From Dr. Tim Ball's "A Different Perspective"
Dangers of Analogies: Earth's Atmosphere Is Not Like a Greenhouse.
This HND piece examines two very scary pathogens. CRE has a mortality rate of about 50%, and TRSV jumped species, from a plant virus to the likely cause of bee colony collapse disorder.
Supposedly, CRE occurs mostly in health care facilities, and seems to strike already sick patients, who are undergoing some sort of invasive procedure--usually endoscopy. But, it can also affect patients with cathethers. CRE stands for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriacae. Since the carbapenem antibiotics are considered the last line of defense, this is truly bad news. Read the complete article.
It's bad enough we're stuck with the inapt name "Affordable Care Act." This HND piece examines the best and easiest way the powers that be could have lowered the costs of health care. Only they didn't.
With defensive medicine comprising more than 7 percent of the total cost of health care, the fact that tort reform was purposely ignored speaks volumes about the incompetence and corruption of our great leaders. Nice to know that a few thousand plaintiff's attorneys can overrule what's best for 300 million Americans.
One of progressivism's most admirable traits is its concern for the little guy. But many progressive policies for alleviating poverty, unemployment, and other social problems don't work as advertised. This is because those policies often focus only on the desired outcome, and ignore the deeper processes that ultimately generate those outcomes. This misplaced focus was on full display in President Obama's State of the Union speech.
President Obama surprised few in his State of the Union address, which was dominated by egalitarian and populist themes. The president is entitled to his ideology, but not to his own facts. On both the minimum wage and gender pay gap, the president's position runs counter to the economic reality.
Today, women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it's an embarrassment.
But as the fact-checker for The Washington Post (which hasn't endorsed a Republican for President since 1952) noted yesterday, this figure is quite misleading, since it involves comparing apples to oranges: Women on average do not work the same number of hours men do per year, nor do female workers have the same individual or occupational characteristics as male workers:……To Read More…..
Forward: The information used in this article comes from a position paper I wrote in response to an essay called "White Male, White Privilege." The essay is available for review at The Radical Conservative. The position I took concerning racism and social justice prompted my professors to claim I wasn't fit for the field of social work because the whole educational curriculum revolved around the idea of White America oppressing blacks and other minorities, which you know is something I write about quite often. We simply must be ready at a moment's notice to rebut these claims of racism with facts, and we mustn't be afraid to educate others about them as well. Its overwhelmingly obvious that the agenda is to cause racial strife while claiming that blacks and other minorities are systematically oppressed. We all know this isn't true.
We have not, for the most part, really noticed that we lost the Constitution. It was there when I was a little girl and a teenager in the 1960′s and 1970′s, so far as I knew. It had been under assault for awhile, but I didn't know that. My parents and teachers taught me basic civics, and I understood that we had the Constitution so we could read what we wanted to and go to church and not get dragged off and shot in the night as happened in the Soviet Union.
Little by little, we've lost much since then. I have watched it. It did not start with Roe vs. Wade, but that is when I was old enough to notice it. Even as a pre-teen, I understood that the Supreme Court had created a law for everybody because the judges wanted it that way. I suspected that it was in order to limit the population, since a lot of people thought we had too many people, though that concern was not a constitutionally valid reason for overturning the laws of fifty states. The Supreme Court was meant to protect our constitutional rights, but it cannot do that if justices dictate law drawn from penumbras, emanations, personal preferences or values, or even foreign law. It is a powerful branch of government, and when its members rule us, that is tyranny…..To Read More……..
My Take - The author says it would be difficult getting the Constitution back. Tell me the history and I will give you the answer! Every subject, issue, problem or value has a foundational logic, or lack thereof. Find that foundation, or the failure to develop a logical foundation, and you begin to have clarity. Once the facts are established we have understanding. Only then can we have good decision making!
If the sixteenth and seventeenth amendments were repealed it would become infinitely easier. Don't know what 16 and 17 say? Personally researching a subject is a good opportunity for personal growth and enlightenment. Best wishes!
My Take - It is said that statistics is the arcane science. Well, so is economics. David Brinkley once talked about how many presidents he had known in his career and noted none of them understood economics. Well, why would they? Economists clearly don't understand economics. If they did there wouldn't be so many differing opinions as to what it is. Unfortunately the ones who embrace stealing gigantic amounts of money from the people in the form of taxes, and borrowing un-payable sums to spend on "social justice programs" that are bottomless money pits seem to be in charge. Let me make this clear. This kind of clabbered thinking permeates all the academic disciplines, including science! Being politically correct has become more important than being factually, practically or morally correct.
Mises Daily: Monday, January 27, 2014 by Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.
President Obama insists he is determined to create jobs in America. He recently announced the creation of "promise zones" for five communities around the nation and a "manufacturing institute" aimed at fostering more high-paying jobs in energy efficiency. He's says he has "a pen and a phone" to "sign executive orders and take executive actions that move the ball," where Congress has failed to implement policies he believes are needed.
Unfortunately, the executive orders and actions Mr. Obama seems to have in mind will do little to create jobs beyond the Washington Beltway – and much to do the opposite. An obvious example is his EPA's plan to impose additional carbon dioxide emission restrictions, to save the planet from global warming, climate change, climate disruption, extreme weather or whatever term alarmists are using these days.
These actions will ensure employment for more bureaucrats, blue state friends and campaign contributors. But they will also ensure continued unemployment for blue collar workers and "fly-over country." They depend on government direction and ideological compatibility, taxpayer subsidies, and crony-corporatist arrangements among businessmen, politicians and regulators.
They will make barely a dent in a chronically feeble economy in which 94 million Americans are not working; four million are long-term unemployed; the 63% labor participation rate is the lowest in 35 years; and many of the employment gains due to a magical government formula that turns 300,000 full-time jobs into 400,000 part-time positions. The President's proposed actions likewise will not reverse the rapid increase in 49ers – companies that won't hire more than 49 employees, because that would trigger ObamaCare and a host of other taxes and regulations, causing even more unemployment.
The Heritage Foundation calculates that the EPA alone has promulgated more than 1,920 regulations over the past five years, including twenty "major" rules that are costing the United States more than $36 billion annually. The Competitive Enterprise Institute's latest "10,000 Commandments" report says the total federal regulatory burden on America's businesses and families now exceeds $1.8 trillion per year!
The President brags that "we produce more oil at home than we have in 15 years." Indeed, domestic production rose from 5.6 million barrels per day in 2011 to 6.4 million bopd in 2012. However, production from federal onshore and offshore areas has fallen significantly under his watch – and 96% of the production increase was on state and private lands.
That is unnecessary and contrary to the public interest. America's federal lands – onshore and offshore, in Alaska and our eleven westernmost Lower 48 States – contain numerous oil, gas, coal, rare earth and other mineral deposits. Many have already been delineated, while others await discovery and development via modern, ecologically sensitive prospecting, drilling, mining and production technologies. However, the vast majority of these resources are off limits: officially locked up in restrictive land use categories (some of which should not be changed) or simply made unavailable by bureaucratic fiat and foot-dragging.
If the government made more of these areas available for exploration and production, America's GDP could increase by $127 billion annually for the next seven years, and $450 billion annually in the long term. Those activities would create 552,000 jobs annually over the next seven years, with annual wage increases of up to $32 billion, hugely benefitting workers' and families' health and welfare.
Over the next 37 years, opening these lands would also increase America's cumulative economic activity by up to $14.4 trillion … employment by 1.9 million jobs per year … wages by $115 billion annually … and local, state and federal royalty and tax revenues by a cumulative $3.8 trillion!
However, Simmons points out, the Interior Department has leased only a paltry 2% of federal offshore areas and less than 6% of onshore lands for oil and gas development. It has also stalled endlessly on issuing permits to drill on lands it has leased, in areas that are supposed to be available for multiple use and energy development. Its Bureau of Land Management's proposed regulations for hydraulic fracturing on public lands will likely delay, block and lock down the many benefits associated with fracking.
Access to metals and minerals on public lands is likewise subject to "bureaucratic discretion." America's "dedicated public servants" are thwarting development of Alaska's Pebble Mine gold, copper and molybdenum deposit; Montana's Finley Basin tungsten, copper, gold, silver and molybdenum deposit; and Arizona's Rosemont Copper project – all of which would generate thousands of jobs and billions in payrolls and government revenues. Meanwhile they are fast-tracking permits for bird and bat butchering wind turbines – and considering 30-year eagle-killing permits for the installations.
After fifty years, the War On Poverty is a bigger failure than the War On Drugs. It's nearly impossible to get an accurate cost, but estimates range between 15.9 and 21 trillion dollars (current value). By way of comparison, the total cost of all US military conflicts since the Revolutionary War is between 6 – 7 trillion dollars (current value).
One of the reasons it is hard to estimate a cost is that there are dozens of programs spread out among over a dozen federal entities. It's hard enough trying to keep track of how many agencies and departments we have, let alone all of the money they waste.
My Take - One estimate puts the cost at 50 trillion dollars, but that's neither here nor there because for years I have been asking the same question. Where is all this money?
If in 1960 we gave every family a half a million dollars that was living below the poverty line - told them that was the end of societies largesse – told them they would be on their own from now on - we would have eliminated poverty and saved trillions of dollars. So where is all that money?
It clear the 'poor' didn't get it. But during this time period government agencies have grown massively and activist organizations have flourished. That must be where the bulk of that money went. We've been defrauded! Why? Because we were told that money was for the poor. That was a lie!
There is a side bar to all of this. We're starting to – once again – hear how we need to stamp out poverty and equalize income. First of all, that's not the government's job! Why would we allow people who have never had real jobs make such decisions? Secondly, does anyone really believe anything will change? If we were to take all the world's wealth and spread it around equally so that everyone had exactly the same amount of money, property, etc., in five years most of the rich would be rich again and most of the poor would be poor again. Get over it!
No matter how old you are or what political philosophy you prefer, America is not as free as when you were born. Before any of us were born, our forefathers gave us the Constitution, not to spell out our rights, but to recognize that we have rights that are natural or God-given that the government neither grants nor may infringe. But the Constitution does not guarantee anyone anything whatsoever. Only America's adherence to the Constitution could do that. To the extent that we see it as the unique document that it is and revere it and cherish and defend the rights it represents, it protects us, in its way. But, ultimately, it is the people in a constitutional republic who stand up for constitutional rights, if the people are to retain them.
Recently Dan Moreland of Pest Control Technology published an article on September 26th, 2013, declaring, "Scientists Deserve Our Respect, Not Our Ridicule"! The truth is there are so many logical fallacies in this article I can't list them all, but I'll do my best.
Dan goes on to tell us about a scientist by the name of Dr. John Eng, who received the 'Golden Goose Award' because of his research to help diabetics. Anyone who knows someone who suffers from this affliction has to be grateful for his efforts, because these people truly suffer as they age. He and his associates "discovered that the venom of some animals can impact the human pancreas". In the end the work he and his colleagues did with the saliva of Gila allowed them to develop a compound that stimulated the pancreas, helping to prevent those "debilitating health problems from blindness and nerve damage to kidney failure and heart disease." And they should be commended! He clearly deserved the recognition he received. So what's fallacious about that? Nothing, if that was all there was to the article. Let's explore this.
Just because Eng was deserving doesn't mean everyone else who portrays themself as a 'scientist' is deserving - of awards that is. They are certainly deserving of things commensurate with their work - which I will discuss in a later article - and receiving awards isn't among them. The implication from Dan is that scientists as a whole are being treated unfairly. You may wish to view the "false dilemma fallacy (false dichotomy, fallacy of bifurcation, black-or-white fallacy) – two alternative statements are held to be the only possible options, when in reality there are more.
"Dr. Eng's research shows that we can't abandon science funding only because we don't know where it might lead," said Rep. Cooper.
Okay, let's explore this. First of all claiming that "legislators like Congressmen like Cooper, Dent and "our industry's own Robert Dold Jr.," support this is a logical fallacy known as an "appeal to authority, "where an assertion is deemed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it" Perhaps all these politicos also believe in standing on a hill and waving a flag that says "I stand foursquare for consensus". Well quite frankly, I don't care what they think because - it isn't their money. Its money we don't have, and the most disturbing thing is most of this borrowed money we give to academia is wasted in a big way, which I will demonstrate in a follow up article. And consensus isn't science, its politics.
He goes on to call them "forward-thinking", which clearly implies that those who disagree are backward thinking. And naturally, that makes him and those who agree with him just a little better than those who don't agree, committing another logical fallacy known as "moral high ground fallacy – in which a person assumes a "holier-than-thou" attitude in an attempt to make himself look good to win an argument." Is this rhetoric of going "forward" in fact steps backward? I will address this later in the article.
While I think research grant money can be an important step toward human progress in medicine, as well as other disciplines; it's my contention that the vast majority of it amounts to nothing more than academic welfare.
Many years ago 60 Minutes Morley Safer interviewed a 'scientist' who received a $100,000 grant ( that was when $100,000 was really a lot of money) to show that people really liked parks, especially when they had grass, trees, streams, rocks, etc. Safer said that to him this appeared to be nothing more than academic welfare? I could have told them all of that without charge. But even more important, just how valid are all these studies on which we have spent billions and impact public policy?
A friend of mine, Dr. Jay Lehr, one of the original group that helped create the EPA and its foundational pieces of legislation, co-wrote the book titled, The Fluoride Wars. He noted over the years there had been thousands of studies regarding fluoride and the impact it may play on human health, many of them conflicting, and many of them with methodological flaws. A team of researchers attempted to establish a minimum acceptable set of standards for the inclusion of a study in their assessments. Among those from York University found only 214 studies out of the thousands that have appeared in print during the period 1951 – 1999 that met their acceptance criteria, and of these, only 26 provided a defensible analysis of the direct impact of fluoridation on dental caries.
Twenty six out of literally thousands were found worthwhile. There are two questions that need to be asked now. First, what was the reaction from the anti-fluoride crowd, and secondly, is this pattern repeated over and over again.
The authors of this study expected kudos for taking a network of foggy studies and creating as system that would lend clarity to this issue in hopes of developing understanding. Instead they received ridicule. The point is this – studies may generate money – but they don't necessarily generate facts or understanding, and there sure seems to be a large majority within the scientific community that doesn't care, because 'truth' isn't the holy grail of science. Its grant money!
So then, who are the forward thinkers here, and what award should the majority of these people of science receive? The Golden Goose or the Golden Fleece? Respect or ridicule? I will deal with that in a much larger way in following articles. And the answer to the second question – Yes!
Che Guevara SI!—Tea Party NO!
Is The EPA a Criminal Organization?
"America, the Big Dumb Ox"
So What's the Problem? Just Dump the Mandates!