Rationally Thinking Out Loud
Just one guy thinking out loud on a the issues in religion, atheism, politics & science The Blog ArticlesFeatured Pages TOCWhat I’m Reading Tuesday 07-20-2021 on the Billionaires in Space Program
Why Space Tourism Will Fall Flat
Why Space Tourism Will Fall Flat
The billionaire space race is in full swing, with Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos both launching into the atmosphere – and one lucky (and rich) 18-year-old along for the ride with the latter billionaire. But on the latest Pivot podcast, Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher are skeptical that average earthlings will be flocking to the outer reaches anytime soon.
SPAC(e) | No Mercy / No Malice
SPAC(e) | No Mercy / No Malice
People worried about starving or being eaten don’t have time to ponder the finite nature of life. But once we know we’re going to survive in the short-term, immortality begins to loom larger than mortality. Affairs, Teslas, and ayahuasca are the accessories of a life with more money than time.
What we do alone and what we do together – by Anand Giridharadas – The.Ink
What we do alone and what we do together
July 21, 1969, New York, New York: Rain-soaked New Yorkers watch TV and cheer as they see Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong’s first step on the lunar surface (Getty) Jeff Bezos’ self-defenestration from this planet and hasty return got me thinking back to a conversation I once had with Krista Tippett, the brilliant host of On Being.
Spotify – Ibram X. Kendi on What Conservatives—and Liberals—Get Wrong About Antiracism – The Ezra Klein Show | Podcast on Spotify
Ibram X. Kendi on What Conservatives-and Liberals-Get Wrong About Antiracism
Listen to this episode from The Ezra Klein Show on Spotify. “What if instead of a feelings advocacy we had an outcome advocacy that put equitable outcomes before our guilt and anguish?” wrote Ibram X. Kendi in his 2019 book “How to Be an Antiracist.”
Is the Bible a true story? – Israel News – Haaretz.com
Is the Bible a true story? Recent finds and technological advances yield surprising discoveries | Special Report
Beauty and biblical evidence both lie in the eye of the beholder, it seems. No evidence of the events described in the Book of Genesis has ever been found. No city walls have been found at Jericho, from the appropriate era, that could have been toppled by Joshua or otherwise.
“Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men,…” — John Fire Lame Deer 1903 – 1976
“Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn’t have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. Without a prison, there can be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn’t afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn’t know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don’t know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society. ” — John Fire Lame Deer 1903 – 1976
John Fire Lame Deer – Wikipedia
John Fire Lame Deer (in Lakota Tȟáȟča Hušté ; March 17, 1903 – December 14, 1976, also known as Lame Deer, John Fire and John (Fire) Lame Deer) was a Lakota holy man, member of the Heyoka society,[citation needed ] grandson of the Miniconjou head man Lame Deer, and father of Archie Fire Lame Deer.
The Doctor Carl Sagan Warned Us About | Office for Science and Society – McGill University
The Doctor Carl Sagan Warned Us About
Predictions made by psychics and astrologers tend to quickly fade from memory because of how wrong they often turn out to be, but one prediction made by Carl Sagan, an astrophysicist and famous science communicator, is so unfortunately on the money that it continues to outlive him.
Dear Tucker Carlson – patrickjkearney
Dear Tucker Carlson
Dear Tucker Carlson, Hey Tuck, I just got done watching a segment of your show. You know, the one where you suggest that there should be a camera in every classroom in order to root out…let me get this accurate…”civilization ending poison.” https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1412566208763895810 I’m going to zig where you thought most teachers would zag.
Colonialism is built on the rubble of a false idea of ancient Rome | Aeon Essays
Colonialism is built on the rubble of a false idea of ancient Rome | Aeon Essays
At the dawn of the 20th century, Italian patriots were struggling to overcome a profound inferiority complex. Ever since 1861, when Giuseppe Garibaldi unified the country’s disparate regions into a nation-state, politicians and intellectuals had been anticipating the arrival of a glorious new era. Decades on, however, the economic, diplomatic and cultural results were wanting.
The GOP’s main voter bloc is shrinking | The Week
The GOP’s main voter bloc is shrinking
The electorate is shifting – and not in the Republican Party’s favor A new deep dive into the 2020 electorate by Pew Research contains mostly bad news for Republicans, whose approaching demographic doom is less racial than it is generational.
Occupy Democrats on FaceBook July 5th 2021 “A day in the life of Sue the Trump supporter…
Occupy Democrats on FaceBook
July 5th 2021
“A day in the life of Sue the Trump supporter…
Sue gets up at 6 a.m. and fills her coffeepot with water to prepare her morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.
With her first swallow of coffee, she takes her daily medication. Her medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of her medications are paid for by her employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Sue gets it too.
She prepares her morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Sue’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the shower, Sue reaches for her shampoo. Her bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for her right to know what she was putting on her body and how much it contained.
Sue dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air she breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
She walks to the subway station for her government-subsidized ride to work. It saves her considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Sue begins her work day. She has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Sue’s employer pays these standards because Sue’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.
If Sue is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, she’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn’t think she should lose her home because of her temporary misfortune.
It’s noon and Sue needs to make a bank deposit so she can pay some bills. Sue’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Sue’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Sue has to pay her Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and her below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Sue and the government would be better off if she was educated and earned more money over her lifetime.
Sue is home from work. She plans to visit her father this evening at his farm home in the country. She gets in her car for the drive. Her car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.
She arrives at her childhood home. Her generation was the third to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.
She is happy to see her father, who is now retired. Her father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Sue wouldn’t have to.
Sue gets back in her car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Sue enjoys throughout her day. Sue agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m self-made and believe everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”
– Kay Dee
History: Modern Money Theory and Stagflation | Australian Real Progressives
History: Modern Money Theory and Stagflation
Australian Real Progressives has written about full employment and the job guarantee many times previously. What follows is a historical analysis of how the mythical NAIRU came into being and why Full employment, in the truest sense, was abandoned. Via Bill Mitchell Full employment gave tremendous advantages to the working class and allowed for upward…
American Insurrection | FRONTLINE | PBS | Official Site
American Insurrection
In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, an investigation into how far-right extremist groups have evolved in the wake of the deadly 2017 Charlottesville rally – and the threat they pose today.
Mark Lilla: the liberal who counts more enemies on the left than the right | Media | The Guardian
Mark Lilla: the liberal who counts more enemies on the left than the right
ark Lilla has spent much of his almost four-decade career trafficking in a certain kind of hyper-scholarly intellectual debate. His witty, densely argued essays analyzing Hannah Arendt, Derrida, and the French far right usually find a natural readership in places like the New York Review of Books or the Chronicle of Higher Education.