Posted by Pam Spaulding September 21, 2007 in Uncategorized, Religion, Education, Boggles the Mind, Science
Sherri Shepherd proves what political consultants know all too well — too many Americans are woefully ignorant — and, worse, apathetic about their ignorance — and that makes it easy to manipulate the sheeple with "truthiness" and repetitive marketing to drill the desired "opinion" into their feeble brains.
This exchange says it all — Whoopi Goldberg asked Ms. Shepherd, who does not believe in evolution, whether the world is flat.
The following day she clarified her remarks by saying she had a “senior brain-poopy moment.” I'm not sure that Elisabeth Hasselbeck helped her out much with this additional defense:
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Is the world flat?
SHERRI SHEPHERD: Is the world flat? (laughter)
GOLDBERG: Yes.
SHEPHERD: …I Don't know.
GOLDBERG: What do you think?
SHEPHERD: I… I never thought about it, Whoopi. Is the world flat? I never thought about it.
HASSELBECK: I don’t think you have to learn to be perfect either… you’re just yourself. I thought you handled that so well yesterday. You said ‘You know I actually, my mind is full of what’s my son doing right now, what am I going to feed him for dinner, I’m a mom.’ Like I think that’s completely fine to say ‘You know what, today I don’t care if the earth is round or flat. I may not care tomorrow, I just wanna know that…’
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A globe would make a nice gift for her.
Oh.My.F*#k.This is beyond satire.*Well,gee,I never thought about whether the earth is flat or round,cause I just unquestionly accept what Daddy/hubby/priest tells me.Tee-Hee! And my teeny-tiny-girly brain’s capacity is all taken up with wondering what kind og healthy greeny-stuff to serve with thid evening’s meat-and-potatoes.*Excuse me while I puke.
Weird. And here I was thinking that your IQ didn’t automatically plummet the moment you give birth. There I go giving women credit again . . .
Oh.My.F*#k.This is beyond satire.*Well,gee,I never thought about whether the earth is flat or round,cause I just unquestionly accept what Daddy/hubby/priest tells me.Tee-Hee! And my teeny-tiny-girly brain’s capacity is all taken up with wondering what kind og healthy greeny-stuff to serve with thid evening’s meat-and-potatoes.*Excuse me while I puke.
Oh.My.F*#k.This is beyond satire.*Well,gee,I never thought about whether the earth is flat or round,cause I just unquestionly accept what Daddy/hubby/priest tells me.Tee-Hee! And my teeny-tiny-girly brain’s capacity is all taken up with wondering what kind og healthy greeny-stuff to serve with thid evening’s meat-and-potatoes.*Excuse me while I puke.
ouch… why were they asking her if the world is flat?
Shades of the niece’s boyfriend a few years back who, after my informing him that the Soviet Union was our ally in World War 2, retorted with “Well, excuse ME for not being an expert in Russian history.”
Yes, because only an historian can be expected to retain such trivia as the major combatants in history’s bloodiest conflict, just as only childless women are aware that your boat won’t plunge into space if you sail too far.
the frog queen: Goldberg asked Shepherd that after Shepherd stated “I don’t believe in evolution, period”. Link to video with the context. Good for Whoopi!
I don’t get Hasselbeck’s “defense” - how can anyone forget that we live on a globe, even if they have other things on their mind? It’s like she should be proud of being ignorant because she’s a mother.
Wow. I always thought people were joking when they said there were people who thought the earth was flat. Although, I can’t figure out if that’s what she thinks or if she just doesn’t know or care.
karpad explains. Basically, she was saying she doesn’t believe in evolution; she believes in the Bible. Well, the Bible presents a flat Earth. To be consistent, a creationist should also be a flat-earther.
The earth can be both round and flat — like a cheese pizza. And nobody says “the world is flat;” it’s always “the earth is flat,” as in the Flat-Earth Society.
They’re real, although this woman was just playing “I’m a mother so I don’t have to think about science.”
I hesitate to link to any of their websites because I can’t tell which are real and which are hoaxes. The websites might all be hoaxes these days for all I know.
But they did exist in modern times, and may still, and their basis for their claims is interesting reading, imho.
Except for Thomas Friedman, sweatshop apologist.
Mark -
She was being disingenuous - she saw the question Whoopie was going to ask[*] next coming from a mile away, didn’t have an answer for it, and decided to look ignorant rather than be unable to answer Whoopie’s argument.
Ironically, Ms. Sheppard’s answer makes her defense of creationism seem even stupider (if that is in fact possible). If it’s not worth her effort to bother remembering whether the earth is round or flat, why bother with caring about evolution or creationism? They’re both on about the same level of needed day-to-day knowledge for most folks.
* - The question is - why would you believe that the world is round on the say-so of scientists but not give the same deference for evolution. By claiming ignorance you cut off that line of attack. You cut it of by making yourself look like an ignoramous at best, a mendacious tool at worst, but there’s no point in continuing to have any kind of discussion about science with someone who won’t acknowledge the roundness of the Earth - something that has been known since at least the 3rd century B.C.E. and only really because a sticking point sometime around the turn of the 20th century with the rise of American fundamentalist Bible interpretation.
Could we PLEASE nix the flashy ad so I can read this thread and not have a seizure?
Silly you! The woman doesn’t worry about trivial things like basic intellectual curiosity! Her mind is occupied by the *much more important* work of having babies, and caring for those babies, and busying herself with hours and hours of unpaid labor while the menfolk handle all that boring is-the-Earth-round stuff. Just as the world should be!
…yeah, as dumbfounding as Sherri Shepherd is, in a Miss South Carolina way, I’m much more horrified by Hasselbeck part.
Laurie Anderson, “Langue d’Amour”
Let’s see. Uh, it was on an island. And there was a snake.
And this snake had legs. And he could walk all around the island.
Yes that’s true. A snake with legs.
And the man and the woman were on the island too.
And they were not … very …
smart. But they were happy as …
clams. Yes.
Let’s see. Uh… then one evening the snake was walking about in the garden and he was talking to himself and he saw the woman and they started to talk. And they became friends.
Very good friends.
And the woman liked the snake very much. Because when he
talked, he made little noises with his tongue, and his long
tongue
was lightly licking about his lips.
Like there was a little fire inside his mouth and the flame
would come dancing out of his mouth.
And the woman liked this
very
much.
And after that, she was bored with the man.
Because no matter what happened,
he was always as happy as a clam.
What did the snake say? Yes, what was he saying?
Okay. I will tell you.
The snake told her things about the world. He told her about
the time there was a big typhoon on the island
and all the sharks came out of the water. Yes.
They came out of the water and they walked right into your house
with their big white teeth.
And the woman heard these things. And she was in love.
And the man came out and said We have to go now.
And the woman did not want to go. Because she was a hothead.
Because she was a woman in love.
Anyway, they got into their boat and left the island.
But they never stayed anywhere very long.
Because the woman was restless. She was a hothead.
She was a woman in love.
And this is not a story my people tell.
It is something I know myself.
And when I do my job, I am thinking about these things.
Because when I do my job, that is what I think about.
Oooo la la la la. Voici. Voilà
Ooo la la la la. Voici le langage de l’amour.
Oooo la la la la. La la la.
Voici. Voilà. La la.
Voici le langage de l’amour.
Ah! Comme ci, comme ça. Voilà. Voilà.
Voici le langage de l’amour.
Voici le langage de l’amour.
Attends! Attends! Attends!
Attends! Attends! Attends!
Écoute. Écoute. Écoute.
Ooooo la la la la. Ooo la la la la.
They’re both on about the same level of needed day-to-day knowledge for most folks.
I think that’s a stupid argument– i don’t think you’re making it, NonyNony, but thanks for pointing it out
It’s right up there with, “I’m not thinking about basic facts that i shouldn’t even have to think about, i’m thinking about how to make sure i gender myself properly/make dinner/get to Jimmy’s soccer practice on time.” Whoopi Goldberg was probably not really expecting her to answer “No” or “I don’t know” but the fact that she did just highlights how ridiculous it is for people to ever claim they can’t know/don’t know the world is round or that evolution and global warming are happening because OMG science is the gay.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you don’t have time to gain enough education to know the world is round because your job of mothering is so time consuming, why in the name of god are you a member of the cast of a national television show? You’re not a housewife, you’re a goddamned on air personality
Ah, never mind the last part of my comment. I assumed the Shepherd thing was more of a flub/caught offguard situation, but now I’ve seen the original video and she played the Mom card right from the start, so they’re equally horrifying.
Seriously: Get Firefox and install the Ad Block extension and the filter set updater .
(Ads? What ads?)
Maybe she and that beauty contestant from North Carolina can get together with Hasselbeck and start their own morning chat show.
Peggy, sorry I’m at work and I couldn’t see the video
More reasons why I don’t waste my time watching this show- pure idiotic drivel. I’m at a loss why it even HAS an audience- but then again, I’ve never understood the draw of Oprah, Dr Phil, Judge Judy et al. Daytime TV is mindless and weird.
To get the collective I.Q. of the women on the View, do you add the I.Q.’s of Whoopi and Babs, then subtract 300?
“SHEPHERD: I tell you what I’ve thought about. How I’m going to feed my child–
WALTERS: Well you can do both.
SHEPERD: …how I’m going to take care of my family. The world, is the world flat has never entered into, like that has not been an important thing to me.”
First of all, I love Walter’s interjection there — “you *can* think about the state of your environment while feeding your child. Really”.
But really, I think the logical question after such a statements as Sheperd’s would be to ask, “Then why are you here? If merely *thinking* about something other than your son interferes with your ability to care for him, then surely sitting here outside of your house and away from child-nurturing duties is boardering on child endangerment.”
Beth,
Adblock has not been updated in a long time, as it is no longer maintained. Eventually there will be a new version of Firefox that it doesn’t work with. Adblock Plus is the way to go now, as it is still being updated.
Thank you, Andrea! I’ve been trying to figure out for two days now what would be an appropriate response to a statement like Sheperd’s (blogging my confusion here: http://tinyurl.com/2sahhk). I think you nailed it.
Yeeesh that whole thing made my brain hurt. And I cannot believe Hasselbeck said she handled the situation “perfectly.”
Basically, she was saying she doesn’t believe in evolution; she believes in the Bible. Well, the Bible presents a flat Earth. To be consistent, a creationist should also be a flat-earther.
And believe that pi = 3 rather than 3.14149… It’s right there, in the passage about Solomon’s bathtub: it was a circular tub, 7 (measurement) in diameter and 21 (measurement) around.
I guess we’ll start seeing fundies challenge math classes now, too…
Ah, okay, sorry for the misdirect — I ask that my extensions update automatically whenever I update Firefox so it looks like the Adblock switchover happened for me without me really noticing it.
Of course, that’s yet another reason Firefox rocks (and unlike Windows, I trust it to only give me USEFUL updates)!
SHEPERD: …how I’m going to take care of my family. The world, is the world flat has never entered into, like that has not been an important thing to me.”
Maybe she’s like Homer Simpson.
Homer: “Everytime I learn something new it pushes out something old. Remember that time I took a wine-making course and forgot how to drive?”
Marge: “You were drunk!”
Homer: “And how!”
Not to derail about ads — but I like my Opera — and frankly, I don’t dislike ads. They help pay for the site, occasionally I will follow an Ad (though not for those nasty John Q ads) and find something interesting or useful. So…. no thanks. I can handle most ads. Just not something that gives me a headache or tries to shut down my brain.
If don’t have the time to gain even THAT amount of education, you shouldn’t be raising children.
Oh, I dunno…the Chimp in Chief is (supposedly) running the free world, yet he thinks Nelson Mandela is dead.*
*Much to the surprise of Mr. Mandela.
OK, so the President is an idiot, and has trouble with the English language. This is true. But, according to the quote in that article, so is anyone that believes he meant that Nelson Mandela is dead. It’s pretty ovbvious that he was using Mandela as a shorthand for someone who would try to unite the country. It was a pretty stupid thing to say, but come on.
The View did offer a bit of fun when you got to watch Rosie really go after Elizabeth on occasion. Since she left… meh.
As for the web ads, I was okay in the early days of the web, but then so many of them started moving and blinking and doing any garish thing possible to grab my attention — I just can’t seem to “tune out” movement in the periphery of pages (apparently other people can, but it drives me insane). So I either had to start blocking or stop surfing the web altogether.
Mighty Ponygirl:
You might try Nuke Anything Enhanced - it allows you to remove an object without blocking it outright.
NonyNony’s right. A fundie can’t engage in any kind of argument in which their opponent can have a valid point. The fundie can never say to a secular character, “you’re right” about anything, as it would weaken the distinction between the two camps.
The acrimony of our current political climate has actually reached the point where, as NonyNony says, fundies would rather be seen as mendacious tools than weak enough to give one sliver of credit or respect to the evil humanists, whatever the subject, whatever the venue.
I believe we’re at the point they reached in Jonestown, where the last 50 or so hadn’t drunk the koolaid, but would have, anyway, even if they weren’t at gunpoint. Rightwingers would gladly follow Bush over the cliff, especially if they were handcuffed to a hippy heathen egghead.
This whole thing has explanied that last 28% to me. They are too busy fixing dinner to know if the Earth is round. They certainly can’t be expected to remember who actually attacked us and stuff.
Dingdingding! YES! This is something that drives me nuts. The fundie gender breakdown makes women into children but ALSO claims that women need to teach their children. If women are infantilized by stifling their desire for knowledge and “surrendering” to their husbands, what in the hell good are they to their children? A woman who takes care of her home shouldn’t be a fucking moron, unless she and her husband want to raise a bunch of fucking morons. Might be good for the televangelists and GOP politicians, but it’s no good for the rest of us.
That’s a pretty good description of Hasselbeck.
“If women are infantilized by stifling their desire for knowledge and “surrendering” to their husbands, what in the hell good are they to their children? A woman who takes care of her home shouldn’t be a fucking moron, unless she and her husband want to raise a bunch of fucking morons.”
Fundies don’t really believe in all that book larnin’. What does havin’ edacation do but make you too big fer yer britches anyway? Thays only ONE book that’s important, and the Preacher’ll tell ya all you need ta know outta THAT book…
***
Let’s face it - there are a lot of groups who want to keep everybody stupid and well controlled. The fundnuts are just one of those groups…
The fundie gender breakdown makes women into children but ALSO claims that women need to teach their children.
It’s like the belief that women should be the sexual “gatekeepers” because men can’t control their desires … and then not giving women extensive martial arts training and a firearm. The patriarchy loves to set women up in Very Important Jobs Without Which Society Will Disintegrate and then not give us the tools to do those jobs.
Just FUCK Hasselbeck and New Chick.
Really.
How dare they claim motherhood does and should kill your brain?
I mean, okay, my memory is not what it was, but I do believe that once all my little ones are less little, and I can go back to getting a decent amount of sleep each night (all in one shot, not little naps all day and night) that some, if not all, of that brain function will return. And even on my sleepiest, non-functional day, I still knew the world was round and could even explain why the sky is blue.
Anyone who is so stupid or so twistedly evil to portray herself as stupid enough to think the world is flat has no business being anywhere near impressionable children.
That goes for Hasselbeck, too, for idiotically defending the “right” of the mendacious to act stupid so they don’t have to debate what they know they can’t win.
If he was in any other job–say, ragpicker or barfly, which is about what his level of intelligence and work ethic would earn him, absent his wealthy family and connections–then, yeah, I’d cut him some slack; because he wouldn’t be speaking for my country. But his Daddy’s friends on the Supreme Court gave him this job, and the least he could do is try to act like he’s worthy of it by knowing who’s dead and who’s not. If he’d said “Gandi’s dead, because Saddam killed all the Gandis”, it would be a simplistic statement, but it wouldn’t offend anyone, because yes, Gandi really is dead. Now the US is going to have to soothe hurt feelings in South Africa, as if our brain dead Resident hasn’t alienated most of the world already. That’s why I’m mad.
It might have looked better for Ms. Shepherd had she fallen back on the Sherlock Holmes defense. In “A Study in Scarlet,” Watson learns that Holmes is unaware that the earth goes round the sun:
My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it …
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
However, I doubt that Ms. Shepherd’s brain attic is stocked with the sort of high-caliber lumber that Holmes boasted.
Come visit Boston College, where there are thousands of Elizabeth Hasselbeck’s running around. It’s truly a mind-numbing experience.
One of my colleagues once timed how long his class would sit in silence when he asked them a question. Six minutes. It’s not a very intellectual undergraduate body, and even less curious. Hasselbeck is a pretty good exemplar.
Last night my husband and I were at my high school son’s “back to school night.” While we were sitting in his biology class (along with other parents) listening to the teacher as she explained what they would cover during the year she took a big gulp and said “I believe in evolution and I will be teaching evolution!”
She visibly relaxed when every parent said “Good!” and let her know that we have her back.
But what f-ed up times do we live in where this has to not only be an issue, but that a science teacher has to summon the courage to tell the parents of her students that she will be teaching SCIENCE!
and this is in Massachusetts no less
At one point during the discussions between the parents and teachers I started giggling . . . I was thinking about this video.
OT - maybe it’s time police rethought “non lethal force” — tasering - woman tasered multiple times Sept 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMpEr-MOSyk
And I repeat: this is beyond the pale.
SHEPHERD: “I’m too busy being a good mommy, unlike all those too-educated feminazis, to have discovered whether the world is round or not. If my son ever asks about it, we’ll head to the library and make for the nearest picture book, since I’m also too busy with the baby incubation to keep my reading skills sharp.”
HASSELBECK: “Oh, well played, madam! If only more women were as devoted to the craft of motherhood as you are.”
GOLDBERG: “What the fuck? I knew most fundies were dirt stupid, but blaming this kind of aggressive ignorance on God is the best service one can render to the devil.”
WALTERS: “I’ve traveled the world and covered some of the most important stories of this era. Now I’m reduced to working on a ‘serious’ television show where the comedienne – the supposed clown of this enterprise – is the smartest one! You dumb fucks are lucky I’m making eight figures from this over-blown star vehicle or I’d be gone already.”
well I hope that when her son grows up she doesn’t drag him down to the bottom of the ocean with her, like a drowning rat, by confusing him about the flatness or roundness of our earth, and so on.
A pretty damned fucked up one. My mom is a math teacher and a couple of years ago she got stuck with one 9th grade general science class because they couldn’t get anyone else to teach it. She was supposed to cover basic physical/Earth science–little bit of geology, little bit of physics, little bit of chemistry, and a little bit of astronomy. Just enough to give the kids a bit of basic knowledge before they got to high school science. She couldn’t really teach the geology or the astronomy, because she was afraid that the parents and school board in the small town she lived in would have had a fit. Of course, being a physics/astronomy teacher myself, I argued with her about it, but she said it wasn’t worth her job and she had to be a bit more subtle about actually teaching down there. Sad to say, she was probably right.
She was being disingenuous - she saw the question Whoopie was going to ask[*] next coming from a mile away, didn’t have an answer for it, and decided to look ignorant rather than be unable to answer Whoopie’s argument.
Well yes. That’s the point. (see this, this is “giving an obivous moron more credit than they’ve earned.”) She took a dive to look stupid because she could AFFORD to look stupid. What people come away with is “bitch is crazy, everyone knows the world is round. That’s why we have Columbus Day off. Which you better fucking know Miss Mother-trying-to-feed-her-kids, because they don’t have school that day.”
What they DON’T come away with was “Wow. Whoopi made a good point. We shouldn’t allow Creationism in school unless they can make a real scientific case for it, Evolution is SCIENCE, after all, that’s what belongs in a science class.”
It’s rhetorically effective: deny your opponent the opportunity to argue for their position by changing the conversation to how stupid you are, and the status quo will be maintained, maybe even strengthened by that fucking disgusting anti-intellectual streak so common in this country. “She’s at least honest about her ignorance, She’s thinking about what matters, not trying to be a know-it-all like Whoopi.”
Having confronted similar thinking before, my immediate wish is to shoot someone in the stomach, then scream at them “KNOW HOW I DID THAT?! CHEMICAL ENGINEERING AND BALLISTIC PHYSICS. SCIENCE, MOTHERFUCKER.”
Karpad, you just made me snort. I didn’t see it coming, and was not prepared to snarf the beer out of my nose. Thanks.
I saw this at F-Words, poor beleaguered Joe Francis has started his own
pity partywebsite and he wants to hear from his closest friends.Ok, I hope my comment went into moderation and didn’t just disappear.
This Sherri on her website attributes her hiring to the View to her fans’ prayers! She thanks them for that.
Is the American experiment really over?
Because how someone who pretends to be so incredibly stupid can NOT be fired after such a gaffe seems to intimate that we’ve become a country of idiots.
Idiots and democracy don’t mix well.
Same goes for someone who PRAISES someone who pretends to such ignorance.
How can they be allowed a national forum? Even on inane daytime TV?
They’ve lauded ignorance and misogyny. And apparently no one in charge cares.
Oh, the people in charge care. Ignorance and misogyny bring in viewers and advertising dollers, making the people in charge a shitload of money. The people in charge like ignorance and misogyny; they make them rich.
Well, I hope her kids like learning how to say “would you like fries with that?” in Chinese, because that’s exactly what this mindset is going to lead to…
Oh well….we were started as a nation of religious crazies overseen by a bunch of wise men. Too bad resourceful Yankee ingenuity has been overtaken by the Know-Nothing contingent. Pander to the idiots and they take over. It looks like the US typical culture (brain-dead religious idiots) will finally get the economy it deserves (subsistence farming.) They’re going to learn the hard way that prayin’ to Jesus doesn’t maintain your technology base very well, especially when cheap oil doesn’t exist any more.
Sheesh. It shouldn’t be something that you “have to think about”, it should be something you know.
GOLDBERG: “What’s two plus two?”
SHEPHERD: “I don’t know. Despite my no-doubt enormous salary, I’m too concerned with how and what I’m gonna feed my son to think about such trivia. I’m just a mother, and not a mathematic…kinda…guy…or something.”
HASSELBECK: “You handled that so well!”
WALTERS: “I…am…so…pissed…of…right…now.”
But, but, but, she HAS 2 b a good h0st!!!!1111!!!11!! cuz shez not RosieO’fatlezboDonnell, who dared question teh Iraq War!!!111!!!111!!!111!!!
/sarcasm
Seriously, the fact that there was so much venom directed towards the former View host and not much here is…pretty amazing. I remember when people were outraged over her supposedly “anti-Catholic” comments about the Supreme Court justices, and as a Catholic I fail to see how they were even as bad as when the right makes disparaging comments about, for instance, Massachussetts.
…and decided to look ignorant rather than be unable to answer Whoopie’s argument.
Wait. There’s a difference?
What people come away with is “bitch is crazy, everyone knows the world is round. That’s why we have Columbus Day off. Which you better fucking know Miss Mother-trying-to-feed-her-kids, because they don’t have school that day.”
Oh, that’s very sad. That’s very, very sad. BECAUSE PEOPLE IN COLUMBUS’S DAY ALREADY KNEW THE EARTH WAS ROUND, DAMMIT!
Obviously, Shepherd’s hoping that her readers are every bit as ignorant as she wants them to be.
NonyNony and karpad are onto it. She took a dive because she wanted to end the conversation. If she admitted that the world was round, she’d have to admit that science covers subjects that aren’t in The Book.
Much better to appear ignorant than ungodly.
Shepherd: I don’t need to think about such things, the Lord takes care of me.
Actually statistically speaking your IQ goes up because you have to keep up with a hyperactive infant/toddler.
I guess that put this particular woman’s IQ in the positive digits.
To quote 8-bit Theater, “5 for larger values of 2.” Stupid yes, but if you say that 2 has one significant digit and that the two values are 2.4 and 2.4, both of which round down to 2, than the answer is 4.8 which rounds up to 5. I know, fuzzy math at its fuzziest.
And people in Columbus’s day did know the world was round, they got the calculation for its size wrong though. The folks in Columbus’s day figured that China and the rest of Asia were right about the distance from Europe that actually put them in America. Well, to their credit I was pretty far off when I tried to calculate the size of the earth from the angle of shadows like they did, so it’s not that easy and at the time they had no accurate value to check their answer against. All of which really makes it even more pathetic that people today still think the world is flat.
And especially when said techno-geeks are turned off by the lowering quality in education in the US (which has by then forced pretty much all other branches of science to go elsewhere, we can’t function in a country that believes the world was created 6000-10000 years ago). All this will lead to America becoming a 3rd world country, which will be good for all those who secretly dream of producing Anime since Japanese anime companies will start hiring its grunt work out to American studios to save money.
GOLDBERG: “What’s two plus two?”
SHEPHERD: “To quote 8-bit Theater, ‘5 for larger values of 2.’ Stupid yes, but if you say that 2 has one significant digit and that the two values are 2.4 and 2.4, both of which round down to 2, than the answer is 4.8 which rounds up to 5. I know, fuzzy math at its fuzziest.”
HASSELBECK: “…the fuck?”
SHEPHERD: “Don’t worry; it’s just that my son has been staying with his grandma the past few days and I’ve had some time for leisure reading.”
WALTERS” “…If you take my stapler…I’m gonna burn this place down. God knows, I have nothing else left to me but this show - at least until I write the tell-all book.”