Scientific Fraud

It seems to be endemic these days.  Of course, the amount of scientific fraud has risen ten fold in the last ten years, but to be fair, the submission of scientific papers has risen much more than that.  But along with fraudulent and bad science is a backlash...the "sceptic movement" if you will, which is holding more and more of the fraudster's feet to the flames. 
    

There is so much, and so much of it sells so well.  The Da Vinci Code was the best selling work of fiction of all time, exceeding JK Rowlings derivative Harry Potter by half again. (though as of this writing, "fifty shades of grey" may have proven that you can titilate even the distaff side with careful pornography and superb marketing enough for them to exercise their purchasing power)  Even the author of the Da Vinci code claimed that it was all phoney baloney hype, but people are still going to France and Scotland, disturbing graves and breaking into monuments searching for "something". 
       Some stunning blogs and web sites....Bad Archaeology, (no doubt a nod to my favorite sceptic site Bad Astronomy) and Engineering Evil are happy to point out the fallacies in these oh so attractive pseudo sciences. 

        Two links, each of which will keep you busy for five or six hours EACH!  You can thank me later.

Oh, the picture....thats a picture of the skull of Dawson's "Piltdown Man". 

Reaction to the Cloyne Report

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfRZ1U16V6I&feature=related

(The rape and torture of children were used instead to uphold the primacy, power and reputation of the Vatican....Enda Kenny, in an address to the house of Parliament in Ireland.)

Below is the Arch Bishop's response.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8wXjaEj1X0&feature=related

Fake gold bars in Bank of England and Fort Knox

Fake gold bars in Bank of England and Fort Knox

Professor David Lewis with a (fake) gold bar and liquid nanoscale gold particles demonstrates the changes in colour, chemical and electrical properties that are possible with nanotechnology Professor David Lewis with a (fake) gold bar and liquid nanoscale gold particles demonstrates the changes in colour, chemical and electrical properties that are possible with nanotechnology

Fake gold bars in Bank of England and Fort KnoxWorldMonday, January 11th, 2010
It’s one thing to counterfeit a twenty or hundred dollar bill. The amount of financial damage is usually limited to a specific region and only affects dozens of people and thousands of dollars. Secret Service agents quickly notify the banks on how to recognize these phony bills and retail outlets usually have procedures in place (such as special pens to test the paper) to stop their proliferation.But what about gold? This is the most sacred of all commodities because it is thought to be the most trusted, reliable and valuable means of saving wealth.A recent discovery — in October of 2009 — has been suppressed by the main stream media but has been circulating among the “big money” brokers and financial kingpins and is just now being revealed to the public. It involves the gold in Fort Knox — the US Treasury gold — that is the equity of our national wealth. In short, millions (with an “m”) of gold bars are fake!Who did this? Apparently our own government.BackgroundIn October of 2009 the Chinese received a shipment of gold bars. Gold is regularly exchanges between countries to pay debts and to settle the so-called balance of trade. Most gold is exchanged and stored in vaults under the supervision of a special organization based in London, the London Bullion Market Association (or LBMA). When the shipment was received, the Chinese government asked that special tests be performed to guarantee the purity and weight of the gold bars. In this test, four small holed are drilled into the gold bars and the metal is then analyzed.Officials were shocked to learn that the bars were fake. They contained cores of tungsten with only a outer coating of real gold. What’s more, these gold bars, containing serial numbers for tracking, originated in the US and had been stored in Fort Knox for years. There were reportedly between 5,600 to 5,700 bars, weighing 400 oz. each, in the shipment!At first many gold experts assumed the fake gold originated in China, the world’s best knock-off producers. The Chinese were quick to investigate and issued a statement that implicated the US in the scheme.
What the Chinese uncovered:Roughly 15 years ago — during the Clinton Administration [think Robert Rubin, Sir Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers] — between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were allegedly manufactured by a very high-end, sophisticated refiner in the USA [more than 16 Thousand metric tonnes]. Subsequently, 640,000 of these tungsten blanks received their gold plating and WERE shipped to Ft. Knox and remain there to this day.According to the Chinese investigation, the balance of this 1.3 million to 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten cache was also gold plated and then allegedly “sold” into the international market. Apparently, the global market is literally “stuffed full of 400 oz salted bars”. Perhaps as much as 600-billion dollars worth.An obscure news item originally published in the N.Y. Post [written by Jennifer Anderson] in late Jan. 04 perhaps makes sense now.DA investigating NYMEX executive ,Manhattan, New York, –Feb. 2, 2004.A top executive at the New York Mercantile Exchange is being investigated by the Manhattan district attorney. Sources close to the exchange said that Stuart Smith, senior vice president of operations at the exchange, was served with a search warrant by the district attorney’s office last week. Details of the investigation have not been disclosed, but a NYMEX spokeswoman said it was unrelated to any of the exchange’s markets. She declined to comment further other than to say that charges had not been brought. A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office also declined comment.”The offices of the Senior Vice President of Operations — NYMEX — is exactly where you would go to find the records [serial number and smelter of origin] for EVERY GOLD BAR ever PHYSICALLY settled on the exchange. They are required to keep these records. These precise records would show the lineage of all the physical gold settled on the exchange and hence “prove” that the amount of gold in question could not have possibly come from the U.S. mining operations — because the amounts in question coming from U.S. smelters would undoubtedly be vastly bigger than domestic mine production.No one knows whatever happened to Stuart Smith. After his offices were raided he took “administrative leave” from the NYMEX and he has never been heard from since. Amazingly, there never was any follow up on in the media on the original story as well as ZERO developments ever stemming from D.A. Morgenthau’s office who executed the search warrant.Are we to believe that NYMEX offices were raided, the Sr. V.P. of operations then takes leave — all for nothing?The revelations of fake gold bars also explains another highly unusual story that also happened in 2004:LONDON, April 14, 2004 (Reuters) — NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd., the London-based unit of investment bank Rothschild [ROT.UL], will withdraw from trading commodities, including gold, in London as it reviews its operations, it said on Wednesday.Interestingly, GATA’s Bill Murphy speculated about this back in 2004;“Why is Rothschild leaving the gold business at this time my colleagues and I conjectured today? Just a guess on my part, but [I] suspect something is amiss. They know a big scandal is coming and they don’t want to be a part of it… [The] Rothschild wants out before the proverbial “S” hits the fan.” — BILL MURPHY, LEMETROPOLE, 4-18-2004What is the GATA?The Gold Antitrust Action Committee (GATA) is an organisation which has been nipping at the heels of the US Treasury Federal Reserve for several years now. The basis of GATA’s accusations is that these institutions, in coordination with other complicit central banks and the large gold-trading investment banks in the US, have been manipulating the price of gold for decades.What is the GLD?GLD is a short form for Good London Delivery. The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) has defined “good delivery” as a delivery from an entity which is listed on their delivery list or meets the standards for said list and whose bars have passed testing requirements established by the associatin and updated from time to time. The bars have to be pure for AU in an area of 995.0 to 999.9 per 1000. Weight, Shape, Appearance, Marks and Weight Stamps are regulated as follows:Weight: minimum 350 fine ounces AU; maximum 430 fine ounces AU, gross weight of a bar is expressed in troy ounces, in multiples of 0.025, rounded down to the nearest 0.025 of an troy ounce.Dimensions: the recommended dimensions for a Good Delivery gold bar are: Top Surface: 255 x 81 mm; Bottom Surface: 236 x 57 mm; Thickness: 37 mm.Fineness: the minimum 995.0 parts per thousand fine gold. Marks: Serial number; Assay stamp of refiner; Fineness (to four significant figures); Year of manufacture (expressed in four digits).After reviewing their prospectus yet again, it becomes pretty clear that GLD was established to purposefully deflect investment dollars away from legitimate gold pursuits and to create a stealth, cesspool / catch-all, slush-fund and a likely destination for many of these fake tungsten bars where they would never see the light of day — hidden behind the following legalese “shield” from the law:[Excerpt from the GLD prospectus on page 11]“Gold bars allocated to the Trust in connection with the creation of a Basket may not meet the London Good Delivery Standards and, if a Basket is issued against such gold, the Trust may suffer a loss. Neither the Trustee nor the Custodian independently confirms the fineness of the gold bars allocated to the Trust in connection with the creation of a Basket. The gold bars allocated to the Trust by the Custodian may be different from the reported fineness or weight required by the LBMA’s standards for gold bars delivered in settlement of a gold trade, or the London Good Delivery Standards, the standards required by the Trust. If the Trustee nevertheless issues a Basket against such gold, and if the Custodian fails to satisfy its obligation to credit the Trust the amount of any deficiency, the Trust may suffer a loss.”The Federal Reserve knows but is apparently part of the schemeEarlier this year GATA filed a second Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Federal Reserve System for documents from 1990 to date having to do with gold swaps, gold swapped, or proposed gold swaps.On Aug. 5, The Federal Reserve responded to this FOIA request by adding two more documents to those disclosed to GATA in April 2008 from the earlier FOIA request. These documents totaled 173 pages, many parts of which were redacted (blacked out). The Fed’s response also noted that there were 137 pages of documents not disclosed that were alleged to be exempt from disclosure.GATA appealed this determination on Aug. 20. The appeal asked for more information to substantiate the legitimacy of the claimed exemptions from disclosure and an explanation on why some documents, such as one posted on the Federal Reserve Web site that discusses gold swaps, were not included in the Aug. 5 document release.In a Sept. 17, 2009, letter on Federal Reserve System letterhead, Federal Reserve governor Kevin M. Warsh completely denied GATA’s appeal. The entire text of this letter can be examined at http://www.gata. org/files/ GATAFedRespon” onclick=”window. open(this. href);return false;” onclick=”window. open(this. href);return false;” onclick=”window. open(this. href);return false;” onclick=”window. open(this. href);return false;” onclick=”window. open(this. href);return false;” onclick=”window. open(this. href);return false;” onclick=”window. open(this. href);return false; … 7-2009.pdf.The first paragraph on the third page is the most revealing.”In connection with your appeal, I have confirmed that the information withheld under exemption 4 consists of confidential commercial or financial information relating to the operations of the Federal Reserve Banks that was obtained within the meaning of exemption 4. This includes information relating to swap arrangements with foreign banks on behalf of the Federal Reserve System and is not the type of information that is customarily disclosed to the public. This information was properly withheld from you.”above statement is an admission that the Federal Reserve has been involved with the fake gold bar swaps and that it refuses to disclose any information about its activities!The above statement is an admission that the Federal Reserve has been involved with the fake gold bar swaps and that it refuses to disclose any information about its activities!Why use tungsten?If you are going to print fake money you need to have the special paper, otherwise the bills don’t feel right and can be easily detected by special pens that most merchants and banks use. Likewise, if you are going to fake gold bars you had better be sure they have the same weight and properties of real gold.In early 2008 millions of dollars in gold at the central bank of Ethiopia turned out to be fake. What were supposed to be bars of solid gold turned out to be nothing more than gold-plated steel. They tried to sell the stuff to South Africa and it was sent back when the South Africans noticed this little problem. The problem with making good-quality fake gold is that gold is remarkably dense. It’s almost twice the density of lead, and two-and-a-half times more dense than steel. You don’t usually notice this because small gold rings and the like don’t weigh enough to make it obvious, but if you’ve ever held a larger bar of gold, it’s absolutely unmistakable: The stuff is very, very heavy.The standard gold bar for bank-to-bank trade, known as a “London good delivery bar” weighs 400 troy ounces (over thirty-three pounds), yet is no bigger than a paperback novel. A bar of steel the same size would weigh only thirteen and a half pounds.According to gold expert, Theo Gray, the problem is that there are very few metals that are as dense as gold, and with only two exceptions they all cost as much or more than gold.The first exception is depleted uranium, which is cheap if you’re a government, but hard for individuals to get. It’s also radioactive, which could be a bit of an issue.The second exception is a real winner:tungsten. Tungsten is vastly cheaper than gold (maybe $30 dollars a pound compared to $12,000 a pound for gold right now). And remarkably, it has exactly the same density as gold, to three decimal places. The main differences are that it’s the wrong color, and that it’s much, much harder than gold. (Very pure gold is quite soft, you can dent it with a fingernail.)A top-of-the-line fake gold bar should match the color, surface hardness, density, chemical, and nuclear properties of gold perfectly. To do this, you could could start with a tungsten slug about 1/8-inch smaller in each dimension than the gold bar you want, then cast a 1/16-inch layer of real pure gold all around it. This bar would feel right in the hand, it would have a dead ring when knocked as gold should, it would test right chemically, it would weigh *exactly* the right amount, and though I don’t know this for sure, I think it would also pass an x-ray fluorescence scan, the 1/16″ layer of pure gold being enough to stop the x-rays from reaching any tungsten. You’d pretty much have to drill it to find out it’s fake.Such a top-quality fake London good delivery bar would cost about $50,000 to produce because it’s got a lot of real gold in it, but you’d still make a nice profit considering that a real one is worth closer to $400,000.What’s going to happen now?Politicians like Ron Paul have been demanding that the Federal Reserve be more transparent and open up their records for public scrutiny. But the Fed has consistently refused, stating that these disclosures would undermine its operation. Yes, it certainly would!Short URL: http://www.daily.pk/?p=14477

TVG's

The future of public transportation exists in seminal projects all around us. Every thing from sisal bodied electric cars to moving slide walks. They will happen as soon as there is political will to make it happen.

The biggest problem for politicians is not spending money. They can do THAT just fine. That is just a debating point. Its knowing where to spend the money to get the biggest political leverage.

To that end, you must create a grass roots movement to break the back of the present model...it is driving developed nations into bankrupcy just to replace all those bridges! Not to mention the soul crushing horror of the highways deaths and damage.

Your states are as big as European countries. So its not size holding TGV back. (Another red herring debating point) Its the present vested interests. Who got the bail outs? General Motors or the Northern Pacific Railway? Which one moves more people every day, and which one kills a hundred people every day? (see what I mean?

The small university town in Fredicton New Brunswick decided that rather than increase the number of police on the streets to try to keep drunk kids from being, well, kids, they simply issued a heavily subsidised taxi pass (like a bus pass) to the students, and increased the parking fees. Worked like a charm. Reduced the accident rate to nearly zero, and cost much the same as three or four extra constables. A similar E-pass here in Ottawa has had similar results, but has proved to be controvercial. But...thats the kind of thinking we need. Not "well, build bigger roads, more parking areas and put more police on the roads". The problem was dead students and massive downtown congestion on Friday nights. The E-pass fixed that.

Of course, that is not an answer to how to bring TGV trains into the states...it will happen when you can convice these people that they can make a buck on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_carrier_freight_railroads_in_the_United_States

This was in responce to Cerilean Bill's rant about why there was no high speed trains in the US.

Cloward Piven Strategy

The Cloward Piven Strategy is much better spouted here on ACORN's site, however it is worth examining purely to discover what the HELL is wrong with people! Here, spelled out in neat concepts is the whole Cloward Piven Strategy.

What the CPS is attempting to do is to collapse the political system of the day with the intention of replacing it with a more socialist one. Interestingly enough, it works. Sort of. For awhile.

I don't know what to say. What do you say about a the light shining on the hitherto unsuspected axe which is in the process of staving in your boat?

Ah well. I am sure I shall come up with something.

How about that one BILLION dollars spent on the last G-8 conference in Toronto. Think for a moment about how expensive it was to pay the salaries of policemen like Officer Bubbles in this video.

Right now, I am wondering how to keep the case of Junior Manon on the front burner.

Be that as it may, the purpose of the Cloward Piven Strategy was to use up as many of those resources as they can, to burn through as many tax dollars as possible.

I think it is high time to examine these issues, find out what is causing them, and then write some letters.

Some might get the idea that I am opposed to such an organized resistance to "the man". In actual fact, I think that resistance is required in a free and democratic society, and lets face it, the avowed purpose of the CPS is to collapse the wellfare state. As we have seen by microcosms like Attawapascat that the welfare state is a wolf in sheep's clothing, so its collapse will not be mourned by most.

I used to believe that Canada was the Sociaism that Worked. Then I find out that my Prime Minister is talking about reducing or limiting the Old Age Security benefits. Well, its not like the boomers are a phenomonon which was not expected! People have been warning about what will happen when the population "hump" will hit retirement age. Well, its here now duded! What planning have you made? Oh right....thirty five billions on fighter jets. Four billions on new prisons. Hmmmm.

I wonder if he read poly sci in Cloward's class back in the '60's.

SCA fail

The Society for Creative Anachronism is on its last legs. A remarkable organization, its greatest strength has proved to be its greatest weakness.

I was a member of the SCA for about 20 years, then I drifted out of it some twelve years ago when my contributions were increasingly being ignored. Becoming marginalized in the remarkably inclusive SCA is really hard to do! I might have succeeded! More of that later.

Ostensibly a medieval re-enactment organization, in reality, it is a social club. There are many fascets on that jewel. It can take over your world. It is the reason why I have the words "Honour", "Chivalry","Noblesse Oblige", "Courtesty", "Generosity", "Courage" and "Faith" stenciled in letters 9 inches high around the top of the walls in my dining room. It has been described as so many things. Because it came out of the hippy dippy sixties, many members had the look and feel of aging hippies, but I always felt it was an organization made up of people who had been bullied in school when they were kids. This is important when you examine it. Its not like the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts are made up of people who "fit in". And like to do so.

It is top heavy in bureaucracy, most of it has no good reason for being. There is a reward system for doing good works, and virtually no punishment system. One way to get the uber reward was to create a new office for the ever expanding bureaucracy. (Yes, they played at bureaucracy as if it was a game!) and when more and more of the University age kids suddenly found themselves married with children, somebody noticed that kids were being left with the group while the parents went off to cake decorating class or whatever programming had been laid on. Often when a few people brought board games for the kids to play, suddenly they became the baby sitters. So somebody had the bright idea of making a "Minister for Children". Ben Schragger was one of those ministers. He abused his authority, along with several kids. Hence the lawsuit which will end the SCA.

So easy to "close the peppergate!" now that the damage is done, but I knew that once we had a person in charge of children, we would have a position which would attract a sexual predator like a moth is attracted to a candle flame. I note that all handbooks for the office of "Minister of Children" have been removed from the official SCA web site, (if they were ever there!), so perhaps this one guy broke all the rules. I hope so, for the SCA's sake. I also know that a great deal of thought and consideration (and compassion) has gone into making a safe environment for all, including and especially children. The fact remains however, that the SCA created a job description, they created a bureaucracy which makes them liable under the law for enforcing and maitaining standards for their little day cares and day care providers. And therefore, they will fall on this lawsuit, even though they knew nothing about it, and did nothing to deserve it. Though it took four years after the incidents with Mr. Schragger to make a requirement that background checks would be required.

There are dozens of lawyers involved now, and the chips may fall to one side of the log or the other. However, the time to halt the train wreck is long before you see the trains coming towards the broken bridge! I halted my share of trains. I personally pissed off a LOT of people when as an officer in those long ago days I demanded that people stop practicing medicine without a licence. (The study of herbalism is theoretical only nowadays, mostly due to my timely warnings that somebody will get hurt.)

Oh well, it is when you believe in something more than you believe in yourself is when you tread on enough toes to annoy people. I drifted out, not so much resigning in disgust as sort of fading away about the turn of the century. I got a life outside of the corporation.

Anyway, I knew this lawsuit was coming, though I certainly didn't think it was going to come through the Ministry of Children. I THOUGHT it was going to come through the cooks! I figured that some cook someplace would make up a shrimp cocktail laced with Salmonella. I know that there have been a hundred close calls...heck I once personally cooked a pig in a pit roast that was near raw in parts! That's not good! But we know, it takes six hundred close calls before one of them gets serious. So you pay attention to the close calls!

The SCA may well survive this lawsuit. If it does, it will become a much more chastened and somber organization. It will have lost a lot of its innocence and playfulness. The days when a drunken eighteen year old in a bunny fur bikini with teeth chattering, would have a cloak lent to her by an armed man, and be escorted back to her encampment in the expectation (and realization!) of perfect safety. Already by the turn of the century, there were the noise curfews at Pensic, the demands that fly screens surround the funnel cake makers, the creation of a "gasp" food court with Mundane food inspectors...gone are the days when you can dreamily request something from the local witch to quell the period pains, or swim naked in a swimming hole with hundreds of people of all ages and psychiatric conditions or leave your kids with "the group" while you don armour and go off to have fun.

And good riddance.

What will they keep? What will the new SCA look like?
Well, I hope they keep the honour, chivalry and courtesty. Perhaps become a little less inclusive. A little more thoughtful. A little less dependant upon university students and their highly political and emotional natures. But I fear not. What will happen is that the walls will be put up against the wrong people...the regulatory authorities and the police. The shrill lady in the back shouting "won't anybody think of the children" will prompt more and more bureaucracy, more and more bylaws and rules and curfews and lawsuits. The SCA risks becoming as marginalized as the "travelers" in the UK. Or maybe it won't. Either way, it is something to watch!

I think I might like the "new SCA".