We’re really going to have to fire our tech guy — there has been another leak of sensitive information from the FtB backchannel.
Don’t read it. We’re already beginning the process of sterilizing Vancouver to limit the flow of information, and if any of you try to scurry off with our secrets, well, you won’t ever be able to use a toilet again without fear of a tentacle rising up and dragging you into the sewers.
It’s my talk at Seattle Atheists, in which I dared to suggest that science is not a sufficient foundation for morality (although I do think truth/science are necessary for a reliable morality).
I kind of expect more hate mail from this one.
Worrisome news from China:
A person who had close contact with a dead H7N9 bird flu patient in Shanghai has been under treatment in quarantine after developing symptoms of fever, running nose and throat itching, local authorities said late Thursday.
So far, China has confirmed 14 H7N9 cases — six in Shanghai, four in Jiangsu, three in Zhejiang and one in Anhui, in the first known human infections of the lesser-known strain. Of all, four died in Shanghai and one died in Zhejiang.
That first paragraph is the really scary one: it suggests that there may (emphasis on the possibility, it has not been demonstrated) have been human-to-human transmission, rather than just bird-to-human. The latter case is slightly more manageable — avoid ducks. The former case would require avoiding people — not so easy.
The H5N1 bird flu virus, different than this one, had about a 60% mortality rate, but 36% mortality for H7N9 so far is not good. Also, H5N1 was lethal to birds, too — this one seems to be relatively harmless to the bird carriers, while being relatively deadly to infected humans.
Just days after announcing a slowdown to deal with his cancer, Roger Ebert dies. Of cancer.
It’s gotten rather annoying. Joseph Mastropaolo is this antique dogmatic young earth creationist who hasn’t said a single thing that’s novel or believable in 20 years, and somehow his name has been snared by the media. He’s getting promoted everywhere. I’m getting all this email and twitter notes telling me to debate him — I’ve even had a couple of students bring him up and suggest that they’d like to see me debate him. NO WAY. He’s dumber than Jerry Bergman, and meaner, too.
Look. Here’s an example of the kind of thing he’s prone to declare: that, for instance, humans hunted T. rex.
As for how human beings were able to survive in the same neighborhood as a Tyrannosaurus rex, Mastropaolo said that humans beings would have been able to trick them.
"Human beings were smarter the further back we go in time because they have been less degenerated by the pollutants that we’ve been putting into the air, water, and soil," he said. "T. rex … could be herded into a blind canyon and have rocks dropped on their heads from above. And they’d soon be done in."
Furthermore, Mastropaolo believes that they could even have been domesticated the "way we have domesticated cattle and elephants."
See what I mean? Please, please, please stop telling me to engage this loon…and media, could you wake up and recognize that he’s not credible about anything?
It’s too bad it came too late to help them. Here’s a famous photo of Jewish civilians being herded out of the Warsaw ghetto by Nazis. Awful, horrifying stuff, right?
Yet when a conservative Haredi newspaper in Israel published this photo, they edited it in interesting ways.
Isn’t it ironic that the Jewish women who were victims get their faces erased, but the Nazi men with guns are left untouched? Of all people, you’d think Jews would be most sensitive to the importance of preserving the horrors of recent history…but I guess it only matters if it happened to men.
There is an Atheist Association of Bangladesh, which is amazing. The government of Bangladesh is cracking down: atheists are being arrested, and most horribly, Islamist mobs are rioting and murdering atheists (warning: very bloody images at that link). Some atheist blogs are participating in a blackout in protest.
Taslima Nasrin has just published a statement of support from Bengali atheists. John Sargeant has suggested that we bloggers include a scarlet B for the Bangladesh situation, which seems like literally the least we can do. (Oops, this was originally Hemant’s idea.)
I feel helpless in the face of this oppression, unable to do anything for people in a distant country who are being abused by their own government. The American Humanists have issued an action alert, a petition to ask the US ambassador to lodge a formal protest. Sign it!
The place to go for information on Amina, the Tunisian activist who dared to say that her body was her own, is Maryam Namazie’s blog. She has a fantastic roundup of the European protests. I’m also happy to see that secular humanists are finding common cause with women’s rights: The IEHU has also issued a statement of support.
(Note: all the links above include bare breasts and strong language, and worse, women standing up for themselves. Might not find favor with your corporate masters if you browse them at work.)
I am wondering how all the people recently sneering at atheists as islamophobes are going to cope with all these godless ex-Muslims coming out against Islamic justice.
Steven Landsburg carries out three “thought experiments”. They’re all pretty bad — one suggests that we have no grounds to complain about environmental destruction in Alaska if we’re living somewhere else, to which I’d have to reply, “You mean like Mars?” — but the third one…jebus, Mr Creepy McLiberturd is masturbating publicly here.
Let’s suppose that you, or I, or someone we love, or someone we care about from afar, is raped while unconscious in a way that causes no direct physical harm — no injury, no pregnancy, no disease transmission. (Note: The Steubenville rape victim, according to all the accounts I’ve read, was not even aware that she’d been sexually assaulted until she learned about it from the Internet some days later.) Despite the lack of physical damage, we are shocked, appalled and horrified at the thought of being treated in this way, and suffer deep trauma as a result. Ought the law discourage such acts of rape? Should they be illegal?
He provides his Libertarian philosophical answer.
As long as I’m safely unconsious and therefore shielded from the costs of an assault, why shouldn’t the rest of the world (or more specifically my attackers) be allowed to reap the benefits? And if the thought of those benefits makes me shudder, why should my shuddering be accorded any more public policy weight than Bob’s or Granola’s? We’re still talking about strictly psychic harm, right?
Maybe we could even talk about a positive advantage. You go in to a hospital for some essential medical treatment that involves anesthetizing you, and while you’re unconscious, the hospital pays for its services by leasing out your body to anyone willing to pay. Free health care! It’s a benefit, right?
It’s a remarkable claim from a Libertarian. If we’re not using our property at some moment, do we forfeit our rights to it? When Landsburg is not driving his car, is it OK if someone takes a joyride in it as long as it’s returned when he needs it, with the gas consumed replaced?
Is there really no cost to a person if their body is abused while they are unconscious? He writes as if this “psychic harm” is meaningless nothing. Reputation, security, trust…these are mere “psychic” phenomena, so they have no significance to a person?
And what gives this hypothetical rapist the right to use someone else’s body? Flip it around and try to justify the rapist’s exploitation of another for his personal benefit — by what right does that person deserve to “reap the benefits” of someone else’s unconsciousness…or for that matter, reap the benefits of the Alaskan wilderness? Mr Landsburg seems to naturally take the side of the takers and looters.
We’ve got a convenient phrase for what Landsburg is doing: it’s called JAQing off. He’s clearly a master.
Rebecca has cut prices on several of the items in the Pharyngula store, and is talking about cycling in some new stuff in the near future. I think that might mean that some of the current stock might become…collector’s items. You must have them. You must have them NOOOOOOOOWWWWW.
