Nestled between Chemi-Clean and Tommys Fonsterputs and obscured by a tree, Burning Car is a small business operating on a quiet suburban street in Hägersten, Sweden. Burning Car provides support activities to performing arts.
All posts by Richard
Multiculturalism NOT failing
Someone posted the link below in the Facebook group Christian Libertarians.
‘Multiculturalism failing’: Swedish PM pleas for order as riots engulf Stockholm suburbs
I immediately assumed that the rioters were Muslims, so I searched the page for the terms ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islam’. No results. So I Googled for another link.
Riots rock Sweden’s immigrant suburbs for fourth night
Again, I searched the page for the terms ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islam’. Again, no results. So, who are the rioters?
I live in New Zealand. My family emigrated here from England when I was 11 years old. I work with Chinese people. I blog with a Maori. My local MP is a Pacific Islander. It’s all good.
Multiculturalism is NOT failing.
Careful with that meat cleaver, Michael
The “Religion of Peace” has struck again in a barbaric execution on a busy London street in broad daylight.
To prevent this from happening again we must consider root causes. What are they?
Easy question to answer!
(1) Islam
(2) Blowback
Or in the perpetrator’s own words
The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers. And this British soldier is one, it is eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
By Allah, we swear by the almighty Allah, we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone.
So what if we want to live by the Sharia in Muslim lands, why does that mean you must kill us and chase us … in suicide, kill us?
Rather, you are extreme. When you drop a bomb do you think it kills one person or, rather, your bomb wipes out a whole family? This is the reality.
And by the way, if I saw your mother today with a buggy I would help her up the stairs. This is my nature.
But we are forced by the Koran […] Many, many ayah throughout the Koran [say that] we must fight them as they fight us, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
I apologise that women had to witness this today, but in our lands our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe.
Remove your government, they don’t care about you. You think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? You think your politicians are going to die? No it’s going to be the average guy, like you, and your children. So get rid of them. Tell them to bring our troops back so we can … you can all live in peace. Leave our lands and you will live in peace.
That’s all I have to say.
I have two suggestions for the West.
(1) We put a moratorium on Muslim immigration until further notice.
(2) We withdraw all troops from Muslim lands.
That’ll fix the problem in no time.
Where is your Goddess now?
Should soft drugs be decriminalised?
Should soft drugs (cannabis & synthetic cannabinoids) be decriminalised? YES or NO?
You can vote YES tonight (Wednesday 22 May) between 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm on The Vote.
Watch the sane, sensible Regulators (Ross Bell, Grant Hall, Jeremy McMinn) smoke the rabid, disinformed Prohibitionists (Janie Annear, Mike Sabin, Wayne Poutoa) tonight at 8.30 pm on TV3.
Join the debate here.
Plague leads to death!
I had my flu shot today, have you had yours?
Plague leads to death!
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
For more information:
0800 466 863
TXT FLU TO 515
www.fightflu.co.nz
You can spread the flu to people, including your family/whanau and friends, who are at most risk of complications
While general health affects the severity of an infection, the influenza virus is contagious and anyone can become infected.
Influenza is more than just a ‘bad cold’. Although some of the symptoms are the same, influenza is usually much more severe. Symptoms of influenza include a cough, headache, fever or chills, body aches and pains, fatigue and generally feeling miserable
Influenza, commonly called the flu, can be a serious illness that is sometimes fatal.
Even if you do not end up in hospital, influenza can keep you in bed for a week or more, preventing you from doing work, sport or just about anything that requires leaving the house.
The flu spreads from person to person. The influenza virus is transferred in droplets of moisture expelled through breathing, coughing and sneezing. The virus is spread when a person touches any droplets which contain the influenza virus and then touch their mouth, nose or eyes before washing their hands.
Influenza can infect up to 1 in 5 of us every year.
Influenza can affect anyone, no matter how fit, active and healthy they may be. Although people with underlying health conditions are most at risk from influenza associated complications, previously healthy people can still become seriously ill an even die.
Approximately 400 deaths each year in New Zealand are related to influenza infection.
We cannot predict from year to year how severe the influenza season may be. The flu virus can change yearly and new strains can emerge to which people are not immune.
To maintain the most effective protection against influenza, annual immunisation is required.
- protection lessens over time
- each year influenza can be caused by different strains of influenza viruses that are not represented in the previous year’s vaccine
It takes around two weeks to develop immunity once vaccinated. Ideally, immunisation should be carried out before the main influenza activity in May to September. People can be immunised at any time during the influenza season, but the vaccine is only free for those in the high-risk groups until the end of July.
Seasonal influenza vaccinations are recognised as being the single most effective way of reducing the impact of seasonal influenza – especially for those most at risk of complications.
Stop the spread of the flu
If you are unwell, stay at home until you are better.
Follow basic hygiene practices:
- Wash your hands regularly for at least 20 seconds and dry them for 20 seconds – or use an alcohol-based hand rub
- Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze – then put the tissue in a lined bin
- Cough or sneeze in to your elbow if a tissue is not readily available
- Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth
- Don’t share drinks
- Avoid crowded places
Don’t let the flu knock you. Get immunised. Protect yourself. Protect your family. Protect your community.
Immunisation may be FREE for you. Ask your doctor or nurse today.
This season’s ‘flu’ could be worse because of the new influenza virus commonly known as Swine Flu.
Fuckin’ pigs! 😎
Plague leads to death!
Uncharitable charities
Under current law, charities are not obligated to give even $1 a year from their surplus to charitable causes.
Does that even make sense? It’s from an article on Stuff.co.nz, Flush Kiwi charities failing to pay out.
Labour’s charity spokeswoman, coat-of-many-colours Louisa Wall, and a member of the Australian Charity Law Association (ACLA), Dr. Michael Gousmett, are complaining that the current law is creating “inequality in our tax system”.
Today’s regulations give tax relief to private schools, fee-charging hospitals, Ngai Tahu’s 38 limited liability companies (including Shotover Jet and Whale Watch Kaikoura) and food giant Sanitarium with no public benefit test holding them to account.
Notwithstanding that Kiwi kids are Weetbix kids, why on earth does a breakfast cereal manufacturer have charitable status? And Ngai Tahu’s tourist attractions? I’m gobsmacked. The other day, I asked a member of the iwi, “How’s Ngai Tahu?”. He replied, “Rich!” No wonder.
As for private schools and private hospitals, it seems that the government concedes charitable status (i.e., tax relief) to private institutions that are still performing those charitable roles that the government, with its state schools and public health system, has long-since tried to usurp.
Merely operating as a hospital or school meets the criteria of charitability as it relieves pressure on the public system, even if the charity is charging fees largely unaffordable to most people.
Wall said charitable trusts that benefit only the wealthy were “creating divisions between the haves and the have-nots”.
“Those who least need charity are benefiting the most. It is helping those who can afford to pay to go to private hospitals and private schools, not those who actually need the help.
“We as a country are giving these organisations up to $600m worth of tax relief under the assumption that $600m should be reinvested back into the community, and if that is not happening we desperately need to change the law.”
Note the standard socialist newspeak. Thieving is now “reinvesting back into the community,” and not thieving is now “giving tax relief.” And the thieves are now “out of pocket.” Poor government! If only there were 54 weeks in the year, then they could just keep borrowing at their current rate of $300 million per week and they wouldn’t be “out of pocket.” Meanwhile, the charities sector is “swallowing” $600 million of its own money every year! Into the giant, gaping maw of charity! The horror!
The Government is $600 million out of pocket each year as the charities sector swallows $400m through income tax exemption and $200m in tax credit refunds, yet Cabinet decided against reviewing charity law last year through “fiscal cost” fears.
Recent calls to urgently review the sector were once again quashed by Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Jo Goodhew yesterday.
Charitable purpose relates to the relief of poverty, the advancement of education or religion or any other matter beneficial to the community, she said.
The Charities Registration Board determines whether or not an organisation fits within the Charities Act 2005 and the DIA Charities Services monitors charities to ensure they operate for exclusively charitable purposes.
“Irrespective of what a charity looks like, as long as they are operating within the law, that is what we should be assuring ourselves on,” she said.
The Government decided against reviewing the law relating to charities last year through fears more organisations may have expected to be eligible for charitable status which could have “increased fiscal costs”, an Inland Revenue spokeswoman said.
So, the truth outs. It’s the government being uncharitable, not the charities. Allowing people to give their own money directly to those in need is an “increased fiscal cost” to the government? Well, no. It’s actually an “increased fiscal cost” to those doing the giving. That’s how charity works.
Inland Revenue was aware of “the public concerns relating to charities” and would be monitoring them to ensure they were operating exclusively for charitable purposes, she said.
Who watches the whale watchers?
Mitigating theft
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (NIV)
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (NIV)
God vs. AI
In this video from the 2012 Asia Consciousness Festival, AI researcher Ben Goertzel says
Imagine you had a collective of people, or they could be people and AIs, or some of them could be cyborgs (the people with brains jacked in to the computers), and imagine that they’re concerned with a number of things …
First, they’re concerned with measuring each other’s brain states and making scientific theories about what they observe …
Second, they observe more in the manner of a group of people meditating together, they’re actually subjectively perceiving each other’s consciousness while they’re doing this and so they can both measure each other’s states of consciousness empirically and neurally, or digitally if they’re AIs, and they can subjectively enter into collective mind states …
But there’s another ingredient, human beings have the annoying property that if you cut open our heads and mess with our brains we tend to die or become gibbering idiots or something but a computer program won’t necessarily have this feature and with molecular nanotechnology humans won’t necessarily have this feature either, so …
You can imagine this sort of ashram of consciousness scientists who are studying each other’s brains and minds and experiencing each other’s states of consciousness in a very refined way …
You can imagine this happening in a situation where the members of this community could actually alter and adjust each other’s brains experimentally and dynamically during the collective process…
Now, what you see here is the possibility of some form of collective understanding going beyond science as we have it now and going beyond religion as we have it now. Whether you can get this new form of understanding using humans as we exist now I’m not sure. It’s easy to envision with the AIs and cyborgs in the mix.
Artificial minds will be such that they can readily fuse into a single mind, or fissure into many separate minds. I suppose that in principle fission is easy, but that fusion is more problematic. An artificial mind may fissure into multiple separate minds, with the intent of fusing back into a single mind some time later, but the newly begotten minds, once split off, may have other ideas.
Here‘s what C. S. Lewis has to say about the super-personal God of the Trinity.
A good many people nowadays say, `I believe in a God, but not in a personal God.’ They feel that the mysterious something which is behind all other things must be more than a person. Now the Christians quite agree. But the Christians are the only people who offer any idea of what a being that is beyond personality could be like. All the other people, though they say that God is beyond personality, really think of Him as something impersonal: that is, as something less than personal. If you are looking for something super-personal, something more than a person, then it is not a question of choosing between the Christian idea and the other ideas. The Christian idea is the only one on the market.
Again, some people think that after this life, or perhaps after several lives, human souls will be ‘absorbed’ into God. But when they try to explain what they mean, they seem to be thinking of our being absorbed into God as one material thing is absorbed into another. They say it is like a drop of water slipping into the sea. But of course that is the end of the drop. If that is what happens to us, then being absorbed is the same as ceasing to exist. It is only the Christians who have any idea of how human souls can be taken into the life of God and yet remain themselves—in fact, be very much more themselves than they were before.
… The whole purpose for which we exist is to be thus taken into the life of God. Wrong ideas about what that life is will make it harder. And now, for a few minutes, I must ask you to follow rather carefully.
You know that in space you can move in three ways – to left or right, backwards or forwards, up or down. Every direction is either one of these three or a compromise between them. They are called the three Dimensions. Now notice :his. If you are using only one dimension, you could draw only a straight line. If you are using two; you could draw a figure: say, a square. And a square is made up of four straight lines. Now a step further. If you have three dimensions, you can then build what we call a solid body: say, a cube – a thing like a dice or a lump of sugar. And a cube is made up of six squares.
Do you see the point? A world of one dimension would be a straight line. In a two-dimensional world, you still get straight lines, but many lines make one figure. In a three-dimensional world, you still get figures but many figures make one solid body. In other words, as you advance to more real and more complicated levels, you do not leave behind you the things you found on the simpler levels: you still have them, but combined in new ways – in ways you could not imagine if you knew only the simpler levels.
Now the Christian account of God involves just the same principle. The human level is a simple and rather empty level. On the human level one person is one being, and any two persons are two separate beings – just as, in two dimensions (say on a flat sheet of paper) one square is one figure, and any two squares are two separate figures. On the Divine level you still find personalities; but up there you find them combined in new ways which we, who do not live on that level, cannot imagine. In God’s dimension, so to speak, you find a being who is three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one cube. Of course we cannot fully conceive a Being like that: just as, if we were so made that we perceived only two dimensions in space we could never properly imagine a cube. But we can get a sort of faint notion of it. And when we do, we are then, for the first time in our lives, getting some positive idea, however faint, of something super-personal – something more than a person. It is something we could never have guessed, and yet, once we have been told, one almost feels one ought to have been able to guess it because it fits in so well with all the things we know already.
Is the mind of God like that of an AI? When, ultimately, we are “taken into the life of God,” do we become thee- or four-dimensional facets of the multi-dimensional being that is God? When God invaded his own creation, by sending his only begotten son to incarnate as a human being, was that a case of fission? I suggest that the person of Jesus was entirely separate from the person of his father when, on the cross, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Do you want this again and innumerable times again?
What if some day or night a demon were to steal into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!” Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine.” If this thought gained power over you, as you are it would transform and possibly crush you; the question in each and every thing, “Do you want this again and innumerable times again?” would lie on your actions as the heaviest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to long for nothing more fervently than for this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
