Discuss amongst yourselves

Posted by Vox Day.

Week 10 picks

Last week: 7-7. Overall: 74-54. Fantasy: 4-4-1

W-Pittsburgh Steelers over Cleveland Browns

W-Philadelphia Eagles over Dallas Cowboys

W-Indianapolis Colts over Houston Texans

W-New England Patriots over Buffalo Bills

L-Kansas City Chiefs over New Orleans Saints

W-Green Bay Packers over Minnesota Vikings

L-Tennessee Titans over Chicago Bears

L-Seattle Seahawks over St. Louis Rams

W-Baltimore Ravens over New York Jets

W-Atlanta Falcons over Tampa Bay Buccaneers

W-Arizona Cardinals over New York Giants

W-Cincinnati Bengals over Washington Redskins

L-Detroit Lions over Jacksonville Jaguars

W-Carolina Panthers over San Francisco 49ers

Bloody refs. There’s no way the Packers recovered Ferguson’s fumble on the kickoff return. However, Daunte’s shovel pass to Onterrio was the nail in the coffin in my fantasy game – I was playing Chokechain – so there was some small consolation in leaving my pick-16 partner and last year’s champ in serious playoff jeopardy at 4-6. He deserved to lose for having insisted on putting the Chiefs-Saints so high.

Posted by Vox Day.

Me So Michelle gets freaky

Okay, so Media Matters gets one right every now and then:

From Michelle Malkin’s November 10 column:

“[A]s New York Times editorial writer Adam Cohen seemed to suggest in a derisive profile of Jindal, minority conservatives are regarded by the mainstream media elite as “freakish” — no matter how impressive their resumes or resounding their electoral victories or moving their personal stories are.”

From Cohen’s October 12, 2003 New York Times “Editorial Observer” titled “A New Kind of Minority Is Challenging Louisiana’s Racial Conventions:”

“California’s new governor [Arnold Schwarzenegger] has been grabbing all the headlines, but Mr. Jindal’s odyssey has been nearly as remarkable. At the age of 32, he has an almost freakishly impressive resume: at 24, he was running Louisiana’s hospital system. But perhaps more notable, in a state where an ex-Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, David Duke, made a real run for the governor’s office, Mr. Jindal is the dark-skinned son of immigrants from India.”

Malkin is going to become a serious embarrassment to the right if she doesn’t learn to stop playing fast-and-loose with the facts. I realize a lot of you like her stuff – although I’m skeptical that she’d be as well-received if she looked like Bob Novak – but she’s not only a historical ignoramus who doesn’t do her homework, those who remember her response to my debate challenge know that she has a dishonest streak as well. “Freakishly impressive” is a complimentary adjective, as Randy Moss and Jevon Kearse, two NFL pro-bowlers of whom have been known as “The Freak”, would testify.

Sure, it’s true that the legacy media is troubled by minority conservatives, as they don’t want blacks, gays, Asians and Jews riding the freedom train off the left-liberal plantation. And because it’s true, it’s totally unnecessary to stretch twist a quote in order to prove the point, unless your idea of research for a column is limited to mining Lexis Nexis.

Posted by Vox Day.

A distaste for reality

Media Matters whines about an accurate picture:

Cal Thomas used misleading county-by-county map to declare “an enormous sea of red”

In his November 8 column, nationally syndicated columnist Cal Thomas joined the roster of those heralding a county-by-county map of the November 2 presidential election results that deceptively overstates President George W. Bush’s margin of victory over Senator John Kerry. Thomas stated that the county-by-county map “showed an enormous sea of red (Bush counties) with only tiny patches of blue (Kerry counties) in the usual places where elites and other condescending liberals reside.” Thomas went on to claim: “If you study this map, you have to conclude that America is not becoming more divided; it is slowly, but perceptively [sic: perceptibly], becoming more conservative and Republican.”

The county-by-county map is misleading, as Media Matters for America has noted (when Newsweek featured the map and when conservative commentators touted it). Princeton University professor Robert J. Vanderbei created a map that more accurately depicts voter preference in the 2004 presidential election. Rather than simply representing a county’s voter preference with red (Republican) or blue (Democrat), Vanderbei’s map takes into account the percentage of the Democratic and Republican vote in each county, using shades of purple to represent closely contested counties.

In addition, while the overwhelming majority of U.S. counties voted Republican, those counties that voted Democratic are generally more densely populated. As such, the county-by-county map, which is based on geography rather than population, visually overstates the Republican share of the vote. University of Michigan professors Cosma Shalizi and Mark Newman and University of Michigan graduate student Michael Gastner created a version of the red-and-blue county-by-county map that is based on population density rather than geographic size. They also created a county-by-county version of Vanderbrei’s red, blue and purple map that takes into account population density as well as the degree to which a county’s vote was split between Bush and Kerry.

David Brock sure has some pea-sized brains at his disposal. First, Cal Thomas is an editorial columnist. He used an image that was 100 percent accurate to demonstrate a valid point, that support for George Bush is much more widespread than it was for Kerry. Given that I have NEVER seen a single map where the states are colored in gradients according to the percentages supporting the winning candidate, why on Earth should anyone be expected a county-by-county map to be colored any differently? Those state-by-state maps are equally “misleading” and yet Media Matters has never seen fit to complain about them.

It’s clear that Media Matters simply doesn’t like the implications of how bad the county map looks for the Democratic party, so they demand a different graphic. Very objective, gentlemen, very objective indeed.

Posted by Vox Day.