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

I got a copy of Ricky Ponting International Cricket this week, and managed to have a bit of a crack at it last night. The report? well, bowling would appear to be my strong point - fielding and batting seem to be tough for me. Fielding partly because I'm colourblind and don't really see the 'hotspot' meter against the grass background too well, batting because the timing seems to be an arcane art the details of which currently elude me, despite running through the tutorials twice. I expected a bit of complex control, but certainly didn't expect batting to be...

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

I first found out about Maurice Wilson, oddly enough, from a wonderful little fictional work called Skepticism Inc, by Bo Fowler. I wasn't sure whether the story was at all accurate or even if it was pure fiction, but it didn't much matter. It was funny, and apposite to the mindset of the book. Then a month or so back, I read an excellent book on the history of Everest mountaineering by George Band, a member of the successful 1955 expedition. The book mentioned Maurice Wilson, confirming, in a completely unexpected manner, that Maurice was real. Here's how Skepticism Inc describes Maurice Wilson: Maurice Wilson...

"OK students, it's time for your final examination. You've studied hard and I'm sure you'll all do a great job. No conferring, you may turn over your papers.... now." Tip of the hat goes to Stupidity Tracker for that one. In other news, the Playstation 3 launch is looking less than stellar, with large media outlets generally reporting sub-expectation crowds, and Kotaku in particular calling it 'piss poor'. THink I'll stick to my XBox for the time being.

... doesn't mean the ocean is not a seething pool of deadliness. I mean it. To whit, yet another diver has been sorely fucked over by a stingray. So, folks, let's just get something straight. Keep Out Of The Ocean

I've been distinctly underenthusiastic for the coming PS3 launch, as you might expect from someone with a healthy helping of Sony-unlove, but Spong just highlighted something which is making me think. Maybe I want one First of all, Katamari Damacy. OK, this may be coming to XBox 360, so it's not a selling point for the PS any longer. But check this out instead This is LittleBigPlanet - something rather neat looking from a bunch of pommie guys with an out-of-the-box perspective. The degree of physics-realism is startling. Armadillo Run was a nice intro to realistic physics, but add to that the high-quality...

So we got to catch the Kasier Chiefs last night at the Forum, Fox Studios *ahem* The Entertainment Quarter. This was the second time I've seen The Chiefs in concert, the first being at The Metro. The forum is a slicker venue, and louder, and I have to say, I kind of prefer it. Support was provided by The Cops (warning, link goes to MySpace), who were pretty damn good - tight, energetic and well constructed. Some readers may know them from their "Call Me Anytime' track. They'll be at The Great Escape, and I'll probably mosey on by and...

See you on XBox Live, Wormers.

We have a new dog. We're adopting this Staffordshire Bull Terrier, who formerly lived with a colleague of mine. Danny's original family is going their separate ways and can no longer look after her, so we've stepped in and volunteered. This makes three dogs at our secret Inner-West hideout, Megs, Rabbit and Danny (who is probably being renamed Jada). I have to admit, the last couple of days have been very interesting. A new pecking order has had to be enforced among the dogs, and the cat, so on Sunday after some fun at the park the terrible trio got down...

Gotta get it while it's still there. Sulfur Hexaflouride fun for you. Yet more on the science meme And yes, I do spell it sulfur, not sulphur. I remember making a point of spelling it that way in chemistry class at school and getting a funny look from the teacher, then an even funnier look when I explained that the sulfur spelling was the approved nomenclature under IUPAC rules. I was about twelve, and explaining this to someone with a chemistry PhD. I was an obnoxious kid. In other news, HP Sauce is no longer being made in the UK. Apparently it was...

We're still science-related here on the blog. E = Mc2 and Pavlovian conditioning. See? Even comedy can be educational

... 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...

ScienceBlogs can be utterly fascinating for a random surf. Today, for instance, I hit the front page and found this article: Breast Cancer Associated with Common House Mouse. The title is attention grabbing for one thing, but once inside there's a fascinating, well written and easy to digest summary of current research into the link between a human virus - HMTV - linked with breast cancer and the corresponding 'mouse version' of the virus, MMTV, which is known to cross species barriers, and some stats on relative distribution of human breast cancer incidence against common house mouse ranges. Science, when fascinating and...

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...

One of the things I enjoy most is seeing other people's misfortune. It's not very charitable, but there's a certain irresistable comedy in, say, seeing someone walking down the street while writing an SMS, and walking straight into a lamp-post. It reaches in to your autonomic nervous system and pulls strings other humour just can't touch. It also has to be genuine. Any comedian can get dressed up as an old lady and fall down the stairs, but to be groin-tearingly funny, it has to be a real old woman* Also, in some way, the satisfaction level is pushed up by how deserving the...

Well, the news is this: I've finally consummated my little on-off relationship with The Blank Wall, V4, at Lindfield. I've been having little cracks at it on recent visits, and it being rated as an absolute classic I've been reticent to stick up a toprope on it. This being the case, it's been a case of ground-up attempts, getting a little bit more solid each time, two or three goes tops per visit. It's an ankle-breaker, even with a mat (three or four mats may be a different story), so there's a certain amount of fear involved in getting up there. The crux...

How well do you think we'd do with Salmon, soy sauce and wasabi in space? I'm guessing it would turn out badly. Among other things, I'm finally back on XBox Live:  This is a live gamercard, it'll evolve over time. For posterity, my current gamerscore is 65, with a Three-star rep and two games, PGR3 and Lego Star Wars. Yes, I'm a big kid, OK? And if you're wondering why the gamerscore is so low, well, I had to drop my old XBox 360 profile and start a new one to get back onto Live, so I need to get weaving and regain a...

My XDA is no more. Turns out the screen is unfeasibly delicate. It's going to cost $350 for a repair. This is the second smartphone/windows mobile device that's plain died on me, the fourth if you include the two whose joysticks crapped out and then were lost/stolen. Perhaps I'm overly rough with them, or perhaps they should be expected to put up with a little actual use, maybe? Sigh.

A particular instance in The Hound Of The Baskervilles "Have you any objection to my looking at your register?" said Holmes. "Not in the least." The book showed that two names had been added after that of Baskerville. One was Theophilus Johnson and family, of Newcastle; the other Mrs. Oldmore and maid, of High Lodge, Alton. "Surely that must be the same Johnson whom I used to know," said Holmes to the porter. "A lawyer, is he not, gray-headed, and walks with a limp?" "No, sir; this is Mr. Johnson, the coal-owner, a very active gentleman, not older than yourself." "Surely you are mistaken about his trade?" "No, sir! he has used this...

I picked up my new NSW driving licence this morning (having been on a UK driving licence up until now), and this got me to thinking about a subject I've had some previous thoughts on. A lot of countries are currently looking at introducing National ID Schemes. Such schemes have been around before, notably in times of war when (possibly justifiable) paranoia brings forth a need to identify citizens and by extension, identify potential enemies. In times of peace (notwithstanding the putative 'War On Terror®'), the need seems less justifiable. Personally, I'm very much against the carrying of any kind of photo-ID day-to-day....

yes, that's right, a moron.

But Michael Portillo and I seem to have some common ground I didn't think we would. We share a great distaste for religion in politics. He is of course, utterly wrong on the following quote "I recognise that teaching religious belief may be a good way, perhaps the best way, to impart a sense of right and wrong to children" This is about the only part of the essay which I could call egregiously wrong, and it mars what would otherwise be a very well argued point. Teaching about religious belief, perhaps, could give some useful insights in conjunction with genuine morals and...