Rosa

“When the Jesuit priest Georges Lemaître first proposed that interpretation of Hubble’s observations, his “big bang” was a bold and beautiful idea, but the evidence for it was skimpy, and it lacked a firm basis in physics.* (Lemaître himself spoke of “the primeval atom” or “the cosmic egg.” The less poetic name “big bang” came later.)”
― Frank Wilczek, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality

“A 2008 study of the wealthiest four hundred taxpayers, for instance, showed that they earned an average of $202 million and paid an effective income tax rate of less than 20 percent. Fully 60 percent of their declared income derived from capital gains. In other words, the effective tax rate on earning $202 million was lower than the rate paid by Americans earning $34,501 a year.”
― Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

“In 2012, according to the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory database, which documents the toxic and carcinogenic output of eight thousand American companies, Koch Industries was the number one producer of toxic waste in the United States. It generated 950 million pounds of hazardous materials that year. Of this total output, it released 56.8 million pounds into the air, water, and soil, making it the country’s fifth-largest polluter.”
― Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss