Ragged Clown

Sitting in those pews transports me back through my memories.

Inside every old person is a young person who doesn’t really understand that he’s old now.

I love buying books for people who will get pleasure from them

A Harvard economist asked 5000 people how they thought wealth was distributed throughout the United States and then asked how it should be distributed. If wealth were distributed the way that most people think it is distributed, I think the country would be in pretty good shape. Watch the video to see how the wealth […]

Because you’re my best girl and the best you’ll always be.

Usual disclaimer: discrimination against atheists is pretty tame compared to the discrimination that blacks and jews and gays have historically faced. It’s not like atheists were ever persecuted or excluded from public office [er, you sure? -ed]. This bloggingheads.tv vialog makes the claim that discrimination against atheists is different from other kinds of discrimination in […]

Optical Dude: So how’s your vision? Me: I can’t see crap anymore. Optical Dude:  Yeah. You are about the age for that. Me:  Should I consider progressive lenses? Optical Dude:  Yeah. A lot of people like progressive lenses these days. Me:  Would I be better off with bifocals? Optical Dude:  Yeah. A lot of people prefer them. […]

The Road is about a man and a boy. And nothing happens.

A late entry in Gizmodo’s rip off an album cover contest.

Farewell to a muse.

Nate Silver’s column today was about how the tech industry overwhelmingly supported the Dems in the recent election. Obama won 84% of the vote in San Francisco and almost as much in Silicon Valley and the rest of the Bay Area. Even more striking was the proportion of donations from tech companies that went to […]

If you are not paying for the service, you are the product.

The things they carried into war.

In 2004, more preschoolers than law enforcement officers were killed by firearms

A series of short lectures on religion from my alma mater. Stalin and his gang had found lots of other ways to oppress people that didn’t have any of the fun bits of religion. Or, indeed. opium. Those hilarious people who put ‘Jedi’ on the census form. Two more in the series. Look out for […]

When TED first popped into the world, you could pick any TED talk at random and it would almost certainly be great. Now it seems like you have to wade through 10 crap ones and 5 mediocre ones to find the good stuff. This is good stuff.

When I first arrived on these American shores, whenever I filled in a form that required my nationality, I always put England. The man always crossed it out and put United Kingdom. I kept this up for about ten years before I finally tired of being a rebel without a point and conformed. When I started my […]

[It’s that time again. That time when I rummage through my unfinished posts folder and decide which one’s would be better out than in and which belong in the digital toilet bowl. This one from March 2012 (barely) made the cut. 3 others weren’t so lucky. Two more (Run Silent, Run Deep and Confessions of […]

I started a massive post on my love affair with beer last week but my iPad WordPress client ate it.

According to Ruth Margolis, American people are some of the loveliest you’ll ever meet and make us expats feel all warm, cuddly and very welcome. But just occasionally they do or say something that we Brits find a tad… eccentric. I agree with that and with most of her list of 10 things that americans […]

I read two articles this morning. The first was about the nature of the activity that we call science. The author uses the example of Anaximander’s realization that the Earth is not flat to illustrate what he believes to be the fundamental principle that drives scientific progress. Until him, all the civilizations of the planet, […]

Does anyone want a newspaper?

I used to sing this song every day to my first baby clown.

I joined the Navy as an artificer at HMS Fisgard in 1982.