Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself;
(I am large—I contain multitudes.)

Whitman was a poet rather than a logician so we find it charming when he claims that reality doesn’t apply to him. Other people, however, are not let off the hook so easily. Too many people subscribe to what I would call the Whitman Inconsistency Fallacy: the view that since a person believes both proposition A and proposition B, that A and B must therefore be compatible even if they are contradictory.

If writers of textbooks on logic ever include the Whitman Inconsistency Fallacy they’ll be able to use the arguments made by Mara Hvistendahl as prime examples. Hvistendahl is a science journalist who recently published a book arguing that the unnatural sex ratios throughout the world are the result of, among other factors, the prevalence of abortion and ultrasound technology. Since I’ve made the same claims myself, I find there is much to agree with in Hvistendahl reporting and critique.

But Hvistendahl believes it is possible to be a pro-woman feminist and an abortion rights supporter, which leads her to make a plethora of contradictory claims. To her credit, Hvistendahl is not an abortion absolutist. She believes there are certain legitimate reasons for denying a woman’s right to an abortion. Unfortunately, this praiseworthy move toward moderation only highlights the incoherence in her thinking.

Listed below are ten statements taken directly from her recent article in Salon.com. Although they are arranged in a different order, each quote is taken verbatim. In reading these claims, keep in mind that Hvistendahl accepts the truth of every one of them:

1. Women make the decision to abort because women know best how difficult it is to be female.

2. Increased autonomy does not . . . make a woman more likely to have a daughter.

3. [W]omen — and not their husbands — often make the decision to abort a female fetus . . .

4. [T]he practice of sex selection [is] a fundamentally sexist act . . .

5. Just as a woman should not be forced to abort a wanted pregnancy, she should not be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.

6. Further reducing a woman’s rights would only make her more wary of having a daughter.

7. No one combating sex selection in China or India now argues that the appropriate reaction to decades of violating women’s rights is to swing in the other direction and violate them further.

8. Abortion is part of the story of how sex selection became rampant in Asia.

9. Activists and government leaders in Asia, in fact, distinguish between the right to terminate a pregnancy and the right to choose the sex of one’s baby.

10. “You can choose whether to be a parent,” explains Puneet Bedi, a gynecologist in Delhi who performs abortions — and campaigns against the sex-selective sort. “But once you choose to be a parent you cannot choose whether it’s a boy or girl, black or white, tall or short.”

As a summary of the article, we can combine these ten statements into a two-part narrative:

Woman know best how difficult it is to be female, so as their autonomy increases they—not their husbands—make the fundamentally sexist decision to abort a female fetus. Just as a woman should not be forced to abort a wanted pregnancy, she should not be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. Further reducing a woman’s rights to have an abortion would only make her more wary of having a daughter. No one combating sex selection in China or India now argues that the appropriate reaction to decades of violating women’s rights is to swing in the other direction and violate them further. (Statements 1-7)

Abortion is part of the story of how sex selection became rampant in Asia. However, activists and government leaders in Asia distinguish between the right to terminate a pregnancy and the right to choose the sex of one’s baby. You can choose to be a parent but once you choose to be a parent you cannot choose whether it’s a boy or girl, black or white, tall or short. (Statements 8-10)

Even a casual reader (which apparently excludes the editors at Salon.com) can see the obvious inconsistency in these statements. Hvistendahl is making two simultaneous claims:

(A) Those who are combating sex selection in Asia believe that woman should not be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term and so oppose restrictions on the right to an abortion since it will make her more wary of having a daughter.

(B) Activists and government leaders in Asia believe that if a pregnancy is unwanted because the fetus is female, the woman’s right to an abortion should be restricted, even if it makes her more wary of having a daughter.

Since Hvistendahl believes both proposition A and proposition B, she thinks that A and B must therefore be compatible. Perhaps, like Whitman, she contains multitudes.

However, there is an even more fundamental flaw in her argument. One of her core assumptions is that an abortion is not the taking of a human life:

Bans on sex-selective abortion have passed in four states — Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Arizona — and been proposed in five others this year — Massachusetts, Rhode Island, West Virginia, New York and New Jersey. These bills are filled with language intended to set a precedent for declaring a fetus equivalent to a life.

She is correct that the legislation in each of these states assumes that the fetus is a living human being (none of them are predicated on the fetus being a “person.”) Despite the fact that this science journalist makes an assertion that reveals a hopeless ignorance of basic biology, I think we should treat her statement as a belief genuinely held by an otherwise intelligent interlocutor. So she doesn’t believe a fetus is equivalent to a life. If we proceed charitably and assume she really believes what she says—a fetus is not a living human being—what consequence does this claim have on her view that sex-selective abortion is immoral?

Consider these two statements:

1. It is morally wrong to end the life of a non-living being.

2. It is morally wrong to end the life of a non-living being that has properties associated with being a female (e.g., an XX chromosome).

Since you cannot end the life of a being that is non-living, the first statement is internally incoherent. The addition of the qualifier in statement #2 neither makes it more coherent nor changes the veracity of the moral claim.

This is similar to the move made by Hvistendahl. Consider her statement:

1. A fetus [is not] equivalent to a life.

Now let’s add a qualifier that Hvistendahl believes is morally relevant:

2. A female fetus [is not] equivalent to a life.

Hvistendahl would be forced to agree that the addition of the qualifier doesn’t change her first claim. If a fetus is not “equivalent to a life,” then it doesn’t matter whether the fetus is male or female.

Yet her entire argument hinges on there being a moral distinction between a “fetus” and a “female fetus.” She believes a woman should have the right to kill a “fetus” but not a “female fetus.” Does the fact that the fetus is female make it equivalent to a life? Hvistendahl would say it does not. Then why is sex-selection abortion wrong?

Here is how Hvistendahl summarizes her argument:

Sex-selective abortion is wrong because women should account for half of the human population, and in parts of the world they now account for far less. That alone justifies moral outrage.

Laid out in syllogistic form, her argument can be outlined as follows:

Premise A: If woman should account for half of the human population, then sex-selective abortion is wrong. (If P, then Q.)

Premise B: Woman should account for half of the human population (P.)

Conclusion: Sex-selective abortion is wrong. (Therefore, Q.)

The form of her argument (modus ponens) is valid, but is it true? Does the fact that woman should account for half of the population automatically mean that sex-selective abortion is wrong? What happens if we remove the qualifier “sex-selective?”

Premise A: If woman should account for half of the human population, then abortion is wrong. (If P, then Q.)

Premise B: Woman should account for half of the human population (P.)

Conclusion: Abortion is wrong. (Therefore, Q.)

Hvistendahl would reject this form of the argument. But as we’ve previously proven, the fact that a fetus is female cannot change—according to Hvistendahl’s reasoning—the morality of the act of abortion. So why does she accept the first form of the argument but not this one? Because that is the outcome she wants. She believes that (A) a woman should have the right to an abort a fetus and that (B) a woman should not have the right to abort a fetus if she knows it is a female. Logic and consistency be damned, the two beliefs must be compatible because she wants them both to be true at the same time

Sadly, Hvistendahl has the gall to criticize others for not sharing her inconsistent and illogical reasoning:

Antiabortion advocates like Mr. [Ross] Douthat, in fact, are among the only ones who can’t seem to make the intellectual distinction between choosing to terminate a pregnancy and selecting for sex. They will soon have to catch up.

Antiabortion advocates don’t make the intellectual distinction between choosing to terminate a pregnancy and selecting for sex because there is no moral or logical reason for accepting the former and rejecting the latter. They are, in other words, intellectually consistent. Perhaps it’s Ms. Hvistendahl who has some catching up to do. I recommend she start by taking basic courses in biology and logic.

For the study, published in Food & Nutrition Research, researchers at Louisiana State University tracked the health of more than 11,000 youngsters between the ages of two and 18 from 1999 to 2004. They found that children who ate sweets were 22 percent less likely to be overweight or obese than kids who shunned sweets. Adolescents? Those who ate candy were 26 percent less likely to be overweight or obese than their non-candy-eating counterparts.

And that wasn’t the only surprising finding. Researchers also found that the blood of candy-eating kids had lower levels of C-reactive protein. That’s a marker of inflammation in the body and a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and other chronic illnesses.

There’s a “but . . .” after that part but I stopped reading because I didn’t want to ruin it for my inner six-year-old. I wish I had been armed with this study when I was growing up. It would have made the debates with my mother more interesting:

Mom: Put down the candy bar, we’re going to eat supper in an hour. You’ll ruin your appetite.
Me: Exactly. That’s the plan.
Mom: What? What are you talking about? What’s the plan?
Me: By eating this Snickers I will ruin my appetite. By ruining my appetite I will be less hungry during dinner and consume fewer calories. Ergo, by eating candy I will avoid getting fat.
Mom (slapping the candy bar out of my hand): You’re an idiot.

Okay, so that probably wouldn’t have worked out too well. Had my own kid tried it, though, I would have been totally convinced. She would be singing a song of praise, “Dad is great. Gives us the chocolate cake. . . ”

A prime example is provided by Quin Hillyer in his article explaining Thomas’ dissent in the recent ruling that decided a California law banning the sale or rental of “violent video games” directly to minors without parental involvement was unconstitutional. Thomas makes the argument, based on precedent, originalism, and natural law, that parents have the right to educate and socialize their children:

[W]hat is remarkable is the power and eloquence of Justice Thomas’ dissent – and the consistency of his assertions to this effect for a full quarter-century. His central thesis is that neither the First Amendment nor any other provision of law supersedes the fundamental right of parents or legal guardians to protect their children, nor supersedes a government’s interest in protecting the parents’ ability to do so.

“The practices and beliefs of the founding generation,” he wrote, and then demonstrated at great length, “establish that the ‘freedom of speech,’ as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors’ parents or guardians.” This is consistent with his assertions in several cases beginning with Troxel v. Granville in 2000 that “parents have a fundamental constitutional right to rear their children, including the right to determine who shall educate and socialize them.”

Apart from the details of the video-game case, which may or may not involve threats to that fundamental right, it should be inarguable that such a right does adhere to parents (or legal guardians), and that protection of that right is essential to this nation’s ordered liberty. This is key: Rights apply not directly to children, but to them only through their parents. A law which prohibits parental authority (except in cases of abuse) violates this understanding (which predates and underlies the Constitution); while a law that aids parents in asserting such authority, without imposing the state’s own judgment, ordinarily is consonant with the Constitution.

As Thomas noted in his dissent in Brown, all the way back to and even before the founding, “the law imposed age limits on all manner of activities that required judgment and reason.” It still does so today, so that courts have upheld even such dubious strictures as a drinking age (21) that is above the otherwise legal age of majority (18).

Read more . . .

Several States Forbid Abortion After 20 Weeks, The New York Times (Erik Eckholm)

Judge Explains 150 Year Sentence for Madoff, The New York Times (Benjamin Weiser)

Gay Marriage Foes Target N.Y. Senators Who Flipped, The Washington Times (Associated Press)

Three Straights and You’re Out in Gay Softball League, The New York Times (Greg Bishop)

House, Senate Could Both Flip in 2012, U.S. News and World Report (Cameron Lynch)

[Note: The criticism applies only to the hymns themselves and not to the performances in the examples.]

10. “Pescador de los Hombres” (Lord, When You Stood by the Seashore)

According to some sources, this was the favorite hymn of Pope John Paul II.

9. “I Am the Bread of Life,” by Suzanne Toolan

8. “On Eagles’ Wings, ” by Michael Joncas

7. “Pan de Vida, cuerpo del Señor,” by Bob Hurd and Pia Moriarty

6. “Sing a New Song,” by Dan Schutte

5. “We Remember,” by Marty Haugen

4. “Here I Am, Lord,” by Dan Schutte

3. “City of God, ” by Dan Schutte

2. “Gather Us In,” by Marty Haugen

Oddly, “Gather Us In” reminds some of us of a much better secular song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” by Gordon Lightfoot

1. “Sons of God, Hear His Holy Word,” by James Thiem
Because this onetime favorite has disappeared (mercifully) from most modern hymnals, no video seems to be available. Here are the lyrics.

What hymns would you put on the list?

In America, to question someone’s patriotism is considered an insult, while to praise their patriotism is a compliment. Yet strangely, the only people who refer to themselves, completely without irony or qualification, as patriots are old veterans, old conservatives, and certain pro athletes in New England.

Of course, people who do not fit into those three categories sometimes self-identify with that label. But when they do it’s almost always accompanied by an asterisk, denoting—whether expressed or implied—that the use of the word comes with a qualifier:

*Sure, I love my country but I that doesn’t mean I support ________. (the President, the war, etc.)

*That doesn’t mean I think America is better than other countries.

*Of course I would never, ever serve (nor let my child enlist) in the military.

*But I’m nothing like those Bible-thumping, flag-fetishizing, NASCAR-loving, types of patriots.

However, some people are more straightforward their mixed feelings. A Japanese reporter once inquired of filmmaker Michael Moore, “You do not seem to like the U.S., do you?” Moore’s response sums up the sentiment behind the patriot’s asterisk: “I like America to some extent.”

Unfortunately, the asterisk isn’t completely without warrant. Just as the existence of NAMBLA has made it impossible to say one is a “lover of children” without the need to provide clarification, the co-opting of patriot by nativists, xenophobes, and domestic terrorists has caused some Americans to distance themselves from the label.

It is also true that the term patriot has to compete with other terms that we might rightfully believe take precedence. Christians, for example, not only owe allegiance to the state but also, and more importantly, to the Kingdom of God. Even when we consider ourselves loyal citizens of the U.S., we also embrace a form of universal cosmopolitanism in cleaving to the invisible, catholic Church.

Whatever unique and individual allegiances we might have, though, we corporately share a divided loyalty between America as our birthplace (or adopted home) and America as an ideal, a set of principles embodied in such documents as the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. While our bifurcated loyalty can make patriotic sentiments complex and dissonant, it can also prevent a love of America from devolving into blind nationalism.

This tension sets America—and our identity as a nation—apart in a peculiar way. As historian Walter Berns notes,

The late Martin Diamond had this in mind when, in an American government textbook, he points out that the terms “Americanism,” “Americanization,” and “un-American” have no counterparts in any other country or language. This is not by chance, or a matter of phonetics—Swissism? Englishization?—or mere habit. (What would a Frenchman have to do or believe in order to justify being labeled un-French?) The fact is, and it was first noted by the Englishman, G.K. Chesterton, the term “Americanism” reflects a unique phenomenon; as Diamond puts it, “It expresses the conviction that American life is uniquely founded on a set of political principles.”

Most Americans have so internalized this concept of America as both a geographic place and an abstract ideal that we sometime forget how radical it must appear to the rest of the world.

Consider, for example, the tiny minority of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who support reconquista, the “reconquering” and return of California, New Mexico, and other parts of the United States to Mexico. If their dream were realized it would simply make Mexico a much larger, third-world nation. You can move the border northward but without the culture, ideals, laws, and principles of America, San Diego is just another Tijuana. Presumably, though, the re-conquistadors would still want to take the land even though it would mean having to immigrate further eastward to find work.

The beauty and genius of our principles, though, is that there is nothing that makes them exclusively American. They are ideals that are not only available to all people but also, as political philosophers from Thomas Jefferson to Francis Fukuyama have contentiously argued, likely to eventually be adopted by all nations. To be a patriot then it to align oneself with all generations of Americans—past, present, and future—who claim that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

In his eulogy for the Kentucky politician Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln gave expression to what should be an applicable description of all American patriots:

He loved his country partly because it was his own country, but mostly because it was a free country; and he burned with a zeal for its advancement, prosperity and glory, because he saw in such, the advancement, prosperity and glory, of human liberty, human right and human nature. He desired the prosperity of his countrymen partly because they were his countrymen, but chiefly to show to the world that freemen could be prosperous.

Berns says that for Clay (and Lincoln), “country and principle were one and the same.” Perhaps in Clay we can find a useful model for ourselves; a way to be a patriot without an asterisk.

A characteristic of play, in fact, is that it creates no wealth or goods, thus differing from work or art. At the end of the game, all can and must start over again at the same point. Nothing has been harvested or manufactured, no masterpiece has been created, no capital has accrued. Play is an occasion of pure waste: waste of time, energy, ingenuity, skill, and often of money … As for the professionals—the boxers, cyclists, jockeys, or actors who earn their living in the ring, track, or hippodrome or on the stage, and who must think in terms of prize, salary, or title—it is clear that they are not players but workers. When they play it is at some other game.

(Via: Culture Making)

2. 8 Writing Tips from C.S. Lewis

3. The Best Movies Never Made

Lord of the Rings—starring the Beatles
It’s widely known that the road to filming Lord of the Rings—first published in 1954—was nearly as long and torturous as Frodo’s journey to Mount Doom. Early on, Tolkien stated a preference for the “vulgarization” of an animated version over the “sillification” of a dramatization. According to Roy Carr’s The Beatles at the Movies, talks were once in the works for a Beatle-zation—with John Lennon wanting to play Gollum, Paul McCartney Frodo, George Harrison Gandalf, and Ringo Starr Sam. Collaborating with director John Boorman, screenwriter Rospo Pallenberg thought the Beatles should play the four hobbits (and agreed with McCartney that he would be the ideal Frodo). It’s difficult, but entertaining, to imagine the Fab Four subsuming their personas to Tolkien’s storytelling, but United Artists decided not to move ahead on the project, with the Beatles or without them.

4. Fact of the Week: Finland has become the first country in the world to make broadband internet access a legal right for all citizens.

5. Daniel Davies on differing characteristics of whisky versus wine, considered purely in financial terms:

Whisky matures in barrels rather than bottles, so some of it evaporates every year which has to be factored into the yield. More importantly though, whisky is an industrial product rather than an agricultural one; the quality and other characteristics are standardised, and you know pretty much exactly how it’s going to taste at different ages. This is why it makes sense to think in terms of a forward curve in planning for a distillery, but probably a lot less so for a vineyard. Whisky’s a bond, wine is an equity.

6. From a panel of 52 experts surveyed by Vanity Fair, a list of the 21 most important works of architecture created since 1980.

7. Russell Moore on why every Christian is called to rescue orphans:

The creepiest sound I have ever heard was nothing at all. My wife, Maria, and I stood in the hallway of an orphanage somewhere in the former Soviet Union, on the first of two trips required for our petition to adopt. Orphanage staff led us down a hallway to greet the two 1-year-olds we hoped would become our sons. The horror wasn’t the squalor and the stench, although we at times stifled the urge to vomit and weep. The horror was the quiet of it all. The place was more silent than a funeral home by night.

I stopped and pulled on Maria’s elbow. “Why is it so quiet? The place is filled with babies.” Both of us compared the stillness with the buzz and punctuated squeals that came from our church nursery back home. Here, if we listened carefully enough, we could hear babies rocking themselves back and forth, the crib slats gently bumping against the walls. These children did not cry, because infants eventually learn to stop crying if no one ever responds to their calls for food, for comfort, for love. No one ever responded to these children. So they stopped.

8. Quote of the Week: “Why does looking at animals covered in oil make me sad, but looking at animals covered in oil and deep-fried make me hungry?” — Stephen Colbert

9. Ad of the Week

10. The 24 Types of Libertarian

11. What kind of music do dogs enjoy listening to?

[The Animal Science researchers] found playing classic music with specific ambiance sound such as dog barking, human conversation and crow’s crow inserted over the music is the most effective combination to relax dogs.

12. The Cat and the Hat meets Chuck Taylors: Converse’s Dr. Seuss Collection

13. Reading Kafka Makes You More Patriotic

14. The 7 Rules of Church Fonts

15. Thought Experiment of the Week: God & Time Travel

Imagine, if you will, the following science fiction situation. Sally is working on a time travel project and during one experiment, her own smartphone appears in the lab. Startled, she checks her pocket and finds that her phone is there. Yet it also appears to be on the table. Picking it up, she finds that video has been recorded on it. Much to her horror and dismay, it seems to be a video of her saying that she has killed her husband for having an affair with her friend, only to find out after that she was wrong. In the video, she can she the body of what seems to be her dead husband. The video closes with her future self saying that she is sending back the phone to tell her past self to not kill her husband; future Sally then shoots herself in the head as the phone is being sent into the past.

Being something of a skeptic, Sally checks the phones carefully and finds that (aside from some blood on the future phone that matches her husband’s blood type) the two are identical. This convinces Sally and she does not kill her husband.

Now, let God be brought into the picture, at least hypothetically. If one prefers to leave God out of this game, then an omniscient observer who judges people for their deeds and misdeeds can be used in His place.

In this scenario, what would God actually “see” and how would He judge?

16. 5 Best Computer Games for Toddlers

17. Steve Martin’s Tour Rider

-Instruments must be tuned by a wiry sarcastic guy named Shorty, Lou, or Lightnin’.

-If venue is a sporting arena, scoreboard should read “Steve 1, Bluegrass 0″

-Buffet [must include] one (1) whole roasted chicken for Steve to use as dancing puppet.

(Via: Neatorama)

18. 20 Must See Movies To Share With Your Kids

19. A chart that explains how Google works

20. Letter of the Week I: Adolf Hitler wrote a begging letter to a Mercedes dealership asking for a loan for a limousine until his royalties for Mein Kampf came through.

21. Letter of the Week II: After an LA Times interview of George Michael in which the singer talks of his desire step away from the limelight, Frank Sinatra wrote the Times and Michael a letter:

Come on George, Loosen up. Swing, man. Dust off those gossamer wings and fly yourself to the moon of your choice and be grateful to carry the baggage we’ve all had to carry since those lean nights of sleeping on buses and helping the driver unload the instruments.

And no more of that talk about “the tragedy of fame.” The tragedy of fame is when no one shows up and you’re singing to the cleaning lady in some empty joint that hasn’t seen a paying customer since Saint Swithin’s day. And you’re nowhere near that; you’re top dog on the top rung of a tall ladder called Stardom, which in latin means thanks-to-the-fans who were there when it was lonely.

22. HistoricalLOL of the Week

23. The books, authors, and literary references found in the TV series “Lost”.

24. James Crimmins on how we are not as consistently adventurous as we think:

While dogmatism seemingly requires balance so do most of life’s activities mental or otherwise. Show me the adventurous eater or traveler and I will show you a stick in the mud reader, investor, dresser. Show me the wide-eyed dreamer in one area and the odds are she or he has an anchor to windward somewhere else, if only what they wear to work or play. Human beings who are wildly adventurous in one area, say sports, tend to dine on hamburgers, but think they are adventurous in all things. he same applies to free thinkers who are downright sodden when it comes to design. The chance takers forget they also have their safe sides. We tend to huddle with like chance takers, somehow our security blankets are seldom shared.

25. The Flying Car

The Terrafugia Transition, a light aircraft that can convert into an automobile, will soon go into production, according to Britain’s Telegraph.

The vehicle received a unique exemption from the U.S. government, which allows the production models to be 110 pounds heavier than a normal “light sport aircraft.”

26. Can Someone Be “Talked Through” Landing a Jumbo Jet?

27. A 19 page comic strip about homeopathy

28. Computer Program Detects Depression in Bloggers

Researchers at Ben-Gurion University in Israel developed a computer program that they think can detect depression among bloggers. To test their hypothesis, they scanned 300,000 English-language blogs and had clinical psychologists read the subjects that the computer indicated were depressed. The psychologists agreed with the computer 78% of the time.

29. How-To of the Week: How to embed a YouTube video as an audio player

30. An animated visual representation of the growth and spread of Wal-Mart

31. The Great Tortoise Escape: Two days after Maddie Tibble and her family moved to a new house, their family pet, a tortoise named Lottie, escaped. Two years later, they found the runaway tortoise … one and a half mile away from home!

32. Another 33 Things

33. Fluffy McCloud

A sweet little cloud tries to do the right thing. This animation was Conor Finnegan’s graduate film project at IADT National Film School. (Via: Neatorama)

Additional Sources: Tim Challies, The Browser, Kottke, Braniac, Waxy.org

They were the best of fads, they were the worst of fads—all at the same time. The faddish objects of our childhood were sometimes loved and sometimes hated but they were hard to ignore. Here are a list of the 50 best/worst from the 1960s to today:

1. Beanie Babies
What made it the best: You and your friends loved collecting them.
What made it the worst: Old ladies loved collecting them too.

2. Bratz Dolls
What made it the best: 559 different dolls to choose from.
What made it the worst: They all looked like strippers.

3. Cabbage Patch Dolls
What made it the best: You got a birth certificate certifying when you “adopted” them.
What made it the worst: They were just an overpriced stuffed doll.

4. Charm necklaces
What made it the best: You could create them to match your personality.
What made it the worst: For every birthday someone would give you a cheap charm instead of a real gift.

5. Cheap cologne
What made it the best: The girl you had a crush on loved the way you smelled.
What made it the worst: Every other six grade boy smelled like Old Spice/Polo/Drakkar Noir too.

6. Chia Pets
What made it the best: They were easy to grow.
What made it the worst: Not matter what shape they were supposed to be, they always ended up looking like a green afro.

7. Cinnamon Toothpicks
What made it the best: Liquid cinnamon on a stick to make your tongue burn—in a good way.
What made it the worst: Because you couldn’t stop at just one, your tongue blistered—in a bad way.

8. Clackers
What made it the best: You could scare your little brother by clacking them right beside his head.
What made it the worst: You were a little brother.

9. Energy Drinks
What made it the best: After a can of Red Bull you could stay up all night texting.
What made it the worst: After the sugar crash, you felt like you needed to go to rehab.

10. Friendship Bracelets
What made it the best: Getting them from your friends.
What made it the worst: Not getting them from people who you thought were your friends—but obviously not since they gave them to every one but you, even to that ugly girl that they talked about behind her back and that other girl . . .

11. Friendship pins
What made it the best: They were cheap and easy to make, all you needed was colored beads and safety pins.
What made it the worst: Whenever you opened the pins the beads would spill everywhere.

12. Frisbees
What made it the best: Could make anyone feel like a minor athlete.
What made it the worst: Unless you had a frisbee-catching dog, they quickly became boring.

13. Furbies
What made it the best: Your first robot!
What made it the worst: Big-eyed robots are kinda creepy.

14. Garbage Pail Kids
What made it the best: They were disgusting.
What made it the worst: They were disgusting.

15. Gel Pens
What made it the best: Notes to friends looked better in neon orange.
What made it the worst: They always smeared.

16. Hacky Sack
What made it the best: They were easy to carry around; you could start a game anywhere.
What made it the worst: Phish-listening hippies made them uncool

17. Hello Kitty
What made it the best: They’re so cute.
What made it the worst: Good grief, they’re everywhere!

18. Hula Hoops
What made it the best: Having “hooping” contest with friends.
What made it the worst: Trying to find a place to store them.

19. Kewpie Dolls
What made it the best: They’re cute.
What made it the worst: They’re creepy.

20. Koosh Balls
What made it the best: You could throw them around without fear of breaking anything.
What made it the worst: They were only fun for five minutes.

21. Lava Lamps
What made it the best: The calming effect of watching the lava go up and down.
What made it the worst: They turned you into a hippie.

22. Lipsmackers
What made it the best: What could be better than makeup that taste like root beer?
What made it the worst: Realizing that it was just flavored chapstick.

23. Mad Libs
What made it the best: The fun of thinking up strange/funny/naughty words to fill in the blanks.
What made it the worst: After the third one they started to seem all the same.

24. Magic 8-Ball
What made it the best: More fun than flipping a coin.
What made it the worst: Ask again later.

25. Choose Your Own Adventure Novels
What made it the best: You got to be the hero of the story.
What made it the worst: The stories usually weren’t worth the page-flipping effort.

26. Matchbox Cars/Hot Wheels
What made it the best: They were almost as cool as having a real Ferrari/Corevette/Camaro/etc.
What made it the worst: Dad stepping on them in the middle of the night on his way to the bathroom.

27. Mood Rings
What made it the best: People could tell what mood you were in by looking at your finger.
What made it the worst: Unless “hot and sweaty” counts as a mood, they couldn’t detect anything.

28. Nerf Balls
What made it the best: Finally, a ball that you could bean your siblings with and not get in trouble!
What made it the worst: If they came in contact with nature (water, dogs, etc) they’d become a mess.

29. Ouija Boards
What made it the best: They were dangerous and mysterious.
What made it the worst: They were a starter kit to occultism.

30. Paper Footballs
What made it the best: They were easy to make.
What made it the worst: No matter how many you made, the teacher always took them away.

31. Pet Rocks
What made it the best: It’s a rock. . . and a pet! Get it?
What made it the worst: What? I paid how much for a rock?

32. Pez
What made it the best: They were cheap and easy to collect.
What made it the worst: The candy was terrible.

33. Pogs
What made it the best: You could both collect them and win them.
What made it the worst: Your friends would always get them taken away by the teacher.

34. Pokemon
What made it the best: You could collect them all.
What made it the worst: No matter how much money you spent, you could never collect them all.

35. Pop Rocks
What made it the best: The fizz and the pop.
What made it the worst: Didn’t they kill that Mikey kid from the LIFE cereal commercial?

36. Rubik’s Cube
What made it the best: They made you think you were smart enough to solve them.
What made it the worst: They made you realize you weren’t smart enough to solve them.

37. Scratch ’n’ Sniff Stickers
What made it the best: The cherry and banana stickers that smelled like cherry and banana (sort of).
What made it the worst: The licorice one that smelled like the inside of a baby’s diaper.

38. Sea Monkeys
What made it the best: The ad in the back of the comic books made it look like they were people from the lost city of Atlantis.
What made it the worst: Brine shrimp? Seriously?

39. Silly Bandz
What made it the best: They are cheap and easy to collect.
What made it the worst: Realizing that your generation is getting stuck with one of the lamest fads ever.

40. Silly Putty
What made it the best: You could press them on the Sunday comics and make a colored copy of the picture.
What made it the worst: There wasn’t much else you could do with them.

41. Skateboarding
What made it the best: The rush of riding for the first time.
What made it the worst: The first rush to the ER after you fell off and broke your arm.

42. Slime
What made it the best: Sliming your friends, brothers, and sisters.
What made it the worst: Trying to get snot green plastic out of the carpet.

43. Slinky
What made it the best: Those cool television ads that showed it “walking” down the stairs.
What made it the worst: They taught you the meaning of false advertising.

44. Super Balls
What made it the best: Nothing could bounce higher.
What made it the worst: They’d always bounce to a place you couldn’t find them.

45. Swatch Watches
What made it the best: They made you feel sophisticated.
What made it the worst: Your parents wouldn’t buy you an overpriced piece of Swiss plastic.

46. Tamagotchi
What made it the best: Like having a pet that you could carry around in your pocket.
What made it the worst: Like having all the responsibility of having a pet without the loyalty, love, etc.

47. Troll Dolls
What made it the best: They were adorable.
What made it the worst: When you’re not looking, they eat your soul.

48. Yo-Yos
What made it the best: The sense of accomplishment you got from learning to “walk the dog.”
What made it the worst: The stupid string always got tangled and knotted up.

49. Waxed lips candy
What made it the best: You could convince that cute girl/boy to give you “kiss” on your wax lips.
What made it the worst: The heartbreaking let-down of wax lip kisses.

50. Whiffle balls
What made it the best: The bat.
What made it the worst: You could never figure out how to actually play Whiffle ball.

Which favorite fads did I forget?

With a Kraken you can play with him as with a bird, or put him on a leash for your girls. Not so with Leviathan; it says so in the Bible. (No, seriously, it’s really in the Bible.) You know how many times Leviathan in mentioned in the Bible? Six times. He even gets an entire chapter in Job. You know how many times the Kraken is mentioned? Zero times. There’s a reason for that. Krakens are unbiblically lame.

Fortunately, the Leviathan may finally get his due respect now that scientists are discovering that he was (a) real, (b) really big, and (c) really, really awesome:

leviathan

Researchers have discovered the fossilised remains of an ancient whale with huge, fearsome teeth.

Writing in the journal Nature, the scientists have dubbed the 12 million-year-old creature “Leviathan”.

It is thought to have been more than 17m long, and might have engaged in fierce battles with other giant sea creatures from the time.

Leviathan was much like the modern sperm whale in terms of size and appearance.

But that is where the similarity ends. While the sperm whale is a relatively passive animal, sucking in squid from the depths of the ocean, Leviathan was an aggressive predator.

According to Dr Christian de Muizon, director of the Natural History Museum in Paris, Leviathan could have hunted out and fed on large sea creatures such as dolphins, seals and even other whales.

“It was a kind of a sea monster,” he said.

A kind of sea monster? Leviathan would eat other sea monsters (a Kraken for breakfast, a Scylla for lunch, an Aspidochelone for dinner, and a few white whales as a between meal snack). No, Mr. French Scientist, Leviathan wasn’t a sea monster he was the sea monster. Show some respect, dude.

Protestant translators expect to have the Bible — or at least some of it — written in every one of the world’s 6,909 spoken languages.

“We’re in the greatest period of acceleration in 20 centuries of Bible translation,” said Morrison resident Paul Edwards, who heads up Wycliffe Bible Translators’ $1 billion Last Languages Campaign.

Portable computers and satellites get the credit for speeding things up by about 125 years.

Previously, a Wycliffe missionary family or team would spend decades learning and transcribing one language in a remote corner of the Earth.

Wycliffe’s missionaries had the credo, “one team, one language, one lifetime,” Edwards said.

At that pace, the target date had been 2150, Edwards said.

Read more . . .