Dec 10, 2016
Dec 9, 2016
Faking It
What are the tools we use to detect lies?
a) the absence of confirming evidence
-or-
b) the presence of conflicting evidence
What are the tools for finding the truth?
a) the presence of confirming evidence
-and-
b) the absence of conflicting evidence
From a piece last month at NPR:
A lot of fake and misleading news stories were shared across social media during the election. One that got a lot of traffic had this headline: "FBI Agent Suspected In Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide." The story is completely false, but it was shared on Facebook over half a million times.
We wondered who was behind that story and why it was written. It appeared on a site that had the look and feel of a local newspaper. Denverguardian.com even had the local weather. But it had only one news story — the fake one.--and--
He was amazed at how quickly fake news could spread and how easily people believe it. He wrote one fake story for NationalReport.net about how customers in Colorado marijuana shops were using food stamps to buy pot.
"What that turned into was a state representative in the House in Colorado proposing actual legislation to prevent people from using their food stamps to buy marijuana based on something that had just never happened," Coler says.--and--
At any given time, Coler says, he has between 20 and 25 writers. And it was one of them who wrote the story in the "Denver Guardian" that an FBI agent who leaked Clinton emails was killed. Coler says that over 10 days the site got 1.6 million views. He says stories like this work because they fit into existing right-wing conspiracy theories.
"The people wanted to hear this," he says. "So all it took was to write that story. Everything about it was fictional: the town, the people, the sheriff, the FBI guy. And then ... our social media guys kind of go out and do a little dropping it throughout Trump groups and Trump forums and boy it spread like wildfire."As with all disruptive innovations regarding social media (all media is social media, btw), The Intertoobz has become just another vast wasteland.
Paraphrasing The Maestro, as he purportedly quipped to the lady cellist, "Madam, you have between your legs a magnificent instrument capable of bringing great joy and fulfillment to all of humankind - must you sit there and merely scratch at it?"
The Anti-Elitist Lie
I'm sure you've noticed:
Trump loves to bash "the elitists", but he'll be installed as the 45th POTUS on the strength of a majority of the 538 Electoral College votes - even though he got his ass kicked by more than 2 1/2 million votes of the actual populace.
Tell me again - how is this putz in any way "Representative Of The People"?
Tell me again - how is this putz in any way "Representative Of The People"?
Yo Yo Ma And Lil Buck
In Beijing - wondering how much longer we can count on any of this being even possible as Trump fucks up everything he touches everywhere he goes.
Dec 8, 2016
Sec'y Of Labor
Mr Puzder, per Mr Frum:
Let’s absorb the magnitude of the Pudzer appointment. Trump’s signature issue was immigration restriction. Number 1.— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 8, 2016
He slammed hard the Bush family in general and Jeb Bush in particular as weak and low energy on immigration.— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 8, 2016
The Labor Department enforces immigration law in the workplace - the key way that immigration laws are enforced.— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 8, 2016
And the person Trump names to head Labor? Perhaps the most outspoken advocate of Bush-style immigration policy in US business community!— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 8, 2016
Today's Zeitgeist
Stop worrying about your Social Security. Considering Trump's picks for EPA & FDA, plus the GOP's plan for repealing ObamaCare, won't none of us live long enough to need it.
New Music
Rican Beach --Hurray For The Riff Raff
Ephesians 6:12
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Alynda Lee Segarra wrote "Rican Beach," the first song from Hurray for the Riff Raff's forthcoming album, The Navigator, about a fictional city which has been segregated and gentrified beyond recognition. "You can take my life, but don't take my home," she sings with worn pride. Upon its release, Segarra dedicated the song to protesters currently standing ground over safe water at Standing Rock, North Dakota, and in Peñuelas, Puerto Rico, where coal ash waste is contaminating the drinking supply, sharply connecting literally toxic forms of community displacement to their modern, equally insidious analogue.
Ephesians 6:12
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
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