I finally got a new post up on my “scholarly” blog: ♦ The Ubiquitous and Panasonic Kipple: Tracing the Consumption of Death, from Philip K. Dick to Don DeLillo’s White Noise Kind of sad, really–I have several papers and essays already written and ready, all I have to do is format them and post them, [...]
READ MORE »Monthly archives for January, 2008
Critical thinking is a learned skill and MUST be taught!
The human mind is an absolutely amazing thing. Our frontal lobes, cerebral cortex, allows us to recognize patterns and ascribe meaning to phenomenon. It gave us certain, unique survival skills during our evolution, allowing us to recognize recurring weather patterns and animal behavior of both predator and prey. To codify these behaviors, humans started anthropomorphizing [...]
READ MORE »Security and privacy: A false dichotomy.
Here’s an interesting article in Wired: ♦ What Our Top Spy Doesn’t Get: Security and Privacy Aren’t Opposites The author uses the following premise: You can see it in comments by government officials: “Privacy no longer can mean anonymity,” says Donald Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence. “Instead, it should mean that government and [...]
READ MORE »Cost of war. Denying evolution.
Unrelated title topics–I’m just featuring a couple of YouTube videos on the different subjects. (Although, interestingly, some of the most strident defenders of the war are fundamentally religious conservatives. So I guess a connection can be made. Anyway, here’s a couple of very poignant videos that I found fascinating, informative, and from one of them–a [...]
READ MORE »The free market corrects (for errors in being trusting).
I listen to a lot of podcasts, most of them about skepticism, humanism, science fiction, writing, grammar, literature…and there’s one I listen to called “Sex Is Fun.” It’s an educational show that focuses on sex-positive health issues, issues of sexual identity, lifestyles, concerns and dysfunction, product reviews, sexual politics, as well as being fun and [...]
READ MORE »The impermanence of what is truly of value.
Since I already broke my self-imposed block on religious posts for today, just one more–in the subject of personally affecting issues reason and emotion (two subjects that need not be mutually exclusive!) Today’s comic from Cectic: (a near-consistently great comic strip, by the way.)
READ MORE »“Never more than you can handle…”
I’m breaking my embargo on religious criticism for this post, to feature a blog posting that’s one of the most poignant and pointed one I’ve read. Debunking Christianity has had a lot of posts from its contributors lately on the age-old “question of evil” and the needless existence of suffering and what it means in [...]
READ MORE »Hucka-don’t-wanna-be credulous and non-critical.
(I need to hire someone to write my title for me. I sux!) A few posts out on the blags about presidential candidate Huckabee today; thought I’d pass them along. Let’s start with a brief one found on Bad Astronomer: ♦ Huckabee = very very very bad guy Phil Plait’s entry is prompted by an [...]
READ MORE »Your identity in the hands of the Keystone Cops.
Hmm, one difference is at least the Keystone Cops were harmless and entertaining. So the federal government wants control over the identification of all U.S. citizens, thanks to the Everything Is Different From Now On 9-11 attack which has given the Bush administration incredible mileage in their power-grab efforts. With the Real ID, the feds [...]
READ MORE »The universe as virtual reality.
(Insert Keanu Reeves’ “Whoa” here.) BoingBoing just posted a link to a fascinating paper on the theory that our universe is a giant VR system: ♦ Our universe as virtual reality …If the universe were a virtual reality, its creation at the big bang would no longer be paradoxical, as every virtual system must be [...]
READ MORE »The GrogMonkey lives! And pontificates.
OK, so my 3rd blog is up and running now: ♦ The GrogMonkey Here’s the “About” page on the site: This blog is designed to feature my work in English/Cultural Studies education. I’m currently working on my Master’s Degree in English with a focus on Creative Writing. While I don’t plan, at the moment, to [...]
READ MORE »Morality for the non-religious.
For nearly the last 36 hours I’ve been working on a co-worker’s PC which has crashed terribly hard. Potential to lose years worth of files he uses for his freelance and day-job work. He was in near tears when it was looking like his data was lost, and his best alternative was spending nearly $200 [...]
READ MORE »There was a massive deadly U.S. terrorist attack in 2007!
…I guess we just missed hearing about it or something: ♦ Religious Broadcaster Pat Robertson Predicts Horrific Terrorist Attack on U.S. in 2007 Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson predicted Tuesday a horrific terrorist act on the United States that will result in “mass killing” late in 2007. “I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear,” [...]
READ MORE »2008
Well, I guess it’s time for some yearly reflection, outlook, and resolution. Things, socially and politically, seem to have gotten worse in general, better in some specifics, and looks to get worse in the coming years with some improved specifics–enough to fool us into thinking things aren’t as bad as they are. There, two out [...]
READ MORE »OK news and horrible news in the surveillance world.
Well, first the horrible news. Human rights watchdog group, Privacy International, which focuses on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations since 1990, has put out its 2007 report on “The State of Privacy”: ♦ Map of Surveillance Societies Around the World So, some of the very worst surveillance societies include Russia, China, Singapore, [...]
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