Sunday, February 13, 2011

The ways in which I am stupid

I don't mind being called stupid when I am. My family calls me stupid when I (re) heat the just-delivered Hell's Pizza salad along with the pizza or when I boil chillies instead of green beans and then make the gravy from the resulting vegetable water. Yes. I can be stupid.

But I don't take kindly to being called stupid over stating an opinion which is based on my own experiences as a volunteer, listening and looking, research and reading. But perhaps I should be humbled that an academic completing a thesis can spare me the time.

I want to talk about Lindsay Mitchell and Dr. Paul Moon, both of whom have said some remarkably stupid things in the last few days. Moon really has no excuse for his ill-considered comments; Mitchell probably just doesn’t know better. Let’s start with her.


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9 comments:

Oswald Bastable said...

'Stupid' is leftspeak for 'not totally agreeing with me'

Michael said...

Other synonyms include:
- fascist
- uncaring
- heartless
- "get a life"

Psycho Milt said...

It would help his case if the piece from you that he quoted genuinely was an example of the correlation = causation fallacy. The quote doesn't look to me like anything more than "isn't this correlation suspicious and worthy of investigation?", which it actually is.

Anonymous said...

I followed the link to the person calling you stupid, and noticed at the top of his page it says "a blog about conspiracy theories". Kind of discredits him in my mind.
Hollyfield.

FF said...

''Kind of discredits him in my mind."

Exactly. This poseur is a lecturer in 'philosophy' in the bollocks department at Auckland Luniversity, and until he finds something meaningful to do with his life he is of course in a natural alliance with the least deserving of tax-payer funded welfare recipients.

Anonymous said...

As a statistician I am puzzled by his talk of correlates in the context he uses without an underlying hypothesis.

I know (*yawn*) but it is interesting to me.

Michael

sean14 said...

What a nasty, small-minded individual.

Keep up the good work Lindsay.

Anonymous said...

I read the piece, & I read the comments.

I see Lindsay as a no-nonsense, down-to-earth, caring individual. She's got a sense of humour and is probably a lot of fun to be with. She spends a lot of time and effort researching and publishing her findings on the rot that is the Welfare State. I mean why go through all that bother if she didn't care, right? And to top it all off, by her own admission, she's been there, done that, got her hands dirty and helped bennies out.

I read his piece and see a vain pseudo-intellectual who's so wrapped up in his own fuckwittery that he hasn't got a clue how stupid he looks in his post.

No doubt he'll do well in some vague gummint role in the future, or worse, become a Labour MP...

Ignore the little tyke.

I guess the problem with that is that because he's a "PhD" you know, he'll be listened to, and quoted, taken seriously etc, while the good common sense of an ordinary person, whilst backed up by evidence and research will be ridiculed and ignored... sigh.

Rufus

Anonymous said...

Lindsay, you need only be concerned if you respect your critic's opinion.

Describing you as "stupid" discredits him in my eyes, undermining the value of any other opinion he might express.

Your link to his blog is not one I shall follow again.

kurt