This video shows what looks like a small bus plowing at high speed into the back of a line of stationary cars waiting at a highway off-ramp. Amazingly, there are said to be no serious injuries, which is what makes the accident watchable, as otherwise it would be too tragic for words. [Read more…]
I wrote recently about Jonathan Krohn, the former conservative child star, who grew up. He has written quite a funny piece for Salon explaining what happened and the reactions to news of his drift away from conservatism. He echoes what I said, “So this is what this story boils down to: A 17-year-old has different opinions than he did at 13. People may be disappointed by how underwhelming that is, but it’s how the world works.” [Read more…]
Being an atheist in America is, at least for now, to be a member of an unpopular minority. While atheism and conservatism are perfectly compatible philosophies, the combination can be poison for those who seek to be in good standing with the Republican party which currently is under the tight control of religious fanatics. An atheist Republican is an even greater endangered species than a gay Republican or Muslim Republican. [Read more…]
We know that Mary, the mother of Jesus, likes to show up in unlikely places such as toast, water stains, and the like. But it is not always a clear-cut identification, especially since we have no idea what Mary, or even Jesus for that matter, even looked like. So what should you do if you think Mary has appeared on some item of yours to make sure that it is the real deal before you start worshipping it, telling your friends about it, or flogging it on eBay? [Read more…]
As we should all be aware of by now, there is a concerted effort to destroy Social Security by changing its investments away from US Treasury bonds and divert that money into the stock market. This has not been an easy sell because who would you like to take care of your retirement: an efficient, safe, and secure government agency or the looters in the financial sector who think nothing of gambling with your money while pocketing huge salaries and bonuses and walking away with golden parachutes when they get caught? [Read more…]
That seems to be the burning question on the minds of some rich people
Over the weekend, Mitt Romney held a fundraiser in the Hamptons for a whole bunch of rich folks and a reporter started chatting with those waiting to get in. [Read more…]
The rich are different from you and me, as F. Scott Fitzgerald famously observed. For one thing, they grow up learning to be secretive about how they make their money and how much they make.
The very rich also have many devices for hiding their wealth and avoiding paying taxes that are unavailable to ordinary people. Most of the time, these are kept secret from the rest of us so we have little idea of what is going on. The few times the veil of secrecy is lifted is when they are taken to court by people who were once close to them and know the secrets but have had a falling out, such as in business disputes or messy divorces. [Read more…]
And, as you can see, it’s a good thing too.
As another unlamented former ad campaign used to say, we’ve come a long way, baby.
On June 8, I blogged about news reports that said that under pressure from South Korean creationists, their ministry of education had eliminated evolution from their science textbooks. This was, of course, rather bad since it suggested that creationists had established a beachhead in another country. I expressed surprise that a country that was surging in terms of science and technology was taking such a retrograde step. [Read more…]
I wrote recently about an article by Ed Yong about a new technique that could be of use in catching research papers where the authors have massaged their data to get positive results. Yong has now identified and interviewed the hitherto anonymous developer of this technique. He is social psychologist Uri Simonsohn of the University of Pennsylvania. [Read more…]