It never occurred to me that the above oath, so benign and absurd in sound, is actually a corruption of “God’s hooks,” a euphemism for the nails in the cross. Gadzooks indeed!
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act on them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.
Thomas Jefferson
Love this guy taking apart homeopathy. Get in the sack!
Sunset – “Your Eyes Are Mirrors,”
The Glowing City
Wow, this album is great. It’s one of these seamless song-into-song-into-song albums, and the sound is constantly changing, yet remaining identifiable throughout. Bill Baird is the name of the guy behind it, a sort of all-in-one musician with talented friends, not unlike The Microphones’ Phil Elverum (though the music is very different).
Why we must ration health care
Why we must ration health care
A very convincing article by Peter Singer describing the need for health care rationing, although “rationing” is a term which should probably be avoided in debate situations, for obvious reasons.
Essentially, we are already rationing health care by way of cost, and the objections that life has no set value, while true in some ways, are not good policy guides. After all, the million spent to extend one person’s life a year may have extended ten people’s lives by ten years each, if only the money was better spent.
He also gets into the definition of the Quality Adjusted Life Year, or QALY, a unit (life extended by one year, adjusted for quality of said life) for evaluating the efficiency of treatments. At some point, he says (and rightly, I believe), we have to say we are willing to pay no more than X for a QALY, otherwise we end up with… well, the system we’ve got, where costs are astronomical, while expectations and outcomes are no better than countries which spend a fraction as much.
This is going to be a major talking point in the coming years, I’m sure, because if health care really changes, it’s going to need to take some of this into account.
A commenter at Metafilter does bring up a good point, though:
“Regardless of how effective government-run health care might be, it’s not for our society. It’s for societies that pay for things.”
Man, suddenly I really want a shotgun.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
The Psychologist’s Dilemma
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal absolutely nails the Russian doll-like way in which Psychology experiments are often organized. They’re never testing what you think they’re testing, and they always lie.
Amazon puts Orwell e-books in the memory hole
Amazon puts Orwell e-books in the memory hole
Give me a god damn break. This is some serious bullshit. I was going to put this post on TechCrunch but was beaten to the punch by another writer (damn his eyes).
According to the best accounts which I have been able to obtain, this Chimaera was nearly, if not quite, the ugliest and most poisonous creature, and the strangest and unaccountablest, and the hardest to fight with, and the most difficult to run away from, that ever came out of the earth’s inside. It had a tail like a boa-constrictor; its body was like I do not care what; and it had three separate heads, one of which was a lion’s, the second a goat’s, and the third an abominably great snake’s. And a hot blast of fire came flaming out of each of its three mouths! Being an earthly monster, i doubt whether it had any wings; but, wings or no, it ran like a goat and a lion, and wriggled along like a serpent, and thus contrived to make about as much speed as all the three together.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys
It’s a damn ROCKET BIKE
One million yen.
Holy CHRIST. This movie is the goddamn business. Ip Man is a movie about a Wing Chun master during the 1938 Japanese occupation of China. Just watched him beat down 10 guys at once in a very brutal manner.
Charlie Brooker chimes in on the revelation that everything is rotten
Charlie Brooker chimes in on the revelation that everything is rotten
Satirical (and hysterical) British columnist Charlie Brooker takes on the fact that suddenly we can’t trust the government, the press, or each other, even though we all know that’s how it’s always been.
http://fora.tv/embedded_player
Late night! This debate, while less scholarly, was far more entertaining and even-handed than I expected, considering it’s with Al Sharpton. He does get schooled, though.
(Source: http://fora.tv/)
http://fora.tv/embedded_player
On an atheist kick, I guess. This was a most fascinating debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alistair McGrath about all things religious and moral. For once it’s not a network news commentator asking Hitchens how can he have the nerve to not believe in god, but rather an intelligent former atheist who is now a theologian of note. He still appears to be out of his league, although Hitchens (as usual) comes off as a real jerk.
The full thing is here at fora.tv; it’s quite long since it’s an actual structured academic debate, but worth watching all the way through if you have a spare 90 minutes.
(Source: http://fora.tv/)
Christopher Hitchens absolutely hammers a Christian talk-show host. The guy really gets served and can’t accept it. There are little bits missing but the gist is there.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Have a fully-cooked breakfast and get ready for work in under 5 minutes. If I wore pajamas, I’d take them off like that every time.
I love the ears.
[the daily what]
Forget Shorter Showers
I’ve always felt this way (individual actions are praiseworthy but ultimately ineffective in large issues), but I tend to expand my view to further individual actions like say, handing out pamphlets or picketing. Change only comes at the breaking point, and although you can make sure others are willing to make that change, it’s too much to expect that change to come before it’s good and ready.
Peach Pit – “I”
Split w/ Majmoon
My friend Jeremy dropped this in my lap. Peach Pit, a Croatian (?) math-rock band that takes the usual “weird progressions and signatures” style of math-rock music and adds a surprising amount of power and melody. This is the first track of four, and they really cover a huge amount of musical ideas over the 26 minutes they use up. It’s actually shocking how good they are sometimes.
You can download the second track here, and here’s a video of a live performance of “4x100m”. More stuff here at the Peach Pit page.
And now, conscience, I defy thee!
Young Fashion in The Relapse, John Vanbrugh
O my sweet little people, you have no idea what a weight there was in that same blue sky, which looks so soft and aerial above our heads! And there, too, was the bluster of the wind, and the chill and watery clouds, and the blazing sun, all taking their turns at making Hercules uncomfortable! He began to be afraid that the giant would never come back. He gazed wistfully at the world beneath him, and acknowledged to himself that it was a far happier kind of life to be a shepherd at the foot of a mountain, than to stand on its dizzy summit, and bear up the firmament with his might and main.
Hawthorne, A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys
women!
Let the chips fall where they may – as long as it’s in my mouth.
Me
Been reading old Dick Tracy comics downloaded from an enormous torrent of Four Color Comics, a series which gave birth to a ton of classic comic heroes. Up next: Smilin’ Jack, Captain Easy, and Gangbusters.
Update: Smilin’ Jack is a little rough and Gangbusters holds back too much. Captain Easy on the other hand is a goddamn treasure. I’m going to head up to Fantagraphics later this week and get a collection.
Wow. I cannot comprehend these.