Libertine

While reading a message board the other day, I saw a thread about New Year’s resolutions and rolled my eyes. My first thought was that nearly everyone would resolve to “lose weight” in 2010, as that particular resolution is typical and ubiquitous. There’s absolutely no originality about it at all. Sure enough, I was right. [...]

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This morning, I read an interesting blog post by Paula Reed. Her entry was based on a quote she’d received by email: “The Left: People who demonize those with whom they disagree.” My first thought was to think of how so many neocons today are masters at the art of projection: they take what is [...]

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In recent news reports I read about a four year old pre-kindergarten Texas boy who has been suspended from school for having long hair.  Say what?  Is this 1959 or 2009?  I thought that the right of male students to wear long hair had been settled years ago.  Indeed, when I was in high school [...]

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I’ve not so far written about the Tiger Woods story because I viewed it as yet another story about a straying celebrity and that it would quickly become yesterday’s news.  Reports such as these are now rather commonplace and are hardly worth reporting on, let alone commenting on. But this story outlived its fifteen minutes [...]

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Reading the webpage of one of my local TV stations, I came upon a story about a man who had been arrested for bigamy.  He’d married his first wife in 2005, and had married a second woman this past October. Neither wife had been the wiser until the first wife intercepted a text message for [...]

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The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. –Bertrand Russell While trying to come up with something to write about today, I visited a quote site where I found the quote above.  The first thing that popped into my mind was that of religion.   Wars [...]

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I’ve often considered what attracts different people to religion and what purposes religion has served in society.  Recently, I’ve been thinking of the converse: what makes people reject religion and the different reasons why people are either atheists or agnostics. I think there are several reasons, often depending on each particular person’s personality and outlook [...]

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The other day while out driving, I was monitoring the Neal Boortz show, looking for ranty blogging fodder.  And, as is almost always the case, I found what I was looking for. Because it was Veteran’s Day, he was relating anecdotes with that theme in mind.  He told a story about a man attacked by [...]

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The ship pictured above is the Oasis of the Seas, which is currently the largest cruise ship in the world. Ship statistics: Length: 1,191 feet (compared to 8821/s feet for the Titanic) Tonnage: 225, 282 GT (compared to 46, 329 for the Titanic) Beam: 154 feet Height: 236 feet above waterline Draft: 31 feet Depth: [...]

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The other day, I stopped in at a fast food joint to get something to eat.  I gave my order to the person standing behind the cash register, who did not acknowledge the order in any way and made no move to enter it into the cash register.  Instead, he was looking around me, silently [...]

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