Friday, January 13, 2012

A Note on "Tlaz"


Tlaz is a  member of the dominant jr. high style clique at one of the prominent leftish political blogs I used to read and comment on.

Her frequent remarks about me being lazy are based on one incident when, to support a comment,  I went looking for a psychology paper and found the abstract was the only part of it available.  As you can see at the link above,  I wasn't the only one who could only refer only to the abstract instead of giving a link to the paper which wasn't online.

The study was so absurd in its foundations, asserting "scientifically" that cities that voted for Barack Obama were "head cities" and those who voted for McCain where "heart cities", that I mentioned the abstract in a blog comment.      You might note that the brilliant idea of the study is that "head" cities, by the siency definition of the authors,  included some cities which had made the most generous provisions for poor folks,  while,  by their definition, some cities that voted for McCain, and so are "heart cities",   that have made giving food to the homeless illegal.   As everyone knows, Republicans are all heart, that way.

Anyway, that's Tlaz's serious accusation of laziness and incompetence that she's made against me on three or four blogs that I know of.  Oddly, it always seems to happen in the presence of  certain "other" commentators.

August 8, 2011,  after the incident mentioned above,  in answer to a rational commentator, a physics teacher,  on the same blog, I posted a long quote from Richard Feynman's famous speech "Cargo Cult Science".   At the bottom of the quote, I gave a citation noting it was Richard Feynman who said it and a link to the speech online.    As the "tireless meter maid" of  all discourse about science that she believes herself to be, Tlaz jumped on me, declaring that what what "I'd said" only proved that I was scientifically ignorant and lazy.   Needless to say at that time and every time since she  has jumped on me for being "lazy" ( the dope did it later that same day on another blog! ), I've pointed out that the self appointed arbiter of science compentence had declared that what Feynman said was scientifically incompetent and that the dumb bunny had proven herself to be too lazy to read to the bottom of a blog comment to see the citation naming of one of the greatest scientists, not only of the 20th century but, if the surveys of physicists is to be trusted, in history to date,  The model of clerical efficiency (she loves to brag about her spreadsheet wizardry) had neglected to see the provided link to the entire speech,  as well.

And the only reason I'm posting it here is because she'll almost certainly say it again, either as "Tlaz" or as one of the sockpuppets she uses and I want it all down in one place to give a link without interrupting the discussion.

Update:   Someone just sent me an e-mail and a link calling my attention to this comment by Tlaz:

I have just a BS but over two decades of experience in my field. I know when someone is trying to snow me in a proposal or a manuscript.

Gee, I guess it's good that Feynman never tried to pull  a fast one on Tlaz.  I'm wondering what she meant when she said:

I'm a lab assistant? Good one. I'd give you a list of publications, but I'd like to remain psuedonymous.

I knew they were getting pretty casual about who they included in co-authors on papers in some fields but I wonder what she meant, assuming it wasn't just blowing smoke.

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