The Northeast Ohio Center for Inquiry is holding its biennial one-day conference on Saturday, October 4, 2014 from 9:00am-4:00 pm in Independence, Ohio. The theme is Science Peers Into the Future: Research for the 21st Century and Beyond and four scientists will be featured speakers.
More details and registration information can be found here.
The Hobby Lobby case, where the US Supreme court ruled that under some vaguely defined circumstances, owners of companies had right to impose their religious views as company policies as if the companies were individuals under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), was widely predicted to open up a Pandora’s box with others seeking similar exemptions from following the law because of their ‘sincerely held religious beliefs’.
And lo, what the prophets foretold has come to pass.
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This is, of course, a rhetorical question. Even though he is always wrong, he gets on TV because he and TV stations know that fear and war draws viewers and he has made a niche for himself as the go to person when the networks want someone to scare the bejeesus out of everyone. He is a like a clockwork toy that you can wind up and get the same result all the time
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Togo is one of the many nations of the world whose name I recognize but about which I know nothing. I hope to change that over time since Alicia, the daughter of a cousin, will be spending the next two years on a Fulbright Fellowship in the town of Kara in the north of that west African nation, working with an HIV/AIDS treatment program.
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There is something quite hypnotic about this digitally manipulated short film set to music by Fernando Livschitz that seems to show traffic going through a busy intersection, weaving in with pedestrians and cyclists. Since it was not done using green screens (I think), I have no clue as to how it was done so that the cuts and splices became so invisible that the whole thing looks like a choreographed ballet. I know there are VFX professionals who read this blog and I am sure they can figure it out and let the rest of us know.
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The Advocate published a list of the 50 most influential LGBT people in the media, limiting themselves only to those who have been open about their sexual orientation. These lists are brazen attempts at getting hits but I clicked anyway.
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So the people of Scotland vote on independence today. Voting ends at 10:00 pm with final results expected around 7:00 am Friday morning, but results will start trickling in at about 1:00 am, all local times. Last-minute polls predict that the ‘no’ vote against independence having a 52-48% lead, if the 8% of undecided voters are excluded.
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From George Monbiot, I learn that all but one (Sunday) newspaper in the UK opposed separation by Scotland, so the fact that the vote is so close at the moment is quite remarkable since my sense is that newspaper reading is much more widespread in the UK than in the US and thus likely to be more influential in swaying public opinion.
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The Daily Show examines president Obama’s ISIS speech on Wednesday and concludes that he has thrown away his reluctance to get involved in yet another front on the never-ending war and has gone all in with the warmongers.
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