Links - 8th September 2019 (1)

Buying a Landed Property and Rebuilding it. A Personal Experience. - "As Singapore is a land-scarce city, a landed property is perhaps the most valuable property type a Singaporean could own. In fact, there are about 66,200 landed properties in Singapore in 2016. I have always found landed properties good value for money as compared to condominiums. In terms of dollar per livable built-up up area, landed properties are a lot cheaper. I was looking for a property in 2010 and I had a budget of approximately $1.6 to 1.8 million Singapore dollars. I gave myself three options. To either buy a 4-bedroom freehold condominium, a 3-bedroom and a 1-bedroom condominium or a landed property. After putting some thought into it, I realised that I would be paying approximately $1000 per square foot in built-up space for a condominium. This includes spaces like aircon ledges, voids and bay windows. This was when I decided to purchase a landed property... I spent about $2.1 to $2.2 million buying the old property and rebuilding it. Since the property was financed, I only came up with about a quarter of the $2.2 million, which is about $500,000 to $600,000. I did a valuation which came up to $3 million. If I sold the property at valuation I would receive about $800,000 in profits"

Sargon of Akkad - Posts - Poster: "Welcome to Nuremberg"
"Not a single German man in sight. So progressive."
Comments: "The face you make when progressives try to be inclusive but end up using stereotypes"
"I think the all-white ones are supposed to be Germans? But they do look suspiciously like the NPC meme"
"1 male for every 4 females.. I mean that’s average harem numbers right? "

Logic, Empathy, Honesty - Posts - "Why Snopes cannot be trusted (a lesson in intentionality)...
Snopes: ”Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo), who describes himself as an editor at the conservative website @Quillette and says he is "hated by Antifa," said he was attacked by anti-fascist protesters and had to be taken to the hospital to treat injuries to his face and head."
Translation:
(1) "who describes himself as" -- A qualifier meant to undermine the validity of the next statement, "an editor”, as it is implied to be self-imposed and not necessarily verified or factually given by a trusted authority.
Does Anderson Cooper "describe himself as a CNN anchor"? Or is he simply ”a CNN anchor" because that is factually proven?
(2) "at the conservative website" -- implicitly implies that Andy's political bias means the veracity of his claims is in question, as opposed to if he worked for a "regular" (re: leftist) media company.
To once again use Anderson Cooper, would Snopes say he worked "at the Progressive network CNN"? Or would they simply say he "works at CNN"?
My Personal Sidenote: The veracity of this implication itself should be called into question, as l have not actually heard Andy refer to himself as a "conservative", and Quillette is a "conservative" news outlet much in the same way as Dave Rubin or Tim Pool.
(3) "said he was attacked" -- by ignoring the verifiable evidence of the attack, you are left to question whether or not he actually was attacked by Antifa, especially given the implicit bias against him that the previous phrasing instilled."

Study: Babylon Bee’s Satire Gets Shared by People Who Think It’s Real - "the website Snopes published a piece fact-checking a story posted on The Babylon Bee, a popular satirical news site with a conservative bent. Conservative columnist David French criticized Snopes for debunking what was, in his view, “obvious satire. Obvious.” A few days later, Fox News ran a segment featuring The Bee’s incredulous CEO... The Onion, a popular satirical news website, is misunderstood so often that there’s a large online community dedicated to ridiculing those who have been fooled... clearly labeling satirical content as satire can help social media users navigate a complex and sometimes confusing news environment."
Of course, liberals always mock non-liberals who are taken in by satire

Satire site looking into legal action against Snopes over fact-checking - "Satire news site the Babylon Bee told readers they are planning on looking into legal action against the fact-checking site Snopes over what the Babylon Bee said is an attempt at deplatforming."Last week, Snopes fact-checked us again. We're pretty used to that. But this time, instead of merely rating the article 'false,' they questioned whether our work qualifies as satire, and even went so far as to suggest that we were deliberately deceiving our readers," the Babylon Bee said in a note to its readers. "Basically, they treated us as a source of intentionally misleading fake news, rather than as the legitimate, well-known satire publication that we are. This is a big deal."The statement said they were taking the threat seriously because in the past Facebook had threatened to limit "fake news" and Snopes had put that in jeopardy... The latest spat between the two sites came after the Babylon Bee published a satirical article titled: "Georgia Lawmaker Claims Chick-Fil-A Employee Told Her To Go Back To Her Country, Later Clarifies He Actually Said 'My Pleasure." The article was a parody on the recent events in which Georgia state Rep. Erica Thomas claimed she was racially targeted at a grocery story before backtracking key points in the story.Snopes responded to the Bee's satire by fact-checking it and accusing them of potentially "fanning the flames of controversy."... "The Bee has been 'Snoped' plenty of times before (and had to endure Facebook purgatory once because of it). But what they've written this time certainly seems like an attempt to delegitimize and demonize an important satirical outlet, and that is totally unacceptable," Ford said. "A clumsy mistake or an incompetent writer are insufficient explanations for publishing something like this when you position yourself as an unbiased, stalwart arbiter of truth and presume to wield the influence that comes along with that title.""

The Babylon Bee - Posts - "they're now promoting a survey that suggests satire is causing too much confusion, posing "a problem for democracy." The research conducted for this survey appears to be shoddy at best. But that didn't stop Snopes from using it to advance the narrative that our content is deceptive and problematic."

Concerning Survey Finds Too Many People Believe Snopes Is A Legitimate Fact-Checking Website | The Babylon Bee - "Despite the fact-checks on Snopes.com clearly being "labelled fact-checks," many people were taken in by the site's ruse. Snopes has managed to fool many readers with its brand of fact-checking in the past. We're not sure if muddying the details of actual investigative journalism qualifies Snopes as a real "fact-checker.""This is clearly a threat to democracy," said the head researcher we specifically paid to say "this is clearly a threat to democracy." "Maybe people who read Snopes just aren't as informed or educated as people who simply watch Jeopardy! to get their information or call their Aunt Carla and ask her what the latest gossip is.""

Accuracy In Politics: Snopes Got Snoped - "It is run by a husband and wife team - that's right, no big office of investigators scouring public records in Washington, no researchers studying historical stacks in libraries, no team of lawyers reaching a consensus on current caselaw. No, Snopes.com is just a mom-and-pop operation that was started by two people who have absolutely no formal background or experience in investigative research... over the past couple of years people started asking questions when 'Snopes' was proven wrong in a number of their conclusions. There were also criticisms the Mikkelsons were not really investigating and getting to the 'true' bottom of various issues, but rather asserting their beliefs in controversial issues.In 2008, State Farm agent Bud Gregg hoisted a political sign in Mandeville, Louisiana referencing Barack Obama and made a big splash across the internet. The Mikkelson's were quick to "research" this issue and post their condemnation of it on Snopes.com. In their statement they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Mr. Gregg into taking down the sign. In fact, nothing of the sort ever took place. A friend of Mr. Gregg personally contacted David Mikkelson to alert him of the factual inacuracy, leaving him Mr. Gregg's contact phone numbers. Mr. Mikkelson was told that Mr. Gregg would give him the phone numbers to the big exec's at State Farm in Illinois who would inform them that they had never pressured Mr. Gregg to take down his sign.But the Mikkelson's never called Mr. Gregg. In fact, Mr. Gregg found out that no one from Snopes.com had ever contacted any one with State Farm. Yet, Snopes.com has kept their false story of Mr. Gregg up to this day, as the "final factual word" on the issue."

Have All U.S. Presidents Since 1976 Declared National Emergencies? - "When President Donald Trump hinted in early 2019 his intention to bypass Congress and secure funding for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border by declaring a national emergency — and then followed through on that plan — the subject of “national emergencies” suddenly became a hot topic of public discussion. Since the public tends to associate that term with dire threats such as terrorist attacks, epidemics, or the outbreak of war, many people were surprised to learn that several dozen national emergencies had been declared since the passage of the NEA in 1976... According to the Brennan Center for Justice, at the time of President Trump’s declaration of a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States in February 2019, some 58 national emergencies had previously been declared by various presidents since 1979, with 31 of them still in effect as of February 2019."

Internet Hate Machine - Posts - "Deportations under each President
Clinton: 869,646
Bush: 2,012,539
Obama: 3,080,195
Trump: 295,364"

MRC Report: The Big Three TV Networks Had 90 Percent Negative Spin on Trump Media Coverage in 2018 - ""The tone of coverage remains incessantly hostile: 90% negative, vs. just 10% positive (excluding neutral statements)," MRC's Rich Noyes reported Tuesday. "Yet despite the media's obvious disapproval, public opinion of the President actually improved slightly during 2018, from an average 40% approval on January 1 to 42.7% approval on December 31... Only Fox News offered balanced coverage (52 percent negative vs. 48 percent positive). A Gallup survey from October 2018 found that Americans's trust in the mass media has increased to 45 percent from its 2016 low (32 percent). Democrats accounted for the shift, with 76 percent saying they trust the media (up from 51 percent in 2016)"

Analysis of 3 Major TV Networks Shows Anti-Trump Bias, Obsession Over Trump-Russia - "Major TV networks spent one out of three minutes covering President Donald Trump last year, with 90 percent of that coverage negative. A full one-fifth of that coverage focused on the Trump-Russia "collusion" scandal... More than two-fifths (43 percent) of evening news coverage of the president focused on controversies, not policies... Despite the focus on Trump-Russia, these outlets mostly overlooked questions about how the investigation began and whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation could be biased."... "Evening news coverage of the uncorroborated anti-Trump dossier, which we eventually learned was financed by the Clinton campaign’s lawyer, amounted to a mere 15 minutes of airtime""

Media Largely Ignores Booming Trump Economy, Gives It 0.7 Percent of Air Time Amid 92 Percent Negative Coverage