Blasphemy - Repost from Daniel Dennett

gommo February 6th, 2008

The West screwed up badly when the denunciation of the fatwa on Salman Rushdie was not closer to unanimous. (I will never forget or forgive the shameful silence of some writers who shunned the invitation to join in a firm but not hostile rebuke.) The West screwed up badly again when the Danish cartoons were not reprinted world-wide. What many didn’t understand was that the staged riots were a political strike against moderate Muslims, not non-Muslims. The “tolerance” urged by many voices outside the Muslim world played into the hands of the radical Islamists. Now we get a third chance to come to the aide of moderate Muslims all over the world, but so far, I haven’t heard much outcry. Several days ago I sent the following letter to the Boston Globe, which has not yet indicated that it will publish it:

The conviction and pending execution of an Afghani student, Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh, for blasphemy is an appalling circumstance, but it offers an opportunity that we should all seize. The time has come for Muslims to step up to the plate and demonstrate that Islam is a great faith that has no need for violence or intimidation to maintain the loyalty of its congregation. And we outside Islam must make it crystal clear that we cannot respect or honor a religion that would consider blasphemy a capital crime, no matter how ancient the tradition from which this decision flowed. Muslims who support–or refrain from condemning–the conviction and sentence of Kambakhsh must be made to realize that they share responsibility for bringing dishonor to their cherished heritage, and if we non-Muslims do not speak out, we too must share in the blame. Friends don’t let friends commit, or condone, evil. The best way of showing our good will towards Islam is by helping it shed an indefensible aspect of its legacy. Every religion has much to atone for, but that is no reason to button our lips and tolerate fresh grounds for atonement.

There is no need, yet, for anger. Let us all just remind Muslims everywhere of what they must surely know: blasphemy is not a capital crime in any society worthy of respect. It is now up to Muslims to prevent some of their number from defiling their own precious culture.

Bogans

gommo February 3rd, 2008

Thanks to my mate Andrew D for this.

I love the last line, “You got the meat raffle tickets wet, you dip shit” :)

Steelers season thoughts

gommo February 2nd, 2008

Well, its a day before Superbowl XLII and my Steelers have long since been out of the hunt. I got to browsing over my previous posts and saw a few of my questions I posted before the season. I thought it would be good to summaries my thoughts and results of them.

The questions where

  • How will Mike Tomlin fair this season as the Steelers new head coach? Will he bring back that fire on defense that we have been sorely missing?
    • Overall Tomlin did a pretty good job, however we failed dismally in applying consistent pressure to the QB. I really hoped our draft picks would help in that regard but that wasn’t to be. The defense did hold up in the statistical area but in reality, especially in the later part of the season, we were very soft. As poor as it was though, I do think that next year Timmons and Woodley will see the field more and that will help in the pressure department.
      We need some better defensive lineman and a replacement for Haggans at LOLB. James Harrison was easily a better replacement for Porter who stunk up the joint in Miami this year. Poor Joey :(
  • Will Alan Faneca shut the f*(*ck up and play to his usual high standard?
    • Hard to say here. Our OL played so poor that any half decent linemen would be ‘playing at a high standard’. The scarey part is that we kept our OL coach (all our coaches actually), and Kevin Colbert seems to have hinted that he thought the OL wasn’t that bad. Wake up mate, the OL is a joke!! Get a good free agent Tackle, resign Faneca and draft at least 2 stud lineman.
  • Will our first 2 draft choices, both outside linebackers, help the pathetic pass rush we had last year?
    • I’ve pretty much covered this. They played ok when they were in, which wasn’t much. Hopefully that will change. Woodley shows the most promise I think.
  • Will Ben Roethlisberger return to form this year? He’s off to a good start without being in a head on motorcycle accident and his appendix is gone now ;)
    • We win and lose by how Ben plays. He had a terrific year but also was a big part of both the lose to the Jags in the wild card round but also the main reason behind the ‘almost’ come from behind victory. I think he’ll play even better next year especially if we can improve the OL and get some more depth at RB and maybe WR.
    • At the end of the day, Ben was the 2nd highest rated QB behind Tom Brady. And Tom Brady played like he was on Madden 08. So in reality, (and I mean reality), Ben was the highest rated QB :)
  • Can we beat the Ravens this year??
    • Well we smashed them early in the year! A perfect game by BR and a shutout for the D. We narrowly lost to them at their house but by that time in the schedule the Steelers were on the downhill run rather than hitting all cylinders. Coaching and just a lack of talented depth. However, far better than the year before. The Ravens are and hopefully will stay, horrible.

So, where does that leave the Steelers for ‘08-09? There are a number of questions to answer, my initial ones are

  • Not firing coaches? Our OL and special teams where pathetic this year. I’m going to trust Tomlin on this one and hope we get some better talent, because that probably was at least half the problem.
  • Pressure D! Where is it? Traditionally the Steelers are run first, both on offense and defense. We were even struggling to contain RB’s in the later part of the year. That is scary, and it needs fixing NOW! I really like how the NYG’s are playing D and pressuring the QB. This may just get them an upset win over the Patriots! (yeah right :()
  • Depth, depth, depth. We will be 3 years removed from our Superbowl victory and that means the good players then, are getting older. I’m a little concerned that we still seem to holding on to a core nucleus of players. That’s ok if they can perform (Take New England for example) but I haven’t seen it consistently the past 2 seasons, which may spell trouble for next season. We need some better picks in the draft and those draft choices need to be used and play a role more. No use drafting if you don’t get any value, they just tie up salary cap space.

Anyway, thats my hurried thoughts. I’m excited for tommorrow, I think it will be a great Superbowl to watch. Not having my team in it means I can’t lose

  1. If New England win, I will have witnessed an historic moment in sport
  2. If New York win, Plax gets a Superbowl ring and I can ROFL over the Patriots disappointing finish.

Creationism Is Revolting - Please Wake Up USA

gommo January 31st, 2008

I’ve been reading a few news articles in the past year about the creationist museum in the US. This latest blog post on BadAstronomy though has bought it all back to me.

Here’s the video BA is talking about

Words can’t describe the lunacy of this. I am ashamed that I once was a christian at all. I can’t recall ever believing in a literal 7 day creation though, thanks to my more liberal bringing up and interpretations of the bible. However, to think the most powerful country on earth is filled with crackpots who believe this stuff is just down right scary.

What can be done about this? We need to make people who make claims like this, or attempt to pass laws passing creationism off as science, sit down and understand why they are deluded. To me, it all comes down to a basic misunderstanding of the scientific method and terminology. It’s appalling that a US presidential candidate can pass off evolution as just a theory. (So is our understanding of gravity, light, magnetism etc.. etc.. etc..) Theories are what explain REALITY BITCH!! Theories are testable by your peers! Theories can adapt and change! Theories are falsifiable! Everything in science is based on theories! But you don’t question them when you drive your car, fly in an airplane or use the Internet!

Theories don’t come from dusty books written by primitive societies who hate women and love slaves!

What on earth will save us from these people!!??!!

Huckabee in my bonnet

gommo January 18th, 2008

Ok, I’m getting sick of this! Why can’t religion stay far away from politics and science.

This is what Huckabee says, “The Bible was not written to be amended. The Constitution was,…” and “That’s again the logic of the Civil War - that slavery could be okay in Georgia but not okay in Massachusetts. Obviously we’d today say, ‘Well, that’s nonsense. Slavery is wrong, period..’”

Well mate, let’s check out your ‘un-amendable’ bible shall we?

“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.”

“And masters, treat your slaves in the same way.”

“Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; ”

“All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered.”

“Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them”

etc.. etc… I could go on. The bible totally condones slavery. Of course, I wouldn’t expect any baptist minister to have ever read the bible. (Sabbath is a Sunday?? Since when?)

Obviously we had to ‘amend’ our morals so we could undo the damage bible bearing crazies have done to the world in regards to slavery. Huckabee’s intentions are nothing more than an attempt to keep holding on to backward views of the world and our universe.

Come on USA! Wake up, get an education and VOTE these lunatics into oblivion. Unfortunatly the democrats have their eye’s shut on things like nuclear power but that can stand up for itself. Scientific truths will always win in the end.

Arrgghh :( Vomit

gommo January 16th, 2008

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2130,n,n

Penn Says

gommo January 14th, 2008

A funny site I stumbled upon from Penn (of Penn & Teller) - http://crackle.com/c/Penn_Says


Pro-Nuclear Vid

gommo December 30th, 2007

A fairly good video I think, although I don’t necessarily agree with his political views ;)

Sagan - A great man

gommo December 20th, 2007

On the 11th year of his passing, a good video to remember his legacy

POWER TO SAVE THE WORLD

gommo October 30th, 2007

Science tells us that climate change is real. ‘Word on the street’ seems to suggest that most people are acknowledging this. That same science tells us that we have a real solution to climate change. It’s unfortunate that respectively, most people don’t acknowledge, or at least are unaware, that we have that real solution at hand.

Here’s an excellent video to explain how nuclear power can save our world.

Some interesting excerpts…

images.jpg

Here’s how much spent fuel you would create if all the electricity in your life was produced via nuclear fission. If you don’t think humans have the mental capacity to store this amount, I feel sad you have such little faith in human ingenuity.

Radioactive exposure due to living next to a nuclear fission reactor in an ENTIRE YEAR, would be slightly LESS than eating ONE banana :)

The Oconee Nuclear Station in South Carolina can produce 500 MILLION (500,000,000) Mega Watt Hours of electricity. Enough to power the households of South Carolina for 20 YEARS!
This produces 25 tonnes of high level spent fuel, which fits in the back of a Ford F150 pickup truck (or similar truck)

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