Tell all your friends: FactCheck.org is useless
Garbage. Pure garbage.
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Did you expect anything more from an Annenberg funded/sponsored site?
Ring a bell?
Is this going to be an excuse everytime he’s caught flip-flopping/lying? It’s always someone else’s fault when you’re a liberal.
This was my opinion about 6 weeks ago after I used it a few times. Their mostly trues etc. never checked out. It is slanted.
I will always believe the NRA over Obama. His record voting and speaking tells me everything I need to know.
This is nothing new. I’ve argued with FactCheck before over their acceptance of Obama’s claims as solid fact to counter the claims groups with actual evidence make.
And speaking of fact-checking…
Biden’s assertion that he knew where the terrorists were because his helo was “forced” down in Afghanistan is pure crap. It had absolutely nothing to do with them. Bad weather forced them down. Now, our guys had to hustle out there to get them before the bad guys came, but that’s not what he implied in his statement. My husband was in Afghanistan and part of his job was scheduling flights, medevacs, etc., so he knows Biden’s assertion isn’t true.
Tired of the lies and exagerations yet? I am.
I thought it said FatCheck.org. I got a little excited.
I would venture and say Snopes is where you want to be to check your facts. Anyone want to chime in on that?
“if he tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem. I like that little over and under, you know? I’m not bad with it.” Joe “dead-eye” Biden.
The Obama-Ayers connection: Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and now Factcheck.org, The Annenberg Political Fact Check. How are they related.
National Review also caught it.
Snopes seems to be a little more even handed, yeah. Not to say I’d treat them as gospel though.
Obama is God and you will worship him.
It’s true I saw it on FactCheck.org!
Factcheck.org is funded by the Annenberg Foundation, which also funded the Wm. Ayers/Barack Obama Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and thus cannot be trusted to verify anything ‘Obama’ – including his faux birth cert.
I’m soooo glad you brought this up. Initially I thought they were fair, until I read their take on “sex ed in kindergarten”. what a load of crock.
Thanks MM!
GoldwaterKnight; I saw it as Fartcheck & got very excited.
It matters not–it wouldn’t display the link for me anyway.
aw, poot.
I noticed the last time I was on snopes that it had a slant. Sad, sad, sad.
What do we expect from a pig but an oink?
National Review article’s closing paragraph says it all:
Actually, not surprising to me at all.
you should check the link – it doesn’t work(at least, anymore)
patterico appears to be down.
Ty85719 I am having the same prob. Link does not work or is overwhelmed with hits?
On September 23rd, 2008 at 3:40 pm, TxSkirt, can you give me an example? I only ask because I do go to snopes on occasion when in question, ty.
Rule of thumb for the internet. Any site that ends with dot org you should be suspicious of. MoveOn dot org, IVAW dot org (Iraqi Veterans Against the War) etc.
Liberals many years ago adopted the policy of using the dot org extension to lend more credibilty to their cause.
I don’t bother with sites like “factcheck.org” because the title itself raises red flags. Remember that the left always chooses titles for their orgainzations that are exactly the opposite of what they really represent.
It’s like the “People’s Republic of North Korea”.
Great to see this come out . I was there a week or two ago by way of a link from the Sherdog war room ( a liberal looney mods’ link, in an anti Palin thread ). When I went to check the “facts ” I was just not buying it … it seemed so out of characterfor her . Looks like my insticts have been confirmed.
THANKS.
IT’S ABOUT TIME.
Now we need to get all of the media to stop referencing this garbage site, factcheck.
wwwdot.Factsasneededforobama.votes” is what it should be called.
Damn did these Dems plan ahead for this one.
I haven’t been able to access Patterico almost all day…at least 4-5 hours now.
What is Axelrod up to now?
Link just worked for me. It took a long time to load but it finally did.
There’s another “factcheck” post that is very misleading if not wrong that I hadn’t seen anyone comment on yet.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/energetically_wrong.html
In this post they say Palin is wrong when she claims that Alaksa produces 20% of Americas domestic enegy supply.
They do this by twisting her context to mean “energy consumption” rather than “domestic energy supply”. But she clearly said “domestic energy supply”.
Then they to continue to counter that Alaska only provides 14.3% of the oil produced in the US. But Palin did not say “oil” — she said “energy”.
Later in the article factcheck admits that Alaska produces 1.9% of US natural gas.
So even fact check admits that Alaska produces 16.2% of the US “domestic energy supply”.
OK, so the 20% claim is based on old data and the new data is 16.2%. Why couldn’t they just correct her this way, rather than writing this in a way that suggests that she is a liar?
Is this 3.8% difference really worth this whole “gotcha” article?
kellino:
Remeber that to a liberal a 4% increase rather than a 12% increase is considered draconian cuts – so yes, a 3.8% difference is worth anything the liberals think they can get out of it.
You forgot coal and biofuel and “others.”
I really like this paragraph. Short and right to the real point(s).
Take a peek at the entire article, it’s worth your 5 minutes.
Confederate Yankee
I too am unable to find pattrico server.
FactCheck.org
Annenberg Public Policy Center
320 National Press Building
Washington DC 20045
Editor@FactCheck.org
Telephone: (Annenberg Public Policy Center)
(202) 879-6700
The link was good earlier – maybe a bandwidth problem.
OK, according to the TAPS website (Alyeska Pipeline), this is what it says:
Nation’s DOMESTIC oil production. I know at certain points it has been above 20%. Oil product varies from year to year.
Either Patterico has a very small bandwidth or the kos kids et al are flooding his server. I’ve been trying for a while to no avail.
Took me a good while before I could get to Patterico. To say I am disappointed (in factcheck.org) after reading what Patterico had to say is an understatement. Previously, I had found factcheck fairly reliable, but this certainly shakes my confidence.
I just tried again and received message: INTERNAL ERROR 502. Or something to that effect.
Pretty much a fact of everything. You cannot simply trust any place. Once a place gets a reputation for something, some clown has to abuse that reputation for benifit.
Kind of like what alot of people think happened to Collin Powel, great reputation of honesty, and then the whole UN thing. While I think he and Bush were both being honest, the fact that intellegence was faulty ended up tarnishing his reputation.
Fact check tries to get a reputation for being able to get to the bottom of a claim, but brings with it people bias and sometimes even faulty intellegence, and their reputation gets tarnished. I think that Fact check does try to be unbiased and accurate, but with all things, there are people behind them. Fact check is still a good place to check out, but never ever let one stop be the end of your investigations.
That is: “INTERNAL SERVER ERROR 502″
It just occured to me that the federal numbers probably include energy from coal which greatly dillutes the role of oil and gas in “energy”.
Perhaps the Alaksa Research Development council does not include coal in their calculations but the feds do?
Even then, this warrants a “clarification” but factcheck elected to jump all over Palin rather than explain these differences.
Fact check is really really biased. Their takes on things basically ignores certain views as subjective and picks up other views as objective.
The better way to run such a site would be to explain things from opposing points of view and let people decide which one makes more sense.
Their take on Obama’s abortion record of opposing a bill that would protect against infanticide was a slightly strained argument… and it also had an ideological bias.
I think everyone has noticed to some degree that factcheck.org is not run by impartial intellectuals, but by pseudo-intellectuals who think they know what truth is, and what is objective and what isn’t, but really just have a different world-view that allows them to feel intelligent…
That’s my take on it…
Snopes is not reliable either. I did a check on Hillary and her involvement with the Black Panthers….most of the relevant stuff was not shown. Made it appear as though she was only peripherally involved (not true). Other checks on stuff revealed same thing on Snopes. They only show what they want to show, omitting lots of relevant info.
the place to go to find out about Senator Obama’s stand against our gun rights.
Barackies gun control votes:
http://www.sportsmenforobama.org/content/view/42/
I’ve been unable to get Patterico all day…
Funny, last time I checked some McCain facts on factcheck and presented the result to some LWNCs, they jumped all over me telling me that the site could not be trusted…
LWNC = left wing nut cases
Snopes has its (dare I say her) bizarre biases as well:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/mccain/5million.asp
The Snopes article even mentions the fact that McCain expects his statement to be distorted in the article that distorts it!
Wow…it’s even worse. Check this out.
In the original “energetically wrong” article, factcheck says that Alaska produced 14.3% of all US oil.
In their updates, they explain (follow the link) that the Washington Post claims that Alaska only provides 7.4% of all US oil and gas production.
So I guess factcheck was wrong about the 14.3% but the Washington Post’s numbers (which factcheck now seems to favor and does not contest) of 7.4% are uncontested as the new standard.
So I guess factcheck is admitting that they were wrong (along with Palin and the Alaskan Resource Development Council) and the Washington Post is right?
I knew that factcheck.org had to be bogus, when O’Reilly mentioned he had checked out the facts using factcheck.org on the McCain ad siting Obama’s stance on infanticide/abortions.
Geesh..he still keeps barking on the ad wars like as if he knows.
I discovered this a long time ago, when “fact check” butchered my story on Pelosi-Pickens.
Bill Collier
I have to give that the sanity test. Alaska is the second higest producer of oil behind Texas. Does 7.4% sound right?
I saw it as FatChicks.org.
ECS
I knew the FC folks were worthless when I researched their staff. Non-profit, incidentally, doesn’t equate to objectivity. All the political PACs are non-profit too. All this means is that they disperse all proceeds to the employees. They’re a “business” just like any other media entity. It just so happens that their business is more about obfuscation than clarification….
Elm Creek Smith said:, Leave Michelle O out of this.
Add FactCheck.org to the list of Obamatools.
September 23rd, 2008 at 3:17 pm, GraniteMan
Yep. I’ve been noticing the exact same thing.
One of the great things about being an Obama supporter (looking from the outside) is that, since he has no problem taking both sides of an issue at different time (or even in the same interview), it’s possible to find Obama quotes proving that he believes (or doesn’t believe) pretty much anything.
And that’s exactly what factcheck.org has been doing for the last few months.
The link to http://www.patterico.com is way slow, so there must be a ton of people going there…
In case you didn’t notice, saying that Alaska produces 14 percent of oil is different from saying it produces 7 percent of oil and gas. That’s like saying your tree has 10 percent of the apples, but only 5 percent of the apples and oranges.
Thank goodness the American people WHO VOTE are not as stupid as the pro-Obama crowd think we are! Anecdotal evidence reassures me that most folks see through the empty suit I lovingly call Oblahblah!
I particularly enjoyed his assertion that FDR went on TV in 1929 to talk about the crash on Wall Street and resultant economic depression. Since there was no TV in 1929, and Hoover was President….LMBO! I just hope they don’t use his frequent gaffs to rid the ticket of him! He’s really good for our side!
It’s run by Brooks “Reporting for CNN” Jackson, how could FactCheck.org be anything but slanted?
Fact check isn’t the problem – facts are the problem when you’re a conservative.
Hey, did I mention that the world is not flat? Oh, and the tooth fairy is not real.
I see that now
But I’m still confused as the Alaska Resource Development council still claims the share for oil and gas is 15%, while the feds say 7%.
I’m curious as to why there is such a huge disparity between the federal numbers and the alaska numbers.
I must confess I’d be more inclined to accept the federal numbers, but a gap this large causes one to contemplate what methods are used here.
Another site in the tank for Nobama. Is there something being pumped into the air during Nobama’s appearances which has caused all these people to give up on the truth?
Here maybe this can help. If Palin was talking in terms of oil reserves she’s 100% correct.
The libs are clearly choosing what facts they want to demonstrate.
Alaska: Share of U.S. Total Energy: 3.5%
Crude Oil: 13.7% of US production
Natural Gas (Marketed): 2.3% of US Production
She rounded 16% to 20%.
I use snopes quite a bit, and they tend to lean left.
But i’ve always wondered – who validates snopes, what makes them an authority?
So, they are lying, and they are lying, and they are lying, and they are lying, and they are lying, and oh, for crying out loud, I think I’m get’en a brain wedgie, I’m going to bed.
Wake me up on voting day.
For energy production by state (in 2005), you can check out this table from the Energy Information Administration (the FEDs).
If you don’t care to check it out these are the numbers.
Alaska produced 2,417.1 billion British Thermal Units(BTU) of energy. This includes oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and renewables.
The US as a whole produced 69,381.4 billion BTUs.
That means Alaska produced 3.48% of our domestic energy in 2005.
Goldwater Knight –
You can’t just add up the percentages of different sources of energy and say that they equal the percentage of total energy.
10% of 20 (2)
+
10% of 10 (1)
does not equal
20% of 30 (6)
Who watches the watchmen? Patterico, for one.
Never been to factcheck.org. I’ve used snopes occasionally to check on the political e-mails I get. Most of the e-mails are conservative-slanted and inaccurate. For the most part, I don’t need snopes to tell me that the e-mails are deceptive. It’s usually a given. I don’t get why people have to make things up when the truth is damning enough as it is. My concern is that people fall for this crap on both sides, and they end up more stupid because of it.
Researching things for yourself isn’t that hard these days. Snopes can be used as a tool, but it shouldn’t be considered gospel. You want good fact-checking websites? I’m commenting on one right now.
I don’t think you realize the difference between a British Thermal Unit which is a quantifiable unit of kinetic energy or “work” that one system does (or can do) on another. Alaska produces 3.5% of the “work” in the US measured in BTUs.
In terms of petroleum and natural Gas production; substances rich in potential energy (or fuels) Alaska produces 16% of total US production. If you add on alternative fuels such as gasohol and ethanol you have 16.5%.
Please, please, please look at the link I provided in post #65 which is data provided by the Energy Information Administration.
Goldwater night -
A few points:
-I did look at your site, and in case you didn’t notice, I linked to the same site in my post.
-Palin said Alaska “produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy“. To now change that to oil and gas is incredibly misleading (esp. since we get so much energy from coal)
- BTU is the best way to compare and tabulate different sources of energy. Otherwise you’d be comparing apples and oranges.
- How are you coming up with this 16% number? Are you adding 13.7% of oil and 2.3% of Natural gas?
That’s from the link in #65. They pump most of the natural gas back into the ground. If you look at the link in #69, they only count Marketed natural gas. If Alaska could get the natural gas they produce to market, their “production” in that link would look more like a cross between Texas and Louisiana. Which is why Palin is in favor of that gas pipeline getting built.
Also in #69, “Renewable Energy Production” is actually renewable energy use used as a proxy. Why they do that, and where it comes from isn’t spelled out.
Political discourse is usually done in terms of barrels of crude. I’ve never seen a politician speak in terms of BTUs. Generally speaking we’re parsing words.
Yeh I added the two. This number was also confirmed on Fox News by Alaska’s energy secretaty.
Goldwater Knight-
Political discourse about oil is done in terms of barrels of crude. It would be impossible to talk about our total domestic energy supply in terms of barrels (how many barrels is one cubic foot of natural gas? [technically you could do this if you converted everything to BTUs first and then into barrels, but I don't think we do that]).
Also, you can’t just add the percentages. Please see post 70. If you got the number from the energy secretary, he was using different numbers than the ones you provided.
What the hell are you talking about? Have you ever taken a course in thermodynamics?
Read the damn chart. Percent of US production is what it means. Sorry man I don’t jive with that fuzzy math crap.
bluesoc you’re 100% wrong.
My physics class in high school covered thermodynamics, but I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.
I’m reading the chart:
21,033 thousand barrels (oil) – 13.7%
444,724 million cu ft (natural gas) – 2.3%
It does not follow that Alaska produces 16% of the nations oil and gas.
What if the numbers were different and Alaska produced 70% of the nation’s oil and 70% of the nation’s natural gas. Does that mean that they produce 140% of the nation’s oil and natural gas?
Imagine there’s natural gas and crude oil dumped in a big swimming pool. All that oil and natural gas swirling around in the pool represents all the natural gas and oil the United States produces and it’s called “energy.” Let’s say the pool holds 1000 gallons. Alaska makes 160 gallons in that swimming pool.
and…
(is this a joke?)
You’re too smart for me pal. You’ve articulated the chart perfectly. Good night.
I agree with bluesoc that you can’t just sum to shares from different buckets and get a usable value for aggregated share.
So getting to 16% that way does not make sense.
But here is a paragraph from the Alaska RDC:
So Alaska says oil & gas share = 15%, but WaPo says around 7%.
I went to the link that the WaPo referenced as a source and did some calculations myself.
According to those 2005 stats, Alaska produced 16.68% of all domestically produced oil.
But for natural gas the number is 2.6%.
Now both numbers are in BTU’s so they can be summed and averaged.
Because there are twice as many natural gas BTUs than oil BUTs produced in the US, this weights down the total which is where I think WaPo came up with the 7.4%.
If you exclude natural gas, Alaska produces almost 17% of the BTUs created by oil. It’s the natural gas that drops it to 7.4%.
So it seems to me that based on BTUs the Washington Post is correct.
However, the Alaska RDC seems to have applied a different methodolgy.
Ask any accountant and there’s a hundred ways to count the same thing. It seems the worst Palin can be accused of is quoting states from the Alaksa RDC which uses a different measuring stick than the EIA.
That being said I thnk BTU’s are a better measure. If Palin had said “17% of all oil produced in the US”, the Washington Post would not be able to argue with her based on BTUs — they’d have to find a different article/measuring stick to disagree with her.
Palin said, “nearly 20% of of the US domestic supply of energy.” You can add the two and that’s what she meant.
US domestic supply is an aggregate of all forms of energy.
Correction — it looks like the Alaska RDC originally had a quote claiming that Alaska provides 20% of oil AND gas, but the web site has been revised and now the only claim is around 15% of US oil production only.
So Palin’s statement is apparently based on an old Alaska RDC statement that it no longer stands behind.
Palin should change her line to something like “17% of US oil production” (based on 2005).
it’s actually 16.5% to be precise. If you look at the Gibson interview she said, “Nearly 20%.” That’s taking liberty on the facts but still OK.
Include in the mix another so-called fact checking site, PolitiFact. It is the “fair and balanced” child of the St. Petersburg Times. They do have a nice little animated meter indicating a major lie. “Pants on Fire” is the handle. However, they do much the same as FactCheck when defending an Obama lie. Snarky answers, half truths, and nuanced propaganda against McCain.
When McCain is right on something Obama lies about, the explanation line is pretty tame and vanilla. When Obama is right on something, red hot chili peppers is the spice of the day.
Anyone know why the Patterico site is down? Anyone have a screencap of the story?