Scatterbrain: A Blog

It's Christmas...

2009-12-26T09:40:00.004+11:30

...and I assume you (and by you I mean that creepy bald guy in Arkansas who is obsessed with my posts) want me to post something Christmassy, don't you? Well tough! Not in the mood, but please check my YouTube account (link in the side) favourites for some material to help you get by...

Speaking of YouTube, with the gift of a new webcam with microphone I hope to start posting videos soon, so watch this space...

I Can't Believe I Missed Evolution Day!

2009-11-25T05:07:00.000+11:30

Shit! Shit! Fuck! Bollocks! Crap! Shit! Shit!...Shit!

A Shoutout for Strange Horizons e-zine

2009-11-23T10:50:00.002+11:30

Not always perfect, but still, often a good and intriguing read; click on the bar at the very bottom to see.

Jesus Ain't Famous?

2009-11-18T01:55:00.001+11:30

Sorry for the HUGELY inordinate amount of Jesus-related posts recently but I thought this was important.

Sitting inconspicuously at the bus station just earlier, I saw an advertisement for yet another Christian revivalist group on the side of the 207 bus, full of happy, white, clean faces, all declaring they had been "touched" by Jesus (most probably while some priest "touched" their kids).

Wanting to know more, I waited for the bus to loop round the station, and saw that the group's name was Making Jesus Famous.

Now, I don't know really, what with me being a hateful, bitter atheistic scumbag, but I think that the secondary protagonist in the most bestselling book of all time, along with no less than a million different hymns, books, poems and songs dedicated to him and memorializing him and his supposed acts, might have got all the exposure he could ever possibly get, don't you? It's not like he needs more fame, does he?

Mormon Jesus!

2009-11-17T08:46:00.005+11:30

Click here.

Sorry, can't get the video itself up.

Jesus, That Hurt...

2009-11-17T07:40:00.003+11:30

Since my fight with Russell Nash, and due to my general laziness and inability to act (notice that this blog only has 5 other posts for example), I am still banned from Escape Artist Forums.

Despite this, I am still listening avidly to Escape Pod and Pod Castle--no trumped-up little techno-tyrant is going to stop me enjoying my speculative fiction, Darwin-dammit!

But when recently listening to the new and very good--if overly long--episode 76 of Pod Castle by Holly Phillips, The Small Door, at the end part--where comments on previous eps. are read out from the forums--one of my comments was read from just before the erm, shall we say unpleasantness, where I declared EP 68, A Heretic By Degrees, an "awesome idea."

Jesus, it hurt, knowing that it was probably last time I'll ever be heard on that or any other Escape Artist podcast ever again...

Sweet Zombie Jesus!

2009-11-17T06:43:00.004+11:30

From Nonreligious Nerd:

What do Dracula, Frankenstein, Zombies, and Jesus Have in Common?

Yep, he pretty much nails it...to the cross!

Richard Dawkins Facts

2009-11-17T06:39:00.000+11:30

The now frail, confused, juddering figure of B-movie action hero Chuck Norris, who I'm sure could no longer roundhouse kick a frog never mind another man, still has those hundreds of "Chuck Norris Facts" sites dedicated to him, filled full of absurd, over-the-top bollocks, so I thought it's only fair for atheists to have their own meme to counter that gun-toting creationist: Richard Dawkins Facts.

Here's a few of mine:

-God didn't create the universe; Richard Dawkins allowed the universe to form IN HIS OWN personal space.

-Richard Dawkins can make single-celled organisms split into multi-cellular organisms just by staring at them.

-It is thought that the Triceratops did survive the Extinct Event, but not Richard Dawkins fancying a quick snack.

Think you can do better?

Joining the Atheist Blogroll!

2009-11-14T12:31:00.004+11:30

God bless--I mean err, Darwin bless the great Mojoey for having designed and propagated the Atheist Blogroll--and of which I am now a member!

Think you've got the blog, the guts and the talent to join and stand among the likes of all-star favourites such as Anal-Iced Bible, The Barefoot Bum, Nonreligious Nerd, Friendly Atheist, Angie the Anti-Theist and A Division by Zer0? Click here and see!

Did Thomas Paine predict Prince Charles?

2009-10-31T08:41:00.007+11:30

Having recently finished reading Thomas Paine's Common Sense at college and I've got to say, it still packs its punch after 234 years. I recommend it both as political milestone and an interesting work of history. For a irreligious deist who authored Age of Reason, Paine does use a lot of biblical reference, but that's only a minor quibble.

However, my attention was called to the following passage:

How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the
midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!

Was Paine psychic? Did he really predict the rise of this pathetic little individual?

Easy on the booze I'd say my lord...

Only time will tell...

Banned...

2009-09-24T02:50:00.003+11:30

As a big science fiction fan, one of my particular sites of interest was the audio podcast escapepod.org, and its sister podcasts, the fantasy-centric podcastle.org and the horror-centric pseudopod.org, of which I have followed for several years.

Until recently though, I had never joined their forums, usually just leaving a comment on their informal comments section episode by episode. But when that system was scraped in favour of all-forum discussions I had to register and sign into Escape Artists Forums everytime I wanted to leave a comment, which was a pain in the arse but it was bearable...until this...

Finally getting this blog off the ground, as well as my webcomic Delirious Comics, I decided on the thread for a particularly forgettable episode from Escape Pod, to "advertise" as it were their existence in a short paragraph, which quickly out-lined both of their contents, and linked them.

Believing this would get traffic going, I went back to the thread the next day to if anyone had commented on my blogs; but when I got there I saw that my short paragraph which linked them had been covered over with something along the lines of this:

Oh no! No shameless self-promotion here; you can leave your links in your
signature but anything else is inappropriate.

Now, being a bit annoyed, but also a little amused, I posted another comment in the same thread which said the following:

""Shameless self-promotion"? You fascists!"

Now, the above was clearly meant in jest but appartently, the forum-master didn't think so, and so when I went back to the same forum again the next day, I found that my "fascist" comment had been completely eliminated, and the following e-mail in my inbox:

You have just been sent a personal message by Russell Nash on Escape
Artists.
IMPORTANT: Remember, this is just a notification. Please do not reply to this
email.The message they sent you was:
ScatterBrain, This is not the blogs. We keep a civil community here. Another
piece of crap like that and your ass is banned.

Now, it seems that the forum-master--or forum-despot, as I prefer--clearly isn't playing; why have I been given a last warning? What about the three-strike rule? Now, taking my comment this seriously implys that this Nash has some serious issues about his position, and that any attempt to question such a position such as his means a clear questioning of his minor authority.

So I responded to him in kind with the following e-mail:

Dear Russell Nash-or whoever the hell you are,
I accept that "advertising" myself in a short paragraph on one of your Escape Artists forums after leaving a much longer
comment about one of your podcasts was
immature and self-serving--although I
thought at the time I was doing a
bit of community
intergration. But then you have to censor me, and
then, when I
retort in half-jestful, half-mildly annoyed spirit, you
completely
eliminate the latter comment and send the obscene e-mail
below(obscene
you ask? It says "crap"; need I say more?). I can't deal with
that, and
I demand an apology and a correction of the forum achive to its
historical
truth(though, if need be, with my "shameless self-promotion" still
covered),
and if you can't handle such a request, then go ahead and ban my
ass!
Okay?
Cordially, he who riseth from the ashes, Scatterbrain

Simple, to-the-point, he also responded in kind, me finding the following simple message from him in my inbox today:

Bye!

I am now banned; in-fact, its not just my username that's banned but my whole fucking computer is banned! Fucking banned! I keep trying, but even as a guest I'm banned! Which is, quite creepy really...

If I was The Amazing Atheist, this post would end with me catching a flight to America, finding Russell Nash, and beating him to death with a steel rod; but no, as an eco-socialist, I condemn most plane travel as unnecessary(even for arseholes).

So, what to do?

Well I can e-mail the CEO of Escape Artists, fat lot of good it'd do. It seems I'm at a loss. But don't worry gentle reader; I can still enjoy their podcasts at least, and if that bastard John Nash should tour the Lake District, I've got a rod on hand...

Atheism Does Not Necessarily Mean Rationalism

2009-09-20T01:15:00.002+11:30

Atheism does not necessarily imply rationalism or the application of reason in critical thought or analysis.

Below is a complete blogpost “essay” from the little-known blog The Atheist Conservative:

America’s Mussolini

One of our readers, A.G.S., sent us an idea he had for an article
comparing America now to the early days of Mussolini’s Italy. The thought came
to him, he wrote, when he read Mario and the Magician by Thomas Mann. He
outlined the article he had in mind and asked me [JB] if I would complete it. At
first I was a little skeptical; I felt he was exaggerating. But the more I
thought about it, the more I found myself in agreement with him. The following
is the result of our collaboration.
***
In his famous story Mario and the
Magician, Thomas Mann demonstrates how fascism under Mussolini corrupted the
Italian populace. At the start of his regime a general feeling spread among the
Italians that it was right to impose conformity, and society was gripped by a
mood of collective censoriousness. In the story, set in an Italian holiday
resort, a child takes off her bathing suit to wash the sand out of it in the
sea, and her momentary nudity arouses the wrath of the crowd on the beach, the
police are informed and the child’s family is fined. The story as a whole is
about the destruction of individual will during an evening’s entertainment by an
evil hypnotist. The allegorical implications are unmistakeable.
As in Italy
then, an atmosphere of authoritarian regulation is spreading in the US now.
There is a powerful demand, emanating from the president and his circle, for
mental and physical conformity.
Proofs of this intent abound. Group action
and community involvement are encouraged, with the aim of inducing
non-conformists to fall in line. The Department of Homeland Security issues a
memo warning that persons who have a political point of view different from the
present federal government majority are a threat to society. Anyone challenging
the theory of anthropogenic global warming, which the Democrats in power have
embraced as an orthodoxy, is denounced as a heretic. In the cause of mitigating
the projected undesirable effects of climate change, the government proposes to
dictate what sources of energy you may use and to what extent. It will regulate
the temperature of your house, the clothes you may wear, the food you may eat,
and the car you may drive. In sickness and infirmity your body will be treated
as the government decides when its nationalized health policy is imposed.
Government will decree what opinions you may express on talk radio, in the
universities and schools, and soon in any public forum. By ‘spreading the wealth
around’ it will set a limit to how high any individual may rise by his own
efforts. Government will rule on how much business managers may be paid and
under what union-dictated terms an employee may work.
When conformity is
legislated and imposed by force, dissent criminalized and punished,
authoritarianism has become tyranny.
Obama is the Mussolini of America.

So, all partisan rhetoric aside, regardless of your political opinion, is what is quoted in whole above the product of a rational mind? I don’t think so…

If this or something similar was written of George Bush in 2008 I admit I would have been amused and maybe a little tempted to agree, but since this post is only eight months into the Obama Administration and Obama has expressly promoted a weak, non-radical, bi-partisan, broadly right-leaning centrist approach to his politics(which I despise by the way) and has acted in this manner consistently, to agree, in light of the obvious evidence, would be to admit a metal defect, or at least show a denial complex.

I’m no Obama fan, but truth does not vary with political opinion, and as an atheist and a rationalist, the truth is my quest to forever be searching for, regardless of whether I like it or not.