Other blogs may refer to the internet or to the interweb. This blog refers only to Internet. You will see there is no definite article. Authority in this matter comes from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporaton, which broadcast this item back in the day. This blog does not use emoticons.
This blog thanks Mr Matthew Backhouse, who himself has a splendid new blog called Media Snuff, for uncovering this clip.
Fur Patrol:
Thursday, May 31, 2007
No representation without taxation
As we speak, desperate attempts are being made by our fundy friends to show that New Zealand really, really is a Christian Nation. Following Bishop Brian's attempt to storm the interfaith dialogue thingy at Waitangi, and his rather obvious failure to understand the meaning of the word "Established," New Zealand Conservative has posted the Ten Commandments. Apparently, these are the basis of our laws. Well no, not quite, as Thomas Jefferson showed way back when.
In any case, this is a bowdlerised version of the Commandments. Take, for example, the Second; here it is rendered as "You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it." In the full majesty of the Authorised Version, which is much better written, as well as more Authoritative, the Second Commandment commands:
Here's Ray:
In any case, this is a bowdlerised version of the Commandments. Take, for example, the Second; here it is rendered as "You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it." In the full majesty of the Authorised Version, which is much better written, as well as more Authoritative, the Second Commandment commands:
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.See, it's not just about idols, New Zealand or otherwise. The Almighty in fact bans Art, at least anything short of Abstract Expressionism. So you can smash down all your stained-glass windows, because He is going to get your kids.
Here's Ray:
Postcards from another day
As recent comments on some of these posts demonstrate, the Fundy Post has some readers who know stuff about Science, especially David, who did the maths and found that my scheme to make Lake Taupo economically viable is flawed. David has a rather nice new blog called The Atavism, which you should read.
Anyway, for the benefit of our scientifically literate readership, here is a story that made me think: a shark in Nebraska (yes, I know) had a virgin birth.
Another strange but true fact is that Headless Chickens can replicate their songs in many different versions. So here is another rendition of Cruise Control and another opportunity to yearn for Fiona McDonald:
Anyway, for the benefit of our scientifically literate readership, here is a story that made me think: a shark in Nebraska (yes, I know) had a virgin birth.
Another strange but true fact is that Headless Chickens can replicate their songs in many different versions. So here is another rendition of Cruise Control and another opportunity to yearn for Fiona McDonald:
The great New Zealand tax swindle
Dammit, dammit, dammit. Just when I was getting over my anger management issues, along comes Real Issues; yes the latest product of the Maxim Institute's 24-hour rolling bollocks service is out. And what, you may ask, do they have to gripe about this time? Well gentle reader, as the Minister of Women's affairs reminded me yesterday (not that I am one to name-drop, of course) I read this crap so you don't have to. So here we go. This week the Maxim Institute is concerned by: public health advertising.
Perhaps we should be asking why the Maxim Institute enjoys charitable status with the tax benefits that result. This bunch of charlatans is an educational charity, despite making no useful contribution to education. Why do we allow these pricks to avoid paying taxes? Now there's a real issue.
Here's the national anthem:
Media campaigns increasingly clutter up our TV screens, instructing us not to gamble to excess, not to overindulge in drink, not to drink and then drive, not to speed, to watch intersections, and not to smoke. Recently announced additions to this parade of government preachiness include new ads for KiwiSaver, new pictorial warnings on cigarette packets, and this week, the government announced a new campaign to encourage healthy eating.How about that? The Government is trying to encourage us to develop good habits and stop doing things that are obviously bad for us. Naughty, naughty Government. So, what solution does the Maxim Institute have?
The problem is not always ignorance, but the lack of personal motivation to make healthy choices, to put down the cigarette packet and pick up the broccoli. That motivation is primarily a result of individual choice and the formation of the heart and the conscience. As the messages advertising throws at us become more and more obvious, it is difficult not to wonder what is going so wrong that the formation of character and virtue is being left to the TV. Perhaps it is time we looked at a more intimate and real form of education the education which occurs in families, neighbourhoods and communities, where virtue and healthy choices are modelled and valued, not just preached.That's right; none at all. Once again, Maxim knows nothing about the issue and has no expertise or wisdom to offer. Maxim just dislikes the Government. Perhaps Maxim should spend a little time away from its wealthy donors and visit some communities. Perhaps they might see that, in some communities, very bad choices are modelled and valued. Perhaps they might take a look at some of the research done by people who know about these issues, which shows that these bad choices about diet and substance abuse come in clusters, that it is the poor communities who suffer the heart disease, diabetes and cancers caused by cigarettes, alcohol and poor diet. Perhaps they might stop to think that cigarettes, in particular, make people ill - they kill half their users - and poor. Perhaps, just perhaps, the Maxim Institute might then stop jerking off about the wonders of communities and realise that some people are making real efforts to improve the health of those who need it most.
Perhaps we should be asking why the Maxim Institute enjoys charitable status with the tax benefits that result. This bunch of charlatans is an educational charity, despite making no useful contribution to education. Why do we allow these pricks to avoid paying taxes? Now there's a real issue.
Here's the national anthem:
Making plans for Eric
Cripes, it is nearly the end of New Zealand Music Month. I had better move fast, if only to keep Eric happy. Here is The Clean:
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
A treatise on political economy
Is it just me or is this Autumn bringing out the weirdness? Take for example Peasant, who opines: "Clark's radical communist coterie is promoting a religion of secularism, in which the State becomes God, and any prior claims to truth or authority are deemed traitorous." Nothing unusual about that, I grant you, but Peasant then identifies (as we say in PC-speak) as a conservative classical liberal. What the Friedman is such a thing? Are not classical liberals supposed to be all about free markets? Are not conservatives supposed to be all about other things which are not exactly compatible with such markets?
It's time to decide, Peasant. If you want to be a conservative, then just carry on trying to stop people doing things. If you want to be a classical liberal, then you have to accept that people will want porn and pink things (batteries not included) and the market will provide them.
It's time to decide, Peasant. If you want to be a conservative, then just carry on trying to stop people doing things. If you want to be a classical liberal, then you have to accept that people will want porn and pink things (batteries not included) and the market will provide them.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Contains traces of nuts
The purveyors of snake oil have banded together to defeat the Government's plans to introduce regulations for the sale of alternative medicines. True to their normal standards of advertising, they have framed the issue as NZ Govt Moves to Outlaw Vitamins.
As you can see, one of their telling arguments is that, under the new regulations "doses will be reduced, meaning many supplements will simply become ineffective." After pausing to reflect that many supplements simply are not effective, unregulated or otherwise, we might continue to consider the implications for the manufacturers of homeopathic medicines. Since the principle of homeopathy is to reduce the active ingredient by dilution until nothing is left but a memory (water has a capacity for memory, I am sure you will understand), then these regulations are surely good news. By reducing the dosage still further, the regulators will make homeopathic cures even more effective; a first for New Zealand.
Presumably, the Extremely Expensive Approval Process would involve ensuring that homeopathic medicines contain nothing but water, that the water is not contaminated with any other substance. Perhaps the homeopathologists are worried that they might have to start listing the ingredients on their bottles, which would read something like "water: 100%."
Incidentally, some time ago, I proposed to a learned audience of friends in a pub that we drop a single molecule of cyanide into the middle of Lake Taupo and then bottle the water to sell as a homeopathic cure for cyanide poisoning. Unfortunately, my friends were not very entrepreneurial, so I offer the concept to anyone with some poison, a boat and a lot of bottles.
As you can see, one of their telling arguments is that, under the new regulations "doses will be reduced, meaning many supplements will simply become ineffective." After pausing to reflect that many supplements simply are not effective, unregulated or otherwise, we might continue to consider the implications for the manufacturers of homeopathic medicines. Since the principle of homeopathy is to reduce the active ingredient by dilution until nothing is left but a memory (water has a capacity for memory, I am sure you will understand), then these regulations are surely good news. By reducing the dosage still further, the regulators will make homeopathic cures even more effective; a first for New Zealand.
Presumably, the Extremely Expensive Approval Process would involve ensuring that homeopathic medicines contain nothing but water, that the water is not contaminated with any other substance. Perhaps the homeopathologists are worried that they might have to start listing the ingredients on their bottles, which would read something like "water: 100%."
Incidentally, some time ago, I proposed to a learned audience of friends in a pub that we drop a single molecule of cyanide into the middle of Lake Taupo and then bottle the water to sell as a homeopathic cure for cyanide poisoning. Unfortunately, my friends were not very entrepreneurial, so I offer the concept to anyone with some poison, a boat and a lot of bottles.
Things to do
Saturday, May 26, 2007
We're not in Kansas anymore
Attention everybody. I have an important announcement to make. And quiet at the back there.
Apparently, it seems that the debate we were having with the creationists about evolution was nothing but a ridiculous side-show. Yes, I know you will all be disappointed but the news comes from none other than Dr Bill Cooke, Vice-President of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (Inc) and Editor-in-Chief of its journal, The Open Society. It looks like we have all been wasting our efforts. That includes Dr Cooke, who has devoted quite a lot of space to the debate in his journal. This blog as well has been guilty of negligence, for thinking that the danger came from some caricature "fundy." Sorry.
Hang on, wait a minute; this can't be right. Has not Dr Cooke missed something here? Yes that's it - the bleeding obvious: it's about Science. This is what the evolution "controversy" and the debate about climate change have in common - they are about the use of scientific information and the reliability of scientific conclusions. The creationists claim that scientists have got it all wrong and use the information that Science has provided, selectively, to support their absurd claims. The climate change sceptics use scientific information (sometimes disingenuously, sometimes not) to argue against the prevailing scientific argument that climate change is caused in part by human actions.
The creationists are wrong, ridiculously so. I think the climate change sceptics are wrong as well. However, more than a few of them are real scientists working in climate science, so they have a bit more mana than the rabble of scientists who support creationism, all but a handful of whom do not work in biological fields. Although as an humble Art Historian I have no specialist knowledge, I think there is enough evidence to say that climate change is being exacerbated by us. However, I think there is room for debate, as there always in in scientific enquiry. Science's conclusions are always provisional. While there is a lot of corporate money going to fuel scepticism and some influential lobby groups are not very honest in their lobbying, genuine scientific argument is going on.
There is another important difference: the creationists are arguing about what has happened, while the sceptics are arguing about what will happen. There are debates among real scientists about how evolution happened but not that it has happened, because the evidence is plain and there is no alternative explanation within the bounds of Science. Climate change is a different matter. Predictions being what they are, we cannot be certain they will happen. So there is scope for differences of opinion.
Dr Cooke, however, feels no need to entertain such subtleties. He is convinced of his own righteousness and rather than engage in an argument, he splutters about a book which makes contrary claims on the grounds that it influenced the owner of an airline for a while. That book makes scientific arguments. If they are wrong they can be countered by better scientific arguments, not by bombast.
Quite why he is so incensed by the Skeptical Environmentalist might be explained by the fact that there is a copy in the NZARH library. Perhaps he has also realised that there are climate change sceptics, including real scientists, among the NZARH membership.
One other important aspect of the climate change debate obviously has passed by Dr Cooke. It is the fundies who are pumping out much of the propaganda against the evidence on this matter. Go to any fundy site and you will most likely find jeremiads about environmentalism alongside the specious drivel about evolution and the dire warnings about homosexualists. They are the ones, after all, who think the world is theirs to do with what they will. Perhaps someone in Dr Cooke's position should be a little better informed about what is going on in the world of religious politics.
Perhaps Dr Cooke has also not considered that all those scientists and science teachers and atheists and humanists who are fighting the battle over evolution are not just involved in a petty squabble. They are fighting for the primacy of reason, for learning and debate on scientific matters to be based on knowledge, not on dogma. We could not even begin to have a debate about climate change without agreeing that only scientific argument counts, so why should we allow scientific education to be contaminated with religion?
So this blog will not be joining the happy band of humanists who are going to save the world with their new and improved World View. I will leave the climate change debate to people who know what they are talking about. Instead I will continue to do what I do best, mock the fundies and frustrate their knavish tricks.
Finally, there is one other small matter Dr Cooke should know before he pontificates about Science. That story to which he refers in his conclusion, the one about the frog which sits in the water as slowly it rises to boiling point: it's not true.
Apparently, it seems that the debate we were having with the creationists about evolution was nothing but a ridiculous side-show. Yes, I know you will all be disappointed but the news comes from none other than Dr Bill Cooke, Vice-President of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (Inc) and Editor-in-Chief of its journal, The Open Society. It looks like we have all been wasting our efforts. That includes Dr Cooke, who has devoted quite a lot of space to the debate in his journal. This blog as well has been guilty of negligence, for thinking that the danger came from some caricature "fundy." Sorry.
Hang on, wait a minute; this can't be right. Has not Dr Cooke missed something here? Yes that's it - the bleeding obvious: it's about Science. This is what the evolution "controversy" and the debate about climate change have in common - they are about the use of scientific information and the reliability of scientific conclusions. The creationists claim that scientists have got it all wrong and use the information that Science has provided, selectively, to support their absurd claims. The climate change sceptics use scientific information (sometimes disingenuously, sometimes not) to argue against the prevailing scientific argument that climate change is caused in part by human actions.
The creationists are wrong, ridiculously so. I think the climate change sceptics are wrong as well. However, more than a few of them are real scientists working in climate science, so they have a bit more mana than the rabble of scientists who support creationism, all but a handful of whom do not work in biological fields. Although as an humble Art Historian I have no specialist knowledge, I think there is enough evidence to say that climate change is being exacerbated by us. However, I think there is room for debate, as there always in in scientific enquiry. Science's conclusions are always provisional. While there is a lot of corporate money going to fuel scepticism and some influential lobby groups are not very honest in their lobbying, genuine scientific argument is going on.
There is another important difference: the creationists are arguing about what has happened, while the sceptics are arguing about what will happen. There are debates among real scientists about how evolution happened but not that it has happened, because the evidence is plain and there is no alternative explanation within the bounds of Science. Climate change is a different matter. Predictions being what they are, we cannot be certain they will happen. So there is scope for differences of opinion.
Dr Cooke, however, feels no need to entertain such subtleties. He is convinced of his own righteousness and rather than engage in an argument, he splutters about a book which makes contrary claims on the grounds that it influenced the owner of an airline for a while. That book makes scientific arguments. If they are wrong they can be countered by better scientific arguments, not by bombast.
Quite why he is so incensed by the Skeptical Environmentalist might be explained by the fact that there is a copy in the NZARH library. Perhaps he has also realised that there are climate change sceptics, including real scientists, among the NZARH membership.
One other important aspect of the climate change debate obviously has passed by Dr Cooke. It is the fundies who are pumping out much of the propaganda against the evidence on this matter. Go to any fundy site and you will most likely find jeremiads about environmentalism alongside the specious drivel about evolution and the dire warnings about homosexualists. They are the ones, after all, who think the world is theirs to do with what they will. Perhaps someone in Dr Cooke's position should be a little better informed about what is going on in the world of religious politics.
Perhaps Dr Cooke has also not considered that all those scientists and science teachers and atheists and humanists who are fighting the battle over evolution are not just involved in a petty squabble. They are fighting for the primacy of reason, for learning and debate on scientific matters to be based on knowledge, not on dogma. We could not even begin to have a debate about climate change without agreeing that only scientific argument counts, so why should we allow scientific education to be contaminated with religion?
So this blog will not be joining the happy band of humanists who are going to save the world with their new and improved World View. I will leave the climate change debate to people who know what they are talking about. Instead I will continue to do what I do best, mock the fundies and frustrate their knavish tricks.
Finally, there is one other small matter Dr Cooke should know before he pontificates about Science. That story to which he refers in his conclusion, the one about the frog which sits in the water as slowly it rises to boiling point: it's not true.
Friday, May 25, 2007
WTF a go go
I know I keep linking to NZ Conservative and I am sorry if it is beginning to bore you; but it is a phase I am going throught and it is such fun. Take, for example, the comment here, by one Greg Bourke:
What are they putting in communion wafers these day?
You know I disagree with the "political poitions must be based on positives" argument.Say what? Cartesian space, subtle dimensions, colours, textures, shades gradients...altitudes?
Here's an analogy:
Consider a philosophical position as terrain (or a Cartesian space). Surely philosophy with its subtle dimensions is as rich as a natural vista?
Terrain is made up of colours, textures, shades, gradients, and altitudes as is philosophy. The opposite of a valley (theism) is not a bottomless pit (a void) but is a hill (atheism). Or vice versa.
Just as a hill contributes to terrain and the aesthetic of the vista so to does a valley.
In such a way atheism contributes to positions but doesn't make any conclusion a fait accompli, as you say.
What are they putting in communion wafers these day?
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