A very cool idea

Kinetic Prayer Wheels Transform Prayers Into Energy

Every year millions of tourists and locals descend upon Tibet's temples and spin the prayer wheels contained inside. If the mechanical energy generated by the movement of these spinning wheels could be harnessed, we could potentially reduce the size of our current carbon footprint and supplement an inadequate and unreliable electrical grid for numerous individuals. The Prayer Wheel Energy Generator, designed by Taikkun Yang Li does just this by transforming all of those good vibes into electricity that could be used to provide reliable energy for daily needs such as evening lighting.

When memes collide

First Christian UFO-alien symposium

The aliens may indeed be fallen angels.

The very first Christian symposium on aliens will address this idea July 3-5, organized by Guy Malone, author and co-founder of Alien Resistence - an organization that studies Biblical ideas on the UFO and alien abduction phenomena.

Malone's "In a Nutshell" web page at alienresistence.org walks readers through a quick explanation - citting Biblical chapter and verse.

"The Bible contains relevant information about what many believe to be a recent phenomenon, that neither most modern churches, nor most modern ufologists, are well informed about," Malone says on his web site.

Scoff if you must, but I think one would be foolish to casually dismiss the mythological similarities between "angels" and "aliens." I tend to doubt that either label reflects a genuine understanding of the archetypal contact experience; perhaps we are all blind men examining different parts of the same elephant.

Easily the funniest find of the day:

Krispy Kreme Versus US Right To Lifers

The vigilant Chris Wren weighs in here.

Cliff Pickover:

I tend to be skeptical about the paranormal. However, I do feel that there are facets of the universe we can never understand, just as a monkey can never understand calculus, black holes, symbolic logic, and poetry. There are thoughts we can never think, visions we can only glimpse. It is at this filmy, veiled interface between human reality and a reality beyond that we may find the numinous, which some may liken to God.

Pat Condell's latest:

I was considering writing something pithy and appropriately outraged by the Pope's recent concerns about sexuality, but Futurismic's Paul Raven has beaten me to the punch:

So, let's see: a very rich man wearing a gaudy dress at the head of an organisation which shelters and hence implicitly condones child abuse says that saving humanity from transsexual or homosexual behaviour is as important as saving the environment.

Pope Benedict has been dubbed "God's Rottweiler" -- in my view, a totally unwarranted comparison. At least Rottweilers serve a useful purpose, far more than can be said for the Pope's painfully distorted interpretation of reality.

Someone please tell me this is a farce inspired by the empathy boxes in Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"



Product information right here.

Religious 'shun nanotechnology'

The researchers compared attitudes to nanotechnology in 12 European countries and the US.

They then rated each country on a scale of what they called "religiosity" - a measure of how religious each country was.

They found that countries where religious belief was strong, such as Ireland and Italy, tended to be the least accepting of nanotechnology, whereas those where religion was less significant such as Belgium or the Netherlands were more accepting of the technology.

Does this really surprise anyone?

If you're jonesing for Armageddon, you're bound to love Christmas in Kansas City.

Another great video by Pat Condell:

Richard Dawkins used to be a scientist. Now he's a nattering fuckwit.

(Hat tip: Chris Wren.)

All aboard the atheist bus campaign

The British Humanist Association will be administering all donations to the campaign, and Professor Richard Dawkins, bestselling author of The God Delusion, has generously agreed to match all contributions up to a maximum of £5,500, giving us a total of £11,000 if we raise the full amount. This will be enough to fund two sets of atheist adverts on 30 London buses for four weeks.

It's not that I disagree with Dawkins (indeed, the sentiment emblazoned on the bus advertisements could well be my life's motto), but the effort runs the distinct risk of backfiring.

I advocate ignoring religion to death; attempts to skewer it publicly will invariably serve as a call to arms to True Believers. Certainly Dawkins realizes this, just as he must certainly realize that the money his cause is raising could be put to far more expansive and exciting use.

The late, great George Carlin on the media, religion and UFOs:



(Hat tip: Dedroidify.)

Very interesting indeed . . .

Scientists explore what happened before the universe's theoretical beginning

Respected scientists have proposed a flock of theories to describe what might have happened before the birth of our familiar universe of space and time.

The concepts have fanciful names such as "the big bounce," "the multiverse," "the cyclic theory," "parallel worlds," even "soap bubbles." Some propose the existence of multiple universes. Others hold that there's one universe that recycles itself endlessly, rather as Buddhists believe. Judeo-Christian theologians may have difficulty accepting any of these notions.

Most of the hypotheses are variations on an older idea that the universe has no beginning and no end, contrary to the big-bang theory, which says that our universe originated at a specific point and will end sometime in the distant future.

Although divine creation makes an appearance, the Simulation Argument gets no mention at all.

Gospelr: it's Twitter for fuckwits.

When Atheists Attack (Sam Harris)

However badly she may stumble during the remaining weeks of this campaign, her supporters will focus their outrage upon the journalist who caused her to break stride, upon the camera operator who happened to capture her fall, upon the television network that broadcast the good lady's misfortune -- and, above all, upon the "liberal elites" with their highfalutin assumption that, in the 21st century, only a reasonably well-educated person should be given command of our nuclear arsenal.

Palin: average isn't good enough (Sam Harris)

Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority. No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves. President Bush kept his edge on the "Who would you like to have a beer with?" poll question in 2004, and won reelection.

This is one of the many points at which narcissism becomes indistinguishable from masochism. Let me put it plainly: If you want someone just like you to be president of the United States, or even vice president, you deserve whatever dysfunctional society you get. You deserve to be poor, to see the environment despoiled, to watch your children receive a fourth-rate education and to suffer as this country wages -- and loses -- both necessary and unnecessary wars.

Pope: Accept death "at the hour chosen by God'

While several European countries permit euthanasia, the Vatican vehemently maintains that life must continue to its natural end. The pope said in his homily that the ill should pray to find "the grace to accept, without fear or bitterness, to leave this world at the hour chosen by God."

If God's the one responsible for lives lost from cancer and AIDS and malnutrition, then, quite frankly, fuck God . . . or, more precisely, his costumed representative. Speaking for myself -- which, of course, is veritable anathema to religion -- I intend to go when I'm good and ready, thanks. (And if I'm lucky enough to be around when the fabled Singularity thing hits, maybe not even then . . . although, strangely enough, I get the feeling cybernetic immortality would piss off His Holiness at least as much as a dignified, relatively pain-free death. After all, the Vatican's nothing if not inconsistent, which should come as no surprise to anyone who's so much as glanced at that insipid book it's so fond of.)

On a related note, I can't help but think that perhaps even someone as deeply out-of-touch as the Pope might experience a change of heart -- one might even call it an epiphany -- if he was forced to spend his final years immersed in the grueling agony of chemotherapy in some dodgy nursing home . . . but that's probably too much to hope for.

Take it away, Pat!