dominicburford's posterous

I've often wondered whether there is a conflict between my atheism and love of science, and my spiritual side. I recently came across this quote from Carl Sagan, for whom I have long had a deep respect for. His wisdom triumphs yet again.

Honour punishment / killing is supported by young Asians,  a poll reveals.

Two thirds of young British Asians agree that families should live according to the concept of "honour", a poll for BBC Panorama suggests.

Of 500 young Asians questioned, 18% also felt that certain behaviour by women that could affect her family's honour justified physical punishment.

These included disobeying their father, and wanting to leave an exisiting or prearranged marriage.

The results come as women's groups call for action to stop "honour" crimes.

The poll, conducted for the BBC by ComRes, interviewed oung Asians living in Britain between the ages of 16 and 34.

Asked if they agreed that families should live according to "honour", 69% agreed, a figure that rose to 75% among young men, compared with 63% of young women.

Root cause:

They were also asked if they felt there was ever a justification for so-called "honour killings". Only 3% said that it could be justified.

However, when divided by sex, 6% of young Asian men said that honour killings could be justified, compared with just 1% of Asian women surveyed.

Experts interviewed by the programme argue that the root cause of "honour" crime lies in forced marriage.

Jasvinder Sanghera, a campaigner on behalf of Asian women, fled her parents' home after they attempted to force her into an arranged marriage when she was just 14.

She said it was time for Britain's Asian community leaders to speak out about the honour code, also known as "Izzat" in Urdu.

"I've yet to see community leaders, religious leaders, politicians, Asian councillors give real leadership on this. They don't because they know it makes them unpopular."

Ms Sanghera said the reluctance of community figures to speak out was "extremely irresponsible, it's morally wrong and it's morally blind".

A survey of police forces by the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (IKWRO) found there were 2,823 incidences of honour crimes a year, or almost eight a day. But those figures are considered a vast underestimate given that 13 of 52 police forces did not respond to the charity's request for a breakdown in November 2011.

Nazir Afzal of the Crown Prosecution Service said the degree of honour crime in Britain - including murders meant to preserve a family's "honour" within their own community - was unknown.

"We don't know the true figure of honour killings. It's anything between 10 and 12 a year in this country. I don't know how many other unmarked graves there are in this country in our green and pleasant land."

Mr Afzal estimates that there are 10,000 forced marriages in Britain every year, and said a measure of multicultural sensitivity was likely part of the problem.

"Forced marriage is the earthquake and what's followed is a tsunami of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, child protection issues, suicide and murder.

"If we can tackle forced marriage then we can prevent all these other things from happening."

I came across this Native American legend recently and thought I'd share it. It would be lovely if this were true. Karma!

According to Native American legend, when a human dies, there is a Bridge he or she must cross in order to enter Heaven. At the head of this Bridge waits every animal that the individual encountered during his or her lifetime. Based upon what they know of this person, the animals will decide which humans may cross the Bridge and which will be turned away.

Twitter has sold billions of archived tweets believed to have vanished forever. A privacy row has erupted as hundreds of companies queue up to purchase users’ personal information from the new database.

Every time you use social networks you become mere product – it’s an idea we will all have to get used to. So, should we give up worldly goods and hide in a Tibetan monastery till the end of our days, or start putting up a fight to protect our privacy? In the latest in a long series of scandals over social networks that profit from our private data, the UK-based DataSift firm has announced that is has bought every tweet posted since January 2010. The business intelligence and data-mining platform will be the first company to offer the archive for sale.

DataSift’s Historics is a cloud-computing social data platform that enables businesses to extract insights and trends that relate to brands, news, public opinion and … actually anything you could ever need… from Twitter’s public tweets. Now entrepreneurs will have access to billions of tweets, which literally means they will purchase every Twitter user along with all his secrets, GPS-location included. Thought the law protected you from thieves? No, on the contrary – it actually helps thieves to abuse you and steal your personal data. DataSift now brings to the table what it calls “an invaluable information source” with 250 billion tweets posted in 2010 alone. Historics is available today as a limited release to existing customers and is scheduled to be generally available in April 2012.

Do you agree your tweet is priceless?

The idea that months- or years-old tweets are of no value is a false one. DataSift says almost 1,000 companies have joined a waiting list to access the service. No complicated surveys needed – the firms now have the feedback at their fingertips.

Twitter turned out to be craftier than most users suspected.

“You thought that tweets you posted months ago had vanished, or were simply hidden away so deeply and awkwardly on the Twitter website that they would be too difficult to uncover? Think again,” Graham Cluley from security firm Sophos says, as quoted by The Daily Mail web edition.

It turns out that Twitter had archived every tweet and will now be rewarded for its ingenuity. Datasift, for instance, will charge companies up to £10,000 a month to analyze tweets posted each day for anything said about their products and services.

Outrage over privacy

The question is whether an estimated 300 million Twitter users should be classified as victims whose personal data has been sacrificed on the altar of global marketing. It has been reported that private accounts and tweets that have been deleted will not be indexed by the site. Nevertheless, privacy campaigners are alarmed.

The Daily Mail website quotes Justin Basini of the data privacy company Allow as saying: “Marketers will stop at nothing to get hold of your data. This move shows all those throwaway tweets have suddenly become a rich new revenue stream for Twitter… It has taken a stream of consciousness, analyzed it, bottled it and sold it for a profit. And the worst thing is, you never knew it was going to happen.”

DataSift claims it is planning to tap into another goldmine of information – Facebook – in just a few weeks. The latest data from comScore, an Internet marketing research company, says the average Facebook user spends around 6-7 hours a day using the social network. Now that the relatively laconic Twitter has turned dangerous, just imagine how much riskier it is to post something for six hours a day.

I often get told that people respect my opinion and therefore I should respect theirs. I'm sorry, but no. I will respect any opinion of yours that does not lead to the imprisonment, abuse and murder of 65 billion land animals every year and literally countless sea creatures. However when you ask me to respect your right to contribute to a system of abuse, particularly on such a terrible scale the answer will always be no. I can no more respect that opinion than one who believes it acceptable for a man to rape his wife. I can no more respect that opinion than one who finds child abuse acceptable.

Do not ask me to respect your right to abuse those without a voice.

I also strongly object to the word 'opinion' when it comes to veganism. Even if you do not care about species other than your own, veganism is not an opinion.

It is not my opinion that there are 7 billion humans in this world, over a billion of whom are starving.

It is not my opinion that the population of the world is expected to rise to 9 billion by 2050. 

It is not my opinion that it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of beef.

It is not my opinion that the amount of grain it takes to produce a single steak could feed between 40 and 50 starving children.

It is not my opinion that many African governments are corrupt and sell their nation's grain to the West as cheap cattle feed.

It is not my opinion that it takes around 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef but only around 290 to produce a pound of soy beans.

It is not my opinion that around 51% of all greenhouse gases can be directly attributed to the meat, dairy and egg industries.

It is not my opinion that 70% of destroyed rainforest is used for grazing hamburger cattle.

It is not my opinion that around 95% of the remainder is used to grow soy for cattle feed.

It is not my opinion that the WHO and the UN have stated that there is not enough space on the planet to feed everyone such an animal heavy diet and that we need to make the transition to veganism to ensure the survival of the human race.

It is not my opinion that human beings are the only animals on the planet who suffer from excess cholesterol. 

It is not my opinion that processed meat has been proven time and again to increase the risk of cancer.

It is not my opinion that a plant based diet has been shown to actually reverse the effects of type 2 diabetes. 

It is not my opinion that on the whole vegans are less obese than those who consume meat.

It is not my opinion that vegans are less likely to suffer heart attacks than meat consumers. 

So please, don't say anything about respecting my 'opinion.' Just look at the facts.

If you don't care about animals go vegan for other people in countries less affluent than our own.

If you don't care about people on the other side of the world go vegan for the planet and to ensure that your children and grand children have a good quality of life.

If you don't care about anything other than your own little bubble, go vegan for yourself.

Thaks to Jess Crisp for this

My mind is clear

My intention is strong

My commitment is growing

My excuses are gone

Watch me!

I am letting go of the old

I am making way for the new

I am happier today

I have a new attitude

Every step is a victory

Every fall is a lesson

Either way I'm a winner

Because I am taking action

Watch me!

I am meant to be happy

To satisfy my dream

I am exactly where

I am supposed to be

~Patricia Moreno

"When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country. But it too seemed immovable. 

As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me. But alas they would have none of it. 

And now as I lie on my deathbed I suddenly realised: If I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family. From their inspiration and encouragement I would have been able to better my country and, who knows, maybe even change the world.”

Anonymous. Written on a tomb in Westminster Abbey.