In keeping with ongoing court decisions and legal probes checking the depths to which liars may legally go as individuals and industries, we present the following Scratch-and-Sniff Test to help you more finely hone your truth-detecting skills.

These sharpened abilities may come in handy someday, down the line, at a teevee game show in which you are a contestant guessing the truthiness levels of politicians' fact-bending whoppers, or, at the new and used car lot, when the latest price offer you made has to get trotted back for the manager's look-see.  In the first case, good luck, you might still win on a technicality or default;  in the second, not to worry, your salesperson is pulling for you, going toe-to-toe with the boss on your behalf!

No, there's no vast, mainstream liberal media machine churning away valiantly in defense of the rights of regular people who are just human beings. There's not enough profit to be made in making sure we mere people have the basics for the bodies in which we are all stuck inhabiting:  water, food, shelter, and, when the bodies break down, medical care. No money there.

You'd think there would be plenty enough profit in providing things like that for us all, but, in greed, there is never enough:  Greed is a journey without destination -- wanting more begets only the want of more.  See, the real money comes from tearing hell out of the Earth or building paper-wealth towers -- that's the real fuel of media, not from any desire to help The People live or survive.

In some places, magic and madness are high arts and are handsomely rewarded.  There are always some things to be gained, whole flocks of someones to be gamed:  Us.

The U.S. Supreme Court has today all but said freedom of speech protects the freedom to lie. And, a Florida Court of Appeals has already said, almost ten years ago, that they agreed with an assertion by Fox News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in these United States.

The timing is impeccable:  Tonight's GOP debate is the 26th such frightful encounter; Edvard Munch's "The Scream," a portrayal of fright, is to be offered, it was said today.

This is one of our most recognizable human-made images on the planet -- the chilling figure in the foreground, hands up to head, mouth forming an elongated O, background swirls in blue and red.