ThePickards
standards, accessibility, and ranting and general stuff by the web chemist

I went to a book-signing in Waterstones in Newcastle yesterday. It was, as you may possibly have speculated from the title of this post, a book signing done by Christopher Brookmyre. He’s written a number of books that are generally classed as ‘Crime fiction’, but that’s too simplistic a view: you’ve really got to stir […]

Read: Christopher Brookmyre’s Book Signing »

I’m a believer in equality. I believe in equality of opportunity, although to be that’s a fancy way of saying I believe in fairness. Which is why I’ve produced a set of posts on the theme of equality, rambling through my beliefs and experiences as regards equalities and politics, sexism, sexuality, racism and disability. A […]

Read: Equality Part 4: Johnny Foreigner »

The names that are used by people to describe one another are very powerful things. Compare:

Abdul Hassan, seeking refuge from torture and persecution
Abdul Hassan, the bogus asylum seeker sponging off the taxpayer

…to see what I mean.
Now I don’t know an Abdul Hassan, and I’m not trying to make a point about asylum seekers one way […]

Read: The Power of Names: What did you call me? »

After I was meme-tagged by Roger Johansson, I thought I should maybe list five blogs that make me think. Roger asked the people on the list not to feel obliged to continue the meme, because of how some people feel about memes.
Okay then Roger. I don’t feel obliged to, but I will anyway as I […]

Read: 5 Blogs That Make Me Think »

I have no time for bigots. Actually, that’s not true. I’ll normally try and make sufficient time to demonstrate that they are self-serving, intolerant people with double standards to try and suit themselves. So here goes.
Some time ago, I wrote a piece called the atheist bigots where I took several swings at atheists who seemed […]

Read: Religious Intolerance: Abortion »

As some of you may have read from earlier posts, I came across a medium called Marcel Cairo, who has a blog called I done thunk and hosts his professional dealings on a site called after life medium.
I highlighted that aside from his obvious interest in the duality theory of mind, is scathing on his […]

Read: The Medium Is The Message »

…for knowledge, that is.
It occurs to me that I’m in the unenviable position of not having many people “on message” with my beliefs. When I start talking about faith, or whether there is an afterlife, or the possibility of there being a God or Gods out there somewhere, some of my readers start thinking I’m […]

Read: a sceptic cursed with a thirst… »

Some years ago, I bought a book by a man called Graham Phillips called The Moses Legacy, which purported to use historical evidence to try and determine how accurate (if at all) the stories of the historical figure of Moses would be.
I didn’t agree with all of his conclusions, but I felt he made a […]

Read: Moses Reconfirmed »

I had been going to reference this site a lot earlier, but unfortunately Matthew Cromer’s site disappeared at around the turn of the year and was replaced by somewhere showing me where I could obtain online pharmaceuticals. As I already knew where to obtain online pharmaceuticals from the comments I don’t allow onto my blog, […]

Read: Science Is A Method, Not A Position »

I had a post on the teaching of Creationism in schools, entitled Creationism: Let It Be The Light which was a provocative title to be fair, but the argument I was making was that schools are banned from using Intelligent Design and Creationism resource packs in the teaching of science, and I see nothing wrong […]

Read: More Atheist Bigotry »