Edge: TOXO — A Conversation With Robert Sapolsky
"In the endless sort of struggle that neurobiologists have — in terms of free will, determinism — my feeling has always been that there's not a whole lot of free will out there, and if there is, it's in the least interesting places and getting more sparse all the time. But there's a whole new realm of neuroscience which I've been thinking about, which I'm starting to do research on, that throws in another element of things going on below the surface affecting our behavior. And it's got to do with this utterly bizarre world of parasites manipulating our behavior. It turns out that this is not all that surprising. There are all sorts of parasites out there that get into some organism, and what they need to do is parasitize the organism and increase the likelihood that they, the parasite, will be fruitful and multiply, and in some cases they can manipulate the behavior of the host."

Every thought you have is a physical process.

An email from Noam Chomsky

It's about priorities not economics.

Pats' Belichick defends decision to go for it - Yahoo! News:
"Bill Belichick defended his decision to go for it on fourth down as criticism mounted Monday of the call that led to the New England Patriots stunning loss. The coach hailed as one of the NFL's best was a target of columnists, talk radio callers and two of his former players. Why, they all wondered, did he gamble with a six-point lead and just over two minutes to go against the Indianapolis Colts? The gamble failed and the Patriots lost 35-34 after leading by 17 points in the fourth quarter Sunday night."

Nice to have some other successful coach second guessed by 'experts' instead of Mike Martz for a change. There are so many things wrong with this. First of all, the whole premise that the entire game came down to this one play is ludicrous. What about the Patriots' fumble in the end zone? Why wasn't THAT the one play of the game? And statistically speaking, the odds were in his favor to go for it on 4th and 2 and not punt, particularly with an elite QB on the other team.

No, I did not question the decision to go for it, but I sure questioned the play calls the entire last series. Why keep going to Welker for minimal yardage when you have one of the best deep threats in all of football, Randy Moss? And if you ARE going to Welker repeatedly, why not send him a few yards BEYOND the barest minimum you need? Or even throw in a run if you insist on getting only the 2 yards necessary. At least the clock would have kept running.

The Case for God by Karen Armstrong - Hardcover - Random House
"We have become used to thinking that religion should provide us with information. Is there a God? How did the world come into being? But this is a modern preoccupation. Religion was never supposed to provide answers to questions that lay within the reach of human reason. That was the role of logos. Religion's task, closely allied to that of art, was to help us to live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously with realities for which there were no easy explanations and problems that we could not solve: mortality, pain, grief, despair, and outrage at the injustice and cruelty of life."

Throughout most of the book, Ms. Armstrong gives a wonderful summation of human history with an emphasis on human religious understanding. Full of insights, connections, perspectives, it is a tour de force and well done. But her point, that to deride religion is to misunderstand it, fails to convince. For sure, the "real" religion Ms. Armstrong describes is indeed a wonderful thing. The only problem is that for 99% of religious practitioners in the world today, their religious understanding bears only a fleeting resemblance to that. And their priests and rabbis and imams like it that way. THAT is the problem.

Director Polanski feels depressed in jail: lawyer - Yahoo! News:
"Director Roman Polanski is feeling depressed two weeks after his arrest in Switzerland to face U.S. extradition for a 1977 case involving the rape of a 13-year-old girl, his lawyer was quoted as saying on Sunday.

'I found him to be tired and depressed,' Herve Temime told the Sonntag newspaper, one of two newspapers he talked to after visiting the Oscar-winning director in a Zurich prison.

'Roman Polanski, who is 76, seemed very dejected when I visited him,' Temime told another newspaper, NZZ am Sonntag.

'Polanski was in an unsettled state of mind.'"

For the love of God won't someone DO SOMETHING so this poor man's mind can be settled again? He is such a very important member of our species I am not sure how we are going to survive without him in a happy state.

Is cropping a photo lying?:
"This is hardly photo fakery. Crops aren't lies. Full-frame photos aren't the truth. Kennerley himself could have easily taken that exact picture in the moment."

But he didn't take the picture Newsweek wanted. And THAT is why it is wrong to crop the picture. Newsweek wanted to portray Cheney in a particular light and the photo submitted did not do that. Why didn't Newsweek just commission an artist to create a comic of Cheney butchering meat? Because they wanted to lie to people using a "real" photo of him doing just that.

Secondly, Jason, you can't say the original photo is a lie in order to defend the crop as NOT a lie. If the source is a lie, how can the crop be the truth?

NFL - Indianapolis Colts/Miami Dolphins Box Score Monday September 21, 2009 - Yahoo! Sports:
This game completely demolishes all the old school adages about how to win a football game. Somewhere, Mike Martz has a big smile on his face when reading this box score. Miami had overwhelming advantages in number of plays, first downs, time of possession, rushing yards, only punted once, had no lost fumbles. They had a "balanced" offense in that they rushed 49 times and threw 33 times. They had over 400 yards in total offense.

And still lost.

The difference was the Colts scored and scored quickly when they had the ball. Why? They threw it and threw DEEP. 12.3 yards per pass ATTEMPT. Miami did everything "right". But so what? Final score is all that matters. Yes, against a mediocre offensive team, Miami's approach will usually succeed. But against a wide-open offense, forget it.