Under God or Under Darwin?

Having just finished teaching a mini course to year nines on origins, the whole thing about arguments of design, evolution etc has been quite uppermost in my mind of late. And then I've also been inducting year tens into the basics of Islam. So I simply had to note this article I found via Evolution News and Views.
Anyway, the intriguing thing here is summed up by this:

As the history of the cultural conflict between the modern West and Islam shows, ID can also be a bridge between these two civilizations. The first bricks of that bridge are now being laid in the Islamic world. In Turkey, the current debate over ID has attracted much attention in the Islamic media. Islamic newspapers are publishing translations of pieces by the leading figures of the ID movement, such as Michael J. Behe and Phillip E. Johnson. The Discovery Institute is praised in their news stories and depicted as the vanguard in the case for God, and President Bush's support for ID is gaining sympathy. For many decades the cultural debate in Turkey has been between secularists who quote modern Western sources and Muslims who quote traditional Islamic sources. Now, for the first time, Muslims are discovering that they share a common cause with the believers in the West. For the first time, the West appears to be the antidote to, not the source of, the materialist plague.

It's interesting to note too that ID is being misdescribed by atheist opponents by being lumped in with creationism and that a lot of the UK press seem to have been taken in by that piece of propaganda.

Discovery Institute - Article Database - Under God or Under Darwin?
Filed in: evolution, intelligent_design, Islam, science, culture, religion

Study Of Language Use In Children Suggests Sex Influences How Brain Processes Words

Gender and thinking skills could be linked, it seems. Keep an eye on this, it could be really important.

This study shows that differences between males and females may be an important factor in these cognitive processes,” said the lead author, Michael Ullman, PhD, professor of neuroscience, psychology, neurology and linguistics. He added that since the brain systems tested in this study are responsible for more than just language use, the study supports the notion that “men and women may tend to process various skills differently from one another.” One potential underlying reason, suggested by other research, is that the hormone estrogen, found primarily in females, affects brain processing

As long as we don't start using differences as a method of negatively evaluating one another on the basis of gender. Big ask I know but important.
Oh, and while we're on that, and men do multi-task, they just prefer to do it with a different set of tasks than women.
ScienceDaily: Study Of Language Use In Children Suggests Sex Influences How Brain Processes Words: Filed in: language, brain, gender, acquisition

Violent Video Games Leave Teenagers Emotionally Aroused

This may be the start of scientific backing for what many of us instinctively feel; that it is hard to think that game-related arousal does not have knock-on effects.

Our study suggests that playing a certain type of violent video game may have different short-term effects on brain function than playing a nonviolent--but exciting--game

However, we should be careful: the previous more sociological studies are not discounted, there is clearly no simple one-to-one link which would mean one could say that more video gaming yields more violence. That is clearly not the case in simple terms. What one probably can say is that video-gaming with violent games leads to certain kinds of arousal that in certain conditions may increase the likelihood of violent or inappropriate behaviour ... though that is to run ahead of the evidence, it would be a fair hypothesis, I think. It does seem counter-intuitive to say that there is no effect at all or to deny that what one fills ones thinking with does not have knock-on effects. It's just that those effects are more subtle and long term than cruder studies can pick up.
ScienceDaily: Violent Video Games Leave Teenagers Emotionally Aroused: Filed in: gaming, video, violence, emotion, brain, activity, arousal

Way to go UK!?

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Green backs:

The annual survey of ethical spending in the UK, compiled by the Co-operative Bank, shows a record level of £29.4bn. This means that green spending has overtaken the £28bn spent on alcohol and cigarettes (excluding pubs). ... In the same survey two years ago, shoppers said they were withholding £2.58bn worth of business from firms with which they disagreed.

Of course with relative success comes the danger of greenwashing and misleading advertising to catch the bandwagon ... but sufficient to the day ...
Filed in: consumerism, ethics, fair_trade, environment, UK, spending

Have You Wrestled With A Paradox Today?

Here's a thought: if as Roger Von Oech says,

the very act of "seeing the paradox" — the
ability to entertain two contradictory ideas at the same time — lies at the heart of creative thinking

then a Christian faith is potentially a very creative 'thing' to have...
I see that as a commendation of religious education in schools ...
Creative Think: Have You Wrestled With A Paradox Today?

Filed in: paradoxes, thinking, skills

Partners helping men retrain as teachers

Well, this was bound to get my attention; after all, at a headline level it applies to me.

Mike Watkins, the director of teacher recruitment at the TDA, said: "Career changers are now fuelling the ranks of teachers as never before, particularly in areas where we have a high need, such as maths and science.
"This research confirms that professional men are re-evaluating what they want from a career after a few years of working life. It's evident that the appeal of office life can wear thin and that men are looking for more than just a high salary - they want to make use of their skills.
"When you consider these factors, it's easy to see why teaching is the top choice for a career change. As well as attractive financial and lifestyle benefits, working with children creates a dynamic, vibrant environment in which no two days are the same."

Now I do have to say that out of just over a hundred training with me, only about a dozen are over 30, I would guess. So while I'm not able to say that I can see huge numbers responding in this way, I do take heart that mere monetary profit is having this kind of effect.
Now as to that "working with children..." bit. Hmm depends on whether you've had certain classes I could name but won't... But then there are the classes that make it true and worthwhile.
Partners helping men retrain as teachers, survey shows | Special Reports | EducationGuardian.co.uk: Filed in: career, teaching, change, rewards, skills

Corruption, violence and vice have triumphed in Putin's Russia

I must admit that until the last couple of weeks I had not been paying much attention to Russia. But to read this was chilling.

It is possible to believe, as I do, that Putin did not personally order the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, while regarding the Russian president as overlord of a culture which legitimised it. Putin cannot shrug off a simple truth about his society: his friends and supporters walk the streets in safety and wealth; his foes perish in horrible ways, with dismal frequency. The murder of one Russian journalist critical of his regime might be dismissed as mischance. The deaths of 20 mock Kremlin protestations of innocence.

Worth reading the article for some analysis of how things shape up with Russia in the picture. And while it's not surprising to read this,

At the heart of Putin's policies is a determination to restore the old Soviet Union's might and influence. It is hard to see how these would be exercised towards ends that the west would consider benign.

it is disturbing to see it spelled out in black and white by serious commentary.
The comments are interesting too ...
Corruption, violence and vice have triumphed in Putin's Russia | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited:Filed in: Russia, dissidents, journalists, kleptocracy, policy, culture

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to scrap the proposed introduction of ID cards.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to scrap the proposed introduction of ID cards.

Over 4,000 signitures and growing daily.
Join us.
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to scrap the proposed introduction of ID cards.
Filed in: ID_cards, UK, politics, refusal

Russia: a future less powerful?

I'd not really thought about it much before, but this is a provocative little reflection, containing this interesting possible prognostic:

On current trends, Russia is going away. Perhaps literally. The ongoing problem Europe faces is how to manage the transition. A decaying (nuclear) military infrastructure will be a feature. Migration will be a feature. Most people don’t want to live in criminal cultures, especially if the winters are more Canadian than Sicilian. Are we going to end up with a collection of Azerbaijans at the edge of Europe? (Azerbaijan is a country so corrupt and weak that the government lost its war to retain control of Nagorno-Karabakh and had to watch as Armenia helped itself to a few other bits of Azeri territory in the process). And I think what we saw in London last week was another (unpleasant) feature of the transition. Things are coming loose, but it could be much worse.

And I guess China and Iran are going to be interested in some of this too.
perfect.co.uk / Russia: probably smaller than you thought: Filed in: Russia, collapse, trends, future, break-up

Netherlands: another close election

Worth noting and thinking about

the Netherlands - goes to the polls and the result is indecisive, with no clear winner or obvious coalition emerging. ... we all expect fresh attacks on PR after this result. Such niceties as no British electoral reformer would recommend a Dutch-style national list system are likely to be forgotten by numbers of journalists and politicians alike. Nor are they going to remember that turnout was a staggering 80%.

While there may be some lengthy coalition negotiations to come, trying to seek some sort of consensus and shared way forward is surely better than if one party was allowed to govern on its own and manifestly against the wishes of the majority of the electorate.

Make My Vote Count: Netherlands: another close election: Filed in: PR, voting, coalitions, EU, turnout, Netherlands

Posada blog chain for Advent.

I've not had many to take up the offer so I'm flagging it up again. Here's the idea again. Maybe a bit more clearly.

A posada is the tradition of taking the figures of Mary and Joseph into homes for a night or two during Advent. As the figures are in a home there may be prayers and reflections as they enter and leave and the figures may be an occasion for devotions shared with friends, family and neighbours while they are in that home. They then move on to the next home that has volunteered to put them up for the night or two, and so on through Advent.

A Posada blog is an idea to do something analogous with blogging. So instead of the actual clay or wood or whatever figures of Mary and Joseph we have a picture. Instead of homes we have blogs. Instead of family prayers we have a blog posting.

So the idea is that on Advent Sunday, I would post a picture of Mary and Joseph and offer some reflections and/or prayers for the occasion as my posting.
The next day someone else would post that same picture [either by posting it anew or by linking back to the 'original' image I posted]
and offer their reflections and/or prayers, similarly.
They would also mention who is to post the following time
and leave a comment on my blog at my Advent Posada posting to give the address of their posting [this would have to be the permalink, not just the blog address]..

Then, hopefully, the next day someone else would
1) post the picture and make some prayerful reflection on their blog, and
2) make a mention of who is due to host the holy couple the following day
3) leave a comment at the previous day's posting with a link to their new posting . And
4) so on!
What should result is a chain of links as Mary and Joseph virtually move from blog to blog day by day.

What I need to know, then, is that there is an initial set of people willing to join the chain ... could this be you? If so, then please let me know so we can have an orderly transfer of the holy couple day by day. Oh, and then try to find other people too to join the chain ...

Fair trade; divided by a common longuage

I read the following and had an 'aha' moment.

You may not be aware of this, but the phrase “Fair Trade” has some baggage in the US. “Fair Trade” was the term that labor unions used to justify their support for higher tariffs, tighter quotas, and other measures against international trade. The point that they were making was that the US should not allow goods in from nations such as Japan that did not allow our companies access to their markets. Now as far as I can tell your version of “Fair Trade” does not include pressure for higher tariffs, but some of us Yanks might be confused and put off by the association.

The revelation for me was in relation to a web conversation a couple of years or so back where a USAmerican seemed quite hostile to the idea of fair trade even though it doesn't contradict any of the principles he had articulated until that point in relation to matters of trade and economics. Now I have an idea of what may have been in his head and why, if that is the case, he would have been really dismissive of the idea.
By the way the rest of the posts are useful to read too.
Mustard Seed Associates | MSA Forums: Filed in: USA, fair_trade, justice, fairness

'Locavores': new word on the block

You know how I love new minted words or at least new to me, that express newish ideas or insights or even help to push an insight into easier thinkability via the process that is sometimes known as 'chunking'. And this idea links to the idea of eating seasonally that I brought up a week or two back.

Every ingredient of every dish must have been grown and processed within a 100-mile radius of their house in Brooklyn, New York. That means not just no flour or oil, but no beer (plenty's brewed locally, but the barley and hops come from outside the radius), no cinnamon and no coffee.
I wanted to bring my favorite apple-buttermilk cobbler, but sugar was well outside the boundaries. Maple syrup might make a good substitute, but I couldn't find any in a week's hunting. Finally I abandoned the dessert idea and decided to go with a nice, hearty beef stew.
Hundreds of "locavores" scattered around the country are celebrating Thanksgiving this year with their own 100-mile meals.

Now to do this consistently would take some research and commitment. So perhaps doing either or both of eating seasonally and eating locally will need to be a gradualist thing and will almost certainly mean some habits will need to change. Then there's the issue of whether you decide to allow yourself a handful of treats like coffee ... meanwhile the idea of doing a locavore meal once in a while might be a good start. I'm certainly going to be thinking about it.
Wired News: 'Locavores' Dine on Regional Chow: Filed in: locavores, eating, food_miles, diet

Campaigns: Press for change: Tell Shell to obey the law

I write this post to encourage you, dear reader, to do likewise. Visit the site and write to Shell.
Here's my modded version of the email to Shell's honcho...
More than a year ago, the Nigerian Federal Hugh Court ordered Shell (Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, SPDC) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to stop immediately gas flaring in the Iwherekan community, Delta state. In the same ruling, gas flaring was said to be a "gross violation" of the rights to life and dignity guaranteed under the Constitution of Nigeria. It also said that gas flaring laws were "unconstitutional, null and void."

Shell has still taken no action despite a PR blitz to give the impression that it would. I gather that Shell's appeal for a more time resulted in a ruling to cease flaring in Iwherekan by April 2007, and to present a detailed plan to the court showing how this is going to be achieved. So far Shell has not produced this plan of action and given no indications that it is prepared to end gas flaring within the required time.

While it may be the case that the Nigerian government bears much responsibility for the poor environmental practice and associated human rights abuses in the Niger Delta, this does not excuse Shell. In July 2006 Shell announced a 36% increase in its profits on the previous year while the practice of gas flaring costs Nigeria about $2.5 billion annually.

Shell could invest some of its huge profits to bring a speedy closure to gas flaring in the Niger Delta, or even pull out of the joint venture. Either way, in the light of the financial facts just mentioned, a shortfall in financial contributions from the Nigerian government is simply not a good enough excuse to carry on flaring gas.

I am concerned that Shell's behaviour in court is reflective of a more general attitude of indifference to the plight of the communities in the Niger Delta who continue to suffer so much as a result of gas flaring. I would be very grateful if you could respond to this letter by explaining how you intend to end gas flaring in Iwherekan by April 2007 as required by the Nigerian Federal High Court.


Friends of the Earth: Campaigns: Corporates: Press for change: Tell Shell to obey the law: Thank you for taking part in this action

Filed in: Shell, campaign, gas-flaring, Nigeria, FoE

ID cards in parliament

Thanks to a SNP MP (Member for Dundee, East Stewart Hosie), the government are still being, rightly I think, hounded about their ID card proposals; all good points here.

The key home affairs issue, however, will be identity cards. I will not rehearse all the arguments about the Government's various failures to prove any of the stated justifications, but I want to speak briefly about the cost. Let us remember that the estimate of�5.4 billion is merely for the Home Office to issue the ID cards and passports. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan) told me in response to a question:
"This does not include the cost falling to other organisations using ID cards to verify identities."—[ Official Report,7 November 2006; Vol. 451, c. 1372W.]
Therefore, it does not include the cost to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, local authorities, the police or the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, and it includes no cost whatsoever to the private sector. She claimed in the same answer that the private sector might save upwards of �320 million a year because of the introduction of ID cards, but I am certain that the costs will outweigh that saving.

There are now 1 million point-of-sale systems in the UK. According to the Government's regulatory impact assessment, republished in the London School of Economics report on the identity project, there will be a cost of between �250 and �750 per scanner. Using a mid-point of �500, it would cost �500 million simply to have an ID card scanner at each point of sale. The LSE report went on to say that the cost of a reliable and robust system would be between �3,000 and �4,000 a unit, before the inclusion of the communications lines and the recurring costs of the proper software and licences. With the training, support, updates, maintenance and all the associated sundries, it is likely that the private sector cost, for an annual saving of �321 million, will be in excess of �3 billion or �4 billion over 10 years.

The Under-Secretary raised a variety of other issues. She suggested that the costs would be dependent on how any organisation did its checking. That is ludicrous, because the card must be checked against the central register. The person's biometric details must be scanned and checked against the register and the person must be checked against the card. Any break in that chain makes the whole thing utterly meaningless. The impression was given that there was a cheap and cheerful checking solution. There is not: there is either the full cost and the full check, or the whole system is pointless.

See whether you think the response cuts it.
Home Affairs and Transport: 23 Nov 2006: House of Commons debates (TheyWorkForYou.com): Filed in: ID_cards, UK, costs, data, sales, crime

Ecoengineering?

He may have a point...

Smart people finally convinced us that we need to stop burning fossil fuels. Let's do that. But because what has already been set in motion tends to stay in motion, we need a well-researched, measured plan to get us (or, more realistically, our grandchildren) out of this mess. The real worst-case scenario is some kind of Bruce Willis-movie scheme deployed at the eleventh hour, after the climate shift has already hit the fan.

See what you think.
Wired 14.12: START: Filed in: climate, engineering, CO2

Schools failing to spot classroom talent

Writing as a parent of children identified as "gifted and talented" and once having been so identified myself, this is an area that really interests me as a novice teacher. People have been talking about this for about 30 years and I feel I'm only now seeing it begin to be taken seriously at a national level. Adonis is right in what he is quoted as saying here.

Lord Adonis said it was "a terrible waste and all our educational policies are intended to put an end to this failure". Gifted children must not be left to their own devices and required just as much support as other pupils, especially those from backgrounds with low educational aspirations. "No child should ever feel isolated because their classmates might regard enthusiasm for learning as 'uncool'," he said.

In reality this is yet another driver really crying out for, in my view, a more radical overhaul of education towards personalised learning and replacing the whole concept of 'teacher' as we tend to define it now in popular culture with 'learning facilitators. It will take a radical change also in what society looks for in an education 'system', but we already know that education is really more than qualifications; we're just too scared as a nation to act on that knowledge. So I guess that 'softly, softly' is the name of the game and another generation is sacrificed to untenable models of learning.

Of course, the real interesting thing for me is also how this pans out when you transfer the insights into the domain called 'church' ... What is the real meaning of 'teacher' in those new testament passages ... I will be looking out for more information on that question over the next year or so. Let me know if you have some interesting things to follow that question/issue up with.

Schools failing to spot classroom talent, says Adonis | News crumb | EducationGuardian.co.uk: Filed in: gifted, children, education, personalised, learning

GPs unhappy with national database

British GP's apparently covet the potential gains of electronically sharing patient details but seem very concerned that the system would be hacked and so would go as far as to resist putting patient records onto a national database. This has the potential to really concentrate minds on the problems of NIR ...
GPs revolt over patient files privacy | Health | SocietyGuardian.co.uk

Filed in: ID_cards, UK, biometrics, doctors, NHS

�7bn nuclear fusion project launched in France | Science | Guardian Unlimited

I did feel that the BBC's television coverage of this was possibly a bit 'off' this morning as they showed protestors against plutonium which I understood is not really an issue with fusion.

The aim is to promote the power of fusion, which reproduces the sun's power source, producing no greenhouse gas emissions and only low levels of radioactive waste.

In fact I was surprised to discover that there is any appreciable radioactive waste at all. All of which we have to say 'likely' to because, of course, they haven't yet got the process to go into power profit.
�7bn nuclear fusion project launched in France | Science | Guardian Unlimited:
Filed in: fusion, power, generation, EU, nuclear

Palestinians use human shield to halt Israeli air strike on militants' homes

This is worth noting for those debates when people poo-poo non-violent resistance.

In the first incident of its kind, hundreds of neighbours surrounded the home of Mohammed Baroud and climbed on its roof after he received a call from the Israeli army informing him he had 30 minutes to vacate his home before it was destroyed by missiles.
The Israeli airforce called off its strike because of the risk of killing a large number of civilians.

It means of its kind in the Palestinian situation, because actually this kind of action has a good track record. Note that it is not without it's risks, but neither is the alternative.
Palestinians use human shield to halt Israeli air strike on militants' homes | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited:
Filed in: non-violence, Palestine, Israel, human-shield

Saddam trial 'fundamentally unfair'

You did know that Saddam Hussein's sentence was subject to appeal, didn't you? It's just that I get a lot of kids at school asking when they're going to hang him ... Anyway, I think that there is the potential for a move to mistrial. Just read the article.

Saddam trial 'fundamentally unfair' | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited
Filed in: Iraq, justice, Saddam_Hussein, trial

Angry students demand value for fee money

I thought that this was soooo interesting, not only because it shows the power of the way that resourcing and financial regimes have to alter cultural expectations, but also because the metaphor/model at the end is rather like what schools may be heading towards under the most interesting and (I think) helpful and hopeful ideas for the development of education based on a learning facilitation approach rather than a 'fill 'em up' approach.

Baroness Ruth Deech, the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, ... Going to university, she added, was not like buying a package holiday. 'It is more like joining a gym,' she said. 'You pay money and they provide the facilities and trainers. Obviously they have to meet the quality promised, but after that it's up to you. It is a participative process.'

Interesting times ahead.
Angry students demand value for fee money | UK News | The Observer: Filed in: education, UK, schools, universities, consumerism, fees

Brain, Behavior May Have Changed As Social Insect Colonies Evolved

Some research into social insects has shown up some potentially very interesting results in terms of the way that brain development seems to relate to the kind of insect society studied.

it has implications for human society because the evolution of our own society may affect brain development. Social behavior places pretty heavy demands on the human brain

ScienceDaily: Brain, Behavior May Have Changed As Social Insect Colonies Evolved:
Filed in: social, development, insects, brain, evolution, group

Fossil Fuel Consumption and its Implications

The availability of energy in our current global framework relies extensively on the availability of fossil fuels: the oil, natural gas, and coal that together constitute 80 percent of global energy consumption.

Here are the latest figures about it.

October 2006 Monthly Update: Fossil Fuel Consumption and its Implications | EarthTrends

Filed in: fossil_fuel, consumption, oil, gas, coal, global, energy, CO2

Cracked it! ID chips are insecure

It's not the first time I've highlighted the issue, but now we have a report to tell us just how easy it is. This is the same technology they're proposing putting in ID cards. And this is what can happen.

I am sitting with my scary computer man and we have just sucked out all the supposedly secure data and biometric information from three new passports and displayed it all on a laptop computer. ... The Home Office has adopted a very high encryption technology called 3DES - that is, to a military-level data-encryption standard times three. So they are using strong cryptography to prevent conversations between the passport and the reader being eavesdropped, but they are then breaking one of the fundamental principles of encryption by using non-secret information actually published in the passport to create a 'secret key'. That is the equivalent of installing a solid steel front door to your house and then putting the key under the mat.

Now the home office claims that the info would be no use to a criminal without the rest of the actual passport. However, here's the killer scenario,

Given the results of the Westminster study, if a terrorist bore a slight resemblance to you - and grew a beard, perhaps - he would have a good chance of getting through a border. Because his chip is cloned, with the necessary digital signatures, and because you have not reported your passport stolen - you still have it! - his machine-readable travel document will get him wherever he wants to go, using your identity.

The article also gives a resume of why we have arrived at this pass and a likely scenario for actual passport cloning.
As I said previously; a faraday cage is needed for keeping the thing on your person or even in luggag. I gather that a LibDem spokesperson has actually called on the government to issue faraday cage passport holders to all recipients of new passports.
Cracked it! | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited: Filed in: UK, passports, ID_cards, RFID

Nuclear generation chief quits at British Energy | | Guardian Unlimited Business

Ready for next time someone in the nuclear industry tries to diss wind power or some other renewables over the issue of intermittancy, bookmark this article which reminds us only too graphically and worryingly of the intermittancy of nuclear power caused by technical issues and high costs bearing down on infrastructure. Here's a telling quote.

We remain focused on our strategy to improve the long term reliability and output of our power stations and are encouraged with certain areas of performance improvement.

Nuclear generation chief quits at British Energy | | Guardian Unlimited Business: Filed in: nuclear_power, CO2, environment, costs, energy, UK, policy

How to learn from your mistakes - scottberkun.com

Just read a good/helpful article sent to my cohort by our subject tutor at Uni while we are on diagnostic teaching practice. I found it a good summary of a number of things that either I kind of knew already or which are good sensible observational advice. I found the last two particularly helpful, though. I really think that there is a good bit of wisdom in the idea of working a mistake over until you laugh at it. When you are at that point you have really detached it from your ego and grown past it. It is not, of course, the same kind of detachment from ego that is implied in refusing to take responsibility, for it has started with accepting responsibility. The refusal to accept responsibility is usually an ego defence borne of a suspicion of potential responsibility but the acknowledgement of the mistake is short-circuited by it being interpreted as a personal flaw and failing which is avoided because it threatens self- or other-esteem.

And that last checkslist item is so true: the desire not to repeat can actually be disabling. I would add that you are really over it when you don't over-compensate either. Anyway, here's the checklist.

The learning from mistakes checklist
* Accepting responsibility makes learning possible.
* Don’t equate making mistakes with being a mistake.
* You can’t change mistakes, but you can choose how to respond to them.
* Growth starts when you can see room for improvement.
* Work to understand why it happened and what the factors were.
* What information could have avoided the mistake?
* What small mistakes, in sequence, contributed to the bigger mistake?
* Are there alternatives you should have considered but did not?
* What kinds of changes are required to avoid making this mistake again?What kinds of change are difficult for you?
* How do you think you behavior should/would change in you were in a similar situation again?
* Work to understand the mistake until you can make fun of it (or not want to kill others that make fun).
* Don’t over-compensate: the next situation won’t be the same as the last.

How to learn from your mistakes - scottberkun.com: Filed in: learning, mistakes, coaching, responsibility, personal_growth

Ontological argument redivivus

You know, this article is the first I've come across that goes anyway to persuading me that Anselm's ontological argument is anything more than a conjuring trick with semantics. Here's the nub of the helpful restatement.

Contra Dawkins, the ontological argument can be expressed as a logically valid syllogism:
Premise 1: By definition, if it is possible that God exists, then God exists

Premise 2: It is possible that God exists

Conclusion: Therefore, God exists

In fact it may also help to see it from the other side, so to speak:

to deny the existence of God one does have to make the claim that God's existence is logically impossible, because one cannot coherently claim that God fails to exist despite being logically possible. This seems to be a price that many non-theists are willing to pay, despite the fact that no independent argument has ever shown the concept of God to be incoherent.

I can see this being something to which I return for RE teaching.

Culture Watch - Exploring the message behind the media: Filed in: philosophy, God, existence, ontological_argument, logic

Psychologist Produces The First-ever 'World Map Of Happiness'

The 20 happiest nations in the World are:
1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada
11. Ireland
12. Luxembourg
13. Costa Rica
14. Malta
15. The Netherlands
16. Antigua and Barbuda
17. Malaysia
18. New Zealand
19. Norway
20. The Seychelles
Other notable results include:
23. USA
35. Germany
41. UK
62. France
82. China
90. Japan
125. India
167. Russia
The three least happy countries were:
176. Democratic Republic of the Congo
177. Zimbabwe
178. Burundi

Worth reading the article to put results into context.

ScienceDaily: Psychologist Produces The First-ever 'World Map Of Happiness': Filed in: happiness, national, materialism, wellbeing

Passport IT troubles bode ill for ID cards - 14/Nov/2006 - ComputerWeekly.com

This says it all, really.

the Identity and Passport Service is running more than a year behind schedule on an online passport system that is far simpler than the ID cards scheme and costs less than one hundredth of its price.

The words 'white elephant' come to mind. As does 'waste of taxpayers' money'.
Passport IT troubles bode ill for ID cards - 14/Nov/2006 - ComputerWeekly.com:Filed in: ID_cards, UK, costs, data

Pope calls meeting on married priests

But before you get exciting at the prospect of immanent change ...

It made clear that Pope Benedict XVI had not called the meeting intending to make significant changes but to discuss the issue in general and some circumstances in particular. “The meeting was called because of what happened with Mgr Milingo,” the Vatican said, “but they will also discuss the situation of priests who have left and who want to come back.”

Probably that means using the exception to the celibacy canon (it's not a doctrine folks, just a rule) that allows eastern Uniate Roman Catholics [Maronites and the like] and former Anglican priests who 'pope' over to Rome to cover some other pastoral conditions. It is not normal for married former-Anglican-now-ordained-Roman-Catholics to be permitted to serve as parish priest but to exercise their priesthood in non-parochial situations like school chaplaincies. I would expect a similar ruling to emerge.
Still, chipping away, chipping away...
Pope calls meeting on married priests - World - Times Online: Filed in: priest, marriage, RomanCatholic, church, celibacy

'The government told us to do it'

This is a bit of a hoot. Several reporters visit supermarkets to experiment with removing excess packaging in order to leave it at the checkout counter as per government ministerial recommendations. Unsurprisingly, the reaction isn't as green and rosy as the supermarket PR would have had us believe. Read it, it's great fun.
'The government told us to do it' | Waste and pollution | Guardian Unlimited Environment
Filed in: packaging, environment, supermarkets

Dark chocolate for a healthy heart

I am one of those for whom this is doubly good news, as there has just been...

published the results of what is believed to be the first biochemical analysis to explain why eating a small amount every day can almost halve the risk of heart attack death in some men and women by decreasing the tendency of platelets to clot in narrow blood vessels.

Dark chocolate for a healthy heart - study | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited: Filed in: chocolate, heart, biochemistry, coronary

Identity Cards: the cost-benefit analysis according to HM gov.

Interesting little bit of business in parliament about ID cards. Joan Ryan, MP noted:

The cost of issuing passports and ID cards, including set up costs, is estimated to be £5.4 billion in the 10 years from October 2006. This does not include costs falling to other organisations using ID cards to verify identities. The decision to use ID cards is for each organisation, based on its assessment of the benefits and costs for its particular business. Costs will depend on the types of identity check that each organisation wishes to make and the infrastructure it already has in place or plans to put in place to use identity verification services.
The total quantifiable financial benefits of the scheme once it is fully rolled out that can currently be estimated range from £1 billion to £1.7 billion per annum. The benefits arising from reduced fraud are estimated to be in the range of £550 million to £980 million per annum, of which benefits to private sector organisations are estimated to be in the range of £321 million to £518 million per annum.

Clearly she's hinting that there will be net savings by the reduction of fraud. All well and good on the basis of the kind of fraud they are estimating for. However, what isn't accounted for is the kind of fraud that will be opened up by the cards and the NIR -because that would be admitting that there may be some and of course it is politically 'inexpedient' to make that admission.

And then there's the cost of time for the constant production of documents -or the arguments over ones right not to produce them on this occasion- and the inevitable court time and expense in claims and counter-claims of abuse of authority, discrimination etc over the actual practice of the use of cards given that it will be petty, power-tripping officialdom who will be doing the 'asking'....


Identity Cards: 7 Nov 2006: Written answers (TheyWorkForYou.com)

Filed in: ID_cards, UK, costs, data, crime

want not waste not

I'm very seriously considering doing this. I already try to take plastic bags with me so that I don't get more. But, as my daughter was saying the other day, do they really need to put things in plastic, then cardboard, then more plastic ...

Shoppers were urged yesterday to take direct action to force supermarkets to cut the excessive and wasteful packaging that goes direct from the shop shelf to the household bin. The environment minister Ben Bradshaw advised food shoppers to leave excessive wrapping at the tills and to report the stores to trading standards in an attempt to cut the amount of unnecessary plastic sent to landfill sites.

I guess that if supermarkets know that they will have to use staff time on clearing up extra packaging, that may help to concentrate minds, but it will take some concerted consumer action to become a big enough nuisance. But I'm willing to do my bit, how about you?


Technorati Tags: packaging, consumer, supermarkets

Biometric ID cards an insecure menace, says EU ID outfit | The Register

More bad news for Tony's pet project.

The EU-funded FIDIS (Future of Identity in the Information Society) project has warned that implementation of the current generation of biometric travel ID will dramatically decrease security and privacy, and increase the risk of identity theft.

Just give it up mate; it just isn't going to do what you say it is.
Biometric ID cards an insecure menace, says EU ID outfit | The Register:
Filed in: ID, ID_cards, UK, biometrics, weakness, flawed

Renwables and world demand

A useful article about feasibilities of renewables to meet energy demand...
Climate Change Action
Filed in: renewables, carbon, demand, world

Memory is All In The Packaging

The upshot is, not surprisingly that

“You can’t get out of memory what you didn’t put into it. It is not possible to remember things later if you didn’t pay attention to them in the first place.”

What this supports, I think, is that the idea of sharing the learning objectives in a learning situation is helpful because it helps to direct attention and primes the relevant mechanisms for recall.
ScienceDaily: Memories: It's All In The Packaging, Scientists Say: Filed in: memory, brain, attention, learning, recall

Social exclusion: causing these little ones to sin

This study seems to support the contention that a socially inclusive learning environment improves learning.

Researchers have known for a long time that there is a link between social exclusion and the failure of self-control. ...
The new study, however, is the first to use MEG to show that there are actual changes inside the brain when test subjects are manipulated to feel socially excluded.... MEG data revealed that those in the social-exclusion group had clear differences in activity in the brain's occipital, parietal and prefrontal cortex regions. Those in the social-exclusion group also performed more poorly on the math questions. The inference is that social exclusion actually affects the brain's neural circuitry.

What is further important about this study's results has implications for church and society too:

The study may indicate why those who are never picked for athletic teams in pickup games tend to stay in that group and why those socially excluded sometimes react with inappropriate behavior or even violence.... The new research, however, shows that those who are socially excluded are more apt to show self-control difficulties, and might even wind up "all by myself."

In other words, moral behaviour is made more likely by an inclusive community and society. It also has implications for the way that we make sure that those in leadership are supported, I would suggest. Leaders can often end up isolated and beleaguered particularly in difficult situations. Lack of support seems likely, to me, to increase the likelihood of lack of self-control surfacing in inappropriate anger, sexual temptation, substance abuse and so forth.

Politically, of course, it starts to undermine the right's insistance on personal responsibility to the exclusion of the wider social picture of poverty, deprivation etc.


Technorati Tags: brain, inclusion, social, behaviour, stress, education, research, pedagogy

Some links for peace on Remembrance Sunday

One of my pet peeves is that for all the rhetoric of ethical talk about peace and war, the idea of going to war as a last resort and within certain conditions [and since I have had to be teaching just war theory recently it is in my mind] is really just that: rhetoric. If we were really serious about wars not happening and only as a last resort, we would be spending more money and effort on peacebuilding which is far more effective and usually far cheaper. We would consider those who lose life in efforts at reconciliation as heroes and erect statues of them and name streets after them rather than after generals. But the truth of the matter is that we are lazy and that warfare is embedded culturally with plenty of supporting myths and enough honoured dead to make alternatives seem like some kind of betrayal.

So, on what is in Britain Remembrance Sunday when all sorts of ceremonies are taking place to honour those whose lives we lost fighting for their country; being killed even while killing or attempting to kill others, I offer a set of links witnessing to a better way of not reacting with a resort to war but proacting with making the conditions for peace with justice.
The UN Building a Culture of Peace project is worth noting.
White poppies supporting a culture of peace (a UN project).
This site sets out its stall thus;

building a culture of peace should be a priority and a part of this process is both to question and to challenge our easy acquiescence in a culture of violence

and offers educational resources to that end.
There's the International Fellowship of Reconciliation; a Christian peace organisation built on the idea that our commonality in Christ transcends nationality. And the homebrewed Brit version is here. Angilcans might like to know about the APF.
And Roman Catholics have Pax Christi to relate to.

Technorati Tags: peace, peacebuilding, education, organisations, Christian

Blog Posada for 2006

I had an idea this morning while waiting for a haircut in the barber's. Why not have a blog posada this Advent? What would be involved would be that each day of Advent someone would upload or link to the nativity image and write a blog entry about or reflecting on or inspired by 'hosting' Mary and Joseph on the way to the Nativity shed. So I would start off on Advent Sunday, then someone else would 'take' the image from my blog and write their entry on the Monday. Someone else would then 'take' the image on Tuesday and write their piece, and so on through Advent.

Or, to put it another way: The idea is to have a chain of comments/reflections. One each day. The common thread would be that the blog entry would have the Posada picture in the entry, in that way the Mary and Joseph figures would be passed visually from 'host' to 'host' rather like the physical posadas where the crib figures pass from household to household. In the blog entries we would add our own prayers or meditations in a similar way to how each household in a posada would have their own devotions with the figures.

I'm hoping that the figures we would use would link back to an 'original' image which I would be hosting [in the internet sense of the term this time] probably on blogger.

So now we need to think how to administer this. What I propose is that those who wish to do a posada blog entry with the Mary and Joseph picture after me, put a comment to this posting saying that you would like to do so. I suggest that we do it sequentially, first comment for Monday, second for Tuesday and so forth.

I'd also encourage you then to recruit someone else so that we don't end up with the holy couple stranded on one blog! Please, also, once you've got a web-address/ permalink for your Posada blog entry;

1. link it back to the previous day or to my Advent Sunday posting and
2. leave a comment with the link.

Hopefully that way all the postings get linked to each other somehow.

Here's where the original idea came from for me.

What is it all about? During the evenings leading up to Christmas Day, 'nativity sets' of Joseph and Mary travel on a roster basis visiting a different family or place every night. The night Mary and Joseph 'stay' provides a great opportunity to invite guests around to share together the true meaning of Christmas with a prayer evening or Christmas carolling, for example.

Technorati Tags: Posada, blogging, grid, Advent, reflection, 2006

Health and emotional wellbeing

I suspect that this is linked to the way that religious people tend to show up in studies as healthier and longer lived.

people who are happy, lively, calm or exhibit other positive emotions are less likely to become ill when they are exposed to a cold virus than those who report few of these emotions. In that study, Cohen found that when they do come down with a cold, happy people report fewer symptoms than would be expected from objective measures of their illness.

One thing in a more general way that religious practice seems to do is help people to be

happy, lively, calm or [to] exhibit other positive emotions

...

Technorati Tags: psychology, health, religion, calm,

Subliminal learning update

I think that this means, among other things, that we do well to pay attention to the environment in which learning is going on. This applies to classrooms as well as to churches.

The researchers' initial experiments showed that presenting subliminal words identical to the target word produced a "priming" effect in which subjects responded faster on the lexical or pronunciation tasks.

Multimedia learning and worship are likely to help people by reinforcing, even if subconsciously, the main messages. This also means that we should pay attention to potential negating messages in the environment ...

See here for the full article.

Technorati Tags: psychology, learning, subliminal

Here’s the Plan

Here is a plan for drastic but affordable action the government could take. It goes much further than the proposals discussed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown yesterday, for the reason that this is what the science demands.

More here Monbiot.com � Here’s the Plan:
Filed in: environment, ecology, capitalism, UK, politics, green

Blair dismisses civil rights argument against ID cards

Tony's either being disengenuous, naive or deliberately misleading:

Mr Blair also stressed the personal benefit of having a national ID card, saying it would do away with the need to produce other documents for the purpose of proving one's identity. He claimed that because most citizens provided personal information to private companies on a daily basis he did not think "the civil liberties argument carries much weight".

Yes, sell them on about the only plus point they have but then make a comparison that does not really apply. Yes, I will provide data to a private company because it is limited, for a particular purpose and covered by data protection legislation. I won't provide information to the proposed national identity register because it is not limited, not covered by data protection, likely to be shared with all sorts of agencies and partially made available to unspecified private companies, it is likely to be a hackers' honeypot and has the potential to seriously erode our civil liberties. There is a difference between voluntarily sharing some information with private companies limited by law, and being forced to supply rather important data with insecure government agencies who don't appear to be limited by data protection legislation.

The ease of proving identity is one thing, the flip side is that ease translates into increase in requests, translates into potential tracking of movements and behaviour, translates into more attraction to commercial and criminal interests, translates to more pressure on petty official [always the achilles heel of any beaurocratic system] to provide information for a 'consideration' or clever ways to beat the system. Also more data-interrogation points means more hackable or crackable points. We know fingerprints can be copied to fool machine readers. It is likely that iris scans will be too and that is leaving out the misreadings leading to misidentification. Common usage means that the number of people experiencing misidentification will grow and that will likely be seriously inconvenient or lead to widespread mistrust which will undermine the system, or both. In a centralised system which purports legally to be your sole means of proof of identity, the possibility of becoming a non-person or to be held falsely grows.

The convenience Mr. Blair touts would turn out to be very expensive; rather like the convenience of flying cheaply but having to live your old age in a world made unsafe by climate change...

as technology writer Wendy Grossman recently put it, it is one thing to be burgled, quite another to be required to leave the burglar a key.

Blair dismisses civil rights argument against ID cards | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics: Filed in: ID_cards, UK, government, IT

Heh heh heh

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, linuk, Windows, Bill_Gates

Solar Powers Up, Sans Silicon

The future of photovoltaics is probably small distributed devices or thin stuff that goes on other surfaces and powers local devices...
Wired News: Solar Powers Up, Sans Silicon
Filed in: solar, plastic, printing, power, devices

Current trickle to tickle memory

I can see it now; the latest products to be sold for the early adopter market in school helps ...

Scientists ... have found that mild electrical stimulation at the right frequency improved people's ability to remember words on waking up.

. EST while you sleep. Might be more effective than those voices under the pillow feeding you info to speak French in three weeks without trying. HTT the Guardian

Technorati Tags: brain, memory, electricity,

Dawkins' unrebuttable argument rebutted

I found this a handy synopsis and collecting of the reviews of Dawkins' God Delusion book. There's a good section on the anthropic principle as well as

Dawkins' argument appears to be that:

1. Once you posit one designer to explain organized complexity you have to posit an infinite regress of designers (because any designer capable of designing anything would necessarily demand the same kind of explanation in its own right, and so on),
2. but there cannot be an infinite regress of designers,
3. therefore one cannot rationally posit a designer in the first place.

Being consistent, one must of course make the same objection to the design inference in every case, including the cases that Dawkins himself admits are legitimate (such as the design inference from a sequence of prime numbers in a radio signal). The obvious legitimacy of design inferences in some cases constitutes an ad absurdum argument against the soundness of the above, logically valid argument. Dawkins rejects the plausibility of explanations framed in terms of an infinite regress, and objects to the design inference using a premise that implies the necessity of just such an infinite regress of explanations in all cases, despite the fact that he accepts the design inference in some cases. He can't have it both ways. Unless Dawkins is prepared to eliminate design inferences altogether, he must reject the 'who designed the designer' objection as unsound. Since the argument is logically valid, he can do this either by embracing explanations framed in terms of an infinite regress (an option frowned upon by most philosophers), or by rejecting the premise that once you posit one designer you have to posit an infinite regress of designers.

The reviewer has their own bit of fun too:

I recommend that believers and non-believers alike apply their 'native intelligence' to reading The God Delusion. However, I suggest doing so with help from a list of logical fallacies. Readers can then enjoy a stimulating game of 'I Spy'. In particular, look out for examples of: self-contradiction, begging the question, attacking a straw man, data picking, wishful thinking, appeal to ridicule and various ad hominim attacks from simple name-calling to 'poisoning the well.' Blowing away houses made from philosophical straw is a praiseworthy endeavour; but Dawkins' frequent substitution of straw houses for the real thing means that his critique of religion has more puff than bite.

In other words; it's only convincing if you're already on board.

Culture Watch - Exploring the message behind the media
Filed in: Dawkins, God, atheism, review, delusion

Fathers, Child Language Development and parenthood

Hmm, does this mean that it really is better, other things being equal, to have two parents, one of each sex?

The children whose fathers used more diverse vocabularies had greater language development when they were tested one year later. However, the mothers' vocabulary did not significantly affect a child's language skills.

ScienceDaily: Fathers Influence Child Language Development More Than Mothers: Filed in: children, development, language, linguistics, fathers, parenting, vocabulary

CyberFall

Now I like this analogy/metaphor for fallen humanity:

The computers immediately began to function badly and showed faulty coordination between them. Internal error messages began to pop up and processes were initiated to try and compensate, but soon the pattern of the software began to be a mess.

Right away the network administrator was alerted, and an order was issued to remedy the situation. Actually, all this was anticipated, and a preexisting plan went into effect. This would not be a simple task, however.

These computers were self replicating, and when the first new units appeared, there was some hope they would be free of the bug. But it turns out that from the onset they were not only off line, but they were loaded with malware passed on from the progenitors. Naturally, they quickly picked up malware of their own and each malfunctioned in its own particular way.

* so death spread to all men because all sinned (Rom. 5:12)

I like it because it actually incorporates a social dimension ...

Technorati Tags: Fall, sin, parable, cyber

Letter from Japan: Prosperity Within Limits

It would be good to read and ponder this article.
WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Letter from Japan: Prosperity Within Limits
I find it interesting that the graph there looks a bit like Japan aswell.

Filed in: Japan, footprint, sustainable, economy, prosperity

Letter from Japan: Prosperity Within Limits

It would be good to read and ponder this article.
WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Letter from Japan: Prosperity Within Limits
I find it interesting that the graph there looks a bit like Japan aswell.

Filed in: Japan, footprint, sustainable, economy, prosperity

Book publishing

Sometimes people wonder why I went the self publishing route. Well, I soon realised that in the Christian book market, if you aren't already a big name, the system is unlikely to work for you. Here's a comment from a non-Christian source which nevertheless holds true.

Here's how the system actually works: you write a book. Unless your publisher spends large sums of money on marketing and promotions to convince booksellers that you will be a blockbuster, your book remains obscure, often quickly sinking out of view, and few people have a chance to see it, let alone encounter the ideas it contains.

To see the truth of this, go to a Christian bookshop in the UK and find the bargain books section: Being published by the normal route is no guarantee of sales, and sales are not an indicator of quality as some of my bargains from the remainder shelves testify to the gems that get overlooked for whatever reason. It seemed to me that better would it be to publish on demand and sell the book myself as part of my own ministry. That way it stays current and I get more say in it's development. It also means that if it isn't an instant hit, there's less pulping going on, less trees are felled and the footprint of my work is lower.
Of course, you might want a copy yourself ...

Technorati Tags: book, selling, self-publishing

The Latest Fashion from London: Domestic Wind Turbines

Donnachadh McCarthy, who last November earned distinction as the first Londoner permitted to put a wind turbine on his house, is using the unit and other renewable energy devices to feed surplus power back to the grid. “I have exported 20 percent more electricity than I’ve imported this year,” he boasts, noting that his carbon footprint is less than half a ton, far below the European Union average of 8.5 metric tons.

The comments on the referred article are useful too.
WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: The Latest Fashion from London: Domestic Wind Turbines: Filed in: turbine, wind, electricity, London, UK, grid, export

Bilingualism could be good for you

"For decades, people have wondered whether the brains of bilingual people are different from monolinguals. People also worry that the brains of bilingual children are somehow negatively impacted by early experience with two languages," explains Petitto, who also holds the John Wentworth Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences. "The present findings are significant because they show that the brains of bilinguals and monolinguals are similar, and both process their individual languages in fundamentally similar ways. The one fascinating exception is that bilinguals appear to engage more of the neural landscape available for language processing than monolinguals, which is a very good thing."

The study doesn't encompass those of us who are not from birth bilingual but have learn other languages later. I'd be interested to see how that works out.

Technorati Tags: language, brain, bilingualism

Brains on tongues: glossolalic imaging

You'll know if you're a regular here that I am interested in glossolalia as a practioner, a theologian and a linguist. So no surprise that this caught my eye.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered decreased activity in the frontal lobes, an area of the brain associated with being in control of one's self. This pioneering study, involving functional imaging of the brain while subjects were speaking in tongues, ... shows us that these subjects are not in control of the usual language centers during this activity, which is consistent with their description of a lack of intentional control while speaking in tongues. also showed a number of other changes in the brain, including those areas involved in emotions and establishing our sense of self ...

I'm interested to know what the hypotheses might be about how the emotions and sense of self are involved. In the former case we need to be wary of reading "emotions" and perceiving that in a derogatory way. It is important to understand in what way emotional responses or underlays are present. After all, if I understand aright, rational thinking relies on emotions [didn't you ever notice how Spock and Data in Star Trek could never actually function as characters without emotional things going on? Even if only at the level of finding things interesting or curious which they went on to rationalise about]. So what kind of emotional collocation is involved and does it vary significantly with different kinds of subjects?

Then I'm curious about [another (complex of) emotion or feeling; involving attraction, puzzlement and a desire to understand?] how the sense of self is involved and how far it is impacted by the religious environment and how far by the practice itself...


Technorati Tags: glossolalia, tongues_speaking, brain, science, mental, religion,

The perils of 'holiness'

I feel sad, but unsurprised that an Evangelical denomination has expelled a church for its outreach to pagans.

“It was a little bit like an Inquisition. … It kind of escalated to, ‘How can you be friends with witches?’”
Wyman, who was accompanied by three others from the Salem church, said, “The four of us kind of looked at each other and (thought), ‘We live in Salem. How could you not?’”

The response says it all. I am beginning to understand ever more fully why it could be that John the evangelist is said towards the end of his life to repeat more and more, "Love one another". There is a wisdom-skill to learning the balance between thinking clearly and orthodoxly about life and yet remaining loving especially to those who disagree (is that not implicated as a milder version of loving ones enemies?). I am increasingly thinking that initial discipleship needs to be introducing some practical examples and methodologies for loving the other and respecting other peoples' life experience and being patient with God being patient with others. Perhaps then we can help stem the institutionalisation of the exclusive-fanatical versions of Christian faith which seem mostly to be about basically adolescent-style impulses around self-definitions; boundary maintainance and all.

I'm becoming more interested to wonder about Paul's 15 years out of the limelight ...

Technorati Tags: Evangelical, Pagan, Salem, boundary, exclusion

It all depends on what question you ask ...

Another example of how the question can make interesting differences to the apparent implications of the answers. A recent US Harris poll survey of just over 2,000 adults

found that 42 percent of U.S. adults are not “absolutely certain” there is a God compared to 34 percent who felt that way when asked the same question three years ago.

The headline made me wonder about the rates of churchgoing and polls about belief in the USA. However, the finer detail shows how the two kinds of figures can fit together. The difficulty lies in that "Absolute certain": some of us with tender consciences and a degree of tolerance of ambiguity have difficulty saying anything 'absolutely' [my wife gets so cross with my fence sitting sometimes; I suspect she thinks my bottom crease is environmental and not genetically anatomical]. So while I would have difficulty saying that I absolutely believe in God, I would also say that about a number of things that other people might be perfectly comfortable with; the earth goes round the sun; the existence of Australia; whether my nearest and dearest love me ... God is a practical hypothesis that I live my life on the basis of and continue to do so because it seems to me that it continues to bear fruit and make sense in much the same sort of way as believing that I am loved, that Australia exists and that the earth goes round the sun. I don't really doubt God, but there's a little bit of me that still says; "... but I could be wrong."



Technorati Tags: belief, poll, USA, God, churchgoing

British believe Bush more dangerous than Kim Jong-il

At least Dubya can take comfort that he's second to Bin Laden:

In Britain, 69% of those questioned say they believe US policy has made the world less safe since 2001, with only 7% thinking action in Iraq and Afghanistan has increased global security. The finding is mirrored in America's immediate northern and southern neighbours, Canada and Mexico, with 62% of Canadians and 57% of Mexicans saying the world has become more dangerous because of US policy.

British believe Bush more dangerous than Kim Jong-il | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited: Filed in: USA, danger, leadership, world, poll

Better lessons would improve behaviour

Oh dear now the Guardian's doing it; writing misleading headlines. Take the one here; it gives the impression that some authority or government minister has basically said that most bad behaviour in schools is down to bad lessons and, well, teachers. Well, that was bound to get my goat on the basis of what I have been observing in classrooms where creative and interesting lessons may be well received by one class and not by another. But then we read what is actually being said.

In secondary schools where bad behaviour was an isolated issue, the cause was often pupils' frustration with the poor quality of teaching they received, said an Ofsted report published today.

Not the first bit; it means in schools where behaviour is generally reasonable, a contributory factor to bad behaviour may be uninspiring lessons. So actually nothing new there; that's what we trainee teachers are told more or less from the off in our behaviour management stuff. So, puhlease, let's not use it as an implied dig at teachers. Unfortunately, a headline like that gets read without the article being read sometimes and the impression it leaves is malign and lasting.

That said, I do feel that the knee-jerk reaction by the NUT is helpful either as they appear to have read only the headline and not the content. The report doesn't say anything we don't already know, honestly.

Better lessons would improve behaviour, says Ofsted | Special Reports | EducationGuardian.co.uk
Filed in: education, UK, schools, behaviour

A socialist US senator? Now that's news.

This perhaps speaks for itself, and is interesting and potentially very significant but probably will turn out to be a quirk.

"Twenty years ago when people here thought about socialism they were thinking about the Soviet Union, about Albania," Mr Sanders told the Guardian in a telephone interview from the campaign trail. "Now they think about Scandinavia. In Vermont people understand I'm talking about democratic socialism."... I tried to make the government work for working people, and not just for corporations, and on that basis I was elected to Congress," Mr Sanders said. He has served 16 years in the House of Representatives, a lonely voice since the Republican takeover in 1994. He has however struck some interesting cross-party deals, siding with libertarian Republicans to oppose a clause in the Patriot Act which allowed the FBI to find out what books Americans borrowed from libraries.... "The untold story here is the degree to which the middle class is shrinking and the gap between rich and poor is widening. It is a disgrace that the US has the highest rate of childhood poverty of any industrialised country on earth

Technorati Tags: USA, midterms, socialism, democracy, health, poverty

The hippy version

While I'm not, like, cool, y'know, with all the like sentiments in this 'take' on the Lord's prayer. It's still, like, quite funny? And one or two of the lines are quite nice, actually.

Imagine if a commune of Diggers from a raggedy-assed old house near Porter Square in North Cambridge, Massachusetts back in 1968 had composed the Lord’s Prayer? What if they had re-invented the entire Liturgy?

Well, for one thing ... the Communion Wine would be ‘MATEUS’in more affluent parishes ... and ‘BOONE‘S FARM APPLE‘ everywhere else..



Our Father who art in Heaven

Oh wow! ... old Man up there

Hallowed be thy name.

You are - y’know? - so far out.

Thy kingdom come Thy will be done

When you show up here ... they’ll be some major butt to kick, man!

On earth as it is in heaven.

You can, like, make yourself at home and do your own thing, big dude ... if that’s your bag.

Give us this day our daily bread

As long as you help us cop some serious scratch ... and score with some chicks.

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those

And give us, like, a break when we, like, bum people out ... and THEN we’ll give a break ...

Who trespass against us

To, like, dudes hassling us with negative karma

And lead us not into temptation

And while you’re at it ... keep us away from bad trips, man.

But deliver us from evil

And please tune-out those weird busts and, like, acid flashbacks

Amen.

Dig it?

Technorati Tags: prayer, Lord's_prayer, hippy

Technorati Tags: prayer, Lord's_prayer, hippy

Technorati Tags: prayer, Lord's_prayer, hippy

How green is Branson's lobby?

Hmmm. So what do we think? Greenwash or progressives?

However, the spokesperson hinted at opposition to new levies, saying that recent polls pointed to an anti-tax sentiment among the British public.
"The public mood appears to be against further taxation, that's what the opinion polls are saying," he said.
Sir Richard and British Airways, despite their differences, have both backed bringing European airlines into the EU carbon emissions trading scheme.
It is thought that such a move would be the bare minimum requirement for airlines to avoid hefty taxation to curb their carbon emissions.
Airlines account for 5.5% of UK carbon emissions, according to a recent Oxford University report, but that will rise to a quarter by 2050 unless action is taken.

Technorati Tags: air_travel, carbon, emissions, trading,

Firefox 2

I just upgraded my Linux system and with it came Firefox 2. It's nice once I'd got over the differences. One of the most potentially catastrophic was that the session-saver extension doesn't work with the new one. I suspect that it will be fixed quickly. In the mean time Tab saver seems to do the trick but needs a manual restoration at the start of a session. So if you are a session saver user and intend to upgrade, I suggest backing up your tabs and pre-installing tab saver if you can. It's worth it though.

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