I have written before (here and here) about my mystification with people who blindly depend upon and follow their GPS instructions even in situations where common sense would tell them to double check or have a plan B. This can lead them badly astray and even end in tragedies. [Read more…]
One of the benefits of the Todd Akin fiasco is that it has stripped away the mask of reasonable affability that Mike Huckabee has managed to wear for so long and revealed him for what he truly is, an extreme religious dogmatist who values being anti-gay and anti-abortion above all else. [Read more…]
Here’s an oldie but goodie for those who haven’t heard it before, a great rant from Marcus Brigstocke about the three Abrahamic faiths. I particularly like the bit that begins at the 6:00 mark, where he nails the problem with trying to distinguish between ‘good’ religion (that we should seek to retain) and ‘bad’ religion (that we should try and eliminate). [Read more…]
All the cooks out there know that there comes a time when recipes require you to separate the egg yolks from the whites. I remember when I was a little boy seeing people do that by breaking the shell roughly in two and pouring the egg into one of the halves. The yolk would get caught while the white would overflow the shell and pour into the bowl beneath. You would then pour the remainder into the now empty other half of the egg shell, with more white dripping down. By doing this several times, you get get a pretty good separation, though it required some skill to not shatter the shell while breaking it and not break the yolk on the jagged edges. [Read more…]
One of the features of evolution is that once we have passed the age when we can have and raise children to a point where they can survive on their own and go on to have children, we have played our part in the process and have become redundant, evolutionarily speaking. Although our own bodies start to decay, this has no biological effect on our children. [Read more…]
While Mitt Romney’s tax returns have faded from the news for the moment, you can be sure that they will re-emerge as an issue. The Obama campaign had been hitting Romney hard on taxes with ads such as this one. [Read more…]
Todd Akin’s bizarre theory of rape and pregnancy has been getting brutal reviews. Perhaps the most succinct is that of Dr. Michael Greene, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School, who said, “There are no words for this — it is just nuts.” [Read more…]
It is never a good sign when the name of my country of origin Sri Lanka appears in news headlines in the western media. It usually signifies a major catastrophe (like the tsunami) or a horrific massacre (like during the decades long civil war and insurgency) or somebody doing something really stupid, like Buddhist monks demanding (and succeeding) that the government change the country’s time zone (scroll down) because the country’s ‘spiritual plane’ was out of alignment. (What were the symptoms, I wonder? Headaches? Nausea?) [Read more…]
Glenn Greenwald weighs in on the extensive back and forth that is taking place about the Julian Assange case, looking at the legal and political aspects of the case that have been presented, along with ways on how this could be resolved with both Assange and his accusers being treated fairly and justice served. He also examines the deep hostility of major elements of the media towards Assange and Wikileaks which has extended to those who have been concerned about the attacks on Wikileaks. [Read more…]