Let’s say you need to measure the presence of a chemical in the atmosphere. Since we’re talking politics, let’s say that chemical is methane gas.
You’ve been smelling methane in the air (because there are politicians nearby, or so you’re told).
You have a methane gauge. You look at its specs; it says its sensitivity is down to 10 parts per million – which is fairly sensitive. You take a measurement, and the gauge says zero.
Does it mean that there’s no methane in the atmosphere?
Or does it mean that there are 9.985 parts per million, which is just a tad too low for your gauge’s sensitivity? Because if that’s the case, then your measurement does not mean there’s no methane – it means your instrumentation can’t detect it.
The point: if you’re trying to measure something, your results will only be as valid as your instrumentation is sensitive.
Via Gary Gross, we see that Washington County is running a vote fraud investigation, focusing for the most part on 11 felons (so far) trying to vote even though they haven’t gotten that right restored. There are other items of interest, of course:
[A WashCo prosecutor] said two more people were being charged late Tuesday afternoon. And there were other cases still being investigated. Investigators were also looking into allegations that the same person voted in both Wisconsin and Minnesota in the 2010 election.
Now, with the Voter ID bill coursing its way through the GOP-controlled legislature, the assembled Twin Cities leftymedia has been taking their shots at Voter ID and, more germanely (since 26 states already require some sort of ID to vote including “proressive” cesspools like Hawaii, Michigan, Connecticut,, Delaware and Washington, and two more will require it by New Years, and democracy seems to be standing) the notion that there is just no need for it because “Minnesota elections are already free of fraud”.
From the U of M’s Minnesota Daily:
Supporters claim requiring a photo ID to vote is crucial to prevent voter fraud and ensure the reliability of Minnesota’s voting system. But voter fraud is an extremely minor problem in Minnesota. In 2008, of the almost 3 million ballots cast in Minnesota, there were a grand total of 47 people charged with voter fraud, only four of which were charges of double voting.
Remember the methane gauge?
If you measure convictions, you’re measuring the extent to which county prosecutors and police troubled themselves to investigate claims of voter fraud. Those 47 chargers of voter fraud were what remained from hundreds of cases referred to them in one county, Ramsey, by the Minnesota Majority. Those 47 cases were the slam-dunk, open-and-shut cases where a felon had signed a piece of paper saying they acknowledged that they knew they had to stay out of polling places, and that they’d be breaking the law if they tried.
For the rest? It happens that voter fraud is one of the areas where ignorance of the law is a defense; saying “I didn’t know”, and not having a parole form acknowledging that y9u really did know, is enough to make a county prosecutor close the folder and say “Well, fair enough then!”
Don’t try that with a parking ticket.
So Mark Rithie can say “there are only 47 cases of fraud” with a straight face – because, like the methane gauge, the system isn’t designed to detect and deal with fraud.
And saying “we have no fraud” is the same as our friend at the top of the article saying “we have no methane”.
So the Machine went to full throttle when MN House Speaker Zellers said that voting is a priviledge not a right. http://minnesotaindependent.com/80613/house-speaker-zellers-voting-is-a-privilege-its-not-a-right
http://www.startribune.com/politics/blogs/120393764.html
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2011/04/kurt_zellers_voting_rights.php -complete with picture of Voting Rights Guarantor/Southeast Asia Baby Killer LBJ!!
Zeller later said he misspoke after he heard/saw a transcript of what he said. Can’t wait to see how excited these same folks will be that at least 4 people disenfranchised the voting rights of others through fraud. I’m not holding my breath.
One Person, One Vote, like paying taxes, is for the little people.
A conservative is the last person I would give credence in measuring anything related to the environment.
http://penigma.blogspot.com/2011/04/meek-shall-inherit-earth-but-only-after.html
As to the reported voter fraud – lets wait to see how many convictions result. Voter fraud is very rare; the instances in these alleged voter fraud charges are against felons who had completed the majority of their sentences but then may have voted prematurely.
NOTHING in the proposed really bad voter ID law would address felons voting when they shouldn’t.
In other recent allegations of felons voting illegally, the preponderance of those charges had to be dropped because it turned out that there were problems in the correction system – either inaccurate records, and the former felons were in fact legal to vote, or the corrections system had never processed the paper work at all which would have informed the former felon that they were ineligible to vote for a longer period than incarceration (the usual time). They appear to be overwhelmingly cases where there was some ambiguity leading the voter to believe they voted legally, not fraud where someone intentionally voted fraudulently.
The proposed voter law is costly, it is stupid, it doesn’t address the issues it is intended to address, and it is hugely partisan because apparently conservatives like to try to deny others their legal right to vote.
(Let me know if you’d like the documentation for that – it’s extensive.)
Changing topics briefly – a blessed good friday to those Mitchketeers who celebrate the holiday, and a an equally blessed Passover to those who celebrate that. A happy Easter weekend as well to those who celebrate it.
Especially to you Mitch, and the kids!
A conservative is the last person I would give credence in measuring anything related to the environment
So science is, to you, fundamentally political?
Hm. Interesting.
There’s only a bit of E. Coli in your sandwich, Mark Ritchie thinks it’s OK for you to eat, because they’ve given it a smell and it seems to be just a little.
Seriously, Photo ID won’t stop all voter fraud but it will stop voter fraud caused by vouching dead in its tracks.
It’s also important that we have a SecState that will actually do what HAVA requires him to do, specifically, to update the SVRS so that dead people are removed from it, that people who moved to Florida aren’t eligible, etc.
Ritchie argued that he didn’t have the authority to do that because the state legislature didn’t give him that authority. That’s right. They didn’t. They didn’t have to because the authority & the affirmative responsibility were given to the SecState by the federal gov’t.
Reality is that Minnesota’s election system isn’t the gold standard it used to be. With investigations showing that felons are voting illegally & that group homes are manipulating mentally vulnerable adults into voting for the group home’s prefered candidate, honest people can’t seriously argue that we’re the gold standard anymore.
It’s important that we stop the delusional happy talk & finally admit that.
“NOTHING in the proposed really bad voter ID law would address felons voting when they shouldn’t.” – written with such authority and certainty!
Clearly you haven’t read the bill, though.
HF210 and SF509 DO address and prevent ineligible voters like felons and non-citizens from voting. The legislation accomplishes this with a challenge list, either electronic or paper at every polling place. It will even catch ineligible election day registrants BEFORE they get a ballot instead of months later (if at all). As an aded bonus, since ineligible voters will be stopped BEFORE they get a ballot, county attorneys won’t have to spend as much time investigating and prosecuting voter fraud cases because it just won’t be allowed to happen in the first place!
Give the bill a gander: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H0210.2.html&session=ls87
If you don’t have the patience to read 50 pages of legislation, you can also get a quick video sumary of what 21st Century Voter ID accomplishes here: http://www.wewantvoterid.com/21st-century-voting/
Finally, since I’m on about correcting misconceptions, there have actually been over 100 convictions for voter fraud stemming from the 2008 election, with hundreds more charged and awaiting trial and under investigation. The types of fraud include voting by ineligible persons and double-voting.
From the 2010 election, Minnesota Majority has just filed complaints in 70 counties alleging voter fraud by 222 ineligible felon voters, with a request to also investigate another 541 possible, but inconclusive cases.
Strange, a liberal is the last person I would give credence in measuring anything related to the environment. Could there be something, oh, I don’t know, political involved in our environmental approaches? Hmm?
Penigma’s chihuahua said: “(Let me know if you’d like the documentation for that – it’s extensive.)”
Given what you have produced in previous instances, it is no doubt extensive quotes from Wikipedia and Soros funded organs, or doesn’t say what you purport it to say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/us/10fraud.html
I’ve been meaning to ask you, DG — how are things going at the Kloppenburg victory party?
I imagine that there are awkward silences:
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=hdaGaGSUpr
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/04/22/naacp-official-convicted-of-voter-fraud/
Mitch Berg Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:45 am
A conservative is the last person I would give credence in measuring anything related to the environment
So science is, to you, fundamentally political?
Hm. Interesting.
I have been very disappointed to find that a distressing number of conservatives are not very honest, or very informed about the sciences. This has, on occasion, included you. It is an observation about partisan politics as it reflects an understanding of science. It is not, as you tried to twist it, that science is fundamentally political.
Which is quite clear if you follow the link I provided.
No, Loren, none of the sources are either from Soros or Wikipedia; they are from academically respected sources which have undergone extensive peer review. You might begin Loren by reading any of the works on the topic conducted by one of the leading authorities world wide, the head of the sociology department at the U of MN, Chris Uggens.
His research and documentation are not generally considered partisan, although they do indicate partisan differences statistically. I first started reading his work when Fox News misrepresented his data on felons and voting, and then Mitch repeated it on SitD.
Felons voting, when they are legal again to do so, is a positive thing that we should encourage; when they do there is a marked decrease in former felons reoffending, and instead they invest themselves in their communities as active, caring citizens.
Minnesota Majority makes a lot of claims; their accusations don’t seem to hold up very well under investigations. But they do seem to tie up a lot of resources and cost the various counties of Minnesota an awful lot of money to prove that they had no legitimate basis for their claims.
Read the research of the county attorney’s association on the topic – bi-partisan county attorneys. Even the Republicans don’t support the allegations of the Minnesota Majority – the contentions of the MM are a crock of hooey.
GM425, ummm…no; voter ID won’t stop felons improperly voting which is the only kind of voter problem we have had – and not much of it. You are not able to document any significant voter fraud which has altered the outcome of Minnesota elections, or other elections for that matter, other than unfounded speculation.
Be as snarky as you like Loren; I have an industrial strength snark deflector – part of why I can just smile and enjoy myself here where others here get their knickers in a twist. I can rationally and fairly respectfully disagree, and still find reasons to appreciate most of you, above and beyond that disagreement. Your loss if you can’t do the same.
Beyond that, you can’t dim my happy mood no matter how much you try; I’m enjoying an outrageous case of limerence and spring fever.
Jaysus Doggone, why should anyone here or at your site believe you when you post such nonsense as the item you link to above? Do you even research half the crap you post on your site?
Your source material comes from the EDF – yes, they’re just a mainstream, middle of the spectrum organization, not; EDF posts something and you just run with it, repeating without comment the selling points the EPA is presenting to Congress in their funding appeal.
You post a 1 minute, 7 second Think Progress video of Rep. Barton, which due to it’s herky jerky movement as well as the fact that normally Rep’s get a lot more than 1:07 to question a witness, I can only believe was edited (seems you have major issues with James O’Keefe editing his videos, but someone who shares your views, not so much, eh?) and yet you (and they) cite none of the “science” you claim Rep Barton is ignorant of.
You repeat the amount of mercury released with no perspective on how it is distributed and more importantly whose research it came from. You might have heard – major climate “settled scientists” were fudging their numbers and cooking the books (ha!) to get the results they wanted/needed for further and more funding. (Kind of like what crooked corporations do, but I would imagine you hold private businesses to a higher standard than grant catching “settled scientists”.)
Barton asks where their numbers came from? I did a search of the EPA’s website and found the presentation. They claimed 17,000 people die each year due to power plant generated polutants. Where did this number come from? By the way – in their documentation, 17,000 was the top of the upper range of their estimate with the lower range being 6,000 (but hey what’s ten thousand lives more or less between friends). You criticize Rep Barton and the Right for being ignorant, yet you do not post or link to any ‘science’ that answers his questions.
I’ll take for granted that Barton defends the chemical/energy bidness – they are a major part of his TX constituency just as MN’s medical device bidness is a constituent of and is defended by our own Sen. Fartjoke.
And by the way, President Obama received more money from BP than any other politician. Thanks again for holding him to a lower standard, too.
PS: Happy Easter.
PPS: And a Happy Easter to Ann Coulter – who Doggone terms “Media Whore” – Doggone, will you be worshiping Risen Lord with that uncivil mouth of yours?
I have been very disappointed to find that a distressing number of conservatives are not very honest
Yes, why can’t they all be honest like Barack Obama?
You may stop laughing now.
Jaysus Doggone, why should anyone here or at your site believe you when you post such nonsense as the item you link to above? Do you even research half the crap you post on your site?
Seflores, DG is the Blanche DuBois of Mitch’s comment section — she always depends on the kindness of strangers.
“…a distressing number of conservatives are not very honest, or very informed about the sciences.”
Every swinging lib thinks they are a science expert since they took a sociology class. Yikes.
DogGone, are you one of the Branch AlGoreans that believe Man is responsible for globull warming (Or “Climate Change” if you prefer, or MMGW McDonalds Made Global Warming if you wish…)
Please, DG, an honest answer for once.
Ann Coulter will say anything to get attention, no matter how dishonest or outrageous. I think it was an apt description, given what she wrote for example about the wonderfulness of nuclear radiation, how it’s actually GOOD for people.
Funny how that seemed to fly with the crowd that gets their science from her and Rush Limbaugh.
Mr. D., I don’t rely on kindness from strangers here at all. Wishfull thinking on your part. As to the Kloppenburg post, it was accurate at the time I posted it. Now Ms. Kloppenburg has officially requested a recount – after raising the funds to pay for it, unlike say……the Republicans who left bills unpaid for the Emmer recount. I will post something new when the recount is completed. I should have written something sooner, but given the state of flux in the count, and my brief hiatus, I was remiss. I’ll do so when we have something more definitive.
I notice none of you seem interested in taking on the findings of the bi-partisan county attorney’s study, or any of the many research findings of Chris Uggens or his colleagues on the topic. You keep trying to divert the topic to other subjects. If you wish to comment on Penigma on anything I’ve written, I’d be delighted.
In the meantime, this was a non-academic article which sums up the situation pretty effectively: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/20/uselections2008.civilliberties
“And thus have they gone forth to find every measure – no matter how adverse to the key American value of democracy, or how expensive the cost may be – to keep legitimate, legal voters from being able to cast their vote and have that vote counted accurately.
Not every voter, of course. Just the ones who tend to vote Democratic (capital “D”). The easiest ones to target among those who don’t tend to vote Republican: African-Americans, Hispanics, the elderly, the urban poor and even students. All in the hopes, as Weyrich urged, of keeping Republican “leverage in … elections … up” by keeping “the voting populace … down”.
According to the non-partisan League of Women voters, some 21 million Americans do not have the type of photo identification required by the most draconian types of polling-place photo ID restrictions that are now being pushed – by hook and by crook – in states across the country. Among that group, some 25% of African-Americans, 18% of Americans over 65, 10% of the 40 million Americans with disabilities, 15% of low-income voters and untold numbers of voting-aged college students who reside in states other than where they may have valid drivers’ licenses would have difficulty voting under such laws. (You may add to the Republican enemies list: married women, hurricane victims and those suffering from palsy, if you like.)
With that in mind, the Republicans have stopped at nothing, in order to see such laws passed wherever possible, and otherwise enforced nonetheless even where such poll restrictions have been found by the courts to be illegal and/or unconstitutional.”
and
“Make no mistake. This is an effort that reaches to the highest federal levels. For example, despite a very clear federal law that requires it – the Bush administration’s department of veterans affairs has disallowed voter registration activities in VA hospitals and other facilities, describing such activities as “partisan” (telling, that). Thus, it’s assured that many of those who put their very lives on the line under the premise of spreading democracy throughout the world will have no voice in that same democracy back in their own country this year.
The beat goes on and will continue to grow louder through Election Day in November. Count on it.
The Prospect’s Art Levine elegantly and accurately referred to all of this as The Republican war on voting. But make no mistake about it, this is an all out Republican war on democracy in which we will be witnessing an unprecedented “troop surge” between here and November.”
The beat goes on and will continue to grow louder through Election Day in November. Count on it.
Like we’re counting on all those recounts and recalls tossing Walker and his majority from office and putting Klopper in power.
According to the non-partisan League of Women voters,
Bwahahahaha!
They are not non-partisan. They have two corporate entities in MN; a non-profit that is putatitively non-partisan…
…and a lobbying organization that is expressly “progressive”.
The LWV’s biases are apparent in everything they do.
Please drop the fiction that they are non-partisan. They are no more so than I am.
The Prospect’s Art Levine elegantly
and accuratelyand by no means unexpectedly, as part of a Soros-funded set of chanting points designed to try to deligitimize the election reform efforts that jeopardize his efforts, when he referred to all of this as The Republican war on votingFixed that for you.
Dog Gone Says: “I have been very disappointed to find that a distressing number of conservatives are not very honest, or very informed about the sciences.”
The dog barks incessantly, that’s the nature of its neurosis. Yet another symptom of Liberal Madness.
“Like all other human beings, the modern liberal reveals his true character, including his madness, in what he values and devalues, in what he articulates with passion.”
Ann Coulter will say anything to get attention, no matter how dishonest or outrageous
Let me fix that for you.
Barack Obama will say anything to get attention, no matter how dishonest or outrageous.
You’re welcome.
Mitch wrote:Mitch Berg Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 3:08 pm
According to the non-partisan League of Women voters,
Bwahahahaha!
They are not non-partisan. They have two corporate entities in MN; a non-profit that is putatitively non-partisan…
Look again Mitch; the article was from the UK, the Guardian. It was quoting the national league of women voters:
“About the League
The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization, has fought since 1920 to improve our systems of government and impact public policies through citizen education and advocacy. The League’s enduring vitality and resonance comes from its unique decentralized structure. The League is a grassroots organization, working at the national, state and local levels.
There are Leagues in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Hong Kong, in addition to the hundreds of local Leagues nationwide. The League of Women Voters of the United States and the League of Women Voters Education Fund operate at the national level with grassroots support from state and local Leagues.
The League of Women Voters is strictly nonpartisan; it neither supports nor opposes candidates for office at any level of government. At the same time, the League is wholeheartedly political and works to influence policy through advocacy. It is the original grassroots citizen network, directed by the consensus of its members nationwide. The 900 state and local Leagues – comprising a vast grassroots lobby corps that can be mobilized when necessary.”
They’re non -partisan like the tea party is non partisan and grass roots……actually, they’re a lot less partisan than the tea party, which you’ve tried to claim was not partisan from time to time.
Mitch wrote:
“Like we’re counting on all those recounts and recalls tossing Walker and his majority from office and putting Klopper in power.”
The stats make it look very interesting to see who survives recall and who doesn’t.
Rather than circulate the kind of specious and blatantly untrue stories like you did with the 103 dinkytown blank ballots, I will point out that there were criminal convictions and a need for immunity connected to the person who was responsible for those surprise ballots turning up. Unlike you, having participated in a recount, with training in what was and was not allowed, for the side that didn’t have to withdraw thousands of specious bad ballot claims, I think that the ballot recount will be honest in WI, regardless of who wins.
A recount is taking place; we won’t know who won until it is completed.
Kermit Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 4:10 pm
Ann Coulter will say anything to get attention, no matter how dishonest or outrageous……
actually Kermit, unlike Ann Coulter, Obama does better in terms of holding up under fact checking. Not perfect by any means, but better than most Republicans, including the previous Republican president.
Ann Coulter has never impressed me as an honest pundit – I may disagree with Mitch, I may on occasion fault his facts, but I KNOW him to be a man of honor, and someone who is sincere in his convictions. My feeling about Coulter is not because of her politics; it is because of her conduct, her apparent lack of ethics or morality.
I think the opposite of Coulter, and I was particularly offended by her statements on hormesis; for me that was the last straw. I don’t think this woman shows the slightest consideration for any one or any reason other than gaining attention for herself in her statements.
KR wrote:
“Every swinging lib thinks they are a science expert since they took a sociology class. Yikes.
DogGone, are you one of the Branch AlGoreans that believe Man is responsible for globull warming (Or “Climate Change” if you prefer, or MMGW McDonalds Made Global Warming if you wish…)”
Always good to see you again KR – hope your roses are off to a good start this spring!
Not sure quite what you mean by swinging, KR; that word has more than a few possible meanings.
I do believe that yes, humans have made a contribution to climate change, but I think we need to learn more than we have to determine how much and of what kind.
I’ve thought that for a very long time before Al Gore made his case for global warming, ever since I first encountered the Israelis efforts while there, at aforestation to reverse desertification. What we do can in many instances have a significant change. Some of those changes are quite complex, and I doubt we fully understand all of them, or the implications of them yet.
http://desertification.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/combating-desertification-with-aforestation-reforestation-and-agriculture-in-israel-google-alert-israel-21c/
“We all agree that the main cause for desertification is human activity – the pressure on the land, the expansion of the population,” Atzmon told ISRAEL21c. He explained that land abuse causes land degradation which leads to desertification. Due to human activity, land that used to be productive becomes barren. Consequently, expanding swathes of land are needed in order to produce agricultural yield or vegetation. Most desertification and forestry researchers are committed to the principle of sustainable development.
“We are trying to find ways that, on one hand, allow people to live and exist in this area but on the other hand don’t allow them to abuse the land,” said Atzmon.
Following lectures and practical classroom application, conference participants visited several reforestation sites in the arid Negev. On their journey from Jerusalem to the desert, the transformation from fertile farmland to dryland was apparent as soil and foliage grew sparse. An hour into the ride, however, participants witnessed vast expanses of farmland and greenery. The guide told the group that prior to 1948, the area out had been dry desert. “Negev means desert,” he said, “but today this entire area is green.” The secret to Israel’s success, Atzmon claims, is as it is with many other “success stories” in Israel: there is no alternative.”
(I always try to give you a complete and honest answer, KR.)
Mr. D., I don’t rely on kindness from strangers here at all. Wishfull thinking on your part.
Wishfull (sic) thinking? Let me put this as delicately as possible — we’re mocking you. We’re mocking your complete reliance on left wing talking points, your fealty to nonsense, your confusion of logorrhea with depth and your tendency to fill Mitch’s comment section with enough baked wind to fill a balloon at the Macy’s Parade.
There was a time, maybe 2 years ago or so, when you were occasionally interesting. Now you are a bore of the first rank. Mitch indulges you because he’s a kind man, but there isn’t another person on this board who thinks of you as anything other than a crap-filled piñata.
“I’ve thought that for a very long time before Al Gore made his case for global warming…” And you think conservatives don’t deserve “credence” in measuring anything to do with the envioenment? But you believe Egore? As I said the other day, how good did the U.N. do in “measuring” how many “climate refugees” there would be by 2010? They said in 2005 there’ld be 50 million by 2010. There are none.
Doggone wrote: “Ann Coulter will say anything to get attention, no matter how dishonest or outrageous. I think it was an apt description, given what she wrote for example about the wonderfulness of nuclear radiation, how it’s actually GOOD for people.
Funny how that seemed to fly with the crowd that gets their science from her and Rush Limbaugh.”
I’m not a fan of Coulter’s nor a hater. I hadn’t read/heard/seen that she thinks nuclear radiation is wonderful. What an astonishing thing to say.
But, …as usual with much of what you post, the real story is somewhat, make that very different from your comment.
Coulter wrote in an article in Human Events – http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=42347
“With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that have devastated Japan, the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer.
This only seems counterintuitive because of media hysteria for the past 20 years trying to convince Americans that radiation at any dose is bad. There is, however, burgeoning evidence that excess radiation operates as a sort of cancer vaccine.”
Her sources – 1. An article in the NY Times Science Section. 2. A Dept of Energy study performed by Johns Hopkins Medical School. 3. A longtime radiation expert who also happens to be a professor emeritus at Harvard.
Coulter also writes: “Although it is hardly a settled scientific fact that excess radiation is a health benefit, there’s certainly evidence that it decreases the risk of some cancers — and there are plenty of scientists willing to say so.”
The point of her article was mainly that for all the scare mongering of our media, the radiation danger from Fukushima wasn’t as scary as they were portraying it and since 1945/Chernobyl, scientists have learned more about radiation and it’s actual effects including benefits.
It would be nice Doggone, if every now and again you looked at the original article – such as the EPA’s presentation to Barton or in this case, Coulter’s article. As noted by Mr D above, you rely on websites where truth takes a second or third place to scoring political points against their opposition. (And feature a lot of misogyny – I can see why the ‘whore’ comment came so easily to you.)
Obama does better in terms of holding up under fact checking
Only to people unwilling to see reality. It would take a long time to list the number of lies he has told over the last three years. Easier challenge: what has he said that wasn’t a lie? I got nothing.
FACT CHECK
Dog Gone says
Kermit Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 4:10 pm
Ann Coulter will say anything to get attention, no matter how dishonest or outrageous……
Actual comment:
Kermit Says:
April 22nd, 2011 at 4:10 pm
Ann Coulter will say anything to get attention, no matter how dishonest or outrageous
Let me fix that for you.
Barack Obama will say anything to get attention, no matter how dishonest or outrageous.
Isn’t it a shame how a distressing number of liberals are not very honest?
Dog Gone wrote:
A conservative is the last person I would give credence in measuring anything related to the environment.
Here are some quotes of people that Dog Gone thinks have more environmental credence than a conservative (from the excellent randomjottings blog):
“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist
“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist
“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist
“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
• New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970
“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
“Air pollution is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
• Martin Litton, Sierra Club director
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.'”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
http://www.randomjottings.net/
I claim there were over 100,000 instances of Voter fraud in the last election. I have evidence. Those of you that believe voter fraud doesn’t happen, PROVE that it did NOT occur. You can’t, because your “meter” only measures one kind of fraud, and only at the proven criminal level. There are many different means of fraud, some of them actually encouraged by the law, which the Voter ID bill would stop. That’s the only standard for election integrity, by the way, that fraud CANNOT occur, not that it is punished after the damage is done.
Terry – you make claims about what I believe, while quoting sources from a site I’ve never seen, much less quoted. No. Wrong. Bad.
J. Ewing: You can claim anything you want, it doesn’t make it so. Sources which investigate voter fraud, including the Bush DoJ attempt to find voter fraud, which was highly partisan, have failed to do so. Present your evidence to any organization, such as a county or district attorney or law enforcement, that is qualified to evaluate and investigate. So far, nada.
Kermit – I refer you to non partisan, FACT based fact checking organizations – politifact.com, factcheck.org, snopes, and a cross section of other organizations that say you are wrong, and wrong in a specifically partisan way. You are ideology driven, not fact based.
jimf: “But you believe Egore? As I said the other day, how good did the U.N. do in “measuring” how many “climate refugees” there would be by 2010? They said in 2005 there’ld be 50 million by 2010. There are none.”
Not true; rising sea levels have caused major changes in the available living space of a number of islands in the Pacific ocean, for starters:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/19/rising-sea-levels-in-pacific-create-wave-of-migran/
Seflores, I updated the article that referenced the EDF to also reflect other sources, like the CDC, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. The scientific basis for the EPA’s stats seems pretty extensive, and quite solid – unlike Barton’s claims, which are not – but are big buck funded by big oil. Your comment was the most interesting here.
Mr. D. wrote:” Let me put this as delicately as possible — we’re mocking you. We’re mocking your complete reliance on left wing talking points, your fealty to nonsense, your confusion of logorrhea with depth and your tendency to fill Mitch’s comment section with enough baked wind to fill a balloon at the Macy’s Parade.
There was a time, maybe 2 years ago or so, when you were occasionally interesting. Now you are a bore of the first rank. Mitch indulges you because he’s a kind man, but there isn’t another person on this board who thinks of you as anything other than a crap-filled piñata.”
Let me make this clear – I’m challenging you, Mr. D. I’m mocking you, if you like, for your unfounded belief that ideology is what makes a fact true or false. It isn’t. A source either provides factual information or it doesn’t – most of the popular right wing sites DON’T provide factual information – Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter come to mind. Frequently the Wall Street Journal since it became a Murdoch rag would be another.
It is irrelevant what the ideology or leaning is of the sources I use, so long as the information I quote holds up to fact checking by other sources. I use a variety of sources, left, right AND center.
I don’t really care if you enjoy me here or not. So long as Mitch does, I’m happy. (If I am the catalyst for more discussion, that is just one way that Mitch may be happy.) So long as I can try to find ways to enjoy most of you, I’m happy. If I irritate the daylights out of you…..well, then at least Pen is happy, so I’m happy.
If you were hoping your comment would make me go ‘booo hooo hooo’, no, it didn’t. It made me laugh out loud. I’m a grown up; I don’t need your approval or your affection. I’m equally happy with it or without it.
Doggie, Obama is a proven liar. A serial liar. The evidence is overwhelming. Try using your own brain for a change. Ideology has nothing to do with it.
I’m mocking you, if you like, for your unfounded belief that ideology is what makes a fact true or false.
Strawman. You have no idea what I believe.
It isn’t. A source either provides factual information or it doesn’t – most of the popular right wing sites DON’T provide factual information – Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter come to mind. Frequently the Wall Street Journal since it became a Murdoch rag would be another.
It must be nice to live in such a Manichean world.
It is irrelevant what the ideology or leaning is of the sources I use, so long as the information I quote holds up to fact checking by other sources. I use a variety of sources, left, right AND center.
You’ve noticed that the term “FACT CHECK” has become a bit of a running joke around here, because your fact checking follows the same pattern — you find something that supports your preconceptions and call it fact. Terry can give you dozens of quotes that demonstrate the fatuity of what you believe, as he did above, but you ignore it.
I don’t really care if you enjoy me here or not. So long as Mitch does, I’m happy. (If I am the catalyst for more discussion, that is just one way that Mitch may be happy.) So long as I can try to find ways to enjoy most of you, I’m happy. If I irritate the daylights out of you…..well, then at least Pen is happy, so I’m happy.
Well, of course. Your heartfelt commitment to solipsism undergirds every 500 word comment you uncork here and elsewhere. And I’d suggest that if irritating people is something that brings you and Penigma joy, there’s a sizable hole in the center of your souls.
If you were hoping your comment would make me go ‘booo hooo hooo’, no, it didn’t. It made me laugh out loud. I’m a grown up; I don’t need your approval or your affection. I’m equally happy with it or without it.
May you always find comfort in the serenity of your solipsism.
Solipsism or simple sophistry? We may have to FACT CHECK that.
Dog Gone, you might reflect on the fact that the debating instructor who emphasized getting the facts right to you was teaching debate to children.
Adults know that most debates aren’t settled by reciting facts, life is harder than that.
Elevating opinion to fact is the worst fault of many of the “fact check” web sites on the web.
Dog Gone, you’re not getting it. Absence of evidence (of voter fraud) is not evidence of absence. We don’t want to “measure” voter fraud after it occurs; we want to eliminate all known methods of committing the crime. I would much rather lock my doors than put in cameras to see what the thieves steal. Right now, we know of at least five ways that someone can commit voter fraud, largely without detection. The bills under consideration block all of them. Again, do you want to pass these bills and PROVE that the DFL doesn’t depend on voter fraud to win elections, or fight them and admit that the DFL DOES depend on voter fraud to win elections?
DG: Solipsism on a Shingle.
J Ewing asks a question that a liberal Democrat will never, EVER answer honestly. And THAT is ideology, writ large.
DogPrescottPile, the person who cannot point out Pinal County on a map opines on scientific matters. Must have gone to RatioRinkyDinkDFL’s school of wikipeadia.
Dog Gone said:
“If you were hoping your comment would make me go ‘booo hooo hooo’, no, it didn’t.”
I was kind of hoping it would shock you enough to make look at what you write: it is typically a rude mockery of logic and reason.
I am comforted that you no longer lamely pretend to be a “centrist”.
actually Kermit, unlike Ann Coulter, Obama does better in terms of holding up under fact checking.
Hmmm, let me go check the ocean levels, how much the middle class is paying in taxes, how high unemployment went after the stimulus was passed, the status of Gitmo, whether he cut Medicare to pay for Obamacare, whether lobbyists are in the Administration, whether he proposed tax hikes in his budget fix, and a few more items I have in my folder.
Honestly, claiming that Obama holds up better in terms of fact checking of anyone other than Jon Lovitz’s character is laughable.
Leaving aside the exceptionally spotty nature of your “fact-checking”, DG, let me ask; when you say…:
unlike Ann Coulter, Obama does better in terms of holding up under fact checking
…what does the President want, a cookie? He’s the the President. Leaving aside that he’s putatively the most scrutinized person on earth this side of Charlie Sheen; Ann Coulter’s job is to be provocative. Obama’s job is to lead the country.
You do get the distinction, yes?
Doggy;
To Kermit’s point, the great narcissist Barry Soetero, I mean barack oblahblah, has proven himself that he is a blatant liar and hypocrite of the highest level.
I use as the prime example, something that I posted early last week which, you apparently, either did not see or ignored it, the public record released last Tuesday. Right after he gets on TV to campaign again with his tired libturd mantra of “tax the rich,” the the pretender in chief and the first tramp made over $1.7 MILLION. After all of their deductions for charities, political causes, etc; they only paid $450,000 some in taxes, getting a $12,000 some rebate. It has to make them go apoplectic that the Bush Tax Cuts SAVED them an additional $100K!
If he really wanted to set the example that the rich needed to pay more, he would have publicly announced that he was giving back the $112 plus thousand dollars (including his refund) and challenged his sycophants to do the same! But, he’s far too ignorant to do anything like that. He’s rather stick to the party line and continue down the road to socialism.
The overriding fact that is continuously exposed is that libturd elitists always want someone else to do it, pay for it, etc. As long as it isn’t them on the hook, then anything goes!
“(I always try to give you a complete and honest answer, KR.)”
What???
DG, you claim man is responsible for Global Warming / Climate Change. And your example is how irrigation in Israel allows green plants to live in a desert.
*facepalm*
It would be his last entrance into this White House, but I’d love to see a reporter ask Obama in an interview, “You have stated that ‘the rich’ and anyone making over $250K a year should not have had their taxes cut in your recent compromise with Republicans in Congress. If you really believe that, why did you only pay the smaller amount the Bush tax cuts mandated?”