Even at 60 years old, or perhaps I should say "in spite of 60 years of accumulated wisdom", I still have my moments of naïveté. I'm in the middle right now of working out one of those moments. This began weeks ago, as a result of Affleck vs Maher/Harris media vexations (thanks…

Well this story starts around a year before the 2014 World Cup, a small TV channel interviewed a seer and, on this interview(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1RtVDNsQ9g), he claimed that Brazil would lose the world cup, that Germany would be the…

I enjoy pondering the things I have no grasp of, I feel like I am in good company. I don't know if these thoughts will lead me to a deeper understanding of the world I live in, but I know that if I were to abandon thinking as a useless waste of time then I would become useless myself.

I find myself tired by people trying to restore my faith. Their version of reality is so truncated, so stifled, that it feels like I am debating life with a puppet wielded by a madman's hand. I cannot…

The benefits of tax evasion enjoyed by the freeloading preachers, ministers, rabbis, & imans of the United States will continue after the 7th district Appeals Court overruled a previous finding that the "longstanding clergy housing allowance was unconstitutional." The Appeals Court once again brought up the issue that the plaintiff (FFRF) has no "standing" in the matter and therefore the case amounts to nothing but a grievance. Bullshit.…

The Rosetta spacecraft that successfully landed on the comet, known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, was off the mark by one kilometer. Not bad when you consider the distance involved to get there. But now it sits on the comet in a location that doesn't allow the sun to recharge the solar array. Game over for now.…

Well the Obama administration managed to gain freedom for the two American bozos detained and in prison in North Korea. Bozo #1 was trying to spread the gospel of Jeebus and arrange for the overthrow of the current regime. I am sure the current Korean god/dictator was not amused.

After his arrival Bozo #2 tore up his visa and announced his desire to repatriate to North Korea. Huh? Seriously? 

I can only hope others around the world not judge the sanity of Americans by the dim…

Let's see..... if you are a conservative in Arkansas you are very happy right now.

Republicans won the Governor's race, Senate race, and more.

Ballot Initiatives:

State wide liquor sales: defeated.

Keep Term Limits intact: defeated

Stricter measures required to get measures on ballot: Passed.

Minimum wage increase: Passed!!!!

We were one of four states that had minimum wage lower than federal limit.

I expect to see many legislative…

Trying to catch up on current events, I watched PBS/Frontline's The Rise of ISIS. I wasn't even aware of how Malaki (Shiia) stoked the fire for the rise of ISIS, but I think we can still blame ourselves for Iraq's destabilization that's led to the current ISIS. Sure, there are percentages of fault to consider, and I won't try to prove that the current atrocities would have been completely avoided if Bush II hadn't…

Has anyone read "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (circa 1902) by William James?

If so, comments.

http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/james/toc.htm

I'm an atheist that feels there's too much invalidation of other people's emotions in the name of atheism. Or maybe a better way to say this is that science discourages emotion from affecting rational thought, and therefore many science minded people discount emotion as empirically measurable, and therefor is irrelevant in discourse about scientific realities.

But human emotions are animal emotions, engaging us with our most fundamental survival needs. Many people even discount that…