I have decided to take up the offer to move to Freethought Blogs. The change will take effect immediately and my new site is already up here. I reposted yesterday's Santorum post over there to get a feel of how to use the new platform. I will continue to maintain this site with all its archives and will monitor it to clear up the spam and respond to any questions and comments that warrant them but new posts will only appear over at the new site. Thanks to all who responded to my request for comments on the move. It was gratifying to hear the messages of support and that most of you felt that you would go to the new site. I was surprised at the number of people who said that the present site had a sense of intimacy and coziness that they feared might get lost at FTB. One does not immediately think of the internet as an intimate place but I understand what they are saying. Over time, a community of people gets created and I feel that I 'know' many people who comment here though I have never met them and all that I know about them is the name and URL they choose to provide. People have warned me about possible trolls at the new location. I think of internet trolls as commenters who deliberately try to deflect a discussion to irrelevant issues or start a flame war or otherwise disrupt a discussion. I have not had to deal with that problem here, mainly because the readers here seem to be able to keep things on track and ignore irrelevancies. It will be interesting to see what the new site will bring. What I have had to spend a lot of time on is spam. Every day I get hundreds of spam comments, a few of which get past the system's filters and appear on the site. Several times I day I go in and clean them out, so that the real comments don't get lost in the clutter. More time consuming is going into the spam folder and rescuing and publishing real comments that the filter has mistakenly identified as spam. In the new system, you can freely post comments as here except that I have chosen the option that the first time someone posts a comment, I will need to authorize it but after that there is no restriction and your comments should appear immediately. Sorry about that inconvenience but that should reduce the spam problem. I would like to express my special thanks to Norm Nason, editor of the excellent web magazine Machines Like Us , and a person of many artistic talents whose wide variety of work can be seen here, for designing the nifty new banner that graces my new site. I must also give a lot of thanks to Jeremy Smith, the system administrator here, who has been immensely supportive in keeping the system going and helping me out when necessary when I have done something stupid, such as banning myself from my own site, if you can believe it. (I have never banned anyone but the system has filters that identify most spam and can ban the more egregious offenders and on occasion I have accidentally triggered it.) I must thank Jeremy, Heidi Cool, and Vincenzo who commented on my first few posts and encouraged me to keep going. But they should not be blamed for the quality of the roughly two million words that have subsequently emerged! I also have to thank Case Western Reserve University for creating this blogging platform without which I might never have had the nerve to start blogging. This platform made it so easy that I took the plunge on January 26th, 2005 and I will mark the seventh anniversary of blogging this month. The university has never once interfered with anything that I have posted, although I have taken some pretty controversial positions on occasion. Colleagues have on occasion asked me if I received any push back from the university administration for things I said and have been surprised when I reply that no one has given even the remotest suggestion that I tone things down. Universities should be the most dedicated defenders of free speech but we know that in these days, with so much pressure from external sources such as alumni and funders, many are wary of stepping on toes. Hence it reflects great credit to CWRU that they have left me completely alone to write what I wish. It is not that they don't know this blog exists because I know that I am read quite widely on campus. So onward and upward to the new frontier!

There is something quite fascinating to me about miniature railroads. I had a toy train set as a boy but this is something I could never have imagined. (Via Machines Like Us.)

I have been invited to join the stable of bloggers over at Freethought Blogs. There are some well-known ones already posting there, such as Greta Christina, Ophelia Benson, P. Z. Myers, John Loftus, and Ed Brayton. There will be no restrictions whatsoever on what I post and so the content will remain the same. I am leaning towards joining but before I make the decision, I wanted to throw the idea out to the loyal readers of this blog as to how it might affect their reading enjoyment. The present site is on a platform run by my university and has been terrific in providing support whenever I needed it and not placing any restrictions on my writing, so any move will not be due to any dissatisfaction with the current situation but purely as a means of creating greater visibility by being part of a broader network of bloggers with similar interests. So, what do you think?

What is better than friends sharing food? (Thanks to Norm.)

He became part of our family six years ago today and is resting up before the partying in his honor begins.

Christopher Hitchens undoubtedly died well, by which I mean that he faced his terminal illness with dignity, not falling into either one of the common twin traps that snare people who are told they have a serious terminal illness, that of maudlin sentimentality of the 'why me?' variety or fake bravado that he would defeat the cancer somehow when all before him had failed. He was above all, a writer, for whom the compulsion to pour words out was unstoppable. Not for him the idea that his last days should be spent in doing those things he had had no time for before. He was apparently working on an essay until the end, even when he was so weak that he could barely drag his IV drip with to the chair and would nod off periodically and could barely hit the keys. One has to admire that. The only book I read of his was God is Not Great and my review was decidedly mixed. But there was no doubt that his debating skills in favor of the atheist cause were definitely something I welcomed. He had a quick wit, an easy facility with words, was widely read, and seemed to have a prodigious memory, all of which come in handy when engaged in the kinds of polemical battles he seemed to relish. It must be said, however, that his other politics in the latter part of his life were atrocious. He seemed to have bought the entire neoconservative package, demonstrating an enthusiasm for wars against Muslim countries that was appalling. Critics claimed that he was a social climber, eager to move in elite American political and social circles and that his entry ticket to that world was to join in the jingoistic hysteria that followed the events of September 11, 2001. Recall that in those days, to decry the reaction to lash out at perceived enemies was seen as irrelevant and not serious at best and borderline treasonous at worst. Since I am not of that world, I am in no position to judge if that charge is accurate, but I thought that this remembrance of him by Alexander Cockburn was worth linking to.

Strange as it may seem to some people, gay couples react to the news of becoming grandparents pretty much the same way as heterosexual couples do. Explain to me again why we should not let gay people adopt children?

I am not a fan of violence, even of the fake kind in films and TV. I do not seek violence out and an advisory on a film that it contains a lot of it is enough to make me want to give it a miss. I never watch any films in the slasher/horror genre. But I can stomach film violence if I have to. I have seen my share of cinematic deaths and injury and bloodshed and survived, and usually forget about them soon afterwards. In more mainstream films, if there is a violent scene or two and I can anticipate one coming, I can turn away. I recently saw the trilogy of films that began with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and although they had some pretty rough stuff from time to time, I enjoyed the films enough that I could get through those scenes. Sometimes it is too much, though. The film Pulp Fiction sickened me because the violence seemed just gratuitous and turned me off Quentin Tarantino films forever. I also went to see the film The Cook, the Thief, his Wife, and her Lover which had some pretty gross scenes early on which I sat through but towards the end it was so clear that it was heading towards a ghastly denouement and I simply got up and left, the only time that I have actually left a movie theater before the end. But there is something that I cannot stand and that is violence towards animals. Any hint that animals are going to be shown treated cruelly is enough to ruin the film for me. Even the portrayal of the natural death of an animal upsets me. If animals have to die, I definitely want them to die peacefully and off-screen. This is true even in books. I read a novel some years ago that had one scene in which a dog is treated cruelly. That scene remains in my mind long after the rest of the novel has been forgotten. In nature films, the only animal video clips I will watch or link to are those with happy outcomes but even then there are limits. Sometime ago, a blog reader sent me a link to a video clip of a baby wildebeest in the wild that was being dragged underwater by crocodiles until it was saved by the collective action of the herd. It was a happy ending but watching the baby struggling for survival was too much for me to watch again and I never linked to it. The funny thing is that I am not an animal lover, as the term is popularly understood. I did not even have a pet as a child nor do I recall ever asking for one. The first dog in my life arrived when I was over forty years of age and I consented only because my children's pleas for one finally overcame my strenuous objections. I definitely do not gush over animals. When I encounter them, I treat them as I would when I meet children for the first time, friendly but keeping a slight distance. I do not rescue strays, visit and help out at animal shelters, join organizations dedicated to protecting them, or do any of the countless other things that true animal lovers would do. I even eat meat, despite knowing of the widespread use of horrendous factory farming practices in the US. And yet, news items about people treating animals badly fill me with rage against the perpetrators. Quite a few of my loved ones have died and I know that many others in my life that I am fond of may die before me. While the prospect makes me sad, I can still think of it without becoming too upset. But I cannot bear to even contemplate the death of my dog. The thought fills me with such dread that I resolutely push it out of my mind. Even writing these words cause me discomfort. I have tried and failed to explain this seemingly contradictory behavior on my part. The best I can come up with is that because animals are so dependent on us, and we have such power over them, treating them badly is a gross violation of our duties and obligations to them. It is like mistreating children or people who are powerless, something that also makes me really angry. There is something overwhelmingly wrong in abusing those over whom you have power.

Once a year, Greenwald has a fundraiser and it is going on now. He is undoubtedly one of the most valuable resources on the web and I would strongly urge you to contribute whatever you can so that he can continue his work.

I hope all of you have a quiet and enjoyable day with family and friends, which is what I will be doing. What I will not be doing this weekend is going anyway near any store. Recession, depression, or good times, the madness of shopping that accompanies this weekend is what I hate most about this otherwise wonderful holiday.

Amazing. (Via Norm)

John Cole makes a good point. Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky who is the target of the sexual assault allegations against young boys for the period 1994 to 2009 was considered a top defensive coach and heir to Joe Paterno when he suddenly 'retired' in 1999 in his prime. Why was he not recruited by other colleges or pro football teams? Was it because his behavior was an open secret within the football fraternity? If so, this could be the beginning of a much wider scandal. Former University of Oklahoma and Dallas Cowboys coach Barry Switzer says that from his knowledge of the coaching world, every senior person on the coaching staff at Penn State had to have known what was going on. "Having been in this profession a long time and knowing how close coaching staffs are, I knew that this was a secret that was kept secret," Switzer said. "Everyone on that staff had to have known, the ones that had been around a long time." There are now articles suggesting that many people don't know what they should do when they suspect child sexual abuse and so perhaps the actions (or more precisely the non-actions) of the people at Penn State should not be judged too harshly. I think this is a wrong argument. It is one thing to not know what to do when you just suspect that something is wrong. But in this case, someone actually saw a grown man having sex with a child. The person who saw it was a football player in his twenties and the perpetrator of the abuse was an older man of about 60 so it should have been possible to physically intervene and stop the abuse. But he did not try to stop it nor did he report it to the police, nor did the people he told it to report it to the police. This is not really a grey area. Jon Stewart sums it up well.

The rioting by Penn State students on hearing the news that football coach Joe Paterno was summarily sacked (along with the university president) by the university's Board of Trustees is inexcusable. According to news reports, graduate assistant Mike McCreary (sometimes spelled as McQueary) observed assistant coach Jerry Sandusky raping a 10-year old boy in the showers in the locker room all the way back in 2002. Why he did not immediately try to stop it is bad enough. He apparently reported it to Paterno the next day but Paterno says he was not told the details and simply reported to his superiors that there was some kind of problem and left it at that. I find that unbelievable. Paterno exercises tight control over his operations. To think that he would not have asked for details of what McCreary had observed is preposterous. The fact that he and McCreary did nothing even when no action was taken against Sandusky for nine years is shameful. We are talking about the rape of a child. Paterno and McCreary and anyone else who knew of Sandusky's serial predatory behavior and did nothing deserve a far greater punishment than firing. The code of silence and cover-up in the Penn State football program reminds me of the Catholic church's child abuse scandal and raises the question: Is there something about an all-male culture that makes people tolerate horrible abuses such as these?

That corruption exists in professional sports is obvious, often caused by gambling. Usually when players get caught fixing results they face punishments of fines or suspension and exclusion form the game. Last week though, three Pakistani cricketers were sentenced to jail for periods ranging from six to thirty months for agreeing to fix games in return for money, in addition to fines and suspensions. The deals between the gamblers and the players were arranged by an intermediary but the way that the players signaled to the bettors that they were in on the deal was by bowling a 'no ball' at a pre-determined point in the game. For those not familiar with cricket, the closest analogous situation in baseball is where a pitcher balks. This is a fairly rare event but one that is totally within the control of the pitcher and can be done at will. Though I used to be a fan, I am now frankly sick of professional sports, and this includes the big college sports programs that seem to provide a steady stream of scandals, the most recent one being the disgusting one emerging from Penn State. I still pay casual attention to it but it increasingly seems like big business, not sport anymore, with all the venality that accompanies it.

Jeff Sharlett, author, investigative journalist, and TV political commentator, is a prolific writer on the intersection of religion and politics. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (2008) is one of his works. His bio is here. He will be talking on The Noise of Democracy Occupying Our Minds on Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at 5:30 PM in the Ford Auditorium in Allen Memorial Library Building, which is on the CWRU campus at the corner of the Euclid and Adelbert, just across the street from Severance Hall. The talk is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. [Updated to include the time.]

There will be a panel discussion followed by a free and open forum on the above topic to discuss the role of religion, involving questions such as: Should we support it, promote it, accommodate it, respect it, or just ignore it? The panelists are: William Deal (moderator, Professor of Religion), Peter Haas (Chair of Department of Religious Studies), Colleen Barker-Williamson (Director of Student Activities and Leadership), and Mano Singham (Director, UCITE) Location: Nord 310 on the Case quad of CWRU Time: Friday, November 4, 2011, 12:30-1:45 pm Pizza and drinks will be available.

The big story in Ohio has been the tragic one of a private owner of a large menagerie of exotic animals in a rural area of central Ohio who reportedly released all of them before killing himself. The authorities, confronted with dangerous animals roaming wild in populated areas, shot and killed almost all the animals. I was stunned to learn of the scale of the carnage. 48 animals were killed, including 18 Bengal tigers, 17 lions, and eight bears. The photo of the corpses of these magnificent animals was heartbreaking. I was also furious that it is even possible for private individuals to obtain and keep these animals in poor conditions but apparently the laws allow it. According to the news report:

Since 2004, Thompson had been charged by local authorities with cruelty to animals, allowing his animals to run free and improperly disposing of dead animals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also received two complaints about the farm in 2008 and 2009, involving such things as pens that may have been unsafe, animals that were too skinny and dead animals on the property, said Dave Sacks, a USDA spokesman. But the agency decided it had no authority to act. Federal officials said the government had no jurisdiction over the farm under either the Animal Welfare Act or the Endangered Species Act, since the animals were held as private property and were not exhibited or being used for other commercial purposes.

There are estimated to be less than 2,500 Bengal tigers in the world. Ohio apparently has the dubious distinction of having the most lax, some would say even non-existent, state regulations in the country. How is it possible that we allow a single individual to acquire and keep 18 of them legally? Because of that, laxity about 1% of the world's population of Bengal tigers have been killed in a single day. I am not a fan of publicly owned zoos because they keep animals confined away from their normal habitat. The big animals especially never look happy. But at least a case can be made that zoos raise awareness of the need to protect and preserve species and perhaps even help in conservation efforts. But I cannot see any reason why private individuals should be allowed to keep rare, exotic, dangerous, and endangered animals as pets. The practice should be banned.

A ball containing 36 cameras is programmed to take simultaneous photos when it reaches the highest point in its trajectory, providing an instantaneous panoramic view. This not only looks like it would be fun to use, it could have many practical uses, such as seeing over high barriers. (Via Boing Boing.)

All of us who are heavy users of computers and the internet know that we get drowned in the number of passwords we need and that it is hard to keep track of them. James Fallows describes what he learned after his wife's Gmail account was hacked and gives a list of suggestions for passwords.

The science, psychology, and sociology of creating strong passwords is a surprisingly well-chronicled and fascinating field. On The Atlantic's Web site, we will describe some of the main strategies and the reasoning behind them. Even security professionals recognize the contradiction: the stronger the password, the less likely you are to remember it. Thus the Post-it notes with passwords, on monitor screens or in desk drawers. But there is a middle ground, of passwords strong enough to create problems for hackers and still simple enough to be manageable. There are more details on our site, but strategies include:

• Choose a long, familiar-to-you sequence of ordinary words, with spaces between them as in an ordinary sentence, which more and more sites now allow. "Lake Winnebago is deep and chilly," for instance. Or "my favorite packer is not brett favre." You could remember a phrase like that, but a hacker's computer, which couldn't tell spaces from characters, would see only one forbiddingly long password sequence.
• Choose a shorter sequence of words that are not "real" English words. I once lived in a Ghanaian village called Assin Fosu. I can remember its name easily, but it would be hard to guess. Even harder if I added numbers or characters.
• Choose a truly obscure, gibberish password—"V*!amYEg5M5!3R" is one I generated just now with the LastPass system, and you're welcome to it—and then find a way to store it. Having it written down in your wallet is one, though the paper it's on shouldn't say "Passwords" at the top. The approach I prefer, and use for some passwords, is to entrust them to online managers like LastPass or RoboForm. Even if their corporate sites were hacked, that wouldn't reveal all your passwords, since the programs work by storing part of the encoding information in the cloud and part on your own machine.

At a minimum, any step up from "password," "123456," or your own birthday is worthwhile. Finally, use different passwords. Not hundreds of different ones, for the hundreds of different places that require logins of some kind. The guide should be: any site that matters needs its own password—one you don't currently use for any other site, and that you have never used anywhere else. "Using an important password anywhere else is just like mailing your house key to anyone who might be making a delivery," Michael Jones of Google said. "If you use your password in two places, it is not a valid password." I asked my experts how many passwords they personally used. The highest I heard was "about a dozen." The lowest was four, and the norm was five or six. They all stressed that they managed their passwords and sites in different categories. In my own case, there are five sites whose security really matters to me: my main e‑mail account, two credit-card sites, a banking account, and an investment firm. Each has its own, good password, never used anywhere else. Next are the sites I'd just as soon not have compromised: airline-mileage accounts, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, various message boards and memberships. I have two or three semi-strong passwords I use among all of them. If you hacked one of them you might hack the others, but I don't really care. Then there is everything else, the thicket of annoying little logins we all deal with. I have one or two passwords for them too. By making it easy to deal with unimportant accounts, I can concentrate on protecting the ones that matter.

Seems like good advice.