18. november 2002

The Flawed Watchmaker One of the most popular, and apparently powerful, arguments for God's existence is the argument commonly referred to as "the argument by design." Believers often point to the wonders of nature, compare them to the lesser mechanical wonders of human design, and conclude that this is evidence that the universe was created by a much more powerful Designer, that is, God. This argument may seem persuasive, but it suffers from a number of serious flaws. [Read more] 11:14:00 PM    comment []

Logic and Fallacies Sometimes it's amusing to watch or read political debates just to pick out the fallacies commited by the participants. Arm yourself with this excellent overview of logic and fallacies: what is and what is not a valid argument in a debate. 9:21:24 PM    comment []

Terrorist Accessories'R'Us You think you have everything for your AK-47 'Kalashnikov' Assualt rifle? Think again! I bet you don't have this MP3 portable jukebox that attaches to the rifle's magazine holder. The AK-MP3 Jukebox comes with 20Gb of storage, enough for 3000 hours of MP3 audio books. No hostage situation is likely to outlast your portable storage of propaganda. Too bad if you can't shoot, or even hear the SWAT team behind you, but hey, you have to sacrifice something for ideological correctness... 8:00:46 PM    comment []

Nessie Relocated? I earlier wrote about Nessie going AWOL from Lock Ness, to the chargrin of the local fanclub (not to mention the tourist board). In the recent floodings in Dublin, Irland, something turned up. A little Nessie Jr? This reminds me about a real problem cryptozoologists face. The Loch Ness monster legend is an ancient one. Obviously, if there is a monster there, it has to be a whole population of them. And all of them obviously very camera-shy. 7:45:56 PM    comment []

Weapons Inspectors in Baghdad Chief Inspector Hans Blix and an advance team of weapons inspectors arrived in Baghdad today. Let the games begin. 4:53:51 PM    comment []

Crime and Punishment "Punishments are kept within bounds not for the sake of justice, but to maintain the humanity of those administering them, and the civilisation of society in general." (Theodore Dalrymple in The Telegraph) 6:09:43 AM    comment []

The History of Blogging Dave Winer's Scripting.com has a nice overview of the history of weblogs. The word is pretty new. The activity isn't. 4:30:54 AM    comment []

How Mad Are You? Today's Silly Quiz! And for me it says I am 79% mad, and: i am extremely intelligent and very wise. i think logically and rhetorically in order to get problems solved. if i'm not mad now, i'm getting very close. how mad are you? 4:24:35 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2002 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.12.02; 02:51:07.