“The less they know, the less they know it”
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It’s a good thing Ross Douthat doesn’t know any philosophy…
…or he wouldn’t have been able to write this silly book full of bad arguments for religious belief. It’s as though Hume, Darwin, Lyell, David Strauss etc. never existed with these folks.
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Dear People of the World:
I am sorry that the President of my country is a pathologically dishonest, narcissistic imbecile. I hope you and we all survive it. UPDATE: Longtime reader Henry Cohen writes: I am sorry that the congressional Republicans refuse to stop him, even though they could. I blame them more than I do him, because he is…
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Twitter redux
Since I changed blog platforms, I’ve been back on the Twitter/X platform to try to get the word out about the new URL for the blog. This has reminded me, alas, of my prior observations about Twitter, all of which remain true unfortunately. Interacting with the members of the Strauss cult in recent days brought…
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The rapier wit of members of the Strauss cult: Alex Priou edition (UPDATED)
The Strauss cult may be mostly dead in political science departments, but it lives on on Twitter/X. Predictably, my saying out loud what philosophers always say about the “master” riled up the faithful on social media. A highlight was someone named Alex Priou, who teaches at the University of Austin (not the real university in…
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University of Florida “College Republicans,” i.e., the Hitler Youth League
Amazing. In fact, they do have a First Amendment right to be Nazis. The U.S. position on “hate speech” may soon come home to roost.
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Donald Trump, the most ignorant President in the history of the U.S., was warned even by his hand-picked general…
…about how Iran would respond to an attack. But that did not deter the imbecile. Now his only hope domestically is to sabotage the elections this fall. Rest assured he will try to do so.
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Speaking of fundamentalist fanatics…
…they’re in the U.S. army too, and offering the troops a Biblical interpretation of the attack on Iran. Given that Pete “pass the bottle” Hegseth is one of them, one can only wonder where this is heading… (Thanks to John Bussanich for the pointer.)
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Pete “pass the bottle” Hegseth, the least qualified Defense Secretary in history…
…has decided that military officers will no longer benefit from fellowships and further educational opportunities at first-rate universities, but can still go to those schools with proper ideological credentials (plus a couple of legitimate schools). Unbelievably stupid and destructive.
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Whenever the NYT interviews “ordinary” voters, one is reminded that Achen & Bartels are right (link fixed)
Consider these reactions to Trump’s recent “State of the Union” address. Ms. Metz, the nursing student from Arizona, and Mr. Ciampi, the retiree from Arizona, are particularly remarkable. They know nothing, so can be told anything. Or as Ezra Pound used to say (before he went crazy), “You cannot talk to the ignorant about lies,…
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The imbecile’s war on vaccines…
…is causing vaccine manufacturers to cut back. God forbid there’s a bird flu pandemic with RFK Jr. running HHS. Since Senator Cassidy’s reward for voting for this imbecile was to have Trump back a candidate to run against him in the primaries, perhaps the Senator might try to do the right thing now and get…
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The worst person in the United States in 2025
Trump is too easy and obvious a choice, but part of his awfulness has to do with the power he invested in the imbecile RFK Jr., who will kill us all unless he is stopped or removed from power. In a civilized country, this man would be confined to ranting on street corners. Putting Trump…
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The Internet is still a cesspool of the abysmally stupid and pathologically malevolent
The latest example: Elon Musk’s Twitter (which he now calls “X”) is awash with accusations that a named Brown undergraduate is really the shooter. Based on what? He’s Palestinian and he’s stout, like the shooter. The cruelty and recklessness of this baseless allegation is beyond belief, and yet it is circulating so widely that Brown…
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The imbecile RFK Jr. is destroying the FDA…
….like everything else he touches. An excerpt: The inquiry came in August, and struck scientists at the Food and Drug Administration as highly unusual. The leader of the center that regulates prescription medicines wanted to know what they thought about leucovorin, a generic drug that’s mainly used to alleviate side effects of cancer therapies. He’d seen…
To be worth using, a detector needs not only (A) not get very many false positives, but also (B) get…