François-René Rideau writes about logical fallacies like "I'll start exercising as soon as I'm in shape."#

Statists will for instance claim that people shouldn't be let free from government administration on a particular domain until they behave in a responsible way in said domain. However, administration is precisely what makes it counter-productive for most individuals to think about the best choice of behaviour in considered domain, since the choice is not up to the individual, anyway! Why waste time fantasizing about things upon which you have no hold, when you can instead focus your mind on other things you can actually do to improve your life?

Chip Gibbons writes about Black Hawk Down and male sacrifice.#

Superficially, films like Black Hawk Down appear to celebrate the goodness and bravery of men. In fact, they are profoundly anti-male. They are made by old Hollywood farts who are brainwashing young boys to sacrifice their lives.

Both the Old and New Testaments tell us that fathers who sacrifice their sons are good and sons who allow themselves to be sacrificed on the orders of their fathers become our saviors.

François-René Rideau explains the differences between racists and racistists.#

Racists discriminate other people depending on their race, -- usually preferring their own. Racistists discriminate other people depending on their racism, -- usually preferring their own. What do you have against racists? Are you racistist?

Note that so as to be able to tag the preferences of someone as racist, you need to define races -- so that racistists are themselves racists. But we already knew that they hated themselves -- only people with no respect for their own mind can support such a stupid self-contradictory concept.

Yes, it is racist to prefer Asian girls, white girls, black boys, or martian zblots (see your course in martian sexuality), and no, there is nothing wrong about it. Racism is good. Racistism is evil. Actually, what makes state racism particularly wrong amongst all kinds state interventions is not that it is racist, but that it is racistist against kinds of racisms different from the state-imposed racism. It is using evil means (the state) used toward an evil end (racistism).

Richarrrrrd links to Patrick who defends the "Gay or [x]?" articles in details. (The Gay or Jesus? one is the best.)#

The first thing ... well, there's a short bit of verse that springs to mind which I'm sure most of you are familiar with. I've heard a dozen versions credited to a dozen people each, but the gist of it is simple: "First they came for the communists, and I did not speak up because I was not a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up because I was a communist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up."

Which is exactly what I'm seeing here. Think about it, folks. This magazine made fun of "Guidos", British, preppies, stage magicians, a generic-enough-to-be-anyone Democrat politician, and Jesus before they got around to Asians. Let's also not overlook at the at least Asians were referred to as Asians! Sure, the term "Guido" is, at least in my part of the world, a term that some people use to describe club-goers who look exactly like the guy in that picture, but we all know that it's because they look vaguely Italian, an ethnic group for which "Guido" is a derogatory term (although certainly not the most derogatory).

John Inluminant writes about quoting on blogs.#

I feel like whole post quoting without commenting is theft because, the original author is potentially left with less readers, and for people new to reading weblogs, they're left with a sense of 'who wrote this'.

To be fair to Don, he doesn't normally lift posts in full, but he does do it. Every once and a while he does the more responsible thing and quotes a small portion of a weblog post and points the reader back to the original source.

Robert Scoble has a quoteblog where he normally lifts entire posts from other weblogs and emails he's received. The problem with this practice is that the reader might miss the connection between what's being posted on Scoble's quoteblog and the original author. Also, Scoble is not giving the original author the benefit of sending readers to the original weblog (or commercial website for that matter).

I much prefer small quote or summary linking like my blog to 'linkblogs' that just have the title of the post and nothing else.

Chip teases about his book: "This is a major topic in my book: A state based on mystical premises is a religion disguised as a state, in violation of the First Amendment."#

I don't like agreeing with George Bush, but if Jay Rosen is right about his ideas, then I do.#

Auletta, for example, can describe Bush at a barbeque for the press in August, where a reporter says to the president: is it really true you don't read us, don't even watch the news? Bush confirms it.

And the reporter then said: Well, how do you then know, Mr. President, what the public is thinking? And Bush, without missing a beat said: You're making a powerful assumption, young man. You're assuming that you represent the public. I don't accept that.

Which is a powerful statement. And if Bush believes it (a possibility not to be dismissed) then we must credit the president with an original idea, or the germ of one. Bush's people have developed it into a thesis, which they explained to Auletta, who told it to co-host Brooke Gladstone:

That's his attitude. And when you ask the Bush people to explain that attitude, what they say is: We don't accept that you have a check and balance function. We think that you are in the game of "Gotcha." Oh, you're interested in headlines, and you're interested in conflict. You're not interested in having a serious discussion and, and exploring things.

Further data point: The Bush Thesis. If Auletta's reporting is on, then Bush and his advisors have their own press think, which they are trying out as policy. Reporters do not represent the interests of a broader public. They aren't a pipeline to the people, because people see through the game of Gotcha. The press has forfeited, if it ever had, its quasi-official role in the checks and balances of government. Here the Bush Thesis is bold. It says: there is no such role.