Man Of Jackistan: Reason and Truth's Time and Place

Insulting CNN To Shift The Center Rant #9 ( Opinion ) Originally March 8, 2020; Posted March 10, 2020 Why is CNN the scapegoat of the right, rather than MSNBC, which has more clearly liberal commentators? I'll tell you why: by attacking a fairly neutral news station as "liberal," it makes right wing nutjobs who oppose basic facts and Democrats look a little less crazy to people who pay less attention to politics. The public starts to believe this bullshit narrative about CNN marking the epitome of the far left. First of all, let's clarify some semantics here. Terms like "media," "mainstream media" and "the liberal media" get tossed around a lot, often interchangeably. Media is really just any medium of communication: TV, newspapers, even this website all technically comprise the media. CNN and Fox News both equally fall under the label of 'media.' Those two would also make up the "mainstream media," ...

The Vaccine-Autism Link...Or Lack Thereof Originally composed August 4, 2018 Editor's Note: The anti-vaxxer quandary will not go untouched, as I intend to devote a future article, possibly more, to dissecting the bizarre phenomenon. For now, this article explains the origins of the misconception and clarifies reality. All too often, many people-and smart ones, at that-speak as if factually about the link between vaccines and autism, citing a causal effect of the former on the development of the latter. In fact, 18% of Americans believe this link to exist, according to  a 2011 poll cited by  Time .  Meanwhile, virtually every major scientific organization has openly rejected this presumption. Googling "vaccine and autism" will quickly reveal this unified position among organizations ranging from: the federal government's Center for Disease Control (CDC); news outlets like  Discover Magazine , the  Washington Post , and  TIME ; online healthcare publi...

Q&A: "Were The Dark Ages Actually A Time of Cultural Regression Outside of Europe?" originally composed January 14, 2019 Question: "Were the Dark Ages actually a time of cultural regression outside Europe?" Defining and then measuring culture is tricky. For this answer, let’s say that the hallmarks of a civilization include economic prosperity, trade and material wealth, urbanization, safety/security (no invading armies, no rebellions, lower rates of starvation, etc), scientific achievements and prowess, advanced construction and production (be it huge monuments, state-of-the-art boats, or whatever), and artistic achievement. So, based on that measure: No. Actually, while the eurocentric viewpoint teaches us that after the Fall of Rome—the Western part, containing Italy, France, England etc—marked a sudden decline in science, culture, commerce, art, that simply doesn't hold true across the entire globe. The Visigoths, under Alaric I, ...