My Kind of Change
These are actually pretty fitting…”more of the same”. Making change actually sounds like a better business model than printing and giving away money.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Knoxville Overground Spring Gala Fundraiser
This one is truly over ground. Tomorrow night KO is hosting a gala on the 6th floor of the Sunsphere (that’s one floor above the Wig Shop). The public is welcomed to attend, just a cool $25, but there is a limit to only 120 guests.
Official KO members, KO sponsors, and members of KO affiliate organizations receive a 20% discount for this event: $20/per person includes an evening of cocktails, friends, an upbeat vibe, and inspiring speeches about Knoxville’s potential to be even more sustainable, innovative, cosmopolitan, and empowered entrepreneurial community of cultural creatives.
This is a great opportunity to meet some of the folks involved with KO, and if you aren’t a member yet, you can swing by and take this quiz to see if perhaps you should be!
Popularity: 4% [?]
Fogerty
Sometimes it only takes one word for you to know exactly what you are gonna get.
It reminds me of a story…
I went to see a Credence Clearwater Revival tribute band with my buddy Half once. In between sets one of the band members was standing near us at the bar, and Half struck up a conversation with him that went something like this:
Half: When ya’ll gonna play “Lodi”?
The Guy: We don’t play “Lodi”.
Half: *with full contempt* If you don’t play “Lodi” you ain’t no damn CCR tribute band!
Popularity: 5% [?]
Explain the Logic Please
So I was listening to Boortz this morning and a guy calls in and defends his voting for Barack Obama. The reason…you’re going to love this…is that George Bush passed Medicare Part D, which the caller considers socialism.
Bully for him for being critical of the crap the Bush administration pushed on us for 8 years, but how does voting for someone even more socialist than Bush help you voice your displeasure with socialism? I’m lost.
I guess I can relate on some level. I’ve rationalized drowning potato chips in dip before. I mean, hey, I’m already eating like crap–might as well go all the way with it.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Swine Flu in Knoxville at Bearden High School?
Just read djuggler’s tweet saying Bearden High School will be closed for a week.
And his better half, cathymccaughan says,
What good does it do to close the high school when the teens will be at the mall or movies every day?
Just curious…do they close schools when someone gets the regular flu? It appears to be just as dangerous. What about food poisoning (it could have happened at school)? Or a stomach virus? Or pink eye? Or lice?
Considering all the bad things your kids can pick up from other students while in school–and I’m not talking about illnesses–swine flu shouldn’t worry anyone too much. Then again, maybe it’s better for the kiddies to take a week off from that kind of learning. 
UPDATE: Here’s a story on WBIR about a West Valley Middle Schol student who has recovered from a probable case of swine flu. I haven’t seen any updates yet as to whether it’s related to the Bearden High School news.
UPDATE II: djuggler confirms in the comments that it’s the West Valley Middle case, not Bearden High School
Popularity: 7% [?]
Sometime I Wonder About You
The current poll asks for your Waffle House hash browns order. So far, seven people have voted, but only three have included “scattered” in their options.
Uh…can you get hash browns at Waffle House that aren’t scattered? I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.
Carry on.
Popularity: 3% [?]
What If Massive Spending IS The Answer?
Do you believe the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression? If so, this post may not be for you. You may want to prepare yourself for absolute terror and look at this.
If you’re still reading, I’m going to assume you are freaked out by clowns, or you believe The New Deal helped the country out of the Great Depression.
If you do believe massive government spending and programs are the way out of bad economic times, are you ok with waiting as long as our grandparents waited then for things to turn around now?
We’ve been told we’re in the midst of the “worst economic crisis since the Great Depression“. How long should we expect for the bailouts/stimulus/Obama budged to start paying off?
Four years? Two years?
When “government must do something”, what do you feel is a reasonable amount of time to wait for “something” to take affect? And what are your expectations? Are there goals that should be met? In that time period what, to you, are acceptable numbers for:
- the DJIA and/or S&P 500
- unemployment
- federal deficit
- quarter over quarter economic growth
- inflation
What do you think the country’s expectations are for these numbers? More importantly, do you think the country collectively is willing to wait that long?
What happens if the clock runs out and expectations have not been met?
Popularity: 4% [?]
Just Wait Until Football Season!
November is right in the middle of football season, right? I’m assuming it was November when this mental specimen was elected.
You laugh, but I’d actually like to encourage Congress to spend more time doing stuff like this and less time, you know, legislating. We can limit their damage by relegating them to doing school cheers, quoting stats, and generally flexing their public speaking muscles about sporting events.
For her efforts to filabuster any spending or attacks on liberty in Congress for almost four whole minutes, I want to gratulate Corrine Brown on sportmanship and one of the best defense plays that I’ve seen in Congress.
Popularity: 6% [?]
GeoCities R.I.P.
Am I the only one who is discreetly wiping a tear from my eye to learn that Yahoo! is shutting down GeoCities? Back in the day, GeoCities RULED! Honestly, GeoCities hasn’t crossed my mind in years, and I was surprised to read it was pulling this kind of traffic recently:
GeoCities’ traffic has been falling over the past year. According to ComScore, GeoCities unique visitors in the U.S. fell 24 percent in March to 11.5 million unique visitors from 15.1 million in March of 2008. Back in October, 2006, it had 18.9 million uniques.
If you remember the old GeoCities, you can really appreciate how far the web has come in a short period of time with free blogging sites, MySpace, Facebook, etc. It’s kind of sad that the cutting edge concept of allowing everyday people to build an attractive website pioneered by GeoCities has left it so far behind.
What’s next? Yahoo Games?
Popularity: 6% [?]
What Part of Boolean Algebra Did You Not Understand?
I love rhetoric. I link to stuff here all the time that’s full of it (rhetoric that is), and I’m guilty of utilizing it myself. Maybe “guilty” isn’t the right word. I prefer “adept” to “guilty”, but it’s not my place to use that adjective. I blame it mostly on of Rhetoric in the Classical Tradition
But it’s important to remember that rhetoric and logic, while related, are not the same thing. For example, let’s look at this tweet my buddy Alex wrote the other day:
A former professor once told me, “studies show those who demand less government score lowest on their understanding of how it’s designed.”
That’s a powerful statement, and is even more powerful given the fact that Alex was able to clearly express it in less than 140 characters. But it makes a rhetorical implication, not a logical implication. It’s pretty obvious to me that the intended implication here is that people who favor small government don’t know what they are talking about. But if we break this statement down logically, it’s pretty weak.
Some background first–there are four possibilities in a simple logical implication, which is represented by this table.
Possibility 1: Given the correct information, you come to the proper conclusion. This is an acceptable result (indicated by T). Makes sense right?
Possibility 2: Given the correct information, you come to the wrong conclusion. This is not an acceptable result (indicated by F). This means that the information was processed incorrectly–faulty logic.
Possibility 3: Given false information, you still come up with the correct answer. This is an acceptable result. Imagine blindly guessing on a multiple choice quiz–you still get credit if you fill in the correct bubble, right?
Possibility 4: Given false information, you come up with the wrong answer. This is an acceptable result. It is reasonable to expect you’d get the answer wrong if your information is suspect.
Now, let’s assume Alex’s statement is true. Let’s assume people who favor small government really do score lowest. That would mean they are basing their decision on false or faulty information. Although the rhetoric presented would lead us to believe they can’t possibly be correct in favoring small government because they are ignorant (Possibility 4) , a quick glance at our truth table shows us that it is still possible for them to arrive at the correct conclusion (Possibility 3).
Think of it this way–let’s say you fall off a ladder and break your arm. Your ignorance of the gravitational constant, the tensile strength of your bones, or even basic anatomy doesn’t change the fact that your arm is broken. Even if you are given a completely false explanation that you believe to be true as to how your arm was broken, it’s still broken.
In other words, you can be completely ignorant, yet still be perfectly capable of stating the truth.
Of course, it’s a huge leap to assume Alex’s statement is true to begin with. It brings up all types of questions:
- What studies, what professor, what test, and who was tested?
- What is this professor’s area of expertise?
- When was the study conducted? Where? By whom?
- Who funded the study?
- Is there a similar study on those who favor big government?
- Have you seen this study yourself? Does it even exist?
Although I disagree with his statement, It’s not my intention to pile on Alex here, but to point out how rhetoric is used by every side of an argument to make a point.
Videos are especially effective in using rhetoric to make points. A really popular method is to show clips of complete ignoramuses and make the implication that these fools represent the entirety of the group they are associated with. I see people post them, and I’ve posted them as well. Take a look at these two videos which represent “both” sides, and keep in mind the purpose of the person who produced them. After watching each one, ask yourself a few questions:
- Do I have true, unbiased information about this group of people?
- If I can’t say that my information is completely true, how much trust do I put in my conclusion?
- Does this video reinforce what I already believe to be true/false? Is that why I like/dislike it?
My point–there’s nothing wrong with writing, posting, plagiarizing, enjoying, spreading, dispersing, selling, buying, manufacturing and encouraging rhetoric. Just recognize it for what it is.
And if you don’t have the ability to recognize the difference, you are an ignoramus.
Q.E.D.
Popularity: 6% [?]
