Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

How America was not founded as ‘a Christian country’ based on ‘Judaeo-Christian’ values.

Texas is to allow the both the innocent and guilty citizens it executes to have some last-minute spiritual advise.

In Australia, Scott Morrison is not the first prime minister with religious beliefs.

A shout out to the Atheist Community of Polk County, Florida, for showing that actions speak louder than words.

Christians in Montana can now legally refuse to give their neighbors water if they are thirsty or food if they are hungry.

Antonin Scalia would be appalled at what Supreme Court Conservatives are arguing now.

The Cuddly One strives for financial transparency within the Catholic Church after 2,000 years of corruption.

World of Woo:  Food advocacy groups that spread disinformation.

Environment: Almost all world’s glaciers losing mass.

A fossil found in Scotland unlocks secrets of Earth’s earliest life forms and how one ocean crossing may have made Human Evolution possible.

Christian morality is why weed isn’t legal yet.

Michael Nugent: An open letter to the AHA about Richard Dawkins.

Harvard scientists create gene-editing tool that could rival CRISPR.

Which ‘Hints’ of new Physics should we be paying attention to?

The new DUP leader in Northern Ireland thinks Ireland was created by his god is 6k years old.

10 more free courses.

Long Reads: Notice to animals – Beware of Humans. Notice of caring health professionals – Beware of Humans. The Hell left behind by ISIS in Iraq. The Untold Story of the SolarWinds Hack. The hard problems of Vegetarianism. John Milton versus the Mob.

This week I might order this book: Know Thyself – the science of self-awareness.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Podcast: Sam Harris on Order and Freedom.  Michael Shermer on “What we owe each other”.

Coffee Break Video: The chasm between human intuition and physical reality. A discussion between Daniel Kahneman and Yuval Noah Harari: Global Trends Shaping Humankind.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Have a great week everyone!

[Strega]

Thanks, Reg!!

[—]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Michael Nugent: An open letter to the AHA about Richard Dawkins.

I agree for the most part aside from an issue I’ve raised already. Any award or recognition given has to be done on the recognition it is being given to a human being*. And humans, regardless of their contributions in some areas, are bound to be fallible in others. Unless something comes to light showing an individual wasn’t deserving of the award at the time it was given, or they’ve done something particularly egregious , past accomplishments remain what they were.

Rather than reinstate Dawkins’ award (or perhaps in concert with it), I think it would be worth considering the point of awards in the first place. While the idea of offering recognition and celebration seems nice on the surface, there is an almost inevitable pageantry and politics to it which will ultimately cheapen the award. Perhaps it’s time to stop putting people up on pedestals in general.

*I accept the possibility that not all awards are given to humans. I don’t know if we have the same issues with needing to disavow, let’s say, horses or dogs given special recognitions.

[_Robert_]

By chance I was just watching a Dawkins lecture. Around 10:20 minutes in and starts making a joke about a typo in his book…a ‘Hard-On’ collider instead of a ‘Hadron collider’. His young audience responds with a uncomfortable sounding laugh at first but then the world continued on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hDDwBEobtk&t=3309s

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg,

The article on Food Woo and the groups who purvey it was both interesting and entertaining.  When are people ever going to learn what I always tell people?:

Every living thing humans has ever domesticated for thousands of years has been Genetically Engineered and Genetically Modified.  The only difference is the means.  In the past, it was by selective breeding for specific traits, and now it is In Vitro or even In Utero with test tubes and Petri Dishes.

And meat is just concentrated, processed plant matter and vegetables and fruits are just long-term reconstituted meat.

And everything is Natural–including poison oak and Little Deuce Coups–and everything is made of chemicals–and those two statements are not mutually exclusive.

And it’s all star-stuff and “We Are All Made of Stars” and so I guess that means that “Everything Is Food.” (Though hopefully not within the same species.  That can spread Kreutzfeld-Jacob which, despite symptoms, is no laughing matter.  Also, eating your own kind is, literally, not sustainable.  It would result in a Darwin Award where nobody shows up for the ceremony.)

Pop musicians and movie songwriters have more insight on nutrition than all these Food Fascists and Gastronomic Gurus.  I guess it takes a playlist to teach some people:

Eat Starch, Mom–Jefferson Airplane

We Are All Made of Stars–Moby

Everything is Food–From the Motion Picture Popeye

 

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

A guy gets a phone call and is asked “Would you be interested in considering changing your energy supplier”?

No, came the reply, I am happy to stick with food and he hung up.

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg,

Now I would gladly change my energy supplier for my apartment if it meant a bigger monthly food energy budget.

Here where I live, there’s an electricity utility company with a State-granted monopoly, the City buys power from the utility, then the City tacks on it’s own mark-up, then requires all City residents to buy power from the City.  Hence, we have City government monopoly on top of State government-granted monopoly.

But, instead of focusing on more choice in energy sources and providers, everyone on all sides of the spectrum in the U.S. is focused on Big Tech… even though there are competing platforms for those who desire them and even though there are those of us who are informed and happy without social media blather.

 

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

For some reason this page is still bookmarked in my browser so I will post it here, on antitrust, monopolies and (unfair) competition in America.

Time to de-clutter my bookmarks….so many of them it is becoming useless.

[Author]

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