Recently in Demon Haunted World Category

I know the name , least what's widely believed to be,  of the first "murderer" that was outrun by radio  Dr Crippen. People like to tie the new  with the  very very old  but usually it's in the other direction E.g  look at how these infernal machines are aiding those with malice in their mainframe to carry out. 
Would driving a  car get the same attention?  How about using a camera? Is it more newsworthy if it's silver halide or CCD that captures the  image?   Radio type   or something else?    Oo let's scare people with  VOIP  not only  does it not let 911 know where you are (rtfm)  it's now enabling decades old dispute in a new manner that's just so so so hard to have envisioned prior to its adoption.
VOIP is not the challenge  it's made out to be here.  Impossible?  Impossible to intercept    surely some mistake unless there's a whole load of forgetting about India's tussle with Rim. India wanted to monitor the Blackberry network and got that concession.
I'm also  rather  less impressed with stories on how  highly trained they are.  I must  be missing something here since shooting a passive crowd    and lobbing grenades  at the same time in different locations doesn't seem to be on my list of hard to conceive plots. 

"Definitely they were trained,'' said a masked officer of the force.

''Not everybody can fire AK-series weapons.

''Using such weapons and explosives, it is obvious they were trained somewhere.

Do you have a spare 10 minutes?   Ak's are famous for their robustness when used by  irregulars, nades, baseball!  as for the explosives I  have no idea but they always kept me away from that safe  Oddly enough the  reporting in realtime that provided this alleged  edge is not considered to be an inappropriate use of technology.. weird that.
Mumbai terrorists' most powerful weapon: VoIP phones | Computerworld Blogs

The Times reports that the handlers were communicting with the attackers using VoIP phones that made it difficult, if not impossible, for the Indian authorities to intercept the calls, or even know they were taking place.
Here's how the Times explains it:...

From the newthink   dept over at Google a  decision that causes me to laugh , hard.  A selective  ban on video of weapons that are deemed to be of an intimidating nature.  That should read  personal  weapons since  I don't forsee  those that glorify the state's ability to render large areas  hostile  will be included within this ban.     You Tube is becoming just the kind of "damage" that the Internet  is great for routing around and not a concern on its own.  Does Google ,which owns You Tube ,  seriously think they can take into account existing social mores for each culture   and apply that  sanely?   So   for most of the world no piss taking of the prophet,  no info on  biological processes and a myriad of  changes keeping up with tin pot edicts of the moment.  This is not organizing the world's info  it's  recreating it in your own image. 

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7621013.stm

This line from an article, front page, main story , about the Large Hadron Collider annoys me. Firstly Mainly as it has to justify why research is useful to us which is kinda scary. We're reading this new SOLELY as a result of our research and understanding about how most of the 'verse holds together in a tolerably predictable manner. Can they please maybe deal with us all becoming Fannie Mae stock holders? K thx bai.


CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News

Skeptics fear it will lead to the Earth's demise

This Saturday I attended  one of my meetup groups. Actually it’s about the last meetup group I  make an effort to attend since  it’s really great to  hang around with non theists and libertarian types.   I don’t play  well with other atheists , specially those that align themselves as humanists.  Oh hell surely I can’t be against humanists?  Well  ok, maybe I should have said most of them.

Here’s my objection.

Republican god is mean , insane and listening to his words proves that they are not fit to lead. 

Democratic god is nicer, rational and while not the best situation it’s possible to support someone for president that  talks with invisible men.  This is an inconsistent view for people that claim a reality based view to hold. Oh well  I’ll return to that in part 2.

While Hungary was never as hard line as some of the other countries in the Soviet bloc, even trying to get out from under them in the mid 50’s, the conditions were still  atrocious in relation to the USA at the time.  What follows not an exhaustive list, it’s anecdotal  from a guy, Tames Birilov,  that was  born there and was there, –really- there with a chunk of the wall to prove it at the time it fell down.  

Ah the question.

The James Randi educational foundation   are  in their own words

The James Randi Educational Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1996. Its aim is to promote critical thinking by reaching out to the public and media with reliable information about paranormal and supernatural ideas so widespread in our society today.

I've been to a TAM , the conference tied to JREF and loved it. I  was really shocked by just how many religious skeptics there were though , really amazed.  Toss that in with the statists that believe that thinking and research are a government sport  and I was a little  unsettled that the critical thought movement would  align on the democracy YAY! side of things I mean these people are smart Gell Mann smart.   Just have to face it  classically liberal ( aka libertarian)  ideals just don't fly in this land of the lobbyist.  ( I don't blame them  they would not exist if the politicians weren't corruptible)

Here's the question as I thought I was going to ask it to Penn  after seeing the show in Vegas.

I think  Joe Rogan  pwned Phil Plait  on Penn's show  on more than one occasion how does that bode for his new position as the president of the JREF  and how about a rematch moderated by Penn

Here's what came out:    

Erin with Teller. ( I love his voice, his writing’s rather good too) I've been a fan of Penn and Teller since being exposed to them in the mid 80's and one of the life goals, as far as I have plans, was to see them perform live. That's another collective 40 years experience up on stage and if they were great in the 80's they are now fucking amazing. During the intervening time I didn't turn out to be an atheist as I always was one, as are all newborns it's only the prevailing culture that tells a three year old that he's a Christian child and sadly he's doomed to burn in hell unless he thanks the zombie jew for his gift of ever lasting life, feeling sick yet?

More insanity from the  reality challenged community.   Not only are they claiming that their brayers* lowered gas prices but that  you can  get over the more advanced cases of death by engine casing embedded in your head by following the right invisible man.  Be sure to pick carefully as it’s really hard to tell the invisible and non existent apart.    Not an original thought but  please  if you hate modern life so much  stop using the medical , physical and all other technology that doesn’t fit in with your two thousand  year old  training manual.   Your children are not harmed by our children living differently from you I wish I could say the inverse was the case.  Yep  you teach your toddlers to claim their  parents are going to be hurt forever because they are bad..  And we’re the evil ones?   More on that soon. Survey: Many believe in divine intervention - CNN.com

Survey: Many believe in divine intervention * 57 percent in survey said God could save a patient even if doctors said it was futile * Researchers: Docs should be prepared to deal with families who expect a miracle

*not a typo.

Seemingly poor manners in public are worth millions. This sad story has the arguably most doable preacher's wife ( Look I tried to put it delicately but the competition isn't that great) of a Texas mega church accused of impoliteness to a flying waitress*. She was fined $3k back in 2006 so we can assume something valid happened but to the point where someone launches multi million dollar claim? For loss of faith? Love to see how you attach a monetary value to that because I'd like to know. I'd like to write the check for that part. $0.00

Witness: Mega-preacher's wife threw tantrum - CNN.com

Her psychiatrist, Shayna Lee, testified that Brown has suffered depression and post-traumatic stress disorder because of the incident. She also felt disrespected in her role as a leader and as a black woman and had her faith affected, Lee said.

Position of leadership? Black woman? How the hell is she diminished , especially the latter, to the point were a real financial loss occurred? This is just two grown women acting like brats. The christian thing to do would be to smite each others family and just leave it at that:)

Daddy you can let go now.....

At a recent Father-Daughter Purity Ball, the girls ranged from college age to a tiny 4-year-old dressed in purple who climbed into her father's arms to be carried

I wonder if they take a toddler to AA too? These people , these people that define innocence yet take their fucking 4 year old ( is there irony in there folks? ) to events like this. I am nowhere near taking Dobh, or myself , to a fetish ball in the near future but maybe I need to take a play from my 'moral superiors'.

I can only hope that they are trying to create a super sexually fucked up batch of women to compete with the Catholic education / Baptist pastor's daughter that have been highly reviewed by some of my friends.

I love it  when the followers of love and peace get into a fight.Looks like the old case of  “it doesn’t matter what’s written as long as I get to interpret it for you” Same  goes for constitutions as it does from fairy tails.. 

 

Evangelist accuses Obama of 'distorting' Bible - CNN.com