Avoiding Human Extinction
I’m amazed that human extinction isn’t more of a political issue. It should be. The survival of our species is the most important issue we can address. I’m not being hyperbolic. As living creatures,...
Category: Society
The Eighth Deadly Sin
I’ve always liked the concept of the Seven Deadly Sins: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. What makes this list so amazing is that you don’t have to believe in God or...
St. Patrick’s Day in Dallas
I love St. Patrick’s Day in Dallas. Here we celebrate it on the Saturday closest to March 17, with an annual 5k fun run, a parade, and lots of drinking and debauchery. In this...
Conspiracy Theorists and the Meaning of Life
You may think of conspiracy theorists as pessimistic shut-ins, wearing tinfoil hats and wallowing in paranoia. This isn’t always true, but it’s the stereotype that people have in their heads. In general, non-conspiracy theorists...
The Afterlife Without God
What if there’s an afterlife, but no God? It’s an idea that’s almost unthinkable in Western religion, though it is accepted in some Eastern religions. When it comes to the supernatural and the divine,...
Frozen Pipes and Big Government
During my first winter in Texas, I saw signs outside my apartment complex that said, “Freeze Warning: Keep Faucets Dripping”. This came as a surprise to a Michigander like me. Up north, we never...
Meditations on an Ice Storm
Growing up in Michigan, I always laughed at winter storms in southern cities. Every couple of years, you’ll see some normally warm-weather city get blanketed in snow and ice. People up north see these...
Fixing the US Constitution
If we learned anything from the watching politics in 2013, it’s that our government doesn’t work right. For the most part, it’s broken because the Tea Party has resorted to anarchist tactics, but the...
The Shutdown and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Here’s the thing that bugged me most about the 2013 Government Shutdown. The Tea Party Caucus and the Objectivist Conservatives all complain that the government is broken, when they themselves broke it. In effect,...
The Beauty of Barcelona’s Eixample
Barcelona is a beautiful city at any scale. Take a walk down La Rambla or visit the Sagrada Familia and you’ll see some of the greatest urban spaces in the world. Then take a...
