fun with statistics...

[Impenitent]

this is great fun…

wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57385

"Let’s compare attorney generals:

Civilians killed by Ashcroft: 0

Civilians killed by Gonzales: 0

Civilians killed by Reno: 80

…

Number of U.S. attorneys fired by Ashcroft: 0

Number of U.S. attorneys fired by Gonzales: 8

Number of U.S. attorneys fired by Reno: 93…"

where is the investigation into the reno firings?

-Imp

[Ierrellus]

Statistics are samples of opinion. They prove nothing, if one can believe that “10,000 Frenchmen can be wrong”, that majority opinion inevitably denies minority opinion, that “opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one”.

[Impenitent]

no opinions here… reno killed civilians and fired us attorneys… where is the liberal outrage?

-Imp

[Carleas]

Where do the zeros come from? What’s the source of the information? Is every civilian death equal to every other? Is every attorey firing equally bad? What’s the point of these figures?

[Impenitent]

@Carleas

Where do the zeros come from?

ashcroft and gonzales never had any civilians killed. reno did and accepted responsibility for it.

What’s the source of the information?

public records. show me who ashcroft or gonzales killed?

Is every civilian death equal to every other?

every civilian death ordered by the attorney general is… but stalin had his purges too, so they can’t be that bad…

Is every attorey firing equally bad?

unless it is a firing done by a liberal socialist toralitarian. then all is forgiven because only republicans can do bad. do you see it yet?? of course not.

What’s the point of these figures?

and the liberal hypocrites put their blinders on tighter…

-Imp

[Carleas]

-Waco was botched, but Reno didn’t send them there for genocide.

-Sometimes, civilians do bad things and the only thing to do is kill them. As someone who often advocates killing liberals and others you disagree with, surely you agree that not all civilian casualties are crimes against freedom.

-There is good reason to believe that Gonzales firings were politically motivated. No matter your political leaning, that sort of thing is bad for fair governance. But some firings are legitimate, so a number of firings doesn’t matter. “Doctors have killed trillions” isn’t bad if we’re talking about trillions of bacteria.

-Everyone that asks you to explain your position is not a ‘liberal hypocrit’. But ad homs sure help in the void where a well-formed argument should be, so I understand.

[Zak]

Carleas:

Waco was botched, but Reno didn’t send them there for genocide.

I think what hes saying is that if Waco would have happened under the watch of an Attorney General appointed by a republican administration the claims would have been just that, claims of mass murder. Instead the story was news for a relatively short period of time and Reno didn’t catch hell over it. If it were a republican the democrats would have had his or her head on a platter!

[Impenitent]

@Carleas

-Waco was botched, but Reno didn’t send them there for genocide.

doesn’t matter. she was responsible for it. what did the liberals do? not a fucking thing.

-Sometimes, civilians do bad things and the only thing to do is kill them. As someone who often advocates killing liberals and others you disagree with, surely you agree that not all civilian casualties are crimes against freedom.

I never said it was a crime against anything. it is liberal hypocrisy. and I don’t advocate killing people because they disagree with me… I advocate killing totalitarians especially when they hide under pretty words like liberal or progressive.

-There is good reason to believe that Gonzales firings were politically motivated.

NO PROOF.

No matter your political leaning, that sort of thing is bad for fair governance. But some firings are legitimate, so a number of firings doesn’t matter.

the gonzales firings were legitimate and you haven’t one shred of evidence to prove otherwise.

“Doctors have killed trillions” isn’t bad if we’re talking about trillions of bacteria.

-Everyone that asks you to explain your position is not a ‘liberal hypocrit’. But ad homs sure help in the void where a well-formed argument should be, so I understand.

did I call you a liberal hypocrite? nope. but thank you for accusing me of name calling. “But ad homs sure help in the void where a well-formed argument should be, so I understand.”

-Imp

[Carleas]

Zak, I think the question is, assuming what you say it rue, would the democrats have been right to make a fuss of such a republican AG? Are you actually going to make the claim that Janet Reno was directly responsible for those people’s deaths, and was it a just killing in the end. Reno didn’t design the strategy. She wasn’t military equipped and plugging cultists.

If you’re accusing Reno of biased and unlawful firings, or of being aware of a plot to kill innocent civilians, there might be a case to be made. But that’s not what’s been said. So far we’ve just seen the she and these things mentioned in the same breath, no argument, no evidence to speak of.

Allow me to be the first:

@"[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Gonzales#Dismissal_of_U.S._Attorneys_in_2006

Wiki[/url]"]. . . Critics have claimed the dismissals were either motivated by desire to install attorneys more loyal to the Republican party (“loyal Bushies”, in the words of D. Kyle Sampson, Mr. Gonzales’s former chief of staff) or as retribution for actions or inactions damaging to the Republican party. At least six of the eight had positive internal Justice Department performance reports.[21] There were various hearings and testimony offered in January through March. Criticism increased upon the release of emails by Gonzales’ chief of staff Kyle Sampson, which showed extensive communication between Sampson and White House Administration official Harriet Miers. Sampson resigned, but the emails indicate that a number of statements from the Dept of Justice, including statements made by Gonzales himself, were inaccurate.
In a press conference given on March 13, Attorney General Gonzales suggested that “incomplete information, was communicated or may have been communicated to the Congress” and he accepted full responsibility.[22][23] Nonetheless, Gonzales avowed that his knowledge of the process to fire and select new US attorneys was limited to how the US attorneys may have been classified as “strong performers, not-as-strong performers, and weak performers.” Gonzales also asserted that was all he knew of the process, saying that “[I] was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That’s basically what I knew as the Attorney General.”[22]
However, Department of Justice records released on March 23 appeared to contradict some of the Attorney General’s assertions, indicting that on his Nov. 27 schedule “he attended an hour-long meeting at which, aides said, he approved a detailed plan for executing the purge.”[24] Despite insisting that he was not involved in the “deliberations” leading up to the firing of the attorneys, newly released emails also suggest that he had indeed been notified and that he had given ultimate approval.

Knowledge is what they’re looking for. Evidence is what they had. Proof is what the Bush administration is denying to investigators.

[Impenitent]

of course you ommitted from your wiki quote the important part.

“On December 7 2006, eight United States Attorneys were notified by the United States Department of Justice that they were being dismissed, after the George W. Bush administration made the determination to seek their resignations.[20] Although the Prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the President,”

which means that the president can fire any and all of them at his whim. no reason needed. at the president’s pleasure. game over.

-Imp

[Ierrellus]

Statistics can prove astrology!!!
But back to the political, divisive agenda. Statistic–One Million Iraqis have been killed in the latest Iraq war. As many or more have become refugees, fleeing their homeland.
That’s just a blunt, accurate, uninterpretative account of a situation. Now let’s interpret it from the perspective of political divisiveness.

1. Bush’s attempt to force democracy on muslims has caused this tragedy.
2. Once the dominating dictator (Saddam) was gone, Shiites, Sunis and Kurds carried on their centuries old feuds and slaugtered each other, exception–Kurds don’t do this.
3. This is a result of the conflict between Shiites and Sunis over who gets the wealth of the country, which is oil.
   And many more.
   This example should be sufficient to prove to anyone that the interpretations of statistics are the problem. The interpretations are opinions!!! BTW, I hated Reno for Waco; but then, I’m an anarchist at heart.

[Carleas]

I think the important part was that one can still unlawfully fire these attorneys, even though they serve ‘at the pleasure of the president.’

[Ierrellus]

Wiki believers will believe anything. Want the statistics on this? Google is full of 'em.

[Impenitent]

@Carleas

I think the important part was that one can still unlawfully fire these attorneys, even though they serve ‘at the pleasure of the president.’

there was nothing “unlawful” about it. bush fired the attorneys because he wanted to. period. just like the attorneys who were investigating whitewater were fired by clinton. but that was kosher right?

the double standard is obvious.

-Imp

[Carleas]

Should Clinton have been allowed to do that? Are you defending Clinton’s actions? Or are you saying the the actions and motivations of a president should never, ever be questioned? Don’t have a double standard now.

[Impenitent]

@Carleas

Should Clinton have been allowed to do that? Are you defending Clinton’s actions? Or are you saying the the actions and motivations of a president should never, ever be questioned? Don’t have a double standard now.

I never said he shouldn’t have… he had the power and he used it… the only ones with the double standard are the ones who overlook actual provable or proven crimes committed by the leftists but scream when the mere appearance of impropriety on the right shows…

-Imp

[jagermeister330]

This just in: 100% of statisticians agree that you can use statistics to “prove just about anything.”

[Ierrellus]

@jagermeister330

This just in: 100% of statisticians agree that you can use statistics to “prove just about anything.”

Best post here!!! The bottom line, unless one wishes to engage in senseless political debate, is a consideration of interpretations of statistics. A statistic can be accurate. It’s interpretation, however, remains opinion. What makes opinion so vital to those espousing one is that it correctly expresses motive or personal agenda, nothing that amounts to philosophic rigor. I won’t play those games. Give me substance or give me nothing!