OVO

Pat Condell: Godless and Free [LINK-ZUM]

Trevor Blake: Happy Halloween [LINK-ZUM]

Labels: art

Trevor Blake: Walking Cities, 1964 and 2008 [LINK-ZUM]

Wikipedia: The Walking City was an idea proposed by British architect Ron Herron in 1964. In an article in avant-garde architecture journal Archigram, Ron Herron proposed building massive mobile robotic structures, with their own intelligence, that could freely roam the world, moving to wherever their resources or manufacturing abilities were needed. Various walking cities could interconnect with each other to form larger 'walking metropolises' when needed, and then disperse when their concentrated power was no longer necessary. Individual buildings or structures could also be mobile, moving wherever their owner wanted or needs dictated.

[What other avant-garde impossible architectural proposals might I live to see? - Trevor Blake]

Labels: architecture, video

236: Synchronized Presidential Debating [LINK-ZUM]

Labels: television, video

Trevor Blake: Prohibitionist Revisionism [LINK-ZUM]

Take a look at the picture of the statue of Hoagy Carmichael in this article. Now take a look at what must have been the source photograph here. Notice anything missing? Maybe this image will make it more clear. Hoagy's cigarette is gone. I think if a person does or did smoke, there's no use pretending they don't or didn't. Bette Davis looks like she is holding her hand in a funny way in this postage stamp until you realize her cigarette has been removed from the image. I'm kind of sad to learn this topic has a Wikipedia entry. People were smoking before mass media so it can't be they were made to smoke because of mass media. Mass media doesn't cause people to look fashionable, say funny things, crash cars or live in the USA so why should anyone think mass media can cause one to smoke?

Here is a public secret: advertising doesn't work.

Labels: prohibition

AFP: Woman stoned to death for adultery after Somali court ruling [LINK-ZUM]

Thousands of people gathered Monday [in Mogadishu] to witness 50 Somali men stone a woman to death after an Islamic court in the southern port of Kismayo found her guilty of adultery, witnesses said. Aisho Ibrahim Dhuhulow, who had been found guilty of extra-marital intercourse was buried in the ground up to her neck while the men pelted her head with rocks.

[Article continues at link. This is the sort of thing that Muslims and cultural relativists need to answer for. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: islam

Robert Spencer: Sura 60, "She Who Is Tested" [LINK-ZUM]

The Medinan Sura 60 calls for an examination of the all-important but completely overlooked question of frames of reference: what is said is not always heard the way it is meant. Consider these remarks by President Bush and Karen Hughes, his former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, on the Islamic Feast of Eid al-Adha, which commemorates the end of the Hajj and Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son.

In December 2006, Bush issued a statement that read in part:

For Muslims in America and around the world, Eid al-Adha is an important occasion to give thanks for their blessings and to remember Abraham's trust in a loving God. During the four days of this special observance, Muslims honor Abraham's example of sacrifice and devotion to God by celebrating with friends and family, exchanging gifts and greetings, and engaging in worship through sacrifice and charity.

And the previous January, Hughes said:

Eid is a celebration of commitment and obedience to God and also of God's mercy and provision for all of us. It is a time of family and community, a time of charity....I want to read to you a message from President Bush: "I send greetings to Muslims around the world as you celebrate Eid al-Adha. When God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Abraham placed his faith in God above all else. During Eid al-Adha, Muslims celebrate Abraham's devotion and give thanks for God's mercy and many blessings."

In speaking of Abraham, even when doing so in the context of Eid al-Adha, Bush and Hughes were probably thinking of Genesis 22:15-18, in which Abraham is rewarded for his faith and told he will become a blessing to the nations: "by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice."

But the Muslim audiences that Bush and Hughes are addressing don't read Genesis. They read the Qur'an. Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son (who is not named) is recounted in 37:102-109. And in sura 60, Allah says that Abraham is an "excellent example" (uswa hasana, a term applied also to Muhammad in 33:21) for the believers when he tells his pagan family and people that "there has arisen, between us and you, enmity and hatred for ever, unless ye believe in Allah and Him alone" (v. 4). The same verse goes on to say that Abraham is not an excellent example when he tells his father, "I will pray for forgiveness for you." Hatred is held up as exemplary; forgiveness is explicitly declared to be not exemplary.

Bush and Hughes are thus reinforcing a worldview that takes for granted the legitimacy of everlasting enmity and hatred between Muslims and non-Muslims - and doing so precisely in the context of trying to build bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims. This demonstrates once again how vitally important it is for them, and for the rest of us, to have a detailed understanding of the theological and cultural frame of reference of jihadists and Muslims in general. But for lack of this, not only are statements issued that could have and should have been much more carefully worded, but policy errors keep multiplying.

[Article continues at link. Via the always-excellent Jihad Watch. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: islam, theocracy

AP: Aid worker killed in Somalia [LINK-ZUM]

The head of a Somali aid agency says a gunman shot dead a Somali woman employee in the latest of a string of attacks on the humanitarian community.

Ali Sheik says Duniya Sheik Daud was killed Saturday evening as she returned from work at the Iida organization in the central Somali town of Gurilel. Their organization campaigns for women's rights and against female genital mutilation but it was unclear who was behind the attack.

[Article continues at link. Do you have any doubt, whatsoever, as to who was behind the attack? - Trevor Blake]

Labels: islam

Trevor Blake: Make an Enlarging Projector [LINK-ZUM]

First, find an abandoned projection television. Remove a lens with a hammer.

Next, mount the lens on a cardboard box. Tape a reversed, upside down image inside the box.

Put a light under the box and aim it at a wall.

A blurry, slightly enlarged image will be projected on the wall.

Labels: art, DIY, tools, trevorblake

Trevor Blake: October 2008 [LINK-ZUM]

Trevor Blake, Portland Oregon USA, October 2008.

Labels: art, portland, trevorblake

swissinfo.ch: Federal Court overturns swimming ruling [LINK-ZUM]

Children cannot be exempted from compulsory swimming lessons at school even for religious reasons, the Federal Court has ruled. In making the ruling, announced on Friday, the court overturned its own decision of 1993. The case was brought by the father of two primary schoolchildren in the northern canton of Schaffhausen, who wanted permission for his sons to opt out of swimming classes. His request had been turned down at every level before failing at the federal court too. In the 1993 case the court had ruled that it was permissible for a schoolgirl to be exempted from mixed swimming lessons. It justified its change of position by saying that society had changed in the last 15 years. Exempting children from compulsory lessons would undermine efforts at integration.

[Article continues at link. Some of my favorite questions are in this article: how much, if at all, should the state accommodate religion? What standards are used to identify religion? How much, if at all, should the state make integration compulsory? What standards are used to measure integration? These are my favorite questions because they are ones with the most limited answers, answers that work but not consistently. Thus they require the most contemplation and compassion. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: islam, theocracy

Trevor Blake: Letter to a Friend [LINK-ZUM]

[The following is part of a letter to a friend sent 25 October 2008. - Trevor Blake]

You wrote: "I hold that my meme of belief is based on natural selection. The idea that we could have a true believer or an actual dogmatic believer in any religion would not be a fit animal & would not survive."

If I understand you correctly, you are in error here. Animals, including humans, do behave in ways that insure their non-survival as individuals. Sometimes the non-survival of an individual animal can support (but of course not guarantee) the survival of another individual animal and thus the species. If a true believer is self-destructive but also aids the survival of another, then that is a means by which true belief could occur.

These sorts of altruistic behaviors are found from single-celled animals all the way to humans. Altruism is a challenge to evolution, one with several possible solutions (Dawkins' 'selfish gene' is one). As far as I understand it, no single solution to the challenge of altruism is dominant now. I favor something like the selfish gene but I think Dawkins extends the idea too far in his book of the same name.

You wrote "[Religion] is that they are encouraged by opponents to think they have their own special domain beyond reason viz. that there is something called irrationality." You have won me over to the idea that irrationality is a flawed / impossible concept. I claim saying 'God did it' is a statement within the realm of reason (cognition) and even logic (structured explanations), just not within the realm of truth.

But I will maintain my claim that religion does claim it has its own special domain beyond reason. Religion claims this is a 'super-reason' and (some) atheists claim this is non-reason. By 'super-reason' I mean those times when I've had a discussion with a theist and arrived at a point where they (a) have no explanation for something (b) feel that they should (c) their previous theistic explanation is in jeopardy. A those times, they will say 'it's a mystery' or 'we just need to have faith.' They present these as if they were part of a super-set 'above' reason. This is what they and their critics mean by faith. What it really means (I claim) is "stop asking me questions." I think the claim by (some) atheists that religion is non-reason may (as you say) be false, but I don't think my claim that religions try to employ a super-reason is also false. I welcome your criticism on this!

You wrote: "There is something called stupidity & the opposition to religion has it in more abundance than does religion. Dawkins PC outlook is worse than any religion in any case." Perhaps I mis-read you, but both of these seem false. There being fewer atheists than theists, it cannot be that atheist stupidity is more in abundance. And while I'd place the PC outlook alongside religion (willfully pretended ignorance of fact to accommodate an agenda), religion has thousands of years of blood on its hands and PC only a few decades - religion is much worse.

I am glad to have read Dawkins and am glad he's doing what he's doing now regarding atheism. Sometimes he is in error but so am I. The most jarring error he makes is when he claims you can't prove a negative. He makes this claim regularly. Even a knucklehead like me knows that isn't true.

Sam Harris' first book was needed, in the US. One of the ways religion tries to make itself special is to do what PC does - put itself outside of criticism. Harris' book was (I think) mainly about why that is false and importantly false. It pulled the hinges loose a bit but it opened a door that needed opening. His claim (I'd agree) that some religions have more blood on their hands (Islam) than others (Buddhism) is very against PC and a claim I am glad got in the public eye.

Labels: atheist, science

Trevor Blake: Muslims Protest Islamic Violence [LINK-ZUM]

I have asked many times where in the world were the Muslim protests against Islamic violence. We have seen international protests by Muslims against cartoons, protests that resulted in buildings being burned down and people getting killed. But where were the Muslims who protested Islamic violence, and protested without being violent themselves? I am pleased to report that such a protest seems to have occurred in Mihtarlam, Afghanistan...

Thousands protest killing of Afghan civilians by Taliban: Thousands of people took to the streets of eastern Afghanistan Friday to protest against the killing of 27 civilians by Taliban insurgents. Witnesses said the victims, some as young as 15, were ordered off a bus by armed gunmen in the troubled Kandahar province on October 14 as they travelled to Iran in search of work. Survivors told how they were lined up in small groups and shot at the roadside. A spokesman for the Taliban later claimed responsibility for the killings, saying the men were Afghan security force recruits. Protesters on Friday chanted "Death to the barbarian Taliban and Americans" as they took to streets in Mihtarlam, the capital of Lahgman province in the east of the country.

... now some of my readers my be confused as to why these protesters would chant for the death of both the Taliban and the Americans. Perhaps it is because President George W. Bush gave the Taliban $43 million in May 2001 [cato] [the nation]. Do you think some of that money came back to the USA a few months later in another form? I sure do.

Labels: islam

Colin Barras: $7.5 trillion for a 'transitional' fossil? [LINK-ZUM]

Palaeontologists: this could be your lucky day. Turkish creationist Adnan Oktar has just offered ten trillion lira - a mouth-watering $7.5 trillion - to "anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution".

[Article continues at link. How about this one? Or this one? Or this one? Or this one? Or this one? Every one of those links includes several examples. Should any of my readers cash in on the $75 trillion, I ask for a 1% finder's fee. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: creationism, science

Drone: Strange Craft [LINK-ZUM]

see also.

Labels: music, ufo, video

Pat Condell: Stop Sharia Law in Britain [LINK-ZUM]

Labels: islam, theocracy, video

John Keilman: Muslims to pray for Cubs at Wrigley [LINK-ZUM]

As far as Ricardo Pena is concerned, rescuing the Cubs' teetering season will take a lot more than rally caps. So at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, he plans to assemble 100 Muslims outside Wrigley Field to pray for Allah to change the team's dim fortunes. [...] A lot of petitioners have been knocking on the boss' door lately, among them the Greek Orthodox priest who blessed the Cubs dugout on Wednesday and countless other fans who have offered up their silent prayers for victory. [...] "We don't know if our prayers work, but it can't hurt," said Lisa Bellows, associate rabbi at Congregation Beth Am in Buffalo Grove. "We've been praying extra hard for the Cubs to win at our house, and so far, [the prayers] have not been heard."

[Article continues at link. In case the Muslim, Christian and Jewish worlds have not been paying attention for the past few thousand years, this article points out two facts they might like to contemplate. First, people pray for things that are at odds with the things other people are praying for. Second, nothing fails like prayer. Having planted those two opportunities to doubt in the mind of the faithful, they might also like to ask themselves why God would care enough to swing a baseball game but not enough to cure a single disease. Or ask themselves why it is within human ability to both swing a baseball game and to cure a disease or two but God, that all-powerful invisible monster that lives in the sky, hasn't been able to get around to it yet. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, christianity, games, islam, judaism

Trevor Blake: We're Sorry, This Video is No Longer Available [LINK-ZUM]

A few days ago I posted a link to the most recent video from Pat Condell. Here's what that post looks like now if you try to follow the link...

Pat's video is available elsewhere. YouTube is a free service that is privately owned. Pat's video has not been censored, as I see censorship. But I will say that YouTube's decision to make Pat's video no longer available after a few days when something like this is allowed to stay up for months - even after complaints - shows a certain wrong-headed inconsistency. Video using critical thinking to address Islam is removed. Video of Islamic men celebrating around the corpses of US soldiers they have shot and burned is allowed to remain. Nothing breeds wrong-headed inconsistency like religion.

Labels: atheist, fight, islam, spoken, video

Sam Harris: average isn't good enough [LINK-ZUM]

Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority. No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves. President Bush kept his edge on the "Who would you like to have a beer with?" poll question in 2004, and won reelection.

This is one of the many points at which narcissism becomes indistinguishable from masochism. Let me put it plainly: If you want someone just like you to be president of the United States, or even vice president, you deserve whatever dysfunctional society you get. You deserve to be poor, to see the environment despoiled, to watch your children receive a fourth-rate education and to suffer as this country wages - and loses - both necessary and unnecessary wars.

[Article continues at link.]

Labels: education, fight, money

John Gray: A shattering moment in America's fall from power [LINK-ZUM]

The fate of empires is very often sealed by the interaction of war and debt. That was true of the British Empire, whose finances deteriorated from the First World War onwards, and of the Soviet Union. Defeat in Afghanistan and the economic burden of trying to respond to Reagan's technically flawed but politically extremely effective Star Wars programme were vital factors in triggering the Soviet collapse. Despite its insistent exceptionalism, America is no different. The Iraq War and the credit bubble have fatally undermined America's economic primacy. The US will continue to be the world's largest economy for a while longer, but it will be the new rising powers that, once the crisis is over, buy up what remains intact in the wreckage of America's financial system. [...] Having created the conditions that produced history's biggest bubble, America's political leaders appear unable to grasp the magnitude of the dangers the country now faces. Mired in their rancorous culture wars and squabbling among themselves, they seem oblivious to the fact that American global leadership is fast ebbing away. A new world is coming into being almost unnoticed, where America is only one of several great powers, facing an uncertain future it can no longer shape.

[Article continues at link. I've lived through a couple 'end of the world' events - anyone remember Y2K? - and I'm having a hard time buying any more. But it certainly does seem that the Bush administration has caused a bankruptcy of the economy and status of the United States. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: money

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