Coincidences and Regular Incidences

I can prove that presidents can't pardon themselves. Pretend that Trump goes to Biden's inauguration, and immediately after the swearing-in, Biden strangles him and pardons himself. Are proponents of presidential self-pardons willing to accept that Biden couldn't be punished? Of course not. That's why it's nonsense.

November 15, 2020

...

I was in a graveyard yesterday and noticed that a person buried there was born about a month after me. For a second I felt like I just had 22 extra years of life. I looked up his obituary and saw that he died in a plane crash. He has a picture of a small plane on his grave, seems like he was an amateur pilot. As I was reflecting on this, I noticed a small plane similar to the one pictured on his grave, flying almost exactly over top of me. Strange. What does it mean? It means that sometimes there are coincidences.

...

To paraphrase total non-briber Trump- "I will give you money in the form of military aid (that I know you desperately need in your war with Russia) if you produce negative coverage of my potential opponent of the 2020 election, who happens to be the one I am the most vulnerable against."

What if Trump said that he'll give him aid only if he personally gives him a million dollars? Would he be worthy of impeachment then? Because what he did is worse- he tried to get him to help win the next election, which is worth more than a million dollars.

November 15, 2019

...

Haha, I was just messaging someone and glanced into the "message request" folder. Someone named Gary Johnson messaged me something insightful a year ago:

"F U, F-off! Brainwashed Dumbocrap Moron."

I wonder what he was mad about! And anyway, I prefer to be known as an Independumbdent Moron. I'd expect nothing less from old Gary Jerkson.

November 15, 2018

...

At the board meeting tonight Casey told the farmers he was in desperate need of leeks. I told him I didn't know where he could get a leek, but I knew where he could take a leak- down the hall to the right. Well received. Great crowd tonight.

November 15, 2017

...

Ben Carson thinks he could potentially cripple Trump's presidency if he took a cabinet position, due to his lack of government experience. Extrapolate that. So if we elected Carson president, he MUST believe that he could have crippled the world.

November 15, 2016

...

Ben Carson said he doesn't think he's qualified to run Health and Human Services. His business manager said "Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency." BUT HE THOUGHT HE COULD BE PRESIDENT???

November 15, 2016

....

Maybe Congress should pass something important and symbolic to show solidarity with the French... like maybe change the name of their cafeteria freedom fries to freedom frenches or something.

November 15, 2015

...

An 11-year-old dog or a one-week-old human, which do you think has the stronger brainwaves?

November 15, 2013

...

I was just fumbling with a childproof medicine bottle while holding a baby, trying not to drop her. For the sake of eliminating irony from the world they should make them simple to open.

November 15, 2013

...

William Tecumseh Sherman began his March to the Sea on this day in 1864.

...

On this day in 1965, Craig Breedlove set a land speed record of 600.601 mph in his car, the Spirit of America, at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. Don Draper attempted it a few years later.

...

The Battle of Guadalcanal ended with a decisive Allied victory on this day in 1942.

...

Clyde McPhatter was born on this day in 1932. One of my favorite oldies, in fact one of my favorite songs of all time- Lover Please.

LOVER PLEASE

Lover please, please come back

Don't take a train coming down the track

Don't, please don't, don't leave me

Don't leave me in misery

You would never hold me so near

You would never call me "Dear"

Don't you know I'd die for you?

Now you're gone, that's what I'll do

Lover please, please come back

Don't take a train coming down the track

Don't, please don't, don't leave me

Don't leave me in misery

All those stories, not too long

About a love that went all wrong

The girl left the boy, just as bad

Now she's gone, she's so sad

Lover please, please come back

Don't take a train coming down the track

Don't, please don't, don't leave me

Don't leave me in misery

You would never hold me so near

You would never have called me "Dear"

Don't you know I'd die for you?

Now you're gone, that's what I'll do

Lover please, please come back

Don't take a train coming down the track

Please don't, don't leave me

Don't leave me in misery

...

The wonderful Anni-Frid Lyngstad of ABBA was born on this day in 1945.

All-time classic, Waterloo:

https://youtu.be/Sj_9CiNkkn4

...

"Macho Man" Randy Savage was born on this day in 1952. I remember when he was introduced into the WWF. What an exciting guy!

"I'm the tower of power, too sweet to be sour. I'm funky like a monkey. Sky's the limit and space is the place!"

...

Johannes Kepler left this one this day in 1630. 

"I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses."

...

Margaret Mead left us on this day in 1978.

“To the living, I am gone,

To the sorrowful, I will never return,

To the angry, I was cheated,

But to the happy, I am at peace,

And to the faithful, I have never left.

I cannot speak, but I can listen.

I cannot be seen, but I can be heard.

So as you stand upon a shore gazing at a beautiful sea,

As you look upon a flower and admire its simplicity,

Remember me.

Remember me in your heart:

Your thoughts, and your memories,

Of the times we loved,

The times we cried,

The times we fought,

The times we laughed.

For if you always think of me, I will never have gone.”

...

http://www.cracked.com/article_20177_5-shocking-side-effects-foods-you-eat-every-day.html

Interesting, alcohol boosts your subconscious memory: "The various components of this process are still being explored, but researchers have already gone so far as to suggest that alcoholics may actually not be addicted to alcohol itself, but rather to the memory of the tuned-in state that booze gives to their subconscious."

November 15, 2013

...

The Onion- No One Should Have The Right To Die Until God Is Done Toying With Them

http://onion.com/117mHXv

November 15, 2014

...

TED Talk- Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents'- James Flynn

Answer: we can think abstractly, hypothetically, rationally and in universals.

http://www.ted.com/talks/james_flynn_why_our_iq_levels_are_higher_than_our_grandparents

November 15, 2014

...

TED Talk- The joy of lexicography- Erin McKean

If I learned nothing else from this, I learned that "erinaceous" means "like or relating to the hedgehog."

http://www.ted.com/talks/erin_mckean_redefines_the_dictionary

November 15, 2014

....

Dream come true!

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/1237-the-before-trilogy

Nov 15, 2016, 8:01 PM

...

Studs Terkel to Jon Stewart, paraphrased. (This clip crosses my mind all the time.)

"We were raised by argument. Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense and it sold hundreds of thousands of copies. It taught us that you should treat royalty as if you can tell them to bugger off. And we have a president, and you can tell him to bugger off! And that's being an American! I'm also an agitator."

November 15, 2018

...

...

Palindromes!!!

No, sir, away! A papaya war is on.

In word salad, alas, drown I.

Swap God for a janitor; rot in a jar of dog paws.

Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas!

Gabe's on a nosebag.

Dog food lid = dildo of God.

...

More Ebaum's World- 28 Things You've Probably Never Thought About

You are totally blind for hours every day, but Saccadic Masking makes you unaware of it

The human brain is the most complex thing known humans, according to the human brain.

Precious area is bigger than Pluto's.

Mammoth's still walked the Earth when the pyramids were built.

Every decision you've ever made in your life has brought you to this exact moment, reading this exact sentence.

...

Apparently Aayan Hirsi Ali became a Christian.

https://www.thefp.com/p/ayaan-hirsi-ali-why-i-am-now-christian-atheism

It's intellectually bankrupt to become a Christian for pragmatic reasons. Reminds me of Pascal's Wager, jumping over any actual reason for belief, focusing instead on the desirable ends. 

In a world where the majority didn't believe in God, apparently she would then see atheism as the principle that would unite us. She's allowing her belief to be defined by the crowd. It doesn't even strike me as an actual belief, more like a hope. We can hope that things are true, but until our beliefs are defined by reason, we can expect absurdities to follow.

Believing in Russell's teapot that orbits the sun might be useful, and it might even unite the world, but it doesn't suggest that it actually exists. She seems to be saying that she wants the world united, therefore God exists. If she's just saying that she follows the teachings of Jesus, that's a different story, but a much weaker point 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Michael Shermer always says it best:

https://michaelshermer.substack.com/p/why-i-am-not-a-christian

...

Manson- I don't wanna take my time going to work, I got a motorcycle and a sleeping bag and ten or fifteen girls. What the hell I wanna go off and go to work for? Work for what? Money? I got all the money in the world. I'm the king, man. I run the underworld, guy. I decide who does what and where they do it at. What am I gonna run around like some teeny bopper somewhere for someone elses money? I make the money man, I roll the nickels. The game is mine. I deal the cards

...

Ricky Gervais- If I believed in an all powerful God, I'd also believe he could murder innocent people without me getting involved and doing his dirty work.

...

Hobbes- "Hell is truth seen too late."

...

David Shields, in How Literature Saved My Life- "A myth is an attempt to reconcile an intolerable contradiction."

...

Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor- "When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die."

...

Sagan- "Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?"

...

Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle- "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die."