Visualizing the Flow of Asylum Seekers Into the Industrialized World - Metrocosm

Visualizing the Flow of Asylum Seekers Into the Industrialized World - Metrocosm
"Based on data from the UN Refugee Agency, approximately 4.4 million asylum applications were submitted to 44 industrialized countries between 2013 and 2016. 
The map below shows the flow of these asylum seekers from their country of origin to the country in which they applied for asylum. 
Each point represents 500 asylum seekers.

To navigate around the map with a mouse:

• Pan: left mouse button + drag
• Rotate: right mouse button + drag
• Zoom: both buttons + drag / two-finger touchpad scroll

Full screen version / Youtube video

Asylum seeker vs refugee

An asylum seeker is someone who has requested sanctuary from persecution in their home country. 
If the request is granted, the asylum seeker then becomes a refugee. 
...The map above displays the flow of asylum seekers into industrialized nations, which makes up only a small piece of the global refugee crisis. 
As of the end of 2015, there were about 16 million refugees globally, and a much larger number of displaced persons who did not qualify as refugees under the U.N. statue..."
Read and click on!

And we're not greedy, lying scumbags!-----The 20% Statistician: Five reasons blog posts are of higher scientific quality than journal articles

The 20% Statistician: Five reasons blog posts are of higher scientific quality than journal articles
"Five reasons blog posts are of higher scientific quality than journal articles
In this blog, I will examine the hypothesis that blogs are, on average, of higher quality than journal articles. 

Below, I present 5 arguments in favor of this hypothesis.
1. Blogs have Open Data, Code, and Materials...
2. Blogs have Open Peer Review...
3. Blogs have no Eminence Filter...
4. Blogs have Better Error Correction...
5. Blogs are Open Access (and might be read more)...
Conclusion:
...It is my opinion that blogs, on average, score better on some core scientific values, such as open data and code, transparency of the peer review process, egalitarianism, error correction, and open access. 

It is clear blogs impact the way we think and how science works.
...Before this turns into a ‘we who write blogs recommend blogs’ post, I want to make clear that there is no intrinsic reason why blogs should have higher scientific quality than journal articles. 

It’s just that the authors of most blogs I read put some core scientific values into practice to a greater extent than editorial boards at journals. 

I am not recommending we stop publishing in journals, but I want to challenge the idea that journal publications are the gold standard of scientific output. 

They fall short on some important dimensions of scientific quality, where they are outperformed by blog posts. 

Pointing this out might inspire some journals to improve their current standards."

The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI - MIT Technology Review

The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI - MIT Technology Review:
"...The resulting program, which the researchers named Deep Patient, was trained using data from about 700,000 individuals, and when tested on new records, it proved incredibly good at predicting disease. 
Without any expert instruction, Deep Patient had discovered patterns hidden in the hospital data that seemed to indicate when people were on the way to a wide range of ailments, including cancer of the liver.
There are a lot of methods that are “pretty good” at predicting disease from a patient’s records, says Joel Dudley, who leads the Mount Sinai team.
But, he adds, “this was just way better.”
“We can build these models, but we don’t know how they work.”
At the same time, Deep Patient is a bit puzzling.
It appears to anticipate the onset of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia surprisingly well. 
But since schizophrenia is notoriously difficult for physicians to predict, Dudley wondered how this was possible.
He still doesn’t know.
The new tool offers no clue as to how it does this..."

You ought to know!

Defend “In God We Trust” from Atheist Attacks | American Center for Law and Justice

Defend “In God We Trust” from Atheist Attacks | American Center for Law and Justice:

"“In God We Trust” – Our National Motto – is under attack again.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been defeating atheist Michael Newdow’s attempts to banish “under God” and “In God We Trust” in federal court for over a decade.

This time his new federal lawsuit is full of the same failed arguments: outlandishly claiming that our National Motto is “extremely offensive,” “bigotry,” and “persecution,” that atheists are “forced to proselytize,” and even comparing it to radical Islamic terrorism."

Teens are becoming transgender because it’s trendy, expert says | News | Lifesitenews

Teens are becoming transgender because it’s trendy, expert says | News | Lifesitenews:
BRISBANE, Australia, April 12, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Children think it's cool to be transgender and they're trying the self-identity out in droves, claims an Australian psychiatrist.
Psychiatrist Stephen Stathis, who runs the gender clinic at Brisbane's Lady Cilento Children's Hospital and is responsible for diagnosing gender dysphoria, reports that “many” youth are “trying out being transgender” in order to stand out.
Apparently, declaring oneself “transgender” is trendy. “One said to me, ‘Doctor Steve ... I want to be transgender, it’s the new black,’” Stathis related.
...Australia began a new, government-funded "gender service" for children at Lady Cilento Hospital, which expects to assess 180 youth this year.
The goal of most of the gender-confused children is to get puberty blocking chemicals and/or sex change hormone treatment.
Most patients, however, are simply going through a common phase of adolescent life, Stathis explained..."

AM Fruitcake

History for April 17

History for April 17 - On-This-Day.com:
J.P. (John Pierpoint) Morgan 1837 - Financier, Nikita Khrushchev 1894 - U.S.S.R. premier
Thornton Wilder 1897 - Novelist, playwright



Harry Reasoner 1923 - Newsman ("Sixty Minutes"), Olivia Hussey 1951 - Actress ("Ice Cream Man", "Psycho 4: The Beginning"), Sean Bean 1958 - Actor ("Goldeneye", "The Lord of the Rings" series)


1824 - Russia abandoned all North American claims south of 54' 40'.


1941 - Igor Sikorsky accomplished the first successful helicopter lift-off from water near Stratford, CT.


1946 - The last French troops left Syria.


1961 - About 1,400 U.S.-supported Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. It was an unsuccessful attack.


1964 - The Ford Motor Company unveiled its new Mustang model.


1969 - In Los Angeles, Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of assassinating U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy.


1970 - Apollo 13 returned to Earth safely after an on-board accident with an oxygen tank.


1996 - Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing their parents.

Crucial NATO Ally Just Voted To Become An Islamic Dictatorship | The Federalist Papers

Crucial NATO Ally Just Voted To Become An Islamic Dictatorship | The Federalist Papers:

"What does this mean? If the results are upheld, it gives Turkey’s government – with Erdoğan at the helm – widespread authority to scrap the centuries-old parliamentary system, replacing it with a presidential model. It would concentrate massive power in the hands of the president who has recently jailed opponents and cracked down on dissent.

Erdoğan will be able to appoint senior judges, declare a state of emergency, dissolve parliament and in some cases issue new laws be decree."

This University President's Response to a Demand for 'Safe Spaces' is Epic - Beth Baumann

This University President's Response to a Demand for 'Safe Spaces' is Epic - Beth Baumann:

"Dr. Anne Scott, an English professor at Northern Arizona University (NAU), recently came under fire for docking a point off a student's paper for using the term "mankind" instead of "humanity."

Now, a handful of NAU students are demanding university President Rita Cheng resign from her position, unless she deems the campus a "safe space" for students."

Resegregation-Every bad liberal "idea" always metastizes-----The latest form of 'racism': professors' office hours - The College Fix

The latest form of 'racism': professors' office hours - The College Fix
"In a culture where anything can be considered “discriminatory,” it seems Dartmouth sophomore Clara Chin has set out to up the ante one notch further.
Chin argues in a Dartmouth op-ed that somehow, some way, professors’ office hours“ disadvantage” and “harm” minorities...
"...Despite the many questions I often had about my classes and curiosity to explore further readings, I did not have the confidence to raise them or simply thought my ideas were not worth pursuing. 
...In this case, the minoritarian subject might fear taking up the time and mental energy of professors and question the validity of the ideas they might raise in conversations with faculty. 
This is an issue that I have discussed with other people of color and women. 
Minoritarian subjects may feel undeserving of space because of an inherent lack of self-confidence, victim complex or innate helplessness. 
It is because institutions, such as academia, can send an implicit message that ideas out of the white, normative mainstream are unimportant by erasing these other narratives. 
One form of this is the lack of faculty of color at elite institutions like Dartmouth, which is a result of various factors..."
So, what is the solution to … “minoritizing” the institution of office hours? 
Hiring more minority faculty..."

In Her Majesty’s Disservice

Articles: In Her Majesty’s Disservice:

"My focus this week is on the “wiretapping” (electronic interception of communications, if you insist) of President Trump and his associates during the campaign. 
It seems to me this story is rapidly unfolding -- if only mostly in overseas press and online -- and promises to be far more explosive than the Watergate story, an account that says frightening things about our intelligence agencies and those of some of our allies, most particularly Great Britain. 
It has become increasingly clear to me that there was widespread wiretapping of President Trump and his associates and that the underlying justification was pretextual -- it was actually intended to spy on a political opponent. 
And it is equally clear that the nonsensical post-election tale that Russia colluded with Trump so that he could beat Hillary Clinton was a coverup tale to justify the unmasking and leaking of some of the information -- particularly about General Flynn -- which has taken place. 
The prior administration was so confident Hillary would win that they left their tracks uncovered and afterward were desperate to hide the truth so they projected and whispered the Russians were colluding with Trump...
(Much, much more here!)

The Russian Role 

In his well-considered post linked above, John Hinderaker offers the most likely explanation for the hacking of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s email account and sending it to Wikileaks -- if that is how Wikileaks got it and Assange denies they were the source -- it was not to help Trump win; it was to bedevil her after Hillary won.

Rich Lowry writes in the NY Post that Obama’s record of bowing to Russian interests provides circumstantial evidence that he was the real Russian stooge. There’s no reason to believe that his long-time Secretary of State would have proven less so than he was.

There’s every reason to believe that Trump, on the other hand, will not be. There’s also every reason for the heads of the Western allies whose intelligence agencies cooperated in the electronic eavesdropping of Trump and his associates to come clean and apologize, and for those in the U.S. who orchestrated this to suffer fully the legal consequences of unlawful acts."
Read it all!

The Obama Administration’s Long History of Weaponizing the Bureaucracy to Target its Political Opponents | American Center for Law and Justice

The Obama Administration’s Long History of Weaponizing the Bureaucracy to Target its Political Opponents | American Center for Law and Justice:

"It is outrageous, unconscionable, and illegal. Even so, mounting evidence indicates that the Obama Administration and its loyalists had a habit of using information gleaned from classified foreign surveillance to smear and perhaps blackmail its political opponents. In fact, whether it’s the IRS scandal or spying on Israeli officials lobbying against the Iran nuclear deal, the practice didn’t begin in 2016.

Even if the original collection of information may have been legal, under current circumstances, the evidence shows that the subsequent unmasking, disclosure, and leaking constitutes an illegal abuse of power."

TurboTax, H&R Block spend big bucks lobbying for us to keep doing our own taxes

TurboTax, H&R Block spend big bucks lobbying for us to keep doing our own taxes
"This year, what if you could do your taxes for free, and fast? 
You could, but TurboTax and H&R Block have spent big bucks lobbying to make sure that never happens.

Because if doing taxes was less annoying, you wouldn't need to pay someone to do it for you.

For years, tax prep companies have pushed back against "return-free filing" legislation that would have allowed the IRS to greatly simplify taxes for over 60 million people by offering pre-populated returns.

In 2016 alone, Intuit, the makers of TurboTax, spent $2 million on lobbying, ProPublica reports. H&R Block spent $3 million, some of it on the same efforts.

They were focused on getting the "Free File Act of 2016," which had two implications:

• One, the government would continue and for forever offer free online tax filing to lower- and middle-income families in a public-private partnership with tax prep companies.

$1 billion in tax refunds is waiting to be claimed  Wednesday, 22 Mar 2017 | 11:51 AM ET | 00:48

Sounds great, but hardly anyone has heard of this program, acknowledged Tim Hugo, executive director of the "Free File Alliance," a consortium of 13 private tax prep companies including Inuit and H&R Block. And that's because the IRS advertising budget is "$0" — so only a relatively small number of people take advantage of the program.

• Two — and this is key — the bill would prevent the government from offering its own free alternative to taxpayers.So, by offering free software used by only a few people, the tax prep companies can maintain the current difficult system and thus the need for their products. The Free File Act did not pass but the Free File system remains, and "return-free filing" is nowhere to be seen..."

Read on!

7.5%!??-----State Dials Back Pollyannaish Pension Assumptions, Admits Deeper Hole [Michigan Capitol Confidential]

State Dials Back Pollyannaish Pension Assumptions, Admits Deeper Hole [Michigan Capitol Confidential]:
"Although the unfunded liability of the Michigan school employee pension system increased by another $2.4 billion in 2016, it wasn’t for the usual reasons.
Instead, it was because Gov. Rick Snyder's administration became more conservative in estimating future returns on pension fund investments.
In 2016, pension managers stopped assuming that their investments would return an average of 8 percent annually in the future, dropping their predictions to 7.5 percent instead. 
If a fund’s managers expect lower investment returns than they did before, the fund needs to have more money in contributions up front to meet its obligations.
The problem with the school pension system is that the state was already not saving enough.
So the change increased the pension system’s unfunded liability — the gap between how much it does have and how much it should have to cover its obligations — from $26.7 billion to $29.1 billion..."

Lunch video-----China vs United States (USA) 2016 - Who Would Win - Military Comparison ��

Noon-toon

Media silent as Clinton/Obama-connected lobbying group registers as foreign agent for pro-Russia org

Media silent as Clinton/Obama-connected lobbying group registers as foreign agent for pro-Russia org:

"The Podesta Group — which was co-founded by John Podesta, the former Hillary Clinton campaign chair, Obama White House senior adviser, and former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton — has filed as a foreign agent for a pro-Russian think tank.

The D.C. lobbying shop’s retroactive paperwork appeared Wednesday on the website of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) office."

U.S. Education Department Asked to Eliminate Lesson Plans on Islam

U.S. Education Department Asked to Eliminate Lesson Plans on Islam
"The Christian Action Network (CAN) says the U.S Department of Education is funding an Islamic education program in America’s public schools, in which students in grades 5 through 12 are taught the Islamic way of life in a way that crosses the line from academics to indoctrination.
“’Access Islam’ is funded by the Department of Education and is being promoted on various websites,” Martin Mawyer, president and founder of CAN, tells Breitbart News. “So, PBS Learning Media is one of the websites that is promoting it. 
The Smithsonian also promotes it, the Indiana Department of Education promotes it, and even the United Nations promotes it.”

The “Access Islam” curriculum includes 10 lesson plans, including the “Five Pillars of Islam;” “Salat: Prayer in Muslim Life;” “Ramadan Observance;” “Quran: Sacred Scripture of Islam;” “The Haji: Journey to Mecca;” “Islam in America;” and “Women in Islam.”
Read on!

Steve Russo - Easter In Manhattan 1956 Easter in Manhattan...

Steve Russo - Easter In Manhattan 1956 Easter in Manhattan, circa...:

Easter In Manhattan 1956

"Easter in Manhattan, circa 1956 ~ Representing the Three Crosses on Calvary. 

How things have changed. 

Can you imagine this happening today?

No, me neither! 

61 years later, New York now has an admitted communist for a mayor and Christianity is now considered a bigger threat than Islam, which is considered the "Religion of Peace" and is to be tolerated or you're called a bigot and or racist.... or something. 

In 60 short years we have gone from this being the norm across America at Easter to having prayer and any Christian symbols being banned from schools or public spaces. 

And today’s college “educated” elites and public school sheep truly have no idea that America really was a Judeo/Christian nation once upon a time.

Sadly, America is a far worse place for it."

http://stuffnobodycaresabout.com/…/lit-new-york-easter-1956/