Why jetlag is worse flying east

As someone who has family in Sri Lanka and New Zealand, this necessitates periodic long flights. Fortunately for me, I do not suffer as much from jet lag as some others do. I am usually back to normal within a day of arrival at my destination whereas I have friends who take up to a week. My personal hypothesis is that the after-effects of jet lag are caused largely by tiredness due to lack of sleep. As a result, on these long flights, I ignore all the in-flight entertainment and instead spend as much of my time as possible sleeping, only waking up to eat or read. Fortunately I can sleep seated.
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Trump and Clinton are not equally bad

Anyone who has been a long time reader of this blog knows that I have not been a huge fan of Hillary Clinton. But the idea that she and Donald Trump are equally bad is preposterous. There is simply no comparison and Seth Meyers, in his update on the state of the election, does a wonderful job of comparing the negatives of both candidates, starting at the 6:10 mark. And he does not even mention Trump’s sociopathic levels of lying and his ignorance of major issues.
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The Curse of Wahoo strikes again

Yesterday, the Chicago Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians in the deciding seventh game of the World Series of baseball, an odd title for a contest in which the existence of only one Canadian team prevents the entire season from being an all-American affair. There had been hopes that the local baseball team would add to the national championship already won earlier in the year by the Cavaliers basketball team. In that case, Cleveland had fought back from a 3-1 deficit to win the last three games and the series but this time it was the reverse and the Indians blew a 3-1 lead. I think the reason is the Curse of Wahoo.
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GOP obstructionism seems to have no bounds

For some time now, the Republican party has taken the position that if they cannot win the presidency, they will basically bring government to a halt. This was explicitly stated by senate majority leader Mitch McConnell when he vowed in 2009 to use that strategy to make Barack Obama a one-term president. That particular goal of course failed but the idea of obstructionism has persisted.
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President Obama has fun with children on Halloween

You have to hand it to President Obama that he is a natural when it comes to appearing on TV. He seems to be perfectly relaxed and informal, and yet is able to avoid making the kind of gaffes that can occur when your guard is down. This video of him interacting with children who came to the White House on Halloween illustrates how he can goof around with children without looking awkward or ridiculous.
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TV review: Black Mirror

The British TV series available for streaming on Netflix is set in the near future and each episode features a new story with a different cast and deals with the impact of technology on people’s lives, especially miniaturized communication technology that does not yet exist but seems tantalizingly possible, such as tiny chips embedded in our brains that record every aspect of our lives and can be played back at will or software that, by accessing as much information that exists about a person, can re-create a replica that is indistinguishable from a person who died, or immersive virtual reality worlds that are indistinguishable from the physical one.
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Unusual patterns in beliefs about religion, spirituality, god, and ghosts

I came across this 2007 survey about British public attitudes towards religion and other beliefs such as ghosts, telepathy, witches, and the like. The survey found that only 37% of the respondents said that they considered themselves religious but a much larger 56% said they believed in god. So there must be many who think that being religious involves more than believing in god, such as attending religious services or being involved in other religious exercises.
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