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This video is, upon further reflection, pretty discouraging as far as assessing Dan's reliability as a purveyor of "scholarship." I suppose he is reliable as to matters within his purview (biblical scholarship), but he then goes well outside of his domain and uses the same presentation techniques (screen caps of articles, quotes, etc.) to use studies that favor his perspective. Across the four studies examined (by Grok) above, McClellan’s pattern is consistent: he selects directional findings that align with a political conclusion, presents them as decisive “data,” and omits or minimizes the methodological limitations the authors themselves emphasize. In each case the underlying paper is real and reports associations. In each case McClellan converts qualified, low-certainty, or purely descriptive findings into stronger causal and policy claims than the studies support. The rhetorical effect is to make contested political judgments appear as straightforward conclusions from “the data.” That is the consistent feature of his citations in this video. Disappointing. But for Grok, I probably would have taken Dan's assessment of these articles at face value. I think a lot of his audience do that. I think that reliance is, here, misplaced. Thanks, -Smac

Another article Dan cites: Dopp AR, Peipert A, Buss J, et al. Interventions for Gender Dysphoria and Related Health Problems in Transgender and Gender-Expansive Youth: A Systematic Review of Benefits and Risks to Inform Practice, Policy, and Research. RAND Corporation, 2024 (also summarized in RAND Health Quarterly). The Grok critique of Dan's use of this article: Thanks, -Smac

Haven’t read complaints. Are any upset because of no wings?

Another article Dan cites: Bird K, Arcelus J, Matsagoura L, O’Shea B, Townsend E. Risk and protective factors for self-harm thoughts and behaviours in transgender and gender diverse people: A systematic review. Heliyon. 2024;10(5):e26074. doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e26074. A Grok critique of Dan's use of this article: Thanks, -Smac

Went looking for a spear like that one and came across this article that agrees with your descriptions: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/11/03/the-chosen-season-6-upsets-fans-with-native-american-african-angels/ Also pointed out angels could look dang weird, so why the rants? “ The Bible doesn’t really align with the complaints here in terms of how it describes angels, in that they take many forms from exceedingly normal to totally bizarre. We have: Angels that look like totally average humans, like the ones who came to Abraham or went to Sodom. Angels that are more intimidating with an “appearance like lightning” and pure white clothes, one that shows up at Jesus’ resurrection. Angels seen in prophecy which have four faces, human, lion, ox, and eagle, with four wings and bronze feet. Angels that attend God with six wings that are called Seraphim, which stems from a word that means “burning.” The point here is that there are a whole lot of different types of angels, and the ones with two feathery wings and gold halos and robes and harps are not really described in the Bible at all. So it stands to reason that sure, there could be warrior angels taking the form of human fighters across time. Even if that format isn’t mentioned specifically in the Bible, it seems clear that angels can take many forms. We’ll see how fans react when the full episode is out.”

Dan also cites to another article: Campbell T, Mann S, van der Meulen Rodgers Y, Tran NM. Mental Health of Transgender Youth Following Gender Identity Milestones by Level of Family Support. JAMA Pediatrics. 2024;178(9):870–878. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.2035. A Grok critique of Dan's usage of this article: Thanks,, -Smac

I speculate that communism might work on a small community where it is easier for the person on the street to see the lifestyles of those in charge so it will be more difficult to set up a hidden class system. I think with any government, the more transparent the better, which often means big is not always better. It has been tried in religious communities, for example. Russia was definitely not a communist state even if it pretended to be. Never been to China, but from what I have heard, class is still going strong, beside the usual elite, major differenc between urban and rural. Not actual communism, no matter what the label. I don’t think they even typically claimed to be communism, but working towards that, but haven’t researched much. Now can the ideologies tied to communism actually work given human nature or are they doomed to be derailed eventually…that could be a decent discussion, imo.

Also, Dan cites to an excerpt from an article: Liu M, Patel VR, Reisner SL, Keuroghlian AS. Health Status and Mental Health of Transgender and Gender-Diverse Adults. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2024;184(8):984–986. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2024.2544. I asked Grok to assess Dan's citation ("About his citation to 'Journal of the American Medical Association Health and the 2024 US election,' what is that article, and what is your critique of it?") : Thanks, -Smac

Back to Dan McClellan: Quite an interesting and substantive critique in some ways. Not sure how accurate his characterization is of Stuckey (e.g., her purported opposition to 3 things: sex education, free access to contraception, increase access to women's healthcare). I did note this comment at the 1:04 mark: "I would suggest the data do not support the conclusion that people in general matter to Turning Point USA." He provides no dataset, study, survey, or operational definition. “People in general matter” is not a measurable claim that can be tested against a body of evidence; it is a moral evaluation of motives. By attaching the word “data” to it, he converts a political judgment into something that sounds like an empirical finding. And he seems to do this quite a lot. This is the same rhetorical move he uses when discussing the resurrection, the Book of Mormon, or other religious claims: “the data do not support X.” In those cases the underlying method (methodological naturalism) already excludes the conclusion, so the appeal to “data” is largely circular. Here the move is simpler and more transparent. Turning Point USA is an organization he dislikes on political grounds; labeling that dislike as a conclusion from “the data” gives it an aura of objectivity it does not possess. The pattern across his content is consistent: When the topic is inside his academic specialty and the conclusion aligns with critical consensus, “the data” tracks recognizable scholarly evidence. I commend him for this. When the topic is contemporary politics, contested social-science findings, or religious claims he rejects, “the data” frequently functions as a shorthand for “the evidence that supports the view I already hold,” without the qualifications, counter-evidence, or definitional clarity that actual data analysis would require. I find this problematic. The Turning Point USA remark is especially stark because it offers no data at all—only the assertion that data exist and point against the group. That is ideology speaking in the register of scholarship. Thanks, -Smac

Btw, according to chat, only Lenin and Stalin identified as Social Democrats, the rest did not, so it’s odd you are using them as evidence.

Great response! and besides was communism and socialism perfectly executed in every country? no!

And social democracy with socialism. (Did look up stats to doublecheck my memory using AI, but commentary is all my own, so no quotes; on my phone so no links today…this is common knowledge after all.) The best countries to live in if one cares about quality of life rather than wealth (and personally I think anyone who cares more about what they possess than how they live is dysfunctional at some level) are the Nordic countries (excluding Iceland here in the calculations as it’s an outlier in many things, while the others hang out together for the most part). Their economies are social democracies that even allow the operation of capitalism!!! They have privately owned businesses, competitive markets, entrepreneurship and innovation, even stock markets. Their governments are based on a constitution that has the prime minister and parliament running the country (in those that are constitutional monarchies, the monarch is mostly ceremonial). They even have a variety of political parties and have had conservative and liberal governments, etc. Some are even having issues with far right gaining power….how can that happen in a socialist country? Because they are constitutional governments using social democratic policies….much like what many liberals in the US want…and for very good reasons, given the examples. What do they have that the US doesn’t have? Much higher health care rates due to universal health care. And they pay less overall for that quality. They average around $7-8,000 per capita while the US is almost twice as much, close to $15,000. People who don’t want universal health care because they believe it will cost them more are not informed. In education, some are better than the US in some categories, some are worse, I would say the US holds its own in this area overall, but my guess this is because the wealthier families end up balancing out the more impoverished ones as the functional literacy rate is much lower for the US. Government spending per student is about the same, but more US dollars go to private than public compared to the Nordic countries (they invest more in the public education system, including more professional training for teachers, much more consistent quality across the board vs the elite schools that are available to the wealthy and the lucky scholarship kids. Crime….one of their countries, Finland iirc, is closing prisons because they don’t have enough prisoners to keep them occupied. But that doesn’t mean they are more at risk because of lax policing or justice system letting the bad guys get off with a slap on the wrist. They have more than 5 times less murders than the US does. Theft is hard to judge because of difference in reporting practices, including reports of minor theft. They have significant more reports of minor theft, but much lower rates of violent crime. It makes more sense to me their attitude to crime is its worth it to report minor thefts because something will be done about them, it won’t get lost among the more serious stuff, but I need to research more to confirm that. Spending on crime prevention is also much less than in the US, almost half in some countries. So less crime, better health and education for all their citizens…all for less money. These governments were mostly established using constitutional reform, elections, etc. Finland is an exception as there was a revolution—the Reds (the actual socialists) lost. And yet somehow social democracy (as in such programs framed in a constitutional republic—like the US) is inherently oppressive and violent because it’s really socialism at its heart, not reforms applied within the existing democracy… Btw…on one measure for liberty, the Nordic countries score in the high 90s (Finland is 100). The US scores 84. This is consistent with many such measures. Another measure of Freedom put out by the Cato institute iirc, has the US second lowest in the group, but still playing in the same ballpark. So much for oppression and personal and economic freedom. Social democratic reforms do not equate to socialism nor are they inherently violent or oppressive. They can be an excellent way to go for governments who care about all their residents.

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I agree. I typically state when I am using Grok, but I did not do so here. My apologies. I have edited my post to include identifiers. Thanks, -Smac

I have a friend who is checking on this. Another one remembered having one and then not, but can’t remember the reason it wasn’t allowed…was thinking safety issues like hay bales and candles (mice and fire hazards), but you can use artificial trees and not put lights on them even, so now we are both depending on the first to satisfy our curiosity. Hopefully he will be able to find out. Remind me to check my email if you don’t see a post here as that’s an address I don’t have to check daily and it can go for a week or more between looking in.

Rewatching the revisioned Planet of the Apes films from a number of years ago. Rise/Dawn/War, hoping to catch the additional, Kingdom. Found the special effects to be very good. I remember the original film series from when I was younger, with Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowell, also the TV series.

and confusing socialism with communism

It seems like there should be a board rule requiring a disclaimer when the majority of a post is written by AI

The following is a simile of the "Fountain of All Righteousness" being Faith, Hope and Charity. This illustrates how these principles apply to our progression and remain as "pillars" In the lower, right-hand corner is a birds-eye view of the spiral staircase and is likened to God's eternal round progressing from Faith, Hope and Charity endlessly. The next diagram shows how the symmetry works for the scripture about knowledge and intelligence

On a few random occasions, found myself getting forgetful as to why I entered a room, as 3DOP previously mentioned. Seems like a good piece of advice from Emily. As long as I don't forget which door I came in by 😊.

That's the Threshold Effect or Door Effect. It's not an old person thing. It's a memory storage thing. Working memory has very limited capacity. To avoid information overload, the brain routinely "flushes" details to free up mental space for whatever it expects to encounter in a new environment. Walking through a physical threshold signals to the brain that one event has ended and a new one has begun so it treats it like walking into a new environment and clears out working memory. It happens to children and teenagers and young adults as well. They just aren't worried about going senile so they don't particularly notice when it happens. Also, I think as you get older and collect responsibilities you tend to have more on your mind to fill up your brain or distract you before you step through the door. Stepping back into the room where you were before will often restore the memory. Then you just need to concentrate on what you wanted and not get distracted with other thoughts when you go through the door. 😄 I always figure cats don't have threshold effect memory issues. They stand in doorways SOOOOO long before stepping through I'm quite sure they know exactly why they went into every room. 😝

So it's okay to impute motives to people we think are advocating for socialism. When the evidence is there, yes. Lenin. "Peace, land, and bread." Before and during the seizure of power, Bolshevik propaganda emphasized “peace, land, and bread,” workers’ control, and an end to exploitation. The actual program—dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, suppression of rival socialist parties, nationalization by decree, and the Red Terror—followed immediately once power was secured. Lenin’s own writings (e.g., State and Revolution) were more explicit about the need for dictatorship, but the public-facing appeals were framed as liberation. Stalin. He presented collectivization as voluntary modernization and a path to abundance. In practice it was enforced by confiscation, deportation, and the engineered famine in Ukraine and elsewhere Mao. Land reform was advertised as giving land to the tiller and ending landlord oppression. Once implemented, however, it moved rapidly to mutual-aid teams, then full collectivization, and finally the people’s communes. The Great Leap Forward was promoted as a voluntary leap into prosperity through mass mobilization; the result was widespread famine and intensified party control. Public language remained populist and egalitarian. Castro. The revolution was initially framed as nationalist, anti-Batista, and democratic, with promises of elections and restoration of the 1940 constitution. Nationalizations, the suppression of the independent press, the banning of opposition parties, and the alignment with the Soviet model followed within a few years. Allende. A military coup stopped this one before it could be fully deployed. Chavez. “21st-century socialism” was presented as participatory democracy, poverty reduction, and the empowerment of the poor against elites. The practical steps—expropriations, packing of institutions, use of state oil revenues for political control, and the marginalization of the opposition—accumulated over time. I am not imputing motives to these actors. I am reading history. Now, am I imputing motives to some current actors? Yes. From Grok: Deploying socialism in a constitutional republic is going to be a difficult thing, hence the motte-and-bailey stuff and the incrementalism. I'd first need to see a non-ad hoc, non-idiosyncratic definition of "fascism." I guess we could start here: I guess we could discuss the alleged "fascist" in view: Charlie Kirk. Historical markers of fascism: Classical fascism (Italian Fascism, Nazism, and close variants) featured: Explicit rejection of liberal democracy, multi-party competition, and constitutional constraints in favor of a one-party state under a dictatorial leader. Corporatist economic organization subordinating private enterprise to state direction. Party-controlled paramilitary violence and systematic suppression of opposition. An ideology of national rebirth through hierarchical authority, often with racial or expansionist elements. Cult of the leader tied to a formal party program that treated dissent as treason. Kirk neither participated in or endorsed any of these things. From Grok: Why I think the label fails: Applying “fascist” to Kirk requires the elastic method discussed earlier with Devereaux’s checklist (the article was previously provided by Nehor) : treating ordinary conservative positions on immigration, national identity, or cultural issues as equivalent to interwar fascist ideology, and treating sharp political rhetoric as equivalent to organized political violence or institutional dismantling. That method can be (and has been) turned against figures across the spectrum; it does not isolate a distinctive fascist program in Kirk’s case. The elastic and ad hoc application of "fascist" is applied to people like Kirk and Trump, but it could also readily apply to folks like Obama and Biden. From Grok: Devereaux’s piece treats Trump’s statements as literal intent while treating comparable institutional actions by the other side as ordinary politics or justified responses. Once the criteria are elastic enough to reach any major political figure through selective reading, the label loses discriminatory power and functions more as pejorative intensifier than descriptive category. Historical fascism had tighter institutional markers (party-controlled paramilitaries, explicit one-party ideology, corporatist takeover) that the relaxed checklist does not require. Kirk’s assassination and the subsequent - and ongoing - celebrations by some who called him a fascist illustrate the practical danger of the loose usage. Once the label is detached from its historical content and used as a moral intensifier, it lowers the threshold for treating political disagreement as justification for violence. On the evidence of his stated views and activities, the characterization is not descriptively accurate. If someone declares himself a "Socialist," I don't need to impute motives. The motives of Socialism are baked into the ideology. Thanks, -Smac

The images are too dark for me to pick out anything distinctive. It does appear that the one with the bow is Native American and the one with the spear is female who appears to be Black to me due to what facial features I think I can see, but is the spear or clothing a reference to African culture? The third is too indistinct for me for even facial features but looks male, might an Asian, might be something else. It did come across to me as going for a more universal look. Not sure I like the pure warrior/secret assassin look, but that is certainly biblical in some places (angels not only deliver messages, they destroy armies). I wonder if anyone complaining has an issue with Michael Landon as an angel. Certainly referred to a non biblical culture with him (even if his dad was Jewish). Then there is the Irish angel in Touched by an Angel. Both very ‘white’ characters. I can see if the complaint is they are out of place, highly unlikely to be seen walking around Palestine in the markets, etc. But does the Bible restrict angels in that fashion, matching the culture they appear in or is it just assumed? Have there been portrayals of angels before? (Haven’t watched the show)

Your link to the article just goes back to your post.

My mother got to hold a baby lion once. She was helping at a local parade (her sister was in the parade) and it was handed to her to hold while the owner did something on the float. Mom says she was taken aback at first, because she was just standing there and had a lion shoved at her. But it was nicely behaved, very soft, and she held really still because it had big feet with even bigger claws. 😄