Cordyceps - Intelligent design

Just so that you know what's really going on out there.

Though merely a cousin of the lowly toadstool, the Cordyceps fungus lives a life that could hardly be imagined by even the most creative science-fiction writer. Cordyceps lies quiescent on the forest floor, waiting for its unsuspecting insect prey to pass. When a bug wanders by, the fungus attaches itself to the insect exoskeleton. It then secretes a chemical that burns a hole in the insect's body armor. Next, Cordyceps inserts itself into the insect body and proceeds to devour all of the host's nonvital organs, all the while preventing the insect from dying of infection by secreting an antibiotic and a fungicide (as well as an insecticide to deter other insect predators). Once the nonvital organs are consumed, the fungus eats part of the insect brain, causing the insect to ascend to the top of a tall tree in the forest. At this point, Cordyceps devours the rest of the bug's brain, thereby killing the insect and causing the body to split open. At that point, the fungus can release its spores a hundred feet above the forest floor.

from Mark J Plotkin, Medicine Quest, quoted here.

More control, and the nerds respond

Gonggrijp says the Dutch chief of police has announced the intention to store large amounts of surveillance data and mine it to determine who to pressure and question. "People are screaming for more control," said Gonggrijp.

More control, and the nerds respond with ... control. From Wired.

Willing Slaves Of The Welfare State

Read this for the view of someone who was alive before the Welfare State existed, who doesn't believe in 'solutions', and who is aware that for every perceived gain, there is an often unnoticed loss. It's by CS Lewis.

I do not like the pretensions of Government, the grounds on which it demands my obedience, to be pitched too high. I don't like the medicine-man's magical pretensions nor the Bourbon's Divine Right. This is not solely because I disbelieve in magic and in Bossuet's Politique. I believe in God, but I detest theocracy. For every Government consists of mere men and is, strictly viewed, a makeshift; if it adds to its commands 'Thus saith the Lord," it lies, and lies dangerously...

The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good -- anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence, the new name "leaders" for those who were once "rulers". We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, "Mind your own business." Our whole lives ARE their business.

(via R. Andrew Newman)

Why are they fighting?

We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.

Hussein Massawi, former Hezbollah leader

Blame yourself, and die

Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.

François Revel

What do you leave behind?

This is a true rant; a witty one, as well. But the basic question it is asking is the big one. Who is making the kids? Because they are making the future. One of those questions that are so basic that civilised people forget about them. And then they die.
By Mark Steyn in the New Criterion

God as a consequence

An excellent article by Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at Yale, in December's Atlantic Monthly.
His thesis is that the way our brains work to deal with the here and now leads them also to believe in God. Naturally, as it were.
Firstly, our brains from birth divide the world into 2 realms: the physical and the psychological. In the first realm, it expects causality and mathematical consistency; in the second, a much more elastic reality that includes beings with volition and intention (see the 3rd point).
Secondly, identity is separate from body and brain, both of which are regarded as its instruments. We continue in this belief all our lives without any hard evidence that it is well-founded. We act and speak as if it were true.
Thirdly, since the calculation of etiology is such a vital survival skill (What is he up to? What is he after?), we are inately expert at imputing purpose and pattern.
Mr Bloom's point is that, whereas the evolution of these cognitive skills is explicable in evolutionary terms, their application to the 'larger' questions inevitably leads to God. 'What's it for?' becomes 'What am I for?': a question that carries with it the assumption that 'I' am for 'something'. And that something can only be granted by a Supreme Being.
Believing in God is evolutionarily determined.
My apologies to you and to Mr Bloom for this skeletal summary. Best to read the article itself.

America's "Religious Right"

Who is this about?

As you may already know, one of America's two political parties is extremely religious. Sixty-one percent of this party's voters say they pray daily or more often. An astounding 92 percent of them believe in life after death. And there's a hard-core subgroup in this party of super-religious Christian zealots. Very conservative on gay marriage, half of the members of this subgroup believe Bush uses too little religious rhetoric, and 51 percent of them believe God gave Israel to the Jews and that its existence fulfills the prophecy about the second coming of Jesus.

No. The party is the Democratic Party, and that 'hard-core subgroup' are Democrat-voting African-Americans.
The article is here. (via The Atlantic Online)

Here they are!

Ladies and gentlemen. Here they are!

Host Jack Paar introducing Jayne Mansfield on The Tonight Show
(also via a letter in the Atlantic Monthly (paper edition), December 2005, by Tom Noer, Kenosha, Wisc.)

Commemorate the Future

Now this is intitiative.
Riverside, Iowa, has one monument: a scale model of the USS Riverside. It bears an uncanny resemblance to the USS Enterprise, as well it might given the object of its commemoration: James T Kirk, Captain on the USS Enterprise, The Ulysses of Star Trek. You see, on the 22nd of March, 2233, Little Jimmy will be born right here. That's right, in 228 years. The eager people of Riverside wanted to erect a bronze JTK, but those miserable people at Paramount demanded $40,000 licence fee, so the USS Riverside it had to be.
You will certainly want to research this more. Start here or here.
(via a letter in the Atlantic Monthly (paper edition), December 2005, by Richard Feeley of Chester, NY