Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Ladies and Gentlemen, Fran Porretto

Your new favorite blog proudly welcomes Francis W. Porretto today as a contributor. Dr. ("Don't Call Me "Dr.") Porretto's Ph.D. is in astrophysics, which should come in handy with some of the spacy ideas that fly in and out of here.

Fran lives on Long Island, is a husband and a father of two, and has dedicated his massive brainpower to defending Western Civilization not just as an engineer in the defense industry, but as the intellectual idol of millions at his own blog, Eternity Road, to which Fran will continue to post and to which we've added a link.

Mr.
Porretto also maintains an 11,000-volume library at his country manor, so it's tough to slip anything by him. He's also been known to author up fiction in a panoply of genres, although he assures us that anything he writes here you can take to the bank. I've had no reason to doubt him, except when he describes himself as "bizarre but harmless."

Bizarre perhaps, but this is a very dangerous man, and we're very glad to have him. Welcome aboard, Fran, and cheers also to your faithful readers who've come over to see what other mischief you've got yourself into.

9 comments:

Matt Huisman said...

Welcome aboard, Fran - and great start. I've been ghosting Eternity Road for a while now, and look forward to seeing you more regularly around here.

By the way, Astrophysics? Good grief. I know TVD likes to have his bases covered, but this is really kicking it up a notch.

I look forward to not saying a word the next time cosmological origins comes up.

Kathy Hutchins said...

Buzz, you forgot:

(1) Cynthia McKinney hit that cop in self-defense;
(2) Patrick Kennedy was under the influence of Ambien and nothing but Ambien; but
(3) Dick Cheney shot his friend on purpose, while he was drunk.

Francis W. Porretto said...

Thank you for the warm welcome, friends. And please, everyone, call me Fran. "Dr." should be reserved for 1) physicians, and 2) people who've actually made use of their educations. Neither of those describes me. I'm just a loudmouthed engineer who reads and writes a lot.

'Buzz and Kathy: Yes, I've already noted the intense elucidations copiously provided to us groundlings by TRC's left-of-center commenters. Mind expanding, truly mind expanding. Well, we all have our ministries, and one does what one can, or perhaps a trifle less on a bad day.

I hope to stimulate some good conversation here, on a par with what the prior, highly distinguished crew of TRC has achieved, but of course we shall see. And I promise solemnly: not one word about the magnetohydrodynamics of the interstellar and intergalactic media! (Our local media are quite bad enough.)

James F. Elliott said...

Wow, Buzz, I don't think I've ever seen such a collection of idiotic Right Wing straw men all lined up nice and pretty. Ever. Even for you, that's over the top.

This place used to be so much more complex and challenging. At least Hunter Baker and S.T. Karnick had interesting ideas. Now it's gone from fascinating blog to Little Green Footballs with intellectual pretensions. So sad.

James F. Elliott said...

"And I promise solemnly: not one word about the magnetohydrodynamics of the interstellar and intergalactic media!"

I bet that would actually be far more interesting.

James F. Elliott said...

"American Christianity is one of the gravest threats to our existence..."

That clause wasn't a straw man. It's true.

Francis W. Porretto said...

"Now it's gone from fascinating blog to Little Green Footballs with intellectual pretensions. So sad."

Then may we assume we won't be hearing from you any more, Mr. Elliott? Or are you resolved, out of the nobless oblige that accompanies your superior wisdom and the inestimable depths of your certified non-Christian compassion, to remain and re-educate us?

James F. Elliott said...

"Then may we assume we won't be hearing from you any more, Mr. Elliott? Or are you resolved, out of the nobless oblige that accompanies your superior wisdom and the inestimable depths of your certified non-Christian compassion, to remain and re-educate us?"

Naw. I combat idiocy when it rears its head. I think you're going to keep me busy.

James F. Elliott said...

See, Buzz? Those are just bastardizations of points that have been made. Some of those are from statements that were so clearly written that your reinterpretations can only be willful. It demonstrates that you haven't even tried to understand.

And that's what I've been seeing here.

This was a place that forced me to think, to work to support my opinions or change them. Thanks in part to Hunter, S.T., and Kathy, I changed my opinions on how best to address social welfare (for one example). I moved from atheism to believing that agnosticism is the only intellectually, morally, and rationally defensible belief.

We don't get discussion anymore. We get straw men and assertions of facts not otherwise supported by the evidence.