Join Ross Powell and Chris Baucom as they discuss the news, the fake news narrative, and food storage tips!
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Remnant Radio Network Episode 2 – Telling The Truth Not Fake News
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Category Archives: Media
Sexual Identity Research Part 1 – Steven Menking
Join Steven Menking as he investigates recent research findings in the area of sexual identity and gender, a complex subject central to the ongoing culture wars and worldview-based division in our society. The focus will be on a recent report from the journal The New Atlantis.
Stay up to date with Steven at The Amateur Society here.
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The Media Manipulation Miscalculation – Steven Menking
With 16 days – and about 160 news cycles – remaining until the presidential election, if you look at the news and data coming out of establishment media outlets you get the sense that the election of Hillary Clinton is a foregone conclusion. Yet, if you look at polling data on alternative outlets or even look at social media traffic you get the sense that Donald Trump will win in a landslide. The discrepancies in the information trends dictate that someone must be wrong. Unfortunately, without the tendency or the wherewithal to investigate, potential voters are being bombarded with headline numbers that are rapidly absorbed as indisputable fact due to repetition.
We should never forget the effect that confirmation bias has on this process. Whatever you want to believe, there is a way to manipulate data in order to justify your belief. I participated in a version of this ‘goal seeking’ back when I was an investment banking analyst. Rather than build up the assumptions and properly model out the most likely outcomes based on fundamentals and probabilities, a range of numbers would be deemed acceptable and then the calculations would be performed in a way to justify those numbers. The objective was to win clients. A valuation figure presented to the company needed to be as high as possible without being perceived as unreasonable. Once we won the business and as reality set in more and more, the valuation numbers invariably came down because they didn’t meet the rosy forecasts we had advertised in order to gain the business in the first place.
Standing at the Precipice : How We Got Here and How Cold War 2.0 Will Play Out – Outlaw Patriot
Over the past month as tensions have mounted between the United States and Russia, one thing has stood out in my mind. I conducted more than 20 arms control inspections across the former Soviet Union, Central Asia, and Europe, working alongside NATO partner military members as well as members from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. At the conclusion of all those missions, there was always a dinner between the two teams, usually with a spread fit for a king and plenty of toasts (the people of the former Soviet states love to make toasts, and they are masters of putting together words for such events; we had to train for this practice, both in building up our alcohol tolerance, but also in order to pronounce our own toasts, as one side will make a toast, then the next, beginning with the highest ranking and proceeding to the lowest ranking). The first toast would usually be to the conclusion of the mission, and in good Soviet fashion, the second would be announced with a quick statement of “between the first and second, a bullet should not pass”. The third, depending on the company, would either be to the fallen or to women. And eventually, before the night was done, a toast would be made that those collected at the table should never meet one another on opposite sides of the battlefield. Often times, this toast would be preceded by words of how there is a brotherhood of military men. No matter what country we serve, we have in common that we have all taken on the duty to serve the people of our country. That we have put aside our own lives in order to answer the call of service, and that takes a special kind of person – that no matter what uniform or flag we wear, we are all cut from the same cloth, and therefore are a part of this brotherhood. And that is what comes to mind as our two nations stand on the precipice of war – all of those toasts done that we might not end up on opposite sides of the battlefield.
Is It Possible To Talk Out of Four Sides of Your Mouth? – Steven Menking
Is It Possible To Talk Out of Four Sides of Your Mouth?
With Deutsche Bank hitting a fresh all time low today and getting within striking distance of the psychologically important $10 price point, we just might find out the answer to the question in the title of this article. That’s right ladies and gentlemen… Back again for the very first time, fighting out of Jekyll Island, in the green trunks with the white trim: it’s THE FEDERAL RESERVE! Everyone’s favorite central bank – based on the way economists, investors, and most importantly trading algorithms hang on every jot and tittle of its mouthpieces and press releases – is set to make another policy announcement this week, which means that we’ll get to hear once again from our dear monetary grandmother.