The censors are at it again (4/10/2008)

Some Saudi cretin complained about Pat Condell's latest video at YouTube and the video was removed. It is back now, so some sanity has been restored. Apparently the complaint was made on the basis of infringement of copyright, which is the same lying, deceitful tactic used by slimemaster Benny Hinn to have one of my videos removed. Not a pixel of copyright material in either video, but that didn't stop people lying to YouTube.

I immediately loaded the Pat Condell video up to my YouTube account, and here it is. See if you can detect the copyright infringement.

Just for good measure, here it is at MySpace, DailyMotion, Metacafe, and (of course) GodTube.

Well, it was at GodTube an hour before I wrote this but it isn't there now. I have received no notification from GodTube through either email or my message box on the site explaining why the video has been removed so I can only assume that either they fold and run away even if no threats or complaints are made or they are in the censorship business. They did the same thing with my Benny Hinn video, so I guess I will just have to assign the GodTube site to the list of worthless, hypocritical sites which want to preach but won't extend the courtesy to others.

And, by the way, while I'm thinking of it, here's the video which annoyed Benny Hinn enough to make him lie to have it removed from YouTube.

And speaking of Benny Hinn ... (4/10/2008)

I don't know why it is, but some people seem to think I am Benny Hinn. While I would appreciate the multi-million dollar house in California looking out over the Pacific Ocean, the Mercedes Benz company car and the many millions of dollars of tax-free annual income, I have none of the body shape, the hair or the amorality that go with the job. Here is the latest email:

From: "Joseph"
Subject: Prayer Request
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:16:59 +0200

Hello Benny

I enjoy watching God TV at home. I live in Zimbababwe. I am a mother of 4 and have prayer request for three of my four children. They all seem to have a wondering spirit and as a result none of them seems to do anything productive. They are aged 36, 28 and 22 the eldest is a male, they have all wondered away from the lord. My husband and myself have been interceding for them for ages. I ahve thanked the Lord for the people that I have watched bein d delivefred in your Ministry. Their name s are Kevin, Pamela and Nyasha. Please pray for them that their souls turn to God and that they be deliverd from the demons that rule their lives.

May the Good Lord Bless You.

Mrs. S Saungweme

How is the move going? (4/10/2008)

There is a real possibility that someone is about to sign contracts to buy Ratbag Castle and its extensive estate, so the move to the bush should be on real soon. I will not miss having my life continually interrupted by real estate agents, potential buyers and useless tyre-kickers who just want to waste everyone's time. I must admit that having an agent do all the showing and negotiating has been useful, because some of the offers have been of such ludicrosity that had I been doing the talking I would have dropped my normal polite manner, seized the clowns at collar and crutch and hurled them into the street. I hate shopping, and I especially hate shopping for houses and cars, so I can't see why any sane person would find it entertaining to spend their weekends wandering through other people's houses criticising the carpets and kitchens without any intention to buy the houses they are looking at.

Every time one of these parades comes around we have to tidy up, remove all signs that someone might live in the house and take the Cody the Religion Hating Dog for a walk. Apparently, house buyers won't buy houses that look lived in. Cody is all in favour of the situation but he isn't trying to get any work done.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I should be able to get back to regular and comprehensive updates of this site real soon now.  Another distraction this week was some under-the-hood work to improve page loading times. At least that was the sort of job where I could stop work, stack everything in neat piles, go for a walk and resume pretty much where I left off. Writing and researching stuff isn't as flexible.

Charles Darwin's birthday party (4/10/2008)

Next year brings the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, possibly the single most influential scientific book ever printed. Rational thinkers all over the world will be celebrating enthusiastically and partying like it's 1859. One conference celebrating the anniversaries will be held in a place that might surprise some - The Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. The title of the conference is "Biological Evolution: Facts and Theories" A critical appraisal 150 years after "The Origin of Species", and it is sure to offend some people who believe that belief in creationism and a young earth are essential qualities for anyone claiming to be a Christian. In fact, I hope it offends a great number of them, because creationists are the sort of people who should be offended on a daily basis. Apparently there was a conscious decision made to only have scientists and theologians as speakers, that is to say people who might know what they are talking about. Creationists, Intelligent Design IDiots and "researchers" from the Discovery Institute were wasting their time trying to get on the roster. Like I said, only people who know something about either science or religion were welcome, and creationists prove with their every utterance their ignorance of both. You can read about the conference here.

Should I click? (4/10/2008)

I was reading something on a online newspaper the other day when the following two Google advertisements appeared together. I didn't bother to click on either, although I was intrigued at how two obviously similar products could have such different descriptions. I like the warning on the second one, though - it certainly would be "fat loss for idiots".

See more Wellington Grey here

Am I jihadded? (27/9/2008)

Some of the comments made about my YouTube video of the reprehensible Danish cartoons seem to be written in a language which only vaguely approximates English. (One is actually in Arabic, so I have no idea whether it was complimentary or coruscating. I suspect the latter.)

يارب انت القوى على كل من افترى على عبدك ثم نبيك محمد على الف صلاة والف سلام يارب احمى محمدا من اى سوء يارب العالمين يارب اسخط اى حد يفكر يتكلم على نبيك باى سوء يارب احفظة من اى سوء حيث لا حافظ الا انت اللهم امين يارب العالمين

This comment wasn't posted to the site but instead arrived by email. I am intrigued by the writer's guess that I am a Christian rather than a Jew, and I am encouraged by the tolerance shown in the final words.

hello hello friend how r u first nice channel if u plz if u can remove that carton clip about mohammad really this is no fun and in these scenes u hurts others i hope u to understand me really this is so much painful to me when i see like this video laughing at prophets whatever mohammad orJesus both prophets from our god and i love them and respect them i hope to feel in me and help me to remove like these movies no body like to watch like these movies except jews and if u r jewish i know u will ignore my msg but i feel u r christian and i know how christian peaces people thank u anyway if u remove or u do not remove salam

I will not be removing the video. People have the right to be both offensive and offended. If all the complaints about the cartoons were like this one then there would be no news story, but when lunatics start wanting to kill people over trivialities then the only sensible response is to do more of what upsets them. Giving in to blackmail and threats just lets the bad guys win.

Have you ever moved house? (27/9/2008)

See more Red Meat here

Treating the symptoms (27/9/2008)

One of the constant whines from supporters of quackery is that real medicine only treats symptoms whereas quackery treats and cures the underlying problem. The fact that homeopathy, for example, is totally based on identifying and treating symptoms is something that they like to either ignore or lie about.

Here is a list of the ten biggest selling pharmaceutical products during 2006. (I know that later figures are probably available, but I am doing enough thanking of this site without asking them to do more work.) Note that they all address the underlying condition and only fix any symptoms as a consequence of the treatment. Several of the conditions are asymptomatic anyway, and I speak as a person with a chronic condition which can have no symptoms at all.

Structure	Trade Name	Generic Name	2006 Global Sales (Billion US$)	Company	Indication
	Lipitor	atorvastatin	13.6	Pfizer	High Cholesterol
	Nexium	esomeprazole	6.7	AstraZeneca	Heartburn
	Seretide/Advair	fluticasone/ salmeterol	6.3	GlaxoSmithKline	Asthma
	Plavix	clopidogrel	5.8	Bristol-Myers Squibb / Sanofi-Aventis	Heart Disease
	Norvasc	amlodipine	5.0	Pfizer	Hypertension
Protein	Aranesp	darbepoetin alfa	5.0	Amgen	Anemia
	Zyprexa	olanzapine	4.7	Eli Lilly	Bipolar Disorder
	Risperdal	risperidone	4.6	Johnson & Johnson	Schizophrenia
Protein	Enbrel	etanercept	4.5	Amgen/Wyeth	Arthritis
	Effexor	venlafaxine	4.0	Wyeth	Depression

Is this mad or what? (27/9/2008)

Quoting from the newspaper: "A devout Muslim has been given a 26-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, for forcing two teenagers to flog themselves until their backs bled during a Shi'ite religious ceremony". "And in which backward theocracy did this outrage take place?" I hear you ask. England.

Read the tragic story here.

Where would you rather live? (27/9/2008)

Let's look at two countries at opposite ends of the European continent which have come to my attention during the last week or two. First, there's Turkey. Remember that Turkey is officially constituted as a secular state. Well that may be so, but the powers that be have put filters on the country's links to the Internet so that residents of this secular state cannot access a web site belonging to Richard Dawkins. It seems that Professor Dawkins has offended a creationist loon. This man takes offence very easily and has previously successfully petitioned to have Wordpress and Google blocked. I would say that it takes real chutzpah to want millions of blogs and billions of indexed web pages blocked but I would assume that using a Jewish word would offend this clown even further. In that case, I will have to say that it takes real chutzpah to ... I hope that he is suitably offended. Turkey is trying to join the European Union. Perhaps they should consider moving a few centuries forward to the 18th century and the European Enlightenment first. One step at a time. You can read about this idiocy here.

For a good laugh, you can go here to see what Professor Dawkins said that caused all the offence and fuss. How dare this Oxford professor poke fun at someone who thinks that insects with great big steel hooks coming out of their bodies aren't showing any signs of having evolved. Caddis flies have always been fully equipped to attract and catch fish. That is what God made them for. Well, can you think of any other use for a caddis fly?

Things are different a bit further west, and I am pleased to announce that a Danish brewery has launched a beer named Gudeløs. This apparently means "Godless" in Danish, and a portion of the sale price goes towards promoting atheism. I wonder if Turks will be able to visit the brewery's web site.