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Occupational Health News Roundup

With the new year just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to celebrate worker victories of 2014. At In These Times, reporter Amien Essif gathered a list of the nine most important victories of 2014, writing: Much has been made of the incredibly hostile climate for labor over the past few decades. Yet this past year, workers still organized on shop floors, went out on strike, marched in the street and shuffled into courthouses to hold their employers accountable, and campaigned hard for those who earned (or, often enough, didn’t earn) their vote. Legislators, meanwhile, tarried on with…

Shield Maidens! True Or False?

My Wulfheodenas homie David Huggins asked me a good question. ”Shield maidens! True or False? Okay, that was a bit general, but female 'warrior' graves, symbolic or otherwise?”. I take this to mean “Were there female warriors in Northern Europe AD 500-1000?” Let's start by examining why everyone accepts that there were male warriors. Indeed, to my knowledge most scholars believe that at least, say, 99.9% of all warriors were men, and conversely that a considerable percentage of free-born men received some degree of weapons training. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, the written…

Post-Modernist Historiography

Historiography is meta-history, that is, the historical study of historical studies in the past. It is useful and valuable to historical research as ongoing quality control and provides a kind of user's manuals for those who wish to use old literature in new studies of the past. Also, it can often help explain political ideas, movements and propaganda in the past, as that field in society often attempts to use and manipulate history. I am, however, of the firm opinion that if you are interested in, say, the High Middle Ages, you have no reason to delve into Victorian ideas about that period.…

Drugs and Me

In the podcast liner notes to his new album (starting at 14:21), George Hrab talks to Milton Mermikidis for a space about how neither of them does any heavier drugs than caffeine. I realised that in close to five years of blogging, I've never talked specifically about my own drug abstinence, though I've mentioned a few times that I'm tee-total. So I thought I might say a few words on the subject. The culturally accepted heavy drug in Sweden is alcohol, which is strongly mind-altering if used in a sufficient dose and lethal if overdosed. Drinking is so common here that if you don't, then it…

October 2008, yet another phony record

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic. Objection: In October, 2008, Al Gore's science advisor, James Hansen announced yet another "hottest" month on record. After all the alarmist banner headlines sank in, yet another "correction" quietly contradicted this, and October was not particularily warm after all. This is yet another example of why the temperature record can not be trusted. Answer: Wow. Where to begin with this one? There are many versions of this myth around already at the time…

Joseph Farah's Ignorance and Illogic

Few people are as reliably ridiculous as Worldnutdaily publisher Joseph Farah. If there is a hall of fame for asinine writing, Farah is a first ballot inductee. In his latest column he revisits an old issue that his little webrag flogged to death last year, the shocking (to him, that is) possibility that the plaintiffs in Lawrence v Texas might have arranged to get arrested so that they could challenge the validity of the law. Lawrence is the Supreme Court ruling that overturned state laws against sodomy, something the religious right has been complaining about mightily ever since. And a year…

John Lofton Scolds Someone Else

If you liked the Crossfire episode where Lofton accused pop stars of encouraging our kids to have sex with animals, you're gonna love this interview he does with James Stengel when he was the head of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia (Stengel, that is, not Lofton). You're especially gonna love the fit he throws over a skit put on at the center illustrating the 3rd amendment that featured a man in drag: JL: (laughing) Well, that's one thing we agree on. Have you seen your Bill of Rights exhibit for the children? RS: I have. JL: Do you remember the Third Amendment part, the…

More Overreaction to California Bill

The ridiculous overreaction to California adding sexual orientation to their anti-discrimination laws continues, documented, naturally, by the Worldnutdaily. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has tossed out all sexual moral conduct codes at colleges, private and Christian schools, daycare centers and other facilities throughout his state, if the institutions have any students who get state assistance. Utter nonsense. All he has done is taken away the state funding. You're still free to discriminate to your heart's content, you just don't get publilc money to do it. There is no exception…

Wes Elsberry Finds a Gem

Wes Elsberry has uncovered this article by Patrick Malone about things to avoid when choosing an expert witness pursuant to Daubert and Federal Rule of Evidence 702. Daubert is the controlling Supreme Court precedent that governs when courts should accept or reject expert scientific testimony. Malone's advice includes the following: Before Daubert, an adversary’s discovery that your expert had formed an opinion, then read the relevant literature, would amount to, at worst, a credibility point for cross-examination. Now, that kind of discovery can get an expert tossed off the case. Beware the…

And a Woman Shall Lead Us

I've written many times of the need for moderate Muslims to take a stand against their reactionary brethren, and the need to support mass movements toward reform in the Islamic world. One of the key voices for reformation today is that of Irshad Manji. Born in Idi Amin's Uganda, Manji's family fled to Canada where she grew up. She is the author of The Trouble with Islam: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith, a book that declares unequivocally: "Not solely because of September 11, but more urgently because of it, we've got to end Islam's totalitarianism, particularly the gross human-rights…

DaveScot's Perfect Storm of Buffoonery

You've gotta hand it to DaveScot - when he goes down, he does so while ducking directly into the punch. Here's his absolutely perfect reply to everyone who pointed out that he fell for a scam. I could not have written it to make him look more ridiculous if I'd done so myself. You could not have intelligently designed this kind of hilarity; it can only arise spontaneously: To everyone who's pointed out that the ACLU story is a fabrication according to snopes.com - that's hardly the point. The pictures of Marines praying are real. The fighting and dying to protect the interests of the United…

Creech on Evolution Again

Mark Creech, head of the Christian Action League, has replied to an article in Seed Magazine about the Clergy Letter Project and continued to spread the nonsense that I fisked a few weeks ago. In fact, some of it is even worse. He also defends the DI's infamous list of scientists, most of whom are not in relevant scientific fields. He writes: Moreover, West argues the single largest group of the signers was biologists (154 of the 514). He adds: "Of course the list also includes many scientists specializing in chemistry, physics, engineering, mathematics/statistics, and related disciplines.…

Wonga is "morally wrong"?

Non-beardy says “I’ve met the head of Wonga and I’ve had a very good conversation and I said to him quite bluntly we’re not in the business of trying to legislate you out of existence, we’re trying to compete you out of existence” (see-also the Gruan). When I first heard this while driving into work I mis-heard it (or slightly more accurately, at that point the news was new, and exactly what he meant by this wasn't clear): I thought the CofE were intending to actually loan out money, on a commercial-but-nicer basis. Thankfully they aren't going to do that: it would most certainly have been a…

Publishing code

Nick Barnes has an excellent opinion piece in Nature. And the comments are good too. There is a comment-on-the-piece by Anthony Fejes which I think is less good: too much like the kind of people who put you off cycling by insisting you have to wear a cycle helmet or walk. And you should read Nick's follow up a CCC. I've decided that I agree with Nick's overall argument: yes you should publish your code. Which means, everything that is yours, including the little fiddly bits. Even if no-one will understand them. Even if people will deliberately misunderstand them. I have a number of quibbles…

Ancillary Trilogy [Library of Babel]

The hot SF release of the fall is Ann Leckie's Ancillary Mercy, concluding the Imperial Radch trilogy. The first of these, Ancillary Justice won a Hugo two years ago, and the second, Ancillary Sword should've won this past year, because I really didn't like the Three-Body Problem. The release of Ancillary Mercy generated a ton of buzz, to the point where, as I remarked on Twitter, I felt as if I were letting down some ill-defined "side" by not being more excited about it. But while I liked Ancillary Justice quite a bit (it's the rare book I've voted for the Best Novel Hugo that's actually won…

Why is Pluto not a planet?

Short answer: Pluto has only two of the three necessary characteristics to be called a planet. Pluto has not cleared its neighborhood, or orbit. But, of course, there are additional details. The simplest reason that Pluto is not a planet is that planet experts say so, and this is their job. But you may be looking for a more detailed explanation. Let's look at what defines a planet. This could be a very long and tedious discussion, because "planet" is an ancient concept used long before scientists knew very much about them. Also, frankly, in many areas of science the definition of a thing,…

Don't Even Think About #ClimateChange (ADDED: Free Chapter)

Climate change is emotional, especially when the effects are disastrous and people's lives are ruined. It is vague, sometimes. For example, bad weather happens and always has happened, so an increase in frequency or severity of bad weather isn't necessarily qualitatively novel, and can be hard to put one's finger on. Although the negative effects of climate change are already here, more serious effects are in our future. So, climate change has a component that is mysterious and hard to relate to, because it is in the future. Climate change is global, but spotty on a given day or in a given…

Ebola Outbreak Continues, Probably Worsens, Perhaps Spreads

The WHO came out with a new report today with the latest figures on Ebola. These numbers take us to the end of July. There are two bits of bad news. First, the number of new cases is high, as high as any prior report (but keep in mind that these reports cover uneven time periods). There are 163 new cases and 61 new deaths, bringing the total number of confirmed cases and deaths to 1009 and 574, with the total number of confirmed, probable, and suspected to 1,603 cases and 887 deaths. Second, Nigeria is now in the mix. There was previously only one case in Nigeria, a Liberian man who…

The Story Of Life in 25 Fossils by Don Prothero: Review

This is a review of The Story of Life in 25 Fossils: Tales of Intrepid Fossil Hunters and the Wonders of Evolution. Don Prothero Fossils are cool. Why? Two very big and complex reasons. First, fossils allow us to reconstruct species that don’t exist any more. This is usually done by studying species that do exist, and using the information we glean from living things to interpret the details of the fossil species, giving it life. Second, fossils tell us about evolutionary change, both by showing us what evolutionary events happened that we would not be able to see in living species, and…

Science Denier Anthony Watts Wants Your Financial Help

Anthony Watts, the famous climate science denier, is all a titter that he is presenting at the upcoming American Geophysical Union meetings. First, I want to say, good for you, Anthony. Nothing wrong with a science denier going to a major international meeting that includes a lot of climate science and giving a poster. That is how these things work, this is a place to challenge the science. The establishment will not attempt to keep you away because they want you to be there, to make a contribution. I hope you get a lot of great feedback, and enjoy your trip to San Francisco. Also,…

Whom Do You Trust For Your Science, Health, and Education?

"School sucks, right? I mean you do what you can to improve it, but in the end, there's a limit. Because it's school. And 'school sucks.' Remember?" -Louis C.K. At every level, education always seems to be a hot button issue. Whether it's in primary and secondary schools, where testing at every level is the primary means to evaluate teachers, or in adult life, where we're always hearing about how scientifically illiterate the public is, we have pressing issues facing us. And we can't be experts in everything, even the best of us. Image credit: NASA and the European Space Agency. Sure, if…

How The Universe Makes the Building Blocks of Life

"It is all a matter of time scale. An event that would be unthinkable in a hundred years may be inevitable in a hundred million." -Carl Sagan There's some speculation that NASA, later this week, might announce evidence for life on Saturn's moon Titan. I'm not going to comment on the speculation, but it's worth asking the question, scientifically, "How would the Universe make life, from scratch?" Let's start by telling you what "scratch" means. If you're familiar with the story of the Universe, one of the things you know is that things were very hot and dense in the past. So hot that you…

Why does Matter take up Space?

"A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with." -Tennessee Williams Matter -- everything you know, love, hate, see, taste, and feel -- takes up space. Even air must take up space. Not just wind, but still, stationary air takes up space. We've known this since Empedocles, in the 5th Century B.C., who had a clepsydra -- a hollow gourd with many holes in the bottom and a single hole at the top -- demonstrated it. You plunge the gourd into a stream, lake or river, and it fills with water. If you lift the gourd up, the water leaks out of the bottom. But…

The Best Toys in the Universe!

"The laws in this city are clearly racist. All laws are racist. The law of gravity is racist." -Marion Barry The law of gravity, contrary to what Marion Barry says, is -- perhaps -- the most indiscriminate of all the laws of nature. What do I mean? Well, you get a large collection of matter and energy together, like in a galaxy, and what does it do? It pulls -- with the entirety of the irresistible force of gravity -- on everything. Give the most massive collections of matter enough time, and they'll pull in everything around them for tens of millions of light years. And when you do, you'll…

Should I eat my placenta?

Well, not my placenta exactly, but ... well, someone's? Did you now that the placenta that is born out of a female primate's body is an organ of the infant also being born? It is the first body part you lose. I use the term "primate" here because, even though all the "placental mammals" as we are called share some basic reproductive gestational anatomy, there are major categories across the mammals in this area, and primates are distinct from, for example, carnivores. These differences are of course very important when one is considering placentophagy. I mean, you wouldn't confuse a…

The West Wing and #TWWW Podcast

I had been utterly unengaged with with TV about the time that I met this particular cute girl, and she told me that she love the West Wing and watched it every week. There was, if I recall correctly, one more episode showing in the penultimate season, and we watched it together. I liked it. We then watched, mainly via Netflix DVD rental, but also, borrowing her parent's Season Five DVD's, the entire rest of the show prior to the beginning of the final season, Season 7. Then we watched Season 7 together. It was great. Eventually, two things were to happen. One is that I re-watched the…

Disrespecting the Rules

What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. -W. Shakespeare After writing about the 80th Birthday of Pluto becoming a planet, I was asked about Pluto's planetary status, and whether I thought it deserves to be a planet or not. Let me just recap for you, very briefly, what this argument is all about. Pluto, when it was discovered back in 1930, was the only object in the Solar System found out beyond Neptune. Although we imaged it, observed it, and surveyed the whole sky for other objects, it remained the only Solar System object out beyond Neptune until…

Discovering The Mammoth: The Evolution Of Modern Scientific Thinking

It wasn't a mammoth, it was a mastodon. But it was still a big hairy elephant featured at the climax-end of the main exhibit hall in the New York State museum. And it was an exhibit to end all exhibits. The New York State Museum, during its heyday, was world class, and the hall of evolution, which seemed old enough to have involved Darwin himself as a consultant, featured the reconstructed skeleton as well as a fur-covered version, of the creature discovered in a kettle only a few miles away. That exhibit, along with a dozen other spectacular exhibits that to my knowledge have not been…

More Fallacious Anti-ACLU Rhetoric

Our old friends at StopTheACLU are back at it again with a new and entirely inaccurate attack. They link to a post by AJ Strata that purports to demonstrate the "stunning hypocrisy" of the ACLU. Here's the specific allegation: What stunning hypocrisy is eminating from the ACLU! They are calling for in investigation into crimes by Bush because he did not follow FISA - a process and set of statutes the ACLU claimed was illegal in 2002 in an amicus brief to the government's first ever challenge to the FISA Court (FISC). As I will show, this statement is so ridiculous that it's hard to know…

Darwinism, Darwinian, Darwinist

Happy Birthday Charles Darwin! Oh, and Abe Lincoln too. For Darwin's birthday, I want to discuss the uses of the terms "Darwinism, Darwinian, and Darwinist." Many have written about this and many don't like any of those words, some seem to equally dislike all three. A couple of years back, writing for the New York Times, Carl Safina said, Equating evolution with Charles Darwin ignores 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution. Such as: Gregor Mendel’s patterns of heredity (which gave Darwin’s idea of natural selection a mechanism — genetics —…

Life will find a way

Creationists sometimes try to argue that what we consider straightforward, well-demonstrated cytological and genetic events don't and can't occur: that you can't get chromosome rearrangements, or that variations in chromosome number and organization are obstacles to evolution, making discussions of synteny, or the rearrangement of chromosomal material in evolution, an impossibility. These are absurd conclusions, of course—we see evidence of chromosomal variation in people all the time. For example, A friend sent along (yes, Virginia, there is a secret network of evilutionists busily sharing…

Mentally Ill, Criminals, Obama, Olivia, Guns

I am uncomfortable discussing ableism and related topics linked to mental illness for several reasons. One is that I don’t know enough about it to ask people to pay a lot of attention to what I have to say. Despite the whingings of my many detractors, I actually do tend to know a fair amount about the stuff I do talk about, such as race and racism, issues of gender related to both biology and politics, evolutionary biology, human foragers, and climate change. Indeed, I wrote my theses on these things. Well, some of them. But when it comes to mental illness outside of issues related to…

If a way to a man's heart is through his stomach...

...be prepared to take some disinfectants along for the ride. One thing that is a total geek-out for me is reading about ecology. It's one of the areas I wish I'd taken more coursework on back in college. At the time, it didn't much interest me--studying species interactions was boring, and molecular biology was much more interesting. I've pretty much flipped 180 degrees on that one. (Well, molecular biology isn't boring, but it's moved off its rung as a top interest). My main interest as far as ecology is concerned is microbial ecology--especially of the ecosystem we like to call…

Alboin and Cunimund in Hell

Back in 2012 we had a look at the first novel written in Swedish, 1666/68's Stratonice by Urban Hiärne (1641-1724). He went on to become a high-ranking doctor, founded a hydrotherapeutic spa resort, was instrumental in putting an end to the Swedish witch hunts and fathered 26 children by his three wives. But before all this, at the suggestion of professor Olof Rudbeckius Sr., he also found time to write the first original play performed in Swedish: Rosimunda. This was student theatre, with a cast of young noblemen, put on to entertain the 11-y-o future king Carolus XI at Uppsala Castle on 15…

A shot to prevent HIV-- Maybe.

Long-time readers of ERV know that I am not a fan of Pre-Exposure Prophylactics as a regular means of preventing HIV infection. In tightly controlled clinical trials, giving people who might be exposed to HIV anti-HIV drugs does lower infection rates... but when the same protocol is let loose 'out in the wild', the results are not as good. Some are disastrously bad. And thats just following infection rates-- Thats not even addressing the long-term effects sub-optimal levels of antiretrovirals has on the HIV population. A major problem with 'The Pill' to prevent HIV is that people do not take…

If a vegan kills me I swear to god...

I will give them this-- This is a new anti-vax argument for me: Like most medical facilities, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital appears to require that all of its employees receive an annual flu shot. It fired Sakile Chenzira, a customer service representative, for refusing to comply. Chenzira sued, claiming that because the flu vaccine contains eggs the requirement violated her religion—veganism—which prohibits the ingestion of any animals or animal by-products. The influenza vaccine is produced in eggs. If youre vegan, this might present an ethical problem, for you. But most people are vegans…

HERVs and Breast Cancer - A marker for what is but should not be

Common everybody! Sing the chorus with me, you know the words! The vast, vast majority of ERVs are junk. They are genomic pirates, and your genome is doing the best it can to keep them silent. When ERVs are making noise, its a sign that something has gone wrong. Very, very wrong. Like, for example, breast cancer: Immunotherapeutic Potential of Anti-Human Endogenous Retrovirus-K Envelope Protein Antibodies in Targeting Breast Tumors. This paper has the potential to lead to something incredible. Lemme try to convey how cool this is... Like I always say, cells not only making ERV RNA, but…

We Don’t Need a ‘War’ on Climate Change, We Need a Revolution?

Way to go, lefties. Via ATTP on Twitter I find Eric S. Godoy and Aaron Jaffe in the Op-Eds of the NYT1. I think it popped up because of Marx thought of the human body as part of the natural world and called nature an extension of our bodies. Following Marx, contemporary theorists like... and if you're trying to alienate the right wing - and indeed, almost everyone - invoking Marx is an excellent way of doing it2. The ostensible theme of the article - that it might be better to think of climate change in terms of "revolution" rather than "war" - I find uninteresting. The bit worth commenting…

Modern Physics and Scientific Thinking

Yesterday's big post on why I think people should embrace scientific thinking in a more conscious way than they do already (because my claim is that most people already use scientific thinking, they're just not aware that they're doing it) is clearly a kind of explanation of the reason behind my next book, but what about the previous two? How does teaching people about modern physics through imaginary conversations with my dog serve the general goal of getting people to think more scientifically? The following is a bit of a retcon-- after all, the proximate cause of my writing those books was…

Gay Marriage and Polygamy

A bit of an argument has erupted among my closest blog neighbors over the question of gay marriage and polygamy. It began with Jon Rowe's post last month in which he argued that the arguments for gay marriage do not necessarily lead logically to the acceptance of polygamous marriages. Jon was not arguing that we should ban polygamous marriages, only that there are meaningful differences between gay marriages and polygamous marriages that could legitimately be cited to justify accepting gay marriages but not polygamy. The money quote, as Jon called it himself: Note that the grounds for…

Kelly Hollowell's Continued Absurdity

Sometimes you read something that is so absurd that you think that's just as bad as it could possibly get. Then you go down a level and find out that they can top it. To borrow a phrase from Hindu mythology, it's stupidity all the way down. Such is the case with Kelly Hollowell, intrepid Worldnutdaily columnist and two-time winner of the Robert O'Brien Trophy (formerly the Idiot of the Month Award). Her latest column on the recent tsunami and the Noahic flood is stunningly stupid. First, she absurdly contrasts mainstream plate tectonics with "catastrophic plate tectonics": However critics…

Partisan Stupidity and Hypocrisy

The great charm of democracy, HL Mencken famously wrote, is that it's the only truly amusing form of government ever invented. That amusement grows exponentially when one isn't a political partisan. Folks like me who think that the two major parties are, for all practical purposes, equally corrupt and incompetent can find endless amusement in watching the party faithful routinely flip positions on issues and become outraged at behavior they themselves exhibited not long ago. It's a show of the first caliber. When Hillary Clinton's fundraiser is indicted, the Democrats respond with admirable…

It's the End of the World As We Know It

And I feel fine. But it seems as though yesterday's official start of legal gay marriage in Massachusetts has provoked much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the religious right. This is to be expected, of course, but I can't be the only one who is actually enjoying watching all of this feverish hand wringing. I just can't help but be amused by blog entries like this one from a blog entitled, ironically, Sunny Days in Heaven. It appears as though the cloud of gay marriage is ruining this poor fellow's day. He begins, When words like marriage become debased (and thus meaningless as we see…

Gay Marriage Satire

I've never heard of Adam Felbers before today, but after reading the piece I'm going to reproduce below, I'm ready to nominate him for the comedy hall of fame. He gives permission here to reproduce this transcript in e-mails of a commentary he did on This American Life on the radio recently, so I assume it's also okay to reproduce it in full on this page. If not, I'll take it back down again. But this has to be seen by people. It sums up so perfectly the reasons why the arguments against gay marriage are so absurd. And I'm awarding Adam Felbers a perfect 10.0 and the gold medal for satire…

One Hundred Years is not Enough

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic. Objection: Global surface temperatures recorded over just one hundred and some years is not long enough to draw any conclusions or worry about anyway. Answer: The reliable instrumental record only goes back 150 years in the CRU analysis, 125 in the NASA analysis. This is a simple fact that we are stuck with. 2005 was the warmest year recorded in that period according to NASA, a very close second according to CRU. Because of this limit, it is not…

Jen Shroder and Hate Crimes

In our continuing exchange with Jen Shroder, a former Idiot of the Week award winner, I want to bring up another discussion from a comment thread below. In that thread, totally unrelated to anything so I have no idea why she brought it up, she said: Did you know that African Americans and Jews are by FAR the most persecuted groups according to FBI statistics? Gays are a distant third. So where are all the pro African-American and Jewish toleration courses? There aren't any. Because it's not about tolerance. It's about recruitment of the gay community. Jon Rowe then responded to her statement…

We “naive” atheists

It's bad enough everyone is using this "New Atheists" label: various critics keep inventing new ones. Some letter writer to the Independent has decided to call us "Naive Atheists" because we are unaware of the implications of atheism. However, let's forget about the unfortunate history of atheism for a moment and concentrate instead on its philosophical implications. Two of the big consequences are that once you ditch belief in God you must also, logically, ditch belief in free will and in objective morality. What a silly, silly man. If anyone is naive here, it's someone who thinks atheists…

Many Worlds, Many Treats

I'm sitting at the computer typing, when the dog bumps up against my legs. I look down, and she's sniffing the floor around my feet intently. "What are you doing down there?" "I'm looking for steak!" she says, wagging her tail hopefully. "I'm pretty certain that there's no steak down there," I say. "I've never eaten steak at the computer, and I've certainly never dropped any on the floor." "You did in some universe," she says, still sniffing. I sigh. "I'm going to move the quantum physics books to a higher shelf, so you can't reach them." "It won't matter. I've got Wikipedia." "All right,…

New Car Shopping

(I bet this will get me all sorts of incredibly useful search engine traffic...) Some time back, I asked for car-buying advice, and got a wealth of it in comments. Yesterday, Kate and I did a little car shopping, and visited a handful of local dealers to look at various cars. As with the last time I did this (circa 1997), just sitting in cars was enough to narrow the choice dramatically. We tried pretty much everything in the big car/ small SUV line at the Honda dealership, and there wasn't a vehicle there where I didn't bang my knee into the steering column while switching from the gas to…

Is religion rational?

Andrew Brown suggests that we shouldn't suppose that religious belief is irrational, and I'm going to have to agree in part with him. I think theology is actually an exercise in reason — it is an activity that has engaged some of the greatest minds of the ages, and it is a sophisticated and elaborate logical edifice. It is a towering skyscraper constructed of finely honed girders of deductive logic, and I can appreciate how so many people respect it and admire it and want to protect it. I can also see how those who have dedicated much effort to working closely on the craftmanship of the…