April 2010
36 posts
“Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent...”
– Carl Sagan (via magnetar) (via friendlyatheist)
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What's Drapetomania?
Drapetomania was a supposed mental illness described by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 that caused black slaves to flee captivity. Today, drapetomania is considered an example of pseudoscience, and part of the edifice of scientific racism. (via Wikipedia)
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GM's Phony Bailout Payback
“But when Whitacre says GM has paid back the bailout money in full, he means not the entire $49.5 billion—the loan and the equity. In fact, he avoids all mention of that figure in his column. He means only the $6.7 billion loan amount. But wait! Even that’s not the full story given that GM, which has not yet broken even, much less turned a profit, can’t pay even this puny amount...
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“I know there’s some people in Arizona worried that Obama is acting like Hitler,...”
– Seth Meyers via Hulu
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WatchEase into the weekend with a squirrel video!
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“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and...”
– Susan B. Anthony, reformer and suffragist (1820-1906)
“The same law that prohibits the government from declaring a National Day of...”
– Federal Judge (Wisconsin) ruling that National Day of Prayer is Unconstitutional. (case: Case: 3:08-cv-00588-bbc)
(via robbyrussell)
(via friendlyatheist)
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“If you’re not on the edge you’re taking up too much room.”
– Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage (via claytoncubitt)
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A classic Willie Nelson moment.
In an interview set to air tonight on CNN, Larry King asked Willie if he still smoked pot, and to the shock of exactly no one, Willie said yes. “I have a huge tolerance for it that maybe everyone doesn’t have.”
King followed up, did you smoke pot today? “Yeah,” Nelson said, causing King to twitch around in disbelief. “There’s pot in you right now?”
...
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The Quantum Zeno Effect
“Experiments confirm that Zeno was right. Scientists proved what in the world of quantum physics is equivalent to demonstrating that a watched pot doesn’t boil. This behavior — the “quantum Zeno effect” −- turns out to be a function of observation. “It seems,” said Peter Coveney, “that the act of looking at an atom prevents it from changing.”...
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How much more hypocritical could this be? None....
A lawyer for the Vatican claimed, in a statement earlier today, that the two years it took the current pope to defrock a convicted pedophile was quick. But in 2006 he excommunicated an Archbishop who defied the celibacy doctrine ‘automatically’. (via Gawker)
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“The Obama administration has authorized the CIA to kill a US citizen. We aren’t...”
– Due Process of Lawlessness
. :: ihatethismess :: .
(via resmc)
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Moral Authority? Yeah. In what universe?
The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including “the good of the universal church,” according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature. (via AP)
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Small asteroid to zip harmlessly past Earth
The smug confidence in that headline makes me nervous (Yahoo News)
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The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in...
via Wikipedia
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Confirmed: Obama authorizes assassination of U.S....
Glenn Greenwald (via Salon)
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“Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a “necessary...”
– Sydney J. Harris, journalist (1917-1986)
Anonymous asked: What do you do for a living?
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to...”
– Abraham Lincoln (via fuckyeahradicalquotes)
“Obama is not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free healthcare....”
– John Fugelsang (via fyeahsocialism) (via jewdar)
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“I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning,...”
– Isaac Asimov