I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often…

A man injured in a Downtown fire yesterday died this morning at UPMC Mercy Hospital.

The medical examiner’s office said Richard Piotrowski, 62, was pronounced dead at 5:17 a.m. at Mercy’s burn unit.

He was hurt when a blaze broke out about 7 a.m. yesterday at the Roosevelt Arms apartments on Penn Avenue. Police said he was smoking while using oxygen.

Oxygen is flammable.  Oxygen is what allows fire to burn - your charcoal grill wouldn’t work without it this summer - or in summer’s past as this isn’t a new revelation.

So, what dumbasses think it’s a good idea to smoke while hooked up to an oxygen tank.  It really is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Thankfully it didn’t happen on a street corner where it might have taken out parents who beat their crying kids while waiting for the bus. God forbid… actually wait, Einstein wrote in a letter (which is up for auction) that religion and people looking for a god-like figure is “childish”.

In the letter, he states: “The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.”

Einstein, who was Jewish and who declined an offer to be the state of Israel’s second president, also rejected the idea that the Jews are God’s favoured people.

“For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”

But this is not and has never been a secret…

It was hard to be an atheist before The Origin of Species. Einstein is the only member of your list who was born into the post-Darwinian world, and it is no accident that he was also the only one who didn’t believe in God. He declared: “It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. “

But to call it childish is just plain awesome. If only the head-technology of Futurama was around to reanimate Einstein and Carl Sagan… life might be a bit more interesting.

And since there is no god.  You should pray to Me.