Blindspot Report

Often NO information is comparable to MIS or FAKE information.  Most people watch only one or group of sources that best match THEIR preferred bias. It often explains how many people have some bizarre opinions. Most people aren't stupid; they're just lazy or don't care about knowing the facts.

For those who prefer factual and balanced reporting Ground News provides a tool. It is a platform that makes it easy to compare news sources, read between the lines of media bias and break free from algorithms. 

The Ground News Blindspot (https://ground.news/blindspot) provides a rating system that adds context and transparency to every news story. Readers from all walks of life can conveniently identify media bias, check source credibility, and view ownership data for news outlets around the world.

The bias and factuality ratings are determined using three independent news monitoring organizations: All Sides, Ad Fontes Media, and Media Bias Fact Check. The ownership categories were researched and developed by Ground News.

US citizens lost over $10 billion

US citizens lost over $10 billion due to phishing calls by illegal Indian call centres in 2022, as per the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data. From a report: 

Most of the victims of these fraud calls from Indian phishing gangs were elderly US citizens above the age of 60 years who lost over $3 billion, Times Of India reported citing FBI data. After several incidents were reported in 2022, the FBI has now deputed a permanent representative at the US embassy in New Delhi. The representative will work closely with the CBI, Interpol and the Delhi Police to bust these gangs that have put India under the threat to be termed as the hub of such illegal call centres. Several Americans lost a total of $10.2 billion in 2022 so far, which is a 47 per cent increase from 2021's $6.9 billion, to such fraud calls.

Deepfake-style Marketing Clones

People are hiring out their faces to become deepfake-style marketing clones

AI-powered characters based on real people can star in thousands of videos and say anything, in any language.

Hour One is building up a pool of what it calls “characters.” It says it has around 100 on its books so far, with more being added each week. “We’ve got a queue of people that are dying to become these characters,” says Natalie Monbiot, the company’s head of strategy.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/27/1033879/people-hiring-faces-work-deepfake-ai-marketing-clones

Geek Squad SCAM (2022)

Geek Squad Targets Seniors

https://www.rd.com/article/geek-squad-scams/

The Geek squad scam is so popular because it’s one of the simplest scams to perpetrate, costs nearly nothing to run, has endless variations and has a very low chance of the criminal getting caught, explains Matt Hathaway, a cybersecurity expert and the chief marketing and strategy officer at TrueFort, a cybersecurity company. “It’s low risk, high reward,” he says. “It’s cheap and easy to send the slightly customized email to hundreds or thousands of people and wait until someone responds.”

What to Know About Lensa AI Selfies

Lensa AI Selfies: What to Know About the Photo-Editing App Everyone's Using

Another filter craze that's all over social media is turning your friends' photos into artwork. It's called Lensa AI, and the viral photo-editing app takes your uploaded photos and creates "magic avatars" using your face. However, the photo editor doesn't come without privacy concerns. We'll explain below. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/lensa-ai-selfies-what-to-know-about-the-photo-editing-app-everyone-s-using/ar-AA152Tf1

Data Privacy Tips from Digital Security Experts

The Data Privacy Tips Digital Security Experts Wish You Knew

Seven pro tips to keep iPhone and Android apps from spilling your data.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/the-data-privacy-tips-digital-security-experts-wish-you-knew/ 

Practice of Naturopathy is UNLAWFUL

2010 Tennessee Code: Title 63 - Professions Of The Healing Arts
Chapter 6 - Medicine and Surgery: Part 2 - General Provisions
63-6-205 - Practice of naturopathy. 

(a)  It is unlawful for any person to practice naturopathy in this state.

(b)  “Naturopathy” means nature cure or health by natural methods and is defined as the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human injuries, ailments and disease by the use of such physical forces, as air, light, water, vibration, heat, electricity, hydrotherapy, psychotherapy, dietetics or massage, and the administration of botanical and biological drugs.

Feds Seize Z-Library

Feds Seize One of the Largest Sites for Pirated Books and Articles, Z-Library
by Claire Woodcock, November 11, 2022

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k8qby/feds-seize-one-of-the-largest-sites-for-pirated-books-and-articles-z-library?mc_cid=8b5b6c52d4&mc_eid=62d36e4ccb

Last week, one of the largest repositories of pirated books and articles available on the Internet went dark. Torrentfreak reported a series of Z-Library domain names were seized by the FBI. Countless students and researchers who rely on shadow libraries will be hit hardest by the seizure.

Climate Trace

CLIMATE TRACE makes meaningful climate action faster and easier by mobilizing the global tech community to track greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with unprecedented detail and speed and provide this data freely to the public.

Natural gas in Tennessee is sourced from various interstate pipelines. The Marcellus Formation, which technically stretches into Tennessee, accounts for about 21% of all U.S. gross natural gas production.

Across Tennessee, landfills are emitting methane. Cement factories, which support the concrete industry, produce massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Airports, steel plants and the oil refinery in Memphis are big emitters.

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Cumberland Fossil Plant, a coal plant near Clarksville, took the top spot in the state. Among power plants in North America, the Cumberland plant is the 10th biggest contributor to climate change, according to the data from Climate Trace

Getting Facts with TEDx

Dr. Dan Bellack, a doctorate in psychology from the University of Kentucky, outlines a three step strategy to deal with Fake News. He suggests how readers can improve their thinking separating fact from fiction in order to make informed decisions.  This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference.

Death of Democracy

The Reuters special highlighted the obvious.

New breed of video sites thrives on misinformation and hate

BitChute and Odysee serve up conspiracies, racism and graphic violence to millions of viewers.

Taking advantage of Big Tech disinformation crackdowns and the rise of Trump, the sites reflect a new media universe – one where COVID-19 is fake, Russia fights Nazis in Ukraine, and mass shootings are ‘false flag’ operations.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-media-misinformation/

Surely, it can’t be bad. It is!

Kings of Misinformation and Hate

 InfoWars, AON, Fox and Friends, etc. kings of disinformation? No even close.

“Platforms such as BitChute and Odysee have had a seismic impact on the disinformation landscape,” said Joe Ondrak of Logically, a British firm that works with governments and other organizations to reduce the harm of misinformation. The sites, he said, had become the “first port of call” for conspiracists to publish videos.

BitChute and Odysee both host hundreds of videos inspired by the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose supporters have been arrested for threatening politicians, abducting children and blocking a bridge near Arizona’s Hoover Dam with an armored truck full of guns and ammunition.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-media-misinformation/

Media Bias Chart

Ad Fontes Media is a public benefit corporation with a mission to make news consumers smarter and news media better. 

Currently, we face a crisis of too much junk news. Junk news is like junk food, and just like junk food has caused massive health epidemics in our country, junk news is causing a massive polarization epidemic.

Do Current Heatwaves Imply Climate Change is Happening Faster?

Are these extreme events more extreme than studies had predicted based on current levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases? Is climate change unfolding faster than scientists had expected blistering heat waves, scorching crops, fueling wildfires, buckling roads, mega-droughts, and thousands of deaths? There are two distinct questions.

By James Temple, July 21, 2022

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/07/21/1056291/do-these-heatwaves-mean-climate-change-is-worse-than-we-thought/ 

 

Mearsheimer and Putin Lies?

For me, the fundamental complaint that Putin had with the West was – West’s failure to abide by its agreement not to expand NATO east of East Germany.

Mearsheimer stated in his presentation that all his claims were documented and not just opinion. It was the basis of Putin’s 2007 Munich speech.

Putin quoted a 1990 speech by Manfred Wörner to support his position that NATO made a binding promise not to expand NATO into new countries in Eastern Europe:

He said at the time that: "the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee." Where are these guarantees?

A claim of this magnitude should certainly be documented. So I searched for a copy of the claim. All results professed “No such written agreement exists.”

I have attached two fact checks: Politifact and Brookings

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/feb/28/candace-owens/fact-checking-claims-nato-us-broke-agreement-again/

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/

Putin may have valid paranoia arguments, but this NATO claim is false.

Russia - Ukraine

Many years ago, I learned to recognize when I am being conned -- especially when story does not make sense or is illogical.

I am wanted to believe one guy wears the “white” hat and the other has the “black” hat.” This Russia-Ukraine is a classic. The whole thing does not make sense.

The guys with the “white” hats want me to believe the other guy has to be obviously insane. That is the only explanation for something so bizarre and absurd. The “white hats” don’t want me to make sense about the weirdness. Something doesn’t seem right.To make me not want to put my brain in order, they obfuscate with overwhelm amounts of propaganda.

Global Temperature - 02/22

Global Temperature Page

WattsUpWithThat (WUWT) cannot vouch for the accuracy of the data within this page, as all of the data is linked from third party sources and WUWT is simply an aggregator.

A Life Preserver for Staying Afloat in a Sea of Misinformation

Melanie Trecek-King goals as a science educator are to teach students the essential skills of science literacy and critical thinking. Helping them understand the process of science and how to draw reasonable conclusions from the available evidence can empower them to make better decisions and protect them from being fooled or harmed.

Yet while educators agree that these skills are important, the stubborn persistence of pseudoscientific and irrational beliefs demonstrates that we have plenty of room for improvement. To help address this problem, she developed a general-education science course (Trecek-King 2022) that, instead of teaching science as a collection of facts to memorize, teaches students how to evaluate the evidence for claims to determine how we know something and recognize the characteristics of good science by evaluating bad science, pseudoscience, and science denial.

https://skepticalinquirer.org/2022/02/a-life-preserver-for-staying-afloat-in-a-sea-of-misinformation/

Only in Tennessee?

On January 10, 2022, in an unanimous vote, the board of trustees of east Tennessee McMinn County Schools removed the Pulitzer Prize winning Maus from its eight-grade schools curriculum. The board said the book had "rough language" and "unnecessary" profanity (e.g. eight words, including "damn"), a small drawing of a nude woman drawn as a mouse, mentions of murder, violence, and suicide. 

The board declared it did not concur with its community values. "It shows people hanging, it shows them killing kids." 

Board member Tony Allman said, according to meeting minutes. "Why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff? It is not wise or healthy."   

On February 2, 2022 head pastor Greg Locke at Global Vision Bible Church of Tennessee led a book burning of  copies of "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" to rid "demonic" influences. The event was live-streamed on Facebook to denounce "witchcraft," and rid of "demonic" influences.

He said in an Instagram post."It's witchcraft 100 percent."

The "Harry Potter" books have been banned several times before. In 2019, Tennessee pastor Father Dan Reehil of the Catholic academy of St. Edward School removed the popular book series from the school's library, saying in part in an email

"These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text. I have consulted several exorcists, both in the United States and in Rome, and they have recommended removing the books from circulation."

January 6th

January 6th demonstrates the damage of misinformation. Even more disconcerting is the preference of the major portion of a political party to prefer the lie, to prefer the misinformation. I always hoped we could rely on truth whether or not we like it. When some people force their incompetence and poor mental capacity, whether political or religious, then the populace suffers.

Here's is Biden's the full 1/6/22 speech transcript.