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Posts tagged "herd behavior"

The toxic Democrat-Media Complex is reaching new lows

Reza Aslan on Twitter commenting on the photo of the elder Native American harassing the smiling Catholic boy: suggesting the boy should be punched

This week in crazy. A group of young teenagers from a Kentucky Catholic high school went to Washington for the annual March for Life. Which is both commendable from the point of view of decent human beings and a grave sin as seen from the Left. After the March, waiting for their bus, they began to sing a few songs from their school repertoire. Most of them were wearing a MAGA hat, which these days means asking for trouble. They were recognizable as Christians and Right wing, therefore apparently became a magnet for all sorts of crazies wandering the area. On one side there was a tiny group of loony…

Of trains, violent thugs, Arabic insults and partial journalism

A seemingly insignificant, albeit disturbing, local news episode. On a regional train near Milan. Five youngsters brazenly lying down on their seats, despite the train being packed with commuters, lots of people standing. A passenger rebukes them, they immediately proceed to beat him savagely. He’ll spend a month or so in the hospital due to multiple facial fractures. He’s been saved by an off-duty policeman who happened to be on the same car. Three of the offenders have been arrested. They’re Italian. First of all. They’ve been presented by the media as “ragazzi”, i.e. a word that indicates young teenagers or boys, but they’re between 18 and 25 years old.…

The birth of Fake News

Have you ever wondered how the expression originated? I mean, in a wider sense the dissemination of fabricated stories, mostly for propaganda reasons, dates back at least to Ancient Greece, and that’s just because we have limited data from earlier civilizations. But why the sudden alarm for the spread of fake news? Not all TED conferences are created equal. Some even contain inconvenient truths. Sharyl Attkisson is a tough cookie: a investigative journalist who worked in the mainstream media, a respectable voice that can’t be silenced by pretending she comes from the unwashed fringe. Although of course she left CBS when her tough stance and pointed critique of Obama’s administration…

What is or isn’t homophobia

2 French policemen attack a peaceful protester against gay marriage

I just realized that today is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. I come very late to the party, so excuse my unpolished manners. Sooo. Homophobia is an imaginary mental disorder. Its definition was created towards the end of the 20th Century and popularized in the 21st. Turns out that centuries of civilization zoomed by without people coming up with a similar idea. Until now. Lucky us. The idea of being afraid of homosexuals. Going to great lengths to prove that you’re not. Embrace nonsense, fall right in line, or else. Homophobia comes quite handy as an instrument for oppressive -nominally democratic- regimes censoring free speech,…

Are victims of terrorism relevant?

Seriously. This is one of those stale tropes that periodically emerge from the collective consciousness of the oh-so-smart liberals: the threat of terrorism “is way overblown”. Americans stand a greater chance of dying while slipping in their bathtubs than at the hand of terrorists. Barack Obama used to quote this factoid, as it was reported by the New York Times a year ago. Building on the concept, the ineffable NYT columnist proceeded to explain us that we (as a species) are unable to correctly judge risks, overreacting to measly acts of terror while failing to grasp the danger posed by Climate Change™. We’d need to get properly educated… Back then, the news item everybody…

Diversity, fake news and false empathy

University of Michigan map of the USA highlighting how in most of the counties Trump won

Diversity theater If you want to understand what it means to live in a bubble, consider this episode: a few days ago Vice President Elect Mike Pence fancied to spend a little time relaxing with his family and they went to a theater; to a musical about the life of Alexander Hamilton, no less. He got booed by people in the audience, then after the show the entire cast proceeded to scold him, with a sort of partisan official statement, under the guise of asking for an adequate protection for every citizen (and the planet!) in the name of diversity. In other words, you are racists, enemies of all that is good, by…

The day when FiveThirtyEight and the pollsters bombed

This is a story of people looking down on you. More than that, this is a story of fake scientific data and deception. This is about those who tried to control the result of the election. And lost anyway. I’ve been dreaming of writing this very article for months. All those experts, day after day condescendingly belittling people like me, who wouldn’t be convinced to accept the reality of their data… Now it’s time for a little revenge. A sweet opportunity to unload all the frustration of the last months. They won’t mind: they still have all the clout and visibility in the world, plus they have all the…

From abortion to chemtrails, it’s only a small step

OK, let’s complain about idiotic, fake news memes making the rounds on social networks. I bet you too got a good excuse to lose your temper when you faced a scenario like the following one. An excited/indignant friend sharing on Facebook the n-th conspiracy theory/sensational fishy news bite/”anti-establishment” petition. Showing no self-awareness whatsoever. Spewing answers without ever seriously asking questions. Like saying that next week Mars will appear in the sky as big as the Moon, or that Facebook is becoming a pay service, or that you should rail against the Parliament for a new outrageous law that turns out to be imaginary, drafted by a non-existent Representative. That we…

Afrika, the nonviolent game (oh, poor animals)

A note about animal lovers, starting with an interview with Phil Harrison, the bald president of the Sony game development branch. He says that the upcoming PS3 video game Afrika will be something like a virtual photographic safari (zzzzz), so no big caliber rifles for us: “It’s not about killing and it’s not about running around the environment shooting elephants and hippopotamuses — that would be awful.” Aww, sure! Poor savannah animals! I’m wondering what Harrison is going to say the day they launch the next Grand Theft Auto… :D Apparently in the virtual world a drug dealer roaming around town, stealing cars and killing old wives is ok, while…