No punch line here. It really happened. The Vatican has issued a set of "10 commandments" for motorists to promote safer driving. The "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road" call on drivers to respect speed limits, refrain from drinking before driving and avoid cursing. Roman Catholics are also…
In her review of Douglas Hofstadter's new book (I Am a Strange Loop) in the May 3 edition of Nature, Susan Blackmore has this to say: At the age of 12 or so, it dawned on [Hofstadter] that consciousness is a peculiar kind of barrage that perceives itself and yet…
Why has the Administration of George W. Bush made so many enemies? It comes from an early intellectual decision to view the world in terms of Good versus Evil. This article in by Glenn Greenwald sums it up nicely. Efforts to impose limits on waging war against Evil will themselves be seen as…
If you Google “Paris Hilton Jail” you’ll get 15 million hits. If you Google “Downing Street Memo” you'll get only 800,000 hits. A terrifying real-world topic, “Greenland ice sheet,” will only return 900,000 hits. I suppose it’s because there are no videos of memos or glaciers having sex. What brought…
Ebonmuse looks closely at the religious trends at Daylight Atheism. The recent rates of growth/decline are especially interesting. It turns out that the fast growing "religion" is secularlism. I have to wonder how much more quickly attitudes would change (away from systems involving supernatural claims) if the mainstream media would stop walking on…