Monthly Archives: December 2022

More Year-End Summaries

Three about science and tech, three about politics.

Posted in Politics, Science | Leave a comment

Another Science in 2022 list; A Reading about the Medea Hypothesis

Smithsonian Magazine, Carlyn Kranking and Joe Spring, 28 Dec 2022: The Ten Most Significant Science Stories of 2022, subtitled “From Omicron’s spread to a revelation made using ancient DNA, these were the biggest moments of the past year”

Posted in Cosmology, Science | Leave a comment

Science, Anti-Science, and Fantasy

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

Self-Replacement?

Today looking at an article about how conservatives worry about the “great replacement” (of US Christian whites by non-white, non-Christian immigrants) and how, ironically, conservative policies invite their being replaced, through simple natural selection. With comments at the end about … Continue reading

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Religion | Leave a comment

Mysteries, Stories, and Science

I like mysteries, once in a while, but I don’t trust them. They are too often contrived, “too clever by half” as the saying goes. Their narratives double back and re-interpret, like lawyers who revisit a set of testimony and … Continue reading

Posted in Movies, Narrative | Leave a comment

Christmas Stories

Over Friday and Saturday evenings we watched Miracle on 34th Street for the first time in a couple decades. (I’m not sure if Y had ever seen it.) After such time goes by, you see things in a film or … Continue reading

Posted in Narrative, Personal history | Leave a comment

Mysterious Chords

NY Times ran this piece a few days ago. NYT, Hugh Morris, ‘Everyone Wants to Hear’ This One Chord in a Christmas Carol, subtitled “A moment in ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ is so popular, it’s printed on T-shirts. But … Continue reading

Posted in Music | Leave a comment

Assorted Links from Recent Weeks

About George Santos’s fictional resume, Tucker Carlson’s year of being wrong, Avatar 2’s “ecological Indian” cliche, the hypocrisy of right-wing “free thinkers,” Thomas Frank on the lack of imagination of Democrats, DeSantis and vaccines, book banning, and two religious graphics.

Posted in Culture, Movies, Politics, Religion | Leave a comment

30%-Earth, Perhaps, With a Catch

New York Times, Catrin Einhorn, 19 Dec 2022: Nearly Every Country Signs On to a Sweeping Deal to Protect Nature, subtitled “Roughly 190 nations, aiming to halt a dangerous decline in biodiversity, agreed to preserve 30 percent of the planet’s … Continue reading

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Liberal and Conservative Humor

With an endpiece about stars. Here’s an intriguing article, fairly long, that examines how the humor of liberals and conservatives differ. Since its core conclusions are consistent with so many other observations about the differences between liberals and conservatives — … Continue reading

Posted in Humor, Psychology | Leave a comment