News of the Obvious: Teens like getting it on

The Washington Post reports: Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective.
Despite the demise of bands like Warrant and Poison, teens like getting it on, no matter who they promise they won’t — and they’re not always safe about it:
The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually [...]

Old Soldiers: The Favre/McCain Connection

Long ago I promised you a piece on the similar stylings of Brett Favre and John McCain. Out of deference to Favre I had to wait until the NFL season finished and Favre’s blimp of a career set the horizon on fire in Hindenberg fashion — although my inner football fan wanted to write this [...]

Which Christmas?

Christmas is just around the corner, and I of course wish you a merry one. However, it makes me shudder when someone talks about the Christian christmas. Christoper Hitchens expresses some strong argumentns in a recent article The moral and aesthetic nightmare of Christmas, and while I share the sentiment it is not entirely fair [...]

More on Non-Physcial Existence

This is the kind of reasoning we get when we assert that non-physical, non-material things exist. You may recall that over the past couple threads I have argued that concepts (like the number 2) are physical because they exist as ideas in our heads — and ideas in our heads have a physical component. They [...]

Tyson Cut Back to Part-Time

I have news! Gleefully wonderful news! I won’t be posting nearly as much as in the past (which you have likely already noticed) — because I’ll be teaching an evenng Philosophy course.
The class is at Anne Arundel Community College, starting January 26th. I am hurridly cobbling together my syllabus and making plans to both excite [...]

Journey to the Edge of the Universe with Brain Skarpowsky

An apt title I suppose since some of you have no doubt been wondering: Where is Brain Skarpowsky? Did Yeiser take him out? Is he being vetted by the Obama cabinet selection team? Has he indeed fallen off the edge of the universe…an update then….
Post election, I suffered something akin to burnout/withdrawal; media deprivation based [...]

Science as a New Cultural Tradition

I was watching Richard Dawkins dialog with Aubrey Manning (approx. 50 minutes long) the other day and some of the points they discussed made me think.
Many of the traditions we practice have religious orgins, which of course needn’t be bad in itself. Obviously, tradition and ritual have a place in building solidarity and socializing individuals. [...]

They Call It “Bilking” — I Call It “Services Rendered”

An article in in the San Francisco Chronicle, ‘Psychic’ gets 2 months in bilking of $108,000, has me woefully perplexed…
First, and most obvious, what is the difference between a ‘Psychic’ and a Psychic? What could the quotes possibly denote? ‘Real’ psychics are talking to dead people and ‘psychics’ only talk to ‘dead’ people? Honestly, I am [...]