Via reader Marcus Ranum, I learned of this story where it has been revealed that the US government agency known as USAID (US Agency for International Development) set up a fake Twitter network to create the impression of popular unrest against the Cuban government.
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While using money to influence politicians is becoming increasingly blatant following the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United and McCutcheon rulings, there are still a few fig leaves that exist. One is that there should be no coordination between political campaigns and the SuperPACs that support them. Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Colbert’s lawyer Trevor Potter had a brilliant series during the 2012 elections showing how easy it was, using nods and winks, for politicians get around SuperPAC restrictions.
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One thing that I have learned by blogging is that I am absolutely hopeless at predicting what posts will garner attention. In fact, I seem to have a reverse sense, in that posts that I think are interesting sink without a trace while those that I think are uncontroversial generate quite a bit of buzz.
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As one might have expected, when his show returned on Monday, Stephen Colbert had plenty to say about the flap that ensued after his show last Wednesday and the later tweet sent out by somebody at Comedy Central about his parody. In two clips, he walks us through what happened over the weekend when his show was off the air.
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You may recall Sam Wang, the Princeton neuroscientist whose statistical analyses I referred to frequently during the 2012 election. He now has an article in the New York Times where he analyzes the actual risks for causing autism versus the frequency of news coverage. As he says, “by far the largest risk is genetic. In comparison, the measured impact of environmental risks ranges from nonexistent to small, unless you work directly with chemicals in a factory.”
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Since I don’t have cable, I do not watch the 24/7 cable news networks and from the clips that I do see on the internet, I know I am not missing much. While I do own a TV and can get the broadcast channels, I stopped watching those news shows a long time ago. The morning news shows especially were a wasteland, with inane chatter and frequent commercial breaks.
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It looks like there is a long line of comedians who are taking shots at the cable news networks and CNN particularly for obsessively and ridiculously covering the Malaysian Airlines plane disappearance. The bad news is that CNN almost doubled its ratings during this period among the much-coveted 25-54 age group, making Fox News jealous. So next time around, you can be sure that the coverage will be even worse.
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I have not been following the Ukraine story in great detail. But I have been struck once again by how the US media covers these situations. In the immediate aftermath, it immediately clicks its heels, salutes the flag, and regurgitates the official government line without seemingly any critical examination.
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The Daily Show returned from its vacation and immediately went after the cable news channels for their appalling coverage of the missing airliner. In the clips below, they mentioned some crazy speculations that even I had not heard about.
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So it seems like the most likely outcome of the Malaysian Airlines MH 370 flight has come to pass, and that it ended up in the ocean with no survivors. It is not clear that we will ever know what caused the loss since the plane is believed to be in one of the hardest to reach regions of the ocean.
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