Stephen Colbert - America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't

Sorry for the sparse presence recently folks, but I've been buried under a mountain of work with the end of the semester. Last night, for instance, I got a chance to have some breakfast only after midnight, and as I poured myself a bowl of cereal, I started watching a recent interview with Stephen Colbert at Google that just had to be posted here.

Why? Because in trying to explain the title of his latest book, Stephen Colbert starts the whole interview by explaining how St. Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of god works, and he actually does a phenomenal job for someone explaining it off the cuff.

Later on there's talk about the unexamined life, so you automatically start thinking of Socrates, and even though the whole thing is humorous, there are bits and pieces of philosophy, and ideas worth thinking about, all over the place, so enjoy:

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Michael Sandel - The Moral Limits of Markets

There are some things that money can't buy... for everything else... oh crap, there's no anything else! Over the past couple of decades, and without almost anyone noticing, we have turned from a market economy—one in which we use capital as a tool to achieve certain ends—to a market society: one in which market values replace all other values, and in which profit becomes its own end and the standard against which everything else is measured.

Philosopher Michael Sandel is worried about this growing trend. You might think that if people were paid for their services, their abilities, their bodies, and that if this is done with the consent of all involved, everyone benefits and it's all good. But if that's how you think, you've been bitten by the market society bug already... When we think that it's okay for corporations (or presidential candidates) to pay people to tattoo their bodies with company logos, for instance, or when we think that it's a good idea to privatize prisons and strip people of their civil rights so a bunch of corporate shareholders can maximize their profit, we have ceased to think of people as persons with dignity and worthy of respect, and we have started to think of them as commodities that can be bought and sold, used, abused and discarded like garbage.

There are some things money can't buy... and in the end, those are the things that really matter. Don't let the market society cheapen them by turning them into commodities to be sold to the highest bidder...

This could present problems for my endorsement of the legalization of prostitution... crap...

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Bill O'Reilly - Christianity Is a Philosophy, Not a Religion

Unfortunately, the word philosophy is used, misused and abused by all kinds of people. For some, like the local drunk at your nearest bar, for instance, it means the semi-coherent and misogynistic ramblings about the "deep truths" he has "discovered" through dozens of failed relationships, and that he can't help but share with you. For others, it means some sort of "deep" motto, like "believe in yourself." A slightly more respectable version still is that of a worldview: a set of ideas by which you lead your life, and which, with any luck, are not incompatible with each other.

But for philosophers, philosophy is not a thing... it's an activity: it is the pursuit of wisdom (the good and the true) by means of rational conceptual analysis, by rigorous and systematic observation, by synthesizing the very best knowledge that we acquire from the sciences, by subjecting claims to rational scrutiny, by questioning what others take for granted, and by developing the existential courage to confront the harshness of reality head-on without having to delude ourselves with comforting beliefs and illusions. Philosophy is something we do, not something we "have."

Whatever its merits, however, religion is not that. In philosophy, we investigate to find answers, and we go where the evidence takes us. In religion, you start with your preconceived belief first, and then look for ways to back it up later. Philosophy is inquiry; religion is rationalization.

So, when I heard that Bill O'Reilly recently claimed that Christianity is a philosophy, and NOT a religion, my first reaction was, predictably, WTF? Ah, but when Papa Bear wants to play logic and semantic games, you know that Jon Stewart is ready to call him on his bullshit :)

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And hey, have you noticed that there are a lot of similarities between the Jesus and Socrates stories? Well, this is no mere coincidence. As Nietzsche once put it, Christianity is Platonism for the herd. It's the same basic story, without the actual philosophy part...

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Sometimes I wonder if Jon Stewart is proof of God's existence...

The problem, though, is that Mr. Deity is now upset:

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Stephen Fry - Classical Music Is NOT Irrelevant to Youth

Apparently there was some sort of debate in Cambridge recently in which the motion was that "classical music is irrelevant to today's youth." The first question a philosopher might ask at the outset is to explain what we mean by the word "irrelevant." Are we saying that young people don't care about classical music? That it's irrelevant to their aesthetic preferences? Are we saying that, whether young people enjoy classical music or not, it has no direct influence or benefit on their lives?

Well, primarily taking the last definition above, one of the people who opposed the motion, and fabulously at that, was Stephen Fry. As you may or may not know, the man is a great rhetorician, and he's got a fascinating, ironic and irreverent way of looking down at people who look down on others (like that time he delivered this fascinating essay on the importance, use and abuse, and beauty of language). I won't get started on whether his argument constitutes a paradox like that of the barber of Seville, so just enjoy this rhetorical tour-de-force:

And apropos of this topic, the New York Times Philosophy Column just posted this interesting article on the intersection between philosophy, science, art and language.

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Dan Ariely - The Truth about Dishonesty

If I were to ask you if you are an honest person, chances are that you'd say yes. Yet, if we look at the details of your everyday behavior with a magnifying glass, we'd most likely discover all sorts of ways in which you lie, cheat and steal, on a regular basis! Notice the irony? In answering a question about your own honesty, you behave dishonestly! Well, it's not quite that straightforward. It's not so much that you'd be lying to me; it's more that you'd be lying to yourself, and then to the rest of us as a consequence.

Our minds have an incredible capacity for compartmentalization: we separate into distinct groups instances of what ought to be logically identical situations, such as when you create the double standard that it's okay for you to take home some office supplies from work, but that it's not okay to steal an equivalent amount of money from the petty cash box. The other thing we're really good at in this context is rationalization: when confronted with our dishonesty, we are masters at justifying our behavior and turning it around to sound heroic: "it's okay for me to illegally download music because that means I'm standing up for freedom and fighting the corruption of multi-billion dollar music label companies, so if you think about it, I'm kind of a moral hero."

Well, in the following RSA animated presentation, Dan Ariely shares some of the fascinating findings of how everyday people like you and me cheat all the time, and what might be some useful mechanisms we can use to decrease our own corruption.

If you liked that, you might also like to check our our selection of TED Talk presentations.

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Propositional Logic - Using Truth Tables to Evaluate the Validity of Complex Arguments

In our previous lesson on propositional logic, we learned that we can take arguments in natural language (English, Spanish, German, whatever) and translate them into symbolic form through the use of variables to represent statements, and connectives to represent relationships between statements. This helps us set aside irrelevant considerations such as the content of an argument (what the argument is about), or the language used to express that content, and focus instead simply on its formal aspects to evaluate its validity (whether the conclusion follows necessarily from its premises).

The claim was that these basic concepts can be applied to a wide range of arguments, including indefinitely complex ones, and that logicians have developed systematic methods for evaluating the validity of such arguments in a systematic way: it's not just a matter of personal opinion or subjective point of view but of objectively demonstrative rationality.

So, let's take a look at one example of a complex argument, and go through these systematic steps to figure out whether it makes logical sense or not.

For more related posts, check out our logic tag.

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Propositional Logic - Connectives and Truth Tables

The Stoic philosophers bequeathed us with an important theory of ethics and a very respectable account of the nature of the good life. What's less well known, outside of philosophical circles, is that they are also responsible for developing a theory of logic that can impressively deal with most forms of everyday reasoning. Logicians and mathematicians, especially over the pasts two hundred years, have come up with more sophisticated theories of logic, but the stoic propositional logic is good enough for most ordinary purposes.

Part of the stoic insight comes from the fact that they devised methods for organizing, systematizing, formalizing and evaluating compound statements (such as "if it's raining, then it's wet, but since it's not wet, then it can't be raining"). Sure, that one may seem obvious, but their brilliance comes from the fact that no matter how long or complex an argument is (or what the argument is about), it can be systematically broken down into simple statements, allowing us to do a thorough analysis of each of its parts, and then systematically evaluating whether the argument as a whole makes logical sense or not.

But before we learn how to do that, we need to have a little introduction to the idea of connectives and truth tables. Once you know these basic ideas, we'll start to apply them to complex arguments of the kind you are likely to come across daily.

Click here for the next lesson: using truth tables to determine the validity of complex arguments, no matter how complex they are.

If you're interested in how the stoics contributed to the study of logic, how they departed from Aristotle's logic of predication, and why this was important for their materialistic philosophy, you'll find the following audio fascinating:

And don't forget to check out all our related posts in the logic tag, especially our hilarious primer on logical fallacies.

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Steven Pinker - You're Already Committed to Reason

One thing that we philosophers love is questions and spirited friendly debate. This dialectical process helps us get a better grasp on various subjects, and though we may not always reach consensus, we do gain intellectual growth.

But this kind of attitude is not ubiquitous, especially for those just getting acquainted with philosophy. On many occasions, when dealing with some elusive topic, whether in epistemology, the philosophy of religion, or ethics, and especially when their beliefs have been challenged, some students will start to complain that maybe we should just abandon reason.

My tactic at that point is to ask them why that should be the case, at which point they will begin to argue their position without realizing that any argument against reason is going to have to require that they themselves use reason, which completely defeats their arguments. And apparently I'm not alone, at least Steven Pinker seems to be on my side :)

Nice, powerful and concise!

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Megyn Kelly Makes Karl Rove Her Bitch

I have an ongoing debate with a friend. We're both liberals, and I think one can theoretically separate a person's political ideology from their physical attractiveness, and not like the former while very much liking the latter, or vice versa. My friend thinks I'm full of crap: once you know what's inside a person's heart and soul, especially when they're conservative ideologues, the outside is just as hideous as the inside.

And the object of contention between us has been Megyn Kelly. I think she's totally hot, even though I disagree with most of the things she says. My friend says she makes him want to barf. Here's the awesome part: on election night she did something that should completely vindicate me in my friend's eyes: she made Karl Rove her bitch :)

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I'm not big on schadenfreude, but that was awesome!

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Election Results in a Beautiful Animation

I don't know if you heard, but here in the ol' U.S. of A. we just had an election this Tuesday. You know, just trying to choose who the most powerful man in the world would be...

Well, as it turned out, President Barack Obama was re-elected, beating his conservative-liberal-tea-party-ultra-conservative-liberal-conservative opponent Mitt Romney.

If you haven't been paying attention, or don't quite understand how things break down, the following animation should clarify all sorts of questions you may have about this election:

Marihuana, porn and gay marriage... wow, that's what it's come to? :)

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Substance Dualism

Although most philosophers of mind are probably physicalists, there is still a live debate about the ontological status of mind: is it physical or immaterial?

On one side of the debate are those who argue that thoughts are not physical, and therefore cannot be generated by something physical. Apart from obvious religious and soteriological reasons, one of the more popular lines of argument goes roughly as follows: when we have a complete physical description of the brain (and of that which is perceived by the brain), there is still something about the qualitative nature of first-person subjective experiences (or qualia) that is not accounted for, so there must be something non-physical to explain this. In other words, the physicalist account leaves something rather important out of the picture, namely subjectivity and intentionality (or the 'aboutness' of mental experience), and that needs to be explained.

On the other side, the idea of an immaterial soul seems perhaps even more mysterious than the problems with physicalism: how can a non-physical substance interact causally with the physical body? What is it about this non-physical stuff that allows it to think and have first-person subjective experiences in the first place, without just being defined into having it? How can we possibly verify its existence (without arguing in a circle)? In fact, the evidence that we do have when we study the brain, especially when it suffers damage that affects very specific cognitive capacities, seems to indicate that even though we may not know the exact mechanism through which brain processes produce consciousness, that's nevertheless what happens.

But why listen to me when we have a beautiful and nicely organized animation that will take you through the steps to analyze this debate?

Did I say a beautiful animation? I meant two :)

Isn't it amazing how many problems fade away when you organize your thoughts? :)

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Take the Money, Donald Trump! Do It for the Children!

Apparently Donald Trump wants to help charities, but he won't donate the money without extorting President Obama to release documents that, let's face it, will not satisfy the birthers and their conspiracy theories.

Fortunately, Stephen Colbert has an offer of his own for Donald Trump :)

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And of course, once it's all over, those will be the smartest things ever to come out of Trump's mouth...

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Richard Dawkins - Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (1)

Dostoevsky's dictum "without God, anything is permitted" is often used by religious believers to make the point that, quite aside from the issue of its truth, religion plays an important role, perhaps even a necessary one, in fomenting moral behavior and virtue. Without God, where would morality come from? If we were simply left to our own devices, what would be there to prevent absolute chaos, violence, crime and wanton lasciviousness?

Well, whatever you may think about the moral foundation of morality, as an empirical claim, it simply isn't true that without God or religion we would turn into savages. How do we know? For one, because non-human animals, presumably not being religious believers, do have all sorts of customs and rules by which they abide without having to descend into anarchy. And second, because when you look at the behavior or religious and non-religious people, you find that there is almost no difference there.

What religious people do have, though, is a lot of shame and guilt for things that should not be quite as big a deal as they think. So it seems as though religion is a self-perpetuating industry of devotion based on making its followers feel bad about themselves and then making them turn to religion for "salvation." Not much different from drug pushers, huh?

And it's getting to the point that religious people will go to all kinds of extremes to reconcile the inevitable cognitive dissonance they experience from the conjunction of their religious beliefs and their biological nature. Richard Dawkins explores these and other related issues

What exactly is the fascination with virgins? I never understood that one...

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Obama and Romney Laugh It Up

With the upcoming elections, things have been heated up for the past few months. And though not to the same level, both major contenders, as well as the PACS and Super PACS that support them, have resorted to some cheap shots, ad hominem attacks and tactics that are unbecoming of our best ideals of civility and leadership.

So I was really glad to see Obama and Romney take a break this past week to lighten things up and engage in some humor at their own expense and that of each other.

Here's Romney, who actually did a lot better than I would have expected:

And here's Obama, more experienced in this kind of thing, and therefore doing a better job:

That joke about having been rested for the second campaign from the nap he took during the first one was priceless :)

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Obama on Romnesia: Don't worry. Obamacare Covers Pre-Existing Conditions :)

Romnesia is a serious and highly contagious medical condition, usually related to Paulzheimers. As its name suggests, it's most obviously related to Mitt Romney's almost daily political flip-flopping depending on what particular constituency's votes he's trying to secure. If he's in Massachusetts, for instance, he will advocate for various liberal platforms and women's issues. When he's in the Bible Belt, he is all about religion and the need to go back to that time when people did whatever they thought their invisible friend up in the sky wanted them to (including, but not limited to, restricting the rights of women, minorities, immigrants, gays, etc.). When he's in a secret meeting with corporate moguls, he'll make fun of and dismiss 47% of the American public as moochers and irresponsible leeches, and when that tape becomes public, he's suddenly all about 100% of Americans. Poor guy...

This is a very serious affliction, but President Obama has some great news :)

That made my day...

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Adora Svitak - What Adults Can Learn from Kids

Have you ever wondered what could happen if you respected the intelligence and potential of your children, and read to them a little Aristotle, some history and science instead of just simple bedtime stories?

Well, wonder no more. Here's a great example of the positive influence of intellectual stimulating your children's brains.

Now, pick up that dusty philosophy book that's been sitting in your book shelf for years and put it to good use :)

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Jumping from Space

What did you do this weekend? Oh, no reason... It's just that while you were doing whatever you were doing, stuntman Felix Baumgartner ended up becoming the first human to break the sound barrier without actually being on any kind of supersonic aircraft... he just jumped to a free fall from something like 24 miles above the Earth!

Me? I was riding a segway :)

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Children's Television Chop Shop - This Week With George Snuffleupagus

Romney wants to fire Big Bird, and conservatives seem to agree that we spend way too much money on things like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR. And while reigning in excessive spending is generally a good idea, do programs that educate the public count as a waste of money? No, it's actually an investment; one that will pay off in great dividends!

So how about we cut other forms of outrageous spending? Like, I don't know, the stupid wars we're always waging all over the world? Or maybe the gigantic tax cuts given to the rich, and the enormous subsidies given to corporations? Oh, but conservatives wouldn't like that, so in order to distract the nation from the real forms of outrageous and frivolous spending that go to benefit Wall Street, they'll just exaggerate how much tax-payer money goes to Sesame Street...

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But this is really hilarious part

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How awesome was that? :)

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Rumble 2012 - Bill O'Reilly vs Jon Stewart

The recent presidential debate between Romney and Obama turned out to be a disaster. Romney came loaded with a semi-automatic shotgun full of soundbites and lies, he threatened to fire Big Bird, and once again flipped flopped on his position (I've never known a prostitute who can assume so many positions, but I guess if you're a corporate whore, you gotta be extra flexible). Obama, on the other hand, just let Romney get away with all these bs claims, and acted as though he hadn't slept in a few days. Maybe Clint Eastwood was right all along when he talked to that empty chair at the Republican National Convention...

So if that debate left you unsatisfied, worry not, my friends because Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly had a little debate of their own this weekend, which turned out to be more substantial and more entertaining. President Obama, take some notes from Jon Stewart on how to call a spade a spade, and how to have substantial and nuanced points to make while not being a total bore...

Check out more debates in our debate tag.

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Hexaflexagons to Blow Your Mind

Whether you are particularly fond of it or not, you have to admit that when math gets involved in origami, amazing things start to happen (as we've seen in this previous TEDTalk presentation).

So imagine what would happen when origami and math meet Vi Hart's quirky style to make mathematical concepts accessible and interesting: pure awesomeness. Thanks to the following lesson on the hexaflexagon, you'll never think of hexagons the same way again...

And as if that weren't awesome enough, here's a second part:

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Samuel Jackson, Wake the F**k Up! - A Rebuttal

You may remember from a few days ago that video reminiscent of the children's story Go the F**k to Sleep, in which Samuel Jackson highlighted the importance of civil and political involvement, and complained about voter apathy by inciting voters to Wake the F**k Up! Of course, of the two main candidates running, Obama is clearly the better choice over Mitt Romney, but the least of two evils is still not the best state of affairs.

So, the folk over at Reason.com decided to play Jackson's game... and sort of kick his ass :)

Ouch!

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A Christian Nation?

A great number of Americans believe that the U.S. is a Christian nation. Can this claim be justified?

Well, if what one means by that claim is that the majority of Americans are Christians, that's most likely an empirical fact: most Americans really are Christian. However, it doesn't follow that because the majority of citizens are Christian, the nation itself is Christian. Why not?

This would be an instance of the logical fallacy of composition: assuming that what's true of the parts is necessarily true of the whole, as in, most Americans are women, therefore America itself is a female nation; or most Americans are white, therefore America itself is a white nation (I hope only racists and white supremacists would be convinced by such a blatantly obviously bad argument); or most Americans are old (hello Baby Boomers!), therefore the U.S. is an old nation! The problem, in other words, is that you can't automatically transfer the properties of the parts to the whole made up of those parts.

What else could the claim that America is a Christian nation mean? Maybe that our Constitution and guiding principles are based on Judeo-Christian tenets? Well, if you compare the First Commandment and the First Amendment to the Constitution, we can put that claim to rest: while Yahweh prohibits you from worshiping any other gods (how insecure), the Bill of Rights guarantees you the right to worship any goddamn thing you please, or not to worship anything at all. You could not find two more mutually exclusive claims if you tried.

What about the Founding Fathers? Weren't they Christian? Well, I think you're starting to get the point... none of these claims is really going to hold up to a bit of rational and historical scrutiny:

God bless America? Thanks, but no need: our success is a result of our drive, our ingenuity, our ambition, our geographical luck, our historical vicissitudes, and most importantly our secular values. We are great despite being Christian...

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Ben Goldacre - What Doctors Don't Know About the Drugs They Prescribe

Richard Feynman once defined science as that which we do to avoid fooling ourselves. We humans are universally prone to the cognitive bias known as selection (or confirmation) bias: instead of looking at the big picture, hits and misses alike, we have a natural tendency to look for evidence that confirms the things we already believe, and we tend to ignore and/or forget evidence that would contradict our view of the world.

This is why if you're a liberal, you watch MSNBC, and if you're a conservative, why you watch Faux News. In both cases, you're not really looking for information: you're looking for confirmation. You're listening to people who are going to tell you that the way you see the world is exactly how you think it is. Yes, it's extremely self-congratulatory. This is why you might believe in homeopathic remedies or alternative medicine: you count every time they "worked," and are completely unaware of the much greater amount of times when they don't, and so you think they count as real medicine.

And science, and scientific thinking in general, are supposed to be an antidote against confirmation bias, but as Ben Goldacre explains in the following chilling TEDTalk, there is a major problem with selection bias in the reporting and publishing of scientific studies regarding the health effects of various drugs: the studies that tend to get published are those that find a positive effect, while studies that find no effect, or even an adverse effect, tend not to see the light of day. And if your doctor is prescribing some medication based on this incomplete amount of information (through no fault of his own), it's your health that is ultimately at risk...

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Samuel Jackson - 'Wake the F++k Up' for Obama

Children's bedtimes stories used to bore me to tears (maybe that's the point?) until I finally came across one that really resonates with the reality of parenting: Go the F**k to Sleep. And if the book itself wasn't already awesome all on its own, the audio version was read by none other than Samuel Jackson. If you haven't heard it yet, have a listen here.

Well, last time he wanted his child to go the fuck to sleep, but he wants you to wake the fuck up because if you don't, and Romney/Ryan get elected, your dreams are probably going to turn into nightmares.

I'm not all that comfortable with having children in political advertisements, but I do love me some swearing, so it's all good :)

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Science vs. Philosophy? Nigga Please...

When it comes to the question of the importance and relevance of philosophy, I'm not sure whether Lawrence Krauss just loves the attention of being polemic, doesn't get just how narrow-minded and simplistic his beliefs are, doesn't realize he's committing some major category mistakes and some basic logical fallacies that a first-year philosophy student would easily identify, or is just too stubborn to admit that he spoke out of his ass without knowing what the hell he is talking about, especially about a subject about which he seems to know very little. For a scientist, you'd think he'd be persuaded by the ample evidence presented to justify philosophy, so whatever the merits of the arguments, his attitude in this case seems entirely unscientific.

It would be easy to create a straw man and dismiss philosophers as illiterate when it comes to science, and depending on the branch of philosophical inquiry, that charge could stick in some cases, but what happens when someone like Massimo Pigliucci, who's both a philosopher and a scientist, enters the discussion? Some major ass kicking!

But if you're not persuaded by the evidence or the logic of the arguments, perhaps a little art will persuade you that philosophy and science are best thought of as cooperative friends, not competitive foes, so in that spirit I present this awesome tattoo I came across recently, which celebrates all of these disciplines as different approaches to enrich our mental life:

I'm wondering whether I ought to brand that ink on my body... thoughts?

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Making Sense of Spelling

If you're a bibliophile and a lover of the beauty and sensuousness of the spoken and written word (like Stephen Fry in this fantastic animated essay), then you probably already know about the  sophistication, the richness, and the history (animated, no less) of the English language.

But if don't have a strong background on grammar and etymology, or if you're learning our language for the first time, you may sometimes find it frustrating, confusing and arbitrary. But let's put that notion to rest. If you can understand the distinction between syntax, semantics and the evolving history of a language, a whole new and fascinating world full of connections and ways of making sense of previously apparent random things starts to emerge. Here's a little taste involving the word "one":

Just beautiful :)

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5 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know about People

If you haven't already, at some point in your life you will most likely have to deliver some sort of presentation to an audience. And if you want it to go well, you need to make sure you know your material inside and out. But while mere knowledge and understanding of the material are necessary conditions for a successful presentation, they are not sufficient.

Remember that you are speaking to an audience, and for your presentation to make an impact on them, you have to understand some things about how their minds work, and find that sweet spot between saying the things you want to say and how those things will resonate with them, so here are 5 things to keep in mind:

If it's nervousness that gets you, just picture your audience naked... and if you're a guy, and your audience consists of really hot women, you might want to make sure there's a podium in front of you, just in case :p

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Ecce Homo Art "Restorator" Alpha Dog

A few weeks ago we posted a video on our Google+ page about a Spanish lady who attempted to "restore" an ecce homo fresco of Jesus. The New York Times also reported on it.

Well, what started out as the presumed Son of God turned in her capable hands into the retarded offspring of Chewbacca, so you'd think she would be hiding in shame... oh, but you underestimate this lady's cojones. Stephen Colbert reports, and congratulates:

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Apparently Mitt Romney Can't Stand Half of All Americans, and Most of Them Are Conservatives and the Elderly...

You may have heard a few days ago that Mother Jones released a devastating series of videos showcasing Mitt Romney talking to a bunch of rich buddies and donors, and saying what he REALLY thinks about poor people when he doesn't know there's a camera rolling. Many are calling this the death of his campaign, but given that the Republican constituency is apparently made up of masochists who actively and consistently vote against their own interests, I wouldn't sing victory just yet.

Gotta love these times when corrupt and unethical bastards can get caught on camera for all the world to see. Still, once you investigate who makes up that 47% of Americans Romney disparages, you realize that apparently Romney thinks soldiers, children, the elderly and veterans are a bunch of free-loaders. How "American" of him... But as Jon Stewart shows, if Romney doesn't care about the vote of these "welfare queens," he wouldn't even be able to get his own father's vote...

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But one of the most interesting things is how these "freeloaders" are distributed geographically, and the cognitive dissonance this is going to create for conservative Romney fans:

But all is not lost. Luckily for Romney, Stephen Colbert comes to his support:

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A Russian fuck-pit... figures...

Of course, the folks at Faux News are quick to jump into damage control mode and to work on their special pleading distractions, but Jon Stewart is going to hold their feet to the consistency fire:

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But not only is Romney's own father one of these welfare queens Romney disparages, many of his richest and best buddies have hugely benefited from government tax cuts, tax exemptions and government subsidies:

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How self-deluded (or racist) do you have to be to still want to vote for Romney instead of Obama?

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We May Need a Break, But You Can Still Follow Us

As you probably know already, I consider this blog as purely a project of love and civic duty. It's my way of contributing a little bit to the world by sharing interesting, and hopefully thought-provoking, things I come across. I make no money from it, since I have chosen not to include ads or to solicit donations.

Unfortunately (for our present purposes), I have a grueling semester ahead of me, with around 200 students for whom I am responsible. I teach at a community college (two, actually), so there are no T.A.'s on whom I could delegate any grading, which means all of it has to be done by me. As such, the blog entries may become more sparse over the next couple of months, but hopefully we'll return to a more consistent schedule once the semester is over.

In the meantime, and if you can't go without your fix of interesting stuff, you can always follow us on all sorts of social networks where I share all sorts of cool articles and links:

• Facebook
• Google+
• Twitter

And if you want to be notified when new blog entries are posted, you can also find us on:

• Google Reader
• Look for us on your Flipboard app
• Your preferred RSS feed reader
• Or get daily email (never more than one email per day)

See you soon!

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Steven Pinker on Taboos, Political Correctness and Dissent

It's Steven Pinker... he's got things to say, and you already know that whether you agree with his views or not, he's always interesting to listen to, and he always manages to stimulate you to think about those interesting things yourself, so why not have a listen to a few things he has to say?

And if you want a longer (and hilarious) treatment of these and other related questions, don't forget you can find his lecture on cursing, veiled threats and other fascinating ways in which our use of language sometimes betrays certain aspects of how our minds work, in this fascinating lecture.

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60 Seconds Adventures in Economics - The Invisible Hand

If you thought the Open University's 60 Second Adventures in Thought were over, think again! Yes, they may be done with paradoxes and strange thought puzzles (for now), but there's plenty of other fascinating things to explore, and they have decided to devote some attention to the field of economics.

Of course, no introduction to economics would be complete without Adam Smith's concept of the "invisible hand," that self-directed mechanism through which markets regulate themselves for the collective benefit of both consumers and producers.

Oddly enough, at least here in America, many of those people who deny the self-directed and amoral process of evolution through natural selection are perfectly comfortable with the equally blind and amoral self-directed market, and some, such as objectivists, actually argue that a completely free, unregulated market is the ultimate expression of a moral society.  Oh yeah, we've got it all...

And if you need a refresher on modern economics, you might want to check out the Hayek vs. Keynes rap.

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How to (and Why) Prove a Mathematical Theory

When it comes to the world of our sensory experience, the idea of "proof" is somewhat misplaced, since there is always the possibility of new evidence contradicting something we previously had every good reason to believe, not to mention the fact it could all be a dream or a simulation in The Matrix!

But in the world of abstract ideas, especially numbers, the kind of reasoning used there does lend itself to proofs because you get to specify exactly what you mean by a certain concept, and then all you have to do is follow a few rules of inference to deduce the logical consequences of your idea.

And we owe a debt of gratitude for the whole idea of theory and proof to the ancient Greeks, people like Pythagoras, Plato and Archimedes. But today we get to learn a little bit about the man who is widely considered the father of geometry, a title appropriate to the scope and importance of his work: he formalized the rules of geometry that mathematicians have relied upon for over two thousand years. That man was Euclid.

QED

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Release the Clinton!

First it was the economy, stupid. But apparently not only did trickle-down Republicans not get it, they regressed and went backwards, so it's time for President Bill Clinton to come back and school everyone in what can only be described as a masterful rhetorical and substantive performance.

And because Republicans don't seem to get the economy stuff, Clinton identifies the source of their confusion: it's arithmetic, stupid! :)

Anyway, here's something that has been sorely missing from the Romney/Ryan campaign: honesty, education, wit, charisma, and an avalanche of specifics that no amount of empty soundbites can compete against.

Take them to school!

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Some Fun Analysis of the DNC

As you may have been able to tell a long time ago already, I have some major problems with Republicans, but to be fair, I also have some major problems with Democrats: mainly the fact that they are big pushovers who don't have the balls to stand up to greedy conservatives and do the right thing for the people they represent.

And I hope this is something that's going to stay, but at least in campaign mode they are finally standing up to the avalanche of conservative propaganda and wild accusations, and kicking some major rhetorical ass!

First let's start with the wonder twins:

And here's where things get more pugilistic and fun:

Ouch!

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Michelle Obama's Speech at the DNC

There are some things about President Obama's first term that we may find infuriating and disappointing, even though his record, though vilified by the opposition, actually shows some amazing improvements that aren't sufficiently touted in the mainstream media. So yeah, there are some disappointments, especially given the promise and the hope that he awoke in us when he first decided to run . That idealism, unfortunately, was on a head-on collision course with the harsh reality of "bipartisan cooperation" (a word that, thanks to Republicans' obsession with not letting a half black man have a second term in the White House, has become an oxymoron) and the reality of having to make difficult ethical, political, strategic and practical choices under pressure from multiple sides.

But as First Lady Michelle Obama reminds us in the following incredible speech, "being president doesn't change who you are, it reveals who you are." And although there are multiple areas for improvement, over the past few years Barack Obama has demonstrated his character, his authenticity, his willingness to work with others (even to the point of frustration for most of us), his compassion for the downtrodden, his undying belief that we should extend opportunities to those who need them, his sympathy for those whose medical bills or college loans would otherwise prevent them from fulfilling their dreams, etc.

What are the odds that for 2016, Barack Obama may become the very first First... what would you call it, First Gentleman? First man? First Sir? First male First Lady? Anyway, look out Hilary! :p

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Abusive Obsessive-Compulsive Has to Punch Wife Exactly 20 Times

You're probably already aware that having a mental disorder is a nightmare in its own right, but have you ever wondered what it would be like to have multiple mental disorders at once? The folks at The Onion have:

In that case, if she's not making mistakes in sets of 20 all at once, the beatings are kind of her fault, right? :)

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Secrets of Our Living Planet - The Emerald Band

I may not be able to blog this week, since I'm going to be spending some quality time with my family, so I'm leaving you dear readers with a fascinating documentary.

We've seen in multiple cases before the intricacies of various animals. What's different about today's documentary is that it showcases the interesting and intricate relationships between various organisms to explain why there is so much biological diversity in the Earth's rain forests, why so many of these organisms are so weird, and why these relationships and processes matter.

Part of the key has to do with the runaway result of an evolutionary arms races of specialization and ingenious manipulation between plants and pests, predators and prey, parasites and hosts. And underneath it all is the process of natural selection, that blind watchmaker that can produce incredible adaptations out of physical, chemical and biological necessity.

See you next week!

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Dare Mighty Things - Curiosity on Mars

I don't know about you, but I'm still ecstatic about the Curiosity success, and things just keep getting better and better...

Some of the obvious important and concrete goals of NASA have to do with scientific research, discovery, application and engineering, but although it cannot be so easily quantified, one could easily argue that whether by design or chance, it is one of the greatest vehicles we have to increase the fecundity of scientific inspiration: NASA's successes inspire new generations of young people to dream big and to work to make those dreams come true, especially in an age when scientific literacy is more needed than ever to solve our technological, social and environmental challenges.

So here is a little bit of inspiration:

And also, thanks to my good friend Harris, I get to share some high-definition footage of Curiosity landing on Mars, captured by Curiosity itself:

And this one is the same thing, but it centers on the heat shield, so it's a lot more stable:

Go create something great :)

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Todd Akin, Republicans and "Legitimate Rape"

As you may be aware, Congressman Todd Akin has been receiving fire from all directions for his stupid, right-wing ideological, scientifically illiterate and insensitive remarks about how women who are victims of "legitimate rape" have natural physiological mechanisms to prevent pregnancies, implying that women who do get pregnant after being raped were not really raped. Everyone's been jumping on the response bandwagon, and so I can do no better than to summarize what's going on.

First we have the folks from Mr. Deity promoting the "mourning-after pill," for those ladies who may have "enjoyed their forced sexual encounter just a little too much":

And while Republicans are acting all offended by Akin's remarks, one should not forget that Akin's real sin is to make public what these heartless jerks really believe and have actually made their official party platform (and I'm talking even prominent Republicans like Paul Ryan and Mike Huckabee, not just fringe conservative outcasts).

Thankfully, the good folks at The Young Turks don't let these conservatives get away with these Republican bullshit public relations spins:

And if the whole idea that female bodies can prevent pregnancy due to forcible copulation does sound familiar to you, that's probably something you learned in this previous episode about sperm, but it wasn't about women... it was about ducks!

Here's a little more on that, plus some actual footage of the weird duck corkscrew penis...

And let's not lose focus about why conservatives are calling out for Akin's withdrawal from the race. It's not about their concern for women's health and reproductive rights, as if... it's about what will happen to the GOP come election time...

I swear... you cannot make this stuff up... If you care about women and their rights at all, make your voice heard in the elections, and vote these jerks out of office...

But of course, some of the best responses to this story come to us courtesy of The Onion.

First, we have the good news headline: Woman relieved to learn her rape was illegitimate.  The victim of a brutal sexual assault last month, Martha Byars confessed that “Being violently coerced into having sex was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, so I take comfort in knowing it wasn’t actually rape. Thank God for that,” she added. “I’m so relieved to know that my child’s father, the man who muffled my screams as he forcefully penetrated me over and over and left me hemorrhaging to death on the street, is not a rapist.” Hallelujah!

Then, in its story "I Misspoke—What I Meant To Say Is 'I Am Dumb As Dog Shit And I Am A Terrible Human Being'," we learn that this may have all been a misunderstanding based on a poor choice of words by Akin. What he really meant to say is "I am a worthless, moronic sack of shit and an utterly irredeemable human being who needs to shut up and go away forever. I am an evil, fucked-up man who should never have been elected to the United States Congress, and anyone who would vote for me is probably a pretty big fucking dumbshit, too. I am not a competent or respectable politician; I am, essentially, a subhuman monster of a prick, a prick as profoundly insensitive as he is monumentally unintelligent in every respect; somebody should apply dozens of layers of duct tape to my mouth every morning so that words are not able to exit my large, dumb, misogynist, imbecilic mouth at any point; I make the planet worse; I don’t know jack shit about any of the topics I spoke about in that interview, or about any topics at all, really; I should apologize every day to the women of the world, but doing so would most likely be an exercise in futility given my rock-bottom intellect and my complete and utter lack of human decency; I am, in no uncertain terms, not even worth the time it took you to read this."

And of course, while Akin may be an utter dumbshit, that in no way reflects GOP views, since Republicans Condemn Akin's Comments as Blemish on Party's Otherwise Spotless Women's Rights Record...

But even after all this, Akin has not withdrawn from the race, and in fact he's just barely behind his opponent, so before you faint in disbelief, you should be aware that Poll Reveals You Live In Country Where Mentally Ill Man Still Has Good Chance Of Being Senator.

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