Author's archive
The Parent Flap 0
The Idaho State Journal’s Mike Murphy tries to make sense out of something nonsensical.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Will Bunch takes a look at the right-wing strategy to leverage school boards and curricula to gain political power. A snippet:
But those with big money are betting that this is a winning political strategy.
QOTD 0
Fergus Hume, in the voice of Sir Harry Brace:
I see that, like all fanatics, you distort texts and sayings into fitting your own peculiar views.
Spin City 0
Afterthought:
The worst of this is that persons believe uncritically stuff they read on their computer screens when they would not believe the same stuff if it happened right in front of their faces.
Snowflakes 0
Warning: Short commercial at the end.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Another child . . . .
. . . and, it would appear, another gun that somehow magically fired itself.
Deviltry 0
A Rutgers professor searches for the origin of the legend of the Jersey Devil. A nugget:
“The Jersey Devil is evil,” he said. “He’s known for slitting the throats of babies in their cribs. This is not a cartoon — it’s a monster.”
Follow the link. It’s a fascinating tale.
QOTD 0
Richard Johnson, in the voice of Rex Masters:
I’m not prepared to be the pariah just to keep the hypocrites feeling happily self-righteous.
“Come Home” 0
The author of a letter to the editor of The Roanoke Times issues an invitatioh to the Trumpettes. A snippet; the whole thing is worth the minute or two it will take to read.
Please come back to us. You are being led astray by a person who does not care about you. He is using you. He is hateful. He is abusive. He is selfish and self-important. He is not that into you, but he knows you will do anything for him, so he is mad with that power.
The Harvest 0
The Arizona Republic’s Laurie Roberts reminds Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk that those who sow the wind reap the whirlwind.
A Victimless Crime 0
Words fail me.
Facebook Frolics 0
Methinks “metastatic” would have been a more appropriate choice.
The Disinformation Superhighway, “I Did My Own Research” Dept. 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Christopher Bergland reviews research that indicates that the eases of using internet search engines leads persons to overestimate their own knowledge and competence.
Methinks this a significant topic in these viral times, when so many (think, for example, the Florida and Texas governors) disdain the reasoned, evidence-based conclusions of science and expertise, and, is so doing, endanger the citizenry.
Here are his key points; follow the link for a detailed discussion of each one.
- The Dunning-Kruger Effect is an illusory cognitive bias marked by overestimating one’s competence, intelligence, or knowledge base.
- People who frequently use search engines like Google are prone to mistake the internet’s knowledge as their own.
- Knowing that Googling often leads to overconfidence in one’s knowledge may be enough to keep the Dunning-Kruger effect in check.