I Present to You

How to Disagree, one of a series of essays by Paul Graham.  Something that is important to review in an election season.  Plenty of people disagree every day.  The question is, is this disagreement coming from reason and knowledge, or is it an appeal to an external authority (depends on the authority if you’re gonna buy that one or not) or blanket contradiction with no evidence, or finally the ad hominem.

So, I Was Thinking

Actually, I was trying to make the lecture suppliments for my Thursday class, and I started thinking about the election. I’m not a one issue voter. No one candidate fits my philosophy exactly. I feel the Republic will endure, but I’m not gonna like everything that happens. I’m looking for a candidate that will hurt me the least.

I also am amused by the amount of hysterical rhetoric and partisanship that has characterized United States politics since 1992. I remember people not liking Ronald Regan but the level of foaming at the mouth has increased greatly. I came across these passages in the context of public health, and I’ve stolen the good bits an adapted them (Hat tip, Ed Friedlander http://www.Pathguy.com). More after the split (and I’ve just learned how to split posts)

Oh LooK! MORE Cookbooks.

The Heritage of America Cookbook

The First Ladies Cookbook

The Better Homes and Gardens Heritage Cookbook

The Best of Shaker Cooking

The Mystic Seaport Cookbook

What’s Cooking at Moody’s Diner

A Taste of Ancient Rome

Our of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens

Damn Yankee in a Southern Kitchen

Budget Cooking

Sheesh!

Sappy Cat Blogging

Murphy the great!

I Present To You

Things you should read.  From Rhet, this.

From Brigid, this.

From Cranky, this.

When Knitters Attack

A knitted, cuddly, rat dissection. From here. I’m sure LabRat will be so happy. Hat tip, Becki

Cause, Manner, and Mechanism of Death

This lecture dealt with the cause, manner, and mechanism of death

The cause of death is that injury or illness that is incompatible with life.  A proximate cause is what starts the causal chain, the immediate cause is the final step.  If you can prove a causal chain with but-for linkage and follow it all the way back, eventually you will find the proximate cause.  In the old “all for the want of a horseshoe nail…” it’s the nail that was the proximate cause. Gee.  Wish I’d used that analogy in class

The mechanism of death is how the illness or injury was incompatible with life, how the flow of blood or oxygen (or both) got screwed up

The manner of death is why the cause came to be.  Was it natural?  Due to the unintentional actions of someone (accident) due to the deliberate actions of oneself (suicide) or another (homicide).   Or weren’t you able to determine (undetermined)

Calling a Bluff?

Katherine Mae Simpson put a handgun to her head and pulled the trigger.  She’d done it several times before.   Her husband had given her the gun several times before.  Each time previously, however it was unloaded. *  This time, it WAS loaded.

Mrs. Simpson was drunk and upset.  Her husband had returned home with flowers to make amends for an affair he’d had with another woman the weekend before.**  She said she wanted to kill herself, he went to the truck and gave her the loaded gun.

Prosecutors are calling it murder.  The defense points out it was a voluntary act on the wife’s part.  The prosecutors point out that handing a loaded weapon to a suicidal drunk is, at bottom, a really bad idea.  The entire story is HERE.

O readers, what are your thoughts?

*This breaks all of Jeff Cooper’s four rules, but we will ignore that here.

**What kind of bozo attempts to make amends for an affair with FLOWERS FFS?  Maybe orchids from Tahiti IN Tahiti, that might work, but I don’t think FTD has enough flowers for this situation.

T-shirt?

 I’m not a real big fan of P.Z. Meyers.  While clever, he rides his hobby horses a little too hard and to obnoxiously for my taste.    I did see this on his site, and I agree whole-heartedly with this message.

You Notice She Didn’t Win Miss Congeniality

Beauty Queen Charged With Punching Woman

Monday, August 25, 2008

WBAL Radio as reported by Anne Kramer and Associated Press

Frostburg police say the current Miss Washington County has been arrested on charges of breaking into her ex-boyfriend’s home in Frostburg and hitting another woman.

Twenty-two-year-old Christie Ganoe of Cumberland has been charged with second-degree assault and fourth-degree burglary. According to an Allegany County District Court commissioner, Ganoe has been released on her own recognizance. A court appearance has been set for Oct. 20.

Frostburg Police Corporal Irvin Buskirk says police were summoned to Ganoe’s ex-boyfriend’s home Wednesday. Buskirk says police took Ganoe home, but she went back, entered the ex-boyfriend’s home and punched a woman there in the head. He said the woman who was punched did not need medical treatment.

Ganoe was crowned Miss Washington County in February, winning a $2,000 cash scholarship.

Her platform was educating people to prevent bullying.

Hat tip, Rhet. Link to the story, with a picture of the pulchritudenous pugilist here.