Call yourself a geologist?

You get some really daft people managing to get stories into the media. Fundamentalist Christians in the US are very good at this. Not to be left out, some twit claiming to be a geologist has managed to have their declaration that Mecca time should replace GMT because Mecca was in "perfect alignment to magnetic north" get reported by the BBC.

He's clearly not a geologist, as any *real* geologist knows that Magnetic North moves. Currently by about 41km a year. It moved 1100km over the 20th century. I'm not an expert on Saudi Arabian cities, but I'm pretty sure that Mecca doesn't move around the desert anywhere near as much (and it'd have to move rather faster than magnetic north, given that the fixed point on the circle, the north pole, is much closer to Magnetic North than it is to Mecca).

Also - and I haven't bothered to work out exactly, but there's probably a nice Great Circle mapper on Google somewhere - the great circle that passes through wherever Magnetic North currently is and the North Pole will also pass through a number of other places. At a rough guess from looking at the map, I'd be pretty confident that a Great Circle that passes through Mecca and the North Pole is going to go pretty close to both Moscow and the west coast of North America. So - why Mecca time and not Moscow time? Or even Hollywood time? At least we'd know when the latest TV shows will appear on the internet...

Or what if they mean a line where magnetic north and true north are the same? Well, this is a complex beast, due to local effects, but again, one such line passes through the US - from Lake Superior and across the western panhandle of Florida - and another through Europe - in 2000, this ran pretty much slap bang through Copenhagen (you know, the place with the cartoonists) and nowhere near Mecca.

*THIS* is how you evict someone from a university library

In the US, security staff at libraries are videoed repeatedly tasering a recalcitrant student.

This Youtube video of someone getting evicted from a university library in the UK shows there is still a huge difference - that this is one of the most viewed youtube footages according the university facebook account shows just how little scurrilous footage there is.
Security overstepping their authority? Nope.
Security overzealously enforcing their authority? Nope.
Security halfheartedly lugging some loon out of the library because he was bothering the students and refused to leave when asked politely? Check.
They don't even drop him - they gently lower him to the ground. Well, I suppose it was a little damp, this is in November after all.

The video is only remotely entertaining at the end, when you realise why the individual that the security staff have had to carry out through the doors with a distinct air of boredom was deservedly evicted. As they stand around, looking distinctly uninterested by the tedium of the whole affair, the evicted individual demonstrates that he appeared to believe that his right to free speech included ranting about 'Jaysus' to students who'd rather get on with their studying (although not having a library card means they were clearly legally entitled to ask him to leave).

Apart from making you realise what a thankless task security at a university have sometimes, the general indifference of the student body to this fundamentalist loon has to be applauded...

Don't mess with Attenborough.

David Attenborough, who it was recently announced would be back with another two documentaries is not happy with a Dutch organisation that has taken to editing his work to remove any mention of evolution.

Attenborough, being the rational chap he is, merely states

"The BBC should take steps to make sure that the minuteness of the meanings are maintained."

Sadly, the BBC doesn't appear to be taking a step yet, since the edits are apparently within their 5 minutes editing limit. Except - isn't the BBC having a bit of a tivvy about lack of truthfulness at the moment? Well, this is another case. Do something about it.

Disestablish the Church of England!

Although many schools are not classified as being of religious character, if they do not carry out the daily act of worship they lose points during inspections by Ofsted.

Observer article from 23rd September

Down with this sort of thing!

Really, they're entitled to their churches and all that, but why should they make it a requirement that they get to try brainwashing children with mythical beings?

As for this quote

'Either overtly or by default, this country is still a Christian one.'

It's not just because you say it is while wearing some daft collar around your neck.

If these bishops should have an automatic place in the House of Lords, then at the very least so should the Royal Society, UK Universities, etc. etc. Which is complex - where would it end? So the real solution is this - complete the disestablishment of the Church of England in England.

Don't say the g word

It's a favourite ploy of right wingers like the journalists writing for the Daily Mail to make up stories about liberals. The thing is, it's quite easy to write scare stories about conservatives when you have ones like a number of the Republicans in the US, particularly when it might just be true.

The latest is that political appointees are banning geology, as it disagrees with their fundamentalist point of view. You can't have Creationists going and being told geological facts about the Grand Canyon, such as how old it is can you?