Comments on: Quote of the Day

By: Gary Farber

Gary Farber — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 02:42:11 +0000

Is it just me that reads the last post as full of meaningless babble designed to end the thread? I’t probably just me, I guess. We could all use clear english lessons, and examination as to what the frick is going on with posts.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 00:43:49 +0000

The Freepers have been accusing Rather of fraud, etc., more or less daily for the last 10-20 years (as long as there have been Freepers), so Andrew’s point is good. Question of Rove plants aside, the original intuition of fraud was good intuition, but the initial arguments given were weak and it made sense to reject them. Make the other side prove its own case. There’s nothing dishonest or “in denial” about this. The fact that the substance of the memos is valid, according to several eyewitnesses, does not help Rather or the forgers, but it is an error to think that Bush has been exhonerated. A very common error. And worse, CBS apparently killed another valid story about the runup to the Iraq war. No logic to that at all, except for a partisan hack—two completely different stories by (as I understand) different news teams. It’s as if we were keeping score of a sports team and penalizing them for an infraction. But news isn’t sports.

By: Abiola Lapite

Abiola Lapite — Sun, 26 Sep 2004 11:05:42 +0000

——-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE——- Hash: SHA1 “Jonathan Edelstein does a pretty good job of covering, well, everywhere, and he has never struck me as particularly right wing.” Yes, and I’m a long-time reader of his, but he isn’t amongst the “top 4 or 5” blogs on either side of the CT blogroll, which is what I was referring to. In any case, there is an entire galaxy of Africa and Asia-centric blogs out there that have never gotten any coverage whatsoever on the top-tier blogs on the left, while the likes of Glenn Reynolds, for all their faults, do at least pay them the odd bit of attention. ——-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE——- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (MingW32) – GPGshell v3.10 Comment: My Public Key is at the following URL: Comment: http://www.alapite.net/pgp/AbiolaLapite.txt iD8DBQFBVpRgOgWD1ZKzuwkRAkI2AJ0eGjfLisEKmLgGZ9REc2Pnmn6ATACfXRSX DxJRXZ5s09qmkpI7g338QnE= =yUTf——-END PGP SIGNATURE——-

By: David Tiley

David Tiley — Sun, 26 Sep 2004 07:34:47 +0000

I actually find myself linking AAARGH to the freepers. It is true that they store articles that have otherwise been imprisoned by the mainstream meedja and hidden away for money. And they do provide a snapshot of collective derangement, rather like those old experiments with a cow surgically altered to put a plastic window in its side so scientists could see the bacteria digesting food. Sorry. Finish your sandwich, you are safe in Massachusetts and far away from me.

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 20:05:36 +0000

In terms of civility and relative simianism, I’d place Kos and “Atrios” and their minions right beside LGF and FR. All can be very nasty, the kind of nastiness one finds among people who are absolutely convinced they are right and their opponents are not only wrong but bad.

By: actus

actus — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 19:32:19 +0000

“Henry- Preposterous in the sense that the quote makes fun of Free Republic’s accuracy right after they were right!” Thats exactly when we need to point out that this isn’t usually the case.

By: Mrs Tilton

Mrs Tilton — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 18:42:40 +0000

Jonathan Edelstein does a pretty good job of covering, well, everywhere, and he has never struck me as particularly right wing.

By: Henry

Henry — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 15:24:07 +0000

There’s actually some truth in Abiola’s claim that aggregating blogs (like blogs in general) do a bad job of finding interesting news stories from the rest of the world – see here . His theory of why the blogs he reads from these parts of the world tend not to be left leaning is rather less plausible (although I did find it amusing).

By: asg

asg — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 02:43:49 +0000

Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw sour grapes.

By: Omri

Omri — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 01:06:47 +0000

So the great conclusion is that now, thanks to web logs, the mainstream media will shape up, relearn those rules of journalism, and be carefull enough not to let their stories be ripped to shreds by the howler monkeys of FreeRepublic. Clearly a golden age of responsible reporting is coming, now that such lofty standards are being put in place. Um, yay.

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 01:02:32 +0000

I thought the joke was pretty funny. If the Right can’t chuckle affectionately about its less-civilized cousins on the Freep, then it has no sense of humor. The accusation of howling, though, seems unfair. If memory serves, the Howler tends to be leftist.

By: Abiola Lapite

Abiola Lapite — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 00:09:08 +0000

——-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE——- Hash: SHA1 “I find if you look at the top 4-5 blogs on the left and right (IP, Atrios, Alterman, Volokh, etc) most everything filters up pretty quick.” Really? Free Republic is full of some pretty crazy people, but the truth is that I can find more information on what’s happening in Africa or Asia on that site on almost any day than I can in any of the “top 4 or 5” blogs you mention. Then again, most blogs that cover those parts of the world in any depth aren’t left-leaning (perhaps because too much familiarity with local affairs tends to disabuse one of left-wing views on economics), so I can see why the Timberites prefer to pass them over. The truth is that this Rathergate episode is a moment of victory for the Freepers, and this post just ends up making its author look churlish, especially after so many otherwise sensible liberals embarrassed themselves with their desperate attempts to deny the fraudulent nature of the CBS documents. PS - I can’t believe I’ve been driven to defend Free Republic! What does that tell you about how badly this post comes off? ——-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE——- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (MingW32) – GPGshell v3.10 Comment: My Public Key is at the following URL: Comment: http://www.alapite.net/pgp/AbiolaLapite.txt iD8DBQFBVKkFOgWD1ZKzuwkRAmpMAJ9NtG3zAtjVWy8fvXrkMIxaEZCnnACfdkK2 UiUSrNxLH/I89QBZX1qprdA= =J8+j——-END PGP SIGNATURE——-

By: George

George — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 23:35:21 +0000

There’s actually a blog out there called Infinite Monkeys, which I wish I had thought of.

By: mg

mg — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 23:32:32 +0000

the second part is that it would also take them an infinite amount of time As long as the text is finite, it would take them finite(albeit long, unless really a lot of monkeys are out there typing) time, so that part works.

By: Giles

Giles — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 23:17:14 +0000

I think the “joke” fails because it shows a failure to understand the metaphor it cribs- the second part is that it would also take them an infinite amount of time – so the probability of actually occurring now about CBC is well zero. The second place where it misunderstands the whole concept of distributed intelligence is that it doesn’t matter if the monkeys are not “truth-seeking” – all that matters is that they are independent. And its that lack of independence which in my view explains that failure of (many) lefty blogs to exert the same effect.