Powered by ScribeFire.
A Position Statement of the
Royal Astronomical Society of Canada - Ottawa Centre
on
Science & Evolution
Approved by RASC Ottawa Centre Council, April 26, 2007
The RASC Ottawa Centre supports high standards of scientific integrity, academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. It also respects the scientific method and recognizes that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypotheses, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others.
The RASC Ottawa Centre, then, is unequivocal in its support of contemporary evolutionary theory that has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been refined by findings accumulated over 140 years.
Some dissenters from this position are proponents of non-scientific explanations of the nature of the universe. These may include “creation science”, “creationism”, “intelligent design” or other non-scientific “alternatives to evolution”. While we respect the dissenters’ right to express their views, these views are theirs alone and are in no way endorsed by the RASC Ottawa Centre. It is our collective position that these explanations do not meet the characteristics and rigour of scientific empiricism.
Therefore the science agenda of the RASC Ottawa Centre and its publications will not promote any non-scientific explanations of the nature of the universe.
Powered by ScribeFire.
801-chan, pronounced "Yaoi-chan," is the mascot for the Misonobashi 801 shopping district, not far from Kyoto's World Heritage Kamigamojinja shrine. And true to its roots, the character was inspired by Kyoto-grown vegetables.If you're wondering about Yaoi it's because of the Japanese and Chinese pronunciations of the numbers (8 -- yattsu -- ya, 0 -- English 'O' and 1 -- ichi -- 'i'). It's done with phone numbers a lot as well.
But what really made the mascot an unexpected smash with young otaku geeks is the accident of its name. "Yaoi," which was chosen by locals as a pun on the shopping center's name, is also a slang term for a cult genre of manga comics on homosexual themes.
But in February 2006, strange things began to happen. SuddenlyNow think of what would happen in the States if this happened? Why Jerry Fallwell would rise from his grave and wander the land in search of someone to blame.
Misonobashi 801's Web site was getting 20,000 hits and over 100 e-mail
messages a day.
..."Most of the shoppers who visited our area were oblivious to
801-chan," he added. "We were kind of suspicious whether the popularity
was actually there."Then in the fall an 801-chan fan began running a comic strip
on a blog and it became a hit. A publisher contacted the association
seeking clearance to publish the manga comic in book form.The association was surprised but agreed, hoping the publicity would bring in business.
"Tonari no 801-chan" (801-chan next door) came out in December. The response was immediate.The comic book became a runaway hit, selling more than 100,000
copies. According to Haruna Nakae at Ohzora Publishing Co., which
handled the book, "It is extremely rare to see a book from a
non-general genre sell this well."Some stores in the otaku hangouts of Akihabara and Ikebukuro
districts in Tokyo sold 500 copies of the 801-chan book in a month.
Powered by ScribeFire.
--
From:
The Eternal Gaijin
Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan
"Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
Powered by ScribeFire.
Powered by ScribeFire.
-- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
Powered by ScribeFire.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Since the British military began allowing homosexuals to serve in the armed forces in 2000, none of its fears — about harassment, discord, blackmail, bullying or an erosion of unit cohesion or military effectiveness — have come to pass, according to the Ministry of Defense, current and former members of the services and academics specializing in the military. The biggest news about the policy, they say, is that there is no news. It has for the most part become a nonissue.
The Ministry of Defense does not compile figures on how many gay men and lesbians are openly serving, and it says that the number of people who have come out publicly in the past seven years is still relatively low. But it is clearly proud of how smoothly homosexuals have been integrated and is trying to make life easier for them.
Nonetheless, the issue is extremely delicate now. The military does not want to be seen bragging about the success of its policy when the issue can still cause so much anguished debate in the United States.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Powered by ScribeFire.
-- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
Powered by ScribeFire.
You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future.
What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com |
-- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
Powered by ScribeFire.
Powered by ScribeFire.
-- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
Powered by ScribeFire.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Powered by ScribeFire.
8. You can’t fight City Hall, but you can goddamn sure blow it up.And of course:
10. Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember
that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.
17. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible
man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every
minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific
things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these
things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and
smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and
burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money.
26. The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other in opposite directions.
Powered by ScribeFire.
-- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
-- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
Powered by ScribeFire.
-- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
-- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
Either way, this is probably a good time to contact your local public broadcasting station and tell them you'd like to see them pick up this program, and pretty please, don't show it at 3am. Let's let the godless demographic make itself known, politely but firmly.
It's not like we're lobbying Fox News. Don't you all suspect that public broadcasting's viewership is skewed our way? All it takes is a phone call, so let's make our existence known in this simple and unthreatening matter.
It's an extraordinary publishing phenomenon - atheism sells. Any philosopher, professional polemicist or scientist with worries about their pension plan must now be feverishly working on a book proposal. Richard Dawkins has been in the bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic since The God Delusion came out last autumn following Daniel Dennett's success with Breaking the Spell. Sam Harris, a previously unknown neuroscience graduate, has now clocked up two bestsellers, The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. Last week, Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything was published in the US. The science writer, Matt Ridley, recently commented that on one day at Princeton he met no fewer than three intellectual luminaries hard at work on their God books.
And it's a very ill-tempered debate. The books live up to their provocative titles: their purpose is to pour scorn on religious belief - they want it eradicated (although they differ as to the chances of achieving that).
It’s good to know that not all conservatives these days have adopted the Religious Right’s anti-science views. But we don’t seem to hear much out of them. Perhaps they should consider speaking up a little more often.
Tom Friedman is a Middle East expert who knows a lot about Islam. Why, then, does he keep saying misleading things? He wrote in his latest column, "To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden."
Teacher Gets An ‘F’: Appeals Court Affirms Right Of Public School To Stop Classroom Proselytism
May 8th 2007
Public school faculty are expected to devote their energies to teaching whatever subject they have been assigned, not engaging in efforts to change the religious views of their students.
Richard Dawkins is an outspoken atheist, secular humanist, and sceptic.
He thinks church is 'absurd' and has to do more with morals than religion. His recent book, 'The God Delusion,' was prostested and critized by religious leaders the world over.
To him, the Bible is fiction, faith is a virus and God is no different from the tooth fairy.
Kent Hovind begins to find a conscience
Maybe. In his latest epistle from prison, Hovind has suddenly realized that the right-wing Christian position is unjust. It would be nice if he were undergoing a little actual consciousness-raising, but I expect it has more to do with his "me, me, me" attitude and the awful realization that he is the subject of his own old black-and-white beliefs.
The Hovind Saga Continues
You could tell from the background music that played beforehand – alternating recordings of James Brown and Gregorian chant – that this was going to be an unusual debate.
The question under debate (“Is God great?”) and the speakers — two men who are often depicted in harsh caricatures by their critics — might have caused some to expect something like a circus. Perhaps surprisingly, it turned out to be the public intellectual event of the evening, a bit like Bertrand Russell vs. C. S. Lewis.
Taking the atheist position was Christopher Hitchens, the journalist and author of a new book arguing that “religion poisons everything.” In defense of God was none other than the Rev. Al Sharpton, a man of the cloth who is perhaps even better known for his political and civil rights activism than for his training as a preacher.
Mr. Hitchens and Mr. Sharpton engaged in a sold-out debate tonight before a crowd that packed the Celeste Bartos Forum at the New York Public Library’s Beaux-Arts headquarters on Fifth Avenue. The polite but vigorous discussion was moderated by Jacob Weisberg of Slate Magazine, who began by asking Mr. Hitchens, “What have you got against God?”
Powered by ScribeFire.
URL for this image: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/conspiracy_theories.png
Powered by ScribeFire.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Everyone knows, of course, that after death martyrs go straight to the Garden of Eden, where they recline on couches, savor meats and fruits and enjoy the company of dark-eyed houris while listening to the sound of flowing rivers.
But what happens to the vast majority of Muslims, those who do not die as martyrs?
According to Islamic doctrine, between the moment of death and the burial ceremony, the spirit of a deceased Muslim takes a quick journey to Heaven and Hell, where it beholds visions of the bliss and torture awaiting humanity at the end of days.
In the grave, the deceased Muslim - this composite of spirit and corpse - encounters two terrifying angels, Munkar and Nakir, recognized by their bluish faces, their huge teeth and their wild hair.
These angels carry out a trial to probe the soundness of a Muslim's faith. If the dead Muslim answers their questions convincingly and if he has no sin on record, then the grave is transformed into a luxurious space that makes bearable the long wait until the final judgment.
But if a Muslim's faith is imperfect or if he has sinned during life by, for example, failing repeatedly to undertake purity rituals before prayer, then the grave is transformed into an oppressive, constricting space.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Yesterday was one major religion's holy day. Today is another's.We're with you. Dawkins, Harris, et. al. have a point when they say we should hold religion to the same standards we expect from other areas of life. The ongoing deference to religion as if someone believing something without evidence makes it beyond questioning should end.
Tomorrow is a third's. So I thought this is an opportune moment to say
I think all three of these faiths -- these mighty institutions, these
esteemed philosophies, these ancient and honoured traditions -- are
ridiculous quackery.
Private, quiet faith is one thing. But when the guy holding the launchHear, hear.
codes believes the end of the world could come any day and that's a
good thing, those who believe lives are limited to one per customer
have a problem.
Go for it. Start asking people to back up their claims. Tell me how I'm going to live forever through Jesus, but don't mention the Bible when you formulate your proof.This is completely contrary to how we live the rest of our lives. We
demand proof of even trivial claims ("John was the main creative force
behind Sergeant Pepper") and we dismiss those who make such claims
without proof. We are still more demanding when claims are made on
matters that are at least temporarily important ("Saddam Hussein has
weapons of mass destruction" being a notorious example).So isn't
it odd that when claims are made about matters as important as the
nature of existence and our place in it we suddenly drop all
expectation of proof and we respect those who make and believe claims
without the slightest evidence? Why is it perfectly reasonable to roll
my eyes when someone makes the bald assertion that Ringo was the
greatest Beatle but it is "fundamentalist" and "fanatical" to say that,
absent evidence, it is absurd to believe Muhammad was not lying or
hallucinating when he claimed to have long chats with God?
Powered by ScribeFire.
-- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
An eminent South African historian believes he has stumbled on the identity of Jack the Ripper.So a South African historian has found that Jack the Ripper was actually South African? Amazing. As amazing as the fact that a Freemason sees Freemasonry in the killings. Or someone with republican leanings seeing a Royal involvement.
Charles van Onselen said at first he wasn't sure he wanted to publicize the conclusions he drew when he noticed parallels in the century-old, unsolved Ripper case and the background of Joseph Silver, who terrorized women as "King of the Pimps" in Johannesburg.
But that's the point, isn't it? There are a half dozen historical and traditional suspects and little evidence left.Scores of people have been accused of the Ripper murders, but no one has ever been proven guilty and London police put the number of most likely suspects at just four, among them a poor Whitechapel resident named Kosminski who, like Silver, was a Polish Jew. At the time, Londoners speculated the killer was Jewish, leading to fears of an anti-Jewish backlash.
Van Onselen believes Silver fits the psychological profile of the Whitechapel murderer and he places his subject at the center of the scene of the Ripper murders. The evidence that Silver was in Whitechapel at the time of the Ripper murders includes the birth of his daughter there, van Onselen said.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Powered by ScribeFire.
From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
The Zionist Stern Gang used car bombs in the late 1940’s to blow up
buildings in Palestine in an attempt to drive out the British and
terrorize Palestinians. The Irgun and Haganah, underground Zionist
groups labeled as terrorists by the British, quickly followed suit. The
use of car bombs by Zionists represented a major step forward both in
the lethality of the bombs and their use as political weapons.
However, Palestinians and Arabs soon learned the technology and
responded with the same, prompting one of the founders of Israel,
Ben-Gurion, to say after the bombing of a Haganah headquarters, “I
couldn’t forget that ‘our’ thugs and murderers had blazed this trail.”
and the reviewer restates the ultimate problem with terrorism in general and car bombs in particular:
Davis makes it clear that car bombs, while sometimes achieving
short-term gains, generally lead to increased violence from the the
other side (or sides) thus creating ever more mayhem and dead
innocents. Using Iraq as an example, some car bombs are aimed at US
forces, others are specifically used to create Sunni-Shia divisions.
Islamic hardliners use car bombs to reinforce sectarian divisions
because they do not want nationalism to occur because that would mean
they’d then have no power base. Doubtless many other players there
don’t want nationalism either.
The backlash is always a major problem with any terror strategy as has been well documented.
Which somehow led me to the issue of domestic terrorism. I'm not sure why the US seems to ignore all its problems with internal groups. Can you imagine all of these militias aren't actually listed? Christian terrorism is not something the US likes to acknowledge (Talk To Action | Reclaiming Citizenship, History, and Faith).
Of course, the visceral hatred for abortion and Roe v Wade in the States means the society will accept anything that happens in the the name of Christ and the "Pro-Life" movement (SPLCenter.org: Anti-Abortion Movement/Feministe » The terrorism that dare not speak its name/“Pro-lifers” try to kill again in Austin at Pandagon)
Powered by ScribeFire.
-- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
-- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
Powered by ScribeFire.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Powered by ScribeFire.
-- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."
Powered by ScribeFire.
My blog is worth $18,629.82.
How much is your blog worth?
My StumbleUpon Page