"A disgrace"? Could someone please explain Mr. McCain to me?

.....I suppose that many of you have seen or heard John McCain's recent remarks re Social Security (see video)—which he offered as some "straight talk." I am puzzled by this alleged straight talk.
.....We need to separate two issues. One issue is whether there is something broken about Social Security. McCain thinks so, and I suspect he is right about that.
.....A second issue concerns what McCain says toward the end of his above remarks. He describes the Social Security system itself, which involves money put into the system by people now working and money taken out by people now retired. Now, as I understand it, Social Security has always involved precisely that "system."
.....In the video, in no uncertain terms, McCain judges that system to be "a disgrace."
.....Now, I really don't see what is disgraceful about it (the above "system," I mean). Prima facie, it seems sensible, fair. Evidently, ordinary Americans, too, whether Republicans or Democrats, have long liked it; they have not found it to be "a disgrace."
.....What on earth is McCain talking about?
.....Perhaps Mr. McCain does not realize that the system he describes is what Social Security has always been? Does he suppose that, until recently, beneficiaries of the system were withdrawing the money they themselves put into accounts throughout their working years? If so, he's a spectacular ignoramus, one who is too foolish to be the President.
.....Or perhaps Mr. McCain meant to opine, not about the system he describes (in which current workers pay for current benefits), but the particular circumstance—owing to the Baby Boom, etc.—that not enough is being put into the system now to cover what is taken out (or will be taken out). If so, we must conclude that he is either vulnerable to remarkable bouts of confusion while speaking, or he is the world's most inarticulate fellow, saying clearly what he clearly does not mean to say.
.....Am I missing something? Help me out here! (I will attempt to find the larger context of McCain's remarks, but I doubt that that will help.)

P.S.: My friend Steve sent the video below. Yes, happiness is a warm puppy—or a guy singing a bunch of warm puppies to sleep!

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit

• BULLSHIT PRODUCT.

.....Have you noticed advertisements by a new company called "Philosophy"? Philosophy sells cosmetics. Their motto is "believe in miracles."
.....I know a lot of philosophers. The philosophers I know are about as likely to believe in miracles as they are to believe in the Tooth Fairy.

.....One of Philosophy's products is "Hope in a Jar." On the jar, we're told that, "where there is hope, there can be faith. Where there is faith miracles can occur."
.....Well, by definition, where there is faith, there is belief without evidence. And a miracle is an event that defies natural laws. Why would belief w/o evidence bring about an event that defies natural laws? What total bullshit.

• BULLSHIT TV SHOW.

.....While we're on the topic of BULLSHIT, have you ever seen Penn & Teller's Showtime TV show called "Bullshit"?
.....It's pretty entertaining. Here's one of their better segments—on bottled water. The best part comes in the second half, when customers at a fancy-schmancy restaurant pay big money for bottled water that, in reality, comes straight from a hose in the back alley. "You'll laugh so hard your sides will ache, your heart will go pitter pat."



.....I don't mind P&T's cursing and name-calling: that's just their style, their humor. But they can be sloppy (no, boys, they didn't burn witches in Salem, they hanged 'em.). They can be unfair—they've been accused of cherry-picking evidence (e.g., regarding the efficacy of recycling). Sometimes, they're just dead wrong (as when they rejected claims of the dangers of second-hand smoke, based on outdated info). I give 'em an A in entertainment and a C in logic.

• BULLSHIT PHILOSOPHER.

.....A few years ago, philosopher Harry Frankfurt made quite a splash with his published essay On Bullshit (2005; written in '86). According to Wikipedia,

...Harry Frankfurt of Princeton University characterizes bullshit as a form of falsehood distinct from lying. The liar, Frankfurt holds, knows and cares about the truth, but deliberately sets out to mislead instead of telling the truth. The "bullshitter", on the other hand, does not care about the truth and is only seeking to impress:

"It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”

Frankfurt connects this analysis of bullshit with Ludwig Wittgenstein's disdain of "non-sense" talk, and with the popular concept of a "bull session" in which speakers may try out unusual views without commitment. He fixes the blame for the prevalence of "bullshit" in modern society upon anti-realism and upon the growing frequency of situations in which people are expected to speak or have opinions without appropriate knowledge of the subject matter.

Here's an interview of Frankfurt re "bullshit"



.....The interviewer presses Frankfurt for an example of BS. With some reluctance, the professor cites the notion that John Kerry's heroic actions during the Vietnam War (the interview occurred a few years ago) qualify him to be President. "Bullshit," he says. And surely he is correct. (Note that F expresses no skepticism about K's heroism.)
.....Very recently (June 29), Wes Clark got into hot water when, in reference to Pres. candidate John McCain, he said, "Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."
.....Well, again, surely he is correct. Importantly correct. Nevertheless, Clark's comment caused a shitstorm. One must not speak the truth about this matter, evidently. Clark should have known better than to defy right-wing PC—a particularly funky species of bullshit.

• BULLSHIT PRESIDENT.

.....Harry Truman was known to have a colorful vocabulary. According to a familiar story,

Always an earthy talker, Truman once offended a friend of his wife's by referring repeatedly to "the good manure" that must have been used to nurture the fine blossoms at a Washington horticulture show. "Bess, couldn't you get the President to say 'fertilizer'?" the woman complained. Replied Mrs. Truman: "Heavens, no. It took me 25 years to get him to say 'manure.'"

The Army's new "secret weapon"; critical thinking video; responding to a need

• From the Guardian: US weapons research is raising a stink: The US Army's XM1063 projectile is designed to be 'non-lethal' - but is it peaceful or hovering on the brink of illegality? [Note: above original photos of relevant howitzer sent to us by our pals over at 13 Stoploss]:

.....Is the XM1063 a stink bomb, a banana skin, or a bad trip? ... XM1063 is the code name for the US army's new secret weapon which will "suppress" people without harming them, as well as stopping vehicles in an area 100m square. But is it a violation of chemical weapons treaties, or a welcome move towards less destructive warfare using non-lethal weapons? ¶ ...The first part of the weapon is an artillery round...fired from a 155mm howitzer.... It scatters 152 small non-explosive submunitions over a 1-hectare area; as each parachutes down, it sprays a chemical agent....

• CRITICAL THINKING VIDEO. A reliable reader (Bohrstein) has drawn my/our attention to a video (Here Be Dragons), which is an introduction to critical thinking by Brian Dunning of Skeptoid. I've seen most of it, and it appears to be quite good and entertaining as well.

• From the San Jose Mercury: College to expand program on solar-panel installation:

.....Skyline College in San Bruno is renewing a successful solar-installation program for the fall and plans to expand its curriculum in response to the growing alternative-energy market.
.....The program trains students to become certified solar installers and is funded by a grant of about $450,000 from the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office, organizers said.
....."It's creating a pipeline for potential employees for the solar industry," said project leader Sandra Wallenstein….