Atheists for Peace - "The Atheist Manifesto that Sam Harris has posted at Truth Dig points out that "Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on Earth….The United States is unique among wealthy democracies in its level of religious literalism and opposition to evolutionary theory; it is also uniquely beleaguered by high rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, STD infection and infant mortality. The same comparison holds true within the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious superstition and hostility to evolutionary theory, are especially plagued by the above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the comparatively secular states of the Northeast conform to European norms….Countries with high levels of atheism also are the most charitable in terms of giving foreign aid to the developing world….Consider the ratio in salaries between top-tier CEOs and their average employee: in Britain it is 24 to 1; France 15 to 1; Sweden 13 to 1; in the United States, where 83% of the population believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead, it is 475 to 1."While a number of those atheistic countries, particularly the United Kingdom, joined the U.S. in a dishonest, illegal, and aggressive war that has murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, their populations opposed that war from the start, while it took years for a majority in the U.S. to do so. The correlation between atheism and progressive politics doesn't prove causation, but the fact that atheism can be chosen should cause us to look into the matter. ... What if becoming an atheist could help make you a progressive too? Would it then be advantageous to encourage atheism? ... Then there is the question of the damage done to the world by dividing its population up into various religions, into groups of people who place significance on beliefs that others do not share and cannot be brought to share by any coherent arguments. ... Those who claim to believe in all religions probably place themselves in the "other" category. Of course, at some point it has to become hard to believe in all religions, since they conflict with each other even more than each individual one conflicts with itself. While I have no data to prove it, I suspect that "religions are all the same" is often a temporary stopping point along a path from a particular religion to atheism. The same is certainly true of the position that holds that "my religion is best but all the other ones are equally good and I should learn more about them." Because the more you learn about them, the more you see that you cannot respect them all. You can respect the people who believe them, but not the beliefs. And the more you look at other religions, the more you see your own from the viewpoint of others – that is, as a myth created by your culture, and a fairly embarrassing one at that, full of nonsense that requires an intensive course of training to get children to accept it."
Praying for cures: Healing rooms prescribe faith for what ails people - "The five-year-old ministry belongs to the International Association of Healing Rooms, a Seattle-based group with more than 10,000 volunteers and 417 branches worldwide. The movement, founded by the evangelist Cal Pierce in 1999, seeks to revive a style of spiritual healing that flourished in the early 1900s."
The President's New Helicopter - "After decades of upgrades to a fleet of notoriously cramped Sikorsky VH-3 Sea Kings, the White House has tasked Lockheed Martin with a dramatic, $6.1-billion makeover of Marine One, the presidential helicopter, starting this summer." -- That's with a "B".
The RFID Hacking Underground - "They can steal your smartcard, lift your passport, jack your car, even clone the chip in your arm. And you won't feel a thing."
Electronic smog - "The curse of the mobile phone age: around your home there are countless gadgets whose electrical fields, scientists now warn, are linked to depression, miscarriage and cancer."
Ice-capped roof of world turns to desert - "The Chinese Academy of Sciences - the country's top scientific body - has announced that the glaciers of the Tibetan plateau are vanishing so fast that they will be reduced by 50 per cent every decade. Each year enough water permanently melts from them to fill the entire Yellow River."
Colleges see cocktail hour as cure for boozing - "The remedy for rampant drinking at American colleges? It could be a crash course in the art of sensible social drinking, reminiscent of the old-fashioned, formal cocktail hour -- often a showcase for decorum."
No-mow Grass May Be Coming To Your Yard Soon - "Manipulation of plant stature has been a longstanding goal in horticulture, agronomy, and forestry. The ability to precisely control plant size would have broad implications for everything from urban forestry to crop and garden plant development. Beyond perpetually short grass, trees could be made more compact for better growth in crowded cities, and berry bushes could be made taller for ease of harvesting."
Quote of the Day
"You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough."
~ Aldous Huxley
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