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November 26th, 2003

When is a "lie" not a lie?

When it's a "half-truth". Julian Baggini has a new "Bad Moves" column on how ambiguous language can be used to speak the truth in ways that are just as bad—or even worse—than lying. I made a similar point in the entry on the fallacy of ambiguity, including referring to the same, now notorious example of Bill Clinton's half-truths about Monica Lewinsky.

Source: Julian Baggini, "Half Truths", Bad Moves

November 19th, 2003

What's New?

I've updated the Sources and Resources page to repair a couple of broken links, and to remove one resource that is no longer available online.

Update (11/22): I've begun restoring the archives of the weblog, which will be accessible from the box to the right.

Update (7/3/2004): Make that "box on the left", now.

Update (2/3/2008): To access the archives page, click on either the link at the top of the bottom of the page.

November 10th, 2003

• Check it Out

  Ben Fritz of Spinsanity has a lengthy article largely debunking the "imminent threat" straw man being used to argue against the war against Saddam Hussein.

  Source: Ben Fritz, "Sorting Out the 'Imminent Threat' Debate", Spinsanity, 11/3/2003

• What's New?

  I've had to update the Example of question-begging analogies, since the page that I formerly linked to seems to have disappeared not only from the web, but from Google's cache. Luckily—or, unluckily, depending on how you look at it—it was easy to find another, even more elaborate website drawing the same analogy between the Holocaust and meat-eating.

November 9th, 2003

Two Strikes

The new site hosted by Ion is again down, as it was two weeks ago, so I have restored the old site.

Update: The new site is now back up after being inaccessible overnight.

November 8th, 2003

Check it Out

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting article by a psychologist on the psychology of irrationality.

Source: David P. Barash, "Unreason's Seductive Charms", The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/7/2003

Acknowledgment: Thanks to Mike for the pointer.

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