Monthly Archives: January 2025

MAGA Delusions About Health

Just finished a book write-up, so a relatively short post today about current events. MAGA delusions about health; How Republican policies will make things worse, and how they don’t realize this. If it’s Tuesday, there’s a Science Section of the … Continue reading

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Zack Beauchamp, THE REACTIONARY SPIRIT

Subtitled “How American’s Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World” (PublicAffairs, July 2024, 262pp including 16pp of acknowledgements, selected bibliography, and index.) Here’s another recent book, which I bought mainly because I’ve seen the author’s name quite a number of … Continue reading

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Human Nature and Existential Crises

Yesterday I had an item and some comments about how the inability of many people to recognize existential dangers like climate change may in fact doom the species. (And explain the Fermi Paradox.) Too many people live in fantasy cultural … Continue reading

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The California Fires and What They Reveal

The despicable Donald Trump ignorantly criticizes California politicians, rather than offering any sympathy for the victims of the recent fires; How well-intentioned policies from decades ago are partly responsible for the fires; How humans might be doomed by their own … Continue reading

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Clearly, We’re Seeing an Infestation of Alien Mind Parasites

This infestation is growing. The symptoms include paranoia, megalomania, delusions, and the perception of demons and/or global conspirators around every corner. The interpretation of extraordinary events (that have rational causes that they do not believe in), but rather see as … Continue reading

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Bill Adair, BEYOND THE BIG LIE

Subtitled “The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy” (Atria, Oct 2024, xxiii + 273pp, including 55pp of acknowledgements, sources, notes, and index.) This is a recent book, just published … Continue reading

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Conservative Reactions to the Los Angeles Fires

The past few days have been fodder for examples of (conservative) lies, evasions, and misrepresentations, as they react to the fires in Southern California. Conservatives blame the LA fires on the vast world-wide conspiracy theories they are obsessed with; Two … Continue reading

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So Predictable

Trumps lies, or evades, or misrepresents; Conservatives blame everyone they don’t like for the California wildfires; Anita Bryant dies; she was an outlier in her time, but now typical of MAGA; Heather Cox Richardson on the California fires; How Jimmy … Continue reading

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A New Jack Smith Rule

The southern California wildfires, and Will Rogers Ranch; How conservatives blame people they don’t like for everything; Perhaps I should create a new “Jack Smith” rule to dismiss claims by conservatives, since they always seem to be wrong; Lagniappes about … Continue reading

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Conservative Reality, and Reality

The state of the American economy, vs. conservative dystopian fantasies; How conservatives whitewash the events of January 6th, 2021; How Meta is obeying in advance by removing fact-checkers, and wondering why conservatives object to fact-checkers (where the answer is obvious); … Continue reading

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