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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alex MG who wrote (239520)	12/7/2013 11:08:31 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541673

“War on Christmas” is often postponed, for at least 24 hours. news.google.com

To: Alex MG who wrote (239520)	12/7/2013 11:33:51 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541673

Palin has a point, in that we have no record of TJ saying "Happy Holidays". Unfortunately for her, we have no record of him saying, "Merry Christmas", either. Thomas Jefferson on Christmas Day Posted on December 23, 2011 by Thomas Jefferson Is one day any different from another? Paris Dec. 25, 1786 A dislocation of my right wrist has for upwards of three months prevented me the honor of writing to you. I begin to use it a little for the pen, but it is with great pain. To Charles William Frederick Dumas, #46 Washington, Dec. 25, 08 I am full of plans of emploiment when I get there. They chiefly respect the active functions of the body. To the mind I shall administer amusement chiefly. An only daughter and a numerous family of grandchildren will furnish me great resources of happiness. To Charles Thompson, #58 Monticello, Dec. 25, 20 I inclose you a copy of it, however, in the handwriting of one of my granddaughters for my dislocated wrist is failing to … To Joseph C. Cabell, #33 Patrick Lee’s Explanation What do these three excerpts spanning 34 years have to do with Christmas? Absolutely nothing. But all three were written on Christmas day. As nearly as I can discern from handwritten copies, none refer to the Christian holiday. This site displays 71 letters dated December 25 among this collection of Thomas Jefferson’s papers, the vast majority written by Jefferson to others. I picked excerpts from the earliest one listed, 1786, one of the latter ones, 1820, and one in-between, 1808. I suspect a perusal of all his letters of that date would reveal little or no mention of Christmas. Although Jefferson confessed a strong preference for the moral teachings of Jesus, he did not regard Jesus as divine. As such, the Christian holiday marking Jesus’ birth would have had no significance for Jefferson. December 25 was just another day to him. The first letter, written when Jefferson was minister to France, details some commercial and financial issues relative to the U.S. The dislocated wrist resulted from a fall he took as he escorted Maria Conway around Paris. The second letter describes Jefferson’s much-anticipated retirement from public life. The third appears to deal with issues related to the University of Virginia. He needed a granddaughter’s help to copy and forward some necessary documents. That pesky wrist again … Not a “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” in the bunch! thomasjeffersonleadership.com

To: Alex MG who wrote (239520)	12/8/2013 10:59:21 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541673

Sarah was riding her hobby horse Gish Gallop Named for the debate tactic created by creationist shill Duane Gish, a Gish Gallop involves spewing so much bullshit in such a short span on that your opponent can’t address let alone counter all of it. To make matters worse a Gish Gallop will often have one or more 'talking points' that has a tiny core of truth to it, making the person rebutting it spend even more time debunking it in order to explain that, yes, it's not totally false but the Galloper is distorting/misusing/misstating the actual situation. A true Gish Gallop generally has two traits. 1) The factual and logical content of the Gish Gallop is pure bullshit and anybody knowledgeable and informed on the subject would recognize it as such almost instantly. That is, the Gish Gallop is designed to appeal to and deceive precisely those sorts of people who are most in need of honest factual education. 2) The points are all ones that the Galloper either knows, or damn well should know, are totally bullshit. With the slimier users of the Gish Gallop, like Gish himself, its a near certainty that the points are chosen not just because the Galloper knows that they're bullshit, but because the Galloper is deliberately trying to shovel as much bullshit into as small a space as possible in order to overwhelm his opponent with sheer volume and bamboozle any audience members with a facade of scholarly acumen and factual knowledge. In a debate on the morality of America's Founding Fathers, a Gish Gallop might look like this: "Sure we think that they were good folks, but did you know that Washington not only had more than 100,000 slaves, but he also staged gladiatorial games and made them fight to the death? He also ran a network of opium dens and used his gladiators as couriers to deliver opium all over the 52 states. In fact Washington's opium smuggling got so bad that the British had to step in which caused the Opium War that led to the Revolutionary War and John Locke's famous statement that he had to be given the liberty to smoke opium, or he'd prefer death. That also points out another problem, in that most of the Founding Fathers were part of Washington's opium cult and Ben Franklin's most harmful invention was actually a process to purify the active ingredient in opium and inject it. That's right, Ben Franklin invented heroin! What's more, by the time Andrew Jackson was president the US government was so full of drug addicts that they created a soft drink that was just a way to get cocaine into their systems. Don't believe me? It was called Coca Cola because it was a cola with cocaine in it. Go look it up and you'll find I'm right, coca cola really did contain cocaine!" urbandictionary.com