Archive for May, 2008
Carnival of the Liberals #64
Brave Sir Robin at Sir Robin Rides Away posted the 64th edition of the venerable Carnival of the Liberals on Friday. We’ve been having trouble getting posts, plus there’s been a couple of complaints about all the themed editions so Sir Robin dropped his theme this time out.
I also had a theme for Carnival of [...]
Moondust Memories
If you don’t read NASA Science News regularly, then you’re missing out. Sure, they routinely post the same old recycled astronomy content about eclipses, equinoxes and such but it is a daily thing and that’s got to be hard to find new stuff all the time. Goodness knows I’m sure not able to do that. [...]
The movies make people doubt god
I can hear the Dobsons, Robertsons and Falwells screaming that headline at their audiences now. Bill O’Reilly will develop an elaborate conspiracy theory on how Hollywood is subverting moral values by making people question their belief in god. Actually, working on one movie caused one actor to become an atheist. Except, he kinda was already.
Actor [...]
Hofstadter: The Paranoid Style In American Politics (1964)
Note: This appeared on the original Neural Gourmet site Feb. 19, 2006.
I’ve been urging you all to read this remarkable essay so I thought I would reproduce it here. This is the abridged text which appeared in Harper’s Magazine, November 1964. A revised and expanded version is in Richard Hofstadter’s book of the same name. [...]
Media perceptions of flyover country
I moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana a little bit shy of a year ago now. When I moved here, people would tell me it’d be different. Well, it is. It’s much more conservative and religious than the Cooperstown, New York area where I previously hailed from. One thing that hasn’t changed though is the irritatingly [...]
Expelled expells the truth
Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence against Intelligent Design is the way its’ proponents take rather extreme liberties with facts. After all, why would you need to lie if what you’re saying is true? And perhaps nowhere is this more amply demonstrated in Ben Stein’s movie Expelled. John Rennie and Steve Mirsky detail Six [...]
Psychology and morality
Prospect Magazine has an excellent overview of the advances being made into understanding the psychological and biological underpinnings of morality.
Revisting the swastika in San Diego
You might remember a couple of months ago when I used this group of buildings at Naval Base Coronado on North Island in San Diego that happens to resemble a Nazi swastika from the air as a way of introducing the concept of Prägnanz from Gestalt psychology. Despite saying very little this was one of [...]
Get ‘Em While They’re Young
I can’t believe I missed this. Little reported in both the main stream media and the blogosphere, the House of Representatives passed the School Readiness Act two weeks ago. A simple spending bill, “To reauthorize the Head Start Act to improve the school readiness of disadvantaged children, and for other purposes”, as the bill [...]
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