" the odds are very high that the person is a Democrat" and thats false.
How is that false? We have two examples right here (the LA Times article and the CBS article), and at this point, no counterexamples. I already explained how to find more examples via google. I'm not saying that proves it's true, but at least I have evidence. You're just making a totally unjustified assertion.
As I mentioned above: The claim isn't that, if a Democrat gets into trouble, no one reports on their party affiliation. The claim is that, if you ever read an article in which party affiliation is not mentioned, the odds are very high that the person is a Democrat. So collecting examples where Democrats are identified doesn't even counter the claim.
Apparently you got a slightly different top seven articles than I did... I got the Fox, CBS, and Mercury News ones, with the same result. The other two I got that didn't mention it until the end were from local stations (KGO and nbcbayarea.com, whatever that is).
Also, you and others are misunderstanding the causality here. The claim isn't that, if a Democrat gets into trouble, no one reports on their party affiliation. The claim is that, if you ever read an article in which party affiliation is not mentioned, the odds are very high that the person is a Democrat. So collecting examples where Democrats are identified doesn't even counter the claim we have existence proofs right here with the LA Times and CBS that it does happen. What's really needed is a broad sampling of articles in which party affiliation is not mentioned, then determining what the actual affiliations are in those cases.
Anyway, I don't think either one of us is going to do a scientifically valid study here. If you google "name that party" you can find a lot of other examples, pointed out by conservatives, of Democratic party affiliation not being mentioned, so the LA Times and CBS articles are not isolated examples. You're correct that that's not a scientific study either, and very susceptible to confirmation bias. It's worth noting that you never hear the same complaint from Democrats though.
I'm certainly willing to say that it's suspicious but unproven. Unlike you, I am not willing to call anyone a liar over it. You seem to be evidence in favor of Krauthammer's statement: "Conservatives think liberals are dumb, liberals think conservatives are evil." But maybe that's just confirmation bias on my part...:)
Try again. The summary says nothing about party affiliation. The linked article in the LA Times says nothing about party affiliation. I looked at the top seven articles from a google search on "senator yee", and none mention his affiliation in the headline, while only three mention it within the first two paragraphs. Three others mention it near the bottom of the article (interestingly, all in the form of a transition sentence like "Yee's arrest would make him the third Democratic state senator fighting charges this year", leading into a discussion of other Democrats in trouble), and one (from CBS, not the LA Times one again) doesn't mention it at all.
Show me a similar sampling of articles on a Republican corruption case where the party affiliation is not mentioned at or near the top of the article in anything approaching half the examples, and then we can talk.
Again, you throw around the term "lie" pretty loosely. Ahem indeed.
Let's see... the summary above doesn't mention party affiliation, and neither does the LA Times article it links to. How many other newspapers did you have to look at to find one where the affiliation is mentioned near the top? How many articles did you find where a Republican was accused of something negative but the affiliation wasn't mentioned?
Just because someone points out evidence for their case doesn't automatically mean they're engaging in confirmation bias. Finding one contrary piece of evidence to bolster your side doesn't mean you're not.
I'd say "lying" is a pretty over-the-top accusation.
[...] let's say it's a clerk of the courts. Do you want them deciding who they want to allow to marry or not?
That's very different, as the clerk of the courts is a public official.
As for the bakery run by a convent, if they're selling to the public, then they should also comply with the laws.
As I've said, it seems to me this is very similar to the Little Sisters of the Poor case making it through the federal courts. So it's hardly settled law, but it might be before too long.
If someone (gay or straight) came into the cake shop and wanted a cake with imagery of an erect phallus on it, could the shop refuse to sell it because they "don't do those kinds of cake"?
Quite possibly... I can imagine a bakery having a "terms of service" that says they refuse to do "obscene" images. Should that be illegal?
You've totally missed the point. The distinction between the two cases is the type of service provided, not the person being served. If I would refuse to make a cake with two grooms on top even if the person requesting the cake were straight, then I am technically not denying service to someone based on their sexual orientation.
And if this issue is so "settled", why is a similar situation (regarding contraceptive waivers and Obamacare) up before the Supreme Court?
And thanks for the condescending tone, btw, that really helps make your point seem valid.
If the baker has a genuine religious belief to oppose interracial marriages, can they deny providing a cake to an interracial couple? This is a real thing, people use Deuteronomy 7:3 among other verses to justify it.
That's a good question. I didn't specifically say that case 2 should or should not be legal, just that it's a much harder question than case 1, which is what most people seem to be assuming (and having knee-jerk reactions about).
What about cases where the owner is "progressive" and it's the client that's not in step with the prevailing sentiment... say I'm Jewish and I own a sign shop, and the local KKK chapter comes in wanting to print up signs for their next rally, am I obliged to do that for them? Or what if I'm pro-choice, and the local pro-life group comes in an wants me to run off a hundred giant posters of aborted fetuses? Or what if I'm gay, and the Westboro Baptist Church wants me to make up posters for their next protest?
If you're willing to say yes to all of those cases too, then at least you're consistent.
People seem to be conflating two different things:
1. Refusing to serve gays because they are gay. A gay person goes into a bakery, asks for one of those croissants in the display case, and the owner refuses to serve that person solely because they are gay. This is what most people seem to be imagining.
2. Refusing to participate in/support an event that goes against one's religious beliefs. Similar bakery, but now someone (straight or gay) asks for a wedding cake for a gay wedding (with two grooms on top, say). If the baker has a religious belief that opposes gay marriage, must they still provide the cake?
Expanding on #2 a bit: - What if the bakery customer is a Satanist, and wants a cake with a graphic depiction of a virgin sacrifice, or a ritual orgy, or something like that? - What if it's a church rather than a bakery; should a gay couple be allowed to force a pastor to perform a gay wedding, even if that goes against the church's teachings? Most people would say no, but where's the line between a church and a bakery? What if the bakery is run by a convent? This is similar to the situation in front of the Supreme Court, with the Obamacare contraception coverage waiver.
As others have mentioned, the Arizona bill doesn't directly mention sexuality at all, so it's not immediately obvious whether it only addresses case 2 or if it also covers case 1. But they're clearly different, and it would be nice if more people would recognize that.
I'm going to speculate that better welfare in Europe helps, too.
That seems like a reasonable hypothesis. Recall that we're talking about Switzerland specifically and not Europe as a whole though. This article indicates that the Swiss welfare system is rather unique. There are other aspects that feed into this situation like immigration and drug policies too.
I am not opposed to the distribution of chocolate and cuckoo clocks, if you think that will help.
I think they're about as relevant as national health care is to the issue of gun violence. And chocolate would be tastier, too, though I suppose that works against the obesity angle.
If I'm going to speculate wildly, I would guess that mandatory military training is probably the biggest contributor to safe gun ownership in Switzerland. Ethnic and cultural homogeneity may play a role too.
You know what else they have in countries with lots of guns and low gun crime? National health, a minimum wage two or more times ours, an education system which is intended to educate rather than to indoctrinate, and greater equality of wealth. Focusing on storage requirements is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.
What country other than Switzerland has lots of guns and low gun crime? Wouldn't it be just as valid to mention chocolate and cuckoo clocks as correlating with lots of guns and low gun crime?
I never said anything Pro MSNBC or any other station.
I wasn't singling you out. I was mostly responding to the statement 3 levels up:
Fox is far worse then [sic] MSNBC.
The follow-on comments (including yours) seemed supportive of that thesis. Your desire to emphasize Fox's faults and no one else's certainly didn't sound like you were disagreeing.
So someone points out five examples of serious bias by non-Fox networks, only two of which apparently ended in apologies... and the response isn't "yea, they're all biased", but rather "Fox doesn't apologize"?
Simply googling "fox network apology" show's that it isn't entirely true that Fox never apologizes: here's one example, and another.
I never watch Fox News or MSNBC or any other TV news show, and I'm not defending Fox. But it seems like if your vehement argument for superiority boils down to "my partisan biased news show is somewhat more likely to apologize for its excesses when it gets caught than yours", you might want to be a little less proud of that.
And yet, the original comment gets modded flamebait, and both of the retorts get modded up...
Yes, this has been true for a long time. Moynihan pointed out in 1992 that "proximity to the Canadian border" correlated much more strongly with educational achievement than spending. So the solution to poor test scores is to move your school as far north as possible.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/03/opinion/north-dakota-math-country.html
Exactly... how is Dish Network going to fare better than ReplayTV did?
I sure hope they find a way... I clung to our 5000-series model for years because of automatic commercial skip. One of the best purchases I ever made, and the highest WAF score ever for an electronic device. (Note that the 5000s also have commercial skip, as I believe ReplayTV started building them before they lost the lawsuit. The 5500 series then came out, which is basically the 5000 series without commercial skip.)
Finally when we got a 55-inch TV I decided that I needed something with hi-def output and switched to Dish. I'd be thrilled if commercial skip came back and I didn't have to grab for the remote and start pounding the 30-second skip button every time a commercial came on.
It makes it very clear he is unwilling to sacrifice the US AAA credit rating that Moody, S&P and the other banks controlling say will happen if the debt limit is increased for only the short term.
Huh? Where did you get that from? Everything I've read says that the financial industry mostly cares that (1) we don't default in the short term and (2) we have a plan to avoid unending long-term increases in debt. A short-term debt ceiling increase addresses (1) just as well as a long-term increase, and whether the increase is short- or long-term has no direct impact on (2). No one who's not running for re-election in 2012 cares whether we have another vote on the debt ceiling next spring, as long as that one passes too so that we can continue to avoid default.
I am an American patriot. I judge the value of a candidate based on how well he will defend America and its noble ideals. Obama has failed horribly in that regard. The US patriot act is still under way, as is illegal torture, as is the continued erosion of peoples civil liberties. On the other hand, he isn't trying to end America. And yes, the republicans in congress are anti-american traitors and I feel no shame in telling that uncomfortable truth.
I don't really feel that calling people you disagree with politically "anti-american traitors" and accusing them of "trying to end America" is in line with anyone's concept of "noble", unless you have concrete evidence that they're working with a foreign power to overthrow the federal government.
The table at the bottom of this article shows that as of April 1995, CBO projections were that deficits would stay roughly flat through 1998... not going up much, but not going down either. This was after the 1993 tax hike (assuming that's what you're referring to).
The article itself has a particular point of view that I won't defend (though if you do read it, read far enough to see that the author does not spare Republicans from criticism), but I see no reason to doubt the figures in that table.
Yea, your independent nature shines through in your willingness to call people "traitors" and "anti-american".
Note that the Republicans aren't the only ones that care more about getting re-elected than avoiding default: Obama's statement that he will veto any debt ceiling increase that doesn't carry us past the 2012 elections makes it very clear where his priorities are.
According to Wikipedia, the only presidents to actually cut spending on a year-to-year basis in inflation-adjusted dollars were Reagan and Bush Sr. (though they both more than made up for that by large increases in other years). The same page shows that the smallest spending increases in the Clinton years were after the Republican congressional takeover of 1994.
Anyway, I never claimed that having a Republican congress was the key; the problem with (recent) Republicans is that they want to cut taxes rather than pay down the debt. It's really the split control that helps: I think part of the key to the Clinton years was having Democrats that didn't want to cut taxes combined with Republicans that didn't want to increase spending. Even then, all this would have done absent the Internet bubble was keep a lid on deficits; the bubble was the thing that actually swung this to a surplus.
Sadly now we seem to be getting the worst of split control: Democrats that don't want to cut spending (at least not enough to matter) and Republicans that don't want to increase taxes.
Slashdot Mirror
" the odds are very high that the person is a Democrat"
and thats false.
How is that false? We have two examples right here (the LA Times article and the CBS article), and at this point, no counterexamples. I already explained how to find more examples via google. I'm not saying that proves it's true, but at least I have evidence. You're just making a totally unjustified assertion.
Ugh, "claim we" should be "claim. We". Conservatives are in too much of a hurry to proofread carefully...
As I mentioned above: The claim isn't that, if a Democrat gets into trouble, no one reports on their party affiliation. The claim is that, if you ever read an article in which party affiliation is not mentioned, the odds are very high that the person is a Democrat. So collecting examples where Democrats are identified doesn't even counter the claim.
Apparently you got a slightly different top seven articles than I did... I got the Fox, CBS, and Mercury News ones, with the same result. The other two I got that didn't mention it until the end were from local stations (KGO and nbcbayarea.com, whatever that is).
Also, you and others are misunderstanding the causality here. The claim isn't that, if a Democrat gets into trouble, no one reports on their party affiliation. The claim is that, if you ever read an article in which party affiliation is not mentioned, the odds are very high that the person is a Democrat. So collecting examples where Democrats are identified doesn't even counter the claim we have existence proofs right here with the LA Times and CBS that it does happen. What's really needed is a broad sampling of articles in which party affiliation is not mentioned, then determining what the actual affiliations are in those cases.
Anyway, I don't think either one of us is going to do a scientifically valid study here. If you google "name that party" you can find a lot of other examples, pointed out by conservatives, of Democratic party affiliation not being mentioned, so the LA Times and CBS articles are not isolated examples. You're correct that that's not a scientific study either, and very susceptible to confirmation bias. It's worth noting that you never hear the same complaint from Democrats though.
I'm certainly willing to say that it's suspicious but unproven. Unlike you, I am not willing to call anyone a liar over it. You seem to be evidence in favor of Krauthammer's statement: "Conservatives think liberals are dumb, liberals think conservatives are evil." But maybe that's just confirmation bias on my part... :)
Try again. The summary says nothing about party affiliation. The linked article in the LA Times says nothing about party affiliation. I looked at the top seven articles from a google search on "senator yee", and none mention his affiliation in the headline, while only three mention it within the first two paragraphs. Three others mention it near the bottom of the article (interestingly, all in the form of a transition sentence like "Yee's arrest would make him the third Democratic state senator fighting charges this year", leading into a discussion of other Democrats in trouble), and one (from CBS, not the LA Times one again) doesn't mention it at all.
Show me a similar sampling of articles on a Republican corruption case where the party affiliation is not mentioned at or near the top of the article in anything approaching half the examples, and then we can talk.
Again, you throw around the term "lie" pretty loosely. Ahem indeed.
Let's see... the summary above doesn't mention party affiliation, and neither does the LA Times article it links to. How many other newspapers did you have to look at to find one where the affiliation is mentioned near the top? How many articles did you find where a Republican was accused of something negative but the affiliation wasn't mentioned?
Just because someone points out evidence for their case doesn't automatically mean they're engaging in confirmation bias. Finding one contrary piece of evidence to bolster your side doesn't mean you're not.
I'd say "lying" is a pretty over-the-top accusation.
[...] let's say it's a clerk of the courts. Do you want them deciding who they want to allow to marry or not?
That's very different, as the clerk of the courts is a public official.
As for the bakery run by a convent, if they're selling to the public, then they should also comply with the laws.
As I've said, it seems to me this is very similar to the Little Sisters of the Poor case making it through the federal courts. So it's hardly settled law, but it might be before too long.
If someone (gay or straight) came into the cake shop and wanted a cake with imagery of an erect phallus on it, could the shop refuse to sell it because they "don't do those kinds of cake"?
Quite possibly... I can imagine a bakery having a "terms of service" that says they refuse to do "obscene" images. Should that be illegal?
You've totally missed the point. The distinction between the two cases is the type of service provided, not the person being served. If I would refuse to make a cake with two grooms on top even if the person requesting the cake were straight, then I am technically not denying service to someone based on their sexual orientation.
And if this issue is so "settled", why is a similar situation (regarding contraceptive waivers and Obamacare) up before the Supreme Court?
And thanks for the condescending tone, btw, that really helps make your point seem valid.
If the baker has a genuine religious belief to oppose interracial marriages, can they deny providing a cake to an interracial couple? This is a real thing, people use Deuteronomy 7:3 among other verses to justify it.
That's a good question. I didn't specifically say that case 2 should or should not be legal, just that it's a much harder question than case 1, which is what most people seem to be assuming (and having knee-jerk reactions about).
What about cases where the owner is "progressive" and it's the client that's not in step with the prevailing sentiment... say I'm Jewish and I own a sign shop, and the local KKK chapter comes in wanting to print up signs for their next rally, am I obliged to do that for them? Or what if I'm pro-choice, and the local pro-life group comes in an wants me to run off a hundred giant posters of aborted fetuses? Or what if I'm gay, and the Westboro Baptist Church wants me to make up posters for their next protest?
If you're willing to say yes to all of those cases too, then at least you're consistent.
People seem to be conflating two different things:
1. Refusing to serve gays because they are gay. A gay person goes into a bakery, asks for one of those croissants in the display case, and the owner refuses to serve that person solely because they are gay. This is what most people seem to be imagining.
2. Refusing to participate in/support an event that goes against one's religious beliefs. Similar bakery, but now someone (straight or gay) asks for a wedding cake for a gay wedding (with two grooms on top, say). If the baker has a religious belief that opposes gay marriage, must they still provide the cake?
Expanding on #2 a bit:
- What if the bakery customer is a Satanist, and wants a cake with a graphic depiction of a virgin sacrifice, or a ritual orgy, or something like that?
- What if it's a church rather than a bakery; should a gay couple be allowed to force a pastor to perform a gay wedding, even if that goes against the church's teachings? Most people would say no, but where's the line between a church and a bakery? What if the bakery is run by a convent? This is similar to the situation in front of the Supreme Court, with the Obamacare contraception coverage waiver.
As others have mentioned, the Arizona bill doesn't directly mention sexuality at all, so it's not immediately obvious whether it only addresses case 2 or if it also covers case 1. But they're clearly different, and it would be nice if more people would recognize that.
A person can make things as accurately as a machine, they just take longer.
How long would it take you to make a Pentium by hand?
I'm going to speculate that better welfare in Europe helps, too.
That seems like a reasonable hypothesis. Recall that we're talking about Switzerland specifically and not Europe as a whole though. This article indicates that the Swiss welfare system is rather unique. There are other aspects that feed into this situation like immigration and drug policies too.
I am not opposed to the distribution of chocolate and cuckoo clocks, if you think that will help.
I think they're about as relevant as national health care is to the issue of gun violence. And chocolate would be tastier, too, though I suppose that works against the obesity angle.
If I'm going to speculate wildly, I would guess that mandatory military training is probably the biggest contributor to safe gun ownership in Switzerland. Ethnic and cultural homogeneity may play a role too.
You know what else they have in countries with lots of guns and low gun crime? National health, a minimum wage two or more times ours, an education system which is intended to educate rather than to indoctrinate, and greater equality of wealth. Focusing on storage requirements is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.
What country other than Switzerland has lots of guns and low gun crime? Wouldn't it be just as valid to mention chocolate and cuckoo clocks as correlating with lots of guns and low gun crime?
I never said anything Pro MSNBC or any other station.
I wasn't singling you out. I was mostly responding to the statement 3 levels up:
Fox is far worse then [sic] MSNBC.
The follow-on comments (including yours) seemed supportive of that thesis. Your desire to emphasize Fox's faults and no one else's certainly didn't sound like you were disagreeing.
So someone points out five examples of serious bias by non-Fox networks, only two of which apparently ended in apologies... and the response isn't "yea, they're all biased", but rather "Fox doesn't apologize"?
Simply googling "fox network apology" show's that it isn't entirely true that Fox never apologizes: here's one example, and another.
I never watch Fox News or MSNBC or any other TV news show, and I'm not defending Fox. But it seems like if your vehement argument for superiority boils down to "my partisan biased news show is somewhat more likely to apologize for its excesses when it gets caught than yours", you might want to be a little less proud of that.
And yet, the original comment gets modded flamebait, and both of the retorts get modded up...
Yes, this has been true for a long time. Moynihan pointed out in 1992 that "proximity to the Canadian border" correlated much more strongly with educational achievement than spending. So the solution to poor test scores is to move your school as far north as possible. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/03/opinion/north-dakota-math-country.html
Exactly... how is Dish Network going to fare better than ReplayTV did?
I sure hope they find a way... I clung to our 5000-series model for years because of automatic commercial skip. One of the best purchases I ever made, and the highest WAF score ever for an electronic device. (Note that the 5000s also have commercial skip, as I believe ReplayTV started building them before they lost the lawsuit. The 5500 series then came out, which is basically the 5000 series without commercial skip.)
Finally when we got a 55-inch TV I decided that I needed something with hi-def output and switched to Dish. I'd be thrilled if commercial skip came back and I didn't have to grab for the remote and start pounding the 30-second skip button every time a commercial came on.
Because the Republican bill was a sham. [...] It was specifically designed for Democrats to kill.
As opposed to the current bill, which is a Democratic sham specifically designed for Republicans to kill.
Intel simply doesn't want to pay for patents on ideas generates with its financial support. Here's the precedent they are trying to prevent from happening again: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1557536/intel-settles-university-wisconsin
This. Mod parent up.
It makes it very clear he is unwilling to sacrifice the US AAA credit rating that Moody, S&P and the other banks controlling say will happen if the debt limit is increased for only the short term.
Huh? Where did you get that from? Everything I've read says that the financial industry mostly cares that (1) we don't default in the short term and (2) we have a plan to avoid unending long-term increases in debt. A short-term debt ceiling increase addresses (1) just as well as a long-term increase, and whether the increase is short- or long-term has no direct impact on (2). No one who's not running for re-election in 2012 cares whether we have another vote on the debt ceiling next spring, as long as that one passes too so that we can continue to avoid default.
I am an American patriot. I judge the value of a candidate based on how well he will defend America and its noble ideals. Obama has failed horribly in that regard. The US patriot act is still under way, as is illegal torture, as is the continued erosion of peoples civil liberties. On the other hand, he isn't trying to end America. And yes, the republicans in congress are anti-american traitors and I feel no shame in telling that uncomfortable truth.
I don't really feel that calling people you disagree with politically "anti-american traitors" and accusing them of "trying to end America" is in line with anyone's concept of "noble", unless you have concrete evidence that they're working with a foreign power to overthrow the federal government.
The table at the bottom of this article shows that as of April 1995, CBO projections were that deficits would stay roughly flat through 1998... not going up much, but not going down either. This was after the 1993 tax hike (assuming that's what you're referring to).
The article itself has a particular point of view that I won't defend (though if you do read it, read far enough to see that the author does not spare Republicans from criticism), but I see no reason to doubt the figures in that table.
Yea, your independent nature shines through in your willingness to call people "traitors" and "anti-american".
Note that the Republicans aren't the only ones that care more about getting re-elected than avoiding default: Obama's statement that he will veto any debt ceiling increase that doesn't carry us past the 2012 elections makes it very clear where his priorities are.
According to Wikipedia, the only presidents to actually cut spending on a year-to-year basis in inflation-adjusted dollars were Reagan and Bush Sr. (though they both more than made up for that by large increases in other years). The same page shows that the smallest spending increases in the Clinton years were after the Republican congressional takeover of 1994.
Anyway, I never claimed that having a Republican congress was the key; the problem with (recent) Republicans is that they want to cut taxes rather than pay down the debt. It's really the split control that helps: I think part of the key to the Clinton years was having Democrats that didn't want to cut taxes combined with Republicans that didn't want to increase spending. Even then, all this would have done absent the Internet bubble was keep a lid on deficits; the bubble was the thing that actually swung this to a surplus.
Sadly now we seem to be getting the worst of split control: Democrats that don't want to cut spending (at least not enough to matter) and Republicans that don't want to increase taxes.