The Truth about Donald Trump's Particular Kind of Lies

by Lee McIntyre, Boston University

President Donald Trump speaks to the media outside of the White House. AP/Evan Vucci

Recently, I heard an interesting remark by Russian-born journalist Masha Gessen. She compared three larger-than-life politicians, Vladimir Putin, Silvio Berlusconi, and Donald Trump. Specifically, she compared the manner in which they deceive the public and why they do so.

The way Putin lies, the way Berlusconi lies, and the way Trump lies are exactly the same. They all lie in a blatant way, you know... They do something that to Americans has been very difficult to absorb which is that they lie about things that are obviously not true in order to assert power.

Here are Five Orwellian Quotes for Trump's "Post-Truth" Presidency

by Nomad

When tiny Donnie Trump, future President of the United States, was a two-year toddler, a world-famous author named George Orwell passed away of tuberculosis at the age of 46.

Orwell's best-known book, "Nineteen-Eighty-Four" painted a grim dystopian image of the future, in which lies and truth were reversible and the definitions of both were under the absolute control of an autocratic state.

The slogans of the ruling party in the novel are all about controlling the message and allowing no dissent, even to the degree of stating something as obvious as 2 plus 2 equals 4 or the size of a crowd.
Allies could suddenly become enemies and long-vilified enemies could in mid-sentence become welcome allies. The "facts" could be anything that suited the leaders and this required citizens to hold both truth and lies - the most transparent- are having equal value. (Thank God, this was just fiction.

Terms found in the novel such as "Big Brother", "doublethink" and "newspeak" have become part of our political language.

Nineteen Eighty-Four has been translated into more than 65 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide, giving George Orwell a unique place in world literature.

Practically ever since that book was written, Orwell's insight into the ways a government can manipulate the truth has served as an alarm against an increasingly totalitarian world.

Gandhi: On Truth and Error

by Nomad

Megalodon Deception: Why Fictionalizing Science is More Deadly that a Monster Shark

by Nomad

A Shark Week hoax about long extinct monsters of the deep says a lot about our diminishing ability to discern fact from opinion and science from fantasy. 

So there I am watching the Discovery Channel, and there's a program about a prehistoric shark, much much larger than even the Great White Shark. We are talking eighteen wheeler size big. 

This species used to roam the seas millions of years ago and then went extinct long before man came along. Thank Goodness for that, because it is quite possible that humanity would never have been able to cross the oceans with a monster like that, ready to gulp us down like a slices of pizza at a frat party.

Shark Week has always been a big draw for the Discovery Channel. The problem is after spending years talking about a particular animal, inevitably there comes a time when you run out of new things to say. It's big. It swims. It's fast. And it will eat you. That's really all you need to know. People can only remained scared for so long before they get bored. Then it's "Shark, shmark." 

But after racking their brains, the executives came up with a new angle.  

Megalodon Fraud 

According to experts on the show (aptly named “Megalodon: The Monster That Lives”), there is strong evidence that Megalodon is not extinct at all. The show spent quite some time reviewing photos, videos and eyewitness accounts showing that this monster was actually still out there. Waiting on me to pluck up the courage to dip my big toe into the high seas. 

Gradually, however, it dawned on me that there was something wrong here. There was something unnatural about the interviews. The lighting too perfect. the words too precisely chosen and descriptive for an average person. The rhythm of the speech was more like the delivery of a stage actor. The shark expert was a little too photogenic and well-spoken. In addition, the camera work for the video evidence was a little too polished.

That's when it hit me.

The whole show and all of the evidence were a well-orchestrated hoax. Ten minutes of being made a fool was my limit before I continued my search for something to watch.

Illusionary Links: Why Spurious Connections are Making You Stupid

by Nomad

The human mind was made to search for recognizable patterns. Generally speaking it has aided the survival of our species. But sometimes, this predisposition can also lead us down the wrong paths.

Riddle me this. 

What is the correlation between the divorce rate in Maine and the per capita consumption of margarine in the United States?  According to the graph below, as less margarine was consumed nationally, the divorce rate in Maine declined. 

Can you guess?

http://i.imgur.com/wuFRozj.png

What about this? What could be the connection between the per capita US consumption of cheese and the number of people who died by becoming tangled in their bedsheets? The graph below provides the proof of there is some kind of relationship between the two.
The more people that ate cheese around the country, the more people were found dead  throttled by their knotted bed sheets.

So, what's going on with the dairy products in the US?

http://i.imgur.com/OfQYQW8.png