A PRAGMATIST VIEW OF CONTEMPORARY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY - "The idea of ontological commitment epitomizes a confusion between existential commitment on the one hand and a profession of satisfaction with a way of speaking or a social practice on the other. An existential commitment, as Brandom nicely says in MAKING IT EXPLICIT, is a claim to be able to provide an address for a certain singular term within the “structured space provide mapped out by certain canonical designators”. To deny the existence of Pegasus, for example, is to deny that “a continuous spatiotemporal trajectory can be traced out connecting the region of space-time occupied by the speaker to one occupied by Pegasus”."
This was recommended to me as being "Quite accessibly written". Later: "ok, i realised after sending it to you that it wasn't that accessible"

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World - "In "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World," Brooks pursues an ambitious idea and then doodles so aimlessly that he loses the thread. The movie has a perversely unifying effect: Muslims, Christians and Jews may not be able to agree on exactly who the heck Jesus is, but they're fully capable of bonding in boredom."
India = Muslim World?!

The Superficial - "The Superficial is a brutally honest look at society and its obsession with the superficial. It is not satire. It is not social commentary. It is the voice of our society at its worst. It is first impressions without sense of social obligation. It is the truth of our generation. It is ugly racism. It is jealousy. It is honest. Just kidding. Our goal is to make fun of as many people as possible."

The Official Site Of "The Lawn Chair Pilot" - "When Larry Walters was 13 years old, he went to a local Army-Navy surplus store and saw the weather balloons hanging from the ceiling. It was then he knew that some day he would be carried aloft by such balloons. This obsession would be with him for the next 20 years. On July 2nd, 1982, Larry tied 42 helium-filled balloons to a Sears lawn chair in the backyard of his girlfriend's house in San Pedro, California. With the help of his ground crew, Larry then secured himself into the lawn chair which was anchored to the bumper of a friend's car by two nylon tethers. He took with him many supplies, including a BB gun to shoot out the balloons when he was ready to descend. His goal was to sail across the desert and hopefully make it to the Rocky Mountains in a few days. But things didn't quite work out for Larry. After his crew purposely cut the first tether, the second one also snapped which shot Larry into the LA sky at over 1,000 feet per minute."

The Straight Dope: Do near-death experiences prove there is life after death? - "Blackmore points out that you don't have to be near death to feel you are floating through a tunnel. It's common "in epilepsy and migraine, when falling asleep, meditating, or just relaxing, with pressure on both eyeballs, and with certain drugs, such as LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline." Why? Blackmore guesses it has to do with the structure of the visual cortex, the part of the brain that contains a "map" of what the eyes see. "There are lots of [cortical] cells representing the center of the visual field but very few for the edges," she says. As the brain begins to lose control, whether due to oxygen loss, drugs, or fatigue, random neural firing apparently begins to occur, which the mind interprets as light. Since there are more cells in the center of the visual field than at the edge, you get the impression of a light at the end of a tunnel. As random firing increases, the "light" takes up a larger portion of the visual field, making you think you are floating toward the light source."

Democrats and Republicans Both Adept at Ignoring Facts, Study Finds - ""We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts.""
I love cognitive dissonance.

Robert and Susan Irwin's Sexual Satisfaction For The Christian Wife - "Why Some Christian Wives Experience Frequent, Intense And Multiple Orgasms...And How You Can Too..."
Now I know why they've managed to convert so many people... (There's a "What would Jesus eat?" book too, but this is particularly ironic considering that Christianity hates sex). And how come all sites selling dodgy looking eBooks look the same? I swear there're legions of copywriters behind all this, and the revenue all gets funneled to a central source. Either that or there's a generator for making dodgy-eBook-websites.

Death of an Infidel - "The Internet Infidels regrets to announce the death of a well-known, prolific participant in the Internet Infidels Discussion Forums, "WinAce," Richard Allan Glenn. As WinAce, Allan became active in the Internet Infidels Discussion Forum (IIDB) in spring of 2002."
He even wrote his own obituary. And so the Wonderful World of Winace will never again be updated...

How to Harmonize Your Holy Book - "To defend inerrancy, all you need to do is come up with a logically possible solution. It doesn't matter how improbable it may be. If it can be harmonized in any way imaginable, it is not a demonstrable error. Be creative as we are dealing with a "high context" society."