Q-Link

Here we go again.
You thought we were rid of the Power Balance Bracelet.
We now have Q-Link.
The next big pseudoscientific, scamming bullshit to hit our shores.
Q-Link
With testimonials from numerous well known Australians.
Bart Cummings, Mario Fenech, Tim Sheens etc, etc, etc.
The number of Q-Link products is only limited by your lack of imagination.

Q-Link Mini   Stick this on your mobile phone and protect you against electro magnetic radiation.
Q-Link Pendants   For improved physical and mental performance. Wear one to bed and literally spring out of bed in the morning.
Q-Link Bracelets   The same as the pendant but worn on the wrist.
Q-Link Home/Office USB   Increase your productivity whilst banging on the keyboard, has a 10 metres radius so anyone in that radius will receive the same benefit.
Q-Link Performance Clothing   Helps your bodies energy system to function more efficiently in sport.
What gullible fools would believe this garbage?
It never ceases to amaze me the gullibility of seemingly intelligent, educated people.

It's Official----Power Balance is a scam

Well it took them long enough.
It was not rocket science that this was a scam.
Power Balance Scam
If anyone wants to buy one, well go for it, but with your eyes fully open of course.
But what is sad is that a lot of high profile sportsman wear these scam bands and it impresses the gullible and young fans. And of course they want one.
How many parents have been pressured into buying one of these scam bands? Pressured by their young impressionable child who is only following their sporting hero.
I blogged on this months ago about it being a scam. It has taken this long for the ACCC to come to the same conclusion.
My previous blog
A look at the power balance site, and, surprise, surprise they are still scamming.
Power Balance site
These scamming merchants should have the book thrown at them.

Queen endorses Ethics Classes

Well, that is my spin on it.
Here is what she is alleged to have said according to the Guardian newspaper.
"People of faith do not have a monopoly on virtue as British society was now "more diverse and secular", the queen told the Church of England today in an address to its governing body.
Speaking at Church House, central London, she told members of General Synod that believers and atheists were equally able to contribute to the prosperity and wellbeing of the country".
Queens address to Synod
There we have it.
And up yours, you increasingly becoming unimportant and irrelevant  Anglican leaders here in N.S.W..

White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin

Tim Minchin the well known comic singer, songwriter, atheist and sceptic, has a Christmas song out.
Called "White wine in the Sun".  Here is the song on YouTube.
It is basically a Christmas song about the family. It does say a few things that don't support religion, but it does not disrespect it I feel.
The Christian lobby has apparently come out against the song and saying things like, "It's not quite in the spirit of Christmas", sick joke, and disrespectful".
I feel they are just too precious.
Some of the best lines in the song that don't support religion are,
"I would rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tu Tu Tu be honest"
"I get freaked out by churches. Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords, but the lyrics are dodgy".
This is a good family orientated Christmas song.

Woman claims ownership of Sun

A Spanish woman has claimed ownership of the sun.
SMH article
The woman from the region of Galicia has registered her ownership with a local 'notary public".
She claims that there is an international agreement that a country cannot lay claim to any celestial body, but no agreement about an individual claiming ownership.
She wants to put a fee on everyone that uses the Sun.
I wonder if everyone that has got a melanoma from the Sun can sue her for damages that her property has caused.

Arguments that creationists should not use

       This article is on the Creation Ministries International (CMI) website.
The article lists the bad arguments that Creationists should not use to bash Evolution over the head with.
Obviously these arguments are old and tired arguments that Creationists once used, and have been successfully countered by good rational argument.
Here is the URL for the "Bad Arguments" article.
       This is what the Creationists have to say. "The primary authority for Creation Ministries International is the infallible Word of God, the Bible. All theories of science are fallible, and new data often overturn previously held theories. Evolutionists continually revise their theories because of new data, so it should not be surprising or distressing that some creationist scientific theories need to be revised too".
Are their Creationist scientific theories?
How many Creation Science papers are published in reputable scientific journals?

I will list the bad arguments below.
Arguments that Creationists should not use

• Darwin recanted on his deathbed
• Moon-Dust thickness proves a young moon
• Long day  NASA computers, in calculating the positions of planets, found a missing day and 40 minutes, proving Joshua’s long day and Hezekiah’s sundial movement of Joshua 10 and 2 Kings 20.
• Woolly mammoths were snap frozen during the Flood catastrophe
• NASA faked the moon landings
• The Castenedolo and Calaveras human remains in “old” strata invalidate the geologic column
• Dubois renounced Java man as a “missing link” and claimed it was just a giant gibbon
• The Japanese trawler Zuiyo Maru caught a dead plesiosaur near New Zealand
• The 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics began at the Fall
• If we evolved from apes, why are there still apes today?
• Women have one more rib than men
• Archaeopteryx is a fraud
• There are no beneficial mutations
• No new species have been produced
• Earth’s axis was vertical before the Flood
•  Paluxy tracks prove that humans and dinosaurs co-existed
• Darwin’s quote about the absurdity of eye evolution from Origin of Species
• Earth’s division in the days of Peleg (Gen. 10:25) refers to catastrophic splitting of the continents
• The Septuagint records the correct Genesis chronology
• There are gaps in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 so the Earth may be 10,000 years old or even more
• Jesus cannot have inherited genetic material from Mary, otherwise He would have inherited original sin
• Light was created in transit
• The phrase “science falsely so called” in 1 Timothy 6:20 (KJV) refers to evolution
• Geocentrism (in the classical sense of taking the Earth as an absolute reference frame) is taught by Scripture and Heliocentrism is anti-Scriptural
• Ron Wyatt has found Noah’s Ark
• Ron Wyatt has found much archaeological proof of the Bible
• Many of Carl Baugh’s creation ‘evidences’
• Missing solar neutrinos prove that the sun shines by gravitational collapse, and is proof of a young sun
• Einstein held unswervingly, against enormous peer pressure, to belief in a Creator

The following are arguments that Creationists feel are doubtful and advise against using.

• Canopy theory
• There was no rain before the Flood
• Natural selection as tautology
• Evolution is just a theory
• There is amazing modern scientific insight in the Bible
• Laminin: an amazing look at how Jesus is holding each of us together
• The speed of light has decreased over time
• There are no transitional forms
• Gold chains have been found in coal
• Plate tectonics is fallacious
• Creationists believe in microevolution but not macroevolution
• The Gospel is in the stars

Well there it is. I am not a scientist, so erudite scientific argument from me will not happen. 
 It is an interesting article for all people that are interested in the Creation V Evolution argument.           
                   

School Ethics Classes

I see that the current Labor State Parliament are bringing in Ethics classes next year.

The classes are for children that don't attend scripture classes.

I think this is a good idea.

The classes are not competing with scripture, but something constructive that the children that don't go to scripture classes can do.

I also see that the Liberal State opposition, if they attain government in March 2011, are going to cancel the Ethics classes.

The opposition education spokesman, Adrian Piccoli is reported to have said in the Sydney Morning Herald.
''While the NSW Liberals and Nationals understand the importance of ethics we do not believe it should be positioned as an alternative to special religious education. We don't think that students should have to choose between special religious education … and ethics classes.'' SMH Article
Well, really, I don't agree. The students or their parents are not choosing between scripture and ethics classes. The ethics classes are for the children that don't go to scripture classes, pretty simple I would think.

Ethicist and political commentator as well as NSW Council of Churches representative Rev Rod Benson has this to say.  

"For more than a century, a small minority in our community has clamoured for the suppression of religious voices and the privileging of secular humanism in our schools, universities and media. The trial ethics curriculum is merely the latest tool to achieve that goal."  

Rev. Rod Benson's views

I would also disagree with this. Sure there are some that want religion banned from secular education. I feel the same way except if religion was taught as a comparative study of all religions. This is a poor argument against ethics classes in NSW state schools for children that don't attend scripture classes.

Archbishop Peter Jensen had this to say.

"A bad decision, made under political pressure, which will impoverish the education of many NSW public schoolchildren. Philosophical ethics is not a real alternative to the study of religion and it is unfair to confront parents with the dilemma of having them both taught at the same time."

Sydney Anglicans
I disagree again. What will and is impoverishing school children is the wasted time for the children that are not attending scripture, with nothing constructive to do.
It seems to me the religious organisations are feeling threatened by these ethics classes. They should not, surely any god fearing parents would send their children to scripture and not secular ethics classes. 

Nuclear Explosions, 1945-1998

Nuclear explosions 1948 to 1998. An interesting YouTube video.
Nuclear Explosions 1945-1998.