Newly Debuted iPad
This is a slice of Apple’s home page, which shows the debut of the iPad. If you click on the image and open up the larger size, you’ll see it better.
Apple is billing its new play-work-gadget-tool as “magical.” The sad thing is that some MacHeads probably believe it.
I mean, come on. Magical. Really?
And revolutionary. Magical and revolutionary. Brilliant.
The Abrahamic religious tradition talks about God as a “Living God.”
For sake of this argument, we need not assume that God does exist or does not exist. So, let’s assume that God exists.
By strong induction, we can say that all living beings start to live at some discreet point in time.
We can point to no living being and show that it did not first start to live.
Life, as I refer to here, is biological life. Some other kind of life is not logically impossible, but any other type of life is merely speculative (even if this or that holy book tells you otherwise).
Let’s ignore death for this argument.
I think it is both common and fair to define God as eternal, including having no starting point in time (either existed before time, or time and God always existed prior to our spacetime — pick your poison).
Does our strong induction that any given living being started to live at some discreet time t therefore lead to the conclusion that God is not a living being? Read the rest of this entry »
I am not satisfied with President Obama’s first year, but I temper that with the idea that one year is not long enough to get everything done that a president would probably like to accomplish.
I hope that whatever health care reform comes out of this is smart and, more importantly, sustainable without burdening the middle class with more tax liability.
I do not think that the president has done enough to either disengage from the Middle East conflicts or to go all out and accomplish the goals there. It’s got to be one or the other — win or go home (whatever ‘win’ there means). I know the soldiers work their butts off there, but after so many years there, it is time to either eliminate the radicalized threats from the inside or get out and contain them from the outside. Maybe neither of those is possible.
I am disappointed that Mr. Obama has not closed down the ‘faith-based initiatives’ yet. Such blatant entanglement between church and state is unacceptable, and yet he is carrying on without any obvious deviation from his predecessor (though now I guess they’re called ‘faith-based and neighborhood initiatives’, or something of the sort).
I am displeased with the lack of openness in government, in opposition to what the president promised during his campaign. There are still too many secrets, too much rushing, too many hidden aspects to the federal government. I hope that Jim Webb of VA and others can convince the rest of the Democrats that the loss in Massachusetts means it’s time to slow down and open up the process.
I am happy with a few things, as well, like the way the economy is beginning to recover and Mr Obama’s clear and continuing message to the world that we are not a bunch of self-centered jerks over here and that we’re not a Christianist Nation, but of course it’s easier to be critical than praising when there’s so much to be critical about.
I recently watched a video on YouTube featuring William Lane Craig. His assertion was that the “new atheists” were rather not intellectually bright, and that they present no sophisticated philosophical arguments. The new atheists, he claims, are doing little more than rehashing arguments from the intellectual giants (my words) who were their predecessors, such as Bertrand Russell.
Presenting Russell’s arguments, for example, is hard not to do. The man, right or wrong, truly was an intellectual giant. A behemoth of a beast of a philosophical machine. You cannot, I think, blame the new atheists, such as Dawkins and Hitchens, for carrying on with Russell’s arguments, as far as they go. Read the rest of this entry »
The CBS.com video player requires that you see an ad served by doubleclick.net before you can watch full videos. If you are having problems viewing videos on CBS.com, then I recommend you disabling any software feature that blocks doubleclick.net from serving that advertisement.
In my case, I had blocked doubleclick.net at my router. To view CBS videos, I had to permit the ad to be served.
The reason seems to be that the CBS player integrates the ad, so that if the ad doesn’t play, then the start of the video will not trigger. This appears to be different than some of the other network sites, where you can block their ads while the featured video still plays.
I haven’t looked into a way of still blocking the ad served before CBS videos, but I suspect it can be done. Perhaps the ads could be blocked in Google Chrome or Firefox with some javascript modification while allowing the featured video.
Criticism about the recent ban on minarets in Switzerland from scholars who live in a country that doesn’t allow churches or synagogues. Yeah, that’s who I turn to for opinions on religious tolerance and liberty.
Riyadh: Several prominent Saudi Islamic scholars and preachers lambasted the recent Swiss referendum to impose ban on the construction of mosque minarets in the country.
I’m sure they did. But they didn’t lambaste the marriage of adult men to nine-year-old girls, I bet.
Speaking to Gulf News, they said that this is another evidence of the West’s antagonism towards Islam and such moves detail the serious initiatives being undertaken for holding dialogue among followers of various religions in different parts of the world.
Any churches or synagogues there in Riyadh yet? Didn’t think so. Read the rest of this entry »
I have been thinking more about text messaging and its use by attorneys to communicate with clients. It seems there is a large subset of lawyers who believe that text messaging should not be used to communicate with clients. I can understand why, but I am not sure that I agree.
The argument against lawyers text messaging their clients is several-fold:
I’m certain this is not an exhaustive list. But it is a hefty enough list to dissuade lawyers from using text messaging technologies. Some of the concerns, I think, are legitimate (or at least borderline so), while others I am more skeptical of. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’re getting the so-called ‘black screen of death’ as described in the BBC News article here, then try this workaround.
When you restart your computer after a black screen incident, try pressing F8 repeatedly right as the machine turns on.
Normally, this would allow you to boot into the various operating system start options (like safe mode). I have found that this allows Windows to start normally, though it leads to another unusual bug where hammering F8 boots up the machine normally instead of giving you the system start options.
I’ll see if I have a few minutes to post a video on it later. Good luck.
I like religion to be personal and private. That goes for all religions. As someone who likes religion to be kept out of my field of vision when I am out in the world, I have a deep and innate feeling of approval for the recent decision by the Swiss populace to ban construction of new minarets, which are heavily associated with Islam today.
However, as a champion of freedom to practice as people wish, I feel also a tinge of sadness at the Swiss decision. This seeming contradiction is not difficult for me to internalize. I think of Voltaire, who didn’t say,
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
A recent article by the Star Tribune, State economist: A thorn in governor’s philosophy, puts the Minnesota state economist at odd with the governor. While Governor Tim Pawlenty is an only-spending-cuts-will-save-us type Republican, at least lately, the state economist, Tom Stinson, argues that there is no single solution (e.g., neither tax hikes nor spending cuts alone) to the money woes in Minnesota. In fact, Mr Stinson appears to support President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus efforts, which Pawlenty has had nothing but ill will toward.
I am not sure whether we have had enough time to know if the stimulus has worked, I am certain that I will give the state economist, who has been doing this work for Minnesota for some twenty years, benefit of the doubt. Which is more than Pawlenty appears willing to do, because Stinson’s forecasts do not fall in line with the governor’s national political aspirations.
From the article:
As the state’s budget deficit ballooned into billions of dollars, the Republican governor blamed DFLers, who he says would rather raise taxes than rein in spending. In the process, Pawlenty has barely mentioned Stinson and rarely talks to him.