I am so sick of Glenn Beck and his followers

Saving it for later today.

 

Your comeback should be the fact. He's arguing Holdren has a biased point of view, which is absolutely possible but also absolutely unrelated to the point that Beck badly mischaracterized Holden's words.

Your response is "But in Holden's book, he never suggests putting sterilents in the water or mandating abortion as Beck stated. They were discussed as possible but unlikely methods for forced population control with the weaknesses pointed out and never advocated as a realistic solution." And if you know the book better and Holden suggests other more likely solutions, point out that he actually advocated for X, Y and Z.

In many cases, you're never going to be able to change someone's mind because he or she refuses to have it changed. The best way to have a conversation with them is to stick to verifiable facts instead of going into a side conversation about biases. The same is true for people on both ends of the political spectrum. Narrow the conversation to a verifiable piece of information and pick away at the facts.

There are legitimate conversations to be had about biases in anyone, from the people who publish the research to commentators like Olberman and Beck. But they are tangential at best to discussing the underlying fact of what someone did or did not say or do.

 

The phrase was in far-wider use a half-century ago. Good riddance.

 

Of course, because, like Social Secutity, it's a political third rail. Immigration reform MUST be
accomplished on a 100% bipartisan basis, or it ain't happening, ever.

 

I had a former sports editor who thought "high yellow" was offensive but felt free to throw around "mulatto."

Um, how about a simple "bi-racial?" Or just omitting race altogether?

 

Already done.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/oct/27/hacked-uea-emails-cru
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/28/ipcc-climate-science-attacks-tobacco
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog+hacked-climate-science-emails

 

This thread is being locked -- temporarily. It's not for anything that's been done here, but rather because the mods want to keep all the political discussion today confined to one place -- the Election Day thread. That was part of the deal for creating that thread in the first place.

Come tomorrow morning, once the Election Day thread is locked, this one will reopen. Thank you to those of you who have contributed to an interesting discussion -- hopefully it will be so again from Wednesday onwards.