Ok, which government should have a monopoly on guns? And should it also have a monopoly on phones, televisions, travel, relocation, books, newspapers, reproduction, and so forth?
Author: Kilgore Forelle
School Shootings
The idea that appeals to me the most is to disperse the public schools. Let people, who will, educate themselves. Let’s stop bunching them together in shooting arcades.
Nonsense on Stilts
An English proverb holds that a lie can be halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on. It also appears to be the case that a government can be shot through with corruption before the ink is dried on its Constitution.
The Road
It’s difficult to decide what single action would make gender inequality go away. If getting rid of POTUS would do the trick, I say “off with his head!” But neither the direction nor the facts are crystal clear. Look at the history already exposed. It’s not linear. The future is as unpredictable as the weather. Turbulence may pop up anywhere. Where shall we hold the March? Which road shall we take?
Words Poorly Used #129 — Specialization
There is no single task in making a pencil that requires rocket science, but there are lots of tasks that require the opportunity to do something in an optimum return situation. A lone pencil maker would have to switch jobs and be proficient in each. But in the real world it is not practical for the person who harvests the wood to also fashion the lead and to formulate the paint and affix the eraser.
Statism Freezes
I have some friends who want to march on Washington, DC, to express their preference that POTUS loses his office. We can get bogged down in narrow issues real quickly on that question. Because POTUS himself blurs all criteria of whether he is doing a good job, where would one start to open the debate back to definition of a true set of parameters?
Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics II — Climate Change
Nobody asked but … I didn’t want to create the impression in my recent post that I disbelieve climate change. All I’m saying is that it is highly improbable that the data is being gathered in an honest way. And I don’t mean honest as opposed to deliberately fallacious. Just as period music should be…
Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics
My latest Words Poorly Used blog made reference to a WAG (wild ass guess) number that attempted to purport that a large percentage of undocumented immigrants did not cross a border on the ground, but rather flew into the US, and then stayed after the visa expired. This has several takeaways, but the one that sticks with me is the problem with statistics.
Words Poorly Used #128 — Due Process
I want to rush this one onto the web before POTUS infects too many people. He has complained that the two White House staffers who resigned over allegations of sexual misconduct did not get “due process.”
Cognitive Bias #6 — Conservation
This does not mean leaning to the political right, nor does it mean stewardship of scarce resources. It means, as Alexander Pope wrote, “Be not the first by whom the new are tried.” It might be said that this is the opposite of the Recency Bias. New, emergent information is, by its nature, difficult to confirm.