Keith and Rick warming up for Zep

Interesting news on Rick's site:

Rick appearing with Keith Emerson at Led Zeppelin Reunion
Rick will be joining Keith Emerson, Chris Squire and Simon Kirke to warm up the crowd for Led Zeppelin's reunion gig at the new O2 venue in London on 26th November. No specific details have been released yet, but as soon as they are we will have them on the RWCC site.

And on this blog.

Evolution, or The Fight to Death

For someone who believes that evolution basically is a convenient and credible model which fits most of the facts, but doesn't really care if is is absolutely true or not in all and every matter (I'll kindly allow scientists to work out the details the next centuries, including the scientific issue of whether I am free to write blogs or not), it is interesting when someone rather intelligent stirs up some controversy.

The latest hoot is from Scott Adams and Dilbert, not to mention Dogbert. If nothing else, he very much keeps the Blog Evolutionists on the alert. Scott is involved in not a little controversy in this area, still Dilbert is the only comic I read daily.

And the one I shamelessly utilise in my talks at work. Or at least used to, back in the nifty 90's, when less than 50 % of my colleagues did.

In short, I heartily dislike it when something I wish would become popular, really does.

Keith Calling

For anyone lacking their daily dose of Keith Emerson News (in Norway belonging to the nice and noble tradition of The Finn Kalvik News), there is a brave new interview at Vintage Rock.
Rather cozy too.

Not the least interesting is the news that fans can track the progress of his new record (Marc Bonilla on guitar), to be released next year.

We’ve already shot an awful lot of footage of work in progress in the studio. I’ve got one complete piece, which will go up on YouTube in the next month or so. There will be a My Space and YouTube coming up very soon, of which I’ll be making an announcement on my web site. Yeah, there’s some great stuff of Marc and I recording together, personal interviews with Marc and myself, and a lot of interesting things. I just want to put these out periodically on My Space and YouTube and get the excitement going.

Rest assured, we'll be back with more. Stay tuned.

Dawkins blows it

Sometimes you have to grab your arm rather hard to check if you're awake. I had no intention of writing on Richard Dawkins until next month. And then, suddenly, he proves beyond doubt that he is the madman who has lost everything except his reason, according to a recent news report.

In his speech, Dawkins portrayed a black-and-white intellectual battle between atheism and religion. He denounced the "preposterous nonsense of religious customs" and compared religion to racism. He also gave no quarter to moderate or liberal believers, asserting that "so-called moderate Christianity is simply an evasion." "If you've been taught to believe it by moderates, what's to stop you from taking the next step and blowing yourself up?" he said.

The rationale behind this is no doubt Dawkins' blind faith in all religion being blind faith. He still hasn't learned anything from Alister McGrath. In Norway this attitude resulted yesterday in a rather extreme urbanist, and notorious public speaker, declaring the Nobel Prize Laureate Al Gore to be a Christian Fundamentalist.

The logic is simple. Gore is a believing Christian, hence he also must be a fundamentalist - or he wouldn't really believe. All religions are alike, especially suicide bombers.

So the question is. When will Al Gore leave his cover of fighting against global warming and go on to blow himself or the planet up, whatever his fancy is?

And if the danger is really blind faith, when will Dawkins take the nest step and blow himself up? Not to mention start to advocate arresting anyone suspected of a tad of theism, before they blow anyone up.

At least there is hope that Gore will wait till he receives the Nobel Prize in Oslo this December. With Dawkins there is no time limit.