28.8.06

Bad propaganda...

... rarely needs much comment. And in any case, there is a participant in the comments that does an excellent job already.

While I don't agree with Giaour on everything he says in the comments - I think the veneer of civility covering Christianity is thinner than he intimates, for instance - and while some of his posts bear some of the warning signs of an incomplete copy/paste operation, he quite succicintly sums up why christopaths are not our allies in the fight against ayatollahism.

Bonus points if you can guess how much I value the contribution of ayatollahism to the fight against christopathy.

27.8.06

This kind of thing gives me hope...

... that we may yet have friends across the Pond.

As long as a college thinks it's a good propaganda tactic to publicly disparage the Moron in Chief, democracy is not completely dead.

23.8.06

Truer words are rarely spoken

Ed Brayton, over at Dispatches, has a really nice take on prohibiting criticism of moronic religious beliefs.

A little snip from the post:

It is one thing to prohibit someone from encouraging the murder of an individual or a group; it is quite another to argue, as the government of Victoria did in this case, that you cannot criticize a religion without vilifying its adherents. No government has the legitimate authority to rule on such matters. There is no way to coherently and consistently apply such a law without banning all criticism of anyone's religion. The flipside of having the freedom to practice one's religion and express it openly is that others also get to criticize your beliefs - and yes, even criticize you for holding them.

11.8.06

Oh crap

Look at this study and tell me why I'm not happy...

OK, I'll answer my own question: Even at the very top of the list (where Denmark resides), cretinists as a percentage of population goes way into the 'teens. This is bad. In fact it's very, very bad. Remember that our biggest political party commands less than 35 % of the vote.

Imagine a christocrat party appealing to this kind of base... Not a pleasant thought. Of course, it's highly probable that the cretinist segment is split roughly down the middle between allahcrats and christocrats, so I suppose that halves the danger. Still, not a pleasant thought.

More on the RCC

Sure, bashing the Church is growing old fast. But it still needs to be done.

Would you really like a European constitution to condone these people?

8.8.06

I See Stupid People: Jacob Lange & Anders Bondo Christensen



Hat tip to The Mad Biologist for the pic.

Egentligt er inklusionen af Jacob Lange her mest for the honour of the flag, da det var ham der skød denne uges debat om studiegæld igang. De newsier der tog historien og løb med den uden at gøre sig de mest elementære overvejelser (såsom at tænke over hvorvidt der kunne være en sammenhæng mellem det faktum at SU-en er lavere end den laveste ordinære kontanthjælpssats og det faktum at studerende gældsætter sig... surprise, surprise). Men at inkludere dem ville tage for megen plads op, og være for generelt deprimerende for alle der følger den danske nyhedsstrøm.

Min egentligt anledning til at skrive lige nu er at Anders Bondo Christensen igen har leveret en perlerække af argumenter for ikke at inkludere Danmarks Lærerforening i udformningen af vores folkeskole.

Han siger mange stupide ting (f.eks. gentager han de evindelige beklagelser over at eksaminer påvirker undervisningen (well, doh! det er lissom idéen...), at de muliggør sammenligninger af skoler (for offentligheden har jo naturligvis ingen legitim interesse i at have de oplysninger...) og at 'når alle lærere alligevel bruger test i deres undervisning, hvad er så behovet?' (Jeg overlader det som en øvelse til læseren at finde fejlen i dette 'argument.' Hint: Ordene 'sammenlignelighed' og 'landsdækkende mindstekrav' bør indgå i besvarelsen).

Men den kommentar der virkeligt fik mig til at krumme tær og fare i det virtuelle blækhus var (jeg parafraserer her, da DR åbentbart ikke kan lide min udgave af Java...[1]): For os var det vigtigt at kundskaberne blev sat ind i en sammenhæng, som en del af elevens alsidige personlige udvikling. Viden for videns egen skyld er uinteressant.

Jeg har helt personligt svært ved at forestille mig en indstilling der kan være mere diskvalificerende for en lærer. Og den slags idioti bliver kolporteret aldeles ukritisk af de pædagogseminarier der uddanner vores folkeskolepædagoger... Men man har vel lov at håbe at underviserne på seminarierne er lige så inkompetente som Anders Bondo Christensen...

[1] Hvis nogen blandt mine ærede læsere (humour me here) kan producere en transkription, ville jeg blive glad hvis de ville dele den.

1.8.06

Damned if they do, damned if they don't

I spank, of course, the Roman Catholic Church. Recently, Mel Gibson has had a rather embaressing run-in with the local authorities (hat tip to Brayton at the Dispatches). If the RCC had the least shred of common decency, this would put it in a grave conundrum.

I should probably advice people not to hold their breaths waiting for the Church to grow enough moral backbone to realise this. I hear that anoxia is a pretty nasty way to go...

Their problem, however, basically goes like this:

(1) They can denounce and excommunicate Gibson because he is a bigot - and bigotry has no place in the Church.

The problem with that is, of course, that it'll open a tremendous can of worms vis-a-vis the anti-gay bigotry, the misogynist bigotry, the we-don't-recognise-other-denominations-to-be-Real-Christians(TM)(C)(R)(Patent Pending) bigotry, and all the other kinds of bigotry that are firmly entrenched in Catholic doctrine.

In fact, should the Church pursue this road - the only decent and honourable one available to them - they will find their ranks sorely reduced. The smart money says that's not gonna happen. So, let's look at the somewhat less savory and decent ways to handle this:

(2) They can denounce and excommunicate Gibson because he's politically unacceptable.

Then they'll be sticking their noses into politics, where their noses most definitely don't belong. Now, the simple fact that their anti-democratic political power-mongering is inappropriate has certainly never stopped the Church before. But in this case they'll have to explain precisely how anti-semitism is suddenly sufficiently politically unacceptable to warrent an excommunication, a mere six decades after it was part of the official and deeply rooted doctrine. Stuff about the War that the Church would rather Was Not Remembered might resurface in that discussion.

And, of course, it would be a not-so-tacit admission that excommunication is just one more political tool in the fascist's toolbox...

(3) They can support Gibson's loony views.

But that would be political suicide (it would also be utterly devoid of decency, not that that particular detail has ever stopped the Church before).

(4) They can ignore it, and trust that public memory decays faster than a virtual Z-boson.

My bottle of beer says that this is precisely what they'll do.

And I do certainly hope that I'll get a chance to grind somebody's overly pious nose in the fact that his much-prized Church is still harbouring, aiding, and abetting anti-semites.

Just like old times.

Mere stupiditet fra Politiken

Jeg ved godt at kritik af Politiken ikke er det mest spændende at læse: Det meget amerikanske udtryk shooting fish in a barrel er nok det mest nærlæggende at bruge om bemeldte aktivitet.

Men i går gav Politiken udtryk for en holdning der giver et udmærket billede af hvor tyndt et markedsføringstrick deres 'íntellektuelle' stil er. Tag nu f.eks. denne passage:

Vi hverken kan – eller skal – indføre særordninger for EU-borgere, da danske studerende nyder ovenud godt af muligheden for frit at kunne søge ind på universiteter i andre EU-lande. For eksempel i Storbritannien, hvor man betaler en studieafgift i omegnen af 30.000 kroner om året.

STORBRITANNIENS SYSTEM er værd at efterligne. Her kan de studerende tage lån for at betale studieafgiften og skal tilbagebetale lånet efter endt uddannelse. Men vel at mærke kun, hvis deres årlige indkomst er over et vist beløb.

Kombineret med stipendier til studerende, der er økonomisk dårligt stillet, sikrer modellen en langt bedre fordelingspolitik end den danske model. For uanset at gratis uddannelse i Danmark bliver anset som sund fordelingspolitik, er realiteten jo, at det først og fremmest er børn af samfundets mest velstillede, der nyder godt af de gratis uddannelser.


De ønsker at efterligne den britiske model? Og de regner sig selv for intellektuelle? Sidst jeg tjekkede var en del af definitionen på det ord at man gik ind for uddannelse til alle...

'Fusionen med [Venstres hoforgan] vil ikke få nogen betydning for den redaktionelle side af avisens drift,' var et omkvæd vi hørte igen og igen (og igen) for et par år siden. Sure... Politiken er i nu i seng med de mest afskyelige dele af den relgiofascistiske bevægelse, de støtter en afvikling af det åbne universitetssystem, er tilhængere af at lave velfærdsdeform med Fogh ved roret... Men de har overhovedet ikke solgt ud...

Oh, og i øvrigt har jeg nogle Enron-aktier som jeg gerne vil sælge. Gør et kup!

"At man nu hæver grænseværdierne [for radioaktivitet i renkød], har nok mindre at gøre med halveringstiden for cæsium end med halveringstiden for den offentlige hukommelse." - Jan Guillou

Eller måske handler det i virkeligheden bare om at Politikens redaktører er bitre over at deres markedsføringskampagne overfor det unge 'segment' er slået fejl...

Madness in Lebanon - and other things

I attended a talk by a guy called Sir Harold Kroto last tuesday. He pointed out a fact I'd like to highlight [quoting from memory]:

I don't know what the solution to the problems in the Middle East is. But I'm pretty sure that what's going on right now is not it.


Truer words are rarely said...

A Don't Miss website

As Sir Kroto says in his usual talk: Goodbye Fox News

http://www.vega.org.uk/

In particular, don't miss the Feynman's lectures.