Gold's blog

Tim Minchin gave me back the joy for the season...

Christopher Hitchens has just died.

The #RIPHitch and #hitch hashtags are going more than a little nuts right now, which is hardly surprising.

I have few friends that claim to be religious and when I see shit like this I wonder how they can be so firm in their position. This is just disgusting. How can they claim 'moral conviction' as an exception when the law itself is so blatantly immoral?

Michigan Republicans Allow Bullying If ‘Religiously or Morally Motivated’ (Video)

In Michigan, the State’s Republican-controlled Senate has passed an anti-bullying law named after a gay victim.

Good thing you might think. Except it’s not.

Science is cool. It's a fact. Just accept it.

I just found this via Fraser Cain and have to say, if you've got kids you have to show them this. Also, if you believe that humanity has any special place in the 'verse you need to see this.

Click through for the video...

The goal of this meetup was to attract a group that was more interested in actually doing something more than socialising in a pub. I think this was achieved. Those that showed up had info and ideas to share. There were also others that expressed interest in attending but were unable to do so with it being on a Monday so I'm thinking of doing a similar schedule as the Christchurch meetups. These were held once a fortnight on alternating Mondays and Tuesdays. I'll poll the group about this.

The final post to the article at the Taranaki Daily News was one that required a bit more time to respond too. It's been about 2 weeks now since I posted the reply and in that time I've posted it twice. I'm not sure about their posting policy but it appears that they may get closed off, Big Homeo are suppressing the facts ;) or just plain ignored after a certain time period. Either way, right of reply is something that can't be taken away with todays tech.

So...

FishBarrel: The easy way to report misleading health claims online.

Simon Perry runs the Leicester Skeptics in the Pub, campaigns against pseudo-science and his current focus is to encourage more people to get active campaigning against dangerous medical misinformation. To this end he's written a wonderful extension for Chrome that makes the process of submitting an ASA complaint quick, simple and painless.

It's been a while since I've posted anything. To be honest I don't have the time to post anything now. I've got about a month of solid work ahead of me and until then blogging will need to take a third or forth place. Having said that I will repost the occasional thing that catches my eye. It doesn't take much to do that.

So, first up, a new disorder. Originally found at Autism News Beat, it offers a clinical definition of the Disorder that those that won't vaccinate suffer from.

Religion isn't something I particularly touch on that often unless it strays into the realm of reality. i.e. testable claims. This time though I want to pose a question; How can God be as powerful as He is claimed to be when things like the Feb 22^nd quake happen? The Dean of the ChristChurch Cathedral is on record saying;

The earthquake was not an act of God. The earthquake was the planet doing its thing the way the planet does.

To the Dean and any Christians out there;

As many of you know I'm now in Wellington. I'm looking at making this a permanent move which means I'm going to want a new organiser (or organisers) for the Christchurch Skeptics in the Pub group.