Compton Hill Water Tower – St. Louis Landmark

This is a view on my way home from work tonight.   The 180-foot tall Compton Hill Water Tower is decorated, at its base, by traffic lights and the lighted traffic flowing by during this long exposure shot.    Located near my home, in St. Louis, Missouri, the Compton Hill Water Tower:…

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Cartoons!

Drug War Arcadio Esquivel, La Prensa, Panama, www.caglecartoons.com     Soldier Readiness Processing Mike Keefe, The Denver Post     Money No Good Mike Lester - The Rome News-Tribune   Heck of a job, economy RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch   Barbed Wire China Olympics Alen Lauzan Falcon,…

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For $1 million, would you agree to eat nothing but dog food for one year?

This is a no-brainer, or so I thought.  Before asking my extended family this question at a family gathering this weekend, I assumed that everyone would agree to my hypothetical proposal.  As distasteful as it might seem at first, I assumed that everyone in the room would (if given the opportunity) agree that they would eat nothing but dog food for one year in return for $1 million.

I write this post having tasted dog food on two occasions in past years.  On those two occasions, I’d chomped on a nugget of dry dog food, the kind that comes in a 40 pound bag.  I thought it tasted like cardboard, but it was not disgusting.  On the other hand, it was not food I would be inclined to eat again unless given an incentive.  Note: I have smelled canned dog food before, and I would not be inclined to eat that stuff.  The canned dog food I smelled had a strong disgusting odor to it.  It looked and smelled like it was no longer safe to eat.

So there I stood with various members of my family in my mother’s kitchen when I raised the question: who would be willing to eat nothing but dog food for the next year in return for $1 million?  To my surprise, the rejections and objections started pouring in, even though I went first and even though I proudly stated that my answer was absolutely “yes.”

Two of my sisters and my mother each …

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The annual non-sequitur of Easter (Or is God’s “gift” based on a warped version of the moral accounting metaphor?).

Imagine that a neighbor walks up today and tells you that he really cares about you.   In fact, he loves you like a daughter/son and he wants to show his love.  You might be delighted to hear such an expression of affection. 

Then imagine that he tells you that he wants to prove to you that he cares for you.  He wants to prove it in a way that you will never doubt the depth of his caring.  

You would probably be thinking that he’s going to do something nice.  Maybe he will give a big donation to charity in your name.  Or maybe he will go buy you something nice, or take you to dinner at a good restaurant.  But then he surprises you.

He reminds you that he has an adult son named Bill (which you knew, because you know Bill).  He then tells you that he is going to let a mob of goons torture and murder Bill in a bloody spectacle, for you!

You are aghast, but he continues on.

He tells you that he is going to let that mob drive large nails through Bill’s hands and feet, for you, to prove that he cares about you.   For a grand finale, he is going to allow this sadistic crowd to jab a spear through Bill’s side, to make sure that every drop of blood has been drained from Bill’s body.

It would be patently obvious to you that decent people don’t “show their love” by …

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Creationists take young children on a tour of Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science

The place is the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The outcome is predictable, but this video is nonetheless worth watching to appreciate the extent to which the creationists intentionally deceive themselves. Along the way, the creationist teachers work hard to avoid considering evidence that disproves their bizarre religious beliefs.…

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