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On twitter, @bigyahu said "this is not the future I was promised.
no 1-piece silver suits,
no atomic-powered flying car,
no meals in pill form or robot housekeeper"

So I had a quick look in google and was able to reply:

1 piece gold suit can be found here: http://twurl.nl/ny2sze, 

your flying car is sold here: http://is.gd/kVlM ,


a meal in a pill can be ordered here: http://twurl.nl/5563de,


and a robot housekeeper is sold here: http://is.gd/kVlg


The future we were promised is here, you just have to know how to look for it.


"The future is already here, its just not evenly distributed"

Today I found a Christian Theologian attacking Richard Dawkins in the Sydney Morning Herald The article was actually an advertisement for the Creationist's new book. Was it a free ad? Or was he a paid contributor?

It was no surprise that an article entitled "Questions Darwinism cannot answer" was written by a Creationist. "Darwinism" is a word only used by Creationists. Perhaps the article should have been labelled as the advertisement for his book that it surely was?

What are these questions for "Darwinism"? After slogging through a personal attack on Richard Dawkins and implying that every atheist is an evil murdering fascist, it turns out they're Christian Apologetic questions and not scientific questions at all. I'll start with the questions and get to the slog afterwards.

The first question was "When does design become domination?" If the Universe is an artificial artifact as Mr Creationist insists, then it emulates a wild natural environment extremely well and we are living in The Matrix. If we are living in The Matrix, then any "Act of God" like a murderous bush fire is an infringement of free will - which is domination. The administrators of fake reality would be cruel and unethical to impose so much suffering without the consent of the free beings who inhabit the fake world.

This question assumes that that the world we are informed of by our senses, our instruments and each other is fake. If the world is a simulation then its either being run by non-human aliens, or its being run by our post-human descendants as an ancestor simulation. If the persons running the simulation impose suffering and limit choice, then they are dominating.

"Why did God create human beings, lay a good life out before them and then include the capacity to behave otherwise?" he asks. Again this assumes that the evidence of our senses is faked. Evolution and geology and nuclear physics show that life developed through small changes over very long periods of time. They show that the universe is full of things moving around in random ways, except where humans create artifacts. Humans were not created, they evolved from earlier forms of hominid and the hominids from earlier primates, the primates from earlier mammals, all the way back to the earliest self-replicating molecules that weren't properly alive. However, as good theologians we should ignore the evidence. If we didn't have free will we'd be zombies who just reacted to stimulus from a pre-programmed script. That answers your second question. If we live in a simulation as Creationists insist, then the persons who run the simulation didn't want zombies. There's no evidence that we live in The Matrix.

Finally, "Would knowing why there is something rather than nothing make a difference to life?" Darwin's answer is that curiosity is a behaviour that promotes the spread of genes, so it was selected for in the random evolution of our ancestors. Most of us want to know the answers of our origins, and we are not satisfied with silly stories about a stork or a dove.

Mr Creationist claims that evolution cannot explain the origin of life. We have seen self-replicating molecules start replicating from non-living matter. We have found the organic molecules essential for life in distant clouds of interstellar gas. We can scientifically explain the origin of life. He concludes that evolution cannot cast light on life's destiny. Evolution shows us that life doesn't have a destiny, the Watchmaker is blind. Evolutionary processes can build eyes up, or blind them, depending on the environment that animals live and breed in, but the process is random, and the environment changes randomly.

"Evolutionary theory" does NOT require or imply "continuous creation" Mr Creationist. Evolution doesn't require any intervention by magical persons at all, its the inevitable outcome of mutant survivors of disasters breeding their inheritable traits into the next generation. Mutation and sexual recombination produce variation, predators and changing environment provide the random selection. The inevitable outcome is that some variations will breed more than others and species change over very long periods of time.

Mr Creationist, quoting notable people is an Argument from Authority. With your high academic station, you surely know that its a logically invalid argument, so why did you use it? "These lines of reasoning do not prove God's existence". Could it be that you simply don't have a valid argument?

Ad Hominem attacks are not valid arguments, either, but this doesn't stop you from personally attacking Richard Dawkins. Of course the attack is simply a disguise for the same vilification of atheists as mass murdering fascists as used by Toongabbie Anglicans a few weeks ago in their sermon "Does God exist?". Mr Creationist vilifies atheists as supporting "imperialism, genocide, mass deportation, ethnic cleansing, eugenics, forced sterilisations and infanticide." He then admits that reality doesn't match his opinion, because his vilification is false. Instead of apologising and explaining his error, he accuses Richard Dawkins of lacking commitment, courage and philosophical conviction. It looks like a classic case of Freudian projection.

Mr Creationist uses arguments which he admits are invalid, vilification which he admits is invalid, claims of definition which are easily shown to be invalid, and questions which are for his contradictory Creationist cosmology and not validly for Darwin at all. Perhaps Mr Creationist lacks the courage of his own philosophical convictions? Could he have abandoned valid methods of argument and persuasion because he doesn't believe his position can be validly argued? Or is this just the usual request to open your wallet?

At 5:30pm AEST, the Large Hadron Collider will be switched on and there will be a giant party in Bicentennial Park at the end of Glebe Point Road, to celebrate that we're still alive. However if you check out the source, the time-table for destruction doesn't match what's in the news.

Protons have already been injected into the LHC.
Today is the first time protons will have made a complete circuit.
In October they will switch on the GRID, a super-fast network replacement for the internet.
Some-time un-named, but expected to be before 2009, the LHC will have enough oomph to finally start circulating proton beams in opposite directions to make a collision. Its the collisions that have people worried that micro black holes will be created that will gang up and eat us.

This explains why Dr Karl won't be giving his talk at the Footbridge theatre at Sydney Uni until 7pm.

Here's a video of the black hole from CERN:

Here is an online test of whether the LHC has destroyed the world: http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/

"For me, it's ultimately the order of the cosmos or what I describe as the creation.
"You can't simply have, in my own judgement, creation simply being a random event because it is so inherently ordered, and the fact that the natural environment is being ordered where it can properly coexist over time.

ABC unveils six-channel internet TV - TV & Radio - Entertainment - theage.com.au

The Age reports that ABC have opened their broadband TV service where you can watch anything from ABC1 or ABC2 from the last 30 days as a stream in your browser for free.

iiNet currently are the only ISP who don't meter your ABC downloads. For iiNet customers, its like getting a free set-top box to watch ABC2, and a free ABC-only DVR - in your browser.

This is going to change the way many people watch and record ABC. Why record, when its waiting for you online?

The service is geographically locked by IP, which means if you're not living in Australia, you'll need to know how to spoof an Aussie IP to watch. Alternatively you could settle for downloading the many shows ABC have made available as video podcasts.

Someone has digitised the telecast of the Los Angeles production of Sweeney Todd on Youtube:

Here's the complete Youtube videos of the play:
part1
part2
part3
part4
part5
part6
part7
part8
part9
part10
part 11
part 12
part 13
part 14
part 15

There are some wonderfully suggestive photos with believably mundane explanations on the US Air Foce website. I love that the things that looked like martian spacecraft, really were martian spacecraft!
 Air Force News Special Report Roswell Report: Case Closed:

  Alderson Laboratories anthropomorphic dummies of the type dropped from balloons.

The aeroshell of a NASA Voyager-Mars space probe just prior to launch.

Following a supersonic test flight in 1972, a Viking space probe awaits recovery at White Sands Missile Range.

What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage
This is a beautiful validation of some of my basic philosophy of relationships. Humans respond to reward, not punishment - just like other animals. Try this on your family and friends and enjoy the imporvement!

"The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don't. After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband."

You can automate the solution to any of them:
http://www.instructables.com/id/EJLUBKN48JEPD7QXGR/?ALLSTEPS

No brain required, just an iterated algorithm.

You can read the notes from my May 2006 talk about the 2005 Australian Terror Laws at the Philorum website. link

"Philorum is a philosophy forum where everyone has an equal opportunity to have their ideas engaged by strangers and friends."
1st and 3rd Wednesday of every month. 18:15 for a 18:30 Start. Finish 21:30
The Members Bar, Floor 1
(Keep winding up to the top of the stairs.)
The Gaelic Club
64 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills
Sydney, Australia
(100 metres from a Central railway station exit.)

Some link references for the issue covered on 4 corners. Government employed cimate change scientists in Australia and the USA have been ordered to be silent on facts and opinions that contradict government policy:

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1568549.htm
http://www.climate.org/topics/climate/climate-censorship.shtml
http://faelnarr.gnn.tv/headlines/7591/GAGGED_Australian_scientists_told_to_shut_up_about_climate_change
http://www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=52308
http://www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=52262

Sunday 12th February at 1:30pm in Sydney Steele Road behind the Marrickville Metro Shopping Centre. It looks like a lot of fun.

Their website http://www.rocketcarday.com reports:
"You may experience a slight rumbling in your bowels as the week progresses. Do not be alarmed this is the bodies natural reaction to an impending rocketcar day.
Whether or not you’re involved in making a rocketcar, or you’re just turning up to hang out on the street and catch the some rays from the glow of excitement that will be emanating from all around you, the time is soon approaching when we hope the planets will align, people will arrive on time, the street will have no cars on it and security will not call the police. For that will be Rocketcar day 666 – the most evil race on the planet.

OH BABY."

Exhibit seizure leaves democracy flagging: gallery - National - smh.com.au
Victorian policeman disregards the law and steals a political artwork he finds personally offensive. No charges are likely to be laid.

Work loses its point for low-skilled - National - smh.com.au
John Garnaut is at the Negative Income Tax promotion again! This time he's quoting Professor Mark Wooden, deputy director of the Melbourne Institute, in the Journal of Political Economy.

Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists | Applefritter
Find non-conformists from freely available data and a few shell commands.

AlterNet: WireTap: Slavery Beneath the Golden Arches?
This must be where Australian farmers got the idea of shipping in Chinese farmhands instead of providing working conditions that attract locals.

Laws against slavery are worthless if they're not rigorously enforced.

Shadow of doubt over Nazi claims - National - smh.com.au
A Tunnel Rat sewer urchin had his car and house searched during the race scares last Sunday. They found a gas mask, a gun is a gunsafe, and evidence that he had visited a "Fightback" website.

If you take the risk of following the link from the Sydney Morning Herald to Fightback, at least you know you'll be bailed to the custody of your Mum.