At the risk of this blog becoming all Mormon underwear all the time, I want to make a final (?) comment on this topic based on something BrianX posted in response to my earlier post on Mormon’s Secret. He mentioned a site Recovery from Mormonism that serves those who are, as the site says, “Questioning their faith in the Mormon Church and for those who need support as they transition their lives to a normal life.” [Read more…]
I have a fondness for optical illusions and what they tell us about how our brain processes visual information. I have written before about the moon illusion and the rotating snakes. [Read more…]
A news report says that many wealthy people are giving up their US citizenship in order to live in places that tax them less. [Read more…]
The speculation on how the US Supreme Court will rule on the Affordable Care Act has risen to fever pitch, since the last day of the court’s term is Thursday. Numerous analysts have looked at the various possible outcomes, tried to predict which one will prevail given the court’s composition, and weighed the political, legal, and health care system consequences of each. [Read more…]
A new book by David Maraniss titled Barack Obama: The Story (that I have not read) apparently challenges certain features of Barack Obama’s life story as recounted by him in his memoir Dreams From My Father (which I have also not read) and says that the reality “was less dramatic — and more routine — than the president made it out to be in the memoir.” [Read more…]
As a result of my post about a Mormon couple who drifted away from their religion and their removal of the secret magic underwear as the symbolic last step in leaving the faith, I got a link to a site called Mormon’s Secret, paralleling Victoria’s Secret, that purports to sell sexy versions of Mormon underwear. Intrigued, I followed it up and their catalog is, frankly, limited. As far as I can tell (not being a Mormon myself), the merchandise seems like the genuine thing, that this is a site that, while tongue-in-cheek, sells actual stuff. [Read more…]
Via Machines Like Us, I learned of this article that points out that the cost of the tax exemptions granted to religion groups could work out to as much as $71 billion per year. Both articles were based on a study by Ryan T. Cragun, Stephanie Yeager, and Desmond Vega at the University of Tampa that was published in Free Inquiry, put out by the Council of Secular Humanism, so the exact figure may be challenged by those who claim that it is not an impartial source. [Read more…]
Here is a video explaining clearly how and why cancer spreads, using prostate cancer as an example. In the process the video also explains why it is that cancer is more likely to strike the older we get, the basis of the comment that cancer is the reward we get for getting old.
(Via Gawker.)
Teresa Sullivan, the president of one of the most prestigious universities in the country, was summarily fired after just two years on the job and despite the fact that there was no hint of scandal or that she had done her job poorly. Kevin Carey argues that part of the problem lies in the fact that rich political contributors to winning candidates get rewarded by being appointed as Trustees to public universities. [Read more…]