I recently joined a discussion listserve group. It uses an old-fashioned technology, email, to communicate people’s missives to the group. People are then free to comment. It mostly consists of people posting really stupid stuff, other people pointing out how stupid the stuff is, and then the posters of stupid stuff complain about how the…
Category: politics
Famous Presidential Quotes
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ~ George Washington “… government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” ~ Abraham Lincoln “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt…
Doggies for Bernie
I started a new group on Facebook. It was Molly’s (my Shi-tzu/Pomerainian) idea. If you want, you can visit/join here. Molly telepathically dictated this manifesto to me: Doggies for Bernie Manifesto by Molly We, the doggies of the USA, have grown weary of party politics in the USA. While Republicans enact counter-productive measures for many…
Gish Galloping Bernie
One of my top nominees for the Most Irritating Rhetorical Technique of All Time Prize is the Gish Gallop. Basically, the debater tries to drown the argument in a flood of claims, as if an enormous volume of specious gibberish is convincing in and of itself. Each point must be exhaustively rebutted individually, or else…
My Closed Mind
I confess. I’m closed minded. We all know the drill. Somebody makes a claim. We keep an open mind and carefully investigate, research, and analyze before we determine the veracity of the claim. The source of the information isn’t supposed to be an automatic disqualifier. Of course it seldom works that way, and I’m not…
Murder Mountain
Well, I never seem to find the time to write blog posts, but I write lotsa stuff on Facebook. So, I’ll start copying and pasting some of my better—longer, anyway—FB posts… Hmmm… Andi and I finished watching Murder Mountain* last night. For some reason, I feel compelled to say something about it… I suppose it’s…
Totally unpredictable news
The grand unifying theme of the news the last few days has been “who could possibly have predicted..” A brief summary: • North Korea is expanding its nuclear facilities. Surprise! • Sen. McConnell is determined to ram through confirmation of whatever wackanoodle nutjob Trump nominates for SCOTUS, regardless of his own precedent, the individual’s qualifications,…
Here we go again…
It’s baaaack! The Monster that Will Not Die! The persistent claim that vaccines cause autism! OOOOHHHH!!!! NO!!!!! So, this got posted to my wall on Facebook: “International scientists have found autism’s cause. What will Americans do? Five clear, replicable, and related discoveries explaining how autism is triggered have formed an undeniably clear picture of autism’s…
Handicapping the 2020 Race
OK, I’m supposed to be getting some work done, but I have this irrepressible urge to write a blog post. Let’s see if I can get it done in one sitting without wasting time on silly research and stuff. We’ve got a Presidential Election coming up. Before you know, we’ll be getting all hot and…
Vaccines and Autism: the Final Word
OK, let’s do this… I grieve for the state of public discourse in this nation. It’s seems that way too much of the discussion and debate is focused on endless reiterations of the same tired arguments which, to any sensible person, have been over for a long time. I mean… flat Earth? seriously?!? Yes, there…