LBJ's remarks on signing the Voting Right Act in 1965

This is so sad. I honestly cannot imagine ANY of our current politicians saying this, And where is this high purpose in the Democratic Party today? Sure, some of us, but does Schumer or Jeffries talk like this, and are they working on legislation of such import... for when they will have the ability to get it done... which it looks like might actually be happening? We will not reform fascism out of existence unless we can regain this sense of purpose. (And sure, LBJ probably didn't write this and confounded these words himself many times, but that's not the point). 

But what is really sad is that I don't think Johnson could even have imagined that sixty years later the Supreme Court would be voting the last tatters of this reform out of existence as part of a Christofascist agenda that was considered fringe loony in those days. 

 

  

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"The answer" to life, the universe & everything isn't 42 (Sorry, Douglas Adams), but 1/137, known as the fine structure constant, α (alpha), a pure, dimensionless number equal to the proportional strength of the electromagnetic interaction between elementary charged particles (which is essentially everything we actually see and feel):

α = ⁠e²4πε₀ħc ⁠≅ 1/137.0

Why it has this value, very close to the ratio of two integers, and not some other arbitrary value, is a cosmic mystery.