Semi-rant: Is it even worth it to engage some people in debate?

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Tuesday February 09, 2010 · 6:44 PM PST

2010/02/09 · 18:44

I'll say up front that this is about as epic of a rant as I'll ever get. In other words, not too epic.

I frequent some of the mixed ideology sites and / or blogs, and I often can't help but getting sucked into the discussion and / or working on debunking claims by more conservative posters. However, sometimes I really just question whether it's even worth the effort, considering the vitriol and accusations of being condescending I get back in exchange for reason and an reliance on scientific fact.

chparadise

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Saturday January 09, 2010 · 5:11 PM PST

2010/01/09 · 17:11

Alright now that the JV game of the weekend is over, the real fun starts (aka, my excuse as to why I didn't post this earlier)

chparadise

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Monday December 28, 2009 · 11:58 AM PST

2009/12/28 · 11:58

In part one I examined the "direct lessons" learned from Half the Sky. In this post I'm going to examine some of the more "indirect" lessons. Some of these are going to be critical of the way some of us think / act, but I think that's the point. Kristof's unafraid of calling out liberals, and I think we should be too, as long as it's constructive and not calling us all little Hitlers or Maos or whatever the extreme conservative element likes to call us. As you read the following, I should put up a caveat: the lessons learned have, in some cases, been transferred to contexts quite unlike the original one. Please don't over-read the base comparison - two of the lessons are from the abolitionist movement, but I am not equating the abolitionist movement and the issues I examine.

chparadise

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Saturday December 26, 2009 · 6:17 PM PST

2009/12/26 · 18:17

I just finished reading Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's excellent book entitled "Half the Sky". For those who are unfamiliar with the book, the basic premise is that one very effective way to combat poverty and other problems around the world is to empower women. This is probably understating the thesis a bit, but I want to pay homage to another point he brings up later in the book by not overstating the case.

I'm somewhat ashamed to say that it was only in the last 8 months or so that I discovered Kristof. The reasons for this are simple: I grew up reading the Boston Globe and other Boston newspapers, and I never went over to check out the New York Times. However, thanks to a rather excellent conference my wife dragged me to at Yale (Unite for Sight, another great organization), I saw him speak and was instantly hooked by his message. Ever since then I'm an unapologetic fan.

chparadise

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Monday December 14, 2009 · 10:12 PM PST

2009/12/14 · 22:12

Picked up this story on Politico, but I then went to Senator Bayh's web page and found the actual statement.

In summary, Bayh thinks that the 10% increase in spending authorized under the omnibus bill that was passed by the Senate is too much.

(Meant to post earlier, in part because of the plethora of Liebermann diaries on the site now, but missed because I'd posted a dupe of the Bush email diary first and deleted it but it didn't let me post :) )

Poll

66 votes Show Results

Do you think Bayh is right?

66 votes Vote Now!

Do you think Bayh is right?

Yes, and the political cost is acceptable

18 votes

29 votes

Yes, but the political cost would be too high

6 votes

Obama wouldn't veto it anyways so why worry?

7 votes

Where's the pie option?

6 votes

Why I will remain a liberal for a long, long time

chparadise

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Monday December 07, 2009 · 8:42 PM PST

2009/12/07 · 20:42

This is going to be brief but to the point.

The behavior of the Republicans and Conservatives since Obama's election has ensured that I will remain a liberal for a long, long time. Join me below the fold for my reasons.

chparadise

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Sunday December 06, 2009 · 3:18 PM PST

2009/12/06 · 15:18

This is an expansion of a previous diary I posted. This time, I'm bringing the links, etc - ie, I'm helping others "read the data".

There's been several others diaries in the last few days touching on aspects of this, but I've attempted to make sure I'm taking a bit different tack.

chparadise

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Saturday December 05, 2009 · 2:25 PM PST

2009/12/05 · 14:25

Quick open letter to the climate change deniers and trolls of the world.

Seriously, time to step up your "game". Your tactics and your posts are epic fail on many measures, and show an inherent ignorance of the scientific method and science in general.

chparadise

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Friday December 04, 2009 · 9:55 AM PST

2009/12/04 · 09:55

I find it highly ironic just how often the party and ideology which, among its major tenets, supports "law and order" and a strict upholding of the law happens to forget about "law and order" when an illegal act gives them something they want to hear. Two recent examples - the Acorn videos and the so-called "climategate" emails - are the most recent examples of this phenomenon. There's a second level of irony in both of these examples - the use of selective editing and disclosure in order to leave false impressions, when many of these people have complained about selective editing of their own comments in the past - but I'm not dealing with that in this diary.

chparadise

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Tuesday December 01, 2009 · 6:07 PM PST

2009/12/01 · 18:07

With all the Afghanistan chatter around here, I thought that those of us who want to talk about something else should have a bit of a safe haven. I'm not trying to make light of the speech / decisions...I just thought it'd be nice to have an alternative :)

chparadise

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Tuesday November 24, 2009 · 4:27 PM PST

2009/11/24 · 16:27

The word out of Kentucky today that the Census worker committed suicide (See diary here for more discussion) reminded me that, in order to be as credible and believable as possible, we too cannot jump to conclusions. It's very easy to criticize Conservatives and Republicans for jumping to conclusions and making unfounded assumptions about us, but we have to do our best to NOT do the same.

What follows below the jump is mostly non-KY stuff ; the KY story was merely the inspiration for the rest. I tried not to overlap with other diaries too much :).

ETA: I'm being called "the third diary" and other stuff - I attempted below the fold to be different and to go way further back. Plus most of my examples are of conservatives jumping to conclusions. I wasn't attempting to be a copycat :p.

chparadise

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Monday November 23, 2009 · 8:14 PM PST

2009/11/23 · 20:14

A couple days ago I wrote to contact your senators about HCR and mentioned that I'd contacted Cornyn and KBH. I got an autoreply from Cornyn that contained zero info, but I got an even better reply from KBH just now.

It can be summarized by the following:

"Caution, this email may contain Republican talking points"

Join me below the fold for the actual text, followed by a bit of analysis / snark directed back at it. I'll state here at the start that I considered breaking the email up into parts first and then putting my comments below but I chose to copy the entire email in first so that it can be read in its entire glory.

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Semi-rant: Is it even worth it to engage some people in debate?

NFL Playoffs blog / thread / diary / whatever you want it to be

Lessons Learned From Half the Sky: Part 2

Lessons Learned from "Half The Sky": Part One

Bayh to Obama: Veto Omnibus Spending bill. Do you agree? With Poll

Why I will remain a liberal for a long, long time

They say "read the bills"...I say "read the data"

To the climate change deniers and trolls of the world

Irony: when the party of "law and order" conveniently forgets about the law

Anything but Afghanistan blog

Cautionary Tales: Assumptions and Jumping to Conclusions

Caution: Contains talking points. KBH's form letter reply to me (Kay Bailey Hutchinson)