title: Blasphemy law

text: In 2007, anticipating the coming "Year of the Pig" in the Chinese calendar, depictions of pigs were banned from CCTV "to avoid conflicts with ethnic minorities". This is believed to refer to China's population of 20 million Muslims (to whom pigs are considered "unclean").


title: Blasphemy law

text: In response to the 2015 "Charlie Hebdo" shooting Chinese state-run media attacked "Charlie Hebdo" for publishing the cartoons insulting Muhammad, with the state-run "Xinhua" advocated limiting freedom of speech, while another state-run newspaper "Global Times" said the attack was "payback" for what it characterized as Western colonialism and accusing "Charlie Hebdo" of trying to incite a clash of civilizations.


title: Blasphemy law

text: In Israel, blasphemy laws were enacted by the pre-State British Mandate in an attempt to suppress the 1929 Palestine riots.


title: Blasphemy law

text: The law is rarely enforced due to concerns of infringing civil liberties. However, one right-wing Jewish activist was sentenced to two years in prison after scattering leaflets in Hebron in 1997, which pictured Muhammed as a pig desecrating the Quran.


title: Blasphemy law

text: Indian-origin religions (also called Dharma religions), Hinduism and its offshoots Buddhism and Jainism, traditionally have no concept of blasphemy. Nāstika, meaning "atheist" or "atheism", are valid and accepted streams of in Indian origin religions where Buddhism, Jainism, as well as Samkhya, Cārvāka and Ājīvika in Hinduism are considered atheist school of philosophy in the Indian religions.


title: Blasphemy law

text: Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code has been used as a blasphemy law to prevent insulting Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. The British-era section 295A of the penal code is extant and has not been repealed; it contains an anti-blasphemy law. Section 295A was introduced in 1927, in the aftermath of Rangeela Rasool incident, to prevent hate speech that insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of any class of citizen with deliberate and malicious intention to outrage their religious feelings but the main purpose of this law has been to maintain "public order in a multireligious and religiously sensitive society."


title: Blasphemy law

text: An important difference between the offence in the Indian Penal Code and English common law is that the defendant must have a "deliberate and malicious intention of outraging religious feelings" in the Indian code while English common law had no such inclusion. Section 295A has, nevertheless, been used a number of times to prevent free and honest discussion on religious issues and remains a threat to freedom of expression. The same section 295A appears in the penal codes of Pakistan and Myanmar where it is used as a blasphemy law. There have been widespread calls in India from civil society to repeal the regressive British code. In 1860, laws were created in British India that made it a "crime to disturb a religious assembly, trespass on burial grounds, insult religious beliefs or intentionally destroy or defile a place or an object of worship, punishable by up to 10 years in jail." In India, many people are arrested in accordance with the above-mentioned laws. Cases include those of: Kamlesh Tiwari, Tarak Biswas, and Sanal Edamaruku. Many books are banned for blasphemous content.


title: Blasphemy law

text: Section 295A and 298 of the Myanmar Penal Code are used to prosecute people for blasphemy. The Myanmar Penal Code shares a common origin with the penal codes of Pakistan and India and other British colonies in the Penal Code of 1860. The offences are:


title: Blasphemy law

text: Section 295 and 295A carry a maximum penalty of two years' imprisonment, a fine, or both, and sections 296, 297 and 298 a maximum of one year's imprisonment, a fine, or both. Section 295A was added to the Penal code by a legislative amendment in 1927, in the aftermath of Rangeela Rasool incident where a Muslim fatally stabbed a Hindu editor after he was acquitted by the then existing law. It was intended to protect religious minorities. It was a response to a perceived need to prohibit incitement against Muslim minorities by Hindu nationalists in India, but is now used in Myanmar to protect Buddhist nationalists against prosecution for incitement against Muslim minorities.


title: Blasphemy law

text: In December 2014, bar owner Tun Thurein and bar managers Htut Ko Lwin and New Zealander Philip Blackwood who ran the VGastro Bar in Yangon were arrested and sentenced in March 2015 to two-and-a-half years of hard labour after posting a psychedelic image of the Buddha wearing headphones to promote their bar on the internet. In June 2015, writer and former National League for Democracy information officer, Htin Lin Oo was sentenced to two years of hard labour for violating section 295A. The charge resulted from a speech in which he accused several prominent Buddhist organisations of extreme nationalism with particularly reference to Ashin Wirathu, who has been accused of hate speech and incitement of violence against Muslims by international observers many times since anti-Rohingya violence erupted in 2012.


title: Blasphemy law

text: Section 9.156 of a new criminal code act passed by parliament on 8 August 2017 serves as a blasphemy law. It criminalised for the first time the 'hurting of religious sentiment' and carries a penalty of up to two years imprisonment and a fine of 20,000 Rupees. The new law came into force on 17 August 2018


title: Blasphemy law

text: Despite Thailand's constitution declaring freedom of religion and the lack of an official religion, Theravada Buddhism still plays a very important role in Thai society, both legally and culturally. The constitution declares that the King of Thailand must be Buddhist and a defender of Buddhism. The 1962 Sangha Act outlaws insults or defamation of Buddhism and Buddhist clergy. These include damaging statues of Buddha, stealing, buying or taking them out of Thailand, taking photos of them, sitting with your feet facing them, touching them on the head, and wearing tattoos depicting the Buddha.Travelers coming into Thailand from a foreign country are sternly warned not to do the aforementioned acts when entering the country. The 1956 penal code sections 206 and 208 also outlaws insulting or disrupting places and services of any religion recognized by the Thai government. Violations range from 1 to 7 years imprisonment to a 2,000 to 14,000 baht fine.


title: Blasphemy law

text: Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 1976 obliges signatory countries to guarantee everyone the right to hold opinions without restriction and to guarantee the right to freedom of expression, to impart information and ideas of all kinds, either orally, in writing or in print, in art, or through any other media. Paragraph 3 of article 19 allows for certain restrictions to freedom expression that are both necessary and provided by law to safeguard the reputations of others, for the protection of national security or of public order, or of public health or morals and article 20 obliges countries to prohibit "propaganda for war or advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence."


title: Blasphemy law

text: In July 2011, the UN Human Rights Committee released a 52-paragraph statement, General Comment 34 on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, concerning freedoms of opinion and expression. Paragraph 48 states:


title: Blasphemy law

text: The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have petitioned the "United Nations to create global laws criminalising insults to religion".


title: Blasphemy law

text: Three United Nations Special Rapporteurs—the Special Rapporteurs on freedom of religion or belief, on the right to freedom of opinion and expression and on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance—released a joint statement during the Durban Review Conference in Geneva in 2009. They stated that: "the difficulties in providing an objective definition of the term "defamation of religions" at the international level make the whole concept open to abuse. At the national level, domestic blasphemy laws can prove counter-productive, since this could result in the de facto censure of all inter-religious and intra-religious criticism. Many of these laws afford different levels of protection to different religions and have often proved to be applied in a discriminatory manner. There are numerous examples of persecution of religious minorities or dissenters, but also of atheists and non-theists, as a result of legislation on religious offences or overzealous application of laws that are fairly neutral."


title: Blasphemy law

text: The Rabat Plan of Action (2012) on the prohibition of advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence "Conclusions and recommendations emanating from the four regional expert workshops organised by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in 2011, and adopted by experts in Rabat, Morocco on 5 October 2012" stated that: "At the national level, blasphemy laws are counter-productive, since they may result in the de facto censure of all inter-religious/belief and intra-religious/belief dialogue, debate, and also criticism, most of which could be constructive, healthy and needed. In addition, many of these blasphemy laws afford different levels of protection to different religions and have often proved to be applied in a discriminatory manner. There are numerous examples of persecution of religious minorities or dissenters, but also of atheists and non-theists, as a result of legislation on religious offences or overzealous application of various laws that use a neutral language. Moreover, the right to freedom of religion or belief, as enshrined in relevant international legal standards, does not include the right to have a religion or a belief that is free from criticism or ridicule." The Plan of Action recommended that: "States that have blasphemy laws should repeal these as such laws have a stifling impact on the enjoyment of freedom of religion or belief and healthy dialogue and debate about religion".


title: Blasphemy law

text: France (apart from Alsace-Moselle) repealed its blasphemy law in 1881, Sweden in 1970. A series of countries, especially in Europe, began repealing their blasphemy laws in the early 21st century. A systematic global campaign to abolish all blasphemy laws around the world was launched under the slogan "End Blasphemy Laws" by secular humanist and atheist organizations, such as International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), the European Humanist Federation (EHF) and numerous coalition partners on 30 January 2015, in direct response to the "Charlie Hebdo" shooting on 7 January 2015.


title: Blasphemy law

text: The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, which has been deliberating on the issue of blasphemy law, the resolution that blasphemy should not be a criminal offence, adopted on 29 June 2007 in the Recommendation 1805 (2007) on blasphemy, religious insults and hate speech against persons on grounds of their religion. This Recommendation set a number of guidelines for member states of the Council of Europe in view of Articles 10 (freedom of expression) and 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion) of the European Convention on Human Rights.


title: Blasphemy law

text: In place of blasphemy or in addition to blasphemy in some European countries is the crime of "religious insult", which is a subset of the crime of blasphemy. , it was forbidden in Andorra, Cyprus, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Spain, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, the Russian Federation, Slovakia, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine.


title: Blasphemy law

text: On 23 October 2008, the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional matters, issued a report about blasphemy, religious insult, and incitement to religious hatred. The report noted that, at the time in Europe, blasphemy was an offence in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, and San Marino.


title: Blasphemy law

text: The common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel were abolished in England and Wales in 2008 with the passage of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act. Other countries to abolish or repeal blasphemy laws include France in 1881 (except for the Alsace-Moselle region, part of Germany at the time), Sweden in 1970, Norway with Acts in 2009 and 2015, the Netherlands in 2014, Iceland in 2015, Malta in 2016, France for its Alsace-Moselle region in 2016, Denmark in 2017, Canada in 2018, New Zealand and Greece in 2019, Ireland in 2020, and Scotland in 2021. Australia abolished and repealed all blasphemy laws at the Federal Level in 1995 but blasphemy laws remain in some States and Territories. On 26 October 2018, a referendum in the Republic of Ireland resulted in the removal of the Constitutional provision and the 2009 Defamation Act provision against blasphemy, which was implemented in January 2020.


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: The Early Years 1965–1972 is a box set that details the early work of the English rock band Pink Floyd released on 11 November 2016. It was released by Pink Floyd Records with distribution held by Warner Music for the UK and Europe and Sony Music for the rest of the world.


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: The box set comprises seven volumes over 33 discs, including CDs, DVDs, BDs, vinyl records, plus memorabilia including photos, posters and tour programmes. It contains early non-album singles plus unreleased studio and live recordings. Although "Volumes 1–6" have been available individually since 24 March 2017, "Volume 7 – 1967–1972: Continu/ation", remains exclusive to the set. A two-CD compilation, "The Early Years 1967–1972: Cre/ation," was also released.


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: Due to an error, a was also included in the box set in place of the 2016 mix of "Obscured by Clouds" which was placed inside the set in a cardboard wallet at the last moment. The standalone edition of "1972: Obfusc/ation" contains both CDs as standard.


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: In 2019, a number of Blu-ray discs in the set began to fail due to manufacturing defects. Warner Music and Pink Floyd announced a recall programme on 1 October 2019, which ran until 1 January 2020.


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: Tracks 1–11 are mono.Tracks 12–16 are stereo.Tracks 1–6 saw , first time available on CD.Tracks 7–8 & 12 were previously released on "An Introduction to Syd Barrett" (2010).Tracks 13–16 are previously unreleased.


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: "Live in Stockholm" has barely audible vocals, rendering the performance almost completely instrumental. It was mastered for this release with the stereo channels out of phase and a silent gap mistakenly inserted. The original recording is ambient, so it is of lower fidelity than a typical live release.


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: The John Latham recordings are of one long extended improvisational piece split across nine tracks, it is similar to that of the extended improvisation often played during the middle section of "Interstellar Overdrive". The piece was recorded as the soundtrack for Latham's 1962 film "Speak".


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: Tracks 1–8 recorded live 10 September 1967 at Gyllene Cirkeln, Stockholm, Sweden.Tracks 9–17 recorded at De Lane Lea Studios, London, 20 October 1967.


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: Track 5 previously released on the Harvest Records sampler LP, "Picnic – A Breath of Fresh Air" (1970) and on the compilation album, "Works" (1983).


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: After the release of "The Early Years 1965–1972" footage was found of the band performing "Astronomy Domine" at KQED, but its discovery came too late for inclusion in the box. KQED were subsequently granted permission to publish the footage of "Astronomy Domine"


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: This CD was accidentally replaced by the "Live at Pompeii" stereo CD before shipping. This disc actually comes packaged outside the set in a separate white slipcase, on the reverse of which it says ""Replacement CD disc for Obfusc/ation [...] (Stereo 2016 mix of Pink Floyd 'Live at Pompeii' CD supplied in error)"" The standalone edition of this volume, however, contains "Live at Pompeii" as CD2 of the set.


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: This volume, unlike Volumes 1–6, is exclusive to the box set and is not yet available separately as a standalone edition. This volume is notable for containing three feature length films: "The Committee", "More" and "La Vallée" and, despite its subtitle, a live recording of "Echoes" from 1974.


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: On 5 November 2016 Pink Floyd announced, via their official Facebook page, that an extra CD would now be included in the set – "Live at Pompeii". The Pompeii performance has never been officially released on CD before. The "Live at Pompeii" CD was accidentally included in the "1972: Obfusc/ation" set instead of the 2016 mix of the "Obscured by Clouds" album. Therefore the 2016 "Obscured by Clouds" CD was included separately in a white slipcase; on the front of which is written ""Obscured by Clouds 2016 remix"" and on the reverse: ""Replacement CD disc for Obfusc/ation [...] (Stereo 2016 mix of Pink Floyd 'Live at Pompeii' CD supplied in error)"". Warner Music has to date refused to provide replacement discs where copies of "Obscured by Clouds" were not included in customers' box sets (all Sony Music issues had the replacement CDs). When the "1972: Obfusc/ation" was released as a standalone set in March 2017, the "Live at Pompeii" CD was included as Disc 2 of the set. The "Live at Pompeii" CD track listing is as follows:


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: "The Early Years 1967–1972: Cre/ation" is a 2-disc highlights compilation of the box set "The Early Years 1965–1972" which was released on 11 November 2016.


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: "The Early Years 1965–1972" has a score of a 97 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 8 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of "Allmusic" called it "a deep, multi-tiered portrait of the years when Pink Floyd were fumbling around trying to find their voice." He praised the tracks "Vegetable Man", "In the Beechwoods", the band's collaboration with John Latham, the soundtracks they recorded for "The Committee" and "Zabriskie Point", and "Moonhead". "Because so much of this music is raw – it's alternately live, unfinished, and improvisatory – the box underscores how Pink Floyd were an underground band right up until "Dark Side"" he concludes. "Decades later, these recordings still feel boundless: this was music made without a destination in mind and the journey remains thrilling."


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: Daryl Easlea of "Record Collector" described the box-set as "the sonic equivalent to background reading and extensive footnotes for their remarkable body of recorded work." He describes the band's earliest material from 1965 as "showcasing what a fabulous beat band they initially were. A quick grin is not something you associate with the Floyd, but these five early tracks from 1965 are tremendous fun." He also praised the John Peel concert from 1971 as being "a real treat, with a 14-minute-long Fat Old Sun displaying their improvisational might. A lengthy capture of Embryo demonstrates their glacial grandeur at its finest." He also singles out "the 20 December 1967 BBC session, just a month before Barrett’s departure" as "a revelation."


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: "Pitchfork" named awarded the box set the week's "Best New Reissue". Jesse Jarnow wrote that "[a]s career periods go, the seven years of Pink Floyd’s "Early Years" don’t exactly match other intense eras of classic rock creativity, like Bob Dylan from 1961 to 1968 or the Beatles from 1962 to 1969 [...] this set illustrates something about both Pink Floyd’s own path and the rewards of resilience." He writes that "in the modern age of oversized vault-clearing and copyright-protecting box sets, there is something resoundingly human about "The Early Years", which only makes the achievements more extraordinary".


title: The Early Years 1965–1972

text: Alexis Petridis of "The Guardian" described the compilation as an "exhaustive document" that contains "some tantalising glimpses of the different paths they could have taken". He praised some of the material (noting, for example, the influence their "cyclical, hypnotic repetitions and weird, very un-rock-like atmosphere" of early improvisations like "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" had on "nascent" krautrock bands as well as their role in the development of space rock) but criticized the superfluousness of some of it (pointing out that the box-set contains "15 versions of Careful With That Axe, Eugene" and writing, "there comes a point where you suspect that even the most ardent fan of Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun [...] will heave a fairly weary sigh as its three-note bassline starts up for the umpteenth time.")


title: Sebastian Junger

text: Sebastian Junger (born January 17, 1962) is an American journalist, author and filmmaker who has reported in-the-field on dirty, dangerous and demanding occupations and the experience of infantry combat. He is the author of "The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea" (1997) which was adapted into a major motion picture and led to a resurgence in adventure creative nonfiction writing. He covered the War in Afghanistan for more than a decade, often embedded in dangerous and remote military outposts. The book "War" (2010) was drawn from his field reporting for "Vanity Fair", that also served as the background for the documentary film "Restrepo" (2010) which received the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Junger's works explore themes such as brotherhood, trauma, and the relationship of the individual to society as told from the far reaches of human experience.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: Junger was born in Belmont, Massachusetts, the son of Ellen Sinclair, a painter, and Miguel Chapero Junger, a physicist. Born in Dresden, Germany, and of Russian, Austrian, Spanish, and Italian descent, his father immigrated to the United States during World War II to escape persecution because of paternal Jewish ancestry, and to study engineering at MIT. Junger grew up in the Belmont neighborhood, which he learned was the territory of the Boston Strangler. He was later inspired to write "A Death in Belmont" (2006).


title: Sebastian Junger

text: Junger graduated from Concord Academy in 1980 and received a bachelor of arts degree from Wesleyan University in cultural anthropology in 1984. As an accomplished long-distance runner, he spent a summer training on the Navajo Nation reservation and wrote his thesis on Navajo long-distance running and its traditional, pre-Columbian roots.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: Junger began working as a freelance writer, often trying to publish articles on topics that interested him. He often took other jobs for temporary periods of time to support himself. Researching dangerous occupations as a topic, he became deeply engaged in learning about commercial fishing and its hazards.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: In 1997, with the success of his non-fiction book, "The Perfect Storm", Junger was touted as a new Hemingway. His work stimulated renewed interest in adventure non-fiction. The book received a large pre-publication deal for movie rights, was on the "New York Times" bestseller list for a year in the hardback edition, and for two years in paperback.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: In 2000 Junger published an article "The Forensics of War," in "Vanity Fair". He received a National Magazine Award for this. He continues to work there as a contributing editor. In early 2007, he reported from Nigeria on the subject of blood oil. With British photographer Tim Hetherington, Junger created "The Other War: Afghanistan," produced with ABC News and "Vanity Fair". It was shown on "Nightline" in September 2008 and the two men shared the DuPont-Columbia Award for broadcast journalism for the work.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: His book "War" (2010) revolves around a platoon of the US Army 173rd Airborne stationed in Afghanistan.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: Junger, along with Hetherington, used material gathered in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan for the book and to create a related documentary feature "Restrepo." The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and won the Grand Jury Prize for a domestic documentary at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010. On April 27, 2011, Junger was presented with the "Leadership in Entertainment Award" by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) for his work on "Restrepo."


title: Sebastian Junger

text: His latest work "Freedom", on the American ideal of the same name, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2021.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: While much of Junger's writing is subjective and participatory, he strives to maintain a neutral point of view and avoids contemporary political discussion, especially around frequent subjects like economic inequality and war. In 2021, he cited his "favorite quote" in an interview with "The Guardian": "Journalists don’t tell people what to think. They tell them what to think about."


title: Sebastian Junger

text: Junger lives in New York City and rural Cape Cod. He's married and lives with his wife and two children. His first daughter was born in 2016 when he was age 55. Previously, Junger was married to writer Daniela Petrova. They divorced in 2014. He is an atheist.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: Junger co-owned a bar in New York City called the Half King. Named after a Seneca warrior that played colonial forces against each other in the Seven Years War, the bar hosted in-house readings and photo exhibits and was favored by war correspondents and conflict photographers. Rising rents made the business unsustainable, and the Half King closed in 2019 after 19 years of operation.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: In June 2020, Junger had a near-death experience when his pancreatic artery ruptured while he was at home in rural Truro, Massachusetts. He is working on a book about the experience, tentatively titled "Pulse: What Keeps Us Alive and What Happens When We Die."


title: Sebastian Junger

text: Junger's book "The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea" (1997) became an international bestseller. It recounts a storm in October 1991 that resulted in the Gloucester fishing boat "Andrea Gail" going down off the coast of Nova Scotia, and the loss of all six crew members: Billy Tyne, Bobby Shatford, Alfred Pierre, David Sullivan, Michael Moran and Dale Murphy.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: In 2000, the book was adapted by Warner Brothers as a film of the same name, starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: Junger said that while recovering from a chainsaw injury, he was inspired to write about dangerous jobs. He planned to start with commercial fishing in Gloucester, Massachusetts. He developed this project as "The Perfect Storm", as he became more involved with learning about the crew members and the conditions and decisions that contributed to their deaths.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: Junger established The Perfect Storm Foundation to provide cultural and educational grants to children across the country whose parents make their living in the commercial fishing industry.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: "A Death in Belmont" centers on the 1963 rape and murder of Bessie Goldberg. This was during the period from 1962 to 1964 of the infamous Boston Strangler crimes. Junger received the 2007 PEN/Winship award for the book. Junger raises the possibility in his book that the real Strangler was Albert DeSalvo. He eventually confessed to committing several Strangler murders, but not Goldberg's. Roy Smith, an African-American man, was convicted in her death based on circumstantial evidence.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: Junger suggests that Smith's conviction for Goldberg's death was influenced by racism. The prosecution called witnesses who remembered seeing Smith chiefly because he was a black man walking in a predominately white neighborhood. (Eyewitness testimony has been shown to be notoriously flawed.) Smith had cleaned Goldberg's house the day she was attacked and left a receipt (for his work) with his name on her kitchen counter. No physical evidence, such as bruises or blood, linked Smith to the crime. In 1976, he was granted commutation of his life sentence. Before he gained release, Smith died of lung cancer.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: Junger draws no conclusions about the guilt or innocence of either Smith or DeSalvo. Goldberg's daughter has vigorously disputed Junger's suggestion that Smith may have been innocent. Defense attorney Alan Dershowitz said in his review of the book: It "must be read with the appropriate caution that should surround any work of nonfiction in which the author is seeking a literary or dramatic payoff." He noted that Junger did not include endnotes or footnotes, and suggested he may have had too much interest in "playing down coincidences and emphasizing connections."


title: Sebastian Junger

text: "Fire" is a collection of articles about dangerous regions or dangerous occupations. In the chapter "Lion in Winter", Junger interviews Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance and known as the Lion of the Panjshir. He was a famed resistance fighter against the Soviets and the Taliban. Junger was one of the last Western journalists to interview Massoud in depth. Much of this was first published in March 2001 for "National Geographic Adventure", along with photographs by Iranian photographer Reza Deghati and video by cinematographer Stephen Cocklin. Massoud was assassinated on September 9, 2001. Junger's portrait of Massoud suggests a different future for the country if he had been able to continue his work. "Fire" also details the conflict diamond trade in Sierra Leone, genocide in Kosovo, and the hazards of fire-fighting in the state of Idaho in the United States.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: In 2009, Junger made his first film, the documentary feature "Restrepo", as director with photographer Tim Hetherington. The two worked together in Afghanistan on assignment for "Vanity Fair". Junger and Hetherington spent a year with one platoon in the Korengal Valley, which is billed as the deadliest valley in Afghanistan. They recorded video to document their experience, and this footage went on to form the basis for "Restrepo". The title refers to the outpost where Junger was embedded, which was named after a combat medic, Pfc. Juan Restrepo, killed in action. As Junger explained, "It's a completely apolitical film. We wanted to give viewers the experience of being in combat with soldiers, and so our cameras never leave their side. There are no interviews with generals; there is no moral or political analysis. It is a purely experiential film." "Restrepo," which premiered on the opening night of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, won the grand jury prize for a domestic documentary. The actor David Hyde Pierce presented the award in Park City, Utah. Junger self-financed the film. "Restrepo" was nominated for the 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: The visits from June 2007 to June 2008 to eastern Afghanistan to the Korengal Valley with Tim Hetherington resulted not only in their reports and pictures published in "Vanity Fair" in 2008 and the film "Restrepo" (2010), but also in Junger's best-selling book "War" (2010), which rewrites and expands upon his "Vanity Fair" dispatches. Junger in "War", tells the story of Staff Sergent Sal Giunta. His actions during the fighting in the Korengal Valley made him the first soldier to still be alive when receiving the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. Time magazine named "War" a "Top Ten Non-fiction Book" of 2010.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: In April 2013, Junger's film "Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington", debuted at the LBJ Presidential Library. Produced in conjunction with HBO Documentary Films, it documents the life of Hetherington, who was killed in 2011 in Libya.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: The 2014 film "Korengal" continues to follow the soldiers in Battle Company 2/503 during and after their service in the Korengal Valley. The film takes a deeper look into the psychology of the men, who are deployed in the rugged mountains of the Korengal Valley. Junger sought to find out what combat did to, and for them, and seek a deeper understanding of why war is meaningful to them. The film opened in June 2013 in theaters. It also played at the Pritzker Military Library and Museum, The Pentagon, Army Heritage and Education Foundation Center, Capitol Hill, United States Military Academy, The National Infantry Museum, Little Rock Film Festival, Key West Film Festival, and the DocuWest Film Festival.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: The last of the trilogy about war and its effects on soldiers, this documentary explores "what it means for combat soldiers to reintegrate into daily American life." Junger recruited former US Army Sgt. Brendan O'Byrne, who appeared in the film "Restrepo", US Army soldier David Roels, and Spanish photo-journalist Guillermo Cervera to walk the rail corridor between Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. The journey was planned as a tribute to deceased photographer Tim Hetherington. The film premiered at the Margaret Mead Film Festival and aired on HBO in November. The film played in theaters in New York and Los Angeles, as well as at the Savannah Film Festival, and at Seattle International Film Festival.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: In "Tribe" (2016) Junger studies war veterans from an anthropological perspective and asks "How do you make veterans feel that they are returning to a cohesive society that was worth fighting for in the first place?" Junger's premise is that "Soldiers ignore differences of race, religion and politics within their platoon..." and upon return to America, find a fractious society splintered into various competing factions, often hostile to one another.


title: Sebastian Junger

text: This 2021 travel memoir is an extended meditation on "what it means to be free." In the book, which recounts the experiences of two Afghanistan combat vets, a photojournalist and war reporter, and a black dog named Daisy walking 400 miles along railway lines in south-central Pennsylvania, Junger argues that modern civilization has not made people feel safer or contented in their lives, and the weakening of interpersonal bonds has contributed to a rise of anxiety, depression, and suicide, especially among the wealthiest societies. The main theme from Junger's earlier books, "extolling the superiority, both moral and psychological, of life in small nomadic groups (or small embattled platoons) over modernity under capitalism — appears repeatedly."


title: Relic Hunter

text: It centers on Sydney Fox, a professor who is also a globe-trotting "relic hunter" who looks for ancient artifacts to return to museums and/or the descendants of the original owner. She is aided by her linguistic assistant Nigel and occasionally by her somewhat air-headed secretary Claudia. She often ends up battling rival hunters seeking out artifacts for monetary gain. The series includes fantasy and science fiction elements, with many of the relics featured having supposed supernatural powers or being pieces of unusually advanced technology.


title: Relic Hunter

text: It ran for three seasons in the U.S. between 1999 and 2002, fulfilling its initial three-season, 66-episode contract, which was not renewed. In both Ireland and the United Kingdom, it aired on Sky1 and subsidiary channels, while in Canada, it aired on CityTV and Space, CTV's sister network A-Channel and Showcase. The series was shot in the Toronto area, and includes many familiar local landmarks among its locations. As of June 2018, the series airs on the Heroes and Icons cable network.


title: Relic Hunter

text: "Relic Hunter" follows the globe-trotting adventures of unorthodox American archaeologist Sydney Fox (Tia Carrere), and her more reserved British assistant Nigel Bailey (Christien Anholt). They are assisted at their "home base", a generic American university identified only as Trinity College, by ditzy student secretary Claudia (Lindy Booth), the spoiled and fashion-conscious daughter of one of the college's major donors. The character of Claudia was replaced in the third season by Karen Petrushky (Tanja Reichert), who is more talented than Claudia at dealing with predicaments of a bureaucratic nature.


title: Relic Hunter

text: At the beginning of each episode, there is a short flashback in which a relic or artifact is used or abused in its original time before being lost, stolen or hidden. The show cuts to Trinity College in the present day, where Sydney and Nigel are asked to find the relic by some person or agency such as a museum, private collector (in disguise) or government. Most episodes feature the duo traveling around the globe, hunting for clues in order to find the artifact. Complications abound, often with rival relic hunters getting involved, generally giving Sydney a chance to show off her martial arts prowess. It is then up to Sydney and Nigel to seize the relic and ensure it ends up in the proper hands (such as the rightful owners or a suitable museum). Each episode ends with a scene at Trinity College explaining what has happened to the relic.


title: Relic Hunter

text: The "Trinity College" campus scenes were filmed at the St. George campus at the University of Toronto in Canada. Campus landmarks prominently featured throughout the series include Victoria College and the Soldiers' Tower (directly adjacent to Hart House).


title: Relic Hunter

text: The "Antianeirai" episode ship scenes were filmed aboard HMCS Haida, the last Tribal Class destroyer in the world, when she was berthed at Ontario Place, in Toronto, Canada. For instance, the scene where Sydney finds the belt was filmed in the forward mess deck. All onboard signage was covered with Russian words. Haida has a red maple leaf on one of her funnels and this was covered with a "bird" design. Anything that would show the ship to be of Canadian, or "western" origin, was removed for the film shoot.


title: Relic Hunter

text: All seasons were filmed in widescreen but mainly shown in pan and scan 4/3 as are most of Fireworks Entertainment productions from 2000. The widescreen versions of all seasons are available for viewing at Netflix in Nordics as of 2012.


title: Relic Hunter

text: Alliance Home Entertainment has released all three seasons of "Relic Hunter" on DVD in Region 1 (Canada only).


title: Relic Hunter

text: In Region 4, Warner Home Video released season 1 on DVD in Australia in two volume sets in 2005. Madman Entertainment subsequently acquired the rights and released the second season on DVD in 2006 and the third season in 2010. A complete Season 1 box set was released by Madman on February 2, 2011.


title: Acceptance

text: Acceptance in human psychology is a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it or protest it. The concept is close in meaning to "acquiescence", derived from the Latin "acquiēscere" (to find rest in).


title: Acceptance

text: The term "acceptance" is a noun with various different meanings. When the person to whom a proposal is made signifies their assent, it is an "acceptance" of their offer, also called an agreement. For example, if someone gives a gift and another receives it, then they have accepted the gift; therefore, having acceptance. Another definition of acceptance has to do with positive welcome and belonging, favor, and endorsement. One approves of something. For instance, one can like someone and accept them due to their approval of that person. Another description is that acceptance can be an act of believing or assenting. The definition overlaps with "toleration", but acceptance and tolerance are not synonyms.


title: Acceptance

text: Acceptance – "An express act or implication by conduct that manifests assent to the terms of an offer in a manner invited or required by the offer so that a binding contract is formed. The exercise of power conferred by an offer by performance of some act. The act of a person to whom something is offered of tendered by another, whereby the offered demonstrates through an act invited by the offer an intention of retaining the subject of the offer."


title: Acceptance

text: Eckhart Tolle, a spiritual teacher, defines acceptance as a "surrender to the Now" response to anything occurring in any moment of life. There, strength, peace and serenity are available when one stops struggling to resist, or hang on tightly to what is so in any given moment. What do I have right now? Now what am I experiencing? The point is, can one be sad when one is sad, afraid when afraid, silly when silly, happy when happy, judgmental when judgemental, overthinking when overthinking, serene when serene, etc.


title: Acceptance

text: What Tolle teaches is to observe what is happening without telling a story about it. For example, Tolle shares in his book "Stillness Speaks" how easy it is to confuse a story one tells for the facts of a situation. If someone doesn’t return your call one may say “He didn’t have the decency to return my call.” That is the story one tells. On the other hand, the facts of the situation are “He did not call.” The facts don’t tell a story about the person or make a judgment about the situation. The facts are always neutral. When one observes what is happening there is an awareness brought in and then acceptance of the situation becomes an option that is available at any given moment.


title: Acceptance

text: To simplify, acceptance means allowing; allowing unwanted private experiences (thoughts, feelings and urges) to come and go without struggling with them.


title: Acceptance

text: Before any breakdown types, it should be recognized that "acceptance" is treating whatever happens, the actual event which is the outcome of all combined previous events, as overall the best outcome. Acceptance typically contains the concept of approval; the psycho-spiritual use of the term infers a non-judgmental mindset. Acceptance is contrasted with "resistance", a term that has strong political and psychoanalytic connotations that do not apply in most contexts. Groups and individuals can show acceptance of various events and conditions in the world; individuals may accept elements of their own thoughts, feelings, and personal histories. For example, psychotherapeutic treatment of a person with depression or anxiety can involve fostering acceptance either for whatever personal circumstances may give rise to those feelings or for the feelings themselves. Psychotherapy can also involve lessening an individual's acceptance of various situations.


title: Acceptance

text: Notions of acceptance are prominent in many faiths and meditation practices. For example, Buddhism's first noble truth, "All life is suffering", invites people to accept that suffering is a natural part of life. The term "Kabbalah" literally means tradition within the Judoist language. Minority groups in society often describe their goal as acceptance, wherein the majority will not marginalize the minority's full participation in society. A majority may be said to tolerate minorities when it confines their participation to certain aspects of society, but not accept them.


title: Acceptance

text: The book "Alcoholics Anonymous" describes the importance of acceptance in the treatment of alcoholism. It states that acceptance can be used to resolve situations where a person feels disturbed by a "person, place, thing or situation – some fact of [their] life – [which is] unacceptable to [them]". It claims that an alcoholic person cannot find serenity until they accept that "nothing happens in God's world by mistake" and that the condition of alcoholism must be accepted as a given.


title: Acceptance

text: Self-acceptance is being satisfied with one's current self. It is an agreement with oneself to appreciate, validate, and support the self as it is, despite deficiencies and negative past behavior. People have trouble accepting themselves because of guilt, trauma, or a perceived lack of motivation. Some people have the misconception that if one is happy with themselves, it always means that they would not change anything about who they are. Individuals do not have to be unhappy with themselves to know and can actively change things they don't like. To accept yourself means to no longer reject yourself. Being rejected is bad for your health. Protracted feelings of isolation, loneliness, and rejection tend to coincide with deteriorations in physical health, which can be derived from a lack of eating or exercise. It may result in worsened sleep, immune system, and lessened life span compared to those who are surrounded by others who care about them. Loneliness has been a source of chronic stress and associated with impaired cellular immunity.


title: Acceptance

text: Social acceptance affects people of all social and age groups. Social acceptance can be defined as tolerating and welcoming the differences and diversity in others because most people attempt to look and act like others do in order to fit in. Data has shown that those with high self-acceptance scores tend to accept others and feel accepted by others.


title: Acceptance

text: Children and teenagers tend to desire to be accepted among friends as part of that group, and act upon that desire through peer pressure. Peer pressure sometimes determines how people style their hair and clothing to "look cool". A desire to be accepted by those whose friendship one values can determine their openness towards popular behavior smoking, drinking, swearing, and more. People exhibit and avoid certain behaviors out of the desire for the approval of their friends, which may include drinking or taking drugs.


title: Acceptance

text: When it comes to mental disorders, social acceptance plays a big role in recovery. Many people don't understand mental illness, so they are unsure of how to embrace people who have a disease, leaving these people with feelings of isolation in friend groups. Being accepted by a friend and having support can help with mental health and give a healthy sense of self.


title: Acceptance

text: A type of acceptance that requires modification of the initial conditions before the final acceptance is made, is called conditional acceptance, or qualified acceptance. For example, a contract that needs to be accepted from two parties may be adjusted or modified so that it fits both parties' satisfactions. A person has been made an offer that they are willing to agree on as long as some changes are made in its terms or that some conditions or event occurs gives conditional acceptance. In a contract that is made from a business to the employer, both parties may change and modify the contract until both parties agree or accept the details in the business contract.


title: Acceptance

text: Expressed acceptance involves making an overt and unambiguous acceptance of the set conditions. For example, a person clearly and explicitly agrees to an offer. They accept the terms without any changes.


title: Acceptance

text: Implied acceptance has one's intent to consent to the presented conditions made. Acceptance is implied by demonstrating any act indicating a person's assent to the proposed bargain. If a person selects an item in a department store and pays the cashier for it, the person thereby indicates that they agree to the offer of the item for the price stated on the price tag.


title: Acceptance

text: Acceptance is fundamental to the core beliefs of most Abrahamic religions: the word "Islam" can be translated as "acceptance", "surrender" or "voluntary submission", and Christianity is based upon the "acceptance" of Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ and acceptance of God's will. Religions and psychological treatments often suggest a path of acceptance when a situation is both disliked and fated, or when change may be possible only at great cost or risk. Acceptance may imply only a lack of outward, behavioral attempts at possible change, but the word is also used more specifically for a felt or hypothesized cognitive or emotional state.


title: Acceptance

text: Within Christian beliefs, acceptance is characterized as embracing the reality of a situation based on one's trust in God's perfect will and control. In the Muslim community, acceptance of Allah is similar to people that are considered Christian and how they accept God as their higher being (Bates, 2002). Jewish people accept the Commandments as a way to live and have a good and fulfilling life (McDowell and Stewart, 1983).


title: Acceptance

text: Beliefs and acceptance overlap in meaning. Belief is taking something as true or it to be the way it is. The acceptance of one's beliefs is important to show commitment and structure of one's life. Not only is it vital for survival, but it is used in everyday relationships. Being accepted by a friend has shown to positively affect an individual's self-esteem, well-being, and emotional outlook. Without acceptance, it could lead to a host of psychological issues. The inclusion of ATMs has increased acceptance to 1.4 million acceptance points in Germany in 2020.


title: Polarizability

text: Polarizability usually refers to the tendency of matter, when subjected to an electric field, to acquire an electric dipole moment in proportion to that applied field. It is a property of all matter, considering that matter is made up of elementary particles which have an electric charge, namely protons and electrons. When subject to an electric field, the negatively charged electrons and positively charged atomic nuclei are subject to opposite forces and undergo charge separation. Polarizability is responsible for a material's dielectric constant and, at high (optical) frequencies, its refractive index.


title: Polarizability

text: The polarizability of an atom or molecule is defined as the ratio of its induced dipole moment to the local electric field; in a crystalline solid, one considers the dipole moment per unit cell. Note that the local electric field seen by a molecule is generally different from the macroscopic electric field that would be measured externally. This discrepancy is taken into account by the Clausius–Mossotti relation (below) which connects the bulk behaviour (polarization density due to an external electric field according to the electric susceptibility formula_1 with the molecular polarizability formula_2 due to the local field.


title: Polarizability

text: Magnetic polarizability likewise refers to the tendency for a magnetic dipole moment to appear in proportion to an external magnetic field. Electric and magnetic polarizabilities determine the dynamical response of a bound system (such as a molecule or crystal) to external fields, and provide insight into a molecule's internal structure. "Polarizability" should "not" be confused with the intrinsic magnetic or electric dipole moment of an atom, molecule, or bulk substance; these do not depend on the presence of an external field.


title: Polarizability

text: Electric polarizability is the relative tendency of a charge distribution, like the electron cloud of an atom or molecule, to be distorted from its normal shape by an external electric field.


title: Polarizability

text: The polarizability formula_2 in isotropic media is defined as the ratio of the induced dipole moment formula_4 of an atom to the electric field formula_5 that produces this dipole moment.


title: Polarizability

text: Polarizability has the SI units of C·m·V = A·s·kg while its cgs unit is cm. Usually it is expressed in cgs units as a so-called polarizability volume, sometimes expressed in Å = 10 cm. One can convert from SI units (formula_2) to cgs units (formula_8) as follows:


title: Polarizability

text: where formula_11, the vacuum permittivity, is ~8.854 × 10 (F/m). If the polarizability volume in cgs units is denoted formula_8 the relation can be expressed generally (in SI) as formula_13.


title: Polarizability

text: The polarizability of individual particles is related to the average electric susceptibility of the medium by the Clausius–Mossotti relation:


title: Polarizability

text: where "R" = molar refractivity , formula_15 = Avogadro constant, formula_16 = electronic polarizability, "p" = density of molecules, "M" = molar mass, and formula_17 is the material's relative permittivity or dielectric constant (or in optics, the square of the refractive index).


title: Polarizability

text: Polarizability for anisotropic or non-spherical media cannot in general be represented as a scalar quantity. Defining formula_2 as a scalar implies both that applied electric fields can only induce polarization components parallel to the field and that the formula_19 and formula_20 directions respond in the same way to the applied electric field. For example, an electric field in the formula_21-direction can only produce an formula_21 component in formula_4 and if that same electric field were applied in the formula_24-direction the induced polarization would be the same in magnitude but appear in the formula_24 component of formula_4. Many crystalline materials have directions that are easier to polarize than others and some even become polarized in directions perpendicular to the applied electric field, and the same thing happens with non-spherical bodies. Some molecules and materials with this sort of anisotropy are optically active, or exhibit linear birefringence of light.


title: Polarizability

text: To describe anisotropic media a polarizability rank two tensor or formula_27 matrix formula_2 is defined,


title: Polarizability

text: The elements describing the response parallel to the applied electric field are those along the diagonal. A large value of formula_31 here means that an electric-field applied in the formula_21-direction would strongly polarize the material in the formula_24-direction. Explicit expressions for formula_2 have been given for homogeneous anisotropic ellipsoidal bodies.


title: Polarizability

text: The matrix above can be used with the molar refractivity equation and other data to produce density data for crystallography. Each polarizability measurement along with the refractive index associated with its direction will yield a direction specific density that can be used to develop an accurate three dimensional assessment of molecular stacking in the crystal. This relationship was first observed by Linus Pauling.


title: Polarizability

text: Generally, polarizability increases as the volume occupied by electrons increases. In atoms, this occurs because larger atoms have more loosely held electrons in contrast to smaller atoms with tightly bound electrons. On rows of the periodic table, polarizability therefore decreases from left to right. Polarizability increases down on columns of the periodic table. Likewise, larger molecules are generally more polarizable than smaller ones.


title: Polarizability

text: Water is a very polar molecule, but alkanes and other hydrophobic molecules are more polarizable. Water with its permanent dipole is less likely to change shape due to an external electric field. Alkanes are the most polarizable molecules. Although alkenes and arenes are expected to have larger polarizability than alkanes because of their higher reactivity compared to alkanes, alkanes are in fact more polarizable. This results because of alkene's and arene's more electronegative sp carbons to the alkane's less electronegative sp carbons.


title: Polarizability

text: Ground state electron configuration models are often inadequate in studying the polarizability of bonds because dramatic changes in molecular structure occur in a reaction.


title: Polarizability

text: Magnetic polarizability defined by spin interactions of nucleons is an important parameter of deuterons and hadrons. In particular, measurement of tensor polarizabilities of nucleons yields important information about spin-dependent nuclear forces.


title: Polarizability

text: The method of spin amplitudes uses quantum mechanics formalism to more easily describe spin dynamics. Vector and tensor polarization of particle/nuclei with spin are specified by the unit polarization vector formula_4 and the polarization tensor "P". Additional tensors composed of products of three or more spin matrices are needed only for the exhaustive description of polarization of particles/nuclei with spin .


title: Post-truth politics

text: Post-truth politics (also called post-factual politics and post-reality politics) is a political culture where true/false, honesty/lying have become a focal concern of public life and are viewed by popular commentators and academic researchers alike as having an important causal role in how politics operates at a particular point in history (especially influenced by new communication and media technologies). Oxford Dictionaries declared that its international word of the year in 2016 was "Post-truth", citing a 20-fold increase in usage compared to 2015 and noted that it was commonly associated with the noun "post-truth politics." Popularized as a term in news media, and a dictionary definition, post-truth has developed from a short-hand label for the abundance and influence of misleading or false political truth claims into a concept empirically studied and theorized by academic research.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Since post-truth politics are primarily known through public truth statements in specific media contexts (commentary on major broadcasting networks, podcasts, YouTube videos, and other social media), it is especially studied as a media and communication studies phenomenon with particular forms of truth-telling: intentional rumors, lying, conspiracy theories, and fake news (subsequently gaining philosophers' attention). Post-truth politics' historical nature has also been discussed with regard to more traditional areas of communication and journalism studies such as propaganda.


title: Post-truth politics

text: , political commentators and academic researchers have identified post-truth politics as ascendant in many nations, notably Australia, Brazil, China, India, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, among others.


title: Post-truth politics

text: The term post-truth politics appears to have developed from other adjectival uses of "post-truth," such as "post-truth political environment," "post-truth world," "post-truth era," "post-truth society," and very close cousins, such as "post-fact society" and "post-truth presidency." According to Oxford Dictionaries, the Serbian-American playwright Steve Tesich may have been the first to use the term "post-truth" in a 1992 essay in "The Nation". Tesich writes that following the shameful truth of Watergate (1972–1974), more assuaging coverage of the Iran–Contra scandal (1985–1987) and Persian Gulf War (1990–1991) demonstrates that "we, as a free people, have freely decided that we want to live in some post-truth world." However, as Harsin (2018) notes, the term was in academic circulation in the 1990s. The media studies scholar John Hartley used the term "post-truth as the title of a chapter, "Journalism in a Post-truth Society," in his 1992 book "The Politics of Pictures".


title: Post-truth politics

text: In 2004 Ralph Keyes used the term "post-truth era" in his book by that title. In it he argued that deception is becoming more prevalent in the current media-driven world. According to Keyes, lies stopped being treated as something inexcusable and started being viewed as something acceptable in certain situations, which supposedly led to the beginning of the post-truth era. The same year American journalist Eric Alterman spoke of a "post-truth political environment" and coined the term "the post-truth presidency" in his analysis of the misleading statements made by the Bush administration after 9/11 in 2001. In his 2004 book "Post-democracy", Colin Crouch used the phrase "post-democracy" to mean a model of politics where "elections certainly exist and can change governments," but "public electoral debate is a tightly controlled spectacle, managed by rival teams of professionals expert in the techniques of persuasion, and considering a small range of issues selected by those teams". Crouch directly attributes the "advertising industry model" of political communication to the crisis of trust and accusations of dishonesty that a few years later others have associated with post-truth politics. More recently, scholars have followed Crouch in demonstrating the role of professional political communication's contribution to distrust and wrong beliefs, where strategic use of emotion is becoming key to gaining truth for truth statements.


title: Post-truth politics

text: The term "post-truth politics" may have originally been coined by the blogger David Roberts in a blog post for "Grist" on 1 April 2010. Roberts defined it as "a political culture in which politics (public opinion and media narratives) have become almost entirely disconnected from policy (the substance of legislation)". Post truth was used by philosopher Joseph Heath to describe the 2014 Ontario election. The term became widespread during the campaigns for the 2016 presidential election in the United States and for the 2016 "Brexit" referendum on membership in the European Union in the United Kingdom.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Information disorder has been proposed as an umbrella term for the wide variety of poor or false information being used for political purposes in post-truth politics.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Scholars and popular commentators disagree about whether post-truth is a label that is newly generated but can be applied to phenomena such as lying in any historical period; or whether it is historically specific, with empirically more recent observable causes (especially new social and political relations enabled by new digital communication technologies) and is only simplistically reduced to the age-old phenomenon of political lying. Scholars and popular commentators also disagree about the degree to which emotion should be emphasized in theories of post-truth, despite the emphasis on emotion in the "Oxford Dictionary"'s original definition of the word. While the term "post-truth" had no dictionary entry before "Oxford Dictionaries"' entry in 2016, the Oxford entry was inspired by the outcomes of the Brexit referendum and the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign; it was thus already implicitly referring to politics. Further, in the original "Oxford Dictionaries"' entry's (even today, more of a press release than traditional dictionary entry) justification for their choice, they say that it is often used in noun form of "post-truth politics." Thus, post-truth is often used interchangeably with post-truth politics.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Post-truth politics is a subset of the broader term "post-truth", whose use precedes the recent focus on political events. While "Oxford Dictionaries" influentially named post-truth its 2016 word-of-the-year, current academic development of post-truth as a concept does not entirely reflect their original emphasis on "circumstances" where appeals to "objective facts" fail to influence as much as "appeals to emotion and personal belief" (see "Drivers" section below). The use of post-truth communication as a major tool in political campaigns such as the Brexit debate in the UK and the Trump campaign in the United States resulted in intense scholarly and journalistic interest in it as an aspect of politics. The existence of "post-truth politics" as a concept that makes sense and is a problem in the political life of liberal democracies is sometimes denied by critics.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Some uses of the concept are more general, referring not to historical conditions of widely empirically documented distrust or a context of promotional capitalism, easily accessible and hard-to-control amateur mass communication of social media, but to the presence of lying and distrust in politics and bias in journalism (and commentators' opinions that people of the day were distrustful or that political lying was common). Reducing the concept of post-truth to dishonest political communication and different styles thereof, some scholars argue that what one identifies as post-truth politics today is really a return of previous periods of politics. Jennifer Hochschild, H.L. Jayne Professor of Government at Harvard University, has described the rise of post-truth as a return to 18th- and 19th-century political and media practices in the United States, followed by a period in the 20th century where the media was relatively balanced and rhetoric was toned down. Such a view nonetheless also conflicts with those in other countries at other times. For example, in 1957 scientist Kathleen Lonsdale remarked in the British context that "for many people truthfulness in politics has now become a mockery... Anyone who listens to the radio in a mixed company of thinking people knows how deep-seated is this cynicism." Similarly, "New Scientist" characterised the pamphlet wars that arose with the growth of printing and literacy, beginning in the 1600s, as an early form of post-truth politics. Slanderous and vitriolic pamphlets were cheaply printed and widely disseminated, and the dissent that they fomented contributed to starting wars and revolutions such as the English Civil War (1642–1651) and (much later) the American Revolution (1765–1783).


title: Post-truth politics

text: Communication and media scholars and philosophers tend to view the definition, origins, and causes of post-truth slightly differently. Media and communication scholars emphasize the historical revolution in communication technologies, which has fundamentally altered social life, including our ways of knowing socially (social epistemology), our authorities, and trust in institutions. Some also do not see post-truth as primarily a problem of knowledge, but rather of confusion, disorientation, and distrust. Philosophers tend to cite media and communications changes but claim that philosophical and cultural movements themselves, such as postmodernism, have influenced society, resulting in a situation where feeling and belief create an epistemic crisis for politics.


title: Post-truth politics

text: The "circumstances" surrounding post-truth (politics) noted by the original "Oxford Dictionaries"' definition have been expanded to denote a historical period, defined by the convergence of numerous empirically documented shifts. As opposed to early commentators who described it as a long-standing part of political life that was less notable before the advent of the Internet and related social changes, several scholars point to a host of empirical changes that are contemporary and are the core of the concept. For these scholars, post-truth differs from traditional contesting and falsifying of facts in public life by pointing to a cultural and historical convergence of several developments:


title: Post-truth politics

text: In 2015 media and politics scholar Jayson Harsin coined the term "regime of post-truth" which encompasses many aspects of post-truth politics. He argues that a convergent set of historical developments have created the conditions of post-truth society and its politics: the political communication informed by cognitive science, which aims at managing perception and belief of segmented populations through techniques like microtargeting, which includes the strategic use of rumors and falsehoods; the fragmentation of modern, more centralized mass news media gatekeepers, which have largely repeated one another's scoops and their reports; the attention economy marked by information overload and acceleration, user-generated content and fewer society-wide common trusted authorities to distinguish between truth and lies, accurate and inaccurate; the algorithms which govern what appears in social media and search engine rankings, based on what users want (per algorithm) and not on what is factual; and news media which have been marred by scandals of plagiarism, hoaxes, propaganda, and changing news values. These developments have occurred on the background of economic crises, downsizing and favoring trends toward more traditional tabloid stories and styles of reporting, known as tabloidization and infotainment. In this view, post-truth cannot be understood without regard for the revolution in communication technologies and social life, their effects on cognition (the way people are disposed to think online), in a backdrop of social acceleration. In terms of entertainment, scholars such as Corner and Pels (2003) and Harsin (2018, 2021) argue that citizens' orientations towards politics are dispositions formed first as audiences in relation to entertainment forms such as reality television, which can be shown to be transposable to their evaluation of political communication.


title: Post-truth politics

text: While some of these phenomena (such as a more tabloidesque press) may suggest a return to the past, the effect of the convergences is a socio-political phenomenon which exceeds earlier forms of journalism in deliberate distortion and struggle. Fact-checking and rumor-busting sites abound, but they are unable to reunite a fragmented set of audiences (attention-wise) and their respective trustful-/distrustfulness. Harsin has called it a "regime of post-truth" instead of merely post-truth politics, with professional pan-partisan political communication manipulating the communication competitively in a context where institutions and discourses (such as science and news media) were interdependent on one another to stabilize the public circulation of truth. Cosentino (2019) expands the concept of regime of post-truth to a geo-political level, analyzing political communication cases in the non-Western as well as Western world.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Other scholars, such as the philosopher Lee McIntryre (2018), who focuses on "post-truth" generally but makes reference to politics, argue that rising social distrust of scientific expertise and postmodern academic discourse, allegedly promoting a devaluing of or disregard for truth, have combined with cognitive biases to produce conditions where feeling triumphs over facts. While several of these scholars cite distrust as an agent of post-truth social and political effects, the origin of the distrust is less clear. McIntyre sees public relations efforts to undermine scientific truths, on, for example, the effects of tobacco, as important factors (in addition to the alleged influence of academic postmodernism on conservative politics, though this link is not empirically established). As another specific example of corporate interests undermining truths for which there exists scientific consensus, McIntyre cites previous donations of BP to organizations which deny climate change. However, public relations is just one part of a larger culture of promotionalism (consumer capitalism), where truth has long been the last concern in strategies to influence people to feel positively or negatively towards brands as businesses, countries, products, parties, and politicians. Furthermore, the scandals in journalism around plagiarism and "cheerleading" for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, combine with promotional culture, ethically questionable professional strategic political communication, potential viral mediascapes, algorithmically customized presentation of information, among other factors to reproduce various forms of specific and generalized distrust—trust being crucial for recognition of legitimate public truth-tellers.


title: Post-truth politics

text: While many popular treatments of post-truth (sometimes used interchangeably with fake news) claim or imply a growth in political lying, Kalpokas (2018), Harsin (2015, 2017, 2018, 2021), and Cosentino (2019) see lying as only one feature of post-truth (which cannot historically distinguish it as new), instead focusing on problems of distinguishing true and false (common authorities for inducing belief being scarcer), or on disorientation, confusion, misperception, and distraction. The appeals to scientific expertise (though minority views in their fields), as with anti-vaccine supporters, demonstrates that across the board, people do in fact respect scientific experts, or the idea thereof. But science and expertise have been politicized, making it harder for the unknowing to identify legitimate authorities (all of whom may hold advanced degrees). Furthermore, it may not be so much that post-truth is manifest trust in one's emotions before truth claims as one's identification of emotional truth-tellers as authentic, honest, and therefore trustworthy.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Misinformation is inadvertently false or misleading information used in political discourse. The term is also used as an umbrella term for any type of misinformation, disinformation, or fake news.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Fake news is "fabricated information that mimics news media content in form but not in organizational process or intent."


title: Post-truth politics

text: Conspiracy theories are elaborate packages of interconnected assertions with respect to powerful conspirators which are typically characterized by improbability; however, actual political conspiracies such as the Watergate breakin and coverup do exist.


title: Post-truth politics

text: There are two aspects of vulnerability to misinformation: gullibility with respect to poorer information, and distrust and skepticism with respect to better information that might correct it.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Political operatives in the post-truth space may fabricate controversies for economic or political advantage or, as in gaslighting, to disorient and confuse the public.


title: Post-truth politics

text: In modern professionalization of political communication (tied to marketing and advertising research), a defining trait of post-truth politics is that campaigners continue to repeat their talking points, even when media outlets, experts in the field in question, and others provide proof that contradicts these talking points. For example, during campaigning for the British EU referendum campaign, Vote Leave made repeated use of the claim that EU membership cost £350 million a week, although later began to use the figure as a net amount of money sent directly to the EU. This figure, which ignored the UK rebate and other factors, was described as "potentially misleading" by the UK Statistics Authority, as "not sensible" by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and was rejected in fact checks by BBC News, Channel 4 News and Full Fact. Vote Leave nevertheless continued to use the figure as a centrepiece of their campaign until the day of the referendum, after which point they downplayed the pledge as having been an "example", pointing out that it was only ever suggested as a possible alternative use of the net funds sent to the EU. Tory MP and Leave campaigner Sarah Wollaston, who left the group in protest during its campaign, criticised its "post-truth politics". The justice secretary Michael Gove controversially claimed in an interview that the British people "Had had enough of experts".


title: Post-truth politics

text: Michael Deacon, parliamentary sketchwriter for "The Daily Telegraph", summarised the core message of post-truth politics as "Facts are negative. Facts are pessimistic. Facts are unpatriotic." He added that post-truth politics can also include a claimed rejection of partisanship and negative campaigning. In this context, campaigners can push a utopian "positive campaign" to which rebuttals can be dismissed as smears and scaremongering and opposition as partisan.


title: Post-truth politics

text: In its most extreme mode, post-truth politics can make use of conspiracism. In this form of post-truth politics, false rumors (such as the "birther" or "Muslim" conspiracy theories about Barack Obama) become major news topics. In the case of the "pizzagate" conspiracy, this resulted in a man entering the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria and firing an AR-15 rifle.


title: Post-truth politics

text: In contrast to simply telling untruths, writers such as Jack Holmes of "Esquire" describe the process as something different, with Holmes putting it as: "So, if you don't know what's true, you can say whatever you want and it's not a lie". Finally, scholars have argued that post-truth is not simply about clear cut true/false statements and people's failure to distinguish between them but about strategically ambiguous statements that may be true in some ways, from some perspectives and interpretations, and false in others. This was the case around the disinformation campaigns of the UK and US in promoting the US invasion of Iraq (Saddam Hussein/Al Qaeda "ties" or "links" and Weapons of Mass Destruction), which have been described as watershed moments of the post-truth era.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Several trends in the media landscape have been blamed for the perceived rise of post-truth politics. One contributing factor has been the proliferation of state-funded news agencies like CCTV News and RT, and Voice of America in the USA which allow states to influence Western audiences. According to Peter Pomerantsev, a British-Russian journalist who worked for TNT in Moscow, one of their prime objectives has been to de-legitimize Western institutions, including the structures of government, democracy, and human rights.


title: Post-truth politics

text: It has been suggested that under these conditions, fact checking by news outlets struggles to gain traction among the wider public and that politicians resort to increasingly drastic messaging.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Many news outlets desire to appear to be, or have a policy of being, impartial. Many writers have noted that in some cases, this leads to false balance, the practice of giving equal emphasis to unsupported or discredited claims without challenging their factual basis. The 24-hour news cycle also means that news channels repeatedly draw on the same public figures, which benefits PR-savvy politicians and means that presentation and personality can have a larger impact on the audience than facts, while the process of claim and counter-claim can provide grist for days of news coverage at the expense of deeper analysis of the case.


title: Post-truth politics

text: General availability of vast amounts of information on the internet bypassed established media that were generally reliable due to editorial process and professional journalistic and academic discipline which acted as gatekeepers which filtered out misinformation. Now misinformation that might have been filtered out is often published in popular globally accessible forums which enter the marketplace of ideas liberal democracies depend on for informing their electorate.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Social media adds an additional dimension, as user networks can become echo chambers possibly emphasised by the filter bubble where one political viewpoint dominates and scrutiny of claims fails, allowing a parallel media ecosystem of websites, publishers and news channels to develop, which can repeat post-truth claims without rebuttal.


title: Post-truth politics

text: In this environment, post-truth campaigns can ignore fact checks or dismiss them as being motivated by bias. "The Guardian" editor-in-chief Katherine Viner laid some of the blame on the rise of clickbait, articles of dubious factual content with a misleading headline and which are designed to be widely shared, saying that "chasing down cheap clicks at the expense of accuracy and veracity" undermines the value of journalism and truth. In 2016, David Mikkelson, co-founder of the fact checking and debunking site "Snopes.com", described the introduction of social media and fake news sites as a turning point, saying "I’m not sure I’d call it a post-truth age but … there’s been an opening of the sluice-gate and everything is pouring through. The bilge keeps coming faster than you can pump."


title: Post-truth politics

text: The digital culture allows anybody with a computer and access to the internet to post their opinions online and mark them as fact which may become legitimized through echo-chambers and other users validating one another. Content may be judged based on how many views a post gets, creating an atmosphere that appeals to emotion, audience biases, or headline appeal instead of researched fact. Content which gets more views is continually , regardless of its legitimacy. Some also argue that the abundance of fact available at any time on the internet leads to an attitude focused on knowing basic claims to information instead of an underlying truth or formulating carefully thought-out opinions. The internet allows people to choose where they get their information, allowing them to reinforce their own opinions.


title: Post-truth politics

text: In 2017, a rise in national protests sparked against the 2016 United States presidential election and the victory of Donald Trump attributed to the fake news stories posted and shared by millions of users on Facebook. Following this incident, the spread of misinformation was given the word "post-truth," a term coined from Oxford Dictionaries as the "word of the year."


title: Post-truth politics

text: The rise of post-truth politics coincides with polarized political beliefs. A Pew Research Center study of American adults found that "those with the most consistent ideological views on the left and right have information streams that are distinct from those of individuals with more mixed political views—and very distinct from each other". Data is becoming increasingly accessible as new technologies are introduced to the everyday lives of citizens. An obsession for data and statistics also filters into the political scene, and political debates and speeches become filled with snippets of information that may be misconstrued, false, or not contain the whole picture. Sensationalized television news emphasizes grand statements and further publicizes politicians. This shaping from the media influences how the public views political issues and candidates.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Post-truth politics has its origins in the reaction of sectors of the public to widespread adoption of neoliberalism and other proposed global solutions to problems such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic by global economic and political elites.


title: Post-truth politics

text: In "Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters", a book by Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp, two Australian scholars, the establishment neoliberal narrative and major reactions to it such as the "left-wing populist narrative," the "corporate power narrative," the "right-wing populist narrative," the "geoeconomic narrative" and a number of "global threats narratives" are compared and contrasted.


title: Post-truth politics

text: The establishment narrative supported by consensus of democratic political parties and institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) is based on international negotiation of agreements allowing the economic principles of competition and comparative advantage to operate, maximizing gross domestic product (GDP) in each country. The principles employed are well established and work, producing expanded global economic production, but also result in gains for some sectors of the international economy and losses for others.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Unlike some academic treatments of post-truth that see it as historically specific and closely associated with shifts in journalism, social trust, and new media and communication technologies, several popular commentators (pundits and journalists), equating post-truth with lying or sensational news, have proposed that post-truth is an imprecise or misleading term and/or should be abandoned. In an editorial, "New Scientist" suggested "a cynic might wonder if politicians are actually any more dishonest than they used to be", and hypothesized that "fibs once whispered into select ears are now overheard by everyone". David Helfand argues, following Edward M. Harris, that "public prevarication is nothing new" and that it is the "knowledge of the audience" and the "limits of plausibility" within a technology-saturated environment that have changed. We are, rather, in an age of misinformation where such limits of plausibility have vanished and where everyone feels equally qualified to make claims that are easily shared and propagated.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Toby Young, writing for "The Spectator", called the term a "cliché" used selectively primarily by left-wing commentators to attack what are actually universal ideological biases, contending that "[w]e are all post-truthers and probably always have been". "The Economist" has called this argument "complacent", however, identifying a qualitative difference between political scandals of previous generations, such as those surrounding the Suez Crisis and the Iran–Contra affair (which involved attempting to cover-up the truth) and contemporary ones in which public facts are simply ignored. Similarly, Alexios Mantzarlis of the Poynter Institute said that political lies were not new and identified several political campaigns in history which would now be described as "post-truth". For Mantzarlis, the "post-truth" label was—to some extent—a "coping mechanism for commentators reacting to attacks on not just any facts, but on those central to their belief system", but also noted that 2016 had been "an acrimonious year for politics on both sides of the Atlantic". Mantzarlis also noted that interest in fact checking had never been higher, suggesting that at least some reject "post-truth" politics.


title: Post-truth politics

text: In addition, "The Guardian"'s Kathryn Viner notes that while false news and propaganda are rampant, social media is a double-edged sword. While it has helped some untruths to spread, it has also restrained others; as an example, she said "The Sun"s false "The Truth" story following the Hillsborough disaster, and the associated police cover-up, would be hard to imagine in the social media age.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Post-truth politics has been applied as a political buzzword to a wide range of political cultures; one article in "The Economist" identified post-truth politics in Austria, Germany, North Korea, Poland, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.


title: Post-truth politics

text: In December 2016 "" (post-factual) was named word of the year by the "Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache" ("German language society"), also in connection with a rise of right-wing populism from 2015 on. Since the 1990s, "post-democracy" was used in sociology more and more.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Amulya Gopalakrishnan, columnist for "The Times of India", identified similarities between the Trump and Brexit campaigns on the one hand, and hot-button issues in India such as the Ishrat Jahan case and the ongoing case against Teesta Setalvad on the other, where accusations of forged evidence and historical revisionism have resulted in an "ideological impasse".


title: Post-truth politics

text: Post-truth politics have been discussed in Indonesia since at least 2016. In September 2016, the incumbent governor of Jakarta Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, during a speech to citizens of Thousand Islands, said that some citizens were being "deceived using Verse 51 of Al Maidah and other things," referring to a verse of the Quran used by his political opponents. The video was later edited to omit a single word, misrepresenting his statement and instigating a political scandal that resulted in a blasphemy charge and two-year imprisonment. Since this event, post-truth politics have played a more significant role in political campaigns, as well as interactions between Indonesian voters. Yoseph Wihartono, researcher in crimonology at the University of Indonesia, identified social media outlets and "internet mobbing" as sources of post-truth dynamics that have potentially "opened wide" the opportunity for religious populism to expand.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Health care and education in South Africa was substantially compromised during the presidency of Thabo Mbeki due to his HIV/AIDS denialism.


title: Post-truth politics

text: An early use of the phrase in British politics was in March 2012 by Scottish Labour MSP Iain Gray in criticising the difference between Scottish National Party's claims and official statistics. Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy also described an undercurrent of post-truth politics in which people "cheerfully shot the messenger" when presented with facts that didn't support their viewpoint, seeing it among pro-independence campaigners in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, and Leave campaigners in the then-upcoming EU membership referendum.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Post-truth politics has been retroactively identified in the lead-up to the Iraq War, particularly after the Chilcot Report, published in July 2016, concluded that Tony Blair misrepresented military intelligence to support his view that Iraq's chemical weapons program was advanced.


title: Post-truth politics

text: The phrase became widely used during the 2016 UK EU membership referendum to describe the Leave campaign. Faisal Islam, political editor for Sky News, said that Michael Gove used "post-fact politics" that were imported from the Trump campaign; in particular, Gove's comment in an interview that "I think people in this country have had enough of experts..." was singled out as illustrative of a post-truth trend, although this is only part of a longer statement. Similarly, Arron Banks, the founder of the unofficial Leave.EU campaign, said that "facts don't work ... You've got to connect with people emotionally. It's the Trump success." Andrea Leadsom—a prominent campaigner for Leave in the EU referendum and one of the two final candidates in the Conservative leadership election—has been singled out as a post-truth politician, especially after she denied having disparaged rival Theresa May's childlessness in an interview with "The Times" in spite of transcript evidence.


title: Post-truth politics

text: In conjunction with the rise of new media and communication technologies (especially the Internet and blogging) and the professionalization of political communication (political consulting), scholars have viewed the periods following 9/11 and the George W. Bush administration's strategic communication as a seminal moment in the emergence of what has subsequently been called post-truth politics, before the term and concept exploded in public visibility in 2016. The Bush administration's talking points about "links" or "ties" between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda (repeated in parallel by the Tony Blair government), and Hussein's alleged possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction (both highly contested by experts at the time or later disproven and shown to be misleading) were viewed by some scholars as part of a historical shift. Despite age-old precedents of political and government lying (such as the systematic lying by the U.S. government documented in The Pentagon Papers), these propaganda efforts were seen as more sophisticated in their organization and execution in a new media age, part of a complicated new public communication culture (between a wide number of cable and satellite TV, online, and legacy news media sources). In the U.S., the distrust and deception identified with strategic communication of Karl Rove, George W. Bush, and Donald Rumsfeld, among others, were a close historical precedent to controversies around truth (as accuracy and/or honesty) that entered the media agenda of U.S. public life, drawing significant news and new media attention and producing measurable confusion and false belief. The most spectacular examples studied by scholars include the presidential candidacy of John Kerry in 2004 (accusations by the Republican consultant-directed "Swift boat Veterans for Truth" that he lied about his war record) and then, several years later (prior to the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign), that then candidate Barack Obama was a Muslim, despite his declaration that he was Christian, and was using a fake birth certificate (allegedly born in Kenya).


title: Post-truth politics

text: In its original formulation, the phrase "post-truth politics" was used to describe the paradoxical situation in the United States where the Republican Party, which enforced stricter party discipline than the Democratic Party, was nevertheless able to present itself as more bipartisan, since individual Democrats were more likely to support Republican policies than vice versa. The term was used by Paul Krugman in "The New York Times" to describe Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign in which certain claims—such as that Barack Obama had cut defense spending and that he had embarked on an "apology tour"—continued to be repeated long after they had been debunked. Other forms of scientific denialism in modern US politics include the anti-vaxxer movement, and the belief that existing genetically modified foods are harmful despite a strong scientific consensus that no currently marketed GMO foods have any negative health effects. The health freedom movement in the US resulted in the passage of the bipartisan Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, which allows the sale of dietary supplements without any evidence that they are safe or effective for the purposes consumers expect, though the FDA has begun regulation of homeopathic products.


title: Post-truth politics

text: In a review for the "Harvard Gazette", Christopher Robichaud—a lecturer in ethics and public policy at Harvard Kennedy School—described conspiracy theories about the legitimacy of elections and politicians, such as the "birther" idea that Barack Obama is not a natural-born US citizen, as one side-effect of post-truth politics. Robichaud also contrasted the behavior of the candidates with that following the contested result of the 2000 election, in which Al Gore conceded and encouraged his supporters to accept the result of "Bush v. Gore". Similarly, Rob Boston, writing for "The Humanist" saw a rise in conspiracy theories across US public life, including Birtherism, climate change denialism, and rejecting evolution, which he identified as a result of post-truth politics, noting that the existence of extensive and widely available evidence against these conspiracy theories had not slowed their growth.


title: Post-truth politics

text: In 2016, the "post-truth" label was especially widely used to describe the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, including by Professor Daniel W. Drezner in "The Washington Post", Jonathan Freedland in "The Guardian", Chris Cillizza in "The Independent", Jeet Heer in "The New Republic", and James Kirchick in the "Los Angeles Times", and by several professors of government and history at Harvard. In 2017, "The New York Times", "The Washington Post", and others, have pointed out lies or falsehoods in Trump's statements after the election. Former president Barack Obama stated that the new media ecosystem "means everything is true and nothing is true".


title: Post-truth politics

text: Newt Gingrich, a prominent American politician and Trump supporter, in an interview with CNN reporter Alisyn Camerota aired July 22, 2016, explained that facts based on the feelings of the electorate were more important in a political campaign than the statistics collected by a reliable government agency are:


title: Post-truth politics

text: Supporters of those who are publishing or asserting things that are not true do not necessarily believe them, but have accepted that that is how the game is played.


title: Post-truth politics

text: Although the consensus among scientists is that human activities contribute to global warming, several political parties around the world have made climate change denial a basis of their policies. These parties have been accused of using post-truth techniques to attack environmental measures meant to combat climate changes to benefit industry donors. During the course of the 2016 election, the United States has seen numerous climate change deniers rise to power, such as new Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt replacing Barack Obama's appointee Gina McCarthy. In Australia, the repeal of carbon pricing by the government of Tony Abbott was described as "the nadir of post-truth politics" by "The Age".


title: Post-truth politics

text: Both technology companies and governments have started to make efforts to tackle the challenge of "post-truth politics". In an article for the journal "Global Policy", professor Nayef Al-Rodhan suggested four particular responses:


title: Post-truth politics

text: In her 2019 book, "Democracy and Truth: A Short History", American historian Sophia A. Rosenfeld recommends the following as potential solutions for dealing with "post-truth politics":


title: Taleggio cheese

text: Taleggio () ("Talegg" in Lombard language) is a semisoft, washed-rind, smear-ripened Italian cheese that is named after Val Taleggio. The cheese has a thin crust and a strong aroma, but its flavour is comparatively mild with an unusual fruity tang.


title: Taleggio cheese

text: Taleggio and similar cheeses have been around since Roman times, with Cicero, Cato the Elder, and Pliny the Elder all mentioning it in their writings. The cheese was solely produced in the Val Taleggio until the late 1800s, when some production moved to the Lombardy plain to the south.