Pooled analysis suggests dietary fiber not associated with colon cancer :: DG

Mmmm. White bread.

Why people hate economics :: Arnold Kling

If there was no God, we'd make Her up. This also means humans impute evil where there is none.

Quote:

Paul Bloom's essay "Is God an Accident?" in the latest issue of The Atlantic, suggests that humans' belief in God, Intelligent Design, and the afterlife is an artifact of brain structure. In this essay, I am going to suggest that the same artifact that explains why people are instinctively anti-Darwin explains why they are instinctively anti-economic.

Bloom says that we use one brain mechanism to analyze the physical world, as when we line up a shot on the billiard table. We use another brain mechanism to interact socially, as when we try to get a date for the prom.

The analytical brain uses the principles of science. It learns to make predictions of the form, "When an object is dropped, it will fall toward the earth."

The social brain uses empathy. It learns to guess others' intentions and motives in order to predict their reactions and behavior.

The difference between analytical and social reasoning strikes me as similar to the difference that I once drew between Type C and Type M arguments. I wrote, "Type C arguments are about the consequences of policies. Type M arguments are about the alleged motives of individuals who advocate policies."

Type C arguments about policy come from the analytical brain and reflect impersonal analysis. Type M arguments come from the social brain. In my view, they inject emotion, demagoguery, and confusion into discussions of economic policy.
. . .
The many political crusades against Wal-Mart reflect type M thinking. For example, the state of Maryland, where I live, is considering legislation forcing Wal-Mart to provide expensive health insurance to its employees.

The type M brain sees Wal-Mart management as Scrooge, and Maryland's politicians as the ghosts that are going to get the company to see the evil of its ways. However, Basic type C economics says that forcing the company to provide more health insurance benefits would lead to lower wages for Wal-Mart workers.

Read the whole thing.

Is Wal-Mart evil?

Not according to the public, especially those on a low income. Criticism of Wal-Mart in the media is not reality-based. It comes from elitists like me who want to be surrounded by something a bit more elegant than a box. We don't represent the majority, and our views aren't any more legitimate than the average joe's.

Narnia :: Instapundit.com

Approval ratings for Bush are at all-time high

What Christian bloggers are saying about 'The Chronicles of Narnia' | blogs4God

(Via Instapundit.)

Hey, sibs, a Christmas gift idea for Mom and Dad

A solar-boosted Prius. (Via Instapundit.)

Some Megachurches Closing for Christmas :: AP

Quote:

Cally Parkinson, a spokeswoman for Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., said church leaders decided that organizing services on a Christmas Sunday would not be the most effective use of staff and volunteer resources. The last time Christmas fell on a Sunday was 1994, and only a small number of people showed up to pray, she said.

"If our target and our mission is to reach the unchurched, basically the people who don't go to church, how likely is it that they'll be going to church on Christmas morning?" she said.

Among the other megachurches closing on Christmas Day are Southland Christian Church in Nicholasville, Ky., near Lexington, and Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, outside of Dallas. North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Ga., outside of Atlanta, said on its Web site that no services will be held on Christmas Day or New Year's Day, which also falls on a Sunday. A spokesman for North Point did not respond to requests for comment.

Saving lost books :: Dynamist Blog

The internet has saved many a lost book. Old books are finding new readers. It may even be saving used book shops.

Well, not just the internet, but the internet and the profit motive.

December 1, 1955

Rosa Parks arrested.

December 2, 1859
John Brown executed.

"My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

"We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter."

Moveon.org in British soldier coverup :: Bad Example

Rove must be involved. Somehow.

Thanksgiving with Moveon.org :: Mahalanobis

Mahalanobis and I have more than a few things in common.

Scholars seek punishment for gays :: Gulf News

More here including the possibility of punishment by hormone injection.

superbee

Lowell Christensen has started a blog. Judging by the first post it looks very promising.

The opening:

Science vs. religion—we need to settle this once and for all. The debate has been raging since the day Charles Darwin finished his famous book . . . actually it began thousands of years earlier after Moses finished his famous book, which proclaims, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Men of renown soon began to question the short, poetic account of creation, an exercise usually more popular than reading the rest of the Septuagint.

Michael Jackson converting? :: ynet

Catholic priests perplexed. Assumed theirs was the best fit for the ashen pop star.

gulfnews.com: Tremor felt in Dubai

gulfnews.com: Tremor felt in Dubai: "Tremor felt in Dubai

Staff Report

Dubai:
There are unconfirmed reports that an earth tremor has hit the northern emirates.
These reports claim that the tremor was centred on a triangular area between Ras Al Khaimah, Al Ain and Dubai.
Some tall buildings and skyscrapers around Shaikh Zayed Road and Dubai Media City were evacuated.
UAE authorities are now attempting to ascertain from international sources whether there was any seismic activity in the region.
More follows..."

On intelligent design :: Charles Krauthammer

Krauthammer at his best. Simple, but not too simple:

I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be superfluous: that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species were Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and they were both religious.

Newton's religion was traditional. He was a staunch believer in Christianity and a member of the Church of England. Einstein's was a more diffuse belief in a deity who set the rules for everything that occurs in the universe.

Neither saw science as an enemy of religion. On the contrary. "He believed he was doing God's work," James Gleick wrote in his recent biography of Newton. Einstein saw his entire vocation -- understanding the workings of the universe -- as an attempt to understand the mind of God.
. . .
Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable.
. . .
The [Kansas] school board thinks it is indicting evolution by branding it an "unguided process" with no "discernible direction or goal." This is as ridiculous as indicting Newtonian mechanics for positing an "unguided process" by which Earth is pulled around the sun every year without discernible purpose.

Instapundit provided the link, and this one to the Vatican's view of ID.

Episcopal Church Leaves Va. Diocese :: WaPo

Quote:

Because the church had no formal status, Lee said, their departure is the equivalent of a group of individuals choosing another religious path. By church rules, Ashey, however, could not transfer to the Ugandan church without Lee's approval. Lee said the priest may face disciplinary action, which could include being defrocked as an American Episcopal priest.

"I'm really not eager to go after Mr. Ashey in some kind of hostile way," he said. "But church law does not permit you to walk away from the ministry without some consequences."
. . .
Jim Naughton, director of communications for the Diocese of Washington, suggested that the move was an attempt to keep the dissent of a minority group in the news.

Church of the day: St Andrews, Abu Dhabi

Church of England faces mutiny

Quote:

The Church of England’s most senior cleric is facing an “unprecedented” attack on his authority after senior clergy condemned his more liberal stance on gay priests, the Guardian said on Thursday.

The newspaper said 17 of Anglicanism’s 38 primates had signed a “highly personal” letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, urging him to take action against “unrepented sexual immorality” in the Church.