Here's a provocative article about why bicycling might, in the long run, be harmful to the environment. Here are the author's main conclusions: Human-powered transportation can substitute for trips by single-occupant automobiles. This substitution has a direct and immediate benefit of reducing energy consumption, even accounting for the latent energy content of…
Dinosaurs did co-exist with Adam and Eve, you see. How do we know this? Just read the Bible!
All of this is cheerfully explained by creationist Ken Ham (who describes himeself as a former high school biology teacher) in a lecture entitled “Dinosaurs In the Bible.” Actually, you can catch a whole series of lectures by Ken at Answers in Genesis.
Here’s some more things Ken taught me. The earth was created in six 24-hour days. Why should we believe that? Because “If we don’t believe in six literal days we open the door to the collapse of Christian morality in our nation.” Furthermore, the numerous scientific methods of dating (such as carbon dating) are hopelessly inaccurate.
There are many lines of evidence that the radiometric dates are not the objective evidence for an old earth that many claim, and that the world is really only thousands of years old. We don’t have all the answers, but we do have the sure testimony of the Word of God to the true history of the world.
Why must people suffer? Because we’re sinful, says Ken. God “loves us” when he inflicts us with horrible diseases like AIDS.
Ever notice those huge sharp teeth of T-rex? What did T-rex eat? No, not meat. Look to the Bible (Gen 1:29-30), not to the teeth, says Ken, and you’ll learn with certainty that T-rex was a plant eater (see “Dinosaurs in the Bible – Part I”).
Ken’s lectures contain plenty of bootstrapping. …
I'm guessing that, based on this piece in Slate.com, Christopher Hitchens wasn't impressed with Gibson's apology. There's a lot to dislike about Gibson. He is given to furious tirades against homosexuals of the sort that make one wonder if he has some kind of subliminal or "unaddressed" problem. His vulgar…
"As president, I strongly believe that my first duty as president is to support and serve the president," Bush said. [This is not an actual newspaper headline (yet). Rather, it's more great humor by The Onion].
I’m a writer. As such, words and their uses are important to me, and it bugs me when I hear them used inappropriately or in ways that I know are wrong or intended to mislead. It’s like an itch I can’t scratch. Most of the time, I let them slide, because I know there’s nothing much to be done and I don’t wish to sacrifice what little sanity I have complaining about Other People’s Ignorance and/or Language Abuse.
But the other day I listened to an essay by Jeff Nunberg. He’s a linguist and I usually catch him on NPR on the Frech Air program. This piece was about the word–the term–Lifestyle.
Nunberg has a new book out about the way in which the Right has stolen language in politics in the last couple of decades, and he lays it out clearly the way in which a masterful job has been done by those not liberal to take the “high ground” linguisitically in our national debate. The book is called Talking Right and it’s on my list. I’ve been listening to Nunberg for years on this subject, so I think I know what the book contains. I recommend it to all and sundry.
His piece on Lifestyle centered on its use as a substitute label socially and politically for discussions about choices and the way in which the word has come to denote everything about us. Our politics, our spending habits, our taste in clothes, even our personal hygeine and …