Voluntarist
Member

They're called Paper Mills. There's an RPF thread on these types of Paper Mills: Study reveals scale of ‘science scam’ in academic publishing ... I saw the second post in that thread and thought of Tim Minchin's lyric, "So you want to live in paradise, with a ten foot c0ck and a few hundred virgins." And then there was that other RPF thread with the research paper about "Fukushima meltdown appears to have sickened American infants" which turns out to have been published in one of those paper mills.

Has the study been replicated? I ask because it's the sorry state of science these days. Studies tend to be peer reviewed by people who agree with the hypothesis that's being investigated. All the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Climate Change studies have been "peer reviewed" - by people who believe in and have a vested interest in Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Climate Change being true.. Don't get me wrong, that's a good first step, particularly if the researcher seeks out reviewers who have that "test engineer" or "applied science" perspective of "I intend to break this thing". But that's seldom the case anymore. Who were the "Peer Reviewers"? What comments did they make? I mean, come on, one of the two authors of the study was Daniel Broudy, PhD, Professor of Applied Linguistics. That really should have raised red flags. The other is Young Mi Lee, MD, Practicing Physician, Hanna Women’s Clinic, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, and who is also a reproductive endocrinologist ... not a microbiologist. Oh, but she's considered an expert in stereomicroscopy ... which is another way of saying she's good at using low-powered binocular microscopes ... not the type of thing you'd be using to examine nanotechnology. They're talking about objects in the range of 1 to 100μm (that's millionths of a meter - electron microscope territory, not low powered binocular microscopes). Red flags all around.

DJIA is still up roughly 6,000 over where it was a year ago and roughly 3,000 above where it was at the start of 2024. The drop during Covid in 2020 was much more precipitous. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=sGzL

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Newsom rejects it. https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/AB-1840-Veto-Message.pdf

And they now have nine individuals on board the ISS, with two crew-capable space capsules: Crew-8 Dragon (capable of carrying four astronauts) and Soyuz MS-25 (capable of carrying three cosmonauts). If something were to happen to the ISS, two people would not be able to be evacuated. Also consider that the space suits used in Starliner don't function in either Crew Dragon or Soyuz.

Has there been an uptick in the incidence of parasitic worms?

Carville lists ‘imperatives’ for Harris to become ‘certified fresh candidate’

I'm less concerned with what some study says than I am with the fact that at least 79 million STUPID citizens are expected be turning out to vote in 2024 That's based on the turnout in 2020 being about 158 million (and George Carlin's statement, "Look how stupid the average voter is, and realize that half of all voters are worse than that") Larry David Superbowl Commercial for FTX ("Even the stupid ones?"): https://youtu.be/hWMnbJJpeZc?t=64

James Carville was on Bill Maher's show last week saying that unless the Democratic candidate was up by at least 3 points in national-level polling then she was actually behind (due to the weighting of large population states in the national polling). Still though, you've posted other polls recently that showed Kamster polling better than Trumpsky in most all of the tossup states (which is where the battles leading to victory lie).

Catch-22. The guys from the sixties can't deal with 2020 electronics and 2020 software methodologies. So you tell them it'll be OK to build it with the 1960's electronics and software; except the 1960's electronics are no longer being built (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were designed before the first microprocessor). The DOD is having to start from ground zero on designing replacements for cruise missiles designed in the seventies because they can no longer get the parts to build them to the old blueprints. And software in the sixties? For embedded systems, it consisted of Program Array Logic for semiconductors, which you could only burn once (they weren't rewritable). You could keep time to the clock rates by tapping your foot (OK, I made that one up). 1960: most homes still had black and white TVs that sat in wooden cabinets. When you took your electronics in for repair, vacuum tubes were the things they tended to replace.

Tell that to France - they didn't get the memo. RPF has a thread on it. Basically, the New Popular Front (an alliance of four far left parties) won Parliament with a plurality of votes; But Macron can't nominate their choice for Prime Minister because it'll result in an immediate vote of non-confidence. I don't know what that would mean for French government - whether it means they go straight to another round of voting for Parliament, or if they have to wait a specified period before they can do that again. But if anyone could demonstrate that Democracy doesn't work, it's the French. They just aren't using guillotines this time around.

A majority of the 577 seats in Parliament would be 289 seats. The far-left coalition NPF, while holding a plurality, holds far less than a majority (the same with the right wing National Rally party and Macron's left-center Renaissance party). If Macron were to nominate Lucie Castets (from the NPF), Castets would face an immediate vote of no confidence. Macron has been negotiating with three of the NPF parties (Socialists, Ecologists and Communists ... ignoring La France Insoumise) to compromise with the other parties to come up with a candidate for Prime Minister who could survive a no confidence vote - Castets can't. The far-right National Rally party has already stated they would immediately call a no-confidence vote against any leftist prime minister to prevent them from forming a government. That means the three NPF parties previously mentioned have to compromise with Macron's Renaissance party if a government is to be formed. Macron rules out naming left-wing PM, extends talks to end deadlock French left backs protests after Macron rejects PM choice

Both articles source through the Daily Mail article ... so no, not well vetted at all (it's all in the right wing echo chamber - not that such echo chambers are confined to the right wing). Typically, "Clown World" demands two independent corroborating sources. And one of the things that bothers me about the Daily Mail article is that it wasn't written up until two to three years following the event (which tends to be a sign of ulterior motives). I haven't seen any links to the actual litigation that was filed. I haven't even seen a second news source that didn't source back to the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail has kept all involved parties anonymous, save for the Chaplain (the non-gendered Lavender Kelley) - which makes it seem like a hit piece. Naming the accused without naming the accusers is textbook character assassination. The Daily Mail states that, "Lavender Kelley is believed to be currently caring for the child" ... note that's there's no confirmation of that, yet they went ahead and named her anyway. The "child" turned 18 over a year ago, so there's no underage individual to shield from the world's prying eye. If the family was really interested in protecting the child's privacy, then they wouldn't have spoken to the Daily Mail. *** Added *** On the other hand, I haven't seen any of the fact-checking sites disputing it yet. But it seems like the story only started making the circuit about a month ago; so give it time.

Well, it is a story out of "The Daily Mail" - and I always like to get a second independent source for Daily Mail articles before I invest too much credence in them; and I haven't been able to find another source for the story that isn't derived from the Daily Mail article. Checking that story, though, you find that the kid is now 19 - so I'm wondering what caused the story to surface now rather than three years ago when it started (or at any other time since then). If he's 19 now, I'm also wondering why he's still in foster care. Pictured above is hospital Chaplain Lavender Kelley, who is believed to be currently caring for the child. The individual says online that they do not have a gender

Don't mess with the #KHive ... jeesh

I'll give Harris's full quote below. In the particular instance that Harris was referring to (drug innovation), it wasn't private innovation she was talking about. The real Marxism started with government investing in the development of the drugs for which patents were issued to private companies. So yeah, I pragmatically agree with what you're saying about patents to protect private innovation (with some idealistic reservations), what I don't want to see is government, itself, becoming the banker for that private innovation - because it ceases to be private innovation once government sticks its heavy hand into the marketplace. I mean, once government becomes one of the "Shark Tank" sharks (for the good of the people ... rolls eyes) it can pretty much set the terms of its participation. Where are my reservations, you ask? Patents require government force to be enforceable. Plus, they can actually restrict innovation that improves upon the patented concept. Then you also get into the "right to repair" issues. But idealistically, if an innovation is really private property (which the patent protects), then why doesn't it remain private property in perpetuity; why does the patent protection run out after X years? In actuality, the patent is an acknowledgement that the state owns the innovation (the product of an innovator's mind) and is permitting the private innovator to profit from it for as long as the state deems appropriate. Pragmatically, since government exists, the patent system is probably the best we can hope for.

You can almost hear the ghost of Hunter Thompson saying, "It ain't a protest at a DNC convention in Chicago until the police are drawing blood with batons!" ... and the ghost of Richard Daley granting his wish. Pffft! They call that a demonstration? Isn't there supposed to be tear gas reaching the hotel suites of the delegates?

Well, I did wonder what was going to take the place of the "The Queeerest Olympics Ever!" thread.

Andy Beshear was on "Face The Nation" this morning trying to explain that this wasn't "price fixing" (transcript here) If they exist in state law, then why do we need them at the federal level? Has ol' Andy boy been able to stem inflation in Kentucky by using them? Or is Kammy proposing federal statutes that are more stringent than what you find at the state level (in which case his statement that they already exist in state law really isn't a very good comparison, is it?).

I think she's correct when she says that Stein could cause problems for the Dems if she nominates someone from the Arab community as her vice-presidential candidate. By the same token, though, Harris is going to come back with, "Would you prefer that Trump be elected?" Don't ask Kam to help you Cuz she'll turn the other ear Won't you please come to Chicago Or else join the other side

Yes, it does. Do you really think that's what the law does? It took me all of 20 seconds to find out it doesn't. It's easy enough to debunk; all you have to do is find one Minnesota school district that doesn't put period products in all-boys bathrooms. There's a number of news portals that have done that work for you. It's actually more difficult to find a school district that DOES put period products in boys-only bathrooms (I haven't yet - gave up trying - you'd think the people putting the memes together would come up with a list; but I haven't found one). But the meme won't go away despite that. Claims like this go over well with the socially conservative faithful (who aren't going to vote for any Democrat, anyway). And I'll admit that there's a portion of the "undecided" voters that can be swayed by gender arguments like this. That is until those claims are debunked, which tends to push those voters away from the charlatans making the claims. I suppose the hope, on the part of GOP strategists, is that those undecided voters are too stupid to check out the reality of the situation. There's a lot of people who will believe lies if you repeat them enough. Just one more reason to be against voting - the party with the greatest appeal to stupid voters is the one which will prevail (I'm pretty sure we've already got that one on our list PAF) CNN reports:

I've got two reactions to that: 1) I'm very much a fiscal conservative. If I haven't heard that played up, then do you think most social security recipients have? The trump campaign needs to play that up - get it published in the monthly AARP rag. 2) Why didn't he do it in the first two years of his first term when he had control of both Houses of Congress?

Unlikely. But if candidates are going to be offering income tax cuts around the edges, why not start with social security? The money confiscated from workers which goes into social security is taxed before it goes in (at least the part confiscated from workers). When it's taxed as it's paid out to retirees, it's income that's being double-taxed. Have Trump commit to those cuts so that he's got the retiree vote locked up. Then Kamela will make the same commitment - and maybe it'll actually happen.

The rich and middle class have to pay their fair share - the poor have to receive their fair share