From: dlb5404@tamsun.tamu.edu (Daryl Biberdorf)
Subject: Fred's debating (or is that debateable?) ability
Keywords: see fred squirm
Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station
Distribution: tx
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 20:36:50 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.162649.4866@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>In <21407@rpp386.lonestar.org> jfh@rpp386.lonestar.org (John F. Haugh II) writes:
>
> [regarding a past article with references]
>Then you are either blind or a liar.  John Iacoleti (sp?) even ARGED
>with them.  All that stuff about how 'regressive' and 'progressive'
>are defined with regard to taxation.  So, are you blind, a liar, or
>merely stupid?

Maybe you could repost?  (Providing you have it around.)  I don't
recall it, either, but I could be wrong.

>>The reason that people require PRINTED references is that they can be
>>independently verified.  
>
>Well, so can broadcasts.  Someone else could have heard it, or you
>could call up the broadcasters and ask them.  This is about as useful
>a way to verify things for those of us who have to work for a living
>and find it better to accept peoples' veracity until they demonstrate
>we shouldn't as taking time we don't have to find some obscure
>publication or other.

So you're saying that those who "work for a living" never have time to
read about current or not-so-current important topics?  I challenge
you, Fred, to be reading one book in a field not related to your
field of employment at all times.  Seriously.  I try my best to
do it.  Sometimes I move real slow (a chapter a day) during heavy
projects or exam weeks.

>>But PRINTED materials
>>don't get "heard" wrong, "made up" or anything like that.  Leastwise,
>>you can't pull the stunt and expect to get away with it.
>
>Sure you can.  How many people have the time to run and check out some
>obscure publication, even assuming they can find the issue of it
>claimed?  

This usually is not a problem, unless you're citing something from
the Frobenian Journal of Herpetophagia or the like.  A good-sized library
carries most of the books or periodicals that I've seen cited here.
Certainly, my sources are usually not obscure (and with the Texas
university systems' library cuts, they'll get even less obscure).

Again, the purpose of citing material isn't to make it easy for
the "opponent" to verify the information, it's to make it *possible*.

>How many people WANT to go look for a 1984 copy of "Guns and
>Bimbos Magazine" to check out some egregious piece of nonsense that
>someone claimed they published?

Those who are interested in following up on the information.  Indeed,
I've gone to look up several sources that I've seen cited here.

>>It says the same thing that
>>your "I heard it on the radio/TV/grapevine."
>
>Then you are a dishonest man (and a lousy grammarian -- that's not
>even a sentence).  

In case you don't know, flames about grammar and spelling are bad
form on Usenet.  (This takes a lot of self-control on my part,
because spelling errors really annoy me.)

>>Expecting someone to do incredible amounts of leg work to locate
>>sources off of the TV or radio is daring them to disagree.
>
>Just like expecting them to do incredible amounts of legwork (one
>word) to locate some obscure piece of print.

Most of the stuff cited here is not obscure.  Even if it is, the goal
of citing sources is to make finding the information *possible*, not
necessarily easy.  In all your citings of NPR, you haven't even given
us a date of the program, which would be essential if we were to order
a transcript of the program.  (NOTE: Already-paid-for sources, such
as those at a library, are highly preferable to sources for which I
have to cough up money and time to order.)

Daryl
-- 
Daryl Biberdorf  N5GJM    dlb5404@rigel.tamu.edu  or  dlb5404@tamsun.tamu.edu
        "You're not messy.  You're organizationally impaired."
                _Real_Life_Adventures_, July 3, 1992 
Newsgroups: tx.politics