"Bullshit!" on Showtime

Check out the Showtime show "Bullshit!" Now in its second season, this show by “confirmed skeptics and pro-science atheists” Penn and Teller makes beefsteak out of sacred cows. Be sure to check out the list of topics they debunk the hell out of.

Check out the interview with Drs. Brook and Ghate on IRC. Any ideas for the next chat? I'm all ears.

"National Prayer Day?" What the hell? Since when is faith and humbleness the mark of a proud nation based on reason and individual rights? This sounds like something they do in Iran or Saudi Arabia. For a truly American holiday, how about a National Day of Reason instead?

Censorship in China

After attempting to shut down or censor most of its cyber cafés, China has launched another effort to shut down cybercafes “because of fears that the Net could corrupt the minds of youngsters....”

"We must take utmost resolutions and make utmost efforts in the clean-up campaign to achieve our anticipated goal, for Internet cafe management has an important bearing on the healthy growing of juveniles."
…
As if to prove a point, Xinhuanet cites the tragic case of two youths who were crushed to death by a train when they fell asleep on a railway track after spending 48 hours in a cybercafe.
...
He cites the case of a 19-year old who, after surfing the next for five to six hours everyday for five years who had come to believe that “invisible pairs of eyes in cyber-space were peeping at him and examining him all the time”

Of course the real reason China bans uncensored internet access is obvious:

"They have brought great harm to the mental health of teenagers and interfered with the school teaching, which has aroused strong reactions from the public."

Translated from newspeak, that means “…interfered with the indoctrination of communist propaganda, which arouses strong fear within the Communist Party.”

Google Ads

As you may have noticed, I have added Google Ads to my blog. I earn a few cents for each click, so please consider sponsoring my site :-) (Note: the ads seem to be showing only intermittently due to low click-through rates. Feel free to remedy this!)

Austin is one of the very few places in Texas where this kind of thing could happen:

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Partygoers apparently hoping to catch a glimpse of nude sunbathers crowded on one side of a floating barge, prompting the ship to capsize and dump all 60 people into Lake Travis.

Re: Pat Tillman

Conservatives say some stupid things every now and then, but it’s leftists who really make me sick.

Regarding the “torture” of Iraqi prisoners: admittedly, it’s unprofessional behavior for a soldier, but where is the media outrage over the bastards who brutally tortured, dismembered, and burned U.S. soldiers and civillians? Whatever happened to photos like this?

U.S. Government Censorship

The U.S. government concocted a brilliant plan a few years ago: Why not give Internet surfers in China and Iran the ability to bypass their nations' notoriously restrictive blocks on Web sites? ... But an independent report released Monday reveals that the U.S. government also censors what Chinese and Iranian citizens can see online. Technology used by the IBB, which puts out the Voice of America broadcasts, prevents them from visiting Web addresses that include a peculiar list of verboten keywords. The list includes "ass" (which inadvertently bans usembassy.state.gov), "breast" (breastcancer.com), "hot" (hotmail.com and hotels.com), "pic" (epic.noaa.gov) and "teen" (teens.drugabuse.gov). ... That's the sad irony in the OpenNet Initiative's findings: A government agency charged with fighting Internet censorship is quietly censoring the Web itself.

Should the US government be involved in circumventing foreign censorship at all? If it is in fact important to our national security, why not just support the many private groups already doing this?

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