The Rise of the Irrational Argument Lobby

imperialspectre · Post by **imperialspectre** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 3:10 am

It's a reference to the TV commercials for freecreditreport.com. If you watch enough TV in the US to get the reference, it's a bad (but funny) pun.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 3:57 am

Yeah, the commercials have someone in financially poor circumstances singing about how he could have avoided this by knowing the credit of people involved. So far, there's been a guy in a lemon car, someone living with his girlfriend's parents because they can't afford a house, a guy working at pirate-themed restaurant...

They're catchy. I will give Tzor points for making me smile.

He still doesn't beat an anthropology professor I know, though.

He said this:

"I have good news and bad news. Bad news is, due to some circumstances which is going to happen on the day of test, it will be bumped up a day. But since I'd meant for it to be on that day to begin with and made the mistake of letting you vote on Wednesday or Friday, you're breaking even."

He paused for the collective groan.

And then he said, "The good news isI just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico."

The Lunatic Fringe · Post by **The Lunatic Fringe** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 4:59 am

Fair enough. I don't watch a lot of TV (well, at least, not on the actual TV).

This does not absolve Tzor of his greater sins, however.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 6:28 am

I love how he just ignores Frank whenever frank calls him on his shit - like those scientists who don't support the IPCC because it doesn't go far enough.

Hilarious.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 7:36 am

Maxus wrote:"The good news isI just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico."

True story: in the End of Evangelion, that moment where Gendo mouths something to Ritsuko before shooting her (spoiler)?

What he actually mouthed was:

"The truth is... I just saved 15% on my car insurance by switching over to Geico."

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 8:52 am

I have been meaning to ask. Does the Geico gecko have an American accent in Australia?

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 9:02 am

Koumei wrote:True story: in the End of Evangelion, that moment where Gendo mouths something to Ritsuko before shooting her (spoiler)?

What he actually mouthed was:

"The truth is... I just saved 15% on my car insurance by switching over to Geico."

Someone else has watched AMV Hell I see.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 9:08 am

clikml wrote:I have been meaning to ask. Does the Geico gecko have an American accent in Australia?

For all I know, Geico doesn't exist in Australia. I haven't seen any ads for it, but that doesn't say much, as that would involve watching television.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 9:37 pm

Knights of Columbus are on my shit list for having contributed (as the organization) a few dollars more than the Mormon Church to impinge upon my Free Right of Association.

-Crissa

violence in the media · Mon Nov 30, 2009 9:48 pm

tzor wrote:
TavishArtair wrote:Talking about your age and your educational credits and your other awards...

... does not stop you from being a dumb ass.
I was merely trying to counter the point that somehow I am anti-science.

You're Roman Catholic, Republican, and an Engineer--I can't imagine how you could get more anti-science.

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 4:25 am

Koumei wrote:
Maxus wrote:"The good news isI just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico."
True story: in the End of Evangelion, that moment where Gendo mouths something to Ritsuko before shooting her (spoiler)?

I'd really like to know what he actually said. But I don't think I'll be getting the chance to ask Hideaki Anno about this anytime soon. Maybe we'll find out in the new movies?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 6:12 am

Ganbare Gincun wrote:
Koumei wrote:
Maxus wrote:"The good news isI just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico."
True story: in the End of Evangelion, that moment where Gendo mouths something to Ritsuko before shooting her (spoiler)?
I'd really like to know what he actually said. But I don't think I'll be getting the chance to ask Hideaki Anno about this anytime soon. Maybe we'll find out in the new movies?

You'd never find out in Angelic Days, the thig has a happy ending instead.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 6:44 am

General consensus is that he says "I love you". Which is odd, given he then shoots her. But this is Gendo, who only ever speaks the truth by accident.

And yes, AMVHell is actually what got me onto Deathnote. As well as a few other series I need to check out.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 2:50 pm

Narcissus wrote:Er, I don't know enough about the people of this board to tell, but were you trying to insult Koumei?

Just wondering because you sound like a complete jackass. Even in addition to your bizarre political views.

Free Credit Report Dot Com started with a series of commericals all involving this band.

In the first episode, the band leader had to settle for a clunker for a car and was laughed at by the girls in the hot car. Ironically even playing your instruments in a car isn't cool is the car is ugly and stalls at a stop light.

Then he had to get a job at a pirate themed resturant, how he managed to be a greater at a pirate themed resturant while at the same time performing with his band at the same resturtant is a mystery.

Then he got married but because of his poor credit he had to settle for the basement of his mother's house.

Then, after he gets her pregnant, they wind up with the only gig available being a medieval renn faire.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 2:56 pm

cthulhu wrote:I love how he just ignores Frank whenever frank calls him on his shit - like those scientists who don't support the IPCC because it doesn't go far enough.

I’m not ignoring him. I cited a number of scientists who wanted their names removed from the report because they were complaining about missing data within the report and they did not agree with the conclusions of the report. He cited a number of scientists who were upset with the reports lack of criticism with the deniers. As far as I can tell they are two different groups of people. Somehow he thinks he “scored” on that one. I really can’t think of how.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 3:03 pm

violence in the media wrote:You're Roman Catholic, Republican, and an Engineer--I can't imagine how you could get more anti-science.

Well you can start with Obama’s Science Czar.

Emails From Obama's Science Czar Included in Climategate Leak

Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren involved in unwinding “Climategate” scandal

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 3:06 pm

Tzor wrote: I cited a number of scientists who wanted their names removed from the report because they were complaining about missing data within the report and they did not agree with the conclusions of the report.

[Citation Needed]

In order to have "cited" anything, you need to have, well, a citation. You don't have one of those. You claim to have remembered something to that effect, but you admit that you cannot source it.

And I can tell you straight up that many climate researchers were angry that their names were put on the final IPCC report even though they did not agree with its conclusions. The problem with your argument is that the conclusion they were angry about - that it was 90% certain that AGW is a reality - is substantially lower than their own assessment of "essentially 100% certainty."

Again, you cited nothing. You tried to throw aspersions on the IPCC by referencing a scientific debate that you haven't been following. But the real scientific debate is not "is AGW real?" and has not been for decades. The scientific debate is about whether the IPCC numbers are too conservative. After all, the actual CO2 and world heat increases have been hugging the high end of the IPCC's prediction cone pretty narrowly, indicating that their supposed midline predictions should be the new low and that the prediction cone should be extended a fair bit on the high end.

There is controversy tzor. But the controversy is "Are Tzor's people totally wrong or super double ultra wrong?"

-Username17

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 3:13 pm

Crissa wrote:Knights of Columbus are on my shit list for having contributed (as the organization) a few dollars more than the Mormon Church to impinge upon my Free Right of Association.

Unfortunately, you do make a valid point. The problems in Connecticut has forced them to change their tactics from reversal to "religious liberty protection" approaches.

4/16/2009 Large Majority of Connecticut Voters Support Religious Liberty Protections in SB 899

4/23/2009 Connecticut Legislators Vote Religious Liberty Protection in Same-Sex Marriage Bill

But I've seen it first hand where rallies by the K of C in Albany probably spent more time against Gay Marriage than they did against the state's trying to put Roe v Wade into their state constitution and a number of other extreemely pro-abortion legislation that is constantly pushed through the meat grinder that is Albany politics.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 5:57 pm

Yes folks we are talking about SCIENCE. After all if we are discussing statistics we should expect that the expertise of statisticians should be important, correct? I mean we should not be expecting an isolated community without any interaction with the statistical community self reviewing their own findings. Oh wait, this is Global Warming.

Flashback: Wegman report

"It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility. ...

As statisticians, we were struck by the isolation of communities such as the paleoclimate community that rely heavily on statistical methods, yet do not seem to be interacting with the mainstream statistical community. The public policy implications of this debate are financially staggering and yet apparently no independent statistical expertise was sought or used." "AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE ‘HOCKEY STICK’ GLOBAL CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION"

From the report

Discussion: There are variations in the temperature reconstruction indicating the fundamental uncertainty in the reconstruction process. Essentially all agree that there was a medieval warm period centered on AD 1000 and a little ice age from at least 1600 to 1850. There is consensus in these reconstructions that the global average temperature has risen over the last 400 years. However, what must be added is that temperatures were below average in AD 1600. Both Esper et al. (2002) and Moberg et al. (2005) indicate that current global temperatures are not warmer that the medieval warm period.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 6:31 pm

Tzor, I know that you're a disingenuous hack. But could you try to be... I don't know... subtler about it? You're posting a section from the Wegman Report, which is a political hack job that was never peer reviewed. I mean, just bring up the damn wikipedia article of the thing:

Wikipedia wrote:The social network analysis is not based on meaningful criteria, does not prove a conflict of interest and did not apply at the time of the 1998 and 1999 publications. Such a network of co-authorship is not unusual in narrowly defined areas of science. During the hearing, Wegman defined the social network as peer reviewers that had "actively collaborated with him in writing research papers" and answered that none of his peer reviewers had.

So... what? Wegman went before Congress with some spooky stories about how Mann might not be on the up-and-up... but he didn't provide any evidence that this was the case. It's just slander. And then they wrote it down, making it libel.

But that's not even the stupidest thing you're doing on this page of what I could charitably call a debate. Let's take a hilarious jaunt through your scare stories about how Obama's science adviser sent some emails to the United Kingdom's CRU back in 2003. That's... not a scandal. That's him having an email correspondence with another scientific unit.

And what does he have the temerity to say? Oh my goodness! He says that the Soon paper on solar effects isn't true. And then this is what your inane denialist parrots hold up as the smoking gun:

After the first response Schulz replies, “I guess my problem concerns what lawyers call the burden of proof. The burden weighs heavily, much more heavily, given the claims on Mann et.al. than it does on Soon/Baliunas. Would you agree?” Of course, Holdren doesn’t agree.

Wait, what? Holdren is a bad man because he doesn't hold Mann et.al. to a higher burden of proof saying that the temperatures are rising than he holds Baliunas to for saying that temperature changes are only caused by variations in solar radiation? What the fuck?

Why would they be held to different standards of evidence at all? And for that matter, why would anyone take Soon and Baliunas seriously when solar radiation has been falling while temperatures have been rising for the last thirty years? How is a decrease in solar radiation going to shrink all our glaciers?

But the big question is: why is finding out that Holdren was openly skeptical of Baliunas' completely unsupported assertions that are trivially easy to disprove in a private e-mail a scandal? Hell, in what reality would that even be interesting?

-Username17

Absentminded_Wizard · Tue Dec 08, 2009 12:10 pm

So wait, the AGW people are using an e-mail pointing to an e-mail debate as evidence that there's something nefarious about the science czar? I mean, at least some of the other e-mails kind of sound incriminating. Apparently, they're seizing on something about Holdren's "attitude" to prove that he's done something wrong. But if being an asshole about your position on an issue was a crime, pretty much the whole Gaming Den would be in jail.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 2:01 pm

This seems like a good thread for this:

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:52 pm

I've been dealing with this irrational argument myself.

Someone I know and share tastes in books with caught up with me through Facebook. We've been swapping books and video games and talking through IM.

And now it turns out he's, well, a fucking wingnut. It's unreal. Economically, he's all for things like health insurance reform to make the companies play fair. Admits that pure capitalism doesn't work because of human greed. Thinks Obama has the right idea going on. But socially, it seems like he'd be happy if society regressed to the 1840s and included a law making it illegal to be homosexual. Which, hilariously, he defines as 'gay men'. He says he's fine with lesbians because all the lesbians he's ever met have been cool and awesome people.

So I've called him out on this stuff. Pointed out the existence of evidence showing that homosexuality is biological is some degree and that more research could be done on this. His arguments for homosexuality being 'immoral' always seem to bring up things like...diseases, deadbeat parents, and crimes that are just as applicable to heterosexuals, too. His arguments aren't even religious-based.

Ah, well. He admitted that he's only really told his views to me, because he knows that walking around spouting this crap will get him shunned over to a corner and ignored for the rest of his life.

If I can't get him to ease off the homophobia and nostalgia for time periods he never lived in by the time he returns the stuff I loaned him, I'm ditching him. It's really a moodkiller to have that come up every other day on IM.