Octopuzzler

The use of Blasphemy laws as a vehicle for abuse of human rights, those of both religious and non-religious people, is merely an extension of the incompatibility of these laws with basic freedoms. A petition has been started, by ‘Human Rights for Atheists, Agnostics & Secularists’, hoping to gain the attention of the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations. Please have a read of the petition, and issues pertaining to these Blasphemy laws, and consider signing and sharing!

Petition - https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/abolish-blasphemy-laws

HRAAS - http://humanrightsforaas.org/

“When Margaret Thatcher introduced the Public Order Act in 1986, it was not explained that criminalising words or behaviour causing "harassment, alarm or distress" would be used against groups ranging from gay rights activists to Christian street preachers. When the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 was passed, it was not clear it would be used against activists protesting outside US intelligence bases or Oxfordshire villagers protesting about turning a lake into a dump for fly ash. Neither did proponents of the Terrorism Act suggest that the sorts of people on the receiving end would include an octogenerian refugee called Walter Wolfgang who had fled the Nazis who had the temerity to heckle a minister.”

Owen Jones at the Guardian looks at the worrying news on Britain’s secret trial, whereby ministers will have power over evidence in court, and not independently trained Judges.

Britain's first secret trial: this way lies trouble - http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/05/britain-first-secret-trial-rights?CMP=fb_gu

Could solar panels be the future of road surfaces?

"Imagine driving your car out of the garage and what you see is not the usual dark grey asphalt but a street of blue-green hexagonal tiles, with lane markings and traffic signs lit up by embedded LED bulbs.

The image might seem surreal, but a couple in Idaho is working on making it a reality. Meet Julie and Scott Brusaw, who eight years ago started a project to build a roadway embedded with solar cells. Several private and public grants later, the Brusaws are now in the middle of a fundraising campaign via Indiegogo to raise money to hire engineers, improve the design and bring solar roadways to the marketplace."

Could coloured hexagons be the future of roadways?

Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/solar-panel-road-surfaces-future

“Speaking after today’s State Opening, Caroline Lucas said: “Even putting to one side the evidence of environmental and health risks posed by fracking, the easing of trespass laws within this Bill is a completely unacceptable violation of homeowners’ rights across the country. The public have spoken clearly on this proposed new fracking law: 75 per cent don’t want it. The Government hasn’t listened. So now it’s steamrolling through legislation that will deny people any say in what happens to the very ground beneath their homes. Positive spin on this is pure hot air: the evidence speaks for itself.”

Carolyn Lucas of the British Green Party talks about the highly controversial new law being introduced to allow fracking for shale gas under homes, without the homeowner’s consent.

Caroline Lucas on Queen's Speech: "It could have set a brave new agenda - instead it let people down” - http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2014/06/04/caroline-lucas-on-queens-speech-it-could-have-set-a-brave-new-agenda-instead-it-let-people-down/

Are you looking for an organisation which can help answer your questions on science? An organisation which can cut through the politics to give you the facts on concerning issues? Or maybe you’re looking to help an organisation that can? Look no further! Sense about Science can help you, and have information on topics such as Agriculture, GMOs, Chemicals, Climate, Detox, Food, Law, Health  and many more. They’re also on the lookout for fundraising and expertise of professional scientists!

http://www.senseaboutscience.org/

“The benefits of replacing chemical factories with microbial factories range from reducing carbon footprint to eliminating the use of toxic chemicals to replacing environmentally destructive practices altogether. In Ecover’s case, substituting palm kernel oil with algae-produced oil lowers the pressure for ongoing widespread deforestation of tropical rainforests in Indonesia, which in turn destroys wildlife habitat, releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and exacerbates climate change.”

In this article The Genetic Literacy Project looks into a new liquid laundry detergent made by Ecover, which seeks to be much more environmentally friendly than usually as it contains an oil produced by genetically altered algae, rather than palm oil. It also looks into Anti-GMO campaigners, and how they are pressuring for the Project to stop.

Sustainable household products? Not if anti-GMO “green” groups have their way - http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/06/04/sustainable-household-products-not-if-anti-gmo-green-groups-have-their-way/#.U4-9TfmwL91

“Despite the limitations of earlier expeditions, the treasures that were recovered at Antikythera represent some of the finest ancient Greek and Roman artefacts in existence. They tell the story of a Roman ship that foundered on the rocky shores of the island around 60 BC. The ship was laden with luxury goods, including bronze and marble statues, precious jewellery, a hoard of coins, glassware, ceramic jars – and fragments of a peculiar geared device whose importance was at first overlooked. Only in the 1950s did scholars figure out that the rusty metal pieces could be assembled into a sophisticated analogue computer for predicting astronomical events. They called it the Antikythera mechanism.”

This US$1.5 Million originally designed to work in New York City's water treatment plants will be used in the coming weeks to explore the 2000 year old Roman Wreck found off the coast of Antikythera, in the Aegean Sea!

Read more at New Scientist - Wearable submarine to hunt for 2000-year-old computer - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229724.300-wearable-submarine-to-hunt-for-2000yearold-computer.html?full=true#.U5BvjPmwL90

From Globalist Secularist Humanist Movement on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/GSHMP/posts/888697124489049

The 3D rendering software used to create the films Monsters Inc, Toy Story and Harry Potter is going to be given away for free for non-commercial use.

The company Pixar, owned by Disney is said to be giving away their rendering software RenderMan. In a statement they said "Non-commercial RenderMan will be freely available for students, institutions, researchers, developers, and for personal use,"

They also added that the free version of RenderMan will be "without any functional limitations, watermarking, or time restrictions".

The full article can be found here: http://renderman.pixar.com/view/DP25846

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/mariakonnikova/2014/05/why-do-people-persist-in-believing-things-that-just-arent-true.html%3F

“Unmarried women who became pregnant were pressured by priests to give up their child for adoption. Those who refused were anaesthetised during delivery and, upon awakening, told that the child had died. The healthy babies were hidden from their biological mothers and given away in order to be raised by married couples in "traditional" Catholic families.

Church leaders now admit they have known about the network for at least 10 years.”

This, the final article we will look at, involves a case in Chile, in which reports as late 2005 have been uncovered. Again, the pressure upon unmarried pregnant women by the church led to a number of cases where babies were taken without the consent, or even knowledge of the new mothers. These babies were then passed onto families that the Catholic Church deemed as ‘Traditional’.

The image shows Matias Troncoso, photographer from Chile, who was one of these babies. He is now looking for his own biological mother.

The article is by Jonathon Franklin of the Independent - Chile: Catholic priests investigated over stolen babies - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/15/chile-catholic-priests-investigated-stolen-babies

“For those of you unfamiliar with how, until the 1990s, Ireland dealt with unmarried mothers and their children, here it is: the women were incarcerated in state-funded, church-run institutions called mother and baby homes or Magdalene asylums, where they worked to atone for their sins. Their children were taken from them .... Ireland knows all this. We know about the abuse women and children suffered at the hands of the clergy, abuse funded by a theocratic Irish state. What we didn't know is that they threw dead children into unmarked mass graves.”

The second article in our series looks at Ireland, and the abuse to single mothers and their children dealt out by the Catholic Church. The oppression and humiliation forced upon these women is inhuman enough, but the blatant disregard for the lives humanity of the “illegitimate” children is truly heartbreaking.

“The turnover at Birdhurst Lodge was brisk, with each woman's stay limited to three months: six weeks before the birth and six weeks afterwards. The timing was partly to give the mothers a chance to bond with their babies before deciding whether to have them adopted, but also a calculated move to let enough time elapse to make sure the babies were developmentally healthy, since adoptive couples did not want disabled children. The official stigma surrounding illegitimacy, together with queues of childless couples wanting to adopt in the days before fertility treatment, meant that the mother-and-baby homes that were widely established in Britain between the two world wars by the main churches and the Salvation Army were seen to be neatly solving two societal problems at once: they effectively operated as baby farms. And of course it made economic sense, since the adoptive parents would donate money to the religious charities running such homes.”

The dehumanising way in which Single Mothers were treated during the 20th century is totally horrific and can appear completely alien at first, however the same persists today through demonising these women as a drain on the state. The next few articles we are looking at will cover the attitudes and actions of members of society, and particularly the church, towards single mothers.

The first article comes from Maureen Paton, at the Independent, and looks at how these women were treated in Britain. Sin and the single mother: The history of lone parenthood - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/sin-and-the-single-mother-the-history-of-lone-parenthood-7782370.html

Lawrence Krauss on Q&A, an Australian political panel show, with discussions on the Australian government’s cuts to science and climate change funding, and the introduction of a A$245 Million policy to replace professionally trained councillors with Christian chaplains in schools.

This stunning video shows how just one bite from a Jaguar can immobilise and kill a Caiman. The 20 stone cat creeps along the river bed and emerges, fearlessly ambushing its prey.

What makes this video that more spectacular is its 1080p quality.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBNYwxDZ_pA

“Mark explained some of the techniques used by these mediums, revealing: "A cold reading is pretty standard, most people know about it.

"That's pretending that you have great knowledge about someone by just using random generalities and honing in on that person, watching their body language, watching how they react, you use a lot of verbal deception and you're constantly course correcting to get to that vulnerable hook.

"Once you get the hook in, everything else falls away and you go forward." ”

Ex-Psychic Mark Edward explains the common tricks and cons used by professional mediums in taking advantage of the vulnerable on This Morning.

Former 'psychic' reveals con-artist tricks - http://www.u.tv/Entertainment/Former-psychic-reveals-con-artist-tricks/e751d5cd-6e60-455f-bb1d-bc50b8ccf219