Category: Off Topic
Off Topic: Random Acts of Culture — Handel’s Messiah in a Mall
| November 14, 2010 | Posted by GilDodgen under Culture, Off Topic |
As many UD readers know, I am a classical pianist by training since the age of seven. The piano and classical music have been a tremendous inspiration all my life, and this was my refuge during four decades in the hideous darkness of atheism. After 2.5 centuries, great, uplifting works of musical art such as… more
Incredible Pictures of Iceland Volcano Eruption
| April 26, 2010 | Posted by William Dembski under Off Topic |
MANY MORE more
[Quasi-Off-Topic:] Long-Winded Senatorial Specifications
| November 21, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Humor, Off Topic |
Specifications have long been an intense interest of mine (e.g., go here). Below is an 833-word specification by our U.S. Senate that could have been said in one word — LOUISIANA. Indeed, the only state to which this specifcation applies is LOUISIANA. Congrats to Lousiana’s Mary Landrieu for snagging $100M in pork that’s associated with… more
Off topic: Single payer health care
| October 11, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Off Topic |
Here I was recently treated to an interesting display of Darwinist logic. A commenter demanded that I provide proof that in a single-payer health system like Canada’s, older people are being abandoned to die. Another suggested I just shut up about it. Sorry. Go here for how bad it can get. It’s a matter of simple… more
President Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize
| October 9, 2009 | Posted by Mario A. Lopez under Eyes Rolling, Off Topic |
OSLO (AP) — President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his nascent initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and replace unilateral American action with international diplomacy and cooperation. Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in… more
Abandoning the Most Vulnerable
| October 7, 2009 | Posted by Clive Hayden under Education, Intelligent Design, Off Topic, Science |
Wesley J. Smith has written an interesting article about assisted suicide at The Weekly Standard called “Abandoning the Most Vulnerable.” The article is about the true story of Myrna Lebov who committed suicide at the age of 52 in her Manhattan apartment with the aid of her husband George Delury. According to Smith, Lebov had… more
SETI Gets New Toys!
| August 19, 2009 | Posted by Mario A. Lopez under Eyes Rolling, Humor, Just For Fun, Off Topic, Psychology, Religion |
Quest to find life beyond Earth gets technological boosts By Andrea Pitzer, Special for USA TODAY 8/19/09 The search for intelligent life in the universe is still on. Despite the absence of interstellar tourists to date, astronomers at the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) are hoping that we are not alone. And with new… more
Not Very NICE
| August 15, 2009 | Posted by Clive Hayden under Biology, Culture, Education, Intelligent Design, Off Topic, Religion, Science |
Investor’s Business Daily posted an article relating Obama’s Healthcare Bill to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the technocrats responsible for the U.K.’s health care. The article states: This administration, pledging to cut medical costs and for which “cost-effectiveness” is a new mantra, knows that a quarter of Medicare spending is made… more
If You Want Good Science, Who Better to Ask Than Barret Brown?
| August 8, 2009 | Posted by Clive Hayden under Culture, Intelligent Design, Off Topic |
Barrett Clown, oh pardon me, Barrett Brown, thinks he makes an argument against ID by humor and satire alone here at The Huffington Post. He is, after all, to be taken deadly seriously, he’s written for National Lampoon for goodness sakes and written a book about Dodo birds. Not really, Dodo birds were really just… more
Off Topic: Five Critical Things You Must Do with New Media
| June 21, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Off Topic |
Again, I don’t think that low quality programming is what’s driving the decline, but rather the reverse. TV became increasingly gross and trivial as it became a less important source of news and entertainment. What’s driving the decline is simply the fact that people can watch whatever they want any time of day anywhere they want. Those of us old enough to remember prime time TV will understand the significance of this: TV producers voluntarily accepted prime time standards because everyone was watching TV. And again, a key question is economic: Whither ad revenues?
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Oopsie daisy… NSIDC misplaces 500,000 sq. kilometers of arctic ice
| February 21, 2009 | Posted by Dave S. under Eyes Rolling, Global Warming, Off Topic |
The National Snow and Ice Data Center had to pull down its January and February arctic ice extent data because a deteriorating sensor on a satellite was slowly changing ice to water. By mid-February when someone noticed the readings were off by a half-million square kilometers. That’s a lot of ice when you consider that… more
G.K. Chesterton’s Doubts about Darwinism
| February 9, 2009 | Posted by DLH under Culture, Darwinism, Evolution, Off Topic, Philosophy, Religion, Self-Org. Theory |
Following are some insightful extracts from G.K.Chesterton that still ring true. Doubts About Darwinism by G. K. Chesterton, 17th July 1920 . . .I am confronted with a very reasonable retort that I know nothing about the subject. . .it would be equally true if I ventured to throw out the suggestion that the Kaiser… more
Human DNA repair process video – by chance?
| January 30, 2009 | Posted by DLH under Biology, Darwinism, Education, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Off Topic, Self-Org. Theory |
More details of DNA repair have been revealed. See: Human DNA repair process recorded in action (Video) (PhysOrg.com) — A key phase in the repair process of damaged human DNA has been observed and visually recorded by a team of researchers at the University of California, Davis. The recordings provide new information about the role… more
Hansen’s former boss at NASA declares himself an AGW skeptic
| January 28, 2009 | Posted by Dave S. under Global Warming, Off Topic |
The video below is U.S. Senator James Inhofe describing the letter he received from former NASA supervisor and senior atmospheric scientist Dr. John S. Theon: embedded by Embedded Video For the EPW press release on this more
“Darwin’s Original Sin” audio lecture now up
| January 23, 2009 | Posted by Steve Fuller under Atheism, Biology, Creationism, Culture, Darwinism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Off Topic, Philosophy, Religion, Science, The Design of Life |
I have posted on my website an audio recording of the talk I gave this past Tuesday at the Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture, kicking off their Darwin Year series. My talk was entitled ‘Darwin’s Original Sin: The Rejection of Theology’s Claims to Knowledge‘. If you scroll down to the bottom of this page… more
Cult Science
| January 19, 2009 | Posted by Dave S. under Global Warming, Off Topic, Science |
A physics professor at Princeton is the latest of hundreds and hundreds of scientists who’ve stepped up to the plate saying anthropogenic CO2 as the cause of global warming is bogus. Professor denies global warming theory “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Every time you exhale, you exhale air that has 4 percent carbon dioxide.… more
Call for actors in Sydney for Lincoln-Darwin radio play
| January 7, 2009 | Posted by Steve Fuller under Culture, Darwinism, Evolution, Humor, Intelligent Design, Off Topic |
Some of you may know that last year I staged a play at the annual British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, which brought back Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin – who were both born on 12th February 1809 — to reflect on what has taken place since their time. Denyse O’Leary kindly mentioned… more
Hey, it’s Christmas. I am allowed to be a bit off topic, right? And this is about your daughter …
| December 30, 2008 | Posted by O'Leary under Off Topic |
My favourite mag Salvo has sent round a free article – which turns out to be one I wrote in 2006 – Less than Zero – the drive to be impossibly thin: Last October, there were some unaccustomed hisses on the Madrid catwalk—directed against gaunt girls. Size 0 scored 0. One in three models, at… more
Forget about global warming again? Me too…
| October 20, 2008 | Posted by Dave S. under Off Topic, Science |
Easy enough to do when like true things that are real problems are happening. Nevertheless, we have a definite climate trend emerging – more and more climate scientists are admitting anthropogenic global warming is a bunch of crap. Read about some of them: Lorne Gunter: Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof More goodies below… more
Forget About Global Warming Again?
| October 11, 2008 | Posted by Dave S. under Global Warming, Off Topic, Science |
Yeah, me too. Amazing how fast a red herring gets pushed off the front page when there’s a real problem to talk about. But just to keep you updated a little I offer these: Boise gets earliest snow on record Valley shivers as winter weather makes a premature appearance and related to the global cooling… more
