The resident faculty left a decades-old book cover outside the mail room. The staff hope it was only a clue…. (More)
First our thanks to last week’s writers:
On Monday, you shared your stories of offline political activism in Things We Did This Week and Linda Lee mused The Problem Is? in Midday Matinee.
On Tuesday, the Squirrel celebrated Gruber Uber! in Morning Feature and readers helped tell Tuesday’s Tale: Squatchsulation in Midday Matinee.
On Wednesday, the Squirrel mulled over Uber Über Alles in Morning Feature and Linda Lee connected Wildebeests and Progressives in Midday Matinee.
On Thursday, the resident faculty saw The GOP’s Immigration Tantrum Begins in Morning Feature and triciawyse brought us Fursdai Furries in Midday Matinee.
On Friday, the resident faculty discussed Hillary Clinton Backs President Obama as Kris Kobach Warns of “Ethnic Cleansing” in Morning Feature and triciawyse shared Friedai Critters in Midday Matinee.
On the weekend, the resident faculty echoed President Obama: “Keep Protests Peaceful” in Saturday’s Morning Feature, Ms. Crissie was asked To Err Is Editorial? in Sunday’s Morning Feature, and Winter B brought our weekly Eco News Roundup in Our Earth.
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Note: Please share your stories of offline political activism in Things We Did This Week.
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Thus we return to the book cover left outside the mail room as the resident faculty made their way from the wine cellar library where they spent the weekend drinking thinking on our motto of Magis vinum, magis verum (“More wine, more truth”) to the hot tub faculty lounge for their weekly game where the underwear goes flying planning conference:
“How’s that for irony?” Chef asked as she brought out the decoder ring:
The Squirrel tapped at his Blewberry: “What’s ironic about it?”
Chef scraped stray pecans into his bowl. “Well, that’s Jack Webb’s book about how Dragnet began, because he created the series for radio and then TV. He titled the book Just the Facts, Ma’am.”
“That’s not ironic,” the Professor of Astrology Janitor said. “It’s the most famous line from the show.”
Chef shook her head. “And there’s the irony. No Dragnet character ever said ‘Just the facts, ma’am.’ Jack Webb’s character, Joe Friday, often said ‘All we want are the facts, ma’am,’ and a few times he said ‘All we need are the facts, ma’am.’ But he never said ‘Just the facts, ma’am.'”
The Squirrel nodded and tapped at his Blewberry: “Like Sherlock Holmes never said ‘Elementary, my dear Watson.’ At least not in Conan Doyle’s stories or novels. But that’s still not ironic. It’s just a myth.”
Chef chuckled. “Right. You have a factual book about the creation of a fictional series. The title is Just the Facts, Ma’am, but that phrase isn’t a fact from the series.”
The Squirrel nibbled a pecan and texted again. “I think I just fell into a Möbius strip.”
“Thus the irony,” Chef said. “Anyway, I hope the resident faculty aren’t going to write about Dragnet. That was already old when I was young.”
“Oh, they’re not,” the Squirrel texted. “They’re going to drag up some interesting and well-known facts-that-aren’t. Like two-thirds of Americans say violent crime is rising, but violent crime has actually fallen by two-thirds over the past twenty years.”
The Professor of Astrology Janitor nodded. “Like Mark Twain said: ‘It’s not what you don’t know that hurts you. It’s what you know that just ain’t so.”
Chef chuckled. “In fact, Mark Twain never said that. Satchel Paige did.”
The Squirrel looked at the Professor of Astrology Janitor. The Professor of Astrology Janitor nodded. They turned to Chef.
“Just the facts, ma’am.”
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Happy Monday!
It was in the 1987 movie, though. 🙂
Hardcore Dragnet fans thought that movie an insult to the original series, which was renowned for its attention to procedural accuracy. Jack Webb died five years before the movie was released, but Harry Morgan and two other Webb-era Dragnet actors had cameos in the 1987 film. Had he been alive to see it, I think Webb would have enjoyed the laughs.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
I suppose I’d best get a trash bag ready for the things I thought I knew that are not true. Looking forward to this.
Here’s one: Think GMO crops are unsafe?
I will bring forward one short comment in your link:.
“Please do post links to peer reviewed studies, because I haven’t found
any from independent sources showing them to be safe, and none used to
show safety vetted by the medical profession. No -having actually
practiced medicine in the real world I can most assuredly state that
chronic adverse effects would not be traced when the medical profession
has been robbed of evaluating chronic diseases like Crohn’s colitis and
Ulcerative colitis out of the context of the patients ingesting GMO
foods.”
If you look at that reader’s other comments in that article, you may get suspicious. I did. For example, he says you shouldn’t trust any of the many international scientific groups cited in the Nature article, because they aren’t staffed with MDs.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
And as someone who used to train MD’s in scientific research, I can state that “MD” is not synonymous with “expert in science.” Quote the opposite in many cases.
Here’s the thing: There is no study showing adverse affects. Most of the quoted studies that are popular with Greenpeace etc., turn out to be … well … less than adequate.
GMO crops are quite simply the most extensively studied, and safety tested crops in history. The “fear factor” being promulgated has made it the equivalent of climate change denial for the Left.
One more link. Yes the studies are inadequate. Why aren’t adequate studies being published?
(sigh) I have a ton of links, along with the consensus of plant scientists (who don’t work for Monsanto) around the world which all end up with: GMO crops are safe, the technology works. However, most of the anti-GMO studies are either bogus as hell, or misrepresented at best.
In looking at the anti-GMO arguments, they’re virtually the same types made by the anti-vaccine groups. Fear, “maybe,” “could be,” along with a hefty dose of unrelated things merged together.
I try to keep that trash bag ready every day. I guess I’m weird, as I like discovering that something I “knew” isn’t actually true. For example, this morning I wrote that the “things we know that just ain’t so” quote wasn’t coined by Mark Twain, but by Will Rogers. I looked for a source to link in … and learned the phrase wasn’t coined by Will Rogers either.
Oops … but a fun oops. 🙂
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
This looks like a fun and fascinating week ahead. Thanks!
I hope so. It’s Thanksgiving week, so it’s ::cough:: possible ::cough:: some Thanksgiving myths will make their way into the mix….
Good morning! ::hugggggs::