Bad Faith Awards 2011

"It’s time once again for New Humanist readers to vote to decide who walks away with our annual Bad Faith Award. Now in its fifth year our award is a means of dishonouring the year's most outspoken enemy of reason. Previous winners include Sarah Palin, the Pope and last year's victor Sheikh Maulana Abu Sayeed, the head of the UK Islamic Sharia Council, for his assertion that it is not possible for a man to commit rape within marriage. 2011 has been a bumper year for irrationality (aren’t they all), and we’ve been flooded with nominations. We have whittled them down to a field of six arch adversaries of human advancement – take a look, make your choice, then deliver the click of shame using the poll below."

Read-on: Bad Faith Awards 2011: place your vote now

At the moment Nadine Dorries is in clear lead.

Richard Dawkins on Rick Perry

"The population of the United States is more than 300 million and it includes some of the best and brightest that the human species has to offer, probably more so than any other country in the world. There is surely something wrong with a system for choosing a leader when, given a pool of such talent and a process that occupies more than a year and consumes billions of dollars, what rises to the top of the heap is George W Bush. Or when the likes of Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin can be mentioned as even remote possibilities."

The Washington Post: Attention Governor Perry Evolution is a fact.

Sarah Palin on fruit flies

The slightest possibility that there might be 50% or more of the US population stupid enough to agree with her makes one shudder . . . .

American Senator explains Israel's rights

"I believe very strongly that we ought to support Israel, and that it has a right to the land, because God said so. In Genesis 13:14-17, the Bible says: "The Lord said to Abram, "Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you are northward, southward, eastward and westward: for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever... Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it to thee."

That is God talking. The Bible says that Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar before the Lord. Hebron is in the West Bank. It is at this place where God appeared to Abram and said, "I am giving you this land" -- the West Bank. This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true."

So that settles it then?

Israel's right to the land

Tucson Shootings - A Conspiracy?

I thought a conspiracy theory would emerge eventually:-

"Jared Lee Loughner, the suspected gunman in Saturday's Arizona shooting, attended a high school that is part of a network in which teachers are trained and provided resources by a liberal group founded by Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers and funded by President Obama, WND has learned.

 

The group, Small Schools Workshop, has been led by a former top communist activist who is an associate of Ayers.

 

Obama provided the group with funds in the 1990s when he worked at an education reform group alongside Ayers.

 

Loughner attended Mountain View High School, which is part of Arizona's Marana Unified School District.

 

What kind of resources and training were provided ?

 

Any chance this is motivation to redirect blame to the Tea Party?"

 

See Rural Revolution: "Its all our fault".

A little tit-bit from Sarah Palin . . .

The Tucson Shooting

No doubt that, as I write, the apologists of the National Rifle Association are already polishing the usual press releases; but the prime causes of the Tucson shooting are surely beyond debate.

In the 21st century, well over 100 years from the last days of the "Wild West", the yet prevailing culture of gunworship in the USA enabled an unbalanced, troubled young man to easily acquire a gun, and, furthermore, feel encouraged and licensed to use it by the atmosphere of hatred, bigotry and prejudice spread like a crimson plague by the ranting of the extreme Right.

Child abuse in Ireland

 

Wow! Another impassioned speech

Robin Williams speaks his mind

Robin Williams, wearing a shirt that says 'I love New York ' in Arabic.


I'm sure we all have thoughts similar to the following from time to time, but RW comes out with it:-




"I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan. 



1) 'The US / UK ?AUSTRALIA will apologize to the world for our 'interference' in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those 'good 'ole' boys', we will never 'interfere' again.



2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany , South Korea , the Middle East , and the Philippines . They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.

3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are from. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them.. 

4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.



5) No foreign 'students' over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a 'D' and it's back home baby. 

6) The US /UK/ Australia will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.



7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.) 

8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not 'interfere.' They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.



9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.



10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us 'Ugly Americans' any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH..learn it...or LEAVE...Now, isn't that a winner of a plan? 
'The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'you want a piece of me?' " 



Tony Blair's Foundation inspires ridicule

"The wheels are coming off the Tony Blair Faith Foundation following his demands for wholesale changes in Catholic belief and practice. He, his wife Cherie and the foundation were firmly rebuffed in Rome this month at a meeting of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences where he was compared to Cromwell and his good faith was impugned."

(From an article by Hugh O'Shaughnessy in the Guardian's Cif belief)

The attack was spearheaded by Professor Michel Schooyans of the Catholic University of Louvain, a specialist in anthropology and political philosophy. Speaking uncompromisingly, Schooyans accused Blair and his wife of supporting a messianic US plan for world domination.

The Belgian all but ridiculed the former prime minister. "The fresh 'convert' does not hesitate to explain to the pope not only what he must do, but also what he must believe! Is he a Catholic? ... So now we are back in the time of Hobbes, if not of Cromwell: it's civil power that defines what one must believe."

"Given the hostility expressed towards Blair in Rome he will be lucky to recruit the outgoing archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, to the foundation as he promised. The hostility – and ridicule – that the Blairs and their associates stir up mean he is increasingly unlikely to achieve his ambition of becoming president of the EU."

People Power

This seems like a good idea: "cc all your emails to Jacqui Smith". I wonder if it can have had any influence on the recent rethink?

Don't do anything yet but join the Facebook group to be kept informed.

Politicians and religion

To quote a memorable phrase politicians in the UK "don't do God". What they really mean is that they want to hedge their bets. They don't want to upset any religious group sufficiently for them to withhold their votes.

We always suspected Tony Blair was religious but he didn't come clean about it until he left office. How hypocritical is that!

We aren't sure about the strength of Gordon Brown's religious beliefs but why on earth shouldn't we know? Why shouldn't politicians be precise about their religious position when they ask us to vote for them? Are politicians in effect  saying that we don't need to know because their beliefs don't make any difference to the way they act in office? Some beliefs in that case! And if their beliefs do make a difference to the way they act, aren't we, the voters, entitled to have chapter & verse?

Refreshingly Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has come out as an atheist and the Lib Dems are promoting a Freedom Bill. It makes one almost want to vote for them, but anyway, one can a least sign their Freedom Bill petition:-
http://tinyurl.com/dhbj9n