Limbaugh Victim of His Own Entertainment

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, reportedly, will be removed from a group of potential investors seeking to purchase the NFL’s St. Louis Rams according to ESPN.

Naturally, when it concerns a personality archetype the caliber of Rush Limbaugh, you have a starkly divided community on the issue.  Even more predictably is the type of response from each side.  Evidence lies in the fact that Rush Limbaugh made the trending topic list on Twitter when the story broke.

The Real Reason Obama Can’t Shake Hands With Chavez

President Obama was photographed smiling and shaking hands with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela at the Summit of the America’s.  The incident has drawn criticism for Obama, specifically that his behavior with Chavez endangers America’s prestige.  The crux of the critique is that we can’t be seen as soft, while providing Chavez with political leverage back home.

Quite typical of elite propaganda, the issue has been debased into an ideological battle.  In one corner, we have the noble, righteous, and benevolent United States.  And in the opposing corner, we have the cruel, merciless, totalitarian regime in Venezuela.  This is the simplistic foreign policy propaganda the American public is so often forced to digest, and after decades of feeding, we’ve become accustomed to view world matters in terms of good versus evil.

Study Supports Expert Bias

ne of the more common logical mistakes we make is to turn to the expert bias, also known as the logical fallacy arguing from authority.  The logical error is committed by espousing expert credentials for sound logic, in order to make a logical argument.  A logical argument is founded on logic alone.  No amount of degrees or experience can supplant concrete logic.

Recently, a study was done on how expert advice affects the decision making part of the human brain, and lends physiological evidence that we are predisposed to experts over logic.  This has long been the contention of logical proponents, the most well known being Nicholas Nassim Taleb, who detailed in his New York Times best selling book, The Black Swan, just how detrimental and pervasive the expert bias can be.

Second Life: Relationships In Hyper Speed

Anyone familiar with the game Second Life will agree that it is equally part intriguing and equally part mind numbing.  On one hand, Second Life exists as an endless journey of the imagination, where whatever the mind can fathom, can be created with enough hard work and patience.  Yet, on the converse side, and for a large majority of Second Life inhabitants, it is a glorified internet dating chat room.  It is this relationship aspect of Second Life that is it’s greatest and worst characteristic.

Consider the following facts:

1. The average Second Life intimate relationship lasts, on average, two months.
2. The average time between Second Life relationships is two to three weeks.
3. 90% of rebound relationships outside of Second Life fail.

Obama Hasn’t Ruined The World

I just wanted to point out, that despite all the doomsday calls prior to the Presidential election for the fall of democracy and the American way of life by extreme right-wing supporters, we’re still here and nothing much has changed.

You know who you are.  Just a word of advice…don’t make political predicting a career.  In fact, give up predicting all together.  Your terrible.  Take solace in the face that so is everyone else.

Mounting Civilian Deaths In Afghanistan Pose Problem For Obama

The United Nations released a report accounting for civilian deaths in Afghanistan in 2008.  The report indicates that the civilian death toll rose 40% from 2007, jumping from 1,523 to 2,118 for the past year.  The total surpassing two thousand marks the highest number of civilian causalities in any calender year since the Taliban was ousted in 2001.

The UN report indicates that United States and Afghan proxy forces accounted for 828 deaths in 2008.  The large majority were caused by Taliban forces.  Regardless, a mounting civilian death toll poses a serious threat to American foreign policy success in Afghanistan.

The Argument of The Converse Hypothetical

I was listening to a WBEN the other day, a local Buffalo news and talk show radio station, when I heard a clip from the morning show hosted by Tom Bowerly.  It immediately struck me as insanely illogical.

Bowerly, a typical radio conservative talk show host, sticks to his anti-Democrat, anti-Obama talking points.  In this particular clip, Bowerly was commenting on Barak Obama’s Super Bowl Sunday interview, in which he jokingly mused how he was bumped off the cover of a celebrity magazine, and replaced by an overweight Jessica Simpson.

The Obama Foreign Policy: Maintaining the Status Quo

American foreign policy since World War I, and more so following the conclusion of World War II, has maintained one critical element above all else – to secure and preserve American power.  The definition of American power takes numerous forms.  A short list includes exploiting foreign resources for the benefit of American private industry, eliminating any perceived threats to American global supremacy, and usurping the popular will of foreign populations through puppet governments.  The history of American foreign policy is littered with examples, as to the propagation of US power, and doesn’t need to be elucidated here.

There is little indication that the new administration of Barack Obama will pursue a different course.  It was put succinctly by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a speech she gave on her first day in the State Department.

And we will make clear, as we go forward, that diplomacy and development are essential tools in achieving the long-term objectives of the United States.

The Rationalization Behind Cheating

Chances are if your an adult, you’ve been in a relationship that ended because either yourself, or your significant other, cheated.  There is a distinct rationalizing process that occurs on the part of the cheater, both during the affair and when dealing with the aftermath.  This should be of interest to anyone who has cheated or been cheated on before.

Cheating is equally defined as forming a close, emotional attachment to another person that has to be actively suppressed(until it reaches a point of irresistibly), and engaging in sexual intercourse with anyone other then your significant other.  It can, and has been argued that the former is a far more egregious form of cheating.  Regardless, in both instances the fundamental rationalization on the part of the cheater surfaces.

The Problem of Correlation As Causation

The confusion of supplanting correlation for causation is one of the most common logical fallacies we make.  This is the fallacy of correlation.  The basic premise is that you will attribute a connection between two experiences as the root cause of one experience being the cause of the other.

While it’s one of the easiest logical fallacies to spot, we continually fall for the trap of the fallacy of correlation.  It does require a minor exertion in mental analysis to catch ourselves spiraling down it’s pitfalls, but it’s shouldn’t be too much to ask a person to invest that energy into their own line of thinking.  None-the-less, it’s a logical fallacy which pervades everyday thinking, and, regretfully, even scientific research.

As a general schematic, think of the fallacy of correlation to be as follows:

• Event A occurs synchronously or chronologically to Event B‘s occurrence, therefore
• Event A is the cause of Event B.

The possibilities of the relationship between Event A and Event B are too numerous to conclude A caused B.  Some of these include:

1. A is the cause of B;
2. A is the cause of B, and B is the cause of A (or both events sharing a circular causation);
3. an unknown Event C is cause for either A or B, or both;
4. the incidence of A and B share no relationship other then temporal occurrence.

It is rare for Case 1 to be true, yet far too often we prefer it from the other possible Cases.  This is often the outcome when a layer of plausibility exists within our empirical history interconnects two events(Hume’s definition of causation).  Plainly stated, if I have been witness to two events occurring in the past, I am likely to make a connection between these two events when the happen again in the future.  They are believable.