Merciless Spewings
Thankyou to the Venerable Schwegler for leaving a well-developed, articulate, and engaging comment. He is now public goodguy number one in my book. I ask often that people take two seconds to type a line or two, cause why not? If you take the time to read the blog, whats another two seconds to jot down a couple of things and let me feel happy? The Venerable Schwegs went above and beyond, and you should all go to my previous blog and read every word of what he wrote and take notes.
That said - the Venerable's comment was in response to my blog entitled "A Defense of Talent," and in light of certain things that were said I must now offer a brief "A Defense of Sherry." First of all let me say what I do NOT take issue with. I do not dispute the Venerable's position on Bledsoe or Moulds or Henry. Statistics are tools for building whatever conclusions we want, and just as I may use them to praise Bledsoe and Moulds and lament Henry, someone else can use them equally as effectively to do just the opposite. For the most part, the Venerable's argument was logical and well constructed and so I choose not to debate his conclusions. What I must question, however, was the following - the Venerable states: "I think that you supported your arguments with a lot of facts that are wrong." It occurs to me that what the Venerable may have meant by "facts" were certain opinion-charged assertions I make, such as Moulds being a top five receiver, and of course such assertions are only true or false inasmuch as the individual himself interprets them. But insofar as "facts" are indisbutable data, I think the Venerable would be hardpressed to find any such "facts" that are "wrong." Take for instance the statistical data I offer on Bledsoe and Kelly - these are facts, and they are not wrong. Someone wishing to dispute them would be, quite simply, making a hopeless argument. They are the official NFL stats and appear as such within the body of my text. So I think the only issue here is that the Venerable uses the word "facts" when he was intending to refer to opinionated arguments, and if that is the case then he is free to question the latter as he sees fit because, as I said before, they can only be true or false insofar as the individual chooses to agree with them or not. Nevertheless, I feel impelled to beg the question - how can one question my "facts" and say they don't support my arguments when one's own argument makes its appeal to legitimacy through the statistical assertion that "if you give (Henry) 25 carries he'll generally give you about 130 yards." Such a statement blurs reality dangerously into fantasy. Consider the following: In three games this season, Henry's attempts are 23, 21, and 24, for which he has gained 75, 67, and 98 yards respectively. This means that in the first game Henry would have produced some 55 additional yards on 2 carries, 63 additional yards on four carries in the second game, and 32 additional yards on one extra carry in the third. This seems unlikely, and in consideration of the "fact" that Henry is averaging 3.5 YPC this season, a 25 carry game would translate to 87.5 yards, exactly 42.5 yards short of the Venerable's "factual claim."
But I will not press the issue, nor any of the Venerable's conclusions because I must bow to the depth and breadth of NFL superiority he continues to mantain over me. His resovoir of football knowledge exceeds my own, and so I put myself at risk by pressing the debate. I will not surrender the point about Bledsoe, nor will I acknowledge Henry as an asset to this team, but I respect Schwegs perspective and give him credit for backing up his own points wheras most Buffalonians are content merely to attack a player relentlessly and question his "heart" and "toughness" and leave it at that despite all evidence of skill and value (witness Satan as a clear example). And until the rest of you start leaving comments of such engaging insight you can all burn in hell, and me and Schwegs will inherit the earth - along with several thousand babes (with whom we will drink whiskey and smoke cigars and have sex).
Enough sports - "A Defense of Sherry" was supposed to be BRIEF but it was much longer than I intended, and I have so much else to talk about.
(Not really)
I hate to turn to politics, but what the fuck ... Cheney won this debate, can you really argue the point? Two blogs ago I handed the victory directly to Kerry and accepted that the candidate of my choosing was soundly trounced. Why? Because I try not to let my ego get in the way of reality (this is difficult at times). Unfortunately, many Bush supporters were unable to admit this until several days later when retrospect showed time and again that Kerry was the superior debator that night. Now Kerry supporters are doing the same thing. Quite frankly, it was not a contest. Don't get me wrong. Edwards did not lose to Cheney as bad as Bush lost to Kerry. But he did lose. Cheney was articulate as well as substative. He won on style (sound bytes such as the Dean observation) as well as substance. But this only goes to show what I've said all along. Kerry put himself at a serious disadvantage by taking Edwards in the first place. For all the talk about him being "young, attractive, intelligent, and charismatic," the only one of these that holds any sort of truth whatsoever is intelligence. I don't question the man's education. But he is not young (he's in his fifties), he is not attractive (in fact he's creepy and nerdy), and he is certainly not charismatic. Unlike Clinton (who is all of these things), Edwards comes across as a smug, arrogant, self-satisfied little twirp. He reminds me of the blue-haired lawyer from the Simpsons with the nasaly voice. While Clinton's southern accent seemed like a "charming drawl," Edwards' accent makes him sound like a hick.
Which brings me to my next point ...
If Kerry had taken Clark as a running mate, he would have won this election. In fact, it would be over already. Everybody who is voting for Kerry now would still be voting for him, but many other people who have written the ticket off would be giving it strong consideration. I count myself among these people. I think Bush (not Bush personally, but his administration) has done a lot right, but enough wrong to warrant consideration of a better, stronger couple of leaders. But lets be honest - Kerry's most glaring shortcoming is the question mark regarding his ability to fight the war on terror. As Cheney correctly put it - you're looking at thirty years of falling on the wrong side of every major military and defense issue. Now you all know I respect Kerry. He's an intelligent man and a good politician. But his ability to fight terror is suspect - so how in the fuck do you settle on Edwards as a running mate? In what way does Edwards inspire the confidence that Kerry fails to? He's a fucking trial lawyer, and he's been a liberal senator for one term - is this supposed to inspire the country to feel this is a guy who knows how to fight Osama? This is why Edwards brought no bounce to Kerry initially, why he disappeared off the face of the earth for so long, and why he continues not to help the Kerry cause now. Clark has a lot of what Edwards does not. For those who buy into the superficial shit - he is much better looking than Edwards, and I would argue that he is far more "charismatic" though I wouldn't go so far as to say that he is a charismatic person. But most importantly, he is a man that would inspire confidence in his ability to fight terror (after all, he's designed and executed military operations most of his life). He would appeal to the people that Kerry is missing out on - the people that aren't completely satisfied with Bush, but figure he's a safer bet. People like myself would have taken a good, long, careful look at the Kerry ticket if he'd picked a better running mate. But he picked the weiner and it is costing him severly.
But seriously, fuck politics...
Another reason why I hate the world of academia:
Today in class, a student actually began a response with the words "from an equestrian standpoint ... " From a fucking equestrian standpoint? Are you fucking serious? For those of you who don't know what that means, it means "from the perspective of a horse." These are the types of things our nation's "intellectuals" discuss.
Today I received my first speeding ticket ever. The cop, after accusing me of driving 70 mph on the 219 (which is false), then rushed away with my liscense before I could make an appeal to the old man's name. He came back with my ticket, at which point I interrupted him to name drop and was told it was too late to do anything about it now. Its not the ticket that's bothering me here. Its this - I've been pulled over twice in my life. The first time I was accused of doing 57 in a 40, which is a phsyical impossibility considering I was driving my dad's old four-cylendar standard Ranger and had just turned off of Bussendorfer onto Armor. At the point where the cop passed me and supposedly got me on radar, there is no way that truck could possibly have already gotten up to 57. Was I speeding? Yes. But it was more to the tune of 48 or 49. And now in this case, I am told that despite the fact that my spedometer clearly said "64" I was apparently doing "70". So evidently, the spedometer on my 2003, 21 thousand dollar vehicle is off by 6 mph, while a state trooper's paltry, insignificant toy radar gun is the inescapable dispenser of truth and light. I told the officer I was only doing 64, but he told me this simply was not the truth. I informed the officer of Nietzsche's argument that "there are no facts, only interpretations." He was unimpressed, so I was forced to take his gun away from him and pistol whip him all over the 219.
(Some of the facts of the above paragraph have been exxagerated or fabricated entirely - I'll leave it to your discretion to decide which ones).
I have not been drunk in about a month and a half. No wonder I'm going completely insane.
I think I need a girlfriend. Anyone know any classy dames? Or any hookers?
FREE WILLY, MOTHER FUCKERS!!
Thats it. Leave a message.
A Presto
Il Pazzo
PS - if anyone else should feel the need to take issue with my blogs, just remember who you're dealing with. As my name itself stands for - "One who is like God"
That said - the Venerable's comment was in response to my blog entitled "A Defense of Talent," and in light of certain things that were said I must now offer a brief "A Defense of Sherry." First of all let me say what I do NOT take issue with. I do not dispute the Venerable's position on Bledsoe or Moulds or Henry. Statistics are tools for building whatever conclusions we want, and just as I may use them to praise Bledsoe and Moulds and lament Henry, someone else can use them equally as effectively to do just the opposite. For the most part, the Venerable's argument was logical and well constructed and so I choose not to debate his conclusions. What I must question, however, was the following - the Venerable states: "I think that you supported your arguments with a lot of facts that are wrong." It occurs to me that what the Venerable may have meant by "facts" were certain opinion-charged assertions I make, such as Moulds being a top five receiver, and of course such assertions are only true or false inasmuch as the individual himself interprets them. But insofar as "facts" are indisbutable data, I think the Venerable would be hardpressed to find any such "facts" that are "wrong." Take for instance the statistical data I offer on Bledsoe and Kelly - these are facts, and they are not wrong. Someone wishing to dispute them would be, quite simply, making a hopeless argument. They are the official NFL stats and appear as such within the body of my text. So I think the only issue here is that the Venerable uses the word "facts" when he was intending to refer to opinionated arguments, and if that is the case then he is free to question the latter as he sees fit because, as I said before, they can only be true or false insofar as the individual chooses to agree with them or not. Nevertheless, I feel impelled to beg the question - how can one question my "facts" and say they don't support my arguments when one's own argument makes its appeal to legitimacy through the statistical assertion that "if you give (Henry) 25 carries he'll generally give you about 130 yards." Such a statement blurs reality dangerously into fantasy. Consider the following: In three games this season, Henry's attempts are 23, 21, and 24, for which he has gained 75, 67, and 98 yards respectively. This means that in the first game Henry would have produced some 55 additional yards on 2 carries, 63 additional yards on four carries in the second game, and 32 additional yards on one extra carry in the third. This seems unlikely, and in consideration of the "fact" that Henry is averaging 3.5 YPC this season, a 25 carry game would translate to 87.5 yards, exactly 42.5 yards short of the Venerable's "factual claim."
But I will not press the issue, nor any of the Venerable's conclusions because I must bow to the depth and breadth of NFL superiority he continues to mantain over me. His resovoir of football knowledge exceeds my own, and so I put myself at risk by pressing the debate. I will not surrender the point about Bledsoe, nor will I acknowledge Henry as an asset to this team, but I respect Schwegs perspective and give him credit for backing up his own points wheras most Buffalonians are content merely to attack a player relentlessly and question his "heart" and "toughness" and leave it at that despite all evidence of skill and value (witness Satan as a clear example). And until the rest of you start leaving comments of such engaging insight you can all burn in hell, and me and Schwegs will inherit the earth - along with several thousand babes (with whom we will drink whiskey and smoke cigars and have sex).
Enough sports - "A Defense of Sherry" was supposed to be BRIEF but it was much longer than I intended, and I have so much else to talk about.
(Not really)
I hate to turn to politics, but what the fuck ... Cheney won this debate, can you really argue the point? Two blogs ago I handed the victory directly to Kerry and accepted that the candidate of my choosing was soundly trounced. Why? Because I try not to let my ego get in the way of reality (this is difficult at times). Unfortunately, many Bush supporters were unable to admit this until several days later when retrospect showed time and again that Kerry was the superior debator that night. Now Kerry supporters are doing the same thing. Quite frankly, it was not a contest. Don't get me wrong. Edwards did not lose to Cheney as bad as Bush lost to Kerry. But he did lose. Cheney was articulate as well as substative. He won on style (sound bytes such as the Dean observation) as well as substance. But this only goes to show what I've said all along. Kerry put himself at a serious disadvantage by taking Edwards in the first place. For all the talk about him being "young, attractive, intelligent, and charismatic," the only one of these that holds any sort of truth whatsoever is intelligence. I don't question the man's education. But he is not young (he's in his fifties), he is not attractive (in fact he's creepy and nerdy), and he is certainly not charismatic. Unlike Clinton (who is all of these things), Edwards comes across as a smug, arrogant, self-satisfied little twirp. He reminds me of the blue-haired lawyer from the Simpsons with the nasaly voice. While Clinton's southern accent seemed like a "charming drawl," Edwards' accent makes him sound like a hick.
Which brings me to my next point ...
If Kerry had taken Clark as a running mate, he would have won this election. In fact, it would be over already. Everybody who is voting for Kerry now would still be voting for him, but many other people who have written the ticket off would be giving it strong consideration. I count myself among these people. I think Bush (not Bush personally, but his administration) has done a lot right, but enough wrong to warrant consideration of a better, stronger couple of leaders. But lets be honest - Kerry's most glaring shortcoming is the question mark regarding his ability to fight the war on terror. As Cheney correctly put it - you're looking at thirty years of falling on the wrong side of every major military and defense issue. Now you all know I respect Kerry. He's an intelligent man and a good politician. But his ability to fight terror is suspect - so how in the fuck do you settle on Edwards as a running mate? In what way does Edwards inspire the confidence that Kerry fails to? He's a fucking trial lawyer, and he's been a liberal senator for one term - is this supposed to inspire the country to feel this is a guy who knows how to fight Osama? This is why Edwards brought no bounce to Kerry initially, why he disappeared off the face of the earth for so long, and why he continues not to help the Kerry cause now. Clark has a lot of what Edwards does not. For those who buy into the superficial shit - he is much better looking than Edwards, and I would argue that he is far more "charismatic" though I wouldn't go so far as to say that he is a charismatic person. But most importantly, he is a man that would inspire confidence in his ability to fight terror (after all, he's designed and executed military operations most of his life). He would appeal to the people that Kerry is missing out on - the people that aren't completely satisfied with Bush, but figure he's a safer bet. People like myself would have taken a good, long, careful look at the Kerry ticket if he'd picked a better running mate. But he picked the weiner and it is costing him severly.
But seriously, fuck politics...
Another reason why I hate the world of academia:
Today in class, a student actually began a response with the words "from an equestrian standpoint ... " From a fucking equestrian standpoint? Are you fucking serious? For those of you who don't know what that means, it means "from the perspective of a horse." These are the types of things our nation's "intellectuals" discuss.
Today I received my first speeding ticket ever. The cop, after accusing me of driving 70 mph on the 219 (which is false), then rushed away with my liscense before I could make an appeal to the old man's name. He came back with my ticket, at which point I interrupted him to name drop and was told it was too late to do anything about it now. Its not the ticket that's bothering me here. Its this - I've been pulled over twice in my life. The first time I was accused of doing 57 in a 40, which is a phsyical impossibility considering I was driving my dad's old four-cylendar standard Ranger and had just turned off of Bussendorfer onto Armor. At the point where the cop passed me and supposedly got me on radar, there is no way that truck could possibly have already gotten up to 57. Was I speeding? Yes. But it was more to the tune of 48 or 49. And now in this case, I am told that despite the fact that my spedometer clearly said "64" I was apparently doing "70". So evidently, the spedometer on my 2003, 21 thousand dollar vehicle is off by 6 mph, while a state trooper's paltry, insignificant toy radar gun is the inescapable dispenser of truth and light. I told the officer I was only doing 64, but he told me this simply was not the truth. I informed the officer of Nietzsche's argument that "there are no facts, only interpretations." He was unimpressed, so I was forced to take his gun away from him and pistol whip him all over the 219.
(Some of the facts of the above paragraph have been exxagerated or fabricated entirely - I'll leave it to your discretion to decide which ones).
I have not been drunk in about a month and a half. No wonder I'm going completely insane.
I think I need a girlfriend. Anyone know any classy dames? Or any hookers?
FREE WILLY, MOTHER FUCKERS!!
Thats it. Leave a message.
A Presto
Il Pazzo
PS - if anyone else should feel the need to take issue with my blogs, just remember who you're dealing with. As my name itself stands for - "One who is like God"
posted by Il Pazzo @ 8:07 PM
1 Comments:
At 12:13 PM,
Anonymous said…
Alright I'm too lazy to get a sign on so I'll post anonymously. I'd just like to comment on the VP debate. First I'd like to say I'm a Kerry supporter and have also had always found Edwards to be articulate, to have an optomistic message on the fate of the middle class, and to be down right hot. Mike has enlighted me though. Before the debate I had talked to him and he had said Edwards is a weiner and a pervert. I said "no, he's to hot to be a weiner and a pervert". After the debate I stand corrected. He is a weiner. I hate Dick Cheney but he was definately the more professional one. Edwards came off uncharacteristically arrogant and well weinerish. I am just glad there won't be any more VP debates. This way maybe Kerry still has a chance.
Andrea
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