The Ten Crack Commandments

 Aaaah yes - thanks again Biggie Smalls. You gave us the Ten Crack Commandments. If you're not a hip-hop fan or just too damn young to know about it, this song is how the late Notorious BIG explained how to be a master at crack sales - right here in our own white suburban neighborhoods. Oh wait, he was talking about the ghetto. I digress.

 Well I took a class by Darby Cavin at Grays Harbor Community College a few summers ago. In it, he laid out at least ten (if not more) fallacies. These are the rules to make you a master at seeing truth and presenting sound information. And in the tradition of Biggies Smalls and his Ten Crack Commandments, I give you the fallacies. You can click on each of them and be redirected to a site that goes into great detail.

• Ad Hominem (Argument To The Man)
• Affirming The Consequent
• Amazing Familiarity
• Ambiguous Assertion
• Appeal To Anonymous Authority
• Appeal To Authority
• Appeal To Coincidence
• Appeal To Complexity
• Appeal To False Authority
• Appeal To Force
• Appeal To Pity (Appeal to Sympathy, The Galileo Argument)
• Appeal To Widespread Belief (Bandwagon Argument, Peer Pressure, Appeal To Common Practice)
• Argument By Dismissal
• Argument By Emotive Language (Appeal To The People)
• Argument By Fast Talking
• Argument By Generalization
• Argument By Gibberish (Bafflement)
• Argument By Half Truth (Suppressed Evidence)
• Argument By Laziness (Argument By Uninformed Opinion)
• Argument By Personal Charm
• Argument By Pigheadedness (Doggedness)
• Argument By Poetic Language
• Argument By Prestigious Jargon
• Argument By Question
• Argument By Repetition (Argument Ad Nauseam)
• Argument by Rhetorical Question
• Argument By Scenario
• Argument By Selective Observation
• Argument By Selective Reading
• Argument By Slogan
• Argument By Vehemence
• Argument From Adverse Consequences (Appeal To Fear, Scare Tactics)
• Argument From Age (Wisdom of the Ancients)
• Argument From Authority
• Argument From False Authority
• Argument From Small Numbers
• Argument From Spurious Similarity
• Argument Of The Beard
• Argument To The Future
• Bad Analogy
• Begging The Question (Assuming The Answer, Tautology)
• Burden Of Proof
• Causal Reductionism (Complex Cause)
• Changing The Subject (Digression, Red Herring, Misdirection, False Emphasis)
• Cliche Thinking
• Common Sense
• Complex Question (Tying)
• Confusing Correlation And Causation
• Disproof By Fallacy
• Equivocation
• Error Of Fact
• Euphemism
• Exception That Proves The Rule
• Excluded Middle (False Dichotomy, Faulty Dilemma, Bifurcation)
• Extended Analogy
• Failure To State
• Fallacy Of Composition
• Fallacy Of Division
• Fallacy Of The General Rule
• Fallacy Of The Crucial Experiment
• False Cause
• False Compromise
• Genetic Fallacy (Fallacy of Origins, Fallacy of Virtue)
• Having Your Cake (Failure To Assert, or Diminished Claim)
• Hypothesis Contrary To Fact
• Inconsistency
• Inflation Of Conflict
• Internal Contradiction
• Least Plausible Hypothesis
• Lies
• Meaningless Questions
• Misunderstanding The Nature Of Statistics (Innumeracy)
• Moving The Goalposts (Raising The Bar, Argument By Demanding Impossible Perfection)
• Needling
• Non Sequitur
• Not Invented Here
• Outdated Information
• Pious Fraud
• Poisoning The Wells
• Psychogenetic Fallacy
• Reductio Ad Absurdum
• Reductive Fallacy (Oversimplification)
• Reifying
• Short Term Versus Long Term
• Slippery Slope Fallacy (Camel's Nose)
• Special Pleading (Stacking The Deck)
• Statement Of Conversion
• Stolen Concept
• Straw Man (Fallacy Of Extension)
• Two Wrongs Make A Right (Tu Quoque, You Too)
• Weasel Wording

"Master these and you'll have mad bread to break," is what Biggie says. But I say you'll see through a lot of the bullshit that's being fed to you on a daily basis. Your vote and your dollar are wanted by someone who is most likely using these fallacies to get them. Sadly it works and we give up so easily.

Today's 21-Gun Salute

It was for Culinary Specialist 2nd Class Jarod Newlove.

I'm not gonna go into too much detail, but suffice to say today is by and large the most intense event I've covered to date.

This person was killed in Afghanistan while serving in Afghanistan - he was a member of my unit in Everett. This is the closest the death of war has ever come to me. I hope it never happens again.

I took a lot more photos, but I'm sharing them w/ the unit and family first.

The Navy Photographer

The military photographer is so underrated and really only gets due credit from within our community.

My good friend Chris Mobley is easily the most talented Navy photographer I know. And on the eve of yet another photo shoot for me, I aspire to shoot more like him and some of the other incredible photographers I have the honor of working with.

Here are some of my favorite photos ever!

Chris is currently deployed to Afghanistan and had the opportunity to shoot a group of young Afghan women being trained as police officers. I could go on about the story and its relevance, but you can read all about it by clicking here in one of the rare instances our photos gets its due usage.

No, the military photographer is not an infantryman or fighter pilot. Their job is to shoot guns in combat while the photographer is armed with a camera. Telling the story of war, and telling it well, is so much important than it seems. Without these stories - no history can be told. Next time you come across one of these incredibly talented artists, thank them for bringing their talent and service to the country.

Please pass these on Facebook by checking out the photos (and photographer) here.