One of the many irritations of Arguments on the Internet is the tendency to take a slogan to 11, then argue that. (More formally, a strawman argument.) Two examples.

In Atlanta recently, the police intervened and stopped a carjacking. The victim was an Atlanta councilman who had voted to "defund the police." The argument was that the councilman ( Read more... )

We are at the moment engaged in yet another round of debate on gun control, American-style. Without getting too deep into the argument, I would like to point out a very irritating debate point. Call it the Woo Bum-kon.

This post, by a person against gun control, points to the case of Woo Bum-kon, South Korean policeman who killed 56 people. In ( Read more... )

A few days ago, John Scalzi posted an article detailing the difficulties of using a gun in self-defense. In it, he posted of people who carry a gun his opinion that (of the gun-carrier) "here’s a dude who’s afraid of every fucking thing in the world ( Read more... )

From baron-waste I get this article which claims that solar panels could destroy US utilities. Basically, the argument is ( Read more... )

I mentioned that I was going to talk more about this link - arguments from my opponents believe something. Well, here goes.

The tl;dr version of the above is "my opponent believes X, therefore he's wrong." I find it an extremely irritating argument, for two reasons:

1) I frequently don't believe whatever I'm accused of. I don't, for example, ( Read more... )

Over at Simberg's Flying Circus, there's an article up arguing (in part) why one needs a high-capacity magazine in your gun. Now, I am absolutely not opposed to high-capacity magazines, a nd have said so before. But as a simple exercise in making a logical argument, Rand's article fails.

Rand cites an interview of Ryan Moore, a man who used a gun ( Read more... )

Because I have a few short and unrelated comments vs one big post:

A) Over the previous weekend, I viewed on pay-per-view the recent movie Cowboys and Aliens. I paid (the same money) for the "unedited" version, hoping to see more of Olivia Wilde. Alas, not so you'd notice, but I did find the movie a perfectly entertaining SF / shoot-em-up, with ( Read more... )

So, apparently New York City is experiencing a wave of bed bugs. Various sources, including Glen Reynolds, think that bringing back DDT will fix the problem.

Wrong.

See, as this person says, bed bugs developed a resistance to DDT way back in the 1950s. Not only that, but now we learn that bed bugs are still nearly 100% resistant to DDT. A ( Read more... )

There are days that I dispair over the loss of critical thinking in America. Today is one of them. For some reason, a 2003 scientific paper about methane gas eruptions sinking ships is back in the news. (Hat tip to Rand SimbergNow, yes, if your ship happens to be right over an eruption of methane hydrates, the ship could sink. And yes, these ( Read more... )

So, over on Making Light, much to-do is being made about the DC Park Police hassling people. For the record, the cops certainly appear to be out of line. John Scalzi links to a guy who advises never give your car keys to a monkey. It's a reflection on various conspiracy theorists, 9/11 "Truthers" and other wack-jobs ( Read more... )