As I stated earlier, if you eliminated all of the logical fallicies from the web and the MSM there would't be anywhere near as much reading to keep up with in either medium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ridicule

This is a rhetorical tactic which mocks an opponent's argument, attempting to inspire an emotional reaction (making it a type of appeal to emotion) in the audience and to highlight the counter-intuitive aspects of that argument, making it appear foolish and contrary to common sense. This is typically done by demonstrating the argument's logic in an extremely absurd way or by presenting the argument in an overly simplified way, and often involves an appeal to consequences.

Given that they are just as much a product of Earthly evolution as we are, our time traveling dinosaur overlords can hardly be described as "alien". Even "lizards" isn't really all that accurate either, as some dinosaurs seem to have been at least partially warm blooded and lizards are invariably cold blooded.

The dinosaurs had over one hundred million years to evolve intelligence and develop time travel technology. We've only been doing this whole intelligence and technology thing for a megayear or so, rank beginners.

For more than a generation what the liberal establishment has feared more than anything (literally — more than losing, even, as we've seen) is the creation of an actual, functioning popular political action network.

You're right, which raises the immediate question of just why the liberal establishment might fear such a development?

The obvious answer to which is that the liberal establishment isn't really liberal.

But then that's why I stopped considering myself a liberal.

Godwin be damned.

If I were Jewish (which I'm not) I would have a hard time letting my kids go to the Hitlerjugend camp for a week or two. And I suspect that almost all of the commentariat here would agree with me in that particular case.

The people running the camp think you (atheists) are THE ENEMY. Do not allow yourself to forget this.

Your children are unlikely to be permanently harmed by the experience.. But why take the chance?

You might want to ask the relatives wanting to provide this little outing for your kids if they would send their own kids to an explicitly atheist camp for an equal length of time. The answer should prove most illuminating.

Meh..

The invisible handout.

Capitalism is the most robust economic system ever invented.

Or so the proponents of capitalism would have us believe.

Privatize the profit and socialize the costs.

There's a reason it's called "the web of a billion lies"..

Why stop at ad homs?

Filter the rest of the logical fallacies and you could cut your reading time online by about 99%.

Come to think of it, you could cut your reading time in the MSM by the same amount.

I am just amazed that so many here can see that almost anything that comes from the Bush administration is false --- except for one or two items that may not be questioned.

Exactly..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ridicule

Appeal to ridicule, also called the Horse Laugh[1], is a logical fallacy which presents the opponent's argument in a way that appears ridiculous, often to the extent of creating a straw man of the actual argument. For example:

* If Einstein's theory of relativity is right, that would mean that when I drive my car it gets shorter and heavier the faster I go. That's crazy! (This is, in fact, true, but the effect is so minuscule a human observer will not notice.)

* If the theory of evolution were true, that would mean that your great great great grandfather was a gorilla!

This is a rhetorical tactic which mocks an opponent's argument, attempting to inspire an emotional reaction (making it a type of appeal to emotion) in the audience and to highlight the counter-intuitive aspects of that argument, making it appear foolish and contrary to common sense. This is typically done by demonstrating the argument's logic in an extremely absurd way or by presenting the argument in an overly simplified way, and often involves an appeal to consequences.

By taking the most outlandish claims of the "truth" movement and applying them to everyone who doubts the official line DCLaw1 is deliberately and knowingly engaging in a logical fallacy.

Not GM..

The other reason Glenn wants the debate to stop about "The Truth" is that it just shows how completely LOONEY a portion of his readership is.

If I believed the unsupported word of proven liars I wouldn't want it broadcast around either.

Oh wait.. You're calling those who *don't* swallow the government story LOONEY.. My bad.

http://www.scrippsnews.com/911poll

Submitted by Thomas Hargrove on Tue, 08/01/2006 - 13:33.

By THOMAS HARGROVE

Scripps Howard News Service

More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.

I wonder: Are all these people who doubt the government story neocon koolaid drikers?

Or do we have nearly two thirds of the population that are LOONEY?

Because that isn't the way it was presented.

Pearl Harbor was over sixty years ago, not forty.

You pointed to the blatantly obvious, I took that as sarcasm.

Oh please, how has our invasion of Iraq preserved our Constitutional liberties?

I'm saying that government frequently does create and help and that it even does it well when done by people who believe government can do these things well.

Why did you have to attack me to say that?

If our government is so great, why do we have the highest incarceration rate of any other society on the planet?