Tradicat

 + JMJ   Introduction I have written my thoughts about Steve Skojec previously in The Curious Case of Steve Skojec (link) . In that article I compared him to others who have fallen in the fight and, to my mind, for the wrong reasons. Before he sold 1P5, I noticed his frustrated ranks on twitter/X. It was like there were two people. Anyway one theme that emerged was the appearance of a theme of UAPs being Alien  ... that is ... of extra-terrestrial origin. My first thought back then was, "I'd love to see incontrovertible evidence." A Little Background A little bit of history. Back in the heady days following 911. To be clear I'm not referring to the TV show but the September 11 attacks - Wikipedia .  A number of friends and even a priest provided 'evidence' on a DVD that actually got me angry. As my spouse has brought to my attention, I have a strong desire to seek the truth. This results in my attention to details and ... when I was younger ... a maddening com...

 + JMJ  I've had some interesting in-person conversations lately regarding my perspective on: COVID-19:  Yes, I believe it is a pandemic and ... I am researching whether or not it is on the same order of magnitude as the 1918 pandemic. Morality of getting immunized Yes, it is moral with the appropriate conditions No, I don't care what ++Vigano and + Schneider say on the matter. I've done the research and they're wrong. Safety of the vaccines  NO, I don't believe that I will die in 15 to 21 months because of the vaccine. Efficacy of the vaccines Yes, I believe they evoke an immune response.  For the record the Moderna response was found to be greater than that of the Pfizer.  What no one has asked is how I arrived at these perspectives.  Tradiate mentioned that I should, for your benefit, outline how I approach these topics. Experience: I am familiar with the scientific process and environment. I have the benefit of decades of experience working in a sc...

 + JMJ  I've made it no secret that I have an allergic reaction to conspiracy theories, something that I have to work to manage. This Harvard Article gives a quick guide to assessing information that crosses our virtual and real doorstep. Tradical Summary WORTS : Information that 'weakens our relationship to truth'. While the acronym is a little contrived, the reality is that we need to understand the background behind a 'news' item.  Is the person paid to make the statement? Do they have motivations are they mixing truth, speculation and fiction. I was sent a conspiracy video a little while ago. I did some digging and couldn't help but notice that the video author has a nice splashy merch page. When I fact checked his story, within 10 minutes I found that he was either ignorant, ignored or lied about the evidence that debunked his theory.  It made me wonder if he's more interested in living of our merch and clicks than dealing in the truth. Error-Free Data ...

+ JMJ After my discussion with Smith I have been pondering a question:    Were all the measures taken to contain the pandemic worth it? Key factors that come to mind are economic, geopolitical and moral.  This will not be an in depth study, just the documenting a 'stream of consciousness' exercise. Economics This factor seems to divide into two questions:What was the economic cost of the response to the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic and what would it have been if the civil leaders had taken the "do nothing" option? The COVID-19 recession is an economic recession happening across the world economy in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Global stock markets experienced their worst crash since 1987, and in the first three months of 2020 the G20 economies fell 3.4% year-on-year. Between April and June 2020, the International Labour Organization estimated that an equivalent of 400 million full-time jobs were lost across the world, and income earned by workers globally fell 10 percent...

 + JMJ   Wikicommons Introduction There has been a lot of chatter in the blogosphere about cannibalism, vaccines, abortion, fetal cell lines, lockdowns, masks, protests and Catholicism. Not your normal word association eh? How Catholics deal with the "World, Flesh and Devil" is, I feel, like holding up a mirror and not liking what we see. Please don't be hasty and post a comment ... just yet. Reality: The World isn't and People aren't Black and White / Good and Evil First, the Black and White issues are, sadly, not as common as we would like to believe. They exist in the theological and theoretical realms, but once we try to categorize people as evil or good it gets more difficult. The reason is simple ... Most humans aren't wholly good or wholly bad. They are speckled, with varying degrees of black and white. Some people have groups of speckles that become splotches.  Yet, they still aren't wholly evil or for that matter wholly good.  The same applies to ...

 + JMJ  There is a lot of fake news and even more biased news being reported these days and, sadly, normally reliable sources are falling prey to the FuddMuckers. As many Tradicat readers know, I have an anaphylactic response to conspiracy theories and mis-information. It's only gotten stronger over the last few years. Have you every noticed how Bishop Williamson would put forward conspiracy theories as fact? He wouldn't even accept an invitation to go to Auschwitz to verify his claims.  Over course, he would probably put forward a conspiracy theory to defend his decision. Well, that's why it is soooo important to think critically about what we hear and read. Especially today when technology has advanced to the point where dead men can - technologically speak and be seen (read deep fakes). To put it bluntly, social media is a tool that is easily subverted as a tool for propaganda.  A good example would be Rebel Media, who purports to be seeking the truth but in reali...

+ JMJ By Rept0n1x - Own work , CC BY-SA 3.0 , Link So the CMTV has gone back to the Michael Gonzalez wishing well.  Still hoping for something to stick. The Gonzalez story is a sad one, but it is important to know the difference between what we know and what we believe. After reading Sarah's story, I know what she claims, I do disbelieve them ... I don't find them credible. Why? Because there are a number of contradictions and incredulous statements made and when compared with other statements more contradictions start to emerge. It is very hard to keep a story consistent when it isn't based on directly observed events.  It is even harder to keep it together when it is simply stories (perhaps lies) related over the decades. It becomes practically impossible to maintain consistency when a number of people start trying to protect their perspective of reality, a perspective that may warped. I did some fact checking of this latest story I now know that a Mario Gonzal...

+ JMJ A practical starting point therefore, is to consider anything you read not as fact , but as an argument of the writer. Taking this starting point you will be ready to engage in critical reading. University of Leicester. The hoopla being created by CMTV's campaign against the SSPX gave me the idea that Catholics need strong critical thinking skills in order to separate the Intergnat wheat from the chaff. Do you want to know the two toughest courses that I took in university? Obviously, I'm going to tell you. The first was business law.  The teacher was insanely busy, tough and fair.  I got one of the higher marks in the class (~77%). She forced us to really look at cases from a different perspective. The second was critical reading and writing. Just like business law, you had to look deeper, behind, and around the ideas contained in the assignments.  It isn't easy to stop and think about what you're reading, writing and ideas the you come across. In my experience p...