It's OK to not write unit tests

This guy is 100% correct. It's perfectly fine to not write unit tests for everything.
I don't even know what to write here. This guy is just so fucking right. Read the article, and follow some of the links. Do it! Stop being a slave to dogma!

Thought crime = hate crime?

I was reading about Bishop Richard Williamson on wikipedia as a result of reading some article where the pope had said something stupid about condoms, Africa and HIV/AIDS. Anyway, this bishop, it turns out that he denies that the holocaust ever happened. Not only does he hold that view, but he's said so in public interviews. According to his wikipedia article, holocaust denial is illegal in Germany. I found this to be incredibly strange. Why should it be illegal? Personally, I think that the holocaust happened. There is no doubt in my mind that it happened, nor that it was a terrible thing, but I don't think that it should be illegal to think that it didn't happen.

Why should it be illegal to have this belief, when it is not illegal to hold any other belief (in most civilized countries anyway)? If we take the holocaust for a provable certainty, as we should, then we can compare this disbelief to the disbelief of any other provable fact. For instance, if I held the belief that 2 + 2 actually equaled 5, should I be labeled a criminal? Clearly these two issues do not carry the same emotional charge, but they are both opinions, after all. This, I believe, falls squarely under freedom of opinion and speech. It's not illegal to be a Nazi (hold the belief that national-socialism is the way to go), to take something related, so why should it be illegal to hold this particular belief?

This isn't about this bishop. People should be allowed to think what they want without being labeled criminals. Maybe there is more to this particular illegality than what I have discovered, and if so, I would very much like it to hear your opinions about it.

Sharia Schmaria

For a couple of weeks now, I've been reading up about moving to Dubai.
It seems like a great city. Nice temperatures, ocean front, good money, no taxes, and nice temperatures. Did I mention nice temperatures? It's got nice temperatures.
I was reading about it, looking at jobs and possible salaries and cost of living and whatnot.
All in all it seemed like a great country, until I read this. It's an article from gulfnews.com about the sharia laws in effect, and how they can affect me should I determine to move (or set foot in) the UAE (or any other country with sharia laws).
It turns out that it is illegal for a man and woman who are not blood relatives or legally married to be in a "closed space" together. Even elevators count and cars count, to some extent.
Sharing an apartment is obviously out of the question.
My favourite part is this:

Dr Khalifa Rashid Al Sha'ali, Dean of the Faculty of Law at Ajman University, said if a man and a woman who are not related are caught alone in a private place, they face a jail sentence or lashes even if they were not involved in any suspicious act.

Fucking LASHES?!?!?!?!
What the hell. I mean I'm no fan of adultery, but this is fucking nuts.
And it appears that good neighbors call the police on their neighbors too, should they see something like this through their window.
This is absolutely fucking insane. This is what you get when you let religion take over lawmaking. I don't care what religion it is, I just know that the church (or mosque or temple or whatever) has nothing to do with the state. Nothing no matter how you slice it.

And to think I seriously contemplated it. I'd rather live in the heart of red china with their censorship and people disappearing due to secret police and whatnot over this. At least communist people let you fuck whomever you damn well please.

I realized that these things were in effect in some Arab countries, but I thought that the UAE was supposed to be so open and western and cater to foreigners, but with shit like this, it makes you wonder...

Jesus Fucking Christ

Seriously, I might as well just quote slashdot here.

MSNBC has up an article discussing the results of a Newsweek poll on faith and religion among members of the US populace. Given the straightforward question, 'Is evolution well-supported by evidence and widely accepted within the scientific community?', some 48% of Americans said 'No'. Furthermore, 34% of college graduates said they accept the Biblical story of creation as fact. An alarmingly high number of individuals responded that they believe the earth is only 10,000 years old, and that a deity created our species in its present form at the start of that period.

I'm speechless. Really. Stupidity comes in all shapes and sizes, and apparently from almost half the population of one of the most powerful countries in the world. Even the people with a so-called "higher education" are on the band wagon. Absolutely fucking nuts.

Where's Darwin when you need him?