May, 2013 archive
The Wing Nut Way 2
Bloomberg’s Cass Sunstein explores the how wing nuts (and he applies this to both wings) think.
The short version is they think what they want to think because they want to think it.
Here’s a snippet:
Motivated reasoning helps to account for two defining characteristics of wing nuts and their fellow travelers: a readiness to attack people’s good faith, rather than their actual arguments, and an eagerness to make the worst, rather than the best, of opposing positions.
Drinking Liberally Virginia Beach Tomorrow 0
Fun and fellowship for liberals. Join us and talk about anything in a relaxed atmosphere.
When: Thursday, May 23rd, 6 p.
Where:
Croc’s 19 Street Bistro
620 19th Street (Map)
More here.
Football uber Alles 1
It’s only a game.
And guess who’s getting gamed (emphasis added).
Coaches occupy the No. 2 and No. 3 rankings in the Evergreen State, with UW basketball coach Lorenzo Roman earning $1.35 million and Washington State University basketball coach Ken Bone being paid $855,000. They are followed by Washington State University president Elson Floyd at $625,023 and UW President Michael Young at $563,456.
And lots of persons think that the poor schmucks who fill the potholes are overpaid.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
It continues:
Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Jason Ramos said the killer or killers who targeted the house could see who was watching TV in the family’s living room because there was plenty of ambient light.
Four bullet holes pierced the living room window barely a foot from the back of the girl’s head.
Please, a Moratorium on Moriartys 0
It is often said that some girls are attracted to bad boys.
If that is the case, it’s not just some girls. It’s also film and television folks.
Nothing else accounts for the tongue-dragging slavering over Professor Moriarty.
Frankly, they should get over Moriarty already.
He was a minor character invented for only one purpose: to facilitate A. Conan Doyle’s plan to assassinate Sherlock Holmes. He was not a criminal genius; he was a tool and hit man.
The story is a sordid one.
Doyle had decided that Sherlock Holmes was overshadowing his more “serious” fiction (anyone who has read his more “serious” fiction realizes overshadowing it was not difficult) and must be done away with.
Doyle spun the tale of a mysterious shadowy criminal mastermind so he–Doyle–could pitch Holmes over the cliff at Reichenbach Falls. Moriarty never actually appears in the story, being merely an invisible red herring to distract the reader from the true assassin, Doyle himself.
Moriarty appears, again only by name and never in person, in only two of the other 59 tales of the Canon: The Adventure of the Empty House, in which Holmes, defying the malevolence of his creator, reappears, rounds up the last of Moriarty’s (that is, Doyle’s) henchmen, and resumes his career at 221B Baker Street, and The Valley of Fear, again as a mention in what is quite possibly the worst of the Canon–it’s the only one of the original Sherlock Holmes stories I have not been able to re-read, though I’ve read the rest of the Canon five? six? seven? I forget how many times.
Yet movie makers and television broadcasters keep returning to Moriarty.
(Spoiler Alert)
Not a Sou, Not a Sovereign 0
Daniel Ruth considers the case of a “sovereign citizen.”
He has a lot of fun in the column and, indeed, sovereign citizens may reside in the “People’s Republic of Stupidstan,” as Ruth suggests, but they can also be dangerous.
More Politeness 0
Police found several shell casings from an assault rifle scattered in the parking lot of the Shawnee Apartments, according to Channel 2.
To add insult to injury, it happened on Gun Club Road.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Suffer the children.
Nature Red in Tooth and Claw 0
If you get too close, the adults will lower their heads and charge you.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
A polite little boy.
Randolph County deputies said that the toddler found the handgun in his parents’ room at their home just outside Asheboro around 2 p.m. on Saturday. The boy put the gun in his mouth and fired it.
A Drone By Any Other Name . . . 0
. . . is something entirely other. The ACLU reports:
More linguistic magic tricks at the link.
