Studying in Melbourne this week.

I found this article interesting – new research suggests that exposure to the absurd or irrational may provoke higher levels of thinking – for example, pattern recognition – in humans.  The theory appears to be that when confronted with input which breaches the predictive model that our brains have established, we go into overdrive seeking [...]

One of the “highlights” of Adelaide’s CBD are the bronze pigs on Rundle Mall (often the subject of late night, beer fuelled photos of people riding them). Some inspired person has seen fit to protect us (or them) from deadly swine flu:
(Source of photo unknown).

Australia continues its proud tradition of protecting the practice and expression of (Christian) religious beliefs, but failing to do the same in respect of atheism: article.  Sigh. There are buses rolling around Adelaide with Christian messages on them as we speak.
And it’s the best form of discrimination too – the kind by private citizens and [...]

I totally agree with this proposal: that telemarketing should be entirely ‘opt-in’ rather than ‘opt-out’.  In other words, unsolicited commercial telephone calls should be illegal unless the victim recipient has previously agreed to receive them.
At the moment I simply hang up on telemarketers, but I strongly resent (a) the interruption and (b) being put in [...]

This is fantastic: ads on London buses advocating atheism.
I wonder how hard this would be to fund in Australia, and whether it would somehow offend our anti-discrimination/hate speech laws, which (like our constitution, according to the High Court) seem to protect every belief system except atheism.

This is an excellent piece by Barry Jones in The Australian in which he highlights the extraordinarily dangerous attitude currently being promoted as the “new normal” by politicians and their lackeys in the western world, in which objectivity, rationality and informed debate are completely subsumed by “faith”, expedience and knee-jerk reactivity:
We live in an era [...]

Simon points to this article over at The Age, which walks the fine line between unreadable madness and compelling stream-of-consciousness genius and is probably a fairly hilarious discourse on… well, something:
Well, that wake up call is here. That’s what this is about. Everybody has their time, and your time is Now. This is your moment. [...]

In case there was any doubt left that marketing is the applied practice of pure evil, McDonalds have confirmed it with this terrifying baby-clown-monster advertisment:

At last, you can combine your fear of clowns, your distaste for fast food, and your revulsion at sex dolls and paedophiles in one family restaurant.
Update: it seems that McDonald’s good [...]

Kentucky Fried Chicken has apparently taken the novel step of branding the planet itself with a giant KFC logo in the southern United States. One of KFC’s soulless marketing drones makes the following vacuous remark:
The Colonel is truly a global icon and we want everyone in the universe to see KFC’s new look of [...]