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Quote:  “You know you’re considered by Bush and his bunch of warmongers as nothing more than expendable cannon fodder.” American al-Qaeda member Adam Yehiye Gadahn.

Figure of Speech:  belittlement, the anger trigger.

An American terrorist appears on al-Qaeda’s latest videotape and urges U.S. soldiers to desert to the other side.  Aristotle would have recognized the cannon-fodder technique as a way to stimulate anger — one of the most persuasive emotions and a centerpiece of pathos, or argument by emotion.

A person who desires something is especially susceptible to anger.  Frustrate his ability to assuage that desire, and you have an angry person.  The easiest way to stimulate anger, Aristotle went on, is to belittle that desire.  If you want a hospital patient to sue a doctor, for example, convince the patient that the doc neglected to take her problem seriously.  Most personal lawsuits arise out of this sense of belittlement.

Keep in mind that Aristotle lived in a culture that resembles the modern street gang — macho, violent, and sensitive to any slight.  Disrespect an ancient Greek, or an ancient Greek’s woman, and you should be prepared to hop the next trireme.  But the modern young soldier desires much the same thing:  respect.  So Gadahn claims that Bush disrespects soldiers.

While Gadahn makes a good attempt at a pathetic argument, it’s hard to persuade when you happen to be a terrorist.  To put it rhetorically, the man’s ethos sucks.

Snappy Answer:  “And you’ll give me a free belt if I switch sides?”

Down, Pluto. Play Dead.

Quote:  “Is a human dwarf not a human?” Owen Gingerich, Harvard astronomer and historian, in the Washington Post.

Figure of Speech:  diasyrmus (di-a-SYR-mus), the ludicrous comparison.  From the Greek, meaning “a ripping apart.”

The world’s astronomers have kicked Pluto out of the planetary pantheon.  To qualify as a planet, a body has to be big enough to clear its orbit of smaller objects.  Eight big balls in our Solar System can.  Pluto can’t.

The astronomers give Pluto’s demotion a positive spin:   It will be first in a new class of space stuff called “dwarf planets.”  So the former planet, named after the god of the underworld, gets a space underworld of its very own.

The problem is, by the astronomers’ own definition, a dwarf planet is not a planet.  Professor Gingerich fingers the absurdity with a diasyrmus, a figure that rips through an opponent’s argument with an absurd comparison. 

Clearly, we need to give these parallel objects a name with more, well, gravitas.  And Figaro has one!  Call this new parallel class of space objects plutarchs, after the Greek philosopher who wrote Parallel Lives. 

Don’t thank us.  Just name your next new star Figaro.

Snappy Answer:  “At least as human as an astronomer.”

Nota Bene:  Figaro will be in a different orbit of his own for the next week. He’s walking his son to school, a distance of 110 miles.  Meanwhile, you might want to see a few excerpts from his new book.  Thanks for reading.

Stuff Happens to a Few Dead-Enders

Quote:  “‘Stuff happens,’ ‘mission accomplished,’ ‘last throes,’ ‘a few dead-enders.’  I’m just more familiar with those statements than anyone else because it grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be.”  Senator John McCain in the Washington Post.

Figure of Speech:  peristrophe (per-IS-tro-phee), the figure that tosses back an opponent’s rhetorical grenade.  From the Greek, meaning “turnaround.”

When your rhetoric is one step ahead of reality, either reality eventually matches your rhetoric, or your rhetoric succumbs to reality.  President Bush believed he could make history by deciding it into being.  History seems to have other ideas.

Bush’s strange bedfellow and would-be successor, John McCain, takes some of the most famous quotes of the Bush administration and re-spins them with a show of grief that seems downright presidential.  But the senator, a loyal Republican, deftly avoids attacking Bush himself.  Note the use of “we,” not “that jerk in the White House.”  And McCain quotes only the president’s men, not Dubya himself. 

Behind that straight-talking, war-hero exterior lies a master rhetorician.

Snappy Answer:  “To see how familiar we are with them, wait till the election.”

Today We're Ethnic-Profiling Ann Coulter

Quote:  “What stopped last week’s terrorist attack was ethnic profiling … It is a fact that you could not catch 24 Muslim terrorists by surveilling everyone in Britain equally.”  Traitor-hunting blogshell Ann Coulter.

Figure of Speech:  fallacy of false choice, offering fewer choices than actually exist.

For months, Figarists have been bugging us to figure Ann Coulter.  Figaro abstained till now because he finds her writing tedious and her babelicious pictures distracting.   (Especially the cleavage-baring portrait that appears on the cover of her latest book, Godless.  Talk about a mixed message.)

Where were we?  Right.  Anyway, Ms. Coulter’s latest blog shows logic as flimsy as the lingerie she loves to write about.  Ethnic profiling had to stop the London terrorists, she argues, because the government could not keep track of every Brit.  The White House may beg to differ; that data mining thing shows a lot of promise. But by offering only one alternative to ethnic profiling, the right’s blondest wing commits a fallacy.  Besides profiling and universal spying, you might, oh, say, follow up on a lead.  Which is exactly what happened:  Tipped off by a guy close to the terrorists, Scotland Yard took the novel step of doing something about it.

See what we mean?  Spotting fallacies in Ann Coulter is like hitting the side of a barn.  A slim, saucy barn, in a little black dress, with that adorable hair flip over one eye…

Snappy Answer:  “Super idea!  Detain anyone who doesn’t look like Ann Coulter.”

I Will Use an Evil Device Called "The Internet"

Quote:  “Party: Animal.”  Senator and presidential candidate Evan Bayh’s Facebook site.

Figure of Speech: cacozelia (Cac-o-ZEL-ia), using the wrong words in an embarrassing attempt to blend in with an audience.  From the Greek, meaning roughly, “bad imitation.”

Democratic contenders for the White House have discovered Facebook. John Kerry, that wild and crazy guy, even posed with a couple randoms who work there.  There goes the neighborhood.  But no one does the Dr. Evil “I’m hip! I’m cool” thing better than Evan Bayh, a senator from trendy Indiana.  Lose the beer goggles, dude.

Naturally, Figaro can give you the technical term for this clumsy attempt to fit in:  cacozelia. (Think ca-ca. Same Indo-European root.)  The cacozeliac uses precisely the wrong slang, or is precisely the wrong person to use it. Party on, Evan!

Snappy Answer:  “Sign: Kick Me.”

Let's Make Us Some Democracies!

Quote:  “It is no coincidence that two nations that are building free societies in the heart of the Middle East — Lebanon and Iraq — are also the scenes of the most violent terrorist activity. We will defeat the terrorists by strengthening young democracies across the broader Middle East.”  President Bush in his weekly radio address.

Figure of Speech:  the correlation implies causation fallacy, or cum hoc ergo propter hoc (“with this, therefore because of this”).

Lebanon and Iraq are building democracies, at least according to the president.  Both nations are scenes of violent terrorist activity.  Therefore terrorists attack because Lebanon and Iraq are nascent democracies.  Bush commits a classic mistake:  A happens at the same time as B, therefore A caused B.  Most of the violence in Iraq is committed by warring sects, not al Qaeda-style terrorists.  And Lebanon’s Hezbollah — whose rockets target Israelis, not fellow Lebanese — happens to be part of the country’s democratically elected government.

The bad logic ties Bush in a strange little knot.  If democracies suffer the worst terrorism, then one might conclude that the best answer to terrorism is a dictatorship.  Saddam Hussein would doubtless agree.

Figaro’s Rule:  Bad logic leads to bad policies.

Snappy Answer:  “Young democracies like Iran?”