[PassedOut]

Lobowolf, on Mar 6 2009, 03:09 PM, said:

PassedOut, on Mar 6 2009, 02:05 PM, said:

This is in contrast to the previous administration, which was quite willing to sacrifice national security for political gains.

I generally view this one the other way 'round.

Do you know of anything by the Obama people that compares with the Valerie Plame exposure?

[Lobowolf]

PassedOut, on Mar 6 2009, 05:48 PM, said:

Lobowolf, on Mar 6 2009, 03:09 PM, said:

PassedOut, on Mar 6 2009, 02:05 PM, said:

This is in contrast to the previous administration, which was quite willing to sacrifice national security for political gains.

I generally view this one the other way 'round.

Do you know of anything by the Obama people that compares with the Valerie Plame exposure?

By "other way 'round," I didn't mean anything with respect to other administrations. I meant sacrificing political capital in pursuit of national security interests (rightly or wrongly, correctly or incorrectly, efficiently or inefficiently).

Edit: I think the same may be said about Obama, depending on how things progress in Afghanistan.

[PassedOut]

Lobowolf, on Mar 6 2009, 05:58 PM, said:

By "other way 'round," I didn't mean anything with respect to other administrations. I meant sacrificing political capital in pursuit of national security interests (rightly or wrongly, correctly or incorrectly, efficiently or inefficiently).

Edit: I think the same may be said about Obama, depending on how things progress in Afghanistan.

Okay, got it. Thanks.

[luke warm]

jdonn, on Mar 6 2009, 03:22 PM, said:

luke warm, on Mar 6 2009, 02:35 PM, said:

PassedOut, on Mar 6 2009, 09:57 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Mar 6 2009, 06:48 AM, said:

Jimmy stumbled onto the the quote off at whatever wingnut web site

Yes, I googled the whole quote as soon as I noticed it to determine its validity and/or context. Google gave me six results, all of the wingnut web site variety, and all of them attempting to impose some sinister meaning.

you and richard both make the same mistake repeatedly... you attack the messenger (or website) but not the message... if he did say the above, why does it matter where i found it?

It's not a mistake. If the messenger approaches the issue with a partisan predisposition then validity is lost.

josh, if i found that very same quote on a site you approved of, would it change the content? i have no idea what sites you consider to be wingnut... i stayed away from those that used words like gestapo, but as for others i don't read everything they post so i just don't know... there are many websites that quote the speech, some of which might even have your stamp of approval... how do you know from which site i copied/pasted the quote? it appears on thousands of sites... the only criteria i've seen for sites you consider 'wingnut' are that they disagree with you... some sites, both wingnut (i guess) and josh-approved, are saying that bush favored the same sort of thing... even if he did i'd be against it for the same reasons i hate most provisions of the patriot act...

we all, you, me, richard, bring presuppositions to every argument... to deny that is to be intellectually dishonest... you and richard can defend that quote by saying he misspoke if you want, and maybe he did, but he's not (to my knowledge) corrected himself...

by the way, your use of the word "validity" is fallacious, unless you're using it in a way i'm unfamiliar with... not only is it ad hominem, it's an appeal to ridicule (among others)... now it's true that i can be accused of the fallacy of false attribution, but the accusation doesn't prove the fact - simply because you don't know my source

[jdonn]

Why do you assume my criteria is that I disagree with the websites? I disagree with much of what's written in any news website I've ever read. I get the plurality of my news from cnn (although I consider NPR the best source), and about half a dozen times before I have emailed them to either tell them I strongly disagree with something, or that I'm very upset about the way they expressed something. And while I'm very proud of you for staying away from white supremicist websites for your news, somehow I feel that isn't a very powerful standard.

I googled the first sentence of the quote (when you first posted it I googled the entire quote, please see the end of this post to see why I didn't do so for this little experiment.) Let's take the first few websites one by one. I'll state the main reasons I consider them uncredible websites, none of which is because I disagree with them btw.

American Thinker
- The extremely gaudy and amaturish ads flashing blinding me from the right and bottom of the screen.
- From wikipedia, "The articles published are often mentioned on The Rush Limbaugh Show".

The Patriot Files
- I really don't have much opinion about the website. The quote shows up as part of a forum member's signature. He goes by the handle "Obama bin Lyin'". Quite tasteful.

I'm blocked from the next two websites at work. (If they knew what was good for them they would block me from this website!)

Free Republic
- It's quoted off the American Thinker website, so not much more need be said. However, wikipedia again proved enlightening.

Quote

Influencing online polls
Media web sites, including newspapers, television networks, and America Online, run occasional "polls" that do not use the sampling methods of formal opinion polls, but instead invite all Internet users to respond. Some Free Republic forum messages, usually captioned "Freep this poll!", urge Free Republic members to vote en masse in these polls. Members are also urged to "'Freep' C-Span's 'Washington Journal' with telephone calls pointing out media bias." The concept, and even the term "freeping", has gained wide usage among political websites, both left and right.,

"Whenever a poll is posted on Free Republic.com, everybody goes and votes the right way, and there's nothing wrong with that," says Marinelle Thompson, Freeper and founder of gun rights group Second Amendment Sisters. "We just do it for a laugh. It doesn't really mean anything." The polls can also be manipulated, said Vlae Kershner, SF Gate News Director (and poll writer): "People are finding a way of getting around our system that only allows one vote, and they're voting hundreds of times. It's not thousands of people voting one way; it's one or two people voting hundreds of times."

Occasionally, if the current results of an online poll are unfavorable to them, Freepers will "reverse freep" it, voting against their own views to pad the opposing vote to the point where it loses credibility.

Good practice for the real elections perhaps?

Sean Hannity discussion forums
- Um, need I even say anything?

Btw, speaking of not credible;

luke warm, on Mar 6 2009, 06:57 PM, said:

how do you know from which site i copied/pasted the quote? it appears on thousands of sites...

Um, allow me to correct you. If you google the entire quote you get 6 hits. Two of which are Youtube.

That's not thousands of sites. That's 5. And this, um, error, was perpetrated by the same person whose claim to accusations of bias is to say we are all biased...

Btw, if you want to criticize me because I don't know your source then knock yourself out. I would be happy to give a "fair" and much more specific criticism if you admit your source.

[hrothgar]

jdonn, on Mar 7 2009, 03:42 AM, said:

Um, allow me to correct you. If you google the entire quote you get 6 hits. Two of which are Youtube.

That's not thousands of sites. That's 5. And this, um, error, was perpetrated by the same person whose claim to accusations of bias is to say we are all biased...

Btw, if you want to criticize me because I don't know your source then knock yourself out. I would be happy to give a "fair" and much more specific criticism if you admit your source.

The first time I searched on this quote, I only got six hits.

The second time I searched I got LOTS more. Most of them are still way out there, but there are more than six. Note that the "sane" sites seem to be responses to the wing nuts...

I think that inclusion of a leading quote sign has an effect.

[Lobowolf]

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Tt2yGzHfy7s


I wonder what sentiment he actually meant to express. Maybe something about affordable healthcare.

[jdonn]

hrothgar, on Mar 6 2009, 08:26 PM, said:

jdonn, on Mar 7 2009, 03:42 AM, said:

Um, allow me to correct you. If you google the entire quote you get 6 hits. Two of which are Youtube.

That's not thousands of sites. That's 5. And this, um, error, was perpetrated by the same person whose claim to accusations of bias is to say we are all biased...

Btw, if you want to criticize me because I don't know your source then knock yourself out. I would be happy to give a "fair" and much more specific criticism if you admit your source.

The first time I searched on this quote, I only got six hits.

The second time I searched I got LOTS more. Most of them are still way out there, but there are more than six. Note that the "sane" sites seem to be responses to the wing nuts...

I think that inclusion of a leading quote sign has an effect.

I think the effect is to not catch misquotes. Just glancing, when I removed quotation marks and thus searched for any link that has all the words in it rather than the words in that particular order, I instantly saw some links with extra words added, misspelled, etc.

Then again, Jimmy used quotation marks. I think it is fair to conclude he got the quote somewhere exactly as he quoted it, of which there are still 5 websites. Of course I would still be happy to simply be told where.

I will fully admit, my original replies to his point were based just on the 6 hits from the google search of the entire quote, in quotation marks. I will grant him Youtube is not some wingnut website, although there are plenty of them posting videos there.

[JoAnneM]

This ranks right up there with the latest Andy Rooney hoax speech that is going around.

[luke warm]

i didn't google the quote, i didn't know the quote... someone at work mentioned that the prez wanted an armed civilian security force and i didn't believe it so i googled 'obamba national security force'... i went to youtube because you mentioned it, and saw that portion of the speech... btw, what i said still stands - just because you or i don't think either fox or cnn is unbiased doesn't have anything to do with the issue

[kenberg]

Lobowolf, on Mar 6 2009, 08:34 PM, said:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Tt2yGzHfy7s


I wonder what sentiment he actually meant to express. Maybe something about affordable healthcare.

Thanks. basically I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I have no idea what he meant.

Many years ago I was preparing to give a talk on a theorem I had proved. I read over my proof and at one point I looked in horror at what I had written. What the hell had I been thinking? Fortunately what I had meant to say was correct and I got the right version in to the publisher before it appeared. People should try hard to not babble nonsense but it happens.

Speculating on what he really meant seems pointless. It would have been interesting to ask the wildly applauding audience what exactly they thought the proposal was.

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Mar 7 2009, 04:20 PM, said:

i didn't google the quote, i didn't know the quote... someone at work mentioned that the prez wanted an armed civilian security force and i didn't believe it so i googled 'obamba national security force'... i went to youtube because you mentioned it, and saw that portion of the speech... btw, what i said still stands - just because you or i don't think either fox or cnn is unbiased doesn't have anything to do with the issue

Jimmy:

I introduced Fox News as an analogy... It wasn't meant to be a focal point of the discussion.

The core point is not whether or not Fox New is biased. I am simply pointing out that the information that you post is (strongly) biased.

You have a consistent history of echoing whatever inane right right talking points has flittered into your brain.

I don't know if this is deliberate effort on your point to spread these talking points. It's entirely possible that you are simply surrounded by idiots and are too lazy to ever bother conducting any kind of independent research.

Either way, however, your actions manifest them in the same way...
A monotonous stream of drivel that the rest of use need to waste time debunking...

[orlam]

Lobowolf, on Mar 6 2009, 05:58 PM, said:

PassedOut, on Mar 6 2009, 05:48 PM, said:

Lobowolf, on Mar 6 2009, 03:09 PM, said:

PassedOut, on Mar 6 2009, 02:05 PM, said:

This is in contrast to the previous administration, which was quite willing to sacrifice national security for political gains.

I generally view this one the other way 'round.

Do you know of anything by the Obama people that compares with the Valerie Plame exposure?

By "other way 'round," I didn't mean anything with respect to other administrations. I meant sacrificing political capital in pursuit of national security interests (rightly or wrongly, correctly or incorrectly, efficiently or inefficiently).

I thought Bush was re-elected because people were afraid and wanted him to be in charge of national security? (I have never seen it but I remember reading that his closing ad in 2004 was related to that.)

[jdonn]

luke warm, on Mar 7 2009, 08:20 AM, said:

btw, what i said still stands - just because you or i don't think either fox or cnn is unbiased doesn't have anything to do with the issue

I should mention that don't agree that cnn is biased. My opinion is that they have 'independents' who are biased to the left (Larry King) and to the right (Lou Dobbs) and who are extremely fair minded and in the middle (David Gergen). Additionally, all their shows tend to have guests with opposing viewpoints on each episode. Whereas Fox doesn't have a single liberal commentator that I am aware of (and believe it or not I've watched a fair amount of Fox News lately, a tv in our employee cafeteria is locked on that station.)

What Richard said also still stands. Picking a line out of a long speech and presenting it for discussion with no context is foolish, and makes it seem like you have an agenda instead of being interested in a meaningful discourse. That's where his Fox News analogy is quite appropriate.

[hrothgar]

jdonn, on Mar 7 2009, 11:49 PM, said:

luke warm, on Mar 7 2009, 08:20 AM, said:

btw, what i said still stands - just because you or i don't think either fox or cnn is unbiased doesn't have anything to do with the issue

I should mention that don't agree that cnn is biased. My opinion is that they have 'independents' who are biased to the left (Larry King) and to the right (Lou Dobbs) and who are extremely fair minded and in the middle (David Gergen). Additionally, all their shows tend to have guests with opposing viewpoints on each episode. Whereas Fox doesn't have a single liberal commentator that I am aware of (and believe it or not I've watched a fair amount of Fox News lately, a tv in our employee cafeteria is locked on that station.)

What Richard said also still stands. Picking a line out of a long speech and presenting it for discussion with no context is foolish, and makes it seem like you have an agenda instead of being interested in a meaningful discourse. That's where his Fox News analogy is quite appropriate.

Speaking as someone on the left: Do we have to take Larry King?

I'd be glad trade him for a future draft pick...

[jdonn]

I don't blame you. How about some cash and a Kennedy to be named later?

I actually made a point to start watching Fox News, so that at least if I was going to criticize I would know what I'm talking about. Who knows, maybe I would even be 'enlightened' and decide it was a good source. All I've really become enlightened about is why the people who watch it think the rest of the media is biased...

[kenberg]

FoxNews, imposed at lunch!?!. Good grief.

I recently was in the waiting room in a doctor's office, forced to listen to Cosby Show reruns. Whether this is or isn't worse than FoxNews would be a close call except that I only had to do it for part of an hour on one day. Don't you have a union that could protest such a violation of worker's rights? It reminds me of the high school principal that I read about who punished misbehavior by placing the students in a room and playing old Frank Sinatra recordings. Serious infractions would receive a sentence of ten Franks.

[Lobowolf]

JoAnneM, on Mar 6 2009, 11:05 PM, said:

This ranks right up there with the latest Andy Rooney hoax speech that is going around.

What's the Andy Rooney hoax speech?

[luke warm]

Lobowolf, on Mar 7 2009, 08:19 PM, said:

JoAnneM, on Mar 6 2009, 11:05 PM, said:

This ranks right up there with the latest Andy Rooney hoax speech that is going around.

What's the Andy Rooney hoax speech?

i don't know, but i doubt they have rooney on youtube giving his hoax speech

[kenberg]

I think someone sent me something supposedly by Rooney some time back. Something else by (supposedly) George Carlin. Also something by a "noted Spanish author". And by a "world authority" on something. There is a type of brain, mostly on the right in my experience, that loves this sort of crap. I wouldn't link Jimmy's post with this junk. I think Obama just said something stupid. That's not good, but I wouldn't bash him with it forever if nothing he subsequently does or says indicates it was serious.

Actually my main quarrel with the style of what is currently coming from Obama and company is the constant comparison they feel that they have to make with policies of the past. The election is over, they won, they will be judged by what they accomplish, not by how different it is from the past. I wish them, and us, the very best.