He makes it sound so easy..

Al Gore speaking in DC at an environment conference 7.17.08:

Memes and their role in hijacking our brains…

the number of abortions in the UK

From the BBC:

Government figures showed 193,737 women in England and Wales had an abortion in 2006.

Now I’m not anti-abortion by any means but that’s a pretty staggering number isn’t it?

Erin McKean - Redefining the Dictionary

Another really cool video from the TED lecture series.. I love her definition of serendipity! Tho I am really starting to get annoyed with the video player on TED. I don’t know why, but it seems like it takes me going away from the page as an excuse to reset the video..

Ze Frank at a TED conference

Having finished the bulk of my exams I’m taking a few days off, I plan on spending today watching TED conference videos and pro wrestling. I imagine Cian would find this video good for a laugh somehow:

I always knew that School thought you absolutely nothing other than how to be a sheep, nice to have it confirmed…

Democrat says atheists have no rights in America

This story is unbelievable, here’s part of a transcript of the exchange where Democrat Monique Davis attacked activist Rob Sherman after he dared question a million dollar donation from the state to a Baptist Church:

Davis: I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy — it’s tragic — when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.

I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?

I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous–

Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?

Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if this matter does go to court—

Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.

As is pointed out in the article, imagine if that Democrat had said the same thing to a Muslim or Mormon or even a Scientologist. They’d be hounded out of their seat like there was no tomorrow. Anyway, I suspect I’ll be keeping my Atheist beliefs secret when I go to the states for the summer. If not, hell with responses like that I’ll probably be lynched by somebody….

So d’ya know the way that the U.S., Canada and Mexico are actually the one country and are run by the overlords?

I love paranoia:

Man, I really want to see Mike Gravel as U.S. President

This video is absolutely insane but is quite entertaining - love the ‘military-industrial complex’ speech bit at the end too.. It seems to be quite legit given that Gravel has it on his webpage:

Fitna (English Language version)

Ideologically rather corrupt and shallow, this film doesn’t really make much of a point beyond ‘extremists are bad’ which one would imagine is rather self-apparent. While it has some impact, mainly through using footage from some real-life executions, any person with a brain should be able to see through the blatant racism and short-sightedness of Geert Wilder’s film. There’s an intersting article about it on the BBC here and it certainly shows what the BBC is talking about in terms of his ability to generate interest - as I write this, the film has been seen 410,211 times on the host website alone. And that doesn’t take into account other language variations.

Just to be clear, I’m posting this out of interest in the topic and the controversy it has generated. Not out of any belief in Mr.Wilder’s ideas. I’m also doing this because I think that silencing talk becuase religious extremists don’t like the content of a video is a bad thing and should be opposed on principle if nothing else.