URLs du Jour

2013-01-20

  • Maxwell_Neanderthal Are you an adventurous human woman? You're in luck! "Scientist Seeks 'Adventurous Human Woman' For Neanderthal Baby". No, it's not the National Enquirer, it's Slashdot.

  • In a saner world, the folks running Politifact, the site that self-proclaims its purpose as to "help you find the truth in American politics", would simply shutter the site, turn out the office lights, and go find honest jobs.

    But instead: Politifact awarded its 2012 "Lie of the Year" to Mitt Romney, who made a campaign ad pointing out that Fiat, the company that owns Chrysler, was planning on making Jeeps in China.

    Only problem is: that "lie" was (ahem) actually true. At the Weekly Standard blog, Mark Hemingway analyzes Politifact's defense. Buried in Politifact's self-justifying bullshit is:

    The Romney campaign was crafty with its word choice, so campaign aides could claim to be speaking the literal truth, but the ad left a false impression that all Jeep production was being moved to China.

    (Emphasis added.) That crafty Romney campaign! Speaking the literal truth! But we heard lies, precious!

    Perhaps Politifact could rebrand itself. Might I suggest the "Ministry of Truth".

  • There are lies, and then there's bullshit. And Jacob Sullum found plenty of the latter in President Obama's press conference last week, where he talked about his gun proposals.

    Obama said the gun control task force headed by Vice President Biden has given him "a list of sensible, common-sense steps that can be taken to make sure that the kinds of violence we saw at Newtown doesn't [sic] happen again."

    Jacob's retort:

    Sensible and common-sense! Who could be against that?

    These words are, indeed, reliable markers of Barackrobatic bullshit. Overuse is a mark of ineptness, though.

    But that's the window dressing. Jacob notes Obama's proposals are also excrement-based in substance:

    Still, note that Obama, who a month ago conceded that "no single law [and] no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence," is now promising just that. He reiterated that unrealistic goal later in the press conference, saying he wants "sensible steps that we can take to make sure that somebody like the individual in Newtown can't walk into a school and gun down a bunch of children in a shockingly rapid fashion."

    It's worth clicking through, if only to see the mouse-over on the picture accompanying Jacob's post. No spoilers here! Jacob's is the kind of "fact-checking" you won't see at places like Politifact.

  • The Bad Lip Readers have been watching them some football. For Patriot fans, there's a lot of Tom Brady.

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Last Modified 2013-01-21 5:32 AM EDT