Sam Harris Religion is a failed science

Sam Harris: Holy Scriptures lose against Modernity

"Hells Angel: Mother Teresa" by Christopher Hitchens

Originally broadcast in 1994 on Channel 4; Aired again on October 23, 2007

Mother Teresa has become synonymous with saintliness, but is her reputation deserved? Christopher Hitchens investigates the Mother Teresa myth, looking at her work in Calcutta, her global campaign against abortion, her alliance with the most conservative Pope in recent memory and her apparent penchant for right-wing regimes and dictatorships.

A Coconut Tree Moment

Mid afternoon coffee and cake on the veranda. A man shuffles up a forty foot palm tree directly in front of me in search of coconuts - no harness - no fear. All he has to do is avoid a slip and he will be just fine. The man's flippancy and carefree attitude towards such a death defying act, got me thinking.

In my place of birth, Northern Ireland, people used to be free to take chances. I look back on my childhood with somewhat rose tinted glasses, remembering a time when there was such as thing as an accident - people allowed themselves the luxury of bending rules, to obtain what they wanted.

On a recent trip home, I spent a full year living and working within a system that I barely recognized. The workplace, and society at large, was a place where people where tripping over themselves, not to literally trip up. Accidents, it seems, have become a thing of the past. Now, as a result of a greedy a manipulative legal system, borrowed from the US, there is no such thing as an accident.

"Where there's blame, there's a claim."

I tried to explain this eventuality to a Thai friend and he was very confused indeed.

"But, what do you mean if you fall in work, it's not your fault?" was his perplexed response.

I might as well have been speaking Swahili.

A man in work, climbing up a tree with his own consent in Northern Ireland, would sadly now cause a large degree of nappy wetting. In fact, I could imagine it becoming front page news in a local newspaper, the headline reading:

"Man sacked, and jailed for deliberate and shameful health and safety violation."

One could picture the scene with police, ambulances, fire engines and rapid
response, yellow jacket wearing, private security experts on the street all looking skyward with a look of disgust of their faces.

"Where are his hat, goggles, and safety net"

"Does he have a climbing license from the local council?"

"Just who does he think he is?!"

At what point in the future will a beacon of rationality reveal itself and say:

"Enough of this bullshit. what have we become?"

Depressingly, Probably never.

The precedent has been set. The ball is rolling, and people are making real money out of common sense, at the expense of individual freedom of choice. Personal freedom is not what it was. Stressed workers from builders to engineers, are all tip-toeing round their work places, spouting the latest vomit inducing soundbite from the dinner time news.

"That's a health and safety", I was aggressively told my a superior in my last job in Ireland. "I wasn't aware that health and safety is a noun" was my forward and frustrated reply.

In all honestly, the year I spend back home I felt violated by nonsensical parroting like the aforementioned. Here in Thailand, there may be corruption, chronic dis-organization and borderline anarchy, but at least you feel human - animated. I saw people on the verge of hemorrhaging because a yellow mop bucket, was being used on a red mop bucket's floor space - I kid you not.

For those of you who live in Britain, this will not come as a shock, in fact you are probably thinking

" Yeah, of course you shouldn't be using the incorrect mop, that's simply ridiculous!"

Pithel of this type, has anesthetized an entire generation, squeezing their ability to think straight. Once trivial issues, are now punishable by one the spot fines, or even a lengthy stretch in jail. Personally, I question a governments ultimate intentions when shouting in a car, or arguing with a privately employed traffic warden are criminal offenses.

What's next in this crazy state of affairs; enforced euthanasia to solve the problem of an aging population? Is an aging population a helath and safety issue? Who knows where it will all end?

The point is that anything can become law if twisted in the right way, and repeated often enough. Rapidly, liberty is being eroded, and people are too busy working to pay tax to notice. Like a faulty tap dripping, freedom is being stolen drop by drop; insidiously sucking the joy of life from people, replacing what were everyday actions, into incriminating offenses.

Next time your in the car and your afraid to turn over the radio because there's a policeman nearby, think of the Thai man in the coconut tree, and wonder where it all went wrong.

Food, Inc. (2008)

Food, Inc. (2008)

The current method of raw food production is largely a response to the growth of the fast food industry since the 1950s. The production of food overall has more drastically changed since that time than the several thousand years prior. Controlled primarily by a handful of multinational corporations, the global food production business - with an emphasis on the business - has as its unwritten goals production of large quantities of food at low direct inputs (most often subsidized) resulting in enormous profits, which in turn results in greater control of the global supply of food sources within these few companies. Health and safety (of the food itself, of the animals produced themselves, of the workers on the assembly lines, and of the consumers actually eating the food) are often overlooked by the companies, and are often overlooked by government in an effort to provide cheap food regardless of these negative consequences. Many of the changes are based on advancements in science and technology, but often have negative side effects. The answer that the companies have come up with is to throw more science at the problems to bandage the issues but not the root causes. The global food supply may be in crisis with lack of biodiversity, but can be changed on the demand side of the equation.

Mike

Download:

http://www.mininova.org/tor/3033237

President O Bama Recieves the Nobel Peace Prize

Lets have a little glance at what he has been up to since coming to office.

1. Climate change regulation – India and China gave him a thumbs down and are still building coal fired plants.

2. Guantanamo bay – He asked it to be closed by February 2010, will not be done.

3. Health care reform – the opposition to that bill in the house and senate is mind numbing

4. Reduce nuclear weapons – Iran and North Korea want nuclear weapons. India, China and Israel won’t sign nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

5. Afghanistan – in his campaign he said he will bring the fight against terrorism hard to Al Qaeda, but now he has second thoughts about troop increase.

6. Job losses – Said job losses will not be above 9%, currently in the USA that figure stands at 9.8% with no end in sight.

7. Israel-Palestine conflict – Israel won’t stop building settlements and Hamas criticized that Obama received the noble peace prize.

8. Iran – USA wants sanctions, but co-operation from China and Russia is lukewarm to say the least.

9. Honduras – Wants the ousted president reinstated, no one is listening.

Does the power of rhetoric really count for more than real political achievements?

This remind me of a satirical joke.

The writers of the theonion.com could not have written this one any better.

Food for thought.

Mike

Morning in Ao Nang.

Ao Nang.

Day one:

Rolled out of bed at 10am with a mild hangover. Nothing terminal. Had a superb breakfast of fresh orange juice, toast, fried rice, and coffee over looking the emerald green ocean. My heart went out to the sophisticated Germans who sat stiff and upright, at the opposite table. I was aware of their awareness. I breathed deeply the sea air. I was hungry. Have they never seen a man eating aggressively before? Does this not happen in the Munich beers halls? Anyway, eating like a man who just located his desert mirage, I soldiered on; appetite dangerously out of control on a beachfront table. Gluttonously, I filled my plate for the third time and strolled triumphantly past their beady stares, feeling like a medieval king covered in banqueting grease. Anyway, spotty teenagers can eat like a pig, and so can street drinkers for that matter, so why can't I? I hold my hands up; guilty as charged officer: I am a food lover, not a fighter - Bite me.

With breakfast hundred per cent swallowed, fifty per cent chewed, and zero per cent digested, it was prime time for a dip in the crystal clear pool.

At this point, the reader may be pondering why one would swim in a pool when twenty metres away is the wondrous Andaman Sea? The answer can be expressed in one simple word - monsoon.

The tidal surges at this time of year are as unstable as an alcoholic on a tightrope. One minute you are playing in a rubber ring, the next screaming at dots on the horizon.

Scores of well fed, sun burnt, white folk, lose their lives every year on these sun kissed shores. Their belligerent defiance of local advice costs them dear; sucked out as easily as a message in a bottle. The crystal clear waters hold dark secrets at this time of year; secret fables, not worth pursuing, and secret games, not worth playing. Beware

Mike