The Corn Refiners Association (CRA) has been running ads on prime time TV in which one mother begins to chide another about serving a fruit drink with corn syrup and the other mother rattles off a few confident assertions that the drink is natural and that corn syrup is a natural product made from natural […]
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In an opinion piece that filled half of the New York Times’ Op/Ed page on New Year’s Day, Denis Dutton demonstrates how you can use a logical presentation of accurate facts to create, or in this case, support a lie. The premise of “It’s Always the End of the World as We Know It,” is […]
Read More… from How to use facts and logical thinking to create the big lie
Several people have recently posted comments that wonder why I’m not getting paid for my posts. I do appreciate their concern and their desire to put a financial value on my blogging. In the United States, of course, the natural assumption is that people do most things for money. In fact, as I’ve noted in […]
Read More… from The best way to pay me for my blog is to read it.
On the front page of the business section in today’s New York Times, David Leonhardt builds his column around a propaganda technique that is really a baroque twist to an old-fashioned rhetorical device. That is, unless you think Leonhardt really doesn’t know the meaning of a simple word we all use. Leonhardt wants to show […]
Read More… from Calling a thing by a name that it’s not to make the name sound better.
Yesterday I characterized the last decade as “The Lying Zeroes” because so much of the activity of government, business, other institutions and individuals either created lies or was based on lies. The news media turned out to be a primary vehicle for spreading lies, and in stating this I am including the Internet, all websites, […]
Read More… from How the news media helped to spread the lies of this passing decade.
A lot of the punditerazzi in print, broadcast and online news media have been trying to brand the decade that is about to close with something akin to the “Swinging Sixties,” “The Me Decade,” “The Roaring Twenties” or “The Gay Nineties.” So far, the most accurate name has come from Paul Krugman in his column […]
Twice this morning on ESPN radio, I heard Erik Kuselias and Mark Schlereth, today’s vacation replacements for Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, try to foment anger against Michael Vick for receiving this year’s Ed Block Courage Award from the Philadelphia Eagles, on a unanimous vote by his teammates I understand. Kuselias and Schlereth couldn’t understand […]
The cover of The Christmas Sweater lists Glenn Beck as the sole author. It’s only when you get to the second title page that you see that this children’s book is adapted by Chris Schoebinger from an original story by Glenn Beck with Kevin Balfe and Jason Wright. The story is a dramaless tale of […]
Read More… from The Glenn Beck Machine Manufactures a Christmas Story for Children
I wanted a light read for a few days, so I picked up James McManus’ Cowboys Full expecting a history of poker. But little did I know that first I would have to submit to a painfully twisted Darwinian fairy tale in which the writer attempts to show how his version of standard modern behavior […]
Has anyone else noticed how many TV commercials for this holiday season revolve around the singing of a traditional Christmas carol with substitute lyrics which tout the products or benefits of buying the advertiser’s wares? Some examples of song parodies (or perhaps travesties) driving TV commercials this year: T.J.Maxx/Marshall’s puts new lyrics to “We Wish […]
Read More… from Is YouTube the reason for all the Christmas carol parodies in TV commercials?