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September 28, 2006
Try To Hit That Optical Illusion
For more than 80 years after baseball's formal establishment, until the mid-20th century, many so-called experts contended the curveball was just an optical illusion -- one that 10s of 1000s of fans, not to mention the batter and the TV audience, simultaneously saw after the pitcher released the ball. Even after Look and Life Magazine used stop-action photography in 1941, the dispute continued. The issue was finally settled in 1982 (as though it needed to be for anyone who's stood in the batters box and tried to hit that optical illusion) after a study by physicists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. No optical illusion.
At the moment, some Americans are under the impression that to save our civil liberties, we need to cast aside them aside. Witness the torture/miltary tribunal legislation about to be passed on Capitol Hill. The president and his GOP senators and congressmen (and those knee-buckling Democrats who agree) know that this legislation has no real purpose but to gain a political advantage for the GOP. But in the process, unfortunately, it cedes what seems like unlimited power to incarcerate without the right of appeal every person in the world -- including Americans -- to a president whose nickname should be Merkle.
How long before Americans realize that the Bush/GOP line on national security is an optical illusion?
Posted by shertaugh at September 28, 2006 3:24 PM
Comments
So, in this analogy, Bush is identifying a real curveball, and academics are calling something plainly real an optical illusion? Or are you Hank O'Day? Who's the War on Terror equivalent of Tim McClelland and Billy Martin? I'm confused.
[SHERTAUGH: The "real curveball" is not the need to discard our civil liberties to save them. That is what the president and the likes of John "civil liberties don't matter if you're dead" Cornyn like to infer. Theirs is the optical illusion.]
Posted by: Ted at September 29, 2006 1:45 PM
So this was really two posts, one about baseball, and one bashing Bush, since the first two paragraphs have nothing to do with the second two paragraphs?
I think the left should keep announcing how it's so much less gullible than Americans are. That's clearly the best way to sell your program.
[SHERTAUGH: Ted, you know nothing about my views or politics. My point is simply that Bush is selling fear. His record across the board -- good jobs for the longterm, expanding the middle class, developing economic fundamentals that will benefit our grandchildren, enhancing national security by internationally isolating islamic extremists, protecting the environment -- is objectively poor. He offers nothing but fear.]
Posted by: Ted at September 30, 2006 10:05 AM
Shertaugh, you are correct that I know nothing of your views or politics, though your choice of forums and addendums to my comments certainly seem to be signals. I'm just entertained by a post structure of:
"Here's an anecdote where experts said X was an optical illusion, when everyone thought X was real, and it turned out that X was real. Nowadays, Bush is saying Y. I'm an expert, can't you gullible people see Y is an optical illusion?"All I've done is suggest that perhaps your use of anecdote and baseball metaphor isn't especially rhetorically effective, but, hey, I'm not an expert like you.
Posted by: Ted at September 30, 2006 3:41 PM