new Roman Empire?

from Arts & Letters Daily:

Is America the new Roman Empire? Sure. It dominates the planet with its armies, economy, language, and culture as much as Rome ever did... more

Church Shopping

	Cocoa	Melbourne
Episcopal	St. Mark’s 19 min Main Sunday service: 10am	Holy Trinity 30 min Main Sunday service: 9am
Unitarian	Unitarian Congregation 23 min Main Sunday service: 11am	Unitarian Universalist Church of Brevard 24 min Main Sunday service: 11am
Unity	Unity Center for Spiritual Living 35 min Main Sunday service: 10am	Unity of Melbourne 23 min Main Sunday service: 11am

Strange Maps

Strange Maps

It all began with a charting of Pennsylvania's lunatic asylum districts. That might be an inauspicious start elsewhere, but not here. Welcome to the world of strange maps. Since that initial posting in September of last year, the blogger-collector behind this site has rolled out post after post of eccentric and imaginative maps—"the kind you won't find in a regular atlas." From ancient history to alternate history, from the world according to some two-term presidents to the U.S. according to its politics, the maps displayed here are historic, fake, funny, and marvelous. And sometimes all of the above. We paused over the image of Flash Gordon's native Mongo, ate up the charting of North America's "totem food" regions (oh, to live in Corn Bread and BBQ Nation!), and then located ourselves on both the atlas of the country of Houyhnhnms (where Yahoos, those "deformed, debased humans" reside) and the record of the online communities map. Brrr! (in Science & Geography)

whiffle ball

Why don't more people invent new sports? ... [more]

Moyers vs media

from Yahoo! Picks

Bill Moyers is on the air again, kicking butt and taking names in his own inimitable fashion. If you haven't seen the new weekly series yet, this PBS companion site will serve as a great introduction. You can watch his recent two-hour documentary on the media's culpability in "buying the war" and perpetuating the myths of Iraqi weapons and a Saddam-al Qaida link. Also catch interviews with "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart and journalist/blogger Josh Marshall. A complete show archive, a blog, a...[the story]

evolution vs politics

From Arts & Letters Daily Charles Darwin's theory of evolution can be linked, some say, to such diverse evils as communism, fascism, and terrorism...

Teaching life lessons in dollars and sense

from CNN.com:

Although college entrance exams like the SAT and ACT test a student's ability to understand algebraic equations, they don't test what many consider the practical side of math: comparing prices, computing interest and balancing checkbooks. [the story]

is it biology, chemisty, physics, or philosophy?

from Arts & Letters Daily:

Can biology be reduced to chemistry and physics? And whose problem is it? Does it belong to philosophy or biology?... more

why war? no, why peace?

from SciTech daily:

Instead of asking, "Why is there war?", Steven Pinker asks "Why is there peace?" ... [more]

how'd they do that?

from SciTech Daily:

Birds in Chernobyl choose to nest in sites with lower levels of background radioactivity, but how they can tell? ... [more]