"What causes poverty? Nothing. It's the original state, the default and starting point. The real question is, What causes prosperity?"

- Per Bylund

Keep re-reading this until you get all the implications of this fundamental truth.

When I hear people say "you're a racist" I know that it means "I've lost the argument on its merits so now I'm going to call you names."

"My cat’s litter box contents understand Quantum Physics about as well as Sanders understands Economics."

-- FaceBook comment...

This is one thing that I would love for us all to understand:
Don't settle for proving that you're right.
Prove that you're not wrong.

"If you start off your opinion with,
"As a black transgender gay female, I believe,..."
I block out everything before you say, 'I believe.'

Either I agree with your opinion or I don't.
I can see what you look like, but your appearance isn't what gives your opinion legitimacy and cogency."

"The Law of Attraction - What we think we become

"When you think everything is someone else's fault, you will suffer a lot.
When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.
Pride leads to violence and evil. The truly good gaze upon everything with love and understanding".

-- Dalai Lama

"I'm the one guy who says don't force the stupid people to be quiet. I want to know who the morons are. "

-- Mark Cuban

“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”

-- Socrates

Thank you, Facebook contributors...

Atheism will be a religion the day when "off" is a TV channel.

Phil Plait on Chemtrails:

The research is actually rather interesting, and I encourage you to read it.

But as the authors note, it won't make a dent in the conspiracy theories.
The first thing you'll find out when you deal with people like that is that any evidence against them is part of the cover-up.

This is what I call a philosophical cul-de-sac; they've removed themselves from any possible evidence and criticism, and at that point I've learned to walk away.

The great Dr. Thomas Sowell summarized it best:

He said the biggest difference between the average man of the Left and individuals with American values is that the latter directs his life with mature questions. The former avoids them like a child.

The mature man asks three things: 1) At what cost? 2) Compared to what? And 3) What hard evidence do you have?

The man, or rather boy, of the Left asks, "What makes me feel warm, good and squishy inside?

FB Quote: "If you can't speak proper English, it reflects on your intelligence and your ability to make a valid point.

Me and my buddy adhere to that principal."

This is known as "bad luck."

"Quantum mechanics is a theory that a lot of people never really liked.
It made Einstein apoplectic, and some physicists are still trying to strip it of what they see as its philosophically troubling aspects.

But quantum mechanics is still around for a simple reason:
Even the theory's most bizarre and seemingly preposterous predictions have always turned out to be correct.
The same can be said for theories like relativity, the Standard Model of particle physics, the Big Bang, and on down the line.

For centuries, thousands and thousands of very clever people have spent their lives
teasing precious facts out of nature, and building theories that make sense of those facts.

Job No. 1 for a new theory is to do no harm; it must account for what is already known.
In an established scientific field like cosmology, those facts involve elementary particles, star formation,
stellar evolution, galactic structure, general relativity, and so on down a very long list.

You just don't get that watching documentaries on cable TV."

--- Jeff Hester, Astronomy Magazine, June, 2017, p.14.

Is it cause or effect?
Why are so many of the world's richest people, multi-millionaires or billionaires, Liberals, Socialists or Communists?