Don't Screw The Ayatollah

Kerry warns Congress: Don’t screw the Ayatollah « Hot Air:

The Secretary of State of the US actually said "The ayatollah constantly believed that we are untrustworthy, that you can’t negotiate with us, that we will screw them. This will be the ultimate screwing."

REALLY? How many times did we hear about "misunderestimated" or whatever relative to W?

THIS is what constitutes "diplomatic language"?

Forget that the whole "deal" is a delusional nightmare for the US ... abject surrender.

Kerry has always been a very dim witted narcissist tool ... just more proof.

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Zebras, Jack, Cecil -- "I'm Glad You're Dead!"

A little humor and perspective. For some strange reason Jack Nicholson seems to have a very good handle on playing a character a few cards short of a full deck. I liked his Joker better than Heath Ledger's. 

Think of a nasty Zebra commenting on the death of Cecil kind of like Jack! 

Dead Officers, Dead Babies, Dead Animals

The Memphis police officer was the 18th officer shot and killed so far this year - The Washington Post:

What makes humans different is a moral soul. Suppress or corrupt that and we are mere ciphers -- nothing more than the computers we calculate on. Figures on paper -- aside from emotional attachment, moral feeling, grief, outrage, anger, shock, media manipulation, political movements, etc, lives lost are mere numbers. (eg. National Socialism killed 6 million Jews in WWII Germany)

Last summer at this time we were immersed in "Black lives matter" because of Michael Brown in Ferguson MO and Eric Garner in Staten Island. We were inundated by the media and The Party (Democrat) by this story for months. We were told complete lies about the actual situations, designed to make the "victims" (young men shot by police) seem innocent and the police seem like racist thugs. A courageous BLACK reporter for the liberal WaPo covered the fact of the Michael Brown lies here.

We have been manipulated nationally to be on an emotional hair trigger relative to young black men being shot by white officers. (but totally unconcerned when they shoot each other) The Memphis shooting - killing of a white police officer by a black man has no such national emotional content. The linked article gives some numbers -- 18 officers shot and killed in the line of duty this year, slightly down from last year, we have been seeing about 50 shot and killed every year for quite awhile, down from where it used to be. No media presented emotional content to the officer being killed -- not part of TPs narrative!

Numbers -- if the officer was your father, brother, husband, friend, etc, that would make a GIANT difference. As it does when the car crash victim is a loved one rather than just a number. This has all been well understood by the wise for likely most of human history. To paraphrase Adam Smith  "... if all China were swallowed up tonight, we would be more afflicted by the knowledge that we were to lose our little finger tomorrow than by that great calamity." The actual Smith quote is at the end of this blog post if you want to check my paraphrase.

We have an inherent understanding of this fact as humans if we STOP AND THINK, but the reason that our founders created a Republic, NOT a "Democracy" (mob rule) was because masses of common people, busy with their daily lives and wanting to "fit in" are far far too easy to manipulate. Reacting as we are told to react is easier, and as the societal drive to conform becomes greater, and often even safer.

Smith understood that humans can't be otherwise than to be more affected by their PERSONAL situation than by global calamity, because it is our nature. So markets naturally developed which operate based on actual (not the desired) human nature. Smith didn't invent capitalism, he discovered and documented it. It is also true that an extremely painful finger is likely to make you forget about A LOT, and inherently disrupt your rational thought.

Marx, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, BO, the NYTs, Satan, Madison Avenue, etc discovered that constant bombardment by specific messages, especially when coupled with appropriate rewards and punishments ( free stuff vs higher taxes for BO, life vs death for Hitler, etc) could make most people follow a political regime that promised immediate and PERSONAL benefit to them for following. The "benefit" might be as small as "if you think this way, you will be in alignment with the forces of good / progressive / intelligent / popular / proper thought". If you don't think that way, you will be "bad / reactionary / stupid / unpopular / improper". The "promise" hasn't changed much at all ... "You surely will not die! "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."…

You will be "like God(s)" ... at least in comparison to the "bad / reactionary / stupid / unpopular / etc".

The human condition is one of generally "weak" or "selfish" moral sentiments, which are fairly easily manipulated. Western Civilization was based on the success of Judaism and Christianity to provide a very strong moral framework that gave the common man a set of "higher objectives" relative to his eternal soul, making human life sacred, promoting hard work, respect for parents, ancestors, tradition and the value of caring for others in our community. We once had a strong Judeo - Christian moral compass of our own and were able to resist (to some degree with Gods help) Serpents, Democrats and Media.

We now have The Party -- the dominant media / educational / political system that most values conformance and tells us what to think about all issues and happenings, and more importantly, which to focus on, 24x7. That is why I heard a segment on "Marketplace" last evening discussing how various animal parts -- polar bear and lion being chief, were now on the "no fly list", and how wonderful that was. Animal parts are now sacred ... baby parts are legitimate objects of commerce. Thus saith the "progressive moral compass" today.

As is typical of the "progressive compass", they didn't mention if a rabbit's foot, beef jerky, or halibut shipped back from Alaska would be prohibited -- consistency, practicality, cost, common sense, etc are never part of the "progressive" thought process -- FEELING GOOD (self righteous) about something new is the primary objective, sticking it to some new sub-group is usually a secondary objective. Feeling good to the "progressive" involves feeling superior to somebody -- and usually expanding government or societal power over somebody.

ALL human life being sacred, special, worthy of protection, etc was the old moral compass setting. The "progressive" setting is that those in power (The Party!) selects which lives matter, and are "sacred" in their profane sense. Criminal lives matter, but the most innocent of lives do not, nor do those of those who take up the task of being on the police force. Muslim lives matter -- but US soldiers lives do not. Illegal immigrant lives matter, but people shot and killed by them do not. In general, like all pagan morality, the pagan/progressive moral compass points the opposite way from the old Christian moral compass.

When the vast bulk of the population has no moral compass but the one that is presented to them through The Party and it's media / education / entertainment arms, they must wait to be told what to think about everything, as well as being told what is of importance to them and what is not.

That is most certainly where we are at.

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PJ, Democrats Hate You (Individually)

They Hate Your Guts | The Weekly Standard:

PJ O'Rourke has a great name and a wit to match. The whole thing is pretty funny, but like much of PJ's stuff it is not only funny, but makes a very serious point.

Politics is about POWER, not about people -- people are a MEANS to the politicians goal of power.

Democrats are very good at politics. Republicans -- with the now deceased exception of Ronald Reagan, SUCK at politics! So they are a better choice for office -- they hate you less!

I thought this little section was especially pungent -- but just a teaser, the whole thing is worth the time.

Democrats are particularly infatuated with the demographic group of voters who are poor. Democrats provide many social programs for the poor. If you happen to be poor, you know what these social programs do. They pay you to stay poor. 

Democrats favor a higher minimum wage. And they’ll make sure you get a minimum wage. Forever. 

Democrats want to give you health care that’s free—and worth it.

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63% Inflation, 234% College Inflation

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/opinion/sunday/were-making-life-too-hard-for-millennials.html

Hopefully I can manage to clip a chart from the article at some point and insert it here -- but for now you will have to either believe me or go look at the article. It is the NYTs, they didn't really mean to make the point they made, but here it is:

• Inflation since '93 is 63% ... so your '93 buck is worth .37 cents. That is what a debtor nation calls LOW inflation! 
• College costs have gone up 234% since '93! Think about this for a moment. College is HEAVILY state sponsored, HEAVILY regulated, nearly 100% UNIONIZED, 99% DEMOCRAT in administration as well as educators, etc. Do you REALLY want to give the government MORE things to manage???? 

The government is a huge debtor, so it wants LOW INTEREST and HIGH INFLATION ... the number that counts is really the DIFFERENCE between the interest rate and the inflation rate. Inflation seems "low" at "a couple % a year", but the interest rate being paid on savings is actually less than the inflation rate! Just like it was under Jimmuh Carter. 

The difference -- as some of the charts show, is that nobody is making any money because we have no growth. "The problem is the recession" the article says -- the recession supposedly ended in June of 2009! The PROBLEM is that the "recovery" has been "tepid" to say the least -- and if they hadn't fudged the numbers, we would be in a new recession right now! (2 consecutive quarters of negative growth). 

If we had a Republican in the WH the NYTs would be APOCALYPTIC about this economy -- not just feeling a bit sorry for a few "millennials"!

The Difference Between A Democrat and a Socialist

Debbie Doubles Down (on Socialism) | Power Line:

You can go off to the link and see that the head of the Democrat party just isn't going to answer this question! She is as busy as the MSM making the claim that Donald Trump is what Republicans really are. In fact, Trump is more like what Democrats used to be. He is socially liberal, loves the limelight, and would like Oprah Winfrey for his running mate. He is pretty much exactly like a lot of Democrats -- a LOONY that just wants people to notice him!

A Socialist is really an honest Democrat.

Give all power and wealth to the State and let them hand it out as political favors. Promise the poor the moon, kill the golden goose of the producing class, and spread the rotting corpse on the poor and call it good! Leaves a stench, but all the Socialists / Democrats really want is the power -- they are going to blame others for the disaster anyway, just like they always do. Being a Socialist/Democrat means somebody else is always at fault!

Welcome to Greece -- it doesn't take long to run out of other people's money when you are the size of the US. A tick, leech, or other parasite like Greece can survive a long time on a host (like the EU), because even blown up to grossly big, it is still relatively small.

A Socialist US would be like a parasite the size of a blue whale! Pull that off with a tweezers!

It really does seem to be getting more insane and a faster rate now.



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Samaritan Shooter "Tired of Waiting Around"

Jesus Deniz Mendoza, 18, accused of killing Montana Good Samaritans - CBS News:

Two people that stopped to help a person along the road in Montana are dead -- the 3rd, their daughter age 26 is in the hospital. The shooter was "tired of waiting around".

"Deniz told the interviewing agents that he shot the victims because he was getting tired of waiting around, and because the daughter had laughed at him," the statement said.

One can't find out from the news if the shooter was an Undocumented Democrat (formerly Illegal Alien), but from the name it seems unlikely he is a "White Hispanic" like George Zimmerman.

One of the articles I read said that the youngest sibling of the still living victim is in High School -- but it is hard to find any of that information. No need to show a lot of flattering pictures of the victims, how much of a loss they are, etc in this case!

Anybody else tired of "waiting around" and being played like fools by the media? When the murder fits the "approved narrative", we get all sorts of pictures of sobbing relatives, outraged community members and high ranking administration officials somberly telling us how we MUST think about it!

When it doesn't fit the narrative ... small little stories, side of the page, nothing to glorify the victims, nothing to demonize the shooter -- in fact, it can be hard to find out ANYTHING about the shooter.

In the age of the internet we can "go hunting" to find out a few things ... apparently the shooter's page was linked to "Brown Pride". Is that bad? I really have no idea -- nor do I much care, but anyone with a brain needs to be fully aware that the media has 90%+ of the nation dancing like marionettes! Does it matter if the shooter might have had a Confederate Flag, or even had links to some "White Pride" site.  We are TOLD that it matters, but it doesn't.

When it DOES matter is if the shooter has links to a group that is world-wide in nature and explicitly wants to kill Christians, White People, Non-Muslims, Americans, etc .... Islam, Al Qaeda, Hamas, ISIS, Al Shabab, etc, etc

But we are told that all the Islamic groups DON'T matter ... just like all the black and brown groups. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). If the reverse is racist to even say ... "NAAWP", then you don't live in the country that was founded as America. We need a National Association for the Advancement of AMERICAN People", but it is impossible. Our president doesn't much like THAT idea of "America" -- liberty and justice for ALL, equal treatment for ALL -- even the "rich", limited government and all that jazz. We can't advance "America" because there isn't any agreement on what that is. Apparently, to the media, it is "making the wealthy whites, police, red states, etc PAY ... with money, lives, crime, etc, while advancing blacks, illegals, hispanics, muslims, etc.

We are told what to think -- and in "polite company" it is very wrong to even bring up news that is not "appropriate" ... like the policeman gunned down in Memphis by a black man for interrupting a drug deal.

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Spot The Station, Lake Shed

Link To Spot the Station

The last two nights have been our first in the new Lake Shed. It isn't home yet ... kind of camping out. No hot water yet, installing appliances -- but it it has a working bathroom, a small fridge, and a bed -- so it is working toward being home.

One thing it does have is a pretty unobstructed view to the west and less light pollution than Rochester. The last couple nights I've enjoyed the "Blue Moon" (well, OFFICIALLY only last night ... but close to full is still impressive).

I get e-mails from this site when the International Space Station (ISS) passes over, and the last couple of nights it has been blazingly bright and easy to spot! Just look off toward the SW and keep a quadrant scan for the brightest star that you can see in the S-W quadrant. It is bright, and it is obviously moving, so it is very easy to see.

I always sit and try to imagine the normally 6 people there riding 250 miles above the earth travelling at 17,000 MPH  ... 17 THOUSAND MPH! They have a different perspective from those on earth.

Is the ISS a monument to the end of the US? Our shuttle was the main vehicle that took it all up there, but today we hitch rides with the Russians so our people can get there for missions.

It is worth at least watching the bright spot move across the sky and reflecting on the final frontier ... and the nation that once led there and so many other places!

Baltimore Regresses To 1972

Baltimore Sees the Highest Number of Homicides in 43 Years | TIME:

No secret to regular readers of this Blog -- "progressives" are misnamed, they ought to be called REGRESSIVES! If one wants to look at "settled science" (political in this case), the jury is long settled on exactly how well their policies work.

Human culture took a long and painful road up from a world with no morals, meaning, or purpose beyond individual enjoyment to the pinnacle of Western Civilization -- somewhere in there between the peak of the British Empire and the Moon Landing or so. We battled Communism and Socialism (National and otherwise), and for a brief instant in 1991, one might have thought the forces of good had finally won it all -- but evil is always waiting for good men to rest.

With their deaths, this year’s homicides reached 189, far outpacing the 119 killings by July’s end in 2014. Nonfatal shootings have soared to 366, compared to 200 by the same date last year. July’s total was the worst since the city recorded 45 killings in August 1972, according to The Baltimore Sun.

Baltimore is one of those sterling "All Democrat" cities -- this is Democrat heaven! (Much like Detroit in the past!) Democrat (even BLACK!) President, Democrat Governor, Democrat (BLACK!) Mayor, Democrats in control of both houses of the state legislature!

Naturally, Time Magazine has only "more of the same" suggestions to "fix" this problem -- more programs, more welfare, more talk with police, etc. Perhaps we could legalize a few drugs? That ought to help!

Nobody cares about this. Let's maybe try to cut some minority prison sentences as BO was talking about a few weeks ago. The violent disaster that was the '70s is what moved the wave toward more strict policing that peaked in the '90s with Slick Willie signing "3 Strikes" -- which he now calls a "mistake" because the base wants to let those guys out ASAP!

All this is well known, well understood, we have been here before. Many many thousands more will have to die before there is ANY hope of the rank and file public even getting wind of what is happening around the country.

Baltimore is not unique in its suffering; crimes are spiking in big cities around the country.

... oh, but Cecil the lion got killed! Tom Brady is still fighting his 4 game suspension! No time to be focused on this! Look! I think I saw a Confederate Flag over there!
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Economy In Recession, Nobody Knows

Consumer spending bolsters U.S. second-quarter growth | Reuters:

BO has gotten very unhappy with his horrible economic numbers -- the economy shrank the first quarters of both 2014 and 2014 and barely eked out something below 2% total growth both years. Small wonder that BO, whose economic numbers have been worse than W who started from a very high economic base after the internet bubble (that crashed right after W took office) W  1.7%, BO 1.6%.

As that Forbes article said at the end ...

President Obama “inherited” (another favorite word of the president’s enablers) a low GDP base and did terribly with it, well worse in comparison to his much-maligned predecessor. He inherited a high government spending base and still managed to increase that number at a rate 50% above general growth. In a rational world, we’d stifle such a failure from still having access to the controls.

But then we know we don't live in a rational world, so in this one BO is still in office, and we let him cook the books! The nation has LOTS of time for "deflategate", too little pressure in NFL footballs, but NO TIME at all  for our economic numbers being

Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.3 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. First-quarter GDP, previously reported to have shrunk at a 0.2 percent pace, was revised up to show it rising at a 0.6 percent rate.

The estimate of the effects of the "new accounting" for GDP was +3%, so the ACTUAL number to be used for comparison would be a .7% LOSS in GDP, putting us in the BO Recession! (Two quarters of negative GDP growth!). The column never mentions that this is now done under the new way of reporting GDP which I discussed here ... as a bonus, they blithely adjusted the first quarter up from -.2 to +.6! Erasing a recession! (they had actually revised the decline to .7% after initial reporting, but since it is now obvious these numbers are just being cooked as desired, "What does it matter now?")

So BO would have officially had a recession on his hands -- but now it looks like a quarter of REALLY tepid growth (.6%) and one that is STELLAR by BO standards ... 2.3%.  Pretty impressive, taking two successive quarters of -.7 which would be a RECESSION, and turning into what the Democrats and media will hail as "solid growth".

If you like your economy, you can elect a putz like BO and it will still all go OK!

When the WH and the media are working together, it takes a little more work to figure out what is actually happening! It isn't going so well ...

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Riots With Nobody Watching?

Articles: Panic in Pittsburgh: Media Struggling to Ignore Black Mob Violence:

The linked article purports to document a large amount of black violence going unreported ... Pittsburgh being the epicenter, but many other cities included.

Is it factual? Who would know? We are busy with Cecil the Lion, Deflategate, the Trump sideshow, etc.

Is it plausible? Regrettably, yes ... something like 6K young black men are being killed on the streets every year now and there is very little reporting.

Mostly just a marker post ... the jury is still well out, but unfortunately it may be true.

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America Finds Cecil Outrage

This American Trophy Hunter Allegedly Beheaded Zimbabwe's Most Beloved Lion | Mother Jones:

MSM and social media has been exploding with outrage over the killing of "Cecil" an African lion.

I'm wondering how many people cared to know the names of any of the 21 Coptic Christians beheaded by ISIS? There have been a number of other cases of Christians beheaded .. here was a case of 30 more, hardly covered. So that is over 50 ... the total must easily break 100, but those are Christians. Who's counting?!

I'm betting that if Christians beheaded some number of Muslims, the outrage would be even larger than that for Cecil -- I'm basing this on outrage over Abu Girab, Gitmo, "extreme rendition", etc and nobody was even beheaded there.

So what gives? I can't say I have a full explanation, but here are my guesses:

1. ISIS shoots back ... the masses assume that Cecil's killer, the Bush Administration, or "Christians" aren't likely to. 
2. People generally don't like Christians very much ... they like lions, and Muslims are vaguely a "minority" ... modern education teaches the masses to like "minorities" 
3. Nobody in the MSM or popular actors and such told people to be outraged about Christians being beheaded -- they tell us to be outraged over Cecil being killed, and we do what the popular media voices in our ears tell to do. 

Sounds about right. Why don't Dentists go out hunting Christians! 

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Read This Blog Post or I Shoot The Dog!

P.J. O’Rourke: How I Killed 'National Lampoon' (Guest Column) - Hollywood Reporter - Hollywood Reporter:

My Dad and his brothers used to talk somewhat incessantly about "The Good Old Days" (TGOD) -- the depression, long trudges to school, only going to school till the 8th grade, milk in cans, no electricity, loose hay, horses vs tractors, threshing bees, steam engines, fishing with a cane pole, ice for ice boxes ... as I said, it was nearly endless.

I can't say I was ever enamoured with the idea of no electricity, nor would I really like to go back to no computers, no internet, no interstate system ( I REALLY need to be able to get to see my granddaughter in Denver!).  I'd have to say that there is really nothing previous to say "1980" that makes me pine away for that version of "The Good Old Days".

My sense is that my Dad's generation believed that much societal change -- larger cities, less local people interaction, bigger government, was "caused" by technology. I think it is safe to say that some of it was ENABLED by technology, but technology is inert -- a gun never makes you shoot anybody, and neither do the combination of the availability of whiskey and cars make you drive drunk. Any form of technology expands your choices -- you don't HAVE to have a cell phone, and having one, you don't HAVE to USE it -- in fact, you don't even have to answer it. Those are choices -- people often let many sorts of technology rule their lives, but that is a choice. Sure, the availability enables that choice, but that is simply how the world is built.

Water similarly enables drowning -- but removal of water is not an option!

PJ hit the nail on the head about what National Lampoon was in the late seventies and early '80s ..

We remember how the publication was a font of youthful nihilism's dark, ironic genius (albeit with the obvious, pitiful, frenetic and stupid qualities that entails).

We never imagined that youthful nihilism would WIN! ... along with the "obvious, pitiful, frenetic and stupid qualities that entails"! It was"progressivism", not "progress" that destroyed my TGODs. Progress is making life faster, cheaper, more reliable, easier, higher standard of living for less work, more comfortable, etc. "Progressivism" is "alienated, sarcastic, cynical, nihilistic" -- except totally school marmish on actual humor, progress,  or real fun!

Gee an NFL player blew off a couple fingers using fireworks and some guy in Maine put a fireworks mortar tube on his head and it killed him. We better BAN FIREWORKS!

Maine Rep. Michel Lajoie told the AP he’s considering trying to introduce a measure to restrict the use of fireworks, though he wonders if it will increase safety.

So we have arrived at the time when some of us have nostalgia for a time when people realized that the dog cover was a SICK JOKE! (but the dog was pretty cute) ... however PJ says it well, basically, the inmates took over the asylum.

That kind of fun can't be had in the 21st century, where there are no normal middle-class values, all the Clark Griswolds are alienated, sarcastic and cynical, and every suburban schlub is a font of nihilism's dark, ironic genius.

BTW ... they had to do that dog picture with no photoshop (talk about the dim and distant past!). Somebody stood off to the side and yelled the dogs name loud enough it took a glance and they caught it. It was a professional model dog ... it was trained to sit and stare at the camera no matter what went on around it.

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Filling That Poly Need

Two Moms, One Dad, Two Babies Make One Big Happy Polyamorous Family - ABC News:



I'm reminded of Michael Jackson "It's a bootiful thing ..."

Michael is a great glimpse into our cultural very near to here future -- certainly a self made "man" ... or, er "something".



People have always had lots of "needs" -- as covered in the ABC "News" story.



In the real world, other than say the speed of light and a bullet to the brain, pretty much everything can be made "gray", "shaded", or "surpassed".  Other than those things like Christianity, Confederate Flags, etc declared verboten by the PC Gestapo, "it's all good" ... in fact in many cases it must be CELEBRATED!! No longer is it allowable to just "turn the channel".



Today I saw a car in the lot of the RAC with a BO sticker and a "Vote No!" sticker on the back -- pretty much an advertisement for mendacity.



BO famously promised "If you like your healthcare you can keep it" as if a gargantuan, largely unknown new program was absolutely guaranteed to do no harm. It was a lie of course, but anyone with a brain knew that.



Similarly, one of the main cries of the anti-amendment people for the marriage amendment in MN was "There is no reason for an amendment -- nobody is talking about gay "marriage" for MN" ... yeah, sure ... it happened the very next year.



All moral arguments can be considered a  "slippery slope" -- they aren't speed of light or death. So we merrily slip down the now "poly" slope. ("Poly want a marriage!")



Yes, change happens just like shit, and decent people feel pretty much the same "need" afterward  -- to flush it away.



This is not the era for decent people -- just in case you were doing a Rip Van Winkle!





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The Bee Crisis Is Over, But Not the Data Crisis

Climate Change Threatens Bees: Even More Evidence : Animals : Nature World News:

The linked article tells us that it really really looks like "the bee crisis" is partially caused by Global Warming -

With the threat neonicotinoid use poses to honeybees gaining international attention, researchers are now focused on finding other factors that are contributing to a worrying decline in bees across the globe. Climate change, they say, is certainly to blame, and parasites may be one reason why.

  This article says what I've been hearing more of from  techie or "right wing" news sources the last year or so ... there isn't any bee crisis.

I have great news for honey lovers everywhere. The Canadian honeybee industry is thriving. Despite those headlines about mass die-offs and and killer pesticides, the number of honeybee colonies is at a record high. Last year, according to Statistics Canada, nearly 700,000 honeybee colonies produced $200-million worth of honey. Bee survival rates have rebounded even in Ontario, which was hard hit by unusually high winter die-offs

The purpose of this post is not to prove which position is right, although I will give my opinion. When a problem is indicated as a "crisis", we know that the title is more intended to convey emotional content and grab interest rather than provide factual information. That indication ought to have the effect of a rattlesnake rattle on our focus as to likely trouble with the assertions in the article.

Couple "crisis" with "Global Warming" -- something that has been crying wolf for over 20 years now, but for the past 15 been forced to quietly try to suppress the news that it has "paused", -- and the chances for "correctness" drop rather dramatically.

My real point here is modern data and "analysis" overload. There is so much data now being collected and so much statistical computing power available to run all sorts of "Spearman Rank Correlation", "Guttman Scaling", "Mann-Whitney U", regression, ANOVA, etc against any sort of data plucked from who knows where and get lots of REALLY impressive charts!

One can definitely show that "Women are better drivers and ice cream sales cause drownings" with no problem at all ... Who drives your car after you were out for dinner and drinks or the traffic, weather, etc are bad?  Who drives the most miles? There is a PERFECT correlation between drowning deaths and ice cream sales -- only it is because of a common third factor -- hot weather, and CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSALITY!

But our brains are wired with a bias to ASSUME that correlation IS causality -- from a primitive POV it makes all the sense in the world to believe that if A and B happen together, they are probably related. Good for survival in nature -- not good for correctness in a wired world with lots of computers. Do enough analysis on data selected with a goal in mind, and you are certain to be able to find "correlation". Add in selective and biased journalism and it is no wonder that people have all sorts of assumptions that they hold as gospel that have at best tenuous and only very specific well manicured connections to the real world.

Statistics are like gauges on your car -- they look at certain data with certain assumptions. Hook the oil pressure gauge to the water temp sensor and vice versa, you get bad readings. ANY of the data is only as good as the sensors -- the engine may have low oil pressure but the sender is not correct for example. Most likely of all, the engine is fine but the sender or gauge have failed.

Today we have bazillions of "sensors" (data collectors) hooked up to all sorts of things on which little if any data was collected before and "scientists" -- many of them little more than amature statisticians and computer software users with a HUGE pressure to "publish something impressive... maybe even about a CRISIS!" spewing "reports / studies / papers" at a rate far beyond anything seen in history. So there is almost constant "crisis".

Add to this the fact that the bulk of them are in one way or another funded by giant governments whose primary mission is the grow government power in any way they can, and it is no wonder at all that "crisis" is MUCH more common than  "boring news day when not much really happened". Remember, the goal of the government is to increase it's size and power -- so government funded research should be instantly suspect if it's result is serving that end.

The real "crisis" is an out of control government growing in power and scope every day.