A museum in Kentucky has decided to portray history in a “unique” manner… They are combining evidence which has been gathered scientifically with what is described in the bible. In other words, Adam and Eve were around in the age of the dinosaurs. Despite their honorable goal to unite scientists and fundamentalists, I can’t say I endorse this particular method of achieving that goal

Mel Gibson was recently arrested for drunk driving, which is surprising, but the real shocker is what he shouted at the arresting officer:

The TMZ report quoted Gibson as saying, “F….. Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” He then asked the deputy, “Are you a Jew?”

He later retracted his statements, which he claimed were things that he did not believe to be true and were despicable. I don’t quite believe that though… alcohol removes your inhibitions and you tend to say what you really think when you’re drunk. For anyone who doesn’t know, Mel Gibson’s dad is an unashamed anti-semite who publicly declared that the holocaust was “mostly fiction”.

I was laughing out loud at this one… Windows Vista has been delayed countless times and this Microsoft live demonstration proves that it will probably be delayed yet again.

This was a fun movie to watch. Plot summary: Angelina and Brad shoot stuff 3/5 stars.

It seems like the frequency of natural disasters is increasing at an alarmingly high rate. A typhoon just did some serious damage in East Asia recently. Can we please stop this global warming thing?

Do you have a philosophy for how life works? How did you arrive at it? Do you attempt to verify its accuracy? Which is a better measure: whatever works, or whatever appears to be true?

There is no “right” or “wrong”… there is only “productive” or “destructive”. Values and goals are subjective, but is there some objective way to measure where they fall on the productive/destructive scale?

Credit again goes to Dennis for finding this fascinating idea for voting. Some Arizona politicians hope to increase voter turnout by awarding a million dollars to a random voter in the state elections! My first instinct was to support this wholeheartedly, since I have a suspicion that most non-voters would probably not vote for an evil warlord like Bush… however, would we really want people to vote who were uninformed (and not at all interested) regarding the political issues at stake? They would probably be the most easily influenced.

For anyone who hasn’t heard, Israel is now furiously attacking Lebanon. This slightly old news story does a decent job of explaining some of what is going on. I don’t fully understand the conflict, but it does seem like Israel is overreacting. My friend’s parents are currently trapped in Lebanon, whose one international airport has been shut down due to the attacks, so I wish them the best and I hope this violence ends soon.

Anything subjective is someone’s personal preference. This can never be viewed objectively.

I enjoy many sports, but I don’t really like to follow the leagues. However, every four years I go absolutely nuts for World Cup soccer. It is the one and only sports tournament in which the entire world competes, and it is an incredible display of atheticism and talent. I had a great time following this year’s cup, and while I was thinking about it I was putting together a list of good and bad things for my blog. Without further ado:

The Good:

1. Strong underdogs: This was a great year for teams such as Ghana, Australia, and Ecuador, who really impressed the hell out of everyone. Ghana edging out the USA? It was embarassing but they completely deserved it. Too bad that Australia had to go home after a questionable refereeing call favored Italy. Also, Brazil was not the powerhouse everybody was expecting, which makes the tournament more interesting for everyone else.

2. Great Goals: My personal favorite was Maxi Rodriguez. Also awesome were Beckham’s free kick against Ecuador, and Zidane’s setup for Henry.

3. Media Attention: high expectations for the US team had the effect of more media attention being directed at the World Cup this year. Great coverage by ESPN and ABC. I hope our early loss doesn’t dampen people’s hopes too much next time.

The Bad:

1. Eric Wynalda: This guy might have been a big goal-scorer when he played for team USA, but he added absolutely nothing to the commentary. Alongside Brent Mussberger, Julie Foudy, and (Former teammate) Alexi Lalas, Wynalda frequently interrupted his fellow anchors to contribute arrogant fratboy humor and mindless commentary. Among the highlights: he called Ronaldo (Brazil’s #9) a “bloated waste of space”, and denounced Cristiano Ronaldo (of Portugal) for “ratting on” his Manchester United teammate Wayne Rooney (of England) after Rooney stomped on Ricardo Carvalho’s balls.

2. The violence: Italy’s Daniele De Rossi elbowing Brian McBride, Rooney’s groin-smash, Holland vs Portugal in the round of 16, and finally Zinadine Zidane’s career-ending headbutt… talk about ending things on a bad note! Yes, things were to violent this year, but I think that the refs actually gave out too many yellow cards. In the USA-Italy game, for example!

3. Too many tie games! I noticed that many teams used a single-striker formation. I don’t ordinarily follow soccer but I think that traditionally, there are at least 2 strikers. The emphasis on defense paid off for a lot of the teams, but it made for too many relatively boring games ending in penalty kicks.

4. Bruce Arena: Can we please have a new coach? This guy had what was supposed to be the best US squad ever and he couldn’t get his players to play like a team. In every one of our games, our players had no unity and no confidence. It seemed like any time we had the ball, the defense merely had to challenge the man and he would pass it backwards or give it up. How did we fare so well in the qualifying rounds and blow it in the big tournament?

See you in four years!

Like most sequels, this was not quite as good as the first movie, but it was still very good! This movie was tons of fun and had that authentic pirate feel that we all love so much. Made me want to break out Monkey Island again :-). 4/5 stars.

Dennis, the grandmaster of interesting wikipedia articles, has again sent me some really fascinating stuff that I wanted to share with you all…

After Bush won the 2004 election, I was furious that Nader voters might have ruined the election for those who voted for Kerry. I asked myself: how can we design a better system which would encourage people to vote for their favorite candidate, and would discourage voting for someone else just because you didn’t want to waste your vote on someone who was unelectable (e.g. Nader). Didn’t these people realize the outcome that their votes would produce? My instinct told me that if people were asked to rank their favorites, a winner could be determined by comparing people’s preferences and seeing who came out as the most preferred. I was not the first person to have thought of this, luckily…

Behold Condorcet Voting! This is almost exactly what I had in mind, but for some reason, governments don’t use it. What happens is that each candidate is compared to each other candidate in a simulated head-to-head election. If one candidate beats every other candidate in these simulations, that candidate is the winner. If there is a tie, the winner may be chosen using a different method. This has been around since the 13th century… why are we not using it to choose our elected officials? I would love to see an end to the dirty party-politics that plagues our government and changing the voting method is one way to do it.

Slightly off topic but fascinating, the Free State Project aims to take advantage of our electoral system and round up 20,000 people who are willing to move to New Hampshire for the sole purpose of skewing the state’s political landscape towards the left.

This was not the kind of movie I usually watch, but I was pleasantly surprised. This drama is centered around a wealthy woman living on her farm in Africa. I very much enjoyed the beautiful scenery and portrayal of the native culture, but I felt the movie was too long and was not as thought-provoking as it could have been. 3/5 stars.

Don’t let your insecurities prolong unnecessary suffering. Which is more important: maintaining the status quo, or feeling good about yourself?