Pursuance Project initiates a Kickstarter campaign

I have mentioned before that I am involved with the Pursuance Project and serving on its Board of Directors. It is the brainchild of activist journalist Barrett Brown to try and get better information out in this age when we are swamped with bad news, fake news, and mostly trivial news, by better enabling committed people who seek common goals to find and work with each other and avoiding wasted or duplicated effort. The project is advanced enough along that a Kickstarter project has just been launched and the following press release explains what the project seeks to do.

The project is not easy to understand at first but this article in the Observer does a pretty good job.
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Telling the truth about politics and the media

Michelle Wolf’s scathing attack on the entire class of people in the political and media world at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner that showcases the incestuous relationships among them continues to produce ripple effects, with some speculating as to whether her performance spells the merciful end of this event. If it does, Wolf deserves our sincere gratitude.
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What belief in hoaxes tell us about ourselves

Larry Schwartz has compiled a list of 10 golden oldies, hoaxes that took place some time ago. Some of them such as Piltdown Man and crop circles were known to me. Others such as Clever Hans I do not really consider hoaxes as much as misinterpretation, since I consider a hoax to be a deliberately created fraud. The famous War of the Worlds is listed, though other analysts have said that the stories of mass panic were highly overblown and that there was no mass rush of people into streets following the broadcast.
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Closing Facebook and LinkedIn accounts

Yesterday I closed my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. I got both accounts a long time ago but never actively used either of them in the sense that I never posted any content on them. They were just passive accounts that others used to tell me what they were doing, which most of the time was of no interest to me. I had been pondering cutting ties for a long time but never got around to it. So while my closing of my Facebook account was not out of anger at the recent disclosures about its practices, I don’t mind if the company thinks that is the reason for closing it.
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Is Twitter a get-out-of-jail free card now?

The Atlantic magazine last month hired Kevin Williamson, formerly of the conservative National Review, as a columnist. I have long been aware of Williamson’s horrible views and was shocked that a supposedly liberal magazine would hire him but Goldberg has pretty conservative views too. For example, he was an enthusiastic cheerleader for the Iraq war.
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John Oliver on the Sinclair Broadcasting propaganda machine

While much attention has focused on Fox News as a purveyor of propaganda and falsehoods in the service of Donald Trump and the people he represents, less attention has been paid to a news company that has a much broader reach in the country and that is Sinclair Broadcasting, the owner of many local radio and TV stations.

In this clip, John Oliver shows how local newscasters at Sinclair stations are tightly controlled by the owners in a way that would make the leader of any totalitarian nation envious.