Wednesday, January 4. 2006
It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.Judith Martin, (Miss Manners)
Tuesday, January 3. 2006
The always-composed Hinderaker is provoked into a true blogger rant by Dean. China ratchets up controls of the press. CSM IQ vs. Self-Discipline. Cognitive Daily
Death cult celebrity: LGF Is abortion necessary "health care" ? Am Spectator Newspeak at the NYT: Scott How men and women use the internet differently Big Oil becoming Small Oil: Opinion Journal Bird flu - Sim Science, esp epidemiology. Very cool. From Captain Ed: " I, for one, would rather have the NSA checking on valid leads on al-Qaeda terrorists here in the US than to have my granddaughter vaporized by Islamofascists at the Mall of America." No doubt.
Logical fallacies are the sins of the world of reason. Just as with sin in the world of morality, in the world of reason we all fall into fallaciousness sometimes - whether by accident or on purpose. And, like sin, logical fallacy can "work" in the interpersonal world, but it fails against harder realities every time. The study of logical fallacy is the interesting, backdoor approach to thinking about logic and reasoning. It is difficult for us amateurs to define "logical" except to say that it exists where there is no illogicality - which is a Circular Fallacy. In a rational universe, none of us should be permitted to offer an opinion on anything without first making a study of logical fallacy. Everyone seems to have their favorite bugaboo fallacies, and everyone also seems to have their favorite fallacies to use in debate, manipulation, persuasion, and discussion. (In politics, outright lying seems often to be the preferred mode of disputation, but we are dealing here with subtler matters: errors of which the user is often not aware, but also the deliberate abuse of logical errors to score points, to persuade, or to bamboozle.) Here are some of my favorite bugaboos: 1. The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy: Named after the guy who shoots at the barn wall, then draws a target circle around the hole. A favorite of ambulance-chasers and of the statistically-ignorant. You first locate a random cluster, then seek a "cause" for it. The fact is that patterns can occur randomly, and often do. Known as "data-mining" when done by unscrupulous academic researchers: They throw a ton of data into the computer and ask it to find any correlations it can. That ain't science. 2. The Gambler's Fallacy: If you coin-toss four heads in a row, the odds are higher that the next toss will be a tails. Wrong: Lady Luck has no memory. Still waiting for my Tech stocks to bounce back...eventually they have to, right? 3. Retrospective Determinism: The fallacious notion that because something did happen, it was bound to happen. "9-11 was inevitable because..." Colloquially known as 20/20 hindsight. 4. Cum Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc: Mistaking correlation for causation, or even for a direct relationship. Eg, broccoli-eaters have less cancer, therefore broccoli prevents cancer. Another one of my favorite examples was the government study of hospitals which revealed that the great teaching hospitals had some of the poorest outcomes for open heart surgery. The reason, of course, was that they took on the cases no-one else would or could deal with. Thus the best hospitals had the lowest grades, rendering the entire costly, multi-year project ridiculous. 5. The Fallacy of the Single Cause: The fantasy that events have simple or single "causes." Eg, "What was the cause of World War One?" 6. Ipse Dixit: Argument from authority rather than from data. Eg, "The New York Times says..." Logically permissible only when God, George Orwell, or G. K. Chesterton is speaking. All of the above, and many more, can be found in more detail on the links below. I often feel that the most effective fallacious arguments can be made by combining or sequencing two or more fallacies, thus overwhelming the logical capacities and scrambling the brains of your helpless victim. Indeed, they rarely occur in pure form anyway. Sad to say, sometimes one must use fallacies for persuasion - even when cogent logic is on your side - because fallacies can often be more persuasive than fact or logic to the uninitiated (such as jurors, voters, and newspaper readers). Hence the lowly reputations of politicians and lawyers. Aristotle may have been the first (no surprise there - he was the first to organize everything - an obsessional genius) to list logical fallacies in his Sophistical Refutations, in which he listed thirteen. The delightful website The Fallacy Files is a fine source, and Wikipedia has an exhaustive list, with many pretty good definitions, here. "Was Mann Weiss, Mann Sieht." I find that identifying fallacies can be good fun and, once one learns their names, it can be as amusing as bird-watching to silently identify the ones you see and hear everyday. It is more fun to notice the ones others use, but the real trick is to to identify the ones we find ourselves using. Self-deception is a great sin.
The Suicide Theme Kimball, in a New Criterion piece entitled "After the Suicide of the West": "The terrorist attacks of 9/11 gave us a vivid reminder—but one, alas, that seems to have faded from the attention of many Western commentators who seem more concerned about recreational facilities at Guantanamo Bay than the future of their towns and cities. For myself, ever since 9/11, when I think about threats to democracy, I recall a statement by one Hussein Massawi, a former Hezbollah leader, which I believe I first read in one of Mark Steyn’s columns. “We are not fighting,” Mr. Massawi said, “so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.” " His piece is the intro for a series on culture wars, here. And Sowell, "Serious or Suicidal?", on the world's view of Iran and their nukes.
The most important news of 2005. Productivity. TCS An alcohol-related visual-brain problem: measuring alcohol. We thoughtfully saved this one for after New Year's Eve. Geothermal energy. It's a growing thing, and seems good. Still, we need nuclear. Finally, the truth about poor Sacco and Vanzetti. Norm covers it. Has anyone missed Patterico's summary of the LAT's bias in 2005? If not, read with despair. Or can he have an impact? If so, we need a Patterico for the NYT. Preferably a sharp legal mind with time on their hands, and yet willing to read the damn thing.
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
Will Rogers
Monday, January 2. 2006
African literature update: Chronicle of Higher Ed 2 views of Palestine: Belmont Russia, and nuke power: Samizdata Steyn predicts the death of Europe: New Crit, via LGF Useful idiots, at Am. Thinker Is Walmart evil? Pejman Events of the Year: No Oil Farrahkan wins a prize. Unbelievable. Michelle Bush elected President of Iraq. Onion Mars rovers still on the move. Heard about it lately? Ca. Yank That map again, via NRO, H/T Instap. Most ancient canals in the world: Peru $ effects of Title 9 - Willisms
Why legal pro bono work is inefficient: Cafe Hayek The Ferret looks handy, and other Brit military hardware that you can buy. Khaki Corps And on a related topic, a website featuring the ruins of the Third Reich. Coming out of the closet as a neocon - tough thing to do if you live in the wrong neighborhood. Neo 2005 quotes from the news of 2005. Althouse Where Bush went wrong: where they always go wrong, by over-reading an election as a mandate. RCP
 Dear Bird Dog,
As "this year ends and a new one begins" like the phonies say which I think is no holiday at all but another trumped up scam for phony jollity and spending hard-earned money for frivolus forced "fun", and what farmer has a holiday anyway if you have got 80 head of dairy cattle, but I owe you an apology. Since that trip to France which I did not want I have gotten caught up in romance and a new life as you know, to be corny. And have written nothing for our Yankee blog. As you know, and you were good enough to come to it and leave us with all these dang Taize cd records and a couple of cases of fancy 1989 frenchie grape juice which is over the head of my wore-out taste buds, I did get hitched in the old family Congregational Church to the charming Miss Millie who just grabbed aholt of me and would not let go like a mongrel cuss with a bad case of the bite and holds which if was one of my dogs would get a boot in the teeth but being a pretty and cheerful woman who can clean a partridge and pluck a duck gets the old walk down the ancestral ile and you get the shiny new ball and chain and the new curtains which you get to pay for and aint that just the beginning of fixin up but dont let them change you. And bless her old young heart, I can still get the flag up the old flagpole or at least halfway up almost anyway on a good day so we have had some good times this fall if I take a bath which I do not like to waste time with and she says You dont smell yourself and I says Well I dont even know myself either, she doesn't mind my shooting as long as I come to church which I may as well do since it didin't kill me yet and she understands what guys like to do and she does like the smell of gunpowder on a fellow andit gives her the teases and the giggles which this old guy can handle but barely sometimes not being the cuddly sort. Well this time with God and church is "more sentimental than holy" and "more wine than blood of Christ" and "more brandy than branded by Christ" as Pastor teases me in my good duck blind the one pappy built at the edge of the pond in the marshy part but what can you do? Pastor hunts grouse and turkey with me and leaves God out of it but how he supports his family God only knows despite the fine venison and my daily milk delivery from the barn and no it aint pasturized but our gals in the barn are happy, healthy and fat and we have the best buttermilk in Vt to put fat and muscle on the bones of his growing hockey playing Green Mountain kids both the guys and the gals. Plus everyone brings them wood for their woodburning furnace. And well I did give him Pappy's 20 ga. Parker for Christmas which I dont need because by my age I can kill anything with any damn busted and rusted old gun inclduing flying crows with a 22 not to brag but which pleased him no end as you might imagine and he gave me a big christian hug but not his wife Ellie who you would not call a gunnut but it hardly matters since he never misses a partridge anyhow because he says "the force is with him" and will not take personal credit for it, taking modesty to a fault if you ask me, or maybe using layers of ironny etc. so you can hardly find where they are or what they really think, but he is a good no BS Vermonter at heart with a killin streak who got complicated by Yale divinity but who can give you as strong a dose of God as you can handle, and from his gut, which I respect becasue like my Granny always said with God it's a strong dose or no dose at all and there is no middle ground so you make your choice and live with it for your eternity if you get one. Pastor is always kidding like pastors always have to do so as you dont get uncomfortable being with them imagining that they are some special breed which they probably are, and thinking they need to be jokeular to relax same as them army shrinks that they made me talk to after I got the shakes in korea after that time, well, I told you that story and I aint about to blog on that incedent but my knee reminds me every day which was the least of it. and on gunnut that term I used let me say that a gunnut to me is a city person who likes guns, for country folk guns are tools around the place like pipe wrenches and you would not term a person with six pipe wrenches a wrench nut would you and yet sure I would rather spend two hours to pop a young doe for the freezer than fixing the damn pipes but fixing a pipe has its own satisfactions. You know Millie has fussed a bit over the old house but not so's a fellow cant come in dirty or leave a loaded shotgun in the kitchen because what damn good is an unloaded one and she will bring me a lunch out on the tractor no matter how far she has to walk and sometimes her ankles swell up a tad she being sligtly past 70 well truthfully quite a bit more than sligtly and you couldnt call her skinny so God bless her sweet heart because she does seem to have a fondness for me even though I aint worth it.She got all of the fireplaces working like a good vermont gal inclduing the bedroom one which I thought was hoky but she makes it work out ok with a glass of that Frenchie grape juice when sarparilla or canadian whiskey was fine with me and a fire and cozy like we was 60 yrs old again, not too bad for an old fart like me who I guess kindof gave up on life when the old wife died bless her sweet old heart and I will never forget anything including putting up with me for all of those years and many hard years including the time I was in Korea doing my duty and she had to run the farm without me. Well Millie will not cook raccoon which I like on the grill the way you told me to mairinate it she thinks it is ungodly for some reason but she cooks our venison and our wild turkey etc and has got my Dads old smoker working again and there are no more Wlallmart apple pies for breakfast because she makes pies once a week from our own apples and they are not exactly better but they are made by a gal who cares which I hate to admit makes a difference to me. And if I will punch a hole in the ice in the deep part of the pond she will sit there bundled up with her Bible catching perch for supper like grampa used to do when he got old and tossing them on the ice for two hours bless her heart I would never do that but they are good this time of year and she does it for me as if she was some fisherman or fisher of men in the Bible sense of the term despite catching me with a double barbed hook for certain and tossing me on the ice too which I cannot complain overmuch. But dont worry about politics Millie is a "take back Vermont" type of gal but not sombre a cute little giggler really and not a Vt commie, with deep roots up here and a belief in family independence and cannot stand the newyorkers and the hippys and the people who wont do their national service because they are the me me me people, any more than I can stand them and have to ski instead of being in church where they belong but where I would not be without being married to a jolly churchlady but as I say it aint kilt me and God if He is there is a vermonter and He sure aint forgot me so why not compromise? The smokes no I will not quit and bless her she does not care and I have already had a healthy long life and going strong and tobacco has not made a dent in me yet and I can say Ive taken more out of tobacco leaf than tobacco has taken out of me. You could say its an injun thing, Bird Dog, just like that cheap canadian firewater we like up here which definitely does not have antiaccidents in it so you have to wait til work is done. Now you know Bird Dog up here in the Kingdom we arent part of the dekadent USA, we are part of the good old USA, the hard country of my forefathers where men and women are built by sweat and sacrifice and pain and do not expect this life to be a bowl of free apples. Why should it be? We are given life and breath and the strenth of our backs and the brain of a drunk barn pigeon and that is plenty enough to be given speaking practically not religously and we are well forwarned that life is a vale of tears with moments of joy and God knows that is true but you cannot ignore the grandour of our Green Mountains looming at you through the dark every morning at 4 am milking time when Seth and Reuben show up totally oblivius to whatever and everything which is about them in this world but ready to work despite hangovers, lack of brains and common sense etc. and being worked over all night by high school drop out fat girls with tatoos and body peercings with two or three snot-nose demented and 1/2 civilizied brat kids and on the dole which is all they can attract being good workers but basically lazy and ignorant and not overly intelligent beer drinkers hanger-outers and only idly curious at the most and thus not exactly prize stock themselves. But to be some kind of Christian I should be understanding which I am of these two fellows because they come from immigrant families by which I mean whose greatgrandpappy immigrated to the Green Mountains from the Aderondacks across Lake Champlain to Vermont in 1874 and what kind of damaged pioneer stock gives up and immigrates backwards? Or they couldnt handle the winters the sure sign of a softer breed not really the type a man wants to breed into for strong sturdy stock and the young folks dont always wonder about what they are breeding into but a farmer has to consider it. So I guess I am not blogging much anymore and I am limiting myself to weekends for my internet fun now that I have a wife to tend to plus I have a farm to run still with hopes that my lazy ponytale truck driving son will take it on as he should if only to show honor to our ancestors who have tilled and dairied this rocky hardass land since 1724. Dont worry Millie would have no tv in the place but we did throw out the busted 1967 Zenith that was sitting in the parlor since it caught on fire about 10 yrs ago and scorched the wall and we do not need that tv crap which only cheapens your life with the phony haha and the phony sports etc., I think, and on this subject Pastor agrees with me and would not own one either but he is a bookish guy and Ellie is too but I dont think she approves of me nor why should she as I am rough on my edges for a refined gal like her I am just a farmer but I have gone the distance have I not. so take me off of your blogger list but if I have something to say I will email it to you as long as I dont get the Oldtimers disease, my good friend, you who cannot shoot worth a goddamm like a city boy and will eat far more than you can kill but who loves the land and the animals as much as anyone I ever knew. "Best wishes" as you would say, and we will save you a few gallons of Grade B no you like the rough stuff Grade C syrup in a couple of months. I can just tell we have a good syrup year in front of us. The Yankee Farmer Comment fron Bird Dog: Lost another one to Ditec marriage. The "Laconic Yankee Farmer" helped launch our Yankee blog, and I think it helped launch his life from the sad condition it was in. Hope it helped, anyway. God bless him and Millie, and give them many years of happiness and good hard work together in the Green Mountains. To read his prior posts, including his stuff on Taize, click here.
Continue reading "The Laconic Yankee Farmer Finally Speaks: The Year of Our Lord 2006"
Sunday, January 1. 2006
Yes, Monday is a federal holiday and a bank holiday. But we will have at least one post you won't want to miss - a note from the Yankee Farmer, for whom holidays do not exist. Better living in the USA: CSM Orianna Fallaci: Front Page What happened to the tsunami money? Wash. Times Thoughts about hard times: Right Equals Might Thoughts about Kwanzaa: Gay and Right Bloom on Limbo: NYT The press and the leakers: Captain Ed. And the other possible transgressions of the spooks: MSNBC
Wise Man of Wall St. Barton Biggs, longtime wise man at Morgan Stanley (and known to be a perpetual Bear), but more recently in the hedge fund business, has written a book: Hedgehogging. It comes out next week, but folks I know who have read advance copies say it's a very fine and entertaining inside look at the fantastically lucrative Wild West hedgie world.
A Freebie cell phone 411 information number Instead of being charged a buck or more for each 411 call, use this:
1 800 FREE 411 (1 800 373-3411). There is no charge for getting the number.
 Maggie's Farm Data, And Thanks
Our gracious webmeister and good pal Chris informs us that Maggie's Farm had about 200,000 "hits" in November and between 500-2000 "unique visitors" daily. It varies quite a bit, with a long-term upward trend. That's not very impressive, given the world's population and the size of the blogosphere, but we have only existed since late February. We had plenty of "hits" on the blog's address last month, but I don't know what that really means. Do they read us? Are they just quickly checking to see if we have something new? Are they very quick scanners like me? Are are they lost in cyberspace? Or looking for Dylan lyrics? We have no idea. "Visitors" is just an index of how much time is spent on the blog, and where you decide to set the threshold for the measuring software. We set it at a "very long" 5 minutes, which is a lifetime for our high IQ quick readers (except for Rick - haha - gotcha back, buddy). We have no other information about you, our dear gentle readers, other than how you got here - eg, Yahoo, links, searches, bookmark (please bookmark us - it's easier access for you), etc. We know nothing about who you are, unless you tell us. Being greedy, ambitious, vain, human, and lots of other unpleasant things, we'd like that visitor number to be 10,000, 100,000, or preferably 1,000,000. An exclusive boutique with a secret Walmart hidden deep inside. But markets rule in this blog game, as they must, and we do our best to please ourselves and find good stuff, in the hope that others will value what we do. If they don't, it's their loss. We enjoy doing this for the time being, and it makes us think things through, learn stuff, and polish (?) our casual writing too. But today, I just want to focus on that word "unique." Definitely. If you are a Maggie's reader, you are a member of a unique club, and we deeply appreciate your interest in our unusual and eccentric eclectic publication. Please send us around to your friends, relatives, and enemies, if you enjoy us. Happy New Year, and Holiday Thanks for being part of The Farm. Y'all come back real soon.
|
