Media: Don’t do your own research, rely on experts
Expert suggests you not “do your own research” and think for yourself. Rely on the experts, like him, apparently.
Social: How not to respond on social media
Eventbrite founder and chairman makes a fool of himself on social media.
Rent: Every year the media falls for this
Every year, an activist/lobbying group issues a report saying people earning minimum wage cannot afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the country. They play a sleight-of-hand trick by obfuscating (and not revealing) that they are saying such individuals cannot rent an apartment priced at the 40th percentile. Stated another way, this report finds – every year – that people earning minimum wage can not rent apartments priced in the top 60 percent of the market – yet obviously, lower earners likely rent at the bottom of the market, not the top. Every year, the media morons run the same story, never understanding what this report says.
Fake news: “COVID-19, shootings: Is mass death now tolerated in America?”
Reporter asserts all Covid deaths in the U.S. were preventable. My pointing out that Covid was not controlled anywhere in the world (having accurate data collection and reporting), and my pointing out that 27 other countries had worse outcomes than the U.S. is “denying that the deaths were preventable”. Therefore, you are cautioned that my inconvenient questions and observations are official disinformation, as determined by the Associated Press. Also, remember Betteridge’s Law – any headline that ends in a question mark means the story is bull shit.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition is out with their annual fake report
Reporters are idiots. They fall for this story every year, year after year. And not one bothers to question the advocacy group’s press release. Not one.
When is something a “Crisis”?
When is something a “crisis” and when is it not? “Crisis” is an intentional word used to evoke emotions – or to call for action. One can choose to use the word “crisis” to suggest something awful (even if not really) or can deliberately choose not to use the world “crisis” to minimize the optics of the situation.
When you re-define the language, you can control the world
“Tear gas” and “Pepper spray” have been redefined by riot enthusiasts as “chemical munitions” and “chemical weapons” as they seek to ban the use of crowd control measures by police, when employed at “mostly peaceful protests”. Changing the language is one of the first steps taken in a propaganda campaign. Language redefinition goes on all the time, and lately, with increasing frequency.
Another neat propaganda technique
A “report” by an advocacy group opposes “vaccine nationalism” and says we need “a massive course correction” on vaccine distribution by redirecting “excess rich-country doses” to “poorer countries”. But they pulled a little trick in their description – twisting the facts.
Wild fires: Is everything a single variable problem?
Western state Governors are increasingly blaming climate change for western wild fires, as if the wild fires are a single variable. If only we could control the climate, we would no longer have wild land fires. Realistically, there is no magic control knob on climate that we can control and which will reduce fire danger for decades to come.
There are concrete steps that can be taken immediately to reduce the threats of future wild fires – but politicians would rather blame climate change – which they do not control – because to acknowledge there are factors which they can control is to acknowledge that their leadership has failed.
A common mistake people make is to focus on a single variable in a multiple variable problem. In this case, the focus is on one variable that cannot be controlled in the near term, while ignoring other variables that can be controlled.
False: Full-time low income wage earners cannot afford a 2 bedroom rental anywhere in the U.S.
This claim comes out every year, from the same activist lobbying organization. They use misleading language and obfuscated definitions to imply a conclusion that is not true – a conclusion that the media laps up like good little puppies and uses to make false conclusions. This blog has covered this item twice previously. Nothing has changed.