Occasionally people attack our character rather than our arguments. They should read this by David Riesman: Defamation of opponents is one of the standard devices of political propaganda. In the fascist tactic, defamation becomes a form of verbal sadism, to be used in the early stages of the conflict, before other forms of sadism are safe. The violence and daring of verbal onslaughts exercise a great appeal over the imagination of lower middle-class folk who live insipid and anxious lives; the … [Read more...]
Fracking’s Safety
Ken Cohen at ExxonMobil has just published an article summarizing some of the basic things we know about the safety of "fracking" (hydraulic fracturing in drilling for oil and natural gas). The gist: It's not a significant source of either air or water pollution, and its record, good from the start, has been improving consistently. There will of course be those who write it off just because Cohen works for, and the article was published by, ExxonMobil. Sigh. Logical fallacies (genetic fallacy, … [Read more...]
