Herding Cats

In one day, the Atheist Campaign have raised nearly ten times more money than their original target of £5500. So cats can be herded after all?

Nor did they have funney heads

Today, the Ministry of Defence published classified documents relating to UFO sightings in the UK between 1986 and 1992.

Those expecting high resolution photographs and detailed schematics of super-advanced alien tech may be disappointed to find thousands of poorly typed letters describing UFO sightings amounting to a stunningly feeble collection of evidence for extraterrestrial visitors.

There are also letters to the Prime Minister from distinguished organisations such as The Irish UFO Research Centre demanding that the UK Government release all the information they have on the program of ‘genetic cross breading[sic]… with potentially hostile “Greys”‘.

The files can be downloaded as PDF documents from the National Archive website.

Jurassic Ark

Jurassic Ark by sculptor Stephen Geddes

The Twisted Arm of the Politician

What is it about politicians that makes them start talking more sense after they have left office? It happened to Robin Cook when he resigned from the Cabinet in protest to the UK’s involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Al Gore only seemed to become a much more powerful political figure, especially with respect to our attitude towards climate change, after he left office. Even Michael Portillo has managed to redeem himself slightly in the public eye after his fall from grace eleven years ago. And of course, everyone loves Tony Benn.

Yesterday, the man who played a key role in garnering international support for the ‘War on Terror’, powerfully enunciated what every right-thinking, educated person knows, that Barack Obama is the right person to be the US President.

Colin Powell resigned as US Secretary of State in 2004 after acknowledging that the sources who provided the evidence for WMDs – that was used to justify the deposition of Saddam Hussein – were wrong about their conclusions.

He was always seen as a moderate figure in the US administration, and was more popular with Americans than Rumsfeld or Cheney. However, I’m wondering how the same person who yesterday spoke so clearly and sensibly about his reasons for supporting Obama and not McCain could not speak out against the Bush/Cheney led invasion of Iraq, a country which had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks in the US.

The adage ‘power tends to corrupt…’ may be true, but unless you reach ‘absolute power’, it seems the process is reversible.

Preaching Reason

On a Saturday afternoon, Grey’s Monument in Newcastle usually hosts Christian evangelists from different groups using various methods to indoctrinate passers-by with their religion; from the hell-and-damnation-type shouting preachers to the well organised and massively funded Alpha Course, who cleverly use the ‘Big Question’ type of rhetoric to encourage people to sign up for a ten week course on the Bible.

Today, handing out leaflets near a small table stacked with printed material, were two representatives from the North East Humanists. Many would argue that these people are trying to do a similar thing to the Christian evangelists, to bring people around to their world view. I would argue that as a registered charity they are there to campaign for secular interests: the abolishment of faith schools, the teaching of Science without the hindrance of religious sensitivity, and the promotion of the rather obvious idea that people can be good to one another without fearing the wrath of a supernatural entity.

At Newcastle University on the 11th of November – in a joint lecture with the North East Humanists to commemorate the forthcoming 200th Anniversary of Darwin’s birth – Professor Steve Jones will be giving a talk entitled ‘Is evolution over?’. It’s an astonishing fact that many millions of people in the UK believe evolution never even started. Anyway, I’ll be there.

Former God

To think of the millenia in which we had no explanation for the bright object in the sky that gave us warmth and made our crops grow. Now, in the last few decades, science has finally revealed the true nature of the Sun, our nearest star.