This morning, during my morning routine (shower, dress, walk to work, coffee), my mind kept spinning over silly wordplay. Below are the products of boredom and insufficient sleep.

There once was a very bright girl

Who thought she'd give free thought a whirl.

Now her faith slowly dies

As she sees all the lies

Of religion begin to unfurl.

I learned before my chest grew hair

Nature's beauty is without compare.

To explain it with magic

And…

Don't get me wrong, there are some cases where it does need to be said, but I feel people are too quick to level accusations of trolldom.  Furthermore, there is an assumption that because a troll thread continues, the troll was successful, but it doesn't work that way.  If the people in the thread are having fun, or are getting fulfillment out of the dialog the thread generates, it's not a very successful troll.  No one really fell for anything.

Outside of fair warning for others in…

source: BBC News  (pictures and full story)

An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as "religious headgear".



Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons.



Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his…

(for context, the Vancouver riot after the final Cup game last night)

I made the mistake of looking at pictures of the riot before it was time to go to bed. I should have known better, as I always take these things to heart. It's well past any hour where I can still form coherent thoughts. It challenges my faith in people that so many were so weak-willed that they were readily swept up in such hate-filled hysteria. Apparently, there are two 'sapiens' too many in Homo sapiens…

This started out as a response to a thread, but then it morphed into a strange allegory. It's not horribly clever, and is pretty on-the-nose, but it sort of runs through my frustrations over the years.  These sentiments aren't new in the slightest. Many well-intentioned people seem to go through the same struggle because they just weren't fortunate enough to be born more complacent and stupid.



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Let's assume that I am a department manager at a…