Saturday, March 1, 2014
So If...
Why does congress allow this to happen? Why is the media silent?
Knock, Knock..Who Is It? Oh, Tyranny? Come Right On In! (picture one of those plastic Cialis commercial smiles..)
What Our Founders Had In Mind When They Wrote The 2nd Amendment...
Government Should Be Scared Not Arrogant Like They Are Now...
On Commies...
Seems like the left is trying to rehabilitate communism...did you see this?
Salon.com is a reliably left-wing media outlet given to regular outbreaks of radical pique that earn top billing on MSNBC's prime-time panels. Yet even a hawkish outlet like Salon can go too far. On Sunday, Salon's Jesse Myerson published an article, "Why you’re wrong about communism: 7 huge misconceptions about it (and capitalism)," that attempted to deny the scale of communism's mass murders, among other dubious claims.
Read More At BREITBART
Midnight Movies: Is Our Universe A Computer Simulation?
If so, Socialism must be like a virus or something...
Friday, February 28, 2014
This Is What It Is Like To Be A Republican Doing The Morning Talk Shows...
..... And this is what it is like to be a Democrat doing the morning talk shows......
This is the price of liberty folks...keep dodging the freight trains...
Warrior Against Tyranny: Edward Snowden
Big Banker Alex Sink Evokes Leona Helmsley-esque Statement Making Her The New ‘Queen of Mean’
Republican congressional candidate David Jolly said Democrat Alex Sink's recent statement on immigrants was "disgusting" and should prevent her from serving.
"I think Alex Sink's comments reflect a bigotry that should disqualify her from representing the people of this community and should disqualify her from serving in the United States Congress," Jolly said at a news conference Thursday. "She offended immigrants throughout this community, she offended non-immigrant workers. She offended business owners. She offended every American that believes in the equality of people regardless of race, creed or color. I think it was a disgusting comment."
New York Man Says His Best Friend Was The Zodiac Killer..
Police have been on an exhaustive hunt for the Zodiac killer for more than 30 years.
They've checked out thousands of suspects and still get many tips every year about the true identity of the killer who terrorized California in the '60s.
And now, a New York man has come forward to say that his friend was the killer.
Randy Kenney told ABC 7 in San Francisco his best friend Louie Myers confessed to the murders and told Kenney not to go to police until after he was dead. Myers died in 2002.
The Zodiac killer is one of the most notorious serial killers in America, in part because he or she has never been caught and brought to justice. Police believe the killer — who inspired the thriller "Zodiac" — is responsible for five murders in northern California between 1966 and 1969. The killer sent letters to newspapers with threats about his next crimes.
The killer seemed to focus on murdering couples, and Kenney says his friend began his deadly spree after a relationship of his soured.
"It was over a girl [Myers] broke up with," Kenney said. "That's what the deal was with the couples."
Myers lived near San Francisco from 1965 to 1971, according to ABC. If the supposed confession is true, he would have been 17 years old when he started to commit the murders.
Watch Kenney's interview with ABC 7 below:
And now, a New York man has come forward to say that his friend was the killer.
Randy Kenney told ABC 7 in San Francisco his best friend Louie Myers confessed to the murders and told Kenney not to go to police until after he was dead. Myers died in 2002.
The Zodiac killer is one of the most notorious serial killers in America, in part because he or she has never been caught and brought to justice. Police believe the killer — who inspired the thriller "Zodiac" — is responsible for five murders in northern California between 1966 and 1969. The killer sent letters to newspapers with threats about his next crimes.
The killer seemed to focus on murdering couples, and Kenney says his friend began his deadly spree after a relationship of his soured.
"It was over a girl [Myers] broke up with," Kenney said. "That's what the deal was with the couples."
Myers lived near San Francisco from 1965 to 1971, according to ABC. If the supposed confession is true, he would have been 17 years old when he started to commit the murders.
Watch Kenney's interview with ABC 7 below:
Kenney cited some connections that Myers had to the crimes. He says:
- Myers attended two high schools in the Bay Area — Vallejo and Hogan. The first two Zodiac victims were a teenage couple. One of the teenagers went to Vellejo high, and the other went to Hogan.
- Myers worked with another victim. He was a busboy and she was a waitress at the same restaurant.
- Myers also worked at a military surplus store, and his father worked at a naval shipyard, so he would have had easy access to the type of military-style boot that left a print at another crime scene.
- Myers was in the Army and was stationed in Germany from 1971 to 1973, and the Zodiac killer did not send any letters during that time.
Kenney said that Myers didn't know the cab driver who was another victim of the Zodiac killer, but that he was just trying to rob him for drug money.
Is Bernie Sanders The Zodiac Killer?
Ben Shapiro at UCLA: “BDS is just another form of anti-Semitism”
Every time I hear Ben Shapiro speak, he completely knocks it out of the park. He is an amazingly clear and piercing speaker, very impressive.
He gives it to the lefties and helps defeat the socialist anti-Semites.
Video Shows Robot Who Could Never Compete In The X-Games..
I'm not impressed Robot...not even a wheeley?
"We Are At A Constitutional Tipping Point"
The Media needs to harp on this like Rachel Maddow harps nightly on a traffic jam in New Jersey...
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue; it is an intellectual crime
Reprinted from Environmental Science and Policy, Vol.3(1), 2000, 19-20.
Copyright 2000, with permission from Elsevier Science.
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/envsci/
http://www.sciencedirect.com
IN SUPPORT OF SKEPTICISM
"Most institutions demand unqualified faith;
but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue."
(Merton, 1962)
Most scientists acknowledge the importance of making science relevant and useful in policy making, while recognizing that policy is not, and should not be, based on science alone.
In recent decades, investigations of major environmental issues such as climate change, acid rain, smog, and hypoxia have resulted in the conduct of complex integrated assessments. Such assessments organize information for the purpose of improving the effectiveness of policy making.
In policy making, especially in a political arena, consensus building is a key ingredient. In attempts to make science relevant and useful, the politics of democracy tend to promote, even in some cases demand "scientific consensus." However, as a "community of belief" develops, skepticism is no longer regarded as a virtue. In a civilization that is founded on science, this is an unfortunate state of affairs and detrimental to our future.
In order to appreciate this concern, it is necessary to revisit the central role of skepticism in science. Let us start with a dictionary definition of skepticism. Webster's Dictionary defines skepticism as: "A critical attitude towards any theory, statement, experiment, or phenomenon, doubting the certainty of all things until adequate proof has been produced; the scientific spirit." The Greek root of skepticism is identified as "skepticos", which means "thoughtful, inquiring."
For centuries, science has been founded on well-established methods of scientific investigation, which include recognition that "A scientific theory must be tentative and always subject to revision or abandonment in light of facts that are inconsistent with, or falsify, the theory. A theory that is by its own terms dogmatic, absolutist and never subject to revision is not a scientific theory" (Judge William R. Overton, in Science, 1982). Thus, a basic tenet of science is for scientists to posit and test hypotheses and theories. Scientific progress is made by accepting or rejecting hypotheses at specified levels of confidence, thus embodying skepticism in the heart of scientific methodology.
There are two dominant and somewhat opposing philosophies on testing hypothesis and theories. One philosophy is that the purpose of hypothesis testing is to validate - to support or corroborate - a hypothesis. The other philosophy is that the purpose of hypothesis testing is to attempt to invalidate a hypothesis. And the same applies to model testing; there are scientists who attempt only to validate models, and others who state that the true application of the scientific method includes attempts to invalidate models and to show the limits of applicability of models. In science, attempts to invalidate hypotheses and models - hard-core skepticism, by any definition - should be viewed as a necessary positive step in the pursuit of truth. Rigorous hypotheses and models will emerge as triumphant - at least for the time being. In a problem-solving and policy-development mode, healthy skepticism is needed to ensure the rigor and effectiveness of proposed solutions. Another way of expressing the difference between these two philosophies is to state that "Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue; it is an intellectual crime" (Lakatos, 1978).
This is why I regard consensus science and the demise of scientific skepticism as an unhealthy combination. Without the boldness and perseverance of earlier skeptics, who risked ridicule and being branded as heretics, we would still believe Earth to be the center of the Universe and continents to be motionless.
Taking the issue of climate change as an example, there are healthy signs of increasing recognition of the importance of dealing with important methodological uncertainties. Petersen (1999), in an inspiring article entitled "Philosophy of Climate Science", states that, "Climate science has to deal with important methodological problems concerning climate simulation. Among these are methodological problems related to climate model hierarchy and complexity, tuning and falsifiability, and uncertainty. All these subjects have only recently become topics of discussion within the climate science community." He finds that uncertainties are currently not thoroughly and methodologically assessed for the purposes of policy usefulness of climate science. Barnett et al. (1999), in a scholarly article summarizing the status of detection and attribution of an anthropogenic climate signal, also find that "Only recently has detection work paid serious attention to the variety of uncertainties that attend the observations and model projections of an anthropogenic signal."
We must find improved ways of preserving and strengthening the time-honored method of scientific investigation, which includes promoting skepticism in
How girl ELEVEN grabbed gun and shot dead cougar that was stalking her brother, 13, outside their house
- Shelby White, 11, killed her first cougar on her grandfather's ranch in Twisp, Washington, last week
- Female cougar had been spotted near family's home twice in the days prior to the shooting
- Shelby's 9-year-old brother, Cody, shot a 125-pound cougar earlier this month
- Tanner White, 13, Shelby and Cody's oldest brother, killed a big cat near the ranch around same time
- Shelby has been hunting since she was 8 or 9, and so far she has bagged herself three deer
- State officials and hunters killed 10 other cougars during the winter season
When Thomas White spotted a cougar approaching his teenage son outside their home in rural Washington state last week, there was only one thing to do - hand a gun to his 11-year-old daughter.
Without a moment's hesitation, Shelby White killed the female cougar, and wildlife officials suggested that the animal may have been sick.
The mountain cat was 4 years old and weighed about 50lbs, which is about half of what an animal that age should weigh.
My, what big teeth you have! Shelby is showing off the teeth of the predator that was stalking her 13-year-old brother
Family hobby: Shelby (left) has been hunting with her trusty .234 caliber gun since age 8 or 9, and her younger brother Cody (right) is also an enthusiast of the sport
'This cougar was very, very skinny,' State Fish and Wildlife Officer Cal Treser said.
The fearless 11-year-old took action when she saw the cougar following her 13-year-old brother as he was walking towards their home in the town of Twisp, population 940.
In a phone interview with MailOnline Wednesday night, Shelby’s grandfather, William White, revealed that it was a fourth cougar killed on his property in the past several weeks.
Mr White, 64, a cattle rancher, said that earlier this month, Shelby’s 13-year-old brother, Tanner, also shot a cougar that has been circling his farm.
‘We're real avid hunters,’ Mr White said of his clan, which he described as 'backwoodsy.' .
The rancher explained that until recently,
The Voynich manuscript, A 600 year old mystery manuscript decoded by University of Bedfordshire professor
Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics, has just become the first professional linguist to crack the code of the Voynich manuscript using an analytical approach.
The world-renowned manuscript is full of illustrations of exotic plants, stars, and mysterious human figures, as well as many pages written in an unknown text.
Up until now the 15th century cryptic work has baffled scholars, cryptographers and codebreakers who have failed to read a single letter of the script or any word of the text.
Over time it has attained an infamous reputation, even featuring in the latest hit computer game Assassin’s Creed, as well as in the Indiana Jones novels, when Indiana decoded the Voynich and used it to find the ‘Philosopher's Stone’.
However in reality no one has come close to revealing the Voynich’s true messages.
Many grand theories have been proposed. Some suggest it was the work of Leonardo da Vinci as a boy, or secret Cathars, or the lost tribe of Israel, or most recently Aztecs … some have even proclaimed it was done by aliens!
Professor Bax however has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic. Using careful linguistic analysis he is working on the script letter by letter.
“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax, who is to give his inaugural lecture as a professor at the University later this month.
“The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”