I have been meaning to find time since the idea dropped in my lap yesterday to post a little something about reality, how to measure it, and the BS that is the conservative moaning about the mainstream media. Sadly, people who aren’t running kids, making dinners, and teaching classes wrote it first.
Probably better too.
Conner at The Atlantic:
On the biggest political story of the year, the conservative media just
got its ass handed to it by the mainstream media. And movement conservatives, who believe the MSM is more biased and less rigorous than their alternatives, have no way to explain how their trusted outlets got it wrong, while the New York Times got it right. Hint: The Times hired the most rigorous forecaster it could find.
This. This is something that every single intelligent person in America needs to file away in the mental Rolodex. You don’t like my quoting The Times cause it is all liberal bias? Bullshit, they do reality. They got the story right, your news didn’t. The bloggers at places like KOS and Huffington are not real news reporters but you can quote Faux? Bullshit, Rove parked his foul carcass on air election night and denied reality after even the Faux “decision desk” knew it was over. KOS and Huffington nailed it. The Drudge Report? Don’t make me laugh. They backed Dick “landslide” Morris.
New rule: if you get your news from the GOP media arm, you don’t get to voice their opinion. We now know exactly what that opinion is worth. Nothing.
The election wasn’t some fluke of nature. These “news” sources haven’t told you the truth on any subject. That is how they operate. They lied to you about Sandra Flukes testimony, they lied to you about the budget, they lied about “free phones” and the military and tax cuts. They spun total BS tales about taking your guns, and they lied about jobs going to other countries and they lied about tax raises that are actually tax cuts and tax cuts that you never got. They lied about what the affordable care act does, and they lied about how it does it. They lied about Solyndra, and they lied about the lies they told. They lied about jobs, lied about the stimulus, and then they lied about how to fix a problem already beginning to be repaired. Which they lied about who caused it in the first place. They lied about WMDs and they lied about the reason they matter.
They played you like a cheap whore.
The entire rightwing machine is nothing but lies, misinformation, and bubble chamber.
And here is the thing, the next big issue (or at least it should be) for the nation. Those science and number guys? The ones a lot of us pointed to as proof Obama would win? Both times. The same guys who said the right was bagging the midterms, and got that right too? You recall them?
They have friends, colleagues in arms as it were, that apply the same methods to studying climate.
Remember how they predicted the Obama victory, in most cases right down to the county numbers? Yeah, the climate side of that system does the same thing with temperatures and sea levels and drought. People figure this stuff out.
…and they are, so far, just as right.
Remember that feeling as you sat watching the vote roll in and you couldn’t believe it was happening?
It sucks more when what is rolling in is boiling temperatures and killer storms and sea levels.
#1 by Richard Warnick on November 8, 2012 - 6:47 pm
When they hired Nate Silver, did the New York Times make up for Judy Miller’s false WMD reporting? Not a rhetorical question, I’m not sure what the right answer is.
As far as climate science, I’m worried that it was politicized by the IPCC – but not the way the right claims. I think they erred out of concern that the warnings would be seen as too alarming. So they did stuff like excluding dynamic melting in Greenland from estimates of sea level rise. The result is, the IPCC predictions were too conservative. Reality has gotten ahead of them in many instances.
#2 by Larry Bergan on November 8, 2012 - 7:03 pm
Shane:
It’s probably BECAUSE of your kids that you write so well. I’ll never have that advantage, but I try.
#3 by The Dali Lama on November 8, 2012 - 7:08 pm
You have a lot of negative chi, man.
#4 by Larry Bergan on November 8, 2012 - 8:07 pm
The Dali:
So you’re only changing your name on different threads. that’s a step up, but if I knew how to send you to the basement, I would.
#5 by cav on November 9, 2012 - 3:44 pm
That survey published on Wednesday that interviewed voters after voting found that something like 70% of the people wants taxes raised on the rich and STRENGTHENING of Social Security and Medicare WITHOUT any cuts.
Honestly, it’s not that hard. Let the tax cuts expire, sponsor tax cuts for the 95% (if you have to. . .) raise the cap on Social Security Income and end these fucking wars.
Sheesh.
#6 by Larry Bergan on November 9, 2012 - 4:18 pm
cav for pres, 2016!
#7 by cav on November 9, 2012 - 6:21 pm
I think there should be some nationalization of the voting franchises. And, with a similar philosophical driver, greater clarity and even-handedness in the tax scenarios from state to state. But there you’re going up against ‘states rights’ and the decisions the state makes regarding its own budgetary resources. States themselves (jeeez, I almost make them sound like ‘people’) have way different realities to cover, one from another – and would whine if one states rule book began to look too much like all of the others. I suppose it’s a pride thing in part..
#8 by Larry Bergan on November 9, 2012 - 8:38 pm
Well, now that cheap – non-corporate – medicine has been legalized in two states, I’m POSITIVE Republicans will be locked n’ loaded trying to prevent the federals from infringing.
Think?