When my brain goes to sleep

Last night, as I was falling asleep, I realized that todc's birthday party was like a Folger's Crystals commerical: (hushed voice) "We're at Tod's thirty-sixth birthday party. We've replaced three of these gay men with heterosexuals; let's see if they notice!"

Either that, or Boy Meets Boy.

The Phobos Book List

gregmce and todc have posted the Phobos 100 Must Read Science-Fiction Novels list, so I've worked up my own.

( Steve's SciFi list )

Wikipedia!

Have I mentioned that I love wikipedia? Over 300,000 English-language articles, and thousands more in other languages. Wikipedia is a community encyclopedia, where the articles are submitted by volunteers and aren't just peer-reviewed, they're community-reviewed. Any other editor can make changes to a page, and every page has a discussion area where differences of opinion can be hashed out.

I'm browsing this rather extensive article on logical fallacies, which includes a list of links to dozens of articles about specific fallacies, like the slippery slope.

The slippery slope fallacy is also often connected to the straw man fallacy to attack the initial position:

1. A has occurred (or will or might occur); therefore
2. B will inevitably happen. (slippery slope)
3. B is wrong; therefore
4. A is wrong. (straw man)

Wikipedia is often my first stop for research. It's a fantastic resource. Things like this make me believe that we're in the midst of compiling the cultural database that gets mentioned in Star Trek episodes from time to time. :-)