Something Slimy: The Signs of Bad Science

Something Slimy: The Signs of Bad Science | HeterodoxAcademy.org:
In The Chronicle there is a stunning interview regarding the Flint, Michigan lead-poisoning problem, with Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards, who helped expose the government-academic complex.

Edwards explains his morality-based method of checking into whether science is sound:

So when you start asking questions about people, and you approach them as a scientist, if you feel like you’re talking to an adult and they give you a rational response and are willing to share data and discuss an issue rationally, I’m out of there. I go home.

But when you reach out to them, as I did with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and they do not return your phone calls, they do not share data, they do not respond to FOIA [open-records requests], y’know. … In each case I just started asking questions and turning over rocks, and I resolved to myself, The second something slimy doesn’t come out, I’m gonna go home. But every single rock you turn over, something slimy comes out.

The experience is familiar to me as editor of Econ Journal Watch, a journal of economic criticism. Numerous authors have told us backstories like Edwards’. Moreover, we have found that commented-on authors, when invited to reply to published criticism, sometimes simply do not respond.

Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments speaks to the ethics of inquiry, if only indirectly.

Smith says that “Reserve and concealment…call forth diffidence. We are afraid to follow the man who is going we do not know where.”

And Smith describes the virtues of frankness and openness:

Frankness and openness conciliate confidence. We trust the man who seems willing to trust us. We see clearly, we think, the road by which he means to conduct us, and we abandon ourselves with pleasure to his guidance and direction. … We all desire, upon this account, to feel how each other is affected, to penetrate into each other’s bosoms, and to observe the sentiments and affections which really subsist there.

And implications for science seem to follow, as where Smith says:

But this most delightful harmony cannot be obtained unless there is a free communication of sentiments and opinions.

Researchers are free to communicate in the sense that the government won’t lock them up for telling the truth. 

But when government agencies and concomitant constellations of groupthink play such a huge, central role in funding and validating research, there is unfreedom in a broader sense, which Edwards explains nicely in the Chronicle interview.

New Video Alleges Planned Parenthood Used ‘Accounting Gimmicks’ to Hide Profit From Sale of Fetuses | Video | TheBlaze.com

New Video Alleges Planned Parenthood Used ‘Accounting Gimmicks’ to Hide Profit From Sale of Fetuses | Video | TheBlaze.com:

“Planned Parenthood’s self-interested political maneuvers will never silence free speech or the citizen press,” Daleiden said in a statement. “The new video released today shows that no amount of half-baked barratry can conceal Planned Parenthood’s barbaric harvesting and profiting off baby body parts.”

In the new video released by the pro-life group, Melissa Farrell, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s director of research, said that “we get requests a lot for fetal tissue.”

Neo-Nazis on Street Patrol to 'Keep Europe's Women Safe from Migrant Sex Attacks'

Neo-Nazis on Street Patrol to 'Keep Europe's Women Safe from Migrant Sex Attacks' » Louder With Crowder:
"...But when you strip people of their security, when you force on them a new culture which refuses to assimilate and worse, rapes women and children, there tends to be this thing some scientists refer to as “backlash.”
In this case, it’s taken the form of Neo-Nazis in Finland.
A gang of vigilantes led by a violent neo-Nazi go on night time ‘migrant patrols’ on the streets of Finland, with some talking of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the wake of the country’s mounting immigration crisis.
The self-styled ‘Soldiers of Odin’ march in a mob, wearing bomber jackets with their logo on the back. They have vowed to take direct action to ‘protect their wives, girlfriends and children’ after a migrant influx to the liberal Scandinavian country.
The gang – which claims to have cells across Europe – says it mobilised after a rise in migrant-related crime over the past 12 months because the Finnish government has ‘screwed everything up’.
MailOnline gained exclusive access to the gang’s leadership and visited its secretive headquarters – which was packed with Nazi memorabilia and White Supremacist propaganda.
Oh boy. Let’s start with the obvious and work our way back to the poop swastica.
Look it, I’ve even numbered it for you.
That’s love.

• Crime has risen since European countries took in Muslim migrants. Not just a few, mind you, millions of migrants (read Sweden’s Open Islamic Immigration: Now Officially the Rape Capital of the West).
• Governments like Germany have actively covered up said crimes of said migrants because feelings. Otherwise known as “political correctness.”
• Women have been raped, sexually assaulted, robbed. As the migrant numbers rise, so does the rapey crime spree.
• Government solutions to these Muslim migrant crimes has been to tell women and girls to cover themselves up. Or to hand out leaflets about not raping women. Sometimes, there’s been zero response at all.
• Women have tried taking action into their own hands via weapons like pepper-spray. In Denmark, a teenager was charged with posessing a weapon (pepper-spray) which she used to fend off a rapist.
• The women of Europe, like this German teenager, are fed up, scared, and are asking their men to fight back and defend them, since their governments will not...."

AM Fruitcake

History for February 5

History for February 5 - On-This-Day.com:
John Boyd Dunlop 1840, Andre-Gustave Citroen 1878, Henry "Hank" Aaron 1934 


Charlotte Rampling 1946, Barbara Hershey 1948, Christopher Guest 1948 


1885 - Congo State was established under Leopold II of Belgium, as a personal possession. 


1917 - The U.S. Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917 (Asiatic Barred Zone Act) with an overwhelming majority. The action overrode President Woodrow Wilson's December 14, 1916 veto. 


1924 - The BBC time signals, or "pips", from Greenwich Observatory were heard for the first time. They are broadcast every hour. 


1952 - In New York City, four signs were installed at 44th Street and Broadway in Times Square that told pedestrians "don't walk." 


1962 - French President Charles De Gaulle called for Algeria's independence. 


1972 - Bob Douglas became the first black man elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA. 


1987 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed above the 2,200-point for the first time. The market closed at 2201.49. 


1997 - Investment bank Morgan Stanley announced a $10 billion merger with Dean Witter.

Gowdy Launches Tweetstorm After New Immigration Policy Announced: ‘We Must Send a Clear Message’ | TheBlaze.com

Gowdy Launches Tweetstorm After New Immigration Policy Announced: ‘We Must Send a Clear Message’ | TheBlaze.com:

"After Border Patrol agents testified Thursday about the Obama administration’s new immigration policy, South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy shared remarks from his opening statement via a Tweetstorm.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency recently received orders to release illegal immigrants and no longer order them to appear at deportation hearings. Gowdy was not pleased."

Montana Takes Huge Stand Against Obama, Tells Him to Take Refugees and Shove 'Em!

Montana Takes Huge Stand Against Obama, Tells Him to Take Refugees and Shove 'Em!:

 "Forty-eight out of the 50 states have been shunted with the nearly 1 million refugees over the past 35 years, in over 180 cities and towns, thanks to the U.S. State Department and the United Nations.

The two states that have remained “uninfused” are Wyoming and Montana."

10,000 Migrants to be Housed in Berlin's Luxury Hotels While Local Homeless Go Without Shelter

10,000 Migrants to be Housed in Berlin's Luxury Hotels While Local Homeless Go Without Shelter:
The Berlin Senate has announced an audacious, and some would say totally inappropriate plan to house 10,000 migrants in mid level to luxury hotels in the city with a total price tag of at least 600 million euros.
The senate has requested a contract with Grand City Hotels to lease out 22 hotels to house migrants in the city.
According to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine the senate entered negotiations with London-based Hampton Holding, the owners of the popular Holiday Inn and Wyndam hotels in Berlin.
The costs break down at 50 euros a night, 1500 euros a month and 18,000 euros a year.
The costs to rent an apartment in Berlin, even in the centre of the city average far lower prices. 
The company who own various hotels in the city like Hotel Berlin Mitte, the Berlin City East and City West, have been incredibly attracted to the idea as the government guarantees an occupancy rate of 95 per cent, something the hotels may only see seasonally rather than all year round when the capacity averages 60-65 per cent at best..."

UNITED NATIONS TELLS USA TO PAY SLAVE REPARATIONS, CANCEL VOTER ID LAWS, MORE

OverpassesForAmerica – UNITED NATIONS TELLS USA TO PAY SLAVE REPARATIONS, CANCEL VOTER ID LAWS, MORE #o4a #news:
(CNSNews.com) – A trio of U.N. human rights experts ended a fact-finding visit to the United States Friday with a sharp critique of the conditions faced by African-Americans today, and decried the fact that “there has been no real commitment to recognition and reparations” for slavery.
Members of the so-called “U.N. working group of experts on people of African descent” drew a connection between controversial incidents of police shootings of African-Americans to lynching of past years.
“Contemporary police killings and the trauma it creates are reminiscent of the racial terror lynching of the past,” they said a lengthy statement, parts of which were read out at a press briefing in Washington, D.C.
“Impunity for state violence has resulted in the current human rights crisis and must be addressed as a matter of urgency.”
In another present/past equation, the experts compared slavery to the incarceration of large numbers of blacks for drugs offenses.
“The devastating impact of the ‘war on drugs’ has led to mass incarceration and is compared to enslavement, due to exploitation and dehumanization of African Americans,” they declared.
The three – French law professor Mireille Fanon Mendes-France, Filipino human rights lawyer Ricardo Sunga and South African legal scholar Sabelo Gumedze – called for a greater emphasis in school curricula on the history of colonization and the transatlantic slave trade.
They also recommended that “monuments, memorials and markers” highlighting the slavery issue be erected, and for federal and state legislation “recognizing the experience of enslavement” to be passed.
Specifically, they called on Congress to pass “The Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act.” 
The legislation, introduced a year ago by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), provides for the establishment of a commission to study the issue and recommend “appropriate remedies.”
...“The colonial history, the legacy of enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism, and racial inequality in the U.S. remains a serious challenge as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent,” it said.
...“The dangerous ideology of white supremacy inhibits social cohesion amongst the U.S. population.”
...But they were highly critical of voter-ID laws, charging that “increased identification requirements in several states served to discriminate [against] minorities such as African-Americans contrary to the spirit of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.”...

Ted Cruz Tries to Re-Create Iowa Success in New Hampshire | TheBlaze.com

Ted Cruz Tries to Re-Create Iowa Success in New Hampshire | TheBlaze.com:

"Cruz cast himself as a long-shot conservative candidate in the state, much like former President Ronald Reagan was when he won the New Hampshire primary.

“Thirty-six years ago, the state of New Hampshire faced a similar election,” Cruz said. “An election where the stakes were every bit as great as they are today. And thirty-six years ago, the Granite State saw the former governor of California coming to it with all of the media saying, ‘This guy can’t win,’ with all of the media saying, ‘This guy is too far to the right, he’s too conservative.’ And besides, the media told New Hampshire, he’s 15-20 points behind in the polls."

Toxic Loans Around the World Weigh on Global Growth

Toxic Loans Around the World Weigh on Global Growth - The New York Times
Beneath the surface of the global financial system lurks a multitrillion-dollar problem that could sap the strength of large economies for years to come.
The problem is the giant, stagnant pool of loans that companies and people around the world are struggling to pay back.
Bad debts have been a drag on economic activity ever since the financial crisis of 2008, but in recent months, the threat posed by an overhang of bad loans appears to be rising. 
China is the biggest source of worry.
Some analysts estimate that China’s troubled credit could exceed $5 trillion, a staggering number that is equivalent to half the size of the country’s annual economic output.
Official figures show that Chinese banks pulled back on their lending in December.
If such trends persist, China’s economy, the second-largest in the world behind the United States’, may then slow even more than it has, further harming the many countries that have for years relied on China for their growth.
But it’s not just China.
Wherever governments and central banks unleashed aggressive stimulus policies in recent years, a toxic debt hangover has followed.
In the United States, it took many months for mortgage defaults to fall after the most recent housing bust — and energy companies are struggling to pay off the cheap money that they borrowed to pile into the shale boom.
In Europe, analysts say bad loans total more than $1 trillion.
Many large European banks are still burdened with defaulted loans, complicating policy makers’ efforts to revive the Continent’s economy.
Italy, for instance, announced a plan last week to clean out bad loans from its plodding banking industry.
Elsewhere, bad loans are on the rise at Brazil’s biggest banks, as the country grapples with the effects of an enormous credit binge..."

Teacher keeps job despite ‘unsatisfactory’ rating 6 years in a row

Teacher keeps job despite ‘unsatisfactory’ rating 6 years in a row | New York Post
Six strikes and she’s not out.
The city Department of Education has failed to fire a teacher rated “unsatisfactory” for six consecutive years.
Ann Legra, 44, a first-grade teacher at PS 173 in Washington Heights, racked up “six years of failing her students,” the city ­argued in a 16-day termination hearing.
Hearing officer Eugene Ginsberg upheld charges of Legra’s “inability to supervise students,” excessive lateness and absence and poor lesson planning in the 2012-2013 school year.
But Ginsberg dismissed evidence that Legra was a lousy instructor, saying she didn’t get enough coaching.
He imposed only a 45-day suspension without pay.
Legra keeps her $84,500-a-year salary, but is now assigned to a pool of 1,400 teachers who serve as substitutes.
Gov. Cuomo last month called the teacher-evaluation system “baloney” after the latest results revealed that fewer than 1 percent of the state’s teachers were rated ineffective.
Legra’s case shows the problem runs much deeper.
Even years-long poor performers can escape the ax.
“Six U-ratings is an outrage.
It’s a black eye on the system,” said Michael Mazzariello, a former chief prosecutor for the DOE.
He faulted administrators and current lawyers..."

Lunch video-----The Vicious Snake

Noon-toon

Dinesh D’Souza Faces Off With Bill Ayers in Debate — and Stings Him With One Devastating Response | Video | TheBlaze.com

Dinesh D’Souza Faces Off With Bill Ayers in Debate — and Stings Him With One Devastating Response | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"D’Souza fired back with a response that prompted the crowd to erupt in applause.

“The inequity of our criminal justice system is on full display right on this podium right here,” he said. “So I gave $20,000 of my own money over the campaign finance limit. I got 8 months in overnight confinement. You bombed the Pentagon and tried to bomb all kinds of other things — how much time did you do in the slammer?”

‘Uncomfortable’ prof kicks student in police uniform out of class

‘Uncomfortable’ prof kicks student in police uniform out of class | EAGnews.org
ALBANY, Ga. – An instructor at Darton State College recently ejected a uniformed police officer from the classroom becausmade the instructor “uncomfortable,” though school officials are now apologizing.
Darton College officials acknowledged in a statement that a uniformed police officer attending class in his spare time was told to leave the classroom after the teacher became “uncomfortable,” WALB reports.
“School officials confirmed the police officer was escorted out of the classroom, but did not elaborate,” according Fox 32 Chicago..."
e his presence

Mayor’s Response to Children Being Sexually Harassed by Migrants: “Don’t Provoke Them”

Mayor’s Response to Children Being Sexually Harassed by Migrants: “Don’t Provoke Them” » Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!:
A Mayor in the German town of Bad Schlema prompted fury when he responded to a grandfather’s concern about young girls being sexually harassed by migrants by responding; “don’t provoke them”.

The exchange occurred during a raucous municipal council meeting last week which ended with residents demanding the Mayor step down over his comments.

With public opinion on the 1.1 million migrants Germany has taken in over the last year souring after the mass molestation of women in Cologne, a grandfather stood up at the council meeting to ask Mayor Jens Müller, of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, whether measures would be taken to stop the harassment.

“I have a question regarding the school… about Physical education in the school gym”, the man stated . “My Granddaughter, she’s under ten — and it’s also happened in a nearby town, that’s right — the girls have been harassed by the refugee ‘children’, the ‘asylum seekers’.”

“They get harassed from the windows [of the shelter] and things like that. How will this be in the summer? When the School girls wear less clothing?” he asked.

“That’s easy; just don’t provoke them and don’t walk in these areas”, the Mayor responded.

The rest of the attendees immediately began booing, but the Mayor subsequently doubled down on his idiocy, suggesting that Germans were equally to blame when he commented, “Do you think this [sexual harassment] doesn’t exist among Germans”...

Seriously? Brian Williams Proclaims to Be the ‘Purveyor of Truth and Justice’

Seriously? Brian Williams Proclaims to Be the ‘Purveyor of Truth and Justice’
A totally clueless Brian Williams on Monday night warned MSNBC viewers to not fall for false information as Iowa caucus results rolled in.
The man who became known for spinning vast numbers of falsehoods while anchor at NBC News ominously began, “There's going to be some data floating around, especially the internet tonight.”
He continued, “The first wave of that data is notoriously suspect. So, don't believe everything you see and hear tonight.”
With no self-awareness, Williams proclaimed, “We hopefully will be the purveyors of truth and justice here.”
Speaking of truth, on June 18, Williams apologized, “I'm sorry. I said things that weren't true. I let down my NBC colleagues and our viewers, and I'm determined to earn back their trust.”
Williams famously told several varying stories about taking fire in a Chinook helicopter.
  He described it as “Black Hawk Down meets Saving Private Ryan.”
On another occasion, during Hurricane Katrina, he asserted, “I have seen thousands of dead people.”
Obviously, Williams is not the right person to be a “purveyor of truth and justice.”

Israelis Overwhelmingly Rank Obama ‘Worst President for Israel in The Last 30 Years’

Israelis Overwhelmingly Rank Obama ‘Worst President for Israel in The Last 30 Years’:

"TEL AVIV –  A new poll shows that Jewish Israelis rank Barack Obama as the “worst” U.S. president for Israel in the last 30 years, the Jewish Journal reported."

Goldman Sachs Says It May Be Forced to Fundamentally Question How Capitalism Is Working

Goldman Sachs Says It May Be Forced to Fundamentally Question How Capitalism Is Working - Bloomberg Business:
"...In other words, profit margins should naturally mean-revert and oscillate.
The existence of fat margins should encourage new competitors and pricing cycles that cause those margins to erode; conversely, at the bottom of the cycle, low margins should lead to weaker players exiting the business and giving stronger companies more breathing space.
If that cycle doesn't continue, something strange is taking place.
Needless to say, it's not every day you see a major investment bank say it might have to start asking broader questions about capitalism itself. "

AM Fruitcake

History for February 4

History for February 4 - On-This-Day.com:
Charles Lindbergh 1902, Rosa Parks 1913, George A. Romero 1940 


David Brenner 1945, Alice Cooper 1948 - Singer, musician, Gabrielle Anwar 1970 


1783 - Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities with its former colonies, the United States of America. 


1789 - Electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States. 


1824 - J.W. Goodrich introduced rubber galoshes to the public. 


1904 - The Russo-Japanese War began after Japan laid siege to Port Arthur. 


1932 - The first Winter Olympics were held in the United States at Lake Placid, NY. 


1957 - Smith-Corona Manufacturing Inc., of New York, began selling portable electric typewriters. The first machine weighed 19 pounds. 


1974 - Patricia (Patty) Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley, CA, by the Symbionese Liberation Army. 


2004 - The social networking website Facebook.com was launched. 

LIBERTY REVIEW

LIBERTY REVIEW:

http://www.libertyreview76.blogspot.com/2016/02/february-3-2016-puppet-branches-by.html

Puppet Branches

By Tammy Derouin

Life has many ups and downs.  Each roadblock or difficulty we face becomes a personal challenge.  How we handle the challenge is what shapes us as individuals.  Lessons learned prepare us for the next obstacle we will face.  Some challenges are more difficult than others.  At times it may feel like no matter what you do, the pain and misery will never end. Eventually, you accept, deal with the situation and move on to the next challenge.  Refusing to see a problem causes additional suffering as you will be forced to repeat the challenge possibly more than once.

No one gets through life without collecting both emotional and physical bruises and scars.  The types of problems we face are the same, yet uniquely different.  We struggle financially, through family situations and changes, employment concerns, personal relationships, the loss of family members and friends.  How we face and react to the challenges of life determines our character, strength and our stability as individuals.

What I struggle with is how much we, as a nation, took our safety and security for granted. We were an exceptional nation because we not only had our freedom but we had a government that actively protected our freedom as well as our borders. National security was once a high priority.  In our new reality, our government is more concerned about getting our potential enemy inside our borders, providing them with financial assistance and distributing them throughout our country. 

We once had a system of checks and balances.  We had an Executive Branch, a Legislative Branch and a Judicial Branch.  Each would check the constitutionality of the actions taking place within the other branches.  Sadly, that is no longer the case.  We have allowed the Executive Branch to become unchallengeable. In the end, that will make the others obsolete or puppet branches of government... 

YO QUIERO EDUCACIÓN APOCALIPSIS! Disparo: Not From The Onion: University Of Kentucky Offers Course on taco literacy…

Instapundit » Blog Archive » ¡YO QUIERO EDUCACIÓN APOCALIPSIS! Disparo: Not From The Onion: University Of Kentucky Offers Co…:
¡YO QUIERO EDUCACIÓN APOCALIPSIS!

Disparo: Not From The Onion: University Of Kentucky Offers Course On Taco Literacy. 

Chupito: New Mandatory Diversity Training For Students At Mizzou Focuses On Taco Costumes.

The revolution will not be televised — but it just might be catered.

(Both headlines via Maggie’s Farm.)

Long-term marijuana use tied to worse verbal memory in middle age

Long-term marijuana use tied to worse verbal memory in middle age | Reuters
As marijuana becomes more accessible to young and old alike in the U.S., researchers warn that long-term use of the drug may cause lasting harm to at least one type of brain function.
A new study based on following thousands of young adults into middle age finds that long-term marijuana use is linked to poorer performance on verbal memory tests, but other areas of brain function do not appear to be affected.
...Auer and colleagues analyzed data from a 25-year U.S. study of young adults, which included repeated measures of marijuana exposure over time and a standardized test of verbal memory, processing speed and executive function in year 25.
Almost 3,500 participants completed the standardized tests.
At the beginning of the study period in the 1980s, participants were 18 to 30 years old and more than 80 percent reported past marijuana use.
Just 12 percent continued to use marijuana into middle age, according to the results in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Researchers found that as past years of marijuana use increased, verbal memory scores decreased. 
In practical terms, the results meant that for every additional five years of exposure, 50 percent of marijuana users would remember one less word from a list of 15 tested words.

Hilarious Cartoon DESTROYS Liberal Voter ID Arguments | The Federalist Papers

Hilarious Cartoon DESTROYS Liberal Voter ID Arguments | The Federalist Papers:

"Call me a loon, but I think the belief that minorities lack the capability to go and obtain an ID like everybody else is in itself quite racist.

Also rather racist is this belief that minorities are too afraid to get their pictures taken.

“Some people can be very sensitive to having their photo taken especially when it is taken by an official, for an official purpose,” Devon Chaffee, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, complained to Fox News."