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Trying to get facts


Airehead

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6 minutes ago, Airehead said:

Trying to get facts about the Ukrainian issue.

What "issue"?  The war?  Way too much going on - minute to minute - so that sort of stuff will never be clear.  Much will come out over time, but lots will be forever lost.

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It's not always easy to get facts during a war.  All sides are pushing facts that support their cause.  There are trends to be seen over a period of days, but that takes time and effort to weed through the chaff.

What is clear is that the war has already escalated into a global conflict, if not on the battlefield then in economic warfare.  The rules of proxy warfare have been broken.  For the first time in decades we have a major world power being placed into serious trouble.  We have avoided world war for so long because we have never pushed a major power to the brink before.  No one knows what sort of reaction will result and how it will resolve itself.

Americans are being told to leave Belarus as our embassy is shutting down there and portions of the embassy staff in Moscow are being authorized to return to the states.  

Good luck to all.  It's still unclear if the archduke has been assassinated yet or not.

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Fog of war is often attributed to (Carl von) Clausewitz, but is in fact a paraphrase of what he said: ‘War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.’"

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095826962#:~:text=Fog of war is often,'

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Facts?  We haven't needed those in YEARS!

Like Wilbur says, corroborate!  Things like what has been sanctioned are verifiable data that's not hard to get, the major news sources won't play around with those because they can get called on it.  Stay away from fringe "news" that doesn't care if they get called on anything.

Other things, like Ukraine is fighting better than expected, Russian people are fed up with Putin - those are opinions that are hard to verify and quite easily used as propaganda.

And just don't try to get facts from any TV sources.  When the camera goes on, the drama goes on, too.  Read.

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1 hour ago, 12string said:

Things like what has been sanctioned are verifiable data that's not hard to get, the major news sources won't play around with those because they can get called on it.  Stay away from fringe "news" that doesn't care if they get called on anything.

Stick to WaPo, NYT, and WSJ and you're good.  Sure, folks want TV for their news, but really, these three will cover it all and you can easily crosscheck against each other.  Don't use Google News or Apple News as your aggregator, just head directly to the WaPo, NYT, and WSJ websites and read read read there. Plenty of video if you need that too, but really, the range of printed news is enough.

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21 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Stick to WaPo, NYT, and WSJ and you're good.  Sure, folks want TV for their news, but really, these three will cover it all and you can easily crosscheck against each other.  Don't use Google News or Apple News as your aggregator, just head directly to the WaPo, NYT, and WSJ websites and read read read there. Plenty of video if you need that too, but really, the range of printed news is enough.

I also use Guardian and BBC.  Sometime The Hill, they have a bias but it's easy to read past and glean the facts, they present a lot of them.

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8 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Wonder why you pay for quality? I guess you can watch the nightly news on NBC?  Just have ads and it is only 30 mins, but that might be better than nothing.

But he makes a good point.

What kind of news do you get from the free services?  How many people want to pay for anything on the interwebs?  

We've been conditioned to consume thought for free and it  had better be quick and entertaining.  Yet somehow we don't know critical thinking, truth or reality anymore.

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1 minute ago, 12string said:

But he makes a good point.

What kind of news do you get from the free services?  How many people want to pay for anything on the interwebs?  

We've been conditioned to consume thought for free and it  had better be quick and entertaining.  Yet somehow we don't know critical thinking, truth or reality anymore.

My parents got the morning (Inquirer) and evening (Bulletin) papers back when they had such a thing.   Folks - for a century or more - paid for news.  If they really bemoan the state of the world today, that's a good place to think upon.

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30 minutes ago, donkpow said:

WaPo is the Washington Post.

Yep.

I want a great doctor who knows all the right techniques and can give me wonderful service.  And I want it for free.

I need a plumber to fix my leaking toilet ASAP and to do some other work around the house.  And I want it for free.

I want to spend the month in a villa by the Mediterranean with a butler, a chef, and a sail boat.  And I want it for free.

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4 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Umm.. I know you posted this to get a reaction but it equates to Far Left, Left, Center Left.  You should branch out or you will always be incorrect. :)

Yeah, sure. That might be how the Alt-Right sees things, but the VAST majority of moderates in the US would chuckle at classifying those three that way.  Sure, editorial board and the opinion page have some non-mainstream opinions, but spend time reading the NEWS section of those top quality papers, and that slant disappears really fast.  Unless, of course, you don't want to believe that.  But, that's not my religion :( so I can't put on my tin foil hat and pretend otherwise.

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1 hour ago, 12string said:

But he makes a good point.

What kind of news do you get from the free services?  How many people want to pay for anything on the interwebs?  

We've been conditioned to consume thought for free and it  had better be quick and entertaining.  Yet somehow we don't know critical thinking, truth or reality anymore.

It's more the critical thinking part than anything else.  There's a tendency to accept the news as presented without double checking with other sources and asking oneself if this is really plausible or not

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1 hour ago, Razors Edge said:

Yep.

I want a great doctor who knows all the right techniques and can give me wonderful service.  And I want it for free.

I need a plumber to fix my leaking toilet ASAP and to do some other work around the house.  And I want it for free.

I want to spend the month in a villa by the Mediterranean with a butler, a chef, and a sail boat.  And I want it for free.

Typical yuppie.  You want too much for free.

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Like others, I tend to believe something if it's in a number of new sources with different perceived biases.   I'll also lend more credence to reports from people on the scene rather than relying on third party news sources.

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I know you call yourself a centrist but you have shifted a long way left from BF days.  I am not arguing for the right but I am saying the three selected sources all lean, some very far, left.  It isn't me, check any of the media bias charts.  So if all three had the same take on a story, I would check their source then look to confirm it from a more center to right publication.

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7 hours ago, Airehead said:

About the Ukrainian issue. Problem is to figure out what is really facts. Do you trust the fact finders. 
https://apple.news/A7dzwl0k9S62fur73UmCrBg

I haven't seen any of those fake videos and claims - I've been following the Ukraine news on CNN, CNBC, and BCC America.  When one of them has a reporter in Kyiv and points to a glow on the horizon, it's pretty certain it's really there.  When a reporter walked past burned out Russian military vehicles - some still smoking - on a bridge and points out the Russian markings on the vehicles and dead soldiers uniforms, I think it's likely to be true.

But there has been no major battle there with batteries of artillery shelling sites, warplanes swooping in, etc.  I don't know how much that has to do with the fact the Russians have to come down the west side of the Dnieper River and the lay of the land may not be promising, but the Russians haven't been coming in heavy.

The high praise for the Ukrainian troops is fine, but the claims they may win is questionable since Russia can overwhelm Ukraine if it's willing to cause huge amounts of destruction and absorb a lot of casualties.

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15 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

I know you call yourself a centrist but you have shifted a long way left from BF days.  I am not arguing for the right but I am saying the three selected sources all lean, some very far, left.  It isn't me, check any of the media bias charts.  So if all three had the same take on a story, I would check their source then look to confirm it from a more center to right publication.

You know that old saw..............The facts have a liberal bias..................One has to wonder what the truth is behind that?

Your leftist media is coming down pretty hard against Putin.  Do you think they are wrong?

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10 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

You know that old saw..............The facts have a liberal bias..................One has to wonder what the truth is behind that?

Your leftist media is coming down pretty hard against Putin.  Do you think they are wrong?

Everyone is so fact check the Putin news=true.

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