In today's Star, Bob Hepburn has an interesting article entitled Harper the king of nasty attack ads, an article well-worth reading. It got me thinking about fallacies of reason and the importance of critical thinking, subjects about which I have previously written.
So I decided to make a brief post here on one of the most common fallacies, the ad hominem, followed by video of two attack ads, one from the Liberal Party and one from The Conservatives. I will then leave you to consider whether one or both of the ads fall under the ad hominem label.
About.com offers some interesting insight on the purpose served by the fallacy known as the ad hominem, which means the attack on the person rather than on his/her arguments:
The abusive ad hominem is not just a case of directing abusive language toward another person. . . . The fallacy is committed when one engages in a personal attack as a means of ignoring, discrediting, or blunting the force of another's argument.
An example of an ad hominem would be the following statement:
I can't believe a word that Al Gore says about climate change because he couldn't even keep his marriage together.
You will notice the fact that Gore's marital status has nothing to do with the facts that he has been promoting for many years on global warming, yet the purpose here is for you to dismiss those facts by cultivating a disdain for those who experience marital failure.
Enjoy the videos:
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Terry Milewski's Damning Documentation of Harper's Enthusiam for Coalitions in the 90's
Click here to read the full story of how Harper, both in print and in a TVO interview, spoke of coalitions as a logical and desirable outcome of a minority government.
Harper Places New Restrictions On Press
In a Globe online article I just read, new restrictions are being placed on the kinds of questions the P.M will entertain:
Conservative officials ... announced the national Harper tour would no longer take questions on local campaigns.
This is in reaction to some embarrassment the poor boy has experienced lately, and is in addition to the 4 questions he will allow from national reporters per day.
I have only one question: Why does the press let him get away with this?
Conservative officials ... announced the national Harper tour would no longer take questions on local campaigns.
This is in reaction to some embarrassment the poor boy has experienced lately, and is in addition to the 4 questions he will allow from national reporters per day.
I have only one question: Why does the press let him get away with this?
A Supplement To My Previous Post
As was pointed out by a few commentators, in my previous post I seem to have been unclear in the matter of overall costs for the F-35 jets. I re-watched the interview with Laurie Hawn that I mentioned earlier. To be frank, even after a second viewing I'm not sure I completely understand what he was saying. Here's how I interpret his assertions after that second viewing:
Total Program Cost -$9 billion.
Total Units to be acquired - 65
Per Unit Acquisition Cost of the F-35 - $75 million
Using those figures for my crude calculations suggests a total alleged purchase price of under $5 billion. I therefore can only assume that when he says total program cost, he is including maintenance costs for the plane, acquisition of infrastructure to fuel the planes, since, for example, mid-flight refuelling is not possible using our current equipment, etc.
In any event, please judge for yourself. I probably should have included the link to the Hawn interview which immediately preceded the GAO interview. Nonetheless, I was struck by Hawn's insistence that each plane will only cost $75 million when there seems to be strong evidence to the contrary, as confirmed in the followup with the GAO. As well, his insistence that they will be buying the plane after initial costs come down is refuted by Sullivan. Production of the F-35s may begin by 2016, the year the Canadian Government is saying it will purchase the jets. That will, of course, also be when the plane is most expensive.
I welcome any further clarifications of this that you may be able to offer. Again, apologies for any confusion I might have created in my previous post.
To watch the Hawn interview, click here.
To watch the followup with the GAO, click here.
Total Program Cost -$9 billion.
Total Units to be acquired - 65
Per Unit Acquisition Cost of the F-35 - $75 million
Using those figures for my crude calculations suggests a total alleged purchase price of under $5 billion. I therefore can only assume that when he says total program cost, he is including maintenance costs for the plane, acquisition of infrastructure to fuel the planes, since, for example, mid-flight refuelling is not possible using our current equipment, etc.
In any event, please judge for yourself. I probably should have included the link to the Hawn interview which immediately preceded the GAO interview. Nonetheless, I was struck by Hawn's insistence that each plane will only cost $75 million when there seems to be strong evidence to the contrary, as confirmed in the followup with the GAO. As well, his insistence that they will be buying the plane after initial costs come down is refuted by Sullivan. Production of the F-35s may begin by 2016, the year the Canadian Government is saying it will purchase the jets. That will, of course, also be when the plane is most expensive.
I welcome any further clarifications of this that you may be able to offer. Again, apologies for any confusion I might have created in my previous post.
To watch the Hawn interview, click here.
To watch the followup with the GAO, click here.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Evan Solomon's Explosive Interview Demonstrating Harper Lies
I have made no secret of my absolute disdain for the Harper government and the threat I sincerely believe that it poses to both democracy and our Canadian way of life. While Conservative true believers quite blithely dismiss such concerns as partisan hyperbole, sometimes something comes along that objectively suggests the foundation of lies upon which the Conservative Party is building its campaign.
That something occurred on today's (Tuesday's) installment of Power and Politics with Evan Solomon. Solomon first interviewed Laurie Hawn, Parliamentary Secretary to Defense Minister Peter McKay, who insisted that the Conservatives, despite the Parliamentary Budget Officer's assertions to the contrary, will be able to buy 65 F-35 jets for $9 billion, including all of the associated infrastructure. He dismissed the objections raised by NDP candidate Jack Harris and Liberal candidate Dominic LeBlanc that this figure cannot withstand scrutiny, and that the costs will be much higher, ($120-$130 billion for each jet), telling them that they didn't understand the math behind the figure.
After the interview, Solomon conducted one with Mike Sullivan, the Director of U.S. Government Accountability Office equivalent to both our Auditor General and our Parliamentary Budget Officer. It was during this interview that the deceptions being perpetrated by the Harper regime should have become obvious to even the most ardent Tory supporter who still claims to think independently. Click here to watch the interview.
That something occurred on today's (Tuesday's) installment of Power and Politics with Evan Solomon. Solomon first interviewed Laurie Hawn, Parliamentary Secretary to Defense Minister Peter McKay, who insisted that the Conservatives, despite the Parliamentary Budget Officer's assertions to the contrary, will be able to buy 65 F-35 jets for $9 billion, including all of the associated infrastructure. He dismissed the objections raised by NDP candidate Jack Harris and Liberal candidate Dominic LeBlanc that this figure cannot withstand scrutiny, and that the costs will be much higher, ($120-$130 billion for each jet), telling them that they didn't understand the math behind the figure.
After the interview, Solomon conducted one with Mike Sullivan, the Director of U.S. Government Accountability Office equivalent to both our Auditor General and our Parliamentary Budget Officer. It was during this interview that the deceptions being perpetrated by the Harper regime should have become obvious to even the most ardent Tory supporter who still claims to think independently. Click here to watch the interview.
Thomas Walkom on Secret Agendas
Well, back to more serious matters. Thomas Walkom has an interesting column in today's Star suggesting that Harper's talk about conspiratorial coalitions and secret agendas could really prompt people to start thinking about things the Conservative leader has said in the past that suggest a dark future for Canada as we know it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)