Quote of the Day: PZ Myers
“Faith is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s an affliction to be overcome.” ~ PZ Myers from Should skeptic organizations be atheist organizations? This was a really good blog post, I suggest you all read it.
Guess Glenn Beck doesn’t support team #USA…
…and of course the World Cup and Obama are conspiring together to…to…oh, who the fuck knows. Does he even need to give reasons behind his conspiracy theories these days? He even says in the clip below that he doesn’t like soccer because the rest of the world does. I suppose he gets points for being honest about his xenophobia.
From EPLtalk and MediaMatters, Glenn Beck had this to say on his June 11th radio broadcast:
I don’t get the baseball thing, but the soccer thing, I hate it so much — probably because the rest of the world likes it so much, and they riot over it, and they continually try to jam it down our throat… It doesn’t matter how you sell it to us. It doesn’t matter how many celebrities you get. It doesn’t matter how many bars open early. It doesn’t matter how many beer commercials they run. We don’t want the World Cup. We don’t like the World Cup. We don’t like soccer. We want nothing to do with it. You can package it any way — you can spend all kinds of money. You can force it on our television sets. We will not enjoy the World Cup.
This sentiment is really very sad, especially since according to EPLtalk, “more people world wide care about the World Cup Final than the Super Bowl. The 2006 Final between Italy and France was viewed by some 260 million people while the Super Bowl was viewed by 98 million — and 92 million of those were US viewers.“
So, I’m sorry USA…your most patriotic citizen couldn’t care less about you. And p.s., he doesn’t like baseball much either. I wonder how he feels about apple pie?
All photos found at DayLife.com
Quote of the Day: President Obama
“The people of West Virginia are in our prayers. But we owe them more than prayers. We owe them action. We owe them accountability. We owe them an assurance that when they go to work every day, when they enter that dark mine, they are not alone. They ought to know that behind them there is a company that’s doing what it takes to protect them, and a government that is looking out for their safety.” ~ President Barack Obama, regarding the April 5th mining tragedy in West Virginia. The emphasis is mine.
Quote of the Day: Isaac Newton
“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding of a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” ~ Sir Isaac Newton
This was the quote that came with my brand new Surly-Ramics necklace. Do you have a Surly-Ramics necklace?
Quote of the Day
“So, they won’t let two lesbians get married, but they’ll pay to watch them lick each other on stage.” ~ Chelsea Handler, regarding the following incident:
Although it is not unusual for either party to spend money in tony settings to cater to wealthy donors, the RNC’s latest filings captured widespread attention for one expenditure at a risque nightclub: $1,946.25 for “meals” at Voyeur in West Hollywood, which features topless dancers wearing horse bridles and other bondage gear while mimicking sex acts.
The Dragon in my Garage
“A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage.”Suppose (I’m following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you’d want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
“Show me,” you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle–but no dragon.
“Where’s the dragon?” you ask.
“Oh, she’s right here,” I reply, waving vaguely. “I neglected to mention that she’s an invisible dragon.”
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon’s footprints.
“Good idea,” I say, “but this dragon floats in the air.”
Then you’ll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
“Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.”
You’ll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
“Good idea, except she’s an incorporeal dragon and the paint won’t stick.”
And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won’t work.
Now, what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are verdically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I’m asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence on my say-so.
Keeping an open mind is a virtue–but, as the space engineer James Oberg once said, not so open that your brains fall out. Of course we must be willing to change our minds when warranted by new evidence. But the evidence must be strong.
Fear no ghosts, no gods
“When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free — free to think, to express my thoughts — free to live my own ideal, free to live for myself and those I loved, free to use all my faculties, all my senses, free to spread imagination’s wings, free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope, free to judge and determine for myself. . . I was free!” ~ Robert G Ingersoll
(thanks to @40yroldatheist)
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Don’t feed the trolls
