Media: The headline is incorrect
The headline of a news story is a hallucination of an AI news generator – the claim is not true.
Social: Doctor fired after online posts
A surprisingly large number of supposedly smart people post things on social media – and end up being fired.
Parts of this blog were made “private”; about 800 posts remain online
As this blog is not read much, in 2025 I removed about 2,000 posts, leaving about 800.
Update: 1 in 7 Americans do not go to bed hungry every night
Just updated this old post regarding the false claim that 1 in 7 Americans go to bed hungry each night. It’s total fiction.
22 methods of propaganda/persuasion
Great list of specific methods of persuasive arguments or also used in propaganda. You have likely seen many of these methods used to try and persuade you (or others) to adopt someone else’s position.
Begging the Question: “This is not who we are”
Every time these examples occur, after publicly demonstrating precisely who you are, the organization denies this is who they are – this is the “Begging the Question fallacy”: “Following tonight’s men’s basketball game, it was brought to our attention that an unacceptable chant occurred,” Reed-Francois said in a statement. “On behalf of the University of Arizona Athletic Department, we apologize to BYU, their student-athletes, coaches and fans. The chant is not reflective of who we are and should not have…
The evolving language of “illegal” migration
How we went from “illegal alien” to the new term “unauthorized citizen”. The evolution of terminology.
“Science writer” works from home, outsources his disease risks to low paid delivery drivers
“Science Writers” stays at home, outsources disease risk to delivery people.
Media: Canada’s “mass graves” story collapsed
Several years ago, the world erupted in anger over allegations that perhaps 1000s of indigeneous children had died in Canadian schools and were buried in unmarked graves. The story turned out not to be true.
The “Appeal to Authority” argument
The Appeal to Authority Argument: New PhD says others have “no authority” to question her work, implying lay people are stupid. Hmmmm.