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- Yeah, in a Minute... is the personal dumping grounds of Paul Landry:
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News Gathering vs. Confirmation Bias
- Remember, if you do not have at least one source of news that you turn to regularly, with which you routinely disagree, then you are not practicing news gathering! You are practicing [confirmation bias].
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Science
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996) at p.32.
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
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Tag Archives: constitution
God Damn It !!!
Jumpin’ Jesus! It’s International Blasphemy Day!
Also tagged education, freedom, freethought, law/legal, rational thought / critical thinking, religion
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Oh God Damn It!
It’s International Blasphemy Day! I make jokes and all, but Blasphemy Day is is actually a very serious day, which: educates individuals and groups about blasphemy laws and defends freedom of expression, especially the open criticism of religion which is criminalized in many countries. Exercise your rights people, lest they wither away.
Terrifying: DOJ Wants to Suspend Constitutional Rights for Coronavirus Emergency
Peter Wade at Rolling Stone: The Trump Department of Justice has asked Congress to craft legislation allowing chief judges to indefinitely hold people without trial and suspend other constitutionally protected rights during the coronavirus and other emergencies, according to a report by Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan. While the asks from the Department of Justice will […]
Also tagged bullshit, covid-19, government, politics
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Reason: The Same FBI That Wants To Destroy Encryption Is Still Illegally Snooping on Americans
Scott Shackford, writing at reason.com: As late as last year, agents at the FBI were still violating the privacy rights of American citizens through misuse of federal surveillance tools, a ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has revealed. The ruling is from October 2018 but was only declassified and disclosed this week, albeit […]
Also tagged government, law/legal
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Free-Speech Clichés Everyone Should Stop Using
Ken White, writing at the Atlantic: If I ask 10 physics professors what will happen if I drop my pencil and why, they will all say: “It will fall, because of gravity.” There is very little risk that they will say “Well, maybe it will fall or maybe it won’t” because they think gravity is […]
Also tagged freespeech, politics
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Absent warrant standard, police could monitor anyone via location data
ARS Technica: This case, Carpenter v. United States, asks a simple question: is it OK for police to seize and search 127 days of cell-site location information (CSLI) without a warrant? Previously, lower courts have said that such practices are compatible with current law. But the fact that the Supreme Court agreed to hear the […]
Also tagged freedom, government, privacy
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Ohio Senate Puts End to ‘Heartbeat’ Abortion Bill
Associated Press: COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The leader of the Ohio Senate put a stop Tuesday to a bill that would have imposed the most stringent restriction on abortions in the nation. The chamber doesn’t plan to vote on the so-called “heartbeat bill” before the end of the legislative session next month, Republican Senate President […]
Also tagged freedom, government, health, politics, religion
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Romney = Akin?
Ok, let’s just recap the events of the last few days. First, Missouri Representative Todd Akin, running for Senate in that state, made statements to the effect that a woman’s body shuts down when she is legitimately raped and that this prevents pregnancy from occurring. These statements are patently false, and are so very far […]
Ebert: Don’t tear down that wall!
Roger Ebert gets the separation of Church and State; unfortunately, many, many Americans don’t. Writing at his Chicago Sun-Times site “Roger Ebert’s Journal”: And make no mistake: it is a principle we’re discussing here. If I believe my church’s teachings are correct, my obvious course should be to convert you to my church, not pass […]
Also tagged government, politics, reason, religion
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