Friday, September 11, 2015

The Truth à La Carte Infestation







                                                                                       




The Truth à La Carte Infestation



Lou Jacobson (.@loujacobson) and .@PolitiFact descend into self-parody

One of the many chancres on the genitalia of American journalism is the “fact check” scam. This is where reporters, who generally aren’t terribly well educated about anything, take it upon themselves to act as a truth squad to uncover falsehoods by political figures. Virtually without fail, even the simplest statements by Republicans are false.  Back in 2012, I grew sofrustrated with the casual dishonesty of the Washington Post’s “fact checker”, Glenn Kessler, that I threatened, quite seriously, to ban anyone who quoted any of the media fact checkers in a comment:

The Pinocchio Test
We cannot fault the RNC’s math, as the numbers add up. But at this point this figure doesn’t mean very much. It may simply a function of a coincidence of timing — a brief blip that could have little to do with “Obama’s job market.”

If trends hold up over the next few months, then the RNC might have a better case. But at this point we will give this statistic our rarely used label:

TRUE BUT FALSE

But Kessler is not the worst. That title goes to the bunch of stooges and ignoramuses who populate the staff of PolitiFact.com, a spawn of the Tampa Bay Times.

Try these for examples.

PolitiFact rated a Rick Perry claim false after proving it was, in fact, true.  [Etc ..]

Ca. 1998;  In a post on Free Republic, about hilarious television bloopers, I offered the Newlywed Game answer [That would be in the butt, Bob] a women gave to Bob Eubank's question "where is the weirdest place she'd ever made whoopee? "  A reader commented that Snopes said this never happened.  I wrote Snopes,  saying that I had actually watched the episode, and could verify that it was true.  Snopes actually e-mailed me back, saying that, sorry, it was urban legend. They had called me, at best, a 'teller of tales; at worst a liar.  So, I began monitoring Snopes, and correcting errors with sourced rebuttals.  I finally received a
I have recently discovered that Snopes.com is owned by a flaming California liberals [David and Barbara Mikkelson who are]  an the tank for Obama. There are many things they have listed on their site as a hoax and yet you can go to You tube yourself and find the video of Obama actually saying these things. So you see, you cannot and should not trust Snopes.com, ever for anything that remotely resembles truth! I don’t even trust them to tell me if email chains are hoaxes anymore.  Alamo City Pundidt- 2010
scathing e-mail from the Snopes Hdqrs (I had no idea that it was run out of someone's kitchen) telling me to fuck off.  Later on, after I found a source for "in the butt," I sent it.  Snopes didn't correct it until much later, and I received no apology.  It dawned on me that this preeminent fact checker had a public responsibility to be accurate.  I was offended.  Little did I imagine.

Sometime later the fact-check dam burst when Leftist political sites, most notably the George Soros's funded Moveon.Org, began gaming Google by internally  tagging articles with things like "George Bush used Heroin" (for example).  Every time the Google bot scanned them, that invisible tag was picked up and before you know it, anyone searching, say,  "Republicans; Drugs" would find George Bush leading the list.  This is very much a simplified example, but you get the drift.  Eventually Google caught on, and threatened to ban sites who used that tactic, but the horse was out of the barn, and the "Moveons" were able to update their methodology and stay ahead of the game..

We have by now entered the stage where truth is what you want it to be.  So, e.g., when I see someone I know cite something on, say Facebook, that's inaccurate, any attempt to refute it will get me banned.  So, that's  where we are. How do you fix that?  I have no idea.  Do you?

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

snopes and facebook - eschew them thoroughly and equally.

I confess to using facebook back in 2011 for about a year before I finally understood the depravity of the entire concept. Search at least two methods to delete every post you have ever made, wipe your wall clean, disenfranchise all your "friends", unfollow every business, &c. Use every method once a week for at least 60 days. I don't even know if it is still possible. Hope I got out in time.

Jimmy don\'t play that

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the solution is to quit Facebook, and all the other BS social media. Why do you think they call them "social" anyhow?

jd

Anonymous said...

Ron in Ohio Sez:

"Social" is very good terminology for the FACEBOOK, TWITTER, Etc. ilk. Remembering history - Syphilis & Gonorrhea used to be called "Social Diseases" - History truly repeats itself.

Ray said...

"Does anyone have a spare knife or gun so I can kill myself?"

In Hollywood on a cardboard sign held up by a young white male recently.

And you are concerned about "fact check" ?

toadold said...

Well the good news is that the communists ran or influenced media is losing traction all over the place. The actual traffic for communist media is dying off and investors and advertisers are starting to avoid them because they don't want the taint sticking to them. Sorass can throw all the money he wants at these bozos but as one young former user said "I don't like being constantly preached at. I'd like some entertainment."
Twitter and Facebook are facing problems right now and my heart doesn't bleed on dang bit for the people who bought into them.

DonM said...

I have a high level security clearance and I was told years ago to never use social media, ever.

pdwalker said...

The answer to snopes is to replace it with something that actually tells the truth.

Maybe I should build that site.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

Ahem ... coals to Newcastle. What's C&S? Chopped lover?

pdwalker said...

I always thought of your site as a good family site for demonstrating good family morals through a fantastic sense of humor.

I've never considered it a boring, staid, site.

Hmm, you do spend a fair big of time exposing lies.

Good point.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

Thakns PD - was just funning

Anonymous said...

Rodger has always been a calm island of logic in the sh*tstorm that is the internet!
Tim

Anonymous said...

Soros should be tried for his collaboration with the Nazis in WWII and have his wealth redistributed to Israel and then Hung by his filthy neck til Room Temperature.

Post a Comment

Just type your name and post as anonymous if you don't have a Blogger profile.