AV's Politics

Oz Politics offers a political self-assessment not too dissimilar to the Political Compass that was all the rage a few years ago. It may not suprise many readers of this blog that the Oz Politics test diagnoses me as having a "Far Left" broad political outlook, although it did surprise me: I would categorise myself as "Left" or "Social Democrat." I am a Greens voter who preferences Labor, but I don't feel a particularly strong affinity to any particular political party.

Anyway, you can see my results here.

And naturally, I'm keen to hear about yours.

Read More

My irony-detection meter just broke . . .

US says Guantanamo detainees could be mistreated, if released.

NEW YORK: A long-running effort by the Bush administration to send home
many of the terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been stymied in
part because of concern among United States officials that the prisoners may not
be treated humanely by their own governments, The New York Times reported on
Sunday.

Read More

Big Brougher

"We're not talking about the entire family benefits here or unemployment benefit but a portion of it," he said.

"That money being able to only be spent on things that will benefit the child - so things like cigarettes and alcohol would be excluded from the purchasing for these families.

"[That money] can go to a school tuckshop to ensure breakfast, morning tea and lunch are provided."

Even the Liberals--heartless money-grubbing pricks that they are--must concede that the capacity to spend one's income in ways that are detrimental to one's children is not an attribute peculiar to welfare recipients. (However many extra votes there may be in the good old neoliberal tradition of kicking people when they're down.) Your credit-card wielding aspirationals are "aspiring" their way towards a probable interest rate rise and, according to George Megalogenis, "we're in some danger of a short, sharp, and maybe even a prolonged recession in the next couple of years." Which means a lot of ex-aspirationals will soon be joining the ranks of those whom they have been encouraged by the Tories to despise.

So, given that fiscally irresponsible parents are to be found among many walks of life in Australia, let's strike a bargain. You can directly debit 30 percent of the Centrelink payments of welfare recipients as long as you apply the same principle to the Family Tax Benefit system. Government money is, after all, government money.

Read More

May Day 2006

And in the spirit of May Day, a possible glimpse of things to come under Workchoices:

World Workers, whatever may bind ye,
This day let your work be undone:
Cast the clouds of the winter behind ye,
And come forth and be glad in the sun.

Now again while the green earth rejoices
In the bud and the blossom of May
Lift your hearts up again, and your voices,
And keep merry the World's Labour Day.

Let the winds lift your banners from far lands
With a message of strife and of hope:
Raise the Maypole aloft with its garlands
That gathers your cause in its scope.

It is writ on each ribbon that flies
That flutters from fair Freedom's heart:
If still far be the crown and the prize
In its winning may each take a part.

Your cause is the hope of the world,
In your strife is the life of the race,
The workers' flag Freedom unfurled
Is the veil of the bright future's face.

Be ye many or few drawn together,
Let your message be clear on this day;
Be ye birds of the spring, of one feather
In this--that ye sing on May-Day.

Of the new life that still lieth hidden,
Though its shadow is cast before;
The new birth of hope that unbidden
Surely comes, as the sea to the shore.

Stand fast, then, Oh Workers, your ground,
Together pull, strong and united:
Link your hands like a chain the world round,
If you will that your hopes be requited.

When the World's Workers, sisters and brothers,
Shall build, in the new coming years,
A lair house of life--not for others,
For the earth and its fulness is theirs.

--Walter Crane, "The Worker's Maypole."

Read More

P Z Myers on the virtues of secularism

Biologist and uber-blogger PZ Myers is not a man to suffer fools gladly--particularly not of the "born again" kind. He argues the case for secularism in an essay penned for The Raw Story, and makes a point that I myself have made on countless occasions in countless online debates (mainly on The Tolkien Forum) with fundies and not-so fundy religious types:

SECULARISM DOES NOT EQUAL ATHEISM.

If there were but one message I wanted to communicate, though, it would be that secularism is a progressive value; it is something we should be promoting as a core part of our identity, and an absolutely essential property of good government. Secularism does not in any way imply atheism or agnosticism, nor is unbelief a prerequisite for favoring a government that is completely independent of sectarian religion. At the time of the founding of our country, among the most vigorous advocates of the separation of church and state were the Baptists, not the atheists, who were then and have always been a tiny minority. In a country with a plurality of diverse beliefs (and that also has not changed), it makes sense that the government that serves them all should make no commitment to any one brand of religion, and that we should enforce a studied indifference to all forms of the sacred. It may be counterintuitive to some, but that is the only way to protect the independence and variety of religions that are (unfortunately, to an atheist) thriving in America.

And not just America. This needs to be shouted from the rooftops in every liberal democracy on the planet.

You can read more about PZ Myers here.

Read More

Fundies heart Howard

ABC Radio National's Background Briefing is profiling the Exclusive Brethren, a fundamentalist Christian sect whose members "keep themselves separate from other people (including other Christians) as far as possible, because they believe the world is a place of wickedness. They regard 'exclusiveness' as the only way to keep away from evil." For examples, members are forbidden to vote.

They may not vote, but they don't seem to be afraid of getting their hands dirty when it comes to shilling for conservative political parties--usually in the form of newspaper ads and pamphlets, and usually under assumed identities. As the "Thanksgiving 2004 Committee" they spent over $US 500,000 on newspaper advertisements supporting Bush and Republican Senate candidate Mel Martinez. Their Meadowbank school was used to authorise campaigns, operated by the brother of Brethren leader Bruce Hales, urging the re-election of Ross Cameron in Parramatta and John Howard in Bennelong. They spent another half a million on a leaflet campaign against Labour and the Greens in the recent NZ election, and met with Nationals leader Don Brash. And in the Tasmanian poll earlier this year, they conducted a smear-campaign against the Greens, warning that a vote for the Greens is a vote for same-sex marriage and adoption rights for same-sex couples. According to The Australian:

Other ads suggested the Greens would destroy families and society. Similar language was used in one Liberal Party pamphlet, prompting questions about Liberal involvement in the Brethren material.

Liberal state director Damien Mantach confirms meeting members of the church before the campaign but denies any involvement in drafting, placing or paying for the ads.

The Exclusive Brethren has previously been profiled on ABC's The World Today.

UPDATE: On the topic of Howard-loving fundies, Hillsong have produced an article on depression that, from the sounds of things, has to be seen to be believed. That is--if it could be seen: Hillsong seems to have taken it down. You can read all about it at Dogfight at Bankstown, The Bartlett Diaries, The Road to Surfdom, and Larvatus Prodeo.

Read More

The rise of the Jeebustopia

For a side of politics that claims to eschew utopianism, conservatives (in the US at least) seem hell-bent on building a few utopias of their own.

There's Domino's founder Tom Monaghan's Catholic-only town, Ave Maria, taking shape in Florida.

There's Jeebusland, of course.

And then there's Black Jack, Missouri:

Imagine you've bought your dream house. And you've moved in. Now, imagine being told you can't live there because you -- and your children -- are not considered a family. That's the situation facing Olivia Shelltrack, Fondrey Loving and their three kids in Black Jack, Missouri.

They moved from Minneapolis to the St. Louis suburb a couple of months ago. I visited them recently at their five-bedroom home. They told me Black Jack requires all homes to have an occupancy permit, but that they were denied one. They said they were told that because there are more than three people in their house, and not all are related by blood or marriage, they don't meet Black Jack's definition of a family.

As Black Jack's mayor, Norman McCourt, put it recently at a city council meeting: "It's overcrowding because it's not a single family. It's a single-family residence and they're not a single family."

Olivia and Fondrey aren't married and had two of their three children out of wedlock. The third child is Olivia's from a previous relationship. They appealed to the city's Board of Adjustment for an exemption, figuring it wouldn't be hard for anyone to see they're a real family. But they were denied. Olivia and Fondrey told me they came away from that meeting feeling like they were given a clear message: Get married or move.

Via Morons.org.

Read More

Newscorp's latest acquisition UPDATE

This is going to come as a rude shock, but did you know that the Bush administration is and has long been in the thrall of the religious right?

Okay, so you knew that already. I bet you didn't know that Tony Snow, the new White House press spokesman, is a shill for the ID movement.

Read all about it at:

The Panda's Thumb
Media Matters
The Beast

Oh, and as Pharyngula reports, Snow doesn't think racism is all that big a problem in the US anymore. Good grief!

With Ann Coulter calling evolution a "liberal creation myth" in her new book (ID's high priest William Dembski collaborated with her on "her chapters on Darwinism"), it certainly seems as if the Right has jumped the shark.

P.S. A Kansas science teacher's decision to keep an image of the Flying Spaghetti Monster glued to his door has hurt the feelings of a wingnut Board of Education member.

Read More

What's still on my fridge.

Mr Lefty has a post about news clippings and cartoons that no longer grace his fridge. The following gem, from the West Australian, remains on my fridge and will do so indefinitely:

I have just read the Let's Look Out for Australia information pack and, thanks to the warnings, I now realise how suspiciously my mate Derro has been acting recently. I have been gathering evidence and I wanted to share my thoughts on his behaviour.
1. Unusual videotaping of critical infrastructure. Last year, me and Derro went up to Queensland on a pilgrimage to visit the XXXX brewery. Derro took pictures of the buildings, brewing vats and delivery trucks. This beer is a very important part of my life and, looking back, I am concerned he was really taking terrorist pictures of critical Australian infrastructure.
2. Suspicious vehicles near significant buildings. Last week, Derro went to visit Wendy round the corner. Hers must be a significant building because there is a red security light on the front and a lot of blokes go in every day. The advice about bombs being placed in no-parking zones has really opened my eyes. I became suspicious when Derro went inside and left his old bomb outside the house in a zone clearly marked No Parking. Now I realise why he looked so shifty when he came out nearly two hours later.
3. Unusual purchases of large quantities of fertiliser or chemicals. Derro's garden is a mess. One day recently, he asked me to accompany him to the garden centre. I thought we had come to get a new barbie, but I became concerned when Derro ordered 500kg of sheep manure and 250kg of cow manure. Without the booklet, I may not have known that Derro's purchase of such a large amount of fertiliser was suspicious.
4. A lifestyle that doesn't add up. I went round to Derro's place the other day and he was watching TV. I became worried because he was not watching Neighbours but a strange foreign channel. I checked with my mates and this is called the Suspect Broadcast Service and apparently no one ever watches it. Do you think he receiving covert messages from foreign terrorists? Also, Derro and me recently went into town to get some Aussie grub. He ordered two Big Macs, two large fries and a strawberry shake. I became concerned that his lifestyle didn't add up when he said he only had five bucks and asked me for a loan.
5. False or multiple identities. This is the clincher. I went round to Derro's mum's place for afternoon tea. While we were eating our Vegemite toast (with hundreds and thousands) his mum, forgetting I was there, starts talking to a certain Derrick. After 15 minutes I realised Derro IS Derrick. "Derro" was just a way of disguising a suspicious and unacceptable name to hide out in the Australian community.
Quite a dossier, I think you'll agree. What do you think my next move should be? Eventually, his mum confessed the family was not Australian at all but the country they came from was Wales. That's somewhere in the Middle East, near Philistine, I think. Maybe with Philip Ruddock's help we can apply the Pacific solution to Derro's case. After all I, like all Australians, am a Pacifist at heart.

TIM ARMSTRONG, Bedford.

Read More

(Oh No Not Another) Infamous Jesus Cartoon Controversy

Via Dispatches From the Culture Wars, an Oregon student newspaper entitled The Insurgent has printed 12 anti-Christian cartoons, apparently as a response to the Danish publication of 12 cartoons deemed offensive to Muslims earlier this year. The paper (and image) in question is available in .PDF form at the Oregon Commentator.

The cartoons have drawn fire from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a group which has previously mounted campaigns against South Park and the Da Vinci Code movie.

The University of Oregon paper the Daily Emerald comments:

The cartoons created by The Insurgent were not only irrelevantly offensive (why should a Christian care that an amateur liberal cartoonist has drawn Jesus listening to an iPod?), they were printed in a nation where many citizens identify with some sect of Christianity and rarely experience the kind of widespread oppression felt by Muslims around the world. Trying to make an equal comparison between the Muslim anger toward European cartoons and potential Christian anger toward homoerotic Jesus cartoons printed in The Insurgent is a careless dismissal of why Islamic communities felt under attack because of the offensive comics. Unlike the Danish cartoons, The Insurgent drawings seem intended to simply incite controversy for controversy’s sake rather than making specific social commentaries.

According to the Emerald, this isn't the first time a student newspaper has printed images offensive to Christians in response to the Danish cartoons. University of Saskatchewan paper The Sheaf published the following cartoon in March:

Source: small dead animals.

UPDATE: What God's self-styled spokesman has to say about all this. (Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.)

Read More

NewsCorp's latest acquisition

The White House.

Read More

Law and Order: Special Vibrators Unit

If you're planning a Christian Exodus to Jeebusland (formerly South Carolina) this summer, make sure you leave your sex toys behind.

Via Dispatches From the Culture Wars.

Read More

Procreate or Perish

What. The. Fuck?

Via The Pencil Guy.

Read More

Yes, Virginia: There Is a Homer Sexual

I want to extend my congratulations to Paul Ash, a school superintendent in Lexington, Massachusetts, for sticking to his guns regarding the frankly ridiculous notion that if gay characters are featured in a story presented to schoolchildren, parents should be notified.

From Reuters:

The crown prince rejects a bevy of beautiful princesses, rebuffing each suitor until falling in love with a prince. The two marry, sealing the union with a kiss, and live happily ever after.

That fairy tale about gay marriage has sparked a civil rights debate in Massachusetts, the only U.S. state where gays and lesbians can legally wed, after a teacher read the story to a classroom of seven year olds without warning parents first.

A parents' rights group said on Monday it may sue the public school in the affluent suburb of Lexington, about 12 miles west of Boston, where a teacher used the book "King & King" in a lesson about different types of weddings.

Bring it on, I say. The whining bigot parents claim that the incident consitutes a breach of a 1996 Massachusetts law requiring parents to be notified if their precious little angels are going to be exposed to (gasp!) sex education--a claim shrugged off by Ash:

"This district is committed to teaching children about the world they live in. Seven-year-olds see gay people. They see them in the schools. They see them with their kids," he said.

Reality. Don't fundies just hate it? And I almost needn't mention the blatant double-standard inherent in the argument that the mere portrayal of same-sex couples constitutes "sex education," whereas portraying heterosexuals couples does not. Whinging bigot parent advocate Brian Camenker explains:

"The law talks about human sexuality issues," he explains. "[School officials are] saying 'Well, homosexuality isn't a human sexuality issue, it's a human rights issue.' So they're saying it doesn't apply here, 'and so we're not going to notify you.'

"It's monstrous that they can just blatantly redefine the English language like that," he says.

Homosexuality is no more or less a "human sexuality issue" than is heterosexuality--anybody who argues otherwise is "blatantly redefining the English language"--so by Brian's rationale, the notification requirement should equally apply to classroom materials which deal with or include references to heterosexuality. Don't parents deserve to be warned in advance if their children are going to be exposed to the blatant portrayals of heterosexuality and the heterosexual lifestyle in fairytales such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty or Beauty and the Beast?

Last year, the whinging bigot parent of a child at the same school was arrested for trespassing after he demanded from school authorities an undertaking that if there was to be an discussion of homosexuality in his son's kindergarten class, he would be informed in advance in order to opt his child out of the discussion.

Neil Tassel, a lawyer with Denner O'Malley, said Parker does not object to having his son attend school with children of same-sex couples.

''What he's concerned about is that the belief system that that's a normal family structure and an equally good one is going to be proposed by an adult. And if it is, he wants to know about it first," Tassel said.

Fair enough. But while we're on the subject of parent's rights, why stop there? Don't white supremacist parents, for instance, deserve notification in advance if their children are to be exposed to representations of interracial couples in the classroom? Or discussions of the Holocaust, perhaps? Why should the school district pander to one form of bigotry, and not others?

In the opinion of one wingnut:

This story is another example of how parents' wishes are being ignored, in favor of the liberal/homosexual agenda. Even six year-olds are being indoctrinated into sodomy!

The homosexual agenda is undoubtedly being pushed in Massachusetts. Teachers, principals, Mass. Department of Education officials, and even police departments are participating in this injustice. The deviant practice of homosexuality is being forced upon children attending public schools in that state. Unfortunately, all too many parents are simply keeping their mouths shut, while their children are convinced to embrace sodomy.

We can look upon Massachusetts as a 'test market' for the growing movement amongst liberals to legitimize homosexuality. As long as parents are intimidated into submission or simply don't care--the deviants and their handmaidens (public school officials) will attempt to not only warp young minds, but recruit new deviants. The Massachusetts school system is committing child abuse.

Could you ever imagine a day when children would be taught that cross-dressing, sodomy, and perversion were completely acceptable activities?

Pray for the children.

Read More

AV drops in on some old friends

From Project Evil, a discussion forum in which I used to hold forth:

[Me:] I don't frequent these halls nowadays, as you might have noticed, but I couldn't let this pass without comment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dalem Where on the planet do we have an example of "peaceful, open Islam"? -dale

Y'know, we have Muslims living right here in Perth, and dalem's absolutely right. You just can't walk down the street anymore without tripping over a suicide bomber, and just last week I had my own head sawed off. Jeebus!

Read More

English teachers hit back

Karren Phillip, president of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English, has posted a response to the PM's remarks on the AATE website.

She has also submitted the following Letter to the Editor of The Age:

The Prime Minister seems to be misinformed about the ways English teachers are treating texts in Australian classrooms. ('PM canes 'rubbish' postmodern teaching' The Australian, 20 April 2006).

Australian English teachers respect the enduring values and traditions of Australia's cultural heritage. There are no competing agenda in our classrooms. We continue to value and teach 'high quality literature' and to ensure that our students can discriminate the literary from the dross of popular culture. However, to ignore the popular texts that students consume daily,and not give them the critical skills they need to question these texts, would result in a 'dumbing down of the English syllabus.' English teachers have a responsibility to ensure that Australian students understand how powerfully our literature (the canonical and the popular) shapes our understanding of our Australian identity.

It is time for federal politicians, led by the Prime Minister, to cease their snipes at state curriculum. They are undermining the efforts of hard working English educators. Surely their job is to support us?

The love affair between contemporary directions in English teaching and the Right is nothing new, of course. And Howard's comments come in the wake of a shitfight over upper school English that has been taking place in WA.

Read More

MAN, Christian, sks fem. virgin 12-24, n/s, gsoh.

(Sigh.) Finding oneself a Maiden of Virtue can be difficult in these godless times. Sometimes, you have to take unusual measures:

BRAY, Okla. -- A man has caused an uproar in this southwestern Oklahoma town by advertising in an unusual manner that he'd like to pay for a virgin to be his bride.

A sign 45-year-old Michael Thelemann posted in his yard Sunday said he'll pay $1,000 for a virgin bride between the ages of 12 and 24.

. . .

''I'm just somebody who is getting up there in years, and I'm looking for a born-again, God-fearing virgin between the ages of 12 and 24 who can bear me children,'' said Thelemann. ''What's the problem? I just think I have some wicked neighbors.''

Surprisingly, Thelemann's had no takers yet.

Via Pharyngula.

Read More

BB06: The Burning Question

No: not that burning question (which has been posed by QueerPenguin and since resolved--and let me preface this post by admitting that I have yet to view an episode of the current series, and probably won't do so for another three or four weeks, or until idle curiosity kicks in). I'm more interested in Who Will Be This Season's Token Lefty?

Much has been made of the show's propensity to use titillation to boost ratings, but I've always suspected that the famous "Merlin incident" has had a role to play in the selection process for subsequent seasons.

Merlin Luck, you may recall, was the 2004 evictee who caused something of a stir--to put it mildly--used his exit interview with host Gretel Killeen to stage a silent protest against the mandatory detention of asylum seekers.

In spite of the dressing-down Luck received on the following night's episode at the hands of a blindsided Killeen, clearly Ten relished the publicity and was looking for more. (That's my theory, anyway.)

Enter 2005's Tim Brunero. More Labor Left than Green Left, Brunero was like Merlin minus the whiny teenage angst, and plus wit and charm (if only in the context of a house full of troglodytes). Such was Brunero's popularity with the BB audience that he has own fansite, and his appeal nearly yielded him the series victory--but for the fact that, however likeable, lefties will always lose out to bogans among BB fans. It has to be said, nevertheless, that he probably did cause not a few reality-TV skeptics (like myself) to stay with the show for more than two consecutive episodes. (Even if he did look a cross between Alvin Purple and Terry Camilleri from The Cars That Ate Paris.)


So who will it be this year? The smart money (inasmuch as there is any "smart money" to be placed) is on this gentleman, "Michael." Not only does Michael (a) go to uni, he (b) studies political science. And (c) he actually describes himself on BB's official site as someone who wants to (get this)

. . . bring intelligent, articulate, analytical conversation and debate to the Big Brother house. I want to question people's social and moral integrity. I really want to push people's ideological perspectives and have them question themselves, and me, in the process. I also like to see how people deal with these situations and basically stir things up. If I have to play the devils advocate, I will.

A fair demonstration of the wankery required of a Big Brother contestant, but shall we say "case closed?" I haven't seen the show, yet, so I could be way short of the mark. Thoughts?

Read more at ausculture.

UPDATE: Here's ausculture jess' appraisal:

Meet Michael. He tells the nation in his pre-appearance clip that he's single and pays his own rent. Erm, right. Thanks for sharing. He also wants to be a political strategist. Poltics, eh? While he's grinning like a fool and trying to paint himself as a ladies man, he also rings his mother every single day. Awww. I just vomited into my mouth. Back to sex related stuff! He claims to be a swinger. According to Michael, people often tell him he's "an arrogant, selfish pig". So he's a Liberal voter then. BOOM BOOM. He gets along with men better because every woman he meets, he wants to play kiss and catch with. Oh my lord, he really is a contender for Most Deserving Of A Kick In The Crotch this series and it's eight minutes in. "I'm going to take Big Brother on" the cocky idiot declares. MBBS decide he will be out by week three at the latest.

(Fluff post ends here.)

Read More

Creationists: to debate or not to debate?

David Heidelberg raised a valid point in the comments section of the previous post about the perils of scientists engaging in debate with creationists. I think Panda's Thumb's Lenny Flank puts the matter rather nicely:

Such staged “debates” don’t accomplish anything. Although many creationist fighters will be overflowing with the desire to get the creationists into an “open debate” and thereby kick their butts in public, there are several good reasons why this is not advisable. Debates like this do not convince anybody of anything, since only the already-converted will show up. It will give the opportunity for the creationists to rally the faithful in every fundamentalist congregation in the county, all of whom will show up, by the busloads, at the debate hall to cheer their heroes on.

Even if the audience were willing to listen to the evolutionist side of the story (they will not be), the usual format for such debates, a forty-five minute presentation by each side, followed by a half-hour rebuttal, will shackle the debater’s hands. The subject of biological evolution is so huge and so complex that people spend their whole professional lives investigating just tiny portions of it. It is simply impossible to give an adequate overview of such a complex subject in the space of a forty-five minute presentation, particularly when one understands the often abysmal level of science education among the audience. The creationists, on the other hand, are helped greatly by these time limits. Since they have no scientific model of their own to present, they will spend all of their time in what is known affectionately as the “Gish Gallop”, in which they skip around from topic to topic spewing out an unceasing blizzard of baloney and unsupported assertions about evolutionary theory, leaving the poor “evolutionist” to attempt to catch up and correct them all. It is an impossible task. Whenever the scientist presents a valid piece of scientific data, the creationist need simply answer with, “That’s not true.” It is then incumbent upon the scientist to spend twenty minutes explaining why it *is* true. Meanwhile, the scientist’s basic message will not be getting out; the creationist’s will.

All such “debates” do is give the creationists a chance to rally their troops, to gain some publicity, to raise money, and to give the false impression that there really is a scientific “debate”.

Don’t help them.

Biologist Fred Parrish gives a blow-by-blow account of a debate with a creationist he was "suckered into" back in 1985, on the American Humanist Association website.

A similar account can be found on the Talk-Origins site.

Read More

ID/Creationism: the madness is spreading across the pond

In an earlier post I mentioned a BBC poll which revealed that four out of ten Britons believe intelligent design should be taught in science classrooms. Now, we learn that:

Pupils in England will be required to discuss creationist theories as part of a new GCSE biology course being introduced in September.

The move has alarmed scientists who fear it could open the door for the promotion of creationist ideas like "intelligent design" and give them scientific respectability at a time when they are being promoted by fundamentalist Christians and Muslims.

. . .

The new biology syllabus in England does not require the teaching of creationist views alongside Darwin's theory of evolution, but it opens the way for classroom discussions in science lessons and pupils will be assessed on work they do on this topic.

Meanwhile, yet another antipodean (following in the footsteps of Ken Ham and Ray Comfort) is heading north to spread the Good Word.

Next week, an Australian will jet into Heathrow for a lecture tour that will gladden the hearts of the small but dauntless band of British creationists, believers in the biblical account of the origins of the world.

John Mackay, a former science teacher from Queensland, whose photograph shows him looking not unlike Indiana Jones, grinning in bush hat and open necked shirt, is one of Creation Science's speaking stars. He will console believers that Genesis is true, that the Earth is not millions of years old but only a few thousand and that science proves it, rather than the Darwinian theory of evolution accepted by the overwhelming majority of scientists for more than a century.He comes here most years, though his 31 engagements from Scotland to Kent are mainly in nonconformist church halls and non-mainstream chapels rather than the loftiest pulpits or highest groves of academe. There will be talks at places like the Living Waters Fellowship at Newport, Isle of Wight, the Christian Outreach Centre in Bournemouth and the Destiny Church in Edinburgh. An appearance at Bangor University turns out to be in a hall hired by local evangelicals for the occasion.

There will even be a week-long Family Creation Conference in tents at the Cefn Lea Christian Holiday Park near Newtown in mid-Wales, for which about 40 families have signed up, at which Mr Mackay will attempt to answer fundamental questions such as: Did bees sting before Adam sinned? Why would birds need to migrate in a good world? What would polar bears do in a world with no ice and what did great white sharks eat before Aussies went surfing? The answers may seem obvious, but it is proof that even believers in the inerrancy of the Bible feel the need to seek something scientific to bolster their case.

Mackay wants to debate bona fide scientists like Richard Dawkins and David Attenborough, both of whom aren't interested. For Mackay's followers, this is "censorship." However, as an anonymous reviewer of Eugenie Scott's Evolution vs Creationism: An Introduction puts it:

Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon -- it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flys back to its flock to claim victory.

I'll leave you with a pearl of wisdom from Bishop Wayne Malcolm of the Christian Life City church in Hackney, East London:

There is clearly an absence in the fossil record for intermediate levels of development. If a frog turned into a monkey, shouldn't you have lots of fronkies?

Kirk Cameron, don't get too cozy with that "Dickhead of the Year" award just yet.

Read More

You Have B.O.

In my younger days I was in the employ of a certain fast-food chain, and we had a girl there with a severe case of this problem. She was a really nice person in every other respect, so you can imagine how difficult it would have been to broach the issue with her. Thankfully, that task never fell to me.

Anyway, here's a website that could have helped us all out.

Read More

Next on ACA: How left-wing English teachers are intellectually sodomising your children . . . and what the PM plans to do about it

Yawn. Another Tory is sooking about outcomes based education and the fact that English syllabi have moved on somewhat from "when he was a lad."

Said Tory then whines that the fact that it has moved on constitutes a "dumbing down" of the English syllabus, and a sign that, at the expense of "quality traditional literature" (i.e. the literature produced by Dead White Englishmen that little Johnny studied at Canterbury Boy's High), educational authorities are succumbing to "political correctness" (i.e. anything not produced by the Dead White Englishmen that little Johnny studied at school).

When asked about the West Australian government's "outcome-based" education program, Mr Howard replied: "That is gobbledegook - what does that mean?"

Um . . . Johnny? Not knowing anything about a subject is not a refutation of it. Didn't they teach you that at Canterbury Boy's?

Stay tuned for the usual triumphalist diatribe in the editorial of the Australian, accompanied by the usual triumphalist diatribe by Kevin Donnelly. Ho hum.

P.S. Things started looking up once Brendan "students in state schools should be taught intelligent design in science classes if that's what parents want" Nelson was replaced by Julie Bishop--who ostensibly seemed to have a good head on her shoulders, relatively speaking--but they don't seem so hopeful now.

UPDATE: There's a great post about this at Larvatus Prodeo.

Read More

How Evil Am I? (AV jumps on the bandwagon)

You Are 30% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well. In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

How Evil Are You?

Read More

Dickhead of the Year: Kirk Cameron

And not because he's a fundie. Because he's a drooling, slavering, idiotic fundie. And his inanity is well demonstrated in a video he's produced with fellow lamebrain Ray Comfort on the subject of evolution: "The Evolution Zone" (a play on "The Twilight Zone"--did you get it? Huh? Did ya?).

Now, I'll admit I have a slow connection and am working my way through the video stream, with ever-thinning patience, you understand, so you should visit Dispatches From the Culture Wars for a complete synopsis. I knew what was coming, but my jaw dropped at about the point where Comfort claims that "evolutionists would have us believe [. . .] there was nothing. And then there was this "Big Bang," and out came the sea and the land, and the birds, etc." Yes, you read that correctly.

By this point anybody who hasn't navigated away from the page hosting the clip will have realised that Cameron and Comfort know sweet fuck all about evolution. Do they take the path of humility and seek to educate themselves on the topic before they embarrass themselves further? Nosireebob! Here's what they propose to do. They're going to talk to "true believers" in evolution who speak what they call "the language of evolution." "True believers start off sounding like experts, but because there's such a lack of factual evidence for the theory, start to use words like "we surmise," "we believe," "perhaps," "maybe."" Comfort tells us to watch out for these keywords as we view the sequence that follows.

Now, at this point, some of you might be expecting a series of interviews with zoologists, biologists, paleontologists--people who actually know what they are talking about, and who are qualified to speak with authority on the topic of evolution. Well, you're expecting far too much. You see, that would have been too easy. What these clowns do instead is find random people in the street who will say, when asked, that they accept evolutionary theory. They then proceed to ply them with questions ranging from "How did it begin?" and "What caused the Big Bang" (questions that don't fall within the remit of evolutionary theory in any case) to "When we were under the water, do you think we had lungs or gills?" and my favourite: "So . . . here is this animal that comes out of the water without lungs, and so he comes out with gills and then goes Puff! Puff! Puff! and then runs back in the water and then keeps coming out until lungs develop? Wow! . . . Was he male or female?" There's more: "Do you think we could have evolved from horses?" As you might guess, the responses are stumbling and uncertain--which to you and me will signal that the respondents (as they freely admit) know very little about the theory they support (or perhaps they have been caught off-guard by the ludicrous line of questioning)--but to Comfort and Cameron indicate that the theory itself is suspect. What a pair of snake-oil salesmen they are!

I'm up to the part where we return to the studio, and Cameron is telling us how the problem with evolution is the lack of transitional forms. "The supposed transitional forms exist only in the imagination (points to head here) of evolutionists." He's wrong, of course. And Cameron: archaeologists don't dig up fossils. Paleontologists do that. (Or should that read "palientologists?") According to Cameron, Homo Neanderthalensis was just "an old man with arthritis!" I can't bear to watch . . . and yet I can't look away.

You have been warned.
UPDATE: Cameron and Comfort have been responsible for similar shenanigans previously.

UPDATE II: Regarding "Dickhead of the Year," it appears we have a new contender. Wot a spud!

Read More

Something of a wag in the tail

Allow me to indulge in a spot of ladblogging:

Jason Gillespie scored an amazing 201 not out as Australia declared on 4 for 581 shortly after lunch on day four of the second and final Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong.

Gillespie brought up the monumental milestone with a deft leg glance to the boundary as team-mates stood cheering in the dressing room. Clarke was the batsman at the other end and finished the innings unbeaten on 23. (ABC)

The ability of Australian cricketers to triumph in the face of adversity--Gillespie's career is in a "rebuilding phase" after a disastrous Ashes last year--never ceases to amaze. Cheers, Dizzy!

Read More

SBS doco: "A War On Science"

2000 years ago someone died on a cross for us. Isn't it time we did something for him?

That's one of the more chilling soundbites from the SBS Cutting Edge documentary on ID, "A War on Science," that screened last night. It's also a very good reason why, as the programme reported, members of the Dover school board were instructed by their legal counsel to keep their mouths shut during the recent trial that provided a backdrop for the programme's exploration of the ID phenomenon.

Overall, the documentary provided a useful general introduction to the claims of intelligent design and to the criticisms of those claims. Michael Behe and William Dembski were introduced as the caporegimes of a movement founded by lawyer Phillip Johnson and philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, and their key claims--Behe's "irreducible complexity" and Dembski's "specified complexity" (outlined in broader terms as a statistical refutation of random mutation and natural selection)--were presented as the twin pillars of that movement. The programme also pointedly made the connection between the courtroom defeat of the teaching of biblical creationism in the late eighties, and the coincidentally contemporaneous emergence of intelligent design. (Had there been time, I'm sure it would have detailed the "evolution" of creationist textbook Of Pandas and People into the NEW! IMPROVED! intelligent design editions--this certainly did not go unnoticed in Dover). The "Wedge Document" was mentioned, though the documentary noted that its release has not been detrimental to ID's popular appeal. The reality-based community was represented by David Attenborough and a scathing Richard Dawkins--who unfortunately offered little more than sound-bite rebuttals--with the actual killer blows to Behe's and Dembski's claims being struck by biologist Kenneth Miller, who demonstrated how the so-called "irreducible complexity" of the flagellum wasn't, and also how many events can be deemed statistically impossible if the odds of their occurring are calculated retrospecively.

Overall, the "War on Science" was represented not so much as a struggle between science and religion as a struggle between science and truthiness--Bush featured prominently as a sign of the powerful hold ID has on the American popular mind, even if its credibility among scientists is negiligible (and that's being generous). Although we all know the result in Dover, the documentary foreshadowed more battles to come--given the money and resources available to ID proponents. And here I feel the doco missed an opportunity to explore some of the sources of these funds--including among them organizations who believe homosexuals should be executed.

The "American Gothic" cinematography employed for the Dover, PA sequences was a nice touch--though I thought the "scary movie" atmospherics that accompanied accounts of the Dover school board meetings leading up to the trial a tad over the top. (Indeed, the doco often seemed to be suggesting something about ID proponents through the cinematography. Dembski was filmed repeatedly tossing dice--as befits a man who once famously boasted: "I'll wager a bottle of single-malt scotch, should it ever go to trial whether ID may legitimately be taught in public school science curricula, that ID will pass all constitutional hurdles." And Behe, who claims that the "irreducible complexity" of the bacterial flagellum is evidence against evolution, expounded his views from within an amusement park.)

It's a shame that good television like this gets buried on SBS--but then again with the fundie-friendly Federal Government tightening the screws on the ABC, it's probably just as well.

Read More

And I Cook, Too

Back in January, you might remember I posted an old family recipe for pasta sauce. Well, I'm happy and honoured to announce that said recipe has been included in a new cookbook fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders. (Which retails at $US 15 and is available via the link.)

Read More

How long is a piece of string? Evolution and deep time

The timescales involved in cosmological, geological and evolutionary history are simply too immense to bear thinking about without the aid of some hard drugs. In his incomparable intervention into the field of popular science, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson asks us to stretch out our arms as far as possible, and to imagine that span as the entire history of the Earth:

On this scale [. . .] the distance from the fingertips of one hand to the wrist of the other is the Precambrian. All of complex life is in one hand, "and in a single stroke with a medium-grained nail file you could eradicate human history."

Via Larvatus Prodeo, here's a website that represents the timescales involved in evolutionary history graphically. "To print it," observes LP's Shaun Cronin, "you would need a piece of paper 138ft long."

Read More

From the "War on Christianity" to the "War on Science"

This week's episode of The Cutting Edge (SBS) deals with what the fundies no doubt consider to be another front line in the "War on Christianity:" intelligent design. The BBC "Horizons" documentary pits ID advocates Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe and Stephen Meyer against Richard Dawkins (I'm still waiting for the ABC or SBS to screen his two-part doco for Channel 4, The Root of all Evil?) and David Attenborough--which one imagines is hardly a fair contest, but it is very difficult to resist the opportunity to see creationists made to look like idiots.

Set your VCRs.

Speaking of the aformentioned "War," the fundies are up in arms over the planned participation by hundreds of gay and lesbian parents in this year's annual White House Easter Egg Roll. The appropriately-named Mark Tooley of the right-wing think-tank (of which there must be half a dozen per head of population in the United States) the Institute on Religion and Democracy whines:

These groups are demanding acceptance of same-sex 'marriage,' adoption rights for 'alternative' families, and public acceptance of 'transgender' sexual arrangements [. . . .] They are free to advocate their perspective, and everyone with a child is welcome to attend the egg roll, of course. But there are a thousand other times and places they could demonstrate. How unfortunate they should choose to politicize the White House egg roll.

(Read more about the Institute on Religious and Democracy at Right Web.)

UPDATE: Back in January, when the documentary first screened, the BBC conducted a survey into the acceptance of evolution in its "birthplace" (so to speak).

Over 2,000 participants took part in the survey, and were asked what best described their view of the origin and development of life:

• 22% chose creationism
• 17% opted for intelligent design
• 48% selected evolution theory
• and the rest did not know.

Read More

Meet "Mr. Heterosexuality"

Meet the Rev. Tom Crouse, pastor of the Congregational Church in Holland, Massachusetts, and committed heterosexualist. Back in February, Crouse organised a "Mr. Heterosexual" contest, which was attended by "an estimated 175 to 200 people" and involved daredevil contestants participating in such breathtakingly non-girly-man stunts as talking about the uses of duct tape, demonstrating to an electrified audience how they proposed to their wives (or would propose), and identifying various flavours of potato chips while blindfolded.

Crouse later filed a suit against the local municipal authorities(the city of Worcester), claiming they "violated his rights" by charging him $6000 for the police barricade he requested at the event in order to ward off the hordes of local sodomites who were just aching for a piece of Christian tail, and who Crouse knew would not be bought off by any concubine. (As it turns out, "there were chants and even a “Queer Kiss-In” staging, but most [protesters] just lit candles and gathered in last night’s cold, saying they just wanted their protest to be heard." Protesters were outnumbered by police, in any case.)

For Crouse, who regularly rails against the Catholic Church on his blog and who has called for the Pope to be arrested, the "injustice" meted out to him by the city of Worcester is yet another instance of the "War on Christians"--the main focus of a Christian Right rally held recently in Washington DC in which Crouse (among a veritable who's who of Republican luminaries, including Tom DeLay) participated. As religious historian Elisabeth Castelli observes:

Whereas the left, whether religious or secular, decries the embeddedness of the current administration in the values and commitments of conservative Christianity, the participants in “The War on Christians and the Values Voter” seemed convinced that Bible-believing Christians are not being taken seriously by the politically powerful, despite the presence of so many of them at the conference. The rhetoric here moves back and forth between incommensurate claims -- Christians are persecuted and powerless, on the one hand, but constitute an irresistible and unbeatable majority, on the other. Aligning its point of view with that of God and its actions with God’s will, this movement must refuse to engage in political compromise because there can be no compromise when absolute truth or God are invoked. Hence the increasing intemperance of its rhetoric, the exuberance of its commitments, the unshakability of its resolve.

It is a movement that resoundingly denies that it is theocratic, dismissing such a characterization as one aimed at provocatively and cynically linking right-wing politicized Christianity to radical Islamism. At the same time, it is a movement that argues that political, social, and moral life must be solely grounded in scripture -- that there is no tension between the Bible and the founding documents of American political institutions, and that the separation of church and state demands an unacceptable compromise since, “if Jesus is your Lord, he is the Lord of everything,” as one conference preacher put it.

One of the main weapons the atheistevilutionistsecularistcommunist oppressors use to persecute Christians is the "homosexual agenda." (Homosexuals, you see, regularly convene to plot ways to force your 13-year-old son into gay marriage.) The bill sent to Crouse for his police protection from "rabid homosexual activists" is clear evidence of this anti-Christian persecution, as is, according to Repent America's Michael Marcavage, "the arrests of several Christian protestors who sought to interrupt a gay event in Philadelphia in order “to show the love of God to those who are lost and damned to hell for all eternity.”" And gay marriage itself is "an attack on the family because that’s where faith is passed on -- the goal is simply the destruction of religion" and "it’s an attack on biblical truth and therefore on God"--so banning gay marriage is really all about striking a blow for religious freedom and tolerance.

As Reason magazine's Cathy Young drily remarks:

Once, conservatives used to deplore the left's cult of victimhood and ridicule the obsession with real or imagined slights toward women, minorities, and other historically oppressed groups. Now, the right is embracing a victimhood cult obsessed with slights toward a group that makes up 85 percent of the American population.

(And in case you're wondering, I was never able to find out who in the end was declared "Mr Heterosexual.")

Read More

On the perils of thinking otherwise in a post-Sept. 11 world

Morons.org reports the case of a woman in the US state of Georgia being issued a ticket from a police officer because her car bore a bumpersticker that read: "I'm tired of all the BUSHIT."

Meanwhile, dibo at Stoush tells of a man by the name of Harraj (which couldn't possibly have anything to do with what happened to him. Oh no. Never.) who was taken into custody by British "anti-terrorism detectives," after an alert-but-not-alarmed taxi driver overheard him singing the lyrics to "London Calling" by The Clash.

Read More

The whys and wherefores of Howard conservatism

Deakin University's Geoff Robinson (who blogs at southcoast) has put out a paper on the Australian conservative political scene that, in my opinion, is absolutely spot on.

The paper (a draft) is entitled "Classical liberals' and the Howard government: neo-liberals and social conservatism" and is available here.

Read More

Arthur Vandelay: Just the Facts

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Arthur Vandelay!

1. Apples are covered with a thin layer of Arthur Vandelay.
2. If you chew gum while peeling Arthur Vandelay then it will stop you from crying!
3. Arthur Vandelay is the world's tallest woman.
4. The ace of spades in a playing card deck symbolizes Arthur Vandelay!
5. While sleeping, fifteen percent of men snore, and ten percent grind their Arthur Vandelay.
6. Only twelve people have ever set foot on Arthur Vandelay.
7. The only Englishman to become Arthur Vandelay was Nicholas Breakspear, who was Arthur Vandelay from 1154 to 1159.
8. In the kingdom of Bhutan, all citizens officially become Arthur Vandelay on New Year's Day.
9. Arthur Vandelay can't sweat.
10. Every day in the UK, four people die putting Arthur Vandelay on!

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

Via One Dog Said To The Other.

Read More

The Men Who Pray At Goats

A recent study debunks the "healing power of prayer" . . .

Read More

On Porn Addiction

Did I say "once in a while?" The "Brown Mile" does it again!

(And who, after Roy & HG's coverage of the 2000 Olympics, can resist a good Dick Pound joke?)

Read More

The Top Ten Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed

Truly brilliant posts like this only come along once in a while. (Though Wong gives a somewhat different account of how Alien3 might have looked than is provided on the "Special Features" DVD in the Quadrilogy.)

BTW: does anybody have any idea when Ancanar is going to be released?

Via One Dog Said To The Other.

Read More

Same-sex discrimination (HREOC inquiry)

Further to my post about same-sex civil unions, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is conducting an inquiry into financial and workplace discrimination against same-sex couples:

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) is concerned there has been a piecemeal approach to stamping out such discrimination.

Commonwealth, state and territory laws will be scrutinised for examples where same-sex couples are denied benefits enjoyed by heterosexual couples.

The inquiry will have a particular focus on leave, social security and tax, as well as workers' compensation, superannuation and veterans' entitlements.

The inquiry will collect examples of discrimination, along with accounts from people who have experienced it.

Should be interesting. (And doubtless it will re-ignite calls from the usual suspects for the abolition of HREOC).

While we're on the subject, and via Morons.org, a Republican politician in Tennessee is arguing that gay couples adopt children with the intent of molesting them. Before you say "Only in America," it is worth remembering that only 5 years ago the Australian Family Association was placing ads in the West Australian claiming that the Lesbian and Gay Law Reform Bill (which among other measures lowered the age of consent for gay men from 21 to 16) would lead to men having sex with 13-year-old boys. It is perhaps also worth remembering that the WA Libs went to the last state election proposing to recriminalise homosexuality under the age of 18.

And it is definitely worth revisiting--if only for a little light relief--the half-baked collection of slippery-slope arguments and appeals to ignorance that is the AFA National Vice-President's 2004 piece on same-sex marriage, including such pearls of wisdom as:

[On discrimination against gays and lesbians:] "Helpful and welcome discrimination takes place in society all the time."

"No homosexual is denied the right to marry, if he should so choose to marry someone of the opposite sex."

[On gay love and sex:] "Such a dangerous threat to public health and safety should not be ennobled or dignified, certainly not by governments who have the duty and responsibility to promote the health and wellbeing of all its citizens."

And my personal favourite:

"It is not marriage that tames the male, but women."

UPDATE: Sorry--I couldn't let this pass. From deep inside the corridors of Boltwatch:

[devilsadvocate:] We are treating homosexuals exactly the same as anyone else by allowing them to marry a person of the opposite sex.

[Me:] That is beyond callous. Obviously homosexuals don't want to marry persons of the opposite sex.

I can just picture you in the pre 1960s American Deep South: "Sure, black folks down here have the right to marry. They can marry other black folks. They just can't marry white folks. That ain't discrimination!"

Read More