Being Human

xkcd nicely pointing out that our existence as evolved apes on planet Earth is not as "special" as we like to imagine that it is.

Doughnuts

Not an entirely bullet proof analogy but I certainly understand the point being made; on a related theme, I was glad to see that same-sex marriage was voted into law across the entire USA last week, about time too. Perhaps the sign should read something like...

"If you think your personal religious beliefs should dictate what's law for everyone else, then you are a complete doughnut!"

Hang on a second

Owning to the irregular rotation of our planet around the Sun any time measuring system based on some fraction of a calendar year or average day length (UTC - coordinated universal time) is simply not precise enough for modern day electronic devices such as computers and satellite navigation equipment. In 1967 scientists switched from time based on a celestial measurement and started to run super accurate atomic clocks based on the radio-active decay of a caesium atom. However these atomic clocks gradually get out of step with normal celestial based clocks and ever since we decided we can tell the time better than planet Earth, we add an extra second to UTC as needed to keep the two systems in sync. Tomorrow is such a day, clocks will read 11:59:60 before clicking over to 12:00

For those of us in the computer industry, we will be crossing our fingers that nothing untoward happens to our precious servers and systems as the time beacons that they are synchronised to add an extra second to June 30th, it's not the first time this has happened so all should be fine, then again saying something like that is bound to jinx it.

So, what are you going to do with your extra second? I think I'll spend mine snoozing; I'm always grateful for a lie-in.

Approaching the truth, millimetre by millimetre

Well, that was one hell of a weekend for Islamist terrorism!

In Tunisia we had a seemingly "normal" student, radicalised at college and persuaded to unload an AK-47 on a beach load of tourists, killing some 40 odd foreigners, most of whom were British. Then we had a Muslim lunatic in France deciding to behead his boss at an Air Products factory in the middle of nowhere and attempting (but failing) to use a car as a device to blow the plant up. In Kuwait we had a suicide bomber detonating a device in a busy Mosque killing 27 of the exclusively Shia congregation unlucky enough to be there on that day.

I suspect that these three attacks won't be the last of it either; many commentators are saying that this spate of violence may mark the beginning of a strategic push by Isis for just these kinds of incursions.

At home (UK) we had our Prime Minister David Cameron standing up and saying that "Islam is a religion of peace", this is blatantly untrue. When an assassin wanders through a heterogeneous group of people separating out the Muslims from the non-Muslims and putting a bullet in the latter, as was the case in Tunisia and also previously in Kenya then the act clearly has something to do with Islam, the worst version of Islam, but Islam never the less. According to numerous surveys and studies, significant numbers of Muslims follow this version of Islam, the number is not insignificant, lazy liberals in the West who bleat on about this problem being one of a "tiny minority" are simply wrong. Millions of Muslims believe things (based on their holy-texts and indoctrination) that are catastrophic for the well-being of our liberal democratic society. Fortunately the majority of Muslims choose to interpret these texts and cherry-pick in ways that avoid the most obviously homicidal narratives, in exactly the same way that most modern, liberal Christians and Jews do. However before we relax, it's worth noting that in December, al-Azhar University in Cairo (an Islamic authority) declared that although Isis members are terrorists they cannot be described as heretics.

It is indisputable that Christianity has had a bloody history, but I think we can all easily imagine how much more bloody that story would have been if instead of telling his followers to ‘turn the other cheek’, Jesus had called (even once) for his disciples to ‘slay’ non–believers and chop off their heads? (as Mohammed did) This is a problem for Islam. Not being a Christian I have no requirement to "love" my enemies, actually I think it's more rational to want to defeat them. It seems to me that there is currently a clear and present danger not only to our way of life but also the liberty and prosperity of future generations; this threat is Islamism in all its forms, and the sooner we acknowledge this fact by naming it we can get on with the work of assisting liberal Muslims to challenge it militarily and also help them develop a more compelling, less homicidal Islamic narrative. Until then I fear we will remain firmly on the back-foot making painstakingly millimetric progress toward a safer world for everyone.

Analogies

Not an analogy I'd heard before but seems reasonable; Jesus and Mo shoots and scores...

Modern parenting

I'm always looking to leverage technology to assist with parenting tasks; here's a nice example of someone providing a really powerful incentive so that their kids get to do some minor house work.

God's Dog

Much chuckles at the FarLeftSide

Now only 2nd most hated..

Our pious American cousins have voted on the kinds of people that they would least likely vote for in the upcoming presidential election. At the bottom of the list below Mormons, Jews, Muslims, Gays and Women are Atheists. Now statistically speaking it's almost a certainty that several American presidents have been atheists already, it's likely that Obama is, and Kennedy would have probably been a safe bet; but we all know that no politician worth his or her salt in the USA can actually admit even being doubtful and still get elected to office. This is one of the great dichotomies of the modern age; how can a modern, liberal superpower not elect a leader from one of the largest, if not the largest identifiable sections of it's society, it can't be because of belief as the majority Christian population can't by definition agree with the beliefs of a Jew or a Muslim and many religions remain steadfastly discriminatory when it comes to women leaders and people of minority sexual orientations. No doubt this is a question that will baffle scholars for years to come, but atheists can take one small crumb of consolation, at least we're not as hated as Socialists. (although, what if you're an American, lesbian atheist and a socialist? Probably not wise to quit your day job..)

Collective something or other

I see various religious people are getting a bit flustered by the latest policy advisory report by ex-Education secretary Charles Clark and sociology professor Linda Woodhead. There are several recommendations in the report, but in summary, the conclusion is that the relationship between religion and schools in the UK needs to be re-examined and in certain places overhauled. For example, they call for the abandonment of the "collective act of worship" which as the name suggests can only really apply to half the population (or less) and is a clear throw-back to a long since extinct age of compliance and uniformity of population.

There are some interesting facts and commentary in the report and I would broadly agree with most of it's conclusions, where I don't it's more a case of wanting to go further.

• Compulsory collective worship is a joke, the vast majority of kids (at least the ones I've ever known) don't want it and most schools pay lip service to doing it. I wish I could have back all of the time that I wasted as a child being forced to sit in draughty churches listening to complete drivel and despising every second of it; if the parent and/or child wants that kind of thing then they should be doing it on their own dime.
• Comparative religion (RE) should be taught in all schools to the same standard; it should be objective and have the goal of educating children about the world they actually live in and not indoctrinating them into one particular way of thinking, it should be done in a pluralistic way.
• Religion is NOT the same as morality, claiming that religion needs to be a part of school life in order to instill morality into children is a complete fallacy. Children should have the option to learn about philosophy and ethics; schools of thought like deism, atheism and agnosticism should certainly be included as first-class citizens in that same thread of education.
• Religious schools should be allowed. I agree, but I don't think they should be state funded. I prefer the American model where religion is kept completely out of state-schools, this is the only way to ensure fairness in terms of funding but also in terms of equal treatment for all children, no stigma associated with having to "exclude" yourself from certain communal activities (like collective worship!)
• If parents are so insecure in their religious beliefs and/or feel overwhelmingly obliged to indoctrinate their children into their own particular brand of woo then they should be paying for that themselves, I don't believe it is the job of the state to promote one particular religion.
• There is a widespread belief in this country (UK) that religious schools are somehow "better" than religion neutral state-schools, superficially that may be true if you restrict yourself to just looking at exam results; but it can't be argued that a selective school is better than a non-selective one, that's not comparing apples with apples.

The days of segregating children at a young age by the arbitrary religion of their parents is thankfully becoming the exception rather than the rule. It seems obvious to me that this kind of segregation is just a recipe for storing up future problems, we need only look at places like Northern Ireland to see how that story can play out. No one would want to deny the rights of parents wishing to imprint their own convictions onto their children, but the sooner we move to a properly neutral i.e. secular state education system the better (and fairer) for everyone.

Mid-Summer smirks..

I'm thinking of doing a series of these...

A different kind of cat video

Check out this little cat video I came across today; it's not the usual run of the mill cute kitten-fest more of a feline thriller!  At about 0:47 into the clip our dare-devil moggy appears stage right and proceeds to do his best "clinging on for dear life" impression as the pilot and passenger become aware of his presence; don't worry nothing bad happens but if it were me I'd have a stern word with the pilot about his pre-flight checks!

Voices from the echo chamber

I see that my favourite unelected, ex-Conservative political cry-baby Baroness Warsi has been in the news again. This time she's criticising David Cameron for stating the bleeding obvious in a recent speech, i.e. that Muslims who quietly condone the prejudices of Islamic extremists like ISIS help to add weight to a narrative that may in turn lead to the radicalisation of weak minded and vulnerable people. This seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable and logical thing to assert, we all know that indoctrination with irrational dogma (religious or otherwise) and peer pressure combined with a feeling of cultural isolation does indeed create some rather odd responses; much like the flight to war-torn Syria of three Bradford sisters and their nine children within the last few weeks.

Warsi seems to confirm every stereotype we are advised not to parody. When politicians like Cameron draw obvious conclusions she claims it's an "attack" on all UK Muslims. That's like listening to a police spokesperson asking people not to turn a blind eye to drink driving and then accusing them of "attacking" everyone who's ever had a pint in a pub. Why such over-reaction? It seems to me that people like Warsi are part of the problem rather than part of the solution, she clearly shares a very undesirable characteristic with the fundamentalists, i.e. she will not listen to or properly engage with arguments against her position, debate = "attack" in her mind, for me this exposes a very worrying alignment with the medieval theocratic attitudes running riot in the Middle East right now; ironically the exact point the PM was making in his speech.

Genuine

I'm an Atheist and a humanist, probably always will be, it's the only intellectual position that doesn't cause me severe cognitive dissonance but I cannot help but be impressed by the Christian relatives and friends of the victims of the latest mass murder in a church in Charleston, USA; their reaction to this horrific racist attack seems genuinely "Christ-like".

Tribal Perspective

It often amuses me how tribal we are; we have an incredible capacity to become specialised and expert over time and yet a pathetic inability to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Even in the relatively new and progressive world of computer software development there are deep-seated tribal divisions. As the picture above suggests there's a constant battle between the left and right brain crowds and yet it's impossible to build a successful modern product without both skill-sets, not to mention managers, testers, salesmen, accountants, lawyers and tech-support. Ultimately we're all parasites of one kind or another, feeding off the life-investments of others, in my humble estimation the happiest people seem to realise and accept this fact.

Mysterious

Yahweh is moving mysteriously once again...

Respect

Absolutely right! The key word here though is "due".

Magna Carta

I see that celebrations around the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta are in full swing this week; the Queen and other dignitaries will be visiting Runnymede today (scenic route to Ascot?) to attend a ceremony at the famous (approximate) site of the original signing of this most important treaty. I would imagine that all standing monarchs visiting Runnymede today will ponder their luck that the chain of thought and legal reforms triggered by Magna Carta and other secular advances still hasn't reached it's logical conclusion or permeated all parts of the world. In many countries there are still powerful people and institutions that consider themselves above the law, and many laws whose foundations lay outside of the realm of evidence and reason. For example, just this week marks the fifth anniversary of the arrest and imprisonment of a Christian woman Asia Bibi who has been sentenced to death for Blasphemy in Pakistan over what seems like a simple case of religious persecution combined with a trivial domestic dispute over drinking cups.

Of course, all around the world there are countless other cases and abuses of the core ideas of Magna Carta, ideas that have stood the test of time even though they were quickly suppressed by the religious powers and vested interests of their time. In the heady days of it's inception and even before the ink was properly dry (within weeks), the Pope annulled the treaty in return for King Johns submission to his authority. I guess that freedom and the idea that no one is above the law, not even God's henchmen or the King, is still an anathema to those who prefer the arbitrary implementation of Earthly power.

The morning after..

The Philae comet lander finally woke up, scratched it's bum and tweeted a short message back to mission control on Earth. That must have been some party it thought to itself, last thing I remember is bouncing around on the surface of this comet, sniffing all manner of alien substances before falling into a dark cold shadowy place and drifting off. I've been asleep hurtling through space since last November, but now it's finally warm enough for me wake up. I must remember to send all that data I gathered back home, but first things first, who won X-Factor?..

Amazing little machine.

RMS Lancastria

There's a story about RMS Lancastria on the BBC site today; it's a tragic story of a ship sent to rescue British soldiers from Northern France a few weeks after the Dunkirk evacuation. Unfortunately the ship was hit by German dive bombers just outside the port of Saint-Nazaire and sunk, estimates vary but at least 4,000 men, women and children died that day, perhaps as many as 7,000 it was certainly the largest loss of life in British maritime history but it is largely unknown. It was hushed up by Churchill and reports of the disaster were censored, the politicians of the day felt that such bad news coming straight after Dunkirk would be cripplingly bad for the moral of the nation, so no one knew.

The story has a highly personal element for me; my Grandfather was one of the soldiers escaping from France and was on that ship. He went into the water along with thousands of other people and luckily for us both managed to survive (barring minor burns on his feet) the oily water, the fires and the strafing of German machine guns. He was picked up by the Navy and returned to Plymouth. The spooky thing is that the family knew very little about his story (he never talked about it much); but a few years after his death a book was released that featured a couple of photographs of the incident (there are only a two dozen in existence). My Mother bought the book out of interest and low and behold there he was, plain as day, my Granddad covered in oil with a white blanket over his shoulders, he's in the picture above, the fifth head from the left in the back row.

It's amazing to think of the unbroken chain of lucky escapes over thousands of years, hundreds of wars, plagues and disasters that link us to our ancestors and by virtue of pure luck mean that we exist at all; I guess someone has to.

Deity psychoanalysis

Te he...