The dismaying truth is that birtherism is part of a larger pattern of rejection of reality that has taken hold of intimidating segments of one of the two political parties that alternate in power in our governing institutions. It is akin to the view ...
By today’s standards King George III was a very mild tyrant indeed. He taxed his American colonists at a rate of only pennies per annum. His actual impact on their personal lives was trivial. He had arbitrary power over them in law and in principle...
A purpose derived from a false premise – that a deity has ordained submission to his will – cannot merit respect. The pursuit of Enlightenment-era goals — solving our world’s problems through rational discourse, rather than through religion a...
If I have my opinion about something, you have your opinion about something, we don't have to fight over it. And we can have a conversation. We can also disagree without being disagreeable, and we can just disagree, which is fine. It doesn't mean tha...
Most Christians believe that Jesus IS God, that Jesus is the same jealous and angry God that abhorred homosexuals and condemned them as "an abomination." He is the same deity that gave instructions on how to beat slaves and the same divine Creator th...
The 'OK Plateau' is that place we all get to where we just stop getting better at something. Take typing, for example. You might type and type and type all day long, but once you reach a certain level, you just don't get appreciably faster. That's be...
The immature conscience is not its own master. It simply parrots the decisions of others. It does not make judgments of its own; it merely conforms to the judgments of others. That is not real freedom, and it makes true love impossible, for if we are...
Henry Hill: If you're part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they're going to kill you, doesn't happen that way. There weren't any arguments or curses like in the movies. See, your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends, the people...
Henry Hill: [narrating; Paul is slicing the garlic with a razor] In prison, dinner was always a big thing. We had a pasta course and then we had a meat or fish. Paulie did the prep work. He was doing a year for contempt, and he had this wonderful sys...
Henry Hill: So what does she do after she hangs up with me? after everything I told her? After all her yeah yeah yeah bullshit? She picks up the phone and calls from the house, now if anbody was listening they'd know everything, they knew a package w...
Jackson: [trying to tell in which grave the gold is hidden] There's no number... there's a name... it's written... [chokes and gasps a couple of times, then] Jackson: Water! Tuco: You talk first, I'll give you water later! Sad Hill Cemetery, okay, in...
Balin: What news from the meeting in Ered Luin? Did they all come? Thorin Oakenshield: Aye, envoys from all seven kingdoms. Balin: Ah, all off them! Dwalin: And what did the Dwarves of the Iron Hills say? Is Dain with us? Thorin Oakenshield: They wil...
[In the middle of a desert. Clark is going crazy as he trots through the hills. Two native Americans on horses watch him] Clark: We pass a damn gas station every hundred yards for a thousand miles, but when you really need one, you end up walking you...
[first lines] Cavalry scout: These hills here are full of Apaches. They've burnt every ranch building in sight. [referring to Indian scout] Cavalry scout: He had a brush with them last night. Says they're being stirred up by Geronimo. Capt. Sickel: G...
Bullet #1: What in Sam Hill? Bullet #2: Eddie Valiant! Why, you're a sight for sore eyes. Bullet #1: I ain't seen you nigh onto five years. Bullet #2: Where've you been? Eddie Valiant: Drunk. You feeling frisky tonight, fellas? Bullet #1, Bullet #2:...
Mr. Strickland: I noticed your band is on the roster for the dance auditions after school today. Why even bother, McFly? You don't have a chance. You're too much like your old man. No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley! Mar...
The anxious wait lasted four years, and the alert ears never despaired of hearing, at any moment, the voice of the great conch shell which would bellow through the hills to announce to all that Macandal had completed the cycle of his metamorphoses, a...
. . . I have decided to forgive myself for pushing the fucking rock up the hill, because, hell, sometimes life is like that. I recognize that things aren’t always clear – not love or value or work – and that it is necessary to wrestle with a ro...
If I had to offer up a one sentence definition of addiction, I'd call it a form of mourning for the irrecoverable glories of the first time...addiction can show us what is deeply suspect about nostalgia. That drive to return to the past isn't an inno...
As the rain hides the stars, as the autumn mist hides the hills, as the clouds veil the blue of the sky, so the dark happenings of my lot hide the shining of Your face from me. Yet, if I may hold Your hand in the darkness, it is enough. Since I know ...
Rather to my surprise, I found myself genuinely indignant at the suggestion that murder was to be reintroduced as a means of political advancement for the first time since the Tudors, and even more indignant that the legal and political establishment...
