ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science How defective science harms public policy and damages our public schools. April 30, 2018 Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on April 30th, 2018

“Most Americans don’t even know that the crisis exists,” explain David Randall and Christopher Welser of the National Association of Scholars. Help has now arrived in The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science: Cause, Consequences and the Road to Reform. The general reader might find the title puzzling but the concept is simple.

If a scientific study is to be legitimate, it must be reproducible because replication allows examination of the data and the possibility of different conclusions. If the study is not reproducible it is not really science, and as the authors show, that type of non-science is now common.

In June of 2016, Oona Lönnstedt and Peter Eklöv of Uppsala University published a paper in Science warning of the dangers of microplastic particles in the ocean. The study got considerable media attention but as it turned out, “Lönnstedt never performed the research that she and Eklöv reported.” So in philosophical terms, it had an existential problem, and veracity is also an issue.

In 2005, Dr. John Ioannidis argued, “shockingly and persuasively,” that most published research findings in his own field of medicine were false. This was due to many factors, including the limitations of statistics, “intellectual prejudices and conflicts of interest,” and researchers striving to produce positive results “in fashionable areas of research.” Based on these factors, the findings in other scientific fields were probably wrong too.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Macron Vs. Reality Slippery words from a shameless Islam appeaser. Bruce Bawer

Posted By on April 30th, 2018

Last week, Emmanuel Micron, I mean Macron, visited Washington, had dinner at the White House, and gave a speech on Capitol Hill in which he referred to Hemingway’s memoir A Moveable Feast as a novel, identified the French architect of Washington, D.C., whom Americans know as Pierre L’Enfant, by his middle name, Charles, and attributed a famous line by Ronald Reagan to Teddy Roosevelt. The line in question was the one about how freedom is never more than one generation from extinction.

There was, in fact, a good deal of rhetoric in his speech about freedom – and the threats thereto. Given what’s going on in France these days, that would only make sense. But his approach to his country’s – and the West’s – current travails was, to say the least, curious. On 9/11, asserted Macron, “many Americans had an unexpected rendezvous with death.” How poetic! How French! And how inappropriate a way to refer to thousands of people being evaporated one fine Tuesday morning. He made it sound as if death by jihad had been their divinely ordained destiny – as if the hijackers of those planes had been instruments of some cosmic will.

Macron went on to mention the “terrible terrorist attacks” that have struck his own country in recent years. “It is a horrific price,” he pronounced, “to pay for freedom, for democracy.” Meaning what? In what sense are such attacks the “price” we “pay for freedom”? Did Macron mean something like what London mayor Sadiq Khan meant when he said that living with terrorism is “part and parcel of living in a big city”? I’d say the people who died on 9/11 were paying for American leaders’ blithe indifference to the existential danger of Islam – and that those who’ve died in more recent terror attacks in Europe were paying for their own leaders’ cowardly irresolution (or outright defeatism) on the subject.

Macron might have said something gutsy about his fellow politicians’ culpability in the violent deaths of terrorist victims. But no. Like every other European-establishment political hack, he posed as a hero of freedom. Some hero: he didn’t dare breathe the word Islam or Muslim or even jihad. But what else to expect from a man who, as French author Guy Millière noted in March, has called for Arabic to taught in every French high school, for “cathedral mosques” to be built in every major French city, and for enhanced measures to be taken against critics of Islam?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Kanye Wants to Make America Great Again “Lot of people agree with me but they too scared to speak up.” Mark Tapson

Posted By on April 30th, 2018

Rap superstar Kanye West continues to confound his critics, both progressive and conservative, by sparking a crucial conversation about racial politics. I have previously written here and here on FrontPage Mag about Kanye’s controversial support for President Donald Trump and his defense of black conservative commentator Candace Owens, whose message that blacks need to exchange their victim mentality for a victor mentality resonated with Kanye. Despite volley after volley of media assaults suggesting that Kanye is a race traitor and even questioning his sanity, he hasn’t given an inch of ground, which is unheard of for a celebrity. Now he has triggered renewed leftist outrage by uploading a single on his website that Jerome Hudson at Breitbart News called “one of the boldest political statements in rap history.”

Titled “Ye Vs. The People,” the song features Kanye justifying his iconoclastic new stance in a rap dialogue with actor-rapper T.I., who represents the typical objections raised against Kanye for roaming off the Democrat plantation.

EXPLICIT LYRICS AHEAD

“Where you tryna go with this?” T.I. begins. Kanye replies, “You just readin’ the headlines, you don’t see the fine print / You on some choosin’-side shit, I’m on some unified shit.”

T.I. retorts that Kanye’s support of Trump, including posting a photo of himself with a MAGA hat, is selfish and short-sighted. “Bruh, I never ever stopped fightin’ for the people,” explains Kanye. “Actually wearin’ the hat’ll show people that we equal.”

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

To Promote Nonproliferation, Kill the Iran Deal Now The Europeans won’t do business with Tehran if that means losing access to American banks. By Jamil N. Jaffer

Posted By on April 30th, 2018

Will President Trump terminate the Iran nuclear deal? Many national-security experts are concerned he will, by refusing to waive sanctions that are up for renewal in mid-May. Some worry that unilaterally reimposing sanctions on Iran would isolate the U.S. internationally, as Europe’s leaders still broadly support the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Others argue that the JCPOA is working and Iran is largely abiding by its commitments. Still others urge the U.S. to continue waiving sanctions if the Europeans are willing to consider potential changes to the deal.

Each of these camps is deeply misguided. Should Mr. Trump refuse to continue the Obama -era policy of waiving Iran sanctions and opt to reimpose them unilaterally, Europe will have no choice but to go along. The key sanctions imposed by Congress in 2011-12—in the face of staunch opposition from the Obama White House—are “secondary” sanctions, meaning they operate by imposing costs on countries that continue to do business with Iran. Under this regime, every nation must choose between doing business with Iran and maintaining access to the American banking system. This isn’t a real choice, since no country can function economically by cutting itself off from the U.S.

Indeed, the Europeans lobbied hard against these sanctions—and convinced the Obama White House to do the same—because they knew they could never choose Iran over the U.S. They were right. When it became clear that congressional support for the sanctions was sufficient to override Mr. Obama’s threatened veto, Europe also went along, albeit unhappily. The massive economic pressure produced by the sanctions forced the Iranian regime to the negotiating table for the first time in years.

The Obama administration ultimately squandered its negotiating leverage on a weak deal with deep and enduring flaws: extremely short sunsets, after which Iran will be able to sprint to a nuclear weapon even faster than before; the ability to conduct research under the deal on advanced uranium centrifuges that will further shorten Iran’s breakout time; expanded testing of ballistic missiles that would widen the kill zone of an Iranian nuclear weapon; a self-testing regime on existing nuclear military sites that protects Iran’s illegal weaponization activities; sanctions relief providing an economic boost to the Iranian regime, removing significant pressure and providing the time, space, and resources to work on a valid warhead design; and no link whatever to Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region or support for terrorist groups world-wide like Hezbollah. CONTINUE AT SITE

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

U.S. Fighters for Taiwan The island democracy needs advanced air power to deter China.

Posted By on April 30th, 2018

Chinese bombers and warships conducted exercises near Taiwan this month, a show of force that officials in Beijing called a warning not to pursue formal independence. Last year the number of Chinese air patrols off Taiwan’s east coast quadrupled, and Beijing under President Xi Jinping has stepped up pressure on the island democracy to “reunify” with the motherland.

China’s bullying is raising alarms in the U.S., which is obligated to help Taiwan defend itself under the Taiwan Relations Act. The mainland People’s Liberation Army is deploying new jets, ships and other weapons in such numbers that the island’s defenses are in danger of being overwhelmed. Past U.S. Administrations failed to sell Taiwan the weapons it needs, and much of its arsenal is outdated.

The island’s most pressing need is air power. The mainstay of Taiwan’s fighter force is a fleet of 144 F-16s bought in the mid-1990s. Fewer than half the planes are ready for combat at any time, thanks to the maintenance required by aging aircraft and upgrades. Taiwan is pleading for new fighters to counter China’s advanced planes such as the Russian-made Su-35.

MEDIA Comments turned off

A Vicious Wolf Gives Trump the Last Laugh ‘She had some great one-liners,’ Douglas Brinkley said on CNN. He changed his mind. By Peter Funt

Posted By on April 30th, 2018

No matter how you feel about Donald Trump or the Washington-based journalists who cover him, you should be angered by what was offered Saturday as entertainment at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Michelle Wolf, recently of Comedy Central and soon to have her own series on Netflix , was foul-mouthed about Mr. Trump and downright cruel about members of his administration, several of whom were in the room. Worse, though it proved to be beside the point, she wasn’t funny.

“Trump is so broke,” she quipped, that “Southwest used him as one of their engines.”

She called Vice President Mike Pence a “weirdo”: “He thinks abortion is murder, which, first of all, don’t knock it till you try it. And when you do try it, really knock it. You know, you got to get that baby out of there.”

Ms. Wolf’s material—most of which was laced with too much profanity to print here—wasn’t about the First Amendment, as some suggested. Nor was it about the #MeToo movement, which she attempted at one point to hide behind. It was simply a Saturday Night Massacre of dignity and common sense.

It helped prove two unfortunate truths: First, the notion of having working journalists dress up for “nerd prom,” as they call it, and fawn over celebrity guests while listening to a hired comic roast the officials they cover each day was never a good idea. Now, in the freewheeling age of social media, it’s completely bankrupt.

Second, Mr. Trump was right to skip the event. No reasonable person, even among his harshest critics, would have expected him to sit through this. CONTINUE AT SITE

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

California Goes Rogue By Mark Krikorian

Posted By on April 30th, 2018

How the Golden State defies immigration law

‘I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach.” That was President Andrew Jackson’s response to South Carolina’s intention to prevent enforcement of a federal law within the state. Despite his admiration for Jackson, President Trump hasn’t yet threatened to start hanging California politicians. But that state’s “sanctuary” policies protecting illegal immigrants and obstructing enforcement of federal immigration law echo the long-ago fight over nullification and states’ rights.

The passage of three sanctuary bills last year by the state legislature in Sacramento is now the subject of a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice. It was the culmination of a decades-long process, as mass immigration transformed California’s politics from reddish purple to deep blue.

The first measure that could be described as a sanctuary provision was the Los Angeles Police Department’s Special Order 40, enacted in 1979, which prohibited officers from arresting a person for the federal crime of illegal entry and, unless he was arrested for another crime, from even inquiring as to legal status. But that order merely instructed police to abstain from involving themselves in immigration enforcement. In the 1980s, a more proactive conception of illegal-alien sanctuary spread, as Central Americans fleeing war in their homelands snuck into the U.S. but did not qualify for asylum.

At first, only some pro-Sandinista churches postured as sanctuaries for these illegal aliens. But in late 1985, Mayor (now Senator) Dianne Feinstein signed a resolution declaring San Francisco a “city of refuge” for illegals. She ordered that “City Departments shall not discriminate against Salvadorans and Guatemalan refugees because of their immigration status, and shall not jeopardize the safety and welfare of law-abiding refugees by acting in a way that may cause their deportation.” The declaration was followed four years later by a city law formally prohibiting city employees from assisting federal immigration authorities.

BOOKS Comments turned off

The Naval War of 1812: Theodore Roosevelts’s Forgotten Masterpiece By Moshe Wander

Posted By on April 30th, 2018

His analysis of the Navy’s shortcomings bore fruit nearly a century later.

It has been 99 years since Theodore Roosevelt’s death, yet he still captures Americans’ imaginations as much as any public figure from that era. What is often lost in our memory of Roosevelt is that he was not only a cowboy, a soldier, and a statesman, but also an acclaimed historian. Indeed, his historical scholarship (some of which remains the standard work in its field) is central to his legacy as a statesman.

Roosevelt was only 23 in 1882, when he published his first work of history, The Naval War of 1812. Although the book was well received in its time (every ship in the Navy was required to keep at least one copy on board), it is far more valuable today as a manifesto for American naval power and a clarion call for the modernization of what Roosevelt saw as a woefully ill-equipped fleet.

Roosevelt credits the young United States Navy with achieving several important victories against the British at sea, but this happened despite and not because of the actions of the American politicians who set military policy in the years before the war. During the Quasi-War fought between the United States and France in the late 1790s, President John Adams had ordered the construction of six frigates and created the Department of the Navy to oversee their construction. However, under the succeeding administrations of Jefferson and Madison, those ships fell into disrepair, and naval construction lost the importance it had once had in Washington. One can read the particular indignation Roosevelt has for Jefferson and Madison in the opening chapters of The Naval War of 1812, as he castigates their strategy for prioritizing small gunboats designed for coastal defense over larger frigates, and how this left the United States vulnerable to the much larger and more dangerous Royal Navy. While Roosevelt admires the quality of America’s sailors a great deal, he repeats vigorously that they were dealt a bad hand by inattentive politicians.

MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Loathsome and Unfunny By Rich Lowry

Posted By on April 30th, 2018

Most comedic acts at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner are unfunny, but last night’s performance by someone named Michelle Wolf set a new standard by being both loathsome and unfunny (I wasn’t there, by the way, and haven’t gone in years). Here’s the video of her vicious riff on Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
Dan McLaughlin
✔ @baseballcrank
“Core problem w/ #WHCD & Wolf comedy routine is not that it was cruel (it was) or unfunny (it was) or disrespectful to women (it was), but that it revealed yet again that the agenda-setting national political media holds an annual event reveling in angry Democratic partisanship”

Tim Alberta
✔ @TimAlberta

“Every caricature thrust upon t he national press—that we are culturally elitist, professionally incestuous, socioeconomically detached and ideologically biased—is confirmed by this trainwreck of an event.Journalists, the joke’s on us.”

Some in the press whine about Trump skipping these dinners. Last night showed he is right to do so, and in the future everyone at the White House should as well.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Unraveling the Deep State Narrative : Part 2:Rogue Ruling Class Grabs Power, Removes the People’s Sovereignty By D Hawthorne

Posted By on April 30th, 2018

Famed civil libertarian and attorney Alan Dershowitz said recently of the ongoing shenanigans surrounding Robert Mueller’s investigation: “Just as the first casualty of war is truth, so, too, the first casualty of hyper-partisan politics is civil liberties.”

Indeed. The American people are up against a rogue ruling class that cares only about protecting the power they have taken from us; they don’t give a damn about civil liberties or justice, in general.

We were reminded of this recently when President Trump pardoned Scooter Libby. The pardon highlighted former FBI Director James Comey’s corruption in unleashing prosecutorial abuse by a special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, who then railroaded the conviction of an innocent man. The pardon corrected a miscarriage of justice; it was no Marc Rich pardon (though that had its own Comey and Clinton Foundation connections) and, contrary to Comey’s assertion, it was not an attack on justice or the rule of law. Comey has now hired Fitzgerald as his personal attorney.

Regarding the character of the special counsel, Dershowitz described Mueller’s personal involvement in “the most scandalous miscarriage of justice in the modern history of the FBI,” where four men were sent to prison for murders they were known not to have committed. They remained locked up for nearly 30 years, after which a judge awarded them $102 million for false imprisonment.

Unelected bureaucrats are acting with similar disdain for the people’s will. PowerLine’s John Hinderaker writes how, in contradiction to our Constitution, James Comey and others like former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates have declared the FBI and “permanent staff of the DOJ” are “independent of, and superior to, the president . . . a permanent bureaucracy in Washington that is impervious to the wishes of the voters,” making “the administrative state . . . the greatest contemporary threat to the liberty of Americans.”