|
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 05/01/2008 : 17:55:42
|
It occured to me the yesterday that I was in a rut. This occured to me because the four or five other websites I'd been regularly visiting had nothing new for me to read, and it annoyed me that these comfortable authors were being silent at a time in which I could have been reading. I don't know how I got into this rut, looking back I realize that I've been in this rut for months, but now I'm getting out.
I'm going to try, every day, to find something interesting on a site I've never visited before. I'll post what I find here, and I invite everyone else to do the same.
For this initial post, I'm picking Metamagician and the Hellfire Club, Russell Blackford's blog. Specifically the entry, "Let's try to be strategic," in which Blackford argues that our attempts to spread reason and critical thought shouldn't be willy-nilly, shoot-from-the-hip spasms:The bottom line is that I yield to no one in my concern to fight againt unreason, rather than appeasing it. But, strategically, it's always going to be better to go about that fight in an intellectually principled way than to judge every day-to-day issue by whether taking a particular stance that day will put you on the side of the "good guys" or the "bad guys".
|
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2008 : 19:31:20 [Permalink]
|
Of course, to really get out of the rut, it'd probably involve spending less time on the internet, period! But I know I won't obey that, so here's my new site. Well, new in that it's not a fundy site.
Conventional history has long shown that, in many ways, we have been getting kinder and gentler. Cruelty as entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, conquest as the mission statement of government, genocide as a means of acquiring real estate, torture and mutilation as routine punishment, the death penalty for misdemeanors and differences of opinion, assassination as the mechanism of political succession, rape as the spoils of war, pogroms as outlets for frustration, homicide as the major form of conflict resolution#8212;all were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history. But, today, they are rare to nonexistent in the West, far less common elsewhere than they used to be, concealed when they do occur, and widely condemned when they are brought to light.
The idea that we are indeed living in the most peaceful age of human history may be hard to swallow if you watch the news. But now that social scientists have started to count the bodies from different historical periods, they have discovered a somewhat unintuitive fact: we are becoming nobler. |
|
>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
 |
|
|
Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
|
|
Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2008 : 21:00:58 [Permalink]
|
| Gosh, I do that almost every week in my search for an Evil Pick. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
|
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 05/02/2008 : 03:44:12 [Permalink]
|
I was researching for something else when I happened upon this serendipitous doozy:
"Although it is not exactly paranormal in nature, the phenomenon of entombed animals is completely unexplainable by modern science. Frequently reported throughout history, people have been startled to find living animals trapped in stones, tree trunks, or concrete, sometimes hundreds of feet below the earth's surface. In every report, the animal (usually a frog or toad) is found as a rock was split open or a tree trunk was being sawed, with no possible way evident for the creature to end up inside the cavity of the stone or tree. The cavity is usually slightly larger than the animal, and often it is the same shape as the animal found inside. Animals that are suddenly freed from their stony prisons are often reported as turning darker in color, having difficulty breathing at first, and becoming full of life.
A toad estimated to be over 6000 years old was freed from it's stony prison in 1865, by excavators in Durham, England. The live toad was found in a block of magnesian limestone 25 feet underground. Its eyes were reported to be especially bright, its hind claws were particularly long and the claws of its forefeet were turned in. It grew darker in colour, from a pale colour matching the stone it was found in to a darker olive brown. It appeared to have difficulty breathing as it made a barking sound from its nostrils.
There is no scientific explanation as to how a frog or toad could survive in a seemingly air tight stone without water or food. Some suggest they collect water and nutrients that seep through the stone, especially if it is porous like limestone. Air could get in the same way. However, many of these entrapped animals are found hundreds of feet underground in rock believed to be thousands of years old. Even if the animal survived being trapped in stone, it is extraordinary that it would have remained alive for so long. Ironically, many reports of freed animals claim the creature only lived a few hours or days after being released into "survivable" conditions. "
Words fail. The mind boggles.
|
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
|
| Edited by - filthy on 05/02/2008 03:45:30 |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
|
|
Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 05/03/2008 : 16:44:53 [Permalink]
|
http://self-improvement.mindfocus.net/blog/index.php
A series of interesting psy articles. |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2008 : 15:37:25 [Permalink]
|
If you like your skepticism with a dose of foul language, check out Action Skeptics. A bit from "Paranormalists Are Running Out Of Ideas: SLIders" caught my funny bone:I'd like to make a brief digression and talk, for a moment, about my metric for determining the kind of stuff that goes into a Paranormalists Are Running Out Of Ideas (PAROOI?) post. I've thought about how I decide what to write these posts about and realized that it isn't doesn't so much come out of a process of rational decision-making adn fact crunching. That most certainly comes later, but my initial yardstick for using something as an example of paranormal barrel-scraping is if it piques in my the following reaction:
"Jesus. That's lame as hell." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/05/2008 : 16:45:11 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dave W.
If you like your skepticism with a dose of foul language, check out Action Skeptics. A bit from "Paranormalists Are Running Out Of Ideas: SLIders" caught my funny bone:I'd like to make a brief digression and talk, for a moment, about my metric for determining the kind of stuff that goes into a Paranormalists Are Running Out Of Ideas (PAROOI?) post. I've thought about how I decide what to write these posts about and realized that it isn't doesn't so much come out of a process of rational decision-making adn fact crunching. That most certainly comes later, but my initial yardstick for using something as an example of paranormal barrel-scraping is if it piques in my the following reaction:
"Jesus. That's lame as hell."
|
That "Jesus" rule of thumb is perhaps the most useful of Christ's contributions to our world.
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Out and about
