Where do you get your facts?

[Stinky The Clown]

Yeah, facts matter, but I'm an opinion kinda guy. For me, facts are simply one ingredient in my personal recipe for Opinion Pie. I get my facts in many places. It is not uncommon for some of the facts I get to be from less than reliable sources - in which case they often turn out not to be facts at all. I call these faux facts and have discovered a teevee network that deals in them regularly.

Even faux facts get consideration, however. Faux facts indicate what the other guy wants you to think. A wise person might, on occasion, use that to help direct his opinion in some other direction.

Little factoids tend to influence me the most as they are rock solid, yes or no kinds of data. Small, simple, elegant. I like those facts the best.

At the end of the process (actually, the process of forming opinion never really ends), using your own filters and calculations and assembled facts, one forms Their Own Opinion.

Okay, so that's me. What about you? Where do you get your facts?

I see some posters who can cut and paste like a maniac and cite 512 sources for the most obscure and arcane factoid and build an entire refutation on that.

I see some posters who use faux facts regularly.

Then there's the snark laden reply when someone snarkily asks the internet version of "oh yeah?" which is "Link, please?" These exchanges are fun if for no other reason than the links provided make for some often humorous reading. We see links to wh.gov or senatorloudmouth.gov held up as facts and not the spin they really are. We see citations from the Moonie Times and Politico held out equally as "facts".

(I am making up the following, just as examples)

"The U4 unemployment rate moved from 9.8% to 9.79% last month." is a fact.

"We also note that the decline in the unemployment numbers last month indicate that the economy is about to come roaring back to life." is spin based on a fact.





So, back to my question. For those of you who like to cite the "facts", where do you get yours?

[branders seine]

1. The Onion

[rrneck]

2. Books. nt

[H2O Man]

3. Facts are the foundation

of an opinion; without facts, one has a bias.

[EstimatedProphet]

I say that at every opportunity

Opinions come from facts. If someone doesn't have facts, they don't have opinions, they have delusions instead.

[MineralMan]

4. It's kind of complicated, isn't it? Getting the facts, unadulterated

by spin, requires a lot of work. Few are willing to do the work, so "facts" presented in posts here on DU are often incorrect. I have no solution.

[stray cat]

5. from reputable generally published sources that I have researched

at least if its something important worth quoting its worth getting it right and not adding to the ignorant opinion generation

[MineralMan]

13. +1

[TrogL]

6. Personal experience and the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics

Everything else is opinion

[Stinky The Clown]

11. You hit on a very important point, even if you didn't intend to: "Personal experience"

As but one example of what personal experience brings to the Facts Market, consider the "fact" of whether or not we're in Depression.

Technically, by criteria established by economists, and largely unchallenged by anyone (me included), we are not in a depression. We are bouncing along at the bottom of a series of recessions that are strung together.

But if one is unemployed for two years, has no health care, a sick kid, and now has their unemployment benefits cut, they're in a Depression. The definition of their Depression is different from the technical definition of a depression. Their Depression is defined by emotions and feelings and images of the Dustbowl and the grimy worker shacks of the 1930s. For them, the Depression is real. Very real. That definition is held by millions of people right now. Although I am most fortunate to not be in a personal Depression, I share their view. I, too, hold in the Depression definition, not the depression definition.

To smugly cite the technical definition of a depression as refutation to that second definition of a Depression is to make oneself look smug, unfeeling, out of touch, and cold as ice. It is a "fact" that deserves little more than derision and scorn and if met with a hearty "Fuck You", should not be with surprise.

[Missy Vixen]

18. Thanks for your comments

It's interesting to see where everyone else gets their facts.

In the meantime, I get sick of doing research for others when they post "Link, please", and think they're really making a point...

[OnyxCollie]

7. Peer-reviewed journal articles,

GAO, CRS, CBO, and IG reports.

[Oregone]

8. I make most of mine up

[pscot]

16. That method has 2 advantages

You know exactly where they're coming from and you always have something on hand to drop into an argument. The bad thing is that the Limbaugh method, as it's now known, has become the basis for a political movement and has taken over a large segment of the media.

[pinboy3niner]

9. I hear voices in my head. Doesn't everybody? nt

[donheld]

10. The National Enquirer

:D

[EstimatedProphet]

12. I leave raw meat at the back door at night and every morning there's a stack of facts in its place

[MineralMan]

14. helium.com

When you absolutely, positively need the facts about the latest conspiracy theory...

[Dogmudgeon]

15. I pull them out of my ass

Just like most DUers.

And I've got a real big ass.

Just like most DUers.

--d!

[QC]

21. Yes, the Anal Archive is a very popular source!

It contains information on every conceivable topic.

[varelse]

17. I get a lot of facts from hard copy

aka "books". It's kind of hard to copy and paste (or link, for that matter) to this material, so I don't often cite it here.

[Urban Prairie]

19. Whatever RW talking headcases

Like Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin, Beck, Hannity, Goldberg, Blackwell, Stossel, Medved, Norris, Nugent, McCullough, Giles et. al have to say, is usually the opposite of the truth, so I can often get some of my facts by knowing that they are lying.

[Odin2005]

20. Real investigative journalists, not MSM idiots.

[Synicus Maximus]

22. I just make up the facts I need as I go along. That way the facts

always support my position on any subject.