* vril
* Caroline Chen discusses the social nature of proof in the mathematics community. Catarina Dutilh Novaes discusses it at NewAPPS and M-Phi.
* Juan Gomez on probable knowledge in Butler's Analogy
* Thony Christie on Galileo's theory of tides
* Dan Fincke hosts the 151st Philosophers' Carnival at "Camels with Hammers".
* A handy guide to phases of the moon.
* A rather funny Dan Brown parody -- one that manages to be accurately parodic without being malicious:
I’ll call my agent, pondered the prosperous scribe. He reached for the telephone using one of his two hands. “Hello, this is renowned author Dan Brown,” spoke renowned author Dan Brown. “I want to talk to literary agent John Unconvincingname.”
The "renowned deity God" line would itself be worth the reading.
* Adam Kotsko considers whether the U.S. should be considered a party state that is merely ceremonially structured as a constitutional republic. The major weakness of the argument is a certain naivete about how civil service actually works in the U.S. Any extensive acquaintance with civil service makes clear that the U.S. has as extensive and effective a bureaucracy as any, particularly given our sheer size, demographically, economically, and geographically; it just doesn't have the same place or role that civil service has elsewhere. (It is also consistently given a to-do list by Congress that is so extensive that actually finishing it is impossible, both in terms of time and labor and in terms of money actually budgeted -- the sheer number of projects that Congress has mandated to be done but never provided for is in itself an astounding thing.) I think the argument also underestimates the extent to which ceremonial constraints are effective constraints in politics. The state is a ceremonial structure, in every society: that's its whole point.
* The original proposal for Doctor Who
