Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

This fight is for everything.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

In my day, never was longer.

You are here: Home / Wouldn’t It Be Nice

Wouldn’t It Be Nice

by | 94 Comments

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If Radley would take a few minutes from defending the honor of Reason’s staff and teach his editor some basic math?

You’re right. It would probably take more than a few minutes.

I still find it really amusing that basically the only person I enjoy reading at Reason (there is Jesse Walker, too) has decided it is his job to defend his slimy cohorts from the invading liberal hordes.

And has anyone gotten around to explaining how a town handing out a bid during a competitive bidding process to serve 25,000 residents of a community in a county of 4 million people is a “state sanctioned monopoly?” See that blazing red spot on the map? We ain’t talking about the middle of nowhere in the desert. Or do these guys make up their own definitions to go with their new math?

*** Update ***

Look who is awfully fond of the Balloon Juice Fallacy:

enjoy the silence…

“I don’t have a view of what are natural rights independent of the Constitution,” Kagan said. In two days of testimony replete with the evasive maneuvers that she once complained had rendered Supreme Court confirmation hearings a “vapid and hollow charade,” her silence on natural rights was one of the most disturbing things she didn’t say.

http://reason.org/news/show/natural-reluctance

Did these liberals—some of whom frequently flashed their free trade credentials during the Bush administration—just forget what they used to believe? Or are they suppressing their principles until Obama announces that the economic crisis has finally been solved and we can resume regularly scheduled fiscal sobriety? Either way, their ongoing silence has to count as one of the great underreported political stories of the Obama presidency.

http://reason.org/news/show/death-of-neoliberalism

Although Chávez forcefully denied the existence of any such majority, insisting that it was his Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) that had obtained the majority of the national vote, his complete silence following the announcement of the results was a telling statement in itself:

http://reason.org/news/show/a-…..majorities

An Odd Silence on Gay Marriage
http://reason.com/archives/200…..y-marriage

That Caplan so deftly and convincingly argues that voter’s anti-market biases are, well, bad for democracy, and seeing as Alternet has yet to debunk Caplan’s book, I suspect that Alex won’t mind if I interpret his employers deafening silence as a damning concession.

http://reason.com/blog/2007/11…..ry-silence

i could go on.

Too funny.

Reader Interactions

94Comments

  1. 1.

    wsn

    Or do these guys make up their own definitions to go with their new math?

    It’s part of the orientation.

  2. 2.

    NR

    Q: How many libertarians does it take to change a light bulb?

    A: None. If it needs changing, the free market would do it!

  3. 3.

    EJ

    What’s odd is that IIRC this blog doesn’t really tend to engage in the “notice the silence from x” bullshit all that much, so not sure why they named it after you.

  4. 4.

    geg6

    Love how he equates you with Roger Ailes.

    And, thus, why I have no more use for Radley Balko than I do for the Fonzie of Freedom.

  6. 6.

    change

    This is hilarious, check out what Global Warming Believers were talking about in the year 2000:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/e…..24017.html

    However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.

    “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.

    The effects of snow-free winter in Britain are already becoming apparent. This year, for the first time ever, Hamleys, Britain’s biggest toyshop, had no sledges on display in its Regent Street store. “It was a bit of a first,” a spokesperson said.

    Fen skating, once a popular sport on the fields of East Anglia, now takes place on indoor artificial rinks. Malcolm Robinson, of the Fenland Indoor Speed Skating Club in Peterborough, says they have not skated outside since 1997. “As a boy, I can remember being on ice most winters. Now it’s few and far between,” he said.

    Michael Jeacock, a Cambridgeshire local historian, added that a generation was growing up “without experiencing one of the greatest joys and privileges of living in this part of the world – open-air skating”.

    Reality, just ten years later:

    Forecasters warned that parts of Britain could see record low temperatures this week of -26C (-15F). Heathrow will experience lows of about -9C (16F) tonight and further snowfall is expected in the South East during the evening rush hour.

    Motorists continued to struggle. The M25 was closed in both directions for about six hours while drivers on the M40 in Oxfordshire suffered severe delays.

    Commuters were warned to expect treacherous conditions with thick ice and freezing fog today. Train passengers also face delays and cancellations, particularly in the North. Eurostar services between London and Paris have also been affected.

    Snow and ice grounded the vast majority of flights in and out of Britain, with Heathrow the worst-affected airport.

    Hilarious.

  7. 7.

    me

    @EJ: Also, John did point out in that post that Reason, in the end, was not silent on that issue (Shelby’s blanket holds).

    @geg6: I wonder if that guys name really is Roger Ailes or if it’s a nick. If so how unfortunate.

  9. 9.

    And Another Thing...

    Sooo, in addition to basic math and vocabulary failure, Radley’s pissed at Roger Ailes (no not that Roger Ailes) so he takes a shot at Balloon Juice? WTF? These guys are massively incompetent. Up is down, black is white and Reason is……. It’d be funny if it weren’t so damn pathetic.

  10. 10.

    R. Johnston

    If libertarians were capable of numeracy and willing care more about getting things right than spreading propaganda useful to the cause then they wouldn’t be libertarians in the first place. Trying to teach basic math skills to a libertarian is like trying to teach a lion to be a vegan.

  12. 12.

    Rick Massimo

    And has anyone gotten around to explaining how a town handing out a bid during a competitive bidding process to serve 25,000 residents of a community in a county of 4 million people is a “state sanctioned monopoly?”

    Funny how the old “If you don’t like it you’re free to move” doesn’t apply in this situation.

  14. 14.

    geg6

    @change:

    Because weather = climate, right?

    Wrong. But keep telling yourself you’re right. Your delusions are quite entertaining.

  15. 15.

    cleek

    enjoy the silence…

    “I don’t have a view of what are natural rights independent of the Constitution,” Kagan said. In two days of testimony replete with the evasive maneuvers that she once complained had rendered Supreme Court confirmation hearings a “vapid and hollow charade,” her silence on natural rights was one of the most disturbing things she didn’t say.

    http://reason.org/news/show/natural-reluctance

    Did these liberals—some of whom frequently flashed their free trade credentials during the Bush administration—just forget what they used to believe? Or are they suppressing their principles until Obama announces that the economic crisis has finally been solved and we can resume regularly scheduled fiscal sobriety? Either way, their ongoing silence has to count as one of the great underreported political stories of the Obama presidency.

    http://reason.org/news/show/death-of-neoliberalism

    Although Chávez forcefully denied the existence of any such majority, insisting that it was his Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) that had obtained the majority of the national vote, his complete silence following the announcement of the results was a telling statement in itself:

    http://reason.org/news/show/a-tale-of-two-majorities

    An Odd Silence on Gay Marriage
    http://reason.com/archives/2009/08/20/an-odd-silence-on-gay-marriage

    That Caplan so deftly and convincingly argues that voter’s anti-market biases are, well, bad for democracy, and seeing as Alternet has yet to debunk Caplan’s book, I suspect that Alex won’t mind if I interpret his employers deafening silence as a damning concession.

    http://reason.com/blog/2007/11/21/the-angry-silence

    i could go on.

  16. 16.

    jacy

    OT, but sort of not, for those of you who can’t quite wean yourselves off Sully, he’s taken his leave and put the monkeys in charge again, so it’ll be twice the wankery, three times the contrarianism, and just a shade more cognitive dissonance than usual. Happy X-mas!

    ETA: At least there’s no Su-Su-Suderman, perhaps because McMegan’s got him chained in the basement doing a Christmas pantomime of the Fountainhead.

  17. 17.

    change

    @dmsilev:

    RTFA. Ten years ago they were saying “in a few years, we won’t have snowy winters anymore!” and pointing to the warm winter in 2000 as “proof” of global warming.

    Now? Lol, not so much.

    Shows you how much people want to believe their own Cult.

  19. 19.

    KG

    Here’s three things I’ve tended to notice about my fellow libertarians in recent years:

    1. many of them are closer to anarchists or oligarchs than they are believers in liberty

    2. most of them have no concept of what Hamilton called “ordered liberty” or that even Jefferson acknowledged (in the Declaration of Independence, no less) that government is necessary for liberty

    3. they have the same problem that many in the conservative movement have, that is, to them, it is always 1980 and the problem is always overregulation and the answer is always, always deregulation

    I get it, though. I was like that through college (late 90s) and the better part of the last decade. But as I read more about the Founders, and reread the Federalist Papers, and studied constitutional law (for the third time in law school), my view started to shift. I’m still a libertarian, but I think my understanding of liberty and what is necessary to form a more liberal/free society is different than “deregulate everything and cut taxes for everyone.”

  20. 20.

    matoko_chan

    @Cole
    the reasonoids are all first culture intellectuals.
    they dont understand math or science.

  22. 22.

    change

    Hint, Marxists: They’re TALKING ABOUT CLIMATE and their predictions have been utterly WRONG.

    “He who controls the past, controls the future” huh?

  23. 23.

    Sentient Puddle

    @change: I’m quite a fan of the headline of the article you linked:

    Sorry but we haven’t been able to serve the page you requested – please try again

  24. 24.

    Chyron HR

    This is hilarious, check out what Permanent Republican Majority Believers were talking about four days ago:

    DADT will remain the police of the US military into the distant future. No repeal is going to happen, liberals, we’re going to run out the clock on the insane duck session.

    Shows how much people want to believe in their own Cult.

  25. 25.

    pragmatism

    in the comments they look down their nose at a commenter talking about motorboating salma hayek. oh noes!!!! those guys figuratively fellate freidrich hayek constantly. its hard to make sense when one has their missle receiver full of austrian sausage.

  28. 28.

    change

    Now excuse me while I use my truck to go blow some sweet carbon on Mother Nature’s face while running errands.

    Have fun spinning this one, leftists!

  29. 29.

    Dennis SGMM

    @change:

    March 5, 2004: Global warming could plunge North America and Western Europe into a deep freeze, possibly within only a few decades.
    That’s the paradoxical scenario gaining credibility among many climate scientists. The thawing of sea ice covering the Arctic could disturb or even halt large currents in the Atlantic Ocean. Without the vast heat that these ocean currents deliver–comparable to the power generation of a million nuclear power plants–Europe’s average temperature would likely drop 5 to 10°C (9 to 18°F), and parts of eastern North America would be chilled somewhat less. Such a dip in temperature would be similar to global average temperatures toward the end of the last ice age roughly 20,000 years ago.

    Link
    Note the year that this was written. Now, search on “Atlantic conveyor current”. Or, you could simply dissolve in your own ignorance.

  32. 32.

    FormerSwingVoter

    @change:

    Heh. What exactly are you looking for? “It snowed, therefore all temperature measurements throughout the entire field over the last hundred years are completely wrong forever”?

    “Snow is less frequent” and “snow will never come again” are different sentences. You can tell from the words that are different. I’m not sure why you think that something existing somehow debunks it being rarer than before.

  33. 33.

    dmsilev

    @change: In the vain hope that you might learn something, here’s a hint for you:
    Google the phrases “long-term trend” and “statistical outlier”.

    dms

  34. 34.

    FormerSwingVoter

    @change: Noooo! You’re driving! Clearly, it is our deep seated resolve to ban all vehicles, and your using one to get from one place to another is offensive and horrifying to us!

  35. 35.

    Sentient Puddle

    @change: In any case, you’re clearly pulling out only the interpretation you want to read, and ignoring everything else. Isolating bits of those quotes…

    However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers.

    That sounds like a testable hypothesis, and one that data should be readily available for.

    According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.

    Less snowfall? Ditto. Should be statistics out there for that too.

    Thus, your homework now is to find data from 2000 to now and see how it stacks up.

  37. 37.

    Crusty Dem

    @change:

    From the one climate scientist quoted:

    Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. “We’re really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time,” he said.

    But I understand that it’s hard to read hiding under that bridge.

  38. 38.

    cleek

    @change:
    from the linked article:

    Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. “

    oh noes. the guy was right. this disproves everything.

  39. 39.

    licensed to kill time

    Every now and then a bit of loose change falls out of Rush’s pocket, rolls across the Intertoobs and lands here with a squishy tinkle. Once here it tries to dazzle with tired old slogans, bumper sticker talking points and ‘neener neener’ arguments.

    It’s kind of a squishy tinkle down theory in action, best ignored.

    replay from yesterday, will repeat as needed.

  40. 40.

    p.a.

    @Dennis SGMM: God bless you for your efforts, but what are you thinking? That this chump wants reasoned argument? Make some tea, prep supper, do something constructive…

  41. 41.

    FormerSwingVoter

    @change:

    Now excuse me while I use my truck to go blow some sweet carbon on Mother Nature’s face while running errands.

    I’m still trying to figure this one out. This seems like he’s expecting it to be this big “fuck you” to everyone here. Does he think that liberals/moderates don’t drive?

  42. 42.

    handy

    I still gotta give Nick Gillespie his props for his wardrobe. Nothing says contrarian badass like a worn out leather jacket. Kinda has the same effect Tucker’s bow tie.

  44. 44.

    The Moar You Know

    @change: You don’t have to convince me. I love pie too. Pecan is the best, especially this time of year if your make it with bourbon.

  45. 45.

    burnspbesq

    @change:

    Some people need to periodically be reminded that the plural of “anecdote” is not “data.”. You seem to be one of them.

  47. 47.

    Dennis SGMM

    @p.a.:
    You’re right. As an unreconstructed old hippy I still cling to the notion that sweet reason and the perfectibility of humans will triumph in the end. Making a cup of green tea.

  48. 48.

    And Another Thing...

    @licensed to kill time: Please do!

    Do you ever wonder what it would be like to work with the guy? It’s not that he has different policy/political beliefs, it’s that he’s so adolescent with his taunting, “hey everybody look at me” behavior.

  49. 49.

    dmsilev

    @FormerSwingVoter: The theory is that if liberals think something is a good idea, then doing anti-something pisses off liberals and is thus by definition a worthy ideal.

    Hey change, do you know what liberals also think is a good idea? Looking both ways before stepping out into traffic. We also believe in always turning off the circuit breaker before rewiring power outlets.

    dms

  50. 50.

    licensed to kill time

    @And Another Thing…:

    I would guess most have us have known a guy like that at some point in our lives. They’re the ones you sidle away from while murmuring about that thing you just remembered you had to do. If you’re being polite, anyway.

    Otherwise you just roll your eyes, point and laugh.

  51. 51.

    Gatsby

    This is yet another instance of “up is down”. How competitive bidding would be seen as a government monopoly shows an abysmal ignorance of basic economics — or basic logic for that matter. This is really beyond my comprehension.

  53. 53.

    Michael D.

    People who think climate change means less snow do NOT understand climate change. Climate change will mean MORE snow in the Arctic down the road. As the ice caps melt, there will be more moisture in the air and we will probably see massive amounts of what amounts to “lake effect” snow. With more snow, more heat will be reflected off the planet.

    The end result of the climate change we are experiencing is likely an ice age.

  55. 55.

    joe from Lowell

    @Dennis SGMM:

    Or, you could simply dissolve in your own ignorance.

    I like the way this particular troll seems to think that it damages climate scientists’ credibility that they modify their theories in response to new data.

    @change:

    Now excuse me while I use my truck to go blow some sweet carbon on Mother Nature’s face while running errands.

    Oh yeah, that reminds me: Obama and the Democrats raised the CAFE standards last year.

    Enjoy your truck while it lasts. Which plug-in do you think you’ll replace it with in three years? Nissan’s or GM’s?

  56. 56.

    Tim F.

    You all invested a lot of energy in a guy who clearly doesn’t understanding what he’s linking. Do you think he will weigh your evidence and change his mind?

  57. 57.

    Ailuridae

    @burnspbesq:

    Some people need to periodically be reminded that the plural of “anecdote” is not “data.”. You seem to be one of them.

    I think I might need to regularly borrow that.

  58. 58.

    Ailuridae

    @Gatsby:

    Sadly for Balloon-Juice readers this is exactly the argument that BJ front pager ED Kain made here for a couple of weeks.

  60. 60.

    4jkb4ia

    @jacy: Hey, what’s wrong with Conor Freidersdorf?

    I am POd at Sully right now because he forced me to waste my afternoon looking up the Lester Bangs quote I wanted in response to his QOTD link.

  62. 62.

    joe from Lowell

    @change:

    Too bad full size trucks are exempt from cafe, Joe.

    Not anymore; under the new rules, they’re counted as part of the fleet-average that manufacturers have to meet.

    Ha ha. So, how many miles does the last large truck you’re ever going to own have on it right now?

  64. 64.

    Belvoir

    This is sort of boring but germane. One theory scientists have, and it sound pretty credible, is that the reason Britain and N. Europe are experiencing colder and harsher winters is because the warm waters of the Atlantic gulf stream is being interrupted by the flow of arctic waters south. The warm gulf stream sweeps up the East Coast from the Carribbean and across to N Europe. But the cold Labrador Stream, plunging downward from the north has increased in flow from disappearing ice and melting glaciers. Britain and N Europe aren’t getting the warm waters that kept winters fairly temperate for ages.

    So yes, the unusually snowy conditions there do have something to do with the global warming aspect of climate change, scientists believe.

  65. 65.

    Ben

    Radley has just responded and shown that none of your 5 examples are actually examples of this particular fallacy.

  66. 66.

    John Cole

    @cleek: Don’t look now. Radley’s attributing your stuff to me and busting out the old “But it’s different when we do it!” defense.

    Let’s see how worked up we can get him. I mean, he started out jabbing us because he was mad at Roger Ailes, and now looks worked into a total froth. If we provoke him enough he might say something so stupid he’ll get a ‘Heh, Indeedy!’ from a true libertarian hero like Insty.

    And back to Roger Ailes- I’m sure in years to come we’ll all remember Reason’s huge contribution to ending DADT. Not.

  69. 69.

    malraux

    @The Moar You Know:

    I love pie too. Pecan is the best, especially this time of year if your make it with bourbon.

    Entirely offtopic, but I had the realization that pretty much everything I add vanilla to would taste better with whiskey in it as well. So I just made my own vanilla with beans and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Now everything gets some extra flavor.

  71. 71.

    Meanderthal

    I wonder if “change” is the same guy as “truth” who used to troll over at Sadly, No! He’s got the same kind of patter: utter insipidity, combined with just enough of a troll’s true art to get people to bite every single time.

    That kind of continuity is always heartwarming. Oh, wait, that’s bile.

  72. 72.

    birthmarker

    @malraux: Mmmmm. Sounds sooo good… How ’bout a food thread, John? Like ways to perk up standard Christmas dinner fare, maybe??

  73. 73.

    SRW1

    @change:

    Apart from the Atlantic conveyor belt that has already been mentioned: Getting both hotter summers and colder winters is evidence that the climate is not moving out of kilter?

    Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

  75. 75.

    4jkb4ia

    After attempting to defend John at Balko’s place–

    John, there is ambiguity. You could be writing “Too funny” about cleek’s post instead of Reason, for example. But an ordinary reader would assume that you endorsed what cleek wrote.

    Roger Ailes appeared to have written, “Reason doesn’t care about DADT because they didn’t write about it the day it was repealed.” Out of those five, you have one ongoing silence that could be used to say these people don’t care, one using this line of argument against someone else who has used the line of argument, two “silences” that are really someone not able to articulately express their views, and one silence that is meaningful because it is silence–Chavez’s. So maybe you have two.

  76. 76.

    les

    @Belvoir:

    Absolutely right. Consider: Paris is further north than Chicago, but historically has had much milder winters for that very reason. In another bad feedback loop for climate change, European winters are likely to get worse with warming, generating more carbon to keep warm. But asshole idiots like change will deny till snow doesn’t exist. Oops, neither will we, in all likelihood, at that point.

  77. 77.

    New Yorker

    Guys, why do you respond to him?

    Does someone who writes this….

    Now excuse me while I use my truck to go blow some sweet carbon on Mother Nature’s face while running errands.

    …really dignify so many responses? Don’t sink to his level. Ignore him. He won’t get the satisfaction he’s looking for.

  78. 78.

    El Cid

    Global warming is fake because it was all made up by a couple of scientists on their e-mail. This was well proven by people who read the e-mails and thought they knew what they meant.

    Also, if global warming is happening, it is natural and caused by changing output of the Sun. We know this because it’s simple common sense because the Sun is HOT and also none of these so-called scientists have ever thought of looking up at the Sun and asking if it was doing anything or measuring it or sending up satellites or nothing. Nope, they’ve got their liberal blinders on and listen to Al Gore instead of borrowing a telescope from Glenn Beck.

    Plus, global warming if it is happening isn’t a problem, because the Earth has been through big temperature changes before. This means that nothing can ever be affected by man-made activities because the Earth is big and mostly does stuff on its own. A long time ago we had a lot more oxygen in the atmosphere and you had giant spiders and centipedes and such and you didn’t hear any of them complaining.

  79. 79.

    les

    @Juice:

    Maybe so, maybe no–as usual, it’s hard to argue with the yahoos because reality has a habit of being complicated.

    Oops, don’t intend to refer to you as a yahoo, Juice. From what I read, the impact of the Greenland meltdown is minor as yet, but other changes are impacting the Gulf Stream already, and the impact of meltwater is likely to be real if not currently. Heh, heh.

  81. 81.

    Juice

    @les:

    Yes, yahoos would be wary of just leaping to conclusions.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/6/822520/-Freak-Current-Takes-Gulf-Stream-to-Greenland

    The strength of the gulf stream is fine.

    The NAO shifted it this year closer to Greenland so that Greenland is having a warmer than normal year and northern Europe is having a colder than normal year.

    For the time being there is also a blocking high pressure zone over northern Canada and Greenland contributing to the arctic air spilling into northern Europe.

    http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=42260

    The same thing happened last year.

    Again, none of this has the slightest thing to do with greenhouse gases.

    It’s weather, not climate.

  82. 82.

    Stillwater

    @4jkb4ia: But isn’t Balko shifting the goalposts here? He defined the Balloon Juice Fallacy initially as an ‘arbitrary deadline to respond’, or not responding quickly enough. Then he redefined it to exclude it’s applicability if ever, in the long storied history of a blog or media outlet, someone somewhere has commented on that particular topic. Isn’t that just an instance of the Goalpostus Movearoundus Fallacy.

  83. 83.

    Stillwater

    @El Cid: You left out one: that God is a benevolent being who would never cause humans undo harm like he did in the big flood, or various other famines or pestilences.

  84. 84.

    Jonas

    Not one of the articles John Cole quotes from “cleek” actually shows anything like what John Cole and “cleek” accuse Reason of doing.

    Too funny.

  85. 85.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @change:

    If you really want to piss liberals off I would recommend that you pull your truck in the garage, leave it running and close the garage door. Then get back in the truck, roll the windows down and floor the gas pedal for ohhh, maybe a half hour. That would really piss the liberals off, trust me!

    When you’re done be sure to drop back in here and tell us about it so you can piss us off too!

    Good luck and remember, have fun!

  86. 86.

    MarkusR

    Obviously anything over 20% is waste. It must be, by definition. Otherwise you are claiming that definition of non-wasteful spending is something that relies on the actual utility of the spending. Clearly this is wrong. Because hey, you could end up with 100% not being waste!! 20 is the number. The exact number. The magic number.

  87. 87.

    fasteddie9318

    @change:

    For God loves us so, he gave us pie.

    Hey, man, that’s really beautiful. I have to say, the quality of your contributions has really shot through the roof since you started writing about pie all the time.

  88. 88.

    mds

    @fasteddie9318:

    I have to say, the quality of your contributions has really shot through the roof since you started writing about pie all the time.

    Indeed, I think we all owe cleek another round of applause for the pie filter. And by “cleek” I naturally mean “John Cole,” and by “John Cole” I naturally mean “Roger Ailes,” as Balko and his illiterate schmibertarian fanboys have so astutely ferreted out.

  89. 89.

    Will Oliver

    I’m not trying to start an argument, but I read all those links in the update and none of them apply to the Ballon Juice Fallacy argument.

    Can someone post a non-snark comment explaining?

  90. 90.

    cleek

    @John Cole:

    Don’t look now. Radley’s attributing your stuff to me and busting out the old “But it’s different when we do it!” defense.

    he’s a fucking idiot.

    i love that he gets all “didn’t bother reading” while accusing you of writing what you’re clearly quoting.

    and his defense of the quotes are “no, the article is really about ____” ? or “no, it was in response to ____” ?

    so, the definition of “BJ Fallacy” is whatever he wants it to mean whenever it suits him best.

    again: a fucking idiot.

  91. 91.

    cleek

    @Will Oliver:
    of course they all apply.

    the BJ Fallacy, as originally stated, is :

    This arbitrary deadline/”notice the silence from x” method of argumentation will henceforth be known as the Balloon Juice fallacy.

    all of the things i quoted are instances of people using the “his/her/their silence is telling” thing. in each of those cases, the silence is supposed to signify something deep and damning.

  92. 92.

    Steve Verdon

    Cleek’s last example is actually a counter-example. Moynihan is using the “the deafening silence obviously means…” fallacy against Zaitchik. Reading the entire article helps one not look like a “fucking idiot”.

  93. 93.

    Steve Verdon

    @cleek:

    So just curious, how does a Supreme Court nominee refusing to answer a direct question relate to the Balloon Juice Fallacy? To me it doesn’t seem to relate at all. If the question was never asked and she never commented on the issue…then yeah I can see it applying, so the first one doesn’t seem to work either.

    The last one is using the Balloon Juice Fallacy to highlight how its a fallacy. So again, doesn’t apply.

    And Balko does not appear to have attributed the quoted portion to Cole, but castigates him for repeating it without seeing if the examples fit. The first two don’t.

    Even the second one is a bit of a stretch:

    Did these liberals—some of whom frequently flashed their free trade credentials during the Bush administration—just forget what they used to believe? Or are they suppressing their principles until Obama announces that the economic crisis has finally been solved and we can resume regularly scheduled fiscal sobriety? Either way, their ongoing silence has to count as one of the great underreported political stories of the Obama presidency.

    They used to believe something, now they are silent on that topic. Not exactly the samething as remaining silent on a topic one has never held forth on.

    The one on same-sex marriage actually reports on the refusal of opponents of same-sex marriage to go on record with regards to their fears regarding same-sex marriage. Given that the question is asked and people refuse to go on record noting that seems reasonable. Again, doesn’t quite fit the fallacy. And for extra irony awards, this whole thing started over gay rights…

    So, no Will Oliver is right, none of these appear to fit the fallacy. Balko doesn’t claim Cole found these examples, but that he quoted your list without doing even rudimentary fact checking.

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