Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

I've recently discovered a new phrase, the "Gish gallop." It seems to me to fill a valuable vocabulary gap in discussions of argumentative styles, fallacies, etc.  So I'll preserve my discovery here: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop The term refers to the debater's tactic of throwing out a lot of (individually weak) arguments in quick succession.  It can be a devastating trick because it takes a lot less time to make any one claim than it does to do a careful dissection of its weakness. So, if I were arguing the "pro" side of the proposition, "do pots of gold exist at the end of rainbows," [a deliberately ridiculous example],  and I and my opponent each had five minutes for an opening statement, I could say: 1) It is arrogant to claim that such pots of gold don't exist, since it is impossible to imagine that the 'gold deniers' have personally visited both ends of any large percentage of rainbows; 2) something ha...

The Hartford Courant is reporting on the word of unspecified sources apparently involved in the police investigation that the Sandy Hook school shooter was in fact motivated by a spirit of rivalry with other mass murderers. Where have I heard that idea, now confirmed as fact? Where did I hear it first? Oh, yes, I remember. In the hours after the shootings, this is the view of the matter that became affixed to the name " Morgan Freeman." It seems to have disappeared from discussion after Freeman himself disowned it . Let us at least learn a lesson here about the invalidity of discrediting any argument by virtue of where it does or doesn't come from.