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About
- Yeah, in a Minute... is the personal dumping grounds of Paul Landry:
- professional software engineer
- enthusiast / advanced amateur photographer
- (Apple) / Mac / iOS guy
- partially omniscient, witty, tech geek
- user of "adult language" (oh my!)
- 37?!?
- rock / blues / jazz fan
- skeptic, and
- raconteur...
- Yeah, in a Minute... is the personal dumping grounds of Paul Landry:
- NAME AND PRONOUNS:
- "Paul" / "he–him–his"
- FIND ME ON:
- [Twitter],
- [Micro.blog],
- and pretty much everywhere else via [About.me]...
- PHOTO BLOG:
- LASTLY:
- But not leastly, [Fuck Facebook!]
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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: rational thought / critical thinking
Those today who believe whatever nonsense they see on Facebook
John Gruber at Daring Fireball, nailing it as usual: Those today who believe whatever nonsense they see on Facebook are like the people who, a generation ago, believed the nonsense printed in supermarket tabloids like “The Weekly World News”. The difference is that instead of being crackpots who write letters to elected officials, a bunch […]
Also tagged commentary, skepticism
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New study indicates populist attitudes are associated with gullibility.
Populism exists throughout the political spectrum as a political ideology that defines society as conflict between ordinary people and the elites. Many conspiracy theories fit populist ideals in how they hinge on the elites as responsible for ordinary people’s societal issues. New research, published in Political Psychology, found that populist attitudes are associated with conspiracy […]
Also tagged science
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New York Times Opinion: It’s Quitting Season
Excellent video opinion piece by Lindsay Crouse and Kirby Ferguson (of Everything is a Remix fame). Winners never quit, and quitters never win. We Americans are told some version of this again and again. Our country wasn’t built on quitters. As Bible-loving Americans, we were taught that perserverance is virtuous, and this message finds us […]
Also tagged opinion
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Oh My Fucking God, Get The Fucking Vaccine Already, You Fucking Fucks
Wendy Molyneux, writing at McSweeney’s: Hi, if you are reading this essay then congratulations, you are still alive. And if you are alive, then you have either gotten the COVID-19 vaccine, or you still have the opportunity to get the vaccine against COVID-19. And holy fuck, if you aren’t fucking vaccinated against COVID-19, then you […]
Also tagged commentary, covid-19
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Nailed it
From r/libertarianmeme, posted by u/SuperHeroBrother:
Also tagged humor, libertarian, politics
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Gin and Truth podcast
I am loving this new-ish podcast by Robert Reed, whom I follow on Twitter (@RCReed40). The description says it all, “A steady stream of ramblings from this rat’s nest I call a brain.” The great thing is that I seem to agree with Robert on just about everything he talks about. Maybe you will too. […]
Also tagged commentary, podcast, politics, race/racism
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Bitching much about face masks?
They’ll likely never admit it, but the people bitching endlessly today about wearing a fucking face mask, and staying home if you don’t need to go out, and keeping your distance, and not gathering in large groups, etc., are the same type of people who would have bitched endlessly about rationing during WWII. And the […]
Also tagged commentary, covid-19, politics
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On President-Elect Joe Biden’s Address to the Nation
I have to say that as an actual Conservative1, I disagree with Joe Biden more than I agree with him2. But I also have to acknowlege this: Last night, I watched a President-Elect address the nation. He spoke in coherent, cogent, complete sentences. He spoke of his vision for the nation, and did so without […]
Also tagged government, history, politics, reason
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I love it when people quote Christopher Hitchens
“What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” -Christopher Hitchens https://t.co/k2suaAMOFW — Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) November 7, 2020 Indeed.
Reason Roundup: Kansans Reject Anti-Abortion Ballot Measure—and It’s Not Even Close
Elizabeth Nolan Brown reporting for Reason.com: Voters overwhelmingly voted against a measure that would have allowed abortion to be banned in Kansas in the first post-Roe test of abortion’s legality put directly to the people. Yeah, that’s the kind of crazy thing about the Dobbs decision — the people of our fair nation are overwhelmingly […]
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