My econ professor has another video out!  Great stuff.

“The Tea Party: People who believe in Social Darwinism, but don’t believe in Darwin.”

-Nick

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If you’re in sales, this is definitely worth watching.  If you’re not in sales, you’ll still laugh.  And if you’ve ever gone cold calling door to door, did any of your calls go like this?

Try saying no to this guy!  I have a feeling he’ll end up doing quite well.

“What you are selling?”

“Personality.”  Love it.

-Nick

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For your viewing pleasure this Friday:

-Nick

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Last week I found what I thought was a money parking spot at the hospital.  Right near the front, just next to the disabled spots.  When I pulled in though, I noticed the sign, “Reserved for Clergy“:

Since I definitely don’t qualify, I figured it would be best to find another spot.  But it got me thinking.

• Do clergy have designated placards?  Or is this sign purely enforced by Jesus?
• There was only one reserved space.
• Oddly, I saw zero reserved spaces for “Brain Surgeon” or “Chief Cardiologist”.

This is a hospital, not a church.  It’s one of the most pro-science institutions you’ll find, and yet they’re going out of their way to make room for God.  And to the extent that everyone else has to park one spot farther away from the entrance, I can respect that.

When modern medicine fails, people have every right to turn to the divine for peace.  When I worked in North Carolina, I met a cancer victim who had been given six months to live.  Not wanting to spend his last six months under radiation treatment, he turned to his faith, miraculously the cancer went into remission, and he was still going strong five years later.  I don’t know the whole story, but this is just one of many case studies regarding the apparent success of faith-healing.

Science on the subject is inconclusive, which can only be seen as a victory for God.  (Because sending telepathic communications to your imaginary friend in the sky should conclusively have zero impact.)  I’d be the first to think that prayer would do absolutely nothing, but in certain cases when the sick really believe, it does seem to have some positive effect.  Although there are definitely limitations, the power of positive thinking is real, whether it’s called prayer or something else.

Of course I would exhaust every legitimate medical option before pursuing such a risky and unproven strategy, unlike these guys:

The great thing about faith healing is that when it doesn’t work, you always have the ultimate fallback: “It was all part of god’s plan.”  You can’t lose.

-Nick

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“My Oh My” — Sweet Dave Niehaus tribute video by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.  Goosebumps.

-Nick

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I thought it was a pretty weak year for Super Bowl commercials.  But here are my faves.

1. Chrysler’s Last Stand.  How can you not root for underdog after watching this?  Chrysler lets the world know they’ve been down but they’re not out with this fine piece of film-making.  This is what we do!

2. Volkswagen.  Pretty cute.

3. eTrade.  Still love those talking babies.

4. Teleflora.  Yes yes, immature but it made me laugh.

5. Cars.com.  I thought they did a nice job making their point.  Although hopefully buying a car isn’t likely to get yourself poisoned.

But really, there were mostly a lot of crappy ones.  Some of the worst:

1. Kia’s “Epic Ride” turns a good-looking car into a distraction.

2. Chevy shows how they built their Cruze for 14-year-olds.

3. Stella wastes $6 million with some lame crying ballad.

-Nick

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I thought this was a pretty cool video.  It shows 24 hours worth of global air travel in just over a minute.

Now who wants to be an air traffic controller?

Crazy to see the daytime frenzies over Europe and North America, with much lighter traffic elsewhere.  Fun to recognize some flight patterns like the red-eye flights to Europe or the East coast.

It used to take months to cross the Atlantic.  Now thousands do it each day in just a few hours.

-Nick

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A retelling of the nativity for the digital age:

I like the “Avoid Romans” checkbox and the wise men shopping at Amazon!

And the low-tech atheist response: a billboard in New Jersey.  Come on guys, I expect better!

Merry Christmas all.

-Nick

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We’ve already established how Mochi the giant shih-tzu likes to nap on the couch by my desk.  Sometimes he lets loose a good series of chirp-like barks in his sleep.  We call them night terrors but they could very possibly happy reactions to be pleasant puppy dreams.  Either way, it’s kind of funny.  You’ll probably have to turn the volume all the way up to hear him.

Not quite on the same level as the poor dog who started running in his sleep and then stood up and sprinted into a wall.  But he’s got like 18 million views so what do you expect.

-Nick

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I thought this was a really cool video on ESPN:

-Nick

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