I Am Alpha, No Blame, No Excuses, No Apologies


The following op-ed is not for the weak or the PC crowd. The leftist would paint any conservative/libertarian male as a knuckle dragging alpha male who is racist,homophobic who treat women as second class citizens who should be kept barefoot and pregnant.  Nothing could be further from the truth and I should know, I am one.

For starters certain jobs require alpha males or females to be effective and that includes mine. My job as a broadcast engineer is such a job.  I have on numerous occasions told owners and GM’s alike to pick up a tool or get out of the way.  I had on GM threaten to fire me for insubordination to which I responded that I would rather be fired for insubordination then  incompetence as his orders would not only have put my FCC licence but the stations licence on the line. Now an effective GM also has to be an alpha and you would think that the alpha in power would be the final word.  I explained why I refused and we not only became friends but worked together at other stations with no animosity. You see owning your decisions is part of an alpha’s trait. many careers require alpha’s to be effective e.g. police,fire,CEO.  But how does a leftist define an alpha male, well for that you would have to go to the urban dictionary.

The alpha male is an act that is performed by males usually in their teens and twenties who act tough, are loud, and have to be the center of attention or they feel insecure.

Of course like history leftist embark in what I would call creative revisionism.  They of course they base their assumptions on the behavior of the apes of which they claim to be descendants of. A more accurate description of an alpha would be a person who is secure in ones self and secure enough to make a decision, own that decision and have the courage to be wrong.  Now a beta male would be an alpha in the making but has not quite had enough experience or confidence to be an alpha.  On the opposite end of the spectrum are the omega’s they are the class of people who perceive themselves as victims and by virtue of their self perception becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Most people fall in between those two extremes and contain elements of both.

Of course there are strong black alpha males like Herman Cain and Thomas Sowell who have been called Oreo’s, Uncle Tom’s and worse and yet they have the strength and conviction to stand on principle,  Thomas even talks about how this omega “victim class” mentality is being promoted.

And here are black TEA party members who reject that victim class mentality.

The leadership styles of the last two Presidents also clearly demonstrate the differences between the alpha and the omega, Bush being the alpha and Obama being the omega.  Bush walked in inheriting a bad economy, he walked into office at the beginning of the dot com bubble yet he did not blame the previous administration for the economic conditions.  He went to war with Iraq on the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, even his predecessor Bill Clinton said so.  Yet he didn’t blame the intelligence agencies and he didn’t blame his predecessor, he owned his decisions including the mistakes.

But here is further proof.

Now here is classic victim mentality.

We see even more of this victim mentality in the Benghazi incident.

Last to be a true alpha you have to be secure in yourself, a true alpha is not threatened by an alpha female, an alpha wants an equal, a partner. We are proud of our alpha females as they hold the same qualities as us beta males.  They are secure in themselves, they hold none of the “victim class” mentality much to the disdain to those who promote the victim class beliefs.

Now the leftist will dismiss the words of Bill Maher as the words of a comedian yet every leftist news talk show has him on.

And here is a Leftist Milwaukee talk show host John “Sly” Sylvester  from WTDY talking about Wisconsin’s Lt. Governor.

And of those pro woman Unions chanting “Vicki is a cunt” at alpha female Vicki Mckenna shows they only are civil to women who play the role of victim.

So yes I am alpha and if we want to continue to have a free country we need more people with more alpha blood and less omega.

Posted in Libertarian, Nanny State | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Cult of Progressive Science


In the State of the Union Obama calls for an investment in science but history shows that politics and science don’t mix.

 

The problem is that when it comes to science the media does not do any critical analysis of science especially when it comes from the government.  The government is not only funding agenda driven science but they are funding the lobbying efforts that drive them. 

They also don’t report on the corruption and Scientific McCartyism within the scientific community when it comes to politicized science.  A glairing example is the repeated attacks on Dr James Enstrom.

 

(Washington, DC) – The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has filed suit on behalf of Dr. James E. Enstrom, a UCLA research professor who was terminated after he blew the whistle on junk environmental science and scientific misconduct at the University of California (UC).

“The facts of this case are astounding,” said David French, Senior Counsel of the ACLJ. “UCLA terminated a professor after 35 years of service simply because he exposed the truth about an activist scientific agenda that was not only based in fraud but violated California law for the sake of imposing expensive new environmental regulations on California businesses.  UCLA’s actions were so extreme that its own Academic Freedom Committee unanimously expressed its concern about the case.”

 

This is not the first time that James Enstom was a victim of scientific McCartyism but more on that later.The government funded “Tobacco Control” model has become the defacto model for leftist activism and other leftist activist are in awe of it’s effectiveness and call on it to be used in the same manner for it’s other statist laws. The one time that a leftist openly admitted that these “brainwashing” techniques should be used was Eric Holder the  Attorney General of the United States.

And politically motivated science is already being used to marginalize gun owners. And they are going to use so called science to justify this.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined ownership patterns of automatic/ semiautomatic firearms in the United States. METHODS: Data were derived from a national random-digit-dialing telephone survey of 800 gun owners. RESULTS: Sixty percent of gun owners reported owning an automatic or semiautomatic firearm. In comparison with other gun owners, owners of automatics or semiautomatics were more likely to be male, live in the South, own a gun for protection, and have a gun for work. They were also more likely to report binge drinking. CONCLUSIONS: Owners of automatic or semiautomatic firearms differ from other gun owners in several respects, including frequency of binge drinking

 

So they are essentially trying to depict gun owners as a bunch of redneck drunks. Of course they are calling for the same type of tactics of denormalizaton and brainwashing techniques to be used on the so called war on Obesity. We have also seen an increase of politically motivated studies like the one done on Lesbians and obesity.  From a Washington Times article.

“[H]owever, one area that is only beginning to be recognized is the striking interplay of gender and sexual orientation in obesity disparities,” it continues. “It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with it continues.

 

Of course the findings are almost predictably, the findings will most probably be that the policies against gay marriage has something to do with it.  Many of us liberty minded people don’t believe the government has any right to regulate any adult personal relationships but the policy changes advocated by the left would force their viewpoints on everyone including the religious and religious institutions just as they have tried with the contraceptive issue.

These government funded “studies” by activist have become pervasive amongst the leftist and borders on psudoscience more then science and has even been employed against the TEA Party by a long time anti-smoking activist Stanton Glantz.

Conclusions Rather than being a purely grassroots movement that spontaneously developed in 2009, the Tea Party has developed over time, in part through decades of work by the tobacco industry and other corporate interests. It is important for tobacco control advocates in the USA and internationally, to anticipate and counter Tea Party opposition to tobacco control policies and ensure that policymakers, the media and the public understand the longstanding connection between the tobacco industry, the Tea Party and its associated organisations.

 

To which I posted a response here.  When questioned about the government funding of such activism his response was,

“Which is worse? That you simply give taxpayer dollars to people and say, ‘hey study whatever you want … or (say) ‘Oh so you’re going to go after people who oppose the president’s agenda?’ … ‘That’s good.’”

 

Which brings us back to James Enstrom, this is not the first time that he became a whistle-blower.   James Enstrom was one of the scientist that worked on one of the biggest and longest studies on second hand smoke, this study was initially funded by California taxpayers and the American Cancer Society but when the numbers came in the numbers didn’t fit the agenda and both pulled funding before the final report was put together.  James Enstom was subject to a similar attack by the activist in scientific clothing Stanton Glantz. Enstrom’s defense was published at the National Intstitute of Health.

These criticisms may sound personally defensive, and indeed when one is so personally attacked, some personal defense is necessary. But this is also a defense against epidemiology becoming “Lysenko pseudoscience,” where the validity of methods and studies is based merely on those results that are preferred by influential advocates and researchers and contrary results are discredited using the tactics of Lysenko. Epidemiologic science is not inherently pseudoscience, of course, but the process that has led to many current claims about ETS is.

Hopefully, epidemiology can continue as a field in which all legitimate research findings can be published and objectively evaluated, including those findings considered to be controversial. However, this will happen only if advocacy organizations like the ACS and activists like Glantz refrain from unethically smearing honest scientists and putting out false and misleading statements. In addition, epidemiologists like Thun must honestly analyze all the epidemiologic evidence that they possess and fully report their results, and epidemiologists like Samet must not omit important and accurate research findings from a major document such as the Surgeon General’s Report. Such omissions and actions have seriously distorted the evidence on the health effects of ETS exposure, particularly within the US.

 

Like I said this initially was a study started by the American Cancer Society.

The study is based on the California (CA) portion of the original 25-state Cancer Prevention Study (CPS I) [1]. CA CPS I was begun by the American Cancer Society (ACS) in 1959 and has been conducted at UCLA by me since 1991. Kabat and I are both well qualified epidemiologists who have had long and successful careers dating back to the 1970s, as can be confirmed by examining our epidemiologic publications on PubMed.

 

Now the activist scientist like Glantz will say that this study was funded by big tobacco which is only partially true, during the actual study all of it was paid for by government funding and the American Cancer Society, when they saw the initial reports and that it didn’t suit their agenda they both pulled funding.

1) This was not a “Tobacco Industry Study,” but rather a UCLA study conducted by two qualified epidemiologists with ACS cooperation up until publication of the BMJ paper. This was not “Part of Organized Effort to Confuse Public About Secondhand Smoke”, but rather it was an accurate representation of the results of one study. The tobacco industry played no role in the conduct, writing, or publication of the paper, and did not even know it was being published until it appeared.

 

As far as the so called “Big Tobacco” funding of the study CIAR did give all of their money to UCLA when they were forced to disband as a result of the Master Settlement agreement Enstrom confirms this in his defense.

It is worth repeating the allegations in the Kessler decision, first to point out that they are the same false and misleading claims about the Enstrom/Kabat study by the ACS, Samet, Glantz, and others that are described above, and second to show how obviously incorrect they are. The Enstrom/Kabat study was not “CIAR-funded and managed” and was not “funded and managed by the tobacco industry through CIAR and Philip Morris.” Although the study was partially funded by CIAR, it was not managed by either CIAR or Philip Morris. Indeed, CIAR assigned its entire award for the study to UCLA in 1999 just before CIAR was dissolved as a condition of the Master Settlement Agreement [105]. CIAR did not even exist when my study was being completed. The study was conducted and published without any influence from the tobacco industry.

 

This Scientific McCartyism is pervasive within tobacco control and is described by Dr Michael Siegel (who was not only a member but one of their main trainers and worked for the CDC) Said,

 ”In response to my questioning of the validity of these types of scientific claims being made by many anti-smoking groups, I have been personally attacked, publicly condemned, accused of being a traitor, accused of being funded by tobacco companies, called a fanatic, and have had my opinions censored by a prominent tobacco control policy discussion list-serve, from which I was expelled because advocates were apparently unhappy with my expressing dissent from the established dogma of the movement [76]. In my expulsion from the tobacco policy (tp-talk) discussion list-serve, I was informed told that the list-serve “made the dictatorial (but perhaps benevolent) decision to remove Mike Siegel from tp-talk today.

 

In another post Dr Siegel discusses the fact that such tactics are actually part of the Tobacco Control training.

Here is the rest of the story:

If you take part in secondhand smoke policy training in the tobacco control movement, chances are that you will be taught that all opposition to smoking bans is orchestrated by the tobacco industry, that anyone who challenges the science connecting secondhand smoke exposure and severe health effects is a paid lackey of Big Tobacco, and that any group which disseminates information challenging these health effects is a tobacco industry front group. Consequently, the a chief strategy of tobacco control is to smear the opposition by accusing them of being tobacco industry moles. And in no situation should one say anything positive about an opponent, even if true.

How do I know this?

Because for many years, I was one of the main trainers of tobacco control advocates in the United States. And this is what I taught, because this was what I was led to believe. I attended many conferences and trainings and this is precisely what I was taught. I accepted it for the truth, and passed it along to others.

However, in 1999, a sentinel event in my career occurred which woke me up to the fact that I had in fact been brainwashed to believe these errant ideas. I wrote an article summarizing some of these ideas. In the article, I suggested that if any group opposes a smoking ban, advocates should not discuss the substance of the opponents’ claims, but should instead try to discredit them by exposing their ties to Big Tobacco.

I woke up one morning to find that, without my permission, my article had been posted on the internet by Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights (ANR). Something about having my work published on the world wide web for everyone to see awoke me from my brainwashing and snapped me back to reality.

 

Now Stanton Glantz on the other hand has a long history of activism under the guise of science.  He participated in the 1992 EPA study that was slammed in federal court and the Congressional Research Service. Yet the 2006 Surgeon Generals Report used exactly the same methodology and admitted to it on page 21.

Judge William
L. Osteen, Sr., in the North Carolina Federal District
Court criticized the approach EPA had used to select
studies for its meta-analysis and criticized the use of 90
percent rather than 95 percent confidence intervals for
the summary estimates (Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative
Stabilization Corp. v. United States Environmental Protection
Agency, 857 F. Supp. 1137 [M.D.N.C. 1993]). In
December 2002, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
threw out the lawsuit on the basis that tobacco companies
cannot sue the EPA over its secondhand smoke
report because the report was not a final agency action
and therefore not subject to court review (Flue-Cured
Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corp. v. The United
States Environmental Protection Agency, No. 98-2407
[4th Cir., December 11, 2002], cited in 17.7 TPLR 2.472
[2003]).
Recognizing that there is still an active discussion
around the use of meta-analysis to pool data
from observational studies (versus clinical trials),
the authors of this Surgeon General’s report used
this methodology to summarize the available data
when deemed appropriate and useful, even while
recognizing that the uncertainty around the metaanalytic
estimates may exceed the uncertainty indicated
by conventional statistical indices, because of
biases either within the observational studies or produced
by the manner of their selection.

 

Yet like the global warming hoax the main stream media clamored that the science is conclusive.  Is it? where are all those winning cases for exposure?  But then the EPA has had a long history of activism and politics corrupting the scientific process. Just a few years ago Fox news reported on scientist complained of the politicization of science.

Hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency scientists say they have been pressured by superiors to skew their findings, according to a survey released Wednesday by an advocacy group.

The Union of Concerned Scientists said more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference in their work. . . .Nearly 400 scientists said they had witnessed EPA officials misrepresenting scientific findings, 284 said they had seen the “selective or incomplete use of data to justify a specific regulatory outcome” and 224 scientists said they had been directed to “inappropriately exclude or alter technical information” in an EPA document.

 

Now we hear the same arguments when it comes to the global warming hoax, The science is conclusive, the consensus is etc etc etc and we see the same bullying and McCartyistic tactics. Oh and on the Consensus not hardly.  Michael Crichton warned of the dangers of politicized science.

Once again, the measures being urged have little basis in fact or science. Once again, groups with other agendas are hiding behind a movement that appears high-minded. Once again, claims of moral superiority are used to justify extreme actions. Once again, the fact that some people are hurt is shrugged off because an abstract cause is said to be greater than any human consequences. Once again, vague terms like sustainability and generational justice — terms that have no agreed definition — are employed in the service of a new crisis.

I am not arguing that global warming is the same as eugenics. But the similarities are not superficial. And I do claim that open and frank discussion of the data, and of the issues, is being suppressed. Leading scientific journals have taken strong editorial positions of the side of global warming, which, I argue, they have no business doing. Under the circumstances, any scientist who has doubts understands clearly that they will be wise to mute their expression.

One proof of this suppression is the fact that so many of the outspoken critics of global warming are retired professors. These individuals are not longer seeking grants, and no longer have to face colleagues whose grant applications and career advancement may be jeopardized by their criticisms.

 

To illustrate just how gullible these leftist are all one has to do is watch this episode of Penn and Teller.

But then these lobbying efforts are actually funded by our tax dollars as part of the Recovery act a violation of federal law.

Communities Putting Prevention to Work will change systems and environments—for example, improving access to healthy foods and opportunities for physical activity—and putting into place policies, such as clean-indoor-air laws, that will promote the health of populations. Funded entities will have two years to complete their work. . . . Funded projects will emphasize high-impact, broad-reaching policy, environmental, and systems changes in schools (K-12) and communities

As we see petty tyrants like Michael Bloomberg advance statism based on populist science rather then real science we have to worry about loss of freedom that is warned of by both the right and the left.  Here is Colorado state Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield.

 

And another warning from the ACLU

Funny as I put the finishing touches on this I am listening to a Podcast of Vicki McKenna that dovetails right into this article.

http://downloads.iheartradio.com/media/station_content/1170/upfront_hr_3_04-30-13_1367363162_4826.mp3

Will we heed the warnings of the past?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Libertarian, Nanny State, Smoking Ban, Video | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

TEA Party Big Tobacco Front?


I have written on this topic before but the censorship that is taking place at the Huffington Post leads me to bring it up again.  Executive Director, DeSmogBlog.com has chosen to censure my posts on his blogpost Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaire Koch Brothers.  Here is the exchange that prompted this post.

11:12 PM on 02/19/2013

The Right Wing Agenda
is a class war against humanity.

12:02 PM on 02/20/2013

Nice spin if you can get away with it. It is not the TEA Party that is engaged in class warfare, it is in fact the leftist. The TEA party represents individual rights vs collective rights. Individual responsibility not collective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTZmyZ8jtw0 . . . . .

18 hours ago ( 3:11 PM)

That is just plain ignorant. So you seem to be defending the collective rights of Corporations. I know,,, I know. It’s a waste of time responding to these fools. Marshall Keith is just a willing pawn in their game….

In spite of repeated attempts to respond to Peter James Gustafson all were dismissed.  The argument I made is there is a difference between free enterprise and corporatism.  Both parties are guilty of passing regulations that favor their corporate sponsors the green agenda is a favorite project of the left Solyndra is a classic example.  Both parties are responsible for the regulatory climate that makes starting a small business almost impossible.  Under today’s regulatory climate Edison would not invented the light bulb  Tesla would not have not invented the AC generator and most assuredly the Wright brothers would not have invented the airplane from their backyard bicycle shop. The vast majority of the regulations favor existing corporations from small upstarts as John Stossel points out in illegal everything.
I admit to voting mostly Republican in the last few elections.  I supported both Scott Walker and Ron Johnson but it did not stop me from blogging against both of them when they did not hold to the principles of “free enterprise”  Here is the piece I did on Scott Walker and here is the one I did on Ron Johnson so I carry the water for no one and I am no one’s pawn.
It is time for Americans to ignore the rhetoric of both parties and hold both of them to the principles that made America great.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

What the Statist Don’t Want You to Know


Porn star wannabe Jim Carrey attacks the dead and middle America. He questions every gun owners manhood without showing any of his own.

When pundits across America lampooned his lunacy he responds with.

Cold Dead Hand’ is abt u heartless motherf%ckers unwilling 2 bend 4 the safety of our kids.Sorry if you’re offended by the word safety! ;^

Of course this is the classic progressive response, depicting anyone who opposes them as heartless and against children.  How long are we going to allow them to hold up children as a human shield or use emotion to replace logic and reason?  The fact is that when there were no gun control laws these types of mass killings in school were unheard of. When I was a kid we hunted in the morning before school, left our guns in the car in the school parking lot and then went hunting after school.  All this with the full knowledge of school officials. If you bagged a good one they would come out and look. Of course they claim that forfeiting just one more right and we will all be safer. It’s common sense right? Not really! if you look at the history of violence in the United States you will find that violence increases when the government is the most oppressive.  The beginning of the last century we saw the start of the so called progressive movement with smoking bans and prohibition.

The impression given by the graph is confirmed by more sophisticated analysis. Jeffrey A. Miron has analyzed the relation between violent crime in the U.S., as measured by the murder rate, and the enforcement of drug prohibition (including alcohol prohibition) as measured by expenditures by the federal agencies in charge of enforcing prohibition (Figure 2), over the entire period for which murder rates are available on a national basis. His statistical results “suggest the homicide rate is currently 25%-75% higher than it would be in the absence of drug prohibition.”

If you notice that after the end of the first progressive era.  It started to go back up at the beginning of the second progressive era, gun control and the war on drugs.  The freer the people the less violence there is, gun or otherwise. So sorry Jim instead of singing about your lack of manhood and your cold dead gland.   Try dealing in facts and leave your emotion at the door. It is the progressive model of Nanny Statism that breeds violence, not freedom.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Ben Franklin

Update Jim |Carrey posted on the Huffing post yesterday stating that “I Never Wanted to Take Your Guns Away”

Then he goes on to make an emotional appeal to do just that.

These mass shootings and daily body counts on your local news are terrible tragedies. The utter devastation that must be endured by the victims’ families is unfathomable. These horrific events are also an invitation for us to become more civilized and to deal with our addiction and entitlement to violence.

The problem with the above statement is that that too is a fallacy. Even the mass shooting increase as the “Nanny Statism” of the progressives as shown in the following graph.

So no matter how you paint it Jim It is Nanny Statist Progressives such as yourself that are the problem, not guns, not clips and not magazines.  It is people like you and the type of government you promote.

Posted in Libertarian, Nanny State | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Mr Paul Goes to Washington


Today Senator John McCain misses the whole point of Rand Paul’s filibuster on the senate floor yesterday. His words are condescending and insulting.

What Senator McCain fails to recognized is the fact that drones whether armed or not violate the entire concept of Due Process guaranteed by the fifth and fourteenth amendments.   Rand effectively covered that part. What Rand failed to cover is the fourth amendment violations the drones by their very existence entail.

The right to privacy is essential to liberty and to be searched by a flyby of a drone violates this in so many ways that the use by the government should be outlawed.  Here is the fourth amendment in it’s entirety.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

They have to show probable cause to a judge before they can search your person or home,car,workplace or any other property you own.  The use of drones violate this fundamental right.  Through infrared technology they can peer into your home without probable cause.  Even the Washington Times has reported on this.

The FAA Reauthorization Act, which President Obama is expected to sign, also orders the Federal Aviation Administrationto develop regulations for the testing and licensing of commercial drones by 2015.

Privacy advocates say the measure will lead to widespread use of drones for electronic surveillance by police agencies across the country and eventually by private companies as well.

“There are serious policy questions on the horizon about privacy and surveillance, by both government agencies and commercial entities,” said Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.

Senator McCain does not mention the fact that these drones will have the capacity of literally giving you a pat-down without any probable cause, as reported by townhall.com and Breitbart. Cnet.com went into great detail on what these homeland flying spy machines will be capable of.

Homeland Security’s specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, say they “shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not,” meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They also specify “signals interception” technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and “direction finding” technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center obtained a partially redacted copy of Homeland Security’s requirements for its drone fleet through the Freedom of Information Act and published it this week. CNET unearthed an unredacted copy of the requirements that provides additional information about the aircraft’s surveillance capabilities.

So they will not only be able to peer into your homes, give you an illegal pat-down but they will be able to intercept your cell phone conversations but be able to track you via your cell phone.  As Benjamin Franklin once said.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

We should all pay heed to those words and the politicians should pay heed to another of his quotes.

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.

George Orwell may have been premature in his book 1984 but he is not wrong,  ”Big Brother” is watching.  Are you willing to shut his eyes.

Here is an excerpt from the filibuster.

“Liberty is too Precious a thing to be buried in books.

Posted in Libertarian, Nanny State, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stanton Glantz vs the TEA Party


The other day I showed the dishonesty and ad hominem attack that Stanton Glantz engaged against the TEA Party. Remembering that it was progressives that brought us the Great Depression,smoking bans,prohibition and eugenics in the first half of the 20th century.  Mark Twain even wrote about them in “The Moral Statistician“. Little has changed, same questionable tactics using flawed methodology.  They use Meta-Analysis even though by their own admission (on page 21 of the 2006 Surgeon Generals Report) is unreliable and may be totally inaccurate.  They list the donations given to various conservatives while failing to note the donations to their progressive friends.  Don’t worry Dr Siegel took care of that.  Like the rest of the progressives yelling “Koch Brothers” Glantz and his progressive friends use the same red herring tactics.  Actions speak louder then words.

Then why would he do such a thing, the bottom line is even progressives are capitalist and it comes down to money.  Look at the first line of Stanton’s page. “Dr. Glantz, the American Legacy Foundation Distinguished Professor of Tobacco Control” To the average person those words would mean nothing, but the “American Legacy Foundation” was the money extorted from smokers through  The Master Settlement Agreement (MSA).  Essentially smokers are forced to pay for the lobbying efforts against them through extortion.  Why do I say extortion?  Because it was achieved under false premises.  I could search for the actual documents but WIKI sums it up quite nice.

The states settled their Medicaid lawsuits against the tobacco industry for recovery of their tobacco-related health-care costs, and also exempted the companies from private tortliability regarding harm caused by tobacco use.

So  these progressives said give us some money and we will protect you from lawsuits and fund our lobbying efforts.  But then the fraud doesn’t end there. The clarion call for higher taxes always includes the claim that smokers cost taxpayers more in healthcare costs, even though smokers are already paying a higher costs as a result of the MSA. (what you don’t think Big Tobacco isn’t going to pass that cost on to the consumer?)  Stanton himself has made such claims.

The study by University of California, San Francisco researchers found that for every dollar spent on the state’s anti-smoking program, health care costs dropped by about $56. Researchers attribute those savings to lower spending on health care due to people quitting or not starting, and those who do light up consuming fewer cigarettes each day.

“The California program has shifted people to being much, much lighter smokers,” said Stanton Glantz, co-author of the study published Wednesday in the science journal PLOS ONE,

This is the BS that is spread by every anti-smoking group when pushing for higher taxes.  The problem is that the only studies that show this are done by anti-smoking activists like Stanton. Of course none of the money went for the healthcare cost of smokers as the increase in cost was imaginary.  The money that was not spent on lobbying efforts went to filling budget holes for other “progressive” programs. Here is the conclusions of one such study.

In our study, lifetime costs
for smokers can be calculated as $72,700 among men and $94,700

among women, and lifetime costs
among nonsmokers can be calculated as $83,400 and $111,000, respectively.

This amounts to lifetime costs for nonsmokers that are higher by 15 percent
among men and 18 percent among women.

And this does not take into account the savings in Social Security.  Facts don’t faze the likes of Stanton though.  When praising the call for the next tax increase he said the following.

In response to concerns that the report considers the savings from people dying earlier and therefore not requiring Social Security or Medicare payments, Glantz writes: “I have received several emails from people expressing concern about this article because its summary says “By discouraging people from smoking, the higher excise tax would improve the average health status of the population … [L]ower health care spending per capita would push down federal spending, but increased longevity would have the opposite effect …”

Which is it Stan, do smokers cost taxpayers more or less? But the collusion between progressives and “Big Tobacco doesn’t end there. They recently slipped into the transportation bill a paragraph that outlawed the rental of machines that allowed smokers to roll cigarettes at a cheaper cost.  As always the progressives taxed those that they do not like in order to pay for programs that they themselves didn’t want to pay for.  SCHIP. I went it to all of the abusive taxes imposed here.  But why would anti-smoking groups (who lied,RYO shops pay massive taxes),progressives, and “Big Tobacco” Team up to shut down these small mom and pop RYO shops? Oh they’ll say for the children, to pay for XYZ.  But the real reason is the backroom deal made with “Big Tobacco” in the MSA extortion agreement.

“The tobacco companies claim that the state failed to meet obligations under the settlement agreement. This is the first time the issue has been pursued,” First Assistant Trey Phillips said. “It’s possible the state would have to give up our April 15, 2014, payment up to $140 million. We could possibly lose the entire payment that year and likely what’s due the next year.” . . .

The dispute involves whether state officials have done enough to regulate off-brand cigarette companies.

In a 1998 master settlement agreement tobacco companies agreed to make billions in compensatory payments to states as long as they remain in business.

As part of that agreement, states were required to be “diligent” in making sure that cigarette companies that were not part of the settlement pay a $6-per-carton fee to an escrow fund. The idea was to stop nonparticipating companies from undercutting companies making the settlement payments.

So the so called “Progressives” engage in backroom deals ensuring the monopoly held by the evil “Big Tobacco” companies. In order to get their share of the pie, and the anti-smoking groups join in to ensure their continued funding, how altruistic.  But, but it’s for the poor.

Well not really, it’s all about Nanny Statism and Control hence the name “Tobacco Control”  The draconian taxes imposed on tobacco hit’s the poorest among us the most.

New York’s highest-in-the-nation cigarette taxes are failing to drive down smoking rates; instead, they’re just putting a heavy extra burden on poor New Yorkers. A new study funded by the state’s Department of Health confirms these ugly facts.

Yes, the public-health establishment insists that every hike in cigarette taxes results in fewer people smoking. But it’s not true: Extensive research shows that high “butt taxes” are a major public-health mistake that punishes the poor without reducing smoking. . . .

The state-funded study found that cigarette taxes hurt poorest smokers the most — that is, they’re “regressive,” the term economists use to describe a tax that hits harder on lower-income folks.

For this study, Research Triangle Institute researchers surveyed more than 13,000 people (focused on New York, but with a national sample as well) to investigate the impact of high cigarette taxes on different income levels. They found that low-income smokers (individuals in families making less than $30,000 a year) spent an average of 23.6 percent of annual family income on cigarettes, way up from 11.6 percent in 2004.

Actions speak louder then words, so Stanton, who is in bed with “Big Tobacco”?

Update Feb 16 2013

Taxpayers paid for this attack on the TEA Party, who’s in power?

As for the taxpayer funding, he acknowledged that NIH and NCI might not have known the subject matter. 

But he asked: “Which is worse? That you simply give taxpayer dollars to people and say, ‘hey study whatever you want … or (say) ‘Oh so you’re going to go after people who oppose the president’s agenda?’ … ‘That’s good.’”

Posted in Libertarian, Nanny State, Smoking Ban | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Stanton Glantz, Professional at Ad Hominem


I was a proud member of ban the ban Wisconsin when we filed a complaint against the Surgeon Generals report.  I do not hide my affiliations, I am a proud Libertarian who also is a member of “Americans for Prosperity” as well as several TEA Party groups.  Harry Chestnuts released the following video after we lodged the complaint. While the video is humorous it is not far from the truth.  Stanton has recently released a so called report besmirching TEA Parties as a front for “Big Tobacco”

Methods We used the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, the Wayback Machine, Google, LexisNexis, the Center for Media and Democracy and the Center for Responsive Politics (opensecrets.org) to examine the tobacco companies’ connections to the Tea Party.

I will not go into great detail about the scientific malpractice done by Stanton.  Historian Christopher Snowdon has already done a better job then I could here. I will simply state that Stanton an admitted neo-prohibitionist has had a long history of poor scientific methods as he was part of the 1992 EPA report that was proven in court to be a fraud. And he and his fellow EPA prohibitionist wrote the 2006 Surgeon Generals report.  If you read page 21 of that report you will see that they used the same questionable scientific methods that were slammed in federal court. But this is about the ad hominem attacks on the TEA Party movement.  The TEA Party movement is has always been about individual rights even when those rights may have a negative effect on that individual. With individual rights comes the personal responsibility for ones actions.  Stanton not only calls for Prohibition, (which history has proven numerous times as a failure) he calls for censorship.  He openly attacks anyone that does not carry his water to the letter. His recent attack on Dr Michael Siegel show his lack of integrity. On Stanton’s blog he says the following.

I normally do not comment on Mike Siegel’s blog because he has long since lost all credibility with me as a scientist.

Dr Siegel responded with the following.

Dr. Glantz is correct about one thing. I am guided by ideology. My ideology is that science is about the pursuit of the truth, and that we have to seek the truth wherever it takes us, even if it sometimes turns out that the truth is not favorable to our advocacy positions. I believe, also, in honesty and transparency and believe that public health practitioners should not deceive the public or distort the science, even if doing so might garner more support for our policies.

Now this is an ongoing smear campaign not just against those who oppose smoking bans and draconian taxes in order to pursue ”Nanny Statism” Paschal Diethelm and Martin McKee wrote an article basically putting those who oppose “Tobacco Control” and the “Global Warming” hoax the equivalent to Holocaust deniers.

This phenomenon has led some to draw a historical parallel with the holocaust, another area where the evidence is overwhelming but where a few commentators have continued to sow doubt. All are seen as part of a larger phenomenon of denialism.

They also try a strawman tactic.

Denialists are usually not deterred by the extreme isolation of their theories, but rather see it as the indication of their intellectual courage against the dominant orthodoxy and the accompanying political correctness, often comparing themselves to Galileo.

What is funny about that comparison is that there is a grain of truth in that statement. The flat earther’s rather then openly arguing the merits of their pseudoscience used consensus  political clout and out and out bulling to silence their opponents. Few know of the hoax perpetrated on the public when it pertains to second hand smoke as smoking has been denormalized and it is politically correct to discriminate against smokers. In the case of “Global Warming” they were literally caught with their pants down.  ”Climate Gate” made front page news and they resorted to renaming “Global Warming”,”Climate Change”  Now these activist withing the Green movement are embracing “Tobacco Control” tactics.

Climate change doubt is a key belief in the TEA Party, sparked by the Koch-related Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks. Big Tobacco was heavily involved from the 1980s onward, and by 1992 the “Tea Party” was already in play. Extensive new research has unearthed the real history.

I guess when you lack a scientific argument, one must resort to ad hominem.  Again the chicanery within the global warming hoax is well known, however the McCarthistic tactics within Tobacco Control are not.  Dr Michael Siegel was a lead “Tobacco Control” trainer and he discussed this in great detail.

The true colors of the modern-day anti-smoking movement showed brightly last week, as a prominent smoke-free air advocate (me) was thrown off a smoke-free advocacy list-serve for daring tocriticize an inflammatory and unfounded personal attack, bordering on defamation, of an individual (private citizen) who is a smoking ban opponent which was posted on the list-serve.

A fellow smoke-free advocate – Tim Filler, who is on the steering committee of Smoke Free Indy – posted on the list-serve a nasty personal attack against Michael McFadden, a smoking ban opponent. In the attack, Filler insinuated that McFadden is a tobacco lackey who is taking tobacco money. The suggestion was that McFadden is not speaking for himself as a private citizen, but that he actually is affiliated with Big Tobacco. The attack was posted without the knowledge of McFadden, who had no opportunity to defend himself.

But it gets better.  As a former “Tobacco Control” trainer the good Dr goes on to explain that these tactics are actually taught as part of the “Tobacco Control” indoctrination.

Here is the rest of the story:

If you take part in secondhand smoke policy training in the tobacco control movement, chances are that you will be taught that all opposition to smoking bans is orchestrated by the tobacco industry, that anyone who challenges the science connecting secondhand smoke exposure and severe health effects is a paid lackey of Big Tobacco, and that any group which disseminates information challenging these health effects is a tobacco industry front group. Consequently, the a chief strategy of tobacco control is to smear the opposition by accusing them of being tobacco industry moles. And in no situation should one say anything positive about an opponent, even if true.

How do I know this?

Because for many years, I was one of the main trainers of tobacco control advocates in the United States. And this is what I taught, because this was what I was led to believe. I attended many conferences and trainings and this is precisely what I was taught. I accepted it for the truth, and passed it along to others.

But these activist don’t end their bullying there. They have actively attempted to get legitimate scientist fired for not adhering to their dogma. In the case of Dr James Enstrom the attempt was made several times.  Multiple times by those within “Tobacco Control” which prompted him to post the following rebuttle called “Defending legitimate epidemiologic research: combating Lysenko pseudoscience”

Continuing Glantz Campaign to Discredit Enstrom

Beginning with his activities at the time of the publication of our BMJ paper, Glantz has continually attacked me and my research, in spite of the fact that we are both established, long-term faculty members in the University of California system. Glantz is well-known as a long-time anti-smoking activist [10,56], whose ultimate goal is achieving a society free of smokers [57]. However, as a UC faculty member, he is supposed to adhere to the UCSF Campus Code of Conduct [58] and the UC Standards of Ethical Conduct [59]. For instance, the Code of Conduct states “Misconduct or Misconduct in Science means fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or other practices that seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted within the scientific community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research.” The UC Standards of Ethical Conduct states “Members of the University community are expected to conduct themselves ethically, honestly, and with integrity in all dealings.”

However, based on his clearly documented written and verbal attack on me, he has not adhered to these codes. Indeed, I have spent the past four years responding to his false and misleading statements and defending my honesty and scientific integrity. The full details of his campaign are too extensive to present here, but the selected examples below demonstrate the tactics that he used against me and the epidemiologic research that I have been conducting at UCLA.

Of course Dr Siegel blogged on how the American Cancer Society owed Dr Enstrom an apology in his post “Enstrom Cleared of Scientific Misconduct Charges; American Cancer Society Owes Him An Apology”

But then the activist within the green community tried to get him fired.

(Washington, DC) – The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has filed suit on behalf of Dr. James E. Enstrom, a UCLA research professor who was terminated after he blew the whistle on junk environmental science and scientific misconduct at the University of California (UC).

“The facts of this case are astounding,” said David French, Senior Counsel of the ACLJ. “UCLA terminated a professor after 35 years of service simply because he exposed the truth about an activist scientific agenda that was not only based in fraud but violated California law for the sake of imposing expensive new environmental regulations on California businesses.  UCLA’s actions were so extreme that its own Academic Freedom Committee unanimously expressed its concern about the case.”

Now President Obama is calling on more government spending on “politicized science”  Dr Michael Crichton warned about such science, here is the intro to his piece called “Why Politicized Science is Dangerous”

Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out. 

This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms.

I don’t mean global warming. I’m talking about another theory, which rose to prominence a century ago.

No he was not talking about global warming, but he was talking about another pseudoscience perpetrated by progressives of yesteryear called eugenics.  Now the modern day progressives demand that even higher taxes be imposed on smokers and then demand a piece of the pie to fund their lobbying efforts.  There already is an investigation into their illegal activity.

Federal healthcare grants might have been illegally used for political lobbying, according to the Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general.The inspector general said grants administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) might have been used for lobbying efforts — and that the CDC might have led recipients to believe lobbying was appropriate, despite a federal ban on using grant money for political activism.

It is time to pull all taxpayer funding from any scientific research as political influence taints the results.  This was true in 1992 when the EPA released it’s findings.

EPA has a long history of scientific malpractice. Both the General Accounting Office and the Congressional Research Service have been severely critical of EPA’s policies and procedures on a variety of issues. EPA has violated its own risk assessment guidelines and debased scientific standards regarding secondhand smoke. It was found guilty of violating six federal statutes for using harassment and intimidation to try to compel employee support for its policy on secondhand smoke. It has fraudulently misrepresented the findings of other scientists in order to make it appear they supported conclusions EPA favored.

It is equally true today:

The Union of Concerned Scientists said more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference in their work.

EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar attributed some of the discontent to the “passion” scientists have toward their work. He said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, as a longtime career scientist at the EPA himself, “weighs heavily the science given to him by the staff in making policy decisions.”

But Francesca Grifo, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Scientific Integrity Program, said the survey results revealed “an agency in crisis” and “under siege from political pressures” especially among scientists involved in risk assessment and crafting regulations.

So Stanton, when will you stick to facts and engage in legitimate science?

 

Update Feb 16 2013

Taxpayers paid for this attack on the TEA Party, who’s in power?

As for the taxpayer funding, he acknowledged that NIH and NCI might not have known the subject matter. 

But he asked: “Which is worse? That you simply give taxpayer dollars to people and say, ‘hey study whatever you want … or (say) ‘Oh so you’re going to go after people who oppose the president’s agenda?’ … ‘That’s good.’”

Posted in Libertarian, Nanny State, Smoking Ban, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments