For those of you who do not refer to FactCheck.org, a word of advice: You should. For example there were a few exaggerations in Iowa by Bachmann, Gingrich and Barbour. The tragedy is, how many people will ever know they were exaggerations..
Under the heading GOP exaggerations in Iowa, Bachmann falsely stated that Obama administration officials have approved only one new drilling permit "since they came into office". It is actually more than 200. Gingrich claimed to have 'helped balance the budget for four straight years" but he was only in Congress two of those four years.
For those of you who get emails that say, "This was checked by Snopes and it is true", don't believe it. Check it out yourself. Many times I find that the story is not true and can be extremely misleading. For an example of how it handles some quotes, click here.
There are many useful websites but the people who need to use them are too lazy to do it. I once had someone reply when I suggested they check out Snopes, I was told, "I wondered about that but I figured you would check it out and let me know."
We will all get some things wrong but, at least we have a fighting chance if we try to check out as much as we can from reliable sources.
Showing posts with label Snopes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Snopes. Show all posts
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Sunday, December 21, 2008
WE'VE BEEN LIED TO
...and we will be lied to again. Marketers lie to us. Religious idols lie to us. The media lies to us. The police lie to us. And most importantly , so do politicians. I fact, it seems someone, somewhere, is always lying to us. This may sour us, but what it should do is make people challenge the truth of everything they read or hear. Weigh it against everything else you know and allow people to earn your trust if they prove themselves. Use your own ability to put facts together to reach conclusions. Don't rely on any one source and question the sources from which you receive information.
Reminded of a call to report that YouTube proved that Obama was not qualified to be an American President because he had a faked Passport, a good example. The caller should have immediately considered his past history and realized that, were it so, there were many agencies that would have caught it and he would not have been running in the 'finals', so to speak. Nor would it be YouTube to report it. Neither do your friends' friends let you know about dangerous viruses before you hear about it on TV or get updated in your virus protection program. When in doubt, go to SNOPES and check it out before you forward it to everyone rationalizing that it is better to be safe than sorry!
All senses are required to be used if any of us are to survive. When buying food, none of us will know if we are truly being given organic products unless we have more proof than the label. The reputation of the store counts. Your olfactory and immune system response counts. We may not always be correct, but we will beat the law of averages if we try.
People who need a computer the most and don't have one will not be reading this advice. Sadly, they will not benefit from the world of information at their finger tips. Television may be helpful to some extent, perhaps with the weather forecasts, unless you live far away from the transmitter and a few mountains away. In Jeffersonville, VT, one rarely gets accurate weather forecasts because the news comes from Burlington or beyond Lake Champlain to New York. A couple of mountains away is all it takes to totally change a weather pattern.
Living your life on 'faith' is abandoning the use of your own intelligence and accepting much over which you have no control...as many altar boys found out. They were left with the disappointment that their parents wouldn't believe them when they cried for help, and the perverts, whom they were being told to believe and respect.
Children can be most easily conned as they have little reference base. Unfortunately, many adults keep themselves that way, too. They don't challenge doctors who say there is nothing wrong with you when they really mean there is nothing we have found wrong with you. It is a lie when they say there is nothing wrong, when you know there is but do not have the medical knowledge to prove it during the ten minutes you are allotted to see them.
Assume there is NO truth anywhere. Take all the versions you hear, try to make sense of them, and believe that which seems to get confirmed in your mind. You may not always be right, but you'll probably stay ahead of the curve of sheep.
Reminded of a call to report that YouTube proved that Obama was not qualified to be an American President because he had a faked Passport, a good example. The caller should have immediately considered his past history and realized that, were it so, there were many agencies that would have caught it and he would not have been running in the 'finals', so to speak. Nor would it be YouTube to report it. Neither do your friends' friends let you know about dangerous viruses before you hear about it on TV or get updated in your virus protection program. When in doubt, go to SNOPES and check it out before you forward it to everyone rationalizing that it is better to be safe than sorry!
All senses are required to be used if any of us are to survive. When buying food, none of us will know if we are truly being given organic products unless we have more proof than the label. The reputation of the store counts. Your olfactory and immune system response counts. We may not always be correct, but we will beat the law of averages if we try.
People who need a computer the most and don't have one will not be reading this advice. Sadly, they will not benefit from the world of information at their finger tips. Television may be helpful to some extent, perhaps with the weather forecasts, unless you live far away from the transmitter and a few mountains away. In Jeffersonville, VT, one rarely gets accurate weather forecasts because the news comes from Burlington or beyond Lake Champlain to New York. A couple of mountains away is all it takes to totally change a weather pattern.
Living your life on 'faith' is abandoning the use of your own intelligence and accepting much over which you have no control...as many altar boys found out. They were left with the disappointment that their parents wouldn't believe them when they cried for help, and the perverts, whom they were being told to believe and respect.
Children can be most easily conned as they have little reference base. Unfortunately, many adults keep themselves that way, too. They don't challenge doctors who say there is nothing wrong with you when they really mean there is nothing we have found wrong with you. It is a lie when they say there is nothing wrong, when you know there is but do not have the medical knowledge to prove it during the ten minutes you are allotted to see them.
Assume there is NO truth anywhere. Take all the versions you hear, try to make sense of them, and believe that which seems to get confirmed in your mind. You may not always be right, but you'll probably stay ahead of the curve of sheep.
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