Reply #65: who is debating?

[OnTheOtherHand]

Alastair, if you are unable to engage the content of my posts, wouldn't it be honorable just to say so, instead of turning the quest for truth into a "debate"?

Nothing you have said to date - that I have read anyway - has provided any genuine response to the serious questions raised in the original Urban Legend.

Goodness, man, how simple can I make it? I quoted the article's claim that the pollsters inflated big-city turnout in order to bump up Bush's vote totals; I presented the evidence to the contrary. What on earth are you looking for? When is it your turn to answer serious questions? You may think I am rude to point out that you aren't defending the Collins article, but you are not.

Note, moreover, that I have provided evidence that the NYC result is not surprising, evidence which you have yet to address or even to acknowledge. For your part, you have made no effort to demonstrate that any of the results to which you allude is surprising or anomalous, much less "implausible." You simply have not presented an argument. If you ever do present an argument (for NYC, Illinois, or anywhere else), I will be happy to consider it. However, it is not the case that any such argument supports "the original Urban Legend" provided that you can work in the word "urban."

Perhaps you would like to take a turn stating, in a few simple and precise sentences -- preferably drawn from the text -- what you understand to be the central arguments of that article.

"Has it occurred to you that there may be ways to say things which are less likely to get people's backs up?"

(Links to al's deleted messages omitted)