"...cleanse them by water in the name of Allah, his Messiah and his Holy Spirit.” - Matthew 28:19, Wycliffe Bible Translators, Arabic version.
Monthly Archives: January 2012
“Mathematics Can Be Applied to All Areas of Life” — Not So, Says Murray Rothbard
"...the crucial point is that mathematics cannot contribute to economic knowledge." - Murray Rothbard
What Ever Happened to Al Gore?
We may have reached a watershed moment in American culture. As I made my morning trek to the LA Times website yesterday, I saw a headline that made me a bit suspicious, “U.S. seems to have largely escaped winter.” I live in the Chicago area, and as a native southern Californian I do not state it too strongly when I say I hate the weather here, and I hate winter more than the other seasons (btw, late summer/early fall is the time to visit Chicago). After three horrible winters it’s been nice to get a reprieve this winter. We actually played golf on January 11! It was mid-50s that day. Crazy.
Book Review: ‘Long Way Down’
"Sam looked out the porthole and saw nothing but water down below. His heart raced and a bead of perspiration rolled down his cheek. He knew Grimes would stand them in front of the hatch and shoot them. They would fall out of the plane to the water below, and if they didn’t die from the bullets, the impact with the surface would kill them." - From Paul Carr's 'Long Way Down'
Pulped! — Reading Just for the Fun of It
"I’m on a crusade to prove that entertainment has value in itself, not just as a dose of sugar to help audiences swallow more important themes. Entertainment allows us to temporarily shut down our brains and waken later with emotions refreshed." - Hannah Sternberg
Shocking Entertainment Has Some Exalted Company
Most Americans no longer have a close familiarity with the Bible and the stories of the Bible. Even many Christians only have a very cursory knowledge of it, basically what they get at Church every Sunday, or whenever they go. My knowledge of The Book is more than cursory, but it had been decades since I read it from cover to cover, and after all that time I’m sure I needed a refreshing on the narrative of God’s progressive revelation.
Van Damme Cinema: Meaningless, Silly, Senseless . . . in a Word, Priceless!
The young crime-fiction aficionado Patrick Ohl writes: I have a confession to make. I love action movies, especially all those movies from the 80s and 90s starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, or any one of their rivals with the general exception of Steven Seagal. Dumb and derivative they may be, but I have plenty of fun watching the creative action, well-choreographed fights, and terrible acting. But above all, my guiltiest pleasures are watching Jean-Claude Van Damme movies.
I cannot explain this love of mine in any rational terms. Van Damme was at one point in his career considered Arnold Schwarzenegger without the price tag— like Arnold, he was consistently passed off as an American despite the heavily accented English, and his acting was almost always laughably bad. That being said, there are many minor gems in Van Damme’s career.
A Megadownload
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." — Mark Twain
Unintended Consequences Abundantly Flow from the 16th Amendment
"What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin." — Mark Twain
Simon Cowell for President!
OK, that's a tongue-in-cheek suggestion. For one thing, he’s not a U.S. citizen. But attorney and legal and constitutional analyst Maureen Martin is convinced we need a presidential candidate with the “X Factor” Simon Cowell promotes and embodies.
The Cultural Value of Reading
“The ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” - Malcolm X
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