FYI
TAE is off back to the US for two weeks, including a weekend in Augusta, Georgia, watching the best golfers in the world battle it out in the most exclusive tournament in the world - The Masters. Hence, the site will be devoid of anything new for a while.
In the meantime, however, some of you may be interested in the exchange I had with Tim Lambert and Kevin Donoghue (page down to comments) on Lambert's site Deltoid.
In the meantime, however, some of you may be interested in the exchange I had with Tim Lambert and Kevin Donoghue (page down to comments) on Lambert's site Deltoid.
6 Comments:
I have been making a few comments at Tim Lambert's site, and thought it might be worth repeating here some stuff on Juan Cole, the "expert" that Paul Reynolds and John Simpson quote.
Just a little digging produced a whole series of howlers by Cole. If I can dig - why can't they or their research staff ?
The web is choc-a-bloc with references to serious errors that Cole has made, so I have selected just a few examples.
Here is Juan Cole informing us that the London bombers were not home-grown :
http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/update-on-london-bombing-investigation.html
His piece is headed "Informed Comment" See why the man is a joke ?
And try these comments on his inaccuracies and bias, and the way he tries to cover up his errors :
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2005/07/juan_cole_and_h.html
http://decision08.blogspot.com/2005/07/weekly-jackass-number-thirty-five-juan.html
http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/007187.php
http://elephantsinacademia.blogspot.com/2005/07/honoring-one-of-our-own.html
http://foreigndispatches.typepad.com/dispatches/2005/04/juan_cole_errs_.html
Oh, and an amusing glitch by this so-called "expert" was on 1 April last year, when he headlined a piece "The Government in Iraq is not even close to being formed". Two days later Reuters reported "Iraqi politicians elected a Sunni to be speaker of the Parliament on Sunday, ending a political impasse and taking a decisive step towards forming a government nine weeks after the historic elections."
In other words, the "Informed Comment" headline by the biased "expert" on whom senior BBC reporters choose to rely was proved wrong before the ink was dry on his headline.
(Here is the Reuters reference) :
http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006606.php
And here are some more references to Cole's clumsy errors - which many presume to be based on his bias and spleen against Bush :
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/007322.php
And finally - Cole made a truly spiteful and scurrilous attack on the reputations of a front-line journalist Stephen Vincent and his translator when they were killed in Basra last year. In an open letter to Cole, Stephen Vincent's widow summed up Cole's character to a T :
http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/002697.html
http://jarrarsupariver.blogspot.com/2005/08/juan-cole-takes-cowardly-spiteful.html
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2005/08/note_to_juan_cole.php
http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/002713.html
But I suppose the BBC will continue to treat people like Cole as the font of all wisdom on ME affairs. And then wonder how we have the nerve to accuse them of bias. I feel the BBC debases itself by such reliance on a person like Cole.
Lambert's a whiner. If he can't refute what you have to say, he limits your ability to comment. Typical leftist weasel tactic. "If I can't hear you, then everyone agrees with me". Is it any wonder thes epeople cannot win elections?
Lambert is a Australian leftie opponent of the war. He describes himself as a "computer scientist". Not sure what science that involves. None of the people I ever met in computer departments are true scientists. Its a bit like sociologists describing themselves as social scientists. Puffed-up nonsense. He is actually listed as a lecturer. Nothing of any importance seems to have been published in his name. Just a hack.
His site majors on him harping on about the Lancet study and criticising anyone who points out the ridiculous way the figure of 100,000 deaths has been plucked out of the range of 8,000 to 194,000 as some sort of worthwhile central estimate to be waved around. He has recently attacked RTE, the Irish broadcaster, for refusing to go along with the Lancet stuff. How is RTE any damn business of his - except that he is an obsessive ? His other hot topic is global warming - now isn't that a surprise ? he must be one of the few people around still rooting for Kyoto.
He is NO SORT OF EXPERT on statistics or for that matter on climatology - even though he tries to give some claim to expertise. He is just a clapped-out leftie, living on the taxpayers' dollars and spouting off against Bush all the time. Remember the old line "Those who can, do, and those who can't teach" ? That seems to sum up the Lambert types. Academics with plenty of time on his hands to be constantly checking his blog, constantly popping up on all sorts of sites, even during hours when most folks are meant to be working. And enough time to be attacking your blog and sliming you as a "war blogger".
More on Lambert. He sounds a real piece of work.
http://doubletap.cs.umd.edu/WikipediaStudy/
Yet more on the obsessive Lambert. It seems he has lots and lots of time (WHILE SUPPOSEDLY AT WORK ? ) to follow his obsessions to blogsites all over the world. That is why he attacked this blog.
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/comments/ethical_academic/
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Finished attacking the Beeb yet? No? ok.
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Finished yet? No? Wake me up when you do...
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