Seen this?
I’ll sum up – Nick Clegg, Lib Dem leader, wants schools to teach that homosexuality is normal, natural, and basically a non-issue. Good man. This does, in part at least, seem to be as much a reactionary stance against David Cameron and Conservative policy as a genuine issue that Clegg cares about.
Maybe I’m too cynical. It’s possible to score points off the opposition whilst being completely in the right; the two states are not mutually exclusive.
I’m a great fan of sperm in a pan. However, I’m also a fan of panspermia, if you can be a “fan” of a scientific hypothesis. I suppose I like the additional romantic element that panspermia brings to hypothetical speculation on abiogenesis and the origin of life. If that makes me unscientific, well, that’s because I’m not a scientist and took my degree in Wordification and Filmazement.
Panspermia describes the possibility that life on Earth was seeded, catalysed or in some way influenced by material entering its ecosystem from space. And what with various organic compounds being discovered in the chilly depths of space, far beyond the reach of human hands, it’s a hypothesis that is, at the very least, plausible.
Daybreakers, the vampire horror film from Peter and Michael Spierig and starring Ethan Hawke, William DeFoe, and Sam Neil, is a disappointing modernization of Charles Dickens’ beloved holiday novella A Christmas Carol. Much of the original’s political commentary has somewhat obviously and probably necessarily been replaced with more contemporary concerns: immigration, the energy crisis, the corruption of big banking, and the half-human-half-vampire bat monsters than live in the sewers. The movie, in this regard, struggles for relevance, which I can appreciate as I have really been feeling depressed lately. I don’t know… I guess it’s the winter or maybe it’s that I didn’t get a lot of Christmas presents this year. I mean, I think I only got two actual presents. And I just broke up my boyfriend a few weeks ago… and it’s not like seeing him in this movie helped. He was good in White Fang, I guess. I’m thinking of opening a deli. It doesn’t seem that hard. We used to talk about that, Ethan and I. And, interestingly enough, I think this movie would have been a little bit more dramatic if more of its scenes were set in a deli. Instead, the movie imagines a future when all humanity has been turned into vampires and their economy revolves around the diminishing supply of human blood. I’m sure this is not what Dickens had in mind! But, still, the audience is invited into an imaginative vision of the future. Blood is mixed into coffee and purchased at coffee stands in the subway. There’s something terrifyingly realistic about how quickly advertising united sex appeal and the pale skin of vampires. It’s almost as if advertising is the real vampire. But, who are we kidding… the real vampire is the movie star who thinks he can just call whenever he feels like it! And when he does, he wants an “open” relationship, whatever the fuck that means! I miss, also, the intense sexuality that is usually evident in vampire films. When I was writing Dracula, it was important to me to depict the feelings of lust that the allure of blood must offer vampire and the fear turning to submission in vampire’s victims. But, in Daybreakers, the vampires are depicted as almost boringly human. The only redeeming excitement of the movie are the occasional bodies ripped apart by mobs of vampires and the cameras relentless willingness to not look away. Fans of gore will enjoy Daybreakers to some extent; fans of Dickens will be shocked.
Yesterday saw the launch of the 10:23 Campaign website and the issuing of their first declaration to the skeptical horde that had already signed up to the cause. For those who don’t know the 10:23 Campaign is organised by the Merseyside Skeptics Society as a way to raise awareness about the reality of homeopathy, namely that is it complete hokum, magic based, unscientific, absurd pseudoscience. The first target of the campaign: Boots Pharmacy.
Boots is one of the UK’s leading highstreet pharmacies and they have entire sections reserved for homeopathic treatments. Now if this was done simply out of ignorance they I guess it could be forgiven. However at a recently held meeting of the Parliamentary Science and Technology Select Committee on homeopathy (click here for more details on this) it was revealed that not only do Boots know that homeopathic treatments are completely ineffective, but they don’t seem to see this as a reason not to sell them as such. Speaking on behalf of Boots Paul Bennett had this to say:
As you are no doubt aware on New Years Day Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and his granddaughter were attacked in his house by an axe-wielding Islamic extremist intent on murder. The reason for the attack, well Westergaard was one of the people behind the now infamous Danish newspaper cartoons that depicted Muslims and Mohammed in a less than favourable light. Clearly justification for bloody axe based murder. Thankfully the attack was not successful and the would be killer himself was shot and unfortunately only wounded in the attempt.
Of course no sane person would see Westergaard as the bad guy in this story or the attack on him as justified…would they? Enter Nancy Graham Holm and her article at The Guardian Online website.
Firstly, let me welcome you to the new year, 2010 CE, which promises to be a great one here at League of Reason. We have some exciting plans, and the growth of our community shows no signs of stopping.
Sadly, something awful, just… shameful and absurd has happened in Ireland today, and our Irish friends who wish to live in the year 2010 are now in a battle for their freedom of speech, which has been dealt a critical blow by censorship-loving religious tyrants, completely out of touch with the prerequisites for a fair society.
The following article, by Michael Nugent, is reposted from blasphemy.ie – an excellent blog documenting and opposing blasphemy laws. Bloggers are invited and positively encouraged to spread it far and wide. You can read it here, or click on the title to go straight to the original post.
From today, 1 January 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational, and we begin our campaign to have it repealed. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted.
This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.
We believe in the golden rule: that we have a right to be treated justly, and that we have a responsibility to treat other people justly. Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.