Classic Early 90s TV Series

Who remembers this Australian children’s program – I thought it was classic.

Change of Focus

When I originally set this blog up, I had intended it to be a pure consciousness stream. In practice though I just don’t have that much time to blog. This problem has been further compounded the last couple of months by being a slave to randomenglishman who is busy building his empire. When this empire is complete, we will all become creationists, staunch death penalty advocates and quasi-national socialist daily mail readers hell bent on exterminating every last magpie purely to see if it’s a good idea.

Anyway I digress, to counter this problem I’ve decided to change the focus of the blog to being purely a media review site for movies and gaming. That way it’ll be a bit more manageable. I’ve also deleted all the discussions that were clogging it up to give it a feel more in line with what was originally intended. Watch this space.

The Four Horsemen of the Anti-Apocalypse

An open letter to Messrs. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens
By Michael Shermer

Since the turn of the millennium, a new militancy has arisen among religious skeptics in response to three threats to science and freedom: (1) attacks against evolution education and stem cell research; (2) breaks in the barrier separating church and state leading to political preferences for some faiths over others; and (3) fundamentalist terrorism here and abroad. Among many metrics available to track this skeptical movement is the ascension of four books to the august heights of the New York Times best-seller list — Sam Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation (Knopf, 2006), Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell (Viking, 2006), Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great (Hachette Book Group, 2007) and Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) — that together, in Dawkins’s always poignant prose, “raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral and intellectually fulfilled.” Amen, brother.

Whenever religious beliefs conflict with scientific facts or violate principles of political liberty, we must respond with appropriate aplomb. Nevertheless, we should be cautious about irrational exuberance. I suggest that we raise our consciousness one tier higher for the following reasons.

1. Anti-something movements by themselves will fail. Atheists cannot simply define themselves by what they do not believe. As Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises warned his anti-Communist colleagues in the 1950s: “An anti-something movement displays a purely negative attitude. It has no chance whatever to succeed. Its passionate diatribes virtually advertise the program they attack. People must fight for something that they want to achieve, not simply reject an evil, however bad it may be.”

2. Positive assertions are necessary…

3. Rational is as rational does. If it is our goal to raise people’s consciousness to the wonders of science and the power of reason, then we must apply science and reason to our own actions. It is irrational to take a hostile or condescending attitude toward religion because by doing so we virtually guarantee that religious people will respond in kind…

4. The golden rule is symmetrical. In the words of the greatest conscious­ness raiser of the 20th century, Mart­in Luther King, Jr., in his epic “I Have a Dream” speech: “In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrong­ful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.” If atheists do not want theists to prejudge them in a negative light, then they must not do unto theists the same.

5. Promote freedom of belief and disbelief. A higher moral principle that encompasses both science and religion is the freedom to think, believe and act as we choose, so long as our thoughts, beliefs and actions do not infringe on the equal freedom of others. As long as religion does not threaten science and freedom, we should be respectful and tolerant because our freedom to disbelieve is inextricably bound to the freedom of others to believe.
As King, in addition, noted: “The marvellous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.”

Rational atheism values the truths of science and the power of reason, but the principle of freedom stands above both science and religion.

The Death of a Nuclear Future?

We were once promised faithfully that it would never happen again yet for some reason, quarter of a century later here we are up the same creek without a paddle. What events do I refer to? Chernobyl of course and its new baby brother – Fukushima Dai-ichi.

The facts coming out of Japan have so far been scarce from the initial denial of any kind of meltdown to the gradual admission of a partial meltdown to the admission of a partial meltdown in three reactors, to the admission they have no ability to cool the fuel whatsoever. This much was already obvious long before they admitted it for several reasons - the detection of radiometric caesium and iodine in the atmosphere indicated that radioactive material had escaped the containment vessel. The explosions were also a dead give away - the presence of hydrogen alone indicated that the zirconium casing around the fuel rods had begun to melt because they had to be hot enough to strip oxygen atoms from the steam inside the reactor through dissociation. This is what caused the hydrogen build-up in the upper part of the reactor building leading to the subsequent explosions. Initially TEPCO chose to lie about these things, either that or worse – they didn’t have a clue. One thing is so far certain – we aren’t being told the whole story. And as with all nuclear accidents it will likely take an age before we finally know the truth.

The media have in recent days been criticized for showing ‘disproportionate coverage’ of the disaster unfolding at Fukushima Dai-ichi. Especially amidst the backdrop of a humanitarian tragedy that totally eclipses it in scale. I disagree with that consensus. People across the world have been deeply worried that this could be a repeat of Chernobyl and the world in general has been spooked by the very thought of the prospect. Indeed in recent days its ghost has come back to haunt us once more. The Chernobyl disaster was ultimately a hundred times worse than the recent Earthquake in Japan. It wasn’t just a disaster either, it was a nightmare. Let's be fair about this as well - nightmare isn't even a strong enough word to describe that event. For as long as the human race exists, people will continue to pay the price for that disaster and even after we’re long gone – nature will continue to pay that price in our absence. Even though Chernobyl can only be directly connected to the deaths of 31 people due to the initial criticality event, the consequences were catastrophic. Vast tracts of land across the Ukraine and Belarus were rendered uninhabitable. Hundreds of thousands of people had to be forcibly relocated. Cities across the Ukraine and Belarus were reduced to ghost towns. Radioactive fallout contaminated land across most of Europe and the northern hemisphere. But it continues to get worse. Of the 800,000 liquidators sent into to clean up the disaster, around 100,000 are now dead with another 100,000 permanently disabled. The fallout has been responsible for innumerable health problems in the affected populations and not just from cancers, from intestinal problems, circulation problems, respiratory problems, endocrine problems and autoimmune diseases. Many of the people suffering will ultimately die from exposure to the fallout, numbers now estimated to be over a million people since 1986. The economic cost of the disaster alone is in the realm of at least several hundred billion dollars. Then we have the the massive number of birth defects and stillborn children. The deep psychological scarring of its victims. The 200,000 women forced to have abortions. The farmland deemed unfit to grow produce. The mass slaughter of irradiated livestock. The pollution of the water table in affected areas. The list just goes on and on and on. The accident at Chernobyl didn’t just kill people, it destroyed their souls.

So 25 years later had we really learned anything. It turns out not. The entire world was gearing up for a nuclear renaissance, the horrors of Chernobyl having faded sufficiently from the public consciousness. With the threat of global warming, our dependence on middle-eastern oil imports, safe nuclear power was supposed to be our salvation and now the dream lies in ruins. Governments were convinced that nuclear energy was somehow now safer than it had been in that much simpler time only a generation ago. Then all of a sudden events in Japan threw a massive spanner into the works. Now granted it was on the part of the Japanese an act of extreme stupidity to not only build one of these reactors on seismically active ground but also near a stretch of coastline guaranteed to be hit by tsunamis. Their hubris and faith in technology has bitten them hard. But it was a faith shared by the rest of the world. We have been repeatedly assured by our governments over the years that it could never happen again, that reactor design in the west is much safer, that meltdowns cannot happen now. That is correct apparently, until they do. So now the pro-nuclear lobby has naturally got to change its tune a little and point out that in Britain we’re not on a fault line. That’s correct so therefore it’s safe, I mean it’s not like there are any other threats to our country that would see a nuclear reactor as being a good target now is it? Not like terrorism for instance.

One of the reasons this accident has the world on edge is because it is so reminiscent of Chernobyl. The parallels are obvious. Granted I doubt the radiological release from the plant will be anything close but the rest of it has the same modus operandi. The evacuations, the radiation warnings, the exclusion zone, the explosions, the fires, the panic, even the pictures of the damaged reactor buildings look the same. The initial surge in radiation was detected hundreds of miles away from the Fukushima site, similarly the first clue that the Soviet Union had a serious nuclear problem came from Sweden. After the Chernobyl accident, the Soviet authorities went into a state of denial. Currently the Japanese authorities are in a state of denial. Initially the Soviet government lied about the seriousness of the Chernobyl incident, the Japanese authorities are currently lying about the seriousness of the Fukushima incident. I think I may be doing the Japanese a disservice here though, they are dealing with the problem a hundred times better than the Soviet Union dealt with Chernobyl. The Japanese at least admitted they had a serious problem and began evacuating straight away unlike the Soviets who tried at first to make-believe that nothing was wrong. That’s not to pour scorn on the bravery of the Soviets who originally dealt with Chernobyl, each one of them tried to rectify the situation knowing with absolute certainty they were going to die. In the same vain and before the eyes of the world the faceless Fukushima 50 has been used to personify the disaster in Japan – giving us a real life fairy-tale to believe in as they embark on a suicide mission to fight their own nuclear nightmare against insurmountable odds. That sounds sickeningly pretentious but I like it, it’s poetic. These men took on the mission to cool the reactors knowing full well it could mean their lives and in doing so they have won the admiration of the world.

Ultimately the problem with nuclear energy is it's a lethally toxic technology. It wasn’t developed as a technology of peace, it was developed as a weapon of war that has since been adapted for peaceful purposes. In so doing so we created our own metaphorical Frankenstein and when this stuff goes wrong it goes very badly wrong – people will pay the price… forever. We’re kind of like children playing with fire and every now again we will get burnt. In order for us to fully utilise this technology we should really need to be assured that it's 100% safe but as the events at Fukushima illustrate, no matter how many safety measures, false assurances and propaganda we are given, there is no such thing. Pro-nuclear activists will nevertheless continue to insist this technology is safe. Let me give them a clue, it isn't and it never will be. The spin they’ve tried to put on this event has been interesting – spin like ‘things are under control’ and ‘the radiation is not a threat’. The problem I have here is do they seriously believe that anyone will ever believe that explosions and fires anywhere near the vicinity of a nuclear reactor is an acceptable state of affairs? The question as to whether this technology is safe has already been answered, it was answered at Windscale, it was answered at Three Mile Island, it was answered at Chernobyl and now it has been answered at Fukushima. But this isn’t the question that really needs to be asked is it? Because surely by now we know the answer. The question here isn't a question of whether we should use nuclear energy as it is a question of whether it's worth the price we could potentially pay. Without nuclear we can likely kiss goodbye to the electronic utopia we've built for ourselves because there simply isn’t another alternative. Our technological civilisation is built on a thirst for energy that can’t be quenched any other way. Renewable energy will never cover the void and oil as well as not lasting forever comes mainly from countries we simply cannot trust. The latter comes with massive environmental problems of its own. People could I suppose sacrifice the luxuries but no government on Earth is going to make that call and I can’t see the world turning back to candlelight somehow so regardless of the political fallout from Fukushima, nuclear is here to stay. As an added bonus we’ll get plenty of reassurance from governments that they’ve run numerous tests on our reactors and that nothing can possibly go wrong with them. Which is obviously quite comforting until you realise that man made disasters don’t occur because of what we thought of, they occur mainly because of what we didn’t think of. If we get away with one calamity every twenty years which seems to be the going rate, we may only be due two more before more practical power sources are developed. As to where and when those calamities strike we leave that to chance.

This incident has at the very least highlighted the desperate need for openness, honesty and transparency in the wake of a nuclear accident. The public need to know exactly where they stand so they can make informed decisions. This obviously can’t happen if a private company is trying to protect its own financial interests. Perhaps the IAEA will reach some sort of agreement about this in the coming months. If the nuclear beast is here to stay, we deserve the right to know when we’ve got to run away from it. My own preference would be this... invest heavily in nuclear fusion. No matter how expensive it is, ultimately it buys us an alternative. Convincing people that it’s safe is going to be tricky given how tarnished the word nuclear has become but sooner or later we really need to crack this problem because a safe sustainable future depends on it. For the size of the economic hit the world would have to take if we ever had to evacuate a city the size of Tokyo, this seems to me to be a more acceptable gamble. For the cost of one Chernobyl, we could have had a limitless clean environmentally friendly energy source. But alas it’s not like humans to exercise that kind of foresight.

The Heroes of Atheism

I really must congratulate these people – I mean they have singlehandedly done more damage to Christianity than people like Dawkins or Hitchens could ever dream of. Of whom do I speak? The so called creation ‘scientists’ – prominent names amongst them being people like Kent Hovind, John Mackay, Jonathan Sarfarti, Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, Ken Ham, William Dembski, Michael Behe, Harun Yahya et al. Granted the last man on this list is a Muslim creationist but interestingly enough Christians who normally have no special love of Muslims seem to be bosom buddies when it comes to creationism. I’ve decided to throw his name into the mix because Christian creationists will happily throw their lot in with him despite him being a criminal, hypocrite and otherwise a lunatic. More on him in a minute.

Firstly the problem with this entire debate is it’s entirely built upon not one but a string of faulty logical premises – the main one being the false dichotomy. A long time ago a man named Charles Darwin proposed the idea that organisms change over time. There was sufficient evidence for this idea to take hold 150 years ago. Since this time every single discovery in the field of biology has corroborated this proposal hence why it was elevated from hypothesis to theory. Now as it stands it’s a very strong theory and a good explanation of what we see in the natural world and allows us to make testable predictions in biology. But despite this the creationist assertion is that its plain wrong but they still haven’t managed to disprove it and I genuinely take issue with this. Because if you’re going to assert that something is completely wrong and you’re so sure of that fact then surely it should be a relatively simple task to prove it wrong. Creationists continually assert that evolution can’t be disproved as if it were some kind of religion but this is a lie and here’s why:

Science has to be falsifiable by design – it’s the rules. There are large a number of ways evolution could be falsified, for example you could find one of the following (From rationalwiki):

• Find something that defies classification in Linnaean taxonomy e.g. chlorophyll in an animal cell wall.
• Show that mutations do not occur.
• Show that although mutations do occur, that they’re not passed down through the generations.
• Show that although mutations are passed down through generations, they do not produce the sort of phenotypic changes that drive natural selection.
• Show that selection or environmental pressures do not favour the reproductive success of better adapted individuals.
• Darwin pointed out in his own work "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case."
• Or a favourite of rationalists these days – dig up a bunny rabbit from Precambrian rock.

If creationism were true then all of the above challenges should have been met – very easily met which evidently isn’t the case. Instead what we get is the God of the gaps argument whereby creationists find something that science doesn’t yet know and then infer that it must imply some kind of supernaturalism. I don’t personally have a problem with this argument but I would like to point out that so far in everything we’ve learned about science and the way the world works, magic has never turned out to be an explanation for anything whatsoever. And as an added bonus it opens you up to ridicule when science does find that piece of the puzzle.

So let me clear up why this is a false dichotomy. Creationists attack evolution with an almost religious fervour as if discrediting evolution would somehow vindicate creationism by default. The time and resources creationists have now spent on doing this is simply amazing given that even if they could somehow discredit evolution and the big bang theory and they would have to discredit both which in itself is no mean feat, it wouldn’t automatically vindicate creationism by default as they imagine. Why? Because creationism simply doesn’t fit with any observable facts about reality. So the only way creationists can now make a case is through twisting the facts to fit the premise and this involves dishonesty, not only that but it involves a LOT of dishonesty. And this is where my above heroes come in because each one of them can be shown to not only be liars but in some cases (John Mackay and Kent Hovind) just plain fucking nuts. The consequences of it are this - many creationists eventually realise they’re being duped by these people thanks largely to the incessant efforts of complete bastards like myself. But instead of merely rejecting creationism, they end up rejecting Christianity altogether and I think the reason is simple. If Christians are as they claim to be more virtuous and honest because of their faith then what remains of that faith when you realise that someone you respected and believed to be a person of great integrity as a defender of that faith is actually a habitual liar and charlatan? The revelation tends to shake people’s faith often resulting in a complete rejection of religion.

Anyway on to the heroes. One of the favourite arguments these people use is called quotemining. This involves quoting their opposition out of context so as to completely distort the meaning of what that person originally said. This is so pervasive in creationism that there are websites entirely dedicated to putting these quotes back into their original context. All the men mentioned are incessantly guilty of this. But I’m not just talking about misrepresenting people’s positions here; I’m talking about flat out lies where the person has to know they’re lying. Kent Hovind for example has met more fictional evolution professors than anyone else alive. He’s also the authority on not correcting his mistakes; for instance when it’s pointed out that he’s using faulty research or things that have been proven incorrect he knowingly continues to use that material at his seminars. But it’s worse than that, he comes up with hypotheses which are easily flattened but gain a foothold in the creationist community who are ignorant of the science involved and repeated ad nauseum. An example of this would be when he stated that the singularity responsible for cosmic expansion was originally a spinning disc (which it wasn’t) and that it had some bearing on the orbital mechanics of the solar system (which it doesn’t). All this came from the man misreading one science textbook on the solar nebulae hypothesis which of course has nothing whatsoever to do with big bang cosmology. He continued to use this argument in his seminars right up until his unfortunate incarceration on 58 counts of failing to render unto Caesar what was Caesars. He also repeatedly denies that established science works at all e.g. radioactive carbon dating. John Mackay is similarly guilty of this sort of thing; that is when he’s not accusing people of witchcraft or sleeping with the dead any road.

Ray Comfort is also man who is similarly spectacular at brazen breaches of the 9^th commandment. For instance he wrote a 50 page libellous introduction to the origin of species and then distributed 50,000 copies (including his foreword) of that book on college and university campuses. We know this introduction at least libellous because he tried to present Darwin as a fanatical racist and as the primary motivation for the Third Reich’s fanatical eugenics programme and subsequent genocide. All of the accusations he presented can of course be easily disproven. Darwin for instance was one of the most egalitarian men in what was at the time one of the most ethnocentric societies in the world. This is borne out in the considerable body of work he left behind – there is nothing in any work ever written by Charles Darwin to suggest he was a racist, exactly the opposite in fact – he was an early proponent of racial equality. Hitler on the other hand would seem to have been a Roman Catholic creationist which is borne out in the considerable number of quotes attributed to him – oh and a casual read of Mein Kampf also adds considerable weight to this idea. But seriously it wouldn’t matter if Hitler had quoted Darwin on every third line of Mein Kampf because it would still invoke the logical fallacy of argument from adverse consequences i.e. this is what evolution caused someone to do therefore it’s wrong. The same line of reasoning could be applied to atomic theory – arguing that that’s wrong because it led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people at Hiroshima – it’s a senseless argument. The whole introduction that comfort wrote has been dissected in detail and it’s pure unadulterated bullshit from start to finish – it’s one of the most dishonest pieces of literature in existence.

In the film Expelled – Ben Stein attempted the same feat – that of invoking evolution as Hitler’s inspiration for the holocaust. It is simply unbelievable the lengths these people will go to defend their ‘sacred truth’. The fact of the matter here is that you would have to seriously misunderstand evolutionary theory in its entirety for it to ever lead to any kind of genocide at all. Why? Because limiting the amount of genetic variety in a gene pool is detrimental to the overall population of that organism – evolution 101.

In the Kitzmiller Vs. Dover trial (2006) which was pretty much the seminal evolution vs creationism court case, Michael Behe repeatedly lied under oath. He had previously stated that there was no evidence that the immune system could have evolved. Upon being presented with 58 peer reviewed papers and several books on exactly that subject he employed another creationist debate tactic known as moving the goal posts. Basically what he did is he began to redefine what he would accept as evidence in the process setting an impossible standard of what he would accept. See the video below on this.

And finally a little bit on Harun Yahya. Creationists love him – I even know of a certain creationist blog not too far away from here that references his work occasionally. And why not – he’s the champion of creationism for the Muslim world. If you’re a creationist you need this guy’s input. Want the kicker? Not only is he a holocaust denier but he’s also a criminal. I mean this guy fights dirty when it comes to creationism and we’re talking censorship of the Internet (in Turkey), extortion, blackmail, libel, embezzlement and drug offences (I don’t personally have a problem with this but it does kind of imply hypocrisy if he believes the Quran is inerrant). But I guess there’s nothing quite like fair and honest dialogue if you are promoting ‘the truth’.

So what do I make of all this? These people KNOW they are lying but they do it anyway. They peddle their propaganda because it’s a good way to make money and their indoctrinated sheep will gladly acquiesce. I think hypocrisy like this is one of the most destructive forces in the entire Christian religion, I would say most destructive but then I’d be ignoring Catholicism and some of its adherents’ rather interesting take on sexual ethics. 

Why creationists chose to pick a fight with evolution I don’t know but one thing I do know is it was a mistake - a massive one. The opening salvos were declared by creationists in Darwin’s time and creationists started a war that they’ve been slowly losing ever since. The problem I have with it is and this should be important to Christians is that it has given secularists the perfect platform on which to attack Christianity itself. In the age of the Internet this battle has become even more pronounced especially in light of the so called great YouTube war between Rationalists and Christians which has seen this debate go nuclear. Christians largely lost this war and YouTube now carries scientific videos that address almost every single objection to evolution creationists have ever dreamed up. The same cannot be said of creationism because the posters of creationist videos normally end up either taking their videos down or comment censor them heavily. Censorship does kind of imply that you’ve got something to hide or that some kind of dishonesty is involved.

Quite why they chose to continue this war I don’t know because it is seriously damaging Christianity in a way that no secularist ever could. I personally don’t have a problem with Christians destroying their religion, I mean I would personally prefer it if people were atheists because it’s far easier to reason with non-religious people. That said if I were a Christian, I would be mightily pissed that there were a group of people busy destroying my religion. But what do I care I’ll happily continue this argument forever and a day, debunking creationism has been likened by some observers to an Internet sport, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel most of time.

Random Englishman presented me with this argument – that scientists who are part of the evolution system are afraid to speak out against it and just go with the flow. I’ve had more chance to think about this one and it’s not quite right. This simply isn’t how the system works. You don’t look for facts to support a preconceived conclusion, you first find the facts and then ask what conclusions you can draw from them. If facts come to light that flatly contradict a scientific theorem then you would still have to submit them for peer review. Other people then analyse your work and decide if it has merit and if the conclusions drawn are correct it has ramifications throughout the scientific world and you gain recognition for your work. The objections to any particular piece of work can’t be a gut feeling or because a reviewer disagrees with the conclusions drawn, it must be proven that piece of work is incorrect. It is perhaps the ultimate system of honesty and integrity because the process of peer review by design seeks truth and prevents misinformation. That is why we have a first world technological civilisation with things like computers, cars and space shuttles – because this system for discovering how things work is monumentally successful. Things like evolutionary THEORY, atomic THEORY and the THEORY of relativity have real world implications because the science works!

“Of course science knows it doesn’t know everything. Otherwise it would stop.” – Dara O’Brien.

Finally a video of a Christian scientist I respect – Ken Miller who interestingly enough testified against Intelligent Design in the Kitzmiller Vs Dover case.

Can’t stop the signal

I never thought I’d ever say this but I’ve been admiring the people of the Middle-East lately. Anyone not living under a rock can’t not be watching the riots breaking out in most of the North African states and wondering WTF is going on? It all started in Tunisia last month and has subsequently spread to several other states in the region most notably Egypt. It’s too early to tell if this is just simply civil unrest or if it’s the beginning of a far more protracted revolution that’s going to forever change the face of the Islamic world. I’m kind of pinning my hopes on the latter because a democratic middle-east would be probably the biggest step towards securing a future for our civilisation and indeed our species in general that we can make this century. Without this happening we’ll forever be locked in the cycle of East-West tensions being locked at boiling point ready to bubble over at any minute.

But why now and what the hell is causing it all? The reason for some of these events is simple – the Internet. It’s difficult to censor, it’s not a centralised network, there will always be ways and means of getting information from one place on it to another no matter how effective attempts to prevent that from happening are. It’s a bit like the tagline from the film Serenity – can’t stop the signal. I would imagine the most effective censorship of the Internet comes from North Korea, who as part of their ridiculously restrictive information controls as an entire country aren’t in the strictest sense even connected to the Internet at all. The media although tightly controlled in many of these countries still can’t prevent that trickle of information coming in through that medium and neither can those governments prevent the organisation of demonstrations through that very same medium. But the fall of one government in one country seems to be triggering the uprising against governments in adjacent countries – the so called domino effect.

So is the domino effect  - the impetus that saw an extremely paranoid cold-war era United States commit to a major war in Asia even a reality? Recent history would suggest it is – we saw it happen before our eyes in Eastern Europe after 1989. One revolution in country one day, another revolution in a different country the next. There remains only one totalitarian state in Europe now  and the future of that country is anyone’s guess  - probably it will end up being reabsorbed back into Russia at some point. Granted the socio-political situation in those states was radically different but the fundamental theory remains the same. People see neighbouring states with similar economic hardships and restrictive freedoms rise up against oppressive governments and the idea inspires the same kind of actions in their own. 

The biggest problem with the current revolutionary winds of change sweeping the middle-east as I see it is that the majority of the region is hopelessly lost to primitive superstitious minds in the form of radical Islam. And as we all know radical Islam is a über fucked up variant of an already catastrophically dangerous religion. So the danger for these people now is that they’ll be swapping one despot for another and fuck all will change. They’ll carry on hating the Jews and they’ll still be threatening to wipe them off the face of the Earth. I can understand the animosity felt by Muslims against Jews in some ways. To the outside observer it looks like this – Jews are the most economically successful, most educated, most over-achieving people on the planet. Extremist Muslims are the exact opposite of this and they deeply resent it. Why? Because they make a virtue of ignorance. A casual glance at the YouTube videos of Islamic clerics shows very clearly just how profoundly moronic some of these people are. Even as democracies the road forward isn’t clear but I suspect a hundred years of dialogue will achieve more than a thousand years of war. Fingers crossed that some good will come of all this but I won’t hold my breath because I still can’t see it. Only time will tell.

I also saw a fantastic quote by Benjamin Netanyahu on another blog this morning that is only too true:

'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.’

Graffiti in Sheffield

I saw this quote on a friend’s blog and figured it was worth investigating as I was in the Heeley area of Sheffield the other day. I’m guessing quite a few people who’ve walked across Heeley Bridge have pondered its meaning. This is what we get in Sheffield – nonsensical drivel, why can’t we have some graffiti artists that are familiar with Nietzche or someone like that. At least we could then question the meaning of our existence instead of how many times a graffiti artist consulted a thesaurus. Still though it’s leagues better than the hilarious “Pakis go bak to Afrika” that was tagged on the shutters of the local shop in Handsworth at one point.

So the full quote goes:

“To journey en masse into illusion is to sleepwalk through destination’s wake, along the pre-determined channels of a cyclical stream; to break fear in isolation’s truth is to believe yourself bathing not drowning, forever entwined in the tranquillity of dream...”

You know what Sheffield really needs? A better class of criminal. The Chavs these days are so inept they couldn’t even successfully steal my Vauxhall Cavalier the other day. And let me tell you failing to steal that car takes incompetence.

Twin Films: The Definitive List Part #3

V for Vendetta (2006) Vs Children of Men (2006)

Ok I’ve seen these two crop up a few times as twinned films but I don’t think they’re really twins at all. They’ve made part 3 of the twin films series because of the consensus held by others but I think the similarities between them are vague at best. Ok so both films are set in a dystopian future Britain which also happens to be under a totalitarian government. But that’s surely where the similarities end? Thinking about it, not really – both films also seem to feature a world outside Britain’s borders that has fallen victim to all kinds of pandemonium i.e. wars, plagues, famines, natural disasters (although this is perhaps uncertain is both as government misinformation abounds), both offer a not so subtle commentary on Bush era politics and both offer terrorism as an important theme. Apart from these things the storyline of these two films really isn’t very similar at all. V for Vendetta is about a vigilante directly fighting the totalitarian government and trying to restore democracy whilst in Children of Men politics really takes a back seat to a much more pressing issue – people not being able to have children anymore. In fact given the circumstances surrounding the subject matter of Children of Men, it’s probably even a good thing that there’s a fascist government in place (or any government at all for that matter). The government in Children of Men is depicted as fascist but otherwise relatively benign merely trying to hold together a crumbling civilisation.
IMDB Rating: V for Vendetta 8.2, Children of Men 8.1
Verdict: I think Children of Men is a darker film and prefer it for this reason but both are pretty good so it’s a tie. Similarity Rating 5/10

Short Circuit (1986) Vs Batteries Not Included (1986)

You know what it has come to when you’re reviewing films like Short Circuit. Ha ha no not really I love Short Circuit, it’s a fantastic film – a fantastic film that Hollywood are currently in the process of butchering remaking I might add. Like the two films I’ve just reviewed I think these two are stretching what qualifies as a twin film. The similarity between these two is that both are family films about some form of mechanical life and a struggle for survival. They are again similar in that both try to qualify exactly what life is and come to more or less the same conclusion. That conclusion being that it doesn’t necessarily have to be any kind of biological definition but more one of sentience. Again I’ve only twinned these films because some people think they’re very similar. If these two are twins I would argue that Flight of the Navigator (also 1986) should feature here as that too is about a mechanical life form. Short Circuit was of course about the eponymous Number 5, a military robot struck by lightning and subsequently becoming self aware. Batteries not included was just weird about a bunch of alien flying saucer robots who had babies and one of them didn’t have a battery. Actually what the hell was this film about? I could say that Batteries not included is a much more sentimental film and perhaps even tragic in many ways – especially the Faye / Bobby subplot but none of this was to its detriment. 
IMDB Rating: Short Circuit 6.2, Batteries not included 6.1
Verdict: Short     Circuit is a more upbeat, comical film not necessarily better than Batteries not included but more uplifting. Similarity Rating 6/10

Saving Private Ryan (1998) Vs The Thin Red Line (1998)

Both World War II epics released in 1998, both war films wanted to concentrate on the mission of one man who has been given a fools errand and the ultimate sacrifice and bravery it took to fulfil that errand. The films also concentrate on the bonds formed between men during times of war and the psychological effects the war has upon them. The Thin Red Line is a much slower film, Saving Private Ryan opens on Omaha beach go figure. Saving Private Ryan really set a new standard for war films, that of being uncompromisingly graphic in its portrayal of the battle scenes. The film was gruesome to watch but no one walked out the cinema with the impression that they’d wasted their money. Another winner from Spielberg. 
IMDB Rating: Saving Private Ryan 8.5, The Thin Red Line 7.5
Verdict: Saving Private Ryan is an above par war film. The Thin Red Line is standard fare. Similarity Rating 8/10

Chasing Liberty (2004) and First Daughter (2004)

I haven’t seen either of these and wouldn’t be majorly surprised if I never do. But they are apparently almost identical twin films. Both films involve the 18 year old daughter of the president of the United States rebelling against the over protectiveness of her father. And she ends up falling for a talk dark handsome stranger who in both films is hiding a secret – that of being a secret service agent – so she ends up getting more than she bargained for. Want to know how similar these films really are? The working title of Chasing Liberty was First Daughter.
IMDB Rating: Chasing Liberty 5.8, First Daughter 4.7
Verdict: You expect me to judge? Although most IMDB ratings below 5 mean the film is absolutely terrible. Similarity Rating 9/10

U571 (2000) Vs Enigma (2001)

I’m not really sure how similar these films are as I have never seen either. Both would seem to be in some way about breaking the German enigma codes during World War II. U571 from all counts is a spectacular rewriting of history which coming from Hollywood doesn’t surprise me a lot. It’s also directed by Jonathan Mostow, he had a chance to redeem himself for this travesty by making Terminator 3 a decent film. He failed. Enigma is set around the secret base at Bletchley Park where the Enigma code was actually broken and stars Kate Winslet which in itself should automatically make Enigma a better film. I don’t know, at some point in the future I’ll get round to watching both and decide properly how similar they are instead of going by hearsay.
IMDB Rating: U571 6.5, Enigma 6.4
Verdict: Enigma because no rational sane Brit could claim to like U571. Similarity Rating 6/10

Top Gun (1986) Vs Iron Eagle (1986)

Two fighter pilot movies released in 1986. One was a smash hit starring Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer and Kelly McGillis amongst others and had an excellent song from Berlin while the other starred erm… er… some people who are presumably famous for something. I watched Iron Eagle years ago and have forgot the entire film almost save for a few batshit crazy scenes where the fighter pilots shoot down about 50 aircraft on their own. Top Gun was a great film basically about the bravado of fighter pilots and Tom Cruise trying to shag Kelly McGillis.
IMDB Rating: Top Gun 6.6, Iron Eagle 4.9
Verdict: Anyone who believes Iron Eagle is a better film is insane. Similarity Rating 8/10

Vice Versa (1988) Vs Like Father Like Son (1987) Vs Big (1988)

For Vice Versa and Like Father like son, they are pretty obviously twin films. Both have the near identical premise of some magic force or power causing the consciousness of an uptight father and laid back teenage son to swap places, hilarity ensuing. I remember Vice Versa as being a far superior film, the role could almost have been written for Judge Reinhold because he carried it so well. Like Father like son is essentially the same film except it stars Dudley Moore and a name we should only say with hushed tones – Kirk Cameron who has since gone on to become a cretinous lunatic – more on him in future. I’ve chucked Big into the mix as well because this eighties comedy has a lot of parallels to both. Once again some kind of magic is involved which turns Tom Hanks into an adult overnight and places him in an executive position at a company in which he is woefully out of his depth but somehow manages to save the day. In this way it is very similar to Reinhold in Vice Versa who does more or less the same thing. Both Hanks and Reinhold were excellent choices in the casting for these films because they played the part so well and that is one of the ingredients that made both so watchable. In honesty there has been an avalanche of films from Hollywood that all work on some variant of the body swapping formula but these three are perhaps the most well known with Big and Vice Versa being the best.
IMDB Rating: Vice Versa 5.4, Like Father Like Son 4.7, Big 7.2
Verdict: Big is clearly the better film but Vice Versa is always worth the ride. Similarity Rating 9/10

Braveheart (1995) Vs Rob Roy (1995)

Apparently 1995 was the year where Hollywood directors were given the task of making a period piece about Scotland. Both are about love and honour and both involve the protagonist fighting for the betterment of their people becoming a fugitive in the process. Braveheart in true Hollywood fashion was to a large degree historically revisionist and not unsurprisingly features the English as the baddies. Mel Gibson also seems to hate the English so much it borders on paranoia (see the Patriot). Still though even though we’re portrayed as raping, pillaging black and white baddies most English people enjoyed this film and apparently the Irish reserve forces who made up the extras also quite enjoyed making it as a significant number of them were hospitalised enacting mock battle scenes. Rob Roy isn’t as clear cut at all and involves Rob Roy borrowing a substantial sum of money from a wealthy landowner which is then stolen forcing him to become a fugitive.
IMDB Rating: Braveheart 8.4, Rob Roy 6.9
Verdict: Braveheart is better but Rob Roy is still worth a watch. Not really as similar as people seem to think. Similarity Rating 6/10

Tombstone (1993) Vs Wyatt Earp (1994)

Two fictionalised biopics about Wyatt Earp that were released within a year of each other. I have to admit I haven’t seen either as I’m not big on westerns but the premise of both is very similar, both focus on the story of Wyatt Earp, his relationships and friendships especially his friendship with Doc Holliday and both to a degree feature the battle at the O.K. Corral and Earp’s vendetta against the cowboys. From what I hear Tombstone is a decent film whilst Wyatt Earp is unbelievably slow and spends far too much time covering the back-story.
IMDB Rating 7.7, Wyatt Earp 6.4
Verdict: As I understand it Tombstone is much better. Similarity Rating 9/10

Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) Vs Observe and Report (2009)

Both of these are comedy films about a hapless and perhaps overzealous mall cops who still live with their mothers and who must deal with some kind of criminal threat to the mall. Both protagonists have aspirations of being real police officers and feel they must prove themselves to the women they like and at the end of the film, both predictably turn those women down having won them over. Both films are basically clones of the same formula and neither is particularly brilliant.
IMDB Rating: Mall Cop 5.3, Observe and Report 6.0
Verdict: Tie, Similarity Rating 9/10

Great TV Shows #1: Quantum Leap

Just watched an episode of this and figured it deserved a quick note. Any respectable fan of Sci-Fi has to remember this one. The show ran for five seasons between 1989 and 1993 and starred Scott Bakula later of Enterprise fame and Dean Stockwell of er… well I’m not sure right now but he seems to show up in stuff all over the place. The series had a somewhat unique premise which many people have compared to Sliders which was absolutely nothing at all in any way whatsoever like Sliders. That premise being that some kind of time travel experiment taking place in the distant future year of 1995 going awry stranding scientist Sam Beckett in time. Not only this but in the bodies of complete strangers alive during his lifetime and having a strange quest to change the future for the better. Normally the show relies on a combination of drama and nostalgia to advance the plot but occasionally it also relied on Sci-Fi and philosophy which earned the show a wide fan base. It was also interesting to see Sam Beckett take back with him some of the enlightened morality and ideology of the ‘future’ and although it came off as preachy at times it was interesting to watch. The plot also didn’t have many holes in it, the time travel mechanisms were kept simple and the swiss-cheese effect was used to prevent Sam from having too much knowledge of his own life (and thus a true desire to return home which turned out to be important). I often always wondered why he’d only ever leap into Americans and considered it to be a big plot hole until I saw the final episode where he gets to meet the mysterious entity ‘God, time or fate’ that had been selecting his missions (in fact none of them). In fact the final episode of the show added a new dimension to the whole thing that was almost as confusing as an average episode of Lost but ultimately made a lot of sense. People regard the epilogue that he never returned home as a sad or even tragic ending to the show but I think it was kind of bittersweet, he sacrificed his life because he wanted to change the past for the better.

This was one of the better Sci-Fi shows over the years and the constant repeats on Sky bare that out. Still a good show even if its depiction of the future Sam came from was a little… weird. It would also seem that Hollywood, fresh out of ideas after all those Twin films has now finally decided to make Quantum Leap the movie! And it’s only taken them 18 years to get round to it, still it’s a good concept and should theoretically make a good film if they get it right.

Legends #3: Prince Harry

Prince Harry, son of Diana, princess of Wales and James Hewitt Prince Charles of Wales is 3rd in line to the throne of the United Kingdom, 16 commonwealth realms and a total fucking legend.

It’s difficult to pin down exactly why he’s a legend, no wait actually it isn’t. He’s a legend because despite being 3rd in line to the throne, many people in the UK wish he was first. And what has he done to deserve this honour? Caused controversy of course. I guess the Royal family really need to be seen setting an example for the rest of the country, a prestigious image is very important and so is damage control – especially when Prince Harry’s around. In this respect the young prince has quite clearly learned a few things from Prince Phillip, an obvious candidate for being the second royal to make this list but by no means the last.

When he’s not nailing Chelsea Davy, Prince Harry spends much of his spare time smoking dope, beating up the paparazzi, getting completely bollocksed and dressing up as a member of the Third Reich. And can you believe it, the Royal family frown upon such behaviour? And perhaps it is the last of those stunts that earned Harry the most controversy in the press, he went to an African colonial and native themed party and forgot to dress up dressed as a member of the Afrika Korps. Somehow this managed to offend the Jewish community and the entire left-wing media who for some reason who demanded that Harry apologise. His father proceeded to go ballistic and insisted he visit Auschwitz. Now all this aside, I personally feel this is the kind of bullshit we have to put up with these days. Ok so the costume he wore was in poor taste given the history that is associated with it but once again the press does what it does best – create a mountain out of a molehill. This was a slap on the wrist offense at best, not a media circus. It was fucking costume party for fucks sake! Being the sort of complete and utter bastard I am, had I been in his shoes I would have probably have responded to the press by insisting that I’d naively thought Auschwitz was a Jewish holiday shortly before recommending they read some of the most excellent books by David Irving. Now that would have been a legitimate reason for people to get so pissed off. Alas even Harry isn’t that much of a legend and given the way the press reacted to the costume this would presumably have triggered some sort of interstellar war. So after visiting Auschwitz the poor kid was shipped off into the army where from all counts he served with distinction by flirting with female pilots, betting people obscene amounts of money, playing cards and occasionally doing some soldier stuff as well. And that ladies and gentlemen is why Prince Harry is a legend.

Back to the 80s

I stumbled across this on youtube recently. Wow does this take me back, it really was a different era. This video for some reason captures the zeitgeist of that era perfectly for me. That and for some bizarre reason one of my earliest memories is of Blockbusters. Anyone remember this show? If you do then you’re old. Just think we only had 4 channels of television back then and none of them ran 24 hours. Four?! No Sky, no Internet, no computer games (not really anyway). What the hell did everyone used to do all day? I suppose the eighties did have some compensations at least, everyone dressed like idiots and listened to excellent music that gave way in the 90s to an entire decade of absolutely terrible music. What else was going on, Maggie was doing her level best to piss off the entire working class and we still had Russia threatening to flatten us on a daily basis. I could go on for ages, oh the good old days it was!

Introduction to this Blog

It’s difficult for me to pin down exactly what this blog is going to be about. I suppose the best way to describe it would be a completely random spawning of almost everything that passes through my consciousness. It is in some ways going to be a thought experiment, a way to collate all of my hobbies and interests into a single location and then share them anonymously with the world or anyone interested in similar things.

So I suppose in summary this blog will be about things that inspire me, things that irk me, things that interest me, things that were influential, things that are influential, things that fascinate and things that infuriate. It will be a mishmash of most of the things that cross my mind.

Some of the topics I will cover over time include:

TV Series I like, Twin Films, People who annoy me, people who inspire me, great movies, Sci-Fi movies, Ideas, Quotes, Youtube Videos, The Creationism-Evolution debate, Atheism, Great events in History, World War II and the Cold War, Projects I’m working on, Goals and progress in Life, Health and Fitness, Computer Games, Humour and jokes, Science and discovery, Astronomy, Great figures from history, music, Challenges and adventures, Photography, Art, Books and authors, Computer programming and IT, The future, Ideas and concepts, Spirituality, Politics and much much more.

In short: LIFE!

Watch this space; hopefully this will be a worthy endeavour.