Category: Asides

Inter­est­ing tid­bit: “In my con­sult­ing expe­ri­ences in the past, I found that esti­mat­ed atten­dance was inflat­ed by a fac­tor of over 30 per­cent.” Also, count­ing peo­ple on a mis­sion trip seems odd to me (a sug­ges­tion that comes near the end).

How Church­es Count Atten­dance

Many church lead­ers and mem­bers cringe when they hear or read about num­bers and sta­tis­tics in church­es. Such a reac­tion is under­stand­able. For many years in many church­es, num­bers were an obses­sion.…..

In relat­ed news, adopt­ing a com­pre­hen­sive view of the nature of ulti­mate real­i­ty affects your life com­pre­hen­sive­ly. 

Stan­ford Schol­ars Say Reli­gion Changes Hunt­ing Habits

The intro­duc­tion of Chris­tian­i­ty has changed the hunt­ing habits of indige­nous peo­ple in the Ama­zon. While some new prac­tices could ben­e­fit ani­mals, oth­ers could put pop­u­la­tions at risk.

I get the argu­ment he is mak­ing… but there are some chan­nels I dis­like so much that their pres­ence in a bun­dle makes the bun­dle less desir­able to me. I would pay more for less.

Does Cable TV Ripoff Peo­ple Who Don’t Like Sports?

Recent­ly the LATimes ignit­ed a firestorm of anti-sports com­men­tary by argu­ing that peo­ple who don’t watch sports are being ripped off by Cable TV. A key con­cern is that the high­er bills dri­ven by spor…

This is a pret­ty good chart. It leaves out some options (and a ton of detail), but empha­sizes the right things.

End Times Info­graph­ic

Click on the image below to see the full-size ver­sion: HT: Josh Byers

Awe­some com­ment at the end (although I do not know if it is true or not): “Do note that death insur­ance did­n’t sell well until it was giv­en the less accu­rate but more affa­ble name, life insur­ance.”

Road Fare>Congestion Pric­ing?

Con­ges­tion pric­ing sounds like some­thing to avoid since nei­ther term is some­thing you want. Eric Jaffe held a con­test for replace­ment terms. Decon­ges­tion pric­ing is one pos­si­bil­i­ty since it at least h…

I am nev­er sure how much to trust the details in these sto­ries, but one sec­tion real­ly leaped out at me: “He told Kim he would have to drop a case. A 9/11 case. “I hate to say it,” he said, “but being a Chris­t­ian is gonna trump being an Amer­i­can.”

‘Imag­ine the Worst Pos­si­ble Sce­nario’: Why a Guan­tanamo Pros­e­cu­tor With­drew From the Case

Lieu­tenant Colonel Stu­art Couch tru­ly believed Mohame­dou Ould Slahi was guilty. He also believed that Slahi’s inter­roga­tors had bro­ken the law — tor­ment­ing him phys­i­cal­ly and sex­u­al­ly, and threat­en­ing…

Prac­ti­cal advice on stop­ping gos­sip in its tracks.

Pyro­ma­ni­acs: How to shut down gos­sip and its nasty kin

First, under­stand what gos­sip is. Gos­sip is spread­ing harm­ful infor­ma­tion in an ungod­ly man­ner — with­out love, and thus to no pos­i­tive end. Its bas­tard stepchil­dren are the triplets: Strife, Dis­sensio…

The sec­ond quote is the one to focus on. If you are squea­mish, be cau­tious when order­ing cal­i­mari. For the record, I don’t think this would affect my will­ing­ness to eat arti­fi­cial cal­i­mari.

Fred Armisen hosts This Amer­i­can Life as Ira Glass

This week’s episode of This Amer­i­can Life is about dop­pel­gangers, so they decid­ed to have SNL’s Fred Armisen come on the show and

This is the best sum­ma­ry of the issue I’ve seen yet.

Pas­tor Dis­in­vit­ed from Giv­ing Inau­gur­al Prayer Because of Ser­mon on Homo­sex­u­al­i­ty

The mes­sage of reli­gious intol­er­ance being deliv­ered by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, his staff, and many of his sup­port­ers is unmis­tak­able: If you do not affirm homo­sex­u­al­i­ty then you can­not be fair-mind­ed. The m…