Category: Health

The Takeout on CBS with Major Garrett

The finding is that because the social media linking of these activities follows the clicking through these sites to generate ad income, the more activity (read clicking through) the more the message gets out…however false and misleading.

There was a very interesting show today with the guest Dan Patterson. He works with Major and CBS doing Fact Checking in a big way. He came by it as a technical guy given the job of hunting where all the misinformation and disinformation is coming from…you guessed it; the Internet! Here’s the link to the show:

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/dan-patterson-on-the-takeout-12312021/

On Twitter he is @MajorCBS. See also: @TakeoutPodcast @TheDebriefCBS

The radio/podcast/streaming show comes on at 5PM Eastern Fridays and is repeated any time from CBS or CBSNEWS streams.

Dan Patterson is a CBS News Technologies reporter. On Twitter he is @DanPatterson. He also has written for many many technical, financial, and industry publications.

Today’s show on Disinformation was special as the guys got to drill down into finding from where these outright lies emanate. Dan has gone down all these rabbit holes to follow the “do your own research” links planted in these abundant social media websites.

The finding is that because the social media linking of these activities follows the clicking through these sites to generate ad income, the more activity (read clicking through) the more the message gets out…however false and misleading.

Concurrently there is a disincentive for the website selling the ad click-throughs; more clicks make more money. More controversy or “facts-that-fit-your-mindset” make more clicks. The participants in the media site are followed and recruited by the media peddler while the back end income from clicks is really what the site is peddling.

Pick a topic such as voting fraud and run it into the ground while raising money for yourself and your personal agendas. That’s been done to the point of Insurrection at the Capitol.

Technologists must realize as enablers of the modern tech that they also may bear some social responsibility as well. Good moral judgment must go into all vocation and professional pursuit.

Tech responsibly! Bernard Lambert – January 9, 2022 – @systemwrights

AZ Republican Tea Party

In a repost of the blog I did in 2015 when Diane Douglas was elected to the head the Arizona Department of Education, I discuss the nature of the effort to reduce government by the TEA party. This epistle is to refresh your memory, connect some dots, and continue to spur you on to vote in ALL elections.

The Arizona Republican party has been hijacked by the TEA party members to the point that good, responsible, long-standing Republicans are leaving the party. Party actions like censure and voting individuals out are now commonplace. A responsible moderate Republican has no where to go for party support.

The reason I am bring this up is that in the six years since we were so badly hurt by Diane Douglas’s TEA party, we may have relaxed and forgotten. The effort required to remove her, the time lost, and the tragic losses schools and students received from that incompetent cannot be forgotten.

Most people have no idea how complicated school finance is. Arizona residents pay taxes to the state and federal revenue departments. In Arizona the school district taxes on your property levied by the school districts DO NOT all make it to the schools the taxpayer sees on the tax bill. The game at the copper dome is to mix that state income into the General Fund so that it can disappear administratively. The money we thought got to the school is winnowed down to much less.

TEA party members do not want this or any other taxing. Public education is under the crosshairs of these ax handlers who for the most part starve public education and have no one in the public education system they would advocate for. Retirees along the Colorado river who want the governments checks are also the ones unwilling to support their state civically. The lead of the Arizona Republican party is such an individual who arrived here from West Virginia and has actively lead the TEA party devastation, the “stop the steal” anti-American activity, and saw to it that dialog in the caucuses was extinguished.

Lately I have watched the bogus “audit” of the last election foisted on the voters of Arizona by this same group of individuals. It cost us millions, broke the chain of custody of the ballots, threatened and injured Elections staff, and broke the voting machines. No miscount of the ballots was found. When we got to the US congressional meetings on this activity, we got to see Gosar, and Biggs carry on the lies and destructive monologue of streaming dog whistles now familiar to the educated and informed voters of Arizona.

The previous incompetent president, purported to be a savvy businessman who many of theses off-base dolts seem to love, is not far from many States Attorneys and the Federal Department of Justice taking him to task for criminal activities, treasonous activities, illegal nepotistic activities, gross financial misconduct, tax evasion by fraudulent means, and profiteering at the American voter’s expense.

All the while these same TEA party members and their kindred leadership of the Arizona Republican party have incited the masses to believe a grand conspiracy is afoot. It is apparent that the previous incompetent president did have a genius for spreading lies by way of the “liar’s dividend”. This has been emulated by every one of the now despotic leaders of the Republican party in Arizona. They divide, demean, spread falsehoods, abandon fact, lie, obfuscate, redirect and carry on.

FACTS

Joe Biden won the presidential election in 2020.

The DOJ is busy working on the previous incompetent’s law breaking.

Twelve States Attorneys General are after the same guy our Arizona Republican party leadership worships.

The present 2021 Arizona Republican party leadership continues to serve the previous incompetent’s lies.

Bernard Lambert – November 19, 2021

Return To Work?

Bernard Lambert September 12, 2021

What are your main concerns with returning to work while the pandemic rages on?

  • Catching a virus?
  • Giving someone a virus?
  • Bad ventilation on-site?
  • Lack of testing offered or on-site?
  • Mandatory vaccination?
  • Non-mandatory vaccination?
  • Lack of remote work?
  • Poorer wages or rates?
  • Unreasonable/unsafe work conditions?
Pick your topmost issue with returning to work during the pandemic.(required)

Real Is NOT!

The sacrifices made by everyone repelling the insurrection the ex-president fomented have gone unnoticed. We did get to see Officer Sicknick’s memorial. Many politicos were in attendance. The news tried to give it a solemn treatment. I did not get a feeling in the last weeks that the followers of the insurrectionist have any concern for life, our government, or the citizens of our country.

Nor have I seen any of the most fervent of the followers show remorse for the loss of life, the damage to the capitol, or the damage to the American spirit. The selfish and self-serving rationale that is prevalent among those insurrectionists is that their leader and their way of life has been stolen. The conspiracy theory driving that lust is a complete unrelenting lie provided by and continuously fueled by the ex-president. They are not driven by truth but by suspicion.

The last time we as a country got into killing each other so openly was during the time we worked to shed ourselves of slavery. That too spilled over into the killing of leaders. Abraham Lincoln was killed by the same kind of despot as killed Officer Sicknick. The ex-president’s pursuit of the damn lie is apparently to feed his ego and wallet (campaign funds) while trying to reform power in the Republican party. The Republican party cannot make up its mind to condemn the actions of the former president.

The worse thing in this is the state-level hooliganry being conducted by our errant Republicans like Ward, Biggs, Gosar, and Lesko. They lost, they will not admit it, and they are going about the business of restricting ballot access at every turn now that an election has proven their coward ex-president is unwanted.

Arizona Republican leadership is cowardly, xenophobic, racist, and does not represent moderates in the party. They still believe there will be a Mexican invasion of Arizona. They may be uninformed about the fact that those races and religions were here before the eastern immigrants showed up. They are cowards given their lack of concern for the citizens of Arizona.

Backing the craziness of the previous administration is a testament to our Republican leaders’ ignorance, lack of concern for their constituents, party loyalty beyond reason, damage to the residents of Arizona and the United States, and disregard for the law.

For several decades we in Arizona have taken issues to the ballot in order to get the most fundamental of issues resolved because our legislature is working their personal agendas and the citizen’s needs go for want. Arizona’s legislative process is unamerican as a process. Their legislative product is unwanted by the masses.

So in summary a profoundly ignorant hillbilly from West Virginia runs the Republican party. She is actually an insult to my kin back there in West Virginia. A lottery winner represent a small enclave of religious conservatives, and the rest endorse the errant behavior of the ex-president. All have worked very hard to limit poll access and voter registration.

The methods of party politics has changed in my lifetime in that constituent needs are now secondary to the bent to devolve, diminish, ruin, gut, and change the laws and policies of the state and nation to further their hidden agendas.

One need only follow the money to see what we get is what the lobbyists have paid for by way of “campaign donations” to Senators and Representatives. This is true in state and national elections and campaigns

Forget not what has transpired. We have to wait two years for the next election cleanup.

Bernard Lambert February 3, 2021

The Truth Is …..

Truth should be simple and lasting. Well, I can hope. I can listen. I can think about it. I can seek many sources of information. I can do everything in my power to gain insight into everything I need to survive. It gets complicated in a hurry.

My first concern about truth is time and timeliness. While we cannot get back a minute of time while in the pursuit of truth, we spend it lavishly. Some just wait for it. Some just chase it. All spend a considerable amount of time finding the truth. Learning of it late or when it is no longer relative allows the truth to disappear into the moras of lies in circulation.

My second concern about truth is simplicity. When the only paper document you get with a product or service is a legal agreement in thousands of words, we have successfully evaded the truth. The hate mongers on the Internet build sites just to peddle discord and are successful because of the ease of having such a large audience. None of them offer simple truth.

We have come to a time where civility has been stripped away from public behavior. So far as the individuals who are demonstrating and protesting are concerned, they have been civil. The bad actors amongst them have caused all of the damages. Obviously the truth is being seen by millions of eyes and each of us has a different opinion of what the truth is even then.

While we observe things this political season, let’s try to keep truth lasting and simple….somehow!

Bernard Lambert – September 7, 2020