I’m taking one more week off the news, hopefully I’ll be back to it next week, so here’s another great video of Michio Kaku brought to us by bigthink.
Bill Gates is a Christian Blessing
Even though I was never a big fan of Microsoft, I have loved the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for years. Bill’s explicit atheism has been a great influence on the Gates Foundation. Showing what secular charity can do to help the world when it is not hindered by religious dogma or non-scientific woo is the greatest way to help the most people. Once Warren Buffet – another exceedingly rich atheist – pledged 85% of his wealth to the foundation for betterment of the world, the foundation has been able to take on massive projects like immunizing entire countries in Africa. That’s why when I see an article at Christian News Today titled: BILL GATES IS AN ANSWER TO PRAYER FOR CHRISTIANS SAYS CAMPAIGN BOSS, I just have to laugh since they seem so quick to claim Bill as one of their own when it serves their purpose.
Joel Edwards is the International Director for Micah Challenge which began in the year 2000. The Micah Challenge has the noble but unreachable and very undefined goal of halving the world poverty by 2015. When Joel ran into Bill Gates at BBC Radio 4, Bill decided to donate £478million to expressly (from what I’ve found) Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Running into one of the richest men in the world who happens to have a foundation devoted to the betterment of the world is indeed a lucky coincidence for Joel. Nothing more. It bugs me that out of the four articles I’ve read on this – granted all are religious – not one mention that Bill, Melinda, and Warren Buffet for that matter, are atheists. I know it’s not my place to be upset in their place. It just saddens me to know that most of those religious groups will be happy to denounce The Gates Foundation when they advocate birth control.
Illegals Update
In December, I posted a short bit about the Catholic hierarchy in California trying to stop deportation of illegal immigrants. My main thought was that the church bishops wanted to stop the people from getting sent to their homes south of the border because the illegals are mostly catholic. It seems Ira Mehlman of the Federation for Immigration Reform agrees with me saying:
It helps replenish members of the congregations around the country. The Catholic Church sees this as a way of keeping the pews full. One of the things they consistently forget is you can’t be charitable with someone else’s resources
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco is trying to reintroduce a bill that never made it into the books last year after tweaking the bill a bit. Tom is getting a typically odd bedfellow on his side with Archbishop George Niederauer. Together they are trying to give cities the ability to opt out of the California Secure Communities agreement. The Secure Communities lets jails share data like fingerprints with the Immigration Department which makes it easier to deport people that are not here legally.
I honestly think the Catholics want to help… their followers without taking responsibility for them. Reminds me of their abortion policy. Have all the babies you want – we support that. You want help taking care of all these mouths to feed once the kids are born? Not our problem. They should go to heaven when they die.
Update to Another Post
An update to my recent post regarding the Roman Catholic priest only named Andreas L. He was charged with hundreds of counts of child abuse against three boys. After confessing his guilt to the court, Andreas was convicted in Berlin a couple days ago. He was sentenced to six years in prison – not nearly long enough. The other thing that kills me – he is still a priest as far as I can find.
(Anti?)Religious Tattoos!
I’ve got a few that are turning into a sleeve. Do any of you have pictures of your own that you would share with me? I need more ink soon and I’m looking for inspiration. I’ll post some pictures of mine after the next round in a week or so. Please send anything to my email below.
I hope to see each and every one of you at the Northwest Freethought Convention close to Seattle, Washington in a couple months!
~Wesley
Feel free to email me or add me on Google+
You would think that the vast majority of Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists, and everybody else would agree that sectarian violence is a horrible thing that needs to come to an end. You would also think that a reporter should be intelligent enough to distinguish between whether a song is promoting something or addressing a problem. Watch this video and tell me which you think Aiden is trying to do:
It should be obvious that they are addressing the issues of sectarian violence (burning synagogues), using religion as an instrument of hate (Nazi Germany), and asceticism (self mutilation). I don’t see anything controversial about that. I also don’t see how the fact that Aiden is the headlining band for Rock Beyond Belief should be an issue since the band will not be playing that song or anything else that wouldn’t be appropriate on the radio.
You should head over to the Rock Beyond Belief blog and see what a mess of the whole thing FoxNews made.
If you’re able to you should definitely go to Rock Beyond Belief on March 31, 2012. Of course, if you’re going to be in the Northwest you should come to the Northwest Freethought Alliance Conference where I’m giving the banquet keynote. At either event you can catch Richard Dawkins (RBB March 31, NWFAC April 1).
For the next week or two I’ll be focusing (on Sunday and Wednesday, maybe Friday too) on issues surrounding intellectual property, copyrights, patents, etc. This is in light of the failure of SOPA and PIPA and the recent signing of ACTA by the European Union (still pending parliamentary ratification). In an interesting turn of events, Anonymous is taking action in this matter and preparing to go after the European Parliament if it is ratified.I made it clear over a year ago that I’m not a fan of some of Anonymous’ tactics, but in this case I have to at least smile.
At issue here are competing and conflicting rights. The producers of content have a right to profit from their work, just as I have a right to make money off the work I put into this blog (which I don’t because I don’t have a large enough audience to actually make any money off of AdSense). At the same time private citizens should have reasonable license to utilize content they purchase, reasonable standards of fair use, and a right to privacy.
This is all driven by powerful corporations (the labels and studios behind RIAA and MPAA) who are trying to protect an antiquated business model by twisting outdated legislation. It would kind of be like if wagon manufacturers had tried to get automobiles banned because it threatened their business model (oh yeah, they did, claiming they were unsafe).
Copyright and patent (those will be covered later) laws need to be updated to account for the fair use of intellectual content by people who now have powerful enough hardware and software to produce higher quality content than the professionals could just a few decades ago. The supreme court also will eventually need to rule on how online content fits with free speech and freedom of the press (is this blog my voice or am I publishing?) as well as the privacy of citizens on line and on their computers in what is essentially now an extension of their homes and personal, private lives.
New legislation is needed, but it needs to be done in a open, transparent, and democratic manner (unlike ACTA) and in a way that protects the rights of citizens, not just the rich companies that are buying votes (unlike SOPA and PIPA).
Religious Symbols on Federal War Memorials
I just heard about HR-290 Wednesday evening. It seems the House of Representatives has passed a bill that would allow religious symbols (lets be honest here, crosses) to be put on federal war memorials. The bill will be voted on in the senate next. This bill is in response to the large giant ridiculously humongous cross on a war memorial on Mount Soledad, in California that was ruled unconstitutional in the courts recently.
This bill which was written by Duncan Hunter and co-sponsored by Brian Bilbray, has been very successful in demonstrating the ignorance of their fellow House members. Even if it passes the Senate and somehow does not get killed by the former constitutional law professor in the White House, this bill will be fun to watch. To heck with the Jewish and Muslim people. I look forward to the Pastafarians and Invisible-Pink Unicornians to demand representation on these memorials. A bit of joking aside, Dena Sher, an attorney in the Washington DC office of the ACLU had this to say:
[HR-290 is] a misguided attempt to sanction government promotion of religion. When a religious symbol is included in a war memorial favoring one religion over others, it’s simply unconstitutional. Congress cannot legislate around the Constitution, nor should it be using religion to score political points.
Spread the word on this. Write your senators to voice your thoughts.
Baptist Baddie
Tedd Butler, Former Pastor of the Gospel Light Baptist Church in Walker, near Grand Rapids, MI, was convicted of second-degree criminal assault on a child. In December, Butler admitted to touching an 11 year old boy sexually at his house back in 2006. The judge could have sentenced him up to 15 years in prison and a lifetime on the sex offender registry. That didn’t happen. Butler and a large group of his supporters listened as the judge sentenced Butler to 12 months in jail. What chaps my hide is just the DAY BEFORE, Butler plead guilty to fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct against another boy over 20 years ago when Butler was a youth pastor. He will be sentenced in that case on the 31st of January.
I know the Catholics get the lions share of the bad press on here but not for lack of looking. As a former Missionary Baptist, I kind of felt duty bound to report one of my former compatriots. Here’s hoping you find Jesus (Juan Delesantos) in general prison… and that he thinks you have a pretty mouth.
An Idiot Abroad
Has anyone else seen the show called An Idiot Abroad on SKY1 or Discovery channel? Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant get their very um, unique friend, Karl Pilkington, to travel around the world visiting the 7 wonders of the world. It’s funny to see how the Great Wall of China or the Pyramids of Giza* have so little effect on him. It’s interesting to see how Karl – for all of the odd things that come out of his mouth – can be so eloquent and deep on occasion. Ricky and Stephen call this the most expensive practical joke ever and they relish “poking Karl with a stick” to see what will happen. Buy it, rent it, or Netflix it ASAP.
I would highly recommend the next series of shows the guys are playing now on the Discovery Channel titled: An Idiot Abroad 2: The Bucket List. The idea is simple. Ricky and Stephen collected 100 things people said they wanted to do before they die. Each episode Karl picks one to complete but the guys make sure it’s never just a slam dunk for Karl to complete any task. Please join me for a sit down as I watch this hilarious and moving show as often as possible.
I hope to see each and every one of you at the Northwest Free-thought Convention in Seattle, Washington in a couple months!
~Wesley
Feel free to email me or add me on Google+
Last week’s blackout of thousands of websites across the world in protest of SOPA and PIPA is widely rumored across the internet to have been effective in killing the legislation. However, considering how much money is behind them, don’t be surprised if they resurface after the election. At that point those who lost have nothing to lose and those who won will at least have nearly two years for their constituents to forget.
Unfortunately, that’s not the only thing that puts internet freedom at risk. Wesley sent me a link to an article about ACTA, a secretive international trade agreement designed to prevent the “counterfeiting” of such things as intellectual property, GMO seeds, and medicines.
Any system that allows corporations the power to silence citizens by shutting down their online presence is a system that would allow anybody with enough money to silence anyone they don’t like. That is censorship and it is wrong.
However, the part that really creeps me out is the requirement of ISPs to check every packet of data. That’s a lot of data going through each router and to have to inspect each packet would require some tremendous processing power. Besides that, what about encrypted data?
I personally use encrypted connections all the time, whether it’s for e-commerce, online banking, Gmail, remote access to my server when I’m away from home, or for Linux and BSD ISOs I’m downloading on bittorrent. For my ISP to be able to inspect every packet and determine whether or not I’m distributing intellectual property, they would need to decrypt all of these connections. Unless the entire framework of the internet was changed to require that encryption keys be shared with ISPs, the amount of power required to break even 128 bit encryption would be prohibitively expensive. Otherwise they couldn’t tell if I’m downloading a torrent of a pirated movie or a Linux ISO. Even if they do decrypt packages they wouldn’t be able to distinguish file sharing of mp3s from someone backing up their files to the cloud or if they’re just copying their own file to their own portable system for their own legal use.
Oh, the real fun thing about the decryption required to check packets is that there would exist a router or two for every transaction that hackers could break into where they could access lots of passwords, credit card numbers, and any other data that is and should be private.
I really hope that many of the details of the video are inaccurate, but it’s hard to fact check when all that’s available is a few websites containing leaked fragments. Considering that it has been in the works for five years and was signed by the US just last year and the text of the agreement hasn’t even been released yet…well that just goes to show what the Obama administration thinks about transparency.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has issued a press release regarding ACTA stating:
As the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) prepares to ratify an international agreement related to the enforcement of intellectual property rights, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) – chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Trade – sent a letter to President Obama today asking why the administration believes the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA) does not require Congress’s formal approval. According to legal experts, cited by Wyden, if the USTR ratifies ACTA without Congress’ consent it may be circumventing Congress’s Constitutional authority to regulate international commerce and protect intellectual property and would therefore represent a significant expansion of the executive branch’s authority over international agreements.“It may be possible for the U.S. to implement ACTA or any other trade agreement, once validly entered, without legislation if the agreement requires no change in U.S. law,” Wyden writes. “But regardless of whether the agreement requires changes in U.S. law…the executive branch lacks constitutional authority to enter a binding international agreement covering issues delegated by the Constitution to Congress’ authority, absent congressional approval.”
So not only is this technologically inconceivable and would require serious privacy breaches (based on the leaks) but it’s also sure sounds like it would be illegal to have any effect without direct congressional approval. SOPA may come back, even if it’s just to enact ACTA.
I’m taking break from the news again this week. Don’t worry, I’ll hopefully get back to it in a few weeks…
A Bad Situation Made Worse
Alexander Aan, an atheist in Pulau Punjung, Indonesia, was attacked by a mob of dozens of people. They stormed into the office where Alexander works as a civil servant and beat him. All of this crap started after a heated Facebook exchange which began with Alexander writing, “God doesn’t exist”, on his Facebook page.
After arresting Alexander, the local Police Chief, Chairul Aziz said, “He is suspected of having blasphemed against Islam.” Seeing how blasphemy can carry a five year prison sentence, Alexander must have had a brass set to run a Facebook group for over 1,200 atheists. Every religion likes to think of itself as the “religion of peace” – but in a country that is mostly Muslim – Alexander needs protection in jail from those same Muslims. I love this world.
Communion Denied
A seven year old boy of catholic parents was refused the sacrament of Holy Communion. The church defends it’s position because the young child named Denum Ellarby has Down Syndrome. After the parents complained to the Leeds diocese Vicar General, he still defended the action taken by the local priest, Father Mungovin, saying:
[Mungovin was not] unreasonable in sharing the view that Denum should proceed to First Sacraments when he will be better placed to understand the preparation and to enjoy participation in Mass.
I hate to say that I agree with the catholics on any topic, but I do. For a totally different reason. Just as Dawkins says you don’t have religious children; you have children of religious parents. I don’t care if the boy has Down Syndrome. Seven years old is no where near old enough to take a vow like that. Religious groups need to accept the fact that children are not doing any more than mouthing their parents words at that age. Throughout their lives… repeating those words and never understanding what those words mean until they are much older – and sometimes not even then.
What is the best way to bring the religions of the world into the 21st century without all hell breaking loose? Give those children a chance to think for themselves. Teach them about all religions in school. I’m an Atheist and I endorse this message. =p
Homeopathic Birth Control
Greatest thing ever. I even bet the Catholics can take it. Derived from the cells of a fetus. Just like mom used to make.
Fine, it’s not real, but damn it is funny. Great way to show the idiocy of homeopathy. Just like a homeopathic treatment for a burn… using more fire. (Shamelessly pulled that last link from the SGU)
I hope to see each and every one of you at the Northwest Free-thought Convention in Seattle, Washington in a couple months!
~Wesley
Feel free to email me or add me on Google+
Copyright 2010-2012 by Dustin Williams. dwnomad.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
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