Random Thoughts

The situation with Roe VS Wade has lead to a call by Justice Clarence Thomas to, in scare quotes, write of revisiting sodomy laws, contraception laws, and many other cases based on substantive due process. Why stop there? Many things we hold dear come from interpretations of the 9th and 14th amendment. People like Justice Alito now need to have it spelled out for them that rights exist even if not spelled out by name, but by custom. Proposed below is a bill of rights that would solidify things all US Americans left and right have come to hold dear even if they do not know it. The Defense…

The racially motivated terrorist in Buffalo is just the latest example of people in our communities who everyone knows are nuts, but no one will do anything about them. Part of this is because in our country we won’t take constitutional rights until a crime is committed. A bigger part of this is because our communities will not confront such people out of pure FEAR. A Critical Race Theory perspective of this would say that, regarding the Buffalo shooter, White racial solidarity was why he was not confronted by another White person about his beliefs. Beliefs that are extreme even by the…

You never want to introduce a spoiler into an article so I am warning you now, before you read any farther, that a spoiler is inevitable if I am going to talk about the secret role I played in the new Disney MCU film "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." If you haven't seen it because you thought the first was rather generic, I am with you but you should go. It is completely bananas, in the way a Doctor Strange film should be. It has Sam Raimi written all over it and that makes it a blast. Since you have been warned about spoilers, I can tell you when a scientist in another part of…

Don't Look Up did not win an Oscar tonight.  Generally, I don't care about the Oscars but then Will Smith legit slapped Chris Rock so hard that it made the Russo-Ukrainian war stop trending. Then a movie I never heard of won the Oscar.  For all scientists who watched that movie they have to have seen some of themselves in those characters.  I am an astronomer who has literally taken a public stand in opposition to popular anti science movements.   One such movement was against the practice of astronomy and was so effective it convinced a few astronomers that what we…

Chess is a wonderful game, one that contains in itself a universe of situations, choices to make, strategic concepts, tactical ideas. Through its study we realize how difficult it is to take the correct decision in a maze of opportunities, even when everything is under the sun and nothing is hidden from our view. By losing game after game with stronger opponents we get to learn the hard way -but still, within an imaginary world- that our actions have consequences. Even more: we understand that if we are sometimes powerless to choose correctly even when we have all the information available to…

The Pilgrims were not the same group as the Puritans who many Americans, especially but not only conservatives confuse for them. Many people left right authoritarian, and libertarian have been badly served by the cartoon of history they learned in school lest Baby Boom age parents, stepped in the cold war, be offended to hear that America was not a utopia from the beginning. Here are the facts. The Pilgrims were people who wanted to practice their reformed Christianity and be left alone. They did come to America numbering no more than 2600. They lived in relative peace with their…

In the ancient past, when a good portion of blog followers were interested in the writers' lives more than in actual content, I used to write a lot more about private issues here. I don't do that so often any more mainly because I think the interest of readers has shifted - or better, the composition of readers has changed. But I am not less keen to discuss private issues today than I was ten years ago. Privacy is not among the priorities of a blogger true to him- or herself anyway, at least from my point of view.So, what am I up to these days? I thought I could give you some update. Maybe in…

Coca-Cola and Disney do not simply share being on Interbrand's Global Top Brands, says a new paper, they also share linguistically feminine names, and that helps their success with men and women. In fact, the highest-ranking companies have, on average, more feminine names than lower-ranked companies, they claim. They define linguistically feminine names as having two or more syllables and not being stressed on the first syllable and ending in a vowel - including y, when it is convenient. So women who complain that so many other women pay more for pink razors that it keeps higher-priced pink…

The following is an evolving news story. It seems that a disgruntled staffer changed the website of the department of state to indicate that the President has resigned. This appears to be false. I have sought comment from the White House, the personnel on the phone had no idea this was even an issue. While a formal comment or press release about this is hopefully going to occur, it can be said that Buzz Feed's reporting is likely accurate. Now it is abundantly clear that the hack of the department of states website was not a leak of any kind. Mike Pence and Donald Trump are going to work…

If there is some government conspiracy to hide the existence of extra-terrestrial life then the current president would be the man to declassify all of it.  So, in the unlikely hope the president sees this I ask, in all seriousness, with some humor thrown in… how about it?   What can anyone do to you that hasn’t already been done? The thing about loosing a presidential election would be after it… you can’t really ever loose again.  So, if in the end, once all the court cases are over, and the recounts, and the shenanigans you loose why not draw a bright line under it? No…