One thing I've just thought about with the OPML Editor and OPML 2.0. You know what would be cool - if the OPML Editor had the option to automatically turn one's ~/OPML folder in to OPML 2.0 when it goes live. 
The 'include' nodetype should have a rotated version of the 'link' icon. Agree? Disagree? Talk about it.
I've just found a bug with my MacBook. The startup sound plays unexpectedly compared to PPC machines.
If the ID card system comes in to effect, as I hope it won't, I will purchase and travel with an illegal passport. Far better to pay the mob than the government. At least the mob are subject to capitalist economics, rather than faith-based economics.
Jeffrey Shallit has a decent review of Larry Witham's By Design.
I've just requested my ticket by phone for Darwin at LSE Selfish Gene next Thursday. If you are trying to get tickets, call 02079956100 and be prepared for a long wait. I was redialling for about three minutes, and finally got through about 10:13. Call now if you want tickets, because they'll disappear like gold dust. If you don't get a ticket, consider coming along to Skeptics in the Pub instead.
WTF? Christianity and pissing on Winnie the Pooh?
If you're using WordPress, you can install a wonderful plugin called Bushisms. I'll put it on my WPMU server sometime soon.
Ask Yahoo on the origin of "close, but no cigar".
Madge Weinstein: "I don't support troops who shoot babies."
The ever-excellent Hawk Wings has an interview with ex-UserLand developer and NetNewsWire creator Brent Simmons
If you're using iTunes on Windows and have made the mistake of buying a non-iPod MP3 player, you might find this piece of software useful.
How to build a home PABX. Very cool. I use local radio, but I'm not sure whether it interferes with my 802.11b.
If you use MSN Messenger on Mac, this tip will be useful.
Dave has a decent description of an unconference. We need some in London.
Someone's got a guilty conscience, I expect
If you're in Delaware, drop in to Elliott Sober's lecture.
Matthew Chen emailed me responding to yesterday's post about Scoble and Memeorandum pointing to his service Megite for the following reasons: it "autodiscovers new blogs, not just [the] A-list", it "doesn't require the link analysis, it ranks the story based on text analysis too" and it "can be customized with your OPML file (or personal feeds)". Having tech on the front page and having to click through to get to politics, entertainment and all the other stuff is nice too. Because we all care about tech!
Dennett on Dignity 
Brian Flemming has a quote from Daniel Dennett's Salon interview:
| We cannot let any group, however devout, blackmail us into silence by their expressions of hurt feelings whenever they feel that we are getting close to the truth. That is what con artists do when their marks begin to get suspicious, and that is what children do when they can't have their way, and it should be beneath the dignity of any religious group to play that card. |
One would think that Dennett, as part of his naturalistic study of religion, would understand that religion doesn't do dignity. It talks about dignity. It says things like birth control, abortion, homosexuality and curing diseases interferes with the dignity of humankind. And with the other hand, when there are actually individual humans, it tells them that condoms don't prevent AIDS. It tells them that Janet Jackson's nipple is a moral issue, and the idea-destroying mental environment that television creates is not.
Religion gives hope to people like Prime Minister Blair - that God will judge him - so he can ignore the fact that the people have judged him, rightly, to be a hopelessly amoral trickster, a man who I wouldn't give the job of milk monitor to. The same mental condition allowed him to send "our boys and girls" (or rather, paid, professional soldiers) in to war on the basis of evidence that wouldn't convince a seven year old.
Religion tells people that their duty to God overrides their duty to themselves and the world around them. Religion provides the reason why sexual and societal "deviants" spend many years in guilt - because "God hates fags" or "God hates those who get ideas above their station". If there's something you don't like, it's always more fun to substite "I hate" with "God hates", because the gullible can say "You're an idiot" quicker than they can say "God's an idiot".
Human dignity is always the first thing which is taken away when religion gets it's way. Which makes it all the sicker that they preach about it so much.
