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You can see them both coming  a mile away.

A motorcyclist riding without a helmet, riding in a protest against mandatory helmet laws, dies pretty much how you would expect.

Vancouver rioters identified thanks to digital photos and facebook posts.

“A miserable, hypocritical prick–whatever the system of government–is still a prick.  I tend to look at the world, still, from the point of view of a restaurant guy–a small business owner.  Right? Left? I don’t care. I look at “leaders” as if they were managers of my restaurant. I go away for four years and come back. If my business has gotten inexplicably worse, I have fewer customers, the neighbors are pissed, my employees unhappy and there’s money inexplicably missing from the till, I call that a bad leader.  I don’t know if that’s politics or simple good sense.”

- Anthony Bourdain

As profound as this quote is, the rest of the blog post is worth reading as well.

 ”We take our responsibility very seriously, and I don’t think we get enough recognition for the efforts we make to ensure that there is effective worldwide regulation of a product that is harmful and that is addictive. Nevertheless, whilst it is addictive, it is not that hard to quit.”

- Louis C. Camilleri, CEO of Phillip Morris International

The best part?  He said this to a cancer nurse.

If you are wondering where education falls in the list of Texas’ state priorities, here is an abbreviated list:

1. Executing the mentally retarded
2. Formula One racing
3. Creationism
4. Finding a way to keep Mexican food while expelling Mexicans
5. Secessionist rhetoric
6. Telling Barack Obama to go fuck himself
7. Refusing federal aid

     …

     210,973.  Education

“I just talked to somebody very knowledgeable … that thinks that he’s in a villa, a nice comfortable villa in Pakistan.  Not a cave.”

Link

(By the way, Obama wasn’t elected until November, 2008.)

From the Washington Post:

The dispassionate observer might think that Wednesday’s production of the birth certificate could not fail to bury forever the carefully manufactured controversy of the president’s origin. The facts are now as official as facts can possibly get: Barack Hussein Obama II was born at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1961, on the island of Oahu in the state of Hawaii.

But it is the nature of a conspiracy theory that all information must pass through a very discerning, yet simple, filter. Information that is confirmational is accepted; that which is contradictory is rejected.

I learned an adage in my youth that has proven invaluable as I went into adulthood.  It’s the best kind of one of those colorful, folks-y kind of adages… simple enough to memorize easily, and so chock full of that great combination of poignancy, humor, and common sense that you never forget it.  The best part of the adage was that it dealt with critical thinking and the power of an individual mind to come to its own conclusion through the use of the uncorrupted power of logic.  Here it is:

If a million people do a stupid thing, it’s still a stupid thing.

Nowhere is this more apropos than the birther movement.  I think if they were provided with the home movie of Mrs. Obama lying in the stirrups with little Barack’s head crowning, they would determine that it was faked, just like the moon landing, and then demand that Neil Armstrong admit that it was all filmed at a sound stage at Area 51, right next to the hangar where the alien space ship is stored.  What really fascinates me about these people is that not that they are doing something stupid.  Lord knows I’ve made stupid mistakes in my life.  Plenty of them.  However, when presented with seemingly incontravertable proof, iron-clad opposing arguments, or even when you look back on your previous actions, you eventually come to the conclusion of “Wow.  I was a real idiot there wasn’t I?  I mean what the hell was I thinking?”  Birthers are so trapped in their own self-delusion that I doubt they will ever reach that point.

I’m thinking the chances of a best-seller are dwindling.  I’m also thinking that Harvard will soon be re-evaluating it’s Ph.D process.

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Great article.

This is not the debate Christians need to be engaged in. We don’t know. Instead of wasting our time on these types of arguments inside our little Christian world, maybe we should look inside ourselves this Easter.

It is easier to debate these issues and make speculations about others than it is to actually look at ourselves in the mirror. It is always easier to think someone else is worse off then we are.

Life experience tells us that far more is learned from failure than from success.  If that truly is the case, the way BP is handling itself during this the largest environmental crisis in this country’s history is as educationally worthwhile as sitting at the feet of a demented Aristotle.  The next time your company has a disaster where damage control is necessary, just watch what BP did and do the exact opposite, and you’ll be fine.  Let’s look at a few examples from BP’s handbook:

1.  Always underestimate the impact of the actual damage.

2. Always conceal the sources of the actual damage.

3.  Never admit the impact of the damage on its surroundings.

4.  Make your executives and their spokespeople invisible for as long as possible.

5.  When it’s not possible anymore, speak to those you’ve affected in the most condescending tone possible.

6.  When your company has the brains and capabilities to build this…

… make sure to put the reigns on that kind of innovation and engineering so that Bubba and Cletus from Bumfuck GodKnowsWhere can beat you to the punch on ideas for fixing your giant mess.

6.  Make sure you have a long trail of past incompetence, negligence and ineptitude to distract from the current incompetence, negligence, and ineptitude.

7.  Finally, and this is of utmost importance, don’t forget to give yourself a bonus.

Following these simple guidelines will guarantee a firestorm of seemingly never-ending press coverage for your company as well as billions in expenditures and years of bad P.R.