Thursday, July 20, 2006

Tired Old Junk

I know that Spotty's readers always approach Mondays and Thursdays with a pressing need to learn his take on Katie's latest pearls of wisdom. I know that Spotty wants me to interject logic and reason and snark into whatever subject matter she takes on while he's away. I know that all those people from the Strib visit on those days, looking to see how Spotty has vivisected the latest.

But I read Katie's column this morning and there's really nothing to be said. It's the same tired old junk - ignoring facts she doesn't like, and completely making stuff up about on the ones she does. She looks at some poll numbers and magically transports herself into the minds of those answering and just knows what they meant. Here are the real results of the poll, and it should come as no surprise that her results aren't there.

The question posed was one asking folks what the single most important problem facing the state is. 22% chose "education." Katie - armed only with this lone number - screams that it proves any number of her ridiculous conclusions. Sorry, Katie. The number no more proves that Minnesotans want "solutions to long-time educational problems that have little to do with money" than it proves that Minnesotans want "to do away with high school proms where those mean blonde cheerleaders always get chosen prom queen and that's why schools suck."

I can hardly wait to see Katie's take on the number in the poll that states that the number of respondents who ranked "Moral values" has dropped from 5% to 1% between 2000 and 2006.

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