Search Results for: how the mind works

And Now We Have Linus

Posted on Wednesday 16 April 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Why manufacturing jobs are never coming back to America; Heather Cox Richardson records Steven Inskeep’s quip; And How JD Vance is fine with abandoning due process; About Linus, our fourth cat. – – – I keep thinking: we’re living in … Continue reading →

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How Trump and MAGA illustrate Fundamental Principles

Posted on Monday 7 April 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

How my posts about current politics, including Trump and Musk, are about illustrating fundamental principles; Trump simply doesn’t understand trade; David Brooks on how conservatives have changed; A Christian law-maker who thinks “critical thinking” includes teaching about God; Short items … Continue reading →

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About Yesterday’s Protests

Posted on Sunday 6 April 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Against Trump and Musk; Anti-DEI is whitewashing the history of the Underground Railroad; Jill Lepore on Elon Musk and his retro ideas; A Vox piece about astrology that panders to believers; And about Brandolini’s Law, in which debunking misinformation takes … Continue reading →

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Unstable Moron, and His Fans

Posted on Friday 4 April 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Heather Cox Richardson on reactions to Trump’s tariffs, including Canada’s reaction and how Republicans hope this will somehow all work out; Jonathan Chait on how Trump has already botched his plan by suggested he might negotiate; Aside about my motivation … Continue reading →

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The Reality of the World Will Fight Back

Posted on Friday 28 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

How the current administration deals in “alternative facts”; With a reminder of some central themes of this blog; Now the Smithsonian Institution is targeted for “improper ideology,” which seems to mean that the prejudices and stereotypes of decades ago are … Continue reading →

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Today’s Doom Watch

Posted on Sunday 23 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

A beautiful weekend here in the Bay Area. We’re witnessing the downfall of the United States as an idealistic nation that for many decades has led the world on enlightenment principles and scientific achievements. At the same time, most people … Continue reading →

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How MAGA folks don’t actually believe in traditional American values

Posted on Tuesday 18 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Rather, they embody the essence of primitive tribalism. A Ben Shapiro host renounces the Statue of Liberty and its “stupid” poem; The disappearance of Navajo Code Talkers on government websites suggests again that MAGA is a white supremacy movement; Shameless … Continue reading →

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Dispatches from Reality

Posted on Saturday 15 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Taking a day off from political posts, for posts about reality. Or at least, the exploration of reality. Mathematicians solve a 125-year-old problem, perhaps; OnlySky’s Dale McGowan about the evolutionary mismatch between the world we evolved in, and the modern … Continue reading →

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Simplicity and Idiocy

Posted on Friday 7 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

American idiocy; War images flagged for removal in Pentagon DEI purge; Why are conservatives obsessed with the debunked link between vaccines and autism? Trump and Musk are ungoverning; I admit that I follow a Facebook group called America’s Cultural Decline … Continue reading →

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Annalee Newitz, STORIES ARE WEAPONS

Posted on Thursday 6 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: “Psychological Warfare and the American Mind” (Norton, June 2024, xxv + 246pp, including 42pp of acknowledgements, notes, and notes.) Here’s a book that offers a different spin on the ideas of misinformation, fake news, and narratives, than earlier books … Continue reading →

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