In the human population, at least in the Western World, we find a strong correlation between intelligence and atheism. What Stephen Hawking said here hits home to me.
Having said this, the correlation is nowhere near absolute; there are huge and notable exceptions in most of our lives.
So interesting.
Here’s a very short video that reveals why it’s so difficult to remove chemical pesticides from our production of vegetables. It offers a glimpse into how the potatoes are selected to become the French fries that McDonald’s offers its customers.
There may be, somewhere in our culture, an example of huge corporate profitmaking that doesn’t rely on either a) the natural ignorance of the consumer, or b) deliberate deception on the part of the purveyor, but I can’t think of a single one.
The concept that rule of law sits at the core of all civilized societies has been around a long time–at least 2100 years.
Until the advent of Donald Trump on the U.S. political scene, it was certainly central to our lives as Americans.
From Cicero’s Wikipedia page: An accomplished poet, philosopher, rhetorician, and humorist, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC) was also the greatest forensic orator Rome ever produced. But to Cicero, service to the res publica (literally, “the public affair”) was a Roman citizen’s highest duty.
I’m not familiar with Noel Casler, but he’s both funny and insightful.
I wouldn’t say that Republicans have no true vision for the U.S. From here, it looks like they’re modeling their thinking after modern-day Hungary: authoritarian, hyper-nationalist, amoral, no compassion for the common person, and anti-science.
I have a conversation with one friend or another on this subject about once per month. The question: how terrible do things have to become before “bread and circuses” no longer maintain the order of capitalism over some other system of social order?
As the planet continues to bake, how many degrees above pre-industrial temperatures, and how much human misery needs to be sustained, before the appeal of beer and the National Football League in the U.S. start to lose their hold? Obviously, most Americans are emotionally removed from the lives of other people. Why else would “American First!” have any meaning?
Here’s a politically incorrect statement from the same Roman poet Juvenal: “There is nothing more repulsive than a wealthy woman.” I remember coming across this as a young man and laughing my ass off.
I would edit the text in the meme at left and replace “….to die for your Second Amendment right” with “to die for what is clearly a misinterpretation of the Second Amendment .” What Warren Burger said on this subject is more than worth keeping in mind, IMO.
This excellent rebuttal was made by a Canadian, but it could just as easily been a Japanese, or a citizen of almost any other country on Earth than the U.S.
I think the point she made is spot-on: we need to get rid of Republicans–at least in their current incarnation.
What these congressional Republicans are attempting to do, of course, is to communicate to the National Rifle Association and the most extreme right-wing voters that they are not wishy-washy on the Second Amendment, and that they couldn’t care less how many little kids’ bodies are riddled with bullets.
Of course, you won’t find people representing Massachusetts or California wearing AR-15 pins, but that leaves plenty of folks from places like West Virginia and Oklahoma.
Prediction: This won’t last indefinitely. The political pendulum in the United States has swung hard in the direction of hatred and stupidity, but the GOP is about to see that most Americans reject all this garbage.
I saw the announcement at left on a social media group called “Grammar Police,” where people come to ask questions about the proper use of English, and to lampoon folks who may have gotten something wrong.
There is a reason I didn’t see this in a Home Depot store: I boycott the company because of its support of Donald Trump.
I thought I’d make a few comments on the foolish garbage presented at left.
1) In addition to hydro and nuclear, there are other flavors of renewable energy.
2) The grid is getting cleaner every year. Just yesterday, Denmark closed its last coal plant. Many hundreds have been shuttered in the U.S. since 2GreenEnergy was launched 15 years ago.
3) The electrification of everything will be a huge boon in terms of bringing scale to clean power.
4) Getting rid of Big Oil will reduce international hostilities, political corruption, lung disease, and a host of other societal woes.
