One Trick Pony

I periodically look in my referrer logs to see how people are blundering into this blog (never to return again!). Tonight I found that someone found me by searching on AOL for “tyler texas prostitutes”. Who knows why.

The more interesting question is to wonder what light my blog could possibly shed on the subject? It turns out that I mentioned all of those three words on the same page in my archives, back in those innocent days last May when I wasn’t blogging constantly about politics. It’s what librarians call a false drop.

I’m guessing that the searcher didn’t take advantage of AOL’s offer to help him find Best Prices on “tyler texas prostitutes” or Kids Only sites about “tyler texas prostitutes”.

Ever get the sense that some of what you hear people say doesn’t quite hang together? Is it possible that there are some gaps in their logic? The Nizkor Project Fallacies Page provides a list and definitions of rhetorical tricks and leaps of unreason like Ad Hominem, False Dilemma, and Middle Ground.

This is a great resource. I’m trying to figure out a way to combine this page with Inspiration to make a toolkit for BS detection. That could come in handy at next week’s UFO conference.

Humankind would be better off if New Year’s Eve, 1969 had been followed immediately by New Year’s Day, 1980. Think of all the bad music, bad news and bad food we would have skipped. These Weight Watchers recipe cards are all the proof you need. [via MetaFilter]

This is handy. A scorecard summarizing where the announced Democratic candidates stand on Iraq. This would make a good example of well designed visual information for Edward Tufte’s next book, whatever that turns out to be.