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Category Archives: Science
Study: Legalizing Marijuana Reduces Traffic Deaths
. . . [L]egalizing pot reduced traffic deaths by a stunning 9%, and reduced beer consumption by 5%. . . Reducing alcohol consumption is not only positive because it reduces traffic deaths, but also because alcohol is far more dangerous and addicting than marijuana (which is neither).
Religion Needs To Be Eradicated From Government
It’s disheartening, really. Pathetic, even, that a vast majority of United States citizens are blinded to how advanced we could be in the sciences, medicine, economic growth and foreign policy if religion were completely eradicated from government in all forms. . . Our children are dumbed-down by stubborn uber-religious teachers and administrators in our public schools who insist on “teaching the controversy” (read: lying to our kids)[. . .] The United States Government has no business invoking any god, gods, goddesses or anything else even remotely connected to religious belief. Our government is not in place to placate anyone’s religious beliefs, period. There should be no references to the religious beliefs of our politicians.
Quote: PZ Myers
Paul Zachary “PZ” Myers (born March 9, 1957)
Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Minnesota Morris, Author of the Pharyngula Freethought Blog, Public Critic of Intelligent Design, and Outspoken Atheist
It seems to be an obligatory opinion of people who believe in mockable and ridiculous things that they will oppose mockery and ridicule. I’m afraid there is no magical exemption — there isn’t a set of stupid beliefs that you get to set on a pedestal and declare that no one can call them stupid.
The Other Debt Crisis: Climate Debt
The climate crisis in Bolivia is not a headline or an abstraction – it is playing out in people’s lives in real time.
Melting glaciers are threatening the water supply of the country’s two biggest cities. Increasing droughts and floods are playing havoc with agriculture.
So it is no surprise that in climate negotiations, Bolivia is emerging as a leader in the global south – advancing both radical solutions and analysis that make rich countries distinctly nervous.
On this edition of Fault Lines, Avi Lewis travels to Bolivia to explore the country’s climate crusade from the inside.
It is the story of an emerging movement, based in the global south, raising questions about who owes what to whom in confronting the climate crisis.
And it is playing out in Bolivia’s epic landscape – from the tropical glaciers to the endless salt flats. A landscape that in normal times seems to mock the very idea that human beings can change the course of nature.
Sam Harris: Not Being Indoctrinated Into Christianity
Video: Octopus crawls out of water and walks on dry land
Check out this video of an octopus literally crawling out of the water and dragging itself across dry land in pursuit of a meal. A family with a camera was lucky enough to be on the scene and captured the whole thing on video:
Nothing Hitchens Does Is Ever Boring
Beyond the Limits of Neoliberal Higher Education: Global Youth Resistance and the American/British Divide
***THIS IS A MUST READ***
Clearly, any institution that makes a claim to literacy, critical dialogue, informed debate, and reason is now a threat to a political culture in which ignorance; stupidity, lies, misinformation, and appeals to the common sense have become the only currency of exchange. And this seems to apply as well to the dominant media. How else to explain the widespread public support for politicians in the United States such as Herman Cain, who is as much of a buffoon as he is an exemplary symbol of illiteracy and ignorance in the service of the political spectacle. If fact, one can argue reasonably that the entire slate of presidential Republican Party candidates extending from Rick Santorum to Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann embody not simply a rejection of science, evidence, informed argument, and other elements associated with the Enlightenment, but a deep seated disdain and hatred for any vestige of a critical mind. Ignorance now replaces knowledge and impotence with power. Almost every position they take harks back to a pre-Enlightenment period when faith and cruelty ruled the day and ignorance became the modus operandi for legitimating political and ethical impotence. . . the value of higher education is now tied exclusively to the need for credentials. critical thinking has been devalued as a result of the growing corporatization of higher education. . . critical thinking has been devalued as a result of the growing corporatization of higher education. . . The current right-wing politics of illiteracy, exploitation, and cruelty can no longer hide in the cave of ignorance, legitimated by their shameful accomplices in the dominant media.
Mason Crumpacker and the Hitchens Reading List
When Christopher Hitchens got the Dawkins Award in Houston, I posted the following report from Chron.com: Though [Hitchens] was asked a variety of questions from the audience, none appeared to elicit more interest than the one asked by eight-year-old Mason Crumpacker, who wanted to know what books she should read. In response, Hitchens first asked where her mother was and the girl indicated that she was siting beside her. He then asked to see them once the presentation was over so that he could give her a list.
As the event drew to a close, Mason and her mom, Anne Crumpacker of Dallas, followed him out. Surrounded by attendees wanting a glance of the famed author, Hitchens sat on a table just outside of the ballroom and spent about 15 minutes recommending books to Mason.
Always Question Authority 