Blasphemy In Ireland

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Padraig Reidy wrote an article is Friday’s UK Guardian about Ireland’s poisonous blasphemy debate. Being Irish born and bred myself, I’m chipping in with a few additional comments of my own.

The context of the article is the latest challenge to the utterly insane blasphemy laws that still currently stand in Ireland. As an aside, what the heck does blasphemy actually mean, especially in the context of every religious belief being blasphemy to every other shade of religious belief, it truly is stupidity incarnate. If pursued to its logical end then they would need to lock everybody up … no exceptions, because every possible position of belief or non-belief will be blasphemy to somebody else.

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(UK Libel Reform Campaign) – A message from Simon Singh & Ben Goldacre

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Dear Libel Reform Supporter,

Last week, we gave evidence to the Parliamentary Scrutiny Committee examining the draft defamation bill. We sat alongside Philip Campbell (editor of Nature) and Fiona Godlee (editor of the British Medical Journal) and explained how English libel law currently hinders free speech in science and medicine and we outlined how the law could be reformed.

You can watch our evidence online here:

http://www.badscience.net/2011/06/nerds-at-the-parliamentary-committee-on-the-draft-defamation-bill/ (our session starts at 17.40)

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(News Today) – Reversing Type 2 Diabetes

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Type 2 diabetes can not only be treated, but can now be cured. You need never actually have it; provided that you adopt a sensible lifestyle of good diet and exercise then you are never going to suffer the condition, barring extremely bad luck in your genes. Similarly, if you are headed down the path … Read more

Weeping in utter frustration – anti-evolution bills on the NH legislative agenda!!!

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The National Centre for Science Educaion reports … Antievolution bills are on the horizon in New Hampshire. Included on a list (PDF) of legislative service requests dated June 14, 2011, are two requests to have antievolution bills drafted for the 2012 legislative session. LSR 2012-H-2176-R, submitted by Jerry Bergevin (R-District 17), asks for a bill … Read more

(Poll) – Which are the very best Skeptical Podcasts?

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Its time for the skeptical Podcast vote. Below you will find a list of specifically skeptical podcasts, or simply other podcasts that have a skeptical theme to them as suggested by a wide array of folks (BTW … thanks).

When making your choice:

  • You don’t just get one vote, instead, you can pick as many as you wish
  • Please don’t tick random boxes, instead pick the podcasts you have really enjoyed and would recommend to others

The goal here is a bit of crowd-sourcing to enable folks to suss out what is truly popular.

Personally, I find podcasts to be of immense value, especially on a daily basis when I’m in transit to/from work, and like everybody, I have my favorites (sorry, no names now, I’ve no wish to influence the vote). If you have not yet made the leap, then why not consider trying out a few, it truly is a cool way to keep your finger on the skeptical pulse. Hopefully the results from the poll below will help you to pick out the truly cool stuff.

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Naming New Elements

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We have two new elements in the periodic table, 114 and 116. The details are in the Journal of Pure and Applied Chemistry here. Both are highly radioactive and exist for less than a second before decaying into lighter atoms, so blink and you will indeed miss them. This has been on the cards for some time now, and have been submitted for inclusion along with claims for 113, 115 , and 118. Well, 114 and 116 just made it.

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