Another rule that seems applicable is this one:
Penalties
Users who consistently violate our policies will receive a warning. Users who fail to heed our warning may be banned from the site.
Please share widely!
Reality-based commentary on politics.
To the best of my knowledge, just the rules as posted.
You can always email any of us directly if you have a concern.
one of you (can’t remember) has requested that postings be limited so as not to hijack BMG. I think it might be a good rule to adopt.
And it wouldn’t be a bad rule to adopt.
But in this instance, are you referring to the three recent posts by mplo? Those all came on three different days; it’s just that no one else posted anything on the 25th or 26th, and she was the first to post on the 27th, so I don’t think that her posts rise to the level of hijacking.
Their fact to opinion ratio is a bit slight, but she is also new here. Hopefully our welcome wagon can improve the ratio.
that ratio improves and I hope your optimism turns out to be correct. It was my experience responding in one of those diaries and reading through the others that the “fact vs. fiction” ratio was quite high.
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p>Most annoying was that MPLO continued to spout fiction even though other posters (myself included) continued to point out the inaccuracy of her statements. Even so MPLO repeated the lies over and over again.
I share your disappointment.
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p>In the doggie diary, accusations of lying, being just like Fox News, etc. tend to harden not soften positions. Rhetoric like that has its place (e.g., crushing political opponents) where I might embrace it heartily.
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p>There are big differences between lying, ignorance, and being mislead. If one starts from the last premise, (“I understand why you think that. I might have thought that too. But …”) one is more likely to steer things in a helpful direction.
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p>It is the season for generosity. No?
A little ray of sunshine in the normally gray land of the blogosphere. Thank you, KBusch, and [insert authority of choice here] bless us every one.
I would normally agree with both of you. In this instance, I don’t. Here’s why:
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p>When you don’t call a lie exactly what it is up front and with vehemence, you end up with WMD. Weapons of mass deception or weapons of mass destruction, take your pick. It’s time to call a lie what it really is before it can do any damage. If something is posted as an opinion, your method would be extremely worthwhile in engaging and having debate. However, when there is factual mispresentation and a very clear agenda that seeks only blind agreement, I’m not with you on this one. I’m reminded of watching Colin Powell at the UN with all the facts presented about known WMD, where they were, how all the inspectors were wrong and how evil Saddam Hussein was. Too bad nobody stood up and said “you’re full of shit” at that time and called him on his and the necons hidden agenda. I’m fairly sure if I used your very nice agreeable approach, the agenda would have been the same and the nicety would have opened the door even wider for even more elaborate fabrication. I think the term is enabling and enabler.
also reminds me of the book “Games People Play”, one of my all time favorites. In particular, the game of “Ain’t It Awful” is appropo. You pick a topic that is almost certainly guaranteed to get you the agreement that you desperately want, which is the entire purpose. It feels good to have people go along and builds the ego. You’ve got to be very needy to play this one, and it’s a cinch to fool people into feeding your needs. The only problem is that sometimes you don’t get full agreement, and this makes the game very unpleasant and meaningless and you must start all over again. And you get very angy at those who don’t feed you because they are thwarting your game.
What is your opinion of Dr. Eric Berne’s theory of the games, played only by women (according to Berne, if memory serves), called “Let’s You and Him Fight” and “Rape-o”? A little sexist, perhaps? I wonder what Berne’s favorite game was.
there were a few that would not exactly stand up to the light of day now. There does, however, remain some relevance to his concepts. Kind of reminds me of Ayn Rand to some extent. Her concepts behind reason and reality had some validity, but the rest was utter nonsense. Did you ever read the creed of Ayn Rand? Imagine Berne and Rand getting together (he he)! The ones that really crack me up:
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I’ve been reading a book that I received as a gift, “Why People Beleive Weird Things” subtitled: PseudoScience, Superstition and Other Confusions of Our Time. There’s a chapter that I was just reading entitled The Unlikeliest Cult, which is all about Ayn Rand. It’s an excellent book that encourages skeptism. I highly recommend it, especially for the chapters on evolution vs. creationism. I haven’t yet reach the chapters on Holocaust denial.
The book lolorb mentions was written by Michael Shermer. I’ve seen him on TV shows and he’s very interesting. I remember he was on the PBS show that discussed the letters exchanged between Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis on the existence of god. He’s an interesting guy.
Shermer has had a monthly column in Scientific American for several years.
should read the back cover of books to find out about author. Shermer is also the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine that has a web site. I’ve become a fan.
I’ll have to check that out.
Why are the only books you guys read seem to be about psychology? Lakoff, the stuff in this thread. What’s wrong with Kansas? Don’t you ever read a novel?
In the past year I’ve read Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, Vonegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five”, Hawthorne’s “Blithedale Romance”, James Weldon Johnson’s “Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man”. I’ve read a few dramas, namely O’Neil’s “Hairy Ape”, Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”, Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”, and Satre’s “No Exit”. In the non-fiction category I’ve read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X “, “Why We Can’t Wait” by Martin Luther King and Seneca’s “Letters from a Stoic”. Why, is there any novel in particular that’s on your mind?
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p>Next on my shelf is Steven Pinker’s “The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature”, so that fits your stereotype, lol.
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p>To be honest, I really don’t enjoy the novel as an art form. There are some novels that I think are fantastic, but for full-length books I much prefer non-fiction with scholarly leanings. I want to read Ralph Waldo Ellison’s “Invisible Man”, but I’d much prefer 500 pages of non-fiction science-y stuff to a novel. For fiction I prefer drama or short stories.
the novel “verhalen van de tweelingbroers” by tonke dracht. recently i’ve read the n.f. books “predator upon a flower” and “life and times of charles 1”.
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p>and you? anything not a novel?
Why yes, I do read a lot of psychology these days although every fourth book I read is about the Middle East. In that regard, I can strongly recommend William Cleveland’s A History of the Modern Middle East. I have read and will read some specifically political books: Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter will follow Judith Beck’s textbook on cognitive therapy in which I am currently immersed. Next novel I intend to read is To the Lighthouse.
FWIW, I’m reading books on General Relativity and brushing up on quantum theory. A few years ago, I read Brian Greene’s book on string theory and pretty much concluded that it was nonsense–an interesting conjecture, but little else at this point in time.
Did you know there is a religion based on string theory? It’s called the Church of the Flying Sphaghetti Monster. I’ve become a follower.
…Church of the FSM. Its satire is funny as heck.
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p>Almost as good a satire as the Church of the Sub-Genius, headed by Bob. Do a search on Wikipedia.
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p>If you want something really nasty, go to http://www.jesusdressup.com
No, there was no particular novel on my mind.
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p>I have just noticed that you guys often seem to be excited by pop psychology books, especially pop political psychology. Games People Play (as an all time favorite!). Shermer. Lakoff.
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p>I wasn’t intending a criticism, just an observation. I would rather read “It Takes A Village” than these things.
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p>FWIW, I read more popular history than I do fiction. The last few books I have read are the last Harry Potter book, Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson (history if the US Civil War), and right now, When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Kay Penman. There is a Stephen Ambrose book, I forget which, on deck. I also have Gibbon’s Decline and Fall in the hole (baseball speaking), but it has been there for the better part of 7 years, and never seems to make it to the top of the pile. It will likely be bypassed by something again.
…I’ve read enough Shermer to know that he is not PopPsych.
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p>For that matter, neither is Lakoff when he’s discussing linguistics. To channel Rush Lamebrain, “words mean things” (horrible grammar, but what would you expect from Lamebrain?) and that is all that Lakoff is telling you.
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p>Dr. Phil, he’s PopPsych.
Pop psychology?
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p>Your books are misfiled.
I guess y’all read fiction after all.
Your screed against Ayn Rand is exactly correct. Rand was an idiot and a halfway marginally decent author. Actually, her books were best used as door-stoppers (literally) and movies made from them were boring as hell.
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p>There is, as I’m sure you know, an Ayn Rand Institute. Thom Hartmann, on AirAmerica almost weekly has someone from ARI on. Before I got totally bored listening to his discussions with them, I would literally be ROTFLMAO. They are stupid as–well–hell.
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p>You actually rolled on the floored, laughed and your ass fell off? My goodness.
And I agree, in general.
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p>I will not venture to speak for others but I certainly attempted to calmly and rationally point out the factual errors in the arguments. After repeatedly putting the facts forward and seeing them ignored and the inaccurate statements (being polite here) stated again and again frustration may have gotten the better of me.
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p>However, that is the point of this thread, isn’t it? After the facts are put forward and someone keeps putting out fiction aren’t we, as a supposed
supposed to say something?
BTW, I believe that I practice what I'm preaching here. Several months ago I posted a wholly erroneous diary. When someone pointed out to me that my facts were incorrect I left the diary up but put strikethrough almost the entire thing. I owned up to my error and apologized.
Good facts are what drive good discussions. When it was made clear that my facts were wrong I made it very very clear that I was wrong, the other person was right, and my argument was therefore moot.
I don't expect everybody to do what I did but if we cannot acknowledge that our facts are wrong when presented with them again and again and again and again (ok, I'll stop now) isn't it reasonable to expect the person perpetuating the lies to stop?
I am always moved, actually, when someone says their comments were wrong. It’s one of the few ways one can show courage and character on a blog.
Yes, mplo was particularly recalcitrant. I am reminded of an ancient exchange with vote3rdpartynow on abstinence education. Vote3rdpartynow asked, “forget the facts and figures and just tell us your gut feel about the issue.” For some people, opinions are part of their self-definition. Gut feel is all that’s important. Opinions are not views at which one arrives rationally. I don’t know whether that’s the case here or not, but I point that out as just one way in which rational disputation will be a dead end.
the dangerousness of pitbulls v. other breeds to the deception used by Cheney & company in the run-up to the Iraq War is a serious exaggeration. In terms of the “lies” that prompted this whole discussion, I’m assuming that someone was able to point to reliable statistics on dog attacks to refute the claims that were made. Is this indeed the case? My apologies for having lost interest in the thread and being perhaps underinformed.
The whole post on pitbulls caused me to research the issue extensively. I will be posting my results because there’s a lot behind the frenzy. It’s not just about pitbulls, they’re really just the canary in the coal mine on certain civil liberty issues. Numerous posters, me especially, provided fact after fact with the only result being more inaccuracies and more fantastical fabrication. An average dog bites with a force of around 320 psi. I think somehow that became imaginarily inflated by the poster during the course of the thread to something like 2000 psi for pitbulls. At that point, pitbulls were becoming magical mystical creatures who could bite like crocodiles and great white sharks!
While I don’t know you personally, and have been posting here on BMG just a short time, I been posting online just generally long enough so that I’ve become a pretty good judge of character, even online, and, when I see you attitude towards me, regarding having a different opinion than you do on pitbulls, having also done research of my own, your ploy is clearly a case of dominance and control, to try to get me to shut up and not to express differences in opinion, and, if you think for one minute that I’m going to shut up and do what you want me to do, and comandeer the board, you’re sadly, sadly mistaken, babe!! I know you’d like to drive me off of BMG, but I’ve got news for you. Don’t hold your breath and expect me to capitulate to t h e
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p>The above-mentioned quote from your post shows your motivations, and I will not shut up and stop expressing my opinions. Lolorb, you’re a shrews, nasty, arrogant, conniving, domineering person, who I hope never to meet up with in public. I don’t like or even respect you, and I never will.
You were warned about the personal attacks and about providing facts to back up your statements, which were not “opinions”. Exactly where is your research? Something? Anything? Numerous posters debunked every fact you posted, yet I’m the bad guy? I believe this last post is an obvious example of your failure to comply yet again with the rules of the road. If it were not me, it would be someone else, so I take none of this personally. Don’t worry, you’ve had no impact on my desire to provide research that might actually benefit people and increase understanding.
You also deliberately dumped on yet another diary of mine that had absoilutely nothing whatsoever to do with the pitbull diary, by telling me “Go get help!” Since when do the rules of the road here prohibit different opinions from being expressed. There are plenty of other forums that permit different points of view, and, if that’s that case on here, than this particular blog is not as tolerant and accepting of other people’s viewpoints as the title of this blog/forum implies. Maybe I’m not interested in learning anything from you, lolorb, especially after this. It seems that you’re making me out to be the bad guy, because I do my own research without providing links. Sorry, lolorb, but I will not be bullied around like this. I really don’t care where you’re coming from, because I don’t think I’ve got anything to learn from you. Thanks.
If lolorb has collected a bunch of useful information about pit bulls, that could only be a good thing. One can expect it to be well-sourced (ahem!) and, if there are biases in her sources, careful readers will be able to detect them. If your opinions do not align with the facts, it won’t be the end of the world for you. You won’t be banished to Siberia or forced to post on Red State, or have a lock put on your mouth like the unfortunate Papageno. Should that happen, I do hope it’s not the first time you’ve changed you mind.
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p>Neither you nor I know the first thing about lolorb. People’s online persona does not necessarily match their life in the real world. Perhaps lolorb’s comments were nasty or domineering, but there was nothing conniving about them. Lolorb has also worked hard for a number Democratic causes that benefit us all. You and she most likely agree on more things than you can count. Lolorb is not some evil demon.
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p>Could you maybe make this less personal?
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p>My objection on the pit bull thread was that things had become too personal. It had become about you rather than about the topic.
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p>At this point, you’ve become part of making it too personal.
This:
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p>Lolorb was the one who made it that way by starting off with her “you don’t have a clue” attacks.
I agree with that and I said as much.
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p>However, you are persisting in keeping it personal. It’d be nice if you could rise above the personal stuff, show some generosity, and engage in the world of facts. Saying bad stuff about lolorb is not so useful in my opinion.
Frankly, I really don’t care whether I get banned or not, because lolorb’s not an innocent person here either. She just doesn’t get it! I don’t want to alter my positions to suit her or anybody else on here.
and maybe people will take your opinions more seriously.
Which tagline?
n/m
knowing full well that, due to my somewhat different style of posting here, that even if I did, nobody would be satisfied? This is yet another way of trying to get me to go along with the prevailing opinion(s) even if I don’t agree with it(them).
Sorry, babe, but I’m not buying it.
Let me repeat with minor ornamentation.
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p>This is not a zero sum game, i.e., it is not you or lolorb. It is not as if just one of you is right and just one of you is wrong. It is certainly not about whether lolorb is a fine person or not.
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p>It is ridiculous to suggest that anyone here is asking you to change your positions based on their say so. I don’t know where the heck you get that. Do you still hold the “position” that Obama is both a U.S. Senator and a State Senator simultaneously after I pointed you to his successor in Illinois?
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p>Finally, why are you so concerned about your “positions”? You’re not running for office with positions that have been researched by a team of staff members. In some cases you’ve put forth stuff that’s counter-factual. (Example: Obama.) There’s no harm in that here if you accept evidence. There is a problem here if you resist evidence.
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p>If lolorb offers to supply evidence, that’s a good thing.
When some of us put up posts (“diaries” they’re called on Daily Kos and elsewhere), we think it’s important to marshal a lot of links and evidence. If you look at how the three editors post, you’ll see that’s what they do. Or take an excellent post by Sabutai on Belgium. Perhaps you are encountering an expectation that when you put up a post, it is not a brain dump of whatever opinions and memories of facts happen to be lying around in your head. There might be an expectation that posts, since they take up some of our bandwidth, should be well-thought out and documented. For example, I have all sorts of thoughts rattling around my head about eduction policy but I know next to nothing about it and I’d never dream of putting up a post about it.
Note that gary, geo999, EaboClipper, and Peter Porcupine often post here. I believe they are all Republicans. The presence is strong testament to the room to disagree.
However – it is my choice to participate, and play it as it lays.
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p>BYW, KB – Not all people who disagree with progressives are Republicans. There is a fair amount of libertarians and general purpose conservatives out there too.
I am certainly aware that there are non-Republicans who disagree with the consensus here — and frankly, I wish that there were more non-liberal Democrats and independents here.
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p>In the context of our “discussion”, I needed the most extreme examples of disagreers.
I wonder if some of the problem here may be the difference between changing one’s facts versus changing one’s feelings?
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p>I certainly do not expect you to change your feelings toward pit bulls. You clearly dislike them and I can understand and appreciate that. I don’t like eggplant. Nothing you say or do will change my personal dislike of eggplant dishes.
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p>However, I do expect one to stop putting out incorrect information or opinions when confronted with the facts. If I put a diary that I don’t like eggplant because they’re toxic, cause the growth of unsightly hair in the ear, nose, and unmentionable areas, eat away the stomach lining and cause people vote for Libertarians,… that would be a problem. When someone put up information correcting my opinion piece it would only be apporopriate for me to correct my diary or at the very least admit the error in fact I made.
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p>Don’t change your feelings, hate pit bulls as much as you want, but stop putting out unaccredited opinion as fact.
pitbull discussion because it’s the holiday season, but now that you’re dragging innocent eggplants into the fray, I say enough.
If you were to post a diary denigrating the divine eggplant, I might be forced to deliver samples of my eggplant parmesan to the owners of this blog in order to prove their divine origins and convince them to ban you and your hate filled diatribes. Don’t make me do it.
I’m really sick and tired of all of you essentially saying to me “Defer to lolorb–she knows more than you do about pitbulls” Well, screw that…I’m not going to listen to it. Thanks I’ll do my own research-I’m capable of thinking for myself. Thank you.
A voice seems to have told mplo to defer to lolorb. Who knew straw men could talk?
However, that’s what the implication seems to be here, plus I’m a woman, not a man.
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p>Also, since pitbulls do seem to have a special appeal for rough-and-tough guys and/or criminal elements, one really has to ask him/herself
why that’s the case. Surely, there has to be a reason(s) for that. This is a question that should be looked into, imho.
Straw man
How come other dogs, including rottweilers,etc., don’t have the kind of appeal to the criminal element or rough-and tough guys that pitbulls have?
I say–there’s something about these dogs that provides that appeal. Why are pitbulls bred primarily for fighting and attacking, whereas most dogs aren’t? Why don’t you think about what you’re saying before making accusations, buddy? Hmmmmmmm??
Sometimes, it’s really hard to fool people. When you use language that is indicative of sex, you really do give yourself away. Whatever your are, it’s not female in the normal sense. Women don’t use “babe” and “cunt” in the way that you have, nor do Democrats commonly refer to adversaries as “closeted”. There’s a whole litany of issues here, but I defer to others for making that determination.
I’m as womanly as any woman that’s ever lived, and you should know that there are many differents of women. Don’t hand me that “not being female in the “normal” sense” That’s baloney, imo.
I don’t recall ever telling you to defer to lolorb or anybody else. I certainly have, however, asked you to defer to facts.
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p>Defer to Galileo, defer to Einstein, defer to anybody or nobody, but follow the facts to their destination.
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p>As I am fond of quoting the Honorable deceased Senator Moynihan…
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n/m
You should defer to the facts coming from me because NO facts are coming from you.
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p>Don’t take the facts that come from me. Take the facts that come from any of the many other people who posted facts from reliable sources in that thread.
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p>Have you made your New Year’s resolutions yet?
Who croaked and made you the boss of the universe?? Hmmmmmm?
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p>No, I couldn’t care less about the other people who posted their own facts, and I refuse to alter my positions, especially to please you and other people.
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p>On that note, PI, don’t hold your breath!!
Just do civilization a favor and don’t offer to lead a debate team in the public schools. Facts tend to play a prominent role there.
that I’m not the least bit interested in leading a debate team! Put
that in your pipe and smoke it, buster.
You don’t get it, do you?! It’s obvious to me that you want me to think the same way that you do about pitbulls, and think that they’re wonderful dogs to have, when I wouldn’t trust them, much less own one, if I ever got a dog. If you’re all hoping for me to become a big pitbulls advocate, forget it! Don’t hold your breath.
Or do you just not care to read actual posts (in addition to actual facts)?
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p>As I said earlier
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p>So how is it that you can possibly believe, as you say,
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p>Because you’re reading secret messages hidden within the html coding? Are you so incapable of allowing that someone might actually accept your opinion?
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p>I do not know who you are or where you came from but given that
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p>you must come from a very cold, dark and lonely place. I regret that you appear wholly incapable of holding an intelligent discussion.
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p>Unless your response includes some sort of apology to the people you tossed foul curses at (not me) or recognition that facts presented offer value, do not expect a response from me. You’re not worth it.
In general, I feel that someone new to BMG, like mplo who joined December 17, should be treated with some gentleness as she or he is socialized into the community. I continue to feel that the initial response to her was too harsh.
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p>But perhaps I missed something in that thread because this exchange has now entered Crazyville. Lolorb diagnosed that a week before I did.
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p>Doesn’t every online community have contributors with whom dialog is impossible? We already had one, our Footnote Provider. Now apparently we have a second with her own peculiar fondness for bold face.
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p>In such circumstances, no response is generally the best response — a rule which, sadly, I myself violate when I should know better.
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p>Political Inaction, you seem to have some very interesting things to say about the Patrick Administration that I’m looking forward, I hope, to reading more of.
On to bigger and better topics.
KBush for your generosity here. I have never tried to “one up” you. If you knew me, you would understand that is not what I do. When you make claims to that effect, you, yourself, are essentially preventing or giving the impression of not wanting someone to respond, even if to defend oneself. There are very serious ramifications for everyone in regard to the pitbull myths. I’ve spent days researching how bad it is. I will be posting again, and I sincerely hope that I will not be subjected to the same treatment.
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p>lolorb…..nobody’s conspiring to take your pitbull away from you. All people are asking is for pitbull owners to take responsibility and comply with the law. Also, regarding the fact that you picked up this pitbull from a wooded area in back of your property where it had been abandoned: Did you even look to see if it had a collar and/or a license? You just took an abandoned stray dog into your household with even contacting the ASPCA or the Humane Society or anything?
That, to me, seems kind of irresponsible, imo, but I guess that’s your prerogative.
I realize that I went overboard in calling you some ultra- nasty names. I got overheated, as I’m sometimes wont to do, and I sincerely apologize for it, if that’s any help.
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p>I’m not asking you to agree with or even support my point of view regarding pitbulls, but I do stand by my positions, and I believe that the best thing at this point for both of us is to realize that we’re clearly never going to find any common ground on this hot-button issue, at least take in stride our differences on this subject, and leave it at that. Again, hope I’ve been of some help.
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p>Oh, and here’s something else that I wish to add: When I go on a forum like this to engage in discussion(s), I’m not necessarily out to change people’s minds, but to make myself heard, like most people.
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p>Take care–happy new year…and have a good day.
One thing you missed was mplo calling Lolorb the dreaded “c” word (in two consecutive comments) and “queen”.
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p>And elicited this classic retort after making just one comment about mplo calling lolorb that name:
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p>And all I said was:
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p>This person isn’t worth the time of day until s/he proves otherwise.
I saw references to the c-word comments, searched for them, couldn’t find them, and concluded they had been tastefully deleted by the editors. A stern announcement of dislike, using bold no less, sounds more like recess in elementary school than BMG.
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p>So after careful consideration, I plan to steer clear of mplo because I don’t want to get the cooties.
Apologies don’t always work.
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p>Frankly, I really couldn’t care less if you responded to me or not, PI.
Neither you or your friends know anything about me, really, and you never will, either. There’s just so much hysteria among pitbull owners, because they feel that there’s a conspiracy underfoot to take their pitbulls away from them, which is untrue. All that’s being asked of them is to take responsibility and comply t he the laws.
…If mplo and lolorb are both female, it teminds me of a mud-wrestling match between two women. Funny as heck, at least for a few minutes.
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p>Mplo, if you are called to task for a statement of fact that you have made, it is incumbent on you to either post a link that provides evidence for your statement of fact, or, if there is no link, acknowedge that it is based on something that you have read that is probably so old that it is not available over the Internet.
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p>I have done both. Some things admittedly are not available over the Internet, because they might have been published before Al Gore invented the Internet. (That last is a joke; I know who invented the Internet.)
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p>Now, feel free to get back to your mud-wrestling.