Archive for November, 2008

Conference prep

Friday, November 14th, 2008 | Humanism, Thoughts

Having cleared up some unfair slander of my character in recent times and eaten a rather enjoyable sausage casserole courtesy of Michelle, the final preparations began for this weekend’s AHS conference.

The delegate packs are looking reasonably flash if I do say so myself and everything is now in place for tonight’s One Life which should produce some interesting discussions. I think this weekend is going to be very exciting given we are watching history in the making with the ratification of the constitution.

I am also very much looking forward to getting some events planning done and the live from the AHS conference podcast should be fantastic also.

This sex is on fire

Thursday, November 13th, 2008 | Photos

I caught something out of the corner of my eye just now.

Point 5 reads…

If fire is out of control, call fire brigade 999

Cheers, I was confused as to what the number was.

Atheist arguments aren’t much good

Thursday, November 13th, 2008 | Events, Humanism, Religion & Politics

Having got out of work earlier than planned I headed over to The Terrace to meet Raby have have a bit of a catch up as we’d not seen each other in a month or so. All seems well in the School of Computing, the closure of 24 hours labs is more a change in official policy than something that has actually happened.

Afterwards we headed over to The Park Horse for the talk organised by the Philosophy Society entitled “atheist arguments aren’t much good.” The room was packed out which made for some fantastic photos to add to the A-Soc gallery (what, it was an A-Soc event to attend the talk :p ).

The talk was very interesting and I was impressed by how fast moving it kept with the basic premise being that atheist arguments don’t really work because disproving a specific god doesn’t disprove the idea of a god, it simply disproves that god but you can simply change the definition of god to get round that (for example, he doesn’t need to be all powerful, as this is never said in the Bible, he could just be rather powerful).

Of course this argument doesn’t hold up because if you accept there may be some kind of god but choose not to believe in any of the specific gods then you’re an atheist. It isn’t Atheism with a capital T (or positive atheism or whatever you wish to call it) but it certainly is atheism but regardless it was an interesting talk and well worth attending.

I’m not sure John took too kindly to my thoughts on philosophy as a subject though lol.

The God Who Wasn’t There

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 | Humanism

Another Tuesday night having arrived we set about our usual committee business at which we got through everything on the agenda except the most important point of all – the impending AHS Conference which was taking place this weekend! Still, how much fun would we miss out on if everything was carefully prepared and planned?

The film was good as ever, I almost watched it again when I got home. Turn out was moderate, it’s hard to live up to the high standards that we have so far set this year but Milood came down for the first time and Brett pitched up to the meeting too so there were some victories.

The social continued in The Terrace afterwards and went on until midnight with myself, Brett, Nicola W, Zoltan and Kate dancing the night away.

Si’s birthday

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 | Friends, Life

It may have been a little late but Si’s official birthday party finally took place on Monday night.

We met up in The Deer Park for a steak dinner which was rather good, especially once we got on to dessert though I fear it may be my last steak for a while as I really need to cut down on my spending (the drugs and the hookers are really starting to add up).

Si also turned up in the end which was quite a nice addition. Good times.

The great Xscape

Monday, November 10th, 2008 | Friends, Life

Another Sunday night having rolled around we met up in The Crusader car park (which is looking dangerously like it’s never going to re-open given there is now a housing builder banner across the front of it 🙁 ) and headed off to Xscape for another exciting night of fun.

Despite Steph’s best attempt to bring the atmosphere down with her attitude problem, a guest appearance by Miss Pickles and a fair deal of alcohol (given we weren’t on a bar night) kept people in high spirits throughout the night and as usual provided one or two classic pictures. Becky even managed to stay on her feet for the whole night though the same couldn’t be said for Charlotte 😀 .

I managed some fairly average scores not much over a hundred, worthy of second place and first place on my lane respectively but the real victories of the evening was Craig’s overall win of 148 and Zoe being particuarly on form scoring 120-odd, doubling her usual total.

House party at 12B Clarendon Place

Monday, November 10th, 2008 | Events, Friends, Life

Having escaped work at about 1:30 I headed over to Sophie and Jon’s house party which was still in full swing. What I found was an orgy of drinking, sex and hedonism the like of which only atheists can truely practice.

Liz making out with random boys, Michelle making out with random girls, everyone drinking some kind of mixture that looked far too much like sewage water and all of this culminating in a human pyramid which made for some excellent pictures.

Good party guys, well done!

What to do, what to do?

Sunday, November 9th, 2008 | Life

As I’ve previously mentioned to some of you, I will have a few days off over the holiday period which is quite a rare treat. Obviously I need to make the most of this time so I’m beginning the process of tendering for time early.

Therefore I will be taking applications and proposals for what to do with my time. Current proposals include…

  • House Metrics
  • Particle Soft
  • Re-launching Worfolk Creative
  • Spending time with the parents
  • Authoring my far from long awaited book
  • Sleeping

If would would like to submit an application or proposal for something I should allocate my time to please submit an application in electronic writing to the usual email address detailing what it is you think I should be doing and why it’s worth my time. All submissions are strictly non-confidential. Thanks in advance 🙂 .

One Life

Sunday, November 9th, 2008 | Events

Norm currently being struck down with illness, it fell to Sophie to lead this week’s session of One Life.

It went quite well, we got a good turn out as usual and the discussion kept rolling on around this week’s topic, science and critical thinking. The lesson I really took from it comparing it to the sessions I led was that you really need a critical mass in order to really get good discussion going which this year we thankfully have always managed.

Lil also did quite a good job as head chef for the evening so all in all things went very well.

Democracy in action

Friday, November 7th, 2008 | Religion & Politics

Last night was the union council meeting to look at what motions should make it to the referendum or not. Myself, Norm, Nicola, Moz and Gijsbert turned up to support motion 4 and while it’s probably a good job we did, it didn’t do us much good.

I have written a more in depth article for Leeds Student (and anyone else who wants to run it) which we’ll be sending in along with all our other articles in the hope some of it will make it to the next issue, but I will briefly summarise things here.

First of all, amendment 4 passed which removed “this union resolves” part 1, which was to stop stocking Halal and Kosher meat. From a motion to remove Halal and Kosher meat from the union. There is no way that is constitutional! The union council rules state they cannot pass amendments that “significantly alter the nature of the motion.” How could you ever, ever come up with a less appropriate amendment? How could you change it’s nature any more than that?

The amount of open descrimination against the atheist community was also quite clear. It didn’t seem to matter how many times union council members had gone on and on about how this is about whether motions should go forward to referendum, not about the politics of each issue, union council members repeatedly voiced their own opinions and yet hardly any of them mentioned the core issue here – animal welfare.

Finally it would seem important in what is aiming to be a democractic process that union council members are free to vote how they wish. It is interesting then that when Barry abstained from voting on the motion (not even voted for it but simply abstained) he was ridiculed by the chair and asked to give reasons for his decisions.

All of this amounts to showing the clear descrimination that goes on, on campus against the atheist community.