Random links

• From Positive Liberty, Jason Kuznicki's random assortment for the day. The dream/amnesia stuff is the most interesting, imo, especially the link to Wikipedia's discussion of lucid dreaming.
• From Pharyngula, two items. First, a description of an ID debate that did not go as planned... :^D Gotta love it. And an article disussing the futility of civility in religious discussion. How accurate this is will largely depend on the type of religioso involved, but he makes some good points. I particularly like this from the comments: "[T]he Christian heaven would be a true hell for [Richard Carrier]. He pointed out that, if he knew billions of people were suffering agonizing torture for all eternity, and he couldn't do a thing about it while sitting up in heaven, that would be the worst afterlife he could imagine." I agree.
• Good Math, Bad Math takes a look at a rather bizarre analogy claiming that dinosaurs wouldn't have been able to stand in normal earth gravity. It reminds me of a Monty Python sequence where they started with a discussion of the Communism Domino Effect, which used a decaying teeth analogy, mentioned toothpaste, and discussed the toothpaste using a race analogy... I think it went on, but the point was well made.
• This was just a cool title: Yoda Helps Unlock Cathedral Mysteries.
• Someone finally noticed that, in America, form doesn't follow funtion. I've noticed for years that most banks look like the fancy rest areas you see along the interstate. What message does that send?
• *grins* And not only do whale-songs come in dialects, they also have their own grammar.
• And, guess what we've accomplished by interefering in Afghanistan: a man sentenced to die for converting to Christianity. Like many others, I have to wonder how long it will be before we start seeing this in Iraq. Yup. We're liberators. Defending Freedom everywhere that it won't inconvenience us economically (dead soldiers are okay; we just don't want to sour trade relations), and pretending that we're actually making things better for those people. Wonderful.