A Friday of Fear

This Friday, Dan asks: What are the 5 scariest moments in your life, the moments when you were most filled with fear? You’d think that, for a guy who got into horror novels and movies at a young age, I’d have a lot of answers for this one. In fact, I’m scrambling for five of them. Let’s see. In no particular order: The night before my 16th birthday, I had convinced my parents to let me rent the video of The Exorcist for the sleepover I had with my friends, and I’d recently read that the film was based on …

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Racism and Nationalism

Over at The Asia Pages Jodi talks about the differentiation of racism and nationalism, and Bluejives follows up with some quotes about nationalism (and thoughts on nationalism and war, plus a link to a funny comic). I find, as one commenter noted, that racism and nationalism are, of course, different, but that in largely homogenous nations, it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference.

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Scientific American Throws in the Towel… Yeah, Right…

Not much to say today, but both Zarq at Weird is Relative and Jamais Cascio at Worldchanging linked to this, the April Editorial from Scientific American, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing: Okay, We Give Up There’s no easy way to admit this. For years, helpful letter writers told us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don’t mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues as creationism, missile defense and global warming. We resisted their advice and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should …

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