Category: Asides

I have said sim­i­lar things before (both to stu­dents and to young moms). Deal­ing with young kids is tough.

An Encour­ag­ing Word for Moth­ers of Young Chil­dren

Mar­tyn Lloyd-Jones once spoke with a group of med­ical stu­dents who com­plained that in the midst of their train­ing and the fero­cious work hours they real­ly didn’t even have time to read the Bible an.…..

I very much liked this essay.

Final­ly, Econ­o­mists Acknowl­edge That They’re Biased — Forbes

Tyler Cowen (Pho­to cred­it: Pol­i­tics and Prose Book­store) Every econ­o­mist I fol­low has been tweet­ing or retweet­ing this Times op-ed by renowned econ­o­mist and blog­ger Tyler Cowen which argues con­vincin…

I have noticed this for years — the media seems blind to the influ­ence of the reli­gious left but is hyper-sen­si­tive to the reli­gious right. It’s espe­cial­ly clear the Catholic church is in view — their voice is wel­comed on immi­gra­tion or the death penal­ty but mar­gin­al­ized on abor­tion and LGBT issues. 

Why Are Anti-Abor­tion Cler­ics Called Theocrats, While Anti-Gun Cler­ics Are Not?

Imag­ine if a group of promi­nent reli­gious lead­ers went to Wash­ing­ton, D.C., to advo­cate against abor­tion. Imag­ine these cler­ics filmed a tele­vi­sion ad in which they made a faith-based appeal for the c…

Sad­ly, few of the peo­ple who most need to hear this will intu­itive­ly grasp that it is about them.

Dil­bert com­ic strip for 03/19/2013 from the offi­cial Dil­bert com­ic strips archive.

The Offi­cial Dil­bert Web­site fea­tur­ing Scott Adams Dil­bert strips, ani­ma­tion, mashups and more star­ring Dil­bert, Dog­bert, Wal­ly, The Pointy Haired Boss, Alice, Asok, Dog­bert’s New Rul­ing Class and mor…

File under “things you did not expect to learn about today” — Between 2002 and 2010, an esti­mat­ed 17 616 patients pre­sent­ed to US EDs with trouser zip injuries to the gen­i­tals. The penis was almost always the only gen­i­tal organ involved. Zip injuries rep­re­sent­ed near­ly one-fifth of all penile injuries. 

Zip-relat­ed gen­i­tal injury. [BJU Int. 2013] — PubMed — NCBI

PubMed com­pris­es more than 22 mil­lion cita­tions for bio­med­ical lit­er­a­ture from MEDLINE, life sci­ence jour­nals, and online books. Cita­tions may include links to full-text con­tent from PubMed Cen­tral an…

What an inter­est­ing way to think about writ­ing short sto­ries.

Reflec­tions on Roger Zelazny

I had a good day pound­ing away at Hawk, and then learned that my short sto­ry, “Play­ing God” has sold to this anthol­o­gy. So, I’m feel­ing pret­ty good, and I’m think­ing about Roger Zelazny, and I’m r.…..

I have not looked in the method­ol­o­gy they used to con­duct their research, but their con­clu­sions res­onate with my instincts. If I ever name a church, there is a rea­son­able chance I will work “Assem­bly” into its name.

Should Your Church’s Name Include Its Denom­i­na­tion?

(UPDATED) New research says both church­go­ers and the unchurched agree deci­sion is a ‘two-edged sword.’

Wow. Con­sid­er my mind bog­gled. How does a uni­ver­si­ty think that this is a good idea?
 
“In a state­ment, City Uni­ver­si­ty said the room used was nev­er a ded­i­cat­ed space specif­i­cal­ly for Fri­day prayers and was instead an area that stu­dents could use for var­i­ous activ­i­ties rang­ing from meet­ings to pilates class­es. Last year the Uni­ver­si­ty asked those organ­is­ing the prayers to sub­mit their ser­mons in advance and keep them online after­wards for peo­ple to view.

“Fri­day prayers were deemed Uni­ver­si­ty events open to all stu­dents and staff, and are not sole­ly a stu­dent or stu­dent soci­ety event,” the state­ment read. “As such the Uni­ver­si­ty needs to be assured of the qual­i­ty and appro­pri­ate­ness of what is being deliv­ered and that all stu­dents eli­gi­ble to deliv­er prayers and ser­mons are con­sid­ered equal­ly and giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do so.”

Cen­sor­ship row erupts after City Uni­ver­si­ty shuts down Mus­lim stu­dents’ Fri­day prayer meet­ing

Mus­lim stu­dents at a Lon­don uni­ver­si­ty have had their week­ly Fri­day prayer meet­ing on cam­pus shut down because they refused to allow staff mem­bers to view and pre-autho­rise their ser­mons before delive…

I rate the zinger at the end as wor­thy of a British Prime Min­is­ter. Such clev­er­ness is rare.

Facts about Britain and France and Bel­gium

Britain’s Roy­al Air Force now has just a quar­ter of the num­ber of com­bat air­craft it had in the 1970s. The Roy­al Navy has 19 destroy­ers and frigates, com­pared with 69 in 1977. The British army is sche…