Andrew Breitbart, Cocaine and Hypocrisy
http://moronwatch.net/2012/03/andrew-breitbart-cocaine-and-hypocrisy.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Friday, March 02, 2012
Article: Andrew Breitbart, Cocaine and Hypocrisy
Andrew Breitbart, Cocaine and Hypocrisy
http://moronwatch.net/2012/03/andrew-breitbart-cocaine-and-hypocrisy.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Article: 55 Free Philosophy Courses
55 Free Philosophy Courses
http://www.openculture.com/2012/03/55_free_philosophy_courses.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Andrew Breitbart: Death of a Douche | | Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/andrew-breitbart-death-of-a-douche-20120301
You know you lack credibility when no one believes you died because
your own site reported it.
---SPSmith
Barack Obama on Secularism: Does Barack Obama Believe in a Secular Government? Obama Expresses Both Pro-Secular and Anti-Secular Ideas in Speeches
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
---SPSmith
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Fermentedly Challenged: September 2011 Colorado Beer Festivals
http://www.fermentedlychallenged.com/2011/06/september-2011-colorado-beer-festivals.html
Telluride Town Park
Telluride, CO
Cost: Fri & Sat $65, Sun $55, 3-day pass $160
---SPSmith
Ayn Rand: the Tea Party’s Miscast Matriarch » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/27/ayn-rand-the-tea-partys-miscast-matriarch/
Ayn Rand was a writer of no value whatsoever, whether aesthetic or
intellectual. The Tea Party deserves her, but the rest of us do not.
It is not less than obscene that any educational institution that
relies even in part on public funds should ask students to consider
her work. We are threatened these days by vicious mindlessness and
this is one of its manifestations."
---SPSmith
JSTOR: The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 105, No. 4 (Winter, 1992), pp. 517-526
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1422907
The average child does not come from the average family.
---SPSmith
The Dark Side of Mitt Romney | Politics | Vanity Fair
The Dark Side of Mitt Romney | Politics | Vanity Fair: "So ended the story of a deal that Romney would not be likely to cite on the campaign trail: the highly leveraged purchase, financed with junk bonds from a firm that became infamous for its financial practices, of a department-store company that had subsequently gone into bankruptcy"
'via Blog this'
'via Blog this'
Atheism IS an Identity | Richard Carrier Blogs
When I see the science showing group identity and socialization as keys to health and happiness, the latter I knew, but it's the first of those that catches my eye: human happiness depends on a feeling of belonging, of social identity, of not being the "only" one who doesn't see the emperor's clothes
---SPSmith
---SPSmith
Article: The waiting room principle « God plays dice
The waiting room principle « God plays dice
http://gottwurfelt.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/the-waiting-room-principle/
Another educational example is that by simply making all classes at an institution the same size, one can reduce the average class size experienced by students without actually having to hire more faculty. Say your institution has one class of thirty students and one of sixty. Then if you pick a student uniformly at random, one-third will say "there are thirty students in my class" and two-thirds will say "there are sixty students in my class", for an average of (1/3)(30)+(2/3)(60)=50. If you rebalance the classes to have forty-five students in each class, then the average class size experienced by students is 45. (The average class size experienced by students, by the way, is always greater than or equal to the average class size experienced by instructors, with equality if and only if all classes are the same size.)
---SPSmith
How Red Hat killed its core product—and became a billion-dollar business
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/02/how-red-hat-killed-its-core-productand-became-a-billion-dollar-business.ars
RHEL source code is freely available under the GPL (GNU General Public
License) for those who want to compile it themselves, but the actual
finished product costs money. Yes, there is CentOS, a free-to-download
clone of RHEL compiled from the source code by CentOS developers. But
Red Hat charges a premium for RHEL because it's (theoretically)
guaranteed to work—Red Hat and third-party software vendors make sure
that applications running on RHEL are not broken when the operating
system is updated.
RHEL source code is freely available under the GPL (GNU General Public
License) for those who want to compile it themselves, but the actual
finished product costs money. Yes, there is CentOS, a free-to-download
clone of RHEL compiled from the source code by CentOS developers. But
Red Hat charges a premium for RHEL because it's (theoretically)
guaranteed to work—Red Hat and third-party software vendors make sure
that applications running on RHEL are not broken when the operating
system is updated.
---SPSmith
n+1: On Barney Rosset
http://nplusonemag.com/on-barney-rosset?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nplusonemag_main+%28n%2B1+magazine%29
In fact a certain strain of stylish smut was always one of Grove's
specialties, the proverbial "books written to be read with one hand."
---SPSmith
n+1: Would He or Wouldn't He?
http://nplusonemag.com/Hitch-Obit
Hitchens never repudiated this view, though he appeared to have
forgotten that he'd once espoused it.
Hitchens never repudiated this view, though he appeared to have
forgotten that he'd once espoused it.
---SPSmith
Regarding Christopher | The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/blog/165222/regarding-christopher
passages of pointless linguistic pirouetting
passages of pointless linguistic pirouetting
---SPSmith
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Why we need college degrees more than we need faith - Guest Voices - The Washington Post
Santorum's own choice of faith over empirical knowledge provides perhaps the best example of why blindly accepting faith as virtue is misplaced. When decrying colleges as indoctrination mills, he also described how hard he had to resist the pressures in college to question his faith. In so doing, he also resisted the opportunity to learn about how the world actually works.
As a politician on our national stage, his professed ignorance about the natural world is almost unprecedented. His statements on issues ranging from evolution to the evidence for human induced global warming, and most recently about contraception and birth control only serve to demonstrate that a worldview based on closed-minded faith rather than empirical evidence can result in nonsense as a basis of public policy.
---SPSmithArticle: Why It's So Important to Keep Moving
Why It's So Important to Keep Moving
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/why-its-so-important-to-keep-moving/
And there were changes. During the three days of inactivity, volunteers' blood sugar levels spiked significantly after meals, with the peaks increasing by about 26 percent compared with when the volunteers were exercising and moving more. What's more, the peaks grew slightly with each successive day.
---SPSmith
Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong by William D. Nordhaus | The New York Review of Books
The finding that global temperatures are rising over the last century-plus is one of the most robust findings of climate science and statistics.
Pubget: Sanders SA. Condom use errors and problems: a global view. Sex Health 9:81 (2012)
http://pubget.com/paper/22348636?title=Condom+use+errors+and+problems%3A+a+global+view.
The most common errors included not using condoms throughout sex, not
leaving space at the tip, not squeezing air from the tip, putting the
condom on upside down, not using water-based lubricants and incorrect
withdrawal. Frequent problems included breakage, slippage, leakage,
condom-associated erection problems, and difficulties with fit and
feel
---SPSmith
Monday, February 27, 2012
Upper class people more likely to cheat: study
High social class predicts increased unethical behavior," by Paul K. Piff, Daniel M. Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner, PNAS (2012).
---SPSmith
Daddy Issues - Magazine - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/daddy-issues/8890/
But it gets worse. Like an unnaturally iridescent convalescent-home
maraschino cherry atop this Sisyphean slag heap of woe, what actually
appears to take the greatest toll on caregivers is the sheer emotional
burden of this (formless, thankless, seemingly endless) project. For
one thing, unresolved family dynamics will probably begin to play out:
"Every study I have seen on the subject of adult children as
caregivers finds the greatest source of stress, by far, to be not the
ailing parent but sibling disagreements,"
---SPSmith
HP’s PC Addiction | Monday Note
http://www.mondaynote.com/2012/02/26/hp%E2%80%99s-pc-addiction/
I still think HP's initial intuition was right, that the PC business,
as driven by Microsoft and Intel, will increasingly become a race to
the bottom — with the two Wintel allies sucking all the profits.
Instead of ''rooting for a fantastic Windows 8", HP should root around
for a buyer for its PC business.
I still think HP's initial intuition was right, that the PC business,
as driven by Microsoft and Intel, will increasingly become a race to
the bottom — with the two Wintel allies sucking all the profits.
Instead of ''rooting for a fantastic Windows 8", HP should root around
for a buyer for its PC business.
---SPSmith
Bible (King James)/Matthew - Wikisource
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Sunday, February 26, 2012
| American jihadist
If you believe that contraception is immoral and any sex except conjugal attempts to procreate is sinful, he's your guy. | ||||
Article: What is the oddest book title of the year (markets in everything)?
What is the oddest book title of the year (markets in everything)?
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/02/what-is-the-oddest-book-title-of-the-year-markets-in-everything.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Article: What the World Is Made Of
What the World Is Made Of
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/02/26/what-the-world-is-made-of/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Teller Reveals His Secrets | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine
7. If you are given a choice, you believe you have acted freely. This is one of the darkest of all psychological secrets. I'll explain it by incorporating it (and the other six secrets you've just learned) into a card trick worthy of the most annoying uncle.
THE EFFECT I cut a deck of cards a couple of times, and you glimpse flashes of several different cards. I turn the cards facedown and invite you to choose one, memorize it and return it. Now I ask you to name your card. You say (for example), "The queen of hearts." I take the deck in my mouth, bite down and groan and wiggle to suggest that your card is going down my throat, through my intestines, into my bloodstream and finally into my right foot. I lift that foot and invite you to pull off my shoe and look inside. You find the queen of hearts. You're amazed. If you happen to pick up the deck later, you'll find it's missing the queen of hearts.
THE SECRET(S) First, the preparation: I slip a queen of hearts in my right shoe, an ace of spades in my left and a three of clubs in my wallet. Then I manufacture an entire deck out of duplicates of those three cards. That takes 18 decks, which is costly and tedious (No. 2—More trouble than it's worth).
When I cut the cards, I let you glimpse a few different faces. You conclude the deck contains 52 different cards (No. 1—Pattern recognition). You think you've made a choice, just as when you choose between two candidates preselected by entrenched political parties (No. 7—Choice is not freedom).
---SPSmithEvolution: Termite evolution: which came first?, tiny critters, ancient lineage
The type of protists you're naming in the termite intestine are flagellates in the genera Trichonympha and Personympha. They belong to a very ancient lineage that evolved long before insects were even on the planet. However, these species themselves were not present before termites. In fact, termites and their flagellate mutualists *coevolved*.
---SPSmith
Article: Bring Me An Angel Detector! | The Sensuous Curmudgeon
Bring Me An Angel Detector! | The Sensuous Curmudgeon
http://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/bring-me-an-angel-detector/
A scientist may even believe that a multitude of spirits inhabit this world, but being imperceptible, they are outside the scope of his professional work. For the same reason, no scientist can embark on a scientific exploration of the anatomy of angels' wings, because there are no observable or detectable data to be examined, measured, tested, etc. This is a consequence of methodological materialism — the process of science. It says nothing at all about the existence of spiritual matters, only their inability to be scientifically studied. Methodological materialism is an operational constraint of science, not a philosophical attack on theism
---SPSmith
---SPSmith
Microsoft Word - GB2012Ch9 50p Income Tax Rate - Judith final.docx
these studies suggest that those with very high incomes are more responsive to changes in tax rates than those with less-high incomes, as we would expect.2
Evil god hypothesis
Perhaps there are grounds for supposing that the universe was created by an intelligent being. But, at this point in time, the suggestion that this being is omnipotent, omniscient, and maximally good seems to me hardly more reasonable than the suggestion that he is omnipotent, omniscient, and maximally evil.
---SPSmith
Lists of Note: Thelonious Monk's Advice
http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/02/thelonious-monks-advice.html
THEY TRIED TO GET ME TO HATE WHITE PEOPLE, BUT SOMEONE WOULD ALWAYS
COME ALONG & SPOIL IT.
THEY TRIED TO GET ME TO HATE WHITE PEOPLE, BUT SOMEONE WOULD ALWAYS
COME ALONG & SPOIL IT.
---SPSmith
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