The Daily Mail recently produced a list of questions commonly asked of parents by their naturally curious children about science and the world around them. Rather unsettlingly, the answers provided weren’t completely terrible. The questions ranged from the impressively complex: “What is a prime number?”, “What is infinity?” and “What is time?” (do children really wonder about these things?); to the classics: “How do planes fly in the sky” and “Where does the wind come from?”. I must say I was shocked to learn that wind was not caused by trees sneezing.
Author Archives: Paul
Ipso Factoid: *insert gratuitous sexual pun here*
In a wonderful opportunity (duly ignored) to prove our maturity as a society, both the Times and Daily Mail had headlines declaring “What an anti-climax” in relation to a study about the apparent non-existence of the female G-spot. The Register website settled for the far more restrained “In-depth probe fails to hit the G-spot”. As with any article relating to (whisper it) sex, this gave both journalists and commentators alike the perfect opportunity to wheel out every joke they could remember about vagina’s, orgasms, and men being crap in bed.
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God Damn Blasphemers
Having just been rocked by further revelations of abuse and cover-up rampant in the Catholic Church, the Irish State decided to kick off the new year by outlawing blasphemy. Somehow they feel that being mean to religious people deserves a fine. Specifically “A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €25,000.” How wonderfully Dark Ages of them. I’m so proud to see my country embracing the new decade by outlawing freedom of speech, in particular speech directed at religion. If the world’s various gods are so all-knowing and powerful are they really going to find the rambled insults of us mere rational humans that upsetting?
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IPSO FACTOID: Well That’s It Then, Science Is Over
Pack up the Bunsen burners and power down the computers because Science Is Dying! This wonderfully nonsensical claim is thanks to Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal. Bearing in mind the WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, who also run that beacon of respectable truth-telling, Fox News, Mr Henninger appears to have skillfully observed that *gasp* scientists are human! I know, I was shocked too. Here I was thinking that they were specially cloned in gleaming tanks to be unfeeling, thinking machines. But no, they’re normal, every day people like you and me. You might even have touched one once without realising it. Terrifying stuff (the geeks over at /. have a typically rambling discussion of the article up if you’re interested).
Absolve This: Put The Catholic Church Out Of Its Misery
Bless you Father for you have sinned…
I’ve made no secrets of my feelings towards the Catholic Church, in particular when it comes to its dealings with child abuse. Thus, it was with a certain amount of resignation that I awaited the release last week of a report detailing the Church’s efforts to cover up incidents of clerical sexual child abuse in the dioceses of Dublin over a 30 year period (media coverage here and here).The Commission of Investigation into Dublin’s Catholic Archdiocese examined complaints against 46 priests in relation to over 320 children.
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