Category Archives: Social Commentary

Amazon Local, Los Angeles Edition

Every day, I get offers for: acting classes, teeth whitening, massage packages with reflexology and aromatherapy, microdermabrasion facials, tanning salons, exfoliation…

It’s like they’re trying to live down to the expectations of the rest of the country.

[Update a few minutes later]

Are you the kind of person likely to be suckered into a conversation with a Twitter-bot?

I’m not.

Climate Change

What are the real questions?

Basically, there’s one real problem — the real climate refuses to behave correctly. I went into this at length then, so I won’t repeat the whole argument, but the basic point is this: the actual observed temperatures have been flat for almost 20 years, and are now at the edge of the confidence interval — that is, the modelers would have taken a 20-1 bet against the temperatures staying this low.

Damn you, Gaia!

Anti-Gun Demagoguery

Now these lying ghouls are comparing George Zimmerman to mass shooters.

[Update a while later]

How to incite a moral panic:

“The most powerful time to communicate is when concern and emotions are running at their peak,” it advises. Antigun advocates are urged to seize opportunistically on horrific crimes: “The debate over gun violence in America is periodically punctuated by high-profile gun violence incidents including Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, the Trayvon Martin killing, Aurora, and Oak Creek. When an incident such as these attracts sustained media attention, it creates a unique climate for our communications efforts.”

The booklet explicitly urges foes of the Second Amendment to abjure rationality in favor of the argumentum ad passiones, or appeal to emotion.

Fortunately, the justice system ultimately worked, and the insane and irrelevant war on “stand your ground” laws has failed.