Now that is just sad.

Iran. If you believed the former Bush administration, then Iran is the next greatest threat to American Freedom (C). Now what exactly would Iran use to threaten our freedom? Well...not very much. They tried, they really did. In fact I can almost see where the Iranian President painted a smiley face on the corner of their 'weapons' for such good effort!

Take for instance their 'brand new' and 'advanced' fighter jet, the Shafagh.



According to the commander of the Iranian Air Army, General Attollah Salehi, the new fighter is "similar to the F-18 fighter jet, but it is more capable and has been manufactured domestically… designed, remodeled, optimized and made more capable by our engineers… no country has aided us in its production." So apparently it not only is similar to a F/A-18, but superior, well we better be sure to keep our fighter pilots on high alert. And it gets even better. Yes, those amazing Iranian engineers and scientists have made it a stealth air craft! But not the stealth like we are used to. No, instead of absorbing or dispersing radar waves, you know, the way us silly Westerners go about doing it, the Shafagh is "more difficult to pick up on the radar systems compared with the normal version due to its higher maneuverability". Yes, the Shafagh is so advanced it out maneuvers those pesky radar waves.

What I find a bit sad though is that it isn't a newly developed airframe at all. It you take a close look, it is just a modified F-5E Tiger II, take a look:



In fact the US sold a few F-5's to Iran and many other countries. They were outdated versions of the T-38 trainer and giving such technology to independent nations would make them feel good about themselves (they have big boy toys now!). Other then turning the single tail into a twin and some possible avionics upgrades, there really isn't much distinguishing it from the old 'Tigersharks' that we sold to them. Which were outdated back in the 1970's.

So we know that Iran has 'Advanced Stealth Fighters' but they recently showed their newest piece of doomsday warfare, the unmanned bomber named the Karrar (the Farsi word for Striker). This terror of the skies is..well...I'll just let you see for yourself:



Wow...I wonder if it was one of those snap together models or one of the super hard ones that require glue and stuff. But it gets worse. Yes, it can get worse. Not worse as in terrifying (as, honestly, I would be more worried that it would lose control and end up crashing on me then able to actually hit it's target) but worse in how the Iranian's describe their new 'toy'. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that "The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship,". Wait...what? So this is the happy drone of sharing and friendship? What about that whole 'ambassador of death', was that just a joke? I really don't know how else to say how sad this is. There just are not proper words for this level of fail.

So those are the latest threats coming out of Iran. This is the best Iran has to offer. In all honesty, if I was an American fighter pilot or controlled a UCAV (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle), I would almost feel bad if I ever had to go toe to toe with these feats of Iranian ingenuity. I would imagine it would have the same feeling as pushing over the little kid who just really wants to play with the big kids. You could do it quite easily but you would feel horrible afterward.

Conservapeida.

Conservapedia: where rational thought, skeptical inquiry and general sentience goes to die. The land of tinfoil hats, martyrdom envy, and where batshit insanity is the preferred standard.

Come and prostrate yourself on one of our many crosses for your amusement, now in children's sizes! Do you find thinking for yourself or forming rational coherent sentences far too difficult for your underdeveloped and religion addled brain? Then stop by one of our many retailers for pre-packaged life choices and modes of thinking, one size fits all!

Afraid of life's many mysteries and complex questions? With our new and improved 'godidit' super-deluxe package, all your fears and concerns can be assuaged in single motion. Never have to think or say anything again!

Now open: Kids Corner! Where you can drop off your annoying children with their ever present questions so that you may continue your mindless and loveless existence free of the possibility of taking responsibility for anything! Here your precious spawn will have every last bit of curiosity and creativity wiped and replaced with mindless genuflections, pre-programmed responses, and a deep seated terror of everything good in the world, just like you! Act now and get a free 'if it feels good, you will burn in hell forever' kids coloring and activity book!

So next time you have one of those horrible things known as independent thought creep up in your mind, stop by and have people tell you exactly what you want to hear so that you can, once again, go back to your mindless existence as God's good little sheep. Remember only God loves you...unless you screw up then you will burn forever! Have a pleasant day.

Sanity starts to return to California

That little bit of idiocy known as 'Proposition 8' in California has been over turned. Sorry Mormons, looks like you went and spent all those millions to sway voters to enact Prop. 8 for nothing. Just like with that whole racist thing you went through quite a few years back, it looks like, once again, the courts have moved in and stomped on all your discriminatory fun.

But the religious 'right' did their best to try and fight this...wait...no they didn't. They were so sure that they were going to win they only had two witnesses. You know, for once, I'm actually glad that fundy conservatives are idiots, it made granting basic freedoms that much easier.

Now, unfortunantly, this isn't a dead win. Those with small minds and large mouths are already appealing the decision. So the judge has held off on enacting equal marriage in the state until the hearings are over. While I would like for things to start as soon as possible, I can see the logic in this. By doing this, he shows that he isn't an 'activist' judge (whatever the hell they are anyway) as well as preventing and dashed hopes in case things go badly during the appeal process. Though, at this point, I think there is very little reason to suspect that this will occur.

The way that this discriminatory law was overturned was simply brilliant. Instead of trying to argue that same-sex marriage should be allowed, they put forth that by denying same-sex couples the ability to marry, the state effectively was upholding negative stereotypes and discrimination for which there is no evidence to support. And this is exactly what such laws do. They make it ok to make a certain group of people second class citizens. Something that flies right in the face of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (The 14th Amendment, infuriating bigots since 1868).

One can only hope that this will be the turning point leading to equal marriage laws being passed in other states that used similar arguments. This sets precedent and that was one of the biggest things holding back such laws. Part of me actually hopes the angry peons defending the 'sanctity' of marriage push this to the supreme court only to have the ruling upheld and turning a state concept into a national one. Now wouldn't that be a bit of wonderful irony?

A meeting of science and music

I have recently started reading a book called This is Your Brain on Music: the Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin. I have been in love with music for as long as I can remember, just as long as I have been in love with science. So when I came across a book that fused the two, I absolutely had to purchase it and moved it to the top of my 'to read' list. I have only just begun and already I am finding it to be everything I had hoped it would be and more. Having an understanding of music theory has made much of it a bit easier to digest, though even a musical layman would be able to understand what is presented as the author takes his time to explain the concepts quite well without being deprecative towards the reader. The author is both one of the more renowned musical producers alive as well as one of the leading researchers in the field of cognitive neuroscience. For anyone with a passion for music, this book is a must read. It goes about answering questions such as: what is music, does listening to music make us intrinsically smarter, when do musical preferences form, how does our brain process music, and many other questions.

But what I really wanted to mention (other then a laudatory reference to the book and a quick review) was an experiment mentioned within this tombs pages. An experiment that asked the question 'do other organisms perceive sound as we do?' as well as 'how does the brain process sound?'.

The experiment was conducted by a then graduate student by the name of Petr Janata (He is now an Associate Professor at UC Davis in the Psychology Department and at the Center for Mind and Brain). Other then being a student of biology, Petr is a lover of music. He is a pianist with a preference leaning toward rock and jazz and currently uses music as a model for a neural basis of auditory attention, imagery, and memory as well as working on the relationship between music, emotion, and memory.

The experiment revolved around a phenomena that occurs when a listener hears music with the fundamental frequency removed. Every note we hear is composed of multiple pitches. The base pitch is the 'fundamental frequency'. Often, every other pitch is an integer of the fundamental frequency, these other pitches are known as 'overtones'. An example being, if a note has a pitch of 110Hz, then the overtones will have a pitch of 220Hz, 330Hz, 440Hz, etc. When ever we hear a sound, our brains look for the fundamental frequency. It is so key to how we perceive sound that, if you were to remove the fundamental frequency from a tone, your brain would create it for you.

In Petr's experiment, he was curious as to whether other animals perceive music as we do. So he placed electrodes on the inferior colliculus (a portion of the brain responsible for auditory comprehension) of a barn owl (Tyto alba). He then proceeded to play Strauss's "The Blue Danube Waltz", but with a significant change. The fundamental frequency was removed from the piece.

So a computer recorded the firing of neurons in the brain of the barn owl as it listened to that piece of music made famous to my generation thanks to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. After the waltz was over, Petr sent the recorded data through an amplifier and a loudspeaker. Confirming Petr Janata's suspicion and amazing everyone who was within earshot, the sound that came out was the melody of The Blue Danube Waltz, complete with its own fundamental frequency. The barn owl's brain had restored the missing pitch just like any human brain would.

This confirmed that music, the arrangement of pitches in time, was not a human invention, but something that has been with us for a very long time. Considering the last common ancestor between a human and an owl is the reptiles that divulged into the anapsids (the turtles and tortoises), diapsids (the dinosaurians and, later on, the avians), eurapsids (the line that led to the ichthyosaurs) and the synapsids (which a branch of, the therapsids, became mammals). Sound in time, music, has been a part of life, it seems, for at least many millions of years.


So it seems that my obsession with music is not only healthy, but something that is ingrained within us, coded in our deep genetic past. The experiment further proves that we are just another animal species amongst many, living on this tiny rock of ours. And that those other species, the ones that many of us look down upon, also comprehend the world around them. That they perceive it in a fashion quite similar to our own. That they hear music as we do...and their minds process it just as we do. By seeing this, there really is not much separating us from them. Though, there never was much barricading us away. We just wished it were so, to feed our egos, to make us seem more important. But by understanding our connection, we find that our importance is not lost, but strengthened, and so is the meaning behind every other living organism.


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Reference:

Daniel J. Levitin. (2006). This is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obession. London, England: Penguin Group

Janata, Petr. (August, 1994, last change April, 2010). Petr Janata's home page. http://atonal.ucdavis.edu/~petr/

University of California at Berkeley. (last change, July, 2010) One subset of Gnathostomata is Osteichthyes, bony vertebrates. http://locolobo.org/Clades2.html

A hero of mine

I would like to talk a bit about a personal hero of mine. For most of my life, I have not found another with a mind that worked even remotely similar to my own. I have lived, for far to long, in an area where deep though and inquiry have been mostly shunned or seen as a distant dream at best. When I would talk about my passion for understanding, how it allowed me to feel connected to the ideas I was learning about, I never once came across another who felt this way or truly understood what this feeling was like. Many were interested, yes. They were intrigued by my passion and almost in awe of my understanding and how I could break down the complex and seemingly unattainable into something they could grasp and know for themselves. But I could not find another mind that saw the universe as I did.

When I come across something new, I examine it, I pick it up in my mind and roll it around a bit. I see how it looks from all sides and how it might connect with what I already know. A good example is when, many years ago, I first learned about probability waves. The idea that a particle does not exist at any point, but has a probability of existing. That this probability might be highest around a point but it also flows out around it, spreading to infinity, always at a non-zero chance of being here or there. When I first learned of this, things became so clear for me. Suddenly I understood how electrons could exist in specific energy levels around an atomic nucleus while also forming a 'cloud'. I understood how a photon could be a particle, a single quanta of electromagnetic energy while also being a wave. I was able to apply this concept to things I had leaned before, such as the famous light slit experiment that proved the particle wave duality of light as well as how, if left untouched, a photon will go through two slits equally. Before, the idea of one thing going through two places at once seemed wrong. I knew it was true, but I couldn't fully comprehend it, I couldn't make it my own. But as soon as I learned about probability waves, it all fit. It was a cascade of connections in my mind.

When this happens, it is almost euphoric. The concept I am understanding and myself are no longer separate entities but become intertwined. I experience the idea not as a thought but as if it is a part of me. This connection is, well, spiritual. I use that word reluctantly as I know it has quite a bit of baggage attached to it. That many see it within the domain of religion and myth. But here, I mean it as an experience where you develop as a being, where you connect with something on a fundamental level, almost becoming that thing. There isn't another word in the English language that fits well enough other then spirituality.

For the longest time I could not find another who thought like this. I heard about people who had done so or did so. But I never met them, they were just distant stories. For so long I felt truly alone. That there was not another who felt as I did, who saw the universe as I saw it. Who loved the world as I love it.

But then I read a book. A book written by a man I already greatly respected and wished I had a chance to meet. The book was A Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. When I read the opening pages, I suddenly found the mind I had sought for so long. I read his words, his explanation of how he saw the world and I saw my own views, I saw what could have been my very own words. I read about how he was in love with science, how he wanted to share this love with the world and how his heart ached with joy at the understanding science granted him. And for the first time in my life, I felt as if I was no longer alone. I read on, seeing more of my inner thoughts written out by someone else, as if they had seen into my mind and pulled the thoughts out to use for their own.

From that day on, I no longer felt alone. But I also knew that the mind I had finally found that was similar to my own, was gone. That Carl Sagan had died many years ago and that the book I had read was published only two years before he left us. Part of me grieved. I had never met Carl Sagan, but I felt I knew him better then most ever could have, because I felt our minds were so alike.

Part of me felt cheated. That I did not known more about Carl Sagan when he was alive. That if only someone had shown me some of his non-fiction writing I could have at least reached out to him while he was alive and thanked him. That I wouldn't have spent so much time feeling alone. That I could have told him how much it meant to me to know that another feels the same as I do. But I will never get that chance.

One of Carl Sagan's life long ambitions was to spread knowledge as far as he could. To reach out and share his love of the universe with others. To make others fall in love as he had. And he did this well. He touched so many lives. He inspired an entire generation of scientists. There are few people who have done more to change the world, to help sculpt future minds and societal views. To leave humanity, as a whole, in a better state then when he first entered it.

Carl Sagan accomplished much in his life time. In my own life, I have created a few purposes. One of the most important ones is to spread what knowledge I have. I came to this conclusion on my own, long before I read about Carl Sagan's views. I would like to think, if he were to be able to read this, that he would have preferred that. That I was able to come to this realization on my own. As he was always for letting people understand and develop. I do not hope to emulate Carl Sagan, I could not do that if I tried. He was a great person, one of the greatest our species has ever known. But what I do hope to do is continue his legacy. To spread forth his ideals and his wisdom. To take it in and make it a part of me, just as I have with everything else I have learned. In this manner, I hope to honor his memory. And while I know you will never be able to read this, thank you, Carl Sagan, for helping me understand and be happy with who I am.

The Wicked Witch of the Preschool. A Parousia

The comments on the previous post about child witches brought up how the situation relies on certain biblical text. While I agree with this observation I would like to look deeper into it. I believe that, in this situation, the bible is not the source of the atrocities, but just a tool used by missionaries. That it is more an accelerant tossed on an already burning fire and the people who are throwing around this incendiary are doing so for their own gain and know full well what they are doing and why.

While I certainly agree that the bible has had quite a large influence on the most recent trend of child witch accusations we are seeing and is being used as a prime tool by these con artists to gain money in any way they can. I think that this issue goes much deeper then just the bible. The concept of child witches and other superstitions is nothing new to most African cultures. There has been evidence of this fear in most regions in even the oldest legends and tribal stories.

Had such African tribal lore not contained such a plethora of stories of witchcraft and, more specifically, the power of child witches, then the missionaries would have simply latched on to another fear inducing myth that just happened to bear a slight resemblance to some Christian belief or story.

But African myth does hold numerous stories and beliefs of child witchcraft. The common theme amongst these various legends and myths is that a child has quite a lot of power as their mind is new, open and free to be used. Used by, in many myths, any god or demon or spirit that wishes to attach itself to such a mind. Such legends include the belief that twins have immense power and if they remain together they can do much good, or great evil. That the relatively common birth abnormality of syndactyly, or webbed toes, is interpreted as the child having killed its twin in the womb and stole its power. Another persistent myth is that child witches can be 'penis snatchers', that is, they are said to shrink or steal the penis from a man in the night to gain its power, as, in many cultures, the phallus is seen as a thing of power. In fact, it has not been uncommon for a man, if he finds himself unable to 'perform' sexually for whatever reason, to blame it on a penis snatcher. When this accusation is made, it is not uncommon for there to be a literal witch hunt to find a child to be used as a scapegoat for the man's incontinence.

What we are seeing now is just Christian missionaries seeing a local legend and claiming that it also falls under the doctrine of their religion. This way, the regions inhabitants will easily buy into what the missionaries are selling, as they are already familiar with it and have grown up believing it. The people who espouse this disgusting concept are doing so only to profit for themselves. The more flagrant the stories and sermons, the more people will listen and the more money they will bring. There are so many different missionaries that it has become competitive to see who can get the largest congregation. And they've found the best way is by stirring up the most hatred and fear. It is just another example of Christians using any means possible to win over 'souls' and gain money and glory for their deity. Of the ends justifying the means.

This recent influx of missionaries into Africa and the using of old myths has just been a potential launching ground to spread their tendrils of hatred and greed into fresh minds and is in not a new tactic in the least. It is no different then how Christianity adopted whatever the local culture had to offer in any other situation that it wanted to spread into, such as its take over of the 'pagan' festivals of Easter and what would be come known as Christmas and symbols like the Celtic Cross. Fear is quite the motivating factor to get people to your side, especially if it is an old fear that everyone in a society already has known about in one fashion or another.

That these people who claim to represent a just and loving god are actively seeking to use fear, hatred, blood, and tears for their own personal gain and satisfaction is one of the more disdainful and reprehensible parts of the whole situation.

The Wicked Witch of the Preschool

There has been much written recently about the lunacy that is the accusations of child witches throughout Africa (well much written by the atheosphere at least). Recently one of these 'witch hunters' came back to the US to talk to American church congregations. Her name is Helen Ukpabio and at a Houston church she talked about the 'good' she was doing. In Nigeria, her home country, she has been going around telling people of the dangers of child witches. She espouses such idiocy as "if a child under the age of 2 screams in the night, cries and is always feverish with deteriorating health, he or she is a servant of Satan." Wait...so if a young child is sick and in pain...that means they have the devil in them? Unless I'm mistaken, wasn't there some talk a while back about this germ theory of disease?

What is sad is that people over here in America are just eating it up as if she is doing some good. After all, there have been many missionaries from the states to parts of Africa who have fueled other such child witch hunts. I just have to ask how deluded does a person have to be to think that convincing families to abandon, torture and kill their own children and then get all the neighbors in on it is a good thing. When people do stand up to her and call her out on the atrocities she is enacting, she waves the criticism of by saying that it simply doesn't happen. Despite the fact that people have video and photo documentation of these events and recorded statements by the families who have abused or killed or allowed for the abuse or killing of their own children. When pushed to answer for this she simply answers that the reason she knows that it doesn't happen is "because I am an African!" and "family ties are too strong to have a child on the street.” Thankfully because of international outrage at such events, the Nigerian government has enacted laws against anything that fuels the hunt for child witches. What might be Helen Ukpabio response to these laws? Well, she has decided to sue the government for infringing on her freedom of religion. I'll wait now for the the readers to finish with the requisite facepalm.

Thankfully more and more people are seeing Ukpabio's actions for what they are, money scams. Religion is big money in Africa. Even though the continent is wracked by poverty, people will put what little money they have at the feet of people promising salvation and religious answers to their problems. The populous is already used to accepting superstition as is seen in any region with a low education rate. So the spread of religious superstition is only natural. Missionaries have found that the more they grandstand, the more horrible and aggressive their message, the larger their congregation will be. With larger congregations comes more money. It is all about competition for the most money in an environment where churches and roving preachers are popping at every turn. Fear sells and in the game of religion the most terrifying talk and proselytisations are the most successful social parasites. This is exactly what they are, parasites, draining the poor of what little funds they have and only doing harm in return. There is no mutualism in this relationship, it is strictly about who can take the most.

But as long as religion is given a special place and people flock to it out of fear and ignorance, such atrocities as burning children alive, burying the beaten but still breathing, the maiming with knifes and acid, or just the simple abandonment of children onto the uncaring streets will continue to be commonplace. Only when enough people, freethinkers and theists alike, stand up to the voices of unreason and fear mongering can we even begin to hope to live in a world where such vile people as Helen Ukpabio are not only ignored by the masses but receive a retaliatory volley in response to their venomous lies.