ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Desire for Power Hiding Behind Health and Climate Concerns Theodore Dalrymple

Posted By on November 8th, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-desire-for-power-hiding-behind-health-and-clim

There is a threat of creeping totalitarianism in western societies that comes from health and climate activists. Who (except unfeeling monsters) could possibly be against the saving of human life or the preservation of the planet from future catastrophe? Often the two strands of redemptive enthusiasm go together: after all, environmental degradation is hardly good for health.

Since almost all human activities have health or environmental consequences, especially bad ones, it follows that those who want to preserve either human health or the environment, or both, have an almost infinitely expansible justification for interfering in our lives, indeed they have it to the nth degree.

These days, much medical research that is published in the general medical journals such as the Lancet or the New England Journal of Medicine is epidemiological rather than experimental. It finds associations between factor a (shall we say, the consumption of bananas) and illness x (shall we say, Alzheimer’s disease).

Once an association is found that is unlikely to have arisen by chance (unlikely, that is, but not impossible), an hypothesis is put forward as to why the eating of bananas should conduce to the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Before long, the statistical association and its alleged explanation leaks out into the press or social media, and people start to be afraid of bananas. The more enthusiastic and less sceptical of the epidemiologists begin to call for banana controls: anti-banana propaganda, extra taxes on bananas, no bananas on sale within a hundred yards of anywhere there might be a child, and so on.

And of course, a reduction in the demand for bananas will assist those tropical countries large parts of which are given over to environmentally-degrading banana monoculture. Banana republics are not called bananas republics for nothing.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Pope’s New Encyclical: A Surrender? by Lawrence A. Franklin

Posted By on November 8th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16732/pope-francis-encyclical-fratelli-tutti

The Pope, for instance, implies that the twilight of the planet’s centuries old diplomatic nation-state system has arrived, prompting the need for a more globalist political system. Regrettably, that usually brings with it no transparency, no accountability and no recourse. Think of the United Nations, the UN Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court or the European Union.

In the Pope’s encyclical, the “stranger” is always a desperate, impoverished refugee seeking solace, never an aggressor with the will to conquer.

Although Francis may have been especially aware of his Muslim guests, Catholics must wonder if they, too, were included as part of the intended audience. There was simply little or no mention in the encyclical of core Catholic beliefs.

In truth, however, “Fratelli Tutti” seems more a contrived, secular attempt to fashion a model for the governance of humankind that could attract the support of believer and non-believer alike. Unfortunately, it may also rally those hoping to bring down Judeo-Christian civilization to assume that the West is unfurling a flag of surrender.

The Pope’s Encyclical “Fratelli Tutti” (“Brothers All”) sadly seems more a massive and unwieldy political document than a religious guide to the Catholic faithful. The encyclical’s intended audience appears to be secular world rather than people of faith. The 43,000-word tome contains almost no discussion of Catholic dogmas. Although the Pontiff’s diagnosis of the world’s ills seems accurate enough, unfortunately his proposed antidotes — equality of result rather than equality of opportunity and individual liberty, the bedrocks of Western democracies — would seriously threaten freedom.

The Pope, for instance, implies that the twilight of the planet’s centuries old diplomatic nation-state system has arrived, prompting the need for a more globalist political system. Regrettably, that usually brings with it no transparency, no accountability and no recourse. Think of the United Nations, the UN Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court or the European Union.

The Pope denigrates the concept of nationalism by referring to it as “local narcissism.” His support for “open borders” would deny nations the right to sovereignty over their national territories. Pope Francis, a lifelong priest of the Jesuit order, appears to be calling for a system of international organizations that would possess the power to override the will of individual states and have the potential to become a global despotism.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: The Return of Demons by Amir Taheri

Posted By on November 8th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16731/turkey-return-of-demons

Though Empire-builders of the first order, the Ottomans were always careful not to bite more than they could chew. Erdogan, however, is leading Turkey into empire-building adventures which it does not want and cannot afford.

It has… launched a war of words with the European Union as a whole. Ostensibly, Turkey’s beef is about old maritime demarcation lines that deny it the right to tap underwater oil and gas resources. What Erdogan does not realize is that the potential market for those resources is the very European Union he is now casting as enemy. In any case, the disputed resources cannot be tapped without massive investment from the West, not to mention the technology needed.

By promoting a strategic break with Europe, Erdogan is leading Turkey into the unknown, with demons whispering in his ears.

“Our past was in Asia but our future is in Europe!” This was how Mesut Yilmaz portrayed his vision for Turkey in a panel debate in Davos in the 1990s.

At the time, Yilmaz, who died last week at the age of 73, was one of the rising stars of Turkish politics and a generation that seemed destined to complete a revolution that had started in the 1880s in the Ottoman Empire. That revolution had aimed at transforming the moribund empire into a modern Western-style state capable of reversing more than a century of decline that had earned the caliphate the sobriquet of “Sick man of Europe.”

By the start of the 20th century, however, it had become clear that building a modern European-style state, based on the Westphalian principles, required the existence of a nation also in the European sense of the term; an impossible task as long as the Ottoman state remained a multi-national empire whose legitimacy was based on religion which, by definition, excludes the very concept of a nation-state.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

MY SAY: THE NEED FOR AN INVESTIGATION

Posted By on November 8th, 2020

This timeline is interesting:

As the counting started on FOX and CNN Donald Trump was comfortably ahead  in many  states with utmost attention focused on Florida and Ohio with several pundits on both networks opining that both states were crucial and historic in determining the winner.

At 12:36 and 12.37 P.M. Florida and Ohio respectively were projected wins for Donald Trump. Trump was by then impressively ahead in other critical states. Something happened and after a pause the ballot barrage began overwhelmingly favoring Biden, and by Friday he was crowned by the media but Donald Trump did not concede.

The news readers at both networks went into high dudgeon scolding Trump supporters exhorting decorum and civility and concession. Funny that they forgot the “pussy hat” and “not my president” protests and rallies which followed the election of 2016. Funny that they forgot Hillary’s snit and refusal to concede until the next day. Funny that they forgot three and a half years of every effort to libel and smear and impeach Donald Trump with egregious falsehoods. I’ll stick with the President until the investigation is over.  rsk

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Was the Election Stolen from Trump? He should pursue every constitutional and legal means to dispute these funny results and take it all the way to Congress. By Anis Shivani

Posted By on November 8th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/11/07/was-the-election-stolen-from-trump/

This election doesn’t pass the smell test. I participated in an eight-hour podcast from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. on Election Night and noted a number of anomalies at the time, none of which makes any sense in retrospect unless you entertain the possibility of massive chicanery. 

This essay is only in the nature of exploratory questioning, because I’m sure many more oddities will come to light in the coming days, so I’ll focus mostly on the strange contradictions that occurred to me on Election Night, even if they didn’t fully register then, and why the official media narrative doesn’t pass muster. 

That evening I was convinced Trump had won easily, as were so many other observers, overperforming in such a way that a Biden victory in the late stages seemed inconceivable. But then in the early morning hours, we had the surprising new narrative of a miraculous Biden comeback to contend with. 

1)  Discussion of exit polls has disappeared from the media. Exit polls should roughly match final results, but when they don’t they’re usually sidelined from scrutiny after the early going. We heard that voters around the country mostly dismissed the virus narrative and chose the economy as the primary concern, on which Trump scored much better than Biden—but we are asked to believe they went for Biden anyway? Down-ballot results suggest a massive repudiation of liberal messaging, as the electorate failed to be swayed by the hysterical propaganda, yet the result at the top appears at odds with this clear refusal.

2)  In the early states that reported, particularly Florida, Trump made big gains among Latinos, African Americans, and Asians. Some of these gains would appear to have been of an historic nature. This should have translated to other states, and ruled out Arizona, Nevada, and Texas for Biden. But while this did happen in Texas, apparently Latinos in Arizona and Nevada went their own way. If African Americans, particularly males, were so resistant to Biden in the early states that were reported, how could they approve of him in such overwhelming numbers in the decisive cities of Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Atlanta? 

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The People Who Count the Votes Decide Everything By Roger Kimball

Posted By on November 8th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/11/07/the-people-who-count-the-votes-decide-everything/

During the campaign, Joe Biden bragged that he had put together “the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.” Perhaps he wasn’t exaggerating.

I thought of taking my text today from the Gospel of Mark, 6:38-42. It is one telling of the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. Jesus finds himself in the desert attended by some 5,000 followers. They need to eat, but there are only five loaves of bread and two fish. Nevertheless, Jesus bids everyone sit down “in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties.” 

And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all.

And they did all eat, and were filled.

Just a day or two back that seemed like a good analogy for what just happened with the ballots in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. Donald Trump was racing ahead just about everywhere. Midnight came, the polls turned into pumpkins, and lo! the miracle! Ballots by the thousands and tens of thousands suddenly appeared. And guess what? They all had Joe Biden’s name on them. According to the World’s Greatest Psephologist Nate Silver™, a tranche of 23,377 ballots suddenly appeared in Pennsylvania in the wee hours. All of them were for Joe Biden. All of them. What are the odds of that? 

Well, miracles will happen. A lot of that sort of miracle happened in this election season. 

The Gospel of Mark notes that, after the 5,000 dined, 12 baskets full of bread and fish fragments were collected. 

It is not said whether they began to stink after a few days. 

But there is no doubt that the fish story of Joe Biden’s miraculous ballots stinks to high heaven.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

One Cheer for President Morty Schapiro by John O. McGinnis

Posted By on November 8th, 2020

https://lawliberty.org/one-cheer-for-president-morty-schapiro/

Morton Schapiro, President of Northwestern University, where I work, is getting widespread praise from outside the university for a statement rebuking violent and bullying demonstrators, including students. The demonstrators were calling for an end to the Northwestern University Police. In the process, they vandalized one of the main entrances of the university as well as stores in Evanston, thus ironically showing why police, both in the university and town, are necessary.

Schapiro’s statement was excerpted in the Wall Street Journal. It was held up as a model for other university presidents by arbiters of national discourse like David Brooks. Frederick M. Hess hailed Schapiro in National Review, running his encomium under the title, “Northwestern President Offers a Tutorial in Campus Leadership.”

The statement was indeed for the most part a very sound one. Schapiro called for those who broke the law to be held accountable: “An essential aspect of education is the discernment of actions and consequences. If you, as a member of the Northwestern community, violate rules and laws, I am making it abundantly clear that you will be held accountable.” 

He also called out the tactics of protestors who surrounded his home in the early morning hours calling him “piggy” and shouting expletives at him. While these protestors may not have been violating any laws (although there may be rules against loud noise in residential areas at that hour), they are violating the norms of a university, which contemplate that its denizens will engage in rational discourse, not abuse. This kind of behavior undermines the whole ethos of a university. It is not debate but intimidation. As Schapiro said:

If you haven’t yet gotten my point, I am disgusted by those who chose to disgrace this University in such a fashion. I especially condemn the effect of their actions on our friends, neighbors and other members of our community who are trying to sustain viable businesses, raise families, study and do research, while facing a global pandemic and the injustices of the world without losing their sense of humanity.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

“Treating” Evil by Theodore Dalrymple

Posted By on November 8th, 2020

https://lawliberty.org/treating-evil/

The ease with which Kujtim Fejzulai, the young North Macedonian terrorist responsible for the recent terrorist outrage in Vienna, was able to deceive psychologists, police, and other supposed experts into believing that he had abjured Moslem extremism, would have been funny, even hilarious, had its consequences not been so terribly tragic and deadly.

Fejzulai, a citizen of both Austria and North Macedonia, was released early from a prison sentence, imposed because he had tried to cross from Turkey into Syria in an attempt to fight for ISIS, with which he sympathised. He was released early from prison for two reasons: his youth (he was 20) and because he claimed to have seen the error of his extremist ways.

On statistical grounds, his youth might more sensibly have been a reason for detaining him in prison for longer, even for much longer, because it is precisely during their youth that young men such as he, who are attracted to violence, are most likely to commit it. A sentimental view of youth, however, prevailed over a more realistic one.

But the second reason for his release was even more absurd, and revealed the arrogant technocratic mindset of so many western authorities and governments, which suppose not only that there is a technical solution to all human problems, but that they have found it. They imagine that, since they are representatives of the richest and most advanced societies in the world, they must have techniques to change the “primitive” mindsets of Moslem extremists. Surely it is not possible for people with a world outlook that belongs more to the seventh than to the twenty-first century, to fool people with doctorates from reputable and even venerable universities, who have access to the latest technology and all the information in the world?

The fact is, however, that any ignorant and stupid seventh century-minded extremist is more than a match for any number of psychologists, criminologists, sociologists, computer scientists, etc. While I cannot sympathize with his outlook to the slightest extent, in a sneaking or convoluted way, I am glad that he is up to the task. His ability so easily to deceive means that technocracy is still not triumphantly successful—as I hope that it never will be. Our humanity is preserved by the fact that so-called deradicalization is a charade. What Fejzulai needed was not a technical procedure, with a technical assessment as to whether or not it had worked, but thirty years or more in prison to cool his heels: for society’s sake, of course, rather for than his, though it is probable also that it would have saved his life.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Glitches? Hammer? Scorecard? And a Venezuela-technology election? By Monica Showalter

Posted By on November 8th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/11/hammer_scorecard_and_a_venezuelatechnology_election.html

That Venezuela smell was back in U.S. election news when the press reported that a voting machine ‘glitch’ flipped some 6,000 votes cast for President Trump to Joe Biden in Michigan.

Hadn’t we heard that story before? Flipped votes in computer systems? The last time we heard about that was in Venezuela’s 2004 fraud-plagued recall referendum on then-President Hugo Chavez. Millions and millions of Venezuelans marched in the streets against him to rally, and then when the recall referendum was held, it failed hugely, something that seemed very strange given the size of the crowds. After that, computer scientists from Amherst, Stanford, U.C. Santa Cruz, Johns Hopkins, and Harvard all found evidence of vote flipping statistically speaking. That was the fiasco that official election observer Jimmy Carter praised so highly as free and fair “despite what went on in the totalization room” according to the Carter Center report. Besides the computer scientists’ conclusions that it was a statistical anomaly, there was also the case of well known pollster Penn, Schoen & Berland taking exit polls at the same referendum and finding 60% in favor of throwing Chavez out, and 40% for keeping him. Much to his surprise, the scorecard came out in almost the exact reverse, 58-42.

Machines that flip votes. It’s one reason why many, such as Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds, thinks only a return to paper ballots and in-person voting will restore confidence in such flawed systems.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Wait Just a Minute! Some Very Good News May Be Coming By Jay Valentine

Posted By on November 8th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/11/wait_just_a_minute_some_very_good_news_may_be_coming.html

Like many, I spent the last few nights waking up at 2:03 A.M., no reason, then looking at my phone for news, any news, that might be positive for President Trump.  I survived on Rush, Bongino, Mark Levin.  When the news continued to be ugly, I even checked in on ridiculous bloggers promising that ballots were watermarked and D.J. (our household name for a president we love) was actually launching a sting on the Deep State.

Enough already.  Stop the madness.  

Hey, I have a degree in statistics, and I have some level of critical thought.  If there is such pessimism in my tribe, I am not going along.

So today, I started to dig into the numbers, and as I did, I fought my confirmation bias at every step.  

I realized that I, like millions of others, had been numbed into despondency by the overwhelming press, media, social media push to certify President-Elect Biden.  (I put that in there so you can see how repellent it is.)

Hey guys, this thing is not only not over; it is scary for Biden.  I mean really scary, and most of all, the media know it.  Thus, the rush to get everyone in line with the narrative that a 78-year-old, early-dementia former V.P., who could not draw a crowd larger than a dozen, just beat D.J. in a fair election.

Process that for a moment.