Because the internet enables such things, and because we know — from histrionic opponents of gay marriage if from no other source — that whatever is permitted will eventually become ordinary, and then expected, and then legally mandatory, I went to rate beer dot com to find my favorite beer, Rogue Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout , and see how it compares with the other stouts of the known universe. I am pleased to see it is number six — pleased because it means there are evidently five very fine stouts in front of it, and pleased because six is very, very high on a long list
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Following Something Into the Dark
Eli’s final music meme post sent me browsing the youtubes for Sonic Youth videos, which are plentiful there. I love the way this song, “Nevermind,” builds in intensity without going too chaotic, at least by Sonic Youth standards: Also, if by some chance you’ve never seen footage of Kim Gordan applying cosmetics to members of Nirvana over French subtitles, this is your chance
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What Was It Anyway?
Oh, fellow Americans, you crack me up : When presented with the statement “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals,” just 45 percent of respondents indicated “true.” Compare this figure with the affirmative percentages in Japan (78), Europe (70), China (69) and South Korea (64).
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It Takes Practice
James Kwak is talking sense about Medicare: [P]roposals to solve the long-term budget deficit problem by cutting Medicare benefits are not solutions: they simply shift the problem from the government to individuals–which means they shift the problem from us as taxpayers to us as old people or us as family members of old people. If, for example, we increase the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67, the government saves money, but only because people who are 65 and 66 lose money–or, alternatively, all of us lose money because their employers now have to pay more for health care
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Tide Goes In, Tide Goes Out
In July I made the following new squidoo lenses relating to spirituality: Susan Seddon Boulet Goddess Paintings An artist whose art is still popular in the pagan scene, Susan Seddon Boulet will mostly be remembered for her goddess art. The mystical style of her paintings (mostly, but not exclusively, water color) strikes a core in many.
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New spiritual ‘lenses’ – pages on squidoo
Since my spoken Chinese has grown so rusty, I am glad to see the Japanese subtitles on this video, without which I would be unable to provide this summary: the good news is that Chinese commercial and financial interests may not immediately call in the massive debt the US owes to China. The bad news is that they envision a future in which people who once were known as Americans ride huge car-swallowing buses in their own city-sized servant quarters in China, presumably to and from long days in the plutonium mines. It’s possible my Japanese subtitle reading is a bit rusty too
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A Bright Future
By Michael J. Altman As I’ve mentioned before, I’m spending the summer working through that wonderful mid-Ph.D-program rite of passage: studying for qualifying exams. I’ve also just finished another rite of passage for students of American religious history.
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Meditations on a Classic, or, American Religious History in the 21st Century
I’m not trying to perpetuate a conspiracy theory, but it does seem clear that atheist and related “freethought” groups around the country are borrowing from each other’s playbooks. The local chapter of Atheists of Florida had a forum last night, titled “Meet the Patriots,” that was intended to promote their position that atheists are just as loyal as other Americans.
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Atheist Billboards Strikingly Similar in N.C. and Here
The group is intended to be a coalition of non-believers comprised of atheists , secular humanists, skeptics, agnostics, rationalists, etc, predicated on support and community. The group gathers monthly to discuss any pertinent issues …
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Reflections on Atheism, Theism, and Everything Else: NEPA …
Amateur (or should I say “immature) and defenders of certain Christian cults have a peculiar way of confronting the issues posted by atheists . Instead of proving atheism as an irrational position, they cater more on emotions and rely …
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Pinoy Atheist: My journey as an atheist in Manila.: Ignorance + …
Christians’ objections to defining atheism as simply the absence of belief in gods can extend to blatant misrepresentation of what should be a simple concept in order to divert attention from what atheism really is. …
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Myth: Atheists Cannot 'Lack Belief in God' After Learning About God
I am foregrounding, then, two major problems: the adequacy of antihumanism and atheism as objects, and the frame and limits of a historical shift internal to them. As Surkis notes, in a question that articulates my main interest and …
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Atheism and antihumanism as intellectual-historical objects « The …
In doing this, though, the accommodationists will have to ignore the second question above: the 40% of people who admit to biblical literalism don’t need atheists in order to reject evolution. Biblical literalists think that they have …
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Christian Lies Lead to Widespread Ignorance About Evolution, Science
It’s important for the atheist movement to get more mainstream coverage. More Americans need opportunities to see their atheist neighbors, to understand where they come from, and that they are not monsters. It can’t always be about …
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Bloc Raisonneur: Nightline's Atrociously Bad Report on Atheism
It’s common for conservative Christians to complain about atheist “insults,” but take a close look at what’s going on here: atheists are doing nothing more than quoting the original words of the original Pledge of Allegiance. …
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Chrissy Satterfield: Crime is OK when Atheists are the Victims
I’m pleased today to guest post another contribution from Benjamin Park , a graduate student at the University of Edinburgh who normally blogs at Juvenile Instructor. Ben’s post concerns material he had researched for his master’s thesis, about reactions/responses to Thomas Paine from The Age of Reason to Christopher Hitchens to the Tea Party Movement
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The Strange Career of Thomas Paine
So the first time I uploaded this video it made it to the front page of Digg.com and then was taken down from youtube for being ‘inappropriate’ (only after it became popular I might add.) A bunch of other people uploaded it to their youtube accounts, which I am very thankful for, and now I’m re-uploading it to mine. Still hope to get an animated version done sometime, but for now..
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Religion!
People of the future, this was quite possibly the day that we, the people of our time, gave up on dealing with climate change: Lindsey Graham, the only Republican even nominally favorable toward any kind of carbon pricing plan, has announced that he can’t support the Kerry-Lieberman bill because it doesn’t allow enough offshore drilling (!), and without Graham there’s pretty much zero chance of getting any further Republican support. So the odds of passing climate legislation, already slim, have now dropped to zero
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Dating the Calamity
Atheists are heavily concentrated in economically developed countries, particularly the social democracies of Europe. In underdeveloped countries, there are virtually no atheists . Atheism is thus a peculiarly modern phenomenon.
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Why atheism will replace religion? Why atheism grows faster than …
Meanwhile, an atheist who actually seems to use his intellect instead of merely worshipping it has done the heavy lifting of actually learning about the historical claims of Agora. Shorter take: it’s a film made to confirm religion …
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Catholic and Enjoying It!: Evangelical Atheism Makes you a …
The good news: this is quoted verbatim from an article describing landmark scientific findings in Australia: “But I bit my tongue, and sent it off to a recognised authority, palaeontologist Peter Murray in Darwin, to see what he thought. When he confirmed that it probably was Genyornis , it was pretty exciting,” Robert says. The bad news: as quoted, the passage gives the misleading impression that someone bit off part of his tongue and asked scientists to evaluate whether it was an extinct flightless bird
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Reading and Painting
These are two more photographs of the Yaquina Bay Bridge I took yesterday, these from the opposite (south) side of the crossing. I have a thing for dramatic bridges. This is not the first time and may well not be the last time I praise the Yaquina Bay Bridge, it being among the horrors big government visited upon the people of Oregon in the days of FDR.
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More from Newport
Yesterday’s conditions were chafe-free and all but perfect for the Newport Marathon , which I completed in 3:26:02 (7:51 min/mile pace; official ). While that time is a little slower than I might hope for — around 5 minutes too slow to qualify for Boston — it’s a result I report without any tinge bad feeling since it represents the best I was able to do that day. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure I would make it
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Newport Marathon 2010 – Idyllic & Weasel-Rich
I wish I could believe this weather dot com forecast for the next few days, projecting, as it does, clear skies and moderate temperatures over the sight where I’ll be running a marathon, or trying, or trying to seem to try. The tell in this forecast, the part that makes me doubt its veracity, is the rainy day – clear day – rainy day pattern of it. We are asked to believe that a relatively clear Saturday is going to spring from the loins of a rainy Friday, only to hatch a rainy Sunday
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There Will Be Chafing
These are recent photographs of the oil slicks that cover the birds that will soon be dead because BP, along with the rest of their industry, couldn’t be bothered to devote adequate resources to addressing what happens when their marvelous deep-water oil extraction technologies go catastrophically wrong. Shhh. BP doesn’t want this talked about
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No Regulatory Waiver for Death
Larry Sanger* co-founded Wikipedia with heady ideals in tow: Wikipedia.com was launched on January 15, 2001; its first article was on the letter U. Sanger soon realized there was nothing silly about the idea; he began to promote it with near-missionary zeal.
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Crowd-Sourced Encyclopedia Shows Signs of Crowd Authorship
People rightly despise economists because they say things like this : Professor Lerman, the American University economist, said some high school graduates would be better served by being taught how to behave and communicate in the workplace . Such skills are ranked among the most desired — even ahead of educational attainment — in many surveys of employers. In one 2008 survey of more than 2,000 businesses in Washington State, employers said entry-level workers appeared to be most deficient in being able to “solve problems and make decisions,” “resolve conflict and negotiate,” “cooperate with others” and “listen actively.” [emphases mine] How to behave and communicate in which “the workplace”?
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Birth School Work Death