I gave up debating acupuncturists and other pseudoscientists, because it’s like fighting The Terminator: they keep coming back for more, no matter what you do. Pseudosciences have evolved protective layers of bafflegab that are so complicated it takes hours to resect them, and they throw up more bafflegab as fast as you try.
I wrote a piece back in November of last year, about “Inner Dynamics of Revolutions.” [stderr] And, as I watch the news today, I realize I was being much too oblique. So, let me try again; warning, I’m going to talk about current US politics.
The FBI has hit on a splendid way of catching terrorists: you create them.
This does not appear to be a photoshop job. It’s cropped up before and neither Mitch McConnell not the Sons of Confederate Veterans have had much to say about it.
No man on earth is truly interested in sustaining error; sooner or later it is compelled to surrender to truth.
Your host, Jean Meslier
Short form: I wish there were more thrillers that had such great lighting, interesting characters, adult plot, and which did such a beautiful job of treading the line between suspension of disbelief and failure to suspend disbelief. If you like action movies, go see it unless you are allergic to 80s music and beautifully choreographed but intense violence.
(very very mild spoilers below the fold; I will not spoil any plot-points unless you are a genius at reading between the lines)
Becky N. sent me this:
This is brilliant at so many levels:
“Cursing” is a left-over of the jewish restrictions on saying “Yahweh”
Is this the right room for an argument
(AKA: “the unpronouncable god”) – saying the name of god was punishable by death, so, uh, let’s call it (mumble) because a supreme being won’t be able to tell we’re talking about it if we refer to it as “Monique.”
When I first moved to the farm, in 2002, there were monarch butterflies everywhere. I deliberately kept a big stand of milkweed for them, hoping to attract more.