During the month of February, 2018, the Crown saw fit, in two separate cases, to put a white man on trial, one in Saskatchewan, the other in Manitoba, for wrongfully causing the death of a young aboriginal man and an… Read More ›
Critical Thinking
CALLING OUT CODE-CALLING
I’m not sure it’s anything new, so I’ll just say there’s a particular effective but pernicious ploy in popular argumentation that I’m going to call ‘code-calling’. For example, during the 2016 Presidential campaign Americans were told that accusing so-and-so of… Read More ›
AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL YOU 9/11 TRUTHERS
For the prosecution to get a conviction, it’s not enough that I confess to the crime. I have to make good on every element the prosecution would have had to make good on had I not confessed, including means, motive,… Read More ›
WHAT IS HOLOCAUST DENIAL?
“I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy.” In case you’re not old enough to remember, it’s an Eric Clapton song from 1974. “Yes we killed millions of Jews during the war, but not only Jews.” “Yes… Read More ›
THE UNIVERSITY’S SEXUAL VIOLENCE POLICY
I’ve just had the opportunity to read the University of Lethbridge’s recently adopted Revised Sexual Violence Policy. On the one hand I’m bound, by what I’m supposed to do for a living, to point out in what respects it’s a… Read More ›
WHAT IS IT TO TRIVIALIZE?
I killed a wasp the other day. I murdered a wasp the other day. These have two very different meanings. Why? Because killing means killing, whereas murder means wrongful killing, and presumably no one, or almost no one, thinks it’s… Read More ›
THE B SIDE OF BANALITY
I’ve been where there has been war, and where there currently is. People who haven’t look at the footage and get a very skewed impression of what war is like. What they don’t see is that, just outside the mise… Read More ›
CARTOGRAPHICAL IMPERIALISM AND BINARIES
Some things could be other than they are. And if they were, well, then I guess things would be different, wouldn’t they? That’s not very interesting. What we find interesting is that decisions could have been made other than they… Read More ›
THE PERILS OF PATTER
Given the number of times a politician’s heart goes out to the families of this tragedy or of that, one wonders whether it ever stays home. This kind of patter isn’t as innocent as it might appear. It’s not that… Read More ›
THE CRITICAL THINKING PROFESSOR’S DILEMMA
S asserts that not-p. S is paid. Therefore S is paid to assert that not-p. The likelihood of the truth of not-p varies inversely with what one is paid to assert it. If one’s been exposed to the evidence… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 