Penn Jillette on Theism vs Atheism

This is an interesting take on what I’ve always considered to be an argument I didn’t want to be involved in even from a mile away, but I thought I’d share nonetheless.

Full disclosure, I consider myself a Buddhist/Quasi-Atheist in a way. I’m not wholeheartedly part of the Buddhist faith although I’ve retained a lot of the principles. If you need to what “religion” I belong to (if you must stereotype), take a gander at one of my earlier posts.

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Giffords shooting is completely unrelated to Palin

… As the following will illustrate. Let’s not jump to conclusions based on shaky hearsay. She and her supporters are totally not responsible in any shape or form for driving more wedges between Americans with differing views and driving the vulnerable in the fringes of society to lash out against what they don’t understand.

Palin campaign: Let's take back the 20

Sarah's Charming pastime

And a scene from that event…

Send a Warrior to Congress

Original link : twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/29677744457

And she was quite explicit that the “crosshairs” had nothing to do with shooting and were in fact surveyor’s marks. Even one of her staffers elucidated, “We never intended it to be gun sights“.

In case that video gets deleted, there are mirrors here, here and here.

See?

Obama uses an Apple Laptop

This is just one of the many fascinating facts you may not know about Obama. And I know someone who would be giggling like a schoolgirl at this ;)

Adding to this, a few excerpts of the most surprising facts :

• He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics
  [Achieve Nerdvana would have a field day!]
• He has read every Harry Potter book
  [Uh… I only read the first one. But that was a birthday present.]
• He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can’t stand ice cream
• He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia
  [I’ve eaten snake and roasted grasshopper in Sri Lanka.]
• He can speak Spanish
  [Learned it in school, but that was years back. I can’t even order an ice cream in Spanish.]
• He can bench press an impressive 200lbs
  [150lbs for me. The president is in better shape than me :( ]
• He doesn’t drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol
  [I don’t drink alcohol, but I do go through at least a couple of gallons of coffee a week]
• He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside
  [This isn’t so much a “youth” trend as a silly one]
• He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300
  [Imagine that, someone who actually practices what they preach]
• He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were “street urchins”

See, these are things that just didn’t come up during the campaign. I think these details about candidates should have been brought to our attention way before the elections. We’re seeing a man with a lot more life experience (which may be worth its weight compared to political experience) than most others who persued the job.  Someone who actually got to spend time and absorb the local culture (rather than spend time being imprisoned by it or spend time ignoring it staring at snow and moose and oil).

And someone who is actually aware that Americana is a spectrum of experiences rather than a monotone sheet of ideology.

Obama on a Food stamp?!

Yet more embarrassment from the Republican party. Why do they even bother hiring these people in the first place? I appreciate the fact that certain Republicans are finally standing up to this nonsense.

This would have been funny if it weren't so tragic

According to the L.A. Times :

“A Republican women’s club in San Bernardino County sent out a recent newsletter with a photo of Barack Obama surrounded by fried chicken, watermelon and ribs, sparking widespread outrage and rebuke from GOP leaders and Democrats.”

Her excuses :

“I apologize to anyone who was offended because that was not my intent”

And…

It was just food to me. It didn’t mean anything else.

… According to Press Enterprise.

a) You have to be a blithering idiot to not realise the specific foods mentioned have intimate ties to racism in American culture.

b) You have to be a blithering idiot to pull this stunt when your own party is desperately trying to win the hearts and minds of minorities (some of whom are present in your own organization).

c) You are a blithering idiot… And a bigot. Which is the worst kind out there, since you don’t even seem to realise what it is you’ve done.

Of course the Obama folks have their own nasty attacks at Palin… But my God!