Silberbauer Says:

Be afraid, be very afraid. If this was footage from a Soviet young pioneer organisation camp in the 1980′ies, just imagine what Reagan would have said – something about an evil empire, I guess.

But no: It’s a trailer for the documentary Jesus Camp showing American children being brain washed by raving maniacs to be true soldiers of god.

Notice the camouflage paint and the pledge to lay down your life for Jesus. This is beyond sick…

Just another proof that religion of any kind can and will be exploited by fanatics. Kids: Stay clear of it. Source: www.kirstensanford.com

Thanks to This Week in Science, the radio show that fights for reason and science, the Unicorn Museum is now online at www.unicornmuseum.org. The goal of the Unicorn Museum is to raise the money for a big billboard across the street from the home of absolute ignorance: The Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. The billboard is to feature an ad for the (non-existing, really) Unicorn Museum. The hope is to make visitors to the Creation Museum think twice… I wonder if that’s gonna happen, but still: A worthy cause!

Now that I got your attention: Go grab the This Week In Science podcast at Apple Music Store, it’s free. It’s hosted by Justin Jackson and Ph.d. Kirsten Sanford. Besides being smart Kirsten is one of the absolute lookers of the science community. As the podcast is still audio only, I here bring you a photo of Kirsten Sanford for you to look at when listening and getting smarter. Consider it a multimedia experience. Oh, read her blog too.

Shout outs to This Week In Science for fighting for a little less dumb world.

Must be hard work to be a pope. Imagine how much work the poor fellow must have put into his 10 Commandments For Motorists. Especially the second one must have taken some serious thinking for someone who’s work it is to bring the world back into the dark ages: The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm. No shit Padre?
I don’t know about you, but I’m not taking driving lessons from an old German guy who insists on crusing in a white cabriolet while standing up.

Wikipedia shows us that the combined knowledge of man is incredible and that Web 2.0 technologies can be used for something truly great.

But don’t forget that Wikis aren’t inherently good in any way – the very same technologies may be used for spreading stupidity and idiocy. Although it seems that to use Web 2.0 technology for that kind of misinformation you’ll have to control who’s contributing – to keep all us liberals out, you know. So, where Wikipedia is for all of us to edit, the fundamentalist Christian alternatives are not. And it makes sense: If they opened the door, saneness would be pouring in from all over the web.

On Conservapedia (a right-wing christian answer to the “liberal biased” Wikipedia) I stumpled upon a very short article on Thomas Edison which I’d found could benefit from some improvements. Among other things, I’d liked to add that Edison was a an atheist. But, as I’d expected, I am was not allowed to create an account on Conservapedia – I guess it’s only for American folks of the faith and keepers of the truth.

Wikipedia is biased, Conservapedia says. How about this description of “Atheism” in Conservapedia:

“Atheism is closely tied with Secular Humanism. Popularly-known Atheists and Secular Humanists include Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Other famous atheists include Pol Pot and Stalin.” [...] “No atheist has ever been elected leader of a democracy. The only political systems under the control of atheists are totalitarian and/or communist“

Biased? Naah.

Other scary reads are:

Conservapedia on “Dinosaurs“, Conservapedia on “God”, Conservapedia on “Liberal”

Also, don’t miss out on CreationWiki on Dinosaurs which answers that old question of how Noah did manage to make room for those bulky dinos inside the ark? Well:

It should be noted that although the Biblical description of Noah’s ark states it as large enough to host even the largest known specimens of dinosaurs, it is logical that younger / smaller varieties were taken aboard. Reptiles are the only terrestrial vertebrate that continuously grows as long as they live. Mammals on the other hand, have an adolescent period following which there is no further growth. Therefore, it is arguable that many of these “terrible lizards” were simply much older than modern varieties.

Mind boggling.

I’ve always liked Discovery Channel. Even though some of the shows are targeted war maniacs or chopper lovers, the programs are always about some part of our reality. It’s entertainment of course – but it isn’t fake. It isn’t a lie. Until now.

Discovery Channel Europe now airs “A Sense of Murder” produced by Danish Egmont. It’s a show about some proclaimed “psychics” that “helps” the police “solving” crimes. Well, they don’t, really, because they can’t. As their so called “powers” don’t exist they are just walking about making stuff up – but what matters is that the program does not question their abilities at all. (Sorry about all the quotes). One of the psychics on the show is in fact the ever present Marion Dampier-Jeans.

In one episode of “A Sense of Murder” a Danish police officer tells the interviewer that the information given to him by the psychics could mean that the case would be reopened. Now think of this: A gun carrying member of a European police force really thinks that this freak “sees” something? If I should ever commit a murder, I want that dummy to lead the investigation. While he’s busy looking in the crystal ball I’ll be getting out of the country.

I don’t know – maybe Dampier-Jeans and her fellow wackos really do think they see something. In that case I think they should consider getting some professional psychiatric help. Or – and I think this is the case – they are just lying to make some easy money and sadly Discovery Channel seems eager to help.

The channel originally devoted to science and reality has sold out. Shame on you, Discovery Channel.

James Randi kindly and very quickly responded to my last post which I mailed him:

Looking over the Sam Nicholls article, I’m appalled at the number of errors and outright lies in it. Do you know if Nicholls is still alive? If so, I should make an attempt to have him present the proof for some half-dozen of his fantastic claims, hoping that he might at least try to do so.

My answer:

No, I don’t know if Nicholls is still around. I guess so – according to himself he’ll survive forever in some subatomic form or other I only found his article as I searched for specific citations from the Danish translation.

It’s scary, though, that his version of your work is the one that keeps circulating among the woo woo types, and obviously getting even more twisted when being translated.

Mr. Randi answers

The bottom line here is: they can’t fight the logic and the facts, so they resort to ad hominem and lies…

So true. Dampier-Jeans and her likes tend to believe anything they read as long as it fits their twisted perception of reality. Furthermore she adds to these lies by doing a bad translation without checking the facts. But then again: Facts and critical thinking will only spoil her business, so who can blame her.

Marion Dampier Jeans is a Danish self proclaimed “psychic”, who has done some appearances on Danish television in the no brain entertainment show “Åndernes magt” (“Powers of the Spirits“). In this show she walks around seeing dead people all over the place and telling them to go away. Really lame, believe me.

Of course Dampier Jeans isn’t especially fond of the illusionist James Randi, who has made it his mission to debunk so called “psychics”, “media” and other charlatans. Dampier Jeans is making a pretty good living on making people believe in ghosts, spirits an other kinds of woo woo so guys like Randi are indeed a liability to her business.

Instead of writing her own piece on Randi (guess that’ll put too much of a strain on her intellect), she’s decided to translate an old and pretty hostile article by Sam Nicholls from 1991 for publication on her website.

Unfortunately, Dampier Jeans is not at very skilled translator and among several other linguistic blunders she misses a very important detail in one of Nicholls sentences:

when asked recently if he would apologise in the event of a psychic being killed under his control, Randi snarled facetiously, “I’d say a little more than that (sorry)”;

In itself a stupid question. Nothing in Randi’s experiments would kill anyone – it’s like the old “Have you stopped beating up your wife?”-question. No wonder Randi snarles.

In Dampier Jeans’ miserable translation this turns into:

da han blev spurgt for nyligt om han ville undskylde den episode hvor et medie blev dræbt under hans kontrol, Randi snerrede føjeligt: “Jeg ville sige lidt mere end det (det må du undskylde)”;

In English this means: “When recently asked if he would apologise for that incident in which a medium was killed under his control, Randi snarled indulgently “I’d say a little more than that (I’m sorry)”.

“In the event of…” implies a hypothetical situation but Dampier Jeans obviously can’t read English very well. In the Danish translation this hypothetical death of a medium turns into a real incident, and a pretty horrible accusation of something close to murder. (Besides that the Danish grammar is pretty messed up, but that’s besides the point here).

Well… that’s one way to frame someone you disagree with.