Plagiarism and Stupidity: The Pooper-Paper "Writes" Again!

March 3, 2016:   The March 2016 pooper-paper the rupe-a-dupe article is going to be analyzed, verified and checked for accuracy. This month she "writes" (more like "borrows" - read "plagiarizes" -- since she uses whole sentences, phrases and paragraphs from the source article but does NOT use quotes around her direct, exact quotes) about CRAs and lists the source article as http://redevelopment.net/cra-resources/q-a-for-cras/. Check the page out and you'll see the quotes - verbatim - from the pooper-paper article. For instance:

"A dependent special district in which any future increases in property values are set aside to support economic development projects within that district."

...
"Under Florida law (Chapter 163, Part III), local governments are able to designate areas as" ….

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"the presence of substandard or inadequate structures, a shortage of affordable housing, inadequate infrastructure, insufficient roadways, and inadequate parking."

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"The Community Redevelopment Agency is responsible for developing and implementing the Community Redevelopment Plan that addresses the unique needs of the targeted area. The plan includes the overall goals for redevelopment in the area, as well as identifying the types of projects planned for the area."

Having been a student of the rupester's writing for many years now, I could read the writing and tell that it was not rupester's words. These were much more competent and grammatically correct, than the usual rupester tripe. The truth is, she plagiarized the words, whole sentences and paragraphs, claiming "source material" but not using quotation marks.

It's not enough, legally, to give "source" material info, it's VITAL to use quotation marks to avoid plagiarism. According to A.B. Longman's "Avoiding Plagiarism" page the fact that there are no quotation marks around verbatim quotes makes use of those quotes a definite violation of plagiarism laws. To use so much of the source material at the Redevelopment.net website without quotes is absolutely plagiarism! For confirmation, the website for Ozarks Technical Community College states:

"Why is it plagiarism? Even though the information source is documented, this is plagiarism because the writer didn't indicate that a phrase was borrowed word-for-word. To correct the problem, enclose the borrowed words in quotation marks."

"Put all words borrowed from sources inside quotation marks."

"Types of actions defined as plagiarism:

"Using a direct quote from a source and not using quotation marks, in-text citation, and reference."

"All of the following are considered plagiarism:

"failing to put a quotation in quotation marks"

The pooper-paper (its editor/owner) publishes plagiarism all the time! I've notified him of it previously but it doesn't seem to matter since plagiarism is welcomed as original work all the time, even though the "source" is listed after the segment of the rupester's article from which she plagiarized a great deal of the "article" she "wrote"!

No quotation marks means it's an original word, phrase, sentence, thought, research. Most of the "Let's look at CRAs" section was absolutely plagiarized. We know from the very easily verified truth of the matter that plagiarism did happen in the rupester's article and that it was extensive and pervasive. (BTW, if you want to know more about CRAs, Check out the Eye On Brevard article about them then tell me that we should have any of them in Brevard. Throughout the world, EDZs (CRAs) fail [and here, here, and here -- including this:

"Findings confirm that CRAs are more likely to provide subsidies that benefit the private developer than the low-income residents, confirming that local government is acting more and more like a business. In addition, alternative measures may offer greater socio-economic gains".

She does the same thing with the section on "Liquefied Natural Gas Facility Development" at least admitting that "the following is from". In "House Bill Makes it that much Harder for Schools" http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/florida-house-would-make-it-harder-for-school-districts-to-pass-tax/2264861 she again uses whole phrases like:

"require districts to win 60 percent voter approval for local tax referenda held during primary elections. Those held during general elections would require a simple majority."

In her "Senate Kills Pay Increase, but Who Cares" section, she uses quotation marks - incorrectly -- for her first and second source material since she used them for the title of the pieces she afterward quoted from the first source, then used quotes around the title of the second source, and only closing quotes after using a whole sentence from it. She uses whole sentences, again without quotation marks from the second source, sometimes combined into one sentence, but still verbatim. Plagiarism? Look up the articles and find out for yourself. They are here and here.

Then, in her "I Wish I Understood" section, she uses a resource from 2012 to support her assertions and to cast aspersions upon Christians to say that gays and transgenders have no protection under the law. A better resource would have been Florida's listing at Lambda Legal which says that as of this date, the state does not have any anti-discrimination laws on the books when it comes to sexual orientation, sexual identity, etc., and being fired, however it also notes that the EEOC has regulations that have been made to cover that sort of thing. Thus, any employer who does fire a person based upon their sexual orientation or identity can face repercussions after doing so.

For more of her "Stupidity" portion (although almost everything she writes is, this is an especially egregious example), she writes about a meeting in Palm Bay in which people were saying things she finds incomprehensible ("I don't understand"). She writes about people standing against a Palm Bay ordinance that the residents feared would take away their religious freedoms, as so many laws nowadays do. They didn't want another situation like the florist who was fined for refusing to do the flowers for a homosexual wedding and other similar situations.

I can understand their concern and the fact that their religious freedom (First Amendment protected) may have been impacted is enough reason for them to turn out en masse. It's not enough to assume that the ordinance is going to operate the way it is meant to; it's best to make sure that it isn't on the books to take the chance.

She decides to quote the Bible - as atheists often do without having a CLUE as to what they're talking about. She quotes

"Matthew 7:1; Judge Not lest ye be Judged."

"1 'Do not judge, or you too will be judged.'
"2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
"3 'Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
"4 How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
"5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
"6 'Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.'"

So to look at the context of "Judge Not lest ye be Judged" (as she incorrectly "quotes" it: she uses the wrong caps) we see that if you want to judge someone you may do so, biblically speaking. However, if you are going to do so, you have to be willing to be judged by the same standard. If you're going to say to someone "You are wrong to be having an affair", then you probably shouldn't be having an affair yourself. It's called "Don't be a hypocrite." It's that easy. Hypocrisy is called out in the Bible several times. Check out all of the verses about hypocrisy and you'll see that it's something GOD does not like. She may say that the people speaking against the ordinance were the hypocrites. However (again), the two assertions she quotes the pastor as saying -- "We love all people. We, the people demand you annul the ordinance."; those two are not mutually exclusive. I can love someone without wanting them to do something that I think will harm my rights. Therefore, there is no hypocrisy there. Nor is there hypocrisy in the next person she quotes, yet she uses the quotes as if they were hypocritical and hateful. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Someone saying "I am not here to take away anyone's rights." and adding, "We just want to know that this ordinance will not discriminate against our convictions." is not hypocrisy. The whole florist thing is what this person was hinting at. It's not hypocritical, hateful, or any other kind of negative to stand up for the Christian values this country was founded upon; especially if you believe in them! If you're going to call someone - anyone - on the carpet for standing up for their religious beliefs and for the sanctity of marriage and for all that it means to the survival of mankind, for the success of society as a whole, don't be a hypocrite and, as an ATHEIST, use a BIBLE VERSE TO STAND AGAINST RELIGIOUS BELIEFS FOUNDED UPON THE BIBLE! DUH!

Topping it off, her closing quote from Erik Hoffer is ridiculous for three reasons:

1. She quotes an atheist's quote against government to talk about religious beliefs. Unreal.


2. The quote talks about "decency", "kindness" and "cheapen[ing] human life" but the lack of the Christian GOD in humanity does away with the first two and adds to the latter as witnessed by the actions of ISIS!


3. She could have chosen a quote from the same person, Erik Hoffer, more relevant to the subject of the disagreement:
   "Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from. -- Eric Hoffer

My advice to rupester: Don't plagiarize and don't use the Bible to try to beat Christians over the head with. If you don't understand it, if you don't believe in it, if you don't accept it as the TRUTH and you don't believe in the GOD of the Bible who loves you so very dearly, then stay away from quoting it. To follow her lead and close with a quote,

"Tis better to stay silent and thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt." -- Probable Origin: Proverbs 17:28, in the Bible.

Remember the older stuff is on Page Deux or on the Storage pages.