A vid take on MoF’s Sparks: First up, Stuart Shepard, who I’d not heard of before today but is apparently a member of Focus on the Family’s activism arm, is encouraging everyone to encourage his God to rain on Obama’s acceptance speech. Which seems to me to be incredibly petty: pray for peace? pray for [...]

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“Hypermiling” has become all the rage in the media sources I frequent (in order of its appearance: Wired, NPR, and GroovyGreen), but it’s always seemed too dangerous and requiring too much thought. I learned to drive on the Autobahn, where there is no speed limit, only a minimum, and a posted “recommendation” of 120kph (about [...]

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My sister, the geophysicist, was telling me today about the Southern California ShakeOut, an event this November 12th at 10AM when everyone is being asked to stop & consider what would happen if there was a 7.4 earthquake on the San Andreas. She went to a seminar where different representatives of the event spoke about [...]

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(It’s that time again – guest post from Zach time.) (Image from Bloomsbury Auctions) Lots of people are talking about a newly-surfaced letter by Einstein, which seems to clarify his ambiguous views on religion with the following strongly-worded statements: The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, [...]

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It’s long, but go listen to & read NPR’s “Two Families Grapple with Sons’ Gender Preferences“. Then come back for study questions.

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I still do think that is has wonderful aspects to it, that it can inspire people to greatness (though is not necessary for it), and that it has basis in fact, tradition, and/or necessity. I think that, because of these facts, it should be respected, as should history, but I do in no way think [...]

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Despite the heat LA has experienced in the last few days I know it’s October at night. There must be something about the proximity & angles of the moon to the northern hemisphere in October, because I can tell what month it is by looking at the moon regardless of where I’ve found myself of an October. It’s big, orange, and slightly obscured by clouds in a painfully romantic way.

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When I was in high school, if I wanted to do anything on a Sunday (missing church), I’d have to go to Saturday evening mass. Since the English Community only had one service a week, and since it was 50k away, I’d walk down to the local Catholic Church and sit in the way back (eventually it did occur to me that I didn’t have to go there, just be gone for the right general amount of time, but I still usually hung out around there). I found it much easier to tune out mass in German, so I often spent the hour or so thinking Deep Thoughts. One of the major Deep Thoughts was of chaos & order.

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There’s something comforting about familiar freeways. Sure, I’m driving down the 55, and I can all but see the carbon monoxide in the air and my field of view is saturated to the peripheries with oil-slicked concrete and windowless bunker-like warehouses, but the traffic is moving, I am at home, and I am happy. When [...]

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