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New York Times Defended Harvard's Claudia Gay Using 'Duplicative Language' But Is Suing OpenAI Over It

New York Times Defended Harvard's Claudia Gay Using 'Duplicative Language' But Is Suing OpenAI Over It

Dec 29 2023 | comment(s)

After Harvard leader (and Board member of Harvard Corp.) Claudia Gay dismissed concerns about anti-Semitism due to lack of protection from hate speech and violence directed at Jewish people, the broader community began to look at the scholarly work of this little-known activist who somehow was placed in charge of nearly $60 billion in money - and having a vote in hiring or firing herself.

There was an alarming amount of plagiarism, yet the New York Times quickly rushed to defend their political ally and reframe it as "duplicative language" - but that was not Joe Biden stealing British politician Neil Kinnock's life story for a speech, this was printed scholarship.
SCOTUS Banned Racism In University Admissions But Little Will Change

SCOTUS Banned Racism In University Admissions But Little Will Change

Dec 26 2023 | comment(s)

A CNN article notes that black students may now feel less inclined to mention their race when applying to colleges. They frame it as a blow against Affirmative Action by pesky conservatives on the Supreme Court, but removing racism can't be a bad thing.
Golden Fleece: California High Taxes Offset By Designating A State Bat

Golden Fleece: California High Taxes Offset By Designating A State Bat

Dec 16 2023 | comment(s)

In arguably their most important 2023 legislative move, Democrats have given California a state...bat.

The rationale was that bats are 'as diverse as California' so why government immediately chose an official government winner, the pallid bat, is as mysterious as why we have a state goldfish, a state marine mammal, and a state butterfly.

There are overwhelmingly 4,000 species of mammals so California has a way to go before they pick an official member of each.
COP28 Was Less About Climate Change Than Dismantling Democracies

COP28 Was Less About Climate Change Than Dismantling Democracies

Dec 15 2023 | comment(s)

Climate change conferences are always ironic. Wealthy celebrities flying in on emissions-belching planes while claiming they bought 'carbon offsets' from companies that made Al Gore so rich he is the kind of oligarch Republicans only wish they could be is always going to create skepticism.

Having it in a mideast dictatorship that funds terrorism using wealth it derived from oil is next level.

It's more ironic this year, that's harmless enough, yet more worrisome, because climate activism has increasingly been taken over by socialist activism, and a quasi-feudal belief in agricultural mysticism. 
With Electric Cars Mandated By The Biden Administration, Activists Target Prius Owners As Bad For Climate Change

With Electric Cars Mandated By The Biden Administration, Activists Target Prius Owners As Bad For Climate Change

Dec 15 2023 | comment(s)

We all remember when progressives gushed over the Prius as the car that was saving the planet. In standard 'endorse the alternative until it becomes the standard and then sue them and collect checks along the way' fashion, environmentalists have no turned on them.

They are being declared NRE - which in this case isn't Not Really European, the NRE that white liberals on The Continent use to refer to immigrants, but Not Really Electric.

Electric Car Government Relations get paid to pave the road for their clients/employers, so they do what you probably expect; create trade groups and even entire nonprofits to advance their agenda. And pay those naturally inclined to help, or even those who are 'useful idiots.'(1)
Congress Undoes The Obama Administration War On Normal Milk - Now Restore Other Standards Of Identity

Congress Undoes The Obama Administration War On Normal Milk - Now Restore Other Standards Of Identity

Dec 15 2023 | comment(s)

The House Agricultural Committee has undone a decade-long travesty brought on by the Obama administration, where they decided in defiance of the entire science community that low-fat and non-fat milk would lead to healthier outcomes in children.
Voyager Is Having A Computer Issue; What That Means

Voyager Is Having A Computer Issue; What That Means

Dec 14 2023 | comment(s)

NASA’s Voyager spacecraft is 15 billion miles away, out beyond Pluto, which means it can't be fixed if there is a mechanical issue. But FORTRAN is pretty elegant code, and it's self-powered, so if the CMOS isn't messed up and the telemetry modulation unit gets going it should be communicating fine for decades.

Maybe even long enough to leave the solar system - in 25,000 years.
FDA Seizes $18 Million In Chinese Vape Devices But It May Not Be About Kids

FDA Seizes $18 Million In Chinese Vape Devices But It May Not Be About Kids

Dec 14 2023 | comment(s)

The the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized $18 million in vaping products from China.

They're cheering that they are protecting American youth but...from what? $18 million is nothing, and yet the Biden administration spent three months preparing to nab it. All because on surveys, if you count any young person who claims to have used a vaping tool, and massage the numbers, you can manufacture an 'epidemic.'
Hearing Aids and Dementia: Another Epidemiology Paper Retracted

Hearing Aids and Dementia: Another Epidemiology Paper Retracted

Dec 13 2023 | comment(s)

With so many epidemiology papers published each month, everyone in a giant academic industry essentially created by Harvard School of Public Health in the 1980s is pushing out "correlation" between some common food or chemical and some disease or health benefit, it is hard to get noticed.

One way corporate journalists will notice is if a Republican says it. A WHO "miracle drug" was dragged through the mud for suggesting it might be a therapy for COVID-19 - after a Republican listed that peer-reviewed research.
Google's Top Searches Of 2023 Have No Science, But At Least One Is Health Related

Google's Top Searches Of 2023 Have No Science, But At Least One Is Health Related

Dec 11 2023 | comment(s)

The Hamas terrorist attack is the top news search, according to Google, while in cinema the top searches were about "Barbie" and in music Yoasobi's "アイドル (Idol)" wins the prize.

There was a health-related win. Among people, Damar Hamlin's near-death cardiac arrest on the field during a Buffalo Bills NFL game in January ended up being the top for the year. 
With 18 Million Tons Of Lithium In California, Environmentalists May Flip On Electric Cars

With 18 Million Tons Of Lithium In California, Environmentalists May Flip On Electric Cars

Dec 08 2023 | comment(s)

There is an environmental playbook that hasn't changed in decades - because it works.
Find something useful that is a successful industry, advocate and lobby for an alternative to replace it, then turn against the alternative after it's successful.

It sounds cynical but if you look at hydroelectric power, natural gas, GMOs, and ethanol, they were all once demanded by environmental groups. Then when they succeeded, those same groups declared them bad.

Right now, solar is "the new new" - it's for wealthy white people, the biggest donors to activists, it's in opposition to the natural gas activists lobbied for until 20 years ago, and they can pretend the strip mining to get the precious materials to make panels and batteries doesn't exist.
How Europe Adapted To The Failure Of Alternative Energy

How Europe Adapted To The Failure Of Alternative Energy

Dec 08 2023 | comment(s)

The dirty secret of alternative energy in Europe was that it never worked. You just wouldn't know it talking to Europeans. They believe in their government, and culturally that is what sets apart America - we believe in our country, but we don't trust our government unless they earn it.
Virtual Water Estimate Claims A Bitcoin Costs 4200 Gallons Of Water - It's Not Real

Virtual Water Estimate Claims A Bitcoin Costs 4200 Gallons Of Water - It's Not Real

Dec 05 2023 | comment(s)

Virtual water is one of those 1990s breezy claims created by activists, just like 'it takes a gallon of gas to make a pound of beef.'

Anyone with any middle school ability to do arithmetic knows it isn't true, or the Mid-East would have been fighting wars over water for 2,000 years, instead of fighting over everything but that. Virtual water uses estimates of all the water that goes into a process while ignoring that water is recycled. So you can believe it takes 30 gallons of water to make your cup of coffee, activists said just that and New York Times reporters repeated it as fact, but the water that went into growing coffee also went into aquifers and the sky and rained all over again. None of it disappeared.
California Nutritionist: Twins Experiment Shows Vegan Diets Are Healthier. Science Disagrees

California Nutritionist: Twins Experiment Shows Vegan Diets Are Healthier. Science Disagrees

Dec 01 2023 | comment(s)

A California nutritionist who routinely extols supplements, fad diets, and alternatives to medicine is prominently covered by corporate media for claiming food diaries using twins shows that vegan diets are healthier.

Yet it is so full of confounders that even IARC epidemiologists would have to ask awkward questions about his conclusion using that methodology.
Thanksgiving Dinner - Do We Need An Electoral College To Prevent Tyranny Of The Turkey Majority?

Thanksgiving Dinner - Do We Need An Electoral College To Prevent Tyranny Of The Turkey Majority?

Nov 21 2023 | comment(s)

In 2000, 2016, and 2020, a political party declared that the electoral college needed to go - because they lost. 

What they don't realize is that despite how state results appear in their favor, they are not. If it was a direct vote, a candidate would win with 26% of the electorate, parties would be irrelevant, and the victor would be the candidate with the most aggressive position on a hot-button issue, abortion, guns, whatever. The rest of us would have to live with it.
Court Orders 'Balance of Nature' Products To Cease Sales Due To Fraud

Court Orders 'Balance of Nature' Products To Cease Sales Due To Fraud

Nov 16 2023 | comment(s)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked dietary grifters Evig LLC, of St. George Utah, and the company’s CEO, Douglas Lex Howard, as well as Premium Production LLC, of St. George, Utah, and its Manager, Ryan Petersen, to stop selling "Balance of Naure" supplements because they are lying when they claim they can diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent diseases such as cancer, heart disease, cirrhosis, diabetes, asthma, and COVID-19

The hucksters refused to comply, and even continues to promote their products even though they knew they were adulterated and unsafe for use. Now a federal court has ordered them shut down.
In 2015, An IARC Analysis Would've Declared Glyphosate Harmless - Then Activists Intervened

In 2015, An IARC Analysis Would've Declared Glyphosate Harmless - Then Activists Intervened

Nov 16 2023 | comment(s)

Every few months, jurors in a progressive city, where science is regarded as a corporate conspiracy, issue some judgment against a common weedkiller known as glyphosate.

Are they so stupid they think plants are little people? Or that humans carry the same pathway that the chemical acts on in weeds? Sure, but environmental trial lawyers hoping to get even richer also have an International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) monograph on their side. In 2015, the French group of epidemiologists declared it a possible carcinogen, even though every scientific body had found that was not the case.

They call it science, but it isn't. It is only epidemiology.
FDA Allows In-Home Chlamydia Gonorrhea Testing Kit

FDA Allows In-Home Chlamydia Gonorrhea Testing Kit

Nov 15 2023 | comment(s)

Currently, if you are worried you might have chlamydia or gonorrhea, you had to have a sample collected at your doctor's office, and in states like California that could mean waiting months for an appointment.

FDA has now granted marketing authorization for the Simple 2 Test, which will be available over-the-counter and is the first non-HIV sexually transmitted disease test with at-home vaginal swabs or urine specimens.
Hyperbole About Type 2 Diabetes Doesn't Help Anyone

Hyperbole About Type 2 Diabetes Doesn't Help Anyone

Nov 14 2023 | comment(s)

An advocacy group claims one third of all Americans is "at risk" for diabetes.

That isn't true. Even at the a1c level CDC oddly expresses concern about, fewer than 5 percent of people will go on to develop diabetes - in their lifetime. That is not clinically relevant and if it is not clinically relevant it is as pointless and shamanistic as a doctor telling every patient to eat less salt. It may help a few people but most will just be annoyed by bland food.

Obesity is overwhelmingly the cause of type 2 diabetes but claiming everyone overweight has the same "increased risk" is not just bad science, it is even bad epidemiology - and in modern times that field basically exists to scare people about supernatural levels of chemicals or help write miracle food books.