Peter Schweizer, in a National Post editorial, argues that conservative idealogues are destined to win the culture war because they make babies faster than liberals. His argument is based on a tediously simplistic view of humanity where people can be neatly divided into two categories – “conservatives” and “liberals” – and an unspoken, obviously fallacious […]
Author: Kerri Coombs
Degrees of Causality and Human Stupidity.
Lately I have been trying to think of a new way to rank human stupidity that takes into account that very clever people often make stupid decisions and simple people are very often wise. I think it has something to do with understanding multiple degrees of causality. Let me explain: All events, however insignificant, are […]
Can’t afford your gas bill? This year, heat your home with a good, old-fashioned book burning!
Starting with these: Regnery Publishing’s Pig-Ignorant Guides to Perverting Reality. Regnery is simultaneously catering to the luctrative niche markets of “books for people who are obviously too stupid to read”, “books for the dissemination of which free market propagandists will shell out considerable financial support”, and “books written by people who are too stupid to read […]
The Inappropriate Boobs of Truth
Top contender for one of the most ironic news items I have ever read is this story in the Guardian: Over the table at which Berlusconi holds press conferences in Palazzo Chigi, Italy’s equivalent of No 10 Downing Street, hangs a huge copy of a painting by the 18th-century Venetian master Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. It […]
Alternative Energy in the Media
As the world struggles with the rising price of oil, the media is awash with optimistic stories about the efforts of scientists to discover a cheap, abundant energy source that could replace fossil fuels. The idea is seductive: human ingenuity will soon discover a way to fuel our growth-based economy, and nothing will have to […]
Can the Private Sector Solve Canada’s Health Care Problems?
I found this nifty interactive research tool at the World Health Organisation website: http://www.who.int/whosis/data/Search.jsp This gigantic statistical database allows you to assemble a table of health care standards and expenses by country, using the countries, indicators and years of your choosing. It’s pretty buggy but I’ve discovered it’s useful for winning arguments against those who […]
James Purnell: Back to the Workhouse, Peasant!
According to the mathematically challenged Andrew Woodcock of the Independent, Purnell has proposed to raise the employment rate in the UK from 75% to 80% by getting “thousands of people off benefits and into work.” Let’s look closely at this assertion: the UK’s 74.9% employment rate translates into about 29,590,000 jobs, according to UK census […]
How to Stick it to the Man (With a Trowel)
On Friday afternoon I went to see The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. The jist was, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union the US embargo, Cuba woke up one morning and couldn’t get any oil. At the time, they were doing things the way the rest of us are now: […]
The Gospel According to the neo-Cons
If an updated version of the Bible were available that reflects the values of the George Bushes and Tony Blairs of this world, this is what the Sermon on the Mount might look like: You have heard that it was said, ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you who hear […]
If Ottawa giveth, then Ottawa can taketh away…
What happened to the free and open exchange of information when the president of a secretive conservative propaganda foundation won control of the Canadian federal government? The Toronto Star investigates with a pretty good series of articles. “This is the Prime Minister’s Office calling. I have the Prime Minister’s chief of staff on the line. […]