I’m in the middle of reading This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, a delightful work by Daniel J. Levitin. I plan to write about this book when I’m finished reading it, but one thing he wrote in his introduction especially intrigued me. Levitin writes that our culture makes a [...]
{ Very interesting, a fractal universe of lies 
} – May 20, 4:21 AM { Did me think of a documentary on leopards in India I saw the other day. There are lots of leopards in India; whereas tigers are very unsuccessful nowadays, leopards do (somewhat) better. In some states this poses no problem at all. People know how to coexist with leopards and catastrophic interactions with humans are very rare indeed. Even people sleeping outdoors are left alone (children sleep between adults). In other states leopards go after humans, why? Turns out that when leopards are hunted, they turn on their hunters. When a rural province decided that leopards were dangerous and had to be eradicated from the environment, deaths by leopard spiked big time and the number of leopards didn't diminish. For every one killed another one took it's place, with a vengeance. The new arrival will tend to be less familiar with the territory handed to it and will see anything of... } – May 20, 3:39 AM
{ Grumpy, I think I agree. Once one declares something to be "sacred," it cannot be questioned. Hence, when people declare a book full of self-contradictions to be absolutely and completely true, this compels them to proceed to tie themselves into pretzels justifying the book. One philosopher called theology "tennis without a net." } – May 18, 10:19 PM
{ Rami said, "It’s simple, read both books and decide which makes more sense...." Alas, it's not that simple. Reading just two books will not reveal the truth on a subject as abstract as that contained in self-proclaimed holy books. Indeed, thousands of books have been written to supplement our many holy books and yet nothing (beyond secular history) has been proven to be true in any of them. Moreover, the supernatural claims made in "scriptures" can be found, virtually without exception, in earlier texts, raising the question of whether any of it was "revealed" by a divine deity or merely adopted from earlier popular stories. Accordingly, "read both books and decide which makes more sense" merely sidesteps the possibility that both are mere fictional nonsense. } – May 18, 2:38 PM { One would think that the right-to-life folks would be all in favor of effective and affordable family planning, including both contraceptives and public school sex education, because they are important ways to reduce unintended pregnancies, but often the same folks are against all of it. } – May 17, 6:54 PM { After puzzling over the question of why so many (Southern Baptist) Christian evangelicals claim to believe so many idiotic things, and why they become so outraged when those beliefs are disputed, I have come up with a possible answer: their behavior stems from trying to cover up one lie with another. Their first lie is that the Bible is literally true. Once they assert that lie, they then must resort to ever more absurd lies to sustain the original. Whether it's suggesting that the moon is a source of light or rejecting the evidence for Darwinian evolution, the lie that the Bible is literally true paints them into a corner from which their only exist is to invent more lies. It's almost like the movie, 'Fargo', where one misguided plan becomes the starting point for many more, until, inevitably, the whole scheme cartwheels out of control. } – May 17, 6:47 PM
{ @LaM Jack: It's simple, read both books and decide which makes more sense. Is Jesus the son of god and should you play to saints like catholics do? Which makes more sense, Jesus is a human or that god decided to have a child with a human woman? } – May 16, 12:33 AM { Stockman claims, "The Republican Party is basically irrelevant to the economic crisis that faces the country." He's wrong. The Republican Party is not "irrelevant" to the economic crisis that faces the country: it *caused* the economic crisis. } – May 15, 4:50 PM { And from this research from Washington University, an effective way to reduce the number of abortions is to make birth control accessible. Common sense and undeniable: http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/24334.aspx } – May 12, 11:06 PM { One disturbing aspect of those time-lapse photos is that for each one of those locations, there are countless other locations where the human-caused destruction occurred so long ago that we do not have physical records (even though the changes are just as extensive). } – May 10, 5:36 PM { "The US military has done its best to erect a wall of secrecy around the court-martial trial of Bradley Manning, easily one of the most important trials on whistleblowers and espionage laws in many years. This week, the military judge not only permitted numerous witnesses to testify in secret but also ordered a "dry run" of parts of the trial to be held in secret as well, a move even military prosecutors acknowledged was "unprecedented". Legal proceedings demanding greater transparency brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of several journalists and activists (including myself) have been rejected by military courts." http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/09/hawking-israel-manning-transparency-fcc } – May 09, 11:57 PM { Thanks, Grumpy. } – May 07, 11:10 PM { To watch an excellent debate about the war on drugs, see this PBS program: http://www.pbs.org/programs/intelligence-squared-debates/. The 'Intelligence Squared' PBS series also has several other worthwhile debates, which you can link to from the above page. } – May 07, 6:24 PM
{ Check out John McWhorter's Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English. } – May 06, 9:20 PM { Years ago, I saw a guest on a talk show who pulled random people out of the audience and guessed where they were from, based on how they pronounced just two or three words that he selected. His indicator words included pairs such as "marry" vs "merry," and "roof" vs "rough." He was amazingly accurate, in come cases placing the person within 50 miles of where they lived. In a couple of cases, his guesses were wildly off until the people admitted that they had grown up in the area he had guessed but no longer lived there. Interesting sidebar: there is a little-known field of science known as forensic linguistics that uses linguistic traits to try to solve crimes. In one case, an expert in this field was able to pinpoint the home city of a criminal on the basis of terminology the criminal had used in a ransom... } – May 06, 3:58 PM
{ Ugh. An ugly stew of stereotypes and sweeping, oversimplified assumptions. There is no such thing as a typical American. There are only individual humans, with all their variety, quirks, beauty, ugliness, ignorance and brilliance found everywhere spread across the planet regardless of the piece of land they happen to occupy at the moment. } – May 04, 7:24 PM
{ Pat and Erich I have to call BULLSHIT on the claim the opinion that "our Government is run by a bunch of morons at all levels". I call this bullshit, because it is the result of years of ongoing anti government propaganda pushed by big business. Civil service employees comprise the vast majority of government, a disproportionally higher percentage (when compared to the private sector) of civil servants are college educated, or skilled labor. Becoming a civil servant requires, in addition to proof of educational background and experience, a proficiency exam. The morons in government, however are the elected and appointed officials whose only requirement is access to the right people. As for the FOIA, requests made for personally identifying information are a touchy subject, as personal information may be used for illegal purposes. E.G. Afew years ago, information obtained legally from a government database was used by an abusive... } – May 03, 6:48 AM { "Managers must strive to help introverts find their voice, Wilkins says. One technique: Ask them to share their ideas before a meeting so they have an easier time speaking up in front of others. "Help them to see that speaking up is not about self-promotion or being in conflict but rather about offering the team key insights, making better decisions or increasing the efficiency for all," she says. What about those extroverts who never seem to be at a loss for words? Should managers cut them off? Managers definitely should weigh in on how an extrovert is affecting others. Wilkins suggests saying something in private: "At our last meeting, you spoke for 80% of the meeting. As a result, you were not able to get buy-in from the group, and this will impact your ability meet the deadline next week." http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/bruzzese/2013/04/28/on-the-job-introverts-vs-extroverts/2114539/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UsatodaycomMoney-Waggoner+%28Money+-+Waggoner%29 } – May 01, 9:44 PM { Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants; they are not driven by ideology but rather by a sense of revenge and despair. . . . "Anti-Americanism is far less prevalent in Yemen than in Pakistan. But rather than winning the hearts and minds of Yemeni civilians, America is alienating them by killing their relatives and friends. . . . Certainly, there may be short-term military gains from killing militant leaders in these strikes, but they are minuscule compared with the long-term damage the drone program is causing. A new generation of leaders is spontaneously emerging in furious retaliation to attacks on their territories and tribes. . . . "Unfortunately, liberal voices in the United States are largely ignoring, if not condoning, civilian deaths and extrajudicial killings in Yemen" http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/01/ibrahim-mothana-yemen-drones-obama } – May 01, 9:36 PM { Too many Dems are voting against the People and upholding the abusive power of big corporations who provide them cash in return. We saw this with the firearms background check legislation. Therefore, I can not use Republican as a proxy for corrupt. I'll agree with you, though, that the Republicans have more likelihood than the Dems to vote for big companies that hand them lots of cash. } – Apr 29, 10:54 PM { It's not all of Congress that is doing this, it's just the Republicans. They are what's broken. They are the problem. Of course, we've known this for many years, but now even conservative political scholars like Norman Ornstein & Thomas Mann are saying it -- http://billmoyers.com/segment/norman-ornstein-and-thomas-mann-explain-why-congress-is-failing-us/. } – Apr 29, 6:53 PM { Mark: I believe you are correct that the so-called pro-life movement doesn't actually have a plan for what to do about the women who violate the law. They are making abortion difficult and expensive, however, through hundreds of state laws, which take money and effort to overturn even when they are clearly illegal pursuant to federal common law (Roe v Wade). The irony is that those who are anti-abortion also tend to be anti-birth control and anti-government. They are the just say no folks, and they are encouraging the births of hundreds of thousands of unwanted children at the same time that they are decimating the ability of the government to step in to make sure these children have decent living conditions, including a decent education. This will continue to come back and haunt them, as indicated by Freakonomics. http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/ } – Apr 28, 8:28 AM
{ I've said this before (somewhere) but the ProLife Movement by and large wants nothing to do with legal punishments. What they want in their heart of hearts is for abortion to simply go away. They know intuitively that if legislation is passed making it a felony, then it will end up in the courts again, and if that happens, it will NEVER just go away. And next time, they will lose. Massively. } – Apr 28, 6:03 AM { Grumpy: This was not the first time I ran across protestors who claimed that abortion is "murder" but didn't want to punish the women who have abortions for committing "murder." http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/09/28/excuse-me-my-mortality-is-showing-meditations-on-life-and-death/ } – Apr 27, 3:58 PM { Amazing! These folks spend years campaigning against legal abortion, yet never give a thought to the consequences. } – Apr 27, 3:19 PM
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