Past Children Are the Present

I just blew Zuzu's mind. She asked me how many people in her class couldn't blow a bubble and I said ten. "Yes!" Then she asked me how many people could blow a bubble and I said six. "YES!!!" 

No big whoop, I guessed ten and knew there are sixteen people in her class. 

I told her I knew all kinds of things. She asked me to divide 6000 by 100,000. I was thrilled, I knew it! I said, "0.01666667." She couldn't have been less impressed. And good for her, I was wrong. It's 0.001666667. Disappointed in myself.

November 6, 2021

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If you ever want to see the best of society, put a big bandage on your face and go to the grocery store. People will part out of your way as if you are Moses and they're the Red Sea. They will strike up conversations as if you are already best friends. Go to the checkout with 10 items, and someone with 3 will all but beg you to cut in front of them. I'm going to start the Bandage Face Party- we'll all walk around with our faces in bandages all day proving to everybody how much we actually care about each other.

November 6, 2021

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Zuzu asked me a really good question, "How can we have red, blue, and yellow even though we can't make them?" 

Reminds me a little bit of the greatest question of all time, "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

Then she ask me another question, "How does the turn signal know which way we're going to turn, even though it doesn't have a brain?"

Ummm... some of her questions are better than others.

November 6, 2020

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Was it exceptionally warm out today, or was that just Trump cooking up a Reichstag fire?

November 6, 2020

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Maybe if someone is convicted of voting illegally they should go to jail for a week. And maybe if someone is convicted of helping suppress a thousand peoples' votes, they should go to jail for a thousand weeks.

November 6, 2018

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In depth analysis of separation of families seeking asylum. Should be required viewing for anybody curious how this can affect children, or what other options there might have been. Perhaps the simplest fact that gets lost in all this is that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in America. Another fact that gets lost- seeking asylum is not illegal, so we're punishing children, including some babies, when their parents didn't even commit a crime.

"Family separation is perhaps the most emblematic moment of his presidency so far. It was cruel, sloppy, needless, racist and ultimately exactly what we should have expected."

And he has said he might bring it back, so what side are you on?

https://fb.watch/gDHP9_01_S/

November 6, 2018

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Our conscious self is not the generator of our thoughts, thoughts think themselves. We are a spectator to our thoughts as they emerge. We can't decide to think a thought because we would have needed to think it initially in order to have a decision on whether or not to think it. - paraphrasing a conversation between Robert Wright and Sam Harris, on Sam's podcast

November 6, 2017

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Thomas Jefferson- "I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master."

Two problems with that- he must have forgot the women and the slaves. 

But two things so relevant and timely too- this is still an experiment, and we will not tolerate a master. Forget Tuesday, what will happen Wednesday?

November 6, 2016

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Meet the Press reminds us, "If I win I'll lock her up, if she wins it was rigged," is third world talk.

November 6, 2016

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Meet the Press debut on this day in 1947, 75 years ago. I watched the show every Sunday, including this morning.

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On defeating ISIS, Trump said, "The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families." That actually does sound like something some know-nothing know-it-all would say in a locker room.

November 6, 2016

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Gretel Clementine Athena Kreider, born at 1:42pm on 11-5-13, 7 lb 6oz, 19 and 1/4 inches, for you stat enthusiasts out there.

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Prediction for tomorrow's headline: "Congressional Approval Rating at 8%, 92% of Incumbents Reelected."

November 6, 2012

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One positive thing I can say about this campaign cycle- at least there are no witches running for senate. Or did that lady say she wasn't a witch? I can never remember. Any of you remember if she floated or not?

November 6, 2012

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Man, I just walked up the stairs and saw a full-fledged ghost walk right through the living room. Then I retraced my steps and realized it was a reflection of a lamp in my glasses. And then I mopped up the stairs.

November 6, 2010

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I have the same thought each time I walk in a KMart- "I'm in the modern world, but I'm not of the modern world." Then I bought $4 of candy and left.

November 6, 2010

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Errol Morris- "Stupid people are going to take over the world, but that doesn't mean we should make it easy for them. (And what if I'm one of them?)"

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Tonight I steered a handlebar mustache right off of my face.

November 6, 2009

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On this day in 1933, in Racine, Wisconsin, the Dillinger gang robbed the American Bank & Trust Co. of $27,000, wounding two people, and taking hostage another three.

"We're having too good a time today. We ain't thinking about tomorrow."

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Walter Johnson was born on this day in 1887.

"I throw as hard as I can when I think I have to throw as hard as I can."

Ty Cobb on Walter Johnson- "The first time I faced him, I watched him take that easy windup. And then something went past me that made me flinch. The thing just hissed with danger.”

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Mike Nichols joined us on this day in 1931.

“The only safe thing is to take a chance.”

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The country singer, Stonewall Jackson, joined us on this day in 1932, born in Tabor City, North Carolina. He's most famous for his non-ABBA hit, Waterloo:

https://youtu.be/_-QQI6lb_Hg

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The inimitable Ethan Hawke joined us on this day in 1970.

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The beautiful Gene Tierney left us on this day in 1991.

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Coffee- The Greatest Addiction

Great reasons to never not drink coffee again.

https://youtu.be/OTVE5iPMKLg

November 6, 2011

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The Marginalian- Paul Goodman On the Nine Types I'd Silence

"Not speaking and speaking are both human ways of being in the world, and there are kinds and grades of each. There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy; the sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face; the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul, whence emerge new thoughts; the alive silence of alert perception, ready to say, “This… this…”; the musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity; the silence of listening to another speak, catching the drift and helping him be clear; the noisy silence of resentment and self-recrimination, loud and subvocal speech but sullen to say it; baffled silence; the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos."

https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/13/paul-goodman-silence/

November 6, 2016

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Michael Shermer- Gun Science

Many pro-gun people are heralding the Texas mass shooting as evidence that the the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Consider this though. If someone gets a gun for self-defense, that gun is 22 times more likely to be used in a criminal assault, an accidental death or injury, a suicide attempt or a homicide. The more training, the better the odds... but of course everybody always thinks they are better than average at everything, and it would take a world of change to just get the odds down to 50/50.

https://michaelshermer.com/2013/05/gun-science

November 6, 2017

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Just in case anybody needs to see this. Although a really good strategy to get to the truth faster, is just to assume that the president is totally full of shit.

You might notice everything he's doing now, is all the stuff he said he was going to do before the election even happened. Narratives are paramount to Trump, not facts. He said it himself months ago, actually calling the election for himself... "Either I win, or it's rigged."

It looks like he's losing, therefore it's rigged!

Does he really think that it's that unlikely that 80 to 90% of the people in downtown Philly are voting against him??? (Legally, by mail, because of the pandemic.) Of course not. "Election fraud," two words, end of story.

Ukraine was a "witch hunt."

He's a rich, brave genius... he'll tell you himself.

And we're "rounding the turn" on covid. (Always do the hand motion, people need a visual.)

Everyday is a new "Mission Accomplished."

Oh, and did you hear? Obama wasn't born here, he was an illegitimate president. He was also the president if Isis.

Facts are for suckers and losers when you can just tell a story!

www.inquirer.com/news/trump-fact-check-pennsylvania-ballot-philadelphia-president-20201105.html

November 6, 2020

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James Dean- “Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.”

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Nietzsche- "He who cannot obey himself will be commanded."

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Oscar Wilde- "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

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Campbell- "Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again."

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Locke- "Few men think, yet all will have opinions. Hence men’s opinions are superficial and confused."

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Norm Macdonald- What kind of jacket did Hitler wear? A fuhrer coat.

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