Making the Story Go Away

Posted on Tuesday 18 April 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

The big news today: Fox News has settled the case brought by Dominion Voting Systems. (Fox News had repeatedly implied that the 2020 election was somehow stolen via manipulation of the voting machines built by Dominion. Without an ounce of evidence. Which of course damaged the reputation of Dominion, who sued.) Did Fox lose by admitting it lied, or did it win by making the story go away?

CNN: Last-minute $787.5 million settlement in Dominion-Fox News case, subtitled “Some on-air claims about Dominion Voting Systems were false, Fox News acknowledges in statement after deal is announced”

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Drag, the Abortion Pill, Blue Cities in Red States

Posted on Monday 17 April 2023 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Why conservatives are so upset by drag;
  • The Comstock Law, an antiquated precedent conservatives use to justify things they don’t like, like the abortion pill;
  • And how people are fleeing blue states for red states — but into blue cities.

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They Have Always Been With Us

Posted on Sunday 16 April 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a clever graphic I saw two or three times on Facebook.

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Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, The Gays | Comments Off on They Have Always Been With Us

A Day at the Bay

Posted on Saturday 15 April 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Today we did an afternoon walk, on a chilly, breezy, but sunny afternoon, around the Emeryville peninsula surrounding the marina there and ending with Emeryville Marina Park. We’ve done this walk before, perhaps three times; we park at the “Watergate Shopping center”, then walked to the end of peninsula, and back.

Today, no doubt part of the “superbloom” everyone is noticing in California and Arizona, we noticed these blooming plants.

These plants are “Pride of Madeira,” or Echium candicans, in full bloom. Note how different plants have slightly different colors:

Across the inlet is downtown Oakland.

Here’s a bird, just standing there, three feet from me.

And here’s one of at least a dozen remnants of trees on this little peninsula that were downed by the wind and rainstorms that hit the Bay Area over the past three months.

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Arguing Styles, Debates, and Winning vs. Being Right

Posted on Friday 14 April 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve mentioned the book RESPONDING TO THE RIGHT by Nathan J. Robinson a couple times before, and today I want to summarize the gist of the book.

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Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, Psychology | Comments Off on Arguing Styles, Debates, and Winning vs. Being Right

Conservative Ideology Over Evidence: The Abortion Pills

Posted on Thursday 13 April 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Several links today to articles on the same topic.

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Jerry Coyne on Deepak Chopra, Alex Ross on Max Richter, and others

Posted on Wednesday 12 April 2023 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Jerry Coyne on Deepak Chopra
  • And on the latest argument for the compatibility of science and faith
  • A misleading article on the recent “paradigm” shift in the understanding of human evolution
  • Reviews of new books by Sarah Bakewell and Sarah Hart
  • And Alex Ross on Max Richter
  • (Updated 13 Apr, including a couple places where I said the opposite of what I meant. Useful/useless e.g.)

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Posted in Evolution, Lunacy, Mathematics, Music, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Jerry Coyne on Deepak Chopra, Alex Ross on Max Richter, and others

How About a Conservative Resistance Against Globes?

Posted on Tuesday 11 April 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Topics for today:

  • A flat-earth judge ruled against globes in public schools… or did I imagine that?
  • Perhaps I’m confusing it with the mean-spirited rulings in Texas about abortion and in Florida about everything;
  • Republicans in Missouri want to defund public libraries;
  • Republicans in Montana want to change election rules to give themselves a better chance at winning;
  • And a reality check from Paul Krugman explains how unemployment rates are really good news that conservatives will not acknowledge.

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Enid Blyton via Sarah Bakewell

Posted on Monday 10 April 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

I mentioned Sarah Bakewell in my post of March 29th, for two reviews of her new book on the history and meaning of humanism, Humanly Possible, a very long book on one of my primary interests, but so long that I haven’t decided yet whether to buy it or read it.

In the Sunday New York Times Book Review published on April 2nd — which I didn’t catch up on until several days after returning from the wedding trip to LA that weekend — published its weekly “By the Book” interview column with one about Sarah Bakewell. And it includes this passage. Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Personal history | Comments Off on Enid Blyton via Sarah Bakewell

The Latest Political Outrages and Shenanigans

Posted on Saturday 8 April 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Today’s topics:

  • Conservative outrage (so easily triggered) against Bud Light;
  • Anti-democratic shenanigans in Tennessee, and the backlash; and how Tennessee places last among all states on democracy, and crushes dissent;
  • About Republican indoctrination;
  • MAGA’s worst week ever;
  • How Medicare expenditures are running below projections, because so many people died of Covid in red states;
  • How the fight against ‘woke’ is conservative gaslighting with a long history of same using other terms;
  • How a secretive Christian religious group, “The Family,” who runs the National Prayer Breakfast, is behind the “kill the gays” legislation in Uganda;
  • And music by Helen Jane Long.

Salon, Ashlie D. Stevens, 7 Apr 2023: “The groomer of beers”: Conservatives vow to boycott Bud Light over partnership with trans activist, subtitled “Clad in a MAGA hat, Kid Rock went so far as to shoot cases of the light beer. He had tears in his eyes”

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