Happy 90th birthday Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela - you rock.Links:
- news24's educational site about Mandela
- Madiba's 46664 birthday speech
First I discover the sad, sad site that is Conservapedia (sad but still funny in many ways thanks in part to its founder Andrew Schlafly, see my previous post) and then I find their articles on homosexuality. Not funny any more - an advertisement of the worst kind for Christianity, not to mention an example of homophobia, bad science, bias and intolerance. Jon Swift says it better than I ever could.Then I come across a blog entry by one Zsuzsanna in Tempe, Arizona which blows me away - another example of ignorance, malice, religious intolerance and another terrible advertisement for Christianity.
Zsuzsanna attacks local blogger Tertia of So Close fame for using IVF, calling her a monster, inappropriate, vulgar, and a psycho. WTF? In the same breath she extrapolates from this MSNBC (AP quoted) article, thoroughly demonstrating her ignorance of Africa, African people, statistics and Christianity in general.
Tertia's response (Apparently I am a monster, inappropriate, vulgar and a psycho) is great and happily her blog is showered with mostly sane responses from hundreds of readers, Christians and not. If Zsuzsanna wasn't already exposed as a grade A nutter, her blogged response makes it very clear.
*sigh*
A classic Bad Science post which made me spill my tea when I reached the PPS:
All time classic creationist pwnage.
Andrew Schlafly (a "right wing christian activist") is taken apart by Richard Lenski - a scientist with a sense of humour, a great writing style and some recent fame over lab results which appear to show evolution in action (i first heard about his results a few days ago via Slashdot).
The PPPS in Lenski's reply mirrors my own puzzlement when it comes to Christians who refuse to believe in evolution:
"P.P.P.S. You may be unable to understand, or unwilling to accept, that evolution occurs. And yet, life evolves! [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pur_si_muove] From the content on your website, it is clear that you, like many others, view God as the Creator of the Universe. I respect that view. I find it baffling, however, that someone can worship God as the all-mighty Creator while, at the same time, denying even the possibility (not to mention the overwhelming evidence) that God's Creation involved evolution. It is as though a person thinks that God must have the same limitations when it comes to creation as a person who is unable to understand, or even attempt to understand, the world in which we live. Isn't that view insulting to God?"
---Richard Lenski
- What life is like for a parent with a brain tumour. A friend and ex-colleague of mine recently discovered she has a large brain tumour - probably impossible to remove via surgery, and very much life threatening. She has two young daughters - and is an inspiration to me (such a poor cliché to describe someone so positive and strong who has changed the way I see and appreciate the world, my family and my good health)
- I need to be a more courageous manager
- Most of my (business) peers think I am a "nice guy"
- I have a very definitely internal locus of control.
- I can hold my breath for over 2 minutes in a competitive environment :)
- I don't always fully appreciate how blessed I am in my work environment - I love my job, and I love working at Derivco
- There *is* ice water on Mars! (aside: "The Big Picture" continues to amaze me daily - most recently with the Martian Skies post).
- The world seems to be heading for a new and scary nuclear showdown
- Fancy French cars are dead in the water when they have electrical problems
- itunes isn't quite as bad as some people make out. It makes downloading regular podcasts (NBR and GIBS) quick, easy and automated for one thing.
- The orchestral piece I have been half-heartedly hunting for some time is "lux aeterna" from the film "requiem for a dream" - found it mentioned in the brilliant "Requiem For A Day Off" spoof trailer of the classic Ferris Bueller's Day off.
- A puppet show can turn a good kids birthday party into a fantastic one. Caleb totally loses himself in the show, while Daniel is scared of the puppet monster.
- Launchball is horribly addictive

Download FireFox 3 - the best browser on the planet - during Download Day (June 17th - today - but the official day is US based so starts at 19h00 tonight South African Time) and help them beat the Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in a 24-hour period.
See the Download day HQ site, follow the effort on Twitter, other time zone start times listed here as well as on this visual download clock.
Update:
Nearly 10pm local time, and the spreadfirefox.com servers are still down - not a good start to the record attempt. www.mozilla.com still advertises version 2.... but direct download links seem fine thanks to mirrors. The direct download URL looks like so:
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.0&os=win&lang=en-US
where you can substitute os=linux to get the linux install, and lang=en-GB for the British language pack.