Below are the 13 most recent journal entries recorded in twonth's LiveJournal:

Friday, June 30th, 2006
6:21 pm	Unintentional slurs on race and religion There are other dangers besides libel that you must guard against. One is slurring a particular race or religion. Of course no intelligent person would intentionally defame a whole group because the color of their skins, the country of their origin, or their reilgious beliefs were different from his own. But certain groups are perhaps overly sensitive because their feelings have been so often -- and quite intentionally -- hurt by the bigoted. It is worth taking pains to avoid giving them offense -- worth it both to your heart and to your pocketbook. For example, one of our books on speech originally contained, quite innocently, as an exercise for developing an active tongue, the following quotation from a poem: "Oh the terrible, tyrannous, treacherous Turk!" Violent protests from Turkish quarters that the Turks had been slandered made it necessary to print and insert a substitute page in order to keep the book in certain schools. -- Prentice Hall Author's Guide, copyright 1962 (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 2nd, 2006
1:11 pm	A ringing endorsement "The reason that I think this game [Left Behind: Eternal Forces] has a chance is that it's not particularly preachy," said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. "I will say some of the dialogue is pretty lame - people saying, 'Praise the Lord' after they blow away the bad guys. I think they're overdoing it a bit. But the message is OK." (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 7th, 2006
8:09 pm	inspiration ... sometimes comes from unlikely sources. Following the announcement that Michael L. Brown planned to apologize to the gay and lesbian community on behalf of Christian leaders, a heated discussion ensued on a certain Christian blog. The following is excerpted from the most striking post of all: WWJD?Well,I think He wouldtell these people their lifestyles he dissaproved of and that they need to change from their lifestyle,and it is against God's standards and that God created Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve,or that God created Adam and Eve and not Adam and Louise. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, April 24th, 2006
10:38 am	Some people they will never learn... I was waiting for WorldNetDaily to pick this story up, but they are apparently too busy posting creepy ads for Ephedra, such as SPECIAL OFFERS Ephedra back on market Utah judge lifts ban, get it while you still can --Ephedraburn.com and comparing University campus diversity training to the techniques of Mao Tse Dong. So I guess the task falls to me, your ever-humble servant. I noticed this morning that CNN is reporting the following headline: Cyclone heads for Australia's Darwin A severe tropical cyclone headed for the northern Australian city of Darwin, wiped out in a direct hit by a storm in 1974, but weather officials believe it will weaken as it crosses land on Monday or Tuesday. Notice, the town was already destroyed in 1974 by a "direct hit." This sort of thing is what happens when you name a town after someone who dishonors the truth of creation present all around. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 11th, 2006
11:36 pm	What's unclear about these words? No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, "And they shall all be taught of God." Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. John 6:44-45 Ok, I don't actually want to talk about that. But one of the posts on a ministry website that I frequent began with the same subject line in reference to these verses, and since obviously the meaning of these verses is not at all clear, I thought it would be cool to start my own post like that too. So there. Tomorrow I leave for an exciting conference in Montreal on the Anatomy of Integers. Like, it's called the Anatomy of Integers. I mean, I just can't get over that. I will be able to brag to friends for years to come. And the subject is actually really great too: exactly the sort of number theory that you don't see done at big-name schools because it's too entertaining. Speaking of entertaining number theory, someone needs to read the draft of my latest paper before I go insane. I am comment-starved. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 15th, 2006
6:07 pm	A free press for a free people... WorldNetDaily's current headlines page features a long list of articles about the Cheney hunting accident. These are followed immediately by: WND.COMMENTARY You wanted it: Michael Moore 'hunted down' Watch Larry Elder give him dose of his own medicine in stunning documentary --WND SPECIAL OFFER Perfect gift for pistol-packin' mama 'Stayin' Alive' shows guns are indeed for girls --ShopNetDaily Does anyone else find this disturbing? I mean, like, even more disturbing than WorldNetDaily usually is... (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 9th, 2006
5:14 pm	When men were men and Laodicea was Philadelphia... For those not in "the know," Laodicea is the last of the churches John addresses in the letters to the seven churches that begin the book of Revelation. Laodicea is the "lukewarm" church, the one which Christ threatens to spew out of his mouth, and consequently it has become a favorite symbol among modern-day evangelicals for the current Christian church (or at least the current church in America -- it is not clear how many evangelicals realize there is also a church outside of the US and Europe). Many dispensationalists go even further, believing that the seven churches in Asia to which John writes are intended as symbolic of seven church ages, and that we actually are living in the final, Laodicean period. (Of course we know the end is near because the fig tree- Israel - began to bud in 1948, etc.) In any case, these evangelicals are convinced that the modern church on the decline, and one industrious individual has even taken it upon herself to start a blog chronicling this sad era. (I will leave it unnamed, but Laodicea features in the title.) Recently she expressed deep disdain over Rick Warren and other evangelical leaders backing an anti-global warming initiative, as decribed in the following quote from the New York Times: Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors." The blogger's derisive commentary concludes with the question: Have pastors like Rick Warren stepped outside the bounds of the message that they should be preaching? "For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified". 1 Corinthians 2:2 I am puzzled. Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 2:2 is often quoted in contexts like this, but it is simply erroneous to think that preaching ONLY "Christ and him crucified" is normative for Christian ministers. Indeed, in the very next chapter Paul laments his need to stick so closely to the basics, forced upon him by the spiritual immaturity of the Corinthians: And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. 1 Corinthians 3:1-2 And aspointed out to me by inseriatim, from other posts it seems quite doubtful that the blogger herself believes that Christian ministers should stick to the preaching of Christ and him crucified. For example, she links favorably to an off-site post by someone who, in an effort to encourage young adults to follow Paul's exhortation to "act like men and be strong" (1 Corinthians 16:13) has started a church youth-wrestling program (for men only, of course). I could vent my exegetical angst at this point, but I think it's obvious that this goes beyond preaching Christ and him crucified. (Leaving aside questions about whether Jacob wrestling with God was a Christophany...) Judging from the comments on her article, it seems that many people are in agreement with her; some see this stance against global warming as conclusive evidence of apostasy. One clever commentator seems to feel that if Rick Warren and his ilk do not change their views they will be in for the more serious "global climate change" mentioned in 2 Peter 3:10, predicting the melting of the earth with "fervent heat." (A beautiful phrase, by the way.) I don't understand the furor -- I should mention that I have never been a disciple of Rick Warren's and know of him only through what I have heard of his books. But this seems completely unobjectionable. What is wrong with evangelicals being concerned about their global neighbors? Can someone explain this to me? The Kyoto protocol is referred to in this blog post as anti free-market. Even if this is the case, why would it be such a big concern of Christians? Are Christians called to protect the free-market at the cost of other people's lives? It seems like the answer Jesus would give to this question is obvious. It certainly seems he would be more concerned with our poor neighbors than with making sure our young men have an appreciation for wrestling. Of course there is the "possibility" that global warming is not occurring. I think this is unlikely. But even if it were the case, why the vitriol towards fellow Christians who feel compelled to agree with the majority of scientists? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 5th, 2006
12:59 pm	I was wrong... You know, I was never that into FoxTrot, despite its heavy leanings in the mathematical direction. (For one of many examples, see the MathWorld page on Fibonnaci numbers.) Perhaps this stems from a bad experience I had during childhood with a FoxTrot strip (where "childhood" should be read liberally as "at a certain mathematics summer camp before I went to the Ross program"). But now I see my misgivings were unfounded: See for yourself why! Apologies to Bill Amend 4eva! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 4th, 2006
12:38 am	Life is perfect I finally understand Dickson's proof that for each fixed K, there are only finitely many odd perfect numbers with K distinct prime factors. And in it I see the origin of Pomerance's later *effective* bound on all such numbers. I feel like my eyes have been opened, and that I see, truly see, for the first time. (Comment on this)
Friday, February 3rd, 2006
4:42 am	Following the lead of belmanoir, here are the Top Five things I would do if I Ruled the World: 1. Scarlett Johansson. Enough Said. 2. Build the world's largest personal number theory library. 3. Create an entire TV network devoted to airing only Joss Whedon shows and Joss-approved content. 4. Force algebraic geometers to get their papers approved by elementary number theorists pre-publication. 5. Hire a certain famous sci.math contributor to head up the National Science Foundation. Now all my (two) friends have to post their own lists too! or something... (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 2nd, 2006
6:36 pm	Three things . . . Three things make life interesting: mathematics, women and music. In that order. -- a saying of Paul Turan, according to Erdos (Comment on this)
Monday, January 30th, 2006
2:58 pm	Practically nil??? There are many old problems in arithmetic whose interest is practically nil, e.g., the existence of odd perfect numbers, problems about the iteration of numerical functions, the existence of infinitely many Fermat primes 2^{2^n}+1, etc. -- Enrico Bombieri (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 29th, 2006
9:36 pm	And so it begins... Insanity is a dangerous thing. (2 Comments |Comment on this)