Detecting Fake News: Not As Difficult As You Might Believe - Unless We Reach "The Inversion"

Fake news has become like a pandemic mind virus, and there's no sign it will abate soon, certainly so long as the Trumpies control the power center of the nation - and spew nonstop lies.  However, people will be glad to know it's not all a lost cause, there are ways to spot fake news and  not be suckered in by it. This is important,  especially recognizing the top fake news sources which appear to be Facebook and Twitter. In the graphs shown, for example, we see how two fake news stories were given new life on the child- level platform called Twitter. The favorite tool of Trump,  for obvious reasons, namely that he acts and writes at the level of a dyspeptic five year old.

The disturbing finding of the two graphs - actually quite depressing- is that the majority of Twitter users who discussed false rumors about the two named disasters, posted tweets that actually spread the rumors. This is exactly analogous to a mind virus infection spread from a single source by either unknowing or intentional human misinformation vectors.   Only a small fraction of these users sought verification or expressed doubt about the content.  This means as our nation gravitates more to this childish medium there is ever greater risk of becoming a nation of brainwashed sheeple. Or, paving the way for Civil war between the sheeple and normal, self aware, rationally- grounded citizens.

Some may say the solution, whether on Facebook or Twitter, is to scrub out bogus articles or block irresponsible tweeters from infesting the web with their nonsense.  But this is not the way to go because simply scrubbing BS articles or tweets will likely bring up a reactionary backlash, i.e. "What is this,  Nazi Germany?"    In the words of  Murphy Choy, a data analyst in Singapore, quoted in a Science News piece from August: "That would be like a totalitarian state. It would be very uncomfortable for all parties involved."

That means we have to train net users to become au fait with detecting fake news, and there are ways to do that. (Critical thinking practiced regularly also helps!)

A first step is provided by two computer scientists - Sibel Adali and Banjamin Horne - based at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute. The pair analyzed 75 true articles from media outlets deemed most trustworthy as well as 75 false stories from sites on a black list of misleading websites. They found that compared with real news, the fake stories tended to be shorter and more repetitive with adverbs. Fake stories also had fewer outside quotes from sources, fewer technical words and fewer nouns.   I promise you will not find such dearth here at Brane Space.

Another indicator proposed by computer scientist Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia of Indiana University entails using a program to check how closely the subject and object f a statement are. Specifically, the fewer degrees of separation between a statement's subject ad object, and the more specific the intermediate words connecting them, the more likely the program is to label the statement as true.  To fix ideas consider the claim: "Obama is a Muslim" .  But the computer found that seven degrees of separation between the subject (Obama) and Muslim (e.g. Islamic) are just too many. Indeed, this nonsense was exploded  by PLOS One in fact checker back in 2015.  It was blown up even earlier (2009) by FactCheck.org in 2009, e.g.

Truth on the Cutting Room Floor, Dec. 4, 2009

A similar demolition was done on the Uranium One BS which has the Right's mindless parrots and screechers in a perpetual fit, e.g..

https://www.factcheck.org/2017/10/facts-uranium-one/

But it often isn't so easy especially when hate speech is embedded into fake news.  As pointed out in a piece yesterday (WSJ, p. A5) a post that is hateful to one group may not be hateful to another. Indeed, it may be perceived as "depicting uncomfortable truths".  This is inevitably what transpires when a large segment of the nation gets its news from FOX - which also comes with a good helping of hate, misinformation.

As another case showing how difficult it can be to get rid of a fake news nuisance, the article notes (ibid.):

"When Twitter executives struggled with whether to follow other Silicon Valley companies and remove conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from the platform in August, Twitter CEO Jack. Dorsey sought counsel from 'Ali Akbar' a conservative political activist".


Well, the very name of this dude  - a takeoff on the universal cry of jihadis everywhere ('Allahu Akbar!" including ISIS vermin) ought to have given Dorsey pause.   So no surprise Mr. "Akbar" advised Dorsey against kicking off Jones despite pressure from users and Twitter employees.  And let's be clear here that calling Jones a "conspiracy theorist"  confers way more gravitas than he merits.

Alex Jones, conspiracy crackpot and hate monger.

As I've posted previously Jones is more a crackpot, pseudo conspiracy clown.  This is a person who not only lacks evidence for his claims, but who makes them in contradiction to all logic, mental coherence and existing documents. (Like Jones claiming the Sandy Hook massacre was a federal false flag operation and those 20 kids weren't really slain, just acting.)  

But without the ability to remove Jones and his irresponsible hate - crackpot conspiracy bollocks, users of the platform are basically on their own. Not only in filtering out the rot, but in actually discerning what is rot.   Am I overreacting in calling out Jones' content as hate? Judge for yourself based on this Jones outburst from 2016 in which  he fulminated on a crypto Jewish conspiracy afoot in the country:

“I mean it’s not that Jews are bad; it’s just they are the head of the Jewish Mafia in the United States. They run Uber. They run the health care. They’re going to scam you. They’re going to hurt you.” 

Trump is roughly in the same balmy,  nutso camp as Jones with his "rigged election" conspiracy balderdash spouted during the 2016 campaign.  Like many loons he believes that merely repeating or tweeting unsupported claims makes them so. Thus his incessant references to his having "really" won the popular vote if there had been no  "voter fraud", i.e. by illegal immigrants.   

And let's note that Dotard's  own fake news has now reached  a pinnacle with his unsupported claims there is a "crisis" on the border which requires declaring a "national emergency".    He plans to visit that border near McAllen, TX tomorrow but be assured he will see no terrorists, or people rushing fences.  Never mind.  He will blurt any fantasy or brain fart  that emanates from a ruptured psychotic embolism in his amygdala.  He can't help himself. As I said before, in a normal universe the guy would be strapped down for ECT in a rubber room someplace, not sitting in the Oval Office barking bullshit or tweeting  twaddle.

What's really downright hilarious is how some, self-described Right "resistance"  backers of Trump are claiming the Left are full of "nutburgers" when it comes to twisting the truth. (Daniel Henninger WSJ column today, p. A13).  In fact a study by Princeton University researchers (Denver Post, today, p. 16A) showed:


The simplest reason for too many oldsters spouting or circulating fake news is the lack of digital literacy, according to one NYU researcher quoted in the piece.  The basis for  fake news spread by the ultra-conservatives is fairly simple too: they imbibe too much bullshit from Trump TV (aka FOX News), Breitbart, and Rush Limbaugh.

But the specter of the fake and its insinuation into every nook and crevice of the we, is even more insidious than the preceding examples, as Chris Hayes showed in his Dec. 29 show segment "Nothing is Real".   As Hayes stated, the Russian Facebook interventions in the 2016 election with reams of spurious stories about Hillary and Black Lives Matter, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/10/facebook-follies-yep-russkies-used-fake.html

Was just the "tip of the iceberg".  Guest Max Read in the short time (10 mins.) available touched base multiple times with his article in New York magazine about the extent of fake stuff on the internet, e.g.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/how-much-of-the-internet-is-fake.html

As he told Hayes: "One particular effort sponsored fake websites, and fake users - based on using bots, leading to nearly 40 percent of the web being fake."

Confirmed in the article wherein he wrote:

"Fake people with fake cookies and fake social-media accounts, fake-moving their fake cursors, fake-clicking on fake websites — the fraudsters had essentially created a simulacrum of the internet, where the only real things were the ads....

How much of the internet is fake? Studies generally suggest that, year after year, less than 60 percent of web traffic is human; some years, according to some researchers, a healthy majority of it is bot. For a period of time in 2013, The Times reported this year, a full half of YouTube traffic was “bots masquerading as people,” a portion so high that employees feared an inflection point after which YouTube’s systems for detecting fraudulent traffic would begin to regard bot traffic as real and human traffic as fake. They called this hypothetical event “the Inversion.”

The bots, in other words, taking control in this hypothetical inversion, wherein human traffic is taken as fake. Unbelievable? Not according to Read.  Much of this is being driven by defrauding ads which help pay for content, by making it appear as if there are actually human eyeballs on the ads when there aren't.. As Read put it to Chris Hayes:

 "In one of these cases the DOJ just indicted these guys with a rental service based in Dallas. They had built a whole raft of fake websites and created a bunch of fake people to go to the websites. They moved cursors like real people, they clicked on stuff like real people.  All of them bots. They even gave them social media accounts and had them surf the web to draw in cookies. So when they visited these fake websites it looked like you or me were visiting these sites.  Then they'd go to advertisers and say 'well hundreds of thousands of people have looked at your ad, now pay up based on your contract."

If Read's examination is true, and there's no reason to doubt it given the DOJ was involved, then it may mean the only way to clear out the fakes in the end is to have a truly free internet. NO more advertising just to see content, and no more capitalist yen to "monetize" the whole thing.  But I guess that's a non- starter given it's blatant "socialism".    A freebie socialism or human web traffic ultimately designated as fake: take your pick. 

But it's evident from Read's piece that as long as ads are tied to viewing web content many will try to "game the numbers".  Like legalizing drugs to stamp out or diminish the black market, it may be time to consider the extreme of no more ads, period.  At least then thinking human will have a better chance to decipher fake news using the methods already discussed - as well as good, old fashioned critical thinking!  

As for Brane Space, I ceased  including all ads (via  Google Adsense) some four months ago after discovering ads from Newsmax, etc. and other rightist sources  with snide attacks on Hillary, Dems, Obama. NO way in hell, as I told Janice, even if it means no more money for views. 

See also:

Donald Trump | Media

Not One Network Should Have Aired Trump’s Immigration Speech

And:

Donald Trump

Donald Trump Is the Damn Emergency

by William Rivers Pitt | January 10, 2019 - 7:41am | permalink

New Research Discloses Fake News Propagates Much Faster Than Facts - As We Suspected

It should not have come as a shock that even before Twitter Inc. removed accounts flagged for suspicious activity - i.e. spreading fake news, and re-tweeting Russian bot BS, we knew that the fake news out of assorted rat warrens, like Reddit, 4chan, FOX News etc. which ended up in tweets, spread faster than the facts.

An analysis of more than 4.5 million tweets and retweets posted on Twitter from 2006 to 2017 indicates clearly that inaccurate news stories - or deliberately falsified ones (e.g. the "Pizzagate conspiracy" of Michael Flynn et al) -  spread faster and further on this social media platform than true stories.  Further, people - humans - play a bigger role in sharing falsehoods and fake news than the bots.

Those findings were reported in the March 9 issue of the journal Science, and could easily guide strategies for curbing misinformation on social media.  Indeed, the report may already have been used by Twitter Inc. to dump up to 6 million resident troll accounts. (WSJ, 'Twitter Subtracts Suspicious Accounts From Follower Totals', July 12)  As per the WSJ piece:

"Twitter is removing accounts that had been blocked due to an unusual change in behavior such as the sudden sharing of misleading links, sensitive information and other types of problematic content. Removing the locked accounts will reduce follower counts by 6 % across the service,  the company said.."

Of course, Maul Street generally balks at any company changes that might lower  profits, never mind they might also cool off some of the polarization and incivility from Twitter trolls.  So no surprise Twitter's share price fell nearly 9 percent last Monday after The Washington Post reported Twitter was accelerating removal of problem users, accounts. (Ibid.)

The significance of the Science paper is that most studies hitherto have been anecdotal only, according to Filippo Menczer, an informatics and media prof at Indiana University- Bloomington.  In his words, interviewed by Science News:  "We didn't really have a large scale, systematic study evaluating the spread of misinformation".

How large scale are we talking about for a worthwhile study? In the cited paper, researchers examined 126, 000 tweet "cascades" to discern fake news mongering on that platform. The cascade was defined by families of tweets composed of a single original tweet and also all the retweets spawned by that original message.  All of the cascades focused on one of about 2,400 news stories that had already been debunked by at least one fact-checking organization (e.g. Factcheck.org).

The media scientists at MIT - led by Deb Roy - then investigated how far and fast each cascade spread. They found that discussions of false stories tended to start from fewer original tweets, but some retweet chains ended up reaching tens of thousands of users.  Meanwhile,true news stories never spread to more than 1,600 people.

Interestingly, true news stories took about six times longer than false ones to reach 1,500 people. In other words, we have a graphic, real world validation of Winston Churchill's famous quote: "A lie can travel half way around the world before the truth can get its pants on."

The question, obviously, is why?  Why is truth, or any factual account,  so slow to propagate relative to falsehood? Is there some brain defect or anomaly that causes humans to gravitate more to untruths, or fake stories,  and spread them?

A key finding of the Roy et al study was that bot traffic didn't make that much difference to speed of propagation of falsehoods. Initially, the researchers removed all bots from the analysis, but when bot traffic was re-introduced, it was found the bots spread true and false stories about equally. The only conclusion? Humans, not bots, are the primary agents for spreading false stories.

So why are humans more prolific spreaders of fake news?   The suggestion of one of the study's co-authors - Soroush Vosoughi  - is that the yen for novelty is at the root.  In other words, humans are more inclined to spread tall tales because they are perceived to be more novel. Look at it this way, a Reddit user is scanning headlines and spots two stories, one is an account of a newly discovered pulsar with its signal flickering at 30 times a second, the other concerns a 30 year old wife and mother claimed to have been abducted by aliens with sexual experiments on their mind.   Well, nine will get you ten the Reddit user will choose to spread the latter story - as an original - on his Twitter feed.  You can also be sure in a race with the other story about pulsars - say tweeted by a Brane Space reader-  the alien abduction- fake news will spread to four or five times as many via retweets, and a lot faster than the pulsar story.

Pulsars are just not as fascinating or novel as the abduction of matrons by hyper-sexed aliens.

Vosoughi reinforces this POV,  noting that compared with the subject matter of true stories, the fake news topics tend to deviate more from the themes users were exposed to earlier, say in the two months before a user retweeted a story.   So there's a much greater chance a potential retweeter would have already read or seen the pulsar story and responded with a 'Meh'  while the suddenly appearing alien abduction of a human female might have sent him instantly tweeting it out with a "Wow! Let's see now, 'Alien sex fiends abduct MILF!'

Tweet replies to false stories also were found by the study to contain more words than true stories, indicating surprise. Again, no astounding find.. Give an assignment to two users to write as many words as they can think of about pulsars, and about "Alien sex fiends abducting MILF".   I promise the latter will be found to have sparked more words, all fictitious and imaginary, but still words.  A little element Dr. Pat Bannister also uncovered in her years of research: that liars and confabulators tend to embellish, use more words that truth tellers.

Informatics Prof Menczer, not surprisingly, asserts the  analysis on the speed of fake news propagation "provides a very good first step"  in understanding what kinds of posts grab  the most attention.  Well, it appears the result is obvious: those posts that are most novel (fewer points of origin) and can most easily be embellished.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/80204/even-fox-commentators-agree-putin-s-helsinki-hustle-humiliated-trump

About That List Of Recently Released "Banished Words"

 Comedian Bill Maher exposed and skewered a politically correct language guide two and a half years ago.

It appears now that a university no one ever heard of (Lake Superior State University) has just released its 43rd annual list of words "banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness".  In media accounts of the release (e.g. "School Expels Tons of Words", The Denver Post, Dec. 31, p. 10A). the claim is made that it is "a tongue- in- cheek, nonbinding list of 14 words and phrases."  In other words, the school seeks to evade responsibility by portraying its list in a facetious, non-serious way. This way, there's less chance of being skewered for political correctness or verbal nannyism like Bill Maher did with a language guide issued by the University of New Hampshire in August, 2015.

But the fact is that the northern Michigan school knew what it was doing and attempted - as it has the previous 42 years - to make a point concerning the preferable use of language. They'd garner much more respect if they actually took ownership instead of trying to use the "tongue-in-cheek" trope to dodge being a target.

What are these words and phrases that have been banished?  The D. Post article lists a number of them as follows:

- "let me ask you this"

- "unpack"

- "impactful"

- "nothingburger"

- "tons"

- "dish"

-"drill down"

- "let that sink in"

-"pre-owned"

- "on boarding/ off boarding"

-"hot water heater"

- "gig economy"

- "covfefe"

- "fake news"  (the top vote getter)

According to Lake Superior State spokesman John Shibley, "more words were expected" given the "divisive 2016 election and the deepening divisions in government and the U.S. electorate".

But as I pointed out in previous posts, one aim of language control in whatever guise - ''tongue-in-cheek" list or "more humanized language guide" -- is thought control.  It is an effort  to disparage and inhibit free expression, including emotional tone, of what people have experienced. In the case of the 2016 nightmare election, millions - according to the book 'The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump'- are suffering from forms of severe depression, PTSD and even bipolar disorder brought on by Trump's ascension to power and his chaotic rule. Psychiatrists are evidently doing a land office business trying to help many in the anti-Trump populace. These people's emotions are further triggered by certain speeches, references made by the Dotard or his hired sycophants like Sara Huckleberry Sanders.

Wifey is among these, and is still dealing with the raw emotions of a nation in the throes of Trumpism - led by a gaggle of assholes determined to tear down all regulations, and our democratic norms and institutions (including a free press), as they brainwash their clueless minions.  Yesterday while watching Maddow, she must have screamed and banged her fists into the side of her recliner at least 12 times in 40 minutes. "Look at this shit! Have you ever seen or heard the likes of this!"

Should she or millions of others be denied (or criticized in a snide way) for their use of stock words or phrases  in the course of emotional venting? I think not.  So no, there is or was no basis at all to  "increase" the list of banished words. If anything, in a toxic environment like the one we have now in the U.S. more verbal leeway ought to be permitted, not less.

If there is one phrase I do agree with on the list it is "fake news".  This is used by Trumpists and their followers to smear actual press reports, especially revelations of how Dotard and his cabal are destroying our Republic piece by piece.  For example, anything that now comes over the transom regarding Robert Mueller's investigation, is instantly pilloried as "fake news". In this way  the nation is being divided into two hostile camps and - as some have pointed out (e.g. in Bandy X. Lee's book on Trump's danger) in a manner not seen since the Civil War.  (I have also warned unless these two versions of reality are reconciled  among citizens we may see a 2nd Civil War.)

In fact, the other side of Foxite, fake news blaring nitwits have now even claimed Mueller is trying to engineer a "coup" against their little Dotard. Words like that can have real consequences in the real world, none of which are sanguine.

So, if in an atmosphere like this people are inclined to overuse a few words ("unpack") I have no problems.  Let me also add here that many of us in this toxic Trump environment will find our own ways to express our outrage - and yes, we need MORE outrage,  not less - as conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt recently tried to argue, e.g.

https://www.denverpost.com/2017/12/29/2017-launched-our-addiction-to-outrage/

This again is merely a way for the Right's assorted hacks to try to control the (mainly Left) reaction and rightful outrage against the Trump Imperium. And no surprise it is especially directed at all the groups in the Resistance movement - now marching toward seizing back the House for the Dems in November.  What better way to do that than to depict  outrage as a kind of addictive pathology, as opposed to the  energy bearing  "fuel" that will ultimately bring down the Trumpite cabal? For me? I plan to keep my outrage amped up until all these bastards are gone, full stop.  What is that saying the Occupy movement often used?  "If you're not outraged then you're not paying attention".

And if you're not paying attention you're just citizen road kill. You could as well be one of those zombies on the "Walking Dead'.

In my own case, I express much of my outrage via my blog posts (check the previous post and links therein).  Because of the intensity with which I sometimes express myself I realize and understand that many posts - especially the political subset- are not for everyone. Indeed, wifey is unable to handle my political posts because they are "too intense".   So be it, but I am not about to change. For me it's a kind of therapy in Trump land, and I make no apologies. If you're unable to handle that then go to a poetry or puppy blog or "better homes and gardens".  I will never be writing or talking "through the flowers" to use the phrase of my sister-in-law Krimhilde.

 For the same reason I disdain the use of euphemisms which merely seek to cloak reality rather than expose it to consciousness.   Hence, I have and always will reject the use of "enhanced interrogation" for torture, "scandal" for conspiracy, "passing" for death or "sized person" for obese.

Interestingly, Marist College (in its own "egregious language" survey) also agreed that "fake news"  made its own list of "most annoying words" - behind "whatever".  The latter word, incidentally, I have no problems with - for anyone 12 years of age  or under. But if you're older than that you need to find a replacement word when you reach the point of exasperation. I mean you're now supposed to be more than 5 years beyond reaching the age of reason.

Fair enough?

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/henry-giroux/77138/challenging-trumps-language-of-fascism

Spread of Flat Earther Nonsense Shows We Are In A Period Of Intellectual Regression

Flat Earth buffs meet for a 'seminar' in Fort Collins. They believe they've aced reality and know more than the 'academic elites'. They are totally bonkers wrong.

Let's concede that the pace of modern scientific advance has been breathtaking. Some have noted that more new knowledge has been generated since 1997 than in the previous 400 years- up to and including 1997-  which is probably an understatement. Scientific journals and papers have proliferated at such a rate that most specialists barely have the time (or energy) to keep up with their own niche area, far less the entire discipline.

One estimate is that  1.8 million articles  are published each year, in about 28,000 journals. This elicits the question: who actually reads those papers?  According to one 2007 study, half of academic papers are read only by their authors and journal editors. This is nothing short of astounding but makes sense if one gets inside what research scientists actually do, which is to narrow their focus almost exclusively to their specific specialty areas  In addition, specialty areas themselves can be reduced to sub specialties, for example solar physics has a sub-discipline of solar flare magneto-hydrodynamics, another of solar flare predictions. Perhaps the former comprises 5 percent of solar physics and the latter 2 percent. Take the overlap between them and you may only find 50 solar physicists.

If the situation is practically untenable for regular scientists to keep pace with scientific knowledge, imagine what it must be like for most laymen, who may not even have been exposed to a high school biology or physics course.  At some point the burden of trying to keep pace with new knowledge - even produced in popular literature- may be too much for them, so they just give up. They either opt to blank out, or - as often the case- deny a given tenet or scientific principle or even an entire theory (e.g. general relativity).

This notion isn't new or remarkable. As far back as 1970, author Alvin Toffler - in his book, 'Future Shock' - observed (p. 326) that "one response to high speed change is outright denial".  Adding: "The Denier's strategy is to block out unwelcome reality".    Like the "disaster victim whose face registers total disbelief , the Denier too cannot accept the evidence of his senses. Thus he concludes things really are the same and all evidences of change are merely superficial."

This memetic basis, I believe, applies as much to the climate change or evolution denier as it now does to the new breed: the regressive flat Earther who denies the Earth's sphericity.  While the climate change denier rejects the cumulative evidence of the past several decades showing CO2 buildup connected to a rapidly warming Earth, the flat Earther rejects the evidence of the past two thousand years.  The first astronomical credit for deducing a spherical Earth is generally awarded to Eratosthenes (276 - 194 B.C.) who used basic trigonometry (based on the shadow length at Alexandria) to estimate the Earth's circumference within 5 to 15 % of its actual value.

According to a Denver Post front page story yesterday, the flat Earth bunch is making a return here in Colorado with regular meetings in Fort Collins. According to the Post:

"Every Tuesday at 6 p.m., three dozen Coloradans from every corner of the state assemble in the windowless back room of a small Fort Collins coffee shop. They have met 16 times since March, most nights talking through the ins and outs of their shared faith until the owners kick them out at closing.

They have no leaders, no formal hierarchy and no enforced ideology, save a common quest for answers to questions about the stars. Their membership has slowly swelled in the past three years, though persecution and widespread public derision keep them mostly underground. Many use pseudonyms, or only give first names.

“They just do not want to talk about it for fear of reprisals or ridicule from co-workers,” says John Vnuk, the group’s founder who lives in Fort Collins."


Well, of course, they shouldn't fear "reprisals" - because there is no place in a civilized society for any physical attacks on such people who hold archaic beliefs.  However, they can't expect to be immune from harsh criticism, provided it is scientifically based and not so much in the ad hominem regime.

What is more difficult to believe is this codswallop (ibid.):

"He is at the epicenter of a budding movement, one that’s coming for your books, movies, God and mind. They’re thousands strong — perhaps one in every 500 — and have proponents at the highest levels of science, sports, journalism and arts.

They call themselves Flat Earthers. Because they believe Earth — the blue, majestic, spinning orb of life — is as flat as a table."

If true, this would represent a monumental intellectual reversal on a par perhaps, with returning medicine to the age of using leeches to "bleed bad humors" out of sick people.  Say, as opposed to delivering antibiotics or using other interventions.    But it would play into Toffler's observation of a significant population no longer able to keep up with modern science.

Indeed, it is doubtful any of these flat Earthers have even heard of the specialized science of geodesy - i.e. as defined from Wikipedia:

"Geodesy, also called geodetics, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth, its gravitational field and geodynamic phenomena (polar motion, Earth tides, and crustal motion) in three-dimensional time-varying space."

In other words, this highly technical science is devoted to the precise measurement of the Earth's shape using specialized satellites and advanced techniques. Most of these have been published in a superb monograph featuring a chapter on geodesy by the late Heinrich K. Eichhorn who used to be the chairman of the Dept. Of Astronomy at the University of South Florida.



Eichhorn's chapter is a masterpiece and shows in detail what must be done to arrive at the "geoid". Will the flat Earthers read it? I doubt it because they likely lack the math background to grasp its most basic principles, such as satellite orbits. Do they even believe that satellites exist? One wonders.

Vnuk goes on to chirp:

"Some will accept it, some won’t. But love it or hate it, you can’t ignore Flat Earth.”

Uh, yes we can! Other than as a historical curiosity that eventually humans got savvy enough - in their methods and knowledge- to out grow. It is tragic that this now represents a regression to more primitive times, but again it fits in with Alvin Toffler's take on those who can't accept rapid scientific change. They are "future shocked".

Vnuk claims the Fort Collins group "touts itself as the first community of Flat Earthers in the United States. Sister groups have since spawned in Boston, New York, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Chicago."

Which leads me to think many of those joining just want to be controversial and contrarian. They probably couldn't explain any "scientific" basis for rejecting sphericity if they had to.

One thing these folks must admit is the Moon is plainly visible in the sky and it IS spherical, e.g.

And no, they can't argue the image is still "flat like a pancake" because the phenomenon of astronomical nutation allows us to see over the top of the Moon's pole in a spherical context.

In addition, they probably can't even grasp that if indeed the Earth was flat as they claim, and in a mutual orbit with a spherical Moon, the orbit would soon become unstable. Indeed, we would not observe the regularity of Earth tides which in large measure arise on account of the differential gravitation effect of the Moon on the spherical Earth - with greater attraction at the near point than the far one, e.g.


Here, the Moon exerts a pull of force F1 on the near point (call it A on the Earth). By the same token, point B on the opposite side from A would be pulled nearer to the Moon than the water above it, thereby inducing a high tide at point B as well. In other words, two separate pulls resulting in two high tides at locations A  and B. This model also allows the prediction (average) for the time between two tides at 12 hrs. 25 mins.    Close inspection of (b)  would show tide raising forces were greatest at the intermediate points.  That is, between the Moon’s nadir and zenith positions.

Incredibly, the flat Earthers even have "donation boxes" staked out to try to collect money for bill boards, e.g.


Talk about a total waste!    But to further try to give ballast to this nonsense the Post quotes a guy named Bob Knodel, who supposedly was an "engineer" for 35 years. What kind they don't say. Maybe a sanitary engineer? According to Knodel:

"There’s so much evidence once you set aside your preprogrammed learning and begin to look at things objectively with a critical eye says you learn soon that what we’re taught is mainly propaganda.”

Seriously? A satellite geodetic survey is propaganda? How about flying great circle routes,   say to get  from New York City to Hong Kong. e. g.
or has Knodel never done that?


Why take that particular route? Well, because for a spherical geometry it is the shortest route between two points - so it saves fuel and time!  If he had the time (and math background) I'd even show him how to calculate the distance between two locations on Earth - say Barbados to Bristol, England, using spherical trigonometry, e.g.

cos(dist.)= sin (lat1) sin (lat2) + cos (lat1) cos (lat2) cos (long1 - long2)

In this case, Barbados latitude is 13 deg N., Bristol's is 51 deg 26' N. Bristol's longitude is   2 deg 35' W. Barbados' longitude is 59 deg 30'  W.

This is all one needs to use the spherical triangle formula to arrive at the distance (taking into account the circumference value of 24,901 mi.).

Knodel "runs the popular YouTube channel Globebusters," which has nearly 2 million views across more than 135 videos.   So it appears he is at least knowledgeable about spreading mind viruses- especially among those whose brains have already been colonized by fake news.

Knodel goes on:

“I’ve researched conspiracies for a long time. I’ve looked very critically at NASA. Why is it that the astronauts have conflicting stories about the sky? Is it bright with stars, or a deep velvet black?”


Well, maestro, because different astronauts (and even the same)  making orbits at different times will experience variable illumination and also (timed to the period of satellite orbits) "daylight" and "night" - e.g. once they pass the day-night terminator. Hence, in the latter condition they will see the sky as "velvet black" and indeed populated with stars, and at other times with brighter background, e.g. in 'daylight' conditions of the orbit. There are no 'conflicting stories' unless one reads conflicting stories into the accounts and is unable to parse correctly what is being said.

The most amusing part of the Post account:

“How are we Flat Earthers supposed to explain to our friends the solar eclipse in August?” asked one attendee. The room fell silent. “We’ll have to do more research and get back to you on that.”

Ah yes, "do more research and get back on that".   Meanwhile, the solar eclipse is easily explained by appeal to shadow geometry applied to the assorted spherical bodies involved: Sun, Earth and Moon, e.g.


Indeed, the path of the shadow cone (umbra-penumbra) itself depends directly on the Earth being a spherical - not flat- body.

Anyway, after the flat Earthers return to the drawing table I can hardly wait to see what their 'research' coughs up.   It's bound to be awesome. Heck, maybe they can even put it on a billboard. (If it will fit!)

NBC Is Off Its Rocker To Air Alex Jones' Interview After Capitol Shooting

Conpiracy clown Alex Jones, who feeds the Right's febrile conspiracies - including Sandy Hook being a false flag- to appear Sunday night on Megyn Kelly's show.

Incredibly, NBC News is moving ahead with plans to air Megyn Kelly’s interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones this weekend despite a backlash that has cost the show advertisers and led to Kelly being dropped as host for an event by an organization founded by parents of children killed at Sandy Hook elementary school.  And this is also after the shooting of House GOP Whip Steven Scalise and three others this morning during a GOP House batting practice in Alexandra, VA at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the shooting this morning was specifically directed at the Republican House members getting ready for a congressional baseball game. Reports out of ABC News this morning note the perp didn't come in and just mow  people down indiscriminately with his AR-15, he asked where the REPUBLICAN players were, which they were. In other words, this was a political hit job in a highly polarized national atmosphere we've not seen since the Civil War.

And into this atmosphere you are really going to throw gasoline on the fire by airing a Megyn Kelly interview with conspiracy screwball Alex Jones? Seriously? Yes, yes, I know all about the "free speech" thing and at any other time I'd say let Alex have his say. But not now in an overheated environment where from reports in a recent issue of  TIME - both Left and Right are amping up their aggression with the Alt-Right now squaring off against black clad Antifa (anti fascist) brigades, including here in Colorado Springs. E.g.

Anti -fascists square off against cops before the Milo Yiannapoulis appearance at UCCS in January.

Meanwhile, NBC  has been taken aback by the response to booking Jones, the Infowars host who has questioned the factual reality of the killing of 26 people in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, CT. He has insisted it's a hoax, a "false flag",  staged by the Obama administration as an excuse to seize guns. The students shot and killed, in Jones insane view, were merely actors - who are still alive and well somewhere. He refuses to say where, though he evidently knows where the Roswell aliens are ensconced.

NBC News Chairman Andy Lack, who had earlier mulled firing Lawrence O'Donnell - one of the most popular liberal voices on MSNBC -  said the story would be edited with the sensitivity of its critics in mind. But if NBC is going to really give Jones his 0.02 it is hard to imagine how such editing might be done. Virtually every word out of Alex Jones' mouth is inflammatory and polarizing. For example, on Oct. 25th Jones spewed on about a crypto Jewish conspiracy afoot in the country:

“I mean it’s not that Jews are bad; it’s just they are the head of the Jewish Mafia in the United States. They run Uber. They run the health care. They’re going to scam you. They’re going to hurt you.” 

NO  hard data, or cited documents for that claim, or even a tempered speculation. Jones simply emitted a noisome brain fart from a ruptured psychotic embolism in his amygdala. Given he does this every ten microseconds, how will NBC "edit" his stream of bullshit brain modality?  Well, I guess NBC could shut off the audio during Jones' responses and just let the lips move soundlessly.

“It’s important to get it right,” Lack said.  To which I'd respond, "It's impossible to get it right when you put a crackpot on the air".  And especially in an overheated political atmosphere now made worse by what had obviously been a partisan-motivated mass shooting.

Kelly had the nerve to argue last Tuesday that reporters have interviewed controversial characters such as Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and child molesters in the past without getting this kind of a reaction. But she misses the key point most everyone knew and accepted those were bad guys. In Jones' case, his febrile follies have been the fodder and launch point for much of the fake news, including 'Pizzagate', spouted with cooperation with the Russkies' own spurious crap.  Indeed, Jones' crappola has been one of the main media diets of Donald Trump, likely fueling his own halfwit conspiracy musings  - including Ted Cruz' dad being one of the Kennedy assassins.

Note here that popularity of a stone screwball does not qualify as a justification to give his screwball ideas major network hearing. (I have no problems if it is done via an online interview, but not a prime time airing on a major network).  Thus Kelly's next blather:

“What I think we’re doing is journalism. The bottom line is that while it’s not always popular, it’s important. I would submit to you that neither I nor NBC News has elevated Alex Jones in any way. He’s been elevated by 5 or 6 million viewers or listeners, and by the president of the United States. As you know, journalists don’t get the choice over who has power or influence in our country.”

Which is a too cute, too pat and too egregious explanation by far. Especially given that Jones' popularity has not been on account of the attention of rational, sober citizens, but of unread, semi-educated screwballs like Jones. Oh, and liars and fake news buffoons like Donald Trump. Hence, Kelly - and Lack - are cherry picking what they regard as "journalism", in this case defining it down to the level of the fake news dumpster. In other words, if you give a fake news purveyor major air time then you become a fake news purveyor too. If you want to delude yourselves this is "journalism", fine, but don't take the rest of us for stock idiots.

Sandy Hook Promise, an anti-gun violence group, said it had asked Kelly to step down as host of its Wednesday-night gala in Washington. The group said it cannot support Kelly or NBC’s decision to give a platform to Jones and hopes NBC reconsiders its plan to broadcast the interview, said Nicole Hockley, co-founder and managing director. Hockley, whose 6-year-old son, Dylan, was killed at Sandy Hook, founded the organization with Mark Barden, who lost his 7-year-old son, Daniel.

To some critics, NBC’s timing makes the decision worse – airing on Father’s Day an interview that has been publicly denounced by parents who lost young children at Sandy Hook.  But now with the politically motivated shooting this morning that decision is rendered even worse by orders of magnitude.  NBC said it was scheduled "for competitive reasons", because Jones had been booked to appear on ABC’s daytime show The View next week. (A representative of The View said Jones had canceled his appearance there and he would not be rescheduled.)

Lack noted that he had suggested approaching Jones for an interview to David Corvo, the NBC News executive who supervises the network’s newsmagazines. He said there’s nothing new about putting people on the air even if they’re unpopular or have views that are deplorable to many, adding:

“I’ve got tremendous understanding of why they’re so upset, as they have every right to be,”

Ahhh, but he has more appreciation and "understanding" - by far- of the ratings hike he hopes to snare by putting an obnoxious, pseudo-conspiracy gasbag like Jones on the air. The best thing sober people can do is tune it out, or watch 'Fear the Walking Dead'.

Meanwhile, Trump lackey Jeff Sessions performed yesterday as most of us expected, i.e. like the Trump patsies Mike Rogers and Dan Coates did last week. See, e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/jefferson-morley/73434/stonewalling-sessions-runs-away-from-tough-questions-in-senate-inquiry


See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/kali-holloway/73476/megyn-kelly-and-alex-jones-two-peas-in-a-pod

Excerpt:

"In the flap over Kelly’s upcoming interview with Jones, one fact critics keep missing, or willfully ignoring, is that Kelly and Jones are two sides of the same coin. Sure, Jones arguably says more outlandish things from a position that used to be the far lunatic fringe. But Kelly spent more than a decade doing her own version of the right-wing’s dirty work from within the establishment at Fox News. The difference between Kelly and Jones, at the end of the day, amounts to nothing more than aesthetics. Together, their steady output of garbage has helped expand and thicken our current toxic atmosphere, which is now engulfing and threatening to choke us."