{"id":22749,"date":"2015-09-25T02:03:39","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T09:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=22749"},"modified":"2015-09-25T02:03:39","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T09:03:39","slug":"friday-links-random-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/25\/friday-links-random-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday links & random thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicki says, “Hey, Snowflake!”<\/a> you don’t have a government-enforced “right” to a wider airplane seat for your super-sized butt.<\/p>\n

Well, we’ll see about that. When I had the recent infamous medical procedure, they stuck me into a wheelchair wide enough that I could have invited several friends to share the ride. The tech who wheeled my groggy self down the hallway said they have only one “normal” sized chair now. And yes, the reason is what you probably think.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

“My Dog, the Paradox.”<\/a> An oldie but goodie from The Oatmeal.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

“Scientists” (that is, social scientists again) survey youth gun carrying and jump to conclusions<\/a> that have no basis outside of their own prejudices. (H\/T LarryA)<\/p>\n

If the idea that Wyoming is likely to be more rife with “youth gun violence” than New Jersey or New York makes you laugh, howl away.<\/p>\n

This “science” reminds me of that survey I received long ago from the Bradys asking, with much implied alarm, if I’d heard gunfire in my neighborhood recently. Given that I lived directly between a small pistol range and a plinking quarry at the time, the Bradys would no doubt have thought I spent my life hiding under the bed in terror of all the “violence.”<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Carl Sagan’s baloney-detection kit<\/a> is very good and well worth a revisit.<\/p>\n

But when I got this link from MJR it reminded me that, for all that eminent man’s good work in popularizing science, he (being human) didn’t always practice what he preached.<\/p>\n

Sagan was anti-gun, and in the most irrational way. He didn’t examine the facts. He didn’t study the data. He didn’t ask questions. He just “knew” guns were shivery-icky-baddy-bad-bad. It’s been a while, but I believe I discovered those gooey opinions of his while reading his otherwise fascinating paean to rational thought, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The very book that produced the fine baloney detector.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Okay, to finish up, here’s a video of the world’s kindest junkyard dog<\/a>. Awwwwwww.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nicki says, “Hey, Snowflake!” you don’t have a government-enforced “right” to a wider airplane seat for your super-sized butt. Well, we’ll see about that. When I had the recent infamous medical procedure, they stuck me into a wheelchair wide enough that I could have invited several friends to share the ride. The tech who wheeled my groggy self down the hallway said they have only one “normal” sized chair now. And yes, the reason is what you probably think. —– “My Dog, the Paradox.” An oldie but goodie from The Oatmeal. —– “Scientists” (that is, social scientists again) survey youth…<\/p>\n

Continue readingFriday links & random thoughts<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,11,12,18,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dogs-and-cats","category-government","category-guns-and-gun-rights","category-mind-and-spirit","category-miscellaneous","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}