No, Haplo, that’s what it means if you read it in English. Words have definitions. There are rules to grammar. You can’t ignore them because you don’t like the result.

“in the real world, its clear that all Jay was really saying is that ‘HuffPo does it too.’ That’s it.”

No, that’s the position he backtracked to, after it was clear he couldn’t defend his original position.

What he actually said was, and I’m paraphrasing here, ‘Nearly every time Huffington Post mentions Bush or Cheney, they comments get so bad they have to be closed.’ That is what he said. That much is undeniable. Yet when I asked him to back it up, he couldn’t. He couldn’t back it up, yet several people in that thread actually think he won that debate. Scary.

“But your descent into endless legalistic parsing to try to defend an untenable position is just pathetic.”

So Jay Tea said something that is wrong, and I’m the one parsing language. Interesting take on reality there. No wonder you are a Republican.

“Newsflash CS – this is a blog, not an academic journal.”

Translation: “I know Jay Tea lied, but this is just a blog so you are allowed to do that.”

“Anyway, all this has been pointed out to you multiple times…”

If something is wrong, it stays wrong no matter how many times you repeat it.

And guess what, what Jay Tea said was wrong. It is demonstratively wrong. No one has made a real effort to defend what Jay Tea said. Everyone pretended Jay Tea said something he didn’t and they are arguing about that. They have set up a strawman to defend.

“If you aren’t already a lawyer, you should consider being one. (Actually I’m serious, but that isn’t a compliment.)”

I know you don’t mean it as a compliment, but it is one. You see, I have a firm grasp of the English language and I am careful of the words I choose and I expect others to do the same. I very rarely say stuff like, ‘This will never happen.’ I don’t do it because I can’t back up a claim like that. It is impossible. When I talk about issues like this, I try to use probabilities, not absolutes. Absolutes are impossible to defend and easy to prove wrong. ‘Should’, ‘could’, not ‘will’ or ‘won’t’.

However, people like Jay Tea and Jay Caruso seen to thrive on making statements that are nearly impossible to back up. (Again, nearly. No absolutes.) And they don’t understand that what they say is so hard to back up. As long as they say something that is marginally related, they think they’ve proven their point. They say something happens all of the time, then they give a few examples and think that’s good enough. It’s not.

Wow, that is your smoking gun huh? Thats where Jay unambiguously said that Huffington Post is more extreme than Free Republic? I was hoping for something a little more meaty, like maybe a quote that says “Huffpo is more extreme than Free Republic.” Instead you resort to claiming that a question (a rhetorical one at that) is an assertion. In CS-land, maybe that reading makes sense; in the real world, its clear that all Jay was really saying is that “HuffPo does it too.” That’s it. Not exactly earth shattering, but also not particularly disagreeable, especially when he provided examples. Now, what Duros says is true too, Jay was being a little on the provocative side to try to stir things up. But your descent into endless legalistic parsing to try to defend an untenable position is just pathetic. (Wait, are you a lawyer CS, or a lawyer in training? That would explain a lot.)

>See that? “Any time.” Yet he only gave three examples, and never bothered to do the research on the number of time Bush or Cheney were mentioned during that time period. Even with the qualifier, it would still take at least a 50% rate to justify what he wrote.

What Jay did is known as a subjective claim. Newsflash CS – this is a blog, not an academic journal. Claiming “HuffPo does it too” and giving a few examples is about as rigorous as you are going to get. The thing is, Jay wasn’t claiming anything more than that, and everyone except you seems to be able to grasp that. Your attempt to portray his claim as some sort of statement of absolute fact in order that you can claim that he hasn’t proven it yet is just a transparent attempt to avoid owning up to the fact that you erroneously blustered and got called on it. It’s as simple as that. One would think that having your ideological allies say, “Uhm, CS? FYI, this isn’t very solid.” would make you do a little rethinking, but nope! CS bravely soldiers on! I do give you credit for perseverance, I guess.

Anyway, all this has been pointed out to you multiple times and doesn’t make a dent, so no need to bother after this. I will say it has been a hoot reading your hand waving and smokescreens though. If you aren’t already a lawyer, you should consider being one. (Actually I’m serious, but that isn’t a compliment.)

In other words, he’s a lying troll.

Shake it off.

Yep…

“Wow, since when did Freep turn into Huffington Post?”

For Freep to turn into Huffington Post, Huffington Post must be more extreme than Freep. It’s basic logic.

And for the rest of his claim…

“It seems any time they mention Bush or Cheney, they have to close the threads, for similar reasons…”

See that? “Any time.” Yet he only gave three examples, and never bothered to do the research on the number of time Bush or Cheney were mentioned during that time period. Even with the qualifier, it would still take at least a 50% rate to justify what he wrote.

Jay Tea made a sloppy claim and I called him on it. Too bad people like you refuse to comprehend that.

Great, then you can point me to where he said that it happens more on HuffPo than on the Freepers, right? Keep fighting the good fight CS. At least you always win in your head.

And you got it wrong by the second sentence. Good work.

Jay Tea said it happened more on Huffington Post than it does with the Freepers. This is not splitting hairs, this is a major difference in what he said and what several people later claimed he said. And it is right there in the link you provided.

If you can’t get that part right, the rest of your recap it pointless.

If you can’t understand the difference, then it’s no wonder you couldn’t follow my argument.

It’s no wonder you are a Republican. Facts be damned! Full speed ahead.

Heres a recap. (I must do this, as I have to admit, its just too funny to watch CS try to split hairs out of it.) Oliver pointed to an article pointing out nasty Freeper comments when news of Kennedy’s brain tumor came out. Jay noted that the same thing happens on certain lefty sites when analagous events happen to rightward figures. He did not claim that said sites are worse or better in this respect, contrary to your assertion. You challenged him to back up his assertion. He provided some quotes (3, I believe) to back up his claims. Reasonable people realize that Jay was not making a claim to have done a statistical analysis of negative comments on each site. You, not being very reasonable, demanded a much higher standard of ‘proof’. Most of the rest of us laughed at you because it was very obvious that you hated being wrong so much (and being shown by Jay, no less!) that you were willing to write page upon page (upon page) of verbiage to try to distract from that.

In the end, the point stands. There are people on both sides who will rejoice at the personal misfortunes of members of the other side, and it isn’t hard to find them at the big political websites. Is one side worse than the other? Who knows? Jay wasn’t making that claim. You can do it though CS. “I was wrong, my side of the aisle has nuts on it too.” Thats all you have to do! We are all behind you.

Do colours exist when there is no light source. I think we have a discussion like that in philosophy class in university.

Yeah, but what if it’s dark?

No I will not admit that because it is not true.

Think of it this way…

If someone says, ‘That shirt is blue.’ and when asked to prove it and he says, ‘Light reflected off of it has a wavelength of 525 nm.’ Is that proof that he’s right? No. Because a wavelength of 525 nm is actually green. Perhaps on the blue side of green, but its green.

Jay Tea said the posters on Huffington Post was worse than the Freepers. ‘It seems like every time they mention Bush or Cheney they have to close the thread.’ When asked for proof, he came up with three examples one of which they didn’t close the thread. This is completely inadequate proof for the claim made. Given the nature of the claim, he would have to show it happens at least 50% of the time. Even then that would be weak.

For some reason many of the people in that thread were convinced by this evidence, which is sad. It’s almost like they don’t actually care what the original claim was, as long as there are some similarities between the original claim and the evidence provided. It doesn’t matter if the shirt is blue or not, as long as a colour is mentioned in the proof.

Words have meaning. This is the key to language, and language is the only thing that separates us from the animals. The only thing. For someone to butcher the language in order to defend something they said that was clearly false is wrong. For others to defend him for it is twice as wrong.

Learned it from watching you.

Do you have proof of that? Or are you just lying?
She’s lying. It’s what she does, it’s her thing.

Yep, that seems exactly right to me. Oliver definitely has an anything goes attitude in pursuit of both of those goals. The sad thing is that he would be much more effective as an honest partisan.

Oh and CS:
>So no, Jay Tea, you lost that debate.

Lol. I know you probably aren’t able to do so, but would it really kill you to admit that Jay Tea got the best of you on that one? I mean, seriously, it wasn’t even an issue of particular substance. Oh well, maybe you sleep better at night having won in your head.

Do you have proof of that? Or are you just lying?

Put the pressure on McCain to explain why he can be trusted this time. Obama is not Charlie Brown, he should not be waiting for ‘Lucy’ McCain to pull the public financing football away.

From now on can we agree to a moratorium on the meaningless word ‘flip-flopper?’ It was dumb in 2004, and it’s dumb now.

Yes, let’s just knee-cap the Democratic party now because the Republican’ts were successful with their unfounded smear in 2004. Maybe, if they actually got a taste of their own medicine, they might rethink this sort of tactic?

Amused Observer, Jun 19th, 2008 at 10:27 pm

If a white man said about blacks what Wright said about whites what do you suppose it would be called.

Maybe it would be called a popular button being sold at a bustling booth at the Texas Republican’t party convention?

PUBLIC FINANCING is – A movement of average Americans inspired for the first time in their lives to send in small contributions on the internet of $25, $50 and $200 to total millions. We the people are the public. We the people are financing OBAMA not BIG BUSINESS and not the government. This is history in the making. Go Obama. He’s got my vote, but I am encouraged and inspired by every commercial I have seen on TV. Flood my day with more and more OBAMA. OBAMA TV CHANNEL? I’m ready for it.

WHO KNEW?

Obama’s original decision to accept public financing was dependent on what his opponent did. He said he would meet with the Republican candidate on the financing issues and he did. It didn’t work out. Obama himself could not have predicted the enormous response to his message of CHANGE and the possibility that for the first time in recent US History a general election campaign can be funded by small individual contributions from millions of people that has successful challeneged and won over Big Money from a Big Business, Lobbyist and Millionaires.