Sounds great, but Consumer Reports definitely has a checkered past. Read about the Suzuki Samurai debacle, in which they methodically manipulated their tests (strictly for that vehicle, and not any of the others in its class that they were simultaneously evaluating), with the goal of destroying the vehicle's reputation.
I am less confident about either your contention or about the position you are attacking than about the idea that this particular website is going to lie to me about it.
Why does anyone need to stand up for Rush? It was a great band and not really controversial, plus they disbanded years ago because the drummer died. They don't exist any more, just like Led Zeppelin no longer really exists (also because the drummer died, coincidentally).
That's not really Rush, just like the surviving Led Zeppelin players playing a concert with Jason Bonham isn't really LZ. The guest drummer isn't an official band member in either case, just a guest musician. The band itself just doesn't exist; now it's "the surviving members of band X". Pink Floyd is the same way; they disbanded after their keyboardist died.
> Led Zeppelin should reunite with the deceased drummer’s son playing drums
That's kind of how it worked when Zep was one of the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors a few years back, with Ann and Nancy Wilson + Jason Bonham, son of John, + others doing Stairway to Heaven.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a complete joke, and has nothing to do with real Rock and Roll music. They regularly induct musicians and performers who have absolutely nothing to do with Rock. It's best to just ignore the whole institution.
So the website also publishes right wing propaganda. Does that invalidate the claims in the article he linked? Did you read the article before formulating your opinion?
This is basic critical thinking, you don't have to be as shallow as many readers of that website probably are, you're just choosing to be.
If somebody writes for you a long piece featuring many pages of text and references, quoting lawsuits and making numerous reasonable-seeming inferences throughout...
The opportunity they have to lie to somebody who is unfamiliar with the subject is immense. Falsehood could be hiding in any of a thousand places, and it could easily require you to hire a team of experts for weeks to find it and conclusively debunk it, line by line. It may well require decompiling what is functionally or literally the source code behind the piece to dismiss one's suspicions. "Basic critical thinking" is not trivial against a determined adversary.
Whether to take the claims within on face value depends on your purpose and on what you know of the writer. In this case, it is very easy to become quite familiar with this motivation and ethics of the writer in under a minute by clicking around the website, and come to the reasonable conclusion that this is a place that generally attempts to deceive their reader to secure material gain for their patrons & movement, and there are likely deliberate lies somewhere in the body of the piece. You don't even need to read the body.
In general, if someone cites a wacky propaganda website as evidence for something, I'm going to assume that they're doing this because there's no proper evidence. I suppose occasionally this isn't the case, and they've just made a bizarre choice on what to link, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
It did not get little media attention. Indeed, the lawsuit got rather a lot.
> AIM has submitted an amicus brief in the case, arguing that Suzuki should be allowed to present its evidence to a jury. It is hard to understand how any judge could honestly rule that the evidence in this case does not prove that the defendant knew that its claim that the Samurai “rolled over easily” was false.
The source definitely has a dog in this hunt.
Who are we to believe, a partisan in the lawsuit, or the trial judge? And why?
It's very likely that AIM's goal is to present the best facts in their argument, and ignore or minimize other factors. Or as CU put it (quoting https://www.theautochannel.com/news/press/date/19970422/pres... ): "First it was the cigarette makers, now it's an automobile manufacturer. Different industries, same desperate tactics. Throw up a smoke screen, hurl ludicrous charges, and falsely claim (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary) that their product is safe -- all to avoid liability for defective and dangerous products." ...
> "We welcome and invite NHTSA to evaluate our honesty and integrity.
Courts have done so and found unanimously that our methodology was beyond
reproach. For example, the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York -- one of the
nation's most highly respected courts -- has said that our work 'exemplifies
the very highest order of responsible journalism.'"" ...
> "On the other hand, Dr. Pittle said, in a decision that the U.S. Supreme
Court refused to review, a Federal Court of Appeals stated that Suzuki and its
attorneys "engaged in an unrelenting campaign to obfuscate the truth."
> "The truth that was revealed despite Suzuki's cover-up is that Suzuki
knew -- prior to first selling the car in the U.S. -- that the vehicle had a
'rollover problem' and that General Motors refused to sell the car because its
evaluation demonstrated the danger of rollover," Dr. Pittle said.
Do you really expect HN readers to act like trial court judges and decide which of these two partisans are correct, and dig through decades old material to offer a point-by-point rebuttal?
If the evidence is so clear-cut, why did Suzuki and CU end up with a rather mundane settlement?
I hadn't heard about this, thanks for the link. I did a little digging and it doesn't appear be quite as clean cut as that article says. For instance, check out https://www.theautochannel.com/news/press/date/19970422/pres... (a CR press release), where they mention internal Suzuki documents acknowledging the rollover issue.
I've read the text of the lawsuit. As you mention, this is a press release, so I'm highly skeptical of it. Video documentation of CR's manipulation of the tests is on YouTube. It's wild stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Bv9WL3vpY
Best guess? CR fabricated their test results because they couldn't figure out how to replicate the real-life problems on their test course. Which is to say, both sides are in the wrong.
Every review site "fabricates their test reults" thats the whole point. You create a test that documents your assistent.
The ruling on an appeal makes the argument better than i could.
> [The] først theory is that CU know it was probably lying because its employees tries to make the samurai flip and we're happy when they suceeded. The second is that CU purposely avoided the truth by failing to address a potential source of experimental error. Neither of these theories withstands serious scrutiny
The opinion end up concluding that the entire reason for changing the test setup, along with a description of the changes, was present in the article.
Not if you were trying to decide between the Samurai and the other vehicles CR was "evaluating" (a Wrangler and the Bronco II). Internally, CR's testers praised the Samurai as having the best handling of the bunch, but their editor made sure the public never heard this.
What are you talking about? The original review literally mentioned: "Under the touch of our drivers, all four utility vehicles got through the course at 52 mph or better. The Suzuki Samurai was actually more maneuverable than the others, since it's so much smaller and lighter"
Tell me again how it was some cover up. They literally published your argument along with the review.
https://www.aim.org/aim-report/aim-report-a-black-eye-for-co...