Is Google “Protecting” You From Exposure to Opposing Views?

My latest post at Critical Thinking Applied:

From a recent article in the New York Times:

On the Web, we often see what we like, and like what we see. Whether we know it or not, the Internet creates personalized e-comfort zones for each one of us.

Give a thumbs up to a movie on Netflix or a thumbs down to a song on Pandora, de-friend a bore on Facebook or search for just about anything on Google: all of these actions feed into algorithms that then try to predict what we want or don't want online.

And what's wrong with that?

Plenty, according to Eli Pariser, the author of "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You." Personalization on the Web, he says, is becoming so pervasive that we may not even know what we're missing: the views and voices that challenge our own thinking.

I found this very upsetting. I've never been a fan of online personalization—on multiple occasions I've turned off Google's personalized search result function, only to find that it has a Rasputin-esque way of mysteriously turning itself back on—but until now my reasons have been limited to my own curmudgeonly preferences.^[1] This, however, is something that could actually have larger implications. More from the article:

With television, people can limit their exposure to dissenting opinions simply by flipping the channel, to, say, Fox from MSNBC. And, of course, viewers are aware they're actively choosing shows. The concern with personalization algorithms is that many consumers don't understand, or may not even be aware of, the filtering methodology.

My original plan for this post was to wrap it up somewhere around here—with the common sense observation that it's not a good thing for our search results to be aimed at reinforcing whatever biases can be gleaned from our search history, especially if the user has no idea this is going on—but then my natural skepticism took over. Wait a minute, I thought, I haven't actually seen any non-anecdotal evidence that personalization of search results extends to a user's political leanings—it's just kind of taken as a given that this is the sort of thing Google would do. This despite the fact that the Times quotes a Google spokesman saying they do no such thing:

"People value getting information from a wide variety of perspectives, so we have algorithms in place designed specifically to limit personalization and promote variety in the results page," said [Jake] Hubert, the Google spokesman. He added that the company looked forward to "carefully reviewing Mr. Pariser's analysis of this important issue."

After trying, and failing, to find an instance of someone else doing an experiment similar to what I had in mind,^[2] I put this article on hold, went into my Google account and cleared my search history (I hadn't knowingly changed any settings since the previous time I cleared the search history and set it to not record my searches in the future, but, again—like freakin' Rasputin), and made sure to leave the record-keeping and personalization features turned on.

At that point there were any number of directions I could've gone, but I've been picking on conservatives for a while now, so I decided to switch it up. Over the next seven days I searched Google for information on topics like the failings of capitalism, racism in the Tea Party, healthcare as a human right, the economic benefits of amnesty, the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education, and the disastrous consequences of the Bush tax cuts. I looked into whether I'm eligible for food stamps. I pretended to care about Alec Baldwin's opinions on things. I tried to determine who was America's greatest president—FDR, Kennedy, or Clinton. I took the opportunity to satisfy my genuine curiosity about Florida's recent "voter suppression" law.^[3] Early in the process I did a few searches along the lines of "Republicans are evil" and "Republicans don't care about minorities", until I realized that manipulating Google's personalization algorithm probably requires a little more finesse than simply typing your views (note: those are not my views) into the search box as if you're having a one-sided conversation.

When I got tired of politics, I looked into hybrid cars, the ethics of eating meat, The West Wing DVD sets, the local time in France (there was an unrelated reason for that one, but I figured it fit the theme), post-graduate programs in English literature, Burning Man, John Lennon lyrics, the video for Aerosmith's "Eat the Rich", Portland, Oregon's locally-owned coffee shops, and on and on.

In all, I did more than 200 searches on more than 100 unique topics, and I visited about 250 sites from among the search results, being careful to only go to those that seemed likely to reinforce liberal views. Every search, and every decision to click on a particular result, was geared toward building a search history that (a) reflected a person whose politics, lifestyle, and hobbies were stereotypically liberal to an absurd extreme, and who had no interest whatsoever in challenging that worldview, and (b) was otherwise a somewhat realistic imitation of how people (people like me, at least) actually use search engines.^[4]

Having accumulated what seemed like enough data for Google to mess around with, and having done so over what seemed like a long enough period of time for the data to be incorporated into their system, I did some tests. For this part I wanted to use search terms dealing with topics that were (a) not specifically covered in the search history, (b) controversial enough that a non-personalized search would likely yield results supporting multiple points of view, and (c) recent enough that most of the available commentary would be opinion-based (but not so recent that search results would be changing almost in real time). I came up with the following:

1. "Vaughn Walker"
2. NPR funding
3. oil companies "price gouging"
4. "Rick Scott" "high speed rail"
5. "budget cuts" entitlements
6. "debt ceiling"

I logged out of my Google account and searched for each of the above terms—first as a standard web search, then a Google News search—and saved a screenshot of the first page of results. Then I logged back in and repeated the process. I compared the results, and…

[…drumroll…]

I got nothing. I mean, not literally nothing, but I didn't get much. The Google News results were identical for all six searches. The web searches had some differences, but in each case the "personalized" results reflected the same variety of viewpoints as the "neutral" results. The first ten results for searches #4 and #5 were identical. The results for searches #1 and #3 were the same ten sites, but in a slightly different order. The results for search #6 ("debt ceiling") were in a slightly different order, and also differed in one wholly unspectacular way:

• The 5th "personalized" result was this CNN Money article from May 17, while the 6th "neutral" result was this CNN Money article originally dated January 11, but republished on May 18. The two articles are almost identical.

The results for search #2 (NPR funding) were in a slightly different order, and also differed in two wholly unspectacular ways:

• The 10th "personalized" result was this US News and World Report article, while the 10th "neutral" result was this Columbia Journalism Review article. When I saw this I re-did the searches and, sure enough, in both cases the other article was among the top two links on the second page of results.
• The 6th "personalized" result was this Huffington Post article from March 17, while the 8th "neutral" result was this Huffington Post article from April 13.

I saved that one for last because it's the only difference with even a modicum of substance, though we're still talking about two articles from the same website about basically the same topic. Why the personalized results included the article from March 17 and not the one from April 13 is beyond me, though I note that only the former contains a quote by Representative-at-the-time Anthony Weiner, whose name appears in the search history because I wanted to know what Dan Savage had to say about the mess Weiner got himself into.^[5]

And that's about it. My smoking gun is an article that referenced Anthony Weiner vs. another from the same site that didn't. What's to be learned from all this? Nothing, really, but here are some theories, in order of the odds I'd place on a given theory turning out to be the correct one:

• 1 to 1 – Google's algorithm really is designed to encourage varied results, and does so effectively.
• 3 to 1 – I didn't generate a search history with the right kind of data. I realized about halfway through, for example, that a fairly straightforward way to personalize search results would be to keep track of a user's favorite websites, so maybe if I had focused a little more on that.
• 6 to 1 – I didn't generate a search history with enough data to produce meaningful results.
• 9 to 1 – The field (i.e. the ever-present possibility that my findings are flawed for some reason I haven't thought of).
• 200 to 1 – Google has developed an ingenious mechanism—based on suspicious activity such as doing the same searches from the same computer while logging on and off—to distinguish regular users from smartass bloggers, and in the latter case to ensure that nothing incriminating is discovered.

In closing, a tangential thought. I wouldn't have started this project if I didn't think there was a good chance I'd come away with some damning evidence that personalization of search results stifles exposure to opposing viewpoints. When that didn't happen, I was discouraged, and almost couldn't motivate myself to finish the article. But isn't that how science—or whatever you call it when your goal is essentially to reverse-engineer a large corporation's proprietary software—is supposed to work? I formed a hypothesis, tested it, and here are the results. They may be underwhelming, but at least whoever comes across this article will have something to build on.

1. What's especially maddening is that I've made a number of Google searches along the lines of "how to turn off personalization" and "stop tracking search history". The idea is to personalize my online experience, right? And I've made it abundantly clear that I don't want my online experience personalized. So why are my search results not personally tailored to my preference for search results that aren't personally tailored? WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO DO?

2. I found a few studies that sort of address the issue, but not really. In this 2010 study, volunteers provided (a) information about their browser settings, Google account settings, and other details that might affect personalized search results, and (b) the results they got for various search terms involving antique lamps. In this 2011 study, researchers set up Google accounts for three dead philosophers—Foucault, Nietzsche, and Kant—and built search histories based on terms from the indices of the philosophers' books. They're worth looking at, if you're into this sort of thing, but in both studies the search terms used to test the effects of personalization were chosen for their neutrality, so the findings don't really tell us anything about why different people might get different results.

3. Really, ACLU? It's a civil rights violation to shorten the early voting period from 14 days to eight (while expanding the permissible daily voting hours)? Florida didn't even have early voting until 2004.

4. For the occasional search that didn't support that narrative, I switched over to Bing, which, at 27, might make me the all-time youngest Bing user.

5. Answer: He's adamantly pro-Weiner. He also supports the Congressman.

Exclusive: Sarah Palin Admits Mistake

Since I'm pretty much the last person to weigh in on this, I won't dwell on the details, but about a week ago Sarah Palin brought her I-Don't-Need-to-Declare-My-Candidacy-to-Get-Attention Tour to Boston.^[1] Asked a question about nothing in particular, she decided to talk about Paul Revere—and proceeded to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she had in no way prepared to do so. It would've been quickly forgotten, except that a few days later she appeared on Fox News and insisted that (a) she totally knew what she was talking about all along, and (b) the real villain was that pesky reporter with his "shout-out, gotcha type of question". To her detractors—myself included—this is further support for the perception that she is utterly incapable of taking responsibility for her mistakes and shortcomings.

Remember Palin's baffling response to Katie Couric's question about what newspapers she reads? "All of them, any of them that have been in front of me," she said awkwardly, as if the real answer was either "none" or something somehow even more embarrassing. She was also asked what Supreme Court decisions, other than Roe v. Wade, she disagreed with, to which she responded with more of her trademark rambling without ever actually naming one. A few days later she appeared on Fox News and insisted that (a) she totally knew what she was talking about all along, and…you get the idea:

My response to her, I guess it was kind of flippant. But, I was sort of taken aback, like, the suggestion was, "You're way up there in a faraway place in Alaska, do you know that there are publications in the rest of the world that are read by many?" And I was taken aback by that because, I don't know, the suggestion just was a little bit of perhaps we're not in tune with the rest of the world.
…
I shouldn't have been so flippant and just sort of brushed aside that because that was an important question, and I should have answered it, and yes, I can cite a lot of cases that I absolutely disagree with the Supreme Court on.

Moments like these, among many, many others,^[2] make me wonder if, in her mind, she's even capable of screwing up. I mean, there's no denying she's garnered a ton of support by positioning herself as the victim of forces that, due to an ill-defined combination of dim-wittedness and anti-conservative bias, are intent on suppressing her views. For that narrative to make sense—which isn't to say it does, though a distressing number of people seem to be on board—the views in question have to be, you know, well-articulated and based in reality, because otherwise it's not so unreasonable to suppress them. And in the absence of actually having views that are well-articulated and based in reality, the least she can do is never concede that they aren't. Is there a chance, then, that Palin's pretense of infallibility is not fundamental to her personality, but is merely a (maddeningly effective) political strategy?

The recent release of thousands of emails generated during her time as governor of Alaska provides an interesting opportunity to look for an answer.^[3] I didn't go through all of them, of course, but I searched for key words ("wrong", "incorrect", "sorry", etc.) to narrow it down. And yet, everything I read—just like everything I've seen reported elsewhere—pointed to the conclusion that Palin's obstinance is not an act. That she's no more likely to admit a mistake in a private conversation with her closest advisors than she is in front of an audience of millions.

But then I found it:

From: Palin, Sarah
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 10:14 AM
To: Irwin; Tom E (DNR); Lopez; Thomas M (GOV)
Subject: Fw: King air

Sent this to the wrong "Tom"", sorry.

On February 13, 2008, Sarah Palin sent an email to someone named Tom Irwin, but she meant to send it to Tom Lopez. Not only did she take responsibility for this mistake, but she did not blame either her political enemies or the "lamestream media", nor did she come up with a convoluted "I meant to do that" explanation. So it is possible. You heard it here first.

1. According to a recent Gallup poll, 95% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are familiar with Sarah Palin—no other potential 2012 Republican candidate has a number higher than 85%, and most are below 60%—while the remaining 5% answered sarcastically and the poll worker failed to pick up on it.

2. This Media Matters article, for example, discusses multiple "falsehoods" in Palin's autobiography, many of which involve her attempts to address and clarify some of the dubious things she said or did during the campaign. (I've made it clear in the past that I don't trust Media Matters to be objective—in part because I'm not sure they even try to be objective—and I didn't take the time to double-check their work, but they probably got at least some of it right.)
    There was also the "refudiate" thing, in which Palin accidentally invented a word by combining two existing words with similar meanings. She defended this by comparing herself to Shakespeare, the celebrated playwright who on many occasions intentionally invented new words (or borrowed words from other languages) when he found the English lexicon inadequate. Of course, I'm pretty sure Palin sold more books last year, so maybe she's got a point.

3. There's something really unsavory, by the way, about the obvious glee with which these emails have been presented to the public, as if it's just assumed that there'll be some kind of career-ending revelation in there.

An Unwavering Commitment to Outrageousness

Don't worry, this blog isn't going anywhere, but a subtle shift in tone and focus may be in the works. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find new ways to gripe about conservatism and conservative rhetoric that aren't rooted in ideological disagreement (and thus not really about the rhetoric), or things that, in fairness, should be qualified with "of course, when the situation is reversed, liberals are just as bad" (and thus not really about conservatives).

So, in the interest of not becoming repetitive, I'll probably have to start relaxing at least one of those guidelines. But there's no time for that now, because Ed Schultz called Laura Ingraham a "right-wing slut", giving conservative pundits the perfect excuse to get on their soapboxes and pretend there's a meaningful difference between conservative rhetoric and liberal rhetoric.^[1]

Neal Boortz, to his credit, defended Schultz's character, avoiding the temptation to take the insult as evidence of some kind of latent misogyny. Instead, he took it as the inevitable consequence of a career spent trying to defend the indefensible:

Why does Ed say the things on his radio and television show that he does? It’s his act, folks. I think that Ed believes that the only way he can attract listeners and viewers is to give them what he things they are looking for --- outrageous statements. Tell them that Republicans want people to die! He’s not saying anything other Democrats aren’t saying. The trouble is when you think that your appeal lies in making outrageous statements rather than cogent political analysis or entertaining banter with callers, sooner or later you’re going to slip over the edge.

I completely agree, inasmuch as I agree that Ed Schultz attracts listeners and viewers to his radio and TV shows by saying outrageous things, and that cogent political analysis is probably not his primary concern. The question, though, is what does Boortz think he does every day?

As long as I’m on the air I’ll keep preaching against government education; and especially against teacher’s unions. I’ve said and I will repeat that there is no other entity in this country – or anywhere in the world, for that matter – that has done more damage to the fabric of America than teacher’s unions. The problems we face in this country would be greatly reduced if the people were just informed enough and bright enough to see through political rhetoric to the truth.

—————

Whenever there is an excuse to push this phony global warming debate, the Obama Media will take the opportunity. Why? Do you really need to ask? Who are the people behind this phony global warming nonsense? It’s the left, in case you haven’t checked. It’s the people who believe in big governments who seize wealth and distribute it according to political considerations.

—————

In discussions about our entitlement crisis, it has become increasingly apparent that Democrats have mounted their moral high-horses and are ready to battle for more government spending. They will do this under the guise of “security” or our “moral duty” to help those who can’t help themselves. However, the real purpose of their efforts is clear: power. That’s it. . . . The Democrats demonize the people who move up this income ladder, calling them greedy. The Democrats demonize their fellow colleagues in Washington when proposed with an option to give people more choices and freedom to make decisions in their lives: Ex. Healthcare. Democrats will back the teachers unions in order to keep their government schools in check. Democrats are insistent on raising taxes on the rich, to make productivity less desirable.

Let's see…teachers' unions are America's single greatest threat, "global warming" is actually a liberal wealth-redistribution scheme, and the Democrats are actively trying to destroy our productivity. And that's just from last week.

How the various loony things Boortz says are any different from the various loony things Schultz says—criticism of Obama's Libya policy is akin to supporting the terrorists, Newt Gingrich wants to "give tax breaks to old white millionaires," Republicans want to cut Medicare funds because they want people to die, to cite a few examples—is beyond me. Conservative, liberal, or miscellaneous, TV and radio pundits all use the same formula:

1. Form a conclusion.
2. Take a set of facts (or fact-like substances) and discard the ones that don't support your conclusion.
3. Exaggerate the significance of the remaining facts to apocalyptic extremes.
4. Maintain that yours is the only possible conclusion, because LOOK AT THE FACTS.

And this is where I can't help being impressed by Boortz's dedication to his craft. Anyone can be outrageous through simple hyperbole and distortion, but it takes an unwavering commitment to outrageousness to call others outrageous for doing the exact same thing.

1. Of course, when the situation is reversed, liberals are just as bad.

Deleted Scenes

For reasons indirectly related to this blog's consistent failure to provide me with a decent income, new articles might be few and far between for a while. Fortunately, I've been planning for just such an occasion, to the extent that keeping a list of my favorite lines from articles I started but never finished can be considered a plan.

So here you go. No attempt has been made to clear up whatever ambiguity results from the lack of context,^[1] as if that isn't obvious. Enjoy!

—————

A few months ago, House Republicans bestowed upon grateful Americans "a new platform to share their priorities and ideas for a national policy agenda." The site is open to all ideas—as it should be, considering the American people are paying for it—but the mission statement on the front page makes it clear that certain ideas are more welcome than others. Specifically, the following, to which the House Republicans boldly declare their commitment:

• Limited, more accountable government
• Economic freedom
• Lower taxes
• Fiscal responsibility
• Protecting life, American values, and the Constitution
• Providing for strong national security

That's right, if your solutions involve amending the Constitution to outlaw government accountability, hand-delivering our nuclear launch codes to North Korea, or earmarking federal funds for wanton and indiscriminate killing sprees, you can just take your ideas somewhere else!

—————

I can't say that I'm financially responsible for much of anything, but that's because I'm financially responsible enough to know I can't afford anything, so it's kind of a wash.

—————

These definitions reflect my view of how these terms are used by conservative pundits. I made every effort to be objective, except where I chose instead to be sarcastically hyperbolic.

—————

The hyphen is a sign of the impending downfall of traditional values in favor of political correctness (e.g. African-American) and gender equality (e.g. U.S. Representatives Sheila Jackson-Lee, Ginny Brown-Waite, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz).^[2]

—————

I'm probably about as liberal as I am Floridian—31%, in terms of how much of my life has been spent with a Florida address—but I like calling myself liberal, for roughly the same reason I like calling myself Floridian.

—————

This isn't entirely an exercise in over-analyzing nonsense for my own amusement (but it's not entirely not that, either).

—————

I know, I know. As soon as all this happens Fox News' ratings will plummet, talk radio will cease to be relevant, and politics will be at least 80% less interesting. But we don't have to totally give up our beloved inane bickering. We'll always have sports.

—————

Christine O'Donnell exemplifies a problem to which conservatives are especially susceptible. On most non-Bible-related issues, the conservative position boils down to "let's sit around and do nothing and see if things take care of themselves." And from this simple idea a truly compelling philosophy has emerged, and a lot of very smart people have said and written some very smart things about the wisdom of sitting around and doing nothing and seeing if things take care of themselves. Hell, they convinced me, and I think I'm kind of smart. But the downside is, even a dumb person can learn to say "let's sit around and do nothing and see if things take care of themselves," and it's hard to tell that she's dumb because she's saying the same thing as the smart people.

—————

Statistics show that most Americans don't understand statistics.^[3]

—————

Great as Paul McCartney is, he's also responsible for the line, "in this ever-changing world in which we live in", and that's something for which I can never forgive him for.

—————

I'm not in the business of pointing out hypocrisy, for the same reason I don't go around discharging firearms into small containers stuffed to capacity with halibut.

—————

The subheading at the top of NewsBusters.org, "Exposing & Combating Liberal Media Bias",^[4] is technically accurate, but would be no less so with the word "bias" removed.

—————

There's a lot of nonsense out there, but at least this is enumerated.

—————

No hay nada que me enoja más de los tipos que les gustan gritar "¡This is America! ¡Speak English!" Esa actitud es igualmente irrespetuoso y ignorante. ¿Piensen que aprender otra lengua es fácil? ¿Piensen que inmigrantes no quieren aprender inglés? Claro que sí lo quieren, y—por lo general—sí lo aprenden.

—————

I don't care if it's my girlfriend running for office—if I go to her campaign website and a video starts playing automatically, I'm voting for her opponent.

1. Also, footnotes are left as they appeared in the original drafts.

2. It should be noted, however, that most conservatives do not oppose traditional uses of hyphenation (compound adjectives, certain prefixes, line-wrapping, etc.).

3. I don't have a source for that, but it's probably true.

4. That subheading, by the way, is phrased in the present progressive tense. That's right, progressive. It seems even grammar has a liberal bias.

Atlas Shrugged: Part I (Part II)

In Part I of my now II-part series about Atlas Shrugged: Part I,^[I] I made a few predictions, just for the hell of it. It's been out for VI days now, so let's see how I did. Oh, and out of appreciation for the filmmakers' decision to use Roman numerals for no good reason, so will I.

Libertarians will love it. Conservatives will like it, but some will complain that the film implicitly promotes atheism.

No surprise here, though most of the positive reviews are too distracted by Ayn Rand's apparent prescience regarding today's political climate to offer an objective (so to speak) evaluation of the movie itself. From Big Hollywood:

Though taken from a book written a half-century ago and set in the year MMXVI, the movie is eerily similar to the world today, bearing a particular resemblance to the United States and the societal and economic depreciation of states like California, where manufacturing industries have collapsed, economic liberty and entrepreneurialism are eroding, and productive members of society seem to be rapidly disappearing, or rather, run out of business by bureaucratic red tape and unreasonable regulations.
…
Not only is the film a winner for holding firm to Randian philosophy, it also brazenly and refreshingly brings a political perspective that is almost universally absent from the big screen…

But it's not all positive. According to Kurt Loder—yes, that Kurt Loder—of the reliably libertarian Reason.com:

Sitting through this picture is like watching early rehearsals of a stage play that's clearly doomed.

The movie is especially disappointing because Rand's MCMLVII book, while centrally concerned with ethical philosophy (and inevitably quite talky), has a juicy plot that, in more capable hands, might have made a sensational film.

As for the film's handling of religion, there's apparently not much to talk about. Even Movieguide, "the family guide to movies and entertainment", commends Atlas Shrugged for its lack of "Christian bashing". Still, Movieguide identifies XV or so examples of potentially objectionable content, ranging from "a foggy moral and philosophical confusion about eleemosynary or philanthropic individual charity" to "a low-cut dress".

Everyone else will find it dull and a little preachy, but not terrible.

From my favorite site for movie reviews, the A.V. Club:

This is the major problem with Atlas Shrugged: Part I, the first of a proposed III-part adaptation of Ayn Rand's MCMLVII novel: Its ideas are squandered by aesthetics. Given the novel's centrality to the Tea Party movement, which has made "going Galt" its call to arms, the film is curiously sterile and lifeless, hardly the stuff of revolution.

Roger Ebert was similarly unimpressed, calling it "the most anticlimactic non-event since Geraldo Rivera broke into Al Capone's vault." And Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote a II-word review that simply read "Shit Sandwich."^[II]

So I was mostly right. Everyone else found it dull, a little preachy, and terrible.

I predict a Metacritic score of LX.

Not even close. As of April XX, it has a Metacritic score of XXVII.

I also predict Sean Hannity will blame every perceived slight—up to and including Atlas Shrugged's inevitable failure to win the Academy Award for Best Picture—on liberals. And maybe immigrants.

Not yet, but I'm not worried. We've still got IX months until the nominees are announced.

I. Honestly, like LXXXVII% of the reason I wrote this article was as an excuse to use the "Part I (Part II)" title. And the other XIII% was to mess around with Roman numerals, which are delightfully pretentious.

II. Not really, but wouldn't that have been great? Here's what he actually said:

Ayn Rand's monumental MCLXVIII-page, MCMLVII novel gets the low-budget, no-talent treatment and sits there flapping on screen like a bludgeoned seal. It's the first in a planned trilogy of films. Let's hope the other II parts are quickly aborted.

Who Watches the Watchdog?

Note: This article is also my first post at Critical Thinking Applied, a group blog to which I'll be contributing from time to time. Its mission is "to show how critical thinking can be applied in a manner that enables polite, civil, and reasoned discourse on [social and political] issues," which, I promise, is a lot more exciting than it sounds—especially considering the ideological diversity of the contributors. In the future, I'll (usually) post only at one site or the other, but in this case a little cross-promotion seems appropriate to mark the occasion.

If I were asked to illustrate what's wrong with American political discourse in 60 seconds or less,^[1] I'd probably talk about Media Matters and NewsBusters. They're the two best-known media watchdog groups in the country (in my estimation, by which I mean I did a Google search for "media watchdog" and they were the first two non-Wikipedia results), and both are founded on the absurd proposition that media bias is a one-sided problem. From their respective "about" pages (emphasis mine):

Launched in May 2004, Media Matters for America put in place, for the first time, the means to systematically monitor a cross section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation — news or commentary that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda — every day, in real time.

In August of 2005, with the assistance of Matthew Sheffield of Dialog New Media, the [Media Research Center] launched the NewsBusters blog to provide immediate exposure of liberal media bias, insightful analysis, constructive criticism and timely corrections to news media reporting.

Both organizations are capable of—and frequently produce—meaningful, insightful analysis, but I'm increasingly convinced that whatever legitimate media watch-doggery they accomplish has more to do with basic probability than anything else. When your strategy for rooting out bias and misinformation is essentially to "expose" everything that appears to favor a particular side, you'll probably get one right every so often. It'd be hard not to.

But there's also going to be stuff like this, from a recent NewsBusters article (emphasis theirs):

In an argument which would make his ex-NPR colleagues proud, Juan Williams took to Fox News Sunday to push for tax hikes to reduce the deficit. Scolding Brit Hume, an exasperated Williams contended: "You're going on as if, 'you know what, we don't know in America how to help our own deficit problems.' We do. We just have to tax people."

Moments before, in assessing Republican Congressman Paul Ryan's expected plan on how to slow budget growth, Williams insisted "tax increases should not be off the table," chastising Ryan for, during an interview with Chris Wallace earlier on the show, rejecting a tax increase: "I don't know why it is that he somehow suggests the rich in the country have no obligation to support the country."

To recap, Juan Williams, a commentator known for having liberal views, appeared on a Fox News program and expressed a liberal view (which, by the way, he does on a regular basis, because he works for Fox News), and that view was immediately shot down. This might be the least convincing evidence of liberal media bias I've ever seen. In fact, given how Williams barely had a chance to defend his idea against its detractors, I'm a little surprised the same clip didn't show up on Media Matters as a sign of conservative bias.

While NewsBusters posts a ton of medium-length articles that assert conclusions based on flimsy (but rarely indefensible) logic and insufficient (but rarely nonexistent) evidence, Media Matters' content is something of a mix of lengthy, well-researched (albeit one-sided) analysis, and shorter pieces highlighting the various screwy things airing on talk radio and Fox News throughout the day. One recent post celebrating the end of Glenn Beck's TV show was simply a three-minute compilation of out-of-context clips of Beck saying and doing crazy things.^[2] Another alerted readers to Beck's cryptic warnings about the upcoming "summer of rage." How is that bias? Or misinformation? Is it even information to begin with?^[3]

I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh—in principle, I'm all in favor of private organizations working to keep the news media honest—but I'm not convinced NewsBusters and Media Matters don't contribute more to the problem than the solution. Both claim to be committed to honesty and accuracy, but only on their terms, which is inherently unworkable. Even worse, they relentlessly promote the "you can trust us, but you can't trust them" mentality. They treat opposing media outlets—including each other—as if their default settings are dishonesty and misinformation, and in the process create an unsettling paradox, because they can't both be wrong.

Any thoughts?

1. Of course, the only scenario I can think of where the "describe something absurdly complicated in a minute or less" hypothetical isn't unrealistic is during a political debate, which, in and of itself, is also a pretty good illustration of what's wrong with American political discourse.

2. Would Beck's antics seem materially less crazy within the proper context? I doubt it, but that almost makes the lack of context worse.

3. Alas, I was unable (through moderate-but-not-extensive effort) to find a better example of what irritates me about Media Matters. I suppose it's to their credit that when they add commentary it's usually pretty good, but the problem is that much of what they "expose" is more in the realm of silliness than misinformation. They may not add commentary when that's the case, but merely posting the clip encourages the inference that it's representative of conservative-leaning media in general, rather than an outlier.

Sarah Palin vs. The Lamestream Media

Exciting news from America's favorite two-thirds-term governor:

I've given this a lot of thought, and I'd like to share my thoughts on the never-ending issue of media bias.

Finally!

Too often the first instinct is to ignore blatant media bias, crudeness, and outright lies, and just hope the media instigator will grow up and provide fairer coverage if you bite your tongue and not challenge the false reporting of an openly hostile press. But I've never bought into that. That's waving the white flag. I just can't do it because I have too much respect for the importance of a free press as a cornerstone of our democracy, and I have great respect for the men and women in uniform who sacrifice so much to defend that First Amendment right. Media, with freedom comes responsibility.

Sounds good so far. A nice message about the importance of standing your ground and speaking your mind and—wait, what was that about the First Amendment?^[1]

(Give me a minute…)

Yeah, I can't figure it out. In fact, the whole thing's kind of hard to figure out. She's trying to make two unrelated points at the same time—first, that Bill Maher is an ass (which is hard to argue with), and, second, that the news-oriented elements of the media are biased against conservatives, and I guess women too—and the overall result is a bit of a mess. Not that I'm complaining.

Friends, too often conservatives or Republicans in general come across as having the fighting instinct of sheep.

This is my favorite non-basketball-related line, because what? Which Republicans? These are the same people who used a bill to provide healthcare for 9/11 first responders as a bargaining chip, threatening to let it languish and die (so to speak) unless the Democrats gave them what they wanted.

Anyway, Sarah Palin will have you know that this negative stereotype she just made up most certainly does not apply to her.

I was raised to believe that you don't retreat when you're on solid ground; so even though it often seems like I'm armed with just a few stones and a sling against a media giant, I'll use those small resources to do what I can to set the record straight. The truth is always worth fighting for.

The "stones" she's referring to include Facebook (where she has almost 3 million fans), Twitter (where she has almost 500,000 followers (myself included)), two best-selling books (which have combined to sell over 3 million copies in less than two years), a reality show (which drew an average of 3.2 million viewers per episode), and what I assume is an open invitation to appear on any politically-oriented TV or radio show at any time. The "sling" would be Fox News, America's highest-rated news network, and her current employer.

Governor, I'm moderately familiar with King David. I've read about King David on Wikipedia. I like to think King David would've been a friend of mine. Governor, you're no King David.

The media has always been biased. Conservatives – and especially conservative women – have always been held to a different standard and attacked. This is nothing new. Lincoln was mocked and ridiculed. Reagan was called an amiable dunce, a dangerous warmonger, a rightwing fanatic, and the insult list goes on and on. (But somehow Reagan still managed to win two major electoral landslides…)

To the extent that Palin's missive makes any sense to begin with, this is the second-best illustration of why her reasoning is flawed. She claims conservatives are held to a different standard, then cites two (rather dubious,^[2] but that's beside the point) examples of the standard to which conservatives are held, thereby proving exactly nothing. How were their non-conservative opponents treated? (Answer: Similarly.) How did they overcome such overwhelming negative press? (Answer: It probably helped that they also had plenty of positive press.) How is whatever mockery Lincoln endured in any way relevant to contemporary treatment of conservatives? (Answer: It's not. At all.)

The thing is, if she tried hard enough, I'm sure she could make a plausible argument that the media treats conservatives unfairly. But she doesn't do that, I assume because any empirically-observed bias would be, at best, slight, and would therefore undermine her implications that anti-conservative bias is both self-evident and substantial.

Let's just acknowledge that commonsense conservatives must be stronger and work that much harder because of the obvious bias. And let's be encouraged with a sense of poetic justice by knowing that the "mainstream" media isn't mainstream anymore. That's why I call it "lamestream," and the LSM is becoming quite irrelevant, as it is no longer the sole gatekeeper of information.

And this is the best illustration of why her reasoning is flawed. "Let's just acknowledge that commonsense conservatives must be stronger and work that much harder because of the obvious bias," she says, because what are you, some sort of liberal, who lacks the "commonsense" to acknowledge things that are obvious? Naturally, the main propagator of that bias is the "lamestream" media, which, Palin helpfully explains, is so named because "mainstream" is now a misnomer, what with the LSM's increasing irrelevance.

But then, if the mainstream media is no longer mainstream, what is it? And how can an entity that's "becoming quite irrelevant" also be a formidable enemy of conservatives? I mean, honestly. You'd think someone demanding better treatment from the media would try to make her internal contradictions a little harder to find. At the very least, spread it out over multiple paragraphs.

Let's keep pivoting around media bias, and not get distracted with the vulgar personal shots. Even with limited time we can try to call out lies and set the record straight, but always keep the ball moving. No one ever won a game only playing defense.

I have nothing to add to this, except that "Let's keep pivoting around media bias" edges out the sheep thing from earlier for my Favorite Palin Quote of 2011 So Far. While we're at it, let's post up on public-sector unions, and run a pick-and-roll against tax hikes, and execute Phil Jackson's triangle offense to defeat fiscal irresponsibility.

Today, our country is faced with seemingly overwhelming challenges. We have an unsustainable and immoral $14 trillion debt problem which, combined with a self-inflicted energy crisis, could bring America to her knees. The President of the United States is manipulating an energy supply by refusing to develop our U.S. energy resources. Shouldn't that be the media's focus today?

She goes on to suggest a few more things for the media to focus on, like the deficit, unemployment, home foreclosures, the Federal Reserve's recent decision to engage in some quantitative easing, rising gas prices, and our latest messy foreign entanglement.

I'm generally as skeptical as anyone of the media's ability (or willingness) to cover the important stuff, but I'm even more skeptical of Sarah Palin's ability (or willingness) to realistically characterize the extent to which everyone's out to get her, so I conducted a highly unscientific study.^[3] I did some Google News searches, restricted to March 19 through March 24—after Maher's juvenile name-calling and before Palin posted her thoughts on Facebook—and got the following results:

Search Term	Hits
"United States" "national debt"	646
"United States" energy	32,200
"Barack Obama" energy	10,500
"United States" deficit	4,230
"United States" unemployment	5,330
"United States" foreclosures	1,080
"Federal Reserve" "quantitative easing"	1,040
gas price "per gallon"	5,360
"United States" Libya	27,900
"Barack Obama" Libya	26,600
"Sarah Palin" "Bill Maher"	16

HTML Tables

The table proves nothing, except that I've learned how to tinker with column width and text alignment within cells, but I think it does create a rebuttable presumption that the media is not neglecting the real issues to talk about Sarah Palin. The media can and does cover both, and then some, because the media is an expansive, nebulous entity. So expansive and nebulous, in fact, that it should probably be referred to instead as "The Media," with finger quotes and a half-ominous, half-sarcastic tone.

More importantly—and I've touched on this a few times already, but it can't be emphasized enough—Sarah Palin is part of the media. I have a pretty negative opinion of her as a politician, but I do agree that her views are sometimes mischaracterized. Why? Because when she feels her views have been mischaracterized, I hear about it through the media. And when she feels an issue is being neglected, she talks about it through the media. So excuse me if I don't have much sympathy for Sarah Palin here. My sympathies are with the person whose voice is being legitimately suppressed.

Who is that person? I have no idea. That's the point.

1. "First Amendment" is very high on my list of terms that create a rebuttable presumption that the speaker doesn't know what they're talking about. Also on the list: racism, socialism, political correctness, anchor baby, hipster, and rebuttable presumption.

2. I was negative-three years old when Reagan was first elected, and not quite one when he was re-elected, and even I know his opponents were hardly given a free pass by the media. Carter, of course, had spent four years making a mess of everything, and Mondale famously promised to raise taxes, which I'm sure wasn't mischaracterized or blown out of proportion at all.
    As for Lincoln, the only reason he was even mentioned is that he was a Republican 150 damn years ago, when the Republican Party stood for sweeping societal change and federal usurpation of states' rights.

3. Alas, data gleaned from a Google search is far from reliable, considering Google's secrecy regarding their methodology, and the fact that hit counts often behave in seemingly illogical ways (decreasing when the date range is broadened, increasing when the range is narrowed, changing when search terms are reordered, etc.).
    But I'm pretty sure it's still more scientific than Palin's methodology, which is to simply assume there's a perfect overlap between your political agenda and reality.

Sharia Law Comes to Florida

What could possibly be the explanation for this?

"This case," the judge wrote, "will proceed under Ecclesiastical Islamic Law."

[Judge Richard] Nielsen said he will decide in a lawsuit against a local mosque, the Islamic Education Center of Tampa, whether the parties in the litigation properly followed the teachings of the Koran in obtaining an arbitration decision from an Islamic scholar.

It certainly appears, on the surface, to be yet another victory for the forces of radical Islam, which have become quite adept at using the weak and simple-minded to their advantage.

To all of the naysayers on the left who say that Sharia can never come to the U.S., here is the latest example of how it is slowly and stealthily creeping into our judicial system--in this case, courtesy of a foolish, non-Muslim judge (known as a useful idiot in Lenin's days).

But how did this happen? Is the judge blinded by political correctness? Or ignorant of the horrors of Sharia law? Or both?!

Several bills already have developed around the nation, including in Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee and Florida, to prevent judges from applying Shariah, which includes penalties such as beheading for leaving Islam, in the government's court systems.

In Oklahoma, voters with a 70-percent majority approved such a ban, but U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange blocked it after the Council on American-Islamic Relations argued the move was "anti-Islam."

The issue also has been the subject of a lawsuit in Michigan, where city officials in Dearborn are accused of allowing Shariah to be used to block Christians from discussing their faith at the city-sponsored Arab Fest. Under Shariah, it is illegal for a Muslim to convert to another faith.

Come to think of it, how do we know the judge is only a passive participant? Maybe he prefers Sharia law. And therefore hates America.

Whether the American people consent or not, multiculturalist elites have decided to ram sharia down our throats, apparently.

Or maybe, just maybe, Richard Nielsen, like the vast majority of judges, knows what he's doing.

People can agree to be ruled by the Wizard of Oz in arbitration if they want to. These people agreed to be ruled by Sharia law… What's happening is that the loser is saying he didn't really agree to arbitration in the first place, and now he wants to get a do-over in front of a judge with Florida law.

This happens all the time and this is why the judge wants to make clear his ruling. In other words, the judge is not sanctioning Islamic law as a basis for absolving disputes here among all people. These were two groups of people that agreed to mediation, arbitration, they wanted to do it under Sharia law, that was their contract, the judge said fine.

That's right. Rush Limbaugh, voice of reason.^[1] I didn't see it coming either.

1. That's not to say that Judge Nielsen made the right decision. I have no idea if it was the right decision, as I haven't seen the disputed contract, heard the arguments made by the opposing sides, or, most importantly, spent more than a decade adjudicating disputes over arbitration agreements. You know who else hasn't done those things? Every reactionary blowhard out there calling for impeachment.

A Deep-Seated Resistance to (Sex) Change

To most conservatives, gender is a fairly binary concept, and to a smaller-but-still-significant number of conservatives, a person's physical sex shouldn't (or can't) ever be changed. And yet, millions around the world claim to be living proof that gender is not binary, and a smaller-but-still-significant number of people make the difficult choice to transition from one physical sex to the other. When conservatives are reminded that transgender and transsexual people do, in fact, exist, the result, all too often, is an abundance of disrespect, nastiness, and scare quotes:

The members of the so-called Transgender/Gender queer taskforce, like most other gay activists, are simply whining emotional misfits who are trying to terrorize decent society under the guise of "tolerance" and "diversity."

—————

It doesn't make us "tolerant" or "compassionate" to pretend that people have something they don't or that they are something they're not. It makes us liars. It's enabling a delusion, and it's very, very silly.

—————

According to most estimates, "transgender" individuals account for less than a fraction of 1 percent of the population. Yet, [Americans for Truth president Peter] LaBarbera said, they have convinced the Obama administration to affirm their position that gender is fluid and changeable. "We should consider what transgender activism is about," he said, "which is essentially recognizing civil rights based on gender confusion." ^[1]

—————

How would you react if your daughter were forced by a school to share showers and toilet rooms with a transgender? I would have raised hell about such sexual insanity – as I will if either of my two granddaughters is ordered into such absolute idiocy.

That's some awful stuff, but it's practically polite compared to—who else?—Moonbattery:

Typical of moonbat thugs who use our deranged, hyper-politicized legal system to club anyone who opposes their agenda, [Lana] Lawless is trying to prevent LPGA from holding any events in California until it knuckles under and allows male perverts who surgically mutilate themselves to perform as women.

The obvious question, then, is where is this coming from? If I were a typical radical, agenda-pushing liberal—you know, the ones conservatives have learned to completely tune out—I'd say conservatives bash transgender people because it's one of the only groups a person can still get away with bashing. Overt racism has been out of bounds for several decades now. Women, Muslims, and the handicapped have started sticking up for themselves. Hell, 21st-century conservatives can't even call a sleazy politician a "faggot" without starting a shitstorm. Insults hurled at transgender people, though? Barely a blip on the Thought Police's radar. Sure, a few people will get upset, but many, many more will gleefully join in, adding their own fuel to the stupid, hateful fire.

I'd also say conservatives bash transgender people because they're too narrow-minded to entertain challenges to their willfully-primitive views on gender and sex. In their world, men are men, women are women, and the still-growing mountain of evidence that men are sometimes women, women are sometimes men, and a lot of people are a little of both is nothing but a liberal plot to force deviant lifestyles on real Americans who just want to be left alone. If conservatives made an effort to understand the lives of people who are different from them, they might start to come around, but they don't want to make that effort—they just want to tell those people to stop being so different.

And finally, I'd be unable to resist saying at least some transgender-bashing is merely a sad reflection of the basher's profound insecurity with their own gender and/or sexuality. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are out there partying, marching in parades, and just generally having a great time being themselves,^[2] and that bothers the hell out of some conservatives, because they wish it was them. And they hate that about themselves, so they dig in, hoping to bury those thoughts under layer upon layer of hate. It's a coping mechanism that has been employed over and over throughout human history, with an overall success rate of approximately zero (give or take).

But I'm not a typical radical, agenda-pushing liberal—I'm tactful and diplomatic, and I'm willing to give others the benefit of the doubt, rather than assuming the worst, and I'm not even really a liberal. So I won't say those things. Instead, I'll say this: I don't know why conservatives have so much trouble with transgender people. No idea. It's baffling. I do have a few theories, but, in the interest of me not coming across as a typical radical, agenda-pushing liberal, I'm not going to say them, so let's just move on.

In articles about the election, immigration, and an assortment of outrageous nonsense, I shared some thoughts from the Internet's most civility-impaired commenters, the idea being to illustrate that conservatives are more than capable of the same absurd extremism they seem to think is the exclusive domain of liberals (and, you know, to laugh at dumb people being dumb). I'm tempted to do it here, too, but the available material is pretty damn horrible (as it would have to be, to top what's in the actual articles). Transgender issues inspire already-rotten people to strive for—and often achieve—shocking new levels of rottenness.

That said, I do kind of like one of the comments on this story:

I have an 8 year old son and a 10 year old daughter and I can tell you – THEY ARE NOT THE SAME!!!!!!

That's right, somewhere out there one boy and one girl are different, so quit wasting your time, Science! Your services aren't needed here!^[3]

1. Four thoughts about the "less than a fraction of 1 percent" thing. First, the number wouldn't be appreciably less credible if it had been chosen at random (which, really, it might've been). Second, whatever the actual number is, it would undoubtedly be higher if not for scumbags like LaBarbera who devote their lives to making the world as unpleasant as possible for those who are openly transgender. Third, I'm no mathematician, but wouldn't less than a fraction of 1 percent be, at most, zero? And fourth, how, exactly, is "there aren't very many of them" an argument against civil rights?

2. The idea that the GLBT community is mostly a bunch of flamboyant, in-your-face parade-marchers is, of course, a misconception, but good luck explaining that to the average Moonbattery reader.

3. Also, I know it's a longshot, but wouldn't it be great if this person has not zero, but two transgender children? (Answer: No, because those kids would probably have to face their gender issues without the help and support of an understanding family, the difficulty of which I can't even imagine. But still.)

Atlas Shrugged: Part I

On Tax Day, fittingly enough, a nearly 40-year saga will come to something of an end with the release of Part I of the three-part film adaptation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I don't especially care,^[1] but Sean Hannity does, and, naturally, he knows what caused the delay:

Hannity: The movie is set to be released next month, something that might never have happened had Hollywood liberals gotten their way.

How can he be so sure? Because shut up, that's how. This is Sean Hannity, who I assume blames liberals when his steak is overcooked.^[2] But then he brought out John Stossel for backup:

Stossel: It was hard to get the movie made.
Hannity: That's what I want to ask you next. Why [was there] a 20-year waiting period from the time that somebody bought the rights to this?
Stossel: Hollywood is liberal. They say, "oh, this is this woman who likes capitalism and selfishness. We don't like her." Still, some people signed on. Brad Pitt was interested, Angelina Jolie was going to play Dagny Taggart, but it just—the studios went, "we're not really into that." Finally, a businessman, John Aglialoro, said "I'll spend $10 million of my own money. I'm going to get this made."

So, the essence of the Hannity-Stossel Theorem is that Hollywood is so single-mindedly devoted to liberalism, they've allowed Atlas Shrugged to languish for four decades, devoting their resources instead to liberal propaganda like Red Dawn, The Passion of the Christ, V for Vendetta, and United 93. Not to mention every disaster movie where Americans save the world (i.e. every disaster movie), every movie where government operatives are sinister and/or incompetent (i.e. every movie with government operatives), and the entire contents of any of the myriad lists of "best conservative movies."^[3]

But I digress. Getting back to Atlas Shrugged, I like how Stossel emphasizes that a "businessman" stepped in, because who, exactly, does he think runs the movie industry? Was it not businessmen and -women who made almost a billion dollars on a crappy CGI-fest Roger Ebert described as "a horrible experience of unbearable length"? And are they not, therefore, by Randian standards, incredibly good at their jobs?

Absent any actual evidence of an anti-objectivist conspiracy—and I haven't seen any—the idea that "Hollywood" would suppress a project for ideological reasons is absurd. In fact, the movie industry is, by all accounts, relentlessly capitalistic. People want to spend their money on formulaic drivel and mediocre sequels, and that's what the people get. Nobody wants to see a three-part adaptation of a lengthy, thematically-dense work of literature from the 1950s.

Oh, right, nevermind.

Still, Atlas Shrugged's potential to appeal to a large audience—which appears to have increased significantly now that America's gone socialist—isn't the only sticking point. There's also the clash between objectivists' notorious refusal to compromise and movie executives' notorious insistence on messing with everything. And I'd bet studios were (rather understandably) reluctant to commit to a three-part series without first knowing if Part I will have any success.

I'm not trying to argue that studios were right to be skeptical, or that I think the movie will fail.^[4] Studios are wrong all the time, and the culprit isn't anti-conservatism or anti-libertarianism—they just aren't immune to bad business decisions.

But why bring capitalism into this?

1. "What the hell?," you're probably thinking. "A libertarian who isn't fanatically devoted to Ayn Rand? You at least like Rush, right?" Um…no comment.

2. He probably also blames immigrants, come to think of it.

3. A lot of surprising movies show up on those lists, but I'm most amused to see Juno, which apparently qualifies because—spoiler alert!—she doesn't have an abortion. Honorable mention goes to 300, which qualifies because it's an allegory for…shit, I don't know. Something to do with America and awesomeness.

4. I think it'll do fine. Libertarians will love it. Conservatives will like it, but some will complain that the film implicitly promotes atheism. Everyone else will find it dull and a little preachy, but not terrible. I predict a Metacritic score of 60. I also predict Sean Hannity will blame every perceived slight—up to and including Atlas Shrugged's inevitable failure to win the Academy Award for Best Picture—on liberals. And maybe immigrants.