Jeffrey E. posted an article on The Parody Files - Feb 2, 2012, 11:11 am
Here’s our retarded little parody of The Beatles’ “Nowhere Man.” COULTER, ANN What’s the deal, Coulter, Ann With your scary mutant hand You look like an in-drag man who’s too bony Has a right-wing point of view And a Reagan tail tattoo Thinks she’s way more smart than you and me...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on The Parody Files - Jan 25, 2012, 10:27 am
Here’s our retarded parody of Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without a Face.” GUYS IN OUTER SPACE I can’t drop the soap In micro-g, nothing will fall We’re so far from home On rockets we have flown No girls, just guys alone It’s easy to believe My crewmates Bill and Steve Are really Jill ...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on The Parody Files - Dec 14, 2011, 6:47 pm
Got caught holding the hot potato, eh? Me too. And then, suddenly, nobody else wanted to play . . . They all said, “Umm, I don’t know, man, I think I’m tired of hot potato. How about we switch to Red Light-Green Light, or Mother May I?” As in: Mother may I have a bail-out. So, here we ...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on The Parody Files - Nov 17, 2011, 12:12 pm
Bill Keane, creator of The Family Circus cartoon, has died. In his honor, here’s how we imagine the cartoon would have gone if authored by H. P. Lovecraft.  
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 31, 2011, 9:15 am
Here’s an interesting passage I just came across in an article by Robert B. Reich in “Frankly Speaking,” the newsletter of the National Institute for Civil Discourse. Not long ago I had a televised debate with a conservative Republican that was going rather well. We made our points respectful...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 28, 2011, 8:00 am
… from Warren Meyer, who gets it right: If the very rich got that way through special access to government power, then why is the solution to tax them more, and not just to reduce government power? And if the very rich got that way through hard work and innovation, then why the hell are we propo...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 27, 2011, 8:00 am
Here’s a classic: Milton Friedman, defending capitalism against a leftist critique from Phil Donahue, circa 1979. What I especially like about this clip is that not only does Milton totally shred Donahue’s misconceptions and straw-mans about capitalism, he does so in a very congenial and civil m...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 26, 2011, 8:45 am
Disagreement is part of the human condition. Faced with a myriad of complex social and political issues in such an imperfect world, there is plenty of room for honest, well-meaning people to disagree; in fact, disagreement is the norm. Consequently, how we go about disagreeing is critically importan...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on The Parody Files - Oct 26, 2011, 8:00 am
Here’s our stupid parody of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.” Mr. Clean You can scrub, you can wipe, cuts through the grime like a knife See that floor, watch it gleam, diggin’ the Mister Clean Tile’s white and the dirt sure shows Filthy grout, and the baseboard’s gross Hate to think what ...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 26, 2011, 7:45 am
This is pretty funny. HT to Hyperbola. Some NASA humor © 2011 by Jeffrey Ellis / The Thinker. All rights reserved. Use of this feed on any other site is a copyright violation. Scraping is not permitted.
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 24, 2011, 8:00 am
From Mark Perry: This chart was constructed from census data (here, here, and here). In summary: Higher income households had more earners per household, and were more likely to be well educated, married, working full time, and in their prime working years (age 35 – 64). Lower income household...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 21, 2011, 8:30 am
Since last week’s video was taken down, here’s another from Steve Hackett (courtesy of George). Love the folksy dulcimer sound. Prog Rock Friday: Steve Hackett, “A Place Called Freedom” © 2011 by Jeffrey Ellis / The Thinker. All rights reserved. Use of this feed on any other site is a copy...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 20, 2011, 9:45 am
According to Watts Up With That?, CEI, which is funded with millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. … This effort has apparently been conducted with participation — thereby direct assistance and enabling — by the Obama White House which, shortly after taking office, seized for Holdren’s office...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 20, 2011, 9:15 am
Steven Novella has a nice in-depth post up on Science-Based Medicine that debunks the “energy healing” practice known as Reiki, and coins a new fallacy in the process: It has already been well-established, to the point that it is appropriately taken as a given, that people feel better when they...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 20, 2011, 8:33 am
xkcd brings teh funny © 2011 by Jeffrey Ellis / The Thinker. All rights reserved. Use of this feed on any other site is a copyright violation. Scraping is not permitted.
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 19, 2011, 9:15 am
As I first wrote here, the proper approach to take when solving a problem is: Identify, fully define, and understand the problem to be solved before trying to solve it. This includes defining the requirements that any solution to the problem must satisfy and any constraints to be imposed on solutio...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 19, 2011, 8:45 am
I’ve been saying for quite a while (most recently here) that our political views interfere with our critical thinking abilities. Now there’s some brain imaging research that further substantiates that claim. According to this paper in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, the part of our brain...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 19, 2011, 8:00 am
It suddenly dawned on me recently that I hadn’t seen anyone use a nested class in C++ since… well, since a data structures class in grad school. I’ve never actually encountered anyone using it “in the real world.” I can’t specifically recall using it myself, either (although I haven’t ...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 18, 2011, 9:00 am
James Sinclair has posted a follow-up on his now famous Venn diagram. I think it’s safe to assume the diagram resonated so well because of its simplicity, not in spite of it—and with simplicity comes a certain toothlessness. In this case, the message could be expressed in simple terms because i...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 18, 2011, 7:45 am
From You Are Not So Smart: The Misconception: You do nice things for the people you like and bad things to the people you hate. The Truth: You grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate people you harm. … when Franklin ran for his second term as clerk, one of his colleagues deliv...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 14, 2011, 7:45 am
George, a regular reader and commenter here on The Thinker, suggested today’s prog rock post. This is former Genesis guitar virtuoso Steve Hackett’s “Loch Lomond,” from his new album “Beyond The Shrouded Horizon.” This is a great song that reminds me a little (just a little, mind you) o...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 14, 2011, 7:21 am
“Reading the transcript of Tuesday’s Republican debate on the economy is, for anyone who has actually been following economic events these past few years, like falling down a rabbit hole. Suddenly, you find yourself in a fantasy world where nothing looks or behaves the way it does in real life.�...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 13, 2011, 8:45 am
Steve Horwitz and Peter Boettke have produced about the best in-depth explanation of the 2008 recession that I’ve seen, on the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) Library site. Here’s the intro to this essay: The Great Recession (or the Great Hangover) that began in 2008 did not have to ha...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 13, 2011, 7:45 am
Here’s Penelope Trunk, with a rather harsh article titled “Why Startups Shouldn’t Hire People With Graduate Degrees.” It’s likely that if a person attended graduate school, he will have a hard time translating his strengths into strong workplace performance — especially at startups. Mo...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 12, 2011, 9:00 am
Here is a fledgling new critical thinking site I just found out about called CT 2.0. It contains an “archive of examples of informal reasoning in practice, designed to support direct instruction in Critical Thinking in discipline-specific courses.” It doesn’t have tons of content just yet, but...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 12, 2011, 7:45 am
Here is a new term to add to your critical thinking lexicon: reflective equilibrium. The concept of reflective equilibrium is every bit as fundamental to philosophy and to critical thinking as the principle of reciprocity is (and you know how much I preach about that). Massimo Pigliucci (of Rationa...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on The Parody Files - Oct 11, 2011, 8:00 am
Sandman - rather, Sandwoman - recuperating from his - dammit, *her* - sex change surgery. NEW YORK (AP Newsliar) — The evil supervillain known as “Sandman”, an arch-enemy of Spiderman, has undergone a sex change operation and wishes to be known henceforth as “Sandwoman”. Born William Bak...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 11, 2011, 7:30 am
Via Breanne Harris’s Critical Thinking Daily, I learned about a new critical thinking/skeptic website called “Seek The Evidence.” Here is a nice video they’ve posted that provides an introduction to critical thinking. Seek the evidence © 2011 by Jeffrey Ellis / The Thinker. All rights rese...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 10, 2011, 8:45 am
This policy research working paper by Jean-Pierre Chauffour of the World Bank reviews the economic performance of 100 countries over the past 30 years and concludes that … economic freedom and civil and political liberties are the root causes of why some countries achieve and sustain better ec...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 10, 2011, 8:44 am
I was going to write this post, but James Sinclair beat me to it. Just read his post. Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party: Compare and Contrast © 2011 by Jeffrey Ellis / The Thinker. All rights reserved. Use of this feed on any other site is a copyright violation. Scraping is not permitted.
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on The Parody Files - Oct 10, 2011, 8:00 am
BERKELEY, CA (AP Newsliar) — A new study conducted by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley has revealed that researchers are sick and tired of conducting studies. The study was led by Dr. Amanda B. Recondwyth, chair of the Department of Studies and Research and Redundancy withi...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 10, 2011, 7:45 am
“John Adams was a farmer. Abraham Lincoln was a small town lawyer. Plato and Socrates were teachers. Jesus was a carpenter. To equate judgment and wisdom with occupation is, at best, insulting.” – Benedict Valda, in season 1 episode 10 of “Warehouse 13″, in response to Artie Nielson expre...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 7, 2011, 12:53 pm
Not to alter one’s faults is to be faulty indeed. Word dat. Today’s Fortune Cookie © 2011 by Jeffrey Ellis / The Thinker. All rights reserved. Use of this feed on any other site is a copyright violation. Scraping is not permitted. Today’s Fortune Cookie © 2011 by Jeffrey Ellis / The Thinker....
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 6, 2011, 7:45 am
Here’s a great article on The Freeman by Steve Horwitz that I somehow neglected to pass along earlier. (And Steve’s article links back to my principle of reciprocity post. W00t!) I’ve written before about the problem classical liberals often face when our critics, particularly Progressives, a...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 5, 2011, 7:45 am
So says Keith Burgess-Jackson. His words are ironic, because it was Keith’s post on Robert George that helped me put a label — the “principle of reciprocity” — on something I had long before come to understand was a fundamental tenet of critical thinking. I even linked to Keith’s post i...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Oct 3, 2011, 8:00 am
Skeptic’s Play has a good post on the subject of inclusiveness in the skeptical movement. Whenever skeptics talk about inclusion of religion, it’s common to bring up Martin Gardner as an important skeptic who was also religious.  But this feels an awful lot like tokenizing.  1) He’s the onl...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 30, 2011, 7:45 am
For those who think the Great Depression illustrates inherent problems with free market capitalism and proves the need for government intervention, please read this Cato Institute paper by Steve Horwitz. From the executive summary: Politicians and pundits portray Herbert Hoover as a defender of l...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 29, 2011, 8:45 am
This article in Nature provides an evolutionary explanation for overconfidence. Some authors have suggested that not just confidence but overconfidence—believing you are better than you are in reality—is advantageous because it serves to increase ambition, morale, resolve, persistence or the cr...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 29, 2011, 8:00 am
Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end. – Mr. Spock Paraphrasing from Google dictionary and other sources, wisdom is the quality of being able to consistently make optimal decisions and actions by applying sound experience and good judgment. Sounds pretty close to what critical thinking ...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 28, 2011, 2:06 pm
Oddly enough, the military has the ability to re-evaluate their own mistakes and make changes.  They are surprisingly flexible for a group that is stereotypically rigid.  Yet government is surprisingly rigid for a system that is stereotypically populist and bends to the will of the people. - Jon ...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 27, 2011, 7:45 am
In Part 1, I provided some basic definitions and a top-level model for a decision analysis process, and went over step #1 (identifying and structuring values and objectives) in applying that process to a particular decision situation. Step #1 involves developing a hierarchy of fundamental objectives...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 26, 2011, 10:22 am
Check out this letter to the editor in the NY Times (via Keith Burgess-Jackson): We can be either a generous society or a responsible society, but not both. If we are generous, we will undermine responsibility, no matter how much social democrats and progressives try to engineer social behavior. ...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 23, 2011, 9:27 pm
Heard this one on the radio at lunchtime. “Those of you who believe in global warming, you should be in Detroit today.” — Dennis Prager Somebody who believes in a decades-long warming trend over the entire globe should be expected to drop that belief because of a single cold day at one point...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 23, 2011, 9:42 am
The only way to get rid of competition in society is to get rid of scarcity, and that’s not going to happen. Competition is not product of living in a capitalist society – it’s a product of not living in heaven. - Steve Horwitz Quote of the Day © 2011 by Jeffrey Ellis / The Thinker. All rig...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 23, 2011, 9:27 am
It hurts, but, fascinated by the pain, one cannot stop doing it. Paul Krugman: This week President Obama said the obvious: that wealthy Americans, many of whom pay remarkably little in taxes, should bear part of the cost of reducing the long-run budget deficit. Bullshit. This has been thoroughly ...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 22, 2011, 8:30 am
Here’s what I’ve read recently… The Hunger Games trilogy. As far as juvenile fiction goes, this is as good as it gets short of Harry Potter (and a few of Heinlein’s better juvenile works, Red Planet and Orphans of the Sky being two of my favorites, but I cannot stop typing without also ment...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 21, 2011, 8:58 am
This is the first in a series of posts on decision analysis. Much of this will be culled from my notes from an Advanced Decision Modeling course I took several years back at Binghamton University, as part of a (now permanently back-burnered) Ph.D. in Systems Science. I’ll try to recast some of th...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 21, 2011, 7:30 am
Ian Vasquez posts on Cato @ Liberty about a decline in economic freedom, both in the U.S. and worldwide, as noted in the 2011 Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report.he United States has had one of the largest declines in the past decade. It now ranks in 10th place compared to 3rd in 2000, larg...
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Jeffrey E. posted an article on - Sep 20, 2011, 8:45 am
According to this Heartlander piece by Maureen Martin, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was wrong to overturn Virginia’s challenge to the individual mandate of Obamacare. Virginia had enacted a state statute — the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act (VHCFA) — declaring the indivi...
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