OVO

I recommend, without hesitation, the song “Wake Up, Go to Work” by Stylex. And don’t be shy about their other songs either.

“The Farmer’s Market on Fairfax and 3rd is a Los Angeles landmark, attracting tourists and everyday Angelinos alike, as well as many famous faces. Among the celebrities I have seen there are Muhammad Ali, Terri Garr, Tyra Banks, Laura Linney, Keenan Ivory Wayans, the guitarist for The Cult, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, and Weird Al Yankovic. But Ann Coulter is the only celebrity I’ve ever spotted at Farmer’s Market that I wound up fucking in the ass, hard.”

Trevor Blake and Stingray, Seaside Oregon USA, 23 April 2005.

How Many Men? Now Count Again… and thank you to Defective Yeti, where you can get more of the same.

From Environmental Heresies by Stewart Brand: “The success of the environmental movement is driven by two powerful forces—romanticism and science—that are often in opposition. The romantics identify with natural systems; the scientists study natural systems. The romantics are moralistic, rebellious against the perceived dominant power, and combative against any who appear to stray from the true path. They hate to admit mistakes or change direction. The scientists are ethicalistic, rebellious against any perceived dominant paradigm, and combative against each other. For them, admitting mistakes is what science is. There are a great many more environmental romantics than there are scientists. That’s fortunate, since their inspiration means that most people in developed socie­ties see themselves as environmentalists. But it also means that scientific perceptions are always a minority view, easily ignored, suppressed, or demonized if they don’t fit the consensus story line.”

Eric Robert Rudolph killed two people and injured nearly two hundred others through public bombings. Rudolph evaded the law for five years, during which time he was provided for by much of the town of Murphy, North Carolina. Rudolph has been captured, confessed to his crimes in court, and been sentenced to four consecutive life terms. There are many news articles about Rudolph right now – but how many of them say that Rudolph killed people because he was a Christian? Very few. They use other names for him.

If they call him a ‘white supremist‘ then they don’t have to call him a Christian. If they call him an ‘extremist‘ they they don’t have to call him a Christian. If they call him a ‘terrorist‘ then they don’t have to call him a Christian. But at the end of the day, Eric Robert Rudolph killed people not because he was a white supremist, an extremist or a terrorist (he was none of these) but because he was a Christian. He attempted to kill (and sometimes did kill) abortion providers and homosexuals because that is what the Bible orders Christians to do (Leviticus 20:13, Exodus 21:22-23) and what Jesus Christ confirmed should be done (Matthew 5:18, Luke 16:17).

Whether it be Eric Rudolph or Osama bin Ladin who as part of their religion kills people then goes into hiding with the cooperation of locals, it is time to consider the value of exempting religion from a final toss onto the same bonfire that slavery, illiteracy, polio and other horrors have already been tossed. Religion will be right at home in those flames, as it expressly favors slavery, illiteracy and polio.

What does religion really cost us? Think of it this way – what would the world be like if our mathematics were suddenly eight hundred to one thousand years more advanced? That’s what the world would be like now if two books by Archimedes, The Method and The Stomachion, had not been lost. The ink of these books had been scraped off the velum by Christians so they could write prayer books on the pages.

For the past few day I have read of hundreds, thousands, and perhaps millions of people praying for the well-being of the Pope. None of the reports I read go on to say that no matter how many people pray for the same thing, and no matter how worthy that thing may be, their prayers are not successful as demonstrated by the continued suffering of the Pope – while on the other hand, secular science and secular medicine are easing the suffering of the Pope. Just think if 1/1000ths of the time and energy that went into prayer was spent teaching onesself math, or picking up litter, or talking out a problem with another person. Just think if prayer was abandoned altogether. It has never worked – not once, ever – and what we invest in prayer is lost forever with no benefit.

Hip Hooray for The Coincidence Theorist’s Guide to 9/11 by Jeff Wells, published at Rigorous Intuition, which came to my attention by way of Scrutiny Hooligans.