Nope, Vincent Gray's Not Arrogant At All

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I ran out of motivation to argue about polls taken more than two months ago. Every article I've read in the Post lately calls this race close. Are they all bonkers, too? Delusional deniers of Gray's huge lead?

I love the fact that you're willing to cite the Post when it suits you... but that you attack their polling methodology saying it's not scientific when it hurts your case.
The fact of the matter is, as I've said all along, the Post conducted a scientific poll that shows Gray with a small lead over Fenty -- similar to every other scientific poll conducted. That's why they call it close. But that doesn't change the fact that the Post's own poll shows Gray with the lead.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ran out of motivation to argue about polls taken more than two months ago. Every article I've read in the Post lately calls this race close. Are they all bonkers, too? Delusional deniers of Gray's huge lead?

I have no idea who is ahead and, frankly, I don't care. But, I wouldn't trust anything the Post has to say with respect to Fenty. The Post is so far up Fenty's ass it should be renamed The Washington Suppository.

You're right, they are. Which is why the fact that their own polling shows Gray with the lead is even more telling!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I ran out of motivation to argue about polls taken more than two months ago. Every article I've read in the Post lately calls this race close. Are they all bonkers, too? Delusional deniers of Gray's huge lead?

Again, we can look at FACTS, which indicate Gray with a lead, or CONJECTURE, which indicates a dead heat. What evidence is the Post using to call the race close? The further we get from raw data, the less precise we are. Lots of people are SAYING things, but how much of that is based on objective analysis and how much of that is based on subjective speculation?

And, as soon as someone demonstrates offense, I'm happy to apologize. Until then, I'll be backing my boy through the end!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you are really misunderstanding my use of "your boy", which was no way racially motivated. I'm a male myself and it is common vernacular, at least among men, to refer to a guy that one is supporting as "someone's boy". I realize the other connotation this carries, but this is common language, even in the black community. For instance, if you are a Yankee fan, Derek Jeter is likely your boy. If your a Nats fan, I'd refer to Strasburg as your boy. You are a Fenty fan, so he is your boy. It is in no way meant to be demeaning and is common language among younger males.

Trust me, I am the first person to call out racialized language. This obviously does not make me immune from my own mis-steps, but I can assure you that this usage is both common and completely non-offensive. I recognize tone doesn't come across well online and will be mindful of that going forward.

That being said, you are clearly insisting on keeping your head buried deep in the sand. You claim to have arguments/evidence to refute our facts, yet insist that it is our job to find it. BS. The stats support that Gray is strongly in the lead. This is far from a guarantee that he will win, but if the smart money, currently, is on Gray.

Thank you for the education in linguistics. I think I've got it now: My boy's better than your boy. You get that straight, boy, you hear me?

I'm sorry that you seem to embrace ignorance and bristle when corrected. Face it, you misunderstood a common term and, based on that misunderstanding, raised a protest. No problem with that at all. But, when corrected, you get all uppity and smarmy about it, because, again, the possibility that you just might be wrong about something is unfathomable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ran out of motivation to argue about polls taken more than two months ago. Every article I've read in the Post lately calls this race close. Are they all bonkers, too? Delusional deniers of Gray's huge lead?

Again, we can look at FACTS, which indicate Gray with a lead, or CONJECTURE, which indicates a dead heat. What evidence is the Post using to call the race close? The further we get from raw data, the less precise we are. Lots of people are SAYING things, but how much of that is based on objective analysis and how much of that is based on subjective speculation?

And, as soon as someone demonstrates offense, I'm happy to apologize. Until then, I'll be backing my boy through the end!

Prescisely. We are months away from any raw data. Yet you cling to it with such tenacity. The race is progressing forward. Most people say it's close. But you want to live in the past with your raw data. Good luck with that.

[Anonymous]

It seems your deliberately disrespectful and insulting post got deleted. It's really telling to see how you respond when challenged. Face it: you were wrong on this. It's okay. No one is expecting you to be right on everything. But I do think it's fair to expect you to not act like a complete ass. Even that appears to be too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ran out of motivation to argue about polls taken more than two months ago. Every article I've read in the Post lately calls this race close. Are they all bonkers, too? Delusional deniers of Gray's huge lead?

Again, we can look at FACTS, which indicate Gray with a lead, or CONJECTURE, which indicates a dead heat. What evidence is the Post using to call the race close? The further we get from raw data, the less precise we are. Lots of people are SAYING things, but how much of that is based on objective analysis and how much of that is based on subjective speculation?

And, as soon as someone demonstrates offense, I'm happy to apologize. Until then, I'll be backing my boy through the end!

Prescisely. We are months away from any raw data. Yet you cling to it with such tenacity. The race is progressing forward. Most people say it's close. But you want to live in the past with your raw data. Good luck with that.

You seem to use several words without any real understanding of what they mean. The poll data is raw data. Perhaps it is outdated. Perhaps it is unreliable. Perhaps it is unrepresentative. Evidence of the first point is obvious, but lacking any more recent data, it is the best we have to go on. You assert that it is unreliable and unrepresentative but when asked for hard evidence to support these assertions, you balk. This makes me think you can't really back these claims up and makes them easily dismissible. Yes, we will get more data as we get closer to election day. But to say that we are months away from raw data is to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what 'raw data' is, given that we already have quite a bit of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ran out of motivation to argue about polls taken more than two months ago. Every article I've read in the Post lately calls this race close. Are they all bonkers, too? Delusional deniers of Gray's huge lead?

Again, we can look at FACTS, which indicate Gray with a lead, or CONJECTURE, which indicates a dead heat. What evidence is the Post using to call the race close? The further we get from raw data, the less precise we are. Lots of people are SAYING things, but how much of that is based on objective analysis and how much of that is based on subjective speculation?

And, as soon as someone demonstrates offense, I'm happy to apologize. Until then, I'll be backing my boy through the end!

Prescisely. We are months away from any raw data. Yet you cling to it with such tenacity. The race is progressing forward. Most people say it's close. But you want to live in the past with your raw data. Good luck with that.

You seem to use several words without any real understanding of what they mean. The poll data is raw data. Perhaps it is outdated. Perhaps it is unreliable. Perhaps it is unrepresentative. Evidence of the first point is obvious, but lacking any more recent data, it is the best we have to go on. You assert that it is unreliable and unrepresentative but when asked for hard evidence to support these assertions, you balk. This makes me think you can't really back these claims up and makes them easily dismissible. Yes, we will get more data as we get closer to election day. But to say that we are months away from raw data is to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what 'raw data' is, given that we already have quite a bit of it.

Your raw data is old. It is outdated. It is shit. The fact that you have a lot of old shit does not make your shit shine. The fact that we do not have any reliable data at the moment does not elevate the shittiness of old, expired data. If you opened a carton of milk to find that it wreaked -- if you looked at the expiration date and confirmed that it had expired, would you still drink it? Since it's the best milk you have? Or would you wait for some good milk to come in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems your deliberately disrespectful and insulting post got deleted. It's really telling to see how you respond when challenged. Face it: you were wrong on this. It's okay. No one is expecting you to be right on everything. But I do think it's fair to expect you to not act like a complete ass. Even that appears to be too much.

Huh. Someone else agreed with me. So who's the complete ass?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ran out of motivation to argue about polls taken more than two months ago. Every article I've read in the Post lately calls this race close. Are they all bonkers, too? Delusional deniers of Gray's huge lead?

Again, we can look at FACTS, which indicate Gray with a lead, or CONJECTURE, which indicates a dead heat. What evidence is the Post using to call the race close? The further we get from raw data, the less precise we are. Lots of people are SAYING things, but how much of that is based on objective analysis and how much of that is based on subjective speculation?

And, as soon as someone demonstrates offense, I'm happy to apologize. Until then, I'll be backing my boy through the end!

Prescisely. We are months away from any raw data. Yet you cling to it with such tenacity. The race is progressing forward. Most people say it's close. But you want to live in the past with your raw data. Good luck with that.

You seem to use several words without any real understanding of what they mean. The poll data is raw data. Perhaps it is outdated. Perhaps it is unreliable. Perhaps it is unrepresentative. Evidence of the first point is obvious, but lacking any more recent data, it is the best we have to go on. You assert that it is unreliable and unrepresentative but when asked for hard evidence to support these assertions, you balk. This makes me think you can't really back these claims up and makes them easily dismissible. Yes, we will get more data as we get closer to election day. But to say that we are months away from raw data is to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what 'raw data' is, given that we already have quite a bit of it.

Your raw data is old. It is outdated. It is shit. The fact that you have a lot of old shit does not make your shit shine. The fact that we do not have any reliable data at the moment does not elevate the shittiness of old, expired data. If you opened a carton of milk to find that it wreaked -- if you looked at the expiration date and confirmed that it had expired, would you still drink it? Since it's the best milk you have? Or would you wait for some good milk to come in?

What EVIDENCE do you have that the admittedly older data is shitty? Or that it reeks?

So, let me summarize your argument: There is raw data that demonstrates Gray to have a lead. It is old. My subjective analysis tells me it's wrong. Therefore, Fenty is going to win!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems your deliberately disrespectful and insulting post got deleted. It's really telling to see how you respond when challenged. Face it: you were wrong on this. It's okay. No one is expecting you to be right on everything. But I do think it's fair to expect you to not act like a complete ass. Even that appears to be too much.

Huh. Someone else agreed with me. So who's the complete ass?

One person agreed with you. No one else has. And then you made a blatantly offensive comment that was rightly deleted before I could respond.

Why can't you just admit you were wrong about my use of the term "your boy"? It's okay. No one is going to yell at you. No one is going to hit you. You still get to eat at the dinner table.

Also: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=my%20boy

[Anonymous]

Also: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=your+boy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ran out of motivation to argue about polls taken more than two months ago. Every article I've read in the Post lately calls this race close. Are they all bonkers, too? Delusional deniers of Gray's huge lead?

Again, we can look at FACTS, which indicate Gray with a lead, or CONJECTURE, which indicates a dead heat. What evidence is the Post using to call the race close? The further we get from raw data, the less precise we are. Lots of people are SAYING things, but how much of that is based on objective analysis and how much of that is based on subjective speculation?

And, as soon as someone demonstrates offense, I'm happy to apologize. Until then, I'll be backing my boy through the end!

Prescisely. We are months away from any raw data. Yet you cling to it with such tenacity. The race is progressing forward. Most people say it's close. But you want to live in the past with your raw data. Good luck with that.

You seem to use several words without any real understanding of what they mean. The poll data is raw data. Perhaps it is outdated. Perhaps it is unreliable. Perhaps it is unrepresentative. Evidence of the first point is obvious, but lacking any more recent data, it is the best we have to go on. You assert that it is unreliable and unrepresentative but when asked for hard evidence to support these assertions, you balk. This makes me think you can't really back these claims up and makes them easily dismissible. Yes, we will get more data as we get closer to election day. But to say that we are months away from raw data is to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what 'raw data' is, given that we already have quite a bit of it.

Your raw data is old. It is outdated. It is shit. The fact that you have a lot of old shit does not make your shit shine. The fact that we do not have any reliable data at the moment does not elevate the shittiness of old, expired data. If you opened a carton of milk to find that it wreaked -- if you looked at the expiration date and confirmed that it had expired, would you still drink it? Since it's the best milk you have? Or would you wait for some good milk to come in?

What EVIDENCE do you have that the admittedly older data is shitty? Or that it reeks?

So, let me summarize your argument: There is raw data that demonstrates Gray to have a lead. It is old. My subjective analysis tells me it's wrong. Therefore, Fenty is going to win!

We are not in a court of law. I do not have to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. I do not have to follow the rules of evidence. I do not have to substantiate every sentence I write with a citation. The raw data is old. It has expired. It is shit. I know this because I am living in this moment -- now -- not two months ago. All the pundits say it's close. My friends at the Fenty campaign thinks it's close. People I know who are with the Gray campaign think it's close. Jeff doesn't like the Post, so let's go with other sources: The City Paper, The Washington Examiner, The Georgetown Dish -- think it's close.

If you can't look around you and observe the mood of the electorate -- if you actually think Gray has a 70% lead (or anything close to it) you are the one that is delusional.

In almost every election, be it local, state or national, early polling data is not predictive of who the winner will be. Study history; recognize patterns. Your data is old; it is outdated; it stinks. It smells like shit. It smells like shit because it is shit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems your deliberately disrespectful and insulting post got deleted. It's really telling to see how you respond when challenged. Face it: you were wrong on this. It's okay. No one is expecting you to be right on everything. But I do think it's fair to expect you to not act like a complete ass. Even that appears to be too much.

Huh. Someone else agreed with me. So who's the complete ass?

One person agreed with you. No one else has. And then you made a blatantly offensive comment that was rightly deleted before I could respond.

Why can't you just admit you were wrong about my use of the term "your boy"? It's okay. No one is going to yell at you. No one is going to hit you. You still get to eat at the dinner table.

Also: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=my%20boy

Oh, so if only one person agrees with me, and the majority conveniently sees it otherwise, I'm an ass? The majority opinion is always correct. That's a very scary proposition that leads to dangerous consequences. Read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson and get back to me as to whether we should always accept the majority opinion as correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems your deliberately disrespectful and insulting post got deleted. It's really telling to see how you respond when challenged. Face it: you were wrong on this. It's okay. No one is expecting you to be right on everything. But I do think it's fair to expect you to not act like a complete ass. Even that appears to be too much.

Huh. Someone else agreed with me. So who's the complete ass?

One person agreed with you. No one else has. And then you made a blatantly offensive comment that was rightly deleted before I could respond.

Why can't you just admit you were wrong about my use of the term "your boy"? It's okay. No one is going to yell at you. No one is going to hit you. You still get to eat at the dinner table.

Also: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=my%20boy

Oh, so if only one person agrees with me, and the majority conveniently sees it otherwise, I'm an ass? The majority opinion is always correct. That's a very scary proposition that leads to dangerous consequences. Read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson and get back to me as to whether we should always accept the majority opinion as correct.

No, you're an ass because you acted like an ass. You took a term that I used in a completely non-disparaging way and used it in a disparaging way, attempting to equivocate the two. That is why your comment was deleted. Because you were an ass.

No, the majority is not always right. But the issue is whether I offended anyone. No one has claimed to be offended. You acted offended on behalf of others and an individual (who obviously doesn't speak for that entire group but is the only person to explicitly weigh in from that group) from that group took offense to your patronizing attitude.

Again, you refuse to actually discuss the issue. Why was what I said offensive? Have you considered the arguments I've made to demonstrate that it was not? Have you looked at the dearth of offense taken? Or are you really that thickheaded that you can't possibly entertain the possibility that maybe, JUST MAYBE, you are wrong?

You have demonstrated a pattern of thinking in which you come to a conclusion and ignore all evidence to the contrary. You hold on to minor pieces of evidence, such as a single poster or a book completely unrelated to the topic at hand, to argue that maybe there is a sliver of hope that you are right, instead of just saying, "My bad. I was wrong on that one."