Up Is Down

Posted on Thursday 8 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Items about non-intuitive definitions of socialism, religious oppression, and religious law. (Posting 19 Oct 2026, items compiled 8 Oct.)

JMG, today 8 Oct: Vance: Trans Athletes Are The Definition Of Socialism

He’s even more an idiot that the MAGA fans.

JMG, today 8 Oct: New Religious Film: Help, We’re Being Oppressed

Know what the largest denomination in the US is?

JMG, today 8 Oct: Staver: Donate To Stop El-Sayed From Imposing Sharia

Where can I donate to stop Christians from spreading their nationalism?

Posted in Politics, Religion | Comments Off on Up Is Down

All of this is coming your way

Posted on Wednesday 7 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Items about the decline of reading, declining violence, the Gulf of America, the GOP as the party of white people, Hegseth’s war on “weirdos,’ how to save money by not buying anything, and my favorite R.E.M. song. (Actually posted 19 Oct, items from 7 Oct.)

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Substantial piece today. From a book about the decline of reading.

Washington Post, opinion by James Marriott, today 7 Oct: Is society growing stupider? The clues are simple and repeated., subtitled “Shorter sentences and monotonous lyrics form a sign of something bigger.”

This is adapted from the writer’s book The New Dark Ages: The Death of Reading and the Dawn of the Post-Literate Society.

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Posted in Culture, Decline, Music | Comments Off on All of this is coming your way

The Thin Skin of Reality

Posted on Saturday 3 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump in Time;
  • How AI could worsen a common cognitive trap;
  • Trump’s demand for Fox propaganda;
  • People with lower cognitive abilities are more likely to endorse Christian Nationalist claims;
  • Shaun Tan and the “thin skin of reality”;

Posted 17 Oct 2026, items collected 3 Oct

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Apparently there’s a new interview with Trump in Time Magazine, and they didn’t sanewash his prose.

Slate, Ian Prasad Philbrick, yesterday 2 Oct: The Man Is Not Well, subtitled “We just got an unfettered view into the mind of the world’s most powerful person. It’s alarming, to say the least.”

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What Extra Hour of Daylight?

Posted on Friday 2 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Items about misunderstanding Daylight Saving Time, RFK Jr. and AI vs the “tyranny” of medical facts, Krugman on Trump vs the data, Trump’s anger re the media vs propaganda. (Actually posted 17 Oct, items from 2 Oct.)

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They’re still on about changing the clocks. But they’re thinking about it wrong, of course.

JMG, today: Demented Man Rages About “Changing The Clocks”

The very name of their bill betrays their misunderstanding of how this all works. And the evidence he cites is backwards.
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Posted in conservatives, Lunacy, Science | Comments Off on What Extra Hour of Daylight?

The Progress of Christian Nationalism

Posted on Thursday 1 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Items about Trump campaigning on the taxpayer’s dime, how Project 2025 is succeeding better than Trump himself, how Hegseth is instilling his personal religion into the military, and how Disney World solved a basic infrastructure problem. (Items from 1 Oct, actually posted 27 Oct.)

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This is about those TV ads extolling American virtue (and Trump) that are being paid for with tax dollars.

Slate, Shirin Ali, today 1 Oct: Trump’s Latest Attempt to Cheat in the Midterms Faces Little Blowback
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Posted in Conservative Resistance, conservatives, progress, Religion | Comments Off on The Progress of Christian Nationalism

Conservatives and Empathy

Posted on Wednesday 30 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Conservatives against empathy: excuses for selfishness;
  • Another piece about boarding houses, once banned, perhaps now more appropriate than ever;
  • Recalling a 50-year-old thesis about how human stupidity drags societies down;
  • Quotes from Thomas L. Friedman and Paul Krugman about Donald Trump;
  • Reading the Jared Huffman book.
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What does it say about conservatives that lately they’re against empathy?

The Atlantic, Elizabeth Bruenig, 27 Sep 2026: Why Empathy Is Now ‘Toxic,’ ‘Suicidal,’ and a ‘Sin’, subtitled “According to Gad Saad and his powerful acolytes, compassion is a recipe for ‘the collective suicide of the West.'”
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Posted in Human Nature, Politics, Psychology, Religion | Comments Off on Conservatives and Empathy

A World We Can’t Trust

Posted on Tuesday 29 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Bill McKibben on how we weren’t built for a world like this;
  • Locus server issues today;
  • More destruction: Trump scales back fuel emission standards, and removes supports for LGBTQ+ folks;
  • How Trump’s new AI-powered America.gov tells truths that counter Trump’s lies.
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NY Times, Bill McKibben, today: I’m Exhausted. You’re Demoralized. We Weren’t Built for a World Like This.

Opening:

Psychologists have claimed that evolutionary biology leaves humans ill-equipped to deal with giant, slow-moving problems.

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Posted in Human Nature, Psychology, Technology | Comments Off on A World We Can’t Trust

Attending the Ballet

Posted on Monday 28 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

No post yesterday; we were busy attending a concert, with dinner afterwards.

Yesterday we attended Oscar, a ballet at Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus, staged by The Australian Ballet, on tour, with the local Berkeley Symphony playing the score, with conductor Jonathan Lo. Choreography by Christopher Weldon; score by Joby Talbot, whom I’d never heard of before.

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Dicey Claims

Posted on Saturday 26 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • No, Noah’s Ark has not been found, again;
  • Evidence suggests Trump wanted the Kennedy Center to fall into ruin;
  • Lenders around the world don’t trust the US;
  • An example of how AI is making things worse, by claiming credit for mathematical results that cannot be easily confirmed;
  • Thoughts about mathematics, AI, and the limits of human cognition.
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This kind of story pops up every few years, and it’s no truer now than it has ever been. The searchers have had 2000 years. But gullible people feel confirmed by it every time.

Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, today: Scientists have not “100% confirmed” the resting place of Noah’s Ark, subtitled “The Daily Mail turned a Christian company’s dubious claims about Turkey’s Durupınar Formation into a wildly misleading story”

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Posted in conservatives, Lunacy, Mathematics, Religion | Comments Off on Dicey Claims

There Is Only So Much Land

Posted on Friday 25 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Jerry Coyne on why neither Israel nor Palestine wants a two-state solution;
  • Fareed Zakaria claims the US and China must eventually adapt, even cooperate;
  • Robert Reich on what he’s heard from foreign leaders about America and Trump;
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A similar broad theme today. This goes along with the item two days ago about J.D. Vance’s notion of “Heritage Americans” who, in his fascist, hierarchical mindset, are more deserving to run America than others.

Jerry Coyne, yesterday: The two-state delusion

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Posted in Conservative Resistance, conservatives, Politics, Tribalism | Comments Off on There Is Only So Much Land