Monthly Archives: January 2006

“The chief victims of the January 23 federal election were: Western Liberals: In the prairie provinces, Conservatives got three times as many votes as Liberals did, but won nearly ten times as many seats. In Alberta, the Conservative Party won … Continue reading →

Conditional probabilitiesTo illustrate, suppose there are two bowls full of cookies. Bowl #1 has 10 chocolate chip cookies and 30 plain cookies, while bowl #2 has 20 of each. Our friend Fred picks a bowl at random, and then picks … Continue reading →

…the Sartrian existentialist, for whom the discovery of no ultimate intrinsic purpose makes the universe “absurd.” The absurdist interpretation mistakes the absence of meaning for meaninglessness, failing to see that the universe necessarily transcends the meaningful/meaningless distinction. (This is why … Continue reading →

I’ve been inspired by Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (Dennett) this week. It occurs to me that there will eventually exist a division in the history of man’s technology. The first (which we are still in) is one characterized by intentionally designed … Continue reading →

I slogged my way through a newspaper today, though not much gets past my filter. I find by ignoring everything that’s not actually news (crime, calamity and anything else whose template doesn’t change-just names and places) I can read the … Continue reading →

Tokyo (AP) Inter-tron CEO, Tekada Komayashi, confirmed what New Yorker ‘around the web” columnist Gilbert Weinstein called “the webs most persistent rumor.” Chat rooms were abuzz today over the announcement, though many internet snobs (snobbits as coined by Rutgers University … Continue reading →

Upon discovering the other day that I was discussing both religion and politics, and realizing how I’d rather not, I found myself being challenged to explain the difference. Upon reflection though, I found it more interesting to think about their … Continue reading →

picked out some christmas books for myself today. Now all I need is a week of minus thirty to enjoy reading them.

For my sins, I watched “What the -bleep- do we know?” It really was the most reeking piece of drek I’ve seen in quite some time. It fails for so many reasons however I will somehow excise this garbage from … Continue reading →

Yes friends, life goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began, and I must follow if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, where many paths and errands meet, until it joins some larger way, and … Continue reading →