The Clockwork Chartophylax

The Irish Times:
MINISTER FOR Justice Dermot Ahern has told Fianna Fáil TDs and Senators concerned about the Civil Partnership Bill that he is ruling out a “freedom of conscience” amendment.
Even he can see that religious bigotry shouldn’t allow you to ignore the law of the land, even if it is dressed up as individual conscience. [...]

Posted on December 4th, 2009 under Ireland, science. Tags: civil partnership, dermot, dermot ahern, Ireland, religion. Comments: None

I’ve been glued to the real time replaying of the Apollo 11 transmissions playing on We Choose the Moon. Even knowing how the mission turned out, everything about this mission has been compelling – from launch…

…to Armstrong’s manually piloted final descent to the Sea of Tranquillity (which I just made it home to [...]

Posted on July 20th, 2009 under Futurity, science, space. Tags: apollo 11, future, human, space. Comments: None

I was at the Blasphemy.ie public meeting in Wynn’s Hotel in Dublin tonight, along with between 100 and 150 other people opposed to Dermot Ahern’s blasphemy amendment to the 2006 Defamation Act. Many of the crowd were young. A few were overtly nerdy (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It seems extremely unlikely that [...]

Posted on May 26th, 2009 under Ireland, atheism, economics, fulmination, religion, science. Tags: atheism, atheist ireland, blasphemy, Church of Dermotology, dermot ahern, dublin, humanist association of ireland, public meeting, religion, wynns. Comments: 18

On this morning’s Morning Ireland, Adrienne Bard, a reporter in Mexico City was asked why only people in Mexico have died so far from swine flu, whereas the cases elsewhere appear to be relatively mild:
“…One of the probable reasons has to do with the customs that Mexicans have as far as going to the [...]

Posted on April 28th, 2009 under science. Tags: alternative medicine, mexico, swine flu, woo. Comments: 1