title, what title?

56 years ago, one of the brightest minds in human history committed suicide. He was chemically castrated according to the laws of the leading democracy in the Western World. An avid athlete, he died as an obese man, as a side effect of oestrogen injections he received. He died, because he was doing, what makes everyone happy. Loving another human being. It took 55 years for this "leading democracy" to apoligise. His name was Alan Turing, and if you are reading these sentences, you should be thankful to him. 

8 golü Anfield Road'da yasadim. Hakem 89. dakikada oyunu durdurmasa 9 da olurdu, 10 da olurdu. Ertesi gun havaalaninda gördügüm Besiktas'li futbolculara inanin hic kizmadim. Beni tribunde kahreden skor'u sahada bizzat yasayan adamlara kim olarak kizabilirdim ki? Futbol bloglarinda, arkadas sohbetlerinde sik sik kullanilan bir aforizma vardir. Fransiz dusunur Albert Camus der ki: "Ahlak ve zorunluluklar hakkinda ne biliyorsam, bunun cogunu futbola borcluyum" Pek cok konusulmayan, belki de gozden kacan sey Albert Camus'un bu sozu bir futbol seyircisi olarak degil, bir futbolcu olarak soyledigidir. Camus 1930 yilina kadar universite takimda kalecidir cunku. Takim olmak, basarmak, kaybetmek, yorulmak, takim arkadasina destek olmak, ona kizmak, antrenorun dediklerini yanlis bulsan da yapmak ancak yarismaci bir spor takiminin uyesi olarak edinilebilecek erdemlerdir. Halisahalarda haftasonundan haftasonuna mac yapmak degil bu bahsettigim. Kucuk veya buyuk bir takim...

Aksama yine bir sampiyonlar ligi maci, kalplerde yine bir heyecan. Manchester zaferinden sonra Avrupa Ligi'ne devam etmek icin Центральный Спортивный Клуб Армии Москва'yi - Sentralni Sportivniyi Klib Armi Moskva- 1-0 ya da iki farkli bir skorla yenmemiz, Wolfsburg'un da ManU'ya yenilmemesini beklememiz gerekli. Tüm Besiktas'lilarin aklinda 2004-2004 sezonunda basimiza gelen Sparta Prag kazasi var. Sparta Prag'in Lazio'yu yenmemesi halinde gruptan ciktigimiz bir günde 90+2'de Peruzzi'nin armutlamasi ile elenmistik. Star TV'nin ekranin sag ust kosesindeki kutucuktan yayinladigi agir cekim görüntü, bir kac sene önce bir Galatasaray macinda Fevzi'nin ayaklarinin altindan kacirdigi geri pas ile yedigimiz golun görüntüsü ile her Besiktaslinin kalbine aciyla yazilmisti. Dilegimiz ManU macinda yanimizda olan Tanri 'nin yine yanimizda olmasi. Futbol'da sans faktörü diyelim ve Diyarbakir macina dönelim. Mactan önceki dileklerim gerceklesti ve t...

Somewhere in this picture, there is a pale blue dot. It is your home. It is the home of every living thing that we know and we don't know of. This is a picture taken by the Voyager in 1990 of our planet from 6 billion kilometers away. It is the most humbling picture I have ever seen. It has been said that science does not provide moral values but religion does. I beg to differ. Even though science by itself, which is merely a method, cannot provide a moral framework, the fruits of knowledge it gives us let us define our morals. This picture is a great example. Carl Sagan, touched by this picture wrote a book on this. Here is an excerpt from the introduction, which everyone should listen from time to time to wash away his or hers false ideas of grandeur: "Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In...

The fairy tale of Sodom of Gomorrah is one of many peculiar tales in the Abrhamic religion. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah are involved in homosexuality. Yahwe or Allah depending on which version you are reading decides to destroy these cities because of this "incredible crime". He sends his angels to warn Lot, the only believer in the city. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah surround his house, and demand the angels to be returned to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, for a little bit of homosexual orgy. Lot, the prophet, offers his virgin daughters to the mob instead. The angels intervene and people go home. Lot, this wonderful father, is the only male to escape the devastation of the cities. His wife, who commits the crime of looking back at the city is turned into salt. In the Biblical version, his daughters seduce Lot and have babies from him... This disgusting tale of morality is one of the causes of the terror on and discrimination against homosexuals all around the wor...

... be good without God. Yet another atheist bus campaign. This time from Obama's home state. I think this is better than their original plan "In the beginning, man created God"

18 days and there is no end in sight for the situation in Gazza. I have written about my disgust at the unbelievable disrespect to human dignity and human life from both sides, and my disillusionment with political progress earlier . With no changes in sight to the cruelties, and stupidities on the politics side of things I want to write about something else, which caught my attention. We use the word "inhumane" when we are describing Israel bombing a school, or Hamas blowing up a bus in Israel and killing innocent people -who is an innocent person by the way?-. This is nothing but a misnomer to say the least. Humans are the only species on this earth who use their intelligence to lock their siblings underground for years, and rape them, who built factories of death to kill other humans, build atom bombs to kill hundreds of thousands in a slip second, and come up with ideologies which praise killing yourself and others as a backstage pass to some imaginary place. So these ...

The people of the cradle of democracy are giving another great example of courage and humanity, by standing against the tyranny of the coercive force monopoly in modern society, which we call the "Police." No sir, you cannot get away with killing a young boy at will... When they kick out your front door How you gonna come? With your hands on your head Or on the trigger of your gun When the law break in How you gonna go? Shot down on the pavement Or waiting in death row You can crush us You can bruise us But you'll have to answer to Oh, Guns of Brixton (*) Athens district around the Politechnical University where the protests got started

Blog'umda bir süredir toplumumuzun bence gercek meseleleri olmasi gerektigine inandigim olaylari yaziyorum. Bu olaylar toplum olmanin en basit nedeni olan gücsüzleri güclülere karsi koruma fonksiyonunun nasil bizde islemedigini gösterdigi icin kanimca cok önemli. Gücsüz derken her hangi bir güc iliskisinde zayif olan herkesi kastettigimi, ve herkesin cesitli yönleriyle gücsüz oldugunu da ayrica belirtmek isterim. Asagidaki baglantidaki haber ayni anda hem kadinlarimizi nasil koruyamadigimizi, hem de toplum olarak asayisi saglama görevini emanet ettiklerimiz karsisinda nasil boyun egmis oldugumuzu gösterdigi icin burada sizinle paylasmak istedim: http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/modules/habervideo/video.asp?CatID=3&cbVideo=8823&cbQuality=1 Polis kiyafeti giymis polis olmayan kisiler, Istanbulda bir eglence mekanina giriyorlar. Muzigi sustutruduktan sonra mekandan bir kadini saclarindan ceke ceke cikarip bir eve goturup tecavuz ediyorlar. Butun bu vahset guvenlik kameralarina kayit ed...

Toplumlarin ahlak kurallarini karsilastirmak, 21 yuzyilin sonunda esen Pop Post-modernizm'i yuzunden nedense kültürel Emperyalizm ile es tutulur oldu. Tek bir ahlaki dogru olup olmadigini bilmesem de ahlaki normlarin en azindan birbirleriyle karsilastirilabilir ve "daha" dogru olarak nitelendirilebilir oldugunu dusunuyorum. Sam Harris'in dedigi gibi, ahlaki degerler yemek gibidir, "daha iyi yemek" kavrami olmasa da yiyecek ve zehir arasinda bir fark vardir. Toplumlar belli ahlaki normlari paylasan insanlarin kurdugu birliklerdir, ve toplumlarin basarisi, kanimca bu ahlaki normlarin görece basarilari ile olculmelidir. Ahlaki zehir/yiyecek ayraci olarak hangi kriterin kullanilacagi halen süregelen felsefi bir tartisma konusu, sadece kendi nacizane gorusumu belirtmekle yetinmem gerekli. Kanimca ahlaki bir kuralin ya da kurallar bütününün degeri, dogamiz ve toplumsal kosullar sonucu ortaya cikan güc dengesizliklerinde, bu dengesizliklerde guclu olanin gucsuz ol...

There is no benefit from hiding the facts for the sake of political correctness. The scriptures of the three Abrahamic Religions include pieces that can be used to justify terrible acts of violence. Here is a piece from Deuteronomy 7, from the Old Testament: "When the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you." This is a mild excerpt. I invite interested reader to read more on Deuteronomy, especially what it suggests people to do, when one of their family members, in case they commit the ultimate "crime" of worshiping other gods. Here is a piece from Koran, Sura 9, Sentence 5: "So when the sac...

The second half of the final season of the best thing on TV, Battlestar Galactica, will start January 2009. I am already dreaming about it. Literally, I had a dream about the show last night, in which I was Adama, and had to command my ships against Cylon base ships to find earth. After reaching earth, I led a search effort into the underground caverns where we found human survivors from thousand of years ago. Fascinating dream. One of the reasons I love BSG is that it can discuss contemporary issues pretty openly, as it is set in the future in an imagined society. So there is no holding back due to concerns of "hurting" certain group of peoples feelings. In the episode The Woman King , a group of Saggitarians -an imagined nation in BSG, is taken on board the Galactica. Then a deadly epidemic breaks out. However the interpretation of Saggitarians of their holy texts forbids them from using modern medicine. The show opens up with a woman's struggle with her faith and the p...

Here is an amazing footage of a 8 year old gorilla named Binti Jua rescuing a young child who fell into the gorilla closure in Chicago zoo in 1996. And here is a nice article by Barbara J. King, Professor of Anthropology, which points the roots of human morals and ethics to our evolutionary past.

Ahlak'in kaynagi din'ler degildir. Din'ler Insan Cins'ini basarili kilan -yasamda kalma acisindan basaridan bahsediyorum- ahlak diye butunledigimiz davranis kaliplarini ozetleyen dusuncelerdir. Bu davranis bicimleri evrimsel olarak aciklanabildigi gibi akilsal olarak da aciklanabilir, ve Tanri'ya inananlar Akil'i verenin Tanri olduguna inandiklari icin yine Ahlak'i Tanri'ya baglayabilirler. Eger Ahlak'in temelinin din -ozelinde Kitap'lar ve hadisler/azizler/hikayeler- olduguna inanirsak, bunun sonucu diger dinlerden, hatta ayni dinin baska yorumlarindan olan insanlari ahlaksiz olduguna da inanmaktir. Ki bu da ahlakli olmanin en buyuk itici gucu -incentive- olan diger insanlar ile guven baglari kurabilme sansini yokedecegi icin aslinda Ahlak'i baltaliyici bir yaklasimdir. Bu konuyu yazili medya'ya tasiyan Ismet Berkan'in yazisini okumanizi oneririm. Su anki laiklik tartismalarinin merkezinde de aslinda dunya tarihinde ilk defa Isla...

It was the first Tour de France I followed from from the start to the end. Floyd Landis, who later won the Tour, was completely destroyed on one of the mountain stages. He fell 15 behind the leader of the stage, and lost his leadership. Everything looked bad for him. Then 2 days later he made a comeback, which at the time I regarded as the greatest sports comeback I've experienced, and lead the whole pack with a time difference of 15 minutes in the next mountain stage. After this impressive attack the Tour was his. I cheered for him in front of the TV for inspiring millions of people like me, and making them believe it is possible to come back once you fell on the ground... Now... I feel cheated. I feel mislead. It is now certain that he used doping . I was never a fan of cycling, now I hate it. Mr. Landis has to live his life as a liar, and an anti-role model. He has to carry the sign of the first Tour winner to be stripped off of his title. I hope it was worth it Mr. Landis.