tales of an ordinary girl

Astronomy
Zodiacal Light Over New Mexico



Orion Dawn Over Mount Nemrut



Games
Pennsylvania Task Force Says NO to Video Game Legislation
There is good news out of Pennsylvania today, as the commonwealth will apparently not pursue video game legislation.

A working group assigned by the Pennsylvania legislature to study the video game violence issue has strongly recommended that no laws regarding video game content should be enacted.

LittleBigPlanet used to create 36-cell computer, game of life
"Some guys put together a 36-cell simulation of Conway's Game of Life inside a LittleBigPlanet level, and it's absolutely amazing," Nina wrote us. "If you actually go through and play the level, they provide you with all of the components—logic gates, their computer clock and edge detector, a multiplexer, etc—to build your own mechanical computer. "

Government
Rule Shields Health Workers Who Withhold Care Based on Beliefs
The far-reaching regulation cuts off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, health plan, clinic or other entity that does not accommodate doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other employees who refuse to participate in care they find ethically, morally or religiously objectionable. It was sought by conservative groups, abortion opponents and others to safeguard workers from being fired, disciplined or penalized in other ways.

Airborne agrees to pay $7M in multistate settlement
The maker of Airborne dietary supplements has agreed to pay $7 million to settle allegations by 32 states and the District of Columbia that it made false claims about the benefits of its products. While the company admitted no wrongdoing, under the settlement, Airborne Health Inc. will discontinue any claims about the "health benefit, performance, efficacy or safety" of its supplements in preventing and treating colds and other ailments.

Humor
Typo In Proposition 8 Defines Marriage As Between 'One Man And One Wolfman'
"The people of California made their voices heard today, and reaffirmed our age-old belief that the only union sanctioned in God's eyes is the union between a man and another man possessed by an ungodly lupine curse," state Sen. Tim McClintock said at a hastily organized rally celebrating passage of the new law.

If programming languages were religions...
Java would be Fundamentalist Christianity - it's theoretically based on C, but it voids so many of the old laws that it doesn't feel like the original at all. Instead, it adds its own set of rigid rules, which its followers believe to be far superior to the original. Not only are they certain that it's the best language in the world, but they're willing to burn those who disagree at the stake.

Photography
A Sun Pillar Over North Carolina



Religion
On Inerrancy
So, did God not want to communicate his message more clearly? Or did he want to, but lacked the ability to do so? Either option poses a serious challenge to belief in a benevolent, all-wise deity. Why would God even write a book - a single book, one whose origins lie in a long-ago time and a very different culture, one that is prone to mistranslation, misinterpretation and deliberate alteration? Why grant some people special access to his word, and convey the message in such a flawed and imprecise format? Why not just speak to all of us directly, impress his message on everyone's heart?

Science
Why Life Originated (And Why it Continues)
In a recent study called “Why did life emerge?”, two scientists, son and father Arto Annila of the University of Helsinki and Erkki Annila of the Finnish Forest Research Institute, offer some insight into the general driving force of life’s origins in terms of thermodynamics. As they explain, all organisms are composed of molecules that assemble together via numerous chemical reactions. Just as heat flows from hot to cold, these molecules obey the universal tendency to diminish energy differences, so that the most likely chemical reactions are those in which energy flows “downhill” toward a stationary state, or chemical equilibrium.

Sociology
Rom-coms 'spoil your love life'
"We now have some emerging evidence that suggests popular media play a role in perpetuating these ideas in people's minds.

"The problem is that while most of us know that the idea of a perfect relationship is unrealistic, some of us are still more influenced by media portrayals than we realise."

Astronomy
From Moonrise to Sunset
In this panorama of Earth and sky recorded on Thursday, November 13, the Full Moon rises along the eastern horizon at the far left. Of course, the Full Moon rises at sunset and that Thursday's setting Sun was also captured at the far right. In between, 17 digital images are stitched together to follow the horizon to the south in a lovely twilight portrait of the city of Lisbon, Portugal. The serene view takes in part of the longest bridge in Europe, the Vasco da Gama bridge, beneath the rising Moon and ends at the mouth of the Tagus River looking west toward the sunset and the Atlantic Ocean. The photographer's vantage point was Lisbon's 100 foot high Cristo Rei monument on the south bank of the Tagus, at the foot of the port city's other famous bridge, the Ponte 25 de Abril.

Chilean Skyscape



A Happy Sky Over Los Angeles



Venus in the Moon



Smile in the Sky



Atheism
Here We Go Again
“City leaders have demonstrated their clear bias towards protecting and providing special privileges to their favored religious beliefs, in clear violation of the California and United States Constitutions. I would like to think that few Christians are so insecure in their faith as to support this action.”

Why I am no longer a Christian – Part 1
I was taught that God loved me so much that he let his son be killed for me. Yet, I knew that if I were to love someone, I would not create them with built-in conflict that guaranteed unhappiness on some level. If I were to give into my sexual urges, I would be sexually happy but spiritually distraught. If I were not to give into my sexual urges, I would be spiritually happy but sexually frustrated. I saw animals (who I believed God also created) roaming free with a single purpose in mind—to fulfill their nature. They were not conflicted to behave against their nature. Indeed, it would have felt cruel for me to deny any animal its natural needs—and yet I was to believe that God’s denial of my natural needs was out of love.

Christianity offers an explanation for this—that my nature was sinful, and that I differ from the animals because I have a soul. I was told not to question God’s ways, because “there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death.” I was also told to “lean not unto my own understanding.” I was told to just trust The Lord. My nature was evil, and The Lord had created a way to redeem my nature. The entire theory of salvation became extremely convoluted, with little branches and secret compartments to explain away all the various lapses in logic.

Civil Rights
Why churches fear gay marriage
The possibility that a whole new generation of American males is being raised by women without men is very challenging for the churches. I think they want to reassert some sort of male authority over the order of things. I think the pro-Proposition 8 movement was really galvanized by an insecurity that churches are feeling now with the rise of women.

Monotheistic religions feel threatened by the rise of feminism and the insistence, in many communities, that women take a bigger role in the church. At the same time that women are claiming more responsibility for their religious life, they are also moving out of traditional roles as wife and mother. This is why abortion is so threatening to many religious people -- it represents some rejection of the traditional role of mother.

Gay Adoption: The Real Agenda
Consider the implications of the policy in this case. It would mean removing the children from the home in which they have been raised -- "one of the most caring and nurturing placements" the guardian has ever seen. It would mean putting them through the trauma, once again, of being uprooted and placed with complete strangers. And because of the difficulty of placing kids their age, the CFCE said, it could mean the brothers would be permanently separated from each other.

And for what? Solely to shield them from the supposed perils of gay parents. Gays are treated as more dangerous than felons, drug offenders and known child abusers -- none of whom is categorically barred from adopting.

Games
UFC to fighters: appear in videogames or you don't fight
Sports-themed video games are huge moneymakers for publishers, but using the likeness of a professional athlete in these games is proving to be an increasingly contentious undertaking. The upcoming UFC Undisputed 2009 serves as the most recent example of this, as reports surfaced yesterday that popular fighters Jon Fitch and Josh Koscheck were on the outs with the Ultimate Fighting Championship organization. The reason? They were being asked to sign away their likeness rights for life. For Fitch, the disagreement has become so intense that he had already been cut by the company.

Moral money managers now slamming games for GLBT content
With the holiday season upon us, shoppers are kicking their spending into high gear, and these consumers often consult gift guides for advice on what to buy. A popular choice? Creating lists that advise parents on what to NOT buy their kids. In the video game industry, we've all gotten used to seeing such lists surface around this time of the year; this week, we were treated to such an item by The Timothy Plan, a group that manages money based on Judeo-Christian principles. While profanity and violence were on the list, the group's attitudes toward homosexuality are what raised the most attention.

Government
Atheist group sues state Homeland Security department
Edwin Kagin, a Boone County lawyer and the national legal director of American Atheists, said he was appalled to read in the Herald-Leader last week that state law establishes praising God – and installing a plaque in God’s honor – as the first duty of the Homeland Security Office.

International
The aftermath of the Mumbai attack
They say it’s over but how do we, the common citizens cope with this? It’s going to take some time for life to get back to normal and I am not sure that I want it get back to normal. We are a nation in mourning and will be for some time. I was not anywhere near the death and destruction, although a person I know was trapped in there the whole night. He got away unscathed but many didn’t. Images flash before my eyes. 60 innocents, men, women, and children, shot on v.t station as they alighted from trains. 17 men and women lined up in a hotel corridor and shot to death mercilessly. The Israeli rabbi and his wife tortured to death on wednesday night. Brave firemen rescuing people trapped in the Taj Mahal hotel rooms even as the battle raged on, unmindful of the bullets. A police jeep ambushed, killing three brave men. Hotel staff maintaining their calm and helping guests out of the hotel, risking their own lives. People huddled in their rooms, frightened to death. Terrorists shooting civilians on sight, killing hundreds. Two killers cornered at Girgaum chowpatty by policemen. NSG commandos storming the hotel and Nariman House…

Law
The Lil’ Hos Go Down
Knowing my utter loathing for the whorelicious line of dolls known as Bratz, the entire concept of which seems to be to show little girls just how good life will be if only they will turn themselves into vapid pre-teen mall sluts, several people have forwarded me stories of how a judge has ordered Bratz dolls — all of them — off the shelf after the company that made them lost a copyright suit to Mattel, maker of Barbie. Their expectation is that I would be greeting this news with something close to joy.

Movies
Why “Twilight” is hurting America
This movie makes me sad at so many levels. But most of all, it makes me sad that thousands of teenage girls, including my niece, think this is one of the greatest movies ever. That this is how love is supposed to be. That it’s romantic to subsume your entire being for a boy with a spiky haircut and awesome abs. And that the only way to attract said man is to look a certain way. Edward never fell in love with Bella’s mind, her kindness or her wit. He noticed her because of how she looked and, moreso, how she smelled.

Religion
Hitler And Stalin Again
The point that struck me was that contrary to the usual Christian blather about how horrible atheists have been in the 20th century, it is the religion of Christianity, specifically that of the Inquisition, that compares more favorably to Nazism and Stalinism, than anything even remotely atheistic. The Inquisitorial Toolbox, as Kirsch refer to it, was left open and used repeatedly by the Nazis and the Stalinist Russians, and not because they were atheists, but because they were dogmatists whose primary directive was mind control of the population, not conversion to atheism.

Sexuality
Why Bother to Promote A Healthy Attitude Towards Nudity?
On the other hand, there are at least two, broad reasons for somewhat caring how nudity is viewed (shameless pun intended). First, the notion that nudity is scandalous, immoral, and even dangerous contributes to all sorts of socio-political absurdities. Janet Jackson once exposed her nipple for less than two seconds on national television and caused a controversy lasting several days that at its peak swept aside major news stories. A school teacher was reprimanded then fired for taking her children to a museum that displayed nude sculptures. A grandmother was prosecuted for photographing her two partly-clothed granddaughters bouncing on her bed. Here in Colorado Springs, a woman threatened to sue a drug store for “trauma” after she accidentally received images of a nude man from the store’s photo lab. And a man in another state was once convicted of sex offender charges for walking about nude in his own home without closing his drapes. All of these examples and others point to some of the consequences of our accepted, but ridiculous attitude towards nudity.

Here are the films (all shorts) I saw at Dragon*Con and how I would rate them from best to worst.

Paint Shaker
Leave You In Me
Safe House
A Break in the Monotony
Creepers
By Appointment Only
Verboten
Cannibal Lovers

And I brought a copy of Vegan Cannibals' Findings home that I hope to enjoy soon.

I really enjoyed the zombie/cannibal/ghoul discussion with the panelists too. I'd never heard about Cannibal Holocaust before. I agree, it's no longer art when it isn't fiction and becomes reality.

I just finished watching the Pledge of Allegiance Blues, an independent film by Lisa Seidenberg. The film is a documentary covering the Michael Newdow's pledge case and also a little about the Alabama ten commandments case.

Do I think this film was impartial and unbiased? No, I don't. But, that's OK. I believe that it's a good thing to preach to the choir. Sometimes the choir needs to hear the information as much as the general public. And I do feel like the film covered many important issues.

I do feel like the "under God" phrase in the pledge is unconstitutional. I agree that "God" is a general term that may apply to many religions, but I think when it was added it was added to refer to a specific god. To believe otherwise is naive. My biggest objection is the same objection I have to religion in politics. It becomes a de facto religious test. When a religious phrase is added to a state-sponsored pledge or state-generated money or in any other kind of oath or any other kind of state act, then it becomes a religious test. When someone who doesn't believe in a god is faced with choosing between belief and country, then they're going to viewed as unpatriotic. But refusing to swear an oath to God has nothing to do with the state and should not reflect on the patriotism of a person. In the same sense religionists are putting God ahead of country (something I agree they have the right to do) and yet, they're considered more patriotic than someone who would put country ahead of God (as atheists will certainly put a material concept ahead of an imaginary one).

One thing that stood out in all of the footage of people protesting was their deep, emotional, religious experiences. This is the type of religion I grew up in. Praise and worship was singing, dancing, and raising my hands to God. It was a euphoric experience. Under those conditions, to believe your religion is not real, it'd take believing yourself a fool. These people are not going to change their minds due to reasoned arguments. They're going to have to have a connection outside of their religious experience to ever believe it's not real.

(Of course I always felt foolish, but I was encouraged to be a fool for Jesus.)

Other than the sound quality of the film, which I found to be horrible, I would recommend this film. If you can overlook the filmmaker playing up to a specific point, there are many worthwhile scenes. I found the footage with Alan Dershowitz to be particularly well-reasoned.

Evo also has a review of this movie on his blog, Evolutionary Middleman.

My father-in-law watches a lot of movies. Other than video games, it's probably his favorite pass time. While he was visiting we decided to go see one of the movies opening that weekend, The Happening. Except we could never remember the name of the film so we called it The Wahlberg.

Anyway, we didn't see it the first weekend because not everyone could get together on a time. And after the opening day we saw that the reviews were not favorable. We hesitated, but in the end decided to shell out the full price for it anyway a week after opening day. Why is it that bad reviews rarely dissuade people who have already made up their mind to see a movie?

But the reviews could not have prepared me for how bad this movie actually was. The acting and the script hit me immediately. I don't think one actor in the entire movie (except maybe the little girl) ever said a word that wasn't said or emoted without heavy drama. For about half the movie I thought maybe they were trying for a new style or a parody. Whatever they were trying for, it didn't work.

Even the love story in the movie was plastic and stupid. I hardly felt like the characters knew each other, much less were married to each other.

The first scene in the classroom where Wahlberg's character is explaining science. He almost makes a good point about how there are things that we may never know or may never be able to explain, except that somehow he comes off as anti-science and anti-intellectual. When he tries to use the scientific method later in the movie he comes off as a complete idiot.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

The main premise of the movie was that all plants started working together to develop a neurotoxin that was only released when a certain amount of people were together in one place. That number of people kept shrinking until it was down to at least three. The neurotoxin was carried on a wind, created by pressure changes? the plants? we don't really ever know. Somehow that nuero-toxin caused people to lose their sense of selves and their sense of self-preservation. No, they didn't just lose their sense of self-preservation, but the toxin actually turned their sense of self-preservation into a sense of self-destruction.

I have several problems with this premise. How are all plants suddenly communicating and working together to create this toxin? Plants aren't all the same, but evolved through different lines. Grasses and trees and flowers and bushes are different species.

How is it that the plants can create a neurotoxin that effects humans at a primitive level and yet not effect any other animal. Do we not share a common evolution? Would that evolution not include the instinct for self-preservation? Did humans somehow evolve that instinct separately?

I know this is science-based fiction, but I prefer my sci-fi based in some sort of real science. I feel like M. Night Shyamalan didn't understand a thing about evolution. And I suspect that his understanding of science in general is poor. I listened to a podcast interview with him on Science Talk where he talks about placebo and explains the effect as people creating energy to heal themselves.

And the way people killed themselves was idiotic. Running into a lion cage and offering an arm to a lion is not the best way to commit suicide. The are probably 20 other ways this man could have more easily and efficiently killed himself. Tearing off an arm will eventually cause death, but not right away. And if a lion tears off your arm, it's not going to pop off like it's perforated.

Even if the dialog and acting weren't abysmal, I still wouldn't like this movie based on how poorly executed the science is. If Shyamalan had been less interested in preaching about the environment and more interested in understanding it, this might have been an entirely different movie. Don't waste your time or money on this pile of crap.

Atheism
Respectable Infidels
Unfortunately, there are some badly misguided people who want to write this spurious distinction into law, and who claim that we can safely ban "hateful" or "insulting" speech without taking away people's right to voice their own convictions. The most charitable thing that can be said about such people is that they have obviously never given even the most casual thought to the consequences of the policy they advocate.

Comstock's comments are revealing in another way as well. As I said in "Firebrands", the kind of atheists whom believers consider "respectable" are atheists who wish they were religious. They approve of atheists who validate their presuppositions about the desirability and superiority of being a theist, or who concede that religious ethics are superior to any secular alternative.

Education
Hygiene, Mirrors, Sex, and...Finance?
I sat there for two hours while Mrs. J. droned on about how now that we were going through puberty we needed to make sure we always wore deodorant. We were also not supposed to laugh when the boys' voices cracked. And the most vital part of the course was that when talking a shower, we weren't to wash our butts and then our faces....always the other way around. My teacher really covered her bases. Nothing about condoms, sex or STD's, but all vital information, of course.

Government
Directive Details Trinidad Checks
Lanier's directive also says that anyone who does not give a reason for entering a designated safety zone may be turned away, said law enforcement sources who declined to speak on the record because they were not authorized to release the directive. "Legitimate" purposes to be in the area include going to a doctor, church or community event or visiting friends or relatives, officials said. Individuals can show a flier for an event to gain entrance, for example.

Law
How to Save Your State Economy
You know, if I were in California and a proponent of same-sex marriages, these are figures that I would be putting into the ads against the anti-same-sex marriage proposition that’s going to be on the ballot this fall. And I would ask: why do those against same-sex marriage want to interfere with the livelihoods of thousands of decent, hard-working Californians and deprive them of millions of dollars of potential income? Why do they want to take the food out of the mouths of California families? Why do they make it harder for these folks to keep a roof over their heads, or pay their medical bills, or put their kids through college? Why do they want to deprive thousands of Californians jobs they could use, and that the state needs? $684 million’s not exactly chump change, particularly in a weak economy.

Photography
A Fire Rainbow Over New Jersey



Politics

Religion
How Does Religion Influence Our Behavior?
Children buy that version of things because they are, after all, children. However, by the time we become adults, many of us recognize religions are not always that influential in shaping behavior — even when someone says he or she has been hugely influenced by their religion. As a practical matter, an adult who wants to accurately predict the behavior of an eighteen year old boy with his sixteen year old daughter had best take into heavy account many factors other than the boy’s professed religion. A landlord is much better off checking up on the rental history of his prospective tenants than checking out which religion they belong to. And many a woman who has married a religious man thinking that guarantees she won’t be abused by him has learned the hard way her husband’s religiosity guarantees nothing of the sort.

Most of us, by the time we become adults, have figured out thousands of clues for predicting what someone will do in a given set of circumstances. Most of those clues have little or nothing to do with a person’s religion.

Science
Does Time Run Backward in Other Universes?
If the observable universe were all that existed, it would be nearly impossible to account for the arrow of time in a natural way. But if the universe around us is a tiny piece of a much larger picture, new possibilities present themselves. We can conceive of our bit of universe as just one piece of the puzzle, part of the tendency of the larger system to increase its entropy without limit in the very far past and the very far future. To paraphrase physicist Edward Tryon, the big bang is easier to understand if it is not the beginning of everything but just one of those things that happens from time to time.

Engineering Life: The Dog that Didn't Bark in the Night
Despite all these bacteria suffering the indignity of being violated with human genes, no one seems to care. No one thinks the dignity of E. coli has been compromised. I have not heard of anyone refusing blood-thinners or insulin because it was produced from human genes put inside another species. In Europe, where protests over genetically modified plants and animals rage today, few seem to be bothered by the fact that a lot of cheese is produced with a cow's enzyme, chymosin, made by E. coli rather than cows. In fact, this cheese is labeled organic, because it's produced with "real" chymosin, rather than "artificial" chemicals.

I think that the story of engineered E. coli is an important one to bear in mind these days. Today we are faced with intense debates about whether it's right to create chimeras--a mouse that carries human neurons, for example. Headlines assault us with the danger that scientists will be playing God by creating life from scratch. We are revisiting old ground.

The Elusive Flock of Dodos
The message of the film is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, creationists are ignunt dodos. On the other, scientists are also dodos because they are bad communicators. I think he missed a flock. It’s a huge flock of dodos, but they’re elusive for a reason… and I think that the reason is that flock is his audience.

This particular flock of dodos tends to be willfully ignorant. They fear what they don’t understand, and are hostile to those who say things that they don’t understand like. They speak the vernacular and don’t even bother reaching for a dictionary when they use, as Peter Griffin puts it, “big words, and small complex words.” They think that their opinion should be as valid as the experts. “What do they know, anyway? They can’t accurately predict tomorrow’s weather! Why would they know anything about global warming?” They generally don’t like to think critically or learn.

Sexuality
Virginity?
"Women who get operations to restore their virginity". (Here). At first I figured, what the hell, they can do what they like. But reading on, I discovered women terrified that they will be beaten, abandoned, or shamed because they lost their hymens. When I read one woman's claim that to lose one's virginity was to become dirt, I decided that women were fools, and men were dolts to insist on something so mundane. After all, there's nothing special about virginity. We're all born virgins. It's stupid to prize something so common and so easy to fake. Why not prize intelligence? Common sense? Independence?

Who's Trying To Convince Everyone That Cell Phones Pop Popcorn?
A poor grasp of science leads people to fear the technology around them. Everyone's vaguely aware that phones use radio waves, so they misapply the concept. The phones in the video are merely ringing, which only means they're receiving the radio waves that are always around us. If those waves popped popcorn, there wouldn't be an unpopped kernel left in the U.S.

Skepticism
Getting skeptical about patriotism
Some readers got pissed off at my sarcastic message about the US the other day, so let me explain my views. I think patriotism is too close to nationalism to be safe; both are just souped up versions of tribalism. These things lead to “us versus them” thinking and to conflict being preferred over cooperation. It’s OK to love your country. But to be proud just because you were born somewhere is ridiculous. To ignore the flaws of your country and to refuse to criticize your government is dumb. And to think your country is the only great (free, safe, healthy, etc.) nation in the world is just delusional.

Sociology
On Offense
I know that, in these days of Ann Koulter and Michel Savage, there is an increased need for civil discourse. But I’m not talking about what Savagé and Coolter do. These dishonest, repellant social Darwinists call for the real death of hundreds of thousands whenever they open their mouths. I’m talking about something honest and symbolic for my Charlie.

Christopher Hitchens is pretty good at this. At the end of The Trial of Henry Kissinger, his call for Kissinger’s prosecution, Hitchens points out that, in addition to being a war criminal, Kissinger is also a Big Fatty. A low blow, but also a beautiful cherry on top of a substantive critique.

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.

I know I mentioned a couple of times seeing the film Pamela's Prayer. I thought about this most special of special days dedicated to love, that I'd discuss what's wrong with the movie and my thoughts about the message it portrays. (And why it's been pissing me off for years.)

The movie opens with Pamela's father promising her mother, who died during childbirth, that he'll raise Pamela in the right way. We see Pamela growing up and every night she and her father say a prayer together. When she reaches high school she wants to date, but her father won't let her because dating leads to promiscuity and sets kids on the road to ruin.

Pamela rebels and decides to date one of the cool kids at school behind her father's back. The cool kid brags to his friends how he's gotten all of the Christian girls. When he tries to kiss her, she runs home in tears. To make matters worse he tells everyone in school that he's had sex with her and she has to deal with the shame of the lie. How could he?

Pamela learns her lesson and decides to be patient and follow her father's wishes. Eventually we meet young dreamy working at the small business that Pamela's father owns. Seeing that Pamela is a chaste woman, he proposes to her and they get married, only then consummating their love with a kiss (although they never show a kiss in the movie).

That's pretty much the story in a nutshell. It's a simplistic fairy-tale suitable for no one. Not only are there issues with the message, but with the way that women are portrayed in the story.

And here's the trailer to show you exactly what I mean.



First, Pamela is little more than a prop. Her personality is non-existent and the only thing the film-makers care about portraying is her purity. The only other woman in the movie is Pamela's best friend who has sex with her boyfriend to "prove that she loves him". When Pamela tells her father about it he collapses as if the young girl has been tragically killed. We never see her again, so maybe God struck her down or something for her mistake.

And once young dreamy notices the wallflower of Pamela, he asks her father about her as a potential mate before he even tries to assess Pamela's feelings for him. The most nauseating scene is when he praises her father for keeping her pure. Make no mistake, she is chattel.

There isn't a single kissing scene in the movie. The actors aren't married so it would be a sin for them to kiss, according to the film-makers. Just as Pamela and young dreamy move in to kiss at their wedding the movie cuts the scene.

Pamela and her father have said a prayer every night together since she was born. And it's no different on her wedding night. She and her father say a prayer together before he turns the responsibility for Pamela's spiritual well-being over to her new husband. The movie leads the viewer to believe that Pamela cannot be responsible for her own decisions and that a man must always guard her purity.

In addition to the way women are portrayed I have a problem with the way sex and marriage are portrayed. I'm not particularly bothered about the choice to wait for marriage to have sex. It's probably going to lead to some disappointment and possibly incompatibility between the partners, but it's each person's choice to make.

But what I most have trouble with is holding people to such a standard of purity. Life is not perfect and neither are people. Even a good partnership is filled with disagreements, disappointments, and compromise. It's not that I think people shouldn't strive for perfection, but that they should also live in reality. Not to mention that there is nothing wrong with a healthy sexual relationship outside of marriage. In fact, I would encourage a couple of live together for a few years before even considering marriage. That way both partners can have more of a realistic expectation of each other before contemplating marriage. Marriage isn't the only way to make a commitment.

Only people that hold to the insulting phrase, "Why buy the cow when the milk is free," would not object to this movie. And that is insulting to men, not just women. It assumes that men don't seek an honest relationship, but would rather steal the only thing a woman has to offer (her purity). And it also makes women into manipulating bitches that use sex to get men to do what they want.

So although the MPAA would probably not find any of the themes explicitly objectionable for children, the ideas expressed are deeply unsuitable. This is a movie I'd rather not have children see.

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?

Atheism

My book…
I want born-again Christians to see that I have not backslidden; that is, I have not gone backwards or fallen away from a higher plane where I once lived, but I continued to develop spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually so that I outgrew the faith of my youth. I did not fall into sin; I did not get mad at God; I did not become jaded because I witnessed hypocrisy. Nothing bad happened to me to instigate this journey. Yet I now have more peace and joy than I ever had as a Christian, and I give more of my time and money to charitable causes. The day I realized I no longer believed that God exists, a huge weight fell off my shoulders and I felt like I was set free from a lifetime of bondage.

Education
Civil Anti-Libertarians
If President Ryan actually believes what this code implies -- that students should be taught that all political ideologies, creeds and “lifestyle orientations” are equal, and demand equal respect – then his “vision” of higher education is stupefying. Students are supposed to be taught that all ideas are not equal; they’re supposed to learn how to judge the merits of different and conflicting ideas and how to back up their judgments with reason. Mindless respect for all points of view is not an element of critical thinking.

Gaming
Conservative writer bashes Mass Effect for being "filth"
Even in the face of criticism, McCullough has remained firm in his argument. To say that McCullough is a little off the mark would be polite. His descriptions of his 15-year-old son playing such vile filth first and foremost neglects the fact that the game is clearly rated M for Mature: a rating which dictates that the game is for players over the age of 17.

Rock Band sells 2.5 million songs online
Is wrapping a game around songs the secret to increasing interest in purchasing music? It could be. The wide demographic reach of Rock Band may be giving existing music a new audience: younger gamers are finding they like Molly Hatchet, and older gamers may find that Queens of the Stone Age are worth a second listen.

History
John Adams on the Unalienable Right to Commit Blasphemy
Adams is quite clear that the unalienable right to liberty of conscience means the right to blaspheme or in particular to doubt the truth of the divine inspiration of the Bible, which Adams himself personally did. When Adams stated the Christian religion “has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which, I think, will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated,” an evangelical Protestant might hope he were referring only to Roman Catholicism. But this is wrong. Adams, himself a lifelong, committed theological unitarian believed the entire institution of orthodox Trinitarian Christianity was corrupted. And those “corruptions of Christianity” were defined by Adams’ and Jefferson’s spiritual mentor, Joseph Priestley, as the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, and plenary inspiration of scripture. The Bible itself was “corrupted” and Adams believed man had an unalienable right to use his reason to edit what he saw as “error” from the Bible exactly as Jefferson did.

Humanism
profiles in humanism: clarence darrow
Rather, I bring this up, because Clarence Darrow should remind us (at least he reminds me) that we are all human beings with the same frailties as everyone else. We have strengths, yes, but many more weaknesses. Therefore, we should judge each human being and their life on its own merits rather than through the narrow prism of our own often limited and sometimes privileged experience. Otherwise we run the grave risk of grinding up the lives of undeserving people in the cruel machinations of own ignorance for the selfish comfort of sleeping a little more soundly at night.

International
Mob rule of the terrorist kind
There was another incident in the same area some months ago when a group of ten youths on bikes attacked a retired Brigadier (S C Sharma) in Navi Mumbai just because they were “angered at being ticked off by the victim’s wife for speeding’. Incidentally, after these bikers were arrested, hundreds of villagers gathered in support of the youths! I do know what has happened to the case now, but why should hundreds of people support those who assault a senior citizen? It’s scary!

Movies
Dragon Wars
Worse, they discover that they are the reincarnations of some sort of Korean spirit or whatever, and that the dragons are after them, and a whole bunch of other mystical mumbo jumbo, and never ONCE do they question it! If Robert Forster sat down next to me and told me that I had to meet a girl named Sarah and keep her from the evil Baraki and Yoo Gi Ho so that she could become the Good Moogi before she turned 20, I’d punch him right in the fucking face. Mainly for being in Rise: Blood Hunter, but also because what he just told me made no sense whatsoever. But yet, everyone buys it, no questions asked. Even Roswell guy’s friend, who is played by Darryl from The Office; the character you would expect to be like “you’re crazy!” is totally fine with all this nonsense. In fact, he’s more incredulous to Roswell’s request to simply find the girl than he is to all the stuff involving dragons and the like. Also, his character disappears from the film TWICE and no one seems to care either time.

Nonbelieving Literati
Exterminator, we have a pest problem
The Sparrow is about a Jesuit who goes on a journey to Alpha Centauri with some friends after music is broadcast from the area, and comes back, alone, broken physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and any other way a person can be broken. I was really disappointed by this book, because it was a great idea with a great lead ("They meant no harm").

Politics
Huckabee: Amend Constitution to be in 'God's standards'
"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

The layers of politics
The double standards are for all to see. A tearing-up man is sensitive; a tearing-up woman is playing for sympathy or is evidently too weak for office. A man with rhetoric is a leader, a visionary; a woman with vision and steely determination is a bitch. A man, who had no control over who sired him, and therefore his race, is somehow superior to a woman, who had no control over the same factors. How long, I wonder, before someone defocuses from the Mormon-Evangelical-Catholic divide and notices that Barack’s middle name is Hussein?

Religion
FSTDT Top 100
Technology and science are often lumped together, but are totally separate and unrelated things.

Technology makes peoples lives easier. Technology is the product of inventive geniuses who were inspired by God. Inventions and innovations improve life.

Science causes confustion and makes things complicated. Everytime there is a new discovery the old discoveries and old wisdom are discarded! And theories get more and more complex. Science makes people confused and complicates things. Who is the author of confusion? Satan of course. The bible it the opposite of science. Biblical wisdom NEVER CHANGES, and anyone can get it. Scientific wisdom is always changing and contradicting itself, and really nobody gets it.

Please don't insult our intelligence by lumping science and technology together. They are as different at night and day.

How to Read the Bible Like a Fundie
Take the subject of morality. Fundamentalists like to claim that morality is impossible without the words of the bible to guide us. Before god showed up on the mountain and told Moses all about it nobody knew that lying, cheating, stealing and killing people were wrong. And if it wasn't written down in the pages of the Pentateuch we'd be a loss to know how to act today. Yet, they themselves do not follow all of the intense moral code found within the pages of holy scripture. In the book of Numbers the people of god are told to put to death a man who was accused of gathering firewood on the Sabbath. I did the same thing this fall, on both a Saturday and a Sunday, and not a single fundie was screaming for my execution.

My Religion Involves Screaming Gibberish
The point is that my freedom to practice my religion is not absolute. In fact, there are many limitations on what I will be able to do in the name of my religion. Christians, you are no different. When an atheist questions your intrusive proselytizing, gay bashing, or your insistence in training your children to preach biblical nonsense at me in the store because you think its cute, you do not get to cry persecution. This is not persecution. Your religious freedom has limits. Instead of whining about Christmas wars because you overheard me complain about not wanting to listen to your Jesus-crap when I'm shopping, you should ask yourself what you would do if you had to listen to Satanic death metal every time you went to the grocery store.

Is Religion More Than an Enabler?
For instance, it seems some religious people in the States, who are otherwise fair minded and decent, oppose gay rights and are unwilling to treat gays fairly precisely for religious reasons. If that’s the case, then religion appears to be more than a mere facilitator, more than a mere enabler — it seems to actually change people’s practical morals from fair minded and decent behavior to behavior that is neither fair minded nor decent.

The Point of Religion?
Humans evolved as a social animal living in small groups. Most of us need little prompting to treat the members of our group with respect, compassion, kindness — even love. After all, we evolved to do that. It’s to a large extent instinctual. We’re almost always ready to “better mankind” so long as “mankind” is the group of people we hang out with.

On the other hand, there are very few Gandhis, very few Martin Luther Kings, very few people like Jesus — very few people who somehow realize in practice the notion the whole world should be treated with kindness, compassion, respect, and love. To most of us, such a notion is “wild”, suspect, perhaps even immoral.

Quazy Quistian Question # 4
Anyway, you've read the result. Now I'm beginning to think that some Christians disdain all evidence about everything, not only religious matters. This might be a clever ploy, because if they admit that they accept evidence for anything, they'd have to at least wonder why there's none to support their silly beliefs. On the other hand, it might not be a clever ploy; it might just be stupidity.

Are converts accepted in Hinduism?
In other words, those who are not born Hindus would (by being re-born) eventually become Hindus (provided they live right.) A cool idea for any religion, as it presumes that a Hindu (caste also comes into this as being just a Hindu isn’t enough) is at the top of re-incarnation heap. If one went by this, everyone is already on their way to become a Hindu, even those from outside the belief system…they just haven’t got there yet. And those who haven’t got there yet aren’t Hindus…they aren’t ready to be Hindus.

Progressive Christians Finally Opposing Christian Extremists
He's right that a non-Christian group opposing Christian extremism will be demonized as a persecutor. We atheists know all about that! Personally, I would welcome a well-organized and vocal coalition of progressive Christians willing to oppose extremism. They could be powerful allies in protecting church-state separation and other shared goals.

Science
FDA says food from cloned animals safe
“Both the animals and any food produced from those animals is indistinguishable from any other food source,” Sundloff said. “There’s no technological way of distinguishing a food that’s come from an animal that had a clone in its ancestry. It’s not possible.”

Green light for hybrid research
Scientists want to create hybrid embryos by merging human cells with animal eggs in a bid to extract stem cells. The embryos would then be destroyed within 14 days.

The Mind-Brain Problem - A Creationist Rebuttal
The biggest problem with dualism is that the materialist neuroscience model explains all observed phenomena - there is nothing left for the dualists to explain. They are clinging to the notion of “qualia”, that subjectivity itself needs a separate explanation, but they have not made this case. Often they use mere semantics to make it seem as if something more is needed, but there isn’t. Further, the dualist hypothesis does not generate any hypotheses or predictions that distinguish it from the materialist hypothesis. Every prediction points to materialism as the answer.

MESSENGER Passes Mercury

Is information essential for life? No.
As for Turing machines - there's what I would call a simple test (the Turing machine test): If you can use the system to compute, then it's a computer. Since computability is well-defined as what can be done on some Turing machine, this makes concrete any claim that "Nature" is or uses a computer. To avoid Matrix style speculations, which are themselves only Pythagoras revivified, let's say that a physical system is an IPS in the Turing sense if it can be used to compute something. Hence, a human-abacus system is an IPS (and indeed, human-most thing systems can be, potentially, because of the ways humans can act as Turing machines), while a set of beads on strings in a frame on its own is not. My Mac is an IPS to a high degree of approximation, ignoring the possibility of power or component failure, which doesn't happen to pure Turing machines. It's damned good at computation, and if I set up the right programs, it can compute without my intervention.

Skepticism
Dissonance
As skeptics, we encounter dissonance reduction on a regular basis. Why do ‘true believers’ refuse to listen to reason, even when the facts are piled in front of them? Because they are invested in their ideas so strongly that they will do anything to continue to justify them. Geology shows that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, not 6000? The young-Earth creationist contends that geology is wrong. Rupert Sheldrake and Dean Radin (remember them?) get asked difficult questions by skeptics? They turn around and criticize skepticism itself. The list goes on and on.