As I sat there wondering how to explain the latest twist in the US presidential election, this story popped up on my Twitter feed: Bank of America analysts claim there's a 50% chance we live in a "Matrix reality simulation".

Aha!

As I read, it all began to make "sense":

"Top bank analysts claim there's a 50% chance our world is a computer simulation and we're all plugged into a Matrix-style virtual reality.

"And they also reckon if it's true – then there's no way we'll ever find out about it.

"The Bank of America's Merrill Lynch made the astonishing claim in a research note citing comments by top scientists, astrophysicists, and philosophers….

"It said: 'Many scientists, philosophers, and business leaders believe that there is a 20-50% probability that humans are already living in a computer-simulated virtual world. In April 2016, researchers gathered at the American Museum of Natural History to debate this notion.'"

There's no need to debate this notion any longer because there is indeed a way to discover whether it's true. One merely has to read sports reporter Cindy Boren's recent article in the Washington Post – a "respectable" newspaper – to confirm this theory as fact:

"Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist who has made the NFL so uncomfortable with his discovery of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in the brains of deceased players, suggests that Hillary Clinton's campaign be checked for possible poisons after her collapse Sunday in New York.

"Omalu, whose story was famously told in the movie 'Concussion'" made the suggestion on Twitter, writing that he advised campaign officials to 'perform toxicologic analysis of Ms. Clinton's blood.'

"The suggestion was greeted somewhat skeptically in the replies.

"But this is Omalu, whose credentials and tenacity are well known. He wasn't giving up on Twitter, adding that his reasoning is that he does not trust Russian President Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee who has expressed admiration for Putin.

"Putin, as The Washington Post reported, was implicated by a British inquiry in January in the poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB operative, in London in 2006."

How in the name of all that's holy did this article make it past the editors of theWashington Post? This is a question that one might ask if journalists were living in a rational universe – but are they? I would submit that the answer is an emphatic no.