popout.
Chris Matthews goes after Catholic Bishop on abortion. I was waiting to see if he asked, “What should the punishment be for a woman who has an abortion,” half expecting he wouldn’t ask it, but, he does. First saw that question asked here, back in 2007:
popout

36 arguments for the existence of God (and their flaws.) Scroll down to the appendix (unfortunately the source doesn’t seem to contain <a name=…> tags.)

Pretty basic stuff, but nice to have collected in one place in a concise form.

This appears to be the first chapter and appendix of a novel by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
(via metafilter.)

If it’s too long and you don’t want to read it, here is my three word summary: “People are idiots.” (Beware, this is my three word summary for absolutely everything.)

Today, I welded the front axle together. I originally planned to just tack weld the parts together, and hire a “real” welder to finish the job. Thanks to a commenter, I saw a couple of videos on youtube about welding, and so I found out that by getting a cheap propane torch (less than $20 at Home Depot or similar) and using that to preheat the parts, the welding aspect could be made much easier.

Above is the axle, welded together, with spindles attached.

Above is the axle welded together, but without spindles.

Above is the axle and parts, prior to welding.

I came across this poll:

The poll question is, “Do you believe there is a God?” As of this moment, 43% say yes, 42% say no, and 15% are unsure. Interesting numbers. For those saying no, 42% seems rather higher than usual. If this were an atheist site, or a religious site, I’d say well, the online atheists are “piling on,” and the numbers are distorted. But this is from a discussion site for which the primary focus is automobiles manufactured by Lotus.

You can check out the poll here: Do you believe there is a God?

What’s going on with these numbers? Maybe, since Lotus is a British company, a disproportionate amount of the members are British, and thus disproportionately irreligious (as compared to those in the U.S.) I don’t get the feeling that half the membership of that board is outside the U.S. though. Could it be that because it’s a forum about cars, the membership is disproportionately young? In that case, we’re winning, and religion is in trouble. I don’t know what’s up with those poll results, but in any case, Lotus makes some pretty cool cars.

The discussion of the poll is nothing special, about what you’d expect, if you’ve seen a lot of this sort of thing, though more like the discussion you’d see on an atheist site than one would expect for a site that’s about cars.

This weekend, I built the second half of the front suspension. Now I have two framerails with leaf springs.

I changed out the wire in my welder for thicker wire, and used the highest voltage setting. This made it work a bit better, though it’s still a mess.

The weather has finally cooled off enough that I was able to work outside comfortably, and so I’m back on the cyclekart project. This weekend, I built half the front suspension.

First I had to fabricate a spring shackle:

Above, the raw steel parts used for the spring shackle. I welded the three parts together, then drilled holes on each end to accept the bolts (grade 5 steel) that connect the frame frail to the leaf spring.

Above, you see the spring shackle assembled. Note the world’s shittiest welding job. Yeah, I did that.
Next, I had to cut a hole in the bottom of the frame rail to accept the spring shackle:

It’s ugly, but that’s ok, because I welded some metal slabs over the side to (I hope) make it stronger where the cut has weakened the frame rail, and also to make the wear on the bolt that connects the frame rail to the spring shackle less severe.

Above, you see all the suspension parts disassembled.

And here they are assembled. Putting it together is a bit harder than it looks because all the holes don’t exactly line up perfectly, and the spring has to be stretched a wee bit to get it to all fit together.

Above, you can see how the shackle connects to the frame rail through the hole, and to the spring. And, you can see some more evidence of my super-excellent welding skills.

And, one final shot of the assembled frame rail. I was surprised how bouncy it was. As stiff as that spring was, I wasn’t sure the spring was even going to move at all, but it seems to work pretty well.

Via metafilter, I find this: Cell size and scale, which is a neat little web app (flash, I’m guessing by the way it steals the mouse focus, though I haven’t checked). It allows you to zoom smoothly, viewing things as large as a coffee bean or as small as a carbon atom. The smooth zooming really gives you a much better feel for the relative sizes of things than similar things I’ve seen in the past which jump in 10x increments. One perceptive metafilter commenter asked how come it was that the X chromosome shown seemed too large to fit into the sperm cell which was also shown. Another few commenters clarified this mystery. Apparently there are special “packing” proteins in the sperm cell that kind of squash the chromosomes down. Neato.
Another metafilter commenter mentioned universcale which I’d seen before, but forgotten about. It i s kind of similar (though a bit more annoying with the music and intrusive interface, but still neat, and well worth checking out.)

Previously, I wrote about the Obama administration’s disappointing response to the U.N. resolution regarding blasphemy laws. It seems they may have come around.
according to this story on MSNBC

U.S. opposes bid to bar religious defamation Hillary Clinton says move by Islamic nations would restrict free speech
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Monday came out strongly against efforts by Islamic nations to bar the defamation of religions, saying the moves would restrict free speech.

President Obama, please listen to Pat Condell.

Also, read
Jonathan Turley’s piece, “Just Say No to Blasphemy Laws in USA Today (Mon, Oct 19, 2009).

OMG! I have a new favorite comic. I was going to say web comic, but, what other kind is there these days? Newspaper comics? Who reads those?

The Far Left Side

Holy shit. It’s like the Far Side, but, extra-liberal!

Found this one via Dr. Jim’s Thinking Shop and Tea Room, which itself looks to be a blog well worth adding to your RSS feed subscription list.