-- June Approaches --

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"Newcomb's Paradox" is a famous, interesting, and long-unresolved thought puzzle. In fact, it's often said that any roomful of people, hearing this paradox, will split down the middle between those fiercely defending one possible solution and those just as assuredly supporting the alternative possible solution --- and no amount of arguing or persuasion will change many minds. If you're not already familiar with it, here is one intro to the paradox (but there's a lot of other available literature on it) :

http://members.aol.com/kiekeben/newcomb.html

Why do I even bother bringing it up... a space-filler ;-) and, because, yes, I think it has something to say about the nature of the Ivory-bill debate (where the species' existence at the present moment is either 100% true or 0% true and not some number in-between). In fact, it might be interesting to know if there is any correlation between where IBWO atheists, agnostics, and believers come down in their response to the paradox, or simply no pattern at all.


In other news, members of the Bush Administration (who appear not to walk upon the Earth, so much as slither), express surprise, shock, and anger, once again, at truth managing to get out, despite unremitting countermeasures taken to prevent it....
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