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The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity.
-- Richard Dawkins

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Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.
– Red (The Shawshank Redemption)

(WIL WHEATON dot VOX)

I’m not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I’m sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do.
— Sen. Kit Bond (R-Missouri), explaining why his fellows had to lock arms with him and grant telecom immunity.

John Edward’s marital infidelity: A serious problem for Obama.

John McCain’s marital infidelity: Not a problem for McCain.

Can someone please explain this?

Look at those morons! I paid my taxes over a year ago!
– Homer J. Simpson

Christmas is an awfulness that compares favorably with the great London plague and fire of 1665-66. No one escapes the feelings of mortal dejection, inadequacy, frustration, loneliness, guilt and pity. No one escapes feeling used by society, by religion, by friends and relatives, by the utterly artifical responsiblities of extending false greetings, sending banal cards, reciprocating unsolicated gifts, going to dull parties, putting up with acquaintances and family one avoids all the rest of the year…in short, of being brutalized by a “holiday” that has lost virtually all of its original meanings and has become a merchandising ploy for color tv set manufacturers and ravagers of the woodlands.
– Harlan Ellison

While eight flying reindeer are a hard pill to swallow, our Christmas story remains relatively simple. Santa lives with his wife in a remote polar village and spends one night a year traveling around the world. If you’re bad, he leaves you coal. If you’re good and live in America, he’ll give you just about anything you want. We tell our children to be good and send them off to bed, where they lie awake, anticipating their great bounty. A Dutch parent has a decidedly hairier story to relate, telling his children, “Listen, you might want to pack a few of your things together before you go to bed. The former bishop from Turkey will be coming along with six to eight black men. They might put some candy in your shoes, they might stuff you in a sack and take you to Spain, or they might just pretend to kick you. We don’t know for sure, but we want you to be prepared.” This is the reward for living in Holland. As a child you get to hear this story, and as an adult you get to turn around and repeat it. As an added bonus, the government has thrown in legalized drugs and prostitution–so what’s not to love about being Dutch?
– David Sedaris (Esquire, December 2002)

Every time you say “Happy Holidays,” an angel gets AIDS.
– Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Absolutely, as long as it’s not that terribly depressing one about the chap who gets born on Christmas Day, shoots his mouth off about everything under the sun, and then comes a cropper with a couple of rum coves on top of a hill in Johnny Arab land.

— from Black Adder’s Christmas Carol

(via email)

What we don’t see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.
— Rudolph W. Giuliani (1994)

the albany project:: Quick! Who Said This?

And finally, New Rule: Conservatives have to stop rolling their eyes every time they hear the word, “France.” Like just calling something “French” is the ultimate argument winner. As if to say, “What can you say about a country that was too stupid to get on board with our wonderfully-conceived and brilliantly-executed war in Iraq?”

Yow! Am I having fun yet?