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April 2021

Lessons In Woke “Science”: Covid-19 And Climate  Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-4-11-lessons-in-woke-science-cov

Over time, I have had many posts on the scientific method.  You posit a falsifiable hypothesis. Then you collect and examine the evidence. If the evidence contradicts your hypothesis you must abandon it and move on. Really, that’s the whole thing.

Then there is woke “science,” most visible these days in the arenas of response to the Covid-19 virus and of climate change. Here the principles are a little different. In woke “science” there is no falsifiable hypothesis. In place of that, we have the official orthodox consensus view. The official orthodox consensus view has been arrived at by all the smartest people, because it just seems like it must be right. The official orthodox consensus view must not be contradicted, particularly by the little people like you. Based on the official orthodox consensus view, those in power can take away all your freedom (Covid) and/or transform the entire economy (climate). After all, it’s the “science.”

But what if evidence seems to contradict the official orthodox consensus view? I’m sorry, but as I said the official orthodox consensus view must not be contradicted. Today’s news brings a couple of extreme examples of that, one on the virus front, and the other relating to climate. Both of these are from Europe, so you may not have seen them.

On the virus front, we consider the case of Germany. For some reason, Germany has been relatively lightly hit by the virus, at least so far. According to the latest from Worldometers, Germany has had 940 deaths per million population to date. This compares, for example to 2,593 deaths per million in Czechia (worst of all countries), 1,864 in the UK, and 1,732 in the U.S. But starting in about mid-March, Germany has seen a renewed “surge” of cases. Why? Some might say that the virus is just going to get you sooner or later. But on March 23 German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a new three-week “lockdown” of the strictest variety, which included the forced closing of most stores from April 1 – 5. And with that three-week period about to expire, the website No Tricks Zone (German speakers) reports today that even further extensions are under consideration:

National Geographic’s Pollution Of Scientific Discourse Henry I. Miller

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/04/12/national-geographics-pollution-of-scientific-discourse/

For more than a century, National Geographic has produced a high-quality magazine that is well-grounded in science, history and culture. Lately, however, the editors have allowed agenda-driven articles based on flawed research to slip in between the covers.

Take, for example, the latest piece by science writer Elizabeth Royte, which focused on the work of Jonathan Lundgren, who is portrayed as a hard-working scientist-farmer. He claims that widely used, state-of-the-art neonicotinoid insecticides “may be a threat to mammals,” as well as to bees (an allegation that has been thoroughly debunked). Considering that Royte’s article was a collaboration with the activists at the Food & Environment Reporting Network, it probably shouldn’t be surprising that Lundgren was selected as the story’s hero.

Lundgren became a martyr to the activist community following his departure from a research position at the U.S. Department of Agriculture after bending ethical rules in support of his personal agenda. Now that he’s a private citizen, his crusade against modern pesticides has accelerated.

Lundgren had already established himself as a leading critic of neonicotinoids, the most popular insecticide on the market today. At first, he argued that these chemicals were bad for bees, and so farmers ought to be required to only use “organic” pesticides. Now he’s expanding the claim to also cover all mammals, presumably including humans, based on the “singular experiment” described in the Nat Geo article.

CEOs’ Surrender To The Mobocrats On The Left Will End Poorly

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/04/13/americans-keep-surrendering-to-the-mobocrats-on-the-left/

The story of more than 100 CEOs meeting to attack the voting laws the left is screeching over is discouraging. The healthy separation between civil society and politics has grown dangerously thin, and these “leaders” are threatening to punch right through the tattered fabric.

Sunday afternoon the Wall Street Journal reported that senior executives had “gathered on Zoom this weekend to plot what several said big businesses should do next about new voting laws under way in Texas and other states.” A pair of Kenneths, Chenault, former American Express CEO, and Frazier, CEO of Merck, “urged the leaders to collectively call for greater voting access, according to several people who attended.” These men “cautioned businesses against dropping the issue and asked CEOs to sign a statement opposing what they view as discriminatory legislation on voting.”

This being America, they have every right to gather, to express their opinions, to sign whatever statement they wish to support. And we have every right to point out how they’re falling, perhaps even willfully, for a gross mischaracterization of the new Georgia voting law and other similar legislation that is likely to follow.

Contrary to popular opinion, Georgia’s law does not suppress voting – in reality it expands voting opportunities. Even the Washington Post, a veritable Democratic Party newsletter, gave President Joe Biden four Pinocchios for his lies about the law, which were central to the widespread fabrications about it.

Hunter Biden’s ‘Expertise’ The election is over but Washington’s press corps is still largely incurious about the Biden family business. James Freeman

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hunter-bidens-expertise-11618263824?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

Remember that time in 2019 when Hunter Biden’s longtime partner in a venture funded by the Chinese government told the South China Morning Post that he was still working on an explanation of Mr. Biden’s role at the firm? A new narrative may soon be at hand. In a recent interview with comedian Jimmy Kimmel, the president’s 51-year-old son offered an intriguing claim about his business career. And it could be very useful to the corporate communications staff at China-based BHR, as well as the good folks at Ukraine’s Burisma and other overseas outfits that have paid him implausibly large sums.

Mr. Biden is still not claiming to be an expert in Chinese finance or Ukrainian energy or Romanian corruption statutes or Russian real estate. But in defending his lucrative arrangement with Burisma during an appearance on the Kimmel show, Mr. Biden said that he had “expertise in corporate governance.” And what would foreign oligarchs do without corporate governance experts?

If true, this new Biden claim suggests at least the possibility that all of the millions of dollars he’s collected overseas really were legitimate. Maybe the foreign tycoons were not simply renting a Biden for purposes of Washington influence.

This sure seems like news, and tailor-made for media folk who still enjoy offering rebuttals against Donald Trump even though he has left public office and is not even allowed to speak on social media.

Yet for whatever reason, even though Hunter Biden is on a book tour, the press seems largely uninterested in his story.

Putin and ‘Consequences’ Putin masses troops near Ukraine in an early test for Biden and the G-7 allies.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-and-consequences-11618266935?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Most Americans haven’t noticed, but the world is becoming a more dangerous place by the day. The hottest current spot is Russia’s border with Ukraine and the Black Sea, where the Kremlin has amassed more forces than any time since its invasion of the Donbass region when Joe Biden was Vice President.

Vladimir Putin’s ambitions aren’t clear, though some think he wants to control the entire Black Sea coast, further squeezing Ukraine. An invasion to grab more Ukrainian territory is also possible. The U.S. Navy has dispatched two ships to the region.

On Monday the U.S. also joined the other G-7 foreign ministers asking Mr. Putin to cease and desist: “These large-scale troop movements, without prior notification, represent threatening and destabilizing activities. We call on Russia to cease its provocations and to immediately de-escalate tensions in line with its international obligations.”

Mr. Putin has never been one for “international obligations,” so don’t expect the G-7 to scare him—even when the foreign ministers also demand, as they did, that he follow “the procedure established under Chapter III of the Vienna Document.” International law: Such a lovely fiction.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was somewhat more forceful Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “So the question is: Is Russia going to continue to act aggressively and recklessly? If it does, the President has been clear there’ll be costs, there’ll be consequences.”

This sounds like a line in sand, and we’ll see how seriously Mr. Putin takes it. He might assume that a G-7 that can’t even agree to stop the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany might merely huff and puff and do nothing. China and Iran will also be watching to see how Mr. Biden, now in the Oval Office, defines “consequences” if Mr. Putin calls the G-7’s bluff.

The Green New Deal, in Disguise Biden’s ‘infrastructure’ bill is really a plan to remake the economy.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-green-new-deal-in-disguise-11618267156?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Candidate Joe Biden emphatically denied that he supported the Green New Deal. As with so much else, President Biden is now a convert. His $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan contains enough spending and industrial planning that it amounts to the Green New Deal in disguise.

Listen to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who two weeks ago claimed maternity for the President’s plan. “As much as I think some parts of the party try to avoid saying ‘Green New Deal’ and really dance around and try to not use that term, ultimately, the framework I think has been adopted,” the progressive heroine from Queens boasted. The details prove her point.

***

Mr. Biden is pitching his plan as having a big economic return on federal investment—and better roads, bridges and ports could increase productivity. But more than half of his plan is dedicated to reducing CO2, with a goal of eliminating fossil fuels with a mix of federal spending, subsidies and regulation. This is a political project with suspect returns.

• Start with $213 billion to build and retrofit two million energy-efficient homes and buildings. These putative “upgrades” would be financed by federal grants, tax credits and the economically inefficient Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP).

            Curioser and Curioser: Marilyn Penn

After the Me Too movement, the jail sentences for men as old as Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, the firing of too many men who were heads of successful studios and businesses,  the groundswell to impeach Governor Cuomo, we get the full page and ¾  article in the Sunday Times titled “You Will Pay to Be Humiliated” by Alexander Weiss (April 11).   It concerns a “professional Black dominatrix “who extorts money from her willing slaves simply by appearing on Twitter and a short video online and commanding them to shell out until she’s satisfied with the amount. There’s no explaining the myriad ways in which people get their kicks from degradation, but presumably, there are subjects that the Times wouldn’t stoop to indulge in and after all the knocks to Trump for his dalliance with a porn star, we are entitled to be bewildered by the paper’s celebration of this woman and her vocation.

Mistress Marley claims to be a college graduate who puts her life-work in an exalted historical context : “…as a Black woman, I see my financial gains as reparations, because the majority, if not all my clients, are white men.”  So the photos of Marley tightly bound in a corset and holding a white man on a leash are really just an attempt at retributive justice – not an attempt to titillate readers with some hard core bondage.   There is further validation from a psychology professor who explains how “liberating” it is for men to give their money away:  “I believe that findom (financial domination) can actually be a really healthy way to manifest the part of human nature that is about power asymmetry and hierarchy.”     A doctor is on hand as well to offer this enlightening parallel behavior:  “If I’m into golf and golfing is important to me, I will wait to spend money on other things, but I’m not going to go broke buying golf clubs.”

By now everyone must know that the most financially successful product on the internet is porn – specifically child porn.  People have been corrupted into dallying into this most heinous of activities by the ease of its availability  – safe in one’s own home.  Perhaps this has given the Times the freedom to now offer almost two pages of illustrated  salacious behavior, justified by “professionals” who consider  bondage and extortion therapeutic . 

We don’t need to wonder how the Times would feel about Privileged White dommes , as they are known, humiliating and fleecing Black “slaves” –   they don’t have the grit to show that.

Communism Is Still the Enemy Eileen F. Toplansky

As the bloviating disciples of Biden’s administration prattle on about the dignity of law-breaking illegals who cross into this country, it behooves every American to take note of the abiding trespass of Communism to destroy America.  When geographical boundaries of a nation are ignored, it is a military invasion even when no bullets are shot.  Change the demographics and communists win a major victory. 

In the blurb to Ralph de Toledano’s The Greatest Plot in  History, (1963) one learns that “fiction yields no stranger plot — treason rewarded, traitors left free, patriots hounded and duped.  Liberals still in the seats of the mighty. Above all, it is the story of how superbly trained communist agents were infiltrated into key positions; how vital materials and knowledge of secrets processes were transferred to Russia — with the eager cooperation of highly place Liberals and why Liberal naiveté was and remains America’s greatest handicap in dealing with Communists.”

Toledano writes about Arthur Alexandrovitch Adams who in May of 1938 crossed the Canadian border into the United States.  Immigration officials paid casual attention to the fraudulent Canadian birth certificate he carried with him. Customs officials at the time had no idea that Moscow had prepared Adams safe cover for  the theft of America’s most closely guarded nuclear secrets.

In fact, “Communists had given [diplomatic espionage] a new dimension by including . . . industrial, technological and scientific espionage — preying on the private sector by stealing patented processes [.]” Moreover, “nationals of Western countries whose loyalties were subverted and whose idealism was corrupted” were enlisted.

According to Trevor Loudon, this is communism’s big secret.  In essence, how could a relatively tiny communist party influence public policy?  When European revolutions failed in the 1920s, “the communist movement began a long-term plan to move individual countries to socialism by force where possible, by infiltration and manipulation when not.”  Consequently, “education, the churches and the media were all targeted.”  Equally alarming, is the systematic infiltration and manipulation of the legislative bodies of major Western nations.  Currently, most major Western  communist parties, including the Communist Party, USA tend to look to China for leadership.

Kati Kariko Helped Shield the World From the Coronavirus Collaborating with devoted colleagues, Dr. Kariko laid the groundwork for the mRNA vaccines turning the tide of the pandemic.By Gina Kolata

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/health/coronavirus-mrna-kariko.html?referringSource=articleShare

She grew up in Hungary, daughter of a butcher. She decided she wanted to be a scientist, although she had never met one. She moved to the United States in her 20s, but for decades never found a permanent position, instead clinging to the fringes of academia.

Now Katalin Kariko, 66, known to colleagues as Kati, has emerged as one of the heroes of Covid-19 vaccine development. Her work, with her close collaborator, Dr. Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania, laid the foundation for the stunningly successful vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

For her entire career, Dr. Kariko has focused on messenger RNA, or mRNA — the genetic script that carries DNA instructions to each cell’s protein-making machinery. She was convinced mRNA could be used to instruct cells to make their own medicines, including vaccines.

But for many years her career at the University of Pennsylvania was fragile. She migrated from lab to lab, relying on one senior scientist after another to take her in. She never made more than $60,000 a year.

By all accounts intense and single-minded, Dr. Kariko lives for “the bench” — the spot in the lab where she works. She cares little for fame. “The bench is there, the science is good,” she shrugged in a recent interview. “Who cares?”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and infectious Diseases, knows Dr. Kariko’s work. “She was, in a positive sense, kind of obsessed with the concept of messenger RNA,” he said.

Bay of Pigs has lessons for our time By Lawrence J. Haas

It was 60 years ago this week that an uncertain new president launched an ill-conceived military venture of astonishing naivety. The scheme was straightforward and audacious: 1,400 U.S.-trained Cuban exiles would land at the Bay of Pigs and ignite a populist uprising that would topple a Soviet-backed communist revolutionary by the name of Fidel Castro.

It was an unmitigated disaster.

With an army of 25,000, Castro quickly quashed hopes of an uprising as his forces killed more than a hundred exiles and imprisoned most of the others, and President John F. Kennedy suffered an embarrassing global setback just three months into his presidency.

Worse, the disaster came just weeks after JFK had launched his Alliance for Progress, which was supposed to set a new tone in U.S.-Latin American relations. Rather than continue to back right-wing regimes that supported U.S. interests in the region, the United States would provide billions in aid in exchange for political and economic reforms that would improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

The Alliance was designed to burnish America’s image in Latin America, but the Bay of Pigs buried those hopes by resurrecting the specter of U.S. imperialism in a region that had seen more than enough of it.

The fiasco had a silver lining, however, for it forced JFK to take stock, re-evaluate his approach to global challenges, see the world clearly, and act accordingly – in essence, to learn from his mistake.

It’s an approach that remains both important and timely, however different are the challenges that President Joe Biden now faces.