Fake News Defined (Addended)

George Rebane

Fake News – Assertions in the media (including blogosphere) disguised as news items which are purposely meant to mislead.  This includes assertions of data (facts and beliefs about the real world), information (various formatting of data to promote certain types of decisions/conclusions), and outright lies of the various types (more here).  Most, but not all, propaganda (“information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.”) is delivered as fake news.

In the spirit of promoting operational definitions on RR, ‘fake news’ has been used in this sense in my commentaries, and will continue to be so used.  Commenters who do not subscribe to this definition are welcome to offer their own in order to clarify their remarks, else the reader is invited to interpret such uses in these postings according to above definition (now added to Download RR Glossary&Semantics_v181124).

[Addendum]  Perusing the comment stream of this commentary brought to mind that we may have another important learning moment here along with another revealing peek into the working of liberal minds.  I draw your attention to Steven Frisch’s 819am comment from which we abstract the following -

“… when a new vocabulary has to be invented and the meaning of existing words interpreted or changed to fit the message....that is a pretty good indication it is propaganda.....as evidenced by George's ridiculous glossay(sic).”  (I believe he meant ‘glossary’)

The quick response to Mr Frisch’s latest contribution to the conservetarion/collectivist exchange (dare I call it debate?) in these pages came in my 1048am comment (here).  In this addendum to a new term defined, I’ll expand on my view of the century-long ‘weaponization’ (another new term) of language(s) by the global Left, and attempt a basis for how modern language grows to support the communication of ever more complex and diverse ideas.

Mr Frisch serves as a good exemplar or even a template for 21^st century progressive thought, and therefor deserves an introduction to the new reader in addition to that available in these pages by simply searching ‘Frisch’.  Steven Frisch is the chief executive of Sierra Business Council (here), a carefully chosen name that instantly misinforms the casual reader about an organization that is really a strongly leftwing regional NGO which engages in the propagandizing and politicizing of progressive causes.  As such, Mr Frisch may also be considered to be among, or better yet, the leading local leftwing intellectual.  He most certainly deports himself as such, and there is nothing I want to say that diminishes his well-positioned prominence among his constituency.

In contrast, my own background – including bio, credo, and glossary (about which more later) - has always been available to the reader of these pages through the ‘About’ link and right panel.  Apropos to this addendum, I should add that as a research scientist and engineer I was privileged to spend my career in a field that over the last century has vastly expanded English (both technical and lay), along with other languages, and I have also had the opportunity to teach the tools of critical thinking to both technicians and journalists at the university graduate school level.  From such experiences many people like me have assembled a number of linguistic principles that guide and facilitate the facile and reliable communication of complex ideas.

A basic starting point is that when we communicate, we are all free to interpret words any way we wish, including their use in the currently understood vernacular.  The only thing to note is how some interpret certain critical words explicitly by openly telling all what they mean in the current context.  This, as opposed to how some others interpret words sub rosa and post hoc, inducing others to think that the interpretation of the word(s) initially used is the one commonly held.  The Left have been masters of the latter approach for over a century, and today continue that practice on steroids.

Another equally basic concept is that the utility of a language depends not only on the size of its lexicon, but also how much information each word (i.e. lexicographical string) can carry/convey.  Good languages have lots of words with very distinct meaning, preferably using the fewest characters.  In the military we are taught the three-Cs of communicating a message – it should be clear, complete, and concise.  More primitive languages have small lexicons and require lots of additional modifying words to constrain the meaning to that desired.  A broadly used language in Africa surprisingly did not have the word ‘green’ in its lexicon of colors, but did have ‘blue’.  Hence green was expressed as ‘the blue of the grass’.

One more fundamental tenet of language and thought is brought together in the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (we have visited before in these pages) – “the structure of a language determines a native speaker's perception and categorization of experience.” – in short, you can’t think thoughts that your language does not support.  The impact of such a deficit on the advancement of a culture should be obvious, as should be the persistence of such a deficit if custom or tradition in the culture makes expanding language a taboo.

Since Sapir-Whorf has become a basic stave of modern linguistics and semantics, modern dictators ranging from Orwell’s fictional Big Brother to China’s Mao Zedong have put in practice linguistic strictures that limited their populations to form, develop, and communicate ideas detrimental to the stability of the state – e.g. expressing kinds of dissatisfaction, organizing/planning revolt, … .  Supporting such policies is the strong version of S-W which states that, in addition to determining thought, a language’s linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories available to the speaker.

With these basics under our belt, we can understand why a new vocabulary has always been needed and subsequently invented (by enlightened cultures) when it was required to communicate new thoughts and experiences, or to describe something more precisely or correctly to further understanding.  To do otherwise would create the Tower of Babel, that we have now managed to visit on our country, which hobbles communication and continues to promote polarization of ideologies without hope of finding a ‘common ground’ (i.e. where we start by speaking the same language) upon which we can build roads to somewhere that is acceptable to both sides.

Polarization is sustained by our speaking past each other.  RR’s attempt over the years has been to suggest means of alleviating this through more precise uses of language and reasoning, hence the availability of the host’s credo, bio, glossary.  Such communications are anathema to the progressive elites since it promises to reveal the dismal attributes of their bankrupt collectivist ideology, no matter under which variant of it they invite people to assemble.  Hence, true to the Alinsky playbook, they denigrate and attack such attempts, accusing their opposites of exactly the confusion they sow daily into the public forums.

Mr Frisch happens to be a posterchild of such a progressive elite.  Is it not hyper-hubristic to denigrate another’s good-faith attempt to communicate clearly instead of using words with malleable meanings that can later be claimed to be something other than what was heard?  What kind of a person attempts to make a mockery of someone openly revealing his belief system (ontology) and clearly defining his use of potentially confusing and already confused terms in the explication of his ideas?  I don’t want to imply here that Mr Frisch is somehow unique as an apologist and spear chucker for the progressive cause; the liberal mainstream media (aka ‘lamestream’ in these pages) overflows with commentators and ‘journalists’ who daily dispense a similar worldview in their labors to bring us all compliantly to their brave new world.

I want to conclude this little missive by giving the reader some specific examples of how the new politically correct era has mangled and continues to mangle our language.  And also illustrate how conversations between the two sides become derailed and wind up with each looking at the other over an ever wider chasm of misunderstanding.

Hero used to be a label that identified someone who has knowingly gone above and beyond the accepted norm of behavior for some recognized beneficent purpose and altruistically risk his life, limb, treasure, or honor.  In this new age of ‘self-esteem above all’, people who do an ever-wider range of things which are not above and beyond anything – i.e. non-heroic -, they get gratuitously hailed as a ‘hero’ in the press and/or public gatherings.  So when someone is later referred to as a hero, the listener has no idea what manner of ‘heroism’, if any, was required to earn that appellation.  We should understand that in the classic sense an athlete with an exemplary performance record is not a hero; nor is a firefighter on a ladder bringing down a kitten from a tree, and most certainly not a father who rushes into a burning building to save his child.  All of those behaviors would be considered normative.  In the latter case, the father was simply brave in doing what he was expected to do – in that case he might also have saved himself being known as a craven coward for letting his child perish.

But I think you get the idea, today we have no unique word for a classic hero since we have confused and diluted the term by gathering so many different meanings under its mantle.  Should our society still have a unique word that describes someone who has knowingly gone above and beyond the accepted norm of behavior for some recognized beneficent purpose to altruistically risk his life, limb, treasure, or honor?  To differentiate what we may recall as a ‘true hero’, we have to embellish the term with a story; we have to resort to the linguistic equivalence of ‘the blue of the grass’.

Climate change has also become a label used to befuddle the ill-read listener.  Climate change is now the well-used code word for ‘preventable man-made catastrophic global warming’ – all modifying terms here are necessary, since they are the foundation and raison d’etre of the politicized public image of impinging disaster, and the subsequently necessary political and economic remedies/sacrifices needed to save humanity.  Therefore, discussions in which the question ‘Do you believe in climate change?’ and ‘Are you a climate change denier?’ don’t go anywhere productive.  Why have we buried ‘preventable man-made catastrophic global warming’ under ‘climate change’, a perennial dynamic of earth’s atmosphere?  Doesn’t such an important component of public discourse deserve its own unambiguous label?  Both sides of the ‘debate’ know the same answer – it is to bamboozle the light-thinking share of the public into supporting policies that will demonstrably enlarge pro-globalist government, and weaken America (in the hegemonic sense) within the community of sovereign nation-states.

Such a politically motivated confounding also adorns the new and expanded meanings of ‘immigrant’.  We no longer have a term that uniquely can identify a person who seeks to follow American laws in his application to enter our country and join us as its citizens – in short, to participate in a lawful two-party process.  In America’s public consciousness immigrant used to evoke images of Ellis Island where stood people, fresh off the boat, in long lines waiting to be processed for entry and life in the US on the path to citizenship.  We all know that America is an exceptional nation that has and continues to benefit from such an influx of people from all over the world.  The Statue of Liberty and its appended poem then made sense of an orderly and assimilating increase of our population.  Today no more.

To illustrate how dismally and destructively politicized ‘immigrant’ has become, we are now daily being told that a person planning to illegally enter the US becomes an immigrant while still in his own dysfunctional (aka shithole) country.  How come?  Well, it turns out it’s our fault that the country is dysfunctional – we should have done something to save it – and the fact that the emigrating individual has declared the US as his destination, then automatically makes him a ward of the American taxpayer no matter how near or far he is from our border.  That being so, it is further our responsibility to ease his passage from his homeland to and through our border, our immigration laws be damned in the process.  And if in this process such people suffer any level of insufficient succor, it is again America’s fault, and doubly so if we deign to secure our border with either infrastructure (including, yes, ‘the Wall’) or appropriate personnel to repel, restrict, or repatriate the illegal entrants.  For after all, are we not a nation of immigrants?  And are they not seeking to immigrate by whatever means available?

And the semantics game is literally over once they are successful in setting foot in our land – they are then anointed as legal immigrants, pure and simple, with an abundant set of rights and benefices that far exceed those who stand and wait after following our immigration laws in their application for entry.  This is the dastardly game played by our Left as part of their larger anti-American agenda as they daily distort our history of immigration with their constant drumming of the term ‘immigrant’ in their continuing coverage of migrant and border security issues.  The sad part of this linguistic jiu-jitsu is that lame-brained conservatives and Republicans have fallen in line with this usage, having even dropped the formerly clarifying ‘illegal’ or ‘undocumented’ when referring to such people in our country.  Calling them by the proper label ‘illegal alien’ is politically incorrect and out of the question in the lamestream media and even left-migrating outlets like Fox News.  In our minds, these pre-registered Democrats belong right there in the Ellis Island photo with the other huddled masses yearning to be free.

A couple of more points – does anyone know an accepted definition of ‘social justice’ or is able to identify what is socially just?  Google it and find out.  And remember when ‘discriminate’ meant to be able to tell the difference between things, ideas, …, and when you were known as a discriminating individual, that was a social plus on your resume?  No more, today to discriminate only means to exclude and/or reject an individual on the basis of his race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, and maybe even propensity for flatulence, all of which is manifestly politically incorrect and will invite more pejorative descriptors to be heaped on your head.  The classical definition of discriminate and discriminating have been stricken from our language, as have many others (more every day) including words like ‘niggardly’ (ungenerous, stingy) which are now prohibited as code words used by wrong-thinkers to elicit forbidden thoughts.  And in the leftist lexicon, to ‘embellish’ something is now to tell a pernicious lie.

An antidote for all this is for people in such discussions to clearly define their use of terms that may be misunderstood or terms that have already had their semantics compromised.  But as we have seen from the introduction to this dissertation, such clarity is strongly dunned by the Left as being a “pretty good indication of propaganda” - which, BTW, has also had half of its definition amputated so that now it only means “information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.”

Comments

[Bill Tozer]

Punch Drunk One, an older phrase used by a prior generation, appeared two to three times on these pages before the abbreviated a label “Punchy” stuck for good. I thought it was like what another generation used to called “rummy”. Punch Drunk, Or maybe one who drinks the Leftinista Punch....or the Jim Jones kool-aide.

English Language Learners Definition of punch-drunk. of a boxer : confused and unable to speak or move normally because of being punched many times in the head. : unable to think or act normally because you are very tired, excited, etc.

BTW, Popinjay is an antiquated word for parrot. Punch Drunk Parrot.

The ref jumps in, briefly stops the fight and asked the staggering boxer how many fingers is he holding up. The reply is, “All of them.”

[Paul Emery]

George

I didn't intend to mean your rants are boring. However it can become boring because without critical respondents it becomes just a chest thump with the four or five regulars. Most other critics have been driven away by insults and demeaning personal statements. Being a boxer I can take a punch and enjoy the sparing session.

[Paul Emery]

George

Would you consider a legitimate task of the press to examine whether indeed there were "“Three border patrol people yesterday very badly hurt, getting hit with rocks and stones,” as to whether that's true or not. Has Fox news looked into it? "Very badly hurt" is specific and detailed and there should be a record. I hope Fox and others get on it.

[Todd Juvinall]

Watched KDCRA last night and as usual, they announced the Gallup poll on Trump. I yelled at them that the Rasmussen has it the other way. But of course they have their bias.

[Bill Tozer]

Re: Fakenews.

Talk about spin. ‘I come over to make sure this site isn’t boring. Just helping out.’ Well, let’s all get down on our knees and thank our lucky stars! And Dougski got handcuffed and arrested at the Del Oro for simply trying to help poor children who could not afford to a ticket to see the Premier.

Play those tapes playing in your head. Spin them records

[Todd Juvinall]

KCRA

[fish]

Posted by: Gregory | 27 November 2018 at 10:27 AM

Not really, fish. That kind of brain damaged former boxer is more prevalent with the heavier weight classes. The little guys just can't hit as hard.

Tell that to Duk Koo Kim!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Duk-koo

[Paul Emery]

Todd

Rasmussen missed the mark in the election by claiming the the Pubs were up by one in the congressional but they actually lost by 8. Fox got it right when they called it for the Dems by 7. Rasmussen was not even close, they were the farthest off the mark of any major pollsters. thought you knew that.

[Todd Juvinall]

Looks like the democrats stole another one in Con Dist 21. Anytime it is close those darn democrats find enough provisionals to win.

[fish]

Posted by: Paul Emery | 27 November 2018 at 11:29 AM

Being a boxer I can take a punch and enjoy the sparing session.

Right……that's why you've stormed off in a huff on numerous occasions! "I refuse to respond to anyone who won't use my proper name"……"I refuse to discuss subjects that rely on anecdotal evidence'…..etc.

"….enjoy the sparring session" my ass….. you're as big a Prima Dona as jeffy!

[Don Bessee]

OUCH! @1204

;-)

[Paul Emery]

Part of an old boxing tactic of faking a hit fish. It invites a predictable response from your opponent that you can take advantage of. I'm amazed you don't recall the "rope a dope" used by Muhammad Ali.

As sparring partners the Circle Jerks are very predictable and boring. I'm just trying to liven things up for our readers

[fish]

Part of an old boxing tactic of faking a hit fish. It invites a predictable response from your opponent that you can take advantage of. I'm amazed you don't recall the "rope a dope" used by Muhammad Ali.

This may be the weakest response you've deposited here! Don't make me embarrassed for you Punch!

[Paul Emery]

Any documentation Todd for your 12:03 or can we assume you made it up? Looks like the Dems are up to 40 flips in the House. that's beyond anyone's prediction and certainly makes it a Blue Wave.

The Pubbers are extinct in California except for some deep country isolated pockets. I understand there are Nevada County Republicans that are consulting with relocation centers in La Malfa counties up north. That's about all that's left for the poor ol' Pubsters

[Don Bessee]

Well that's a perfect example from the po' ol' fakenewsman @ 1222 -

I understand there are Nevada County Republicans that are consulting with relocation centers in La Malfa counties up north.

;-)

[Walt]

Paul can't fight his way out of a paper bag. Besides. he has a glass jaw. When things get a little tough, he runs.(or hobbles off and changes the subject.) When on the ropes, he finds the trap door, and won't be seen till the heats off.

Paul hates America. He would rather see the Proggys run it into the ground, see everyone with crappy healthcare, pay huge taxes to be pissed away on deadbeats.
And legislation by poll, LIBshit mob rule.

[fish]

Posted by: Paul Emery | 27 November 2018 at 12:22 PM

I understand there are Nevada County Republicans that are consulting with relocation centers in La Malfa counties up north.

Any documentation Punch for your 12:22 or can we assume you made it up?

[Paul Emery]

Shows how little you know about boxing Fish. If you don't know that you shouldn't accept my bait to get into boxing analogies.

This is a blast guys,keep it up. Haven't had so much fun since the Golden Gloves in Spokane Washington. I would have won my last fight but the referee stepped on my hand.

[fish]

Posted by: Paul Emery | 27 November 2018 at 12:29 PM

Haven't had so much fun since the Golden Gloves in Spokane Washington.

Yeah…..I suspected as much about your sex life.

[Paul Emery]

So you're heading in that direction? Why are you interested in my sex live Fish? Todd is the one who likes to publicize his romps. He likes to share on this blog, blow by blows of his current computer hookups. He might even share some tips because he is sooooo successful, even surpassing Trump he claims.

[Paul Emery]

George

Do you have anything on topic to contribute. The boys are getting a little squirrely and can't seem to contribute anything to the topic of Fake News.

[Don Bessee]

So you must have been down on the mat for that to have happened -

I would have won my last fight but the referee stepped on my hand.

;-)

[Paul Emery]

Yeah Don, it just wasn't fair. I was lacing up by shoes which is hard with boxing gloves on.

[fish]

Posted by: Paul Emery | 27 November 2018 at 12:43 PM

….. can't seem to contribute anything to the topic of Fake News.

That's why you're here Punch….to fill the days "Fake News" quota.

[Paul Emery]

Weak jab Fish. You can do better. I even left you some openings but you missed out.

[Walt]

Paul should be singing praises to Trump.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/27/general-motors-shares-fall-after-trump-threatens-to-cut-subsidies-for-company.html
Paul loaths subsidies. (unless it involves his own paycheck signer)

[fish]

Posted by: Paul Emery | 27 November 2018 at 12:51 PM

This is as lame as you "thanking" people for "agreeing" with you!

[Gregory]

The total congressional vote isn't a race, is it, Punchy? The Rasmussen error amounts to maybe one voter off per House district and they've copped to it, are reviewing their method. For that one number.

[Paul Emery]

So do you agree that Fox had the right methodology Gregory? they were right on the number. The Dems also had far more Senate votes even though they lost a couple of races. Approx 50 million votes for Dems to 34 million Repubs. Dems up by 19%. Combine that with the House votes and you get the total Congressional which is huge for the Dems and certainly not anything like the Rasmussen poll

Here is a link the Senate numbers.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/06/us/elections/results-senate-elections.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=2F5CFAB2493C37401AD7C37A846D2B77&gwt=pay

[Paul Emery]

Do you collect any kind of government check Walt? Medicare, Social Security, Vets Benefits SSI etc.

[George Rebane]

PaulE 1243pm - Yes, I have an addendum to this piece in the works. But you're right, the conversation has gotten a bit putrid and off topic here - by their words (or was it 'works') shall they be known. Not everyone cares what kind of a trail they leave. In any case, I invite such tripe to be consigned to the nearest sandbox.

[Bill Tozer]

Re: fakenews

“They couldn’t find anyone to say “boof” means gang rape.”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lkmrgnk3RIc

Fake news: current events

https://www.facebook.com/BuckSexton/photos/a.568156706588519/2236333876437452/?type=3&theater

https://m.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.217983685002343/1486568904810475/?type=3&source=48

[Paul Emery]

I agree George

Pardon me for my comic interlude, Gotta have a little fun once in a while. the RR Circle are a blast to taunt and jive with.

[Todd Juvinall]

Why ius it that democrat socialists always ask if someone is getting SSN and Medicare as if to shame them? Please, that argument is bogus. People pay in what 15% of their income to SSN and some other amount to Medicare. Therefore it is a savings account paid for by the individual and if you are an employee the company pays half. So I would suggest Paul Emery etal need a better example for trying to tell us we are all complicit in socialism.

California democrats received and spent double what Republicans did and the R's were victors on election night. But as we have experienced before, over the days those bonus ballots come out and overtake the legitimate victors here. Democrats have mastered the theft of elections as good as Tammany did in NYC.

[fish]

Posted by: Paul Emery | 27 November 2018 at 01:25 PM

Like I said…..as sad as you "thanking" people for "agreeing" with you!

[Paul Emery]

Lets take this to the Sandbox Todd -Georges request.

[Todd Juvinall]

Paul Emery | 27 November 2018 at 01:25 PM

]Thanks for agreeing with me that you are unserious in your postings here. I always knew that and that is why I don't answer your ludicrous questions. But I do have fun taunting you and your bias.

[Paul Emery]

Very serious Todd. Are you? Your " R's were victors on election night. " is some kind of joke. Really cracked me up.

[Todd Juvinall]

Go look and get back to me after you self-flagellate for your denial of the truth.

[Paul Emery]

Denial of what truth
Todd?

[scenes]

Oh great. I leave for 8 hours and the Paul 'n Todd show manage to spew out a few pages worth of non sequiturs.

It's like watching an inexperienced RV owner empty their black tank. Anyone who was around USENET got that back and forth BS out of their system 25 years ago. I would give a lot for a blocking feature here, there's nothing charming about 12 year old 72 year olds.

re: Fake News. Just imagine the fun when the AIs get better and better at it. You can already test multiple markets simultaneously with a message and get real time results as to it's efficacy. Those social media propaganda sweatshops that the Five Eyes and Russkies run are going to look like buggy whips soon enough, the commercial interests will continue to stay way ahead. The thing that I didn't foresee was the shift at near-monopolies like Twitter from selling soap to selling the desirability of open borders and the 57 genders.

[George Rebane]

scenes 227pm - good points. And I'd love to see an AI plug-in app from TypePad that would automatically block those 12 going on 70 something. Maybe RR should have a new category labeled 'Name Calling and Other Shit', you think?

[Todd Juvinall]

And what pray tell did I write that got scenes panties in a wad?

[fish]

Posted by: Todd Juvinall | 27 November 2018 at 03:42 PM

He's just getting tired of our charming hi-jinks (hows that for a word that's fallen out of favor) Todd! It happens!

[Todd Juvinall]

Hi-jinks? LOL! It is a travesty I tell you!

[scenes]

"And what pray tell did I write that got scenes panties in a wad?"

Because that back and forth bitchiness gets tiring after a while.

Paul dangles his worm in the water and everyone just latches on. and on. and on. The fact that a 'news director' acts like this in public is just flat wrong, but it takes two to tango.

"'Name Calling and Other Shit'"

I rather like it, go for it. Maybe call it 'alt.politics' or 'alt.tasteless'. Modern times are interesting in that at places like reddit, there's a strong segregation in effect.

Just thinking about fake news, in this case highly opinionated news, maybe the difference between now and 100 years ago is the monopoly that one party has in mass media. The days of two newspaper towns is over. Once news production is monopolized in major metro areas and politics is split between urban and suburban/rural balance is lost. AM radio being the exception of course. News was always opinionated, but now there's only one opinion. There's Fox, but even that just represents Chamber of Commerce Republicans I think.

The really interesting thing to keep an eye on is grassroots news sites and youtube channels. The push is on to remove them whenever possible, but I think that it's just as much the financial threat they represent to MSM as much as politics.

[fish]

Posted by: scenes | 27 November 2018 at 05:15 PM

The "name calling"…. the left started it…..reveled in it…….every lefty just certain that he was the next Lenny Bruce. This until…..until anybody "not left" got better at it. Then the whining for "proper decorum" and civilized discourse" started. These pleas always fall by the wayside when a Green Libertarian™ thinks he's stumbled on a new more effective type of snark, much like RR's resident dimwit attempted with his tedious boxing references this afternoon!

[George Rebane]

scenes 515pm - I think your point is on the mark, the competition of opinions is on the wane and has pretty much become a network of regional monopolies. And the internet has removed the 'regional' restriction but provided so many voices that for any one individual most of the web is realistically invisible. You have to become your own news and opinion assembler, and that is hard for most people to pull off in a way that gives them several viewpoints. When I was a kid in Indianapolis, the city had three major newspapers and a handful of minor ones that served the outlying county areas. Those days are gone forever.

[Bill Tozer]

@5:15 pm

“The really interesting thing to keep an eye on is grassroots news sites and youtube channels. The push is on to remove them whenever possible, but I think that it's just as much the financial threat they represent to MSM as much as politics.”

The TV guy is going to be dead. Sorry Acosta, you won’t be watched either. The new platforms are going to be social media and YouTube. With that said, social media platforms are now the old telephone service. From e-mails, to citizen reporter p to this blog, the platform has become the publisher. Like the original landlines to transmit information, today’s platforms are in really publishers and should be regulated. But, but, but they are a private company! Yeah, so is the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. Twitter and FB and You Tube are publishers....

[Bill Tozer]

Fakenews: The Picture of the Year, skeptic style

https://www.facebook.com/NoLapdogMedia1/photos/a.644924592343900/1125835310919490/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10101882316779356&set=gm.520637711785066&type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10101882499418346&set=gm.520710558444448&type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=290331664926668&set=pcb.520600485122122&type=3&theater

[scenes]

re: BillT

Compare PewDiePie (a youtube guy who is not a Green Libertarian) views vs. CNN. Dead man walking in the networks' case, although I expect they'll just evolve into something different. Or merely cut costs over time.

Political censorship is a real thing on the net (near) monopolies though. Given the expense of putting together truly large streaming services and the ability of MSM+Green Libertarian activist groups to shut down evil sites at various levels, I'm not sure if you'll see alternative mechanisms be successful. Look at the way Voat or Gab have been chased around the internet.

The thing is, MSM in combination with the 17 intelligence agencies, monied interests generally, and the crack KVMR news desk have a lot of resources and they fight dirty.

It would be ironic if the Russians subsidized Western free speech efforts but it wouldn't surprise me a bit. I'd say that the modern Western Left, which is larger/wealthier/urban that it's counterpart, will attempt to set up a velvet-gloved version of China's internet fist. The Right, so far as I see it coalescing, is still mostly a grassroots movement and simply doesn't have enough financial and organizational traction to overcome a descent into a controlled internet. Obviously, I could be wrong though.

[Bill Tozer]

Scenes @ 7:39 am

No doubt. I was talking down the road about the overarching picture of how we will communicate and receive information. The TV network news divisions may go the way of the drive-in movie theaters. If your method of communication is Twitter, FB, You Tube, or a future social media platform, you are screwed if you are a conservative. Deadnaming (calling Chelsea Manning by her legal name) can get your tongue cut out, your livelihood utmoff, and left as a voiceless unemployable dreg, scorned by friends and foes near and abroad. Big Bro is watching you. The only questionis will the 17 Intel agencies being working for the internet platforms or will we all be underlings of the internet platforms...doing their bidding to survive. Will everything be Propaganda?

Not surprising, those who make the rules are exempt from the rules. Freedom of thought is a threat to the common good. Dregs will not be treated kindly. The marketplace of ideas will be an antiquated term.

[Bill Tozer]

Re: Fakenews. Russian Collusion, Part 2.

Ah, the word ‘treasonously’ appears again. What is sad is how many journalists are in on the hoax because they want it to be so. The compelling thing about conspiracy theories is they can’t be proved, which makes conspiracy theories take on a life of its own...or time immortal.

“If this story had been true, it would have been proof of the conspiracy theory the Resistance/Media/NeverTrump has peddled without evidence for years, but being upset about it being false means that you're also guilty!”

“Many media figures have swallowed whole, without evidence, a conspiracy theory that Donald Trump became president by treasonously colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 election from its rightful owner, Hillary Clinton. The information operation that pushed this story turned out to have been secretly developed and funded by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, a fact uncovered only through the tenacious digging of Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the face of major opposition from the media and Democrats on the committee......

The information operation has been fed to an increasingly compliant and credulous media with nearly no resistance. Fusion GPS is the Clinton- and Democrat-funded group that initiated the Russia collusion story, although it is now, according to congressional testimony, being spearheaded by the Democracy Integrity Project and funded to the tune of $50 million. The Washington Post quietly admitted, buried the news, really, that the operation was funded by George Soros.”

Let the fun begin...again!

http://thefederalist.com/2018/11/28/manafort-assange-drama-proves-media-will-buy-any-russia-conspiracy-story-no-matter-its-flaws/

['''M''']

,,,at least he got his fat ass out of the basement,,,

https://tinyurl.com/yczlsw93

[Walt]

Is Paul drinking early? His "prediction" of a loss is wrong.
now back to spinning those Victrola records on K-OLD.

[Bill Tozer]

Man, it’s getting to the point where I don’t know where to post anymore. Fakenews on climate change goes under one topic, Fakenews on this or that topic goes under Scattershots or Ruminations, Fakenews under another topic goes under ‘Monday with the Union’. Guess I will throw this here under Fakenews Defined.

https://m.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.217983685002343/1487347288065970/?type=3&source=48

On the local scene:

5:13 p.m. — A woman from Oak Hollow Circle reported her neighbor threw a bucket of water on her burn pile and they are now in a physical fight. When the neighbor left to get another bucket of water she reportedly hit the caller in the hand with the bucket. A report was taken.

[Todd Juvinall]

53-47. I am waiting for all those glowing stories from the media about a white female winning a Senate seat against all odds. But all I hear are crickets.

['''M''']

,,,Bill944am,,,No Burn Day means no!!!,,,unless it is a burn day!!!

[George Rebane]

BillT 944am - Not to worry Mr Tozer, I'm sure with all the finely honed wheels between your ears, you will always figure out the best repository for your next dose of wisdom ;-)

But do be careful of Mr M. The man knows how to selectively endorse vigilantism - take care not to fall on his wrong side.

[fish]

Posted by: Todd Juvinall | 28 November 2018 at 09:46 AM

I am waiting for all those glowing stories from the media about a white female winning a Senate seat against all odds.

They did Todd…..but it was about Krysten Sinema instead of the new one…..whats her name? Jekyll and Hyde……?

Anyway politics aside Sinema is far easier on the eyes!

[***M***]

,,,where fake news comes from,,,

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtCSq9HWkAQOXJC.jpg:large

[***M***]

,,,Vigilantism, Hah!!!

It was a case a citizen -spark- arrestor!!!

[Bill Tozer]

Second verse same as the first. If Meuller can’t find the evidence, we will!

Despite Leftmedia spin, the news is a blow to the Trump/Russia collusion narrative. Lacking evidence to support the collusion charge, Mueller seemingly needs someone connected to both the Trump campaign and the Russians who is willing to testify to the allegation. Mueller may have determined Manafort is not that man.

However, like clockwork, as soon as another piece of the vacuous collusion narrative begins to fall apart, the mainstream media runs to the rescue by peddling the latest dubiously sourced “bombshell” report. This time it came from The Guardian, which reported that “unnamed sources” claimed Manafort held “secret talks” with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in the spring of 2016 — mere months before the organization released the hacked emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. Boom! The collusion evidence we’ve long been waiting for!

So, once again in the era of Trump Derangement Syndrome, the MSM rushes to uncritically publish any story that promotes a negative story against Trump — especially when it’s directly related to the Left’s favorite narrative: Trump/Russia collusion. No need to waste time on checking facts or sourcing evidence. So long as there are unnamed sources, every bit of hearsay will be published as if it were the gospel truth. And media pundits wonder why the vast majority of people have so little trust in the MSM.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/59712-another-msm-bombshell-on-trump-slash-russia-collusion-falls-apart?fbclid=IwAR0z78h03kQbY9uLZ0SW_JUckvV54s_mqiLq0eqEutnns085ZEzX1k4XVx8

Hmmm. The soon to be Democrat House has already signaled that after the Meuller report, they will keep on investigating to find what Meuller missed. If Meuller can’t find it, we will!

[George Rebane]

re BillT 1059am - That "keep on investigating until we find the evidence (that must be there)" is a core practice of the Left against their enemies inaugurated by J.V.Stalin in the 1930s.

It now appears that had my escrow Mueller recommendation been carried out, the envelope would be empty of evidence, thereby confirming the continuance of the witch hunt.
https://www.theunion.com/opinion/columns/george-rebane-escrow-the-witch-hunt/

[Walt]

LIB "fake" news lives by "unnamed sources" to propagate their cancer.
The sooner "unnamed sources" are outlawed the better off legit press would be. "the press" should be held accountable for what they publish. They sure love their "freedom of the press" in the 1ST Amendment, yet continuously abuse that right, and people's lives get ruined.

[***M***]

,,,fake news,,,you decide

https://www.yahoo.com/news/barack-obama-excoriates-trump-apos-140551771.html

[Walt]

Ya Dougy,, "O" has been trying to take credit for everything great Trump has done. Trump has given back most of what "O" took away.
The 8 years "O" was in office would be the hardest.

Only Proggys like you would still back and believe Obummer.

He claimed no scandals. So what was Fast & furious gun running?
IRS weaponizing? Hillary's pay for play? A video was the reason for another 9/11 attack,, etc. etc......

No NONE of that happened o his watch.

[Walt]

NOT fake news,, for the VARY silent Buzzard of Broad St.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/27/mississippi-senate-runoff-espy-hyde-smith-1021285
"Hyde-Smith had 54 percent of the vote to Espy’s 46 percent with 95 percent of precincts reporting after the Associated Press called the race. The result means Republicans will hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate next year, and it makes Hyde-Smith the first woman elected to represent Mississippi in the Senate. She will have to run for reelection to a full term in 2020, after being appointed to fill Thad Cochran's seat earlier this year."

[***M***]

,,,way to change the subject Walter

[Don Bessee]

Talk about a massive narrative fail-

All the breathless reporting on Manafort having multiple visits with Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy before and around the email leak have melted like cotton candy in the rain.

His passports in the courts file show no entry stamps for any of the dates cited by the Guardian!

;-)

[Bill Tozer]

At last! A counter to fakenews.

https://m.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.254420818025296/1487783224689043/?type=3&source=54&ref=page_internal

[Bill Tozer]

More Fakenews. It’s hard to keep up. This one is a no-brainer: “one of “hate”.

“A group of nooses discovered hanging off trees near the Mississippi state Capitol were not a warning from a white supremacist group, but rather a "protest" by leftists against Mississippi Republican Senate candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith.

“Mainstream media organizations melted down on Monday after a number of nooses were found hanging in the vicinity of the capitol building, strung from trees as part of a "message" campaign — though the Associated Press, which first reported the story, didn't give much more information about the "message" the nooses were trying to send, only that it was one of "hate."

“Signs placed near the nooses but reported only as "hate" messages by the Associated Press and others, had plenty of information about who hung the nooses and why. But weirdly, the signs didn't appear on anyone's Twitter feed until late Monday evening, nearly 12 hours after news of the display went viral.

“The signs indicated that the nooses were part of a protest by Democrats, warning against re-electing Hyde-Smith.”

https://www.dailywire.com/news/38761/nooses-found-near-mississippi-state-capitol-turn-emily-zanotti

[Don Bessee]

And the beat goes on... Its not like there might be a war brewing in Europe or anything, oh wait -

The White House did not block CIA Director Gina Haspel from participating in a briefing on Wednesday for the U.S. Senate about the war in Yemen and U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, a spokesman for the agency said.
"The notion that anyone told Director Haspel not to attend today's briefing is false," agency spokesman Timothy Barrett said in a statement.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cia-says-white-house-did-not-block-director-201519269.html

;-)

[Bill Tozer]

Re addendum: words and meanings

Let’s talk immigration. ‘Migrant’ is a good example, indeed. Read the transcript of some “journalist/commentator/panelist going off about the caravan in Tijuana. She only used the word migrant to voice her outrage. Then she made a slip when she said her parents migrated to this country legally and now she wonders if the migrants in Tijuana will have the same opportunity as her parents did. Then, of course, the reference to Ellis Island.

How many came through Ellis Island illegally? Hmmm. Please answer. I won’t hold my breath waiting.

By changing the characterization of those without papers living here not legally to undocumented immigrants, it becomes something akin to migrants just needing some documents or some missing paperwork or perhaps even clerical errors. It’s in the mail. What that term ‘undocumented immigrants’ does it take it out of the legal arena. The legal term is illegal alien. So, it’s not longer about a legal issue, it’s a document issue.

Couple that now with the policing of words by the thought police control freaks and “social justice” and we come to the point where calling anyone illegal or undocumented is dehumanizing. Dehumanization is a Bozo no-no. Hate speech. Degrading. Hurts ones feelings. Illegal immigrant? It’s Nazi time! Thus the only acceptable term to be used is ‘migrant’.

Bottomline: Censorship becomes free speech and free speech becomes censorship.

https://m.facebook.com/PatriotPost/photos/a.82108390913/10156041830570914/?type=3&source=48

[George Rebane]

re BillT 959pm - for more on 'immigrants bamboozle' see above commentary and these -
https://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2007/12/when-you-own-th.html
https://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2010/05/the-porous-borders-and-amnesty-act.html

[Bill Tozer]

@9:16.
Thanks Dr. Rebane. I should have addressed by comment more specially to you with my ‘Migrant’ is a good example, indeed“ comment. Reading your excellent addendum inspired more discussion (repeating) the topic. I found this one line able compelling.

– in short, you can’t think thoughts that your language does not support. The impact of such a deficit on the advancement of a culture should be obvious, as should be the persistence of such a deficit if custom or tradition in the culture makes expanding language a taboo.

Worth repeating: you cannot think thoughts your language does not support.

In the Australian movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy”, it was pointed out that the aboriginal language had no word for “mine”. Thus when a discarded soda bottle fell from the sky, problems arose with what to do with it and it’s ownership.

Words like hate speech have lost their meaning if it now means something anyone could take offense to. Assualt is now a sideways glance? Or not dropping everything, bending over backwards, and not going out of one’s way to make another not feel insecure is now “hostile.”
Well, excuse me, oh snowflake, for not being a mind reader....or being absent minded or thinking about something other than you and not addressing your feelings....you hid it well. Best to toughen up, Buttercup, and try to adjust to the world instead having the world conform to you...dear social justice warriors.

And immigrant is now becoming ‘migrant.’

[George Rebane]

BillT 1045am - Yes, indeed - agreed.

[Gregory]

"Worth repeating: you cannot think thoughts your language does not support."

I vigorously disagree.

It is NOT impossible... just a whole lot harder. Until you or someone else figures out the problem and invents a word or words to make the thought easier to have and to communicate to others.

[George Rebane]

Gregory 1213pm - If you have discovered some S-W workarounds, then I suggest that you vigorously publish ;-)

Until then, S-W has been a pretty good predictor of reliable communications and/or what's required to make them reliable. The tech world has seen the most ardent students of S-W, inventing/expanding language as if it were coming out of a fire hose. I have yet to see a techie struggle to express some new discovery/process/algo using existing language - he instantly (if not sooner) expands the language, defining it rigorously, and communicates to co-workers then the peers in his field. This instantly expands thought and the field explodes in the direction of the new language. Have you witnessed otherwise?

[Gregory]

It isn't a S-W workaround, George. It's the mother of speech invention. Otherwise we'd be communicating in gruntish and not getting much done.

The claim I was disputing was "Worth repeating: you cannot think thoughts your language does not support." You can. You just can't get others excited about those ideas until you figure out how to communicate them.

You certainly can think thoughts your language does not support... until you learn a new vocabulary or invent one. A friend of mine, in the late 1990's, was trying to help his daughter with her algebra homework only to find his A student didn't know such fundamental terms as numerator, denominator, minimum common denominator, etc. It made communication difficult.

Whole math (in that case, it was "CPM Algebra") strikes again. A few years earlier when I was trying to warn him about the math being taught in the Grass Valley School District, his point of view was that was all simple stuff being left out, and his kids would pick it up when they needed it.

[George Rebane]

Gregory 117pm - The strong point S-W makes that has been well corroborated by anthropologists, studying more primitive (especially isolated) peoples, is that the simpler their language, the more stunted are their societies compared to those with more complex languages. This has indicated to many (me included) over the years that S-W were correct, and their theory has had and continues to have great predictive power. As I said, this is science, so the opportunity for falsifiability abounds.

[Bill Tozer]

Gregory, ok, nothing is impossible. It’s just harder for us non-techies and “normies” as those who do not see math as the language of harmony. I see things in pictures I cannot express.

Nutshell: the bastardization of words for control of thought, speech, and power.

A point I was trying to make is the control of the meaning of common words and who controls their meaning to convey more than the word implies. Hate speech is more along the lines of the Supreme Court’s definition of pornography to my simple mind. You know it when you see it. If one can redifine or expand the meaning of a word to bastardize its meaning and implications, one controls the speech. Thus, free speech becomes censorship and censorship becomes free speech.
Example:
Is it hate speech to deadname someone? Is that really hate speech? This week alone one conservative and one Liberal were banned from Twitter for using “hate speech” via the new buzz phrase ‘deadnaming’. Deadnaming is calling someone by their name or pronoun before they switched their names, self identified gender, or preferred pronoun. Is it hate speech to say US government convicted Bradley Manning of crimes? The government did not try and convict Chelsea Manning and Bruce Jenner won the decathlon at the Olympic Games and got HIS face on the box of Wheaties, not Catayln Jenner. The unpardonable sin of hate speech the two banned twitterers were guilty of were one said “A man is a man” and the liberal woman who is involved in the oldest rape crisis center in Vancouver, B.C. said, “A man is not a woman.” She also referred to the man in question not by her preferred pronoun, thus doing the double whammy of deadnaming hate speech and hate speech.

Although former Evergreen State College professor made news by his refusal to go along with the “voluntary” participation in the Day of Absence of White People and label forever as a racist, his problems began when he looked at the science of biology....XX and XY chromosomes. If the racist label did not sink him, the “hate speech” would have in due time. :)

Words. A fine young lassie once asked be why I ave not asked for her hand in marriage. My answer was the wedding song has never been written that expresses the words I feel for her.....

https://m.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.217983685002343/1489005781233454/?type=3&source=48

https://m.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.217983685002343/1490953484372017/?type=3&source=48.

[Bill Tozer]

More on words....from SCOTUS’s 8-0 decision before Kavanaugh

The FWS designated the 1,544 acres a “critical habitat” even though (1) no such frog has inhabited them for half a century and (2) none could live long there unless the land were substantially modified (e.g., trimming the canopy, producing suitable undergrowth, and experiencing fires that the acres’ loblolly pines cannot withstand) and (3) the loss of the acres could cost the owners $34 million in lost timber-farming and development opportunities.

Writing in the manner of a schoolmarm whose patience has been sorely tried by a slow pupil, Roberts said: “According to the ordinary understanding of how adjectives work, ‘critical habitat’ must also be ‘habitat.’ Adjectives modify nouns — they pick out a subset of a category that possesses a certain quality.”.....

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/supreme-court-decision-dusty-gopher-frog-administrative-state/

Love the line “Writing in the manner of a schoolmarm whose patience has been sorely tried by a slow,pupil....”

[George Rebane]

BillT 1129am - Bravo! Keep 'em coming Mr Tozer.