2012-07-03T15:40:53-04:00

Last updated on: July 3, 2012 at 3:40 pm   By

The episode “The Ambassadors of Death” has as its downside something characteristic of a great many Doctor Who episodes, and arguably of the entire phenomenon of LOST: a suspense-filled and intriguing premise is eventually resolved in a manner that doesn’t live up to the build-up. Nevertheless, the premise and the exploration of it is itself enjoyable, and the episode has some truly fantastic moments. For those who have only seen the newer seasons, it has elements which one can only... Read more

2012-07-02T14:59:43-04:00

Last updated on: July 2, 2012 at 2:59 pm   By

“Doctor Who and The Silurians” introduced for the first time a race that has continued to reappear throughout the show’s history right up until recent seasons: the Silurians, also referred to as Homo Reptilia, reptilian bipeds who sought safety underground from a potentially cataclysmic encounter with a planetoid (which became our moon, ending up orbiting rather than devastating our planet). Since then, while they were hibernating beneath the Earth, primates came to dominate. Most react to the appearance of these... Read more

2012-07-01T13:00:57-04:00

Last updated on: July 1, 2012 at 1:00 pm   By

“The War Games” has long been a favorite episode of mine. It is fantastic that the Second Doctor went out on such a high note. And the episode introduced a number of important new revelations – about the Doctor and his people as well as about how the next season of Doctor Who would be different from previous ones. This was the first time that the “time lords” were mentioned – even though we had encountered another member of the... Read more

2012-07-01T08:14:15-04:00

Last updated on: July 1, 2012 at 8:14 am   By

Thanks to a Facebook group I am in, I had the pleasure of discovering, and now of sharing with you, this surprisingly short and quite magnificent romantic piano concerto. Enjoy! Read more

2012-06-30T15:01:51-04:00

Last updated on: June 30, 2012 at 3:01 pm   By

Most readers will have already heard that a leap second will be inserted just after midnight tonight. If you are someone who obsessively ensures that their clocks are set just right, the thought that you can have it set perfectly when you go to bed, and when you wake up it will be a second off, may be just enough to give you nightmares or simply keep you awake. Have a happy 23:59:60! Read more

2012-06-30T08:24:32-04:00

Last updated on: June 30, 2012 at 8:24 am   By

Compared to historians and scholars dealing with Jesus mythicists, those who tackle other forms of denialism seem to have it somewhat easier – or would, if denialism could be combated with logic of the sort illustrated in this XKCD cartoon: In related news, while I myself have used the comparison between the tactics used by Jesus-mythicists and Holocaust-deniers, I agree completely with Matthew Paul Turner that it is in bad taste to make the comparison as a response to visiting... Read more

2012-06-29T20:58:22-04:00

Last updated on: June 29, 2012 at 8:58 pm   By

Tom Verenna shared a short image reflecting common mythicist misinformation, and (quite justifiably) complained about it. It appears that someone also went through it and illustrated point by point how fact-checking should be done. Here is the result: Read more

2012-06-29T18:51:25-04:00

Last updated on: June 29, 2012 at 6:51 pm   By

It is well known that some conservative Christians accuse liberal Christians of simply going with their personal preferences, in a manner that can be and has been called “Talladega Nights theology.” (If you don’t get the reference, click through to see the video clip). That is a danger – and not exclusively for liberal Christians. But be that as it may, the accusation does not always fit. David French’s post (to which I linked above) suggests that the acceptance of not... Read more

2012-06-28T23:32:10-04:00

Last updated on: June 28, 2012 at 11:32 pm   By

I wonder how many self-proclaimed Biblical literalists actually take Genesis 1:16 completely literally. I’ve asked before about the earlier part of the verse, which seems to imply that the moon is a source of light in the same way as the sun is. But today I’m asking about the very final statement, “He made the stars also.” We can see stars in all their stages of evolution through our telescopes – indeed, we can see complete galaxies of them which... Read more

2012-06-28T19:44:38-04:00

Last updated on: June 28, 2012 at 7:44 pm   By

BLT shared this wonderful remake of a famous scene (when the media reported prematurely and incorrectly that “Dewey Defeats Truman”: It was inspired by this bit of misreporting, which Jim West shared a screenshot of on his blog: If you have been hiding under a rock somewhere and still don’t know what this is about, the news broke earlier today that the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Obama healthcare reforms, known as the “Affordable Care Act.” Most... Read more

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