In the Roman Catholic tradition of assigning saints to days of the year, March 19th is the date assigned to Saint Joseph (or San Jose in Spanish). It is also the date that Father’s Day is celebrated in Spain. I think it’s because Joseph was such a good dad that he stuck with his sexless marriage and raised a son that he knew wasn’t even his, just like his father-in-law did.
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Somehow I managed to live in Spain for four years without ever learning the word for magnet. The Spanish word for magnet is imán. After learning this recently, I thought nothing of it besides a chuckle about it sounding like some sort of bionic implant or sex toy from Apple. But then I was listening to a radio broadcast about Islam and I heard the word iman mentioned several times, so I looked it up. Iman (إيمان) is Arabic for “faith”, one of the tenets of the religion of Islam.
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Today is the big commercial gift giving day in Spain. The three Mage Kings paraded around town last night. It’s pretty boring this year, but I suspect it will be a lot more fun to see through a child’s eyes in the coming years. Marga came home yesterday and played the “craving” card to get a roscon de reyes a day early. Since she got the prize last year, she had to pay for it, but it hit me this year, so I’ll have to buy next year. I explained this tradition last year.
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We spent a lot of time in Laredo this past weekend. I vaguely recall Laredo’s Christmas decorations being pretty disappointing in previous years, but this year they’ve done an excellent job. The first two photos are of one single nativity model, but there was a concrete column preventing me from making a continuous panorama. The detail was incredible. There were even goldfish swimming in the river.
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I have submitted several of my own blog posts to Digg over the years. The ones I think are particularly clever (The Solution to Iraq), or funny (McCain-Palin Morph), or useful (Widgetize Anything), or artistic (Desk Traffic), or nerdy (Distance to Horizon), or political (Can Sarah Palin really see Russia from her house?), or satirical (Spain Discovers Mars). Most of those received between one and three diggs. My record was 12.
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Bill Maher was on The Daily Show the other day. He’s a funny guy. He was promoting his new movie, Religulous (“religion” + “ridiculous”) that, as you might suspect, is all about making fun of religion. You can see part of his visit on The Daily Show on his website. He was great, but then he went and said the following.
“I’m not an atheist. I’m not certain, and I don’t think we can know for sure.”
This is kind of a pet peeve of mine. Most people that say they are agnostic are really functional atheists, but they are making an epistemological argument to avoid confrontation and accusations of having faith or dogma.
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My lovely wife walks by this apple tree twice every day on her way to work. I’ve walked by it with her during evening walks as well. It’s frustrating because the apples are so ripe and perfect-looking, but we can’t reach them. She could get her hand through the chain link fence, but the apple could not. Personally, I have no moral qualms against taking fruit from someone else’s property as long as the owner isn’t harvesting it. Stealing prickly pears? Fine. Stealing carrots from Mr. McGregor’s garden? Not so fine.
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I’ve been following this story, in utter disbelief, for a few days now. I can’t describe it any better than PZ Myers (which sounds like the name of a circus or ice cream mogul), so I give you a short clipping of his post.
There are days when it is agony to read the news, because people are so goddamned stupid. Petty and stupid. Hateful and stupid. Just plain stupid. And nothing makes them stupider than religion.
Here’s a story that will destroy your hopes for a reasonable humanity.
Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn’t eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.
This isn’t the stupid part yet. He walked off with a cracker that was put in his mouth, and people in the church fought with him to get it back. It is just a cracker!
Grab your jaw so it doesn’t hit the floor too hard and read this:
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The flowers of Passiflora edulis are gorgeous. I particularly like the Fibonacci numbers of stamens, three of one kind, and five of another. Fibonacci numbers are, of course, related to the Golden Ratio, which is pretty much the mathematical definition of beauty.
At this time of year, these passion flowers are blooming vigorously here. Later, they will turn into passion fruit. (more…)
This video needs to be shown to every science classroom all over the world. Please pass this along to as many people as you can, especially if they are teachers.
Here Be Dragons is a free 40 minute video introduction to critical thinking. It is suitable for general audiences and is licensed for free distribution and public display.
Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science.
