Below the Root and Boulderdash for me.

Agreed. I am not certain of Woody's guilt here, but it is hard not to feel bad for all the kiddos regardless.

Don't just downvote, people; suggest a film of his I should watch if you're so offended.

I was reacting to his account of how he reacted contemporaneously to the allegations. It isn't a question of arrogance, presuming that he loved his daughter. If you are innocent, you are first concerned about why your child is saying these things and if they are alright, not about whether you're too awesome for…

He sexually abuses children in his movies??!?!! Yikes! I've only seen Sleeper.

As a generalization, yes. Child molesters are well aware of the language/memory (linked, obviously) limitations of children, and know that a child is not going to tell as convincing a narrative as an adult would (i.e. they get dates wrong, they conflate multiple events into one event, they don't understand the parts…

The most disturbing part to me (as someone who has prosecuted child sex crimes) is his account of immediately reacting to how illogical it was. I don't think that is a common way for people to immediately react when being accused of sexual abuse; it is usually something they piece together later (whether guilty or…

"Do not fear me; I am just part of the circle of life… The last part"

"Curtailing of personal consumption in certain ways" is included within "curtailing our personal economic advantage." If we change what we otherwise would have consumed because of either an increased cost (tax), or a ban on certain activities, then we are at an economic disadvantage from where we would have otherwise…

I believe the argument is more "If Al Gore's recommendation that we curtail our own personal economic advantage for the sake of the greater good were made in earnest and with careful consideration, then his own lifestyle would better reflect these principles."

To the extent that Al Gore is advocating for massive lifestyle changes as a means of drastically reducing carbon emissions, I don't think that discussing the possible hypocrisy of his lifestyle is a "classic" ad hominem attack.* If Al Gore himself is unwilling to make massive economic sacrifices in order to reduce…

One of the tenants of scientology is that celebrities are very special people with special abilities and a special destiny. Celebrities are, on the whole, desperate to reconcile the discrepancy between their relative contribution to society and the adulation and wealth they receive as a result. Scientology gives…

It gets shitty after episode 1

Anonymous:

Um, that should read "both by historically natural cycles and by increased CO2 pollution"

Anonymous: thank you for those links. I will check them out.

I am not asking for sources in order to discover whether his arguments pass muster, but because I am a person who takes this problem seriously and would like to gather as much information as I can. If I hear somebody (especially somebody who appears to be thoughtful and intelligent) make a claim, I want sources so…

When I first read the title to JSF's new book, I read it as Jonathan-Safran-Foer-Eating Animals. Adding those hyphens increases the joy, and increases the likelihood of this becoming a successful t.v. series. When I first read the title "Superfreakonomics," I thought "don't you have real work you could be doing?" …

Understatement: I would love it if footnotes were enabled for your post, in all seriousness. I do not have an agenda here myself; although I am skeptical about the prospects for global cooperation on a problem of this scale, I am not inherently opposed to international enforcement mechanisms. While I agree that the…

Sorry, I have to call a reading comprehension fail on this one. He admits the possibility that bias informs his presentation of his research. His point w/r/t global warming is simply that the proponents of reducing carbon emissions couldn't possibly want to do so in order to prevent or reverse global warming because…