Yaser M. Haddara

One of my favorite clips is this minute from young Dilbert.

One of the reasons I like Dilbert so much is that I can bear first hand witness to its uncanny accuracy in many an industrial environment. Clearly, not every company is a Dilbert-like company. And as with any comedic venture there has to be some exaggeration, although in this case it’s not very much at all :) .

I recently re-discovered the Dilbert website. But what’s more important is that with it I discovered the Dilbert blog (now officially the first “thing” on my blogroll). Scott Adams seems to have interesting insights even away from engineers, corporate culture, comic strips, and even comedy in general. He has this running argument with some atheist guy on the net that seems to think that for someone to as much as wonder out loud whether the Huxley-Darwin apes-at-the-typewriter model of the universe is compelling qualifies such a person for moron duty and immediately earns them the pleasure of his scathing attacks. This is not to say that Scott Adams is a theist or a creationist. What he believes is (a) his own business, (b) probably not easily categorizable in the convenient bins we intellectually keep, (c) neither particularly authoritative nor a guarantee of correctness in any case, and (d) should not be (and thankfully is not) entirely clear just from reading one or two entries on his blog. If he has spelled out his beliefs on the blog, or if he does so as a matter of course, or if he is in the process of doing so, I plan on reading the blog regularly enough that inshaa Allah I’ll understand. But whether he does spell out his beliefs or whether he just goes on expressing whatever particular insight he has on any particular day, it makes for good reading, and a starting point for further reflection. Good on ya Scott!