Arguments for the Existence of God: "“... a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.” [Francis Bacon, “Of Atheism” in A S Gaye (ed) Bacon’s Essays, Oxford University Press (1911), p59]"
Slate - The Dismal Science - Aug. 13, 1998: "Now what happened in the Sweeneys' co-op was that, for complicated reasons involving the collection and use of dues (paid in scrip), the number of coupons in circulation became quite low. As a result, most couples were anxious to add to their reserves by baby-sitting, reluctant to run them down by going out. But one couple's decision to go out was another's chance to baby-sit; so it became difficult to earn coupons. Knowing this, couples became even more reluctant to use their reserves except on special occasions, reducing baby-sitting opportunities still further."
Where Fat Is Problem, Heredity Is the Answer, Studies Find - New York Times: "''If you are one of those people who cannot lose weight on a relatively low-calorie diet, it means that you are efficient in storing energy,'' he said. ''That leaves you only two ways out. One is to increase your energy expenditure through exercise. The other is to reduce the proportion of fat in your diet.''"
Where Fat Is Problem, Heredity Is the Answer, Studies Find - New York Times: "''If you are one of those people who cannot lose weight on a relatively low-calorie diet, it means that you are efficient in storing energy,'' he said. ''That leaves you only two ways out. One is to increase your energy expenditure through exercise. The other is to reduce the proportion of fat in your diet.''"
NPR : Mussels Made Easy: "Mussels Primer
1. Always buy mussels as close as possible to when you'll cook them, but definitely the same day.
2. Mussels should be closed the way my daughter's mouth is closed when her pediatrician wants to look in her throat -- except that mussels don't have hands they can also clamp over their faces.
3. Put the closed mussels in a large pot. Throw out any that are cracked, broken or gaping wide. Set aside in a large bowl any that are open, but still questionable.
4. The bag my mussels came in suggested 'lightly tapping' the slightly open ones. Instead, shake and swirl the lot of them in the bowl, pretty aggressively, for about 30 seconds. A number of them will have closed up again (in fear, I'm guessing). Rinse these, then throw them into the cooking pot. The rest, throw away.
5. When it comes to cleaning the little guys, there are a couple things to think about. First, even though most mussels these days are cultivated (and not wild), they're still sandy. You can scrub them under running water, or you can fill a bowl with clean water and swirl them around in there; dump the water out and repeat one more time or until most of the grit is gone.
Also, remember mussels die in fresh water, so don't soak them to get them even cleaner. My friend says he'd rather cook live mussels with a bit of sand than dead ones without.
6. As for the 'beard,' it's a little tuft of fuzzy 'hair' emerging from the inside of the shell, kind of like a mollusk soul patch. Harden your heart, take a deep breath and yank it out with your fingers or a paring knife. You probably won't get every single last bit, but then these are animals of the wild. It's all right.
7. Finally, when looking to see if the mussels are done cooking, think 'baby opening its mouth for milk,' not 'toddler eating spinach.' In other words, they should be more than just a little open. They should be yawning."
NPR : Mussels Made Easy: "Moules Normandes by Anthony Bourdain
Serves four as a main course.
1/4 pound slab bacon, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
4 tablespoons butter
1 shallot, thinly sliced
6 small white mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/2 apple, cored, peeled and cut into small dice or chunks
3 ounces good calvados
1 cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper
6 pounds mussels, scrubbed and debearded (just before cooking)
In a small pot, cook the bacon over medium-high heat until the meat is brown and the fat has been rendered, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to avoid sticking. Discard the fat and reserve the meat.
In a large pot, heat the butter until it foams. Add the shallot and cook until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms and the apple and cook for 5 minutes, then stir in the calvados, scraping the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon to dislodge any good brown stuff that might be clinging there. Stir in the cream and season with salt and pepper.
Once the mixture has come to a boil, add the mussels and cover. Cook for 10 minutes, or until all of the mussels have opened. Shake. Add the cooked bacon to the mussels. Cook for another minute. Shake again. Serve immediately."
folderol. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.: "folderol
SYLLABICATION: fol·de·rol
PRONUNCIATION: fld-rl
VARIANT FORMS: also fal·de·ral ( fld-rl)
NOUN: 1. Foolishness; nonsense. 2. A trifle; a gewgaw.
ETYMOLOGY: From a nonsense refrain in some old songs."
Munchhausen-Trilemma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "# All justifications in pursuit of certain knowledge have also to justify the means of their justification and doing so they have to justify anew the means of their justification. Therefore there can be no end. We are faced with the hopeless situation of 'infinite regression'.
# One can stop at self-evidence or common sense or fundamental principles or speaking 'ex cathedra' or at any other evidence, but in doing so the intention to install certain justification is abandoned.
# The third horn of the trilemma is the application of a circular and therefore invalid argument."
History of liberal thought - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "As Isaiah Berlin said, 'Freedom for the wolves means death for the sheep.'"
Essays (Montaigne) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "We cannot trust our reasoning because thoughts just occur to us: we don't truly control them."
Johann Gottlieb Fichte - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Fichte did not endorse Kant's argument for the existence of noumena, of 'things in themselves', the super-sensible reality beyond the categories of human reason. Fichte saw the rigorous and systematic separation of 'things in themselves' (noumena) and things 'as they appear to us' (phenomena) as an invitation to skepticism.
Rather than invite such skepticism, Fichte made the radical suggestion that we should throw out the notion of a noumenal world and instead accept the fact that consciousness does not have a grounding in a so-called 'real world'. In fact, Fichte achieved fame for originating the argument that consciousness is not grounded in anything outside of itself."
Johann Gottlieb Fichte - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "In his famous work Foundations of Natural Right (1796), Fichte stated that self-consciousness was a social phenomonon. Namely, he writes that self-consciousness depends upon resistance from objects in the external world. However, the mere perception of these external objects depends on self-consciousness. The solution to this paradox, Fichte thinks, is that a being gains consciousness when 'summoned' to be conscious by another rational being outside of oneself."
Sartor Resartus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Sartor Resartus, published in 1833, was intended to be a new kind of book: simultaneously factual and fictional, serious and satirical, speculative and historical. It ironically commented on its own formal structure (as Tristram Shandy had, long before), while forcing the reader to confront the problem of where 'truth' is to be found. The imaginary 'Philosophy of Clothes' holds that meaning is to be derived from phenomena, continually shifting over history, as cultures reconstruct themselves in changing fashions, power-structures, and faith-systems. The book contains a very Fichtean conception of religious conversion: based not on the acceptance of God but on the absolute freedom of the will to reject evil, and to construct meaning. This has led some writers to see Sartor Resartus as an early Existentialist text.
Sartor Resartus was initially considered by some bizarre and incomprehensible, but had a limited success in America, where it was admired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, influencing the development of New England Transcendentalism."
Slate Magazine: "If you'd like to read a complex well researched study of how the novel's form altered and developed in response to new attitudes toward the self, let me recommend a brilliant book by an old teacher of mine at UCLA, Vincent Pecora's Self and Form in Modern Narrative, dealing with various Victorian literary worthies but especially Joseph Conrad."
Why does it take Wes Anderson so long to make a movie? By Armond White: "Truffaut, Godard, Malle, and Chabrol did in the French New Wave; as Fassbinder, Herzog, and Wenders did in the German New Wave; or as Altman, Bogdanovich, Ashby, Walter Hill, and Woody Allen did during that '70s period known as the American Renaissance."
Salon.com Books | Hipster rebel punk outsiders -- 99 cents a dozen: "As another European expat scholar, George Steiner, has put it, we live in a 'post-culture' (he means post-Auschwitz and post-Hiroshima) in which all the moral certainties of Western civilization have been stripped away and we wander about with no clear purpose, like ants whose hill has been blown up by a kid with a firecracker."
Salon.com Books | Hipster rebel punk outsiders -- 99 cents a dozen: "1944 essay 'The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,' by the German-Jewish refugee scholars Max Horkheimer and T.W. Adorno (from their book 'Dialectic of Enlightenment'). All human needs, they write, are 'presented to individuals as capable of fulfillment by the culture industry,' but 'individuals experience themselves through their needs only as eternal consumers, as the culture industry's object.' The point here is 'the necessity, inherent in the system, of never releasing its grip on the consumer, of not for a moment allowing him or her to suspect that resistance is possible.'"
Dictionary.com/verklempt: "Main Entry: verklempt
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: overcome with emotion; clenched; also written ferklempt
Etymology: Yiddish"
New Scientist Features - Love special: Six ways to woo your lover: "LET YOUR BODY DO THE TALKING
We all hunt for the perfect chat-up line, but in reality, our body gives away a great deal before we open our mouth. It is estimated that when you meet a stranger, their impression of you is based 55 per cent on your appearance and body language, 38 per cent on your style of speaking and a mere 7 per cent on what you actually say.
So what can we learn from the experts? There are a number of actions that signal 'I like you' to another person. Adopting an open posture (no folded arms), and mirroring another's posture help create a feeling of affinity. Most people are not conscious of being mirrored, but evaluate those who do it more favourably. And it is worth adopting stances that enhance your masculinity or femininity, such as placing hands in pockets with elbows out to enlarge the chest.
You could also indulge in a 'gestural dance', synchronising your gestures and body movements with those of the object of your desire, such as taking a sip of your drinks at the same time.
EXPERIENCE FEAR TOGETHER
A dramatic setting can kick-start your love life. Meeting a stranger when physiologically aroused increases the chance of having romantic feelings towards them ...
It's all because of a strong connection between anxiety, arousal and attraction. In the 'shaky bridge study' carried out by psychologists Arthur Aron and Don Dutton in the 1970s, men who met a woman on a high, rickety bridge found the encounter sexier and more romantic than those who met her on a low, stable one. A visit to the funfair works wonders too. Photos of members of the opposite sex were more attractive to people who had just got off a roller coaster, compared with those who were waiting to get on. And couples were more loved-up after watching a suspense-filled thriller than a calmer film. Why? No one is sure, but the adrenaline rush from the danger might be misattributed to the thrill of attraction. But beware: while someone attractive becomes more so in a tense setting, the unattractive appear even less appealing.
SHARE A JOKE
An experience that makes you laugh creates feelings of closeness between strangers. A classic example comes from experiments carried out by US psychologists Arthur Aron and Barbara Fraley, in which strangers cooperated on playful activities such as learning dance steps, but with one partner wearing a blindfold and the other holding a drinking straw in their mouth to distort speech. Sounds stupid, but love and laughter really did go together. You can read about it in 'The effect of a shared humorous experience on closeness in initial encounters' in the journal Personal Relationships (vol 11, p 61). We suggest that the blindfold/drinking straw approach is best confined to the laboratory.
GET THE SOUNDTRACK RIGHT
Psychologists at North Adams State College in Massachusetts have proved what Shakespeare suggested - that music is the food of love. Well, rock music, at least. Women evaluating photos of men rated them more attractive while listening to soft-rock music, compared with avant-garde jazz or no music at all.
USE LOVE POTIONS?
Can you short-cut all the hard work of relationship-building by artificial means? People have been trying to crack this one for thousands of years. A nasal spray containing the hormone oxytocin can make people trust you - an important part of any relationship - though there's no evidence yet to suggest it can make someone fall in love. And while we wouldn't suggest you try this at home, studies on prairie voles show that injecting the hormone vasopressin into the brain makes males bond strongly to females. Illegal drugs such as cocaine or amphetamines can simulate the euphoria of falling in love by raising levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, but dopamine levels can also be increased legally by exercising. Another neurotransmitter, phenylethylamine (PEA), is tagged the 'love molecule' because it induces feelings of excitement and apprehension. PEA is found in chocolate and it, too, is linked to the feel-good effects of exercise. Overall, a swift jog could be more conducive to love than anything you might find in a bottle.
GAZE INTO THEIR EYES
Any flirt knows that making eye contact is an emotionally loaded act. Now psychologists have shown just how powerful it can be. When pairs of strangers were asked to gaze into each other's eyes, it was perhaps not surprising that their feelings of closeness and attraction rocketed compared with, say, gazing at each other's hands. More surprising was that a couple in one such experiment ended up getting married. Neuroscientists have shed some light on what's going on: meeting another person's gaze lights up brain regions associated with rewards. The bottom line is that eye contact can work wonders, but make sure you get your technique right: if your gaze isn't reciprocated, you risk coming across as a stalker."
Amazon.com: The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating: Books: David M. Buss: "But most societies aren't patriarchal, as Buss believes, rather are instead kyriarchical: a few men control everybody else ('kyri' is the Greek word for overlord). Such societies are polygynous, and the median woman is better off than the median man. Such societies are mostly run by the Grand Pooh-bah's senior wives. And these hierarchical societies were created by women selecting to mate with certain men and not others."
