Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
There has been a great deal of discussion these days about gender selective abortions, which, when done, usually go against girls. We've been presented stories of nations where the ratio of men to women in the population is rising to "unprecedented" proportions because families are doing away with their baby girls through abortion. And, of …
Continue reading "Abortion, Infanticide and the "War on Women": A Lesson From China"
It isn't Stuxnet or even Flame, but... The malware known as 'Flame,' that was described by the analysts who discovered it as a super-cyberweapon, is actually a tool for cyberespionage that has been running inside Iranian data centers and labs for as long as five years without being discovered or causing significant damage. Contrast that …
Continue reading "The Most Potent Virus on Iranian Computers"
I found Emily Stone's list of ten things she doesn't get about Christians intriguing. So I set myself to answer these as follows: The Tipping Business. That goes back to Finney, who made a very big deal about Christians tallying every monetary transaction they made to be exact to the penny, which has given rise …
Continue reading "Ten Things She Doesn't Get About Christians: My Reply to Emily Stone"
When we think of China today, we think of a nation growing very fast economically and taking its place as one of the great powers of the world. Getting to that point--or getting to that point again, if one takes a long view of history--took a course of great suffering and several unexpected turns (how …
Michael Tomsky of the Guardian is simply wrong about this: So if Warren’s mother told her there was Cherokee blood, and if one little rivulet of Cherokee blood going back generations makes one a Cherokee, which legally it does, then she’s Cherokee, at least as far she knows. Now she has to prove this? You …
Continue reading "Yes, it Can be Proven Whether Elizabeth Warren is Cherokee or Not"
Old Ivy is a little chagrined over the career accomplishments of this Class of '62 member: Harvard University alumni attending their 50th class reunion this week are getting updates on classmates, but one person stands out among those sharing news about career moves, retirements and grandkids — Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Kaczynski graduated in 1962 and …
Continue reading "The Unabomber Only Did What The Rest Wish They Had"
I've mentioned on occasion that, where I teach, the full-time faculty in my discipline is entirely African. We recently had a faculty retreat and, before we got underway with the matters at hand, we discussed various items. One of them was the subject of Americans keeping lions as pets, which the Africans found understandably unbelievable. …
Continue reading "If We Had Been a German Colony, We Would Have Been Further Down the Road"
The idea that Mainland China and Taiwan should be connected by a 124-km long tunnel got this reaction: "The tunnel proposals were made after banquets and alcohol," Hu Sheng-Cheng, an economist at Academia Sinica, Taiwan's most renowned think tank, told Asia Times Online when flatly dismissing the tunnel idea. Taiwan must already spend huge sums …
Continue reading "Underscoring the Dangers of Mao Tai (and Vodka)"
I recently came across a fascinating book entitled The Handbook of Palestine by H.C. Luke and E. Keith-Roach. Produced in 1922 by the British Mandate government which had just taken control of the country after a long Ottoman Turkish rule, it’s a fascinating snapshot of the Holy Land beginning its transition to the State of …
I recently came across a fascinating book entitled The Handbook of Palestine by H.C. Luke and E. Keith-Roach. Produced in 1922 by the British Mandate government which had just taken control of the country after a long Ottoman Turkish rule, it’s a fascinating snapshot of the Holy Land beginning its transition to the State of …
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