Turkey bans Richard Dawkins website (Blog Post)

In a brilliant show-off of what religion does whenever it can wield its ugly face and aquire enough power, some imbicile fucktards in turkey has decided that its best to prevent people from reading certain things.

 Turkey has banned  www.richarddawkins.net , on the basis of Dawkins' not-so-flattering comments about som creationist idiot's biology book:

 http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,3128,Turkey-bans-biologist-Richard-Dawkins-website,Monsters-and-Critics

To those of you who are in turkey, here is the general outline of the story

http://sciencereligionnews.blogspot.com/2008/07/dawkins-on-harun-yahyas-atlas-of.html

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/science/news/article_1431422.php/Turkey_bans_biologist_Richard_Dawkins_website

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/18/turkey

Once again, be warned, this is what the true hipocritical and totalitarian face of religion ultimately looks like, a monopoly on ideas, an infringement on your most personal thing of all, your own thoughts. It is why I call my blog "The Memory Hole" after Orwells brilliant book, 1984, which is to me a perfect description of religion and its totalitarian core of submitting your own will to a fictional authority.

Biden gives the democratic party some much needed balls (Blog Post)

Finally, it seems someone might DO SOMETHING about all this shit, Joe Biden hints at a criminal investigation of the Bush years if Obama is elected.

 

From The Guardian :

Obama might pursue criminal charges against Bush
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said yesterday that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.
Biden's comments, first reported by ABC news, attracted little notice on a day dominated by the drama surrounding his Republican counterpart, Alaska governor Sarah Palin.
But his statements represent the Democrats' strongest vow so far this year to investigate alleged misdeeds committed during the Bush years. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/03/uselections2008.joebiden

Will "Expelled" be removed from the Meme-pool? (Blog Post)

Oh man, things are getting funnier by the moment, the soon-to-be-released creationist movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" is getting some major bad press,

First they lie to get actual scientists to show up in the movie. PZ Myers, Dawkins and Eugenie Scott were told they were making a movie called "Crossroads" that would examine the Evolution/Creationism debate , instead it turns out to be called "Expelled" which clearly indicates a non-neutral stance. "Working title" says Mark Mathis and says thats normal procedure for movies, fair enough, but as it turns out the interviews were conducted around April/May of 07, and the domain "www.expelledthemovie.com" was registered in February of 07. Domain names like "www.crossroadsthemovie.com were never bought

Then after they've tried for months to exclude anyone who isnt a die-hard creationists from the early screenings, the few normal people who did get in, writes some horrible things about it, and the surrounding secrecy and exclusion-tactics.

Then they decide to really go overboard in self-foot-shooting, and in what can only be described as one of the worst public relations disasters since the allied forces uncovered the nazi death camps,they Expell a famous biologist (who is interviewed in the movie and thanked in the credits) from another screening.  PZ Myers then goes to the nearest Apple retailer and blogs about it for the whole world to see, simultanously, Richard Dawkins stands up in the Q&A after said screening and asks the producer of the movie why his friend was expelled, only to be told that it was because he wasnt invited, when, infact no one in the audience was.. all you had to to was to register online and get an email confirmation..

 But was it over? No. there's also this whole thing about a little animation included in the movie, you see, William Dembski had been using Harvards original material in creationist lectures, and ended up having to apologise for it, it seems this material might also have been used in Expelled, but after Dembski had been caught using it, it seems they replaced it with a mock-up, a plagiarized version of the same animation:

Expelled version: 

 

Harvard version:

 

Now, it seems, things are really falling apart from these people, one pre-screening has been cancelled "due to technical issues" and have dissappeared from the list of upcoming events , The movie site itself http://www.expelledthemovie.com is at the time of me writing this, inaccessible, but that might be due to increased traffic, who knows..

People are now speculating that the whole thing is gonna be cancelled. Lets not hope so, its just too damn funny watching these people fuck up again and again.

PZ Myers EXPELLED from EXPELLED! (Blog Post)

 http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php

PZ Myers, the prominent blogger, biologist and evil evilutionist, was ironically enough expelled from  a screening of Expelled, the creationist propaganda movie that complains about creationists being explelled from universities because of their superstitios fantasies about biology.

But you wont BELIEVE the punchline:

Quote:

You see … well, have you ever heard of a sabot? It's a kind of sleeve or lightweight carrier used to surround a piece of munition fired from a gun. It isn't the actually load intended to strike the target, but may even be discarded as it leaves the barrel.

I'm a kind of sabot right now.

They singled me out and evicted me, but they didn't notice my guest. They let him go in escorted by my wife and daughter. I guess they didn't recognize him. My guest was …

Richard Dawkins.

He's in the theater right now, watching their movie.

 

Update:

New York Times: No Admission for Evolutionary Biologist at Creationist Film

Twin cities:  Biology prof expelled from screening of 'Expelled'

Greg Laden : PZ Myers Expelled, Gains Sainthood

Eugenie C. Scott Comments

Splendid Ellis: "Irony" 

Easter Lemming : Anti-evolutionists throw a biologist out of film showing

 

 

Black Magic Kills a Scientist! (almost) (Blog Post)

This article made my day, seriously, its one of the funniest pieces of news I've ever read:

On 3 March 2008, in a popular TV show, Sanal Edamaruku, the president of Rationalist International, challenged India's most "powerful" tantrik (black magician) to demonstrate his powers on him. That was the beginning of an unprecedented experiment. After all his chanting of mantra (magic words) and ceremonies of tantra failed, the tantrik decided to kill Sanal Edamaruku with the "ultimate destruction ceremony" on live TV. Sanal Edamaruku agreed and sat in the altar of the black magic ritual. India TV observed skyrocketing viewership rates.

....Now the tantrik wrote Sanal's name on a sheet of paper, tore it into small pieces, dipped them into a pot with boiling butter oil and threw them dramatically into the flames. Nothing happened. Singing and singing, he sprinkled water on Sanal, mopped a bunch of peacock feathers over his head, threw mustard seed into the fire and other outlandish things more. Sanal smiled, nothing happened, and time was running out

Fuckin' hilarious. Sanal, whoever he is, is my new hero. Call these charlatan wankers out. 

EDIT: Doh! forgot to link to the actual article, thanks maatc

 http://www.rationalistinternational.net/article/2008/20080310/en_1.html

The Encyclopedia Of Life opens (Blog Post)

http://www.eol.org/

EOL

This site is the brainchild of E.O. Wilson, trailer here:

http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Encyclopedia-of-Life

 TEDtalks here:

http://www.videosift.com/video/2007-TED-Prize-winner-EO-Wilson-on-TEDTalks

I think its under some heavy traffic today, because it seems to be unavailable half the time. Its "only" got a million species so far, but check it out!

Obamarama (Blog Post)

So, is Obama going to be president, I wonder? Well, it sure sound like it just about now. My personal favourite in this whole debacle would be Mike Gravel, but what can you do.  Obama is a fresh face, His speeches are certainly inspiring, I love the sheer skill invovled when he speaks to a crowd. its god-damn magic how he does it. I'm not talking about the message itself, but the rethoric, theres just something fascinating about watching someone who is good at what he does, and as far as speeches go, Obama is as good as it gets. But will he be a good president? I honestly dont know. For all the emotion and power of his voice, there is little content, It's going to change, he says, Change! Yes we can! but he doesnt really get at what exactly IS going to change so damn much.

One cant help but to be reminded of George Orwells Animal Farm :

-The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

But Orwell isnt famous for seeing the bright sides. America is a funny place, and occasionally it does suprise. They've seemed to atleast partially have gotten over skin pigment differences, and that must be labelled progress of sorts.

Obama may do the speeches, but when it comes to singing it, RoyZimmerman may be the best at describing the wonderfully twisted divided religious strange United States: America

 


via videosift.com

Hello World (Blog Post)

This is my first, and hopefully worst attempt at writing a blog, and I kinda wonder myself what its going to be about. Its probably going to be this everything and nothing kinda thing, whatever I feel like putting up here, I've decided to name it "The Memory Hole", after George Orwell's 1984, that name probably taken tho, I havent bothered to check, so I guess I'll have to change it, if more than 2 people ever read this. So, what else is there to say in the helloworld entry? Oh yes, me, me, me.. who am I? Well I'm 27, live in Norway and I prefer never to give out personal details on the web. I lik: Science, music,games,movies,girls and food. In no particular order. (Although I deliberately put "girls" before "food"..) I dislike religion, bigotry, ignorance, fascism and assholes.

 -BicycleRepairMan

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