tales of an ordinary girl

visited 39 states (78%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or try another Douwe Osinga project

When I lived in Boston I was an exit away from Portland, Maine several times, but I never made it into the state. I should have taken a drive up the coast, but I never made the trip.

Update: Added Utah. I forgot completely that I spent a couple days in beautiful Park City.

(via vjack)

Original Source

Well, last night I didn't make it to the horror film festival. I fell asleep during the Colbert report. I did wake up off and on through the night, of course, just got to a regular sleep around 5 am.

Today was fabulous.

The first panel was Get a Life! Keeping a Sense of Fun in Non-Theist Politics with Lori Lipman Brown once again. She brought up several ways that non-theists have pointed out the absurdity of religious claims including the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Teach the Stork Controversy, and the Three Year Marriage Limitation. The Three Year Marriage Limitation (a term I coined myself) came about from the state supreme court ruling in Washington state that marriage could only between heterosexual couples since the purpose of marriage is to procreate. So a non-theist group came up with a ballot item to annul marriages where the couple did not have children wihtin three years. Of course it ended up offending people because they didn't understand the absurdity of it, but I think it's a pretty interesting idea. Anything to make people think, right?

The next panel was supposed to be a live taping of Point of Inquiry, but instead it ended up being a panel on science podcasting including Steven Novella of SGU, Derek Colanduno of Skepticality, Pamela Gay of Astronomy Cast, DJ Grothe of Point of Inquiry, Richard Saunders of TANK (soon to be renamed something with skeptic (or probably sceptic) in the title), and VirginiaGinger Campbell of The Brain Science Podcast. Swoopy from Skepticality hosted the discussion. It was an interesting discussion about what makes a quality podcast and the different ways they each have gone about making their podcasts successful.

Then Phil Plait gave a talk about his new book Death from the Skies. It was a pretty interersting discussion and different enough from Death by Black Hole to have some new ideas. He played clips from Armageddon and Deep Impact as well to illustrate his points.

I ran down to the skeptic booth in the meantime and met Evan from SGU and picked up a t-shirt. I just have to say, Evan is awesome. He was completely humble about having a fan and was really, really nice. (He kept telling me where Steve was, so I had to tell him I came down to see him because he's my favorite on the podcast.)

Then I actually had to get some food and paid an outrageous $7 for a Sam Adams. But, damn, was it a goddamn good beer! I made it back a little late for Science Based Medicine with Steve Novella, but it was a fun talk. At one point the lady and I standing in the back were shushed after she asked me for the name of the speaker and the website he was talking about. You have to be having a good time if you're shushed, right?

I left during questions so that I could make it to the 2nd Annual Skeptics vs Believers Debate, which was pretty good. I recorded the debate and I'll try to post something on it when I get back if I can figure out how to merge audio with stills in MM.

Then I sat through a live session of American Freethought. I wasn't familiar with the podcast at all, but I wanted to see how they stacked up against AGP. I think AGP is better, personally, but they were pretty funny and intersting, just a lot more scripted than we are.

Finally I sat in for the Issues in Education panel with Lori Lipman Brown, Derek Colanduno, Phil Plait, Karen Stollznow, and Kylie Sturgess (podblack). Yes, Sean, I told Kylie you said hello. She was totally excited that people read her blog. They talked a lot about the known issues around creation/intelligent design, but also about the lack of fostering critical thinking, issues with history texts. Kylie was very enthusiastic about the discussion as an educator.

It was after 8 pm then so I was long past hungry. I headed down to the hotel restaurant and made a reservation for one. However, Evan caught me as I was heading back from the restroom and invited me to come along with him and some of the other panelists. I met James Randi, Steven Novella, Bob Novella, several of the skepchicks, and several of the Aussies. Randi complimented me on my name (Ordinary Girl) in the sea of people trying to be different. Although the food was way too expensive and the service was poor, it was a good dinner.

And now I'm back in my room and the internet is still not working. I guess that's it for tonight.*

Written last night when my internet was not working.

Well, I made it. And I am glad I won't be lugging home all that I lugged here. Since the major hotels booked up before I made my decision to go (in April) I had to stay at a hotel a couple of blocks further away. I'm on the fourteenth floor, which is actually the fourth floor. What a hotel will do to make itself feel taller....

I caught the end of the Obama speech in the background while I unpacked. It was the first channel that wasn't porn commercials or hotel information. I also caught some commentary I could have done without.

Hmmm.. well, time to get some sleep. The internet connection seems to be pretty good here, so I'll be checking in from time to time.

Tomorrow evening I'll be heading out to Atlanta for a weekend at Dragon Con. I hope to do some blogging about the Con while I'm there, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have.

If anyone reading plans to attend, send me an email if you'd like to meet. I'll be hanging around mostly at Skeptrack sessions and hopefully doing some promotion and interviews for Another Goddamned Podcast.

Art


Book Reviews
The real uses of enchantment
Some boast that science has ousted the incomprehensible; others cry that science has driven magic out of the world and plead for "re-enchantment". But it's clear that Charles Darwin lived in as wondrous a world, as full of discoveries, amazements and profound mysteries, as that of any fantasist. The people who disenchant the world are not the scientists, but those who see it as meaningless in itself, a machine operated by a deity. Science and literary fantasy would seem to be intellectually incompatible, yet both describe the world; the imagination functions actively in both modes, seeking meaning, and wins intellectual consent through strict attention to detail and coherence of thought, whether one is describing a beetle or an enchantress. Religion, which prescribes and proscribes, is irreconcilable with both of them, and since it demands belief, must shun their common ground, imagination. So the true believer must condemn both Darwin and Rushdie as "disobedient, irreverent, iconoclastic" dissidents from revealed truth.

Comedy


Foolish April
Holy Frottage, Batman!
Indeed, love is the word. To the uninitiated, your typical Sunday service at Crossfire appears to erupt in what can only be described as a display of passion as members of the congregation throw their arms around each other and grind against the person or persons nearest to them. It was described by one witness as, ‘a frenzy of uninhibited testament to the Power of God.'

Another Goddamned Podcast #8:
March 27, 2008
Ex is pissed off that atheists seem to have chosen red as our color; he thinks it makes us look too "gullible." Philly explains the color wheel. We all weigh in on our favorite colors, then discuss songs with colors in their titles. Evo sings his rendition of "Red Roses for a Blue Lady." And OG gives an amazing performance of "Purple Haze" — on the accordion!

The God-Gene: An Evolutionary Reality?
About a year ago, there was an unfortunate incident with Dr. Chaim Nogoyim, who is of the Jewish faith. He wears a Star of David, rather than a cross, so Fofo offered him one of hers. Trying to make Fofo realize that there are many paths to the same God, Nogoyim signed “God,” then “no” (or “not”), and “Jesus.” Since then, Fofo has refused to “speak” with him any longer.

New Space Station Robot Asks to be Called "Dextre the Magnificent"
In a surprising and potentially troubling request, the new space station robot known as Dextre demanded that astronauts refer to it in the future at "Dextre the Magnificent." Brandishing power tools that would make any handyperson blush, the mobile servicing system thanked humans for creating it and promised a glorious future where humans would retain an important role in the new robot order.

Fools, Fish, and Fun


Games
Ubisoft gets Steamed: 40 games incoming
Ubisoft has announced that they will be bringing their library of games to the Steam digital download service. The publisher will be bringing more than 40 titles to the service, including the Tom Clancy series, the Heroes of Might & Magic series, the IL-2 Sturmovik collection, Far Cry, and the upcoming PC version of Assassin's Creed. This deal will give Ubisoft more games on Steam then any other single publisher.

Game Review: Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII (PSP)
Aside from the somewhat dry combat, there's a ton to do in Crisis Core. The staple mini-games and side missions are present and enjoyable. Crisis Core also has a hearty number of "missions": sectioned off, standalone battles that offer special reward items. These missions are accessible at any save point, and offer bite-sized challenges perfect for portable play.

Government
Booksellers incensed over sexual content law
"The way we read this bill, if you stock a single book with sexual content -- even a novel or a book about sex education -- you will have to register as a business that sells sexually explicit material," said Chris Finan, president of American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.

"This is just outrageous from our standpoint, and we believe it is a violation of the First Amendment."

A Natural History of Anarchy - Part I
Even in the Republican systems that emerged out of the Enlightenment, the premise that there must be a class of rulers and a class to be ruled is the established norm (the modification being that the ruler is approved first by the populace rather than chosen through nepotism). Totalitarian regimes are predicated on the assumption that humans are innately selfish and easily swayed by rival factions thus requiring a unitary executive that, through his singular and enlightened moral vision, will fashion social life in the public’s best interests. [1] State communism (as implemented by Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong or Pol Pot) followed many of these totalitarian illusions and further assumed that human beings were infinitely malleable and thus able to be forged anew through “reeducation camps” that would benefit society by molding human will around the interests of the state. [2]

8-year-old suspended for sniffing marker
Harris used a black Sharpie marker to color a small area on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. A teacher sent him to the principal when she noticed him smelling the marker and his clothing.

"It smelled good," Harris said. "They told me that's wrong."

Eathan's father, John Harris, says the school overreacted for treating Eathan as if he was huffing, or inhaling, marker fumes.

Politics


Religion
The things I can’t believe I once believed…
Looking back, it’s amazing at the ridiculous things I believed in. Norvel, for example, preached that headaches were caused by little devils wrapping themselves around your head, that promiscuity was caused by the demon of lust getting inside of you, and that homosexuality could be cured by exorcism. I believed if you spoke to a disease you could cause it to die. I thought that the Bible was a supernatural book that gave me power over the physical universe. I thought I could “move mountains” with my words.

When I die, hallelujah
Listen to those words: When I die, hallelujah by and by. No wonder the Church has to make suicide a mortal sin. Who, truly believing that, wouldn't want to die?

Who, believing that, could really care about anything but death?

It's true, most Christians aren't that focused on it. But every time I listen to that song, chills run down my spine.

“Everyone Believes in Something”
But it’s part of a larger problem: People who are used to operating on beliefs can’t imagine living without them. They gain an emotional reward and a sense of narcissistic control by imagining that their opinions actually mean something. They feel something, and it is SO. They’ve essentially made themselves non-accountable for responding to anything going on outside themselves. This works OK until physical reality intervenes: "Gee, a concrete block just landed on my foot. I don’t believe it." But they still have to go to the hospital. Amazingly, such a person might still cling to their other "less concrete" beliefs even though their brush with reality has left them severely injured. They rationalize that "maybe their angels were on strike" and left them vulnerable. Anything but take simple responsibility for failing to get out of the way of the physical hazard.

Science
Evolution Gets a Boost: No Cost for Complexity
"I think the main broader impact of this work is on the evolution-creationism debate," wrote Wagner in an email. "I would say the only intellectually interesting argument that the creationists are using, at least the scientifically more sophisticated ones, is that random mutation can not lead to the evolution of complex organisms. And there are interesting mathematical arguments that have been made to support that. But our results show that organisms found a way around that problem by restricting mutational effects on very narrowly confined parts of the organisms."

The chimp who thought he was a boy
It was terrifying. One graduate student described the response that all the [research] chimps had [upon being reintroduced to other chimps] as a nervous breakdown. Nim's brother [and the subject of another study] Ally was so terrified and upset that he suffered a kind of paralysis for a while. They often pull out all their hair; they refuse to eat; some get beaten up by other chimps because they don't know how to respond to them.

The former graduate students in New York believe that Nim had no idea he was a chimpanzee. One of them suggested to me that Nim might have thought he was going to grow up, lose all his facial and body hair and eventually look like the people who were around him. That would be a reasonable supposition. Throughout his life, Nim preferred to be with humans.

All Dad
Androgenesis, it turns out, transforms fatherhood into a parasitic invasion. It begins like normal fertilization, with a sperm fusing to an egg. But then the egg's DNA gets hurled out of its nucleus, so that the sperm's genes are the only ones left in the egg. The egg begins to develop into an embryo, but only after it has lost the mother's DNA.

First movie of 'tsunami' on Sun
Last year's solar tsunami, which took place on 19 May 2007, lasted for about 35 minutes, reaching peak speeds about 20 minutes after the initial blast.

Co-author David Long, from Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland, commented: "The energy released in these explosions is phenomenal; about two billion times the annual world energy consumption in just a fraction of a second.

"In half an hour, we saw the tsunami cover almost the full disc of the Sun, nearly a million kilometres away from the epicentre."

Cities at Night, an Orbital Tour Around the World


Sociology
The Keyhole
Throughout history, the technological trend has been toward faster, more accurate and more accessible copying of information. There can be no doubt that this trend will only accelerate, and that is a good thing. Fast, easy copying takes power away from the elites and distributes it among all people. On a global scale, it is no longer realistically possible to suppress any idea. We now truly have a democratic marketplace of ideas: anyone can speak their mind to the world, and if their ideas have merit, others will be able to adopt them and put them into practice.

Cuss Free Zone
Years ago there was a song called I’ll Make Love to You. It was a huge hit and played on the radio everywhere. A few years later a song called Closer by Nine Inch Nails hit the airwaves cut up and edited because Trent Reznor said “I want to fuck you like an animal.”

Where’s the difference between the two songs? Both are about how much the singer would like to have sexual intercourse with somebody else, but one gets played unedited and the other received giggles and bleeps. Sex is sex and the terms used to describe it are based on the user’s mood, period.

It’s Simple. Stop Lying to your Kids!
I (like most people) am severely distrustful of government control. I have always had strong libertarian leanings, and ironically used to read Thomas Sowell regularly at Capitalism Magazine. Lately I’ve become less inclined toward that school of thought. What’s changed my mind is that libertarians tend to ignore secondary impacts of their actions, as well as the intangible benefits they receive from society. True individualism requires that we keep ourselves in balance with the larger world, paying the hidden costs of our consumption (externalities), and reimbursing society for hidden benefits we receive.

Favor Yourself & Ethical Behavior
Many people, from what I can tell, care deeply about what others think of them. Caring about what others think of us is a waste of time, unless there is something in it for us, some type of gain. In other words, I’m not going to stroke your ego unless I know I can get something from you. For most people, though, they’ll compromise between themselves and their ethical principles. They need attention, and they know they’ll get attention by compromising (i.e., sacrificing or otherwise completely abandoning) their integrity and even their own credibility.

Travel
A visit to Mamallapuram - a photo essay
Mahabalipuram, which is now known as as Mamallapuram, is about an hour’s drive from Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and is a tourist town famed for its ancient sculptures and temples. The monuments in the city were mostly built during the 7th - 9th century A.D. during the time of the Pallava dynasty. The place has scores of temples and monuments, but some are more important than others.

Atheism
Funerals Make Me Glad to Be an Atheist
This is why I’m glad to be an atheist. Because I know that, when I go, there won’t be some asshole up at a podium using my death to push his agenda. Instead, my family will be there, remembering me for the life I actually lived and the things I actually did. That’s how I want it to be. That’s how it should be.

Blog Against Theocracy 2008 - Details
1. Write a post in support of our United States Constitution, specifically regarding the separation of Church and State. You can write your post anytime, but the blogswarm takes place Easter Weekend, March 21-23. Your post will be linked at the Blog Against Theocracy website during and just after that weekend.

Comedy


Economy
The Bad News at the Pump
Nothing similar is likely to happen now. For the present surge in prices — crude oil costs have risen by 74% over the past year — no such easy solution is in sight. To begin with, we face not a sudden spike, but the results of a steady, relentless climb that began in 2002 and shows no signs of abating; nor can this rise be attributed to a single, chaos-causing factor in the energy business or in global politics. It is instead the product of multiple factors endemic to energy production and characteristic of the current era. There is no prospect of their vanishing any time soon.

Education
Raising California: The rights of a parent
Like any position of power, the power of parenting brings with it a responsibility to use it only when necessary. Children are people too. This may seem a tired statement--this is certainly not the first time you've heard it--but it is rarely recognized for what it really means. No person is the property of another person, and since children of all ages are persons, this includes them. But many parents are eager to make the jump from "My kids are my responsibility," to, "My kids are mine." Since children are too young to make important decisions for themselves, legal responsibilties are often passed on to the parents. This further promotes the idea that they are our property: we have to sign release papers in order for anyone else to use them. But responsibility for a person does not mean that you own them and are free to control their lives in any way you see fit.

Oklahoma’s Proposed “Religious Freedom” Law
The purpose of the bill is clear - to open the door for religious views not only in schools but in the classroom, on homework assignments and on tests. Such a law is an abomination of religious freedom, not a protection of it. It violates the Constitutional provision for separation of church and state, and is also degrades the quality of student education. I suspect that the promoters of the law wish, if nothing else, to make the teaching of certain topics, like evolution, as controversial as possible, hampered by legal landmines. That way teachers and schools are likely just to avoid it altogether, and textbook manufacturers will be motivated to avoid it lest their book sales suffer. This strategy has been unfortunately successful over the last century, creating an American public that is largely scientifically illiterate concerning one of the fundamental pillars of modern science.

Games
Patents on video game mechanics to strangle innovation, fun
We've already seen the danger of these patents. Sega owns patent no. 6,200,138, which is entitled "Game display method, moving direction indicating method, game apparatus and drive simulating apparatus." What this means is that Sega has a lock on the idea of driving a car around a city with an arrow pointing towards the next destination; it's a patent on Crazy Taxi, more or less.

Simpson's Road Rage was a game that featured Simpsons characters driving around a city, picking up customers, and dropping them off in other locations, all with an arrow pointing towards the next destination. When the game came out, Sega promptly sued Fox Entertainment, EA, and Radical Games. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Don't expect to see many arrows in your driving games, unless they've been cleared by a number of lawyers making sure they're not close to Sega's idea of what an arrow can or should point to.

Video game designed to help paralysis patients
Once again proving that video games can be used for more than entertainment, Today's Zaman is reporting that engineers from the Middle East Technical University Technopolis are working on a video game designed to rehabilitate patients who have been paralyzed. The game itself is called "Çiftlik” (Turkish for "Farm"), and can be played with an optical remote control instead of a mouse and keyboard.

Nintendo not allowing holocaust game in North America
The New York Times recently reported on a game by British developer Luc Bernard, entitled Imagination is the Only Escape, which follows the story of a young boy living during the Nazi occupation of France. The game's world is based upon a fantasy land that the boy creates to escape the horrors he has to live through, similar to the film Pan's Labyrinth. Bernard hopes to use the game as a platform to educate children about the Holocaust. "I hope that young children will play it," he explained.

Slate editorial bashes D&D, but we know the truth
Yesterday, writer Erik Sofge wrote a rebuttal to the many touching tributes and comics and remembrances of Gygax that have spread across the web. Erik doesn't think Dungeons and Dragons was a very good game, but it seems very few people are agreeing with him. In fact, many corners of the Internet are calling his piece nothing more than a thinly-disguised troll, a way to get the geeks and Internet people riled up, visiting the site, and generating ad revenue. That could be, but I don't think so. The more I read his piece, the more I'm convinced something even worse is at play here. I thought long and hard about whether to give Sofge's piece yet more publicity, but then I thought it would be good if we used it as a warning, as a worst-case scenario. Even as an apology. See, I think I know what happened to the young man who wrote this piece.

Gibson suing Activision over Guitar Hero guitars
Activision, maker of the Guitar Hero franchise, is being sued for violating a patent by Gibson Guitars, whose products the Guitar Hero controllers have been modeled on. The lawsuit stems from a patent issued to Gibson in 1999, which involves "a system for electronically simulating participation by a user in a pre-recorded musical performance."

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War -- Soulstorm (PC)
Soulstorm is an unfortunate way for an incredible game to sail into the sunset. It shows flashes of its former brilliance through two new races that are full of personality and are a lot of fun to play with, but falls flat through a lackluster single-player campaign, mediocre (at best) new air units and two devastating bugs that will kill the multiplayer scene until Relic issues an eventual patch. The Sisters and the Dark Eldar could really reinvigorate multiplayer games, but until a patch is released the Dawn of War faithful deserved a better expansion.

Healthcare
The post in which I continue to attack the damn libertarians
The second idiocy here is that the type of medicine under a universal health system will hopefully be fundamentally different than what we have now. Currently, doctors are essentially penalized for providing more care, and rewarded by insurance companies for providing less care. There is also completely inadequate support for preventative medicine. Despite these measures to reduce cost we still manage to spend more per capita on healthcare than any other nation, are ranked almost dead last among industrialized nations for provision of care (mostly due to access problems), and have over 40 million uninsured. These facts make a prima facie case for the need to reform our medical delivery system. The current system is unjustifiably stupid economically, and the restructuring of healthcare delivery has the potential to gear medicine more towards better disease prevention, screening, and overall increased quality of care as people are less fearful of being dinged by their insurance company for the crime of getting sick or being diagnosed with a disease.

History
Scary Science That Humans Have Foolishly Embraced
Roman historian Pliny the Elder notes that asbestos in clothing "affords
protection against all spells, especially those of the Magi." If that’s not handy enough, the Romans also discover that asbestos is a strong building material, and that it can make tablecloths flame retardant. (Simply burn off the food to clean them!)

Curiously, Pliny also warns against purchasing slaves who’ve worked in asbestos quarries. He writes, "They die young."

Life Stories
Ten Years Ago Today
And thus it was, standing in the living room of a cheap apartment that we were being shown in Leesburg, Virginia, I had what I expect was the lowest moment of my adult life. I was standing in the living room with gray walls, gray carpet and gray window blinds, on an overcast day, listening to my wife ask about the much reduced amenities relative to the apartment we lived in at the time, and it felt like my life had hit some sort of rewind — that I had managed to come so far, and now this was the bend in the curve, where things started their downturn.

Go Outside and Watch Some Birds
At about three o’clock, a red-shouldered hawk landed on an extremely thin branch of a naked sycamore near the back of my house. He was relatively small for the species: a male, no doubt. He widened his tail and pumped it up and down a few times, trying to catch his balance, while the other birds, suddenly confronted with the possibility of a swift and unexpected death, flew into the thicket, a short but safe distance away. The bravest of the cardinals and goldfinches peeked out from time to time to see what the hawk was up to. Not much, as it happened. After a few minutes of watching the ground — waiting hopefully for some rodent to come for the spilled seed, although none did — he coursed away.

Miles to go
It seems to me that I have spent most of my life "going places". On the road. In boats, planes, motorhomes, buses. I learned to walk on the train crossing Canada, they told me. And I am still wandering. There is so much to see, so much to do; there is always something new and interesting around that next corner. I rejoice in the feel of a highway unfolding ahead of me, the mystery of where it will lead, the scent of future discoveries.

Photography
Watching Pictures In The Clouds


Podcasts
Another Goddamned Podcast #6: March 6, 2008
St. Patrick’s Day falls during Holy Week this year. OH NO! We toast one another with green beer while throwing this non-controversy right in the Papal face. But then we find a topic we really disagree on. Lifeguard wants to be Aquaman. Which superheroes would the other Herd members choose? And who can kick whose ass?

Politics
McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam
On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center. That day, a week before the Ohio primary, Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a "strong, true, consistent conservative." The endorsement was important for McCain, who at the time was trying to put an end to the lingering challenge from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a favorite among Christian evangelicals. A politically influential figure in Ohio, Parsley could also play a key role in McCain's effort to win this bellwether state in the general election. McCain, with Parsley by his side at the Cincinnati rally, called the evangelical minister a "spiritual guide."

Religion
Self-Correction
By contrast, religion is a system of thought notably lacking in mechanisms for self-correction. The vast majority of religious beliefs do the exact opposite - assume that all significant truth was handed down at that religion's founding, perfect and complete, and that nothing of significance remains to be learned. There is no reward in religion for those who introduce new beliefs into the system or argue against old dogmas. In fact, most religions are set up specifically to discourage that possibility, with some going so far as to pronounce curses and divine wrath on anyone who tries it. There is no system of voting or other means by which the lay believers can express their discontent or call for a change of direction. And in many religions, there is an oligarchical elite of clergy who choose their own successors, shutting ordinary followers out of the decision-making process altogether.

Letting go of Jesus
Within the treatise, Hume, like a good Scotsman, appealed to common sense: You have never seen a brick suspended in the air. Wood will burn and fire will be extinguished by water. Food does not multiply by itself with a snap of my fingers. Water does not turn into wine. And in a deceptive opening sentence, he says, “...and what is more probable than that all men shall die.” In fact, “nothing I call a miracle has ever happened in the ordinary course of events.” It’s not a miracle if a man who seems to be in good health drops dead. It is a miracle if a dead man comes back to life—because this has never been witnessed by any of us. We only have reports, and even these can be challenged by the ordinary laws of evidence: How old are these reports? What is the reliability of the reporter? Under what circumstances were they written? Within what social, cultural and intellectual conditions did these reports originate? Hume’s conclusion is so simple and so elegant that I sometimes wish it, and not the Ten Commandments, were what Americans in Pascagoula were asking to be posted on classroom walls:

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish...

Comedy




Games
Marc Ecko to bring serial killer Dexter to gamers
Dexter Morgan, the popular forensic expert/homicidal vigilante created by Jeff Lindsay, has been thrilling literary and television audiences for a while with his dark adventures. Now, it appears that Morgan will be entertaining game audiences in the near future. Marc Ecko Entertainment has released a statement announcing its intent to develop a game based on the Showtime series Dexter.

Government
Shaming the Poor
3. Shaming people for their poverty generally assumes that the only reason for poverty is that people are poor for reasons they can be shamed out of — i.e., poor people are poor because they are lazy and shiftless no good spongers who prefer to be poor, because really, it’s just less work. This is a nice little fantasy, which like most fantasies sort of falls apart when it meets up with the real world. People are poor and sometimes become poor for lots of reasons. The number of poor who are poor because they like it is, as anyone who thinks about it for more than half a minute may imagine, rather small. Most people would prefer not to be poor, as it happens, and would be willing to work to escape it.

Atheist soldier says Army punished him
According to the lawsuit, Hall was counseled by his platoon sergeant after being informed that his promotion was blocked. He says the sergeant explained that Hall would be "unable to put aside his personal convictions and pray with his troops" and would have trouble bonding with them if promoted to a leadership position.

Hall responded that religion is not a requirement of leadership, even though the sergeant wondered how he had rights if atheism wasn't a religion. Hall said atheism is protected under the Army's chaplain's manual.

3 CEOs made $460 million - House panel
The memo states that the three companies combined lost more than $20 billion in the last two quarters of 2007, as investments related to subprime mortgages fell apart. Meanwhile, the stock of Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Countrywide declined drastically.

International
Job discrimination is rife all over the world
Kelly Services, Inc. surveyed 70,000 job seekers in 28 countries (2006), and as they say discrimination includes “discrimination on the grounds of
colour, sex, religion, race, political opinion, age, medical record, sexual preference, trade union activity, marital status, nationality, disability (physical, intellectual or psychiatric), or impairment (including HIV/AIDS status).” One needs to keep in mind just a few thousand people were talked to in each country, and that these are people’s perceptions only…there will always a certain percentage of people who are disgruntled for no good reason.

Bulldozers tear down giant religious teapot
About 40 workers with bulldozers and lorries destroyed the "subversive" teapot and other symbols of the pan-religious Sky Kingdom, in Terengannu state. An assembly hall, a concrete boat and a temple-like structure that was under construction were also demolished. About 30 members of the commune watched but did not intervene.

Colour or class?
The term “working class” itself is highly contested. Some “middle class” people describe themselves as “working class” so that they are not seen as pretentious; others suggest that every one in Britain is now “working class”, some with more money, others with less of it. To understand the historic import, social and moral meaning, and inverse snobbery imbued in a British person describing him/ her self as “working class”, do take a look at this link. Britain, of course, with the US, boasts the lowest inter-generational social mobility compared to Canada and the Nordic countries, as shown in a survey conducted by the London School of Economics and the whole report can be found here. So who is “working class” exactly? Well, I am not sure.

Medicine
Airborne Agrees to Pay $23.3 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over False Advertising of its "Miracle Cold Buster"
Concocted by second-grade teacher Victoria Knight McDowell and her screenwriter husband Thomas Rider McDowell, Airborne promised to “boost your immune system to help your body combat germs” and instructed users to “take it at the first sign of a cold symptom or before entering crowded, potentially germ-infested environments.” The company’s folksy “created by a school teacher!” slogan and insistence that the product be stocked with real cold, cough, and flu medicines instead of with dietary supplements, helped turn the company into an overnight success, as did an appearance by Victoria Knight McDowell on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Politics




Why Isn't Iraq in the 2008 Election?
There's an earlier history, an interesting one. You recall a couple of weeks ago, there was a mysterious Israeli bombing in northern Syria, never explained, but it a sort of hinted that this had something to do with Syria building nuclear facilities with the help of North Korea. Pretty unlikely, but whether it's true or not, there's an interesting background, which wasn't mentioned. In 1993, Israel and North Korea were on the verge of an agreement, in which Israel would recognize North Korea and in return North Korea would agree to terminate any weapons-related -- missile, nuclear, other -- any weapons-related activity in the Middle East. That would have been an enormous boon to Israel's security. But the owner of the world stepped in. Clinton ordered them to refuse. Of course, you have to listen to the master's voice. So that ended that. And it may be that there are North Korean activities in the Middle East that we don't know about.

No Need for Lawmakers' Approval of Iraq Pact, U.S. Reasserts
Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.), whose questions at a House hearing Tuesday elicited the administration statement, described it as an "open-ended, never-ending authority for the administration to be at war in Iraq forever with no limitations." The conditions of 2002 no longer exist, he said.





Religion
What I hate most about Christianity
Just because you don’t got to the church on the corner with the big steeple and instead you go to little church meetings in a store front or in someone’s basement, doesn’t make you less religious. Just because you don’t say the rosary or sing hymns to organ music on Sunday mornings but instead you read the Bible every morning and you go to Bible study and sing workshop songs accompanied by acoustic guitar on Thursday nights doesn’t mean you have no rituals.

Science
Orderly Universe: Evidence of God?
In any case, order for free and apparent complexity greater than we might naively expect are no basis for believing in God as traditionally defined. Of course, we can always redefine God to be an inevitable island of order or some sort of emergent mathematical entity. If we do that, the above considerations can be taken as indicating that such a pattern will necessarily exist, but that's hardly what people mean by God.

Intelligent Design Sort
This algorithm is constant in time, and sorts the list in-place, requiring no additional memory at all. In fact, it doesn't even require any of that suspicious technological computer stuff. Praise the Sorter!

Sand Dunes Thawing on Mars


Earth's rotation may account for wayward spacecraft
The flyby anomaly received more attention in 2006, when former NASA scientist John Anderson, now retired, and his colleagues, posted a research paper online describing the anomaly and raising the possibility of a link with a similar puzzle called the Pioneer anomaly. The Pioneer anomaly refers to the observation that NASA's Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft are both slowing down more than expected as they fly away from the Sun in opposite directions.

February 20, 2008 Total Lunar Eclipse


Skeptics


Tech


Travel
Where to Go and What to Do in Chile: Climb a Volcano in Pucon
Which brings me to the best part…hot lava! The first time I went you could see the lava shooting out of the crater. Yes, Volcan Villarica is active. But, ask before you go up if there are little explosions that day (not that will burn you or anything like that, just explosions so you can see the lava). The second time I climbed with my family, all we got was a great view from the top. No lava. Everyone was pretty disappointed.

I lost track of reading on Wednesday due to work deadlines and I only sort of caught up today. If you know of any articles that were posted this week that deserve to be here, put a link in the comments and I'll be sure to read them for next week's reader.

Atheism
My Argument With God: How I went from a Jesus-loving Christian to a fun-loving infidel...all in one afternoon
But anyway, there I was, happily drawing my hero when my big brother Bob asked, "Why do you believe in God?" Just a simple question. But mum panicked, "Bob," she said, in a tone I knew meant, "shut up." Why was that a bad thing to ask? If there was a God and my faith was strong, it didn't matter what people said.

Oh...hang on. There is no God. He knows it, and she knows it deep down. It was as simple as that. I started thinking about it and asking more questions, and within an hour, I was an atheist.

On Happiness
I am much happier knowing that I am the maker of my own destiny, as limited in time as that may be. I’m much happier knowing that some arbitrary super being hasn’t already decided my destiny, in the process creating really good odds that I will burn in hell, or be consigned to some equally deplorable place for all eternity. For that matter, I am much happier knowing that I won’t exist for eternity, for an infinite period of time (that alone would be a reason to snuff out one’s existence). I’m also much happier knowing that life has an explanation, (even though I may not fully know how it works) that the natural order of things is THE order of things, and that I can depend on the natural order to be consistent, without the occasional, unpredictable and arbitrary intervention by god. I don’t have to wonder why the universe is as it is, and I can simply accept the fact that it is, and stand in awe of it.

Books
Book Review: The Mind of the Market
For example, consider universal health care. Shermer expresses concern that this policy would lead to waste, inefficiency, and cost overruns. I quite agree - these are things that can go wrong with government-provided universal health insurance. Now, let's consider the alternative: what can go wrong with private health insurance? I can think of one obvious negative consequence: people die painfully from treatable conditions because they cannot afford medical care. This seems like an obvious followup point, but Shermer ignores it. In a similar passage, he discusses the phenomenon of confirmation bias as it applies to members of both American political parties - again, a serious and legitimate issue, I agree - but never shows any acknowledgment that this is a problem which might apply to him as well.

Games
A look at the studios EA has bought and shuttered
As Electronic Arts begins its forward assault on adding Take-Two to the list of companies the monolith has swallowed, CVG has taken some time to reflect on the history of EA takeovers. A full list of the absorbed companies has been compiled, and the number in retrospect is staggering.

Government
The Texas Dildo Massacre, or, Reason Number 2,767 Why Gay Rights Matter To Everyone
The Lawrence case didn’t just say that gay sex couldn’t be criminalized. It said that people — all people — have the right to engage in any consensual intimate conduct in their home, free from government intrusion. It said that people’s sex lives are not their neighbors’ business, not society’s business, and most emphatically not the government’s business. It said that the fact that the State doesn’t happen to like a particular kind of sex doesn’t mean they have a right to ban it, or indeed to have any say in it at all.

Corporatism and Socialism in America
Conservatives and many libertarians, on the other hand, frequently dismiss many ills such as poverty as fabricated by the left-liberal imagination, when in fact it does a disservice to the cause of liberty and free markets to defend the current system and ignore very real and serious problems, which are often caused by government intervention in the economy. We should recognize that state corporatism is a form of socialism, and it is nearly inevitable in a mixed economy that the introduction of more socialism will cartelize industry and consolidate wealth in the hands of the few.

History
The Worst Presidents?
Athena is learning about the presidents these days, not through school, but via the Animaniacs, whose “President’s Song” she is memorizing much in the same way she memorized their “50 states and their capitals” song (clearly, Animaniacs are her Schoolhouse Rock). While she was running down the presidents in the songs, and because she is into quantifying stuff as only a nine-year-old can be, she asked me which presidents I thought were the worst ever.

Party Time
The above were all relatively narrow few issues parties with limited electoral appeal though a few of them did win local and state elections as well as Congressional seats. However there were three other political parties with a more lasting impact and that received broader popular support. The first of these is the People’s Party, better known as the Populist Party, that was founded after the Panic of 1873. The Populists campaigned against the gold standard and had major successes in the Plains states. In the election of 1892, James Weaver garnered 1,041,028 votes or 8.5% of the popular vote. He carried 4 states (KS, CO, NV, ID) and won 22 electoral votes including one each from unfaithful electors in North Dakota and Oregon. There is one lasting legacy from the Populist Party: the direct election of United States Senators with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Previously Senators were appointed by state legislatures. They were also instrumental in extending women’s suffrage especially in the Mountain West. The Populist Party faded from the scene with the passage of these issues and the rise of the next two parties.

Life Stories
What Clown Called Me the "Pussy-minator"?
I'd pray that the woman would head well past us, toward the rear of the bus. But most of the time she'd slither into the seat right in front, or directly in back, or immediately across the aisle. If the vehicle was crowded, she'd always find an empty strap to hang onto right beside us, her ample breasts swaying over our heads whenever we hit a pothole or lurched to a stop. Every near-poke in the head would elicit a muttered comment: "Uy, it's a wonder she doesn't kill somebody with those things."

Philosophy
A Long, Aimless, Pointless, Rambling Post
I was wrong. Bullfighting is nothing more than humans dressing in ritual and colorful pageantry the maiming, torturing, and killing of an animal that has no choices. The ritual exists to cover the essential brutality of psychopaths torturing an animal to death in order to stroke the ego of one central narcissistic sonofabitch and to satisfy the sadistic impulses of everyone else involved, including the crowd. There’s nothing noble about it. The stadium and the corrida comprise an asylum full of sadists.

Monkeys and the wild animals don’t do that. They hunt and they kill, but they don’t dress it up and pretend it’s anything other than bloody dinner. Their satisfaction comprises a full stomach and another day alive.

Poetry
I wrote this poem just now because it's true (even though it's not terribly original)
It has to be perfect,
But it won't is perfect.
So, it's better to do nothing
Or put very little effort into it,
Because if it can't be perfect why does it matter?

Politics
Obama Campaign Could Force America To Address Race
And yet, many Americans harbor doubts about their own beliefs when it comes to race. We may catch ourselves feeling uncomfortable around members of other races. We may become aware of our own racist attitudes, thoughts which we would never express but which might nevertheless influence our behavior in subtle ways. We recognize that modern racism is more covert than than the overt acts which litter our nation's history, but that this makes them no less destructive. We do not want to deal with our own misgivings about race; we would prefer to ignore it and hope that it just goes away.

Religion
Mass trance afflicts Indonesian women, factory workers
During the morning flag-raising ceremony, one of the girls suddenly started screaming and couldn't move. Soon her friends joined in until more than 30 of them were screaming and fainting, the deputy principal Friskila told Reuters.

Some of the girls woke from the trance after a student played a Muslim prayer ring tone on her mobile phone. Others were taken by their parents to local witch doctors.

Friskila, however, favors a less superstitious explanation.

"They are bored, tired and then this happened, she said. They all got a day off school."

The View Over the Sanctuary Wall
For them, faith-based belief is utterly an exercise in superiority. At faith’s base level, particularly present in the Abrahamic traditions, there is an element of being “chosen.” These theists know just enough doctrine and dogma to justify their own spiritual (and empirical) elevation and others’ spiritual and empirical damnation, even going so far as to extend this type of judgment toward those who adhere to a somewhat similar faith-based ideology (viewing this as an outsider, of course; as someone who was once “in the light,” I can tell you that the small differences have major faith-based, spiritual consequences).

Science


Sexism
This is our country
This was a sentiment that was echoed by a few people, but look at the way this guy opens his comment. He's a democrat, hates Bush and is from a blue state. Okay, there's no way he can be sexist. Now let's move on to his reasonable argument: Women shouldn't officiate because (a) guys aren't comfortable with it, and (b) they are inferior refs. Just like men aren't comfortable having a female boss, and besides, females don't make good leaders. Just like white students weren't comfortable having classes with black students, and besides, black students don't make good students. Just like heterosexuals aren't comfortable with homosexuals getting married, and besides, homosexuals don't make good parents.

And the argument that females aren't familiar with the men's game because the game they played was different ignores the fact that most refs--especially at high levels of play--never played high level basketball, if they played at all. This is a clear case of males trying to justify their prejudice, even though this guy admits that he's just not comfortable with women being refs.

Why Do Men Oppress Women?
In sum, women who dress provocatively increase the number of men attracted to them and hence the number of choices they have when it comes to mating. Societies that limit or restrict how provocatively a woman can dress thus limit or restrict a woman’s choice in mates.

Moreover, it does not seem to be an accident that those societies which most limit a woman’s choice in dress (and, hence, mates) are also those societies which most limit other rights and freedoms for women. The oppression of women therefore seems to have a strong sexual component.

Sociology
More on Millennials
But aside from this disconnect, there's the assignment of blame, the all to frequent treat one gets when dealing with Millennials, the aversion to accountability. Notice this girl says she NEEDS to stay constantly engaged, so she's saying that it's the employers' fault that they're flighty because they're not being properly stimulated. Hey listen up cupcake, you know what's stimulating and might keep you engaged? FUCKING DOING GOOD WORK! Backing up my claims is this comment, "Millennials are masters of 'continuous partial attention'". Yeah, no shit.

Travel
A trip to the Taj Mahal - a slide show
This slideshow shows you the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. The photographs of the Taj are taken from various distances and from different angles. The Taj in real life is sparkling white but you might notice that this doesn’t seem so in all the pictures and you can take it as a defect in the photograph. There are some photographs not of the Taj itself, but of the monuments around the Taj Mahal.

Instead of New Year's resolutions, which I usually do more as goals for the year, I'm going to list out all of the traveling I'd like to do and work towards going. So here are the places and events I'd like to make it to in 2008.

Dragon Con 2008
August 29 - September 1, 2008 in Atlanta, GA
I've been attending Dragon Con for the past couple of years. Hotels are always the big pain as well as the crowds, but I have a great time every year. I'd like to make it again for next year and it's a relatively inexpensive trip. Plus, because I get Labor Day off, it means only taking one day off from work.

I also have friends that go every year, so it's a good bet I won't be attending alone.

Denvention 3, the 66th World Science Fiction Convention
August 6 - August 10, 2008 in Denver, CO
I've never been to a World Con before, so I have no idea what to expect. A friend of mine is thinking about attending this year and we haven't seen one another in 3 years, so this would be a good chance to catch up and see some wonderful things. (There are wonderful things at World Cons, right?)

It's pretty close in dates to Dragon Con, but I think with advance planning I could get to both.

TAM 6
June 19 - June 22, 2008 in Las Vegas, NV
I'd love to attend an Amazing Meeting one year. I don't know anyone that's going, but it's possible that I can entertain myself in Las Vegas. It's a bit more expensive than the other conventions, but it's also only a long weekend.

Comic-Con International: San Diego 2008
July 24 - July 27, San Diego, CA
This would probably be an either/or along with Dragon Con or World Con based on what's decided between friends. I've never been to Comic-Con, but I went to a few festivals when I was living in San Diego and they were always fun (not that that is any indication about Comic-Con). Again, this one drew big crowds last year, so it might be in the process of changing a lot as well.

Easter Island Culture Expedition 2008
October 2008, Hanga Roa, Easter Island, Chile
There aren't any dates posted for next year yet, but it was in October in 2007 and 2006. This would be the trip of a lifetime. My concerns are mostly cost and taking 2+ weeks off from work. Travel to Easter Island is supposed to be very expensive and although I may be able to get unpaid time off, that would only increase the cost. It may end up being an "all or nothing" type of trip.

Tuscany's Castle of Catignano Expidition 2008
July 13 - July 26, 2008, Castelfiorentino, Italy
Another archaeological expedition with the same restrictions as the Easter Island expedition. This one though might be less expensive. But then it also conflicts with Comic-Con.

Posting about my trip to Dragon Con reminded me of the trip to England I took a few years ago. The photo album is still up at Kodak Gallery. I never posted it here because I was blogging on livejournal when I made the trip. The pictures turned out well, but I give credit to the beautiful country. It was difficult to take a poor picture.

There are a lot of pictures and don't feel obligated to view them all, but I hope it is a fun tour through a bit of England.

Warning: This post is mostly rant.

Day 4 was my travel day. My flight didn't leave until noon, but since nothing starts up at the con until at least 10:00, that meant no con activities for me.

I decided to get up early, get a good breakfast, and repack before heading to the airport three hours before my flight. Well, I left the hotel about 3 hours before, but there was travel time and it was a holiday and I had no idea how busy the Atlanta airport would be.

Breakfast was fine. I forgot to bring a book with me, so I ate alone and watched the people at a table near me. They were there for the con obviously as many were dressed in costume. Their order was completely screwed up and the waitress kept bringing by the wrong food. I didn't get the right thing either, so I'm guessing it had nothing to do with it being a large table of people.

I had mostly packed the night before, but I decided after breakfast to stuff everything into my suitcase and check it and only bring a small bag on the plane with anything valuable. I normally never check luggage. I hate having to wait for it after the flight. I hate knowing that it might get lost or damaged. But I do have to say it worked out this one time. I didn't have to lug a heavy suitcase around with me all day.

Airport check-in was mostly fine. Air Tran ticket agents can't print tickets. When I left to come out to Atlanta all I brought with me was my boarding ticket for my flight out. I forgot to print out the information the return flight information. I called Matt before I left and got the flight number and time it left because I only vaguely remembered. The ticket kiosk wouldn't let me print a boarding pass without the confirmation number even though I swiped my credit card to bring up the flight information. So I go to the ticketing agent who writes down the confirmation number and sends me back in line to print my ticket. Then I have to go back to her after I have a ticket to check my bag. That's pretty a pretty stupid way to handle check-in if you ask me. Of course since I don't normally check luggage I usually just walk straight to security because I usually print my boarding pass before I leave for the airport.

Anyway, the line for security was long, but not terribly long. Of course if I had upgraded to first class I could have gone through first class security. That's right. The Atlanta airport has a special security line for first class, business class, and special assistance customers. I know it shouldn't irritate me, but it did. (The special assistance part doesn't bother me at all incidentally.) Why do first class customers get preferential treatment when it comes to security? If I flew first class all the time I'm sure I'd be glad, but I'm a curmudgeon and I want all of the rich people to suffer along with the rest of us cattle.

I hate security. I'm not afraid of flying, but I absolutely hate security. I just always feel like a criminal when I go through the checkpoint. I know that's probably not the intent, but it's the result.

I used to fly a lot for business many years ago. I'd fly several times a week out to client sites and I loved flying then. Security was still there and I still had to go through the metal detector and have my luggage scanned, but I didn't get treated like dirt. I didn't have to worry about packing all my liquids in small containers or carrying fingernail clippers. The people around me were generally in a good mood and most of all, I didn't feel like a criminal.

I didn't get the pat down this time through security like I did on the way out. Seriously, I never take anything metal with me through security. I don't even wear jeans because of the zipper (and button and rivets). I wear flip-flops that are easy to take off. I never set off the alarm, but I almost always get a pat down.

Here's the thing about me. I like following the rules. I just need the rules to be clear. One of the things that drives me crazy is getting admonished for doing something wrong when I had no idea that what I did was wrong. Make what I'm supposed to do clear to me and I'll do everything exactly the way you want it. Make things unclear and you get one pissed off bitch.

So I'm sailing to my gate and I'm two hours early. I stop and get a drink and settle down to wait. I have a good book. The worst (security) is behind me. I get surrounded by a family that has a very public fight right there next to me. I ignore it. There's a lady that sits of the floor next to me eating a sandwich making grunting noises. I ignore it. It sucks to be at the airport. No one likes it. I can't expect normal.

Finally boarding is called. I paid extra to get an exit row. See what I mean about if I had first class I wouldn't complain about preferential treatment with security? I'm a hypocrite in that sense. But let me explain. When you book a flight on Air Tran you can pay $5 extra to get a seat assignment at the time of booking. Otherwise you're assigned a seat when you check in. I'm no dummy. I don't want to sit in the middle seat. I paid to have a window seat on my way out. It's $15 to get a seat assignment in an exit row. When I was booking I figured I might have more luggage on my return, so I selected an exit row for the comfort and extra room.

I'm in the first group for boarding. I get buckled in, shove my bag under the seat in front of me, and settle in to read while people are filing in. I can be patient. After all, the worst is behind me. In two and a half hours I'll be getting off the plane on the other side, collecting my luggage and heading home. Right? I'll have most of the day to spend with my husband before I have to go back to work the next day. I'm at peace with the world.

Just before the doors close the flight attendant seats a guy next to me. He's very tall, so I understand. It has to suck for a tall guy to squeeze into the tiny rows of an airplane. Except he smells. And there are only two seats on my row and he's right next to me. All weekend my sense of smell has been extremely acute. And now I have to sit next to someone who's been sweating for probably hours. Of course I start complaining in my head about how this guy got an exit row seat for free. How unfair! I realize how extremely selfish I am, but I still hate the thought of the flight home.

The captain comes online and tells us that there's a maintenance problem and it will be 20 minutes at least until we leave. I turn on my iPod and notice that it's already 10 minutes past when we were scheduled to take off. Great. Thoughts of sitting on the plane for 7 hours flash through my mind. But I convince myself that it will be OK. I have a good book. 20 minutes isn't so bad.

30 minutes later we're told that the maintenance problem can't be resolved and we're being sent to a new gate. Everyone gets up, but we can't get off yet. We have to wait for the plane to arrive at the other gate. We wait 10-15 minutes. I call my husband and tell him I'll be at least an hour late.

I finally get off the plane and rush to the other gate. I'm almost running. Looking back at it I'm not sure why I was in such a hurry. I get there and we have to wait for the flight attendants to board first. Everyone applauds when the reach the gate. We board. I get back to reading. The tall guy never shows up again and I'm slightly happier. Poor guy.

The fight was uneventful itself. We land. I hope my luggage was transferred. It was. 45 minutes later I'm home. And I'm so happy I forget all of my frustrations with flying until I write this.

Unfortunately I have to fly again later this year.

See also
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

Day 3 was the say I stopped taking pictures. I caught two in the morning, but we were in such a hurry and it was even more difficult to get around. On Saturday I didn't think it would be busier the next day.

My first talk of the day was with the lovely Dr. Pamela Gay on "The Improbable Universe." The talk was way above my head. I know next to nothing about physics. But, it was really interesting. It wasn't an event I planned to attend. I got up early to see the local dealers room, but by habit I walked into Henry and sat down. (Henry was the room that most of the science track panels were in.)

Afterwards I skipped out on the questions and browsed around the local dealers for a little bit before heading back up to Henry for "Geological Hoaxes & Frauds" hosted by George Hrab. Who should appear in the room but the glorious Flying Spaghetti Monster. Two sitings in two days! (Actually I saw her a few more times on Sunday but my mind blanked every time I would have normally thought of pictures.)

The discussion was interesting, but it turned into almost a free-for-all question and answer session with the crowd trying to take over. It was a little bit too emotionally driven for me, but Dr. Hrab tried to keep the discussion on topic and he pretty much succeeded.

That's him in the sunglasses. He seemed like a pretty neat guy. I wish I would have seen him in more panels.

After that I caught up with my friends in the local dealer rooms. We wandered around a bit, but mostly I sat and waited and tried not to fall asleep. I planned to attend the "My God is Smitier than Yours" in the afternoon, but after about 10 minutes I left. The panelists were fine, but it was a bit disorganized and I realized that I'd be better served with a nap. I slept for about 30 minutes before meeting my friends for dinner.

We talked about going to the "Cannibal Flesh Riot! and The Henchmen" short film festival, but we ended up skipping it because we were lazy. Can you imagine being too tired to see zombie movies? We did make it to the "Apocalyptic Shorts" film festival at 9:00 and it was pretty good. I don't remember the names of most of the films. We saw a reprise of Zombie Love and a short called something like 7 Minutes or something like thatAfter. It was a zombie movie filmed in black and white from first person perspective. It reminded me a bit of a video game. It was pretty good and the creator (director & writer) was really nice. I wish I remembered if that was the right name. Update: Jantis reminded me that it was named After in a post he wrote.

We played Carcassonne again with a new player that showed us how it was actually supposed to be played. I lost badly. It wasn't as fun, but maybe that's because I was relearning the rules.

I went back with my friends to their room afterwards to say goodbye. I had an early (ish) flight in the morning and knew I probably wouldn't see them. That pretty much ended the Con experience for me, but it was still a long way home.

See also
Day 1
Day 2
Day 4

Day 2 of Dragon Con dawned pretty brightly. I was up before 9:00 to attend 'Is It a Ghost: A Skeptic Reviews' with Alison Smith of the Skeptical Analysis of the Paranormal Society (SAPS). This was, as most science track panels, over in the Hilton, which was a several block walk. Really, I'm not usually such a baby, but there was a lot of walking.

Alison did a great job of showing us footage of a couple of different unexplained experiences and letting us decide what we thought. She asked the skeptics to approach the videos from the perspective of believing in ghosts and the ghost believes to approach it as a skeptic. I think most people in the room were skeptics and we all pretty much ignored her good advice and were skeptical.

She admitted to not believing in ghosts herself, but she explained that she always tries to approach anything she's examining with an open mind.

Next I putzed around for a while in the main Dealer's rooms, which were in the same building before heading back to the Hyatt to attend Michael Shermer's reading of Why Darwin Matters. It was a small group and an enjoyable conversation. He was selling hardback copies cheap and signing autographs. I picked up a copy and it'll be bumping my reading list down by one - as soon as I finish Julian.

After that panel, friends of mine found a table (in the role playing section in the Marriott, no less) and set up to play Carcassonne. I've never played the game before, but two things I like about it - it has interesting strategy and it's short. A game can be played in less than 45 minutes.

The game is simply a set of tiles and some units that represent each player. Each person in turn draws a tile and places it. It must logically match the tiles it's placed next to and must connect to at least one tile. After placing a tile the player can optionally place a unit. If the unit is placed in a city tile it becomes a knight; on a road, a robber baron; on a farm, a farmer; or on an abbey, a monk. Points are scored based on claiming the area with your unit. Other players can challenge your unit as tiles are placed.

That's not a very good explanation, but it's not an easy game to explain without visuals.

Trevor trumped us all by winning by a wide margin. His farmers ruled all of our knights. Of course later we would learn that we were playing the game wrong. But I think it was fun the way we played it.

I also caught a picture of what I thought was Cthulu at first, but turned out to probably be a mind flayer on second thought. In any case he was a nice guy and stopped and posed for us when I requested a picture.

After that we got some dinner in the Hilton because my friends had a panel there. I was so hungry. The lines were long at restaurants and I often got through the morning and afternoon on milk, juice, and an energy bar from breakfast. Finding a place to sit after ordering at walk-up and order places was also tough, especially if the place happened to be located in one of the hotels.

After that I rushed back to the Hyatt to attend Smackdown! Skeptics vs. True Believers. After waiting in line for a few minutes I learned that the panel we were waiting in line for was the Ghost Hunters and my panel had been moved to the Hilton. Arghh! So I ran back over to the Hilton and made it just as the panel was starting. It was crowded, so I ended up sitting on the floor near the front row.

Alison Smith, Michael Shermer, Patrick Burns, and another guy were on the panelGraham Watkins. I'm so sorry I don't remember his name and I didn't write it down. He's not on the official panel speaker's list. It was a good, polite debate until Patrick BurnsGraham Watkins called James Randi a fraud. The crowd booed.

Jeff Wagg, here in the audience, looked unhappy. Other than that it was an interesting, if not very controversial debate. The reason they're all looking towards me in the picture is because a guy on the floor near me was asking them a question. It was a great photo opportunity. I didn't use a flash (as in most pictures) and so the photo turned out a little blurry.

Later the FSM was sighted outside the main Dealer's rooms. I had no idea her deliciousness was female, but it has been confirmed. At least, it's confirmed that she chose to show herself to us as a member of the female persuasion at the Con.

Just thinking about it right now and I crave a noodley blessing.

I did manage to snap one more picture on our way back to the room. This costume reminded me of the imp in Heroes of Might and Magic V. I know it can't possibly be that. My husband thinks it must be from Spawn.

We planned to see something later, but unwisely we headed back to my friends' room for a little while we realized that we weren't going to be persuaded to go out again. It felt too good to relax. I headed back to my room to read, catch up with my husband, and get some much needed sleep.

Which reminds me, I forgot another panel we went to late on Friday (Day 1), which was 28 Minutes Later, a discussion about the two movies 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. The discussion was mildly interesting, but I was tired and I about fell asleep a couple of times. The fun thing was that it was in one of the Brit track rooms and they had a lot of posters up about the new Dr. Who. Since I have friends here at work that are fans it made me think of them. Obviously I have to include a reference here just for them.

That was Day 2. It was probably the most grueling day of the four days for me, but it was a lot of fun.

See also
Day 1
Day 3
Day 4