News Blog Comments
I like it. Sunlight shining on Wingnutland - whoo-hoo!
Best,
D
Listening to Ws speech yesterday (see Crooks and Liars) egg on his base to make their comments known via blogs and the internet is too coincidental. This redamerica blog hire has rove's fingerprints all over it.
He really isn't much removed from a Klansman.
You can split racists into two types: the poor, really ignorant people, the ones who eat mayonnaise sandwiches and live under the trailer, fucking their cousins. These are the guys who burn crosses and wear white sheet, or wear ugly uniforms that are so gaudy they look like the wearer fell into an Army-Navy surplus bin.
Then there are the "classier" racists.
The ones who have learned to cover it up with code words. The ones who are against the first group, not because they have philosophical differences, but because the other group is too embarrassing. "We can't hang around with a bunch of rednecks! I went to Choate Grammar, for pity's sake!"
These two groups have existed in the South almost from day one. The plantation owners and the rousters. The Klan and the social elite.
Domenech might not wear white sheets, and he might not burn crosses, but he's a racist through and through. He's not a cross burning racist; he's a wink-and-a-nod racist, hoping that by his actions, America will be encouraged to hate blacks just a little bit more every day, and to blame them for the difficulties they face.
The only reason he's not burning crosses is because he thinks wearing a sheet and a hood is stupid and he'd rather not hang out with the good ol' boys. That, and mixing white robes with burning gasoline clearly violates all reasonable standards of safety.
Balancing a liberal with an out and out racist isn't anything like acceptable.
Uh, who exactly is the liberal blogger Domenech is supposed to be "balancing?"
Great post, Steve, but for the record, Domenech never graduated from William and Mary.
He's awful. Blogger Brad deLong seems particularly dedicated to taking him down, which I support but which also means I am waiting for Brad to return to his regular, more interesting posts. It's nauseating just to read about this fool.
Alex,
It depends on the school, but usually a decent amount of attendance is enough to be counted as alumni.
Didn't know that - on the News Blog, apparently, you learn something new every day.
I'll, uh, remove my lips from your ass now...
I was watching the old Frank Zappa Crossfire clips, thinking how dated Novak and his "even the liberal" counterpart seemed, both bashing Van Halen's Hot for Teacher as if it would cause gang rapes in Home Rooms.
The WaPo comes from this same culturally oblivious vein. They want something new without any idea of how to measure quality, relevance, or marketability.
Is it any wonder, with this lack of judgment, that for the past few administrations, the WaPo has been served at the stenographic pool for the GOP?
Amen! Send him home to his Mommy.
Hiring Domenech was the Post saying FU to the very notion of a blogging community. It's the same as putting Clarence Thomas in charge of the EEOC.
Black Adam--
I understand you now live in Atlanta. Are you aware that in the 50's and 60's Ralph McGill of the Atlanta Constitution was one of the few writers in the the south to consistently report on the evils of racial segregation and to ridicule the brain dead antics of poiticians like Lester Maddox, George Wallace and Eastland of Mississippi? Mr. McGill's speeches and his columns in the Constitution allayed the racial prejudices of Atlanta white folk and helped set the stage for peaceful integration in the city and its progress in the 1970's and beyond.
Sadly, the Atlanta Constitution merged some time back with another local newspaper (the Journal) and the two are now tottering along together along in mediocrity and toward eventual bankruptcy as is the Washington Post...
I just unsubscribed to the online WaPo news alerts. I may not be very bright, but I'm bright enough to know I don't need to patronize any business that chooses to support racism in any fashion.
Steve, I haven't read the whole thread, so maybe this is posted. If not, you'll be interested:
"Word is Bond.
Okay, last one before I fall asleep. From Ben's old blog on 4/28/02:
I don't mind that being Puerto Rican probably helped me get in to this school. I had the grades, SAT scores, and (especially) extracurriculars to ensure that I was admitted Early Decision. But I was also designated a William & Mary Scholar.
At the time, being a W&M scholar meant getting four years of in-state tuition and fees covered. The program has since been restructured and the selection process is more involved. And as far as I recall, people got early decision admission because in the application they make a binding commitment to enroll if admitted. It wasn't some sort of special status like Ben makes it out to be. But I digress.
Long story short, Ben claims that an administrator somehow confirmed to him that W&M Scholars were chosen based on ethnicity. And at the thought that he only got the scholarship because he could check "Hispanic" (he's of Puerto Rican ancestry), he "could feel nothing but disgust."
Now here's the money quote:
Someday, when I can stand on my own two feet financially, I will pay back the College for their scholarship.
Ben is now gainfully employed by the Washingtonpost.com as their in-house anti-pinko-commie Red Dawn blogger.
The question then is: Is Ben a man of his word? Ben attended W&M for three years from Fall 99 through Spring 02 before dropping out. That amounts to $14076 in tuition and fees that Ben pledged to return. Maybe he can work out an installment plan.
(kudos to my Legal Counsel for this find)"
http://tinyurl.com/s3m78
Perhaps WaPo managers are upset because of this...
Post bloggers paid extra, sometimes
By Frank Barnako, MarketWatch
Last Update: 1:13 PM ET Mar 17, 2006
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Editors at the Washington Post are wrestling with discontent from reporters who think they should be paid extra for contributing to a group Web log. The Washington City Paper reported staffers on the Post's metro section asked for extra money after learning some prominent byliners were being paid for Web logs while they would not be.
Damn yooooou, evil technology!! You are responsible for our managerial incompetence and greed!
In my experience (and I'm a middle-aged gay man), persons like Ben usually turn out to be closet cases - self-hating closet cases.
In his case, maybe a Kloset Kase.
Plutonious,
I was really too young to read Ralph McGill. Indeed, he died in my childhood. I picked up my knowledge from him from a Wikipedia article; he seems to have been a very admirable human being.
As for the AJC, yeah, it's like every modern day paper in that it sucks. However, it will print liberal letters to the editor that haven't been picked from nutcases. (One tactic a paper will use is to choose letters from nutty liberals and nutty conservatives -- that way, the paper can give the impression that it is the "voice of reason".) Those letters can be a pleasure to read.
Bill O'Reilly hates the AJC. And that's good enough for me.
Question: What do 24 home schooled white boys who went to W&M know about race?
Answer: Nothing.
I know because I have known many 24 white boys with nary a clue except the tribal ignorance that their brittle culture reinforces in them.
I know because I was that 24 year old white boy way back when.
WaPo munches big butt for this choice...
you may also be interested to know that BenDom is pro-orgy.
The Washington Post has some of the most talented black journalists around - I'd love to hear what they think of this. What does Deputy Editorial Page Editor Colbert King think? Columnnist Eugene Robinson? Metro columnist Courtland Milloy?
Heck I'd love to see Ben try and explain himself to Michael Wilbon (sports) Warren Brown (automotive) or Michelle Singletary (personal finance). He doesn't have the brainpower to last ten seconds with any one of them.
Methinks the senior management at Washington Post Online is comforted by the idea that the blogosphere is the province of bratty 24-year-old illiterates. This new hire is their idea of a representative sample.
I'm 100% in agreement with Steve. As I said before there's something with this society.
I don't know which is more embarrassing that idiot in the Whitehouse or this child blogger at the Washington Post thinking the Whitehouse idiot knows what he is doing... sheesh with friends like these two who needs enemies.
Gonna be fun to watch the WaPo cut bait and run next week.
Real fun.
Speaking of misplaced confidence in over-rated intelligence, you liberal-Christian-Jew-haters should check out the following website: www.probe.org
You will find all the evidence which proves what I was talking about with the Rosetta Stone, and MANY other historical and archeological discoveries which were first mentioned in the Bible thousands of years ago and only recently discovered in archeology. Such as Sodom and Gomorrah; The walls of Jericho; and the house of David.
Bottom line: I was right.
The guy I was debating this with was misrepresenting the facts, and just 'leaving out'and ignoring the evidence which doesn't bolster his scewed world-view. Typical. He, like apparently ALL of you in here, may have some degree of knowledge, yet you misuse it for evil. I've been saying this for years. And it is ALWAYS the case with you liberals. Ignorant or evil. That sums is up perfectly.
Oh yes...evil WaPo! They never get the story right. Always on the wrong side of the argument and history! No better than NYT, CNN, MSNBC, et al. Thank God for the Daily SHow, and Bill Mahr. Without them how would we know what to think!
Remember, folks: don't feed the trolls.
Remember, folks: don't feed the trolls.
Gracchus | 03.23.06 - 1:49 pm | #
Or, as someone said, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."
Steve, the really sad thing is that he was brought on because the idiot wingnuts fear the reality-based reporting of Dan Froomkin. So they whined at the WaPo until they caved.
Get a good look at this homeschooled trustafarian, people. This is the face of the GOP.
Gracchus, just what we need around here a Voice of Reason. I'm bored at work doing endless little tasks protecting the brand and making sure that all the soldiers are carrying the right battleflag and you don't want me to poke the ignorant slut "O'Really?" who just famously said "That sums is up perfectly." Nobody lets me have any fun no how.
Amuse,
Who are you calling Voice of Reason? And what happened to that fruitcake troll, anyhow?
And come on, poking "O'Really?" is like messing with a hate-filled retarded kid -- he makes VoR or Karl look like members of the Algonquin Round Table.
You want some fun, check out the probe site "O'Really?" posted up. Hoo boy, there are probably hours of amusement over there in Texas-based fantasyland... 
When comes to troll slapping you take what you can get... I especially like the concerned moderate Democrats that turn surly as soon as they are challenged. Sort of Scoop Jackson after quiting smoking for about three days... you may be too young to get that reference.
And as far as it goes when I'm bored I'm not above wrestling a pig or two, whacking a mole or so and shouting lets all get stupid in a Black Eyed Peas kinda way...
I say let this nut write, and let the WaPo squirm. Either he'll tone down the nuttery and be boring, or it will be a firestorm a week until he says "coon" or something.
Remember when USA Today hired Little Miss Hitler herself, Ann Coulter -- only to drop her before her first column because it was so unbelieveably vile?
The folks running USA Today, as right-wing as they are, have more decency and common sense than those running the Washington Post.
Re: the pro-orgy comment.
That entire screed was ripped off, without attribution, and almost word-for-word, from PJ O'Rourke.
That entire screed was ripped off, without attribution, and almost word-for-word, from PJ O'Rourke.
Man, this gets better and better. I don't think the pissant is the only one who's gonna lose his WaPo job before this is done.
I just emailed the ombudsman, Atrios, and put a diary on Kos.
You know, I can't believe the WaPo could be this tone deaf. The "chocolate city" metro area (sometimes this was an insult, sometimes not) is still home to one of the largest and best educated populations of black professionals in the nation. So here is this guy -- he doesn't just insult people in racial terms, he's what I call a legacy brat -- someone whose career has clearly been pushed along by that oh so special quality known as "access," a quality that most people, including most black people don't carry around in their back pocket. What is the message? Any half-assed half-educated twerp with offensive and immature ideas is better than a well-educated, mature person with real accomplishments -- all that matters is that his Daddy is SOMEONE. No wonder they all like Bush.
I don't mind that being Puerto Rican probably helped me get in to this school. I had the grades, SAT scores, and (especially) extracurriculars
Wasn't he home schooled? So Mommy gives him A's and he thinks he's earned his way in?
oregon guy--man, that is priceless.
Piss off liberals? Lie outright? Naah, none of that bothers the WaPo brain trust. But plagiarism, or even the hint of it?? Hoo boy.
If the WaPo lets this slide, they're gonna be scooting on their asses like stray dogs fo the rest of their days...
Who are you calling Voice of Reason? And what happened to that fruitcake troll, anyhow?
Dunno, but I still have a copy of the time he tried to cover up calling Gay Veteran 'F*g Vet' by saying his 12-year-old son came in and did it... and then called him that again in the same post. It was like Christmas morning.
His friends say he's a nice guy
Funny, that's exactly what the very first commenter to my post on Li'l Ben had to say!
I think he's got his little homeschool buddies out scouring the blogosphere for bad references to Ben.
Plagiarism? C'mon, you know it was just a "youthful indiscretion."
I see the O'Really? troll returned earlier and he's still pushing his Rosetta Stone bit and trying to diss liberals.
Speaking of O'Really--
Q. What do you call a person who is both ignorant and an asshole?
A. An ignoranus..
An "out and out racist."
Gilliard, your ignorance has always been surpassed only by your hysteria.
It's pearls before swine, but this might be mildly instructive:
http://www.bendomenech.com/blog/...ves/
001082.html
Plagiarism? C'mon, you know it was just a "youthful indiscretion."
The first of many, no doubt. Like Henry Hyde, these right-wingnuts have "youthful indiscretions" well into their 40s.
Too late, Josh!
You obviously are hoping that none of the commenters actually READ Steve's posts -- in which he quotes YOUR buddy, Ben "Augustine" Domenich, at length.
Eat it, boyo. You love racists and the Southern Strategy.
Oh, yes, and Oregon has noted that Dumbassneck, in addition to being a PLAGIARIST (boy, what's PJ going to say when he hears about this?!?), has tacitly 'fessed up to being Augustine, as he's apologized for calling Coretta Scott King a Communist:
http://yourlogohere.blogspot.com...eet-
coffin.html
The Dumbassneck Deathwatch starts right now. I'm guessing that the WaPo, if they have ANY brains left at all, will try to quietly dump this clown round about Friday afternoon at 5:30 PM Eastern and hope the furor dies in the weekend news grave.
Fat effing chance of that now, boyo.
Steve:
Although Coretta Scott King was not a communist, remember the CP was one of the first primarily white organizations to support Civil Rights, for example by working to support the Scottsboro Boys. Certainly, the CP was often unprincipled. The party leadership knew or should have known what Stalin's show trials were. However, the CP deserves some credit for its early support for Civil Rights.
Hey Steve, you public-schooled git.
If there's one fucking thing that'll get me to cancel my monthly Democracy Bond contribution it's if this anti-homeschooling bullshit ever gains any real traction in the Dem party.
Are you lazy or stupid? Several posters, including myself, have explained to you that the modern homeschool movement started with the anti-establishment left (which still makes up a large percentage of current homeschoolers, which you'd know if you bothered to know what the fuck you were talking about).
If the new Dem brand includes the anti-Schiavo "keep the government out of my personal life" angle, how the hell is this anti-homeschooling jihad going to fit into that branding message. Oh, and did I mention that homeschooling is the fastest growing demographic trend in education?
And why the fuck can't you bother to understand an issue that's not all that complicated.
Now you can go back to being smug and, if anyone in real power ever listens to you, alienating people who have been politically active on the left for longer than you've probably been breathing.
steve, you might finetune this piece. the website is not the print edition. so all the talk about distribution figures among dc area blacks seems off mark.
and they haven't even admitted he was hired as a result of ruffini's watb harris' channeled complaints re froomkin. AND do not play into their framing of froomkin as a liberal. froomkin is only breaking the kid gloves (see nagourney/bumiller today) treatment of all things current administration. froomkin is not liberal. he's being a good journalist.
but, love you, man.
I find it truly hilarious that on all the comment threads Josh Trevino has jumped into on the Domenech controversy, he keeps failing to mention that he, uh, started Red State with the guy...
What I don't get is why the Washington Post, the major daily paper in Washington DC, hired some 24 year old no-name to represent the conservative side? They could have gotten practically anybody they wanted.
Oops! Apparently, this isn't Domenech's only act of plagiarism:
http://haloscan.com/tb/atrios/
11...315207785058384
Hey, O'Really or should I just call you "Ben", I'm the guy you were "debating". If you mean debating in the same sense as Vanilla Ice having a rap battle with Eminem. The quickness of your response is astounding, given that my last comment was only a week ago and it had many polysylabic words, your jaw must be very tired sounding them out.
As for ignorant or evil, well with a Ph.D. in Physics it's a tough call.
Having used the search engine on probe.org I was unable to find any article which specifically adressed the rosetta stone. A google search turned up nothing.
Now, what's got me confused is this: The rosetta stone is a trilingual bureaucratic document written in 130 B.C. involving changes in egyptian tax code. As such it was essentially a stone tablet equivalent of those english/spanish posters you see in IRS offices. It's only significance is that being in three languages, one of which we knew (greek) allowing for us to get a handle on hieroglyphs.
The question is: What does that actually have to do with your "arguments" in this "debate"?
OK. I have to respond to this - "...As the black professionals leave the District for the safety of Maryland and increasingly Northern Virginia..." What the heck does that mean? I am Black. I live in Washington, DC; have for 20 years. I have never felt the need to run to the "safety" of Maryland or Virginia. Just WTF does that mean? I'm getting angrier as I type this. Washington, DC is a great city with the same kind of issues any other American city has. It goes without saying that without Washington, DC, the surrounding counties of Maryland and Virginia would not exist in their current prosperous conditions. I would appreciate it, if you would not slur Washington, DC. It certainly does have its negatives, but they are outweighed by the fact that this is a smart, interesting, and dynamic place to live. For your information, many of those who live in the suburbs are now making their way back to this city - driving up housing prices (avg. $500,000) and values, as evidenced by the nearly 75% increase in my property taxes in the last five years. I cannot figure out who these people are, and why on earth they would ever leave all of those "safe" suburbs.
Doh! Shows you what I know about posting trackbacks and things -- nothing. Just go to Atrios's blog and see for yourself.
(Sheepishly wipes flopsweat off brow)
I find it truly hilarious that on all the comment threads Josh Trevino has jumped into on the Domenech controversy, he keeps failing to mention that he, uh, started Red State with the guy...
"Full disclosure" is sorta an alien concept to right-wing "journalists."
This is Millbank's Miers. I love it!
I started RedState with the guy. Not a secret -- see the front page of RS -- unless you're dull-witted.
On which, QED.
Funny thing -- if you read the link from Josh "Tacitus" Trevino, it says absolutely nothing about Domenech's view of black people.
He defends the cultural contributions of Hispanics, such as himself, and then says a bit about racism in the abstract. He would have to be a real self loathing half-Puerto Rican to find common cause with far-right anti-immigration, pro-eugenics racists.
I have no doubt that he's less racist than those people. But there are different degrees of racism, and that was never the question. The question, Josh Trevino, is: how does your friend Ben really feel about black people, including Coretta Scott King?
Steve,
Ben spent his youth in New Orleans and Charleston, SC. His attitude is Deep South. He would refight the Civil War given the oppurtunity.
DR, I'm a white woman who has lived in DC for nearly 10 years and I agree. Actually the district seems a lot safer than many of the suburbs, especially given the Post's predilection for playing up any murder that happens in, say, Loudon County, versus DC. Maybe that's why the suburbanites are now fleeing into the District!
The best metro reporter at the Post, bar none, is Colbert King. And his column runs on Saturday, the lowest-read day of the week. Its local coverage sucks big time.
I'm guessing the whole fracas over Dan Froomkin has "forced" the post.com into hiring Domenech. Why no one, even Jim Brady, can differentiate between irreverent skepticism and liberalism is beyond me.
I did like the little ad on the Probe web site that stated that half of all college students would walk away from their faith by the time they graduate. Good.
I started RedState with the guy. Not a secret -- see the front page of RS -- unless you're dull-witted.
The concept of "full disclosure" assumes that the journalist's or author's business interests and personal associations are not generally known to the public, and is provided as a courtesy to the readers by professional writers or site owners when such interests or associations are mentioned in an article or a post. And while you may believe that "Josh Trevino" is a household name whose interests are known to all and sundry -- even in the blogosphere -- I have some news for you: it's not.
If Jen had posted a defense of Steve on redstate.org without noting that she was his partner on The News Blog, I doubt your readers would find it acceptable either. But Jen, being a writer as well as an attorney (not to mention someone who doesn't have an inflated sense of her fame), would know better than to do that.
If you want to be considered a professional (or at least a credible) writer, there are certain basic rules you follow -- like full disclosure, like attributing sources, like not claiming others' work as your own. If your partner wants to last at the WaPo, he'd better learn those lessons very quickly.
Nice to have Josh to discuss Ben around here since Ben seems to lack the guts to have comments so that we can debate him THERE, at the Washington Post.
"Actually the district seems a lot safer than many of the suburbs,"
Hello....PG county? I'm sure it will be another record setting year.
there he is again, Josh Trevino secret racist. at least Domenech has the balls the post his beliefs, you, you little coward dont have the guts to do that.
seriously, put the 9 in your mouth and think of your mother. do us all a favor.
@ SteveK:
My sources say that the Rosetta Stone dates from 196 BCE. Also, it's bilingual, not trilingual. The text is in Greek and Egyptian, with the Egyptian text written in two different scripts, hieroglyphs and demotic, a highly simplified script derived from hieroglyphs and used for everyday purposes.
The text isn't a decree about tax policy; rather, it's a nice little priestly thank-you note all about the nice things Ptolemy V did for the temples, some of which involved tax breaks.
Priestly parasites sucking up to rulers and rulers bribing the priests to obtain their support is a lot older than modern "faith-based" largess for political preachers.
Of course, this will all fly right over the troll's head. No big loss- if there's anything that a few years of observing netLoons has taught me, it's that you cannot reason with someone who takes woo-woo Web sites seriously.
Hey Josh:
What's with the chirping crickets over there? Not as much fun as when you were making blanket generalizationas about MeCHA members all being racists?
On which, QED
geez, who talks like that. pretentious little prig.
Josh Trevino,
So, calling Coretta Scott King a communist, a racist canard I haven't seen outside a history book, isn't racist?
I mean, it came right after that lovely funeral day attack.
So exactly why did you quit the good folks at racist Redstate, sheets too white for you?
So, killing the Hussein brothers has really worked out, huh?
How's life as CENTCOM's bitch. If the Army hadn't booted your ass, you'd probably be on your third tour now. Keeping your hand in the game?
You know, they wouldn't need your bullshit if they let the soldiers blog like American citizens and let us make up our minds.
Do any stories on wounded vets lately?
bendoo,
Really? The South was beat shitless. Their worst nightmare, armed black men, came to pass because they wanted to keep slaves. They had the one thing they feared the most as their own actions.
Anyone who thinks Jefferson Davis is praiseworthy is a racist in my book, because as a commander and leader he sucked.
Gracchus,
Journalist? Shit he's a paid progandist for the Department of Defense. He used to post that bullshit for free, now he's back on Uncle Sugar's payroll and telling us our eyes are lying and Iraq is wonderful. Of course any trooper who went to downtown Baghdad for lunch would be kidnapped, but hey, it's awesome.
oh right Josh, we are supposed to buy the one post of Box Turtle Ben's that makes it seem he doesnt like those awful racist, instead we are to ignore the other crap. But wait, maybe he plagerized the anti-racist piece.
you and all your racist klan brothers can go to hell.
Earlier I suggested that he should be fired ASAP. On second thought, why not keep him around. He's a good reminder of the racism and bigotry that consumes the wingnuts. The good news is that after the November election these clowns will be marginalized.
Hubris Sonic,
Anyone in your family admire Jefferson Davis?
Not Lee, not Jackson, not Longstreet, but Davis.
No?
Please. Their little buddy is a plagerizing racist prick and he's gonna not only lose his prime gig at the WaPo, but never get another straight writing gig again.
If he finished college, he might be able to be a lawyer like Stephen Glass.
hell, my grandfather used to spit when his name was mentioned.
Jeff Davis you have to be kidding. Its code talk, these monkeys talk in code, we are supposed to not understand it. I like that Jeff Davis dont you? translation: did you see what moved in next door?
if they dont like America, they can GET THE FUCK OUT!
man i hate racists.
spot the trend.
hilter, nazis = racists.
klan, separatists = racists.
bush's people, fundies = racists.
same shit, different day.
trevino, krapasky, domenech. racist plagarist, lying, cowardly fucks.
Hubris:Tell us how you really feel. Come on now. I can feel that you're holding back.
Either this guy is a racist, or has no idea wtf he's saying. He's incoherent.
I vote a little of A, a little of B
I wish I knew how to quit you Josh Trevino!
Journalist? Shit he's a paid progandist for the Department of Defense. He used to post that bullshit for free, now he's back on Uncle Sugar's payroll and telling us our eyes are lying and Iraq is wonderful. Of course any trooper who went to downtown Baghdad for lunch would be kidnapped, but hey, it's awesome.
Ah, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks, Steve.
And so my apologies to Josh -- I don't hold propagandists and shills-for-hire like you and man-date Guckert to the same standards as serious journalists and authors. But if it's any consolation, I and others here now know what the name "Josh Trevino" signifies. Aren't you glad you stopped by?
In all the "Tacitus"-bashing, let's don't forget that Mr. Trevino is also quite the prolific little propagandist. His magnum opus is the moronic site "No End But Victory," where he attempts to rally the faithful to ... just guess.
To sign up and serve? No.
To help in the reconstruction? No.
To identify the defeatist 'enemy within' and 'fight' them in the media and on the Internet? Yes!
Josh "Dolchstoss" Trevino. Enabler of racists, peddler of lies.
"Chuckle!"
Mordant "chuckle!"
"Snicker!" (Squelched laugh) "Snort!"
Bpffffftttttt! (stifled laugh coming undone in a vapor cloud of jet-speed spittle)
Then...
"Bwa-ha-HA-HA-HAAA-HAAAAAAA!"
Okay, okay, this---this is now officially ridiculous, right? I mean...let's run it down, shall we?
1.) Virulent, know-nothing bigot.
2.) A f*cking obviously unqualified legacy/insider hire.
3.) A writer with as much pep as a comatose sloth on a morphine drip.
4.) A disingenuous, gloating thief who nabbed a scholasrship he didn't deserve and has yet to make recompense for his feeding at a trough while fat with opportunity.
And now 5.)...the lowest of the low for someone who puts himself out there as some sort of wordsmith/purveyor of ideas...the boy's a chiseling, double-dealing, piece of sh*t plagiarist. A f*cking plagiarist. As someone who puts great stock in the deployment of words because THEY REPRESENT WHAT A WRITER HIM/OR HERSELF THINKS ON A SUBJECT, this little piece of news about Ben's thievery of another writer's work kinda...oh, I dunno...SETS ME THE F*CK OFF?!
I mean... Goddamn, you're evil, that's bad enough--but Jesus Christ, to be evil, lazy and un-original? F*ck, moments like this, you find yourself being charitable to the likes of Leni Riefenstahl and D.W. Griffith.
Evil sumb*tches? Yes, that pair was. But at least the bastard and that she-devil had some f*cking talent to bring to bear, and weren't layabout malingerers so spoiled and un-driven as to just steal someone else's work and fob it off as their own.
That is unless Ben's special talents/X-mutant skill lay in tuning his body into an organic pre-amp that blasts at high volume the little racist tracts he gets in plain brown wrappers from a militia press in Couer d' Alene.
A racist, theieving, sheisty, lazy f*cking plagiarist?
(Howard Kurtz stands up, red-faced and in high dudgeon)
"Siddown Kurtz! Nobody's taling about your *ss...yet. It's the kid we're doing the 'Extreme Makeover--Body Orifice Edition' on". Can all these additional *ssholes we're ripping into poor Ben possibly void all the sh*t he's full of?
And yes...he is being torn asunder. Did I forget to say that me and the hot German chick named Schadenfreude giving me a rubdown are really enjoying watching it. It reminds me of that scene near the beginning of Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" where a circle of kids sit on the ground as Pike (Bill Holden) and his gang go by. Pike sees the kids have constructed a ring on the ground in which sits a deadly scorpion--surrounded by hundreds of fire ants. The kids poke and prod the crazed, overwhelmed scorpion back to the center of the deadly ant army.
And the ants get up in his *ss something fierce, blocking his way, biting him here, there, and everywhere swarming all over him--f*cking him up beyond all repair, baby until he's drowned in fighting ants.
I feel like Pike, riding by...looking at that little massacre go down.
And seein' as how its all the rage these days, I'll lift from the Mickey-Dee scommercials.
"I'm lovin' it!"
differentiate between irreverent skepticism & liberalism
this is a good comment...i think about this as i watch all msm news these days...who the hell are these shows made for? we've gotten to the point where the mental conformity & unthinking complacentcy has been indoctrinated amazingly effectively (2000...2004?!)..."conservative" now effectively means "Establishment's bitch", & "liberal" just about everything else, including the values conservatives used to claim to hold to...
it's like, the control freaks are ga-ga about their success thus far, & frothing & squealing in rage that those of us who won't 'get w/ the program don't have the ....i dunno, 'good taste' to just die off or sumpthin...
i should ammend the above to read 'undeserved success'...what's got them so unhinged, imo, is that they know, on some level, that they're only in power through a ruthless willingness to lie, cheat, slime, & steal on a scale we've probabley never seen in our nation's history...& once on top, they couldn't cope w/ the reality, can't even pretend to know wtf they're doing, so like the mean-kid brats they are, they're just wrecking things for anybody after them, since they've got to also know, on some level, that nobody's going to buy their brand again for a looong time...
All, get whatever juice or potentially monitor-sullying foodstuffs outta yer mouths now...'cause this is funny...
"Robert McClelland Says:
March 23rd, 2006 at 9:05 pm
I don’t see what the big deal is here. The WaPo just wanted to add a blogger who embodied core redstate values and their selection of a lying, racist plagiarist hit the bullseye."
"Ba-dooomp-boomp-psssssh!"
Courtesy of http://www.oliverwillis.com/2006...world/
#comments
Hi Josh!!
Lovin' you some ragin' midgets, are you??
Here's the thing, Josh, see, that Neuhaus article posted without comment by Brother Ben...well, see it starts with some "assumptions" stated as "assertions" in response to "correlations" (that don't actually exist in the referred Freakonomics Book)...and then goes on to use that device as a tool to attack abortion and those who support it...specifically within the Black Community.
It accuses Black Leaders and the Black Community of "self genocide" or some such nonsense based on statistically, factually, and inferentially indefensible arguments that are rooted in the following concepts:
1) Black people (specifically men) are responsible for most American crime and for rising/falling crime rates. Bill Bennett may be considered a good source by your ilk, but around here, we like to refer to government statistics...those statistics tell us the following: minorities account for the majority of the prison population (about 60% or so), the majority of the cases brought to trial, and a minority (slightly disproportionate to their portion of the population, but not much) of crimes committed. Whites commit more crimes, but all other races are arrested, prosecuted, and jailed at increasingly higher rates.
Hmmm...why is that?
And why would Neuhaus elide that information in his little attempt at Swiftian satire???
2) According to the available statistics, the abortion rate fell in the 1990's and so did the crime rate. Wow. So, unless the "lag effect" can be explicitly explained and correlated in a statistically valid fashion, both the Freakonomics argument AND Neuhaus' bizarre warping of that argument need a bit of revisiting, to say the least.
3) According to available statistics, blacks elect to have abortions at approximately half the rate that whites elect to have abortions, rendering the entire strawman pile of shit argument put forward by Neuhaus and approvingly passed along by Friend Ben Augustine Domenech...moot and ridiculous.
Whites commit more crimes and have more abortions than blacks.
Critical reading for comprehension, a bit of background research into governing assumptions, and a healthy disrespect for authoritative arguments put forward in stentorian tones by obnoxious, intrusive, and theocratic moralists with distinct tendencies to couch their arguments in racist terms or using racist assumptions is all that is required.
On the other hand, admiration for Jeff Davis, belief that the SCOTUS is worse than the KKK, and overt acceptance and approval of arguments based on racist assumptions about crime and abortion seems to pass for "thoughtful political writing" in your book.
What happened to those halcyon days when you and I were so uncomfortably in agreement about Steve Sailer and the rest of the racists?
[snooty voice] Indubitably, RedDan, Indubitably. QED. In requim moranis
QED. In requiem moranis
Even a busted watch is right twice a day (once if it displays A.M. and P.M. that is!).
LOL!
Hey Lower M. I agree with you about the moron under discussion. I admire your wonderous ability to make the words dance... but I have to stick up for Leni Riefenstahl at least a little bit.
Yes, she did make "Triumph of the Will" about the Nuremburg Rallly and was often a dinnermate with Adolph but she was sadly of a time and a place. If there can be any excuse, at the time she did not know better. A great book is "They Thought They Were Free" which examines the common German citizen and thier worldviews from 1932 through to the end of WW 2. Much like the Red Staters who think it is patriotic to support Fearless Leader, they thought the same thing at that time. I do have some sympathy for those caught up in the ignorance and insanity.
Leni Riefenstahl later realized what she had done, admitted her errors and did some fine work trying to atone for using her great talent for evil purposes. She became involved in an African tribe and made documentaries that helped portray the beauty of all of humanity. Her life story is a real tragedy of a great artist living through difficult times and making bad choices.
"2) According to the available statistics, the abortion rate fell in the 1990's and so did the crime rate. Wow. So, unless the "lag effect" can be explicitly explained and correlated in a statistically valid fashion, both the Freakonomics argument AND Neuhaus' bizarre warping of that argument need a bit of revisiting, to say the least."
This is why it's so dangerous to rely on secondary sources, hostile or otherwise.
Levitt showed that a drop in unwanted pregnancies led to a drop in crime rates several years later, about when these kids, had they been born, would have been old enough to begin their criminal careers.
He predicts no immediate correlation between abortion rate and crime rate, and so the fact that both fall at the same time in no way buttresses or refutes Levitt. At all.
You'll probably get a chance, and soon, to refute Levitt. Here's how you can do it:
1. Wait 20 years.
2. Make a list of when various states criminalized abortion. They won't do it all at once--some will lag by a few years, and some won't do it much at all.
3. Under Levitt's model, you'd expect a spike in crime rates about 15 years after significant barriers to abortion are erected. If Indiana lags South Dakota by, say, two years in banning abortion, then you'd expect to see the spike about two years later in Indiana. (These differences are how you isolate the effect of womb regulation from other factors contributing to changing crime rates.)
4. Show that no such spikes occur.
Do all that, and then you've refuted Levitt.
Amuseinc,
Yeah...I'm hip to Riefenstahl's attempt to undo some of the damage she wrought with her considerable (if ill-applied) gifts--as well as her being somewhat "hostage" to time and place during what were her ascendant and maybe most fruitful years as an artist. What her work said though, repulses me still--even as the craft of it gives me pause. But be that as it may, my main point was that in spite of her views--however she acquired them, her subject matter--which was vile, she wasn't a lazy, credit-stealing wretch like Domenech.
At least in her later years, she would come to rue a lot the "excesses of choice" she made in her youth.
Ben? He strikes me as a "lifer" much--like the hate-filled/hate-spewing Schillinger in HBO's "Oz". Dumb. Full of stupid rhetoric. And proudly willing to go to the grave believing every word of it.
May he come across an equally crazed "Adebisi" sometime alone in a darkened alley.
Amuseinc,
Yeah...I'm hip to Riefenstahl's attempt to undo some of the damage she wrought with her considerable (if ill-applied) gifts--as well as her being somewhat "hostage" to time and place during what were her ascendant and maybe most fruitful years as an artist. What her work said though, repulses me still--even as the craft of it gives me pause. But be that as it may, my main point was that in spite of her views--however she acquired them, her subject matter--which was vile, she wasn't a lazy, credit-stealing wretch like Domenech.
At least in her later years, she would come to rue a lot the "excesses of choice" she made in her youth.
Ben? He strikes me as a "lifer" much--like the hate-filled/hate-spewing Schillinger in HBO's "Oz". Dumb. Full of stupid rhetoric. And proudly willing to go to the grave believing every word of it.
May he come across an equally crazed "Adebisi" sometime alone in a darkened alley.
Whoops! Sorry for the double hit! 
Laertes,
Here's the thing, Leavitt predicts no immediate correlation between abortion and crime rate - fine.
And let's be clear, we are talking about CORRELATION, and not causation, and we had better be damned careful to keep that right up front and bold when we discuss this.
However, if one wants to play "correlation games" then it is pretty easy to graph out the abortion rate and the crime rate over time, yes?
And when one does so, one finds the "18 year lag" that Leavitt talks about and points out in the correlated data.
However, what makes that particular correlation any better, stronger or more telling than the correlation between the drop in abortion rates and the drop in crime rates observed in the late 1990's?
Or how about the rise in abortion rates and the rise in crime rates in the early 2000's?
Both of the latter can be demonstrated.
When one is faced with statistical correlations with no clear and obvious causational factors, one is forced to look deeper into the data, for common factors, for external or unconsidered factors, and so on.
I would say that your scenario is probably required in order to DISPROVE (strictly speaking) Leavitt's hypothesis...however, that requirement does not obviate the search for other, better correlations, nor does it obviate the search for other external factors, common factors, or underlying root causes that can explain BOTH the long-lag correlations and the short-lag correlations.
One example, without digging too deep into population dynamics, statistics and etc, is that an underlying factor driving both the abortion rate and the crime rate is the rate of poverty.
Reduce poverty, increase social services and the social safety net, increase employment...and BOTH abortion rates and crime rates will go down as a consequence.
I think my hypothesis is richer and more immediately testable, and gives rise to a wider array of predictions and fruitful avenues of inquiry than Leavitt's, and certainly more than idiot Neuhaus and his moronic disciples in the New Opus Deu movement for crypoto-fascist Catholic Domininionists represented by the Likes of Trevino and Domenech.
"However, what makes that particular correlation any better, stronger or more telling than the correlation between the drop in abortion rates and the drop in crime rates observed in the late 1990's?"
You've got this belief that crime rates and abortion rates are correlated in the near term. Great.
However strong your data may or may not be, that's just not the point I'm addressing. I saw you badly misrepresent Levitt, and I meant to set the record straight. That his argument says nothing about yours isn't surprising to me. I posted here to refute your claim that it did.
I'll go one step further:
"When one is faced with statistical correlations with no clear and obvious causational factors"
This is not such a case. Levitt shows that fewer unwanted pregnancies being carried to term results in a drop in crime about when those babies would be old enough to commit them.
While the link can't be easily proved, there's nothing a bit unclear or less than obvious about the inference that unwanted children are more likely to suffer abuse and neglect and become criminals.
It may or may not be true, but it's certainly a "clear and obvious causational factor" that a reasonable person will accept as plausible or even likely.
For the record, Levitt was appalled by this result. He went where the data led him, but he didn't like it one bit.
"Levitt shows that fewer unwanted pregnancies being carried to term results in a drop in crime"
Okay, feh. There _I_ misspoke. The correct phrase is "was accompanied by a drop in crime".
If you believe everything you read in the internets, you better get a life.
(Josh, call me)
Is there some way we can read Benji's column without giving the WaPo a "hit"? Hate to let the smug lil' bastard any traffic for making lame movie criticism, annoying conservative cheerleading and/or liberal bashing with just the tiny hint of White Man's Burden in for taste.
Ktesibios:
Just keeping it simple for good ol' "Thermaldynamics" O'Really. Typoed on the 130 BC, it was 196 BC. As for the content it was both a tax document and a political document, incorporating faith based initiatives, not uncommon in W's IRS either. As for tri-lingual I'd argue that demotic and hieroglyphs while different scripts could be classifed as nearly different languages, in the sense that a text in English, Kanji/Hiragana/katakana, and hiragana/katakana(as used for young children) would be a triple gain for some future linguist.
But my basic point was, and is, that it is a relatively obscure goverment document written roughly two centuries before the birth of Christ, which only became important later on because of its multilingual distribution. So what does it have to do with Jesus or the bible, or the bizzare "arguements" of O'Mutton?
I mean, the reference to the second law of thermaldynamics has some tenuous link to a sophilistic arguement involving the advent of life in a system in which overall entropy increases. It's ludicrous because it ignores the definition of a closed system, but it vaguely resembles an attempt at arguement however feeble. On the other hand, the Rosseta stone is such a non sequitur, it out-Chewbaccas Chewbacca. A cognitve gapers block so horrible you have to look at it.
Levitt showed that a drop in unwanted pregnancies led to a drop in crime rates several years later, about when these kids, had they been born, would have been old enough to begin their criminal careers.
really? I see you corrected that in a later comment from "led to" to "was accompanied by"...
But clearly when one is dealing with lag times, especially when lag times are measured in terms of decades, one must be a little more careful than you have been...or Levitt was.
Why the assertion that a particular age marks the onset of a criminal career? Why the choice of a particular age? 15? 18? 23?
Without a clearly articulated and explicable mechanism to justify the choice of a particular lag time, one that is INDEPENDENT of the initial observation regarding the correlation (accompaniment) between "fewer unwanted pregnancies" and crime rate, the argument is very, very close to being circular.
The observed period between the liberalization of laws that allow for fewer unwanted pregnancies (the pill, birth control methods, abortion) and the drop in crime is X years...therefore the lag time is X years, therefore the age when most lower-income criminals start their criminal career is X...that is bad, bad logic.
Please explain to me how this is not the logic implied by Levitt's argument...or please explain yourself better when you talk about his argument.
FWIW, I actually sort of pity homeschooled Ben. He reminds me of the moral dilemna posed by the Sawney Bean case. Sawney Bean was a legendary Scottish cannibal who lived in a cave with his common-law wife and clan of inbred children and grandchildren, terrorizing the entire region until James I sent a force that finally located the family's hideout and captured them. But the authorities in Edinburgh wondered-- could Bean's children and grandchildren really be held responsible for their atrocious deeds, since all they ever knew as normal were lives of incest, robbery, murder, and cannibalism? Kind of like young Ben.
As for the Bean family? In the end, the authorities said fuck it and burned the lot of them alive in cages.
And, yes I know that it really is the second law of thermodynamics. Had to derive it from first principles more than once.
COME ON, Feathers, thats not fair. you have no idea that Ben ever murdered anyone! 
So what's the problem with homeschooling again? Are public schools really any better? If someone knows where to find stats on the subject, that would be helpful.
Oh, by the way: If Trevino shows up again, ask him why they've started banning comments by new users over at RedState.org.
Sean, the problem with homeschooling is imprinting, isolation, and lack of breadth.
The child's education is entirely and completely dependent upon the intelligence, educational level, and worldview of one, maybe two people.
That is not healthy.
Look at the results in this case.
Phoenix Woman, Herr Trevino doesnt deign to answer questions from the hoi polloi, except in Latin, in which case we cretins wouldnt understand his high mind.
hoi polloi?
Is that greek?
Or hawaiian?
RedDan: It's getting tiresome to deal with your attempts to refute Levitt when it's abundantly clear that you have not, you know, read Levitt.
So I'll help you out. (Rereading him just now, I see that I understated his case.) Everything that follows here is from Freakonomics:
"Perhaps the most dramatic effect of legalized abortion, and one that would take years to reveal itself, was its impact on crime. In the early 1990s, just as the first cohort of children born after Roe v. Wade was hitting its late teen years...the rate of crime began to fall."
also:
"One way to test the effect of abortion on crime would be to measure crime data in the five states where abortion was made legal before the Supreme Court extended abortion rights to teh rest of the country... those early-legalizing states saw crime begin to fall earlier than the other forty-five... the states with the higest abortion rates in the 1970s experienced the greatest crime drops in the 1990s, while states with low abortion rates experienced smaller crime drops. (This correlation exists even when controlling for a variety of factors that influence crime...)"
"In states with high abortion rates, the entire decline in crime was among the post-Roe cohort as opposed to the older criminals. Also, studies of Australia and Canada have since established a similar link"
More:
"Researchers found that in the instances where the woman was denied an abortion, she often resented her baby and failed to provide it with a good home. Even when controlling for the income, age, education, and health of the mother, the researchers found that these children too were more likely to become criminals."
hoi polloi?
It's greek for "the multitude" or sort of like "the rabble" I believe.
I do KNOW that it's also the title of one of my favorite Three Stooges shorts (and was being re-made as "Half Wits Holiday" when Curly suffered a massive stroke in his dressing room--he was then out of the Stooges for *good and replaced by the hatchet-faced Shemp).
*save for a weird non-speaking appearance as a bearded dude on a train in a Shemp episode.
This "Three Stooges History Moment" brought to you by Lower Manhattanite, Professor of Advanced Stooge-iana and Mudhole-Stomper in Idiot Freeper *ss--Par Excellence.
I thought it was a hawaiian food you dip your jabooty into.
I for one [giggling] like the other patriots at redstate [more giggling], stand by [cracking up at this point] ben, lets all stand by ben [rofl]
silly me, i thought economics where the SINGLE BIGGEST FACTOR in reducing crime but i guess thats just me.
oh, wait a minute.... let me see.. oh right, how come, forgive me my half-wit question but, how come, in Japan where abortion is also freely available crime is almost none existant. sounds like it supports Levitt's argument doesnt it. except it dont.
scratch your skull on that one Lapertoes.
but then you just re-read levitation, maybe he splains it.
Laertes,
Those states with more liberal abortion laws also, presumably, had more effective and generous social services, better employment and welfare systems, and better education systems...all of which received significant boosts at or around the same time that abortion became legal.
I am not attempting to refute levitt's argument, or get into a catfight with you over this particular issue - I am trying to get you to recognize the difference between Levitt's stated correlation and his inferred causation...and to recognize that similar correlations can and do occur, and that BOTH correlations can be and should be investigated using different operating hypotheses and starting assumptions.
Period.
Hubris Sonic,
Come on, now. If you take away TaciTool's pseudo-intellectual thesaurus-thumping, what will he do all day?
lets all stand by ben...
huzzah! [ROFL]
Back on topic:
http://www.redstate.com/comments...2434/5436/
26#26
Assume the worst and extrapolate. By: trevino
Assume, for a moment, that the plagiarism charge is true. For the sake of argument, assume that.
Now, having accepted this, what are we left with?
1. It is the sole critique of Domenech by the left with any objective merit.
2. It does not have much merit, as the profferred examples are:
-- Old, dating wholly from Domenech's teen years.
-- Confined wholly to movie reviews.
The Lord should be so kind that this would be the worst said of me at 19.
Little Josh jumps into the breach!
Except, Little Josh, here's the problem:
I had already had years and years of extremely strict guidance about plagiarism, copying, and other forms of cheating or stealing by the middle of high school. That includes students punished for copying, cheating, or plagiarizing while in GRADE school (failing marks, detention, and a letter to the parents at least). And this was in a pretty standard issue public elementary school in rural Maine. By the time high-school came around, plagiarism, copying, cheating, and other forms of BLATANT INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY AND STEALING were considered offenses worthy of a failing grade for the paper or test, for the class, and if repeated, suspension and ultimately expulsion from school.
By the time I was 17 or 18, there had been several students expelled entirely from school for plagiarism.
So, Little Josh, why not lecture us some more about standards, education, and moral values?
I had already had years and years of extremely strict guidance about plagiarism, copying, and other forms of cheating or stealing by the middle of high school. That includes students punished for copying, cheating, or plagiarizing while in GRADE school (failing marks, detention, and a letter to the parents at least).
BINGO! I'm damn near twenty years older than lazy-*ssed Ben and when I was in school, plagiarism was ver-f*cking-boten as well. A kid in my eighth-grade class got an F on a paper and thus failed the class for lifting chunks out of a People Magazine article my drunk-of-an-English-teacher Mr. Klein managed to remember the stolen parts from.
Eighth grade--and on. You know you're not supposed to plagiarze from early on. If you use someone else's work, you put "quotes" around it--something I learned maybe in sixth grade? Anyone who cares about the words they put to page, KNOWS that rule better than they probably know when to use its (a possessive) as opposed to "it's" (a contraction of it is.
Steal my horse, and I'll cut your legs--steal my words and I'll cut out your tongue.
Go ahead Ben...it's my phrase...steal it, you know you wanna, I-
Oh sh*t! Where'd it go? Who stole--
Goddammit Claude Allen! I see you running down that hall with my phrase! Coem back heeeeeeeeeeere!
Hubris Sonic, in an outburst he'll surely regret when he sobers up, says:
"oh, wait a minute.... let me see.. oh right, how come, forgive me my half-wit question but, how come, in Japan where abortion is also freely available crime is almost none existant. sounds like it supports Levitt's argument doesnt it. except it dont."
Laertes responds with far more civility than the subject deserves:
You're right. It does sound like it supports Levitt's argument. Levitt shows, after all, that freely available abortion reduces crime.
However, Levitt would surely make no prediction about what the crime rate ought to be in Japan given the state of their abortion laws, whatever it may be. There are a great many factors at work there.
All Levitt's work suggests is that if Japan already has legal abortion, banning it would raise crime rates. And if Japan has significant barriers to abortion, reducing those would lower crime rates.
The fact is, no combination of Japan's current crime rate and the state of their current abortion law would support or refute Levitt's argument, since it says nothing about the present relationship between the two. He merely shows how a change in the one will produce a change in the other. You would not, for instance, refute Levitt by finding an example of a country with a high crime rate and liberal abortion laws, or the reverse. You would damage his theory badly if you could produce an example of a liberalization of abortion laws that correlated strongly with a rise in crime rates 15-20 years down the road.
Dear Laportoes,
Levitt's work suggests nothing. Because its crap. its shit, much like the high sounding bullshit you are peddling. It isnt peer reviewed becaus he would have had his ass handed to him. He had a racist brain fart and went to find data to support it. Why didnt he look at Japan? Or Europe. Because he was a hack, a pathetic racist. IF his work had any basis in fact he would have 'published' it. He didnt.
feh. you soft spoken racists sicken me.
come on, stand up for what you believe in. You hate minorities. admit it. be man, you can do it.
"Those states with more liberal abortion laws also, presumably, had more effective and generous social services, better employment and welfare systems, and better education systems...all of which received significant boosts at or around the same time that abortion became legal."
Kudos for the "presumably" there when you wonder if the early-legalizing states had more generous safety nets. This uncertainty seems to have vanished by the time you got around to inventing the data that actually could provide an alternate explanation for Levitt's data, if it weren't just pulled out of your hindquarters.
If you could show, in the five early-adopter states that Levitt analyzes, as well as in Canada and Australia, that safety nets were strengthened in such tight correlation with the liberalization of abortion laws that it becomes impossible to isolate the two effects, you'd be on to something.
"Presumably" you can't actually do this?
As to your second paragraph, I must sincerely apologize. I've read it four times now and I can't pierce the fog of esoteria and extract any actual meaning from it. I'm sure you meant for it to say something, and I'll allow, arguendo, that it does so. But I just can't wrap my head around it. Can you try it again with smaller words for me?
I got dibs that the IP address for Lapertoes and the IP for the racist Tacitush are one in the same.
Oh holy shit I'm going to enjoy this.
"It isnt peer reviewed becaus he would have had his ass handed to him."
It was published in 2001, in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. On its' somewhat grandiose website it claims to be the oldest professional journal of economics in the English language. On the other hand, it's edited at Harvard, so they probably aren't bullshitting on that.
Ten seconds with Google would have led you to these links:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/...=8&xid=6&
xcid=0
http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/
...galized2001.pdf
Now, while you sit there dumbstruck with shame, here's some more:
Why didnt he look at Japan? Or Europe.
Maybe he DID look at Japan. Would you know? Did you read him?
I bet you didn't. Either that, or you need to look at a map:
Levitt: "Compared to Romanian children born just a year earlier, the cohort of children born after the abortion ban would do worse in every measureable away...and they would also prove much more likely to become criminals."
And just for fun:
"IF his work had any basis in fact he would have 'published' it."
Yes, it would. And he did. See those above links?
"He didnt."
Ho ho. Links.
Just out of curiosity, how stupid are you feeling right now?
Also, HS, while you're sitting there dumbstruck after having just walked into my outstretched leg (it's the most energy-efficient way to kick a motherfucker, after all), how about you quit throwing stupid accusations of racism instead of making actual, you know, arguments?
There are real racists out there, and when you cheapen the term by throwing it around so carelessly, it doesn't stick to the likes of, say, Domenech, the way it ought to.
you know what, you soft soaping dog whistle racist, you are right, I missed the publish info when I googled it.
I also missed this.
"There are no statistical grounds for believing that the hypothetical youths who were aborted as fetuses would have been more likely to commit crimes had they reached maturity than the actual youths who developed from fetuses and carried to term."
Economists Christopher Foote and Christopher Goetz published a criticism of Levitt's use of data
If you are not familiar with Scientist speak, Foote and Goetz are saying, His work is crap.
"criticism of Levits use of data"
much like your own.
who walked into who's ambush numbnuts.
and I call you a racist because you defend Levit. QED. heh, indeedy.
yummmy links scuttled
on the risk of being called a plagarist:
Just out of curiosity, how stupid are you feeling right now?
We show that when DL’s key test is run as described and augmented with state-level population data, evidence for higher per capita criminal propensities among the youths who would have developed, had they not been aborted as fetuses, vanishes.
now, i am just being mean, hunh.
hello, hello? anyone there?
Touche', Hubris Sonic. Taken together with Leavitt's other brain fart about his "low achieving" students (we won't mention race, oh,no!), his contention that "statistically speaking" the Klan isn't so bad as all that (no doubt the Box Turtle fervently agrees), to say nothing of his budsy-budsy relationship with Judge Posner, the torture proponent for love of whom Leavitt says (on his own website) that he left MIT for Chicago -- he is even more of a wretched piece of work.
Hubris--
I don't fully buy into the "legal abortion decreases crime" argument either, but I'm certainly not going to trust the analysis of a nutcase like Sailer, especially if I'm calling someone a racist.
Here's his site:
http://www.isteve.com/
He's usually writing at a white supremacist organization called VDARE:
http://www.vdare.com/why_vdare.htm
gordo, it doesnt matter. Dr Foote is a eminient economist, his charges against Levitt are devastating. They dont just say he interpreted the data wrong, they say his data collection process was faulty, his math was faulty and his scientific methods where faulty. its sort of career ending. hence Levitts attempt to be 'mainstream'
Which demonstrates a more breathtaking lack of awareness?
That you trot out a bunch of VDare links to refute the guy you're calling a racist?
Or that after angrily (and incorrectly) denouncing Levitt for failing to seek peer review, you purport to debunk him with links to a rant site?
the links are from vdare knucklehead.
I wont do your google work for you. try wiki pedia, its a encylopedia, thats a place where knowledge is stored.
you can also google it.
and I am not calling him a racist, he is one.
http://www.economist.com/
finance...tory_id=5246700
http://www.thebookstandard.com/
b...t_id=1001571974
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ste...i/
Steven_Levitt
and of course I posted Sailer, Levitt debated him for Slate. its relevant, i wont shy from it.
just to be clear, I did not present a 'bunch of links from vdare' i presented one link, from the guy Levitt debated. The quotes I posted where from Wiki and the econimist piece.
shall i find all the crap about Levitt equating crime with black people? or his eugenics stuff?
See, the thing is I dont need a doctorate to tell me his stuff is bullshit and a pack of lies. and i dont need to read his stuff to know that he didnt look at Europe or Asia. I didnt need to read the Bell Curve to know it was a pack of lies too. (although I did read it). See, I can smell the stench of a racist prop argument from miles away.
Oh and check out this guys cred's
Christopher L. Foote is a Senior Economist in the Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1987, and then worked for two years as a newspaper reporter in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He received an economics Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1996. From 1996 to 2002, Mr. Foote taught at Harvard University’s department of economics, where he also served as director of undergraduate studies. In July 2002, he accepted a position as senior staff economist with the Council of Economic Advisers, becoming chief economist at the CEA in February 2003. From May 2003 to September 2003, he served as an economic adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq, returning briefly to Iraq in January and February of 2004. He joined the Boston Fed in October 2003.
http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/...nbios/
foote.htm
note his expertise: Labor economics
as opposed to Levitt, a C level researcher who looks at crime statistics and tries to come up with controversial results.
Damn you, time difference! I missed the blogosphere's #1 reigning hypocrite, Josh "Tacitus" Trevino himself.
Wikipedia also has an article up about Stetson Kennedy.
The think is these racist, torture-loving Freak from Freakonomics have a column for the New York Sunday Times magazine.
The irony is, they are conservative, practicing Jews who have chosen to downplay the evil of the Ku Klux Klan, which Hitler confessed to have extensively imitated and which influenced the immigration policies that kept thousands of Jewish refugees from Hitler barred from our country sending them to certain death. It is more than a disgrace. It is pitiable. The New York Times, especially the Magazine is little more than toilet paper.
Sorry for typos - meant -- thing not think and freaks not freak.
But it is dismaying about descent of the NYT and Washington Post into Klan apologists/minimizers. What's WRONG with these people? My relatives came north to get away from such as the Klan.
Judging by what he said in this morning's chat, Milbank didn't have much to do with his hiring (first question):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp...6031701098.html
Here's an illustration of how to argue a point vs how not to argue a point.
Hubris Sonic argues against Levitt's abortion-crime correlation (for the most part) based on relevant facts, opening up a debate. True, he hasn't proved that Levitt is a racist, but he's at least offered to provide (at 5:25AM) supporting evidence.
Meanwhile, Harold is content to toss around accusations of racism (while making the unfounded assumption that "low achieving" is Levitt's code for "minority"), outright falsehoods (e.g. that Levitt claims the KKK wasn't all that bad), and the ever-popular guilt-by-association card (the relationship between Levitt and Posner). At this point, I doubt he even read Freakonomics. Which puts him in the same intellectual category as Ben Domenech.
Harold could learn something from Hubris Sonic.
Where is Josh? Was it too scary around here?
I respectfully suggest that Gracchus look at Freakonomics, pp. 61-62 in which Leavitt and Grubner detail how few lynchings the Klan was actually responsible for (i.e., could directly be laid at the door of the Klan). Subsequently, they devoted a large article in the NY Sunday Times magazine to a bogus attack on Stetson Kennedy's methods.
Together these cherry picked contextless numbers and accusations give an impression that tends to mitigate the harmfulness of the Klan and denigrate the methods and motivation of its critic.
I respectfully suggest that Gracchus look at Freakonomics, pp. 61-62 in which Leavitt and Grubner detail how few lynchings the Klan was actually responsible for (i.e., could directly be laid at the door of the Klan).
I'll take your word for it, but how is this stat indicative of racism of Levitt and Dubner's part? All they're saying is: "in year X, there were X lynchings -- not all of which were committed by sheet-wearing yahoos." In other words, some lynchings were committed by racist mobs, some by drunk good ol' boys, and some by the county sheriff.
Again, the stats are presented to show the waxing and waning of Klan-style (as opposed to Klan-perpetrated) terrorism in the U.S. over a given period.
Subsequently, they devoted a large article in the NY Sunday Times magazine to a bogus attack on Stetson Kennedy's methods.
First, I think they devoted a column to the issue, not a feature story. But that's a minor point.
What they wrote about, based on the postings here, was that the hero of their KKK chapter in Freakanomics may not have been honest about attribution when writing his book -- breaking basic rules like not indicating composite characters and incidents, taking credit for the actions of others, etc. Again, pointing this out doesn't make them racists, nor do they use it to negate their main thesis concerning his good works.
Together these cherry picked contextless numbers and accusations give an impression that tends to mitigate the harmfulness of the Klan and denigrate the methods and motivation of its critic.
As I recall, they sourced the stats pretty well, and used them to provide context (i.e. to show how the frequency of lynchings changed over the years) to the story of the Klan's influence. So they're drawing a correlation between Klan activity in particular and lynchings in general -- are you saying this is an unreasonable correlation to make?
As for the accusations regarding the book, they were citing another researcher's points, most of which seem to have been confirmed by Kennedy himself after the fact (e.g. his use of composites). Their aim was to supplement their book with further information -- that's what authors with columns frequently do. And honest authors don't shy away from showing the negative as well as the positive aspects of their heroes.
In short, you seem to be adding 1+1 and getting a result of 666 -- and that's bad math.
Hubris Sonic: when argueing a case based on fact, and eronious statistics it would be in ones best interest not to referance wikipedia. A dubious source at best, equvalint ot claiming as prof a note written in a bathroom stall.
I agree that Dubner and Leavitt make every effort not to appear racist, nevertheless, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and the net effect of what they write is racist.
It is bogus to make a distinction that some racial violence was Klan perpetrated and some was perpetrated by garden variety rednecks, when the Klan had thoroughly infiltrated Southern law enforcement and political leadership. It is a distinction without a difference.
I agree that Dubner and Leavitt make every effort not to appear racist, nevertheless, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and the net effect of what they write is racist.
Says who? You're entitled to your opinion, but that doesn't make it a fact.
It is bogus to make a distinction that some racial violence was Klan perpetrated and some was perpetrated by garden variety rednecks, when the Klan had thoroughly infiltrated Southern law enforcement and political leadership. It is a distinction without a difference.
Only to those who believe the Klan's "Invisible Empire" nonsense -- and that would exclude Stetson Kennedy, who sought to debunk that myth. The KKK, with its uniforms and silly rituals, is an easy target, but there were plenty of racist Southerners who didn't feel the need to dress up in sheets to conduct their lynchings. We've both seen the photos.
Levitt and Dubner didn't have any solid evidence that every single lynching was perpetrated by the Klan, so of course they included that disclaimer.
My opinion is not a fact, granted, but is supported by a preponderance of circumstantial evidence.
Much of what the Freaks of Freakonomics write is subject to racist interpretation and has been so interpreted by racists like Father Neuhaus and Ben Box Turtle. They have been accused employing mistaken and shoddy research by other economists and by scholars who have worked for years with the papers of Stetson Kennedy -- and by Kennedy himself.
Naturally, the Freaks in true post- modern fashion say that they are only being playful -- 'freakish' -- but the overall effect is pernicious, not playful. They can playfully laugh all the way to the bank, but their character and motivation are open for question. History will not be kind to them.
dont disparage wiki. you do the bidding of the corporate masters.
dont believe the hype.
My opinion is not a fact, granted, but is supported by a preponderance of circumstantial evidence.
I know you're a sincere guy, and you're on the right side in general, but please do yourself a favour: never use the above paragraph in a reality-based debate. Especially when you've presented no real evidence -- circumstantial or otherwise -- to support your claim.
I'm gonna wrap up here, because I'm repeating myself on certain basic core concepts and facts. You're imputing racist motives based on the fact that Levitt and Dubner dared raise controversial and challenging issues.
However, this is what scholars do: they question conventional wisdom, and they try to support their claims with empirical evidence. Their peers review their methodology and supporting evidence, and either agree or disagree. In the latter case, it begins a process of back-and-forth. That's what academic freedom is about, and has been since at least the first time Socrates asked an annoying question.
Now some, like David Irving, like Charles Murray, take advantage of that situation to push a racist or similarly nasty agenda using deliberately shoddy or dishonest data and methodologies. But peer review and hard evidence usually debunks and exposes these types pretty quickly. After that, given the nature of their research topics, it's not difficult to trace motive.
Levitt and Dubner, on the other hand, simply added a shading to a man they painted as a hero for completeness' sake. They didn't try to discredit his larger contributions (which would have wrecked their original thesis), they just said "in the book he may have claimed the experiences of others as his own." And (again) Kennedy admitted as much when he later discussed his use of composite characters and the like.
Now many of Kennedy's defenders on the issue, like Morris Dees, claim that the issue "doesn't matter." Which is true in the larger context of Kennedy's demonstrable heroism in taking on the Klan. Unlike Little Jimmy Frey, Kennedy's career was based on more than one book, and unlike Frey he delivered actual results.
But the issue most certainly does matter in the specific context of Kennedy's authorial methods. Why should Dubner and Levitt bring the issue up at all? Well, they were writing about the destruction of information assymetries, and Kennedy's book was a relevant part of their case study. And an honest scholar follows up when new information and relevant comes to their attention.
The debate over methodology and inputs concerning the separate issue of the abortion/crime correlation Levitt posits (again, without reference to race) was par for the course in economics -- as Hubris Sonic lays out, Sailer and others countered and critiqued with their own evidence, Levitt rejoindered and so on. All in public, thanks to the Internet --no claims of ivory-tower information assymetry here.
And with that, I'm done with this thread.
I am answering a on a dead thread but I question your assumption that Dubner, at least, is any kind of legitimate scholar. Leavitt is a prodigy from Harvard and MIT, obviously he is a brilliant, if misguided guy. Misguided, because he admires the neo-con defender of torture, Judge Richard Posner so much that he came to UC from MIT to be near him. Dubner is a nobody who is employed by the New York Times for reasons unknown. Their most notorious supposed cool, "freaky" "contrarian" facts turn out to conveniently support the status quo or the status quo ante.
I lived in the South for many years -- my father's family was Southern and had run-ins with the Klan. When I was living in the South there were five instances of local white on black murders (in the late 70s) in which the whte murderers were speedily acquited wih little or no consequences to themselves or their family. It was so commonplace as hardly to be news. There is no need for lynching. If you are the wrong race or political or religious persuasion and you happen to get murdered there might as well be no law. The law will be out of town or look the other way. The Klan is part of a larger system that benefits the big white landowners and employers.
As far as Stetson Kennedy's book not having much effect -- how could it? It was suppressed and he was red-baited. It had an effect in Europe where it was published by Jean Paul Sartre. None of this is mentioned by the trivializers of Freakonomics.
Commenting by HaloScan
