- A graduate student from UCLA photographed 250 signs that she saw at the 9/12 FreedomWorks rally, and then did scientific experiments to determine whether these signs were racist or not. The grad student’s analysis found “only about a quarter of all signs reflected direct anger with Obama. Only 5 percent of the total mentioned the president’s race or religion, and slightly more than 1 percent questioned his American citizenship.” Only five percent of the signs this lady saw at a rally said “Obama is a Muslin”? What could this mean? It means the media has distorted the Teabagger message, which is Freedom. We’ve attended many of these Teabagger picnics — not just one! — and we cannot agree more. Why won’t the liberal media apologize for calling all of these crusty, self-loathing brain-dead white people mean names? And also, we would like to apply to UCLA’s Teabagger Ph.D. program. [WaPo]
- Here is a feel-good story that will make your morning sparkle! It is about your friendly neighborhood health insurance conglomerate raising premiums for sick children. [NYT]
- Harry Reid and Sharron Angle are cage fighting in Las Vegas tonight! Bring a date/Rentboy! Speaking of which: Vagina Dentata triumphed over Yale Divinity last night. Hooray, we knew you could do it, Christine! [Seattle Times]
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Mornin'. Riley!
Good morning! (maybe.)
BTW Riley, your link to The Seattle Times goes to a Crazy/Wimpy story, not Witchy/Yaley.
Anybody see these yet? http://astroturfwars.com/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/13/tea-p... Kind of doubt the veracity of exactly what, "mentioned the president’s race or religion," means? We want OUR country back, pretty much summarizes it all…
Thanks for the links, especially the Guardian piece. It really upsets me that our mainstream press has not given this subject more exposure. Maybe WaPo or NYT or cable news will cover it if somebody would come forward and allege a gay sex affair with the Koch brothers.
Bastards stole the story (uncredited) from The Exiled, a site that should appeal to all wonketteers' finer sensibilities.
http://exiledonline.com/liberal-plagiarism-alert/
I trust that in the interest of scientific accuracy that the graduate student unearthed signs from the archives of anti-Bush rallies and determined whether they had racist connotations. Right?
And counted the signs they threw out. And took into account the fact that those morans have been getting hammered for being racist, so they've cleaned it up. Doesn't matter, she interns at the Cato Institute.
Oxford's PhD teabagger program is better
Yes, I always prefer some lovely English Breakfast tea
Oxford does not use tea bags- unless you mean U of Phoenix rent room program
Jeez. Some researchers will do anything to secure funding.
Sounds like Emily trying for one of the endowed chairs at Beck U.
My lap is an endowed chair.
So Emily could theoretically become an endowed lap dancer?
Forget the debate, Reid and Angle should just use revolvers at 50 paces.
I've got $5 that says that she'll make a "joke" like that during the debate.
Fuck revolvers… Make that five feet, with 8-gauge scatterguns full of shards of magnesium and Strontium 90. Moderated by Siegfried & Roy's big cats?
If they manage to take each other out then we have a clear case of "win-win"
Well, if that's the case… why not just let them go at it with thermonuclear warheads? A 2nd Amendment solution to Las Vegas, I'd watch (even the teabagger targeted HoveRound, Viagra and Extenze commercials!)
I'd prefer hand grenades at arm's length.
We're all racists now…
So what's the Vegas spread that Angle will resort to some 2nd Amendment remedies tonight?
Hey, btw, I'm fixing a teabagger's laptop here – maybe I should fuddle the DNS tables so foxnews.com goes to MSNBC.COM and redstate.com goes to dailykoz.com, etc…
There's an app for that!
Link to Gay porn.
You mean, "link to more gay porn sites," right?
Link to Two Girls, One Cup. That should hit home for the average 'bagger.
And freerepublic.com goes to rentboy.com…but he probably already has that bookmarked…
Of course Uhkla dipshit neglected to mention that "Freedum" "works" clamped down on the racist shit sometime before Rascalstock in August and has been doing it ever since. If my university edumkashun is correct then Sept happens after August, but I am not sure as I only have a mere Bachelor of Science and not a Piled High and Deep candidate.
Hahahaha…Rascalstock
Exactly. Is this what passes for scholarly research in grad schools these days?
The grad student's earlier thesis was a study of 500 couples who claim to have had sex in the last month, only 1% became pregnant, disproving the theory of so-called fertilization. Left out of the study was a question asking if birth control was being used.
Isn't this a sample size of one? How does that work out statistically?
A Cato intern finding that Tea Baggers aren't really racist is sort of like an intern at the Christian Broadcast Network finding that there really is no scientific basis for evolution.
B-but Christine O'Donnell said "creation science" should be taught on an equal basis w/evolutionary biology, paleontology, geology and other "theories." Last night!
Christine needs to go to the Vatican's web page (vatican.va) and do a search on the term evolution. What she finds will probably shock her. Back in about 1950, Pope Pius agreed (probably slightly reluctantly) that evolution was a viable theory, allowing that there was no conflict with Church teaching as long as there was allowances made for the existence of a human soul. John Paul II years later held a conference on evolution at the Vatican and announced evolution is an effectively proven fact, but he retained the right to think/say that there was still a devine hand/soul/etc. That's pretty revolutionary for the Church, in its way.
Not only is she ignorant in general, she's specifically ignorant of the Church of which she brags she's a member.
Wasn't Beck telling the people not to bring signs to the rally?
This makes the data source flawed. Wonkette is a mauch better resource for studying teabagger signs. After carefully crunching some numbers for several seconds I have come to the irrefutable conclusion that 127% of teabaggers are racist. True Facts from SCIENCE!
Let me guess. Your recent math refresher course was provided by Fox News.
Teabagger: "I'm not racist! Some of my best friends are niggers!"
words mean things, and by no stretch of definitions does "graduate student" mean "scientist." it would be more scientifically accurate to define "graduate student" as meaning "frantically ass-kissing schmuck."
Having once been a graduate student, I can attest to the truth of your statement. Graduate school is a lot like a fraternity hazing…at some point you think "This really isn't worth it but if I quit now, all my suffering up to now will have been in vain".
So true, so true.
/ABD
Plus, the masters degree is worth another $1100/year in salary. So it only takes 20 years to pay off. Deal!
Hey, HEY. I resemble that remark. Only with less "frantic" and more "Wish we had an outbreak of bubonic plague in the faculty lounge so I could get a fucking JOB."
bubonic plague is so messy. Wish for buyouts for those with 10+ years service. They will only hire one new person for each two buyouts but still, less bloody sputum.
Academia: The competition is so vicious because the stakes are so small.
I just kept hoping they'd hit the lottery and retire early.
The article also doesn't say what she's actually studying in grad school, or whether it has any relevance to her totally scientific survey; given that she's a Cato intern, it's probably revisionist history, pseudo-philosophy, or turgid literature.
It is correct to say that words mean things. However, insisting that two different people or groups agree on the meaning of a word, e.g. "socialism," is lexicographic elitist Websterism, and offensive to those whose knowledge of spelling and the alphabet that they have a hard time looking up words. And stop calling them alphatards.
Isn't UCLA that place where all they learn is to make movies and play basketball? Counting signs may be beyond their capabilities.
I love Amy Gardner's full page advertisements in WaPo for the tea bag party. It sort of looks like a real news story when you squint your eyes.
Hitler moustaches are only racist against the Germans, so they don't count until the 'baggers start talking up a secret Kraut citizenship.
Only 5 percent of the total mentioned the president’s race or religion. The other 95% were about his upbringing in Kenya and halal dietary habits.
The nazis didn't really burn that many books. As a percentage of all books that could be burned, they probably only burned less than 1% of them.
They were preoccupied with other sorts of burning.
As we get to the nub of the issue, Terry.
They also didn't attempt to exterminate all Jews. They didn't even try to catch the ones in America and Canada. When will CATO expose this historical inaccuracy.
"Really this is an issue of salience," Ekins said. "Just because a couple of percentage points of signs have those messages doesn't mean the other people don't share those views, but it doesn't mean they do, either. But when 25 percent of the coverage is devoted to those signs, it suggests that this is the issue that 25 percent of people think is so important that they're going to put it on a sign, when it's actually only a couple of people."
Oh really? FUCK YOU. Talk to me about "salience" the next time TV coverage of the Republican National Convention includes long, lingering footage of the three or four black guys that happened to attend. Talk to me about "salience" when the Washington Post article on your study features a picture of what is liklely the one black guy in a massive white crowd holding up a "Congress You're Fired" sign. Talk to me about "salience" when the only black guy at a Tea Party rally is the wingnut the rally organizers unearthed to give the keynote calling Obama a traitor and a Communist and convey completely bogus image of diversity.
Also, you can suck my salient feature.
Wonder how that framing attempt would go over if 25% of the average American popuation became flesh-eating zombies?
What do you mean, "if"?
Now, I'm sure they got the picture of the single black teabagger by pure random selection.
And that is NOT how a scientist talks. That is how a polemicist talks.
Would it also be salient to point out that someone holding up a sign with a racist message at a Democratic rally would be promptly and perhaps violently shown to the door by the rank and file all around them. It may be scientifically provable that only a small percentage of the signs were racist but how do you scientifically explain the fact that the rest of the participants at the rally were at a minimum unfazed by said racism and certainly not offended by it.
Call me crazy, but I really think the Teabaggers will wind up hurting the Republican Party this election and not helping themselves much in the process… Dickless Armey is overdue for a major coronary and Rupert Murdoch isn't looking so well either, to say nothing of Jabba the Roger Ailes. Cheney has no pulse and "Chicken Hawk" Hitchens has Cancer; so things are really looking up, if you ask me
Now, now. Let's not wish harm on others (wink, wink, nudge,nudge).
Just sayin'
True enough. When you've got "Young Guns" in the 3?-62 yr-old range, who needs Old Dinosaurs?
At 55 I am encouraged to learn that I too am a Young Gun! I told my wife about this but she told me to put my Young Gun back in its holster damn it all to Hell.
Cantor & Company, Young Guns? More like water pistols. These Pussyfarts lack the “go for the green, take no prisoners, no quarter attitude of the Old Guard.”.
That's what I get for not reading the full article. When the intern says few signs mentioned Obama's race, she meant that few signs had the correctly spelled name "Obama" and the word "race" on them.
So only five percent of the signs directly mentioned race; and I'm sure the intrepid researcher from the Cato institute, which totally has a reputation for providing objective research and not misleading ideological hackery, included everything with racist connotations that don't actually use any words mentioning race, like the Obama witch doctor photoshop or the image of watermelons on the White House lawn. Right?
We have it on good authority (by which I mean denialist emails from perpetrators) that those images are all in good fun and meaning nothing racist whatsoever, why are you trying to work people up over nothing, you Northern agitator, look over there ooh shiny.
Those signs were ALL carried by liberal agitators who have nothing better to do than to try to make Teabaggers look like racist homophobes.
Oh, C'mon, we all know the watermelon one is praise for FLOTUS and her organic garden and the witch doctor one is a metaphor for less efficient government-run health care and in no way means the signholder thinks Obama is a subhuman savage.
Mmmmm, likely a crowd in excess of 100K and she found only 250 signs? That comes to 0.25% of the Teatards present carrying signs. Photos I saw, before the talkie-talkie started, & most put their signs down, showed better than 0.25% packing (signs that is). Unless, perhaps, she was selective in what she saw.
JMP you're spot on about her future assured with Cato given those kind of sampling skills and that Emily will soon have a grad degree.
Now, the signs were a pure random sampling with no selection bias, according to Emily herself; and we can take her word on that, because she says so, just as the Post did.
Oh, and the article uses ""Somewhere in Kenya a Village is Missing its Idiot." as an example of an ugly but non-racist sign. Facepalm.
crowd in excess of 100K and she found only 250 signs
This is simply a reflection of the literacy rate.
"Directly mentioned race," in some recognizable language? As opposed to NeeGar, Muslin, Racis' nigra Hussein, HafBREED, Ooga-BOOGA, ter'is mooslum… Do Photoshop images of our first president, since Carter, with a fighting chance at a 3-digit IQ in garish white-face, scrawled 'Soculissm' count to the Cato Institute?
Why, that's just racist to imply that those signs are racist. WHY DO YOU HATE OBAMAR????
See, she needed to bring a dog along, to detect the dog-whistled racism. Brain-cancered Lee Atwater flat out admitted that "activist judges," "tough on crime," "states rights," "federalism," "taxes," and "welfare," are all racist dog whistles, referring to forced integration, federal enforcement of integration, and lazy negroes living off our taxes. When it comes to the teatards, "I want my country back" must be understood to have a silent "from the nigger president" at the end. "Socialism" is just the new word for "the negro is gonna take our taxes and give the money to his shiftless negro friends." And so on, and so on.
They will not deny that "Cap and Trade" is their dog whistle for taking money from the whites and giving it to the browns, when pressed on the issue.
"Socialism" is just the new word for "the negro is gonna take our taxes and give the money to his shiftless negro friends."
You know, prommie, it really isn't even a new word for "scheming, thieving negro" — segregationists and right-wingers screamed "communist!" at MLK and groups like the SCLC, and formulated huge conspiracy theories that King and civil rights groups were being manipulated by "outside" communist enemies in order to stir up the negroes and disrupt the status quo.
Same shit, different day. A couple of decades' perspective will provide clarity that few, except the most hate-addled crackpots, will be able to dispute: they're still fear-filled, hate-drunk bigots. Period.
What the fuck happened to the Washington Post anyway? It's hackishness is the Joe Scarborough of newspapers.
Are we sure this grad student is from UCLA? I would guess Hard-Work-U or
Alabama's Faulkner University.
Well, it's not the UCLA. It's the United Christians of Lower Alabama, a non-denominational home-schooling and think-tank organization.
Would Koch money make it that far into the backwoods? Are they promised an internship in the Cato Institute or Heritage Foundation?
It's obvious. This "scholar" is gunning for some type of wingnut welfare — whether it be Cato or National Review or *guffaw* Reason or…..
And for further "proof," WaPo offers up a pic of a black man holding a sign–WTF??
Can't wait for Angles' shrill idiocy dueling with Reid and his dynamic heavy sighing.
Vagina Dentata came across as airheaded and practically Palinesque. Yale Divinity, while unmistakeably troll-like in appearance, did well. Latest poll shows Yale Divinity up +20 over V.D, who has a great career ahead of her as a Fox punditette. Yay?
Where the fuck is Michael Steele when you need him?
Dear "Scientist",
Show me your findings after peer review. Until then shut the fuck up.
XXOO,
Refudiatedness
"…Teabagger message, which is Freedom…"
God Jesus fucking dammit all to hell!
I'm so tired of these sniveling dipshits talking about how their freedoms are being taken away. The majority of these people are on fucking socialist government entitlements ultimately taking out more than they put in, like that seven child pooping Alaskan Republican running for Senate . (Not to mention the right-wing career nutters in the socialist US military. Is there a more socialist microcosm of US society than our over-funded wasteful military industrial complex?)
Has one gun or baby been confiscated in a way that is different than if Bush/Cheney/Delay were running things?
What percentage of these signs mentioned one specific program spending cut (except for money for Messicans. How much does that cost one of these jack asses per year? The equivalent of two Chicken Chalupas at Taco Bell?)
WHAT ABOUT MY ANGER? WHY DOESN'T THE LIBERAL MEDIA COVER MY ANGER TOWARD STUPID PEOPLE!
I feel your pain, dude. I may have an explanation. Stupid people get angry and act. They charge up their scooters, misspell their signs, find an evil pied piper to follow and let rip…sort of like forcing out a taco fart.
On the other hand, smart people think about the possible consequences of their actions, tend not to look for pied pipers, and mull the issues over a drink…and maybe another drink, and what the hell…as long as the bottle is open…
Ha ha, the military is totally, textbook socialist, with pure, sweet socialized medicine. Tell that to a wingtard, and he'll have to stick his fingers in ears and shout "No No NO NO!" to keep his head from exploding. Let's see:
(1) Government provides worker clothing in government stores (Welcome to the PX!)
(2) All workers are government employees (Sign up here, kid!)
(3) Government owns the buildings, roads, utilities, schools (Welcome to Fort Bragg!)
(4) Medical care provided for free in government owned buildings by government employees (Welcome to Bethesda National Naval Medical Center!)
(5) Government ownership of the means of production (Welcome to Lima Army Tank Plant, in Lima Ohio! Or the F-16 factory in Fort Worth. Or the C-130 factory in Marietta GA!)
Okay, I'll stop now. Just like to arm everyone with elitist "facts."
I have told people for years that the US military health care system is the most effective government operated single-payer system ever created, yet nobody wants to adopt it for the civilian population.
Hate to quibble, but isn't Medicare (or Canada) a better textbook example of single-payer, in that the docs are still private business entities but the government pays them? Whereas in the military (or Italy or England) the docs work for the gummint and patient pays only a
nuisance feecopay?The current system has a combination of on-base hospitals and clinics as well as Tri-Care which is an insurance program paying for treatment at civilian facilities.
They're protecting your God-given freedom to walk into a bar waving around a Warsaw Pact military weapon (assembled by 1099 employees in SC) at the local bar. To drive around in a F-450 with Chinese slave-shop baseball bats looking for homos. Or to shoot mixed-race couples on full automatic. To leave the kids in an overflowing scalding tub, while soliciting sex online… then blame "two large negroes." Bare false witness against your neighbor in virus-ridden chain hate e-mails at work. Throw chairs at cancer victims at town hall meetings, while strapped… MUST I go on?
I want to hear more about this bare false witness
Other findings of the UCLA study were that nearly 75% of the words in the signs were correctly spelled, and only a small minority of the signmakers had been convicted of firearm or child abuse/neglect offenses within the previous 30 days.
Those are comforting findings.
Naw, it's really about her advisor – what idiocracy would allow his/her student to indulge in such cheap fantasy dissertation material?…once this person is tenured somewhere (and you know they will be) will their student's dissertation be on whether big or small presidential canines have been better for the economy? – Going back two terms for historical comparison of course….
When I began reading this thread, my p-score was 66 and now–after reading 63 comments and commenting (quite cleverly I might add) on two of them it's down to 65 and I ask: Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot? If this keeps up, by this time next week I will no longer qualify to be a Wonkateer and then what am I supposed to to do? Get a job? Fuck that.
Pee points are calculated by interns at the Fox News Mathematics Institute. You're lucky you're not at -65 points.
Only 1% of comments express confusion about p-scores, therefore the p-scoring is not confusing.
I'm 114% sure that is the correct answer.
if you don't have a job, that explains your problem. You get more points if, like the rest of us, you're commenting from work.
Yeah, but I am do comment in the nude and in this country, that ought to count for something.
http://video.ap.org/?f=wasee&pid=SQLsU_8V61gU...
You too?
Hey 66 is the equivalent of the American Dream. You're just slightly better than good! Isn't that what we're all aiming for?
Most of the signs are allusions to the stereotype that a black President's top marginal income tax rate is way bigger than a white President's top marginal income tax rate. I think that's racist.
Wait… So the tea party thinks Reagan was black?
Even shorter: teabagger says teabaggers not racist.
Kids are irresponsible leeches on society!
They don't like to hold racist signs when they're not wearing their white hoods.
Because being only 1% openly racist is perfectly acceptable.
Only about 25% were racist. 74% were completely nonsensical. Then there was the I Wanna Sandwich guy.
Obviously, there is nothing racist about saying "the sherrif is near."
Can't you see that man is a ni…?
BTW, OT, but WTF, LOL, I am still looking to organize a campaign of people to carry "God Hates Shrimp" signs at the Jon Stewart rally.
God I wish I could be at the rally. I would love to do that. I'll look for you during the live broadcast.
In similar news, scientists at the Institute for Bush Studies found only 14% of his decisions were "fucking nightmares".
100% of horny frat boys who attended the "Institute for Bush Studies" were severely disappointed with the course offerings.
Sick children are such a bunch of fucking attention whores.
So it doesn't count if n****r or muslim is misspelled?
I've attended exactly three Tea Party rallies in San Francisco (yes, they have them here). From my direct, non-scientific research I can say she left out a vital stat: those signs are also 100% stupid.
Evidence: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlytle/sets/72157623...
I want to throw up just looking at your photos! I can't imagine being there!
It's like Where's Waldo trying to find a black guy in those pics.
There was one black guy, but only one that I remember. He was wearing a "Chairman Obamao" t-shirt.
Was this the rally where the attendees were encouraged to NOT bring signs?
Only 25% were racist. The ones showing Obama as Hitler didn't count because Hitler was a White Guy and thus its like a compliment for a Black Man.
You don't NEED proof that you're not racist if you aren't REALLY racist.
Being a reputable researcher, I'm sure she'll release the full texts of all the signs she looked at for independent verification.
I don't even understand all their efforts to keep Republicans fluffed — the right-wing hates WaPo anyway, and no amount of fluffing will change that.
Right you are, but won't a Pvt E1 injured in Infantry OSUT at Benning be treated by an Army doc or nurse (or contractor) at Martin Army Community Hospital, which is kind of what I was thinking of? Sorry for the descent into medico-military geekery.
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