I have written before about the dangerous consequences of American exceptionalism, the belief that the country and its people are imbued with some special undefined quality that makes them and their cultural and political values better than those of others. This attitude can and does lead the US to think that it can impose its will on other nations and peoples, by force if necessary. [Read more…]
So the United States government has shut down much of its operations due to the decision by the Republican party that this is the only way they can repeal the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. For those who wonder how rare this kind of action is, Cannie Cass provides an entertaining history of previous fiscal crisis points. [Read more…]
We know how the extinction of the dinosaurs completely changed the balance in nature and led to the emergence of large mammals.
But they are not the only large animals to play such a significant role. In this clip from Ted Radio Hour, George explains how returning wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 after a 70-year absence affected so many aspects of the ecology there, transforming it. [Read more…]
Sometime ago I wrote about how creationist Ken Ham teaches children to ask “Were you there?” to anyone who says that some event happened much earlier than the 6,000 years that the Bible is supposed to say that the Earth has existed. The idea behind this question is that when you say of course you were not there, they will say that you cannot assert that as a fact any event to which you were not a witness. [Read more…]
So I returned to the US from Canada via the Peace Bridge without any incident.
Thankful as I was that I was not treated the awful way that Sarah Abdurrahman and her traveling companions were, it struck me when I was crossing the border each way how brusque and surly the immigration officers are. There was no greeting when we drove up to the booth, no smile, no word of thanks when you hand them your passport, no “Welcome to the US/Canada”, nothing. This is even though I smile and am polite as is my custom when dealing with people. The questions they asked were curt and monosyllabic. When my wife answered the Canadian immigration guy from the passenger seat, he said in an aggressive tone of voice “I can’t hear you!” without even looking at her. Would it have killed him to say, as I do when someone speaks softly, “Could you please speak a little louder?” [Read more…]
Everyone has seen M. C. Escher’s famous lithograph Ascending and Descending of the perpetually ascending and descending staircase. Of course, we all know that this is an optical illusion and that such a thing could not be made in real life.
Or could it? [Read more…]
Today (September 30) in International Blasphemy Day in which skeptics are encouraged to engage in acts of blasphemy in order to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of gods and religion and show disdain for the silly taboos that religions have about their founders and prophets. [Read more…]
As the deadlocked US government moves inexorably towards a shut down, it may be good to see how it has come to this. Last Friday, I attended a discussion led by one of my colleagues in the political science department. I have always found him to be very enlightening because he takes a hard-edged, data-driven approach to politics and he did not disappoint this time either. He shed many interesting insights into what lies behind the current situation. [Read more…]
(This clip aired on September 26, 2013. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)
The real danger of propaganda is when the people who spout it start believing in it themselves. This is particularly prone to happen in a successful propaganda system as exists in the US where the filters work so effectively that we end up with government and the media living in an echo chamber where the same myths and lies are repeated endlessly. It then becomes only a matter of time before people take as fact things that are flat out untrue. [Read more…]