Month: November 2011

Media’s Alarming Power

The Roar

Media’s  Alarming Power

For the first time in my life, an accepted societal cog has caught my serious and now fearful attention.  Here, in the land of the free, a charlatan, who enjoys our freedom of thought and expression, has been allowed to move among us with impunity from its unaccountable conduct.  For too long, we have been resigned to the machinations of what we have come to accept from “a liberal media.”  Today, our leniency has produced a menace with an insatiable appetite.

In hindsight, many refer to the Obama Presidency as a “product of the media.”  Their lack of scrutiny, in areas other than just his citizenship, certainly greased the mental process for shedding America’s hangover from our days of slavery and segregation.  The public’s exhilaration from finally being able to prove that, yes, those days are truly behind us, enabled voters of all stripes to cast careful thought and debate aside for their passion that America could elect its first black President.

While all this now taking place, it seems ironic that a media questioning of Senator McCain’s citizenship eligibility came to the forefront while they showered Obama with an automatic pass. This 2008 preferential treatment may now seem to be the harbinger of what is taking place with the up and down horse race to this early republican campaign season.  Sad to say, those shades of differing treatment have now mutated into an all out assault based on innuendo and “he said, she said” references.  This is not the task of a responsible and honest free press.

What we have today is an information source that trades jabs between the glitzy formats of a revolving platform of political opinion and predictions verses the usual hum-drum news casts which often centers on the despicable and/or the macabre.  This conclusion may seem overboard but given the hundreds of lifting stories which surface daily, news in general depresses and it now seems to depress for a reason.

To underline this descent from the preferential to the slanderous, try to now shed political loyalties and consider the numerous Clinton allegations, which filled the spectrum from the adulterous to the criminal.  Yes, even a rape charge was not sufficient for media curiosity, let alone to investigate.  Need we compare then to this present investigative vim at targeting
Cain’s purity?  A comparison projects our dilemma.

What is being sacrificed, is the public reputation of a man who, for some reason, answered the call of his country.  Now, for just a moment, stop rushing to media conclusions and consider the possibility of innocence.  Our media pundits are eager to rid this republican primary of a black conservative with a proven and widely successful career in business and also in his private life. Why?  The reasons are obvious yet to be left unspoken.

We often ask the question, when faced with the choice of electing “frick” or “frack,” is this the best out Country has to offer?  Well, when an true outsider enters the political fray, the insiders with their establishment power circle the wagons.  Their attacks are as vicious as they are unending.  What we are now witnessing, and to a degree, buying into, is the complete and vicious ruination of a man who, for all intent and purposes, would never have entered the contest with all these various women waiting to sharpen their knives.

What the various media outlets ignore is that during the time span of this last accuser, armed with her infamous “61 text messages and cell phone calls,” Mr. Cain had endured and survived a Stage Four cancer struggle.  I would think this hardly is the setting for any sexual shenanigans.  Also, 61 conversations averages less than five per year.  The grist for a hot and heavy relationship?  It is not!

Ladies and gentlemen , Mr. Cain is obviously the victim and the reasons are quite clear.  Let’s rid ourselves of emotion and knee jerk reactions spurred from unsubstantiated sources.  Common sense must once again be embraced for if we allow this to affect our support, “Frick” and ‘Frack” will once again be our only reward.

Jim Bowman, Author of
This Roar of Ours

Brandon Short Defends JoePa

This email purported to be from linebacking legend Brandon Short is circulating around the Net and describes how football coach Joe Paterno behaved on the day after his Nov. 9 firing from Penn State in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

Short says that he and his wife spent part of Nov. 10 with Paterno.

The email says Paterno was more concerned about how his current and former players were affected than himself, and was talked out of holding a press conference.

Among Short’s revelations is that Paterno specifically says that Coach Mike McQueary never told him “that he saw Jerry Sandusky raping a boy in our locker room shower.”

Short who says he “thought he knew Jerry Sandusky extremely well” expressed shame and anger at his ow participation in Sandusky’s The Second Mile organization for at-risk boys.

The email refers to Gray Schultz as “chief of university police” when the reality is that Schultz was a university vice president who responsibilities included oversight of the department.

Hat tip to PennLive.com. Here is the complete email:


Captains:

It would be an understatement to say that we are
saddened by the recent allegations regarding Jerry Sandusky and the
subsequent fallout. If these allegations are true then Jerry used Penn
State Football and every one of us who may have helped Jerry with The
Second Mile to lure in at risk children and then exploit them both
mentally and physically. I thought that I knew Jerry Sandusky extremely
well. Jerry was my position coach for five years and I have spent
countless hours with him one on one putting in game plans and discussing
ways to help him grow The Second Mile. I cannot express the confusion,
pain, and anger I feel every time I think of Jerry committing such
vicious crimes. With that said, at this extremely dark hour we have
failed to see that another crime has been committed.

In the media
fire storm that ensued the damning allegations against Jerry a lead
villain has emerged; Joe Paterno. Not Jerry Sandusky, Tim Curley, or
Gary Schultz but Joe the man who took second hand information and
immediately gave it to his superior and the chief of university police.

My
wife and I were fortunate enough to spend a few hours with Joe and Sue
the day after the Board of Trustees made the decision to fire Joe. Even
at the lowest point of his life, in typical Joe fashion Coach was more
concerned with how his current and former players were doing than he was
with his own situation. All of us know the immeasurable quality of
Joe’s character and we also know that he’s a fighter. Coach pulled out
his notes and said that he was ready to hold a press conference in his
backyard to answer any questions and clear up any uncertainty the day
after he was fired. However his advisers thought that it would appear
defensive and be a mistake.
Joe assured me that Mike McQueary never
told him that he saw Jerry Sandusky raping a boy in our locker room
shower. Joe immediately went to his superiors and arranged a meeting
with Mike, Tim Curley, PSU athletic director, and Gray Schultz, chief of
university police. Remember that Jerry was not a football coach at the
time and therefore Joe had no authority to do anything other than report
what Mike told him to the authorities (which he did). Joe trusted Penn
State’s Athletic Director and its Chief of Police to do their jobs and
it appears they didn’t. The university
ultimately fired Joe Paterno because it didn’t do its job. And that is a crime.

Joe
Paterno has always had the courage to stand up and fight for the people
in his life. Joe regularly put his neck on the line and believed in
many of us when nobody else would. In the past, Joe has supported us
because he knew the character of the men that we’ve become. We all know
Joe in a way that rest of the world does not. We know Joe’s true
character. And now it’s time for us to stand up for him in his time of
need.

With the exception of a few brave men, there has been a
deafening silence from the Penn State Football family regarding Coach
Paterno and what has made Penn State a special place for the last half
century. We owe it to each other to speak up and do for Joe what he has
always done for us.
Attached is a link to a recent Wall Street
Journal article which attacks Coach Paterno for defending his players
and calls Penn State an undisciplined program.

http://online.wsj.com/article/…_LEFTTopStories

There
have been suggestions on specific actions that we can take to support
our program. Following the holiday, we plan on sending you a rough draft
of an action plan for your review. Thanks and have a good holiday
weekend. WE ARE!
Brandon

 

Brandon Short Defends JoePa

Climategate 2.0: Bias in Scientific Research

This article by Roy W. Spencer was published on his website, DrRoySpencer.com, on Nov. 23.

Dr. Spencer is a climatologist and a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He is the creator of an algorithm to detect tropical cyclones and estimate
their maximum sustained wind speed and is a recipient of the American Meteorological Society’s Special Award.

His article deserves as much dissemination as possible.

By Roy W. Spencer, Ph.d.

Ever since the first Climategate e-mail release, the public has become increasingly aware that scientists are not unbiased. Of course, most scientists with a long enough history in their fields already knew this (I discussed the issue at length in my first book Climate Confusion), but it took the first round of Climategate e-mails to demonstrate it to the world.

The latest release (Climategate 2.0) not only reveals bias, but also some private doubts among the core scientist faithful about the scientific basis for the IPCC’s policy goals. Yet, the IPCC’s “cause” (Michael Mann’s term) appears to trump all else.

So, when the science doesn’t support The Cause, the faithful turn toward discussions of how to craft a story which minimizes doubt about the IPCC’s findings. After considerable reflection, I’m going to avoid using the term ‘conspiracy’ to describe this activity, and discuss it in terms of scientific bias.

It’s Impossible to Avoid Bias

We are all familiar with competing experts in a trial who have diametrically opposed opinions on some matter, even given the same evidence. This happens in science all the time.

Even if we have perfect measurements of Nature, scientists can still come to different conclusions about what those measurements mean in terms of cause and effect. So, biases on the part of scientists inevitably influence their opinions. The formation of a hypothesis of how nature works is always biased by the scientist’s worldview and limited amount of knowledge, as well as the limited availability of research funding from a government that has biased policy interests to preserve.
Admittedly, the existence of bias in scientific research – which is always present — does not mean the research is necessarily wrong. But as I often remind people, it’s much easier to be wrong than right in science. This is because, while the physical world works in only one way, we can dream up a myriad ways by which we think it works. And they can’t all be correct.

So, bias ends up being the enemy of the search for scientific truth because it keeps us from entertaining alternative hypotheses for how the physical world works. It increases the likelihood that our conclusions are wrong.

The IPCC’s Bias

In the case of global warming research, the alternative (non-consensus) hypothesis that some or most of the climate change we have observed is natural is the one that the IPCC must avoid at all cost. This is why the Hockey Stick was so prized: it was hailed as evidence that humans, not Nature, rule over climate change.

The Climategate 2.0 e-mails show how entrenched this bias has become among the handful of scientists who have been the most willing participants and supporters of The Cause. These scientists only rose to the top because they were willing to actively promote the IPCC’s message with their particular fields of research.

Unfortunately, there is no way to “fix” the IPCC, and there never was. The reason is that its formation over 20 years ago was to support political and energy policy goals, not to search for scientific truth. I know this not only because one of the first IPCC directors told me so, but also because it is the way the IPCC leadership behaves. If you disagree with their interpretation of climate change, you are left out of the IPCC process. They ignore or fight against any evidence which does not support their policy-driven mission, even to the point of pressuring scientific journals not to publish papers which might hurt the IPCC’s efforts.

I believe that most of the hundreds of scientists supporting the IPCC’s efforts are just playing along, assured of continued funding. In my experience, they are either: (1) true believers in The Cause; (2) think we need to get away from using fossil fuels anyway; or (3) rationalize their involvement based upon the non-zero chance of catastrophic climate change.

My Biases

I am up front about my biases: I think market forces will take care of the fact that “fossil” fuels are (probably) a limited resource. Slowly increasing scarcity will lead to higher prices, which will make alternative energy research more attractive. This is more efficient that trying to legislate new forms of energy into existence.
I also think currently proposed energy policies will cause widespread death and suffering. The IPCC not only destroys scientific objectivity and scientific progress, it also destroys lives.

Therefore, I view it as my moral duty to support the “forgotten science” of natural climate change, a class of alternative hypotheses that have all but been ignored by the IPCC and government funding agencies.

I hope I am correct that most climate change we have experienced is natural. But I also know that “hoping” doesn’t make it so. If I had new scientific evidence that human-caused climate change really was a threat to life on Earth, I would publish it. It would sure be easier to publish than evidence against.

But from everything I’ve seen, I still think Nature probably rules, and that humans (as part of nature) also have some unknown level influence on climate. We know that the existence of trees affects climate – why not the existence of humans?

Countering the Bias

Scientists are human, and so you will never remove the tendencies toward bias in scientific research. You can’t change human nature.

But you can level the playing field by supporting alternative biases.

For years John Christy and I have been advising Congress that some portion of the appropriated funds for federal agencies supporting climate change research should be mandated to support alternative hypotheses of climate change. It’s time for the pendulum to start swinging back the other way.

After all, scientists will go where the money is. If scientists are funded to find evidence of natural sources of climate change, believe me, they will find it.
If you build such a playing field, they will come.

But when only one hypothesis is allowed as the explanation for climate change (e.g. “the science is settled”), the bias becomes so thick and acrid that everyone can smell the stench. Everyone except the IPCC leadership, that is.

Neisworth Penn State Child Molestation Scandal

Neisworth Penn State Child Molestation Scandal — News stories world wide blared the arrest of one-time Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky along with the twisted details of the crimes for which he has been charged, but another tale of pederasty and administrative cover-up in Happy Valley is getting the comparative quiet treatment.

Like the Sandusky scandal it involves faculty with national reputations.

Paul McLaughlin, 45, of Arizona says he was molested in the late 1970s and early 1980s by three men including John T. Neisworth, a professor of special education at Penn State who literally wrote the book on autism.

McLaughlin says he was 11 through 15 years old when the abuse occurred. Neisworth has since retired and like Sandusky holds the title of emeritus.

McLaughlin called Neisworth in 2001 and confronted him with what he did. He taped the call without Neisworth’s knowledge and said that Neisworth on his own brought up specific instances of the molestation.

He sent the tapes to Penn State officials in 2001 and 2002 and was accused of an extortion attempt. He said he directly called University President Graham Spanier who also angrily rebuffed him. He said this call would have occurred about two weeks after the 2002 incident involving Sandusky had been reported to university officials.

McLaughlin said his goal was to get the special education professor away from children.

In 2003, McLaughlin sued  Neisworth and Carl Goeke of California, who was McLaughlin’s neighbor in the 1970s,  in New Jersey and settled for a six-figure cash settlement.

In 2005, charges were brought in Cecil County, Md. — the site of some of the alleged molestations —  against Neisworth, Goeke and  Donald Smith, a retiree living in Pittsburgh.

The criminal charges were eventually dismissed because  the tape recordings were inadmissible under Maryland law.

McLaughlin says that despite the indictment the university still would not  launch its own investigation.

Neisworth Penn State Child Molestation Scandal

The Other Penn State Child Molestation Scandal

Pa. Legislators Get Pay Hike

The wise men and women who make up Pennsylvania’s legislature are scheduled to get a 3 percent pay raise, Monday, bringing their base pay to $82,026.

No vote is needed for this hike as it was made automatic many moons ago in the 1990s.

For those concerned that these hard-working people are not paid enough, please remember that the $82,026  does not include retirement and health packages and neat little perks like per diems, and that the committee chairman and legislative leaders get paid more. In fact, the salaries of the four legislative leaders — two from each party — rises to $118,845.

For my Tea Party friends, the party that controls the legislature now is the Republicans.


Remember Poor State Worker This Tax Season

Remember Poor State Worker This Tax Season — The Philadelphia Inquirer, yesterday, Nov. 25, editorialized on the need to hike the fees on those planning on drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale.

Exactly! The state needs more money! Our bureaucrats and legislators are underpaid! And think of our poor teachers!!

But why should we stop the new taxes at natural gas drilling? How about a tax on newspaper sales? Why shouldn’t these consumer products be taxed while needy state workers suffer?

Or how about newspaper advertising? How about for every column-inch sold in the Inky, have 6 percent  go to the state? It’s only fair!!

Granted  Doonesbury and opinions as to whether Andy Reid should be fired are far more socially necessary than things like energy independence and home heating, but when it comes to paying those who keep our traffic snarled by manning toll booths and  decide the benefit packages of emeritus professors of physical fitness at our major universities, no sacrifice is too great!!

Remember Poor State Worker This Tax Season

Auction Gives John du Pont Snapshot

 

John DuPont Train Set Auction Gives John du Pont Snapshot

The electric trains with which John duPont played while a lonely boy in a large, fatherless home with a coddling mother are among the items from his estate which are being auctioned tomorrow, Nov. 26, in Ludwig’s Corner, Pa.

DuPont, the richest man to ever be convicted of murder for the 1996 killing of Olympic gold medal wrestler Dave Schultz, died Dec. 9 in minimum-security state prison in Mercer.

He had grown up and lived in Newtown Township, Delaware County.

In the  1980s, duPont was on the lists of the magazine rankings of the richest Americans, and presidents were  hosted at his home.

The auction starts 9 a.m. at Griffith Hall, Ludwig’s Corner Fire Company 1325 Pottstown Pike (Route 100), Glenmoore, PA 19343

DuPont Portrait Auction Gives John du Pont Snapshot
This portrait of duPont in garb of the Foxcatcher wrestling program which he ran at his Newtown estate and which led to his ultimate downfall is expected to bring between $500 and $700. Auctioneer Ted Wiedersiem says duPont paid artist Hubert Shuptrine $100,000 to have it done.

 

 

Auction Gives John du Pont Snapshot

Ebonics Experts Sought By Justice Department

Ebonics Experts Sought By Justice Department — In  “things you might have missed”, the U.S. Department of Justice, last summer, sought to hire experts in Ebonics —  the slang used in some black neighborhoods.

And that’s where our money goes.

Oh Barbara Billingsley, if only you still lived.


Ebonics Experts Sought By Justice Department

Thanksgiving Day Trolley Crash

Thanksgiving Day Trolley CrashThanksgiving Day Trolley Crash — Trolley service was halted on SEPTA’s Route 101 line Thanksgiving Day when a Media-bound trolley hit a car at about 3 p.m.,  at the Springfield Road stop.
Photo by Anthony Lawrence

 

 

Thanksgiving Day Trolley Crash

A Day For Prayer

The Roar

A Day For Prayer

First off, let’s get it right!  I want to wish all my fellow Americans a happy day for thanksgiving and prayer.  These are George Washington’s words when he sign a decree designating November 26, 1789, as a day of “Public thanksgiving and prayer.”

I am sick and tired of this whack-a-doo anti-American sect somehow erasing our Forefather’s original message and intent with their secular and anti-Christian overlap.  Today, in the year of our Lord 2011, let us all proceed to renew our American instinct and dedicate our efforts towards the return of the principles which made our Country so great.  For I believe that our current turmoil and agitation comes as the direct result of our waywardness from our original design.

In 1962, our august Supreme Court ruled against prayer in school.  In its finding, the Court stated, “prayer in its public school system breaches the constitutional wall of separation between Church and state.”  Also cited was the Court’s, “A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion.”

This was the conclusion to a case against having a twenty-two word voluntary and nondenominational prayer observed in New York State schools.  Consider the words of this particular prayer, “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country.”  This bland moment of reverence is a monumental example as to this continuing push for a secular America.  Ladies and gentlemen, without a rudder, a ship flounders.  Our ship of state is floundering and the reasons are quite clear.

Returning to the words of George Washington, his thanksgiving and prayer proclamation wisely acknowledged “the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor…” also “Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to ‘recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.'”

Now President Washington spoke in lengthy sentences.  It seems to be the trade mark of those early days when diction was more elaborate and defined.    As such, our first President continued proclaiming that this occasion is “to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be…”

Space does not permit the complete proclamation but suffice to say that the main theme to Washington’s decree was his and our worshiping thanks “to the great Lord and ruler of Nations.”

From this historical document, one can readily see that that modern day America has been led to the slaughter.  Starting from when the Constitution was ratified till the 1947 Everson case, which introduced this insipid and Constitutionally unfounded “wall of separation between church and state,” the freedom of religion, to practice and worship remained sacred and untouched.  It is a monumental injustice for nine black robes to embark upon a First amendment detour which has the complete eradication of our Christian doctrines and heritage as it final quest.  In essence, our Supreme Court created new law which for all intent and purposes contradicted our First Amendment’s recognition of our inalienable religious rights by prohibiting their “free exercise.”

So on this day of thanks and prayer, while we all enjoy the football games and eagerly anticipate the Black Friday store gimmicks, remember that it was a Supreme Court authority, the same authority which will now consider the constitutionality of Obamacare, which trashed our inalienable religious freedoms.  As such, their record for upholding Constitutional safeguards should send shudders throughout our society.  If ever there was a time to “beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions,”  this seems to be the occasion.  The father of our Country was right, and his message still rings true.  A day for “thanksgiving and prayer.”

Jim Bowman Author of
This Roar of Ours