But if you take the data, light it on fire, run it through the dishwasher, and play Scrabble with it, it proves my argument!

Any guesses on how Colin Woodard produced this atrocity against statistical inference? Not only has The New York Times once again demonstrate that it views opinion pieces as fact-free zones, but it actually devoted resources to creating a graphic that will make a good “how to lie with statistics” exercise in political-science classes. Meanwhile, their own Upshot section recently blessed us with a map that illustrates why Woodard is full of it.

I swear, I had more intensive fact-checking for a piece on f—ing Harry Potter that I wrote for The New Republic than the New York Times can apparently be bothered with.