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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3503 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 17, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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How is the Canadian forest fire smoke affecting you?

I feel like I'm in my own personal version of silent hill right now. The sun is almost fully obscured.

I lived in Montana for a few years, smoke doesn't affect me until you reach the point where the smoke is thick enough that the sun is no longer a disc.

There's some smoke in the air near DC but the whole thing seems like the typical weather overreaction that's common here.

Sun? What sun?

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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