While Americans were enjoying the companionship of family and friends on Thanksgiving day, secular violence continued in Iraq, with more than 230 people either killed or found dead. One attack alone claimed 161 lives. America might have taken away Iraq's dictator, but we appear to have exchanged tyranny for genocide, which raises…
Here is a link to a 2006 documentary called "The Root of All Evil? - Part I," narrated by Richard Dawkins. In this elegantly written and presented documentary, Dawkins does not mince words. He explores the seductive beauty of religion, as well as the damage that religion, especially fundamentalist religion,…
Here's a short video of Richard Dawkins recently answering this question.
According to this article, some airlines are starting to enforce policies that children shouldn't be seated next to unrelated men, because you never know what might happen . . . Frances Kemp booked an aisle seat on a recent British Airways (BA) flight because she had a bad leg that…
Last evening, I wasted about 1½ hours working in the basement on some uninteresting but useful titanium accessories that I call Fat Wires on MrTitanium.com. I had a dyslexic moment, and made them slightly wrong. Just wrong enough that I can’t in good conscience sell them. I found this very frustrating. A big waste of time.
This morning I started over. This sort of fine craft allows my mind to wander as I cut, hammer, punch, drill, grind, band-aid, polish, bend, re-polish, and assemble. I reflected on Erich’s post on Fungible time: The principle that time, like money, is commutative in an accounting sense. In brief, time is spent whatever you do, so you should make the best of it.
So I wondered (in between thinking about the imminent Buy Nothing Day and listening to FM blather) why I was so upset at having wasted 1½ hours on honing my craft but getting no product, yet a comparable time wasted playing Doom2 or watching YouTube doesn’t bother me. I quit TV several weeks ago.…