If God exists Christopher Hitchens says we do indeed in the celestial equivalent of North Korea. His argument is this: if God exists (which he denies in the first place) our choices are to believe in and worship Him or spend eternity in hell. What kind of choice is that? Whether you agree with his [...]
Sadly, Leslie Nielsen passed away this weekend. In tribute, I’m going out and renting my favourite Leslie Nielsen movie: Airplane. There are so many great one-liners in this movie but, by far, I think the most memorable are the Shirley jokes: And in case you’ve never seen Airplane, here’s the trailer:
Your choice: 1) An interview with a guy who tests tape including questions like this: CLB: Does it usually come off? G: Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t, you know—that’s the excitement of it, really. OR 2) Sussudio – Phil Collins Is it just me or does this song remind you of getting kicked out of a [...]
If you’ve got five minutes and have ever wondered why people seem to have so much confidence in how science works, check out this video. It’s by scientist-turned-philosopher Massimo Pigliucci, and while I don’t always agree with his views on all things (this shouldn’t be surprising since I’m sure anyone would have difficulty finding someone [...]
Everytime I see a journalist complain about scientism–defined as a misguided belief in the infallibility of science–I wonder, considering that the -ism in scientism is apparently a bad thing, if they also recognize that their discipline also ends in -ism? There are some great journalists out there but more often than not I feel like [...]
It’s raining and grey in Montreal. It’s one of those days you forget ever happened. Here’s a song by The Band that Bahamas covered in Montreal last week. This song just fits the day: If you want to listen to Bahamas play it you can check out this National Post podcast (it starts at 0:40).
I’ve been getting into social epidemiology which tends to use the notion of neighbourhood a lot. But what exactly is a neighbourhood? In an urban setting there are no defining lines and people can have vastly different neighbourhoods even if they live next door to each other. That why I like the approach of asking [...]
Hey! Getta load a this guy. Southern Souls, aka Mitch Fillion, filmed over 150 bands on their home turf in his first year of operation–for free. That’s dedication. You’ll find The Acorn using a railroad track as an instrument, Diamond Rings having a Christmas recital and Bahamas chilling by the fire. These videos are so [...]
…to continue with the Justin Timberlake references. Here’s an interesting way to look at the periodic table of elements (via Robert Krulwich of NPR’s Radiolab): as personalities at a party. Krulwich says: Chemistry, after all, is about making and breaking bonds. It’s about attraction and repulsion. You can think of bonds as covalent, ionic or [...]
