May 31, 2013

Republicans LIE MORE (GMU, based on politifacts)

May 28, 2013 Study: Media Fact-Checker Says Republicans Lie More

A leading media fact-checking organization rates Republicans as less trustworthy than Democrats, accd'g to a new study by Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University. The study finds that PolitiFact.com has rated Republican claims as false three times as often as Democratic claims during President Obama’s second term. Republicans continue to get worse marks in recent weeks, despite controversies over Obama administration statements on Benghazi, the IRS and the AP.
.. CMPA President Dr Robert Lichter, “While Republicans see a credibility gap in the Obama administration, PolitiFact rates Republicans as the less credible party.”
.. The study examined 100 statements involving factual claims by Democrats (46 claims) and Republicans (54 claims), which were fact-checked by PolitiFact.com during the 4 month period from start of Obama’s second term on Jan 20 - May 22, 2013.

Major findings: PolitiFact rated 32% of Republican claims as “false” or “pants on fire,” compared to 11% of Democratic claims – a 3 to 1 margin. Conversely, Politifact rated 22% of Democratic claims as “entirely true” compared to 11% of Republican claims – a 2 to 1 margin.
2.. majority of Democratic statements (54%) were rated as mostly or entirely true, compared to only 18% of Republican statements.
3..Conversely, a majority of Republican statements (52%) were rated as mostly or entirely false, compared to only 24% of Democratic statements.
4.. Despite controversies over Obama admin statements regarding Benghazi, the IRS and AP, Republicans have continued to fare worse than Democrats, with 60% of their claims rated as false so far this month (May1 –May22), compared to 29% of Democratic statements –2 to 1 margin.
5..This study's findings are similar to a previous CMPA study, which found PolitiFact gave more negative ratings to the Romney campaign than the Obama campaign during the 2012 presidential campaign.

Examples of ratings: Pants on Fire {LIE}: Michele Bachmann de..(May 2013) (need say more?)
True: Obama says bipartisan background check plan “outlawed any (gun) registry.” (April 17, 2013) http://www.cmpa.com/media_room_press_05_28_13.html

Politifact response: We’ve gotten questions this week from media reporters about a study from George Mason University on our work. Their press release claims that PolitiFact found that Republicans "lie more" than Democrats. Actually, PolitiFact rates the factual accuracy of specific claims; we do not seek to measure which party tells more falsehoods.

May 23, 2013

Guns on Campus, 1824

Written in 1824, the rules set down by Jefferson when founding the University of Virginia, stated: "No student shall, within the precincts of the University, introduce, keep or use any spirituous or vinous liquors, keep or use weapons or arms of any kind, or gunpowder, keep a servant, horse or dog, appear in school with a stick, or any weapon .." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/david-barton-claims-that-_b_2674891.html

That from Ms. Chris Rodda, that fine historian who debunks rightwing authors & 2nd Amendment Mythology. In link below she, well, justifiably lauds her success for debunking 2ndA zealot david barton, when his book was later adjudged by HNN readers as: the 'Least Credible History Book in Print'.

Chris Rodda: One year ago today, on April 10, 2012, a new book hit the shelves -- David Barton's The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson.
Although Barton has been writing "history" books for well over two decades, he was relatively unknown outside of evangelical Christian circles and those of us who fight historical revisionism until a few years ago, when Glenn Beck, by making him his resident "historian" and new BFF, propelled him to Christian nationalist rock star status. To the disdain of history lovers and real historians, Barton's Jefferson Lies rose to #11 on Amazon and became a NY Times bestseller.
Barton's book was, of course, met with immediate criticism and debunkings from the usual suspects (like me) who have been exposing his historical hogwash for years, and in July, it was voted the "Least Credible History Book in Print" by readers of the History News Network. None of this criticism and exposing of the numerous blatant lies in Barton's book, however, was anything that Barton hadn't dealt with before from the secularists who seek to destroy America's Christian heritage. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/one-year-ago-today-the-le_b_3048771.html

Oh, & Chris lists a bunch of early gun accidents, debunking barton:

1 Litchfield Monitor, Litchfield, Conn- Apr10, 1793: "On Tuesday the 9th inst. Wm Case, aged 18, died of a wound received in his right arm by the accidental discharge of a musket.. the deceased, in company with a young man of the neighbourhood, went in pursuit of ducks: On their way to the pond, the unfortunate, being forward of his companion, whose gun unhappily went off, the contents was lodged as above; he died a few days after the accident. -- It is hoped that this accident, among others, will be a lesson of caution to those who either for sport or exercise make use of fire arms."
2 Philadelphia Gazette, Sept 12, 1795:"A FATAL ACCIDENT. "On Tuesday last, a daughter of Mr. Thomas Davis, was at a Mr. Strutton of Amherst, and no person being present but children, a little son of Mr. Strutton, took up a loaded rifle, and while handling the piece, unfortunately discharged the ball through the head of Mr. Davis' daughter, at which instant she fell, and lay a considerable time before any grown person arrived. -- A lesson to the incautious heads of families."
3 Rural Repository, Leominster, Massachusetts, June 2, 1796: "ACCIDENT. - Hopkinton, last week a boy, about 14 years old, was shot by accident, as follows: another boy who was with him, not knowing the gun to be loaded, pointed at his side, and snapping it, the gun being charged, its contents entered one side -- medical assistance was called; but, alas! too late -- Death had seized him."

May 17, 2013

Town passes gun ordinance, brady sues

email I rec'd from brady campaign (so no link): The gun lobby extremists and city council members of Nelson pushed for and passed the "Family Protection Ordinance" {cough} — a new law requiring every household to own a gun and ammunition. That's right: If you live in Nelson, Georgia, you're now required by law to keep a loaded gun in your home.
.. the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed a lawsuit today against the City of Nelson, Georgia, alleging that its ordinance is unconstitutional and violates citizens’ First, Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
We are arguing that in America people have the freedom to make individual decisions about how to protect themselves and loved ones. A gun should never be forced on anyone who chooses not to own one.

Bravo Brady, Brava Sarah;
Nelson has about 1,400 residents (on google), so it's not that big a thing except for the forced gun ownership policy.
More gunnut double standard, towns can't ban handguns anymore, but they can require guns?
Reminiscent a bit of kennesaw georgia which required guns in households couple decades ago, but allowed for exemptions. A crime comparison between kennesaw & morton grove illinois which banned handguns (up till 2010) resulted in kennesaw regularly having approx 30% higher crime rates than 'da grove', with similiar demographics & past populations (kennesaw has two zip codes, one higher in crime then the other but morton grove generally bested both).

May 11, 2013

concealed carry in national parks, per liar coburn

Tom Coburn (R sen, okla) May 9th, 2013 interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe": "In 2010, everybody said you can't dare let guns go into the national parks, and of course the rapes, murders, robberies and assaults are down about 85% since we did that."

LIAR.

Politifact, may 9, 2013: As we noted, the law went into effect in {feb} 2010, so the most obvious way to frame the comparison would be to use the data from 2009 (the last full year before the gun ban was lifted) and 2011 (the most recent year) --- {DISAGREE, 2010 could be counted as first year of ccw allowance since 'february' enabled, thus 10 months with ccw allowed}.
And as it turns out, the comparison to 2009 is not nearly as favorable to Coburn’s overall point. Between 2009 and 2011, these four categories of violent crimes actually rose collectively by 5 percent. Robberies did decline by 9%, but murders more than doubled (from a very small base), the number of rapes was stable and the tally of aggravated assaults -- by far the most common of these four crimes -- rose by 9%.

.......... murder .. (rape,robb,aggr asslt) .. total violcrime
2008 ......... 5 ............. (see link) ................... 367
2009 ......... 3 ................................................ 307
2010(ccw) .. 15 ............................................. 369 - ccw enabled february
2011 ......... 7 ................................................ 323
change 08 - 11: +40% murder .................. -12% total v-crime (Coburn's world, hardly 85%)
change 09 - 11: +133% murder ................ +5% total v-crime
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/may/09/tom-coburn/tom-coburn-says-after-national-park-gun-ban-lifted/

Coburn’s office acknowledges that he misspoke {altho he cited accurately from his 2nd Amendment Mythology Bible}; they actually calculated a decline of 12%, which is dramatically lower than 85%. But we find even the revised statistic to be questionable. It hinges on using {cherry picked start year} 2008 data, when 2009 data would be more appropriate -- and a comparison using data from 2009 actually shows an increase in violent crime in national parks since the gun ban took effect. Meanwhile, it’s far from clear that guns had an influence on the relatively small number of crimes that take place in national parks.
We rate Coburn’s statement False.

MORE GUNS, MORE LIES

May 2, 2013

Advice column

clffrdjk: You shortened your walls of text into something kind of legible. Now start using quotation marks and hot links when quoting things rather than italics and I will be really impressed.

I'm not trying to impress you in the slightest. I'll post the way I see fit.
Something might be of interest to you, pass along to 'coke machine' if you see him, thanx:

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Skimming on its own should not be used when complete comprehension of the text is the objective. Skimming is mainly used when researching and getting an overall idea of the text. Nonetheless, when time is limited, skimming or skipping over text can aid comprehension. Duggan & Payne (2009) compared skimming with reading normally, given only enough time to read normally through half of a text. They found that the main points of the full text were better understood after skimming (which could view the full text) than after normal reading (which only viewed half the text). There was no difference between the groups in their understanding of less important information from the text..