Man Of Jackistan: Reason and Truth's Time and Place

This Black Conservative Didn't Own Anything But A Poor Argument Rant #21 ( Opinion ) April 1, 2020 This video just bugged me as soon as it began: https://www.facebook.com/thehodgetwins/videos/813591575818557/ Wow, the one Black Trump supporter in that state soo "owned" the liberal there... K, first off, the KKK may've been originally founded by somebody who was a Democrat. Ok. And? Lincoln was a Republican. The parties had a different alignment back then. By no means do the party divisions of the Reconstruction era some 150 years ago have much to do with where they stand today on most issues. As a rough generalization, the GOP came about as a party which supported urbanization and manufacturing (the legacy of Hamiltonian ideology), eventually giving way to representing big business. But before that, the Republicans--beginning with Lincoln--did things to encourage education, by establishing public colleges; fostering railroads so that it could connect t...

Radical Relationship Changes--Will They Ruin Society As We Know It? Rant #20 ( Opinion ) March 30, 2020 Homosexuality, birth control, children born out of wedlock, divorce, single mothers, casual sex, transsexuals--all sinful choices that will lead to a ruinous society, so say the right-wing, traditionalist, often religious voices. They've said this before. Radical shifts around sexuality and family structure rocked Western societies with the spirit of Enlightenment in the late 18th and early 19th century. It started in America and France (doesn't it always?) before it rocked the establishment conservatives of that time. What crazy, liberal, revolutionary new sexual and relationships started to become common then? Some people at that time began to practice the previously taboo act of marrying a person that they felt limerance towards. In other words, couples began to get married on the basis of infattuated feelings and love for one another. Which went against t...

Trump Approval Rating Rises Amid Coronavirus Crisis Rant #19 ( Opinion ) Originally March 24, 2020 Donald Trump ignored intelligence reports from multiple agencies in the months of January and February that warned of the coronavirus imminently infecting America, doing great damage to the economy and public health. The president publicly refuted the severity of the virus, famously called it a "Democratic hoax," and to this day despite having declared a national emergency continues to give bad advice about the illness, for example by claiming that chloroquine is a viable cure for COVID-19. And now, the president has begun flirting with the idea of reeling back the emergency measures meant to flatten the curve of the rapidly spreading coronavirus. It doesn't stop there, either. Here's a link to a video which very effectively displays some more examples of how he has totally mismanaged the crisis thus far. And yet, the president's approval rating has r...

More Red Flags Than A Chinese Communist Party Parade Rant #13 ( Opinion ) Originally March 17, 2020 Not to say I told you so, to those who either bought that this president had the skills to effectively manage a crisis, or the many who bet that the country would not face something seriously threatening for 4 or 8 years...without gloating or anything, please don't say nobody raised concerns about his ability to lead. Of the many, many, many warning sides in a sequence of more red flags than a Chinese Communist Party parade: When trump used a sharpie to draw obviously altered lines over a map to show (falsely) that a hurricane would hit Alabama--in line with an earlier, incorrect statement--his more cognizant supporters wrote it off as clearly not true, but insignificant (whereas his die-hard base adjusted their understanding of that hurricane's path, trusting trump over NOAA, the nation's premier meteorological agency).  Instead of admitting wro...

Ukrainian Chess Champion Found Dead In Russia My Take Originally March 6, 2020 A Ukrainian chess champion and his girlfriend were found dead in Moscow today. The 27 year old and his 18 year old girlfriend--also very skilled at chess--died from an overdose of nitrous oxide, aka "laughing gas." Authorities say they do not suspect foul play. So, a random drug overdose or a well-played Russian assassination? The GRU is known for its usage of poisons to make murders look like other causes of death. Nitrous oxide rarely causes fatal overdoses: I just did a brief search and did the math, and 470,000 Brits did the drug over the previous year. Yet over the course of 6 years (2006-12), it caused or was a part of 17 deaths. So, 0.0006% of anybody doing nitrous in a given year will die because of it (based off of the UK data).  So to OD while in Moscow just seems a little strange...Oh, and let's not forget, Russia and Ukraine are currently engaged in a war.  On t...

"I'm Too Smart To Be Interfered With By The Russians" Rant #5 ( Opinion ) Originally February 25, 2020 This week, news broke that the Russian GRU (its CIA-like agency) had been caught meddling in the Democratic primaries, promoting candidate Bernie Sanders while smearing the others in an attempt to ultimately have the Vermont Senator win the nomination. Meanwhile, their preference for having President Trump remain in office has not changed. It is likely that they believe Trump will have the least trouble defeating Bernie Sanders, and thus want to help him get to the general election. While they have deployed some enhanced technology this time, their tactics remain largely unchanged from their successful 2016 game plan.  Some will deny any involvement by the Russians in our electoral discourse. Trump and his literalist base will defend his assertion that not only did the GRU not get involved in the 2016 election, but Ukraine and Hillary Clinton supporters fram...

Bernie Burning Opponents In Polls Rant #2 ( Opinion ) Originally: February 19, 2020 Polls often fluctuate wildly and, after the upset in 2016, many question the legitimacy of polls altogether. Admittedly, the 2016 presidential election that saw Donald Trump become president shocked nearly everyone--including Trump himself, given that in the days leading up to the election he started decrying it as 'rigged.' The polling agencies have since attempted to correct these mistakes, some of which include changing their models to give more weight to non-college educated people, who don't answer surveys as frequently, among other tweaks to their methodology. So it seems like people discredit polls too much these days, given their typical accuracy. Also, there is more than just one polling agency--some do a better job than others. For example, Rasmussen Reports leans heavily toward Republicans. With all that said, acknowledging the fallibility of opinion polling, a slew of i...