Monday morning links

Let's have a contest: Name the more outlandish and irresponsible statement.

The Preposterous Nonsense Known as Homoeopathy

The Remarkable Success of Western Medicine Preventing Cancer, Heart Disease, and Diabetes

I get such a kick out of establishmentarians, watching their biases and narrowly-worded and misinformed Internet potboilers completely upend their chronic false appeals to science.

#1 Ten on 2016-01-25 08:38 (Reply)

It's Easy To Prove Your Hypothesis If You Just Pretend That The Adverse Evidence Does Not Exist

No kidding.

#1.1 Ten on 2016-01-25 08:40 (Reply)

I assume thats a joke.

#1.2 Dale on 2016-01-25 12:46 (Reply)

It's darkly humorous that these pieces appeal to folks who want to buttress their biases: Health food is for leftist hippies, holistic practitioners are ignorant third-worlders, vegans need to loudly convert innocent dead animal-eaters, and medicine is perfected in the deeply established industry that's part regime and part rampant profiteer, insofar that that same DC is somehow conducting a simultaneous culture war to pry all of your venison from your cold, dead hands and replace it with brown rice.

Not only is each of these unquestioned biases untrue, their reverse is truer, especially where the ostensible right has reverted to loudly protesting these cartoons of Sanders followers and Bloomberg soda pop acolytes in some final chapter of abandoning each of its former classically liberal principles. Which it is.

Protesting, "conservative" meat-eating is simple lifestyle zealotry. Virtue signalling. Food faddistry. And it's beneath you.

Funny? Perhaps.

#1.2.1 Ten on 2016-01-25 13:22 (Reply)

Awesome site, I'm just getting started working on my website and I hope it looks as cool as yours once I'm finished

#1.2.2 Dia Parsley (Link) on 2016-01-27 05:21 (Reply)

Apples and oranges, treatment versus prevention. Sly.

Some cancer has been prevented by Western medicine. "Hey, don't smoke." "Okay." And lots of it has been treated by western medicine as well. To suggest otherwise is to put vulnerable people at risk of, er, death, to take just one example, by discouraging them from getting the best treatment.

It's one of those stunning mathematical tricks: when life expectancy increases, we see more examples of diseases common in old age.

In contrast, no one has been healed by homeopathy. Plenty of anecdotes, but no data that will sit still and get measured.

#1.3 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2016-01-25 12:52 (Reply)

As with the commenters at that tossed-off piece, the fallacies (and the intolerant anger at being challenged) come from the establishmentarians bent on maintaining a lifestyle status quo. The contrary research comes from those who've seen through Western medicine's almost wholly remedial treatment philosophy.

To any functioning mind prevention absolutely is part of health, but it's just ruled arbitrarily quackery by that establishment - contrary to copious evidence - w/o their immersion into the associated, extant science. Remarkable that such a fallacious presumption then invokes apples and oranges...

"It's Easy To Prove Your Hypothesis If You Just Pretend That
The Adverse Evidence Does Not Exist"

#1.3.1 Ten on 2016-01-25 13:03 (Reply)

So you assume that I and others have not truly looked into this, but have been dismissive of possible treatments just because we are dismissive of you? And that we are protecting some sort of pot o' gold, unlike the charlatans who make more than the salaries of any researchers?

The more likely explanation is that many of us have indeed considered the alternatives, have friends and relatives who believe in useless "naturaL" treatments and keep touting them to us, have read Prevention magazine and Holistic/herbal/whatever claims, and have found them inflated and unreliable.

Start here: http://quackwatch.org/

#1.3.1.1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2016-01-25 14:56 (Reply)

Come on. I can deluge the site with scientific evidence pro-alternative health and diet findings and you can deluge it with the opposite. It's why I stopped bothering and instead limit my remarks to the evident fact that, citing science, the establishmentarian view on health and diet is, as the other article says, that It's Easy To Prove Your Hypothesis If You Just Pretend That The Adverse Evidence Does Not Exist. Anecdotes and these various pro-establishment potboilers are all the rage, interestingly among the tribe that most considers itself antiestablishmentarian...

This doesn't mean there aren't hucksters, but it doesn't mean a dozen things, none of which close the door on the reality one would trust we were all seeking, instead of dismissing the sciences of health and diet as being inherently unscientific. Science never sleeps, except when it's being used to promote a narrow agenda. There are countless examples of an accepted science being overturned as new findings proved it wrong. For some odd reason that just mayn't apply here, where We All Know we know all we need to.

#1.3.1.1.1 Ten on 2016-01-25 15:18 (Reply)

The reason people are dying of heart disease, complications of diabetes, and cancer is that they are no longer dying of bacterial infections, waterborne diseases, or hemorrhage subsequent to childbirth. Western Medicine has done pretty well by those three.

The problem with homeopathy is not just that it does not work, but there is no observable scientific mechanism by which it could work.

#1.4 Another guy named Dan on 2016-01-25 14:09 (Reply)

Um, placebo effect?

#1.4.1 Roy Lofquist on 2016-01-25 14:15 (Reply)

Except for in the instance of the purely political and very, very narrow distillation of homeopathy, your closing claim couldn't be more specious. Extrapolating it, there is no observable scientific mechanism by which anything unrelated to modern western medicine could affect health.

And that seems reasonable?

You may want to define your terms. If Dalrymple is raging against the 1850s snake oil peddler in Tombstone - the Homeopath - then all you rock-ribbed conservatives jumping on board that article really have lost the tune.

Maybe get a real issue.

#1.4.2 Ten on 2016-01-25 14:51 (Reply)

In short, yes.

I limit myself only to the laws of physics and chemistry, And their subsequent effects on molecular kinetics.

I allow for things like herbal remedies, which can often be demonstrated to contain genuine active compounds, that result in things like repeatable dose effects. There may well be certain kinds of mind-body techniques that change neurotransmitter processing in ways beneficial to healing.

But I'm talking about the kind of explanations that have a lot of words like "inhibitor" and "transcription" and "selective uptake channel" and lots of funny words that end in "-ase".

But when you try to say that a preparation can be effective even if it has a less than 50% probability of containing a single molecule of the proposed active ingredient, and has a strongly negative logarithmic dose effect, or relies on a fine structure effect of water molecules, or throw out the word "quantum" to explain everything you don't understand, then we're going to have a problem.

#1.4.2.1 Another guy named Dan on 2016-01-25 15:41 (Reply)

In other words, so narrowly defined that the whole non-issue is a non-issue, vended to nodding ostensible conservatives from one ostensibly conservative website to another, the purpose of which, in effect, is to invoke SCIENCE! as a way to badger the apparitions same erect in lieu of anything real to talk about reforming.

You know, apparitions like hippies and fruitbars and Portlanders and the others that power that constant brigade of Marxist loons and must be defeated with good old fashioned Robitussen and Arbies and the biggest lobby on earth, pharma, just like God and Washington intended.

Only that's what we call rhetorical defeat, and the associated codependency is what I've been highlighting when these low-IQ pieces appear like clockwork in an era of lost opportunity and a reduction to simple, latter-day political posturing as things go belly-up.

It's just lifestyling by another type than progressive, a kind of empty virtue-signalling.

#1.4.2.1.1 Ten on 2016-01-25 16:28 (Reply)

So enlighten me.

What is this alternative methodology that can replace scientific inquiry to produce measureable and repeatable success, even by your definitions.

Exactly how do you achieve this magical "prevention" in ways that do not involve varying the chemicals that go into one's body? Find me the minutes of the meetings where all of the "Big Pharma" people get together to discuss how to keep people sick enough that they will still need medicine but well enough that they will be able to pay for it?

Trust me, achieve either of these, and you'll make more on the lecture circuit than any of the scientists you're bashing.

#1.4.2.1.1.1 Another guy named Dan on 2016-01-25 17:12 (Reply)

You're not following along. Promoting a closed, the-science-is-settled presumption - against which there is copious evidence, provided you don't mash your definitions about what's acceptable into that odd apples-to-oranges construct about semantics Assistant Village Idiot built - isn't my job to refute.

By the same token, I would only challenge an AGW zealot to prove AGW is the absolute end state of scientific finding and knowledge about climate. I know it's not, and I know the hows and whys, but I also know data isn't what he's interested in.

Like I said, if that settled science fallacy is dangled out there, what incentive does anyone have to debunk it?

Oh, I get that you feel you represent all of SCIENCE! and that all deference be paid to that position guarding the gates, but that's the problem: You default to a prove-me-wrong status quo when no amount of conflicting evidence is ever going to change that particular standard of debate and finding. The AGW non-debate debate proves it.

When you define the playing field, you define the goal posts, and when you define them, the end result is either endless bickering or what I've reverted to, the simple realization that because of bias, there's never going to be an open discussion.

The presumptive bias and the trash journalism peddled to it are a program, not an open question. Your science is as settled as AGW is, and in both cases, it's wrong.

There's libraries of data on alternative medicine and on diet as cure. You'll find what you want to find.

#1.4.2.1.1.1.1 Ten on 2016-01-25 18:03 (Reply)

Incidentally, Dan, like Mike below, note how many obvious fallacies you have to trot out:

What is this alternative methodology that can replace scientific inquiry to produce measureable and repeatable success, even by your definitions.

Replace scientific inquiry? Be specific. I said there is a wealth of scientific data, which there is. Ask yourself if such a rhetorical device as you've just used is a position of confidence in the findings, or just a rhetorical ploy?

Exactly how do you achieve this magical "prevention" in ways that do not involve varying the chemicals that go into one's body?

Magical? Don't involve altering intake? Now you're a perfect 180 degrees out of phase with anything I claimed, not to mention the greater reality of the subject. Is that your position, Dan?

Find me the minutes of the meetings where all of the "Big Pharma" people get together to discuss how to keep people sick enough that they will still need medicine but well enough that they will be able to pay for it?

Now you're just dabbling in hysterical blame-casting of the kind, you'll note, that powers the rest of arguments like yours. I'm no more saying pharma constructs criminal environments than you would that government does. Or are you capable of saying that government - or any cabal or interest - is capable of corruption? Remember, you just lobbed a hypothetical that you hope will be rejected on face. Should it be?

Trust me, achieve either of these, and you'll make more on the lecture circuit than any of the scientists you're bashing.

That's cute, but there are hundreds or thousands of professionals that cut directly against the grain of what seems to be your status quo, enough that I don't think you have to resort to your own ignorance of them to attempt a point.

As for "bashing", hardly. Specialists naturally exist to specialize and notwithstanding, at times entire fields of them simply face new trajectories. I don't doubt findings (like you do, out of hand) I doubt time and scope.

Your argument works only when you have the means to narrow its definition and semantics, and more, apparently too the other guy's words, intent, and focus. Typical for the cause, not for the sciences at large.

#1.4.2.1.1.1.2 Ten on 2016-01-25 18:22 (Reply)

You're comparing apples to oranges. That's no surprise given your obvious bias.

The homeopathy article was about the ability (or lack thereof) of homeopathy to CURE disease. That's totally different than Western medicine TREATING disease.

To be certain, western medicine has done a great job in TREATING cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

You have stated that you look for truth outside of science. Please tell us how you seek truth. Do you take the Progressive approach and just believe whatever makes you feel good?

And while you're at it, please let us know (a) what you would do if broke your leg or had a heart attack, (b) do you have health insurance that covers "western medicine" and if so, why?

#1.5 Mike M on 2016-01-25 16:39 (Reply)

QUOTE:

SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST.

The headline is Instapundit's. The actual article says that snow is predicted for "Tuesday".

#2 Zachriel on 2016-01-25 08:52 (Reply)

Instapundit took the headline from a 2000 article in London's Independent, which has erased the article from its website. [Fortunately, Watts Up With That preserved the article before the Independent erased it.]

Transparency from the AGW crowd. No,we didn't make that lame prediction- it's been erased from the website. Just like those apparatchiks who, after being purged from Stalin's inner circle, were airbrushed out of photos.

#2.1 Gringo on 2016-01-25 12:10 (Reply)

QUOTE:

It's Easy To Prove Your Hypothesis If You Just Pretend That The Adverse Evidence Does Not Exist

The link between saturated fats and heart disease is well-supported. See Li et al., Saturated Fats Compared With Unsaturated Fats and Sources of Carbohydrates in Relation to Risk of Coronary Heart Disease, Journal of the American College of Cardiology 2015.

Li et al. not only confirms many earlier studies showing the link between saturated fats and heart disease, but also explains why some studies failed to find the link. If you cut saturated fats, but substitute calories from other detrimental sources, then there is no benefit. However, if you substitute unsaturated fats and whole grains as new calorie sources, then you do receive the benefit.

QUOTE:

Of course, everybody who follows this knows that there are three independent data sources that attempt to track GAST -- one based on a ground-based thermometer network that is the source of the NOAA series (with the same or substantially-overlapping networks of ground-based thermometers also used by other agencies like NASA and the UK's CRU); a second based on satellites, with the data processed independently by two entities known as UAH and RSS; and a third based on radiosondes (balloons).

Balloons and satellites don't directly measure ground temperatures. Nonetheless, they all show the same general warming trend.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/LT-UAH-versus-RSS.gif

QUOTE:

Everybody who follows this also knows that the ground-based thermometer records have been greatly "adjusted" by the people who publish them,

As are satellite measurements, as are balloon radiosonde measurements.

QUOTE:

and that all or nearly all of the increase in temperatures in recent years is in the adjustments and not present in the raw data.

Many independent statistical studies of the data confirm the warming trend.

#3 Zachriel on 2016-01-25 09:11 (Reply)

QUOTE:

Oscar-Winning Producer Denounces "Spoiled Brats" Crying "Racism"

Gerald Molen: "I got mine! Now get yours."

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/snl-ruthlessly-mocks-all-white-hollywood-award-ceremonies-with-brutal-take-down/
-

#4 Zachriel on 2016-01-25 09:14 (Reply)

QUOTE:

It's a pretty sad day when Joy Reid of MSNBC makes more sense to me than National Review... I felt it was my duty to sell these shit sandwiches to readers for the Greater Good of winning elections.

Ace of Spades says he's tired of selling you shit sandwiches.

#5 Zachriel on 2016-01-25 09:20 (Reply)

QUOTE:

Hillary: Big Banks Paid Me 2.9 Million In Speaking Fees Since 2013 Because They Wanted To Hear About My Role In Bin Laden Raid

Nice work — if you can get it.

#6 Zachriel on 2016-01-25 09:21 (Reply)

She certainly wasn't going to claim that they wanted to hear about Benghazi!

#6.1 mudbug on 2016-01-25 12:12 (Reply)

And BOY, does she get it!

#6.2 Sam L. on 2016-01-25 15:05 (Reply)

Re: Iran's leader says never trusted the West, seeks closer ties with China

Our Fearless Leader initiated talks with Iran that ensured they would get their $150B back (money that was being held because they invaded our embassy - actually an act of war) in return for some loose controls on their nuke program. The They didn't have to show any remorse, of act of good faith for that. In fact, the Iranian Foreign Minister would yell at our Secretary of State during the "negotiations".

To show good faith and appreciation, the Iranians have violated UN sanctions as well as terms of the agreement (not a treaty) before it has even begun to be implemented. They decided to buy jets from Airbus (not Boeing, in spite of our spearheading this deal), say we can't be trusted and cozy up to the Chinese, we expect some of the $150B to be spent on continued terror activities.

What a great deal!

#7 mudbug on 2016-01-25 09:55 (Reply)

Homeopathy is by definition pure superstition and quackery. But most people confuse or conflate homeopathy to include 'natural' medicine which is a whole different kind of superstition and quackery. Most alternative medicine is simply the human belief in magic and miracles. All living thing die, many die early from diseases we can't totally fix or prevent. It isn't surprising that we will grasp at straws when we face mortality.

#8 GoneWithTheWind on 2016-01-25 10:13 (Reply)

Anybody can play Windy's game. To wit: Windy's opinions are by definition pure superstition and quackery. What else could you reasonably call dismissing maybe a billion findings because they don't align with one case of advanced mental calcification?

#9 Ten on 2016-01-25 10:22 (Reply)

"Why the Koch brothers drive liberals nuts"

Well, they don't drive liberals nuts, they drive Liberals (Leftists, Progressives) nuts. The Koch brothers actually support classical liberalism in their donations and foundations.

But mostly the Koch brother drive Leftists nuts because the Leftists are caste oriented, based on wealth, especially the NYC Progressives. And the richest person in NY state is David Koch.

By their own hierarchy, David Koch should be king of NYC society. That they cannot abide.

#10 JK Brown on 2016-01-25 11:29 (Reply)

Well, Al Gore and Bobby Kennedy Jr. BOTH told us that. Would they lie to us?

I do kinda think so.

#11 Sam L. on 2016-01-25 15:04 (Reply)

Before you think Germans have given up and rolled over, we haven't. The next movement is just starting. Just like cars and beer, there are still some things Germans are very good at. ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPXI6tA31yI&feature=player_embedded

.

#12 Karl Horst (Germany) on 2016-01-25 15:29 (Reply)

Some really good comments! I hope this catches (more) fire on both sides of the pond! We're praying for you!

#12.1 mudbug on 2016-01-25 17:00 (Reply)

@ Mudbug - Thank you, your prayers are appreciated.

Just so you know, it's not just the Germans, conservative Europeans have been discussing this problem for quite some time. If you have the time, here are two very good speeches by Ewald Stadler (Austria) in 2012 and Richard Jomshof (Sweden) in 2013. They are in the speakers native language with English subtitles.

This isn't just an American or European problem, this is a problem for the whole world. Until we bring the truth of the Muslim hatred of all things Christian, secular and western to an honest and open debate, we don't stand a chance especially if liberal leftist are allowed to remain in charge of policy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThQ61K04Sbo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMeYWfcUvUw

#13 Karl Horst (Germany) on 2016-01-25 17:27 (Reply)

One more that is very good and worth the watch; Geert Wilders speech in Malmo, Sweden.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zSmSdxRUtE

#13.1 Karl Horst (Germany) on 2016-01-25 17:35 (Reply)

Agreed. It is a problem for the whole world.

I enjoy your posts, Karl. I have a suggestion: if you are replying to a post, use the "(Reply)" link so it's easier to catch the flow of the conversation.

#13.2 mudbug on 2016-01-25 23:22 (Reply)

RE OSCARS

The response we are seeing from the Negro actors is exactly what one would expect from any group who has been a recipient of affirmative action or quota based jobs. The Progressives - which includes the bulk of Hollywood - believed that acting roles needed to be given preferentially to blacks in order to make the Progressives/Hollywood elite "feel good."

To be clear, there are many talented and excellent black actors in Hollywood. However, there are for too many black actors who have obtained roles simply to fill the Progressive's quotas. What's worse, because the Progressives have awarded them these roles, many of them actually think they can act.

Many of them are mere "entertainers" much like the silly organ grinder's monkey. Their juvenile mannerisms and retarded language are, for a short while, amusing, but so is the monkey. But entertainment is not the same as acting. The Romans were entertained by lions eating Christians, but no rational person would consider that acting much less good acting.

We have a significant number of lousy black actors who have been awarded roles that they (a) don't deserve based on their acting abilities, and (b) should thank their lucky stars for. But because they were given these roles that they don't deserve through merit, it's no surprise that they want acting awards that they similarly don't deserve.

From a probabilistic standpoint, it should be expected that there will be years that black actors are underrepresented (including zero) as well as years where they are overrepresented (with the implication that white actors are underrepresented). Indeed, it would be highly unusual if every year black actors were nominated in proportion to their numbers vs white actors - but the Progressives with their "feel good" quotas can't understand this. If the numbers are skewed towards the white actors one year, the black guilt of the Progressives overwhelms any rational thought.

PS Will Smith - You're not that good of an actor. You're one of the entertaining organ grinder's monkey's I was referring to - talk and act like a silly dope.

#14 Mike M on 2016-01-25 17:35 (Reply)

Mike M: Many of them {Negro actors} are mere "entertainers" much like the silly organ grinder's monkey.

Really Mike? You had to go there?

#14.1 Zachriel on 2016-01-25 18:29 (Reply)

Yeah, it's called an analogy, asshat. If I'm not politically correct enough for you, too bad. As for the silly organ grinder's monkey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq9ecOPbD1U

I rest my case.

#14.1.1 Mike M on 2016-01-25 19:48 (Reply)

There is really only one correct 'fix' to this problem. From now on 13% of all nominations must be black, 15% Hispanic, 65% white etc. And all of the winners must be in the same percentages. Just do it, across the board, all public and private companies, organizations, jobs, everything. Also 51% women and 49% men, everything, no exceptions. It will screw up basketball and football but I for one am looking forward to half the team being women and 65% being white. Surely someone will say but the black athletes got where they were based on their abilities... Yeah! So what! That was the same racist argument the white actors and directors tried. Suck it up, diversity uber alles, skill and ability don't mean shit, right!

#14.2 GoneWithTheWind on 2016-01-25 20:52 (Reply)

and at least one of the quarterbacks MUST be blind - heck, even the refs have adopted that policy.

#14.2.1 Mike M on 2016-01-25 22:46 (Reply)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq9ecOPbD1U

#15 Mike M on 2016-01-25 19:50 (Reply)

Re:
A book: Is He Worth It?: How to Spot the Hidden Traits of Good Men

I think most American women are brainwashed into thinking such men don't exist. Certainly they are not interested in them.

#16 Jim on 2016-01-26 18:02 (Reply)

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Monday, January 25. 2016

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