ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Climate Models and COVID-19 Models By Norman Rogers

Posted By on April 15th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/climate_models_and_covid19_models.html

Computer models are seductive even though they are very often completely wrong. The more complicated they are the greater chance that they are wrong. Like children, they copy their parents — the model architects. Confirmation bias involves cherry picking facts to obtain a result consistent with preexisting beliefs. A complicated computer model with many degrees of freedom is a perfect environment for confirmation bias to have its way. The investigator usually will believe, or at least claim, that his model is objectively setup without bias entering into the effort.

Not all computer models are wrong. Sometimes they produce good predictions. But all too often they fail and the failures are not acknowledged because the modelers are emotionally or ideologically attached to their creation.

The claim of objectivity by academic modelers contrasts with the standard leftist or academic belief that practically everyone is a racist, driven by unconscious motives. Google “implicit bias” if you want to know more. When professors are pushing racial justice theories everybody is driven by unconscious forces. But when constructing computer models all is well.

Complicated models are always full of escape hatches that can explain away any failure. Climate models still enjoy support in spite of 30 years of failure. The failures are alleged to be due to things like chaotic variation or data that has to be adjusted because it does not agree with the model. COVID-19 models are new but have had notable failures. For example, the IMHE model predicted up to two million deaths but has been repeatedly adjusted and now is down to 60,000 deaths. Usually it is claimed that the model is not wrong, but deaths are lower because the American people have been good boys and girls.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Sharia, the Law of the Land in Afghanistan By Terry Bishop

Posted By on April 15th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/sharia_the_law_of_the_land_in_afghanistan.html

Beyond our current concerns with the coronavirus pandemic looms the “historic” formal agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban signed on February 29, 2020.

The three-and-a-half page conditional peace agreement (which is accompanied by secret annexes) provides a means for the U.S. to draw down its forces from 13,000 to 8,600 within 135 days of the agreement, then subsequently remove all of its forces from Afghanistan within 14 months. A major part of the agreement hinges on the ludicrous assertion that “Afghan soil will [no longer] be used against the security of the United States and its allies.”

Apart from concerns that the Taliban has no intention of disavowing its ties to multiple terrorist organizations (including its longtime ally, al-Qaeda), upholding a reduction in violence (RiV) or consenting to a permanent ceasefire; Afghanistan’s future political roadmap may be more than the Afghan government can bear after the current military balance tips the other direction — in favor of the Taliban who have already gained control of more territory in Afghanistan since 9/11.

While there are four parts to the public agreement, “the obligations of the [Taliban] in [the] agreement apply in areas under their control until the formation of the new post-settlement Afghan Islamic government as determined by the intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations.” It comes as no surprise the Taliban has refused to talk to the 21-member Afghan government negotiating team.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: Erdoğan’s Post-Corona, Existential Economic Challenge by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on April 15th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15886/turkey-erdogan-coronavirus-economy

Before the coronavirus, Turkey hoped its tourism revenues might reach as high as $45 billion this year. But in the first quarter of the year, the number of passengers traveling through Turkish airports fell by 18.8%, and the second quarter does not look promising. Economists agree that the year-end decline will be even sharper.

This is where alarm bells ring for Erdoğan. Turks are scheduled to go to the ballot box again in 2023 to elect the president and members of parliament.

Erdoğan owes his spectacular election victories, uninterrupted since 2002, in large part to rapid economic growth and the subsequent improvement in the standard of living. A reversal now could end his glittering political career.

Erdoğan remains the potential victim of a small virus.

We may be months away from Covid-19’s global peak but the punishing, global, post-pandemic economic repercussions will vary from one country to another, depending on what economic vulnerabilities the pandemic has caught off-guard. One anticipated outcome is to see bigger post-corona damage to economies that have a large dependence on tourism and on economies with fundamental imbalances. Turkey belongs in both categories.

In the early days of the virus, before the skyrocketing number of cases, Turkey’s fragile economy boasted 4.3 million jobless. The official unemployment rate was 13.8%.

MEDIA Comments turned off

New York Times Editor Admits Biden Sexual Assault Story was Censored at Behest of Biden Campaign Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on April 15th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/04/new-york-times-editor-admits-biden-sexual-assault-daniel-greenfield/

Dean Baquet is not a very bright guy. The New York Times isn’t there for any obvious reason except his willingness to be both a token, and, unlike his predecessor, submissive to the Sulzberg clan, while pushing assorted identity politics agendas.

It takes a very ‘not bright guy’ to make the admission that Baquet did about the Times’ hit piece on Tara Reade, the former Biden Senate staffer who had accused him of sexual assault.

The New York Times whitewashing piece had initially included and then deleted a paragraph that attracted a lot of attention.

“The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses, and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.”

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

What Will Change After the Virus Crisis? Will the “New World Order” really just go gently into that good night? Bruce Thornton

Posted By on April 15th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/what-will-change-after-virus-crisis-bruce-thornton/

We’ve reached that point in the Wuhan pandemic when we start talking about how the world will change after the crisis passes. The impact on everything from the media to globalism is being reassessed, and prognostications about the future, both good and bad, are being promulgated. But those hoping for improvement are likely to be disappointed, just as those who said “this changes everything” were after the terrorist attacks on 9/ll. To quote Adam Smith, “there is a lot of ruin in a nation,” as stubborn inertia created by entrenched vested interests and received wisdom protect the status quo.

The media’s performance during the virus crisis has been par for the course in their unhinged zeal to damage the Trump administration, which has made the president’s attempt to handle the crisis even more difficult. From claims that Trump called the outbreak a “hoax,” to accusations that his comments about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine were “snake oil,” the media have doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on their usual repertoire of fake “facts,” anonymous leaks, bought-and-paid-for “experts,” dishonest editing, and outright lies––even to the point of impeding treatment that might save lives.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Justice Department Declines to Support Blocking Hillary Clinton Deposition By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on April 15th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/justice-department-declines-to-support-blocking-hillary-clinton-deposition/

“The most notable thing about the case is the extreme lengths to which Hillary Clinton is going to avoid answering questions under oath about her email practices — a matter on which she has made a slew of contradictory public statements, some of them proven untrue by the FBI’s criminal investigation. ”

Far from being political retribution, the move, which came in a FOIA case related to Clinton’s private-server use, applied standard DOJ guidance.

The Justice Department has declined to join former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s effort to block depositions of both herself and a key aide in a case concerning her use of a private email-server system to conduct Obama administration business.

Though the DOJ’s decision will inevitably be reported as political retribution against President Trump’s 2016 election rival, there is actually nothing much here. The Trump State and Justice Departments have defended the former secretary throughout the suit in question. The government’s refusal to support Clinton’s latest gambit to avoid answering questions under oath is consistent with Justice Department policy and will have no bearing on the outcome of the case.

The depositions of Clinton and Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s State Department chief-of-staff and longtime confidant, were ordered by federal judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia. The case is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit brought by Judicial Watch, the private-watchdog group. It focuses on talking points the Obama administration generated to guide official public statements following the 2012 jihadist attack in Benghazi, Libya, in which U.S. ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Governor Cuomo Wants His State’s Rights and His Federal Cake Too! By Megan Fox

Posted By on April 15th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/trending/governor-cuomo-wants-his-states-rights-and-his-federal-cake-too/

Governor Andrew Cuomo seems a bit confused. After months of begging the federal government for medical supplies he didn’t stockpile for his state, beds he didn’t have, and medical personnel he said he needed and then getting all of it, he’s waxing poetic on Twitter about state’s rights. This is Cuomo’s response to Trump saying opening the nation is the president’s decision and not the call of individual governors.

  ✔ @NYGovCuomo
“State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence & ascendency over the Nat’l Gov & will forever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties can be subverted by the federal head is repugnant…” —Alexander Hamilton
After finding that Alexander Hamilton quote on Goodreads, or wherever, and feeling superior about his power as the executive in his state, he went immediately back to begging for more federal aid. In twenty minutes, Cuomo gave himself whiplash. Let’s talk about that Hamilton quote. It seems an awful lot like what President Trump has been saying to the governors every damn day!

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

President Trump Says U.S. Will Cut Off Funding to WHO Andrew Restuccia

Posted By on April 15th, 2020

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/us-will-halt-funding-to-world-health-organization-over-coronavirus-response/ar-BB12Diws?li=BBnb7Kz

WASHINGTON—President Trump said the U.S. would halt funding to the World Health Organization while his administration investigates what he called the group’s mismanagement of the coronavirus response.

The president faulted the WHO for, in his view, failing to adequately investigate early information about the virus’s ability to spread from one human to another and for not calling out China on its alleged lack of transparency over the virus.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The viruses-don’t-respect-borders slogan is dead wrong Christopher Caldwell

Posted By on April 15th, 2020

https://spectator.us/sovereignty-rules/

At the end of March, about two weeks into the coronavirus emergency, I looked out my window onto the street below and saw something that made me uneasy about the future of the country. There was a commotion down there. Two white teenagers were standing in the street with their hands up. A man — who looked and sounded like an East African immigrant — had stopped his car in the middle of the road and sprung out. I squinted to see what it was he was holding in front of him that made the kids look so alarmed.

It was a pizza. The kids had ordered it. The car was marked with a Domino’s insignia. ‘Whoa, whoa, man!’ said one of the kids. ‘Take it easy!’ He was grotesquely corpulent. Hanging folds of pink belly were swinging wildly out of his clinging T-shirt.

The driver walked the pizza to the back of his car and laid it on the trunk, along with a paper bag. Now it was obvious what was going on. He had suggested to the boys that they take possession of the pizza in such a
way that they not make contact with him. That was the safest thing, given the epidemic — for him, for them and for all the customers he would have to serve during the rest of the day. Smart thinking. I thought, not for the first time that day, of the heroism of delivery drivers like this, who make it possible for people like these kids to stay home and ride out the storm in their rich neighborhoods.

That was not Fatty’s view. He just found the whole routine weird. He jostled past the driver and reached into the paper bag, and now, suddenly, he was angry. ‘Where’s the lava cake?’ he asked. ‘I ordered a lava cake!’ The driver mumbled. ‘Drive back to Tenleytown and get it, can ya?’ the kid threatened. ‘Can you make that a priority? Can you get me an extra one, too?’ The driver mumbled a little more and, looking scared, drove off.

Anyone who has read Defoe, Manzoni or Camus, or who can put two and two together, ought to realize that, wherever plague is, looting, strikes, war, hunger and other unrest are not far away. That evening on my street, you could have been forgiven for thinking there was less to fear from coronavirus than from standing between a fat American and a steaming box of pizza. But a situation where idlers try to boss around hardworking people risking their lives is not likely to hold for long. And where will that leave us?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Steele Dossier Disinformation Update New evidence that the FBI was duped by Russian intelligence.

Posted By on April 15th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/steele-dossier-disinformation-update-11586897258?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Russia interfered in America’s 2016 election, as several government reports have established. The latest disturbing news is that Russia may have received an assist from no less than the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

That’s the takeaway of newly released portions of last year’s Department of Justice Inspector General report about the FBI’s investigation into Trump-Russia collusion. That report showed how the FBI abused its powers by misleading a secret court into granting surveillance warrants on the Trump campaign. Thanks to Congressional pressure, the Justice Department has now declassified footnotes showing that the FBI’s main source for its collusion allegations—Christopher Steele—may have been targeted as part of a Russian disinformation campaign. The FBI was warned of this threat but ignored it.

Mr. Steele was tasked by contractors for the Hillary Clinton campaign in spring 2016 with assembling a summary of Trump-Russia allegations. This document, which became known as the Steele dossier, was fed to the FBI and became the central evidence in its applications for warrants against Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The FBI should have been wary of Mr. Steele’s reporting, having been warned he was connected to the rival campaign.