Posted by haltse on February 12, 2006 – 3:07 pm
Their Own Version of a Big Bang – Los Angeles Times
Before I get all smug and lambast the foolish Yanks for they know not what they say I have to sadly report that a similar question when asked of people in the UK came up with equally startling numbers. <50% of the people polled in the UK think that evolution , which I was not taught in biology in the UK btw,is the best explanation for where we are today.
Where we are at today? Can anyone say Dark Ages the sequel? Yep reality can be voted on by the time their non scientific bullshit has came round to kick them squarely in the ass the dissenters will have been long murdered for questioning the infinite love and wisdom of their invisible friends.. I’m in a dark mood today I can’t see how reason is going to get us out of this
Maybe it’s time to take the motor and go “home”?
Posted by haltse on February 10, 2006 – 8:29 pm
CNN.com – Netflix’s best customers penalized – Feb 10, 2006 So what is it with Netflix, they noticed Google were “doing no evil” so they thought they would take up the slack? For this free market thing to work I think there’s meant to be no fraud on either side of the transaction. OK buried in the TOC now you can see a fairly “harmless” statement that frequent renters may encounter more delays, tautology , of course the more you rent the more you are likely to encounter a delay, from the article it looks like it’s not MAY it’s WILL suffer delays.
Netflix has a great service, they really don’t need to pull this obsfuscation, just give us a number, if we like it we stay, if not we go. What the hell are you scared off? If having unlimited sells x more units is it worth it to supply those people taking advantage? Most hosting companies think it is, most health clubs think it is and most ISP’s think it is.. None of these have resources to fulfill all their users at once and rely on a % of their customers never / rarely using it. So either tell us you mean 20= unlimited;) or just let a few people go. ( also a stupid move)
Posted by haltse on February 10, 2006 – 6:24 pm
National Libertarian Party
Note, this is not law, it’s just a proposal.
Bored? then read the bill but in essence.. These “Democrats” you know, one of the wings of the Washington war party, are trying to prevent any third party from ever being able to run against them , well ok it’s more subtle than that but.. the practical effects of this bill are, if you’re not in office now, you’re not getting into office.
Posted by haltse on February 10, 2006 – 8:33 am
Last orders please
Story from the “home” country , I’m still between nations at present , some kind of peripatetic internal exile, though I likely will change that soon. One of the shocks that I experienced after moving to the states can be described with a lyric from Soul Asylum “Trying to do the right thing play it straight the right thing changes from state to state” Just trying to buy alcohol was restricted by some of the strangest laws ,that not only depended on the location , but the time and date. County by County, some places sold both beer and real alcohol, some just the latter, the rules changed to the point where I was glad to move to California after three years in Georgia ( I was even happier to move to AZ )
Anyway I’m sure they had the “best ” intentions in deciding that I would drink more responsibly if I bought them in two stores rather than one. I’m sure the people in the UK that opposed the lifting of 11pm most nights as the last orders ( for public houses, private clubs have other rules) had those interests in mind when the spent the publics money trying to prevent adults from deciding when and where they drink. Than again they has aleady spent a lot of the money earned from the taxation, licencing and outright appeals to greed ( lottery) to convince people that England is a country that one could enjoy while sober.
So not only did the conventional wisdom not occur, e.g people drunk 24-7 causing fights and accidents, but the inverse a 20% annual reduction in violent crime relating to drink. Are they refunding the cash? er no.
A similar situation occured in AZ 10 years past We were sold back our right to carry concealed weapons. Oddly the same mindset prevailed in here where “professional” commentators let lose with a vision of streets awash with blood and people casually using guns as hammers, bottle openers and bullets as toothpicks failed to materialise. These same people are still at, but now they have made some friends. And I mean manufactured. Whether it’s by fortuitous happenstance or Machavellian planning 
is that the people you would think are in favour of the Second amendment are more in favour of a second income. What happens is when you create a privileged class (interesting eytmology on that word) , which in this case is the instructors teaching the course required to buy your rights back. Anyone want to hazard a guess which way the majority of these lean when the need for these courses appear:D
Posted by haltse on February 9, 2006 – 11:57 am
Jonah Goldberg on Cartoon Jihad on National Review Online
Think of it this way. Short skirts don’t turn reasonable man into a rapist in the same way that cartoons don’t turn reasonable men into murderers.
And in my stupid question of the day.. If no one is allowed to represent the prophet in image form how can anyone tell that it’s offensive:)
Posted by haltse on February 8, 2006 – 12:13 pm
Bad Astronomy Blog » Blog Archive » Deutsch resigns from NASA!
Follow up on the Nasa / Big Bang post from the other day.
The nice man ( Deutsch) that seemed so against facts that his resume didn’t actually need to contain any.. his degree was, like his friends, invisible. Sadly he resigned before somone could blow him out of an airlock. Kudos to all those instrumental in removing that pillock from his position.
Posted by haltse on February 8, 2006 – 8:34 am
Secular Web: Atheism, Agnosticism, Naturalism, Skepticism and Secularism
should you feel the need to research any of the broadly fantastical and outrageous claims I make ( the subject kinda demands that treatment) the above link is rather handy. I would also suggest taking a wander over to Slate to read Christopher Hitchens article for his take on the cartoons that have lead to several deaths and some trashed embassies.
In the last 10 minutes I have found three mutually eclusive religions that all promise eternal pointy spikes up the bum with a temperature to match that of Phoenix in August. All of them argue that “oh that bit about the doom , gloom and destruction of those that don’t love our imaginary friend, it’s being taken out of context.. see in our language/ interpretation kill, slay or murder really means convert by peaceful means.
Credo… why don’t you fade away?
Posted by haltse on February 7, 2006 – 7:12 pm
Bad Astronomy Blog » Blog Archive » Outrage at attacks on NASA science
“This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA.” George Deutsch ( Nas-hole)”
Phil Plait, of Bad Astronomy fame, brings to light with this post a situation which would be hiliarious if Heller was writing the book. A 24 year old journalism major is attemplting to decide the published output of Nasa’s scientists based on how politically correct it is to those with invisible friends.
One of the comments echoes a quote from Feynmann, incidentally from the Challenger inquiry which is another case of wish fulfillment versus listening to those they employ to know better.
“For a sucessful technology reality must take precedence over public relations,for nature cannot be fooled”
The public however.. 
Posted by haltse on February 6, 2006 – 2:13 pm
Telecom companies let NSA spy on phone calls
There we go that’s what is meant by Fascism, it’s not a left or a right thing.
Posted by haltse on February 6, 2006 – 11:48 am
Googlocracy, by L. Neil Smith
It’s nice to see a company break it’s self proclaimed “do no evil” a ridiculous standard that has rightly came back to bite them on the rear. Given the subjective nature of evil in business I’m siding with the article the most interesting part of which is their calling our attention to Google’s status with the state ( US) and the liability they avoid by doing so.
Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed.Oh, yeah. What about the argument that Google is private property? Well no, it isn’t. It’s a corporation, which means that it’s simply a bunch of guys who sought to achieve certain powers and immunities by applying for them to the State. As such, Google is a creature of the State—Google is the State itself—and it deserves zero special consideration.
When Google expresses its willingness to give up limited liability—a legal arrangement under which owners of a corporation aren’t held personally responsible for wrongs the corporation may commit—then we’ll be talking about private property, and the rights associated with it.
Not before.
Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed.
Posted by haltse on February 5, 2006 – 11:02 pm
Well today sucked , Erin is not well, that’s an understatement:( There’s nothing I can do for her other than not annoy her. Dobhran’s at the grandparents who’ve kindly kept him the last few days while this evil stomach acid ran rampant. I miss the little guy, ok I miss all the good bits 
To add to it all my $150 custom knife is missing, it fell from it’s supposedly secure sheath and, well, let’s just say that trying to find anything that has a non reflective black coating is frustrating. Anyway the company have so far responsed quickly to my comments so I will see where that goes, it’s not 100% their fault but I get ticked when things fail during their expected use.
So that makes for 2x S&W and a CKRT M16 lost in 4 years plus the new one? Yes they all have a tanto point, why? I always have something that can punch a car door and cut readily through seatbelts , always had:)
The main reason I loose them is that some places mandate that tools are forbidden based on their demonstrably incorrect assertion that criminals obey signs, and I take them on and off accordingly ( cos I am both law abiding and b a moron for doing so ) till I lose them transferring from one car to another or house to car / inverse.
Oddly enough they don’t remove lighters from smoker’s you never know what they will set on fire:P I’m still rather upset with the old society I left, they were so paranoid about people defending themselves from attack that the police stopped me to ask why I had a 5d cell maglite, this was at night, and I guess those two never did reach detective:)
Posted by haltse on February 5, 2006 – 7:45 pm
SuperBowl.com – Official website of Super Bowl XL
Seemingly you can’t “make a dead man come” on the half time show . I was mistaken the lyrics had been excised by ABC to which I am royally pissed at. My ill-considered response was fornicate that six foot rat with Walts Frozen ( abc censored) until he screams higher than Aaron Neville on helium.
Also this may be be good gig for people into magic, prestidigitation , since it looks like NFL cheerleaders only exist from the waist up, so looks like there’s a bit of restoration to be done.
Ad’s I liked and can recall
Fed-ex , Ameriquest and the Bud “magic fridge and the young clydesdale. V for Vendetta looks fun and since the original was created by Alan Moore, of Watchmen fame, looks like it could be fun.
Posted by haltse on February 5, 2006 – 12:38 am
BBC NEWS | UK | Tories condemn Muslim protesters
Seemingly it’s an offence in the UK to call publically for the death of another… unless.. You are doing it in the name of god , or one of his franchisees. So given that I’m into neat solutions, and often they seem evasive or unrealistic, given that I fail to address the existing situation that has arisen. E.g. states run education or the welfare state which suggests that this should never have arisen it’s outwith my purview. So wwhd?
Well I’m currently suffering from system shock re the Tam4 meeting and my incorrect assumption that if there was a location on earth where the god meme would not be following along too closely it would be in fabulous Las Vegas. From my other blog
The most shocking thing to me ( apart from how badly the internet access sucked at what’s ostensible a science geek fest ) was just how unskeptical many of the attendees were. Seriously the number of hands raise heaven wards when asked ” can you be a skeptic and believe in (a) god” suggests that for about 20% of the audience that seemingly you can. This debate is now raging over on the forums and I’m surprised by the level of compartmentalisation at people that will openly guffaw at astrologers, dowsers and the like yet “don’t feel comfortable” when a Hitchens or Dawkins applies the same standard to their happy fuzzy,It’s seriously fuzzy , their definition of a deity seems to be deistic , not theistic, and in so amorphous that they may as well just call it Tao and get over it
So the cure? Well it’s not education , most of the people at Tam are seriously smart in many areas of their lives, politics not being one of them;) yet still there’s something that prevents them from being able to give up nothing as mentioned above. Damn that last line reads badly. Oh I forgot the cure? Ha ha ha there is none sorry to waste your time.
Posted by haltse on February 3, 2006 – 11:41 pm
Last night was just great. The fully socialized medicine experience ride is now running at Banner Thunderbird hospital in Glendale, AZ. Ticket price? Our employers monthly fee and a $50 ER payment to sit for 7 and a half hours prior to being seen. These wait times are in excess of anywhere I lived in the UK and it was “FREE” over there. Anyway I had to miss a day from work re an inability to stay alert / attempt to look after kid . Erin sadly was ill and now has a new diagnosis which has pretty wide ranging implications for her diet , and by extension, mine.
Still not written up Tam4, but have been watching the DVD’s from Tam3 which keeps the mind ticking over, that is , until I try to explain it. What I do need, and I think this would be a really kick ass projects for the LDS to get involved with since they are into databases in a big way is a register of belief accompanied by a definition. Given that the 1st 2-3 hours of any inquiry into an alledged creator of the ‘verse is trying to have the other party define what their god is, what it can do and what would lead them to that conclusion. Usually they are left forming it on the spot. It would save much wailing and gnashing of teeth if a registry existed where I could obtain this info without going through the pain of several hours to realise that they don’t have a clue on what some consider a fairly important question.
So to kick it off
Haltse : To my experience there is no personifiable deity that created the universe. This negates sin, heaven and hell, brayer ( not a typo see the boomer bible for more) and no I have not been touched by a noodly appendage.
