All entries by this author

New Death Sentence on Journalists in Iran

Aug 7th, 2007 | By Jahanshah Rashidian

The Islamic Republic of Iranian’s execution wave has reached the media in Iran. On 16 July 2007, two Kurdish journalists, Mr. Adnan Hassanpour and Mr.Hiva Boutimar were sentenced to death by an Islamic tribunal in Marivan, a Kurdish city in the north-west Iran. They are supposed to be brought to the scaffold in the coming days. Judiciary spokesman, Mr. Ali Reza Jamshidi, confirmed that these two journalists have been sentenced to death, state media reported Tuesday, 31 0f July.

At a trial behind closed doors, the journalists were found guilty of “activities subverting national security, spying, and interviews for foreign news media including Voice of America”. These “accusations” were cited by the prosecution and, amazingly, confirmed by the journalists’ lawyer, … Read the rest



What’s my motivation in this scene?

Aug 6th, 2007 5:20 pm | By

Have you read Allen’s article on PBS and Einstein’s wife? PBS is extremely irritating. It’s doing a bad thing. It’s ignoring its plain duty and responsibility. It’s not doing its job properly. It’s sneaking around. First it was stalling and delaying and making excuses, and now it’s sneaking around. It’s being bad. It has not only failed to take down the Einstein’s Wife website, despite the advice of its own ombudsman and despite telling Allen ‘We are looking for additional scholarly review to help us know how to proceed in making sure that the web site content is as accurate as possible,’ it has now commissioned Andrea Gabor to rewrite it. That’s like commissioning Michael Behe to rewrite … Read the rest



Ken MacLeod on 21st Century Atheism *

Aug 6th, 2007 | Filed by

Humanist philosophers in Britain had become Guardian columnists: Baggini, Blackburn, Grayling.… Read the rest



Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) *

Aug 6th, 2007 | Filed by

By Carol Tavris and Elliott Aronson – sounds like a must-read.… Read the rest



Review of Catriona McKinnon’s ‘Toleration’ *

Aug 6th, 2007 | Filed by

‘Liberals tend to take for granted that everyone agrees on the value of toleration.’… Read the rest



Ian Birchall Notes: Sartre Was no Nihilist *

Aug 6th, 2007 | Filed by

Sartre takes those of us who see no evidence of a creator through the problem of how we should act in this world.… Read the rest



MPs Reading The God Delusion *

Aug 6th, 2007 | Filed by

Along with Hague on Wilberforce, and Harry Potter.… Read the rest



Alain Finkielkraut Appalled by Jogging Sarkozy *

Aug 6th, 2007 | Filed by

It is the surrender of the mind to the body that AF cannot stand: mere body management, devoid of spirituality.… Read the rest



Review of ‘The Enemies of Reason’ *

Aug 5th, 2007 | Filed by

The new age caravanserai: astrologers, spirit mediums, faith healers, homeopathic medicine. … Read the rest



Dawkins on ‘The Enemies of Reason’ *

Aug 5th, 2007 | Filed by

Angel therapy, psychic energy, clearing energy blockages in the meridian system, and the like.… Read the rest



Members of Hizb ut-Tahrir Run 2 UK Schools *

Aug 5th, 2007 | Filed by

‘At age 9-10 children should be taught: “There must be one khali-fah”.’… Read the rest



Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall

Aug 4th, 2007 5:30 pm | By

Best of luck, Haluk Ertan.

“Turkey is now the headquarters of creationism in the Islamic World. This is no longer only Turkey’s problem, it is now the problem of the whole civilized world,” says Haluk Ertan, a professor of molecular biology at Istanbul University. He’s one of a handful of Turkish scientists who have been working to counter creationism’s spread in the country.

But if you package pseudoscience nicely enough, it will win.

In the past year, BAV has blanketed several European countries and the US with its glossy “Atlas of Creation,” a lavish 768-page tome weighing more than 13 pounds, sending it to scientists, professors, journalists, and schoolteachers…”Every Islamic bookshop I know of stocks Harun Yahya’s material. It

Read the rest


Islamic Creationist Group Goes Global *

Aug 4th, 2007 | Filed by

A handful of Turkish scientists have been working to counter creationism’s spread in the country. … Read the rest



Sunny Hundal on the Forced Marriage Bill *

Aug 4th, 2007 | Filed by

Rather than a huge leap forward all we have is a small step.… Read the rest



Drivel *

Aug 4th, 2007 | Filed by

Harvard drivel, but drivel nonetheless.… Read the rest



Spam spam and spam

Aug 4th, 2007 9:47 am | By

Sorry I’m a little quiet. You can thank the spambot, for one thing – it deposits comments (porn ads) on an old N&C, and I have to remove them. The number of comments has been steadily rising; it doubled between yesterday and today. Yesterday I had 8 pages to delete, today it’s 18. It’s a slow process – click ‘check all,’ click ‘delete,’ then wait, then click yes, then wait; repeat. 17 times. It’s slow, because I don’t have broadband. I can do other things at the same time, but it’s jerky and interrupted. Deleting 18 pages takes a very long time.

Anyway, it’s just as well for me to be quieter. I’ve learned that JS has to pay more … Read the rest



Dangerous Nonsense *

Aug 3rd, 2007 | Filed by

The notion that faith is a form of moral fortitude needs to be given the full point-and-laugh treatment.… Read the rest



How Not to Do It *

Aug 3rd, 2007 | Filed by

If there is one feature which distinguishes medicine from quackery, it is that tradition of critical self-appraisal.… Read the rest



Ben Goldacre on Blah Blah Cannabis Blah Blah *

Aug 3rd, 2007 | Filed by

What’s really important is what you do with data. You can mispresent it, and scare people. Or not.… Read the rest



‘The Memory of Water is a Reality’ *

Aug 3rd, 2007 | Filed by

Another example of ‘the hassle barrier’: pretend controversies that rely on bald assertion.… Read the rest