A picture worth a thousand words: (more…)

I remember when John Dehlin put up a post with a video (no longer available) about the difference between “fundamentalists” and “curious people.” John originally just entered it as a link that said “The curious, my kind of people.” Then later he put up this post which changed the tone to by tacking on “or does Mormonism Inspire Curiosity?”

The idea of the video was that there are two kinds of people, those that fit the facts to their worldview and those that accept the facts and enjoy what life brings. (more…)

Here’s a short summary:

1. Violence is not the answer.

2. Separately grab two fingers on one of your attackers’ hands and pull them apart.

3. Keep pulling.

No, really. (more…)

Can Ate and Nemesis be far behind?

Some folks are swooning over this photograph of Obama.  (more…)

This quote was overheard on the “Stars of Cosmology, Part 2″ episode of the Scientific American podcast. This is a podcast with several famous physicists (i.e. the “stars” of physics cosmology) discussing the future of cosmology, particularly inflation.

The context of this quote is right after discussing the possibility of infinite universes where most are inhospitable to life and the only ones that have astronomers and physicists questioning, “why are the laws of physics perfectly hospitable for life?” are the ones that randomly happened to be hospitable to life.

Let me add one more thing that could be seen at the LCH, that could make most of us unhappy if it’s seen. We could see evidence for more fine tuning in nature than we’ve already seen in the cosmological constant. And that would be taken as evidence for this multiverse anthropic picture where the laws of physics are not determined by fundamental principles but rather by a wide variety of things happening and certain things selecting for life. (more…)

Coming to a paper near you?

Post in the comments if you see any more letters from her.Though I suspect, like any good spammer, she will have moved on to another alias by now.

From Philip Cala-Lazar, K9PL, in the excellent K9YA Telegraph newsletter (.pdf; free subscription required), we get a wonderful report on the amateur radio aspects of this off-road romp across Asia in French half-tracks. 

No word yet on whether any chess was involved.

You all have already no doubt heard.  (more…)

Most people still think their lifestyle is a conscious choice, but recent scientific evidence suggests that many might be born that way. How will we have to rethink the way we treat them if science continues to prove this out? (more…)

I’m shocked at the cluelessness of these investors.  (more…)

Steve Sailer informs us that Pat Buchannan very pointedly doesn’t exist at the Google prompts. I tried the exercise Sailer went through, and found that he is correct. In Google’s defense, I would rather spend a half hour watching a Green Acres rerun than one of those newsy shows with Buchannan and his pals.

(more…)

And some of it is still flesh and blood.

For some reason, this story hit me pretty hard.

It doesn’t sound like it was anyone’s fault or could have been foreseen and avoided in any reasonable way. I hope the story won’t go from unutterably sad to unspeakably ugly via the legal process.

I am reluctant to pray for strangers, other than in a certain place, but I may make an exception here.