Handy dandy help for everyone, from FactCheck.org – How to spot fake news. An article to bookmark and refer to when needed, and I imagine it might be needed a lot in the coming years.

…Those all still hold true, but fake stories — as in, completely made-up “news” — has grown more sophisticated, often presented on a site designed to look (sort of) like a legitimate news organization. Still, we find it’s easy to figure out what’s real and what’s imaginary if you’re armed with some critical thinking and fact-checking tools of the trade.

Here’s our advice on how to spot a fake:

Good, solid advice. Click on over to read the whole article.

And, here’s a good way to sharpen up those bullshit detection skills, learning that correlation does not imply causation. While most people know this, at least hazily so, that’s one fact that tends to get kicked out in favour of “hmmm, that’s interesting, ennit?” and “that’s some coincidence!” and so forth. We’re all prone to veering off into the more magical type of thinking, and the correlation/causation bit is an oft used trick to manipulate people. Being much smarter than that, of course you want to make sure you don’t fall for such shit. Head on over to Tyler Vigen’s Spurious Correlations, and you can enjoy learning all about it. Spurious Correlations is now a ridiculous and wonderful book, and I highly recommend it.