Real Sceptic

Sea Shepherd’s Registry safe, for now

In July of 2009 I wrote about the possibility that Sea Shepherd might lose it’s Dutch Certificate of Registry. This due to pressure from the Japanese government to revoke the certificate. Almost a year later Sea Shepherd can still sail under the Dutch flag.

The reason for this is that under current Dutch law it’s not that easy to revoke a certificate for the ships of the Sea Shepherd organisation. To actually make this possible the previous Dutch Government made a proposal to change the law with rules that allows the Dutch government to revoke a certificate far more easily.

Changing, or amending, a law in itself is a lengthy process and this would secure the Sea Shepherd’s Dutch Certificate for almost a year. Considering it’s a reasonable controversial topic among Dutch citizens and the different political parties could lengthen the process even longer (considering a foreign country is pressuring The Netherlands).

In February this year the Dutch government fell due to a disagreement about our military policy for the Afghan province Orūzgān. And this led to the placement of the changes for the ship registration law on a list of controversial changes. This means that the current rump parliament cannot decide on, or implement, the change.

The decision if the changes will be added to the law will continue after the Dutch elections in July.

Becoming active on YouTube

I’ve always been a casual user of YouTube, who isn’t with all the videos that are hosted on YouTube. However not to long ago I was introduced to the video’s made by Peter Sinclair who publishes video’s under the username Greenman3160. He has superb video’s debunking claims from climate change denialists.

His video’s are the reason I signed up for a user account on youtube so that I could subscribe to his channel. And from the suggestions YouTube gave on his channel I started subscribing to other channels.

Slowly I actually started commenting on videos and started following quite a number of channels (currently I’m subscribed to 142 channels on YouTube). Which is great fun, there a lot of intelligent people on YouTube with great videos on a plethora of subjects.

However due to the wide range of channels I’m subscribed to I also got introduced to the more ‘darker corners’ of YouTube, the fringe so to speak. And boy are there some strange people on YouTube: Creationists (Young Earth and Old Earth), Chemtrail conspiracies, New World Order, Holocaust deniers, 911 conspiracy proponents, etc.

Now the biggest group I got introduced to the most were the creationists, a lot of the channels I follow publish videos debunking creationists claims. And so I eventually stumbled on the user NephilimFree, and I just couldn’t resist commenting on his videos. Especially when he posted something on subjects I know something about.

This led eventually to me making my first video when he removed a video on which I was discussing errors in the video with NephilimFree (it was the presentation “The Fossil Record Speaks” from Walter J. Veith).

Eventually NephilimFree blocked me from his channel when I explained what our current understanding is and what the current definition for Junk DNA is (readers digest: It’s now called Non-Coding DNA and very little could be called Junk DNA, our understanding of DNA has grown considerable). Now if someone silences me for no apparent reason when I’m being civil and just discussing science and scientific papers I will speak out. So this led to me making two videos on this subject.

Currently I’m still experimenting with my video editing software iMovie. But I plan on making more videos on several subjects. I even invested in an upgrade from iLife ’08 to iLife ’09 to enable me to actually make the videos I want to make. What will they be about? Depends, some will be video replies to videos other YouTube users have made, some will be about climate change (made by me or interesting videos from NASA), and maybe even a series on X-Linked Adrenoleukodystrophy.

So the subjects of my videos will vary somewhat, but I hope the quality of my work will continue to improve and people will actually start to enjoy them. I already had some interesting discussions with other users in the comment sections of my videos and made some friends on YouTube.

So lets see where this will take me.

A Little Policy Change

Yes, it’s time for a little policy change of my blog, or better said a repurposing of my current blog (again). This blog will shift from being a blog about my private life to a blog supporting my online activities.

This means that almost all of my private life activities and photo’s will move to Facebook and Hyves. Now people who are already my friends on those social networks will have noticed this change (if they were following this blog). So for them not much will change.

However if you are following this blog, or find this blog, and you want to know more about what I’m currently doing in my private life I would recommend friending me on one of those social networks (please note I will only accept a request if I know you, so please include at least a hint at who you are in your request, or I will reject it). See the sidebar for any other websites I’m on.

Also there will be a shift to English for the content I publish. Very few posts will also be available in Dutch or published only in Dutch. As most of the websites I’ll be posting supporting content for are in English.

So it’s just a “little” change in how I’ll be using this blog.