Shit that Pissed me off – 11/1

Fox News Lies with Statistics

Normally I don’t bother writing about Fox news because they are a biased source and who really cares when they say stupid shit?  The people who watch and believe Fox news will continue to watch and believe Fox news no matter how often the bias is shown.

But bad graphs really annoy me, you know?

Take this one:

HOLY FUCK!  Look how many more people are on Welfare than have full time jobs!  That’s a huge amount of….waitaminnit.

Actually, that’s only about 900,000 people but it looks like a whole lot more than that because of the scale they chose for their Y axis.  When you look more closely, you will see there is actually no scale on their Y Axis. If we assume the bar on the right is equal to 101.7 million, the bar on the left, which is five times as big, ought to be equal to over 500 million.  But it isn’t.

Because the axis doesn’t have a scale.  They just picked a bigger bar and a littler bar and slapped numbers on them.

Their numbers, by the way, are also total bullshit.  Even if they got the numbers right, though, this graph would be a travesty.

Being biased is one thing.  Being biased and stupid is unacceptable.

Douchebag Comments on my Blog

My blog doesn’t have a ton of readers so I rarely attract the conservative Christians who want to save my soul – or a least tell me I’m damned in order to save their own.

Last week I wrote about abortion and I caught the attention of someone who has a pretty big problem with the completely legal (for now) procedure.  He wrote a lot of comments but here’s his completely ridiculous opening salvo:

Motherhood is about nurturing children, not exterminating them.

It should be obvious then, that women who murder their unborn children are stating categorically that they are unfit mothers.

I would never get near a woman who is capable of such a wanton crime and that out of touch with her human nature.

Oh yeah, clearly anyone who chooses to have children (rather than abort them) will nurture the hell out of them.  Like this lady.

His basic premise is flawed.  Even if you are against abortion, if you believe that motherhood is about nothing more than nurturing children, you have about as skewed a view of parenting as you can possibly have.

Later he says that a mother should be willing to sacrifice herself to save her child or she is basically useless.  The life of a child – any child – is more important than the life of a mother.  Fuck that noise.

His skewed view of women means that his entire opinion is built on a foundation of hatred and resentment.  That, coincidentally, is probably what most women in his life feel towards him given the impossible standard to which he holds them.

There are lots of people like him out there and he’s totally welcome to his point of view.  Problem is, just about every statement he made was presenting his opinion as fact.  When challenged, he’d just say that his opinion was common sense.

Well if it was common sense, everyone would agree with him.  But they don’t.

Mentally Ill Inmate was Furloughed for Medical Treatment and Had to Find his own way Back to Prison

So this fellow was severely beaten in prison and rather than have him treated locally, it was apparently decided that the prison system could save some money if he was treated in Minneapolis.  Long story short, they expected him to find his way back to prison in Bemidji.

Who exactly decides it’s a great idea to put a mentally ill prisoner in charge of his own transportation back to prison?

They could have at least given him a bicycle or something.

You aren’t just putting him at risk, you are putting others at risk.  The guy wasn’t paroled.  He was still supposed to serve his time.  That means he’s still considered dangerous, isn’t he?

Given his mental illness, he is certainly dangerous to himself.  He might be dangerous to others.  Would you want to take that chance?

I just wonder how much the manhunt would have cost if he’d walked out of the hospital and he hadn’t hitchhiked his way back to prison.

Yeah.  He hitchhiked back to prison.

What the actual fuck?

Edit: Given the article is not specific, it it not fair of me to assume that his mental illness makes him a treat to himself or others.

Atheist Leaves Brigham Young University Because Mormons Don’t Like People who Think

So if you are a Mormon attending Brigham Young, you may want to be careful about speaking your mind on the internet.

If you do so and the Mormon leadership finds out, they will kick you out of school, out of your home and your family will probably disown you.  Before they do that, though, they will sit you down and verbally abuse you.

Being a Mormon seems like a great deal as long as you are willing to – you know – keep being a Mormon.

That’s the problem with religions like Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses or Scientology.  As long as you are cheerfully agreeing with everyone, they treat you nicely.  As soon as you start asking questions, however, you run into trouble.

Any belief system that relies on denying it’s followers the right to think on their own is a belief system that lacks faith in itself.

That’s pretty ironic.

This Candy Hierarchy is Completely Messed Up

I mean, how is it that Mounds ends up on the second tier and Nerds are on the bottom tier?  My kids go ape shit for Nerds.  And I can’t find anyone who will eat Mounds.

Dear everyone ever: If you like Mounds bars, buy them for yourself. Don’t give them out to others. That’s a dick move.

Full sized candy bars are on top.  Yeah, I get that.  But milk duds are totally underrated on this chart.

This chart was put clearly put together by a candy elitist who fails to understand that there is no way Mounds and Almond Joy are on the same tier as Tootsie rolls and Butterfingers.

I swear I don’t know what do about Ender’s Game

See, I kind of want to see the film because I’m a science fiction geek and even though it probably won’t be great, it’s got Harrison Ford in it as a grumpy old dude (typecasting).

But the thing is, Orson Scott Card is a homophobic tool. Now the word on the internet is that Card won’t profit from the film but he still wrote the book and going to see a film based on the book feels like tacit support for his radically anti-gay agenda.

Now, Roman Polanski is a confessed rapist and yet I still go see his films because he makes good films and I do believe that you need to differentiate the artist from the art.  But by going to see Polanski films, I’m helping to put money into the pocket of a rapist.

There are no easy answers to this problem.  I’d love to live in a black and white world but the shades of gray just keep popping up. Even if Card does not profit from the film, his book will sell better as a result of the release.

Not that his books will sell worse if I don’t go see the movie.

I’ll probably go see the movie.  But I’m going to feel guilty about it.