Misinformation: The Devil's Volleyball

With an issue as complicated and confusing as Misinformation (after the jump look at the examples) it's difficult to know where to start. For me the confusion only started fairly recently. It's funny how having kids can change your perspective on so many things but suddenly you start caring about things you never cared about before. All of a sudden you start looking into things and you realize how much bullshit is out there that you never even paid attention to before. When it came time to get Baxter's first immunization shots the midwife gave us a booklet about immunization and the pros and cons. Inside were two pamphlets. One, said that immunization was safe and of great benefit and the other said that immunization was dangerous and of little effect. We hadn't even got rid of that "new baby smell" off of Baxter and as new parents this wasn't a great way to help us make an informed decision because one of them was full of shit.
A lot of the big issues today are rife with misinformation whether it be Healthcare in the States (Obama's death squads), Genetic Modification (using rat testes in drought resistant wheat), Foreshore and Seabed (NZ) (Maori's will charge us to use the beach) or Climate Change (chose either the deniers or the exaggerators.) I believe in the effect of man made climate change but don't try and scare me with 6 meter sea level rise and 3 billion people displaced. Mate, you had me already at 1/2 meter and 500 million displaced. The only reason people tend to exaggerate is to pull in people that they haven't been convinced already. When it comes to climate change though, if you haven't convinced people already you're not going to. Don't worry about them, let natural selection sort them out.
Now lately, the mining debate has come up in New Zealand. The local paper ( I'd link to them but they haven't yet caught on to the interweb) has been full of letters to the editor about mining. I may be on one particular side of this argument but I do have a brain and I'm not afraid to use it. To see the bullshit that has been written just frustrates me for a few reasons. If a person makes good points, has sound arguments and makes ,what I feel reasonable assumptions, I'm inclined to believe them. That's not me being gullible or anything but people who tend to do those things tend to be right. Veer from those ideas and start personalizing or passing on someones idea as your own or say that you read something on the Internet and my bullshit meter starts going off. Rehash old ideas or as I said above exaggerate beyond reasonable belief and you start losing me pretty quickly. All of a sudden this misinformation starts turning into disinformation and you start to get into this territory.
What bugs me the most when I read these letters is that I know that they are false. I could never do public relations because I'd be calling "Bullshit!" all the time. I don't like to be wrong but I can accept that I can be, but what bugs me the most is when I know I'm right and I fail to convince someone of that. Wait, that came out wrong. It's not about me being right, that's not the point, but I don't want the other person to have the wrong information or believe something that isn't right because that bugs me. If someone says that Redwoods are the largest trees in the world, I'll say "No, Sequoia's are the largest, Redwoods are the tallest." I can't help myself, even if people will think I'm a smart-aleck-know-it-all prick. I can't let it slide. That's the price you have to pay for good information.
And don't even try and tell me that we didn't land on the moon because I will go all Buzz Aldrin on your ass!!!!