SPON's Post-Election Blues

SPIEGEL ONLINE, at the vanguard of biased anti-Bush reporting in Germany, has not yet recovered from the post-election blues (and probably won't for quite a while).

Here are just two pics (1, 2) of many others SPON presents as proof that Bush was elected by folks with below average IQ and by religious zealots.

(click on pics to enlarge)

          

Here is my suggestion for a pictorial representation of the typical SPON visitor right after he realized his worst nightmare has come true:

FOUR MORE YEARS!!!!

(Hat tip Tanker)

Comments

[rcane]

the iq list is a fake...theres some footnote text thats been cut out

Note from David: I just wonder where SPON got this IQ list from. There is no indication on the SPON page that it is a fake.

[rcane]

If the Left want to use that list as being the truth, then doesn't this also means the Left/Democrats is the party of the elite/rich/city dwellers, while the Republicans is the party of the regular/poor/farmers folks

[Ralf Goergens]

Note from David: I just wonder where SPON got this IQ list from. There is no indication on the SPON page that it is a fake.

David, it says in the article the pictures are from:

NIcht sarkastisch, sondern zynisch ist dagegen ein "Statistik"-Gag unbekannten Ursprungs und Wahrheitsgehalts, der mittlerweile auf zahlreichen Webseiten gezeigt wird: Unter dem Titel "IQ und Politik" zeigt die Tabelle eine Korrelation zwischen dem durchschnittlichen Intelligenzquotienten der Bewohner eines amerikanischen Bundesstaates und deren Wahlverhalten. Die Botschaft: Wer Bush wählt, ist tendenziell dämlich.

Notiz von David: Ich wiederhole meine Frage: wo bei SPON findet sich die Aussage, daß diese Darstellung eine Fälschung ("fake") ist? "Unbekannten Wahrheitsgehalts" ist nicht gleich "Fälschung". Dementieren Sie bitte nichts, was ich nicht behauptet habe.

[lol]

The article is about bush jokes online. It was NO analysis of the election. Do you know the difference?

Obviously, you do not.

Note from David: Nowhere did I mention "analysis of the election". Read my post. These pics are of course not randomly selected by SPON - there is a message behind their presentation. This is obvious.

And, Torsten, I don't like you posting under different names in this blog. Do you want to create the impression of widespread dissatisfaction with our blog?

[Ralf Goergens]

David, es war ein Hinweis, kein Dementi.

[Eric Anondson]

Canada was mislabeled. It should have been called Sharialand.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35850

Jesusland vs. Sharialand. You make the call. It's coming to Europe faster than you can say, "I'm secular!"

[no comment]

"Here are just two pics ... SPON presents as proof that Bush was elected by ..."

slightly overreacting? a picture "Unbekannten Wahrheitsgehalts" is not appropriate as a proof... and spon doesn't claim to prove anything.

[Robert in Mexifornia]

If Canada wants California they'll have to fight Mexico for it. Imagine, if you will, Kosovo West and that's the Golden State.

[Wuldorblogger]

Whereas these numbers are from Gallup and show Bush improving the most with highly educated voters:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=13492_Bush_Gained_Voters_Among_Highly_Educated#comments

Bush, 2000 % Bush, 2004 % Change

Postgraduate education 43 47 +4
College graduate (no postgrad) 55 58 +3
Some college 53 56 +3
High school or less education 45 46 +1

[PacRim Jim]

The German media remind me of the elementary school playground. "I'm smarter than youuuuuuuuu." There is much difference between wisdom and intelligence, and I don't think the wise waste precious life demeaning others. (So count me out.) Could it be that education extinguishes common sense?

[quasimod]

I live in Kentucky, in "Jesusland". I am an atheist. I don't chew tobacco. I don't like TV wrestling, NASCAR or Football. I don't (currently) own a gun. My IQ is 132 (tested 13 years ago). I don't listen to country music. I am registered as an "Independent" voter, not as a Republican or Democrat.

I voted for Bush.

[Steven in California]

You know, I live in "Silicon Valley", which was once the best educated, best read part of the U.S. (I really don't know if it still is or not)

I personally have a pretty good IQ of 130. I have to say that I am pretty confident that I can take the average guy in some rural county in Alabama in a game or "Trivial Pursuit".

However, even if that, and the Spiegel list of states by IQ, is true, it DOESN'T MAKE BIT OF DIFFERENCE!

First off, voting is not an intellectual right, it's a political right. Democratic politics does not make a distinction between one man's opinion and anothers. One man could even vote Nazi or satanist, and his vote is still equal to another man's vote. Note the commonly used term "one man, one vote". It's not "one man with 120+ IQ, one vote--everybody else do what the smart guy says". You would think that the progressive left, which supposedly came about to champion the cause of the historically undereducated working class, would appreciate this. Alas, to use an Americanism, they have been "yuppified".

Second, even if I had a 200+ IQ, that would not make me more of a person than some guy with an IQ of 90. His hopes, dreams, aspirations and values are just as vital and important as mine are. If he doesn't want to "snap to" when I lay some of my knowledge on him, that's his right.

Third, implying to someone that you are more intelligent than him, and that he really ought to take your advice is a good way to ensure that the someone in question will in fact vote in the other direction. An even better way to get him to vote in the opposite direction from you is to go the Spiegel route and flat-out TELL someone that you are smarter than them, and that he definitely should take your advice. Spiegel's list is utterly self-defeating. They should have released it before the election, that way the national vote count could have ended up Bush-52% to Kerry-47%.

There is a saying that I will paraphrase "The wise man understands how little he knows." Perhaps I am wise, because I understand that even with my college education, professional career and 130 IQ, I really have no clue as to how your average guy living in rural Alabama should vote, even if I can probably kick his butt in "Trivial Pursuit".

Or maybe I know my countries history well enough to remember that we have a pretty good track record of making the right decisions.

I hope that while Spiegel uses it's big brain to meditate on my mental capacity, they will go take a flying leap at the same time.

[Joe]

Think Spiegel will profile SPD voters. Comparing them to the CDU. That should be interesting too.

[Eliza]

Here we go again. Soon we will see the German media quoting The Bell Curve to explain why racially diverse America is intellectually inferior to white Germany as measured by IQ tests. Ascribing low IQ to the populations of nations or regions is but a short step from delving into race-based IQ and geographic distribution statistics.

However I would note that, for whatever it's worth, Republicans are on average more educated than Democrats. According to the 1996 ANES survey, about 36% of Republicans graduated from college while about 28% and 23% of Independents and Democrats, respectively, graduated from college. About 59% of Republicans made over $35,000 a year while only 50% and 35% of Independents and Democrats, respectively, made over $35,000 a year.

[Mike]

The IQ numbers are pure fabrication, for two obvious reasons having nothing to do with the slipperiness of defining "IQ". First, the data that would be needed to produce these statistics don't exist. Perhaps in Europe, where paternalistic governments rule society, all children are carefully catalogued by their state masters. However, that doesn't happen in the US. Second, very few states have less than a million residents. Does SPON -- or anybody else -- seriously believe there could be several standard deviations difference in the *mean* among states when the population sizes are that large? Somebody -- someone truly innumerate -- obviously does believe it, it or thinks his readership will believe it, or this crap wouldn't be in print.

It's a fantasy, of course, and the willingness of some people to buy into it is more revealing about their intelligence than about the smarts of Bush voters. It's also a little disturbing that the most vitriolic anti-American propaganda seems to emanate from Germany. What is it with Germans and jingoistic ethnic hatreds? Haven't we seen this before?

[Y.H.N.]

Here is a better map

http://brownian-notions.blogspot.com/2004/11/what-ive-been-waiting-for.html

When looking at the map keep in mind that 49% of the vote is represented by the blue counties. These areas are crowded by US standards and need it be said, relativly roomy by European standards.

[F15D]

About the Jesusland map. I hate to break it to the future residents of the USoC, but if you check this link you'll notice something important (map is originally from CNN):

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=13470_Bush_286_Kerry_252

When the election results are viewed by county the amount of real estate the USoC's can claim is miniscule. I say we give them upper New England from New York north and call it even. That's fair. I live in California in one of the red counties. We would love it if someone - anyone - would take the LA and San Francisco liberal weiners. We could then go about reclaiming our once wonderful state.

At any rate, I hope the liberal elite like each other a lot, because stuffing 59 million of them in that area will be a tight squeeze given the size of their heads. As seen by all the recriminations going on, they eat their young so the herd will thin out fairly quickly...

[Carrick Talmadge]

Here is another take on "dumb ignorant rednecks" voting for Bush. The national exit polls show the ranking by education level:

No high school (4%): Bush 49%, Kerry 50%

High School Graduate (22%): Bush 52%, Kerry 47%

Some College (32%): Bush 54%, Kerry 46%

College Graduate (26%): Bush 52%, Kerry 46%

Post Graduate Degree (16%): Bush 44%, Kerry 55%

The only two groups which broke towards Kerry were the completely uneducated (formally at least) and those with advanced degrees. Numerically, most of Bush's support actually came from people who had college training.

Another thing that people should keep in mind, is that even in the so-called blue states, Bush actually picked up more support this time than he did in 2000. The reason is quite simple (I think), and has nothing to do with religion per se. Rather it is that bloody Iraq war, the security question and the handling of the terroism issue, and the consequences of failure on any of these three.

[joel]

Gee, they left Washington, D.C. off the IQ list.

Gee, I wonder why.

Dunno, I am just too dumb. I gues my IQ of 136 is too low to figure that out.

Me Bush voter. Bush good. Kerry bad. Him marry heap plenty rich girl. Then him marry old rich woman! They give money him. Kerry very bad. He Commie stooge. He say many thing not true. I want Kerry go back to Massachusetts where he belong. Why he no give Massachusetts back to Indians?

[Mitch]

As a rule of thumb, I noticed that the accountants where I work were quite cheerful about the election results, while the lawyers were upset, even depressed. Maybe when one learns to do simple arithmetic, the Democrats' economic plans lose their appeal. After all, we cannot all find heiresses to rescue our financial situations, nor can we all be much richer by taking each other's wages.

[K-K-Kerryhater]

Nooooooooooooooooo! I will NOT join Canada.

My state is mostly blue, but my face is red with shame because of it.

[Del Hoeft]

Note to would-be Snowbacks. You can only spend three months a year in sunny Arizona if you want to keep your health benefits (so I'm told). Keep your eyes on the Netherlands to get an idea of what to expect of Sharia Law in Al Qanada. And where does Quebec fit into the United States of Canada?

[K-K-Kerryhater]

Snowback...sounds so much better than sandnigger... ;)

[Joe Rousé]

I live in California, the idea of my state being a part of Canada makes me want to hurl....Gag!! Who the hell would want to live under a monarch?

Take a look at the county by county vote. It makes America a lot more red.

[Ron]

Last time I checked, the whopping 13 point difference in IQ is the difference between "10-4 good buddy" and "I'm 10-10, 10-8 on the side. Also, since IQ is educational bigotry to lefty zealots, why are they even bringing it up. Does this mean we can actually start teaching according to ability?

[Foobarista]

If you go county by county, most CA counties went for Bush. Outside of the inner-ring SF Bay Area (where I live, which is a Good Thing, except when I talk about politics) and LA County, CA is a Red State. Same for Oregon (outside of Portland and Eugene) and Washington (outside of anything touching Puget Sound and Lake Washington).

[Ralf Goergens]

Folks, Der Spiegel isn`t claiming that the table is genuine, they are remarking on it that it is "of unknown origin and accuracy. The whole article is reporting on the American left`s reaction to Bush`s victory. That`s also where the Jesusland map comes in; it definitigvely isn`t from them.

[Ralf Goergens]

Eliza (and others),

Here we go again. Soon we will see the German media quoting The Bell Curve to explain why racially diverse America is intellectually inferior to white Germany as measured by IQ tests. Ascribing low IQ to the populations of nations or regions is but a short step from delving into race-based IQ and geographic distribution statistics.

The table is clearly indicated as being of questionable accuracy. Look at the article the images are from and also this image and don`t miss this one.

To repeat, Der Spiergel is reporting on the reaction of the American left to their defeat. The images are also clearly indicated as not being meant seriously.

[VIK]

NOTICE FROM CARNIVAL CRUISE LINES: Afghanistan Cruise

We at Carnival Cruise Lines didn't forget that a lot of entertainers had promised to leave the country if George W. Bush became President again. With that in mind, we have a Special Offer for those who still want to keep their promise!

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please dispose of all US assets and report to Florida for the sailing of the Funship Cruise, "Elation," which has been commissioned to take you to your new vacation homes in Afghanistan. You may opt to be dropped off in Somalia or Iraq. The Florida Supreme Court will sponsor a Farewell Parade in your honor through Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties prior to your cruise.

Please pack for an extended stay... at least for four more years Note: Since you advocate strict gun control, you may not bring any. Staffing your voyage is Bill Clinton as captain,(he will go down, but not with the ship).

Rear Admiral Monica Lewinsky will be under Captain Clinton. Al Gore as cruise director, will lead a lecture series on global warming, union extortion, race baiting and trial lawyer control of dumb-ocrats. Featured speakers will be: Sean Penn : "Deep Political Thinking" and Al Franken : "Liberal Economic Theory of how a boring comic made a Radio Empire"

Michael Moore will be in charge of uniforms and personal grooming, so please do not go to the barber and do not clean your wardrobe before going on board. Above all, do not get soap near your body or Michael will get cross with you.

Ted Kennedy as lifeguard and emergency procedures director, Sandy Berger will handle all documents (like passports). No passport? See Dan Rather, he will produce any documents you need with 24 hours notice.

As navigator, Senator Kerry will set a true and straight course (no changes) Senator Kerry-Heinz has graciously agreed to provide free flip-flops for lounging on the deck. Your ship’s doctor (when not screaming) is Howard Dean. If you can not pay for the trip, John Edwards will sue the hospital, or doctor of your choice or, if necessary, your neighbor for the necessary funds. If you have any questions about making arrangements for your homes, friends and loved ones, please direct your comments to Senator Hillary Clinton. Her village can raise your children while you're gone, and she can watch over all your money and your furnishings until you return.

Bon Voyage!"

Is this a great country or what!

[James]

I'm looking at the article from SPON and really having a good laugh at it. But it's the worrying kind of a laugh and mostly at those Germans who really consider this propaganda to be truthful.

1) Does it make statistical sense that IQ is not evenly distributed across a population and hence country?
2) I'd be curious to know Germany's regional IQ concentrations - if point #1 were to be accepted. If it happens in the Central US, similarly East Germany must be stupid too.
3) Furthermore, I'd like to see average SPON readers IQ vs. other "international" publications like The Economist, etc...

Failing the ability to collect such data from points #1 and #2, SPON's "data" is clearly questionable if not only good for a laugh... Kind of reminds me when the NAZIs invented archaeological findings showing the significance of the German people. Put this under voodoo-statistics...

Articles like this demonstrate why it is pointless to even attempt to debunk them. Why argue with the idiot on the street, from a distance, people will not be able to determine who the idiot is.

[Simon]

Finally, SPIEGEL ONLINE acknowledges defeat:

"Der Bush-Messer hat sich schlicht und ergreifend geirrt und ist deswegen noch immer mäßig geknickt. Sorry, Freunde, Asche über mein Haupt....Wer solche Niederlagen erleidet, sollte sein Leben wenigstens ein bisschen ändern. "
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,326907,00.html

[Jack]

The IQ table is obviously a fake and SPON knows it, though they cleverly managed to avoid saying so. A similar table made the rounds after the 2000 election. Even if such data were available, the values for all states would be 100 plus a very, very small amount of statistical noise.

The real question here is why SPON is reprinting these "amusing jokes" at all. Imagine if a fake table purporting to show that Islamic countries had a lower average IQ than European countries were going around the Internet. Do you think they would print that? What do you think would happen if they did?

SPON is promoting hatred of America (not just Bush) and it is intentional. Go to their site and look at the cover of their latest issue (#46). The modern German press is no better than it was in the 1930s.

[ralph]

Ralf,

I think you are right; of course Spon does not affirm that Bush-voters are stupid -not t h i s time. But they have been asserting exactly this nonsense again and again; so these pics are not only some harmless joke but a means to a mean end: Denigrating (right-wing) America. You cannot put all this as a thesis, it would easily be refuted: Look at the figures Thomas and Carrick gave us here; instead you must make allusions and insinuations or you choose irony demeaning a person/country seemingly in jest ... or not?

Spiegel is joking? Is Volksverhetzung a joke? I do not think so; and Ralf, you know Spon´s biased tendency very well -so do you defend it or not? That is the question and the question is not: "Is it all irony or not?" behind which you seem to dodge.

[robert]

No matter whether the information is correct, it is the IQ test itself that is suspect. IT CANNOT MEASURE LOVE. IT CANNOT MEASURE HATE.

[robert]

It would be interesting to make another chart showing the relation between love of country and hatred of country as a function of intelligence.

[Ralf Goergens]

ralph,

I know SPON`s bias and I`m not defending it. But in this case the article wasn`t meant to be taken seriously, and I think it simply goes too far if people say that (from the comments above)

Here we go again. Soon we will see the German media quoting The Bell Curve to explain why racially diverse America is intellectually inferior to white Germany as measured by IQ tests. Ascribing low IQ to the populations of nations or regions is but a short step from delving into race-based IQ and geographic distribution statistics.

or

Does SPON -- or anybody else -- seriously believe there could be several standard deviations difference in the *mean* among states when the population sizes are that large? Somebody -- someone truly innumerate -- obviously does believe it, it or thinks his readership will believe it, or this crap wouldn't be in print.

It's a fantasy, of course, and the willingness of some people to buy into it is more revealing about their intelligence than about the smarts of Bush voters. It's also a little disturbing that the most vitriolic anti-American propaganda seems to emanate from Germany. What is it with Germans and jingoistic ethnic hatreds? Haven't we seen this before?

(Emphasis mine).

You may have no problem with this, but I certainly do.

[Axel]

I recall a map of Germany generated by IQ-tests of Bundeswehr ( German armed forces ) recruits ... the South ( conservative ) outsmarted the North ( mostly liberal ) by far !

And we're talking 'bout a solid base of hundreds of thousands recruits here, data gathered over ten years, not some little university study project ...

I can't find it now on the web, but I got that file at home and can put it up to some webspace, if anybody should care ...

I could imagine that it's similar in other countries, e.g. the US ... ;))

[Joe]

Ralf,

I think the problem is can Germans actually tell fact from fiction.

Given the position of your elites, Americans feel they cannot. Their views are then given to the public at large.

I cannot believe anyone would think this is helpful.

Of course, this does not seem to matter. I find all of this very tiring.

[Ralf Goergens]

Joe,

plenty of non-Germans fell for the table:

Debunking of "States with higher IQ vote Democrat:"

And those who think German anti-Americanism is the most vitriolic might want to look at this.

[Kees Rudolf]

IQ is in itself nothing to be proud of. It's a tool, and it depends on how you make use of it and for what purpose. When the Nazi-warcriminals had their IQ's tested in the Nürnberg-prison, the IQ of most of them happened to be far above the average.
It's a mistake to think that people with a higher IQ are automatically more reasonable or wise, and highly intelligent persons can be devoid of political wisdom, even if they are brilliant scholars at the same time.
Let us for the sake of hypothesis assume that Bush-voters would on the average have got a lower IQ than Kerry-voters. This by itself wouldn't prove that it was the wisest choice to vote for Kerry. If someone with a very high IQ voted for Kerry, this could equally well be used as an illustration that a high IQ apparently doesn't preclude someone to make the wrong political choice.

[ralph]

Ralf,

maybe anti-Americanism is even more vitriolic among bin Laden and his friends than among Pitzke and his colleagues -maybe. But as Germans we should cure our own flaws instead of hiding behind some wired american cranks expressing their bizarre anti-A. resentments (thanks for the link) or behind some Americans on demand such as M. Moore.

No, Hitler will not have his Second Coming and Pitzke is not a Goebbels-zombie; but a joke is not always harmless, especially not when it is part of a hatred campaign against the USA. If Spon had presented wuldor´s and Carrick´s figures some days before I would call this joke inoffensive; unfortunately they will never be published, and we both know that, Ralf, and we both know why.

Americans are stupid ( = too stupid to become aware of the very "fact", that they are governed by oil companies and by blowing-up-the-twin-towers-Jews) is a tedious prejudice widespread especially among left/right-wing radicals.

Ralf, indeed, I have a problem with that, a serious problem.

[Joe N.]

You realize of course , that conventional wisdom got another pop in teh eye. The counties that Kerry took in California matched those with the highest per capita income.
So much for Republican being the party of the rich...

[Alex]

Was sich der Spiegel mit all seinen Einlassungen zu Amerika leistet, ist Rassismus pur. Hetze gegen Menschen, die die uniforme Geisteshaltung des linken, sozial-nationalistischen Mainstreams nicht teilen. Bei wachsender politischer und wirtschaftlicher Unfähigkeit läßt dies für Deutschland in der Zukunft nichts Gutes hoffen. Mit den gleichen antiangloamerikanischen Phrasen hat Deutschland schon zwei Weltkriege vom Zaun gebrochen. Und auch die Haltung zu den arabischen Verbrechen gegen Israel sprechen eher dafür, daß deutsche Journalisten nichts dazugelernt haben. Wenn das ein Ausweis für besonders hohe Intelligenz ist, kann man nur hoffen, daß amerikanische Wahlen auch in Zukunft von einfachen aber dafür klar denkenden Menschen im mittleren Westen entschieden werden.

[Tom]

Germany does have regional IQ statistics because of the annual intake of draftees. They are all given IQ tests.

My hometown of Stuttgart is one of the hotbeds of intelligence. Heh.

[Salient]

The fools at Spiegel Online are so anti-American that they don't realize what they have done. Their IQ chart is almost a perfect copy of how the States rank in income:

http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank29.html

But Siegel Online is so fucking stupid that they don't understand that the IQ chart is a chart of State residents not State voters! Without knowing the IQ of the actual voters, there is no way to know if Kerry voters had higher IQ's than Bush voters. What if there is a correlation between IQ and voter registration which their probably is. That means that the smartest people in the low IQ states might have been the ones that actually voted. If IQ had anything to do with education, then the election statistics show that the smartest people (PhD's) and the dumbest people (HS education and a lot more of those) voted for Kerry while the people with 1-4 years of college voted for Bush. What does that mean?

What the Spiegel Online chart actually says is that there is an association between IQ and poverty in that the smarter people make more money and therefore richer states have higher IQ levels. What do they have to say about that? Isn't that kind of a Nazi idea?

[Salient]

The fools at Spiegel Online are so anti-American that they don't realize what they have done. Their IQ chart is almost a perfect copy of how the States rank in income:

http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank29.html

But Siegel Online is so fucking stupid that they don't understand that the IQ chart is a chart of State residents not State voters! Without knowing the IQ of the actual voters, there is no way to know if Kerry voters had higher IQ's than Bush voters. What if there is a correlation between IQ and voter registration which their probably is. That means that the smartest people in the low IQ states might have been the ones that actually voted. If IQ had anything to do with education, then the election statistics show that the smartest people (PhD's) and the dumbest people (HS education and a lot more of those) voted for Kerry while the people with 1-4 years of college voted for Bush. What does that mean?

What the Spiegel Online chart actually says is that there is an association between IQ and poverty in that the smarter people make more money and therefore richer states have higher IQ levels. What do they have to say about that? Isn't that kind of a Nazi idea?

[Nick Speth]

Wait, wait. If folks in inner cities are so much smarter than us in the rural states why is it we constantly hear that inner-city schools are failing, and need more funding. Dave Matthews played a concert in Central Park to benefit NY Public schools, maybe he'd do that for Utah schools as well.

Don't hold your breath.

[Ralf Goergens]

Alright, Niko, ralph and others,

I'm not really interested in defending the German media. It is just that I see many posters here (and also at places like LGF) judge Germans in general by the (indeed often questionable or even mischievous) content of our media. And I really don't like that. If people stopped painting with such broad brushes I would immediately stop defending the meida in any way.

Anyway, all this sarcasm has hurt my feelings. I'll go to bed now and cry myself to sleep.

[Ralf Goergens]

David's Medienkritik is not LGF. But I'd like to know if you also defend David's Medienkritik or similar blogs when they're bashed as part of a vast right-wing conspiracy (speaking of broad brushes) at SPIEGEL Online's forum ... ?

I'm staying away from the Spiegel forum, and the same goes for the Telepolis forum (I posted there for a short time, but the radical leftists drove me away - they called me a rightwing maniac and worse), so I didn't have the opportunity to defend anyone there. If you know some threads where such bashing goes on you could post the links here, though.

[Ralf Goergens]

I didn't really complain, merely poiunt out that it probably isn't necessary to explicitly call this a fake, given my quote from the SPON article.