The creepiest forest on Staten Island
Arborist William Bryant Logan takes a trip to the botanical hell that is the Fresh Kills Landfill, and finds something wonderful:From a coyote’s-eye view, you could see what the trees were up to:...
View ArticleLunch link list
Queued up a few articles to read after work today:The Tribune has a short guide to Chicago's brewpubs aimed at the perplexed.Marvel has announced a bunch more superhero movies, coming on the heels of...
View ArticleDemocratic Party strategy?
Adam Eichen bemoans the left's obtuseness in creating, sustaining, and funding a long-term strategy to regain power, the way the radical right has done for 50 years:Republicans and their donors, on the...
View ArticleWho needs agents?
In their ongoing battle with large Hollywood agencies, the members of the Writers Guild of America fired all their agents. Subsequently, they went through the usual May cycle of getting new jobs with...
View ArticleThe man's talking about logic at a time like this
Yes I am.In this first post of a new series, I'm going to explain in brief the most common logical fallacies that we hear (and sometimes use) all the time.Fallacies come in a few basic flavors:...
View ArticleMore fallacies
Yesterday, this nitwit described a couple of logical fallacies that everyone raved about. For day two of my series on "how not to argue," I present two more of the most common fallacies of irrelevant...
View ArticleIf I were President
Tonight I'm looking at the resignation of Dan Coats and the likely appointment of John Ratcliffe for the office of director of national intelligence (DNI), and struggling to understand how narcissism...
View ArticleAwe and Force
Continuing The Daily Parker's occasional series on logical fallacies, let's look at two more fallacies of irrelevant conclusions.Argumentum ad vericundiamAn "argument to awe" uses reputation rather...
View ArticleThis is on you, Wayne LaPierre
Twenty-nine people died and 52 were injured in two massshootings yesterday. Years of lying about the second amendment to encourage gun sales, and buying votes not only for legislation but also to...
View ArticleRed herring
No one really knows where the term "red herring" came from, though some speculate it came from the idea that drawing a fish across your path would confuse the dogs tracking you. In epistemology, a red...
View ArticleIt's the future! Our flying cars are nigh!
French inventor Franky Zapata piloted a jet-powered hoverboardacross the English Channel yesterday, covering 32 km in 22 minutes, including a refueling stop on a boat:Mr. Zapata’s first attempt to...
View ArticleYou're accidentally wrong
Last week I identified and demonstrated seven fallacies of irrelevant conclusion, by which a person tries to win an argument using language that has nothing to do with the point being argued. Those...
View ArticleWhat goes around...
Continuing to look at material fallacies, we come to one of the most misunderstood and one of the most common.Petitio principii"Begging the question" does not mean that a question is hanging in the...
View ArticleScott Adams demonstrates bad-faith arguments
As I continue my series on logical fallacies, I'd like to note cartoonist Scott Adams' latest blog post.For years, Adams has talked about how people see what they want to see in the president's speech...
View ArticleLunchtime reading
A diverse flock this afternoon:FedEx will sever ties with Amazon as the latter builds its own logistics operation.Jennifer Rubin complains about the inanity of intra-party debates that miss larger...
View ArticleDying for lack of a cause
Continuing my series on logical fallacies, we come now to "non causa pro causa," or false cause.Post hoc ergo propter hoc"After this, therefore because of this." The argument attempts to attribute...
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It was 50 years ago today
That Sgt Pepper taught the band to block a street in London:It was on August 8, 1969, that the band snapped the photo that would change Abbey Road’s future forever. The following month they would...
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Sunday afternoon link round-up
Including sitting with a lost dog for 45 minutes this morning, I've had a pretty lazy Sunday. Here are some of the articles I might read if I decide to do anything productive today:Astronomers in...
View ArticleHow was Anne Frank found?
A former FBI agent is using "cold-case" techniques to figure it out:Gertjan Broek, a lead researcher with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, believes that the search for an informant might prevent...
View ArticleAfternoon articles
Just a few for my commute home:New York Times reporter James Stewart interviewed Jeffrey Epstein on background a year ago, and it was weird.The Post analyzes temperature records to find which parts of...
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