Political ads.

Is it just me or is anyone else fed up with the political ads in the media nowadays?
They ALL make these outrageous statements, most of which have NO basis in fact! (In other words, they are quite simply - lies.)
The problem I think is that many people still think that if it is in print or on the TV or Radio, "It must be true." Yes, there are still people who think that, instead of knowing, "The New Truth." which is, in my experience, that if it is on the Internet, it is untrue - at least 90% of the time - and in many areas closer to 99% of the time!! Yep, untrue - otherwise known as lies - or VERY occasionally a mistake, but not often, almost always out and out lies.
If it is not a political ad, which I pretty much know is going to be lie so I ignore it, but is anything else on the TV or Radio or in the newspaper, I treat it with suspicion. These media outlets have lots of good reports. Unfortunately the level of ignorance out there nowadays is so widespread that you just have to take everything with a pinch of salt. Use your own common sense and if you are not sure check it out.
A couple of 'facts' that I have caught myself recently - just mistakes really, not anyone actually lying.
"The second earthquake was a 6.0, just slightly stronger than the first one which was a 5.0." Wrong, earthquakes are measured so that a 6 is 10 times stronger than a 5! So a 7 would be 100 times stronger than a 5 ! And an 8 would be 1,000 times stronger than 5. A simple mistake. But wrong nonetheless.
Others have been, "It only takes about ten minutes for a radio signal to reach the moon." (Actually it takes just over 1 second, that's less than 1 1/2 seconds.)
"It took 30 minutes to cut Ms X out of the car." The time - 30 minutes - was right. It was the person who was wrong. I happen to know the person and it was Ms Y, not Ms X.
The list goes on, and my only point here is that we need to guard against believing everything, or how about anything, that we read or hear. If it is a political ad it is almost certainly a lie. And if it on the Internet, it almost always wrong - usually an out and out lie. I check out every story that I get on the Internet and have found almost none to be true - maybe one or two or three out of every 100!!! There are stories attributed to Andy Rooney, all wrong or lies. To Bill Cosby - he denies saying any of them. And so it goes, someone wants their favorite quote to be read so they attribute it to someone famous.
Someone probably was fired from Starbucks, so they start a rumor that Starbucks would not send coffee to the American troops in Iraq. And it spreads like wildfire. Everyone believes it - "It MUST be true, it is on the Internet." In fact nothing could be further from the truth Starbucks did send coffee to the troops in Iraq. In fact they set up coffee houses there.
There are dozens and dozens, probably hundreds, even thousands more cases where some unknown person starts an untrue rumor about a business or a person, and before you know it millions if not hundreds of millions know about it and most probably believe it!!
So PLEASE, PLEASE, don't believe ANYTHING that you read on the Internet, and think carefully about everything else.