L&C: Rationality in Language

Posted on Saturday 15 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Something a bit abstruse for today.

This is via a Facebook post by David Brin on December 21st.

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Ls&Cs: Never Too Many Guns; Conservatives Against Modern Medicine

Posted on Friday 14 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

NYT, Farhad Manjoo, 13 Jan 2022: We Must Stop Showering the Military With Money

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SF as Luddite Literature?

Posted on Thursday 13 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Today’s counter-intuitive notion is from novelist and long-time Locus columnist Cory Doctorow. This essay is in the January 2022 issue, and posted (for free) online, here:

Locus, Cory Doctorow, posted 3 Jan 2022: Science Fiction is a Luddite Literature

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Graduation

Posted on Wednesday 12 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Today I finished, or ‘graduated,’ my cardiac therapy program. It went for 36 sessions (the most that insurance covers, apparently), and began the Wednesday after Labor Day, but what with the facility’s shutdown for a month due to plumbing issues, and the holidays, and one unsettled week when I skipped, my 36 weeks didn’t end until today. More in the endpiece below.

Today’s links, with quotes and comments, are about Dr. Oz and the deliberate noise-making of conspiracy theorists.

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Links & Quotes: Spy Stories; Secularism

Posted on Tuesday 11 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Janis Ian (the singer, who I follow on Facebook), offered this David Bowie quote the other day:

“As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?”

A couple links for today.

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Mundane Life: The Western View; Cardiac Therapy

Posted on Monday 10 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

An hour ago I began a different post before realizing it wouldn’t work. So here I am with a mundane post. A post about mundane activities over the past few days.

Here’s a photo posted on Facebook five days ago, a view to the west, over the Bay, of the Moon and Venus. Old Moon in the New Moon’s arms.

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Ls&Cs: Stories: Joan Didion; A Killer Review

Posted on Sunday 9 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here are two disparate items that happen to be thematically related.

First we have an item by the late Joan Didion, who died on December 23rd. I knew I had a couple books by her, but it took me a week or two to find them in the nonfiction overflow in the garage. Actually, I only found one of them: a paperback copy of her famous book of essays, THE WHITE ALBUM. I opened to the first page and this is what I read:

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Michael Shermer: WHY DARWIN MATTERS: The Case Against Intelligent Design (2006)

Posted on Saturday 8 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a middle-period Shermer book, from the range that begins with WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS in 1997 (and omitting some earlier and middle-period books on extraneous topics), and the 6th of 12 Shermer books I have on my shelves.

It recycles some material from previous books, especially HOW WE BELIEVE (2000), but has two distinctive themes. First, Shermer sets the book against his own background as a creationist himself, having become a born-again-Christian in high school, and explains how once he got out of that bubble “The scales fell from my eyes! It turned out that the creationist literature I was reading presented a Darwinian cardboard cutout that a child could knock down.” Second, he focuses on the then-current (and still active) dispute between evolution and “intelligent design,” describing the evidence for and against respectively, and why he debates creationists and how such events go.

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Myths About Science

Posted on Friday 7 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Another overcast, damp day, with occasional sprinkles. Today was partner Y’s last day at his current job; he signed his severance package, returned his laptop and badge. He’ll be home everyday now until/unless he gets another job; he does seem to be eager to find some sort of part-time consulting job, and has had some good interviews.

Cardiac therapy again today; two sessions left, next Monday and Wednesday.

Just one link for this afternoon.

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Links and Comments: January 6th

Posted on Thursday 6 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ll post just the three or four items that struck me the most today, the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrectionist attack by Trump supporters on the Capitol of the United States.

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