Category Archives: Espresso
It should be a big deal that Trump is having an actual heretic who rejects the trinity & eternality of Christ pray: https://t.co/e8xLRYGa8f
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) December 29, 2016
This is an argument I am actually becoming accustomed to seeing in IntraLeft-Twitter.
There is a book on Mom’s bookshelf that keeps catching my attention. Part of it is the pink color that makes it stand out, but the other is an intriguing title: Don’t Stop the Carnival. I can’t say why that title catches my attention, but it does. Probably once a trip I pick it out and see what it’s about. The plot doesn’t interest me terribly much, and isn’t memorable as evidenced by the fact that I have to keep checking to see what it’s about. But that is an enormously effective title. (Note: The book cover of Mom’s book at home is obviously different from the one for sale at Amazon.)
— Chris McCullough (@GrigLager) December 24, 2016
Had a dream last night that I was in Arizona, and there were these mutant and/or radioactive worms (because, uhhhh, I’m sure the soil in Arizona is great for worms). But they were part worms, and part ticks. A few were chewing their way into my calf. I looked down and said, “Wait, am I the only one getting a ‘superhero origin story’ vibe here?”
One of my favorite politician stories is this: Back home, we had a Republican congressman who was conservative in most respects but there were two exceptions. First, he checked all the right boxes but by most accounts wasn’t especially religious. That was minor. The second one, which became major, is that he favored gun control. His father was killed by gun violence. He was facing regular grumblings of a primary challenge, and something needed to be done. So… what to do? Well, he changed his view on gun control and attributed it to having been Born Again.
He was never primaries again and now sits atop one of the most important committees in the House.
smh pic.twitter.com/1BQSPMyrlI
— Haley Byrd (@byrdinator) December 2, 2016
Update: These are the images:
The problem-solving skills of 30 Ph.D. scientists were compared to those of 15 conservative Protestant ministers. Of particular interest was the frequency with which these groups generated confirmatory (rather than disconfirmatory)experiments to test their hypotheses. Experimental results showed that—contrary to a popular assumption—the reasoning skills of the scientists were not significantly different from those of nonscientists. In this study, the ministers showed a longer latency to speculation and generated more experiments per hypothesis than did the scientists. These findings are discussed in terms of the psychology of the scientist.
Source: Psychology of the scientist: An analysis of problem-solving bias | SpringerLink
John Weaver hunches his angular frame over a Styrofoam cup of coffee in the basement cafeteria of the United States Senate and tries to explain what might seem–to an outsider–his peculiar political loyalties. Once a loyal Republican strategist who directed the presidential aspirations of über-conservative Phil Gramm and helped plot John McCain’s maverick primary run in 2000, he has since reregistered as a Democrat and severed consulting ties to all Republicans except McCain, for whom he still serves as chief strategist. “I only work for Democrats now,” he tells me. Noticing that he has overlooked the party affiliation of his most prominent advisee, I helpfully add: “And John McCain.” Weaver shrugs his shoulders and grins, “Oh, right.”
It’s easy to forget that the Arizona senator is not, in fact, a Democrat. In the past year he has stood against his party on so many prominent and contentious issues that his concurrences with GOP dogma have become more of an exception than a rule. In the conservative media, he has become a figure of vilification on par with Tom Daschle. Last fall, when his name came up in a meeting of House Republicans, he was booed. And it is no exaggeration to say that he has co-sponsored virtually the entire domestic agenda of the Democratic Party. One prominent Democrat enthuses, “He’s the leader of the loyal opposition.” Typically that role falls to a leader of the opposition party. But the most popular and effective champion of the Democratic Party’s values isn’t Tom Daschle. It’s John McCain. And at a moment when the party is casting about for a leader to define it against a popular president, and McCain is casting about for a home after his virtual expulsion from the GOP, there is an obvious solution to both dilemmas: John McCain ought to become a Democrat–and a presumptive front-runner for the party’s presidential nomination in 2004.
Source: The New Republic Online: What’s in a Name?