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The Lab Leak Theory Is Finally Getting Scrutiny It Would've Gotten If Scientists Had Been Less Political In 2020

The Lab Leak Theory Is Finally Getting Scrutiny It Would've Gotten If Scientists Had Been Less Political In 2020

Feb 28 2023 | comment(s)

Now that the Biden Department of Energy and his FBI have stated a lab leak in Wuhan is a plausible SARS-CoV-2 scenario, you hear a lot less about such claims being racist and xenophobic.

In 2020, though, such smears were common. I was not the only one to note that researchers had previously been convicted of selling lab animals to the Wuhan wet market and that China had taken down its coronavirus database and scrubbed the Wuhan wet market clean for nine months before letting a Beijing-picked team of UN investigators visit. For just four hours of pre-approved questions under the supervision of Chinese officials.
France Is Exploiting US Waffling On Energy Science

France Is Exploiting US Waffling On Energy Science

Feb 27 2023 | comment(s)

Activists who live in a bubble where solar is 'ready' and electric cars save the planet spend a lot of time waffling when it comes to reality; pipelines are bad except when railroads are in the news, but one thing US anti-science activists don't flip on is nuclear energy.

They hate it, and have since the 1960s. In 1994, American Woomeister-in-Chief President Bill Clinton and Senator John Kerry (now President's Biden's Special Presidential Envoy for Climate)(1) officially got nuclear science run out of the US, long a goal of Democrats, during which time a series of suspect alternatives have been touted, from hydothermal to natural gas to ethanol to solar. 
Standards Of Identity: FDA Says Plant Juice Can Call Itself Milk - But Must Note Nutrition Differences

Standards Of Identity: FDA Says Plant Juice Can Call Itself Milk - But Must Note Nutrition Differences

Feb 23 2023 | comment(s)

Once upon a time, American standards of identity were so strict that a sliced cheese company was forbidden from noting how much milk when into its cheese lest consumers believe that is how much calcium it had.

Were American consumers that stupid in the 1990s? If so, FDA no longer believes it, nor do they believe that consumers will be fooled by anything, because products made from juice squeezin's can be called "milk." The public knows it is not really milk, FDA says. Alternative milk companies don't like it anyway.
Mamavation: Sponsored Reviews Of Organic Food And 'Green' Products Target New Mothers

Mamavation: Sponsored Reviews Of Organic Food And 'Green' Products Target New Mothers

Feb 21 2023 | comment(s)

Bookieboo LLC claims to be the largest wellness consulting firm targeting moms on social media in the world. There is no basis provided for that claim,  and when you see the kind of anti-science conspiracy gibberish they promote, you have to wonder if anything they say is true.

Their beliefs about science sure aren't. When you see posts like that a dishwashing detergent can affect your microbiome, you know the target demographic is not just the anti-science left, but the anti-science left that is also wealthy and female.
Environmental Working Group Says Dirty Dozen Delayed Until Toxic Organic Pesticides Are Left Out Again

Environmental Working Group Says Dirty Dozen Delayed Until Toxic Organic Pesticides Are Left Out Again

Feb 21 2023 | comment(s)

The Environmental Working Group wants to insure allied journalists like Sheila Kaplan that their new "dirty dozen" list is almost ready to be copied and pasted into articles promoting the organic industry.

They just need actual scientists to compile everything for them. That's right, EWG employees do no real work at all, they are instead beholden to government scientists they intend to smear and insist are secretly controlled by the companies that compete with the companies who give Environmental Working Group up to $10 million per year. 
Environmentalists Are Spreading Disinformation About The East Palestine Train Accident And No One Is Surprised

Environmentalists Are Spreading Disinformation About The East Palestine Train Accident And No One Is Surprised

Feb 17 2023 | comment(s)

Ask an environmentalist and there is not only a conspiracy to hide 'the truth' about the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, but there is a convergence of accidents designed to draw attention away from something more sinister.

Among the false claims making the rounds by activists are that animals are dying hundreds of miles away and residents have been locked out of their homes. Neither is true. Some fish may have died but the Ohio river was shown to have safe levels of butyl acrylate and no vinyl chloride. There were no toxic chemicals detected in any homes. People were told to evacuate as a precaution but all were back home by February 8th. Over 500 refused to leave their homes and were fine.
With WHO Now Balking At Only Sending In Investigators Chosen By China, COVID-19 May Never Be Solved

With WHO Now Balking At Only Sending In Investigators Chosen By China, COVID-19 May Never Be Solved

Feb 15 2023 | comment(s)

The World Health Organisation has admitted they will never get answers to how COVID-19 happened, because China won't let them. How much of that was pre-planned with WHO remains a mystery, since WHO is the United Nations body that said there was no pandemic long after there was, and then only agreed to let a group chosen by China into Wuhan nine months after the Wuhan wet market was scrubbed clean - for four hours of pre-planned questions. It is entirely possible that they are subtly blaming China as part of a deal because both know China, like Russia, does not care about criticism.
East Palestine Derailment: No Vinyl Chloride Or Hydrogen Chloride Detected In Homes

East Palestine Derailment: No Vinyl Chloride Or Hydrogen Chloride Detected In Homes

Feb 14 2023 | comment(s)

A train accident in Ohio, and the controlled release of chemicals that can be toxic at high levels, will have the Biden administration asking his appointees how they can make things safer for people. The answer is something his administration and the Obama administration when he was Vice-President opposed; pipelines.

The United States has the most stringent environmental protections in the world and a pipeline is the safest of the safe. Railcars, ships, nothing compares to the safety, and therefore nominal environmental risk that pipelines afford. Yet time and again politics has pushed science to the back.(1)
Where To Live If You Want To Relax: Wyoming And...Washington DC?

Where To Live If You Want To Relax: Wyoming And...Washington DC?

Feb 13 2023 | comment(s)

When you think of relaxing, you probably don't think of Washington, DC. Contrary to beliefs by many in the 50 states, Washington, DC employees, overwhelmingly political staffers, are very nice. They hate each other as part of the job, like Sam and Ralph in "Don't Give Up the Sheep", by Chuck Jones for Warner Bros.(1) They then clock out and are lovely, usually to each other but almost always to everyone else.

And they work hard, usually for little money. While career government jobs tend to pay better than the private sector, for Congressional staffers it is somewhere between earning nothing and having a poverty lifestyle in one of America's most wealthy places.
Code Broken: 56 Ciphered Letters In France Found To Be From Mary Stuart, Competitor to Queen Elizabeth

Code Broken: 56 Ciphered Letters In France Found To Be From Mary Stuart, Competitor to Queen Elizabeth

Feb 13 2023 | comment(s)

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland and dowager Queen of France, returned to Scotland in 1561 a foreigner in the land she ruled. She married again and gave birth to a son, the future James VI, before being implicated in her husband's murder and deposed.

It only got worse after that. She escaped her imprisonment a year later and fled to England seeking help from Queen Elizabeth, but since Mary was the daughter of Henry VIII's sister, she had a claim to the throne of England also. And since Henry VIII had created a competitor to the Catholic church in order to run off with all the women he wanted (he was the head of the Anglican church and could annul anything he liked) Elizabeth was disliked by Catholics.
COVID-19 Didn't Create The Partisan Divide In Medicine, People Only Noticed When It Wasn't On Their Team

COVID-19 Didn't Create The Partisan Divide In Medicine, People Only Noticed When It Wasn't On Their Team

Feb 11 2023 | comment(s)

For decades, the anti-vaccine movement was squarely on the left. Anti-vaccine, anti-cell-phone, anti-everything lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was even on the short list for a cabinet position in the Obama administration before we got Democrats who cared about science and reason to join us in pushing back on that, leaving only over-representation of UFO believers and a guy who thought girls can't do math as part of the concern.
Tom Girardi, The Lawyer Behind The 'Erin Brockovich' Settlement, Gets Two New Criminal Charges

Tom Girardi, The Lawyer Behind The 'Erin Brockovich' Settlement, Gets Two New Criminal Charges

Feb 03 2023 | comment(s)

Tom Girardi, the lawyer whose big claim to fame was a game of chicken with Pacific Gas&Electric over a chemical detected in the water of a small town in the Mojave, was long suspected of being ethically challenged, but as long as he was sticking it to corporations it wasn't a concern for journalists.
The Good News For The Wine Industry Is Older Consumers Are Immune To Recession, The Bad News Is...

The Good News For The Wine Industry Is Older Consumers Are Immune To Recession, The Bad News Is...

Feb 03 2023 | comment(s)

The wine industry has been on a tear for two decades. Where once Napa wines were so second-rate they had to pay Orson Welles to try and gain credibility, the California landscape is now dotted with vineyards.

That may be coming to an end due to demographics; the same people drinking wine then are drinking it now, but they are 20 years older. The recession has not impacted the Boomer crowd much yet, older people who drink wine have IRAs, but the median age for them is now 66, and younger people are not taking it up as much. Costs are showing no signs of slowing down and everyone thinks wages should be higher - until their indulgences get more expensive.

FDA Responds To Criticism After Creating The Infant Formula Shortage By Invoking Global Warming

FDA Responds To Criticism After Creating The Infant Formula Shortage By Invoking Global Warming

Feb 03 2023 | comment(s)

The Biden administration has made a number of political and economic missteps - e.g. an Inflation Reduction Act that has nothing to do with inflation and won't reduce it - but its science and health gaffes get less press.

When Scott Gottlieb, MD, was in charge, FDA was on the road to becoming more nimble, but it took the COVID-19 pandemic, and watching other agencies like the CDC run in circles and demonstrate true incompetence, for FDA to really understand they are not protecting anyone by being bureaucratic roadblocks. No one is safer if a company needs 18 months and a room full of lawyers just to get permission to change the color of a font on a drug label, but that was what FDA had become.
Colorado Be Dammed: California Refuses Plan To Cut Its River Water Usage

Colorado Be Dammed: California Refuses Plan To Cut Its River Water Usage

Jan 31 2023 | comment(s)

One thing Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming share in common is getting water from the Colorado River - and being frustrated that California, which takes the most, refuses to join their plan to cut water consumption before it's too late.
Politicization of Science? Pebble Mine Veto May Get Blocked In Court, But What About The Science?

Politicization of Science? Pebble Mine Veto May Get Blocked In Court, But What About The Science?

Jan 31 2023 | comment(s)

The Biden administration has not been shy about reorganizing science and health until it does what they want, and a new move to block a mine in Alaska will probably not pass legal challenges, but is he right on the science this time?(1)

First, it is important to know politicians are rarely correct. There is no 'party of science' and no 'scientist in chief'. that is just an intellectual halo elected officials wrap their constituents in to feel good. Name a president you think is pro-science and I can tell you how they were the opposite.
Democrats Gutted Nuclear Energy In The US And The World Has Suffered

Democrats Gutted Nuclear Energy In The US And The World Has Suffered

Jan 28 2023 | comment(s)

Starting in 1970s America, Democrats began to wage total war on nuclear energy. The risks were exaggerated but emotion sells, especially when it was promoted by their allies in media.

In 1994, they got their wish. Senator John Kerry and Bill Clinton congratulated each other on finally strangling U.S. nuclear science, and therefore nuclear energy, into a coma.

What happened next is well-known. The war on nuclear had meant an increase in coal. Environmentalists who hated nuclear more than coal had touted biofuels and natural gas. Then natural gas took off and they hated that. Then they hated the biofuels they had lobbied to turn into law.
MSG Got A Bad Rep Due To Bad Epidemiology - And Similar Shoddy Work Happens Every Month

MSG Got A Bad Rep Due To Bad Epidemiology - And Similar Shoddy Work Happens Every Month

Jan 26 2023 | comment(s)

Do you think hot tea causes cancer? A common weedkiller? Do you think red wine is good for you?

If so, you have been duped by scientific-sounding epidemiology that has long been finding a correlation between a product and an effect and then "suggesting" causation in press releases. And far too often is set off by anecdotes, as happened with monosodium glutamate - MSG.

If you decided you should take horse dewormer for COVID-19, that was epidemiology. If you decided flipping a mask up and down between bites of food prevented anyone from getting COVID-19, that was also epidemiology. Both are as wrong as low-fat milk, which was also epidemiology.
Food Tank: Everything You Need To Know About The Organic Industry's Darling In One Partisan Graphic

Food Tank: Everything You Need To Know About The Organic Industry's Darling In One Partisan Graphic

Jan 23 2023 | comment(s)

Food Tank, run by organic food industry proponent Danielle Nierenberg, says everything you are supposed to say about being non-partisan, but not only do they exclusively virtue signal to one political party, they basically cater to one demographic; rich white women on the coasts.

And that means being opposed to science - except climate change, because it is a disaster narrative and that means something to complain about, and now COVID-19 vaccines, because Republicans were dumb enough to oppose those so Democrats flipped from being 9X more likely to be anti-vax to quietly being anti-Pharma while pretending they are not confused why they suddenly support non-alternative medicine.
Alternative Meat Is Failing Because They Made Enemies Of Everyone Who Wanted To Be On Their Side

Alternative Meat Is Failing Because They Made Enemies Of Everyone Who Wanted To Be On Their Side

Jan 21 2023 | comment(s)

In engineering, an old joke goes that customers want cheap, accurate, and fast - but can only have two of those.

Business is about compromise. In food, the USDA says all farmers are farmers so they turn a blind eye to the sleazy marketing tactics of the organic segment, like paying trade groups to defame conventional food and scientists who defend agriculture while the companies themselves make advertising catering to the whitest, richest people imaginable.

Yet their customers already hate science, they think everything is a conspiracy by Monsanto, Exxon, or someone named Sackler. It does no harm to promote conspiracy theories and feel-good fallacies among True Believers. Yet it's bad if you want to appeal to normal people.