"Newsmax bans Lara Logan after QAnon-tinged on-air tirade"

 The title comes from The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/oct/21/newsmax-lara-logan-qanon-conspiracy-theory), but other outlets have similar headlines.

Lara Logan, a former correspondent for 60 Minutes and CBS News gave a bizarre interview on rightwing Newsmax with claims that "open border is Satan’s way of taking control of the world” and that the world’s elites “want us eating insects [and] cockroaches” while they “dine on the blood of children.”   Here's a link to the video https://youtu.be/3vfGHPLturQ

I had several concerns:  

1. What type of children?  Free range?  Non-GMO?  White?  Non-white?(I'm guessing that some might encourage the eating of "those other children".  You know the ones.  (Not OUR kind.) )
2. Are the children fattening?  (Does it go to your thighs?  I hate that.) 
3. Is that really her speaking?  There is a fear of deep fakes - technology being used to manipulate audio and video to make it seem that what didn't happen did.

The third item is probably not a fake because multiple media outlets reported it.  But curiously, searching the Newsmax site for "Lara Logan" there is no mention of the incident:

 It will be interesting to see how this is spun. 

HG Wells / AC-130J Ghostrider Gunship in Action

The unhurried mechanics of loading and firing the weapons reminded me of H.G. Well's story, "Land Ironclads" "AC-130J Ghostrider Gunship in Action" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wj6kCxT0mM) .

It's another day at the office for the guys handling the shells. Terror and destruction from above delivered with matter-of-fact competence.

Old Newsletters in the library

I was going through some stuff in the library. In other houses the room would be called my father's study, but for us it was the library. With his father-in-law my father built shelves along the length of the interior wall with cabinets at the bottom of each end.

I grew up with the wall packed with Chemical Abstracts, thick white volumes with blue lettering on the cover.  Those were the days when an ordinary person could afford a subscription to Chemical Abstracts.  Or maybe because my father did translations for them he got copies for free.  

The library and Chem Abstracts loom large in the family mythology for many reasons.  The most salient occurred when my father asked quotes for a paint job.  I wasn't there.  My father said that the painter broke down crying when he saw the wall of Chem Abstracts.

The painter had always wanted to be a chemist.  But there was the Depression and ends had to be met.  The painter saw someone living his dream. 

The story is a graphic example of what can happen if you can't follow your dreams.

But that's not why I started this post.  Going through the shelves I found newsletters my mother got.  (We like to say that "She's a dietician, but she's better than that." My brother and I were too young to know that "force of nature" was the term we should have used.) The earliest was from 1974.  I wasn't going to read them.  Before I put them out for recycling I thought I should do something to document them.  Hence this image showing different mastheads:

There are some NY Times articles stacked on the lower shelves.  Time to give them a once over before recycling.
 

Counter-Attack Against Mind Control

This Facebook post would normally be followed by a comment about tin foil not being wrapped tightly enough. But not this one:

"I will be launching the first counter-attack against mind control in human history.

"I want to be very clear, this will not be an active shooter event. I will be executing some of the people responsible for activating active shooters.

"If I happen to survive, please visit me in prison, only to see the same man you’ve almost known. I will gladly die to expose this.

"If I can help another targeted individual fight back against telepathy, then the sacrifice will be worth it." 

Stephen Marlow followed up by murdering 4 neighbors  (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11089359/Police-Suspect-slayings-4-Ohio-arrested-Kansas.html)  August 7  2022

Cheating on a CPA Ethics Exam

You can't make this stuff up. Correction: you can make this stuff up, but why bother.  Quoting Pat Sky: "Reality is bad enough.  Why must I tell the truth?"  

The accounting firm is Ernst & Young

(Italics are mine.)

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday that a "significant number" of the accounting firm's auditors cheated on the ethics portion of the Certified Public Accountant test and other courses needed to maintain the licenses.

To make it even better, a press release from Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC's Enforcement Division, included this:

"It's simply outrageous that the very professionals responsible for catching cheating by clients cheated on ethics exams of all things."

On the other hand, some might view cheating on an ethics exam as another challenge to be passed. It calls to mind a Non Sequitur cartoon where someone touts the ability of his accountant by claiming that the IRS named a loop hole after her.

There is also the classic 2 + 2 joke (www.jokesoftheday.net/joke--nbsp-What-Is-Two-Plus-Two-/201512164, www.jokesoftheday.net/joke--What-does-two-plus-two-equal-/201605279, www.ebaumsworld.com/jokes/how-much-is-two-plus-two/82597645/, etc. although my favorite version involves a philosopher, a physicist, and an accountant being considered for a job.) The punch line invariably has the last candidate for a job, after carefully insuring that no one else will overhear what is said, asking in a whisper, "How much do you want it to be?"

14-year-old dies after falling over gorge in Niagara Falls

 An NBC affiliate, WGRZ-TV Buffalo, posted a story which appaeared on MSN.com  The first paragraph read:

This is ostensibly a mental health story, but I was drawn to the grammatical error. It should have been "who had fallen into the gorge" or "who fell into the gorge".

The deterioration of learning started well before the COVID lockdown.  

When I checked the WGRZ website the text had been modified to "had fallen"

What's Missing From the Latest Mass Shootings?

May 24, 2022

American exceptionalism at its worst:

10 days after 10 people were killed in a racist inspired shooting May 14th at Topps Friendly Markets in Buffalo 19 kids and 2 teachers killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Maybe I missed it, but i didn't hear the classic, now-is-not-the-time-thoughts-n'-prayers from supporters of the NRA.  Why has the playbook changed?  

Is it that nobody is fooled?  Nobody cares?  Or, maybe, it's the futility of action in the face of blind acceptance of mundane days becoming nightmares.

Inverse Occam's Razor

 There are are a number of news stories about right wing, anti-vaccine, COVID deniers claiming that their illness after attending maskless, anti-vaccine mandate rallies was due not to contacting the virus, but instead was due to a deep state bio-attack.  (Sample story: https://www.thedailybeast.com/far-right-stars-joe-oltmann-jovan-pulitzer-fantasize-theyve-been-attacked-with-anthrax)

I asked one of the Philosophy prof I know to ask if philosophers had a term equivalent to an inverse of Occam's Razor.  The answer was in light of the current environment there was a lot of discussion of the phenomenon, but no, there was no existing expression.