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By Jason Miks
GPS digital producer Jason Miks sits down with renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of the Selfish Gene and An Appetite for Wonder, to discuss readers' questions on religion, its role in society and whether children can be described as "Christian."
A number of readers noting your skepticism over religion's role in society ask whether an absence of religion would leave us without a moral compass?
The very idea that we get a moral compass from religion is horrible. Not only should we not get our moral compass from religion, as a matter of fact we don't. We shouldn't, because if you actually look at the bible or the Koran, and get your moral compass from there, it's horrible – stoning people to death, stoning people for breaking the Sabbath.
Now of course we don't do that anymore, but the reason we don't do it is that we pick out those verses of the bible that we like, and reject those verses we don't like. What criteria do we use to pick out the good ones and reject the bad ones? Non-biblical criteria, non-religious criteria. The same criteria as guide any modern person in their moral compass that has nothing to do with religion.
So the moral compass of any person is very much a part of the century or even the decade in which they happen to live, regardless of their religion. So we live in the early 21st century, and our moral compass in the early 21st century is quite different from 100 years ago, or 200 years ago. We are now much less racist than they were, much less sexist than they were. We are much kinder than non-human animals than they were – all sorts of respects in which we are labeled with a moral compass. So something has changed, and it certainly has nothing to do with religion.
You've been travelling to the States from the U.K. for a number of years. Have you noticed much of a change in the place of religion in the two countries over that time?
Notoriously, the United States is the most religious of the Western advanced nations. It's a bit mysterious why that is. In Britain, Christianity is dying. Islam, unfortunately, isn't. In Western Europe generally, Christianity is dying. Even in America, the figures show that religious adherence is being steadily reduced, and the people who now record themselves as having no religious affiliation is something like 20 percent. Many people don't recognize what a high figure it is, and so politicians here who feel they have to curry favor with religious lobbies should maybe take a look at those statistics and realize that not everyone in this country is religious.
You say it's a bit of a mystery why America is so much more religious than other advanced countries. Do you have any thoughts on why it might be? Tied to that question of disposition, several readers also wondered if there is a genetic predisposition toward faith?
There probably is, but I don't think that really explains why America is so different from Britain. The least implausible suggestion that I've heard is that Britain and Scandinavian countries, which are also very non-religious, have an established church, and that kind of makes religion boring. Whereas in America, there is constitutionally a bar against an established church, and that could be one reason why religion has become so popular – it has become big business, it has become free enterprise, rival churches vie with each other for congregations and especially tax free ties.
Some readers see you as very evangelical in your atheism. Do you feel it a duty, just as some Christians might to share the word of God, to spread an atheist point of view?
Duty is a funny word. But when you say evangelical, I like to think that I don't shout or shriek, but employ a quiet, sober voice of reason. And reason is on our side.
You've talked about feeling uncomfortable with the impact of religion on children. In fact, one reader asked whether you would prefer to see no under-18s at church. What's your take?
I certainly wouldn't wish to prohibit parents influencing their children. However, for the rest of the world, to label a child a Catholic child simply because its parents are Catholic, seems to me to be a form of child abuse. The child is too young to know.
You can see the absurdity of talking about a Catholic child of four when you think what it would be like if we talked about an existentialist child of four, or a logical positivist of four. In other words, we wouldn't accept the labeling of a child based the parents' belief, so why do we accept it when it's religion? Why does religion get a free pass when it comes to labeling children in this way?
Richard Dawkins is a crotchety know nothing when it comes to Church. Anyone who would reduce religion to "stoning people to death, stoning people for breaking the Sabbath" has not been to church in at least two millennia. Christianity teaches nothing of stoning...it teaches things like love, faith, charity, giving, patience, long suffering and respect...and it does so far more effectively than anything Dawkins has to say or his antireligious cohort.
I think you just made one of his points. Thank you.
tim Christians do pick and choose from even the new Testament Slavery? Divorce? Women should not wear Makeup, ,Jewelry,Women should not speak in church Mr Dawkins was correct as far as the Old Testament Matthew 5:17-18 says the laws of the old Testament should be followed and some groups do and others don't
So is Richard Dawkins saying that Under 18s should also not be allowed in schools because they are not aware of themselves to be placed in schools. A child should not be forced to go to school just because the parents attended school.
Sometimes this madness by the left and who ever is down with them should stop.
These days when an educated person starts going mad he/she is giving the space to put things out like what the person is saying is sensible.
Did you READ his response to that question ?
He didn't say under 18s shouldn't be allowed anything, so I'm not clear why you have the word 'also' in your first sentence.
Sometimes this madness by the right and who ever is down with them should stop.
And you sound stupid, too!
To paraphrase another quote" You can't reason with someone out of something they didn't reason their way into"
I disagree with Dawkin. I dont think a moral compass is dictated depending on the century you were born in for many people. I am sure many at the time thought it was wrong to kill people... by throwing rocks at them or any way. Of course they are always the sheeple that will follow the latest fad, PC krap, stoning etc etc...but I think a large portion of society has had the same consistent "moral" guides since man has existed....barring any religion.
Just because you reproduce doesn't mean "your" children should be "yours." They belong to the State!
I asked the question if children should be restricted entrance to a church, like a liquor store or military.
Not from school that teaches facts and history , but from being brainwashed by religion.
Their brains need a chance to develop before the Taliban or Christians get a hold of them.
That's not hard to understand , is it?
You only live once so you might as well live it up while you can. I used to believe in love (the non-scientific type) and charity and all of that religious nonsense until I was enlightened. Now I get to live for myself and not feel bad for it.
There are plenty of Christians who live for themselves and don't feel bad about it. They pick and choose which bible passages they want to believe and shake off the ones that impose burdens on them.
I know a lot of fundamentalist, gay and woman bashing christians who do no community service whatsoever. They also brag about lying, cheating and stealing. They just use the bible as a weapon against women and lgbt people. The bible is all about gaining power to them.
Why hasn't anyone brought up Islam as a faction of hate and disturbance the way you blame christians? Are you afraid one of their numerous splinter factions might blow you up for speaking out against them? Might cause a religious riot? Oh whoa whoa slow down I'm hearing you say. Roping all Muslims into militant Islamic extremists isnt fair right? Only some of them kill people for their lack of faith in Islam. When was the last time a christian splinter group mowed people down in a mall for not being christian? Just today, this morning at 1 am an entire college dorm in Nigeria was executed by a splinter group of Islamic terrorists. A group that prays to Allah. But somehow Christ is still the ultimate hater in the world? You fools. Re-direct your hate to radical Islam. If given the chance they would put a gun to your head and blow you away for not being muslim. You all seem to want to make a difference in the world by getting people to give up their faith, why don't you start with Islam? Seems like a good place to start since there are more muslims than christians in the world and they are doing a whole lot of killing of the innocent in the name of their God. Oh thats right, they'd kill you all in front of your children and then put it on youtube if you did that. Christians are an easy target for your hate speech because they don't do that. They might however tell you that being an atheist is a sin. Ouch! That really must hurt your feelings a lot! Well Lawdy Fricken Da! Guess thats better than being murdered. You hold a terrible double standard here in your war against religion. Not one of you has the guts to stand up and rip into Islam the way you bash Christianity. You're all a bunch of phony hypocrites who want to wage war against Christians only. Atheism isnt about being free of religion, at least not in this forum. Its about hating and bashing Christians exclusively.
You mean people who claim to be Christian. Big difference. You can safely assume, if your stories are true, that those people truly aren't Christians.
Hahahaha, very well said. Those atheists idiots think they will kill every religion soon. Good luck atheists with islam. hahaha Poor Dawkins, he will never see his dreams being realized.
Very well said, Mrs. Garrison. Thank you!
If you would act any less charitable if you thought there were no god, then maybe you're not really a moral person. Perhaps you only act charitable to avoid God's punishment.
You sound like a very giving person. Lol
Ok I will live it up. The way I will do that is by murdering you. Fair enough? I certainly won't feel bad about it either.
If you're so inclined, what's been holding you back all these years?
Me too!! Just like the atheist philosopher Satre says, "My neighbor is Hell!" Once you recognize this like you have, you are on the path to true freedom; whatever that is!
Dawkins is right about religion is no moral compass. What a simple and true statement when you look at the muslims and their clerics, the christians in the U.S., especially the republican politicians, They are worst than Satan, if there is one, because they are demagogues who are actually out there to destroy the world. Ted Cruz even sports the devil reincarnated face and he has all the ambition to be the next U.S. president. What a moral compass the christians have elected..
Mao, you seem very levelheaded today-did you forget to take the meds again? Insults-that will win the argument every time.
By the way, I'm a Christian and I don't care for Cruz's pandering ways to the religious right–and i'm very conservative too.
. Rand Paul 2016.
You're an atheists and you comparing us to Satan, since when atheist believe is Satan?
I agree with Doctor Dawkins. Our ethics are built in, and are independent from religion. However, religion is dependent on our ethics.
In his book, Clinton Dawkins says we are "at the whim of our dna". That is interesting in the sense that each of us have different levels of morals and ethics. I suppose it is what allows Dawkins to continue to prattle on about the non-harmfulness of mild pedophilia and Krauss' insistence that incest could be ok. Or perhaps we cannot now criticize former slave-owners....you see, it goes on and on. John Lennox said it best "You cannot get 'ought' from an 'it' " meaning DNA.
@Elliot Carlin
I agree with you.
"...but the reason we don't do it (stonings) is that we pick out those verses of the bible that we like, and reject those verses we don't like." Ummm... NO. The reason it's not done any more is the Bible indicates we live under a new covenant. So much for impartiality and and research, Mr. Dawkins. I thought you were better than that.
The Jews no longer stone people, so his point stands.
I agree, Josh Perez's point stands.
Dawkins says there's no such thing as a sin, i'm glad to hear that, maybe we should start stoning if it's not a sin.
MrClean, if the only think keeping you from hurting people is your belief that your god would punish you, don't ever give up your religion, please. What a scary person filled with hate you must be to sit there and want to hurt people but are only stopped by your fear of god. I hope you never lose faith or you might kill someone. Good luck and please keep your temper and violent urges in check.
It's still disturbing that stoning people would have been OK in the past, in the "old" covenant, simply because a book says so. Not reassuring.
So the only reason you don't stone people is because of the covenant, got it.
Clinton Dawkins says, "And reason is on our side".
Reasoning that says *KABOOM* and everything in our Universe now works as precise as a swiss clock.
*KABOOM* and everything in our Universe now works as precise as a swiss clock ... All governed by a small set of physical laws.
Or an invisible being that existed forever, and after an infinite amount of time passing, decided to create a universe.
You're saying one is incredible, the other not?
Uh no. Clinton Dawkins said reason is on his side–yet you just admitted both scenarios are no different when it comes to believability-yet you still insist reason is on his side.
That was the point.
But which of the two do we have evidence for?
I'd say both take faith. You can say you have reason, and I'll say I have the logic 🙂
How about nepa has the backing of thousands of scientists who have devoted their lives to studying the origins of the planet, the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe, and have developed a plausible theory supported by large amounts of evidence, whereas you have . . . ? What? A book that claims that bats are birds, that insects go about on 4 legs, and that hares chew their cud (Leviticus, BTW).
Magic underwear said: How about nepa has the backing of thousands of scientists who have devoted their lives to studying the origins of the planet, the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe, and have developed a plausible theory supported by large amounts of evidence.
Poor scientists, they lost their entire life for nothing.
a) who is Clinton Dawkins?
b) reason does not say Kaboom and everything works with the precision of a Swiss watch. Only people who have not taken the time to understand the theory of evolution and physics say that kind of thing.
Clinton Dawkins is the guy who says religion has nothing to say about morals and ethics, yet defends mild pedophilia as not being harmful to children.
You mean, "Richard"?
@ Robert,
I didn't walk away from god. I realized that he didn't exist and he disappeared to the other corners of my brain reserved for Thor, Superman, and Santa Clause. I'm actually grateful to the church for educating me well enough on the bible that I could one day grow to outthink it.
"I am better than you because, well, because i'm more evolved than you."
sounds like an atheistic stuart smalley
Hahahahaha Good one Elliot.
Luckily "you" are not the standard by which I judge myself. I am certainly more evolved than I was when I believed in fairy tales. That's good enough for me. I don't need another person to make me right. I can find the truth for myself.
Except that religion provided the basis for our system of government; except that religion provided us with solid notions of right and wrong. Except that genuine atheistic societies, like the Soviet Union and the Khmer Rouge, were some of the absolute most viollent regimes in history, killing tens of millions of their own people.
Ben, please don't let the facts get in the way. I've had self identifying atheists on here contort themselves to the point they won't admit God is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Their bigotry and hatred for all things sacred drives them to this maddening type of thinking.
In the Declaration of Independence when it says we are endowed by "Our Creator" they were referring to evolution. Evolution is "Our God."
Yep, evolution is what they had in mind. lol
No, they were not referring to evolution in 1776.
Mark, me-thinks prima donna doesn't understand sarcasm.
I'm an atheist and I'm simply indifferent to everything. You believe what you want. I believe what I want. I don't care about anyone or anything because it's survival of the fittest. Let the weak take care of themselves and let the strong carry on!
Appreciate your honesty and candor. That being said, when discussing the weak and strong, isn't this a pretext for racism and genocide?
I believe in science. Science says the sun is going to swallow the earth in a billion years or something. So the point is, it's all going to end for humanity regardless. Just enjoy yourself. I don't help anyone and don't expect help from anyone. In the end nothing and I mean nothing matters. I am a man of reason, and I am without hope!
You're pretty ignorant about what "survival of the fittest" means if think it's adverse to helping people. Natural selection heavily favors cooperation, group support, and helpfulness in humans.
You may be right. But does it really matter???? Nope. I'm a student of the atheist Satre. He says my neighbor is Hell!!
It matters if you are claiming to live your life in some effort to be in sync with "survival of the fittest" which was your claim. If that's your goal, you would focused on reproduction....
That works well in the animal kingdom. I see a lot of cooperation between lions and gazelles for instance.
Mark, you sound like both a troll and a Republican – perhaps both.
Whatever! Have you ever read any philosophy? Obviously not. Try Satre. He was revolutionary!
The first Christians chose Christianity, a few generations later most were born Christians. This means that the detritus of human society, the least Christian in spirit, will trumpet their Christian origins and destroy the very pillars of Christianity. Your GOP Leaders. Note how it is about them, while saying it is about you.
Morality is built in to our very own souls the day we are conceived. Not through our family members although they can have an influence on us.
I'm a materialist. I only believe in material things and that's it. I don't believe in truth, beauty, ideas, conscience, souls, evil, goodness anymore than I believe in God. I can't touch any of these things, therefore they really don't exist.
"truth, beauty, ideas, conscience, souls, evil, [and] goodness" are all abstractions. Do they exist?
Defining existence is a tricky proposition. I would say, perhaps they do not. That makes them more valuable. Nothing material is worth your life, but an idea, an ideal, or a person, are perhaps all abstractions, but they are worth more.
Not really. Ideas, ideals, etc. are first and foremost words in a language of grammar and syntactical rules, a human construction, a social contract. A promise is not an abstraction, it is a compact. The Bible is first and foremost the same, a human invention. Is this a good time to bring up the translation problems with whatever originary language to Greek and Latin, to English and French, etc, and how much gets changed and lost?
It 's not that I am an atheist, that's too dogmatic. It's just that I'm religion free, christian free.
What about love? Hey, that's a song!
Well, lets' see now. You don't believe in the things afore mentioned. You must be in great physical health! What if you were stricken with a very bad cancer and in incredible pain? What if a crazy person killed and tortured a member of your family? Would you still not believe in anything but yourself? Would you still not call upon a Deity to help you because you were helpless in these situations? Would you not give up your life if you saw a child about to be run over?
You sound like a highly evolved Baboon, not a human being.
Good point. I guess then I would believe in justice for the killer. I just can't touch justice. That's all.
I am a believer you choose not to be a believer . ok if I am wrong I will become worm food if you are wrong oh my. a good Christian will accept every word in the bible it is all the truth the only truth.
You are a mentally retarded idiot and so are your children. You are the enemy of reason and do not deserve to live in a civilized country. I hope you get a terminal illness and die.
Look, I get your point, I'm an atheist too, but why the anger?? I'm simply indifferent and so should you be. This is true freedom!
An atheist disagreeing with another atheist. Hey Dawkins, there is something wrong with your philosophy.
Fear is a very poor reason to believe in a god. I think people of all faiths (and those lacking in faith) can agree on that.
Depends on whose Bible, right? There are a zillion different versions and humans are rewriting it all the time. Once it was written that christ rose from the dead on the 3rd or 6th hour. How can the bible be literally true, and get the most important moment wrong? Now, the right wingers have smoothed it out and all four books say just the early morning. How can 'Truth' keep changing? Because the whole thing is just human writing with no proof of divine contact.
Richard Dawkins has every right to his beliefs, it doesn't mean that they are right. Yes, he is a very intelligent man but there are many men and women that are even more intelligent then him, that have studied religion and the Big Bang Theory and many believe in God and some even believe in both. Yes, you can believe in both. Dr. Dawkins makes some thoughtful points. I myself was brought up in church and in late junior high I started to question my faith. I questioned it for a long time. For the past few years I have been questioning again and I have come to realize that I do believe in God and I want him in my life. I am 58 years old and have not come to this decision lightly. To GodFreeNow, I think that if you believe that God does not exist is completely your own business but to say that you tucked him in a corner of your brain with Santa Claus and Superman is very disrespectful to the billions of people in the world that do believe. I would never say something like that to you, maybe you could find a different way to explain it. As for atheism, people don't have a right to try and change yor mind but I think that Dr. Dawkins would be surprised that there are probably less atheists then he thinks. My brother and sister are atheists but I have talked to others who have said that they are. When I asked them what they would do if they had a loved one such as a child of grandchild that was severely ill or injured on the verge of dying as a last effort would you pray to God to help them, to save them and quite a few that I have asked said yes they would pray. If you would pray , you are not an atheist. Somewhere in them they believe enough to ask God for help. We all have our opinions, we will never agree. Religion, something not to argue about. We are right with what we feel in our own hearts and minds. Intelligence has nothing to do with it, it is a matter of belief and choice.
" When I asked them what they would do if they had a loved one such as a child of grandchild that was severely ill or injured on the verge of dying as a last effort would you pray to God to help them, to save them and quite a few that I have asked said yes they would pray."
You are confusing hope with belief. You are simply wrong that you believe in god if you pray. That's not how it works.
And you're arrogant to assume he is somehow naive about how many atheists there are. He's been researching these issues for decades, I guarantee that he has more evidence about patterns of belief world wide than you have.
And how exactly is he suppose to know that? He's a public figure, did he contacted every single atheists in america or worldwide to know the exact number of atheists who believe in God and the number of atheists who don't?
MrClean, do you know what the word "research" means? Are you really asking how information is gathered in polls and studies, etc? Pick a study on beliefs and read the methodology section, that gives you the "how."
No, she's not Wong. If You ask for gods help, then don't say you don't believe in god. You believe in asking someone for help, then you believe in soe aspect of a higherr power. Who are you to definitely claim otherwise? As if you have personal relevation directly?What a total crock you're spewing nothing new I guess.
If the government shuts down, it is time to take out major aggression on the Christian republican community. People that believe in fairy tales have no place in todays world.
How about you try to eliminate muslims first?
If there really was a god , then there would be no many different denominations and no religious leaders spouting off their versions of what god wants, and raking in the cash.
So it seems pretty clear. No god.
Dawkins is maddened by God not being real to Him. He, like others in society overvalue our significance in terms of our rights before a creator. God has NO OBLIGATION to show himself to anyone and he does not owe anyone anything.
From what I read, he is like an author who writes himself into the story of time and space. He leaves it to us to be observant.
He said it was evident in his creation and in his words. Some creation thoughts for us:
How can a universe have existed for eternity like some claim? It cant as all the suns would have burned out. How can the universe self generate out of nothing like some claim? If it were true we would see things appear out of nothing now.
NO OTHER religion claims to have God showing up as a human. I believe he did it to show himself as an act of love. He does what he wants, the way he wants. He is the creator. He is not beholden to our self aggrandizing value system where we are so special he will show up the way we want him to if we ask enough.
Its humbling that I have NOTHING without him and that he invites me to partake in life eternal beyond space and time if I only come to him humble in spirit.
Christians who understand the incredibly humbling thing that the king of the universe did by cramming himself into a body to become the disdain and punching bag of the very people he was signaling to come don't lash out at others. This is because they have a leader who endured WAY more than they ever did.
The God of Christianity shows himself in peculiar ways.....ways we cant figure out probably because he is not the product of our imagination.
You are totally lacking in proof, but plenty on fiction, or you're off your meds. Like the painter Courbet once said, show me an angel and I'll paint it.
Show me a good atheist and i'll paint it.
Marcello You made a statement that" Dawkins was maddened by God not being real to him " I don't think Dawkins is mad at God ,I don't think he hates God you can not be mad at something that does not exist .If you don't believe in the God Zeus but you are in a discussion with a person who is, you do not get mad at Zeus but you might get aggravated at the person you are having the discussion with
Organized religion is the root of all evil
Organized atheism is the root of all evil.
'NO OTHER religion claims to have God showing up as a human.'
Uh, HELLO. Zeus of the Greek pantheon? Human form, no? Herakles, Achilles–half human, half god. Or hasn't Fox Noise ever covered that? Haven't you ever heard that Jesus is a combo of Apollo and Dionysos, balance and order vs. wine and play. Just like the Christians took over the pagan temples so too they took over the Greco-Roman gods.
Good point Hillary. I should have added the words "existing today" to my statement. You are probably better versed in Greek mythology than me but as I remember it, none of these gods came down as a man. Did any have the same makeup as the human body? Seems Jesus did.
Also did any of these have witnesses who wrote about it?
Dawkins clearly is clueless with regard to the Bible and God's unfolding drama of redemption.
Calling yourself a christian , and walking christ like is two very different life styles. I know many people who would never became a christian(follow christ ) because of all the so called christian hypocritical filled life. I know said called christians that never read their bibles,and follow their own desires. The biggest problems with so called christians today is belief in christ but not the teaching of christ. Follow Christ he is the way , the truth and the light.
Is this why you hate christians that you also hate every other religions?
Oh Dawkie, smile. Have a Bible study. You look so severe.
Richard Dawkins. Divorced first wife, married wife #2 a few months later. Hmmm. Divorced #2, and married an actress (#3). I am not interested in your take on morals and ethics. What you've done in your own universe is not good for society.
thinquer, not everyone thinks divorces and ending relationships are immoral things. Don't be so arrogant to think everyone shares your moral code.
Good point.
3 times establishes a pattern. He's knowledgeable alright...about weddings and divorces. He may wish to step to the side and let other discuss morals and ethics, that's all.
Donna defends all-things Clinton Dawkins to the point of his comments concerning mild pedophilia not being harmful to children. Ok Donna....The Hitchens School for Boys has just opened up in your neighborhood. Clinton Dawkins is the headmaster-he's hired like minded men to teach there....and you'll be sending your son there....right. I bet you would.. then again, you probably would.
No parent would tolerate Clinton Dawkins' comments if he were teaching at their kids' school.
Don't you find it just a little bit sad that you feel the need to lie repeatedly about what some man said about pedophilia? That you get some kind of enjoyment form fantasizing about his views?
Doesn't that make you feel just a little icky?
Can atheism really give us morals? People point out the flaws of Christian behavior and rightly so. Even one of Jesus's apostles, Judas, betrayed him. Maybe 1 out of 12 Christians will betray Christ today and will bring major scandal to Christianity. Understood. Look at atheistic governments and dictators. Under Stalin alone, 23 million people murdered by Stalin. Not much better in China. This is far worse than anything the world has ever experienced. But without God, anything and all things are now permissible.
Atheism isn't supposed to give us anything. It's not a belief system. It's not a philosophy, it's not a way of life. It is nothing more than a description of a singular belief or lack of belief about the existence of a deity.
Do you understand that it ONLY refers to a single belief? There is nothing more than that, that is shared among atheists. Not a single thing.
We know that we can have morals without religion. Religious morals are a reflection of cultural values. Our moral code will always be a combination of our biological adaptations and our experiences from culture (small scale and large scale) and history. We created religions to reflect our values, not vice versa.
"without God, anything and all things are now permissible" ... This is just silly. First, atheists have moral values, and don't live by "all things are permissible". Second, there are many theists who believe God commands them to slaughter others ... who believe horrible things are "permissible" because God is on their side.
Two leading atheists (Clinton Dawkins and Krauss) advocate pedophilia and incest-while the Christian religion counts these as sin. If we or our DNA decide what morals are, you'll never be intellectually honest when it comes to criticizing anyone for slavery, racism, wife-beating et al.
You're on the slippery slope. Truth is, inside you really agree w/the moral law of the 10 commandments, but you'd never admit it, at least out loud.
Dawkins advocating pedophilia is a lie. I've seen his quotes, and "advocating pedophilia" is beyond just deliberate distortion. It's just an outright lie. (and I dislike Dawkins ... I just dislike lies more)
And where in the Bible does it say what the age of consent is?
Yeah, we (humans) gave ourselves morals, developed over thousands of years of existence in various communities. We (humans) hold for those things that help us get along better as a society, which usually involve avoiding pain. And since the communities culturally differed the accompanying morals have differed. Now, if your claim is that morals came from God, then I would need to know why God did not share these morals with all of the various communities.
You are exhibit one for one thing. He has provided them to us-you reject them, just like Stalin did. Feel better?
I actually do feel better in that I go through each day knowing that my decisions and actions affect the welfare of myself and others, and that I do that without any eternal reward. I feel more in this world than just walking through it in some sort of religious trance, ever looking forward to an afterlife which just does not exist.
To the theists, can you explain what is the right way for someone who doesn't currently have a religion to go about choosing one should they decide to do so? There are so many to choose from – what is the way to determine which is right?
Amd yet you definitely claim that asking for gods help is perfectly acceptable for atheists, whose Single belief is – not to beleive in god. That's not following that belief system, then, is it? Don't give me your limpid and flaccid " hope" is not belief arguement. That must be he most weak – ass argument. ever. by an atheist.
I'm not getting your point. Please elaborate.
I apologize im not referring to you but to donnas weak proclamations.
Is asking someone a question about what they would do when they are out of options, almost out of hope, a fair way to access one's belief system? It is an interesting question and does suggest that many atheists have doubts, but I think asking someone whether or not they believe in God is a more accurate poll. After all, many religious people have doubts about their faith from time to time as well, but I think we would still characterize them as religious.
Personally, I don't think I would pray. If I prayed, it would not be to a Christian God.
Mr. Dawkins, your aloof arrogance toward those who don't share you worldview is showing. Just a reminder that less than 10% of the planet embraces your worldview. Most adhere to a religious worldview - primarily Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or animist.
he probably knows that
Interesting that all of the religious do not have the same view, given there is one god – can you explain that?


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Relationships with
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Disclaimer: This information about Stevie Nicks is derived from astrological interpretation of Stevie Nicks' date, time, and place of birth.

subset: commoncrawl


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Macworld innovation through the years
The 30th San Francisco edition of Macworld opens Thursday with a showcase of startups that organizers not surprisingly tout as the next game changers in technology.
But predicting the future is always easier in hindsight:
"The machine uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' There is no evidence that people actually want to use these things," San Francisco Examiner columnist John Dvorak wrote in a column published in 1984 by the then-jointly produced Sunday Examiner & Chronicle.
To his credit, Dvorak correctly predicted numerous reasons the original Macintosh wouldn't be as big a hit as Apple hoped. But we now know the mouse revolutionized personal computing.
Macworld itself has transformed several times since January 1985, when that first show drew 100 exhibitors and thousands of Apple fans to Brooks Hall. At the height of its popularity, there were two annual Macworld shows, including one on the East Coast.
Center of universe
But San Francisco has remained the center of Macworld's universe.
The legendary Chronicle columnist Herb Caen described a swanky preshow party at the St. Francis Hotel thrown by David Bunnell, then chairman of PC World Communications, publisher of Macworld magazine and sponsor of the show.
"Guest of honor: Steven Jobs, Apple's chairman and the rock star of the computer world, who ate with one hand and cuddled a blond nymphet with the other," Caen wrote.
The great jazz artist Ella Fitzgerald, with the backing of the San Francisco Symphony, sang "Happy Birthday" to Jobs, who had just turned 30. Caen called the moment the "greatest coup of its kind" since opera giant Luciano Pavarotti serenaded San Francisco business tycoon and philanthropist Gordon Getty on his 50th birthday.
"Would you rather be Jobs at 30 or Getty at 50? Both? Neither?" Caen asked.
Over the years, Apple used Macworld to showcase its latest products in all of their glory and deficiencies. A Chronicle story on the first Macworld noted the shortage of available Mac software and the fact that the entry level model contained only 128 kilobytes of internal memory. In 2007, Macworld drew 44,000 people when Jobs unveiled the first iPhone.
Since Apple pulled out of the event in 2010, Macworld has evolved into more of a "fan event for people who are very passionate about Apple technology," said Paul Kent, vice president and general manager for the three-day event, now sponsored by IDG World Expo.
Startup competition
Now called Macworld/iWorld, the conference features a new "6 About To Break" competition of startups selected by Macworld and SF New Tech, a group that organizes monthly meet-ups for the Bay Area tech community.
"These are six products that we think are going to move to a leadership position quickly or are going to disrupt an entire industry," Kent said.
SF New Tech members picked the finalists from about 100 applicants worldwide. Each will have five minutes to strut their products in an "American Idol"-style competition before a group of judges Thursday afternoon.
The six are:
-- AppPresser, an Orange County maker of tools for app developers
-- ReKognition, a Mountain View developer of a facial, object or scene recognition platform.
-- Petcube, a San Francisco company that's developing a gadget that lets pet owners observe and play with their animal pals remotely.
-- Everypost, a Miami company developing an app that manages content on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social networks.
-- Glyph, a company based in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Mountain View that's creating a mobile personal theater.
-- Motion Portrait, a San Francisco firm that's creating an app that turns still photos into a moving 3-D avatar.
Gaining notoriety
The winner basically just gets a title, but "the big prize is the notoriety of it all," said Myles Weissleder, SF New Tech's founder. "Everybody is looking for the exposure. This is going to help some unknown companies break away."
And that kind of attention is important to the more than 200 Macworld/iWorld exhibitors, like Amber Allred Taylor, who with her husband is promoting a new photo-video app called Flashback.
"This is our first chance to get out into the public and show what it is and how we think it's really unique and useful to people," Taylor said.
Whether any of these companies will be remembered in 2034 remains to be seen.
San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Peter Hartlaub contributed to this report. Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: email@example.com


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[Update] Victims in East Texas Double Homicide were Shot : Manhunt for Suspect Continues
Van Zandt County Sheriff's Investigators say the couple found dead in their home last week died of gunshot wounds. A preliminary autopsy indicates Peter Shick, 74, and Latricia Shick ,55 of Ben Wheeler had been dead for several days before a family member discovered their bodies Friday.
A capital murder warrant for 31-year-old Donny Lee Greenhow was issued Saturday. Authorities are considering Greenhow armed and dangerous, and ask anyone who sees or knows Greenhow to contact local law enforcement or Crime Stoppers.
The couple was found inside a home on Van Zandt County Road 4812 near Edom and Ben Wheeler.
Van Zandt County Sheriff Pat Burnett said an SUV stolen from Kaufman County earlier in the week was found at the scene.


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Home » Applications » Packaging » Sealing
SMAC Moving Coil Actuators and Sealing and Cutting
A heat sealer is a machine used to seal products, packaging, and other thermoplastic materials using heat. This can be with uniform thermoplastic monolayers or with materials having several layers, at least one being thermoplastic.
SMAC Advantages for Sealing:
- Consistent and even heat seals.
- Apply pressure without breaking the seal.
- Performs a task and provides analytical data so that you can monitor the task was done correctly the first time.
- Utilizes SMAC's patented Soft-Land.
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Product Description
This popular short drop pearl earring design has a delicate 4mm pearl on the ear as a stud with a larger 7mm drop pearl. These are cultured freshwater pearls are set on 9K yellow gold fittings.
When you buy from M H Pearl Jewellery, you are guaranteed the very best quality at the most amazingly low prices. We do not just retail jewellery, we also repair and restring pearls – pearls are our passion and we hope that our customers soon feel the same way about them too. There are sadly a lot of fakes on the market and so we are particularly proud to be able to give a certificate of authenticity with every purchase. As soon as you open your pearl jewellery packaging we know that there can be no doubt as to whether the pearls are real or not – the moonlight gleam can't be faked – but a certificate is our extra promise to you.
You also want to present your gift well and also to care for your pearls after giving, so we are also pleased to be able to give a presentation case with every purchase. Pearls need a little more care in storage, especially if you have a lot of rings and necklaces with genuine stones, all of which are harder than pearls, which are a natural product from the oyster, rather than mined. The case will protect them as well as being a special part of present giving – the anticipation before opening and then the delight as the lid flips back are all part of the pleasure.


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2 free WIFI software that can recover WEP, WPA PSK keys and more. Enjoy!
1) WIFI Hacking Software
This tool has many different tools to hack and crack wifi so you can use your neighbours internet and do whatever. Tools for Windows and Linux also some nice extra tools!
Windows : Aircrack, Wireshark, Ettercap, Netstumbler, Airsnare, WIFIfofum, Wdriver, Pong, CommView, Airsnort, AiroPeek, Knsgem 2, Aptools, And A Nice PDF File
Linux Hacks: Airpwn, WEPcrack, Prismstumbler, WIFIscanner, Airfart, Magicmap, WPA-cracker , Wellenreiter , Void, Kismet, Cowpatty, WIFIzoo, And A Nice PDF File
2) AirCrack 2.1, AirSnort 0.2.6, AeroPeek 2.02
Aircrack ng is an 802.11 WEP and WPA PSK keys cracking program that can recover keys once enough data packets have been captured. It implements the standard FMS attack along with some optimizations like KoreK attacks, as well as the all new PTW attack, thus making the attack much faster compared to other WEP cracking tools. In fact, Aircrack ng is a set of tools for auditing wireless networks.
AirSnort is a wireless LAN (WLAN) tool which recovers encryption keys. AirSnort operates by passively monitoring transmissions, computing the encryption key when enough packets have been gathered. 802.11b, using the Wired Equivalent Protocol (WEP), is crippled with numerous security flaws. Most damning of these is the weakness described in Weaknesses in the Key Scheduling Algorithm of RC4 by Scott Fluhrer, Itsik Mantin and Adi Shamir. Adam Stubblefield was the first to implement this attack, but he has not made his software public. AirSnort, along with WEPCrack, which was released about the same time as AirSnort, are the first publicly available implementaions of this attack.
AiroPeek NX captures and decodes packets, with special emphasis on the 802.11 protocol. AiroPeek NX receives all wireless LAN packets based on user settable configuration parameters and stores these packets in memory. For example, you can set a filter to capture all packets, only 802.11 authentication request frames, or all frames except beacons frames. Just about any combination of packet types and protocols are possible.


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Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) Series
Investigator(s): United States Department of Health and Human Services. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality (CBHSQ)
The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) is a nationally representative public health surveillance system that continuously monitors drug-related visits to hospital emergency departments (EDs). A DAWN case is any ED visit involving recent drug use that is implicated in the ED visit. DAWN captures both ED visits that are directly caused by drugs and those in which drugs are a contributing factor but not the direct cause of the ED visit. Annually, DAWN produces estimates of drug-related visits to hospital EDs for the nation as a whole and for selected metropolitan areas.
DAWN is used to monitor trends in drug misuse and abuse, identify the emergence of new substances and drug combinations, assess health hazards associated with drug abuse, and estimate the impact of drug misuse and abuse on the Nation's health care system. DAWN relies on a longitudinal probability sample of hospitals located throughout the United States. To be eligible for selection into the DAWN sample, a hospital must be a non-federal, short-stay, general surgical and medical hospital located in the United States, with at least one 24-hour ED. The dataset includes demographics, drugs involved in the ED visit, (up to 16 drugs from 2004 through 2008 and up to 22 drugs from 2009 through 2011), toxicology confirmation, route of administration, type of case, and disposition of the patient following the visit.
Prepared DAWN Emergency Department National and Metro data tables are available on the DAWN website. The DAWN website also provides access to DAWN reports.


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Haggai's words concern conditions in the Persian province of Judah at the beginning of the postexilic period during the reign of the Persian king Darius I (522–486 B.C.). The community in Judah is struggling with its identity in light of the loss of its statehood through the demise of the monarchy and the destruction of the Temple. Haggai's oracles address both these problems. First, the provincial government, despite its subordination to Persian hegemony, is seen as the legitimate heir to the Davidic monarchy; the governor Zerubbabel, himself a descendant of the Davidic line, and the high priest Joshua together provide political, economic, and religious leadership for the survivors of the Babylonian destruction and the returnees from the Babylonian exile who live together in Judah. Still, the possibility for restoration of Davidic rule is not relinquished but rather is shifted to the eschatological future. Second, the Temple's ruined state is addressed by a rebuilding program. The prophet links the well-being of the community to the work of Temple restoration, and his exhortations to the leaders and the people to begin work on this project are apparently heeded. The brief period of Haggai's ministry (August to December 520 B.C.) marks the resumption of work on the Temple, the symbol of divine presence among the people.
Six date formulas (1:1, 15; 2:1, 10, 18, 20) are an important feature of the Book of Haggai. In their specificity and in their link to the reign of a foreign king (Darius), the dates underscore God's control over history, as do similar chronological references in Zechariah, a prophetic book connected in literary and thematic ways to Haggai.
The prophecies of Haggai can be divided into two major parts:
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A Dialogue with Nature: Romantic Landscapes from Britain and Germany (Courtauld Gallery)
Spring might still be over a month away, but the winter rain cannot darken the stunning natural views currently on display at The Courtauld Gallery in "A Dialogue with Nature: Romantic Landscapes from Britain and Germany." This exhibition, jointly organized with the Morgan Library and Museum, explores important developments in German and British landscape painting from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These years were a time when artists in both countries increasingly began to turn away from conventional classical landscapes (think Claude Lorrain) in favor of evocative scenes painted directly from nature. Indeed, the exhibition title captures the idea of personal interaction and interpretation that became central to the Romantic landscape tradition.
The oil sketches, drawings, and watercolors in this exhibition are spread across three rooms on the top floor of the gallery. Their subjects range from rural hills and lush forests to haunting churchyards and imposing ruins. The first room focuses on early Romantic landscapes by artists such as Thomas Gainsborough, John Robert Cozens, and Jakob Philipp Hackert. Hackert was one of the first advocates in Germany of painting landscapes out of doors, and his careful observations of botanic detail can be seen in the leafy foreground of his View of the Villa of Maecenas and the Falls of Tivoli (1783). Particularly interesting is the second room of the exhibition, which is filled with paintings and drawings of clouds by Franz Kobell, Johann Georg von Dillis, and John Constable. This in-depth look at the role weather and atmosphere play in influencing the mood of a landscape serves as an apt transition into the final portion of the exhibition.
The third and largest room focuses on one of the most recognizable characteristics of Romanticism: the sublime. The overwhelming power of nature is readily apparent in works such as Carl Philipp Fohr's The Ruins of Hohenbaden (1814-15), which depicts the crumbling remains of a once-mighty structure slowly being engulfed by its sylvan surroundings. "A Dialogue with Nature" also draws attention to specific motifs commonly found in British and German Romantic landscapes of this time. Images of twisted and gnarled trees, for example, appear in works by both Samuel Palmer and Karl Friedrich Lessing. Vivid highlights and writhing lines make Palmer's watercolor and ink drawing Oak Tree and Beech, Lullingstone Park (c. 1828) a striking interpretation of this subject. In addition to pointing out similarities, the layout of the exhibition also invites viewers to compare stylistic differences between British and German approaches to landscape painting. For example, Caspar David Friedrich's finely detailed Moonlit Landscape (c.1808) is hung side by side with another nocturnal scene, the more atmospheric On Lake Lucerne, Looking Towards Fluelen (1841?) by J.M.W. Turner.
The landscapes in this exhibition present a fascinating combination of frank observations imbued with poetry and emotion. Their intimacy and immediacy is sure to leave an impression upon all those who visit The Courtauld's "A Dialogue with Nature."
Lindsay Wells is an MA student at the Courtauld.
A Dialogue with Nature: Romantic Landscapes from Britain and Germany is at the Courtauld Gallery until 27 April 2014.


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If Martin Jol is not yet worried about relegation, he should be. He might have more immediate concerns about his job, in point of fact, since this was not the sort of performance any manager under pressure would have wanted to endure going into the international break.
There is no particular shame in losing at Liverpool, especially if you have managed only three goals in 12 Premier League visits to Anfield, but it was the manner in which Fulham crumpled and folded midway through the first half that suggested they are going to find it hard to break out of a downward spiral.
One minute they were just about holding their own, with Dimitar Berbatov even drawing grudging applause from the home supporters (as a former Manchester United player he was booed at the outset) for an inspired crossfield pass followed by a sublime first touch to control a high ball near the touchline.
Then within five or six minutes the visitors were two goals down and the game was gone. There was a slight element of fortune about Liverpool's first goal, Fernando Amorebieta getting a touch after Daniel Agger's header to divert Steven Gerrard's free-kick past his own goalkeeper, although there were no excuses whatsoever for conceding a second four minutes later when Martin Skrtel was allowed a free header at a corner.
Once again the delivery from Gerrard was excellent but Skrtel was in so much space he could hardly miss. As when watching his side concede three goals in 12 minutes against Manchester United last week, Jol must have been struck by the loneliness of his position again.
It appeared Fulham's defensive organisation had lasted for just a quarter of the match, an impression confirmed when Luis Suárez added a third before half-time, running on to a perceptive through ball from Jordan Henderson and effortlessly finding the target with a shot dinked over Maarten Stekelenburg.
Liverpool fan Mike Myers, of Austin Powers fame, was on the pitch before kick-off waving to the crowd. Liverpool could probably have brought him on for the second half and still won the game quite comfortably. "We could have scored more," Brendan Rodgers said. "We had 30 shots on goal so we were pretty dominant. I've been saying all season that Steven Gerrard's delivery is as good as it gets, he puts it right on the spot every week, and I just asked the players to be a bit more aggressive in attacking the ball."
Suárez and Sturridge resumed after the interval by bringing two fine saves in quick succession from Stekelenburg, before Gerrard picked Kieran Richardson's pocket to send in Suárez for Liverpool's fourth inside an hour. The England captain burst forward with his trademark determination and once he had won the ball put it in exactly the right place for Suárez to score but, from a Fulham point of view, losing possession on the edge of their own penalty area with such an accomplished goalscorer waiting to take advantage bordered on the criminal.
Not that Suárez spent the game goal-hanging. He could have done and there were times when he and Sturridge versus the Fulham defence looked like a case for the League Against Cruel Sports but, as with Gerrard, the Uruguayan kept popping up in parts of the pitch where he was least expected, several times getting right back to his own goalline to help his defenders. Gerrard had had a hand in all four goals – it was his pass that picked out Henderson for the third – and unsurprisingly received an ovation when he made way for Joe Allen. Glen Johnson was also impressive on his return from illness, although he will not be able to face Richardson every week, and Liverpool's switch to a flat back four after the defeat at Arsenal worked like a dream. But then it would against Fulham, who barely tested it.
While Liverpool are deservedly up to to second, unless Fulham wake up quite soon there is not going to be a 13th Premier League visit to Anfield next season. And Jol is dreaming if he thinks there are three or four worse sides around.
"There are still a lot of teams we can get results against," the Fulham manager said, by way of clarification. "We have just been beaten by two top sides, we'll have to try to fight for points against the Palaces and the Stokes. I think we'll be fine at the end of the day but in games like this we have to suffer. Three goals down at half-time you would like to stay in the dressing room but you can't, you have to go out."
Jol mentioned that his team need to keep fighting, although that implies they have already started, which does not appear to be the case. He also suggested it takes an expert to avoid relegation, and there are not many about. Even if that is true it is not exactly fighting talk. Jol left Anfield looking as defeated as his team.


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Hey Guys,
I have a production table which is a cluster and residing in one tablespace size of 57GB as on today. I run the process to delete records from that table, which is fine but oracle is not releasing space from the tablespce. Can you give me the possible causes of not releasing the space from the tablespace even deleting records from tables.
For example: 1 reason is re verify the PCTUSED value.
Any other cause, which will help me to learn and implement?
Thanks and Regards


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The first night of the work week looks as if it will be one of the more competitive nights for new TV dramas, beginning Sept. 23 with the head-to-head clash of two new serialized dramas, Hostages and The Blacklist, on the same night, in the same time period, directly opposite each other on competing networks.
They're ambitious, flawed, big-budget efforts with solid cast ensembles and, based on their opening hours, enough potential to warrant a second look.
Monday features one of the season's earliest starts for a new drama, the updated-to-present-day Sleepy Hollow, a modern take on a classic tale that premières Sept. 16.
The night also features one of the season's latest starts: the J.J. Abrams-produced science-fiction drama Almost Human, a futuristic tale created by Fringe's J.H. Wyman and filmed in Vancouver. It premières Nov. 4.
The night features a number of changes liable to upset some viewing habits. Hawaii Five-0 has moved to Fridays, beginning Sept. 27, for its fourth season. Hawaii Five-0 is traditionally one of the most-watched dramas of the TV week in Canada, but that was on Mondays. Its fate on Fridays is yet to be determined.
And the fast-starting Revolution, returning for its sophomore season, will now be seen on Wednesdays, beginning Sept. 25.
Package Deal — a homegrown sitcom featuring Harland Williams, Randal Edwards and Jay Malone as a trio of brothers who refuse to grow up — officially debuts Sept. 30. The pilot episode aired in June, as a sneak preview.
Premières Sept. 23, Global, NBC
A criminal mastermind, adept at manipulating easily impressionable minds, surrenders to authorities unexpectedly and makes them an offer they can't refuse: He will help them solve unsolvable crimes and track down elusive criminals around the world, provided he deals with one handler, and one handler only, of his own choosing. That handler, naturally enough, turns out to be an FBI profiler fresh out of training school in Quantico, Va. James Spader plays the criminal mastermind, Raymond (Red) Reddington, and Megan Boone plays the neophyte profiler, Elizabeth (Liz) Keen.
Behind the camera: The Blacklist is both a serialized thriller and a case-of-the-week drama, according to series executive-producer Jon Bokenkamp.
The question of who Reddington is and why he's doing what he's doing, is a "series-long question," Bokenkamp says. "It's not simple enough that it's something we'll answer right up front," Bokenkamp told reporters last month in Los Angeles. "Ultimately we'll address that. Ultimately, in the end, it may be a single thing, but right now I see it as a whole mean. There are a lot of intricacies we can dip into."
The Blacklist is a hybrid, Bokenkamp insisted. "Each week we are going to go out and dip into a different world of crime. We're going to find criminals that, as you see in the pilot, the FBI may not know exist. Each week, we will have a different criminal, but I think the reason you'll hopefully keep coming back to the show are the people you'll see from week to week, the secrets they share and what's happening at home."
On the screen: The Blacklist sounds derivative, and it is. It's not just the Silence of the Lambs-sounding premise, either. In the opening hour alone, the sharp-eyed viewer can spot countless scenes, situations, confrontations and snippets of dialogue that feel as if they've been lifted from countless other TV series, novels and movies.
And yet ... it all comes together in a way that's not nearly as predictable as it sounds. Much of that has to do with Spader. He plays Red Reddington with a coldly calculating charm and real presence. It's a bravura performance, hypnotic and unsettling in equal measure. In Spader's hands, it's impossible to tell from one minute to the next what Reddington is thinking. By the first hour's end, the viewer is left with no doubt — not much, anyway — that Reddington is a force for good, a reformed criminal who's using his knowledge of the criminal underworld to bring worse criminals to justice.
That's a solid premise for a long-running, compelling thriller — provided The Blacklist's makers don't mess it up.
Premières Sept. 23, CTV, CBS
Hostages is both a political conspiracy thriller and a hostage drama about what happens when kidnappers seize the family of a prominent surgeon about to perform a critical operation on the president of the U.S. The surgeon, Dr. Ellen Sanders, is played by Toni Collette; the ringleader of the kidnappers, federal agent Duncan Carlisle, is played by Dylan McDermott.
Sanders finds herself in a caught moral and ethical dilemma: She's forced to choose between her family and her oath. Complicating matters, her marriage is in trouble, and the kidnappers seem to know her every move on the outside.
Hostages' story will play out over several weeks, with the finale to air in early January.
Hostages is burdened by an implausible premise, yet there's an undeniable tension and energy to the first hour. From the opening scene, in which McDermott's FBI hostage negotiator turns a seemingly straightforward hostage situation inside out, to the shadowy character motivation that plays out through the family kidnapping scenes, Hostages is full of twists and turns.
Hostages is at its most unpredictable when it looks as if it's going to be routine and ordinary, and the performances — McDermott and Collette's especially — are charged with energy.
Be warned, though: The opening hour is emotionally violent, jarringly so at times. The violence is implied, rather than shown, but it's disturbing nonetheless.
Premières Nov. 4, Global, Fox
Almost Human has genuine potential: The creator and executive producer is J.H. Wyman, familiar to Comic-Con followers as one of the primary inspirations behind the late, still-lamented Fringe, and the overseeing producer is J.J. Abrams.
The story, set in the year 2048, has a Minority Report look and feel to it. Karl Urban plays John Kennex, a detective in a future dystopian world where police officers are partnered with highly evolved humanlike androids. Kennex has just woken up from a yearlong coma. He can't remember much, except that his partner was killed, his girlfriend left him and he lost one of his legs, which has since been replaced with a high-tech synthetic appendage.
His new partner is Dorian, an android past his sell-by date who's given to sudden, unexpected emotional responses. These responses have been officially written off as flaws, but Kennex sees more behind the so-called flaws than others do.
Hostages and The Blacklist will grab a lot of the early attention, in part because they debut earlier, but Almost Human could be the drama with the most potential.
Premières Sept. 16, Global, Fox
It's elementary: Every fall, it seems, the TV industry produces at least one modern take on a classic character or tale. Most fall by the wayside, but every so often — Elementary last year, Sherlock before that — one clicks.
It's hard to tell if Sleepy Hollow, from Star Trek and Transformers screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, will stay the course, but one can't fault it for lack of storytelling ambition. Washington Irving's classic has been updated to a present-day small town in the proverbial middle of nowhere, where Ichabod Crane, as played by Tom Mison, has been pulled two-and-a-half centuries through time into the future, to unravel a mystery that dates back to the U.S. War of Independence.
The Headless Horseman has followed Crane through time, bound by a blood oath on the revolutionary battlefield. Crane fears that the Headless Horseman is just the first of the so-called Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse of myth and legend, who, it is said, will usher in the end of the world.
While in the present world, Crane forms a spiritual bond with a young town detective, Abbie Mills, played by Nicole Beharie, who's given to supernatural nightmares of her own.
Sleepy Hollow is not award-winning fare, based on the early evidence of its first hour, but at least it tries to put a new spin on an old yarn.
Premières Sept. 23, City
The homegrown reality series The Project: Guatemala, co-produced for OLN and City and hosted by distance runner and former "pack-a-day smoker" Ray Zahab, follows a dozen self-absorbed young adults who sign up for what they think will be a fun-in-the-sun reality show on a tropical beach somewhere.
Instead, they find out that what they've really signed up for is a sweaty, back-breaking aid project, in which they're given six weeks to build a community centre for orphaned and abandoned children in Guatemala, secure in the knowledge that if they throw a hissy fit and walk out, it'll be recorded for posterity on reality TV.
This sounds like a reality show even a reality-TV-hating curmudgeon can get behind.
Premières Sept. 23, City, CBS
Mom is one of those crass, noisy sitcoms that hail from the 2 Broke Girls school of TV comedy, soul-destroying on an intellectual level but ratings catnip on the more visceral, emotional level.
Allison Janney plays the uptight, estranged mother of a freethinking, free-spirited grown daughter, played by Anna Faris. The daughter is newly sober and newly determined to overcome a lifetime of wrong choices. She's a single mother with two daughters of her own, including one who's 16-going-on-25, which raises the personal stakes even higher.
Mom has potential, based on premise alone. Faster than you can say, "Network sitcom!" though, the crude double entendres and coarse one-liners take over, in concert with an aggressive, overly loud laugh track.
The result is a painfully unfunny reminder of everything that's wrong with TV sitcoms today. It'll be a hit!
Premières Sept. 30, City
Package Deal, Canadian Andrew Orenstein's homegrown sitcom about three grown brothers who refuse to grow up, and the woman who comes between them, is a natural, male-centric companion to Mom and 2 Broke Girls, and all that that implies.
Randal Edwards, Jay Malone and Harland Williams play the respective brothers: a lawyer, a metrosexual former househusband and a salesman who wrote the book on being politically incorrect. The recurring cast includes Pamela Anderson as an eccentric psychotherapist and Eugene Levy as an irascible legal client prone to mysterious disappearances.
The pilot episode premiered in June to mixed notices and so-so ratings, but the jury is out on its long-term prospects.


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As the Genetic Literacy Project's Jon Entine reports, genetic science deniers like the Organic Consumers Association, the Institute for Responsible Technology and many organizations that describe themselves as 'progressive' are again loudly ringing the anti-genetically modified organism fear-and-panic bell.
The latest 'greatest danger to ever face humanity' emerged with the publication last month of an obscure, technical study in GM Crops & Foods, a prominent biotech journal. The article, ungainly titled "Possible consequences of the overlap between the CaMV 35S promoter regions in plant transformation vectors used and the viral gene VI in transgenic plants," by scientists Nancy Podevin and Patrick du Jardin, has set off a feeding frenzy among the scientifically unwashed.
The hysteria traces to "Independent Science News" (ISN) an Ithaca-New York based Orwellian-named two-year old anti-technology advocacy disguised as a news site, and treated by many activists who carry its stories as such. The saga began when two ISN "journalists" posted an article, Regulators Discover a Hidden Viral Gene in Commercial GMO Crops.
"[T]he European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) [charged with overseeing GM crops throughout the European Union] has belatedly discovered that the most common genetic regulatory sequence in commercial GMOs also encodes a significant fragment of a viral gene," wrote the ISN reporters. The journalists claimed—erroneously—that the "discovery" could pose a serious hazard to human health.
Within hours of its posting on the ISN site, the article was replicated or reported upon by almost every oddball anti-GMO organization and website, led by the notoriously anti-science OCA and the IRT. Headlines like "Could Viral DNA Spawn a Massive GMO Food Recall" sprouted like weeds on sites like Activist Post.
Enquiring readers want to know. I'll make it easy for them and the chattering classes: "No."
Déjà vu all over again
This 'sky is falling' claim is a familiar trope among anti-science "progressive" organizations and websites. But the tactic appears to be wearing thin with both the public and increasingly with mainstream journalists who only recently have begun challenging the junk journalism that still prevails in reporting about GM crops, foods and animals, and genetic research in general, including in humans.
The Séralini fiasco helped erode the wide but soft support for California Proposition 37, which would have imposed labeling of GMOs—a step the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association and most respectable science organizations opposed as deceptive and counterproductive, as GMOs is a process that poses no known dangers to humans.
The year ended particularly badly for activists when the White House reversed its political opposition to approving the first animal genetically modified for human consumption, a GM slamon that scientists at the Food and Drug Administration had determined was perfectly safe and nutritious. The White House's turnaround came after a well-publicized investigative article by the Genetic Literacy Project in Slate, and later picked up by scientists and journalists around the world.
Mark Lynas, a British journalist and longtime anti-GMO campaigner who is credited (or blamed, depending upon your perspective) by some with coining the word Frankenfood, delivered a public and articulate denouncement of himself—or rather his former belief that GM crops and foods were a public health and environmental scourge.
"This was … an explicitly anti-science movement," Lynas told a stunned audience at the annual Oxford Farming Conference, of his past fellow travelers. "I … assisted in demonizing an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment."
These series of events have stunned anti-GMO activists. Perhaps, it's little surprise that the "anti forces" are trying to regroup, attempting to re-corral the anti-technology herd.
The only virus on the loose is the 'truth virus'
Activists are propagating a stark and scary. "The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the EU regulatory agency that provides advice on the health and safety of foods, has unwittingly discovered that a majority of the genetic material used in the GMO foods that we see on supermarket shelves today contains the large portion of a viral gene, called simply "Gene VI,' wrote activist-journalist Marsea Truan earlier this week in Rosebud in an article making the rounds at progressive sites. "Gene VI is arguably unsafe for human consumption and even more unsafe for the ecosystem."
Literally nothing in that statement is accurate. One of the viral gene journal authors, Nancy Podevin, works for the EFSA. But she didn't "unwittingly" discover anything as the anti-GMO conspiracy theorists are suggesting. Any journalist remotely familiar with GM research would know that the use of the CaMV promoter in genetic modification has been standard practice since the 1980s. There is no news here.
"Contrary to recent claims, the data published in the paper by Podevin and du Jardin do not represent a new discovery of a viral gene nor do they indicate safety concerns in previously evaluated GMOs," noted Professor Joe Perry, Chair of the EFSA GMO Panel. who oversees Podevin's work.
Certainly, the Organic Consumers Association, which has featured and promoted the scare story going on three weeks, knew that this story is both old news and has no teeth. The faux controversy echoes a similar brouhaha that erupted in 1999 after the publication of a paper co-authored by Joe Cummins. Cauliflower Mosaic Viral Promoter - A Recipe for Disaster? promoted the Cummins thesis that a plant gene virus could somehow harm humans. That claim—roughly akin to saying you shouldn't sneeze around your favorite plant because it might catch your cold—was widely disseminated via a web post by one of his co-authors, Mae-Won Ho.
"[T]he virus concerned is a plant virus, not a human virus, with no documented adverse effect on human health," reaffirmed Joe Perry, Joe Perry, chairman of the EFSA GMO panel. On the contrary, he said, the virus has "a history of safe use in food; it infects many plants with no recorded health effects on humans." We eat the plant viruses all the time in brassica vegetables, such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage and the like. Vegetables with these characteristics are actually known to protect us from cancer.
Rather then being surprised by the publication of this paper, as activists are claiming, the EFSA helped facilitate its publication. It has responded online to the unexpected hysteria activists are propagating.
The viral gene (Gene VI) belongs to a plant virus (Cauliflower Mosaic virus) that cannot infect animals or humans and therefore presents no threat to human or animal health. This virus naturally infects many plants with no recorded health effects.
In contrast to the allegation that European regulators have ignored the "threat" of this harmless plant virus, as required by regulations, all GM plant applications assessed by EFSA since its creation in 2002 that contain the inserted fragment of the viral gene in question have included a detailed analysis of the inserted sequence. These data requirements include an extensive compositional analysis and agronomic data.
No safety concerns have been identified in relation to the sequence of the inserted fragment of the viral gene and its potential for unintended effects.
Scare story goes viral and mainstream (sort of)
Brazen activism disguised as reporting is all too common across the web. It's the nature of "news" in an echo chamber filled with minds that are mercurial as well as moronic. More disturbing, however, is how distressingly quickly "mainstream" journalists run with this garbage when it comes to "controversial" issues like GMOs.
The UK's Daily Mail (ok, maybe it's not good an example of the reputable mainstream press), was the worst offender, running a sizable feature by its "consumer affairs editor" headlined, "Uncovered: the 'toxic' gene hiding in GM crops."
While assessing how to respond to the anti-GM movement's latest embarrassing outburst, I had a fascinating email exchange with Peter Loring Borst, a beekeeper turned noted Cornell University's Cohen Laboratory genomics researcher.
There is just "nothing here," Borst wrote me. "[A]lmost all living organisms resemble each other over vast regions of the genome. This is one of the most solid pieces of evidence confirming our common ancestry and the truth of evolution."
He noted that thirteen years ago, in his 1999 screed, OCA's Cummins recommended withdrawing all transgenic products with this virus, which would have meant practically all transgenic crops. That was not done, of course, and as Borst sardonically noted, "the disaster that they predicted from Cauliflower Virus never occurred. Yet, the specter is being raised again.
Borst referred me to a 2005 article in the prestigious publication Nature Biotechnology, which addressed the so-called 'GM viral gene threat'.
DNA from plant viruses [are] used as promoters/terminators or other functional elements, or in nonfunctional form to suppress viral genes. Viral DNA sequences by themselves do not appear to pose a hazard, and many have become incorporated into the genomes of plants.
It has been estimated that about 14–25% of oilseed rape in the field is infected with cauliflower mosaic virus in the United Kingdom; similar numbers have been estimated for cauliflower and cabbage.
Historically, humans have been consuming cauliflower mosaic virus and its 35S promoter at much higher levels than those in uninfected transgenic plants. Unsupported claims that the 35S promoter is unstable, prone to transfer and insertion into the DNA of other cells, thereby causing cancer in humans, have been extensively rebutted by the scientific community and are without merit.
Given the extensive exposure of humans to plant viruses and their DNA in most foods, there is no justification for using the presence of small segments of viral DNA resulting from genetic engineering as the basis for [condemning] all transgenic plants containing them.
Borst, once an opponent of GMOs, went through a Lynas-like conversion of his own. "Personally, I was very skeptical of genetic engineering up till about 2005, when I began to realize that most of the objections to it were based on lack of understanding, and knee jerk reactions to modern science and technology," Borst added in his note.
Fact is, most people don't have the faintest idea of the extent to which modern advanced science permeates our lives. People harken back to some golden age before the industrial revolution, oblivious to the fact that people died from things like tuberculosis (Henry David Thoreau) and tetanus (his brother). Even up till 1955, people lived in fear of polio (I caught it that very year, the year the vaccine was made public—too late for me).
So, I have followed both sides of the argument for many years. The anti-GMO faction is a branch of the organic farming movement, the roots of which can be traced back to Rudolf Steiner (a certified lunatic), et al. Mae-Wan Ho and Joe Cummins are just the latest in a series of people who are convinced that genetic modification is evil, and they build their case around that concept.
Late in my life, I was hired by a lab at Cornell University as support staff doing research into the molecular components of meiosis, using transgenic mice. I maintain many transgenic lines, do the genotyping and am involved in immuno-histochemistry and high magnification imaging using immuno-fluorescence. I handle genetically modified organisms on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, I see no real solution to the problem of people being afraid of and condemning that which they know nothing about. When the information is provided that would help to inform them, they are suspicious of the presentation and look to see where the funding came from. If it came from industry or government, the research is summarily dismissed as tainted.
There are two kinds of ignorance, unintentional and intentional. The former is cured by education; the latter is a terminal illness.
Jon Entine, founder and executive director of the Genetic Literacy Project, is senior fellow at the Center for Risk & Health Communication and STATS (Statistical Assessment Service)


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Last week I realised that the process of searching for something on the web annoyed me – it took too many key presses, too many clicks, and opened too many tabs. To fix this, I came up with QuickSearch.
See the video below for a demo, or you can go to the QuickSearch Home Page to install it.
How I Search
My usual workflow is that I want to search for something but I don't want to lose the page I'm currently looking at so I:
- Press Ctrl-T to open a new tab
- Press Tab to move the cursor to Firefox's search box
- Type in my query
- Hit enter
- Read through results. If I see what I want I open in a new tab in case I want to open another, if not I type in a new search and reload the search results.
- Close the search tab.
So, I've opened a tab that I'll probably only want for ten seconds, I've had to wait for my results until I stopped typing and loaded another page, and if I want to change my search query, I have to load the page again. Then close the search tab.
How I Want To Search
The workflow I want is
- Press a key combination to start searching. No new window or tab should be required. I shouldn't have to tab to, or click, any input box. Since Ctrl-F is used to search within a page, I decided that Ctrl-Alt-F made a sensible key combination to search the whole web.
- Start typing, and results should start appearing. As I type I can keep an eye on the first one or two results, and if I see something interesting, I stop typing.
- I click the link I want, with the option of opening the link in a new tab without having to right click it and choose that option from a menu.
- When I'm finished using the search results, just press Esc to go back to my original page.
QuickSearch To The Rescue
I've implemented my desired workflow in QuickSearch, and it has really sped up my navigation around the web.
For convenience, I also added:
- Search This Site: to search just the site you're on, press Ctrl-Alt-S
- Search Highlighted: to search for some term on the page, just highlight that word(s) and press Ctrl-Alt-F as normal.
- More Results: If the quick results provided by QuickSearch still aren't enough, and refining your query doesn't work, you can click the "More Results" link to get many, many more results from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and more using my search portal Chofter.com.
Cross Browser Goodness
QuickSearch works on
- Firefox, as a GreaseMonkey script
- Google Chrome, as an extension
- Every other browser as a Bookmarklet.
See the QuickSearch Home Page for installation instructions. I think you'll very quickly find it indespensible, especially in Firefox and Chrome where it is completely keyboard operated, no mouse required.
Fully Accessible
Another strong advantage of QuickSearch is that it is fully keyboard accessible. No mouse is required:
- The search is launched using keys
- All link titles are correctly labelled
- All search results can be navigated using the tab key
- QuickSearch can be dismissed quickly using the Esc key.
I think users with sight impairments will especially like this.


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Elaine F. Ellibee
Madison – Elaine F. Ellibee (Mrs. Ben B.) entered heaven and eternal peace on Saturday evening, November 17, 2012. On Saturday night, Elaine decided she had completed her life's work of raising her family and accomplishing what she needed to in her career to join Ben in heaven.
Elaine Margaret Franke Ellibee was born April 9, 1924 to Arno and Alma (Schmidt) Franke in Miner, IL. Much of Elaine's childhood was spent in the Midwest – between Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin. The Franke's had many friends and family that Elaine was blessed to have in her life – the Schmidts, Dittmers, Peines, and Rischs. All loved and cared for her in innumerable ways and gave her life gifts that she ultimately gave to others.
Elaine was a proud graduate of Elmhurst College (B.S. Biology) and went on to receive her Masters of Nursing from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. Elaine's higher education was always a great source of pride and her strong values of lifelong learning she not only passed to her own children, but the nursing professionals and students that she worked with and taught over the years.
Her educational success allowed her to transition into a thriving nursing career. As a registered nurse, Elaine accomplished much and contributed greatly to nursing education and leadership at the local, state and national levels. She quickly rose from a staff nurse in Cleveland, Ohio to a nursing instructor; and then led staffs as a director of nursing at hospitals in Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin. From the hospital level, she then had to the opportunity to lead at the state level as a WI State nursing practice consultant and then the WI State Director of the Division of Nursing from 1974-1980. Even after her retirement to Arkansas, Elaine loved her time as a research and nursing studies coordinator at the Baptist Medical System School of Nursing in Little Rock, Arkansas.
With her career positions, Elaine's enduring focus in nursing was superior patient care and continuing education for nursing leaders. As a result, she was recognized by numerous state and national nursing organizations. Elaine held leadership positions with the WI Nurses Association; WI League of Nursing and was the first president of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. In Arkansas, she was a board member and chair for the Cleburne County Hospital in Heber Springs; as well as a member and president of the Baptist Medical Center Auxiliary Board in Little Rock.
Although she was proud of her career, she was most proud of her family. Husband Ben, Margaret (daughter), and Chris (son) were the lights of her life. She demanded much and had high expectations, but was always there with hugs, kisses, a good teasing, and endless love. She also loved her purses, stylish shoes, and dry brandy manhattans.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Ben in 2000. She is survived by her children – son, Chris and wife Sue Mattes Ellibee; and Dr. Margaret (Muggy) Ellibee and partner Sue Ball. She also is survived by her three stepchildren and their families- David and Lana Ellibee, Linda and Ron Devillier, and Merri Oxley.
Our family would like to extend our thanks to Dr. Lisa Grant, Dr. Paul Hick; Rhonda of Dr. Grant's team; Agrace Hospice, and the entire staff of Capitol Lakes Health Care Center. Your love, care, and compassion helped Elaine be more comfortable every day.
A memorial service celebrating Elaine's life will be held on April 20, 2013.
In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to the Pulaski Technical College Foundation, North Little Rock, AR; Agrace Hospice, Madison, WI; or Capitol Lakes Staff Appreciation Fund, Madison, WI.