Monthly Archives: September 2023

Sibley Volcanic Park; the Doctrine of Discovery

Posted on 10 September 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Today — yet another pleasant day in the Bay Area, sunny and 74 degrees Fahrenheit — we went for a hike in the Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve, an area in the hills north of us where an actual volcano erupted … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, History, Personal history | Leave a comment

Laptop Updates; More about the Crisis in Cosmology; Political matters; A History of Labor Day

Posted on 9 September 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

New laptop updates. Another “calm down” reaction to the recent news about the “crisis in cosmology”; Political matters, including Alabama’s defiance of the Supreme Court; parental rights; freedom and education; And Heather Cox Richardson on the history of Labor Day. … Continue reading →

Posted in Cosmology, History, Personal history, Politics | Leave a comment

Items about the Economy and Atheism

Posted on 8 September 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Settling in with the new laptop today, making all the fiddly adjustment settings away from the defaults that I’ve lived with for years on my previous device. It’s a decent exercise to re-examine why I made those changes. And to … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Politics, Religion | Leave a comment

Science Reporting in the Mass Media; Harari on the Discovery of Ignorance; The Republicans’ Need to Game the System

Posted on 7 September 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Two stories about how science stories are reported in the mass media: One about how humans nearly went extinct 900,000 years ago; another about that “crisis in cosmology”; Yuval Noah Harari about the discovery of ignorance; And three items that … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Science | Leave a comment

Community, Conservatives, and Cynics

Posted on 6 September 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

A round of assorted links from the past couple weeks. The yearning for community, and how the churches are failing that yearning; Adam Lee on the Supreme Court and how conservatism is focused on privileging wealthy, white, male Christians; Thom … Continue reading →

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More About Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracy Theories

Posted on 5 September 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

These subjects aren’t going away, because so many people are as gullible as ever — understood as inevitable human nature. This may imply a cap on the potential of the human race, in terms of its ability to engage with … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, Psychology | Leave a comment

Change, and Conservative Retribution

Posted on 4 September 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

A NY Times essay about why to stop resisting change; How the Republicans intend to impeach President Biden purely as a matter of retribution, without any evidence of any crimes committed. Here’s a curious piece from Sunday’s NY Times, though … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Philosophy, Politics | Leave a comment

A Crisis in Cosmology?

Posted on 2 September 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

NY Times, Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser, 2 Sep 2023: The Story of Our Universe May Be Starting to Unravel This is a piece about some of the fall-out of the photos from the James Webb Space Telescope, and the … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Culture, Physics, Science | Leave a comment

Morality and Projection

Posted on 1 September 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Where does morality come from? And who’s moral, and why? David Barton thinks Democrats cheat because they’re not “God-fearing” (despite the evidence of its being the Republicans who cheat); In contrast to Phil Zuckerman’s evidence about how people without religious … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Politics, Religion | Leave a comment