These are both parts of an excellent series that Richard Dawkins hosted about religion and the dangers of "non-thinking." Highly recommended.

Update: New links since the old ones had died, apparently.

Direct link to Part 1 for the feedreaders.

Direct link to Part 2 for the feedreaders.

Here's an article on "Hot-Tub Libertarians" by Ryan Sager. Go ahead and check it out, it's not that long.

Here's the part that kills me:

Given that libertarians' traditional home has been in the conservative base of the Republican Party for about five decades, as part of a strained partnership with social conservatives, their almost 50-50 split between the two parties today is big news.

Big news? When the Democrats and the Republicans have, for all intents and purposes, become a single party? And we split down the middle to vote for one or the other because it really doesn't matter which one we give our votes to? This…is big news?

Reminds me of a Bill Hicks routine about the puppet on the left and the puppet on the right. Gah.

Parents of New York, I agree with you. I think this is an extremely important issue.

After all, as long as your kids are getting a crummy public education, they might as well be able to call you and tell you about it during the course of the day.

Found via Drudge.

My character Widge has started up Radio Needcoffee. He can be found on 28.97 if you're in the game.

Here's the transcript of the first show.

You broadcast "I'm Widgett Walls. And this is Radio Needcoffee." on 28.97 MHz…

**Apocalypse Please by Muse plays**

A song here about my experience in setting up shop in Malton

**Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here by 65 Days of Static**

Now something upbeat for you zed bastards in the RRF…

**Monsters by Matchbook Romance**

And now a classic, because it's just quite applicable…

**Life on Mars? By David Bowie**

**Bulletproof by Rilo Kiley**

That's right..nobody's bulletproof..so be careful out there

This song combines 2 things we all need: love and explosives

**Love Like Semtex by the Infadels**

**Promoter (of earthbound causes) by Clutch**

Radio Needcoffee, this is the request line. What's up?

hHARA mHAaHGbag, gHRHG anRA mHRrrARRZRZHARA?

Morrissey, huh? Why am I not surprised?

**You Have Killed Me by Morrissey**

Okay, time to signoff for now. This is Radio Needcoffee.

And I'm Widgett Walls, DJing to the damned.

**How a Resurrection Really Feels by The Hold Steady**

Little knickknacks of information. The tiniest little pinpricks into my head. That's what I keep walking away from things with.

For example, out of this entire story about Wal-Mart and their supposed Legion of Infodoom HQ or whatever, here's the bit that leaps out at me:

The prefix tera comes from the Greek word for monster, and a terabyte is a trillion bytes, the basic unit of computer storage.

I had no idea that's where "tera" came from. Did you? You probably did, didn't you? Anyway, there's a lot going on in my head right now.

First up, two ideas for books showed up. One while I was in Manhattan and it won't leave me alone. The second is something I wrote on a lark years back that somebody mentioned offhandedly that it could become a book unto itself.

Then, I'm working on two new things that will hopefully see fruition in a bit. One next week, mayhap. We'll see.

And the site looks like shit. It's one of those things that when I come here and I start looking around and what I need to do, my brain just shuts right the hell off. Maybe once I get the contest engine up at Needcoffee I can come back here and start cleaning up. I'm starting to hate what this looks like. So who knows what's coming?

I just know I need to sleep a lot less. Getting old really fucking sucks.

Yes, must use this for something.

Found via Neatorama.

This.

And more here.

I know exactly what to use this for. And funny that the guy's name is Martin.

Thanks to ScottC for the headsup.