- The passionate nonsense of gun banners.
- But Nick Gillespe — despite professing a “visceral unease” around all guns — argues that this is the time for more gun freedoms, not more restrictions.
- The good old IRS has awarded a $7+ million no-bid contract … to Equifax.
- Equifax. Whose former CEO actually testified this week that “mistakes were made.” Yes. He actually said that. I thought that had just become a bitter joke.
- And when it comes to collecting and exposing your data, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is not far behind. (Was anybody here naive enough to believe the CFPB was ever intended to “protect consumers”?)
- Did a drop in “pro-active policing” reduce crime rates?
- Well, that was good timing. Two days after I bemoaned lack of critical thinking, Scientific American and writer Heather Butler call for greater emphasis on that very thing.
- Yes, the SSN should go. It’s what you want to replace it with that’s the problem.
- Left behind. Spelunking college student gets accidentally abandoned by his caving group. Thinks about his resources for survival.
- Let’s offend everybody, shall we? New street-fighting game pits Jesus against the Buddha.
- What you dog is really thinking.
A few years after GCA ’68, I began asking gun-control advocates to inform me of any law which had served to reduce the rate of violent crime where firearms were involved.
I’ve asked this question fairly regularly over these past 40+ years. So far, no answer.
In their 1985 book, “Under The Gun”, the statisticians Wright/Rossi/Daly (U of Fla Press) concluded that no gun-control law ever passed in Florida had ever affected the rate.
I understand Gillespie’s “visceral unease,” because I had it myself once. I got over it by learning how to safely handle and shoot a pistol (and particularly by learning how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble one). I related the story briefly here: http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.6654
Good but short article on critical thinking. Too bad that Scientific American’s editors stopped practicing that skill long ago.
I subscribed to Scientific American for 30 years. In an effort to boost flagging subscription rates, the editors decided to jump on the global warming bandwagon. Nonsensical, politicized, fact-free screeds were presented as “settled science.” Dissenting opinions and factual rebuttals were forbidden.
Once global warming was shown to be non-existent, Scientific American pivoted to climate change and more propaganda against oil and in favor of punishing the poorest people on earth by raising the price of energy available to them.
It was a terrible thing to watch, and after a few years I couldn’t take it anymore and cancelled my subscription. If Scientific American ever returns to critical thinking and skeptical inquiry, I might reconsider. Right now, they are a classic example of smart people doing stupid things.