Wow!  With the semester over, I’m finally caught up with the news.  Once the semester starts again, I’ll probably have a harder time blogging frequently, but we shall see how the next semester is treating me.  Till then, here’s some news that I found interesting:

Abortion

• A study showing there is no correlation between a woman getting an abortion and mental illness.

Children

• Suppose you don’t plan on having any kids.  Someone approaches you and says, “but who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?”  Here are some great replies.  Shortcut: planning to have your kids to take care of you when you’re old is (a) a horrible retirement plan, (b) superfluous, or (c) a non-creative effort on planning out your old age.  The comments contribute a lot as well.

Culture

• US road casualties.
• The science of waiting in line.
• Polemicist, atheist, essayist: dead at 62.  Yet, he probably wasn’t a great guy in the end.
• Hitchling: (noun) a child void of religious indoctrination who is encouraged to read broadly and to seek the truth unapologetically
• Tyrant of North Korea dead.
• Conformity is not living the excellent life:   and also from Carlin: 
• How to dress like a nerd for boys and girls.
• Which country is the most giving at Christmas time?  It’s not the USA.  From the Economist: 
• Vocal Fry, once considered a disorder, is now becoming a fad for young college women.  What is vocal fry?  Check this out, then check this to see it being applied (about one minute into it).  Why do they do it?  It’s to broadcast themselves as part of a social group.

Economics

• Interest Rates in the long-term.  Taken from this site: 

Education

• Need to gain more knowledge?  Need to find more innovative ways to teach a class room?  Go here, here, and here.
• A panoramic virtual tour of the Smithsonian.

Health

• How to prevent cancer.  Pretty complex but still cool.
• The Philosophy of Food Project.
• An interesting article about insomnia drugs waking people up from comas.

Humor

• One women records her husband sleeping.  Apparently, he says some of the funniest things while he’s sleeping.
• Wow!  See some texts from a 17-year old who thinks he’s all that.  Hilarity ensues!  Is it fake?  Who cares?  It’s still funny!

Logic

• The concept of infinity is a complex issue.  The BBC is tackling it: 

Marriage

• There’s big news that marriage is on the decline (to about 51% are married).  Now there’s a graph that you can see how that pertains to the whole nation.

Middle East

• Really?  Saudi officials say that if women are aloud to drive, it would be the “end of virginity”.
• With the end of the Iraq War, here’s an extensive chart on the casualties.

Movies

• The dark side of female sexuality in films.
• The next Pixar film is going to take us inside the brain.

Music

• Listen to all of the Beatles songs all at once.  They are played together, sequenced in order of lengths, with the longest starting first and all 226 tunes ending together.

Philosophy

• Was Socrates the gadfly because he had epilepsy?  [H/T Manuela Gomez]
• Could David Hume known about Buddhism?  Alison Gopnik suggests that Hume talked to a Jesuit who was an expert at Tibetan Buddhism.
• This is probably why public debates have been getting less and less authoritative.

Politics

• For those of you in Utah, Rocky Anderson is thinking of running for President.  [H/T Aubrey Spivey]
• Ron Paul was asked what every America should read.  Paul’s answer was The Law, by Frédéric Bastiat.  Never heard of it, but luckily, there’s a website for his work.
• Your government: bought and paid for.  [H/T Nathan Blackerby]

Polyamory

• Don’t like divorce?  Try polyamory.
• Journal article suggesting that triparenting is better than the traditional two parent model.  Her argument: one parent is ok, two parents are better, three parents are better than the two parent arrangement.

Relationships

• What to get your wife; what to get your mistress.  Wow!  Taken from here: 
• Barely half of Americans are married.  That’s a record low.

Religion

• A three-hour BBC documentary about the Story of God.  Basically, it covers the three Abrahamic religions: 
• Interview with philosopher Peter Boghossain, who argues that philosophy professors should challenge students’ groundless (usually faith-based) beliefs with facts.

Science

• Well, there’s ask a philosopher, ask a physicist, now there’s simply ask a scientist.  However, it seems geared to biology and evolution.
• Rats show empathy.
• Biostatistics Ryan Gosling.
• These type of cartoons would’ve been really helpful during my times studying physics: 
• Stephen Colbert (not the character, but the real person) interviews Neil deGrasse Tyson:
• Speaking of which, Tyson offered eight books that everyone should read.  Luckily, you can get them all for free.  In order:
1. The Bible (eBook) – “to learn that it’s easier to be told by others what to think and believe than it is to think for yourself.”
2. The System of the World by Isaac Newton (eBook) – “to learn that the universe is a knowable place.”
3. On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (eBook – Audio Book) – “to learn of our kinship with all other life on Earth.”
4. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (eBook – Audio Book) – “to learn, among other satirical lessons, that most of the time humans are Yahoos.”
5. The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine (eBook – Audio Book) – “to learn how the power of rational thought is the primary source of freedom in the world.”
6. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (eBook – Audio Book) – “to learn that capitalism is an economy of greed, a force of nature unto itself.”
7. The Art of War by Sun Tsu (eBook – Audio Book) – “to learn that the act of killing fellow humans can be raised to an art.”
8. The Prince by Machiavelli (eBook – Audio Book) – “to learn that people not in power will do all they can to acquire it, and people in power will do all they can to keep it.”
• A new blog about facing the singularity.
• A proposed machine that would predict the future.   Looks like Bostrum’s simulation argument is getting more and more plausible.
• Comparison of Artificial Brain projects.
• Ten things everyone should know about time.
• Skeptical about Climate Change?  This site is skeptical of your skepticism of climate change.
• Wow!  Someone did a dissertation on Robot Ethics.  It’s got pictures too.
• Speaking of which, it looks like it’s seriously being considered.

Sexuality

• Neil Sinhababu gives an interesting argument on why the argument against same-sex marriage is wrong.
• Steven Landsburgh may be right: More Sex is Safe Sex.  Here is part II.
• Proponents of Prop. 8 in California may not have a strong standing.
• Students from Fordam University–a Catholic University–cannot get adequate birth control.  Thus, some students have hosted on off-campus clinic as an alternative.
• University of Georgia made an unsurprising conclusion: Abstinence-only programs don’t lead to abstinent behavior.
• Women share “first kiss” at Navy homecoming.
• A book that I can get on board with.  This book is about “how young women in our culture are denied the opportunity to develop a sexual identity on their own terms. Instead girls (and many women) see their identities as tied up with how boys (/men) view them, never quite measuring up. Above all, it shows how girls, taught not to be sexual, often have sex not for the sake of their own sexual pleasure, but to be accepted, seen , and, ironically, rescued from their belief that they are not good enough as they are.”
• A chart of birth control methods.
• When it come to evolution, the size of the penis doesn’t matter–but shape does.
• The UN issues it’s first human rights report LGBT people.

Singledom

• I had no idea that Berkeley had a site for studying the dynamics of being single.