Archive for the ‘Eureka!’ Category
Fantasies of Unintended Consequences
Following the signing by President Obama of the new health-insurance bill, and trailing off the spectacle of "freedom"-loving teabagging bigots pelting elected representatives with various slurs and epithets in the name of do-it-my-way-or-else "democracy", we have the new spectacle of states' attorneys general rushing to join a federal suit against the legislation. This, of course, [...]
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Books of a Feather
The game: correctly match entries from columns "A", "B", and "C". A B C c. 1000 BCE Old Testament, by numerous The infallible word of god, every word to be interpreted literally c 800 BCE Odyssey, by Homer An epic, heroic fantasy, an allegory of life's tribulations c. 450 BCE Physics, by Aristotle Everything that was known about how the [...]
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Einstein & Cell Phones
From Bob Park's "What's New", a pedantic opportunity for me. First: cell phones & brain cancer (cue ominous music): BRAIN CANCER: OF COURSE CELL PHONES ARE DANGEROUS! Cell phones may lead to neural atrophy as mindless chatter is substituted for coherent information, but they don't cause brain cancer. This week, however, a doctoral thesis at [...]
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Friday Soirée IV: Eureka!
With tonight's program we're out for some thrilling exoticism and discovery — in an intimate setting: harpsichord music by one of my favorite Baroque guys and stimulating conversation with a great scientist and thinker. Soler: Sonata in F-Sharp Major Padre Antonio Soler (1729–1783) was a Catalan composer who studied music from the time he was [...]
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Achieving Health-Care Competition
The other day I happened to have lunch near one of my lunchtime friends, which also meant being in close proximity to her arch-conservative husband. Naturally, as arch-conservatives are wont to do, he immediately wanted to talk about constitutional rights and what's wrong with liberal government. It's almost as predictable as those "Would you like [...]
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Domestic Right-Wing Terrorism Threat
In case you missed it despite the sounds of patriot hearts a-flutter and conservative jaws a-jawin, we've recently learned (via The Raw Story; they have a link to the report) that the Department of Homeland Security has released a report saying that right-wing extremist groups are the "most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United [...]
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Sky Puppies as Skyfood
We should totally start calling birds "Sky puppies." [Joe, "PETA: We Should Call Fish 'Sea Kittens'", Joe.My.God, 8 January 2009.] Between the quotation and the name of Joe's posting, you've pretty much got the story, such as it is. Mostly I just liked the idea of calling birds "sky puppies". Every now and then, usually [...]
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Solvency Through Good Health
Two big birds, one big stone. Here is my plan to solve the current economic crisis and crisis in health care costs. It's called "The Economic Bailout through Healthy Living Plan of 2008" (aka "Good Health Plan"). Beginning, say, on 4 November, all health care in America is free to everyone; costs are guaranteed by [...]
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No-Sex Sex-Ed
I just read this sentence* and the little light bulb lit up. In a letter sent to the student body and faculty, and obtained by WIS News 10 Columbia, Irmo High School Principal Eddie Walker wrote, "The formation of this club conflicts with my professional beliefs in that we do not have other clubs at [...]
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Fast-Tack Evolution
The story, as it's told online in National Geographic News,* goes like this. n 1971, scientists transplanted five adult pairs of [Italian wall lizards] from their original island home in Pod Kopiste to the tiny neighboring island of Pod Mrcaru, both in the south Adriatic Sea[, off the coast of Croatia]. Genetic testing on the [...]
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Shooting the Gordian Gun
Sometimes recently the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning the District of Columbia's hand-gun control laws. Swirling about this event were many arguments, many familiar arguments, about Constitutional Rights and whether the Second Amendment of said document guarantees the freedom to bear arms only in the context of a defensive militia, or in any circumstance whatsoever, [...]
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Earthrise
This remarkable image of the Earth rising over the lunar horizon is actually what it seems to be. It is a frame captured from an HDTV video taken on 7 November 2007 by the Japanese KAGUYA spacecraft, which is currently orbiting the Moon on a surveying mission. They tell us that the Earth is seen [...]
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No "O"
We were at a mall this weekend (in Columbia, MD, in fact), flowing around with the crowds and enjoying the flow, largely because we didn't go there with a list of necessary purchases, when I was stuck by a thought. "Look!" I told a bewildered Isaac. "There's no 'O' store. Can you imagine that! Shouldn't [...]
Share on FacebookPresident Search
I was reading this blog entry* about how the author thinks maybe we shouldn't elect another Clinton, because that would mean just too many years with the White House controlled either by a Bush or a Clinton. A good point. He also said this: Surely, in a country of more than 300 million people we [...]
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The SAT Mega-Think-Tank
I was reading today, and probably over tired while doing it (I had to get up at 7am to sing Schütz this morning — twice!), so my mind was wandering and I tend to have odd ideas when that happens. Anyway, I was reading blog articles about great, seemingly intractable problems like global warming, what [...]
Share on FacebookSeeing What One Sees
I was reading an article* in the New York Times in which the author is trying to describe the excitement among mathematicians over the apparent proof of the "Poincaré conjecture"# by Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman. There's human interst and mystery, too, since there's a million-dollar award on offer to the one whose proof sustains three [...]
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The Rapture as Self-Abuse
In a moment of weakness I was thinking a little about Pre-Millenial Dispensationalism — you know, that wacko, non-Biblical concept about the end-times, The Rapture, does Jesus some pre-Trib or post-Trib thing invented in the late 19th century, when it struck me that the whole thing is a fantastic sublimation of sexual desire, both by [...]
Share on FacebookNoah's Rainbow
During the most recent round of Republican gay-bashing — i.e., the national "debate" about the "gay marriage" amendment — I listened to the rehash of the usual vacuous and specious arguments about why gay people should not be allowed to participate in the institution of matrimony, and reflected on some responses. I suffer from l'éspirit [...]
Share on FacebookAtheistic Lions
According to Reuters:* KIEV (Reuters) – A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday. "The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the [...]
Share on FacebookPayback & Return on Investment
Avedon Carol with two pieces of insight,* in one post no less, right next to each other! I wonder what really happened when he [George W Bush] was in the TANG [Texas Air National Guard] that makes him hate the Guard so much. I mean, he sure seems to have it in for them. I [...]
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