Yeah, but there's got to be a better word than non-believers.

Well, atheist is perfectly cromulent, but so many people heap so much ugly on it... you can see where he chose a word that didn't come pre-loaded in that way. Or does it? I don't know. I was just happy to hear the shout-out.

OMG- my department is still crazy with the Hussein thing?

Perfectly understandable. My middle name is "Rae" and I'm always zapping people into oblivion. My first name isn't "death" but still, what else can you expect from someone with the middle name "Rae"?

I'm amused that John Hodgman, Stephen Fry, and I have almost identical Twitter streams today. (And about a billion other people, I'm sure, but I'm tickled to be in the company of those two in particular.)

Someone upthread commented on how sober Hillary looks. I don't think it was Jill Biden's slip on Oprah.

Now here, is someone who really believes in what he's saying. Why couldn't they have had him give the opening benediction?

Speech teachers really should have their students study that speech.

"inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance."

I know, Sail.

I liked the poem , but like many poets she can't read her own work

I liked the start of the poem a lot - the idea of words and power and shape and form. Got hooked on a line that ended in 'of' and couldn't rebound.

Makes me want to go play my CD with Yeats on it.

"Non-believers" includes both atheists and agnostics, so it's also more inclusive even if it does lacks teeth. And like others have said - I'm just so happy to be acknowledged as a citizen that I truly don't care what word he used. It's a good day to be a godless heathen in America!