Are individuals involved in sex trafficking labeling vehicles as potential victims?
In August 2020, a photograph showing the figures "1f1b" written on the back window of a vehicle started to circulate on social media along with a warning about an alleged tactic being used by sex traffickers to flag potential targets. Those sharing this meme claimed that this term stood for either "1 female 1 boy," or "1 female 1 baby," and that cars were being tagged with these codes by sex traffickers. The meme received a viral boost when it was posted to actor James Woods' Twitter account: posted   The text read:  A very close friend of mine was out today doing shopping with her child at the Bricktown Walmart. When she left the store a lady stopped her and made her aware of what was written on her back window (1f1b) im just going to assume that it stands for 1 female 1 baby. She was then informed that this is now how sex traffickers are tagging cars.. please please mothers, fathers, grandparents.. aunts & uncles. Be AWARE! Feel free to share! Wont be tagging my friend for personal reasons. The claims made in this viral social media post are unfounded. Police in Bricktown, New Jersey, have said that they are unaware of any such activity. But before we get to the police statement about this matter, let's take a look at the game of telephone that helped this rumor go viral.  The text of this post states that this happened to a "friend of mine." When we read a little further, we see that this "friend" was warned about this new criminal tactic by a random stranger. Not a police officer, a news reporter, or even a Walmart employee  just an anonymous "lady." The original post received a few thousand shares, but this post received far wider circulation. And the farther we moved away from the rumor's origins, the muddier the details got. One poster, for instance, informed people that this incident took place in Bricktown, Oklahoma City, despite the fact that there is no Walmart in this location. post poster When we try to boil down this rumor to its origins, we see that the claim is based on something someone saw on Facebook, written by a person claiming that their friend had heard from a stranger that the code "1f1b" was being used by sex traffickers to flag future targets. In other words, this rumor doesn't exactly have credible origins.  The local Patch website reported: reported Brick Township Sgt. Jim Kelly said the department had not been notified. "We have no reports for anything like this," Kelly said. He also said the department has not been alerted by state or federal authorities of any information that indicates criminals are marking vehicles "as a method for anything." It's simply another Facebook rumor without any facts, Kelly said. A new variant of this rumor popped up on social media in July 2021.    AND THIS, THIS IS WHY I CARRY! Not only do I carry but Im educated in how to defend myself if ever put in a circumstance like this!! Please be aware of your surroundings AT ALL TIMES!7/27/2021Today around 3:30pm between Prairie Grove and Hogeye, this truck had a black Tahoe stop in front of it. A man got out and began asking the female driver of this truck for directions. She rolled down her window but had her seat belt on and doors locked. As the man approached he punched her in her left eye and cut her arm. Thankfully she was carrying and grabbed her gun. He took off. She called the police and they advised her this mark 1FW on her back window is a human trafficking mark. She was marked somewhere and this man followed and when she was on a road alone, he made a move to take her. Thankfully, she is home with her family tonight. Please be aware of your surroundings. We are told they often mark mailboxes and trash cans too. This particular marking stands for one female white. Nor was this the first time that this type of baseless warning has gone viral on social media. In July 2019, for example, we wrote about the false claim that sex traffickers were flagging targets by placing zip ties on houses, mailboxes, or vehicles. In December of that year, a false rumor circulated that sex traffickers were laying down in front of vehicles in order to trick them into stopping. That same month saw the spread of another false rumor holding that roses were being placed on cars to mark potential targets.  false claim false rumor false rumor Human trafficking is a real problem in the world, but the schemes described above are not based on any real-world threats. In fact, The Polaris Project, a non-profit that runs the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, writes that the forced kidnapping aspect of the aforementioned rumors is one of the most prevalent myths when it comes to trafficking: The Polaris Project Myth: Its always or usually a violent crime. Fact: The most pervasive myth about human trafficking is that it often involves kidnapping or physically forcing someone into a situation. In reality, most traffickers use psychological means such as, tricking, defrauding, manipulating or threatening victims into providing commercial sex or exploitative labor.     Polaris Project.  "Myths, Facts, and Statistics."
  Retrieved 24 August 2020. Wall, Karen.  "Rumor Of Sex Traffickers at Brick Walmart Unfounded, Police Say."
  Patch.  13 August 2020. Updated [Aug. 2, 2021]: July 2021 variant added.
On May 11, 2020, Bustatroll.org published an article positing that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughters had been arrested after breaking into a liquor store for quarantine supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic: published article Pelosis Daughters Arrested Breaking Into Liquor Store For Quarantine Supplies The apples dont fall far from the tree, they say, and nowhere is it more obvious than in the case of Nancy Pelosis daughters. Often in trouble, they have lately shown that they share the trait most commonly associated with their mother..a hopeless addiction to alcohol. Both Melissa, 21, and Daphne, 19, were arrested this past weekend in San Francisco, California for breaking and entering. Officers were alerted to their crime by a silent alarm at This Is The Way To Liquor, a liquor store close to their home that had recently decided to temporarily close due to slow sales during the states lockdown. This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. The article originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows: Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this sites pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if youre still having an issue with that satire thing. It should be noted that Nancy Pelosi has one son and four daughters, but none of Pelosi's children's names are Melissa or Daphne, as stated by Bustatroll.org. The image included in this article actually shows two entirely different women whose names are Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid. The duo became known as the "Peru Two" after they were arrested for drug smuggling in 2013: Peru Two   For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor. why Bustatroll.org.  "Pelosis Daughters Arrested Breaking Into Liquor Store For Quarantine Supplies."
  11 May 2020. Hanlon, Martina.  "Peru Two Get Six Years and Eight Months for Drug Smuggling."
  Irish Times.  17 December 2013. The names "Nakotami Plaza" and "Sgt. Al Powell" may ring a bell to those familiar with 1980s action films, but for those not in the know the following meme may have proved a tad confusing.   The meme reads: "This is Sgt. Al Powell. He was integral in stopping a terrorist attack in Los Angeles at Nakatomi Plaza on Christmas in 1988. How many of you will share to honor his heroism?" meme   Was there really a terrorist attack at Nakatomi Plaza over Christmas in 1988? Was Sgt. Powell really responsible for thwarting that attempted act of evil? Well, not really, unless you incorrectly insist that the 1988 action flick Die Hard was a documentary. The text of this meme refers to the plot of the 1988 movie starring Bruce Willis in which actor Reginald VelJohnson played Sgt. Al Powell, a beat cop who helped John McClane (Willis' character) take down terrorists holding a group of people hostage at Nakatomi Plaza. Here's a clip from the movie featuring both Sgt. Al Powell and John McClane (WARNING: movie violence):  While this meme was certainly made in jest, it was also apparently made in a rush. The included photograph which supposedly shows Sgt. Al Powell from Die Hard actually pictures  Carl Winslow from the television show Family Matters. Both characters were played by Reginald VelJohnson. Carl Winslow This isn't the first time that a piece of pop culture has been repurposed as jape to spread misinformation on the internet. In May 2016 we investigated an image supposedly picturing a group of Vietnam soldiers only to find that the photograph showed the cast of the movie Tropic Thunder. image Claim:  McDonald's will stop serving overweight customers beginning 1 January 2015.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, December 2014] Is this article true? "McDonald's Will Stop Serving Overweight Customers Beginning 1/1/15"   Origins:  On 4 December 2014, Daily Buzz Live published an article claiming the McDonald's fast food chain would stop selling food to overweight customers as of 1 January 2015: article Obesity in America has more than doubled over the last 2 decades and has become the leading public health issue in the U.S. With more than two-thirds of the adult population overweight, McDonald's has decided to become part of the solution  not the problem. According to reports, beginning January 1, 2015, McDonald's will no longer serve customers with a weight capacity over 170 lbs for women and 245 lbs for men. Children's weight restrictions will vary depending on age and height. McDonald's is currently running campaigns to shake its "junk food" image, insisting they sell nothing but good quality food. They are are branding themselves from "A dining experience of fast food" to "Good food served fast." McDonald's has taken a few steps to make its menu healthier, but the restaurant chain has not announced any plans to stop serving customers based on their weight. In addition to the logistical menu  impossibilities of weighing drive-thru customers, the potential lawsuits for discriminating against obese people, and the likelihood of McDonald's losing millions of dollars in profits, the article can be debunked simply by considering its source:  According to the Daily Buzz Live disclaimer page, all articles published on the site are meant for "entertainment purposes only." Some articles are inspired by "real news events," but the content of these articles is "complete fiction." disclaimer Last updated:  5 December 2014 On 10 December 2014, the web site Earth We Are One published an article claiming a UFO shaped like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars had been discovered at the bottom of the Baltic Sea: article  The divers exploring a 'UFO-shaped' object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea say their equipment stops working when they approach within 200 meters of the object. Professional diver Stefan Hogerborn, part of the Ocean X team which is exploring the anomaly, said some of the teams' cameras and satellite phones would refuse to work when directly above the object, and would only work once they had sailed away. He is quoted as saying: "Anything electric out there, and the satellite phone as well, stopped working when we were above the object. And then when we got away about 200 meters, it turned on again, and when we got back over the object it didn't work." Hefty trajectory: The Swedish diving team noted a 985-foot flattened out 'runway' leading up to the object, implying that it skidded along the path before stopping but no true answers to this are clear. "I was kind of prepared just to find a stone or cliff or outcrop or pile of mud but it was nothing like that, so for me it has been a missing experience I must say." Member Dennis Asberg said: "I am one hundred percent convinced and confident that we have found something that is very, very, very unique." "Is it a meteorite or an asteroid? Or a volcano? Or a base from say, a U-boat from the Cold War which has manufactured and placed there? Or if it is a UFO? Well, honestly, it has to be something." The article published by Earth We Are One in December of 2014 was a repurposed version of a story published by the UK newspaper Daily Mail in June 2012. Although both articles dealt with a real discovery by the shipwreck hunting team Ocean X, experts have since weighed in and determined the object found on the bottom of the Baltic Sea was not an alien spaceship.  published Rumors about the Baltic Sea UFO began circulating after Ocean X returned from an expedition in the summer of 2011 with an interesting sonar image. The group paid a follow-up visit to the site the following year to get a better look at the object, but due to mysterious (and convenient) electrical interference, Ocean X was not able to get a good look at the submerged anomaly. Expedition leader Peter Lindberg did, however, claim he had found a second object: "I confirm that we have found two anomalies. We did find the other anomaly approximately 200 meters (about 219 yards) from the circular find at the same sonar run." Lindberg explained why his team had not released the sonar image of the second object: "We decided not to expose that anomaly so much because there is a lot of disturbance on the sonar image when we passed it, so it's very blurry. We can see it's something but to an untrained eye it might just look like 'pea soup.'" Neither of these sonar images, however, provided a reliable look at the Baltic Sea anomaly. First, the Ocean X team used an inexpensive sonar technique called side-scan sonar which, although well-suited for finding shipwrecks, it is not designed to give a detailed look at the sea floor. Second, according to Hanumant Singh, a researcher with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the sonar they used wasn't properly calibrated: side-scan sonar sonar If you look carefully, you can see a reflection of the circular formation on the right side of the image. Since side-scan sonar is taken with two instruments that bounce acoustic waves in opposite directions from the boat, a feature on one side shouldn't affect the image on the other side. "This means you've got 'cross-talk,' in which one channel is electrically contaminating the other," Singh says. In other words, the sonar instruments aren't wired properly. Strike one, he says.  Strike two: The black horizontal lines going through the image show that sonar signals are dropping out (that is, the instruments aren't detecting them), further calling the measurements into question, Singh says. Finally, he says, the edges of the image, just beyond the circular formation, are gray, meaning the sonar couldn't tell what was there. That shows the sonar isn't calibrated well enough to trust, Singh says. "That's strike three." With only a single blurry image and little information, many people speculated the object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea could be a UFO, a portal into another world, or an underwater Stonehenge. These theories received more attention when artist Hauke Vagt created a 3D interpretation of the mysterious object: artist  Scientists, however, have less fantastical theories about what lies at the bottom of the Baltic. Charles Paull, senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, California, said the anomaly is probably just a rock outcropping or the result of gas venting from the seafloor.  Other experts argue it is merely a glacial depost.  Even Peter Lindberg, the man behind the discovery, expressed skepticism about the object's supposed otherworldly origins: "It's not obviously an alien spacecraft. It's not made of metal." experts skepticism Team Ocean X's discovery created a stir due to the fact that they could not identify the object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, not because any evidence supported the idea it was a UFO.  Popular Mechanics. Wolchover, Natalie.  "Mysterious Baltic Sea Object Is a Glacial Deposit."
  Live Science.  30 August 2012.
 Piui, Tibi.  "So Called Baltic Sea 'UFO' Mystery Solved, Other Questions Arise." 
  ZME Science.  18 June 2012. Austin MayorSteve Adler, who seeks a second term this November, reacted to a game-show moment with a swaggering claim. In anApril 25, 2018, tweet, Adler responded to this clue fromthat nights episodeof Jeopardy: Per Rick Perry, its the blueberry in the tomato soup. Perry, the Republican former governor,often offers the blueberry characterization of the Democrat-dominant capital. On the program, a contestant correctly answered Austin for $600. Next, Adler said in his tweet, accompanied by a photo of the Jeopardy clue: What is the safest big city in Texas with an unemployment rate under 3% that has been named the best place to live in the entire United States two years running? Is all of that true about Austin? Not all: In 2017,we found Half Truean Adler reference to Austin as the state's safest big city. Not for the first time, we noted then that theFBI advises againstusing crime data it collects to declare one city safer than another. That said, such statistics at the time suggested both that the five-county Austin region in 2015 had a lower violent-crime rate than other Texas regions and that El Paso had a lower violent-crime rate than Austin in the first half of 2016. Seeking mayors factual backup The morning after Adler posted his comment, which was retweeted more than 200 times, we reached mayoral spokesman Jason Stanford. Stanford advised by phone that Adler didnt have fresh information to offer in support of his 2018 safest big city in Texas statement. He suggested we check federal statistics to confirm Austins jobless rate and told us that U.S. News had consecutively named Austin the nations best place to live. Checking Austins unemployment Our search for Austins jobless rate on the Texas Workforce Commission website showed that from January through March 2018, the latest month of available data, the city's jobless rate ran shy of 3 percent. We also fetched a longer view showing the citys jobless rate mostly staying below 3 percent from January 2017 on (all the rates not seasonally adjusted). Austin's unemployment rate was last above 3 percent, according to the TWC, when it was 3.1 percent in August 2017. The Austin rate's 15-month low, 2.5 percent, occurred in December 2017:          SOURCE:Website,Unemployment,Texas Labor Market Information, Texas Workforce Commission (search completed April 26, 2018) Austin ranked best place to live two times in a row On April 10, 2018, U.S. Newsannouncedthat for the second straight year, the online publication found Austin the best place to live in the United States among the country's 125 largest metropolitan areas;Colorado Springs, Colo.,placed second. The rankings were based on affordability, job prospects and quality of life, U.S. News said, and on surveying thousands of U.S. residents to find out what qualities they consider important in a home town. The methodology, U.S. News said, also factored in data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the FBI and the Bureau of Labor Statistics--plus U.S. News rankings of the countrys high schools and hospitals. Austin, the self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the planet,earneda score of 7.7 out of 10 for the 2018 rankings, U.S. News said, with even its few downsides having upsides. The story says: The median sale price for a single-family home in Austin is well above the national median. Then again, the story says, Austinites' pocketbooks benefit from no personal or corporate income tax, and a low state and local tax rate. Another semi-warning in the story: Summers in Austin take some getting used to, with temperatures often scorching. Though, the story says, the metro area experiences mild weather throughout the rest of the year, though temperatures have been known to drop in the winter. The story also notes: Austin is among the nation's worst metro areas for traffic congestion. But, the story says, that can be addressed with flexible work schedules, due diligence when choosing a neighborhood and, for those wanting to get in some exercise while commuting, using public transportation, walking and biking. Our ruling Adler referred to Austin as the safest big city in Texas with an unemployment rate under 3% that has been named the best place to live in the entire United States two years running. Hizzonerwas right about Austins jobless rate of late and Austin getting named the citys best place to live two years in a row though its worth clarifying that the rankings considered only the countrys 125 largest metro areas. Whether Austin is the safest big Texas city rests on interpreting crime data the FBI counsels against using to compare communities. This said, we previously found that the five-county Austin region in 2015 had a lower violent-crime rate than other Texas regions while in the first half of 2016, El Paso had a lower violent-crime rate than Austin. On balance, we rate this Adler claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. On 27 June 2018 the Facebook page Uncle Sam's Misguided Children shared the photograph reproduced below, purportedly showing women "screaming" at United States President Donald Trump, but somehow through their vaginas: shared photograph   Text on the image read: Not a joke. They gathered to scream at Trump through their vaginas. These are the people who want to control the government and teach your kids. Predictably, no documentary information was presented to support the claim, and Facebook users were both expected to  and did take the explanation on its face. However, a reverse image search indicated that the image had been circulating since at least February 2016, well before President Donald Trump was elected. A number of backstories were previously attributed to the photograph. In February 2018, YouTube videos and blogs claimed that the images showed "a new trend" known as "raising your skirt for diversity": videos blogs claimed I follow a few accounts on Instagram that post hilarious feminist stuff (or, I suppose, anti-feminist stuff), and on one of those accounts today, I came across this: [Image.] Obviously, I had to investigate to see if Raising The Skirt is an Actual Thing, which is what led me to the sourcelink. And you guys, their About page is positively insane. It says, in big bold letters across the top, "Reclaim your c*nt. Reclaim our c*nt." Only without the polite asterisks. The disgusting feminists of the world have officially outdone themselves. They've now launched a new project dubbed "Raising the Skirt," which calls on women to perform a sick act in public. Case in point: Some of the more enthusiastic social justice warriors of the feminist movement have begun a project called "Raising the Skirt," aimed at "celebrating the diversity of vaginas." This is not a drill. There are actual women gathering with the sole purpose of raising their skirts, exposing their most intimate part to complete strangers. And they call it a celebration. At that point, the photograph was at least two years old, and had circulated once again on Reddit in July 2017: old Reddit     Originally reported articles about the "new feminist trend" of skirt-raising dated back to September 2015, but did not include the photograph seen above: articles "Raising the Skirt" by artist Nicola Canavan is exploring [women's relationships with their genitals] in her series of portraits of everyday women, as they share the beauty of their bodies, while exploring their relationships with their vaginas and what they symbolise to them. A photograph labeled as "feminists ... screaming through their vaginas" at President Trump was taken in or earlier than February 2016, and was later attributed to artist Nicola Canavan's "Raising the Skirt" series of portraits. Canavan's work was not a "feminist trend," but rather a photography project undertaken on a relatively small scale. We contacted Canavan, who confirmed that this is one of her images. Further, we found no evidence that either skirt-raising or vagina-screaming had become a popular activity for any reason. Sinclair, Leah.  "This Artist Is Pushing For Recognition Of Vagina Diversity."   Dazed.  15 September 2015. Chicks on the Right.  "Raising Your Skirt To Celebrate Vagina Diversity Is a Thing Now."   20 February 2018. Mad World News.  "Disgusting Feminists Launch 'Raise the Skirt' Project, Want Women To Do SICK Act in Public."   20 February 2018. Raising The Skirt.  "About."   Accessed 27 June 2018. Pity the poor children of the United States  they, along with their parents, are already in hock to the federal government for thousands of dollars.Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande (R-Monmouth) made that claim Oct. 26 during an interview with Michael Aron on NJTVs On The Record.Every American now is $51,000 in debt, Casagrande told Aron. Thats money I owe, thats money my children owe before they even go to kindergarten, thats their check to the federal government right now.Casagrandes number is solid, but she doesnt have to worry about whipping out her checkbook or debit card any time soon, some federal budget experts say.Lets start by reviewing the two commonly cited forms of national debt -- debt held by the public and total debt.Debt held by the public is money borrowed from investors outside of the federal government. The total debt represents debt held by the public as well as money the federal government owes itself, including for programs such as Social Security and Medicare.Now lets look at the numbers in Casagrandes claim.The U.S. Government Debt website on Nov. 6  the date we started looking into Casagrandes clam -- listed the national debt at $16,295,297,196,000. If thats divided by 314,719,484 -- the total U.S. population, according to the Census Bureau, each American owes the federal government $51,777.21.So, Casagrandes number is accurate. But should Americans actually expect to pay that bill? Not necessarily.Gary Burtless, a senior fellow of economic studies at the Brookings Institution who has worked as a government economist and served on federal advisory panels under presidents of both parties, explained that what the nation owes each year on the national debt is annual interest and principal payments.Do grandma and the grandkids have to pay off the national debt, as Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande seems to suggest? No, they do not, Burtless wrote. Our grandkids great grandparents did not pay off the federal debt; neither did their parents or grandparents. There is no rule that the national debt has to be paid off in one generation, three generations, or even ten generations. Taxpayers do not face the possibility that they will receive a $51,000 bill in the mail anytime soon.An invoice might not be in the mail but Casagrandes statement is fair, according to spokespeople for the conservative Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute.Were not even going to pay off the debt, were going to pay down the interest, said Matt Jensen, a research associate in Economic Policy Studies at the AEI. Under no proposal that Ive seen is someone paying down the debt in real dollars. What were really talking about is paying the interest on the debt, forever. Youll pay the interest, your children will pay the interest.Our PolitiFact colleagues in Virginia and New Hampshire also looked into similar claims in their states and found that the amount of debt cited by their lawmakers was largely accurate.Virginia Rep. Randy Forbes in January said the national debt amounted to $48,700 for every American or $128,300 for every U.S. Household. Our colleagues rated the claim True.In August, PolitiFact New Hampshire rated Mostly True a claim by Rep. Frank Guinta that every child in the United States has a $50,000 share in the national debt. Guinta  received a Mostly True because that would mean each of the nations nearly 74 million children would owe $216,102. Guintas figure was accurate, however, when the debt was spread across the entire population.Our rulingCasagrande said in a television interview, Every American now is $51,000 in debt. Thats money I owe, thats money my children owe before they even go to kindergarten, thats their check to the federal government right now.A simple mathematical calculation confirms that every American technically owes the government $51,777.21 toward the national debt. But will youngsters have to suddenly start handing over their allowances to pay down the federal deficit? Not likely. We rate the statement Mostly True. To comment on this story, go toNJ.com. On 1 October 2017, pseudoscientific alternative health website NaturalNews.com, which is geared primarily toward supplement enthusiasts with a discerning taste for deep state conspiracy theories, posted an article ("Dont Look Now, But Arctic Sea Ice Mass Has Grown Almost 40% Since 2012") that attempts to cast doubt on the scientific veracity of global warming by first presenting the following grotesque caricature of a straw man argument: article straw man One of the most popular pieces of "evidence" that climate alarmists just love to bring up to prove the global warming narrative is the "all the ice is melting in the Arctic and the polar bears are dying" line. Weve all seen the documentaries where a polar bear is desperately clinging to a tiny piece of ice and you just know hes going to die soon. They article then presents two observations that make the generally factual point that there has been relatively more sea ice in the Arctic and glacial ice on Greenland in 2017 than there have been at specific times in the recent past: The latest figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, located at the University of Colorado, show that sea ice extent has increased by 40 percent since 2012. [...] [The Danish Polar Portal reports that]: If we rank the annual surface mass balance since 1981 from low to high, the lowest on record was 2011-2012 (38 Gt) and this year is the 5th highest out of the 37 year record. Danish Polar Portal To be clear, the primary data scientists use to document global warming are records of Earth's temperature over time, not doomed polar bear imagery. Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist for the independent, nongovernmental Berkeley Earth research group told us in an e-mail that, in this area, pretty much "all groups who provide estimates" of global temperature unequivocally point to nearly uninterrupted temperature rises since the 1970s, as shown in this comparison of various estimates produced by the climate and energy policy website Carbon Brief: Zeke Hausfather produced   "People interested in global warming are best-served looking at actual global temperatures," Hausfather said. While this temperature trend is uncontroversial and clear, the climate system as a whole is a complex beast with numerous entangled parts. The basic approach to writing a blog post that "debunks" the concept of global warming is to highlight without explanation various parts of that system at a single point in time. NaturalNews.com is no exception to that basic strategy here. Arctic Sea Ice Natural News cites a climate change denial blog called ClimateDepot.com as evidence of the claim that sea ice has grown 40 percent since 2012. In reality, the claim made by this website was more specific and less useful. In a post dated 18 September 2017, Climate Depot stated: stated Arctic sea ice extent is up 40% from this date five years ago. "Sea ice extent" is one of many different metrics used to characterize the presence of sea ice, and is generally defined as "the area of ocean [based on pixels in satellite imagery] where at least 15 percent of the surface is frozen". On the day of 17 September 2017, sea ice extent was indeed higher than it was on 17 September 2012: defined   This does not mean, however, that sea ice has grown almost 40 percent since 2012, nor does it mean that the overall trend in arctic sea ice is toward growth  it hasn't and it isn't. The issue here is that sea ice extent is quite variable from year to year, and thus looking at two discrete points is a fairly useless exercise without the full context. "We don't expect it to monotonically decrease every year," Hausfather told us.  This chart (using data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center) shows September sea ice extent compared against the same average used in the maps cited by Climate Depot, showing both this aforementioned variability but also an overall trend of reduced ice extent. Note that the year 2012 was no random year to select for comparison; it is actually the record lowest year in terms of Arctic sea ice extent  making anything compared to it necessarily higher: from   The overall trend of declining sea ice is even clearer when you look at a different measure: sea ice volume (presented by the Polar Science Center, below). Not only do such records show a clear negative trend, they also show just how anomalous 2012 was as a data point: Polar Science Center   In reality, 2017 was the eighth lowest year on record for Arctic sea ice extent since satellite measurements began in 1978. But in no world but the pseudo-scientific fringe internet would the concept of global warming rely on every single year breaking the previous year's record for sea ice minimum. eighth Tom Karl, the former director of NOAAs National Centers for Environmental Information, told us that 2017's sea ice extent was still much lower than the 1980-2010 average (by two standard deviations), and that, despite claims to the contrary, "one can't look at a trend over 5 years and say much about the impact of global warming as other factors are also important on these short time scales." director Glacial Ice on Greenland The NaturalNews.com approach for glacial ice on Greenland was similarly lacking scale and context. The main source for these arguments was a completely legitimate end-of-year report put out by the Danish Polar Portal, a website run by the Danish Meteorological Institute. In that report, the organization makes this factual statement: report Heavy snow and rain in winter with a relatively short and intermittent summer melt season have left the Greenland ice sheet with more ice than has been usual over the last twenty years  in fact we have to go back to the 1980s and 90s to see a year similar to this one in terms of snow fall and ice melt. This statement, and the figures presented by NaturalNews.com, are referring to a metric known as Surface Mass Balance (SMB), which Polar Portal describes: describes Each year glaciers gain ice from snow and freezing rain and lose ice by melt that runs off. Adding these together gives the surface mass budget (SMB) in Greenland, the ice sheet typically gains mass from around September to May and loses more mass than it gains in the ablation [melting] season of June, July and August. Importantly, however, this measurement only presents half the picture in terms of how much mass is being lost from year to year from Greenland's glaciers. That's because it does not include the rather significant portion of ice that breaks  or calves  off into the ocean to melt elsewhere. On average this accounts for about 500 Gt [gigatons] of further ice loss. This, as stated in the Polar Portal post, nearly matches the estimated gain in SMB reported by Natural News, effectively canceling it out. In a post on Carbon Brief, analysts with the Danish Meteorological Society put this years measurement in context: post While the Greenland ice sheet has seen a neutral, or small positive, change in ice for this year, it should be noted that Greenland has lost approximately 3,600bn tonnes of ice since 2002. Like the record of Arctic sea ice earlier, when put in the context of the entire trend of Greenland's ice mass over time (presented by Polar Portal below), 2017's measurement does nothing to change larger and completely unambiguous trends of overall melting: Polar Portal    Further, in the case of Greenland's ice sheet, there is not much of a mystery surrounding the lackluster amount of melting this year; a massive storm  the remnants of Hurricane Nicole  parked itself atop the continent, dumping a large amount of snow on the ice-covered continent: Hurricane Nicole dumping Heavy rain and snow in October in especially eastern Greenland gave record totals of precipitation in the main east coast town of Tasiilaq as the remnants of former hurricane Nicole passed by and, much as with Harvey in Houston this year, got lodged over eastern Greenland for some days. However, after Nicoles extreme precipitation, the rest of the winter was actually pretty average in terms of the amount of snow that fell. Because neither the higher-than-2012 arctic sea ice from 17 September 2017 nor the neutral amount of ice loss in Greenland in 2017 do anything to disrupt the overall trends of decreasing ice, and because climatological science does not require (nor does it expect) ice or temperature records to be broken every single year, we rank the claim that these observations are reasons to doubt the tenets of climate change as false. Watson, Tracey.  "Dont Look Now, but Arctic Sea Ice Mass Has Grown Almost 40% Since 2012."
  Natural News.  1 October 2017. Mottram, Ruth, et al.  "Guest Post: How the Greenland Ice Sheet Fared in 2017."
  Carbon Brief.  1 September 2017. Polar Portal.  "End of the SMB Season Summary 2017."
  12 September 2017. Morano, Marc.  "Massive Arctic Ice Gain (Up 40%) Since Low Point of 2012.
  Climate Depot.  19 September 2012. Hausfather, Zeke.  "State of the Climate: Warm Temperatures and Low Sea Ice Mark First Half of 2017."
  Carbon Brief.  21 July 2017. National Snow and Ice Data Center.  "Arctic Sea Ice at Minimum Extent."
  19 September 2017. Polar Science Center.  "PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice Volume Reanalysis."
  Accessed 4 October 2017. NASA.  "End-of-Summer Arctic Sea Ice Extent Is Eighth Lowest on Record."
  19 September 2017. NASA.  "NASA Sees Tropical Storm Nicole Going Extra-Tropical."
  18 October 2016. As is the case for many Western democracies, the Canadian government's formal efforts to help refugees settle in the country have been the subject of much speculation, criticism and misinformation in recent years. In the fall of 2017, a viral Facebook post spread yet more misinformation about the benefits received by refugees in Canada.  On 1 September 2017, Facebook user Mike Marcoux posted what appears to be a photograph of an itemized breakdown of benefits associated with the Resettlement Assistance Program, along with the message: "This is what 1 illegal refugee gets with the federal assistance program $3874 per month." posted We have modified the image to obscure the name of the recipient, which was included in the original photograph:   Although this document appears to be authentic, according to the Canadian Council for Refugees, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and advocating for refugees, its representation on Facebook was highly misleading: The document details payments to a family of five (not a single person) who were refugees accepted by Canada (and therefore are not in the country "illegally"), and most of the listed payments are one-time only resettlement assistance payments and not monthly benefits. A spokesperson for the Council told us the document showed "a start up breakdown of costs for a newly arrived Government-Assisted Refugee (GAR) family" and that the amounts shown were consistent with benefit rates in the province of British Columbia. Despite the apparent authenticity of the document, Marcoux's post grossly misrepresents the contents. Firstly, contrary to Mike Marcoux's post, there is no such thing as an "illegal" refugee in this context. By definition, beneficiaries of the Canadian government's Resettlement Assistance Program are individuals and families formally recognized by the Canadian government as refugees before they travel to Canada. According to the Canadian Council for Refugees, Government-Assisted Refugees such as those to whom this document appears to relate are "referred by the [U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees] to Canada because they have been identified as being in need of resettlement." recognized refugees Secondly, the document does not relate to one refugee, as the Facebook post falsely claims. The document clearly shows that these benefits are for a family of five people:   Third, the grand total value of the benefits ($3,874 CAD or $2,748 USD as of 28 January 2016) is not a recurring monthly payment, as the Facebook post falsely claims. The document clearly shows that the majority of benefits listed are one-off "start-up" benefits. The only regular monthly benefits are conveniently labelled "Regular Monthly Benefits," and consist of payments for food, rent and transportation, which, because of the size of the family, total $1,399 CAD per month ($1,094 USD as of 15 November 2017). These monthly benefits work out to $16,788 CAD ($13,132 USD) a year for a family of five (in addition to "start-up" benefits). Unless there are exceptional circumstances, these Resettlement Assistance Program benefits are only payable to refugees for one year. The amounts of benefits depend on the size of the family that receives them. If this document did relate to a single individual (as the Facebook post claims), the overall monthly payments could be expected to be significantly lower. The one-off start-up benefits which bring the total in this particular document to $3,874 also include a $375 loan for a security deposit for housing. Being a loan, that amount will have to be repaid to the federal government. Furthermore, depending on when this particular family arrived in Canada, they may be required to pay the Canadian government for the cost of their transportation into the country, which takes the form of loan debt. According to the Canadian Council for Refugees, the average loan debt between 2008 and 2012 was $3,090 CAD. transportation loan debt So while the document in the photograph does appear to be authentic, Mike Marcoux's Facebook post constitutes a gross misrepresentation of what's actually in it. The same document formed the basis of a similarly-outraged post on the right-wing blog "90 Miles from Tyranny" in December 2016. That blog post cited an earlier article by the now-defunct Magafeed web site, which is listed in the Fake News Codex as a "clickbait site with misleading, poorly [sourced], and outright false stories." post Codex It's hardly the first time that Canada's refugee policy has been the subject of false claims. For example, a factual error in a 2004 letter to the editor of the Toronto Star spawned a chain email and online memes falsely claiming that refugees in Canada receive more benefits each month than do Canadian pensioners. The rumor persisted for years. Toronto Star falsely Similar false rumors have been spread in the country's southern neighbor, the United States, often with the headline "INSANITY IS WHEN ILLEGAL REFUGEES GET $3,874 A MONTH IN FEDERAL ASSISTANCE WHILE SOCIAL SECURITY CHECKS AVERAGE $1,200 A MONTH." false rumors English, Kathy.  "A Mistake That Travelled Around the World and Back Again: Public Editor."
  Toronto Star.  11 December 2015. Canadian Council for Refugees.  "Refugees and Income Assistance - Rebutting the Chain Email ("Pensioners' Myth.")
   Canadian Council for Refugees.  July 2013.  Citizenship and Immigration Canada.  "IP 3: In Canada Processing of Convention Refugees Abroad and Members of the Humanitarian Protected Persons Abroad Classes - Part 2 [Resettlement Assistance Program (RAP.)]
  Government of Canada.  13 January 2015. Claim:  Catholic priests may not conduct religious services on U.S. military bases during the federal government shutdown. :   : Contract priests are prohibited from conducting religious functions on U.S. military bases during the federal government shutdown.  : President Obama ordered that military priests be arrested for holding Mass during the federal government shutdown. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, September 2013] Did President Obama really order that military priests be arrested for saying the Mass during the government shutdown?   Origins:  One of the many issues affecting both the public and government workers during the federal government shutdown of October 2013 is the Antideficiency Act, a piece of legislation originally passed back in 1870 that prohibits the federal government from incurring any monetary obligations for which Congress has not appropriated funds.  Under the terms of that legislation, federal employees may not perform their job duties during a government shutdown (save for certain legally exempted activities, such as "emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property") even if they volunteer to do so on an unpaid basis, and federal workers who violate the Antideficiency Act may be subject to disciplinary action (such as suspension or job termination), fines, and imprisonment.   Antideficiency Act The application of the Antideficiency Act is open to a fair amount of interpretation, however.  For example, does it violate the terms of the Antideficiency Act for federal workers to check their cell phones or e-mail for work-related messages during the government shutdown, even if they don't act on those messages?  Executive branch departments  have had to review and decide what government activities they believe may or may not be allowed during the shutdown without running afoul of the Antideficiency Act. Due to a confluence of circumstances, one group affected by the Antideficiency Act are some Catholic priests.  Due to a chronic shortage of active duty Catholic military chaplains in the U.S. armed forces, the Department of Defense has had to hire about 234 priests from outside the military (variously known as contract priests, GS priests, or non-active duty priests) to perform Catholic services and other religious functions on U.S. military bases.  Although active duty military personnel (including chaplains) are exempt from the Antideficiency Act, government contract workers are not, so contract priests may not perform religious services or otherwise minister to Catholics on U.S. military bases during the government shutdown, even on a volunteer basis.  Therefore, a subset of Catholic military personnel who are stationed at bases that have no active duty Catholic chaplains and are instead being staffed by contract priests will have to go elsewhere for religious services for the duration of the shutdown  if they wish to attend Mass or take part in a baptism, for example, they will have to go to local churches or other off-base locations for those functions.  (U.S. military personnel stationed in some parts of the world may not be able to find local English-speaking priests, or any priests at all, however.) It isn't true, however, that "President Obama ordered that military priests be arrested for saying the Mass during the government shutdown."  As explained above, the issue with contract priests in the military was created by the intersection of the Antideficiency Act and a shortage of active duty Catholic military chaplains, two factors which have neither been instigated by nor are under the control of President Obama.  And although imprisonment is technically one of the potential punishments spelled out in the law for federal workers who violate the Antideficiency Act, President Obama has not ordered that penalty to be applied to contract priests or any other federal employees, and that penalty is unlikely to be applied to anyone save for the most egregious of violations. Update:  On 5 October 2013, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure (by a 400 to 1 vote) in favor of allowing military chaplains to minister on Sunday without violating the Antideficiency Act.  The Senate has not yet taken up the bill. Last updated:  5 October 2013