…as illustrated by gummi bears. Great pictures. Link courtesy of Boing Boing

Interesting that the Freeman Dyson quote here contradicts the spirit of the quotes from Richard Dawkins and Lisa Saksida. Even more interesting, " If you could teach the world just one thing…"

The Campus Walk fire was another Greensboro tragedy, but perhaps one where reconciliation is already happening. Link courtesy of EdCone.com

Greensboro’s own Truth & Reconciliation Commission is rolling along on its project of uncovering the truth behind the violence of November 3, 1979. Laudable cause. Greensboro has already had occasional reflexive spasms of guilt over that particular crime, and as you can see, they haven’t seemed to do much good as far as reconciliation. I would love to see this commission actually bring about that reconciliation, but I’m not sure where the reconciliation part is going to come in. What is being reconciled, and with whom? Are we to be reconciled with our own memories of a miscarriage of justice, as Klansmen and Nazis walked free because, as a city at that time, we hated the idea of Communists even more? ...

We have a house! :) (You know, trying to figure out whether two words in Latin are correct has seriously exposed how many years it has been since high school for me. I still don’t know if that’s right.)

Recommended: Kanye West’s Lyric “The Way School Need Teachers / The Way Kathie Lee Needed Regis / That’s the Way I Need Jesus,” Adapted for Other Religions by Martin Bell The Next Thing Said After Select Famous Phrases by Marc Tyler Nobleman Translated Thoughts and Questions That Are Running Through a North Korean Refugee’s Mind When He Is Awarded Political Asylum in the United States, Settles Down, Turns on the Television, and the First Thing He Sees Is a Fancy Feast Cat-Food Commercial by David Aldridge Implausible Claims Made by Vanilla Ice in His 1990 No. 1 Hit “Ice Ice Baby” by Doug Erickson 2008 Presidential Stump Speech of Billy Bush, Cousin of George W. Bush and Access Hollywood Entertainment Reporter by Teddy Wayne

Jack Hitt in the LA Times: “How quickly it has all happened — that the media, particularly television, has convinced itself that Christianity is little more than a Republican political action committee.” Link courtesy of This Modern World

I didn’t hear the interview, but it sounds like freshman Senator Richard Burr (NC) did not have kind words for Rep. DeLay’s recent behavior in a recent interview, considering they’re both Republicans: “To attack the judicial process and the system the way he has is inappropriate.” Courtesy of EdCone.com

“Vin Diesel does not own a television. Instead, he derives entertainment by routinely opening the Ark of the Covenant.” “Vin Diesel created South North Korea by drawing a line of chalk 10 miles away from the DMZ and daring anyone to step across.” “Vin Diesel and Casper Van Dien are actually a superhero team that only fights crime in Toledo, Ohio, between 1:33pm and 4:39pm. Only 5 people in the free world know the reason for this.” ...

I haven’t read Thomas Friedman’s new book, The World is Flat. However, if these are actual lines from the book, I may need to, just for the experience: As I left the Infosys campus that evening along the road back to Bangalore, I kept chewing on that phrase: “The playing field is being leveled.” What Nandan is saying, I thought, is that the playing field is being flattened… Flattened? Flattened? My God, he’s telling me the world is flat! ...