Weekend Update 12-24-2011

I couldn’t think of a better way to open this Christmas Eve update than with two posts by Fr. Stephen. The first asks: How Big is Your Christmas? The second discusses The Fire of Christmas. Take a moment to read them both.

I also want to point out this post by Fr. Richard Rohr. Lord have mercy.

Why the Republican Crackup is Bad for America. Good points.

Politifact, R.I.P. I can’t even grasp their logic. The Ferrari/golf cart analogy I tweeted this past week captures the fundamental illogic really well. Maybe they are trying to curry favor after last year’s Lie of the Year. Or maybe, as Krugman speculates, it’s a deeper problem that one party lies about almost everything and the other one lies significantly less. If you point that out, you get labeled ‘partisan’.

We’re finally going to regulate mercury from coal plants.

The Post-Truth Campaign. We’re truly living in an Orwellian society — at least when it comes to propaganda.

Keynes was right. I’m not an economist. I don’t even particularly like economics. But I can do math. I can read charts. I can interpret historical data. In this instance, I don’t understand the resistance to that conclusion. Every bit of evidence points to it. I suppose it’s like the resistance to the evidence for climate change. As human beings, we tend to believe what we want to believe, independent of evidence.