The Royals “fire” the racist slave!

Aractus 02, December, 2022

In what I can only describe as completely bizarre, this week the UK Royal family has “fired” the racist slave who had been in servitude to them for more than 60 years. Will she be paid severance? Of course not – she’s a slave, she doesn’t get paid either way! It was her “honour” to […]

Why are Christians afraid of biblical criticism?

Aractus 26, September, 2022

Download audio transcript Around a decade ago, one of my Christian friends put forward the view that the bible should not be subjected to academic enquiry. I had heard this view many times, including by the late minister at my (former) parish. Going back around 20 years now, another friend who was studying at Moore […]

Manly Sea Eagles Pride Drama Stokes Antireligious Hate Speech

Aractus 28, July, 2022

Wow what a past couple of days it’s been on this issue. The NRL’s Manly Sea Eagles unveiled a pride jersey for the Women in League Round with rainbow stripes as you see Mr Jackson modelling opposite. What does LGBTQ+ rights have to do with promoting Women in League? I have no idea, it’s not […]

Dobbs returns normality to US abortion laws?

Dobbs v Jackson overturned Roe v Wade, what now ...

Aractus 20, July, 2022

The Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade in the US is understandably shocking, and some of the consequences truly horrifying. But in truth the decision brings US law back into a field of normality though it may not seem like it at first. Terminations in Australia Yes here in ‘Straya we are more civilised than […]

The delayed-choice quantum eraser is finally debunked

Aractus 04, November, 2021

By Sabine Hossenfelder: Wait. Didn’t I say this a decade ago? Yes indeed I did, and admittedly I did get some things with my old analysis wrong, but I was 2/3rds of the way there which is a LOT closer than people who were saying “oh yes this experiment proves entanglement has effects going backwards […]

Announcement!

Aractus 09, December, 2020

There are some major changes to the blog I think everyone will like. Firstly, almost all content on the blog is now under a CC-BY-SA AU 3.0 copyright license (essentially the same license used by Wikipedia). Please read my new Copryright Policy in full. Note it doesn’t cover my theme, any media, or blog comments. […]

Sci-Hub – ethics

Aractus 19, November, 2020

I thought I might address why Sci-Hub exists, what it is, what it pretends to be, what it isn’t, and finally discuss the real ethical dilemmas with use of it. Academic opinion about it is sharply divided – and it should be sharply divided. On the surface it masquerades as a piracy tool, but as […]

Americans have spoken: they want Trump out of office,

but they don't want Biden to govern

Aractus 05, November, 2020

Both candidates have made history The vote count is not yet complete for 2020 US presidential elections, but at this stage it looks like Trump has increased his vote by over 8 million compared to 2016. Yes Mr. President, that is “huge”. With a total vote likely to be around 71 million, that is higher […]

Doctor Who series 12 finale review

Aractus 02, March, 2020

Since I haven’t done a full series review, you may want to read my Series 11 review to understand my overall gripes with the Chibnall era. Spoilers are ahead. Ascension of the Cybermen This was a good episode. I really enjoyed it, it set up some very interesting plot threads to be concluded in the […]

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie REVIEW

Aractus 13, October, 2019

This review is spoiler-free, but contains spoilers for Breaking Bad. Conclusion This movie is terrible. Plot The film picks up immediately after the finale of Breaking Bad and follows Jessie as he is on the run. The plot is boring. It was not well thought-out, the story told is bland. It would have been more […]

Why I didn’t “lose” my religion

Aractus 01, July, 2019

Almost exactly a year ago I promised a new blog series on atheist biblical studies, and despite writing several drafts I haven’t yet began the series proper. I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about my own journey and why I reject the idea that I “lost” my faith or religion. Christians today […]

Terminator Dark Fate: The franchise problem

Aractus 13, April, 2019

 I will not be going to see Terminator Dark Fate, aka Terminator 6 in the cinema. Some films, and TV series, do branch well into a franchise. In fact getting future instalments in a franchise right is difficult to say the least. In film we’ve seen this with everything from Spider-Man and other superhero […]

ClassicPress

Aractus 12, March, 2019

My blog is now running on ClassicPress not Wordpress. I know what you’re thinking – it’s stupid to be an early adopter. Well, I’m going to flip that and propose that it’s stupid to be a late adopter. See what’s happened over the past 10 years is there has been a very strong shift away […]

Refugee evacuation bill: Probing deeper

Aractus 15, February, 2019

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it can’t have escaped your attention that the Parliament this week passed legislation in defiance of the Government (the “medevac bill”). In doing so, one of the most awful and appalling situations that has been allowed to go on has finally been, well, partially addressed. That situation is […]

Firefox adds scrollbar styling after 18 years

Aractus 13, December, 2018

From today, Firefox visitors will see a dark coloured scrollbar on the default theme. The plain theme, if you have Javascript enabled, will remain with the default scrollbar. And so ends an eighteen year wait for this functionality. The reason why this has never been supported before is because there was never an official CSS […]

Why Starbucks Failed (in Australia)

Aractus 28, July, 2018

Oh my Gawd this video is terrible, but please start by watching it and I’ll go over what the yanks just don’t get: Okay, where do I begin? Well I guess with the reason why Starbucks failed in Australia – they made TERRIBLE coffee. It tasted like shit. And they were run like a generic […]

My Health Record: Opt-out NOW!

Aractus 16, July, 2018

Today marks the first day for three months that you can choose to opt out of a My Health Record. In this post, having just done so myself, I hope to convince you to do so as well. My expertise in in public health, and so I am perfectly qualified to explain both sides of […]

New theme

Aractus 17, June, 2018

(Last updated 12/11/2020) This blog works best with FireFox. Welcome to the brand new theme for my blog. I spent the last two weeks creating it – completely from scratch, even the background images are unique (made from royalty-free images I found on the internet). The only thing that hasn’t changed just yet is the […]

Have scholars been lying about P137?

Aractus 12, June, 2018

On his blog, well-known bible scholar Larry Hurtado gave me a public dressing-down while laying out his reasons for not publishing a comment I made to his previous blog post. He didn’t name me, but I will confirm it is my comment he is talking about. He didn’t abide the use of the word “lie”, […]

First Century manuscript of Mark published!

Aractus 24, May, 2018

This blog entry has gone under several revisions. Last updated 02/06/2018. Yes you read right, this isn’t clickbait. The First Century Manuscript of the Gospel of Mark that Dr. Daniel B Wallace told the world about during a debate in February 2012 with Dr. Bart Ehrman has, finally, been published. The debate is here. The […]