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<\/a><\/p>\nI may have a five hour problem set due at nine am, but that will have to wait, because tonight is\u2026<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/div>\n\u2026the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n With the books done, and only one movie left, if you\u2019re looking for more Potter stories, you can\u2019t do better than Eliezer Yudowsky\u2019s ongoing story Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0Yudowsky\u2019s story focuses on a version of Harry that was raised in a loving, science-oriented family. \u00a0As a result, Harry is a lot more creative and confident and Yudowsky raised the complexity and brilliance of Voldemort\u2019s plans to match. \u00a0Get a few chapters in and you won\u2019t be able to put it down.<\/p>\n (Yudowsky writes philosophy as well as fanfiction. \u00a0Currently, Luke from Common Sense Atheism, is blogging through some of Yudowsky\u2019s work<\/a>)<\/p>\n Outside the realm of Harry Potter<\/em>, you can find a different, bizarre world to explore in a short cartoon by Jack Kirby titled:<\/p>\n It\u2019s totally bizarre, and you can read the whole thing at io9<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re looking for a chance to do some applied magic, you may want to take a crack at The New York Times<\/a><\/em>\u2018s deficit calculator<\/a>. \u00a0You can pick from a menu of spending cuts and tax increases to wipe out the federal deficit. \u00a0It\u2019s easier than you might expect, if you forget what how obstructionist the new Congress will be. \u00a0(Here\u2019s the solution I picked<\/a>)<\/p>\n Earlier this week, I wrote about the morality of military engagement<\/a>, and if you\u2019re interested in the data on the rates of soldiers deliberately shooting wide to avoid killing other people, Cracked.com identified instances of this phenomena in Star Wars<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n In that same military ethics post, I referenced the old practice of sin-eating. \u00a0It turns out that that practice didn\u2019t die out as long ago as I thought. \u00a0The BBC has an interesting article on the efforts of a English village to restore the grave of the village sin-eater<\/a>, the last one in England.<\/p>\n Andrew Sullivan, blogger at The Daily Dish, ran a confusing letter from a Catholic mother this week<\/a>, during the run up to the elections to choose the new leader of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. \u00a0She wrote:<\/p>\n I was quite proud of my sixteen-year-old son, who after completing two years of confirmation preparation wrote his letter to the Bishop telling him quite proudly why he did not want to become confirmed as an adult in the current church\u2026.<\/p>\n Our son attends mass, helps when he can when he is home from college, and works with a local parish near his school. He still considers himself Catholic but cannot in good conscious swear to obey the tenets of the current church.<\/p>\n I consider him a good Catholic \u2013 in fact a better Catholic than I \u2013 because I had doubts as a teen but got confirmed anyway because I didn\u2019t want to disappoint my parents. His faith is strong, but his desire to build a better church is what keeps me teaching and trying to live up to his example. He is the reason that I believe the American Catholic Church will become in the future a separate branch, rather than Roman Catholic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I can understand why someone might disagree with the teaching of the Catholic Church and wish to leave or to see it altered. \u00a0But I can\u2019t understand why someone would hope for fissure in the Church, rather than a reform of the whole. \u00a0Seems to miss the point of a small c-catholic church.<\/p>\n This weekend is the beginning of my Thanksgiving break, and it kicks off with the annual Harvard-Yale Game. \u00a0This year, the best Game t-shirt, hands down, went to the Yale Record, which printed shirts that read \u201cOnly my hatred of Harvard can overcome my apathy for football.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_b7Eh98KJ_qI\/TOXqk_A51SI\/AAAAAAAABJY\/8GDGJZ0ogpk\/s400\/kirby.png\")
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