It's OVER HERE

I have a blog over here about cycling. I started it because I wanted this one to return to scepticism, music, alcohol and misinformed ranting. Turns out that it's almost impossible to have non-overlapping magisteria in the blogosphere, though, as I take on Kinesio Tape on The Crankset.

He never takes that fucking look off his face. Speculation is that it's stuck that way.     Thanks Australia. This is what's in charge for the next few years. You twats.

Several reports are available. Australian Doctor reports here. The delicious thing? She's being succeeded by innumerate dingbat and staunch, but failed, antivaxer Greg Beattie. That might put Meryl's constant claims to be "not anti-vaccine" into perspective. Meryl claims to have stepped down to work on "two special projects". One is rumoured to be codenamed "project shred all the fucking documents", the other, presumably, is dodging Fair Trading's name change directive. Speculation is, of course, rife. And fun. Stay tuned.

It's come to one's attention that most of the posts here recently have been about riding bikes. This is a departure from the 'normal' material, which should consist of drunken rants against the unreality-based community, pictures of beer and stupid puns. This being the case, I've decided to put the cycling stuff over in its own blog, The Crankset, which will consist mainly of ill-considered slander and bile directed toward the two-wheeled community, memes of Lance Armstrong and pictures of carbon fibre thingummies. And probably some frank and uncensored talk of bushman's hankies, belgian toothpaste, rule 5 and the like. If you...

Antivaxer Jane Beeby, about whom I've blogged previously, has decided to run for council in her home region of Clarence Valley. Jane is (or was, it's unclear) a committee member of the AVN and a rather vicious lieutenant to Meryl Dorey herself.  In the past, she has suggested a critic - a long-time health activist and writer for Australasian Science - gargle bleach to remove "the smell of shit of your breath" and wished that my next shot would be "a lethal one". For her to be elected would not, it appears, be a positive development for public health. Jane has a Facebook page. Perhaps...

We've been through this before.

Please complete all questions to the best of your ability. You have thirty minutes. It is raining heavily in Sydney. At about 2pm, you need to drive from the CBD to Strathfield. Which of the following actions should you take? Switch on your headlights Drive at a reduced pace appropriate for the conditions and leave a longer stopping distance to the car in front Drive as close as possible to...

If there's a common thread that runs through the ranks of antivaxers, chiropractors, homeopaths and general fucktwats that I've blogged about over the years, it's an inability to quantify or even recognise their own incompetence that stands out most clearly for me. Enter Professor Brian Martin, Faculty member in Social Sciences at the University of Wollongong, a regional centre some 85km or so south of Sydney. Brian has reared his head in support of Meryl Dorey and her Anti-Vaccination Network a few times in recent years. Brian sees himself as a champion of "whistleblowers", and sees Dorey and her band of...

My correspondent of yesterday's blog doesn't seem to get it. So, while I've dealt with the ontological argument before, this will be a series of three posts in which I deal with the absurd fantasy precepts of the ontological, teleological and moral arguments for the existence of uncle skyfairy. First, what is the ontological argument? Taken from the Iron Chariots Wiki, the ontological argument runs: God is the greatest imaginable being. All else being equal, a being or entity that exists is greater than one that doesn't. Therefore, God exists. Sometimes the...

Which is, apparently, American Airlines' new corporate motto. The background: Meryl Dorey of the AVN has recorded an interview, in which she repeatedly herps on topics of which she is ignorant and unqualified. American Air picks up the segment for its inflight entertainment program and magazine. Public outcry, and right now, there's a twitter storm a-happening. PZ Myers (102,000 followers) and Phil Plait (174,000 followers) have picked up the story. Stop The AVN have been vocally hammering the twitter stream and email channels. Many prominent medical voices on social media are throwing their weight behind the message. This is not acceptable. American's response? The mind...

... which is to say i have in my possession a device called, oddly, an "iPhone" - but I am no longer using it as a telephone. It is now merely a hand-held internet device, portable music player, GPS,audio recorder, bookshelf, storage device, game centre, clock, calculator, camera and pocket computer. Well, I say merely - that's a pretty impressive list, but it no longer accepts calls. There was a time, oh, a hundred years ago, where the idea of being able to talk directly to someone a great distance from you seemed a positive wonder, and one which people lined up to...

So anyway, while I've been riding my bike around the place and losing fifteen kilograms or so of unwanted adipose tissue, the world of skepticism and atheism has been chugging on regardless. We have much action over at Stop The AVN, as Dorey and her dim-witted troop of flying monkeys continue to make shit up with gay abandon despite being thoroughly and eloquently rebuttfucked. We have #atheistcon approaching like a freight train toward Wile E. Coyote, and we have, as of the last week or so, a rapidly developing case of the Streisands, occasioned by the delivering by Francine Scrayen upon...

This This This This and This Oh, and the ABC used obvious-nutcase-is-obvious Meryl Dorey to comment on a story about which she knows nothing at all. This is why there are days where, given the chance, I would gladly push the big red button that disentegrates the planet.

Should more proof be needed that supporters of the Australian Vaccination Network are morons, I present the following screenshot, in the comments of Meryl Dorey's absurd idiot-stroking blog post in response to Mia Freedman: Yep, Nathan really seems to think that it's somehow surprising that a newspaper may publish pieces which come from different perspectives. In NathanWorld, newspapers are monolithic entities, written by drones in lockstep, whose every word is attuned to a pre-determined ideological slant. It never crosses his mind* that A: The articles do not actually support an antivax viewpoint, but highlight the safety concerns and problems inevitably raised in a system that...

Australia's most debunked woman, and occasional president of the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) is at it again. Here's a little tweet she fired off this morning: I wonder, readers, if you can guess what I'm going to say next? Yes, that's right. Predictably, the article to which Meryl Dorey links says nothing of the sort. In fact, it says: Barely two weeks after World Health Organisation (WHO) declared India as a polio-free nation, an 18-month-old female child was admitted to a state-run hospital in Kolkata with suspected polio on Monday. The child, Sumi, a resident of Indrabala village near Baruipur in South 24 Parganas district, was...

I was a teenager in the early 90s, at a time when the UK's rave culture was still alive and kicking, though on the wane. In those days, after police crackdowns and legal changes to suppress the culture, raves were often held at secret locations. Sometimes, for the good ones, the location would be a warehouse, or an aircraft hangar or a farmer's barn. Often, though, the location would be a rented marquee in a muddy field two miles down a dirt road, where the best you could fervently hope for was that someone had at least made a makeshift dancefloor from stolen forklift pallets. Sometimes ravers...

Quoth the dingbat: Hi Jason After a long day out yesterday, I returned to find an alert from a friend. They directed me to your blog and, it seems, the source of the 'innumerate dingbat' call. Well, Greg, I'm not actually sure whether I originated the comment. I just liked it very much. It's so... apt. I see you've had a go at my maths and concluded "Yes, Greg, you're an Innumerate Dingbat. You're just going to have to learn to live with it." Well, live with it I will, Jason. After all, you seem intent on sticking with the name, and you're free...

I've written before on the topic of percentages, and more specifically the inability of many people to correctly employ, disseminate and understand them. A striking example of this failure has cropped up recently on the Australian Vaccination Network's Facebook page, a well-known venue for such failures. This post links to an article on the website of one Greg Beattie, an antivax parent who tried, and failed, to take on the Australian Human Rights and Opportunities Commission, on the topic of the right to refuse non-vaccinated children admission to childcare. Greg is no smarter than Meryl Dorey when it comes to numbers It appears that...

Sometimes you just have to ask what planet antivaxers live on. Take for instance, this post over at the AVN Facebook page, a letter from "CC", which illustrates the archetypal introspection-free hypocrisy and glaring inconsistency of the antivax lobby. Here's the bit I'd like to highlight first: OK, well, if that's true, that would be a bad thing. After all, the pro-vaccination side in this debate prides itself on rational analysis of the facts and figures, and regularly calls out the antivax side for its emotion-based, gut-feeling mode of thought* So imagine my surprise when reading on, I started to see appeals to emotion...

I'll just leave this here   It's like Meryl's decided she wants to do our job for us, it really is.

Over the last day or so, The Australian Skeptics Facebook Group has played unwilling host to a group of 11/9* Troofers, desperate, yet hilariously unable, to convince the skeptics of their hypothesis that the World Trade Center attacks were in fact a deliberate demolition job orchestrated as a false-flag operation. Sigh I normally steer clear of this nonsense, but since the troofers have been such obnoxious arseclowns, I feel I have to beat them up a little in a blog post, even if it is in a cursory manner. Their hypothesis, in a nutshell, is that the buildings were deliberately demolished using nano-thermite charges on...

Meryl's latest absurd scrawlings concern homeopathy, and take as their theme the skeptical dismissal of this modality as "magic water". Meryl, it seems, is somewhat resentful of our stance on homeopathy, and she explains this. She then goes on to spin us a yarn based, apparently, on the experiences of a "friend" whose husband apparently had a miraculous recovery thanks to some sugar pills bathed in almost pure water. A friend-of-a-friend tale in the classic vein. I have a tale too, Meryl. When I was a young lad of perhaps ten years old, my parents took me to see the great Paul...

As the Woodford Folk Festival story hits the Brisbane Times and goes international, I think it's time for a reminder. Many commentators speaking on the topic of Meryl Dorey's upcoming appearance at Woodford Folk Festival have raised the spectre of free speech. It is time to put that spectre to rest. Let us lay aside the fact that Australia has no statutory right to free speech. Let us lay aside the commonly understood principle of falsely yelling "fire!" in a crowded theatre. The Woodford scandal - and it has become a scandal - is not about free speech. It is about privileged speech, and specifically...

Here's Meryl Dorey in 2009 herping talking about testing of medical interventions. And here's Meryl Dorey fellating lauding Doctor Stanislaw Burzynski, head of a clinic whose product has never passed a Phase III trial (certainly not a double-blind crossover) and which has only been successfully tested by Burzynski. (source: Skeptic Magazine) Meryl also hates chemotherapy. Burzynski's neoplaston product is not only actually a form of chemotherapy, but is also administered in conjunction with other chemotherapy drugs, often in unorthodox and unapproved combinations. Meryl's one of those thingies. You know. It's on the tip of my tongue. Hippo-something. Hippocampus? Hippodrome? Nope, I've got it. Hippogriff. Meryl Dorey is a...

I've seen a lot of posts around the internet, talking about how McDonalds food doesn't rot or mould. It's worrying. We all care about our diet, right? And if food doesn't rot, that means....errrr.... well.... I think it means something bad. Surely? Yeah, definitely something bad. Like, I dunno.... maybe it's not actually food?.... ....or something? But anyway... I discovered something worse. Much worse. A few months ago I was preparing one of my favourite snacks. It's a little unusual, but it's totally natural and, like, totes good for you and everything. I call it my warmed fruit medley. I get some apples, and some apricots,...

Today has been an extremely lulzy day in #StopAVN land. It's been a non-stop festival of fail from the side of the Australian Vaccination Network. A shining example of the idiocy on show is this comment from an AVN Facebook Fan: Yep. A-grade stupid there, for several reasons. First up, very few vaccines now have mercury compounds in them. The childhood schedule in most countries was made mercury-free as (pretty much) a PR exercise quite some time ago now. These days only multi-dose vials of vaccines such as seasonal flu contain mercury - since some kind of preservative is required. Secondly, there's a failure of...

So. My checklist from yesterday's Newtown Festival Disgusted at Newtown Community Chiropractic's utter quackery - check Tell "psychic" to fuck off because you don't give a fuck about his sincerely held but deeply stupid beliefs - check Have argument with creationist; have creationist prematurely declare "victory" halfway through a sentence; call creationist an "arseclown" - check Sing song containing the word "cunt" on the ukulele - check    aaaaaaaaaand.... check Attempt to avoid festival altogether by hitting the pub instead - partial success ...

Hi. It's me. We need to talk. It's about that thing you believe. You know the one. Yes, that one. As we've discussed before, that thing you believe is completely unsupported by evidence. Yes, I know. You've tried to explain your "evidence" before. And we've told you why, in fact, it's not even worthy of the name. No, it's not. We've talked about this. Your "evidence" consists of supposition, logical fallacy, confirmation bias, wishful thinking, observational error, groupthink and, frankly, a whole load of gullibility on your part. I know. It's harsh, but it's time you were told. Everyone tiptoes around you because of this ridiculous belief, and...

... on a story of this calibre, and the only commenters are talking about coffee?

Dear IT Guys I have a problem with you. Yes, I mean you. You people ostensibly providing information technology services. Especially those of you in government organisations. What exactly are you playing at? You've become an impediment to human productivity. How did this happen? IT was meant to be the shining future of humanity. It was meant to give us offices free of paper, instantaneous communication, systems that would know what we want and when we want it, machines that would do all the crappy stuff and leave us free to innovate and live a little. IT was meant to liberate us so we could achieve our...

I was sitting in a café doing a bit of programming work last night, when a small group of people on the table opposite me started laughing and making thumbs-up gestures. I popped off my headphones and raised my eyebrows - as you do - and was told "We love your sticker, mate". You see, I have a sticker on my laptop. I tweeted about it. So, after the guys from the table opposite had taken a picture of the offending article I got back to programming SydneyPubGuide v3.0 and thought no more about it. That sticker has been on my laptop for maybe...

Nimrod Weiner, antivax chiropractor from Newtown Community Chiropractic, who I've mentioned before, appears to be a veritable fountain of lulz. Today, someone dug up a piece from Weiner's fifth year at Macquarie School of Chiropractic in which the young weiner - sorry, Weiner - seemingly compares himself with Einstein, pleads for "paradigm shifts", berates his lecturers for not teaching the solidly debunked pseudoscience of subluxations and sets himself up as some kind of junior champion for the New Chiropractic Revolution* The original text is here. Here's the text, just in case someone deletes the original: And yet, as a 5th year chiropractic student at Macquarie University,...

I often sit down to lunch with Sydney's Daily Telegraph, a tabloid Newscorp paper with a reputation for populist right-wing mania, and digest the letters page. It's OK, don't worry. I haven't gone over to the dark side. As you should know if you've ever read my blog, I merely do this to find material worthy of mockery. Do I ever find material worthy of mockery? Why yes, I do. I generally shoot it out on my twitter stream with a pithy comment and a shot of the offending letter. Usually, I get five or six decent tweets from a day's worth of...

Ever heard of Newtown Community Chiropractic? It's a chiropractic clinic in Newtown, and it's all about the community. So much so that it occasionally runs anti-vaccination "seminars" at which employee/owner of Newtown Community Chiropractic Nimrod Weiner uses Newtown Community Chiropractic's premises, marketing, budget and 'reputation' to push an untrue anti-vaccination message to impressionable parents from the Newtown Community and the surrounding Inner West. Oh, that Newtown Community Chiropractic, you say? Yes, that Newtown Community Chiropractic. Not very nice. Anyway, one of Australia's fine national broadsheets ran a story on Nimrod Weiner, and a seminar he held at Newtown Community Chiropractic recently, which has attracted the attention of some...

Difficult to know sometimes. Well, maybe not so tricky. Look, I'm really sorry about the big selection smear, but this guy has selected  #EBEBE8 on a background of #FFFFFF as a sensible twitter background. I work with what I have, guys, OK? So I tweeted, being a SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT*, about how awesome this tweet was, both for the WINNING STRATEGY and for the AWESOME DESIGN CHOICE and GROUNDBREAKING OUTSIDETHEBOX COLOR CHOICE. Shortly afterwards I got this reply: HOLY FUCK AM I BEING TROLLED BACK no wait he's a christian. Wait, am I being trolled back? Probably not     * the asterisk should tell you all you need to...

I mean, seriously. What the fuck, Meryl? courtesy of Reasonable_Hank.

... what exactly? No, seriously. This is basically what a fundie christian on twitter has just used as some kind of sterling rebuttal to the fact that there's no good evidence for the indistinguishable-from-fiction little-j jesus* It's not entirely uncommon for this kind of response, which is essentially a variant of Tu Quoque, to come mewling from the keyboards of believers, especially the ones lightly marinated in a thin stew of post-modernist nonsense. All that @FXMikey has really done is make a weak attempt to turn back the burden of proof and the problem of a lack of evidence onto the questioner. And he's done...

Over at Mike Stuchbery's blog, a comment fight is going on over Peter Garrett's letter to Evonne Paddinson, head of ACCESS Ministries and self-admitted winner of souls for christ through the NSCP. Garrett, of course, is a stealth christian, as I've pointed out previously, but oddly enough so are many of his defenders around the blogosphere. Take, for example, Philip Brookes. Philip is a prolific commenter over at Mike Stuchbery's blog, and in fact anywhere the NSCP is mentioned. Philip avoids any reference to christianity in his posts, and cultivates an outward image of the unbiased onlooker, all the while accusing opponents of the...

So, it seems that our esteemed activist-musician-in-chief has cleared Access Ministries of any wrongdoing over proselytisation to children in schools. So that's all right then. But wait a minute. Let's just recap. Evonne Paddinson, CEO of Access Ministries, has clearly stated on more than one occasion that her mission, and that of her organisation, is to pass the good news to school children. As @askegg notes here, this message is rife throughout Access materials and public statements, and has been repeated on numerous occasions, by Paddinson herself, by her chaplains and by other Access employees. There are plenty of reports from students making...

Face-on-railing impalement is an incredibly emotional topic for supporters and critics alike.The Mercenary’s recent story by Wobbleboard McHamblestein (To impale or not?) presents viewpoints of both proponents and critics. The article cites Medyl Dopey of the Australian Impalination Network (AIN), a citizens’ group that advocates parental choice and provides information about the positive aspects of face impalement. The AIN has been operating for 17 years. In 2009, a pro-non-railing-impalement group was set up titled Stop the Australian Impalination Network (SAIN), with the express aim of shutting down the AIN. The methods used by SAIN disturbed me. SAIN essentially rejects free speech advocating the...

I bought a can of popular energy drink "Mother" just a while ago. Emblazoned upon the can in question is the following legend:   50mls more, eh? Oh good, that has to be a good thing, right? I mean, it's more, and that's good. More is awesome. But, wait. What's this? A footnote? Let's have a look what the footnote says:   Yes, dear reader, Mother feels that it is appropriate to tell you, by means of a footnote, that 300ml is 50ml more than 250ml. We're fucked. Totally fucked.

Things You Can't Say In Victoria by StopThatAstronaut My little gift to the Victorian Government. If they were to fine me per "offensive word", this little ditty would net them $3900. But they can get fucked. Original idea by Dave The Happy Singer, for which I'm eternally grateful. Music, lyrics, production and all that nonsense by me. You are free, I say, free, to cover this song anywhere you like, as long as you let me know you've done it and, if possible, provide a link to a recording. G Ya can't say goddamn in Glenrowan C ...

Slight update to the post, the full-mixed audio has been done, and here's the rough cut of the tweaked version:   And the original version, below  

Ken King, the antivax maniac in my previous post, is back. The man is a glutton for punishment, especially in view of his adherence to Colloidal Silver, an inneffective quack nostrum whose most notable effect is to turn people blue.   He's really a very angry little man. And he's utterly unwilling to be swayed by rational argument, believing as he does that vaccines are not only 100% ineffective but also staggeringly toxic. So the only alternative is to have fun while provoking him into making a fool of himself. Not difficult.

Seems Dana Ullman doesn't know what the Streisand Effect is. Dana wishes to quash suggestions that he is in fact a conman, so makes rumbling noises about libel. Pity he is, in fact, a vendor of sugar pills and water which he claims have magical curative effects which they cannot, in fact, be demonstrated to possess. This is the very archetype of the conman, fraud and quack. It is perhaps vaguely possible, though unlikely, that Ullman is merely trolling for attention - he does possess a somewhat narcicisstic personality - however I don't think that should stop us telling the world about Ullman's status...

David Ould has a new post up in which, oh so unexpectedly, he misses the point. Just in case he goes with his previous tactic of dishonestly editing my comment, I include my full response here Oh dear oh dear. So just because "very few" christians of your personal acquaintance don't want SCT bans, that means the issue can be brushed under the rug? Shame. Many christians have, in fact, expressed a desire to ban Stem Cell Research. Most are also woefully ignorant of how the processes underlying the research actually work. Here', for instance, is George Pell on the subject http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pell-calls-for-stem-cell-research-ban/2005/09/20/1126982061898.html And here are some...

A few days ago, I posted a screenshot to Facebook. Meryl Dorey reported this to Facebook as a copyright violation. It's not the first. She's been abusing the Facebook system for several weeks now, but this is the first time she's reported one of mine. That she reported it at all is odd, considering the picture is not owned by the AVN, and neither is over half the text,which was pasted wholesale from an online journal syndicating "Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology". It also doesn't actually say what she thinks it says, discussing as it does the outcomes of low-level, non-obvious trauma, not vaccination. All up, less...

Christopher Braga over at Summer Hill Anglican has tried on more of the usual nonsense, painting strawman arguments, begging questions and using playground-level logic when faced with an argument with an atheist Christopher's original questions were Let me ask: who do you think Jesus was? Where did the world come from? Why are humans special (if at all)? My response, after a diversion, was 1. There is no way to know whether jesus was real or fictional. Therefore I cannot speculate. The character as described in biblical text - aside from the miracle claims which cannot be verified by mere text - doesn't...

This weekend, over at the "Vaccine Information Network (VINE)" Facebook page, an interesting graph appeared. This graph, as you can see, is an obvious fake-up. The "total meningitis reporting rate" is tacked on using a cheap graphics program such as MS Paint. It shows an incredibly  implausible trend - that Hib meningitis reporting rates rocketed but hospitalisations and deaths sharply declined. The legend has been clumsily tacked on, in an unmatched font with an unmatched background, and a typo, and the copyright claim, most damningly of all, is both incorrectly declared and purported to be from "fictuscorp". Fictus is a latin...

Via Twitter and Skeptical Canary comes a link to an online survey set up by antivaxers into the health of unvaccinated children. There are many things about this which are colossally stupid. One is the self-selection bias which is inevitable in antivaxers carrying this out. If the link is spread among ideologically-motivated antivaxers, then only ideologically-motivated antivaxers will answer, making it "a survey of the purported health of the children of people known to lie a lot" The other majorly stupid thing is that it's on the internet. Guess what else is on the internet? Yep, you guessed right. People like me. So I filled...

I just wanted to archive this response I made to a thread on skeptalk, where a user has asked, somewhat naively: '[...] why "in God we trust" or "One nation under God" upsets atheists' Well, the first thing for me is that it's just a lie. I'm not sure about you, but I was brought up to believe that lies are a bad thing. There's no evidence for a god. None. To make such claims without evidence falls into the "lie" category for me.   The second thing is that such a statement is counter-constitutional. Not that I actually have standing to talk about US...

On top of everything else Meryl Dorey does, Meryl has today been revealed by Facebook as being the false copyright claimant behind recent removals of content from the Stop The AVN Facebook page. An email from Facebook admins confirms what SAVN Administrators suspected all along: -----Original Message----- From: ip+jgimsrn@support.facebook.com [mailto:ip+jgimsrn@support.facebook.com] Sent: Saturday, 5 February 2011 8:52 AM To: <redacted> Subject: Re: Copyright Counter Complaint: #254415615 Hi <redacted>, Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Please note that we removed the content in question because we received a proper notice of copyright infringement compliant with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3). If you would like to...

Skeptoid recently took on Scientology. I say "took on". What I actually mean is "gave a free ride to". There's been plenty of discussion of this over at the Skeptalk mailing list, split pro and anti, to which Brian has been firing back one-line replies to in rather a glib fashion. It's a bit tedious, but at least the other members are OK to engage on this subject. However, Brian did add a more lengthy response over at SkepticBlog. Overall I didn't find it a particularly convincing defence, but I was disturbed by one particular paragraph: My analysis was that people who have the...

The pope has apparently expressed the opinion that fake profiles on social media sites are bad, citing "The risk of constructing a false image of oneself, which can become a form of self-indulgence." May I just remind everyone that "Benedict" is not the pope's real name. His real name is Joseph Ratzinger. And if anyone has a false and self-indulgent image of himself, it's a man who thinks he's god's appointed representative on earth and as a result lives in an opulent palace.

Errr... wrong. It does not follow that if there is no god there is no basis for good and evil. Now, first let me address an objection that I can already see. I do not accept the idea of "absolute" morality, in the same way that I don't accept the idea that "infinity" actually has an existence here in the real world. It is merely a concept invented by humans to describe "that thing so big it never ends". However, I do accept the idea of "morality maintained over time", and I find, on questioning, that this is what most christians mean...

David Ould has taken to redacting posts now, in order to protect his own fragile ego WTF? Indeed. Long story short, this thread has been one long morrass of Godwinism, occasionally interspersed with logical failures and rebukes. Finally, it's reached the point where David is now redacting content which exposes his own logical flaws and retaining the final, entirely deliberate insult (not an ad-hominem, since I'm not using it to counter his "arguments") - which is frankly meaningless without the preceding content. So, business as usual then. Theist selectively quotes atheist in order to make the atheist look bad and the theist look...

I mean, how could I fail to become a bible-believin' christian when presented with such infallible logic as this? Wow. Infallible, seriously. So, I posted a response. I'm not convinced that David, a man who pre-moderates comments on his blog, will publish it. So I'm posting it here, for your delectation Your comments on the OT are equally surprising. It is chock full of specific historical statements. You can go to the British Museum and read the cuneiform records from almost 3000 years ago of Assyrian monarchs that you read about in the Bible and so on. Wait, what? Wow. You know, you're right....

   The above advert came from December 2010's Living Now magazine, which, aside from being an embarrassment to the publishing industry, is a published platform for pseudo-scientific nonsense and outright idiocy in NSW, QLD, VIC and WA. Meryl Dorey's AVN, in this advertisement, is taking an awful risk - this is, in essence, a fundraising appeal - as well as a ball of spit aimed at the authorities - and the OLGR have placed some severe restrictions on the AVN's fundraising activities. That, though, is not the bit that interests me. I'm for Meryl Dorey getting belligerent with the authorities. I want...

First rule of convincing your marks rubes customers congregation that you know what you're talking about: Don't make claims that are obviously and patently impossible OK, now I'm pretty sure I've dealt with this before. The definition of omnipotent, as Brian has rather redundantly, but helpfully, mentioned, is that your magic god thing can do ANYTHING, no matter what. So, as a wise man once said: Can this god create an object so heavy he himself cannot lift it? Tip: I can do that. Another one I like is "Can god make a cup of coffee so hot that he himself can't drink...

Jason Brown, Dulwich Hill, NSW 2203 To who it may concern I've been a regular customer at budget petrol since I moved to Dulwich Hill over two years ago. You've been my closest LPG station, and running a large 4WD on gas necessitates a regular fill, especially in weeks where I'm running a heavy commute. I estimate that I would spend at least $1000 to $1500 per year on gas alone at your station, not counting the times I've grabbed a few groceries, oil and fluids, spare bulbs and the like. However, today I was disappointed to notice that you've started stocking Power...

Bananas are rich in potassium. Potassium explodes on contact with water. The human body is > 60% water - and in infants that number is higher! Therefore, bananas make you explode

You may recall Fiona wrote an excellent piece on the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) and their figureheadcase, Meryl Dorey, earlier this year Well, I thought in view of that I'd best let Mrs Dorey know at her post on the story.

So, on the tail of Stephen Fenech's ethically-questionable QLink spruiking, and Charlie Brown's half-baked sales pitch for the same, we have yet another case of a "tech correspondent" from a mainstream news source utterly failing the critical thinking test. On the front page of today's print edition, and prominently on the online version, is this piece of utter fail: Cookie monsters: browser beware as political websites plant spy devices What? Surely not? An HTTP server using third-party cookies? On my internet? Stilgherrian's ever-excellent view on it is here, but for my part, let me say this Stop listening to the mainstreamers on the subject...

Or, at least, Today's "technology editor" Charlie Brown. As with Stephen Fenech, I've contacted Charlie Brown via Twitter asking for justification of his sales pitch. So far, not a peep. I'm told that Stephen and Charlie are good buddies. Not that I want to suggest collusion, but let's face it, I'm suggesting collusion. Are you being paid for this Charlie? In cash or in kind, either way is a problem for journalistic ethics. If you're not being paid, then you're clearly too gullible to be a technology reporter. If you are being paid, then you're clearly unqualified to be a reporter of any...

Or, "Moron. QLink?!?" So as I've already reported, Sydney's Daily Telegraph has today published a questionably-motivated piece of puffery on the QLink mini, written (or more likely simply boilerplated) by 'technology reporter' Stephen Fenech - brother of QLink endorsing "athlete" Mario Fenech. Not that I want to imply that there's anything untoward going on here, of course. Did you read that in a sarcastic tone? Good. So anyway, I asked Stephen Fenech, on Twitter, if he could give me some scientific peer-reviewed evidence to support his assertions [sound of crickets] Heloooo?? Stephen? Looks like he's hiding. This being the case, I figured I'd take a look at...

From Today's Telegraph: A NEW product that's smaller than a five cent piece but powerful enough to shield us from the potentially harmful electromagnetic radiation generated by mobile phones and other electronic devices, has just been released. The Qlink Mini employs patented Sympathetic Resonance Technology (SRT) which can maintain the strength of naturally occurring protective energy systems within our bodies. OK, if you can't smell the bullshit already, then your nose is broken. The product, QLink Mini, is basically a small shiny sticker which you put on your mobile phone to shield you against harmful "electromagnetic rays". Let's just forget for a moment...

C: Christianity must be true. It has nearly 2 billion followers A: So what? That's just argumentum ad populum. Just because lots of people believe it, doesn't mean it's true C: Does so! [leaves in a huff] ----- some time later ----- C: Catholics aren't real christians A: I thought you said earlier than christianity had two billion followers? C: I did. So? A: If catholics aren't christians, then it doesn't. Dummy. C: *wha?*     (no, really. I've seen these two arguments from the same "apologists" within short periods of time. Cognitive dissonance writ large)

The celibate Australian head of an international mysogynist patriarchal cult has deemed that the contraceptive pill, far from being a tool which empowers women to take control of their own reproductive future, actually worsens gender inequality. [original article] Ouch. My brain. I can't reconcile this with the reality of how the catholic church actually behaves. Historically, the church's position has been "women should be baby-making cooking and cleaning machines and should shut the fuck up about it while we men, who are special and can talk to the magic man in the sky, get on with the business of running the world". Maybe...

Question. If abiogenesis is not science because you can't observe it, and evolution is not science because you can't observe it*.... Then how the fuck do you go about observing the creationist hypothesis? Time travel? Magic? LOLWUT?   * evolution has been observed, I know. Joe is just ignorant.

Joe Cienkowski is a christian fundamentalist nutcase on twitter. He's written a book, which you can read for yourself at Google Books. I'm going to spend a few posts ridiculing this little self-published pamphlet, and this is the first installment. Page one. OK. Let's just look at the first page of Joe's book. First observation, holy crap, Joe didn't hire a typesetter or editor. Look at all the emphasis. Bold and italics, even underline. Joe just went mad with Microsoft Word's toolbar didn't he? And oh, wait! What's that in the middle? A smilie face? Seriously? Let's just stop here for the first red mark of...

  Not for the first time, supporters of the Australian Vaccination Network are off on a cyberstalking campaign. The image above is of a Facebook sockpuppet account, intended to be in the name of a Stop the AVN member's wife, publicising a private FB group intended to share sooper-sekrit "information" gathered on members of Stop The AVN. They googled up the wrong person, though. Ooops. The group in question "The Who's Who of Stop the AVN" is, I believe, the third or fourth incarnation of "Stop The AVN Exposed", a private facebook group for acolytes of the Cult of Meryl, in which they share what...

This comment was left on my YouTube channel after an exchange on "That Meryl!" Episode 12. VaccinationAustralia is believed to be the YouTube account of George Mamouzellos, a self-absorbed antivax DJ currently resident in Darwin, NT. George is a vocal, though not very articulate, supporter of Meryl Dorey and the AVN. This little rant emerged after George was banned from the "That Meryl!" channel for abusive comments. I don't think I'll be hitting "approve", but I thought my readers might like to see it. George appears to have graduated from merely lying about his qualifications* to stalking, abuse, xenophobia and libel. He's not very...

Every so often I walk from my house to the local shopping strip, and when I do I usually go past the local chiropractic centre. And they have posters in their windows which make grandiose claims for chiroquacktic chiropractic manipulation that are just not borne out by any valid science. They claim to cure asthma, childhood colic, bedwetting and allergies... just by mangling your neck around the place. There is just no evidence for these claims. None. They also claim that chiropractic is "250 times safer than anti-inflamatories". Whatever the fuck that's meant to mean, I can say this: staying in...

   What we're looking at here is someone who's in denial*. Here's what the actual OLGR notification consists of, via the ever-useful AVN Wikipedia Article On 4 August 2010, the OLGR announced that their audit of the AVN had "detected a number of breaches of charity fund-raising laws", including: Fundraising without authority; Unauthorised expenditure; Failure to keep proper records of income and expenditure; Possible breaches of the Charitable Trust Act, 1993, which would be referred to the Department of Justice and the Attorney General. The AVN was given 28 days to...

I should have done this weeks ago...   Soundtrack: Yakkity Sax on Banjulele and Kazoo, played by yours truly. Video from ABC Lateline's report on the AVN.

Short attention span? Skip to the bottom for a version of this post designed specifically for you! Look, it's like this. I'm worried that this blog is turning into a single-issue publication, I really am. But demolishing the continued utter fail of the AVN is just too easy. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. No, scrub that. It's like dropping a grenade into a barrel of fish and running away very fast. Above is a screenshot, courtesy of my good friend Peter, from the AVN's Facebook page. This is Meryl Dorey posting a story she's found that she thinks supports her point of...

 The link Meryl has tweeted comes from the conspiracy website nationalexpositor.com. It speculates about commercial-in-confidence agreements signed with vaccine manufacturers, something that's done to provide governments  maximum information with minimum commercial exposure. It's not, in principle, unlike an NDA between say, a software company and their developer partners. I've signed a lot of those. They're normal procedure. Of course, to the National Expectorator, this means they're secret contracts to cover up vaccine deaths. No kidding. As a taste of their usual menu of paranoia, their top story at the present time is: "False Flag Cyber Attack Could Takedown The Internet Billion dollar cybersecurity industry at...

 So, apparently, this big beardy guy in the sky already knows everything I'm ever going to do, ever. But also, apparently, I choose to sin. What's with that? Surely if god knows everything I'm ever going to do, I basically have no free will. And if the whole doctrine of sin relies on my free choice in the matter - my choosing to sin, or at least, choosing not to repent and all that - then surely I can't actually, in any meaningful sense, commit a sin. Ever. Because I have no choice. It's pre-destined. All I have is an illusion of choice, because...

Dear, dear readers! You're smart, numerate kind of people. Some of you will have read my previous posts on hokey maths. Some of you can even count. Can you see how Meryl is lying with numbers? Here's a tip. There's more than one lie. Tell you what, I'll help you out a little. Here's the NSW vaccination schedule. And Meryl Dorey's overall claim as that there are 31 doses of vaccine in the schedule by 12 months of age*. OK, you're seeing it now? No? OK, well allow me to explain. The first lie is in Meryl's claim that three doses DPaT equals nine doses total. This...

  The article Meryl cites is here The very first paragraph reads: Pertussis (whooping cough) is a mandatorily notifiable disease in Slovenia and since 1959, there has been an active national immunisation programmme. Since the start of this programme, the annual number of notified cases has fallen sharply [1] Does that really sound like the vaccine did nothing? Really? OK, that's just the beginning of Meryl's fail. Let's delve further. The study cited is of an outbreak in a kindergarten. Of the 12 kids in the kindergarten, two (16%) had confirmed pertussis, most likely picked up from either the parent cited in the paper*, or the same source as the...

JUST. WATCH. More will follow later, once I've recovered from the excruciating toothache brought on by grinding my teeth at Meryl's bare-faced lunacy. I'm up to my hairline on strong painkillers right now, but I have plenty of material to use once my head is straight. Ken McLeod, The McCafferys, Daniel Raffaele, Everyone at SAVN. You are fucking heroes. Follow #stopavn on twitter, join the facebook group. Do it.

I just had to blog this. It's just too absurd to let slip. Did you know that it's only possible to contract a single disease at a time? Yes, really. Meryl Dorey says so, so it must be true  That's a page from the Winter 2006 edition of the Australian Vacination Network's "Informed Voice" Magazine. If you click and get the bigger version, you'll see that just above "How many is to many?" Meryl has made the following claim: It is also a fact that we will only ever contract one disease at a time - measles - not measles, mumps and rubella. Measles -...

Well, it is if you're an antivaxxer like our old friend Meryl Dorey. Just so you don't think I'm putting words in Meryl's mouth, here's a little screenshot from the Australian Vaccination Network's blog.   What Meryl and Tom are discussing here is a paper entitled "Measles outbreak in a fully immunized secondary-school population". It seems Meryl didn't read much beyond the title, since the actual article examines the difference between seropositive children in a fully vaccinated population (that is, those which had active antibodies against measles), and seronegative children (who didn't). There were 74 seronegative students and 1732 seropositive students. That's about 4.3% seronegative. 14...

Over the last couple of days, an bit of a storm has been brewing in a thread on Facebook. Today I finally reached the end of my patience and posted what I expect to be something of an argument killer, which I'd like to share here with commentary. The background. Atheist L, name redacted, is active in confronting theists on Facebook. Atheist C appears to dislike Atheist L's style of engagement, finding it inferior to his own, and has made it amply clear on several occasions. He expressed the belief that he was the superior debater, and that L should just...

... or so he was described by Jeremy Hardy on a recent BBC 4 News Quiz. I must admit, I agree. A self-described "enemy of the enlightenment", Prince Charles is a seemingly bottomless well of fallacious nutbaggery, beginning with talking to plants and ending, most recently, with this choice quote: 'In short, when we hear talk of an "environmental crisis" or even of a "financial crisis," I would suggest that this is actually describing the outward consequences of a deep, inner crisis of the soul. It is a crisis in our relationship with - and our perception of - Nature, and it...

Yet again, a post about one of Meryl Dorey's regularly scheduled SocialOomph tweets. And guess what? Meryl is lying again. Oh, sure, she's probably just repeating something she's heard somewhere else. Sad thing is, though, she's been told she's wrong repeatedly and she's still carrying on, so it's crossed from merely repeating a rumour without checking into the territory of outright lie. She's repeating this on the "official" twitter channel of the Australian Vaccination Network, which claims to be an independent watchdog. It's not a watchdog. It's a half-blind junkyard mutt with three legs. So, are pharma companies the biggest buyers...

Meryl Dorey, of the ever-inaccurately named Australian Vaccination Network, tweets this gem every so often from scheduled tweet service SocialOomph: Taken purely at face value, this tweet is almost true. Almost. You could almost imagine a similar version coming from a competent immunologist. "No vaccination is 100% effective 100% of the time. Even after you receive a vaccination, there may be circumstances in which you could develop a symptomatic infection". Thing is, that's not what Meryl is trying to get across, as you'll see from this screen cap of an email from Meryl herself:  Yes, Meryl really seems to believe, and has repeated on...

Dear Mrs Allen,   I write to you with regard to a forthcoming seminar hosted at the State Library of WA on behalf of a group known as the "Australian Vaccination Network".   I would like to draw your attention, as no doubt a number of others have also done, to some facts around this group which should give the State Library of WA pause.   The AVN, and Mrs Meryl Dorey in particular, are fond of claiming the free-speech high-ground. Unfortunately, the right to free speech should not include the right to promulgate misinformation. The AVN are guilty of repeatedly supplying misinformation to members of...

Episode 5 Episode 6  Yes, it's true. Meryl is an HIV denier too. She's tried to paint herself as an honest questioner, but after she's been handed evidence and research and is still asking the questions that research has answered, the only applicable label is "denialist". So, there we have it. Meryl Dorey: conspiracy theorist and AIDS denialist. Ooooooh, That Meryl!

Well, yes. There's that much fail. Meryl tweeted a few hours ago. Here's what she had to say: Yes, Meryl. That's totally new research. Completely. Except that... oh, wait... let's look at the article, shall we? There's no date at the top. The Daily Fail does that. But look at the comments. The most recent is from.... ... - Helen, London, 13/6/2006 17:56 Wait, what? Yep, that's right. Meryl is trying to vindicate the work of the discredited, unethical, censured quack Andrew Wakefield with an article from 2006, nearly four years previous to the GMC decision that has seen Wakefield's public disgrace. Nice work Meryl. Oh, and that research? The...

Meryl Dorey recently had this to say on twitter: Skeptics - when I said that measles in Sanskrit is gift from a goddess - I meant the SANSKRIT word for measles - work it out for yourselves! Yeah, obviously it was us misunderstanding your statement, not you being wrong. For the record, here's Meryl's original statement, which she's repeated several times: Did you know: Measles in Sanskrit translates as "Gift from a Goddess" because huge developmental and growth spurts often followed infection. Protip, Meryl. The only places I can find that "fact" is antivax websites. You're just repeating, verbatim, the usual way. Here's what...

This was retweeted to me by good ol' @DrNancyMalik*  this evening. Of course you, my dear readers, being smart, well educated and (may I say) extremely attractive people, can see right through this bollocks, right? Still, for the hard of thinking, let's expand a little. This is a very badly written paraphrase of an argument I've run into repeatedly - that is, the invocation of dualism and some kind of refutation of the atheist, materialist position. That I've had it pushedmy way by a homeopath is a mildly unusual platform, but it's the same old tired claim nonetheless. I have a simple answer for it, which...

Most of the time, they're just funny and a little dumb. @DrNancyMalik is usually funny and dumb. Sometimes, though, things bubble to the surface that just make me angry. C0nc0rdance, recently, has triggered that. C0ncordance is one of the good guys, but his videos have poked me and reminded me of the Gloria Thomas Sam case, a case that happened in my chosen home city.       So don't come round here and ask me how homeopathy can be harmful.

The thing is, I just actually laughed out loud at an item on my laptop screen, and now I'm the weird guy with the computer. Here's the background. @DrNancyMalik is a homepath that trolls the crap out of twitter trying to justify her existence. For one thing, she's not a doctor, even though she plays one on twitter. She has a Bachelor's Degree from a homeopathy school (which is exactly as valid as my Doctorate in Divinity and Masters in New Media). For another thing, homeopathy itself is just water. Here's what she retweeted  BethanyBlack you are my new hero. If you haven't got the...

Apparently, someone's been searching Skepticator for the word "fucktards". No results were found. Well, says I, why not rectify that? The following people have been alleged to be fucktards Dr Joseph Mercola Mike Adams Meryl Dorey DrNancyMalik Dana Ullman Each and every one a fucktard. Additions to this list can be sent to me in the usual way, or added to the comments below.

Cyrus Brooks, high muck-a-muck vice-president of Australian Scientology, called in to Stilgherrian's Patch Monday a few weeks ago. He had some interesting things to say about Anonymous, including the titbit that, apparently, Anonymous protestors against Scientology are evil, terrifying, psychopathic "neo-nazis" Here's a picture of Cyrus feeding delicious cake to these neo-nazis he claims to be so terrified of.  (pic from Zhent's flickr channel) Cyrus, if these people are evil neo-nazi scumbags, what are you doing feeding them cake?

I was hanging out on a christian facebook group last night, as you do. The discussion got round to standards of evidence, and "how come you demand strong evidence for the existence of a god when one of your mates could just tell you something and you'd accept it".   The accepted course of action at this point is to raise "Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence", or ECREE, and I usually do this along the following lines, though this time, I added a flourish I hadn't added before (in italics):   Look, if a friend called me and said he'd seen a three legged...

Let me introduce Erwin Alber. Erwin is an antivaxxer. he runs a few conspiracy-themed antivax groups on facebook, and occasionally trolls skeptical pages. He's only got one trick though. Are you ready for it? Here it is: Yes, you read right. Erwin's trump card is a quotation from Dr Herbert M. Shelton, one of the 20th Century's greatest quacks. A quack who didn't merely rip off his patients. Didn't merely make his patients sick, but actually starved his patients to death, and after doing so, continued to practice without a licence, causing yet more death. A man who believed he could...

As ever, in the cause of promoting skeptical thought and critical thinking while on the internet, I've been out there on the tubes causing trouble. The campaign to put Dr Rachael Dunlop into the lead of the Shorty Awards Health category has been very successful. Very successful indeed. Of course, during the making of this very successful campaign, it's become clear that not only is Mike Adams a quack, but he's also a mass-email marketer and colluder with big business, a supporter of Scientology and their front-group CCHR, and a general butthurt whining hypocrite. He's also the originator of a $10,000 "challenge"...

I'd seriously never seen this argument before, but christians now seem to be coming out with this more and more often. OK, what's hard to understand that, during the last millennium, Europe was the major colonial power, and that Europe used a christian calendar? And that we still use it because to change it would be expensive, absurd and largely pointless? Are they really this stupid? Yes they are *sigh*

Scene: Garden of Eden. Newly built. Adam and Eve, sounding naive and newly minted, converse with God. Birdsong in background, gentle waters lapping.   God: So, Adam, Eve. You like it here? Adam: Oh yeah, it's great! Eve: Nice flowers! G: Good, glad you like it. Took me days. A: I'm quite fond of the trees. E: Oh yeah, just look at the trees. G: Yes, I like them myself, and speaking of trees, before I let you alone there's just one thing. A: OK. What? E: Oooh! Butterfly! G: There's this one thing, right? A: Ok.... G: There's a tree over there. With fruit on it A: The big one? G: Yes, the big...

Ruth Gledhill writes the "Articles of Faith" blog for the UK's Times newspaper. I've subscribed to her column for a while now, because as an activist atheist, it's always good to see what's going on around the world in the area of "faith". One of the problems* with Ruth is, though, that occasionally, she just doesn't get it. Take this headline, for example. Happy 'atheist bus' children are Christians Oh, Ruth! That's ironic! Those silly atheists have done a bus ad featuring children, but they're actually christians! Ho ho ho! Oh, those atheists, oh so wrong. Trouble is, here's what the ad actually says So in...

To my knowledge, only in Christianity does this happen. You point out direct contradictions in an account, and are immediately regaled with: But that's evidence that it's true! There is no other field, that I know of, where this could happen. In the context of a scientific theory, two conflicting sets of data are an indication that your hypothesis may not be correct. In jurisprudence, two conflicting testimonies mean that one or more of the parties are either lying or mistaken. In everyday experience, if one friend tells you they saw Britney Spears in the street and the other says "No that...

From the man who brought us God's punishment in the form of bushfires, and satanic rites influencing Canberra, come some little gems: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd about to betray Australia and 3 very important links regarding the One World Goverment and President Obama Some choice extracts from these ravings: you will soon see and hear a very clear picture from President Barrack Hussein Obama himself that he is indeed a Muslim… I have not seen anything so clear before. Have you? Furthermore, President Obama is trying his very best to divide Jerusalem. I pray that the Benjamin Netanyahu the PM of Israel would stand strong...

You may have noticed I have a passing interest in the subject of religion. You may also have noticed I have a penchant for biology, especially evolutionary biology. Which got me to thinking...   I'm currently watching my way through Last Chance To See, a TV reprise of the 1990 book of the same name, starring Mark Carwardine and Stephen Fry. The aim of the series is to revisit some of the world's rarest and most endangered species, an audacious aim given that these reclusive and solitary species are down to tiny numbers of wild specimens. Much of the series has already...

  Oh, Albert. That last paragraph has just earned you a coveted place in my "Raging Fucking Nutbags" Tweetdeck column, because let's face it, that 's a *really* stupid thing to say.   In fact, evolutionary theory predicts and demands compassionate behaviour in social species. Allow me to explain.   Your strawman of evolution, that the strongest survive, that there's no call to altruism and that "might is right" might be correct, if only we were an entirely solitary species. In your cartoon version of evolution, we're all meandering through life entirely alone, just looking for things to eat and things to fuck, and our...

From the maniacal gloating department comes this: From the front page of the Jesus: All About Life campaign. As they say on the internets: FAIL. Update: from examining the stack trace, we can see the developer of at least part of the site was "Rod". Hi Rod. Are you proud of this one? Information disclosure FTL. Also, it looks like JAAL are cheaping it up on shared hosting on a machine called HSTPRDWEB01, co-located at perthix.net hosting. I almost certainly have more processing power running this blog than the entire JAAL campaign does. JAAL shares its IP address with, among others, RedRooster.com.au,...

The Australian Anti Vaccination Network put an interesting poll up on their site last night. They asked (in a somewhat naive manner): Will you be getting the swine flu (AH1N1 2009) vaccine? With the options Yes No I already have I'm not sure, I need to do more research first I'm sure you can guess how this turned out once Twitter was alerted to the poll's existence? My spies tell me that Meryl and her cronies had no idea how it was done until earlier today when...

... or not As my readers* may be aware, my recent skeptical focus has been all over the anti-vaccination lobby, a bunch of rabid, idiotic fringe-dwellers who think vaccines are the sole cause of everything bad in the world. One of the oft-repeated canards of the antivaxers is that vaccines contain thimerosal, which contains mercury, and that mercury is the second most toxic substance known to man. But is it? Liam Skoda, over at the Stop The AVN Facebook group, took up the challenge of this question and in short order demolished this piece of antivax nonsense. Liam simply looked up some known lethal dose...

Jesse The Radical is anything but. Mostly, he's recycling old pseudo-scientific refutations of atheism as if he really understands what they mean. Problem is, if he realy understood what they mean, he wouldn't be using them. Take this little doozy, for instance: Chaos does not produce order. The universe has order, therefore, it could not have been produced by chaos. #atheist #fb Well, OK, Jesse. Let's just see if you're right about that, shall we? First, let's define "Chaos". From teh wikipedias: Chaos (derived from the Ancient Greek Χάος, Chaos) typically refers to a state lacking order or predictability. OK, fair enough. That's fine....

I just got this email, via the blog's feedback mechanism, from someone calling themselves "Jando" (email address withheld). Interesting reading about all points of view is available. I can't help but think that these blogs are a bit too personal (ie riddled with one-liners, insults, comebacks, counter insults etc) from both sides to provide any real mature context for the debate on wether to vax or not to vax. What everyone here needs is a good shot of rationale open debate. I suppose I also wonder why one side is SO pro and one SO anti, maybe the pro's should let...

They're not as smart as they'd like you to think, these antivaxers. The latest salvo in Meryl Dorey's Twitter War against vaccination: Polio surge in Nigeria after vaccine virus mutates - Yahoo! News: Polio surge in Nigeria after vaccine virus mut.. http://bit.ly/DhFf0 Whoah, scary headline. And it's true. A poorly-implemented polio vaccination program in Nigeria does appear to have caused the emergence of some new genetic variants of Polio. This is scary. Surely this means that all vaccinations are suspect now? Well, no. You see, Nigeria still uses an old, outdated, live polio vaccine because, basically, it's cheap. Cheap as chips. Trouble is, there are... problems with it. Turns out that...

As ever, the twitter backlash against the Australian Vaccination Network continues. One particular item has grabbed my attention. @nocompulsoryvac, a twitter account run by Meryl Dorey on behalf of the AVN, tweeted this little gem today, on a claimed 155% risk increase for Autism. Well, this piqued my interest. That's a fairly spectacular figure, representing a significant 2.5x increase in risk. Wow. And it's quite a specific number too. Must be conducted in quite a rigorous manner, eh? Well, no. Not really. You see, even though Meryl left that little gem unattributed*, I decided I was going to hunt down this data point...

Now isn't that a thing? Yes, the server fell down for a while. Well, actually, for ever. There's a new server running the blog now and it's much more powerful. Also more resilient. Also more expandable. Also, tapered. No, not tapered. But better. So what's been happening while I've been away? Well, before the great server apocalypse of '09, crazy things were happening with the antivax nutters of the Australian Vaccination Network. Crazy things are still going on, but we're winning, hard. Since my last post, the AVN have decided that an open group on Facebook doesn't support their requirements any more. It's too...

... of antivax morons   You'll recall from yesterday's post that Jane was the lovely lady wishing that my next shot was a lethal one. She then suggested that my good friend Peter should "gargle bleach [to] help with the smell of shit of your breath". Jane is a wonderful human being. She also later accused Peter of being incarcerated for 18 months for aggravated assault (untrue), and of being sued over a post on his "ratbags" webpage (also untrue). I hit my posting limit this evening, in addressing the pure idiocy of these folks. Today was perhaps a little less juvenile than...

If you saw yesterday's post, dear reader, you'll be aware that I've been flexing a little skeptic muscle on the Australian Anti Vaccination Network's Facebook page. The subject of yesterday's post, Erwin Alber, seems to have slinked off with only a parting Hitler reference to remember him by. But we've got a whole 'nother batch of crazy cooking up. Enter Jane, Lauren and Nicola, three rabid supporters of the Antivax movement. Through today blows were traded, statistics cited (our side), anecdotes rambled (their side), links provided (our side) and emotive fearmongering employed (guess which side) It eventually became clear that the strain...

One of the current targets of the Australian Skeptics is the Australian Vaccination Network. I will not stoop to link to them, though a swift search engine foray will either get you to their site or, depending on how the skeptics have reacted, a googlewhacked site explaining their work. Essentially, under the guise of "caring for the children", the Australian Vaccination Network is actively discouraging vaccination for children. Yep, that's what I said. They're discouraging vaccinating your kids. I don't wish to cover old ground, so I'll point you to my good friend Doctor Rachael Dunlop's blog, which has extensive coverage and...

So the pope has come up with another one of his special statements comdemning abortion/family planning/condoms/sexual immorality, this time admonishing Nancy Pelosi for her stance on abortion. The thing is, whenever the pope issues one of these dopey statements I feel compelled to remind everyone: Do not take advice on sex and reproduction from an 82-year old dress-wearing male virgin This would not be sensible. Here's a musical interlude Yes, everyone, Pope Rick Benedict XVI is still a virgin*.   * I have it on good authority that altar boys do not count

In case David Gawthorne comes back, he'll know I'm onto his game The Crank HOWTO I draw particular attention to "the exhaustion strategy" because it's already been fairly effective on me. I just have no extra time to keep this shit going.  

The blogosphere's been all over this today, but I've been kind of offline. And had to spend some time responding to cosmological bollocks. In response to the weekend's horrendous bushfires throughout Victoria, we have possibly the biggest piece of  religious fuckwittery since Falwell blamed 9/11 on teh gayz. Brace yourself. Here's the epic religious fucktardery in its original form.  So, according to some dude with a fucking ridiculous moustache, Victoria is on fire, and many people are dead, and all because of a change to Victoria's abortion laws. God, in his mercy, has withdrawn his protection, and immediately the entire state has burst...

Dr Ben Goldacre is one of the folks I follow on twitter. He's a tireless campaigner against medical misinformation and bad science. Recently, Ben took an LBC Radio presenter to task, in no uncertain terms, over lies about the MMR vaccine. Of course, because Ben needed to use a recording of the show in question to sufficiently illustrate the idiocy, LBC has set loose the legal attack dogs. The claim? Copyright. They're not disputing that Jenni Barnett is a lying troll with no understanding of science, regurgitating idiocies about vaccination to an audience likely to contain credulous idiots. No, LBC is...

The following piece of truly stellar logic from "rational" on Bernadette McMenamin's Australian IT pro-CleanFeed piece Apparently 674 of the URLs currently on the ACMA blacklist contain child pornography material. On July 25, 2008, Google software engineers Jesse Alpert and Nissan Hajaj announced that Google Search had discovered one trillion unique URLs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web) So, the government wants to spend tens of millions of dollars to protect us from 0.0000000674% of the internet. [emphasis mine] Bravo, dear sir. Fucking Bravo. You win today's Comment Gold. The rest of the comment, and many other solid gold items, can be viewed at the link above

I have truly epic insomnia, so in a continuing series on ontological proofs, I present proof positive of the existence of Cerberus, monstrous three-headed hound of Hades 1. Cerberus is the most terrifying dog we can imagine 2. Hell-Hounds that exist are waaaaay more scary than ones that don't. 3. Therefore; Cerberus exists And he's going to eat your face off if you keep trying to claim ontological arguments hold any water at all. Remember this, dear readers. Also, new comment policy. If you can't fit it into one comment, either revise it or post a link to your own blog, where you can...

I'm on twitter. Twitter is a wonderful place. I've met some amazing people and I've been having an absolute blast, so when I sat down at the computer last night with a bottle of red, intending to surf and tweet, it was with a light heart. I was happy. Websinthe and I follow each other, and we had a great exchange in which both us big manly men admitted to being big bloody wusses really. I had a little cry, because of things said over twitter. It might well have been the high-point of my twitterlife so far. So I guess it...

Oh, for fuck's sake... Ontological Argument When you say that no evidence is offered by this argument, you seem to be ruling out immediately the possibility of an a priori argument for the existence of God. As a methodological conclusion, a bit more is required. In any event, I agree that there is something wrong with this argument. Then again, there may be forms of the argument that get past your objection that it also proves the existence of any imaginary kind of thing. Consider this simple form: 1. God is, by definition, the most powerful person. 2. Persons that exist are more powerful...

... but there is a political controversy, and a religious controversy. What brought this on? Well, as a couple of previous posts have intimated, Sydney Atheists popped on up to Toongabbie Anglican Church over the weekend. During the discussion afterwards, I was chatting with a member of the congregation, I believe one of the pastors. Sorry dude, forgot your name, but you'll soon know who you are. The conversation, paraphrased, went something like this. I'm 'J', Mr Christian is 'X' X: But evolution is just a theory, right? J: You're misunderstanding the word "theory". It does not mean the same as "hypothesis". X: But...

I've been trying, for quite some time now, to post this response on Toongabbie Anglican's website. All I got was fucking fail:  I'm a bit fucking annoyed about this. Still, I saved the comment and can post it here. Original thread HERE. Hi David, I can understand why you’d feel a little intimidated at the thought of entering a pub full of atheists. After all, you may interrupt us while we’re eating babies and plotting our next shopping mall rampage. Obviously we couldn’t let you out alive if that happened. Note: that is a joke. Anyway, as for discussion with Sydney Atheists as a...

A contingent of Sydney Atheists ran a little sidequest this evening, off to Toongabbie Anglican church in Sydney, where the specialised subject was: "Tough Questions: Does God Exist" Firstly, this is not a tough question, though I will admit some people have trouble. Secondly, well, nothing in the sermon added substantively to existing knowledge, which while not entirely unexpected, was slightly disappointing. We did, however, get a new argument for the existence for god. It goes like this, and forgive me if I'm misremembering. If you're annoyed about this, L2 read my title bar. So a christian sits down with an atheist and over...

I've been meaning to post this for a few days, but today's collossal media fail on the Hudson River's newest boat has prompted me to step up and do the rant thing Stop throwing the word "miracle" around to describe things that are not miracles. Here is what a miracle is, according to dictionary.com an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause. A highly-skilled pilot ditching a plane in a river without loss of life is NOT A FUCKING MIRACLE. A baby surviving against long odds is NOT A FUCKING MIRACLE Being...

Holy shit No, really. Holy shit At least, that's how I read Narelle Jarrett's post dated 13th January 2009. But wait! Before I wade in, let's just set some context. For one thing, What the fuck is an Archdeacon anyway? Teh Wikipedia delivers. So, an archdeacon is supposedly one step below a bishop. So Narelle, while having mastered sophistry, strawmen and non-sequiteurs, hasn't quite got the hang of moving diagonally. Unfortunately, neither has she mastered the art of the hyperlink, so throughout this post I'll be making some assumptions over Narelle's sources, and linking accordingly. Right, so let's get to the point, it's late and...

It must have ben a slow news day, because I ended up finding this story in the "National" section of the Sydney Morning Herald, normally a fairly reliable news source: Holy vision greeted return of Mary MacKillop's nuns  OK, I mean seriously, WTF? You mean just because an SMH fluff-peddler had a boring day, I have to beat up on some old codger from SA? Fair enough, let's get moving. The story tells of a 93-year-old man called "Nat Renfrey", a devout catholic and long-term resident of Penola, Mary McKillop's home town. Supposedly, in 1936, when 20 years old, at Renfrey was playing...

Many media outlets are reporting on this, most under their "entertainment" sections, and this being the case, you may wonder, if you're not already in the know, why I'm writing about it, on the homepage of a self-confessed atheist, geek, climber, curmudgeon. How can this possibly tie back to the topic this blog is ostensibly based on? Well, if you'll allow me to elaborate, this ties back to potential harm caused by religious dogma. Come with me on a journey into dogma unleashed. You see, Jett Travolta, in addition to being a 16 year old kid prone to seizures and exhibiting symptoms...

Blogging takes, y'know, dedication and shit. I don't have any of that right now and I'm probably too old to buy any. Y'know. Which might be one reason I've finally twitterfied, after all this time. As penance for this ridiculous decision, all twitter updates will contain the word "fuck" until I finally get bored with that and move on to something else. Things which are getting my goat today: IE8 Toby IE8 Lacking motivation Low levels of life in-office and around the city due to some mythical...

It's always a good day when someone PMs you with a threat of physical violence. jason please dont make this personal and your right about one thing i am not the worlds best speller and some times when i type fast i miss letters and dont check maybe i should use spell check but i didnt so shoot me . but to chastize me would be a mistake i would rather talk about the way religion is so evil and wrong not on how i should spell and hearing about flouride on a athiest group . i dont like fighting but i play...

A Muslim man is suing Tesco for religious discrimination because they asked him to handle alcohol. Now, I don't have every detail on this case, but it's a fair bet that one or more of the following predicates could apply: Our muslim friend is not smart enough to realise that working for a large retail store which sells alcohol may occasionally bring him into contact with, well, alcohol. Tesco are so cringingly culturally sensitive that they genuinely thought when hiring this man that they'd be able to work round this fundamental problem The hiring manager has...

The next person who says or writes "without further adieu", without it being a pisstake, or by way of example, is going to get stabbed, in the neck, with a pen. I mean it, fuckers.

Sarah Palin's Churches and The Third Wave from Bruce Wilson on Vimeo. I don't think I need to comment much further than to show this video. Floor's open

I don't believe I blogged on the original flap, because my sensibilities were not offended. Camden Council, south of Sydney, rejected a planning application for an islamic school after community outcry. Fair enough, thought I. I'm not prepared to judge the motivations of the community, but the outcome is one less modern madrassah, great. Turns out I wasn't entirely smart in that assesment. Camden is now fully behind a broadly similar application for a catholic school. OK, I'm almost certain to put at least one foot wrong here somewhere and get shouted down, however I think I ought to voice my thoughts, and they, at...

This blog post is completely, unimpeachably true. How do I know? Because this blog post tells me that it's true.

No, really. It Is. Honest Via Frode: The end of the world is right upon us. Any minute now fiery death could rain down from der heavens and fuck us right up. What? Really? I hear you say.... well, according to Ronald Weinland, YES. And I quote: "By the fall of 2008, the United States will have collapsed as a world power, or it will have begun its collapse and no longer exist as an independent nation within six months after that time." Riiiiiiiight. OK - Full disclosure: I'm not American I'm not pro-american, yet at the same time, I'm not...

Last night I attended the Great Debate at the Wesley Centre in Sydney, where along with an audience of several hundred, I watched Dr. Michael Shermer debate Professor John Lennox on the Subject: "Does God Exist?". Here is the transcript of that debate:   Moderator: Hello, I'm that bloke from the ABC, you probably recognise my voice. No? Oh. OK then. Anyway, here are the contestants who will enter thunderdome tonight. Audience: two men enter, one man leave... two men enter, one man leave... Shermer: Does God Exist? No. Thank you very much I'll see you after the show. No but seriously, try the veal....

I can hear the groans already. "Oh yeah, just what the web needs. Another one of these posts." Yes, it's not the only post of its kind by any means, however the question is still often asked. I was asked a version of this question just the other evening and no doubt wih the looming (and horribly misnamed) World Youth Day on the horizon here in Sydney, I'm almost guaranteed to be asked again. So straight into it. What is an atheist? The way I'm currently explaining it is something like this. First, we must define terms. Atheism, simply put, is "not theism". AskOxford defines...

Christinanity encapsulating: Christ Christ nbsp; /kraɪst/ [krahyst] –noun 1. Jesus of Nazareth, held by Christians to be the fulfillment of prophecies in the Old Testament regarding the eventual coming of a Messiah.  2. the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament (used chiefly in versions of the New Testament).  3. someone regarded as similar to Jesus of Nazareth.  + Inanity in·an·i·ty  /ɪˈnænɪti/ [i-nan-i-tee] –noun, plural -ties for 2. 1. lack of sense, significance, or ideas; silliness.  2. something inane.  3. shallowness; superficiality.  Creating a compund noun for cases of senseless religiosity which do nothing to advance anyone, to whit, almost any time the pope opens...

I find much to agree with here, I must say. I could probably find numerous slices of disagreement with Pat's stance if I really tried, but truth be told I agree that religion doesn't deserve our validation. It's laughable, unsupportable, and has had a free pass for far too long. I would almost say: Amen, brother.

via Pharyngula ...they contend will prove that Gonzalez "lost his job" because he supports intelligent design, not because he was deficient as a scholar. Same thing, folks. Same fucking thing. The fact remains: If you support "intelligent design", you are automatically a deficient scholar. Nothing to see here, move along.

for some unknown reason, I can't get to the web at large. But I can get to this web server (hosted at my ISP's office) and my ISP's own website. This is really pissing me off. update. I'm fairly convinced there's a DHCP server there that isn't the DHCP server I'm supposed to be going through. AAAAARGH!

Under the category "Bullshit kills": Homeopath's baby 'died of infections' The next time anyone opens their senseless trap and asks what harm a seemingly trivial 'alternative' belief can do, I'll show them this link, after first punching them in their fat, stupid fucking mouth. There is no evidence that homeopathy works or has ever worked, and belief in this wacky, culty, frankly fucking weird school of alternative medicine is no better than appealling to wood spirits to cure your fucking toothache, or chanting to make it rain. That anyone in this day and age could neglect genuine proven medical treatment to dose their baby...

I'm speechless Actually, no, I'm not speechless. I'm fucking mystified, but I'm not speechless. Let's see. When's the worst time a person could possibly have access to a shotgun? Oh yes. when they're fucking half asleep. Let me just get something out right now. The whole of the United States of America is fucking batshit mental and must be stopped at any cost. Addendum: I'm moving to Sweden.

Mark has posted a well argued and only mildly spittle-flecked indictment of Gillette Inc. over at his once biztalk-flavoured blog. He has a point, and it's nice to see someone else joining me up here where the heads are clear and the rants flow freely in the afternoon breeze. What the fuck is the deal with Gillette (and Schick) and their constant pissing around with a product that reached a pinnacle of perfection a number of years ago. It really is an example of where the curve has flattened. There's not a lot they can do to make the product any better*,...

Gotta love Nexus 6... Clicky clicky, go on!

For the only level-headed account thus far seen of the recent London and Glasgow 'terror' attacks. And to the rest of the media: Wake the fuck up!

Ralph Reed? Asshole. Sean Hannity likewise, with added blowhard value. But Christopher, well, he's got it sorted. VIctory #2 goes to Hitchens.

I've been thinking a bit recently about the confirmation bias and the basis (basises? bases?) for irrational thinking. You see, a friend of ours is spruiking a 9/11 Conspiracy DVD and the Extremely Startling InfoTM within. I've been there, done that - after 9/11 I did quite a lot of reading, and a lot of the ground I covered was of the 'batshit mental conspiracy freak' variety. I won't gratuitously link to the sites, they're adequately linked elsewhere, but the common feature most of them share is a rather unhealthy dose of confirmation bias. What is the confirmation bias? Well, in...

I wish, just once, please, that the masses would stop equating church attendance with workable morality. This story highlights that just because you go to church, it doesn't mean you're not likely to try and rip off some skint backpackers for A$574,000 by the simple application of fraud. I quote: "He was a religious person; he went to church twice a week," the newsagent, Michael Pavellis, told a Sydney court yesterday. "I know it sounds strange after what has happened, but he was an active member of the church band. He was a well-liked person." He's also a fucking thief. The two are not...

And, not wanting to overtube the blog, here's another video from PZ - say it with a smile.

Please, really? The catholic church has been peddling a fake? I don't believe it! (does this need <sarcasm> tags?)

In honour of Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League: To fill you in, Bill called a sculpture called 'My Sweet Lord' by Cosimo Cavallaro [frontal shot here] "One of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever". This from a man whose professed religion was responsible for the Congregation of the Doctrine of The Faith. How about we sit down and have a chat about assaults on sensibilities, Bill? It also occurs to me - is this a body of christ which may actually be appetising? This one was possibly in apple juice, possibly not, but is this the first truly edible full-size...

... and theists lose. That's right - you believers can just pack up your revival tents and fuck off.  By a margin of 1205 votes to 778, a clear mandate, the case "We'd be better off without religion" put forward by A.C.Grayling, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins was carried. Opposing were Rabbi Julia Neuberger, Professor Roger Scruton and Nigel Spivey. PZ provided the heads-up

... they make pretty good improvised weapons. Apart from that though, total bollocks.

... they also actively lie. To summarise: Dr. David Menton of Answers in Genesis has written the latest reaction to Tiktaalik roseae. Interestingly, the article makes almost no reference to the Tiktaalik fossils themselves, except where facts are made up. Follow the link. Not only does it outline mendactious lies from the creationist side, it also introduces some nice points about the fossils in question, which are graspable by those of us without biology degrees. p.s. Here's my Technorati Profile

A Japanese fisherman has been killed by a Whale at Uwajima Bay in Japan. Said fisherman was, apparently, 'rescuing' the whale. Sure. I 'rescued' a really nice sandwich just a little while ago. It was tasty. Let's face it, if I were a whale, and I saw a Japanese guy in a boat heading towards me, my fight-or-flight instincts would kick in, big time. Here's what I imagine went through the whale's mind, slight nod to Douglas Adams. "Ooh, nice bay. hmm. think I'll have a look round". "Wait up, I'm a little lost now. how do I get out of here?" "Ooh, I'm a bit lost...

Following in the footsteps of my previous post of revelling in the misfortune of others, this story on Buddhist Monks Plagued By Ants made my laugh out loud this morning. Read it first, it really is quite funny. Here are some highlights: The Venerable Boon Keng practises what he calls "letting go" meditation - so he "lets go" of the pain. But out of consideration for worshippers less far along the path to enlightenment the monks are looking for ways to persuade the ants to go. Sure. It's for the poor unenlightened. Riiiight. They cannot encourage anyone to harm the ants, but the...

yes, that's right, a moron.

Are you aware of 'Dr' Gillian McKeith?

I note with interest that Sea Shepherd have found and engaged the Japanese whaling fleet in the southern ocean and are actively harrying the ships. Which kinda got me thinking. It's not really like me to side with the zealots, but in this one, I think I'm on their side. Let me expand upon this. Up until recently I'd seen Sea Shepherd as almost the naval wing of PETA, who are themselves a sort of nutty animal rights cult with some serious issues. Sea Shepherd are operating outside legal means and are subject to penalties including being treated as pirates. Yes, Pirates,...

Bishop Boniface Adoyo opines: "I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it. These sorts of silly views are killing our faith." I respond "Good." Really, I can't think of a better fate for your silly little faith than for it to die at the hands of a 1.6 million year old child. Grow up and stop believing the fairy tale that god created the earth 12000 years ago. It's plainly not true. found via StrangerFruit

In today's so-off-the-wall-it's-funny news, Ted Haggard, disgraced jesus-nut pastor of New Life Church in Colorado springs, who you'll remember was caught out fucking a male prostitute on methamphetamine, has returned to the public eye claiming he's now completely closeted straight. This just really goes to show that religio-nuts are just crazy. They're mentally ill and need help from reputable, rational sources, not some unnamed jesus-freak brainwashing centre in Arizona. OK, that's enough sympathy for the maniacs. Ted, just give up. Admit that the whole jesus thing is bollocks and move to godless San Francisco, where you'll get all the succulent man-meat you ever...

I've mentioned at least once before on this site that MySpace, in my considered opinion, is little more than a massive clusterfuck of window licking illiterates attempting to pat each others' backs while getting their own backs thoroughly scratched. Well, this article takes me some way towards a feeling of satisfaction, to know that MySpace's jabbering masses were so comprehensively fucked over. The only downer to the story is that the mouthbreathers still haven't figured out how it happened, and, seemingly, neither have their enablers. Good old News Corp, displaying Goatse for the edification of millions. Gives one a warm feeling inside. The...

In one of today's more "what's wrong with the world?" stories, some kid from singapore faces a jail term for logging on to his neighbour's open wireless network. I despair, I really do. Some fuckwit fails to secure his access point, and his neighbour could get three years in jail? Fuck that.

So I'm surfing the web for source images and I stumble upon this site, and find this image: To the author of the site this is the hands of god. The me, this is Godse.cx. I haven't done the background research yet, having just shot beer out of my nose on seeing the image on a serious (if slightly insane) religio-zealot's website, but I'd be willing to lay odds that this is a Fark photoshop entry or possibly a SomethingAwful forum item. My nose hurts. Update: this, trivially enough, is what I was after: "Moses, dude. Get it fucking right, OK? You're looking for a land...

I just installed Google Earth. The installer gave me an option to install or not install Google Toolbar. I've never installed it before on this machine. Despite that, my IE instance just crashed because of Google Toolbar. I didn't ask for it. I got it. Sounds like fucking Herpes to me. Thanks Google!

The SMH report that recording U2 live will be a criminal act soon. Good. OK, so that's not technically correct. What is actually going on is that good old Phillip Ruddock, that unflagging defender of personal freedom and staunch supporter of sleep deprivation as legitimate interrogation technique, is planning measures which would make recording a performance of a copyrighted work a criminal act. So record a gig on your mobile and get a criminal record. The best bit? Since 'Happy Birthday' is still under copyright, recording the singing of Happy Birthday at your kid's party and subsequently publishing it to, say,...

.... is hatred. Welcome to tolerant Jerusalem, centrepiece of Abrahamic religion and its message of peace and love. Do I need to add anything?

I just dug this excellent article up via the Richard Dawkins Website. It proposes, much in the vein of 'The Brights', a new label for rationalist, non-religious thinking people. You know, those of us that don't believe in all that unsupportable superstitious claptrap. My particular favourite sentence is this: “...if there is an interventionist God then there would be continuing demonstrable evidence of such, which there most certainly is not, and if there is a creator God who is non-interventionist then he neither requires nor merits worship, and if there is no God at all then so be it. ” Which kinda captures...

I just passed by the Aria Awards on Channel 10 and happened to see one of the new McDonald's ads. You know the ones, where a couple of fresh-faced, demographically targeted kids go off on a mission to prove to their mates that McDonald's food is not artery-clogging crap. Well, in this edition, they head off to Sydney to consult a “deititian”. Yes, that's right. The caption read “dietitian”. Not Dietician, then? Now, it must be noted that the seppoes sometimes spell this with the second 't', but we're in Australia here. It's Dietician. Not the yank version, thank you very much Ronald. Do what you...

Clarity1 Pty Ltd have been fined $5.5 million under the Spam act. There is justice after all. Now if the company directors and all employess were flogged from Perth to Sydney in chains, I might feel a sense of closure. As it is, it wouldn't surprise me if they offshored and jumped through hoops to keep their parasitical practices going. There are a few items I've been holding back on blogging. If I get a few beers in me over the weekend, expect some bile, and perhaps a little humour. Depends how I feel.

... and shower down your blessings in Content-Type: text/html. So it seems an organisation with its roots still firmly trapped in the Bronze Age is gittin' jiggy wid “new media” and “blogging” and “online communities” in order to avoid “becoming an anachronism.”. Newsflash, jeezuz freakz0rs! Your entire philosophy is thousands of years out of date, and a thin veneer of silicon is not going to help in the long run. Anyway, you're not the first. Seriously, though, the Anglicans may see some gains by embracing technology, but as with all religious endeavours, they're ultimately beating an empty drum. My hope is that by embracing...

202.8.85.112, also known as: ppp-202.85.112.revip.proen.co.th has been trying to force a login to one of my FTP boxes for the last few hours. I'm assuming malware is to blame, judging from the pattern of traffic. I closed the door a few minutes ago (and in doing so stopped one of my own pending transfers), so Mr Fuckwit's infected p.os. machine in Thailand can no longer come knocking. I've mailed Proen Internet, but I'm not expecting a positive response - after all, ISPs aren't usually proactive in stopping malware. They don't care how the bandwidth is being used, as long as someone...

Lynne Truss holds forth on the state of written English in today's Sydney Morning Herald. I, for one, agree heartily with Lynne's stance on poor English, and freely admit I'm imperfect in my own on occasion - but I make a conscious effort to get it right. Poor grammar and spelling are two things (of many) which make my blood boil, to the point where I generally go hungry rather than eat at a restaurant or cafe with a menu written by a functional illiterate. Lynne puts her finger on the nub of the problem - people who say “as long...

The world's largest international Muslim body complained of shrinking tolerance in the west yesterday http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irony    

The SMH is reporting that J*mes Bl*nt's 'Goodbye My Lover' is the most requested funeral song. This means a great increase in life expectancy as the terminally ill struggle to hold on to that last breath of precious life, knowing that if they shuffle off the mortal coil they'll be seen into their eternal rest by one of the most annoying songs ever. Bonus item: Mitch Benn's “I May Just Have To Murder James Blunt”. And to close, an announcement: At my funeral, I demand the Dead Kennedys' “Too Drunk To Fuck”.

Kevin Rudd is calling for Christian Organisations to take a bigger role in national politics. Yeah sure. Good idea. Because we really want Intelligent Design taught in schools and the Ten Commandments posted in public buildings. What, I ask you, is wrong with the separation of Church and State? If Christians were politically inactive, I wouldn't say so much, but the Jesus Bloc seems to already have its mitts well and truly on the political chalice, not to mention some recent political dirty tricks in New Zealand by nutcase hardcore christian group The Exclusive Brethren, who are incidentally based in Australia....

Guess where this story has been reported from? Sterilise delinquents' parents plan 'crazy'