They sell fine tailor-made shirts together with ties and cufflinks. Be sure to check them out.

They try to get our support by convincing us that being part of a single subgroup, tribe or country is more important than being part of humanity. This feeling of shared identity is usually created by using all kinds of semi-religious ceremonies. Just think of the national holiday or sports events. The laziest couch potatoes will tell you that “we” won the soccer championship and that “we” produce the best cars. When was the last time this guy played soccer or assembled a car? They call it patriotism. I call it indoctrination.

I don’t believe in “my” government anymore, once it starts to treat me like a small child or a criminal suspect. They try to tell you what’s best for you, what you can do with your body and what morals you are allowed to have. Yes, I’m referring to things like abortion laws, smoking bans, drug laws, same sex marriages, censorship on state television or the internet and – only recently acquired – communications surveillance laws.

As a government is moving further away from what its people want, it feels the resistance. In recent years this resistance got stronger. They are afraid of us. They better should be. The natural response is to use every opportunity (NYC, London, Madrid) to take away civil liberties, we might use against them. Remember that we got these rights for a reason. They were introduced after devastating wars and revolutions. The United States Bill of Rights was introduced after the American Revolution, the European Convention on Human Rights after World War II. Millions had to give their life for a few who led them into disaster.

Today we see these liberties being undermined or suspended in the name of the greater good, sometimes described as public security and anti-terrorism. I’m not saying that the situation is hopeless. I just want you to be vigilant and watchful. Keep reminding yourself AND them that revolution is a part of our heritage and culture. Make Wednesday a special day! Throw a party! Discuss these issues with your friends. Let everyone know that you are proud to be part of this tradition and everything it stands for!

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Credit for the great picture goes to donnaidh_sidhe.

From now on I keep whatever I can on my own server. That inclueds webhosting, email, bookmarks and openid. Works better than expected so far and gives you lots of flexibility. The only thing I couldn’t substitute so far is google reader. There is an opensource rss reader, you can install on your server, but it’s not really what I’m looking for. For the moment I’m at bloglines, which I find pretty nice.

I’m not sure if the whole thing was worth the effort, but if things on the internet continue to move in the direction we’re moving now, it’s gonna be nasty.

I encourage everyone to make a similar move and try to reduce it’s data footprint. Here are some practical advises:

• Searching: use http://scroogle.org. You get the same results as from google, but without the spying. They also have a SSL-Version at https://ssl.scroogle.org/. Very handy.

• RSS Reader: This was my main issue, why I decided to stick with google for such a long time. Try Bloglines Beta. They have similar features and accept OpenID.

• E-Mail: Lavabit offers fully encrypted, free E-Mails with a strong focus on privacy.

When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that’s faith.
When facts change your mind, that’s science.

The Edge Foundation asked the intellectual elite to comment on the things that made them change their mind. I think that this is a tricky question to ask because if you changed your mind you admit that you were wrong about something. Many people aren’t quite comfortable with that idea. But I guess if those 163 people – all of them top-notch scientists – who submitted their story can do it, everyone should.

My personal favorite is Patrick Bateson. He used to be an agnostic, but “converted” to an atheist after talking to a creationist lady. I also thought that being an agnostic is the best choice, since you can’t prove one or the other and better leave the question unanswered. But today I think that religion and the belief in the supernatural is dangerous and threatens our modern life. To be honest: our modern life wouldn’t be possible without all those brave people who stood up against the church and other misbeliefs of their time to pursue progress.

Related content:
Richard Dawkins – Enemies of Reason (Part 1)
Church of the Flying Spaghetti  Monster

Many people think mistakenly that modern prosperity was founded on this fossil energy revolution, and that when the oil and coal is gone, it is back to the Stone Age. If we had no fossil energy, then we would be forced to rely on an essentially unlimited amount of solar power, available at five times current energy costs. With energy five times as expensive as at present we would take a substantial hit to incomes. Our living standard would decline by about 11 percent. But we would still be fantastically rich compared to the pre-industrial world.