Thread for the mysteriously newsworthy

[ChuckF]

I hear sacrificing a goat can keep the pestilence at bay.

[BrotherMan]

Originally Posted by JoeP

If only there was a popular term for this kind of thing. Made-up news? Lying news? Imaginary news?

FRAUDULENT POSTING. SAD.

[lisarea]

Why is the media all over this pregnant giraffe? I haven't seen people talking about it anywhere, but it's in my newsfeed every day.

[fragment]

Slow news day piece on disappearing office cutlery written by journalist after being forced to eat salad with a spoon.

I actually read the whole thing.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by fragment

I actually read the whole thing.

Mysteriously newsworthy.

[JoeP]

Self-referential meme heading self-referential "news" article about a meme.

I didn't know what a meme was, says Distracted Boyfriend photographer | Media | The Guardian

The photographer says it was the models themselves who first alerted him to the popularity of the image. “I didn’t even know what a meme is until recently,” he said. “The models discovered the meme on social media and they told me about it. None of us could imagine the media repercussion that it has reached right now.”

Contains drama and mystery!

There’s also the remaining mystery of what happened to the woman in the red dress. “Two of the models and I have a great personal relationship, and the other model, we stopped working together around a year ago,” explained Guillem.

In communication from the photographer to the media, “Mario” is quoted as saying that he would never look at a woman in this way, and “Laura” says: “I think everyone once in their lives has been the girl in the red dress; maybe without being looked at with such brazenness.”

[specious_reasons]

I'm giving a try to (former co-host of Point of Inquiry) Josh Zepps' podcast, but ugh! The guest is Scott Adams.

Did you know that Adams ("I'll assassinate Trump if he turns into a tyrant!") is a expert in persuasion, and that he recognized early on that Trump is a master?

He recognized that writing about Trump on his blog is really successful because his lucrative speaking engagements went from "frequent" to zero! It's because people don't like what he's saying, but they don't know why.

Josh Zepps was just as bemused and horrified at Trump's election as most other rational people, but it doesn't seem to be the type of interview where he's confronting some of Adams' nonsense, nor the type where he lets Adams talk himself into trouble.

I'm not done yet, but if this interview doesn't turn into something completely different by the end, this is the only episode I'll listen to. I don't need another podcast, and this episode is not making a compelling case.

[specious_reasons]

OK, so, Josh Zepps gave him about half the time to get background and Adams' viewpoint, and then did confront him, so at least Zepps hasn't gone fucking insane since I last listened to him.

Still, Adams has that smarmy "reasonable" attitude. He acts like he's the only adult in the room: The other side is "hysterical." He's a better liberal
than the liberals who criticize him. The way he evaluates the president is the only valid way to evaluate the President.

Then you get into the more infuriating rhetorical tricks: It's a trivial issue if he can't explain it away. Ask for a specific example and then complain about how specific the host is getting. That the courts shutting down the Muslim ban is an example of how Trump is not acting authoritarian.

So, what I'm saying is that Zepps didn't have the chops to confront Adams effectively. A shame, but it wasn't terrible enough to make me immediately delete the podcast, though.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Politically correct snowflake infowars microphone dude gets vapours over freedom.

[BrotherMan]

Lordy sakes! I do declare!

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Breitbart complained to the FBI about getting DDOS'd but it turned out their ads were just broken lmao pic.twitter.com/JUdZhhmGVy

— Brendan O'Connor (@_grendan) September 7, 2017

You could say it's fake news about fake news.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

[JoeP]

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Disgraced Connecticut councilman resigns after ‘Gray Muzzle’ furry profile revealed

Yeah, 'tolerates rape' probably means tolerates rape fantasies, but when in public office some topics just need to stay buried entirely because no amount of context in the world is going to help.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

So, what I'm saying is that Zepps didn't have the chops to confront Adams effectively. A shame, but it wasn't terrible enough to make me immediately delete the podcast, though.

Next podcast, Ben Shapiro. I don't know of this guy, but he's a fast talking intellectually inclined conservative. Wrote some book on liberal "bullies" and another on how universities indoctrinate young people into liberals.

This guy is someone who has come to all of his decisions "rationally" - in scare quotes because he started from the point that everything he believes is true and correct, and he derived everything else from that.

The bulk of the discussion was on social safety nets and trans issues. I thought that Zepps did pretty well on the social safety net side of things. His experience in other countries basically highlighted that Shapiro has not bothered to think about how other countries are managing things like healthcare or welfare, Shapiro just knows they're bad without particular evidence.

However, once again I wish Zepps was better prepared to deal with his interview subject. Shapiro's take on transgender issues is pretty much, "There's men and women and if you don't like it, fuck off. Well, maybe there's some intersex people, but who cares? Have them pick a side."

This is coming straight from his conservative religious beliefs, but he pretends this is the rational, science based answer. He also pretends that the social policy that he derives from his viewpoint is simply the most utilitarian.

Well, I kinda wanted Zepps to defy Shapiro on the scientific accuracy of his views on sex and gender. But he didn't, Zepps seemed to make a policy based argument which Shapiro kind of ran around with talk of the greater utility.

I want so badly to like Josh Zepps' podcast, as he generally did so well on the "Point of Inquiry" podcast.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Arizona man selling ranch for $5M due to constant “alien attacks” - National | Globalnews.ca

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Writer: "Is it 'firsthand' or 'first hand'?"
Editor: "Either one is fine." pic.twitter.com/36xHxrG9q1

— AJ ⚾️ (@NCSox) October 29, 2017

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

BREAKING: The

— CNN (@cnn_eur) November 4, 2017

[JoeP]

It's the 131st anniversary of the invention of the hole punch.

Hole punch history: How the world became more organised in one thadumph | The Independent

And Google decided to doodle it.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

#BlackFriday officially begins in #Nova Scotia #Canada @BestBuyCanada @CTVAtlantic https://t.co/SpCagttFPC

— Suzette Belliveau (@SBelliveauCTV) November 24, 2017

[erimir]

Where is the pushing? Where are the stampedes? Where are the fist fights?

Nobody got shot?

Canadians can't even do Black Friday right

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

A hockey game broke out.

[Watser?]

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Russian Orthodox Church suggests tsar's death was a Jewish 'ritual murder'

wat

[JoeP]

Putin seems pretty keen on the whole tsar thing. Just sayin'.