Exposing fallacies in and outside of sports

The one I hear all the time is that you can't blame the refs and that the refs are just doing their job and are unbiased.

BUT -- surely you've seen the NUMEROUS studies and statistical analysis proving otherwise.
Clearly there is rock solid proof that refs do show a bias based on the higher ranking team or who is the home team or who has had the most fouls previously...
Those studies are really hard to refute...so I believe that refs are biased and prone to using prejudice when making calls - I see little evidence offered objectively to back up the "unbiased" claims.


One more argument I have heard recently is that you can't judge someone else's "fandom" - but I think that's been debunked as well. Clearly fans have openly and freely identified themselves sufficiently so it IS easy to see there are different types. The main difference in my eyes is that some fans support their teams even if the outcome is unpleasant - and others require some kind of "stroking" of their own egos or requirements before they are fans.
Their own words on most occasions define them.
I also notice that the very fans who call themselves the BEST fans not only rarely ever support their team or institution financially -- but they go one step further - they launch attacks against those who are good fans. Heck -- all you have to do is go to a few message boards - and look at the Saluki one if you don't want to look locally - and see the immature and mindless attacks on the very people they claim to support...but then they also turn their rage on each other plummeting their message boards into the cesspool.


Here's a few that do not involve sports...

-"When people spend more money it's good for the economy"
...we are told this many times by many different sources - politicians, media, etc...
They use the example that around Christmas when people spend more, then the economy is better..
Even if they have to borrow or run up big credit card debt - they still tell us we need to go out and spend more.

But - first, they don't bother to tell you that all those extra people who get employed around Christmas are then laid off right afterwards.

Then they overlook the fact that not all spending helps the economy! Much of it pushes people further into debt so that all it takes is one unexpected crisis that overloads their ability and bankrupts them.
If just anyone spending more always helped, then wouldn't it be good for our economy if we had an epidemic and everyone had to spend more money on health care to get better?
and yet - unexpected medical expenses are often cited as the cause for personal bankruptcies. But - many if not most of those people claiming the medical costs bankrupted them were already on the verge of bankruptcy via their own irresponsible spending.

Or - another example - wouldn't Louisiana have been way better off after Katrina - since everyone who had damage obviously had to spend a whole lot of money to rebuild and get things back where they were?

Or how about this one -- if we just want to make everyone spend more because they say it's good - then just raise prices on everything by 50% (that's called massive inflation) then everyone will have to spend more and put MORE dollars into the economy. According to the BS we hear all the time - then we'd have a GREAT economy if we all started spending MORE.

Nope - the answer isn't for everyone to spend more - it's for everyone (government included) to spend less - but where needed, spend more wisely and then save more of what you then do NOT have to spend -- that would help people wipe out their debt and gain savings! It also requires people to work hard for what they earn - but that brings me to the next example of ridiculous fallacies...


-"People DESERVE to be paid a decent living" or stated another way "The Occupy people who are holding signs demanding a share of someone else's wealth have a legitimate point"
...wow - I don't know where to start on this one....

Throughout all of history, if someone wanted to get ahead or make money -- they went out and worked HARD. If they wanted to do better, then they worked HARDER.
And if they want to be the best in their field, the worked the HARDEST!
Throughout my entire life - nobody's handed me anything I didn't work for and deserve. Yet - if I wanted to earn more or have more - I went out and worked HARDER or produced MORE.
But now we have this insane philosophy where people gang up and hold signs saying..
"We want to be paid more - and while you're at it - we also want to work fewer hours and have less responsibilities"
Say what?? This is the exact opposite of how people earn a living throughout all of history -- seriously we now have gobs of people expecting to make more money by working less but by ganging up on the guy signing the checks!

BUT WAIT -- there's even now a new movement that goes infinitely further...
Now we have a bunch of violent loonies holding signs saying in effect --
"We don't even want to work at all -- we just want someone, preferably government, to take wealth from those who have earned it and give it to us even if we never did a thing to deserve it! In fact, if government doesn't do it - we'll show off a bit of our thuggery and violence and maybe we'll just take it ourselves".

Good luck -- but I have a sneaky suspicion that even if we took all the wealth in the nation and put it in a pot and then divvied it all up - what we'd have all over again in just a matter of a couple years - is exactly what we'd started with!
We'd have the hard working, well educated, and ingenious people earning it all back and becoming wealthy again. And the lazy, sloppy, selfish, demanding people who are unwilling to work hard and simply holding their hands out expecting someone else to do their work for them would find themselves right back where they were once they've finished greedily spending and wasting all that they unethically ripped off those who did work for it.
Life has a way of working out that way -- except in Communism -- but then many of the Occupy people openly identify themselves as Communists.


-as per the Penn State stuff we see endlessly - "failure to report such a crime makes those who fail to report JUST AS GUILTY as the perpetrator"
....well, I for one do not agree -- the guy who is guilty is the one who is by far MOST guilty....and the failure to report is sad but in most cases not illegal.

Anyway -- how about those coming out now 15 years AFTER the fact saying they now KNOW about Herman Cain committing harassment and abuse -- what about their failure to report for a decade and a half?
Could not the same things be said about them? If what they say is true - then could they bear part of the guilt by knowing something and having the responsibility to report to the proper authorities - yet NOT DOING SO?
Why does the press go so hard after so many at Penn State - yet the real perpetrator is barely mentioned in most of the news reports?

Let's be fair -- let's hit the nail on the head -- any adult who takes advantage of or who rapes or attacks children is the real, evil criminal here.
Why does the press seem to go out of their way to deflect the attention from the real criminal?
We have others in public life who have been similarly guilty of horrific crimes against CHILDREN - and who have been protected by the press....who seem to have been given a FREE PASS...despite serious assaults and sexual crimes against children.

Here's some examples -
Congressmen Gerry Studds & Dan Crane...who were found to be using an underage pages as their whores.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_congressional_page_sex_scandal

We still have one of these perverts in our Congress - Barney Frank...who doesn't even deny using underage male pages for his sexual purposes...
http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/rep_bios.php?rep_id=32707663&category=scandals&id=20100403123938

I guess by today's standards -- all those other congressmen who knew about Frank and his perversion are equally culpable and guilty?

Here are a couple more examples...

***Here's a very similar case but it is getting no attention from the media at all...

It involves little girls as young as 10 years old who are being raped - and when they go for HELP to a well known system of health facilities, Planned Parenthood,
their rapes are NOT being reported as required by law, and by common sense.
Does this NOT make every one of those people in the Planned Parenthood organization - who all know this is happening - JUST AS GUILTY of the RAPES?

But it even goes several steps further and involves major coverups and fraud by the health facilities and people in government.
When the facts and charges that 10 year-olds were telling the officials they had been raped, subpoenas were issued for the documents & records from Planned Parenthood, and the health facility declined and has fought the orders ever since.
But they did release a few heavily redacted and altered documents - enough that the judge pursued the order to get the rest of the relevant records.

When the health facility finally did comply and release what the courts asked for they released the documents to the Kansas Health and Human Services.
BUT - then those people in the government chose to destroy the documents to help hide the horrific crimes against children as young as 10 years old - and help protect their buddies at Planned Parenthood.

When they did finally have to release documents - it was plainly obvious that they had faked and simply made up & manufactured phony documents thinking the legal officials wouldn't know - but they did because the records were totally different from the ones already received and were obviously just falsely generated to hide the fact that they had illegally shredded all the real documents to hide their crimes.

And who was it that ordered the privately owned Kansas health facility & the Kansas department that oversees them to illegally shred the damning records?
It was Kathleen Sebelius - one of the highest officials currently in federal government now a Cabinet member!

...and yet virtually all of this story will likely come as a complete surprise to most because it is simply not being reported - apparently to hide the crimes of the organization that is enabling the rapists of 10-year-olds to get away with it!

Hiding rapes of children, allowing the rapists to go free and rape some more, falsifying medical records and shredding the real ones to hide the crime, lying to judicial officials to protect a HUGE, national billion-dollar health corporation, corrupt officials everywhere, providing false information per subpoena, and HIGH LEVEL politicians intentionally acting to hide the evidence of the crimes .. are an amazing case that should be getting the same press as this one at Penn State - too bad it's not.
Clearly by the current definition - these people -- all the way up to the President are also complicit in the rapes of children!
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/281511/shredding-kathleen-sebelius-michelle-malkin
http://www.worldmag.com/mobile/article.cfm?id=18794

This story has been dragging on since 2005 and yet virtually no attention - not even from Kansas press -- and certainly not from anyone nationally.


Here's another one -
It appears we have a little mini-version of the Penn State mess going on at Marquette basketball....

It dates all the way back to last season and at least 5 (or more) basketball players are clearly involved in at least TWO separate sexual assaults against women on or near campus...that are being covered up and whitewashed by the Marquette people.

However -- after all this time - the university has never yet released the names of the perpetrators...and even one of the assaulted women is now yielding her privacy to come forward with her pleas to stop the coverups...

The university has stonewalled every effort to try to charge or even identify the perpetrators...
Now the FEDERAL government is coming in to check on these assaults..
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-us-education-department-investigates-marquettes-response-to-sex-assault-allegations-against-athletes-20111110,0,4852788.story

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-06-21/sports/ct-met-marquette-sex-assaults-20110621_1_sexual-assault-sexual-attack-allegation-crimes

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/16076763

http://www.wisn.com/news/27345574/detail.html

I predicted elsewhere there'd be a complete whitewash and coverup -- and it goes on and on while the victim simply wants openness and justice...
I wonder how ballistic our press would be if this was happening locally at BU??

The coach and AD said the situation would be handled internally and that the players involved would be disciplined -- and yet NOT ONE player has missed even one game, exhibition, closed scrimmage, or anything -- sound familiar?

These stonewalled charges & assaults don't even include the assault & battery arrest Marquette's Vander Blue had last year...
http://www.ballinisahabit.net/2011/04/vander-blue-facing-assault-and-battery.html

These are all real assaults, real victims, some teenagers....not just a busted lips with trumped up allegations!
Where's the justice and the media coverage?