More 'global warming' shenanigans...

Washington, DC -- UK's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.

“The House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face,” Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. “They are cowards.”

According to Monckton, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Ranking Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee, had invited him to go head to head with Gore and testify at the hearing on Capitol Hill Friday. But Monckton now says that when his airplane from London landed in the U.S. on Thursday, he was informed that the former Vice-President had “chickened out” and there would be no joint appearance. Gore is scheduled to testify on Friday to the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment's fourth day of hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The hearing will be held in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.

According to Monckton, House Democrats told the Republican committee staff earlier this week that they would be putting forward an unnamed 'celebrity' as their star witness Friday at a multi-panel climate hearing examining the House global warming bill. The "celebrity" witness turned out to be Gore. Monckton said the GOP replied they would respond to the Democrats' "celebrity" with an unnamed "celebrity" of their own. But Monckton claims that when the Democrats were told who the GOP witness would be, they refused to allow him to testify alongside Gore.

“The Democrats have a lot to learn about the right of free speech under the US Constitution. Congress Henry Waxman's (D-CA) refusal to expose Al Gore's sci-fi comedy-horror testimony to proper, independent scrutiny by the House minority reeks of naked fear,” Monckton said from the airport Thursday evening.

Read the Rest at Climate Depot; more links there too on 'climate change'.

Brooks on 'the end of philosophy' or 'the end of humanity'

The End of Philosophy by David Brooks (New York Times)

Socrates talked. The assumption behind his approach to philosophy, and the approaches of millions of people since, is that moral thinking is mostly a matter of reason and deliberation: Think through moral problems. Find a just principle. Apply it.

One problem with this kind of approach to morality, as Michael Gazzaniga writes in his 2008 book, “Human,” is that “it has been hard to find any correlation between moral reasoning and proactive moral behavior, such as helping other people. In fact, in most studies, none has been found.”

Today, many psychologists, cognitive scientists and even philosophers embrace a different view of morality. In this view, moral thinking is more like aesthetics. As we look around the world, we are constantly evaluating what we see. Seeing and evaluating are not two separate processes. They are linked and basically simultaneous.

As Steven Quartz of the California Institute of Technology said during a recent discussion of ethics sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation, “Our brain is computing value at every fraction of a second. Everything that we look at, we form an implicit preference. Some of those make it into our awareness; some of them remain at the level of our unconscious, but ... what our brain is for, what our brain has evolved for, is to find what is of value in our environment.”

Think of what happens when you put a new food into your mouth. You don’t have to decide if it’s disgusting. You just know. You don’t have to decide if a landscape is beautiful. You just know.

Moral judgments are like that. They are rapid intuitive decisions and involve the emotion-processing parts of the brain. Most of us make snap moral judgments about what feels fair or not, or what feels good or not. We start doing this when we are babies, before we have language. And even as adults, we often can’t explain to ourselves why something feels wrong.

In other words, reasoning comes later and is often guided by the emotions that preceded it. Or as Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia memorably wrote, “The emotions are, in fact, in charge of the temple of morality, and ... moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as a high priest.”

The question then becomes: What shapes moral emotions in the first place? The answer has long been evolution, but in recent years there’s an increasing appreciation that evolution isn’t just about competition. It’s also about cooperation within groups. Like bees, humans have long lived or died based on their ability to divide labor, help each other and stand together in the face of common threats. Many of our moral emotions and intuitions reflect that history. We don’t just care about our individual rights, or even the rights of other individuals. We also care about loyalty, respect, traditions, religions. We are all the descendents of successful cooperators.

Read the rest of this wretched but interesting piece here.

My commentary:
As science comes up with 'explanations' for why humans feel the need to be moral, the moral 'values' that we hold will become useless. This is because, as science will have proven, it's all biologically determined anyway. This sort of reasoning admits a limit on what is reason; reason is strictly limited to the verifiable or empirical. Science hasn't accounted for feelings like "patriotism", but as Brooks asserts, eventually it will. Hence the title: "The Death of Philosophy". How does this not give a person pause? Reason is limited to materialistic determinism? Say 'bye, bye' to philosophy, theology, and reason-based ethics. An "epochal" shift. I think the article should be titled: "The End of Humanity". Brooks doesn't seem to get where this is going.... the topic is "above his pay grade".

The scientists seek to pair human morality with the reigning dogma on evolution/chance. This, of course, is not science but ideology. How are terms of 'value' and 'morality' and 'purpose' scientific? Explain why it is valid for scientists to be theorizing about such topics. Brook's article assumes evolution of random chance is true (so much for God's creative Spirit), and is more interested in taking such a view into the realm of morality with metaphysical underpinnings. The article posits, at least the scientists (it seems to me that Brooks doesn't get it), that reason is the slave of emotions because that's the only account empiricism can make for any 'moral' judgments. It very much appears that the 'science' going on here in Brooks' piece is just what you rail against in the quote above. This is especially seen when Dr. Quartz moves from 'the brain processing info at a vast rate' to 'this is what the brain is for' (assigning purpose... but I thought we were just moving particles at random?) to assigning 'value' to 'this is how we make moral judgments'. Where did the science end and the philosophy begin? I don't know about you, but I find it absurd when humans are compared to bees, moral decisions to tasting food, and that adults are no more qualified to make moral judgments than babies (yes, the article asserts all of those things). Hence, Brooks notes in the conclusion that the proposition of the 'moral scientists' is "an epochal" change; aka kiss religion, reason based morality, and what Lewis calls "the Tao" goodbye. Forget "The End of Philosophy" and enter "The End of Humanity". Which reminds me, you need to read The Abolition of Man if you haven't already; it's a great account of reason based morality that gives a role to emotion that I think you will find interesting.

At this point, the more important discussion is about the Brooks piece, and it gets back to The Metaphysical Club as well as Neuhaus' brilliant summation of Rorty and liberal irony.
One must choose:
a) To be with the materialists asserting that man's reason is slave to the emotions, and morality is simply as pragmatism describes (ready, fire, aim); truth is also always evolving and in-flux and determined by the utility in any given time by 'majority' consensus. Reality is really just what man percieves in his own mind; it does not apply to others. Such claims foundationally are anti-institution, anti-tradition, and anti-religious; usually if not always they favor a radical and unbridled positivism in the academy/polis.
-or-
b) To be with the realists who believe that man ought to and can order his emotions by using right reason and conquer his appetites, striving for the good, true, and beautiful which exist 'out there' and is accessible by our (God-given) reason, and embodied in the eternal Logos (in this account one can still recognize that we often act on emotions without thinking.) Such claims are friendly to religions, traditions, and hierarchical institutions (they are also not 'western' arguments exclusively); positivism has its place, but it is ordered to right reason.

There is no half-way house between the two. It's option 'a' or 'b'. This is the crux of our entire discussion! Again, even Brooks sees it as "an epochal" change - hence the problems of modern education as Deneen, Fish, and many others argue. Neither choice gives any road to a 'third' option; they are diametrically opposed. I'm interested to see what your choice is, and why.

Hilarious irony! Robot independed from creator...

I wonder if they intentionally named the robot... naw, I bet they are just stupid.

Robot achieves scientific first

By Clive Cookson, Science Editor

Published: April 2 2009 19:17 | Last updated: April 2 2009 19:17

A laboratory robot called Adam has been hailed as the first machine in history to have discovered new scientific knowledge independently of its human creators.

Adam formed a hypothesis on the genetics of bakers’ yeast and carried out experiments to test its predictions, without intervention from its makers at Aberystwyth University.

Read the rest.
Can anyone say "Terminator 4" here we come?

Freeman Dyson: global warming a sham (the evidence mounts)

The Civil Heretic

By NICHOLAS DAWIDOFF

FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson has quietly resided in Prince­ton, N.J., on the wooded former farmland that is home to his employer, the Institute for Advanced Study, this country’s most rarefied community of scholars. Lately, however, since coming “out of the closet as far as global warming is concerned,” as Dyson sometimes puts it, there has been noise all around him. Chat rooms, Web threads, editors’ letter boxes and Dyson’s own e-mail queue resonate with a thermal current of invective in which Dyson has discovered himself variously described as “a pompous twit,” “a blowhard,” “a cesspool of misinformation,” “an old coot riding into the sunset” and, perhaps inevitably, “a mad scientist.” Dyson had proposed that whatever inflammations the climate was experiencing might be a good thing because carbon dioxide helps plants of all kinds grow. Then he added the caveat that if CO2 levels soared too high, they could be soothed by the mass cultivation of specially bred “carbon-eating trees,” whereupon the University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner looked through the thick grove of honorary degrees Dyson has been awarded — there are 21 from universities like Georgetown, Princeton and Oxford — and suggested that “perhaps trees can also be designed so that they can give directions to lost hikers.” Dyson’s son, George, a technology historian, says his father’s views have cooled friendships, while many others have concluded that time has cost Dyson something else. There is the suspicion that, at age 85, a great scientist of the 20th century is no longer just far out, he is far gone — out of his beautiful mind.

But in the considered opinion of the neurologist Oliver Sacks, Dyson’s friend and fellow English expatriate, this is far from the case. “His mind is still so open and flexible,” Sacks says. Which makes Dyson something far more formidable than just the latest peevish right-wing climate-change denier. Dyson is a scientist whose intelligence is revered by other scientists — William Press, former deputy director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and now a professor of computer science at the University of Texas, calls him “infinitely smart.” Dyson — a mathematics prodigy who came to this country at 23 and right away contributed seminal work to physics by unifying quantum and electrodynamic theory — not only did path-breaking science of his own; he also witnessed the development of modern physics, thinking alongside most of the luminous figures of the age, including Einstein, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Witten, the “high priest of string theory” whose office at the institute is just across the hall from Dyson’s. Yet instead of hewing to that fundamental field, Dyson chose to pursue broader and more unusual pursuits than most physicists — and has lived a more original life.

Among Dyson’s gifts is interpretive clarity, a penetrating ability to grasp the method and significance of what many kinds of scientists do. His thoughts about how science works appear in a series of lucid, elegant books for nonspecialists that have made him a trusted arbiter of ideas ranging far beyond physics. Dyson has written more than a dozen books, including “Origins of Life” (1999), which synthesizes recent discoveries by biologists and geologists into an evaluation of the double-origin hypothesis, the possibility that life began twice; “Disturbing the Universe” (1979) tries among other things to reconcile science and humanity. “Weapons and Hope” (1984) is his meditation on the meaning and danger of nuclear weapons that won a National Book Critics Circle Award. Dyson’s books display such masterly control of complex matters that smart young people read him and want to be scientists; older citizens finish his books and feel smart.

Yet even while probing and sifting, Dyson is always whimsically gazing into the beyond. As a boy he sketched plans for English rocket ships that could explore the stars, and then, in midlife, he helped design an American spacecraft to be powered by exploding atomic bombs — a secret Air Force project known as Orion. Dyson remains an armchair astronaut who speculates with glee about the coming of cheap space travel, when families can leave an overcrowded earth to homestead on asteroids and comets, swooping around the universe via solar sail craft. Dyson is convinced that our current “age of computers” will soon give way to “the age of domesticated biotechnology.” Bio-tech, he writes in his book, “Infinite in All Directions” (1988), “offers us the chance to imitate nature’s speed and flexibility,” and he imagines the furniture and art that people will “grow” for themselves, the pet dinosaurs they will “grow” for their children, along with an idiosyncratic menagerie of genetically engineered cousins of the carbon-eating tree: termites to consume derelict automobiles, a potato capable of flourishing on the dry red surfaces of Mars, a collision-avoiding car.

These ideas attract derision similar to Dyson’s essays on climate change, but he is an undeterred octogenarian futurist. “I don’t think of myself predicting things,” he says. “I’m expressing possibilities. Things that could happen. To a large extent it’s a question of how badly people want them to. The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people’s hopes.” Formed in a heretical and broad-thinking tradition of British public intellectuals, Dyson left behind a brooding England still stricken by two bloody world wars to become an optimistic American immigrant with tremendous faith in the creative imagination’s ability to invent technologies that would overcome any predicament. And according to the physicist and former Caltech president Marvin Goldberger, Dyson is himself the living embodiment of that kind of ingenuity. “You point Freeman at a problem and he’ll solve it,” Goldberger says. “He’s extraordinarily powerful.” Dyson seems to see the world as an interdisciplinary set of problems out there for him to evaluate. Climate change is the big scientific issue of our time, so naturally he finds it irresistible. But to Dyson this is really only one more charged conundrum attracting his interest just as nuclear weapons and rural poverty have. That is to say, he is a great problem-solver who is not convinced that climate change is a great problem.

Dyson is well aware that “most consider me wrong about global warming.” That educated Americans tend to agree with the conclusion about global warming reached earlier this month at the International Scientific Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen (“inaction is inexcusable”) only increases Dyson’s resistance. Dyson may be an Obama-loving, Bush-loathing liberal who has spent his life opposing American wars and fighting for the protection of natural resources, but he brooks no ideology and has a withering aversion to scientific consensus. The Nobel physics laureate Steven Weinberg admires Dyson’s physics — he says he thinks the Nobel committee fleeced him by not awarding his work on quantum electrodynamics with the prize — but Weinberg parts ways with his sensibility: “I have the sense that when consensus is forming like ice hardening on a lake, Dyson will do his best to chip at the ice.”

Dyson says he doesn’t want his legacy to be defined by climate change, but his dissension from the orthodoxy of global warming is significant because of his stature and his devotion to the integrity of science. Dyson has said he believes that the truths of science are so profoundly concealed that the only thing we can really be sure of is that much of what we expect to happen won’t come to pass. In “Infinite in All Directions,” he writes that nature’s laws “make the universe as interesting as possible.” This also happens to be a fine description of Dyson’s own relationship to science. In the words of Avishai Margalit, a philosopher at the Institute for Advanced Study, “He’s a consistent reminder of another possibility.” When Dyson joins the public conversation about climate change by expressing concern about the “enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories,” these reservations come from a place of experience. Whatever else he is, Dyson is the good scientist; he asks the hard questions. He could also be a lonely prophet. Or, as he acknowledges, he could be dead wrong.

Read the whole story here.

Obama & the Stem Cell 'Sham'

Morally Unserious in the Extreme
By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- Last week, the White House invited me to a signing ceremony overturning the Bush (43) executive order on stem cell research. I assume this was because I have long argued in these columns and during my five years on the President's Council on Bioethics that, contrary to the Bush policy, federal funding should be extended to research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from discarded embryos in fertility clinics.
I declined to attend. Once you show your face at these things you become a tacit endorser of whatever they spring. My caution was vindicated.
Bush had restricted federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to cells derived from embryos that had already been destroyed (as of his speech of Aug. 9, 2001). While I favor moving that moral line to additionally permit the use of spare fertility clinic embryos, Obama replaced it with no line at all. He pointedly left open the creation of cloned -- and noncloned sperm-and-egg-derived -- human embryos solely for the purpose of dismemberment and use for parts.

read the rest...

======================

Stem Cell Sham
The president as sophist.
by P.J. O'Rourke
03/23/2009, Volume 014, Issue 26

When a Democratic president goes from being wrong to being damn wrong is always an interesting moment: Bay of Pigs, Great Society, Jimmy Carter waking up on the morning after his inauguration, HillaryCare. Barack Obama condemned himself (and a number of human embryos to be determined at a later date) on March 9 when he signed an executive order reversing the Bush administration's restrictions on federal funding of stem cell research.
President Obama went to hell not with the stroke of a pen, but with the cluck of a tongue. His executive order was an error. His statement at the executive order signing ceremony was a mortal error: "In recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values."
A false choice is no choice at all--Tweedledee/Tweedledum, Chevy Suburban/GMC Yukon XL, Joe Biden/Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Is there really no difference "between sound science and moral values"? Webster's Third New International Dictionary states that science is, definition one, "possession of knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding."
Let's look at the various things science has "known" in the past 3,000 years.
Lightning is the sneeze of Thor.
The periodic table consists of Earth, Wind, and Fire and a recording of "Got To Get You into My Life."
The world is flat with signs saying "Here Be Democrats" near the edges.
You can turn lead into gold without first selling your Citibank stock at a huge loss.
We're the center of the universe and the Sun revolves around us (and shines out of Uranus, Mr. President, if I may be allowed a moment of utter sophomoricism).

Read the rest...

Year of Astronomy: Big Bang or Black Hole?

What Christians Can Glean From the UN Celebration

By Elizabeth Lev

ROME, JAN. 29, 2009 (Zenit.org).-On Jan. 15, Paris, the City of Light, saw stars as the Year of Astronomy dawned.

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first recorded observations with the telescope, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has launched a year dedicated to this fascinating science with a series of initiatives and lectures titled, “The Universe: Yours to Discover.”

By emphasizing the contributions of the science of astronomy to culture and society, UNESCO hopes to draw the globalized world a little closer together. Many different civilizations, professing various faiths, living in diverse locations and using varying instruments, can claim extraordinary achievements in this field. Drawing on man’s instinctive interest in the cosmos as a source of clues to the answers to his greatest questions, the organizers present astronomy as an instrument of world peace.

Benedict XVI, a longtime member of the Pontifical Academy of Science (which traces its origins to an earlier academy to which Galileo belonged) lauded the Year of Astronomy during the Angelus of Dec. 21, 2008, a month before it began. Speaking on the day of the winter solstice, he welcomed the year of celebration of this important science and reminded the crowds of the Church’s longstanding interest in the field of astronomy.

"There have been practitioners of this science among my predecessors of venerable memory," Benedict said, “such as Sylvester II, who taught it, Gregory XIII, to whom we owe our calendar, and St. Pius X, who knew how to build solar clocks."

Indeed, throughout the centuries, the Catholic Church has been at the forefront of astronomy. As University of California History professor J.L. Heilbrun wrote in his “The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories”: “The Roman Catholic Church gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries, from the recovery of ancient learning during the late Middle Ages into the Enlightenment, than any other, and, probably all other, institutions.”

Even before the birth of the Church, it was three wise men studying the skies who found and recognized the Savior of the world by following a star. The alignment of the planets that heralded the arrival of Christ corresponded to an era of universal peace wrought by Emperor Augustus. This moment represented history’s most beautiful example of faith, science and secular forces all working in cosmic harmony.

Pope Benedict’s enthusiasm for man’s quest of knowledge and his warm reception of this Year of Astronomy provides a great example for Christians. As we celebrate our increasing understanding of the heavens and enjoy the marvels that centuries of diligent study have revealed, we can also reflect on the responsibility that comes with the privilege of knowledge.

Changing tides

For many, science has become antagonistic to faith. An increasing number of people believe Galileo to be the father, Darwin (whose Origin of the Species is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year) the son, and Albert Einstein the holy spirit of a new materialistic religion. This will be a banner year for proponents of the triune god of science.

In the eyes of its worshippers, this deification of science has freed it of moral responsibility or accountability, which necessarily results in tensions with the Church. The devotees of the god of science often view Christians as superstitious simpletons at best, and, at worst, virulent heretics to be stamped out.

Even President Obama, in his inaugural speech, seemed to take up this flag. He spoke of the many errors and wrongs of the previous years and in his platform of change he vowed that “We will restore science to its rightful place.” What is this rightful place? We found out soon enough.

The next day the new U.S. president lifted the Bush administration’s ban on embryonic stem cell testing. The inevitable conclusion is that for Obama, the “rightful place” of science is above ethics, morals and life itself. While once the domain of the laboratory, today some would raise it to the altar. With this carte blanche to scientific research at the expense of human life, the prospects for the future of ethics in science look grim indeed.

Oddly enough, a 13th-century “Golden Legend” contains a similar story. Emperor Constantine, afflicted with leprosy, had tried every known remedy without success. He was assured that the only sure cure would be to bathe in the blood of newborn infants, as their pure blood would restore his withered flesh.

As 3,000 infants were gathered for his cure, the emperor shrank before the prospect of such violence. He declared that “the honor of the Roman people is born of the font of piety. Piety gave us the law by which anyone who kills a child in war shall incur the sentence of death. What cruelty it would be, therefore if we did to our own children what we are forbidden to do to our enemies!”

That night, Sts. Peter and Paul told Constantine in a dream to go to Rome and find Pope Sylvester to be cured. Pope Sylvester told him that the best way to relieve his sufferings was baptism. In accepting the sacrament of baptism, Constantine was cured.

While this is pious legend, it is interesting to note that the worst cruelty imaginable in Constantine’s world was to sacrifice infants to save the life of a man, as well as the horror expressed at the lengths one would go for a “miracle cure.” What some call progress, others might call regress.

A star is born

In his Dec. 21 Angelus address, the Holy Father seemed to suggest that this is a good year for Christians to seek a deeper understanding of the limits of science, and the relationship between religion and science. Astronomy could be the perfect starting point, for Jesus’ arrival was announced by stars and the faithful have long kept an eye on the skies for a heads-up about his return.

When Galileo brought his telescopes to Rome, popes, prelates and princes lined up to see moons and stars and objects never before visible to human eyes.

The empowering of human vision stimulated artists, writers and theologians. As the eyes of the body were enhanced, so could man look to enhance his eyes of faith. That which had been invisible was now visible, reinforcing the idea that the invisible world of angels and the Real Presence was there, simply out of reach to mortal eyes. Discovery didn’t bring fear of contradiction; it brought a promise of knowing more.

This is expressed beautifully in the art of the 17th century, from Caravaggio’s beams of supernatural light piercing through a hyper-realistic setting, to Bernini’s Cathedra Sancti Petri where the stern rules of architecture and physics give way and the walls dissolve, allowing the faithful to witness the Holy Spirit replete with golden light and mighty winds.

And who hasn’t admired the most classic of Baroque-style dome decoration, where one looks up into the seemingly endless reaches of the heavens?

The art of Galileo’s age expresses a joy in the gift of sight which, complemented by Benedict XVI's rational observations, forges a lens through which Christians can look at the Year of Science. It should be lived to the fullest, reveling in man’s discoveries but with the constant awareness of what we have been privileged to see through God’s self-revelation. Having seen, we now can testify and express our pride in the Church’s long and balanced promotion of both faith and reason.

The Pope's last comment in the Angelus address illuminated how, "If the heavens, according to the beautiful words of the psalmist, 'narrate the glory of God' (Psalm 19 [18], 2), even the laws of nature, which in the course of centuries many men and women of science have helped us to understand better, are a great stimulus to contemplating the works of the Lord with gratitude."

In this spirit, the constellation of events surrounding the Year of Astronomy offers a glimmer of hope for peace and unity between faith and science.

* * *

Elizabeth Lev teaches Christian art and architecture at Duquesne University's Italian campus and at the University of St. Thomas Catholic Studies program in Rome. She can be reached at lizlev@zenit.org.

Archbishop Denounces "Biological Colonialism"

Eggs of African Women to Be Used in Research Abroad

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, JAN. 27, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The archbishop of Johannesburg warned of legislation that will allow the harvesting of eggs from African women for investigation purposes in other countries.

Archbishop Buti Joseph Tlhagale underlined this in his opening address at the plenary assembly of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, which began Thursday. The archbishop is the president of that episcopal group.

Among other things, the archbishop called attention to the "global ethic" and its challenge to Churches. He described it as "the global postmodern ethic that puts great value on differences," and "maintains that reality is a social construct, that truth is what you make of it."

With this lack of objective truth, Archbishop Tlhagale noted, "the authority of the Word of God has been turned on its head."

He added: "God himself has been knocked off the pedestal. […] Natural law is seen as an integral part of ancient explanations or mythologies. A whole new vocabulary and concepts have been produced by the postmodern global ethic."

The prelate asserted that in this worldview, the "right to choose" is promoted as the fundamental norm. As a consequence, he said: "One can freely choose bisexuality, homosexuality, lesbianism, heterosexuality. Children now have the right to choose abortion irrespective of their parent’s beliefs. They too have equal rights."

On the doorstep

Under this flag, the archbishop identified euthanasia as an attempt to exert the "right to choose," along with "reproductive health" as the "right not to reproduce."

He affirmed: "It was the 1995 Beijing conference that jettisoned the complimentarity of man and woman. The goal is to achieve an asexual society, a society free of sexual labels.

"The Cairo Conference spoke of family under all its forms in order to include families of same-sex parents. There is a concerted effort to eliminate words such as virginity, chastity, spouse, husband, wife, marriage, etc."

Archbishop Tlhagale further warned his listeners of continuing attempts to legalize abortion and in vitro fertilization in African countries, with the African Union's Maputo Protocol and the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Among his main concerns, he said: "Such legislation will make it possible to poach ovarian human eggs from African women. Harvesting ovarian human eggs in Africa will help meet the needs of embryonic stem cell research in industrialized countries.

"It is illegal to use British eggs in Great Britain. Biological colonialism is on our doorstep."

The archbishop concluded by posing a question: "Do Church leaders have a say in these complex moral issues of the day or are we simply left to the mercy of unscrupulous campaigners?"

Archbishop Rino Fisichella on Obama: the path towards disappointment will have been very short

Story found here.

A senior Vatican official on Saturday attacked US President Barack Obama for "arrogance" for overturning a ban on state funding for family-planning groups that carry out or facilitate abortions overseas.

It is "the arrogance of someone who believes they are right, in signing a decree which will open the door to abortion and thus to the destruction of human life," Archbishop Rino Fisichella was quoted as saying by the Corriere della Sera daily.

Fisichella is president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, one of a number of so-called pontifical academies which are formed by or under the direction of the Holy See.

"What is important is to know how to listen... without locking oneself into ideological visions with the arrogance of a person who, having the power, thinks they can decide on life and death," he added.

Obama signed the executive order cancelling the eight-year-old restrictions on Friday, the third full day of his presidency.

The so-called "global gag rule" cut off US funding to overseas family planning clinics which provide any abortion services whatsoever, from the operation itself to counselling, referrals or post-abortion services.

"If this is one of the first acts of President Obama, with all due respect, it seems to me that the path towards disappointment will have been very short," Fisichella said.

"I do not believe that those who voted for him took into consideration ethical themes, which were astutely left aside during the election debate. The majority of the American population does not take the same position as the president and his team," he added.

The order won Obama praise from Democratic lawmakers, family planning and women's rights groups but drew angry condemnation from pro-life organisations and Republicans.

More than 250 health and human rights organisations from around the world sent Obama a letter, thanking him for ending a policy "which has contributed to the deaths and injuries of countless women and girls."

The pitfalls of pre-natal testing...

This is a pretty interesting editorial from a Zenit.org reader...

False Judge and Jury
A comment on: Prenatal Testing: Worthwhile or Wrong?

A little over eight years ago, my niece heard these words from a woman, "I will not bring this child into the world." The woman was not an expectant mother, she was my niece's OB/GYN. At five months into her pregnancy, an ultrasound revealed my niece's child had no apparent brain matter. A subsequent ultrasound revealed that her son had an encephelocele and that the build up of spinal fluid had squished his brain to the top of his head making the brain itself undetectable on a regular ultrasound. Many experts advised termination of the pregnancy.

My niece and her husband decided to bring their little boy into the world even if it meant just a few precious moments with their little son or if it meant a lifetime of constant care. They had to find a neonatologist, a new delivery doctor and even a new pediatrician who would agree to care for their son with his special needs. Three months later, my niece gave birth to her second child. He was taken that week into surgery where they implanted a VP shunt to drain the excess spinal fluid to allow room for his brain. They were told their son probably would not see, hear, talk or walk.

Today, this young boy attends second grade, is preparing to make his first communion, sees and comments on the beauty that surrounds him, asks his grandma to play the piano for him, is surprisingly articulate and is able to walk. While he has occasional seizures, he is a thriving little person deserving of care. Ultimately, he is a child of God, deserving of the special place in this world that God intended for him.

I guess my point is, prenatal testing is very worthwhile when it helps to prepare doctors and parents to help the child in need of help, but it can be very harmful and seductive when "experts" become the judge and jury of such a child and use it as a means to determine which children should live and which children they refuse to bring into the world.

Thanks and God bless you!

Catherine Lemek

さよなら "Sayonara, 'Global Warming'!"

From the Telegraph.
2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved
By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 5:51PM GMT 27 Dec 2008

The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.

Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.

Even the more cautious scientific acolytes of the official orthodoxy now admit that, thanks to "natural factors" such as ocean currents, temperatures have failed to rise as predicted (although they plaintively assure us that this cooling effect is merely "masking the underlying warming trend", and that the temperature rise will resume worse than ever by the middle of the next decade).

Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.

Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.

Suddenly it has become rather less appealing that we should divert trillions of dollars, pounds and euros into the fantasy that we could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 per cent. All those grandiose projects for "emissions trading", "carbon capture", building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to "biofuels", are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.

As 2009 dawns, it is time we in Britain faced up to the genuine crisis now fast approaching from the fact that – unless we get on very soon with building enough proper power stations to fill our looming "energy gap" - within a few years our lights will go out and what remains of our economy will judder to a halt. After years of infantile displacement activity, it is high time our politicians – along with those of the EU and President Obama's US – were brought back with a mighty jolt into contact with the real world.

I must end this year by again paying tribute to my readers for the wonderful generosity with which they came to the aid of two causes. First their donations made it possible for the latest "metric martyr", the east London market trader Janet Devers, to fight Hackney council's vindictive decision to prosecute her on 13 criminal charges, ranging from selling in pounds and ounces to selling produce "by the bowl" (to avoid using weights her customers dislike and don't understand). The embarrassment caused by this historic battle has thrown the forced metrication policy of both our governments, in London and Brussels, into total disarray.

Since Hackney backed out of allowing four criminal charges against Janet to go before a jury next month, all that remains is for her to win her appeal in February against eight convictions which now look quite absurd (including those for selling veg by the bowl, as thousands of other London market traders do every day). The final goal, as Neil Herron of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund insists, must then be a pardon for the late Steve Thoburn and the four other original "martyrs" who were found guilty in 2002 – after a legal battle also made possible by this column's readers – of breaking laws so ridiculous that the EU Commission has even denied they existed (but which are still on the statute book).

Readers were equally generous this year in rushing to the aid of Sue Smith, whose son was killed in a Snatch Land Rover in Iraq in 2005. Their contributions made it possible for her to carry on with the High Court action she has brought against the Ministry of Defence, with the sole aim of calling it to account for needlessly risking soldiers' lives by sending them into battle in hopelessly inappropriate vehicles. Thanks not least to Mrs Smith's determined fight, the Snatch Land Rover scandal, first reported here in 2006, has at last become a national cause celebre.

May I finally thank all those readers who have written to me in 2008 – so many that, as usual, it has not been possible to answer all their messages. But their support and information has been hugely appreciated. May I wish them and all of you a happy (if globally not too warm) New Year.

What the...

What could possibly be the point of such a 'technological advancement'? This can only mean that human dignity somehow has been undermined or will be by such a development. Who is paying for this 'research'?



Here's the story...

The robot that can pull faces just like a human being
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 6:05 PM on 12th November 2008

Scientists have created the first 'humanoid' robot that can mimic the facial expressions and lip movements of a human being.
'Jules' - a disembodied androgynous robotic head - can automatically copy the movements, which are picked up by a video camera and mapped on to the tiny electronic motors in his skin.
It can grin and grimace, furrow its brow and 'speak' as his software translates real expressions observed through video camera 'eyes'.

Jules mimics the expressions by converting the video image into digital commands that make the robot's servos and motors produce mirrored movements.
And it all happens in real time as the robot can interpret the commands at 25 frames per second.
The project, called 'Human-Robot Interaction', was devised at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), run by the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol.
A team of robotics engineers - Chris Melhuish, Neill Campbell and Peter Jaeckel - spent three-and-a-half years developing the breakthrough software to create interaction between humans and artificial intelligence
Jules has 34 internal motors covered with flexible rubber ('Frubber') skin, which was commissioned from roboticist David Hanson in the US for BRL.

It was originally programmed to act out a series of movements - as can be seen in the video - where 'Jules' talks about 'destroying Wales'.
The technology works using ten stock human emotions - such as happiness, sadness, concern etc - that the team 'taught' Jules via programming.
The software then maps what it sees to Jules's face to combine expressions instantly to mimic those being shown by a human subject.
'We have a repertoire of behaviours that somehow is dynamic', Chris Melhuish said.
'If you want people to be able to interact with machines, then you've got to be able to do it naturally. [did he just say "naturally"??? Is there anything natural about interacting with inanimate objects? Oh, boy.]

...

'All these are requirements for robotic companions, assisting astronauts in space or care robots employed as social companions for the elderly. [yeah. We can't stand dealing with old, dying people, so we'll create people to deal with their crap! Insanity.] 'Unlike most research projects, the focus lies on dynamic, subtle, facial expressions, rather than static exaggerated facial displays.
'Copycat robot heads have been created before, but never with realistic human-looking faces.'
But not everyone is impressed by Jules's mastery of mimicry. [really?! Thank God.]Kerstin Dautenhahn, a robotics researcher at the University of Herefordshire, believes that people may be disconcerted by humanoid automatons that simply look 'too human'.
'Research has shown that if you have a robot that has many human-like features, then people might actually react negatively towards it,' she said.
'If you expose vulnerable people, like children or elderly people, to something that they might mistake for human, then you would automatically encourage a social relationship.
'They might easily be fooled to think that this robot not only looks like a human and behaves like a human, but that it can also feel like a human. And that's not true.' [Wow. A scientist employing common sense; "this could hurt people"]It is hoped that the technology developed in Jules will help create robots for use in space, to accompany astronauts on solo missions, and in healthcare settings and nursing homes.

Read the whole thing.

Scientists, Theologians Gather for Vatican Conference on Evolution

At right, Pope Benedict blesses Stephen Hawking.

Pope Benedict XVI opened a five-day Vatican meeting on evolution Friday morning by affirming that the world did not emerge out of chaos but was intentionally created by "the First Being."

"In order to develop and evolve, the world must first be, and thus have come from nothing into being,” the pontiff told an audience of 80 scientists, philosophers and theologians who have gathered for the conference, themed "Scientific Insights into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life."

“It must be created, in other words, by the First Being who is such by essence," he added, according to Zenit News.

Benedict also went further to assert that the Creator was not only involved in the origins of the universe but continually sustains the development of life and the world.

The Creator, he said, “is the cause of every being and all becoming.”

The five-day conference, sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, is the latest initiative in an effort by the Vatican to promote dialogue between scientists and theologians. It also comes as debates over creation and evolution continue to rage on.

Like many Christians today, most members of the Catholic Church accept a brand of evolution known as "theistic evolution," which teaches that evolution was a tool used by God in the creation process.

During a press gathering in September, the Vatican said the theory of evolution was compatible with the Bible and that it was even planning to hold a new interdisciplinary conference to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species next March in Rome.

The Catholic Church rejects a fundamentalist interpretation of the Creation story in Genesis, regarding the six-day account as an allegory. Though this view aligns with that of many Protestant Christians, many conservatives maintain the belief in a literal six-day Creation.

On Friday, Benedict said he saw no contradiction between believing in God and empirical science.

"There is no opposition between faith's understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences," he said, quoting from Popes Pius XII and John Paul II.

He also cited Galileo, whom, he said "saw nature as a book whose author is God in the same way that Scripture has God as its author."

"It is a book whose history, whose evolution, whose ‘writing’ and meaning, we ‘read’ according to the different approaches of the sciences, while all the time presupposing the foundational presence of the Author who has wished to reveal Himself therein," said the pontiff, according to Catholic News Service.

Following Benedict’s opening remarks, world renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, was scheduled to give a lecture Friday afternoon entitled "The Origin and Destiny of the Universe."

The physicist’s appearance was to mark his second at a Vatican scientific conference since 1981, when Hawking had attended at Vatican conference on cosmology.

Though he has never professed a belief in God, Hawking has never denied the existence of God either. Furthermore, in his 1988 publication, A Brief History of Time, Hawking discussed the possibility of a creator.

"So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator,” wrote Hawking, who later said that his theories show the possibility for the laws of science to dictate how the universe began.

The world renown physicist has also admitted to being religious, though not “in the normal sense," in an interview with Reuters last year.

"I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science," he told Reuters.

"The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws," he added.

Read the rest.

Article: Bush plan would blunt state birth control law

Full story here.

(08-20) 18:11 PDT WASHINGTON -- A proposed Bush administration regulation on contraception and abortion would stop California from enforcing a state law that requires Catholic hospitals and charities to provide birth control coverage for thousands of female employees, state Attorney General Jerry Brown and family-planning advocates said Wednesday.

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department regulation, still in draft form, would define abortion as including certain methods of contraception and would prohibit states and other recipients of federal funds from penalizing health care workers who refused to provide those services because of religious or moral beliefs.

Violators would forfeit federal health care funds, which in California amount to as much as $37 billion a year.

The draft regulation describes the problem as laws such as those in California and New York that require employers to include contraceptives in any prescription drug coverage they offer to employees. The federal agency had no comment Wednesday on the proposal.

California's law was passed in 2000 in response to decisions by many health insurance plans to cover the male potency drug Viagra but continue to deny coverage for birth control pills, forcing women to pay for contraceptives.

The state Supreme Court upheld the law in a 2004 ruling that applied to 1,600 employees of Catholic Charities and 52,000 employees of Catholic hospitals in the state. The law exempts church employees, but the court said affiliated agencies such as Catholic Charities are secular institutions because they employ and serve mostly non-Catholics.

New York's highest court later issued a similar ruling, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied review of Catholic Charities' appeals in both cases. Similar laws exist in 25 other states, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research organization.

Spanish parliment - defending the 'rights' of apes...

Yes, yes, yes... of course. My favorite line, from the liberal-material fascists interviewed was: "This is a historic day in the struggle for animal rights and in defense of our evolutionary comrades, which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity." Indeed, it will go down in history...
It certainly made it on this blog half-way around the world already, but probably not for the reasons Pedro Pozas was intending! Dumba$$.

Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes
By Martin Roberts

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.

Parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans.

"This is a historic day in the struggle for animal rights and in defense of our evolutionary comrades, which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity," said Pedro Pozas, Spanish director of the Great Apes Project.

Spain may be better known abroad for bull-fighting than animal rights but the new measures are the latest move turning once-conservative Spain into a liberal trailblazer.

The rest.

Demented: more robot 'partners' in Japan

From Reuters...

TOKYO - She is big-busted, petite, very friendly, and she runs on batteries.

A Japanese firm has produced a 38 cm (15 inch) tall robotic girlfriend that kisses on command, to go on sale in September for around US$175, with a target market of lonely adult men.

Using her infrared sensors and battery power, the diminutive damsel named "EMA" puckers up for nearby human heads, entering what designers call its "love mode".

"Strong, tough and battle-ready are some of the words often associated with robots, but we wanted to break that stereotype and provide a robot that's sweet and interactive," said Minako Sakanoue, a spokeswoman for the maker, Sega Toys.

"She's very lovable and though she's not a human, she can act like a real girlfriend."

EMA, which stands for Eternal Maiden Actualisation, can also hand out business cards, sing and dance, with Sega hoping to sell 10,000 in the first year.

Japan, home to almost half the world's 800,000 industrial robots, envisions a $10-billion market for artificial intelligence in a decade.

Watch the video of "Japan's sexy robot..." if you dare.

The Gospel According to Han Solo?

Did you hear what the Vatican's astronomer said???? Sometimes some ideas, no matter how well intentioned and seemingly harmless, are actually really stupid. I can just imagine a gay person or a divorced Catholic wondering "I can't receive Communion, but Chewbacca can?"

This story is beyond stupid. It's a good excuse to use the sweet picture of JPII though!

Some help from the AmericanPapist...

Vatican Chief Astronomer: "The extraterrestrial is my brother"
Okay, that's how the headline of the article read, reportes the Associated Press.

Hmm, can we say "slow news day"?

CNA has a good summary of what happened:

The Director of the Vatican's Observatory, Fr. José Gabriel Funes, said in an interview with the Vatican daily, L'Osservatore Romano, that believing in the possible existence of extraterrestrial life is not opposed to Catholic doctrine.

.... The astronomer began the interview titled, "The Alien is my Brother," by saying that, "Astronomy has a profound human value. It is a science that opens the heart and the mind. It helps us to put our lives, our hopes, our problems in the right perspective. In this regard, and here I speak as a priest and a Jesuit, it is an apostolic instrument that can bring us closer to God", said Fr. Funes in the interview.

Fr. Roderick translates the portions of the article that treat the implications of extraterrestial life:

Do you refer also to beings similar to us, or even more evolved?

It’s possible. However, so far we haven’t got any proof. But in such a big universe, this hypothesis can’t be excluded.

And that wouldn’t be a problem for our faith?

I don’t think so. Just like there is an abundance of creatures on earth, there could also be other beings, even intelligent ones, that were created by God. That doesn’t contradict our faith, because we cannot put boundaries to God’s creative freedom. As saint Francis would say, when we consider the earthly creatures to be our “brothers” and “sisters”, why couldn’t we also talk about a “extraterrestrial brother”? He would still be part of creation.

And what about redemption?

Let’s borrow the image from the gospel about the lost sheep. The shepherd leaves the 99 of the sheepfold to search for the one that got lost. Let’s imagine that in this universe there are 100 sheep, corresponding to the different forms of creatures. We who belong to the human race, could very well be the lost sheep, the sinners that need the shepherd. Got has become man in Jesus to save us. In that way, even when other intelligent beings exist, it’s not said that they would need redemption. They might have stayed in full friendship with their Creator.

I insist: when they would, on the contrary, be sinners, would redemption also be possible for them?

Jesus incarnated once and for all. The incarnation is a unique and non-repeatable event. However, I am certain that they too, in one way or another, would have the possibility to experience God’s mercy, just like we men have.

I think Curt Jester has the perfect response to this .... "The Star Wars Ewok Gospel":

Satire on Richard (The God Delusion) Dawkins

This video is pretty funny. It rips on the sheer arrogance of the man behind the book, The God Delusion: Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is known for his staunch atheism and his harsh rhetoric against Christianity and any belief in something higher than his intellect.
He coined the name "the Brights" referring to himself and other 'enlightened' atheist -scientists who scoffed at religion.

Here he is avoiding an innocent question, and displaying his ever-acrimonious wit against believers...



Now for the well-deserved roast... (beware, the video has some questionable content). What's funnier, after watching a few moments of the satire, is reading Mark Shea's post on the Crisis blog.



Mark Shea writes about the Dawkins video:

As we know, Chesterton famously observed that the mark of madness is not the loss of reason, but the loss of everything except reason. Periodically, something in our culture will show me the brilliance of that insight with great force.

Chad, one of the readers over on the Vox Popoli blog summarizes Dawkins & Co.'s lightning-swift-on-the-uptake response to the satire:

1. Video posted around 11:00 PM

2. 1 hour and 44 minutes later, Dawkins implores his more intelligent readers to help inform him as to whose side the video is on (his side, or not his side). He then pokes fun at people that think things are funny that he doesn't understand just in case it turns out to be 'not on his side.' Comment #151544

3. Dawkins now presumably goes to sleep.

4. Nearly nine hours later, he wakes up and checks the post again. He sees that his fellow scientific elites like the video, but also don't understand it. Dawkins tries to get in a little dig on postmodernism, but just ends up making fun of his posters. Comment #151685

5. Nine and a half hours after posting, Dawkins wonders how his fellow comrades could laugh at something they don't understand. He then lauds The Life of Brian as the pinnacle of comedic evolution. Comment #151704

6. A couple minutes after the last post, he gets in another jab at Postmodernism. Comment #151713

7. Under chastisement for his humbuggery, Dawkins admits that Daniel Dennett popping his head up from out of nowhere is, in fact, funny. Comment #151715

8. Nearly ten hours after posting the video, someone postulates that the humor is derived from the silly dancing bodies (not the satire). Dawkins seems to accept this theory and thanks the poster for his intellect. Comment #151723

9. Sixteen hours after first watching the video, Dawkins finally realizes that it is, in fact, making fun of 'his side.' Dawkins defends himself again by saying that he didn't understand it. Comment #151849.

10. Seventeen hours after posting, Dawkins attempts to comprehend the humor by equating similar scenes of incongruousness that Monty Python has also done. Dawkins has apparently not yet pondered why, if this were the only thing funny about the video, he did not catch on before this. Dawkins chalks this up to the video not being funny, and dismisses the obvious conclusion that his head is too big to see the satire behind it. Comment #151889

11. The next day, Dawkins chimes in again to defend his Ph.D. status to a poster who dared question it. Comment #152142

12. Nearly 36 hours after posting, Dawkins discovers what a 'grill' is and waxes philosophic as to why Sam Harris would have one in the video. The conclusion he comes up with is that it adds no humor to the video and should not have been put in. Comment #152168

13. After a full three and a half days after first watching the video, Dawkins (obviously perturbed at the fact he didn't get that he was the butt of the joke, when every other non-elite who saw it could tell in an instant) attempts to equate the video with 'The worst poem ever written.' He then satisfies himself by settling on the conclusion that this is the only reason why people might like it. The final analysis is that it's not only 'not good,' and not even 'pretty bad,' but so incredibly bad, that it is in fact, good. He gets in a snobbish comment about the Bible for good measure. Comment #153061

It is hilarious to read about how divorced these people are from reality- and humanity... a bit sad too.

Let's commence the "Pray For Richard Dawkins Apostolate".

Good grief: 'There will be significant cooling very soon,' asserts solar scientist

Full story here. This is hilarious!

You could have heard a pin drop at the Hong Kong conference designed to persuade the airline industry to cut back on its production of so-called greenhouse gases to fight "global warming."

The "Greener Skies 2008" conference had just heard from David Archibald, a solar scientist asserting that climate change is mostly dictated by solar cycles, not carbon dioxide levels, as conventional wisdom suggests.

Archibald didn't just tell the group not to worry about carbon dioxide emissions. He told those gathered they should figure out ways of increasing CO2 output.

"In a few short years, we will have a reversal of the warming of the 20th century," Archibald warned, according to CargoNews Asia. "There will be significant cooling very soon. Our generation has known a warm, giving sun, but the new generation will suffer a sun that is less giving, and the earth will be less fruitful. Carbon dioxide is not even a little bit bad – it's wholly beneficial."

Oprah legitimizing absolutely crazy behavior... UPDATED

I have never liked Oprah. I always thought she was simply a greedy, power-hungry media genius, always looking to push her agenda and make a buck.

This pretty much seals the deal for me- I really disapprove and dislike her now.
I always was a little cowed when people would say: "Oh, Oprah does such great things. She has charities and book clubs..." Blah, blah, blah.

This story is so twisted, it is utterly irresponsible for her to put it on TV and in the homes of millions of people. Woman turns into a man; she's still a woman (as she has the parts), and gets pregnant; story is dubbed as "man is pregnant"; this poor woman/man has serious psychological disorders, and all anyone can talk about is how amazing and wonderful this is; no one is thinking about how screwed up that poor baby's life will be... what a world we live in.

Here's the disturbing story.

UPDATE from Rod Dreher's blog---------------------------------------------------

One thinks of this passage from John Paul II's encyclical Centesimus annus:

Equally worrying is the ecological question which accompanies the problem of consumerism and which is closely connected to it. In his desire to have and to enjoy rather than to be and to grow, man consumes the resources of the earth and his own life in an excessive and disordered way. At the root of the senseless destruction of the natural environment lies an anthropological error, which unfortunately is widespread in our day. Man, who discovers his capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through his own work, forgets that this is always based on God's prior and original gift of the things that are. Man thinks that he can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to his will, as though it did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which man can indeed develop but must not betray. Instead of carrying out his role as a co-operator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature, which is more tyrannized than governed by him.

The pope was talking about degrading and exploiting the environment for the sake of fulfilling consumerist desire, but the application in the appalling Beatie situation is obvious. Beatie wants to be a man, and sees no reason why he shouldn't be. Modern technology and modern legal mechanisms help him achieve that goal. But he also wants to be a mother. In the consumerist utopia that we've built and are building, the individual's desires are God. Nothing is more important in this world than what Thomas Beatie wants. Thomas Beatie creates his own reality, heedless of the things that are. And we bless this tyrannization of nature as liberation.

But consider this: the only way anyone has any philosophical grounds on which to criticize Beatie's actions is if one affirms that the phrase "the things that are" has meaning. Is there a such thing as a non-material reality, or does reality in this sense amount to nothing more than what we choose to call it? In other words: "What is truth?" Christianity is collapsing in the West -- Christianity as a meaningful guide to public laws, manners and mores -- and with it Christian anthropology. The decline of the cult inevitably means the decline of the culture it inspired. As goes the culture, so, in time, goes the civilization, betrayed by pride and rebellion.

Beatie and his-her unfortunate child are only among the most florid canaries to join the chorus in Western civilization's coal mine. What they represent is the "anthropological error" that has led to the refusal of mankind to live by any limits imposed by nature. Thomas Beatie and the polluting industrialist are on the same side. The left, in general, will accept few if any restraints on sexual expression (broadly speaking), and the right, in general, will accept few if any restraints on commercial activity. When reality fights back, it's not going to be pretty.

Well spake.

Duh! Science Destroys Common Sense...

This image is from "Unathletic kids are unpopular".

We live in this "brave new world" where we don't believe anything unless a scientific study will back the claim. There is a nice, tidy certainty that comes from this, but the unfortunate bi-product is that we entirely abandon our common sense.

Check out this story:

Duh! Science Confirms the Obvious

Materialistic teenagers are just insecure

The Study: “Growing Up in a Material World: Age Differences in Materialism in Children and Adolescents,” Journal of Consumer Research, December 2007.
The Findings: Why are kids so concerned with having a cool cellphone? Lan Nguyen Chaplin of the University of Illinois and Deborah Roedder John of the University of Minnesota looked for a connection between self-esteem and materialism in children aged 8 to 18. They observed a big drop in self-esteem in kids aged 12 and 13 that accompanied the “use of material possessions as a coping strategy for feelings of low self-worth.” But even a small boost in self-esteem, in this case kind words from acquaintances written on paper plates, caused them to forget their insecurity — and material obsessions — for the day.
Why Bother? Because, as Chaplin points out, her study could have practical benefits for material girls and boys. Keep kids’ self-esteem high, and they’ll be happier. They might also stop bugging you for a Wii.

And just one more...

Loneliness sucks

The Study: “Aging and Loneliness: Downhill Quickly?” Current Directions in Psychological Science, August 2007.
The Findings: University of Chicago researchers investigated the physical effects of loneliness on the overall health of young, middle-aged and older people. Sustained loneliness found in the 50- to 68-year-old subjects correlated with increased blood pressure, as well as a spike in epinephrine levels, both health-risk factors for older adults.
Why Bother? Because the U.S. is becoming lonelier, with 25 percent of Americans unable to name a trusted confidante, according to the American Sociological Review. Understanding how this trend affects health is becoming more important as aging baby boomers come to dominate the population.

Read the rest here:
Duh! Science Confirms the Obvious