Thursday, December 27, 2018



Descent into Hell: Identity Politics as the Gateway to Islamic Theocracy


The Left has conveniently forgotten the incident: they knew exactly what Zahalka meant by that. Genuine ideological racism transformed long ago into their worldview and their prerogative, concurrently.
Democratic ideals, social justice and tolerance don’t rule the world anymore. A new ideology – a successor of the failed totalitarian ideologies of the past century — governs the soul of the West, and it’s called Identity Politics.
The product of a vicious love of Red and Brown dogmas, it is pseudo-scientific, and is dividing people into racial-class categories with a rigid hierarchy. White Christians and Jews — exploiters a priori, the embodiment of financial manipulation and conspiracy – are at the lower level of the social pyramid. The second level of this hierarchy is occupied by people with various pathologies (homosexuals, transgenders, disabled) and women, who by default belong to the oppressed class. They resemble the gigantic peasant masses in the writings of Marxists: deprived, but hardly aware of their own unhappiness due to the absence of “class consciousness.” “Proletarian masses” represented by the Third World (from Venezuela to Bangladesh) and suppressed by white imperialism are positioned in the third level.
The top of the social pyramid is occupied by the vanguard of the “global progressive forces” (such as the Communist party or National Socialist German Workers’ party) – embodied by Black American organizations, Palestinians and various Islamic groups.
A human being, as a thinker who is responsible for his own destiny and the fate of others, has no place in this scheme. Instead, there are faceless groups of “beneficial insects” and “harmful insects” (a precise copy of Marxist theory). The former deserve all the support; the latter should be expelled and persecuted in every possible way. Like sheep, a man is born with a stigma which determines his fate.
A Black transgender Muslim will a priori have a more privileged position than a white man, regardless of intelligence and moral qualities. As in Bolshevik Russia, the weaver was a priori better than a former nobleman, and in Nazi Germany, the Aryan criminal was above the “subhuman” — a Jew or Slav.
It is assumed that each group of “insects” must sacrifice itself in the name of universal progress. White heterosexual men should make space for socially oppressed groups: women and the LGBT community, who, in turn, ought to sacrifice themselves in the name of the “World Proletariat,” whereas the “Proletarian Masses” must put themselves on the altar for the benefit of the Labor aristocracy and “Progressive Vanguard.”
Linda Sarsour’s message about the “brave Black Muslim American woman” (Ilhan Omar) – a victim of “people with “dual loyalty” — has a hypnotic effect on the progressive public, and she is well aware of it. In the reflection of Houston Chamberlain’s racial theory, “people with dual loyalty” (“termites” in Farrakhan’s definition) don’t stand a chance…
The following examples will demonstrate how this ideology elucidates modern countless paradoxes of “liberal democracy”:
–    The Dead White European Males (DWEM) term in American campuses;

–    PinkNews’ headline that “US Muslims are more accepting of homosexuality than White evangelicals”;

–    Bullying all who disagree with the superiority of marginal groups over heterosexuals (after he dared to support heterosexual families, a cofounder of Mozilla, Brendan Eich, had to step down);

–    The physical destruction of “politically incorrect” books, including children’s literature. In 2007, for instance, the municipal library of Botkyrka (a suburb of Stockholm) burned the entire edition of “Pippi in the South Seas,” written by Astrid Lindgren in 1948, because of “racist” expressions;

–    The total onslaught against the origins of Western civilization and its history. For instance: a publication such as “Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires” by Richard Sugg claims that 18th century British nobility practiced cannibalism;
Ralph Ellis’ research tries to prove that King Solomon was an Egyptian Pharaoh (“Solomon, Pharaoh of Egypt”); and Jesus was the fourth king of Manu, ruler of Edessa in Mesopotamia (“Jesus, King of Edessa”).
Or a “discovery” by Annika Larsson from Uppsala University that the word “Allah” was embroidered on Vikings’ funeral clothes (compared to all this the Soviet agitprop is a kids’ game).
Alan Ereira and Terry Jones (in “Barbarians against Rome”) claim that the Romans were bloodthirsty and evil savages, whereas the ancient Germans and Celts were peaceful, highly civilized communities.
In “Battlefield-1” — a Swedish computer game based on World War I motifs — British, American and even German soldiers appear as black.
USA Today columnist Brian Truitt criticized a lack of diversity in “Dunkirk” — a movie about the British Expeditionary Force in World War II. Could it be that Bernard Montgomery, Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton were black transgender lesbians? Why not?
–    The statement of Prince Charles that gangs of pirates were “fantastic” for aquatic life because the fishermen were too scared to fish in coastal Somalia waters.
Only by understanding the nature of modern synthesis of Marxist and racial ideologies one can explain the inexplicable. The self-forgetful vilification of Israel and complete disregard of the scourge of the Palestinians in the refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon.
Total indifference to the fate of Ukrainians in war zones and moving concern for migrants from peaceful areas of Africa and Asia.
The willingness to accept ISIS militants and the apathy to the fate of their victims: Christians and Yezidis.
Compassion for jihadists in Guantanamo and mobsters from “Black Life Matters,” while cynically ignoring the genocides in Sudan and Rwanda.
The accusation of the “white man” for all mortal sins and the refusal to recognize poorly disguised slavery in the Muslim world.
The denial of Islamic terror side by side the hysterics about marginal “White Terror.”
Feminists’ violent attacks on Sir Tim Hunt, the Nobel prizewinner, because of his joke about girls in science labs, while the same feminists defended rapists from Afghanistan, Somalia and Morocco.
Drexel University (Philadelphia) associate professor of politics and global studies George Ciccariello-Maher’s wishes of “White Genocide for Christmas” and expressions of delight for the 9/11 terror attacks from famous intellectuals.
Adoration for all kinds of dictators of the Third World on the one hand, and contempt for the white descendants of the Boers, hunted by the South Africa’s regime on the other.
The adamant reluctance to release the names of Muslim gang rapists and a comparison of Viktor Orban to Hitler.
Claims on CNN that “Islam has always been a part of the American fabric” and “America has always had heroes who were Muslims.” The new heroes are Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (professional basketball player), left activist Malcolm X and the leader of notorious Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan. Surprised? Not at all. Farrakhan is the personification of a “progressive man of a new type”: he is a Black Islamist, a personal enemy of Jews and whites. If you disagree, than you don’t fully understand theories of race and class.
Only by understanding the pyramid’s structure of the modern totalitarian ideology, the game of leapfrog of absurd facts acquires its own clear logic.
–    Hounding Marine Le Pen for Twitter photos of ISIS’ atrocities and pogroms at the University of Berkeley in “Stormtroopers” style following Trump’s victory.
–    An assignment from a University of Iowa professor to describe the 9/11 terrorist attacks from the perspective of Al-Qaeda, and a UK textbook asking children to ask questions of terrorists.
–    A demand by students from a prestigious London University to eradicate Plato, Descartes and Immanuel Kant from the curriculum because they are white, and the replacing of Shakespeare’s portrait with the portrait of Audre Lorde, “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” at the University of Pennsylvania.
–    Havens for all but “Straight white students” on campuses and allegations (by FBI leaders as well) that “white nationalism” is a greater threat to the US than ISIS.
–    A letter from the French Professor Christian de Moliner in November 2017 asking Macron to create a Muslim state within France, Ken Livingstone’s sympathy for Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and Jeremy Corbyn’s empathy for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hizballah.
One will understand the Swedish feminists who wear burkas in Iran and the French court decision to remove the cross from the monument of Pope John Paul II, as well as the training of new migrants to be snipers in Sweden, and the efforts of British leftist groups to disrupt a demonstration against Muslim gangs of rapists.
The deportation from Sweden of Iranian actress and ex-Muslim Aideen Strandsson, who converted to Christianity (the explanation was “It’s not our problem if you decided to become a Christian”; she got asylum in Hungary, thanks to Orban) and the refusal of the British Home Office to give asylum to a 34-year-old Nigerian, Nneka Obazee, a lesbian, and her stepson.

Social benefits to ISIS militants by Great Britain, Sweden and France, and the allowing of Pakistani homophobic preacher Hamza Sodagar to enter Britain. He infamously claimed the following: “There are five punishments for homosexual men.
First, probably the easiest one, is to behead them.
The second, is to burn them to death.
Third, to throw them off a cliff.
Fourth, crash them to death with bricks.
And finally, a combination of all of the above, is the fifth.”
(Muslims are more accepting of homosexuality than White evangelicals, isn’t it? But let’s remember: each class must consciously sacrifice itself for the sake of the more progressive ones).
The comparing of Trump with ISIS (obviously not in Trump’s favor) by GQ columnist Julia Ioffe on CNN, and the words of Arizona Democrat Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema, that she doesn’t care if Americans enlist the Taliban and fight for it in Afghanistan.
A German police commissioner blaming girls who are victims for being raped by migrants, and the refusal of a left-wing German activist, 24-year-old  Selin Gören, to reveal the names of rapists, out of a fear of fueling racism against refugees.
The hosting and rewarding of a young Palestinian terrorist by Real Madrid, and the blocking of Facebook posts about retaliation for homosexuals by Muslims.
Mohamed Atta and Paris’ Bataclan jihad killer Ishmael Omar Mostfai as part of the exhibition in the “Martyr Museum” (along with Socrates and Martin Luther King) in Germany, and the celebration of the Ottoman conquest of the Hagia Sophia by the Florida Museum.
The assertion of the University of California that “only whites can be racist” and the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ and Lord Chief Justice Phillips’ support of Sharia law in England.
A call by Georgetown Professor Jonathan Brown — an advocate of slavery in the Muslim world — that “Muslims in America should stand with Black Lives Matter” and the dropping of rape charges for migrant rapists and pedophiles. “Muslim Brothers” such as Obama’s and Macron’s entourage and a campaign of state-owned company Lernia to replace the “standard Swedish language” with a migrant-inclusive accent.
All of this can only be understandable if one knows the concepts of class struggle and scientific racism theory.
Nazism and Marxism of the 20th century cast mankind into hell. In the 21st century, their offspring welcomed a new Golem: Islam.[ideology] In my opinion, the followers of this new ideology are yearning for the triumph of a global caliphate, consciously and subconsciously. Subconsciously, because they need a doctrine robust enough to keep their superficial and feeble souls from self-destruction in a complex and incomprehensible world. Consciously, because due to public relations and apologetic abilities, only Islam, as a universal world system, will ensure their existence — albeit the miserable existence of the “capo,” but still an existence. Nobody needs them anymore.
A Red-Brown mutant inevitably becomes green in our eyes.
Alexander Maistrovoy is the author of “Agony of Hercules or a Farewell to Democracy (Notes of a Stranger),” available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

https://www.amazon.com/Agony-Hercules-Farewell-Democracy-Stranger/dp/151444402X/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_pl_foot_top?ie=UTF8
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Tuesday, November 13, 2018

The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Kipling

The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Kipling
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Taxes: tax his

This is from USA, but it applies in many places
Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table,
At which he’s fed.
Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.
Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for
peanuts anyway!
Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.
Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.
Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.
Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.
Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won’t be done
Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He’s good and sore.
Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he’s laid…
Put these words
Upon his tomb,
‘Taxes drove me
to my doom…’
When he’s gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Sales Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Thursday, September 27, 2018

UN committee's mix



Friday, September 7, 2018

On Death Kahlil Gibran

On Death
Kahlil Gibran
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Thursday, August 23, 2018

Many English Spellings and Pronunciations

The Chaos
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Well done! And now you wish perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead, it’s said like bed, not bead-
for goodness’ sake don’t call it ‘deed’!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth, or brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s doze and rose and lose-
Just look them up- and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart-
Come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I’d learned to speak it when I was five!
And yet to write it, the more I sigh,
I’ll not learn how ’til the day I die.
-Gerard Nolst Trenité

Thursday, August 9, 2018

Once were Green



lastmanstanding


Talking of her here is an email I sent to each Green MP recently. Apologies for any threadjacking;
Subject: HOW THE “GREY BEARDS” HAVE DESTROYED THE PLANET
Checking out at the supermarket, the young cashier suggested to the much older woman that reusable grocery bags were a good idea as plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.
The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this ‘green thing back in my earlier days.” The young cashier responded, “That’s our problem today – your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.” She was right our generation didn’t have the ‘green thing’ in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, lemonade bottles and beer bottles to the shop. The shop sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So, they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the “green thing” back in our day. Grocery shops bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we re-used for numerous things, most memorable besides household bags for rubbish, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school), was not defaced by our scribbling. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But too bad we didn’t do the “green thing” back then. We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have a lift in every supermarket, shop and office building. We walked to the local shop and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go half a mile. But she was right. We didn’t have the “green thing” in our day Back then, we washed the baby’s Terry Towelling nappies because we didn’t have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 3 kilowatts ……. wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids had hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
But that young lady is right; we didn’t have the “green thing” back in our day. Back then, we had one radio or TV in the house – not a TV in every room and the TV had a small screen the size of a big handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of Scotland In the kitchen. We blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We pushed the mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right; we didn’t have the “green thing” back then. We drank from a tap or fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the “green thing” back then. Back then, people took the bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their Mums into a 24-hour taxi service in the family’s $70,000 People Carrier which cost the same as a whole house did before the “green thing.” We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances and we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pub! But isn’t it sad that the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the “green thing” back then?

We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to piss us off…especially when the “advice” is being offered by a tattooed, multiple pierced smartarse who can’t work out the change without the cash register telling them how much it is!
-----------------
RC
Thanks for sharing.
The baby boomers popularised the environmental movement. They were also far more connected to nature as a lower percentage of Kiwis lived in urban settings.
Today caring for the environment has been hijacked by politically movitated city dwellers born to a life of extreme privilege

Saturday, July 7, 2018

Testing Science Data

Beware those scientific studies -- most are wrong, researcher warns

Ivan Couronne
1 / 4

A skull made of sugar -- one of a large number of foodstuffs that have been associated with cancer risks or benefits, despite a lack of strong direct evidence

A skull made of sugar -- one of a large number of foodstuffs that have been associated 
with cancer risks or benefits, despite a lack of strong direct evidence (AFP Photo/JOEL SAGET)
with cancer risks or benefits, despite a lack of strong direct evidence (AFP Photo/JOEL SAGET)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/beware-those-scientific-studies-most-wrong-researcher-warns-164336076.html
Washington (AFP) - A few years ago, two researchers took the 50 most-used ingredients in a cook book and studied how many had been linked with a cancer risk or benefit, based on a variety of studies published in scientific journals.
The result? Forty out of 50, including salt, flour, parsley and sugar. "Is everything we eat associated with cancer?" the researchers wondered in a 2013 article based on their findings.
Their investigation touched on a known but persistent problem in the research world: too few studies have large enough samples to support generalized conclusions.
But pressure on researchers, competition between journals and the media's insatiable appetite for new studies announcing revolutionary breakthroughs has meant such articles continue to be published.
"The majority of papers that get published, even in serious journals, are pretty sloppy," said John Ioannidis, professor of medicine at Stanford University, who specializes in the study of scientific studies.
This sworn enemy of bad research published a widely cited article in 2005 entitled: "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False."
Since then, he says, only limited progress has been made.
Some journals now insist that authors pre-register their research protocol and supply their raw data, which makes it harder for researchers to manipulate findings in order to reach a certain conclusion. It also allows other to verify or replicate their studies.
Because when studies are replicated, they rarely come up with the same results. Only a third of the 100 studies published in three top psychology journals could be successfully replicated in a large 2015 test.
Medicine, epidemiology, population science and nutritional studies fare no better, Ioannidis said, when attempts are made to replicate them.
"Across biomedical science and beyond, scientists do not get trained sufficiently on statistics and on methodology," Ioannidis said.
Too many studies are based solely on a few individuals, making it difficult to draw wider conclusions because the samplings have so little hope of being representative.
- Coffee and Red Wine -
"Diet is one of the most horrible areas of biomedical investigation," professor Ioannidis added -- and not just due to conflicts of interest with various food industries.
"Measuring diet is extremely difficult," he stressed. How can we precisely quantify what people eat?
In this field, researchers often go in wild search of correlations within huge databases, without so much as a starting hypothesis.
Even when the methodology is good, with the gold standard being a study where participants are chosen at random, the execution can fall short.
A famous 2013 study on the benefits of the Mediterranean diet against heart disease had to be retracted in June by the most prestigious of medical journals, the New England Journal of Medicine, because not all participants were randomly recruited; the results have been revised downwards.
So what should we take away from the flood of studies published every day?
Ioannidis recommends asking the following questions: is this something that has been seen just once, or in multiple studies? Is it a small or a large study? Is this a randomized experiment? Who funded it? Are the researchers transparent?
These precautions are fundamental in medicine, where bad studies have contributed to the adoption of treatments that are at best ineffective, and at worst harmful.
In their book "Ending Medical Reversal," Vinayak Prasad and Adam Cifu offer terrifying examples of practices adopted on the basis of studies that went on to be invalidated, such as opening a brain artery with stents to reduce the risk of a new stroke.
It was only after 10 years that a robust, randomized study showed that the practice actually increased the risk of stroke.
The solution lies in the collective tightening of standards by all players in the research world, not just journals but also universities, public funding agencies. But these institutions all operate in competitive environments.
"The incentives for everyone in the system are pointed in the wrong direction," Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch, which covers the withdrawal of scientific articles, tells AFP. "We try to encourage a culture, an atmosphere where you are rewarded for being transparent."
The problem also comes from the media, which according to Oransky needs to better explain the uncertainties inherent in scientific research, and resist sensationalism.
"We're talking mostly about the endless terrible studies on coffee, chocolate and red wine," he said.
"Why are we still writing about those? We have to stop with that."

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

TAPS hym

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

Fading light, dims the sight,
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright.
From afar, drawing nigh, falls the night.

Thanks and praise, for our days,
'Neath the sun, 'neath the stars, neath the sky;

As we go, this we know, God is nigh.

Sun has set, shadows come,
Time has fled, Scouts must go to their beds
Always true to the promise that they made.

While the light fades from sight,
And the stars gleaming rays softly send,
To thy hands we our souls, Lord, commend.

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Day is done, gone the sun From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky All is well, safely rest God is nigh. Thanks and praise for our days Neath the sun, neath the stars, neath the sky As we go, this we know God is nigh. Then goodnight, peaceful night; Till the light of the dawn shineth bright. God is near, do not fear, Friend, goodnight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKhhg2CqcCQ
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Other lyrics include: Love, good night,      Must thou go,           When the day,               And the night,                      Need thee so?                             All is well.                                    Speedeth all,                                          To their rest. Go to sleep,      Peaceful sleep,           May God keep                 The soldier                      Or sailor,                            On the land                                    Or the deep,                                           Safe in sleep. Thanks and praise         For our days,              Neath the sun,                   Neath the stars,                        Neath the sky,                              As we go,                                    This we know,                                          God is nigh. Love, good night,      Must thou go,           When the day,               And the night,                      Need thee so?                             All is well.                                    Speedeth all,                                          To their rest. Fading light        Dims the sight             And a star                 Gems the sky,                        Gleaning bright,                            Fare thee well,                                    Day has gone,                                           Night is on. Here we stand,       Hand in hand,             Wishing peace,                  Freedom, joy                       To each man.                            When there’s love                                  In our hearts,                                         God is nigh.

imagine that all is well, the sentries are posted and it's safe for me to go to sleep because God is here with me.
.....................
A girl singing at her GrandBob's funeral
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkm4imcJs7E

Friday, May 18, 2018

Lenin's "inflation & taxation grinding" quote?.



Fake Quote Files: V.I. Lenin on Inflation and Taxation



Beware the well-armed Marxist.
Beware the well-armed Marxist.

http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/04/15/fake-quote-files-v-i-lenin-on-inflation-and-taxation/


It occurred to me, while researching alleged quotations from historical figures, that for every time someone cites a source for a quote, there are about 10,000 instances where people simply stick the purported author’s name under it with an emdash (—), as though it was a sufficient reference.
This is quite maddening, because even if a quote is accurate, you must wade through thousands of blogs, books, and pamphlets (all with slightly different versions) before you find someone who bothered to cite a source. When a source is given, it is usually a fairly simple matter to look up the referenced work and check if it is in there. When no source is forthcoming, the quote is probably fake, but it’s not possible to definitively prove that without a lot of research.
This leads to my contribution to the List of Things People on the Internet Need to Understand:
#6,879. Sticking someone’s name after a quotation is not a source. It’s an attribution. An attribution is the claim that needs verification. A source is a document written by the alleged author, or recorded by a credible contemporary witness, that contains the relevant passage.
For instance, this quote by V.I. Lenin is wildly popular and has been repeated countless times in blogs, newspaper articles, and books, going back to the pre-internet era.
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them down between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”
— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
(See? The longer dash makes it look much more credible.) This quote has a very long and fairly involved history, with ancestors as old as the 19th century. Thanks to the miracle of digital archives we can mark its entire evolution through transitional fossils, frozen in print:
  • 1997: The first instance of this version in print (that I can find) is in a paper on (of all things) taxes in Bangladesh. It cites no source.
  • 1988: A letter in The Bulletin (with Newsweek) had “middle class” instead of “bourgeoisie”: “Lenin stated that ‘the way to crush the middle-class is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation‘, and that is exactly what is happening …”
  • 1986: An issue of Books and Bookmen makes reference to a different variation of it: “Lenin threatened to grind the middle-classes between the upper mill-stone of taxation and the nether mill-stone of inflation; but Lloyd George did so as well.”
  • 1984: A column in The Advocate attributed a version of it to Karl Marx: “One perhaps should remember that Carl [sic] Marx said ‘if you wish to destroy the middle class, then you grind it between the twin millstones of taxation and inflation.'”
  • 1974: In what probably marks the earliest embryo of the quote’s attribution to Lenin, Ronald Reagan remarked in a speech near the end of his term as governor of California: “Make no mistake about it: inflation is a tax and not by accident. Lenin once said, ‘Through inflation government can quietly and unobservedly confiscate the prosperity of its citizens.'”
  • 1961: Another probable ancestor of the quote comes from the November 1961 edition of The Freeman, which featured an essay by John Chamberlain containing this unattributed statement: “During the past generation the ‘middle condition of man’ has been ground between the upper and nether millstones of inflation and steeply rising progressive tax rates.”
  • 1956: An article about middle incomes in the Economist may have been the original source for the symbolism later used by others: “These incomes are truly caught between the upper millstone of steeply progressive taxation and the nether millstone of inflation.”
But where did this quote originate from? Did Lenin really say this? A search of Lenin’s Collected Works doesn’t reveal anything similar to it, and no version of it I’ve found has an original source.

Though it may come as a surprise to many libertarians, Keynes understood all too well the dangers of inflation.
Though it may come as a surprise to many libertarians, Keynes understood all too well the dangers of inflation.

If Lenin didn’t say this, how did it start? Was it misattribution, mistranslation, misunderstanding, bad paraphrasing, or deliberate forgery? Frequently, answers are lost to the mists of time, but fortunately in this case, we may be able to trace it all the way back to its probable origin: John Maynard Keynes.
Although it is now overshadowed by his later work, Keynes wrote a brilliant and enduring book in 1919, in the aftermath World War I, titled The Economic Consequences of the Peace. In it, he states:
Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
… Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
Given the unambiguous parallels between this passage and Ronald Reagan’s quote, it seems Reagan read Lord Keynes (or at least, read someone who had read him), and somewhere between 1919 and 1974, what Keynes interprets Lenin as saying became a direct quote fromLenin, which was later embellished and merged with other powerful imagery about inflation and taxes circulating at the same time (grinding millstones crushing the middle class and the bourgeoisie).
But did the Soviet despot actually say what Keynes thought he did, regarding the “debauching of the currency”? Not exactly. In an article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Michael V. White and Kurt Schuler extensively researched the question, and discovered that Keynes had based his commentary in Economic Consequences on the report of an interview with Lenin published in the Daily Chronicle and the New York Times on April 23, 1919. From an unnamed source, the report quotes Lenin at length:
Hundreds of thousands of rouble notes are being issued daily by our treasury. This is done, not in order to fill the coffers of the State with practically worthless paper, but with the deliberate intention of destroying the value of money as a means of payment. …
Experience has taught us it is impossible to root out the evils of capitalism merely by confiscation and expropriation… The simplest way to exterminate the very spirit of capitalism is therefore to flood the country with notes of a high face-value without financial guarantees of any sort. …[T]he great illusion of the value and power of money, on which the capitalist state is based will have been definitely destroyed.

Russia suffered hyperinflation after World War I as a result of massive money printing by the Bolshevik regime. It reached 245% by 1924.

While there are grounds to doubt the veracity of this report, given its anonymous origin, historian E.H. Carr gives us some reason to think it could be plausible: “None of the Bolsheviks wanted, or planned, inflation. But, when that happened (since the printing press was their main source of revenue) they rationalized it ex post facto by describing it as (a) death to the capitalists and (b) a foretaste of the moneyless Communist Society. Talk of this kind was widely current in Moscow in 1919 and 1920.”
Lenin, in fact, read Economic Consequences, and in a July 1920 speech to the Comintern, approvingly cited Keynes’ criticism of European governments as evidence the capitalist states were on the verge of collapse. While he dismissed Keynes’ condemnation of him and the Communists as “the conclusions of a well-known bourgeois and and implacable enemy of Bolshevism,” Lenin never explicitly denies anything Keynes’ attributes to him in the book.
So Keynes’ commentary on Lenin was not made up, but based on a widely circulated interview in the mainstream press, which in retrospect seems of dubious origin, but is at least compatible with the statements coming out of Moscow around that time.  However, later paraphrases of Keynes given as direct quotes from Lenin, like Reagan’s and all of its descendants, are almost certainly false.

The found of Georgism.

A final note, regarding the origins of the “crushing/grinding millstones” metaphor (which seems to be a perpetual threat to reading audiences, as much as to the middle class): this phrasing appears to have originated in Henry George’s 1879 book Progress and Poverty. The namesake of Georgism wrote,
Private ownership of land is the nether mill-stone. Material progress is the upper mill-stone. Between them, with an increasing pressure, the working classes are being ground.
With its attack on private land ownership and material progress in the name of the working class, this certainly would sound very Marxist to a modern ear, but in fact, Marx and George were bitter enemies, and Marx probably would have been outraged to see his name attached to George’s words. Perhaps that irony makes it all worth it.
Thus, the phylogenetic family tree of a fake quotation is fully mapped. Keynes’ commentary on Lenin is hammered into a direct quote from Lenin, propagated by Ronald Reagan, which then merged (with all the promiscuity that unsourced quotes are infamous for) with a popular quote by free marketers about the millstones of inflation and taxation (itself a derivative of a quote from Henry George). Forgery makes strange bedfellows.