Do not feed the trolls.

trollsOh for shits fucking sake people, enough is enough already. This rant mainly goes out to the atheists I follow on Facebook and Twitter, so those of you not in the atheist communities feel free to ignore (or read on for the lulz, I care not).

Remember all the times you’ve been told “do not feed the trolls”? Remember all the times you’ve told other people “do not feed the trolls”? Well, Ray Comfort IS A TROLL! There’s no two ways about it.

His modus operandi is “Any publicity is good publicity”, and he feeds of this. It’s his go-to method to increase publicity. He’s an unrepentant liar for christ, and he’s more than willing to do so. The more outrage he can get for what he does, the happier he is. By responding, by getting outraged at what he does, you are just falling plumb into PRECISELY what he wants out of people. You are making yourself his stooge. You are giving him EVERYTHING he wants, and more. And yes, I do realize the irony of my whinging about this making me one of his stooges too. Continue reading →

#MarriageEquality and my stance.

equalityavatarEdit: As of 6:01pm AEDT on Thursday the 7th of December 2017, Australia now has Marriage Equality. What I wrote below in regards to marriage and its reasons, its purposes, no longer applies. I am leaving it for historical reasons, for context of what my thoughts were prior to Australia gaining equality. Love won.

With everyone going crazy on social networks right now about #MarriageEquality and the US Supreme Court looking into the rulings on it, I was going to re-iterate my thoughts and my stance on the topic.  Only, I realised I had never consolidated my thoughts in writing.  Well, at least not in a blog post.

It’s pretty clear I’m a supporter of equality.  Sexuality equality is what I talk most about, but also sexual, racial, and any other type I tend to argue in support of.  So let me explain why.

You see, I am a straight white male from Sydney Australia.  See?  Oh wait, that’s got nothing to do with it.  You see, I am right handed.  Wait, that’s got nothing either.  I have my car license?  I uhh … I uhh … I guess I don’t have any personal directly affecting reason to support equality… Continue reading →

Back on yer bike!

I enjoy cycling, I’m just not very good at it.  I used to think I was good at it, until I discovered what as a kid I thought were “epic distances” were distances most people in the cycling community wouldn’t even consider a warm-up.

The problem is, because I’m not very good at it I usually get in to cycling every year or two, it lasts anywhere from a week to three months, then the bike doesn’t get touched again for another year or two.

Right now I’m in another of those resurgences, and the world as I know it is completely different. Continue reading →

LifeHacker’s war on introverts.

It has become quite clear to me that the people behind the blog LifeHacker have a certain thing against introverts.  I honestly don’t know what brought it on from them, but they seem to go above and beyond to not only misunderstand the very basics of what an introvert is, but also to then abuse, offend and insult them.

This is a sore topic with me because I am sick of being told I am a lesser person for being an introvert myself.   I am sick of being told I am inadequate for being an introvert myself.  I am sick of being told I am broken for being an introvert myself.  I am sick of being told there is something wrong with me for being an introvert myself.  All of these things I am told, are wrong.  They are incorrect.  They are insults whether they are intended as insults or not, and I am sick of it. Continue reading →

PZMyers and the definition of atheism.

I first saw this post by PZ Myers back when he first wrote it, and I disagreed with him whole heartedly at the time.  I still do, the only difference is at the time I couldn’t form my thoughts into a format that was appropriate for blogging about it.  Full disclosure, I actually do like PZ Myers and most of what he writes.  He earned my respect through his thoughts, words, and actions.  Although I don’t read his blog as much as I used to, that respect is still definitely there.  That doesn’t mean I have to agree with every single thing he says though.  If I had to agree, then that would be hero worship – something which amusingly there’s a surprisingly large amount of in skeptic and atheist communities.  This is just one such situation of divergent opinions, nothing more. Continue reading →

Please help get science and reason in gossip mags. #equality #StopAVN

The ACL (Australian Christian Lobby) has recently started a campaign to get their followers and supporters to get Margaret Court nominated and voted in as a National Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia.  Women’s Day, one of the most popular gossip mags here in Australia, has a website with a short-list of 100 nominees where you can vote.

In an attempt to counter this, we’d like to try to get as many people as possible to vote instead for Professor Ian Frazer (#32 in the list), the inventor of the Gardasil vaccine.  Reasons why you should support him are given below the jump. Continue reading →

So much for “tradition”. #equality.

As of the 1st of February, the laws that restrict Australians from getting married overseas will be revoked.  These laws, introduced by lil johnny howard in 2004, not only made changes to the definition of marriage, specifically adding lines that would discriminate against homosexual, transgender, and nongendered people, but it also would not allow Certificate For Intent to be issues to GLBT Australians who were overseas.

The CFI is a sheet of paper that certifies that the person does not already have a legally recognised partner and is free to marry.  Since 2004, thanks to the changes added by phil ruddock and lil jonny howard, LGBT people cannot receive these.  Without these, they cannot marry.  Well, could not.  They will be able to once again after February 1st. Continue reading →

Instagram isn’t a photo sharing service, it’s a worm. PLEASE stop using it!

I hate Instagram.  Actually, I’m that statement isn’t entirely true.  To be completely honest and truthful, I F%$KING loathe Instagram.  It is the chain-mail of the photography world (Send this email to all your friends list!).  It is so similar to a computer worm (virus) it’s not funny.  It seems to serves no purpose other than get other people to spread it, install it, get itself everywhere and propagate some more.

Every time someone uses it, I die a little inside.  Every time someone uses it, I feel a deep sense of foreboding rage building inside of me.  Every time someone uses it, a hipster gains his/her skintight jeans and thick glasses with no lenses.

What exactly is wrong with it?  Well, just about everything.  Continue reading →

A quick thought on the #MTRsues case.

I was reading an article in The Age which states that Melinda Tankard Reist has threatened a libel lawsuit against a blogger, and one section of the article jumped out at me as being quite odd and, quite frankly, wrong.  Seeing as my comment was a bit more than I could fit on twitter (thought I can fit it on facebook), I’ve decided to write this very short blog article to put up my thoughts.

“While Tankard Reist has not gone so far as to issue court proceedings yet, she complains social media has intensified the level of vituperation against outspoken figures such as herself.

”Things have gone too far, people think they can just trash you,” she said yesterday. ”Why does being a blogger exempt you from the laws of defamation?”” Continue reading →

Australian Vaccination Network at Woodford Folk Festival. #StopAVN

I’ve spoken about the Australian Vaccination Network before, but those have generally only been mentions and references, I’ve never really gone in to who and what they are.

EDIT: BREAKING NEWS! It appears StopAVN have done something fantastic and unexpected at Woodford Folk Festival!  Please scroll down to the next bolded “EDIT:” and ensure even if you don’t read most of this, you at least read that!!! 😀

Who are the Australian Vaccination Network?
The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), despite all claims to the contrary, are an anti-vaccination group.  They are headed up by Meryl Dorey and claim they’re not, they claim they just support informed choice and provide a counter to the governments provides.  However, the information the AVN provide is wrong on almost all counts which means it’s not really an informed choice they’re providing but a misinformed one, and if the governments provides is pro-vaccine, then any stance counter to that surely must be anti?

Their preferred sources of information are not scientific studies, but rather conspiracy theorist sites such as whale.to (a site that collects any and all articles and claims no matter how crazy and unsubstantiated they are), conspiracy theorists such as David Icke (who promotes world leaders and the royal family being lizard people), and people with revoked medical licenses such as the disgraced Andrew Wakefield.

They’ve had their charity license revoked.  In the last two years, only two issues of their 6/year magazine “Living Wisdom” has been released (and despite being so far behind in issues owed, they’re still actively pushing subscriptions).  They regularly cry oppression, censorship and demand free speech, despite blocking/banning anyone who dares counter their supposed-not president Meryl Dorey with information that is nothing more than factual. They have also been caught filing numerous false DMCA requests to hide public and factual information they don’t like.  The Australian Vaccination Network about as hypocritical as one can get. Continue reading →