Midwest Freethought Conference

One of the organizers sent me an email about it:

I’d like to ask you to plug or mention our conference on your blog. The Midwest Freethought Conference is coming up (all too quickly) on August 3-5 in Omaha, NE. We have a GREAT lineup of speakers, and, due to the OmahaCoR’s billboard invitation to non-believers (the first atheistic billboard in Nebraska), a huge amount of publicity. The speakers are, in (more or less) order of appearance: Brian Dunning, Adam Brown, Dave Muscato, Amanda Knief, PZ Myers, Amanda Brown, Hemant Mehta, Jerry deWitt, Sarah Morehead, AJ Johnson, Dan Barker, and Fred Edwords. [Read more…]

Mitt Romney’s magical IRA

The saga over Mitt Romney’s finances keeps getting more complex. The latest involves his Individual Retirement Account.

The IRA was introduced as a means to encourage people to save for their retirement by putting away some money each year that was tax-deductible (up to a certain income level) and where the accrued interest was tax-exempt. The idea was that when you started withdrawing the money in your retirement, your tax rate would be lower because you were now in a lower income bracket. For most people, it is their IRA, coupled with the Social Security income, that they depend upon in their later years. [Read more…]

The world as seen by frightened people

I came across a website called The Thinking Housewife where the host Laura Wood and her friends (?) give advice to people who write in. A recent question was from Jennifer about what to do with new neighbors in their apartment complex who are lesbians and would like their child to play with Jennifer’s. Jennifer, a Catholic, wants to know the best way to protect her children’s innocence from being contaminated by hanging around with such undesirables. [Read more…]

Another internet scam

A couple of days go, I received the following email from a college friend of mine who lives in Sri Lanka. It read:

I Hope you get this on time ?
Am sorry I didn’t inform you about my trip to Spain for a Program, I’m presently in Spain and I’m having some difficulties here because i was robbed on my way to the hotel and the thieves made away with all my cash, cell, passport and other document, presently i have limited access to internet, I will like you to assist me with a loan of ($4,100) to sort-out my hotel bills and to get myself back home,or any amount you can lend so i can make arrangements and return back. I have spoken to the embassy here but they are not responding to the matter effectively, I will appreciate whatever you can afford to assist me with, I’ll Refund the money back to you as soon as I return, let me know if you can be of any help. I don’t have a phone where I can be reached. Please let me know immediately.

Regard

(Signed with my friend’s name)

[Read more…]

Curiouser and curiouser: The strange case of Mitt Romney’s finances

Every presidential election something occurs that dominates the news over an extended period that has nothing to do with any substantive issue that affects any of us directly but consumes so much media attention that people seem to talk of little else. This year that issue is turning out to be Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital and his objection to releasing his tax returns except for 2010, and for 2011 when they are completed. (It beats me why someone who must be paying an army of accountants to do his returns still needs an extension to file.) [Read more…]

E. O. Wilson’s views on science and religion

When the eminent biologist E. O. Wilson visited our university in 2009 to give a lecture, a small group of people was invited to meet with him privately for a discussion. Some of the people in the group tried to ask him his views on science and religion but he responded with some vague noncommittal generalities. It was clear to me that he did not want to get into it. Wilson’s deep passion has been to try and get as many people as possible to realize the danger that the Earth is in and the need to take steps to protect it. He had just published The Future of Life (2008) and I felt that he avoided this touchy issue to avoid alienating potential religious allies in his environmental cause. [Read more…]

Romney’s personality problem

Much has been written about Mitt Romney being booed by the audience when he spoke to them at their annual convention about repealing ‘Obamacare’. It was immediately obvious to me from his use of this label instead of the correct Affordable Care Act that he was deliberately provoking them to get this reaction. He has likely written off the black vote and now uses them as a prop to court white voters who see the black community as representing those who favor more government involvement in society. [Read more…]