About Sticks and Stones

"Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me." We used to say this often. We need to say it more. Greg Lukianoff explains why it is not an excuse for tolerating bullies:

I have zero patience for this tired old argument. It assumes that the people who taught their kids “sticks and stones” believed words never hurt. That’s asinine and assumes everyone before now were stupid and evil.

It’s a mantra meant to help insults hurt LESS.

AND it provides a bright line between speech and violence that helps prevent ACTUAL violence.

But we’d rather perform compassion than teach kids how to suffer less. The goal isn’t resilience anymore—it’s self-centered righteousness theater. That’s why childhood anxiety and depression are skyrocketing while self-righteousness on campus consumes everything.

Continue ReadingAbout Sticks and Stones

Doctors Secretly Being Paid to Vaccinate their Patients

I agree with RFK, Jr. The practice of medicine should be like the practice of law. Before taking on any case, one should ask one's self: "Who do I represent?" There should be absolutely no conflicts of interest. Doctors should focus only on the patient when deciding what that patient needs. If they want to make more money, doctors should help more patients, not line their own pockets by choosing treatments that are more profitable to the doctor. That some doctors are lining their own pockets without disclosing this conflict of interest to patients is reprehensible.

"RFK JR: “Doctors are being paid to vaccine … We've recently uncovered that more than 36,000 doctors had their Medicare reimbursements altered based upon childhood vaccination rates. That's not medicine. That's coercion.”

--

Supp Aug 8 2025

Continue ReadingDoctors Secretly Being Paid to Vaccinate their Patients

Brett Weinstein’s Short Term Concern about AI

We have repeatedly seen that a relatively small number of gate-keepers can create a narrative out of thin air.  We are seeing this vividly in the recent Russiagate disclosures.  I've documented hundreds of incidents of what I call "Narratives in Media" on this website.

It might be about to get a lot worse due to AI video technology, according to Brett Weinstein:

AI is about, within the next year or so, going to be capable of producing compelling video, evidence that will not be detectable. That is going to create, first, a radical increase in the rate of proliferation of cognitive universes that we are forced to keep alive.

And I suspect that the immediate consequence of that is going to be paralysis. That the number of different combinations of possibilities where you cannot resolve--you cannot get closure and say, “I think I live in this world and so I'm going to ignore all of those possibilities over there and go forward as if this is true.”

You're basically going to become agnostic about just about everything. And so in this mental multiverse, you will maybe be able to avoid embarrassment by not putting your weight on any of the ice, but you can't accomplish anything in that state. And that's what I'm concerned about. We are going to be effectively put into a circumstance where everybody will be afraid to assume enough about the world to actually be capable of acting rationally toward it. And that's a very frightening prospect.

Continue ReadingBrett Weinstein’s Short Term Concern about AI

The Continuing Cover-Up of Russiagate

I know more than a few people who swear that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. They "know" this because they limit their informational ecosystem to the New York Times, Washington Post and other corporate media outlets. When the Columbia Journalism Review published its August 1 paean to the New York Times, Matt Taibbi took exception to the many well-documented lies and distortions published by the NYT on this topic and also called out the CJR. Here's an excerpt of Taibbi's well-deserved response to the CJR, titled "Open Letter to the Columbia Journalism Review, on the Atrocious New York Times: The ostensible high priests of journalism should be able to detect the difference between passable coverage and epic, historic failure":

Letter to Bill Grueskin, former Dean of the Columbia Journalism School, on his recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review

Mr. Grueskin,

Regarding your August 1 article, “Knowing: Still Only Half the Battle,” which lauds Charlie Savage of the New York Times for having “dissected and eviscerated” Director of Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s claims about corruption of intelligence in the Trump-Russia investigation:

You praised Savage’s article, “New Reports on Russian Interference Don’t Show What Trump Says They Do,” as an example of the work of an “experienced beat reporter” who can distill complex stories into a “coherent, compelling whole.” Your sub-headline stressed the importance of “showing receipts” in journalism, where “most people don’t follow stories very closely,” but “they can learn a lot when an experienced beat reporter helps them sort out what’s important and what’s chaff.”

Chaff.

Except — and you should know this because the Columbia Journalism Review published over 20,000 words on the subject in January 2023 — Savage and his colleagues at the Times have badly miscovered this story for nearly a decade, and continue to do so. The 2018 Pulitzer Prize the paper won on the topic along with the Washington Post will go down as the same kind of “disgrace” as its 1932 Pulitzer for Walter Duranty’s breathless coverage of Stalin’s Russia. In this case, the Times drifted so far from its traditional mission that it became an animating motive for Gabbard and other investigators in Donald Trump’s administration.

It is critically important to remember here that in 2023, Jeff Gerth excoriated the NYT for its "coverage" of Russiagate.

Jeff Gerth's article critically examined how the media, particularly The New York Times, amplified the "Russia thing" narrative, often relying on anonymous sources and incomplete context, such as the Times' reporting on a February 2017 story about Trump campaign contacts with Russian intelligence, which Comey later criticized as “almost entirely wrong.” Gerth argued that the NYT often lacked rigor, contributing to a polarized public perception and Trump’s distrust of the press, as evidenced by his “enemy of the American people” rhetoric.

The piece also critiques the media’s handling of leaks, such as Comey’s memos, and the subsequent appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, suggesting that sensationalized reporting fueled a narrative that sometimes outpaced evidence. Gerth points to specific examples, like the Times’ failure to fully retract or clarify disputed stories, and contrasts this with other outlets like The Washington Post, which included more context in their reporting. Through interviews and analysis, Gerth underscores a broader pattern of media overreach, arguing that the lack of accountability and reliance on uncorroborated sources damaged credibility.

Continue ReadingThe Continuing Cover-Up of Russiagate