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- 55%: The Number of Americans Who Say That a Guardian Angel Has Protected Them from Harm (Source: USA Today)
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Woman in an American Field Hospital in Czechoslavakia, May 1945
- How Many People Could the Ancient Colosseum in Rome Hold?
- 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
- Near Death Experience (NDE) Watch: Waiting for Dr. Sam Parnia
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Children Lined up with Heads Shaved in a Croatian Concentration Camp
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Stacked Corpses
- Negative Capability Defined: Walking in Mysteries---and the Shoes of Others---with Keats, Shakespeare, Whitman---and Barack Obama!
- In Evolution We Trust?: England Puts Charles Darwin on the Back of Its Ten Pound Bank Note
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Image from the Concentration Camp at Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria, 1945
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Children Experimented upon at Auschwitz
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Recent Posts
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 The Plague, pessimism, Israel, The Book of Revelation, Iran, the end, 2012, apocalypse now, predictions, Cassandra, H1N5
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
Posted in Uncategorized
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged cuban missile crisis, curtis lemay, Iran, Islam, Israel, jfk, Judaism, World War II
2 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
Posted in Uncategorized
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?
Posted in Uncategorized
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
Posted in Uncategorized
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
Posted in Uncategorized
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.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, science, skepticism, humanism, Michael Shermer, astronomy, carl sagan, carl sagan day, history of science
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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 agnosticism, atheism, carl sagan, center for inquiry, free inquiry, free thought, nuclear weapons, philosophy, science, the Enlightenment
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
