Category Archives: Media madness

Great Internet Truth #6

ignoranceistrength

When members of the media say something often enough no matter how outlandish, unprovable, or false it is, a large majority of listeners/viewers take it as truth — particularly when it confirms a cherished belief.

“…doubt truth to be a liar…”

I’ve whined regularly about the lack of a dependably objective source of news these days.

MSM is a lost cause, partially through corporate dictate and partially through viewer demand for entertainment in the place of hard news.

Internet sources…well, we all know that all mistakes made on the internet are accidental. Right.

That being said, I find myself more regularly depending upon liberal-leaning news sources; conservative sources are monotonously guilty of forcing “facts” into place to fit a desired viewpoint, whereas progressive sources usually make at least an effort to present reality. (Yes, yes, I know there are exceptions on both sides. I quit reading Addicting Info because the editor is fond of cutting and pasting others’ work and presenting it as his own.)

I read Thinkprogress pretty regularly. Or, at least I used to. I post contrarian comments to TP stories occasionally. I’ve complained about a lack of journalistic rigor when it comes to their research, I’ve complained about an ominous shortage of articles showing progressive and liberal personalities and events that lie about reality, and I’ve complained about occasional inflammatory headlines that don’t well reflect the contents of the story.

Here’s the latest:

This was a story about people who genuinely want President Obama to lose the upcoming election. Their billboard’s wording is unfortunate, but it’s hardly an apples-to-apples comparison of Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama, despite the lead sentence’s implication.

It’s bad enough that sites like the Drudge Report and organizations like AFA distort facts to suit a conservative agenda; that’s the only path for those who ignore the truth. Progressives should know better than to walk down the same road.

In industry controversies concerning food, someone always lies in order to make more money.

The corn industry has a new cause: corn sugar.

You gotta love the media spins here. Walking in the corn fields, in the open air and sunshine. Cute children. Calm, rational-sounding voice saying, “Hey, don’t worry. High-fructose corn syrup is just like cane sugar.”

How about a fact or two?

  1. Cane sugar is sucrose, which is a chemical combination of 55% fructose and 45% glucose. Corn syrup is a mechanical mixture of fructose and glucose in varying proportions depending upon intended use of the product. They are not identical.
  2. The body digests sucrose by secreting sucrase, which breaks down sucrose into its constituent parts. Corn syrup is dumped directly into the small intestine without intermediate digestive processes.
  3. Glucose is absorbed by the small intestine into the body for metabolic needs, while undigested fructose is taken by the bloodstream into the liver, where it is metabolized into, among other things, triglycerides and fatty acids. (Here is more than you ever wanted to know about fructose metabolism.) High levels of triglycerides and fatty acids are bad news for everyone.
  4. Corn syrup processing dumps significant amounts of sulfites into the end product. The FDA has not allowed sulfite use with fresh fruits and vegetables since 1986. Why do they allow it in corn syrup?
  5. Princeton performed a study upon rats where groups were given the same (high) caloric levels of corn syrup and sugar. The corn syrup-fed rats became obese at a much higher rate than the rats fed sugar; the exact cause is unknown.
  6. Manufacturers of food-like substances use high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) because it’s cheaper than sugar. The cost differential is caused mostly by taxpayer-funded subsidies to corn growers. Your government encourages HFCS use.
  7. If HFCS is as harmless as the corn industry claims, why do so many manufacturers of food-like products brag about not using it?

Guess what the most prevalent ingredient is in non-fat “half-and-half”? HFCS. In many condiments such as barbeque sauce and ketchup? HFCS. In Coke and other sodas (after water)? HFCS. In almost all commercial breads (after flour)? HFCS.

So, there’s lots of money involved in this issue, and that is always a big red warning flag — when money’s involved, someone is always lying to make more of it.

Using large amounts of sweeteners is never a good thing in any event, no matter which sweetener is used. Check the ingredients in the processed food you buy, and, as Michael Pollan admonishes, eat nothing that has any sweetener listed as one of the first three ingredients.

“Why should I believe *you*?” “Because whatever I say is *true*!”

UPDATE: They deleted my second comment as well. That’s the end of ThinkProgress as far as I’m concerned.

~~~

Never let it be said that conservative news sources are more censorious than liberal sources.

Case in point: I recently made a comment on this story posted in ThinkProgress.

I posted a comment questioning the source, which is Al Jazeera. AJ is known as a news source of questionable agenda; it acts as the mouthpiece for Muslim extremists and seems to think nothing of posting videos depicting graphic violence — including the beheading of Daniel Pearl. (Warning: the video of his beheading exists in the internet, but it is barbarous and frightening. Al Jazeera ran this and other such videos uncut.)

Al Jazeera has a habit of running stories that no one else can verify or confirm. As an example, they recently ran a series of stories on the reason why there are pirates cruising the waters off Somalia. The stories claim that developed-country industries are dumping toxic wastes off the Somalia coast, and the pirate are trying to stop the dumping by becoming pirates. No other news source has been able to verify or deny the story.

Anyway, the comment I posted is gone. It was removed last night, for reasons I can likely guess. I suspect that someone doesn’t like their news stories’ authenticity questioned.

Al Jazeera has the same level of veracity as Fox News and rt.com, and is fueled by similar political agendas.

(FWIW, I’ve placed another comment. Let’s see if that one stays — or not.)

The rush to dump Rush

I have been staying out of the latest Limbaugh misogyny debacle. He’s an ignorant toad that thrives on the attention of the media, loathes women/gays/minorities, and as such deserves no notice at all. (Notice he has the wet end of a large phallic symbol shoved in his mouth at every photo op?)

However, there are those on all points on the political spectrum who claim that the movement to devoid his media presentations of advertising dollars has gone too far:

However, those who demand a cessation to the “witch hunt” fail to recognize something. Other media celebrities have made disparaging remarks about women they don’t like, but Limbaugh has made a career out of fear, hatred, and misogyny. This rush to strip him of the ability to speak on his own public forum (which is not censorship — a fact realized by anyone who knows how to use a dictionary) is nothing more than a reaction to his lifelong career of woman-bashing:

Don’t you loathe Limbaugh’s claim that a woman “wanting sex” = a woman “with no morals”?

Now do we all understand why Limbaugh’s tepid apology hasn’t been accepted by so many advertisers? Particularly in light of his latest verbal attack on a woman?

“She isn’t young enough or pretty enough to be the President’s wife.”

Immortal words, Newton Gingrich. Immortal words.

People used to call Ronald Reagan the Teflon president. No matter what bad political steps he made (Iran/Contra, his terrible verbal gaffes, and his oncoming dementia), he managed to politically survive it all.

Newton’s been channeling Reagan, it would seem:

Click to embiggen.

One wonders how many more moral gaffes he can survive and still be a viable candidate.

Time and the internet will tell, because the media and the Republican Party sure as hell aren’t.

So you really don’t believe the media is manipulating you?

Time Magazine’s cover for the U.S. market for 5 December 2011:

Time Magazine’s cover for the rest of the world for 5 December 2011:

Now, is anxiety really that big a news item that it takes the cover away from the latest Arab Spring happenings in Syria and Yemen? Is anxiety big enough a showstopper as to bump news about the EU financial meltdown? the Occupy movement in the U.S.? the interminable idiocy of the Republican presidential candidate pool? the changes in climate and rainfall that are causing food prices to spiral upward?

Are the American people shallow enough that they’re rather see “features” rather than news that is knocking on the door, and knocking loudly?

Or is the media that manipulative that they fear giving Americans notions for change?

(Thanks to Leslie for the tip.)

How far to Kent State, indeed.

With all the humorous Photoshopped images of UC Davis police officer John Pike floating about, here’s an image that should pull us back to reality:

When do we, the 99%, finally put an end to this fascism? Do we just meet peacefully and ask nicely? Do we take matters into our own hands by voting the bastards out of office and positions of power? Or do we take more direct measures?

When there are four more murdered students lying in the sun?

(Thanks to Mr. Oliphant for this necessarily grim reminder.)

Buy nothing tomorrow

Sounds like a winner to me.

Spend this Thanksgiving Friday in the company of loved ones. Take care of some of those jobs on the “honey-do” list for that special someone who made you that sumptuous meal today. Show the big-box pinheads that offering tiny discounts on things you don’t need doesn’t begin to persuade you to buy.

Now *this* is one scary Halloween haunted house; or, Truth is where you find it

Watch how you buy America’s electoral process:

Note: I have a moral dilemma going here.

The above documentary was created and distributed by al-Jazeera English, the English-language branch of a media outlet that is well-known for acting as a propaganda mouthpiece for terrorist groups. However, the documentary illustrates and corroborates facts that I’ve run across from other sources, so in that aspect it is something that I’m more than willing to propogate.

Hence the dilemma.

Sunday Fun Quiz!

Mainstream media’s not paying much attention to the Occupy movement, because:

  1. It’s not considered newsworthy.
  2. It’s boring.
  3. It doesn’t titillate reich-wing sensitivities because the protestors are correct.
  4. The media doesn’t give a shit because it doesn’t generate revenue for them.
  5. The Occupy movement is the most significant widespread social movement in 40 years, and that can’t be summarized by a talking head in 15 seconds.

It must be naptime for the newsboys in Vancouver.