Believing there is no God means the suffering I’ve seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn’t caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn’t bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.
From an essay by Penn Jillette, explaining that he isn’t an atheist. He is a believer. He believes there is no God.
From a report in today’s Los Angeles Times:
SAN FRANCISCO — When Jeffrey Zalles needed a new cashier for his coin laundry in the South of Market district, his help-wanted ad in the San Francisco Chronicle brought just four responses.
So Zalles posted a notice on Craigslist, a San Francisco-based network of websites that specialize in classified advertising. His cyber-ad drew 400 applicants.
Zalles found his cashier and hasn’t relied on the Chronicle since, advertising instead on the Internet and the city’s array of free papers.
Even NewMexiKen has made $8.41 from ads in the first 10 days of December. Not much, but I guess it’s $8.41 that some more traditional advertising outlet didn’t get — and there’s a new website every second (or some such statistic). The internet is changing everything.
The New Yorker has put Annie Proulx’s 1997 story online.
Pointer via Kottke.
Scott Adams on gifting:
I asked my fiancé what she wants for Christmas and she was nice enough to e-mail me a specific suggestion for a hard-to-find item.
I copied the product name from her e-mail, pasted it into the Froogle search engine, and found the cheapest one on the Internet. That took about 12 seconds. It took another minute to enter my address and credit card information.
When it comes to gift-giving, they say it’s the thought that counts. So far I had 72 seconds invested in my future wife. I wondered if that was enough.
“The truth is, anytime someone starts talking to you about how Christians are persecuted in the United States, you are — right then and right there — talking to a retard.”
Two schools have had 20 percent of the Heisman Trophy winners; seven each at USC and Notre Dame.
USC: Mike Garrett (1965), O.J. Simpson (1968), Charles White (1979), Marcus Allen (1981), Carson Palmer (2002), Matt Leinart (2004) and Reggie Bush (2005).
Notre Dame: Angelo Bertelli (1943), Johnny Lujack (1947), Leon Hart (1949), Johnny Lattner (1953), Paul Hornung (1956), John Huarte (1964) and Tim Brown (1987).
In all, 70 men have won the Trophy; one of them, Archie Griffin of Ohio State, won it twice.
One of these soccer players belongs to Jill, the photographer. Guess which one.
… entered the Union on this date in 1816, the 19th state.
Motto: “The Crossroads of America.”
Nickname: Hoosier State.
Capital: Indianapolis
Bird: Cardinal.
Flower: Peony.
Poem: “Indiana.”
Song: “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away.”
Stone: Indiana limestone.
Tree: Tulip tree.
Total area: 36,418 sq. mi. (38th), including 551 sq. mi. inland water.
Population: 6,159,068 (14th) (2002 estimate).
… of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The Nobel Prize winner (for Literature in 1970) is 87.
… of Rita Moreno. The Oscar winner — supporting actress for Anita in West Side Story — is 74.
… of Tom Hayden. Royal Oak’s most famous native, co-founder of Students for a Democratic Society and Jane Fonda’s one-time husband is 66.
… of John Kerry. He’s 62.
… of Brenda Lee. She’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Holiday Tree this year at age 61.
… of Terri Garr. The Oscar nominee (supporting actress for Tootsie) is 56.
“I lived my life for myself. You live your life for your daughter. None of it works.”
Evelyn (Cloris Leachman) in Spanglish, a much better movie than I would have thought.
“Everyone carries around his own monsters.”
Richard Pryor (1940-2005)
Digby gets his tribute to Richard Pryor off to an appropriately iconclastic start.
If you would like to have a surreal experience akin to the effects of downing ten shots of cheap tequila, tune in to FoxNews as they eulogize Richard Pryor. Apparently he invented dirty words. (It’s going to come as a helluva surprise to Lenny Bruce — not to mention Redd Foxx.) He rejected the comedy of the good comedian, Bill Cosby, and went down the “wrong path” that led us to where we are today with all this R rated badness. One of the commentators said that when he went on TV in the mid 70’s he “wasn’t ready for prime time.” (Actually, prime time wasn’t ready for him.) Another said that “every black comic owes him something.”
(Is it possible that right wingers are all actually zombies who died sometime before the 60’s and have been walking among us as the undead ever since then? I just don’t know what else can explain their terminal cultural obtuseness.)
… entered the Union as the 20th state on this date in 1817. From the Ojibwa misi sipi, “great river.”
Nickname: Magnolia State.
Capital: Jackson.
Motto: Virtute et armis (By virtue and arms).
People: 2,871,782 (31st) (2002 estimate)
Total area: 48,430 sq. mi. (32nd), including 1,523 sq. mi. inland water.
Beverage: Milk.
Bird: Mockingbird.
Fish: Largemouth or black bass.
Flower: Magnolia.
Fossil: Prehistoric whale.
Insect: Honeybee.
Mammal: White-tailed deer.
Song: “Go, Mississippi.”
Stone: Petrified wood.
Tree: Magnolia.
Waterfowl: Wood duck.
Water mammal: Porpoise.
Note that Mississippi is a poor state that needs to use magnolia as both its state flower and state tree.
Melvil Dewey was born on this date in 1851. You know — Dewey, as in Dewey decimal system.
Read Dewey’s obituary in 1931 from The New York Times.
Here’s a website that seems to be the Dewey Decimal Classification headquarters.
Oh, and here’s 025.431: The Dewey blog.
NewMexiKen has been considering jettisoning the Categories for this blog and replacing them with a classification scheme. I’d probably use the Library of Congress system, though. Sorry, Melvil.
Strictly hypothetical mind you: Is it OK to eat whipped cream by itself?
The familiar pattern of a decade ago begs the question that Bill Gates was asked when he met last month with a group of executives and journalists from The New York Times: Will you do to Google what you did to Netscape?
Mr. Gates, the Microsoft co-founder and chairman, paused, looked down at his folded hands and smiled broadly, as if enjoying a private joke. “Nah,” he replied, “we’ll do something different.”
From Can This Man Reprogram Microsoft?, an article in Sunday’s New York Times about the new internet and Microsoft’s re-invention. Interesting look at where we may all be headed.
The “man” in the title is Ray Ozzie.
These are online games that, in my opinion, offer a “good experience” – good game design with an overall attention to quality. Unless otherwise noted, they’re all free, online, and available right now.
Link via BoingBoing.
These two items via Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times:
Here’s what another former Trojan had to say about [Reggie] Bush:
“Best college football player I’ve ever seen, and I’ve watched college football for 25 years. I’ve spent over 25 years affiliated with the USC program in athletics, all the way back from my ball-boy days and stuffing envelopes in the sports information office to being an All-American and first-round pick.”
Speaking those words on his Sirius Satellite Radio show was Keyshawn Johnson, born July 22, 1972.
Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News, on the outcome of the Rose Bowl game: “First team to 50 — loses by 14.”
Colorado Luis suggests four (from two years ago) and calls for nominations. His suggestions:
Luis explains:
Some of these beers change from year to year, for example, this year Goose Island’s Christmas Ale will be an IPA. My vote for best holiday beer is still the Frambozen, which reminds us a good ten years after fruit beers were trendy that introducing real fruit into the brewing process can create a sophisticated and tasty product without too much residual sugar.
I would command a 16-team Division I-A football playoff system and today would be the first round:
USC vs. Texas Tech
Texas vs. UCLA
Penn State vs. TCU
Ohio State vs. Alabama
Oregon vs. LSU
Notre Dame vs. West Virginia
Georgia vs. Virginia Tech
Miami vs. Auburn
How cool would that be? As it is, there are no Division I-A games scheduled today.
(My schedule is based on BCS rankings with a few modifications for teams in the same conference.)
Calvin and Hobbes discuss Calvin’s legal case for being on Santa’s “good list.”
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – Ethiopian, American and European researchers have observed a fissure in a desert in the remote northeast that could be the “birth of a new ocean basin,” scientists said Friday.
Researchers from Britain, France, Italy and the U.S. have been observing the 37-mile long fissure since it split open in September in the Afar desert and estimate it will take a million years to fully form into an ocean, said Dereje Ayalew, who leads the team of 18 scientists studying the phenomenon.
The fissure, now 13 feet wide, formed in just three weeks after a Sept. 14 earthquake in a barren region called Boina, some 621 miles north east of the capital, Addis Ababa, said Dereje.
AP via Yahoo! News
From New Mexico Viewpoint, go take a look at this Connecticut road sign. It’s a good cheap shot.
Dan Neil takes the new Bugatti Veyron for a spin.
About nine seconds ago, I was dawdling at 100 mph. Then I squeezed the throttle. The seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox clicked twice, the engine took a huge lung-busting toke of atmosphere through its twin roof snorkels — and then things got interesting. Something slammed me from behind and I realize it was the seat. Captain, it appears we have fallen nose-first into a wormhole.
Two-hundred mph. And I’m not even in top gear.
Top speed: 253 mph. But it has a safety feature. At that speed it will run out of gas in 12 minutes.
MSRP: $1.25 million. (“The down payment is $413,000, enough to buy six Chevrolet Corvette Z06s.”)
Maryland has defeated SMU 4-1 and New Mexico has beaten Clemson 2-1 in the NCAA Men’s Division I soccer semi-finals.
The Terrapins and Lobos play for the championship Sunday at noon MST (ESPN2).