Tales of Ordinary Madness

My good friend Sunil asked me the other day why I was so harsh on religion. If I remember the timing correctly he was responding primarliy to the “Crazy vs Religious” cartoon I posted below. Sam Harris summed it up for me very well in the video below, but I’d like to paraphrase. If I came to you and insisted that there was inside of me a giant invisible machine powered by invisible winged monkeys that generated the very energy that kept all of life going, you would dismiss me a crazy person. This is a totally rational response to what I have claimed. Unless I can provide some shred of evidence, I should be dismissed as a kook. However, religion is given a pass when it comes to rational thought. Challenge religion to produce any evidence of its claims and suddenly you are guilty of oppression and religious intolerance. Claiming that a man walked on water, or rose from the dead, or flew off into the sky on a winged horse, or parted the sea is no less crazy than my winged monkeys whodrive the giant love engine. As I’ve said before, how can we as an rational animal be expected to advance, when we insist on bringing the boogey man from the past along with us.

As long as religion continues to attempt to change laws or prevent archaic laws from being changed (like preventing two consenting adults from legally marrying), I will speak harshly of religion. As long as religion keeps attmepting to prevent birth control from being taught in schools or preventing condoms from being distributed to a contintent whose population is being decimated by AIDs, I will continue to speak harshly of religion.

Here are some of the auditions for the upcoming National Organization for Marriage commercial. These people are actors, not doctors, and not Massachusetts parents.

When I was at SANS Orlando, I realized that the gap between GREAT Information security and good Information security people is big. Recently, I learned that the gap between good security people and bad security people is GIGANTIC.

Thank you, that is all.

From the 2004 Sourcefire calendar.

The intelligence community has publicly stated its assessment that nations, including Russia and China, have the technical capabilities to target and disrupt elements of the U.S. information infrastructure, or to use that infrastructure to collect intelligence and other kinds of information. Nation states and criminal groups target our government and private sector information networks in order to gain competitive advantage in the commercial sector, as well as in the area of security. Terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah have expressed the desire to use cyber means to target the United States. Criminal elements continue to show a growing and alarming sophistication in technical capability and targeting, and today operate a pervasive, mature economy in illicit cyber capabilities and services that are made available to anybody who is willing to pay.

The reality is that cyber attacks aren’t decreasing. They are increasing in frequency, sophistication, and scope and this has major implications for our national and economic security. So, how do we protect ourselves from malicious activity whether it is criminal in nature, whether it is an extension of state power, whether it is government or commercial espionage, or whether it is routine hacking by people who are interested in showing their cyber hacking skills to their friends. The answer is a comprehensive cybersecurity initiative.

Remarks by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at the Chamber of Commerce on Cybersecurity October 14th 2008.

Out of the 13 countries in Western Europe, the number that have a lower infant mortality rate than the United States : 13

That have a higher life expectancy than the US (for both men and women): 13

That have a lower murder rate: 13

That have a lower poverty rate: 11

Hearing conservative politicians use Western Europe as a cautionary tale against developing social programs: Priceless

This was “borrowed” from http://www.theseminal.com/2009/02/06/another-mastercard-commercial-id-like-to-see/ Western Europe in this case is defined as Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Swtizerland, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain.

In yet another nice change, Obama included the following line in his inaugural address:

“For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers.”