Posted on 03/26/2015 5:40:48 AM PDT by marktwain
A recent article by a person on a web site misnamed "PolitiFact Florida" did some interesting checking of a claim in the current debate about allowing people with concealed carry permits to carry on Florida campuses, as they do in most other places in Florida. As part of the testimony for the bill, Florida Students for Concealed Carry made the following claim:
"According to the state of Florida, you are almost twice as likely to be attacked by an alligator than by someone who happens to carry a conceal-and-carry permit."PolitiFact Florida's Amy Sherman decided to check out the claim. I think she did a pretty good job of checking. She found that there were no good figures for the number of "attacks" by people with concealed carry permits, but there were numbers for alligator bites and for revocations of permits based on misuse of firearms, and that gator bites were more common than revocations of concealed carry permits for misuse of firearms. As "attacks" by a concealed carry holder would likely be some subset of "misuse" it appears that she discovered that the fact was mostly true. She writes:
But overall, alligator bites happen more often than the revocation of gun permits for misuse of firearms.That is when she goes all politically correct and comes up with exactly the opposite conclusion:
We find the statement has an element of truth but ignores other information that would give a different impression. So we rate it Mostly False.Factoids such as the above are used by all political groups to give flavor and context to their arguments. I would think that a website that is supposed to check facts would be concerned with well, facts, rather than determining that a fact does not agree with their overall impressions.
The effort to replace the freshman beanie with a Beretta is the handiwork of the National Rifle Association, which apparently won't be content until every Floridian is allowed to drive to the convenience store in a Toyota pickup truck fitted with a .50-caliber machine gun.Observers might be excused for wondering if the editorial position of her paper might influence Amy Sherman's rating of the facts.
It’s been left wing since its inception IMO.
This came out of Tampa from a newspaper there. It has since been used as the journalistic equivalent of SNOPES (biased, too, BTW) by many places - Atlanta Journal for one, on CNN Headline News with John Roberts as another example.
It’s an arm of the “Tampa Bay Times,” a liberal rag if there ever was one. “PolitiFact” is really “PolitiOpinion.”
This is the same rag that gave a pass to Charlie Crist when he awarded a plum position controlling judicial appointments to a big contributor who was arrested and convicted of fraud. Said money had no impact. Then attacked removing finance limits for judicial races saying money influence mattered.
They’re also one of the primary outlets for news on the Rick Scott “DoC-gate” stuff going on here.
Yes it is lefty garbage. Whenever it appears in my rag, which has a propensity to rely upon it, I just ignore it. Unfortunately one would be crazy to under play the affect this dribble has on the public as most believe it to be an unbiased review of some issue.
In a related matter, I recently saw a biline on an article from some “news service” here in Florida. I decided to check them out including their 990 filing. What I found was a group of lefties with an 80K total budget, 3000 in office equipment(PC with an internet connection) and a letter head.
I wrote the publisher of my paper and pointed out that anyone could do that so why did they get above the fold reporting on a nother matter (Scott allegedly telling the state EPA not to use climate change in an offical document).
The ridicules answer “was we know these people and trust them.” Of course the issue, which was picked up nationally too, was nothing more than some employee who had provided a false report to his bosses about his activities at a conference. But the issue has legs now and continues to form a part of any story concerning Scott and his climate commentary.
You cannot make this stuff up.
That picture is clearly a crocodile.
You DON'T f##k with an alligator!
It was billed as an alligator. Alligators have a blunter snout than crocs. I do not know enough to clearly differentiate based on the picture.
Could you explain the reason for your I.D. of it as a croc? It would help educate all of us.
Thanks.
They must be from FSU.
The teeth and the narrow nose
While the nose is narrower in crocodiles, the crocodile’s paired fourth teeth from the front fit into a notch in the upper jaw, showing the two teeth when the jaws are shut. The photo angle doesn’t allow us to determine which critter this is.
My money’s on crocodile...
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