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Meanwhile Mrs Blair, wearing her judges wig, allows a violent thug to go free after fracturing some poor bugger's jaw. Why? "I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are a religious person and have not been in trouble before. 'You caused a mild fracture to the jaw of a member of the public standing in a queue at Lloyds Bank. You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour." Which of course implies that non-religious people don't know what is acceptable behavior. The National Secular Society (NSS) has quite rightly complained to the Judicial Complaints Office. We are told that the assailant "...Miah left prayers at his East Ham mosque to a bank when he became involved in an argument with Mohammed Furcan. Furious Miah grabbed Mr Furcan before and punched him in the face. The thug ran outside but Mr Furcan chased after him and demanded to know why he had been struck. Miah punched him again - knocking him to the ground and breaking his jaw." Obviously his prayers did not bring him serenity but violent rage. (Best headline comes from the NSS - Has Mrs Blair been practising 'Cheria law'?)

The Roman Catholic church once again shows its unhealthy preoccupation with pain and suffering or, as the Telegraph puts it "Heavy sedation of patients in their final days prevents them from the opportunity of having a “good death” according to the Roman Catholic church" Why should anyone be subjected to unnecessary pain because of another person's supernatural beliefs? If followers of Ratzinger's zombie death cult want a painful death they are entirely welcome to do so - but they shouldn't try and impose one on those that do not share their delusions. (80 was amused to note his spellchecker wants to render the pope's name as "Rat Zinger" which sounds like a deeply unattractive fast food.)

Also in the Telegraph philosopher Roger Scruton suggests Muslim fundamentalists should "learn how to drink wine" because it would make them more tolerant. Philosopher or not, Scruton really hasn't thought this through. If these nitwits have to force women to cover up because they cannot control their lust, what does he think they would be like with a few drinks under their belt?
 

Dhimmwits - "Britain and France appear to be in a race to corner the sharia-compliant Islamic finance market. Both countries are rushing into law new regulations that will make the operation of sharia finance easier and facilitate the issuance of corporate sukuk. Sukuk are a broad class of financial instruments designed to replicate the economic function of bonds, but with a structure which complies with Islamic principles." the National Secular Society informs us. Far from being an ancient idea, sharia finance was mainly the idea of an Islamist intellectual, Abul-Ala Mawdudi, in the 1940s. It is also a method of introducing sharia to the UK by the back door, along with the 85 sharia courts already operating in the country. This is sharia in action in Iran - don't be put off by the dhimmis and "useful idiots"- sharia is barbaric and cruel. (Also see Sharia Finance Watch)

One Law For All - Maryam Namazie, Peter Tatchell and Terry Sanderson, among others will be speaking on February 14th at the “London for a Secular Europe” march which will be held in conjunction with a similar event in Rome (”No Vatican”), where secular Italians are protesting against the political power and influence of the Vatican, and its anti-human rights agenda in Italy, Europe and worldwide. Details of the route and the start and end meeting points are here. It is also tied-in as Darwin Day event (properly Feb 12th). Oh and the 14th is also Valentine's Day....

Are You A British Taxpayer? - if so, are you happy that the government has handed over £10000 to the Christian Police Association (CPA) to publicise its message? And that message is "...that praying can help police to solve crimes, protect officers from injury on duty and reduce anti-social behaviour." according to the Telegraph. Now, compared to the sums pissed away on the banking sector the amount is utterly trivial but to give any group money in order to encourage wishful thinking, ie prayer, is, not to put too fine a point on it, bloody stupid. Now we can only wait for all the other sectarian police associations that have crept into existence during the great failed multicultural experiment to start squealing to get their snouts in the trough. This could be just the thin end of the wedge.

How Police Praying Works - "In one particular area, an officer was investigating an incident but he had not been able to apprehend a suspect. He encouraged a church to pray for him and within days a suspect had been arrested and charged. In another area, an officer encouraged churches to pray about domestic burglary and over the year it came down by 30 per cent. We do not discount good police work, which is why we call it circumstantial evidence." Don Axcell, of the Christian Police Association gives his deeply sad idea of convincing evidence of the power of prayer. Why would a just and omniscient deity have to be prodded into action by prayer? Until the CPA show that this wishful thinking works they shouldn't have a penny. For more on prayer see here.

Prayer, The Truth - "Long time ago god made a divine plan. Gave it a lot of thought. Decided it was a good plan. Put it into practice. And for billion and billions of years the divine plan has been doing just fine. Now you come along and pray for something. Well, suppose the thing you want isn't in god's divine plan. What do you want him to do? Change his plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a divine plan. What's the use of being god if every run-down schmuck with a two dollar prayer book can come along and fuck up your plan?" George Carlin, devout Frisbeetarianist. See the man in action.

Quote - "Homeopathy does not work beyond placebo, it is a menace to public health and a drain on the limited resource of the NHS. It is an 18th century quack medicine consisting of magical rituals practised by deluded, cargo-cult "doctors" that has no place in government thinking, and it should not be endorsed by the registered pharmacists who are at the frontline of public health in the UK."  Martin Robbins of The Lay Scientist writing in the Guardian on the mass homeopathy overdose.

Good Question - the press has returned to a story that circulated last November about the late Pope Wojtyla and his predilection for a bit of saintly self-harm. The reason for the reprise is to plug a book about the old boy. It also allows Hugh O'Shaughnessy to ask the obvious question, Why would the pope whip himself? Perhaps in remorse at the church's rampant pedophilia? Because such weird habits are an integral part of Roman Catholicism? Mortification of the flesh is still considered an acceptable practice in some quarters - think Opus Dei. Guardian readers have helpfully supplied some possible answers in the comment section, one of the best being "Because bashing the bishop is not allowed?". In O'Shaughnessy's piece he refers to another self-mortifier "Saint Simeon Stylites who lived the majority of his years on the top of a narrow stone column." which brought the comment, "As did our very own Nelson" And another said "At least it's an example for Tony Blair to follow". And this rather practical response, which also sounds a mite too eager, "Where did he get the whip from? Did he make it himself? Did he send someone out to buy it? Is there a shop in Rome specialising in ecclesiastical whips?" More than a few came up with the right answer, that he was a sad, deluded old autocrat.

You Can Tell A Lot - about a man by the company he keeps. The Guardian has an article about a Polish politician who belongs to the European Democrats Group, along with David "Call me Dave" Cameron and his Tories. We are told "One of David Cameron's rightwing allies in eastern Europe was embroiled in controversy today at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg after being allowed to open the assembly's session despite a record of belittling the Holocaust. Ryszard Bender, a hard-right Polish senator and historian from the rightwing Law and Justice party, has defended a convicted Holocaust denier in Poland, described Auschwitz as "not a death camp, but a labour camp", and campaigned against Polish apologies for the slaughter of Jews at Jedwabne in 1941."  Law and Justice is the party of the deeply unattractive Potato Twins, of whom 80 has written before.

In Poland there is a worrying connection between the right-wing and that old friend of fascists, the Vatican. So powerful is the Catholic influence on that country that you are unlikely to see the sort of child abuse report that came out of Dublin any time soon. Yet the same ingredients are there as in Eire - a large celibate clergy and an absurd deference to priestly authority by politicians and the police - but Poland has something extra - a vile anti-semitic streak to add to the mix (see here). With a general election not far away and the UK voters sick of Brown's Labour party the question has to be asked why is Cameron, considered by many to be the prime minister-in-waiting, palling around with Bender and his ilk? Last year Cameron's Tories left the center right and Christian Democrats grouping in the Council of Europe and the European Parliament, moved further to the right and is now enjoying the company of those who apparently think coded anti-semitism is acceptable. Is this a foretaste of the way he would like to take the UK? Cameron should be called on this association at every opportunity. (Also see Eyes To The Right and this on Cameron's other new chums. Check out Airbrushed For Change )

Sick Role Model - here is an interesting piece by Rageh Omar about a character, historical or not, who has had a disastrous influence on human development, Abraham. The patriarch is supposed to be the figure that unites the Peoples of the Book, Jews, Christians and Muslims. In the real world, in today's "Holy Land", as Omar notes, Abraham is very much a figure of division and strife. (In passing it is worth remarking that Omar follows the Bible in claiming Abe's home town was Ur of the Chaldees. In fact the Chaldeans lived much later than the supposed time of Abraham so their Ur was not his - but then the Bible is not a history book.) Omar addresses Abraham's famous attempt to sacrifice Isaac but does not seem to understand the full horror in the tale. It is surely surprising to many modern readers that the story of Abraham, told by his God to murder his own son Isaac, is considered edifying. Think about it, a man hears instructions from a voice in his head to murder his own child. Instead of being revolted he does his best to carry out this hideous task only to be told by God it was a test of his faithfulness. What this says about Abraham is disgusting enough and qualifies him for immediate psychiatric treatment coupled with incarceration but Abraham's God comes out of it even worse. An all-powerful, all-knowing being toys with a lowly creature merely to test its capacity for obedience? This is not a being worthy of worship but a megalomaniac worthy only of contempt. When the ignorant and ill-informed say that the atheist's world is bleak with no God in it they cannot even begin to understand the sheer liberation and joy experienced at realizing this cruel and capricious being does not exist. (See The mystery of the providence of God from Ophelia Benson)

No Planet Raiders - there has been a rash of stories about aliens in the press over the past few days. They are the fall-out from a 2-day conference at the Royal Society, called Is there anybody out there?  One particularly odd contribution demonstrates that a scientist speaking outside of his or her field is often no better informed than a layperson. Simon Conway Morris, professor of evolutionary palaeobiology at Cambridge University, is quoted in the Guardian as saying that extra-terrestrials might not only resemble us but have our foibles, such as greed, violence and a tendency to exploit others' resources, and while aliens could come in peace they are quite as likely to be searching for somewhere to live, and to help themselves to water, minerals and fuel. Just stop for a moment and think about that. Aliens which have such advanced science and technology so as to be capable of interstellar flight, are going to bother to raid a planet for "water, minerals and fuel". This surely shows that Conway Morris has no conception of the energies required for even modest starflight - any beings with such power at their fingertips are most unlikely to be space pirates. Our Solar System, and probably most others, is chock full of raw materials for the taking without planet-raiding - surely a concept from early science fiction, (or sometimes later if you look at the unbelievably crappy Battlefield Earth by L Ron Hubbard). Just because we humans haven't got off our backsides to harvest the resources out there doesn't mean that others are so short-sighted. (The eerie silence: are we alone in the universe? is the subject of a lecture by Prof Paul Davies at the Royal Society which will be available on the web within 48 hrs)

Randi Speaks - about bogus bomb detectors and asks why it took so long for the authorities to act. (no video? click here) Also read Phil Plait's When Antiscience Kills: Dowsing for Bombs. Meanwhile Iraqi MPs are demanding the withdrawal of the detectors from checkpoints.  (Talking of Plait, see here for his choice of good and bad science fiction movies, in terms of faithfulness to the laws of physics.)

Neither Needed Nor Wanted - Sharia a threat to Britain's future as 'tolerant' society is a very good piece by Douglas Murray which asks two main questions ‘To what extent is Sharia Law already operating in Britain? To what extent is Sharia Law incompatible with British Law?’ The conclusion is that sharia is utterly incompatible with human rights. While this is nothing strikingly new the piece is well-argued and researched and would make good reading for those useful idiots complacent types who ask, what's the harm? Also of great interest is the section on so-called sharia finance - not some ancient Islamic custom but a fudge invented in 1940s India. Sharia does not belong in Britain which already has a functioning, if imperfect, legal system which is there for everyone regardless of their religion. Also see Muslim Women Lose Human Rights.

Go Glenys! - the New Humanist (NH) blog reports that the British government is taking a firm stand against the Organisation of the Islamic Conference's (OIC) "defamation of religion" resolution at the UN - a transparent ploy to enshrine blasphemy in international law. NH quotes the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Baroness (Glenys) Kinnock, in response to a question about the OIC efforts. "...the Government cannot agree with an approach that promotes the concept of "defamation of religions" as a response. This approach severely risks diminishing the right to freedom of expression. We believe that international human rights law already strikes the right balance between the individual's right to express themselves freely and the need for the state to limit this right in certain circumstances. International human rights law provides that only where advocacy of religious hatred constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence should it be prohibited by law. We believe that the concept of "defamation of religions" puts in danger the very openness and tolerance that allows people of different faiths to co-exist and to practise their faith without fear."  Also see Russell Blackford's The idiocy of “defamation of religion”.

Who Needs A Million Bucks? - back in October 2008 and again in November 2009 James Randi challenged the manufacturer of a bomb detector to prove that the device worked. "Okay. Here’s a simple statement from the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). It’s in clear, basic English, plain language, direct and unequivocal. It’s directed to any of the manufacturers, distributors, vendors, advertisers, or retailers of the ADE651® device ... This Foundation will give you our million-dollar prize upon the successful testing of the ADE651® device. Such test can be performed by anyone, anywhere, under your conditions, by you or by any appointed person or persons, in direct satisfaction of any or all of the provisions laid out above by you." Did JREF hear from anyone? Of course not. Why? "...because the ADE651® is a useless, quack, device which cannot perform any other function than separating naïve persons from their money. It’s a fake, a scam, a swindle, and a blatant fraud. The manufacturers, distributors, vendors, advertisers, and retailers of the ADE651® device are criminals, liars, and thieves who will ignore this challenge because they know the device, the theory, the described principles of operation, and the technical descriptions given, are nonsense, lies, and fraudulent." So even if the sellers of this device didn't want Randi's money you'd think they would respond and defend the effectiveness of the detector - especially after a broadside like that. They didn't. Can anyone detect the powerful odor of rat? Randi repeated his challenge upon hearing the very worrying news that the Iraqi government has purchased a large number of these worse than useless gadgets - at $40000 each.

That figure comes from a BBC Newsnight investigation which has had experts examine the card at the heart of the ADE651, one of whom is Dr Markus Kuhn of Cambridge University's Computer Laboratory. His findings are damning - "Dr Kuhn said it was "impossible" that it could detect anything at all and that the card had "absolutely nothing to do with the detection of TNT"." Step forward explosives expert Sidney Alford, who said "...the sale of the ADE-651 was "absolutely immoral. This type of equipment does not work, I wouldn't mind betting that lives have been lost as a consequence." They are handing these useless gadgets to the poor bastards manning checkpoints in Baghdad. What does that say about the morals of the firm that produces this piece of crap? Jim McCormick, who sells these things, has described it in terms that would set off alarm bells for any skeptic used to hearing such bollocks on a regular basis. He told the BBC in a previous interview that "...the theory behind dowsing and the theory behind how we actually detect explosives is very similar". He says that the key to it is the black box connected to the aerial into which you put "programmed substance detection cards", each "designed to tune into" the frequency of a particular explosive or other substance named on the card. He claims that in ideal conditions you can detect explosives from a range of up to 1km. The training manual for the device says it can even, with the right card, detect elephants, humans and 100 dollar bills." At least we now know there are two reasons why McCormick and his firm have not responded to Randi's challenge. Firstly the ADE651 is useless for its described task and secondly, if you can sell thousands of them for $40000 each why would you need a piffling million bucks? Watch Caroline Hawley's full report on Newsnight on Friday 22 January 2010 at 10.30pm then afterwards on the BBC iPlayer and Newsnight website.

Update - to the above. The Guardian informs us "The managing director of a British company that has been selling bomb-detecting equipment to security forces in Iraq was arrested on suspicion of fraud today. At the same time, the British government announced that it was imposing a ban on the export of the ADE-651 detectors because it was concerned they could put the lives of British forces or other friendly forces at risk."

Mass Overdose! - the 10.23 Group, the bunch who organized an open letter to Boots, the high street pharmacists, asking them not to sell quack homeopathy products is hoping to garner more publicity by an overdose stunt. Over 300 sceptics and consumer rights activists nationwide will at 10:23am on January 30th "...publicly swallow an entire bottle of homeopathic 'pillules' to demonstrate that these 'remedies', prepared according to a long-discredited 18th century ritual, are nothing but sugar pills." Of course everyone will be fine because homeopathic "medicines" contain no active ingredients. This kind of display has been done before, by James Randi who survived quite nicely thank you. Also must be included Alexa Ray Joel, daughter of singer Billy, who took six tablets of Traumeel, a homeopathic "anti-inflammatory" when she was "...distraught over the ending of a recent relationship." Panicked by what she had done she called 911 - but she was fine, as the pills do nothing, nada, zip, bugger all. If you would like to take part in the mass overdose check out your nearest Skeptics in the Pub group. Also see Homeopathy by the (mind-boggling) numbers, an excellent article by Matt Parker.

The Idiot's Tale - following the Haiti quake there was the usual question, how could a loving god let this happen? Jerks like Pat Robertson blamed the people of Haiti, or rather their ancestors, who had made a pact with the devil. Others tied themselves in metaphorical knots and babbled like idiots. One such is the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, who managed to sound even more of a fool than he did hitherto, which is quite an achievement. To save you trawling through the audio of his cringe-inducing BBC interview the kindly James Randi has posted a transcript. Remember, Sentamu is one of the best the Church of England has on the team. No wonder it is fast becoming an irrelevance.

An Asshole Speaks - "Why is all this happening down in Haiti, a very poor country? The country's been shaken. Probably some of you are aware that Haiti is infamous for its voodoo, its spiritual darkness, bleakness. You know, I was kind of thinking, maybe God has shaken that place, shaken that, shaken against the kingdom of darkness. And maybe the light of Jesus will shine through, come out of the darkness." Dr. Justin Dennison, Johnston Heights Church as reported here. "He noticed a man getting up and leaving as he spoke. Dennison has since discovered that his remarks were being recorded by the man who left, a first-time visitor to the church. A short segment has been posted online, along with critical comments linking Dennison to right-wing American television evangelist Pat Robertson, who has argued the earthquake occurred because God was punishing Haitians. A horrified Dennison said his remarks have been taken out of context and he does not in any way share Robertson's view."  Yeah, right.

Ship Of Clods - A A Gill, the cold-blooded baboon murderer, has partially redeemed himself in 80's eyes with this piece in Vanity Fair, Roll Over, Charles Darwin!, about Kentucky's $27 million monument to pig ignorance, the Creation Museum. While poking a lot of fun he also shows that he understands what many miss and that is that Creationism is not just anti-evolution but anti-science. "This place doesn’t just take on evolution—it squares off with geology, anthropology, paleontology, history, chemistry, astronomy, zoology, biology, and good taste. It directly and boldly contradicts most -onomies and all -ologies, including most theology."

UFO Nuts - were all excited by the strange spiral lights in the sky above northern Norway recently. The lights were certainly nothing natural and they carried a message. Not about aliens, but about the parlous state of Russian military rocket research and testing. See Russia's Ailing ICBM Program by ex-space engineer, veteran space commentator and historian James Oberg. Check out his web site, in particular the Space Age Myths and Legends page. Oberg's 1990 documentary Red Star In Orbit revealed for the first time to those outside the intelligence community the story of the Soviet race to the Moon. This has now happily appeared on YouTube.

A Question Of Loyalties - the Telegraph tells us "The National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) claimed that ministers were wrong to blame Islam for being the “driver” behind recent terrorist attacks. Far-Right extremists were a more dangerous threat to national security, it said."  Then don't bother to call this lot to investigate any crime, particularly terrorism - it is obvious they couldn't find their arse with both hands. Perhaps they are unaware of these figures quoted by Nile Gardiner, "According to Home Office statistics published in May 2009, a staggering 91 percent of terrorist prisoners detained in England and Wales classified themselves as Muslim." The NAMP also mutters darkly about "racism" - a transparent ploy to stifle criticism. Islam is not a race -it has claims to universalism. But are the NAMP quite what they appear? Are there other motives behind their criticism? The NAMP wouldn't be employing a little taqiyya here? Surely not. Over at Harry's Place there is an article about how the NAMP web site links to "...the Khomeinist front organisation, the so-called ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission’." (See The Wrong Rights?) 80 is very uncomfortable with the thought of British police officers espousing such nonsense.

The NAMP web site mentions among the key objectives of the group "Raising Islamic Awareness and dealing with Equality issues such as Islamophobia."  Neither Islamic Awareness (why the random capitals?) and Islamophobia are defined. In 80's view a noun + phobia means the fear of or aversion to something, in this case Islam. Given the Home Office statistics mentioned above, this phobia, far from being irrational as the word usually implies, makes sense. It would appear to mean something else entirely to the NAMP. Are these people policeman and policewomen first and Muslims second or is it the other way round? Once again we run into the problem of loyalties. In a religion so all pervasive in a believer's life as Islam it is well nigh impossible to maintain the secular stance required of modern policing. Quite why the police have been allowed to form various sectarian organizations is a puzzle - until you realize that this is a result of Britain's absurd multiculturalism. Far from uniting people this breaks them down into smaller and smaller groups, all ready to take offence at the slightest provocation. The fact that the NAMP has links with the sick joke that is the Islamic Human Rights Commission is deeply worrying and calls into question the impartiality of its members. Currently there are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu and Sikh police associations in the UK. No atheists so far - perhaps they are content to be just policemen and policewoman. (80 recommends the Heresiarch's look at the document that started the story. He finds it appalling - and that's just the grammar.)

Our Place In Space - see The Known Universe and have your mind boggled in this video from the American Museum of Natural History. It rather puts things into perspective.

Wilders In Court - Dutch politician Geert Wilders has been charged with inciting hatred of Muslims. His crime was to produce a rather boring little film that quoted from the Quran, accurately it would appear, as no one seems to have accused him of misquotation, and showed some events such as the 9/11 atrocity. Surely no one is denying the nineteen Islamist murderers were inspired to commit their crime by the Quran? And yet Wilders is in the dock for pointing out what is to very many people something quite obvious. The report tells us Wilders' "Freedom Party is leading the opinion polls in the Netherlands and came second in European elections last June."  Wilders is too right-wing for 80's blood but not that right-wing, for in condemning the Quran he compares it to Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Department Of The Bleeding Obvious - "Reports of racial and religiously motivated crime rose following the election of British National party councillors in several far- right strongholds, police statistics have revealed." Oooh - do you possibly think there might be some sort of connection here?

Non-Aligned - back in September last 80 took a rather scathing look at the theory of Tom Brooks as put forward in his modestly titled book Prehistoric Geometry in Britain: the Discoveries of Tom Brooks. See Imposed Patterns. Now Ben "Bad Science" Goldacre makes much the same point in Did aliens help to line up Woolworths stores? drawing on work by Matt Parker, from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Queen Mary, University of London. From ley lines onward people have "discovered" alignments of all sorts of things. In a landscape such as Britain's there are any number of ancient sites from which the eye of faith can wring alignments - it doesn't mean that they are really there. See the excellent Bad Archaeology on ley lines.

2010: A Time for Reflection - is the title of a piece by Robert T. Carroll, creator of the excellent Skeptic's Dictionary web site, (and book) an indispensable resource which " ...features definitions, arguments, and essays on topics ranging from acupuncture to zombies, and provides a lively, commonsense trove of detailed information on things supernatural, paranormal, and pseudoscientific." In this short essay he looks at the origins of the modern skeptical movement and how it may develop in the future.

Populist Palin - "Sarah Palin is the latest in a line of populists, but she's very different in one way. Populists historically have pretended not to know anything. They've actually been part of a fairly intellectual group of people. But she really doesn't know anything. And it's in God's plan apparently that she [won't] learn anything." Margaret Carlson as quoted by Leslie Savan in an article for The Nation about Palin's new gig with Faux Fox News.

Guru Redefined - the Times tells us of "Residents of Tel Aviv’s quiet Hatikva neighbourhood were shocked to discover a self-styled Jewish sage living in their midst, with a harem of 30 women kept as "slaves" in a series of squalid apartments. Goel Ratzon, a 60-year-old guru with flowing white hair and beard, is accused of fathering 37 children since 1993 with his “wives” and his own daughters. " This must be one of those occasions when the word guru actually means perverted old weirdo.

Haiti - post-earthquake relief donations please click here.

Short Shrift - "It never ceases to amaze, that in times of amazing human suffering, somebody says something that could be so utterly stupid. But it, like clockwork, happens with some regularity." White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, speaking about Pat Robertson's latest idiocy.

Prat Robertson - always ready to jump on the bandwagon following a natural disaster the caring and compassionate Christian Pat Robertson knows why Haiti was hit by an earthquake killing tens of thousands of people. It seems it was the Haitians own fault - or rather their ancestors - for making a pact with the devil. Or as the great televangelist put it in an interview "...a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh, you know Napoleon the 3rd and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’". There is of course no evidence for such a deranged idea which Robertson just blew out of his ass. Much as he did over 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Can we say vile old creep? Yes, we can. Much like his vengeful god, which, to his way of thinking has just righteously murdered thousands of innocent men, women and children. Update - Fat creep Rush Limbaugh is obnoxious as ever as he competes with Robertson for the callous shit of the month award. He is telling people not to contribute to the Haitian disaster fund - because Obama might steal it. Limbaugh is beneath contempt. Update - an article on "...how crazed the US right has become" in "..the race to say something stupid about the tragedy in Haiti"

Thank God for Andy Choudary - is the latest video from Pat Condell in which he thanks Choudary for the (unintended) consequences of his big mouth. If you see no video below click here.

A Call For Ridicule - "I have today laid an order which will proscribe al-Muhajiroun, Islam4UK, and a number of the other names the organisation goes by. Other names are Call to Submission, Islamic Path and London School of Sharia. The group is already proscribed under two other names – al-Ghurabaa and the Saved Sect or the Saviour Sect." Alan Johnson, UK Home Secretary reported in the Guardian. What took so long? Expect these Islamist jerks to pop up again under another name. As these tossers themselves put it "...another platform with a new name will arise to continue to fulfil these divine objections until the sharia has been implemented". (Shouldn't that be "divine objectives"?) Which of course raises the same old question - if they cannot stand the UK (apart from the free social services and healthcare obviously) and want sharia why don't they sod off? I am sure the rest of the country would have a whip-round for the tickets - its has to be cheaper than the taxpayer-funded benefits they now enjoy. Let's hope Johnson's move heralds less tolerance of extremists everywhere, such as the ones that are invited to speak in so many mosques and universities. The UK, and London in particular, has a poor reputation worldwide (Londonistan, anyone?) for allowing too much free rein to Islamist groups. If "multiculturalism" means allowing vipers to be nourished in the country's collective bosom the sooner it is done away with the better. Most of the UK's Muslims must cringe in disgust at the shit-stirrers like Islam4UK and the coverage they get from the tabloids. Now just wait for the useful idiots of the far left  to start whining about Johnson's belated action. They, and their beloved Islamists need, in 80's view, a sight more ridicule than they have hitherto received. If they are treated as the right bunch of charlies that they so patently are, maybe proscription of this kind would become unnecessary. Ab absurdo.

Laugh - with the Spittoon. This quite made my morning. Or it did until I remembered what Bunglawala is all about.

Hypocritical Homophobic Hibernian Harridan Homily - in view of the latest news that disgraced MP Iris Robinson was undergoing "acute psychiatric treatment" 80 wondered whether the alliterative intro to this piece was insensitive, but a look at this woman's history dispels any such qualms. She has joined the long list of apparently puritanical bible-bashers who were actually having a bit on the side. In this case the 60 year-old Robinson "...had an affair with a toyboy lover young enough to be her grandson." This is hardly news except that she chose to project herself as a righteous Christian, one of those righteous Christians who think, on no factual basis whatsoever, that homosexuality is an aberration, a life-style choice that can be "turned around" by counselling. In fact this charming woman is on record stating that homosexuality was "viler" than child abuse. Her affair came to her husband's notice he claims, after a attempted suicide brought on by her remorse. This cannot have lasted too long as she now claims to be forgiven by her friend Jesus - that handy get out for Christian hypocrites. Things might have eventually quietened down but then there was fresh news about a loan made to her toyboy of a trifling £50,000 ($80,639). This now sets up her Northern Ireland First Minister husband's political career to follow hers down the toilet with a disastrous effect on the fragile state of Northern Ireland politics. As if all this wasn't bad enough, stories are now surfacing of other affairs involving this Christian paragon - plus the unexpected and delicious twist that her ex-lover has become a gay pinup. As The Freethinker has it Where is the Rev Ian Paisley when you most need a good belly laugh? Update - "The extramarital affair conducted by Iris Robinson, the wife of Northern Ireland's First Minister, has inspired an Internet campaign to push "Mrs Robinson," the song from the film "The Graduate," to the top of the pop charts."

In God's Name - in following the Malaysian "Allah" controversy there are a couple of points that caught 80's attention. It seems the use of the Arabic name for god by Christians in that multicultural country has some local Muslims up in arms - or to be more accurate, busy burning churches. So far, according to the BBC, nine have been attacked. These burnings were apparently triggered "...by a High Court ruling last month that overturned a government ban on non-Muslims using the word "Allah". The government is appealing against the decision." The first point arising is why on earth do the Christians want to use an Arabic word for god? Arab Christians, an endangered species, do so, but then their native tongue actually is Arabic. The main languages in use in Malaysia are Bahasa Malaysia (official), English, Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka, Hainan, Foochow), Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Panjabi and Thai, and so using Allah in a context outside that of Islam is odd, to say the least.*

Despite claims to universality, Islam is very much an Arab religion and its sacred texts are claimed to be only fully understandable in that language. The second point illustrates just how unsure Islam is about itself, always ready to be offended all around the globe. As Pat Condell says, Islam seems to have a chip on its shoulder the size of a mosque. The breakdown of religions in Malaysia is Muslim 60.4%, Buddhist 19.2%, Christian 9.1%, Hindu 6.3%, Confucianism, Taoism, other traditional Chinese religions 2.6%. This surely makes a nonsense of the Muslim claim "...that Christians using a word so closely associated with Islam could be a ploy to win converts." Do they think the people cannot distinguish between the two religions and the use of this single word would be enough to ensnare them for Jesus? It seems that the followers of Islam, in this case and others, are far too swift in perceiving offense and that the most common reaction to this perception is violence. It is depressing that an absurd row over a single word is jeopardizing the political stability of Malaysia with the concomitant effect of scaring off foreign investment. Update - now the Sikhs have become a target for Muslim violence in Malaysia. What a great ad for the "religion of peace".

*An interesting aside - 80 has just learned that that "...the Maltese word for ‘God’ is ‘Alla’. Maltese is a dialect of Maghrebi Arabic (with an awful lot of Italian, French and English thrown in for good measure) and is the only dialect of Arabic to be written in a western alphabet. The Maltese, of course, are 99% good Roman Catholics (and fairly intolerant of Islam) but nevertheless perfectly happy to pray to ‘Alla’ in church." Thanks, Keith

 

Booting Homeopathy - out of Boots. The UK's largest and best known High Street pharmacists are promoting and selling homeopathy "medication". That in itself is not dangerous as all the customers are buying is water, usually dropped on a sugar pill. In fact the best it can do is no better than a placebo effect. However, the worst it can do is to cause someone who is seriously ill to forgo evidence-based, real medicine in favor of a homeopathic remedy, and possibly even endanger their health by doing so. Note that I said seriously ill, for homeopathy, like many other so-called Complementary Alternative Medicines (sCAM), excels at treating things that going to get better in a few days anyway. If you think Boots is harming its reputation as a purveyor of medicine by dealing in quackery and may inadvertently cause someone serious harm by doing so, please sign the open letter here. For more on homeopathy see Homeopathy: The Ultimate Fake by Stephen Barrett, M.D. and check out Homeowatch. Also see Faith-Based Medicine and this item on the things that are taught on a homeopathy ‘degree’ course. 80's attention was drawn to the Boots letter by The Association for Skeptical Enquiry (ASKE)

Faith-heads - some religionists are offended by this term and feel it to be derogatory but the crop of religionists that form the British government's new "faith advisers" are just that. This bunch, we are told, "...will act as a 'sounding board' to advise on effective engagement with faith communities, and the impact of Communities and Local Government policy on faith communities."  Making up the group are two Muslims (one an Islamist), seven protestant Christians, a Hindu, a Sikh and a brace of Jews. Humanists, Roman Catholics and Jedi are conspicuous by their absence. The Heresiarch has done a fine job of compiling a short biography of each of them and the one thing they have in common is an apparent willingness to be defined by their faith - hence faith-heads. Apart from their myriad other skills it is the fact that they are prepared to believe in something without any evidence that qualifies them to be government advisers - none of the rest of their CV/resume is of any interest to Labour unless they possess that all important commitment to irrationality - and obviously share the government's view on faith matters - we must have cohesion at all costs.

One thing that was not required apparently was that these unelected faith-heads even remotely resemble typical members of the population of this increasingly secular country. Not one them represents the "reality-based community". Communities Secretary John Denham (even his job title is irritating) who announced this new flying circus is on record as saying "It would be wrong to suggest that faith organisations alone are responsible for defining, shaping and transmitting values. It is not necessary to have faith to be deeply, morally and profoundly altruistic." This view does not seem to have been applied during the election process but then Denham is a little split on the subject. Elsewhere he has said "Anyone wanting to build a more progressive society would ignore the powerful role of faith at their peril." Yes, we have seen what faith can do - it flies airplanes into skyscrapers. 80 has quoted this statement by Barack Obama before and makes no apology for doing so again for it encapsulates the rules that should apply to giving faith-heads a role advising government. "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all."  For more on John Denham see Abject Stupidity Or Wilful Ignorance? and see what Harry's Place has to say about one of Denham's advisers, Wakkas Khan.

Quote - "There's been a lot said over the last few weeks about how Islam is a peaceful religion. Obviously that is true. But, also Islam is seen as a passive religion. We wanted to show that Islam does actively stand for certain things, Islam breeds peace by its nature." Wakkas Khan, Government Faith Adviser, demonstrating in 2001 his poor grasp of reality - or is that his better grasp of duplicity? See the Harry's Place link above.

Jesus and Mo - have a slight communications breakdown over the attempted murder of elderly Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard by an axe-wielding Islamist nutjob. Talking of cartoonists, as part of its contribution to the Center for Inquiry’s Campaign for Free Expression, the Council for Secular Humanism is sponsoring a Free Expression Cartoon Contest. The Council—publisher of Free Inquiry, the first major U. S. publication to republish a selection of the Danish cartoons—invites professional and amateur artists to submit their sharpest, cleverest, and most ingenious creations touching on that most sensitive subject: religion.

When Scary Jesus Makes The News - is the title of the latest column from Mark Morford. "Will it be drugs? Will it be gays? Will it be an unwieldy sex scandal featuring seedy hotels, bad cologne and grossly detailed text messages you never want to read? How about another "family values"' congressman busted for cruising gay chat rooms or hitting on young male pages in the congressional bathroom? That's always heartwarming. Or maybe it will be another enchanting case of sexual abuse and pedophilia in the Catholic Church! What, too 2001? Fine, how about six decades of child rape and beatings at the hands of countless nuns and priests in Irish Catholic orphanages? Oh right, that was last year."  Read on...

Good Things - here is part one of an interview with Christopher Hitchens conducted by Michael J Totten about, among other subjects, the homicidal attack on Kurt Westergaard and the absurd Irish blasphemy law. 80 had not come across Totten's site before (thanks, Nick) but it will become a regular port of call. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (publisher of Skeptical Inquirer magazine) has made available a compendium of pieces by and about the greatly missed Carl Sagan, including Sagan's tribute to Isaac Asimov and his 1996 piece called Does Truth Matter? Science, Pseudoscience and Civilization. Finally here is a short article by Austin Cline entitled Christian Cultural Resentment - Cultural Resentment as Religious Force. Also the National Secular Society's Newsline newsletter returns after the festive break.

Fear and Censorship - is an excellent piece on "censorship-by-prediction-of-violence" in the Guardian written by Ophelia Benson. Her site Butterflies and Wheels is permanently linked in the sidebar of this page. She is also the co-author (with Jeremy Stangroom) of Why Truth Matters and Does God Hate Women?. Both are highly recommended. There is a school of thought that claims she is the original of the sage barmaid in the Jesus and Mo cartoons. Also see Killing freedom and cartoonists

"Sense About Science has produced a guide (PDF) to help people to query the status of science and research reported in the media. Get the guide by clicking the e-button above. Sense About Science is an independent charitable trust. We respond to the misrepresentation of science and scientific evidence on issues that matter to society, from scares about plastic bottles, fluoride and the MMR vaccine to controversies about genetic modification, stem cell research and radiation. We work with scientists and civic groups to promote evidence and scientific reasoning in public discussion."

A Rich Kid Speaks - having read his way through a column of crud in the Guardian that mounts an ineffectual, ill-informed and incoherent attack on Sense About Science one question occurred to 80. Just what exactly is the point of Zac Goldsmith? Apart from his obvious ability to talk out of his arse, that is. It is particularly worrying that this clod will have the ear of the likely next UK government. At least he receives the drubbing he so richly deserves in the comments, some of which are hilarious. New Scientist has a piece on Sense About Science's Celebrities and Science 2009 review (PDF) "People in the public eye are often drawn to promoting theories, therapies and campaigns that make no scientific sense. Sense About Science keeps a case file of examples of celebrity statements sent in by scientists and members of the public. Every year we review celebrities’ dodgy science claims - from special diets and ‘miracle’ cures to chemicals, vaccines and evolution - and ask scientists what they should have said instead."  This is what seems to have rattled young Goldsmith's cage - perhaps he thought he was featured.

Quote - "It wasn't a mistake that the caricatures of Muhammed were printed, and in any case it doesn't justify violence. Muslims have just a great interest in protecting freedom of expression as all others. Therefore Muslims should also support Kurt Westergaard," writer Shakil Rehman of the liberal Muslim network LIM (Equality, integration, multiculturalism) Taken from the Islam In Europe blog - thanks to MediaWatchWatch for the heads-up.

Cartoon Crap - there is no way to put it nicely, Nancy Graham Holm's Guardian article on the Danish Mohammed cartoons, Prejudiced Danes provoke fanaticism, is complete and utter apologist crap. The same could be said of most other accounts that state the cartoons were a deliberate provocation to Muslims - they were not a provocation until months after publication when Danish mullahs touted them around Muslim countries, having added some really offensive drawings filched from elsewhere in order to maximize the outrage. Graham Holm is supposed to be a journalist but not so much of one that she would bother to actually research a story before churning out garbage. See below a couple of pieces by 80, one from October 2006 and the other from February 2007. This first one shows that the Motoons were published with little or no reaction in an Egyptian newspaper in October 2005, during Ramadan. So why do Graham Holm and other such "useful idiots" keep whining about how offended Muslims were by the cartoons?

October 2006 No Freedom At All - radical Islamists have a knack for creating a row even when no "offence" has been caused. The Mohammed cartoons had been published for months (in Denmark and believe it or not, Egypt) before certain Danish imams hawked them around various Muslim countries bent on fomenting outrage. Even then the imams had to spice things up by adding cartoons to the original set that were cruder and if possible less amusing than the originals. This practice is known as shit-stirring and it seems to be catching on.

February 2007 Just the Facts - here is a report from the Guardian on the court case involving a French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, which re-published the "blasphemous" Mohammed cartoons. The Union of French Islamic Organisations, the World Islamic League and the Grand Mosque of Paris brought the case in an action typical of religionists who insist on their right to be offensive to women or gays but then get themselves all in a lather over some not particularly amusing cartoons. And even they wouldn't have been so upset without some busy shit-stirring by Danish imams. The writer of the short Guardian piece, Kim Willsher, displays a worrying willingness in the last paragraph to parrot Islamist nonsense about the cartoons  that is a) lazy and b) completely inaccurate. "The cartoons were first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 and were later reproduced in other European publications. They provoked violent demonstrations around the world by Muslims who judged them blasphemous and racist." True, the first publication was in Denmark in September 2005, but they were also published in Egypt* in October of that same year with no outcry. When Danish radical imams saw no outrage they hawked the cartoons around Muslim countries stoking things up - but just to make sure, they added some more cartoons of their choosing. Of these, unlike the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, at least one was genuinely offensive. (*Thanks to Rantings of a Sandmonkey)

So, it was only after such belated prodding that we saw "spontaneous" rioting and flag-burning on our TV screens. (As 80 wondered at the time, where did these protesters suddenly get hold of so many Danish flags to burn? Perhaps the incendiary imams should be asked whether they hold shares in any flag companies.) The Muslims (surely not all of them?) may well have judged the daubings to be "blasphemous and racist" but there is no reason for Willsher to repeat this without at least some qualification. To draw or publish such a cartoon may be blasphemous, but only for Muslims (including those perhaps that have depicted their prophet over the centuries with no accompanying outcry?). A point often made by Muslims is that Mohammed was a man, not a god like the Christian Jesus. Which leads one to ask, is it blasphemous to draw someone who was merely human, prophet or not? As for the claim, again unchallenged by Willsher, that the cartoons were racist, 80 suggests that a look at the latest cartoon from Jesus and Mo will help clarify matters. To nitpick thus may seem somewhat petty, pulling apart a minor news item, but Willsher's uncritical repetition of errors and distortions deserves to be condemned. If enough reporters and other commentators, through ignorance, laziness, sloppiness or multicultural political correctness repeat this sort of garbage often enough it will become accepted "common knowledge" and another little piece of truth will have been lost.

An Informal With The Infernal - Mark Morford, Olympic class syntax-mangler, interviews the Devil and gets his opinion of Obama, Limbaugh, über-harpy Ann Coulter and those "New Atheists".  

The Bush-Blair Legacy - "Unfortunately, the democratic system in Iraq has led to the rise of undemocratic parties and movements that don't believe in the concept of human rights or personal freedoms. These parties are trying to leave an impression among the uneducated and the simple-minded people that they are the guardians of religion and proper behavior, and conversely, that secular parties are the ones promoting alcohol consumption and the opening of nightclubs, and thus are un-Islamic." Mithal Alousi, a secular Sunni lawmaker quoted in the Washington Post. Also this, from the Telegraph "The sweeping sectarian violence of Iraq is well documented, though the suffering of its once million-strong Christian community has been less prominently recorded. As many 600,000 have fled abroad since 2003, while hundreds of thousands more have moved to safer areas in the north, abandoning once thriving Christian communities in Mosul, Baghdad and the southern Iraqi city of Basra."  Mission accomplished boys! I mean, this was what you guys planned, right? Guys? You know, when you were in the sandpit together, plotting war and talking to Jesus?

Pots, Kettles - the Roman Catholic archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols is quoted as saying on BBC Radio 4 "A secularist is just as dogmatic as the worst religious believer and sometime they are more stridently so."  Leaving aside the supreme irony of a Catholic cleric complaining about dogmatism, this fellow is obviously unaware that one can be both religious and support secularity. In fact secularity is something that would protect his zombie cult religion and any others by keeping them out of politics and education. This ensures a level playing field for all religions and effectively protects them from persecution. This is why the Church of England bishops (26 of them) should not be sitting in the British upper house, the House of Lords. No religion should be allied with government and faith should be a private matter. It would seem that Nichols, in common with many other people, is confusing secularism with atheism (perhaps deliberately) and the stridency he refers to is in fact atheists speaking up for themselves these days and not automatically deferring to those who think their supernatural beliefs earn them some kind of respect.  In the same interview the archbishop  talks of the shame felt over the systematic rape (not his term, obviously) of children by his colleagues in Eire but naturally does not mention the cover-up by the church hierarchy of this disgusting cruelty and betrayal of trust. He also said "... something positive could be drawn from the latest events in Ireland, where four bishops resigned over their failure to deal with allegations in the archdiocese of Dublin."  The phrase "failure to deal" is nothing more than a weaselism for "cover-up at all costs". It would be a much more positive outcome if the same bishops were charged with obstructing justice for their obfuscation when the abuses came to light.

At least Nichols appears to be marginally less repulsive than his predecessor, although that doesn't mean much. That was Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, who moved a known pedophile from one parish to another thereby enabling him to strike again. This did not seem to bother the church as O'Connor was subsequently promoted. He also gained notoriety for his outrageous claim last year that atheists were not fully human. Nichols himself had a foot-in-mouth moment last year when commenting on the Irish priestly child-rapers "...I think of those in religious orders and some of the clergy in Dublin who have to face these facts from their past, which instinctively and quite naturally they'd rather not look at. That takes courage. And also we shouldn't forget that this account today will also overshadow all of the good that they also did." Admiring and attempting to excuse in some way these heartless bastards is despicable - but then that's the Catholic church for you - preservation of its reputation trumps justice every time. In Eire the cover-up was enabled by the secular authorities' misplaced deference to the church. This is what happens when a religion is permitted to influence the powers that be. It is as good example of the need for secularity as any. Sadly, it is obvious Nichols learned nothing from this ghastly episode whatsoever. (Jesus and Mo have something to say about secular fundamentalists)

Freedom To Blaspheme - in a challenge to the nonsensical and backward blasphemy law now on the books in Ireland a campaign has begun for its repeal. The first salvo from Atheist Ireland (AI) is a list of quotes that qualify as blasphemous. Some names are predictable, such as Richard Dawkins and his excellent description of the Old Testament god, "... arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” Others among the usual suspects are P Z Myers, Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie but some names are less often associated with blasphemy, including Jesus, Mohammed and the old pedophile shifter himself, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor. It is an interesting and often hilarious collection. No doubt AI will have the Religious Police banging on their door anytime now. The court case will likely prove a spectacle, but there are ramifications outside Eire because of this law, as AI makes clear, "The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted. This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level."

The Plot Thickens? - see here for the latest twist in the Raphael Gold/Dead Sea Scrolls case in which 80 was (very) peripherally involved. It would seem Golb's father, the respected scholar Norman Golb may have played a larger role in Golb Jr's internet sock puppetry than was first realized. For background to this strange story see The Man Who Wasn't There and Who Is Charles Gadda?. Also check out Who Wrote The Dead Sea Scrolls? which also comments on the Golb affair.

Free Speech - The same right to free speech that allows the Islamist group Islam4UK, a platform for the Al-Muhajiroun gang, to parade through Wootton Bassett also allows 80 to call them a bunch of ignorant gobshites. Wootton Bassett is the small English town by RAF Lyneham whose inhabitants line the street in tribute to the dead servicemen whose coffins pass through. If the turnout for the idiot Islamist march matches that for their pro-sharia law demo then expect to hear no more until their next press release. The group’s leader Anjem Choudary is accurately described by Pat Condell as an Islamist Dickhead. Update - Surprise, surprise the march has been cancelled.

Papal Prattle - Pope Ratzinger in his first address of the new year called for an end to discrimination against "those who are different". He went on to say "Peace begins with a look of respect that recognises in another man's face a person, regardless of the colour of his skin, nationality, language or religion." How about respect for people of a different sexual orientation other than that recognized by his church? Not a bloody word. How much respect did he and his church accord the children raped by his priests in the US and Eire? None, instead they became the subject of a cover-up and the blame for this goes right to the top. It is proof of this vile old man's towering hypocrisy that he can stand up on his hind legs and talk about respect while such subjects remain unaddressed.

An Imaginary Friend - is still an imaginary friend, no matter what you call it. In Malaysia a government ban on Christians using the word Allah for their god has been overturned - perhaps the Muslim majority thought the infidels were trying to steal it/him. Maybe they should compromise and call it Google, which at least has the benefit of actually existing. In other daft religious news Israel's two chief rabbis claim "The high number of abortions in Israel are delaying the arrival of the Messiah". What nonsense, 80 has it on good authority he has been held up, like everyone else, by airport security. Finally the British priest who encouraged the poor to shoplift has been showered by - not manna, but pasta (actually 30 cans of spaghetti and ravioli with sauce) as a protest over his silly suggestion. The priest evinced surprise "I am startled at how much interest has been generated by my sermon." No he isn't, he attracted just the publicity he so obviously craved. His bosses are less than amused, for we are told "The Church of England spokeswoman said Father Jones was on holiday and unable to comment about the pasta protest." He is probably still trying to get the stuff out of his hair. There is as yet no confirmation the protester was a Pastafarian...
 

Chiropractic Treatment and English Libel Law - is the name of a faux Ladybird book that looks at the unsubstantiated drivel that is chiroquactic and tells the story of the (ongoing) attempt to gag science writer Simon Singh by recourse to that wonderful general purpose muzzling and bankrupting system otherwise known as an English libel court. It is a lovingly crafted parody of the classic children's books, only this one is from the Quacks and Shysters Series. Many thanks to Crispian Jago for producing this little gem. Meanwhile, prodded by the adverse publicity surrounding several cases we are told "The lord chancellor, Jack Straw, is to order a comprehensive review of Britain's much-criticised libel laws, the Ministry of Justice revealed today. Straw has previously promised to act against libel tourism, fearing Britain's restrictive libel laws are being exploited by plaintiffs with few real links to the UK." Not before time. So-called libel tourism is a mockery of justice, an international embarrassment, and strangles free speech. One particularly egregious example is that of "British consultant cardiologist, Dr Peter Wilmshurst, (who) is being sued by an American company, NMT Medical, for questioning the effectiveness of a new heart implant device. Wilmshurst raised his criticism at an American conference and his comments were posted on a US website for three says, but he is being pursued at the high court because a number of cardiologists read the article in Britain." Another factor that finally forced Straw to act was the report by English PEN and Index on Censorship and the ongoing libel reform campaign, Free Speech Is Not For Sale. Do sign the petition and subscribe to email updates.

The Muslim Council Of Britain's - Christmas shindig is a real eye-opener. Thanks to The Spittoon for the heads up. No video? Click here.

School Scheming - it seems the less religious Britain becomes the more the church is trying to evangelize by the back door. The Guardian reports "The number of dedicated school chaplains has increased by 25% in five years, fuelled by increasing numbers of faith schools in the state sector, figures released by the Church of England show." Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society (NSS) said "I think it's ironic that the number of chaplains is going up while church attendance is in freefall. I reject the religious pressure being put on children when they are essentially a captured audience in publicly-funded schools." Naturally the church is keen to emphasize other reasons for the chaplains' employment. The Church of England's chief education officer, the Rev Janina Ainsworth, said the chaplains role was not "purely evangelical". Despite such weasel words they definitely are evangelical - it is a fundamental part of their doctrine to "spread the good news". Ainsworth added that, among other vague duties, the chaplains were in place as "...an in-house expert witness to the claims of the Christian faith." This is particularly rich as the church tries to avoid complying with equality legislation which would affect its freedom to exercise bigotry. (Apart from the chaplains there is an insidious infiltration of state-funded schools by the Christian Alpha Course, a fundamentalist group.) The only place for religion in schools should be in comparative religion or critical thinking classes. At least, we are informed, that the school chaplains are not paid for out of education funding but by the diocese. This is certainly not the case in NHS hospitals where the chaplains are paid out of health funding. This is particularly outrageous as many hospitals are failing hygiene inspections for want of cleaners and failures in treatment are blamed on lack of staff - see The True Cost Of Chaplains. There is absolutely no reason why hospital chaplains should not be paid for by the church and the NSS has been running a campaign about this. Naturally this has been deliberately been misrepresented by some commentators as an attempt by the NSS to have hospital chaplains banned as part of an imagined attack on religion, feeding Christianity's persecution complex. Update - "Children as young as two are to be targeted as part of a new campaign to recruit young people back to the church, the Guardian has learned. The Church of England is planning its first concerted drive to engage under- 18s after admitting that it is comprehensively failing to connect with children and teenagers." Because at that age they can make an informed decision?  The godsquad will be after them in the womb next. These people are unscrupulous and despicable.

APOD - Astronomy Picture of the Day has an awesome image of the largest, hottest, most massive stars known, in the region called 30 Doradus. Click on the image to appreciate the full size version. It certainly puts things into perspective. Happy Solstice!

Condoning A Culture Of Murder - some thoughts on reading the comments on the BBC Have Your Say page which asked "Should homosexuals face execution?" in reference to the anti-homosexuality bill being debated in the Ugandan parliament. Leaving aside the questionable way in which the BBC framed the debate (and for which it has received a well-deserved kicking) the comments below were revealing. Among the dross of the inevitable homophobic gibbering from those idiots of whom the description of "sick bastards" would be flattery, there were some other remarks that displayed a dismaying tendency to cultural relativism. Those who said that Uganda has a different culture and it is wrong to interfere seem unaware of quite how condescending they sound. Judicial murder of those of a different sexual orientation is wrong - and it is wrong anywhere. If it is wrong in Britain it is wrong in Uganda. It is an abuse of basic human rights. Just because you are dealing with another culture you cannot, and must not, dump your principles. Perhaps we should not be concerned about the torture of children accused of witchcraft or the fate of albino people dismembered for the "cures" their body parts can supposedly effect in certain African countries? Such an attitude is totally unacceptable. The Ugandan anti-gay culture is in fact far from home grown and receives support and encouragement from American right-wing religious zealots. What they don't dare try at home they hope to achieve by proxy in Uganda. These scum need naming and shaming. If Uganda wishes to remain in the Commonwealth and also to continue to receive millions in aid from the UK, USA and the World Bank it should reconsider this revolting piece of legislation. Some might say such financial sanctions are cruel - but then so is the alternative.

With Friends Like This... - "The Taliban can perhaps be admired for their conviction to their faith and their sense of loyalty to each other." Rt Rev Stephen Venner, bishop to the British armed forces in the Telegraph. Also admirable is the devout way that they behead schoolteachers for educating girls and throw acid in the pupils' faces. It would appear Venner was speaking, like many of his colleagues, "ex recto". Perhaps the good bishop would like to be parachuted into Helmand province to do some admiring close up. What an idiot. This is worse than his lame-brained boss talking about the inevitability of sharia law in Britain.

A Sad Lapse - James Randi falls short of his own standards in his assessment of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). Very disappointing indeed. Orac has more to say on the subject. Update - Randi answers his friends and critics. Here is that response answered by P Z Myers. He is less than impressed. AGW is an outstandingly divisive issue.

Happy News - a couple of items of good news from the world of religion that are worth a mention. The first is the death of the oddly-named American evangelist Oral Roberts who progressed from faith-healing in a tent in the 1940s to a position of such prominence that in 1987 he could extort money from willing dupes by announcing to a television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would "call him home." Many believers feared that he was suicidal given the tearful histrionics that accompanied his plea. He stuck them for $9.1 million - and lived another 22 years. He will be remembered as a pioneer of "prosperity gospel" - a Christian doctrine that says God will reward you financially for acts of faith. Quite how he managed to wring such an idea out of the gospel's praise for those in poverty appears puzzling, but then you must recall, like every bible-basher there ever was, he cherry-picked his holy book. It is certain that if he ever read Matthew 19:21, 25 he didn't let it influence him in any way. He was a fine example of those who find that their God mirrors their own beliefs. Good riddance, although sadly there are plenty of other obnoxious money-obsessed religious hypocrites to take his place.  (Here is an obituary from The Freethinker on the old fraud which warns us he may return!)

The other item that brightened a dull morning was news from the National Centre for Social Research that claims, in the words of Professor David Voas, "More and more people are ceasing to identify with a religion at all. Indeed, the key distinction in Britain now is between religious involvement and indifference." 80 would certainly go along with the indifference - or would do if the dwindling numbers of religionists didn't still want to influence legislation, mainly in order to retain their faith-based bigotry. In 80's opinion the Labour government spends far too much time listening to faith groups, although this would be disputed by waffling bearded cleric Rowan Williams. He doesn't think there is enough kowtowing to religion - apparently forgetting, among other things, the 26 bishops in the House of Lords. He recently whined "The trouble with a lot of Government initiatives about faith is that they assume it is a problem, it’s an eccentricity, it’s practised by oddities, foreigners and minorities." A rare instance of him being at least partially correct. But then even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

An eccentric oddity

The Law of Crank Magnetism - "...shows that the further you move from the political middle ground, there is a corresponding decrease in the ability to think critically. It doesn't matter if you're going left or right on the spectrum, in order to achieve high levels of magical thinking (conspiracies, aliens, homeopathy, yogic flying, teabagging and birthing) you have to shut down your critical thinking faculties. I believe that the far left and far right eventually meet in a sort of Crank Ultima Thule on the opposite side of the spectrum..." from a comment by Pareidolius on Pharyngula regarding the similarities between Fox News and the Huffington Post.

Quote - "It is now very difficult to avoid the conclusion that Tony Blair engaged in an alarming subterfuge with his partner, George Bush, and went on to mislead and cajole the British people into a deadly war they had made perfectly clear they didn't want, and on a basis that it's increasingly hard to believe even he found truly credible." Sir Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, quoted in the Guardian.

Communication Chain - there is an interesting point in the case of the five young American Muslims arrested on suspicion of terrorism which demonstrates the same head- in-the sand attitude that was applied to Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood murderer. We are told "Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the council (Council on American-Islamic Relations CAIR), mindful of how sensitive relations with the Muslim community are in the US at present, said: "I think the main point is the Muslim community took the lead in taking this to the law enforcement agencies, and that is a good sign." Why was it the "Muslim community", why not the concerned parents?. The fact is "The families contacted their imams, who in turn contacted the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, which alerted the FBI that same day." So, before the authorities were informed the families' immediate concern was to tell their imams and then those imams informed CAIR which then told the FBI. This chain serves to illustrate a lack of integration on the behalf of the families as their first move was to talk to their co-religionists. Nihad Awad, CAIR's executive director, said "We understand, unfortunately, this incident will be exploited by the cottage industry of Muslim-bashers to try to marginalise Muslims in America." It seems the parents in this case are doing that for themselves with their less than direct way of alerting the authorities. This gives ammunition to those who would claim their loyalty is firstly to Islam and only secondly to America. It remains a sad fact that when hearing of a terrorist attack if you assume it was carried out by Muslims you would be more often right than wrong.

Archaeology's Hoaxes, Fakes, and Strange Sites - regular readers will know of 80's interest in archaeology, both the real and the nonsensical kind. Do check out these two sites that have a permanent link in the sidebar of this page, Doug's Archaeology Site and Bad Archaeology. The former has lots of real archaeology as well as many good links to articles on the nonsensical kind, while the latter concentrates on the loonies. Also see the Hall of Maat which takes a skeptical look at "alternative" history. Now the online Archaeology magazine has produced a page of links to a compendium of Hoaxes, Fakes, and Strange Sites which makes for fascinating reading. Highly recommended.

10 strangest Jesus sightings of 2009 - courtesy of the Times. Are there any Jesus sightings that would not be classified as strange? Thought not.... Also see the Holy Cow

Quote - "Christians, Jews, Muslims, all believers regardless of their faith, must refrain from ostentation and provocation and ... practice their religion in humble discretion." Nicolas Sarkozy, quoted in the Times. Matthew 6:5 should be required reading for the lot of them.

Atheism is the new fundamentalism - was the subject of a debate (video here) organized by Intelligence Squared. You will no doubt remember the rout that was their last effort on whether the The Roman Catholic Church Is A Force For Good In The World. Guess how this one turned out? Charles Moore, Professor Richard Dawkins, Richard Harries, Anthony Grayling were speaking.

Quote - "Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings." Richard Dawkins

A House Built Of Strawmen - here is another individual who seems to think that belief in the supernatural automatically bestows a right to "play a role in democratic discourse" and is upset that secular humanists think differently. Quite why this is so Jonathan Chaplin fails to make clear in a comment piece in the Guardian. He also takes issue with the view that "...religion should be privatised and the public square secularised."  Many secular humanists would agree with what he calls these "three main points" but then he has to ruin it by claiming none of those points stand up. He states the secularist's fear that "...that faith-based discourse will cause religious views to be legally imposed on secular citizens." He seems to think this cannot happen in a democracy - he is obviously unaware of, for example, the strenuous and ongoing efforts of religious organizations to be exempted from equal opportunities legislation, religious efforts to change the time limit of legal abortions and religious efforts to slaughter animals in a cruel fashion not permitted to licensed abattoirs. He then descends into trying to make a muddled point involving a third runway at Heathrow and in doing so he trots out a daft strawman argument by claiming that a secular moral viewpoint involves "...an irrational faith in endless economic growth held in defiance of scientific findings about climate change." In fact it is the secular view that cleaves to scientific findings and people like him and his fellow religionists that make claims of magical beings and powers in defiance of the evidence. Who was it who said "be fruitful and multiply" ? A policy perhaps suitable for a Bronze Age tribe but still pushed by many churches in the face of overpopulation and destruction of the environment.

His next strawman argument is that "...faith-based arguments are unintelligible or inaccessible to most citizens, whereas secularist moral arguments can be embraced by everyone." To counter this assertion he cites "...that polls suggest over 70% of British people hold to some kind of religious faith." He doesn't say which polls and is ignoring the fact that many people in this country when asked their religion will say C of E because that is the organization they use for weddings and funerals. Their non-attendance regularly at church or lack of sympathy with the homophobic and misogynist elements of many religions are not mentioned. The arguments against gays and women being treated equally are not "unintelligible" or "inaccessible" to most citizens, they know such things were written down as laws for an ancient Middle Eastern tribe and preserved in a holy book. Most people are not the complete idiots that Chaplin seems to think they are. That these beliefs have no other, factual basis is also well-known.

The third point he makes is that secularists claim "... that religious faith is just irrational and so can never be the basis of democratic reasoning." Let's just translate that, "... that blind faith without a shred of evidence is just irrational and so can never be the basis of democratic reasoning." Now it makes more sense. He then refers to "...philosophers of science who recognised that human experience is a rich and complex phenomenon yielding reliable knowledge through many routes." This is the "many ways of knowing" argument often resorted to by those who find that the need for the supernatural as an explanation for anything shrinks as science fills in the gaps. It would be more impressive if he named these philosophers of science and provided evidence for the "...reliable knowledge through many routes". It is tempting to think that he does not do so because he can't. At the risk of appearing repetitive here is a quote from Barack Obama that Chaplin should repeat every day, just after or instead of, his morning prayers. "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all."

The least religious nations are the happiest, study finds - A new study (pdf) into the correlation between religious belief and contentment and security shows that the less religious a society is the happier and more secure it becomes.