What the Bible actually says about abortion.

Here's a fascinating post from a quirky and thoughtful website called "Bible Funmentionables." In this particular post, Michael Morris puts on his news reporter hat and simply asks what "God" had to say about abortion.

But many of the same people who give God a pass for allowing so many embryos to die, would like us to believe that God is punishing us for not making all abortions stop. Setting aside the fact that making abortions illegal does not cause them to stop, let’s examine what the Bible says DIRECTLY about abortion.

Spoiler alert: "It’s clear that if pro-lifers want to bring the Bible into the debate, the Bible is NOT on their side." The evidence presented at Bible Funmentionables includes passages like this:

If his soul is not filled with good, and he does not receive proper burial, I say that an aborted birth is better than he. —Ecclesiastes 6:3

I'd encourage a visit to this post to prepare you for the next time a Bible thumper tells you that the Bible prohibits abortion.  You will be prepared to intelligently discuss the issue by citing chapter and verse.

Continue ReadingWhat the Bible actually says about abortion.

Moore’s Law: Alive and Well.

Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. It's still going strong 52 years later, ever since 1965, when Gordon Moore made his prediction. That this law has has held for more than 50 years is amazing, almost miraculous-seeming. It reminds me of the wheat and chessboard problem (sometimes expressed in terms of rice grains), a mathematical problem expressed this way:

If a chessboard were to have wheat placed upon each square such that one grain were placed on the first square, two on the second, four on the third, and so on (doubling the number of grains on each subsequent square), how many grains of wheat would be on the chessboard at the finish?

In the chessboard example the final number is a whopping 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 (the 64th Mersenne number). Wikipedia reports this commentary:

In April 2016, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich stated that "In my 34 years in the semiconductor industry, I have witnessed the advertised death of Moore’s Law no less than four times. As we progress from 14 nanometer technology to 10 nanometer and plan for 7 nanometer and 5 nanometer and even beyond, our plans are proof that Moore’s Law is alive and well".[25] In January 2017, he declared that "I've heard the death of Moore's law more times than anything else in my career ... And I'm here today to really show you and tell you that Moore's Law is alive and well and flourishing.

 

Continue ReadingMoore’s Law: Alive and Well.

Time to take down the Confederate Statues.

At National Review, Arthur Herman gives his best reasons why the public Confederate statues should remain in publicly owned spaces.   I do believe that Herman put the best foot forward of the "Keep the Statues" crowd. I disagree with him. These statues belong, if anywhere, in the Jim Crow wing of a history museum.  Herman received strong pushback in the comments to his article, many of these comments echoing my beliefs. Here are some samples of the comments critical of Herman's defense of the statues: "The timeless virtues of slavery. Symbols of Southern history of slavery." "Most of those statues were NOT erected in the days after the Civil War. Nor were they erected in the days since the 1970s, when Jim Crow was over." "They were put up as part of the wave of "Lost Cause" historical revisionism that swept the South in the first half of the 20th century. The purpose was to try to redeem *the cause for which the South had fought*." File-Lee_Park,_Charlottesville,_VA.jpg "I don't have a problem honoring the ordinary enlisted men--the privates and sergeants--who fought bravely on both sides of the Civil War. But the Confederate leadership--and this includes Lee--should not be honored because the cause they fought for was *to break up the United States*." Most of those statues were NOT erected in the days after the Civil War. Nor were they erected in the days since the 1970s, when Jim Crow was over. They were put up as part of the wave of "Lost Cause" historical revisionism that swept the South in the first half of the 20th century. The purpose was to try to redeem *the cause for which the South had fought*." "Thomas Jefferson is NOT honored because he had slaves. He is honored because he wrote the Declaration of Independence, which asserted the equality of all humanity before God. Tear down his memorial and you would be tearing down the Declaration of Independence too."

Continue ReadingTime to take down the Confederate Statues.

When women write the screenplay of a movie, look what tends to happen . . .

The Bechdel Test, applied to some of the highest grossing films. The results are categorized by whether the film was written or co-written by women. To pass the test, #1 - Film has at least two women in it. #2 - Who talk to each other, about and #3 - Something besides a man. Yep, it's a pretty low bar. This study shows that when women are more involved as writers, the female characters are more active and interactive.

Continue ReadingWhen women write the screenplay of a movie, look what tends to happen . . .