Bhopal: sparing a thought for the victims.

Here is an article in The Tech, the MIT newspaper, about the Bhopal disaster (deadly Methyl-isocyanate gas leak in December 1984):

http://tech.mit.edu/V129/N59/chindelevitch.html

Fact:
There were about 23000 deaths (8000 of these were within three days of the disaster) and over 500,000 people were affected.

I find it astounding that even 25 years down the line we have not been able to take the culprits to task and the victims are far from justice. Dow Chemical, the company that now owns Union Carbide which was responsible for the disaster, refuses to accept its liability towards the people of Bhopal.
A deeply sad state of affairs !

Ray "Crackpot" Comfort

This blog-post is my take on how to deal with crackpots. The answer is simple: you don't deal with them. You just let them blabber.

On Darwin day, free copies of the Origin Of Species were distributed at MIT. I happened to be one of the people receiving a copy. I was puzzled when I saw them distribute it. What could a scientific work like that be beneficial to the distributor ? Soon I found out. The book had a Special Introduction that tried to override Darwin's thesis and try to belittle him as a person.

Here is a super-awesome hilarious video assault on the gimmickry of Ray Comfort - the author of that introduction - and a fitting example of a Crackpot.

Here are a few more gimmicks by Ray Comfort:
http://www.pulltheplugonatheism.com/
http://www.livingwaters.com/

Here are two more examples of masterpieces (of foolishness):
http://www.answersingenesis.org/
http://www.wayofthemaster.com/

Now the question is: you can spend time debating these issues. But is it something that you should spend your time on ? No. The solution is to simply ignore these idiots and just let them rejoice in their idiotic beliefs. There is only so much you can do to heal a crackpot mind, but there are more exciting things in life to do and more important problems to worry about. It is just amazing: how screwed up can a person be ?

There is a well-designed motive behind doing this: it is an easy route to fame and to catch the public eye. That's all it is. So, the best response to this is: stop listening to them and stop arguing with them.

As far as I am concerned, this is the first and last time I am going to talk about this whole Intelligent Design bullshit.

GR lectures at Stanford

I recently came across a set of 12 video lectures on General Relativity (GR) by Leonard Susskind at Stanford University. This is a typical first GR course, at the advanced undergraduate/beginning graduate level. Susskind is a good lecturer and this is a great resource:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbmf0bB38h0