Tchotchkes: Happy Halloween 2010

Sidebar: More on Self Belief

The following quote is about something called self-belief which I posted about earlier: It is from a blog by George Monbiot about Christopher Monckton, a skeptic of global warming:

To dismiss an entire canon of science on the basis of either no evidence or evidence that has already been debunked is to evince an astonishing level of self-belief. It suggests that, by instinct or by birth, you know more about this subject (even if you show no sign of ever having studied it) than the thousands of intelligent people who have spent their lives working on it. Once you have taken that leap of self-belief, once you have arrogated to yourself the authority otherwise vested in science, any faith is then possible. Your own views (and those of the small coterie who share them) become your sole reference points, and are therefore unchallengeable and immutable. You must believe yourself capable of anything. And, in a sense, you probably are.

To be continued.

Tchotchkes: New Design for Secure U.S. Currency?

Lil White Lies: On Boiling Frogs

A poll done last July by the Kaiser Family Foundation on seniors’ view of the new healthcare reform as it relates to Medicare revealed:

…a large shares of seniors mistakenly believe the law includes provisions that cut some previously universal Medicare benefits and creates “death panels.” Half of seniors (50%) say the law will cut benefits that were previously provided to all people on Medicare, and more than a third (36%) incorrectly believe the law will “allow a government panel to make decisions about end-of-life care for people on Medicare.”

This supports Angie Drobnic Holan’s conclusion in her recent PolitiFact ruling on an ad televised by Indiana Republican running for Senator Dan Coats about his opposition Brad Ellsworth : “The ad is capitalizing on confusion about the nature of the Medicare program and making a ridiculous claim.”

Coats makes sure that the mistaken belief found in the Kaiser Poll is perpetuated. And Bryan White is here to explain why it’s not a mistaken belief … and to keep the myth alive about death panels as well. Let's answer a few of the questions Bryan posed in his review:

Mock the Dummies: How To Play Dummies For Fools (Florida Style)

Lil White Lies: Bucking Bias Selection Again!

Lately I’ve been in agreement with more of Bryan White’s PolitiFact analyses. I thought perhaps his “selection bias” might have gotten better, choosing PolitiFact (PF) rulings more carefully, where he stood a better chance of making more substantial counter arguments. But it didn’t take him very long to really politi-flub it up with this recent review on a PF ruling on a statement by Democratic candidate William Bennet about his opponent, Republican Ken Buck, on his position on abortion.

The sublimely bloviating pattern comes up again: parse the statement (to his favor), then argue selection bias. Bryan’s contention is opposition to abortion is not the same as wanting to outlaw it, then follows up with what looks like straw man argument that “it simply isn't realistic to anticipate an abortion ban even if Buck were elected president.”

Bryan frequently faults PolitiFact for “selection bias” in its rulings; certainly, if there’s a defect in the selection method that Bryan can show isn’t valid, he has some room for argument, but there isn’t any to speak of here.

So, did Ken Buck just oppose abortion, or did he want to ban it? For starters, Buck chose not to answer David Gregory’s question in the Meet the Press interview, which was (emphasis added):

Tchotchkes: Pumpkin Carving Time

Artistic carving of Dick Cheney.

Sidebar: Tortilla Trolling

From the What a CROCK Files

When you come across a repeating comment in a thread, it tends to make you wonder if the person posting is "for real" or just a troll. One poster on the PolitiFact Facebook page, by the name of Al Diaz, who I have long thought to be a bit trollish, recently repeated a comment about his heritage. He wants everyone to know, apparently, that poor Al came from an impoverished background, picked himself up by the bootstraps, and now is a successful (Republican, of course).....well, he doesn't say anything about his degree of success here. He just seems to think his meager beginnings somehow allow him to ridicule anyone else for having that infamous "entitlement mentality"--even when the other comments don't even allude to it.

On October 16 he proclaimed: “As you can see, my name shows I am hispanic. I wasn't born in this country. You want to see ...poor people? I'll take you to the mountains of Northern Mexico. You will see what is like to eat rotten beans, old tortillas and animal crackers."

Sidebar: Small Talk at the Tea Party, too!

Click on picture to enlarge for closer viewing.

Tea Party Nationalism is a website which has an extremely interesting, downloadable 94-page study on the origins, history, membership and sources of funds of the Tea Party.  On page 79 it has a breakdown (shown above) by gender of each of the best known tea party factions:  most of these are two thirds for the males too!  What could be going on here?  I thought we were over half the population!

Sidebar: Small Talk

Something I discovered during my 30 years of working among more men than women, is that they are BY FAR bigger gossips than women…contrary to the traditional “women as gossiper” lore.   If I wanted to find out what *dirt* was going on in the office, the go-to person who knew and would be more than happy to tell me, was almost always a male.  That part of my life over, recently I visited a friend who somehow found herself elected president of her 360-unit condo association. As we sat in her living room there was a knock on the door. It was a fellow who regularly ran around the condo grounds, and was coming to report everything he saw. He did that every day, and wasn’t paid or given any other incentive than just to tell my friend who had noisy parties or parked in violation of condo rules, even though the adjacent neighbors made no complaints.  That’s just one more example to show it wasn't just where I had worked.

Sidebar: Vampire Vegetarians

Some PolitiFact commenters who are ardent conservatives like to label all Democrats as having an *entitlement mentality.* I do not believe that. I know more successful business owners who are Democrats and even more life long union members who are Conservatives. One would think it should be the other way around.

I love this toon!

As a committed stock market investor since about 1985, one would think I was Republican. Personally, I could be if the party accepted moderates or socially liberal Republicans. Even now being retired, my 401K, IRA and outside investments have (obviously) become much more….conservative. I still get a lot of emails from different investment websites I’ve (somehow) given my email address to, just to see what they have to say. Many so-called investment advisors put their conservative leanings out there, such as this email from Gary Shilling of Forbes. Nevertheless, they still have compelling things to say.

The sentence that jumped out in this letter was “By 2018, 67.3% of the population will be financially dependent on government.” As of 2007, according to Shilling, 58.2% of “Americans…are dependent on the government for major parts of their income.” Shilling offers no solutions to this criticism, however, only to use it to make the claim he can make me money “hand over fist” with his for-fee-only investment advice…well, as a conservative investor, I’m not touching that.

Sidebar: Bludgeoned by Essay

On Saturday, October 16, PolitiFact posted a TV video being shown by PolitiFact Rhode Island on its Facebook page. The video shows Tim Murphy, the Editor, who said:

“Campaign promises, political attacks—how many times have you heard a politician make a statement and wonder, is that really true? The Providence Journal’s PolitiFact Rhode Island Team will help you find the truth in politics: researching, going to the original sources of claims, and when we are finished, you will know if the political statement is True, Half True, or Positively Ridiculous Pants on Fire. On the record fact-checking from the Providence Journal’s PolitiFact Rhode Island team, see us on line at projo-politifact.com.”

The commentary which followed was some of the best I’ve seen, and of course, there was Bryan White dominating the thread. I put in a few “likes” in (as in the title of this post, from a comment by Cheryl Layos), but this post by him really caught my attention:

Lil White Lies: Double Bubble Bias Trouble

In his latest PolitiFact critique, Bryan White brews up what appears to be a pretty open and shut case about “selection bias” at PolitiFact. In a televised debate, Delaware Democrat Senatorial candidate Chris Coons disagrees with a statement by his opposing Republican candidate Chris O’Donnell that unemployment in New Castle County (one of Delaware’s three counties) has doubled in the last two years. PolitiFact finds that Chris Coons' assertion that it has not doubled is True (despite Bryan’s claims that wasn’t exactly what he said).

But Bryan's words are poisoned with the essence of snark and pinch of paranoia (too many pinches, which almost spoils his brew) towards PolitiFact. “PolitiFact has selection bias on hand to guide us through this difficult process…” “There's nothing wrong with a little garbling, is there?” “Precisely why was the comparison kept to August in the first place? Other than to explicitly benefit Coons, of course.” “Whether by accident or not, PolitiFact cherry-picked to Coons' benefit.”

Tchotchkes: Every Debate with a Creationist Ever

Sidebar: Uh, Hold That Thought (Updated)

In the latest of Bryan White’s Bashing Blumner series, he argued that it was not possible for extremism to be mainstream, because electoral politics “cannot succeed at the national level through the appeal to any brand of extremism which a majority strongly opposes.”  Please see my response in the previous post.

Now, after seeing this post, I’m distinctly getting the impression that he thinks his conservatism is not extreme, and he sees himself in the “mainstream” majority.



Arnold DID follow in steps of Reagan--he exploded government debt.  See link from his name below.



Sidebar: Clone Wars

From the What a CROCK Files

Jeff Dyberg is a regular Facebook PolitiFact (PF) commenter and one of Bryan White’s attack rats (4-b), a more humorous, casual, self-revealing Ayn Rand Libertarian /Objectivist . He seems to appear at opportune times on behalf of Bryan, when he comes up against solid debate opposition in a thread, and often will link to Bryan’s blog in his comments, one time even posting that if you are new to the PF Facebook page, Bryan’s Sublime Bloviations is its “instruction manual.”

A few days ago he made some comments to the effect that PF’s rulings were “inconsistent” on ruling claims that had “No evidence.” However, taking a good look at these rulings, one can see that PF’s conclusions were all reasonable, had some basis in fact, and were not inconsistent.

He first took issue with a Half-True ruling on Obama’s statement that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was receiving foreign contributions.

Mock the Dummies: Countdown To Judgment Day

More on the beheadings in Arizona (and a humorously honest view of why the governor of Arizona's claims on this are rated "Pants on Fire" by PolitiFact).  To see more Mock the Dummies (or Mock the Dummy!), click here.

Lil White Lies: Those were the Days

Campaign messaging is different today, and Bryan White is here to first explain how it was different prior to this, in another blog entry critical of a recent column by Robyn Blumner :

“Barack Obama rode popular sentiment to his election as president of the United States. Obama ran on the unpopularity of Republicans and a message of bipartisan change that transformed shortly after election day to a message of partisan change.”

Is this a joke?! The Republicans themselves were NOT unpopular, George W. Bush was unpopular. Bryan then implies that Obama changed message from bi-partisan to partisan change once he became president. So, who’s called the Party of NO right now? Well, according to idealist and conservative *Bryan White, always Right*:

“Electoral politics is about forging coalitions. It cannot succeed at the national level through the appeal to any brand of extremism which a majority strongly opposes.”

Mock the Dummies: How To Rally Dummies

Lil White Lies: Parsing Ponzi

The core argument of Bryan White’s analysis of the above PolitiFact "False" ruling (of the statement "Social Security is a Ponzi scheme" by candidate John Loughlin, Republican running for Congress in Rhode Island) is mostly found in these comments:

“Is fraud an absolutely critical component of a Ponzi scheme? The government, as noted above, can compel participation in the program. There's no need to dupe people into participation because they're forced to participate…Fraud is not an essential aspect to the Ponzi scheme. It is an optional element used by entities unable to force participation in their financial/insurance products. Regardless, the government has arguably misled its citizens about the financial soundness of their social insurance program.”

So let’s see if that holds up in court: “…uh, Judge, my client couldn’t force participation in his Ponzi scheme like the government does with social security, so he elected to use the optional element of duping them by promising exorbitant returns....therefore his using the funds for personal purposes, not being up front about the investment, and the plaintiff  losing everything invested, can't be fraud either.”

Sidebar: More Dabbling by O'Donnell

Politi-Score: Suggestions

Recently a commenter named Joanne Libby queried on the Facebook PolitiFact discussion board that she'd "Would like to see a Republican vs. Democrat Scoreboard."  So I commented to her about this blog and my Politi-Score category.  She did the link, and commented to me "I don't get the scoring system - to me it would be 100, 75, 50, 25, 0, -25. Getting 90 for mostly true and 60 for false seems too close for the difference."

I can understand that.  My initial thought was PolitiFact's rulings should be graded the way grades are done the way most of us are familiar with, A-F, with A being 100 points for True (Passed Perfect Score), down to 50 points (less than Flunking) for Pants on Fire.  But Joanne's comments have a point. If you start at 100 points for True, 50 points is "Half True," logically.  She posed a negative number of -25 for Pants on Fire.  So I applied her point system and came up with the following:

Peasel Prattle: Flint, Fear and Flux Capacity (Updated)

From the What a CROCK Files

This starts the first of my series of reviews of the “Letters to the Editor” (of the Flint Journal) by one Richard Peasel, former co-worker and co-car-pooler, who is also a rabid right-winger.

This particular letter, published October 1, is SO chock full of lies, distortions, and misrepresentations, I just don’t know where to begin! So I’ll take it step by step.  Peasel uses a rhetorical device which would be described by Bryan White as "concrete examples" which is nothing more than a nice bullet list of lies, distortions and misrepresentations.

Has columnist Andrew Heller borrowed the president’s teleprompters to parrot the president’s speech inaccuracies, or does Andy have a shorter memory than the average American (Sept. 10 column regarding people with short memories voting Republican)?

I could not find the Andrew Heller column to which Rich refers, and assume it means people have short memories with regard to George W. Bush’s record the last eight years before Obama was elected. Like all those things that started with Bush that contributed to the deficits: Bush’s tax cuts, his Iraq/Afghanistan wars, his Medicare Part D, his financial crisis, his bailouts…..or did Rich forget? Because they’re definitely not Obama speech inaccuracies, they’re….FACTS. The financial impact of Bush’s activities is enumerated later in this piece.

Mock the Dummies: Monster Government

This video was from about a year ago, but its message is still current.  I don't know why it's called "Does Fox News Employ Dummies?"; it's more about "Monster Government."  The background tune from Star Wars is very apropos, and reminds me of a certain blogger and his main page "honor rolls."  It also makes a humorous point about the conflicts of values ("choices") that Conservatives try to espouse.

Peasel Prattle: A Primer

From the What a CROCK Files

My voice in politics got its start back in 1994 when I was in a car pool with a guy named Rich Peasel who seems to have one retirement hobby of writing letters to the Editor at the Flint Journal, which get published, on average, of about once a month. His letters evoke controversy because he is unabashedly very right wing on every talking point conservatives espouse. His writings are so to extremely the right they are almost silly, so I can understand why they are published (often the Flint Journal will publish letters in response to his). He thinks he is a writer; however, he’s admitted to me he’s tried to parlay it to the Detroit Free Press and USA Today, but he hasn’t gotten too far. About the only thing I take exception to is the way he behaves (because, to put it mildly, he’s a tad hypocritical in his actions, which is my biggest complaint about most of the right wing fanatics I have come in contact with in my life.)

He was pretty well versed in his politics back in 1994, and he looked forward to doing the touché on me almost every day. However, with the advent of the internet and its “fricking Google it,” commentary, social networks and blogs, it has leveled the playing field for me a great deal. I did not have a quick wit and the “Jeopardy” type answering ability for person to person verbal exchanges back then, but today I can fairly quickly cite references and write cogent rational responses to right wing rants, such as those he exposed me to back then.

Sidebar: "Convenient Morality"--Follow-up on Andrew Shirvell

Well, looks like the proverbial defecation has finally hit the propeller with Andrew Shirvell, the Michigan Attorney General's employee who was targeting/stalking Chris Armstrong, young University of Michigan openly-gay student, which I talked about in a previous post of mine (to the effect that this Shirvell must be in the closet to be doing something like this).  Shirvell’s closed down his blog (probably to keep Mike Cox, the AG, from reading any more of it!) by allowing invitation-only access. It seems Mike Cox has suspended him and Facebook has some pages defending Chris, one of which ("Fire Shirvell") had a friend count approaching 10,000 the last time I checked. I’ve put my two cents in comment-wise that I think this Shirvell could be a genuine danger, and I hope Chris gets the protection order he seeks in court.

Sidebar: Blog Poll Results Aug.-Sept. 2010

The question was:  What will be the result of Bryan White's landmark study to prove PolitiFact's left wing bias in its rulings?

Total voters: 9 (10 if you include my vote)

Votes

0 -   Bryan will be hired as a consultant at St. Petersburg Times at a 6-figure salary.
0 -   Bill Adair will be fired then commit suicide.
0 -   PolitiFact will be disgraced and have to shut down.
1 -   PolitiFact will be forced to remove the TruthOMeter.
10 - NOTHING--because blogs like mine will prove Bryan's studies were bullsh*t.
5 -   NOTHING because nobody considers his (or this blog's) opinion as relevant.
0 -   PolitiFact will be butt of jokes on the Daily Show, Colbert Report and the O'Reilly Factor.

Well, looks like my readers think Bryan White is a b*llshit artist. But then, my blog could be just as irrelevant as his. I had votes from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Washington, D.C. and Arizona. There was one for removing PolitiFact’s Truthometer, but that was my vote…so apparently those who have read my blog aren’t in favor of that. Thanks to all for voting and please stay tuned for the next poll!