The Extension to Restore Sanity

It’s election season. I know. You know. You can’t help but know, because there is a constant stream of bullshit streaming off the presses. Some of it (a vanishingly small percentage) is legitimate policy discussion or calls to action. Most of it simply horse-racing, tribalism, putting minor points under a magnifying glass, or things that would not even be newsworthy in a rational society. Enough.

The Extension to Restore Sanity is an extension for Google Chrome that activates when you navigate to a major news site. As of this writing, any headline links on the page meeting Wong’s criteria (or some elaborations on them) will be replaced by “Story hidden: ” followed by a short explanation. See the screenshots to get a better idea of what that looks like. At this time the extension supports the following rules:

Version 1.0:

• No Gaffes: Excludes headlines containing “gaffes”
• No Tenuous Stories, Speculations, or Rhetorical Questions: Excludes qualified headlines
• No Talking Points Volleyball: Excludes headlines with variants of “blasts”
• No Overstating Importance: Excludes headlines with “lawmaker”.
• No Low Blows: Excludes variants of “blow to”.
• No Spin Zone: Excludes headlines with “spin” in the title.

Version 1.1 Adds:

• Unbiased?: Excludes headlines that focus on media bias.
• No Sensationalism: Excludes headlines that mention the "mainstream media".