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07/06/2010

#TAMOz – Pricing, Website, Ticket Availability.

Posted by Bastard Sheep under Skepticism | Tags: , , , |
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#TAMOz (The Amazing Meeting: Australia)’s website is now LIVE! Check it out now for all the official information on TAM Australia including confirmed speakers, venue details, accommodation, and most importantly … ticket pricing and availability!

For up to the moment information the three best ways to keep yourself in the loop are all via social networking methods.

I could repeat some of the details here to try and drum up support, but personally I think it’s easier if you just go to the official website.  I for one cannot wait.  Such big names from overseas I would not have had any way to see or meet beforehand, coming to my fair little town.  To quote The Cat from Red Dwarf “I’m so excited, all six of my nipples are tingling!”.

 

03/06/2010

Scientology massively underpaying staff.

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If you watched the videos from my last article on the Cult of Scientology, you would have heard side-mentions of people being paid little to nothing by the cult while being heavily coerced if not completely forced to work anywhere from 40 to 100 hours a week for the cult.

Now thanks to an earlier investigation by the ABC TV show 4Corners, the Australian Fair Work Ombudsman has opened up an investigation in to the cult to look at these claims.  Details of the investigation come from Lateline in the video after the cut. (more…)

 

01/06/2010

AVN talk at the State Library of WA is going ahead as we speak, and that’s good.

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I should have spoken up earlier.  It’s currently 6pm in Western Australia, Meryl Dorey is setting up for her talk at the State Library of WA.  As a believer in science and reality based medicine, I am disappointed this is going ahead.  I am also glad.

When Meryl first announced her talk in Perth at the Uniting Church in The City, many people from the StopAVN group contacted them to let them know the reality behind the AVN, what they really stood for and would really be talking about.  UCiTC were shocked, and decided in the end to cancel the booking.

The AVN then looked around and lined up a new venue, the State Library of Western Australia.  They told Meryl they often have controversial groups talk, so would not cancel.  True to their word, once contacted by StopAVN members they responded in a similar way and allowed the talk to continue.  (more…)

 

31/05/2010

New website launched to counter AVN.

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Australia’s Anti Vaccination group, the Australian Vaccination Network are doing a seminar tomorrow in Perth.  They like to claim they give parents both sides of the vaccination “debate” to “let them decide”, a statement I covered in yesterday’s post.  However, I am yet to see them give any positive information on vaccines.  As a matter of fact, the only information I have seen from them on vaccines has been completely wrong.  This is quite disturbing for a group who claims to be the “vaccination watchdog”, and run by someone who claims to be “the leading expert in Australia on vaccines”.

Also as I said yesterday, you cannot give information and misinformation on equal platters and ask people to decide for themselves.  That’s just unproductive and dangerous as it gives people the false impression that the misinformation is justified and supported.  So, to counter the misinformation and blatant lies by the AVN in tomorrow’s seminar, a website has been launched specifically to correct the AVN’s incorrect claims. (more…)

 

31/05/2010

Quit Facebook Day.

Posted by Bastard Sheep under IT | Tags: , , , , , |
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Today, the 31st of May 2010 is International Quit Facebook Day.  It all started after some changes to the Facebook privacy settings were made earlier this year, with peoples settings changed and the default being information shared openly.  They also have been working hard on a single-signon system which external websites can use, and link information about you and your friends.

Personally, I find this whole quit facebook day things to be hilarious.  To me it simply shows peoples ignorance. (more…)

 

30/05/2010

Creationism to be taught in Queensland classrooms.

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The thin edge of the wedge (the name of the strategy being actively used by the anti-reality, anti-science, and pro-creationism thinkignorancetank The Discovery Institute) has left its mark in the Queensland department of education.  Creationism has wormed its way in to Queensland classrooms.

On a positive note, the mythology of creationism hasn’t found its way in to science classes as it has in numerous states in America, but the fact it found its way in at all is still bad.  In Queensland it will be taught in History class under the subject of “controversial issues”. (more…)

 

28/05/2010

ANZ Obstetricians to back female ritualistic mutilation.

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This is just horrific.  The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians is about to discuss backing the mutilation of women according to 2000 year old goat herder’s barbaric magical rituals.

Their “justification” for this (and I use the term lightly, there is no justification for such horrific non-consensual barbarism) is that it will minimise back-yard amateur illegal procedures which leaves girls scarred for life.

Not that this will be any better.  It’s a horrific thing to do to young girls.  It often leaves women without the ability to feel sexual pleasure and is just another way to demean and put them down further.  Along with the burka and other such bullshit this is just segregation and discrimination.  It’s bigoted sexism that should have been wiped out in the west decades ago, rather than being supported. (more…)

 

21/05/2010

Wowzers trying to stop science again.

Posted by Bastard Sheep under Atheism, Skepticism | Tags: , , , |
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Earlier today I tweeted about a breakthrough by some Australian scientists after they created the first ever artificial life.  It’s the world’s first fully synthetic cell, controlled by man-made DNA.  But that’s not what this post is about.  No.  It only took a few hours, but the wowzers are already out in force trying to put a premature end to this breakthrough and once again slow down science.

The reasons they’re using to try and stop it are their completely unfounded fears, and completely fictitious invisible friends.  (more…)

 

20/05/2010

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.

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Today, the 20th of May 2010 is International Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.  You can get the full story at the Wikipedia page, but in summary it all started off by the South Park episodes I speak about in an earlier post (go take a look).  A cartoonist called Molly Norris decided to have a little fun with it and drew the cartoon shown to the left.  She spread it around a few prominent social networking celebrities and celebrity bloggers to give people a laugh.

Here’s my drawing of Mohammed, it’s the one I drew for the South Park episode.

Joe Wellington then created a facebook page with quickly grew to have a few thousand followers.  By this stage Molly started realising the implications of what this could mean.  It was originally intended to just be a one-off cartoon, to give people a laugh and point out the importance of free speech.  She decided to disassociate herself from it as it had grown out of control. (more…)

 

19/05/2010

Cult of Scientology under (deserved) attack again.

Posted by Bastard Sheep under Skepticism | Tags: |
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The Cult of Scientology has been under deserved attack by Australia’s media again.  This time it was three TV shows on three separate networks, all with the same story.  ABC’s Lateline on the 18th of May broke the story, this was followed up by Seven’s Today Tonight and Nine’s A Current Affair simultaneously airing their own versions of the same story on the 19th of May.

The basic premise behind the story is the daughter of the President of the Cult here in Australia was born in to the cult, spent all her childhood inside it, but has now escaped.  She gives an expose as to what it was like being brought up.  Children overcrowded in small houses, untrained “babysitters” looking after 30+ very young children for days at a time with no assistance.  If the authorities did come in to take a look, most of the kids were taken out on an excursion with CoS crews sent in to dismantle the incriminating furniture (cots etc).

It’s a horrible story of basic child abuse.  There may have been no direct physical abuse but the mental, the lack of care for the children, it’s deplorable.  Rather than bore you, I’ll let you watch all three pieces for yourself.

Edit: Last night on Lateline they had a follow-up, this time reports of actual sexual abuse of children which the Cult of Scientology covered up in ways scarily similar to how the Catholic Church is doing it.  My only wishes are that people leaving the Catholic Church would secretly take incriminating documents out with them as is happening to the Cult.  Two new videos added below, the report on the abuse and coverup as well as an interview with Amy Scobee. (more…)

 

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