> Schools have a responsibility to serve as parent to children in their care, during the time of their control over the child. In the same way that the legal parents' duty to the children involves some monitoring of their behavior while in school, the schools' duty to the children involves some monitoring of their behavior while not in school.
That's got to be the dumbest statement I've heard on this whole subject. "In Loco Parentis" doesn't extend beyond school grounds or school hours in any realistic sense nor legal sense. The parental right and responsibility is not reversible, nor should it be. It falls at all times to the parents. Period. If the child is outside the school (not counting truancy of course, which is the child violating the parent's wish that the child be at school), then the school's responsibility to parent the child ends. Period. It's certainly reasonable for the school administration to speak to parents about possible problems, but that's where it ends.
> If the schools are precluded from responding to out-of-school behavior that nonetheless violates the rules of the school, it is going to run contrary to the existing legal precedent confirming the school's duty to the children.
Try applying this concept to a child dressed in clothes that violate a school's dress code while on vacation, and you'll see how foolish this statement is. There is no legal precedent for a school being able to parent a child off school grounds and outside school hours. Time and again, school administrators try, and time and again they get smacked down for it.
> You wouldn't mind if your internet access is censored? Somehow I have a hunch that if the government decided to censor your internet connection, that you would be outraged.
Limiting access from the school does not equate to full-on cencorship of the Internet in any realistic (or legal) way. They're not restricting his access, they're restricting his access from the school's own connection. So sorry, but this isn't even in the same league as broad censorship.
Shame on me for responding to a coward. That said, simply reading what was posted on his xanga site would have been sufficient to answer that particular question. Do your research, and next time log in.
> Why don't you just eat it - It could come in pill form, maybe even with some vitamins wrapped around it. You take one each day, and bingo, instant entry.
All of the problems of implantation, and none of the benefits. It's inside your body, which introduces all of the privacy and medical concerns of RFID tags, but you can forget to take it, so you get the bad parts of something not inside your body as well. All in all, a very bad plan.
> The most obvious example is death and physical pain. Think about how many choices are made in the world directly to avoid death or physical pain. This doesn't exist in Second Life.
This isn't really a valid analysis, since you're simply trying to inject "first life" rules into Second Life, and there's no logical reason for that. Sure, you can't starve to death, but you can very certainly deplete your bank account in the game, leaving yourself without the means to enjoy the game in many ways. The world does have rules. They're just not the rules that control the real world. There's no need for laws against murder, for example, because murder is impossible. It would be like trying to pass a law in the real world to prevent people from turning invisible at will.
> If this is truly an anarchistic society, then laws don't exist. That include game rules.
In a real world anarchistic society, people couldn't fly without mechanical help. Saying that true anarchy has no rules, including rules governing matter, is just as foolish (and just as inaccurate) as saying that Second Life can't be anarchistic because there are game rules based on the programming.
> Also, what if the power goes out and all their servers crash or are destroyed? Playing this game requires A LOT of trust in the people running it. Personally, I think it's a fascinating experiment in human nature and economics (though a flawed one), but there's no way I'm going to give them any of my money.
That's certainly your perogative, but if someone wants to make a living by trading in Linden goods, then there are plenty of ways to make it relatively safe. Any business has risks, but there are companies that offer insurance for a fee, and there's nothing that says you couldn't go to Lloyd's of London and take out a policy on the continued operation of Second Life, so that if Linden Labs pulls the plug you wouldn't be left with nothing. Think of it as fire insurance for a virtual building.
> If they can't talk about climate change, how come they're perfectly free to do something that looks even worse politically--claim that they are being muzzled? This is an excellent example of a claim so silly it self-refutes.
This isn't a valid presentation of the situation. In this case, scientists are being pressured not to discuss climate change, and as a result they came out and said, "we're being pressured not to talk about climate change." The pressure isn't intense enough to "muzzle" the scientists doing the complaining, but it's enough that they feel pressured not to reveal stuff they've learned.
> If you go into work and talk shit about your boss, you can't whine about freedom of speech when you get fired.
You can if your boss is an elected official. That's how the whole "freedom of speech" thing works, and even how it was intended. The First Amendment exists to prevent governmental control of the dissemination of information. Restriction of scientists from reporting the results of research by government officials because it doesn't ken with official policy is inexcusable, and is in fact reason to "whine about freedom of speech". Just because it's government agency is no reason to expect that they should have to restrict their results. Their "boss" isn't the Bush administration, it's the American people at large. Don't forget that.
> Prayer to a god has just as much effect as asking the spirit that lives in the small stone on your lawn for help.
Hey, it works pretty well for me. I mean, most of the time the "help" I get is the sort that keeps me from ruining the lawn mower blades, and the near-constant voice in my head that says, "go clean the stone, go clean the stone" keeps me up some nights, but other than the occasional command to kill a dog that peed in the wrong spot it's been very loving and helpful.
> Concrete and valid? What for? If we're just self-aware animals, if death is the end of everything and the universe has no meaning, anything we do is for nothing.
No wonder you hide behind your religion. I'd say that if the fear of God is the only reason you don't commit barbarous acts, then society would be well rid of you. Do you really think that without God, the end of your life is the end of your influence on the world, for better or worse? Do you really need more meaning than "I'll try not to turn the society that my kids have to grow up in into anarchy"? Maybe what you do without God is all for nothing, but that's because you've proven that you suck at the concept of "society". The rest of us seem to understand that the world that will exist after we leave it is as we make it while we're here, and act accordingly.
That's a great story, right up until the part where more than half of them end, which is you shaking the box of baking soda into the fire, but the fire doesn't go out. Not calling 911 because you expect to fix it yourself is just as stupid, for exactly the same reasons, as calling 911 and doing nothing else. Smart folks call 911 and then put the phone down and deal with the fire. That way, if the fire doesn't go out when your box of baking soda is empty, you don't end up in deep trouble because nobody knows the house is on fire.
Contingency plans are everything in a fire. By the way, next time you might consider hanging around the room for another few minutes to be sure the fire doesn't flare back up. And you should also consider using better manners with your mother, but then I suppose that's her job to fix.
Instead, how about you set up a pan full of grease on a cinder block, light it on fire, and then use a pole with a coffee can tied to the end to dump flour on it.
We did it. It put the fire out. It didn't explode.
Are you so focused on your cell phone reception that, in a room literally full of people, you can't just shout, "this guy is having a heart attack!" and let the camera operator or an usher do the calling? How stupid are you, really?
> A conspiracy theory is a theory about a conspiracy.
It would be nice if semantics were that simple, but while the dictionary definition may be so, common usage defines a conspiracy theory as an unsupported theory about a conspiracy. The word most often used to describe a conspiracy theory that can be reasonably demonstrated is "scandal".
> If you reread my post, you will see that the problem with your original post(and your follow up post), is that you indicate that a conspiracy theory, and conspiracy theorists are crazy.
That's your bias, soldier. My use of the term follows the directive that it's a conspiracy theory if it's unsupportable by the evidence presented. That doesn't necessarily make it crazy, although crazy conspiracy theories would fall under my definition.
> I point out that you in fact are a conspiracy theorist. You do believe that illegal p2p file sharing happens right? If you do, you are a conspiracy theorist.
This is entirely inaccurate as a definition. Since the term "p2p fire sharing" represents a real-world activity, and "illegal" as it governs that activity has a real world definition (sharing a copyrighted movie over a p2p network, for example, is currently illegal (with no argument as to whether it should be)). Therefore, if I have personally observed a person sharing a copyrighted movie over a p2p network, then I don't have to "believe" it any more than I'd have to "believe" in robbery theories after witnessing a robbery. You've described something that can happen in the real world, and your argument that it's not proven can be countered by my personal experience. More to the point, though, illegal file sharing isn't a "conspiracy", it's an act. You can conspire to do it, but once you've done it, it's an action, not a conspiracy. All in all, I fail to see how this applies in any way to my original agrument, except in the tangent of sharpening the definition of "conspiracy theory", and you've already demonstrated that your definition of the term is very non-mainstream.
> The problem is that you are using a term, that accuratly describes virtually 100% of the population, as a label to indicate someone with a dissenting view is crazy.
The term doesn't accurately describe everyone unless you take your decidedly unpopular definition as more accurate than mine, I didn't use it to label anyone crazy, and I made no comment about whether my view is dissenting (which in fact it isn't). So you miss on all three salient points in this sentence.
> As someone who is continuously called a "conspiracy theorist" and other such names to be discredited, I humbly ask you to proove that the election wasn't fradulent.
This is tangential and irrelevant to my point. My statement was that the one article cited by the original poster wasn't sufficient to support his charge of fraud. That's it. That's the whole of my comment.
Now, that said, I figured if you were often called a conspiracy theorist, then you'd be better at the concept of "due diligence" that you seem to be. I made no comment about whether the elections were rigged or not. I didn't say there was no other evidence. I didn't say his conclusion was wrong. Got all that now?
What I said was that the one article cited was insufficient to support his accusation of fraud. That's it. That's the whole of my comment.
My point is that people will not take him seriously if he doesn't provide more than that one article as proof. There's plenty of other stuff out there, but he didn't mention it. There are quotes and other articles and admissions of fraud and such, but again, he didn't mention any of it. Therefore, his conclusion appears to base solely on one article, and the article doesn't support the conclusion, and I called him on it.
That's it. That's the whole of my comment. Now, perhaps you should consider why you perceived it as an attack on the entire theory. Maybe you need to reexamine how your own biases color your perception, before you dismiss me so readily.
> what are you talking about no reason to believe they are fraudulent?
Nice try. Why exactly do you think I said this? I said that the article cited was insufficient by itself to prove fraud. Since he didn't provide anything else, his conclusion is unsupported. I didn't say, nor do I believe, that other evidence isn't available, just that he didn't give any of it, so his argument falls down.
Don't tell me to open my eyes until you figure out how to read my comment without piling on all of your bias.
> There may not be anything in this particular article to say that there was tampering going on or that the election result is wrong, but the article is one drop of water in a flood of reports concerning errors, deliberate as well as accidental, in the election.
This is precisely and exactly my point. I called him on concluding that there was fraud based solely on this article (because he mentioned not a single other drop of the flood of evidence at all), and you even agree that this was a logical fault. Don't you go assuming that I'm unaware of the rest of it. My comment is to force the original poster to do his due diligence, and prove the intermediate steps with other evidence.
> It amazes me how often the term 'conspiracy theorist' is used to dismiss people.
It amazes me how many people took my argument that he needs to provide more than one article to back up a conclusion of fraud to mean that I think that any conclusion of fraud is a conspiracy theory. I told him that he can't support an accusation of fraud using just this one article. I told him that doing so makes him sound like a conspiracy theorist. You conclude that this must mean that I think that anyone who draws the same conclusion, even with multiple sources outside this article, must also be a conspiracy theorist. That's just as faulty a leap of logic as his.
> While I applaud you for trying to maintain a sane and rational outlook and avoid falling into these conspiracy theories, this issue has far too many coincidences for you to dismiss like that. What would it take for you to change your stance from "no biggie, just a little smoke, no fire" to "fuck me, that's an awful lot of coincidence, maybe I should entertain the possibility that something is wrong here."
What would it take? It'd take more than this one article. I'm aware that there's a lot more than this one article, and in fact I'm already convinced that there was something wrong beyond simple errors, but he didn't provide any of that evidence. I had to go get it myself. His conclusion of fraud was unsupported by the one article, and he neither quoted nor cited a single other piece of evidence, so I told him the this article wasn't enough.
Are you so sure you're applauding my effort when you yourself made the same mistake he did? Why do you take my comment of "That's not to say that such things didn't happen, but these are different, unconnected things and the stuff in the article does nothing to prove that they did, so tying them together just shows that you're not using logic properly" and hyperextend it to "you can't prove fraud by any means at all"?
> Yeah, it's not like Diebold's CEO, Wally Odell, wrote in a republican fund raising letter, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."
His argument didn't include that point. In fact, it didn't include any points at all, other than the article. Because of that, I called his argument unsupported. If he'd done anything to support it, I might not have said that. Great how that works, eh?
> You can't do the math on this? What's it going to take, them coming on TV and just announcing it? You fail to be able to take into account all the other information out there? This latest is just another large chunk of evidence, look at ALL of it together, what do you see? I see some serious crimes right up into treason,and the probable perps with the clear motive and the clear opportunity.
Sure I can do the math on this. Using all the sources I can pull together, I can see that there's something very amiss.
This is my point. The original poster didn't include any of that. He didn't cite other evidence, and he didn't present this article as part of a bigger picture. In fact, he did no due diligence at all. He cited an article about anomalies, and concluded from that one article that the election was fixed. He didn't back it up with other articles, or in fact with anything at all. I called him out to provide that further evidence. You jumped in to say that because he didn't do it, that I'm blind. And so, you fell into the very same hole with him, by hyperextending my "you can't say that based on this one article" to "you can't say this at all."
Pay closer attention next time. I'm demanding he present a complete argument, with citations and proof outside this one article, not saying that he can't.
Slashdot Mirror
> Schools have a responsibility to serve as parent to children in their care, during the time of their control over the child. In the same way that the legal parents' duty to the children involves some monitoring of their behavior while in school, the schools' duty to the children involves some monitoring of their behavior while not in school.
That's got to be the dumbest statement I've heard on this whole subject. "In Loco Parentis" doesn't extend beyond school grounds or school hours in any realistic sense nor legal sense. The parental right and responsibility is not reversible, nor should it be. It falls at all times to the parents. Period. If the child is outside the school (not counting truancy of course, which is the child violating the parent's wish that the child be at school), then the school's responsibility to parent the child ends. Period. It's certainly reasonable for the school administration to speak to parents about possible problems, but that's where it ends.
> If the schools are precluded from responding to out-of-school behavior that nonetheless violates the rules of the school, it is going to run contrary to the existing legal precedent confirming the school's duty to the children.
Try applying this concept to a child dressed in clothes that violate a school's dress code while on vacation, and you'll see how foolish this statement is. There is no legal precedent for a school being able to parent a child off school grounds and outside school hours. Time and again, school administrators try, and time and again they get smacked down for it.
Virg
> You wouldn't mind if your internet access is censored? Somehow I have a hunch that if the government decided to censor your internet connection, that you would be outraged.
Limiting access from the school does not equate to full-on cencorship of the Internet in any realistic (or legal) way. They're not restricting his access, they're restricting his access from the school's own connection. So sorry, but this isn't even in the same league as broad censorship.
Virg
Shame on me for responding to a coward. That said, simply reading what was posted on his xanga site would have been sufficient to answer that particular question. Do your research, and next time log in.
Virg
Funny, but it still fits my point. If you forget to take it, the vitamins don't help all that much, do they?
Virg
> Why don't you just eat it - It could come in pill form, maybe even with some vitamins wrapped around it. You take one each day, and bingo, instant entry.
All of the problems of implantation, and none of the benefits. It's inside your body, which introduces all of the privacy and medical concerns of RFID tags, but you can forget to take it, so you get the bad parts of something not inside your body as well. All in all, a very bad plan.
Virg
> In both cases, the films were somewhat crippled by the way theye were initially released to the public, but SO MUCH BETTER in a director's cut.
In this regard, you might also mention "Blade Runner". Same problem, and solution.
Virg
> The most obvious example is death and physical pain. Think about how many choices are made in the world directly to avoid death or physical pain. This doesn't exist in Second Life.
This isn't really a valid analysis, since you're simply trying to inject "first life" rules into Second Life, and there's no logical reason for that. Sure, you can't starve to death, but you can very certainly deplete your bank account in the game, leaving yourself without the means to enjoy the game in many ways. The world does have rules. They're just not the rules that control the real world. There's no need for laws against murder, for example, because murder is impossible. It would be like trying to pass a law in the real world to prevent people from turning invisible at will.
> If this is truly an anarchistic society, then laws don't exist. That include game rules.
In a real world anarchistic society, people couldn't fly without mechanical help. Saying that true anarchy has no rules, including rules governing matter, is just as foolish (and just as inaccurate) as saying that Second Life can't be anarchistic because there are game rules based on the programming.
> Also, what if the power goes out and all their servers crash or are destroyed? Playing this game requires A LOT of trust in the people running it. Personally, I think it's a fascinating experiment in human nature and economics (though a flawed one), but there's no way I'm going to give them any of my money.
That's certainly your perogative, but if someone wants to make a living by trading in Linden goods, then there are plenty of ways to make it relatively safe. Any business has risks, but there are companies that offer insurance for a fee, and there's nothing that says you couldn't go to Lloyd's of London and take out a policy on the continued operation of Second Life, so that if Linden Labs pulls the plug you wouldn't be left with nothing. Think of it as fire insurance for a virtual building.
Virg
> If they can't talk about climate change, how come they're perfectly free to do something that looks even worse politically--claim that they are being muzzled? This is an excellent example of a claim so silly it self-refutes.
This isn't a valid presentation of the situation. In this case, scientists are being pressured not to discuss climate change, and as a result they came out and said, "we're being pressured not to talk about climate change." The pressure isn't intense enough to "muzzle" the scientists doing the complaining, but it's enough that they feel pressured not to reveal stuff they've learned.
Virg
> If you go into work and talk shit about your boss, you can't whine about freedom of speech when you get fired.
You can if your boss is an elected official. That's how the whole "freedom of speech" thing works, and even how it was intended. The First Amendment exists to prevent governmental control of the dissemination of information. Restriction of scientists from reporting the results of research by government officials because it doesn't ken with official policy is inexcusable, and is in fact reason to "whine about freedom of speech". Just because it's government agency is no reason to expect that they should have to restrict their results. Their "boss" isn't the Bush administration, it's the American people at large. Don't forget that.
Virg
> Prayer to a god has just as much effect as asking the spirit that lives in the small stone on your lawn for help.
Hey, it works pretty well for me. I mean, most of the time the "help" I get is the sort that keeps me from ruining the lawn mower blades, and the near-constant voice in my head that says, "go clean the stone, go clean the stone" keeps me up some nights, but other than the occasional command to kill a dog that peed in the wrong spot it's been very loving and helpful.
Gotta go clean the stone now.
Virg
> Concrete and valid? What for? If we're just self-aware animals, if death is the end of everything and the universe has no meaning, anything we do is for nothing.
No wonder you hide behind your religion. I'd say that if the fear of God is the only reason you don't commit barbarous acts, then society would be well rid of you. Do you really think that without God, the end of your life is the end of your influence on the world, for better or worse? Do you really need more meaning than "I'll try not to turn the society that my kids have to grow up in into anarchy"? Maybe what you do without God is all for nothing, but that's because you've proven that you suck at the concept of "society". The rest of us seem to understand that the world that will exist after we leave it is as we make it while we're here, and act accordingly.
Virg
I'm a professional playtester, you insensitive clod!
Virg
That's a great story, right up until the part where more than half of them end, which is you shaking the box of baking soda into the fire, but the fire doesn't go out. Not calling 911 because you expect to fix it yourself is just as stupid, for exactly the same reasons, as calling 911 and doing nothing else. Smart folks call 911 and then put the phone down and deal with the fire. That way, if the fire doesn't go out when your box of baking soda is empty, you don't end up in deep trouble because nobody knows the house is on fire.
Contingency plans are everything in a fire. By the way, next time you might consider hanging around the room for another few minutes to be sure the fire doesn't flare back up. And you should also consider using better manners with your mother, but then I suppose that's her job to fix.
Virg
Instead, how about you set up a pan full of grease on a cinder block, light it on fire, and then use a pole with a coffee can tied to the end to dump flour on it.
We did it. It put the fire out. It didn't explode.
Carry on.
Virg
> "Oh, Let me offer you my condolences on your boyfriend's untimely death..."
***BLAMBLAMBLAM!!!***
Too bad for you.
Virg
Are you so focused on your cell phone reception that, in a room literally full of people, you can't just shout, "this guy is having a heart attack!" and let the camera operator or an usher do the calling? How stupid are you, really?
Virg
"Achoo!!!"
***BLAMBLAMBLAM!!!***
It shot my kid through the seat!
***BLAMBLAMBLAM!!!***
AAAIIIIEEEE!!!!!
***BLAMBLAMBLAM!!!***
Oh, damn, this is usher seven. Turn off the turret!
***BLAMBLAMBLAM!!!***
Ahem. Carry on.
Virg
> A conspiracy theory is a theory about a conspiracy.
It would be nice if semantics were that simple, but while the dictionary definition may be so, common usage defines a conspiracy theory as an unsupported theory about a conspiracy. The word most often used to describe a conspiracy theory that can be reasonably demonstrated is "scandal".
> If you reread my post, you will see that the problem with your original post(and your follow up post), is that you indicate that a conspiracy theory, and conspiracy theorists are crazy.
That's your bias, soldier. My use of the term follows the directive that it's a conspiracy theory if it's unsupportable by the evidence presented. That doesn't necessarily make it crazy, although crazy conspiracy theories would fall under my definition.
> I point out that you in fact are a conspiracy theorist. You do believe that illegal p2p file sharing happens right? If you do, you are a conspiracy theorist.
This is entirely inaccurate as a definition. Since the term "p2p fire sharing" represents a real-world activity, and "illegal" as it governs that activity has a real world definition (sharing a copyrighted movie over a p2p network, for example, is currently illegal (with no argument as to whether it should be)). Therefore, if I have personally observed a person sharing a copyrighted movie over a p2p network, then I don't have to "believe" it any more than I'd have to "believe" in robbery theories after witnessing a robbery. You've described something that can happen in the real world, and your argument that it's not proven can be countered by my personal experience. More to the point, though, illegal file sharing isn't a "conspiracy", it's an act. You can conspire to do it, but once you've done it, it's an action, not a conspiracy. All in all, I fail to see how this applies in any way to my original agrument, except in the tangent of sharpening the definition of "conspiracy theory", and you've already demonstrated that your definition of the term is very non-mainstream.
> The problem is that you are using a term, that accuratly describes virtually 100% of the population, as a label to indicate someone with a dissenting view is crazy.
The term doesn't accurately describe everyone unless you take your decidedly unpopular definition as more accurate than mine, I didn't use it to label anyone crazy, and I made no comment about whether my view is dissenting (which in fact it isn't). So you miss on all three salient points in this sentence.
Virg
> As someone who is continuously called a "conspiracy theorist" and other such names to be discredited, I humbly ask you to proove that the election wasn't fradulent.
This is tangential and irrelevant to my point. My statement was that the one article cited by the original poster wasn't sufficient to support his charge of fraud. That's it. That's the whole of my comment.
Now, that said, I figured if you were often called a conspiracy theorist, then you'd be better at the concept of "due diligence" that you seem to be. I made no comment about whether the elections were rigged or not. I didn't say there was no other evidence. I didn't say his conclusion was wrong. Got all that now?
What I said was that the one article cited was insufficient to support his accusation of fraud. That's it. That's the whole of my comment.
My point is that people will not take him seriously if he doesn't provide more than that one article as proof. There's plenty of other stuff out there, but he didn't mention it. There are quotes and other articles and admissions of fraud and such, but again, he didn't mention any of it. Therefore, his conclusion appears to base solely on one article, and the article doesn't support the conclusion, and I called him on it.
That's it. That's the whole of my comment. Now, perhaps you should consider why you perceived it as an attack on the entire theory. Maybe you need to reexamine how your own biases color your perception, before you dismiss me so readily.
Virg
> what are you talking about no reason to believe they are fraudulent?
Nice try. Why exactly do you think I said this? I said that the article cited was insufficient by itself to prove fraud. Since he didn't provide anything else, his conclusion is unsupported. I didn't say, nor do I believe, that other evidence isn't available, just that he didn't give any of it, so his argument falls down.
Don't tell me to open my eyes until you figure out how to read my comment without piling on all of your bias.
Virg
> There may not be anything in this particular article to say that there was tampering going on or that the election result is wrong, but the article is one drop of water in a flood of reports concerning errors, deliberate as well as accidental, in the election.
This is precisely and exactly my point. I called him on concluding that there was fraud based solely on this article (because he mentioned not a single other drop of the flood of evidence at all), and you even agree that this was a logical fault. Don't you go assuming that I'm unaware of the rest of it. My comment is to force the original poster to do his due diligence, and prove the intermediate steps with other evidence.
Virg
> It amazes me how often the term 'conspiracy theorist' is used to dismiss people.
It amazes me how many people took my argument that he needs to provide more than one article to back up a conclusion of fraud to mean that I think that any conclusion of fraud is a conspiracy theory. I told him that he can't support an accusation of fraud using just this one article. I told him that doing so makes him sound like a conspiracy theorist. You conclude that this must mean that I think that anyone who draws the same conclusion, even with multiple sources outside this article, must also be a conspiracy theorist. That's just as faulty a leap of logic as his.
Virg
> While I applaud you for trying to maintain a sane and rational outlook and avoid falling into these conspiracy theories, this issue has far too many coincidences for you to dismiss like that. What would it take for you to change your stance from "no biggie, just a little smoke, no fire" to "fuck me, that's an awful lot of coincidence, maybe I should entertain the possibility that something is wrong here."
What would it take? It'd take more than this one article. I'm aware that there's a lot more than this one article, and in fact I'm already convinced that there was something wrong beyond simple errors, but he didn't provide any of that evidence. I had to go get it myself. His conclusion of fraud was unsupported by the one article, and he neither quoted nor cited a single other piece of evidence, so I told him the this article wasn't enough.
Are you so sure you're applauding my effort when you yourself made the same mistake he did? Why do you take my comment of "That's not to say that such things didn't happen, but these are different, unconnected things and the stuff in the article does nothing to prove that they did, so tying them together just shows that you're not using logic properly" and hyperextend it to "you can't prove fraud by any means at all"?
Virg
> Yeah, it's not like Diebold's CEO, Wally Odell, wrote in a republican fund raising letter, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."
His argument didn't include that point. In fact, it didn't include any points at all, other than the article. Because of that, I called his argument unsupported. If he'd done anything to support it, I might not have said that. Great how that works, eh?
Virg
> You can't do the math on this? What's it going to take, them coming on TV and just announcing it? You fail to be able to take into account all the other information out there? This latest is just another large chunk of evidence, look at ALL of it together, what do you see? I see some serious crimes right up into treason,and the probable perps with the clear motive and the clear opportunity.
Sure I can do the math on this. Using all the sources I can pull together, I can see that there's something very amiss.
This is my point. The original poster didn't include any of that. He didn't cite other evidence, and he didn't present this article as part of a bigger picture. In fact, he did no due diligence at all. He cited an article about anomalies, and concluded from that one article that the election was fixed. He didn't back it up with other articles, or in fact with anything at all. I called him out to provide that further evidence. You jumped in to say that because he didn't do it, that I'm blind. And so, you fell into the very same hole with him, by hyperextending my "you can't say that based on this one article" to "you can't say this at all."
Pay closer attention next time. I'm demanding he present a complete argument, with citations and proof outside this one article, not saying that he can't.
Virg