It’s not yet football season, but I’m already hearing rumblings, and I’ve seen news bits on the the Rams cheerleaders. But since, to my mind, all professional sports is of a fabric, some worse than others, I thought I’d post this essay I wrote some time ago, with modifications. An acquaintance asked me a while ago [...]
This link is to the district court ruling in the Dover, PA trial about so-called Intelligent Design. It is worth reading in full, especially in light of the recent survey publish in Science about our understanding–lack of, actually–of biology. Basically, the judge threw out the claim by the defendants, that evolution is “merely a theory” and [...]
Most American citizens believe that voters elect our state and federal legislators. They would be wrong. Elections are rigged by the massive amounts of money that fund them, and legislators are bought and sold in accordance with their campaign fund contributors. This money does not come from you or me. We could never hope to [...]
Reporting on the acceptance of evolution in 34 countries, the journal Science found that the United States ranked next to last, ahead of only Turkey. Among the factors contributing to America’s low score are poor understanding of biology, especially genetics, the politicization of science and the literal interpretation of the Bible by a small but vocal [...]
It is because we tout ourselves as the smartest animal on the planet we are oh-so-vulnerable. As one can read in Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Human cognition is an unwieldy and fallible bag of mental tricks. Anyone who has seriously studied human cognition knows this. As [...]
Morgan Spurlock, filmmaker and creator of the successful fast food critical documentary Super Size Me, has a groundbreaking program running on the cable network FX called 30 Days. The premise of the show goes like this: every episode details the journey of one person, either Spurlock or another willing participant, living a life vastly juxtaposed [...]
The Nation explains that Ned Lamont was successful tonight because he was much more than an anti-war candidate. Lamont continually pointed to the domestic losses caused by the diversion of big money to finance the Iraq occupation: How did Lamont succeed where others – including 2004 presidential contender and current Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean [...]
[Note: I wrote this piece in 2003, shortly before the U.S. invaded Iraq]. The trouble with writing these opinion pieces is they require such intense emotional energy to write. It’s a very exhausting business. But then, so is life these days. We all go about our lives quite admirably, but the low hum of [...]
I wondered recently, during an idle conversation, whatever became of that monumental media presence Rush Limbaugh. Now I know. He’s been upstaged. Check out the following quote: “They’re almost always biologists—the “science” with the greatest preponderance of women. The distaff MIT “scientist” who fled the room in response to Larry Summers’s remarks was, of course, [...]
{ Reminds me of a public lecture by a brain surgeon I attended long ago. He used a classification of the level of deterministic chaos in the brain from 0=dead to a maximum of 5 (I believe), which represents a perfectly healthy brain. Healthy because many situations require hair trigger response times and continuous adaptations, which would not be possible in a system only capable of strictly procedural responses. He used a mathematical procedure to analyse EEG's in order to derive the chaos level. During an epileptic seizure there would be a sudden drop and then a rebound to a normal high level of chaos. He theorised that the brain constantly checks itself and if it detects a dangerous drop in its chaos level, it may do a reset on itself in the form of a seizure. } – May 25, 12:35 AM
{ "truth of Catholic teaching" such as ... men have one more rib than women? http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio105/ribs.htm } – May 24, 9:15 PM
{ One of the important points that the mainstream media has glossed over is that the reason why the IRS targeted groups with "tea party" and "freedom" in their names is that there had been a *history* of such groups not qualifying for tax exempt status. The IRS didn't pull those keywords out of a hat, nor did they choose them for political reasons. They chose them for the same reason that fishermen return to places where they have caught fish before: because that's where the fish are most likely to be found again. What's galling is that if the tables were turned (if liberal groups had been the targets), Republicans would be praising the IRS for making efficient use of public money (which is what Dems should be doing). } – May 24, 6:41 PM { You forgot to put the word "truth" in quotes (again). Since we are not talking about anything which could ever be falsified (tested) in 4.54 Billion years, it is a stretch of Biblical proportions to use the word Truth when describing Catholic teaching. This also applies to anything else that comes out of the Rectum of Man. } – May 24, 10:12 AM
{ Mike: Thank you for taking the time to articulate those thoughts. When I read Helen Keller's words I have been inspired and puzzled. I just don't get it. I don't get how she could have some a grasp on large social issues given what would seem to be a lack of necessary access to the rest of the world. And she was exceedingly outspoken in political ways, though her views would not be appreciated by conservatives. For instance, here. } – May 23, 10:39 PM
{ I watched this video recently after reading Helen Keller's autobiography, which I thoroughly recommend to those few of us who missed it in grade school. She worked so hard to speak in an intelligible way while she was away from home for many weeks, and upon her return she surprised her family with this newly developed skill. I get chills just thinking about what that moment was like for those present. It is amazing to get a sense of the depth of her understanding of the world, that almost completely entered her consciousness through her fingers alone. It's tempting, but I can't use the word miraculous to describe it. Instead it is a mind-blowing testament to the human spirit. } – May 23, 10:17 PM
{ The death and resurrection of Jesus is the grace of God which saved us all. The good works we do allow for that grace to be manifest to all. All are saved, http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/04/28/catholic-di-author-weighs-in-on-salvation/ I wrote on this years ago, and through God's grace and prayer, Frances has also made salvation for ALL known as a truth of Catholic teaching. Thank you, Holiness! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/pope-francis-good-atheists_n_3320757.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular } – May 23, 2:44 PM
{ Greetings, The history of the catholic church is that when finding "middle ground" with them. You will be the one that will have to give up ground, not them. On the outside it may look and sound likethey "lower" the bar. But the roman catholic church is the same as she was during the middle "dark" ages. SHE is the mother church you will have to work on HER terms. } – May 23, 1:18 AM { Ken Miller explains the "missing chromosome" of humans in this 4-minute video: } – May 23, 12:37 AM { 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
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