Birth Control vs Religious Liberty

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-17/religious-leaders-unite-against-pill-plan/3836440

Religious leaders from multiple faiths have united in an unprecedented show of strength against US president Barack Obama's healthcare plan to ensure all women have access to birth control.

Roman Catholic Bishop William Lori likened the situation, of the government forcing church-affiliated groups to provide insurance cover for birth control, to forcing a kosher deli to serve ham sandwiches.

"It is absurd for someone to come into a kosher deli and demand a ham sandwich, but it is beyond absurd for that private demand to be backed up with a coercive power of the state, and downright surreal to apply that coercive power when the government can get that same sandwich cheaply or even free just a few doors down," he said.

A number of years ago I heard a report about a small town in Australia that had the highest birthrate in Australia. The only pharmacist in the town had refused to stock and supply birth control on religious grounds.

His place in the community was not just a matter of religious freedom, however. By deciding that he couldn't sell contraception on his religious grounds, he made that choice on behalf of everyone. After all, why should people need contraception? The pharmacist was Catholic!

And this is the problem with this analogy of religious freedom. Healthcare is not a religious service. Any individual is free to avoid using and buying birth control if they choose to on religious grounds, but being a healthcare provider while refusing to stock health supplies is pushing those religious grounds onto others that they may or may not want.

In short, if you want to be a health provider, then it's not a matter of religious choice. If religion cannot provide a public service in a manner that best serves the public, then they shouldn't be in that business. They as individuals are free to ignore any contraceptives that may be on offer, what they are losing here is the ability to deny that service to others.

Baptist leader Professor Ben Mitchell said his church members would be prepared to defend their religious freedom.

"Tens of thousands of us, maybe hundreds of thousands of us, would be very willing to spend nights in jail for the sake of the preservation of religious liberty," he said.

"It's not just our coffers that are at risk, it is our very freedom."

What's at risk is the ability to easily push one's religious belief onto others. That's a very Orwellian take on religious freedom.

So Much For Freedom Of Expression

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-25/rushdie-speech-cancelled-amid-death-threats/3791434

India's Jaipur Literature Festival has cancelled a televised speech by Salman Rushdie minutes before it was scheduled to begin on Tuesday, amid death threats to its organiser and fears of violent protests at the event by Muslim groups.

The issue of British-Indian author Rushdie, who cancelled his visit to the festival due to assassination threats, has overshadowed the event, which is the largest literature festival in Asia.

Muslim groups protested against his invitation and other authors accused the government of suppressing free speech.

"There are a large number of people averse to this video link inside this property. They have threatened violence," Ramtap Singh, owner of the hotel in which the festival is held, told the large crowd that had assembled to listen to the author.

"This is necessary to avoid harm to all of you."

A death threat was received against Jaipur Literature Festival director William Dalrymple ahead of Rushdie's speech.

Rushdie, whose 1988 novel The Satanic Verses is banned in India, cancelled his planned visit to speak at the festival in person after reported assassination threats against him.

"All of us feel hurt and disgraced. Artists have not been able to prevail," said Sanjoy Roy, the festival's producer, holding back tears.

Political parties are seen as unwilling to lend their support to the author for fear of offending Muslim voters ahead of an important state election in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, next month.

After organisers announced earlier on Tuesday that Rushdie's address would go ahead, leaders of local Muslim groups began to congregate at the main entrance to the festival, vowing to protest if the author was allowed to address the event.

"This is a big defeat. It's a triumph for bigotry," said Tarun Tejpal, editor of Indian news magazine Tehelka.

Five authors have been investigated by police in Jaipur for reading from The Satanic Verses at the festival, and English PEN, a writer's body, issued a statement late on Monday in their support.

"We felt that it was important to show support for Salman, who is often misrepresented... This situation has arisen in India at a time when free speech is under attack," wrote Hari Kunzru, one of the authors involved, in the Guardian newspaper.

It's amazing how powerful a tool blasphemy can be. If there is a God, his objection to it seems to take the form of fanaticism amongst his followers. It's almost as if it's an excuse from God's followers to not say anything they might not like to hear...

To celebrate this bigotry, here's a Jesus and Mo:

Cognitive Dissonance

When there's an environmental disaster with drilling, the rational response is to look at factors like our dependence on oil, what preventative measures can be used by oil companies, risk factors, etc. But humans are not rational beings, we suffer from what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. When we see evidence that conflicts with our beliefs, we don't discard our beliefs. Rather it makes us more resolute in our beliefs.

Case in point, Sarah "Drill, Baby, Drill" Palin. While most would see off-shore drilling as the problem, not Sarah. "Drill, Baby, Drill" is good for us, it puts jobs in the hands of Americans, makes companies comply to safety standards (We're Number 1!), and because of environmentalists efforts to take drill away from shallow waters where it is safe, disasters like this happen.

Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country’s energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up safer areas. It’s catching up with you. The tragic, unprecedented deep water Gulf oil spill proves it.

We need permission to drill in safer areas, including the uninhabited arctic land of ANWR. It takes just a tiny footprint – equivalent to the size of LA’s airport – to tap America’s rich and plentiful oil and gas up north. ANWR’s drilling footprint is like a postage stamp on a football field.

There you have it folks. Cognitive dissonance in action. "Drill, Baby, Drill" is just fine, it's only because it's being restricted that problems are arising. It reminded me of the economist who blamed regulation on banks for the financial crises because they worked hard to subvert it. Yep, if only the regulation weren't there then there wouldn't have been a problem! Cognitive dissonance in action.

To quote Bill Maher: "Every asshole who ever chanted 'Drill baby drill' should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty."

Reporting Unicorn Sightings

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/05/2919095.htm

Multiple people across New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT say they were startled this morning by a huge white light moving across the sky.

Canberra resident James Butcher says he was driving home from a night out with his brother when they spotted the "strange spiral light in the sky".

"It had a distinct bright centre, much like a bright star, indicating an object shedding light trails, spiralling and fattening out from it," he said.

"The effect lasted only two or three minutes, moving and descending quickly out of view.

"The colour was yellowish but this may have been blurred and tinted by the morning fog."

Wollongong man Eddie Wise says he also saw the light during his morning walk just before 6:00am.

He says he has never seen anything like it.

"It was like a yellowish, greenish light with a light spiral around it," he said.

"It sort of moved around, bobbed up and down and then it went behind a cloud.

"I'm just amazed. I want to know what it was."

A caller to the ABC, Robyn, says she saw the phenomenon from her home on Sydney's north shore just before 6:00am.

She says it was over within two minutes.

"There was this white light up in the sky like a huge revolving moon," Robyn said.

"At first I thought it was the moon but it was travelling so fast, high up above the eastern horizon and twirling as it went.

"It was just amazing and to be quite frank, I was quite frightened and my heart's still pounding."

Queensland sightings

A number of people from Morayfield and Caboolture in Queensland have reported that they too saw a white light in the sky about 5:50am.

"It was just the one light. I just came home from my walk and I happened to look up in the sky, and here it was racing across the sky," Linda told 612 ABC Brisbane.

"I bashed on the window for my husband to have a look and he flew out.

"It was spectacular."

Linda described the light as like a lollipop swirl.

She says the light came from the west and was headed east, out to sea.

"It was just unreal. There was a cloud in the sky - just this light with a swirl in the middle," she said.

Peter, from Balmoral, says he saw the light while he was on a ferry terminal on the Brisbane River.

"It certainly had that lollipop-type swirl ... but it was travelling low and fairly fast, and as it went past me and I looked up, it looked like a row of lights, maybe four lights," he said.

Denise, at Pine Mountain, told ABC radio in Brisbane that she saw the lights shortly before 6:00am.

"I got up at about 5:45 to let my horse out of his stable ... and I saw this coming from a north-west direction towards the south-east," she said.

"There was no noise. It was like bands of ribbon coming out of it and it looked like it was coming through a cloud, yet there were no clouds."

An astronomer says space junk or meteors are the most likely explanations for the UFO sightings.

So much put into eyewitness testimony of non-experts, without a sceptical voice apart from the end. UFOs being synonymous with alien craft is something any of us could report, regardless of the plausibility of the existence of alien ships flying around.

The interesting thing about these kind of reports is that its almost always full of those who have no knowledge or expertise of the relevant topic. Where are the amateur astronomers? Where are the professional astronomers? Nope, reporting eyewitness testimony uncritically alluding to the possibility of some paranormal phenomenon.

Responsibility in journalism should come into play. How people react to eyewitness accounts, how they remember such stories in the future - this kind of stories affects the beliefs of the layperson but does nothing to further our understanding of nature. They drive the scientific community and the average person further apart!

Today's WTF Moment

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/28/2911991.htm

The body representing Australia's obstetricians and gynaecologists is considering whether to support a less extreme version of female circumcision known as a ritual nick.

Female circumcision has been illegal in Australia since the 1990s but doctors are worried that it is being done anyway, in unsafe conditions, by immigrants who take their daughters back to their home country.

The secretary of the Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Dr Gino Peccararo, says by offering the alternative, some women may be spared the agony of being mutilated overseas.

In medical circles the procedure is called ritual genital cutting or female circumcision. To its opponents, it is female genital mutilation.

Dr Peccararo says at its worst the procedure can be very nasty.

"It can progress to an extreme form that actually removes the clitoris and the labia and sews the opening of the vagina closed," Dr Peccararo said.

Sometimes these procedures are performed by people without proper medical training in unsanitary conditions.

Dr Peccararo says it may well be better for the girls involved if the parents had a far less severe but culturally acceptable alternative.

But he says the move is not about legitimising female circumcision.

"No-one is condoning the practice. No-one is trying to legitimise the practice. They are trying to look at a way to minimise the harm," he said.

"My understanding is that in America there are going to look to see if they can provide that as an alternative to the more severe procedure with the idea, I think, of minimising the harm."

The American Association of Paediatrics is also considering a similar proposal, saying that ritual nicks are not harmful and require far less extensive cutting than male circumcision.

Dr Peccararo says the issue needs to be discussed with cultural leaders from African nations but ultimately it would require changes to the existing law in Australia.

Former Commonwealth sex discrimination commissioner Pru Goward says doctors are overreacting.

"This country has had it outlawed for 15 years for the very obvious reason that this is a gross invasion of women's rights and a terrible way to treat women," Ms Goward said.

"The first thing that should happen is that the Federal Government, which is after all responsible for our immigration program, launches a huge public education campaign particularly in those communities and particularly when it is processing people for migration to Australia."

Ms Goward says it needs to be made clear that female circumcision is an unacceptable and unlawful practice in Australia that will result in a jail sentence.

"If you don't start education, if you don't start prosecuting - because we all know anecdotally that these children are turning up in hospitals with ruptured bladders and urethra - that this will continue," she said.

"But the answer is not to allow a modified form of it if you haven't tried stopping it by public education and awareness and prosecution."

I really don't know what to make of this. I'm so shocked that doctors could even consider this, it's like the way to stop the horrors of spousal abuse is to put the abused in padding in order to minimise harm. After all, it's going to happen anyway...

Would offering a reduced procedure here stop the practice of going overseas for the full horrifying procedure? Would it mean an increase in the number of girls who get circumcised? Is this a positive step in working towards getting rid of the practice? Perhaps the data is there.

If child brides are perfectly legal in other countries, should we allow them here in reduced form so as to reduce the harm to 11 year old girls? Perhaps allow the practice but put the age at 14. Or perhaps allow marriage to happen at 11 just so long as virginity is preserved until 16. Harm minimisation!

Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/23/2827704.htm

A Sydney man who became an overnight millionaire after gluing a coin to his doorstep had more than one type of luck working in his favour, according to feng shui experts.

The retired police officer won almost $2 million in a BoysTown lotto after following advice in an article on the ancient Chinese art.

Association of Feng Shui Consultants president Elizabeth Wiggins says three types of luck have to align for such events to occur.

"We have our heaven luck, which is our Chinese astrology, and that's the luck we're born with," she said.

"We have our earth luck, which represents our environment, and that's where feng shui falls into place, so how does our environment affect us?

"Then we have our man luck, which is basically how we decide to live our life. Are we positive people? Do we do the right thing?

"I'd say that in his Chinese astrology there was some kind of indication that there was some unconventional wealth coming to him. Maybe in addition to that his feng shui's quite good."

But Ms Wiggins says the most important fact is the ex-policeman bought a ticket.

"Because if he didn't buy the ticket and didn't use his man luck he wouldn't have won," she said.

So Ms Wiggins says racing out to place money under your doormat will not necessarily bring riches.

"If it was that easy we'd all be doing it. Many things have to line up for something like that to happen," she said.

The feng shui expert says placing money at the entrance of the home symbolises wealth coming to the occupants.

"Tradition says that the energy coming through our front door will give us an indication of whether your home supports your ability to make money," she said.

So many things wrong in such a little space. Firstly, people win lotteries. Statistically there has to be winners every now and then. Secondly, every time there's one winner there's bound to be many losers. We don't hear about the statistical majority. Thirdly, that one person kissed their lottery ticket or was wearing lucky underwear when they purchased it, has nothing to do with the outcome. Fourthly, using the words feng shui experts as an authoritative means on how the world works decries the importance of expertise. Finally, this is all total nonsense. What is it doing in the news?

To give a personal example, a few years ago I won a ticket to the Big Day Out. Positive thinking? I don't see how. More that I messaged in the dead of night when they were giving away tickets hourly, because I thought it would maximise my chances purely on the fact that most people are asleep. Even then, I just got lucky. Wasn't born that way, wasn't my environment, I just happened to be the right person at the right time.

That people want to attribute intentionality to good fortune makes sense, that they want to feel in control of what essentially are random events, that they are trying to detect patterns in the world. It's what humans do. But the flip-side of that is seeing patterns that aren't there, trying to attribute intentionality to what are random elements beyond our control. And unfortunately, there are plenty of people out there who will claim dominion of what is out of our control.

And that's fine, I suppose. If people think that kissing dice will help them win at craps or that gluing a coin to the doorstep will help bring them fortune, that's their business. Publishing it as if it were news though? This is just selling people on credulity. This is tabloid journalism, and bad tabloid journalism at that on what's meant to be a reputable website. It's pushing nonsense claims without even so much as a critical eye cast over such nonsense.

Someone winning the lottery is not news, that they read "advice" out of a magazine beforehand is completely irrelevant. Feng shui may attempt to try to explain how following the advice implies causation, but what is their explanation? An appeal to a mystical force. I'd like to see if placing money under your doormat at all can affect the outcome of lottery, surely this can be tested. I'm going to bet there's no more statistical significance to that than the number of people who wear boxers over briefs when purchasing tickets.

They Make It Sound So Appealing

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/19/2776557.htm

Just one day after it was made official, there are calls to shelve changes to the code of practice for commercial television stations.

Television programs like the crime series Underbelly thrive on on-screen nudity and raunchy sex scenes. And while they attract controversy, they also corner huge audiences.

Now, the Christian group Family Voice Australia is worried that a new code of practice gives commercial TV networks the green light to push the boundaries of decency further.

Ros Phillips, the group's national research officer, says she is concerned that it waters down the guidelines to allow explicit pornography at 9pm, "when many children are still watching".

What has piqued her concern is a change to the guidelines for sex scenes in programs rated MA. Previously, the industry's code of practice required sex to be portrayed discreetly.

But the new guidelines only require sex scenes to follow the storyline and not be high in impact.

"Higher than what?" says Ms Phillips.

"As we've seen over the years, what one person thinks is high is not necessarily what the program manager for Channel 10 thinks."

That is a reference to a long running stoush over the Channel 10 show, Californication.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has upheld a complaint by Family Voice about one of the show's sex scenes.

"Absolute ... it was a threesome and it was extremely explicit," she says.

"I won't go into details, but if it wasn't for that word 'discreetly' in the guidelines, that complaint wouldn't have been upheld."

But media commentator Sue Turnbull from La Trobe University in Melbourne says the group is overreacting.

"If this particular group don't know what real pornography looks like, then maybe they should see some, so that they can actually make the kinds of distinctions that the people that are doing this classification make every day," she said.

Family Voice Australia is also worried about new guidelines for the new digital channels the networks have launched.

While the core channels will still be required to show only G-rated programs in the hours before and after school on weekdays and in the mornings at weekends, the new channels will not be.

"The new digital televisions provide all sorts of capacities for parents to lock their children out," says Ms Turnbull.

"In fact, if this family organisation is being really sensible, what it should be doing is talking about sex education, media education, media literacy.

"And what parents can actually do in the home as responsible parenting just to ensure that their kids know what's out there, know how to cope with it and are not traumatised by something that they might come across that can just kind of switch on past it and go 'yeah, I don't want to look at that'."

I liked Californication when it first came on the air. I got bored of the show midway through season 2 which by that time had descended into the formulaic escalated by the ever-more improbable storyline. So I stopped watching.

I remember that threesome scene. And that counts as porn? This demonstrates that we don't need an internet filter, it seems that if that is what counts as porn to this group then the internet is self-censoring enough already. From memory, the scene was quite funny. Like most of the sex in that show, it seemed more for comic effect than arousal.

But to be serious for a moment, once again the notion of a nanny state is rearing its ugly head. The guidelines for free to air already put such content on at a late time, but that never really seems to be good enough. The fact that there is a ratings system already should be enough to inform parents about how to make decisions affecting their parental responsibility for their children. But no, it's not enough.

Sue Turnbull makes a lot of sense here, and it's a shame that these moralists don't go down such a pragmatic path. Like the abstinence-only education proponents, it seems to be that those moralists are set on pushing their agenda (in this case the removal of sex from television) than it is for better practical outcomes for children. Why not put forth opportunities to help parents on how to use new technology? Why not push for more awareness of ratings? Instead we get hyperbolic rhetoric and the hysteric cry of "won't someone please think of the children!?!"

What adults watch in their own homes is their business. The law is already quite restrictive on what can be put on television at what times. Even on at adults-only times I've seen sex scenes cut from movies, profanity cut from dialogue, violence reduced, etc. Even something innocuous like Homer Simpson's infamous line "To alcohol, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems" doesn't air with the reruns of that memorable episode.

And what is all of this over? Essentially nothing. You can see more arousing television at 9am on a Saturday morning, just that they call them music clips. There's more arousing imagery put on billboards to advertise pretty much everything. Even a recent trip to a clothing store was full of scantily-clad women suggestively posing. Porn at 9pm? I wish. Hyperbolic rhetoric makes the concept sound so much more appealing than the reality.

Teleology And Coconuts

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/15/2771822.htm

Two scientists at the Melbourne Museum have recorded the first case of tool use in an invertebrate animal.

The veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selects, stacks, transports and assembles coconut shells as portable armour.

Many octopuses use available objects such as shells and rocks for shelter, but that is not considered tool use.

Dr Mark Norman says what makes these animals so special is the the planned future use of the coconut shells.

"It comes at a cost, carrying these shells in this awkward way and it's a fantastic example of complex behaviours in what we consider the lower life forms," he said.

"I think these sorts of behaviours are everywhere in nature. There's really complex behaviours that we write off because we think we're the clever ones."

He and colleague Dr Julian Finn spent more than 500 hours diving in remote waters off Indonesia to observe and film the animals.

They watched the octopuses dig out coconut shells from the ocean floor and empty the shells of mud using jets of water.

Dr Finn says it is not unusual for octopuses to live inside coconuts but it is how the veined octopus uses the shells that is unique.

"It gathers them together, it stacks them like bowls, covers its whole body over bowls, lifts them up and then trundles along on its arm tips until a predator comes or there's a threat," he said.

Like bricks being designed for smashing windows (or is it the other way around?), it seems that the octopus has finally caught on to the grand design of the coconut. Sticks are designed for poking out eyes and hills are designed for rolling down, now it seems that the octopus has finally cracked the teleological purpose that has eluded humanity until now. Coconut shells are for armour.

Like a wasp protecting its store of caterpillars with a pebble, it can't just be an accident that the coconut shell can be used to protect an octopus. And selection simply cannot account for it, for where are the shells of Brazil nuts and peanuts that show the intermediate stages? No such a perfect fit can only be befitting of a grand designer who made coconuts for the purpose of armour for his likeness. Therefore God exists and that God is Cthulhu!

Cute Animal News Story

Now I normally rip into the media for it's ability to report irrelevance, but this highly irrelevant story I thought was kind of cool.

A Japanese tavern has turned to two monkeys for help with its table service.

The Kayabukiya sake house, in the city of Utsunomiya north of Tokyo, is using a pair of uniformed Japanese macaques called Yat-chan and Fuku-chan to serve its customers. The younger of the two, Fuku-chan, usually begins the first shift and is quick to give customers a hot towel to help them clean their hands before they order their drinks, as is the custom in Japan. Twelve-year-old Yat-chan is the crowd pleaser at the tavern, moving agilely around the restaurant as he responds to customers' requests.

With only two years of experience, the younger monkey's workload is limited to delivering hot towels, but both are well appreciated by customers, who tip them with boiled soya beans. "The monkeys are actually better waiters than some really bad human ones," one customer, 34-year-old Takayoshi Soeno, said. The 63-year-old tavern owner, Kaoru Otsuka, originally kept the animals as household pets. Mr Otsuka says it was only when the older one began aping him that he realised he could use them as waiters. "Yat-chan first learned by just watching me working in the restaurant," he said. "It all started when one day I gave him a hot towel out of curiosity and he brought the towel to the customer."

Once the restaurant's employees were properly certified by local authorities to work with animals, both Fuku-chan and Yat-chan clocked in for work. A regular of the tavern, 58-year-old Shoichi Yano, says the animals are like her children. "Actually, [they're] better," she said. "My son doesn't listen to me but Yat-chan will." Some clients, like retiree Miho Takikkawa, say Yat-chan appears to understand their exact orders. "We called out for more beer just then and it brought us some beer," she said. "It's amazing how it seems to understand human words."

The monkeys work in shifts of up to two hours a day due to Japanese animal rights regulations. But the owner is hoping to bring up a whole new generation of furry waiters and waitresses after receiving three new baby monkeys this year.

Yes, it's a puff piece, even quality news services like BBC and the ABC put these kinds of stories out there. So what's my interest? It's a pseudo-experiment in animal behaviour. Maybe stories like this are the bridge we need to show our connection to the animal kingdom. Sure a cat dialling emergency is cute and makes for a nice story, but this shows an animal that is capable of doing a job that requires higher brain function.

Anyone who has seen the sublime documentary series Life on Earth should remember what the macaque is capable of. In the 1950s, researchers left sweet potatoes on the beach for the monkeys to eat. One clever girl decided to wash hers in the water to get off the sand. Soon, other monkeys started to do the same. Then the researchers tried the same with rice, that same clever girl threw handfuls of the rice and sand into the water - the rice would float while the sand would sink and she was able to eat the rice in handfuls without digesting large clumps of sand. These experiments have resulted in the pseudoscientific claim of the 100th monkey effect, a phenomenon that doesn't even have a factual basis on which it's conclusions are drawn. The point is that these small-brained simians are smarter than we give them credit for.

Now of course there are plenty of scientific experiments involving the intelligence of many different animals, and we have seen many times where animals are not only able to perform complex problems but are able to do some quicker than humans. It's becoming harder and harder to keep our species as something unique, every time a unique trait is defined we find an animal capable of doing the equivalent. For all the progress and accumulation of knowledge, we have indeed separated ourselves from nature. But in each of us lies genes that came about over hundreds of millions of years, that were able to provide the organism with some survival advantage throughout it's various forms. Most of these genes and the variation we have is shared by both us and the macaque, our last common ancestor was about 25 million years ago - not long on the geological time scale.

Maybe there is more than simply anthropomorphising the animal kingdom in these stories, certainly that element is there but it might not be the whole picture. Maybe we see us in them because 90something percent of us is in them. It's not that they are exhibiting human behaviour, it's that they are exhibiting behaviour that shows us we are animals. Of course this is nothing revolutionary to say; scientists have understood this for around a century now. But it's something neglected by a society where we are taught that we are unique, that we are above behaving like animals. But nature keeps reminding us, it keeps sending us subtle hints that we are a part of the same process as the rest of life on earth. Having a man in a labcoat announcing it won't convince many people, but having a monkey that can work customer service just might.