Pencils. The ones where you need a pencil sharpener to sharpen them every so often. Mechanical pencils just aren't the same.

You are absolutely correct. The unfortunate fact is that propaganda works. Even if you know it is propaganda, it still works.

A bit like a placebo in that regard.

Thank you for trying to get ahead of the spam influx. Trying to beat the spambots is a thankless task, but thank you anyhouw.

Thank you for the article OP.

While this doesn't surprise me, I can't help but wonder how many other parallel situations there are where an industry of many separate entities distort, hide and otherwise lie to the public to maintain the publicly harmful gravy train.