MultiHeadedHydra 1600

the hydra of hate bubbling beneath america’s surface

I SKIPPED “MON­STER TALK” with Blake Smith as he pre­pared for Cryp­tidCon in the latest Skeptic newsletter. The ques­tion “What does sci­ence have to tell us about mon­sters” didn’t at­tract my in­terest. Nor did common mis­con­cep­tions about the ori­gins and de­vel­op­ment of iden­tical and fra­ternal twins. [Read more] “the hydra of hate bubbling beneath america’s surface”

MartinZimmerman 800

george zimmerman and self-defense

I RARELY PAY AT­TEN­TION to the let­ters written into the local news­paper. Too many let­ters are from mis­in­formed in­di­vid­uals who al­most al­ways vote Rep*blican and ac­tu­ally be­lieve that Lim­baugh and Beck and O’Reilly are sources for ac­tual “news.”

I am as­tounded by the people willing to put their name in print and claim credit for some­thing that would take them five min­utes of re­search on the in­ternet to dis­cover was not so. [Read more] “george zimmerman and self-defense”

InternetTrolls TrollHunter 1500

an experiment that actually curbed hate speech on the internet

I HATE BUL­LIES and I see internet trolls as bul­lies. So I hate in­ternet trolls. But aside from Face­book, where I can keep them curbed by ex­cluding them from my com­ment thread, I have little in­ter­ac­tion on so­cial media plat­forms on the in­ternet. Con­se­quently, I have little in­ter­ac­tion with bul­lies and trolls on the internet. [Read more] “an experiment that actually curbed hate speech on the internet”

LeeBarbara closeup1

barbara lee and the boundless consequences of war

SO YOU THINK YOU’RE RIGHT and every­body else is wrong?” I heard those words from my fa­ther many times while growing up. Of course, the ra­tio­nale be­hind those words is sound: most of the times we hold an opinion that dif­fers with that of 99% of every­body else, then 99% of the time we will prob­ably be wrong. [Read more] “barbara lee and the boundless consequences of war”

CharliesAngels FullThrottle devil 1500

lies, damn lies, fake news, and the misinformation ecosystem

FAKE NEWS AIN’T NEW NEWS. The term has been in fairly reg­ular if not quite common use for years: it ini­tially re­ferred to the mis/disinformation and pro­pa­ganda cir­cu­lated by the thou­sands of well-connected, rightwing radio talk shows for pro­pa­ganda. It grew to even vaster pro­por­tions with the emer­gence of the mil­lions of ‘con­ser­v­a­tive’ web­sites and blogs known as the Rightwing Blogosphere. [Read more] “lies, damn lies, fake news, and the misinformation ecosystem”