Likely voters rate him below Jimmy Carter. As always, JFK (and Bill Clinton) are dramatically overrated in these kind of polls.
Category Archives: Social Commentary
I Know Where We Can Cut The Federal Budget
Last year, Kickstarter funded the arts more than the National Endowment for the Arts. And it’s funding things that people actually want to fund, rather than having bureaucrats give taxpayers’ money to women to smear chocolate on themselves.
A Response To Paul Bain
Your first paragraph amounts to an argument (or reduces to an argument) that “Everyone is doing it”. So, it is OK to use the N-Word because all your friends in the KKK use it? Is it OK to use ANY insulting degrading term “because all your friends” use it? Really?
Ignorance of where a term came from, or what it’s propaganda purpose was and is, is not an excuse. It is even a worse excuse in what is supposed to be a peer reviewed or carefully objective broad science context. Is it acceptable to just plead ignorance of, say, Einstein and Relativity in a paper on physics? Just say “Oops, didn’t know that, but I’m going to keep on ignoring it anyway.”? In ANY paper on the sociology of “Denier” one would reasonably expect the very first step to be looking at where the term originated, from whom, for what purpose and to what effect.
So here’s one free clue for you: I, like others, will now use the term “Denier” from time to time for ourselves. This is EXACTLY like blacks using the N-Word with each other to blunt the effect of it. Someone outside the group uses it, it is a red flag of bigotry. Similar to an Italian calling himself a “Wop” or any of a dozen other bad terms being used inside or outside the insulted group. So WHEN you use the term Denier, and you are not a Skeptic, you are waving a large “I Am A Bigot” flag. Got it?
Keep using it, and you are saying “I am HAPPY to be waving a large I Am A Bigot flag”…
Saying “All my friends us it” is saying “I’m Happy that all my friends are waving large I Am A Bigot flags”.
Just ask yourself “When is the N-Word” acceptable and you will have a decent guide to the proper usage and context of the term, and an accessible touchstone for the sociology of the term.
Indeed. As a reminder, here’s what I deny:
I deny that science is a compendium of knowledge to be ladled out to school children like government-approved pablum (and particularly malnutritious pablum), rather than a systematic method of attaining such knowledge.
I deny that skepticism about anthropogenic climate change is epistemologically equivalent to skepticism about evolution, and I resent the implications that if one is skeptical about the former, one must be similarly skeptical about the latter, and “anti-science.”
As someone who has done complex modeling and computer coding myself, I deny that we understand the complex and chaotic interactions of the atmosphere, oceans and solar and other inputs sufficiently to model them with any confidence into the future, and I deny that it is unreasonable and unscientific to think that those who believe they do have such understanding suffer from hubris. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, extraordinary policy prescriptions require extraordinary evidence.
I continue and am proud to be a “denier.”
[Update late morning]
You really should read the whole thing, if you haven’t. This is just a small excerpt from a massive take-down of the warm-monger crowd by an econometrist (and modeler).
Space Advocacy Fallacies
Wow. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a single piece so rife with them. Not sure it’s worth my while to fisk it, but others can have at it in comments.
Here are just a few (ignoring his misstatement of the purpose of government in the very first sentence):
- The spin-off benefits of human spaceflight exceeds the cost.
- We don’t spend any money in space, it’s all spent on earth.
- We need giant government projects.
- Why are we spending money on bullets instead of what I want to spend it on?
And on and on. I should note that this is Tinkerbell thinking.
Free Speech In Canada
Two steps forward, one step back.
An Oldie But A Goodie
Hint to the ladies — it’s not all about you.
Exercise
Why it doesn’t help you lose weight.
The notion that eating less and exercising more is part of the medieval thinking that all calories are equal, and it’s just about thermodynamics.
Losing A Bet On Tesla
And here’s Elon’s response: “Thanks Dan, you are a good sportsman. I will still donate to DWB as though I’d lost.”
The Newsroom
Why Aaron Sorkin’s new HBO series is good news for Republicans.
[Update a while later]
Heh. Sorkinisms. I love the top comment.
The World’s Smallest Violin
That’s what I’m playing for people who can’t successfully prosecute idiotic and immoral anti-prostitution laws. Glenn has the right idea:
…why not just legalize prostitution. Legal prostitution is safer and healthier, and it’ll provide employment opportunities for some of those unemployed college grads.
It’s not like it goes away if you make it illegal.
Yeah, I know. I’m just being a crazy “right winger,” as usual.