Monthly Archives: April 2010

Obama As Antichrist & Other Modern Myths

Posted on April 10, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

Fond as I am of The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby and other such devil movies, I can’t claim any great expertise on the question of who may—or may not—be a likely antichrist. On the whole, I don’t think that Obama is … Continue reading →

Posted in data, politics | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Near-Death Experiences

Posted on April 10, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

The idea of the supernaturally flavored “near-death experience” (shining lights, angels, cheerily waving, long-dead relatives and so on) is one that seems to have been gaining traction in recent years. And that’s no surprise; they make for a good story … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, Science & Faith | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Medical doctors are liberal?

Posted on April 6, 2010 by David Hume

Well, young doctors at least. I have a post analyzing the data over at Discover Blogs. Young doctors are inverted from the American population, with about twice as many self-identified liberals as conservatives. In fact, a plural majority are liberal!

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Casper The Friendly Social Worker

Posted on April 4, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

If true (can the Dutch have gone quite so crazy?), this is the story (via the Daily Telegraph)  of a scheme so loopy that Orrin Hatch could probably be persuaded to use taxpayer dollars to fund it over here: Dutch prisons are … Continue reading →

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Great Leaps Backward

Posted on April 4, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

Not long after the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975 I remember hearing accounts of how the victorious Khmer Rouge was smashing up radios, gramophones, televisions and other consumer goods. It was at that moment I felt certain that Cambodia … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, history, politics | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Who Will Inherit The Earth?

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

The idea that fecund religious fundamentalists will (eventually) take over the world is not a new one, but it gets a fresh airing in a new book by Eric Kaufmann discussed in this interesting (if vaguely leftish) piece from the … Continue reading →

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Magnets & Morality

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

I’m not entirely sure how this fits into Derb’s discussion below (if at all), but here, FWIW, is this: CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — MIT neuroscientists have shown they can influence people’s moral judgments by disrupting a specific brain region — a … Continue reading →

Posted in science | Tagged | 3 Comments

Believing Your Own Mythology

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

Believing too fervently in your own political party’s mythology can sometimes backfire. Here is a nice example of this from the UK, where the Labour party’s insistence in treating the 1980s as a period of Thatcherite terror appears to have backfired in … Continue reading →

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Happy Eostre Everyone

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

That early Christianity was a highly syncretic religion is no great revelation (so to speak), nevertheless this Guardian piece on the pagan traditions incorporated within the Easter celebration is (if you discount the irritating hints of nature worship lurking in … Continue reading →

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Ancient & Modern

Posted on April 2, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

Via the BBC: A Lebanese man sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for sorcery has been given a temporary reprieve, his lawyer says. Ali Sabat’s execution was scheduled for Friday but his lawyer, May el-Khansa, told the BBC she had … Continue reading →

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