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- Nancy on Thomas Gainsborough’s Daughters Hold Hands. One Reaches for a Butterfly. The Other, Holding a Feather, Looks On. There is an Element of Impulse and Restraint in the Painting That Echoes Michelangelo’s Moses
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- concerned christian on No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
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Top Posts
- How Many People Could the Ancient Colosseum in Rome Hold?
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Woman in an American Field Hospital in Czechoslavakia, May 1945
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Children Lined up with Heads Shaved in a Croatian Concentration Camp
- Near Death Experience (NDE) Watch: Waiting for Dr. Sam Parnia
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Anne Frank and Margo Frank in a Purim Holiday Photo with Other Jewish Children, February, 1934, and an Image from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Where Anne and Margo Died
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Children Experimented upon at Auschwitz
- Evolution v. Creation Metaphor Watch: Charles Darwin's Description of Life as a "Great Tree"
- Hair Hacking: In 1965, Mitt Romney Hazed A Person Presumed To Be Gay By Holding Him Down And Cutting His Hair
- In 1935, Were Cary Grant and Randolf Scott Sex Partners? No, But These Images Look Rather Camp
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Studio Portrait of a Jewish Family Living in Poland Before the Holocaust
- No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- 55%: The Number of Americans Who Say That a Guardian Angel Has Protected Them from Harm (Source: USA Today)
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Recent Posts
- Zygmunt Bauman On What Made The Holocaust Possible (And Whether Something Like It Could Happen Again)
- This is Life Affirming
- Ask an Interesting Question, Get an Interesting Answer. Zygmunt Bauman’s Question: Who or What is Responsible for Making the Modern World Go Along As It Is?
- Ask an Interesting Question, Get an Interesting Answer. Michio Kaku’s Question: What Happens to Our Analysis When We Recall That We’re Scarcely Different from Our Paleolithic Ancestors of 100,000 Years Ago?
- No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
Recent Haiku Tweets
- Southern California. Morning air smells of chlorine. In middle of night, a cat with muddy paws passed over the hood of my car. 2 weeks ago
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- Syriza Watch: In Greece, The Center Does Not Hold, And That Means This Bell Is For You wp.me/pgUXj-65v via @wordpressdotcom 2 weeks ago
- Hair Hacking: In 1965, Mitt Romney Hazed A Person Presumed To Be Gay By Holding Him Down And Cu… wp.me/pgUXj-64O via @wordpressdotcom 2 weeks ago
- Oak tree, 250 years old. Veranda I stand on, built in the 1960s. Dinosaurs opened eyes on same blue sky I do. Days left. Maybe decades. 3 weeks ago
Monthly Archives: November 2011
Cassandra 2012
___ I’m feeling increasingly bleak about the human future going into 2012. I say this without the least pleasure because I have two small children (one is five, the other is eight). I don’t want anything I point to here … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 2012, apocalypse now, Cassandra, H1N5, Iran, Israel, pessimism, predictions, The Book of Revelation, the end, The Plague
1 Comment
Let Freedom Sing: Feminism Under Fire in Israel
The intellectual and cultural rot of religious fundamentalism continues its 21st century spread. This is in Haaretz today: Secular and religious cabinet members engaged in a heated discussion over the issue of women’s rights in Israel on Sunday, forcing Prime … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged equality, feminism, freedom, fundamentalism, gay rights, Israel, Judaism, Martin Luther King, orthodoxy, women's rights
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Life Perspective
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Tagged aging, carpe diem, existentialism, life, music, smallness, writing
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Shopping Rage: Black Friday’s Competitive Shopping Road Rage
From the Los Angeles Times today comes this disturbing little item worthy of a scene from Dante’s Inferno: In Porter Ranch, a woman pepper sprayed customers at a Wal-Mart in what authorities say was a deliberate attempt to get more “door … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, black friday, Charles Darwin, competition, consumerism, evolution, shopping, survival of the fittest, wal-mart
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On Evolution, Women Scientists Weigh In
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Tagged atheism, atheist, biology, Charles Darwin, creation, creationism, evolution, geology, God, nerds, science
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The Old In and Outputs: Neuroscientist Tom Chivers Doesn’t Think We Have Free Will. Is He Right?
A stunning tidbit from an interview, in The Telegraph, with neuroscientist Tom Chivers: [I]f we are part of the universe, and obey its laws, it’s hard to see where free will comes into it. What we think of as freedom, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, epiphenomena, epiphenomenon, free will, God, materialism, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology
8 Comments
Polyamory: Don’t Try This at Home?
JT Eberhard tried out the polyamory scene and lived to tell about it. The husband of the woman Eberhard slept with, for example, didn’t decide to change his mind about his consent, get jealous hearing his wife screwing another man … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged evolution, life, love, men, polyamory, polygamy, relationships, sex, sexual selection, women
2 Comments
Iran vs. Israel in 2012: Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0?
The Jerusalem Post today quotes Wim Kortenoeven expressing concern over Israel’s ongoing existence should Iran acquire nuclear weapons. Kortenoeven, described by the Post as “a leading expert on the Middle East” and an official of Holland’s Party of Freedom, is … Continue reading
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Tagged cuban missile crisis, curtis lemay, Iran, Islam, Israel, jfk, Judaism, World War II
4 Comments
Links Worth Exploring Today
David Carr’s reporting on Twitter and the Tribune Company. A Catholic priest wants to bar humanists from being chaplains in the U.S. military. An Intelligence Squared debate on the health of mainstream media outlets (such as the New York Times). The Vice website looks interesting. Here’s the site itself, and here’s the Wikipedia article … Continue reading
Inflate the Debt Away: Why Are Italian Interest Rates Climbing?
Italian interest rates are climbing because it’s feared that, should Greece leave the euro, Italy might follow suit, making the value of Italian bonds held by investors zero. That’s right, zero. Wolfgang Munchau at Spiegel Online explains: If Greece leaves … Continue reading
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Tagged debt, debt crisis, europe, Greece, inflation, Italy, spain
4 Comments
American Cop Pepper Sprays Nonviolent Occupy UC Davis Protesters
____ Since when is it okay for an American police officer in full riot gear to step up to nonviolent, hunkered down, university students and use pepper spray on them as if they were insects in need of insecticide?
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Tagged America, decency, human rights, nonviolence, occupy uc davis, occupy wall street, police, protest, uc davis
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Paul Krugman’s Advice to Italy and Spain: Inflate and Stimulate
Paul Krugman continues to think that what’s going on in Greece, Italy, and Spain says nothing—nothing!—about the political culture surrounding welfare statism in Europe and everything about the way the euro ties the hands of those making monetary policy: Japan is much more deeply … Continue reading
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Tagged 2012, economics, economy, europe, Great Depression 2.0, Greece, Italy, Paul Krugman, predictions, spain
2 Comments
Incivility Watch: Ted the Atheist Debates a Beach Preacher I’ll Call “The Proclaimer”
In the below video, I love Ted the Atheist’s rational take-down of The Proclaimer. And Ted the Atheist was right to decline a handshake with The Proclaimer. When you hunker down, as The Proclaimer did, and refuse to offer reasons for what you believe, that’s … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, dialogue, fundamentalism, Jesus, philosophy, religion
3 Comments
On Earth as It Is on Mars: Curiosity Mars Rover is Heading for the Grand Canyon of Mars, and May Provide Strong Evidence Against Young Earth Creationism
Are you curious about Curiosity, NASA’s new Mars rover, scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., this month? Here’s part of a report in the Los Angeles Times about it: Curiosity will take 8.5 months to travel the 354 million … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, astronomy, biology, geology, God, Jesus, Mars, science, young earth creationism
3 Comments
Carl Sagan Day: Three Historians Reflect on Carl Sagan’s Life
For “Carl Sagan Day” (which is today), this extended reflection on Carl Sagan’s life seems fitting to post.
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Tagged astronomy, atheism, carl sagan, carl sagan day, history of science, humanism, Michael Shermer, science, skepticism
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Today is Carl Sagan Day!
Bet you didn’t know that. But it’s true. Here’s the Center for Inquiry promoting November 12, 2011 as “Carl Sagan Day”: An all-day event at Broward College near Ft. Lauderdale, FL in celebration of the life and teachings of Carl … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, agnosticism, the Enlightenment, science, philosophy, free thought, carl sagan, nuclear weapons, free inquiry, center for inquiry
1 Comment
A Ten-Year-Old Boy is Raped; Penn Students Show Outrage at Joe Paterno’s Firing
To focus the mind, let’s point to just one of the things Joe Paterno did (or, rather, failed to do) as coach at Penn State. In 2002, one of his coaches sodomized a ten-year-old boy in a university locker room shower. Assistant … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Catholic Church, child sexual abuse, critical thinking, evil, football, irrationality, joe paterno, pedophilia, reason
6 Comments