501. Television evangelist Falwell dies at 73

Comment #41302 by Yorker on May 15, 2007 at 8:36 pm

A thought just occurred to me.

Some reactions here are akin to the maniacally hateful rejoicing that takes place in a party atmosphere outside American prisons when a person is about to be murdered by the state. No doubt this rejoicing has preceded the killing of innocent prisoners at some point and I wonder how the revellers feel on learning - too late - the truth. It's perhaps an understandable reaction members of a murder victim's family might have, but amazingly, it seems to be mainly just random assholes that participate. I've never seen this behaviour elsewhere, it seems uniquely American and I wonder why. Could it be that the "frontier country" mentality E.O.Wilson proposes as the reason for excessive American religiosity, is also responsible for the extreme reactions seen at executions and to some extent, here?

502. Television evangelist Falwell dies at 73

Comment #41293 by Yorker on May 15, 2007 at 8:03 pm

Dislike, contempt, indifference, these are all commentary attitudes I expected when I read the headline. But it's more, there's pure hatred here and I must say it surprised me; it seems that hell hath no fury like an atheist's scorn.

Personally, I depised Falwell but I didn't hate him, his recent non-existence is simply a matter of fact to which I am indifferent. Hatred is a degenerative emotion that hurts the hater more than the hated; I try to avoid it.

503. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens

Comment #40935 by Yorker on May 15, 2007 at 8:15 am

6. Comment #40912 by Philip1978

Nice one Philip, I got a chuckle from your joke but don't expect too much from the regulars here, they're a pretty humourless bunch in my experience; most appear smitten with a kind of "bring out your dead" attitude. :)

504. Hitchens vs. Hannity on Religion and God

Comment #40925 by Yorker on May 15, 2007 at 8:04 am

Ignorance and arrogance, a combination which is the proud domain of the immovably deluded religite.

Is this Hannity dolt truly unable to understand that his childish "there is a god" last statement, is the pinnacle of arrogance?

505. Christopher Hitchens is Not Great

Comment #40919 by Yorker on May 15, 2007 at 7:50 am

I didn't read this. I consider any person lacking the imagination to come up with a better title than a denigration of a person not claiming to be great, to be unlikely to have anything valuable to contribute.

506. One side can be wrong

Comment #40861 by Yorker on May 15, 2007 at 5:45 am

24. Comment #40844 by Orion

Possibly, but so what? Aren't you being something of a pedantic asshole?

Sorry, couldn't resist that - consider it a term of endearment. :)

507. Bill Maher interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #40860 by Yorker on May 15, 2007 at 5:37 am

1. Comment #40846 by briancoughlanworldcitizen

Yes Brian, Quicktime does suck, but unfortunately there are those who insist that even though the 90% of people using PC's use Windows, they should have Appleite stuff thrust upon them. However, there's a Quicktime Alternative like the Realplayer one and it doesn't try to set itself as master of your media files.

I'd like to give you a tip about your video's; not the content, a technicality. Text over images is almost always difficult to read unless it's outlined in some way by either a cutout or a drop shadow. I don't know what software you have but most can do this kind of text effect, probably you've noticed that professional video makers use this technique. You may want to consider this, it will improve clarity greatly. Actually, I get the feeling I might have said this before, if so, I apologise.

508. Bill Maher interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #40851 by Yorker on May 15, 2007 at 5:10 am

Yes, Hitchens is entertaining and in this world where deep-thinkers are not the majority, perhaps this factor is his most important asset in the cause of atheism.

I can sympathise with your thoughts Phadrus, the same old stuff over and over, but that's the value of Hitch, he's not boring and often funny.

509. One side can be wrong

Comment #40842 by Yorker on May 15, 2007 at 4:49 am

20. Comment #40826 by Veronique

Yes Veronique, I feel like a lucky bugger today, I think I'll go downwtown - see if I can get luckier!

Perhaps an explanation of the word "bugger" is needed for our American friends, I noticed when I lived there, many didn't understand it.

Basically, a "bugger" is a sodomite. Buggery used to be a crime and I believe still is in some states of the US. Here in the UK and evidently in Australia, it is considered a mild swear word but curiously, it's also used as a term of endearment and it is in this context I'm certain, that Veronique uses it.

510. One side can be wrong

Comment #40832 by Yorker on May 15, 2007 at 4:32 am

Devolved

You need to study "Scientific Method 101", you commit the simple basic error of converting that which you want to believe into that which is true.

Coming to a site like this and posting links to sites maintained by others with the same problem as yours, will convince no-one. Some here have never suffered from an attack of god virulence, but there are many who have, and who've overcome it. They did it by standing back and studying the subject critically, they allowed evidence, reason and their experience of reality to change their minds. I don't fully understand the psyche of persons like yourself who are unwilling to give up their long-held delusion, I can only suggest that you give it a try, perhaps you will experience the great feeling of liberation that many here have.

511. One side can be wrong

Comment #40822 by Yorker on May 15, 2007 at 4:04 am

This is off topic, but I felt the need to put it somewhere. This morning, during that half-awake time in bed, my brain concocted the following for some unknown reason. I call it:



The Lord's Prayer (Atheist Version)

We have no Father, which art in Heaven,
For Heaven itself, existeth not.
No Kingdom here on Earth shall come,
as it never did in Heaven.
Thy will cannot be done,
for will thou haveth not.
Our daily bread we baketh ourselves,
otherwise we eateth not.
To trespass and forgive trespassers,
is ours to decideth upon, not thine.
Temptation likewise, is our domain,
therefore we blameth you not.
Deliverance from evil is beyond thy power,
but seemeth thy flock indulge with thy blessing.
For ours is the Kingdom, the wise seeketh not power and glory,
not forever, shall existeth only men, and women.

512. Furor over author Ayaan Hirsi Ali's visit stirs debate on religious freedom

Comment #40592 by Yorker on May 14, 2007 at 2:54 pm

10. Comment #40546 by peahix

"...Roman Catholic Diocese."

Are you sure you didn't mean Roman Catholic Disease? :)

513. Why Christopher Hitchens is not Great

Comment #40585 by Yorker on May 14, 2007 at 2:44 pm

This tripe is not worthy of serious analysis. It is simply another feeble-minded attempt by a frightened, insecure religite to deny the power of rational argument's ability to damage his belief and need for comfort.

514. Anderson Cooper interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #39528 by Yorker on May 11, 2007 at 4:12 am

28. Comment #39485 by Electric Monk

That was a good link! One of the better Hitchens interviews I've heard. It cracked me up when he said that creationism is for stupid people, I made that exact statement publicly a few years ago and was labelled an idiot for it! Ah well, it's good to know I'm not the only idiot around!

I love the fact that Hitch has issued a direct challenge to any and all preachers to debate him on his book tour.

515. Anderson Cooper interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #39519 by Yorker on May 11, 2007 at 3:45 am

22. Comment #39428 by Stuart Paul Wood

"I'm honestly starting to think that there are people on this site who are just as closed minded and absolutely paranoid as the theists we try to make examples of."

Well said; I've thought the same myself for some time.

516. Anderson Cooper interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #39517 by Yorker on May 11, 2007 at 3:41 am

30. Comment #39509 by chbg21808

"I've said this somewhere else, but I would love to see Hitchens at the next Beyond Belief conference."

So have I, right here on this page!

517. Anderson Cooper interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #39516 by Yorker on May 11, 2007 at 3:38 am

15. Comment #39361 by Ace Rimmer

There is at least one person right here on this page from NI who would disagree with you!

518. The Encyclopedia of Life

Comment #39375 by Yorker on May 10, 2007 at 12:39 pm

I wonder if someone has collared Templeton on this matter, see if they can get him to spend some money on something useful for a change.

519. The Encyclopedia of Life

Comment #39371 by Yorker on May 10, 2007 at 12:31 pm

Excellent idea, I have long thought highly of Ed Wilson and will do whatever I can to support this with time, effort and money.

[Edit] I just thought that Attenborough could provide invaluable help here.

520. Anderson Cooper interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #39356 by Yorker on May 10, 2007 at 12:02 pm

Ranjani & IQHQ

Yes, Pinker would be a worthwhile addition, so would Grayling I think.

521. Anderson Cooper interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #39285 by Yorker on May 10, 2007 at 8:59 am

Several people (including Dawkins) slated Steven Weinberg at the BB conference for saying the same thing as Hitch did here -- that they would miss religion. Let's hope Roger Bingham gets Hitchens to attend this year's BB, should make for an even more entertaining set of videos. I'd bet nobody would have the cujones to tackle him directly on that statement but it would be fun to watch.

522. Sam Harris in conversation with Oliver McTernan

Comment #38930 by Yorker on May 9, 2007 at 2:23 pm

The great teapot asks:

"Anyone know what religious research is?"

Yes, it's the work one must carry out to discover that god does not exist -- takes about ten minutes for a bright 12-year old.

I didn't listen to any of this because I've heard it all before, if anything new and interesting could arise, it would've already done so, but of course it can't. People who say that so-and-so is very clever -- because of their anti-religion debating skills -- are starting to bore me. These debaters may indeed be clever but it's for a reason I'm not aware of, I'd never judge a person's intelligence by listening to them performing this relatively simple task. It is perhaps significant that the most intelligent people never seem to engage in anti-religious discussions, could it be they find it lacks challenge, or is simply boring?

523. Massive explosion is brightest-ever supernova

Comment #38537 by Yorker on May 8, 2007 at 2:13 pm

3. Comment #38521 by CJ

Yes, I'm aware that stars of this mass have short lives, I was thinking about the life on planets of perhaps another sun within range of destruction, not necessarily intelligent life, just in general terms.

Sadly, our demise won't be witnessed by any non- locals because our sun isn't massive enough to become a supernova.

2. Comment #38516 by BicycleRepairMan

No, Eta Carinae hasn't went yet but it could happen at any time.

524. A conversation with journalist Christopher Hitchens

Comment #38527 by Yorker on May 8, 2007 at 1:59 pm

Although I generally like Hitchens' manner and attitude, there are sometimes "hitches" about what he presents as truth. He often uses bluster and dominance in an attempt to sidetrack those who seek further clarification, I'm going to carefully research his arguments - see if I can ascertain veracity. He's too much like me, and I know how our minds work!

As for his jacket, what's wrong with that? I like corduroy and have 3 pairs of identical trousers plus two identical jackets.

525. Massive explosion is brightest-ever supernova

Comment #38514 by Yorker on May 8, 2007 at 12:47 pm

This is a terrific find, hard to get one's mind around a 150 SM blast, quite a wallop! I wonder how many millions of lives were terminated? That would be my choice of going - instantly recycled!

Eta Carinae would be even more spectacular, it's about the same mass but much closer at around 8K LY. It's unstable and has fluctuated wildly for a long time, best guess is that it will pop within 100K years.

526. The moment a teenage girl was stoned to death for loving the wrong boy

Comment #37820 by Yorker on May 5, 2007 at 9:29 pm

54. Comment #37803 by Ohnhai

Your disagreement with my characterization of these creatures as "inhuman" has made me think further; I'm even more convinced I was right in the first place. To me, a being worthy of the term "human", is able to think independently, act compassionately, see right from wrong and behave in a way that shuns brutality of any kind. When I see creatures like these, I literally feel that they are not of the same species as me; I could not envisage any circumstance that may induce me to even consider their brutality in any way appropriate, for whatever reason. Whether the cause is tribalism or religion is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned, such behavior is completely unacceptable no matter what mind virus is to blame.

Incidentally, no historical non-religious tribe I've ever heard of uses stoning as a means of execution. This particularly despicable act seems to have entirely religious roots irrespective of god flavour, it doesn't really matter since they are all guilty of stealing each others dogma anyway. So, inhuman it is then or else human I am not, I really have no classification for them, they're not animals, I have an affinity for animals but none for them. They are relics of bygone times that have no place in any human society I would want any part of. The sentient humans of this planet need to be much more vociferous and make it clear to the creatures that we look down upon them with disgust and contempt, unworthy of the name "human".

527. The moment a teenage girl was stoned to death for loving the wrong boy

Comment #37610 by Yorker on May 5, 2007 at 11:10 am

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the murderers get some kind of sexual thrill from these acts, in the video, the garments from the lower half of the girl's body had been removed.

528. The moment a teenage girl was stoned to death for loving the wrong boy

Comment #37608 by Yorker on May 5, 2007 at 11:07 am

I saw the video. The usual horrific, inhuman, despicable behaviour by creatures from a prehistoric time unfortunately still living today.

529. Lou Dobbs Interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #37492 by Yorker on May 4, 2007 at 3:59 pm

20. Comment #37442 by chbg21808

I had that same thought about Hitchens a few days ago. Hopefully Prof. Dawkins has some influence with Roger Bingham and will ask him to invite Hitch to this November's BB conference. I think he'd be quite entertaining up against the Templeton types!

530. Science and fiction

Comment #37396 by Yorker on May 4, 2007 at 11:25 am

Hopefully this will cost Cameron some votes, I certainly won't vote for him, but then I never would have anyway.

At a time when nations need to be abolished, not established, I'm disappointed in the Scottish results. This small, but influential nation that has given the world so much, seems to have lost it's way.

531. Your favorite book in the last 25 years?

Comment #37389 by Yorker on May 4, 2007 at 11:14 am

33. Comment #37264 by davyB

I went to the web page and tried to click on two of the radio buttons. It wouldn't let me

Glad to hear it, neither it should. In programming, radiobuttons are generally used for boolean logical OR's, logical AND's are taken care of by checkboxes.

I won't choose a book, others have listed all my favourites already, in any case, it find it impossible to single one out.

532. Christians and Atheists to Debate Existence of God in First-Ever 'NIGHTLINE FACE OFF'

Comment #37134 by Yorker on May 3, 2007 at 12:56 pm

I see Martin Bashir will be moderator, he's a controversy lover; his biggest "scoop" was the televised expose of Michael Jackson.

I don't think I'll bother following this one.

533. How multiculturalism is betraying women

Comment #36935 by Yorker on May 2, 2007 at 8:55 pm

28. Comment #36928 by Helios G2V

Most countries already have some kind of screening. For example, there are two ways to legally emigrate to the USA; you must prove you have a skill that is needed and an employer must show that getting an American citizen has been difficult. The other method is to buy your way in, you must be willing to start a business and employ at least two American citizens.

Money is clearly no problem for well funded barbaric fanatics so they always will get in.

More countries should adopt the American method of making immigrants state upon entry that they will abide by the law and make no attempt to subvert it. This gives the government the right to deport any offender even for a first time offence.

534. The Damned

Comment #36926 by Yorker on May 2, 2007 at 8:29 pm

16. Comment #36868 by kaffir

Actually, the word "kaffir" originated in South Africa I think. It was used by old-time Afrikaaners as a derogatory tem for blacks. The word you're referring to is "kuffar", a Muslim derogatory term used against infidels, e.g. these nutters in Undercover Mosque would call me a "kuffar", I would call them arseholes!

535. How multiculturalism is betraying women

Comment #36924 by Yorker on May 2, 2007 at 8:17 pm

The answer to this stupidity is simple enough. If the dictates of any "culture" clash with the law of the land, then the law must take precedence. Adherents to outdated cultures must be made to realise that barbarism has no place in modern society. It needs to be said again and again, if you can't abide by a country's laws, leave; persons offending more than once should be deported, at their own cost of course.

If this means multiculturalism suffers, then so be it and so it should. People of reason need to force politicians to see sense by any means possible.

536. Just 120 Trillion Miles From Home

Comment #36557 by Yorker on May 1, 2007 at 2:22 pm

36. Comment #36542 by ghostbuster

Like many here ghostbuster, humour is apparently lost on you I see. I could reply in depth to you, but instead, urge you to consider your own comments more deeply. As an example, you ask if we can't play with ideas, I would reply that of course we can, that is an essential part of the scientific method. It was from ideas that many theories were born, but it's very important to be acutely aware of the difference between idea and theory. Theory is as close to fact as we can be sure of, unsubstantiated ideas mean nothing and are discarded 90% of the time; the good scientist knows when to stop wasting time on a fruitless idea.

537. Just 120 Trillion Miles From Home

Comment #36507 by Yorker on May 1, 2007 at 11:14 am

31. Comment #36469 by ghostbuster

Perhaps it is fundamentally more important to study philosophy than science. How would such a civilization fare?

Badly, I would think. They would probably have worked out many possibilities but would be clueless about making things happen and would have difficulty keeping their cave warm in winter! :)

538. Just 120 Trillion Miles From Home

Comment #36479 by Yorker on May 1, 2007 at 9:53 am

Ghostbuster

Beginning with my name, you have a few things wrong.



1.> It's Yorker, not Yonker
2.> I'm a 6.9 level atheist, not a fundie.
3.> You make too much of Tesla. I say that somewhat immodestly, as an expert in the field of HF electromagnetic radiation.

With regard to QM, I invite you to study my avatar, you may see the light. I think you got a little miffed by my statement about zany thinking, I made it with the benefit of a lifetime of scientific experience.

539. Why the Gods Are Not Winning

Comment #36464 by Yorker on May 1, 2007 at 8:07 am

23. Comment #36416 by _J_

Apparently Gliese 581c is nice at this time of year.

To whose year do you refer? A year on Gliese 581c is only 13 days long!

540. Just 120 Trillion Miles From Home

Comment #36461 by Yorker on May 1, 2007 at 7:48 am

28. Comment #36280 by ghostbuster

While it's true that some seem to think we know it all it's also clear that many people are fooled by past successes. For example, some people tend to think along the lines of: "We broke the sound barrier, why not the light barrier?" This shows a lack of knowledge; the sound barrier was merely an engineering problem, the speed of light is a universal constant, an entirely different matter.

Time travel is another thing that people love but don't think about. Let's say we could buy a guaranteed-to-work time machine construction kit, what would we do after we built it? Go back to dinosaurian times? Go back to Galilee at the time of Jesus and see if it was all true?

Sorry, not going to happen.

The best you could manage would be to go back to the exact time you finished building the machine and switched it on. Not very spectacular is it? My point of course, is that no time machine can ever go back to any point in history before it was itself created! Most people seem unable to see this simple logical fact, if they did, time travel would lose much of it's appeal.

Thinking "outside the box" often leads to madcap nonsense.

541. Pop Tech Lecture

Comment #36453 by Yorker on May 1, 2007 at 7:21 am

Long time visitors here will have heard most of this before, but Dawkins executes the arguments well as always.

2. Comment #36332 by Machinus

As offensive as many of my colleagues find him...

I don't understand this, I've heard Dawkins many times and have never thought him offensive. People who find Dawkins' attacks on falsehoods personally offensive, are merely indicating insecurity about their beliefs.

542. Just 120 Trillion Miles From Home

Comment #36259 by Yorker on April 30, 2007 at 4:53 pm

Overbye gives an even more pessimistic estimate of journey time than I gave in response to an earlier post on this subject, but it's important to keep looking; hopefully, one day it will become essential for us to abandon Earth or go extinct.

As for warp drive, we already know how it works and it's just about the only way to shorten space travel, i.e. shorten the distances by bending. Star Trek simply ignores the problem of the vast amount of energy needed to create such a gravitational field, and makes no mention at all of the fact that any object reaching light-speed would have infinite mass. So I suspect that "warp factors" are not speed settings, but "bending degrees" since the Enterprise, like any object, can never exceed the speed of light. How to build such a propulsion system is far beyond our current level of knowledge and technology, there may well be unforeseen problems that will be insurmountable always, however advanced we might become.

Carl Sagan called upon his friend Kip Thorne – a worm-hole expert – to help with the physics of fast transport for the book "Contact"; worm-holes are another possibility but major problems arise with keeping them open and stable. Carl neatly avoided this by having the aliens explain that even they didn't build the transit system, it was a vastly more intelligent and ancient species that constructed it, abandoned it, and then left. It's extremely unlikely that we will ever stumble across such a system in reality.

It's difficult to be optimistic about future space travel, worst of all, it seems increasingly doubtful that we will ever get to the point where we actually need it; right now, annihilation seems a more likely probability. Back in the sixties, we were all filled with great optimism about the future of space exploration, we were naïve; sadly, the moon landings were not about the future of humanity; they were about very geocentric small-minded notions of politics and militarism.

543. New Planet Could Be Earthlike, Scientists Say

Comment #35396 by Yorker on April 27, 2007 at 3:59 am

18. Comment #35336 by roach

That's a wish I've had since I was a kid, I'm still waiting but not nearly so confident. :(

544. New Planet Could Be Earthlike, Scientists Say

Comment #35316 by Yorker on April 26, 2007 at 9:02 pm

I should have added in my last post that even lower lifeforms discovered on a planet as close as 20 LY would be amazing. The last time I thought about the possibility, I came up with a minimum radius of 500 LY, I'd love to be wrong about that. Life within 20 LY would bode very well for a Universe brimming over with biology!

545. New Planet Could Be Earthlike, Scientists Say

Comment #35313 by Yorker on April 26, 2007 at 8:49 pm

This is basically a scientific site so it's good to see a religion-free scientific article, I don't understand why some of you see the need to make religious comments.

On the more interesting side, Dimitar Sasselov of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said:

"It's 20 light-years. We can go there."

Someday perhaps, but not just now; given the state of current propulsion technology, if we launched an exploratory mission immediately, we'd have to wait a very long time to get any information. I estimate well over 180K years for the craft to get there and another 20 years to radio the data back here. Considering our violent nature, there's a good chance we won't even be around when the message arrives, so sadly, going there is a nice dream but that's all it is.

If we could overcome political and cost objections, there are practical designs for spacecraft that might just achieve one tenth the speed of light, but acceleration and deceleration would take a huge chunk of time so the overall wait would still be around 1k years. We humans are governed by politicians who can't see further than the next election so I guess that idea won't happen either. Our best hope is that some wiser, much more mature species might decide to give us a quick look over, it's a very slim chance but probably the only one we'll ever have of knowing for sure that we are not alone in the cosmos, at least as far as intelligent life is concerned.

546. Shout your doubt out loud, my fellow unbelievers

Comment #34997 by Yorker on April 25, 2007 at 10:16 pm

36. Comment #34754 by newatheist

I never address trolls, I may talk about them but never to them, like I said, it's pointless. If, as you say, you want to learn, then just read what's on this site.

The troll/spam/offensive flags were designed to deal with pests like weefree, if you really must waste your time with his ilk, then use the troll flag and take your discussions there.

You will notice people here who make futile attempts to argue with god-befuddled dunderheads, apparently in the hope of "making them see the light". So far, in thousands of attempts, all have failed. I make no such attempts, I just ridicule them, not for being religious, but for intentionally ignoring sense and reason. Many here seem to be like drug addicts, they can't wait for their next outrageously religious article to rant against. As a new atheist, it won't be long before you see the same old arguments over and over again, I find it boring now, perhaps you will eventually reach the same conclusion. Let me sum it up for you in one short, non-intellectual, but correct statement.

Religion sucks, atheism makes sense. End of story.

547. Shout your doubt out loud, my fellow unbelievers

Comment #34739 by Yorker on April 25, 2007 at 3:32 am

27. Comment #34718 by Coel

Coel, addressing weefree is a waste of time. He is minister of a freakish sect of religites and a troll of long standing unable to stop himself frequenting this place. Asking him to consider anything fairly in an unbiased way will elicit the same response that all supremely arrogant religites give. They are simply incapable of admitting the possibility their faith is nonsense, that's why it's pointless to engage him or any other closed-minded god freak in intelligent productive discussion.

548. Shout your doubt out loud, my fellow unbelievers

Comment #34735 by Yorker on April 25, 2007 at 3:06 am

20. Comment #34675 by Veronique

Yes, I will. I'm pretty busy with simulation code right now but I'll try to fit it in soon.

On your posting problems, I have a quick tip for you. I recommend keeping a text editor or word processor running all the time you're online. If making just a quick comment, you can copy and paste it into the editor prior to posting. If it's a long comment, write the entire thing in the editor then copy and paste here. In both cases you should always save to disk, it gives you a history which can be enlightening to look back on later.

549. Shout your doubt out loud, my fellow unbelievers

Comment #34734 by Yorker on April 25, 2007 at 2:53 am

28. Comment #34723 by scottishgeologist

I agree. We all know this troll, he's one of those shallow dolts who think they are allowed an opinion about a fact, sadly, his breed are not yet extinct.

550. Vote for the Time 100 - Are They Worthy?

Comment #34629 by Yorker on April 24, 2007 at 6:19 pm

18. Comment #34615 by blods

What is that creature Blods, a "horstrich"?