National Geographic often shows dual standards in the way it portrays women from different cultures. While they would never print a full-page picture of a topless 19 year-old Californian girl, they have no problems doing to with a native African woman. This practice has been called colonial and is, in a way, also censorship – although not made with black ink.
Pictures of western magazines censored by the Iranian government. I wonder how many copies of these come into the country and how many people they employ blacking out flesh?
In the days since the killings in a schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa., the tone from the grieving Amish community has been not of despair or revenge, but of forgiveness.
A relative of 13-year-old Marian Fisher, one of the children shot by Charles Carl Roberts, 32, extended an invitation to Roberts' widow to attend the girl's funeral. The Amish woman told a reporter, "It's our Christian love to show to her we have not any grudges against her." ... Still, anyone who has ever set out on the winding road to forgiveness knows it is easier to talk the talk than to walk the walk. This week the Amish have offered all of us a superb lesson on how to make the talk and the walk intersect.
House Republicans just voted to slash funding for NPR and PBS this year--and eliminate funding altogether in two years. We stopped them last year. We can stop them again. Sign our petition to Congress opposing these massive cuts to public broadcasting.
NPR is the only news on the radio that isn't preoccupied with explaining to me why the other side of the political spectrum sucks. Some googling on the issue seems to say that the Repbulicans are backing off of this after getting trounced last year. Support for CPB runs against the grain of my libertarian instincts, but you show me commerical radio programming that isn't stupid and I'll stop supporting federal funding for CPB.
Last year, dozens of pastafarians around the world helped Spread the Word of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, by carving his likeness into pumpkins. This year we expect even more pumpkin-propaganda, not only because of exponential growth of the world's most logical religion, but because I'm offering a cash prize of $500 for the best FSM pumpkin.
This is a link to video of Richard Dawkins getting interviewed about his new book in which he takes on Religion full bore. I think Dawkins was meant to do this. He seems quite a home with this conflict. But, of course, what does being meant to do something mean?
I was taken aback by two things in this interview. The very last thing he says is "I don't think we were put here to be comfortable." Its a common turn of phrase but its an obvious reference to a creator. Who/what put us here? What did they put us here for, if not to be comfortable? I'm sure its just a saying, but rather ironic, perhaps...
The other thing was his assault on American Republicans. It seemed hyperbolic. Perhaps thats the view from the other side of the pond, but I don't in seriousness think that we invaded Iraq because George Bush felt God compelled him to do so. I think that underestimates our government considerably. And the notion that a wide swath of his constituency is pining for nuclear armageddon in order to bring back the Lord is down right paranoid.
Look, Mr. Dawkins, if you ever read this, I actually live in the South Eastern United States. Theres plenty a folk 'round these parts don't know a chromosome from a carbohydrate and don't much like anyone who does. Even some a them that do still got that fire and brimstone in 'em. They're down at the Baptist Church on Sunday, prayn' away. And they beleive that God is everywhere, so why not in the Legislature? How you argue with that?
But are they prayn' for war? Nah. It ain't quite nearly that bad. Maybe a handful of 'em, but they 's crazy. Some of the sane folk say they do wanna nuke stuff, but only 'cause their sick a worrying their gunna be murdered by a terrorist and they reckon violence is how you solve problems. Ain't got nothn' to do with God. And the fact is that those kinda people talk a lot a shit. You should try not to take 'em so serious like.
Perhaps you were just trying to be provocative?
There are plenty of good points to make here and no better living person to make them, but if this dialog is to be taken seriously it must be presented fairly.
this thing is really cool, it makes you wonder about making a homebrew UAV spy planes, etc...
from the post:
Here's a remarkable video shot from the cockpit of a radio-controlled airplane. The camera's video is transmitted to the flyer on the ground below, who's wearing VR goggles. When he moves his head, the remote camera's pans and tilts correspond exactly to his movements. The result is a extraordinary feeling of actually being in the plane. Shouldn't all R/C airplanes be made this way?
CNN.com - Astronaut collapses during ceremony - Sep 22, 2006
Topic: Miscellaneous
12:49 pm EDT, Sep 23, 2006
An astronaut from the space shuttle Atlantis collapsed twice Friday during a welcome home ceremony, a wobbly return that officials attributed to the adjustment from 12 days at zero gravity.
Space hurts. A presentation on space medicine at this years DragonCon totally destroyed every romantic idea I ever had about zero gravity space travel. We're not adapted for that environment. We'll need to bring a lot of gear with us, some of which we haven't made yet.
