Perspective

Happy NFL/Turkey Day

Baloney Detection

1) Is the source reliable?

Errors occur, but if the source's errors tend to be all on one side or bunched together, it should raise a big red flag.

2) Does the source make similar claims on other subjects?

On related (or even marginally tangential) topics, is this source making the same general statements of fact?

3) Have the claims been verified independently?

Can the claimed results be replicated? 

4) How does the claim fit with the way we know the world works?

Too good to be true = prob'ly not true

5) Is the claim falsifiable?

What's the alternative explanation?  What's been done to try to disprove it? 

6) Where does the preponderance of evidence point?

Any claim supported by only a few points, while challenged by lots of other points, is prob'ly bogus.

7) Are you playing by the rules of the scientific method?

UFOlogy vs SETI

8) Is the one making the claim presenting positive evidence?

Or are they just making unsupported denials of an "opposing" theory?

9) Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?

Pointing out a few anomalies or outliers doesn't negate current theory

10) Is the claim being driven by personal belief?

Is Confirmation Bias at work here? Is the claimant pushing a "theory" in support of an ideology and/or religion and/or world view?

Barely A Start

So that's 1 down and only 1,499,999 (veterans living in poverty) to go.

Our veterans would be a lot better off it we'd just stop making so many of them, and if we'd stop acting like spoiled children when it comes to paying what we owe.

Mo' Buttuh

Meanwhile, Back At The Planet

I hate it when I get to thinking there's more truth being spoken by fictional characters on a TV show than by anybody in any position of authority anywhere here in These United States of Opinion-As-Reality.

At the same time, I wonder if this is just to see if anybody's listening. 

And I wonder if this little vignette is simply a plot device in Aaron Sorkin's devious little brain. 

And what if it's only an attempt to illustrate his other point about Crowd Sourcing and the dangers of instant reactions due to the immediacy of social media driving the mob, which is masquerading as "true democracy"?

And I wonder if the whole thing is so twisty-turny that it spins off into the infinite numbers of universes where everything that can happen does happen, and all you have to do to make it real is to say it's real.

And what about the very very very very real shit hitting the fan because of Climate Disruption?

and and and - fuck, I hate my brain sometimes.

God Love The Onion

Even when they hit a little too close.  Or maybe because they hit so close.

FERGUSON, MO—Ahead of a grand jury’s decision over whether to indict officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, police in the city of Ferguson have reportedly heavily increased their presence this week to ensure residents are adequately provoked. “We’ve deployed additional officers throughout Ferguson in order to make absolutely certain that residents feel sufficiently harassed and intimidated,” said St. Louis County police chief Jon Belmar, assuring locals that officers in full riot gear will be on hand to inflame members of the community for as long as is necessary. “It’s absolutely essential that the people of Ferguson have full confidence that law enforcement is committed to antagonizing them every step of the way.” At press time, the Missouri National Guard was on standby with tanks and urban assault vehicles in case Ferguson residents required additional incitement.

hat tip: Democratic Underground

All That Snow

I haven't been following it closely, but I know that the Buffalo area got something like 88 inches of snow over just a few days at the end of last week.  And now the weather is turning a lot warmer, so they're expecting to add the problem of significant flooding to the problems of dangerously stranded people and collapsing roofs and assorted other calamities.

But as I read thru some of the articles posted online and as I browse thru the video reports being run on Big Media, I keep wondering how it is that nobody's asking, "When was the last time something like this happened?"

I've been in Buffalo during a Lake Effect snow storm, and I wanna tell ya, it's impressive watching 15 or 20 inches of snow pile up overnight, but here's the thing:

Seven Fucking Feet in about 2 ½ days

And yet nobody's the least bit curious that it might have anything to do with a little thing quaintly referred to as "Climate Change"?

It was said years ago that people had already been born who would die as a result of catastrophic disruptions due to shifting global climate patterns.  Well, there're at least a dozen dead because of this storm, which means Climate Change is (and actually has been) killing Americans.  And here we sit doing nothing but watching coin-operated politicians and corporate managers and lobbyists and press poodles playing grab-ass in the mud for another 2 years?

We are so very fucked.

Speak Your Mind

Say what you want to say about how you disagree with a president's policy decisions or whatever, but if this is what you're all about, then you're advocating for actions that are exactly what the US was set up to be the exception to.  

And that makes you the traitor, not Obama.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

The Daddy State Update

I posted a thing about George Lakoff a few days back.  

Here's some stuff from a short interview with George Lakoff:

You write, "remember that voters vote their identity and their values, which need not coincide with their self-interest." I remember writing a commentary on a poor congressional district, let's say about 98 percent white, in Kentucky. Most of the residents were on food stamps, Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid - or all of them. However, they have voted in recent elections by landslide majorities to re-elect a congressman who opposes food stamps and supports cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Can you elaborate on how this can occur?

A single moral worldview dominates conservative policies in every domain of life - family, personal identity, sex, religion, sports, education, the market, foreign policy and politics - what I’ve called strict father morality. Your moral worldview is central to how you understand your life.

In a strict father family, the father is in charge and is assumed to know right from wrong, to have moral as well as physical authority. He is supposed to protect the family, support the family, set the rules, enforce the rules, maintain respect, govern sexuality and reproduction, and teach his kids right from wrong, that is, to grow up with the same moral system. His word defines what is right and is law; no backtalk. Disobedience is punished, painfully, so that children learn not to disobey. Via physical discipline, they learn internal discipline, which is how they become moral beings. With discipline they can become prosperous.

If you are not prosperous, you are not disciplined enough, not taking enough personal responsibility and deserve your poverty. At the center is the principle of personal responsibility and moral hierarchy: those who are more moral (in this sense of morality) should rule: God over man, man over nature, parents over children, the rich over the poor, Western culture over non-Western culture, America over other countries, men over women, straights over gays, Christians over non-Christians, etc.

On conservative religion, God is a strict father; in sports, coaches are strict with their athletes; in classrooms, teachers should be strict with students; in business, employers rule over employees; in the market, the market should decide - the market itself is the strict father, deciding that those who have financial discipline deserve their wealth, and others deserve their poverty; and in politics, this moral system itself should rule.

Conservatives can be poor, but they can still be kings in their own castles - strict fathers at home, in their personal identity: in their religion, in their sex lives, in the sports they love. Poor conservatives vote their identity as conservatives, not their lack of material wealth.