who won the Super Bowl. But this story - that he killed Tyree's mother, and then - I dunno, felt bad about it? she badgered and/or begged Jesus into it? what? - made up for it by letting him win the Super Bowl?

I am still 150 posts behind in my blog reading. I'm going to soon get to the point where I say screw it and mark them all read. But, here are a few posts that I really enjoyed when I did get a chance to read.

Charity
At Charity Navigator, Trent Stamp comments about the separation of church and state as it applies to charities.

Government
Jon Blumefeld at The Rogue's Gallery writes about those crazy tax protesters.

As a tie in to my posts about the America's Psychic Challenge television program, Chris Hoofnagle has a post up about criminal profilers and cold readers at denialism blog.

Religion
Philly Chief discusses the Godless Delusion at You Made Me Say It.

At No More Hornets, The Exterminator asks his second Quazy Quistian Question.

Paul at Cafe Philos, explains why the notion of God will never die out.

At Whatever, John Scalzi finally posts his Creation Museum Report. Readers donated over $5,000 to the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State to torment himget him to go.

Sexuality
At Letters from a broad, CL Hanson writes about feminism and porn.

Woo
Skeptico gives you the tools to play cold reader bingo and posts links to interviews after the Chriss Angel challenge on Phenomenon.

This series post is evolving. Hopefully eventually I'll have something more interesting, but for now, here are some articles that I enjoyed reading this week.

Book Reviews
The Spanish Inquisitor reviews Natalie Angier's The Canon.

Science
John posts another excellent video by Sean B. Carroll, From Butterflies to Humans, at Evolutionary Middleman.

Eric discusses a study that found hormone levels are closely tied to mother-child bonding at The Primate Diaries.

Denialism blog tackles "The Eugenics Temptation" in an article by by Mark Hoofnagle.

Astronomy Picture of the Day has astounding pictures of Comet17P/Holmes.

Bob Novella discusses why long-term weather prediction will never be accurate at The Rogue's Gallery.

Government
Chris Hoofnagle explains why the wireless industry restricts innovation, consumer choice, and entrepreneurship at denialism blog.

Jonathan Rowe exposes two bad arguments against the ENDA and two ways to fight terrorism at Positive Liberty.

Charity
At Trent Stamp's Take, Trent talks about the Gap's (PRODUCT) RED apparel campaign.

Culture and Religion
The romance of the self-denying woman is discussed at Kafr al-Hanadwa.

At Evolving Thoughts, John Wilkins gives several explanations for religion and also defines what religion is.

Norm at onegoodmove discusses the demands of reason.

Human Interest
Mamacita Chilena continues her series with her story of "Not Chubby Anymore: How I got off my butt and lost 50 pounds" in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Here's a grab bag of posts that I really enjoyed this week. I hope you enjoy them too.

Horror Movie A Day reviews The Descent.

The Kansas City Star has an article on Atheists on the rise, which I at first had hope for, but after reading I think had a decidedly negative spin.

Steven Novella explains the fallacy of why atheists have no rights at the Rogue's Gallery.

A Chinese company and maker of the MMORPG King of the World is requiring female players to prove their sex via webcam in order to play a female character. No men will be allowed to play a female character.

Jason Kuznicki at Positive Liberty writes about Digital Piracy of the State-Sponsored Variety about the first case of copyright infringement to go before a jury. The judgement leveled? This single mother will have to pay $220,000 for sharing 24 songs. The RIAA threatens this could happen to anyone who doesn't settle with them out of court.

John at Evolutionary Middleman posted a video of one of Sean B Carroll's lectures on evolution.

Rebecca Watson at The Rogues Gallery and Memoirs of a Skepchick wrote a pre-review of the new Lifetime series "America's Psychic Challenge."

Nigel Warburton at the virtual philosopher argues why science teachers shouldn't handle questions about creationism sensitively.

PZ Myers at Pharyngula has an article up about Left Behind Games threatening reviewers who gave their game poor reviews with lawsuits, including a Christian charity.

Christopher Heard at Higgaion posts a video of what music may have sounded like 4,500 years ago in Summeria. It sounds a bit more Casio than ancient to me, but I know very little about music theory and can rarely pick out subtleties. It was fun to listen to and think about in any case.

Jessica Snyder Sachs explains why you should get your flu shots this year.

Richard Dawkins pays tribute to Dan Dennett.

PZ Myers writes about DonorsChoose , a charity that helps poor kids in the classroom.

BBC News has an article up Clever crows are caught on camera about crows using tools in the wild. In the past scientists have studied New Caledonian crows in a captive environment and recorded them using tools, but with a new camera that they can attach to the tail of a crow they can now catch them in the wild using tools in ways they don't in captivity.

They can use their bills to whittle twigs and leaves into bug-grabbing implements; some believe their tool-use is so advanced that it rivals that of some primates.

I recently came across a couple of posts (here* and here) by Jason Kuznicki of Positive Liberty on animal rights as supposed under a Libertarian form of government.

Ask yourself: How would we treat a human male who behaved toward other people in the same way that a tomcat behaves toward rodents — or toward the females of his own species? The tomcat should feel lucky that he is usually only confined and castrated. By the logic of individual rights, we’re doing him a favor. Not that this logic necessarily applies, but this would certainly be the result if it did.

I disagree with his conclusion, but I think he makes some interesting points. Comparing raising animals for food and raising animals for dogfights does make all of us meat eaters seem pretty hypocritical. And maybe we are. But I still think there's a distinction between an activity that is intentionally cruel and sadistic (like dog fighting) and raising animals for food.

Jim Henley of Unqualified Offerings has put together a list of post on animal rights, property rights and animal cruelty from a Libertarian perspective. They're all worthwhile reading, but I think Libertarianism and Animal Cruelty from I Think ^(Link) Therefore I Err is the best (and by that, of course I mean the closest to how I feel about the issue).

Same for animals. Like babies, they don’t know we essentially “own” them. They know who butters their bread and what choices they have within the confines (word corrected) of their “homes”. And they make do. Slaughter isn’t inherently “cruel” and any of Temple Grandin’s books will have you seeing that. (designer of about 1/2 the slaughter houses in the US)

Is there a libertarian argument against animal cruelty? Only if there is one against child cruelty. And I suspect there is.

*And I have to agree, the best title ever.

Could extraterrestrial life be made of corkscrew-shaped particles of interstellar dust? Intriguing new evidence of life-like structures that form from inorganic substances in space have been revealed in the New Journal of Physics. The findings hint at the possibility that life beyond earth may not necessarily use carbon-based molecules as its building blocks. They also point to a possible new explanation for the origin of life on earth.

Read more here.

(via venjanz)

If you haven't already you must read Mark Hoofnagle's I say, Hard Cheese! article about nature... and hippies... and Monty Burns. Really, see the quote below.

Hippies drive me nuts. Not only is this just totally unrealistic, but I think it also reflects a fundamental ignorance of biology, history, and the basic infrastructure of our society. I'm of the Monty Burns school of nature.

The entire article is worthwhile if just to give you perspective.

Recently Roger Ebert published an article about art and video games. And, of course, I must disagree with him. He has several perceptions of video games that are just wrong.

First, he's under the impression that video gamers get to define the story for themselves. No, that's not the case. Video games are extremely linear, even games that give gamers choices are limited to just a couple of paths. For example, Knights of the Old Republic gave gamers several options in how they interacted with multiple characters. Despite that, in the end there were really only two choices and previous encounters made no difference. In one dialog choice the game player decided whether the character of the story would be a good Jedi or an evil Sith. I didn't even have to restart the game and play it again to see the difference. All I had to do was reload it from a save point near the end of the game.

Even Elder Scrolls: Morrowind or Oblivion are only an illusion of player control. The player doesn't have to move through the game in a linear fashion and there are tons of choices. But in the end the game has been fully defined by the programmers, storyline writers, and concept designers. The only unexpected turns in the game are due to gaming bugs, mistakes in the code. Sometimes these are laughable and form their own interesting results, but they are not the players re-interpreting the game on their own.

So, let's just get this out of the way now. Despite preconceived notions that video games are free-form canvases for the players to create, they aren't. Every option has been pre-written unless it is a mistake.

For his second impression I'll give you his quote.

I know it by the definition of the vast majority of games. They tend to involve (1) point and shoot in many variations and plot lines, (2) treasure or scavenger hunts, as in "Myst," and (3) player control of the outcome. I don't think these attributes have much to do with art; they have more in common with sports.

And if I were to say that the vast majority of movies tend to involve (1) goofy romantic comedy, (2) over-the-top action scenes, and (3) often predictable story lines, do you think I have described most movies?

Most movies are entertainment, not art. So why should video games be judged by some higher standard? Is it possible that the vast majority of video games are entertainment and a few are art? Absolutely!

Roger Ebert can pretend to be a critic of video games all he wants, but he's working from a position of ignorance. I would find it difficult to define all movies as X or even just a genre of books if I'd only read or seen one or two or even a half dozen. If I'm wrong and Ebert is really an avid gamer and done more than just observe and maybe play a session of Myst, then my apologies.

So here I'm making an assumption. Roger Ebert does not know very much about video games. He has likely not played many games and probably has mostly observed only a few of the more currently popular games. That doesn't make his opinion invalid as an individual, but as an authority he lacks credentials. His movie critic credentials don't carry over into the gaming world.

In reality Roger Ebert really doesn't know if video games are art or not. He surmises they are not. From my experience I think he's wrong.

Adopting fashionable pomobabble, Trask argues that magical understandings of the universe are just as acceptable as scientific understandings, but that preferences for science and reason over “revelation,” emotionalism, whimsical impulse, and other “ways of knowing” is just so much prejudice. “Scientific epistemologies,” he writes, “legitimize the exclusion of those who do not understand truth exclusively through empirical verification.” Science is cruelly shoving magical theories away from the table, through its emphasis on such things as testability, or evidence, or replication of results and silly stuff like that. See, it’s just cultural imperialism to prefer a medical treatment that’s been subjected to rigorous double-blind field trials, instead of a witch doctor shaking his rattles and chanting.

That's from Timothy Sandefur's article at Positive Liberty about the equality of theories of knowledge as proposed by Stephen W. Trask. Trask claims that science is really another religion after all, and all religions should be treated the same in the science classroom.

Imagine what the world would be like if government really were required to accord equal respect to supernatural as well as scientific beliefs. As McRoberts and I point out in our article, this “would, if consistently followed, unravel every government undertaking. Suppose that a man has a patently absurd notion that his neighbor is reading his brain through highly sophisticated alien technology. Under current law, he cannot sue for a nuisance, because this is a frivolous and irrational claim. Some courts have taken judicial notice of the irrationality of certain pseudosciences, including phrenology and astrology. It is hard to imagine what would happen to tort law, or the law of evidence, if government were to seriously attempt to treat naturalistic and supernatural theories of the world as equally valid in every respect.” Supra at 45.

It would be madness to consider that there must be no experimentation or evidence within the structures of our government and that anything a person could think up would be equally as valid as something provable and tested by hundreds of scientists. It's a ridiculously transparent way to try to push religion within public institutions.

Fortunately for us all, there is nothing in the Constitution that requires the government to treat supernatural and secular notions as equal. The Constitution, in fact, clearly contemplates a government which is devoted to secular concerns and is free to choose policies on the basis of secular reasoning. Not only does it forbid any religious test or oath—a pretty secular concept—but in many places it allows and even requires government to act on secular reasons. A person may not be convicted of treason, for example, except on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act: in other words, a court may not rely on a person’s supernatural belief or dream visions or religious dogma, when deciding innocence or guilt under this clause. Congress can grant copyrights so as to “promote the progress of science and the useful arts,” even if their doing so is purely based on secular reasoning.

[...]

There is only one restriction on government’s preference of secularism over supernaturalism: it must not restrict individuals from freely exercising their religion if they wish. Otherwise, the government may subsidize and promote secular ideas—and it should be encouraged to do so, too, since those ideas are, in point of fact, far more likely to be true.

I'm really tired of the thought that everyone is just as right as anyone else so let's just accept their opinion and be respectful of their point of view regardless of how ridiculous it might be. Yes, taken as a whole people should be treated equally. But on an individual level I'm not going to have as much respect for a person who thinks the government conspired to cause 911 as the person who discovered the structure of DNA. One of these people has a more rigorous approach to finding evidence. I'm going to hold that person's opinion in a higher regard. I'll let you work out which one.

Gristmill has an article up about How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic. It's a really good article, linking to many skeptic objections and answering arguments to those objections. Here are a few from the article.


Global warming is nothing new!

If you have look at this graph of temperature, starting at a point when we were finishing the climb out of deep glaciation, you can clearly see that rapid warming ceased around 10,000 years ago (rapid relative to natural fluctuations, but not compared to the warming today, which is an order of magnitude faster). After a final little lift 8,000 years ago, temperature trended downward for the entire period of the Holocene. So the post-industrial revolution warming is the reversal of a many-thousand-year trend.

It's the sun, stupid

According to PMOD at the World Radiation Center there has been no increase in solar irradiance since at least 1978, when satellite observations began. This means that for the last thirty years, while the temperature has been rising fastest, the sun has not changed.

What about mid-century cooling?

If you look at the temperature record for the 1990s, you'll notice a sharp drop in '92, '93, and '94. This is the effect of massive amounts of SO2 ejected into the stratosphere by Mount Pinatubo's eruption. That doesn't mean CO2 took a holiday and stopped influencing global temperatures; it only means that the CO2 forcing was temporarily overwhelmed by another, opposite forcing.

Natural emissions dwarf human emissions

It's true that natural fluxes in the carbon cycle are much larger than anthropogenic emissions. But for roughly the last 10,000 years, until the industrial revolution, every gigatonne of carbon going into the atmosphere was balanced by one coming out.

What humans have done is alter one side of this cycle. We put approximately 6 gigatonnes of carbon into the air but, unlike nature, we are not taking any out.

Thankfully, nature is compensating in part for our emissions, because only about half the CO2 we emit stays in the air. Nevertheless, since we began burning fossil fuels in earnest over 150 years ago, the atmospheric concentration that was relatively stable for the previous several thousand years has now risen by over 35%.

So whatever the total amounts going in and out "naturally," humans have clearly upset the balance and significantly altered an important part of the climate system.

(via Pharyngula

Also, read George Monbiot's response to Alexander Cockburn on global warming.

(via denialism blog

Trevor Burrus at Symbolic Order has an article up titled In The Beginning Was the Word: Separating the Atheists from the Agnostics - Rescuing the Agnostics from the Theists where he points out the misconceptions of the words "agnostic" and "atheist."

“Agnosticism” has been greatly misunderstood by modern audiences. The original meaning of the term has essentially been completely lost. Originally coined by Darwin’s attack-dog Thomas Huxley to describe himself as one who did not believe that God’s existence was knowable, agnosticism has been converted to mean one who does not know. The two definitions are worlds apart. The former is a claim on the epistemological status of a belief, the latter is a reluctance to accept a claim. Somehow we moved from the belief that God’s existence is something that humans cannot be sure about to not being sure about God’s existence.

He goes on to talk about how atheists are the most mistrusted group of people in America and how agnostics often claim the term agnostic out of a desire to not be part of the atheist group. He also talks about how some Christians can't understand atheism, using Ray Comfort as an example.

But it's how he defines atheism that I find most interesting.

Comfort’s argument rests on his confusion - a confusion that is now a pandemic - about the meanings of the terms “agnosticism” and “atheism.” The argument only makes sense, if it makes sense at all, if his definition of atheism is the one stated earlier in this essay; that atheism is “belief in no God.” In fact, atheism is properly understood as “no belief in God.” The difference is subtle yet very important. The distinction can be pointed out by this question: “Do you believe that FDR did not eat any oranges during the week following Pearl Harbor?” Assuming that we are all ignorant of this claim it would be absurd to answer in the affirmative to this question. The proper course is not to believe that FDR did not eat any oranges during that week but rather to take the position that you have no belief that he did. Sufficient reason has not been given to believe the proposition.

Other, non-religious, conceptions of God – the scientists’ Gods, the prime mover, first cause, “higher powers,” God as essence rather than God as being – are pushed towards irrelevance. As scientists continue to explain more about the universe the burden of proof continues to be placed in the lap of the theist – particularly with regards to teleological “arguments from design.” Cosmologically, however, the question of “why is there something instead of nothing?” will always be insoluble. If you choose God to be your answer to such an abstruse question so be it. But, for any characteristics you wish to instill in that God beyond “first cause” – i.e. personal, interested, omnipotent, good etc. – the burden of proof will once again lie in your lap. These anthropomorphic characteristics are the ones that the majority of theists care the most about – whether God knows, cares, acts, desires, is angry etc. However, they are also the hardest to justify. Despite the many nuanced and opaque philosophical debates to be had about the status of identifying and clarifying who has the burden of proof and why, I am quite sure that miracle working, resurrected god-men, floods and floating arks, multi-armed androgynous deities, and mountain-moving prophets are not close to the gray-area of these difficult distinctions. Whatever else it may be, the burden of proof at least rests in the hands of those who claim the magnificent.

But don't take the purpose of the article to bash agnostics because the point is to unite atheists and agnostics together in a common understanding of each other and show that they're not really that different.

But, it may be time for many agnostics to step up to the plate. Perhaps this essay will convince some that a name-change is in order. The broader purpose of this essay is to clarify terms and unite sides because, in reality, the agnostic and the atheist are on the same side. Both believe the Christian (Muslim, Hindu et. al.) hasn’t made their case. Either way, it is certainly time for both theists and atheists to stop equivocating their definitions and clarify what is meant by “atheist” and “agnostic.” Yes, they may be just words. But remember, in the beginning was the word.

I preparation for Ken Ham's Creation Museum tomorrow, PZ Myers put together a Creation Museum Carnival over at Pharyngula.

The blogosphere has actually done a better job than most media in addressing the scientific flaws in Ken Ham's creationism, which if you think about it, is a rather nasty indictment of the reportage in itself: a bunch of disorganized amateurs have created more coherent criticisms of the bad science than the professionals, who are supposed to inform the public, have done. Rarely do the newspapers report any of the claims that Ken Ham makes about science, and even more rarely do they explain why they are wrong. Almost all of the blog entries on this museum refer to the fact that creationism contradicts well-established scientific principles, even the ones that have as their main intent mocking the "museum"—others put considerable effort into summarizing the science that Ken Ham either does not understand or cynically neglects.

A lot of people in the blogsphere contributed to the effort, including me. Thanks to everyone that's been stopping by!

PZ Myers at Pharyngula has an article up about Do-nothing atheists and re-igniting the Enlightenment as a response to Jonathan Rowe's While Europe Slept and Chris Ho-Stuart's Should we promote tolerant religion?

(How's that for some links.)

Rowe talks about government's role not in stating which religion is true or false, but in promoting the "right" kind of religion, or religion "compatible with liberal democratic, secular, pluralistic norms."

Ho-Stuart advocates a tolerant approach to religion to encourage religions to come up to speed to the 21st century. With the encouragement of "a more 'reasonable' religion, in the sense of one that is reconciled with the findings of science," he hopes to erode the more radical aspects of religion.

Myers agrees with both to some extent, "we need to change it to accommodate the modern world," but he also disagrees with them.

Their goal is to avoid conflict, ignore differences, and just get along, and hope that by avoiding confrontation the great theistic mob will just generally drift into friendship with them and eventually align themselves more and more with that great bunch of guys and gals. It's nice. It's even going to work — with some people. I'll also admit that most of us are "do-nothing atheists" most of the time. When I talk to some Christian fellow at the coffee house, we'll talk about the weather, the news, what's happening around town, and I'm not interested in sparking a confrontation over an issue that isn't relevant to the interaction at hand (remember, we're all tolerant atheists together here, and despite all rumors to the contrary, I do not think my fellow citizens are idiots if they go to church).

[...]

The complement to the do-nothing atheist is, naturally enough, the activist atheist. The difference isn't that we're intolerant, or even that we have different beliefs about god and religion—it's that we'll unfurl a bold banner and stand uncompromisingly beneath it, state our differences loudly, and dare the others to contend with us. We do not aim to get along. Our goal is to strengthen others in our shared skepticism about religion and our positive affirmation of the power of reason and the sufficiency of the natural world, to challenge the long-held domination of supernatural and authoritarian thinking, and to change minds. Not to passively hope that others will eventually see the light, but to light that fire ourselves. Not to glimmer optimistically, but to incandesce ferociously. Where some hope the world will follow, some have to lead.

While it's not the position I'd naturally choose to be in, I agree with Myers. You can see it in the general apathy within America. As long as people are comfortable, they won't do anything to change. It takes a little bit of uncomfortable-ness for people to take a look around them.

Everyone has the right to believe however they want to believe, that's true. And none of the above writers are advocating anything different. But kowtowing to an irrational belief is something very different. Beliefs that contradict basic human rights and liberties do not deserve respect, just as beliefs that shamefully seek to bury scientific knowledge in order to eliminate any thought that doesn't line up with their religions point of view don't deserve respect.

It's not the rational people that need changing, it's the irrational. And the only compromise the irrational accept is complete abdication.

Carl Zimmer has an article up titled Old Hands and New Fins at The Loom. In it he explains how humans are more closely related to an odd fish than was previously thought.

Back 400 million years ago, our ancestors swan with fins. The descendants of those early fish split off into two main branches. One became the ray-finned fishes--a group that makes up the vast majority of fish alive today. The other, sometimes called the lobefins, produced many species, but only three lineages of lobefins survive today. One is the coelacanths, which survive in a few isolated spots in the Indian Ocean. One is the lungfishes, which struggle against extinction in rivers and ponds in Australia, Africa and South America. The third lineage is by far the most successful: the fish with feet, or also known as the tetrapods. Tetrapods include amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. We belong to their ranks.

In that way, paddlefish branched off ray-finned fish. Scientists studying the fins of paddlefish have found that their limbs have the same pattern expressed in the late stages as humans. While their limbs continue growing into fins, the bones resemble a stage between fish fins and the limbs of land-dwelling animals.

R. Ford Denison at This Week in Evolution has an article up about the evolution of beneficial infections.

"This week's twins were both published in PLoS Biology, so both are freely available on-line. Both have new data on bacteria that infect insects. Both help us understand the conditions under which infecting bacteria evolve to be beneficial, rather than harmful. Finally, both disprove the popular idea that any evolutionary change big enough to matter (except antibiotic resistance, which a creationist commenter once claimed always involves "horizontal transfer" of genes among bacteria, even though resistance often evolves in bacteria in a closed container all descended from a single cell) always involves lots of genes and takes millions of years."

Follow the link to his article to read more.

Also, Greg Laden has a link up about a new study that found herpes my be symbiotic, causing a resistance to the plague and food poisoning.

Yesterday Jerry Falwell died. I think Timothy Sandefur sums it up best in Jerry Falwell Rest In.. Whatever, Just Rest at Positive Liberty.

From the website:

In recent years, scientists who work for and advise the federal government have seen their work manipulated, suppressed, distorted, while agencies have systematically limited public and policy maker access to critical scientific information. To document this abuse, the Union of Concerned Scientists has created the The A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science.

Here are a sample if you feel overwhelmed by the amount of material at the website:

- Press “Minders” Required at Scientists’ Interviews
- NASA Reaches for Muzzle as Renowned Climate Scientist Speaks Out
- National Nuclear Security Administration Panel Dismissed
- Litmus Test for Appointees at the National Institute on Drug Abuse

The Vancouver Sun has a piece out on what we need here is a bias in favour of truth and Larry from Sandwalk has a good post up about it.

I agree with his assessment. The media is obviously not unbiased and in some matters I don't believe they should be. If someone is a hack, the journalist should feel free to point it out, not just in opinion articles, but in news pieces. I can make the determination on whether or not I believe the journalist or not. But, if a journalist is writing a story on psuedoscience then she should do her research and come out with some reasonable critiques. Otherwise skip the piece.