Tag: policy

Investigation: Top German scientist fabricated data

9:10 am

Fraud in science: A just released investigation has found that one of Germany’s most cited psychologists fabricated data in a government-financed study.

Hans-Ulrich Wittchen, one of Germany’s top psychologists and an expert in treating anxiety and phobias, is not shy about promoting himself. His email signature says he is a “highly cited researcher,” and with good reason. He has almost 1000 articles to his name, according to the Web of Science, and has racked up nearly 70,000 citations. He is an editor of Germany’s diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders—the bible of clinical psychology—and until 2017, he led a psychology research institute at the Dresden University of Technology (TU Dresden).

Yet his reputation is under fire after an investigation into one of his studies found evidence of manipulation—and elaborate efforts to cover up the misdeed. The investigation report, turned over to TU Dresden in February and obtained by Science, also shows Wittchen intimidated whistleblowers and pressured senior TU Dresden staff. The Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), a public health organization, is suing the company it paid to do the study. And the Dresden public prosecutor’s office is now investigating criminal charges related to the study.

Apparently the study only surveyed about 75% clinics on its list, and then simply copied data to complete the survey for the other clinics. Then Wittchen made veiled threats to investigators, manipulated documents to hide what had been done, and even tried to get two whistle-blowers fired, accusing them of doing the misdeeds.

This report illustrates a reality that few are willing to recognize. The science field is rife with corruption in the areas where government funds and government-employed scientists converge. The dishonest scientists are likely a very tiny minority, but they are often the ones who have pushed their way up to the most powerful posts, not by doing science but by playing the politics required to gain power. The result is that the science coming from the government institutions they run is now frequently suspect.

We have seen this in the past year in the world’s health agencies worldwide. Their leaders have repeatedly made statements concerning COVID-19 that simply have no backing in research, have no consistency, are repeatedly contradictory, and seem based on politics rather than data. This same problem has also exhibited itself for decades in the climate field, as well as many other sociological and medical fields.

The only long term solution that will really work would be to separate government from science, a goal that is likely unrealistic. At a minimum at least we should be trying to shift the government research money so that it goes to independent private companies on a case-by-case basis, rather than permanent government agencies that are run by the government.

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Europe and China discussing future space cooperation

8:49 am

The new colonial movement: The heads of the space agencies of both Europe and China held a virtual face-to-face discussion on April 1st, discussing their space operations as well as the possibility of future cooperation.

Zhang Kejian, administrator of the CNSA, and new ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, who entered the post March 1, discussed a range of topics according to a short CNSA press release (Chinese). The parties outlined upcoming activities, with China recently approving a 14th Five-year plan for 2021-2025, and discussed lunar and deep space exploration, Earth observation, and cooperation in ground station.

Josef Aschbacher tweeted after the meeting that he had congratulated Zhang on the Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission, which in December 2020 delivered to Earth 1.73 kilograms of lunar samples from Oceanus Procellarum on the moon’s near side.

…Karl Bergquist, ESA’s international relations administrator, told SpaceNews that ESA and CNSA went over ongoing activities including telemetry, tracking, and control support activities for the Chinese exploration program.

Apparently Zhang raised the issue of Europe contributing to China’s proposed lunar base. Aschbacher made no commitments, though he later stated that while there is “no ESA stance on this topic”, he anticipates future discussions on the topic.

Some of this is similar to the recent discussions between NASA and China, focused on exchanging telemetry of various orbiters to avoid the possibility of collisions or interference with their operation. I would not be surprised however if Europe expands this conversation and joins China in its space plans. The U.S. is shifting from a government-run space program — which both China and Europe favor — to a commercial model mostly run by private enterprise. Under that model there will be less opportunity for European participation in American space projects.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Anyone under 50 in Vermont who is not a minority

12:20 pm

14th amendment banned
We don’t need no stinkin’ 14th amendment in Vermont!

You want to get a COVID-19 vaccine shot in Vermont? Well, if you are not part of the new BIPOC community (Black, Indigenous, People Of Color) you have to go to the back of the bus.

This according to a decision by Vermont’s state government on April 3rd:

Governor Phill Scott, a Republican who voted for Joe Biden, explains. “If you or anyone in your household identifies as Black, Indigenous, or a person of color (BIPOC), including anyone with Abenaki or other First Nations heritage, all household members who are 16 years or older can sign up to get a vaccine!

Before this announcement the rules had limited vaccinations to all those over 50. The new rules opened up shots to everyone but whites over 16 years or older.
» Read more

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Chang’e-4 and Yutu-2 reactivated for 29th lunar day

8:28 am

Chinese engineers have reactivated their Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 rover, beginning their 29th lunar day on the far side of the Moon.

As is usual from the state-run Chinese press, the article provides little other detail, other than stating that Yutu-2 ” will continue to move northwest toward the basalt distribution area located about 1.2 km away from the rover.” That’s about 3,900 feet. Based on Yutu-2 pace of moving about 100 feet per lunar day, it will be more than three years before it reaches that goal.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Whites at Cornell University

12:55 pm

The Civil Rights Act of 1964: repealed by Cornell
The Civil Rights Act of 1964: repealed by Cornell

Continuing my weeklong series documenting the modern bigotry of our culture, today’s bigot is Cornell University, who recently offered a segregated rock-climbing course that whites were forbidden to attend. From the course’s original description:

This class is for people who identify as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, or other people of color.

Moreover, that original course description made it very clear that the course was limited to such students only.

The original description gave no indication that BIPOC [Black, Indigenous People, Others of Color] students were the “special focus” of the course, instead of the only eligible category for enrollment. While [that original version] said students “will also talk about BIPOC individuals and groups in rock climbing,” that sentence was immediately followed by the restriction to “people who identify as” BIPOC.

Such a class would be illegal under both federal and New York state law.
» Read more

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Russia’s first private space tourism company shuts down

9:54 am

Capitalism in space? Russia’s first private space tourism company has been forced to close before it even launched its first rocket because of the obstacles placed before by Russia’s government.

Kosmokurs’ operations will cease due to “insurmountable difficulties” in coordinating with local authorities on the cosmodrome project as well as the company’s “inability to obtain needed regulatory documents from the Defense Ministry” for the design of a suborbital tourist rocket, its CEO Pavel Pushkin told RIA Novosti.

However, the government-run Roscosmos, which controls the rest of Russia’s aerospace industry, has graciously announced it will hire Kosmokurs’ fifty employees.

Do you see a pattern? I do. Kosmokurs was cutting into Roscosmos’s territory. That could not be tolerated, and so the government moved to sabotage it. Now that it is dead, the government can absorb it to try to build its rocket and make money using it.

This kind of mob rule by the Russian government is why that country’s space industry is failing to compete with the new commercial industry coming out of the U.S. and elsewhere. It does not tolerate free competition, only top-down control by the government. The result is that while Russia might eventually fly its own space tourism rockets, it will have only one, and it will likely not be as efficient or as competitive. The only cost advantage it will likely have is Russia’s low wages.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Coca-Cola’s racist policies that discriminate against whites

12:00 pm

Coca-Cola's bigoted company policy
Examples of the bigoted educational material
being pushed by Coca-Cola

This week is going to be racism week for my daily posts on blacklisting in today’s fascist culture. Each day I will highlight another example of modern racism by companies and governments against innocent people simply because they were born with the wrong skin color. And that skin color will be white, which is now the one kind of racism that the left now honors and demands, from everyone.

Our first bigot this week is the multi-national soda company Coca-Cola. Most of the news this past week or so has been focused on this company’s mindless decision to condemn Georgia’s new election law, based on Democratic Party lies and a refusal to even read the law.

However, let’s take a closer look at Coke’s bigoted policies, which are expressly designed to create a hostile work environment for anyone who happens to be white, solely based not on their performance but their skin color. The image above shows screen captures of just four slides from a Coke-Cola critical race theory training class, provided by a whistle-blower but later confirmed by the company as accurate.
» Read more

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More leaks found in Russian Zvezda module on ISS

10:34 am

Earlier this week Russian astronauts located and patched three more leaks in the 20+ year old Russian Zvezda module on ISS.

Prior to this week’s discovery, the recent patching done by Russian astronauts had reduced the air loss by about half. They need to do another seal test of Zvezda to see if these newer patches have reduced it further.

The report at the link from Russia is as usual very vague. No photos of any of the leaks have been released, by either Russia or NASA. No cause either has been described. This lack of information suggests that the leaks represent a more systemic problem, possibly related to stress fractures from age and wear. If so, it also suggests that Zvezda is nearing its pull-date. How this central module will be replaced from the station remains a major mystery.

Above all, this puts some urgency to the launch of newer modules, such as those being built by the private company Axiom.

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Sunspot update: Higher than predicted activity continues

12:10 am

The uncertainty of science: Time for our monthly update of the Sun’s on-going sunspot cycle. Below is NOAA’s April 1, 2021 monthly graph, showing the Sun’s sunspot activity through the end of March 2021. I have annotated it as always to show the previous solar cycle predictions.

The higher than expected sunspot activity that has been occurring almost from the moment the ramp up to solar maximum began in 2020 continued in March. The numbers weren’t as high as they were in December and January, but they were still higher than the predicted sunspot number.

» Read more

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Russian gov’t okays extension of U.S cooperative space treaty to ’30

9:45 am

The Russian government yesterday officially approved an extension to 2030 of the cooperative space treaty with the United States that was initially signed in 1992.

According to the TASS article at the link, the U.S. government has already approved this extension. The original agreement was for U.S. flights to the Russian space station Mir. It has been renewed four times since to cover the deal to build and use ISS.

This could very well be the last extension of this deal. By 2030 private commercial American stations should be operational, and the age of some of the oldest sections of ISS will likely need replacement. At that point the U.S. will probably decide to retire its half of ISS.

What the Russians will do is uncertain. The government doesn’t have the cash to build its own station. Nor has that government allowed a private commercial space industry to thrive and thus be financially able to build private commercial stations. Russia may separate its part of ISS and attempt to keep it aloft, but some of their modules are the oldest, and have shown signs of that age.

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Today’s blacklisted American: the David Horowitz Freedom Center and its webpage FrontPage

10:45 am

Today's modern witch hunt
Burn witches: What the Southern Poverty Law Center
does to ordinary conservatives.

They’re coming for you next: The conservative David Horowitz Freedom Center and its publication FrontPage Magazine has found itself repeatedly blackballed by various major companies, simply because the center stands for freedom and the principles of western civilization.

In just the past couple of years, MasterCard temporally shut us down, one of our local banks closed our account due to our “controversial positions on issues,” and a brokerage firm closed our account for “unknown reasons.” Amazon will not allow the Freedom Center, a 501 c3 IRS designated nonprofit, to participate in their Amazon Smiles charity campaign because of the SPLC’s [Southern Poverty Law Center] designation of the Center has a “hate group” and now Disqus, the largest networked community platform on the Internet, has canceled our service.

The last example from Disqus involved that company’s sudden decision to cease providing the FrontPage website its commenting service.
» Read more

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Tianwen-1’s engineers set mid-May for rover landing on Mars

7:59 am

The new colonial movement: The science team for China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter are now targeting mid-May for when they will release and land the as-yet unnamed rover for its landing on Mars.

Wang Chi, director of the National Space Science Center at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said March 23 that Tianwen 1’s lander and rover are scheduled to touch down on Mars in May.

“The first Chinese Mars mission, Tianwen 1, is now orbiting Mars, and we are landing in the middle of May,” Wang said in a presentation to the National Academies’ Space Studies Board. “We are open to international cooperation, and the data will be available publicly soon.” [emphasis mine]

Though China has generally released the scientific data of its lunar probes eventually, they have done it slowly. In the case of Tianwen-1, they released so far practically nothing, with the only images released being two hi-resolution ground images and a handful of distant global pictures of Mars.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Conservatives on the email provider MailChimp

1:25 pm

The cancelled Bill of Rights
Doesn’t exist at MailChimp

They’re coming for you next: The email provider MailChimp has since the November election made it a clear policy to routinely cancel the accounts of conservatives if they dare send out any emails it deems politically incorrect.

In November MailChimp instantly disabled the email account of two tea party organizations, one in Virginia and the other in South Carolina, when they each tried to send out email notices to their members about post-election pro-Trump rallies.

In January MailChimp did the same to a conservative organization in California that was running a conference calling for the end of the overbearing lockdown rules imposed by the Democrat governor Gavin Newsom.

Because the ReOpenCalNow organizers are targeting a high level audience of policymakers, they assembled an email list of several thousand of California’s local elected officials. The list includes city council members, county supervisors, and members of school boards. Using MailChimp, they sent out three email blasts before receiving the following message:

“We received a direct complaint regarding a recent campaign sent from the account with the username ReOpen Cal Now. Direct complaints are serious because they indicate that a recipient contacted Mailchimp, our hosting facility, or a blocklisting agency about an unsolicited email.” The MailChimp email went on to say: “Because the content associated with your industry conflicts with our Acceptable Use Policy (mailchimp.com/legal/acceptable_use), Mailchimp is unable to serve as your email service provider and your account has been disabled.”

MailChimp went on to reject all appeals, and it is clear that the reason they would not reinstate ReOpenCalNow’s account was not because of spam. The laws protecting people from receiving spam do not apply to publicly available emails of elected officials. Every email on the list compiled by ReOpenCalNow were publicly available and corresponded to an elected official. [emphasis in original]

» Read more

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Shetland spaceport application rejected by local monument authority

9:36 am

The application to build a spaceport on one of the Shetland Islands has been rejected by a local monument authority because it would cause “extensive and adverse impact on the cultural significance” of a WWII radar station.

Mr Strang [head of the spaceport organization] said he was “greatly surprised” by the decision, claiming HES [Historic Environment Scotland] had “done nothing to preserve the site for the last 50 years”.

Skaw is the UK’s most northerly Second World War radar station and protected as a scheduled monument of national importance. The proposed space centre would be built almost entirely with in the RAF radar station site. It would require the removal of nine buildings, including air raid shelters, guard huts and those associated with the radar system. More than 200 archaeological features, such as foundations of buildings, gun emplacements and bomb craters would also be removed.

The Shetland Islands are very remote with few job opportunities for its residences. Putting a spaceport there seems like an excellent idea, especially because it will create hundreds of jobs where none exist now.

The radar facility did the same, but it did so more than seventy years ago, during World War II. Protecting these old and unused buildings for the sake of those long gone jobs seems utterly foolish.

The spaceport people say they will oppose this decision, but it is not clear from the article what they can do. The law as written appears to give this historical agency full power to veto.

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Industry group representing big tech demands Starlink be blocked in India

9:08 am

They’re coming for you next: An industry group representing a number of big tech companies like Amazon and Google has written India’s governmental agencies that regulate broadband and space and demanded that they block SpaceX’s Starlink internet service in India.

An industry body representing the likes of Amazon, Hughes, Google, Microsoft and Facebook has written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) asking them to stop SpaceX from pre-selling the beta version of its Starlink satellite internet services in India. It claimed SpaceX didn’t have licence or authorisation from the government to offer such services in the country. “We request you to urgently intervene to protect fair competition and adherence to existing policy and regulatory norms,” Broadband India Forum president TV Ramachandran said in the letters, seen by ET.

I could have filed this story under my series, “Today’s Blacklisted Americans”. These big tech companies have made it very clear in numerous earlier stories that they do not believe in competition or free speech. They are now demonstrating it again in India. Both Amazon and Hughes are direct competitors with Starlink. Neither also has a product that can compete with it (Amazon appears years from deploying its system and Hughes’ system has latency issues that make it much slower than Starlink). So, they team up with their leftist buddies Google, Microsoft, and Facebook to demand the Indian government do their dirty work for them, shutting down their competition.

It is unlikely that India’s Modi government, which is very much in favor of private enterprise, will do what these thugs want, but you never know. Politicians are like whores, they do what you pay them. If India does move to block SpaceX however I also expect there to be an outcry in that country, as it has many rural areas that can only be served by the kind of service Starlink is offering.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Former President Donald Trump

11:53 am

The cancelled Bill of Rights
What Facebook & Instagram want cancelled.

They’re coming for you next: Both Facebook and Instagram instantly removed today an interview of former President Donald Trump in which he suggested he might run again for president in 2024, merely because the clip contained his voice.

[The interview] was for The Right View. … During the 18-minute interview, Trump also spoke about running for President again in 2024. Lara [Trump, whose show it was and who is Trump’s daughter-in-law] had been promoting it on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter beforehand.

At 9.26pm on Tuesday night, four minutes before it was due to be uploaded, Facebook emailed Lara’s team warning them that it would be removed if it went live. At 9.51pm, they emailed again to say that they’d taken it down.

Lara shared screenshots of the emails on Instagram afterwards. ‘And just like that, we are one step closer to Orwell’s 1984. Wow,’ she wrote alongside them.

Trump has been banned from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram since the January 6 riots, cut off from his supporters and unable to get messages to them in the way he did before.

In their email, the Facebook employee said that ‘content posted in the voice of President Trump is not currently allowed on our platforms (including new posts with President Trump speaking) and will be removed. ‘This guidance applies to all campaign accounts and Pages, including Team Trump, other campaign messaging vehicles on our platforms and former surrogates’. [emphasis mine]

The audacity of this censorship of a former president of the United States by these companies is breath-taking. The highlighted quote makes it clear: Their goal is to silence Trump, in every way possible. They do not celebrate free speech, or the ability of everyone to express themselves publicly. The only people who will be allowed freedom of speech will be those who agree with them.

Though they are private companies who should have the freedom to publish who they wish, these companies also have been granted special tax status as utilities which provide a platform for everyone, not a publisher who picks and chooses what he wishes to publish. Under this tax benefit, they have no right to block anyone’s show, period.

Putting aside these legalities, why would any Republican, conservative, or anyone who supports free speech remain a user of Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter? They are not only clearly Democratic Party operatives, working to promote that political party’s agenda, they also clearly view anyone who disagrees with that agenda to be pond scum. Why provide any support to such authoritarians?

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FAA says it will “lead” investigation into Starship #11 crash yesterday

9:44 am

They’re coming for you next: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced today that it will “oversee” the investigation into the crash at landing yesterday by SpaceX’s eleventh Starship prototype.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which had an inspector at SpaceX’s facilities to observe the test flight, said in a statement that the FAA will oversee the company’s investigation into the “prototype mishap.” The FAA has conducted similar mishap investigations after previous Starship test flights. “The [Starship] vehicle experienced an anomaly during the landing phase of the flight resulting in loss of the vehicle,” an FAA spokesperson said. “The FAA will approve the final mishap investigation report and any corrective actions SpaceX must take before return to flight is authorized.”

The FAA noted that it will also work with SpaceX to identify reports of light debris in the area, saying that there have yet to be any reported injuries or damaged to public property.

What will really go on here is that an FAA official will observe closely as SpaceX conducts the investigation. That official might have some background in space engineering, but he or she will be completely unprepared to actually lead the investigation. Thus in the end the FAA will really only be able to rubber stamp SpaceX’s conclusions, though it might as all governments do, demand its own pound of flesh before issuing that stamp.

Up to now the FAA has tried very hard to work with the new commercial space companies, especially SpaceX, doing as little as it can to impede their progress. There are strong signs however that this might now change with the Democrats in control of the White House and Congress. If so, expect the FAA to cause SpaceX some grief during this investigation, grief that could significantly delay further test flights.

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China’s Long March 4C launches Earth observation satellite

8:52 am

China today used its Long March 4C rocket to successfully place another Earth observation satellite into orbit.

The article at the link also gives a short update on the status of China’s space station, with its first module Tianhe-1 presently scheduled for launch on April 29th, using their biggest rocket, the Long March 5B.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

9 SpaceX
7 China
5 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 13 to 7 in the national rankings.

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Al-Amal reaches science orbit

1:22 pm

Cerberus Fossae, as seen by Al-Amal
Click for full image.

Elysium Mons and Cereberus Fossae

The new colonial movement: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Al-Amal (Hope) Mars Orbiter has now reached its science orbit, and will begin its two years of observations (one full Martian year) of the Martian atmosphere on April 14th.

The photo to the right, cropped to post here, is part of a much larger image covering a good portion of the 600-mile-long fissures dubbed Cerberus Fossae and located Elysium Planitia, the vast lava plains located between the giant volcanoes Elysium and Olympus Mons, where most of the Martian quakes have so-far been detected by InSight. The context map below provides a wider context (the red boxes indicating high resolution Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images). I think the area covered by this section of Al-Amal’s picture is near the western end of Cerberus Fossae.

The image was posted today in the image gallery for Al-Amal. Unfortunately there is no separate webpage for this particular post, so that link will take a long time to load, as apparently all the images there are large, not thumbnails. From their text:

On 15 March 2021, the Emirates eXploration Imager (EXI) captured a monochromatic image of the Cerberus Fossae, a fracture system that stretches for more than 1,000 km across the Martian surface, with a spatial scale of approximately 180 meters/pixel. The Emirates Mars Mission transitioned from the capture orbit to its science orbit with the successful completion of a 510-second burn of its thrusters. The Hope Probe is now in its final orbit of Mars and ready for its two-year science data gathering – the core aim of the mission. The science phase will commence on 14 April 2021.

The goal of Al-Amal is to study the atmosphere. This camera will provide wide shots, mostly for the purpose of observing the coming and going of cloud features. Nonetheless, this is a nice wide view of Mars.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Conservative news organizations, as proposed by Columbia journalism professor

12:08 pm

The cancelled Bill of Rights
What this academic wants cancelled.

They’re coming for you next: In complete ignorance of the free speech’s most basic principle — not to give the government or any ruling body veto powers over anyone’s speech — the head of the digital journalism center at Columbia University, Emily Bell, recently demanded exactly that, calling for the government and news media to tighten its rules to restrict speech at conservative news organizations.

Bell was testifying at a House hearing engineered by Democrats to encourage such censorship.

Bell said that the unprecedented events of 2020 and 2021 coincided with “widespread and often politized information” on “conservative cable news channels” and that local reporters need to “learn new cadence.” She added that the country needs to “rethink what public broadcasting is in the digital age” and “apply some pressure to the platform companies to allow much greater auditing.”

While she had couched her words carefully, there was no mistaking her meaning. She wants the government, the media, and the big social media platforms to work together to silence any conservative opinions she dislikes.

I would give her the benefit of the doubt and consider her merely sincere and naive, someone who simply wants to stop misinformation in the press, except that the only misinformation she identifies is connected with conservatives and conservative protests. Somehow the bad reporting in connection with the rioting by Antifa and Black Lives Matter, designed to hid their violent and rebellious nature, seemed perfectly okay with her. Nor was she apparently bothered by the effort of the mainstream press and the big tech companies like Twitter and Facebook to censor all mentions of corruption by Biden and his son Hunter, prior to the election.

To put it bluntly, Bell is a typical leftist academic, partisan to her bones and eager to smash her boot into the face of anyone with whom she disagrees. And her goal is to smash that boot into the face of all conservatives, now and forever.

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