...when one sees advocacy of racial genocide.


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I found some USDA prices for agricultural products stretching all the way back to 1986, so I was able to make spreadsheets that show how the S&P 500 performs against a real, fixed quality-of-life yardstick. Here's how our nation's economy has "grown" over the past two and a half decades:


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I don't have time to completely revise a post I made for another audience some time ago on motorcycle visibility, but since I went public with my "Loud Pipes Save Lives" post, I need to at least hit the high points on motorcycle visibility, as well. As before, let's start with the facts.

As with any other physical objects on our planet, there are ( Read more... )

Donald Trump has been on some news-talk shows lately trying to bring credibility to the birther movement. Most of what he's said has been rather obviously and stupidly wrong, but he's garnering so much attention from the sensationalist media that it needs to be squashed right here and now ( Read more... )

You know it's a recurring theme with me, when there's a controversy, to demand the data first? You've seen me do that with global warming, with quality of education in Wisconsin, and with the economic "recovery." It's a policy that's worked very well for me for years ( Read more... )

I decided to take advantage of some record-high temperatures today, finish up some maintenance on the bikes, and take a spin. Heading down the interstate out of town, I got into a little bumper-to-bumper traffic going about 60 (speed limit is 65), with me in the leftmost lane (of three). The left lane was going a mile or two faster than the middle ( Read more... )

Wait, wait, let's step back one: before we talk about what global warming is, vs. what it is not, let's talk about something more fundamental. Let's talk about what science is, and is not.

Science is confirming observations by repeating experiments, taking measurements in different ways to make sure the method isn't faulty, and having other people ( Read more... )

...but as it turns out, an item with its own inherent beauty might not need expensive lenses and years of experience to share that beauty with others.


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rpeate has banned me today from the antitheism community, for one comment on one post, inviting the top-level poster to join a different community.

The sequence:

1. theblackmeat posts to the antitheism community about Chick tracts, and a comment thread ensues in which there's some controversy over homosexuality or something.

2. theblackmeat goes drama-licious, deletes the top-level post, and ( Read more... )

I'm inviting fizzyland over here to understand a passing comment he made, because I disagree with it in one sense, but it turns out I have no idea what he was trying to say. It was in a private journal, but I asked if he wanted to continue it here, so here's what we have so far:

fizzyland: It's basically the rest of the industrialized world that realizes that the ( Read more... )