Randy | January 23, 2013
Misleading Vividness is a fallacy in which a very small number of particularly dramatic events are taken to outweigh a significant amount of statistical evidence. This sort of “reasoning” has the following form: Dramatic or vivid event X occurs (and is not in accord with the majority of the statistical evidence) . Therefore events of […]
Randy | January 22, 2013
Yesterday we looked at how lessons learned in the course of World War 2, the ingenuity of German military weapon designers, and the whims of Adolf Hitler gave birth to the first “assault rifle”. In bestowing the name, Hitler was referring to the concept of “assault” in the military meaning. As in assaulting an enemy […]
Randy | January 21, 2013
In our ongoing quest to disinfect the world of misused, and sometimes even meaningless, firearms terminology, today I’m going to focus on one that’s particularly topical at the moment if the combined brain trust of news media and facebook are any indication. That most dreaded thing in existence today (besides “Pit Bull type” Dogs) – […]
Randy | January 20, 2013
On compromising principles and the justification of cheating: “If there really is a principle involved, things are either black or white. There are no grey areas. You can’t be “a little bit” dead or “sort of” pregnant. A ship is not seaworthy merely because the total area of its hull exceeds the total area of […]
Randy | January 19, 2013
Hard on the heels of my previous article, Mrs. LFM has turned up a press release issued yesterday by the Connecticut State Police under the signature of Lt. J. Paul Vance. Its contents are quoted below in their entirety in case of later amendments, edits, or complete removal of, the original document: ** UPDATE ** […]
Randy | January 19, 2013
Mrs. LFM and I have recently been moved to write about firearms, the laws that pertain to their possession and use, and public perceptions of both, entirely thanks to official reports on, and observed reaction to, the Newtown murders. In addition to reports coming out of the mainstream media, this event has given birth to […]
Randy | January 17, 2013
All the debate, argumentation, and general rigamarole about firearms lately has motivated me to start a new series, as if I didn’t already have enough on my plate. Thank you very fucking much. Terms that either are, or will come to be, addressed in this series appear in bold type. Today we’ll deal with the […]
Diana | January 17, 2013
I have been (mostly) staying out of the gun debate that is so rampant in the US these days, partly because I live in Canada and it doesn’t directly affect me (yet), partly because there is so much misinformation out there that wading in and attempting to clear things up will most likely be an […]
Randy | January 14, 2013
A Dutch company is developing a “reality” show as part of its project to put an actual Human settlement on Mars beginning with the placement of a communications satellite and landing of the first supply ship in 2016. According to the Mars One website: Mars One is a not-for-profit organization that will take humanity to […]
Randy | January 7, 2013
Society is over regulated, and it’s getting worse all the time. This becomes an inevitably self-perpetuating trend when laws put in place to control problem behaviours are crafted without regard for actual causes because when they fail to work, the tendency is to increase the severity on the grounds that measures already taken simply weren’t […]