Review of Simonastick

              It's been a while since I've done any virtual world bogging but honestly there are much better people doing it than I am. Honour Mcmillan does an excellent G rated travel blog, while Uccello Poultry has an excellent not G rated blog. 

Recently I came across a new creation of Ener Hax called Sim-on-a-stick and this is quite a good idea. Basically loading OpenSim, Apache and MySQL all into one program plugged into a usb port, start it up and after a few minutes you  have a local a virtual world. Apparently it needs USB 2.0, USB 3.0 makes no improvement.

Simonastick comes in two versions one with Imprudence and one without, I downloaded the latest version 0.73, unzipped it to a 1gig usb stick, and clicked the Start_opensim.bat.  The machine couldn't cope with the Imprudence viewer, so it was simply a matter of commenting out the relevant parts of the .bat file giving it a restart and it was fine.
It took about  four minutes to fully start up, and finished with a DOS prompt. Yes, you will actually need to type things at the command line, but no need to worry, it's no big deal.

OK, you can see the problem I had, this is all really designed to be run from the one machine, but I couldn't start Imprudence on the server, so I would have to access it across the network.
Although designed for running on one machine and to be accessed on the same machine, you can change some files to allow this.

Start with the file \diva-r18822-c\bin\Config-include\MyWorld.ini on the usb drive.
I just opened it in Notepad and then did a search and replace for every instance of 127.0.0.1 to my servers IP address of 192.168.1.220. Then saved it.
Go up one directory and then into \diva-r18822-c\bin\regions\RegionConfig.ini, and do the same, then save it.

Now open up Imprudence on your own machine,  go to Grid Manger, then create a New Grid.

In my case I entered http://192.168.1.220:9100/. Pressing Get Grid Info should populate the rest of the screen.

If you keep getting http://127.0.0.1:9100/ and you NOT on the same computer the Simonastick is installed on, then you will need to check the IP address is correct on the server or the changes to the files are saved. You might try turning off the firewall and then trying it again. You will need to open up ports 9100 TCP and UDP on the ports of the server and that should allow the network connection. 


Once you have the IPs and firewalls sorted out, enter Simona as the first name, then Stick as the last name, and 123 as the password.

You should then be standing next to a giant rocket that most people will recognize from the Tin Tin series. It's big..really really big, I have zoomed out for the picture below, but I am actually standing near the base of the rocket.

The default avatar is still a bit blah..

 I've not used Opensim for a while, although it seems my own Plasmalandia is still up and running with 4 months uptime.

So I looked to see what there was in free OAR files. These are virtual environments that you can load into your opensim.

AHA... here we go, I found http://opensimworlds.com/ and downloaded the Fairie Castle from Jessica Random. Once downloaded, move it to the usb stick, and then type "Load oar  e:\directorytofile\FairieCastle-v0.1.oar ", after a few moments the Dos screen will start to scroll upward displaying the .oar file being installed. This can take a few minutes, waiting....waiting....
So now you might be seeing something like this:-

 
Now hopefully you haven't had this land on you, this is a big build, I'm that small orange dot in the middle of the picture.
WooHoo, you get a ship!

OK, lets try another oar file. I found http://lindakellie.com/ and I then downloaded Fantasy.oar, so move it to the usb stick. Linda Kellie has a lot of useful things such as hair, clothes, buildings, that are certainly worth looking at.

 Now you need to go to the Dos screen and type "Change region Simonastick 2" this will put the focus on to the next region, remembering that you have 4 regions on this Opensim. Now type "Load oar Fantasy.tgz", on the server, I had to wait about 8-10 minutes for it to load waiting...waiting...

It's big...really big, I'm standing standing in the far distance next to the the tall white tree in the middle.

So this is quite a useful addition to the Opensim family


Thanks Ener, good work.


http://simonastick.com/

http://opensim-creations.com/

http://www.lindakellie.com/


“Virtual reality is a self-created form of chosen reality. Therefore it exists.” ― Joan Lowery Nixon

Can't stop getting Deviant Art portraits

Deviant Art is a great place to find creativity, lots of photos, 3D images and drawings. I like to get portraits done usually by artists with different styles, and I have now had about 12 or 13 by now.

Here I am with my friend Moggs Oceanline. I seem to have a power drill or a hairdryer, I'm not sure which one.

http://crazy-lunar-girl.deviantart.com/

There are those times when your out and about, and that wonderful little latex outfit that you thought would be fantastic to wear while blasting rogue robots, goes a little bit wrong.

http://haruhauchan.deviantart.com/

Sometimes you win, then there are times when the robot wins  :-( 

http://kyatia.deviantart.com/

In the fifties, it was predicted that in 5 years robots would everywhere.
In the sixties, it was predicted that in 10 years robots would be everywhere.
In the seventies, it was predicted that in 20 years robots would be everywhere.
In the eighties, it was predicted that in 40 years robots would be everywhere...
Marvin Minsky

Stephen Fry is awesome at Inteligence Squared

 On 19 Oct 2009 Intelligence Squared, hosted a debate :-

The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world

Speakers included :- Stephen Fry, Archbishop John Onaiyekan, Ann Widdecombe, Zeinab Badawi, Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

Stephen Fry shows why he is so awesome:-

Stephen Fry

I genuinely believe that the Catholic Church is not, to put it at its mildest, a force for good in the world, and therefore it is important for me to try and martial my facts as well I can to explain why I think that. But I want first of all to say that I have no quarrel and no argument and I wish to express no contempt for individual devout and pious members of that church. It would be impertinent and wrong of me to express any antagonism towards any individual who wishes to find salvation in whatever form they wish to express it.

That to me is sacrosanct as much as any article of faith is sacrosanct to anyone of any church or any faith in the world. It’s very important. It’s also very important to me, as it happens, that I have my own beliefs. They are a belief in the Enlightenment, a belief in the eternal adventure of trying to discover moral truth in the world, and there is nothing, sadly, that the Catholic Church and its hierarchs likes to do more than to attack the Enlightenment.

It did so at the time: reference was made to Galileo and the fact that he was tortured, for trying to explain the Copernican theory of the Universe. Just imagine in this square mile how many people were burned for reading the Bible in English. And one of the principle burners and torturers of those who tried to read the Bible in English, here in London, was Thomas More. Now, that’s a long time ago, it’s not relevant, except that it was only last century that Thomas More was made a saint, and it was only in the year 2000, that the last pope, the Pole, he made Thomas More the Patron Saint of Politicians. This is a man who put people on the wrack for daring to own a Bible in English: he tortured them for owning a Bible in their own language.

The idea that the Catholic Church exists to disseminate the word of the Lord is nonsense. It is the only owner of the Truth for the billions that it likes to boast about, because those billions are uneducated and poor, as again it likes to boast about. It’s perhaps unfair of me, as a gay man, to moan at this enormous institution, which is the largest and most powerful church on Earth, has over a billion, as they like to tell us, members, each one of whom is under strict instructions to believe the dogmas of the church, but may wrestle with them personally of course. It’s hard for me to be told that I’m evil, because I think of myself as someone who is filled with love, whose only purpose in life was to achieve love, and who feels love for so much of nature and the world and for everything else.

We certainly don’t need the stigmatisation, the victimisation, that leads to the playground bullying when people say you’re a disordered, morally evil individual. That’s not nice, it isn’t nice. The kind of cruelty in Catholic education, the kind of child—let’s not call it child abuse, it was child rape—the kind of child rape that went on systematically for so long, let’s imagine that we can overlook this and say that it is nothing whatever to do with the structure and nature of the Catholic Church, and the twisted and neurotic and hysterical way that its leaders are chosen, the celibacy, the nuns, the monks, the priesthood, this is not natural and normal, ladies and gentlemen, in 2009, it really isn’t.

I have yet to approach one of the subjects dearest to my heart, I’ve made three documentary films on the subject of AIDS in Africa. My particular love is the country of Uganda, it is one of the countries I love most in the world. There was a period when Uganda had the worst incidence of HIV/AIDS in the world, but through an amazing initiative called ABC—Abstinence, Be faithful, Correct use of condoms—those three, I’m not denying that abstinence is a very good way of not getting AIDS, it really is, it works, so does being faithful, but so do condoms, and do not deny it! And this Pope, this Pope,  not satisfied with saying “condoms are against our religion, please consider first abstinence, second being faithful to your partner,” he spreads the lie that condoms actually increase the incidence of AIDS, he actually makes sure that aid is conditional on saying no to condoms. I have been to the hospital in Bwindi in the west of Uganda, where I do quite a lot of work, it is unbelievable the pain and suffering you see. Now yes, yes it is true abstinence will stop it.

It’s the strange thing about this church, it is obsessed with sex, absolutely obsessed. Now, they will say we with our permissive society and our rude jokes, we are obsessed. No, we have a healthy attitude, we like it, it’s fun, it’s jolly, because it’s a primary impulse it can be dangerous and dark and difficult, it’s a bit like food in that respect only even more exciting. The only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese, and that in erotic terms is the Catholic Church in a nutshell.

Do you know who would be the last person ever to be accepted as a prince of the Church? The Galileean carpenter. That Jew. They would kick him out before he tried to cross the threshold. He would be so ill-at-ease in the Church. What would he think, what would he think of St. Peter’s? What would he think of the wealth, and the power, and the self-justification, and the wheedling apologies?

The Pope could decide that all this power, all this wealth, this hierarchy of princes and bishops and archbishops and priests and monks and nuns could be sent out in the world with money and art treasures, to put them back in the countries that they once raped and violated, they could give that money away, and they could concentrate on the apparent essence of their belief, and then, I would stand here and say the Catholic Church may well be a force for good in the world, but until that day, it is not.

Thank you.

The Result:-

Initial Vote: 678 For, 1102 Against, Undecided 346

Final Vote: 268 For, 1876 Against, Undecided 34

http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/catholic-church

But perhaps, you know, we should believe in Adam and Eve. Geneticists have established that every woman in the world shares a single female ancestor who lived a hundred and fifty thousand years ago. Scientists actually call her "Eve", and every man shares a single male ancestor called "Adam". It's also been established, however, that Adam was born eighty thousand years after Eve. So the world before him was one of heavy to industrial-strength lesbianism, one assumes. Stephen Fry

Britian The Rogue State of Libel

If you publish, if you write, this is a book to read to understand just how bad the UK libel laws are.

On 21 July 2008, the United Nations declared that the practical application of English libel law "has served to discourage critical media reporting on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work". England's authoritarianism was not a local concern, but created the global danger that one country's "unduly restrictive libel law will affect freedom of expression worldwide on matters of valid public interest".
Libel law was making England look like a pariah state. The internet ensured that all online publications everywhere on the planet could be read in England. Thanks to the Duke of Brunswick and his obedient servant, a single view of a web page in the UK constituted a publication of the libel in England, however old the offending words were. True, wealthy men could sue only if they had a reputation in England that critical reporting could damage. But as many oligarchs had a London home, or had business dealings in the City, they could overcome that obstacle with ease.

The USA did the right thing:-

US Senate passes 'libel tourism' bill

(AFP) – Jul 19, 2010 

WASHINGTON — The US Senate on Monday passed a bill to shield US journalists, authors, and publishers from "libel tourists" who file suit in countries where they expect to get the most favorable ruling.
The popular legislation headed to the House of Representatives, which was expected to approve it and send the measure to US President Barack Obama to sign into law despite misgivings from key US allies.
Backers of the bill have cited England, Brazil, Australia, Indonesia and Singapore as places where weak libel safeguards attract lawsuits that unfairly harm US journalists, writers and publishers.
The Senate approved the measure in a "unanimous consent" voice vote.
The bill's supporters have said that "libel tourism" undermines free speech rights under the US Constitution's cherished first amendment, and so erode accountability of powerful figures in a healthy democracy.

The book is available at The Guardian Bookshop

More information on UK Libel can be found here http://www.libelreform.org/

Libel laws are not just a Fleet Street issue. We have heard from scientists, campaigners, writers, academics and patients that their discussions and publications are being shut down by the threat of libel action. Critical and open debates are vital in medicine and the public are badly missing out without them. Tracey Brown, Managing Director of Sense About Science:

Stop SOPA and PIPA

Don't forget 

Freedom is in Peril

Sheep Lawsuits Feminism and Venn Diagrams

                I'm have often wondered why so many women support religion, I have always supposed that it has to do with the fear of death and separation from loved ones. But then again, maybe it's the certainty that it supposedly provides.
But Christian Feminists? Really this is truly an oxymoron

Lets see the compatibility:-

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. In addition, feminism seeks to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A feminist is a "person whose beliefs and behaviour are based on feminism."


Christianity is whatever you want it to be, whenever it is convenient for you, as long as you believe Jesus Christ was some sort of godly figure, and will save you from death. You have a choice to be in one of 33,830 denominations.
But it comes down to men on top, and women down the bottom...look see! I have even made a Venn Diagram.

I have often commented on the UK Nadine Dories as one woman who pushes the Christian view of abortion and sex education. This basically consists of the first will stop, if the second is all about saying no. This is just plain weird.
Australia has her equal in Melinda Tankard Reist, who famously was once an adviser to Sen Brian Harradine, the man who kept RU486 out of the hands of Australian woman for as long as he could.

No place for sheep is the blog of Jennifer Wilson, who also writes in various other places, such as ABCs The Drum.

On the 14th January Jennifer received a notice from MTR and her lawyers to delete all posts about her, claiming that she was upset about being called a Baptist, and was duplicitous and deceptive about her religion.

As you might guess this brings lawsuits in Australia to a new level, it doesn't look to be a case of seeking to clarify the facts and for a correction, but as a means to silence someone through Lawfare.

Australia has a semi-nationalised healthcare system called Medicare, maybe it's time the Legal system was nationalised as well, as it's only seems to serve those who can afford it. But then that's why it's called a Legal system, and not a Justice system.

Further Reading:-


PZ Meyers gets into the act
As does Russell Blackford
Herald Sun
The Australian Sex Party also add their bit, and they are not happy.

Actually I never asked my friend Spitfire about her actual Church.

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are.  If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again.  But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her.  And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter.  If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife.  If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment.  (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

Spitfire shows us Christian love

Where our Heroine encounters Christian Love.

This is for Jennifer Ahlquist, who has experienced Christian love such as below.

“If this banner comes down, hell i hope the school burns down with it!”

“U little brainless idiot, hope u will be punished, you have not win sh..t! Stupid little brainless skunk!”

“Fuck Jessica alquist I’ll drop anchor on her face”

“definetly laying it down on this athiest tommorow anyone else?”

“Nothing bad better happen tomorrow #justsaying #fridaythe13th”

“Let’s all jump that girl who did the banner #fuckthatho”

“literally that bitch is insane. and the best part is she already transferred schools because shes knows someone will jump her #ahaha”

“”But for real somebody should jump this girl” lmao let’s do it!”

“Hmm jess is in my bio class, she’s gonna get some shit thrown at her”

“I want to punch the girl in the face that made west take down the school prayer… #Honestly”

“hail Mary full of grace @jessicaahlquist is gonna get punched in the face”

“When I take over the world I’m going to do a holocaust to all the atheists”

“gods going to fuck your ass with that banner you scumbag”

“I found it, what a little bitch lol I wanna snuff her”

“if I wasn’t 18 and wouldn’t go to jail I’d beat the shit out of her idk how she got away with not getting beat up yet”

“lol I wanna stick that bitch lol”

“nail her to a cross”

“We can make so many jokes about this dumb bitch, but who cares #thatbitchisgointohell and Satan is gonna rape her.”

 The list of threats and and those caring Christians who made them, are here


There is actually also a Comic Book character called  Madame Mirage to me the idea of an evangelical Superhero is rather scary. In reality, it's Jennifer who is the real hero.

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior. - Socrates

I support the Sparticus Report

          I have always been suspicious that the UK Tory government runs purely on ideological reasons seemingly at odds with the economic reality at the current time.

One of its projects has been getting disabled people off benefits and back into work, there is of course a slight problem with this, seeing that the economy is a bit of a mess there are actually no jobs to go to, it also doesn't help that is disabled people have to go to Serco and have their disabilities examined by an amateur with check list.

There has been some excellent work done by Sue Marsh , Bendy Girl and other to highlight just how ridiculous this system has become.

On the 9th January they released a report "Responsible Reform" commonly known as the Spartacus report on how the government basically misled the public on their alleged consultation about changes to the disability living allowance DLA.

The government has said it wishes to cut the money paid to the DLA by 20%, a slight problem is that fraud or the DLA is only 0.5% is that it is certainly not something they are going to improve on very much. So the Government a doing what they do best, and attacking those who aren't good at defending themselves.

 Summery of Responsible Reform from Ekklesia

'Responsible Reform' is based on the responses to the government's own consultation on its planned DLA reforms, which were only made public once disabled people requested them under the Freedom of Information Act.

Among the report's key conclusions are that:
* Only seven per cent of organisations that took part in the consultation were fully in support of plans to replace DLA with a Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
* There was overwhelming opposition in the consultation responses to nearly all of the government's proposals for DLA reform
* The government has consistently used inaccurate figures to exaggerate the rise in DLA claimants
* The report shows that nearly all of the recent increase in working-age claimants of DLA has been associated with mental health conditions and learning difficulties. Between 2002 and 2010, the number of working-age DLA claimants - excluding those with mental health conditions and learning difficulties remained remarkably stable
* 98 per cent of those who responded opposed plans to change the qualifying period for PIP from three months (as it is with DLA) to six months
* 90 per cent opposed plans for a new assessment, which disabled people fear will be far too similar to the much-criticised work capability assessment used to test eligibility for employment and support allowance (ESA)
* Respondents to the consultation repeatedly warned that the government's plans could breach the Equality Act, the Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

 The easy read version of the Report can be found here at United Response. While the full version is here at Ekklesia.
 
The latest Sue Marsh article at The Guardian

The news on this report and the Government is getting out slowly, and hopefully will cause the Government to actually do something actually positive for the disabled. Chanel 4 News

This Government has let the Banks and tax evaders get away with £Billions and don't seem to be that great at trying to fix it, oh wait, yes, this is the Tory party, when I said "Banks and tax evaders" I really should have said "Tory party supporters".

If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
- Charles Darwin

Diseased Books and the AVN

There can't be much more heart breaking than loosing a child, but when you use this as a springboard to push an agenda that will only bring death to more children, then my sympathy will disappear very quickly.

Stephanie Messenger works closely with Meryl Dorey and the AVN (Generally known as the Anti-Vaccination Network), and have authored together yet together another antivax book
On the webpage that sells her book (that I won't link to) she make 3 pronouncements:-

A few simple facts for people to check out:

1. Japan stopped vaccinating young babies and their SIDs rate plummeted to near none. SIDS in Australia mostly happens at 2, 4 and 6 months – a coincidence – I think not, some will definitely be vaccination deaths!

 This is actually entirely false, the Japanese do vaccinate children, but have a different schedule
 yes they don't use the MMR but 3 single injections, and use the oral Polio tablet, not an injection


                                         Mandatory Vaccines in Japan:

3 Months - DPT (Diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus)  then again at 4 months, and 6 months & 18 months

3 Months - BCG (Tuberculosis)

6 Months - Polio - and again at 18 months

3 Years - MR (Measles and Rubella) - Total of 3 shots given over a period of several weeks / months

Heath care in Japan is extremely good, and this will be one reason that SIDS is much lower than in other counties. SIDS has been failing in all countries according to SIDS and KIDS  Japan and The Netherlands have the lowest incidence, while noticeable the highest incidence is among peoples with a high number of smokers such as Native Americans and New Zealand Maori. 

Again from SIDS and KIDS is a report that demonstrates that immunisation decreases the risk of SIDS. 

2. The U.S.A. has paid out billions in compensation for vaccine injury. Why do doctors here deny it is happening – are they scared of being sued?

Yes the USA has paid out $Billions, but then just see how much courts award most legal claims in the USA. The actually numbers of verified clams are quite low, recently in the hundreds compared to the amount of those people who actually get vaccinated. The USA started these special courts as the drug companies stopped manufacturing the vaccines after loosing a few court cases.


Here is the latest January 2012 Vaccine Compensation Report from the USA.
It's noticeable that 2011 was a record year for payouts, but note that it takes 2-3 years for the clam to be processed, and there is also the adults and the resent nationwide flu jabs.
Total payouts for 1989 - 2012 (so far) $2,366,649,931.96

In the UK 1997 - 2005  £35 Million has been paid out due to Vaccine Injury


Note the no-one is saying that vaccination is 100% safe, that is why these vaccination courts where set up, but it's the simple case that so many more people would die if there were no vaccination.

According to the WHO, There are only 19 countries in the world that do have No-fault Compensation for Vaccine Injuries, and I do think it is something Australia should look at implementing. It's not a conspiracy, it's just something that needs to be done properly.

3. There is absolutely NO SCIENTIFIC PROOF a raised antibody level equals immunity. Apparently doctors want scientific proof of reactions, yet there is no scientific proof a raised antibody level gives immunity. There is proof it does not, when most of the cases of whooping cough are in the vaccinated as they are for this current epidemic.

Wrong.
Answered here in Clinical Infectious Diseases, as it's an actual Scientific Journal written by someone who is actually a Professor of Pediatrics, and not a dodgy website like whale.to, or anything with the word natural in the title, it takes a bit of reading and understanding. Yes it's a bit heavy going, but you can skip to the conclusion.

Whooping Cough needs a booster, just like Tetanus, it does wear off, and the unvaccinated are copping it as well.

Measles :- From the World Heath Organisation

• Measles is one of the leading causes of death among young children even though a safe and cost-effective vaccine is available.
• In 2008, there were 164 000 measles deaths globally – nearly 450 deaths every day or 18 deaths every hour.
• More than 95% of measles deaths occur in low-income countries with weak health infrastructures.
• Measles vaccination resulted in a 78% drop in measles deaths between 2000 and 2008 worldwide.
• In 2010, about 85% of the world's children received one dose of measles vaccine by their first birthday through routine health services – up from 72% in 2000.

Measles is a highly contagious, serious disease caused by a virus. In 1980, before widespread vaccination, measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.It remains one of the leading causes of death among young children globally, despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine. An estimated 164 000 people died from measles in 2008 – mostly children under the age of five.
So....not harmless at all.

Some still believe that vaccines cause autism, and it has been refuted quite thoroughly, for example, here is an actual study done by real scientists in Denmark.
When I say "Real Scientists" I mean those with a real degree, and not someone who graduated from the University of Google.

So why do people still hang on to this belief?
Autism is genetic, so it has to come from the parents, so rather than face this fact, it's easier to go into denial, and blame someone, anyone else.



Some more on Stephanie Messenger at Anti-vaxxors

But on the on the hand, if you actually find Melanies Marvellous Measles a good read, you can follow it up with these wonderful offerings from  http://www.blissfulblightbooks.com/

Soon to follow is Rachel's Remarkable Rubella and Hillary and her Hilarious HPV

Thanks to Reasonable Hank for the heads up on this awful book.

The AVN have had some interesting exposure recently, recently at Woodford, and just yesterday a slight issue with their magazine and accounts.AVN Accounts info can be read here and a synopsis of Woodford can be read at Dave the Happy Singer.


Having children made us look differently at all these things that we take for granted, like taking your child to get a vaccine against measles or polio. Melinda Gates

 

Comic:- Starting 2012

I hope that this year improves on 2011, I must admit I'm not optimistic. Spitfire and I will have a few things to discuss over the next year, while I have reason and science on my side, she has mental inertia, inherited privilege and blind faith on hers. 

Spitfire is still a bit peeved about this.



New Year's Day:  Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.  ~Mark Twain

Catholic Church costs Italy six billion Euros a year

             

                                                          

                  Italy’s Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR), decided to have a look at how much the Italian state either contributes or subsidises the Catholic church, and the result although an estimate is about 6Billion Euros, or about 7.5 Billion US dollars.  This will always be difficult research project do to how the Churches assets are spread through various diocese and under different corporations, and some institutions will be in association, but not actually owned by the Church.

The results are in Italian here http://www.icostidellachiesa.it/ no English translation so using Google Translate is the only way to read it.


Although others have tried in the recent past to produce an estimate:- Piergiorgio Odifreddi (Why can not we be Christians, 2007) has estimated 9 billion per year, Curzio Maltese (The questing, 2008)  4.5 billion, the Ares (The Chaste Caste , 2008) at 20 billion.  
For its part, the Catholic world is almost always refer to the reply to the Maltese book, entitled The true begging, written by journalist Umberto Folena Future and freely downloadable online , (in Italian) which has no total amount.


PDF on just some of  the Catholic Churches finances in the US  by Curzio Maltese

Wikipedia Funding the Catholic Church in Italy 






"The Vatican is a dagger in the heart of Italy." -Thomas Paine

Newtonmas 2011 Comic- Our heroine takes a fall

A few things happened after yesterdays Newtonmas Card photoshoot.

So there I was, down the bottom of the cliff while Spitfire went off to jump out of her cake. HA!, so she says, I'll catch up with her in a short while. 

 

 

 

 

 

Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians ... Isaac Newton, a posthumous child born with no father on Christmas Day, 1642, was the last wonder child to whom the Magi could do sincere and appropriate homage... Why do I call him a magician? Because he looked on the whole universe and all that is in it as a riddle, as a secret which could be read by applying pure thought to certain evidence, certain mystic clues which God had laid about the world to allow a sort of philosopher's treasure hunt to the esoteric brotherhood... He regarded the Universe as a cryptogram set by the Almighty—just as he himself wrapt the discovery of the calculus in a cryptogram when he communicated with Leibniz. By pure thought, by concentration of mind, the riddle, he believed, would be revealed to the initiate.

— John Maynard Keynes

Have a Happy Solstice or Christmas or Newtonmas

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. 'Tis much better to do a little with certainty, & leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.- Sir Isaac Newton

I think this is Deviant Art page 3

       I have had even more pictures done, I generally just look in the Deviant Art Forums on who is having a special, or just search Commission, on the front page search and cut the results down to the last week. Sometimes I find people having specials, and if I like their styles, I might order a commission.

When they ask for a back story I usually just say do an image search for "The Dirty Pair".

I don't usually go in for a bust picture, normally I prefer a full body one.
As done by 8jessica7.deviantart.com

I call this one "Have you seen my Pistol?" The artist was charging $2 US!  eroma.deviantart.com

I actually asked for a pin up style picture, and I added a list of suggestions. It was only when I looked at the picture, and the incomplete robot, and then her email address ending in .it, did I realise she was probably a good Catholic girl and English was not her strong point....Ha!
         I called this one Space Ranger Plasma and the Incomplete Robot.
  As done by vp-artworks.deviantart.com

There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk. - Charles Dickens

Even more pictures from Deviant Art

So here I have a few more Portraits I have had done by Artists from DeviantArt 

Zonja and I as done by http://coffeekinns.deviantart.com 

As you can see, I don't have much confidence in her waving that Light Sabre around.

 

Here I am with Gospeed Racer (I promised her I would do this years ago) as done by deliriumlina.deviantart.com

 

I wasn't going to get a Chilbi Style portrait, but I liked how http://cacandy1988.deviantart.com/  did them.

And lastly a $5 special from http://ewgraphics.deviantart.com

I paint German artists whom I admire. I paint their pictures, their work as painters, and their portraits too. But oddly enough, each of these portraits ends up as a picture of a woman with blonde hair. I myself have never been able to work out why this happens. Georg Baselitz

Battlefield America

Senators Demand the Military Lock Up of American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window

 
Dear USA citizens,
                 You know how you keep going on about being the "Land of the Free", in spite of other counties actually being more free than you eg Norway, Demark etc.

You might want to read how the National Defense Authorization Act will allow the US military to arrest and hold you in detention without charge anywhere in the world, including the US mainland.
You know all those civil right you thought you had? This is the Counter-Enlightenment, and it's coming for you.

  There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people. Commander William Adama - Battlestar Galactica

Burzynski Clinic in a tizz

      So the big news in Skeptic and medical blogging circles is the Burzynski Clinic, and the bizarre emails from Marc Stevens, to a number of skeptical bloggers.
Burzynski claim that Marc was hired for his SEO skills, and I will admit that he has been a remarkable success in raising the Burzynski Clinics profile, but Marc doesn't seems to have a big profile himself, as I can't find him via Google, and his Yahoo Answers profile has been deleted.

It all started off with this story From the Quackometer  how he saw a story in the Observer about how Peter Kay was raising money to send a child to the Clinic for treatment. Its certainly a worthy thing that Peter is doing, but as Le Canard Noir said, it's probably all for nought.

Among the others who got the nasty emails was Rhys Morgan a local hero for taking on the Miracle Mineral Solution, also known as bleach, and having it banned in the UK.

Read the emails between Rhys and Marc, two other names stick out Azad Rastegar and Renee Trimble. They both work at the clinic. They both have copies of these emails and they say nothing, only a retweet from @AzadRastegar on twitter from a patient who does seem to be getting better.

Regarding medical side of the treatment the mighty David Colquhoun covers it here   

Now it really get interesting as the Burzynski Clinic have finally released a statement. It mentions attorneys will be contacting UK based bloggers about alleged defamatory statements.
 
This would be rather interesting to see going to Court as the Burzynski Clinic would probably be in breach of the 1939 Cancer Act.

So basically Bloggers says the Clinic can't really cure cancer, The Clinic has only anedotal evidence that it does, the Clinic takes bloggers to Court in the UK, so the Clinic will actually have to prove in front of expert witnesses that it can cure cancer. I can't really see that the NHS and the UK Cancer Research  leaving this alone.

Martin Robbins who is the Science writer for the Guardian has just posted this to his Google+

Just got this follow up for the Burzynski lawyer. As I thought, he was straight with me, but the situation behind the scenes seems very confused. In any case, the below seems pretty clear now... I've not seen the press release, and I'm out of the country s will just post this as is...

"The clinic issued a press release on the blogosphere issue which was sent to your paper.  It covers the relationship between it and Marc Stephens It turns out some of the issues are more complicated that I had first thought. But the bottom line is that the clinic did hire Marc Stephens and one of his main tasks was to stop the dissemination of false and misleading information, and he initiated contact with at least some of these web sites with the knowledge of the clinic. As stated in the press release, the clinic is still going to pursue having these web sites remove misstatements or misleading omissions of fact. For the time being, these bloggers have managed to make this about threats by the Burzynski clinic rather than whether the information on these sites is truthful, accurate and fair. We're hoping that somewhere down the line, the media will focus of these issues."

Hmmm

 STOP PRESS!

 As I write this the most excellent Jen McCreight takes a stick to some of the claims and references in the statement.

So it looks to me that the clinic has scored an own goal.

"The highwayman demands 'your money OR your life,' but quacks demand 'your money AND your life!'" -anon

Whatever happened to Milan Brych?

Long time ago in the dark days of a gerrymandered Australian state, there was a State Premier called Sir  Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Miracles did he promise, and never delivered, such as a steam powered car and a cure for cancer.

The supposed miracle worker was Milan Brych ( Born 11 December 1939), a refugee from Czechoslovakia, who moved to New Zealand in 1968, and he was able to convince then that he was an actual doctor, and then to the Cook Islands 1977 when he was being investigated by the NZ Medical Council. 

In 1978 Sir Joh invited Milan Brych to move to Queensland to set up practice, this was headline news at the time, and very controversial. I suspect that if it wasn't for the Deputy Premier Dr Llew Edwards actually being a medical doctor, and being totally opposed to a quack doctor setting up in the state, this would have occurred.

He eventually moved to the US, was arrested for fraud in 1983 and sentenced to 6 years jail. Afterwards he disappeared and seems to have dropped out of sight.


There is a very comprehensive and unfortunately very badly done website here at what used to be called The Milan Brych Underground Website (MBUW). The original domain has expired and it's really hard to navigate, I also don't think it has been updated since 2002, so I guess the design can be excused as it's ten years old and probably done in Microsoft FrontPage (bleh).

He was the subject of two books around that time:-
Milan Brych: the cancer man by Australian journalist Frank Quill (out of print)
and 
Cancer and Milan Brych: Cure or Con?  by Michael Guy (1978) available to read online at the MBUW website

The  Courier-Mail have a recent summery on the visit of Brych to Queensland and his visit with Sir Joh.

The MBUW also has some pictures of  graves of those who didn't survive, the locals call it the Brych Yard
(Updated 2006!)

Edit 9/7/2012
Lots of page views recently due to the Cancerman TV show made in New Zealand.
http://tvnz.co.nz/cancerman/milan-brych-affairs-s2012-ep1-video-5041560

I still suspect that Milan Brych is in Switzerland.



"very devious person, very cunning and quite callous to the well-being of society, particularly when a great deal of money is involved." - Judge David S. Aisenson (describing Milan Brych)

Dawkins asks David Cameron a question

Over here at The Guardian
I think it shows just why David Cameron doesn't get it. John Maynard Keynes was real.

Richard Dawkins, ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author
Why do you support faith schools for children who are too young to have chosen their faith, thereby implicitly labelling them with the faith of their parents, whereas you wouldn't dream of so labelling a "Keynesian child" or a "Conservative child"?

"Comparing John Maynard Keynes to Jesus Christ shows, in my view, why Richard Dawkins just doesn't really get it. I think faith schools are very often good schools. Why? Because the organisation that's backing them – the church or the mosque or the synagogue – is part of the community. And it brings a sense of community and the backing of an institution to a school. The church was providing good schools long before the state got involved, and we should respect the fact that it's not just the state that can provide education but other bodies, too."

Domininist Fantasy 2012 If This Goes On—

                                                                          


         I used to love reading Robert Heinlein as a teenager, much as I used to love to watch Star Trek, it was reassuring that someone thought the future was going to be a better place, and it was just a few engineering challenges away.

One of Heinliens first stories was  "If This Goes On—" first serialized in 1940, and rewritten for his 1953 book Revolt in 2100.

The story is set in a future theocratic American society, ruled by the latest in a series of “Prophets.” The First Prophet was Nehemiah Scudder, a backwoods preacher turned President (elected in 2012). You can get the T-shirt here:

So lets play Pick the Scudder :-

• Michelle Bachmann

• Newt Gingrich, 

• Jon Huntsman Jr., 

• Ron Paul, 

• Rick Perry, 

• Mitt Romney 

• Rick Santorum

 Tricky....

Thanks to David Brin for reminder.....

"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything —you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him." Robert Heinlein