You know the story about the two women each claiming a baby was hers, where King Solomon says to cut the baby in half and the woman who says to let the other woman keep it must be the mother? Have you ever thought about this story? How has it become a model of wisdom? It fails at every level. First, are we supposed to believe a woman simply claims[…] Keep reading →

Do you love restaurant food? I figured out how to make restaurant-quality food based on mine. It’s easy and works every time. Start by making my famous no-packaging vegan stew, which I describe in How to make my famous no-packaging vegetable stew and showed on video in Vegan Seitan Stew, 4 minutes prep time (video). Then follow these four easy steps. How to make my stew restaurant quality in four[…] Keep reading →

Last week I posted The most amazing “You Are Here” map you’ve ever seen, which featured a map that referred to itself. In the closing paragraph I referred to a book—Godel, Escher, Bach—on recursion. I’d read and reread the book in the 1980s and it stuck with me. Not sure if anything would come of it, I wrote the author, Douglas Hofstadter, with a link. Beyond writing back that he[…] Keep reading →

On the one hand I prefer posting my own work here. On the other, I find Bill Burr funny and insightful and he took on population, which few do. Readers from before the pandemic know I performed open mic standup. I couldn’t think of how to joke about it. Some of Burr’s humor is dark, yet I couldn’t help laughing out loud. So I’m posting the bits of his I[…] Keep reading →

Kids today might not have watched All in the Family, but it was huge in its time and focused on a clash of cultures. Quoting Wikipedia, All in the Family is an American television series that ran for nine seasons, from 1971 to 1979. The show revolves around the life of a working-class father and his family. It broke ground on issues previously considered unsuitable for a U.S. network television[…] Keep reading →

I’m continually trying to understand different people’s views on population. I see people agreeing on its importance regarding sustainability and even existence, but disagreeing on how to view it or respond to it. The other day I posted Our environment is getting biblical about how we’re causing fire and brimstone to rain down from the skies and other situations like in the Bible. I thought about another biblical passage. When[…] Keep reading →

You’ve heard of fire and brimstone. The Bible refers to them plenty. Here’s a typical passage, from Luke: But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Do you know what brimstone is? Sulfur. Do you know what makes acid rain? Sulfur! What did the ozone hole do if not let in fire? We’re seeing fire and brimstone[…] Keep reading →