Principled Incoherence

The Republican defense of what's going on with changes in voter laws in North Carolina, Texas, and several other states follows a familiar pattern. 

This isn't Jim Crow. Jim Crow (properly understood) is justified, and, anyhow, this is a much milder version of Jim Crow than the original. I didn't steal the pig. It was my pig; and, anyhow, it wasn't very big.

As Freud noted long ago, the law of non contradiction has no force in the realms of the Id; and about that, at least, he was right. 

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Narrowcasting

I met an ichthyologist a few months ago. Talking to him inspired me to write a couple of limericks that were aimed specifically at biologists, though the second one is less esoteric.

It seems that the family of Hennig

As a taxon is not worth a pfennig.

His frau frequently strayed

Which made his whole clade

Polyphyletic from the beginning.

A biologist who was named Verne

Showed what even a postdoc won’t learn 

When he inserted some genes

By traditional means

In the genome of Jean the intern.