Jay Reding Watch

Craig's Tryst

2007-08-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

Jay Reding, once again, parrots Hugh Hewwit:

Undoubtedly had Craig been a Democrat, this story would be largely over, those criticizing the Senator would be labeled homophobes, and Craig would be already planning his memoirs — see disgraced New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey or Barney Frank — both of whom put their trysting partners on the government payroll.

Except that gay Democrats, being largely well-adjusted individuals at peace with their homosexuality, rarely have a need to troll men's rooms for sex.

The reason that such behavior is indemic to Republicans is because the cognitive dissonance of being gay, yet hating yourself and everyone who you would want to have sex with, drives one to seek these anonymous trysts in bathrooms. Honestly I think that's much worse than putting one's mister or mistress on the payroll, which people have been doing since they invented secretaries.

Anyway it's not exactly clear why tapping one's foot in a bathroom is a fundamentally worse infraction than David Vitter actually breaking the law by paying for sex with prostitutes. Obviously, the more of your guys who step down this way, the better for America; nonetheless, it's obvious that there's a homophobic double standard at work here among conservatives. Vitter received a standing ovation for his behavior; but of course the long knives come out for Craig.

Jim McGreevy resigned, incidentally, and Golan Cipel actually did work for his campaign and in his office; there's also some confusion as to whether or not the relationship was consensual or not. I'm not sure he's a very good example of a double standard that Democrats find beneficial.

Lawyers don't know Science

2007-08-18T09:43:00.000-07:00

Jay Reding is is retarded:

Global warming studies should be conducted under rigorous scientific conditions using the same double-blind methods commonly used to eliminate bias in drug tests.

...WTF? Double-blind methods are only used in drug studies because drug studies are the only studies where you have to worry about placebo effect, which is the only thing double-blinding eliminates.

In a sense, climate measurement is already double-blind - the Earth is blind, and the thermometers are blind. Double-blinding is appropriate where the focus of study is a population of human individuals, because people in drug studies have to subjectively rate their experiences and the degree to which they're feeling better. And people will claim to be feeling better if they perceive they're expected to feel better.

But the Earth won't warm just because you expect it to. The problem here is that Jay doesn't understand what double-blinding actually means, or how it would be relevant to climatology - and he doesn't care to, of course. He doesn't suggest it in good faith. It's a cypher, a shibboleth, an impossible bar that climatology by definition can never meet, all to prevent Jay from having to deal with the inconvenient reality of anthropogenic climate change.

Why Jay Can't Argue

2007-07-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

There's a reason why it's so ridiculously easy to argue with Jay Reding, and it's because he doesn't pay any attention to what you say. For instance, this exchange with him I had this morning, on the subject of the non-science of economics:

Jay: So, an economy is too complex to apply any known model to, but scientists can predict exactly how much the temperature will rise based on nothing but climate modeling… apparently since the science of economics doesn’t agree with your political viewpoints, the science must be wrong.

Me: Economists can’t even agree on whether or not economies are driven by supply or demand - the most basic factual question possible.

That would be like scientists not being able to agree on whether or not electrons moved towards or away from the anode.

It has nothing to do with my political viewpoints - since the “science” of economics doesn’t agree with reality, it’s basically nonsense. I’ve certainly never met a real scientist who takes it at all seriously. It’s just made-up, like philosophy and theology. It’s as relevant to understanding the world as the stats on the front of a Pokemon card. It’s not any kind of science - it’s just a social club for people who couldn’t master rigorous data collection methods to pretend like they’re studying something.

Jay: So apparently since most economists don’t agree with your political viewpoint, then the whole science of economics is obviously wrong.

Is there an echo in here? No, it's just business as usual for the Single Malted Pundit - make assertions, don't listen to rebuttals, cast aspersions, (work yourself up into a) lather, rinse repeat.

Jay Reding - Wrong on the Science Yet Again

2007-06-14T22:51:00.001-07:00

From Jayreding.com:

Computer modeling is based on our assumptions about the Earth’s climate, which may or may not be accurate.

The accuracy of those assumptions can, and has been, verified by comparisons with past data. Same as with any other computational model. They hold up.

We’re in a period of increased solar warming which can have effects on global temperatures.

No, we're not. Solar output hasn't increased significantly since 1940, and indeed, has been falling slightly in the past ten years. Solar output is not responsible for global warming.

We don’t fully understand how the planet’s magnetic field effects temperature.

The planet's magnetic field doesn't fluctuate that much over these timescales. No serious scientist thinks there's a magnetic field connection.

There are a whole host of unanswered questions which defy the easy answers given to us by global warming advocates.

None of those questions justify a wholesale rejection on the vast scientific consensus of anthropogenic global warming. Global warming deniers, of course, have a vast amount of unanswered questions of their own - for instance, where does all the anthropogenic CO2 being emitted at the rate of 2-3 Pinatubo-sized eruptions every year go, if not into the atmosphere? What does it do there, if not the same thing all CO2 does - trap heat that would otherwise radiate into space? There are severe physical problems with climate change models that purport to reject anthropogenic climate change, and for all that deniers claim to be "asking questions", they've never had substantial answers to the questions put to them.

You're way out in the cold on this one, Jay (if you'll pardon the pun), and you have been from the start.

Jay on "Free Speech"

2007-04-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

Don Imus’ idiotic comments were just that — idiotic. However, what he’s exposed is how a cadre of race-baiting hucksters are working to undermine free speech in this country. If Don Imus were a rapper, he could talk about “nappy-headed hos” all the way to Grammy and never be given a dirty look by anyone. Yet because Imus is white, the racial sensitivity police feel the need to go on the offensive and ensure that such terrible words are never uttered on the public airwaves again — unless of course, they’re spoken by a rapper.

Imus’ comment was a contemptible act, but it was hardly worth the public lynching he’s now receiving — especially not at the hands of a racist like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. If it’s wrong to use such terms to describe black women, then the Reverends would be far better off attacking the “ghetto” culture that treats black women as sex objects, refers to them frequently as “bitches” and “hos” and glorifies violence, drugs, and mindless rebellion.

Setting aside the fact that the rampant sexism and drug culture in rap music has been the target of criticism from both within and without the black community for years (including by both Sharpton and Jackson), isn't it weird that Jay Reding only stands up for free speech when that speech is racism directed at black people?

I mean, if we were talking about someone who had criticized the war in Iraq, or the Bush Administration, we'd be hearing from Jay (and the rest of the right-wing) how that speech "undermined our troops", how it was "treason", and how the speakers should be "executed for treason."

Jay's acting like he's the first person in the world to discover that there's sexism and racism in rap lyrics, and that the reason it's there is because black people are all racists and sexists who couldn't be bothered to object to it.

But that doesn't make any sense. It's white kids who love hip-hop, too; and it's white people who largely own the record companies. To a large extent, it's a white industry generating music for white consumption. So who, exactly, is the community that should be standing up to demand a higher standard in their music?

And it's not like racism and sexism is limited to hip-hop. Country music doesn't exactly represent a universal paradise of equality and respect of women (as I learned over two summers of working with country music fans in Missouri cornfields), and good luck trying to blame that on black people. I can't remember any time that I flipped past CMT and saw a black face. Are there even any black country music stars? But I notice nobody's having a conversation about sexism and racism in country music. I guess if you're a southern hayseed, you get a pass for not knowing any better.

Plus - you shouldn't have to tell a college-educated person this, but a discussion about white-on-black racism is definitely not the place where you want to refer to the white guy as undergoing a "public lynching." I mean, how stupid can you be?

Deconstructing a Defense, Part II

2007-03-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

Shorter Jay Reding:

"Separation of powers means the Executive Branch can do whatever the hell it wants, including lying to Congress, suborning perjury, interfering with corruption investigations of Bush Administration allies, inserting language in legislation without Congress's knowledge to expand executive power, and using anti-terror provisions to spy on Americans for reasons that have nothing to do with terrorism."

Deconstructing a Defense

2007-03-13T10:27:00.000-07:00

Shorter Jay Reding:

"Clinton did something like it, so it can't be bad; people I parrot tell me it's no big deal; just because there's questions doesn't mean there's a scandal; anyway, George Bush can do whatever the hell he wants."

This is basically Jay's litany any time there's emerging evidence of Bush administration wrongdoing, which, let's face it, is just about all the time. The simple truth is that Alberto Gonzales lied under oath to Congress, and that prosecutors were fired because they refused to manipulate the 2006 elections to the benefit of the GOP. Only someone drinking deeply from the Bush Cult of Personality kool-aid could come to the conclusion that this is "no big deal."

On Christianity

2007-03-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

Jay says "me too!" to Steven M. Warshawsky:

Historically, he’s right. The American experience has been shaped by Christian thought from the very beginning. The revisionism that the Founders were somehow trying to create an atheistic state only holds if one ignores their own writings, thoughts, and actions. The United States was founded as an inclusive society that was nevertheless built upon a foundation of Christian thought — or at the very least thought which was deeply inspired by Christian principles.

I don't know of anyone, liberal, conservative, libertarian, or otherwise, who thinks that the Founding Fathers set out to create a nation of atheists. But it would indeed be weird to suggest that the Founding Fathers, who were typically not Christian in any way that would be recognized by today's Christians, set out to create a Christian nation. That would be akin to Oral Roberts building a Jewish synagogue.

As for Jay's contention that the United States was "built upon a foundation of Christian thought," well, couldn't that mean anything? Indeed, at no point in his post does Jay stop to define "Christian thought," or "Christian philosophy," leaving the reader helpless to judge the veracity of his claims. Which part of the philosophical underpinnings expressed in documents like the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence does Jay find so undeniably Christian?

Indeed, to play off the title of his post, Christianity and conservativism go together. As does Christianity and liberalism. As does Christianity and libertarianism.

As does Christianity and capitalism; as does Christianity and communism. The Christian experience is sufficiently broad, and the scope of its philosophies sufficiently wide, that it's impossible to say that any ethos, politic, or viewpoint is inconsistent with Christianity. Christians have gone to war and Christians have died for peace, and neither group have felt themselves to be acting contrary to Christianity.

I don't mean to limit my remarks to Christianity, of course. As an atheist it seems obvious to me that religion is, to use the words of Sam Harris, "built, to a remarkable degree, upon lies." Religion can be used to support anything at all, because religion is ultimately built on nothing.

Jay's thesis is ultimately meaningless, because to assert that America was built on a foundation of "Christian philosophy" without actually defining what that philosophy is is an exercise in sophistry. Jay's simply using a tactic of misdirection to portray people he disagrees with as bigots and opponents of faith.

But his revisionist history aside, it can't be denied that our nation was founded on ideas and principles that emerged in opposition to the great excesses and conflicts of a thousand years of Christian meddling in European politics. No student of history can deny that the Enlightenment that shaped American values had its origin in a rejection of the traditional values of Christian, European statecraft - rule by kings who used religion, rather than the needs of the people, as a guide.

When I open the Bible, I see the First Commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." When I read the Bill of Rights, I see the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or preventing the free exercise thereof." Only in the topsy-turvy world of the conservative can the latter be derived from the former.

Libby-Gate

2007-03-07T21:47:00.000-08:00

Sometimes these just write themselves. That is to say - Jay is usually so predictably behind the curve that sharper pens than mine have already rebutted his points in advance. Since his blog is mostly days-old GOP talking points, I guess that's not so surprising.

Media Matters for America, the day of the verdict, ran an article on "Media myths and falsehoods to watch for", where they hit the following myths surrounding the Scooter Libby trial:

No underlying crime was committed.

There was no concerted White House effort to smear Wilson.

Libby was not responsible for the leak of Plame's identity.

Libby merely "left out some facts."

Libby's leak was an effort to set the record straight.

There is no evidence that the Plame leak compromised national security.

Fitzgerald is a partisan prosecutor.

Plame's employment with the CIA was widely known.

Hilariously, Jay hits nearly every single one in his post on the subject. As an exercise, let's cut his post into the prescient responses Media Matters offers in their article:

"Of course, Wilson’s claims were thoroughly debunked. No solid evidence has emerged that Bush “iied” in the 2003 State of the Union, there was no organized campaign to discredit Wilson or “leak” Plame’s name, the real leaker was Richard Armitage all along (a fact which Mr. Fitzgerald knew from the beginning)..."

In his October 2005 press conference announcing Libby's indictment, Fitzgerald alleged that, in 2003, "multiple people in the White House" engaged in a "concerted action" to "discredit, punish, or seek revenge against" former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. In August 2006, it came to light that then-deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage was the original source for syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak's July 14, 2003, column exposing CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Numerous conservative media figures subsequently claimed that this revelation disproved the notion of a "concerted" White House effort to smear Wilson. But to the contrary, David Corn -- Washington editor of The Nation and co-author of Hubris (Crown, 2006) the book that revealed Armitage's role in the leak -- noted on his Nation weblog that Armitage "abetted a White House campaign under way to undermine Wilson" and that whether he deliberately leaked Plame's identity, "the public role is without question: senior White House aides wanted to use Valerie Wilson's CIA employment against her husband."

"...and there’s no evidence that Plame was actually working as a covert agent."

This falsehood has taken at least two forms -- that Plame's employment with the CIA was known in the Washington cocktail party circuit and that her neighbors knew that she worked for the CIA. In fact, Fitzgerald stated in the indictment of Libby that Plame's employment was classified and "was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community," a finding he reiterated at a post-verdict press conference. Moreover, as Media Matters noted, contrary to The Washington Times' assertion that "numerous neighbors were aware that she worked for the agency," none of the neighbors cited in The Times' own news reports or in other reports said that they knew before reading the Novak column that Plame worked at the CIA. Her acquaintances told reporters that they believed she worked as a private "consultant."

"Nothing excuses perjury or obstruction of justice, but Fitzgerald’s case was weak and his prosecutorial indiscretion will have significant impacts in the future."

Since a federal grand jury indicted Libby in October 2005, numerous media figures have stated that the nature of the charges against him prove that special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation of the CIA leak case found that no underlying crime had been committed. But this assertion ignores Fitzgerald's explanation that Libby's obstructions prevented him -- and the grand jury -- from determining whether the alleged leak violated federal law.

"This was a politically motivated prosecution by a prosecutor whose blatant partisanship was made clear in his closing."

Over the course of the CIA leak investigation and the Libby trial, conservative media figures have attempted to cast Fitzgerald as a "prosecutor run amok" who is engaging in "the criminalization of politics." But Fitzgerald's background and prosecutorial record undermine the suggestion that his pursuit of Libby was politically motivated. Indeed, Fitzgerald is a Bush administration political appointee who, as U.S. attorney, has investigated high-level public officials from both parties, including former Illinois Gov. George Ryan (R), Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (D), and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D).

As I said it's like these blog posts write themselves - it's that easy, most of the time, to cut through Jay's ridiculous distortions.

Jay Reding Watch - Walter Reed, Indeed

2007-03-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

Jay bloviates:

The Walter Reed scandal will hopefully make things better for America’s injured servicemembers — but it should also serve as a warning to the rest of us. The essential problem with a government-run healthcare system is that it lacks accountability. Eliminate the ability for people to choose another system and the only remaining choice will progressively get worse. The situation at Walter Reed is the result of a military bureaucracy run amok while those who were responsible for providing care had little authority. That isn’t a particularized fault to this instance, but a systemic one to any government-run bureaucracy.

Wrong - stupidly so - on any number of levels. Firstly, I must have missed it when the government closed down all the privately-run hospitals and clinics. Even in Canada, often used as an exemplar of the universal health care system that everybody knows America needs, they still have private practices and alternatives. I can't see any future where the government closes down hospitals or where there's no alternatives to government-provided health care for those who can afford it. Money, after all, creates options.

Of course, more importantly, as Roy at Alicublog points out:

As the whole thing ramped into a major scandal, conservatives got even more creative, declaring that the Walter Reed case was really an indictment of socialized medicine, hehindeed.

This defies both common sense and expert testimony. Normal people can easily imagine what a for-profit medical corporation would do with uninsured veterans -- shove their gurneys in the general direction of a county hospital, probably, or secretly grind them down into pet food. And a little reading reveals that the privatization of many functions at Walter Reed is actually part of the problem with that once-proud institution.

Indeed, as the reporting of Salon.com (who broke this story months before the so-called liberal media ever picked it up) points out:

Critics say that Chu and Winkenwerder had the wrong priorities, focusing on cutting costs while greater numbers of returning soldiers struggled against an increasingly strained military health care system. Both men know how to manage costs: Chu is an economist and mathematician who once worked in an Army comptroller office. And Winkenwerder is a former health insurance industry executive.
But their résumés also point to the problem, according to their detractors. "The military tried to run military health care on the cheap -- like an HMO," said Paul Sullivan, who until March 2006 was a top project manager at the Department of Veterans Affairs in charge of data on returning veterans. "And the consequences are the medical catastrophe and the bureaucratic nightmare that we see right now."

So it's not so much that the Walter Reed facilities devolved into suckitude because of the corrupting touch of government; it's that Walter Reed devolved into suckitude out of an effort to make it more like an HMO!

Jay Reding, wrong as usual. And not even that well-read - you'll notice that his thoughts on th subject postdate the rebuttals by at least a couple of days. But that's par for the course at Jayreding.com, where "conservatism with attitude" is taken to mean "conservative talking points served several days stale."

Not so timely

2007-03-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

Well, one thing I'll say for Jay is that he takes blogging a lot more seriously than I do. In my defense I've had a lot of stuff to do, and Mark at Jayreding.com has been more than a thorn in Jay's side, exposing his idiocy. So there hasn't been much of a need for Jay Reding Watch.

Not that he hasn't given me plenty of material. In the past few months he's been nearly consistently wrong about everything - promoting mythical opposition to sound climate science, the Iraq war, elections, etc. Most recently the Walter Reed scandal, which I'll address shortly.

I have some more time now, though, so I'm going to give this a serious shot.

Introducing Jay Reding Watch

2006-10-11T09:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the beginning of Jay Reding Watch, a blog I've started to correct the distortions and inaccuracies promulgated by the self-described Single Malt Pundit, Jay Reding.

...Who?

Well, ok. Who indeed. He's just a guy I knew in college who writes a conservative blog of almost no note. So why bother? Well, like I said, I knew him in college. We're both Gusties. And the level of unintelligent, echo-chamber "discourse" that he spews forth on his blog makes the rest of us Gusties look like idiots. I'm doing this for myself, and for the rest of us, because Jay's loudmouth brand of nonsense devalues our degrees by association.

Wait, who?

Look, he's just a guy with a blog. Almost nobody reads it who doesn't know him, and few people who know him are interested in challenging his ideas. He's not interested in fostering a spirit of open dialogue on his blog; rather, he'd prefer to collect a peanut gallery of lauditory nabobs.

Well, that's where I come in. When he repeats a stale GOP talking point, I'll be there with the rebuttal. When he references a source to defend an argument that the source itself contradicts (hoping you won't notice), I'll be there to call foul.

So this is like, a vendetta?

Actually, I'm just taking Jay's advice:

I don’t tolerate stupidity, and I really don’t tolerate offensive levels of stupidity. When you have someone who clearly doesn’t know how to behave as a guest on someone’s site, then it’s not worth it. There’s no point in refuting someone who tries to argue that the sky is purple, and there’s no reason to bother with someone who makes a dumb argument like the economy being a zero-sum game, that’s something every educated person should know not to be true. I can accept critical comments, I can accept people making dumb arguments, and I can except a certain amount of liberal talking points, but since I pay the bills, I only have to accept a certain amount of it, and won’t tolerate the sort of idiotic styles of “argumentation” found on fever swamps like Kos or DU. The level of discourse on this site will not be allowed to descend to that level.

Since it is my policy not to edit comments in any way, my two choices are to start deleting comments entirely or ban the person making them.

Those who don’t like that are more than welcome to go elsewhere.

Fair enough. So I went to blogger like he said and started my own blog. Jay thinks rebuttals to his arguments constitute "fever-swamp discourse." Well, I just checked my temperature and I'm feeling fine.

But here's the deal. I don't plan on running a site where I snipe at people who can't defend themselves. I'll leave running that kind of blog to Jay Reding. So open comments. Nobody gets banned except for spammers.

Even Jay himself can come here, any time he feels like defending his arguments in a venue where he doesn't also run the game. He can run an echo-chamber, if he likes. I'm not so fascinated by the sound of my own voice, so that simply doesn't appeal to me.

Let's have a venue where Jay's arguments are investigated fairly. Since he's not interested in running that, I'm taking it upon myself.

But I guess I'm just that kind of guy.

Actually, that's a good point. Who the hell are you?

Justin Payne. I'm a former conservative, former creationist, former Bush voter. I've since seen the evidence that all those positions are wrong. That's what it's about for me, the evidence. It's what I intend to stick to.

I've got a busy schedule at the greenhouse, and a busy raiding schedule at night. I casemod. So this isn't going to necessarily be a timely blog. But then, jayreding.com usually isn't.

That's it for now. The first real entry of Jay Reding Watch should be forthcoming.