Archive for September, 2019

Biased media has gone from annoying to dangerous

Posted: September 14, 2019 by ng36b in media
Tags: ,
Hurricane Dorian predictions, from ABC News, https://s.abcnews.com/images/US/FloridaSpaghetti_hpEmbed_16x9_992.jpg

It’s like some people just want to watch the world burn. And by watch, I mean set it on fire themselves and then sit back and smugly gaze at their destruction.

The latest sad example of this is the controversy over Hurricane Dorian’s track. Dorian was a particularly nasty storm. It was big, had strong winds, and was driving into a variety of high and low pressure regions that altered its path, in some cases by hundreds of miles. So when President Trump tweets out that the hurricane is bearing down on Alabama, he’s attempting to ensure that every state is prepared.

He’s not wrong for being concerned. Here’s NOAA’s prediction at 5 pm from 29 August:

“The guidance envelope has nudged southward this cycle, with the ECMWF and HMON along the southern side, and the GFS bracketing the northern side. There has also been an increase in
along-track spread or speed differences with day 5 positions among the dynamical models ranging from near the northwestern Bahamas to the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. This appears to be the result of differences in the models’ depiction of the strength or lack thereof of the western portion of the ridge by day 5.”

NOAA Website, https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2019/DORIAN.shtml?

Read the rest of historical data here: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2019/DORIAN.shtml?

You’ll find lots of times the models “diverge” a lot. Would you want to be caught flat-footed if the storm diverges?

If Trump used old data and put out bad gouge to the state of Alabama, then ask yourself: does it matter? Was it a bad thing to be prepared for the worst? Is it worth tearing him down over? And if he hadn’t done it and the hurricane had turned that way, would he be criticized for not preparing?

The last part that gets me is this sort of non-controversy spreads around the world. News sources in Norway are jumping on this and calling it a fake weather forecast:

“In VG’s editorial, Per Olav Ødegård stated that “good economic times are Donald Trump’s best card in the election campaign. But the economy can also be his Achilles heel”. Ødegård commented that Donald Trump depends on good economic growth in the United States for his re-election campaign. Kenneth Lund and Terje Erikstad shared the same opinion in two pieces in Dagens Næringsliv published on the same day. Erikstad further speculated that “when Donald Trump is willing to fake a weather forecast, will he also fake economic statistics?”

Yup, this model looks fake:

Or the one at the top of the page.

President Trump does plenty of controversial things, but let’s stop pretending that being concerned for the welfare of a state in the path of a hurricane is somehow contentious.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Report From Louisiana Extra! Governor’s Election Heats Up with Miraculous Budget Surplus

Posted: September 14, 2019 by Pat Austin in elections, politics, primaries, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

Editor’s Note (DTG): While going through posts for the writers payday I found this post at the old blog in draft. For some reason it didn’t go up at the old blog, likely do to link issues. After reading it I’ve deemed it good enough to put up and pay for it, so slightly later than expected here via the last big of grief the old GoDaddy hosting site can give us is an election report from Pat Austin originally dated Sept 14th

The Washington Post has designated the Louisiana governor’s race as one of the top five governor’s races to watch in 2019-20.

John Bel Edwards has fairly high approval ratings (mid 50s) and is fairly adept at playing both sides of the line. He signed one of the strictest abortion bills in the country and he oversaw a massive Medicaid expansion. He probably feels fairly safe with the teacher vote because his paltry $1000-a-year raise allows him to say he gave the teachers their first raise in many years.

All in all, I think Edwards feels pretty safe.

His two Republican challengers, Eddie Rispone and Ralph Abraham, are splitting the Republican vote and it’s entirely possible that Edwards can stay comfy in his leather chair without having to worry about a runoff election. Should one of those two Republicans drop out, it might be a different story, but nobody is talking about that.

Adding more fuel to the gubernatorial debate stage will be the fact that now the governor’s office has miraculously discovered a budget surplus:

“Louisiana likely will have a $500 million budget surplus for the most recent fiscal year, significantly more than the $300 million initially thought, Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration said Friday, setting off a new round of debate in the governor’s race over the state’s financial situation.

“Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne told lawmakers in a joint budget hearing that the larger surplus will allow the state to pay for “dramatic needs” in infrastructure, including a $14 billion backlog in road and bridge projects, and the Edwards administration cast the news as proof the state has emerged from years of uncertainty with a stable budget.”

Louis Gurvitch at The Hayride would like to remind everyone of the facts: Here are the plain facts: “Taxes are way up, the state’s oil and gas industry is being destroyed by lawsuits and over-regulation, and Louisiana’s percentage increase in government spending is the highest in the nation! Don’t even bother to ask about the government reforms we were promised…”

Gurvitch speaks the truth. I love Louisiana, but we are not attracting new business with the excessive tax burden we have in this state, and we are indeed over-run by trial lawyers.

The primary is October 12. We will see then if Edwards stands alone or if he will go to a runoff.

Links:
https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/06/top-governors-races/?noredirect=on

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/elections/article_284b8438-d4b5-11e9-a813-375cc60d6770.html

Sometimes DaTechGuy’s Laws of Media Outrage are Violated

Posted: September 14, 2019 by datechguy in media

In Science a “Law” is something that is always true, outside of science in criminal law for example, or moral law, people violate it all the time.

That’s why we have confession.

DaTechGuy’s Laws of Media Outrage are more like the moral or criminal laws rather than the laws of science because while it’s rare, very rare, sometimes, just sometimes the media doesn’t follow them.

For example:

A man trashed his pizza restaurant and ice cream shop near Atlanta to fake a racially motivated burglary so he could file an insurance claim, police said.


Gwinnett County police officers responded just before 9:30 p.m. Wednesday after a 911 call reporting a man damaging the businesses, according to a Friday news release. The caller said the man was driving a black Chevrolet Silverado without a license plate.


Officers stopped a truck matching that description as it was leaving the shopping center and noticed televisions attached to brackets with damaged drywall in the back, the release says. They learned the driver, 31-year-old Edawn Louis Coughman, owned the businesses.

I found this via this link on twitter.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

What’ really shocking is that it’s in complete violation against DaTechGuy’s 3rd law of media outrage which states:

The MSM’s elevation and continued classification of any story as Nationally Newsworthy rather than only of local interest is in direct correlation to said story’s current ability to affirm any current Democrat/Liberal/Media meme/talking point, particularly on the subject of race or sexuality.

ABC could have classified this as a local story and perhaps it has been when it comes to TV, but at least when it comes to twitter, ABC took a newsworthy story against their narrative and made it a national story.

They deserve credit for it, I gave them some on twitter and the rest they’re getting here.

Final thought, Kinda sad that when a news organization acts like it consists of actual journalists rather than advocates it’s rare enough to be newsworthy.

9/11 Silence, Election? What Election? Pizza? Please, Antonio Brown Suit, Playing it out Under the Fedora.

Posted: September 13, 2019 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, baseball, culture, elections, politics, Sports, under the fedora
Tags: , , , ,

You’ll note that I didn’t do anything to commemorate 9/11 this year at all, not even the great victory on Lake Champlain in 1814 that I’ve occasionally mentioned.

I think constantly morning the dead in big ceremonies is a bad idea while we are still fighting any of these guys, all it does it give hope to our foes. Granted we are closer than we’ve ever been to them being utterly crushed, but till I think a smaller ceremony is a better idea.

Some might object and that’s your right but my take is a lot better than the NYT trying to pretend that airplanes attacks us on their own.

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Speaking on 9/11 the MSM hit Donald Trump for hitting them on 9/11. I’m not surprised, it sure beats having to report on the special election in NC where they were anticipating victory for weeks, until the President showed up the day before.

Then the 18 point deficit became a 1 1/2 point win for Dan Bishop and the media was no longer smiling

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

and election suddenly was no longer newsworthy.

Unexpectedly of course.

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Ok one more 9/11 thing can someone please tell me what was so offensive about this pizza? that it couldn’t be tweeted out on 9/11?

It’s one thing to want to be respectful, it’s another thing to be anal. This is anal.

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Antonio Brown is now been accused of rape in a civil lawsuit alleging that these events took place last year and in 2017.

I have no idea if this is true or not and I’m sure this is going to be topic #1 on sports media concerning the NFL, and frankly Brown’s statement concerning the event doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in him, but regardless of how you feel about Brown who is likely one of the least popular players in the league at the moment, it seems to me that this is well within the statue of limitations so I don’t understand why the person launching this suit is not filing criminal charges in addition to the civil suit.

Whatever your opinion of Mr. Brown I think that’s a valid question that deserves an answer.

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As of this writing (9/11) the Boston Redsox tragic number for wild card spot elimination is 9. On the radio two days ago the I heard a sports talk guy say the day they were official eliminated by the Yankees for the division that you would see the players tone it down. This suggestion insults me for two reasons.

Firstly until you eliminated. Teams have been known to collapse at the end so until you’re out of it you should play like you’re in it, not just for the your own team and fan’s sake but to force the guys in front of you earn it.

Secondly as professional athletes who are paid millions of dollars to play this game you are expected to play to win. This is entertainment and in a sport whose fan base isn’t what it was you can’t afford to mail it in.

Of course it would be nice if the players were as insulted by this suggestion as I was.

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