Free Mojtaba and Arash Day

This from the BBC news website:

The blogging community is powerful, doubling every month
The global web blog community is being called into action to lend support to two imprisoned Iranian bloggers.
The month-old Committee to Protect Bloggers' is asking those with blogs to dedicate their sites on 22 February to the 'Free Mojtaba and Arash Day'.
Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are both in prison in Iran.
Blogs are free sites through which people publish thoughts and opinions. Iranian authorities have been clamping down on prominent sites for some time. "

A response to R2's Science Watch:
If science points to a designer, then that's where it leads. Except that ID doesn't.

All it does is claim that life or certain life mechanisms are supposedly 'too complex' to have evolved 'naturally'.

The vast majority of earth & life scientists, including professional biologists, don't agree.

The IDists can't point to any *positive* evidence in favour of ID - all they have is arguments from incredulity & from ignorance. That isn't science.

You repeat the oft-told lie that evolution is necessarily related to atheism. It isn't. Most Christian Scientists and more importantly most Christian biologists accept that evolution occurred as mainstream science states.

You complete your rant with one of the most insidiously ridiculous & moronically stupid claims of ID & Creationism - that science is 'biased' because it only looks for 'natural' causes & effects.

Can you name *one* scientific or technological advance *ever* the entire history of the world that was *not* based on 'natural' causes or effects?

Of course you can't.

PTET

MEMRI: Latest News: "Zarqawi and other Islamists to the Iraqi People: Elections and Democracy are Heresy

As the elections in Iraq drew near, Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi addressed the Iraqi people in a speech that was posted on Islamist websites, in which he stated that democracy and the elections are heresy. This address was supported by similar calls from the Mufti of the Jihad warriors in Chechnya, Sheikh Abu Omar Al-Sayf, and by 'Jaysh Ansar Al-Sunna' and other Islamist organizations in Iraq. The following are excerpts from their statements..."

Selman v. Cobb County School District: Court Rules Against Evolution Disclaimer: "the evidence in the record and the testimony from witnesses with science backgrounds, including the co-author of one of the textbooks into which the Sticker was placed and Defendants' own witness, Dr. Stickel, reflect that evolution is more than a theory of origin in the context of science. To the contrary, evolution is the dominant scientific theory of origin accepted by the majority of scientists. While evolution is subject to criticism, particularly with respect to the mechanism by which it occurred, this Sticker misleads students regarding the significance and value of evolution in the scientific community for the benefit of the religious alternatives. By denigrating evolution, the School Board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof, even though the Sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories. "

Edge: "The 2005 Edge Annual Question...

'WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?'

Great minds can sometimes guess the truth before they have either the evidence or arguments for it (Diderot called it having the 'esprit de divination'). What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?"

Scientific Defense of Astrology: "AN ASTROLOGY READING THAT WORKS FOR EVERYONE:
your astrology reading:


You are a sensitive person with a good sense of humor who is concerned about how others see you. You work hard but are still sometimes nervous about the future. Overbearing demanding people get you down - but you usually cope OK. You have a few personal bodily concerns you told no one about. You don't mind toddlers, but just can't take their TV shows. Sometimes you get sick of this area and think about better places you've visited. Lots of people are putting pressure on you. You like being outside and need time to unwind. You will get grief in a few days from some of the same idiots who bothered you last week. Some of your favorite TV shows are on Friday nights. You are probably getting into reading this stuff about yourself. There are still a few secrets you don't share with your best friends. You like salty food and sometimes see weird spots when you blink your eyes. You sometimes feel like you just dropped 20 feet when you sleep, and then get really strange dreams. In spite of how you may sometimes feel, things will start getting better for you. "

Not Even Wrong: Revising the Landscape: "There is one obvious example successful of anthropic, or at least environmental, reasoning that I am surprised not to have seen mentioned: the isotope theory. 120 years ago, Janne Rydberg was probably Sweden's most famous physicist. Nowadays he is remembered for the series and the constant, but his main interest was to derive some deep explanation for atomic masses. When it eventually turned out that atomic mass is due to a rather random mixture of isotopes, he became so depressed that he had to seek professional help.
There are of course many differences, e.g. that we can successfully explain the masses of individual isotopes, at least in principle. But I don't see a problem if some numbers must be explained by historical accident, as long as the main predictions of your theory (extra-dimensions, SUSY, massless scalars, proton decay, huge and negative CC, etc.) agree with experiments."

Google Groups: View Thread "Possibly the most inane YEC site": "Pease's Law ( ver 2.1 )

'In order for a parody to be effective, it must exceed a recognizable upper
bound of madness seriously proposed by the thing being parodied'

RJ P"

Orwell On Belief
Google Groups: View Thread "Not even one teensy-weensy little spec of evidence t...": "'We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and
then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so
as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry
on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that
sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually
on a battlefield.' --George Orwell, 1946, 'Under Your Nose'"

'Being religious is like living in North Korea
Google Groups: View Thread "Not even one teensy-weensy little spec of evidence t...": "'Being religious is like living in North Korea. You have endless
opportunities to praise The Leader, to thank Him for giving you everything,
to thank Him for looking after you, to thank Him for all his boundless
gifts, to thank Him for all His tireless efforts on your behalf. A Celestial
North Korea is what the religious believer wants, but there are two
differences: you *can* defect from North Korea, and you can die and just
cease to exist. But if you're a religious believer, The Leader goes on
persecuting you after you're dead -- you have to go on praising Him forever,
and thanking Him for being born... this is servility squared.' --
Christopher Hitchens"

Bush/Cheney '04: Don't Change Horsemen Mid-Apocalypse
George W. Bush Loyalty Quiz - Funny Bush Quiz: "The George W. Bush Loyalty Quiz

10 Questions to Test Your Allegiance to President Bush"

SparkNotes: Complete Text of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: " And is it possible, CLEANTHES, said PHILO, that after all these reflections, and infinitely more, which might be suggested, you can still persevere in your Anthropomorphism, and assert the moral attributes of the Deity, his justice, benevolence, mercy, and rectitude, to be of the same nature with these virtues in human creatures? His power we allow is infinite: whatever he wills is executed: but neither man nor any other animal is happy: therefore he does not will their happiness. His wisdom is infinite: He is never mistaken in choosing the means to any end: But the course of Nature tends not to human or animal felicity: therefore it is not established for that purpose. Through the whole compass of human knowledge, there are no inferences more certain and infallible than these. In what respect, then, do his benevolence and mercy resemble the benevolence and mercy of men?

EPICURUS's old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?"

MediaGuardian.co.uk | Media | Fox - the naked truth: "The main beef leftwing commentators have with rightwing stations, particularly Fox, is that they don't trouble themselves with the truth - not even a Republican spin on the truth; they simply muddy all issues to such a degree that opinion and fact become indivisible and, as a result, all opinions achieve equal validity. For the left, then, facts are paramount, and to mimic the rightist habit of false attribution would be entirely to undermine the crux of the argument. Over time, this has given them a reputation for being long on rectitude and short on fun. "

Biblical History
The Importance and Relevance of Biblical History: "Let me hasten to add that I am convinced based on credible scientific data that the modern scholarly consensus is wrong regarding biblical history. Based on research carried out in recent decades, there is persuasive evidence that biblical history is exactly what it claims to be, true history. My purpose here is not to prove that point, but rather to show that it's an important point. If the historical claims of Christianity are not true, Christianity ought to be rejected as just another cult."

Neocons & Flip-Flopping
I saw Outfoxed last night... Fox's corruption of journalism for political ends is scary... But scarier still is that many hardline conservatives in the US just don't care... They like their news biased. They assume that every other media outlet is biased agains them - so what does it matter if Fox is cheerleading for "their team"?

One particularly weird rumour doing the net rounds just now is that George W Bush is hooked on antidepressents. There's no evidence beyond speculation and unnamed sources - but there's some eye-popping detail about Bush's former life which by itself seems pretty scary.

On these points, I came across the following lovely exchange:

No problem...you must be a liberal: not afraid to change his position when presented with the facts, unlike the neo-cons around here, who never change their positions, even when presented with the facts. We call it 'learning' and 'growing as a person,' they call it 'weak and siding with the devil.'

I believe the correct neo-con neo-logism is 'flip flop.' If you change your position after someone proves that your position is incorrect, you have 'flip flopped' and are therefore mentally defective. Because, in their world view, anyone unable to maintain doublethink is mentally defective.

Kudos to Gregory Gadow for those final words of wisdom...

HM Department of Vague Paranoia

...In an effort to worry the public and convince them to vote for us again next year, and because George Bush asked us to, this website includes the common sense advice found in the Preparing for Emergencies booklet, and information on what the government is doing to protect the country as a whole. (Hint: we're praying really, really hard.) National editions of the booklet will be available here when we can be arsed to get translators to put them into your crazy moon languages.

From 2nd August, translations of the booklet into 16 languages will be available on this website. They will be in : Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, English, Farsi, French, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Kurdish, Punjabi, Somali, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese and Welsh. In the meantime, just assume that we don't care about you...

[More]

A great parody, with a genuine response from the UK Government...

"Public safety is the Government's number one ten priority (the top three are reelection, kissing George Bush's arse, and stopping Gordon Brown becoming PM). We must be prepared to deal with any emergency, whatever it is or wherever it comes from. And that includes zombie attacks! And zombie pirate attacks! And killer robots! And both at the same time! Are YOU ready?"

Miss O'Hara on F*911

Miss O'Hara writes: "...Keep in mind that Iraq is part of the overall War on Terror. Bush has done a really, really crappy job of pointing that out. And you seem to have forgotten that Saddam was, indeed, a direct threat to us, because he funded and assisted terrorists - including Al Quaeda - for years, and he was indeed actively seeking nukes. I don't think he wanted them so he could warm his coffee. ;)"

Miss O'Hara

Much of your argument is contradicted by the words of the Bush administration and the 9/11 report published last week - never mind Michael Moore's film.

• Of course we know that Saddam *had* WMDs. As Bill Hicks put it, 'we looked at the receipt'. The US, UK, Russia and other countries all sold weapons to Saddam in the 80s. We also know that Saddam used WMDs against his own people. We stood by and watched while it happened
  
• F*911 shows Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice saying repeatedly in 2000/2001 that there was *no* evidence that Saddam had WMDs or posed an imminent threat *at that time*
  
• Even Bill O'Reilly of Fox News has admitted that he was wrong in saying that Saddam posed an imminent threat after 9/11 - the main reason cited for going to war
  
• The Sept 11 Commission only last week published its report saying that there was "no collaborative operational relationship" between Saddam and Al Qeada. Sure, people from Saddam's regime & people from Al Qeada had contact in the past... But then People from the UK and US governments had contact with Saddam in the past too... And if they'd been in the slightest bit prepared for a terrorist attack, the US intelligence agencies would have had "contacts" (spies, intelligence, etc.) with Al Qeada too. They didn't
  
• Let me say it again. There is no evidence that Saddam funded Al Qeada. There is no evidence that Saddam had WMDs or was "actively seeking nukes" from 2000 onwards
  
• Iraqi insurgents are "patriots" to many Iraqis. That is a fact, whether you like it or not. Last year Bush declared that combat operations in Iraq were over. Moore said that this was wrong, because many Iraqis wanted rid of the Americans. Bush was wrong. Moore was right. Have you seen the footage of American soldiers wandering around Iraq saying with stunned disbelief that they have not been welcomed as "liberators" by the Iraqi people? They were told by people like Fox News that this would happen. It didn't. US soldiers were *lied* to about the attitude ordinary Iraqis would have to American troops. This doesn't seem to bother you
  
• Most of the 9/11 hi-jackers were from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia provided practical banking and business support to Bin Laden for years. Saudi Arabian citizens are known to actively support Al Qeada financially. But the US let Bin Laden's family return to Saudi Arabia unchecked. It also failed to persuade the Saudi's to freeze Bin Laden family assets. Why haven't we gone against Saudi Arabia?
  
• A central trust of F*911 is that the Bush Administration ignored credible intelligence that Al Qeada posed a direct and immediate threat to the USA from 2000 until September 2001
  
• F*911 shows Bush sitting reading a children's book for seven minutes after hearing about the second Twin Tower plane crash. You can see his eyes. His advisors are standing waiting for him to act. He does nothing. He looks lost. After that, it took *two months* for US Special Forces to begin looking for Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Two months
  
• After 9/11, the Bush administration went to its counter terrorism chiefs and *told* them to find a link between Saddam and Al Qeada. The Bush administration planned to go to war with Iraq *before* it had any credible evidence that Saddam was a threat. But they also told the world that Saddam *was* a threat. They lied. American soldiers died. They are still dying, a year after Bush declared that combat operations in Iraq were over

But still you go on repeating arguments that even Fox News is embarrassed with, and still you go on bearing false witness and vitriol towards Michael Moore when you haven't even seen his film.



Follow the discussion at Miss O'Hara's Blog.

Peace On Earth For Believers Only?
I came across this fascinating snippet from Richard Carrier's excellent article on The Formation of the New Testament Canon:

"Scribal errors are also a problem little dealt-with by any church authority... Perhaps one of my favorite examples... is the famous King James line 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men' (Luke 2:14), which even still gets repeated in nativity plays, 'peace on earth, and good will toward men,' and is treated as an example of the ultimate moral nobility of Christianity. But not until recent times was it discovered that a scribe long ago had failed to record a single letter (a sigma, 's') at the end of this line. The Latin Vulgate Bible, translated late in the 4th century, copied from a correct edition and thus has also preserved the original meaning, which is now correctly reconstructed in more recent Bible translations: 'peace on earth toward men of goodwill,' which is not as noble--since it does not wish peace on anyone else--and it is perhaps even less noble still, since the same phrase more likely means 'peace on earth toward men [who enjoy God's] goodwill,' in other words peace only for those whom God likes. All from a single mistake of one letter. "

My experience from talking to Fundamentalists is most certainly that they treat "believers" differently from non-believers. The problem is deeper than mere prejudice, however. Fundamentalists exhibit a seemingly pathological disregard for evidence, facts and opinions which contradict their own pre-conceptions, as I've expored in previous posts...

Update: On this point, check out this fascinating article on The End of Christian Apologetics on freechristians.com.

Miracle on Probability Street
Michael Shermer has a great piece in this month's Scientific American on probability and "miracles":

"Because I am often introduced as a 'professional skeptic,' people feel compelled to challenge me with stories about highly improbable events. The implication is that if I cannot offer a satisfactory natural explanation for that particular event, the general principle of supernaturalism is preserved. A common story is the one about having a dream or thought about the death of a friend or relative and then receiving a phone call five minutes later about the unexpected death of that very person.

I cannot always explain such specific incidents, but a principle of probability called the Law of Large Numbers shows that an event with a low probability of occurrence in a small number of trials has a high probability of occurrence in a large number of trials. Events with million-to-one odds happen 295 times a day in America.

In their delightful book Debunked! (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), CERN physicist Georges Charpak and University of Nice physicist Henri Broch show how the application of probability theory to such events is enlightening. In the case of death premonitions, suppose that you know of 10 people a year who die and that you think about each of those people once a year. One year contains 105,120 five-minute intervals during which you might think about each of the 10 people, a probability of one out of 10,512--certainly an improbable event. Yet there are 295 million Americans. Assume, for the sake of our calculation, that they think like you. That makes 1/10,512 X 295,000,000 = 28,063 people a year, or 77 people a day for whom this improbable premonition becomes probable. With the well-known cognitive phenomenon of confirmation bias firmly in force (where we notice the hits and ignore the misses in support of our favorite beliefs), if just a couple of these people recount their miraculous tales in a public forum (next on Oprah!), the paranormal seems vindicated. In fact, they are merely demonstrating the laws of probability writ large..."

People believe in miracles because they want to believe in miracles...

Fahrenheit 9/11
I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night. It is a truly remarkable film. There are valid criticisms of Michael Moore... But forget the mindless vitriol. See the film for yourselves.

Update: Michael Moore appeared on Fox Network's show "The O'Reilly Factor" yesterday. See the transcript here. I've also been discussing the movie on Miss O'Hara's blog.