Strangely Compelling: Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)

The Heresy Québec Review of the Marilyn Manson concert in Ottawa

For context read Lynn Saxberg's review in the Ottawa Citizen of Marilyn Manson's September 21st concert (here!) also the Calgary Herald review (here!), by Heath McCoy, of the September 11th show which is noteworthy because moral panic arose during the last time Manson performed in YYC.

I think Lynn Saxberg is a bit harsher than I was in my evaluation. Perhaps it is because I actually enjoy Manson's work and "art" (if you will). To a point. The concert opened late, but solidly with "We're from America",... and then spiralled into one of the most poorly orchestrated spectacles I have had the misfortune to attend. My beloved sister had described the Edmonton show to me and had lead me to hope that it might improve. I was really looking forward to his encore of Patti Smith's "Rock N Roll Nigger" a standard in his recent tours. (I love how McCoy can't even properly use the word "nigger" and has to instead write "n**ger" cuz changing the name of the song and replacing letters just makes all those years of slavery and oppression just melt away.) There was no encore. It seems as though the entire tour was lurching into the banal space of post-rock mediocrity and more importantly, from my myopic perspective, that the Ottawa show was the worst of the lot.

Upon exiting the Scotia Bank Überdome (or whatever the fuck it is called) I was struck by the fanboys and their overheard wankery: "That was so awesome!" And the perhaps more adulterated, "Well, at least he came to Ottawa." To the drooling first dyad I wanted ask, "Were we at the same concert?" I chose not to on the grounds that they were likely 13 and had no basis for comparison. I was reminded of the line from the Dayglo Abortion's "Black Sabbath", "he'd probably love me if I pissed on his face..." (Although the fan wankery is reversed there, the principle applies.)

I think even the over abundance of police were bored. Clearly their time was wasted in preparation for the rioting that just doesn't ever seem to happen moral panics be damned.

Mr. The Engineer made an excellent (and telling) observation: Tori Amos' performance was actually more transgressive. Perhaps that is the most salient point here. When a balladeer is more transgressive and much better an entertainer over all then perhaps the shock-rocker needs to fade back into obscurity and count the money received from residuals.

W o t W: Twee (p, s)

The word for this week, this week a long fucking time ago, was

TWEE

But somehow in my editing tonight (January 15th, 2010, 04h35!) I deleted the fucker and am too tired to rewrite it. For now.

This serves as it's placeholder. Hopefully I'll remember and fix it. I'm mildly OC so prolly I will.

[Insert negative comment disparaging the Monster that is Hello Kitty here.]

An essay on Bisexuality, as presented by the Best of Craigslist

Lesbians like sushi and bisexuals like hot dogs and sushi. Lesbians would never be interested in eating hot dogs. A lesbian can eat sushi all day every day and never consider hot dogs. In fact, lesbians can never eat too much sushi. A bisexual can go without sushi, then really miss the feel and taste of sushi, because there is nothing like sushi. Then they go out and get some sushi. They swear they can go without hot dogs, because sushi is so much better. They start to eat sushi all day every day. The lesbian continues to do the same.

Then one day the sushi is a little stale and the bisexual remembers how hot dogs are different. She didn't have that problem with hot dogs, at least not that she can remember. Eating hot dogs was easier and less complicated. The lesbian does not start to crave a hot dog when this happens. The lesbian knows she only likes sushi, so even though it got stale, she is still focused only on the sushi. She wants the sushi to get better, because she knows really great sushi is hard to find. The bisexual won't try as hard to figure out why the sushi got stale. Sooner or later she will do what is easier. She will go out for a hot dog. There are hot dogs on every corner and she knows she'll have a few to choose from soon enough. Perhaps she will just have hot dogs for a long time or will try some hot dog rolls or sushi dogs. This is why I prefer lesbians. The only problem is that they may go out for some completely different sushi, thinking that the new sushi will be different. But at least they are aren't out eating hot dogs.

I love how it ends with:

• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

(Source.)

Can anyone really be surprised?

Blackwater = Bad; it's founder is a Christianist murderer.

SRSLY. Can anyone really be surprised when a neo-con stalwart starts a mercenary company and then together they do reprehensible things? Now let's be clear here: you can't exactly "go rogue" when you are fucking mercenaries. It is what it says on the tin. The question here is how neo-cons who thought that professional soldiering was not sufficient and decided that hiring mercenaries answerable only to their employers would be a good idea. And: How are they going to spin it to the public? They really didn't. I never really got the impression that outside of Iraq and reactionary liberal blogs like this one, there was much awareness of a) what Blackwater was b) who it consisted of c) what they did and d) Oh By The Way, mercenaries. (Wherein mercenary is perhaps not harsh enough.)

Here's a nice solid from Salon discussing the Blackwater founder, Erik Prince from sworn statements:

Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

Fuck Prince. What a disgraceful human being. But who knows, it has yet to be proven. However, again let's be clear here, he is the founder and owner of a MERCENARY COMPANY. What is the business of mercs? It is to murderize and business is good. Apparently. As a heretic, I am, however, even more disturbed by the crusading bits. What to tart up your sociopathy Mr. Prince.

My original source seems to have disappeared. But it was here. Fortunately there are others. And having multiple sources on any topic is always important and academically sound. See also here. But I guess I have a little bit of a pause because saying bad things about what mercs do is almost like saying nothing at all. Thuggery and murder is where they live; all part of the job.

However, the charges are specific (link to the declarations made by John Doe 1 and John Doe 2) and more disturbing than the standard merc horribleness. Hopefully Blackwater and Mr. Prince will be examined thoroughly by the legal process, although I am sceptical. It seems now at least that something is being done about US Federally funded thuggery. Disturbing(er?) charges have been raised; if they are truly actionable I hope the fuckers get prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But I'm exceedingly dubious that will ever happen. Here's hoping also that Messrs. Doe and Doe don't magically disappear and/or "meet with accidents."

W o t W: Milkomeda (S)

The Word of the Week is:

"Milkomeda", as coined by TJ Cox and Abraham Loeb.

It is (of course it is!) a delicious portmanteau of Milky Way (our home galaxy here on Heresy) and the Andromeda galaxy which is rapidly careening into us at breakneck spead. Eventually Andromeda will collide with the Milky Way and after some settling period, some casual dating on the galactic scene, they will merge into one ugly ass merged galaxy, hence "Milkomeda." As Phil Plait the brilliant Bad Astronomer says: "I suppose Andromeway sounded too much like the name of some sort pf pharmaceutical." I think it would sound more like a less harsh version of mace by which members of the male gender can be repelled ("Andro-away", no?).

Thank-you.

W o t W: Grue (S,P)

The Word of the Week is:

"Grue" a linguistic term used to replace colour words in languages that do not distinguish between green and blue.

See for reference the discussion of colour in linguistics. A good survey is here at the Font of all Wisdom and Knowledge.

This entry gets a nod for semantic (it is a purely semantic construct; not really even a proper word) and the phonetic. And it is a portmanteau. O how we love the portmanteaus!

Thank-you.

W o t W: 猪头 Zhu tou "Pig head" (S,P)

The Word of the Week is:

"豬頭" (traditional characters; 猪头 simplified characters; in pinyin: Zhūtóu; in English "Pig head") in Mandarin is a commonly used insult.

Although not an expletive per se it does have a similar sense to the usage of the English word "bastard" which is frequently used between friends but is not remotely appropriate with non-intimates or one's employer.

My dearest friend, Hung Pei-hsin, referred to me almost exclusively as 大豬頭, or Big Pig Head.

For more fun with Mandarin expletives and slang go here for a list of transliterated and translated Mandarin expletives. I also tried here (Insultmonger/Swearsaurus) but the link seems to be dead. However, I also highly recommend the English Wikipedia page here or here for 中文 (Zhōngwén) (the Chinese language article). (Nous adorons aussi les sacres québécois d'ici, bien sûr! En anglais d'ici.)

(There's also this blog post which ends with a good list with the simplified characters and translations and (with a scroll over) transliterations into pinyin...but the context of the list is a rather puerile absolutist Free Speech RAWKS! screed. Just scroll down or don't bother with it. More expressions, although not necessarily expletives are listed here on a webpage detailing the Chinese used in the film Serenity and the programme Firefly. Kinda fun, but with nerdiness and citations.)

謝謝 (谢谢)

Technical Difficulties Continue

Mean Old Mr. Gravity has taken our primary computer of sound-editingness to a lesser place. We are---that is, ahem---The Engineer is trying to salvage the last interview because it was fucking good. If not, the interviewee has agreed to redo the interview. So that is also a possibility.

Further interviews to come include with a pornographer originally from Québec, and an anglophone anthropologist who just finished a post-doc at UQÀM, and a United Church Minister well known to us at HeresyQuébec. Here's hoping things improve that we may indeed have those and other interviews in episodes to come.

We're very happy that our listenership has peaked the solid 1 or sometimes even 2-digit mark. Thank-you for your support, I'm flattered you like our little show. We hope to continue to be worth your time until such time as well sell out, become derivative and you hate, hate, hate us.

Until then, here's the Quote for This Week:

"[T]he mask don't go on until the dwarf is in the can." ---Anthony Daniels expressing his disdain for costuming and apparently his colleague, Kenny Baker.

Salut, à la prochaine fois.

Legal to Lie; the Death of the Barefoot Bum's blog

I am sad to report this is the last entry of The Barefoot Bum. I really enjoyed some of the Bum's posts they were brilliant and insightful. I am glad the Bum chose to reactivate the archives so that they can be revisisted. This last article stems from a very disturbing precedent in US courts. I refer you, O Constant ListenerZ, to the documentary THE CORPORATION in which the case is first publicly discussed. This is subversive. Where is the outcry?

Sadly, the blog's sidebar reads: "The blog is closed for good. I will not reopen it. Browse the archives as you please, but it's all useless bullshit."

Pat Condell's take on Feminist issues around proposed Burqa Bans.

Pat Condell at his rantilicious best. I was not familiar with the suggestion that Rickets can be traced to the vitamin D deficiency tied to wearing a burqa (have a look here for more editorializing, or actual journalism here from the BBC).

I like his headhunter analogy. But again the issue that strikes me is choice. Many, many people object to transvestism, or goth children, or [insert your garishly dressed oft-reviled sub-culture of choice] and ridicule them for marking themselves differently as to invite their own scorn. So?

I don't buy that All Muslims Everywhere Hate the West and Everything It Stands For (cuz you know, grandiose statements aside, what does the West even agree on categorically anyway?) ...but even if they do, so what? I know many disaffected and marginalized groups within society consisting of members of the dominant hegemonic ethnicity and gender who hate their own culture viciously. Isn't the freedom of conscience large enough to cover the disaffected?

But he's right, Feminists. (Cuz we all how uniform and identical and interchangeable feminists are... ugh). But point taken, the burqa is misogynistic: humanist feminist cultural crtitics, you've dropped the ball.

(I can't believe in the earlier post I spelt burqa with a "K" (burka!) rather than with the greatest of letters, "Q," since B-U-R-Q-A is a valid alternate in English and preferred in French! One Quick edit later and all is well. ---BBY)

La Fête nationale du Québec; Technical Difficulties; Vive Québec

President Nicolas Sarkozy "said on Monday that the burka [sic] was not welcome in secular France, condemning the head-to-toe cover as a symbol of subjugation rather than the Muslim faith." And he's right. If it were indicative of Islam it would be universal in the Muslim world and it is not. Islam is not monolithic nor uniform. Nor are the Muslims of the world culturally uniform, nor do they speak the same language (not even beginning to discuss the variants of Arabic), nor do they have the same interpretations of the Qur'an, the Hadiths and tradition.

Here's where it becomes nice and grey. Religious clothing in the pubic sphere is the clear intersection of religious and state rights. Those who want to make the state and public sphere entirely secular are advocating that the burqa not be allowed. That is key. The advocates of the burqa are a small subset of French Muslims. However, once again, the ones who suffer either way will be the women. Either side is dictating the choice of women. How do we in the liberal west address the question of choice?

(Source Yahoo News, Canada)

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We heretics also love the Barefoot Bum. Here is a recent blog post on "Religion and killing." Doesn't get much more heretical than BB; nor does it get more readable. Barefoot Bum lives here.

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TECHNICAL difficulties:
We here in the HERESY QUÉBEC secret location are currently suffering from technical difficulties. It seems that we should not have accepted the doctrine of Intelligent Falling: our main processing computer had problem with mean old Mr. Gravity. "Episode 8: Linguaphiles attend" (and thus subsequent episodes are delayed). Sorry. I just hope that the really great interview we had is not completely dead as our HERESY computer.

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On the occasion of La Fête nationale du Québec / St.-Jean Baptiste, bonne fête tout le monde!
(Yvon Goulet, mixed media. For more brilliance why not visit the artist's Facebook site here.)

W o t W (June 13, 2009)

The Word for this Week is:

"Mondegreen" as coined by Sylvia Wright in her essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen," which was published in Harper's Magazine, November 1954.

Thank-you.

Mr. Deity returns and takes on Virgins.

Episode 007 - Posted

Episode 007 is posted please refer to works cited page for additional information.

You can download this episode.

(Right Click > Save As)

[MP3] or [ACC]

Watchable, mais... (my review follows)

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

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"Trekking for Stars"
So I didn't hate STAR TREK (2009). It was beautiful, actiony, explody, sexual, pretty, glossy, dark, Romulany. Much like eating a meal of ice cream, it may at first seem like a really good idea, but then you get the feeling that, perhaps it was a bit excessive. And you feel a bit full. Then sick. And then you remember, you don't really like ice cream all that much and you are lactose intolerant.

--BBY

Edit. Qqv. P Zed Myers' more eloquently put analysis of Star Trek (2009).

Did anyone notice the interior design of the Romulan ship? Funky weird platforms with no guardrails suspended over a huge empty space. Only the Mario Brothers could like that layout.

Ha! "Mario Brothers" indeed. And Roger Ebert's:

[The] franchise has become much of a muchness. The new movie essentially intends to reboot the franchise with younger characters and carry on as before. The movie deals with narrative housekeeping. Perhaps the next one will engage these characters in a more challenging and devious story, one more about testing their personalities than re-establishing them.

Wait for the next one, eh? Neither read as glowing endorsements.

Episode 007 - Works Cited Page

Works Cited Page
for
Episode 7: Poe's Law

The wonderful super mega awesome opening music is Jonathan Coulton's "Skullcrusher Mountain," a sad song about unrequited love between a mad supervillain and the object of his affection who seems to be less than enthused by the number of ponies murdered to construct a monstrous hybrid pony beast as a present. Thank-you Mr. Coulton, thank-you to the brilliance that is Creative Commons.

We recommend you go here:

●NESS/Skeptic's Guide to the Universe
●Science with Dr. Karl on Triple J
●Sunday Night Safran
●Savage Lovecast
●Atheist Experience
●Jonathan Coulton (primer)

Blogs:

●Pharyngula
●Bad Astronomy
●Joe.My.God.

The theme for today's episode is what is known popularly as "Poe's Law". For those of you in the know that means we're going to be talking about religious extremism today. Since my training is religious studies foremost, I feel quite comfortable addressing this topic at length.

The Urban dictionary is a fun project and has a good definition of Poe's Law here.

1. Word of the Week:
L'esprit d'escalier
Good definitions can be found here & here.

Denis Diderot (1713 – 1784)

and l’esprit d’escalier. Here & here & and here.

2.
The Book for this Week is:
The Portable Atheist edited by Christopher Hitchens.

2b.
Quote for this Week
The Atheist Experience.

Before quoting the Bible to atheists, always ask yourself whether the same statement would be just as effective in your mind if you were quoting Captain Kirk.

Which can be found here.

3. Les Nouvelles

Extreme positions are dangerous and they abound. Here are some recent headlines:
● The CNN: April 30th, 2009 Churchgoers more likely to back torture, survey finds
● AFP: April 30th, 2009 Saudi 8-year-old granted divorce.
● CBC: April 30th, 2009 Evolution classes optional under proposed Alberta law.
● AFP: May 5, 2009 Man stoned to death in Iran for adultery.
● GayCityNews: April 30, 2009 Iraqi Gays Face Gruesome Torture/ Murder Technique
● Bad Astronomy: Oprah drinks the antivax Kool Aid
● (There are also more stories on anti-science and anti-vaccination throughout the Bad Astronomy blog such as here which is particularly disturbing, upsetting (as it should fucking be!) and a good one on the flu/washing your hands.

Edward Current is available at. In particular, we recommend the video "God Only SEEMS Nonexistent!" Enjoy:

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Pat Condell lives at. In "Islam's war on freedom" Mr. Condell's usual acerbic wit as gone in favour of angry polemic here:

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#1 Extremism in Islam.

#2. Jack Chick. He Who Makes the Tracts.

Here is a good collection of them on Islam:
●On Allah. Where did he come from?
●On Allah as a Sonless Moon God.
●On Errors in the Qur'an.

I refer you specifically to the Chick.com "article" that has the gall to talk about Muslim fallacies:

If the Qur'an is the infallible Word of God, then it stands to reason that it would not contain factual errors of science. By "factual errors" we mean errors that can be physically examined . . . Many Muslims believe in the Qur'an as a blind leap of faith. They really do not care if it is filled with mistakes and contradictions . . . The more closed minded they are, the more fanatical they become in their religion. When ignorance unites with arrogance, fanaticism is born.

#3. Ms. Palin, another fundie. Sarah Palin has links to Joel’s Army, “is an apocalyptic movement of 'hyper-charismatic' preachers that claim to have a divine mandate to physically impose Christian 'dominion' on non-believers during end times.”

#4. Father Robert Barron on Bill Maher’s Religulous is available here:
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I Quote: “these poor people . . . if he really posed these serious questions to serious people who’d know how to respond to him. But he just knocked down strawmen. ...It was just line up stupid people.”

Father Robert Barron’s proper page is www.wordonfire.org.

#5. P Zed Myers v. Roger Ebert as inspired by the "lovable" Ben Stein.
Myers v Ebert
Ben Stein and Expelled or better yet here for their well deserved trashing.

Myers calls bullshit citing the problem with Poe’s Law:

Imagine if, in 1729, there had been a number of letters to the editor by various authors proposing that Irish children be exterminated and eaten. Imagine that laws of that nature were being seriously debated in Parliament, and that one of the parties had made it a part of their platform. While the laws were being regularly defeated, opponents still had to stand up and seriously debate why it was unethical to eat babies. Imagine that a candidate for prime minister actually solemnly suggested that we ought to at least consider the merits of eating Irish children. . . .

That's Ebert's mistake. He presented a plain statement of creationist beliefs with satirical intent, but that intent cannot possibly be seen in a world where millions say exactly the same things with sincerity. Does Ken Ham have invisible quotation marks around the AiG Statement of Faith? No. Was the Wedge Document an amusing practical joke by the Discovery Institute? No. Is Sarah Palin pulling the entire nation's leg when she attends her speaking-in-tongues, young-earth-creationist, End-Times-worshiping church? I wish.

Ebert gets the Post-post-script here:

Let me suggest that while satire was certainly my purpose, creationists were not my intended audience. By stating their beliefs accurately, my hope was that on a site such as mine they would reach a wider readership that might have heard about creationism but didn't realize what it actually believes. Only 4 percent of Americans are creationists. Do you have any idea how many Americans don't know what it teaches? I don't. I know the original article was linked far and wide, which is encouraging.

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We are reachable via courriel or l’email if you prefer France-French:
podcast at b e a r dot s t

I am also on Facebook, Brendan Bao-Yi. As is our Heretical fan page, which is currently craptacular because I am the one who put it up. Salut, à la prochaine fois.