The Internet Contrarian

Pretty sure we can all relate....

"But...but...THREE SETS!"

A couple of items concerning theft in the Christchurch red-zone have hit the news recently. Firstly the case of Victor Tupotahi Jackson who stole around $23,000 worth of merchandise while working as a contractor and secondly an as of yet unnamed police officer who was accused of stealing sunglasses from a store.

Jackson wound up in jail for 2 years with a $6000 reparation bill as the police recovered about $17,000 worth of goods. The police officer was not convicted because "Officers' fingerprints are recorded for elimination purposes, but it is not lawful for these to be used for any other purpose.  As a result the decision was made, reluctantly, that charges could not be brought against the constable."

Sounds fairly standard - though one does wonder if the officer should have faced a charge at least. But some commentator/blogger thought there was something odd about this and wrote a piece about the two cases - drawing them together in a baffling manner.

It was this quote on The Standard which got me thinking:

 

So I posted back - hoping  to clarify the confusion (note: the linked $36000 related to reports from April 2012):

After receiving no response and my curiosity growing I replied directly to the blog posting:

The Jackal responded with recent link clarifying the amount stolen by Jackson but the missing sunglasses went from three to at least six:

I mistyped and wrote "$24,000" instead of "$23,000" not that it changed the point. Following up with another comment, I wondered about where those extra sunglasses had appeared from. As you can see I received a stern warning for my outrageous adherence to facts.

In the next post Jackal iterated the issue was in fact about the policeman getting away with apparent theft followed by the issue of race:

For the record, I don't want to get involved in racial disputes. It is counter-productive and I find it brings the worst out of people so I wanted sidestep that particular point while not avoiding it - but still addressing the other points raised:

No more of these silly questions:

 Ahhhh, well. Perhaps I should ask if he thought these were $8000 magic sunglasses?

The Jackal actually did make amends to his error though:

Criminal A merely got away with $6000. Right, that fixes everything. Hell, if I go on a shooting spree one day I have a wonderful defence. "Not to worry judge, while I tried to kill 26 people I only actually killed six."

Is this what they call attempted theft? I would have pointed out this wonderful inconsistency but for:

But why does this matter? What is gained from bothering some poor fool who no one listens to on the back-ends of the internet? The reason this matters is because the commentator in question posts this sort of thing on sites that have a wide audience (like The Standard). Gibberish like this gets promulgated, regurgitated and spat out as truth. Even by people who should know better. And no one cares about actually doing their research, all they want is a convenient excuse, no matter how fanciful, to shore up their preconceived biases.

It is something I find quite absurd, hilarious and angering all at the same time.

UPDATE AS OF 18 MAY 2012

Seems The Jackalman wasn't too appreciative of my deconstruction concerning his dishonesty and bullshit claims so he has decided to retort with a strawman. Hilariously though he links to a video wherein the Police confirm that 3 pairs of sunglasses were stolen. Ahhh well buddy, better luck next time.

That first taste of fermented gibberish

It’s been a long time since I did any writing, several years in fact, and over that period I have been studying politics, intensely scanning all avenues of the media, trawling the seedy back alleys of the internet and getting into arguments with religious conservatives, far left hippies, right-wing neo Nazi’s, communists, rationalists and, quite bizarrely, people who believe that the world is secretly run by shape changing reptiles from another dimension. These online antics have taught me a few things about constructing logical arguments, how to find and present evidence for or against a position and that people are incredibly reluctant to give up a notion once held dear when it is proven false.  Not only reluctant but occasionally the amount of hoop jumping and mental gymnastics some will go through in order to hold on to a long disproved position can be quite extraordinary. 

It’d be amusing if it wasn’t so damned frustrating. Hell, I remember one instance when trying to convince a religious nut that the person he thought he was quoting never actually uttered the words he claimed he did. I tracked down the source of the quote (a goddamned magazine cover no less) and showed quite plainly that it was the magazine editor and not the subject person who said the words we were debating. 

The fact this whack-job hadn’t bothered to check his claims was bad enough but he still attributed the words to the subject stating something along the lines of “Well, that is how the magazine editor summed up his position so it is appropriate to attribute the quote to the subject involved”.  Never mind that this is a stupid and idiotic approach to any intellectual endeavour but it is fundamentally dishonest. I was eventually banned from the website where this debate took place after uttering some bad words in response to the breathtaking inanity after I had a few too many whiskeys one evening. But the reality of the situation was this debate had been going on for a goddamned year and I was tired of the stupidity.

I still visit on the religious quacks, the scientifically illiterate and wingnutted conservatives on occasion (and will no doubt write about it) however what really got me back writing again were things closer to home.

Over the last 10 months or so I have started getting a little fed up with some of the verbal goulash foisted upon the NZ public by fraudulent hacks with nothing better to do than broadcast their own opinions as fact while trusting the reader to not have the intellectual fortitude to go check on the claims presented because it fits nicely with their preconceived biases. So I thought maybe I would try beat the bastards at their own game.

I’ll always post sources for my claims, try to avoid egregious logical fallacies, try to remain nonpartisan and give credit where credit is due while admitting fault when fault has been shown.

Time to get busy and release the gibberish I have been fermenting.