False hopes in the new employment numbers

White House economic adviser Alan Krueger greeted last Friday's employment numbers with optimism, noting that they suggest "the recovery that began in mid-2009 is gaining traction." His sanguine assessment echoes previous Obama administration claims in 2010, 2011 and 2012 that the recovery was just around the corner. Could it finally be for real?

To be sure, the report's top line contained signs of hope, such as better-than-expected net job gains and a modest tick downward in the unemployment rate. But this bit of good news was tempered by the fact that more Americans gave up looking for work and dropped out of the labor force last month (296,000) than took new jobs (260,000).

And at 63.5 percent, the share of Americans participating in the labor force -- that is, either working or looking for work -- has fallen again to last year's low, which had not been seen since the Carter era. What's more, this ominous trend obscures the labor market's true condition because the unemployment rate goes down every time someone stops trying to find work.

Unfortunately, there is worse news than this. One of the most important but least-covered stories of the 2012 election was the labor market depression currently being experienced by Americans between the ages of 25 and 54. These are the Americans in the midst of making something of themselves -- building careers and lives, reaching their peak earning years, forming families, and providing the economy with vitality and innovative thinking. Sadly, this is no longer the case in the Obama era.

It was dispiriting enough that 5.2 million Americans aged 25 to 54 lost their jobs in the Great Recession, which ran from December 2007 through June 2009. Far more unsettling is the fact that in the time since -- after three years and nine months of the Obama "recovery," during which millions of lost jobs were restored -- not a single net job has been regained in this age group. In fact, the number of midcareer adults working today is still lower than it was not only in June 2009 but also in May 1997, despite a 20 percent increase in U.S. population over the last 16 years. And the number of Americans in this age group neither working nor seeking work has surged in recent months to a new all-time high, after falling sharply last fall and creating new false hopes.

Nearly all of the jobs regained in the Obama recovery have gone to the over-55 age group. The "gray jobs" recovery has emerged through a combination of workers aging and near-retirees hanging on longer than they once did. This suggests that America is losing a generation of workers -- millions with blank years in their resumes that make them less employable. In the long term, their lack of job experience will diminish their value as replacements for the growing number of older and highly experienced workers who will eventually retire. In the longer term, today's lost young adults threaten to become impoverished wards of the state in retirement.

This reality underscores the inefficacy of the 2009 stimulus package. If it accomplished anything, it appears only to have allowed employers to hang on to their oldest and most experienced employees. The continued stagnation also demonstrates the need for President Obama to put job creation ahead of ideological objectives such as the abolition of coal, the establishment of futile renewable energy projects and tax changes whose primary purpose is to punish someone rather than raise revenue. Stop killing the job market, and it might just come back to life.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Falklands Votes British



(Stanley, Falklands Islands)

The people of the Falkland Islands have voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining a UK overseas territory.

Of 1,517 votes cast in the two-day referendum - on a turnout of more than 90% - 1,513 were in favour, while just three votes were against.

Interestingly but not surprisingly,

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has maintained that the Falkland islanders' wishes are not relevant in what is a territorial issue.

I'd suggest that every time the Argentine leadership senses restlessness within the population, the distracting issue of Falklands Islands sovereignty is trumpeted. Nationalistic fervor ensues.

It's unclear why the arithmetic doesn't work out. To wit: 1,517 votes cast does not equal 1,513 for and 3 against. A vote is missing.

Texas Teacher Accused of Improper Relations with Student

(Alvarado, Texas) A 27-year-old teacher formerly at Alvarado High School, Cameron Elizabeth Crist-Mitchell, has been accused of engaging in sexual contact with a student.

Crist-Mitchell was arrested last Friday on one count of having an improper relationship with a student.

Officials said Crist-Mitchell was placed on administrative leave earlier this month when the investigation into the incident began. She resigned from her position the day she was arrested.

The student, who was 17 at the time of the encounter, is a student at Alvarado High School, police said.

Crist-Mitchell was booked into custody and released on bond.

6 Teens Dead in NE Ohio Crash



(Northeast Ohio) Just before 7 AM yesterday, an SUV carrying eight teenagers crashed into a pond, killing six in one of the deadliest car accidents in Ohio history. The Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP) is leading the investigation.

The patrol identified those killed as Andrique Bennett, 14; Kirklan M. Behner, 15; Daylan Ray, 15; Ramone M. White, 15; Brandon A. Murray, 17; and Alexis Cayson, 19, all of Warren. The two injured teens were Brian K. Henry, 18, and Asher C. Lewis, 15. Both were also from Warren.

The OSHP said the two surviving victims suffered only minor injuries and were treated and released from St. Joseph’s Health Center in Warren on Sunday.

According to the OSHP, the Honda SUV was traveling south at a high rate of speed in a 35-mph zone before it veered left, hit a guardrail and went over the guardrail and into a small pond on the east side of the road at approximately 6:50 a.m. Sunday.

The SUV was submerged on its roof in 5 feet of water, the OSHP said. The two injured were able to escape before running nearly a quarter mile to a residence to call 911.

The only female in the group, Alexis Cayson, was driving the SUV which reportedly was being used without permission of the owner. Toxicology tests are in progress.

DNA tests reveal Hitler's Jewish and African roots

Socialists never let reality bother them.  It has often been claimed that Hitler had some Jewish ancestry.  That would seem to be confirmed below.  Note however that they did not have a sample of AH's own DNA  -- only that of his relatives

The Fuehrer 'would not have been happy' to learn he was more Berber tribesman than Aryan superman.

Adolf Hitler may have owed more to the 'subhuman' races he tried to exterminate than to his 'Aryan' compatriots, according to new finding published in Belgium this week.

In research for the Flemish-language magazine Knack, journalist Jean-Paul Mulders traced Hitler's living relatives in the Fuhrer's native Austria, as well as the United States.

"The results of this study are surprising," said Ronny Decorte, a geneticist interviewed by Knack. "Hitler would not have been happy."

Geneticists identify groups of chromosomes called haplogroups, 'genetic fingerprints' that define populations. According to Mulders, Hitler's dominant haplogroup, E1b1b, is relatively rare in Western Europe - but strongest in some 25 percent of Greeks and Sicilians, who apparently acquired the genes from Africa: Between 50 percent and 80 percent of North Africans share Hitler's dominant group, which is especially prevalent among in the Berber tribes of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, and Somalis.

More surprising still, perhaps, is that Hitler's second most dominant haplogroup is the most common in Ashkenazi Jews.  "The findings are fascinating if you look at them in terms of the Nazi worldview, which ascribed such an extreme priority to notions of blood and race," Decorte said.

Knack said it would now petition Russian government archives to release a human jawbone wrapped in a blood-soaked cloth, retrieved from a Berlin bunker where Hitler is thought to have committed suicide and believed to have belonged to the Fuhrer, who dreamed of engineering a Nazi superman.

"For modern science, there are no more races, Decorte said. "This pure type of 'superman' and the [Nazi] breeding programs to perfect 'purity' were sheer fabrication."

SOURCE


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Florida School Employee Accused of Sending Nude Pics to Students

(Ocala, Florida) A 43-year-old employee at Vanguard High School, Jody Teressa Onorato, has been accused of sending nude photos of herself to students.

Onorato faces charges of sending harmful material to minors.

The first victim has graduated and had received the nude photos during his junior year, while he was still a minor, police said. The second victim received nude photos of Onorato on his cell phone as recently as January.

Police monitored phone calls made by the mothers of the victims to Onorato. In these calls, Onorato apologized to each of the mothers for sending the nude photos, police said.

Police interviewed Onorato on Friday, and she admitted she had sent numerous nude photographs of herself via her cell telephone to the victims, police said. She said she did so for attention.

Onorato was booked into custody at the Marion County Jail with bond set at $10,000.

Oklahoma Woman Accused of Trying to Sell Her Children

(Sallisaw, Oklahoma) A 22-year-old local woman, Misty VanHorn, has been accused of attempting to sell her two children.

VanHorn was arrested by Sallisaw Police on a charge of trafficking children.

Police say VanHorn contacted a Fort Smith woman about buying VanHorn's 2-year-old and 10-month-old for $1,000 each or both for $4,000.

The Fort Smith woman called the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, who notified Sallisaw Police.

Detectives say VanHorn told them she needed the money to bond her boyfriend out of jail.

VanHorn was booked into custody at the Sequoyah County Jail with bond set at $40,000.

Texas Woman Accused of Killing Boyfriend

(Springtown, Texas) A 33-year-old local woman, Roni Catherine Lisenbe, has been accused of fatally shooting her boyfriend. She called 911 to report the incident.

Lisenbe stated there was a domestic dispute which led to the shooting. She faces a charge of murder.

Responding deputies found the woman, Roni Catherine Lisenbe, sitting on the front porch of her residence in the 3500 block of West Highway 199 near Springtown and 38-year-old Richard Graves on the bedroom floor, according to officials.

Graves was transported to Harris Methodist Hospital in Azle, where he was pronounced dead around 11:30 p.m.

Lisenbe was booked into custody at the Parker County Jail with bond set at $100,000.

Tennessee Teacher Faces Sex Charges

(Greenback, Tennessee) A 39-year-old teacher at Greenback School, Angela Gay Masingo, has been accused of sending inappropriate Facebook messages to a student at a different school.

Masingo faces charges of solicitation of aggravated statutory rape and solicitation of sexual exploitation of a minor.

According to Loudon County School Director Jason Vance, Masingo has never been accused of any serious misconduct. She's been a teacher with the school system since 1995.

Now she's suspended without pay.[…]

The Blount County Sheriff's Office H.E.A.T. (Hi-tech Evidence and Technology) Unit and the Loudon County Sheriff's Office, as part of Internet Crimes Against Children Tennessee Task Force (ICAC), worked a joint investigation on Masingo.

Masingo has a court date scheduled for March 15.

A tipping point that can't tip

Absolutely essential to global warming alarm are tipping points.  An extrapolation of the gentle warming we experienced in the last 150 years ago would not alarm anybody.  So something that will derail the existing trend in a big way has to be predicted.  And the usual prediction is that water vapour will build up and thus cause accelerated warming.  But what if water vapour is actually declining?  A paper by Ken Gregory shows that it is  -- under the heading:  "Water Vapor Decline Cools the Earth: NASA Satellite Data".  I have a letter from Bill Gray supporting  the conclusions.  I present just the introduction and conclusions below  -- JR

An analysis of NASA satellite data shows that water vapor, the most important greenhouse gas, has declined in the upper atmosphere causing a cooling effect that is 16 times greater than the warming effect from man-made greenhouse gas emissions during the period 1990 to 2001. The world has spent over $ 1 trillion on climate change mitigation based on climate models that don't work. They are notoriously poor at simulating the 20th century warming because they do not include natural causes of climate change - mainly due to the changing sun - and they grossly exaggerate the feedback effects of greenhouse gas emissions.

Most scientists agree that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, which takes about 150 years, would theoretical warm the earth by one degree Celsius, if there were no change in evaporation, the amount or distribution of water vapor and clouds.

Climate models amplify the initial CO2 effect by a factor of three by assuming positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds, for which there is little direct evidence. Most of the amplification by the climate models is due to an increase in upper atmosphere water vapor.

The Satellite Data The NASA water vapor project (NVAP) uses multiple satellite sensors to create a standard climate dataset to measure long-term variability of global water vapor. NASA recently released the Heritage NVAP data which gives water vapor measurement from 1988 to 2001 on a 1 degree by 1 degree grid, in three vertical layers.1 The NVAP-M project, which is not yet available, extends the analysis to 2009 and gives five vertical layers. Water vapor content of an atmospheric layer is represented by the height in millimeters (mm) that would result from precipitating all the water vapor in a vertical column to liquid water. The near-surface layer is from the surface to where the atmospheric pressure is 700 millibar (mb), or about 3 km altitude. The middle layer is from 700 mb to 500 mb air pressure, or from 3 km to 6 km attitude. The upper layer is from 500 mb to 300 mb air pressure, or from 6 km to 10 km altitude.

Conclusion

Climate models predict upper atmosphere moistening which triples the greenhouse effect from man-made carbon dioxide emissions. The new satellite data from the NASA water vapor project shows declining upper atmosphere water vapor during the period 1988 to 2001. It is the best available data for water vapor because it has global coverage.

Calculations by a line-by-line radiative code show that upper atmosphere water vapor changes at 500 mb to 300 mb have 29 times greater effect on OLR and temperatures than the same change near the surface. The cooling effect of the water vapor changes on OLR is 16 times greater than the warming effect of CO2 during the 1990 to 2001 period.

Radiosonde data shows that upper atmosphere water vapor declines with warming. The IPCC dismisses the radiosonde data as the decline is inconsistent with theory. During the 1990 to 2001 period, upper atmosphere water vapor from satellite data declines more than that from radiosonde data, so there is no reason to dismiss the radiosonde data.

Changes in water vapor are linked to temperature trends in the upper atmosphere. Both satellite data and radiosonde data confirm the absence of any tropical upper atmosphere temperature amplification, contrary to IPCC theory.

Four independent data sets demonstrate that the IPCC theory is wrong. CO2 does not cause significant global warming.

SOURCE


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Chinese Flag in Vietnamese Schoolbook



(Hanoi, Vietnam)

After a public hue and cry about a book intended for five-year-old students featuring the Chinese national flag instead of the Vietnamese flag, the Ministry of Education and Training asked the Pedagogy University in Hanoi to withdrawn the book from circulation.

In the book ‘Kids learn the alphabet’ by Nguyen Thi Thu Ha and published by the Pedagogy University, lesson 14 features an image of the Chinese national flag.

Accordingly, the Ministry ordered the publishing house to reclaim all copies of the book and destroy all those in use.

Heh.

Google Glass Not Welcome




Google's wearable computing technology called Google Glass is creating consternation among members of the public as they realize they could be surreptitiously filmed and their images uploaded to a Google server.

A Seattle bar has issued a preemptive ban of Google Glass to preserve the privacy of its tipplers.

The 5 Point Cafe in Seattle announced plans to suppress the futuristic devices on its Facebook page this week, and didn't mince words.

"The 5 Point is the first Seattle business to ban in advance Google Glasses," the bar wrote. "And ass kickings will be encouraged for violators."

Google Glasses are not yet widely available, though Google is doling out some of the Chocolate Factory goggles to vainglorious creative social media users as part of a breathless neo-utopian marketing campaign.

These Google-enabled cyborgs will want to steer clear of the Seattle watering hole, or risk violent and abrupt inertial-transference disciplinary measures to their derrieres.

Discipline to the derrieres, eh?

Indiana Woman Accused of Selling Child for Porn

(Hammond, Indiana) A 24-year-old Gary woman, Natisha Hillard, has been accused of "selling her 1½-year-old daughter to a man she met through a dating service for child pornography."

Hillard and co-conspirator Christopher M. Bour, 39, face five child pornography charges delineated in a federal grand jury indictment.

Hillard is charged with selling her daughter to Bour knowing the girl "would be portrayed in a visual depiction assisting another person to engage in sexually explicit conduct" and with permitting the girl to participate in the production of child pornography.

Bour is charged with production of child pornography, purchasing a child for production of child pornography and possession of child pornography. The indictment says he used the toddler to "assist him to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction."

Hillard and Bour were booked into custody without bond.

Why Jonathan Haidt is wrong

Jonathan Haidt is a remarkable man.  He is the dominant thinker on the psychology of morality today.  And he got there by doing something amazing.  He listened to what conservatives have to say about moral issues!  For someone with his liberal background that was a wrenching move.  Leftist psychologists have built up in their own minds a caricature of what conservatism is and work with that (e.g. here).  It is however a caricature that is more or less totally divorced from reality.  But since they never talk to conservatives they never find that out.  Haidt did talk -- and listen.

And what Haidt found was a real revolution in psychology.  He found that liberals were simplistic thinkers on questions of right and wrong (can you get much more simplistic than:  "There is no such thing as right and wrong"?) while conservatives had a much more complex account of moral issues. And that conclusion was precisely the opposite of what Leftist psychologists had been preaching for over 60 years at least.

I share that broad conclusion.  In my own academic career in the 70's and 80's I regularly got research published which challenged the prevailing notion that it was the conservatives who were the simple thinkers.

So where does Haidt go wrong?  I have set that out previously but the essence is that Haidt believes what people say about their own motivations.  He believes Leftists when they talk about their noble motivations of achieving equality etc.

Haidt has therefore built his castle on sand.  Ever since the work of LaPiere in the '30s psychologists have known of the large gap between people's attitudes and behaviour.  What they say about their values and intentions is a poor guide to what they will actually do in any given situation.

Why is that so?  Why can you not rely on what people report about their own inner life?  A very common answer to that which has been around for a long time is that people commonly "fake good":  They say what they think will make you think well of them.  They hide their real thoughts because they suspect that other people will disapprove of such thoughts.  And as a result, psychologists routinely use "Lie scales" or "social desirability scales" in their questionnaires to get some handle on such distortions.

I would argue that looking at what actually happens or has happened in politics (history) gives us a much more accurate interpretation of what actually drives people.

Leftists for instance are big preachers of tolerance but just listen to what they regularly say about conservatives and Christians.  Very often it is pure hate.  They have no actual tolerance at all.  They tolerate only their own views.  I document it often on my TONGUE-TIED blog.

And they rail against discrimination.  But as Haidt himself has emphasized, liberal professors discriminate heavily against conservatives in hiring and firing.  See also here.

And Leftists regularly claim to be anti-authority but in the global warming debate almost their only argument is that "the authorities" support global warming.  That the whole global warming scare relies on totally hypothetical (and improbable) "tipping points" seems generally to be unknown to them.   I document that authoritarianism regularly too  -- on my GREENIE WATCH blog.  And that arguments from authority are among the classic informal fallacies of logic seems to bother them not a bit.

And what about the great volte face from pre-war Leftism to modern-day Leftism?  Before WWII, Democrats and socialists generally energetically advocated eugenics, were great patriots, convinced racists and were by far the most antisemitic.  FDR turned back Jewish refugees and TR (founder of America's "progressive" party)  and his allies built battleships, invaded several other countries and  glorified war, seeing it as a purifying force. But Hitler had those ideas too so, when he was defeated, Leftists reversed direction and disowned most of their previous enthusiasms.  In other words, they stand for nothing. They have NO lasting principles or moral anchors.

So what DOES motivate Leftists and their Greenie fellow-travellers?  I think it's obvious if you look at real-life politics: Anger/Rage/Hate, closely related emotions that readily  morph into one-another.  Leftists are always claiming that hate motivates conservatives but that is just projection.  And projection is a good protective strategy.  It tends to make people say:  "A pox on both their houses!"

Like that great hater, Karl Marx, today's Green/Left hate just about everything in the world about them and want to change it.  And the torrent of abuse directed at those who disagree with them is patently in many cases pure hate.  Abuse is their shtick, not factual argument.  Haidt is failing to see the wood for the trees.  He is naive in a way that no psychologist should be.  He needs to look at real life political behaviour, not self-serving lies and airy theories.


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Talk Radio Audience - March 2013



From TALKERS magazine.

Florida Teacher Pinched for DUI

(Lutz, Florida) A 37-year-old substitute teacher for Pasco County Schools, Leah Deyoung, was collared Thursday night for driving under the influence with her two small children in the car.

Deyoung was arrested after police observed her driving without her headlights on.

Once pulled over, the deputy reported Leah Deyoung's eyes were bloodshot, glassy and had a strong odor of alcohol on her breath.

When asked if she had been drinking Deyoung told the deputy, with slurred speech, she had rinsed her mouth with Listerine, according to the arrest report.

During a field sobriety test, the deputy said she was unable to maintain her balance or touch the tip of her nose.

Details on booking are unavailable.

New Mexico Teacher Accused of Sex with Student

(Santa Fe, New Mexico) A 25-year-old art teacher at Santa Fe High School, Jaimie Dominy Page, has been accused of engaging in sex with one of her students.

Page faces charges of sexual abuse of a child, online solicitation of a minor, and an improper relationship between a teacher and a student.

Sante Fe High School officials learned of the inappropriate relationship in February and placed her on administrative leave on February 20.

The school started an investigation to substantiate sexual abuse allegations and to see how widespread it was.

The investigation continues but she was arrested for her actions with one student.

Page was booked yesterday and released on $50,000.

Florida Woman Gets No Jail in Boy-Sex Case - Update

(Polk County, Florida) Destiny Ruth Witte pleaded guilty today to engaging in sex with a 14-year-old boy.

Destiny Witte held back tears as she agreed to two years of community control and 11 years of probation in exchange for that plea.

She’s also banned from being around any children except for her own.

Witte was 32-years-old at the time she had sex with a 14-year-old boy at a Lakeland park last year.

And even though she pleaded guilty, Witte still claims that she’s innocent.

Witte appears to be confused.

* * * * *
Florida Woman Accused of Sex with Boy
[Previous 6/28/12 post]
(Lakeland, Florida) A 32-year-old local woman, Destiny Ruth Witte, has been accused of engaging in sex with boy under the age of 16.

Witte faces one count of lewd battery on a child under 16 and two counts of lewd conduct with a child under 16.

Destiny Ruth Witte made out with the child before talking him to a bathroom at Lake Bonny Park where they had sex, Lakeland police said.

The victim's family became suspicious after seeing Witte spending a lot of time with the child, police said. During an interview with police, Witte admitted the incident, police said.

Details on booking are unavailable.

Al Qaeda 'Wanted Dead or Alive' List



(Marseille, France)

A hate list of 11 politicians, writers, cartoonists and polemicists accused of insulting Islam has been published by the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula with a graphic description of them as "wanted dead or alive".

The targets range from Salman Rushdie, still not forgiven for his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, to the US pastor Terry Jones, who enraged Muslims with a Quran-burning stunt, and the far-right, anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

Ominous.

Georgia Teacher Accused in Drug Deal

(Barrow County, Georgia) A 37-year-old sixth-grade teacher at Winder Barrow Middle School, Emily Smith, has been accused of arranging a drug deal for a teen who died the day after the purchase.

The victim was 18.

"Miss Smith conspired with the victim by cellphone in reference to obtaining a controlled substance prior to her death," said Barrow County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Faye Spaulding.

Spaulding told Channel 2's Tom Regan that cellphone calls and text messages show the teacher facilitated the sale of Methadone, a synthetic opiate, and Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication.

Investigators said the teen, described as a friend of the teacher, died the day after obtaining the drugs Feb. 14.

Smith was booked and released on bond.

American Warships Off Syrian Coast



USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69)
(Eastern Mediterranean Sea)

The U.S. aircraft carrier "Dwight D Eisenhower" has arrived off the shores of Syria.

The multipurpose nuclear attack carrier the U.S.S. Dwight D Eisenhower is leading the naval assault group which has arrived in the eastern Mediterranean.

It is in close proximity to the coast of Syria. On board the ship are 70 fighter-bombers and a total 8,000 US servicemen.

The Dwight D Eisenhower joined the amphibious assault helicopter carrier Iwo Jima, which has been in the area for almost two weeks.

In all there are now 17 American warships off the Syrian coast.

Someone is throwing a party, eh?

Wisconsin Woman Sentenced in Boy-Sex Case - Update

(Portage, Wisconsin) In August 2012, 41-year-old Paula M. George pleaded no contest to a felony charge of second-degree sexual assault of a child.

Last week, George was sentenced to one year in jail as part of 12 years of probation.

Judge Daniel George, saying that it is a difficult case, told Paula George that she would serve seven years in prison followed by five years of extended supervision if she fails to obey the rules of probation; the prison sentenced was imposed and stayed.

Judge George is not related to the defendant, he said.

Judge George said that Wisconsin statutes require that judges consider whether a probation sentence is appropriate before ordering a prison sentence.

Assistant District Attorney Crystal Long said she believes it is the first time she has seen a person not be sent to prison who was convicted of sexual assault of a child.

Paula George was ordered to register as a sex offender, not drink during her probation and only date or engage in sex with the approval of a probation agent.

* * * * *
Wisconsin Woman Accused of Sex with Boy
[Previous 8/4/10 post]
(Portage, Wisconsin) A 38-year-old local woman, Paula M. George, has been accused of sexual assault of a 14-year-old boy and child abuse of a 13-year-old girl.

The boy told police that George knew he was 14 or 15 at the time and that he told her he wanted to stop having sex because he didn't want them to get into trouble, according to a criminal complaint.

George reportedly told police that she recalled having sex with the boy one time, but that she was drinking a lot - up to eight beers in a day - and it could have been three times. She recalled that the boy said he was 15 years old, the complaint stated.

Police say George, in an incident Feb. 13, was intoxicated when she became upset with a 13-year-old girl, choking her and punching her five or six times with a closed fist, giving her a bloody nose.

George told police that the girl was screaming so she put a hand over her mouth to be quiet, then pushed the girl down on a bed, according to the complaint.

George was booked and released on $10,000 bond.

Processed meat 'is to blame for one in 30 deaths': Big European study says more than a rasher of cheap bacon a day is harmful (?)

Same old same old.  The WCRF bods will be having orgasms over this but it is very poor data.  Self-report data needs lots of controls to be of any weight and neither social class nor social desirability responding were controlled for below.

Education was controlled but it alone is not a good index of social class. For instance, many educated people do not even have jobs these days, let alone being rich.  And rich people often have poor education.  And there are other class variables.  Class can only convincingly be measured using several indices.  See here for an empirical study of the issues involved in class measurement.

Middle class people are more likely to "say the right thing" and they are healthier anyway.  One notes that the British sub-sample was described as "health conscious people", so they would know well what foods are "correct" according to conventional wisdom.  Regardless of what they actually did, they knew what to say!

And even if we take the data at face value, the correlation with mortality was marginal for processed meat and non-existent for red  meat.  A real storm in a teacup

And the study was a Europe-wide one so it would be interesting to see in which countries a statistically significant correlation emerged. My guess: None of them! Statistical significance is heavily dependent on sample size so the much smaller sample size for each nation would be unlikely to show significance, given the weak overall effect

A journalistic summary here

Meat consumption and mortality - results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition

By Sabine Rohrmann et al.

Abstract

Background

Recently, some US cohorts have shown a moderate association between red and processed meat consumption and mortality supporting the results of previous studies among vegetarians. The aim of this study was to examine the association of red meat, processed meat, and poultry consumption with risk of early death in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC).

Methods

Included in the analysis were 448,568 men and women without prevalent cancer, stroke, or myocardial infarction, and with complete information on diet, smoking, physical activity and body mass index, who were between 35 and 69 years old at baseline. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to examine the association of meat consumption with all-cause and cause-specific mortality.

Results

Until June 2009, 26,344 deaths were observed. After multivariate adjustment, a high consumption of red meat was related to higher all-cause mortality (HR=1.14, 95% CI 1.01-1.28, 160+ vs. 10-19.9 g/day), and the association was stronger for processed meat (HR=1.44, 95% CI 1.24-1.66, 160+ vs. 10-19.9 g/day). After correction for measurement error, higher all-cause mortality remained significant only for processed meat (HR=1.18, 95% CI 1.11-1.25, per 50 g/d). We estimated that 3.3% (95% CI 1.5-5.0%) of deaths could be prevented if all participants had a processed meat consumption of less than 20 g per day. Significant associations with processed meat intake were observed for cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and 'other causes of death'. The consumption of poultry was not related to all-cause mortality.

Conclusions

The results of our analysis support a moderate positive association between processed meat consumption and mortality in particular due to cardiovascular diseases, but also cancer.

SOURCE

UPDATE:

My prophecy about the WCRF has come true. See here, where the BBC reports both unduly expansive and cautious conclusions from the research. They even report that red meat is bad for you, when the research showed that it is NOT! Could the BBC reporter not read what it says in the abstract above: "After correction for measurement error, higher all-cause mortality remained significant only for processed meat". Far from being reliable, it would seem that BBC reporters can't even read!

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Cops: Woman Had Heater in Hoo-Haw, Meth in Butt

(Ada, Oklahoma) A 28-year-old local woman, Christie Dawn Harris, was arrested after a drug dog alerted on her vehicle in the early morning hours Monday.

A police search of the vehicle found meth, drug paraphernalia, a pistol, and a loaded magazine.

At the Ada Police Department, Harris was subjected to a body search.

According to a police report, the cop spotted the handle of the five-shot revolver "sticking out from" inside Harris, who is seen at right.




In a less shocking find, investigators also discovered plastic baggies containing methamphetamine lodged in the crack of Harris’s buttocks.

The Freedom Arms .22-caliber handgun was loaded with three live rounds and one spent shell, cops reported. As to where the weapon was recovered, the police report noted, “gun located in suspect vagina.”

Harris faces felony weapons and narcotics charges.

Tainted IKEA Chocolate Cakes



In addition to alleged horsemeat in IKEA meatballs, problems reportedly have been found in IKEA chocolate cakes.

Ikea, the world’s leading flat-pack furniture retailer, has withdrawn chocolate almond cake sold in its stores in 23 countries after it was found to contain sewage bacteria.

Faecal coliforms, bacteria normally found in human and animal waste, were detected in Ikea cake sold in China, and the Chinese authorities have destroyed nearly two tonnes’ worth.

Now the Swedish furniture giant, which has 18 stores in the UK, has recalled the cake from its outlets in a swath of countries around the world – although it insists the UK and Ireland are not affected.

As a general rule, I believe it's risky to buy food at a furniture store.

Proposed Florida Law on Ammunition Control



Sen. Audrey Gibson
Proposed new law:

A Florida legislator wants anyone trying to buy ammunition to complete an anger management program first, in what critics say is the latest example of local lawmakers reaching for constitutionally-dubious solutions to the problem of gun violence.

The bill filed Saturday by state Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville, would require a three-day waiting period for the sale of any firearm and the sale of ammunition to anyone who has not completed anger management courses. The proposal would require ammo buyers to take the anger management courses every 10 years.

The proposed law has been called "absolutely ridiculous."

Stupid Identity Thief Caught

(Lakewood, Colorado) A restaurant customer hands the waitress an ID card when ordering an alcoholic drink. The waitress notices that the ID card is her own driver's license which had been stolen weeks earlier. Waitress Brianna Priddy alerted the police.



Waitress Brianna Priddy has her license back. The name-withheld perpetrator is facing multiple charges for identity theft and drug possession. Meanwhile, I'm chuckling.

Louisiana Woman Accused of Sex with Boy

(Lake Charles, Louisiana) A 41-year-old local woman, Renee E. Broussard, has been accused of engaging in repeated sex with a 16-year-old boy.

Broussard faces 11 counts of felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile.

Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Kim Myers said Renee E. Broussard, 1636 E. Tank Farm Road, was arrested Friday.

“During the investigation, Broussard confirmed she had sexual contact with the 16-year-old victim on numerous occasions since October 2012,” Myers said Monday in a news release. “The two met online.”

Broussard was booked into custody and released on $110,000.

Some Leftist hate speech in Georgia



Lum, assisting with Christmas decorations at the White House

These are Deborah Lum’s own mean-spirited words: “The essence of the Republican Party has been quite unambiguous, thanks to ambassadors of intolerance, dishonesty, incompetence, negativity, bigotry, chicanery, and the asinine.”

This next quote is in her reference to the Republican Party: “The party embraces and defends the extreme, idiotic and vile people.”

Another of Deborah Lum’s quotes: “The litany of Republican intransigence, insanity, intolerance, bigotry, hypocrisy, ignorance, policies, and manipulations is well-documented and way too long for this space.”

More of Deborah Lum’s quotes: “How can so many Republicans (64 percent by the most recent poll) be so ignorant and persistent in this absurdity? From the halls of congress to the backwoods (where you might expect it).”

This is a nice little racist slur against rural people, isn’t it?

Deborah Lum continues with this hate-filled statement: “The non-stop drumbeat of bigotry and vitriol ... and the actions of Republican leaders is a constant reminder that humanity’s cancer still affects too many Americans. Dare I say it: the ‘R’ word.

This must be the “I hate Republicans and people from the backwoods (where you might expect it)” universe of Deborah Lum.

What I have analyzed from Deborah Lum’s diatribe is that her mean-spiritedness and hate-filled statements seem to get more intense the further into her diatribe she goes, rising to an ultimate crescendo by calling people who disagree with her, her ideologies, her political party and her dear Obama as “humanity’s cancer.”

Source

Just imagine anyone saying the same thing about the Democratic party.  But being black, she will get away with it

The commentary above refers to this story.  Note that the comments attached refer to a fictional story about Ann Coulter, which is in its own way just as libellous.



Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Maine Teacher Accused of Furnishing Liquor to Minors

(Belfast, Maine) A 32-year-old Jobs for Maine’s Graduates teacher formerly at Belfast Area High School, Sarah Lawler-Stoddard, was arrested in February for supplying marijuana to students and smoking it with them.

Lawler-Stoddard was released on bail. According to Belfast Police Chief Mike McFadden:

While she was out on bail, however, officers who received an early morning report of suspicious activity in a Belfast hotel room on Feb. 21 found several young people in the room with Lawler-Stoddard, who was the only adult over 21 present.

The minors were between 18 and 21 years old, McFadden said, and all were current or former Belfast Area High School students. At least one had been Lawler-Stoddard’s former student.

“The officers gained access to the motel room. They searched it. They found marijuana paraphernalia as well as several bottles of alcohol,” said McFadden, adding that the room also smelled strongly of alcohol.[…]

Rockport police picked her up on the arrest warrant for furnishing liquor to a minor and violation of bail conditions.

Details on booking are unavailable.

Yale University Encourages Student Compassion for Bestiality, Incest



Sexologist Dr. Jill McDevitt
(New Haven, Connecticut) A sexologist, Dr. Jill McDevitt, hosted a sensitivity workshop last weekend at Yale University addressing subjects such as bestiality, incest and sex for money.

McDevitt referred to the range of activities discussed in the workshop as “sexual diversity.”

“It tries to get people to be more sensitive … to sexual diversity,” McDevitt told Campus Reform in an interview on Monday. “We’re not all heterosexual, able-bodied folks who have standard missionary sex.”

Last I checked, bestiality, incest and sex for money are crimes in most jurisdictions so the university wants students to understand and be compassionate toward criminal acts.

I don't see the benefit.

Hugo Chavez, b.1954 - d.2013



Hugo Chavez
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez died today from cancer. He was 58.

North Korea: Government-Approved Hairstyles



North Korean State-Approved Hairstyles
(Pyongyang, North Korea) The government in North Korea has approved a range of acceptable hairstyles for its citizens, claiming they are "most comfortable" and "capable of warding off the corrupting effects of capitalism."

Pictures can be seen on the walls of hair salons around the country showing the approved styles for men and women. Spiky hair is forbidden, as are quiffs — the nation has learned the baleful lesson from the decadent South that outrageous hairstyles may lead to the formation of effete boy bands or to pervasive mental health problems whereby people hallucinate riding invisible horses. Under no circumstances should you enter a North Korean barber shop and ask for your hair to be cut "Gangnam Style."

The list of 18 acceptable female hairstyles show North Korean women are given more choice in their coiffeur after they wed. Approved styles for single women are simple but married women are permitted to indulge in a few extra stylistic flourishes. This also has the useful effect of establishing whether a woman is married or not at a glance. If you like it, then you should have put some curlers in it, to paraphrase Beyonce.

Men are somewhat more restricted, with only ten styles to choose from and a longer list of rules to follow. The hair of the country's young men should be less than 5 cm long and they should have a haircut once every 15 days as longer hair apparently takes away nutrition from their brains. Older men, whose brains are presumably in decline anyway, are allowed to rock out with hair as long as 7 cm.

Interestingly, Dear Leader Kim Jong-Un sports an unapproved hairstyle but nobody has the hair to call him on the violation.

Tip: Marmot's Hole

Florida Teacher Busted for Wild House Party

(Lake County, Florida) A 43-year-old second-grade teacher at Pine Ridge Elementary School, Antonia Marino, has been accused of hosting a wild high school party.

Marino was arrested to face charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and resisting without violence (obstruction).

Lake County deputies say they got a noise complaint and arrived at the home in Minneola to find around 50 juveniles.

Some of them were throwing beer bottles up and down the street and inside the home, deputies said, they found a 15 year old girl passed out in a closet with vomit all over her.

Marino was booked and released on bond.

Disturbing Pennsylvania Child Sex Case

(Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) In December 2012, 45-year-old Carol Hann and her 53-year-old husband Robert Caravella were convicted by a jury for sexual assault of a young boy over a period of years.

Hann has been sentenced to 20 years, nine months to 41 years, three months on charges of rape of a child, conspiracy to commit child rape, corruption of minors and three counts of child endangerment.

County detectives arrested Hann and Caravella in June 2011, after investigating a complaint by county Children and Youth Services about conditions of their household on Gould Street.

The boy, now 14, testified during the trial that Caravella introduced him to pornography when he was 8 years old, and shortly thereafter Hann began forcing him to perform lewd sex acts on her. If he did not perform well, the boy testified, Caravella would “coach” him on how to do certain sex acts.

Caravella is scheduled to be sentenced next week.

 A Warmist who doesn't even listen to himself

And he doesn't know the difference between "effect" and "affect" either.  Below are two of his paragraphs. In the first he properly notes many of  the doubts about global warming theory and in the second he assumes all that away and talks as if GW were a certainty.  The article is from a Maine outfit called "Unity College" which describes itself as:  "We Train Environmental Professionals in Sustainability Science".  So they would cut their own throats if they really looked at "the science".  What if everything we do is already "sustainable"?  I can think of no exceptions

In any discussion of the current and future impacts of climate change we must look at the science for what it actually says and avoid jumping to any conclusions about the outcome.  The most important thing to understand is that climate change scenarios are projections, they are not predictions.  A projection is a conditional prediction, and thus, it does not imply certainty.  For example, the current projections for end-of-century global average temperature rise range from 4˚ to 6˚C, but these are dependent on maintaining our current rate of increasing emissions, especially that of carbon dioxide.  There are many reasons why the rate of emissions might change, resulting in more or less warming as we move forward in time.   For example, changes in economic activity strongly affect the rate of carbon dioxide emissions. The recent recession resulted in a decrease in the growth rate of emissions from about 3.1% per year to -1.3% for 2009.  Thereafter, the world’s economic engine cranked up considerably, increasing the growth rate of emissions to 5.9% per year in 2011.  To be sure, such small changes in the growth rate of emissions have little potential to slow the rate of warming.   Another factor that is outside the conditional prediction of this scenario is the rate of positive feedback from natural sources of greenhouse gas such as the thawing permafrost, or the well documented process of worldwide forest decline.  These factors could considerably accelerate the rate of warming and take us well beyond 6˚C.  In all candor I must say that there are very few factors that will significantly slow the rate of human-caused emissions, short of concerted and intensive efforts at mitigation.  Wildcards that could change the future include unpredictable events like an asteroid strike or volcanism sufficient to put aerosols into the stratosphere and thus cool the planet.  Just how lucky do you feel?

The current generation of young adults in college will experience an increasingly dangerously disrupted climate during their lives.  We have only limited ability to affect this outcome because there is a 30-40 year time lag in the equilibration of ocean heat loading with the atmosphere.  About 93% of energy imbalance caused by the greenhouse gases goes into the oceans, and it takes time for this energy to be expressed in the climate system.  Evidence of massive ongoing change in the oceans is seen in the slowing of the Gulf Stream and widespread changes in salinity and surface temperatures.  The hydrologic cycle has sped up about 40% since the mid 20th century, and the rate of acidification of the oceans is faster now than at any time during the previous 300 million years.  Accordingly, this generation of students must prepare to adapt as the impacts of these changes ramify across the planet.  Even casual inspection of higher education shows that institutions are generally failing to prepare students to face these challenges.  As educators we have an ethical obligation to do so.

SOURCE


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Insects for Human Consumption



(London, England)

Crunchy, full of protein and to be found under a rock near you. Insects have long been overlooked as food in all but a handful of places around the world – but now they are crawling closer and closer to our plates.

This spring will see a drive towards removing the yuck factor and putting insects not just on experimental gastronomic menus but also on supermarket shelves.

In April there will be a festival in London, Pestival 2013 – a Wellcome Trust-backed insect appreciation event where the consumption of creepy-crawlies comes high on the agenda.[…]

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has been funding projects since 2011 aimed at promoting the eating and farming of insects in south-east Asia and Africa, where an estimated two billion people already eat insects and caterpillar larvae as a regular part of their diet. Last year the FAO published a list of 1,909 edible species of insect and, with sponsorship from the Dutch government, plans a major international conference on "this valuable food source" this year.[…]

Edible insects emit fewer gases, contain high-quality protein, vitamins and amino acids, and have a high food conversion rate, needing a quarter of the food intake of sheep, and half of pigs and chickens, to produce the same amount of protein. They emit less greenhouse gases and ammonia than cows and can be grown on organic waste.

China is already successfully setting up huge maggot farms.

Huge maggot farms, eh? I'm not interested and I won't participate.

Former Miss Delaware Teen USA

(Wilmington, Delaware) Last week, 18-year-old Melissa King, Miss Delaware Teen USA, resigned her crown in light of allegations she starred in a sex video.

Now she has been accused of failing to appear in a Maryland court on two active warrants.

The Bethany Beach-area teen was charged with stealing money from the town of Ocean City, Md., on June 7 — around the time the sex video starring a woman who looks and sounds like her was shot.

King also was charged on Aug. 2 with possession of alcohol by a person under the age of 21.

I'd suggest that Miss King would benefit from a few nudges of adult guidance.

Citizens Want Proof Chavez Is Alive



(Caracas, Venezuela)

Hundreds of pro-opposition students and other critics of Hugo Chavez’s government marched in Caracas yesterday to demand proof that the cancer-stricken Venezuelan leader is still alive and governing.

The crowd, including various leaders at the more militant end of the Democratic Unity opposition coalition, sang protest songs and waved banners as they rallied in a central neighborhood on a sweltering morning.

“Give us the truth!” and “Stop lying!” read banners.[…]

Officials say Chavez is in a Caracas military hospital after returning from Cuba two weeks ago, battling for his life. Though he is breathing via a tracheal tube, unable to speak, and undergoing chemotherapy, the president continues to rule via written and other communications, they say.

The natives are restless.

The Scary Hidden Stressor

The excerpt below from an article in the NYT by the inimitable Thomas Friedman is right for the wrong reasons.  Food shortages were undoubtedly a factor in the recent upheavals in Arab lands.  But what caused the shortages?  There were several factors but it was primarily the EPA mandate to poison American gasoline supplies with ethanol.  That mandate produced a huge new demand for ethanol which was primarily supplied from the massive American corn crop.  Supply does not respond instantly to demand, however, so the price of corn shot up.  And that affected wheat prices as well as corn prices because the two grains are to an extent substitutable.  And at the new high prices poor people (including most of the Arab world) could not afford either grain.  Obama could have solved the food shortage in a penstroke by suspending the ethanol mandate but he did not.

IN her introduction to a compelling new study, “The Arab Spring and Climate Change,” released Thursday, the Princeton scholar Anne-Marie Slaughter notes that crime shows often rely on the concept of a “stressor.” A stressor, she explains, is a “sudden change in circumstances or environment that interacts with a complicated psychological profile in a way that leads a previously quiescent person to become violent.” The stressor is never the only explanation for the crime, but it is inevitably an important factor in a complex set of variables that lead to a disaster. “The Arab Spring and Climate Change” doesn’t claim that climate change caused the recent wave of Arab revolutions, but, taken together, the essays make a strong case that the interplay between climate change, food prices (particularly wheat) and politics is a hidden stressor that helped to fuel the revolutions and will continue to make consolidating them into stable democracies much more difficult.

Jointly produced by the Center for American Progress, the Stimson Center and the Center for Climate and Security, this collection of essays opens with the Oxford University geographer Troy Sternberg, who demonstrates how in 2010-11, in tandem with the Arab awakenings, “a once-in-a-century winter drought in China” — combined, at the same time, with record-breaking heat waves or floods in other key wheat-growing countries (Ukraine, Russia, Canada and Australia) — “contributed to global wheat shortages and skyrocketing bread prices” in wheat-importing states, most of which are in the Arab world.

Only a small fraction — 6 percent to 18 percent — of annual global wheat production is traded across borders, explained Sternberg, “so any decrease in world supply contributes to a sharp rise in wheat prices and has a serious economic impact in countries such as Egypt, the largest wheat importer in the world.”

The numbers tell the story: “Bread provides one-third of the caloric intake in Egypt, a country where 38 percent of income is spent on food,” notes Sternberg. “The doubling of global wheat prices — from $157/metric ton in June 2010 to $326/metric ton in February 2011 — thus significantly impacted the country’s food supply and availability.” Global food prices peaked at an all-time high in March 2011, shortly after President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in Egypt.

Consider this: The world’s top nine wheat-importers are in the Middle East: “Seven had political protests resulting in civilian deaths in 2011,” said Sternberg. “Households in the countries that experience political unrest spend, on average, more than 35 percent of their income on food supplies,” compared with less than 10 percent in developed countries.

Everything is linked: Chinese drought and Russian bushfires produced wheat shortages leading to higher bread prices fueling protests in Tahrir Square. Sternberg calls it the globalization of “hazard.”

Ditto in Syria and Libya. In their essay, the study’s co-editors, Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell, note that from 2006 to 2011, up to 60 percent of Syria’s land experienced the worst drought ever recorded there — at a time when Syria’s population was exploding and its corrupt and inefficient regime was proving incapable of managing the stress.

In 2009, they noted, the U.N. and other international agencies reported that more than 800,000 Syrians lost their entire livelihoods as a result of the great drought, which led to “a massive exodus of farmers, herders, and agriculturally dependent rural families from the Syrian countryside to the cities,” fueling unrest. The future does not look much brighter. “On a scale of wetness conditions,” Femia and Werrell note, “ ‘where a reading of -4 or below is considered extreme drought,’ a 2010 report by the National Center for Atmospheric Research shows that Syria and its neighbors face projected readings of -8 to -15 as a result of climatic changes in the next 25 years.” Similar trends, they note, are true for Libya, whose “primary source of water is a finite cache of fossilized groundwater, which already has been severely stressed while coastal aquifers have been progressively invaded by seawater.”

SOURCE


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Colorado Woman Accused of Killing Husband

(Colorado Springs, Colorado) A 52-year-old local woman, Donna Kaiser-Anderson, has been accused of shooting and killing her husband, 51-year-old William "Bill" Coffey who had been shot 19 times.

Kaiser-Anderson faces a charge of second-degree murder.

Kaiser-Anderson's preliminary hearing began with friends and relatives in attendance as investigators went about their task of describing what they saw on the evening Jan. 4, when they responded to investigate the homicide.

In what has been described as intense and gruesome testimony, investigators gave gory details of what they found. They testified about bloody drag marks on the floor leading from the kitchen to the bedroom. Coffey's body was found in a bedroom along with the body of Kaiser-Anderson's mother who was reportedly found dead in bed and covered with a sheet.

Authorities have only charged Kaiser-Anderson with the death of her husband. No information has been released at this time about the mother's cause of death and police officials have declined to discuss the matter. To further stem the flow of information about the case, Judge Maria Prudek issued a gag order on the case.

Details on booking are unavailable.

Pictures, pictures, pictures!


Every now and again I find a picture, graphic or toon that amuses me in some way and I put it up on this blog or on one of my other blogs.  I have just put together what I see as the "best" of my pictures for the period of July to December last year.  You can access it here or here


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

High-Speed Truck Robberies



(Dortmund, Germany) Thieves are reportedly unloading trucks as they speed down the autobahn.

Gangs of robbers used several cars to surround trucks on two-lane autobahns, Barbara Vogelsang, a spokeswoman from the state prosecutor in Dortmund, told the paper.

A first car gets in front of the truck and forces it to slow down, while a second drives close up behind it. A third car drives alongside to make sure no other vehicles overtake and witness the robbery.

Risking his life, a thief then climbs out through the sunroof of the second car and, at speeds of up to 120 kilometres per hour, climbs onto the bonnet and opens the back loading door of the truck in front. Climbing inside, the thief then throws the loot back to his accomplices, wrote the paper.

The truck driver, meanwhile, sees nothing of the daring operation, which lasts just a few minutes.

More than 50 robberies have occurred since last November.

Texas Teacher Accused of Assault on Officer




(Laredo, Texas) A 36-year-old teacher at Cigarroa High School, Lisa Flores, has been accused of seriously injuring Police Officer Jose Reyes in an accident in October 2011.

Flores faces charges of aggravated assault causing bodily injury and aggravated assault with a motor vehicle.

Texas Marriage Counselor Gets No Jail in Sex Case

(Fort Worth, Texas) A 47-year-old marriage counselor, Sheila Loven, has been convicted by a jury of sexually assaulting a client, the husband of a couple she was counseling.

Reportedly, while counseling Loven turned the couple against each other and started a sexual relationship with the husband after convincing the wife to file for divorce.

Tarrant County jury sentenced Sheila Loven to 10 years probation for sexually assaulting a client she was counseling.

Should she violate her probation, Loven could be sent to jail for up to four years.

Jurors seemed to follow the law and follow their hearts Wednesday afternoon in sentencing the licensed professional counselor they had already convicted of sexual assault.

Loven has lost her license as a counselor and was ordered to register as a sex offender.

Refereed Journals: Do They Insure Quality or Enforce Orthodoxy? The present system, if continued, may seriously impede, if not stop, the advance of science

This is about a paper by Frank J. Tipler Professor of Mathematical Physics Tulane University New Orleans. Link:http://www.iscid.org/papers/Tipler_PeerReview_070103.pdf

It was was published in 2003 and there have been a few green shoots of doubt about the academic publication process since then. There has been no systematic change however so the points made are still true to life.

My own experience reinforces everything he says. With just one highly technical exception NONE of my papers appeared in "mainstream" (APA) journals. And the reason is glaringly obvious. I have always been unwaveringly critical of Leftist ideas, which are the orthodoxy in academe. So nearly all of my 200+ published papers were published in just three journals with sympathetic editors. Amusingly, however two of those journals are very widely circulated and cited. So my papers still got good exposure and appeared in journals that were highly creditable. As soon as the editors changed, however, my papers ceased to be accepted!

So the bias in the academic journals towards global warming is actually only one subset of a larger and highly discreditable phenomenon. Tipler's reports do therefore reinforce the view that ANY overall bias in the academic journals is to be distrusted

There is however now no reason to rely on academic journals as a path to truth. The internet has made ALL ideas highly accessible and many "incorrect" ideas get good exposure. So one can readily find all sides to a question aired and make up one's mind based on the balance of the evidence rather than on just one side of it. Let the defenders of orthodoxy keep mumbling to one another in their journals while the rest of us get on with the real work of understanding the world

NOTE on Christianity:

Tipler is rather amusing in reporting the way Christianity is regarded with great horror among academics. I can however confirm the basic truth of what he says. I have been an unwavering atheist for the whole of my adult life so comments to me on the matter by colleagues have always been unguarded. And their contempt for Christianity has been almost universal.

I on the other hand have always defended Christian ideas as creditable. Although I have come to my own conclusions, I feel no need to be dogmatic about it. And, as I have said before, I think there is better evidence for the divinity of Christ than there is for dangerous global warming!


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). 

Shooting Dope in California



Marijuana Cannon
(Mexicali, Mexico) Police this week recovered a powerful marijuana cannon used to shoot packages of marijuana over the border into California. Compressed air was used to launch the packages.

Deadly Tuberculosis Crosses U.S. Border

Having a porous Southern border allows anything to enter the country, even deadly pathogens.

In medical isolation in South Texas, 100 miles or so from Mexico's border, is a man who embodies one of U.S. health officials' greatest worries: He is the first person to cross and be held in detention while infected with one of the most severe types of drug-resistant tuberculosis known today.

His three-month odyssey through 13 countries—from his homeland of Nepal through South Asia, Brazil, Mexico, and finally into Texas—shows the way in which dangerous new strains of the disease can migrate across the world unchecked.[…]

The Nepalese man detained at the U.S. border carries a particularly deadly strain—XDR, "extensively drug-resistant" TB. His TB is resistant to at least eight of the 15 or so standard drugs, according to a U.S. government description of the case reviewed by the Journal. His XDR strain has been seen only once before in the U.S., in another patient of Nepalese origin, according to the government description.

The Nepalese patient was taken into custody by the U.S. Border Patrol in late November as he tried to cross the border illegally near McAllen, Texas, according to Department of Homeland Security officials.

Not good news.

Colorado Woman Accused of Sex with Boy

(Grand Junction, Colorado) A 36-year-old local woman, Wendy Crowell, has been accused of engaging in sex with her son's friend.

Crowell faces a charge of sexual assault on a child between 15 and 16 years old by a person in a position of trust.

The victim's mother -- whose name is redacted from the affidavit-- first reported the crime on June 18, 2012, because she had a gut feeling something was going on between her son and Crowell.

Crowell and the boy's mother spent time with each other since their sons were friends, and the mother often left her son with Crowell while she searched for a job.

One night, when the victim was spending the night at the Crowells, Wendy seduced him. He told investigators that she said he should be 18 and asked if "he could pretend to be 18 for a night," the affidavit reveals.

The boy said that they had sex five times in three weeks and that it was a consensual, mutual thing with no force involved.

Crowell was booked into custody at the Mesa County Jail with bond set at $10,000.

Couple Accused of Human Trafficking



Taryn Johnson - Vinson Alexander
(Southfield, Michigan)

Taryn Johnson and Vinson Alexander are accused of enslaving a 18-year-old girl and forcing her to work as a stripper in southeast Michigan since December.

Officials say Johnson recruited the woman with promises of a good salary. However, investigators say, Alexander took all of her money and used threats and violence to keep control of the girl.

Alexander is also accused of violently assaulting the girl on February 21.

The 27-year-old Johnson is from Tennessee. She has been charged with one count of Human Trafficking - Recruiting for Forced Labor. The charge carries a 10 year prison sentence if she is convicted.

The 30-year-old Alexander is from Florida. He has been charged with one count of Human Trafficking - Forced Labor for a Commercial Sex Act, one count of Human Trafficking - Forced Labor Causing Serious Physical Harm, one count of Human Trafficking - Financially Benefiting from a Human Trafficking Venture, one count of Criminal Enterprises - Acquire/Maintain (Racketeering) and one count of Torture. He faces up to life in prison if convicted on all charges.

Johnson and Alexander were booked into custody with bond amounts set at $750,000 and $1,000,000, respectively.

Alabama Woman Accused of Sex with Boy

(Russellville, Alabama) A 29-year-old local woman, Natasha Jean Bridges, has been accused of sending sex photos and messages to a 15-year-old boy and then engaging in sex with him.

Bridges faces charges of electronic solicitation of a child and second-degree rape.

Investigators said the woman is accused of using a cellphone to text the boy explicit sexual messages as well as partially nude photos of herself. Reports indicate she was soliciting him to have sex with her and they had met and entered into a sexual relationship.

Authorities said the woman was friends with the boy’s family.

Russellville police detective Lt. Scotty Lowery said apparently this relationship had been going on for several weeks before it was discovered.

Bridges was booked into custody at the Russellville City Jail without bail.

Oklahoma Woman Accused of 911 Abuse

(Tulsa, Oklahoma) A 46-year-old local woman, Regina K. Sanders, has been arrested for making dozens of calls to the Emergency Communications Center over an eight-hour period.

Sanders faces counts of placing an obscene, threatening or harassing phone call and interference with an emergency call.

Prosecutors allege Sanders made 59 calls to 911 dispatchers Nov. 16. On one occasion, she’s accused of telling a dispatcher, “It’s my job to harass you b------.”

Two other pending cases against her allege Sanders placed an obscene, threatening or harassing phone call to a Tulsa police officer in April and violated a protective order filed by making phone calls to her brother in June.

Sanders was booked into custody at the Tulsa Jail with bond set at $45,000.

People who are less reflective are more religious?

I would have thought that religious people reflect on things all the time but Hey Ho, Nonny O

Following is the "Cognitive Reflection Test", a set of riddles.  Maybe you might like to try answering the questions yourself.

 * A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

 * If it takes five machines five minutes to make five widgets, how long does it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?

 * In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would ittake for the patch to cover half of the lake?

 * Correct Answers: Five cents, five minutes, and forty-seven days.

Most people get the "wrong" answers.  That is the point of the test.  It is claimed that people who get the answers right, however,  have a general tendency towards "reflective" thinking.  The source article for the test is here.

But as the authors acknowledge, it is basically a measure of mathematical IQ, though a particular subset of it.  So therefore any correlations with it could be explained as the outcome of general mathematics ability as well as a particular subset of mathematics ability.

But when Huffpo notes that religious people do poorly on the test,  they make large inferences from that, claiming that religious people are not critical thinkers.  Unbelievers, on the other hand are "reflective".

As I have always struggled with mathematics but am as atheist as you can get, I found that rather amusing.  So I looked up the research on which Huffpo hung its hat.  There was only one study that gave the correlation between religion and test score while also controlling for general IQ.  It is here.

And it sure is amusing.  Even BEFORE controlling for IQ, the correlation between test score and belief in God was .14, which is  of only marginal statistical significance (significant on a one-tailed test only despite N=large) and of negligible significance in any other sense.  And controlling for IQ reduced the "relationship" even further, of course.

So, to put it plainly, it is all hokum. Religious people are about as likely to get the questions right as are atheists. Hey Ho, Nonny O indeed.  I could make other criticisms of the research concerned (sampling etc.) but I can see no point in flogging a dead horse.


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

NJ Woman Accused of Sex with Florida Teen



Lisa Silva
(Carteret, New Jersey) A 42-year-old local woman. Lisa Silva, has been accused of traveling to Florida to engage in sex with a 16-year-old boy she met via Facebook.

Silva faces charges of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and traveling to meet a minor for unlawful sexual conduct.

Investigators say that in July 2011, the teen met Silva through a third-party Facebook game called YoVille.

That led to numerous phone calls, text messages, emails, letters and three in-person meetings, two of which included sexual intercourse, according to the report.

Silva was booked and released on bail.