Gaslighters in the sciences

Laura Helmut, editor-in-chief of America’s oldest magazine, Scientific American, resigns after calling Trump voters fascists. She's the fascist. They always accuse others of what they are doing.

If that's what she thinks of us, she should stick by it, and not grovel to get her job back. If she can't handle an election, she needs the rest from a high pressure job and try coal mining, or working the window at McDonald's.

"Helmuth had apologized in a separate post, calling them “offensive and inappropriate” and that they don’t “reflect the position” of Scientific American.

“I respect and value people across the political spectrum,” Helmuth wrote. “These posts, which I have deleted, do not reflect my beliefs; they were a mistaken expression of shock and confusion about the election results.” "

The tapes of what else happened on January 6

 Tucker Carlson is drawing a lot of fire from both the GOP entrenched leaders, the Democrats who wanted to lynch Trump, and the Leftist Media, not to mention the hateful women on the View.  Why?  He showed more detail of the January 6 riots.  People armed with American flags walking around with police who didn't seem alarmed.  

Med students walk out at the University of Michigan

Medical students at the University of Michigan walked out of their White Coat Ceremony in protest Sunday after Dr. Kristin Collier, who wasn't speaking about abortion, was introduced; her views are known. She has referred to abortion as violence, and it is. She's referred to the unborn as her prenatal sisters, and they are. But let's look at the overprivileged, highly educated students who walked out. First they'd petitioned to stop her appearance, and when they didn't get their way, they stamped their big biased feet and walked out. They can't dare to have their minds warped by someone with a different view point--like the truth about life.

Is that how they will treat patients who want to carry to term but the doctor "knows best" and violates not just their oath, but human decency? Will they refuse to treat blacks or trans people if they don't like their politics? What about those disabled from military injuries if they (the doctors) didn't like the war?

 
I don't think these people are mature enough to have this level of responsibility, but really I don't know where they could go where it is acceptable to be open to views other than your own bubble. If this isn't happening at your local/state university, it's probably because no pro-life people have been hired or promoted.

University of Michigan students walk out on anti-abortion speaker Kristin Collier (nypost.com)

Medical students walk out over pro-life speaker: 'This is generally problematic for our culture' | Fox News

Seventeen years ago, and things haven't changed much

17 years ago a fellow library blogger. Walt, referred to me as a "right wing librarian." I responded at my blog (somewhat in shock):

"Because I remember those days when I was a liberal humanist, I know why and how this designation happened. When you are a liberal or a Democrat, you see yourself as just “us.” When you are a liberal, the antonym of “liberal” isn’t “conservative,” but right-wing. Everyone to the right of you is wrong headed, a threat to your personal space and freedoms, and “them.”

When you are a liberal you can’t see the bias of the major news media outlets because they reflect your own views and opinions; you don’t notice there are no Republican voices on the faculty of your institution or among the speakers invited to the campus; you don’t even notice when 70% of the campus never says anything out of fear for their jobs; you don’t see that there are almost no conservative books on the new book shelves of your public library and just assume they must all be awful because surely librarians wouldn’t tolerate bias in book selection; you believe that money will solve all social problems; and arriving at a goal or target is never enough--you must gird the loins of your cause with more tax money.

I’m far more liberal, in the true sense of the word, than many of the Democrats I know. I believe the “least of these” have value, therefore I’m against killing babies in the womb because they have physical anomalies or it's not a good time in mommy's career. I believe poor and minority children need a good education to succeed in a complex society and shouldn’t be left behind just because their parents can’t provide it. I believe there should be art and music in the schools--libraries are less critical.

I believe that Jesus Christ suffered and died so that every single person can be welcomed into the kingdom of God, but also believe those for whom he died have the right to say "no thanks" if they so desire. I believe that men and women are equal but not the same--in some areas women are superior. I believe in ordaining women and letting their skills and abilities and your needs determine if they should be in your pulpit.

I believe in meritocracy in the work place and don’t support quotas and affirmative action--they are demeaning to all we fought for. I do not support the death penalty. I was a strong pacifist through the end of the Vietnam war when our “anti-war movement” condemned millions of Vietnamese to death by pressuring our government to run out on them. The most shameful page in our history. I think the United Nations is a waste of time and money since it wasn’t able to save Rwandans or the Sudanese and it stole and scammed food from the Iraqis. It would still be investigating the cause of the tsunami and forming study groups if the US hadn't taken the lead. These lives mattered too.

I believe Israel is the only democracy in the Middle-East, the government/country with which we have the most in common. Anti-Israel fervor is veiled anti-Semitism, in my opinion, and just a new version of "let's blame the Jews for all our problems." I believe we should stop propping up third world monarchies and feudal kingdoms. I think the war in Iraq will look like child’s play compared to the one coming--with China.

I support strong environmental laws that benefit everyone, not just a few disappearing rat and bird species. In fact, I believe our earth is God-created, organized and run. Therefore we should take care of it. I am a 6 day creationist and think it’s a waste of time to try to squeeze “intelligent design” into our theology or public school classrooms. ID doesn’t say much of anything. But evolution often looks Unintelligent too, and children need to be exposed to more than one view as the liberals used to believe.

Many of the librarian blogs I link to are “liberal”--but only if they are well-written, logical and informative. Walt has actually supplied the names of some I’ve never seen. But I’ve never seen mine linked on liberal blogs (some of that is ageism, not politics). A liberal today has severe torticollis and can turn only one direction--left."

I'd forgotten Walt in the last 17 years so I looked him up and found his twitter account. Yup, an apologist for Biden.

There's a skills gap, but the myth is racism

"Black students never catch up to their white and Asian peers [8th grade proficiency tests]. There aren’t many white-collar professions where possessing partial mastery of basic reading and math will qualify one for employment. The SAT measures a more selective group of students than the NAEP, but even within that smaller pool of college-intending high school students, the gaps remain wide. On the math SAT, the average score of blacks in 2015 was 428 (on an 800-point scale); for whites, it was 534, and for Asians it was 598—a difference of nearly a standard deviation between blacks and whites, and well over a standard deviation between blacks and Asians. The tails of the distribution were even more imbalanced, according to the Brookings Institution. Blacks made up 2 percent of all test takers with a math SAT between 750 and 800. Sixty percent of those high scorers were Asian, and 33 percent were white. Blacks were 35 percent of all test takers with scores between 300 and 350. Whites were 21 percent of such low scorers, and Asians 6 percent." The Bias Fallacy | City Journal (city-journal.org)

I looked at the charts, and by the way, the white students never catch up to their Asian peers either.

If all these liberal and leftist organizations from non-profits to universities to big tech are looking for black people to fill positions of responsibility and high skills, there will not be enough people to go around based on testing, except by continually adding "people of color" who are immigrants or visiting foreign scholars. 

Channel surfing, musings and opinions

Scanning news channels again today while riding my exercycle. There are many new ones, or less well known, out there. I stopped to look at BNC, Black News Channel. Like many news channels, it's rip and read for AP or an MSM channel, but with more sports and entertainment. Today the big story was Trump supporters making threats against poll workers and politicians--although that was the interpretation. I looked carefully at the footage, and saw no one running, looting or burning as we witnessed in the summer. I saw no one shouting down speakers or blocking their access like we see on college campuses when ANTIFA or the local Democrats trying to shut down conservative voices.

Since I wasn't aware of this channel until last week, I don't know how they covered the abuse of ordinary citizens in restaurants or events, or if they reported on people losing their jobs for supporting Trump. Most stories have more than two sides, or they need some nuance or actual investigative reporting. What we've come to expect from our media is polarization, no in depth reporting, and the CEOs (like CNN’s Zucker) setting the standard "dump on Trump" or lose your job. But like the Hispanic channels Telemundo and Univision, there is no racial or ethnic diversity for their on-camera reporting at BNC.

Ah, I can almost hear the "yes, but. . ."

How Google controls your information

90% of internet searches use Google, and 95% of searchers drop out after the second page.  I began blogging in 2003 and remember when my blog entries came up within the first or second page.  In the code, bloggers/web page designers put in tags that describe the most typical topics and your search picks up on that. With Google’s manipulation of search results that could never happen today.  I’m a big believer in capitalism, and the founders of Google, one of which is a Russian immigrant, have done a good job for the investors in their company.  That said, when successful companies get too cozy with the government, it’s called crony capitalism.  That’s how legislators get rich and CEOs beat back the competition by getting what looks like stiff controls, but only they are wealthy enough to meet the standards.  Any search that involves any information about the government or President Trump will bring up pages of New York Times, Washington Post (owned by another tech giant, Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man in the country), Daily Beast, Huffington Post, and other far left media sources. This results in an informed public that has read/heard only part of the story. The conservatives then flee to other sources and also risk knowing only part of the information. When I log in, I automatically get Google News, which always leans left.  Sometimes I do click on a story, especially  if it’s none political, but then may just encourage the bias by taking the bait.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/google-search-results-show-pervasive-anti-trump-anti-conservative-bias/

https://pjmedia.com/trending/facebook-censors-articles-from-salena-zito-jenna-lynn-ellis-saying-they-look-like-spam/

If you search anything about Trump on Google you’ll probably get referred to CNN, which falls far behind Fox in popularity and viewership. And if you are in an airport, exercise facility, or doctor’s office, good luck seeing anything other than CNN.

As expected, NYT denies any bias with Google, and instead accuses Google of different biases. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/technology/bias-google-trump.html

https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/july-2018-ratings-fox-news-marks-25-consecutive-months-as-most-watched-cable-network-in-total-day/372050

https://www.mrc.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/2014/MBB2014.pdf

Why is Peter Strzok still employed with FBI?

In remarks on Sunday Maria Bartiromo show, Alan Dershowitz said,

“FBI agents are allowed to be biased,” Dershowitz said. “They're allowed to support political candidates. That's part of the law. Where I draw the line is when an FBI agent says ‘we'll stop him.’
“That's not an expression of bias. That's not saying who we're going to vote for. That sends a message to the American people that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is going to interfere in an election, in an effort to try to stop the election of one candidate rather than the other. . .you're entitled to support a candidate if you're an FBI agent. But you're not allowed to try to use your office to stop somebody from being elected president of the United States.”

Bias against Trump within FBI

  
There is much more of this hostility evidence in the IG report, but apparently hostility is not against the law, even with vast amounts of evidence beginning at the top.  Mueller chose only those who hated Trump to be part of his investigation.

The Inspector General Report

Manafort is in prison and Ms. Clinton, Comey, McCabe, Clapper, Strzok and Page all of whom tried to bring down the 2016 election are running free. Feeling safe yet?

Avenatti hogs the attention of CNN

Michael "Stormy" Avenatti, has appeared on CNN 65 times and MSNBC 43 times between March 7 and May 10 thus tragically and irresponsibly blocking their viewers from stories about Korea, the border, taxes, important judicial appointments, reduced regulations to release the economy from Obama's chains, Clinton's campaign mischief, trade deals, CIA appointments, lowest unemployment rate ever for black Americans, Hamas attacking Israel, while focusing on a man who's prostituting himself for naked attention. CNN also helped elect Donald Trump in 2016 by concentrating so often on his campaign, and it's helping his rising poll numbers in 2018, however, Avenatti's appearances are about double the time (worth billions) they gave Trump. What's in it for him--other than love of the attention?

Amanpour on PBS

I’ve had a cold, so my sleeping is a little off, and I happened to be awake at 11:30 last night and caught Amanpour on PBS, which is a half-hour replacement for Charlie Rose who left in disgrace. It’s a CNN program, so not sure how that works, but it is apparently shown in other venues, probably Europe.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/04/media/pbs-charlie-rose-replacement/index.html

Anyway. It’s an interview show, not news.  Definitely not news.  She interviewed the Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. (or maybe England)  and tried to trap him into saying something negative about Trump.  I didn’t have a pen and paper, but I do recall her using the phrase several times, “do you fear. . .” rather than “do you think.” The Ambassador, however, was more careful and professional than President Trump or Ms. Amanpour and delicately stepped over her trap. Yes, he used a lot of weasel words, but he definitely had been coached.  Also his English was so good, I was then not prepared to try to figure out what the next guest, a Brit, was saying.

https://www.truthrevolt.org/news/christiane-amanpour-brags-about-bias-i-insist-being-truthful-not-neutral

Her next interview was with two women, one a Brit with mid-chest length stringy gray hair and the other with shoulder length stringy dark hair, but a lovely smile. It was about the MeToo movement and whether there is now a backlash. 

So Amanpour felt “led” as we say in prayer groups of sharing intimately to bring up Anita Hill and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas back in fall of 1991. I was a Democrat back then—didn’t change my party for another nine  years.  I distinctly remember being sickened by the way Democrats treated a black justice—he was at that time a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. By that time we knew all about the sexcapades of the Kennedys and if any woman starlett or aging movie star had been brave enough, the whole “Weinstein me too” story would have tumbled out 25 years ago instead of late 2017. 

In 1991 I was horrified when I heard other liberals on the OSU campus deride his qualifications and say Bush had only nominated him because he was black. As if Democrats would NEVER do such a thing—play games with race or sex.  It was definitely a “high tech lynching” and I think Justice Thomas has done a fine job.  I also read his very moving autobiography.

But then Amanpour commented that the cases Justice Thomas as been a part of have actually led the women’s movement backward.  She cited no case, just threw it out for the self righteous liberal head nodders.  Hill was the only woman to bring this charge, which as I recall was an off-color joke.  Perhaps I didn’t take it seriously because I’d heard worse, and the world didn’t collapse. Obviously, if so many women have kept quiet all the years since of current women’s rights movement of the early 70s, many people were ignoring work place chit chat.

The identified sexual assault/harassment/rape/tighty whities cases—including Charlie Rose whom she was replacing--are currently identified as about 150.  All but 3 or 4 of the charges are against high profile Democrats in politics or media/entertainment. Yet, the only case she can find to recall a historical precedent is from 25 years ago? And this is the drip dribble of biased information Americans and Europeans get every evening.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437603/christiane-amanpours-daniel-hannan-interview-exposes-her-leftist-bias

Here’s the NYT account from 1991 and it is also biased and negative toward Thomas.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/16/us/thomas-confirmation-senate-confirms-thomas-52-48-ending-week-bitter-battle-time.html?

After a few minutes, I hit the mute button

 

"SHEPARD SMITH currently serves as the chief news anchor and managing editor for the network's breaking news division. Additionally, he is the anchor of Shepard Smith Reporting (weekdays 3-4PM/ET)."


I'm listening to Shep on Fox (leftist with his own "news" show--heavily opinion, however). He's blaming Putin for the crisis in Aleppo and Syria. Short memory. The U.S. supported the rebels after the much glorified Arab Spring; our leaderless presidency stood by helplessly and did nothing after our interference backfired. Putin stepped into a vacuum created by Obama. ISIS, which Obama helped create with his sloppy pull out from Iraq, is also involved.

I do think we should take in some Syrian refugees--at least the Christians--because we helped break the country. Readjusting to a new home and culture is extremely difficult. 83% of Americans identify as Christian, and 1% as Muslims. Muslims are killing Muslims of different sects in Syria, but they are all killing Christians.

https://www.barnabasfund.org/news/Christians-in-Aleppo-face-death-on-all-sides

CBS, Consistently Biased Source

I watched the “balanced” story on billionaires supporting super PACs on CBS last night.  95% of the content was based on an interview with appropriate snarky and straw man questions for Julian Robertson, father of hedge funds and founder of a Mitt Romney PAC.  He’s given $1.25 million to get Romney elected, the man he says is the best in the history of the presidency in terms of qualifications.  At the tail end, almost as an after thought, the reporter included a reference to an e-mail (we don’t see it) from Hollywood’s Jeffry Katzenberg who has contributed to Obama’s campaign $2 million and  justifies his donation as fighting the right wing.  He had no tough questions and no face to face on camera time—just a throw away paraphrase of an e-mail. Katzenberg said nothing about Obama’s qualifications and accomplishments, at least not for this report. Nor was he asked if he would seek special favors.

I’m not sure the reporter even mentions how mad Obama was at the Supreme Court over PACs, and then decided to get one for his own campaign.  Nor did he note what a big supporter of environmental issues Robertson is—usually a cause to make the MSM swoon.  The point of this interview was to cut down on Romney who is starting to look like the guy to go after.  Don’t believe me when I tell you that if you watch only broadcast news you only get news for Democrats slanted to make the GOP look bad?  Watch the video.

US midterm elections: Volatile forces shape US vote

A new angle to smear the Tea Party candidates and conservative Republicans--anti-science! Whoop! Now which threatens real scientific research more, back breaking deficits and killing the golden tax goose (a thriving market economy which brings in more tax dollars), or Tea Party candidates? Obama worsened the gulf oil spill mess by destroying more jobs and shipping money and jobs to Mexico and Brazil so they can mess up the oceans with drilling.

This editorial in Nature reflects the continuing support among academics and eggheads for the failed Obama administration. They've still got the guilt glitter in their eyes and are seeing Obama through rose colored hopey changey glasses.

"In the face of fiscal constraints to come, making decisions on where to cut and how that will affect our research and innovation effort is a very serious issue," says Anne Solomon, a senior adviser on science and technology at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, a think tank based in Washington DC. An issue paper co-authored this year by Solomon calls for a "science and technology-enhanced Congress", in which legislators are broadly knowledgeable about science and have better access to technical expertise on the complex issues they face — from energy policy, to education, to economic and security matters. In fact, the opposite is likely to be true of the next Congress.

Obama's promise to "restore science to its rightful place" was no promise at all--it was just one more whiny childish slam at George W. Bush, and I'm surprised the editors of Nature fell for it. And hopping on the embryonic stem cell band wagon? Oh please! Is that the best you have to offer? This piece resembles the new WH charges about the Chamber of Commerce--just accusations, no facts. I concur with the reader who left this comment:

"Nature editors use weasel words and constructions that they would scarcely countenance in something placed rather deeper inside the covers of the magazine.

The fighting is now "hyper-partisan" (with no reference or supporting evidence--maybe a Lexis-Nexis comparison?) compared with past US elections. This makes progress "virtually" impossible so that "Voters on all sides sense that too many privileged Americans, including the politicians for whom they end up casting their ballots, are engaged in reckless behaviour that leaves a mess behind." Really? You've got some parsed polling data to support this assertion somewhere?"

US midterm elections: Volatile forces shape US vote : Nature News

NPR's Nina Totenberg gushes over Kagan after saying federal courts could threaten Obama legacy

It's no secret that Nina Totenberg of NPR is a liberal--she doesn't attempt to disguise it. Recently she has all but gushed over Elena Kagan, Obama's pick for the Supreme Court. The only naysayers she could find to quote were people even further left than she is. Can you imagine if she were writing about a Roberts or Alito only mentioning conservative sources. I looked back to 2006 and then she was remarking (not exactly complaining) about the unanimity in the decisions of a Roberts led court. In this source, she's ginning up some fear that her precious Obamaic legacy could be thwarted.

E-net! - NPR's Nina Totenberg says federal courts could threaten Obama legacy

Well, not to fear. She's got Superwoman Kagan to the rescue. But then, it isn't called NPR (National Progressive Radio) for nothing.

The media's induction of Joe Stack into the Tea Party movement

Although there was no clue in his suicide note that Joe Stack (flew his plane into an IRS building in Texas) was anything other than deranged and unhappy with the government (also set his home on fire with his new wife and stepdaughter in it), some in the leftstream media immediately began linking him with various tea party groups. If anything, considering his Marxist and anti-capitalist remarks, he was left of center.

". . .the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart wrote at the Post Partisan blog, "There's no information yet on whether he was involved in any anti-government groups or whether he was a lone wolf. But after reading his 34-paragraph screed, I am struck by how his alienation is similar to that we're hearing from the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement." NewsBusters.org

Regardless, he was first of all deranged, and those come in all political shades. But where is Capehart's analysis of the mental state and political biases of Amy Bishop, who killed her brother 25 years ago, then fled the scene and held people hostage trying to steal a car, assaulted a woman in a restaurant in 2002, fought with neighbors, planned a gender bias law suit, read aloud in class from textbooks instead of teaching, listed her children as co-authors of a paper, and finally shot a roomful of colleagues, three of the dead being minorities. According to people who knew her and spoke to the press, she was a leftist fanatic. Off-putting even to other liberals.

Capehart + Amy Bishop--I find nothing on Google that he's written about her political connections. I don't know. . . Does this seem a good way to build readership or save the dying newspaper industry? Capehart needs a new line of work.

Academe's bias against white males

Any parent who would pay to send a kid, male or female, into this hell hole should be charged with wallet abuse.

"You might think that a university whose students were victims of the most notorious fraudulent rape claim in recent history, and whose professors -- 88 of them -- signed an ad implicitly presuming guilt, and whose president came close to doing the same would have learned some lessons.

The facts are otherwise. They also suggest that Duke University's ugly abuse in 2006 and 2007 of its now-exonerated lacrosse players -- white males accused by a black stripper and hounded by a mob hewing to political correctness -- reflects a disregard of due process and a bias against white males that infect much of academia.

In September, far from taking pains to protect its students from false rape charges, Duke adopted a revised "sexual misconduct" policy that makes a mockery of due process and may well foster more false rape charges by rigging the disciplinary rules against the accused.

Meanwhile, none of the 88 guilt-presuming professors has publicly apologized. (Duke's president, Richard Brodhead, did -- but too little and too late.) Many of the faculty signers -- a majority of whom are white -- have expressed pride in their rush to judgment. None was dismissed, demoted, or publicly rebuked. Two were glorified this month in Duke's in-house organ as pioneers of "diversity," with no reference to their roles in signing the ad. Three others have won prestigious positions at Cornell, Vanderbilt, and the University of Chicago." The rot at Duke

The bios and photos of those 88 should be tacked on public bulletin boards along with the faces of other identity theft criminals.

You don't need Sean or Rush to be a skeptic

Knowing I don't believe that humans control the climate, a friend asked me if I get my information from Sean and Rush. Why she would think that, I'm not sure since she knows how I love research and I question everything, regardless of the political slant and I seriously doubt she ever listens to either one of them. But the librarian in me just has to list this, 500 peer-reviewed papers supporting skepticism. . . Now I wouldn't agree with all of them, however, they represent an interesting span--some back to the early 1980s. But it's important to understand how government and foundation research grants are doled out, how peer-review is done, and how if you're not in the main stream (which could be flowing the wrong direction), you will be underfunded, understaffed, and under-promoted, whether in climate, astronomy, economics, library science, or war games. Even getting a published work to the shelf of a public library is political.

Where's the "national" in NPR?

It could be the DPR, at least as long as I've been listening. Like all liberal entities, they see the splinter and miss the plank. At least they are blind to that plank in Obama's campaign rhetoric, which continues on and on and on. His health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm's brother, would have had Ted Kennedy removed from the surgeon's schedule, if he'd had his way (see his JAMA article on rationed care and the expense of treating elders last year). Anyway, back to hypocrisy and the frittering of our tax dollars on NPR from James Taranto, Aug. 28:

"Julie Rovner of National Public Radio offers what we guess is supposed to be a defense of ObamaCare. She asserts that "recent claims" against the health-nationalization scheme, despite having been "all thoroughly debunked," have nonetheless been effective because "opponents used fear as a key weapon in their arsenal."

Of course, so have supporters. "What is truly scary, what is truly risky, is to do nothing," President Obama said earlier this month. And in reality, there is an element of fear in almost all political appeals. Opponents of just about any action will warn of its dire consequences, while proponents will make similar claims about the results of inaction. As it is perfectly rational to avoid dire consequences, fear often leads to highly sensible behavior.

That isn't quite how Rovner sees it, though. She ignores the scare tactics on the pro-ObamaCare side and portrays the other side's fears as something less than human.

I haven't seen any "debunking" that sounded truthful or non-partisan, have you? And comparing the opposition, the people who pay her salary, to rats, seems a bit over the top. It's all the same-old, same-old--The sky is falling. The Democrats can take care of everything, including grandma and your privacy. The right is wrong. Trust me I'm from the government.