Dead and stupid
Remember, when you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It is only painful for others. The same applies when you are stupid.
Maj. Gen. Charles Rogers removed from defense website for bravery while black
"It was a bright, cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen."
-- Opening line of Orwell's prescient 1984
Thank you to Colin Povey for pointing out one of the latest Orwellian acts of the current administration: removing a medal of honor winner Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers from the defense-dot-gov website. Why? No reason was given. We can only guess. But because the government website altered the word "medal" to "deimedal" in their page URL the clear implication is Rogers was removed because the man was black and therefore no longer considered worthy of his honor and position. 《Insert explicative here》.
From the Gaurdian article (which I've easily verified from multiple other sources):
"Rogers, who was awarded the Medal of Honor by then president Richard Nixon in 1970, served in the Vietnam war, where he was wounded three times while leading the defense of a base.
According to the West Virginia military hall of fame, Rogers was the highest-ranking African American to receive the medal."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/16/defense-department-blac…
I've verified with web-archive-dot-org (an incredible resource that takes snapshots over time of basically the entire internet, so that once on the internet it's a thing forever) that as recently as March 5, 2025 the defense-dot-gov website did indeed have a page honoring Rogers, but by March 15, 2025 it was gone. The gov URL, which is in the Guardian piece, (either with or without the word "medal" replaced with "deimedal") now returns a "404 page not found" message.
Commentary
Creationists and pigeons
Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon—it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.
In an Amazon.com review for Eugenie Scott’s book Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction.
Illegal
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
Conversation with Melih Esenbel, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, March 10, 1975, The Foreign Minister's Office, Ankara, Turkey
The cards you're dealt
Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her; but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.
Science and lying
Science is what we do to keep from lying to ourselves
Not perfect
It distresses us to return work which is not perfect.
From a note he once got back from Sycamore Cleaners upon struggling to clean his leather jacket. "So I'm having that on my tombstone", as he told to David Letterman
Reality defined
I can think of nothing more gallant, even though again and again we fail, than attempting to get at the facts; attempting to tell things as they really are. For at least reality, though never fully attained, can be defined. Reality is that which, when you don’t believe in it, doesn’t go away.
Reality and technology
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.
Everything is connected
Realize that everything connects to everything else.