Well, dear readers, 2010 is drawing to a close. As you well know, this has been a tough year for lots of people out there. It's also been a difficult year for me personally, but I do hope I've managed to share some interesting material and stimulate your minds in ways that will inspire you to think critically, to find awe in the world around you, and to become a more educated citizen of the world.
It's not unprecedented for The Onion to publish some fake story that's so completely within the realm of plausibility that: a) lots of people (and even journalists, corporations and governments) are convinced by it, b) you gotta double check to make sure it is in fact a fake story, and c) it may prove itself one day to be completely prophetic and therefore true.
Whatever one's thoughts on religion, it is an undeniable fact that some of the best art of all time is associated with religious devotion. Sure, many great artists were commissioned by the church and they went where the money was, but I'm sure at least a moderate number of them thought their art was a way of expressing an aspect of the transcendent.
Sure, everyone loves Christmas. And what's not to like? Good company, good food, exchanging gifts, the priceless look of uninhibited happiness in children, to say nothing of the delicious milk and cookies left by the fireplace? :)
If you happen to enjoy demographic data being animated, like when Hans Rosling does it (here or here), or when a map shows you the march of democracy across human history, or even when a map shows you what Presidents were in office during different wars, then you are going to really enjoy this: an animation of the two-party vote system in the good ol' U.S of A. since 1920.
So you probably know that last night there was a lunar eclipse, the first in something like 732 years to coincide with the winter solstice, so it was the kind of event that could help me justify to myself taking a break from grading term papers and final exams to breathe some fresh air and commute with nature... or as close as you can do that in New York City...
The question of whether Islam is a religion of peace is, as any intelligent person realizes, extremely complex. When debating any issue, philosophers are fond of trying to define their terms so that the conversation is focused and everyone understands what everyone else is talking about.
Tkae a look at the piecutre to the rghit and try to see if you can uesdnatnrd waht it syas. In fcat, trehe is a vrey good chncae taht you've arladey raed tihs bfeore beascue it's one of thsoe eamil frwodars knwon to inuntdae ibnoxes ernheyrewe and awe teihr rcienietps.
If there is one thing most of us think is private, it's our thoughts. And the only time we tend to be okay with our private thoughts being heard by anyone would be when we silently pray.Our scanner, which art from Siemens,
Hallowed be thy coils.
Thy data come;
Thy scans be done;
In grey matter as it is in white matter.
Give us this day our daily blobs.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass onto our scan slots.
And lead us not into the magnet room carrying a pair of scissors,
But deliver us from volunteers who can’t keep their heads still.
For thine is the magnet,
The gradients,
And the headcoil,
For ever and ever (at least until we can afford a 7T).
Amen.
No, I'm not talking about the fact that the standard practice is to sterilize the needle for a lethal injection (it does make one wonder, though), or even about the fact that the lethal drug has an expiration date...| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Tiny Triumphs - Lethal Drug Shortage | ||||
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About a hundred years ago, a bunch of sponge divers doing their underwater thing stumbled upon an artifact whose complexity indicated it was some sort of calculating machine, but it would be decades before investigators would figure out exactly what this machine, now known as the Antikythera Mechanism, was designed to calculate: the cycles of the solar system, including the exact position of the sun, the moon and the planets. This information, of course, also helped it predict eclipses with uncanny accuracy.
And here we've been complaining about our lack of a healthcare system that attends to the medical needs of the poor:)
There are many many reasons to like philosophy, but if I had to settle on just one, I would probably have to say that what I love about it is its inherent playful ability to turn the conventional wisdom of our time and what seems intuitively obvious into something downright bizarre and highly questionable. Needless to say, it does require a peculiar kind of personality to be comfortable with ambiguity and open questions, but isn't that exactly what it takes to gain any wisdom?
Continuing his exploration of the Cosmos, Carl Sagan takes us today on an exploration of interstellar and time travel, the likes of which no human being has ever actually experienced so far.
If you haven't checked out Neil deGrasse Tyson's best-selling book The Pluto Files, or heard one of his presentations explaining why Pluto got demoted to dwarf planet--or promoted to king of the Kuiper Belt, depending on how you look at it--you should check it out. The story of all the hate-mail he's received from children is worth it all by itself :)
The following video is so unbelievably awesome I have no words to describe it... all I can say without spoiling the experience is that you're in for a quick four minutes of mathematical and artistic beauty that will inspire you to think for days on end.
So what's up with this growing trend of majorities considering themselves the victims of discrimination just because they don't get absolutely everything they want?| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Gretch Who Saved the War on Christmas | ||||
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Having lost the most recent election despite having done some good work for the past two years (that's how wussy these people have been, that they allow themselves to get voted out of office simply because they don't have to guts to stand up for their own values and work record), it seems at least a few Democrats are starting to wake up from their wimpy slumber and stand up to conservatives.
One could argue that it takes major balls to make the claim that minorities (like blacks and native Americans) owe reparations to white people for past injustices (like the cost of slavery), but a better argument might be that what it takes is a complete lack of a functioning brain.| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Word - The Great White Wail | ||||
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| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Return of the Estate Tax | ||||
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If you've seen Hans Rosling's TEDTalk presentation before, I think you'd agree with me that if his training weren't in health and demographics, his alternate career would have been as a sports announcer.
So there is this silly battle of billboards between atheists and the religious. One group puts up a sign, the other group gets outraged about it and puts up one of its own... lather, rinse, repeat... it's the most boring and pointless ping-pong game I've ever seen.| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Blitzkrieg On Grinchitude - Atheist Billboard & Capitol Christmas Tree<a> | ||||
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If you've been keeping up with this blog for a while, you probably already know just how intelligent bonobos can be. You might be surprised to find, however, that despite his journalistic professionalism, Anderson Cooper is not exactly what you might call a social butterfly.
You may have noticed in the past that narcissistic and narrow-minded celebrities and athletes tend to attribute their victories to God. Of course, they don't seem to notice that while they're hogging all of God's short attention span, millions of people all over the world are suffering and dying from lack of divine intervention. That's okay, though... celebrities and their petty needs are more important.| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| God Drops Steve Johnson's Football Pass | ||||
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There are times when you become so obsessed with an idea or desire that it consumes you and turns the entirety of your life into an all-encompassing project to fulfill what has by now become your mission in life. Wile E. Coyote's obsession with catching and eating the Road Runner is a case in point.
In a civilized and thought-provoking debate that took place just this past week in Toronto, former British Prime Minister and recent Catholic convert Tony Blair defended the motion that religion is a force for good in the world. Opposing the motion with all his cerebral might was his compatriot, the journalist and public intellectual Christopher Hitchens.Of all the institutions through which men may pass--schools, factories, the military--marriage has the largest [domesticating] effect.
Unless you live in hillbilly territory, it's difficult nowadays to be a creationist and not get immediately laughed at. So, what do you do if you believe in the half-baked idea that some designer designed biological organisms as they are? You dress it up with sophisticated-sounding technical terms like 'irreducible complexity', and you also make sure to surround its mention with liberal-sounding principles like tolerance of other views, teaching the controversy, keeping an open mind, or even --and this is as ridiculous as it can possibly get-- letting the children decide, as if empirical knowledge were a question of personal preference or popularity...
