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Today's post on atheist morality concerns the use of natural and artificial pharmaceuticals for pleasure. This practice may be nearly as old as humanity - three-thousand-year-old Andean mummies have been found to contain traces of coca, and the brewing of beer may date back to the Stone Age. Today ...
If you're a fan of Hugh Macleod and his blog Gaping Void, you'll want to check out this Business Week article on the use of doodling in Corporate America. Apparently, Hugh's "blue monster" doodle (left) has been adopted by Microsoft as its unofficial mascot: "Ever since MacLeod sent the ...
One reason for the vibrancy of American innovation is the proliferation of "third places" - places like the corner coffee lounge - where freelance workers and mobile digerati can meet, greet and socialize in an environment that is neither home nor office. Last week, Dan Fost of the New York Times ...
(Author's Note: The following review was solicited and is written in accordance with this site's policy for such reviews.) Summary: A libertarian political tract disguised as a work of science. Michael Shermer's The Mind of the Market concerns "evolutionary economics" - the way that ...
Off the top of your head, how many songs do you know that mention US states, either in their title or in the lyrics? Here’s how far I got: • “It Never Rains In Southern California” (The Mamas & The Papas?) • “Paris, Texas” (Ry Cooder) • “Bikini Girls with Machine Guns” (by The Cramps ...
I've put up a new post on Dangerous Intersection, "Barack Obama gets it right".
During times of both economic boom and bust, business innovation tends to flourish. During a boom, flush pockets and rosy visions of the future lead to generous spending on innovation projects. During a bust, the need to hunker down and deal with everyday business reality leads companies to ...
I recently received an e-mail from an atheist asking for advice: I've always been afraid of death, and usually I tell myself that it's pointless. But lately, I've started thinking about my existence and ultimately, my death. I was, and still am to some extent, horribly afraid of losing myself ...
No one seems to regret that Thomas Jefferson’s plan for the division of the Northwest Territory into ten new states was shelved. The proposed names were just too silly, writes 19th-century Jefferson-biographer John T. Morse, Jr.: “The names suggested for these ten States are a peculiar mixture ...
I was away last weekend and came back to an astonishing story: Ellen Johnson, Madalyn Murray O'Hair's successor as president of American Atheists, has proudly announced that she didn't vote in the recent presidential primaries. Even more jaw-dropping, she's urged atheists not to vote in the general ...
As most news bulletins prove, the world is not, alas, an harmonious place. The same point is proved, if inadvertently and on a more symbolical level, by this stunning musical map of the world. This is a pretty clever translation of the shape of the world’s continents into the dots, ties and ...
You've just been to the doctor, and she has some bad news. There's a deadly new disease sweeping the population - one which strikes 1 out of 100 people and invariably kills everyone who catches it. Medical science has developed a test that is 95% accurate during the incubation period: that is, when ...
There's been so much important news pouring in this month that it's hard to keep up with it. But despite the flood of information, there've been a few especially significant discoveries that I think shouldn't be overlooked. There are three that I thought deserve special notice: • On February 13 ...
Religious beliefs, as a general rule, aren't based on evidence. I have little doubt that my fellow nonbelievers will agree without reservation, and equally little doubt that religious believers will call me arrogant and uninformed for so sweepingly dismissing the basis of their beliefs. But that ...
For the past 25 years, Kenneth Cole has been an innovator in the fashion world. In the 1980's, he was the first designer to combine fashion with philanthropy; he has also consistently pushed the edge in his advertising campaigns in an attempt to spark public debate about AIDS, homelessness and ...