Month: December 2006

Apparently the airport security people are trained to look at your face to see if you are twitching like a terrorist. I don’t know this for sure, but they always take a deliberate look at me after checking my boarding pass. I figure they must have taken the one-hour course…

I always check a movie’s critical reviews before committing two-plus hours of my life to it. This method of movie filtering does not work because movie reviewers are sick bastards who enjoy misery as long as it is well crafted. My second filter is based on the actors and directors….

Yesterday I “helped” by taking the dishes out of the dishwasher and putting them in the cupboard. I did all of the plates and cups and glasses and bowls first. Then I put away the larger serving spoons and odds and ends. The last step was the flatware. But some…

Oh how you mocked me for my post yesterday about free will. I said a good test of free will is to have a surgeon stimulate the brain and then ask the patient to somehow override that stimulation with free will. About a hundred or more of you sliced my…

There was a court case recently in Australia where a guy claimed he became uncontrollably horny after suffering a head injury at work. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/12/20/1166290613406.html This guy’s lawyer convinced a judge that his client was extra horny because of the brain injury. After the accident, the client allegedly misbehaved around women,…

The Middle Ages was a great time to be a guy. In those days, men were the kings of their castles. Guys made the rules because being large and strong were the two most important things. If a wild boar attacked a family’s twig-and-mud hovel, it was the man’s job…

Al-Jazeera just broadcast the 15th recorded message from al-Qaeda’s #2 guy, al-Zawahri. He appeared in front of the same brown background as before, with his same rifle propped against the wall. Am I the only one who thinks al-Zawahri has his own cubicle at al-Jazeera? I imagine al-Zawahri coming to…

Most enlightened people agree that discrimination is bad. The thing they can’t agree on is who should be on the protected list. The general rule is that you shouldn’t discriminate against people for things they can’t control, such as gender, ethnicity or disability. But there are some interesting exceptions to…

A number of you asked me what I believe about the universe, given that I’ve ruled out God and I also have suspicions about evolution. That’s a revealing question because I think the real reason anyone believes anything is because uncertainty hurts. So we pick a side and rationalize it…